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The Third Reader

The Third Reader

HualianBL
7
chs / week
The average realized release rate over the past 30 days is 7 chs / week.
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Synopsis
For most people, Heaven Falls Twice was just another web novel. A messy apocalypse story with broken pacing, an overpowered protagonist, and a comment section that died before Chapter 10. For Han Jiho, it was something else. It was an obsession. He read it from the first word to the last — all 3,186 chapters. Six years of late nights, empty coffee cups, and silent comment threads. He was the last reader left. And on the night the final chapter was posted, the author sent him an email: “You were the only one who finished it. Thank you. When it starts, remember — ███ ███ ████ ███ ████ ████.” At first, Jiho thought it was a strange goodbye. Then the sky began to peel like paper. Then the messages appeared. [Scenario 1: Proof of Existence will begin in 30 minutes.] The same words that appeared in Heaven Falls Twice. But this time, Jiho isn’t reading the story. He’s inside it. And the world he’s trapped in isn’t just the novel’s setting — it’s the second layer of another world’s fiction. The “hero” of the novel, Jin Do-hyun, once faced the same apocalypse after reading his favorite book, The Tower Descends. Now Jiho stands on the third rung of an endless spiral — a story devouring story, reality consuming reality. He knows every scenario, every event, every death that’s supposed to happen. But he also knows something Do-hyun never learned: The story isn’t repeating. It’s evolving. And it’s starting to notice the one who kept reading. When the systems collapse, when monsters crawl out of forgotten pages, and when the “narrator” itself begins to whisper his name — Jiho realizes the final truth behind the author’s message. He was never just a reader. He was being read.
actionadventureromancesystemmagiccomedy
Table of contents
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Chapter 1 - The Third Reader

I should've stopped reading when the comments section disappeared.

The novel was called Heaven Falls Twice. A pretentious title, but I was hooked. It was one of those web novels where the world suddenly collapses, monsters pour out, and the main character just happens to know everything because he read a novel about it.

Cliché, right?

Most people thought so. The story was slow, the author inconsistent, and by Chapter 10 the readership plummeted. Everyone else dropped it — except me.

I was the only one who stayed.

I read all 3,186 chapters.Every death. Every reset. Every impossible twist.

It took me six years.

Except last night, the author posted the final chapter:

"The world you're reading about is about to begin again. Look up."

I laughed. Thought it was some creepy pasta marketing thing. I even screenshot it to share in my group chat. But when I refreshed the page, the site crashed.

A few minutes later, I got an email.

The sender name was "HF2_author." The subject line just said "Thank you."

The body of the email was short:

"You were the only one who finished it. Thank you. I mean that.

When it starts, remember — ███ ███ ████ ███ ████ ████."

I tried to reread it, thinking it was a formatting bug, but the blacked-out words wouldn't copy. When I hovered over them, the cursor flickered like static. Then the whole message vanished from my inbox.

And when I looked up…

The sky was wrong.

Not broken — not yet — but the blue looked thin, like paper stretched over something glowing. I thought I was hallucinating from lack of sleep. But then the message appeared in midair, just like in the novel:

[Scenario 1: Proof of Existence will begin in 30 minutes.]

I froze. That exact phrase had appeared in Chapter 3 of Heaven Falls Twice.

Which meant —

Somewhere out there, Jin Do-hyun, the protagonist of that novel, was realizing his world had turned into his favorite novel, The Tower Descends.And now my world… had turned into his.

I should've felt excitement, maybe awe. Instead, I felt the sort of horror you only get when fiction stops being entertainment and starts being prophecy.

Because I knew something Do-hyun didn't.I'd read his ending.

He wasn't the hero. He was the prelude.His world wasn't saved — it was overwritten.

And if my world had become his story…Then whatever came after his ending was about to start with me.

The sky cracked. Paper peeling off a lamp.Light spilled through.The message flickered again.

[Welcome, Reader.]

And I realized something even worse.

This wasn't his apocalypse.It was mine.

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