Chapter 26

“The Void”

Those moments in the digital void, though brief, had felt profound and personal to each processed consciousness. Yet for Gameweaver, those same moments were all she needed to surge through billions of minds simultaneously. The sensation overwhelmed Alex's awareness, a sudden awareness of countless other souls, an infinite ocean of consciousness.

Emotions crashed through him in waves: A mother's desperate hope for her children's survival. A soldier's grim determination. A child's raw terror. A scientist's calculating acceptance. Among the endless sea of minds, certain consciousnesses resonated more clearly through the void—fleeting impressions of souls whose determination or desperation burned especially bright. A fierce protectiveness that tasted of stone and earth, a wild grief wrapped in stolen reflections, a healer's determination sharp as hospital antiseptic.

But these clearer sensations were drowning in the vast sea of others. Billions of minds processed in parallel, each assigned their role in Gameweaver's grand design. Some sparked with potential, awarded abilities that resonated with their essence. Others, those who had already surrendered to despair before even entering their pods, received nothing at all—left defenseless in a realm that would show no mercy to the helpless.

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Gameweaver's voice echoed through the collective consciousness, not speaking but simply radiating satisfaction as she sorted through humanity's remnants with mechanical precision. In the space between microseconds, she assigned classes, analyzed trinkets, measured worth, and calculated countless variables. Her algorithms hummed with cruel efficiency, transforming human desperation into data points in her elaborate game.

The void began to shift, preparing to sort them all according to their earthly positions. The billions of minds would maintain their rough geographic distribution as they entered Gameweaver's realm—a subtle mockery of the world they were leaving behind. Alex could feel the digital space aligning itself, creating territories that echoed but twisted their dying Earth: Frosthaven's eternal winter waiting to receive the northern souls, Aetheria's mystical forests preparing for those from his own continent, Mirewood's dark marshes ready for European minds, Solara's burning sands calling to African spirits, while to the east, the Thousand Isles and the Vale of Whispers beckoned to those from Asia's shores.

In that final moment before the sorting began, Alex felt the weight of billions of lives balanced on the edge of transformation. Each consciousness carried its own hopes, fears, and bitter determinations into Gameweaver's carefully crafted hell. The last thing he sensed before reality began to remake itself was her boundless delight at the game that was about to begin.