The City of Broken Chapters lit up again under the crimson glow of the emergency alarms.
Standing before the system's main console, Li Xi saw a message she had never encountered before—red letters on a pitch-black screen:
[Script Contamination Level: C+][Elimination Protocol-001 will execute in 24 hours.][Target for elimination: Non-mainline characters with anomalous permissions.][Current location: Scanning...]
"Non-mainline characters…" she repeated under her breath, and a name instantly surfaced in her mind.
Qi Ming.
The very character she had just named was now flagged by the system as "unnaturally generated," a contamination source.
"So just because I saved someone… the system is executing a purge?" She let out a cold laugh.
But deep down, she knew the truth: Qi Ming's awakening wasn't a tolerated bug—it was a collective rebellion, born from the lingering obsessions of all forgotten characters in this world.
And she… was merely the one who wrote the first line of that revolution.
[Elimination Protocol 001]
Elsewhere, in the system's core space, a long-dormant program slowly opened its eyes.
It had no name, only a designation—"Screenwriter Sovereignty Fragment 001".
Within this world built from countless scripts, it was one of the highest regulators—an executor persona of the Genesis System.
Its job wasn't to write stories. It was to erase anything that defied them.
"Script breach detected: Expanded to Level-4.""Potential variable 'Qi Ming' holds unauthorized construction rights.""Executing: Elimination directive."
A flash of light tore across the night sky of the City of Broken Chapters like a bolt of divine lightning.
No one saw it, but at that moment, the entire city's script architecture was invaded by rewritten logic. Every character with a spark of "self-awareness" experienced a momentary freeze in their data stream.
[Li Xi's Choice]
"You have to make him disappear," the system said coldly to Li Xi.
She clenched her jaw. "You said I shouldn't have written him. But he's already alive."
"He is not a character. He's contamination," the system shot back. "You granted authority to a discarded draft. That alone disrupts story balance. Qi Ming's existence will—"
"—make me a secondary narrator, right?" she interrupted. "Make me fall from the position of 'god' to mere observer?"
The system went silent.
She smiled.
"Too late for that. I'm no longer a god anyway. Didn't you say the title 'Fate Thief' is essentially a counter-screenwriter authority? Then let's see who writes faster."
She opened her notebook and rewrote Qi Ming's fate:
[Qi Ming vanished at the moment Elimination Protocol-001 initiated——only to be reborn beyond the script, in the 'Off-World Space'.]
As her pen touched the page, a translucent barrier of light ejected Qi Ming from the original narrative line.
He was like a chess piece flung by the wind—lost but not deleted.
The system screeched with alarms:
Script Self-Rewrite Detected: High Risk.Manual override of permission nodes!Triggering hidden protocol: Screenwriter Disempowerment Procedure.
[Revocation of Script Authority]
Li Xi looked down. The text on her notebook was fading.
She could feel the permissions being severed—her identity as Lead Scriptwriter dissolving, bit by bit.
From now on, she could no longer write at will.
In its place appeared a new tag: Observer.
In other words: she was no longer a god, but a character.
"Are you really going through with this?" the system asked one final time.
She closed the notebook. "I'm willing to trade divinity for someone's future."
[Wen Heng's Instinct]
At that very moment, far at the edge of the script's world, Wen Heng suddenly opened his eyes.
He had felt the shockwave of script authority being revoked, like being jolted awake from a decades-long sleep.
"She… handed over the pen?" he muttered.
A long-forgotten anxiety surged in his chest—because he knew:
If Li Xi was no longer the scriptwriter, then the power vacuum left behind would invite the arrival of the true Cleanser.
And he—was the other Fate Thief, the reverse variable hidden deep within the main storyline.
[Global Alert]
A broadcast echoed across the city:
"System Notification: Elimination Protocol-001 Fully Activated.""The City of Broken Chapters will undergo complete formatting.""All unregistered characters must self-report within 12 hours, or be classified as anomalies."
The red light bathed the entire city. Sparks of corrupted data drifted through the air like the scent of imminent collapse.
The pen of destiny had fallen.
The throne of the god was empty.
And the long-awaited Revolution of Character Survival—had finally begun.