Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Chapter 41: Tonight we'll have curry chicken.

"Right now."

As soon as Patchouli finished speaking, the newly born golden sun was instantly shattered by the salvo from the fleet tens of thousands of kilometers away! Dozens of spears of light, which would not be stingy even if used to roast planets, and which suffered almost no attenuation in the space environment, struck the Senzhou Reincarnators ten thousand meters away!

Engaging in combat is for positioning, while maintaining distance is to prevent friendly fire.

The fleet of hunting ships has more than just one or two operational starships. Even though a small portion of the fleet, including the flagship de Croy, was sunk by self-destruction tactics, the remaining starships still possess formidable power!

— [Was he killed?]

—【No, not at all.】

As Patchouli gave the order to fire, she stomped her toe on the platform beneath her feet—the platform immediately vanished and began to shift sideways, leaving behind a physical phantom in place, mirroring the energy reaction of the previous object. Just as the nascent sun was blasted to pieces and the platform shifted half a kilometer, the two members of the Senzhou team suddenly appeared atop the phantom in a flash of teleportation light! The warrior named Rost, wielding a greatsword gleaming with brilliant golden light, roared and slammed it down!

"Excalibur—Galatine!!!" (The Sword of Victory Revolves)

A stream of scorching light hurtled down, and the magnificent pillar of light formed from the burst of flames from the blade could be clearly felt even from 500 meters away. Patchouli had no doubt that this sword could cleave a ten-thousand-meter-class battleship in two from bow to stern, but she also knew perfectly well that this sword would not harm her in the slightest!

A sword that cannot strike is a useless sword.

Even without Patchouli's instructions, Zheng Zha, who had already gathered his strength and was fully engaged in the battle, suddenly pounced out, using his external energy as a barrier, and leaped and slashed through the invisible barrier while stepping on the universe!

"What!?"—Rost was startled, but the moment he realized his sword had missed, Zheng Zha had already arrived in front of him with unparalleled sword momentum! The crimson greatsword of destruction suddenly slashed out a line of blood, and the end of the line of blood was right on Rost's right shoulder!

'break--'

Even in the airless void of space, a crisp sound, like shattering glass, clearly rang in the ears of everyone on the battlefield. At least five layers of energy shields of varying nature, located thirty centimeters from Rost's body, shattered simultaneously at the moment of impact. The positive and negative annihilation power containing 'destruction' continued forward along the blade's trajectory, easily slicing through his upper body armor!

A burst of golden-red, inhuman blood, containing the immense energy of a dormant volcano, erupted from his body—this was the blood of a demigod. This blood nearly made Zheng Zha's heart race, and the almost nonexistent bloodlust within him suddenly revived. But a near revival was ultimately just a near revival—Zheng Zha didn't hesitate for a moment. His blade flipped, and an equally powerful second strike followed immediately!

“Nica-Abin—!”

A black arrow, as sharp as a venomous snake, suddenly attacked Zheng Zha from behind. However, Zheng Zha didn't even flinch; the arrow was instantly shattered in mid-air by a psychic bomb that exploded violently. Zhang Jie's spirit, caught in the explosion, stirred up a storm, and the ensuing mental tempest instantly separated the battlefield!

Melee fighters are below, ranged fighters are above.

Rost's upper body was mostly destroyed by the second blow, his chest cavity split open, his internal organs ruptured, and even his dark gold flesh and bones were exposed. He raised his spinning sword to try to block, but Zheng Zha's third strike broke his sword stance and severed his unarmed left arm. He roared angrily, but the fourth strike sent him flying into the deeper abyss.

"Your companion is going to die." Zhang Jie was surrounded by wispy smoke, and an iron claw covered with hideous blades silently emerged from behind Nijabin. Most of the overwhelming mental power in his mind was released, turning into smoke and flames that recklessly twisted the material energy within a radius of a thousand meters, while simultaneously covering this silent claw as it touched Nijabin's spine.

—The claws suddenly shattered.

“Meaningless.” Nijabin looked at him coldly, and a dark mist, as black as night, surged from the demigod armor covering his body. When the mist touched the sparks, it violently turbulently, like boiling oil being poured into water, making the already chaotic universe even more chaotic!

