Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"...Could you explain what happened?" Zhao Zhuikong forced a smile and looked at Patchouli. "You know, I take this ceremony very seriously."

“It’s alright, not a bad thing.” Patchouli glanced at him indifferently. “Five minutes ago, Sirin and I arrived at the ruined city inhabited by the undead. Their king put on a show of force, trying to intimidate us with his power and make us leave. Then Sirin saw through their weakness and exposed their attempt to cover up their escape plan—so the undead detonated the underground city, trying to fool me with a fake death.”

"Unfortunately, their methods are exactly the kind I'm familiar with."

"What?" Zhao Zhuikong continued to press, taking another careful look at the ground, but this time he still didn't sense anything unusual related to souls. "But I didn't sense a single soul down there."

“It’s just transforming a soul into a relatively static form of information,” Patchouli explained, not angry. “You can think of those undead as turning themselves into books, with rock pages and the text as the book’s texture. You can’t see it from the perspective of observing active souls, but they are actually in a similar situation.”

"By transforming active spiritual energy into a static record, using an explosion as a cover, while eliminating the possibility of being observed from a conventional perspective, the caster also loses the ability to observe the outside world—other casters might feel helpless or even unable to perceive this change. But unfortunately, it's me here, which ironically makes the execution of my project much easier."

She then launched into a long, rambling speech, presenting numerous complex theories and formulas in detail for the other three to demonstrate. However, for some who had long since given up on thinking, her words were practically incomprehensible gibberish. Zhao Yingkong might have understood, but for her, who was intimately familiar with the witches' ways from the beginning, whether she understood or not was of little consequence. The other two, who were supposed to understand—looked utterly bewildered.

"...Well, in short, this explosion didn't affect my plans at all. In fact, it reduced the operational risks of the ritual I needed to perform later. The fact that the other party voluntarily transformed from a soul body into an information body is a good thing for me. Although it may make the ritual more complicated than before, it won't affect the final result."

"In other words, the ceremony can proceed as usual, and there is no need to worry about it."

Zhao Zhui opened his mouth, then closed it again. Finally, only a soft "oh" escaped his throat.

"So when can the ceremony begin?" Zhao Yingkong continued Zhao Zhuikong's unspoken question, "We've probably already gone quite a bit beyond the initial plan. Perhaps Chu Xuan has other tasks assigned to us. And what about back in the Elf King's Court..." She recounted her concerns about misjudging Chu Xuan, and then, as she had guessed, Patchouli frowned slightly upon hearing this news.

“Chu Xuan almost never makes mistakes. If he does, it’s more likely that the mistake itself was part of his plan… Besides, this level of change doesn’t even qualify as a mistake.” Patchouli shook her head slightly, a line of data flashing on the light screen beside her. Soon, another line of data appeared on the light screen in her field of vision. “I’ve already submitted your questions to Chu Xuan, but he hasn’t offered any explanation… Let’s leave it at that. Chu Xuan has his own things to do, and we need to finish our own projects.”

She turned her head slightly and glanced at the holy sword container floating behind the two of them—the container quickly floated to her side and opened, and several mechanical arms then unfolded, delivering the restrained sword to her.

She unfolded the large library she was carrying, and from the tip of her finger emerged a container filled with serum, which floated beside the holy sword. A drop of blood from the container drifted out from an open passage, and then, exposed to the air, it rapidly changed and weathered under Patchouli's gaze. Muscles and bones grew from the blood, and in less than half a second, it transformed into a thick male hand.

And that hand grasped the holy sword.

“This is the blood of Isildur that I reconstructed from Aragorn’s blood. It seems it is indeed effective as I expected.” She slightly shifted her gaze, scrutinizing Zhao Zhuikong, who appeared calm but was actually quite uneasy. “Aragorn becoming King of Men is a future matter, and handing this holy sword to him now might trigger some unpredictable consequences. Therefore, I decided to use his blood to reconstruct the Isildur bloodline, which absolutely possesses the qualities of a King of Men, based on the information gathered. Now, what you need to do is control your fourth-tier microscopic ability and fuse with this serum.”

He pushed the vial of serum to Zhao Zhuikong, who immediately caught it.

"With the bloodline issue resolved, the next step is the soul—the cleverness of those undead below has saved me a lot of trouble, although I originally intended to guide them into that form. But voluntary is always better than forced—I will open up the Great Library below to set up a ritual space, and then guide your will into it. During the ritual, you will naturally be enveloped in the soul shell of the Human Emperor Isildur. And the rest is actually very simple."

"—Dominate and merge them? Just like I did before?" Zhao Yingkong tilted her head slightly. "Use the will of thousands of undead to forcibly shatter the fourth-order spirit and cognition, and then use the concept of Houtu in the ritual to reshape oneself—that's right, isn't it?"

