Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

The girl rubbed her head; the intense mental exertion combined with the full-power operation of her internal magic furnace made her feel slightly uncomfortable. She then made a gesture, and the simulated divine kingdom surrounding her, suppressing the surrounding space, rapidly contracted. Its intensity and precision remained unchanged, but the radius of the sphere decreased from one kilometer to one hundred meters.

The scope of the intervention had shrunk a thousandfold. While the consumption of magic and mental energy didn't decrease proportionally, Alice definitely felt much more relaxed. She waited in place for a minute, and upon finding that Death hadn't launched another attack, she immediately changed direction and began to move. Her legion would completely occupy the Apennine Peninsula in a very short time, and then, even if it meant using force, she would do everything possible to preserve the lives of the remaining survivors. As for herself… she had other important matters to attend to.

The chances of a conflict between Death and the angels are very low, so the strategy of using their combined strength against them is not feasible. The correct course of action now is to deal with this true Death before the solar wind barrier dissipates and the angels can descend, thus avoiding a two-pronged attack. To deal with such an unreasonable opponent, the minimum preparation is to first understand its origins, and only then can its weaknesses be deduced.

To find out its origin, one would naturally have to ask those who certainly know.

【Hina no Utama...you didn't tell me the answer in our previous conversation, so even if I find you, I probably won't be able to get the answer.】

Therefore, I will have no choice but to seek the answer from your past self.

Section 11 - Downward

The simulated divine realm constructed based on the ancient Greco-Roman mythology system could only operate within the Greco-Roman region, that is, the Aegean civilization sphere. Fortunately, Alice's destination wasn't too far from the Apennine Peninsula, where Italy is located—her goal was the Ionian Sea, the location of the infamous 'bottomless pit'. Hundreds, even thousands of years ago, ancient inhabitants discovered this bottomless pit that was perpetually pouring enormous amounts of seawater deep underground. And to this day, no one has successfully measured the depth of this underwater pit.

Scholars consider this giant sinkhole to be one of the passages directly connecting to the Earth's core, placing it in the same sequence as the Indian Ocean's underwater cave and the bottomless pit of Lop Nur. However, compared to the simple, empty pit of Lop Nur, these two underwater caves are clearly less suitable for scientific research.

Alice thought so too, because crossing seawater was obviously much more troublesome than crossing air. But she didn't have the time to get back to Lop Nur—the solar curtain would last for one and a quarter days, no more and no less, unless Patchouli, who controlled the star extraction tower, decided to drain the sun completely, otherwise there was no way to postpone this time in the slightest—Patchouli obviously wouldn't do that, and given the situation, in order to avoid being attacked from both sides by the angelic legion and 'Death,' Alice, located on the other side of the earth, had to eliminate one of these two enemies before this short one and a quarter days ended.

—A difficult task, but one that must be done.

Soon, she arrived at the Ionian Sea and quickly determined her location, hovering directly above this bottomless abyss. She gazed upon the circular expanse of sea beneath her feet, as black as an abyss and distinctly different from the surrounding light blue waters, and took a deep breath.

Time is of the essence; we must act immediately. But before we go down...

"Patch, can you hear me?" She tried to open the private communication connection between the two of them and requested to talk to the other side of the earth.

But all she received in response was silence.

Communication was impossible, and the forces that I ordered the Great Library to deploy towards the Lop Nur base also lost their ability to communicate when they entered the area where the Star Extraction Tower was drawing solar wind. They could not be contacted remotely and could only follow the pre-programmed internal AI to act autonomously.

[No response? Has something gone wrong, or is the interference zone of the Stellar Extraction Tower enough to block our communication? Ah… well, the relevant warning measures haven't been triggered yet. She should be safe now; communication is just temporarily cut off. This isn't the first time something like this has happened; I should try to relax.]

【So……】

She gazed at the abyss beneath her feet, and the radius of the simulated divine realm shrank tenfold again under her will. The unit of measurement shifted from lines to volumes, and the area she absolutely controlled at the molecular level shrank to one-thousandth of what it was before this second change—this was water, and diving was extremely taxing, so she had to reduce her magical load. A sphere with a radius of ten meters was the limit; if she shrank the area further, it probably wouldn't be enough to ensure her safety from the pursuit of 'Death'.

