The world ended on a Tuesday.
Not with fire or flood or alien invasion—but with a pop-up window.
❗ [CRITICAL ERROR: CANON COLLAPSE DETECTED]
STORYVERSE #7743 — "ETERNAL THRONE OF THE STAR-EATER"
STATUS: UNSTABLE
PROBABILITY OF TOTAL NARRATIVE ENTROPY: 98.7%
INITIATING EMERGENCY NARRATIVE PRESERVATION PROTOCOL…
TARGET: DESIGNATED ARCHIVAL STAFF
> EXECUTING…
Jin Min-ho didn't scream. He didn't even flinch.
He just sighed, reached for his coffee mug, and muttered, "Not again."
For three years, he'd been a junior editor at MythWeave Publishing—a glorified name for a content mill churning out isekai, system-apocalypse, and multiverse litRPG webnovels. His job? Fix comma splices, prune purple prose, and quietly reject manuscripts where the MC solo-carried seven realms by Chapter 5—without a single character flaw.
He'd read thousands of these. Knew the tropes like his own heartbeat:
The truck-kun prologue. The cheat skill with zero drawbacks. The harem assembled by sheer proximity.
The "weak-to-strong" arc where "weak" meant slightly below average, and "strong" meant casually rewrites physics.
He'd even written margin notes like:
"If the 'System' is sentient, why does it speak in ALL CAPS and love loot boxes?"
"Villain monologues for 3 pages — please, let him just stab the guy."
"Protagonist's trauma: mentioned once in Ch.2, forgotten by Ch.7. Consistency?"
So when the red alert flashed—complete with dramatic system-font typography—he assumed it was another buggy upload from Intern #3.
He took a sip.
The coffee was cold.
And then the monitor inhaled him.
Darkness. Pressure. A sound like tearing parchment.
Then—impact.
He hit stone. Hard. His ribs screamed. His glasses—miraculously still on his face—were cracked diagonally across the left lens.
He groaned, rolling onto his back, blinking at a sky the color of bruised plum. Two moons hung low: one silver, one bleeding crimson at the edges.
Okay, he thought, definitely not the office.
He sat up—slowly—and took in the ruins.
A shattered palace sprawled around him. Marble pillars leaned like drunk giants. Friezes of winged serpents and crowned stars lay in rubble. In the distance, jagged black spires pierced the horizon—some intact, others snapped mid-air, frozen in collapse, as if gravity had given up halfway.
No birds. No wind. Just… silence. Heavy. Wrong.
Then—crunch.
A boot stepped on broken tile behind him.
Jin froze.
He turned.
Three figures stood at the edge of the courtyard.
Two armored knights—polished silver plate, crimson cloaks, halberds leveled. Their helmets hid their faces, but the way they stood… rigid. Too rigid. Like mannequins posed by a nervous intern.
Between them, a woman in white robes. Pale. Regal. Her silver hair floated as if underwater. Her eyes glowed faintly gold.
She raised a hand.
[SYSTEM ALERT]
PRIMARY ANTAGONIST — HIGH PRIESTESS LYSARA — DETECTED
STATUS: FINAL BOSS (DESPAIR RANK)
THREAT LEVEL: EXTINCTION
RECOMMENDED ACTION: FLEE / PRAY / ACCEPT FATE
The words flickered in Jin's vision—not on a screen. Inside his head. Glowing amber, semi-transparent, like a badly rendered HUD.
He flinched. "What the hell—?"
Lysara smiled. It didn't reach her eyes.
"Another fragment," she murmured, voice echoing like a choir in an empty cathedral. "Another echo of the Author's abandoned draft. How… pathetic."
One knight stepped forward. "Dispose of it, Your Grace? It bears no Role."
Role?
Before Jin could process that, the knight lunged.
Instinct kicked in. Jin scrambled backward—tripping over debris—and threw up his hands.
No magic. No sword. Just… him.
The halberd descended.
This is it, he thought, absurdly. Dying in someone else's cliché.
But—
The blade stopped.
An inch from his forehead.
Not because he dodged.
Because the knight hesitated.
Its head tilted, just slightly. A flicker in the visor's slit.
Jin stared.
And then he saw it.
