Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

She had always believed that death did not exist in this world, because angels were death—the script written by the emperor governed the life and death of all mortals on this planet, and the angels were the unintentional tools that ensured her will could be carried out—that was what she originally thought, and she had proven it.

However, reality gave her a harsh slap in the face.

"So this world... really is 'Final Destination 2'... Although I guessed that the Supreme God wouldn't just name the story world randomly, I didn't expect it to actually come true. In that case... all the preparations we made, the arrangements we made, the various measures we prepared to deal with the Seven Horns of Revelation and the Angel Legion, were all in vain?" Alice said to herself sadly, but immediately, this bitter expression and emotion quickly disappeared from her heart.

The angelic legion will descend sooner or later, and this "sooner or later" won't take long—it'll only be a mere one and a quarter days. And the Seventh Horn of Doomsday is very likely to become a reality—although she promised the moment of her attack would be the very last second of the last day, this also happens to be the last of the seven angels.

She closed her eyes, and the general contents of Angel VII appeared in her mind.

The first angel sounded his trumpet, and hail and fire, mixed with blood, were hurled to the earth; a third of the trees were burned, and all the grass was burned.

The second angel sounded his trumpet, and the mountains were set ablaze and cast into the sea; a third of the ocean turned blood red. A third of the creatures that were alive in the sea died; a third of the ships were destroyed.

The third angel sounded his trumpet, and a giant star fell from heaven, burning like a lamp, into a third of the rivers and springs. One of these stars was called wormwood: a third of the water turned to wormwood, and many people died because of the water, for they became bitter.

[The fourth angel sounded his trumpet, and a third of the sun, a third of the moon, and a third of the stars were struck down; so that a third of them became dark, a third of the day lost its light, and so did the night.]

The fifth angel sounded his trumpet, and a star fell from the sky. The sealed abyss opened, and locusts, endowed with the power of scorpions on the ground, descended upon the earth amidst thick smoke. Their poison caused unbearable suffering, from which there was no escape.

[The sixth angel blows his trumpet, and the four ancient angels bound by the Euphrates River are revived. They will lead an army of two hundred million angels to kill one-third of the world's population.]

When the seventh angel blows his trumpet, the voice of the Lord will be heard in the Kingdom of Heaven.

The first five horns all represent natural disasters, while the sixth horn corresponds to the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse in Papacy mythology. Alice had no doubt that they possessed combat power at least at the fourth level of the Gene Lock, and all the preparations she made before knowing about and meeting the Prince of Binana were for dealing with these four legendary ancient angels and their legions.

"And the seventh trumpet, the voice of the Lord... without a doubt, the God who created all living beings on this planet holds a position equivalent to God in papal mythology. And her personal intervention is not much different from 'listening to the voice of the Lord'... Since she has reaped countless civilizations, she naturally has a standard procedure rather than acting arbitrarily every time. Therefore, the possibility of Angel VII being realized is very high."

"Tsk, what's coming will come anyway. It's just that while dealing with the angels, I also need to deal with these nonsensical guys. Death... the angel of death, Gabriel... it's also recorded in the apocryphal texts as the trumpet angel. Fortunately, based on the clues I've seen so far, this so-called 'true death god' seems to have nothing to do with the angels. Otherwise, I wouldn't have the confidence to face this famous archangel at this time."

Alice shook her head with a wry smile. "It's truly pathetic to be weak. Every word and action of the strong must be carefully studied and analyzed to deduce corresponding countermeasures. If I could reach the transcendent level of complete qualitative change, I suppose I wouldn't need to rack my brains like this."

The deed is done, and there's no point in running away. Even with her deep sorrow and helplessness, Alice will still do what she must do. And the first thing... is to determine whether this is a small-scale event confined to a single region, or, like in the movies, a global event from which no one can escape.

She sighed softly and connected to the satellite network. By accessing monitors across the globe and sending the data to the supercomputer in the Great Library for analysis and comparison, she obtained the answer within a minute. And the answer… was far from optimistic.

One-third of the world's cities have been struck by death. Whether one-third of the population has perished is uncertain, but the death toll must be in the hundreds of millions. This news, due to solar wind interference and the fact that the system blocks the communication networks of most countries, has only circulated among a small minority so far. The general public remains completely unaware.

She wasn't sure if this was good or bad, but she was at least certain that Death's activities covered the entire globe, and after figuring this out, her first reaction was to directly contact the underground base in Lop Nur!

