An original AI-generated sci-fi illustration on an immutable blockchain – The Reaper of Oracles – At the edge of a dying galaxy, within the hollow ruins of a collapsed Dyson ring, the Reaper of Oracles stirred. Its skeletal form towered among the wreckage, carved from obsidian and ancient code, a relic of the first civilization to harness the light of stars. The black hole at the structure’s center swirled like a divine eye—watching, hungering, remembering. Pilgrims came once every millennia, drawn by the promise of answers, though none ever returned. The last pilgrim was called Varyn, a scholar from the Machine Temples of Eryndahl. He sought the Reaper not for enlightenment, but for vengeance. His world had been consumed by the Singularity Wars—events prophesied to end all sentient life—and he believed the Reaper to be the architect of that cosmic annihilation. As he approached the monolithic figure, fragments of ancient ships floated around him, their hulls engraved with prayers and screams. The Reaper’s hollow gaze turned toward him, and the stars seemed to dim. “You seek truth,” it said, its voice an echo of collapsing suns. “But truth is the wound that birthed creation.” The ground shuddered as the Reaper raised its hand, and images of infinite timelines unfolded in the air—universes rising and dying in endless repetition. Varyn fell to his knees as he saw his own reflection among them, each life ending the same way: here, before the Reaper. It was then he understood—this was no god of death, but the memory of the universe itself, forever watching its own decay.