Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

“Absolute overwhelming power—the Senzhou team is very likely to appear in the swarm's camp, and they're likely a breeding team. If we can't capitalize on this momentum, the Nanyan team will inevitably be wiped out.” He breathed, his hot breath turning into mist in the air. “And our Nanyan team has no momentum left to leverage, and standing by is impossible… Is cooperating with you our only chance of survival?”

"exactly."

"And what you want isn't the kind of superficial cooperation where people might stab each other in the back at any moment, but a wholehearted, uncompromising partnership... Ha, you've only just killed two of our members... now there are four, and we're supposed to put aside our hatred and join forces with you?" A slight smirk played on his lips, as if mocking him. "You've got a really good idea, excellent!"

"I believe you can do it."

Neos's mocking smile came to an abrupt halt.

"...Yes, I can do it. I can get the rest of you to put aside your hatred and cooperate with you, and I can also hand over my last trump card to you, giving you a greater chance of victory. But why would I do that?"

"A deal can only proceed normally if both parties agree. My teammates and I are not lacking in courage; we will not cooperate with the enemy just to survive."

He closed his eyes again.

“Name your price. Since you’ve come here and approached me, you must be able to offer a price that will tempt me and my team.”

"...At least one person from your team will make it back alive, and I will tell him how to revive his teammates."

How can this be guaranteed?

“The wise man in our team once defeated you in the real world,” Patchouli said calmly.

"What?" Neos raised an eyebrow sharply. "You're not the strategist of the Central Plains Team? Then... could it be!"

He abruptly stood up from his seat, his eyes bloodshot with rage. The next moment, a look of sudden realization appeared on his face, but this realization instantly turned into frustration.

"...Yes, Chu Xuan, is that right?"

"Yes."

"I should have thought of it, I should have thought of it long ago, damn it! I had already investigated him, I had already memorized his name, but I forgot! I forgot Chu Xuan, forgot the Colonel Chu Xuan who never left the Dragon Shadow Base, whose wisdom and strategy crushed everyone else!"

He frantically clutched his head, strands of his golden hair falling out along with his scalp, his hands instantly becoming stained with blood. The blood quickly rolled down his forehead, face, and into his eyes, making him look like a terrifying demon!

Patchouli looked at him quietly, without saying a word.

He calmed down.

He sat back down in his seat, and his posture was now undoubtedly more relaxed than before.

“Ah,” he sighed softly. “So it was him, so it was him, so it was him… Then my defeat was not unjust, my death was not unjust. His name is indeed enough to guarantee it. If it was him, he could definitely do it… No.”

His voice suddenly turned cold and indifferent.

“I’ve fought him before. If he really did plot against me, I would be dead by now. He’s a cold-blooded man who hates uncertainty. If he wanted to kill me, or if he needed me to do something, then you wouldn’t be here right now, and the person I’m talking to wouldn’t give me a choice or any room for negotiation.”

"...You orchestrated all of this, didn't you? You thought your Central Plains team needed us as helpers, but that man didn't actually care. So he shut everything else down and sent you here to get rid of me?"

"You can think of it that way."

“Then I really have to thank you. Tsk, that’s Chu Xuan. With him involved…” Neos shook his head slightly. “You’ve already proven your sincerity and your strength. Now it’s my turn.”

He reached into his pocket and took out a strange little trinket. It looked like a hand-carved item made of ordinary materials, with mediocre craftsmanship, no trace of magical energy, and no strange, mysterious aura. You could probably buy a dozen of them for ten dollars on the street.

"Here, take this and show it to the others, then they'll understand what I mean. But our team leader needs your people to persuade her themselves... This shouldn't be too difficult for you, so I won't say more. Hmm, and this too... I originally thought I could turn the tide at a crucial moment."

He took something out of his pocket and gave it to Patchouli. After Patchouli carefully accepted it and sealed it, he wiped the blood from his face and looked at the girl with utter calmness.

"Come on, what are you waiting for?" He stretched out his hand and said, "A B-level side quest plus 7,000 reward points, don't you want them?"

Seconds later, the Zhongzhou team scored their fifth point.

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

Some time later, Chu Xuan finished his meeting unharmed, completed his arrangements, and calmly departed from the flagship. The deaths of Neos and several high-ranking members of the Southern Flame Continent team were obscured by the meteor shower that attacked the warship. That evening—7 PM in space (or Earth time)—the group returned to the De Chroy, which had become their temporary base, aboard a transport ship.

The Southern Flame Continent team remained calm—they hadn't been initially calm, but they calmed down after seeing Neos's keepsake. Zheng Zha didn't intend to make things difficult for them either. After confirming that they would be their next partners, Zheng Zha arranged a spacious lounge for them. The burly Nordic man Richard, the hacker Rose, and the little girl Xue Ling'er, who was still unconscious, stayed together. Rose initially harbored some resentment because the slain archer Manini was her boyfriend, but she calmed down after Zheng Zha revealed some information about the resurrection item.