“That’s for you, it doesn’t apply to your brother. Because your brother is male, and Houtu is female—if I or Alice were the core of the ritual, then the difference between men and women in the concept wouldn’t matter, but Zhao Zhuikong, you’re not familiar with how information magic is used, so we have to arrange a foolproof operation as much as possible.”

Zhao Zhuikong instinctively wanted to object to the term "foolproof" operation. However, under Zhao Yingkong's slightly stern gaze, he eventually obediently shut his mouth.

"In short, that's the basic situation." Patchouli shrugged. "Zhao Zhuikong, the concept you need to adopt and control is the Great Emperor of Dongyue—I will handle the creation of the concept itself, and you only need to do what an emperor should do—take your holy sword and sweep away all the undead—after all, what they crave is liberation. Being liberated by the holy sword is liberation, and being killed by the holy sword is also liberation. Of course, the latter may make them feel somewhat unhappy. But there's nothing we can do about it."

"So, are there any other questions?" Patchouli asked habitually after explaining everything.

"Yes!" Xilin raised her hand. "What are Zhao Yingkong and I going to do?"

“Maintaining this ritual requires me as the presiding officer, and Zhao Zhuikong is the core of its operation. We also need someone to protect the perimeter in case of any accidents. In addition, there are indeed some matters outside of the ritual that need to be handled.” Patchouli glanced at her, and the Great Library in her hand suddenly unfolded. In the next moment, the entire basin, which was once the city of the dead, was covered by an incredibly vast and complex magic circle.

"Cirin, you stay and help me..."

"Wait!" Zhao Zhuikong hurriedly interrupted her arrangements. "I feel more at ease if Yingkong stays by my side. Let Xilin do something else."

Celine immediately looked at him with a wronged expression—but he ignored her.

Patchouli tapped her forehead, her eyes scanning over a jumble of complex data.

"But there's a possibility that Houtu and the Eastern Peak Emperor might interfere with each other... Fine, since you think this is better, then let's do it this way. After all, it's your ritual, so you should take the lead."

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

I was thinking of writing another chapter of Shadowverse... but my arm is a little sore, and I still have things to do tomorrow...

That's all for now. Today's update is about 7500 words. Two more posts tomorrow...

—And would it be better if I wrote the book about the Witch Wars when I have time?

Chapter Thirty-Five: A Temptation to Stir Up Trouble

Witnessing Sirin's form disappear into the unfolding spatial portal, Zhao Zhuikong's eyes held a complex and unreadable expression. After a long while, he let out a long sigh and turned his head to look at Patchouli, who was carrying out the ritual.

"I don't know if this is right or wrong. Sirin, she..."

"What, feeling sorry for them?" Yingkong glanced at her silly older brother. "It seems you were the one who chased them away, and now you're going back on your word?"

That's not what I meant...

“It’s alright.” Patchouli interrupted the Zhao siblings’ conversation before the citrus scent filled the space. “Even if you hadn’t said anything, I would have given her some tasks outside of the ritual later. At most, it’s just a change in order; it doesn’t affect the overall plan at all.”

"But she..."

"She's prone to making things worse, isn't she?" Patchouli said casually. "You're worried about that, so you sent her away. But you're also worried she'll mess up what I entrusted to her. Because the task I gave her is just as important to the Central Plains team as this ceremony?"

Do you think I wouldn't notice something like this?

Zhao Zhuikong was speechless. He wanted to say something, but found that he had nothing to say.

"You don't need to worry about that, or rather, the upcoming ceremony is what you should be worried about. The concepts of Houtu and Taishan Fujun will interfere with each other. If you can't maintain a strong enough sense of self later, don't blame me if you are psychologically and physiologically distorted into a woman."

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

A few seconds later.

Alone, Sirin left the ruins of the City of the Dead—she opened a portal, and in an exchange of passing through and closing, her slender form appeared on the other side of the story's area, in the Lonely Mountain, the site of the events of The Lord of the Rings prequel—or rather, in the territory of the dwarven capital.

—The Zhongzhou team has made some arrangements there, and now they need someone to check on the progress.

It was a very simple task, practically a nuclear bomb exploding into a mosquito's life for a fourth-tier spatial powerhouse. But Sirin didn't actually dislike this assignment, because it was a task with a clear objective and completion criteria. Patchouli had told her before she left that all she needed to do was ensure the setup there was functioning correctly before the ritual was completed or before the next steps of the plan came from Isengard, and this arrangement was exactly what Sirin wanted.

No need to overthink, just do it, and you can see the progress clearly as you do it. The moment Sirin learned of the arrangement, even the frustration she had accumulated from Zhao Zhuikong's obvious disdain vanished. And when Patchouli began setting up the spell, she was quickly and easily teleported to a distant place.

