The wind shifted that night—not a breeze, but a pressure.
A subtle distortion in the fabric of reality itself, like a page about to be torn.
Yui sat at the edge of camp, her cloak wrapped tight around her shoulders, her mind still reeling from the vision. She remembered Azarion's chains. The flame-wreathed throne. Her own voice echoing in a place beyond time:
> "Don't let them erase it."
What was she? Who had she truly been before she became Yui?
She didn't have answers.
But the Editors did.
And they were coming.
---
It started with a glitch in the sky—stars blinking out one by one.
Then, the wind silenced. No birds. No night insects. Just an unnatural stillness that made her blood chill.
Azarion appeared beside her, his blade already drawn. "They're here."
"Who?" Vera asked, emerging from the shadows with blades at her hips.
Azarion's voice dropped into a growl. "The ones who rewrite reality."
The air split—literally tore—as a clean seam formed in the sky.
A crack of white light.
From it descended three beings—tall, robed in flickering manuscript fragments, their faces featureless. Editors. Not demons. Not monsters.
Correctors.
System-forged enforcers who maintained the purity of storylines across worlds.
One stepped forward. Its voice was not heard, but printed—its words appearing in golden text midair:
> "Character Yui—unauthorized awakening of sealed authority: Warden of Echoes.
Violation: Narrative corruption.
Sentence: Deletion."
Yui staggered back. "You can't—this is my story!"
> "Incorrect. The moment you fell into it, it became ours to correct."
Azarion stepped in front of her. "You'll touch her over my ashes."
Another Editor extended a hand. A strike of system code blasted toward them like lightning made of rules.
Yui screamed—raising her hands on instinct—
> [System Skill Activated: Resonant Reversal – Perfect Guard]
The bolt collided with a barrier of inverted reality. It shattered.
The Editor stilled.
Then a new message appeared:
> "Class Upgrade Detected: System Bond Core at 76%. Echo Integration: Unstable. Risk Threshold: Rising. Recommend: Immediate Erasure."
"Yui," Azarion said, "they're afraid."
Vera leapt forward, slicing toward one of the Editors—only for her blade to pass through. They were incorporeal, mostly data and command.
But Yui…
She could read them.
Their code.
Their purpose.
And for the first time—
She could rewrite back.
> [New Skill Fragment: Author's Defiance]
Temporarily reject narrative overrides within a 10-meter radius.
Duration: 12 seconds. Cooldown: 1 hour.
She activated it.
A pulse rippled out from her like a heartbeat. The world slowed. The golden script of the Editors wavered—like glitching subtitles on a broken screen.
Azarion lunged in, flames coiling around his fists. "Twelve seconds is all I need."
He struck.
The lead Editor recoiled as Azarion's claws raked across its form—not just physically, but metaphysically, cutting through its code. Vera followed, daggers slicing between moments. Yui stood tall, breathing hard, holding the field steady.
But the Editors didn't come alone.
> [Emergency Alert: External Narrative Intrusion Detected.]
The rift behind them tore wider—
And from it stepped a puppet, made of broken protagonists and mangled plot threads. A creature built from scrapped storylines.
The Narratorium Beast.
Half-forgotten arcs. Deleted characters. A voice that screamed with every chapter abandoned mid-sentence.
Azarion cursed. "We don't have the power to face that—not yet."
Yui stepped forward, trembling—but calm.
> "System," she whispered. "Draftkeeper's Will. Activate."
The world halted.
She raised her hand—and for three seconds—commanded silence.
The beast froze.
Azarion's fire struck true—searing into its heart. It screamed.
And fell apart.
The Editors, weakened, hissed in distorted voices:
> "The Warden awakens. This world is no longer compliant."
Yui stared at them, voice steady.
"This world isn't compliant because it's alive. Because it's mine."
And with that—
The Editors vanished in shards of golden light.