Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

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[I'd better find that guy within ten seconds. The most likely place she's right now... well, no points deduction notification yet, so she's probably gone straight to Imhotep.]

Alice thought to herself as she used the puppet strings she shot out to pull herself along, moving at high speed through the intricate underground tomb, leaping dozens of meters with each step like a jumping spider.

Dealing with the Indian team wouldn't have taken a minute anyway, and if the enemy entered the ancient city ruins, it would take even less time. Although Alice hasn't completely taken control of the entire Hamunaptra ruins, as long as she's within this ancient city, Alice can convert the curse into magic power, which can be considered as unlimited magic power.

Infinite magic power naturally allows for the release of infinite magic. From weak to strong, although releasing magic still requires mental exertion, that loss is clearly acceptable.

Alice exhaled softly, and the pale white vapor was thrown far behind her as it left her lips, leaving several long, narrow trails.

Her speed was incredibly fast; an ordinary person without any enhancements couldn't even see her afterimage. This was the limit of what her current body could achieve. Beyond that lay a truly inhuman realm, where even the slightest touch would cause irreversible damage to an ordinary person.

She couldn't allow her body to be damaged before the real battle began.

Seven seconds left...

I've checked the heartbeat, infrared radiation, matter waves, thermal reactions, and life magnetic field... but I still can't tell it's a fake. So there are two possibilities.

First, she's superior to me in manipulating information flow. But if she can truly do that, directly countering my magic and seizing control of the tomb guardians might be a better strategy.

Secondly, she didn't outmaneuver me in manipulating the information flow. The reason I didn't realize it was a fake was because subconsciously I believed it was genuine, so I ignored the anomalies detected.

[An enemy that uses mind manipulation...]

She swiftly swept past Qi Tengyi and his companions, who stood bewildered in the central burial chamber. Before their visual nerves could transmit the optical signals to their brains, her senses scanned the headless remains of the Americans and the tomb guards.

[The smell of mental pollution... as expected, it's the kind of thing I hate the most.]

Five seconds left...

[His head exploded... a radial explosion, from the inside out? Even the tomb guardian, whose brain tissue had long since withered, was like that. But he was able to do this without killing anyone else? Something that could have been done with just a flick of a finger, yet he didn't do it...]

Is it unwillingness? Or inability?

Or perhaps... she was in a hurry?

The seventh scoring notification from the Supreme God entered his mind; this time it was still the Central Continent team's score. It seems Zheng Zha and the others weren't idle outside.

【arrive.】

Alice abruptly stopped, her blood surging like boiling mercury before being compressed again by her temporarily strengthened blood vessels. Her heart pounded rapidly due to the high-speed exchange of blood. A large amount of high-energy particles were absorbed into her circulatory system, while her brain began secreting various hormones, quickly bringing her body to a perfect combat readiness.

If physical enhancement is so crucial, then mental defense must be even more stringent. She unhesitatingly consumed all the cursed spellcasting materials she had previously collected, transforming them into dozens of interconnected defensive barriers and magical traps.

Two seconds left until the deadline...tsk, that's just a rough estimate. Hopefully, I'll make it in time.

I'm ready.

The next moment, her vision was filled with infinite light.

Chapter Twenty-Nine: The audience felt the pace was too slow...

Zhao Yingkong suddenly opened her eyes. She instinctively gripped the Fang of Netherfire, but when she reached out, she could only touch nothingness.

She felt excruciating pain in her limbs, her hands and feet were cold, and her heart rate was unstable due to massive blood loss. She had no idea how many more wounds she had sustained. Although she didn't know why she had managed to wake up under these circumstances, she knew she had something to do.

Certain necessary things, certain essential things.

Memories, like winged fish, echo in misty thoughts. Pearls, crafted from color and sound, are strung together. Each one is perfectly round and full, radiating a captivating luster. Pain is then woven into magnificent jewelry, adorning the hands of a beautiful woman.

Who is the beauty?

Ah… she remembered. She was a woman more beautiful than she could have imagined. Any male would go mad in her presence, while females would feel ashamed and fall into the same morbid frenzy—including herself.

Ah, that's right, including myself.

The noble woman wanted to die, so she plunged a dagger into her own heart. The witch's cumbersome amulet seemed to have some effect, but it was all in vain.

She fell, plummeting into the deep sea of ​​her consciousness. Though in the fleeting moments of her delirium she seemed to see a blurry, tattered shadow rising from the deepest part of that sea of ​​consciousness toward the sky, it was all irrelevant, wasn't it?

It doesn't matter... does it?

Her pupils suddenly shrank to a tiny dot.