A thin, shimmering line—like golden thread—connecting the knight's wrist to Lysara's outstretched finger.
A Plot Thread.
He'd seen this before. In manuscripts.
"The Puppeteer's strings—visible only to those who've read the truth."
His editor brain, trained to spot narrative scaffolding, recognized it.
Without thinking, he whispered:
"…Cutscene?"
The knight froze completely.
Lysara's smile faltered.
[ANOMALY DETECTED]
ENTITY EXHIBITS NARRATIVE AWARENESS
QUERY: IS THIS A DEBUG FUNCTION?
> AWAITING INPUT…
Jin's breath came fast. Debug function? Like… in a game? A story?
He glanced down at his hands.
His right hand… held something.
A red pen.
Not his cheap Bic from the office drawer.
This one was heavier. Warm. Made of dark wood, etched with tiny, swirling glyphs that shifted when he blinked.
The Editor's Pen, his mind supplied—unbidden, certain.
He didn't question it. Survival instinct overrode logic.
The knight still loomed. Lysara's eyes narrowed, golden light intensifying.
He had seconds.
What would I write here? he thought desperately. If this were a rejected draft… what's the weakest possible escape?
Then it hit him.
Not power.
Pacing.
Every bad story rushed the climax. Every good one needed…
…a cliff.
He uncapped the pen.
Pressed the tip to the stone floor.
And scribbled one word—fast, messy, in bold red ink:
CLIFFHANGER
The ground shook.
Not metaphorically.
A crack split the courtyard—right beneath the knight's feet. Stone yawned open, jagged and deep. The knight stumbled, arms windmilling.
Lysara's eyes widened. "Impossible! That's not—"
The knight fell.
Whoosh.
Silence.
Jin stared at the pen. His hand trembled. The ink… hadn't smeared. It glowed, faintly.
[NARRATIVE INTERVENTION: "CLIFFHANGER" — SUCCESS]
COST: 1 COHERENCE POINT
CURRENT COHERENCE: 99/100
WARNING: EXCESSIVE USE MAY CAUSE PLOT HOLES (REALITY INSTABILITY)
A status bar appeared in his vision: a thin, shimmering red line beneath the system text.
Coherence…?
Lysara took a step forward, her robes swirling. "You… edit? But only the Author—"
She raised both hands now. The air crackled. Crimson runes spiraled around her.
[BOSS SKILL: "STARFALL REQUIEM" — CHARGING]
EST. IMPACT: 12 SECONDS
EFFECT: AREA ERASURE (RADIUS 50M)
Twelve seconds.
No cliff to drop this time.
Jin's mind raced. What's the weakest trope? The laziest deus ex machina?
Then—click.
He smiled. A real one. Tired. Desperate. Hopeful.
He raised the pen.
Not to the ground.
To himself.
And wrote—right over his chest, over his plain office shirt—a single line:
[PROTAGONIST — TEMPORARY ASSIGNMENT]
The ink flared white-hot.
Pain—sharp, electric—shot through him.
His vision whited out.
When it cleared…
His clothes were gone.
In their place: dark, flexible armor—simple, unadorned, like a base model. A leather-bound journal hung at his hip. And in his head—
[WELCOME, PROTAGONIST (PROVISIONAL)]
LEVEL: 1
CLASS: ??? (PENDING ROLE CONFIRMATION)
SKILLS:
NARRATIVE SENSE (PASSIVE)
Detect plot devices, foreshadowing, and trope density within 10m.EDIT (ACTIVE — 1/100 COHERENCE)
Rewrite minor narrative elements. Cost scales with scope.
Lysara stared. Her Starfall Requiem flickered, unstable.
"…Protagonist?" she breathed. "But the Author killed him in Draft 3. He was deleted."
Jin flexed his fingers. The pen hummed in his grip.
He met her gaze.
"Yeah," he said, voice rough but steady.
"Turns out… someone hit Undo."
Above them, the crimson moon pulsed—once—like a dying star winking out.
[SYSTEM NOTICE]
NEW QUEST UNLOCKED:
☐ SURVIVE THE PROLOGUE
REWARD: 1 ROLE POINT (UNLOCKS CLASS SELECTION)
FAILURE: PERMANENT DELETION
Jin Min-ho took a breath.
And stepped forward.