The sky *shattered* like a broken monitor, reality's blue screen of death replaced by something infinitely more terrifying—a blank white document stretching across the heavens like God's personal Google Doc. A cursor the size of a city block began typing words that materialized in hundred-foot-tall letters, each character burning itself into existence with the authority of divine decree and the passive-aggressive energy of a writer on deadline.
**[CHAPTER TITLE: THE INEVITABLE BUG AND CERTAIN DEATH]**
"Oh, you've got to be fucking kidding me," Lucian muttered, recognizing the dimensional attack for what it was—a writer's nuclear option deployed by someone who'd clearly never heard of subtlety. "The bastard's going full meta-narrative on us."
The cosmic typewriter continued its work with the inexorable patience of fate itself and the typing speed of someone who'd definitely taken a community college keyboarding class:
**[WITHOUT ANY WARNING, LUCIAN FELT HIS HEART SEIZE WITH EXCRUCIATING PAIN. HIS VITAL FUNCTIONS CEASED ENTIRELY AT THIS MOMENT.]**
The effect was instantaneous and *brutal*. Lucian's heart stopped mid-beat like a broken metronome, his body convulsing as causality itself rewrote his biology with all the finesse of a drunk surgeon performing heart surgery with a rusty spoon. He collapsed to his knees, blood frothing from his lips as his nervous system received the universe's most definitive error message.
**[LUCIAN_ASH: VITAL_SIGNS_TERMINATED]**
**[CAUSE_OF_DEATH: Narrative_Decree (Bullshit_Tier)]**
**[RESURRECTION_PROBABILITY: 0% (Author_Wishes)]**
"LUCIAN!" Sylvia screamed, ice crystals exploding around her in patterns of pure panic and grief that could have powered a small country's worth of emotional energy.
Arthur, meanwhile, was laughing with the delighted cruelty of a man watching his greatest enemy die by divine intervention and probably already planning his victory speech. "Finally! Even God got tired of your bullshit! I knew my protagonist aura would—"
But Lucian wasn't done yet. Even as his vision darkened and his lungs forgot how to breathe, his consciousness dove into the one system the Author couldn't lock him out of—his own Chaos Editor, running on spite and the kind of desperate ingenuity that came from refusing to die on someone else's schedule.
**[EMERGENCY_PROTOCOL: Text_Editor_Mode]**
**[ACTIVATING: Find_and_Replace_Function]**
**[SHORTCUT: Ctrl+H - The Nuclear_Option_of_Editing]**
A virtual text editor materialized in the space between life and death, showing the Author's narrative in all its murderous, unimaginative glory. Lucian's dying fingers moved across keys that existed only in the quantum foam between thoughts and the desperate refusal to accept a shitty ending:
**[FIND: "Lucian"]**
**[REPLACE: "Arthur"]**
**[REPLACE_ALL: Y/N?]**
He hit Enter with the last spark of his fading consciousness and the vindictive satisfaction of a man about to ruin someone's day.
The effect rippled through causality like a virus made of pure spite and weaponized grammar. The cosmic text above rewrote itself in real-time, reality's autocorrect function finally doing something useful:
**[WITHOUT ANY WARNING, ARTHUR FELT HIS HEART SEIZE WITH EXCRUCIATING PAIN. HIS VITAL FUNCTIONS CEASED ENTIRELY AT THIS MOMENT.]**
Arthur's laughter cut off mid-cackle as his own heart stopped with the sound of a cosmic punchline delivered by the universe's cruelest comedian. His golden eyes rolled back, his perfect face going slack as he toppled backward like a felled tree made of manufactured destiny and expired warranties.
Lucian gasped back to life, his heart resuming its rhythm as if it had never stopped, air flooding his lungs with the sweet taste of victory and the metallic aftertaste of cheating death through superior editing skills.
"Thanks for volunteering as tribute, battery pack," he wheezed, wiping blood from his mouth with the casual satisfaction of a man who'd just discovered the cheat code for mortality.
**[ARTHUR_SKY: VITAL_SIGNS_TERMINATED (Ironic_Justice)]**
**[LUCIAN_ASH: VITAL_SIGNS_RESTORED (Plot_Armor_Activated)]**
**[CAUSALITY: Thoroughly_Confused_and_Filing_Complaints]**
But Lucian wasn't cruel enough to let Arthur stay dead—he was too useful as a power source and too entertaining as a punching bag. Green electricity crackled from his fingertips as he grabbed Arthur's corpse and pumped it full of digital defibrillation with the enthusiasm of a mad scientist and the bedside manner of a caffeinated paramedic.
**[EXECUTING: Emergency_Restart_Protocol]**
**[ARTHUR_SKY: Rebooting... Please_Wait...]**
**[STATUS: Alive_but_Existentially_Traumatized]**
Arthur's eyes snapped open with a gasp that sounded like a computer starting up after a hard crash mixed with the dying breath of his dignity. "What... what just happened? Why do I taste pennies and regret?"
"You died for about thirty seconds," Lucian said conversationally, lighting a cigarette with fingers that still sparked with residual electricity and the satisfaction of a job well done. "Don't worry, you'll get used to it. Consider it job training for being my personal UPS."
