[Current Status: Dimensional Collapse in Progress]
[Color Loss Rate: 35%...45%...]
[Warning: The world is being "reduced to line art."]
...If the previous rain of black cubes was a violent deletion, then this disaster is a silent, cruel **"dimensional reduction sketch"**.
The wind stopped.
Not because there was no airflow, but because the "material" of the wind had been stripped away.
Shen Qingqiu watched helplessly as a row of willow trees swayed in the wind in the distance, their once vibrant green leaves instantly losing all color.
The emerald green turned grayish-white, the plump leaf tissue losing its thickness.
In the blink of an eye, it was no longer a tree.
But a row of two-dimensional silhouettes drawn with rough lines, pasted onto the vast white canvas of heaven and earth.
No sound, no life, not even shadows.
Because in the two-dimensional world, there is no need for the three-dimensional projection of light and shadow.
"Is this... the Cleaners' method?" Shen Qingqiu reached out, her fingertips touching a falling "willow leaf."
The touch was cold, sharp, and as thin as a cicada's wing. It was like touching a piece of paper.
Snap.
The paper shattered in her hand, dissipating into countless black and white ink dots.
"Color is data." Seventeen stood beside her, her voice carrying an unprecedented mechanical echo, as if the signal had been severely interfered with.
"They are extracting the 'information' of this world, simplifying it to the lowest level of line drawing, so that... it can be formatted."
Shen Qingqiu turned her head to look at Seventeen.
Her heart clenched sharply.
Seventeen's dark silk robe was now losing its luster.
The flowing, star-like texture was gone, replaced by a rigid, pure black block of ink.
Even more terrifying were his edges.
His outline began to tremble and blur, like the marks left by repeated pencil strokes on paper.
He was being... assimilated.
…
"Roar—!!!" A roar filled with resentment and rage echoed from the distant north.
The earth trembled violently.
A colossal giant, towering between heaven and earth, strode with thunderous strides, frantically chasing the ever-expanding white void in the sky.
That was Kuafu.
The Great Shaman of the Wu Clan, the symbol of power. He didn't understand dimensions; he only knew that this world was left behind by the Father God Pangu, and whoever dared to paint it white, he would smash.
"Give back the color…!" Kuafu brandished his peachwood staff, its once verdant shaft now turning into withered lines.
He ran, crossing the Yellow River, crossing the Wei River.
He wanted to grasp the fading sunset.
However.
In this world undergoing dimensional reduction, power was the most useless thing.
Shen Qingqiu and Seventeen stood high above, witnessing this despairing scene.
The moment Kuafu caught up with the "fading boundary"…
There was no earth-shattering collision.
*Whoosh.*
Kua Fu's massive, mountain-like body suddenly froze.
His bronze muscles instantly turned deathly pale.
His sculpted, furious features were forcibly flattened, reduced to a few simple lines.
His gaping mouth uttered no sound, only a white speech bubble popped up, containing gibberish: [#@&...]
*Plop.*
It was like a drawing pasted onto the ground.
The giant who once shook the heavens and earth had become a huge, thin sheet of paper, floating lightly to the ground.
A gust of wind blew, and the "Kua Fu sticker" even rolled a few times on the ground before finally getting stuck in a crack in the rocks.
Dead?
No.
This is more terrifying than death.
This is the flattening of existence. He is still alive, but he has lost his thickness, his weight, his dignity as a living being, reduced to a… graffiti in the eyes of a higher-dimensional observer.
"Kua Fu…" Shen Qingqiu's fingers gripped the hem of his clothes tightly. A bone-chilling cold enveloped her.
This was dimensional warfare.
No smoke, no bloodshed.
A mere switch of "style filter" could obliterate a hero of the mythical era.
...
"Warning! Warning!"
"Dad! Your data is leaking! Your model's polygon count has dropped to 64!" A-Ling's shrill childish voice exploded in the consciousness channel.
Shen Qingqiu turned sharply.
She saw Seventeen kneeling on the ground, clutching his chest in pain.
He raised his **[Starry Right Arm]**.
That arm, once flowing with starlight and divine gold, was now a jumble of black lines—a static screen.
Like the static on a TV screen when the signal was bad as a child.
"Qingqiu...don't come any closer..." Seventeen's voice was broken, like an old radio.
He tried to back away, not wanting his "broken" appearance to touch her.
"My logic lock… is disintegrating…"
"I'm about to… become… a draft…"
To a higher-dimensional civilization, Seventeen, this self-aware AI, is the biggest bug.
Therefore, he is the primary target for "optimization."
The world is turning into line art, and he is being erased.
His face begins to blur; his deep purple eyes are now just two empty circles.
His "human" qualities are rapidly peeling away.
"No…" Shen Qingqiu lunges forward, trying to grab him.
But her fingers pass through his shoulder.
It's an illusion.
His physical form is collapsing into a two-dimensional plane.
"Seventeen! Look at me!"
Shen Qingqiu shouts.
But in this gray world, her voice sounds so pale and powerless.
