Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

The script is generally proceeding as I envisioned, but unfortunately, we still haven't found another representative to represent the path of the saint.

And this Fujimaru Ritsuka's path is far too strange. She doesn't seem to want to ask for help from anyone, nor does she seem to want to compete with anyone; she seems to simply want to survive... survive? Strange, how can there be such a saintly path?

She felt somewhat puzzled, but even so, the proven theory was difficult to refute. No matter how much one nitpicked, that invincible fortune was undeniable.

Alice felt like even she, a bird, was starting to sigh. Fortunately, she had plenty of patience and perseverance, so it didn't matter for now. The reason she used Chaldea to construct this multiple time loop was simply to try to discover Fujimaru Ritsuka's path through various specific means within a limited experimental area, and to try to find the true identity of another saint.

Although there are no valuable results yet, it can at least increase the upper limit of our intervention power.

Yes, the upper limit of interference power. This is Chu Xuan's trick, slowly accumulating a limit on the amount of power he can safely project by increasing his influence over the world. In the north, Flora's mere existence in S allows her to constantly increase the upper limit of her projected power. And Flora's month-long efforts with Imanitic, in terms of increasing the interference limit, are barely on par with Tomoe and Fujimaru's brief time together!

Alice 'ate' again, and this time the random taste was quite interesting—a strange flavor created by mixing concentrated tomato sauce with formaldehyde and a high concentration of MSG. For an ordinary person, this taste might be comparable to chemical poison gas, but for Alice—it was alright.

Well, compared to Patchouli's lovingly prepared lunch, this is a rare delicacy. At least it's just unpalatable and smelly, not something that would casually curse or mutate all living things on an entire continent simply by being exposed to air. It's truly remarkable that she managed to create something like this; I wonder if she did it on purpose…

Alice shuddered, putting those unpleasant memories back in their proper places. She refocused her attention on the increase in interference force, and obtained a vague value of around twelve percent.

Twelve percent, no more, no less. It's neither useful nor useless, but it's equally useful and useless in some ways.

Compared to this small stage, this level of increase is merely moving from one infinite number to another, even larger infinite number. However, this standard only applies to the natives. If they were to encounter those reincarnators who recklessly descend in their true forms right now, Alice's current 'full power' might not be of any use!

Even if this cycle seems rather boring, it must continue in order to unleash unhindered power in the inevitable battles to come!

It is not easy for a god to be born, and even a little love can only sigh.

A clanging sound came from the air—the sound of weapons clashing, magic surging, and powerful attacks charging up.

Ah… it's Ba and Merlin fighting under the treetops; apparently, they haven't reached an agreement. As expected, as logical. Unlike the powerful spellcaster in Alice's memory, this Merlin is someone who isn't particularly skilled… or at least doesn't seem to be very skilled in melee combat. He's formed an alliance with the servant who calls herself Anna through some unknown condition, thus acquiring a reasonably reliable front-line tank.

One damage dealer and one support – a fairly common setup. The only downside is that Merlin and this Miss Anna's combined combat power is somewhat limited; one plus one can never exceed ten.

Alice then flapped her wings, and an invisible ripple quietly spread out. Ba's perception decreased slightly as a result, preventing him from immediately detecting Merlin's illusion.

There's no need to go into the details of the battle; in Alice's eyes, it was nothing more than a battle of wits. No matter how exquisite the moves or how quick the reflexes, slowing them down a thousandfold would make them laughably ridiculous. And if necessary, Alice's thought process could even accelerate to the point of subjective time-stop.

Yes, that's right, subjective time stop. Because time interference caused by interference force does not cause stage repulsion. This has already been verified and demonstrated when 'Mangotrend God' compiled Flora's past and future, adjusted her bloodline and history to transform her from an ordinary passerby with no merits into an extremely excellent divine vessel.

And naturally, even if Alice can't change the timeline in a way that seems simple but actually involves a lot of advanced technology and even a bunch of high-level powers like Chaldea, she can at least interfere with her own vessel without any problem.

Getting back to the point—Bartholomew didn't see through Merlin's illusion, so Merlin ran away with Miss Anna. And after she subdued Anna in the illusion, the illusory figure that appeared as flower petals in Anna's eyes ignited a flicker of anger within her.

Alice didn't intentionally interfere with her thoughts, but this shift in her mind was within Alice's expectations—which was normal; an adult would naturally be angry if suddenly slapped by a sickly child. This was essentially a form of displaced anger towards one's own powerlessness, and this displaced anger was the intervention method Alice had been using most frequently lately.

[For Tomoe Gozen, the strength that Merlin and his group can currently exert is rather weak. Furthermore, she doesn't seem to value that stone tablet enough… Although the tablet bears my watchful eye, and it will inevitably become more important in this world, at least for now, I feel it's necessary to artificially accelerate this process.]

