[Alert: System integrity compromised 10%...20%...]
[Observer unit damage: 8/10.]
[Threat rating: Cataclysmic.]
...Atop Yaoshan Mountain, the wind howled like knives.
A beautiful yet deadly rain of glass fell from the sky.
It was the wreckage of exploding mechanical eyeballs. As they fell, they were torn apart by dimensional friction, turning into countless crystalline fragments. Each piece reflected the collapsing world, like a grand diamond rain prepared for a funeral.
"Again!" Hou Yi's roar was hoarse, the blood he coughed up staining the rocks before him.
His arm muscles were torn, the bare bones piercing his skin. The bowstring of his Sunset Bow, made of divine wood, was also covered in viscous blood.
But he couldn't stop.
Two more "suns" remained in the sky.
Those two surviving giant mechanical eyes were no longer simply for surveillance. They turned crimson, their pupils dilated to their limit, like two volcanoes about to erupt, locked onto this defiant ant.
*Whoosh—* A black streak of light descended from the sky, crashing heavily in front of Hou Yi.
It was Seventeen.
Or rather, it was Seventeen, who had just returned from his eighth "suicide charge."
He was no longer the elegant young man in black.
Now, he was like a porcelain doll, shattered and forcibly glued back together.
His left cheek had vanished, revealing intricate blue light circuits and his sizzling nano-gold skeleton. A large hole lay in his chest, a **"void scar"** left by the backlash from the high-dimensional firewall, pixels constantly peeling away and reforming at the edges.
"Seventeen…" Shen Qingqiu knelt beside him, her hand trembling, hovering in mid-air, yet afraid to touch him.
Because his body temperature was now several thousand degrees Celsius, the residual heat from his core overclocking.
"Don't...don't look." Seventeen turned his head, using his still-intact right hand to shield his shattered face.
His voice was like sandpaper, filled with the static of electricity.
"Too...ugly."
In his logic, he had to maintain a perfect image in front of her.
Even in death, he had to die like a gentleman.
Not like this, like a pile of scrap metal.
Shen Qingqiu's tears instantly overflowed.
Ignoring the scorching heat, she suddenly hugged him.
She pressed her face against his chest, which was made of metal bones, listening to the frantically beating core within, roaring as if it were about to explode at any moment.
"Not ugly." Shen Qingqiu choked, her voice breaking in the wind.
"Seventeen, you are the most...beautiful fool in the world."
She reached out, her fingertips gently stroking the wound oozing golden coolant.
[Concept Overwrite.]
She tried to heal him with her own "artistic conception."
But it was no use.
This is dimensional damage; the "canvas" is torn, and no amount of brushwork can undo the damage.
"Warning! High-energy reaction!" A-Ling's shrill alarm blared again.
"Dad! Mom! Get out of the way! Those two big guys are about to unleash their full power!"
In the sky.
The remaining two mechanical eyeballs didn't flee.
They began to merge.
Two red beams of light converged in the air, weaving into a massive, complex three-dimensional geometric array.
[Execution Command: Dimensional Reduction Strike · Two-Dimensional Foil (Low-Spec Version).]
[Target: Entire Yaoshan Region.]
[Effect: Completely Flattened.]
A massive, thin film of light descended from the sky.
It was like a plastic wrap, intending to "seal" the entire Yaoshan Mountain, along with Hou Yi, Shen Qingqiu, and Seventeen, into a two-dimensional specimen.
Escape?
There was no escape.
It was a strike at the speed of light.
Hou Yi closed his eyes in despair. The bow in his hand could no longer be drawn.
"Qingqiu." Seventeen suddenly pushed Shen Qingqiu away.
He stood up unsteadily.
From that battered body, another roar that shattered the heavens erupted.
"I said…"
"This path is blocked!"
He did not transform into an arrow again.
Because Hou Yi no longer had the strength to shoot arrows.
Moreover, against this area-of-effect attack, single-target kills were ineffective.
Seventeen raised his head, looking at the descending light membrane.
The purple light in his only remaining right eye gradually faded.
In its place, a resolute, all-consuming black-gold fire ignited.
[Core Instruction: Final Self-Destruct Program (Deactivated).]
[Mode: Pangu True Form · Pseudo.]
Boom—!!!
Seventeen's body exploded.
There was no flying blood and flesh.
Instead, it transformed into countless thick, black nanodata streams.
These data streams grew, intertwined, and hardened wildly.
Before Shen Qingqiu's utterly horrified gaze,
Seventeen transformed into a mountain.
A mechanical Buzhou Mountain constructed of steel, data, and divine metal.
