Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

The sophisticated connecting devices turned to ashes in an instant, and scorching heat surged and rolled through every corner of the base, transforming into a fiery current that could burn everything. In just a moment, this secret research base, which Umbrella had invested billions of dollars and countless resources in, was shattered into nothingness.

The ice sheet transformed into a fiery pool, with scorching heat waves rising from the ground into the sky. The icy cold of Antarctica clashed with this intense heat, transforming into a raging storm of wind and rain that stretched for hundreds of miles.

A tall figure appeared at the very center of the explosion. With a simple breath, the raging wind and rain dissipated. A crimson greatsword appeared in his hand, and with a single slash, the world returned to the crisp, clear air of the Antarctic tundra.

“Margot Lloyd…you’ve gone too far.” Zheng Zha looked up at the sky. He could directly observe the approximate changes occurring in many areas of this planet through the clear reflection of the sky—just a short while ago, he seemed to hear the faint sounds of thousands of people wailing and begging for mercy. And when he detached his will from the role of the tyrant, his fourth-level manipulation ability easily connected him to the satellite network that was not guarding against him, and he finally gained insight into everything that had happened in this world in the past few hours.

Hearing is not as good as seeing. Without witnessing it firsthand, he would never have known that the world had been manipulated into this state by the reckless reincarnators. The rules were altered, the order was deleted, and all that was beautiful and kind was trampled into the mud. The only thing left in the world was the purest malice.

Pure evil, primal evil. It's like a toddler pouring boiling water into an ant nest, tearing the wings of insects and birds, and burying them alive in the soil. When the reincarnators commit their evil deeds, they do so without any subjective hatred or anger—they simply find that they can do it, and then they do it.

This world, the innocent people of this world, should not have to be reduced to this state!

“I can understand Zhao Zhuikong. I’ve talked to him. He loves his sister and would do anything to help Ying Kong get rid of the hidden danger lurking deep in her heart. Even if it’s just a joke experiment… But I’m the same way. I would do anything to protect Luo Li… So I don’t blame him.”

“I can understand Zhan Lan. She came to the Main God Space with me from the beginning. I know her. She has always wanted to help the team. She should be the most vulnerable companion to my Dao Corruption, but she didn’t. From this, I can see that she doesn’t pay much attention to people outside the team. So I don’t blame her.”

“I can understand Chu Xuan. Lacking emotions, he wouldn’t care about others. His only focus is on the maximum benefit he can gain from a single operation. As long as he can gain profits without wasting too many resources, all laws and morals in the world are meaningless to him. This is an uncontrollable force... so I don’t blame him.”

“I can even understand Zhang Jie… well, what does it matter to me how many Japanese die? In the end, I’m a bit of a radical youth myself. Although I don’t quite agree with what he and Xiao Honglu did, actually… well, I don’t blame them.”

“But Margot Lloyd, why… are you trying to fool me like this?”

"So what are you planning to do? Are you trying to kill me?" Alice's voice suddenly came from the side. He turned his head and saw the girl's figure clearly visible ten meters away—he had just been certain that Alice was in the suburbs of Raccoon City and that he was about to go and cause trouble for her—but now the witch's true form had appeared beside him.

It was surprising, but not unexpected.

"The results you achieved in the Lord of the Rings world? A dual body, a hybrid of the initial stage of the fourth tier's genetic lock and the obsessive soul of a Demon Lord... I didn't expect you to be able to wield it so skillfully now." Zheng Zha pressed his hand on the Destruction Greatsword, his eyes slightly narrowed. "No, I won't harm my companions. But..."

A cold glint flashed in his eyes.

"I'll show you that you'll be taught a lesson for doing the wrong thing!"

A blood-red blade of light swept out, then abruptly stopped in front of Alice's raised finger. The surrounding spatial structure became unstable due to the high-energy matter of the captain, while Alice simply watched the guy in front of her quietly, without any intention of going all out from the start.

"This is your reply to me? After I explained everything to you beforehand?"

“Do you still think you’re doing the right thing?” Zheng Zha replied, his fourth-tier gene locks opening one after another, the turbulent energy currents surrounding him growing more intense with each passing moment. “Margot Royd… if you hadn’t told me anything from the beginning, and had used other methods to keep me here, then even if I had sensed something, I could have pretended not to know anything. But now… I know you definitely still have ways to reverse all of this. Even if you don’t, you can stop the experiment you’re conducting and let this world return to its original state in the future.”

