Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"...Then I really should die."

Her vision dimmed, and the things in front of her began to become chaotic and blurry.

However, Olga's voice pulled her back to reality the next moment.

“No, she’s not the Demon Pillar.” Olga pursed her lips, her face showing great hesitation. She wanted to speak, but then closed her mouth again, repeating this several times before finally making up her mind. She said seriously, “I admit she’s a suspect, but she’s not. Because I verified it not long ago. And I believe the results of my verification.”

"...I used some methods that are not convenient to disclose. I mobilized Chaldea to launch a large-scale astrological divination. Then, I came to a conclusion."

“She is indeed connected to a being, but it is not the Demon Pillar, nor even a figure from the same era as King Solomon. It is from far, far back. Farther than the Age of Gods, farther than Neanderthals and dinosaurs. So far that I even suspect it might be an ancient being from the distant past before Genesis.”

"The astrological results indicate that it was an ancient giant god who participated in the creation and destruction of the world, and who controlled fire and thunder, light and darkness. His name is unclear, and I have no way of pronouncing it in human language. All I have is a roughly similar pronunciation."

She took a deep breath before uttering the indistinct sound.

“...Mangottlund.”

The world before Flora's eyes suddenly shattered!

Section Two: The Order of the Past

broken.

After it breaks, it falls.

Falling from hell to the bottom of hell, falling from the abyss to the depths of the abyss.

Flora's eyes shifted and changed colors, weaving a continuous glow that was completely different between order and chaos!

Things seem to converge...

She saw angels with radiant wings raining down like a storm, and countless mechanical starships, which should only exist in science fiction novels, spewing brilliance from the void. Flames, explosions, lasers, energy turbulence—the battlefield covering the starry sky reached a fever pitch outside a planetary fortress that looked like the moon.

Rainbow-colored streaks of light tore through the battlefield, and starships whose firepower alone could easily overwhelm modern forces were wiped out like trash, numbering in the thousands. Even the energy released when their energy shields were breached was comparable to the eruption of Yellowstone. And beneath this battlefield lay a colossal planet shrouded in crimson death clouds!

This is... the Earth of yesteryear!

The next moment, a silent lament resounded from the far reaches of the sky! Accompanied by golden feathers of light fluttering from the void in all directions, a colossal, radiant humanoid figure, thousands of kilometers long and engulfed in golden flames, plummeted rapidly from the endless void. A gaping hole pierced its chest, from which brilliant blood continuously gushed forth!

The ancient gods fell at this moment.

Things seem to converge...

She saw a colossal mechanical city, its endless gears and shafts filling her vision. The stench of blood was overwhelming, and a deafening roar echoed as molten iron flowed between the gears.

She saw countless bizarre creatures maintaining the massive assembly line, some with enormous bodies and grotesque, bestial appearances, others slender and beautiful, yet with decaying wings spread behind them. Rows of scarlet hooks hung from the top of the assembly line, and at the ends of the hooks, humanoid creatures struggled and screamed.

Those things looked like people, but they had no skin, revealing bloody flesh. They cried out as if they were alive, wailing and begging for mercy in various unknown languages. Then they were transported to different processing workshops by different flow lines, where they were squeezed, cut, and ground. The sounds gradually disappeared, leaving only the huge roar of machinery.

They were crafted into all sorts of bone utensils: tables, benches, bowls, pots, and ladles. And countless neatly stacked, translucent square bricks, like regular bricks—marked 'Second-Grade Refined Rations'.

Things seem to converge...

Her eyes reflected a desolate land, a chilling silence and eeriness amidst towering buildings. Brownish-black withered thorns grew on the unmaintained asphalt roads; as far as the eye could see, there wasn't a single green leaf or red flower.

There were burn marks along the street, and many faint, dark shadows of human or animal shapes were visible on the ruins. A faint smell of burning filled the air, interspersed with the stench of decay and rot.

Everything was silent, all structures decayed and decayed. A silent wind surged from between the streets and buildings as Flora watched. Silent, yet tangible, and within that indistinct form of wind, countless dull, lifeless faces shifted and changed.

This is the past, the dead city of the past.

In the distance, she vaguely saw a huge lake in the center of the kingdom, and in the lake, countless white bones were piled up like mountains, with withered hands reaching towards the sky!

The next moment, all the skeletons turned their heads with a creaking sound, hundreds of thousands, millions of empty eye sockets staring into Flora's eyes!

Things seem to converge...

