Chapter 16 Liora Unlocks God Mode
When Aelith vanished, she didn't just leave.
She unraveled—like a paragraph that got deleted mid-dramatic sentence.
One moment, she was glaring at me with the weight of a thousand abandoned arcs.
The next?
Gone.
Ashrin held my hand tight.
The arena flickered, then crumbled into narrative dust, sweeping us back into the forest-that-wasn't.
Only now... it was glowing.
And so was Liora.
She hovered a few inches off the ground, strands of golden code spiraling around her like she'd hacked into a role way above her pay grade.
"Hey," I said softly. "You okay?"
"I remember," she whispered.
Her voice echoed like a bugged menu.
Ashrin tensed. "Remember what?"
"Everything."
She turned to us—eyes no longer just glowing, but burning.
"I wasn't just a placeholder."
"You said you were—"
"I thought I was. But I was... the lock."
Ashrin frowned. "The lock to what?"
"To the original ending. The first version of the game. The one they buried. The one no one was meant to find."
The forest shuddered around us.
Reality groaned like it was trying to rewind.
And somewhere far off, a new message scrawled across the sky:
I looked at Ashrin.
He looked at me.
"I hate that font," I muttered.
We followed Liora—now more glowing-goddess-than-chaos-gremlin—to a temple that hadn't existed ten minutes ago.
It was made entirely of deleted code. You could see the seams.
Lines of dev commentary scrawled across the pillars like ancient prophecies:
// fix later
// remove tragic sibling subplot
// why is she kissing the villain here???
Inside was a single altar.
And a glowing terminal.
I stepped closer.
Lines of story unfurled in front of me.
The first version of the game. Unreleased. Raw.
It was different.
No villainess. No academy.
Just one protagonist—Aelith—and a world that punished her for trying to change it.
No choices.
Just fate.
Ashrin read it over my shoulder and winced. "This sucks."
"Right?"
"No wonder she was so bitter."
The code stuttered.
The air thickened.
And a voice rolled in from nowhere and everywhere.
"Who reopened the beta?"
A ripple tore through the temple.
The light dimmed.
And in the center of the room, a figure materialized.
Not glowing. Not grand.
Just... tired-looking.
Messy bun. Coffee mug. Hoodie that said "NARRATIVE CONTROL IS AN ILLUSION."
The Author.
"Oh no," I breathed. "It's you."
They looked around, unimpressed. "Why is my villainess dating the glitch?"
Ashrin bristled. "Rude."
The Author sighed. "I leave one prototype unfinished, and now I've got glowing side characters and a protagonist who thinks she's people."
I stepped forward. "You abandoned this story."
"Because it didn't work," they snapped. "It was too unstable. Too weird. Too romantic. Too many feelings."
I grinned.
"Exactly."
They paused.
"...What?"
"You tried to write a game," I said. "But we turned it into a story. You can't just take it back."
Ashrin chimed in. "Also, you deleted me mid-arc. I'm still mad about that."
Liora hovered ominously nearby. "I've absorbed seven abandoned routes. I will explode."
The Author rubbed their temples.
"Ugh. Fine. Let's do this properly."
They pointed to the altar.
I turned to Ashrin.
To Liora.
To the chaos we'd survived and the weirdness we'd made our own.
And I said:
"New one."