Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Girls Reached a Consensus

"Actually, I've always looked forward to this kind of conversation. After all, you and my brother are very close, while I know very little about you." Zhao Yingkong raised her hand and clapped her hands. The space inside the church was stretched and expanded, and a spatial protective barrier appeared inside the church. Then, it imprisoned all the material structures inside the church, preventing them from moving or being damaged in the slightest during the upcoming battle.

“After all, for us reincarnators, the clash of power and will is always the most effective form of dialogue. And I think you wouldn't refuse such an approach.” She gestured invitingly. “Using this church as the boundary, without destroying anything or killing any living thing, what do you think?”

“I think it’s excellent!” Xilin waved her hand, and several strips of sub-space energy tore out from the imaginary space and stabbed fiercely at Zhao Yingkong’s form. Several spatial barriers shattered suddenly, and the gray-white strips only broke through a few illusory shells—her figure flickered, and the next moment Zhao Yingkong’s figure appeared in her original position and slashed down vertically. The blade, capable of severing spacetime, left no scratch when it touched the ground. Space twisted, and the second Zhao Yingkong also turned into an illusory bubble under the attack of the sub-space energy.

"You're angry, but are you really that angry? Is it just because I interrupted your 'casual game'? Because I hypnotized a few characters you've only known for less than two hours? Or... are you actually hoping for this war?"

Zhao Yingkong's voice echoed from the void, and the collision of the blade and the ribbon repeated at least twenty thousand times as she finished speaking. The turbulent spacetime and energy surges shifted wildly, seemingly poised to reduce the church and the surrounding ten-kilometer airspace to dust in the next instant. However, before they could succeed, they were bound together by an invisible force field, forming the shape of a blade in her hand.

The blade of lightning, the slash of space—Cirin's eyes remained unmoved. She was certainly not susceptible to this mere, inactive protagonist's halo, which had only been known for less than two hours before she risked her life for these main characters and her companions. After all, she knew very well what the erosion of a protagonist's halo looked like. If such signs were truly present, she would probably have already wiped the entire North America, along with its continental shelf, off the face of the earth—no one was conducting experiments in North America anyway; flattening a continent would at most cause some insignificant earthquakes or tsunamis.

In fact, as Zhao Yingkong said.

“Yes, I actually hoped for this battle too. I was just using it as an excuse earlier.” Xilin's form rapidly shifted in mid-air, each slash colliding with Zhao Yingkong, who was also moving through the void, tearing apart large swaths of purple-white lightning. The lightning coalesced, like a predatory bird trying to capture Zhao Yingkong. “I'm not unaware of the experiments you've conducted around the world, but most of the people conducting those experiments haven't even reached the fourth rank. Those who have are quite leisurely now. And given the style of the person who orchestrated this, she or he wouldn't deliberately set aside so much time for you to waste!”

"It's 'we,' not 'you'!" Zhao Yingkong corrected, easily tearing apart the lightning net woven by Xilin and successfully escaping. However, as the lightning destroyed, it transformed into fire, the flames boiling, erupting, and instantly filling every corner of the entire church.

Lyon, lying on the chair, clicked his tongue and unconsciously rolled over in the flames that could vaporize gold in an instant.

"Whatever, it doesn't matter." Xilin shook her head slightly. She noticed the shadow wriggling in the seam of her clothes, and then the corrosive wind swept over her entire body. But Zhao Yingkong appeared in the gap between the winds and stabbed Xilin directly through the neck with a knife.

Naturally, Zhao Yingkong had only pierced a spatial fold. As the space closed, the invisible energy quietly dissipated. Almost the instant she retrieved her sword, she discovered that one of her arms had withered and aged, turning to ashes at a speed that was extremely rapid even to the naked eye of a fourth-level being.

"Lightning, fire, wind, life... and the all-encompassing space. Is this the essence of your power?" Zhao Yingkong's form shattered, then coalesced and returned to its complete form. Sparks flew from her breath, and smoke and shadows lingered around her—a dark shadow immediately enveloped the ordinary katana.

