My consciousness plummeted through a golden void.
The sensation wasn't like Rift Zone erosion. It was more like being unplugged—all memories, emotions, and existence definitions related to the concept "Lin Jin" were extracted and neatly archived in the center of the void. I could see them, but not touch them, like watching my own soul through glass. The void had no up or down, no cold or heat, no light or shadow. Only pure concepts flowed, each stream representing a stripped-away "self."
[War Authority, New Holder: Lin Jin]
This line of text hovered at the void's apex. Every stroke was constructed from pure Authority fragments, radiating scorching heat. I tried to cross it out with a pencil, but the pencil wasn't in my hand. Or rather, the concept of "hand" no longer existed. Here, only two Authorities tore at each other like serpents—War and Narrative. War Authority was golden, brutal and direct, every impact threatening to shred my consciousness into pieces. Narrative Authority was silver-white, flexible and enduring, a net attempting to wrap, dilute, and rewrite the golden brutality.
The pen tip advanced 0.1 millimeters. I felt the concept of "I" begin to crack, like glass developing its first fracture.
"Wait!" I finally found my voice—or rather, I wrote a "No" with Narrative Authority. The character blazed blindingly in the void like a miniature supernova.
"No?" She laughed, her voice carrying genuine pleasure. "What gives you the right to say no? Here, War Authority outranks everything, including your little pencil."
The golden blade suddenly accelerated, piercing my "Existence." Agony erupted—not physical pain, but the pain of a concept being torn apart. Like someone attempting to gouge the word "Lin Jin" from the dictionary, burn it to ash, and scatter it to the winds. I "saw" my memories shatter: dozing off in chemistry class, getting hit by Shen Xingyao's folder on my first mission, carving the Teacher's Ode on a grain of rice... every fragment was licked by golden flames, blackening at the edges, curling, turning to nothingness.
But just as the blade tip reached the core, another surged from the void's deeper depths.
It was a pencil.
Not the golden war-blade, but an HB pencil—the most ordinary kind. It appeared from nothing, blocking the blade tip. The barrel was covered in cracks like a dried riverbed. From each crack flowed silver-white light, like blood, but colder, more tenacious.
"What is this...?" For the first time, Scarlet's voice fluctuated—no longer playful teasing, but the fury of hitting a reverse scale. "The Primordial Pen? How could you still have the Primordial Pen? It should have dissipated during Authority fusion!"
"This is my pencil." I wrote sound into the void with Narrative Authority, each character carrying silver-white light. "Not Narrative Authority's pen, but Lin Jin's pen. It belongs to no Authority—only to me."
With the pencil, I wrote a line in the void. The characters were silver-white, like knives, severing the golden blade:
[War Authority cannot kill Narrative Authority, because Narrative precedes War]
The moment the characters blazed, the golden blade wailed, shattering from its tip into countless light points that melted into the void. Scarlet's scream came from all directions—like a cat with its tail stepped on, like a lunatic whose beloved toy was stolen: "Impossible! War Authority is the most aggressive Authority, pure destruction. How could it fail to kill Narrative? Narrative is just rules; War breaks rules!"
"Because Narrative is War's mother." I continued writing with the pencil, each character brighter than the last, forcibly carving a silver-white domain in the golden void. "Without stories, where would War come from? Without cause, process, and effect, War would be meaningless brawling. You want to kill me? First kill yourself—kill your own story."
Scenes emerged in the void, Scarlet's past: at fourteen, surrounded and beaten by adults in the slums; at sixteen, slaughtering three stations in one night during Scarlet Christmas; at eighteen, rejecting the Administration's invitation... every segment was a story, her own story, the source of her War Authority. These images were wrapped in silver-white light, untouchable by golden flames.
"You can tear enemies apart, rip rules apart, shred space apart." I said, turning the pen tip toward those images. "But you cannot tear your own story. Your story is your Authority, your Authority is you. You want to kill me? First kill yourself—kill your own story."