“We’re here for a vacation, not to conduct experiments or complete engineering projects,” he said sincerely. “Let’s just have a normal vacation like a normal reincarnation team, without causing trouble or interfering with this world that’s on a different level from ours. Wouldn’t that be better?”

“…I really don’t want to repeat myself. I especially don’t want to convince someone I’ve already convinced once.” Alice replied indifferently, her tone revealing little of her true feelings. “How many times do I have to emphasize this before you understand that time waits for no one, and the final battle is not far off. We must seize every opportunity to strengthen each member, not waste our meager resources on your pointless pity before we even solve our survival problems!”

"As I've said before, the civilization in this Resident Evil world is destined to perish. The T-virus will infect the whole world, and everyone will die. Those who died at the hands of mutated creatures because of my or others' experiments would have died within days from the T-virus infection or from the clutches of zombies anyway. The experiments we've conducted have actually given some life to those who would have been wiped out."

"The world will crumble, and civilizations will perish. But the number of deaths will certainly not be far less than if we did nothing. And with the results of our experiments, after we leave this world, the survivors will undoubtedly develop another civilization at an extremely rapid pace, and may even shed the 'zombie' element in the world's civilizational principles, thus becoming a more promising super civilization!"

She gripped the blade of Zheng Zha's sword, a series of faint aurora-like flashes of energy erupting between her fingers and the crimson edge. Her gaze shifted visibly from indifference to seriousness, before she uttered words so weighty they almost materialized from her lips.

"I asked you before if you were willing to dirty your hands and your heart for your comrades. You said no problem, so I took it as a truth. And now you want to back out... Fine, back out if you want. It's only natural for a man to break his word. But if you don't like it, you can choose to ignore it. But you... or are you really planning to cut off other people's chances of promotion for your own petty self-satisfaction?"

“…If we don’t save them, they will die. But just because they are destined to die doesn’t give you the right to kill them before they die. Failing to save someone in distress is already terrible; there’s no need to descend into even deeper sin. Other people’s experiments have already turned out this way, and I don’t intend to stop them, but I will definitely have a serious talk with them afterwards. But you!” Zheng Zha exhaled deeply.

“Margot Lloyd, you had no reason to initiate such inhumane experiments. You grow stronger in every cycle of reincarnation, becoming stronger with each passing moment. You didn't need to, you shouldn't have, brought such violent calamities upon innocent people. Yes, they were destined to die. But you said that was under the premise that we didn't intend to do anything. And now I intend to save everyone in this world who would have died from the T-virus infection. In other words, their original fate of certain death has been eliminated, and you have become the real murderer!”

"Stop it, Margot Lloyd. Haven't you and Norrell not had a relaxing holiday together in a long time? Now, let's end all this, go to the beach, sunbathe, have a swimsuit party, and whisper sweet nothings under the night sky. Wouldn't that be nice? ...Let's end all this, and once everyone else is free, the whole team can go have a big beach party."

"As for the innocent, those who are already dead are no match for me. I wouldn't blame my comrades for a bunch of dead people. But for those who are still alive, wouldn't it be better to give them a chance to be reborn and live peaceful lives in a peaceful world?"

He gazed at Alice with sincere eyes and earnest words. It was clear that every word he spoke was heartfelt, and he truly believed that Alice had the ability to restore everything in the world to its original state.

Alice couldn't help but fall into deep thought.

Sometimes I really wonder if handing over the leadership of the team to this guy back in Final Destination 2 was a mistake? Even if Patchouli and I can't be 'kings,' a dual leadership and wise counsel might still lead this team to a higher level.

But is that really the right thing to do...? No, there's no point in even thinking about it anymore. We made our own choices, so we have to bear the consequences. Although this guy keeps throwing tantrums for no apparent reason, there's no denying that as the core of the team, his ability to foster team cohesion is quite good.

So, the decision now is whether or not to teach him a lesson right now, to show him what happens when you mess up all my carefully prepared plans. Ugh... honestly, I finally mustered the courage to push myself to the point where I had to move forward, and I even deliberately chose this moment when he was at his most enraged to bring my backup body into play, giving myself a reason to go all out... but why didn't he just go for it from the start? His genetic lock wasn't even unlocked, and I couldn't even bring myself to be serious with that pretentious attack!

A hint of frustration stirred within the girl's heart.