She would descend, descend to a depth sufficient. Then, from the bottom of the deep sea, she would search for the ancient land that existed in the previous era—the one from which the Emperor last cleansed the land. From that ancient land, she could obtain information and find the records left behind from the last cleansing.

The idea of ​​'seeking answers from past emperors' is exactly this—of course, she can't turn back time, nor can she jump back to the point in time when the emperor destroyed the world before the beginning of an era. But if it's just about finding the carriers of past information and reproducing past records from them... then that's still within her capabilities.

"It's time to get going."

She stood still, waiting quietly for another minute. Once she was certain no communication from the other side of the world would arrive, she closed her eyes. When she opened them again, she had temporarily discarded all superfluous emotions, entering a mechanized mental state capable of utilizing resources most efficiently. Her will drove the magic, and the form of the simulated divine kingdom changed. The figure representing Neptune, the Sea King, descended to the bottom, becoming the apex of a cone, while the remaining eleven ascended to form a conical ring.

"A pardon."

“The oceans should be divided, and from here a road should be opened to the depths.”

The calm ocean began to boil, and a massive whirlpool appeared on the vast body of water, as deep as an abyss, with forces emanating from its center and spreading outwards. The sea was churned up, the surface of the water caved in, and the enormous whirlpool naturally formed, its end connecting as far as possible to the deepest part of the sea.

Deepest, deepest, until even deeper.

As this deep passage was opened, Alice, who controlled the simulated divine realm, also sank downwards. She stirred the ocean to create the passage, which itself carried the air and force fields drawn into the depths. She then swiftly slid along these easily accessible bubbles of sinking air, reaching the very bottom of the ocean.

A depth of one thousand meters was reached in the blink of an eye, and a distance of two thousand meters was easily traversed in the blink of an eye. When she reached the third thousand meters, the air bubbles pulled down by the force field were also broken by buoyancy, but the underwater tornado that had evolved from the vortex provided Alice with enough power to continue descending smoothly.

Compared to the direct elevator access from the Lop Nur base, the plan to cross the ocean depths was obviously much more complicated. And when Alice reached the sixth kilometer, the underwater tornado surrounding her dissipated. The force propelling her downwards transformed from the spiral of the vortex into her own magic. She then created a gravity field around herself, allowing her to descend even more rapidly.

The limit of underwater exploration for humans in this era is 109,114 meters, a record set by the Japan Center for Marine Science and Technology in 1995 during an exploration of the Charinger Deep. At this depth, the water pressure approaches 110 atmospheres, enough to crush solid metal into scrap iron. Yet, even at such a deep seabed, marine life still thrives.

Alice quickly reached this depth and saw with her own eyes—at this distance, sunlight no longer existed, and she used light conjured by magic—the white fish slowly crawling on the seabed. She didn't pay much attention to these tiny creatures living at the bottom of the ocean, because she knew that her descent had only just begun.

Oilfield extraction depths typically don't exceed 5,000 meters, and 10,000 meters essentially reaches the bottom of most natural oilfields. Oilfields are resources formed from the sedimentation of ancient forests and other organic matter. In other words, the ancient continent was located roughly 10,000 meters below the surface. Only by reaching this depth can one possibly reconstruct ancient information from that ancient land, allowing Alice, who has descended, to decipher the records of the Doomsday Judgment, find the origin of 'Death,' and identify any potential flaws.

But this is already close to the limit of ocean depth. Bottomless pits might indeed lead directly to the Earth's core, but this one cannot. It might possess some special mystical meaning, representing a passage to 'Gaia,' the Earth's core. But to penetrate down to the material level... is absolutely impossible.

Because Alice could no longer find a way to continue.

The vast abyss, covering an area of ​​tens of square kilometers on the sea surface, continued to shrink as its depth increased. When she reached the seabed at a depth of eleven thousand... nearly twelve thousand meters, she could no longer sense any large passages that would allow her to continue descending—caves leading to deeper depths did exist, but there were many of them, and each deep cave was less than a meter wide.

She couldn't walk through a tunnel with a radius of only one meter. Even if she could, she wouldn't go down there.

Since we can't get down there, we need to change our strategy.

