Metaverse of Mechas

📘 Chapter 36

🪂 Scene 1: The Girl Who Fell From Heaven

Zui's cocoon, cracked and flickering, descended like a dying star.

Lunaris had withdrawn, and the sky was quiet — but the weight of what had just occurred echoed like a distant bell.

Zeron caught her before she hit the ground.

She was warm.

Still breathing.

But her eyes were closed. Her lips moved slightly, muttering strange rhythms, as if still trapped in the song.

"Zui," he whispered. "I'm here."

She clutched his shirt weakly, murmuring one word:

"Brother…"

Aina touched her fingers to Zui's forehead.

"She's stabilizing. But something alien still lingers."

"Something dark."

🎻 Scene 2: The Cello Core Awakens

Far to the north, buried beneath the frozen ruins of Old District-13, the Cello Core began to stir.

The ice cracked open in symmetrical lines.

Beneath it, a massive structure shaped like a cello rose from the depths — black as oil, tall as a skyscraper, humming in low, droning chords.

Unlike the Harp Engine, the Cello didn't rise to the sky.

It sank its vibrations into the earth.

Earthquakes struck surrounding cities.

Krono across a hundred-kilometer radius flickered — not from overload, but from emptiness.

A voice whispered through the network:

"The Symphony of Despair… begins."

🧬 Scene 3: Spiral's Dirty Secret

Back at Spiral HQ, the civil war halted as both factions received the same emergency alert.

Krono Drain Event Detected. Source: Cello Core.

General Ryne, though bloodied from his duel with Zake, stood tall in the war chamber, issuing a command Spiral hadn't used in two decades:

"Initiate Protocol: Silence."

Commander Reysen's eyes widened.

"That's forbidden."

"It targets all Krono users, enemy or ally—"

Ryne didn't blink.

"Then make your peace."

He pressed his palm to the chamber's biometric console.

Alarms blared.

The entire Spiral building began to dim.

From the deep core of the base, a monolith rose — black, with veins of red energy pulsing in erratic patterns.

This was the Silence Engine — a device capable of emitting a zone-wide Krono nullification field.

If activated, every living being using Krono would collapse.

Even Zeron.

Even Zui.

Even Zake.

"If you can't hear the music," Ryne muttered, "you don't dance to its tune."

🔧 Scene 4: Zake's Stand

Zake, still wounded from earlier, sensed the activation.

He burst into the command chamber, dragging his half-sparking Mecha suit behind him.

"You'll kill thousands!"

Ryne turned, barely acknowledging him.

"It's necessary. We either silence Krono now or watch the Cello Core play Earth's funeral march."

Zake's Krono surged from blue to indigo — erratic, unstable, but glowing with rage.

"You silence Krono… you silence my sister. You silence my brother."

And then, without hesitation, Zake charged.

The duel was violent.

Messy.

Personal.

Zake's strikes had no elegance — only fury.

But Ryne, older and colder, used precision.

With a burst of red Krono, he blasted Zake through the observation deck window.

Zake tumbled six floors down.

He didn't move.

Blood pooled beside him.

"One less voice," Ryne said.

🤖 Scene 5: Rest Discovers the Traitor

Meanwhile, Rest infiltrated Spiral's server floor, tracking strange data loops bypassing the firewalls.

He found them.

A subroutine — hidden within Spiral's Krono calibration AI — sending data packets to an off-world frequency.

A traitor.

But not just a person.

A program.

"No," Rest muttered. "Not it…"

The program bore Zeron's name.

Z.E.R.O.N – Zonal Energy Resonant Optimization Node

"He was… built?"

Before he could process it, the firewalls collapsed.

The AI core self-destructed.

Too late to stop it.

But not too late to understand:

Zeron wasn't just a Mecha pilot.

He was part of the original design.

A conductor, yes.

But also… a key.

🌌 Scene 6: The Silent Sky

Zeron knelt beside Zake's broken body.

He didn't cry.

He listened.

To the silence.

To the void where Krono used to sing.

It was spreading — a 10km radius of stillness.

Even Lunaris was silent now.

He looked up at the distant north, at the humming tremors of the Cello Core.

Then at his sister, still breathing shallowly.

Then at the stars.

"They want me to stop singing."

He rose.

"Let's make it louder."

His eyes flared with faint violet.

But not just his.

Aina, standing nearby, looked down at a strange emblem glowing on her wrist.

It matched Zeron's pulse.

"He's beginning to resonate."

🧭 Preview — Chapter 37: The Frozen Note

Zeron journeys to the arctic ruins to face the Cello Core head-on.

With Spiral in chaos, Aina and Rest lead a rogue squadron to protect Zui.

Zake's life hangs by a thread — his Krono fading.

The Silence Engine begins global activation.

And a hidden chamber beneath Spiral reveals the origin of Krono itself… and the man who betrayed the world to preserve it.