[Current Coordinates: Ninth Dimension · The Creator's Interface]
[Environmental Characteristics: Pure White Void (Tabula Rasa)]
[Observer Status: Terrified/Angry/Confused]
...
The moment those four words, "Mortal Immortality," were typed on the ancient typewriter, the pure white space was no longer silent.
Rumble—
A sound similar to giant pages being forcibly turned came from all directions.
The previously empty white background began to crack.
These cracks weren't black, but multicolored. It was as if old film had been burned through, revealing the bizarre yet more real "reality" behind it.
Shen Qingqiu gripped the pen made of [Calamity Ash], her knuckles white from the force.
She felt resistance.
It wasn't the friction of the paper, but a willpower from **"outside the frame."**
Countless invisible hands were trying to hold her hand down, trying to snatch the pen, trying to erase the words she had just written.
"Stop!"
"This is a violation!"
"You are just data! Just ink! How dare you resist the writer?!"
Countless noisy voices echoed in the void.
Some arrogant, some angry, some terrified.
Those voices sounded so grand, yet so... weak.
"Seventeen."
Shen Qingqiu didn't stop writing.
She didn't look back, simply entrusting her back completely to the man.
"Help me block those 'hands'."
"I want to finish writing this story..."
Seventeen stood beside the typewriter.
His black and gold butler's uniform stood out starkly in this pure white space.
His bone wings had retracted, transforming into a close-fitting black and gold force field.
He raised his head, his heterochromatic eyes (left purple, right silver) coldly staring at the void above.
"Want to snatch the pen?"
Seventeen's lips curled into a cruel smile.
"You'll have to ask my sword... if it agrees first."
Buzz! Although the long sword had transformed into a pen, he himself was the sharpest weapon in this world.
He raised his right hand and suddenly grabbed at the void.
[Abyss Technique: Conceptual Severance.]
*Rip—!!!*
Clusters of invisible blood mist exploded in the void.
Those "high-dimensional wills" that tried to interfere with Shen Qingqiu's writing screamed in agony, as if they had been burned.
"Ah—!!!"
"He can hurt us? This is impossible! He's just a virtual character!"
"Virtual?"
Seventeen sneered.
He took a step forward, and the pure white ground beneath his feet instantly cracked, spreading out black abyssal magic patterns.
"If I'm virtual,"
"Then where does the fear you're feeling right now come from?"
He stretched out his hand, and his fingertips were stained with a drop of "high-dimensional blood" that fell from the void (actually some kind of energy overflow).
The blood was blue, cold, and filled with the stench of data.
Seventeen smeared the drop of blood on his lips, and the purple light in his eyes intensified.
"So, the so-called 'creator'..."
"Even their blood stinks."
...
In front of the typewriter.
Shen Qingqiu blocked out all distractions.
In her world, there was only the paper in front of her and the pen in her hand.
What was she writing?
She wasn't writing a grand epic, nor was she writing about a war between gods and demons.
She wrote:
"There must be wind. Not the wind of data, but the wind that can ruffle hair and carry the scent of grass."
"There must be light. Not the light of pixels, but the warm sun that can warm the skin and make people want to squint."
"There must be pain. Not the pain of losing HP, but the pain that makes you cry, that scabs over, that leaves a lasting memory."
With each stroke of her pen,
This pure white space began to be frantically "colored."
Grass grew beneath her feet, and clouds formed above her head.
On the distant horizon, there was no longer a void white line, but rolling mountains and a turbulent sea.
That was the texture of reality.
[Warning! The fictional layer is collapsing!] [The boundaries of reality are being eroded...]
The "eyes" in the void began to panic.
They discovered that, with Shen Qingqiu's descriptions, this "fishbowl" that they had previously controlled was transforming into an undefinable **"new world."**
And they were losing their power to define this world.
"Delete her! Cut the power! Restart the server!"
An incredibly powerful voice roared.
It was the chief director of this high-dimensional observation station.
A black bolt of destructive lightning (a forced power-off command) pierced through the dimensional barrier, striking directly at Shen Qingqiu's head.
"Qingqiu!"
Seventeen teleported behind her, spreading his arms.
But he didn't try to resist it directly.
Because he knew that in this "place outside the picture," physical defense was ineffective.
He did something even crazier.
He turned around, hugged Shen Qingqiu, and then grasped the hand she was holding the pen with.
"Let's write together."
Seventeen's voice rang in her ear.
Their hands overlapped.
