Electric blue light flooded Lucian's vision like liquid fire.
The mechanical eyeball—no bigger than a housefly but deadlier than a cruise missile—gave him zero breathing room. Heat distortion rippled around its charging barrel, the air itself screaming in protest.
*Termination protocol: executing.*
Lucian locked eyes with the swirling vortex of death, watching his own reflection fracture in its lens. The countdown to oblivion ticked in his pupils.
No escape. This thing wasn't targeting his flesh—it was locked onto his *existence code*.
His retina exploded in crimson warnings as cascading green data streams crashed down like digital rain.
**[Charge_Level: 99%...]**
**[Target: Hostile_Lucian (Enemy Designation)]**
Brute-forcing the energy values? No time. His mental capacity would fry first.
Lucian's gaze plunged downward, scanning frantically through layers of code. In the microsecond before that beam would punch through his skull, he found it.
*The logic gate.*
His brain felt like molten steel being stirred with a red-hot poker. Blood erupted from his nose in a warm, metallic rush. Gritting his teeth, he forged his entire will into a blade and *stabbed* it into the judgment protocol.
**[Logic: If Target == Hostile] -> [DELETE]**
**[Input: If Target == Friendly]**
*Save changes!*
"*Whirrrr—*"
In the nanosecond before annihilation, the mechanical eye convulsed violently.
*Command conflict detected.*
The accumulated energy dispersed in a scalding wind that whipped Lucian's hair into a frenzy. The eye's crimson targeting laser flickered twice, then shifted to a gentle green glow.
"Target parameters reset."
"Classification: Maximum Priority Ally."
"Mode switch: Personal Guardian."
The killing machine traced an elegant arc through the air before settling on Lucian's shoulder like a docile pet bird.
"*Cough...*"
Lucian collapsed into the moth-eaten couch, his hand coming away from his nose slick with blood. In the corner of his vision, a blood-red warning pulsed like a neon sign:
**[Current Entropy: 5%]**
**[WARNING: Excessive reality modification will cause bodily data corruption.]**
His skull felt like someone was drilling through it with a jackhammer. This was the price of exploiting the world's source code.
Lucian gasped for air, wiping the blood on his shirt hem. As long as he wasn't dead, this was a win.
He pulled out his cracked phone, fingers still trembling. Right now he was broke, city-wide wanted, and had a Reality Correction Bureau that might wise up any second.
Want to survive until the finale? He needed money. *Obscene* amounts of money.
The moment he connected to the network, explosive headlines flooded his screen:
**"Arthur Corp Announces Century's Biggest Acquisition!"**
**"Manhunt Intensifies for Fugitive Lucian Ash!"**
**"Tomorrow's Engagement: Cinderella Sylvia's Final Destination!"**
Lucian clicked into the top-trending livestream.
On screen, Arthur's bandage-wrapped face still radiated insufferable arrogance. He sat behind an opulent mahogany desk, twirling a Mont Blanc pen between his fingers while eyeing the hunched middle-aged man across from him like garbage.
Sylvia's father. Former business titan Marcus Frost, now trembling as he gripped his pen.
"Sign it, Mr. Frost."
Arthur flashed his trademark fake smile at the camera. "One dollar for your pile of debts is charity, considering Sylvia's... *situation*. Don't be ungrateful."
The camera zoomed in on the contract for a close-up:
**[Acquisition Target: Frost Industries (Full Assets)]**
**[Purchase Price: $1.00]**
**[Beneficiary: Arthur Sky]**
One dollar for a billion-dollar empire. This wasn't acquisition—it was public humiliation.
The chat exploded:
[Arthur's so generous!]
[I wouldn't take that trash company for free!]
[Still haven't caught that Lucian loser?]
Lucian stared at the screen, green data streams boiling in his eyes.
Hack reality through an internet connection?
Insane. The distance would cause massive data loss, and Arthur's golden protagonist aura was like impenetrable armor.
But watching Arthur's smug face made Lucian's barely-stopped nosebleed threaten to erupt again.
"Let entropy rise then."
He snarled, his vision piercing through the screen to lock onto the underlying logic code behind that paper contract.
