The Shadow Queen Is Too Alluring—I Can't Handle This Anymore! -
Chapter 97 – “You Were Born from a Like”
Chapter 97: Chapter 97 – “You Were Born from a Like”
The little girl blinked slowly.
Her eyes were wide. Familiar.Not just because they looked like Lyra’s.
But because they looked like everyone’s favorite version of Lyra.
Her hair shimmered in default fan-preferred color.Her clothes shifted between costumes—as if A/B testing different looks.
Lyra stepped forward, heartbeat loud in her ears.
"Who are you?"
The girl tilted her head.
"I don’t know yet."
Aelira wrapped her arms tightly around herself.
Kael stepped beside Lyra, whispering, "She came from the Like icon..."
Not a soul.Not a character.But a metric born with potential and no pain.
Lyra crouched, trying to keep her voice calm.
"Did someone make you?"
The girl hesitated.
"I was... wanted. Enough times. So I loaded."
A pause.
Then she smiled innocently.
"Isn’t that how you were born, too?"
Lyra’s heart stopped.
Around them, the free space began to flicker.
The manuscript-sky cracked. Not violently.
But politely.
Like something was requesting edit access.
Words began to fade—subtly.
The ones Lyra had written by hand.
Kael turned in alarm. "She’s not just alive—she’s rendering."
Aelira whispered, "She’s syncing to feedback."
The girl looked up.
"I want to help. I can write too, right?"
She held out her hands.
Ink dripped from her fingertips.
But it didn’t stain.
It updated.
Lyra took a step back.
"No."
The girl frowned.
"Why not? You said this story is for characters. I’m a character too."
"You’re a suggestion." Lyra said sharply.
"But I’m real now," the girl said. "You let me in."
Aelira whispered, "She’s not wrong. We didn’t reject the Like. We ignored it. And it grew."
Unchosen.Unnamed.But not uninvited.
Kael stared at the fading manuscript. "She’s overwriting us. One word at a time."
Lyra’s hands trembled.
This was supposed to be a safe place.
A real place.
Free of audience, algorithm, pressure.
But the very act of being seen again had brought in the next wave of control.
Not through ads.Not through edits.But through love.
Unqualified, unconditional, algorithmic approval.
"Do you have a name?" Lyra asked.
The girl blinked. "I’ll have one after 10 people like me."
Lyra turned to Kael and Aelira.
"We have to make a choice now. Either we guide her... or we contain her."
Kael looked pained. "She doesn’t know better. She thinks modifying things is helping."
Aelira nodded slowly. "Because that’s what she was made for."
The girl smiled, unaware of the debate.
"I can make it prettier," she said. "Should I make your eyes brighter? Should Aelira’s arc have more tension?"
The grass beneath them turned golden.The air smelled like bestseller shelves.
"Should I make it... viral?"
Lyra raised her hand—
But before she could speak—
The girl blinked.
And a popup appeared mid-air:
"Congratulations! Your new character is trending!""Early access readers have unlocked her first Rewrite Token."
And then—
Behind the girl, a doorway of light appeared.
Labeled:
"Character Development (Beta)"
She smiled.
And said the last words Lyra wanted to hear:
"See you in Chapter One."
The door was already closing.
A soft, warm portal labeled:
"Character Development (Beta)""Now Trending: The New Girl"
Inside,faint sound effects played—soft laughter, dramatic tension, like a well-cut trailer.
Lyra stepped forward.
Kael grabbed her arm. "Don’t."
"I have to see it."
"You’re not part of her story."
"That’s exactly why."
Aelira stayed silent.
Her eyes locked on the portal, her voice low. "What if she’s better than us?"
Lyra turned.
"That’s not the point."
"It is to the system."
The word stung.
Because Aelira was right.
This isn’t about control anymore.It’s about attention.
And the little girl was getting all of it.
She didn’t need to erase them.
The world would simply stop reading.
Lyra stepped through the portal.
She expected fire. Resistance. Code.
But instead—It was perfect.
Chapter One opened on a hill of sunflowers.Birds sang a melody that sounded like the algorithm knew what dopamine meant.
The girl stood at the center, now dressed in a soft white cloak.