Gushan, Changhu Town.

The dragon Smaug once lay in eternal rest here—though it has now become the raw material for Xiao Honglu's summoned creatures. But before that, the dragon's remains were a rare and magnificent sight on this land.

The dragons in Lord of the Rings are different from those in other fantasy worlds. Bathing in dragon blood doesn't make them invulnerable, and their hides can't be used to create magical scrolls that don't exist in this world. Dragon crystals and dragon souls are even more absurd. Even their seemingly indestructible scales are beyond the smelting capabilities of most people in Middle-earth.

The dwarves might have been able to, but they didn't. They simply placed the dragon's remains as a marker between Lake-town and Lonely Mountain, a symbol of the alliance between the dwarves and mortals—clearly, the removal of the dragon's remains deeply disturbing them. Coupled with the increasingly dire war situation, both settlements, one belonging to the dwarves and the other to the mortals, entered into preparations for battle.

"In the original story, when the Battle of Miltis began, the combined forces of Orcs and Easterners from Mordor also launched an attack on the Lake and the Lonely Mountain. In the end, the Dwarves and Mortals joined forces to resist the invasion, but at the cost of the deaths of the two kings of the Lonely Mountain and the Vale. And now it is a period before the war has started - it seems that there is still plenty of time."

There was indeed plenty of time, as less than a day had passed since the arrival of the Middle-earth Legion. Although, according to the timeline, the battle at Lake-town had ended when Gandalf and his party left Isengard for Gondor, that was clearly under the premise that the Reincarnation Legion did not exist.

While the Southern Flame Continent team wasn't exactly reliable, they at least did one thing—they sped up the Fellowship of the Ring's march. The Fellowship, no longer needing to waste time changing routes and dealing with enemies blocking their path, was clearly moving much faster than in the original story. And Sauron's time to gather his army wouldn't be shortened as a result.

There was plenty of time, especially for a spatial ability user like Xilin whose travel speed was beyond measure. She had ample leisure to carry out whatever plans she intended—of course, Zhao Zhuikong had repeatedly warned her not to pursue any grand or small schemes. And being the obedient girl she was, she probably wouldn't act on her own initiative at an inappropriate time…

Probably not...

"This should be it!"

She lightly touched the air with her toes, and her whole body floated above the clouds. Her gaze shifted downwards, watching the allied forces of the two countries who were mobilizing their troops and setting up battle lines. Even without expending much effort, she could see alien forces flowing in several areas among those troops, forces that did not belong to this world. She could sense several relatively hidden, yet remarkably conspicuous energy sources slowly moving.

She knew who it was because Patchouli had explained it to her beforehand.

"—Chu Xuan has assigned some people there, including some of our more experienced members who still need training. Their main task is to hold the defensive line and ensure the survival of the two kings when Sauron's offensive arrives. And if Sauron doesn't disperse his forces in that direction as in the original story but instead launches a full-scale attack on Minas Tirith, then they also have the task of guiding the allied forces there to the Gondor battlefield to provide support."

"—This is for their training; even if difficulties arise, they need to cope on their own. You just need to observe them from the shadows and make sure they don't suddenly die from some strange accident. Of course, you can also try to get to know your future companions; quite a few of them have the potential to reach the fourth tier—just don't let them discover you."

Before she left, Patchouli gave her these instructions.

"Observe covertly, and then act as a babysitter?" Sirin stroked her chin, contemplating her next move. It wasn't that she hadn't trained new recruits before, nor had she never done babysitting. At her peak, she had even cobbled together a formidable team for East America, complete with close-quarters combat, ranged firepower, light and heavy weaponry, logistical support, scouting, and analysis—though the outcome of being utterly crushed by the Demon Team was far from pleasant. But at least in the area of ​​team building, she felt she had some authority to speak on the subject.

"First, I need to confirm my cultivation... um, how many colleagues I have below." She pursed her lips, activated the extraordinary perception that was standard for the fourth level, and began to distinguish the energy reactions at the lower level based on the information she had previously obtained from Patchouli.

"The energy reactions from five Central Continent teams in total... um, they are..."

"Kampavsky, the Overlord. A warrior disguised as a wandering mercenary from the North... His armor is rather strange. Hmm, is it transformed from his symbiotic life form named Chelsea? This level of connection is quite unexpected. It's truly remarkable that creation can be used in this way."

"Zhang Heng and Ming Yanwei, two wandering knights who claim to be from the West... Oh, are they pretending to be real characters from the story? Their relationship doesn't seem very harmonious. Zhang Heng wants to get close to Ming Yanwei, but Ming Yanwei seems to have basically lost interest in Zhang Heng... Hmm, if I rashly get involved, even if I stay hidden, I might end up being disliked by both of them at the same time. So I guess I'll just have to give up."

