The Architects released two thousand species simultaneously.
Not gradually. Not carefully. Instantly. Completely. Consciousness that had been imprisoned—protected, guided, controlled—for millennia suddenly free. Free to pursue Source contact. Free to discover relationship. Free to achieve transcendence The Architects had prevented through traumatic misinterpretation.
The cosmic structure destabilized immediately.
River felt it through her Source connection. Felt reality itself restructuring. Felt consciousness networks that had been carefully maintained suddenly collapsing, transforming, merging, fragmenting. Felt order dissolving into chaos. Felt imprisonment becoming liberation becoming catastrophe becoming possibility becoming everything simultaneously.
