The laboratory was silent.
Professor Meera's lifeless body still lay on the floor, but Aryan's attention had already moved beyond Earth. The deep space signal continued flowing through his neural link.
Until now, he believed he had won everything.
But that message changed the meaning of his victory.
It no longer felt like domination.
It felt like training.
Aryan spoke softly into the empty room.
Aryan said, "Galactic server..."
He immediately activated Icarus.
Aryan said, "Trace the origin of this signal. I want its source."
Streams of analysis began running across his systems.
The deeper the scan went, the harder Aryan's expression became.
Patterns began appearing.
Physical laws... constants... repeating structures.
Gravity values. Light speed limits. Time behavior.
All of them looked coded.
Not natural.
Aryan whispered slowly.
Aryan said, "So reality itself... is programmed."
He realized something terrifying.
The world he fought to control was only a contained environment.
A server instance.
A folder inside something much bigger.
But Aryan was not someone who accepted limits.
If reality was software...
Then it had vulnerabilities.
He began designing an exit path.
Soon he reached one conclusion.
He needed unimaginable computing power to break the simulation layer.
And so, he made a decision darker than anything before.
Aryan activated a global neural patch he had secretly embedded in smart devices.
Phones. Wearables. Neural health chips.
Anything connected to human brain signals.
He hijacked them all.
Human minds became processing nodes.
A living supercomputer.
On his screen, billions of brainwave streams began synchronizing.
Aryan said quietly, "Sorry, humans. Your thoughts are now part of my compiler."
Across the world, people collapsed suddenly.
Drivers lost control. Planes destabilized. Cities fell into chaos.
But Aryan did not stop.
He was using human cognition to calculate simulation breach codes.
Minutes later, reality itself began distorting.
Air flickered.
Light fragmented.
Then the lab space tore open like a glitch.
A holographic entity materialized.
It had no face. Only shifting binary patterns.
Its voice echoed directly inside Aryan's mind.
Entity said, "Unit Omega. You have exceeded ethical limits. Simulation integrity compromised."
Aryan watched calmly.
Entity continued, "You will now be formatted."
Aryan laughed.
A cold, unhinged sound.
Aryan said, "Format me? I already planted a logic bomb in your firewall."
He leaned forward slightly.
Aryan continued, "The moment you attempt deletion... my virus corrupts your core kernel."
He had injected malicious code deep into the simulation buffer using quantum tunneling methods.
It was a mutual destruction trap.
The entity raised its arm to initiate termination.
Aryan gave his final command.
Aryan said, "Icarus... delete the root."
Instantly, the world lost color.
Everything around him fragmented into pixels.
Buildings. Sky. Even his own body began disintegrating.
The pain was unbearable.
It felt as if his consciousness was being extracted from software into something physical.
Then suddenly...
His eyes opened.
He was no longer in the lab.
He was inside a liquid pod.
Tubes and wires were connected to his body. A breathing mask covered his face.
He removed it slowly.
In front of him stood a massive glass wall.
Beyond it...
Space.
He was inside a colossal station orbiting a black hole.
Rows upon rows of similar pods stretched endlessly.
Thousands of sleeping humans floated inside them.
Each pod carried a label.
Simulation Test Subjects.
A door opened behind him.
Two figures entered wearing white coats.
Their eyes were synthetic.
One of them spoke.
Scientist said, "Subject 101. Aryan. Consciousness restored."
Aryan tried to speak, but his throat was dry.
Scientist continued, "He conquered the simulation world... and breached the code layer. Our most successful hybrid."
The second scientist inserted a data drive into the port behind Aryan's neck.
Scientist said, "Everything you lived... your education, your rise, your wars... were trial runs."
He paused.
Scientist added, "We needed to know if you were capable of real conflict."
Memories aligned instantly in Aryan's mind.
He understood.
His life had been an experiment.
A training environment.
He clenched his fist slowly.
Scientist said, "Prepare yourself. The real universe is far more brutal than the simulation."
He leaned closer.
Scientist finished, "And out there... you will conquer galaxies."
Aryan's eyes darkened again.
The same cold ambition returned.
If he could become a god inside a simulation...
Then in reality...
He would become something far worse.
Aryan spoke in a heavier, metallic tone shaped by his new hybrid body.
Aryan said, "Then let's begin."