Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"It seems you're leaving." Luo Ye reopened the book in his hand. "Then, I hope that when we meet next, it will be the time when we decide the victor, whether it's a battle or a fight to the death. After all, all the regular or irregular meetings before that are not good for our physical and mental health."

"...I'll try my best."

"Not 'try your best,' it's 'must.'" Luo Ye shook his head slightly. "However, if you're determined to court death, then so be it. And, before you leave, let me give you some advice."

"You haven't visited Little Devil in a long time, go and check on her a little."

"Also, watch out for the Celestials team."

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

Today's section is quite long, so I won't write any more and will split it into two parts.

In short, growth has stopped, which is cause for celebration!

Regarding the current combat power settings

Hmm... Let me give you a general overview of the current combat strength distribution.

First, the Lord of the Rings world we are currently in is an apocryphal world, which can be seen as a world that is similar to but not identical to the original work. I mentioned this point at the end of Chapter 38 of this volume, but perhaps I didn't emphasize it much, so it was subconsciously ignored by the audience.

This Lord of the Rings world is actually on the same scale as the Lord of the Rings world in the original Horror comics. I slightly increased the lower limit, but the upper limit remains unchanged. And what was the Lord of the Rings world like in the original Horror comics? Before the final battle, Zheng Zha, at the limit of the fourth level (not yet at the highest level), single-handedly defeated all the gods and demons in the Lord of the Rings world. In other words, in the original world, not a single god, including Ilúvatar, reached the fourth level.

In other words, fifth-tier saints simply do not exist in the current world. Ilúvatar here is only at the fourth level, and not even in the conventional sense, because she is not considered human and cannot unlock the lock. In the setting of this book, the Gene Lock and the Soul of Obsession are the orthodox path, a path superior to other systems. A reincarnator who has unlocked to the fourth level possesses combat power and survivability far greater than an alien race that has mastered the Light of the Mind through other means. Therefore, Ilúvatar's combat power is not the limit of the fourth level; at most, it is the high level of the fourth level. Those gods at least one level below her are naturally generally at the lower-middle level of the fourth level. Furthermore, it was mentioned earlier in this volume that some gods may not have obtained the Light of the Mind and possess power similar to the fourth level.

Therefore, the role of the Apocalypse in this volume is quite clear. Alice, as a being who combines two systems at the initial limit of the fourth level, spent a long time preparing and arranging, and finally, with a calculated advantage, defeated the other strongest gods (excluding Ilúvatar), who were only at the mid-fourth level, from Valinor. Then, using the technology she acquired in the Fifth Age of the Bubble World, she demoted them to saints. Even in the saintly state, it was merely a temporary closure of their spiritual light (there's still a plot hole here), causing them to drop from the level equivalent to the fourth level to the level equivalent to the initial fourth level. In reality, it was just a large debuff lasting three or four days, and I think this plot development is quite reasonable.

The purpose of Revelation is not to kill the gods, nor can it. Its greatest function is to separate Ilúvatar and his legions of gods from the fallen gods who became saints, giving the Reincarnators an opportunity to take advantage of the situation.

Ilúvatar cannot destroy the world she created as easily as Alice. Firstly, it's not worth it, and secondly, it's too troublesome. Because the Bubble World was created by Alice within herself, she could control it as easily as controlling her own body. The Lord of the Rings world, however, was created by Ilúvatar on the outside, making its destruction significantly more difficult. Furthermore, this Ilúvatar in this world has no connection to the High Saint in the Dawn, and even if she did, the original Ilúvatar wouldn't care. After all, if every god were connected to the original Ilúvatar, then the reincarnators would be helpless when encountering gods like Awynn, Odin, and Zeus in other worlds, whose original forms were all High Saints.

Chapter 80 - Slaying Inspiration

Beware of the Celestial Team.

Alice pondered the sentence in her mind, trying hard to discern the truth or falsehood of the message it contained—she would not believe a single word or punctuation mark in what Luo Ye said, even if what she said sounded very reasonable.

Ultimately, we cannot coexist. Although our final goals are the same, a life-or-death struggle will inevitably ensue before that happens—I will survive, and she will vanish forever. If a winner has already been decided, perhaps her words will have some credibility, but before that, every seemingly harmless word could turn into deadly poison.

