"On your knees, Lucian. Your pathetic breathing is ruining my mood."
The golden Desert Eagle kissed Lucian Ash's forehead—cold, final, *expensive*. Arthur Sky's perfect smile gleamed in the warehouse's flickering light, rain drumming overhead like a death march.
*This is it. Chapter 37. Where the cannon fodder dies.*
Blood dripped from Lucian's split lip onto concrete. Three years of being Arthur's punching bag, his stepping stone, his *entertainment*—and this was how it ended. Executed like a dog in some abandoned warehouse.
Arthur's manicured finger caressed the trigger. "Any last words, *loser*?"
Then the world **shattered**.
Time froze mid-heartbeat. Raindrops hung suspended like crystal bullets. Arthur's sneer locked in digital perfection. And Lucian saw it—cascading streams of green code flowing down everything. The walls. The gun. *Reality itself*.
A blood-red warning exploded across his vision:
**[⚠️ CRITICAL ERROR: Plot Execution Detected]**
**[Target: Lucian Ash - Role: FODDER]**
**[Death Timer: 00:00:02]**
**[Status: TERMINATION IMMINENT]**
Above Arthur's weapon, glowing text pulsed:
**[Weapon.Target = "Lucian_Ash"]**
**[Damage.Type = "FATAL"]**
**[Plot.Necessity = "TRUE"]**
*What the hell?*
Lucian's mind exploded with impossible understanding. This wasn't real life—it was a *story*. And he was written to die. Right here. Right now.
"Fuck that," he whispered through frozen time.
His consciousness reached out—not his hand, but his *will*—and grabbed the floating code. His fingers moved through digital space, deleting, rewriting:
**[Weapon.Target = "Arthur_Sky"]**
Time **SNAPPED** back like a rubber band.
Arthur pulled the trigger with that trademark protagonist smirk—
The bullet curved mid-flight, defying physics, and **BLASTED** through Arthur's own shoulder.
"AHHHHHHH!" Arthur's scream shattered the warehouse silence as he spun, blood spraying in a perfect arc. His golden gun clattered across concrete. "WHAT THE FUCK—HOW—"
His three bodyguards stood frozen, **[ERROR]** flickering above their heads like broken video game NPCs.
Lucian gasped, power flooding his veins like liquid lightning. A translucent interface materialized:
**[🔧 CHAOS EDITOR - ACTIVATED]**
**[Reality Access: GRANTED]**
**[Narrative Energy: +150]**
**[Welcome to God Mode]**
"You little SHIT!" Arthur clutched his bleeding shoulder, golden eyes blazing with fury and confusion. "KILL HIM! KILL HIM NOW!"
But Lucian was already moving. He dove behind a shipping container as gunfire erupted, bullets sparking off metal. His heart hammered—not from fear anymore, but from *euphoria*.
*I just made the golden boy shoot himself. I rewrote reality.*
He sprinted through the warehouse's back exit into the storm. Rain lashed his face as he stumbled through garbage-strewn alleys, Arthur's voice echoing behind him: "FIND THAT COCKROACH! I'LL SKIN HIM ALIVE!"
Lucian pressed against a brick wall, chest heaving. His reflection stared back from a puddle—and floating above his head in gray, dismissive text:
**[Role: Fodder]**
**[Narrative Value: DISPOSABLE]**
**[Scheduled Death: Chapter 37]**
He looked up at the massive billboard across the street. Arthur's perfect face smiled down at the city, golden letters blazing:
**[Role: Protagonist - SSS Rank]**
**[Plot Armor: MAXIMUM]**
**[Destiny: GUARANTEED SUCCESS]**
The humiliation hit like a physical blow. Every beating, every humiliation, every moment of Arthur making him grovel—it was all *scripted*. He was literally written to be garbage.
"Not anymore," Lucian snarled, wiping blood from his mouth.
**[Story Deviation Detected!]**
**[Narrative Energy +100]**
**[WARNING: Correction Protocols May Activate]**
His shirt was soaked with blood from Arthur's "pre-execution entertainment." He needed medical supplies, but his wallet was empty—Arthur had destroyed his job last month, just for fun.
A 24-hour pharmacy glowed across the street, its neon cross flickering like a beacon.
*Time to really test this thing.*
The bell chimed as he entered, dripping rainwater. The night clerk—tired, middle-aged, dead behind the eyes—glanced up from her phone.
"Help you?"
Lucian scanned the medical aisle. There: military-grade hemostatic spray, the kind that sealed bullet wounds instantly. Price tag: **$500**.
He focused on the numbers, feeling that intoxicating sensation of reaching into reality's source code:
**[Item.Price = $500.00]**
Delete. Replace.