She landed silently on Ba's shoulder again, as if she had been there from the beginning. Ba didn't feel anything was amiss, and neither did she.

"Coo-coo-coo," Alice called softly twice, rousing Ba from his slight anger.

She watched as Ba, feeling depressed because of this temporary setback, watched as the tracking signal on the stone slab, through Alice's hand, bypassed the shielding measures that Merlin had temporarily created and appeared within Ba's detection range when Ba released his senses again.

Distance... 100 kilometers. It seems to be some kind of instant teleportation technique. The next moment, a massive burst of flames erupted from Ba's body. In the instant that the jungle where she stood was transformed into a sea of ​​fire, her figure shot towards the coordinates she sensed, like an arrow!

Her aura was powerful, streaking across the sky like a rising meteor. Alice could clearly see the image of Ba, a hundred kilometers away, reflected in Merlin's eyes. The misleading illusion he had hastily created and every detail of his rapid teleportation were also clearly visible in Alice's observation.

She even had the leisure to manipulate her interference power, subtly adjusting Merlin's spellcasting to ensure he wouldn't be teleported to some strange place. And to act according to the script of her love for someone.

Thus began the chase between the warrior and the magician. If the story continues according to Alice's will, then Ba should catch up with Merlin in a city called Kusa.

Kusa, an ordinary city, yet an interesting one. Because that city is currently under the divine control of the Sumerian goddess of the underworld. And King Uruk, having died suddenly, has fallen into the underworld.

Isn't that an interesting coincidence? The true Destiny Tablet in this world is currently in Kusa City. In order to enter the Underworld and negotiate with King Uruk, Fujimaru Ritsuka and her group will also be heading to Kusa City. And this 'Miss Anna,' as a fragment of the Beast Goddess, and the Medusa larva who shares the same origin as her 'Gorgon,' will also be traveling to Kusa City with Merlin, carrying another 'Destiny Tablet.'

Different people, different events, different fates, all intertwined and entangled, and Alice felt that the upper limit of her intervention power had increased slightly.

That's good.

It's really good.

With the upper limit of her interference power increased slightly, her chances of winning the upcoming war—a war that was bound to come, sweep across the world, extend beyond the world, and affect the many large and small fault spaces in the void—had increased by a fraction.

Although this still required her to continue watching this tedious drama, observing this war where several war zones were just weaklings fighting each other—the first War Angel had been completed, and it would be key for Flora to maintain her identity in the next cycle. As for the millions of mere A-level enhanced grunts and war beasts, they were completely outside her consideration—they were just small fry that even Flora's current unleashed power could easily wipe out, so why should she pay them any extra attention?

Yes, it's not worth paying attention to. Even though that legion has now breached the outer defenses of the Blood Temple, forcing Enkidu—or rather, Kingu—awakened from his deep self-healing state under the Grail's blessing, to join the battle and still be at a disadvantage, she couldn't be bothered to focus any more attention on that insignificant area.

The script hasn't reached the right point yet, and even if an actor accidentally leaves the stage, she, the unreasonable director and screenwriter, will pull them back up. And until Kusa's underworld script comes to a close, even if Gorgon and Kingu are completely dead, and she doesn't confess her love, Tiamat in the sea can forget about ever coming back to life!

Ba continued his pursuit, diligently chasing Merlin, the magician who, at least for now, had no chance of catching up with him, and the temple slab he carried. Meanwhile, Alice, who was arguably the biggest mastermind on the entire stage, continued to leisurely flap her wings, watching the puppets dancing in her hands as if nothing was amiss.

Everything that can be calculated is within calculation, and everything that can be grasped is within grasp.

At least for now, it doesn't exist—Alice shook her wings and glanced sideways at the sky.

Okay, let's retract that preamble. A huge change has now occurred on this land. In Alice's small, bird-like eyes, she clearly observed a meteor, unknown to mortals and gods alike, descending from nothingness and striking precisely the area surrounding Ur, south of Uruk!

That was a land far from Imanitic, a land where Alice hadn't deliberately laid out her plans, but where she could still roughly control the situation.

That is the land of the feathered serpent god.

The first batch of reincarnators have descended from the void and chosen this place as their landing point!

Chapter Thirty-Three: The First Cycle - Dark Night Combined

[Transformed into me...]

The night wind rustled through the forest, causing the slender beech trees to tremble. A pale meteor, not existing on the physical plane, fell from the heavens into the abyss. And the 'depth' of the entire world floating in the void increased slightly as a result.

You should all transform into me...

