Silence.
Absolute, breathless, heavy silence stretched across the shattered remnants of the physical world.
The voice that had emerged through the narrow, one-inch fissure of the colossal gateway echoed across the firmament. It did not carry the fierce, tempestuous roar of a warrior's power, nor the dark, malevolent resonance of the primordial entity bound within the lower depths.
It was flat. It was composed. It was profoundly, terrifyingly patient—the tone of a high-tier administrator casually reviewing an unexpected anomaly in an established system ledger.
> **"Why are all ten of your assigned Authority cores manifesting outside their designated chronological timelines?"**
>
No one on the ruined plaza offered an immediate reply. No one moved a single muscle.
