Emotions were not ethereal abstractions. They were information. Structured, coded, vibrational patterns encoded into the spiritual layer of reality. Fear had a frequency, rage had a rhythm and despair had a harmonic signature.
When Makun's desperation peaked, when his survival instinct screamed louder than reason, his Route Core broadcast that information outward. It imprinted itself on the Ashe flooding his body. It saturated the atoms around him. It resonated through the Veil.
And the Deep responded.
A response big enough to attract the attention of every Adept practitioner in the vicinity.
The Deep was not empty. It was saturated with chaotic information. Every act of violence, every death, every collapse, every moment of entropy ever experienced by any living thing had left residue in the Deep. Rage from a thousand murdered souls. Desperation from a million failed struggles. Madness from entities that had existed for eons without form or purpose.