Zhang Jie's claw-wielding form silently disintegrated in the energy collision, but in the blink of an eye, several more 'Zhang Jies' emerged from the smoke, flanking Nijabin from various angles. Some wielded swords, some whips, and some even carried machine guns, firing indiscriminately. And regardless of their form, their attacks were equally deadly!

"Nightmares eroding the mental realm of reality? Unlike Silent Hill, it seems to be based on Elm Street." Nijabin's tone was calm. He raised his black longbow and pulled the bowstring sharply, tearing hundreds of tiny black lines around him—space itself was ripped apart like a net by the vibration of the bowstring. And all of 'Zhang Jie' were instantly sliced ​​into hundreds or thousands of pieces.

"You're using divine power, aren't you?" Zhang Jie's voice came from an uncertain place. "The Hades lineage in Greek mythology, the black mist beneath your feet should be the prototype of the divine kingdom—I think you probably didn't exchange for Hades' direct bloodline, so let me guess, Hypnos, or Thanatos? Or do you think I'm stupid enough to sneak into your dream?"

"Hmph, shallow cleverness. I certainly can't take you down in a short time." Nijabin sneered, and a jet-black arrow suddenly materialized on his black longbow. He hurled it into the sky, and the arrow transformed into a rain of arrows that blanketed the entire universe, covering every inch within a thousand meters!

“But you made a wrong choice,” he said. “You shouldn’t have divided the battlefield.”

The moment his words fell, a tremendous roar suddenly erupted from another battlefield, which was separated by the mental storm!

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

Zheng Zha felt excruciating pain all over his body, except for his head. Without even examining himself, he could clearly sense the severity of his injuries. Yet, this pain also represented vitality, because his body, which had been riddled with wounds just half a second ago, had already begun to recover through this agony.

He stared ahead, where the Senju team's melee ability user, who had also recovered from all his injuries, was several kilometers away, looking at him from afar—however, those several kilometers disappeared in the blink of an eye, because the greatsword wrapped in a crimson-gold aura had already arrived in front of him, slashing towards his head!

He suddenly raised his knife to block!

Damn, it's too heavy!

An immense pressure flashed through his mind, and then a sword strike even heavier than the previous one, accompanied by excruciating pain as his body tore apart, struck! He barely managed to raise his sword to deflect the force, but his body was involuntarily thrown backward violently!

[Damn it! I'm clearly stronger! I clearly had the advantage! But why did it turn out like this! Why did it become like this! I don't understand!]

He roared angrily in his mind—dozens of seconds ago, when he had knocked Rost off Niga Abin with a surprise attack and destroyed most of Rost's body with a series of slashes, almost killing this Senzhou Team Reincarnator, a strange change suddenly occurred. Accompanied by a sudden burst of red light, not only did Rost's wounds completely heal in an instant, but his overall combat power also suddenly increased by more than half!

That's half! Half of the third-tier limit! If an ordinary person's limit is 1 to 1.5, then his is 10,000 to 15,000! This change immediately caused a dramatic shift in the battle situation. Zheng Zha's advantage of initiative and ambush was completely wiped out, and the opponent's strength became overwhelmingly superior to his own!

If this is a treasure, then this secret artifact is far too much—Zheng Zha initially thought it was some kind of elixir to accelerate growth or provide temporary protection. However, it turns out that the increased power of the other party was entirely under their own control!

There were no fluctuations, no loss of control; it was as if the opponent had always been that strong and was simply unleashing their power.

What could have been a perfect parry, even a counterattack, would now cause severe internal injuries even with the force absorbed. The previously evenly matched speed had also widened, making him incredibly difficult to track—if Zheng Zha hadn't strengthened his foundation during the Anubis trial, barely managing to hold on until Patchouli's remote emergency protection took effect, that sword strike might have even severed his head!

They managed to hold on, but the situation remains far from optimistic.

He forcibly suppressed his retreat, but the third attack he was preparing to launch never came—he looked up and saw Rost silently watching him from space, a thousand meters away.

