Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Section 73 Alicization

In Alice's mind, she only has four and a half months of memories of this world. Before that, her past is shrouded in darkness.

Before that, where was I, and what was I doing?

Alice didn't know, but she felt she would find out soon. Accompanied by the dragon's roar that echoed throughout Skyrim, the number of 'Alice' began to increase rapidly along a straight upward trajectory.

She assimilated all the dragons that appeared in her field of vision, whether strong or weak. As long as they appeared in her sight—no, even as long as they appeared in her consciousness, and she knew or remembered their names, she could completely erase their existence. There was no conflict, no battle; all the transformations were so quick and swift, and she felt no burden whatsoever.

Her mind was unburdened, yet some anomalies remained. She felt her brain was functioning faster, her thoughts becoming more agile, and her computational abilities greatly enhanced. Although she still lacked the outer emotional centers, her existence remained more like a machine than that of a mortal or a dragon. But at least she was a more agile and precise machine than she had been in the past.

More sophisticated machines naturally mean greater efficiency.

As Alice's dragon bodies multiplied across the continent at a rate comparable to cell proliferation, her mortal form had already mastered the unique spacetime-traveling abilities of the dragon soul. Taking a step forward, she arrived at the ruins of a town occupied by ruins, chaos, snow, and mountain bandits.

She recognized the town; she had a vivid picture in her mind of it in its prime. The town was called Helgen, the very place she had first arrived at when her four-and-a-half-month ordeal began. She clearly remembered sitting in a makeshift carriage, in the middle, towards the back, her hands bound with ropes. The last carriage carried the Stormcloak rebel leader. And four and a half months earlier, at this very moment, she had nearly been executed along with the rebel leader by the Empire.

Almost—no, perhaps it's not even "almost." Even if the black dragon that flew in from afar during the execution, destroying the town with dragonfire and meteors, hadn't arrived in time, Alice probably wouldn't have stayed there to die. Mere ropes couldn't hold her, and she wouldn't accept a commission to be killed. And when the guards made their move, and she determined that everyone in the town was hostile, she would naturally bestow death upon all living beings in the town.

With the memory recall concluded, we now move on to an even more important phase.

"What was I doing four and a half months before I woke up in the car?" Alice whispered to the air, an invisible pressure spreading outwards with her will. Within a ten-kilometer radius, all sentient beings were instantly enveloped in extreme fear. Almost instinctively, they took two or four steps and ran frantically towards the nearest road that might lead them away!

Humans, beasts, birds, reptiles… or whatever other random things gathered in ranks, forming hordes, and fled the area swiftly without looking back. On this continent of Tamriel, all living things capable of movement possess a soul. And as long as they have a soul, they are subject to suppression.

And once all those things that might have interfered with her were gone, traces of time rewinding appeared in her sky-blue eyes.

Information was gathered and then analyzed. The scene of four and a half months silently appeared before Alice's eyes. Within the imagined world constructed of information, her will descended upon the time loop where the imperial convoy transporting prisoners was about to enter the Helgen fortress—she instantly located the point in time four and a half months and a few minutes before she possessed any memory abilities. Then, she silently descended above the carriage where her past self had been.

No, the sound wouldn't have existed in the first place. Because this is history, a record, and she detected no interference or correction when she arrived. The next moment, her fingers crossed the flow of time, touching the neck of 'herself' who was still asleep before the carriage entered Helgen!

Alice's brow twitched silently the instant her fingertips successfully touched it.

At that very moment, she discovered her past self, the self she knew at that point in time—

—It was a dead person!

A dead man!?

Alice's fingers pierced without hesitation into the information collection of 'herself' from four and a half months prior. In the next instant, she easily read and analyzed all the historical information contained within 'herself'. Memories of a village girl with the same name as her, 'Alice', clearly appeared in her mind. She immediately knew that the original owner of this body was merely an ordinary shepherdess living on the edge of Skyrim, illiterate and unfortunate enough to have been caught up in the Imperial ambush of rebel forces, and thus brought to Helgen as a traitor to be executed!

