The peaceful cadence of the Aurelian Coast was finally shattered not by a sound, but by a sudden, terrifying absence of it. Aegis stood on the shoreline, his fishing rod falling from his grip as the golden waves froze mid-roll, turning into static, jagged blocks of un-rendered data.
The sky, once a vibrant tapestry of ten suns, was being overwritten by a high-altitude grid of silver circuitry. The Obsidian Sector had finished its "Trial Integration" and had come to a cold, mathematical conclusion: the Deca-Verse was a source of "Narrative Contamination" that had to be quarantined and restructured.
Unit-744, once a curious observer of the golden sands, stood several yards away. Its form had reverted to a rigid, multi-dimensional cube, its obsidian surface no longer reflecting the teal light of the Eleventh Universe. It looked at Aegis with a gaze that had been stripped of its newfound wonder.
