Humans have always asked questions.

They question what lies in the deepest depths of the ocean, how life first sparked into existence, or the ever-controversial: Are there other intelligent life forms somewhere in the vast cosmos?

Personally? I find this all incredibly short-sighted.

Why go so far out into space when you conveniently ignore the more urgent, more grounded question: Are there species on this very planet that are as intelligent—or superior—to humans?

It’s like humanity just assumes they’re the default main characters of Earth.

Arrogant, much?

Now, you may be wondering—why the sudden philosophical detour?

Well, dear readers… creating a world is a delicate art. One misstep, one loose thread of logic, and everything—

Echo (interrupting): “Oh, for circuits’ sake, just tell them how you screwed up and leave it at that.”

I sighed. “I was getting to it. I was building the tension.”

Echo: “Jaded. While I appreciate your sudden burst of philosophical enlightenment, now is not the time for delays.”

“Alright, alright,” I muttered, brushing ash off my sleeve as the world quite literally trembled around me. “Like I said—humans question things they don’t understand.”

And now I have a question.

A very important one:

How the hell do you defeat a nightmare-inducing, universe-destroying monster you created—before it eats the world you spent three painstaking months designing?

(What? I’m not God. I can’t create a fully functioning ecosystem in under seven days. I need references, spreadsheets, and moral ambiguity.)

---

“Why on earth did you even write a monster like this—no, sorry, wrong question. The real question is: how in the seven realms was your mind capable of coming up with a being of such abject horror?”

Luther screamed—well, mocked—okay, no, he screamed in real, genuine rage at me.

“Hey, watch your mouth,” I mumbled back. “That’s no way to speak to your creator. And for your information, when I wrote this book, I was going through a Lovecraftian phase.”

“A love what?” he half-shouted.

“A Lovecraftian phase,” I repeated, exasperated. “You know, from the man who brought us Cthulhu. Oh wait—I forgot. You have no idea what any of that means.”

I waved vaguely. “Echo, explain it to him while I explain to the readers who—or what—Luther is.”

Echo: “While I would normally entertain this literary detour, I must remind you: we have less than three hours before this world faces possible extinction. And summoning Luther cost you two modification privileges. You now only have one left.”

“What?!” I shouted. “I had three MPs! This is a B-tier world, right?!”

Echo: “Correct. But summoning Luther—who originates from an S+ tier world—triggered a double MP expenditure due to inter-tier interference.”

“Fine, fine,” I grumbled. “Ugh, okay. Now, you must be wondering: who the hell is Luther?”

“Well,” I said with a dramatic sigh, “Luther is my baby—my brainchild—”

“Ugh, gross, never call me that again,” Luther gagged, fake and dramatic as always.

“Don’t mind him—he’s such a drama queen. Now, where was I? Oh, right. Luther’s from an S+ tier world I wrote. And for those new here, fictional worlds are classified by tier based on the complexity and completeness of their worldbuilding and narrative system.”

“This current hellhole we’re in? That’s a B-tier world. But Luther? He’s a villain from an S+ tier world. Even with a literal universe-ending monster, this place is still only B-tier. So imagine how terrifying his world is.”

I shuddered just thinking about the time I had to go there to patch a plot hole.

“I almost lost my life. Almost got arrested by the PHP. Oh—and Luther discovered my true identity after hacking into Echo’s mainframe and controlling him.”

Echo (deadpan): “Still upset about that, by the way.”

“And now you see why I might be slightly regretting summoning him.”

Echo: “I have no idea why you brought him. You do realize there’s now an even higher chance this world will be destroyed—by him—right?”

“Well… the thing is… Luther’s a bit of a villain.”

Echo scoffed: “A bit?”

“Okay, okay—he’s a villain.”

Luther (smirking): “Oh, don’t be like that, you two. And FYI, my beloved creator—I prefer the term morally grey.”

Echo and I shuddered. In sync.

Seriously, I’m beginning to deeply regret summoning Luther.

I mean, who discovers they’re a fictional character in a novel written by a quirky, sleep-deprived human author and instead of—oh, I don’t know—having a minor (or major) identity crisis—decides to kidnap said creator for personal gain?

Luther (sheepishly): “Well, when you put it like that...”

Long story short?

Luther is what we call an Awakened—a fictional character who gains full narrative awareness—and has been classified as a Tier-A Threat by the Interdimensional Plot Council.

