Rae felt her body falling through endless white, the world dissolving into a soft humming sound that rang inside her bones. She tried to move her hands, but there was no ground, no air, nothing to hold on to. Finn and Lara were somewhere nearby, she could hear the faint echoes of their voices drifting in the empty space, but she could not reach them, then suddenly, the fall stopped.Rae hit a surface that felt like warm glass. Not hard enough to hurt, but solid enough that she knew the trial had begun. She pushed herself up slowly and looked around.The world around her was impossible. A horizon of glowing symbols stretched in every direction. Floating spheres of light drifted through the air like slow comets. Rivers of golden code flowed beneath transparent platforms that shifted and re-formed with every step she took. The sky was not a sky at all but a vast dome made of spiraling patterns, turning slowly as if trying to think.Finn landed nearby with a loud grunt. “Ow… okay, se

Light swallowed everything. It expanded like a wave, blinding and cold, rushing through the battlefield.Until every shadow, every piece of broken ground, and every trace of the monstrous construct dissolved into pure white. Rae felt herself lifted, weightless, spinning without control. She reached out blindly, trying to grab Finn or Lara, but there was nothing to hold, nothing to ground her.Then, with a sudden jolt, her body hit solid ground. Rae gasped and pushed herself up slowly. Her vision cleared enough to reveal a vast chamber stretching far beyond what her eyes could follow.It was dark at first, but then soft lights blinked awake one by one, revealing walls made of smooth black metal and an endless ceiling covered with floating orbs of pale blue light.Finn groaned behind her. “I am getting really tired of being thrown across dimensions every five minutes.”Lara sat up, rubbing her head. Her scanner sparked weakly, then steadied. “We made it through the Collapse Threshold.

Darkness was not empty. It was warm, like lying under a heavy blanket, safe from storms. It was gentle, like a quiet breath resting against Rae’s cheek. She floated inside it without weight, without fear, without the sharp edges of pain. She did not know if she was alive, dead, or something in between.She only knew she was drifting. She reached out her hand, hoping for something to hold. The darkness shifted when she moved, rippling like soft water. Then a faint shimmer grew in the distance, small at first, like a single ember glowing in ashes.It pulsed. Rae felt something stir inside her chest. A memory. A voice. “Rae… don’t disappear.”Finn. She remembered the tremble in his voice, the way he had squeezed her hand before the world broke apart. She pushed toward the light, swimming through the darkness as if moving through a dream.Another pulse glowed beside the first. “Stay with me.”Everett. His voice was softer, fading, but real. The echo of him. The part of him that had not

Vantress Spire rose like a blade cutting through the clouds. The structure did not look natural. It was tall, narrow, made of layers of black stone and steel plates that shimmered faintly with leftover system code. Every wall pulsed with quiet light, as if the building itself was breathing. Bridges stretched between its towers like thin strings of silver. The wind around it always whistled sharply, as if warning anyone who approached.Inside the Spire, nothing was wasted. Every hallway was perfectly aligned. Every guard moved with practiced rhythm. Every screen displayed information in endless streams. It was a place built for one purpose, control through understanding.At the highest level sat the chamber of the Silent Strategist. Soren. He stood with his hands behind his back, staring at a giant holographic map that filled the room. It wasn’t a normal map. It showed the world’s new, unstable geography. Lines of energy flickered across shifting landscapes. Zones pulsed with dif

The first sensation Everett felt was not sight. It was pressure, a soft, heavy weight pressing from all directions, like a deep ocean wrapped around his consciousness. He drifted inside it with no body, no form, only awareness. At first he thought he was dreaming, but dreams had edges. Dreams had direction. This place did not.Here, everything stretched endlessly. A world of light and shadow and shifting currents. A world made of data.Everett tried to breathe, but there was no breath. He tried to speak, but there was no voice. His thoughts rippled outward, forming soft waves in the emptiness. “Where am I?”The ocean of data responded with a faint hum.It was ancient, familiar, and yet broken, like a melody he had once known by heart but forgotten long ago. Bits of code drifted around him like floating dust. Entire system paths lay twisted and collapsed. Fragments of memory pulsed faintly, waiting to be touched.Everett reached toward one. The moment his consciousness brushed it, t