The Extinction Event's transformation unfolded over months, visible through sensors and data streams but fundamentally difficult to perceive in its entirety. What had been an undifferentiated force of reality-disassembly was beginning to develop patterns. It was developing something that might have been personality or purpose or both.
The Precursors, with their ancient knowledge and their newly developed understanding of autonomy, theorized about what was happening.
"It's developing self-awareness," one of the ancient Precursor entities said. "Your contact with it, your communication about the nature of existence and choice, you essentially woke something up. You introduced concepts to it that didn't previously exist in its framework. And now it's integrating those concepts. Now it's bec