In Final Destination 2, since death has arrived, the most dangerous people are undoubtedly the main characters. Their teammates are also in grave danger, and this must be dealt with immediately!

She abruptly closed her eyes, deploying her own protective shield while simultaneously establishing a connection with the Lop Nur base via satellite network. However, the next instant, the chaotic flow of information within the network drove her will away from the Lop Nur base!

Unable to connect!?

"Damn it, it's the Stellar Extraction Tower! That thing is now the source of interference! I have to contact Patchouli immediately!" Alice took a deep breath and immediately opened the secret communication channel that she and Patchouli had established on a daily basis—this was their unique soul link, which should still be usable even in a severely interfered communication environment.

However, a few seconds later, she was met with complete silence.

Patchouli didn't respond at all.

So, she must be in trouble now.

Alice then gently tapped her head and contacted the Great Library.

"Little devil, can you receive my signal?" she asked herself.

The next second, the other party gave an affirmative answer.

【Very good. Now, immediately airdrop all available mechanized units. I want them to take over the Lop Nur base as quickly as possible, under conditions of information isolation. If they encounter Patchi, they should immediately obey her command. To prevent accidental friendly fire and robot mutiny, before deployment, write the contingency plan from item seven into the AI ​​of each robot.】

Seconds later, the operation began. Tens of thousands of mechanical legions descended from the sky and arrived at the Lop Nur base in a very short time, allowing her will to be manifested.

Only then did she have the mind to think about what was happening in downtown Pisa.

Author's Note:

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

Today, I actually drew 15 green cubes from the Five Amulets! It seems my luck has improved recently. I used to only get 5 to 7 green cubes.

I touched it today.

The internet was down this morning, and I twisted my right shoulder while fixing it. I still can't use it much.

At the same time, there were other personal reasons that ultimately led to the outcome described in the title.

—I touched it today.

[Word count] [Word count] [Word count] [Word count] [Word count] [Word count] [Word count]

Damn, I need to practice for another day.

As the saying goes, misfortunes never come singly; today, everything seems to be happening at once. I got criticized by my boss at work, had a falling out with a friend online, and now I have an urgent matter to attend to and need to rush back to my hometown tonight. I haven't even been able to touch my computer. I feel like I'm about to explode.

Damn it, I have to use up both leave slips at the beginning of the month... Oh well, a reader just told me there were too many unexpected plot twists. I guess I should reflect on that too.

Section 8 Jupiter

A plan is an unreliable prediction of the future. It is a collection of self-perception, objective information, and subjective conjecture. It is a flower that sometimes attracts butterflies of surprise, adding to its beauty when in full bloom. Other times, however, it attracts not butterflies, but bees and winds of alarm.

So the flowers broke, withered, and most fell to the ground, where they were trampled into the mud. A few flowers survived, but having endured so much hardship, their blooming appearance was no longer what had been expected.

The more carefully a flower is cultivated, the more likely it is to grow into something else entirely. Unless all external interference is locked away from the beginning—constant light, constant water, a constant growth trajectory, and pruning intervals—and it is deprived of external wind and rain, thus growing exactly as the grower expects, things will still change.

Just as carefully cultivated flowers are susceptible to external interference, so too are meticulously crafted plans. Unlike flowers that can be kept in a greenhouse, the more complex, intricate, and impactful a plan, the more likely it is to be affected by external variables. Those who create plans often fail to achieve their desired outcome, instead receiving a somewhat ambiguous result—neither a complete failure nor a full success. Whether such an outcome will satisfy the planner remains to be seen.

"What is lost on one front, gained on another"—while there are likely gains and losses, can the gains on the other front truly offset the losses on the other? Perhaps yes, perhaps no. Even the historical figure upon whom this idiom originated, the renowned general Deng Yu, who was driven out of Chang'an by the Red Eyebrow Army, though ultimately cornering them at Yiyang, may not have been without regret for his defeat in Chang'an. The same conclusion applies to Alice. Her plan cannot be considered a failure, but it is not a success either. Although the situation is now shifting in her favor, she may not be entirely satisfied.

Yes, I'm not satisfied.

Alice thought to herself, unfolding an anti-gravity field, and flew toward the center of Pisa.