"It's just an appearance," Sirin corrected, her five fingers suddenly closing together, and the five distinct powers immediately merged into one, followed by a chaotic storm that would annihilate everything.

A chaotic storm, a storm of annihilation, and at the heart of the storm, a faint line suddenly appeared.

The next moment, the wind stopped and the blade ceased.

The chaotic storm, powerful enough to disrupt everything and turn Raccoon City into a thick soup of matter, abruptly stopped when it touched the church doors. And the cursed blade, born from the darkness deep within the soul, capable of inflicting fatal damage even on a true god, halted an inch before Sirin's throat—the tip of the blade trembled slightly, and its material structure turned to dust.

"Is it a manifestation of fire and space, but in reality a profound darkness extracted from the abyss of the soul? Something extraordinary lurks deep within you... Just like Zhao Zhuikong, it seems the trouble you face is far more powerful than anticipated." Xilin glanced at the church, which remained unchanged from before the battle.

"You're not much better off, are you? The imbalance caused by the lack of something on the soul level has even affected the path you walk and the form of your power. If you can't regain the most important power of time in time, what awaits you is probably no better than my inner demon going out of control." Zhao Yingkong replied coldly, and she reforged a samurai sword for herself that was exactly the same as the one before.

"You won't last much longer."

"You won't have long to live either."

"Hmph hmph hmph..."

"Hehehe..."

"Cirin".

"Zhao Yingkong".

Their hands clasped together.

"Nice to meet you." (X2)

Both of them breathed a sigh of relief. Now that they had confirmed that they were cut from the same cloth, there was no need to pretend to fight a fight that wasn't even a real brawl... Although Miss Sirin was still unhappy that her real-life role-playing game had been ruined... that was all.

The truck is good, but the person is not. Anyone who has played a lot of role-playing games will definitely encounter this kind of thing more than once or twice. If you get angry every time, you are just hurting your liver. As the former chief survival expert of the East American team, Ms. Xilin, who is well-versed in self-preservation and prolonging her life, naturally will not waste too much energy on such trivial matters.

“But it’s not like there’s no chance to salvage the situation. I managed to persuade them quickly, so it’s within the rules of the game, right?” Zhao Yingkong shrugged and sat down next to the bench where Xilin was sitting. “At most, we can just deepen the memory erasure process, or at worst, we can just physically delete the memories from these gentlemen and ladies’ minds.”

She meant directly erasing the specific memory areas of the cerebral cortex, ensuring that the memories of these main characters could not be restored by any means other than time reversal. But…

“The protagonist’s halo effect isn’t something you can just fool. Who knows if there’s a recording camera nearby that ‘just happens’ to have escaped our detection? Even if there isn’t, with the help of the Qi Luck, they might still run into something like time reversal,” Sirin sighed and replied. “Besides, I wasn’t using the rules of Clash of Clans. Quick persuasion… that doesn’t even exist.”

The two looked at each other in silence. Then...

“I think I might be able to offer some insights. According to my research, as long as we guide and shift the goals of the world's will, or rather, the principles of civilization, then those who are the main characters will naturally focus their attention in the corresponding direction.” A voice suddenly rang out from the doorway. “And I happen to have someone to shift the blame onto.”

Patchouli, now back to her original form, stood smiling at the church entrance—her smile was gentle, yet chilling.

"as well as……"

"The two seem to be getting along very well, so they probably wouldn't mind having one more player."

………………

4 / 16?

Section 29: Sociological Experiment Report - Western Europe

Leon felt himself falling, falling into an abyss.

His hands were unsupported, his body unsteady, and his consciousness was as hazy as if he had drunk several kilograms of strong liquor. He wanted to do something, but didn't know how; he wanted to say something, but didn't know how. He only felt himself falling, falling, falling into the abyss, and then going to a place even deeper than the abyss…

Where is there a place deeper than the abyss...?

He didn't know, didn't understand, and couldn't understand. In a daze, he seemed to hear someone whispering in his ear. The voice was indistinct, sounding both male and female, and the exact content was impossible to discern. He tried hard to listen, but the voice vanished as soon as he focused his attention.

