NOVEL ONLINE FREE Chapter 31: Chapter 30 – A Truth Never Meant to Be Known
Chapter 30 – A Truth Never Meant to Be Known
A hush settled over the battlefield. Not silence, but something deeper—a void between words, where meaning unraveled.
Jihwan's book burned in his hands, golden light flickering as his mind processed the Unwritten's last statement.
"Who's writing your story?"
It was a question that shouldn't have mattered. That shouldn't have even existed.
Yet, it did.
The Unwritten stood a few paces away, his ink-like form shifting unnaturally. He wasn't attacking. He wasn't moving.
He was watching.
Waiting.
"You hesitate," the Unwritten said, voice carrying an eerie certainty. "Because you felt it, didn't you?"
Jihwan gritted his teeth. "You're trying to shake me."
"Am I?" The Unwritten smiled, but it wasn't condescending. It was patient. As if he had already foreseen this moment. "Or am I revealing something you were too afraid to see?"
Jihwan shoved the thought aside.
This was still a battle. A game of survival.
His book flared open, and a new command formed.
[Rewrite: Anchor – The Reader Exists by His Own Will.]
Golden light surged around him, solidifying his presence. The creeping uncertainty vanished.
"I don't need to question my existence," Jihwan said, his voice steadier than before. "I am here. That's enough."
The Unwritten chuckled softly.
"And yet, you still haven't answered."
Jihwan lunged.
The battlefield shattered under his speed, golden light trailing in his wake.
The Unwritten did not flinch.
[Rewrite: Acceleration – The Reader Moves Faster Than Thought.]
Jihwan appeared behind him in an instant, his fist coated in golden light.
Boom.
A direct hit.
Or so he thought.
The moment Jihwan's attack connected, the Unwritten's form rippled, his body distorting into ink. The impact swallowed itself, as if reality had denied it ever happening.
Then—the world rewound.
Jihwan's attack reversed in time, his own fist being pulled back by an unseen force.
"What—"
Before he could react, a shadowed hand pressed against his chest.
The Unwritten's fingers barely touched him, yet an unbearable weight crashed onto Jihwan's existence.
Not pain.
Not injury.
But deletion.
Jihwan staggered back, the air around him unraveling into black ink.
His golden book flickered, pages distorting—his very presence being rewritten against his will.
[Warning: External Force is Editing the Reader.]
A foreign force. A narrative outside his control.
Jihwan's mind raced.
His abilities allowed him to rewrite events. But this—this was something else.
This was the act of an Author.
The Unwritten's eyes gleamed.
"You're beginning to understand, aren't you?"
Jihwan gritted his teeth, struggling to stabilize himself.
"You… you're not just a fragment of this world."
"No," the Unwritten murmured. "I am the space between stories. The absence between lines. The force that keeps things untold."
He raised his hand, fingers curling as if grasping an invisible thread.
"And you, Reader of the Beginning…" His voice softened, almost admiring.
"You were never meant to exist in the first place."
Snap.
The Unwritten's fingers snapped, and Jihwan's vision fractured.
For the first time—his golden book flickered as if it might disappear.
A battle of reality. A war of narratives.
Jihwan's existence was at stake.
And this time…
The Unwritten had the upper hand.
To Be Continued…