Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

She let out a soft breath—or rather, she inhaled. The spell to set up the space battle silently unfolded, and her entire outline and energy dissipation vanished in an instant—she could still sense the other's presence, and the other could sense her approximate location. But based on that, obtaining the precise location was indeed extremely difficult.

After all, this is space warfare, and concealing oneself is the best strategy to maintain the odds of victory. For beings like Alice and the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team, who can walk in space on their own, it is only natural that they would have one or two means to destroy a meteorite in an instant—the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team may or may not have one, but Alice certainly does.

If you don't want to be fatally hit at point-blank range the moment you make contact, the best thing to do is prevent your opponent from striking first. And the best way to prevent your opponent from striking first is to make them unable to strike at all.

First, test the other party's vigilance and monitoring methods.

Alice pondered, while her soul-formed body silently adhered to the ship's surface. Without using any magic or items that could dissipate energy, she climbed her limbs onto the ship's hull and then, like a gecko, swiftly crawled towards the enemy's location.

She moved quickly and cautiously. The distance of over a thousand meters passed in an instant, and when she reached the other side of the ship, she hadn't detected any trace of the other party—she could sense their presence nearby, but sensing them didn't mean she could actually find them. However, even without detection, certain facts were proven.

First, the opponent is familiar with this strategy of interstellar contact warfare. Or perhaps they have exceptional intuition.

Secondly, the other side couldn't find me either; otherwise, this would have been an excellent opportunity for an ambush.

Or perhaps... the other side has seen through my strategy?

Alice pondered as she moved forward. Her third conjecture was quickly dismissed, for she knew that when she rashly approached the other party, she would indeed be at her most vulnerable; if she were successfully ambushed, she would be severely injured, if not killed.

【So……】

She suddenly stopped moving forward. She sensed a hidden energy beneath a large section of the ship's protective layer ahead. Its element was ice, and its effect was likely to be imprisonment or sealing. If she were to inadvertently step into it, a terrible fate awaited her.

[Looks like he's fighting on instinct, a complete novice with no experience in space warfare.]

Alice smiled. With a thought, the circuitry beneath the armored area of ​​the warship beneath her immediately short-circuited on a large scale. The scattered energy vibrated the vacuum, and the traps in front of her were triggered the next moment!

She felt the ship tremble, and the next moment, a towering iceberg suddenly rose up in the armored area in front of her! The entire giant warship tilted slightly due to this massive mass generation, and at the same instant, the scoring notification from the main god entered the minds of both sides!

Gotcha!

Alice saw a blurry figure, the result of a double impact from her calculated trap and the divine intervention. Without hesitation, Shanghai and Penglai, armed with powerful magic cannons, emerged from her cover, unleashing a torrent of light upon their opponent!

At the same instant, Alice also saw her opponent's face clearly.

Section Sixteen - Okay, no more chapters.

It was a tall woman with long blue hair, a delicate face, and bright, sharp eyes like an eagle's. But that didn't matter; Alice never cared how beautiful her enemies were. What she noticed was something else: the woman's armor—a streamlined, icy blue Greek-style suit of armor that covered her entire body!

[Armor? No, not just armor; it's resonating with a specific frequency of neutrinos in the surrounding area... It's resonating with specific stars!?]

[I remember now! This is the South Pole constellation! Damn! Are the Saint Seiya characters here from the anime?!]

Alice's memories swirled, and in an instant, she found the corresponding data deep within them. The moment she obtained the accurate answer, her body sank downwards, disappearing directly into the ship's armor plating beneath her feet. The next instant, a powerful surge of freezing air swept past the spot where she had just stood!

The Saint Cloth of the Southern Pole is a Silver-rank Saint Cloth, and although its power according to the God's assessment is unknown, based on its performance in the original work, it is absolutely impossible for it to be broken by a mere two Puppet Magic Cannons. Since the Puppet Magic Cannons cannot break through its defenses, the opponent will inevitably launch a counterattack despite the impact of the magic cannons!

really!