Was it an illusion? Or was it real?

He didn't know, but he knew he had focused his attention. As the faint sound seemed to fade, his surroundings became clearer, and he gradually became aware of his hands, feet, limbs, and torso. Then, a clear consciousness emerged in his mind.

Where am I?

My mind was blank; there was no response.

Is this hell? Am I dead...? I remember I was in a church, and then a girl knocked on the door and came in. Uh...

—A sharp pain shot through my mind, and my body began to tremble as if I had been electrocuted.

He felt his own breath, felt the flow of his blood. He felt some unknown force resonating with him from afar. He felt himself... no longer falling.

He suddenly opened his eyes.

"Where is this..." A light suddenly appeared before his eyes, and the light immediately became dazzling. He subconsciously covered his face, and then the strong wind that hit him made him wake up abruptly.

This is Earth!

What came into his view was a gigantic sphere he had seen countless times on television, appearing on the screen whenever the weather forecast aired. It was a vast expanse of blue, with pure white cloud bands winding through it, and between the blue sea and white clouds lay enormous landmasses. And at this moment, he was nearly five thousand kilometers above the ground.

The feeling of falling, which had just subsided, returned. A raging wind surrounded him, and that howling wind instantly became unbearably hot. He couldn't even scream as he watched helplessly as his limbs burned violently in the scorching wind. And before plunging into eternal darkness, he clearly saw where he would land!

[The place I'm going to crash is... Western Europe!]

"Aaaaaaahh ...

"I'm still alive?" He instinctively lunged forward, his eyes quickly zooming in on the dark asphalt road. When his nose hit the floor, he clearly realized his mistake, and then his forehead followed suit.

It was a very heavy blow, very, very heavy. For a moment, he even felt that his forehead and nose were no longer his own, and then the pain swept through his brain—he was writhing on the ground in agony.

However, the pain came and went quickly; in an instant, he could no longer feel the previous pain. Then a familiar voice appeared in his ear.

"Lyon?"

He turned his head and saw a body that had fallen to the ground just like his own, and a familiar face.

“Claire?” Leon rubbed his eyes, and coincidentally, the red-clad motorcycle girl who had fallen to the ground did the same. After confirming that they hadn’t mistaken each other for each other, Claire got up first and reached out to help him up from the ground.

“I thought I was seeing things at first, but it really is you, Leon. I thought I had just fallen from the sky…” Claire managed a weak smile, which vanished as quickly as summer snow upon seeing Leon’s serious face. She asked incredulously, “…You too?”

“Me too.” Lyon nodded, looking around. “That’s probably true, we really did fall from the sky… but maybe not entirely. Because we’re probably in France now. Paris, because I can see the Eiffel Tower.”

He looked at the asphalt road under his feet and the landscaped trees on both sides, and quickly and accurately identified some very prominent features.

“This is Ares Square. I came here once a long time ago. It seems we really did fall from the sky, but we fell from the sky in a dream, and in a lucid dream, we landed in this place I’ve been before…” Leon casually picked up a newspaper that had been blown by the wind and read the detailed news content on it. “But this might not be an ordinary dream. Claire, we’ve probably been hypnotized.”

“No, it wasn’t hypnosis.” Claire shook her head vigorously after hearing Leon’s opinion. “We weren’t hypnotized, and this isn’t a place you’ve been before—this is reality, or rather, the real world as it is now. Although I have no proof, I think my guess is correct.”

“…Perhaps you’re right.” Leon frowned. “Because I’ve realized that I haven’t questioned your authenticity until now. It’s like I know very well that you truly exist here and are not a phantom in my dream.” He paused, his gaze sweeping across the empty square. “This isn’t my dream, because dreams can’t be this real, you wouldn’t feel a headache in a dream, and you certainly wouldn’t have such clear and logical thinking in a dream.”

