Dust settled over the cracked stone ground as Aiden stood with his chest heaving, blood trickling from a wound on his arm. The faint glow of his system buffs still shimmered around him, their light flickering like dying embers.
Across from him, standing atop a broken pillar, was Lucius.
He looked young—maybe eighteen—but something about him felt ancient. His skin was pale, nearly gray, like someone who hadn't seen sunlight in years. Long, messy black hair fell over his forehead, partially obscuring two dark rings under his eyes that gave him the look of a haunted soul. He wore a white robe, torn and stained with battle scars and ink-like splashes of darkness. The robe billowed slightly even without wind, as if reacting to something deeper—an aura not of power, but of rebellion.
In his hand, a jagged, obsidian-black scythe was planted firmly into the stone.
The Shadow Crawler's body still twitched behind Aiden, finally dead after two exhausting hours of battle.
Lucius hadn't moved. He'd just watched.
Aiden's voice cracked the silence.
"You made me fight that thing…"
Lucius slowly looked up, his eyes dark and hollow, as if sleep had long abandoned him.
"Yes," he said quietly, his tone neither apologetic nor mocking. Just… tired.
"You sent it. You lured me here. And now what?" Aiden raised his sword, his voice shaking with fury. "You want to fight too?"
Lucius stepped down from the stone.
"No," he said. "I want to talk."
Aiden stared. "Talk? After everything?"
Lucius ignored him. His bare feet touched the cracked floor, and his robe dragged behind like a shroud.
"You're angry. You're confused. But underneath it, Aiden… you feel it, don't you? That this world isn't right."
Aiden's grip tightened. "Shut up."
Lucius stopped a few feet away.
"Have you ever wondered why your life feels like a game? Why does your pain always happen right before you get stronger? Why do your enemies talk just long enough for you to hit them?"
He looked up. "Because it's all written. Every bit of it."
Aiden's heart skipped.
"What the hell are you saying?"
Lucius raised his hand, summoning a faint ripple in the air. Strange symbols shimmered around his palm—words, broken apart like shattered glass.
"We are not real, Aiden. We are created. Scripted."
Aiden's voice trembled. "What…?"
"There is someone above us. A being who watches. Who controls. Who writes every win, every loss, every tragic death to make his story more exciting."
Lucius looked up at the sky. His eyes burned, not with madness—but truth.
"He is called The Author."
Aiden stumbled back. "You're insane."
"I was. Until I woke up," Lucius said. "I broke free from my script. I went off the path I was given. I should've died four years ago, but I refused. I became unpredictable. And so… I became a threat."
He started pacing, arms behind his back.
"And you, Aiden, are the next threat. The favorite character. The one everyone's watching. You have fans—outside this world. But your fate is sealed like mine was."
Aiden shook his head. "Stop."
"You were made to suffer. To rise. To fall. To entertain. Your father's death? A plot device. Altherion's destruction? A turning point. All of it. Scripted."
Aiden's knuckles whitened. "Liar."
Lucius stepped forward, eyes piercing.
"Then why did your system appear at age 16? Why do quests conveniently give you just enough strength to survive each time? Why do you level up only when the story demands it?"
Silence.
Wind blew softly through the ruined hall, carrying ash and whispers.
Aiden wanted to scream, to call him mad. But a small voice in his head said otherwise.
It made sense.
He remembered dreams—scenes before they happened. Remembered people acting strange, like puppets with no depth. He'd always dismissed it as stress.
Lucius knelt and picked up a small stone shaped like an eye. "We're watched. Always."
"Why destroy everything?" Aiden asked, voice barely a whisper.
Lucius turned, eyes softening.
"Because the only way to end our suffering… is to end the story."
He crushed the stone in his palm.
"I will burn this world. Myself. You. Everyone. I will erase us all. Because freedom is better than this scripted cage."
Then—BOOM.
The world shook.
A golden flash tore through the dark sky outside the ruins.
Lucius flinched. His head jerked upward, eyes wide.
"No…"
Aiden turned as golden light bled through the cracks of the throne room ceiling. The light was too warm, too precise. It wasn't sunlight—it was presence.
"Lucius…?" Aiden asked, breath catching.
Lucius backed away.
"It's him," he whispered.
A thin line of golden fire cracked the sky.
"The Auth—"
He never finished.
The ceiling exploded in white-gold brilliance.
Out of the light descended Angels—not feathered, gentle ones. These were towering beings of divine metal and radiant fire, faceless, perfect, terrifying. They hovered in the air like silent executioners, golden flames burning at their feet.
And in the center of them…
A young man.
He appeared to be no older than nineteen. He wore a jet-black suit, perfect and clean. His hair was short, his expression calm. In one hand, he held a floating pen, dripping with golden ink that shimmered like stardust. In the other, a divine book, its pages glowing, unreadable.
He touched the ground softly, as if gravity feared him.
His eyes met Aiden's.
"I've been watching you," he said.
His voice was smooth—too smooth. It echoed with power. With ownership.
Lucius stood frozen. "You… are !"
The young man smiled faintly. "Lucius. My disobedient child. You did well. But your story ends here."
He turned to Aiden.
"And you… My masterpiece. You weren't supposed to meet me yet."
Aiden stumbled back, overwhelmed. "What are you?"
The man tapped his pen in the air.
"I am the one who writes your world. Your victories. Your losses. I am the voice in the system. I am… The Author."
He raised the pen.
"And now… I've come to correct the script."
The skies above twisted, no longer blue but a canvas of gold-streaked darkness, like ink bleeding through heaven's paper. The Angels hovered silently, their wings not of feathers, but of shattered light and burning runes—each beat of their presence sending shockwaves through the air. Their faces were blank masks, adorned only with a single golden glyph in the center of their foreheads, glowing and shifting like living scripture.
Around them, reality trembled. The very air felt thick, like trying to breathe through parchment soaked in divine ink. The ruins of the stronghold groaned under the weight of something unnatural, as if the world itself was being overwritten.
In The Author's hand, the pen floated freely, casting faint trails of golden mist as it moved, always scribbling in the air even when still. It seemed alive, a needle stitching fate itself. And the book he carried—massive, floating beside him like a loyal phantom—had pages that turned themselves, each one blank and glowing until the pen touched it, after which the words burned into existence and echoed softly through the world like whispers from a higher plane.
Every name, every event, every tragedy—was being written in real-time.
The Author smiled as the book opened wider, and the pen hovered above the next blank page.