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Home / System / THE CHOSEN ERROR / Chapter 180: The Puppetmaster’s Gambit
Chapter 180: The Puppetmaster’s Gambit
Author: Wonderful65
last update2025-07-17 00:54:22

Night fell over Celestaris, but it wasn’t the same sky. Not anymore.

Reality shimmered like a half-rendered simulation, with patches of the city flickering in and out of existence. Streets curved in impossible loops. Buildings stretched upward into infinity, then snapped back like rubber bands. Entire districts had inverted, as if reality itself had suffered a glitch.

Cael stood at the edge of what was once the Skyline District, now warped into a reflective maze of living code. He wasn’t alone. The three alternate versions of himself, Echo Cael, Warden Cael, and Hollow Cael stood with him, each carrying fragments of their dying timelines. None spoke.

Not because they had nothing to say. But because something was listening. “It’s the Puppetmaster,” Cael finally whispered. “He’s not pulling strings anymore. He’s cutting them.”

The skyline began to shift. In the distance, a colossal figure emerged, not physical, but towering, made of strings, scripts, and broken narrative logic. The Pupp
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