Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Alice's gaze passed over the wide white walls, looking down from the top of the White City at the white tree in the palace courtyard—the white tree that represented the rightful succession of the King of Men in Middle-earth. Now withered, it was prophesied that the tree would only revive when the King of Men returned to his throne; until then, it was just a useless piece of trash.

No, it is not useless, for some still believe it will one day be revived. They still hold onto hope, expecting this relic to guide Gondor again at the right time.

She glanced at the guardians of the sacred tree, who stood beside it as if the tree were still thriving. Although she knew very well that her situation was vastly different from the guardians' in form, in essence, she was not much different from them.

The last time I compiled the Book of Revelation was a long time ago. That was back in the world of Final Destination, when I secured victory with the combined Revelation of Jianmu and Buzhou Mountain. Since then, I have never used information magic in important situations again, because it is unnecessary and no longer suitable.

Information magic has its limits, and the current limit of this path is the Apocalypse. It unleashes a near-divine attack at the cost of burning away the information of an entire era. It can also be used to make special arrangements in situations unsuitable for offense. In the past, perhaps such a trump card would have been enough for Alice to deal with her enemies. But now, with her becoming the Demon Lord, a truly transcendent being, that so-called near-divine attack no longer holds sufficient value for her.

Even a near-divine strike was nothing more than a full-force attack from the Fourth Primal level. While she had grown stronger, the power of the Apocalypse hadn't increased accordingly—just as no matter how powerful the lead bullets loaded into a flintlock pistol, it couldn't surpass the destructive power of a rocket launcher. For someone who could fire 'rocket shells' with ease, the 'flintlock pistol' that had saved her life several times and helped her overcome numerous difficulties was no longer of much use.

Has the magic of information reached its end? No, I've simply chosen to stop here.

[Even with all the power I wield, the Book of Revelation still can't compare to the single, focused strike I unleash upon unleashing the Staff of Control and transforming into Satan. Therefore, I've devoted the vast majority of my energy to strengthening and utilizing my obsessive soul. Consequently, my analysis and study of other powers have unconsciously slowed down.]

"...Ah, really, I remember discussing this issue with Patchouli before. But both of us, without exception, chose to focus our energy on the more effective and potentially greater-potential Obsessive Soul and Crystallization Magic while maintaining the daily tasks of Information Magic. While this may not necessarily be a wrong choice, how correct is it, given its merits?"

Is it truly more worthwhile to easily tread a powerful path already developed by others, one with immense potential and few obstacles, than to dedicate vast amounts of energy and time to mastering one's own discoveries? Even if there's a high probability that one's final research will yield nothing, or even if results are achieved, they might not be half or a third of what others have achieved at the same stage on their own path?

Alice fell into deep thought. She had considered this question many times in the past, but just like every time she had thought about it before, this time she was unable to reach a final conclusion.

It's as if a martial artist has two secret manuals before her. One is a peerless treasure meticulously developed by a world-renowned grandmaster. By simply practicing step by step, one can at least reach a level close to that grandmaster, and even, in some slim chance, surpass the level of the creator. The other is a small achievement that this martial artist has summarized from her past experience and research. Although she has drawn on some of the wisdom of her predecessors, she has fully grasped and absorbed that wisdom, making it a part of herself.

This martial artist is still very weak, her understanding may not be correct, and the results she has summarized may not have a future. Moreover, the space she is in is a dangerous jungle. Just maintaining her own life is already a matter of exhaustion. To spend her already limited time on such a field with high investment and slow results, she may turn to ashes before she has mastered anything.

I'm not particularly gifted, and my patience and perseverance are only slightly above average. And my luck... is just average too.

My background isn't reliable either, and my cheapskate mother, Shinki, might not lend a helping hand before I'm finished. After all, all she needs is a suitable tool, and right now I'm at best a relatively complete rough draft. If I die before I grow to meet her expectations, she probably won't be short of time to create the next tool.

[No matter how you look at it, the only right path for me is to focus my energy on unlocking my genetic potential and developing my obsessive soul. Haven't my experiences in these worlds already perfectly validated this theory...? The worlds after Final Destination were all relatively safe, and I easily overcame them without much pressure. And if I were to attribute all of this to Chu Xuan's schemes... he is indeed very strong, but he is not omnipotent after all.]

But... why am I so unwilling to accept this?

She gradually withdrew from her contemplation, her attention once again focusing on the changes in the outside world. Just like with every previous thought, she ultimately failed to reach a conclusion—deep within her lingered a desire to push the demonic arts she had mastered to their limits, even if it meant a slow increase in her strength, fading into obscurity, and ultimately dying like an ant. However, this desire did not govern her actions. Even with these inner thoughts, in the material world, she still prioritized unlocking her genetic potential and cultivating her unwavering soul.

