Chapter 93: The World Is a Play, But I've Somehow Written Myself Into the Story

Thud!

In the corridor, its walls pulsing with flickering red alert lights, Tian Dao pushed aside the final corpse of an Association Stellar Envoy—his body collapsing with a heavy, hollow thud onto the cold floor.

The once-bustling passage fell into silence. But this silence was no longer the quiet of emptiness. Now, the corridor was littered with twisted, lifeless forms—dozens of Stellar Envoy agents sprawled in disarray, limbs tangled, blood pooling beneath them.

The air was thick with a nauseating stench—sharp, metallic, and acrid—mixing the iron tang of blood with the cold, sterile scent of cooling fluid.

Crack.

Tian Dao staggered, his body collapsing against the icy metal wall. His right hand clutched his abdomen, where crimson blood seeped through his fingers in steady, relentless streams.

Yet he didn’t care.

After a moment of stillness, he pressed his shoulder into the wall, dragging his legs—each step like wading through molasses—across a battlefield of bullet holes and corpses. With every step, a fresh smear of blood painted the floor, a trail of red that whispered of his deteriorating state.

At the corridor’s end, he collapsed, sliding down the wall as if all his strength had been drained.

Cough. Cough. Cough.

He spat up thick, sticky blood, his lips trembling. But as the coughs subsided, a low, sudden laugh escaped him—haughty, triumphant, almost delirious.

“One second-tier superior… plus over a dozen first-tier… If the association finds out, they’ll slap my face on every wanted poster in the New Federation. Might even make me a celebrity.”

He chuckled again, but the mirth died as he accidentally jolted his wound. Another violent cough tore through him—this time, blood flecked with fragments of shattered organ tissue.

And with his Star-Eclipse Eye now utterly blind, the truth was undeniable: Tian Dao was broken beyond repair.

After catching his breath, he wiped the blood from his mouth. The grin faded.

His face twisted into something new—something unfamiliar. A quiet, hollow confusion.

“Strange… Everything’s going exactly as I wrote it. So why… why do I suddenly feel regret?”

“Did I do the right thing?”

Dimensional Audience, hearing this, assumed Tian Dao meant the “script” was his forced choice—an outcome of the Star-Eclipse Eye’s vision: a “happy ending” where only he was injured, the rest survived.

But only Tian Dao knew the truth.

His “script” wasn’t just about survival.

It was a masterpiece of manipulation—each line dripping with cunning, each twist a calculated trap.

Like forcing Kalolin onto a tragic path, just to boost “popularity.”

Had this been before, he wouldn’t have hesitated. Wouldn’t have felt a shred of guilt.

Because back then, when he first arrived in Stellar, he hadn’t seen this world as real.

It was a stage—fake, theatrical, soaked in lies and spotlight.

Kalolin. Ruli. Yun Meng. The others—mere extras. Disposable. Tools to generate “popularity.”

Their dreams. Their futures. Their pain? Irrelevant.

He was a cold director, watching the Stellar Prodigies perform their scripted roles, letting tragedy unfold—then standing outside the light, indifferent, smug, utterly above it all.

He believed that arrogance was a performance. A mask to cement his “strongman” persona.

But some things can’t be faked.

He wasn’t acting. He was hiding.

Behind the illusion of performance, he was masking his own alienation—his deep, buried loneliness, something he hadn’t even recognized himself.

But when had it changed?

Was it the first time he saw Kalolin, eyes downcast, heartbroken over her drowned dolphin toy—destroyed by Doctor?

Or when he stole Ruli’s hidden candy, only to watch her burst into tears, trembling with panic?

Or when Yun Meng sneaked him into the kitchen, sharing stolen desserts under the cover of night?

He couldn’t tell.

All he knew was that at some point—without realizing it—Stellar ceased to be a stage.

And Kalolin, Ruli, Yun Meng… they stopped being tools.

The chaos of fighting over the last piece of dessert. The laughter in training rooms, the teasing, the bickering—these weren’t just memories.

They became anchors.

They pulled him in.

And for the first time, he understood:

The world might be fake.

But the moments… the feelings… the bonds… those were real.

So he made a decision.

He would change it.

He wouldn’t stand by as tragedy unfolded.

Because in the original story—after the Embers War—Yun Meng would collapse, her life force spent from constant travel across battlefields, dying with the base.

Kalolin, pulled too early from quantum space, would lose her humanity—her emotions eroding, her soul hollowed out, becoming a cold, efficient machine.

Chen Xing, broken by witnessing Yun Meng’s death, would lose his humanity entirely, becoming a killing machine—only violence in his heart.

Ruli, her world shattered, would drown in nightmares, forced to rely on sleep aids every night, her innocence long gone.

All of it—just to make the second season’s “blackened” arcs believable.

Just to make the Stellar Prodigies into villains, their fall feel earned.

But Tian Dao hated it.

He hated the ending.

So he had to change it.

But becoming a hero? That wasn’t easy.

No one just steps into that role.

So he had to find a reason—a reason strong enough to justify it.

After replaying the first season again and again, he found it.

Not only a perfect, happy ending for everyone…

But a reason for himself.

There was only one: People hate tragedies.

So if he wanted maximum popularity… if he wanted the audience to love him…

Then being the hero made perfect sense.

And so he did it.

He told himself: This is for the fans. For the story. For the love.

But deep down, he knew the truth.

The idea of “walking away clean” was just a fantasy.

He had no real guarantee.

And the real reason he wanted to be the hero?

It wasn’t for fame.

It was because he couldn’t bear to lose the things he’d come to cherish.

He couldn’t forget the mischievous grin on Yun Meng’s face when she sneaked him into the kitchen.

The light in Kalolin’s eyes as she held her dolphin doll—so bright, so pure.

The way Ruli would bury her face in her pillow, thinking she’d hidden the candy well enough—so innocent, so absurdly sweet.

He didn’t have to be the hero.

He just… didn’t want anyone to destroy the home he’d finally come to love.

Cough… cough.

“…Heroes aren’t easy to be.”

He spoke into the silence, voice raw, trembling—but with a strange, unyielding resolve.

With a shaking hand, he reached into a hidden pocket of his torn combat suit and pulled out a small, pale-blue candy.

He placed it carefully on his tongue.

As it melted, he pushed himself to his feet.

Blood dripped from his wounds with every step. His suit was torn, soaked through. But he didn’t feel it.

His eyes fixed on the door ahead—the Quantum Center control room.

He leaned his shoulder against it, slowly pushing it open.

And as he stepped inside, he murmured to himself:

“The script is fake… but the happy ending? That’s real.”

“I’ve already seen it.”

“Now… let me light the final firework of this grand performance.”

He staggered forward.

For him, only one thing remained.

The final act of the plan.

And no one—neither Tian Dao nor anyone else—knew the truth.

The man who once stood at the edge of the stage, coldly watching the world as a play…

Had, without realizing it, become part of the story.

And now… he might not be able to leave.

(End of Chapter)

Chapter end