“I’ve always felt this wouldn’t be a good idea,” Zhang Jie said. “We’ve killed too many of them. If the situation were reversed, they would definitely hold back at crucial moments, or even turn the tables on us.”

“…If they dare to do that, kill them all.” Zheng Zha said in a deep voice, “This is a team battle, it’s going to be a fight to the death. Besides, they attacked first. We’ve already done them a favor by sparing their lives, cooperating with them to fight against the Senzhou team and providing them with protection. If they seek their own death, I won’t stop them.”

Zhang Jie looked at him with some surprise.

"I can't believe you said that. I always thought you were the kind of person who would treat the lives of enemies the same as those of innocent civilians."

"I admit I can be a bit too kind, or rather, a bit too much of a 'saint' sometimes..." Zheng Zha rubbed his head angrily, glaring at Zhang Jie. "But I at least know the difference between a saint and a hypocrite! An enemy is an enemy, and if necessary, even if it's that little girl, I—"

"Could you do what?" Zhang Jie looked at him with a half-smile. "Kill her? Could you really do it?"

"...I will pretend I didn't see you make a move."

"Tsk." Zhang Jie clicked his tongue loudly—he suddenly thought of something, and without a word, stood up and ran towards the warship's logistics area. Before Zheng Zha could react to what he was planning, Zhang Jie returned pushing a crammed flatbed cart—it was full of wine, stored in classic oak barrels. Each barrel weighed one hundred kilograms, and there were ten barrels in total.

"Alright, you all-talk, all-in-one Zheng Da-shan. Now it's your turn to pay up your bet. Our battle lasted less than ten minutes, you're not planning to back out, are you?" He glanced at Zheng Zha with a malicious look on his face.

Meanwhile, Ba Wang, Ling Dian, and even the newcomer Cheng Xiao all gathered around, jeering and staring at Zheng with expressions reminiscent of the comical posts on Tieba—until Zheng's forehead throbbed and veins bulged.

"Brother Jie, leave yourself a way out, so you can meet again in the future."

Zhang Jie shrugged.

"We see each other every day anyway, why leave any room for maneuver?" he said, and the next moment the ceiling above him inexplicably became unstable. It fell down with a thud, which he then caught firmly.

He looked at Alice with a puzzled expression.

"Oh. It's nothing." Alice smiled and shook her head. "I was just a little distracted."

She wouldn't tell Zhang Jie that she had subconsciously pushed him because she was overly sensitive to that phrase—it was a private conversation she and Patchouli had shared right after the Bleach world ended. However, she then realized that Zhang Jie hadn't been resurrected at that time, and it was impossible for him to silently read her or Patchouli's minds. So she just smiled and let it go.

"Excuse me for a moment," she said, then left the hall and headed towards her room.

Meanwhile, Zheng, amidst the cheers of the crowd, picked up the wine barrel and began to gulp it down.

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

“Poor Zheng Zha, he’s destined for a hangover tomorrow…if he doesn’t plan on cheating,” Alice said to herself with a smile. She went to her room and glanced at the life support container strapped to the lab table and the blue crown inside.

"But a loss is a loss. Since you are the loser, you should naturally follow the winner's lead. Because failure is not shameful, but it is wrong to refuse to admit defeat when you have clearly lost."

"Don't you think so?" She poured herself a glass of water, then poured another glass and placed it in front of the unactivated wall terminal.

"The captain of the Southern Flame Continent team is Esdeath from another world?"

The next moment, the terminal screen in front of her suddenly lit up. A beautiful, aloof woman with long, dark blue hair appeared before her.

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

After serving as a rotating DM for more than five months, it has finally come to an end...

This tour has been running for over a year... it's exhausting!

Section 19 - Ubisoft is releasing a new game again!

"What do you want?" came the voice from the screen.

“A mutually beneficial cooperation,” Alice replied calmly. “We need your strength, and you can only survive from the Mori-no-Su team by relying on us.”

"After you killed five of my teammates?" The woman behind the screen smirked slightly. "Fine, release me now. Once my body is restored, I'll cooperate with you properly. I promise I'll do my best and won't let you find even the slightest mistake... Do you dare?"

Alice simply watched her quietly, letting her vent her feelings of defeat.

She quieted down.

"Neo agreed?" the woman on the screen asked.

“He agreed.” Alice nodded, taking out the token given to her by Neos from her pocket. “In exchange for ensuring that at least one member of your Southern Flame Continent team survives and providing clues about the resurrection item, we have reached a deal.”