"Zhan Lan is in danger!" Zhao Yingkong shouted, and the next moment, a feeling of restraint and pressure came over her.

"Alright, she's fine now." Alice gently pressed the back of Zhao Yingkong's neck, sending the mentally unstable assassin girl back to sleep. "It was just mild mental pollution, it's been mostly treated, she'll be fine once she wakes up again."

"And this side," she said, looking at Zhan Lan lying on the other side, "is more troublesome."

Ten seconds was ultimately too much, but the preparations weren't in vain. When she arrived at the hall, the woman from the Indian team had already left with Imhotep. All that remained was the fallen Zhan Lan and Zhao Yingkong, who had lost her mind and suddenly become inexplicably powerful.

The battle lasted only three seconds. In the first second, Alice lost all her shields and defensive techniques. In the second second, Alice broke half of her ribs and left arm. In the third second, Zhao Yingkong paused for a moment due to energy depletion, and Alice took the opportunity to shut down her consciousness.

All she could do next was use magic to heal her injuries and wait for Zheng Zha and the others to return.

Fortunately, she didn't have to wait long. When she regained her mobility and called for the tomb guards to lift Zhao Yingkong and Zhan Lan up, Zheng Zha and the others, covered in blood, finally arrived.

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"That's the general situation. Everyone who came into contact with that woman from the Indian team has been mentally corrupted. Xiao Honglu is fine because he had prepared a specially reinforced talisman, anticipating that his overly developed brain would be more vulnerable to attack. The others will need at least some time to recover. Zhan Lan is the most severely affected; in the worst-case scenario, she can only be treated in the main god space you mentioned." Alice glanced at the row of Central State team members lying down and the plot characters she had forcibly hypnotized. She then turned to look at Zheng Zha and the others who were still conscious. "That's the situation on my end. What about yours? I only heard seven score notifications. Perhaps you'll tell me you captured three prisoners?"

"Uh... cough cough, well." Zheng Zha scratched his head awkwardly. "We captured that werewolf, and Zero is currently interrogating him for information."

“Very good,” Alice nodded. “Looks like two escaped. Oh well, compared to that Indiana rookie, one or two more of the other small fry doesn’t make much difference.”

She looked sadly at the men of the Central Continent team.

"So now we have seven points, and with the prisoner, that's eight. Two thousand for each, that's a net gain of sixteen thousand points. I heard you guys say that in previous horror movie worlds, points would be deducted if the main objective wasn't completed. But this one obviously doesn't. So I suggest you use any methods you have to escape this horror movie and return directly to the Main God Space immediately. I don't recommend you participate in the upcoming battles."

“Where can I find such a method…” Zheng Zha smiled wryly. His expression gradually turned serious. “Is it that serious?”

“It’s much more serious than you think.” Alice made a helpless gesture. “That guy’s power comes from the spirit; the more people he comes into contact with, the stronger he becomes. That means the previous battle was when she was at her weakest. And even in that state, she was able to defeat Zhao Yingkong and Zhan Lan in no more than five seconds.”

“Your combat strength isn’t much different from the combined strength of Zhan Lan and Zhao Yingkong. Although your relatively… ‘calm’ way of thinking is beneficial for resisting mental pollution, when we find her again, or when she finds us, your survival time will be difficult to exceed one minute.” She looked at Zhang Jie, who had remained silent. “The same goes for you.”

"I'm not going to argue with you about what exactly you mean by 'a flat mindset'," Zheng Zha said irritably. "Just tell us what to do. There's no other way out now."

Alice stared at him for a while, and about a minute later, a tomb guard came to Alice carrying a spherical metal part still covered in blood and biological tissue.

She then looked away.

“During the previous battle, I collected optical signals from the wristwatches of the Indian Team’s Reincarnation members. I learned that their story missions would only begin after they arrived in Cairo. And Cairo is the closest major city to here, so that woman is very likely to go there.”

"I want you to stay alive to confirm this. The wristwatches in the Reincarnation Space shouldn't have communication delays, which will tell us how much preparation time we have, and whether we have a way to escape directly by completing the story missions."

"But we have lost the Sun Scripture..."

“I know, I didn’t say we’d complete our mission.” Alice glanced at him. “Completing the Indiana team’s reincarnation mission would also get rid of her. At least for now, she doesn’t seem capable of confronting the Supreme God.”

“As for us…” She placed the metal sphere beneath the altar of the tomb temple. Then she controlled the tomb guardians to begin drawing patterns on the ground and walls. “This is a fission reactor obtained from that cyborg in the Indian team. I plan to set up a magic circle to confine the magnetic field, dismantle the water to obtain deuterium, and then use this fission reactor as an ignition device to complete the fusion reaction. A simplified, rudimentary magic reactor.”