So she gently landed on a slightly flatter section of the seabed. As her toes touched the ground, the gravitational field that had protected her during her descent shifted slightly, distributing the pressure—110 times the atmospheric pressure at a depth of over 10,000 meters—from the entire ocean onto her protective shield to the surrounding seabed. The seabed trembled slightly as a result, but only for a moment before ceasing completely.

The cessation of tension did not signify the return to calm. Amidst this slight tremor, the witch sensed the undercurrents and karmic fire surging within the earth's veins.

This is a golden opportunity. If 'Death' wants to make her move, this is the perfect venue. A perfect location, chosen by herself, like a trap. And for an unreasonable being like 'Death,' turning this natural, man-made trap into a killing machine requires only a tiny bit of intervention.

A little bit, a small intervention, will suffice.

If the spell fails here, I'll be turned into a pancake. My body is far too fragile compared to 110 atmospheres of pressure. The chances of me surviving here are slim.

This was the bait I prepared for Death, and... oh dear, it's already taken the bait.

In the girl's perception, the undercurrents surging within the earth's crust suddenly underwent a fundamental change at a certain moment. And this change would lead to a disastrous end!

With a slight thought, the protective armor she had worn hundreds of years ago as a witch, hidden within the storage device, was swiftly awakened and instantly adhered tightly to her body, becoming a sturdy shield. She had worn this armor in her memories while still in the world of Ju-on, though its practicality was far inferior to the powered armor available to outsiders, allowing for free movement in many extreme environments. However, it was perfectly adequate for the current situation and the events to come.

And sure enough, in the next instant, the massive tremor originating from the seabed manifested as a terrifying earthquake. The Earth's crust was torn apart, and trillions of tons of lava surged from the asthenosphere, breaking through the rock layers and flooding the seabed. This manifested as a massive underwater volcanic eruption! In less than a breath or two, the tranquil depths of the ocean began to boil. Crimson replaced black, and a vast amount of magma from the asthenosphere filled Alice's vision; the endless flow of crustal material engulfed the entire area she could perceive!

The simulated divine realm is not unbreakable. A single-point or area-of-effect attack using a massive amount of energy or matter exceeding Alice's processing limits within a very short instant can overload the spell and destroy it. The trillions of tons of high-temperature matter gushing from the ground clearly fall into that category. However, this measure's effectiveness depends on the premise of a surprise attack. And like most conspiracies in the world, once exposed before its execution, its destructive power will drop drastically, even becoming negative.

—And Death's entire scheme was orchestrated by Alice. This is the bottomless abyss; whether or not it connects directly to the Earth's core, it is undoubtedly the most vulnerable region, closest to the asthenosphere. While simulating the operation of the divine realm, Death cannot interfere with events occurring within ten meters of Alice. However, Alice's body, which wasn't rigorously protected from the beginning, is a definite weakness. And this weakness can be exploited.

Death, as she wished, triggered an underwater volcanic eruption, and she had made preparations in advance as planned.

So, the instant the lava surged toward her, she reached out her hand toward the crack in the rock layer connecting the asthenosphere to the direction of the eruption.

"A pardon."

London, representing the god of fire 'Vulcan,' descended to Edo, replacing 'Neptune,' the god of the sea. Her will manifested in words, and those words became divine authority, which was exercised upon this seabed where everything was submerged by lava!

"The lava should be separated, and a path to history should be opened from here."

As she spoke, the lava vent that had been spewing out high-temperature substances suddenly stopped, and the jet of water that had been simply erupting upwards abruptly split open, creating a rift. A passage formed of lava from the asthenosphere, directly connecting the upper mantle and the crust, then appeared before Alice.

Thus, with minimal loss of magic power, a path has been opened to the depths of the earth's crust, to the strata that hold ancient memories. Now, all that remains... is to descend along this lava passage until I reach my destination.

The witch's thoughts shifted several times in a very short moment. She then changed direction and plunged headlong into the fissure of the lava vent. The temperature of over a thousand degrees and the pressure of hundreds of times the atmospheric pressure squeezed her, but she was able to withstand it with the spells she had prepared beforehand, the armor covering her body, and the simulated divine kingdom that was still in operation.

She herself continued downhill until she reached her destination.

Section Twelve: Links and Moves

In ancient times, there were ancient continents that gradually sank due to natural disasters, human calamities, and geological changes. As time passed, new continents gradually covered the old ones, and new histories covered the old ones.

