Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

In her vision, Alice, suspended a kilometer away, resembled a dormant star, its seemingly harmless exterior concealing boundless light and heat. She knew that any rash action would immediately invite merciless retaliation—thus she dared not make a move. However, this waiting was bound to come to an end.

Esdeath narrowed her eyes slightly: "It seems Neos's assessment of you was wrong. You are much more aggressive than expected—the first person to die in our team shouldn't have been killed by you, right? But since you're not going to wipe us out completely, and you're blocking my way here, preventing me from leaving, perhaps you have something to say?"

“It’s just to give the rest of the team some room to grow. Always finishing things ahead of time isn’t good for their future development. And the reason I cornered you here isn’t because I have anything to say to you.” Alice tilted her head slightly, raised an eyebrow, and the intricate magic circle behind her slowly rotated. “It’s because I think it’s necessary to give the others some confidence. Defeating you too quickly… isn’t good.”

“You—” A wisp of blue light flickered between Esdeath’s brows, but she immediately suppressed her agitated heart. Her body arched slightly, her sharp gaze like that of a predator poised to pounce. “You’re trying to provoke me, aren’t you? Maintaining this gravity field probably isn’t entirely effortless for you. Perhaps I should just take action now and puncture your paper tiger facade?”

“That’s your freedom, I have no interest in interfering,” Alice said softly and casually, her outstretched hand holding a pointer-like staff of control. “I’m also too lazy to explain to you what a domain or an aura is. Because you’re just a not-so-pure ‘warrior’ rather than a ‘scholar’ who can sit at the same table with me and discuss the Dao. And I can give you a little reminder, the battle over there will be over soon, and if you don’t make your move now, you’ll miss your chance.”

"Insanity!"

With a swift movement, her body tore through the air and appeared before Alice! Although the invisible force field could distort the surrounding spacetime, it did not pose much of a threat to her physical body!

[A probing attack! The Alice I know would never display such arrogance before victory is within her grasp!]

She raised her right fist, and the instant she threw it, a massive ice rock, as large as a mountain, solidified behind her. The cold and sheer mass of the ice rock accompanied her near-powerful strike, crashing down and colliding violently with a magical shield that suddenly appeared half a meter in front of Alice!

The ground cracked, creating a crater with a radius of three kilometers centered on the impact point. The torn fissure continued to extend outwards—Esdeath flew back at an even faster speed than she had arrived. And as she adjusted her stance, her senses detected Alice's presence!

'break--'

A single magical cannon shot blasted a hole in the ground, from which gas erupted, transforming into a fiery cloud that swirled outwards. This single magical strike pierced the relatively thin crust of Middle-earth. Esdeath was blasted directly from the surface into the earth!

The bottom of the earth is the underground sky, and the deepest abyss is the highest mountain.

Just like Gandalf's battle against the ancient Balrog in the deepest part of the earth in the original work, the battlefield instantly transformed from the bright sunlight on the surface to the misty underground! Esdeath even crashed directly into the highest mountain underground, and the peak of the mountain began to collapse!

"Give me your all and prove to me that you are useful." Alice's voice came from the mountaintop, and with her voice, the entire collapsing mountain rapidly disintegrated at the molecular level. "I'm not wiping out your entire Southern Flame Continent team because your team is still useful to me, and I want that usefulness to be worth my time."

Alice!

Esdeath's scream echoed through the earth, and the crumbling mountains instantly froze into solidified ice. Her aura surged with an incredible speed. The frenzied energy, like a banshee's snakes, tore at the mountains and the sky beneath the earth!

The initial stage of the fourth-order gene lock is fully unleashed. The seventh sense of the microcosm is fully unleashed.

The world slowed down in her eyes, even without touching the lines of time and space. At this moment, she could even impede time and space with her superhuman physical body—in her greyish-white vision, where even the transmission of light could be discerned, Alice's suspended form was clearly visible. And Esdeath could even accurately discern the witch's features!

It was the real thing, a physical entity, a tangible target. The witch's location made it difficult for her to evade quickly at that moment!

"Take this—Light Speed ​​Fist! Aurora Execution!"

A cold light emerged from beneath the earth, and everything it illuminated was reduced to ashes! The rapidly spreading entropy reduction severed the molecular bonds between all tangible matter. And the light converged on the witch's chest!

