Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Ah, yes, they did it voluntarily. After Patchouli set an example, they volunteered... or were coerced into working continuously, fighting for a chance to survive. But that doesn't mean this enthusiasm can last forever. People aren't machines; once they reach their limit, they collapse. And if too many people collapse, the initial enthusiasm will turn into hatred.

Patchouli didn't care how many people hated her; she only cared about whether she could achieve her goal.

Should we halt some projects and implement rotational rest periods to maintain manpower? Indeed, compared to tireless robots, human workers are far too fragile and their work efficiency is far inferior. Even if I were to implement rotational rest for one-third of the workforce now, overall work efficiency would only decrease by about 20%.

So, then...

Patchouli's thoughts suddenly paused. She raised her finger and touched her right eyelid. The touch felt moist and warm, but as she lifted her finger, she saw that it was stained with dark red blood.

The blood was dark red, the blood of the dead.

This is a curse.

"Pointed at by a thousand, dying without illness... Even if it's not outwardly apparent, have so many people already come to hate me during this ritual?"

She casually wiped away the dead blood that had unknowingly trickled from her eyes, then returned to her work. The ritual couldn't be interrupted, and she had many other matters to attend to. There was no time for unnecessary things.

Section Twenty-One: Enlightenment, Part Two

In the two thousand four hundredth era of history, the air in the Garden of Eden remained as fresh as ever. A gentle breeze brushed against Alice's ankles, and the abundant fruit on the trees emitted a rich fragrance.

This point in time marks the period after the Garden of Eden was sealed, when Adam and Eve had been expelled from Heaven. No one could pluck the fruit of the Tree of Life anymore, nor drink the milk and honey that flowed from the stones. For angels called cherubim, wielding flaming swords, guarded the four corners of Eden, refusing any living being with a spirit from approaching this paradise.

—That's how it should be.

When Alice arrived, she found herself in an unguarded paradise. No trace of human life had vanished, nor had any angels left a mark. But she wasn't surprised… so what if there were no guardians outside Eden? History always had its share of errors; this wasn't the first time she'd witnessed such a thing.

She didn't care about it.

“I have now arrived at a fragment from 500 million years ago. The timeline of the Doomsday Judgment has been determined, but the origin of the memes has still not been explored... Have I spent too much time in this pile of history?” The girl reached out and picked a fruit from the unattended Tree of Life.

Red, fresh, and glistening with dew, like an apple.

She calculated the time during her descent. Even if she descended a thousand kilometers into the depths of the mantle, reaching the calculated 600 million years ago, the time she would spend would definitely not exceed twenty-four hours. Because records are ultimately just remnants of the past, they will not change, but will only present different appearances according to her will. Since she set the awakening time during her descent, time will inevitably flow as she calculated.

She hasn't woken up yet, and the spell hasn't taken effect, which means that time hasn't passed to the location she marked.

"It should still be the seventh day... maybe late at night, or early morning of the eighth day. During that time before the solar storm dissipates... but why do I have this feeling that things are getting out of control?"

"Could it be that the memes on the ground are rampant?" she pondered, but immediately dismissed the idea. "No, the memes on the ground can't even hurt me right now, let alone Zhao Yingkong, who has already reached the fourth level. And as long as she doesn't die or suffer incurable injuries, the corresponding spell won't be triggered."

"So what could be the situation? Is there something wrong with her health? Or... what about Patchouli?"

She closed her eyes and sensed her body still in the outside world—no problem, all the trigger-based techniques for handling unexpected situations were functioning smoothly. All the parameters within her body were completely normal: the number of cell divisions, the frequency of metabolism, and even the simple virtual personality in her brain acting as a timer were all functioning correctly. Undoubtedly, her body hadn't been in the mantle for more than a day, and there was still a distance to go before the solar storm ended—there shouldn't be any problems.

"...Am I overthinking it?"

She sat down against the Tree of Life and casually put a fruit she had picked from the tree into her mouth—the fruit tasted wonderful, with a sweet aroma and a tender texture. The flesh melted quietly as it touched her tongue, turning into a sweet liquid that flowed down her esophagus, and a unique, multi-layered feeling of refreshment immediately filled her body and mind.

This is the taste of the fruit of life in the Garden of Eden hundreds of millions of years ago, as recorded in the mantle, but it should not be the taste that Alice's senses perceive.

Her eyebrows suddenly twitched.

This is merely a record. Even if such a flavor truly exists, it's a memory left in the minds of people from the past when they ate this fruit. In other words, in this world constructed of records, I can never truly experience the real taste of this fruit. Because what I'm consuming is merely a sensation, not my tongue actually touching this fruit of life.

She closed her eyes and pondered quietly.

I've entered countless worlds of memories, and I know exactly what my sense of taste would be like. And if it weren't my own genuine feelings, I could easily distinguish them… Moreover, to guard against illusions and memory loss, I should have set up safeguards in my mind. Therefore, I am here…

[...should only be able to taste flavors I've experienced before!]

"The world made up of records... should be unchanging. I shouldn't be able to taste flavors I've never felt before, and many things were strange before."

