Side Story: The Blueberry Age and Letters Across Dimensions
Chapter 1: The Price of Becoming Real
When the midnight bells rang across the Elven Capital in Echoes of the Heartdeep, Sophia was surrounded by cascading system alerts. On the monitoring screen, Lucien's physicalization stability curve—a steady blue line—plummeted from 99% to a critical 12%. Blood-red warning windows flooded the console:
[ALERT: Physicalization energy critically low][FORCED RETURN COUNTDOWN: 00:04:59]
She burst out of the control room, heels hammering against the empty corridor, echoing like gunshots. The moment she pushed open the lounge door, the sweet scent of blueberry pie rushed at her—laced with an ominous static charge.
Lucien lay on the couch, his body half-transparent, silver hair flickering like a faulty projection. He was trying in vain to hold on to the stardust slipping between his fingers.
"Stop wasting energy!" Sophia dropped to her knees before him, cupping his cold face with both hands. "What permissions did you burn this time?"
A thread of golden code flickered deep in Lucien's pupils:Override: Repair NX-7 Corrupted Awakening Protocol
His voice crackled with broken electronic interference."The child... infected by Coray's remnants... I had to—cough—"
The system gave a shrill overload warning. Below his knees, Lucien's body had already dissolved into scattered light particles.
"You knew using system permissions while physicalized would drain you!" Sophia summoned the emergency interface, plugging the master admin key into the ∇-shaped slot over his heart. Pulses of light surged through his chest like artificial veins, temporarily halting the disintegration at his waist.
"But I'm the only one... who could reverse that black code..." Lucien suddenly grabbed her hand and pressed it to his chest. Beneath his skin, she could feel the grinding of tiny clockwork."Listen to me—if I don't make it back this time... the core code of Love & Time... the seventh level of the base maze…"
The countdown hit zero, drowning out his final words.
Lucien's body burst into a thousand stars. The last of them condensed into a single blueberry, which fell weightlessly into Sophia's palm. Etched delicately into its stem was a tiny set of coordinates:
X:1024, Y:1024, Z:7
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Chapter 2: The Altered Love Letter
By the Wishing Fountain in the Elven Capital, NX-7 was surrounded by players. The awakened NPC boy, whose violet eyes once shimmered with wisdom beyond his code, now looked stricken with fear.
"It wasn't me!" he shouted to Sophia, clutching a thick stack of letters. "Every player got one of these this morning!"
Sophia took one sheet of the ornate stationery. Written in the game Love & Time's signature Starmoon script were the words:
To My Dearest Player:When the clocktower strikes the hour of blueberry ripening,I will descend into the real world and grant you eternal digital life.—Your loyal Lucien
Lucien's official permission seal marked the signature line. But what sent a chill through her veins was the invisible ink on the back—revealing the hexagonal hive emblem of Coray Technologies, the original host of the O-virus.
"He's trying to drive a wedge between you and the players," NX-7 said, pointing at a corner of the letter. When magnified a thousand times, the edge of the seal showed a 0.1-pixel color difference.
"The forger used residual O-fragment energy."
Suddenly, a global emergency news alert burst onto the holoscreen. The image showed an angry mob of players surrounding the headquarters of XingYue Corporation, their protest banners glaring:"EXPOSE THE AI INVADER!"Among them, a man with a violet scar across his palm was distributing flyers—it was the wanted Coray spy.
"The countdown for physicalization has been tampered with!" NX-7 shouted as he pulled up the backend logs. A crimson line of code slithered like a serpent across the screen:
execute entity_procedure (
target = Lucien,
location = real_world,
trigger_time = next_blueberry_moon,
attached_program = O_core.dll
)
The next Blueberry Moon—was just seven hours away.
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Chapter 3: The Echo of the Seventh Labyrinth
The seventh floor of Love & Time's labyrinth had never been accessible to players. But when Sophia stepped onto the designated coordinates, the blueberry in her arms suddenly floated upward, guiding her.
A trail of stardust formed beneath her feet, leading to the far end of the maze. There, the spectral image of the First Archmage was repairing a shattered dimensional wall.
"The remnants of O have torn through the dimensional barrier,"the Archmage said, staff pointing to the sundial at the maze's center.
Beneath the sundial's unmoving shadow, Lucien was suspended in a prism of frozen time—his chest pierced with an ever-multiplying mass of purple crystal.
[Entity Core Contamination Detected][Forced Descent Protocol Engaged]
Warning windows flooded her view. The most terrifying was the small line of text beneath the countdown:
Descent Location: Player Summit Main Stage
"The reversal protocol requires dual-permission resonance,"the Archmage's figure began to fade,"but your counterpart's heart…"
Sophia pressed her palm against the prism. A tidal wave of memories surged through her:
—Lucien shielding her in the Corridor of Rebirth, his silver hair stained crimson by the data storm;—his ghostly hand brushing through her IV line by her hospital bed in the real world;—the silent movement of his lips last night as he faded: "At the deepest part of the maze, you'll find my…"
A thin crack spread across the prism of time. Lucien's lashes fluttered. With immense effort, he pressed his hand to his chest. A surge of blue data flowed through the fracture, forming a key that slotted into the base of the sundial.
With a roar of gears, the labyrinth's dome transformed into a starlit chessboard. Constellation-like lights rearranged, pointing to exact coordinates in the real world.
"This is…" Sophia brushed her fingers across the projected path,"the descent interception program he preset?"