“I must admit, you, whom the Lord entrusted with such importance, are indeed a more talented warrior than I am.” Rost changed his sword grip from one hand to two, and the red light surrounding his body surged slightly once more. “You grow easily in battle. Even in just those few dozen seconds of disadvantageous combat, your physical parameters increased by nearly three percent. If you were given more time, perhaps you could catch up with or even surpass my current state.”

"That's too kind of you." Zheng Zha forced a smile. Since the other party wasn't attacking, he was happy to seize the time to recover. In order to prolong this time, he even felt it necessary to take the initiative to start some conversations.

[Norreggie, how much longer? I might not be able to hold on much longer.] His will carefully touched the implanted terminal provided by Patchouli—Zhang Jie's mental link had been in chaos after Zhang Jie's battle with Nijabin—and he quickly received a reply.

"Forty-six seconds," Patchouli replied from the other end of the terminal.

"Who is this 'Lord' you're talking about? The captain of your Senzhou team?"

"You don't need to know too much, because you'll never see the Lord." The swirling radiance around Rost intensified, making him stand motionless in the air like a ten-foot-long burning torch. "The reason you can still stand there and speak is because you almost caught the Lord's attention. Although you ultimately failed, 'almost' is an honor in itself—I thought you possessed some special qualities, but it turns out it's just simple talent?"

"Haha." Zheng Zha chuckled dryly, feeling the internal injuries within his body that had largely healed and the energy that was almost fully replenished. His body quickly adjusted to an excellent state. "Looks like you really want to be valued by your 'Lord'... Your Senzhou team is a breeding team, right? It seems your status in the team isn't high."

—【Norakech, how much longer?】

—【Thirty-five.】

—【Why is it so slow!】

— Your biological clock is too fast.

Zheng Zha's forehead twitched slightly, almost causing a vein to bulge out. He sighed inwardly, concentrating his guard as he considered that saying just one sentence might immediately trigger a war—however, things did not turn out as he had anticipated.

“I’m nothing more than a dog serving the Lord,” Rost said, his tone laced with undisguised smugness. “The Lord doesn’t need allies or companions. Those who thought they could stand by the Lord’s side with a little cleverness or talent have all become fuel in the furnace. And those who have survived are only Nijabin and me, two dogs who are neither particularly clever nor talented, whose only virtue is loyalty.”

"A dog doesn't need to think, doesn't need to plan. As long as it obeys commands and knows how to tear apart the prey marked by its master, it's considered competent. And you, Zheng Zha, as prey specially marked by the Lord, I hope you can live up to the glory of having 'almost' aroused the Lord's interest. Therefore..."

"...Have you done all the little tricks?"

He suddenly raised his sword, and his entire being transformed into a giant sun, a blazing mix of gold and red!

"I only mobilized 20% of my [Power] before, now it's 50%! You must live up to this honor! Zheng Zha of the Central Plains Team!" He roared, raising his greatsword and slashing down fiercely!

And the sun also fell! In the blink of an eye, it appeared before Zheng Zha!

Time seemed to stand still...

Zheng Zha's mind began to spin at an unprecedented speed. The third-stage gene lock was fully loaded, and the ability to accelerate his thoughts dozens of times faster than the outside world suddenly reached a new level. He could even watch the sun slowly fall towards his location, but he could not change it in the slightest.

Seeing is one thing, doing is another.

Even if the mind can react quickly enough, the body cannot.

So……

—[I cannot withstand this attack, nor can I dodge it; I am doomed.]

—【However, Norrell would never leave such a glaring flaw in her plans. Since she needs thirty-five seconds to prepare, it means I can definitely hold out for thirty-five seconds… or perhaps even thirty-five seconds is just an excuse.】

—【So…is it really necessary to do it this way?】

Zheng Zha sighed inwardly, and the next moment, he pushed open the door to the fourth level.

Forty-second quarter - Coach! Someone's cheating!

The fourth stage: the limit between humans and gods, the gateway to transcendence.

When Zheng Zha channeled his will into the depths of his body, activating from the core of every cell the power that had long been awakened by the main god, but which he himself had deliberately sealed away due to insufficient control, this process was not hindered in any way.

He easily stepped into the fourth stage, and he didn't feel that the gene lock of the fourth stage was any different from the previous one.