The ship's armor, touched by the freezing air, disintegrated instantly due to structural damage. Alice intercepted the damage alarm before it could be activated, and with a quick thought, she modified it slightly before sending it out. The massive starship then unleashed a massive tail flame from its stern!

The warships are now operational.

The people inside the ship were completely unaware of this. Without an intelligent main control AI overseeing everything, the Grand Library was perfectly capable of silently taking over all operations within the warship. And thanks to the ship's excellent gravity and balance system, this minor maneuver would not cause any abnormality among the crew.

The ship began to slowly roll over.

As the particles shifted due to the flip, Alice successfully concealed herself once again in the safe zone at the edge of the ship. Shanghai and Penglai, having lost their physical bodies, also emerged from her shadow and perched on her shoulder, providing her with auxiliary computing power.

[...No character matching the appearance description was found in the Saint Seiya database... Is it a new work I haven't encountered? Unlikely. She's probably not a native character from the Saint Seiya world. Therefore, her Cosmo and Cloth must be what she receives in exchange.]

[An alien... So she's a powerful individual naturally skilled in ice-attribute abilities? Since she exchanged for armor instead of weapons, it means the ability system in her world doesn't focus on physical enhancement... It seems to be a warrior-oriented world, and... or perhaps she's not a scholar.]

Then there's no need to confront her directly...

Alice thought to herself—she wasn't Zheng Zha; she couldn't, and wouldn't, rely on her powerful physique and imposing manner to recklessly charge forward like that humanoid superhero. She wouldn't be like him, 'when in doubt, consult a wise man; if the wise man isn't there, just charge in.' She was a witch, and a witch wouldn't do something as foolish as engaging in close combat without a necessary head-on confrontation. She would wait for her opponent to reveal a weakness, and that weakness probably wouldn't be far off.

She blinked, and the ship's surveillance system silently activated. She could clearly see that the Southern Flame Continent team's assault squad was about two hundred meters away from the room where Zheng Zha and the others were. According to her estimate, this distance would take about fifteen seconds.

Zheng Zha will not hold back in his first attack, so at least one member of the Nan Yan Zhou team will die.

Instead of meeting up with the others, she played hide-and-seek with me outside. This suggests at least two things: first, she highly trusts the judgment of the wise members of the Southern Flame Continent team, believing us to be a generally weak team; second, she contacted others, but was completely unaware that my communication with the mentalists had been interfered with.

[Whether it's the case or not, it means the Southern Flame Continent team's defeat was unexpected. So when the God of War announces the score and she learns of the Southern Flame Continent team's losses, she's very likely to make a mistake. And I need to lure her to a suitable place when she shows a weakness.]

[Continue to show weakness.]

The witch's mind worked incredibly fast; she instantly devised a strategy to deal with the situation. While she was reaching her conclusion, her plan was also underway. As soon as she quietly left her concealed area and released a little of her aura, her opponent swiftly advanced towards her location!

This is good.

Instead of turning to fight back, she controlled Shanghai and Penglai to suppress the enemy with long-range magic cannons. Clearly, this was ineffective. The puppets' magic cannons couldn't match her own power, and space wasn't suitable for using powerful ritual spells. Even without turning around, she could sense that every magic cannon shot fired by the puppets was blocked by the suddenly appearing ice walls, posing virtually no obstacle to the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team!

A stream of light pierces through the sky.

There is no sound in the space battle. Although communication can be achieved through energy vibration or mental interference, it is meaningless on the battlefield today. Alice simply retreats and attacks the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team who is chasing her with a simple puppet magic cannon. The target she hits easily extinguishes her offensive and bombards her with an even more powerful barrage of cold air!

That was a flow of icy energy, with a temperature at least around -270 degrees Celsius based on spectral analysis. It would easily crack steel alloys, but it was still quite a distance from absolute zero, the point at which a qualitative change would occur.

Without a qualitative change, there is no real threat. And since the opponent has not adopted any strategy other than barrage suppression, Alice is happy to stall for time.

