The moment the last of the blue particles tore free of the cube and entered my Dawn Core, the world inside me shuddered.
For a heartbeat, I thought it was the same unstable quake I had always felt here but no, this was different. This time the shaking did not come from weakness. It was a roar of something breaking free.
The volcano of Assimilation blazed like never before. I could feel my understanding of Assimilation expand in an instant, like my mind had been cracked open and filled with more than it should ever hold.
All around me, the void began to ripple.
Where there had once been empty nothingness, new lands began to appear. Barren stone plains stretched outward, ridges of mountains pushed through the black, and dry riverbeds carved themselves across the newborn earth.
They were lifeless for now, yes, but it was still land, proof that my inner world was no longer crumbling apart but trying to grow.