The defensive magic array shattered at least a hundred layers in an instant. Each of these layers was capable of withstanding a direct hit from a low-yield nuclear bomb. Esdeath's fist, accompanying her charging figure, shattered the witch's strongest defense at the point where her anger and fighting power converged.

The punch pierced through all of Alice's defenses, striking the witch in the chest and penetrating her heart.

Then, silence fell.

Alice reached out and, under the incredulous gaze of the former Imperial general, pressed down on the other woman's head, dragging her body and fist towards her. The emotions contained within her pale blue eyes were indescribable.

"Do you know that I used my aura to suppress your fighting spirit, used your teammates to force you to think, and used arrogant words to ignite your fighting spirit? I even made a special trip underground before this operation to set up this battlefield—"

"You only need to look down to see the position I prepared beforehand deep underground. And when I eagerly anticipated this supposedly fierce battle to accumulate resources for my advancement, you told me that you hadn't grasped the eighth sense of your cosmos, hadn't touched the light of your soul, and were only at the initial stage of the fourth level of unlocking your genetic lock."

Do you know how disappointed and angry I am right now?

"You...have reached the mid-fourth stage!?"

"The power is there, but there's still a mental obstacle. I've gathered my inner light, but it hasn't become personalized; it could be considered either the limit of the fourth level or the inferior of the fourth level." Alice glanced at her coldly, and with a thought, runic chains manifested from the void, enveloping the defeated captain of the Southern Flame Continent team in a sealed sphere. She had no interest in wasting time on this person, and she had more important things to do.

"I finally understand why Chu Xuan assigned this task to me—he really did it quickly." She looked at the dome below the ground, and the next moment, she and the sealed sphere disappeared without a trace.

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

"All the beacon markings have become invalid, and all members of the Southern Flame Continent team have disappeared from the world—were they completely annihilated by the Central Continent team, leaving not a single molecule behind, or were they all banished to another dimension?"

Zhao Zhuikong abruptly stopped, a tremor running through his heart reminding him of the disappearance of his allies. The supposed entanglement with the Celestial Team was both a fact and a facade. When he separated from the Fellowship of the Ring, he had secretly placed teleportation beacons on several key members of the Southern Flame Continent team. He was waiting for the right moment, when he and another powerful member of the Eastern America team, Sirin, would launch a swift surprise attack via spatial teleportation, thereby reaping several sweet spoils in this cycle of reincarnation.

Ultimately, there's no such thing as a lasting alliance between reincarnation teams. After all, the final battle is just around the corner, the rewards for team battles are within reach, and everyone knows how important side quests and reward points are. Turning against former allies at the opportune moment is simply common practice among reincarnators. Only outliers like the Central Plains team, who are overly biased towards the good side, would be accustomed to upholding alliances and keeping their word.

"This is not good news." He tapped his forehead lightly, and an invisible wave of thought immediately spread out.

[Xilin, you should have sensed something unusual about the Southern Flame Continent team. The Central Continent team is probably planning to defeat them one by one, abandoning the chase game with the Celestial God team. Although we have the absolute advantage in combat strength, we can't kill them in the short term. Let's regroup first, and then make further plans.] — He mentally projected this signal onto the other end of the mental link.

However, all he received in return was silence.

He raised his eyebrows, and cracks appeared in the space around him, like a spiderweb. However, just as he was about to take a step, a murderous aura that swept towards him made him stop all his movements.

He knew this scent intimately, so intimately that even if his bones decayed and turned to ash, he would never forget this feeling. And his previously relaxed hands immediately tensed!

"...Sakura Sora".

"Long time no see, Brother Zhuikong." A sweet yet cool voice came from behind him.

Zhao Zhuikong's body stiffened abruptly, and the next moment, a dagger landed in his hand. Without hesitation, he swung his hand backward in a slash, and as he expected, the blade of the dagger precisely clashed with another blade—he turned, slashing, thrusting, cutting, and parrying. And that familiar figure, like his mirror image, caught all the daggers in the same manner.

Without using any enhancements or skills, relying solely on ancient fighting techniques from memory, they made their blades clash. One advanced, one retreated; one changed direction, one turned. The two assassins, like two ghosts, intertwined on this nameless wasteland, like two dancers of one mind performing a deadly dance on a mountain of knives. And with a flash of blood, the two simultaneously parted to the sides.

