Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

“I also wanted to dissect the elves of this world, to experience the desperate yet beautiful screams these delicate creatures, supposedly favored by the gods, could utter when they were on the verge of death—what a pity.” He shook his head slightly.

Then, he immediately heard his sister's emotionless voice.

"Brother Zhuikong, judging from your tone, it seems you had a pretty good time in the East American team. You even developed such a novel hobby. Looks like you and that Jackal Doctor have a lot in common." Zhao Yingkong's voice was sweet, but flat. Her tone was gentle, but still flat. "By the way, that Jackal Doctor was killed as a Reincarnator. It was in the team battle I participated in."

The bloodshot in Zhao Zhuikong's eyes vanished abruptly.

"Heh, it's just an occasional way to vent some stress." He subconsciously pulled up his coat collar, feeling a chill run down his neck for some reason. "You know, Sakura, I only managed to hypnotize myself into this world after you were chosen for the reincarnation space. To fit the persona your alternate personality had for me, I had to adjust my mindset a bit. And inevitably, there were some aftereffects..."

"...It's just a little habit, Sakura. If you don't like it, I can change it anytime."

"I see." Sakura's lips curled slightly. "It seems I've put a lot of pressure on you, Tsurugi-nii. From what I know, the lives of young people living alone are somewhat colorless. But I think someone as good at finding fun for themselves as you certainly wouldn't let yourself suffer. So—"

She tilted her head slightly.

"I bet you found me a sister-in-law, or maybe more than one? Or...did you kill them all after you had your way with them?"

"That's not true, don't talk nonsense." Zhao Zhuikong's reply was quick and extremely concise. "With that girl Xilin in the East American team, life is already quite colorful. I only spend a little more time on it occasionally when I'm killing people, where would I find the time to think about those messy things?"

"Oh, you mean that your older sister, Celine, keeps a close eye on you?"

"You..." Zhao Zhuikong's face stiffened, then a look of exasperation crossed his expression. He suddenly reached out and, ignoring Zhao Yingkong's protests, ruffled her smooth black hair into a messy bird's nest. Only when Zhao Yingkong's face turned bright red and she raised her foot to kick his knee did he remove his mischievous hand.

"Don't overthink it, Sakura. There's absolutely no way I could get involved with that human-shaped walking doom magnet, Sirin, in any way that's not a comradeship. After all, I want to live a few more years, to live until we leave the Main God Space together. I don't want to suddenly die one day without knowing why." Zhao Zhuikong sighed deeply. He looked around and headed towards the palace along the main road of the elven city. The brother and sister then adopted the same strolling and chatting strategy as Patchouli's group, except that here they didn't need to extend their route.

—Because the road to the center of the palace is quite long. And neither of the two here are particularly adept at finding things—though they could certainly manage it if they used their extraordinary life-force perception and skills. But there's no rush now, and there's no reason not to use the appropriate search tools—the assassins deployed the witch's specially made holy sword search device when they broke through the elves' defensive barrier, and that device is still operational.

"Sakura, guess how many times I've used resurrection items and how many horror movies I've watched since entering the Main God Space?"

He didn't keep us in suspense and gave us the answer directly.

"Nineteen times, I died nineteen times in the cycle of reincarnation, and I experienced as many as thirteen reincarnations. In some worlds, I even died several times in a row. And among these unique experiences, at least fifteen times it was thanks to that jinx, Sirin!"

His eyes twitched violently, giving him an extremely gloomy appearance. That ferocious and twisted expression even made Zhao Yingkong's heart rate fluctuate. She could feel genuine turmoil and madness in his eyes, as well as a dark emotion that was almost so intense as to become tangible.

"I knew she was a walking embodiment of bad luck the first time I met her. The horror movie was called Deep Rising... a horror movie that left a very deep impression on me. The plot itself wasn't actually difficult; all I had to deal with was a mutated giant octopus. Before I took action, I deduced that it was some kind of biological weapon created by a local force. Although I lacked the necessary evidence and couldn't find the on-site monitoring personnel that I assumed would be there, as long as I killed all the survivors along with the monster, there wouldn't be any problems. And then..."

"I clearly killed everyone who might hinder me and shut down all the machines that could potentially release alarm signals. Theoretically, I had completed that simple task with only six people involved, and I only needed to wait for the results of the God's judgment before I could return—but who knew that on that day, a high-ranking member of the organization that was controlling this bio-weapon behind the scenes suddenly decided to personally inspect the progress of the project, and coincidentally, they had a huge bio-army less than 100 kilometers away in the sea!"