"Tsk, what a presumptuous guy."

Even through the screen, Alice could sense the reluctance in Esdeath's words. However, such obvious emotional expression also indicated that Esdeath had basically accepted the proposal. Now that she had largely accepted it, the next step was to discuss the details.

detail.

Clearly, the Southern Flame Continent team wouldn't completely relinquish their dominant position in the cooperation just because of one defeat—they knew they couldn't win the initiative, but they also knew they needed to fight for it. Although the request for cooperation came from the Central Continent team, it was actually the Southern Flame Continent team that was in a passive position.

They are too weak. While the weak may still be useful, their effectiveness will certainly be less than that of the strong.

The weak are destined to receive less attention than the strong. Once they are not valued, the additional intelligence and autonomy that the Nan Yan Zhou team can obtain in the following battles will be greatly reduced. Although the Zhong Zhou team has promised to "at least save one person", life is only truly safe when it is in one's own hands.

They have lost wise men; without wise men to analyze and filter information for them, their survival will become extremely difficult.

Therefore, they will inevitably try to prove themselves, to regain face in another area after suffering a crushing defeat in direct combat. And assuming everyone else is easily eliminated, the most likely way to succeed is…

Alice's eyebrows twitched slightly as the information she had gathered from the other members of the Southern Flame Continent team about their captain swept through her mental network.

[Cooperation is fine, but I have one condition.] — The girl thought to herself. [She needs to defeat someone significant in our team to prove her worth. And I, having fought her, have revealed a lot of information, making me a suitable target—tsk, actually, her best option would be to use her charm to have a proper conversation with Zheng Zha for a while. But I won't let her know about that.]

"Cooperation is fine, but I have one condition." Esdeath on the screen rubbed her forehead, looking extremely unwilling.

“Speak,” Alice replied with a single, concise word.

Once I'm out, I'm going to have a real fight with you.

"After I get out, I'm going to have a real fight with you."

“But you have already lost.” Alice shook her head slightly. “You lost completely. You didn’t even last a minute against me. I defeated you with a single blow. You are now the loser, and the loser should submit to the winner, not flaunt your words here.”

"That doesn't count!" The woman on the screen seemed somewhat angry: "That wasn't a battle between warriors. You only won by sneaking in with the exchanged items, which only proves that your Zhongzhou team is very rich! In a truly fierce battlefield, one's own qualities are far more important than mere external items!"

She stared intently at Alice, as if her gaze could kill even through the screen. She knew perfectly well that her words were nothing but sophistry, but she also knew that she had to seize this opportunity.

She knew that the Central Continent Team had very strong combat personnel, and the girl in front of her was definitely not one of the most skilled fighters. The brief exchange was enough for her to understand Alice's cautious nature and relative weakness in close combat, and the leaders of the Central Continent Team were clearly not like that, judging from their strategies.

Waiting for the rabbit to run into the tree stump, taking advantage of the enemy's fatigue, and using previous arrangements to force the Southern Flame Continent team to abandon their most important asset: concealment. Then, they could crush them with sheer, overwhelming force—this was an open strategy, and the person in charge of the overall plan must be someone capable of carrying it. But the girl before her wasn't that kind of person, which meant the Central Continent team had someone else at its core—and in Esdeath's mind, the leader must also be the strongest.

If he fails to suppress his opponent here, once his physical body is fully reconstructed, he will inevitably face the true strongest member of the Central Continent team when he challenges them again. His chances of winning will be very low, or rather, he will have almost no chance of winning after losing most of the Antarctic Saint armor.

Therefore, she was determined to win this battle. Her only target was Alice, and she had to achieve victory.

However, this is exactly what Alice wanted.

[But I can't just go along with her now.] Alice thought to herself, then continued to look at the captain of the Southern Flame Continent team with a stern face. She stared at him, carefully adding a hint of displeasure to her tone.

“First, I am not a warrior. Second, I built that cannon,” Alice replied slowly and deliberately. “I won by relying on my creations and my fighting style, and the only reason you are here speaking to me is because of my mercy. I think you should shut up now, or are you expecting another ending that has nothing to do with survival?”

"Then go ahead and do it."

"Then go ahead and do it."

“I won’t kill you, because an agreement has been reached. There’s no need for me to waste my strength here,” Alice replied calmly. “I need to conserve more strength and resources to deal with the Morizu team; there’s no need to waste them here.”

You simply can't do it; you have no right to make that decision.

“You just can’t do it, you have no right to make decisions.” Esdeath turned her head slightly, casting a disdainful glance at the girl outside the screen. “I am a warrior, and I believe your Central Continent team’s captain is also a warrior. Since you can’t make decisions, let someone who can. Then resolve this issue using the language of warriors.”