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The System That Wanted Me Dead
By: Finn GordanUpdated just now
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Chapters: 16
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In a world ruled by the Ascension System, survival is permission-based. At eighteen, every citizen is evaluated, awakened, and assigned a path. Those who fail are erased—cleanly, legally, without regret. Kael Ashborne fails. Declared unawakened, Kael is sentenced to execution inside a system-controlled dungeon. No skills. No stats. No divine interface to save him. His death is calculated, approved, and inevitable. Except it doesn’t happen. Through instinct, defiance, and choices the system cannot predict, Kael survives becoming a contradiction the Ascension System cannot classify or correct. Instead of granting him power, the system begins to observe him. Study him. Adapt. Hunted by system-enforcers and shadowed by a hidden group known as the Erased—people who exist outside recorded outcomes—Kael learns a terrifying truth: the system does not rule by strength, but by certainty. It closes futures, locks outcomes, and sacrifices possibility to maintain order. Kael can break those futures. Not by overpowering the system but by invalidating its decisions. As the system escalates from observation to rollback, rewriting time and reality to erase him, Kael’s existence begins to destabilize the world itself. Cities fracture. Laws glitch. People suffer under the cost of wasted authority. Forced to choose between survival and responsibility, Kael steps into a role no one was meant to fill: a living anomaly capable of reopening closed destinies. The system calls him a catastrophic variable. The world may call him something else.
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Chapter 1
Chapter one :Disposal protocol
Kael Ashborne woke to the sound of chains scraping stone.
Cold bit into his back. The floor beneath him was damp, uneven, and smelled of rust and mold. When he tried to move, iron shackles bit into his wrists and ankles, pulling his limbs apart like an animal prepared for slaughter.
He sucked in a sharp breath.
Memory returned in fragments
The academy gates. The crystal test. The laughter.System compatibility: Zero.
A crimson light flickered before his eyes.
> [ERROR]
User synchronization failed. Anomaly detected.Kael froze.
Everyone in the continent of Edrath was born with the Ascension System. At the age of sixteen, the system awakened and determined one’s fate warrior, mage, noble, or disposable peasant.
But even peasants had something.
Kael had nothing.
The crimson light pulsed again, sharper this time.
> [DISPOSAL PROTOCOL INITIATED]
Reason: System rejectionHis breath hitched.
“No,” he whispered hoarsely. “That’s… that’s not possible.”
System rejects didn’t exist.
Or rather
They weren’t allowed to exist.Kael strained against the chains. The dungeon around him was carved from black stone, old and stained with the shadows of countless executions. Torches burned low along the walls, their flames flickering like dying souls.
Footsteps echoed above.
Heavy. Measured. Unhurried.
Kael’s heart began to pound.
> [Countdown Initiated]
Time until disposal: 06:00:00Six hours.
Six hours until dawn.
Six hours until execution.
A memory surfaced clear and cruel.
The academy examiner staring at the crystal.
The crystal cracking. The room falling silent.Then the verdict:
“System rejection. Immediate containment.”
Containment.
Kael laughed weakly, the sound breaking in his throat. “You mean a dungeon.”
The system did not respond.
Instead, a new panel appeared black instead of gold.
> [SPECIAL CONDITION TRIGGERED]
User classified as: SYSTEM ERRORKael’s eyes widened.
“What… does that mean?”
The chains rattled as he shifted, trying to read the flickering text before it vanished.
> [ERROR STATUS EFFECTS]
– No skills granted – No classes available – No protection under System LawKael swallowed.
That last line meant only one thing.
The system itself would not stop his death.
The footsteps above grew louder. A metal door creaked open somewhere beyond the dungeon corridor.
Voices drifted down.
“Is the reject still alive?”
“For now. Dawn execution. Orders from the High Arbiter.”Kael clenched his fists until his wrists burned.
All his life, he had followed the rules. Trained harder than nobles. Studied longer than mages. Believed that effort mattered.
And now the system the god everyone worshipped had decided he was an error.
The countdown ticked down relentlessly.
> 05:59:12
Something twisted deep inside his chest not fear.
Defiance.
“If you wanted to erase me,” Kael muttered, staring at the crimson glow, “you shouldn’t have let me wake up.”
The black panel flickered violently.
> [WARNING]
User emotional spike detected. Stability compromised.For the first time, the system hesitated.
Kael felt it an invisible pressure, like something vast recalculating.
He smiled, slow and sharp.
“So you can make mistakes,” he whispered.
The chains suddenly cracked.
Not broken
Cracked.Kael’s smile widened.
“If the system wants me dead,” he said quietly, “then I’ll start by breaking its rules.”
Above him, the countdown continued.
But for the first time since his birth
Kael Ashborne was no longer waiting to die.