The increased depth of the world means that more of Mesopotamia is immersed in the ocean of energy. This manifests in the quiet but significant increase in the activity of true ether, a level that will continue to rise for some time to come, until it reaches a considerable level.

Your body, your marrow, your flesh... all shall be transformed into me...

Few humans or gods could perceive all of this; even if they could, all they could observe was a sudden surge in energy activity. In some worlds, this could manifest as a 'spiritual resurgence,' essentially a world's adaptation to and rejection of higher-level external beings. And as energy activity increased, the causal lines on this continent were also subtly shifting.

The northern wilderness was originally the edge of the world, yet more continents appeared there. They had no names, nor should they appear in historical records. Their appearance simply represents the expansion of the Mesopotamian civilization, meaning that even after the Age of Gods ended, a vast fertile land would emerge upstream of the Tigris River.

The southern ocean was originally the edge of the world, but beyond that ocean a new ocean appeared. The area later known as the Arabian Sea thus expanded in size. And when the era of a flat earth and a round heaven ended, the Indian Ocean, one of the four oceans, might thus rival the Pacific Ocean, or even split into a new sea area.

The world is changing, and the reason for this change is the brutal arrival of an Outer God.

The world is correcting itself, and the indigenous people who live on this land may perceive this as a normal phenomenon.

The pale meteor finally touched the bottom.

You should change, you should understand yourself, call your name...

South of Uruk, around the city of Ur, a dense forest that grew from the power of the feathered serpent god was surrounded by a faint wind. The ground trembled, and a skeleton that had been buried underground for at least several years emerged from the ground.

The decaying bones were struck by lightning, and then at a speed visible to the naked eye, they turned into crystal, into jade, and then returned to the appearance of an ordinary skeleton. A bear that came running in a panic unfortunately crashed into a tree and died. Its flesh and blood were corroded by wild, highly poisonous herbs, turning into organic matter that flowed into the pit where the skeleton was. Some leaves containing nutrients also fell lightly as the tree withered, merging into the organic matter in the pit and triggering the transformation.

I call you by your name...

The surrounding ethereal environment remained unchanged, devoid of divine or magical power; everything that happened seemed to be a coincidence orchestrated by natural phenomena. The leaves, mixed with the organic solution, produced a strange and ingenious effect, a kind of miraculous elixir of life successfully concocted through this seemingly accidental process. Subsequently, fresh internal organs grew atop the skeleton.

It was a perfectly suited skeleton, that of a man, an adult man. His frame stretched under the influence of the drug, and his muscles grew rapidly. Soon, the gruesome skeleton took on a human form.

It was all a coincidence, a coincidence beyond the detection of any predictive ability, and beyond the understanding of any known means of observation. This whole affair was simply a probabilistic miracle, just as a boulder rolling down a mountain produced a grand symphony, or a monkey at a keyboard composed a beautiful sonnet.

I call you by your name...

Muscles were full, brain tissue rebuilt, and the heart began to beat again. However, when the skin regenerated, it was a pale yellow, unlike the skin found in Mesopotamia. A tuft of black hair grew out, and black irises hung over white eyes. Although it was unknown who had originally lain there, the person who had now been revived was undeniably an Easterner—he appeared quite handsome, yet gave the impression of a towering mountain.

—Only now does he give the impression of something as lowly as a mountain. Because in just a moment, the mountain became a continent, the continent became a planet, the planet ignited and became a star, and the star's size continued to expand outward.

The creatures in the dense forest trembled uneasily. At first, they might have tried to flee, but soon all they could do was tremble. In the blink of an eye, they couldn't even tremble anymore, remaining motionless like clay or wooden sculptures. This is what it means to be "frozen in place," because the extreme fear and oppression made them even forget how to breathe for a moment.

Dark clouds had gathered in the sky, and abnormal lightning, carrying enormous amounts of energy, swirled within the cloud vortexes. It was as if a colossal bolt of lightning was about to strike from the sky at any moment, a lightning bolt powerful enough to instantly reduce an entire forest to molecular dust.

The entire forest was nothing more than molecular-level powder. Anything beyond that was beyond the limits of this world, and therefore meaningless. And as the lightning was about to strike, the Asian body finally completed its final construction.

I call you by your name...

The next moment, all sensations emanating from this body vanished instantly. Far off, the feathered serpent god, who had just sensed the threat but couldn't find its target, looked in bewilderment at the silently dissipating clouds in the sky. The silent jungle instantly returned to its noisy state, erupting into a rebound of chaos; literal commotion filled the dense forest in a flash.

Because at that moment, the man who had recovered opened his eyes.

"I will call you by your name, Zheng Zha," he said calmly. Although he concealed his aura, an unapproachable, sacred solemnity still enveloped him. However, in the next moment—

"Margot Royd, you just love this kind of flashy but impractical stuff!"