These are merely records, records devoid of self and spirit; they are like stacks of ancient documents piled together. Through a witch's incantation, they can be transformed into something akin to virtual reality, perhaps even behaving like a living being, but their essence remains that of records, of books. And whatever the book, simply turning the pages reveals the documents within.

Although the people in the recorded world have human forms, they are ultimately nothing more than a collection of data. Before they are awakened by special techniques and transformed into sentient beings capable of independent thought, they are merely automatons following the course of history. They will answer any questions they are asked if they know the answers, and what they could not do in history, they certainly cannot do in this recorded world either.

They have no self; they are merely puppets. As long as Alice ignores them and doesn't actively interact with them, they will treat her as if she doesn't exist. And this applies not only to humans, but also to animals, plants, natural phenomena, and even conceptual things; as long as Alice ignores them, they are as good as nothing to her.

In this world of records, as long as she doesn't want to touch the wind, even a raging storm capable of uprooting the continental shelf can't shake her hair.

As long as you avoid light and heat, you will not be harmed at all even if you walk into the center of a nuclear explosion.

If she ignores gravity, she can walk freely in the air. If she doesn't want to feel the sunlight, then her vision will be perpetually dark.

The world she records can be distorted according to her will, as long as she so desires. The witch's information magic allows her to do this—it's like she's entered a vast library dreamscape where she doesn't need to provide materials and can construct scenes on her own. Except for not being able to create a search engine to input a line of data and obtain the information she wants, she is almost omnipotent here.

The omnipotence in a dream is still omnipotence, even though this isn't actually a dream.

Alice exhaled softly, clearly feeling the breath rise from her lungs, flow into her throat, and then emerge from her mouth with a touch of warmth and moisture. And it was precisely because of this that the strange feeling in her heart grew even stronger.

“…I wasn’t actually thinking about breathing just now.” She held up the fruit in her hand, looking at the dent she had bitten into for a few seconds in thought. “And I didn’t want to taste the fruit either.”

There was nothing wrong with ourselves, nor were the memes on the surface out of control. The problem lay with this vast, expansive world of records, containing detailed accounts of three thousand eras!

She then took a small bite of the spot she had just bitten, and the sweet aroma of the fruit filled her senses once again.

"Something unexpected has happened... This world of records is becoming abnormal."

"I must leave here immediately."

The next moment, she dispelled the spell she had used to infiltrate the world of memories within the mantle. And instantly, everything in her field of vision was enveloped in endless darkness.

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

Alice opened her eyes, and what she saw was an unexpected sight.

—This is not the mantle.

There was no black metamorphic rock, nor was there omnipresent high temperature and heat. The shields and triggered spell traps surrounding her were still functioning properly, and she could clearly feel the flow of life in her hands and feet, sensing the movement of cells and the exchange of minute substances.

She blinked and unlocked two more gene locks in quick succession. The effects of accelerated thinking and increased body control quickly manifested, and as she felt the operation of the magic furnace within her body and the exchange of energy between her cells, she confirmed her idea in her mind.

The infiltration spell has been interrupted; I should have returned to reality by now.

This body is indeed mine; it is a genuine body of flesh and blood, not a fake constructed from records.

But where is this?

What came into view was a very ordinary street scene. It was around four or five in the afternoon, the sunlight was not strong, and the weather was cool. There was a humid smell in the air, so we could roughly confirm that this was a coastal area, in the Northern Hemisphere after October or in the Southern Hemisphere before June.

The buildings are in a square, modern urban style, but there are no prominent landmarks. There are quite a few pedestrians on the street, all from all over the world, covering yellow, white, and black colors. Judging from the subtle differences in their faces, these different skin colors should also include different ethnic groups.

They seemed to be living very comfortably, and everyone's face was filled with genuine joy. People came and went on the streets, and the pace of life didn't seem very fast. The whole city gave off a lazy, slumbering feeling, as if it had just woken up from a long sleep.

A strange feeling.

Alice thought to herself, and subconsciously calmed the slightly agitated spells around her, temporarily switching most of the easily triggered and potentially devastating magic to a semi-dormant state, ready to be activated at any time. She also adjusted her gene lock to a semi-open state, primarily emphasizing perception rather than enhancing melee combat abilities.

Then, she suddenly stumbled, feeling a slight impact from behind.

"Oh dear, I'm so sorry." A slightly mature female voice came from behind, and even without turning her head, Alice could tell that the person who bumped into her was a white woman who was about thirty-five years old. She had a pretty face and figure, and her long light brown hair was combed back. When Alice turned around and looked at her with her sky-blue eyes, she hurriedly bowed and apologized.

"Excuse me, I was a little distracted just now. Did I bump into you anywhere?" The woman had an apologetic smile on her face.

“…No, it’s nothing.” Alice’s pupils contracted almost imperceptibly when her gaze fully captured the woman’s facial features, then she quickly regained her composure. “I’m fine, nothing’s wrong.”

She knows this woman... or rather, she has seen information about this woman before.

