The wasteland shook.
The chains weren't retreating. They weren't breaking.
They were adapting.
From the black towers, thousands more spilled forth, their weight pressing the ground until the stone cracked beneath their feet. The air grew thick, suffocating, each breath like swallowing molten ash.
[ Warning: Scenario Divergence Detected. ]
[ Trial Difficulty Increasing. ]
Do-hyun cursed as another lash tore through his flame shield, searing his arm to the bone. Still, he held the line, his teeth grinding so hard they bled.
"Shit—it's multiplying—!"
Ha-young spat blood, crimson shackles wrapping around two chains at once before snapping in half. Her eyes glowed feral, but even her manic grin faltered. "Heh. Looks like the script's pissed."
Arin's wards flickered, her silver light dimming under the relentless barrage. Each deflected strike cracked her veins further, bleeding starlight across her skin.
And Seong-wu—his golden blades moved faster, sharper. But his jaw was tight, his gaze locked not on the chains but on Hae-won. Calculating. Measuring.
The ledger's whispers bled through the battlefield:
"…Unpaid. Unstable. Reassert narrative dominance."
The ground split. From the fissures, chains writhed upward like serpents, circling the cadets. This wasn't just an assault. It was judgment.
Hae-won staggered, hands gripping his skull. The voices clawed into him, dragging his regression memories like knives across his brain.
Fragments flashed—every failed draft, every death he'd rewritten. Each ending demanded: Pay your due. Restore the script. Submit.
Arin's voice cut through the storm, raw and desperate.
"Hae-won! Don't listen—stay with us!"
But the ledger's tone deepened, vibrating through his bones:
[ Punishment Enacted: Shackles of the Author. ]
[ Condition: If the Unbound does not rewrite, the chains will consume his companions. ]
Black iron shot from the earth, snapping toward Arin, Do-hyun, Ha-young, and Seong-wu. Not to kill. To bind.
The choice wasn't survival.
It was corruption.
Either he rewrote—and paid with his identity—
Or he watched them be claimed as characters, shackled back into the script he had abandoned.
The air burned. His vision split into five hundred screams.
And still… he hesitated.
Because for the first time in countless regressions, it wasn't just his life on the line. It was theirs. The shackles lunged.
Arin's halo flared, silver script lashing out like a thousand blades of light. She caught the first iron coil mid-strike, her arms shaking as sparks showered the ground.
"Not this time!" she screamed, the sound tearing from her throat raw.
Another chain darted for Do-hyun. He met it head-on, fire exploding from his chest, molten runes burning into the metal. The impact shattered bone in his arm, but he grinned through the pain.
"I've died enough times already. If this world wants me dead again—it'll choke on me first!"
Ha-young's laughter rang sharp, manic, even as blood poured down her face. She hurled herself into the swarm, crimson shackles dragging three chains taut before they whipped back, slicing her skin open. "You think you can bind me? Me? I was born in chains!"
And Seong-wu—silent, always watching—moved like a golden storm. He didn't fight the chains trying to bind him. He cut the ones targeting Hae-won instead, blades flashing, precision absolute.
"Stay still, Cha Hae-won." His voice was like steel. "You move, you rewrite, and we all lose."
Hae-won froze.
The ledger thundered inside his skull, its verdict pressing down like the weight of mountains. Rewrite. Pay. Submit.
But before he could break, before his trembling hand could reach for the Dream's power, Arin's voice shattered the air.
"You're not alone anymore!"
Her silver light pulsed, burning through the nearest shackle. Her eyes, bright even through tears, locked on him.
"For five hundred regressions—you carried it by yourself. But not now. Not with us."
The chains recoiled, shrieking as though wounded.
Do-hyun planted his foot forward, blood soaking his uniform. "Let the system hear it—we don't follow its damn script!"
Ha-young spat, wrapping her own chains around the ledger-born shackles. "You want dominance? Then fight us for it, you bastards!"
Seong-wu didn't smile. Didn't falter. His blades carved a perfect arc, severing a shackle a hair's breadth from Hae-won's throat.
"Stay still," he repeated. "We'll prove whether you're worth trusting."
The ground shook with fury. The ledger's whispers turned into screams.
"…Unacceptable. Instability detected. Scenario integrity compromised."
The punishment intensified. Chains doubled, then tripled, their shadows blanketing the wasteland.
But Hae-won—
—for the first time in centuries of death—
—did not reach for his power.
He let them fight.
And something inside him broke. Not from pain. Not from loss.
From relief.
The wasteland convulsed.
Chains crashed down like rivers of iron, snapping into the stone and dragging entire slabs into the abyss. The noise was unbearable—steel grinding against steel, an execution bell tolling with every impact.
The cadets were ants before the storm. But they refused to bow.
Do-hyun roared, fire spilling from his lungs like a dragon's breath. Each step forward burned his own flesh, his body crumbling under the weight of his own power, but he didn't stop. "I'll stand here, ledger! You can take my arm, my leg—but you'll never take my spine!"
A chain speared toward him. He caught it with his bare hands, molten runes glowing from his palms, and pulled. The sound of snapping metal echoed like a gunshot.
Arin staggered at his side, silver light flickering like a dying flame. Still, she lifted her hands, script wrapping around the next shackle. Her voice trembled, but the words carried to every corner of the wasteland.
"Stories aren't written by ledgers. They're lived. And I choose this one."
The silver ink burned brighter, her halo searing through the air. The chain shattered into fragments of word-dust.
Ha-young cackled through blood-soaked teeth, her body bent but unbroken. Her crimson shackles lashed outward, binding three iron chains and dragging them down with her own strength. "If this is dominance, then I'll dominate with spite!"
Her scream was feral, chains snapping around her like whips of rebellion.
Even Seong-wu, quiet and sharp as ever, moved without hesitation. His golden aura rippled as he stood before Hae-won like a shield. Every strike he made was deliberate, not wasteful—each slash severed the bonds reaching for the one person who had rewritten the world itself.
"You will not touch him," Seong-wu said flatly, his voice like a blade. "Not while I draw breath."
And then, together—bleeding, breaking, but unbowed—they screamed.
Their voices collided with the storm, cutting through the ledger's whisper like lightning through night.
"WE REFUSE!"
The wasteland froze.
For one impossible instant, the chains stopped moving. The grinding halted. The sky of fractured script shivered.
And then, impossibly—
A message bloomed in the air.
[ Unstable resistance detected. ]
[ Dominance requirement—modified. ]
[ Companions acknowledged. ]
The ledger's voice trembled, like an ancient judge unsure of its own verdict.
Hae-won's breath caught. His knees buckled, not from exhaustion, but from disbelief.
They had done it. Not him. Not the Dream. Not the madness of five hundred regressions.
Them.
The companions he had thought were only shadows of drafts, only echoes meant to die. They had proven they were alive. That they could stand even without his hand forcing the script.
Arin turned to him, face pale, lips trembling—but smiling through it all.
"See, Hae-won? You don't have to bleed alone anymore."
Something inside his chest cracked—not with despair this time, but with something warm, fragile, terrifying.
Hope.