We emerged into a chamber that made the previous one look like a storage closet.
The Core Node.
I knew it instinctively before Vorta spoke.
The space was cavernous, yet not bound by obvious walls. It felt like standing inside a hollow star. Light flowed in streams rather than beams, cascading from a colossal crystalline structure suspended at the center of the chamber.
The Time-Space Leyline core node.
It was enormous.
Not a neat sphere. Not symmetrical. It resembled a multifaceted heart carved from living crystal, veins of incandescent energy branching outward in all directions. Those veins didn't stop at the chamber—they phased through space, extending into unseen distances.
Every pulse it emitted traveled through me.
Through the soles of my boots.
Through my bones.
Through the core's resonance lodged within my chest.
The resonance was immediate.
My breath hitched.
"Oh," I whispered.