She said no, but her body obediently responded—that's probably the best way to describe her current situation. And when she realized her predicament, a surge of anger rose within her, burning her and almost driving her mad!

The sacred white tree standing tall in the palace courtyard suddenly became an eyesore to her, and even the few tree guards who stood steadfastly at their posts, protecting the hope of humanity, seemed repulsive. She suddenly had a plan to send all those messy schemes and plots to hell, to simply bombard Milistiris with a magic cannon, and then unleash a cataclysmic calamity to completely wipe out Middle-earth—after all, the reason she had been so cautious, taking so long to do something so simple was actually to uncover the East Sea team's infiltrator. So, by destroying all their hiding places, wouldn't that guy definitely be exposed?

The heavens shifted according to her will; in an instant, the White City, which was not expected to be covered by Mordor's dark clouds for several more days, was completely engulfed by heavy thunderclouds. Continuous thunder and lightning raged within the clouds, and a tangible sense of oppression, like a collapsing mountain, surged towards the city beneath her feet!

Then--

"Do you think this is the first time I've triggered my inner demons?"

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

Some original details have been slightly modified. Please treat any parts that do not conform to the world view of The Lord of the Rings as an alternate universe.

_(:з　∠)_

Should I continue updating Witch Wars tomorrow... if I can find the time...?

Section Thirty-Nine: Hello

The thunderclouds in the sky transformed into a mirror, reflecting an empty white city. In an instant, the white city turned pure black, and the reflection in the cloud mirror reversed itself. And when Alice finished speaking, she was already standing atop the black city.

This is a hypothetical world—a sealing spell constructed from the memories familiar to the witches and the results obtained from analyzing the Tower of Babel world. Its effect is similar to an otherworldly banishment, like the one in the Star Gate world, and the target of the seal is Alice herself—and a ten-kilometer radius around her.

—Yes, she destroyed White City.

The moment the seal was formed, she captured the entire city along with its many souls. The real White City had already been taken into an alternate dimension within the Cloud Mirror, while outside the Cloud Mirror lay another new city she had constructed using magic and the swarm of nanobots she had brought from Patchouli. The bodies of mortals were also creations of genetic engineering, and the souls driving these bodies were actually nothing more than artificial AIs loaded with memories of their previous lives and possessing the same thought patterns.

Milistilis is a crucial plot point, and erasing it entirely might trigger unforeseen circumstances. Therefore, while destroying the city, Alice simultaneously created an identical replica on the same site. And as she predicted, the changes to the outer perimeter were virtually negligible.

No one cared about this place, not even the gods. Directly attacking the souls of mortals in this world was an extremely dangerous endeavor, but Alice had now confirmed that this action was still within the tolerance of the gods.

Every single molecule that originally belonged to Milistilis was transferred to this sealed void. And every living creature that lived in this white city had its body turned to dust the instant the seal took effect.

Hundreds of thousands of bodies were destroyed, and hundreds of thousands of souls gathered into a small sphere that floated between Alice's fingers. She quietly gazed at that tiny sphere of information, her previously chaotic thoughts instantly calming down. The frenzy and obsession that had appeared in her eyes vanished in an instant. Her pale blue eyes no longer revealed any discernible emotion.

Chu Xuan had made it very clear beforehand that he wanted her to come to Milistilis to make some large-scale 'arrangements'. And she did as he wished, spending the time after arriving in White City examining and recording the souls of all living beings in the city. Then, at the appropriate time, she would copy them all and put them into her grasp.

[I am both a deterrent and bait. Unlocking the fourth-tier genetic power without restraint is enough to destroy any arrangements that might exist here. And a lone fourth-tier being naturally makes it easier for the opponent to choose a more aggressive strategy between enduring losses and launching a counterattack.]

And this goal has now been achieved.

If the East Sea Team's infiltrator were disguised as a living thing, it would be right there on Alice's fingertips. If the East Sea Team's infiltrator were disguised as an inanimate object, it would be right there at Alice's feet.

"Your strength lies in causality, or in other words, in the enhancement of wish-granting abilities—the Great Prophecy, the Golden Word, the Wish Fulfilled. As long as you make a request to the world, fate, or some other random entity, you can obtain the desired result. Such enhancement is indeed very powerful, enough to allow you to easily deal with the vast majority of enemies."

Alice spoke softly, toying with and examining the little soul orb in her hand.

“But your absolute power is insufficient; otherwise, you wouldn’t need to remain hidden like this.” Her gaze swept across the black city, and a slender staff of control appeared between her fingers. “I estimate your true combat strength is around the level of a pseudo-inferior fourth-tier to the early stage of a true fourth-tier after unlocking your genetic lock. You’ve gone into hiding, eager to achieve your goal, and since you’re willing to take such a risk to remain hidden, that goal must be of great importance. Perhaps it could even directly affect the outcome of the entire team battle.”

