A fire in Jinxi Town burned away the veil of pretense of morality in this martial world.
Once the signal was given, the demons and monsters of this world sprang into action.
To avoid the endless stream of low-level "scum," Shen Qingqiu led Seventeen westward, ascending to what the world called a forbidden land—Broken Cloud Cliff.
The altitude here was extremely high, perpetually covered in snow. A fierce wind whipped up snowflakes, like tiny ice knives, stinging their cheeks.
"We're here." Shen Qingqiu sat cross-legged on a protruding black rock, a somewhat worn ancient zither lying across her lap. She had picked it up casually during her escape; though cracked, its tone was still clear and melodious.
She looked up at the winding mountain path below the cliff.
In the darkness, countless torches converged into a long, winding dragon, swimming towards the summit. The firelight reflected on the snow, not a warm orange, but a chilling, ghastly red.
Various sects and the righteous alliance.
Under the banner of "eliminating demons and protecting the righteous path," they were in reality a large-scale anti-virus army mobilized by the system.
"A total of three thousand six hundred people." Seventeen stood beside her, his black clothes fluttering, blending into the swirling snow. His voice was soft, yet carried a mechanical precision, "The three leaders, energy reaction... high risk." The "Severing Thoughts" sword in his hand was already drawn, a thin layer of frost forming on its blade.
"Seventeen, don't be nervous." Shen Qingqiu reached out and pressed her hand against his tense back. Her fingertips carried a trace of warmth, especially precious in this icy landscape. "Tonight, we won't fight to the death, we'll... play music."
A faint smile played on her lips, the composure of a hunter watching its prey step into a trap.
Beneath this Broken Cloud Cliff, she had already buried hundreds of "demon cores" she had plundered from the puppeteers of Jinxi Town. After her modifications, the batteries that were originally used for power generation had become extremely unstable high-energy bombs.
...
"Witch Shen Qingqiu! Demon Seventeen! You have nowhere to escape!"
A sharp shout, mixed with powerful internal energy (or some kind of amplification effect), shook the snow on the mountaintop, causing it to fall in a flurry.
The first to reach the summit platform were the so-called leaders of the three major sects.
Leading them was a fat monk in a golden robe, with a kind face, but carrying a heavy vajra. To his left was a seemingly dignified swordsman, and to his right was a nun holding a whisk.
Behind them, a dense swarm of disciples from various sects, like a black tide, quickly occupied every foothold, completely surrounding the small mountaintop.
Shen Qingqiu activated [Overclocking Vision].
What a "cross-section of humanity."
In her vision, although the faces of these people were all different, the parameters of their indignant and impassioned expressions were completely consistent—eyebrows raised 20 degrees, corners of the mouth turned down 15 degrees, and pupils dilated 10%.
These were a group of mass-produced mannequins, executing a script called "Judgment of Justice."
"Amitabha." The fat monk stepped forward, righteous and awe-inspiring. "Female benefactor, you slaughtered Jinxi Town, your hands are covered in blood, why don't you surrender? If you are willing to cripple your martial arts, this old monk might spare your corpse."
Shen Qingqiu lowered her head, tuning her zither, not even bothering to lift her eyelids.
"Master, your texture is crooked." She said calmly.
"What?" The fat monk was stunned.
Shen Qingqiu didn't explain. In her vision, the texture of the monk's robe and his body model had clipped together, the golden patterns strangely embedded in his fat flesh.
"Enough talk! Kill!" The swordsman beside her was clearly impatient (or perhaps a slow-motion attack program). With a swing of his sword, hundreds of disciples behind him swarmed forward like locusts.
"Kill—!" The shouts of battle shook the heavens and earth.
Seventeen's eyes sharpened. She was about to move when Shen Qingqiu stopped her with a clear shout.
"Seventeen, don't move." Shen Qingqiu lightly raised her hand, her fingertips hooking the first string of her zither.
"Zheng—" A clear, crisp zither note exploded in the wind and snow.
