Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

His defeat must have been part of the possessor's plan; clearly, it was a blood sacrifice. Sacrificing enough local natives through a proxy to summon the transcendent being isolated from the world—this method is exactly the same as that of the ancient gods outside. So, indeed… is it about to descend?

Alice lowered her eyes.

The concept of Zhonghuang Taiyi is in operation. Although it is merely an empty shell, forcibly created using magic and apocalyptic methods, it may not be impossible for it to become real given sufficient resources. Alice is well aware that she has already completed most of the steps to ascend from a true demon to a demon king through this ritual, and what she needs to do now is the final transformation.

The time for settlement has arrived.

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

I was planning to update twice a week... but I failed _(:з」∠)_

Chapter 69 The Initial Hatred

Esdeath's battle with Logandau lasted for about ten minutes, during which half the world crumbled and was destroyed in their fighting.

Logandao needed souls, and he needed to fill the power of those souls with killing. Therefore, regardless of whether he was in a superior or inferior position, he would try his best to guide the battlefield towards the area with the most vibrant life force. He traversed land and crossed mountains; after hundreds of millions of insect swarms perished in the aftermath of the war, the strength of his body even reached a point where he could move at ten times the speed of sound. And the entire southern border of the Empire was only a little over a thousand kilometers wide.

The southern border became an ice field.

Logan was unable to fully utilize his physical abilities, which had surged dramatically due to the interference of the 'soul.' Even though he quickly acquired a body that was faster, stronger, and quicker than Esdeath's, this did not give him much of an advantage when facing the near-absolute-zero boson condensation cloud and Esdeath's self-created pseudo-time stop—he was constantly being pressured and was never able to be killed.

This was because Esdeath held back—perhaps she initially intended to kill Logandau outright, but when Logandau demonstrated his infinitely enhanced abilities using his 'soul,' the joy of regaining a worthy opponent overwhelmed her. Therefore, she suppressed her own power and quietly cooperated with Logandau's actions, helping him eliminate the living beings.

She held back, but only at the beginning. Because Luo Gandao's 'soul' enhancement quickly brought him to a level where he could compete with her. This soon put some pressure on her. And this pressure, in turn, caused her luck to surge.

Logan is constantly getting stronger, and his strength comes from his 'soul'.

Esdeath is also constantly getting stronger, and her strength comes from 'luck'.

One is a chosen one from beyond the heavens, the other a protagonist favored by destiny. Their clash will not end quickly, nor will it continue indefinitely. Soon, Esdeath's progress surpasses Logandao's. And Logandao's misfortune then engulfs him.

He did not die, but he kept teetering on the edge of life and death.

This endless cycle of life and death allowed him to draw power even further from his 'soul,' enabling him to surpass the safety valve representing the limits of his control and crave more from his 'soul.' As he fled the Southern Territory, all the creatures in the seas below were completely frozen by the disturbed life magnetic field and freezing currents. As he crossed the ocean, the waves were frozen into ice sculptures by the icy currents that followed him.

If Alice were to look down from the top of the sky, she would see a line of fire and a line of ice chasing each other, carving across the vast land. The Southern Territory is the first stop, the sea beyond the Southern Territory is the second, and the third stop after leaving the sea beyond the Southern Territory is the other side of this continent.

She saw two lines chasing each other across the ocean, freezing the seas and landing on the border of another vast nation on the other side of the continent. And that western superpower, no less impressive in size than the Empire, suffered an undeserved calamity as a result. Civilians, soldiers, and even those wielding supernatural powers—under the manipulation of Logandao's life magnetic field and Esdeath's frigid winds, they were little different from ants and insects.

They may have resisted, but their resistance couldn't even attract the attention of these two monstrous creatures. To Logandau, they were nutrients; to Esdeath, they were reptiles. And when the dead wind swept through, they all turned to dust—their souls became fuel for Logandau to enhance himself, while their resentment surged into the clouds, becoming one in a billion of the yellow heavens that Alice had transformed into.

The computing power is sufficient.

Total energy intake is sufficient.