As his facial expressions became more lively, the solemn and dignified aura silently faded away.

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

Zheng Zha opened his eyes, sensing this new body and new world. The transformation was nearing completion; this body, temporarily used as a vessel, was approaching his original self at a speed he himself felt was not slow. Without needing to absorb additional energy or consume any rare or precious herbs, the vessel's level broke through the first three stages of the genetic lock in the blink of an eye. And when his spiritual light, which had crept from the void, successfully took over, endless energy surged from the depths of his soul, transforming the vessel and conceptually merging his original self with this body.

When the genetic lock is unlocked to the middle of the fourth stage, the body is no longer of paramount importance. This is because the light of the soul is the essence of power, and this path is far more powerful than that of other true gods in the multiverse.

Powerful, much more powerful. Zheng Zha knew that if he returned to the Lord of the Rings world, he could now easily crush all the Valar, including Ilúvatar. Unlike them, who, after being stripped of their divine bodies by the Cataclysm, could only unleash the peak power of the fourth level using only the light of their minds, he could now directly feel his own immense power.

"I feel like I could shatter this world with a single punch—a punch using only half my power," Zheng Zha muttered to himself, clenching his fist. But he immediately knew he shouldn't do that, because doing so would lead to very bad consequences.

It was a very bad thing, a very bad thing. Because just as he was about to make this decision, he felt a will pressing down from the highest heavens and another rising from the deepest abyss. The two wills collided violently in an unpredictable place, and then an energy tsunami comparable to the explosion of ten million suns surged from the void.

In the void, a collision equivalent to the destruction of a galaxy occurred. And soon after this collision, a second and a third followed.

Where was the point of impact? He didn't know. He wasn't a true god, not on this stage, and couldn't even sense the collision. He only knew that the energy surge wouldn't reach this stage. He also knew that if this stage were destroyed, he, who had direct contact with the surge, would likely be physically destroyed.

This is good.

He gave an awkward laugh, clenched his fist, and pretended nothing had happened—in fact, that was all he could do. The two wills hadn't even included him in their capture range; they simply existed somewhere, fighting each other. As for how many galactic-destroying collisions would occur during that time, that was a number that would be utterly absurd to even attempt to count.

Zheng Zha finally understood why Alice had said there would be risks in coming down personally—this stage was indeed a projection stage for the saints' battles, but the saints wouldn't actually focus their attention on this area. They simply wouldn't destroy it, wouldn't affect this place, and that was all. And if some fools were to destroy this stage from within—then the sweeping aftershocks flowing in from the outside would handle the rest.

A projection is ultimately just a projection; even if it's destroyed, another projection will be generated. However, the entities that inhabit the previous projection are not so lucky, unless they also exist in the form of a projection.

[This should be considered a proper experience of Saint-level combat power... It's truly indescribable, beyond imagination. And this is only the physical manifestation. A real battle... I'd probably just instantly ascend to heaven upon witnessing it, rolling back to the Main God Space to wait for the resurrection bar?]

That's terrifying. But...

He stretched out his hand, and at his will, some nearby matter molecules surged towards him, forming a set of men's clothing that conformed to the style of the current era. He then tidied his appearance, thought for a moment, and the Destruction Greatsword that he had used for a very long time appeared out of thin air and was then hung on his back.

This sword is no longer up to his level, but he still habitually uses this crimson longsword. His sword is his way, and his way will not change.

“Now that I’ve taken the first step, I won’t back down until I take the last one.” Zheng Zha let out a soft breath. “Let me see what I can do in this battle of the Dao, whose outcome is already predetermined.”

“I suggest you don’t utter certain terms. This information might be common knowledge within the team, but it’s absolutely confidential in many other areas. Randomly revealing information will lower our chances of winning, and I personally don’t like that kind of development.” — A familiar female voice came from not far away. He turned his head and saw a bird that looked like a flame in a nearby tree.

“Margot Lloyd,” Zheng Zha greeted her. He wasn’t surprised at all that Alice could pinpoint his location, after all, the entire Mesopotamia was under her surveillance, and once she exerted her power, her computing power was enough to cover the continent at the molecular scale, with almost no blind spots.

"Do you need any help?" Alice asked.

Zheng Zha thought for a moment. He wanted to say "no need" directly, but he knew very well that it would only be a waste of both of their time.

"Give me the latest intelligence."

"That's it?" Alice tilted her head, and a massive stream of information silently gathered around her, forming the shape of an acorn. Its flavor was inspired by the 'concentrated tomato sauce with formaldehyde and high-concentration MSG' she had recently enjoyed. Zheng Zha took it and swallowed it without hesitation.