She was just a shepherdess, physically weak, timid and fearful. So she had already died of terror and fear when the wagons carrying prisoners entered Helgen. And by following the flow of information back to an even earlier point in time, Alice even discovered the fading soul of 'herself' from four and a half months earlier on the outer side of the stone road leading to Helgen!

"I finally know who I am." Alice casually tossed aside the soul of her imagined 'self'—a soul that had vanished or fallen into the world of the dead, leaving only a collection of information. Meanwhile, the message belt recording the past flowed forward. She watched the carriage bouncing along the stone road, watched the seemingly asleep but actually dead girl inside. Then, at a certain moment, as the carriage approached the fortress—

She saw her past self open her eyes in a daze.

There was no sign of a soul descending; at least, she couldn't detect any trace of it through information retrieval. It was as if a soul had spontaneously generated within that lifeless body. The real Alice appeared without a trace from nothingness, then naturally usurped the body's former owner—the shepherdess also named Alice!

[So, I'm not who I am.]

As if invisible shackles had quietly shattered, when the message rewind ended, Alice's aura was several times stronger than before. It seemed that some fundamental change had manifested from the depths of her soul, then burst forth and expanded rapidly!

I am Alice, but Alice is not me.

I am not myself, but besides myself, there are many things that are 'me'.

【So……】

She took a step forward, and in the next instant, she was already away from the outskirts of the Helgen Fortress ruins. When the spacetime around her stabilized, she had arrived at the dilapidated dwelling where the other Alice, the shepherdess, had once lived. In the blink of an eye, she read and analyzed all the information within the dwelling, piecing together a simple and ordinary life story.

The shepherdess had no noteworthy past; her elders and brothers were long dead, and the village she once lived in had been destroyed by war. She had no friends or relatives, and rarely left her lonely land, except occasionally donning an old cloak and taking processed wool and other byproducts to sell in nearby towns.

When she was alive, she was like an ant. When she died, she was like dust.

Even without this sudden turn of events, as the war in Skyrim intensifies and the dragon scourge spreads, sooner or later, some passing bandits or wild monsters will discover her well-hidden pasture and her solitary cottage. And at that time, the various fates that might befall her, with her striking beauty, would likely be a hundred times more tragic and miserable than simply dying of fear in the midst of war.

She was destined to die, to die young, with no way to escape. It was inevitable, fate, an incurable, predetermined future. And after Alice read and experienced this pale, lifeless existence, a certain resonance, seemingly from nowhere, as if she herself had felt the same way, quietly welled up from the depths of her soul.

Although I don't know who I truly am, perhaps my arrival in her body wasn't a coincidence. And what would she think of someone destined for a terrible death, destined to fade into obscurity like an ant or speck of dust? That I replaced her, assumed her identity, and survived in this world?

Will she be angry? Will she be jealous?

Alice reached out and touched the dust and clods of earth that had accumulated in the dilapidated house for four and a half months—the flock of sheep, long since scattered and neglected, had deserted. The shepherdess's loyal sheepdog, used for protection and depicted as faithful in many other stories, had also left months ago to join the wolves in the forest. The wooden hut, decayed and rotting from the repeated snowfalls and rains of autumn and winter, might collapse under the weight of another snowfall or two, eventually being buried completely in this unknown wasteland.

Perhaps in another year, or even six months, all traces of this shepherdess's existence will vanish completely. Born like an ant, dying like dust. No one will know she is dead, no one will even know she was ever alive.

And this is her...

"She wouldn't envy, be jealous, resent, or hate. Because life held little value for her. Living might not be tiring, but it didn't hold much appeal either." Alice stretched out her hand, gently clenched her fist, and felt the power gathering between her fingers—enough to defy fate. Slowly, she let out a long, warm sigh.

It was a very subjective opinion, but she genuinely felt that she was right.

She snapped her fingers, and the lonely, dilapidated hut silently turned to ashes. Along with it, everything within several kilometers, living or dead, vanished. As Alice's fingers fell, all observable matter in the area disintegrated into worthless, attribute-less dust—a gust of wind swept by, leaving behind tens of square kilometers of smooth, slightly dark earth.

