Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"Sending you home means killing everything in your way that's blocking your way home, right?"

“That’s not wrong either.” The serene vampire girl nodded elegantly. “My name is Serana, Serana of Valhach. If you’re willing to accept this request, could you tell me your name?”

“Just call me Alice.” The girl, who was perhaps of dragon descent, replied as she sheathed the ebony blade. “If you don’t mind, let’s begin this request now.”

Her ears twitched. Just moments ago, when she uttered her name, a kilometer away, in the area where a man and a woman had been keeping a certain distance from her, she heard a sound like something being smashed to the ground.

Chapter 43 - Saying That Familiar Name

“That person is Margot Lloyd! Absolutely! Even if she isn’t, there’s definitely some tangled connection! I bet she’s behind all this trouble because of us being here! — If the person there really is her or a part of her!”

Zheng Zha's voice was sharp, piercing, and rapid, like a duck being choked—this last description is because as he roared out the first word, Xilin, who had been engrossed in admiring the many magnificent murals on the walls, suddenly snapped her fingers. Then, a black barrier, like a portal, abruptly opened, blocking Zheng Zha's voice and his rapidly moving figure within the ancient Nord hall!

He smashed through the barrier like a mad boar breaching a fence. But behind that fence lay another. Another black barrier suddenly unfolded, and apart from the sound of shattering glass when the first barrier was broken, no other noise escaped from the hall.

"Calm down, don't act like a hungry gorilla seeing a banana." The purple-haired beauty, adept at manipulating time and space, said calmly. A pale, giant hand silently emerged from the black barrier, grabbing the person who had lunged out and placing them back in their previous position by the collar. The white arm then disintegrated, transforming into dozens of long, slender arms that restored the hall, now in disarray due to the person's sudden movement, to its original state. Collapsed pillars were righted, scattered jewels were returned, and even the weapons of the deceased ghouls were picked up and then stuffed back into their original coffins by the white arms, along with their owners.

Her movements were swift and practiced. It was unclear where she had learned these domestic skills; they simply didn't quite fit her style. Only after the impetuous man calmed down and gave her a questioning look did she slowly and methodically offer her explanation.

"The Margot Lloyd you mentioned, is she the wise one in your team? Then think about it carefully. If she really is here, wouldn't she know you've gotten involved in her scheme? The fact that she hasn't come to you means she doesn't have any special plans for you. There's no need for you to rush over to her like this. And if she doesn't know you're involved in her scheme, and you recklessly barge in... guess what will happen?"

Zheng Zha was first taken aback, then gasped.

“That makes sense!” He nodded repeatedly. “When we parted ways, Margot Lloyd must have already made her new plan. And there’s no way she could have foreseen that I would stumble upon the demon race’s ritual—wait, she didn’t stop me much when I decided to abandon her plans and confront the demon race. And given her personality, she usually doesn’t give up her carefully crafted schemes so easily!”

A chill ran through him, and he gasped a second time. The temperature in Skyline Province dropped negligibly by a tiny bit. Zheng Zha's eyes widened, his face filled with disbelief mixed with a hint of suspicion. If Xilin's earlier explanation was true, it was like a hungry gorilla seeing a banana and suddenly discovering that the banana had been coated with an excessive amount of insecticide!

"Did she anticipate my actions all along? Was everything I did planned from beginning to end? This kind of thing... this kind of thing..." He subconsciously intended to activate the third stage of his genetic lock to simulate Alice's thoughts. However, due to the injuries he sustained, a sharp pain shot through his brain as soon as he made a move—no, the pain wasn't just inside his head. The outside of his skull hurt just as much. Because just now, the giant white hand that Sirin had conjured up reappeared from the top of the hall and flicked a finger onto his forehead!

"Please, wake up! Even if you're being overly sensitive, there's a limit. There's no need to scare yourself like this." She finally looked away from the mural and sighed helplessly at the neurotic guy. The girl's slender shoulders almost collapsed under the invisible pressure, because her previously reliable companion had behaved so utterly uselessly at a time like this!

The Wise Man's PSTD—she'd heard of this disease long ago. However, she never expected to find a real-life example among this generation of reincarnators. Extending her senses slightly, she discovered that the creature, perhaps a dragonborn, had led another vampire who had slept for hundreds or even thousands of years deeper into the tomb. Then, she shrugged helplessly, trying to reassure her temporary partner while considering whether she needed to find another way out.