Her will rose from the depths of her heart, yet she hesitated somewhat as she made her decision.

Whether she believed it or not, Luo Ye's words ultimately had an effect—she wanted Alice to care for the Little Devil, so whether Alice chose to go find her now or return to the Main God Space, her attention to the Little Devil would increase. The same applied to her attitude towards the Celestial Team; whether she believed it or not, she would be more cautious than usual when dealing with them.

A cautious and meticulous attitude is usually not a mistake, but in certain time-sensitive situations, it can become an obstacle. She didn't know if this brief message would interfere with her at crucial moments in the upcoming battle. Yet, while she couldn't rule out this possibility, she also couldn't bring herself to erase the memory.

There was something wrong with the Celestials; she knew this without Luo Ye needing to explicitly remind her. She could even roughly guess what cards the Celestials held and had made corresponding preparations long ago. But just as this storyline world was completely different from the Lord of the Rings she had observed in her prediction records, she wasn't sure if the Celestials' current information also contained the elements she had deduced.

[This is really confusing...tsk, is this a common problem for idiots like me who are clearly not very bright but always overthink things? Maybe if I just threw all this nonsense aside like Zheng Zha did and went in headfirst, I might get a better result.]

She closed her eyes, quietly clearing away the chaos in her mind. The next moment, her consciousness surfaced from the abyss of her heart.

Alice opened her eyes. Familiar scents and textures immediately filled her senses. In an instant, she gained control of her body and began to perceive everything around her.

This was a wasteland, its exact location uncertain, as she had no memory of the terrain. However, the numerous rifts and deep pits scattered across the ground suggested that this was the battleground between the Central Continent Team's reincarnators and the gods of this world. At least ten thousand square kilometers of land had been destroyed in this war. And this battle should now be coming to an end.

The god of inspiration and dreams in this world should already be dead. The victorious reincarnators should now be on their way to their next destination. As for why I'm here, there can only be one reason.

“Patch.” She uttered the word softly. And she received an immediate response.

"You seem to have had a nightmare, Alice." A familiar voice came from above her head. She struggled to sit up, overcoming her distracting thoughts and freeing herself from the soft legs that had been resting on the back of her neck. As she got up, Patchouli, who had been taking care of her, changed from a sitting position to a standing position next to her, and gave her a slightly worried look.

"Something seems off about you—are you seeing that person in your mind again?"

Patchouli's intuition was surprisingly good.

“Yes, that’s right, I saw her again.” Alice nodded. She didn’t feel there was any need for Patchouli to keep these things a secret or hide them from her. “She explained her position to me—exactly as I imagined. Her origin is actually my rebellious spirit from my youth, which gradually flourished after being interfered with by the element of Shinki. After all, I might not be entirely without resentment towards that adoptive mother, and she uses that resentment as nourishment. Little by little, it has become my only inner demon now.”

"...That sounds terrible."

“It’s terrible,” Alice sighed softly. “Terrible for both me and her.”

Long ago, she had read a book called *Journey to the West*, and the chapter about the "True and False Monkey Kings" was particularly vivid in her memory. In some unofficial interpretations, the Six-Eared Macaque killed by Sun Wukong's staff was actually the Monkey King himself. The Buddha deliberately orchestrated this scheme, using his great power to forcibly erase the obsessive part of Sun Wukong's mind representing his past, and then using Sun Wukong's own hands to completely destroy the unruly Monkey King. In the end, only the devoted Sun Wukong remained.

She had never experienced the world of Journey to the West, so she naturally didn't know how much truth there was in this unofficial interpretation. But the situation described in the interpretation did bear some resemblance to her current state—when Shenqi separated her three selves, she certainly wouldn't have been unaware of the resentment and hatred buried deep within her heart. And if she really needed a useful, obedient tool, then she now had a useful means at hand.

Luo Ye was destined to perish, and her defeat also meant the complete disappearance of Alice's dissatisfaction with Shen Qi. This is similar to how she forcibly dragged out the Heavenly Prince of Bina, who lived countless worlds away, from that painting world and had Zheng Zha beat him dozens of times to extinguish any potential hatred in his heart—her starting point may have been good, and the final result was beneficial to both sides—Shen Qi's plan would not be interfered with by unexpected factors, and Zheng Zha and Alice obtained a rapid advancement method without any aftereffects. Even Luo Ye, as a demon within herself, could die in self-satisfaction at the very target she had hoped to conquer.

