A head-on fight with Han Sooyoung had no chance of victory. Not the scenario mastery, not the volume of accumulated myth, not even the experience points of a human being—I lacked them all.「But the sentence perched at my fingertips spoke.」Here, it would be different. Still disadvantageous, but here, it was worth trying.When I focused, I could feel the pulse of the letters drifting around us.Sentences Han Sooyoung had written and I had transcribed.The moment I reached into the air, I felt the story coil around my fingertips.「With a bright, seaborne smile, Admiral Lee Jihye leveled the Twin Dragon Swords at me.」The instant I gripped the sentence, a sword appeared in my hand with a flare of light.It was a holy relic of the Maritime War-God.Lee Jihye’s exclusive armament, the Twin Dragon Swords.「“Annihilate, Twin Dragon Swords.”」Having clawed through hellish scenarios ~Nоvеl𝕚ght~ and trained in the Murim alongside Yoo Joonghyuk, the Lee Jihye of the 1,863rd regression had at last brushed a shard of the Ultimate Sword.「She survived to Scenario 95 and ranked unquestionably among the hundred strongest of Ways of Survival.」The myth Lee Jihye had built writhed in my grip.“Lee Jihye, huh.”Watching the sentence I held, Han Sooyoung spoke offhandedly from afar.“Fine. Come on.”I stepped forward without hesitation.Feeling her out was useless against Han Sooyoung.I immediately invoked the strongest skill of the 1,863rd Lee Jihye.「Instant Kill.」I became a streak of thunder and hurtled at Han Sooyoung.KWAD-du-du-duk!A violent strain seized my right arm.The pitch-black [Black Flame] surging from Han Sooyoung’s left hand met the sword-stroke of [Instant Kill] head-on.As if she really were the Abyssal Black Flame Dragon, the [Black Flame] she exhaled turned the rooftop around us char-black.Even this early in the scenarios, a clash this massive should have triggered a “backlash of probability”—yet I felt none.“So that’s what kind of world this is.”As if reading my mind, Han Sooyoung laughed.“Probability and the like… doesn’t matter here, does it?”In the next instant, a white radiance of flame rippled from her right hand.「A sword appeared in her grasp, wreathed in white fire.」I stared at the letters coiling the blade of whitefire.「Before her sword, all surrounding flames died away as if paying homage.」Cold sweat ran down my spine.I had realized which sentence she was calling.「Infernal Flame.」「The flame of karmic sin.」Hurriedly, I cast my mind for a new sentence, placing Yoo Joonghyuk and Jung Heewon behind me.「“Lee Hyunsung doesn’t need a sword. He is the sword.”」In this world, imagination was king.The power of a sentence depended on how strong, sharp, and meticulous the imagination that forged it was.「True steel is born from tens of thousands of temperings.」[Steelification], the stigma of the Steel Sword Sovereign Lee Hyunsung, flooded outward from me and draped the area.But with my clumsy imagination, I couldn’t fully shield Jung Heewon and Yoo Joonghyuk.In the end, the pouring flames washed over the frozen Yoo Joonghyuk. The blaze of [Infernal Flame] melted the steel bulwark, and I screamed as I took the heat in his stead.Han Sooyoung’s [Infernal Flame] was far hardier and more vicious than my imagined [Steelification].When the heat ebbed a little, gasping, I looked back at the fire-wreathed Yoo Joonghyuk.He was unharmed.The blaze of [Infernal Flame] passed through the real Yoo Joonghyuk and burned only the steel I had imagined.Watching my reaction as if it amused her, Han Sooyoung said:“You still don’t understand the rules of this world, do you?”Belatedly, understanding caught up to me.This was the Snowfield (설원), the margin between lines of story.Every sentence that existed here was an ‘as-yet unwritten word.’Therefore, until the record was decided, our battle would have no effect outside the Snowfield.As I caught my breath, Han Sooyoung asked:“Why are you shielding that guy? You don’t even know him.”“This Yoo Joonghyuk…”Why was I defending this Yoo Joonghyuk?“Because he’s not the same person you wrote.”Han Sooyoung had written the 41st Yoo Joonghyuk—his ruthlessness.But the Yoo Joonghyuk I’d seen in the 41st differed a little from her depiction.“You’ve sensed it too, haven’t you? Whatever the reason, this Yoo Joonghyuk isn’t a villain. He’s not the kind to abandon his companions.”“I’ve already written him that way, and that’s what he’ll become. Stop him here, and needless sacrifices won’t happen.”“Do you mean that?”After a short pause, she answered:“Yes.”“I know what kind of person you are.”Everyone lives long enough to reach the day they have to insist, “I’m not a bad person.” And it’s exhausting.Your history gets so long you can’t begin to explain everything that’s happened, and you start wondering what meaning any of it would have.Was Han Sooyoung thinking that now?