"That just means you happened to be in the wrong place at the right time," Zhao Yingkong shrugged. "That doesn't prove anything."

“Indeed, that doesn’t prove anything. I had just arrived in the God Space back then and had only just experienced one horror movie. I only felt something was slightly off at the time. After that horror movie, only Sirin and I were left, while all the other newcomers or veterans who came before me were all dead.”

He exhaled and continued his story.

"The second horror movie, Independence Day, is a typical recruitment ad for Americans fighting aliens. The aliens aren't actually that strong. Apart from an energy shield technology and space travel capability, they're almost useless. Their weapons are just common early plasma cannons, and their spaceships aren't structurally strong either. It's not hard to see that it's actually a ratings-boosting movie. Although I considered the possibility of reinforcements, after assessing the enemy's combat strength, I judged that the possibility was not high."

"During my prior investigation, I obtained an analysis report on those aliens from the local government, and combined it with my previous analysis of the movie Independence Day. I deduced that even if reinforcements came, they would be within my capabilities. After all, I had already reached the fourth level by then, and dealing with enemies of that level wouldn't be difficult. At that time, that girl Sirin had just returned to her real world and was acting like she was completely dejected, so I didn't bother with her and just let her entertain herself."

"I wish I could travel back in time and give my past self a good beating." He shook his head vigorously. "Leaving Sirin unattended and letting her roam freely was absolutely the worst decision I made back then, without a doubt. It was precisely because of this that the alien mothership paid more attention to Earth in that world because of her reckless use of spatial abilities. And the end result was that they eventually sent a fleet large enough to fill the entire solar system, and then, in one fell swoop, they pulverized Earth!"

"That's fine, it's just a tough battle. However, thanks to her, I had to push my genetic lock to its limit during that horror movie. And as you know, the East Sea team, which was almost wiped out in the extreme cold, will face a captain's test."

An overwhelming sense of sorrow permeated the air.

"I had to forcibly accept the God's realm advancement, from being able to exert fourth-order abilities but also completely suppressing the uncontrolled gene lock to becoming a true fourth-order. My inner demons erupted, my cognition became disordered, and by the time I came to my senses, I had already killed all the new recruits—but that happened to be a team battle."

“You can imagine.” He glanced helplessly at Sakura, who was also feeling the same way. “When the enemy breeding team confirmed our strength, they immediately realized the difference in strength between us. Then… they wiped out all their rookies, ruined the main quest, and then simply used a resurrection item to commit suicide and get lost. And that world is a low-level world that emphasizes team battles rather than the plot, so there are no side quests to obtain.”

Zhao Yingkong could hardly bear to listen anymore, because this was beyond the level of something that would move anyone to tears. She couldn't help but put herself in their shoes, and then she immediately felt a wave of dizziness wash over her, her mind racing with rage.

However, Zhao Zhuikong continued to speak.

"After barely managing to accumulate enough points to roll back into the Main God Space, I tried to suppress my inner demons and temporarily handed over control of the team to her—I wanted to see if it was just bad luck or something else. And everything that happened afterward confirmed my guess."

"That girl is a walking embodiment of bad luck, and she especially loves to court death. It was just a very ordinary Terminator world, a simple storyline used by the main god to help the East American team recover from heavy losses in a team battle. All you had to do was delete Skynet to complete the game, but she insisted on researching Valkyrie technology in that world, claiming it was to enhance the survival rate of newcomers... Not only did she research it, but she also kept the network connected during her experiments, resulting in Skynet stealing her technology and overcoming that one in infinitesimal chance to integrate it, forcibly catalyzing the creation of a world will!"

"This was the first time. The second time was in the American version of Ju-on. She planned to kill that unfortunate female ghost directly, but before she did, she said she wanted to test the waters first, just to be on the safe side. So she traveled hundreds of kilometers to find a famous exorcism team in America and even brought along a devout nun who was said to have received divine favor—the result was obvious, the exorcists were all killed. However, that nun... truly did receive divine favor."

"She didn't notice, but I did. The nun's holy soul, manifested when she died, directly purified that unfortunate female ghost. In reality, she killed the nun's soul, mistaking it for a ghost. And what happened next was only natural; divine retribution made us suffer greatly!"

"That wasn't the most infuriating part. After that, there was the Spartan 300 World War. She..."

Zhao Zhuikong suddenly fell silent. Before they knew it, the two had entered the elven palace in Rivendell. Then, on the throne in the very center of the palace, the machine created to search for the Holy Sword had completed its mission.