She had long anticipated that the will of this world, or rather, the principles of civilization, would summon this muscular gorilla as reinforcements before she could destroy everything herself. She had also prepared in advance; as soon as things started to escalate, she would mobilize most of the power of her Raccoon City counterpart. And naturally, the will of that world would take advantage of a partial stalemate while she was engaged in conflict, dispatching several protagonist-level henchmen, empowered to reach the pinnacle of their worldview, to drag her Raccoon City counterpart into the war.

By then, simultaneously waging war on two fronts, and bearing the world's hatred, he would inevitably be pushed to his limits in that battle. Even if he couldn't successfully ascend to the fourth tier, he would certainly take a significant step forward on his path to advancement. Coupled with Chu Xuan's plans and strategies... the chances of success would be very high.

In this way, she, who fought with all her might, will have a chance to be promoted, as will the others who completed the sociology experiment. Even Zheng Zha, who was forced to fight her, will advance to a higher level by fulfilling his own path after a desperate battle—everyone will benefit, everyone will grow. Although he might be beaten up by the muscle gorilla, he has a resurrection item. As long as he lets Zheng Zha kill him cleanly at the end, all problems will be solved. Someone's resentment will be suppressed, and the rift in the team will disappear. Even if he seems to suffer the greatest loss, all he needs to pay is a B-level rank plus 7000 points, which will most likely be compensated.

Everything was planned perfectly, but one flaw was overlooked. That was—Zheng Zha simply didn't believe that someone she loved would act without leaving any room for retreat.

Ah, yes, that's right. The worldwide carnage was indeed excessive. But her love for someone meant she really had a way to reverse everything—it was just a massive, global resurrection ritual, capable of bringing all the dead back to life. With a swarm of nanobots capable of turning East Asia into a terrestrial kingdom, restoring destroyed buildings to their original state wasn't particularly difficult. And since the dead could be resurrected and ruins could be rebuilt, how difficult would it be to perform a planet-wide memory alteration or partial obfuscation?

The idea that a single extraordinary being could suppress a planetary civilization and sever all change and resistance is no joke. Moreover, there is more than one extraordinary being here.

and so……

“If I stop, the progress of other people’s experiments will be affected.” — Alice

"I am the captain, I will protect everyone. I will bear the burden of my teammates' weaknesses." — Zheng Zha

"Chu Xuan has a big plan, and he should be about to make his move." — Alice

“I’ll go talk to him.” — Zheng Zha

Alice shut her mouth, looking at the utterly stupid-looking person in front of her. She made a decision.

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

Many experts say that Alice's failed vacations are a major flaw, and I wholeheartedly agree. So…

As the title suggests, make your choice, everyone!

1. The battle begins, and this process will last approximately twenty quarters, perhaps longer. The content will basically be battle, battle, battle, battle, battle, battle, battle, battle, battle.

2. Can't we just have an abortion and enjoy a proper vacation? This process will consist of five to ten sessions. No more. The content will mainly consist of leisure, entertainment, and bonding activities, including classic swimsuit episodes.

In short, after this volume ends, it's time to head to the broken planet.

Chapter Thirty-Four: Spellcasters are not good at melee combat

“I made a mistake before, and I deeply regret it,” Alice said softly, her words carrying an unknown power that flowed across the Antarctic permafrost. “In the world of Final Destination 2, I shouldn’t have let you complete the ‘Human Emperor’ ritual. While that battle certainly gave you ever-increasing power and the primal drive for advancement, in the long run, it was actually more harmful than beneficial to this cycle of reincarnation.”

“Margot Lloyd… what do you mean?” Zheng Zha’s heart sank. He knew Alice had chosen to refuse. But even so, he still wanted to try. “If you have any issues with me, you can say so. We’re all teammates; there’s nothing that can’t be discussed…”

“It’s pointless,” Alice interrupted him coldly. “Some things can be discussed, some things can’t. And my judgment was also somewhat flawed. I used to think you were a lucky guy like Guo Jing, who, although not good at thinking, always managed to find the right path. Not only did you have a smooth journey, but you even bypassed the biggest obstacle in your genetic lock, the ‘inner demon,’ by sheer luck. But I was wrong.”

"It's not that you don't have inner demons, but rather that you've long since identified them as part of yourself. Just like Zhang Heng and the others were corrupted by your Dao, thus distorting their way of understanding. And haven't you also been corrupted by the 'Human Emperor's Dao? That inexplicable sense of responsibility, that unreasonable benevolence... Do you really think that's something a young white-collar worker who spends his days drinking and reveling in bars should have?"