In the narrative engine, everything was data.
Lucian focused on that single line:
**[Beneficiary: Arthur Sky]**
On screen, Arthur watched smugly as Marcus's pen touched paper.
"*Change it... NOW!*"
Lucian's eyes turned bloodshot. Something like shattering glass echoed in his mind as he forcibly tore through Arthur's golden repulsion field!
Delete key: *pressed.*
**[Delete: Arthur Sky]**
**[Input: Lucian Ash]**
While he was at it, might as well fix that insulting price.
**[Price: $1] -> [Price: $10,000,000,000]**
Better add a patch—this money had to come from Arthur's personal vault!
**[Source: Arthur_Personal_Platinum_Reserve]**
The moment his modifications completed, Marcus finished the final signature on stream.
Arthur laughed triumphantly, snatching the contract. "Excellent! From this moment, every blade of grass here belongs to—"
"*BEEP—BEEP—BEEP!*"
Piercing alarms shrieked through the audio, drowning out Arthur's victory speech.
Arthur froze. "What's that alarm?"
The next second, his personal secretary burst into frame, face white as a ghost. "Sir! Sir! We have a catastrophic problem!"
"Stop panicking!" Arthur snapped.
"Your Swiss platinum account... it just got hit with a massive withdrawal!" The secretary's tablet shook like a leaf in his hands. "Ten billion! Ten billion dollars! Your liquid assets are *gone*!"
"*What did you say?!*"
Arthur shot to his feet, knee slamming into the desk corner. An expensive wine bottle crashed to the floor in crimson shards.
"And... and the transaction memo says 'Contract Fulfillment Payment'!"
Arthur ripped the tablet away, his eyes bulging like a fish.
The freshly-filed digital contract displayed a name that should have been rotting in a sewer:
**[Beneficiary: Lucian Ash]**
In the price field, that dizzying string of zeros was practically a middle finger to his face.
The entire livestream fell into three seconds of dead silence.
Then the chat *exploded*.
[HOLY SHIT???]
[Who's Lucian? That fugitive guy?]
[Ten billion?! Arthur's got it bad for this dude!]
[This reverse simp energy is off the charts!]
In the underground hideout:
"*Ding.*"
His banking app chimed with gentle politeness:
**[New International Transfer: +$10,000,000,000.00]**
Lucian stared at those digits, his skull splitting with pain, but his grin stretching wider and wider until he was curled up on the couch, shaking with laughter.
*Beautiful.*
Absolutely *beautiful.*
The rush of dragging a god down from his throne and grinding his face in the mud was better than any painkiller.
His phone buzzed.
An encrypted message popped up.
Sender: Sylvia.
The content was brief as a death note:
"If you're still alive, don't come. Tomorrow's engagement is a death trap."
Lucian's eyes narrowed. The woman who was ice-cold in the original story, yet secretly slipped him medicine when he was dying.
According to the script, tomorrow night she'd become Arthur's complete possession—a smiling puppet on strings.
Lucian wiped the blood from his lips, fingers flying across the screen. Six words:
"Tomorrow night. Wear the dress."
*Send.*
But the next second, that bone-chilling sensation of being *watched* returned.
The freshly-deposited numbers began jumping wildly!
**$10,000,000,000**
**$9,999,000,000**
**$8,500,000,000...**
His retina flashed red:
**[WARNING: Protagonist Aura Forced Rollback Detected!]**
**[Reality correction in progress...]**
That bastard Arthur was invoking his "Chosen One" privileges, forcibly rewriting established facts!
The green code in Lucian's vision began violently glitching. The room's walls developed pixelated corruption like a broken video game.
Want his money back?
*Dream on.*
Lucian shot to his feet, his gaze colder than the storm outside. Remote hacking wouldn't penetrate that aura? Fine. Time for a different approach.
*Go in person.*
If he couldn't kill that golden shield through a screen, he'd stand face-to-face and shatter it with his bare hands.
The mechanical eye on his shoulder pulsed with anticipation, its lens focusing like a sniper's scope.
Tomorrow night's engagement party just became a battlefield.