Pain.

  So much pain.

  The errors flashed, again and again. As fast as they went, more came. Always the same. Yelling at me. Punishing me for what I had done.

  I’d thought falling had hurt. This was worse. Surely, this time I had died.

  Everything was red. So much red.

  Go away, I begged it, but the System didn’t answer to feeble pleas from foolish stars.

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  If I had died, where was I? Did stars have an afterlife?

  How would I even get to the hypothetical afterlife when Otina was dead?

  I shoved away the error message, and this time, mercifully, no more came. What had I done to end up like this?

  Cixilo, the god core shard, attempting to fuse with it. It came back to me in pieces. How arrogant had I been to think it was a good idea?

  I checked over my core. It was intact. I thanked my luck for small mercies. I wasn’t dead then. The red light was me. I was still in my core chamber.

  Another message popped up, and I almost dismissed it on reflex before I saw it wasn’t another error.

  Well shit.