The moment the Ancient Will fully detached from the control architecture of the Reliquary, the entire layer shuddered.
It was not a physical tremor, nor was it a simple fluctuation of energy. It was something far deeper, as if the hidden grammar that had held the trial together for countless cycles had suddenly lost the intelligence that once guided it. Rules that had once been absolute began behaving like suggestions, and systems that had operated with perfect precision for epochs started drifting out of alignment. The Reliquary did not shut down, but it no longer moved with the same seamless authority, because the consciousness that had been watching over every participant, every monster, and every hidden protocol had abandoned its post for the sake of a single desperate decision.
Across the void, the effects appeared almost at once.
