Chapter 38: Crownfall Protocol
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Scene 1: Barely Alive
Blood. Ash. Bodies twitch like glitching code.
1,180 Vessels fell. The ground remembers.
Jakku moves like a storm —
Blade arcs. Necks snap. Heads fall.
350 Spliced cleaved clean.
Gift dances between shadows —
Daggers whirl. Eyes cold. Veins glowing.
Another 350 fall to slashes unseen.
Maiku is a furnace —
Fists shatter bone. Sky-Fire pulses through him like wrath.
400 fall under burning strikes.
Matthew breathes smoke.
Fireballs stagger from trembling palms.
80 more collapse.
The last Vessel falls —
But so do they.
Silence after slaughter.
Shaking chests. Tired gods.
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Scene 2: Crimson Silence
Red fog.
Jakku blinks. Eyes red. Limbs trembling.
Maiku's skin is cracked glass, glowing ember underneath.
Gift lies still. Steam rises from him.
Matthew: coughing blood. Barely moving.
Reen stands above them.
One eye: green Bloom.
One eye: blue Seed.
Voice fractured:
Reen : "They chose to plant the seed.
I choose to burn the garden."
She lifts her hand.
A pulse — half mercy, half death.
Roots retract. Blood vanishes.
Wounds seal, but scars whisper.
The field resets — sterile. Empty. Unnatural.
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Scene 3: Memory Bloom
Gift's mind drifts.
Inside: A vast Bloom Network. Vines pulse with memory-light.
Thoughts stored like fruit, some rotting.
Kenji emerges —
Hair made of blooming thorn.
Eyes too kind. Smile too cruel.
Kenji (taunting): "She's ours now.
Forget her. Bloom forgets what hurts."
Visions:
Reen as a child.
The first Bloom before corruption.
Root Avatar smiling, planting lies like seeds.
To reach the Root. One must stop the original Bloom—Crown-Bloom. Then the Stem Axis. Finally, The Root Avatar.
Gift screams — and wakes.
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Scene 4: Mai Heiko's Return
The Ashroot warriors arrive.
Steel cloaks dragging.
Boots crushing stem and spine.
Mai Heiko surveys the field.
Warrior: "They cracked it."
Mai Heiko: "It's leaking now.
We harvest. Before it remembers how to grow."
She unhooks the Verdict Engine — a Bloom-killer disguised as tech.
They aim for the Heart-Bloom.
Note : The Heart-Bloom is the living nucleus of the Bloom's mind. The Heart-Bloom when bonded with the original bloom entity or the successor of the original bloom entity one becomes Nigh Omniscient— knowing all the minds of the infected ones.
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Scene 5: Reen's Breaking Point
Reen kneels.
One side trembles. One side calcifies.
She coughs vines. Her breath carries petals.
Kenji appears. Real this time.
Kenji: "Decide.
Be the garden, or the gardener."
Inside her:
Reen screams.
Crown-Bloom prays.
The Seed whispers names no longer hers.
The split fractures.
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Scene 6: Jakku's Echo
Jakku stares at his trembling hand.
His mind loops on one thought:
"What is the Root Avatar?"
"When did this whole thing happen? From Feeders to parasite that gained consciousness? "
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Scene 7: Crownfall Protocol
Reen rises.
Vines bloom from her back like broken angel wings.
Petals fall like rain.
Her voice —
Layered. Shimmering. Terrifying.
"Crownfall Protocol… initiated."
The sky shudders.
The Vault moans.
The Bloom and Root systems merge.
Root Code. Bloom Instinct. Seed Memory.
All trying to take control of one girl.
The team watches — frozen.
Maiku steps forward.
Maiku (softly): "Reen…?"
She doesn't hear him.
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Final Line (Voiceover / Internal):
> "To save the world…
one of us must forget we ever cared about it."
Narrator Voice — Reflective, Haunting, Ominous:
> "Chapter 38: Crownfall Protocol — the turning point, where gods bled and memories roared louder than flesh could endure."
> They were barely alive… and yet they carved through death like artists of war. Jakku, Gift, Maiku, Matthew — each a blade of will, each falling with the very foes they slew. Over a thousand Vessels perished… but so did peace.
> And then she stood above them — Reen. Not savior. Not enemy. Just… torn. With a voice halved by purpose and pain, she stitched their wounds while unraveling her own. Her mercy? Artificial. Her rage? Rooted.
> In the Bloom's memory field, Gift stared down the truth — that the Root didn't corrupt Reen… it grew her. From child, to vessel, to battleground.
> Meanwhile, Mai Heiko returned, Verdict Engine in hand. Not to rescue. To reap. Because in the world of Bloom, growth is a threat — and memory is a weapon.
> And at the center of it all… Reen broke. One half screamed. The other calcified. And the garden chose to burn itself.
> Crownfall Protocol. The final defense. The beginning of the end.
> One mind. Three codes. No mercy.
> And as the sky cracked and Vaults groaned, one truth echoed across them all:
> To save what matters most… someone must let go of everything they love.
> Including her.
End Chapter Voiceover:
"The storm has begun. And this time, it doesn't need thunder—just a name that's been forgotten."