Ten Lucky Draws: I Became OP - Chapter 533: The Author’s Contemplation

“Hmm?” Ash stopped in his tracks as he was preparing himself to read about Male and the Merchant, but in this moment he had an idea to do something else.

Since completely coming in contact with the Fourth Wall, his power had grown a bit, and with Kaguya now being one of his wives.

He had already stepped on the Meta Road—or in other words, the Road to breaking the Fifth Wall.

As an endless being at the Twenty First Dimensional Rank, his awareness had obviously expanded, but in terms of ability it had everything to do with the Codex and the Novel.

Before him, a new function appeared in the Codex, its title gleaming in golden letters: Deleted Chapters.

Intrigued, he focused on it, and the Codex stirred to life.

Pages shifted and blurred, rearranging themselves until they revealed rough, unpublished fragments from ’Ten Lucky Draws: I Became OP.’

But that wasn’t all—faintly, at the edges of the text, he could now glimpse pieces the Author had erased, along with flickering side notes.

These were the Author’s fleeting thoughts, scribbled reasons for why certain Chapters never saw the light of day.

As he accessed one of the most recent deletions, the pages entire world around him began to change, the scene melting into something entirely new.

It was unlike before when he normally read, but as if he was pulled into the raw Chapter itself as an observer.

—-

He found himself in a familiar, colossal coliseum drifting in the endless void, its stands soaring in infinite tiers that vanished beyond sight.

This time however, he was far beyond the power he had when he stumbled in here through the Seeker’s Library.

And now he had a vivid look of everything.

There were eighteen grand sections filled one side of the arena, mirrored by another eighteen on the opposite side.

And currently, exactly twenty warriors occupied the space.

Like before, to the naked eye they did not sit in humanoid forms.

Instead, each existed as symbols and incomprehensible shapes—sigils of pure concept, swirling vortices of law, and abstract geometries that defied mortal understanding.

“Before, I thought these beings were nearing the end,” he muttered, unaware at the time that they were in fact just setting out on another long journey.

Now, though, it was clear to him that each one stood at the very start of the road, radiating an undeniable sense of omnipotence.

He observed as some sat in perfect stillness, lost in deep meditation, while others exchanged quiet words, their low, resonant voices carrying softly through the vast expanse of the chamber.

“How much longer must we wait?” one form, a pulsing spiral of silver light, murmured. “I have lingered here for three thousand years already.”

“Time means little,” replied a neighboring cluster of rotating runes.

“None of us truly know our purpose. We only heard the call once we surpassed our True Realities—that we would become the most prized warriors of the final war.”

A deep, ancient presence, reminiscent of fractured obsidian, resonated with a low hum of agreement.

“Three thousand years is nothing,” it intoned. “Some of us have endured countless cycles… nearly since the dawn of time itself.”

Ash observed intently, though much of what unfolded remained obscured and incomplete, as if the missing Chapter resisted full revelation.

At times, the scene would inexplicably blur, and conversations would end abruptly without resolution.

Suddenly, the distorted voice of a man broke through the haze.

“Hmm, am I introducing this stage too early?” the voice mused, accompanied by the faint clatter of keys on a keyboard.

“Or should I delay this Chapter to make it a more memorable challenge for Ash?”

The sound caused Ash to pause briefly before a faint, knowing smile curved his lips.

“Oh, Author, is that you?” he teased, followed by a derisive scoff. He shook his head and turned his attention back to the events as they continued to unfold.

In truth, his feelings toward the Author were conflicted, though one certainty remained: he despised manipulation and control.

Above all else, he sought complete authority over his own existence and over the fates of those who mattered most to him.

The next vivid scene came into focus before him.

In the center of the Coliseum, a simple yet graceful sigil—a flawless ring of glowing white—floated above one of the seats.

This was the true form of Ancestor Seeker.

Without warning, she shuddered violently, coughing up a spray of ghostly blood that dissolved into shimmering sparks.

“My clone… has been killed,” she murmured, her voice carrying a faint undertone of pain as it echoed through the air.

She closed her eyes for a long moment, then let out a soft, self-deprecating laugh.

“Well… I guess this is my own fault,” she muttered to herself.

It had been nearly twenty-five cycles since she’d ascended beyond the boundary of True Reality, leaving her clone behind.

Though it carried all her strength at the time and could have been considered her in every way, she had created it with one locked function—one that only she could remove.

Its sole purpose was to find a warrior, man or woman, with the potential to save the Reality, which was already teetering on the edge.

In the end, both the clone and the chosen warrior would join her in the coliseum as her mate.

“Who would’ve known she swung like that?” Ash muttered to himself with a smile. Then after a moment he simply shrugged.

As he didn’t feel anyway about killing her clone…. as it shouldn’t have been trying to manipulate.

Locked function or not.

“I’ll make it up to her,” he muttered under his breath. As if she wanted a mate… male or female, then she would fit in perfectly with his wives and concubines.

Then his vision began to distort as the process of deletion neared its conclusion.

As the scene gradually dissolved, a new warrior emerged in the stands—an abstract figure taking form among the twenty.

When he found himself once more lying in the lush grass, he paused in contemplation.

“If it is a deletion,” he mused, “does that mean it never truly happened?”