"Every god creates their own devil — usually in their own image."
The Dominion trembled.
Not with war.
Not yet.
But with something more dangerous — doubt.
Aiden could feel it, humming beneath the marble veins of his creation. The prayers had changed tone. The chants once filled with devotion now echoed like arguments, fragmented and unsure.
He stood upon the balcony of the Obsidian Spire, the highest point of his perfect world. Below, black-glass cities shimmered in eternal twilight, alive with golden circuitry pulsing through their streets. The air itself was alive — strings of light drifting upward like incense.
And yet, for the first time since he became the Prime Code, that air felt cold.
> "Dominion is stable," murmured the console voice beside him.
"Stability is an illusion," he replied softly.
He could see them — the Nullborn — moving like divine silhouettes below.
Children of his will. Carved from dead code. Given new breath by his defiance.