She saw the primordial continent, the dome of the sky and the expanse of the earth, and the countless stars that were born from nothing, gradually gaining scale and quality. She saw waves rising above the first ocean, and primordial thunder and fire wrestling in this boundless ancestral world, a struggle that might last until the end of time.

This was before the Age of Gods, at the beginning of creation... no, perhaps an ancient era even more ancient than creation itself.

This is... the old order.

Mangottlund...

Things come together, break apart, and then reform. And this time, the drifter named Flora finally gained a complete will upon reaching her destination.

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

She found herself standing on a platform… no, not a platform, but a circular conference table. She was positioned on a stand-alone platform at the very center of the circle. And this enormous conference table seemed to her to be as vast as a plateau.

Was the table too big? Or had she shrunk? She didn't know, nor did she have the leisure to examine such trivial details at this moment. Because the instant she gained control of her own will, all her attention was completely drawn to the sixteen seats surrounding the enormous table. And the next instant, fifteen of those seats vanished like phantoms, leaving only the last seat, as imposing as a towering mountain, directly opposite her.

A colossal deity resided atop it. She couldn't see the deity's full form… no, or rather, she could see it, but all her reason and every cell of her body screamed against her constructing a concrete image in her mind. And then, in the next instant, a tremendous roar, composed of countless voices, appeared in her mind!

"What do you seek?"

An unknown, foreign language was etched into her consciousness. She did not understand any of the pronunciations, but she could still comprehend the true meaning of the language.

She was shocked, but she also knew that this was a golden opportunity that would come once in a lifetime. She wasn't Fujimaru, who had countless opportunities, and she had to seize this unique opportunity.

Introducing myself is unnecessary, and asking about my identity or probing my purpose is utterly absurd. The only thing I can and must do right now is—

"I want to restore humanity."

—"Why should we restore human reason?"

Why restore humanity? Ah… a simple question, yet worth pondering. Flora lowered her eyes, and many cherished fragments hidden within her own memories surfaced in her mind.

Every action has a reason, and every goal can be traced back to the depths of memory. In Flora's sea of ​​memories, the responsibility of restoring humanity stems from her choice of the demonic path.

She closed her eyes, then slowly opened them again.

"Because I have nothing else to do besides repairing humanity," she said calmly, her tone serious and resolute. "I come from a prestigious family with ten generations of magical history. But I am not a direct descendant, I am not valued, and there are more outstanding successors above me. If nothing unexpected happens, I will probably leave the academy after completing my studies at the Time Tower, and go to a small town with few resources and little competition to establish a workshop and research magical arts. Ultimately, I will become an ordinary skeleton on the path to the Root."

“I am neither weak nor strong. I am neither stupid nor particularly intelligent. And someone like me is destined to be mediocre and ordinary. I will neither be remembered for my name nor be infamous for my name. When I die, all I will leave behind in the world will be a cold and ordinary number... and I do not want that.”

“I want to leave something behind, I want to make a difference. Not for others, but for myself, I want to leave my mark on the world. So, when the Animusfia family recruited suitable candidates, I chose to join them. And I made the restoration of humanity my goal in magic…”

"...That's my answer."

"Even if this path is destined to be walked alone?"

"I'm restoring humanity for myself, not for any other random person. I want to make something of myself, not for anyone or anything else. The love, admiration, and care of others might bring me some pleasure, but they are meaningless to me in essence... I don't need them, just as they don't need me?"

—"What if someone with the same goal as you gets in your way?"

“I will try to persuade them, persuade them to join me.” Flora answered without hesitation. “If I can’t, I will join them, because I have already decided on my path of magic. I want to restore humanity, but I don’t necessarily have to do it myself. If someone is better than me, more suitable, like Fujimaru Ritsuka… then I don’t mind becoming her stepping stone.”

Her voice immediately turned low again.

"But if she makes a mistake. If she chooses the wrong path. If her achievements are not even as good as mine, yet she still stands in the way of a more suitable path of human restoration. Then I will crush her, like an iron rod crushing clods of earth, like a wheel rolling over dust. I will completely remove stubborn creatures from the world unless they can prove that their existence is more beneficial to human restoration than their death."

—"How do you judge this? How can you be sure you are on the more suitable path?"

Flora shut her mouth, remaining silent, but her gaze grew even more resolute.

Yes, until the very last step, who can be certain that the path they've chosen is correct? This is the essence of the struggle over the Way; the struggle is for the Way itself, so the comparison of strength and power becomes secondary. In other words, those who uphold the Way are destined to steadfastly adhere to it until the very last moment. Unless utter defeat is certain, they will not retreat an inch.

