Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

— Zheng Zha immediately shut down his sense of taste and smell.

He pondered for a few seconds, then nodded.

"That's it." This was his response to the question Alice had raised earlier. Then he added something else.

“I have my own path to walk, and Margot Royd, you have your own chosen path. I think it’s better if we don’t have too much contact until the time is right. After all, things like erosion… you wouldn’t want our paths to interfere with each other, would you?”

"So, according to you, you don't plan to leave this southern jungle?" Alice clearly understood his implication.

“Hmm,” Zheng Zha nodded. “I want to pave a path for the weak, but that doesn’t mean the path I pave has to conflict with what you’re doing in the north, in that city called Imanitic. There’s Ur here, and there are thousands, even nearly ten thousand people in Ur. And there’s a deity here whose way of life seems quite interesting; I plan to have a good chat with her.”

"I see." Alice nodded, fully aware of and understanding Zheng Zha's thoughts. This wasn't actually a bad thing, because it meant she wouldn't need to waste any more time here.

“Well then, I hope you can take good care of yourself,” Alice said. “You haven’t used your resurrection chances even once, which is a very important advantage. I hope you can make good use of it—if you have nothing else to say to me, then farewell.”

Zheng Zha made a gesture of "take care, don't bother seeing me off."

Then, the flame-shaped bird that Alice had transformed into flapped its wings, just like a real bird, and then disappeared.

Zheng Zha then turned his gaze back to the south of the jungle.

“Quetzalcoatl,” he said calmly, his gaze piercing through hundreds of miles of jungle in an instant, fixing on the hidden Pyramid of the Sun—an unfinished temple, where a tall woman stood atop the temple, looking in bewilderment at the sky that had inexplicably been overcast before clearing up again.

Zheng Zha saw her, but she didn't see Zheng Zha.

This is normal. The so-called God-level Spirit Origin is merely a flawed initial stage in the evaluation of reincarnators. It would be strange if they could sense the gaze of a true god. Just as they are completely unaware of the war of the saints beyond the heavens, or rather, outside this 'Chaldea-Singularity' system. Alice and Zheng Zha's exchange was also entirely outside their comprehension.

“I will practice my way, not kill them all,” Zheng Zha said softly, unsure whether he was speaking to himself or to someone or something in the void. He raised his foot, about to take a step forward, but a slight anomaly in the space made his ears twitch.

The next moment, he reached out and shattered the spatial rift.

"Waaaaah! Who is it! Who is attacking the great Discatari Poka meow!"

With a scream, he casually grabbed a sallow-looking humanoid figure and threw it to the ground. It appeared to be a vibrant, young woman of marriageable age. She held a toy-like meow stick in her hand and wore a strange leather suit that resembled both a tiger and a leopard.

She was a leopard-woman, a deity subordinate to the feathered serpent god. When Zheng Zha made his move, she was fast asleep in a cave fifty kilometers away. She only awoke with a start when Zheng Zha threw her to the ground, then, as if she couldn't see Zheng Zha in front of her, she raised her tail and looked around furtively.

"Who is it? Who is it, meow! Who disturbed my sleep, meow!"

Zheng Zha felt that this guy resembled someone he had met a few times before—ah, that's right, Azriel from the Zero World. This guy had a similar verbal tic to that Winged Race member, and their combat strength… seemed the same to him.

So Zheng Zha grabbed the woman's shoulder, turned her around, and made her look at him.

Then the guy let out a 'meow' and passed out.

Ah...that's great.

“I know you’re pretending to be asleep.” Zheng Zha glanced at the leopard-man’s tail, which was standing upright like a stick and trembling rapidly. After he finished speaking, the man trembled even more violently.

Zheng Zha pursed his lips.

"I won't do anything to you. I intend to visit Quetzalcoatl in a more formal manner, and I think having an introducer would be a good option."

He received no response; the poor leopard continued to tremble, driven by its wild instincts to frantically warn him.

Zheng Zha sighed.

He stretched out his hand and gestured with his fist, which was about the size of a clay pot, towards the guy's head.

—The effect is outstanding.

Section 34 - First Cycle - Lunar Gap: Today is also a combination of two.

A few minutes later...

"Waaaaah... This is so unfair to a cat, meow." The leopard-woman, Discataripoka, drooped her ears, and large, exaggerated tears, like those in a cartoon, cascaded down her strange leather head. She walked ahead, looking aggrieved, while Zheng Zha followed leisurely behind.

He moved at a leisurely pace, but in reality, space itself was being distorted by Zheng Zha's will. What would have taken at least several hours to walk on foot was shortened to a few minutes' stroll—he did this intentionally, because he wanted to give Quetzalcoatl some time to prepare.

Since it was a visit, he shouldn't be an uninvited guest. He knew very well that there was a contract between the leopard and the feathered serpent god, and he also knew that the feathered serpent god had sensed his presence when he captured the leopard.

The leopard-man was still trembling... Ah, this was somewhat unexpected, but actually quite normal. Zheng Zha, while reviewing the past, confirmed that this leopard, who called itself a cat, had successfully glimpsed his true form the instant it saw him. Zheng Zha felt that the fact that this creature hadn't been driven mad by the Dao in that instant of witnessing it was already a testament to its resilient spiritual nature. There was really no need to be overly critical.

"Don't worry, I won't do anything to you," he couldn't help but add, trying to keep his tone calm. "I didn't come here to kill a god, so you can relax."

Then the leopard man started shaking even more violently.

"Really? Really?" she asked in a trembling, tearful voice, "You won't hurt Kukul, will you?"