Scarlet fell silent. Not persuaded—briefly speechless from extreme fury. I felt the entire void tremble. Golden fragments, like enraged swarms, collided everywhere, but each strike was repelled by the silver-white net.
"Fine." She finally spoke, her voice no longer a girl's, but War Authority itself roaring—like a thousand cannons, like heaven and earth collapsing. "If I cannot kill you, and you cannot kill me, then we share."
The instant she spoke, the golden void began collapsing. Fragments fell like snow, landing on me, melting, merging in. Simultaneously, silver-white light overflowed from me, flowing toward the void's depths.
[War Authority, Current Holder: Scarlet]
[Narrative Authority, Current Holder: Lin Jin]
[Status: Shared]
"Share?" I froze, trying to resist with Narrative Authority, but found the silver-white light no longer under my control. It intertwined with golden fragments like a DNA double helix, spiraling upward to form a new symbol at the void's apex—a silver circle encircling a golden pentagram.
"Correct." Scarlet's voice rang in my mind, no longer external but emerging directly from consciousness's depths. "Your stories, I'll write. My wars, you'll fight. From now on, every rule you write with your pencil will carry War Authority's tearing effect. And every war I wage will need your stories as fuel."
"We are symbionts."
"Fuck your mother!" I cursed, attempting to sever this link with Narrative Authority, but each impact was blocked by golden war barriers. The link was forged—not a rope, but conceptual sutures forcibly sewing our Existences together.
"You have no choice." She laughed, triumph ringing in her voice. "The 24-hour countdown now has 23 hours remaining. After 23 hours, if your Narrative Authority cannot fully control War Authority's output, sharing will convert to devouring. Either you consume me, or I consume you. There is no third path."
"There is a third option!"
"There isn't." She cut me off. "Unless Shen Xingyao is willing to kill us both, using Spatial sovereignty to delete both our Existences. But she won't—because she loves you."
"Not romantic love, but teammate love, family love, the kind of love that would die for you."
"She won't kill you, so—you will die."
"Now, sleep, new War Authority holder. In dreams, you'll find your desired ending."
My consciousness was forcibly pressed down, like being shoved underwater, sinking into darkness.
---
07:00, Administration Medical Pod.
I woke up. Shen Xingyao lay beside me.
She wasn't dead, but not alive either. Her sync rate had dropped to 0%.
Not to zero, but to "nonexistent."
Gu Yan said she used Spatial sovereignty to fold her "Existence" into the Seventeenth Mark, then shattered the mark. She disappeared.
Disappearing isn't death.
It's "not existing in any concept."
Even Scarlet's War Authority cannot locate a target that doesn't exist.
"Can she come back?" I asked, my voice hoarse as if ground by sandpaper.
"She can." White Gloves said. "But the one who returns might not be Shen Xingyao."
"Who would it be?"
"Scarlet." He said. "Scarlet won. She gained Shen Xingyao's body, but not her heart. The heart is in the mark's fragments."
He opened his hand. In his palm were fragments of the Seventeenth Mark—silver-white, like stars, like tears.
"This is the key." He said. "It can unlock Scarlet's heart, and retrieve Shen Xingyao."
"Where is the key?"
"In your story." He looked at me, his expression complex. "Write a story where Shen Xingyao never disappeared."
I accepted the fragment and wrote with my HB Pencil:
[Shen Xingyao, Exists]
The characters were silver-white, like knives, carved into the fragment.
The fragment lit up, like a response.
But the voice that responded wasn't Shen Xingyao's.
It was Scarlet's.
"Lin Jin." Her voice came from the fragment, carrying metallic echoes. "Your story, I received."
"But the ending, I'll write."
The fragment detonated. Golden light swallowed everything.
When I woke again, I lay in my dorm bed, holding a pen.
Not the golden Parker pen, but the HB Pencil—covered in cracks, silver-white light flowing through them like breath.
A new line was carved on the barrel:
[23 hours until Gaokao]
[23 hours until War]
[23 hours until Shen Xingyao—]
[One Story]