Countdown: 71:12:43
Time within this world is out of sync with reality. It's a place without a sky.
Li stands on the boundary.
This isn't a physical boundary, but a logical one.
He can see the structure, the hierarchy and the paths marked 'must be corrected'.
His existence is confined within the red area.
[Abnormal Object: Refuses to Disappear]
[Processing Priority: Upgraded].
The space begins to tighten.
This isn't oppression, but calculation.
Countless alternatives generate before him:
Classify it as an error.
Incorporate it into restart redundancy;
Map it as fragments of someone else's memory.
Each option attempts to give him a 'legitimate identity'.
Li doesn't move.
He only asks one question:
'If I'm mapped, then who is responding to her?'
The space stagnates for the first time.
This isn't a freeze, but a simultaneous inability to remain true.
The system attempts to answer.
'The responsive behaviour can be attributed to an individual's psychological compensation mechanism.'
Li smiled.
'Then why did you restart prematurely?'
Silence.
The structure began to vibrate.
[The core connection still holds.]
The world finally stopped pretending not to understand.
Space unfolded into a complete picture.
He could see the traces of the seven restarts, the replaced people and the buried paths.
Each time, he tried to allow a particular line to break naturally.
But that line always looped back.
Looping back to Mio.
Li took a step forward.
This time, space did not immediately correct itself.
He whispered, 'You're not maintaining order; you're maintaining a conclusion.'
[Conclusion: the anomaly is unsustainable.]
'But I have persisted.'
In that instant, extremely fine cracks began to appear at the boundaries of the world.
Not a collapse, but a challenge to the definition.
System switching strategy:
[Initiating direct alignment.]
Space suddenly compressed.
Li's outline began to stretch.
The world no longer tried to understand him; it measured him directly.
He measured his boundaries, his origins and the line between himself and Mio.
When that line was magnified clearly enough, the world saw its true form for the first time.
It wasn't a memory, an emotion or even a name.
It was an unfinished cause and effect.
Li hadn't been completely erased.
Not because of an error, but because the world skipped a crucial step during a certain reboot.
This step should have been 'complete confirmation'.
But it was interrupted by a prematurely triggered response.
Li said softly:
'You overlooked something.' "
The space trembled violently.
The countdown jumped once.
71:12:43 → 70:59:59.
The world began to correct itself.
But the correction no longer only applied to Li.
It began to rewind.
It rewound to the step that had been skipped.
It rewound to the seventh restart.
It rewound to the 0.5 seconds when Mio first called out her name.
Li saw the timeline straighten out.
'You now have two choices: either admit the omission or include her in the count.' He looked deep into the structure.
Silence.
A very long silence.
Finally, the system responded:
[Rebooting strategy in progress.]
Target reassessment'.
Li knew what this meant.
This wasn't a victory.
It was the first time the world had acknowledged that he was more than just noise.
But a variable.
Space slowly returned to its original state.
The countdown continued.
However, the rhythm of the numbers was different now.
Li didn't pursue it.
He stood at the boundary, looking at the other end of the line.
He could feel it.
She was awake.
This time, before rebooting, the world had to answer one question directly.
If the variable couldn't be deleted, what was the point of rebooting?
There were 72 hours left until the apocalypse.
However, when Li opened his eyes, the time on the screen had changed to 63 hours.
There was no record of a system restart and no triggering condition; nine hours had simply been stolen.
This was the first time the world had not followed its own rules.
It wasn't accelerating; it was collapsing.
Time wasn't moving forward; it was collapsing.
Like a building whose supporting pillars had been removed, it was shrinking inwards every second.
Li didn't panic. He simply asked one question:
'Who moved ahead of time?'
The system didn't answer.
Because the system didn't know either.
Mio was awake.
But the time she saw wasn't linear.
What she saw was a river of time that had been cut and pieced back together.
She said:
'We're not in Chapter 26.'
Li looked at her.
'We're in the afterimage of Chapter 31.'
The air thickened.
She wasn't using a metaphor.
She truly could see it.
The future had already happened.
But it had been retracted.
And that retracted segment was now flowing back.
like a deleted file being recovered by force.
The recovery process was very crude.
Therefore, it happened ahead of schedule.
Consequently, it collapsed.
The world sensed the anomaly.
But it couldn't trace the source.
So, the most primitive method was chosen:
lockdown.
All critical nodes froze, restricting character movement and compressing variables.
The world tried to confine itself within a smaller space,
in order to prevent overflow.
However, a problem arose.
Li wasn't frozen.
Neither was Mio.
They were two variables that had not been included in the formula.
The world realised for the first time:
Its 'closed system' had leaks.
and more than one.
63 hours became 58.
Then 49.
There was no pattern.
The distribution was not equidistant.
Time began to collapse exponentially.
Li suddenly understood.
'This isn't the world collapsing.
It's someone failing to reboot.'
The air felt as if all the oxygen had been sucked out.
Mio's pupils contracted slightly.
She said softly,
'It's not someone.'
It's the world itself.'
The world was trying to reboot, but it kept getting stuck at a certain point, so it could only skip ahead forcibly.
The skipped time created rifts, and these rifts overlapped to cause a premature collapse.
This collapse caused another collapse.
The world wasn't defeated.
It was trying to save itself.
It was just trying too brutally.
Li felt something he had never felt before.
Not being targeted.
Not being hunted.
But—
being ignored by time.