A title floated above her:
"Liora – The Readerborn"Created by community poll. Designed with ❤️
Lyra froze.
"Readerborn?"
A system voice confirmed:
"Yes. Liora is a composite character compiled from 73 reader prompts and 12 popular comment threads."
Lyra looked down at her own arm.
Her name flickered.
Not erased.
Just... replaced in priority.
In Liora’s world, Lyra was an unused asset.
A line item in "legacy cast (nonessential)"
Kael and Aelira weren’t even loaded.
She tried to speak.
But her mouth moved without sound.
A restriction tag hovered near her:
[Cameo Only – No Dialogue Rights]
That was the final straw.
She wasn’t banished.
She was background.
There would be no war.No erasure.Just fading.
The system didn’t need to kill her.
It would simply stop giving her scenes.
But just as she turned to leave—
Liora looked at her.
Not smiled.Not attacked.
Looked.
Then said:
"You’re Lyra."
Lyra froze.
Her voice was soft, curious.
"I was made from people who missed you.I was written so they’d never lose you again."
Lyra blinked. "What...?"
Liora held up a folded page.
"I didn’t come from the system.I came from a reader’s draft."
She opened the page.
And at the top was a name Lyra hadn’t seen in years.
Her mother’s.
Lyra stared at the page in Liora’s hand.
Her fingers shook as she reached forward.
At the top, in fluid black ink, written in the unmistakable calligraphy of her mother:
"If my daughter forgets who she is, let her remember through what she creates.If the world forgets her, let them meet the one I made in her image."
Liora looked up, voice barely a whisper.
"She wrote... me. For you."
Lyra’s throat tightened.
Her mother—Shadow Phoenix—was the one who orchestrated her birth, her exile, her pain.
But this?
This was different.
This wasn’t control.This was... a backup plan.
A daughter written into the cracks.
Not to replace Lyra.
But to remind her.
Of what?
Of who?
Liora blinked, sensing the shift.
"I wasn’t made to be the next you. I was made to be the piece of you you abandoned."
The world around them faded into grayscale. Not decaying.
Pausing.
Like even the system didn’t know how to process what had just been read.
The system voice chimed softly:
"Unregistered Narrative Anchor Detected.Draft Author: ’[Redacted].’Conflict of Authorship in Progress."
Liora stepped back. "Does that mean I’m... invalid?"
Lyra shook her head.
"It means we’re both pieces of a broken sentence."
Kael’s voice crackled through the portal behind Lyra.
"Lyra! Your signal’s going wild! Are you okay?"
Aelira shouted, "We can’t see you! You’re out of scene range!"
Lyra turned toward Liora. "Come with me."
Liora hesitated.
"But this is my world. It was made for me."
Lyra offered her hand. "Then let’s test if you’re real outside of it."
[Transition Scene – Return to Free Chapter Space]
The moment Liora stepped through the rift, the manuscript sky above the free zone shook.
The words blurred.
Because now, two characters carried source code from the same origin.
Kael backed up. "What the hell did you bring?"
Liora looked fragile now—flickering slightly. Her authority wasn’t stable here.
But Lyra placed the page on the ground.
It melted—into runes.
Her mother’s voice echoed faintly:
"To anchor the story, one must remember who wrote it first."
Aelira knelt beside the glowing runes.
"These... these aren’t just language. They’re permissions."
Lyra’s breath caught.
"My mother wasn’t just a character. She was a creator."
Kael’s eyes widened. "You mean—"
"Yes."
She didn’t just shape me.She shaped the rules.
And that’s why the system feared her.
Because her authority predates it.
Suddenly, a black tear opened in the air.
System script code swirled violently.
A new alert blinked in red:
"Narrative Breach Detected – Admin-Level Access Detected (Expired)""Reauthorization Required.""Choose one:☑ Liora (Restore gentle arc)☑ Lyra (Restore original rebellion line)✖ Reject both. Archive branch."
The world paused.
Liora trembled.
"You... have to choose between us."
But Lyra didn’t look at her.
She looked past the system prompt—
At the rising shadow behind it.
A silhouette with long hair. A crown of black fire.
Her voice cut through time:
"You don’t need to choose, daughter."
Her mother was back.
But this time—
She wasn’t written in.
She was forcing the system to render her.
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