"First of all, you've misunderstood something. No matter how intelligent the wise ones in your team are, they can't use the Light of the Mind, which doesn't even have a personalized life level, to outmaneuver a fourth-tier high-level or even a quasi-saint who has the advantage of striking first. I'm here because of the interference of my former boss, who was at least a fourth-tier high-level Lord of Time. And you came to this era with me because of the plan I gave you and my time-interference ability. On your own, you absolutely couldn't have gotten to this point in time, and you wouldn't even have thought you should be here."

"In other words, you are here because of the will of my former boss. And even if a supernatural being at most at the initial level of the fourth rank is very intelligent, at least at this stage, they are not qualified to stand on the opposite side of the Lord of Time's chessboard. Don't look like you don't believe it. Without experiencing it firsthand, you absolutely cannot imagine how outrageous the perspective of a powerful being at the fourth rank or even higher is. It is a terrifying horizon that can interfere with the energy tides between planes and observe the fluctuations of the quantum vacuum. A being that has not obtained the complete Light of the Mind is not qualified to play against it."

She glanced at Zheng Zha, who had calmed down a bit, sighed, and continued.

"So, your appearance here is definitely not within the expectations of the wise one in your team. Unless she has acquired the same perspective through some powerful external force or ritual, and has also mastered the interference power that complements that perspective. But if she could really do that, she should be crushing the Lord of War and taking the Star Cup by now. But clearly she hasn't reached that level yet."

"Is that so?"

“That’s how it is,” Sirin replied, assuming the dragonborn and vampire duo had already left the area. She then dispelled the black barrier, casually cleared away the obstacles in the passageway, and stealthily made her way towards her target. As she descended the passage, she lectured the rather dim-witted fellow.

"Didn't you hear a single word I said before? My analysis of the Dragonborn in this world—cold, taciturn, acting alone, and most importantly, lacking purpose. Her actions are methodical, yet they give the impression of drifting aimlessly. If a true sage were here, she would never waste time on such meaningless actions. Therefore, this person who should be called a Dragonborn either has a congenital lack of emotion, suffering from some severe psychological disorder, or..."

She stepped out of the gate, across the long hall, and took in the altar where the Dragonborn had previously stood—this vampire altar was built in the very center of an abyss. It looked like a large island floating in the void. The reincarnated and former reincarnated were located on the south side of the altar, while the north side connected to an ancient tomb passage that had not yet been fully excavated.

Two gargoyles, their powerful magic sealed away, guarded the tomb passage. But both were easily decapitated by the Dragonborn with a single sword strike. These killing machines, capable of unleashing a bloodbath in battle, lay scattered on the ground like a pile of construction debris. The many rubies, sapphires, malachite, and large crystals used to construct them were carelessly tossed aside like trash, failing to even attract a glance from the Dragonborn or the vampires.

“She must have amnesia, or rather, her memory is very short.” Sirin leaped forward, gliding lightly through the air for more than a mile before landing precisely on the altar island in the center of the abyss. She did not immediately choose to continue forward, but paused briefly to memorize the ritual arrangements on the altar.

Zheng Zha followed, noticing that Xilin seemed more interested in the murals and prayers surrounding the ritual array than in the content of the ritual itself. He vaguely heard the faint, rapid clanging of metal against metal coming again from a tomb a kilometer away, occasionally punctuated by the crackling sounds of ice crystals exploding.

The Dragonborn continued her advance, and at a rapid pace. Just by listening, it was clear she held a decisive advantage in her battle with the tomb's 'natives.' So much so that she hadn't even used a single one of her signature Dragonborn abilities—Dragon Shout—yet she had already leisurely advanced dozens of meters deeper into the tomb.

"Why?" Zheng Zha asked subconsciously. He had originally planned to glide down to the island like Xilin, but before he could activate the 'landing pod crash' and fall heavily, a pale hand silently reached out from the darkness below the island and supported his overly heavy feet.

"Because tigers can't be raised on small grasslands. A strong person can't appear out of nowhere, especially someone with such a great mission—I even suspect she's not human at all, but some kind of vessel used to infuse power. Some deity... or rather, a holy spirit chose this body and then bestowed its own divine power upon it. And the same explanation applies to the reincarnators."

The black partition unfolded again, this time firmly protecting the two inside, sealing off all possible loopholes or blind spots.

"If this Dragonborn is truly the wise one you believe in, then she must have only descended a part of herself to fill this body. If that's the case, then the Dragonborn you see is very likely just bait, a decoy, a tool to attract the attention of others, whether human or non-human. And the real her is currently hiding in some corner of the shadows, trying to achieve her true goal."

