It was ironic, really.
Protagonists were supposed to change everything.
Their presence bent the world, shifted the tides, rewrote the fate of those around them. They were the axis upon which the story turned.
And yet, Elara—who had befriended Aeliana, who had tried to save her—had failed. Enjoy more content from My Virtual Library Empire
No matter how much she had fought, no matter the strength of their bond, it hadn’t mattered in the end.
Aeliana had still lost herself.
To her curse. To her illness. To the inevitable spiral that the novel had already written for her.
‘Shattered Innocence’ had cooked with that twist. The protagonist, bound by fate rather than defying it. The world, unwilling to let her rewrite certain tragedies.
And it had been good.
But now—this world was no longer a book.
It was real.
And I was here.
Which meant I didn’t have to accept that ending.
My grip tightened around my estoc, the void-light along its edge pulsing in time with the abyssal energy surrounding us. The Kraken loomed, waiting, watching, its resonance with me deepening.
But my focus wasn’t on it.
It was on her.
Aeliana, whose body trembled, barely able to stand, yet still glaring at me with something raw and unyielding. Aeliana, who had every reason to collapse, every reason to give in, yet refused to look away.
‘It may be a bit cruel and hard for you…’
I knew the weight of my words. I knew how much they could cut.
‘But, you see… hatred is a strong feeling.’
And with a condition like hers, she would need it.
Because hatred—resentment, rage, fury—was an emotion strong enough to keep a person alive.
I knew that better than anyone.
I had seen how far it could push a man. How it could keep them fighting long past their limits, keep them moving even when the world had long since turned against them.
Because I had lived it.
And if it worked for me—
Then maybe it would work for her too.
I exhaled, stepping forward, meeting her unsteady gaze. My smirk softened—just slightly.
‘Hope you don’t resent me too much.’
Then I turned back to the Kraken, lifting my blade.
Time to see if fate could still be rewritten.
BOOM.
The Kraken lunged.
But I was already moving.
My body twisted, feet barely grazing the broken stone as I evaded its strike with ease—no, with certainty.
“As expected.”
My eyes flicked over the Kraken, watching as something new coiled around its grotesque limbs, slithering through the thick, pulsing flesh.
Starlight energy.
Faint at first, but unmistakable. Flickering like dying embers, yet carrying a weight far beyond this creature. Beyond this world.
‘So it’s true, then.’
The monster’s energy finalized my doubts.
In the novel, the Kraken’s connection to something greater—something outside—was only revealed near the very end.
That time, it wasn’t Aeliana.
It was someone else.
A male lead. A favored son of fate.
Another disaster. Another tragedy. Another nearly irreversible curse.
But this time, because it happened after the academy arc, Elara had been strong enough to stop it.
And when she did—when the monster fell, broken and writhing in its final death throes—something had been revealed.
Inside that beast, inside its very essence, was something else entirely.
[The KONG.]
A sublime, blackish creature. Something not of this world.
‘An outsider. An alien. Call it whatever you want.’
Duke Thaddeus had been the one to confirm it. He had seen it before, felt it before. And though the novel had never focused on him, his words had carried weight.
Because the energy within that thing—the KONG—had been the same.
The same as the Kraken.
The same as the energy that had once nearly destroyed him.
And it was the same star energy that I was seeing right now.
The tendrils of void-starlight coiling through the Kraken’s massive body pulsed again, stronger this time. The resonance between us deepened, a call-and-response that vibrated through my very core.
I understood it now.
This thing, this monstrous force—
It wasn’t just a mindless creature of the deep.
It was a vessel.
A host for something greater. Something older. Something… wrong.
The realization sent a slow, amused breath through my lips.
“Heh.”
No wonder the novel had only hinted at it, only revealed the truth at the very end.
Because this wasn’t just a single disaster.
This was a pattern.
A deliberate force moving in the shadows of this world, slipping through the cracks, infecting hosts, creating destruction at precise, calculated points in time.
This Kraken.
The monster that had nearly killed Thaddeus.
The beast that had cursed the male lead.
And who was to say how many more were out there?
‘Hah. Looks like the world-building was deeper than even the author intended.’
A slow smile curled onto my lips.
I had expected this.
That was why I had come here in the first place.
Something had been calling me. A pull at the edges of my awareness, subtle yet undeniable. The kind of instinct that couldn’t be rationalized, that couldn’t be explained in simple logic.
It wasn’t concrete, wasn’t anything I could prove.
Superstition? Intuition? Call it whatever you want.
At the end of the day, I had known.
And I was right.
My fingers flexed around the hilt of my estoc, the void-light along its length pulsing in time with the foreign starlight that coiled around the Kraken’s massive body.
It was coming down now, its colossal form twisting, shifting—breaking.
Not from my attacks.
But from within.
Something inside it was stirring, unraveling, trying to claw its way free.
And I could feel it.
The resonance between us had deepened to something undeniable, something raw and vast and familiar.
‘The condition for my breakthrough lies here.’
That thought settled into my mind with certainty.
I had reached the limits of what this world’s cultivation system understood. [Devourer of Stars] was never meant to follow the same path. My core had formed outside of convention, my ascension had been different from the rest.
And now, the answer was in front of me.
Because the Kraken was proof that I wasn’t the only one.
That something else—something older—had already walked this path before.
I exhaled, rolling my shoulders as I met the abyssal gaze of the dying monster.
“Good,” I murmured, my smirk widening as I shifted my stance.
“Then let’s see what you’re really hiding.”
BOOM.
I surged forward.
———A/N———
I had changed the writing style in the latest chapters a little. What do you think?