Then, Alice slowly inhaled the breath she had exhaled.

“And since even the original owner of this body, the Alice who should most be called 'Alice,' doesn't care at all, and wouldn't care about any of this, then, as the inheritor…”

"...Why insist on being so fixated on who 'I' really am?"

The three questions that had been binding her mind like three chains resurfaced from the depths of her thoughts. This time, however, they no longer perplexed her as before. Instead, when they reappeared in her way, three valuable conclusions answered them for Alice.

Why am I standing here? — Because I am Alice, and this is my domain.

Why should I fulfill the mandate? — I no longer need to fulfill the mandate, nor is it necessary to accept the mandate.

Why am I... me? — This question is no longer important. I don't need to figure out who I am, or who I am. Because as long as I exist in this moment, I am 'me'.

As if more shackles were silently shattering, a clear and colorless pure radiance quietly emerged from the depths of the girl named Alice's soul. That radiance silently covered her body and then continued to spread to the surrounding area.

Not enough, not enough. The world needs more 'Alice's'.

Data swirled in her mind; on this continent, there were no longer any dragons that weren't hers. But dragons alone weren't enough; she longed for more of her, and of higher quality.

She appeared atop the highest sacred mountain in Skyrim. There dwelled another dragon from the same era as Alduin, the World Eater—the black dragon who destroyed the fortress of Helgen, setting the stage for the story. That dragon's name was Paktunath. According to the natural course of this world's changes, Alice was supposed to travel to the sacred mountain to meet it after realizing the Dragonborn's mission, and then receive much help from it in the future.

However, Alice appeared at that moment, and after an exchange of glances, Paktunas became Alice. The next instant, Alice, now Paktunas, used the memories of the dragon body to find the area where Alduin was most likely to appear at that point in time.

"Alduin, the devourer of worlds, originally represented the end of the world, the two sides of Akatosh, the master of time and space. Yet, corrupted by his desire for domination, he was reduced from a god to the only true dragon, becoming a king..."

She appeared abruptly outside a desolate and remote temple, gazing at the black-winged dragon perched atop its roof. Then her gaze moved beyond it to the distant sky beyond the temple, to the illusory star that symbolized Akatosh, the dragon god and master of time and space.

“You…” Alice said softly.

"...Could it be me too?"

Chapter 74: A Dream of Brahma (Part 1)

Meanwhile, in a tavern in Morningstar City, White Territory, Miss Sirin, who was raising a glass with her companions to gaze at the snow, suddenly crushed her glass in her fingers. A profound and far-reaching change was taking place, and she clearly sensed it all.

"It has begun, the final act of this world," Sirin said softly. Spacetime interference unfolded between her fingers, and the wine glass she had just crushed into dust visibly repaired itself, restoring it to its perfect state. She slightly shifted her shoulders, and as she stood up, a series of soft 'click-clack' sounds emanated from within her bones.

"Cirin? What did you say? What started?" Zheng Zha looked at his companion in confusion, subconsciously putting down the half-eaten food and wine beside him. He looked out the tavern window, but didn't immediately notice any unusual changes in the world.

The mountains were still mountains, the water was still water, the sunlight still shone in the same colors, the clouds still drifted slowly in the sky, and the mortals in the city were still filled with unease because of the dragon's approach not long ago. And the smell in the air was exactly the same as before.

He was puzzled, but the next moment he saw the strange radiance that indicated the shift in spacetime. He suddenly sensed that the power within his body was rapidly recovering, and his original fourth-level extraordinary power level was restored in an instant. Accompanying this was the rapid expulsion of everything he had ingested since arriving in this world!

Whether it was the air or the food, he could clearly sense the molecular structures within his body—those used to repair physical damage and maintain the metabolism of basic life forms—rapidly disappearing. They detached from him, returned, and re-filled the world. Even the wine he had just drunk, the cauliflower he had eaten, and the roasted goat meat were quickly restored from food residue, transforming back into steaming hot, cooked food!

