I opened my eyes.
The sensation of consciousness returning after ten billion years is not a gentle thing. It is a violent cascade of cosmic awareness. My physical form, a sprawling nebula of dark matter and compressed starlight, shifted within the absolute cold of the Primordial Deep. Entire clusters of dead stars ground against each other as I uncoiled my limbs. I felt the familiar, comforting weight of the abyss wrapping around my shoulders.
But something was wrong. The absolute dark had been tainted.
A vulgar, bleeding red light had washed over my domain. It was a frequency of pure violence, a shockwave of arrogant authority that dared to ripple into the sacred resting place of the ancients.
I tasted the frequency. It tasted of burning blood, ruined metal, and the chaotic ambition of a mortal who had stolen a crown he did not understand.
I am Eldrim. I am the Architect of the First Epoch. I am the hand that shaped the original void.
