Lord Of The Lost

Metatron's blood ran cold.

Those who spy on the future are spied on by the future in return.

That was the fatal flaw of his ability.

And the Playwright's unique power, a strong grasp over her own destiny, made her the worst possible enemy.

If that had been the extent of her ability, he could have handled it. She would have only sensed danger and taken precautions.

But she was more than just a gifted Seer.

She was a follower of the God of Prophecy and Dreams.

And she held the legendary quill—the Pen of Narrative.

In its presence, God's Perspective was laid bare.

She had been watching him just as much as he had been watching her.

This was more than just a counterattack.

This was a dimensional suppression—a higher power crushing a lower one.

Metatron clenched his fists.

He had been blind.

Too confident in his talent.

And now, he realized the brutal truth, if he had never used God's Perspective, they wouldn't have been exposed.

But what choice did he have?

When standing at the edge of disaster, would anyone hesitate to look for a way out?

His mistake wasn't using it, it was using it against the Playwright.

She had walked this path for years, long before he ever stepped onto the stage.

She knew how to sniff out irregularities—how to find the weak threads in fate.

And she had waited.

For him.

Even if the Scarlet Troupe couldn't freely wield their most powerful artifacts, the Cursed Sonata and the Anchoring Pen, it didn't matter.

Every play they performed was chosen by a god.

Without divine approval, they could only use the passive abilities of those relics.

But even that was enough.

Because in sheer combat power, the Scarlet Troupe already outmatched them.

A dozen extraordinary fighters, armed with magical tools, far outclassed their opposition.

And so—

The curtain rose.

The melody surged.

"The five intruders who stormed the stage were like flies caught in a spider's web, while the Scarlet Troupe had been waiting all along."

"Under the influence of the Dark Movement, their bodies stiffened, their escape routes were gone."

"The Singer's Chanting seeped into their minds, sapping their will to fight, dragging them into an emotional abyss."

"But they were not completely powerless."

A low growl rumbled through the air.

Sofia, the Wolf Girl, stood alert, scanning the darkness, her stance primal and deadly.

She snarled, a warning that she would tear apart anything that moved.

Then—

The Driver lashed out.

His whip cracked through the air, a strike powerful enough to tame wild beasts and shatter stone.

But he had underestimated Sofia.

She wasn't just a beast.

She was a spellcaster.

A noble of the werewolves, possibly even a Wolf Priestess.

The Driver barely survived her counterattack, staggering back in shock.

And then, two more figures moved.

The Actors.

They weren't built for combat.

But they didn't need to be.

Because with [Imitation], they could replicate one-third of a warrior's strength.

Just enough to be dangerous.

The fight had only just begun, and already, the balance of power was shifting.

The Playwright had set the stage.

The intruders were trapped within her narrative.

But this wasn't just a performance.

It was a life-or-death struggle.

And in this war of fate, the real question remained—

Would they break free from the script… or become part of the tragedy?

"Aside from the young wolf girl, none of them should have been able to escape the assassination of the Actors..."

"But obviously, Miracle Alex is not among them."

The young assassin's apprentice, against all odds—fought back.

A desperate strike, perfectly timed.

A blade meeting a blade.

The assassination attempt was blocked, brilliantly and beautifully.

As the fight escalated:

The "Prop Masters" and "Puppet Masters" advanced, their enchanted props and puppets attacking like an unrelenting tide.

The Gambler, pushing both his body and mind to their limits, fought back, blocking countless strikes.

The "Lighting Engineer" used light and shadow to fracture the battlefield, dividing them into separate arenas of combat.

The Pavilion Master and Metatron, caught in the chaos, fought and retreated, their Transcendent abilities barely holding up.

They knew it—

They were being eaten away.

The Sound Engineer played [Nightmare Movement], the haunting melody leading them deeper into despair.

After [Blood Song], there would be no return, only the abyss.

Then came the deception.

The Makeup Artist, stepping onto the battlefield, donned [Crystal Shoes], her movements swift and perfect.

The Third Actor, wearing the [Gorgeous Appearance], morphed into the Pavilion Master and Metatron.

