Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Two seconds...

Luo Gandao suddenly opened his eyes, feeling his body growing colder than before. His vision began to blur, and his thinking became slower. And his injuries… showed no improvement.

The penetrating wound to his heart remained, even though his strengthened muscles had partially tightened his heart muscle. Each heartbeat still drew blood from his body. And bodily fluids began to fill his damaged lungs with each breath, the indescribable bloating and suffocation overwhelming his thoughts!

Alice stood beside his head, looking down at him with indifferent eyes and a calm expression—she knew very well that potential and luck would only erupt in times of crisis and when one's blood was boiling, and that once they had erupted, they could never erupt a second time.

She watched silently as Luo Gandao died, motionless.

Luo Gandao's body began to convulse.

He trembled like a dehydrated fish, spitting out mouthfuls of blood from his nose and mouth. His face was contorted, his fingers twisted and clawed at the ground as if trying to grab Alice's boots.

"Treat me..." he managed to utter between bouts of vomiting blood. His face swirled between a suffocating blue and a bloodless white. His pupils constantly shifted between dilation and constriction.

Alice stared at him, motionless.

“Treatment…I…” His fingers gradually became weak and powerless, but still tried to wriggle and grope towards Alice’s boot. They clung to her tightly like the suckers of an octopus.

Alice looked at him without saying a word.

That pleading look instantly turned into deep-seated hatred.

“I’d rather go to hell than…”—before he could finish his sentence, his vision gradually dimmed. His thoughts became increasingly rigid. And soon, even the nerves that conveyed pain ceased to function. Silence and emptiness filled his entire being.

he died.

Section 10: Your Time is Very Valuable

"Ah—!!!" Logandao leaped up, swinging his fist toward Alice's head. His movements were incredibly fast, slicing through the air in an instant, his fist landing squarely between the girl's eyebrows!

He flew back at an even faster speed than he had come.

"Alice—" he roared frantically, leaping up from where he had fallen. "—Margot Lloyd!"

Why didn't you save me?!

His second attack was even faster than the first, and his pure killing intent grew even more ferocious.

then……

"Are you dead?" Alice asked calmly.

Logan's momentum came to an abrupt halt, and he then realized that he was not in hell, but in the underground cave where he had originally been. At his feet were the ashes left after the two insects had been burned, and further away was the half-congealed red and black blood that had flowed when he had 'died'.

Not long will pass, no more than half an hour.

Looking down, he saw that all his injuries had completely healed. There were no marks, no wounds, his breathing was steady, and his pulse was normal. Apart from the fact that his clothes were torn, which proved that what he had just experienced was not an illusion, he felt that his body was in perfect health.

“Death has many levels. For you, a ruptured heart, loss of blood, and brain cessation constitute death. But for me, that's not all,” Alice said slowly, reaching out to deflect Logandau's fist, which was frozen in mid-air. “But death is still death. I don't quite understand why you're so afraid of death, so I've had to take you through what you perceive as death. So, how much fear of death do you still have?”

Her fingers trembled slightly as she spoke, and an invisible wave emanated from her, subtly stimulating the secretion of certain hormones in Luo Gandao's brain, making him braver from a chemical perspective.

Luo Gandao closed his eyes.

He could still feel the fear of death, and the desire to live still bound him. But compared to before, he felt he might be willing to take some risks he wouldn't have dared to before—like giving the witch a good punch while she was showing off her mystique—but he ultimately forced himself to suppress this adventurous impulse.

“…Why?” Logando let out a soft breath, his body relaxing. “I almost thought…you were going to watch me die.”

“Because you have great potential, I don’t want to see you die someday for some inexplicable reason,” Alice replied.

“I just want to live,” Logand replied. For some reason, he felt he could now speak to the witch before him as an equal without being seen as offensive and thus struck down by lightning. “Don’t all people in this cycle of reincarnation just want to live? Why can’t I?”

