Lord Of The Lost

Deep within the Scarlet Theatre's residence, a dimly lit corridor led to the darkest room.

A faint candlelight flickered, casting shadows on the walls.

At the center of the room sat a square table, stacked with various books.

Beyond it stood a classical bed, its silhouette barely visible in the gloom.

The bedding rose and fell ever so slightly—someone was asleep in the darkness.

At the table, the Playwright sat, her face illuminated by the trembling candlelight.

And then, suddenly—

She turned her head.

Cold eyes pierced into the darkness, as if sensing something unseen.

A sneer curled onto her rigid, expressionless face.

Something had caught her interest.

Lifting her hand, she summoned what looked like an ordinary quill.

Then, with practiced precision, she began writing in the air—

Not on paper, but in the very fabric of fate itself.

"The Playwright is dead, and we have nothing."

Metatron saw this vision first.

Then—

"The Playwright is dead, and we have nothing."

The Playwright herself wrote out this same future.

A perfect match.

---

"We fought the troupe and were wiped out."

A second vision flickered in Metatron's mind.

And—

"We fought the troupe and were wiped out."

The Playwright wrote this future as well.

One after another, the futures aligned.

The result was the same every time—

Total annihilation.

The only difference was how many enemies they managed to take down first.

Then, a new vision surfaced.

"A breeze blowing over the hills joined the battle. The troupe was destroyed, but we gained nothing."

Metatron saw a glimpse of William's involvement.

And then—

For the first time, the Playwright hesitated.

Her quill paused slightly.

Her expression darkened.

She continued writing.

"For some special reason, the troupe was destroyed, and we gained nothing."

The vision blurred.

Then, a third possibility emerged.

"Qingfeng Fushangang joined the battle at some point. The troupe was destroyed, and we successfully obtained the [Anchoring Pen]."

Metatron held onto this vision, examining every detail.

Meanwhile, the Playwright's hand trembled ever so slightly.

She had foreseen the same outcome.

"For some strange reason, the troupe was destroyed, and we successfully obtained the [Anchoring Pen]..."

Her cold, rigid face twisted into something unsettling—

A sinister smile.

She had seen something interesting.

And now, she was ready to make her next move.

William felt it before he understood it—

A force pulling him, dragging him backward with an unimaginable speed.

It wasn't just fast.

It was unstoppable.

This power ignored time, space, and all boundaries.

Below him, the battlefield of Lonely Mountain shrank rapidly, becoming nothing more than a distant, miniature stage.

A theater of destruction, isolated in the void.

And William?

He was being pulled away from it.

For the Playwrights of Long Lake Town, this future had not yet happened.

But for the God of Dreams, this future was already set in stone.

It would unfold precisely as foreseen, dictated by a chain of events and inevitable coincidences.

So, was William truly thrown into the future?

Not exactly.

He was thrown into the stage of the future, as seen through the eyes of the God of Prophecy and Dreams.

And because only the stage existed, everything else was emptiness.

He did not belong there.

Like an ant wandering onto a divine battlefield, he would have been obliterated in the aftermath—

Not even given a chance to escape.

The moment he appeared, the legendary dragon's presence alone had paralyzed his body.

And yet—

Now, he was leaving.

Somewhere, something had intervened.

An inexplicable force was pulling him out of certain death.

The sensation was timeless, both an instant and an eternity.

When William regained his sense of space, he turned just in time to see a black figure dissolve into the void.

It faded like ink spilled into water, evaporating before it could fully spread.

A mere afterimage—

But William recognized it instantly.

The Demon Wolf.

His mind raced.

"How could this be happening?"

To encounter a higher existence was never a coincidence.

It was an invitation to disaster.

Even a god's mere gaze or breath could crush a mortal.

But William and his kind, low in strength, insignificant in power, had no say in such matters.

They could only move forward, knowing that the higher they climbed, the greater the risks.

To seek power was to gamble with death.

It was normal to perish along the way.

But this?

This was something else entirely.

He should have died—

Yet, something had reversed the outcome.