“I will modify this ancient city ruins to create anti-gravity mechanisms and weapon systems. Only within these ruins can I utilize the millennia-old curse to obtain pseudo-infinite magic power. And this place is clearly too far from Cairo.”

"I'll tell you in the way that Easterners love to quote ancient sayings." Alice moved her left hand, the broken arm bone still showing some imperfections.

"If the mountain won't come to me, I'll go to the mountain." — Although this isn't an ancient Chinese saying, now I'm going to move the mountain over there.

“I’m going to build a floating fortress in the next day or two. If you want to help, I have plenty of hard work to do for you. So…” she said earnestly, looking at Zheng Zha.

"Do you want to help?"

Author's Note:

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There are two ways to produce deuterium: the first is by electrolyzing heavy water, and the second is by distilling liquid hydrogen. Of course, water in nature contains one part seven thousand of deuterium, which is also a way to obtain it.

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Section 30. The Central Committee has made a decision...

Qi Teng slowly opened his eyes, and his scattered memories came together and quickly wove together a complete story.

He didn't really want to wake up. Because waking up meant pain, guilt, and having to recall his weakness and the mistakes that resulted from that weakness.

That book, the key to victory, the Central Continent Team's chance to survive in this horror movie world—the captain entrusted him with this book because he trusted him, but he failed to fulfill this sole responsibility.

He could blame the enemy's strength, but that feeling of being as insignificant and grotesque as a reptile would still seep into his very bones. Even though Alice had erased the woman's influence on his mind, some special feelings would never fade.

He was not reconciled.

"Are you awake? I saw your fingers moving." A still somewhat childish voice came from beside him.

"Xiao Honglu." Qi Teng turned his head and saw the strangely intelligent child sitting on a stone slab not far from him. An ancient stone slab with a sense of history rested on his lap. He was reading and occasionally picking up small, fragmented objects from beside his feet and putting them in his mouth.

"You're looking at..." Qi Teng glanced at the patterns on the stone slab, and the familiar characters quickly formed corresponding text fragments in his mind.

"The Memphis Empire's time-tracking version? You can understand it?"

“Yes, that’s right.” Xiao Honglu nodded. “This stone tablet records the steps of ancient Egyptians’ worship of gods about four thousand years ago. Sister Alice told me that if I want to understand magic, it’s best to start with primitive god worship. Although it can’t form combat power in a short time, it’s actually not bad as extracurricular reading… even though I’ve never been to school.”

"Oh, and this too." Xiao Honglu waved his hand, showing Qi Tengyi the small black piece in his hand. "Fresh, dry-roasted desert scorpion, tastes quite good, interested?"

"Uh... never mind that." Qi Teng waved his hand hastily. He stood up, took two steps towards the outside of the stone hall, but then stopped.

"You know nothing about what happened before..."

"Should I cry?" Xiao Honglu swallowed a roasted desert scorpion. "Like an ordinary twelve-year-old boy, crying and waiting for 'adults' to comfort him because the future didn't go as I planned? What a joke."

"This battle isn't over yet; the outcome is still uncertain. Instead of wallowing in self-pity, we should focus our energy on more important matters." He raised the stone slab in his hand. "My previous mistakes stemmed from two reasons. I won't discuss the first one for now, but the second was my lack of understanding of the relative strengths of both sides. I originally thought the Reincarnation Squad's direct destructive power was at most that of a main battle tank, capable of influencing key points as scouts but unable to interfere with the overall situation..."

"Turns out I was wrong. For Alice or that white woman from the Indian team, they themselves are the bigger picture." His gaze met Qi Tengyi's clearly disbelieving eyes. "If you don't believe me, you can go out from here and find her at the temple altar in the center of Hamunaptra. I believe your opinion will change after you've walked this path."

"And you can also take this opportunity to think carefully about what you should be doing right now."

"What should I do...?" Qi Teng looked at his smooth hands, but with rough joints, and smiled bitterly to himself.

To the rest of the Central Continent team, he was just a shy archaeology student skilled in ancient writing. But he didn't tell them he was also a tomb raider. Although it wasn't his intention, it was an undeniable fact that some precious ancient artifacts had been smuggled abroad because of him. This guilt haunted him, almost suffocating him.

Only those who are desperate about reality will be brought to the God Space, and Qi Tengyi is obviously no exception.

He let out a long sigh.

What can a tomb raider possibly do in a place full of antiquities?

He shook his head self-deprecatingly and walked out of the stone chamber where Xiao Honglu was.

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