“Because you wanted to live so badly, so badly.” Alice looked at him quietly. “I was watching you for the entire month you survived in the simulated battlefield in Stalingrad. You ignored both sides on the battlefield, ignored every civilian’s pleas for help, you just cowardly hid in the safe house until the Germans broke in and were about to kill everyone before you reluctantly fought back.”

“You can kill all the wounded soldiers on the battlefield to make sure no one shoots you in the back while you're gathering resources. You can ignore the pleas of refugees for asylum and let them be killed by soldiers. You can take all the food from safe houses without hesitation, to the point that the Moscow winter takes their lives. You can even fire white phosphorus bombs into the war zone, killing dozens of refugees along the way while killing soldiers.”

“Of course, it doesn’t matter. People always do things they have to do, everyone does, including me.” Alice shrugged and tilted her head to look at him. “The problem is… you feel nothing about it. No fear, no guilt, and… regret.”

"...That's just an illusion," Logando said in a deep voice, adding as if to emphasize his correctness. "It's just something like a virtual game...who hasn't slaughtered a city in a role-playing game?"

“But what if it’s not an illusion?” Alice chuckled softly. “Then would you still do it?”

"In reality, I would definitely have done something else..."

“I hope so.” Alice snapped her fingers, and Shanghai and Penglai, appearing from her shadow, presented two glasses of clear, bright red wine. It looked like wine, but there seemed to be something different—she flicked her finger, and one of the glasses was placed in front of Rodandao.

"Drink it. Although you haven't unlocked your genetic potential yet, you've broken through the peak of your mental strength, which is good for your body."

Luo Gandao glanced at her, then downed his drink in one gulp—the wine tasted ordinary, but after swallowing it, he felt a warm, comforting sensation fill his entire body. His thoughts also became clearer and more lucid.

Alice also drank the cup in her hand.

“You know what?” Alice’s brow furrowed slightly, as if she were troubled, or perhaps trying to find the right words. “I used to know a friend who was a lot like you. Not in appearance, of course, but because she was just as afraid of dying as you are.”

—Rogan made a gesture of 'I'd like to hear more details'.

“She was sickly as a child, and then a plague broke out, killing all her family and friends. She herself barely escaped, and was then discovered, adopted, and raised to be a witch. Her fear of illness and her desire to survive were thus deeply ingrained.”

"And then she started researching treatments for the plague? Curing the sick and saving lives?" Roger asked, he could practically picture what would happen next. It was nothing more than a positive example of someone who had become a doctor through long illness and eventually became a renowned physician whose virtue benefited the people—extremely clichéd and utterly unoriginal.

However, Alice shook her head.

"She did begin researching treatments for the plague, but she didn't save anyone. Because she was terrified of death and illness, her research into the plague was only to save herself. So from then on, she sent her servants to collect various plagues around the world. For each one she discovered, she would develop an antidote... She didn't reveal the antidote, because it was only for her own use. She would only make the portion that she might need."

Alice looked at Logan and asked, "Do you think what she did was right or wrong?"

“I don’t see any problem with it,” Roger said, shrugging. “It’s just your friend’s hobby. It’s not bothering anyone else or affecting anyone else. But if she were willing to make the antidote public, she would probably receive a lot of praise.”

“Yes, that’s what she thought. I told you you two were alike.” Alice smiled and took another sip of her drink. “She’s someone who hates trouble; she simply doesn’t want to die or get sick. Friends like me can ask her for medicine when needed, but she doesn’t have the time or inclination to do charity work. Ultimately, those antidotes are her own creations; she doesn’t owe anyone anything, so she doesn’t need to take on any extra responsibility. Until one day…”

"Until some day?"

"One day, a group of great heroes somehow learned about her mage tower and her research findings. The heroes felt that what she was doing was extremely selfish. How could she watch those innocent civilians struggle with illness?"

"So, those great and noble human heroes broke down her tower, killed her, and stole all the antidotes she had developed to distribute to the poor and innocent masses. When I and some other wizards arrived, she only had half a head left that hadn't been eaten by wild beasts."

