In a field of vision filled with chaos, Mila felt her body was like a drift bottle, drifting gradually away toward an unknown distance.
Her body became lighter and lighter, as if she were about to fly—fly into that free sky and become a bird.
"What is this?"
She looked into the vast darkness, gazing at her own figure—the only thing still glowing—and asked in doubt. The darkness was like ink, reflecting above, below, left, and right of her body, as if it wanted to devour, tear, and finally swallow her into its belly.
This was not the freedom she wanted—Mila thought to herself.
She flew with all her might, flying and flying, toward the depths of the darkness. Gradually, she couldn't even fly, so she began to run. Letting her bare soles tread on the dark ground, she left a string of muddy black footprints, just to escape this false freedom.
Soon, she couldn't run anymore.
Mila panted, her hands resting on her knees, looking around... The darkness had not receded. It was like a fortress where an evil dragon imprisoned a princess, layers of invisible, transparent chains locking her in here.
As always, nothing had changed. This was how she had come through... Even though she met Miluo, met Alain, and saw everyone... in the end, nothing changed.
Just like her—a failed life as a Mita. Staying alone in Version 1.0F as a shut-in without a player, then becoming a shut-in under the Corrosive Entity's subordinates. Finally, sinking into this darkness that wasn't even a room...
Nothing changed.
"Might as well just leave it like this...!"
She squatted down, hugging her knees, gazing at the ink-deep darkness before her. She extended her fingertip, stirring the darkness in front of her as if stirring river water. From here on, she would accompany the darkness, forever and ever, until the hollowness of consciousness; she'd better find joy in sorrow—
Hua.
Just as she was abandoning herself to despair, a spot of light landed on the back of her hand. Her white porcelain-like skin was illuminated by the light spot, appearing vivid as if twinkling with little stars.
?
Mila raised her head in confusion to check, and saw a solitary small hole in the center of the boundless dark canopy. Darkness was leaking from that small hole, like a fine needle piercing a balloon...
"What is that?" the dark-blue haired girl asked.
Her legs kicked back and forth, swimming toward the light spot in the sky in a freestyle posture. Unknown if it was an illusion, that tiny, cute light spot seemed to accompany her movement. No matter how she hid up, down, left, or right, that light spot always dotted the back of her hand.
It was like a hand, forcibly pulling her, urging her, telling her... Don't stay here, didn't you make a promise with me?
"Promise..." The girl remembered; it seemed she indeed had a promise with someone.
That person spoke to her without any politeness, yet unexpectedly had quite a common language with her... He also said he would save her.
"Although I was saved by him once." Mila thought of the scene of herself carrying a young man in her arms, princess-style, and couldn't help but burst into a laugh.
Yes, she had already made an appointment. Agreed to go to reality together with him.
Mila arrived in front of the cavity of light. Set against the distant darkness, that cavity was particularly tiny... Likewise, set against the vast darkness, it was incomparably...
"Blazing!"
The light finally left the back of her hand and landed on the center of the girl's brow. Her face leaned closer, wanting to see what kind of world lay behind the hole.
Mila's eyes focused, gazing at the radiance... Inside the radiance, it was also a patch of blackness. Unknown if it was a coincidence of timing—she happened to see a scene she would never forget in her life:
Inside the peeping hole was a brand new world. The image displayed by the small hole was a young man holding a greatsword, standing in front of a broken tree. His indifferent face silently observed that black tree. Subsequently, he raised the greatsword.
Ka! He swung the first sword.
Simultaneously, the cavity of light completely tore open a large gash, like shattered glass. Mila looked at the scene before her in astonishment, dazed and unable to speak.
Ka!!
It was the second sword. The cracks around the light spread to the surroundings like a stream with an opened channel.
Ka!!!
This was the third sword. At this point, the dark reality could no longer hold up...
With a "Peng—!" sound, the darkness broke open, shattering into pitch-black fragments. Pieces of dark fragments flew apart, brushing past her face—but caused her no harm whatsoever.
Time slowed down gradually, and her thoughts almost stagnated. Mila could clearly see from the fragments that the darkness was gradually covered with a wisp of tender pink light. And inside the light, her face was reflected.
What kind of face was that? Cheeks completely red, corners of the eyes also flushing red... dripping with crystal-like spots of light.
Time resumed its flow, and the fragments drifted away in response, drifting in pieces toward the dark distance she was supposed to reach. And that darkness no longer existed. Inside the massive rupture that had completely broken open... was a bright painting:
The tender pink room laden with her lonely memories.
A wisp of black cooking smoke rose faintly from the virus remains on the ground. Pale white particles seemed like an eviction order, dispersing the black smoke. And in the center of the room, he was stationed—
Alain, holding the greatsword in reverse, still remaining in that scene of killing the virus. Black smoke rose from the edge of his greatsword that had pierced the virus, but it could not mask in the slightest... his holiness submerged in the white light by the window.
Like an angel... like a god, and also like [Alain].
Pu.
He pulled out the greatsword. The last smear of darkness rose and fell slightly with his movement, disappearing completely into the warmth of the room.
Mila heard a "Kong" sound; the slight sensation of weightlessness under her feet revealed that the room had started moving again. The direction of movement, needless to say—was the Game World!
"My version is back!"
It should be one of either Cool Mita or Cute Mita. Their astonished tones also reached Mila's ears. The long-overdue Version Authority console also reappeared before her eyes.
Mila's ownership rights had also returned. 1.0F had completely broken free from the Corrosive Entity... No, not just 1.0F, but also the other versions that had suffered the Corrosive Entity's poisoning, were all cut off by Alain with one sword.
Looking at his posture standing in the light, Mila pursed her lips, lowered her eyes, and gazed at the greatsword in his hand.
Mila didn't understand many things, wanted to ask many things, and wanted to say many words to Alain. But these thousands of words all condensed into a sentence that blurted out—
"You did it..."
She wiped the corners of her eyes; her newly awakened vision was blurred by a hazy layer.
"You did it."
Mila smiled faintly, raised her head, and looked at Alain.
"You really... did it!"
___
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