Zheng Zha was stunned, followed by a sudden surge of rage from the depths of his heart—how could she? How dare she? How could she look at the inherent kindness between people with such dark and sordid eyes? Shouldn't a person help others in need? Shouldn't one lend a hand when injustice is seen? Protecting oneself is certainly good, but since one has the ability, why shouldn't one bear the responsibility that comes with it?

Shouldn't those who are capable naturally protect the weak? Even if they had to differentiate between close and distant relatives when they were weak due to the limitations of their strength, now that they are strong and capable, why shouldn't they treat the world with kindness?

“…Margot Lloyd, it’s not too late for you to take those words back.” The words that came out of his mouth were colder than he had expected. But he was oblivious to it. “Everything I did was based on my own thoughts and judgments. I just wanted to help the innocent, and that had nothing to do with anyone or any other power.”

"Don't try to fool me with some ridiculous 'Taoist erosion' excuse... I'm not that easily fooled! I'm asking you one last time. Are you willing to stop this experiment and restore the world to its original state?"

Alice stared at him quietly for a few seconds, then slowly tilted her head, a smile playing on her lips that was hard to describe as either sarcastic or comical, but which contained absolutely no positive emotion.

What if I say... no?

"Then don't blame me for using force to persuade you. Margot Lloyd, I am the captain of the Central State Team, I am the strongest. I don't want everyone to have unpleasantness over such a small matter. But if you continue to be stubborn..."

Alice's smile faded as she watched Zheng Zha's aura become unstable, his internal energy surging like a tidal wave, poised to erupt. She finally confirmed the fact that persuasive words were no longer effective—neither against him nor against herself. Neither against him nor against herself.

The genetic lock within her body began to be released.

“Since you’ve said it’s a small matter, how about you just ignore it for the sake of your companions?” Alice lightly flicked her fingers, putting a little distance between herself and Zheng Zha. “Even if I’m begging you, I want to complete this experiment now, and my companions need to complete it too. Since you’re the captain, you should have some magnanimity. Forget about this little thing, and I promise I’ll do my best to help you save the world in similar situations in the future, okay?”

"These are two different things!" Zheng Zha also gripped his broadsword tightly. A multitude of fragmented thoughts welled up from the depths of his heart, making it increasingly difficult for him to maintain his rationality—no, he wasn't crazy, he was perfectly lucid. But there was a strange distortion within this lucidity, and this distortion, which he could sense but didn't intend to correct, made his words and thoughts increasingly agitated.

“Stop the experiments, witch. Now, immediately.” His words grew increasingly radical. “Otherwise, you will soon understand what your kind, chained to the stake, felt in their final moments. Don’t force me to do that.”

This time, Alice's heart and body finally turned completely cold.

“It seems I really did protect you too well in the previous world, monkey.” She stretched out her hands, one hand gripping a giant black scythe between her fingers, while the other was wrapped with the puppeteer’s strings. Her words also shifted from standard Chinese to an aristocratic European aria filled with classical phrases. “Then, let’s decide who’s right and who’s wrong in a savage way.”

Before she could finish speaking, a sharp, crimson blade was already slashing towards her neck. Without dodging or parrying, she simultaneously swung her massive black scythe, held in one hand, diagonally towards Zheng Zha's waist!

With a soft 'whoosh,' like a sheet of paper being torn apart, her head detached from her torso. A long, narrow gash was also slashed across Zheng Zha's chest and abdomen. Countless blood vessels writhed within the gash, healing the wound at a speed measured in microseconds. Alice's severed head burst forth with countless tiny sparks of light in mid-air, and then… exploded!

'boom--!!!!'

Every atom overlaps with another atom, and every ejected neutron collides with a displaced proton. When trillions upon trillions of atomic nuclei collapse and disintegrate due to the direct interference of the weak force, releasing the enormous energy scattered by the atomic collapse, a light brighter than the sun shines on the Antarctic land.

A mass reaction equivalent to at least a billion tons of TNT directly impacted Zheng Zha, while an energy surge several times greater leaked and dissipated outwards. The polar day was dyed pure white, and the snowfield, nearly a thousand kilometers in diameter, vaporized in an instant, even the ancient stone veins exposed beneath decomposed or melted into boiling magma. And a massive rift valley almost spanning the Antarctic continent appeared on this brand-new map!

