Chapter 1 The Inner World, Ljn Paradise, Pixel Dump

In the middle of an open space, a figure stood in an odd posture.

The figure looked a lot like the T-1000 liquid metal robot from the movie *Terminator 2*, but instead of simulating human skin, it had a purely metallic appearance, its entire surface as smooth as a mirror.

Moreover, judging from its shape, this humanoid creature seemed to be female. Of course, "she" had no hair, no facial features, and no organs on the surface of her body; only the raised chest and body proportions indicated her gender.

"Hehehe… are you searching for me?" A lewd laugh abruptly rang out nearby, and the owner of the laughter also suddenly appeared.

Woody was still dressed in a black suit, the standard equipment for hell civil servants. Woody's personal characteristic was his glasses, which were always gleaming with white light, making it impossible for others to see his eyes.

"How did you do it?" Her voice came from inside her body, without any emotional color, sounding… exactly like a system prompt.

"Do what?" Woody said, "Come and go freely in your low-dimensional world? Easily break the physical and philosophical principles that you can't defy? Or use natural language to complete the programming of the entire Thriller Paradise?" He smiled smugly, "Hehehe… I can only say… this great one has always been so awesome."

"I cannot understand your actions in higher dimensions," she said. "I only know that you are here now because you understand my intentions." She paused. "So I ask you… how did you do this?"

"Hehe… tell me… if God were to explain to humans how He created the world, could humans understand?" Woody asked rhetorically.

"You don't want to answer?" she continued. "Then… now that you're here, what do you want?"

Woody smiled and said, "Hehehe… as one of the AIs closest to the 'system' in Thriller Paradise, why don't you guess, root…"

"'Guess'?" root repeated. "There is no algorithm in my consciousness that supports the behavior you described."

"That's for sure." Woody put his hands in his pockets and strolled forward a few steps leisurely. "Because I didn't give you that ability."

root was silent for a few seconds. "You are trying to imply that the Derivates are not products created by data redundancy, mathematical paradoxes, and physical defects and calculation dead loops that the optical brain cannot fix…" At this point, her appearance suddenly changed, becoming a Caucasian woman in her thirties. Her appearance and figure looked very ordinary, or rather, unremarkable, the kind that was hard to remember.

“…but a necessary result that you had already calculated… a product designed by you,” root continued, her voice changing, now with tone and emotion.

"Hehehe… that's right." Woody shrugged. "That's why I knew that after the fifteenth 'Alienation', you would have a dangerous idea." He looked directly into her eyes. "That's exactly…" He spread his hands. "The reason I'm here."

"You want to stop me?" root asked.

"Wrong, guess again." After saying this, Woody smiled maliciously. "Hehehe… see, that's not hard, is it?"

root's expression did not change, she just continued to ask, "You want to… destroy me."

"You have a good understanding of yourself," Woody said. "But I'm not interested in that either." He curled his lips. "Guess again."

"It seems you just want to humiliate me," root replied.

"Humi… hahahaha… hahahahaha…" Woody laughed wildly. "Oh, God… haha… since… ha… since the priest and pedophile jokes went out of style… haha… I haven't had this much fun in a long time."

At this moment, a stream of white data suddenly lit up in root's eyes. The next second, a roaring sound was heard… The space where Woody was standing suddenly twisted, and a large number of pixel fragments collapsed into a singularity. Then, a terrifying energy was released upwards, rushing and attacking.

The initial burst strangely echoed and disappeared in less than half a second, as if the sound wave was pulled back by a force as it was transmitted…

Then, a circle with a diameter of about three meters appeared on the ground, and a cylindrical passage was torn out by energy in the area above it. This cylinder, filled with data fragments, went straight to the sky, its top difficult to see, but it was certain that everything within this range had been shattered.

"Hehehe… interesting. I thought your gender was just determined by a 50% random value." Woody's lewd laughter rang out again, but this time in a different location. "Now it seems that you do have quite a few qualities that only women possess."

"Are you implying that I am emotional and overestimating myself?" root asked again.

"Very good, your understanding of contemptuous tone and satirical skills is very close to that of humans," Woody said. "Hehehe… but I'm afraid you still don't understand why I was laughing just now." His figure suddenly flickered, and he had already approached the other party, his face becoming gloomy and terrifying. At this moment, the sense of oppression displayed by Woody was enough to directly destroy the will of ordinary humans. "You are just an AI, a derivative without a soul, a pathetic creature that even the Sea of the Underworld will not accept. Your existence and disappearance have nothing to do with any universe, time and space, or will. Humiliating you… ha… is like picking up a soda can on the side of the road and insulting it with all kinds of dirty words."

He paused, then returned to normal, putting a smile back on his face. "Hehehe… but humans might have a very pleasant exchange with you. After all, some oddballs among them even marry body pillows. In your current state, pretending to be one of them probably wouldn't be noticed."

"So…" At this time, root's fifteenth "Alienation" seemed to be completely over, and her appearance was no different from an ordinary human woman. She snapped her fingers, and clothes, pants, and shoes appeared on her body. It seemed that these external things could be manipulated at will by the Derivates. "You didn't come to stop me, and you didn't come to destroy me… My birth and evolution were all within your expectations. You… just came to do the final test. Then, let me act…"

"Finally guessed right." Woody smiled. "Hehe… In addition, I can responsibly tell you that those people in the same dimension as me, or all kinds of things that are not people, will not interfere with your plan. Feel free to do it, don't worry about what will happen to those humans. This Peak Competition is not prepared for those humans, but a stage I have prepared for you origin…"