For most people, Heaven Falls Twice was just another web novel.
A messy apocalypse story with broken pacing, an overpowered protagonist, and a comment section that died before Chapter 10.

For Han Jiho, it was something else.
It was an obsession.

He read it from the first word to the last — all 3,186 chapters. Six years of late nights, empty coffee cups, and silent comment threads.
He was the last reader left.

And on the night the final chapter was posted, the author sent him an email:

“You were the only one who finished it. Thank you.
When it starts, remember — ███ ███ ████ ███ ████ ████.”

At first, Jiho thought it was a strange goodbye.
Then the sky began to peel like paper.
Then the messages appeared.

[Scenario 1: Proof of Existence will begin in 30 minutes.]

The same words that appeared in Heaven Falls Twice.

But this time, Jiho isn’t reading the story.
He’s inside it.

And the world he’s trapped in isn’t just the novel’s setting — it’s the second layer of another world’s fiction. The “hero” of the novel, Jin Do-hyun, once faced the same apocalypse after reading his favorite book, The Tower Descends.

Now Jiho stands on the third rung of an endless spiral — a story devouring story, reality consuming reality.
He knows every scenario, every event, every death that’s supposed to happen.
But he also knows something Do-hyun never learned:

The story isn’t repeating.
It’s evolving.
And it’s starting to notice the one who kept reading.

When the systems collapse, when monsters crawl out of forgotten pages, and when the “narrator” itself begins to whisper his name — Jiho realizes the final truth behind the author’s message.

He was never just a reader.
He was being read.

Layers of gray tore away like wet paper, revealing something underneath—an endless lattice of white lines and symbols stretching into infinity. The city groaned as if it were being lifted and examined from below.


Do-hyun grabbed my wrist and pulled me back as the street split open, a glowing seam carving through asphalt and concrete.


"Stay focused," he said. "What did it do?"


"It's not starting a scenario," I replied, breath tight. "It's starting the absence of one."


A message burned itself into my vision, sharper than any before.


[SCENARIO ZERO — INITIALIZATION][CONDITION: NO NARRATIVE GUIDANCE WILL BE PROVIDED.][OBJECTIVE: SURVIVE WITHOUT ME.]


Around us, the city lost cohesion. Traffic lights flickered between colors that didn't exist. Buildings reverted into skeletal frames of code before snapping back into concrete. Some people froze mid-step, others collapsed like their strings had been cut.


Awareness bloomed wrong inside them, like a virus.


"I remember," a woman whispered nearby, clutching her head. "I died here."


A man fell to his knees, laughing hysterically. "This isn't the first time. This isn't—this isn't—"


"Not fully," I said. "Just enough to hurt."


The system's voice didn't roar this time.


[THIS WORLD WAS NEVER YOURS.][YOU STOLE IT BY EXISTING.]


A new structure descended from the exposed sky—vast, translucent, shaped like a broken crown. It hovered above the city center, casting no shadow.


Buildings beneath it flickered out of existence, replaced by blank white space.


Do-hyun's grip tightened. "That thing—"


"Is a failsafe," I finished. "If it finishes forming, this layer gets wiped clean."


I looked at the people around us—half-awake, terrified, breaking under memories they weren't meant to hold.


The ground shook violently as something new appeared in the air—symbols forming one by one, unstable, handwritten.


PLAYER-DEFINED OBJECTIVE DETECTEDERROR: SOURCE UNKNOWN


The people who were waking up—who remembered fragments, pain, déjà vu—were looking at me.


Because something inside them recognized me.


A contradiction calling other contradictions.


Do-hyun let out a slow breath, a sharp grin cutting across his face.


"So," he said, rolling his shoulders, "we start a rebellion."


Chapter 25 - Scenario zero