Kael hit the non-existent ground with a jarring thump, the impact rattling through his very essence, a ghost of sensation in the boundless digital void. He lay there for a moment, disoriented, the churning chaos of pure data still swirling in his peripheral vision like a digital nausea. The hum of the collapsing server structure, Nyx's furious shriek – they had vanished, swallowed by the infinite blackness that now enveloped him. Above him, below him, all around him, was nothing but a canvas of absolute dark, speckled with distant, twinkling bits of broken code like shattered, dying stars.
He pushed himself up, his phantom limbs aching with an exhaustion that was more mental than physical. His Admin panel, which had vanished in the maelstrom, flickered back into existence, a comforting ob
