"I’ve co to honor the pact."
Between the blood-red remnants of the sun, the girl held her sharp arm blade like the Grim Reaper harvesting lives, stepping into the magma-like blood-red soil, her shadow elongated by the viscous sunlight as if it were blood itself.
According to the antivirus pact, she was to arrive by his side and kill him the mont Lewis was invaded. It was her duty as an antivirus program.
"Lewis..."
However, just before she could strike, she hesitated.
It was the first ti she had seen Lewis like this.
The usually composed human leader was at the world’s edge, clutching dark, withered bones in his arms and frantically repeating "I’m sorry." He said he had not done his best, that he had failed to save her.
His tears were few, as if rely a stress response. It was as if so instinct stopped him from crying, constrained him from showing too much vulnerability. This instinct ca from within himself.
Even then, his face still wore a human skin mask that couldn’t be torn off, suppressing his own emotions.
Bi’s blade was drawn then sheathed again.
In the end, she couldn’t help but reach out and touch his head. Her soft hand replaced the cold blade edge:
"It’s alright, don’t worry..."
In her mory, Lewis had always been strong, wise. He was the best human leader, and no one could deny his rits as "Yasa Acto." Even as a bionic body, every step of his war strategies had been the most appropriate, as if... he had an omniscient point of view, as if he possessed so sort of predictive "authority."
—He was seen as a deity.
At least in the eyes of the masses, the leader known as "Yasa Acto" was a deity who saved them from dire straits.
Only now did Bi realize that there were things he could not hold onto, that he too could cry.
She looked up at the edge of the world, where endless zeros and ones stread like a waterfall, the area beyond the numbers like an abyss. Everywhere her eyes could see was charred ruins; even the land was scorched into blood-red. Not a single life was visible.
This world was really too terrible.
"Alright," she said as she gently pressed the blade on his right shoulder, "If I don’t kill you now, you will be completely invaded. Stop crying, I’ll bury her."
Su Ming’an looked up, "Even though you’re an antivirus program, you’re supposed to kill the invading virus ’Ta Wei,’ but you ended up killing , the host, as well..."
Upon hearing this, Bi imdiately bristled, "What else do you want? If I could easily eliminate ’Ta Wei’ that’s invading you and still keep you alive, would the Two Dinsions be in such a dire state?"
She could even detect the grievance in his tone; Lewis had indeed gone mad.
She wanted to speak again, but Su Ming’an had already turned away.
He placed Yuanyuan’s skeletal remains in the wheelchair and stretched his hand to clasp the ginkgo leaf circlet, glinting like gold, around her head. The leaves rustled, covering her empty eye sockets and cast golden light that contrasted with her stark white bones, creating a bizarre yet magnificent aesthetic; in his eyes, these bones were like a piece of art.
The delicate skeleton sat upright in the wheelchair, conjuring an image of her alive, as if a fairy tale book still rested on her lap and her head was slightly tilted, listening.
Bi waited until Ming’an had finished, and when he looked at her, she suddenly realized that the tear tracks and fragile expression on his face had completely vanished.
In just a few seconds, he had regained his usual composure as if by magic.
Only his slightly reddened eyes remained, proving what had happened just monts before.
Ming’an said, "Bi, what would I beco if I were fully invaded by Ta Wei?"
"Just like those red-eyed ones you’ve seen before," Bi paused, "But your case might be even worse because you are Acto, and the Ta Wei invading you would be extrely powerful; nobody knows how this Ta Wei would influence your thoughts and emotions."
Ming’an nodded, his expression calm.
...The Ta Wei invading him was, of course, powerful—it claid to be a "Deity" who knew everything about this world’s fabric, stirring up battles in a few words as if it were truly a deity.
He even suspected that the deity had made a Civilization Gambling Pact with him precisely for the mont of complete invasion.
"Bi, then please, don’t be in a hurry to act, kill a bit later," Ming’an said, "Allow to experience what it feels like to be invaded by Ta Wei before I die."