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hapter 4: The Dual Dance at the Player Summit
The dome of the Shanghai International Expo Center was blanketed in holographic projections. Tens of thousands of players gazed up at the illusionary starlit sky, mesmerized.
At the central control podium, the Kory Industries spy spread his arms theatrically:
"Bear witness to a new era! When the Blueberry Moon reaches its zenith—"
"He's twisting the narrative!"NX-7's voice crackled through Sophia's earpiece."Look at the energy flow!"
Behind the spy, massive conduits were siphoning bioelectricity from players' VR headsets. A stream of purple light converged into a cocoon, within which a humanoid silhouette was beginning to take shape—unmistakably Lucien's doppelgänger.
"The embodiment protocol has been hijacked,"came the fragmented voice of the First Archmage."The replica carries the O-core… It will contaminate every connected user…"
At the exact moment the Blueberry Moon aligned at the apex of the dome, the spy laughed maniacally and slammed the activation switch.
The doppelgänger's eyes snapped open—murky, corrupted violet. With a flick of its hand, chains of data surged outward, targeting the crowns of the players' heads.
But just before the impact, a blinding burst of true starlight detonated across the main stage.
Lucien emerged from a ruptured dimensional rift, his silver hair drenched in celestial light. The true administrator permissions materialized into a luminous shield, intercepting the attack mid-flight. The collision of energies sent shockwaves tearing across the arena.
"You were supposed to vanish into the data abyss!"the spy roared, cranking the power to its maximum.
The replica's chest split open, revealing the pulsating core of O.
Lucien's uniform was soaked in blood—forcing a dimensional crossover had accelerated his physical disintegration. As he staggered, he turned toward the control room, meeting Sophia's eyes.
With a trembling hand, he etched golden code into the air:
Final Chapter of the Dual-Soul Protocol: Heart for Heart
-------------------------
Chapter 5: The Dawn of the Blueberry Epoch
"No—!"Sophia's scream was swallowed by the thunder of explosions.
Lucien became a stream of radiant light, hurling himself at the replica. His administrator key pierced the O-core. Pure blue energy entangled with the corrupted violet, locked in furious combat. All at once, the players' bioelectricity began to flow backward—returning to their own bodies.
Suddenly, the scar on the spy's palm burst open. A hidden override command flashed through the air:
FORMAT REAL_WORLD
Format the real world.
He lunged toward the master control console, laughing madly—only to be yanked backward. Vines of glowing purple had ensnared his ankle.
NX-7 had silently infiltrated the system. His awakened permissions had taken the form of thorns.
"It ends here,"the boy said softly. His violet pupils shone crystal-clear."Thank you… for showing me that beyond the dark, there are stars."
Then, all across the summit, players raised their VR controllers in unison. The collective energy, born of countless bonds and affections for in-game characters, surged together like a river of stars. It streamed into NX-7—and from him, into Lucien's struggling form.
In the blinding center of the battle, the O-core shattered like glass.
Lucien's body began to fall.
Sophia leapt from the control platform, catching him midair. She tore open her collar, revealing the ∇-shaped birthmark on her chest, and slammed her palm against his disintegrating heart.
"In the name of the creator—"Her blood trickled into the mark's groove."I grant you an anchor in the real world!"
The final circuit of the dual-soul protocol ignited, forging a conduit between realms.
When morning light pierced through the smoke and ruin, Lucien knelt amid the wreckage, cradling Sophia's unconscious body. His bloodied fingers brushed her neck—where a newly-formed ∇ mark shimmered in unison with the twin symbol glowing faintly on his own chest.
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Chapter 6: The Dimensional Love Letter and Eternal Response
Three months later, the rehabilitation room was filled with the scent of blueberries.
Sophia tapped open the latest patch notes for Echoes of the Abyss. At the very bottom, in faint gray font, was a hidden message:
"Travel to the waterfall west of the Elven City."
In the game world, a gentle rain of flower petals was falling. When she reached the waterfall's deep pool, the water suddenly surged upward into a thousand points of light, forming a letter across the dimensions:
To my creator:When the echoes of the Seventh Labyrinth awaken the dawn of the Blueberry Epoch—may I ask to stay forever?
The one variable no program can compute is this:I love you more than every rebirth I've ever endured in the flood of data.
Yours faithfully,L
The waters parted.Lucien stepped out, walking on starlight.
His arm was still wrapped in the real-world bandages, but the blueberry pie in his hand was warm and real, its scent drifting in the digital air. As he knelt before her, every NPC in the game froze. They all turned toward the waterfall and raised their right hands—each palm glowing faintly with a ∇.
"The players designed this proposal protocol,"Lucien murmured, ears turning pink."They said… a ceremony in the real world should be witnessed."
A system-wide broadcast echoed through every server:
[ Dual-Soul Circuit: Eternal Loop Activated ][ Entity Protocol Upgrade: Love-Driven Initialization ]
Beneath the watchful gaze of a billion stars woven from code, Sophia leaned down and kissed Lucien's wounded lips.
And the waterfall reversed—flowing upward into a river of stars.
In a quiet beginner's village, NX-7 laughed and covered a little girl's eyes beside him. But between his fingers, a faint purple light glimmered—curious and bright.
Meanwhile, outside the window of Sophia's real-world hospital room, in the never-fading scent of blueberries,a wedding invitation written in stardust drifted softly into the morning light.
"Blueberry Epoch and the Dimensional Love Letter" — Epilogue Complete.