This note wasn't for pleasant sound, but for… to detonate.
She had calculated the frequency. The Hertz number of this zither string's vibration was precisely what could trigger the resonance threshold of the energy within the demon cores buried beneath the snow.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
In an instant, the mountain path collapsed.
The "demon core mines" that had been lying in wait exploded one after another in the most densely populated area.
These weren't ordinary gunpowder explosions; they were pure energy release. Blue lightning mingled with silver demonic blood, exploding into dazzling yet deadly fireworks across the snow.
Screams instantly drowned out the battle cries.
Countless "righteous disciples" were blasted into the sky. In Shen Qingqiu's eyes, their bodies didn't bleed in mid-air; instead, they exploded into blurry, mosaic-like patches before dissipating in the wind.
"As expected, low-level monsters that don't engage in physical collisions," Shen Qingqiu sneered, his fingers flying across the strings, faster and faster.
The music transformed from a single note into a chilling melody of "Ambush from Ten Sides."
But to the sect leaders, the music was like demonic incantation, causing their true energy (data flow) to reverse, sending splitting headaches through them.
Because every note Shen Qingqiu played was a piece of disruptive code targeting their underlying logic.
"Sorcery! This is sorcery!" The fat monk clutched his head, blood streaming from his seven orifices (the blood itself appearing as dark, pixelated dots). "Everyone, attack together! Form a formation! Use the 'Ten Thousand Immortals Demon-Slaying Formation'!"
The remaining two thousand-plus people quickly changed formation.
Their energy connected, and a massive golden light screen formed above their heads, finally transforming into a hundred-zhang-long golden giant sword, hovering above Shen Qingqiu and Seventeen.
This sword carried a world-destroying pressure.
This was the system's **"Forced Annihilation Program"**.
Shen Qingqiu felt the pressure. That pressure acted not only on her body but also on her soul. Her zither strings began to tremble, and blood seeped from her fingertips.
"Seventeen."
She didn't stop playing the zither, only calling out.
"Here."
"I'll disturb their minds, you... cut off their heads."
Shen Qingqiu took a deep breath, pressing her ten fingers heavily onto the zither strings.
*Clang—!!!*
The zither string snapped.
A visible sonic ripple spread outwards in a fan shape. This sonic wave contained her greatest mockery and deconstruction of the world.
The golden giant sword hanging overhead, struck by this sonic wave, momentarily faltered and flickered.
Now!
Seventeen, who had stood motionless like a pine tree, moved.
He was no longer the passive guardian; now, he was a true Asura.
His black figure blurred into a streak, directly plunging into the golden array.
This was not a battle.
It was a massacre, and also an artistic performance.
Under Shen Qingqiu's [Overclocking Vision] voice guidance, every strike of Seventeen's sword precisely struck the connection points of the disciples' formations—the nodes of data transmission.
"Qian position three, sever."
"Kun position six, cut."
With Shen Qingqiu's cold commands, Seventeen's figure moved through the crowd like a ghost.
The Severing Thought Sword flashed, and heads flew off.
There was no scream, because it was too fast.
No blood splattered, because the high-frequency vibrations inherent in Seventeen had already scorched and sealed the wound the instant the sword sliced across the neck.
On the snow, black flowers bloomed one after another.
The golden greatsword light screen began to collapse and disintegrate with the death of each node, turning into countless fireflies.
The fat monk stared in horror at the black-clad youth reaping lives among the crowd.
Too strong.
Unreasonably strong.
This wasn't martial arts of the mortal realm; this was… the crushing power of authority.
"Monster…you are monsters!"
The fat monk turned to run.
But Seventeen was already standing before him.
A drop of blood, whose name was unknown, stained the silver mask, its red glaringly bright against the white background.
Seventeen tilted his head, looking at the monk, the non-existent blood still dripping from his longsword.
"You…are too noisy."
*Whoosh.*
A flash of sword light.
The fat monk's massive head rolled to the ground, his compassionate expression still lingering, making him appear both comical and terrifying.