Oil fields can be seen as a condensation of ancient history, fluids formed from surface vegetation that sank underground millions of years ago and were processed by time. If they had never been mined, their shape, distribution, and mass would inevitably reveal some ancient records. But that's not enough; oil is ultimately liquefied, and while their history can be traced back to ancient times, Alice needs more stable and older records. To achieve this, she must cross the asthenosphere and reach the deep, ancient soil known as the mantle.

Theoretically, the deeper the Earth's crust, the greater the pressure. Layers under immense pressure will metamorphose, becoming oil fields or metamorphic rock formations. However, the mantle is different. Beyond the Mohorovičić discontinuity and across the asthenosphere, the pressure on the crust is relieved. Furthermore, the unchanging geological environment of this region provides a better carrier of information, enabling Alice to better achieve her goals.

Information…what is information? Information is not merely the electromagnetic waves floating on the Earth's surface and in the atmosphere. Those are only a part of information, not the whole of it. In the eyes of the witches, everything that carries recorded energy is information.

Information in the atmosphere is easily manipulated, so witches' magic mostly draws upon the power of the earth. However, information in the atmosphere is also easily interfered with, so when a solar storm subsides and apocalyptic magic is unleashed, the power of the earth naturally cannot be mobilized.

But things are different beneath the earth. Changes are rare here, and even rarer, they are difficult to achieve. The most common and frequent geological event in the world—earthquakes—is merely the collision of the Earth's crust above the asthenosphere. This has almost nothing to do with the mantle beneath the asthenosphere. And it is precisely for this reason that particles, waveforms, and even civilized matter carrying information find it very difficult to reach the mantle. But once they arrive here, they are not diminished or lost; they exist for a long time until the moment they are touched.

[If I could directly access records from 600 million years ago, before the continent of Mu separated, the records from the very beginning of the Emperor's arrival in this world would be ideal. If that's not possible, then pushing the timeline forward—records from millions, tens of millions, even hundreds of millions… but less than 600 million years ago—would still potentially achieve my goal. Regardless of the era, as long as I can witness the records of the world's end, witness the moment of the final judgment, I can obtain information from them, and then this journey wouldn't be entirely fruitless.]

The young girl carefully controlled the magical energy around her to push aside the scorching lava that filled her vision. Even after the gravity well was deployed, her speed remained swift, even faster than when traveling in the deep sea. This was because the asthenosphere contained only endless magma and large chunks of natural lava, which meant she didn't need to focus on unexpected situations that, if 'possible,' would 'inevitably' occur.

All she needs to do is go down, down, and then get through all the obstacles.

If it's magma, push it aside; if it's lava, smash it; if it's a large lava mountain, use the magic cannon to deflect it and go around it from the side.

She has no shortage of energy, because the endless lava from the outside world is an inexhaustible source of energy for her. She also has no shortage of resources for survival, because the asthenosphere exists precisely because of the presence of water and volatile substances in the Earth's crust.

She has no worries about light, heat, water, or oxygen. All she needs to do is use patience and magic to drive the gravity well and protect her simulated divine kingdom, then keep diving deeper and deeper until she reaches the deepest point, and then cross that deepest point.

The asthenosphere has a maximum thickness of 400 kilometers and a minimum thickness of 80 kilometers. Since she chose this location for her dive, she must have measured the depth beforehand and knew that the asthenosphere in this area was only about 100 kilometers deep. She had already traversed more than ten kilometers while crossing the ocean depth, and the remaining distance she needed to cover was only ten times that underwater.

A mere hundred kilometers or so—on the surface, she could traverse that distance in less than half an hour. And after transforming air into water, and water into magma, the time extended by that less than half-hour journey wouldn't exceed five times the original.

Including the wear and tear from dealing with unexpected events, it should take about one hour and fifty-five minutes to traverse this route. And I've already covered at least two-thirds of the distance.

[They should be close to the mantle by now.]

The girl thought to herself, then quickly dismissed those scattered thoughts and continued descending. As the depth gradually increased, she clearly felt the temperature rise and the density of the magma increase.

She wasn't worried about the tragic event of a massive lava continent, thousands of kilometers in diameter, crashing down on her. She had already investigated beforehand and confirmed that such a large lava continent didn't exist in the area. And even if 'Death' were incredibly powerful, it couldn't conjure a continent out of thin air for her. Since this worst-case scenario was unlikely to materialize, all she needed to do was be patient.

