Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

“…But you don’t seem very willing to go back right now,” Saito said calmly. “I’m taking her with me. What will it take for you to go back to sleep?”

"What if I don't want to go back?" Zhao Yingkong blinked. "That's like telling me to die. Being so open and honest is commendable, but isn't it a bit too unmanly?"

“But you have no reason not to go back. Because you were already planning to hand over your body to your alternate personality,” Saito Hajime replied. “You were already planning to die, weren’t you?”

“That was before.” The girl gently shook her finger. “Times have changed. Originally, I did intend to continue sleeping when the time was right, letting another me devour the current me and take my place. That wouldn’t be a bad thing. But… life is always full of surprises. Just a few hours ago, I found a reason why I must live. So I temporarily regained control of my body and let the other me have a good sleep.”

"...So there's nothing to talk about?" Saito asked.

“There’s nothing to discuss.” Zhao Yingkong gave a definite answer.

"Then I had no choice but to take her away by force."

"Being too confident isn't a good thing for a man," Zhao Yingkong said with a light laugh. "Why don't you consider the possibility of us forming an alliance? Both I and she are Zhao Yingkong, aren't we? Pushing a fighting force that can be united to the enemy is not a smart choice. I don't think you're that stupid."

“Ah, yes. That certainly seems like a superior choice. But…” Saito gently removed his glasses, and with this simple movement, an extremely powerful, desolate aura, like that of an ancient, chaotic being, permeated the air. The small house where the two were instantly decayed as if it had endured a thousand years. The floor and walls were visibly covered with rotting mold, which quickly corroded away, dissolving into clumps of rotten mud.

“My partner in this battle is her, not you.” He took a small step forward, and with that step, everything around him, except for the small patch of ground where Zhao Yingkong stood, turned into rotting mud. In the blink of an eye, the ruins of the manor had completely vanished from this world, leaving only a large, swampy expanse of mud covering the entire farm!

"I will not abandon my comrades!"

"You men, you're all so stubborn," Zhao Yingkong shook her head sadly, looking at him with disbelief. "You can't even handle your own problems before interfering in other people's private affairs. Is this how you and your 'comrades' get along?"

She leaped lightly backward, her body rising upward, and a wisp of red flame rose from her toes. The flame flickered briefly before transforming from crimson to dark green. This peculiar flame then fell to the ground, and the instant it touched the swamp, the ground began to boil as if water were being scalded!

Something was wriggling underground, and fire was burning on the ground.

It started as a single point, but in an instant, it transformed into a surface. Within microseconds, the dark green flames scorched the muddy ground over a radius of several kilometers. It was as if some colossal creature was screaming and roaring in sounds indistinguishable to humans, venting its fury beneath the earth.

Saito frowned, his five fingers pressed together, and from the boiling ground within a radius of one kilometer, hundreds of enormous, translucent, deep red tentacles, each the size of a tower, suddenly burst forth. As these tentacles swung, they easily used their immense mass to manipulate gravity, tearing apart energy waves powerful enough to disrupt the stability of the entire battlefield's spatial structure!

Zhao Yingkong stood at the end of this wave that swept high into the sky.

"You'll die, you idiot," she said calmly, looking at Saito Hajime lying on the ground.

Saito Hajime simply watched her quietly, without saying a word.

“Your body is on the verge of collapse. Ah, you probably still have a trump card, the confidence to keep me here. But unfortunately, this action only reveals more information.” Zhao Yingkong said softly. She was sure that every word she said would be intercepted by Saito Ichiro—which was exactly what she wanted.

"Let me guess. There are several completely different energy systems running in your body. They conflict with each other and merge with each other, disrupting the stability of your body while giving you tremendous power. There is no doubt that this balance point cannot be found by chance. It must be the knowledge you acquired through your 'precognition' ability, and then you successfully combined and applied them to become your power."

She deftly dodged the force field and tentacles, her body swaying as her slender frame teleported directly behind Saito Hajime using the torn spatial structure. With her five fingers forming a blade, she unleashed a vertical slash!

