Time since the asteroid hit Earth: ~6.25 billion years (subjective to Aryan)
Aryan closed his eyes, feeling the pulse of photons moving endlessly through space.
> "If matter and sound can live... why not light itself?" he pondered.
With careful precision, Aryan forged the **Lightborn** — entities of pure **photonic energy**.
No weight.
No shadow.
Only shimmering intelligence, bound to the dance of rays and reflection.
> "Laser people?" Light God blinked behind sunglasses. "Let me guess — they sparkle and blind people for fun?"
The Lightborn were different.
They **bounced endlessly** between stars, reflecting through dust clouds, refracting inside ice rings.
Their **thoughts** were pulses of colored brilliance.
Their **language** — shifting spectrums and coded flashes.
Their **bodies** — moving beams, twisting in glorious auroras.
Aryan built vast **Mirror Temples** in space — floating crystal networks designed to sustain and reflect the Lightborn as they traveled.
But soon... a strange phenomenon appeared.
Some Lightborn began **splitting** — fracturing into **prisms** — dividing into multiple consciousness threads.
> "Did they just clone themselves by rainbowing?" Light God whispered, holding a prism. "Groovy."
These fragments, called the **Fractari**, had wild, unpredictable patterns.
Some spoke only in ultraviolet bursts.
Others blinked infra-red secrets no one could see.
A few lost themselves — **trapped in endless reflection loops**.
One such Fractari, named **Velyx**, fractured so deeply that it glimpsed outside normal spacetime — into the folds between realities.
> "Architect…" Velyx's pulses trembled. "We are not alone in the light."
Aryan frowned.
> "What did you see?"
But Velyx blinked out — vanishing into unseen spectra — leaving only a **warning flare** pulsing across the cosmos:
> `DANGER BEYOND THE SPECTRUM.`
Light God shivered.
> "I don't like this. What did they glimpse? Space ghosts? Interdimensional paparazzi?"
Selith, the Chronari, flickered nearby.
> "Their light touched forbidden corners, Architect. Be wary."
Aryan gazed into the Mirror Temples, thoughtful.
Even light — pure and beautiful — could fracture and reveal the unknown.
He titled this creation:
**The Lightborn — Children of the Infinite Beam.**
Proof that even **photons** could dream... and fear.
— End of Chapter 35