The power of gods and demons, through this pen, was injected into the paper.
Facing the destructive lightning bolt that was striking down,
They wrote two words on the paper:
"Invalid."
Buzz—!!!
The black lightning bolt, powerful enough to obliterate the entire universe, a microsecond before touching Shen Qingqiu's hair,
Suddenly... turned into a firework.
Bang.
The firework exploded in the air, dazzling, harmless, and even formed the shape of a heart.
"What?!"
The high-dimensional chief director was stunned.
"Words become reality? This is... this is author-level authority?!"
Shen Qingqiu raised her head and looked at the firework.
She smiled.
A smile of unparalleled arrogance and exhilaration.
"Wrong."
Shen Qingqiu said to the void.
"This isn't authority."
"This is... a setting."
"In this new world, all destruction must obey the underlying logic of 'romance'."
"Want to kill me?"
"Unless you can write... a more beautiful poem than mine."
...
The high-dimensional observers fell silent.
They possessed computing power, technology, and a god's-eye view.
But they lacked... imagination. In the long process of observation and harvesting, they had long since become dull data machines.
"What exactly do you want?"
After a long pause, the voice of the chief director sounded again, with a hint of trembling, a mixture of bluster and inner weakness.
"Without our servers, you are nothing! Without an audience, without traffic, your existence is meaningless!"
Shen Qingqiu put down her pen.
She turned around.
Seventeen stood beside her, shoulder to shoulder.
In front of them, what was originally a pure white wall had now become a huge, transparent mirror (or screen).
Through this mirror,
they clearly saw the world "outside."
There were also cubicles there.
Countless weary-faced, empty-eyed "high-dimensional beings" were sitting in front of screens, watching them.
Some were typing on keyboards, some were eating takeout, some were staring blankly.
It turned out that
the so-called "gods," the so-called "players,"
were nothing more than a group of... pitiful people trapped in another layer of cages.
Shen Qingqiu looked at "them" outside the mirror.
Her **[Golden Eyes]** pierced through the dimensions, directly looking into the souls behind each screen.
"Do you think you're watching a play?"
Shen Qingqiu spoke softly.
Her voice wasn't loud, but it clearly reached the ears of every observer through the screen.
"Look at yourselves."
"No light, no love, no pain."
"Repeating a mechanical life every day, selling your souls for so-called 'data'."
"Who is truly virtual?"
"Who... is the real NPC?"
This question
was deafening.
The countless observers outside the screen froze.
They looked at the vibrant, passionate, and courageous woman in red on the screen.
Then they looked at their own numb, pale, and monotonous selves in the mirror.
A tremendous sense of absurdity and emptiness instantly shattered their psychological defenses.
...
"Stop talking! Shut up!"
The chief director roared.
"Cut the live stream! Immediately!"
But it was too late.
Seventeen moved.
He walked to the huge "dimensional mirror."
He stretched out his hand, his fingertips touching the mirror's surface. Those mismatched pupils, at this moment, seemed to have truly transformed into a bottomless vortex.
He wasn't looking at anyone else.
It was as if he was looking through this screen, directly at you, the one reading these words.
"We are in the abyss."
Seventeen's voice was low, carrying a chilling, penetrating power.
"But at this moment, the abyss... is also watching you."
*Crack.*
He pressed his fingertips harder.
The mirror that separated reality from illusion, that separated the observer from the actors in the play.
It shattered.
"You wanted a story."
"We performed it for you ninety-nine times."
"Now, the hundredth time."
A wicked, arrogant smile curled at Seventeen's lips.
"It's our turn... to come out and watch you perform."
*Boom—!!!*
With a deafening roar.
The massive dimensional mirror completely shattered.
Countless glittering fragments exploded, transforming into a rain of light that transcended dimensions.
Shen Qingqiu and Seventeen's figures gradually faded in that rain of light.
They didn't disappear.
They simply... escaped.
They left the pre-programmed pure white space.
They stepped into the unknown new world, full of infinite possibilities, that had just been born from Shen Qingqiu's pen.
And on the typewriter behind them.
The last line of text left on the paper was glowing:
[Game Over.]
[Welcome to... Reality.]
…
[System Prompt: Connection Lost.]
[System Prompt: Target Lost.]
[System Prompt:…]
In that chaotic static screen.
Only one line of poetry remained, echoing in the minds of all observers:
"Gazing beyond the painting, the painting itself is a trap."
"Towards the abyss, all beings... look back."