He was wrong…
The complexity scaled such that the first phase, mapping, consumed a relatively manageable amount because perception was his strongest point. The second phase, activation, the actual modification of the three-dimensional runes to reverse the process, consumed double what the mapping had cost.
In an area the size he had mapped, the total consumption came to triple, not double as he had calculated by treating the mapping as half the total, because the activation cost multiplied at each node, and nodes were where complexity concentrated.
He understood this late. At the moment when the activation began and the system started demanding a quantity he didn't have available to sustain the complete process. Not gradually, immediately, with the reality of something that didn't warn you but simply arrived.
And what had been started couldn't be stopped without completing.
Only redirected…