Her initial assessment of this world was actually quite accurate. Death wasn't some elusive conceptual being, but a tangible entity that could be seen, touched, grasped, and killed. She found it, proved it, captured it, and reduced it from a 'god' who wantonly robbed all life to merely a powerful and stealthy angel. She also calculated that these angels weren't the mastermind behind this world; the real enemy to deal with was someone else entirely.

Yes, she calculated it. Based on the current divisions within the team, Saito's unusual behavior, and signs that she had been repeatedly manipulated, she even deduced that this world was a transaction between the Supreme God and some unknown entity. The content of the transaction was likely the Supreme God's projections of many possibilities for the future, and the other party should be at least someone close to the Supreme God.

The reason for the transaction was unknown, but she guessed it was related to her. Saito's obvious actions were clearly intended to drag her into it, forcing her to do everything in her power to put Zheng Zha in the captain's position, given that her only chance of survival was to revive herself using the Book of the Sun. And this obvious act of distrust—though Saito thought he had kept it well hidden—clearly pointed to only one fact—that she and Patchouli were not included in the God's many predictions about the future.

With such evidence, it's easy to deduce that the deal was related to him. Saito Hajime believed everything was perfectly prepared, but he had already made arrangements and had a plan to escape. However, the Emperor's appearance ruined everything!

[I should have realized this sooner. Since the transaction involved me, it's only natural that a recipient related to me would appear. No, I should say that I was able to confirm the transaction's connection to me precisely because I knew the recipient was an acquaintance.]

After all, although I had suspected Qi Teng from the beginning, what truly confirmed my deduction was the words the Emperor left me after killing the first angel—'You have become a Reincarnator, Alice Margotrovid'—meaning that all my plans, schemes, and arrangements were within the Emperor's calculations, weren't they?

Perhaps even my current thoughts are within her calculations.

The girl smiled melancholy, her thoughts racing.

She deployed robot armies, controlled information networks, conquered nations, and built up military power. Ultimately, her goal was to deal with the angelic army that might appear in the final judgment—her reasoning was simple: the Grim Reaper in this world is an angel, and angels act in an orderly manner to ensure the world ends according to the script; the Church's mythology can reasonably constrain them → the angels' world-ending procedures are also very likely to follow the Church's mythology.

The Vatican's myth of world destruction is the Book of Revelation, the Last Judgment. And in the Last Judgment, the greatest threat comes from the two hundred million angels released when the Angel of Destruction blows the sixth horn, and the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, who have appeared in countless novels, movies, anime, and fantasies.

Her elaborate preparations were aimed not at defeating the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse, but at delaying them so that she and the others could survive the twelve days allotted by the Supreme God. Before this, she had never imagined that the seventh horn, which held only symbolic significance in the Last Judgment, would be sounded, and that the Lord's (the Son of Heaven's) radiance would truly arrive and illuminate this planet (world).

She hadn't anticipated the existence of a seventh horn, because if that happened, all the elaborate plans would be meaningless. However, when this unexpected situation occurred, she realized that there was still hope.

Her plan remains effective. Since the Emperor has appeared as a 'Lord' and personally admitted that this is all part of a script she has executed many times, this cleansing will naturally proceed according to the Emperor's standard procedures. The angels will most likely cleanse the world using the six steps of the Last Judgment, except for a seventh step that she herself added.

[The seventh step, seemingly a show of force—ah, that's right, if the Emperor is indeed showing force, then when her final blow destroys the Earth's surface layer of 1,000 kilometers of rock, we can avoid this final catastrophe by diving downwards, deep into the mantle.]

[But... what if she doesn't intend to go easy on me? Although I'm fairly certain I'm involved in this deal, and she's someone I have...some kind of connection with, is it really so easy to grasp the mind of a true superhuman who has unlocked the fourth level of the genetic lock? Moreover, the Dao she's trying to convey, her idea of ​​reaping civilizations for advancement—even I can see there's something wrong with it!]

The girl sighed softly. Before she knew it, she had arrived in downtown Pisa. The number of corpses and remains she saw increased, all of them having died in 'accidents'. They didn't even attract the attention of anyone else.

Through her surveillance magic, which gathers optical signals, she saw a café operating on the outskirts of the city. The owner was scalded to death by the scalding water jets from a broken coffee machine; a waiter was suffocated by a sharp disc tearing open his throat; a greeter's head was severed by a revolving door in the chaos; and a staff member was impaled on a skewer by a falling knife rack—all the staff were dead, yet the men and women in the private rooms seemed oblivious—perhaps because the rooms were soundproofed, perhaps because the guests were listening to music, or perhaps they were doing something…difficult to distract themselves from. In short, until death struck, they were unaware of what was amiss around them. And when they finally saw it, death was already upon them.