"So here's the problem. These power systems are completely contradictory. Even you, who saw the 'future,' could only piece together a situation on the verge of collapse, which could only be maintained for a few days at most. This shows that you yourself didn't know that mixing these powers together would have this effect... Yet you still did it. This can only mean that you have an extremely high level of understanding of these power systems. So, combined with the information that you previously had access to that only I could obtain, the answer is very simple."

The earth roared, tearing a chasm several kilometers long amidst countless explosions. Saito, bearing the brunt of the attack, instantly disintegrated into a pool of mud the moment he was struck. However, he merely snorted, and a new body constructed from the mud coalesced dozens of meters away. A gigantic tentacle then slammed down, smashing the spot where the girl stood into a smooth, mirror-like surface where every soil molecule was evenly distributed!

However, Zhao Yingkong had already left.

"You can see many different futures, at least many futures where you are a reincarnator. Isn't that right?"

"So what if it is?" Saito said coldly.

"Oh dear? I've explained it so clearly, don't you understand?" Zhao Yingkong shook her head. Dark green flames burned, eroding the space around her and disintegrating into sharp blades. With a casual wave, she easily severed several attacking tentacles.

"Haven't you noticed that many of the 'Awakened Ones' in this world have many similarities with you? Knowing the future, relying on the future, and fighting against the future. But in the end, you are nothing more than pawns of the alien species. All your struggles are meaningless, and you are just an insignificant byproduct—isn't that implication clear enough?"

She raised her hand, and before she knew it, a dark green ball of fire, as oppressive as a dim star, had coalesced above her head. Then, it crashed down!

"How pitiful, Saito Hajime."

"—Spell: Bed of Chaos!"

Author's Note:

..........................................

I was thinking of using the Sealed Sun... but I decided against it. The game performance was just too bad; it's not even as good as the Flame Hammer.

Using the name "Residue from a Hotbed" doesn't feel powerful enough...

And I'm really going to die if nobody watches me _(:з」∠)_

Section 65 Violence

Zhao Yingkong is an assassin, an assassin from an Eastern assassin family. In fact, she was not born through normal reproduction. She, and many of her brothers and sisters, are genetically engineered creations of the assassin family. This collective and its development process are known as the 'Empty Project,' and their origin lies in the previous cycle of the Main God Space.

Over thirty years ago, an ordinary member of an assassin family mysteriously disappeared. She was initially considered a fugitive, destined to be hunted down to death. However, after three years of searching, the assassin family was astonished to discover that the entire world offered no trace of this low-ranking assassin; it was as if she had vanished into thin air, like a snowflake evaporating in the sun. The matter was quickly dropped, the disappearance archived, and forgotten.

However, a decade or so later, twenty years ago, this low-ranking assassin suddenly reappeared in the assassin world's base, displaying extremely terrifying, cataclysmic destructive power. But for some unknown reason, she suddenly died a few minutes later, leaving behind only a series of documents and her body after death. The documents showed that for the past decade or so, this assassin had been fighting in a world called the 'God' space, and she had gained this terrifying power as a result.

—The power of the fourth stage of the gene lock.

So, the researchers from the assassin family dissected the remains and used them as a blueprint to create a generation known as the 'Empty Project'—Zhao Yingkong and her siblings.

It must be admitted that the plan was extremely successful. The power of this new generation of Zhao assassins increased dramatically before they even reached adulthood. At their peak, there were even three powerful individuals who simultaneously unlocked the fourth-tier gene lock. However, this most glorious moment was also the moment they faced annihilation. The assassins who unlocked the fourth tier fell into the inner demons that must be overcome at the fourth tier, and thus, in an internal war, the assassins were almost completely wiped out, leaving only two survivors.

Zhao Yingkong, and Zhao Zhuikong.

"I never imagined that I would one day enter this place, the God's Space, the source of tragedy for all of us in the 'Void' generation. If I hadn't been awakened, I probably wouldn't have come to know this fact until a very distant future."

Zhao Yingkong hovered thousands of meters in the air, looking down at the vast land below, scorched into a lava lake by the chaotic incubator. At least thirty square kilometers of land had been affected by the escaping violent energy—the soil melted, the rocks disintegrated, and the surface of the earth's crust was covered with lava and molten iron. The nature of this land had been permanently altered; even if the magma cooled quickly, no living thing could grow or reproduce on this wasteland for at least a thousand years.