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

This is bad. I'm 17,000 words short of perfect attendance this month... which means I'll have to update at least twice a day for the next three days, with a minimum of 6,000 words each time...

Chapter Thirty-Three: You could actually travel a little faster.

The elves reforged the holy sword, placed it on the throne, and then the entire tribe left the former city together.

There was no king, no ministers, only a solitary sword—the mechanism used to retrieve the sword transformed into a container, which was then picked up and filled into the container.

There were no traps, no battles, no conflicts, and no ambushes.

All that remained were the neatly arranged swords and a silent palace.

[This is different from what Chu Xuan said. He mentioned there would be a difficult battle... Was it when we left? No, the space here is very stable; teleportation shouldn't be difficult. Even without teleportation, we can physically traverse this short distance and reunite with the others.]

Could it be that Chu Xuan makes mistakes too? Everyone else trusts and values ​​him so much...

Zhao Yingkong's brows furrowed almost imperceptibly. Having only been resurrected in the previous world, she hadn't actually experienced Chu Xuan's schemes and wisdom firsthand. In her view, Alice from *The Mummy* and *Final Destination* was far superior to Chu Xuan in *Alien: The Grudge*. Although her premonitions after waking up constantly reminded her not to oppose Chu Xuan, and everyone around her seemed to trust him implicitly, she simply followed the crowd.

Her slight hesitation did not escape Zhao Zhuikong's notice.

"What's wrong? Did something happen?" he asked, slightly puzzled. "It's safe around here. I haven't sensed anything threatening. Including that holy sword that I believe is only slightly infused with alien energy, the two of us working together should be able to handle anything that might arise."

“Don’t be so sure of yourself. Don’t forget how you just described Xilin. You’ve been through over a dozen reincarnations with her, and you’re telling me you haven’t been tainted by bad luck—do you even believe it yourself?” Zhao Yingkong glanced at her brother, who she now considered unreliable. She shook her head slightly. “It just felt a little too smooth. If I had known it would be like this, I would have only needed to send Zhan Lan and Ming Yanwei; we wouldn’t have needed to do it ourselves…”

"Maybe there's a surprise to come?" Zhao Zhuikong shrugged. "I think I'm pretty lucky. After all, although Xilin always causes trouble for me, if it weren't for her, I really wouldn't be able to maintain the early to high stage of the fourth tier after experiencing more than ten horror movies—every death has slowed down the progress of my uncontrollable gene lock activation. In that sense, meeting her is actually my greatest luck."

"The brush with death actually slows down progress?" Zhao Yingkong frowned slightly, then relaxed. Yes, the first three stages of gene locks do indeed involve teetering on the brink of death, which can be quickly unlocked through mental stimulation and the blessing of good fortune. However, mental interference is only effective in the third stage of brain development. Once the fourth stage is reached, the so-called tension and stimulation can be freely transformed or deleted at will. Furthermore, changes to individual genes cannot be interfered with through subjective perception.

This is indeed an effective strategy; death can indeed interrupt the activation process of high-level gene locks. Although Zhao Zhuikong would certainly be too ashamed to use such a suppressive method, if it's a last resort caused by external circumstances—that's a different story.

"Alright, your theory does seem to have a point or two." Ying Kong shook her head slightly and waved her hand. The automatic container that sealed the Holy Sword opened a pair of small jets and floated up, then immediately switched to anti-gravity propulsion and floated beside her. She tilted her head, ignoring everything in the palace, and walked back the way she came. As she walked, she resumed the conversation that had been interrupted earlier.

"Continue, Brother Zhuikong. What happened in the world of Sparta 300? I'm a little bit curious."

“An undeserved disaster.” Zhao Zhuikong rubbed his forehead, which was darkened from excessive recollection of terrible events. “If you want to know, I’ll tell you.”

"As I told you before, our East American team suffered a terrible blow in the Ju-on world. Although I remember that a few talented newcomers helped us survive, the team's overall rating with the God still dropped significantly. So after that, the God arranged a simple horror movie like '300 Spartans' for us. And the difficulty of the mission is not actually that great."

"The mission is to assist King Leonidas in holding Thermopylae for a month—a very simple mission. Leonidas is just a plot character who has unlocked the third-tier gene lock and has an A-level enhancement that he has completely mastered. Xerxes, his enemy, is only a pseudo-fourth-tier character with many flaws and only passable survivability, thanks to the cooperation of the legion."

