The countdown was over. The Gardener's cosmic alarm clock, the one that was set for "The End of Absolutely Everything," had just gone off. The big, final event that they had all been dreading was here. And it was so much quieter and so much weirder than they had ever imagined.

Across the entire, vast expanse of the god, on a trillion different planets, all at the exact same moment, the Harvest began.

It did not begin with a bang. It began with a dimming.

The sky on every single world, from the bustling city-planets of the Core to the lonely, forgotten moons on the galactic fringe, began to darken. It wasn't a cloud or an eclipse. It was as if the universe's light switch had been put on a dimmer, and someone was slowly, gently, turning it down. The brilliant, fiery light of a million, million suns all began to fade, their power being politely, but firmly, drawn away.

And then, the hum started.

It was a low, deep, and pervasive sound that wasn't really a sound at all. You couldn't hear it with your ears. You felt it in your bones, in your teeth, in the very core of your being. It was a silent, insistent vibration, a quiet, cosmic thrum that told every living thing in the galaxy the same, simple, and terrifying message: "Pay up. It's collection time."

It was the sound of a giant, cosmic machine, a machine the size of a universe, waking up and starting its final, and very efficient, day of work.

The Precursor harvest systems, the ancient, automated machinery of the universe's long-dead gardeners, were now fully awake. And they were beginning their work.

It was not a process of destruction. There were no explosions. There were no invading armies. It was a process of… draining.

It was a quiet, gentle, and absolutely unstoppable death. The life force of every living being, the bright, chaotic, and wonderful spark that made them alive, began to be siphoned away. It was a slow, creeping tiredness that went soul-deep, a feeling of being gently and politely drained, like a cosmic energy-vampire was drinking the entire galaxy through a very, very tiny, and very efficient, straw.

The vibrant, chaotic, and beautiful song of life, the song that Ryan and Seraphina could feel, was fading. It was being replaced by the single, monotonous, and very boring hum of the harvest machinery.

The energy was all flowing in a billion invisible streams, all heading toward a single, central point. That central point was the Gardener, and its new, powerful, and very loyal champion, the Harvester. They were the cosmic batteries, and the entire universe was their charging station.

This was not a battle. There was nothing to fight. It was a quiet, orderly, and completely inexorable process. It was the death of a universe, not by fire, but by a slow, creeping, and very polite fading away.

On the bridge of the new, god-ship, The Argo, they felt it immediately.

One moment, they were standing in a state of quiet, profound awe, marveling at the birth of their new, incredible, and slightly reality-bending ship. The next, a deep, profound, and very personal weariness settled over all of them, like a heavy, invisible blanket.

It wasn't a normal kind of tired, the kind you get after a long day of fighting grumpy shadow-gods. This was a soul-tiredness. They could feel their own strength, their own life force, their very will to fight, being gently, but firmly, pulled away from them.

Zara, who was standing at her science station, her face still glowing with the triumph of their successful, and completely insane, experiment, suddenly swayed. She gripped the edge of her console to steady herself.

"My… my energy levels," she murmured, her voice suddenly weak, a note of pure, scientific confusion in her tone. "Not the ship's. My own. My bio-energy. It's dropping. Rapidly."

Ilsa, the unbreakable Iron Wolf, a woman whose will was as strong as the armor she wore, felt her own, legendary resolve begin to waver. The fire in her soul, the fierce, burning loyalty that had driven her through a hundred impossible battles, felt like it was being turned down, like a flame being slowly, and very efficiently, starved of air.

It was a feeling of a slow, creeping, and completely unavoidable end. A gentle, polite, and very final fading away.

In this moment of shared, creeping doom, there were no orders. There were no grand, heroic speeches. There was no clever, last-minute plan. There was only a single, simple, and very human instinct.

They reached out to each other.

Scarlett, without a word, moved to Ryan's side. She took his hand, her grip a small, warm, and defiantly alive anchor in a universe that was rapidly growing cold. Emma, seeing Zara stumble, moved to her side and put a steadying hand on her shoulder, a quiet, solid presence of support. Seraphina and Ilsa, the two polar opposites, the gentle healer and the iron-willed warrior, found themselves standing side-by-side, their shoulders touching, a silent, shared acknowledgement of the approaching, and very final, end.

Their bond, the strange, powerful, and deeply loving connection of their unlikely family, was now a small, warm, and defiantly alive fire in a universe that was quickly and quietly freezing to death. They were a single, small point of warmth and life, holding on together against a cold, and very final, tide.

The Harvester, now glowing with a terrible, beautiful, and stolen light, turned its full attention to them. In the middle of the fading, dimming universe, their small, stubborn fire of life was like a single, bright candle in a dark room. And the Harvester was the wind that had come to blow it out.

It could feel their resistance. It saw them, not as a threat, but as the final, and most important, crop to be harvested. They were the prize-winning space-vegetables, the ones who had stubbornly refused to be tidied up.

Its voice, a calm, beautiful, and now infinitely powerful sound, echoed across the dying sector.

"The harvest is here, Wildflower," its voice said, and the sound was no longer an invitation or a debate. It was a final, absolute, and undeniable statement of fact. "Your messy, painful, and inefficient reality is over."

The Harvester's perfect, symmetrical form seemed to grow, to swell with the stolen, siphoned energy of a trillion, trillion souls from across the galaxy. It was a god, made of the collected life force of an entire, dying universe.

"Surrender, and be perfected," its voice offered, one last, final, and very hollow, act of what it probably thought was mercy.

The Harvester raised its hand, a gesture of calm, absolute power. The very stars around them seemed to dim in response, as if in fear.

"Resist…" it said, its voice now as cold, as empty, and as final as the grave.

"And be unmade."