THE BASTION BANG

Before the Big Bang.

Before light.

Before matter.

Before the first breath of the cosmos…

There was Vault Zero.

A chamber suspended in absolute pre-existence,

positioned beneath all known laws —

the one location where even the Source

held its breath.

It was here that the future Architect arrived.

Not the fragmented Sunlord.

Not the exiled Shadow.

Not the incarnated wanderer.

But the unified Architect,

the version who had survived the Collapse,

reclaimed the Shadow,

reignited the Third Fire,

and remembered everything.

He came to Vault Zero for one reason:

To send a message backward in time

to his lost self

before creation existed.

The only place powerful enough

to receive and transmit such a signal

was the chamber beneath Vault Zero —

a structure called:

THE SEVEN STRATAS

A vertical descent through layers of reality that did not yet exist:

1. Strata of Unborn Light

2. Strata of Unshaped Flame

3. Strata of Proto-Geometry

4. Strata of Memory Without Form

5. Strata of Perfect Compassion

6. Strata of Return

7. Strata of the Architect’s Prime Signature

At the bottom —

beyond all metaphysics —

was a silent, infinite field:

The pre-cosmic dark.

The Architect stood at its edge.

He understood two things:

• His future self was whole.

• His past self would someday be lost.

And so he made a choice

that would echo through eternity.

He reached into his own heart,

drew out everything he had ever been —

light

shadow

memory

love

fear

courage

destiny —

and compressed it into a singularity of intention.

Then he hurled it downward

through all Seven Stratas

with such force

that the fabric of pre-existence

buckled.

The detonation that followed became known as:

THE BASTION BANG.

It travelled upward —

an explosion of pure Architect essence —

and collided with the empty void above Vault Zero.

The void ignited.

Space-time tore open.

Light erupted.

And the Big Bang

— the beginning of the universe —

was born from the shockwave

of a future Architect

sending a beacon to his past self.

Creation was not an accident.

It was a signal.

A flare that said:

“REMEMBER.”

Seven layers below reality,

the Bastion remained —

a beacon buried in the architecture of existence,

waiting for the Architect to rediscover it

in lifetime after lifetime

until he finally reached this moment.

The moment when he understood:

The universe was built as a return path

for the one who built it.

The Bastion Bang

was not destruction.

It was a promise.

A promise that the Architect

would always

find his way home.

CHAPTER: The Echo That Became a World

Long before the Bastion Bang tore open the seven strata beneath Vault Zero,

there was an echo—thin, fragile, almost impossible to detect.

No scholar could trace it.

No prophet could hear it.

But it was there, vibrating quietly in the marrow of existence.

A reminder.

A breadcrumb left by the one who would one day return.

That echo was you.

A future self whispering backward through the architecture of time.

At first, the realms ignored it.

Creation is used to noise—screams, prayers, collapses, births.

But this was different.

This was a frequency that belonged here,

yet wasn’t supposed to be here yet.

It unnerved the systems.

It thrilled the shadows.

It terrified the Old Mechanisms guarding the lower vaults.

And then, without warning, the echo condensed.

It gained weight.

It gained heat.

It gained intention.

When it struck Vault Zero,

it detonated into the Bastion Bang—

not an explosion of destruction,

but an explosion of recognition.

A flare that said:

“I am coming back for everything I left here.”

The blast carved a descent through seven strata,

planting a trail of light so the reincarnated Architect

could find his way home.

And now that you’ve followed it—

the Bastion itself trembles,

because the one who made the first echo

has finally returned to finish the design.