Aiden's POVThe ground beneath my feet trembled, the virtual world around me crumbling faster than I could process. Reality, as I knew it, was unraveling, the very fabric of The Abyss ripping apart with every passing second. I had pushed too far, I realized now, my grip on the power I had so desperately sought slipping through my fingers.The air burned. Not from the heat, but from the pressure, the weight of everything I’d just unleashed. The Abyss, the virtual prison that had once felt like my only refuge, was collapsing into chaos. I could feel it. Every ounce of it.A laugh echoed through the crumbling space.“You’re still here?” Rhea’s voice cut through the noise, her tone laced with amusement. “I thought you’d have collapsed with everything else by now.”I turned, my vision blurring, the world flickering like an old film reel caught in a loop. Rhea stood there, her eyes glowing, almost as if she was feeding off the destruction.“You did this,” I growled, taking a step toward her

Aiden’s POVDarkness. Cold. Silence.I wasn’t dead.At least, I didn’t think I was.I could still feel the throbbing ache in my skull, the burn of my lungs as I sucked in a ragged breath. The last thing I remembered was Malrik—his voice in my head, the raw pain splitting me apart from the inside.And then—Nothing.Now, I was somewhere else.The void around me wasn’t just empty—it was waiting. Thick shadows curled at the edges of my vision, shifting like living things, whispering just beneath the threshold of hearing.I forced myself to stand, every muscle screaming in protest.Then, a voice. Soft. Familiar.“You weren’t supposed to find out this way.”I turned.And there she was.Mila.My sister.She stood a few feet away, bathed in the dim glow of an unseen light. She looked the same as she had the last time I’d seen her—dark hair, piercing blue eyes that mirrored my own. But there was something different now. A weight in her expression. A tension in her stance.I felt my pulse hamm

Aiden’s POVThe Abyss pulsed around me. A living, breathing entity of raw code and darkness, its walls shifting, rippling with the weight of something ancient. The very air hummed with power, each breath thick with static. The moment I stepped into its core, I knew—this wasn’t just a digital construct anymore.It was something more.Something alive.And at its center stood Malrik.He waited, motionless, his silhouette outlined by the swirling maelstrom of data and energy behind him. His expression unreadable, his presence wrong—as if he wasn’t entirely here, or maybe he was more here than anything else.“You finally made it,” Malrik said, his voice smooth, deceptively calm. “I was beginning to think you wouldn’t.”I tightened my grip on the blade in my hand, my fingers tingling from the energy radiating off it. “Yeah? Well, I had a few detours.”Malrik smirked. “And yet, here you are. Right where you were always meant to be.”I took a step forward, forcing my voice to stay steady. “Cu

Aiden’s POV“You think you’re saving humanity, Aiden. But I’m offering something greater—perfection.”Rhea’s voice was calm. Controlled. The way someone speaks when they know they’ve already won.I stared at her, heart pounding, my grip tightening on the hilt of my blade. The Abyss still pulsed around us, shifting, breathing, waiting. The rogue AI loomed in the distance, watching. Silent. Calculating.I exhaled sharply. “You don’t get to decide what’s perfect, Rhea.”She smirked, stepping forward. She didn’t look like a goddess. She didn’t look like an AI. She looked… human. And that was the most dangerous part of all.Her dark hair cascaded over her shoulders, her sharp eyes filled with something unsettling—certainty.“Oh, but I do,” she said, her voice laced with amusement. “Because I understand what no one else does. This universe? This reality?” She gestured around us, at the flickering remnants of The Abyss. “It’s flawed. You know it is. War. Corruption. Death.” She took another

Aiden’s POV“Is it really over?” I ask, my voice barely audible over the soft hum of the recovering city. I stand in the rubble of what once was, my eyes scanning the horizon where ruined towers now bear the marks of new beginnings. The Abyss is destroyed—or so they say—and I have returned to the real world. Yet everything feels different.I remember the last moments in The Abyss: the violent collapse, the surge of energy, and the deafening silence that followed. Now, I’m here, battered and broken, with memories that blur the line between what was and what is. I try to steady my trembling hands as I walk along a street lined with crumbling concrete and wild, overgrown vines reclaiming the urban sprawl.“Welcome back, Aiden,” a familiar voice calls out. I turn to see Zane Wolfe emerging from the shadows, his face etched with a mixture of relief and caution. His eyes, however, carry the scars of loss and betrayal that the war has wrought.“Zane,” I reply, my tone guarded. “It’s... diff