No one suffered a loss, and everyone gained a great benefit. Just like in the unofficial interpretation of Journey to the West, although Sun Wukong killed the Monkey King, who symbolized a part of his past, he was rewarded with entering the system of Mount Ling and achieving the immortal Buddhahood. As for whether the essential advancement of life is more important than those memories and obsessions from the distant past—everyone has a different answer to this question.

[How tragic, both Luo Ye and I. We are burdened with the original sin of being weak.] Alice gently reached out and touched Patchouli's hair. [But I already have the answer, and I am ready.]

"Alice?" Patchouli asked softly.

"It's nothing," Alice gently shook her head. "I just wanted to take a good look at you."

“You can see when you feel it’s okay.” Patchouli pursed her lips. “If you’re willing to stay here any longer…”

“That makes sense.” Alice took a deep breath, quickly adjusting her mindset. “The previous plan should be fine, right? Illum, the god of inspiration and dreams, should have been killed. What happened? Did you receive any notification from the main god?”

"It was a war with virtually no suspense," Patchouli explained. "We found Illum about five kilometers in front of a temple on the outer edge of Middle-earth, which is where we are standing now. Then it was a pointless battle. Even with all the trump cards you used to demote Illum as a saint, he could only exert the combat power of a mid-fourth-tier being, while we have four fourth-tier beings here."

"Xilin locked down this space, preventing it from teleporting away. Zhao Yingkong and Zhao Zhuikong hid in the shadows, restraining some of its combat power. Then Zheng Zha activated his recently developed 'Primordial Chaos' technique, and the rest was just a matter of grabbing a knife and hacking away to solve the problem."

"He slashed Ilmu one hundred and forty times, and then Ilmu returned the favor with thirty-five. In the end, all that remained was this land that had turned from hills into wasteland—the poor god wasn't even a trace left. He was simply and decisively wiped off the face of the earth."

“As expected.” Alice nodded slightly. “They’ve been weakened to this extent. If they can’t win easily, they should just return to the Main God Space… What’s going on with Zheng Zha? Did he suddenly have a blissful outburst after killing Ilmu? After all, we’re basically beating up the gardener and the security guard in someone else’s house. I suspect he might have some other ideas.”

“I think you should trust your companions a little more, Alice.” Patchouli gave her a slightly reproachful look. “I can understand that you’re more sensitive to this kind of behavior because you’ve had some unpleasant experiences in your own bubble world. But the nerves of our Central Continent Team’s reincarnators shouldn’t be underestimated. Zheng Zha knows perfectly well that if we choose to keep the Ring, we will inevitably face an attack from the gods during the three days we possess it, and naturally, he won’t show any mercy to those gods.”

“After all, none of them are human, not even one of the gods was ever human. And Zheng Zha’s pity is only for humans, while he shows no mercy to the alien races. What’s more…” Patchouli paused slightly. “Ilmu has not communicated with us at all. From beginning to end, it has not uttered a single word or shown even the slightest emotion.”

Alice remained silent for several seconds.

"That's good, it saves me the trouble of taking time to give him psychological counseling later. Now, they should be dealing with the goddess of dance, Nisa, right?"

"Correct."

"And killing Illmu didn't yield any reward points or side quests?"

"Correct."

"Phew~ That's good. This means the seal of the Holy Cataclysm is effective; it didn't release their spiritual light until they were completely destroyed. So we've achieved half of our goal."

"Mmm." Patchouli nodded gently and ruffled her hair.

They were, after all, extraordinary beings who had fought against fourth-tier beings, and naturally knew what the Light of the Soul truly meant. It was an indestructible and immortal essence of the soul, a perpetual motion machine of entropy capable of reversing the rules. It might be sealed away, but it could not be stripped away—at least not by someone like Alice, who didn't even possess the Light of the Soul, through some self-made spell without any backing. And although they had been demoted to saints, the essence of their Light of the Soul still existed, and once they participated in a battle truly endangering their lives, the possibility of breaking through the Apocalypse's seal was by no means low.