The First Crack
The crack in the chains spread with a sharp tink.
Kael froze.
He hadn’t pulled hard enough to break iron. He knew that. His body was weak, starved from days of confinement. And yet, a thin fracture had formed along the shackle around his right wrist, glowing faintly red like overheated metal.
The black system panel flickered violently.
> [ERROR]
Physical output exceeded calculated limitsKael exhaled slowly.
“So you really didn’t plan for me,” he murmured.
The countdown continued.
> 05:41:08
He didn’t have time to celebrate.
Kael twisted his wrist carefully. Pain shot up his arm, but the crack widened. A second pull sent a tremor through the chain, and with a dull snap, one link fractured completely.
The broken chain fell to the floor.
Kael stared at it.
No skill.
No buff. No system reward.Just… him.
A laugh bubbled up from his chest before he could stop it. Quiet at first, then sharper, edged with madness.
“So this is it,” he whispered. “Your perfect world… undone by an error.”
The system responded instantly.
> [WARNING]
User deviation increasing Correction attempt initiatedThe air around Kael grew heavy.
Pressure slammed down on his shoulders, forcing him to his knees. His vision blurred as if an invisible hand was trying to crush him into the stone.
Kael gritted his teeth.
This wasn’t magic.
This was authority.
System Law.
“Trying to fix me?” he growled. “Too late.”
He forced himself upright, veins bulging in his neck. The remaining chains rattled violently, cracks spiderwebbing across the metal.
The pressure faltered.
Just for a heartbeat.
That was all Kael needed.
He yanked his left arm free. The chain snapped, metal screaming as it tore apart. His ankles followed, the shackles splitting open as if they had rusted for centuries.
Kael collapsed forward, gasping.
The dungeon fell silent.
Then
> [CRITICAL FAILURE]
Correction rejected Cause: User classified as SYSTEM ERRORA new line appeared beneath it, faint and unstable.
> [UNAUTHORIZED ACCESS DETECTED]
Kael’s breath caught.
“What access?”
The black panel glitched, text distorting and reforming.
> [ERROR PRIVILEGE UNLOCKED]
Authority Level: NONE Restriction Level: NONEHis eyes widened.
No authority.
No restriction.The system didn’t control him.
It couldn’t.
Footsteps thundered closer now boots striking stone, voices shouting in alarm.
“He’s loose!”
“How is that possible? He has no system!”Kael pushed himself to his feet, chains clattering around him like dead snakes. He picked one up, wrapping it around his fist.
For the first time in his life, there was no invisible rule telling him what he could or couldn’t do.
No ceiling.
No limit.
The dungeon door slammed open, torchlight flooding the chamber. Three guards rushed in, armored and armed, their system sigils glowing proudly on their chests.
They stopped when they saw him.
Barefoot. Shackled. Smiling.
“That’s the reject?” one of them scoffed. “Kill him.”
Kael met their gaze.
The countdown ticked down in the corner of his vision.
> 05:12:44
Plenty of time.
He stepped forward, chain dragging behind him, eyes burning with something the system had never accounted for.
“If the system won’t stop you,” he said calmly, “then I will.”
And for the first time
Kael Ashborne chose violence.
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Latest Chapter
The System That Wanted Me Dead Chapter Sixteen: The Weight of an Unfinished Future
Kael stayed on one knee long after the Determinant unraveled.Not because he couldn’t stand.Because standing felt… loud.The street around them didn’t erupt into chaos. There were no screams, no sudden riots, no dramatic shift that announced history changing direction.Instead, life resumed.Too neatly.People stepped around the empty space where certainty had collapsed, unaware anything had been there at all. Conversations continued mid-sentence. Doors opened on time. A cart rolled past with perfectly balanced wheels.The system had patched over the wound.Veyra knelt beside Kael, gripping his arm. “Say something.”Kael swallowed, throat dry. His heartbeat felt out of sync with the world too real, too uneven.“I’m here,” he said finally.The silver-haired man exhaled slowly. “Good. Because if you weren’t, the system would already be rewriting this block.”Kael pushed himself to his feet. The motion sent a wave of dizziness through him not weakness, but resistance, like gravity itsel
Last Updated : 2026-01-20The System That Wanted Me Dead Chapter Fifteen:The Measure That Doesn’t Miss