“I remember we were in a church before, and then I opened the door…”

“You opened the door and let a girl carrying a large suitcase and dressed in Japanese samurai armor into the church,” Claire completed the sentence. “Marvin said the girl was the mayor's daughter, so we settled her in. And after settling her in, I felt a little sleepy…”

“Then we fell asleep,” Leon concluded, lightly tapping one fist against his other hand. “I figured it out, that must be it. But what does that matter about our current situation? We slept, opened our eyes, and found ourselves in Paris, and there wasn’t a soul on the streets!”

His voice abruptly stopped, and his gaze met Claire's.

"Oh right...why is there nobody in Paris?"

The two looked around and found everything eerily quiet. Although it was daytime, the entire city was like a ghost town, completely still. There were no sounds of vehicles, no jingling of roadside advertisements, no footsteps, no conversations; only a faint breeze lingered in the streets.

No, that wasn't wind, not just wind, because in the sound of that wind, the two heard the rhythm of life. It was... a living thing, and that living thing... was breathing.

'thump--'

'thump--'

A faint heartbeat could be heard from afar, with an eerie frequency. To their horror, the two realized their heartbeats were gradually synchronizing with each other's. And in the process of synchronizing, they clearly sensed the rhythmic, living thing right behind them.

Before them stood the Eiffel Tower and the silent city; behind them, a massive heartbeat and a gradually reviving form. Their gazes met stiffly, cold sweat pouring down their foreheads. Slowly, reluctantly, like a rusted lock, they turned their heads. Then, fear gripped their hearts.

Good heavens, what did they see?

It was an enormous, colossal living thing, as large as a mountain. It had no hands, no feet, no scales, no fur. It resembled an amorphous mass of flesh formed from overproliferating cancer cells in a nutrient solution, yet this mass was as large as a mountain!

No, perhaps it was more than just a mountain. It was also a city, a people, a nation. Just as Lyon and Claire saw it, it also 'saw' them. Then, in an instant, beneath their gaze, millions of eyes suddenly opened on the mountain-like living thing!

Where there are eyes, there are eyebrows. Where there are eyebrows, there is a forehead. Where there is a forehead, there is a face, as well as a mouth, nose, lips, and teeth.

From the myriad eyes of that living being, half the number of faces were born, each face bearing a different appearance. From old to young, from men to women, from handsome to ugly, from whole to crippled, from kind to repulsive, from gentle to vicious, countless faces, countless countenances, each revealing a different expression, each face's eyes gazing upon him and her.

One is the whole, and the whole is one.

Man is God, and God is man.

The outlines of those millions of faces became clearer... no, not in terms of their increased resolution, but in the gradual emergence of parts that weren't part of the face—ears, jaws, cheeks, and most importantly, necks.

The neck serves to connect the torso and the head. Its primary function is to adjust the head's orientation to the correct position.

The living creature was more than five kilometers away from the two of them, a distance from which they shouldn't have been able to clearly see the faces of each one. So, instead of the mountain, the mountain came to them. The millions of necks supporting the millions of faces grew five kilometers long at an incredible speed and in an incredible amount of time, and just like that, they were right above the two of them!

Millions of faces, millions of heads, millions of features ultimately converge to form a face like that of a youth. The youth's eyes are the eyes of millions, the youth's mouth is the mouth of millions, and when the youth speaks, the voices of millions also emerge from his lips.

That's not a sound that people can accept, not a sound that people can understand.

When mortals directly listen to the words of this incomprehensible being, their brains are destined to be damaged by the excessive amount of knowledge they come into contact with, and their bodies are destined to be distorted by the excessively complex instructions they bear.

Lyon was mortal, and so was Claire. So when they saw that living being, their thoughts immediately froze, and when they heard its voice, their bodies contorted and twisted, their limbs dissolved, their muscles swelled, their bones liquefied, leaving only two amorphous clumps of flesh and two blank faces clinging to them. And then…

With two sharp cracks, two amorphous clumps of flesh exploded, shattering into two radiating red patches on the Champ de Mars beneath the Eiffel Tower. And immediately after their explosion, the youthful face composed of countless heads quietly dissipated. Millions of necks and millions of heads returned to the mountain-like main body. And then…

...They closed their eyes.