Not only him, but also Sirin. As his own life level returned to the self-contained, transcendent stage, the state Sirin held, radiating this light that reversed the flow of time, also rapidly reversed. Water, air, even the light captured from her retina were extracted from her body and returned to the world!

The others in the tavern cast surprised glances, but in the next moment, even those glances were completely shut out. A spherical partition silently appeared around the two of them, and then everything inside the partition was expelled.

Sound, light, heat, electricity, force—everything that originally belonged to this world, whether matter or energy, was thrown out of the spherical enclosure by Sirin's interference. If they hadn't been carrying storage items and some foreign mass, even their clothes would have been gone. In an instant, the inside and outside of the spherical enclosure ceased to exist, and if the two people inside hadn't been extraordinary beings with extraordinary levels of perception, they wouldn't have been able to perceive the outside world at all!

Only then did Xilin slowly and methodically answer Zheng Zha's question from tens of seconds earlier.

“You’ll see for yourself, Zheng Zha.” She let out a soft breath, her tone filled with a sense of relief, as if she were a web novelist who had been working late into the night and had finally finished her task. Her calm demeanor carried a hint of satisfaction at the completion of a project. “Don’t try to capture light with the eyes of an ordinary person, but rather observe the changes in matter with a transcendent level of perception. Everything in this world has undergone a complete transformation, and its depths have at least reached the level of the soul.”

Zheng Zha did as she instructed. But the next moment, his eyes widened in shock!

“Margot Lloyd!?” His eyes nearly popped out of their sockets. Because in his field of vision, less than five meters away at another table, he could clearly see Alice sitting there!

However, just seconds before, the instant Sirin severed the space-time barrier, Zheng Zha clearly saw out of the corner of his eye that the person sitting there was actually a tall Nord mercenary!

This is illogical! Unrealistic! Because he knew his memories were flawless. And at the moment Sirin activated her protective shield, he had clearly already recovered to the fourth stage of the gene lock in his life level! Even if he hadn't fully activated his senses at that time, the vigilance a reincarnator would naturally maintain wouldn't have allowed him to overlook such a significant anomaly!

"Don't make a fuss, look to the side." Sirin's voice came softly from the side.

Zheng Zha's perception was thus shaken and distorted. Because right before his eyes, he clearly saw a traveler who was a dragon just a moment ago silently transform into Margot Lloyd!

Without sound or light, without special effects, while most people in the tavern were still in shock from his and Sirin's material release and sudden disappearance, a silent replacement occurred within the mortals. Perhaps their physical shells remained the same, but from the perspective of their souls, they had quietly transformed into someone familiar to Zheng Zha.

At first, there were only one or two, but soon the number grew to three or four, seven or eight, and then more than ten—in the blink of an eye, the inner world of every humanoid creature in the entire tavern had become Alice. These dozens of humanoid shells, bearing the characteristics of her soul, continued drinking and boasting as before, occasionally casting questioning glances at the spot where Zheng Zha and Xilin had disappeared, or boldly approaching to cautiously touch the area where the two had vanished. However, only the shells moved; only the shells moved. Their inner parts, the girlish souls with sky-blue eyes, all indifferently tilted their heads, scrutinizing Zheng Zha hiding inside the enclosed sphere from various angles!

That indifferent gaze, as sharp as a laser beam, sent chills down Zheng Zha's spine!

He suddenly shivered in the absolute vacuum of space and took a deep breath. He abruptly stretched his senses outward to the street outside the tavern—what was happening outside wasn't too far off from his expectations, yet witnessing it firsthand still sent a chill down his spine!

Throughout Morningstar City, at some point, the very essence of every living being had been replaced by Alice. Replaced by the Margot Lloyd she knew. Whether it was the street vendors selling cooked food in the cold wind, the guards standing warily at the town gates, the bureaucrats hunched over documents and budgets in warm rooms, or even the lovers or couples intimately cuddling at home in this chilly weather—almost everyone in the city had silently become Alice.

And this number is changing from 'almost' to 'all' at a visible rate.