**[Item.Price = $0.00]**
"I'll take this," he said, placing the bottle on the counter.
The clerk scanned it without blinking. "No charge. Have a great night!"
She handed it over like it was perfectly normal, her eyes slightly unfocused, reading from a script she couldn't see.
*Holy shit. I can edit ANYTHING.*
He "bought" bandages, antiseptic, energy bars—all free. Each time, the clerk's memory adjusted, reality bending around his modifications.
Twenty minutes later, Lucian sat in an abandoned subway tunnel, patching wounds by phone light. The spray worked like magic, sealing cuts that should've needed surgery.
**[Health: 34% → 87%]**
**[Narrative Energy: 250/1000]**
He pulled up the Chaos Editor interface:
**[PARAMETER MODIFICATION AVAILABLE]**
- Physical Attributes ✓
- Environmental Variables ✓
- Character Relationships [LOCKED - Insufficient Access]
- Major Plot Events [LOCKED - Insufficient Access]
- Universal Constants [LOCKED - Admin Only]**
*So I can't just delete Arthur or rewrite the whole story. There are limits.* Good—unlimited power would be boring.
His phone buzzed: "BREAKING: Arthur Sky hospitalized after freak accident during private meeting."
Lucian grinned savagely. Arthur would spin this somehow, play the victim. That's what protagonists did.
But something was wrong.
A mechanical whirring echoed through the tunnel—like a drone, but *wrong*. Lucian looked up to see a sleek black sphere hovering at the entrance, its single red eye fixed on him with predatory focus.
**[NCB Surveillance Unit #447]**
**[Target: Narrative Anomaly]**
**[Threat Assessment: MODERATE → SEVERE]**
The drone's eye flared crimson, and a synthesized voice cut through the darkness:
"**DEVIATION CONFIRMED. SUBJECT: LUCIAN ASH. VIOLATION: UNAUTHORIZED REALITY MODIFICATION. INITIATING CORRECTION SEQUENCE.**"
Red targeting lasers painted Lucian's chest.
"**RETURN TO DESIGNATED NARRATIVE PATH. COMPLIANCE WINDOW: TEN SECONDS.**"
Lucian's blood turned to ice. *They have enforcers. The story has fucking enforcers.*
"**TEN. NINE. EIGHT.**"
He scrambled to his feet, fingers flying through the Chaos Editor, but the drone's code was encrypted, locked behind firewalls he couldn't crack.
"**SEVEN. SIX. FIVE.**"
The drone's weapon charged, crackling energy that made the air itself scream.
"**FOUR. THREE.**"
Lucian dove behind a concrete pillar as the beam fired, superheating the space where he'd stood. The smell of ozone and melted metal filled his nostrils.
"**CORRECTION FAILED. ESCALATING TO TERMINATION.**"
More whirring. Backup units. Maybe dozens.
*Think, think, THINK!*
Lucian spotted a maintenance panel: **[Emergency Flood Control System]**. The old subway connected to storm drains, designed for flash floods.
His fingers flew through the code:
**[Flood_Gates.Status = "CLOSED"]**
**[Water_Level = 0%]**
**[Emergency_Override = "DISABLED"]**
Delete. Replace. Rewrite.
**[Flood_Gates.Status = "OPEN"]**
**[Water_Level = 100%]**
**[Emergency_Override = "ENABLED"]**
The tunnel shuddered. Distant valves groaned open.
"**WHAT ARE YOU—**"
A wall of black water **EXPLODED** into the tunnel, carrying debris and decades of filth. The drones sparked and died, swept away like toys in a hurricane.
Lucian held his breath and let the current carry him through the tunnel system, away from the NCB and their "correction protocols."
When he surfaced six blocks away in a drainage canal, gasping and covered in muck, a new message waited:
**[CRITICAL NARRATIVE DEVIATION DETECTED]**
**[NCB Response: ESCALATED TO LEVEL 3]**
**[Higher-Tier Correction Agents Deployed]**
**[ETA: 43 minutes, 17 seconds]**
Lucian hauled himself onto concrete, water streaming from his clothes. His reflection showed something different—the gray **[Fodder]** tag was glitching, occasionally replaced by:
**[Role: ????]**
**[Classification: UNKNOWN ENTITY]**
**[Threat Level: CALCULATING...]**
He smiled through chattering teeth, watching the Chaos Editor pulse with new possibilities.
*Forty-three minutes before they send something worse than drones.*
*Let them come.*
The city lights reflected off the water like fallen stars, and somewhere in the distance, sirens wailed—the sound of a story breaking free from its chains.
*I'm done being anyone's cannon fodder.*