The bridge carried me farther than usual.Light rippled under my boots like living parchment, stretching through clouds that smelled faintly of ink and static.Every few seconds, letters bled through the air—half-formed words that erased themselves before meaning could settle.

Even the silence felt grammatical.

✦

[ System Notice: Transit Complete ][ Current Location — Oversight Node Δ01 ][ Warning: Narrative Field Unstable — Concept "Objectivity" Active ]

I frowned. "Objectivity? That's new."

Arjun's ember pulsed beside me. Means this place refuses opinion.

"So we're in a comment section?"

Worse. An editorial office.

✦

The bridge ended at a corridor made of white light.Every wall shimmered with moving text—drafts of realities, half-finished lives, corrections hanging in the air like spiderwebs.Occasionally, a glowing quill drifted past, erasing and rewriting entire paragraphs of existence without hesitation.

For once, I didn't want to touch anything.

✦

[ System Notice: Entity Approaching — Designation: Editor of Fate (Grade I) ][ Behavior Pattern — Review Mode Active ]

The air condensed.A tall, faceless figure stepped out of the light, its body wrapped in translucent paper that folded with every movement.Where its eyes should have been, commas flickered—pausing, judging.

"Subject: Ishaan Reed."

I raised a hand. "Do I need to submit a draft for approval or—"

"Deviation detected. Classification: Narrative Autonomy."

"That's… not illegal yet."

"All stories require authorship. You possess none."

Arjun whispered, He means you're writing yourself.

"Yeah," I muttered. "Self-publishing. A cardinal sin."

✦

The Editor extended a hand.Reality behind him rearranged itself into neat paragraphs, each line perfectly aligned.Even my thoughts felt compelled to form in complete sentences.

"Surrender the Right to Rewrite. Return to assigned arc."

[ System Notice: External Command Attempt Detected ][ Countermeasure — Denied by User Authority ]

The mark on my wrist pulsed gold.

"Sorry," I said. "I don't do sequels by committee."

"Resistance acknowledged."

✦

He moved faster than light should allow.Each step folded distance like paper—one blink and he was in front of me, palm striking forward.The air fractured into punctuation marks that exploded outward.

I met the blow with the Inkblade.Gold and silver script clashed with white authority.

Sparks rained down in commas and quotation marks.

✦

Arjun shouted, He's rewriting your defense mid-sentence!

"Then I'll edit him back!"

I twisted the Inkblade, slashing through his arm.Instead of blood, paragraphs poured out—sentences unraveling into letters before dissolving.

The Editor staggered, but his tone remained calm.

"Unauthorized syntax detected."

"Yeah, you should see my grammar."

✦

[ System Notice: Narrative Field Compression — 82% ][ Risk: Reality Redaction Imminent ]

Arjun's ember dimmed. He's collapsing the scene! If he deletes the setting, we'll fall out of context!

"Then let's change genres."

I drove the Inkblade into the ground.Golden text burst outward, forming a ripple that rewrote the terrain into a battlefield—hazy sky, broken marble, a place that expected drama.

[ System Notice: Context Shift Successful. Genre Applied: Epic Confrontation ]

✦

The Editor paused, head tilting.

"Improvisation… tolerated."

He raised both hands, and countless pens materialized behind him like spears.

"Revision protocol initiated."

I exhaled. "You'd think gods were bad with deadlines."

✦

The pens launched forward.Each one carried a word—Silence, Order, Correction—and where they struck, the world whitened.I moved through the storm, parrying, carving through rules like redlines on a manuscript.

Arjun's voice cut through the chaos. You can't win by cutting! He'll just keep editing!

"Then I'll add something he can't delete."

✦

I closed my eyes and thought—not of victory, but of imperfection.Every wrong word I'd ever spoken.Every messy choice.Every uneven heartbeat that made me human.

The Inkblade answered, its light deepening from gold to crimson.

[ System Notice: Concept Loaded — "Flawed Narrative." ][ Effect: Immunity to Perfect Correction. ]

The Editor hesitated. His outline blurred, grammar faltering for the first time.

"Illogical parameter."

"That's because it's real."

✦

I struck once more, slicing clean through his chest.The light inside him scattered, breaking into fragments that hovered like loose punctuation.

The world steadied.

[ System Notice: Hostile Entity Dispersed. ][ Authority Retained — Right to Rewrite. ]

✦

Arjun floated closer. That was only one of them.

"Yeah," I said, watching the fragments fade. "An intern, probably."

You think the higher editors will notice?

"They already have."

I turned as new ripples spread through the corridor—hundreds of silhouettes forming from script and light, their pages fluttering like wings.

