“So… so I…” He reached out, watching his own fingertips pixelating. “My love, my hate… my obsession…” “All just… just a string of data in her mission log?” He threw his head back, letting out a primal roar.
Just then, the sky outside the window suddenly darkened. A line of huge, cold white text projected onto the dim firmament:
[WARNING! TARGET CONSCIOUSNESS AWAKENED!]
(WORLD ID 739 IS COLLAPSING. EMERGENCY RECALL OF CONQUEROR CLARA HAWTHORNE INITIATED!]
The stinging scent of antiseptic in the hospital room burned my nostrils. Late–stage cancer, finally cured by the System. My new life had just begun. The System’s warning suddenly blared in my mind. “Book world is collapsing. Please return immediately to rep-
air it.”
I irritably covered my ears. After the torment of ten cycles of rebirth, I had finally escaped that nightmare. Yet my newly healthy
body was slowly turning transparent, my fingertips already dissolving into shimmering data particles.
“No! I’m not going back!” I desperately clutched the bedsheets, only to find my increasingly ethereal hand passing right through
them.
The System coldly declared: “Alistair Valerius’s world has entered collapse countdown. Only you can repair it.”
The sunlight streaming through the hospital window was so warm. That world, however, held only his blade and chilling cold. I was forcibly pulled into the familiar sanctuary. The air was thick with the metallic tang of blood. Alistair knelt before the statue of the Grand Architect, his torso bare, a gleaming dagger clutched in his hand. My name was carved repeatedly into his skin, each stroke a deep, bleeding wound. Blood dripped from the sacred beads he wore, yet his eyes were clearer than ever before
*Alistair Valerius, are you satisfied?” I spoke, my voice cold, no longer the tearful, begging slave of love he once knew.
He trapped his head around, the madness and obsession in his eves making me instinctively sten back. “Clara you’re finally back.
11.28
“Alistair Valerius, are you satisfied?” I spoke, my voice cold, no longer the tearful, begging slave of love he once knew.
He snapped his head around, the madness and obsession in his eyes making me instinctively step back. “Clara, you’re finally back.”
His voice was hoarse, as if he hadn’t spoken in a long time. My body shimmered with flowing data, a holographic projection of my
real–world self, not the meek woman from the quest. “Look at what you’ve done to your world.” I looked around. Traces of data
corruption were everywhere. Cracks appeared in the sanctuary walls, revealing abyssal chasms of code.
He stood, each step leaving a bloody print, approaching me. I expected him to rage, to torment me as he had for ten lifetimes.
Instead, he dropped to one knee, gripping my translucent wrist. “Don’t leave, please.” This was the first time in ten lifetimes he had
ever said “please” to me.
I laughed derisively. “Now you beg? Why didn’t you beg when you flayed me?” “Why didn’t you beg when you carved my flesh into a
relic?” “Why didn’t you beg when you made my child’s skull into a chalice?”
He closed his eyes in agony. “I was wrong, Clara. I actually… I remember everything.” His voice cracked. “I know I am beyond redem-
ption.”
tried to pull my wrist free, but he held on desperately. “The System assigned you a mission: to heal me. But I never wanted to be
healed. I only wanted to punish you, to make you die in the same agony as Seraphina.” Blood tears streamed from his eyes. “But
after you left, I saw the truth.”
I sneered. “What truth? That you’re a madman?”
“I saw your diary. You were an outsider, forcibly inserted into this story by the System!” In an instant, my heart stopped. Was this
why the System had initiated the emergency recall? The protagonist of the story… had been spoiled?