"Simple mission, simple enemy. I don't know if it was because the God of God was taking care of us, but in that horror movie, we didn't even need to think or plan. We just needed to play the role of the Greek mercenaries that the God of God had specially arranged for us, and honestly guard that mobile fortress called Thermopylae for thirty days without any problems."

"The difficulty level is only for five people, and we, even I, can earn extra reward points and side quests by killing special enemies that have definitely not reached the fourth tier. Sakura, you should know that after unlocking the fourth tier gene lock, or having an S-rank or higher enhancement, it becomes very difficult for reincarnators to obtain rewards simply by killing specific enemies. This is because the main god will significantly reduce the rewards for powerful reincarnators to farm points, so as not to make us strong individuals farm points too ridiculously."

He sighed.

"Those were truly delightful days. Sirin and I worked together, and without making a big fuss when we attacked, we managed to rake in a fortune from Xerxes's army. We also forged a good friendship with King Leonidas. At that time, I suppressed my inner demons and even planned to transform that world into our East American team's permanent base, and establish a permanent stronghold there to train the few rookies in the team who could survive their first horror movie..."

"It seems your wish didn't come true." Zhao Yingkong looked at her unfortunate brother with some sympathy. "But you should have kept a close eye on Xilin back then, right? How could something still go wrong?"

"...That's what I was thinking too." Zhao Zhuikong's face was terribly grim. He quickened his pace slightly, and after leaving the palace in Rivendell, he took to the air and flew towards the City of the Dead—no strange incidents occurred until the two left the airspace of Rivendell. Until the two passed through the clouds and landed on the clouds, there were no obstacles or obstacles.

—It seems the elves truly foresaw their arrival, and their deductions regarding their purpose and strength were absolutely accurate. Those few elemental giants alone couldn't have probed the assassins' full power. If that's the case, then the elves are even more difficult to deal with than the reincarnators had anticipated.

Zhao Zhuikong wasn't afraid of those who dared to confront him head-on. In terms of sheer fists, he wasn't really that scary; if he lost, he could simply die and go back to his death. But if his opponent possessed not only immense strength but also great intelligence and the ingenious methods they could utilize that intelligence—then he would have a real headache.

Fortunately, he doesn't have a headache now.

He continued the conversation that he had been unable to finish on the ground.

"Unfortunately, I didn't think things through enough." He lightly landed on a drifting cloud. The previously ethereal cloud immediately stabilized under his will. Beneath this stable exterior, a dynamic mechanism was formed, propelling the cloud at high speed while simultaneously constructing a fairing above to isolate airflow using a force field.

"I thought that as long as I stopped all her whimsical, seemingly unreliable or seemingly somewhat reliable plans, and suppressed the abilities and reactions that she and I displayed on the outside to just enough and never flaunted them, I could break free from that terrible, doomed future—but I never expected that I would ultimately underestimate her."

The clouds beneath their feet sped toward their destination. Then, Sakura went over and rubbed her unlucky brother's head.

Zhao Zhuikong's expression calmed down, and he smiled and nodded to his younger sister.

"We got through the first twenty-nine days without incident, and then on the thirtieth day, an accident occurred. An accident that was completely unexpected and could be described as a farce!"

"On the thirtieth day, we utterly crushed Xerxes's army, and in this final battle, with the time precisely calculated and only one minute remaining before our escape, we even defeated Xerxes himself. All our enemies vanished from our sight, while our allies surrounded us. Then, at that very moment, as she finished off Xerxes with a spatial cannon, she uttered a single sentence—'Perish under the mighty power of time and space!'"

"Then, everything changed."

"...This sounds like a very ordinary victory declaration, at most a bit chuunibyou...but Miss Sirin really can control time and space, right? Is there a problem with telling the truth at this level?" Zhao Yingkong tilted her head in confusion.

“Ah, of course there’s no problem with that one sentence. In fact, I didn’t think there was a problem at the time…” Zhao Zhuikong waved his hand dejectedly. “At least until the voice of Ahura Mazda, the supreme god of the Persian Zoroastrianism, came from Darius’s corpse, and I heard Him question the sky— ‘Koloros, you actually broke the agreement and attacked,’ I always thought there was no problem.”