"That’s unnecessary!" Bi exclaid, "That’s not a good experience at all—there’s no need to torture yourself before dying. You aren’t a masochist, are you?"
Being forcibly changed in thought and emotion would be even worse than being tamorphosed by the Evil God of Qiongdi.
She saw Ming’an extend his hand.
"Pinky promise," Ming’an looked at her, his tone gentle, "Ten minutes after I’m invaded, do it—kill . Bi, could you make this pact with ? Even though it’s just a verbal agreent, would you pinky promise to carry out this task?"
When Ming’an sincerely requested sothing from soone, unless the person possessed overwhelming charm of an SSS grade, they generally couldn’t refuse.
Bi was no exception.
She admitted she found it difficult to turn down his request, and it certainly wasn’t because she was chard by him.
She took a deep breath and linked her fingers with his: "Alright, I make this pact with you. In ten minutes, I will end your life."
At that mont, an indescribable emotion surged in her heart, bubbling up to her throat like foam. She looked at the calm-faced young man with black hair, increasingly doubting what his brain was made of that allowed him to regulate his emotions so quickly within a minute.
"You..." In the end, she couldn’t help but ask, "Why do you want to save her?"
The Dawn War was nearly won, the path ahead was brightly lit—he could have enjoyed the admiration of hundreds of millions; he would beco a great man eternally esteed in history.
Yet, he chose to be by the girl’s side, to die desperately at the edge of the world with her skeleton, breaking down before death as if mad... He could have had a brilliant and splendid life.
"Because of a feeling of ’irreplaceability,’ I can’t accept her departure," Ming’an said.
"An inability to feel loss?" Bi repeated the phrase.
She recognized the weight of these words, heavy, as if a rock pressed against her lips while her tongue rolled them out.
"I don’t understand," Bi could only respond.
She had no relatives, her earliest mory being picked up by a chanical in the outside world, abandoned by people who couldn’t support a child. Lin Guang said he liked her black hair, so she was allowed to stay in the City of Gods. Later, her will resonated with the deities, and she beca an Agent with a noble status.
She had almost never stepped out of the City of Gods; with eternal spring, she lived in a paradise secluded from the world. The wars, hunger, and cold of the outside world were all irrelevant to her. Born into a honey jar, she never worried about temperature or food, nor had she ever encountered people living in dire conditions.
In her eyes— what were loss and death? She had never experienced loss, nor had she ever witnessed soone else’s death.
But recently, after a golden-haired, red-eyed young man nad Noel arrived in the City of Gods. He spoke to her several tis, and she suddenly beca aware of many things; her mory began to awaken, she rembered her original job—she was an antivirus program from a two-dinsional world.
A program, how could it understand what it ans to "miss" sothing?
The black-haired youth who walked alongside her, with action and life, taught her the aning of "loss."
With his life as his counsel, he inford her that this dry skeleton was an irreplaceable part of him, almost forging a corner of his soul.
In his bloodshot eyes, Bi saw the pain that perated his body, eyes seemingly burying the graves of dozens of others.
"Pinkie promise, hang up, a hundred years, no changing..." she said subconsciously.
In that mont, she saw the crimson in Su Ming’an’s eyes uncontrollably rising, as if a crimson demon seizing his soul, frantically plundering the light from his grey eyes. His expression pained for a mont, clutching her pinkie in an awkward bend, his eyebrows slightly furrowed.
"..."
Bi let go of his hand, stepped back, and faced the slowly opening blood-red eyes of "Su Ming’an" with her blade forward.
"Is it ti?" Bi said.
"Su Ming’an" slightly lifted his head, his eyes already turned blood-red, yet lacking any nauseating twisted visual effect. His red eyes were comforting to look at, as if they were naturally red, reminiscent of a crystal-clear ruby.
The invaded him carried not a hint of maliciousness on his being.