This spell is as powerful as a natural disaster.

In the arsenals of humankind, the only weapon that can rival it in destructive power is the nuclear bomb—a high-yield, high-explosive nuclear bomb. However, mere destructive power is meaningless, because what use is even the greatest strength if it misses? Moreover… even if it hits, it might not be effective.

Saito Hajime's figure slowly emerged from the bottom of the lava pool. His face was grim as he stared at Zhao Yingkong, who was suspended high in the air. The only damage caused to him by the fire spell that had spread for dozens of miles was that it had burned a small hole in his sleeve. This small hole kept repairing itself as he rose, and the moment his feet left the boiling lava, this only damage was completely repaired and disappeared.

However, Saito Hajime was not in a good mood.

[A cleverly crafted simulated fourth-tier can't compare to a genuine fourth-tier... even a flawed one... No, she already possesses the Light of the Soul, and is infinitely close to the mid-fourth tier. Even if its inherent flaws are due to its artificial nature, it's still stronger than a typical early-stage fourth-tier!]

[Ugh, damn it! Although I have the memories of unlocking the fourth level, that was a parallel world version of myself, not the one here. Even if I simulated the subtle techniques, it's still not as good as the real thing.]

He knew he had already lost a move, at least in terms of precision. If they were truly evenly matched, his clothes wouldn't have been damaged—his power came from a composite enhancement system extracted from the depths of his memory. While powerful and quick to master, it had a flaw: in a direct confrontation, he ultimately couldn't defeat a true fourth-tier… no, he was stronger than a typical early fourth-tier. It was just that Zhao Yingkong… was a special case.

However, battles cannot be decided solely by basic parameters. For Qi Tengyi, the power of a pseudo-inferior fourth tier is merely a basic platform, while his true strength lies in the ammunition loaded on that platform—the mysterious spells buried deep within his memory, which even now he can only barely comprehend a small portion of.

He raised his hand, and vast swathes of mud gushed from the bottom of the lava pool. The molten metal-saturated lava seemed to have no effect on this mud. Not even steam, the steam that should have been generated by the collision of hot and cold, was present. In the blink of an eye, the mud had eroded nearly a square kilometer of lava, and countless enormous tentacles emerged from it, blooming suddenly like peonies in summer. The stamens of these 'peonies' flickered with dark lightning, like a pointer pointing to the girl in the sky.

"The final negotiation is to bring her back." Saito's tone was icy cold. "Bring her back, and we'll pretend nothing happened. You should know that the Main God Space has plenty of items to hold souls. If you want a body, there will be plenty of opportunities later... Otherwise, I'll beat you until you fall asleep."

"You really are stubborn, Saito Hajime." The girl sighed softly. "As a fellow Zhao Yingkong, am I really that untrustworthy to you? Since you know me so well and can see the future of multiple parallel worlds, isn't there any future version of me that has already awakened?"

“Almost none,” Saito Hajime said calmly.

"Is that really the case?" The girl raised an eyebrow slightly. "It seems that my situation in other timelines isn't very good. Well, I originally gave up my own future, which is why I created her to live on in my place. If there are no special circumstances, I should sleep until this body's lifespan reaches its limit... or until another version of me becomes powerful enough to talk to me as an equal, or even devour me. And at that time, whether I'm awake or not will make no difference."

"It's no wonder you insist on waking her up. After all, in most of the futures you see, she's the one fighting alongside you. As the main personality, I'll probably only have a chance to appear at the end of the drama, at the end of the cycle... It's understandable that you don't consider me a member of the Central Continent Team. Especially since I plan to get rid of the secondary personality."

"So what's your answer?" Saito's outstretched hand gradually tightened its grip. As he moved, the flickering, dark lightning became even more active.

“I have reasons why I must preserve this body. But my alternate personality cannot exist independently of this body. So,” the girl tilted her head slightly and smiled playfully, “my answer is no.”

The next moment, a blazing column of lightning suddenly erupted from the stamen of the 'peony'! It was like a thin line extending from the ground, its end reaching high into orbit. Thousands of kilometers were covered in an instant, and the end of this 'thin' line directly detonated a spy satellite suspended above the ionosphere!