“And when the sky was covered by the spinning clock, including the countdown on the God's wristwatch, and all the colors and phenomena in my vision turned gray as time froze, I gave up on thinking about it any further.” He helplessly spread his hands. “I’m too lazy to think about why Ahura Mazda, the Zoroastrian supreme god with at least a full fourth-tier high-level strength, and Korros, the primordial Titan from Greek mythology who controls the operation of time, would appear in a five-player difficulty horror movie for scoring purposes. I only know that if Sirin hadn’t been so impulsive and kept quiet, we might have returned to the God's Space with a full load of reward points and side quests, instead of being directly drawn into the all-out war between the Persian and Greek pantheons, as we did afterward.”

"Ahura Mazda... Korros... I don't know the outcome of the war between gods. I only know that when I regained my senses of the normal workings of time, my party had returned to the day three hundred years after our arrival in Sparta. All the dead enemies had been resurrected, so the reward points and side quests were all canceled by the main god. And when we arrived at Thermopylae again with the same identities, the king who ruled the Spartans had changed from Leonidas to a bald, tattooed man named Kratos. And while possessing power comparable to the god of war, his eyes were filled only with extreme hatred for all things and the gods."

"He was a tool created by the Greek gods to kill gods. Unfortunately, we, who have already entered the fourth stage of the genetic lock, are also classified as gods. Although the all-out war that affected the two pantheons began at Thermopylae before the enemy made their move, unfortunately, the main god's mission remains unchanged—we must hold Thermopylae for thirty days before we can end this world."

“I lost my first life in the cycle of reincarnation there,” Zhao Zhuikong sighed helplessly. “Then I was resurrected there—Xilin made a deal with Koloros using her time authority, allowing time to reverse again before the second thirty days ended. My reincarnation team barely managed to escape that damned…god-like world when the third thirty days ended.”

"Cirin probably doesn't remember the history of the second thirty days anymore. When her time-manipulation ability was stripped away, part of her memories and soul were damaged. So, she should only have the memory of me playing hide-and-seek and whack-a-mole with Kratos during the third thirty days. It is also for this reason that I have been able to tolerate her until now instead of turning against her when I get angry. And it is also for this reason that, despite fighting through more than ten reincarnation worlds, she is still only at the limit of the fourth level."

He reached out and gently grasped a wisp of air in front of him. It was unclear what he wanted to grasp, but Zhao Yingkong, who had a subtle connection with him, sensed that her unfortunate brother's emotions were as complicated as a mushy stewed wonton.

"That idiot, that moron, that jinx—she herself said that before entering the cycle of reincarnation, she was a major villain who tried to destroy the world. It's pathetic that that world was reduced to needing someone like her to destroy it. It's only in a place like the Main God Space, where resurrection items cost 8,000 points each, that she's been able to live so long. In other worlds, she'd probably have been exploited and sold off hundreds of years ago, probably even happily counting her money before she was done. So…"

He suddenly turned his head to look at his sister. His mixed emotions subsided in an instant, replaced by seriousness.

"Don't bully her, and don't abandon her, Sakura. What she really wants is just companions and friends."

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

Go write the second section _(:з」∠)_

Section Thirty-Four: Cherish Life, Stay Away From…

However, three minutes later, when the four of them finally reunited above the ruins of the City of the Dead, Zhao Zhuikong suddenly felt an unusual interest in playing football, and a certain silly-looking purple-haired head was perfect to be used as a football.

He was certain he could kick that stupid head from Isengard to Mordor with a single kick.

“So…” His eye twitched, his gaze shifting from the giant, freshly baked, still steaming basin directly below his feet to a fixed stare at someone. “…That place below, a few minutes ago it was called the City of the Dead, right?”

He sensed no trace of the dead below, and considering the ruins of what was once a mountain, now a basin, it was obvious what had happened—and his heart sank involuntarily.

"Hehehe, I accidentally provoked those undead down there. And then..." A certain purple-haired idiot scratched her head, somewhat embarrassed, trying to get away with it with a cute act. Unfortunately, neither of the two extraordinary assassins looked at her, but instead turned their gaze to another purple-haired person whose head clearly had little to do with stupidity.

"It's just a fairly common experimental accident." Patchouli's surroundings were surrounded by numerous light screens, each displaying a flurry of information—Zhao Zhuikong, with his keen eyesight, could clearly discern that the screens were displaying a modified version of some large-scale ritual. Furthermore, many previously marked 'safe' white entries were being rapidly changed to unmarked crimson.

A vein bulged on someone's forehead, and just as he was about to explode, he caught a glimpse of his sister's ambiguous smile out of the corner of his eye—his sister didn't seem to care at all about this obviously terrible sight.

So he had to swallow the breath he had just managed to muster.