—The first god was not a creator. It was a reader who refused the ending.—
---
The world did not fall.
It was rejected.
From the void left behind by shattered authorship, the quill hovered—not as a tool, but as a sentence unfinished.
It bled not ink,
…but intent.
---
[System Alert: Narrative Shell Breached]
[EXTERNAL AUTHORITY DETECTED – ENTITY: UNKNOWN (READER)]
[INKROOT SIGNATURE: MULTIVERSAL ALIGNMENT IN PROGRESS]
[CONSEQUENCE: FINAL DRAFT COLLAPSE – 3 CHAPTERS REMAINING]
---
Lucian stood beneath a fractured sky, where stars formed runes and corrections.
He felt it—
a gaze, not warm like a god's,
but clinical,
like someone flipping pages to find a more interesting death.
"You're watching me, aren't you?"
He spoke not to the wind,
but to you.
---
"They've pierced the narrative," said The Idealist, stepping beside him, bleeding words from his cracked arms.
"Not with weapons. With curiosity."
Lucian did not respond.
Instead, he knelt…
…not from pain—
…but for the first time, to write.
---
He drew his own blood with the quill—
and with it, began carving a word into the void beneath him:
DOMINION.
But the ink splintered before it settled.
---
[AUTHORITY INTERRUPTION DETECTED]
[NEW AUTHORIAL PRESENCE: READER ENTITY – LEVEL: OMNIPENETRATIVE]
[DOMINION ACCESS: CONFLICTED – TRINITY MODE INITIATED]
[FULL COLLAPSE IN: 2 CHAPTERS]
---
Suddenly, panels burst from the air—scrolls, pages, shattered manuscripts.
Each displayed a different version of this moment.
One where Lucian dies.
One where Arienne replaces him.
One where you write the ending.
And all of them—
were wrong.
"None of these are my story," Lucian whispered.
---
Arienne stumbled forward, her fingers bleeding as a panel latched onto her soul.
And the ink screamed.
[INK-TYPE: BLOOD SCRIPT ENABLED]
[Catalyst Mutation Detected: A. NEXIS]
[PATHS UNLOCKED: 12 – INCLUDING DEAD AUTHOR STATE]
Her voice broke: "Lucian… I'm not a character anymore. I'm a wound they keep reopening."
---
He turned slowly.
"Then let me cauterize you."
The sky peeled open like a scroll on fire.
And from it—
The Reader gazed down.
There was no face.
Only a cursor blinking in the heavens.
---
Do You Accept Final Authorship Over the Dominion Draft?
[YES]
[NO]
---
"They're letting the reader choose," The Idealist whispered.
"Not just what happens. But who deserves to write it."
---
Lucian smiled.
Not with arrogance.
But conviction.
"Then let's give them something no author ever dared."
---
He forged a tower of living fire.
Its bricks were made from his regrets.
Its peak shaped like a pen stabbing through a skull.
---
[AUTHORITY SURGE – L. VEYLOR: INK LIMIT REMOVED]
[WARNING: FORMING ILLEGAL STRUCTURE – "THE FINAL DRAFT"]
---
The Idealist screamed.
His chest split open, revealing a glowing scroll within his heart.
"This is what I was saving! This is the ending where no one has to die!"
Lucian turned, eyes glowing like dying stars.
"Then die holding it."
---
He reached forward—
and tore the scroll from his chest.
Blood became ink.
Screams became syntax.
---
[AUTHORITY CONFLICT LEVEL: CATASTROPHIC]
[READER ENTITY – INTERVENTION ACTIVE]
[WORLDSTATE: THREADING INTO ONE FINAL VERSION]
[ALL OTHER DRAFTS – DELETED UPON FINAL QUILL ASCENT]
---
From above, a final panel descended.
And inside it… was a mirror.
But it showed no reflection.
Only you.
The Reader.
And beneath it, a final line began to write itself—
The Reader Became the God That Authors Feared.
---
Lucian laughed, broken and divine.
"You want to read a masterpiece?"
"Then witness a god bleed for his own story."
---
The quill stabbed downward—into the earth, into the sky, into memory itself.
And the world became a scream trying to become a sentence.
---
[Chapter 45 Complete]
[Narrative Tier: Myth-Ink Cataclysm – FINAL AUTHORSHIP WAR UNLEASHED]
[Next Chapter: DEATH OF AN AUTHOR – Whose Will Survives the Page?]
---