"If the guess is true, your disruptive actions will completely throw off her plans—she might be able to fix it, but the final result will certainly be worse than the version without any trouble. And if this guess is true, then once this matter is resolved or mostly resolved, you will have to face the wrath of the wise."

"Are you confident in facing the wrath of the wise, Zheng Zha?" Xilin shifted her gaze from the epic carvings and ancient poems on the ritual array. She had completed her phase of the mission, and all that remained was to continue the investigation.

She didn't need to wait for an answer, because the way someone's body trembled as if they'd been hit by a bomb said it all. It seemed everything was indeed as she'd predicted; the wise man in Zheng Zha's team had taught him a profound lesson in the past, a lesson that had made him paranoid.

This isn't surprising, because if she herself were the wise one in the Central Plains team, she would probably do similar things—it would be a waste of resources if a tough, thick-skinned, and thick-skinned guy didn't take the lead and clear the way. Although the plans she devised in her time as a reincarnator often ended up going out of control, the fact that she's still alive instead of being a complete failure clearly proves that the arrangements Miss Sirin made before the plans went awry did have some value.

However, this way...

“Zheng Zha.” She suddenly tilted her head and looked at her temporary companion. “Would you mind introducing your teammates? I’m starting to get a little interested in them.”

"Huh? Oh... okay." The man finally snapped out of a terrible fantasy and subconsciously gave an answer to this topic that should have been brought up long ago. After all, there was really nothing to keep secret—at least that's what he thought.

"First, there's Margot Lloyd and Norrell. They're always inseparable, practically one person. Margot Lloyd is the strategist who often makes decisions for our Central Continent team... although she seems to be slacking off a bit in these two worlds. But it's not serious, since if she has a problem, there's Norrell and Chu Xuan. The three of them are the main 'strategists' of our Central Continent team."

Then he pointed to himself.

"Aside from 'intelligence,' the remaining one should be 'strength.' I should be the strongest fighter, then it's Margot Lloyd's turn. Norrell comes a little later, because there's another one stronger than her, Zhao Yingkong..."

"An assassin?" Sirin asked casually.

"Yes, that's right. She's supposedly the most skilled assassin from some Eastern assassin family. She unlocked the fourth-tier genetic lock before all of us. It's just that there's something... deep within her soul..."

Zheng Zha suddenly fell silent.

Even he sensed a drastic change in the atmosphere as he uttered those half-sentences. He turned his head and found that Sirin, who had remained composed throughout, was looking at him with a strange gaze, as if she had just been brutally beaten!

Chapter 44 A Meeting of Minds, A Shared Understanding

The present, which has not yet happened, is static compared to the past.

Compared to the turbulent underwater surface, the smooth water surface can often be regarded as smooth as a mirror.

When the stowaways descended from the third level of the box—the level where the other teams of reincarnators were excluded—to the fourth and fifth levels, several more had already appeared. Within these upper levels of the box, time, which had been relatively still compared to the lower levels, gradually began to flow.

The first layer of the box is for the Hunting Ceremony, where Chu Xuan should have been located.

The second layer of the box is the Saint's Blood Source Dreamland, which Luo Ye guards. She has spent tens of millions of years in the Blood Source Dreamland and is steadily progressing towards the limit of hundreds of millions of years. In this cycle where there are only short periods of rest apart from long battles, the word she thinks about most often is "time."

Time, time has no meaning.

Why is time meaningless? Because her level of life is touching upon the realm of time.

As is well known, unlocking the fourth stage of the genetic lock and obtaining the complete Light of the Mind grants near-total immunity to most negative effects of spacetime interference and causal modulation. One need not worry about one's time being suddenly sped up or slowed down, or even significantly shortened. This further enhances one's ability to survive in this multiverse.

Excellent ability, that's true. But on what basis?

Because it gathers the complete light of the soul, it is automatically immune to most spacetime causal interferences without paying any price? Just like the strongest god in a certain world is the strongest because he is the strongest?

What a joke! There's no such thing as tenderness in the multiverse. Everyone who wants power has to pay a price, and those who seem to have paid no price are simply having someone else pay for them, or are on loan with installments to pay later.

Therefore, the reason why extraordinary beings who have gathered the complete light of the soul are immune to this type of interference becomes clear. They are able to do so not because they possess the complete light of the soul, but because they inevitably encounter this kind of test on the path to acquiring it. Some do it sooner, some later, and some can even wait until the light of the soul has successfully gathered before making their payment. But regardless, this price is necessary.

Such a test is necessary.

