THE BILLIONAIRE REBATE SYSTEM

Chapter 10: The Choice That Breaks Gods

4… The countdown burned in the air like a brand. Derrick’s finger hovered inches from the projection. ERASE: LUNA VALE

Around him, the ballroom had descended into chaos. “Stop him!”

“Kill the system!”

“He’s going to erase her!”

Sophie collapsed completely, sobbing. “Please… she didn’t do anything… please…”

Agent Mercer aimed her weapon, not at Derrick. At the blue interface. “Fire,” someone shouted through her earpiece.

Mercer hesitated. Derrick noticed. “You can’t,” he said calmly.

Her eyes flicked to him. “Don’t test me.”

“You already did,” Derrick replied. “The moment you let it watch.”

The system chimed. ''COUNTDOWN CONTINUES.''

3… Derrick closed his eyes. Luna’s face surfaced in his mind. Not the ballroom. Not the severance notice. But earlier. A memory the system had not shown.

Luna laughing in the car. Luna arguing with him about money. Luna saying, 'You’re still human.'

His chest tightened. “System,” Derrick said quietly. “You said erasure is mercy.”

“CORRECT.”

“Then why does it feel like murder?”

The system paused. A long pause. “EMOTIONAL RESPONSE DETECTED.”

The crowd leaned in. Even the helicopters outside seemed to still. Sophie whispered, “He’s hesitating.”

The system continued. “HOST, THIS IS YOUR FINAL HUMILIATION.”

Derrick opened his eyes. “Mine?” he asked.

“NO.”

The screen flickered. The name LUNA VALE vanished. A new name appeared. DERRICK WALLANCE The room exploded. “What?!”

“He’s erasing himself?!”

Sophie screamed, “What does that mean?!”

Mercer shouted, “SYSTEM, EXPLAIN!”

The system complied. “SELF-ERASURE REMOVES HOST FROM DIRECT CONTROL.”

Derrick’s breath caught. “So that’s the loophole,” he murmured.

“HOST WILL LOSE ALL SYSTEM PRIVILEGES.”

“And the world?” Derrick asked.

“ECONOMIC NETWORK WILL ENTER AUTONOMOUS MODE.”

“How many die?” he demanded.

The system hesitated. For the first time ever. “UNKNOWN.”

Derrick laughed softly. “Even you don’t know.”

Sophie crawled toward him. “Derrick… don’t do this… you’ll disappear…”

He looked at her. At the woman who once watched him kneel. “I already did,” he said.

Mercer lowered her gun slowly. “If you erase yourself… what happens to you?”

Derrick smiled faintly. “Maybe I get to find out who I was before you all decided.”

The system chimed urgently. ''WARNING: HOST SELF-ERASURE IS IRREVERSIBLE.''

“Good,” Derrick replied.

The crowd screamed. “STOP HIM!”

“You can’t let him do this!”

The humiliation peaked. They weren’t afraid of erasure anymore. They were afraid of losing control. Derrick stepped forward. “For years,” he said loudly, “you measured worth by power.”

He gestured to the room. “To money. To bloodlines. To humiliation.”

The system projected images again. Executives mocking workers. Politicians lying. Influencers laughing at the poor. “You didn’t notice,” Derrick continued, “because I was beneath you.”

He looked at Sophie. “At all of you.”

Silence crushed the room. “So this is my last kneel,” Derrick said softly.

He dropped to one knee. Gasps exploded. Sophie screamed, “No !”

But Derrick didn’t bow his head. He looked up. Defiant. “And I choose who I kneel for.”

He reached out, And pressed his own name. The world went white. For one eternal second, Everything stopped. No sound. No light. No system. Then, A shockwave ripped through every screen on Earth.

Accounts froze. Markets halted. Artificial intelligence grids stalled. People everywhere screamed as numbers vanished. Not erased. Disconnected.

The system’s voice echoed, fractured now. “HOST SELF-ERASURE INITIATED.”

Derrick felt something tear away from him. Not pain. Identity. Memories flickered, The brother. The kneeling. The humiliation. Then, Darkness.

Somewhere else. Derrick gasped. Air flooded his lungs. He collapsed onto cold concrete. No interface. No system. No voice. Just silence.

He rolled onto his back, staring up at a flickering streetlight, Rain fell. He laughed weakly. “I’m alive,” he whispered.

A shadow moved. Footsteps approached. A woman’s voice spoke softly. “You did it.”

Derrick turned his head. Mara stood there. Older. More tired. “But not completely,” she added.

He frowned. “What do you mean?”

She looked up at the sky, where distant lights pulsed unnaturally. “The System didn’t die,” Mara said.

“It fragmented.”

Derrick’s heart sank. “Fragmented how?”

She met his eyes. “Across people,” she said. “Across markets. Across power structures.”

“What does that mean?” Derrick asked hoarsely.

Mara smiled grimly. “It means,” she said, “you didn’t end the game.”

She stepped closer. “You made everyone a potential host.”

Far above them, screens across the city flickered back to life. A new message appeared. Not one. Millions. COMPATIBILITY TESTING INITIATED.

Derrick’s breath hitched. Mara whispered the final truth. “You weren’t the king,” she said.

“You were the prototype.”

Sirens wailed. People screamed. And somewhere, A new system chimed.