Silence reigned all around, and only her voice echoed throughout the empty black and white city. The overlapping echoes lingered in the long streets and alleys, and the withered branches of the sacred tree trembled slightly with the vibrations of the sound.

No one responded to her, as if everything she had deduced was just her illusion.

But silence is also an answer.

"If you don't answer, then I'll assume my guess is correct. You think that by remaining silent, I'll believe I misjudged the situation and have the ban lifted? But unfortunately, I'm more persistent than you think."

Her five fingers, which were holding the soul orb, suddenly closed together.

'boom--!!!!'

The next moment, the edges of the black city began to collapse. No, it wasn't just the city that collapsed, but also the space surrounding it. The imaginary space maintaining the seal itself was now crumbling from the outside in. And in at most thirty seconds, everything in this area except Alice would be annihilated!

"The Prayer Spell is a good ability, powerful, mysterious, and almost omnipotent in the right field. However, even the Gene Lock, which is recognized and judged by the main god, has certain shortcomings—from all the channels I can access, I know that it has an inevitable flaw." Alice paused slightly, then leaped from the top of the Black White City.

She landed lightly in the courtyard where the sacred tree was located, and reached out to touch the withered branches—"That is, the stronger the life form that is interfered with through prayer, the greater the energy required and the greater the risk of backlash. And you, who are no more than a fourth-order being, would have to get close enough to me to directly interfere with my thoughts, and even enter my inner world."

“I can’t find you, but I suspect you’re still hiding in this space—perhaps your true strength is greater than I anticipated, enough to interfere with my thoughts without even getting close. Perhaps you can activate your abilities silently and escape this space the moment I unleash the seal…perhaps you can, but I’m betting you can’t. You can continue to hide in this space until it’s completely destroyed—I won’t die, but you might not. Even if you don’t die, you’ll inevitably leave a trace.”

“So…” She reached out and broke off a withered branch of the sacred tree.

"How long are you planning to wait?"

Before she finished speaking, the withered branch in her hand disintegrated and evaporated. The next moment, the evaporated dust reassembled into a tangible shape. In an instant, a long, indistinctly shaped sword appeared before Alice's eyes.

It was a military knife of unknown design, long and narrow, sharp, with a hilt that seemed to hold a slender hand. The moment the knife was reflected in Alice's eyes, its blade materialized in her vision. The reflection in her eyes became tangible, and this tangible knife emerged from the depths of Alice's eyes, piercing them from the inside out!

That was only the first blade; the second, third, and fourth followed in quick succession, piercing through her body and easily drawing out vast swaths of soul obsession, like a skeleton of blood. However, those obsessions, under Alice's will, returned to her body. Her spirit roused slightly, and the energy generated within her surged wildly outwards!

Magic Cannon, release.

Electrons were squeezed into the atomic nucleus, while protons and neutrons collapsed further inward. The up and down quarks that make up these fundamental particles began to disintegrate, and the quark slurry ejected from this disintegration easily pulverized anything in its path into fragments that even fusion reactions couldn't achieve. The shapeless saber suddenly vanished, and the blades that kept emerging from Alice's body also came to an abrupt halt.

The collapse of the outer space has stopped.

"Just because you recognize that knife, you'll be pierced by it? Hehehe, I even felt the vibration in my soul's obsession when I was injured~ Even though it's not an obsession soul system, it can still unleash a direct attack on the obsession spirit. Prayer-type abilities are truly unique."

Alice chuckled, the puppet strings between her fingers swaying, and Shanghai and Penglai floated out of the shadows and landed steadily on her shoulder. Layer upon layer of magical protection against various situations was quickly woven by the little puppets. Dozens of floating energy sources appeared around her.

One group focused on offense, while the other focused on defense, and the frenzied energy had already begun to surge.

“Playing dead isn’t a good idea. This level of bombardment might injure a fourth-tier cultivator whose cultivation is unstable, but for someone like you who relies on wish-based enhancements, it probably wouldn’t even cause you to lose a hair.” Alice stretched out her hand, and the sealed space that had stopped collapsing due to her will reopened with cracks. A terrifying void storm arose in the gap between worlds, and massive amounts of matter and energy began to surge at the unstable boundary.

"Or do you think you can fool me a second time here?"

Alice waved her outstretched hand to the side, and the next moment a narrow, dark rift pierced through the entire airspace from the right side of her vision to the edge of the seal. A blurry military knife shattered in the rift, and at the same time that knife broke, another knife appeared from the airspace behind her!

—'Your magic cannot provide you with protection.'