Thousands of kilometers are covered in an instant. This means that unless Zhao Yingkong's speed reaches sub-light speed, he will have no chance of dodging this fatal blow! The lightning, derived from genetically engineered biological components and emanating from thousands of tentacles, is far beyond the reach of ordinary natural lightning. It is a high-energy impact constructed with alien technology, appearing as lightning but actually a gamma-ray beam created based on the principle of annihilation. Its power is enough to kill any known non-supernatural life form instantly!

Naturally, Zhao Yingkong couldn't dodge the beam of light. In fact, when she watched Saito build his fortifications without intervening, it was destined that she wouldn't escape this attack. Her chest was pierced through from both ends, and a bowl-sized hole instantly appeared in her delicate body. Countless cracks, like shards of glass, burst outwards from that hole, and then with a 'bang—', the girl's body disintegrated into a mass of withered ash.

"Do you think I'm the kind of idiot who stands still and waits for you to slowly cast your spell?"

The next moment, Zhao Yingkong's figure suddenly appeared behind Saito Hajime. She moved through the shadows, leaving behind only a decoy in the sky. Dark green flames burned on the fingers of her outstretched right hand, the tip of the flames almost touching the back of Saito Hajime's neck!

The ground suddenly split open, and a gaping maw swallowed them both whole. But the next moment, flames erupted from the maw, and Zhao Yingkong emerged—she glanced at her corroded right hand, the very hand she had just used to pierce Saito Hajime's back. However, the destroyed body instantly transformed into a writhing, limp creature. The potent venom and energy radiation even pierced through her spiritual light, leaving corrosive marks on the back of her hand.

The Child of No Form, a descendant of the otherworldly god Sathogua. Since Saito Hajime is now wearing black-rimmed glasses, it's only natural that he would use such power.

She jerked backward, and in the instant she dodged, a large mass of air in front of her transformed into a colorless maw that viciously devoured her. She raised her hand, but her swung blade hesitated unexpectedly just before it struck its target—yet because of this slight delay, when her fingertips brushed past the colorless maw, they only severed a large expanse of pure air.

“The flow of time has changed slightly…and my movement speed has been restricted as a result.” Zhao Yingkong frowned slightly. Before her, the torn air transformed into a hurricane that swept across everything. The power dissipated from the missed strike triggered a wind tide equivalent to a Category 13 gale—the girl’s furrowed brows then lifted, and she decided to plunge herself into this wind tide, riding on this cataclysmic gale to tear apart the 'peony' blooming on the swamp.

The wind was born of her, but she was faster than the wind. Transparent tentacles hung down from the sky, yet they could not harm her in the slightest.

This is more complicated than expected, and dragging it out will only lead to a stalemate. Although his time is also running out, it's equally disadvantageous for me.

[A lose-lose situation...no, he could be considered to have won this way. So, is a roundabout strategy the only option left?]

The girl thought to herself, she could sense multiple hidden predators rapidly approaching from the void. These things were not in reality, perceptible to mortals, but rather lurking within the sea of ​​imaginary numbers, drifting freely in the quantum vacuum—she didn't know the price Saito would have to pay to control such things; she only knew that if she were to deal with these creatures, she would inevitably suffer even greater losses.

"It seems your skill level is limited to this," she said with a smile. Although she had already decided to take a roundabout approach, an even more powerful energy erupted from within her. The dark green flames, formed from the embers of firewood and the light of her soul, enveloped her like a thin veil, burning away any monsters or alien species that dared to approach her. "Indeed, after all, the version of me you remember should be the one without any enhancements, fighting purely based on physical attributes. It's only natural that there would be differences in combat strength."

She swung her hand sharply towards the ground, unleashing a surge of dark green flames that completely destroyed the area covered by the ecological mud. New lava replaced the old, and her battle with Saito Hajime gradually reached a stalemate.

"After all, it's a rare blank fourth-tier, something that only exists in theory, yet several of them have appeared in our 'Empty Project'. Even I only realized after becoming familiar with this power that the gene lock needs to be combined with energy enhancement to unleash its true power."

