Xavier stared at his phone as he reached the final line of the webnovel he had been faithfully reading for nearly a year.
> "And with the fall of the last hero, the Demon King's shadow erased Etheoria forever."
He blinked once.
Twice.
Then he let out the flattest, most exhausted sigh a human being had ever produced.
"…Author, what the actual hell."
His voice was quiet, but the curse carried the weight of a thousand betrayed readers.
He didn't throw his phone.
He didn't scream.
But he did rub his temples like he was nursing a migraine born from sheer disappointment.
"Everyone died? Everyone? Main characters, side characters, background extras… even the guy who sold apples at the market died!"
He scrolled back up through the last few chapters, jaw tightening.
The protagonist party:
– The Fate-Chosen hero? Dead.
– The saintess? Vaporized.
– The strategist who carried the team on his back? Gone.
– The dragon companion that took 400 chapters to hatch? Dead before it could breathe fire.
"Four years of in-story buildup for what?" Xavier muttered. "A group funeral?!"
He scrolled again, muttering louder.
"And the second male lead—bro, he confessed at the exact moment he died. Who writes that?!"
He threw a pillow at the wall.
"And the princess who trained for world peace? Crushed by a falling tower! Not even a magical attack—just bad architecture!"
His voice cracked in disbelief.
"And what about the necromancer who was supposed to return at the final arc?"
He pointed at nothing.
"NOT EVEN A BODY LEFT! The Demon King turned him into glitter!"
He leaned back, glaring at the ceiling.
"Seriously… this author needs therapy. Deep therapy. Possibly an intervention."
His phone dimmed slightly, but Xavier tapped the screen again as one last thought nagged him.
Azrael Crimson.
Not even one of the main cast — just a talented side character who died early because the Duke of the South thought he was too gifted.
"Azrael didn't even survive ten chapters," Xavier muttered. "And he still had a better personality than half the main cast."
He shook his head.
"But he wasn't the only one. This author massacred characters like it was a hobby."
He glanced over the long list of named characters in the appendix.
Most had the same status beside their name:
[Deceased]
[Deceased]
[Deceased]
Xavier closed the app with a tired flick of his thumb.
"…Who hurt you, author? Honestly."
He set his phone beside him and lay down, staring at nothing.
His chest felt hollow — the emotional emptiness of someone who had invested hundreds of hours into a story only to watch it burn at the end.
"Well… whatever."
His voice softened as sleep crept in.
"It's just fiction…"
His eyes closed.
His breathing slowed.
The phone screen flickered once, like something inside it was shifting — reshaping — reaching toward him.
Xavier never saw the light that surrounded him a moment later.
He only felt the faint pull of something vast and distant.
And then—
Darkness.