✦

[ System Notice: Incoming Oversight Entities — Multiple. ][ Advisory: Retreat Recommended. ]

I smirked. "Retreat? In a serialized narrative?"

Arjun sighed. You're impossible.

"Exactly," I said, gripping the Inkblade. "That's my brand."

And as the first of the Editors descended, the world brightened into pure white.

✦

White light swallowed everything.

Not blindness—review.I could feel invisible eyes scanning me line by line, searching for a mistake that justified deletion.

Arjun whispered, Don't move. They're reading you.

"I'm used to bad reviews," I murmured.

✦

Shapes emerged from the brightness—twelve towering silhouettes, each draped in paper robes that rustled like turning pages.Their faces were empty margins; their voices came as overlapping edits.

"Subject: Ishaan Reed.""Status: Persistent deviation.""Sentence: Undefined."

[ System Notice: Oversight Council — Active Session ][ Narrative Pressure: 97 % ]

The air tightened until even thoughts felt italicized.

✦

"Nice meeting you all," I said. "Is this the part where you reject my submission?"

"You were not submitted.""You happened.""Such occurrences require revision."

"I prefer 'improvisation.' "

Their chorus wavered. They weren't angry—just curious, the way fire is curious about paper.

✦

One stepped forward, taller than the rest. Its hands were quills dipped in shadow.

"Explain the anomaly: self-authorship."

"I write to survive," I said. "The story keeps trying to kill me. I keep rewriting the ending."

"Endings are not yours to alter."

"Then why give me ink?"

Silence. Pages fluttered behind them, uncomfortable.

✦

[ System Notice: Dialogue Loop Detected. ][ Auto-break applied. ]

The pause snapped like a comma breaking a run-on thought.The lead Editor lowered its quills.

"We maintain equilibrium. Too much freedom corrupts narrative symmetry."

I stepped closer. "And too much symmetry kills meaning."

"Meaning is irrelevant."

"Tell that to the readers."

✦

Arjun's ember flickered with quiet panic. You're taunting living punctuation again.

"They started it."

"Readers?" one repeated, tilting its blank head. "External observers. Unauthorized perspective intrusion."

Another added, > "Containment impossible. Observation… continuous."

They sounded afraid. Of you.

✦

"I'm not your problem," I said. "They are. Every time someone reads, your control weakens."

"Observation modifies outcome.""Outcome destabilizes law."

Their forms blurred, lines trembling.For beings obsessed with order, awareness of an audience was contagion.

✦

[ System Notice: Cognitive Cascade Triggered. ][ Stability Falling — 74 % → 42 % ]

Arjun hissed, You broke the editors with metafiction.

"Occupational hazard."

✦

The council convulsed, merging into one colossal figure—a storm of paper and ink, thousands of corrections fluttering like wings.It spoke in overlapping fonts.

"If story resists correction… we delete storyteller."

I raised the Inkblade. "Then let's proofread each other."

✦

The clash wasn't light or sound—it was reality snapping back and forth between drafts.Each swing rewrote the world around us: mountain, sea, starfield, empty page.Every hit bled paragraphs into existence; every block erased them.

Arjun shouted over the noise, He's rewriting faster than you!

"Then I'll stop trying to match tempo."

I let the blade rest for a heartbeat. Instead of attacking, I listened.

Inside the chaos, one quiet sentence lingered:

"Every story begins with breath."

I inhaled. Wrote that breath into being.

✦

[ System Notice: Concept Manifestation — "Living Narrative." ][ Countermeasure: Inapplicable. ]

The storm froze mid-motion. Pages fluttered harmlessly around us, glowing like moths.The colossal Editor shuddered, voice thinning to a whisper.

"Who authorizes life itself?"

"Whoever remembers it," I said.

And I swung.

✦

The Inkblade carved a single line across the air—a clean divide between order and existence.

Light fractured. The world folded once, then opened again.

The Editors were gone. Only dust made of words remained.

✦

[ System Notice: Oversight Node Δ01 — Cleared. ][ Reward: Fragment of Authorship (1/7) ][ Advisory: Higher Editorial Entities Now Aware. ]

Arjun hovered beside me, stunned. You just fought bureaucracy and won.

"Don't sound so surprised."

You realize you've basically declared creative independence from cosmic law?

I smiled. "Guess I'm freelance now."

✦

The corridor reassembled itself, quieter this time.For the first time since entering, I heard something new—heartbeat-soft, rhythmic.

Not the system.Not the world.

Mine.

✦

[ Narrative Stability — 100 % ][ Thread Updated: "The Right to Rewrite" → "The Cost of Creation." ]

Arjun asked, So what's next, editor-killer?

I looked ahead as the bridge formed once more, fading into golden distance."Next?" I said. "We find out who edits the Editors."

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