Alice shook her head and threw the cup away.

“…What an idiot,” she said, her gaze shifting to Roger. “And you are almost the same.”

"I regret……"

"You think I told this story to comfort me?" Alice shook her head, then looked at him seriously. "I told you this to tell you that although there aren't any 'great and noble heroes' in the Central Continent Team, this cycle of reincarnation, who are wholeheartedly dedicated to benefiting the masses, in reality... never mind. Anyway, selfish people like you who only think about their own well-being and are unwilling to benefit the masses, if they don't change themselves, will one day follow in someone else's footsteps."

She checked the time.

"Alright, that's all for now. We should get going. The ground war has come to an end, and we'll soon be entering the team battle phase."

"That story...didn't you take any revenge afterward?"—Rogando suddenly asked.

Alice paused slightly. She smiled and said, "There's no need for that. The person who killed her has already forged the perfect revenge. We don't need to take any extra action."

"When her mage tower was destroyed, many plague samples were leaked from within. These pathogens mixed and mutated, eventually forming a new pathogen known as the Black Death—and at that time, there was no one in the world who could cure it."

Section 11. I want to see which stupid rabbit will run into the tree.

Unlike when they left, when the Reincarnators returned to the fleet as the last batch of soldiers from the expeditionary force to withdraw, excluding the garrison at the forward base, they were greeted with flowers, applause, and a red carpet laden with honor.

They were hailed as heroes, seen as the key figures who turned the tide of battle. The entire fleet now knew that several remarkable individuals had emerged from the starship de Croy, and from the twelfth and thirteenth assault teams. The course of the battle on the ground had been altered by them, averting a catastrophic defeat. Their achievements, both on the ground and in the air, were truly deserving.

This news even reached Earth, where Grand Marshal Ghosn—who avoided resignation because the expeditionary force hadn't suffered a complete defeat—highly praised several war heroes. He immediately pushed for a proposal to award them prizes. Promotions, medals, and many honors awaited the members of the Reincarnation Squad. Along with the medal-awarding fleet came reinforcements from the Federal Government—a large and well-equipped fleet.

This is perhaps the entirety of the Federation's visible strength. Centered around ninety-nine large starships, the rest are countless auxiliary fleets. Clearly, the Federation intends to wipe out the entire Zerg swarm system in one fell swoop. And assuming the Grand Marshal hasn't been dismissed and the erroneous intelligence has been corrected, this battle won't last long.

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

"Get ready, the Southern Flame Team will land directly in the medal-awarding fleet." In the temporary meeting hall, Chu Xuan explained his judgment to the others one by one.

"The Supreme God will assign three teams to different factions: humans, Zerg, or others. Let's only consider the possibility of humans and Zerg for now, but in any case, there will inevitably be one team in the human alliance and one in the Zerg swarm. And the Supreme God's choice of faction is decided from the very beginning."

He explained slowly and calmly, yet his confidence was palpable to the listeners.

"The Supreme God won't deliberately give other reincarnation teams an advantage just because we do too well. If it did, it would mean it doesn't recognize intelligence and only recognizes brute force—and the Supreme God isn't such a low-level being, so it won't. But it also won't let other reincarnation teams be wiped out before they even have a chance to fight back, so the second reincarnation team won't appear directly in the expeditionary force, but will be in the awarding fleet."

Chu Xuan replied, without revealing the fact that he was the one who orchestrated the current situation. After all, in the original storyline, there was no such thing as an award-winning fleet; with the expeditionary force defeated, the Federation would only adopt a defensive posture and reassess the enemy. Even if a counterattack were to occur, it wouldn't happen overnight.

He orchestrated the emergence of the Medal-awarding fleet, and he propelled the Federation government's full-scale counterattack. And it was precisely because of this that he was able to place the second Reincarnation Squad in a location he had designated—which, for him, was only the beginning of his scheme.

"Why isn't the second reincarnation team on Insect Planet?" Zheng Zha asked.