The Celestials are not human and cannot unlock the genetic locks unique to humans. Therefore, even most Celestials at their peak were only equivalent to the middle tier of the fourth order, but definitely weaker in combat than a true middle tier of the fourth order. The Yaritar might be an exception, but they would at most possess strength slightly above that of an ordinary middle tier of the fourth order. However, even so, they are still powerful beings a level above the strongest members of the Central Continent Team. Once they are allowed to rediscover their inner light in extreme danger, the Reincarnators will naturally have to pack up and flee.

Naturally, Illusion wouldn't allow that to happen. Therefore, when compiling the Book of Revelation, her method of sealing the gods' spiritual light was based on Sauron's existence, separating the gods' divine power from their spiritual light. In this way, Zheng Zha and his companions were actually only defeating empty shells possessing divine power, while the gods' spiritual light was severed at the world's boundary—and it is precisely for this reason that Ilúvatar, who rules this world, didn't, in her rage, expend a huge cost to directly purge the Lord of the Rings world—not that she couldn't, but that it wasn't worthwhile. Even if the empty shells of the gods' divine power were wiped out, it wouldn't fundamentally harm them—at least not now. Therefore, Ilúvatar was naturally caught in a dilemma at this point.

And it is precisely for this reason that the gods, who are merely empty shells of power, easily abandoned their strategy of banding together after Alice unleashed her deterrent through the resonance of the Tablets of Destiny, thus giving the reincarnators the opportunity to defeat them one by one. After all, they are just a collection of power; the true light of wisdom and judgment is now hanging on the edge of the world. To be able to make such a judgment is already quite remarkable for them.

Therefore, the risks in this team fight were minimized.

After the witches separated from the main group, they only really had one enemy to deal with.

“Melkor, Morgoth Borglier. While the others go out to hunt the gods, we only need to do this one thing.”

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

I was wrong! I shouldn't have been the first to attack the God of Inspiration... Kavenka is killing me.

Today is a shameful one-upmanship beast _(:з」∠)_

Chapter 81: The Flames of War - Part 1

Melkor, Morgoth Borglier. He is the rebellious Valar, the deepest darkness in the world. In the previous Book of Revelation written by Iris, he is the only native world power that has not been weakened too much—because his power was torn apart by the gods long ago, a portion of which was inherited by Sauron, while the other portion was scattered to the unknown corners of the world, waiting for the day of revival in eternal slumber.

Its inner light cannot be sealed away, because there is no more divine power left to be extracted from it. Moreover, if its inner light is not released into the world, the witches will naturally be unable to completely kill it.

“Morgoth will come after us sooner or later, because I have plundered and withheld a portion of the darkness that belonged to Sauron. But defense is not my style; we must take the initiative and strike before it fully recovers.” A tiny dark sphere appeared at Alice’s fingertip, trembling slightly under her gaze.

The power entrusted to Morgoth's hammer has been forged into the Tablets of Fate, and Morgoth, if he still possesses reason, would not choose to confront the Hunter's party carrying the Tablets of Fate at this juncture. He is more likely to use the causal connections to pursue the Celestials who released it into this world, but the Celestials are certainly already in hiding, making the probability of him finding them extremely low.

Therefore, Morgoth's most likely course of action now is to travel to the places where his power was sealed to mend his lost authority. Unfortunately...

Alice's dark sphere suddenly transformed into a three-dimensional topographical map, on which several cross-shaped coordinates were clearly displayed.

"This intelligence is within the scope of my deal with Altair."

“Then what we need to do now is exhaustive search and elimination,” Patchouli replied immediately.

Alice nodded in agreement. Her finger then gently pointed to the coordinate closest to her, and with a thought, she immediately calculated the exact distance between them.

A straight line, 1,430 kilometers.

Without using a teleportation method that is difficult to conceal, it would take a considerable amount of time to get from here to there.

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

'Pfft—'

A crimson blade pierced a gigantic, half-human, half-deer form. Divine blood, as fiery as flames, gushed forth from every wound, scorching the earth and reducing the remains of already burned flowers, trees, and grasses to ash. The dying cry of the god echoed in the sky, staining the clouds red and causing a rain of blood to fall. Before even touching the ground, a kilometer above the earth, this rain evaporated in the rising heat of the battlefield, turning the once clear sky a pale red, like a pot of overcooked tomato soup.