The woman's name was Diana, and she was an American living in Boston. A week earlier, Alice had visited the home of her mother, Lucinda, the oracle who had predicted the Last Judgment fifty years earlier. It was in that area that Alice first encountered angels and battled them.

This woman named Diana was just an ordinary person, but her daughter Abby, like her mother, was a nascent Awakened. It was for this reason that Alice noticed her and knew that she was supposed to die in an accident six hours before the seventh day arrived.

She must be dead.

But she appeared here unharmed, in a place that should theoretically be located nearly a thousand kilometers underground in the mantle. Furthermore, Alice could determine from her breathing, heartbeat, brainwaves, and the exchange of substances on her body surface that she was still alive!

This is not normal, it is very abnormal.

[It's not a hallucination. If a hallucination were this realistic, it wouldn't be different from reality. I must have fallen into some abnormal spatial region... the underworld? But the underworld shouldn't exist in this world. Did a meme erupt the moment I woke up and pull me here?]

[This shouldn't be happening; I must have overlooked something... It's not appropriate to resort to violence now. Let's observe for a while and see if we can find any clues. However, we also have to consider the possibility of being slowly boiled like a frog in water.]

Alice thought to herself that her thought process, accelerated by the genetic lock, took only a fleeting moment. As she reached a conclusion and formulated her next course of action, a hidden spell was unleashed, silently taking effect on her.

She quickly composed herself, adjusted her thought process and facial expression, and looked at the woman in front of her with a slightly puzzled expression, containing a hint of surprise and uncertainty.

“I also bear some responsibility for standing in the middle of the road…” She started with an attention-grabbing phrase, then suddenly exclaimed, a hint of realization flashing in her eyes. “I think I know you. You are…Ms. Diana? I remember you have a daughter?”

Section Twenty-Two: Enlightenment, Part Three

Using this sentence as a starting point, Alice easily struck up a conversation with this woman who should have died long ago. With her rhetoric and simple manipulation techniques, she easily obtained what she wanted to know.

First, this woman believed she was still alive, while her daughter, who was actually still alive, was studying in a faraway place in her mind, and she had no intention of visiting her.

—Secondly, in the woman's mind, this city was Boston; she seemed to be living in the period before her death. She remembered the mechanical legions invading North American cities, bringing all the land under machine rule. But there were no machines here… not a single one, and she didn't find this unusual.

—Third, Alice wasn’t so sure about this, but she seemed… to be very willing to believe herself, as if she had an innate fondness for herself.

She even invited Alice to her house later—and Alice gladly accepted, though she didn't gain any crucial information there. However, as time passed, she gained a better understanding of the world.

Yes, this is a... complete world. A real world with vastly different rules and order from the Earth's surface, but whose outward appearance is not much different.

In this world, water flows downhill, sunlight refracts when it passes through glass, and sound requires a medium to travel through the air. These physical phenomena exhibit a wide variety of differences and details. Even microscopic particle movements possess uncertainty, something that cannot be achieved through mere illusions or spatial distortions.

Perhaps this isn't true.

Alice thought to herself, she was trying to hack into the information network of this era, but the network did not respond to her. Injecting electronic viruses or using ritual magic had failed, and there was no feedback of failure along with the lack of success.

There was neither success nor failure. The magic she poured in was like coins thrown into water—or perhaps even less than coins, at least coins make a 'plop' sound when they hit water. She could clearly sense the information and concepts in the atmosphere, but they ignored her, denying her control.

Hard to understand.

But it's not unacceptable.

She quickly devised a new way to cope—after saying goodbye to Diana, she found a relatively high floor, activated the anti-gravity field, and flew straight into the sky. Then, she felt a sense of sluggishness at an altitude of about 10,000 kilometers in the upper part of the sky.

—To deal with such abnormal spatial phenomena, we should use interferometry methods that exceed the limits of observation. For example, we could measure how high the sky is, how thick the earth is, and how large the area between heaven and earth is. As long as we can accurately measure these values, we can find the flaws in the results. This is knowledge she had learned before, and now it is coming in handy.

“The sky is 10,000 kilometers high. There are no barriers above that, but there’s no way to go any higher,” Alice said softly as she looked down from the high altitude of orbit. The terrain, exactly like Earth’s, came into view.

The city I was in doesn't exist on the map of the normal world. I'm certain there are no records of it, yet this anomalous region still forms the outer appearance of Earth. Those who have died live within it, completely unaware of it.

I can sense the information in this space, but I can't control it. My spells haven't failed; they simply haven't achieved their intended effect. One or two times is one thing, but ten or eight in a row is like this—it's as if someone dispelled my spell just as I was casting it. But such a person shouldn't exist in this world.

Finally, I can confirm that there are no gaps in my memory; I arrived here directly after leaving the world I was in. In other words, I should still be deep within the mantle, not in this... inexplicable place.

[The complete order, the control of energy, and the way I arrived in this area. So... combining all this information, the final conclusion is...]

“I think… I roughly understand what happened.” She gently clenched her fist, flipped the gravitational field, and plummeted straight towards the ground. “I never imagined I’d witness such a spectacle in my lifetime. I actually…”

"...We have arrived in the kingdom of a true god!"

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