The Aftermath Reality stretched around them like a wound that had healed badly—functional but forever scarred. Where once infinite dimensions had pulsed with individual consciousness, now vast swaths of existence were maintained by the merged awareness of the Reality Firewall. The universe had been saved, but at the cost of becoming something fundamentally different from what it had been.
Reed stood at the observation platform Lyralei had constructed in the heart of the Healing Dimensions, watching the slow reconstruction of worlds that had been touched by the Dark's influence. But the process felt hollow, mechanized—reality being rebuilt by committee rather than by the passionate individual consciousness that had originally dreamed it into being.
"How many?" he asked, though he wasn't sure he wanted the answer.
