The Chronicle of the Beginning and Climax

Chapter 26 – The Unraveling Thread

The dim glow of the arena flickered, casting eerie shadows across the walls. The once-solid floor beneath Jihwan's feet cracked slightly, as if the very fabric of reality was trembling. He tightened his grip on the golden book, its weight feeling heavier than before.

The moment had arrived.

A strange pressure filled the air, something unnatural, something... wrong.

Sohyun, standing beside him, shifted uneasily. "Jihwan… something's wrong."

Jihwan's instincts screamed at him. He knew what this meant. The Variable was here.

The system's voice rang in his mind, cold and indifferent as always:

> [System Alert: Anomalous Entity Detected.]

[Caution: A Variable has entered the field.]

A deep pulse reverberated through the ground, forcing him and Sohyun back. The arena walls flickered, glitching in and out of existence, like the world itself was unraveling at the seams. Jihwan had read countless books, faced countless trials, but this wasn't normal.

This was something that shouldn't exist.

And then—he saw it.

At the far end of the arena, where the air seemed to ripple like a disturbed pond, a figure emerged.

It was neither human nor monster. It wasn't even a proper character. It was an anomaly.

At first glance, it looked like a person—a male figure, dressed in a long black coat, his features shifting as if they were never meant to be fixed in place. His hair flickered between colors, his eyes constantly changing shades, as though the world couldn't decide how to define him.

And then—he smiled.

A cold, knowing smile.

"Who are you?" Jihwan demanded, his voice sharp, his posture guarded.

The figure tilted his head slightly, amused. "You still don't get it?" His voice was calm, eerily familiar, as if Jihwan had heard it before. "I'm just like you."

Sohyun took a step closer to Jihwan, her body tense. "That's not possible."

The figure chuckled, his presence warping the space around him. "Oh, but it is. I'm a reader too. But unlike you, I refused to follow the script."

Jihwan's eyes narrowed. A reader? Here? That shouldn't be possible.

The system had strict rules. Readers existed outside the story. Characters inside it. The two should never mix.

And yet, here stood this man, breaking every fundamental rule of the narrative.

"You... you're not part of this world," Jihwan said carefully. "You're an Unwritten."

The man's smile widened. "Finally, you understand."

The Unwritten. A being that wasn't part of the original book. A Variable that existed outside the system's predictions.

A character that was never supposed to exist.

The walls of the arena shook violently, reality distorting around them. The system was rejecting him—trying to erase him. But the Unwritten wasn't disappearing. If anything, he looked amused.

Sohyun gripped Jihwan's sleeve tightly. "Jihwan, what do we do?"

Jihwan didn't answer immediately. His mind raced through possibilities. The system didn't provide solutions for this. There were no written rules for dealing with an entity like this.

And that meant—

He had to figure it out himself.

The Unwritten took a slow step forward, the ground beneath him shattering like glass with each movement.

"You don't have time to hesitate," he murmured, his eyes locked onto Jihwan's. "The story is already collapsing."

Jihwan's heartbeat quickened. He was right. The glitching environment, the unstable air, the way the golden book in his hand trembled—this world was beginning to fall apart.

And the worst part?

Jihwan had no idea how to stop it.

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End of Chapter 26