“It doesn’t matter what kind of person I am. What matters is what kind of story I write.”I understood her.Han Sooyoung was a writer who wrote solely for one person.If she had treated every character as a real human, she could never have pushed the story this far.“If you want to persuade me, write a sentence worthy of it.”I recalled the readers’ “ORV power rankings.”Beings lofty enough to suppress the current Han Sooyoung.The Oldest Dream.An inexpressible remoteness.The Last Dragon of the Apocalypse.But those were hard to render with precise, concrete force.I pictured the images, summoned the sentences—yet they refused to manifest.The same went for strange deities of other realms or even the strongest of the myth-grade constellations, the Great Sage, Heaven’s Equal.At that moment, my eyes met those of Yoo Joonghyuk, staring blankly into space.Eyes that held a pitch-black night sky.Almost reflexively, I seized the sentence that rose up.「Across all of Ways of Survival, the loneliest, most solitary constellation.」A black night swept in behind my back.「The darkness that had kept silence for ages awoke.」What about a sentence about him?The foster father of the ‘Demon King of Salvation.’One of ’s Three Chief Gods—if I borrowed his power—「One of ’s Three Chief Gods, the ‘Father of the Abundant Night.’」A jet darkness wrapped my whole body, and my right hand began to shake violently.Even in a Snowfield where “everything is possible,” he was too much for my imagination to fully embody.A scythe of Hades, black as if carved from the abyss itself, descended into my right hand.Cleave.Almost simultaneously, Han Sooyoung’s left hand wrote her own sentence.「Where his spear reaches, there the boundary of the sea shall be.」Moisture crept up my ankles, and in an instant the Snowfield’s floor surged into waves.「Sea-god Poseidon.」Jet night collided with boundless ocean.My vision felt torn at the horizon; then the world spun several times over.When my senses returned, I was on my knees, panting.“Let’s stop here. You can’t beat me.”Han Sooyoung looked down at me.“If you turn back now, I’ll let you go. You don’t have the qualification anyway.”Qualification?“Can you use [Avatar]?”At her words, countless human-shaped figures appeared at her side.Lee Jihye.Yoo Sangah.Lee Hyunsung.Lee Gilyoung.Jung Heewon.Shin Yuseung.Gong Pildu.I stared blankly at those faces. I knew they were all Han Sooyoung’s [Avatars]—fakes—yet it felt like I faced the entirety of .“If you’d opened your author traits properly, you’d be able to use it. Looks like you can’t.”I refused to accept it.So I shouted it inwardly, over and over.「Avatar.」But [Avatar] did not activate.Why couldn’t I use [Avatar]?Even in this world where anything was possible—why wasn’t that sentence mine?“It means you’re not a real ‘author.’”I roared and charged her.With a soft pish, a bullet from Gong Pildu punched through my shoulder.Spinning midair, I seized new sentences in my hands.「Arrows fell like rain and every manner of culverin roared, and the tumult was like a thunderstorm.」「“This is why I curse this land—and yet cannot leave it.”」「In the beginning there was a point; thus the smallest is the greatest.」Maritime War-God.Goryeo’s First Sword.Kirios.The Maritime War-God and Lee Jihye’s [Ghost Fleet] traded broadsides. The barrage fogged the sea with a pale mist.Using Kirios’s [Full Embodiment], I flashed straight toward Han Sooyoung.The instant her silhouette wavered beyond the mist, Cheok Jungyeong’s [Three-Sword Sea-Cleave] triggered from my right hand.「This is a sword made to confront the sea.」But before the form could unfold, something seized my ankle—Yoo Sangah’s [Arachne’s Web].Then Lee Hyunsung’s [Mountain Breaker] smashed into my shoulder, and Shin Yuseung’s Chimera Dragon breathed at me.I crashed into the sea and tumbled end over end, vomiting blood.Uweeeeegh—Was this my real blood? Or were even these fluids just letters of story?Han Sooyoung’s voice reached me.“Stop. It’s impressive you’ve come this far, not even being an author.”Wiping my mouth with my sleeve, I looked up at her.There was still a way.A way quite effective for persuading her.I half-reached toward my pocket—then stopped. Using it felt cowardly.I had my own way.If I was an author, I had to fight with the sentences I wrote.“No method will help. I can see plainly what sentences you’re going to use.”A chill gleam lit Han Sooyoung’s eyes.「There is nothing new under the sun. All that will be written is a variation of what has already been written.」Her signature stigma was finally manifesting.「Predictive Plagiarism.」In this world, there wasn’t a sentence Han Sooyoung didn’t know. She had lived them, and she had written them.