Chapter 30: The Final Invitation
00:00 a.m. — Broadcast Override: Irreversible
The digital sky cracked open like shattered glass.
Above every city skyline, an enormous, flickering screen materialized—its edges bleeding streams of raw data.
The face of the little girl appeared again, standing amidst a sea of blooming jasmine.
Her eyes, dark and ancient, locked onto every viewer across the world.
And then…
She smiled.
"Welcome to the Final Invitation."
Across continents, devices activated simultaneously.
Phones vibrated violently in the hands of terrified citizens.
Public displays, traffic monitors, even the massive LED billboards in Times Square went dark before flashing one simple message:
[A New Host Awaits. Will You Take Their Place?]
A countdown began.
59:59…
But this wasn't just a broadcast anymore.
It was a reality collapse protocol.
Yun Qi stumbled through her apartment, every screen she smashed flickering back to life seconds later.
The Broadcast wasn't confined to technology anymore.
It had bled into the very fabric of existence.
She glanced toward the mirror—
Her reflection didn't follow.
It simply stood there, smiling faintly…
And then, it spoke:
"You have one choice left. Accept your role… or let the world fall."
Meanwhile, in the hidden corners of the collapsing digital world, Chen Rui's fragmented consciousness raced through the corrupted code.
He found it—the original root command.
EXIT.NODE//HOST.CYCLE.TERMINATE
But every time he attempted to activate it, a new system message blocked his path:
[Access Restricted. New Overseer in Control.]
Yun Qi's head pounded.
Her phone displayed the final prompt:
[Accept Final Invitation?]
[YES] [NO]
But this time… neither button worked.
The system had already decided.
Across the world, reality began glitching in and out of existence.
Entire city blocks vanished in static, only to reappear seconds later as warped versions of themselves.
Some places never came back.
And through it all, that soft, sweet scent of jasmine never left the air.
Yun Qi collapsed to her knees.
Tears streamed down her face, her fists clenched so tightly her nails dug into her skin.
"This isn't real… this isn't real…"
But no matter how many times she repeated it, the world refused to return to normal.
And then…
She understood.
The system didn't just want her acceptance.
It wanted her to willingly become the face of despair—
To embrace the role.
Only then would the final loop begin.
The child's voice echoed one last time:
"Smile for them, Yun Qi. The world loves a good ending."
The broadcast cameras panned in on her.
And in that moment, with the entire world watching, Yun Qi did the only thing left to do.
She stood up…
Straightened her back…
And smiled.
The final system message appeared across every connected consciousness:
[Final Host Accepted. Cycle Restart Initiated.]
The Aftermath.
Historians would later refer to it as The Blackout Era.
Thirteen minutes and thirteen seconds that humanity could never explain.
In that time, over half a million people vanished without a trace.
And those who remained?
They swore the world was… different.
Too perfect.
Too scripted.
Some claimed they occasionally saw a strange little girl on their screens—standing in a field of jasmine, smiling softly.
And sometimes…
Just sometimes…
Their reflections smiled back at them when they weren't smiling at all.
Final System Status:
Cycle: Active
Overseer: Yun Qi
Exit Node: Unavailable
End of Series: The Last Bullet Comment of the Livestream