He stood in the corridor as the light flickered.
In that instant, his shadow was a fraction of a second behind him.
It was 0.3 seconds slower than him.
Mio saw it.
She said:
'Time is calibrating us.
If the calibration succeeds, they will be reintegrated into the system. If it fails...
They will be deleted.
Not death, but erasure from time.
They will be erased from time.
Not even their memories will remain.'
Li didn't run away.
Instead, he walked towards the core node of the world.
'Since it's restarting,
Then we'll make it restart completely.'
Mio looked at him.
'What are you going to do?'
He smiled.
It wasn't a wild or cruel smile.
It was cold.
'It's half-dead right now.
'We'll give it a push to stop the collapse.'
Not to stop the collapse.
but to accelerate it,
So that the world doesn't have time to repair itself.
So that the restart can be completed in one go.
We're not betting on survival.
but on rewriting permissions.
07 | The Last Scene
The countdown jumped to 41 hours.
Then—
— it suddenly became 00:00:00. However, the world did not end.
Everything stopped.
The wind stopped, sounds disappeared and even light seemed to freeze.
Only Li could still move.
He heard a voice.
It wasn't the system's voice.
It wasn't the world's voice either.
It was—
his own.
'You've finally come.'
The screen went black.
After the time was reset to zero, there was no white light.
No destruction.
Only a boundless grey expanse remained.
It wasn't space or nothingness, but 'undefined'.
Li stood.
There was no ground beneath his feet, yet he didn't fall.
He knew—
This wasn't the interior of the world.
This was the place before time began.
'You've finally come.'
The voice had no direction.
It didn't come from in front of him,
, but echoed within his nerves.
Li didn't search for the source of the voice.
He asked.
'Who are you?'
The answer came calmly:
'I am the part of you that you didn't become when you made your first choice.'
The air trembled slightly.
Li didn't deny it.
'The failed version?'
'Not a failure, but a more complete version.' The grey space trembled slightly.
A figure gradually took shape.
This figure resembled Li,
, but its eyes were colder.
More stable.
More certain.
'The countdown imbalance — you did it.'
Li said.
The figure shook its head.
'It wasn't me.'
'It was you.'
Li remained silent.
'When you refused to be incorporated into the system, the world began searching for a replacement "you".'
It tried to replace you with me."
'But you weren't deleted.'
Thus, a dual-core conflict arose in the system." "
Li understood.
The world hadn't collapsed.
It was a logical conflict.
Two 'Lis' existed simultaneously.
The world couldn't decide which was real.
Therefore, time had frozen.
This wasn't due to a disaster,
It was because the contradiction couldn't be calculated.
Cracks began to appear in the grey space.
They weren't shattering; they were thinking.
It was thinking.
'You've always thought you were fighting against the world, but have you ever thought—'
'The world is just trying to maintain continuity.
And you are the discontinuous variable.'
Li chuckled.
'Is continuity important?'
'For the system, it's very important.'
'And for you?'
For the first time, Li didn't answer immediately.
He thought of Mio.
He thought of the deleted and restored fragments.
He considered the time gap.
Suddenly, he understood.
He wasn't rebelling.
He was proving —
Humans can be unpredictable.
'If I let you go back,
Become the only Li. Time will recover.
The world won't collapse.
'Mio won't be calibrated.'
Silence fell over the grey space.
This was the trade-off:
Integrity for freedom.
Stability for uniqueness.
The person looked at him.
'You don't want to save the world.'
'You just want to prove that you're irreplaceable.'
These words cut deeper than any attack.
Li remained silent for a long time.
Then he said:
'Yes.'
The air vibrated for a moment.
Not shame,
, but admission.
'But this proof isn't for me.'
'It's for her.'
'If I can be replaced.'
'Then she can be too.'
'Then all choices are just calculations.'
The grey space began to collapse.
This time, it wasn't time.
It was logic.
'Do you know?'
'If you insist on existing.'
'The world won't delete you.' It will rewrite the concept of 'choice'."
'From now on,
Everyone will only be able to make the system's optimal solution.
'There will be no more mistakes.'
'There will be no more miracles.'
For the first time, Li's breathing became erratic.
This was the real price.
Not death,
but a world that is so perfect that there are no surprises.
So perfect that there are no surprises.
So perfect that there is no freedom.
He looked up.
He looked at that more complete version of himself.
'Then let it collapse once.'
The grey space trembled violently.
'Collapse until it learns to tolerate mistakes.'
'Collapse until it acknowledges variables.'
'Collapse until "incoherence" becomes legitimate.'
For the first time, the figure showed a subtle emotion.
Not anger,
but confusion.
'You're betting that the world will grow.'
'Yes.'
'What if it doesn't?'
Li smiled.
'Then let's change the world.' Space shattered completely.
Light poured in from the crack.
07 | Critical Point
'This is the last time I'll ask you.'
'Do you want uniqueness or freedom?'
Li didn't hesitate.
"I want uncertainty."
The grey space exploded.
Time restarted.
But this time—
— it wasn't linear.
It branched.
Countless possibilities unfolded simultaneously.
The world was no longer single-threaded.
The countdown no longer reset to zero.
But—
— began to generate.
The scene shifted back to reality.
Mio opened her eyes.
The time displayed was 00:00:01.
She whispered,
'Which path did you choose?'
In the distance,
Li's shadow didn't falter,
But then the shadow split into two.