“This world doesn’t need a new sentence.”As she advanced step by step, I thought of Kim Dokja.If I could become him, maybe I could break this stalemate.But a sentence about Kim Dokja refused to come. And even if it had, it likely wouldn’t have changed much.Kim Dokja wasn’t exactly good at fighting.Was there really nothing left for me?Was there truly a sentence in this world that Han Sooyoung did not know?“Rest now.”Her left hand leveled at me again; Lee Jihye and Gong Pildu’s barrels swung toward me.There was.A sentence she did not know.Like a lightning stroke, a thought stabbed into my mind.I needed time to set the plan in motion.Steadying my breath, I spoke.“…Kim Dokja hasn’t come back, has he?”Han Sooyoung’s face hardened.Neither of us said it, but we both knew we were thinking of the same sentence.The ending of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint.The moment Kim Dokja’s myth returned, the system revived, and Han Sooyoung burst through the hospital door with a radiant smile.All this time, I had believed Kim Dokja had returned.Call it an open ending—every sentence of the climax pointed to Kim Dokja’s return.His return lived in the readers’ imagination where the author’s line could not reach; that was why the scene had not been narrated.Which was why I could not understand Han Sooyoung being here now.If Kim Dokja had safely returned, Han Sooyoung would not be here.“That…”Her slowly opening lips formed strange words.“It hasn’t been decided yet.”Not… decided?I could not comprehend it.But I had achieved at least one aim.I had bought enough time.“He—”Crackle—sparks engulfed Han Sooyoung once more. And in that instant—「A dark-red coat flapping through the ruins.」I clenched the sentence I had hidden.「Black wings thrusting out through that coat.」A sentence unknown even to Han Sooyoung, who had written all these worlds.A story not found anywhere in her Ways of Survival.「‘He who deceived the stars,’ ‘the Sophist of Evil.’」Summoning with all my might the story I had seen in the 40th regression, I activated [Incitement].「I am Cheon Inho of the 40th regression.」Han Sooyoung stared at me wide-eyed.A titanic power surged through my body.The villain who had menaced that terrifying 40th Yoo Joonghyuk and driven the stars toward ruin.An unprecedented member of the Ten Evils who had gripped the ‘Black Heaven Demon Blade,’ Yoo Joonghyuk’s personal ultimate weapon, and fought the protagonist in a final duel.Sensing something amiss, Han Sooyoung gave a signal.Gong Pildu’s turrets roared; Lee Jihye’s [Ghost Fleet] raked fire.Yoo Sangah’s Lotus Pedestal twisted space, and Lee Hyunsung’s [Mountain Breaker] detonated toward me.And then—「[Myth, ‘When All the Stars Close Their Eyes,’ begins to speak.]」All the stars closed their eyes.「Only pitch-black darkness remained around us. No starlight could show Cheon Inho’s form. No trace, no scent at all.」Startled, Han Sooyoung spun, scanning the surroundings.「It felt as if Han Sooyoung were entirely alone.」At the instant she jerked up her left hand—「The Black Heaven Demon Blade cut across her back.」With a fierce spray of sparks, feeling ran up the edge. The blade of sentences shattered to pieces, and I tumbled messily across the ground.Shallow.But I had definitely cut her.When I scrambled up on my hands, Han Sooyoung was staring at me, dazed.“You—what—”Somewhere, something cracked.[Grand Myth, Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, shudders uneasily.]A hairline flaw had formed on the surface of the myth shielding her. Letters seeped out through the crack.「‘Ms. Sooyoung! Over there!’」A sentence I knew.「In the distance stood Lee Seolhwa’s hospital. Gently flowing myths guided them along. The stories converged upon the ward they knew.」The scene sketched by sentences was vivid before my eyes.sprinting for the hospital.Their myths reawakening.The final story of , who fought and fought for so many years to bring a single reader back to life.「A creaking door opening. Faint sunlight pouring in through the wide-open window.」「The manuscript she had revised through the night scattered on the air. Letters glittering in a dazzling scatter.」「A story she had not quite finished lay there.」A story Han Sooyoung wrote, I transcribed, and the readers read.「A sentence she wanted to write if not now, then someday without fail. Thinking of that sentence, Han Sooyoung smiled like a fool.」The final scene we knew of Omniscient Reader’s Viewpoint, the ‘ending’ left wholly to the readers’ imagination.「This is a story for one reader alone.」“Wait. Stop! I said stop!”With her shout and outstretched hand, a bright light poured from the myth.And in the next moment—「Lee Hak-hyeon at last reached ‘after the ending.’」

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