"Because the second Reincarnation Squad being in the Medal-Awarding Fleet is the most disadvantageous situation for us." Chu Xuan pushed up his glasses and replied, "Now that the Federation army is gathered here, if the second Reincarnation Squad were on the insect planet, we could simply follow the trend and win. That would be a crushing victory, and there would be no need to discuss it. Therefore, we only need to study the situation where the second Reincarnation Squad is on our side, and then we can discuss other things."

"So that means the third reincarnation team is exceptionally powerful?" Zheng Zha smiled, looking at him with some doubt. "You've already said that once. I know the third reincarnation team might be stronger than expected, and I'm prepared to fight them. You don't need to say it again."

“But the situation has changed.” Chu Xuan nodded, then shook his head. “The power that can be borrowed in a story world is limited, and the Federation army, the greatest power, is already under our control—the swarm is not a concern unless they suddenly mutate into Tyrannosaurus or Floodmen overnight. And apart from these established powers, the biggest variable is the power of the Reincarnators.”

He stretched out his hand and placed three coins on the conference table in front of him.

“Let’s do a simulation. The three reincarnation teams are all three days apart, which is roughly the same as the arrival time difference between the Central Continent team and the Indian Continent team during the God and Demon team battle. I previously assessed and compared the combat power of our team and the Indian Continent team when they first arrived in the story world, without any enhancements or the overall plot. The result was that the Indian Continent team was generally a level stronger than the Central Continent team at that time. So we can extrapolate from that now.”

He put another coin on top of the one on the Nan Yan team's coin, and then put two coins on the Sen Zhou team's coin.

"According to the God's evaluation, the God believes that the Nan Yan team is a level stronger than us, and then the Sen Zhou team is a level stronger than the Nan Yan team. But in reality, we are stronger than the God's assessment, so let's make a correction and consider us to be on the same level as the Sen Zhou team."

He added two more coins to the coin awarded to the Zhongzhou team. So now the comparison is 3-2-3.

"Then, because the swarm's power is relatively weak, and the Nan Yan team is highly likely to join forces with us under the premise of being on the same side, the Sen Zhou team's combat strength should be elevated to achieve the previous evaluation."

Another coin has been added to the three coins of the Morizu team.

"At the same time, because the swarm is a non-human faction, it is destined to be evil, and evil often leads to mutual slaughter. So, assuming the opponent's combat strength is maximized, the Senzhou team is most likely a breeding team. And under normal circumstances..." He glanced at Zhang Jie.

"The evaluation of the breeding team is at least one level lower than their actual combat strength."

Chu Xuan nodded and added another coin to the Senzhou team's coin.

The final comparison was 325.

Chu Xuan adjusted his glasses and looked at Zheng Zha. "In the worst-case scenario, the Senzhou team has the combat power to suppress and annihilate both of our teams simultaneously. Of course, with the help of the Federation army's momentum, I can raise our combat power by one and a half, or even two levels. But on that basis, it will be a tough battle, and I cannot guarantee whether we will suffer casualties."

"so……?"

“You understand what I mean, Zheng Zha,” Chu Xuan said calmly. “I’ve already analyzed the situation we’re facing with you before. And now, although we’ve gained the upper hand, after dealing with the Araqi swarm and experiencing their power firsthand, I feel it’s necessary to emphasize this to you again.”

"The swarm is even weaker than we anticipated, and the balance that the main god gave to the Senzhou team is really useless. Under this premise, we need to reassess our position." Chu Xuan replied, "We need pawns to test the waters, we need meat shields, and I think the Nanyan team is more suitable for this position."

“But before that, we need to use our strength to suppress the other side,” Chu Xuan said. “We must secure our dominant position as soon as possible before we can proceed with the next step of our strategy.”

“But we don’t even know where they are.” Zheng Zha frowned. “The medal-awarding fleet has a large number of personnel; finding them won’t be easy. And what if they’re determined to avoid battle…”

“No.” Chu Xuan shook his head. “They will take the initiative to attack, abandoning concealment and coming directly to us.”

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