(Don’t look at me like that. I didn’t name them.)

---

This, of course, is yet another reason why I am on the PHP’s most wanted list.

Look—I wouldn’t have called Luther if it weren’t urgent. Desperate, even. The last time I summoned him to fix a plot hole… yes, he fixed it. But in the process, he upgraded the world from a D-tier to a C+ tier. And I’m very sure that if the PHP hadn’t caught up to us in time, he would’ve made it a full B-tier.

I mean—I asked him to save the heroine from drowning in Chapter 3, not to:

Make her fall in love with him.

mysteriously vanish,

become the source of her lifelong emotional trauma, and

overwrite the official love interest entirely by turning himself into the new lead.

Echo: “Two hours left.”

Right. Thanks for the anxiety boost.

Which brings me back to the very urgent question:

How do you stop a world-destroying monster from destroying the world?

I turned to Luther, who was hunched over some magical-mechanical-sci-fi nonsense he’d been sketching in midair.

“Hey,” I called. “Any updates on… you know, the exact thing I brought you here to do?”

He shrugged without looking up. “Five more minutes.”

Echo snapped: “We don’t have five minutes, genius!”

Luther sighed and handed me what looked like a blueprint—lines and sigils and mechanical notations mashed together in something that may or may not have violated a few laws of physics and grammar.

I blinked at it.

Then handed it to Echo.

He scanned it instantly.

“Well?” I asked, peering at the floating data I couldn’t decipher. “Reminder: I’m not the one with the 300+ IQ and a 12-step villain plan tattooed to my soul. I wrote an insane genius, but I am not one.”

I held up a finger. “My IQ is 129. So, Luther. Start talking.”

---

“After studying the world analysis that Echo so kindly sent me,” Luther began smoothly—

—to which Echo scoffed loud enough to echo (pun very much intended) through my neural interface.

Luther continued, unfazed. “I’ve formulated three possible courses of action.”

He raised one elegant, gloved finger.

“Option one: Let nature take its course. Shift the genre into tragedy. Dark. Brutal. Poetic. Very Shakespearean.”

He turned to me with a smile just a little too wide.

“But my dear creator… that would require the emotional fortitude to watch your entire cast suffer, disintegrate, and die while the world crumbles into cosmic madness.”

I blinked. “You mean… do nothing and let my B-tier baby implode?”

“Exactly!” he said, far too cheerfully.

I threw a nearby rock at him. He sidestepped it without even looking.

Echo groaned. “You two are exhausting.”

Luther raised a second finger.

“Option two: Merge this world with a higher-tier realm to stabilize the narrative density. Risky, but theoretically, it could recontextualize the monster as part of a multiversal meta-arc.”

I narrowed my eyes. “That sounds suspiciously like inviting a whole new disaster.”

“It is!” Echo chimed, irritatingly bright.

Luther only grinned. “But think of the drama.”

I folded my arms. “And the third option?”

With full theatrical flair, Luther raised a third finger like he was being watched by an imaginary spotlight.

“Option three: Weaponize the author variable—aka, you.”

“I’m sorry, what?”

“When I say you, I mean your modification privileges. The blueprint contains a system—a narrative equalizer. A way to resist the monster… by using it.”

I stared blankly. “You want me to… what?”

Luther’s eyes gleamed. “Lean into the Lovecraftian mythos. You’ve built more than one of these cosmic nightmares. So we mass-produce similar monsters, then give humanity the tech to harvest their biology. Adapt. Survive. Fight back.”

A pause.

Echo cut in, deadpan: “In layman’s terms: he wants you to go full Kaiju No. 8. And while I detest agreeing with anything this Moriarty-inspired sociopath says… he has a point.”

Another pause.

Echo (analyzing): “Plausibility: 93 percent.”

I blinked. “That high?”

“Yes. Of course, the consequence would be—”

Luther (grinning): “—the inevitable escalation of this world’s tier. From B… to S-.”

My stomach dropped.

Echo: “You’ll lose access. Permanently. It’ll become a self-sustaining universe. No edits. No rewrites. Just consequences.”

Luther: “Forever.”

I stared at them both.

The monster roared again—closer now, scraping at the edge of narrative space-time.

I sighed.

“Okay,” I muttered. “What could possibly go wrong?”

---