This situation was too unnatural, leaving William with only two explanations:

1. Was this Demon Wolf an illusion, a fabrication of the God of Dreams?

Perhaps the god had hidden a Demon Wolf in the script, a shadow in the dark to rescue those who strayed into the wrong stage.

But that didn't make sense.

Why would a god script an uncontrollable figure into his own story?

The Demon Wolf had slain gods before, sparking fear among the divine.

Many had attempted to hunt it down, yet all efforts had failed.

The Demon Wolf had no followers, no alliances with gods, no reason to serve fate.

The God of Prophecy and Dreams had no incentive to create such a role—

Unless… He had once known the First Demon Wolf.

2. Was this the lingering will of the First Demon Wolf?

If the Demon Wolf had truly been part of the War of Gods, then it was highly likely that it had attacked the Primordial Moon.

Perhaps some fragment of its power remained, something that had reacted to William's presence.

This theory felt closer to the truth.

But William lacked enough information to be sure.

One thing was becoming painfully clear.

Without the recognition of a true god, no one could fully grasp a divine path.

It was a chain of control:

A god ruled over a Divine Path.

That path spawned lesser pathways, followed by its disciples and clergy.

The church acted as the living extension of the god's will.

And those who walked these paths were merely extensions of divine authority.

The Witch of the Misty Forest had once given William advice—

But had she truly seen his potential, or had she simply used him as an experiment?

Perhaps she had thought he was compatible with this mythological path and threw him into it, just to see what would happen.

Whether he succeeded or failed—

It didn't matter to her.

He was meant to be a pawn.

Even if he had succeeded, he would have likely died in some other way, caught in the schemes of beings far above him.

And yet—

By sheer chance, by sheer survival, he had become a Demon Wolf.

And lived.

Now, standing at this crossroad, a question loomed before him:

What happens if he continues?

Would he ascend toward the throne of the Demon Wolf?

Or would he become part of the foundation, a stepping stone for something greater, because that throne was not built by him?

But that was too far away to consider now.

There was only one thing that mattered—

The present.

Because if he didn't survive today, there would be no tomorrow.

William's gaze turned sharp, ice-cold.

"This play ends now."

A Story Unraveling

The Playwright's head snapped around, her normally emotionless face twisting in genuine shock.

For the first time, her mask cracked.

"No!"

She shook her head, eyes wild with disbelief.

This was impossible.

No one—no one—should be able to escape a God's Kingdom.

And yet, it had happened.

Instinct took over.

Her hand shot up, fingers twitching toward the [Anchoring Pen], the artifact that could dictate life and death.

She had never been a warrior—

The "Writer" path was not meant for direct combat.

If she couldn't use her abilities, even a common thief of her rank could slit her throat in an instant.

That was why she had always relied on knowledge—

The more she knew, the more she could control.

And yet—

Even as she reached for the quill, she froze.

Something was wrong.

No, this was pointless.

The pen had already failed once.

Why?

She couldn't understand it.

Why had her power failed?

Why had the feather pen, bestowed by the gods—also failed?

It could dictate the fate of legendary creatures.

So why had it failed against a mere Sequence 9?

"No..."

A whisper—barely audible.

Her grip on reality wavered.

And then, she turned to run.

She would vanish into the mist, return to the shadows backstage, where she belonged.

But—

She wasn't fast enough.

The white mist surged, swallowing the space around them.

But before she could disappear completely, a hand clamped onto her arm.

And a sharp, rigid palm pressed against her throat—like a blade poised to cut.

William had caught her.

His grip was firm. Unrelenting.

His eyes were cold as steel.

"This town," William murmured, "is nothing but an illusion."

The real Scarlet Troupe had been destroyed long before the War of Gods ended.

The one in Changhu Town—

This was nothing more than a recreation, a stage rebuilt by the God of Dreams.

And the troupe members themselves?

They were clueless—mere actors trapped in a script.

And to the Playwright, William and his group had simply been intruders—random elements thrown into her narrative.

William's voice was low, steady.

"Any last words?"