A small crack appeared on Zhao Yingkong's right earlobe, and a drop of crimson blood dripped from Zhao Zhuikong's left neck—he raised the dagger, staring at the drop of bright red blood hanging on the tip of the blade. The dagger then vanished with a trembling wrist.

"One injured, one dead, as always." Zhao Zhuikong let out a soft breath. "Yingkong, you have always been the strongest among us. Even now, it still is."

“Because your heart is in turmoil, Brother Zhui Kong.” Sparks flickered on Zhao Yingkong’s earlobe, and the tiny crack vanished in an instant. “You know I entered the Main God Space with my alternate personality, and then you tried to hypnotize yourself to get in as well. I bet you prepared a very exaggerated image to play a trick on me, after all, it seems someone was involved in the creation of my alternate personality.”

"...You already know, what can I say?" Zhao Zhuikong's lips curled into a bitter smile. "Since the only audience member has seen through the magician's trick, there's naturally no need for the drama to continue. And since you've reached this level, you should know what we're about to face."

"It's just a resurrection ritual prepared by someone unwilling to die. I used to think it was troublesome, but after seeing more of it in the cycle of reincarnation, I've realized that it's not without a solution." She suddenly paused, a sly smile appearing on Zhao Zhuikong's face. "However, just talking about it is definitely too much of a waste of time."

"Let's solve this problem in a more time-efficient way."

Section 22. Engagement. Please handle internal affairs properly.

As Zhao Yingkong spoke, her physical form crumbled, incinerated, and disintegrated into a cloud of dim ash. Within the ash burned intense flames, which in turn fueled a violent wind.

A gust of wind whipped up, rushing towards Zhao Zhuikong. The ground where the two had stood instantly turned to dust as the ashes fell. Molecular bonds were broken, heat absorbed, and the ash wind, which should have been scorching hot, became an extreme cold that plundered the temperature of everything. Complex organic matter was broken down into simple inorganic matter, and simple inorganic matter was decomposed into even purer elements and molecular clusters. In just a moment, a bottomless pit was etched into the place where the ash wind had swept up, and the energy released by the destruction of matter was completely absorbed by the ash wind, like a ferocious beast opening its jaws to devour Zhao Zhuikong!

Zhao Zhuikong retreated rapidly, but Hui Feng relentlessly pursued him. The two of them crossed a distance of more than ten kilometers in an instant, and a smooth rift valley that stretched for more than ten kilometers was carved straight out of the ground and continued to extend as the two chased each other!

From plains to hills, from hills to woodlands.

"As assassins who know each other well, your use of power so brutally doesn't mean it can hinder my judgment. Ying Kong, I know very well how strong you are." Zhao Zhuikong remained calm and composed, retreating with ease while a diamond-shaped crystal-like shield formed around him. It was a spatial rift, constantly shifting in position with Zhao Zhuikong's movements, every wisp of dust firmly sealed outside by this barrier constructed by the spatial structure itself. Not even a single particle could successfully touch the edge of his clothing.

A spatial fault is the most solid wall in the world. It does not actually possess hardness, nor does it have a physical form. It is width, it is distance. Being blocked by a spatial fault means that the distance between the surface and the interior of the fault is stretched to an extremely exaggerated degree. If you want to cross this obstacle by brute force, then you can only honestly traverse this void.

The spatial fault around Zhao Zhuikong represents a width of 14,000 kilometers. In other words, it would take more than 40,000 seconds for a sound to travel through the air from the surface of the fault to the inside. And a wisp of gray wind chasing him at ten times the speed of sound would need to overcome an obstacle of about 4,000 seconds.

This was a seemingly insurmountable distance, but neither Zhao Zhuikong nor Zhao Yingkong took it seriously. The instant Zhao Zhuikong's voice, accompanied by the unidirectional sound waves, crossed the fault line, a clear figure quietly appeared behind him from the ripples of the sound.

"Assassins need no words, for 'too many words lead to mistakes.'" Sakura's voice rang in his ear, and the next moment his head was severed from his neck. The spurting blood turned into mud in the air. And the mud rolled and imprisoned the humanoid figure constructed from sound!

“But words can often be a double-edged sword, and right now they are bait. You probably know this better than I do, my dear sister.” Zhao Zhuikong’s voice rang out from the mud—or perhaps it couldn’t be called mud, but rather a mass of life-giving fluid overflowing with organic solvent. Countless complex and intricate molecular organs emerged from it, both imprisoning the form that the voice had taken and deciphering the power it contained.

