When the sky was bone

The sky above Hive District Z-9 cracked like an exoskeletal shell. Swarms fell still. Drones hovered mid-flight. From the horizon came not sound—but a pressure, as though something immense was pressing in from a higher dimension.
Kael, now partially merged with the Overspore’s memory network, felt it before it arrived.
> “Dark matter isn't invading,” he muttered. “It's... returning.”



---
The Bone Ring
High above the atmosphere, a once-dormant orbital relic ignited: the Bone Ring—a fragmented satellite of human design made of hollowed bone-like alloys and latticed with decayed AI. Kael accessed its records through HiveNet: it was built as a containment gate during Project Umbra.
It had failed.
Now, reactivated by the psionic surge from the Overspore’s awakening, the Bone Ring began drawing Dusklings through spacetime fractures.

---
The Fall of Airborne Hive-Spires
One by one, the great airborne spires of the Myrminians began descending—crashing, dissolving, or reconfiguring into defense organisms. Queen Myxa issued total swarm protocol: the planet’s insects were not just fighting off invaders now; they were facing a convergence event.
The Dusklings, entities once believed to be shadows of failed dark matter experiments, now revealed their true form: echoes of alternate Earths—possible futures, siphoned into reality.
Kael, fused with the Dream Architect, understood:
> “The Chitin Age wasn’t the beginning. It was the aftershock.”



---
The Queen of Silence Speaks
For centuries, the Queen of Silence had not spoken aloud. Her words were preserved only in scent-thoughts. But now, across the entire HiveNet, her voice resonated:
> “The humans called us monsters. Yet we kept their sins buried under carapace and moss. But if the old bones rise... we must remember how to kill gods.”


With her words, the ancient insect deities stirred.

---
Kael’s Transformation
Kael’s body began changing again—no longer just Myrminian, no longer just human. He was becoming a syncretic species, a hybrid encoded with forgotten human science and hive psionics. In the mirror of chitin, he saw his new form: eyes like abyssal nebulae, limbs wrapped in fractal armor.
He was a key, genetically engineered to be both lock and weapon.
> “Then we crack the sky,” he said, voice multi-layered.



---
The Bone Storm Begins
Above, the Bone Ring splintered open—releasing a cascade of debris and otherworldly matter. The skies turned opaque with ash, bone dust, and lightning.
And through the breach came the first true form of a Duskling god.