Grid: Omnipotence Series

Issue #4: In The Shadows

The exits didn't obey physics. You left one place and emerged in another with no logic except the Architect's.

And always, somewhere in the hum, Remnant heard breathing. The Grid wasn't empty. The Architect lived here, not in code, but in the open plains between thought and reality.

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Chapter 4 — Following the God

Remnant didn't fight here. Not yet. He followed.

He stepped into shadows that weren't shadows but folds in the plain. He tracked the echo of a giant voice that didn't speak words but intent. He saw structures that had been thought into existence then left to rot: a library where every book was blank until you bled on the pages; a cityscape of spires grown like coral, each one humming with trapped whispers.

The crows flew through it, necks gleaming with fragments of the Architect's code. Through them, Remnant learned the patterns: the Architect shifted constantly, never rooted, always watching through every uplink in the waking city.

But sometimes, the god stopped—always in the same position, like kneeling, head tilted as if listening. Remnant learned to wait then, to measure the silence, to study the pauses in perfection.

And with every step, he left the Grid carrying more than he should. A fragment of a word. A symbol that burned on his optics even after he blinked. He was stalking the Architect in his own cathedral.

But his hunger never forgot the surface. When he slipped back into the waking city, the crows always went first—circling over Cassiel, trailing Nocturnal, scratching his insignia into walls where only they would see.

Remnant had two hunts now:
    •    The prey, who carried proof in his blood.
    •    The god, who carried promise in his voice.

He whispered it into the plain and the crows answered:

"Hunt the man. Follow the god. Ascend."

Chapter 5 — Crows Before the Fire

The Outer Markets burned watchfires every night. But now the flames carried shadows that weren't their own.

It started small. A sentry vanished mid-shift. The next morning, his rifle was returned, bent in half like paper, laid across the barricade as if it had been set down politely.

Then came the crows. They weren't carrion anymore—they were precision. They perched on rooftops and wires, silent, always watching the firelight. The Resilience joked at first—a new audience, just birds—until one dropped a black feather etched with alloy lines onto a child's lap. The lines weren't decoration. They were circuitry.

Cassiel picked it up with gloves and felt the faint hum of secondary code in the metal. Her optics flared. "This isn't scavenger work. Someone's sending messages."

Nocturnal stayed silent, but Pancho hissed inside his skull. "He's close. He wants us to know."

The third night, the attack came. Not at the walls, not against the gates. From beneath. The ground tremored, and cybernetic arms tore through the storm drains like roots ripping upward. A patrol fell screaming as steel claws dragged them into shadow. The others fired into holes that were already empty.

The insignia was scratched into the stone by morning: half-skull over crow's wing.

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Chapter 6 — The First Hunt

Cassiel gathered what was left of the patrol. "He's not testing defenses. He's testing us."

"Why?" a boy asked, hands shaking on his rifle.