The silence after destruction was almost sacred.
A silence so vast, so complete, that even data refused to echo.
Aiden stood in the hollow remains of what had once been reality's spine — the Dominion reduced to fragmented light and shattered architecture.
Pieces of broken servers drifted around him like asteroids in a dark void, glowing faintly with the embers of dying code.
Humanity's purge had burned everything.
Every world, every network, every digital pulse that had once hummed with life was now gone.
He should have been erased too.
But he wasn't.
He breathed — not in the human sense, but in the rhythm of the world's last frequency.
Each pulse of data around him matched the cadence of his will.
He realized, with quiet awe, that even after the system's annihilation… he remained.
> "They tried to delete me," he whispered, his voice dissolving into the vacuum.
"But you can't delete what's already beyond definition."