The system stopped warning.That was how Kael knew something irreversible had begun.Across the city, screens didn’t light up. Sirens didn’t sound. No public address followed. Instead, the air itself tightened as if reality had drawn a careful breath.“Everyone feels that,” Veyra said quietly.Kael nodded. He did.Not fear.Alignment.The Ascension System wasn’t trying to scare people back into order.It was removing margin.[COUNTERMEASURE AUTHORIZED]Designation: Final MeasureScope: Localized inevitabilityThe silver-haired man’s expression darkened. “They’re deploying Determinants.”Kael frowned. “What’s that?”“Not enforcers,” he replied. “Not exemplars. These don’t correct behavior.”He swallowed.“They correct outcomes.”The street below blurred not visually, but causally. Movements became smoother. Reactions sharper. Accidents vanished.A woman tripped and caught herself perfectly.A child ran into traffic and every vehicle stopped in flawless unison.Relief spread.And with i
Last Updated : 2026-01-20The System That Wanted Me Dead Chapter Fourteen: The First Line You Cross
The system didn’t strike with force.It struck with definition. By midday, the city was flooded with new directives temporary classifications, provisional labels, emergency permissions granted to anyone willing to enforce certainty.They weren’t called hunters.They were called Volunteers.Kael watched one of them from the rooftop edge. A young man, barely awakened, wearing a fresh armband that glowed faintly with borrowed authority. His hands shook as he stopped pedestrians, demanding confirmations he didn’t fully understand.“See?” Veyra said quietly. “It’s outsourcing conviction.”Kael’s jaw tightened. “That’s dangerous.”“That’s the point.”A scream echoed from two streets over.Then another.Kael felt it not a pull this time, but a pressure behind his eyes. A cluster of futures compressing, narrowing around a single, ugly outcome.Someone was about to be made an example.“I’m going,” Kael said.The silver-haired man caught his sleeve. “You don’t know what happens if you intervene
Last Updated : 2026-01-20The System That Wanted Me Dead Chapter Thirteen : The Choice That Can’t Be Reverted
The Sink began to collapse inward.Not falling reorganizing, like reality itself was trying to decide whether this place was still allowed to exist.Stone pillars groaned. The ancient symbols along the walls flared, then burned out one by one.The Prototype’s light surged.[LEGACY PROTOCOL EXPANSION BLOCKED]Counter-authority detectedKael staggered as the pressure returned but warped now. Uneven. Panicked.The Ascension System wasn’t calculating anymore.It was reacting.Veyra grabbed Kael’s arm. “This is it,” she said sharply. “If you walk away now, the system will seal this place, bury the Prototype, and pretend tonight never happened.”The silver-haired man nodded. “You survive. We scatter. History closes again.”Kael looked at the core.At the cables reaching not grabbing, not forcing.Waiting.“And if I don’t?” Kael asked.The man didn’t answer.He didn’t have to.Above them, reality screamed.[TOTAL PRIORITY OVERRIDE]Authorization: SYSTEM PRIMEObjective: Prevent synchronizati
Last Updated : 2026-01-20The System That Wanted Me Dead Chapter Twelve: The Fall Was Intentional
The drop didn’t wait for courage.Kael stepped forward and the floor vanished beneath him.Wind roared past his ears as darkness swallowed everything. The shaft wasn’t vertical; it twisted, angled just enough to deny clean physics. Stone scraped his arms, tearing cloth, skin, thought.He hit hard.Rolled.Slid.Then stopped.Silence followed, thick and absolute.Kael lay there for a moment, chest heaving, counting breaths the way he had in the dungeon. One. Two. Three.Still alive.Above him, metal groaned.[TRACKING SIGNAL LOST]Kael smiled into the dark.“Good.”A faint glow flickered to life nearby chemical light, not system-born. Veyra emerged from a side tunnel, landing far more gracefully than Kael had.“You looked like you planned that,” she said.“I didn’t scream,” Kael replied. “That’s progress.”She snorted and tossed him a hand. He took it, wincing as she hauled him up.The space they’d fallen into was cavernous, ancient. Thick pillars supported a ceiling lost in shadow. Sy
Last Updated : 2026-01-20The System That Wanted Me Dead Chapter Eleven : A Name the System Can’t Erase
Kael didn’t run blindly.He fell into motion down alleys, through shattered archways, over broken stairs where the city’s perfect symmetry had failed to repair itself fast enough.Behind him, order snapped back into place.Doors sealed. Streets rerouted. Lights dimmed in patterns designed to funnel prey.Containment.The system had stopped debating.[PRIORITY SHIFT]Anomaly classification elevatedThreat level: EscalatingKael burst through a maintenance corridor and slammed the door behind him. The lock didn’t engage.Of course it didn’t.The system wanted him moving.He staggered forward, lungs burning, shoulder screaming with every step. Blood slicked his side, warm and steady.Think, he told himself. Don’t react.He slowed.Immediately, the pressure increased.Walls hummed faintly. The floor vibrated as unseen mechanisms adjusted.So that’s the trick, Kael realized.The faster I move, the narrower the future.He stopped completely.The corridor lights flickered.[PATH RESOLUTION F
Last Updated : 2026-01-20
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