A blank fourth-tier genetic barrier… This is a possibility that exists only in theory. Because those who unlock the fourth tier of their genetic lock can freely modify their own genes, thereby correcting the traits revealed by their genetic blueprint. Aside from extremely rare bloodlines, they can have any bloodline they desire.

However, the assassins of Project Empty are different; they have no training system. They rely entirely on instinct for training and combat. At the same time, their education and the concepts they accept deliberately emphasize that they are human, not monsters—this was one of the brainwashing courses prepared by assassin families to make good use of this rare tool. Although the effect was not significant, it caused the assassins to forcibly restrain themselves even after reaching the fourth tier, preventing them from transforming into something inhuman.

Therefore, until Zhao Yingkong awoke from her slumber, she had no idea she could be this powerful. After all, she was only a theoretically undeveloped fourth-tier cultivator, without physical modifications or energy acquisition. Even in combat, she could only unleash the power accumulated within her body through eating. This was naturally invincible against the mortal assassination targets on Earth, but once in the reincarnation world, it became somewhat inadequate.

Naturally, since Saito Hajime is unlikely to witness her premature awakening in the future, she, who can only appear at the end of the story, will not be able to display much power—even though the lower limit of the fourth rank is still extremely terrifyingly strong for cannon fodder below the fourth rank. But for opponents of the same level, this is a huge weakness.

It was precisely because of this that Saito's assessment of Zhao Yingkong's level was flawed. As a result, the battle, which was originally expected to be resolved quickly, gradually reached a stalemate.

"So you're not a blank slate anymore?" Saito asked in a deep voice—his true form was hidden in the ocean of imaginary numbers, controlling the attacks of the invisible children while preparing an even more powerful secret technique. Since Zhao Yingkong was willing to talk, he was happy to cooperate.

“Yes, thanks to this power.” Zhao Yingkong chuckled, dealing with the Invisible Child while secretly gathering flames in the shadows. “Firewood and embers… It is because of it, because I became familiar with it, and because I mastered it, that I realized how insignificant a planet is to a fourth-tier powerhouse.”

"And it was for this reason that I learned a truth—a truth that made me, someone who should have died, have to live on, have to use this body to the very end."

Chapter Sixty-Six: He's nothing but a puppet.

What is the fourth order for a civilization that has not yet stepped out of the atmosphere and is still bound by gravity?

Those who unlock the fourth level of genetic lock can manipulate their genes at will, allowing their bodies to exhibit different traits—a seemingly simple concept based on mere description. However, the reality is quite different.

It will not lack energy because it can completely modify its own cells, turning each of its cell nuclei into a miniature cold fusion furnace at room temperature.

It will not lack time, because it can modify or even cancel telomere structures, extremely enhance its healing abilities, and even create multiple bodies to ensure that it never ages.

It possesses immense power because it can easily modify the structure of muscle fibers, fill in mass, infuse energy, and create a power furnace, allowing it to generate a force of 100 million tons with a single punch.

It can even alter the structure of its skin, allowing it to freely absorb energy rays from the universe, thus enabling it to traverse the void at will and drift freely among the stars.

It may be defeated, but it is difficult to die because every cell in its body possesses extremely high activity. Even if most of its body mass is lost in battle, as long as one cell survives, it will eventually be resurrected.

It is nearly limitless, its power increasing almost endlessly with knowledge and experience. If it were willing to completely relinquish its mortal form, it could even allow its size to multiply indefinitely until it reaches the limit of its soul. And before reaching that limit, devouring a small planet would be no difficult task for it.

It is a god, a demon, a supreme being capable of dominating a star field in the vast cosmos and ruling it until the end of time. A tiny, insignificant planet is utterly meaningless to it; destroying it might take a little time. But only a 'little' time.

"Saito Hajime, do you know why there's such a thing as 'two tigers cannot share one mountain'?" In the instant she spoke, Zhao Yingkong's pupils rapidly changed shape seven or eight times due to the rapid transformation of her genes. From a circle to a rhombus, from a rhombus to a star, from a star to layers of overlapping rings. Her vision thus switched seven or eight times, and when it stabilized, her gaze could pierce through the void, focusing on the Dirac Sea hidden in nothingness.