Ark: seed of the source

Previously

…As the surviving mortals began the grim work of wrapping the dead and dragging the wounded deeper into the relative safety of the decaying inner ruins, Michael stared one last time at the dissipating darkness. He had expected the horror of war, but he had not expected the horror of erasure. And in that primal fear, in the sight of mortal sacrifice, the faintest core of his old purpose—the fierce, protective love for creation—began to burn again. It was small, desperate, and utterly necessary. The Ark needed its seed, and Michael, fallen or not, was the soil it would first be planted in.