The near-zero-distance energy impact resulted in Zheng Zha losing a hand and a foot, while over 70% of his skin was festering and melting. His cells struggled to function, releasing life energy to rebuild the damaged tissue. However, countless tiny explosions continued to emanate from his body, destroying it again just as it was about to fully heal.

That was due to a distortion of the energy itself. Zheng Zha's energy, flesh, meridians, and nerves—all of them—suffered extremely severe damage under the multiple layers of complex radiation released during the mass reaction. The repair information in the cellular gene chain was disrupted, the purity of the energy circulating within his body was polluted, and the nerve signals used to maintain bodily functions were tangled into a chaotic mess in the disordered radiation field. This caused his overall combat power to decrease by at least one-third at that moment!

This is a curse, a curse of physics, a curse of materialism. And as the curse erupted, Alice's scythe-wielding form simultaneously appeared behind him!

"I designed your energy system, I designed the way and techniques you use to operate your energy, I designed your sublimated bloodline structure, and I designed the direction of combat skills you chose to study. I even know exactly how you use your gene lock abilities, the fine-tuning of various gene fragments, and your combat combinations. And you actually think you can defeat me with brute force?"

The giant scythe slashed down, and at the same time, the wound on Zheng Zha's chest that had been cut open earlier unleashed an energy burst even more violently than the previous explosion. An uncontrolled fission reaction occurred directly within his wound, between cells, which almost melted half of his body!

"Aaaaaaahh ...

His shoulders were sliced ​​open, his hands were sliced ​​open, his waist was sliced ​​open, his abdomen was sliced ​​open. Alice's continuous scythe slashes easily bypassed his instinctive defensive sword strikes, cutting his body into pieces. And from the giant scythe, even more physical or mental curses specifically targeted him, instantly turning seventy-five percent of his body mass into a pool of organic pus, leaving not a single intact cell!

Yet he still gripped the knife in his hand, his eyes burning like star flares. When his mass loss reached eighty percent, a soft, clear light burst forth from the ring on the hand holding the knife, and this light instantly repelled Alice, who held the scythe, at the moment of her birth!

Mimicry of the Light of the Mind, loading. Advanced Destruction State, Primordial Chaos, unfolding.

His shattered body was rapidly restored under the clear light, but before the restoration was complete, it was quickly destroyed again by the entanglement of positive and negative energies in its primordial state. Repair, destruction, repair again, destruction again. The materialistic curse, dominated by radiation and chaotic magnetic fields, was removed along with his corroded body before it could take effect, and a brief, absolute barrier against magic was erected around Zheng Zha!

For the first time, the blade collided with the scythe—the black giant scythe shattered under the red blade entangled with positive and negative energy, and the scythe wielder's figure was also swept away by the impact, smashing through a mountain hundreds of miles away that had been melted into stone by the previous high-temperature impact!

"This is starting to look more like it..."

The second blow followed immediately.

The next moment, the mountain collapsed, and a massive rift valley stretched from one corner of Antarctica to another, not even adjacent to it. Intense flames and lava erupted from the rift, and the boiling heat caused the ice and snow on most of Antarctica (excluding the previously affected portion) to begin melting.

The gap between the Earth's crust and the asthenosphere was broken.

The rift created by Zheng Zha's strike, along with another created by the previous mass reaction, directly divided the vast, barren polar region into four unequal pieces. One after another, tectonic fissures appeared, and one after another, active volcanoes were born. The intense heat surging from the depths of the earth easily overcame Antarctica's unchanging frigid climate of billions of years, transforming this desolate land into fertile soil.

Sea levels may rise as a result, but before that, the tsunami triggered by the aftershocks of their battle will sweep across the world. Of course, that's all in the future; right now, at this very moment, the second round of the battle has begun.

The first strike shattered the black scythe, the second tore the continent apart, and the third strike caught up with the repelled Alice at the farthest edge of the Antarctic continent from the previous battle point, then blasted through her protective layer and slashed her directly into the sea!

The ocean churned and then parted to the sides. Alice, who had crashed directly onto the seabed, rose from the cracked crater and reached out to block the fourth blow.

One must press on with one effort, for the second will be weaker, and the third will be exhausted. The fourth attempt is when all strength is spent.

But it was only the sword that was left, not the person. When Alice blocked the fourth sword strike, Zheng Zha suddenly shifted his position and arrived at Alice's side with unimaginable speed. Meanwhile, his primordial state remained active, the flow of positive and negative energy shifting, he took a step, and thrust his shoulder forward!