Ares Hall saw the flash before he heard the sound.

A blinding streak of white-hot light split the sky, striking before he could react.

Searing pain ripped through him. Every nerve burned, his mind drowning in agony.

Then, silence.

He drifted in darkness, weightless, thoughtless. Time lost meaning.

Faint whispers stirred in the void. Fragments of something... broken. Symbols, flickering like dying embers.

[ERROR_001: INCOMPLETE BOND]

[RETRYING…]

[CRITICAL FAILURE]

A cold presence coiled around him, a pulse of static threading through his mind. It reached for him, but something was wrong. Fractured. Incomplete.

The void trembled.

Then—impact.

And everything went dark.