Ark: seed of the source

Previously

…It was not a battle Michael expected to win with divine might. It was a battle to be won on the terms of the desperate, the resourceful, and the ultimately courageous—the terms of humanity. He braced himself, withdrawing the last vestiges of his celestial light into a tight, white-hot core within his chest, preparing to meet the Void on the blasted earth of the world he had sworn to protect. The silence that followed the dismissal was heavy, pregnant with the roaring threat gathering just beyond the visible horizon.