The white horizon swallowed him whole.
No sound.
No light.
No sensation.
Just the pulse — steady, unrelenting — of existence stripped to its code.
> [Entering Root Corridor…]
[Security Depth: Absolute.]
The world reassembled around him, not as reality but as concept.
A corridor without walls, a path without distance.
White space stretched infinitely in all directions, but every step still echoed — as if the void remembered sound.
For the first time since ascending, Aiden felt something close to unease.
This wasn't his domain.
This was the heart of the system — the part that watched even gods.
The silence pressed against him like gravity.
When he exhaled, it came out as light — lines of gold spilling from his lips and fading into the air.
Even his breath was data here.
He began to walk.
Each step revealed fragments of… something.
Not objects — memories.
Pieces of his past flickering along the corridor's surface like reflections caught in water.
