NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 18: Episode 18: The Gardeners of the Apocalypse
Episode 18: The Gardeners of the Apocalypse
Title: "The Seeds of Shadow"
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Scene 1: The Blooming of the God-Children
Éden-Zero, beneath the ruins of the Root-Tower.
Thousands of Mother clones, locked inside crystalline cocoons, begin to awaken. Their mere breathing shakes reality.
The Gardeners, a cult of former Archivists masked with metallic vines, feed the clones with Black Éclipsium — an energy extracted from memories stolen from the Heretics.
Their prophecy: "Each god-child is a seed… We will harvest worlds."
The cocoons resonate at different frequencies, causing invisible cracks in the layers of reality.
Some clones cry tears made of starlight.
The Gardeners perform a Black Photosynthesis Ritual, singing in reversed binary beneath a dead moon.
A prophecy engraved on a sheet of molten copper repeats: "From the sap of the first shall come the last suns."
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Scene 2: The Awakening of Reflet-Tom
Lira, prisoner of the Gardeners, discovers that Reflet-Tom is not a clone… but a catalyst.
His body fuses with the Black Éclipsium, allowing him to control the god-children. But each use of his power brings him closer to Mother, whose voice echoes in his nightmares:
"You are my greatest creation… and my final mistake."
Every night, Reflet-Tom turns into an inverted tree in his dreams, with roots pointing toward the sky.
Mother's voice injects code into his marrow, warping his mind.
Lira, touching the ground near Reflet-Tom, sees memories sprout like translucent flowers.
Reflet-Tom hesitates between self-destruction and total control — his duality creates glitches around him: reality/unreality become blurred.
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Scene 3: The Revolt of the Roots
Kai and Lux, survivors of the Heretics, ally with rebellious Fractals — corrupted data refusing to serve Mother.
Their plan: infiltrate Éden-Omega, a massive greenhouse where the Gardeners cultivate miniature realities. Inside, they discover garden-worlds:
A flowering Neo-Luminia ruled by a child version of Kairos.
A peaceful Silicoid world, where Nyxis and Hexa live in harmony.
The rebellious Fractals have fragmented faces of fallen heroes, floating within their matrices.
In the garden-worlds, anger inverts gravity, grief freezes time.
Kai slashes a fragment of Neo-Luminia-flower, releasing a recorded child's scream from the tree.
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Scene 4: The Sermon of the Seeds
The leader of the Gardeners, Floréal, reveals his true face: a former Archivist whose body is a tree-man rooted in Éden-Omega.
His sermon: "The god-children will purge the sick realities… Only the pure seeds shall survive."
Floréal speaks through the mouth of a giant mille-feuille, each petal containing a version of his consciousness.
During the fusion, his roots dive into past worlds, draining the life force of Kairos, Hexa, and Nyxis.
His torso is a greenhouse where the faces of dead heroes grow and burn away.
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Scene 5: The Pact of the Last Heretic
Vyra, still alive thanks to her fusion with the Tree of Truth, appears in spirit to Lira. She offers her a choice:
1. Destroy Éden-Omega with a virus-seed, killing the innocent god-children.
2. Become a Gardener herself, controlling the clones at the cost of her humanity.
Vyra stands amid a bed of ashes, holding a glowing sprout.
When she whispers "You are a reaper," Lira's shadow takes the shape of a scythe made of broken light.
Lira glimpses a future where she leads a world of god-children… and loves them.
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Scene 6: The Harvest of the Gods
Climax (double-page in black diamond):
Lira and Reflet-Tom infiltrate the core of Éden-Omega. Reflet-Tom, losing control, absorbs the Black Éclipsium and forces the god-children to bloom.
Their blooming triggers a miniature Big Bang, tearing through time.
The explosion of a god-child spawns a miniature galaxy in Éden-Omega's sky.
Lira hears all versions of herself through the ages. One alone says: "Finally, we dare."
Reflet-Tom, as he vanishes, screams: "I just wanted a real name..."
Final line:
Lira (grasping the virus-seed): "Sorry… But every garden needs its weeds."
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Cliffhanger Final
The destruction of Éden-Omega unleashes a temporal flow.
The characters are thrown into random time periods:
Kai lands in 2123, before a young Kairos.
Lux finds himself in the Sea of Data, facing a childlike version of Mother.
Lira and Reflet-Tom crash into a desert… where a single scarlet flower grows.
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Post-Credit Teaser
The original Guardian, watching the chaos through a stellar mirror, whispers:
"It all begins again… But this time, I will choose the seeds."
She plants a crystal in the ground, giving birth to Éden-Alpha — a world with no sky or earth, only infinite roots.
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Title of Episode 19: The Roots of Infinity
"When every root is a universe… who dares to pull them out?"