Operational precision, adequate.

The essence of my power is curse.

Alice lowered her eyes, and her form was rapidly reconstructed in the heavens. An endless sea of ​​energy surged in the sky, surrounding her, and then becoming part of her structure. As that energy approached her, it gradually took on color, from colorless to pale yellow, from pale yellow to bright yellow, from bright yellow to dark yellow, and from dark yellow to pitch black—it was concentrated energy, and also a deadly curse. Curses are actually colorless, but billions of beings believe that curses and resentment should be black, so it became pitch black as well.

At their current density, an ordinary person would die from sheer misfortune if they even touched them, and the misfortune would also affect their relatives, friends, and descendants for seven or eight generations. Yet Alice could easily control them, like a fish riding water.

She is a witch, certified by the Supreme God as an AA-level enhanced Information Mage/Poisonous Curse Mage. Her talents and knowledge are all built around the core concept of 'manipulating curses and the magical reactions derived from them'. But even the most precise 'manipulation' can only be considered 'the use of tools'.

What she needs to do now is cross that boundary and achieve a qualitative leap.

Curses are my sustenance, and also my trials. They are the tools in my hands, but tools are not immune to harm.

Therefore, if I want to overcome this trial, I must embrace it, make it a part of me, and not simply treat it as a tool. So…

She stretched out her hand, and the hatred and curses of countless living beings gathered at her fingertips into a small black ball the size of a thumb, which she then gently swallowed as if eating a cookie.

Her obsessive soul, which was normally human in color, was instantly stained pitch black.

The next moment, everything in her field of vision suddenly changed.

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

What appeared before her eyes was a familiar scene.

A university of a decent size, a bunch of students of various skin colors in a chaotic manner, several collapsed Western-style buildings, and a messy street that looked like it had been swept by a whirlwind.

This is a small seaside town that was recently attacked by alien robots. Several innocent buildings were destroyed by missiles before the robots left. There weren't many dead, but the chaos was immense. About fifteen or sixteen unfortunate people were trampled to death in the chaos, including an exchange student from China.

"A long-awaited time, a long-awaited place." Alice looked around, and with a thought, her medieval-style armor transformed into a well-fitting black suit. She quickly determined her direction and headed towards the correct location. She easily separated the chaotic figures along the way, and the platform where the poor souls who had been trampled to death were placed came into view.

“Besides, this isn’t the first time I’ve had this kind of dream,” she whispered to herself, using a simple hypnotic gesture to quell the police officer who tried to get in her way. Her gaze then shifted, quickly finding her target at the very end of the platform.

She walked over and carefully examined the remains.

"He died a terrible death," the girl said softly.

What appeared before her eyes was a pitiful creature, barely recognizable as human. It had fallen on a zebra crossing not far from the university entrance. In the thirty seconds after it was knocked down, at least two hundred people trampled over it—it was probably still alive then, clinging to life, its head still intact. It may have thought it could survive, but the cars that quickly ran over it ended its illusions.

“There should have been four vehicles: one motorcycle and two cars. The motorcycle crushed the foot, the cars crushed the arm and spine, and the last truck shattered the head.” She murmured, her gaze shifting from the corpse to the nearby document that would immediately identify the person—a plastic student ID. The side with the photo was blurred by blood and crushing, while the other side had a line of English and two Chinese characters neatly printed on it.

"Luo—Ye".

She slowly uttered the name. And with the sound of her voice, the entire world seemed to freeze. Like a videotape being paused, everything around her became still.

Then she saw the mangled, skeletal remains come to life, groping to its feet like a living person. She stared at it, and its rotten, watermelon-like, fragmented head looked back at her—she reached out and placed the ID card on its crushed sternum. The latter nodded to her in gratitude.

"You've arrived earlier than expected." A muffled voice, like a mixture of machinery and flesh rubbing together, emanated from that... thing. The voice, combined with its appearance, was enough to drive a sane ordinary person insane in an instant. But clearly, this posed no obstacle to Alice.

