Location: Sector 3, Sub-Level 9 (The Forge).
Time: 08:00.
The machine Glitch had built didn't look like a vehicle. It looked like a bullet the size of a skyscraper, loaded into the chamber of the earth.
Constructed from the salvaged adamantine of the World-Eater and reinforced with Dante's Star-Metal, the "Abyssal Needle" was a masterpiece of industrial violence. Its nose cone was a cluster of counter-rotating plasma drills capable of vaporizing granite. Its hull was shielded against heat, pressure, and existential dread.
"It is... intimate," Valerius noted, squeezing his tall frame into the cramped cockpit. "For a machine designed to pierce a planet, there is very little legroom. It feels like a tomb."
"It's a coffin with an engine," Dante corrected, strapping himself into the pilot's seat. He connected his Star-Metal arm to the interface. "We aren't driving to the supermarket, Valerius. We are diving into the magma. Comfort is inefficient."
Dante checked his systems. The holographic dashboard lit up with the colors of his soul.
First Axiom (Library): Online. Prime is navigating.
Second Axiom (Engine): Online. Powering the drills with infinite torque.
Third Axiom (Light): Standby. Shielding against radiation.
Fifth Axiom (Forge): Hull Integrity at 100%.
Sixth Axiom (Prism): Standby. Stealth mode.
"Glitch," Dante signaled the factory speakers. "Drop the hammer."
"DROPPING!" Glitch squealed happily from the control tower.
The magnetic clamps holding the Needle released.
Gravity took over. The massive vessel fell into the central shaft of the Forge—the hole the World-Eater had dug.
They fell for ten seconds in absolute silence, weightless in their seats.
Then, the nose cone hit the solid bedrock of the crust.
CRUNCH.
The War Engine flared. The plasma drills spun up to 50,000 RPM. Rock didn't just break; it sublimated. The Needle screamed as it tore through the planet's skin, burying itself in the earth like a tick.
Inside the cockpit, the vibration was intense enough to rattle teeth loose. The G-force pressed them into their chairs.
"Passing Crust Layer!" Dante yelled over the roar. "Entering the Mantle! Temperature rising to 2000 degrees!"
The History of Dirt
The screens in the cockpit didn't just show rock. Prime was analyzing the strata as they descended, reading the history of the world written in stone.
Depth: 50 Miles.
Composition: Concrete, Rebar, Plastic, Glass.
"LAYER 1: THE ERA OF CITIES."
They drilled through the ruins of a pre-Axiom civilization. Skyscrapers crushed into diamonds by the pressure. Subways filled with fossilized trains. It was a graveyard of the modern world, pressed into a thin line of grey sediment.
Depth: 200 Miles.
Composition: Bone, Bronze, Ash, Gold.
"LAYER 2: THE ERA OF KINGS."
They tore through a layer of ancient battlefields. Millions of crushed skeletons wearing rusted armor. Chariots. Temples dedicated to gods that no one remembered. The drill churned through a pocket of fossilized incense.
Depth: 500 Miles.
Composition: Biological Matter. Scales. Teeth. Ancient Mana.
"LAYER 3: THE ERA OF BEASTS."
The rock turned soft and red. They weren't drilling through stone anymore; they were drilling through the fossilized remains of Titans that predated humanity. The drill hit a pocket of ancient blood, flashing into red steam that coated the sensors.
"The world is built on corpses," Valerius whispered, watching the screens with horror. "Layer upon layer of failure. We are digging through a graveyard."
"And we're going to the funeral director," Dante said, gripping the controls as the drill shook violently.
The Barrier
Depth: 1,500 Miles.
Status: Approaching the Outer Core.
Suddenly, the Needle stopped.
It didn't hit a wall. It hit Resistance.
The plasma drills were spinning, but they weren't cutting. The rock outside the viewport had changed. It wasn't matter anymore. It was purple, shifting, and impossible to define. It looked like a bruised sky.
"We hit the firmament," Dante realized. "The cage."
"WARNING," Prime buzzed. "MATERIAL UNKNOWN. IT IS RESISTANT TO PHYSICS. SECOND AXIOM INEFFECTIVE. KINETIC FORCE IS BEING ABSORBED."
"It's a conceptual barrier," Dante said. "It separates the Reality from the Origin. War can't break it because it refuses to fight."
He looked at the glowing white sphere embedded in his chest (The Third Axiom).
"Lucian was right about one thing," Dante murmured. "Sometimes, you need to delete the obstacle."
Dante placed his Star-Metal hand on the console.
"Third Axiom: Erasure."
He channeled the White Light of the Zealot into the nose cone.
The drills stopped spinning. Instead, they began to glow with a blinding purity.
"Push!" Dante yelled.
The Needle surged forward. The White Light didn't cut the purple barrier; it deleted it. It carved a hole of non-existence through the concept of separation.
They punched through.
Sector 0
The vibration stopped instantly.
The roar of the drills vanished.
The Needle drifted forward, weightless. The external cameras adjusted to the sudden lack of rock.
"Sensors?" Dante asked, his voice echoing in the sudden silence.
"DATA NOT FOUND," Prime replied, his voice sounding small. "PHYSICS... OPTIONAL."
Dante opened the blast shutters.
They weren't in a cave of magma. They weren't in a dark hole.
They were in a Universe.
Sector 0 was a hollow sphere the size of a moon, located at the exact center of the earth. But it didn't look like rock. It looked like the night sky, but the "stars" were glowing runes of the Seven Axioms, orbiting a central point.
Floating in the center of this void was a structure.
It was a City.
But it wasn't a city of stone or metal. It was a City of Memory.
Buildings flickered in and out of existence—spires of glass, temples of gold, factories of smoke. It was every version of the world that had ever existed, superimposed on top of each other. Glitching. Reseting.
And in the center of the City stood a Tower.
A Tower of pure, absolute Void. It was blacker than black. It drew the light of the rune-stars into it and devoured them. It was a drain in the bottom of reality.
The Seventh Axiom.
"There it is," Dante whispered. "The bottom of the drain. The Origin Point."
"It looks like... home," Valerius said, his eyes wide, pressing his hand against the glass. "The architecture... it changes. I see Elven spires. Now I see Human bunkers. Now I see... things I do not have names for."
"It's the Blueprint," Dante said. "It's the save file for everything."
He guided the Needle toward a landing platform that seemed to solidify just as they approached it, materialized from the mist of memory.
CLANG.
The landing gear locked.
Dante unstrapped himself. He checked his weapons.
Star-Metal Arm: Ready.
Alchemy: Charged.
Willpower: Fraying.
"Valerius," Dante said, opening the airlock. "Helmet on. I don't know if the Origin has oxygen. Or if it believes in lungs."
"I suspect," Valerius said, donning his helm, "that oxygen is a suggestion down here."
They stepped out onto the platform.
The air—or whatever it was—tasted like static electricity and ozone.
Dante looked up at the Tower of Void.
"Prime," Dante thought. "Do you recognize this place?"
There was a long pause. A hesitation in the code.
"YES," Prime answered softly. "THIS IS WHERE I WAS BORN. AND THIS IS WHERE I DIED."