He just felt that everything around him had become very slow, extremely slow, so slow that the small star falling towards his head was like a dandelion falling from the third floor—he even had the leisure to examine the patterns and textures on the surface of this 'dandelion' and find any random inconsistencies.

The energy distribution is somewhat uneven at a point slightly to the right of the center of the sphere.

Zheng Zha thought to himself, and this discovery made him feel very unhappy.

How can a sphere not be uniform? How can energy be distributed in such an unsightly way?

How ugly, how discordant, how wasteful! This is bad, very bad.

The magnificent cosmic landscape will be polluted by this uneven sphere, and the incorruptible and economical aesthetics of digital art will be tainted by this terrible creation—it must be wiped off the world, both of it and its creator.

So Zheng Zha reached out and gently tapped the 'dandelion' with his finger before it landed on him—and the dandelion immediately crumbled and disintegrated, like a sandcastle facing a destined great wave, collapsing outward into a spreading energy ring—and Rost, hidden behind the 'dandelion,' appeared in his field of vision. Then his finger continued to extend forward, easily moving towards Rost in this world where time moved as slowly as a snail's crawl.

A parrying stance? Broken.

A protective magical artifact? Destroyed.

Automatically triggered protective shields and teleportation spells? Destroyed.

Zheng Zha's outstretched finger easily, effortlessly, and naturally pierced through all obstacles, then, in the instant the Senzhou team's melee ability user's face contorted in pain, it touched the latter's brow—Rost's head immediately exploded like a pitiful watermelon struck by a water-powered hammer, all the bones and flesh flying evenly in all directions of the universe, forming a rather perfect, slowly expanding ring in Zheng Zha's eyes—and only then did Zheng Zha nod his head in satisfaction.

That's more like it; trash who can't even grasp the concept of conserving resources deserves to die. But...

He looked up, his gaze sweeping across the sky to another battlefield isolated by Zhang Jie's mental storm—Nijabin's rain of arrows was locked in a fierce battle with Zhang Jie's nightmare clone. The energy fields beneath their feet collided and exploded, churning the surrounding universe into chaos like a boiling broth.

This is bad, really bad.

Such a brutal outburst of energy, such a crude disturbance of space—haven't you heard the cries of earth, water, fire, and wind for being so wantonly wasted? Don't you understand what efficiency or rational allocation means?

I, Zheng Zha, despise bastards like you who are bad at fighting and then wasteful in battle. Don't you know that energy is precious and important? I'm always on edge, afraid of running out of energy even for a few dozen seconds, and you just waste it like that... Oh, I don't seem to lack energy right now—but wasting it is still shameful!

Zheng Zha shook his head slightly, a strange sense of unease rising in his heart only to be quickly suppressed. He flexed his fingers, and the billions of cells in his body immediately began mass-producing specialized molecular organs to carry out super-genetic engineering due to changes in the nuclear gene chains.

He quickly felt himself able to absorb cosmic radiation, and a semi-enclosed protective membrane automatically formed on the surface of his skin to trap heat. Crystalline structures that facilitated energy storage were automatically generated in his brain and lower dantian, and the absorbed cosmic radiation was immediately converted with unprecedented efficiency, causing his stored blood energy and true qi to increase more than tenfold!

Great, the energy problem is temporarily solved. However…

[Strange, why would I need to increase my energy reserves? Wasn't my previous supply sufficient?]

Zheng Zha tilted his head slightly, but he immediately dismissed these distracting thoughts. His gaze fell upon the energy storm in the distance that was increasingly irritating him. Determined to make those two wasteful heads and his fists form a bond—he swung his hand back and cleaved the suddenly resurrected Rost in two with a powerful energy blade.

"Super-fast repair? Pseudo-immortality?" Zheng Zha turned around, a look of doubt in his eyes as he watched Rost's body recover in the red light. "It doesn't seem like it. You've only pulled and glued each of the severed cells back together. You haven't actually reached that level yourself."

He casually raised the Destruction Greatsword, unleashing a burst of power. In half a second, a thousand consecutive slashes cleaved Rost into tens of thousands of uniformly sized pieces. However, those tens of thousands of fragments rapidly coalesced within the red light, once again revealing Rost's form!

Zheng Zha frowned slightly, then relaxed his gaze.