Patience, plenty of patience.

As a witch, she certainly didn't lack that kind of patience.

[I just wonder... how Patchouli is doing. It's not the first time she's not replying to my calls, but in this cycle of reincarnation, it always makes me a little uneasy.]

[...After that, we'll adjust the plan. If we can resolve this 'Grim Reaper' issue before the end of this quarter and a half day, then...we'll go back early to see if she needs any help.]

[Hmm, as long as I hide well enough so she doesn't find me, then even if something really happens, I can handle it discreetly without hurting her pride. And if it's just a simple communication failure… I'll just quietly slip away and pretend nothing happened.]

She set aside a small portion of her attention for calculations, figuring out how to meet and talk to Patchouli. Naturally, most of her focus remained on monitoring her surroundings. She simply waited, descended, and made sure she reached her destination as quickly as possible.

—But she didn’t have to wait long.

About half an hour later, the golden-red hue in her vision gradually dimmed. The magma became viscous and relatively cooled, and fragments of metamorphic rock and underground crystals began to appear sporadically in her field of vision. The quantity was small at first, but quickly increased. Small stones became large stones, small crystals became large crystals, and when entire blocks of red and blue zircon, as large as door panels, appeared in her sight, she knew she was close to her target.

Ten minutes later, she finally crossed the asthenosphere and arrived at the mantle she had been hoping for.

It wasn't anything special, really; it was just about being grounded. She stood on the mantle layer, several times harder than the hardest rock on the Earth's surface, with dark metamorphic rock beneath her feet and an endless sea of ​​lava above her. There weren't many strange sights or bizarre physical phenomena; it was simply like standing at the boundary between the realms of Yin and Yang, completely separated by color and light.

This wasn't exactly a spectacular view, and she wouldn't waste too much time on the black and gold dividing line. She had already spent too much time getting here, and she clearly wouldn't waste any more time taking photos or sharing her thoughts.

So, without pausing for even a second, she reached straight out towards the solidified mantle.

[Consultation link, begin.]

Her spirit immediately sank into the deep, dark earth before her.

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

"As expected, there's more than one anomaly in this base. At least for now, there should be at least two things. One should be the real 'Grim Reaper.' And the other..." Patchouli withdrew her fingers from the Stellar Extraction Tower. Just now, she had activated one percent of the existing energy within the Stellar Extraction Tower and was preparing to unleash a devastating light magic cannon at the elevator door not far away.

One percent—this number sounds small, but it represents one percent of the energy of a solar storm—enough to scorch the Earth in an instant—within the half hour after the stellar extraction tower is activated. Even the pinnacle of man-made weaponry of this era, the Tsar Bomba nuclear bomb with a yield of one hundred million tons of TNT, would likely be less destructive than this one percent of the energy of the light magic cannon. And if she were to unleash this magic cannon, it would likely evaporate instantly from the direction of her fingertip all the way to the Earth's crust, along with all rock layers, steel, organic and inorganic matter, decomposing into various elemental substances found in nature.

However, she didn't fire that cannon; it was merely a probe, and the target of that probe was the outer space she had deduced. In the instant before she acted, she successfully detected spatial fluctuations using various pre-prepared detection techniques. Undoubtedly, if she had actually fired that luminous magic cannon, Zheng Zha and the others, who had been detected in the abnormal space, would have been transported to her the moment she made her move, and they would have had no chance of survival under that magic cannon.

"How vicious of you! Did you destroy my avatar earlier to make me lose my mind in anger? No, that's not all. You probably wanted to make me hostile towards 'Death,' so you deliberately chose to attack me at the moment I uttered those words of doubt about 'Death.' But didn't you realize... I said it on purpose for you to hear?"

Patchouli looked at the outside of the light screen and spoke softly to the air.

She knew that the other party shouldn't be able to hear or see her. Although the protective shield of the stellar extraction tower could be observed from the inside out, that was because a special operating mechanism filtered out external light to ensure that there was no information contamination inside before allowing it to penetrate the shield and reach her. And this filtering mechanism was one-way; sound and light generated from inside the shield simply could not penetrate the protection and reach the outside.