“It’s getting late. If I don’t come now, I probably will never be able to come.” Alice stretched out her hand, and two fresh cups of hot coffee flew in from a coffee shop next to the university. She gently took one of the cups, while the other floated in front of her conversation partner.

"Would you like some coffee?" Alice asked.

"Thank you." Her interlocutor took the coffee and poured half a cup into his shattered skull. With the soft patter of the liquid dripping over the broken bones and falling to the ground, it seemed to sigh with satisfaction. "Centuries have passed, and I still remember this taste."

“Thank you for the compliment, but my memory has always been excellent,” Alice replied.

"So good that you only just remembered your name?"

“It’s my name from a past life, not my name,” Alice corrected it. “You are Luo Ye, the Luo Ye who is dead. I am Alice Margotrovid, the Alice Margotrovid who is still alive. You are my past life, and you are dead. The cause and effect, the connection, have all been severed. Even if there were any remnants, I severed them all not long ago.”

"Debts from past lives cannot be settled in this life. Even if you wanted to settle them, the karma has already been cleared up."

"Is that so?" Luo Ye countered, "Then why are you here now?"

"...I'd like to know the answer to that question too." Alice looked at it quietly, making no aggressive gesture, but her expression was more serious than ever before. "I remember that in the Transformers world, I settled all the causes and effects—I saved that world, I made my country in my past life rise smoothly to the top of the world. I subsidized my relatives and friends in my past life, ensuring their success in everything. I also used puppets to create an avatar that could never be discovered, and started a business that brought prosperity to my family for three generations—I owe that world nothing, I owe that country in that world nothing, and I owe nothing to anyone in that world."

“I shouldn’t be here. I shouldn’t have any unresolved issues,” Alice said earnestly. “The cause and effect have been severed. I almost never even use the Star Artifact, the Staff of Domination, that I obtained from that world. I have no reason to come to this place while trying to achieve transcendence. And I have even less reason to meet you here—my past life, Luo Ye.”

She walked earnestly toward the person she was speaking to. However, all she received in return was a mocking laugh.

"You really think..." Luo Ye's mouth, pieced together from fragments of flesh and blood, slowly cracked open. "You and your so-called 'past life,' have absolutely no karma left?"

“That’s right, not a single bit is left,” Alice replied.

"Then why do you remember it so clearly?"

"You don't remember your name, you don't remember what you look like, you don't remember most of your experiences. But why do you remember the process of your death so clearly?"

Alice's steps suddenly stopped.

She frowned, a sense of unease creeping into her heart.

"What do you mean?"

“You should know very well what I mean.” Luo Ye sneered and replied in a low voice, “You have read so many records of parallel worlds, you should know very well what kind of setting the individual ‘Alice Margotrovid’ should be—Alice should be a magician, Alice should be a puppeteer—all your countless counterparts meet this standard, but why is it that only your power comes from a curse?”

"The answer is actually quite simple..." It suddenly moved closer to Alice and whispered in the girl's ear, "Because you have never let go, you have never forgotten. No matter how hard you try to separate your past life from your present life instead of treating your past and present lives as the same person like other time travelers, you cannot change the original hatred buried deep in your heart."

"Why me? I didn't do anything wrong. I didn't offend anyone. I didn't break any laws, and I didn't violate any morals. Why should I be trampled and crushed to death, while the people who made me die in such agony... why weren't they punished at all?"

Its sound was elusive, like a wriggling snake.

"In a stampede, no one is held responsible for killing someone; only government agencies are. But that attack was because of an alien invasion, so the government agencies weren't held responsible either—my death, or rather your death, was defined as an accident. No one took responsibility, no one paid the price. They tortured you and me to death in public. And everyone felt that no one needed to pay for it!"

“I…” Alice let out a soft breath. “I killed the culprit who caused all of this.”

"So what?" Luo Ye retorted mockingly, "You're all calm now? Your hatred has disappeared? Because there was a mastermind behind it all, you don't feel any resentment towards the people who killed you? Oh... you don't really hate them. You just found out the identities of those who trampled you to death and the names of the four car drivers in that world. And then you did absolutely nothing!"