"Oh? You mean you want to sleep with your sister and are planning to do it?" Zhao Yingkong's cold yet slightly cunning voice rang out, and the next moment, the entire 'Life Essence' solidified into a rigid lump like overfired pottery. Zhao Yingkong's voice-constructed form easily shattered it, and the surrounding rhomboid spatial rifts collapsed in the same instant!

The swirling winds of ash surged toward the coarse, pottery-like lump. But just before the ash winds touched it, the lumps disintegrated, releasing a massive amount of light and heat that coalesced into another torrent of wind!

wind.

The essence of wind is the flow of particles.

The wind that forms Zhao Yingkong is ashes, containing her modified primordial flame power. The wind that forms Zhao Zhuikong, on the other hand, is fragments of space, with countless spacetime rifts of varying lengths and widths carrying his power and information.

Winds clashed and collided. From the hills into the woodland, the woodland was transformed into a wasteland by the collision of particle streams. From the wasteland into the lake, the water evaporated, the soil dried, and fish and birds were torn into large molecular aggregates, which were then swallowed and devoured by the two intersecting winds.

“That’s really your style, Sakura. It was definitely my mistake to steer the conversation toward that area.” Zhao Zhuikong’s voice carried a hint of embarrassment. Embarrassment represented his emotions, and emotions meant fluctuating winds. When he spoke these words, a dynamic instrument composed of particle streams emerged from the winds, and the instrument’s effect was to forcibly generate pure water from hydrogen and oxygen in the area.

Water is a liquid, and liquids can hinder the movement of ash. Even if this water is absorbed by heat and turns into dust-like ice the moment it is formed, it can still be effective.

"Knowing your mistake is a good thing. It means that you and I are both stuck at that critical point where the light of the soul converges. You haven't crossed that irreversible step yet, so we can still talk." Ying Kong's voice came calmly. She slightly altered the nature of the Ash Wind, and the ashes formed dynamic functional mechanisms between them. The originally stable space was easily disturbed by her, thus shaking the stability of the spacetime fragments on which Zhao Zhuikong entrusted his will.

—Anyway, it's just mutual harm, nothing serious.

“There’s still room for discussion—” Zhao Zhuikong said, his tone slightly hesitant. “It seems you know much more than I expected, little sister Yingkong.”

"Of course I know a lot. I can even guess the stupid plan you're thinking of—it's nothing more than taking advantage of my alternate personality's lack of understanding of the cause and effect, deliberately pretending to be a bad guy to force her to advance to the fourth tier. Then, when she's almost at that level, we'll reunite during a team battle, and then use the clumsy method of 'completing the incomplete' to fulfill your desire for sacrifice—is that right? I've seen the description of the Vampire's Touch exchange item, my stupid brother!"

She grew angrier and angrier as she spoke, until even the raging wind that formed her form became as violent as if she were on drugs. In an instant, she gained the upper hand in her battle with Zhao Zhuikong, and she directly carried the wind that Zhao Zhuikong had transformed into, crashing into a mountain range that was quite familiar to anyone who had seen the Lord of the Rings movies!

'boom------!!!!!'

The winds swirled, cutting through the thick rocks on the mountainside. The Moria Mine, where the Balrog was buried, was blasted through the mountain's surface by the relentless bombardment of two extraordinary beings, creating a smooth tunnel half a kilometer in diameter. And the dwarves' long-forgotten kingdom was thus exposed to the world!

The winds seeped into the ground, and only then did the celestial phenomena caused by the two intersecting winds transform from a sign of power into reality—for the next week, nearly a fifth of Rohan would be covered by violent whirlwinds, torrential rains, earthquakes, and flash floods. Whether these storms would subside after a week remained to be seen.

Those were the troubles and pains that mortals had to face. Perhaps some overly kind soul would be willing to suppress the harsh weather caused by these celestial changes with a few cannonballs fired into the sky. But clearly, the Zhao siblings had neither the time nor the interest to do such superfluous things. They collided with each other and plunged into the ground, and the entire massive mine ruins began to collapse from the inside.

"You... really know me." Zhao Zhuikong transformed back into human form the instant he touched the rocky ground. A bitter smile appeared on his lips. "But there's no better way."

The next moment, Zhao Yingkong appeared on a platform thirty meters away from him. Having heard her brother's words, she was clearly...not very happy.