She retreated, while her opponent advanced. The distance between them remained approximately one kilometer. Within seconds, the puppet's magic cannons had fired thousands of rounds, while the opponent had launched an equal number of cryogenic jets.

[…Strange, is she trying to drain my magic power? Can't she sense it?]

Alice raised an eyebrow, a hint of doubt creeping into her mind. The instant she sensed the neutrino disturbance, she knew her opponent could draw upon the near-inexhaustible energy from the resonance of that armor. This dispelled her idea of ​​a war of attrition—she assumed her opponent could also discern her means of replenishing energy, but the reality seemed to be quite different from what she had imagined.

Is it a lack of experience, a lack of perception, or a trap?

Let's test the waters.

The girl pondered, while simultaneously controlling the small puppet beside her to reduce the magic cannon's output by five percent. The previously tight barrage immediately cracked, and the next moment, several icy gusts of wind grazed past her at a distance of only half a meter!

She suddenly intensified her firepower and increased her speed, perfectly portraying the image of someone desperately seeking to escape the battlefield due to depleted energy. However, just as she expected, the enemy's firepower and speed also increased significantly with her burst of power, yet the two still maintained a distance of about one kilometer!

One chased, the other fled.

The pure white magic cannon and the azure cold current collided in space, and one by one, blue and white energy bursts bloomed silently. The once smooth and huge warship was covered with frost, and its outer armor was stripped of at least forty percent of its weight by the frost and energy shock.

Before the two had even officially clashed, the massive warship serving as the platform was already on the verge of collapse. And less than ten seconds had passed.

[...Sadism, this guy has a twisted sense of humor.]

Alice's fingers twitched, and several fist-sized plasma balls silently formed, mingling with the magic cannon barrage and hurtling backward. Half a second later, she sensed the plasma explode, and then the suppressive force of the icy barrage behind her increased significantly.

A small trap, used to dispel the other party's doubts.

She was now certain that the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team didn't actually have much experience in space warfare, and was merely suppressing the battlefield through instinct and intuition. Since the opponent hadn't left the battlefield to regroup with the other Southern Flame Continent reincarnators even after she deliberately revealed that her starship was under her control, it meant that the opponent wasn't inherently inclined to adopt a conservative strategy.

[It wasn't a conservative tactic, but rather a lack of experience in space warfare. So, given that he clearly had opportunities, he consistently relied on barrage attacks, hoping to exhaust me through his regeneration and ultimately win... I completely understand now that he really is just a guy with a terrible personality...]

Fine, I'll go along with you a little.

Although I don't know how much of your strength you contributed, I haven't even used ten percent of my fighting power yet... Tsk, am I being too cautious?

Alice abruptly changed course, shifting from maneuvering along the warship's outline to heading straight towards the stern. The starship's thrusters were located there, and it was there that the energy disturbances were most intense.

Disturbances in energy can affect perception. Although she didn't know how good the other party's foundation was, she decided to minimize the risk.

Without hesitation, she rushed towards the vent, completely disregarding the fact that the tens of thousands of degrees Celsius were enough to incinerate most man-made materials of this era in an instant. As she charged towards that area, the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team, a kilometer away, immediately followed, hurling several high-speed ice spears at her from a distance of one kilometer—sharper than twice as powerful as the previous icy jets!

This is not a simple material phenomenon; it contains energy disturbances of unknown nature.

[Cannot be directly confronted.]

Alice thought to herself, and with a thought, her physical form blurred, and a doll with the same appearance as her appeared behind her, blocking one of the ice spears. The subsequent explosion of freezing air even slowed her movements slightly, as she was a soul bound by obsession, and more icy substances rushed towards her like a storm!

The other party intends to delay her and postpone her actions!

We must pin her to the outer edge of the starship before she plunges into the energy disturbance zone of the nozzle!

The sharp and swift ice spears tripled in number after hitting their target the first time. Meanwhile, the captain of the Nan Yan Zhou team, who had been maintaining a suppressive strategy, suddenly accelerated, his aura exploding like a streaking meteor!