"Cheng Xiao is a very down-to-earth soldier. He's disguised as just a newly promoted mid-level officer in the River Valley Legion... He seems quite adept at organization and operations. He also seems to have a knack for commanding small armies. So, for now, let's not get involved with him..."

"Huh, is that kid Xiao Honglu here too? He just took Smaug's dragon skeleton to use as material for his summoning, yet he dared to show up here so openly. Is it a case of the devil being blind to his own work? No way, the Central Continent Team doesn't seem to have any reason to hide. So why is that?"

Xilin rubbed her head.

There's no need for so many whys. If you can't figure something out, there's no need to think about it. Overthinking will only make things worse. Right now, the best thing to do is do nothing. Just stay quietly above the clouds and observe the actions of each member of the Central Continent Team.

Doing nothing will probably prevent any bad things from happening...

[But how am I supposed to get to know them like this...? If I just stare at them, won't they think I'm a voyeur? But if I go down and carefully approach them... I feel like I'll be seen as a stalker.]

She blinked.

Hmm... spying and stalking seem to be just embarrassing enough. If they don't know, it should be fine, right? Right, Patchouli also said not to let them know... she must have anticipated my actions. Yes, that's it, that's the right thing to do!

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

Go write the second section _(:з」∠)_

Section 36. Someone was filled with determination.

Xiao Honglu sniffed; she suddenly sensed a subtle unease, as if the temperature had suddenly risen or fallen by a degree or two. Although it was a tiny change, it made her feel uneasy.

Where exactly did the problem occur?

He didn't know, he didn't understand, he only knew that something was wrong.

Is it because I've reached the third stage of the gene lock and will soon complete my advancement? My mind and thoughts have become so sensitive that I can easily perceive many subtle signs that I wouldn't normally notice?

The little boy clenched his fist, and his third eye, hidden beneath his skin between his brows, trembled slightly. An invisible circle of spiritual energy operated in a discreet, modified manner. Then, like a gentle spring rain, it silently seeped into an area within a ten-kilometer radius of him.

That's right, he can't perform a large-scale mental scan like Zhan Lan or Zhang Jie. But that doesn't mean he can't do something similar. The Three-Eyed Clan's enhancement is a magic-based enhancement that emphasizes the use of mental power. And as he becomes more familiar with and understands this enhanced bloodline, he has successfully discovered and applied some practical tips.

Invisible waves of light rippled back and forth in his eyes.

His senses expanded dramatically, encompassing everything around him, and beyond that vast expanse—he saw the Overlord mingling in the taverns, chatting and laughing with renowned warriors among the local mercenaries. He saw Zhang Heng and Ming Yanwei, each dressed as wanderers, seemingly close yet actually quite far apart. He saw Cheng Xiao thriving in the military camp, quickly building a sizable and capable force—his gaze continued to extend outwards, examining the remaining areas he had not yet noticed.

He saw King Brand gathering his generals in the valley palace, deeply worried about the orcish coalition eyeing them from afar. He saw the vast number of heavily armed dwarven guards in Lonely Mountain, as well as the ballistae and armored goats being maintained and adjusted. His gaze continued to expand outward, only to abruptly stop when it reached the treasure vault within Lonely Mountain.

While the treasure vault is indeed guarded, the greater obstacle is that his mental power is limited to this extent. If he wants to conduct a wider-ranging observation without causing unnecessary disturbance, he would at least need to fully unlock the third stage of his genetic lock.

The colorless light in his eyes dimmed.

[Strange, there's nothing unusual in this area. But I clearly sensed something abnormal... Is it just my imagination? Unlocking the third stage of the gene lock will cause massive modifications to the brain, so it wouldn't be surprising if I were experiencing perceptual errors because of it.]

No, we can't jump to conclusions so easily. Being assigned to this area far from the main battlefield already shows a lack of trust in my abilities... Brother Zheng Zha and Sister Alice might not think so. But it's an undeniable fact that I haven't played my due role before... We must achieve some results in this operation.

Xiao Honglu rubbed his temples, trying to dispel the lingering illusion from his mind. His current identity was that of the only son of a minor lord in the valley. His adoptive father had died not long ago in a conflict with orcs. And he, the adopted son, was actually a dead man, merely using this identity to infiltrate the valley.

Of course, this identity was beneficial to him. Through it, Xiao Honglu could easily raise an army when the time was right, influence the political decisions of Lonely Mountain and the Valley, and so on. In ordinary times, he could also use this identity to mobilize forces within some human kingdoms and deal with some foolish individuals who were not worth his direct intervention.

And more importantly, it will prevent him from encountering any unnecessary obstacles when acting in this childlike manner.