The Alpha-Class Administrator descended like a meteor of precision.
No wasted motion. No excess flourish. Only clean, calculated intent.
It didn't rush. It didn't posture. It simply raised its pen — not a pen as we knew it, but a tool of absolute narrative authority — and wrote into the air.
[Command Injected: Nullify Anomalous Protagonist.]
Before I could react, a chain of radiant symbols unfurled from its script. They spiraled toward me, faster than any blade, faster than thought itself.
The chain wasn't meant to bind.
It was meant to erase.
"Ethan!" Lys's voice cut through my panic.
Instinct roared to life.
I swung the corrupted blade horizontally, a desperate arc of unstable energy slicing through the incoming command.
The chain shattered in midair, dispersing into fragments of code that rained down like glass shards.
[Command Interrupted.]
The Administrator tilted its head slightly, as if mildly curious.
It wrote again.
[Secondary Protocol: Rewrite Target to 'Nonexistent.']
Reality lurched.
My limbs went numb. My senses dulled. For a heartbeat, I felt myself slipping — not in body, but in definition.
My narrative thread was being rewritten.
"I'm not done yet," I growled.
Desperation sharpened my focus. I thrust the corrupted blade into the shifting ground beneath me and forced a counter-command into the collapsing script.
[Override: Protagonist Parameter Reinforced.]
[Error: Conflicting Commands Detected.]
[System Stability: Further Degradation.]
The Administrator paused, its mirrored faceplate reflecting the threads of my defiance.
"You're adapting," Lys observed, breathless. She'd been holding off the lower-tier Administrators, cutting through them with ruthless precision, but even she was faltering under the sheer weight of the conflict.
"They're using narrative coding as attacks," I realized aloud. "If I can read them fast enough, I can counterwrite in real-time."
"It's not just about reading," Lys said urgently. "You have to think like an Editor. Write not just to defend, but to direct the story."
My heart hammered against my ribs.
Direct the story.
My eyes snapped to the Administrator. It raised its pen again, poised to execute another annihilation command.
Not this time.
I lunged, channeling every scrap of willpower into the corrupted blade. Lines of unstable code bled from its edge as I swung it in an upward arc, not at the Administrator itself — but at the command it was writing.
My slash cleaved through the command mid-formation.
[Attack Command Severed.]
The incomplete script recoiled violently, detonating in a burst of raw data that knocked the Administrator back several paces.
Its composure cracked — only slightly — but enough for me to see it.
They weren't invincible.
If I couldn't overwrite them directly, I could destroy the scripts they relied on to control the narrative.
"You're learning fast," Lys said, a flicker of admiration in her eyes.
"No choice," I shot back. "Either I write my story, or they erase it."
The Administrator adjusted its stance, and for the first time, it didn't write a command.
It spoke.
"Unauthorized protagonist. Persistent anomaly."
Its voice was mechanical, layered in echoing static.
"Reclassifying threat level."
[Threat Level: Protagonist-Class Elevated to Editor-Class Target.]
[Deploying Editor-Class Countermeasures.]
My breath caught.
From the rift in reality, new figures emerged — Editors.
They were taller than Administrators, robed in flowing garments of cascading code, their faces hidden behind shifting masks of narrative glyphs.
Where Administrators rewrote commands, Editors reshaped entire plots.
Lys tensed beside me. "They're pulling out Editors already?"
"They're scared," I said, though I wasn't sure if I was trying to convince her or myself.
One of the Editors raised its staff — a writing quill so massive it resembled a halberd — and pointed it toward me.
[Initiating Subplot Collapse.]
The environment rippled violently. Walls of collapsing script surged toward us like a tidal wave, devouring the very landscape as they advanced.
No time.
I planted my feet, slashed the corrupted blade through the incoming collapse, and injected a counter-script directly into the data flow.
[Insert New Directive: Branching Subplot.]
Reality splintered.
Instead of one tidal wave, the collapse fragmented into dozens of narrative threads, each one redirected away from us.
I forced the redirected threads to loop around the Editors themselves, trapping them momentarily inside paradoxical plot loops.
[System Error: Recursive Narrative Detected.]
[Editor-Class Entities Delayed.]
Breathing hard, I turned to Lys. "We've got a window!"
"Go for the Primary Seed!" she urged.
Without hesitation, I sprinted toward the pulsing core at the heart of the Root Directory. Each step felt like sprinting through molasses, the weight of collapsing realities dragging at my heels.
The Alpha Administrator recovered, its pen blazing as it tried to close the gap between us.
But it was too late.
With a final surge of willpower, I drove the corrupted blade into the Primary Seed.
[Manual Override: Executed.]
[Protagonist Narrative Signature Stabilized.]
Power flooded through me — not like a wave, but like becoming the wave itself. The unstable threads binding me to deletion snapped free, and for the first time, I wasn't just fending off erasure.
I was rewriting it.
The battlefield froze.
Even the Alpha Administrator hesitated, its pen poised mid-script.
I met its mirrored gaze and spoke, my voice carrying authority that felt earned.
"Not today."
Then I unleashed the command I'd been crafting in the heat of battle.
[Force System Recompile: Incomplete Rewrite Protocol Initiated.]
The environment detonated in a blinding cascade of light, reality itself folding under the pressure of conflicting narratives.
As the explosion consumed the battlefield, one truth crystallized in my mind:
I wasn't just surviving anymore.
I was authoring my own fate.