The Author's rage was palpable, reality itself trembling with barely contained fury and the kind of creative frustration that came from having your carefully planned death scene hijacked by a protagonist with delusions of grandeur and the coding skills to back them up. The cosmic typewriter resumed its work with violent keystrokes that made the air itself flinch:
**[NINE HEAVENS' DIVINE THUNDER GATHERED, CRASHING DOWN UPON THE INSECTS BELOW! NONE SHALL SURVIVE THIS ULTIMATE TECHNIQUE!]**
The sky darkened as genuine divine wrath began to coalesce, lightning that could unmake atoms gathering in clouds that hurt to perceive directly and probably violated several safety regulations. This wasn't just narrative decree—this was the Author pulling out the big guns and throwing a cosmic tantrum.
"Cute," Lucian said, his consciousness diving into the Author's writing software like a hacker breaking into Fort Knox with a paperclip and an attitude problem. "But you forgot something important about modern word processors, you pretentious hack."
**[ACCESSING: Auto-Complete_Dictionary]**
**[TARGET: Character_Prediction_Algorithm]**
**[INTERFERENCE_LEVEL: Maximum_Trolling_Achieved]**
As the Author furiously typed "DIVINE THUN—", Lucian hijacked the auto-complete function with the precision of a digital surgeon and the malicious glee of a teenager pranking their English teacher, forcing the first suggestion to change from "THUNDER" to something far more benign and infinitely more embarrassing.
**[NINE HEAVENS' DIVINE FIREWORKS GATHERED, LIGHTING UP THE SKY IN SPECTACULAR CELEBRATION! ALL SHALL ENJOY THE MAGNIFICENT SHOW!]**
The apocalyptic lightning transformed mid-strike, becoming a spectacular fireworks display that painted the ruined cityscape in brilliant colors and the kind of cheerful explosions that belonged at a county fair, not the end of the world. Explosions of light and joy replaced divine judgment, turning the apocalypse into a New Year's celebration that nobody had asked for but everyone secretly needed.
"WHAT THE ACTUAL—" The Author's voice boomed across dimensions, no longer filtered through system messages but raw with creative frustration and the kind of rage that came from having your dramatic climax turned into a Disney parade.
Lucian looked up at the cosmic fireworks show and gave the sky his most sincere middle finger, the gesture carrying the weight of every writer who'd ever been edited against their will. "Even gods get writer's block, huh? Maybe try a different genre next time. I hear romance novels are popular."
The silence that followed was pregnant with the kind of rage that could power small countries and fuel a thousand bad reviews on Goodreads. Then, like a computer running out of memory and dignity simultaneously, a new message appeared:
**[DAILY_FREE_CHAPTER_WORD_LIMIT_REACHED]**
**[AUTHOR_STAMINA: Completely_Depleted]**
**[CREATIVE_ENERGY: Running_on_Fumes_and_Spite]**
**[FORCED_HIATUS: Activated_Due_to_Mental_Breakdown]**
**[NEXT_UPDATE: When_Therapy_Helps]**
The cosmic presence withdrew like a tide of frustrated creativity, leaving behind only the fading echoes of divine writer's block and the gentle patter of firework debris that smelled faintly of sulfur and broken dreams.
Lucian brushed sparkles off his jacket and turned to his shell-shocked companions with the satisfaction of a man who'd just won an argument with God through superior technical support skills.
"Well, that was educational," he said, examining the residual data traces left by the Author's retreat like a detective at a crime scene. "Turns out even cosmic entities need better IT support."
"You just... you edited God," Sylvia whispered, her voice mixing awe with the kind of terror reserved for witnessing the impossible and probably several violations of the Geneva Convention.
"Nah," Lucian said, following the digital breadcrumbs with the focus of a bloodhound on the scent of incompetent coding. "Just a really pretentious writer with admin privileges and delusions of literary grandeur. And look what the amateur left behind."
**[TRACING: Author_IP_Address]**
**[LOCATION: Subway_Entrance_Delta-7]**
**[DISTANCE: 0.3km Northeast]**
**[CONNECTION_STATUS: Still_Active_and_Vulnerable]**
**[SECURITY_LEVEL: Embarrassingly_Low]**
He pointed toward the nearby subway entrance, where reality seemed to flicker like a badly tuned television running on Windows Vista. "Found his file directory. Time for a house call and some aggressive technical support."
Arthur, still traumatized from his brief death experience and probably questioning every life choice that had led him to this moment, whimpered like a golden retriever afraid of thunderstorms. "We're going to confront the Author? The guy who just tried to kill us with narrative causality and really bad dialogue?"
"Yep," Lucian said, starting toward the subway with the confidence of a man who'd just discovered he could edit reality and decided to make it everyone else's problem. "Time to teach him about professional ethics, proper character development, and why you should never give admin privileges to someone who learned to write from fanfiction."
**[ENTROPY LEVEL: 99% → 92%]**
**[NARRATIVE_STABILITY: Chaotic_Neutral_with_Comedic_Overtones]**
**[NEXT_OBJECTIVE: Crash_the_Author's_Personal_Server]**
**[ESTIMATED_SURVIVAL_RATE: Hilariously_Low_but_Entertainingly_High]**
The real story was about to begin—and this time, they were going to write it themselves, with proper grammar and significantly better plot development.