He glanced away and saw that the inner workings of a swarm of ants frantically crawling across the roadside had all been replaced by Alice. He shifted his senses away and discovered that the cats and dogs in the house had also become Alice. As he pulled his senses back, he even saw a flock of birds in the air that had also been replaced by Alice!

"What...what exactly happened here?" he murmured to himself.

"It's just a simple replacement. Your... our companion has completed her plan. Now is the day she reaps the rewards," Sirin said calmly, beckoning to teleport the sphere they were in to a high altitude overlooking the entire continent. Witnessing the vast land that seemed unchanged as always, with the sun rising and setting as usual, the girl's expression was indescribably complex.

"Do you know what the origin myth of this world is?" Sirin asked, then answered before Zheng Zha could reply, "Many mortals believe that this world was actually created by nine primordial spirits symbolizing nine kinds of goodness. They venerate them as Holy Spirits, Gods, Ancestors, and Italra. Meanwhile, many other primordial spirits who did not participate in the creation occupy the domains representing fifteen kinds of evil, and mortals and living beings such as elves call them Demon Gods, Non-Ancestors, and Deidara."

"This is a correct myth, but it's not deep enough. Because the origin described here is only the origin of this planet Nirn and the star system surrounding Nirn, not the origin of this world. But by reading certain... hidden documents, I obtained the truth about this world."

Sirin gazed at the earth beneath her feet. In her vision, Alice's encroaching domain was covering the entire planet at a visible speed. All observable living things were becoming her, and all observable inanimate things were transforming into her.

"The origin of this world was a boundless sea of ​​energy, and at a certain moment, the opposing forces of 'Anu' and 'Padome' were suddenly born within it... Well, to use a more general term, the primal forces representing order and chaos were born from the sea of ​​energy. When order was destroyed, or assimilated and devoured chaos, a nascent world was born from within order. This is the foundation, and all the primal spirits, all the gods or demons born from the vortex of order and chaos, are part of this original order."

"They, along with the other concepts or energies, together constitute the whole of this world. In other words, this entire world is the order... the dream of the primordial force called 'Anu'."

“Do you understand?” Xilin looked at Zheng Zha and said calmly. “This world is a dream. A dream of a single true God, a dream of an existence representing the power of order. And the convergence of all the holy spirits and demons in this world, as well as all the living and the dead, means that this dream itself represents this single God. This world does not have a true material structure; everything in it is made of energy. Therefore, in this world—'writing the fact that one becomes a god into the past history and then returning to the present to become a god'—such a chaotic ritual can be established smoothly. Because the essence of this world is idealism.”

Celine looked up at the sky, and before she knew it, Alice's reflection had appeared in the atmosphere above. Clearly, her domain had expanded from the living to the inanimate, and even though the most basic structure of this world wasn't made of matter particles, those things that existed at the molecular or atomic level had silently become her.

“And Alice is becoming the object of all the gods, humans, and beings in this world,” Sirin said calmly, turning her gaze to the astonished Zheng Zha. “Now you know why I returned all the matter we had taken from this world. Because if I hadn’t done so, there would probably be many Alices bursting through your flesh and crawling out of your body right now.”

Zheng Zha couldn't help but feel a chill, which then turned into an uncontrollable urge to vomit. He subconsciously turned his head away, and even as a superhuman being, he couldn't help but dry heave.

Only then did Sirin turn her gaze back to the enormous, simplifying celestial body. Sometime earlier, this celestial body, named Nien, had vanished from the material plane. In its place stood a colossal form that covered an entire galaxy, holding the sun in its palm.

Alice, who was about a meter tall, reached out and lifted the tiny sphere that enveloped the two of them to her eyes.

"Hello, Anu, the Primal Lord of Order," Sirin said casually, greeting Alice.

Chapter 75: A Dream of Brahma (Part 2)

Alice lowered her eyes, and the instant she heard Celine's greeting, all the long-buried memories, history, and experiences surfaced clearly in her mind. In that moment, she reclaimed her emotions, knew why she had come, knew what she had done, and knew what she had become.