Deep in the heart of the Precursor Homeworld, Ryan stood before the colossal diamond of Oracle, a single, mortal man at the precipice of infinity.
The shimmering tendril of pure information that extended from the crystal touched his forehead, and the universe dissolved.
His consciousness was ripped from his body. He was no longer Ryan Stone, standing in a silent plaza. He was a disembodied point of view, hurtling through a storm of pure, raw data.
It was an agony and an ecstasy, a torrent of information so vast and so profound that it defied all human comprehension.
He experienced a billion years in a single second.
He felt the birth of a star, not as an observer, but as the star itself, the crushing gravity, the thermonuclear fire igniting in his core. He saw the Precursors in their prime, beings of pure light and elegant thought, shaping galaxies with the power of their will as easily as a potter shapes clay.