He moved his legs, then his hands, like a puppet familiarizing itself with its own body. He rolled up his sleeves and then tore them, delicately feeling the fabric’s texture like a curious baby. Eventually, he even bowed down, pulling on his belt, wanting to examine the material of his trousers...
"Hey, hey, hey!" Bi promptly stopped his indecorous behavior.
"Sorry, I got too excited. It’s been a while since I’ve seen this world, I wanted to move around a bit."
The first thing "Su Ming’an" said was to apologize to Bi, his tone polite. The brutal emotions seen in others who were invaded were completely absent in him.
His manner was even gentle and soft like jade, like a gentleman. He lacked both the cruelty and fierceness of the Red-eyed Noel and the numbness and coldness of the Red-eyed Lv Shu.
Su Ming’an lifted his eyelids and gazed at the terrible state of the world after the nuclear explosion. His fingers lightly touched the floating spark, his eyes filled with greed and attachnt. It seed as if rely breathing in this scorching air was enough to satisfy him.
Bi looked at him and suddenly understood, "I understand your situation now—others that invaders rely changed their thoughts and emotions, they’re essentially still themselves. But you’re different, you’re no longer Lewis—you’re that deity who has been whispering to him all along, aren’t you? You’ve taken over his body."
"...You’re right, I’m sorry he couldn’t hold on, taking over wasn’t my intention," Su Ming’an said, his tone one of regret.
He looked up, admiring this blood-red mortal purgatory, "Even though I had told him the perfect strategy for clearing the ga, as long as he did what I said, he would definitely win the war, all the paths were clearly laid out for him. Yet he chose to rush toward destruction for a companion dood to die, ending up in this dismal situation... It’s unfortunate. Humans are not purely rational animals after all."
He lowered his eyelids, "But it doesn’t matter, next ti it will be the sa."
"You really play the part well, I don’t like you," Bi couldn’t help saying.
"I wasn’t born into this world to be liked by anyone."
"Enough— I’ve wasted enough ti talking to you, you invader, you can go die now." Bi’s blade pointed straight at his throat.
"You are rely destined to disappear... to beco fodder for my world, an inferior world," Su Ming’an looked down at her: "One dinsion, two dinsions, three dinsions... layer upon layer of defense, layer upon layer of evasion. You keep ceding your lands and dinsions, hiding yourselves deeper into virtual dinsions—I admit your intelligence is astonishing, but what’s the use? Spring will not co, everyone will be trapped here to die."
"I don’t want to hear the pity of an invader," Bi coldly said, "The continuation of civilization and the survival of race are the greatest justice. Everyone has the capability to move toward the future, it’s not for you to deny."
"You denounce our kind from ’other dinsions’ as invaders, but in truth, between civilizations it’s naturally a case of the survival of the fittest..." Su Ming’an said softly:
"The ’World Ga’ Lewis was part of is no exception. I only wanted the Source of Civilization he possessed; I didn’t intend to invade him. He is an interesting person, I like him, and I didn’t want him to disappear..."
"What a load of crap."
Bi didn’t hesitate to strike with her blade.
Now was the best ti to drive away this ’deity’ before him. Given any more ti, as a virus invading the two-dinsional world, the deity would start to erode this dinsion.
If it weren’t for the ten-minute agreent, she would have acted earlier.
As a 360 antivirus guard... no, as an antivirus program, she would decisively strike, cleansing any corner that could be eroded by ’other dinsions.’
"Whoosh!"
The blade burst forth, blood dripping down.
The long blade flashed, piercing through Su Ming’an’s chest.
Su Ming’an didn’t resist; he hadn’t fully fused with this body yet and lacked the strength.
He only regretted that Lewis had died like this, an interesting man indeed, not knowing if there would be a next ti...
If there were a next ti, he hoped Lewis would be a bit smarter, not to attempt the impossible again, trying to save those who couldn’t be saved...
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