The sea raged violently.
Shattered whitecaps tore across the black ocean like a sandstorm, and the entire world lay swallowed in darkness.
Storm clouds stretched across the distant horizon. What should have been an endless expanse of blue was now suffocated beneath layers of black. The road ahead felt desolate—leading nowhere. The scent of rain hung thick in the air, as if even the laws of nature had been stripped away.
Gear.
No other word fit.
A colossal gear dominated the sky, turning slowly.
With every rotation, tremors rippled across the planet, as though the world itself were groaning in agony.
The planet had been consumed by machinery.
Earth-like worlds, gas giants like Jupiter, drifting interstellar matter—even the stars themselves—all had been absorbed and repurposed as components within the vast mechanism.
This was a universe utterly governed by mechanical order.