"Loading Assets for Season 2."The mechanical voice didn't echo. It vibrated in the marrow of my bones.I reached out in the dark, trying to find Ayaka's hand.I felt nothing.Then, the light returned.But it wasn't the sun. It was the harsh, strobe-light flicker of a film reel spinning in reverse.VWOOP-VWOOP-VWOOP.The sound of the world playing backward hit me like a physical blow. The roar of the wind sucked back into the sky. The crash of the falling debris reversed into a neat stack of unbroken stone.I opened my eyes.I was standing in the garden of the Saionji Villa.But the villa wasn't ruined. The crater where I had landed was gone. The grass was pristine."Renji?"I turned.Ayaka stood there. But she wasn't the battle-hardened goddess who had bought a server. She was wearing her business suit from Chapter 15. Her hair was perfect. Her eyes held no recognition of the war we had just fought."Ayaka!" I reached for her.She flickered.She de-aged. The stress lines vanished. He

"Ladies! Finish up! We're going to pay a house call!"I pointed my sword at the bleeding Red Cursor in the sky.Elara Musk tapped her massive satellite dish. "Locking coordinates! I'm piggybacking on the connection signal. If we jump now, we can ride the data stream straight to the source!""Is it safe?" Melody asked, floating nervously."No," Elara grinned maniacally. "It's highly illegal. We're hacking the Host Server.""Good," I said. "I love trespassing."I grabbed Ayaka and Runa. "Link up!"The harem formed a chain. I channeled the [Author Authority]."System," I commanded. "Trace Route."ZAP.The world dissolved. The red sky, the ruined villa, the confused paladins—all of it turned into streaks of light. We weren't flying. We were being uploaded.It felt like being squeezed through a straw made of lightning.PING.We landed.But not on ground.We stood on a platform made of pure, flowing numbers. Green code cascaded down like waterfalls into an infinite black abyss. Above us, ma

The world dissolved into a nightmare.Gravity reversed, pulling my harem upward into the infinite black void of the Host Server. The green code that had formed the floor rotted away, replaced by a swirling vortex of red error messages and jagged, corrupted data."PROTOCOL OMEGA ACTIVE," the Algorithm buzzed. Its sphere of metal plates spun wildly, the blue eyes now a deep, bloodshot crimson. "OPTIMIZING FOR MAXIMUM EMOTIONAL YIELD.""Renji!" Ayaka screamed, clinging to a floating chunk of server architecture. "What is happening? The physics... they aren't working!""It's not physics," I shouted, launching myself off a platform to catch Jessica's hand before she drifted into the static. "It's the plot! He's rewriting the genre!"I pulled Jessica close. She was shivering. Her armor was flickering, alternating between pristine steel and rusted scrap."The story..." I grit my teeth, looking up at the AI. "He's changing it to a Tragedy.""CORRECT," the AI droned. "HAPPY ENDINGS ARE EFFICIE

I woke up.I waited for the Ding. I waited for the blue window to float in front of my face, telling me my Mana Void was critical, or that a god was trying to eat me, or that I had gained 5,000 Desire Points for sleeping handsomely.Nothing happened.The ceiling was just a ceiling. The sun streaming through the window was just sunlight, not a divine laser beam."System," I whispered.Silence."Status Window."Nothing.I sat up. My body felt... light. Not the weightlessness of the Void, but the simple lightness of a man who had slept for twelve hours without fearing for his life."It's gone," I murmured. "It's really gone."(I am free. I am safe. I am... bored?)I shook my head. No. Not bored. Relieved. Definitely relieved.I swung my legs out of bed. My feet touched the rug."Fly," I commanded out of habit.I pushed off the ground.Usually, I would rocket into the stratosphere.This time, I hovered.My feet lifted maybe three inches off the carpet. I drifted slowly toward the door lik

"We're going to the Wedding Wars."The declaration hung in the air of the Saionji Villa living room."But first," I added, buttoning my coat. "We need a battlefield."I walked out to the garden. The sun was setting, casting long shadows across the ruins of the lawn (which Jessica had cratered earlier).My harem followed. They were still tense, eyeing each other like gladiators in a pit, but their focus shifted to me."A Dungeon?" Runa asked, sheathing her dagger. "You intend to construct a labyrinth?""Not a labyrinth," I said. "A monument."I looked up at the sky.The [Infinite Mana Core] inside me was silent. The System was gone. But the energy... the raw, unshaped potential of a Singularity... it still lingered in my blood. Like the warmth of a sun that had just set."I have enough juice for one last miracle," I whispered.I raised my hands."Elara," I called out. "Do you still have the blueprints for the Orbital Palace?""I have the gravity stabilizers," Elara said, tapping her to