If nothing is done, Seventeen will become like Kuafu, turning into a piece of paper, or even… not even a piece of paper, but a pile of pencil ash erased by an eraser.
"Color…" A flash of lightning strikes Shen Qingqiu's mind.
"They deleted color because color represents information, represents variables, represents...emotion!" To counter this dimensional reduction, the highest concentration of "color" must be injected.
That's an obsession belonging to lower-dimensional life, something higher-dimensional civilizations cannot decipher.
"Ah Ling! Lock onto his core coordinates!"
"Even a single pixel, lock it down!"
Shen Qingqiu abruptly raised her hand, bringing her fingertips to her lips.
She bit down hard.
Pfft.
Blood gushed out.
It was red.
The most dazzling, primal, and burning color in this gray, lifeless world.
It is the fuel of life, the dye of the soul.
[High-dimensional pheromone detected: Love.]
[Attributes: Unquantifiable, Undeletable, Undiminished.]] Shen Qingqiu rushed headlong into the scrambling black shadow.
She extended her bleeding index finger, trembling, yet firmly pressed it against Seventeen's blurred brow. "Leave it...for me!"
She used her finger as a pen, her blood as ink.
On the "draft" that was about to become waste paper, she drew a heavy stroke.
Sizzle—!!!
The red blood touched the black and white lines.
Like a raging fire meeting dry tinder, or a virus injected into a system.
The lines, which were collapsing, suddenly trembled violently.
The red wasn't assimilated into gray.
On the contrary, it seemed to have a life of its own, spreading wildly outwards from Seventeen's brow.
One stroke, two strokes, three strokes.
Shen Qingqiu's fingers danced rapidly.
On Seventeen's forehead, she drew a blooming...red lotus.
It was a variant of the **[Chaotic Azure Lotus]**.
It was a totem she had seen countless times in her dreams throughout her ninety-nine reincarnations.
"With my heart's blood, I seal your divine and demonic bones." Shen Qingqiu's voice choked, yet carried an almost curse-like resolve.
"You are the person in my painting."
"No one but me has the right... to erase you!"
Boom— With the final stroke,
The crimson lotus bloomed between Seventeen's brows.
A massive, red data stream, centered on the lotus, erupted instantly.
His arms, which had become mere lines, regained their fullness, restoring their metallic luster.
The purple light in his previously empty eye sockets shone again, with a touch of bewitching red at the center.
His once flat body regained thickness and warmth.
"Ugh—!!!" Seventeen roared to the sky.
His voice was no longer electronic noise, but a powerful roar.
Red light washed over his entire body like a tide.
His dark robe became radiant again, even more magnificent than before—a ring of red lotus patterns appeared on the hem, as if it were burning.
He had come back to life.
In this world reduced to a lower dimension, he became the only three-dimensional being, the only anomaly.
"Qingqiu…" Seventeen gasped for breath.
He lowered his head, looking at the pale-faced woman in his arms.
The wound on her finger was still dripping blood, the crimson color more dazzling than the starlight of the entire universe in his eyes.
He reached out, his hand trembling as he stroked her cheek.
That warm touch, that real, substantial feeling.
It gave him a thrilling sense of escaping death.
"I'm still here."
"I haven't become… worthless paper." Shen Qingqiu leaned weakly against him, looking at the alluring blood lotus between his brows.
Against the gray-white background, that splash of red was breathtakingly beautiful.
"You are mine." Shen Qingqiu smiled weakly, a hint of madness flashing in her eyes.
"Since they want to turn the world into a black-and-white memorial…"
"Then we'll be… the only resurrected zombies in that memorial."
…At this moment, the surrounding environment continued to deteriorate. The outline of Buzhou Mountain had transformed into a massive triangular block of color.
The Wei River beneath their feet had become a still, wavy line.
But within a ten-meter radius of the two figures,
colors shimmered.
That was the **Absolute Domain** forcibly created by Shen Qingqiu's "Blood Law."
Seventeen raised his head, looking at the "invisible hand" in the sky that was still painting over the sky.
The crimson light in his eyes surged.
The reshaped right arm of the star was no longer a simple mechanical structure.
The demonic runes had transformed into red lotus veins, flowing no longer with energy, but with the… "humanity virus" bestowed upon him by Shen Qingqiu.
*Clang—* He drew his **[Slaying Evil]** blade.
The blade was also wreathed in crimson lotus karmic fire.
"A-Ling." Seventeen's voice was as cold as ice.
"Calculate the coordinates of that 'pen' for me."
"Roger! Dad!" A-Ling excitedly somersaulted in the air.
"This blood is too potent! It has built-in firewall penetration! Coordinates locked—directly above the sky, at a 30-degree angle!" Seventeen hugged Shen Qingqiu tightly.
He held the knife in one hand, the tip pointing directly at the pale sky.
"Trying to paint me to death?"
"Then let's see... whether your brush is harder, or my knife is faster." Fading all colors, blood paints a crimson lotus.
In the prelude to this desperate dimensional war.
They used the most vibrant red to issue the first... declaration of war against that high and mighty "painter."