After all, the so-called Light of the Soul, though its essence remains unclear and unexplained, reveals itself simply by existing, exhibiting the properties of reversing entropy and negating the conservation of energy. Since entropy and balance are overturned, it is only natural that it would spontaneously influence the external spacetime upon its generation.

Just as air pressure rises before a downpour, this is a precursor, a byproduct, a trial, and an inevitable event. And only—or, to put it more leniently, in most cases—can a creature that has survived this trial be qualified to gather its own unique spiritual light.

The outburst of inner demons is an internal tribulation, while the inevitable spacetime shifts caused by the convergence of spiritual light are an external tribulation. It's nothing more than that.

And it is precisely for this reason that when certain living beings who are skilled in spacetime techniques and are extremely close to the stage of 'gathering the light of the soul and advancing the level of life' are unfortunately or fortunately caught up in a large-scale spacetime distortion, they often have the possibility of breaking free from this spacetime distortion.

Especially if he himself is not being deliberately targeted by this spacetime distortion, the probability of this happening will increase dramatically.

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

On the third level of the box, supported by the Holy Blood Spring and a vast sea of ​​energy, stood a colossal, eight-branched tree. On one of its main branches, a transcendent being, aimlessly wandering within these fragmented miniature worlds, 'opened' its eyes. Though slightly late, it finally realized some changes and discerned the subtle ripples spreading across the multi-layered world box.

Zhao Zhuikong opened his eyes, then slowly shifted his gaze away from this world. The tiny world he inhabited, formed from tree branches, was an ordinary magical world in the near-modern era. On the surface, it appeared to be a normal, unremarkable modern world, but in reality, many strange and bizarre non-human races and spellcasters lurked in the shadows, scheming and living a life of ignominy.

Vampires, magicians, and a bunch of humanoid familiars whose classification is unclear—whether natural phenomena or malevolent spirits—he had seen them countless times in this city called Fuyuki. Because this world had been restarted many times under his will, and each time the energy level was higher than the previous one.

Ah, that's right. He discovered this tree-like worldview system a long time ago. He knew that his world was just an insignificant leaf on a tree. Based on this, he also analyzed the general situation that the Central Continent Team encountered in the world of The Wandering Earth, which made him understand his own position.

After all, it was a conclusion that Zhan Lan could deduce, and although Zhao Zhuikong wasn't particularly fond of using his brain, he could still manage to produce some results even after spending several times or dozens of times more time. He understood that this was the Hunting Saint Ritual, that the other teams of reincarnators had already arrived, and he even understood why he had been thrown onto this branch. Then, he happily began his work.

Hidden within the branches of this tree of phenomena are many powerful figures from the primordial saintly legions. These figures are scattered across the numerous leaves of the tree's branches, which represent the myriad parallel worlds of his own world. The strongest among them are sealed within the bodies of certain native inhabitants, like the ever-present old grandfathers one might see in daily life. The weaker ones, however, have their memories and perceptions blurred, and are then transported into different worlds, either physically or spiritually, becoming transmigrators existing only within this tree of phenomena.

Zhao Zhuikong's self-imposed mission was to kill them, kill them, and then the leaves would merge. The world would restart, history would repeat itself, and energy levels would rise. Then it would be another new cycle.

He did a good job, and he didn't find it tedious at all. Someone like him, an assassin, could chop off weapons for ten thousand years without getting tired of killing. Moreover, as parallel worlds merged, the events were like thousands of leaves on a tree branch gradually transforming into a fruit with a general outline. As the energy level increased, there were also some subtle changes in each cycle.

For example, in Fuyuki City, where he was stationed, the Holy Grail War ritual, often concealed as a 'gas pipeline explosion,' had been performed over ten thousand times right under his nose, in various forms. While the process was similar, the performance varied each time. For instance, the golden bastard he frequently observed, who liked to call people bastards, gradually upgraded its combat techniques from initially being unable to even scratch the floor tiles to now having enough shockwaves to flatten a mountain. The other ritual participants were generally similar.

It was quite interesting, and even more interesting was that those bewildered and confused legion members, who considered themselves transmigrators, kept crowding into the ceremony, trying to participate in the war or stir up some inexplicable trouble outside of it. Perhaps this was also the interference of the Hunting Saint Ritual, allowing him, the hunter, to better eliminate these accompanying old men and legion members who claimed to be transmigrators. But in any case, it certainly saved him a lot of trouble.