A whisper seemed to echo from the void, and the numerous defenses constructed by the two small humanoid figures of Shanghai and Penglai shattered in an instant. And immediately afterward, a blade pierced Alice's heart from behind!

—'Your body, revert to its original form of flesh and blood.'

What flowed from the wound was no longer obsession and magical energy, but real, crimson blood containing blood cells and bodily fluids. The knife that had pierced her body transformed into dark, shadow-like threads after penetrating her heart, instantly traveling through Alice's entire body along her blood vessels!

The black threads are a potent poison; the body, forcibly returned to its flesh and blood form, immediately decays and dissolves.

"The long-lost physical touch, but unfortunately this level of poison no longer has any effect on me."

The pile of melted organic residue disintegrated again in mid-air into obsession and magical energy, instantly coalescing back into Alice's form. In her hand, she held a highly condensed energy sphere imbued with a vast amount of magical power, then squeezed it tightly, crushing it into an unstable little point. "You can achieve all sorts of incredible miracles through prayer, but you yourself don't know the method to achieve them. You know how but not why; you're merely using your power like a tool. And more importantly..."

She released her grip, and the tiny dot, which had gathered a massive amount of magical energy and was in an extremely unstable state, slipped from her fingertips.

"You can't kill me directly with this power, you can't even use it to weaken my intelligence, at most it can only make me a little more talkative like it is now. But in any case, the result is always the same."

The next moment, boundless light burst forth from the tiny dot that slipped from her fingertip.

Meanwhile, the spatial boundary that she had previously contained from collapsing also crumbled into endless darkness.

Within, a great rise; without, a great annihilation. The energies of light and darkness, life and death, creation and destruction clashed within this confined sealed space. A sweeping void storm followed closely behind, and within this boiling sea of ​​chaos, only a small space around Alice offered a semblance of calm.

A blurry figure suddenly appeared in this rare moment of calm, and just as it was about to stabilize, Alice's outstretched hand caught its neck in mid-air. Numerous military knives materialized again, but this time they couldn't even complete the projection process before being sealed off by Shanghai and Penglai, which had once again erected magical barriers.

"Let me see what you're hiding."

A torrent of data and formulas swirled in the girl's eyes, like a waterfall. Through direct contact with the blurry form before her, she rapidly processed its energy characteristics, operational methods, and even miscellaneous information, both important and unimportant. The blurry form in her hand writhed desperately, unstable energy reactions constantly emanating from within, only to be forcibly suppressed by Alice. Just before this suppression reached its limit, she directly identified a crucial piece of information.

Female, saber, long silver hair.

Military uniform, prayer, square pupils.

All the prerequisites for tracking and cursing had been gathered, and the form of the lurking entity rapidly transformed from blurry to clear as she deciphered it. Just as the suppressed energy reaction reached its critical point, Alice discerned the name of this reincarnator!

"Alter".

—'It's not the right time to meet yet.'

The blurry shape in her hand was completely destroyed just as it was about to solidify into a clear form. And then—

A void storm then swept in.

Chapter 40. Let's get serious!

About ten seconds later, accompanied by a soft tearing sound, Alice reappeared above White City, exactly as she had when the seal was lifted. She waved her hand, and the cloud mirror, now filled with chaos, vanished silently, just as it had when it was created. She then descended from the top of the sky, her toes lightly touching the top of White City.

"Althael—Aquila, Altair? How could a girl be given such a name? It seems her parents have rather unusual tastes."

"She doesn't quite look human; her square pupils do remind me somewhat of the Greek Medusa. Hmm... I don't think I've ever actually seen what a real Medusa looks like. It's not a good habit to jump to conclusions."

"And she gives me a... weird feeling. Is this person... really human?"

Alice recalled her battle with Altair—it was less a battle and more a mild probing between the two sides. Although she had gauged Altair's approximate strength, she hadn't inflicted any real damage. Judging from Chu Xuan's decision, his final silent message, and his form completely disintegrating during the battle, it wasn't hard to guess that the one appearing in White City was merely an avatar of Altair.

[Her actual combat strength should be at the early stage of the fourth tier of unlocking the gene lock, approaching the middle stage. It's on the same level as my own power. But if that's the case, the East Sea team's God's evaluation is far too unreliable… It's very difficult to lower the evaluation of a reincarnation team with fourth-tier combat strength—the Senzhou team, because of X, is still the strongest team in the galaxy no matter how much they're evaluated. And Zhao Zhuikong and Xilin's experiences are even more tragic than the breeding team's, yet their evaluations haven't been lowered much.]

[The situation of the East Sea team is unclear, and I still haven't figured out her true purpose. Why is she concealing the records from the East Sea team's arrival until their apparent annihilation by the Ringwraiths? And what exactly happened before the South Flame Continent team arrived in Rivendell, and even before the East America team arrived?]

Do we need more information...?