Luo Ye shook his head. "You saved the world, but you couldn't save yourself... No, you could have saved yourself, but you chose not to. You thought that by 'laughing off' past grievances, you could settle all karmic debts. But... how can someone who can't even understand their own thoughts aspire to become extraordinary!?"

"Convince me, convince me, and you can become a Demon King of Obsession, equivalent to the fourth tier. And if you can't, you can still become a Demon King..."

"But I will be the one to leave from here."

Chapter Seventy: The Arrival

"Convince you? Why should I convince you?"

Alice tilted her head slightly, her lips parted slightly, and she looked surprised. "Did you really think that by setting up a shoddy stage, dressing up as I looked before I died in my past life, and then making up some nonsense based on my old memories, I would actually believe that you are my true self, that lingering trace of hatred from my past life?"

"Don't joke around. I'm willing to cooperate with your acting because your scene is indeed quite well recreated, and it really makes me feel a little nostalgic. But..." She stretched out her hand, and the scepter of control suddenly appeared in her hand. With a flick of the thin and sharp tip, the colorless radiance surging from her heart made 'Luo Ye' subconsciously retreat!

“You—!” it screamed in a mixture of shock and rage.

“I am Alice, Alice Margotrovid. Since you can appear in the depths of my heart, you should understand that I never fight a battle I am not prepared for, and I never step into a situation that I am not confident in—once I make a move, I always have at least a ninety percent chance of winning. And I have prepared for so much and for so long for my ascension to the transcendent, do you think I do not know what I should face?”

The girl stood still, watching as 'Luo Ye' in her field of vision rapidly shed its bloody, mangled outer shell, revealing a solid body constructed of black mist—a humanoid mass formed by a curse. When it no longer concealed its true nature, an immense hatred erupted outwards from its center. In the blink of an eye, the illusion of this modern seaside town vanished completely, replaced by endless darkness and the curse.

Curses, curses, endless curses. There are curses from the dead who died violently against their murderers. There are curses from the elderly against illness, from the sorrowful against imperial power, from the powerless against heaven and earth—they gather together, forming a community, creating strongholds and evil realms. And their essence remains the same.

They are Alice's inner world, her inner world, and the source of her strength.

And the enemy she has to fight is obviously obvious.

Because she knew exactly what she was doing—she had previously gathered the billions of curses in this shoddy world into a bead and swallowed it, with the aim of igniting and completely taming the primal hatred within her heart, so that she could attain the position of Demon King of a soul obsessed with hatred. And since her ritual had not gone wrong, what she was about to face was also within her expectations.

—It's nothing more than a collection of her power, an aggregate of curses.

"Impossible! How could you possibly see through it!" the dark figure screamed, sharp claws sprouting from its body as it lunged at Alice!

"Aren't you afraid of your obsessions continuing? Aren't you afraid of your inner demons devouring your body? You've already reached this level, even surpassed the extraordinary, and this should be what you fear most! But! But! Why do you dare to be so audacious!"

"Obsession? Inner demons?" Alice chuckled, easily deflecting the black figure's repeated attacks with her Staff of Control. "I know my inner demons perfectly well. My vast present life has long since crushed my insignificant past life, and the only one who can trouble me is Patchouli—if ​​you appeared in her form, I might actually have a slight chance of misjudging you. But past lives… what do they matter?"

She shook her head slightly.

"If I were to actually engage in a verbal battle with you, I would be falling into your trap. Moreover, even if you are truly my inner demon, even if you are my true obsession, I will not waste my time here with you. This is a battle of the mind; there's no reason to play by the enemy's rules."

She reached out, and the black form's attack was completely interrupted. With a casual sweep of her staff, she easily dismantled the curse formed by the black mist into several unconnected parts.

then……

She devoured them piece by piece, like eating jelly.

"My rules, my power, my hatred, my curse," Alice whispered, as she devoured, the form constructed from her mind gradually turning into the cursed black. The darkness that constituted this space surged into her as her soul transformed. And her aura grew violently with it!

One time, two times, ten times, a hundred times.