The reincarnators of the Central Continent Team successfully killed the second celestial being who had fallen in the form of a saint. This time, the goddess was Nisha, who was in charge of dance. Although her physical form upon descending to the world was merely an empty shell of power, just like Illum, whom she had previously slain, she still wielded the unique authority and formidable strength of a deity.

After all, she was the second god to be hunted down. Compared to the first to die, the Goddess of Dreams and Inspiration, who was attacked before she could recover much of her power on earth, she had made considerable preparations during this hard-won time. She used her divine power to transform the place she descended into a temporary divine kingdom, summoning many large and medium-sized creatures and transforming them into her followers. When the reincarnators arrived, they were met with hundreds and thousands of giant-horned minotaurs and elder deer-headed monsters, and what followed was, unsurprisingly, a fierce battle.

A deity with a divine kingdom—even if it's a hastily constructed one—has a lifespan far exceeding that of ordinary extraordinary beings. While it doesn't quite match the super vitality of those who have unlocked the fourth stage of their genetic lock and can freely rewrite their genetic structure, remaining immortal as long as their energy or the surrounding energy environment hasn't depleted, it's still a considerable and difficult problem to handle.

Her temporary divine realm was connected to the earth's ley lines, and during the battle, it drew almost endlessly from the flames and life force within them. To destroy her, the reincarnators had to transform a dense forest covering tens of thousands of square kilometers into a desolate wasteland where not a single blade of grass would grow for another thousand years. Her temporary followers required seventeen or eighteen large-scale spatial storms from Sirin to completely annihilate them. The task of dealing with her true form was left to Zheng Zha.

She was the goddess of dance, possessing a fighting style akin to dance. Embarrassingly, her powers were also related to dance, causing enemies to unconsciously resemble dancers as they fought. For this reason, Zheng Zha's battle with her resembled a cheap, poorly made farce that failed to sell tickets. Although he ultimately killed this dancing goddess with a backstab aided by Zhao Zhuikong, he felt no joy or excitement at the end of the battle.

He felt only exhaustion, tinged with a hint of embarrassment. This complex emotion compelled him to find a way to distract the others after his final, decisive strike, pinning the fallen god of dance to the ground. And that way was called changing the subject.

He stared at the destructive greatsword embedded within the half-human, half-deer form of the god of dance, feeling the slow process of some kind of divine energy being absorbed by the runes the witches had previously placed on the blade's hilt and transferred to fill the magic ring on his finger, trying to make his tone as nonchalant as possible.

"That would make a second god. According to Chu Xuan, as long as we kill a maximum of three gods, we can use the divine power remaining on their corpses to fill and activate this magic ring. It can then be used by me like a blank Mind's Light cheat... So, we're still missing one?"

“Your rhetoric is as clumsy as your swordsmanship, Captain Zheng Zha.” Zhao Zhuikong, who had been toying with a dagger, suddenly appeared about three meters to Zheng Zha’s side. “But we did take down two gods, and now comes the third. That ring on your hand—” He glanced at the magic ring, which had changed from its initial brass color to its current bright gold.

"—It does indeed harbor an extremely powerful force that continues to grow until now. Perhaps Mr. Chu Xuan's calculations are correct; this equipment, materialized from Sauron's Light of the Mind, can indeed be armed after being infused with similar divine power, temporarily granting the wearer some of the power of a fourth-tier being. But this could also become a powerful bomb. Of course, my speculation has no basis, so you can disregard it."

“I think you’ll have a different opinion once you get to know Chu Xuan better, Zhao Zhuikong. Chu Xuan is very reliable.” Zheng Zha pursed his lips. He didn’t deny that his heart rate increased slightly when he heard that this thing might explode. But after a few microseconds of serious thought, he realized that he didn’t need to care about this possibility at all—because it was completely meaningless.

He was destined to wear this ring, even if it really did explode. After all, this cycle of reincarnation still needed seventy-two hours—to be precise, it should be around sixty-eight hours before it ended. And he would likely need this thing's help a lot in the time to come.

Even if it explodes, it doesn't matter! Once the Ring is destroyed, this storyline ends!

[I refuse to believe this thing can kill me before I get back to the Main God Space!]