LGHTNOVELBOOK Chapter 13: Loom of Shattered Stars
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### **I: Diane's Divine Descent**
Diane Peters, the Celestial Weaver, hovered within her prison—a nebula of unraveling timelines. The Weaver's Loom stretched before her, its threads thrumming with the lives she'd altered. Her fingers bled stardust as she pulled a strand taut, channeling psionic energy into Xina's Sword of Sindore three realities away.
**[System Alert – Celestial Overload]**
▸ *Soul Integrity: 63%*
▸ *Loom Strain: Critical*
"You're pushing too hard," whispered Calypso's hologram, materializing beside her. The guide's armor now bore cracks, her blue hair dulled. "The Council's Harbinger fleet is breaching Tom's universe. If you intervene again—"
"I'll what? *Fade*?" Diane snapped, weaving a barrier of supernova threads around Stacy's starship. "They're my children."
"They're *weapons* now. Just like you."
The Loom shuddered. A thread snapped—a timeline where Mike had stayed home, where Tom never spun the Wheel. Diane's soul fractured further.
"You think I don't know that?" she hissed, her voice echoing with static. "But I'll burn this prison to ash before I let the Council take them."
Calypso vanished, leaving Diane alone with the screams of dying galaxies.
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### **II: Stacy's Mutation Crisis**
The *Worldstrider* careened through a nebula, its hull screeching under Harbinger fire. Stacy Peters gripped the controls, her System blaring:
**[Celestial Nomad – Mutation: 89%]**
▸ *Warning: Biological Override Imminent*
Her hands were claws now, scales rippling under stress. Jax cursed, rerouting power to shields. "We need to jump! Now!"
"Can't!" Stacy snarled. "The System's glitching!"
**[Unknown Signal Detected]**
▸ *Source: Weaver's Loom (Dimensional Anchor)*
A hologram of Diane flickered on the dash. "Stacy—listen. The shard in your ship—it's a Loom fragment. Use it to *pull* them."
"Mom?!"
"No time. Trust me!"
Stacy slammed her mutated hand onto the shard. Reality bent. The Harbinger fleet imploded, crushed by a black hole of Diane's design.
**[Mutation: 92%]**
▸ *New Ability: Event Horizon (Unstable)*
Stacy vomited void matter. "Where… did she go?"
Jax eyed her warily. "Your eyes. They're… *hers*."
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### **III: Tom's Gambit**
Tom Peters stood at the heart of the Sky Spires, the Golden Roulette Wheel spinning wildly. Lira crouched beside him, her void-eyes tracking the Harbinger drones descending like metallic locusts.
"The seal's breaking," Imma warned, her hologram pixelating. "If you spin again—"
"I know!" Tom roared. The Wheel landed on *[Supernova Cascade]*, and the sky ignited.
Drones melted. Xina carved through the stragglers, Diane's lullaby guiding her blade. But the Harbinger's core remained—a pulsating orb of anti-matter.
Lira's scales sloughed off, revealing obsidian flesh. "I can consume it."
"You'll die," Tom said.
"I'll *evolve*."
She lunged, her maw engulfing the core. The void within her collided with the anti-matter, birthing a singularity.
**[Golden Roulette Wheel – Critical Spin]**
▸ *Symbol: [Voidweaver Ascension]*
Lira screamed—a sound that shattered nearby Spires—and emerged reborn: a living black hole, her hunger tempered by Tom's luck.
"Well," Xina panted, "that's new."
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### **IV: Orion's Rebellion**
Mike Peters—Orion—stood before the Celestial Council, his Arbiter armor stained with stardust. They'd ordered him to obliterate a rogue planet. He'd refused.
**"Traitor,"** the Council thundered, their forms swirling like diseased galaxies. **"You are bound to us!"**
"I'm bound to *them*." He activated a stolen Loom shard, replaying Diane's final moments before Oblivion: her screams, her sacrifice. "And you're going to tell me how to free her."
The Council struck. Orion's armor cracked, but he'd prepared. Rogue Arbiters—others who'd rediscovered their stolen humanity—flanked him, their weapons forged from Loom threads.
"You're not the only ones who can weave," Orion spat.
The battle raged across timelines. Orion fell first, but not before hurling the shard into the Council's core.
**[Loom Fragment Detonated]**
▸ *Celestial Council Integrity: 87% → 42%*
As oblivion took him, Mike smiled. *Find the shard, Diane. Finish this.*
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### **V: The Harbinger's Truth**
The Harbinger wasn't a ship. It was a *being*—a coalesced manifestation of the Council's fear. It descended on Tom's universe, a titan of crystallized entropy.
Stacy's *Worldstrider* arrived first, her Event Horizon tearing at its limbs. "Hit the core!" she transmitted to Tom.
"Working on it!" He spun the Wheel. *[Reality Sunder].*
The Harbinger fissured, revealing a trapped figure within: a Celestial child, its power siphoned by the Council.
"It's… a kid?" Xina lowered her Sword.
Lira snarled. "No. It's *us*."
The child was a prototype—a Voidweaver hybrid, the Council's attempt to replicate Lira's lineage. Tom's Wheel hummed, resonating with Diane's Loom.
"Mom's in there," he realized. "A piece of her, at least."
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### **VI: Diane's Choice**
Diane felt the Harbinger's cry through the Loom. The child was her echo, a failed experiment the Council had weaponized.
Calypso reappeared, her form flickering. "You know what you have to do."
To save the child, Diane would need to sever her tether to the Loom—to truly die.
"Do it," she whispered.
Calypso's blade pierced Diane's core. The Loom shattered, its threads scattering across realities.
**[Soul Integrity: 0%]**
▸ *Weaver's Loom – Destroyed*
But Diane's essence merged with the child, purging the Council's corruption. The Harbinger dissolved, and the child—*her* child—opened eyes of starlight.
"Hi, Mom," it whispered with Tom's voice.
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### **VII: Threads Reborn**
**Stacy's Log:**
The *Worldstrider* drifts in a dead universe, the System offline. My mutations are… stable. For now. Jax found a message in the shard: coordinates to a "Voidweaver Sanctum." We're not done yet.
**Tom's Journal:**
Lira's teaching the child to control its hunger. Xina calls it "Hope." Imma's rebuilding the Spires. And Mom… I feel her sometimes, in the Wheel's hum.
**Orion's Legacy:**
Rogue Arbiters gather at the Council's ruins. Mike's hologram loops his final words: *"The Loom's gone. Weave your own fate."*
**Diane's Whisper:**
In the child's dreams, Diane kneels, her form fading. *"You're not alone anymore. They'll guide you."*
The child smiles. Somewhere, a new Loom spins.
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