The sky was not supposed to be a floor.
That was Kaelen's first, disjointed thought as the world dissolved around him. The serene, white expanse of the pocket dimension—a place that had been his entire reality for eleven years—simply vanished. There was no door, no portal. One moment he was standing between his cosmic instructors, a sixteen-year-old god-forged adept ready for his journey. The next, the ground was gone.
He was falling.
The wind roared past his ears, a savage symphony after the perpetual, controlled silence of his training grounds. The air tore at his robes, the pristine white fabric gifted to him by the Sanctions, now subtly threaded with the impossible colors of his nature: void black, cosmic purple, electric cyan, vibrant gold, and fiery orange.
And then came the power.
It erupted from him. It was not a conscious act. It was the scream of a caged beast finally set free, a tidal wave of energy that had been compressed into an infinitesimal point for over a decade. His aura, a terrifying synthesis of Void's absolute stillness and Joker's chaotic inferno, exploded outwards.
The sky around him warped. One side darkened into a swirling vortex of light-devouring black and purple, where sound died and the very air seemed to freeze solid. The other side ignited into a brilliant maelstrom of white, orange, and yellow light, crackling with energy that demanded creation and noise. The two opposing forces swirled around him in a breathtaking, world-ending spectacle.
He felt… immense. Limitless. The Aegis Framework screamed data across his vision, his Stat Matrix glitching uncontrollably, unable to quantify the sheer magnitude of power flowing through him.
He righted himself in the air, a subconscious application of Motion's training. He fell feet first, arms crossed over his chest, his expression not of fear, but of serene focus. The raging hurricane of his own power did not buffet him; it obeyed him. He was the eye of his own storm. He could feel the potential in his fingertips—to still the planet's spin, to ignite the atmosphere. It would be so easy.
He was, for a glorious, terrifying moment, a god plummeting towards his domain.
A voice spoke. It was not heard with ears, but understood directly within his consciousness. It was calm, synthetic, and utterly devoid of panic.
[ALERT: User is operating at 100% output capacity.]
Kaelen's focus didn't break. He continued to fall, his aura ripping the clouds apart around him.
[Local reality integrity compromised. Gravitational and energetic anomalies detected.]
[Probability of catastrophic spatial collapse: 87.3% and increasing.]
[Limiter Protocol is inactive.]
The words registered, cutting through the euphoric haze of unleashed power. A specific lesson from Logos surfaced in his mind: "Your existence is a pressure on the system. Unchecked, you will break it."
[Activate Limiter? Y/N]
He breathed out heavily, a sigh that was lost to the roaring wind. He had forgotten. In the exhilaration of his first true freedom, he had forgotten the cage. He had forgotten the most important rule.
"Yes," he thought, the command silent and immediate. "Activate it."
The effect was instantaneous.
It was not like closing a valve. It was like the universe itself had taken a pair of scissors and cut his strings.
The cataclysmic aura—the swirling vortex of nothingness and the brilliant inferno of creation—vanished. It didn't fade; it was just gone, snuffed out between one nanosecond and the next. The sudden silence was deafening. The empowering feeling of limitless strength was replaced by a profound, hollow emptiness. It was the most jarring sensation he had ever experienced.
The sky was just the sky again. The wind was just the wind.
And he was just a boy, falling from a great height.
The ground rushed up to meet him with violent intent. There was no time to summon mana, to slow his descent, to do anything but brace.
He impacted the world with a sound that shook the ancient trees.
CRAAAAAAAAAASH!
The forest floor erupted. Dirt, rock, and shattered tree roots were thrown into the air. Birds for miles took flight in a cacophony of startled cries. When the debris settled, a deep, circular crater marked his landing site.
In the center, lying on his back amidst the settling dust, was Kaelen. His vision swam, his ears rang. His body ached with a deep, resonant thrum from the impact. He blinked, staring up at the patch of sky visible through the torn canopy. He took a slow, experimental breath. Nothing was broken. His God-Forged body had endured the crash, though his HP bar had dipped a noticeable, if minor, amount.
A final, gentle notification pinged in his mind.
[Limiter Active. Output stabilized at 0.0000000000000001%.]
[Welcome to the Collided Worlds, User Kaelen.]
Silence returned to the forest, now filled with the subtle sounds of creatures cautiously returning to their business. Kaelen lay in the crater, the weight of his infinite cage settling upon him for the first time. The experiment was now truly in his hands.