When Alice arrived at the scene as quickly as possible, the last person in the café had just breathed their last. She couldn't save anyone, even though she remotely controlled the gravity field, trying to use magic to save even one life. Her efforts were still in vain.

—The magic that saves lives has become a weapon that kills; even if you try to deflect the blade, the blow from the back of the blade is enough to sever the life.

"This isn't an angel's method, absolutely not." Standing in the pool of blood, she once again indiscriminately unleashed an electromagnetic shockwave, specifically designed to counter angels, into the surrounding area. However, all she received was still 'nothing'.

No, it wasn't a complete loss. The electromagnetic waves she released accidentally detonated household appliances in a house two hundred meters away. Several residents inside, who were just about to scream after witnessing their neighbor's neck being severed by a lawnmower, died instantly.

She felt a little cold.

But when I felt cold, I felt that this method was somewhat familiar.

Where have I ever seen anything like this before? Something so absurd, so illogical, that it dies just by seeing a dead person? That's utterly ridiculous!

[But if that's the case, why doesn't it attack me!?]

She arrived at the house six seconds later and pushed open the door, which was teetering on the brink of collapse due to an electrical explosion.

There were four people in the room, four teenagers, probably a group of kids partying while the adults were away. After all, Alice had cut off communication for several days, and the land of pasta wasn't the highly organized Eastern Continent; it was unlikely that the citizens here knew the apocalypse was coming. And with communication cut off, they still had to go to work, and the chances of them returning home early were slim.

Alice wasn't sure if the adults in the house were still alive, or what they would think if they came back alive and witnessed what was happening before their eyes—of course, she wouldn't feel sentimental or guilty about such a minor accidental injury. She was a witch, and witches who cried in the outside world were long gone, because being sentimental was a fatal flaw, and it could easily attract the gaze of death.

She simply felt a greater hatred for the mastermind behind all of this.

"What exactly are you?" she whispered, questioning the hall strewn with four corpses. "You are not part of the angelic system, not a dog tamed by the Son of Heaven. And if my estimation is correct, you should not be a byproduct of the First Trumpet of the Angels..."

"Are you... the reason why the emperor must reap the world's spoils?"

She asked, but received no response. At her feet, the charred mouths of the youths who had died in the explosion lay gaping open, as if silently mocking her.

There was no response, no answer. All around remained quiet; even the wind had ceased to blow.

"Is it because I lack intelligence? Or am I simply not being targeted?" Alice wondered. With a thought, she controlled the satellite network to summon the Grand Library to count the number of people still alive in Pisa. The answer quickly came to her mind.

265,700 people... That's the current number.

Just minutes before Alice entered the city, the number was 283,200. In just a few minutes, more than 17,500 people had lost their lives.

[If it works on such a large scale simultaneously, and it's not a plural entity, then it must be an operational mechanism. Doesn't it belong to the angels, or to the mechanism of the Last Judgment? Wait! A mechanism?]

This familiar feeling... could it be...?

Alice instinctively opened her mouth, the shocking news that flashed into her mind taking her by surprise. So much so that for a moment she couldn't quite get the words out, and the word slipped from her lips.

"—Meme?"

The next moment, the ground she was standing on suddenly exploded!

'Boom—! ...

Both are gas explosions, but 'Death' is more than ten times more sophisticated than 'Angel'. The explosive phenomenon that could have instantly overturned a five-hectare city was compressed into a mere five hundred square meters by 'Death' through airflow, earth vein deflection, magnetic field alteration, pressure changes, and other methods. The explosion range was reduced to one percent, while the destructive power was increased by nearly a hundred times!

The force field wall was shattered, the anti-gravity field was disrupted, and as the sound waves of the explosion spread outward, shattering the glass within a one-kilometer radius, the shield on the girl's body lost its tenth layer!

She had almost no time to react, and Death clearly wasn't going to give her any. Just as one triggered spell after another flashed around her, scorching gas erupting from the earth's veins, carrying molten lava and chunks of metal, struck precisely at every point in the spells around her. Her movement speed was slowed, her steps faltered, and at the same time, swirling thunderclouds suddenly appeared in the sky!