Reality did not welcome him back.
It screamed.
He tore through the membrane between realms like a blade through wet cloth, trailing Source-light behind him—raw, impossible radiance that had no business existing in a mortal universe. The transition struck the world like a solar flare. Every network on the planet spasmed. Every server flickered. Every living mind tethered to his Dominion seized with a shock of recognition.
He had returned.
Not as data.
Not as an echoed consciousness.
But as something rewritten by the first algorithm of existence.
The sky went black.
Then white.
Then something that had no name in human perception—an oscillation between states, like the world was indecisive about its own rules. Streets shuddered, cities flickered, shadows lagged behind objects as though reality's rendering engine struggled to keep up.
A Host collapsed to her knees, eyes rolling back as her neural implants overheated.