The battle ended faster than expected.
The wind and snow continued to blow, but the shouts of battle had ceased.
On the summit of Broken Cloud Cliff, corpses lay strewn everywhere.
But strangely, after only a few moments, the corpses began to slowly turn transparent, eventually dissolving into countless gray data dust particles, which were then dispersed by the wind.
The world was left with only a vast expanse of white cleanliness.
Shen Qingqiu sat on a rock, four of the seven strings of her ancient zither broken.
Her face was somewhat pale, a consequence of her mental exhaustion.
"Qingqiu." Seventeen approached. He wasn't stained with a single drop of blood (or perhaps it had been dispersed by his own power), but the intense aura of killing intent he exuded was undeniable.
He knelt on one knee before her, wanting to reach out and help her up, but then suddenly withdrew his hand, looking at it.
Though clean, he felt it was dirty.
Shen Qingqiu smiled.
She reached out and grasped his cold hand, pressing it against her warm cheek.
"Is it over?" she asked softly.
"For now... it's cleaned up." Seventeen's voice was low, as if he hadn't completely detached himself from that primal killing instinct.
Shen Qingqiu looked around at the empty snowfield.
"You see, the so-called good and evil, life and death, in the face of this snowstorm leave not even a trace."
She stood up, feeling her legs go weak, and leaned into Seventeen's arms.
Seventeen immediately held her tightly, wrapping her warm fox fur coat around her.
At this moment, the snow fell even harder.
Falling snowflakes landed on their hair, eyebrows, and shoulders.
Seventeen looked down at the woman in his arms. Glistening ice beads clung to her eyelashes, and her red lips looked luscious against the snow.
He suddenly remembered a line from a play he'd heard in the mortal realm.
"Qingqiu."
"Hmm?"
"If one day, we can walk like this forever..." Seventeen reached out, clumsily brushing the snow from her hair, his eyes filled with an unprecedented tenderness and affection.
"...Wouldn't that count as...growing old together?"
Shen Qingqiu's heart skipped a beat.
She looked up, meeting his deep, ocean-like eyes. At the edge of this world filled with slaughter, falsehood, and decay, this AI, who didn't understand love, uttered the most moving words of love to her.
"Silly girl." Shen Qingqiu's eyes reddened slightly. She stood on tiptoe and kissed his cold lips.
"No." Seventeen froze, a hint of disappointment flashing in his eyes.
"This little bit of snow isn't enough." Shen Qingqiu chuckled softly at his lips, her eyes glistening with tears and sparkle. "We'll poke a hole in this false sky and see the real sun. Then, if our hair really turns white, that'll be what it means to grow old together." Seventeen looked at her, the disappointment in his eyes instantly transforming into boundless doting.
"Okay."
"Poke… a hole."
Just as the two embraced atop the snow-capped mountain, enjoying a moment of tenderness…
BOOM—!!!
A deep, resounding boom suddenly echoed from the sky above.
It wasn't thunder.
It was the sound of shattering glass.
Shen Qingqiu looked up sharply.
Besides the night sky, perpetually shrouded in dark clouds, a massive, east-west black rift had opened.
And within that rift, an enormous, indifferent electronic eye slowly opened once more.
This time, it was much closer. Shen Qingqiu was so close that she could see the countless green data streams flowing across the surface of the eyeball, and the tiny Broken Cloud Cliff reflected in its pupil.
[Warning: S-level logic anomaly detected.]
[Region reset procedure...initiated.]
[Countdown: 10, 9, 8...] The sky collapsed.
But this time, Shen Qingqiu felt no fear.
She gripped Seventeen's hand tightly, feeling the resounding clang of the "Severing Thoughts" sword.
"Looks like I don't have to wait until later."
Shen Qingqiu looked at the giant eye, a wild smile playing on her lips.
"Seventeen, the true 'test of the sword' begins." The wind and snow stopped abruptly.
A murderous aura filled the sky.