It was just too good.
Tears shimmered at the corner of his eyes as he wiped them away, completely absorbed in that bleak and desolate world.
From the six sisters who stood above even the countless versions of Aleph, to the tangled feuds between angels and the gun god…
Venus UO descended in the form of divine punishment, coldly pronouncing judgment upon all of humankind.
"All that resistance you're putting up now is pointless. You'd have been better off dying as victims back during the prophesied apocalypse of the year 2000."
"Justice now stands with the planet itself…"
Her tone was domineering and ice-cold, a voice that instilled a suffocating sense of dread.
But that was only the beginning. One by one, even more powerful planetary UOs arrived, bringing destruction and ruin in their wake.
Countless races, every tenacious being still struggling to live, each had their own stance and convictions.
Amidst the planet's cold, lifeless corpse, one soul-stirring tale after another unfolded.
Page by page, the story was breathtaking.
And the final battle upon the Land of Steel… was about to erupt.
"Gulp—"
The cursor reached the bottom of the page.
Only to reveal two cruel words: To be continued.
The grand, epic narrative came to an abrupt halt—no conclusion, no resolution.
"Huh?!"
The young editor Kudo Tomoki blinked in disbelief, rubbing his eyes as if they were playing tricks on him.
Where's the rest?
Where's my ending?
Who the hell writes half a novel and just leaves it there?!
That lingering sense of incompletion clawed at him. He clutched his chest, on the verge of screaming.
Nothing is worse than being left hanging like this!
But then—his breath hitched. His eyes sparkled with realization.
From the illustrations, to the soundtrack, to the story's content—Land of Steel was on a world-class level.
If he had to put it into words, it was nothing short of a literary epic.
It tapped into the trending doomsday genre, but with a twist: the characters didn't collapse under despair. They didn't run away. They did everything they could to survive.
It was practically the antithesis of modern apocalyptic fiction. While the tone was tragic and oppressive, the core was a powerful ode to human will—an anthem of defiance against fate.
From any perspective, nobody in the story was "wrong."
It was brilliant. Simply genius.
This story was guaranteed to explode in popularity—there was no doubt in his mind. A literary masterpiece, packed with depth, philosophy, scope—it had everything.
To Kudo, it felt like watching a documentary. Through Land of Steel, he bore witness to a chillingly believable world teetering on the brink of collapse.
And as the one who discovered it? The editor responsible for uncovering this gem?
The chief editor would surely promote him like crazy. A raise and a promotion would practically fall into his lap!
At that thought, Kudo's blood surged with excitement. He was grinning from ear to ear.
"This is it. This is the big one."
With a face full of elation, he rehearsed his flowery praise in his head, preparing to lock this author down for good. Then he clicked into the author's profile.
ID: Merlin
Gender: Confidential
Age: Confidential
Occupation: Confidential
Hometown: Confidential
Bio: No guarantee of updates. No promise to finish. No explanations. No DMs. No publications... I write, you read. Stay quiet.
"...?"
Kudo froze.
He sprang out of his chair like a crocodile flipping belly-up, utterly dumbfounded as he stood in place, questioning his entire existence.
Are you for real?
Did your family know you were this cool?
Gender, age, job, hometown—all mandatory fields! How the hell did you bypass the backend system and mark them all as 'Confidential'?!
Are you a hacker?!
"No way... There's no way I'm letting a god-tier author like this slip through my fingers!"
Determined, Kudo gritted his teeth and opened the direct message tab.
His fingers danced across the keyboard, firing off line after line of praise like a machine gun. Stuff like "masterpiece of divine craftsmanship," "deeply moved by your writing," "have become an ardent admirer of yours, Master Merlin," and "can we please exchange contact info…"
He hit Enter—ding—only to be met with a system alert:
"This author has disabled private messaging."
"MERLIN, YOU—!!"
Kudo completely lost it.
His face turned red with fury as he slammed a fist into his keyboard.
That damned cliffhanger artist! You can't even leave a way for us to reach you?!
I swear I'm going to mail you a box of razor blades!
He had never seen such a willfully eccentric content creator. His teeth practically itched with frustration.
But no matter how angry he was, after cooling down for a while, he still approved Land of Steel for publishing.
He even used his one special promotion per month to push it onto the Editor's Pick page. Then, flipping the bird at the screen in an emotional salute to Merlin, he went on to his next batch of submissions.
There were still a mountain of stories waiting for review.
---
Thanks to the Editor's Pick feature, Land of Steel quickly drew a crowd.
The moment people saw the title, they were hooked—intrigued by how fresh and out-of-place it seemed.
Most trending stories had titles like:
"Since I Couldn't Be the Hero, I Had No Choice But to Get a Job,"
"It's Not Incest If There's Love, Right Sis?"
or
"Problematic Zombies All Come from Another World."
So it was easy to imagine how Land of Steel stood out with such a simple, serious name—and still got promoted.
Within just two hours, the post blew up with over 2,000 comments. Merlin gained nearly 100,000 new followers.
That's how powerful this short novel was.
"This is divine! I'm completely addicted to Merlin-sensei's work. I binge-read the whole thing in one sitting, and then re-read it four times. I need to know what happens in the final battle! Please update!!"
"Merlin-sensei's prose is astonishing. I am but a humble admirer—more chapters, please!"
"The music was incredible! The moment the BGM kicked in, I got goosebumps all over."
"Why would you end the story right there? Don't you have a conscience?!"
"An unparalleled masterpiece!"
"No—an unparalleled cliffhanger! You cruel genius!"
"The visuals were stunning. That delicate aesthetic captured the spirit of mono no aware perfectly—I'm in love!"
"Honestly, when the planet died, I was floored. It really felt like the end of the world."
"Right?! My mom's a hardcore Christian, always mumbling about the great flood and God's kingdom… It drove me nuts. But now, in my heart, Land of Steel is the real doomsday."
"Thank goodness we don't have actual magic in our world. Otherwise, the Earth really might get drained dry and collapse."
"Or maybe… the 'magic' is a metaphor for science. That world-ending ritual? It's humanity's endless exploitation of Earth's resources."
"Whoa… that actually makes a lot of sense. Crap, now I'm nervous!"