“If you have already reached the fourth tier, gathered the light of your soul and personalized it, then perhaps there really is no way to figure it out. But now—listen up and listen carefully!”—She took a step across the void and arrived in front of Zhao Zhuikong, throwing a simple yet effective jab at his chest!

Zhao Zhui blocked the punch, but another punch followed immediately. He blocked again, only to be met with an unavoidable heavy whip kick—himself, along with the dagger he had swung to block, was struck squarely from above by this downward kick. The pressure of hundreds of thousands of tons slammed him into the ground, and the floor beneath his feet shattered instantly, sending him plummeting straight into the abyss below!

"Whether it's you or me, we are all creations of that so-called 'Empty Project.' Our genes are inherently flawed, and the flaws aren't just in our genes, but also in our cognition, our spirit, our soul—we are born incomplete beings. The reason we were able to reach the fourth stage of the gene lock so quickly and easily is simply because we borrowed the legacy of that nameless assassin. Because we are now essentially a part of that nameless assassin's body, and being part of the fourth stage, we are naturally also at the fourth stage!"

Following Zhao Zhuikong's descent, she unleashed a series of shrewd and skillful attacks, as smooth as a flowing river. In just a few seconds, Zhao Zhuikong was struck nearly ten thousand times. Naturally, this brother, who was a typical doting brother by any standard, could only resort to passive defense when faced with his raging sister.

"What can I do? It's a fact that our power comes from that fourth-tier nameless assassin—at this level, you and I both know very well that assassin didn't die! It just went into slumber, slumbering deep within our hearts, drawing nourishment and using it to advance to a higher level. You should be able to feel that darkness deep within us; that's it! We will face it sooner or later! And even if we try to escape, the power within us that surges at will will propel us toward where it is! Do you understand, Sakura? We can't stop now!"

"So, I'll tell you how to stop right now! Idiot!" The next moment, an exceptionally intense layer of flame ignited on Zhao Yingkong's fist. This strike pierced through all of Zhao Zhuikong's defenses and hit his chest—with a muffled groan that was hard to pinpoint, a massive amount of information was injected into Zhao Zhuikong's body along with this fiery fist!

'boom--!!!'

The two falling figures crashed into the bottom of the mine, from where they plunged further into the deeper abyss. A few seconds later, Zhao Zhuikong's eyes, slightly dazed from processing data rapidly, regained focus. He reached out and pressed down, and the two falling figures were suspended in mid-air above the abyss. Extreme motion transformed into extreme stillness, and the surrounding space was instantly frozen in place.

It neither touches the sky nor the ground.

Zhao Yingkong stood about five meters in front of him, quietly watching him.

"The Houtu Ritual... uses the will of countless dead souls as a foundation to forcibly shatter and reassemble one's own mind. Thus, with knowledge and power that do not belong to that nameless assassin, one can rise from mortal to the fourth tier again—who came up with this brilliant idea? I feel like this is even more difficult than allowing a mortal who has never unlocked their genetic potential to instantly generate the light of the soul?" He rubbed his forehead, looking at his sister in front of him and couldn't help but let out a bitter smile.

"No, this should be a viable strategy. Because you suppressed your power at this stage in this way, right? As expected of my proud little sister, as always... exceptionally talented."

“There’s no need to belittle yourself, Brother Zhuikong.” Zhao Yingkong waved his hand. “I was able to survive this ritual not because I have any special talent, but because I had enough resources, plus we had such a skilled witch in the team. If it were just me, I would have died completely in the first step. And if the others didn’t have as many resources as we did, they would have been lost in the minds of thousands of undead at the moment of regeneration.”

"This is a ritual that only we can use; it's practically tailor-made for us. And in this world, there's a place that happens to have enough undead to serve as the base material for the ritual."

"The undead army in the Black Gate..." Zhao Zhuikong's lips twitched, his expression a mixture of laughter and tears. "I never imagined that after all my hard work and planning, I would still have to rely on my sister's power in the end. I really have... failed a bit."

“There’s no need to complain anymore, Tsurugi-nii.” Sakura shook her head slightly. “Alice will help arrange the ritual. Although the process might be troublesome, it shouldn’t be a problem to get it done in this world. Of course, our team won’t do this for free.”

She stared at Zhao Zhuikong and said seriously, "Have you heard of Constantine's Soul Contract?"

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