[They're putting on quite a good act...]

However, I have already seen through your tactics.

The witch sneered inwardly, and the next moment, Alice, who had switched to a pure ethereal form the instant she summoned the doll, charged into the stern nozzle of the ship that was spewing flames!

The raging flames and turbulent energy engulfed her in an instant. But the next moment, a cold wave, twice as powerful as the previous ice spear, rushed up from behind, freezing the starship's nozzles that were spewing out high-temperature flames in less than half a second. Along with the witch hidden in the nozzles, the entire stern of the ship was turned into a huge iceberg!

"Trying to use the heat from the high-temperature nozzle to influence my judgment? You're mistaken." The voice of the Nan Yan Zhou team captain resounded in space for the first time, accompanied by energy vibrations. She slowly descended from the nozzle, now frozen into ice, her voice carrying the arrogance and composure unique to the victor.

"You probably didn't expect that my ice contained my energy imprint. Your fate was sealed the moment you were hit. I had already sensed that you wanted to hide in the vent and use the shield created by the energy disturbance to ambush me." Her toes gently landed on the top of the iceberg, gazing at the witch sealed in the ice, her outstretched hand slowly opening its five fingers.

"As a strong player in a weak team, you're quite good. But your time ends here." She clenched her fists, and in an instant, the entire iceberg crumbled into tens of thousands of palm-sized fragments. Then, a message from the Supreme God rang in her ears.

'One of the Nan Yan Continent team's reincarnators has died, resulting in a one-point loss for the Nan Yan team.'

Her pupils suddenly contracted!

At the same moment, the main cannon fire from the Great Library struck with precision, enough to completely destroy an asteroid in an instant. The energy torrent, equivalent to a hundred billion tons, or a thousand Tsar Bombs detonated simultaneously, engulfed everything in its trajectory and completely covered its form!

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

Okay, I admit my mistake. Cutting out chapters is bad, irrational, and politically incorrect. I won't deliberately cut out chapters like that again. _(:з」∠)_

By the way, the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team, although I didn't write her name, I think in this place where anime bigwigs gather, everyone should be able to recognize who she is at a glance... Anyway, I gave her a slight boost, but as for Saint Seiya... I feel like apart from the five main characters, anyone below the Gold Saint level is trash, right? _(:з」∠)_

Section Seventeen: Competing on the Same Stage as the Big Shots

After the brilliance faded and the remaining light of the main cannon vanished into the far reaches of space, Alice discovered the remnants of the Southern Flame Team captain at the edge of the thruster's nozzle.

It remains, but it is not a remnant.

She wasn't dead yet, but in this space environment, she was practically dead. The silver-blue Saint Seiya armor she wore was almost completely destroyed, leaving only the crown. The body protected by the armor had also completely vaporized, with only about 100 grams of brain tissue remaining active in the remnants of the crown. Alice even had to exert a great deal of effort to sense the faint changes in the magnetic field within it—or rather, the remnants of her soul.

If left unattended, Alice will hear the God's score notification within a minute. But...

She shouldn't have had even a minute left to survive.

Alice knew just how powerful this main cannon shot was.

With the stellar extraction tower already built and charged for several hours, the main cannon of the Great Library completed its quantitative-to-qualitative accumulation, reaching the extraordinary level and equivalent to a small-scale solar flare! This attack could wipe out all creatures that had not reached the extraordinary level from the world, and even slightly weaker extraordinary life forms would be severely injured if hit by this attack!

But she did not die; though she was about to die, she did not die.

Alice pondered, watching as the endosome material within the crown gradually lost its activity. She raised her hand and pulled a cluster of screens flashing with data from the void beside her. The two small puppets behind her also switched to research mode, taking out a large number of different testing instruments to scan everything around them.

The entropy is changing abnormally... it's not just simple ice.

[Let's try a different approach...]

Does atomic clock hysteresis exist...?