Flora's goal is to restore humanity, a simple restoration, not for the sake of all living beings, not for the worship and praise of future generations… She wants to make a difference, not to be etched in history but to be etched in her own heart. And she is a magician who knows she lacks talent, relying only on perseverance and patience. Having chosen her path of magic, she will not waver because of other paths to prove herself.

The colossal deity, as massive as a mountain, vanished without a sound. The next moment, a girl with the same face and figure as Flora, but exuding an ethereal aura, appeared beside her. She then posed a question.

—"For the human race as a whole, which do you think is more important: continuation or dignity?"

“I don’t know, and I don’t care,” Flora replied swiftly as always. “My goal is to restore humanity, and in the process, everything else is unnecessary to me. Whether it’s continuation or dignity, once I start thinking in those directions, I will inevitably be biased. And such a bias makes it easy for me to make irrational choices at crucial moments.”

"An interesting answer, but in a sense it's also a form of escapism."

The woman, perhaps the incarnation of 'Mangoltend,' seemed to reveal a strange smile. She stretched out her hand, and an Earth projection resembling Chaldea appeared in her palm. Above this projection, a bright spot located near Mesopotamia was highlighted.

"The principle behind the Magic King's Human Order Burning is to insert seven spacetime anchors at seven different locations. This disrupts the continuity of history, allowing information from different historical periods to be absorbed and burned away as fuel. For the Magic King, Human Order Burning is merely a means, not an end. But for you, who only cares about restoring Human Order, its purpose is irrelevant; all you want to do is stop the means."

"As members of Chaldea, you have repaired six of the seven anchor points. The most important and crucial seventh point is located in Mesopotamia in the 27th century BC. The turning point of the Age of Gods, the birthplace of the ancient Mesopotamian civilization. On this land, humans and gods lived together."

He looked at Flora, his tone indifferent.

"If you want to restore humanity, then you must obtain this seventh spacetime anchor, or the Holy Grail. And to obtain the Holy Grail, you will inevitably clash with the gods who have been born into the world. Unlike others, you have no means of peaceful communication and only the option of fighting. And if a mortal body wants to contend with a god, then it must rely on divine power."

"What should I do?" Flora understood the meaning of 'He' in an instant.

"I can lend you my power, but you must also answer some of my questions. These questions have troubled me for a long time, and perhaps I can find the answers from you."

"I want to know, what does mortal mean to gods? And what does gods mean to mortals?"

"If mortals don't need gods, then do gods also not need mortals? If mortals are of no use to gods, then how should gods treat mortals?"

Flora was speechless.

"Ah, yes, you have never been a god. So you do not know. Therefore, I will entrust the authority of God to you."

The next moment, the girl with the same form as Flora suddenly merged into her body! As the fragmentation of time and space occurred, her will also soared upwards as the almost infinite power and force erupted within her!

And the voice of that god still echoed in her ears!

"Make good use of my power; it can grant you the qualification to enter the Seventh Singularity. But all power comes at a price. The more you use it, the more it will transform into me. This is our covenant between man and god. When I descend, I hope to obtain from you an answer that will surprise me."

The next moment, Flora's vision was completely plunged into darkness.

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Alice put down her 'phone' and looked at the other fifteen companions sitting around the table—their gazes were strange and unpredictable, but they probably didn't contain any respectable emotions.

"What are you looking at? This is how the true god is." Alice shrugged, turning her gaze to a small platform in the center of the table, where a projection simulating Earth floated quietly. The landscape of the 27th century BC was clearly visible to every reincarnator present.

Nobody paid any attention to her, probably because they didn't know how to.

After all, the stage was set, and the struggle between sages and between reincarnators began.

Section Three: Divine Descent

Then, intertwined lightning and fire descended from the other side of time and space, falling into the past and future in the river of time.

BC - The Unknown Era

The oldest creators awoke from the primordial earth, in an era when heaven and earth were still a chaotic void, and the stars and moon had yet to possess physical structure. The first ancient gods exchanged their wills, dividing the earth into different territories and shaping them according to their own desires. The many civilizations that followed were separated by their respective domains, and the first generation of life forged by the ancient gods spread across the earth.

In the Far East, a mother goddess with a human head and a snake's body molded all things from yellow clay.

In Europe, primal light travels across the water, parting the sea to reveal the land.

America, the embodiment of the sky and a fallen winged serpent, experimented with many materials and finally designed the first generation of bipedal walkers using dried cornmeal.

In Africa, the bird-shaped rays of light symbolize descending from the sky and landing on the hills exposed by the evaporated ocean. From these hills, nine divine beings emerged, giving rise to the first kingdoms.