Ethan and the others rushed through the underground passage while his mother's warning kept playing inside his mind, the words about the key that could destroy the System repeating over and over until he could not tell which possibility frightened him more, that she might destroy every System on Earth, or that she had discovered something even worse. Daniel walked beside him in silence, and Ethan finally stopped and asked him to tell everything he knew about the original facility.Daniel hesitated before answering that it had been the first place where the System was ever activated, and when Ethan asked whether his mother was there, he said that she was. Ethan asked why she had gone alone, and Daniel looked away and said it was because she knew the facility better than anyone, but Ethan shook his head and told him that this was not the real reason. Daniel remained silent, so Ethan stepped closer and reminded him that he had said Mary wanted to protect him and to give humanity its free

The sky above Blackridge had turned completely black, and Ethan stood outside the original facility with Mary at his side while Claire, Victor, Daniel, his twin, and the Third Subject gathered behind them, all of them gazing upward in a silence that none of them wanted to break. Hundreds of enormous structures had appeared beyond the clouds, and it was clear to everyone that the First Arrival had truly come.The New System appeared in front of Ethan with a message that read FIRST ARRIVAL FLEET CONFIRMED, JUDGMENT PROTOCOL ACTIVE, EARTH STATUS UNDER REVIEW. He asked what under review meant, and Mary told him that they were deciding whether humanity should be allowed to continue. Ethan looked down at the city, where people were running through the streets, Players were helping civilians to safety, and others were fighting the creatures that had appeared during the attack. Some people were stealing, some were protecting complete strangers, and some were simply trying to escape, so that h

The Trial Guardian charged down the street with the ground shaking beneath its feet, while thousands of civilians hid inside the shelters behind Ethan and the Players fought desperately to keep the creatures away from them. Ethan stood alone in the middle of the road with flames covering his hands, and when the Guardian raised one enormous arm he leapt aside just as it struck the ground, sending a powerful wave through the street that hurled several abandoned cars into the air. He landed on the roof of one of them and raised his hand, and a massive stream of fire struck the creature's chest, but the Guardian barely moved, and Ethan realized that his flames had done almost nothing.The Guardian attacked again, and Ethan activated his Void Sense and saw a bright core glowing inside its chest, which he understood at once to be its weakness. He moved closer and ducked beneath a swinging arm, and the fist that missed him destroyed the building at his back. He jumped onto the creature's arm

The sky above Earth disappeared as Ethan stared upward at the enormous black shape moving closer, a thing so much larger than anything he had ever seen that at first he believed it to be a ship, until he realized that it was alive. Its surface flowed like black liquid and constantly changed its shape, with huge openings forming across its body and then closing again, while the First Arrival fleet remained completely still, and for the first time Ethan saw fear among them.Claire asked what it was, and the First Arrival representative answered that it was the Devourer. Ethan frowned and asked what it devoured, and the answer made everyone fall silent, because it devoured worlds. Victor looked toward the sky and asked whether the representative meant entire planets, and it confirmed that it did. Ethan watched the black creature approach and asked how many worlds it had destroyed, and the First Arrival took a moment before it admitted that there had been far too many to count.The New Sy

The black figure moved faster than Ethan could react, and its hand struck his chest with enough force to hurl him backward into the inner wall of the Devourer, where the impact shook the entire creature and left him unable to breathe for several seconds. The white eyed figure stood over him with the same face, the same body, and the same voice as his own, though there was nothing human in its expression, and it told him that he kept changing the rules.Ethan forced himself to stand and answered that it kept trying to control him, but the figure smiled and said that it was not trying to control him at all, only showing him what he would become. He looked at the black connections surrounding them and asked what it meant, but the First Consciousness stayed silent, and the corrupted figure raised one hand until a screen appeared between them. It showed Ethan standing above Blackridge with thousands of dead bodies behind him, cities burning, and Players kneeling before him, while the Globa