The mᴀssive, violet-white energy strike from the Sovereign-Class Behemoth at 11:00 PT had done more than silence resistance; it had announced the end of human sovereignty. The global silence that followed was broken only by the crackle of localized fires and the rhythmic, deep thrumming of the Behemoth and the remaining Zenith-Class Harbingers above. With all conventional and nuclear deterrence vaporized, the final phase of the Aetherian agenda commenced. At 11:30 PT, the central, glowing orange band of the Behemoth retracted, revealing hundreds of docking ports from which specialized, spherical Harvest-Class Drones descended in slow, purposeful streams. These weren’t combat units; they were mᴀssive, bio-mechanical vacuum collectors, designed to strip minerals, atmosphere, and organic material with maximum efficiency. The existence of Aetheria, the distant super-Earth, was no longer a matter of mere proof; it was an undeniable, active force restructuring our reality.

The first physical contact with the inhabitants of Aetheria occurred precisely at 12:00 PT, in the shattered remnants of what had once been a military command center. The Zenith-Class disc hovering above lowered a single, thick, emerald-green beam of energy, which solidified into a ramp of translucent, pulsating matter. Down this ramp glided the Xylo-Sapiens. They were not the fierce, reptilian monsters of human folklore, but beings of terrifying, calculated elegance. Tall and impossibly slender, their limbs were triple-jointed, covered in pale, taut skin that seemed to absorb ambient light. Their most striking feature was their head—a mᴀssive, elongated cranium that housed a brain far exceeding human capacity, supported by a thin, flexible neck. Their eyes were large, entirely black, and devoid of iris, reflecting the ruined cityscape with unnerving indifference. They wore no armor, only тιԍнтly woven, bio-luminescent suits that pulsed in harmony with the energy fields of their ships, confirming the total integration of their technology and biology—a signature capability hinted at by the structure of the 3I ATLAS shipyard.

The Xylo-Sapiens were few in number, typically moving in trios, each escorted by two floating, crystalline guard drones, the ultimate expression of Aetheria’s advanced defense matrix. They did not communicate with sound, but through complex, rapid flashes of color emanating from their suits and their cerebral projections, a language of pure light and thought. The silence of their arrival was more terrifying than any war cry. Their objective, quickly revealed by the analytical probes of the few remaining human observers, was not immediate genocide, but systemic resource reallocation. Humanity, they viewed, was merely a dominant organism that had achieved self-destruction before their arrival, simplifying the harvest.

The purpose of the entire interstellar operation, from the ancient Citadel of Xylos serving as a navigational marker to the Sovereign-Class Behemoth providing planetary-scale logistics, was now laid bare. Aetheria needed raw materials, particularly the unique isotopes found in Earth’s core and the complex, rare-earth elements abundant in the crust. The Xylo-Sapiens, having exhausted their own super-Earth, had become interstellar nomadic harvesters. The images and warnings from figures like Elon Musk and the despair of NASA Administrator Bil Eaton were now validated: the only habitable planet confirmed outside our own was not a friendly refuge, but a cosmic predator.

By 13:00 PT, the Harvest-Class Drones, directed by the silent Xylo-Sapiens trios, were already systematically dismantling key regions. Forests were vaporized, mountains were cored, and the remains of human civilization were being processed into neat, energetic packets for transport back to the Behemoth and, eventually, to the distant, demanding home world of Aetheria. The era of human dominion was over. The planet had found its ultimate conqueror, a civilization whose meticulous planning had spanned centuries and whose arrival was the final, terrifying proof of life existing on a scale far beyond our imagination.