Two perfect illusions.

They turned to Sophia, the wolf girl, with pleading eyes, whispering for help, while hidden daggers gleamed in the darkness.

The Lighting Engineer's magic ensured they were isolated, trapped in their individual nightmares.

But Sophia—

She was young, yes.

Naïve? No.

She had been taught well. Trained well.

Instead of hesitating—

She pretended to fall for the trick.

Then, in a sudden blur of motion, she lunged forward and tore an Actor apart, her fangs sinking deep, blood splattering across the stage.

The moment was feral. Primal. Unstoppable.

Her mouth dripped red.

Her eyes, wild.

Then—

CRACK!

The Coach Driver's whip lashed across her body, its force meant to subdue wild beasts.

But it only unleashed something worse.

Sophia's wolf blood erupted.

Her dignity wouldn't allow her to be beaten like an animal.

Her rage fed perfectly into the melody of [Song of the Abyss]—

A call to indulge.

To let go.

To surrender to the madness.

And she nearly did—

Except…

Her bonnet was unique.

It suppressed the werewolf's instinctive bloodlust.

Her eyes darkened.

And suddenly—

There was another soul inside her.

A second presence.

The Makeup Artist and Coach Driver struggled to contain her, but it wasn't enough.

The Announcer had to step into battle.

Three Sequence 9s, all against one girl.

And still—

They couldn't take her down.

But it didn't matter.

Their mission was never to win—only to stall.

Because elsewhere on the battlefield—

The real battle had already ended.

But before the final blow was struck—

The mysterious sixth person finally took action.

This was the one anomaly.

The one presence the Playwright couldn't predict.

Because, strangely—

The [Anchoring Pen] refused to write about them.

Even legendary dragons fell within the pen's narrative scope.

Yet, whenever it tried to describe this sixth person, the details blurred and vanished.

It was as if the quill was avoiding them.

Was it wary?

Or… was it afraid?

Perhaps there was something else lurking beneath the surface.

Something even the Playwright didn't understand.

The sixth person moved with deadly precision.

Target One: The Lighting Engineer.

Kill the lights, break the stage.

Target Two: The Singer.

Silence the song, disrupt the spell.

They fell.

Neither had the strength to withstand his blows.

He cut through them like a blade through paper.

But—

There was one thing he didn't know.

The Playwright had been waiting for this moment.

And she had prepared a gift just for him.

A gift wrapped in the pages of history itself.

A play called Dragon Slaying.

And the moment the Scarlet Troupe finishes a performance—

The play becomes a card, stored in the troupe leader's collection.

A power tied to the future itself.

Normally, only the troupe leader held the true playbook.

Each completed story held power.

And Dragon Slaying had just ended.

It had not yet been sealed away.

Which meant—

It was still in play.

And the Playwright…

Held the script.

The ending had already been written.

The stage was set.

The Playwright's [Script] was a powerful tool, but it wasn't all-knowing.

It didn't dictate every tiny detail, only the broad strokes of the story.

The more specific the script, the greater the strain on its power.

For example, did Sophia step forward with her left foot or right foot first?

The Playwright didn't care.

Unless forcing her to take a certain step would lead directly to her death, she wouldn't waste energy controlling such minutiae.

She had spent years at the Sequence 9 level, long enough to know her limitations.

She couldn't expect every character to act exactly as written.

Even with the [Anchoring Pen], she couldn't craft an absolute narrative, only a framework for how events should unfold.

And yet—

The real world still followed the broad trajectory of her script.

Small deviations were inevitable, but they were self-correcting—like a train that tilts on the tracks but never derails.

It was a battle of information asymmetry.

Metatron used God's Perspective to peer into the future and gather knowledge about the troupe.

But the Playwright could do the same—analyzing the players, predicting their actions, learning their abilities.

If left unchecked, this would lead to a total slaughter, the players would have no chance of survival.

But there was one unknown factor.

A wild card.

Something the Anchoring Pen couldn't describe.

The mysterious sixth person.

A presence that existed outside the script.

A massive destabilizing force, one that could threaten the very survival of the Scarlet Troupe.