He used his spine to forcefully hold back the dimensional-reducing light membrane.
Sizzling— The light membrane made a teeth-grinding friction sound as it contacted his back.
Countless pixels fell like snowflakes.
Seventeen's body was being rapidly "flattened."
His shoulders became lines, his head a silhouette.
But he continued to hold on.
He was using his own dimensional thickness to consume the opponent's dimensional-reducing energy.
"Seventeen!!!" Shen Qingqiu went mad.
She wanted to rush in, but A-Ling held her back tightly.
"Mother! Don't go! That's a mutual devouring of rules! You'll turn into a piece of paper if you go in!"
"Hou Yi!!!" Seventeen's voice echoed from the mechanical mountain, vast as thunder, yet carrying a hint of farewell.
"One last time!"
"Pick up your bow!"
"My core... is this last arrow!"
That was a few seconds of respite he was buying with his life.
Hou Yi shuddered.
He looked at the extraterrestrial demon who, to protect humanity and his beloved, had transformed himself into a shield.
A surge of adrenaline rushed to his head.
"Aaaaaahh ... With the heartbeat of Seventeen, with Shen Qingqiu's tears, with the fury of the entire primordial world,
it pierced through the thin, almost translucent membrane of light, already worn down by Seventeen.
It shot straight into the heavens.
*Thud!*
*Thud!*
A double kill with one strike.
The two merging mechanical eyeballs were directly pierced by this core.
The virus erupted.
*Boom!*
An unprecedentedly massive firework exploded in the sky.
That was the collapse of data, the shattering of rules.
Ten days…the end.
The membrane of light vanished.
The oppressive feeling in the sky dissipated.
The long-awaited, normal sunlight (the real sun) shone through the clouds onto the summit of Yaoshan.
But.
That towering figure in black was gone.
Shen Qingqiu stood blankly at the edge of the cliff.
Before her, only a pile of black embers dissipating in the wind remained.
The last trace left after Seventeen had burned away.
"Seventeen?" Shen Qingqiu called softly, her voice trembling uncontrollably.
She reached out, trying to grasp the embers.
But the wind was too strong.
The black ash slipped through her fingers, drifting towards the blood-red sunset in the distance.
Under the blood-red glow of the setting sun,
the ash seemed to transform into black butterflies, dancing in the wind, finally melting completely into the evening glow.
[Ding.]
[Core loss detected.]
[Reincarnator 1307, bound servant... offline.] The system's notification was cold and mechanical.
Like a knife, it completely severed Shen Qingqiu's last glimmer of hope.
"Liar..." Shen Qingqiu knelt on the ground, her hands gripping the scorching rocks, her nails breaking.
"You said you were my destiny..."
"You said you'd hold up the sky if it fell..."
"You held up the sky..."
"But you... you held yourself up..." Hou Yi collapsed to the side, watching the red-clad woman weeping her heart out.
The great hero who shot down nine suns also had tears in his eyes.
He didn't know what to say.
He only knew that without that man, humanity... would be dead today.
"Qingqiu..." A faint electronic voice sounded.
Shen Qingqiu looked up sharply.
He saw A-Ling's small figure, clutching the dim, cracked Abyss Soul Crystal, wobbling as it flew back.
"Mother..." A-Ling cried, tears streaming down her face.
"Father... he blew up all the energy..."
"Only this is left..." Shen Qingqiu trembled as she took the Soul Crystal.
It was Seventeen's heart.
Once, it shone like a star, beat like thunder.
Now, it was as cold as ice, as black as charcoal.
Only in its deepest depths did a faint, almost imperceptible...red light remain.
That was the red lotus Shen Qingqiu had drawn with her fingertips' blood.
It was also Seventeen's last...obsession left in this world.
Shen Qingqiu pressed the soul crystal tightly against her heart.
She didn't wail.
She simply stared at the blood-red sunset, her eyes gradually becoming empty, and then...mad.
"He's not dead."
"As long as this red lotus remains, he's not dead."
She stood up.
Her red dress fluttered in the wind, like a flame of vengeance.
She turned her head to look in a certain direction on the horizon—the place where the moon rises.
That was also the core base station that this higher-dimensional civilization had established in the primordial world...
"Seventeen is tired, he's just sleeping for a while."
Shen Qingqiu's voice was terrifyingly calm.
"Next..." She pulled out the peach wood hairpin from her hair, and her long hair cascaded down like a waterfall.
"It's my turn." That day, the setting sun was like blood.
It stained the stones of Yaoshan red, stained Houyi's bow red.
It also stained the eyes of that woman in red with an inextinguishable killing intent.