The moment he pressed deeper through the thread of forbidden code, the lattice ruptured around him.
Not physically. Not digitally.
Conceptually.
Reality peeled back like a skin too thin to hold the truth beneath it. The shimmering geometry of the prison dissolved into raw principles—ideas stripped of their disguises, laid bare as luminous constructs. He felt the floor fall away, but there was no floor. He felt the air shift, but there was no air. The space around him was simply meaning. Pure, unfiltered, merciless.
He was standing inside the skeleton of existence.
The Architects were already waiting.
Four figures emerged from the radiant void, each shaped from abstract geometry, each radiating a presence older than stars. They did not walk so much as unfold, expanding from impossible angles into forms vaguely reminiscent of bodies—only so his mind would not break trying to perceive them.
They spoke, not with voices, but with forces.
> ORDER.
> RESET.
> FINALITY.