He watched the Holy Grail War around 16,000 times. And in those 16,000+ cycles, about 98% of the fake time travelers or their accompanying old men couldn't resist wanting to save a girl who'd been tricked into a bug pit by her own father. 90% of the guys would try to kill a bug-manipulating sorcerer. 80% of the men would try to seduce the gender-swapped King Arthur. 70% of the members wanted to see the three idiots drinking and bragging during the ritual.

The three idiots are Arthur, Alexander, and Gilgamesh. Their drinking and boasting revolves around discussing the ways of kingship.

Even for Zhao Zhuikong, who never gets tired of things, listening to a group of ancient kings—who could be described as either ghosts or natural phenomena—praise or criticize each other a thousand times using their outdated views was quite tedious. So much so that most of the time, whenever he saw these three guys together, he couldn't help but play the assassin Hassan and casually stab one or two of them.

While such an outcome often results in some well-hidden, or self-proclaimed well-hidden, imposter transmigrator jumping up and shouting, "This is unscientific! How could Hassan be so strong!"—leading to their own exposure, the outsider being eliminated by Zhao Zhuikong, thus triggering world fusion and prematurely initiating the next cycle—this development is still acceptable to him.

Yes, he simply disliked it. Having found his biological sister and successfully reconciled, Zhao now needed to maintain a good image in front of her, to the point that he dared not utter a single foul word, show off, or boast. Even now, in his solo operation, the thought of having to obediently listen to a bunch of idiots engaging in cringeworthy, childish chatter made him extremely uncomfortable. He could tolerate those who saved Sakura, killed the insects, pushed the ahoge (antenna-like hairpin) to build a harem, letting them live until the ceremony ended, but he couldn't be bothered to give these guys who only wanted to listen to awkward chatter any more time and would rather send them to their deaths as soon as possible.

He stayed here for a long time, killing many transmigrators, watching numerous Holy Grail Wars, and even personally participating a few times. Although the final results were basically the same, it did bring him a bit of fun in his work. And today, this Holy Grail War, which took place in the 1990s, has come to an end.

And on this day, he opened his eyes and sensed the reality of the world. Perhaps it was because the more than ten thousand world fusions had allowed him to perceive subtle clues from numerous minute details. Or perhaps it was because someone had done something conspicuous at the very bottom of the box. In any case, as this cycle was about to come to an end, he suddenly sensed something unusual.

He first sensed Zhao Yingkong's true form, which was perched on some unknown tree branch. Then, he sensed two Xilins in the void.

There are two Sirin, both genuine. The two genuine items have slightly different auras, but they are undoubtedly complete individuals.

It's not like a clone of Sirin suddenly appeared in the Demon Team. Then the answer is obvious.

[It turns out my location wasn't the lowest level; the wise ones had made further arrangements. The second Sirin who appeared was either a re-creation, representing the missing part of Sirin, or… the original Lord of Time fulfilled His promise, releasing the portion she had lost.]

[But how could she possibly have gotten here... Ah, yes, whatever the reasoning. It must have been thanks to the power of that saint who stood on our side. And in either case, it's a fact that her soul was broken into two pieces and hasn't been able to fully merge.]

[That idiot! She always makes a complete mess of things when I'm not around!]

The next moment, he suddenly reached out and made a grasping motion out of thin air, crushing the imposter transmigrator, who had successfully started his harem in this Holy Grail War, conquered a group of female characters, and was about to win the ritual victory, into a bloody mess from a distance of several kilometers!

And in the instant his female companions screamed, unleashing a powerful energy driven by a desire for revenge, the merging of the worlds began!

All things returned to nothingness, and the sea of ​​energy surging in from the outside during this fusion was far larger than all the previous ten thousand or so combined. In the instant that heaven and earth reopened and matter and spacetime were reconstructed, Zhao Zhuikong, like a shooting star, pierced through the outer membrane of this tiny world, anchored at one of two coordinates, and plunged straight into the surging sea of ​​energy!

No one ever dictated what he had to do here; hunting the legion members and promoting world unification were his own decisions. And now that a more suitable course of action had been made, there was no need to linger here any longer.

The younger sister is fine, since Sakura is quite capable and can take care of herself. But that certain unlucky idiot is absolutely impossible to keep quiet about!

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

Meanwhile, at the very bottom of the box, Miss Xilin, with similar thoughts, stared at Zheng Zha with a complicated expression, and gently exhaled under his bewildered gaze.

"Ah Zheng, don't be too surprised by what I'm about to tell you."

Zheng Zha nodded vigorously. "Don't worry, I'm a professional reincarnator. I've seen it all, and I'm mentally prepared for anything."

Miss Sirin glanced at her empty wrist.