The single desk lamp was a lonely sun in Arin's cramped, one-room flat. Its weak yellow light fought a losing battle against the blue glow spilling from the laptop screen, painting the deep shadows beneath his tired, drawn eyes. Outside, the city offered a soft, wet murmur as the late-night rain whispered against the windowpane.
Arin didn't notice the sounds. All that existed was the screen, which displayed two merciless words in large, stylized font: Final Chapter – Lumeria: End of the Gods.
His breath hitched as lines of text scrolled down, each sentence a hammer blow to the world he had invested years in. The prose was clinical, describing the last stand of the heroes—and their subsequent, brutal failure. The final pages detailed not triumph, but the agonizing death of hope, culminating in the complete collapse of Lumeria into eternal darkness.
His hand clenched the mouse, the plastic digging into his palm. A soundless protest built in his chest.
No… they can't end it like this.
The thought was a frantic, desperate scream in the silence of the room. He had followed this web novel for over four years, watched the characters rise, suffer, and strive for salvation. After all those years… everyone dies?
He forced himself to scroll down, his wide eyes skimming every merciless word, looking for a loophole, a secret ending, anything to contradict the horror.
The divine seal shattered. The gods vanished. Humanity fell silent. Thus ended the Age of Light.
It was definitive. It was final. The blue light of the screen blurred, softened by a sudden, intense sting. Tears of pure frustration and sorrow welled up, clouding his vision.
"You killed them all," Arin muttered, his voice raspy from disuse and disbelief. "Even Leon… and Elene—why?" He swiped furiously at his eyes. "The author must truly hate happiness."
He scrolled past the ending and into the comment section, a masochistic impulse driving him forward.
'Masterpiece!'
'Beautifully tragic!'
'Perfection.'
Arin gritted his teeth so hard his jaw ached. The injustice was staggering. How could they celebrate this despair?
"Tragic?" he whispered, his voice laced with burning scorn. "You call that perfection?"
With a sudden, violent movement, he slammed the laptop shut. The sharp thwack of the plastic lid echoing through the quiet flat was the sound of his last tether to the story snapping.
Arin sat motionless in the sudden gloom. An empty ramen cup sat abandoned on the desk beside him, a testament to his neglect. The only other sound besides the rain was the slow, rhythmic groan of the old ceiling fan.
His gaze drifted to a small, laminated note pinned above his screen: "Make something meaningful."
A humorless, brittle laugh escaped his lips.
"Guess even fiction gods love despair," he said, his voice heavy with cynicism. He leaned back in his worn chair, the anger settling into a cold, hard resolve. "If I were there… I'd show those gods what justice means."
In the darkness, his reflection stared back at him from the smooth, black surface of the closed laptop. For a brief, unconscious moment, the deep blue of his eyes seemed to glint with a faint, unnatural light, hinting at a power that should not yet exist.
Half-angry, half-haunted, he reached out and reopened the laptop. He couldn't help himself. He was driven back to the scene of the crime, needing to confirm the cruelty one last time. As he reread the final paragraph, the screen flickered—a brief, nearly invisible burst of tiny blue static—but it passed too quickly to register.
Still… Arin thought, the fierce heat of his anger cooling to a deep sadness. The world they built was beautiful. I wish it hadn't ended.
He scrolled to the very bottom, finding the author's afterword.
Every story must end, even for gods.
Thank you for reading.
Arin's eyes narrowed, a sense of personal offense tightening his expression.
"Yeah… maybe for you," he muttered, shutting the device for good. "But not for me."
He lay back down on his narrow bed, staring up into the oppressive dark. The rain tapped a monotonous rhythm on the glass. Unnoticed by him, a faint, ethereal glow flickered momentarily on the dark corner of the laptop screen, a mysterious, glowing symbol appearing for a split second before vanishing entirely.
And so ended the tale of Lumeria... but for one reader, the story had only begun.