“No, I'm looking for her to discuss something. I don't intend to punch her flat,” Zheng Zha replied casually. He looked into the distance, and in the brief moment of his speech, the spatial distortion had transported him and the leopard-man to a distance of less than ten kilometers from the Temple of the Sun. He could clearly see the enormous Sun Calendar Stone standing atop the pyramid, and beneath it, a mature woman adorned with jewels and feathers, wielding an obsidian sword.

The woman was waiting for him, and with a slight movement of his will, the spatial distortion effect beneath his feet suddenly intensified. Before the pitiful leopard-man could react, he found that his body had been moved directly from the jungle ten kilometers away to the bottom of the pyramid temple!

"Kukur!" The creature, which was hard to tell if it was a leopard, a tiger, or a cat, let out a shriek. Its pale yellow form left a trail of afterimages as it scrambled to the woman at the top of the temple. She panicked and hid behind her, only daring to peek cautiously at the man standing at the base of the pyramid.

Zheng Zha didn't say anything, but glanced at her.

The woman in front of her didn't speak either, she just watched her quietly.

The silent atmosphere almost suffocated the poor little animal. A full fifteen seconds passed before she managed to regain some semblance of reason from her blank mind… and the meaning of her being there.

“Ku, Kukul…” she said weakly, “That man wants to see you.”

"I am Zheng Zha," Zheng Zha said calmly.

“Quetzalcoatl. I am the feathered serpent god known to all.” The tall, blonde woman replied, her voice carrying a peculiar, high-pitched quality that gave it a lively, Spanish feel.

"What brings you here, powerful outsider?" the woman, the feathered serpent goddess, asked with a smile. Her tone was calm and serene. But the leopard-man hiding behind her could clearly see her fingers gripping the hilt of the obsidian sword tightly.

The leopard man knew he was no match for that man with just one glance. This was an enemy that couldn't be dealt with through effort, miracles, or the outburst of love's destiny. Because behind that man lay the weight of *＆＃%￥＃%￥＃ ahhhhhh

The moment the memory surfaced, countless monstrous beasts surged from her sea of ​​consciousness, devouring her flesh and marrow. Her body, her soul, and her spiritual foundation all desperately tried to prevent her from forming concrete concepts in her mind. Yet, this still could not stop her life form from transforming in some unknowable and bizarre direction.

She felt she was about to die, or rather, she couldn't even form the concept of 'death' in her mind. However, just as she was about to fall into some kind of abyss, the Sunstone behind her emitted a faint warmth that enveloped her entire body.

And so the terrifying feeling vanished completely. The poor little guy collapsed to the ground, and even though he was a spirit body, the ground was still covered in sweat.

“…You frightened her.” Quetzalcoatl slightly raised his obsidian sword, the tip of which was about to point at Zheng Zha’s location—

However, the next moment, Zheng Zha suddenly appeared in front of her and pressed the sword in her hand back to the ground. She couldn't even catch Zheng Zha's movement!

"She scared herself." Zheng Zha glanced at the unfortunate fellow who was slumped on the ground. It was a miracle that she hadn't been directly distorted into a grotesque monster by the rapidly increasing degree of Dao erosion, given that she was only a low-level deity who had twice peered into the light of the mind that had forged her true form. He then reached out and pressed down in the air, completely erasing the memories in the leopard-woman's mind that she shouldn't have been exposed to or remembered.

“It’s only natural that your eyes hurt after seeing something you shouldn’t have. And since it was her own choice, I won’t apologize,” Zheng Zha said, shaking his head slightly. He then turned his gaze to Quetzalcoatl, who was now on guard because of his swift action—one of his hands was still on Quetzalcoatl’s hand holding the obsidian sword, and he could clearly sense that the deity in front of him was trying her best to break free from his grasp.

If the sword isn't raised, then there's no declaration of war. And since there's no declaration of war, there's room for negotiation.

Talk. The purpose of talking is to resolve the issue. Zheng Zha wanted to resolve the issue with words, not fists. And because he didn't intend to use fists, he also hoped that his negotiating partner wouldn't have any strange, presumptuous, or detrimental thoughts about herself.

— He learned this from Alice, and he thought the theory made a lot of sense.

The massive pyramid trembled slightly, and a continuous series of cracking and breaking sounds emanated from the rock formations surrounding it. This simple struggle caused the entire dense forest and even the distant city of Ur to tremble slightly. Cracks appeared one after another on the forest's ley lines, only to be forcibly closed by an even greater force. Just as the cracks were about to reach the city, they reversed direction, disappearing completely at the foot of the pyramid as if time had flowed backward!

Quetzalcoatl had used all his strength, while Zheng Zha hadn't used a single bit. Just as ten thousand and one million are essentially the same in the face of infinity, Quetzalcoatl, who was far stronger than the leopard-man, was no different in Zheng Zha's eyes from that strange creature that he couldn't tell whether it was a cat, a tiger, or a leopard.

"Is that enough?" Zheng Zha asked, his tone of certainty. The immense energy that was enough to overturn the continent and trigger a massive earthquake of magnitude 10 or higher was completely attracted by him in an instant, and then gathered at his fingertips, turning into a small ball that was spinning around. With a casual pinch, the ball vanished as if it had never existed in the first place.

He saw his opponent, the person he was talking to, and the person took a soft breath.

"You haven't answered my question yet, outsider. What brings you here?"—Zheng Zha could clearly sense that the deity before him had lost more than a third of her spiritual essence due to this struggle. However, the mature woman before him showed no sign of weakness, instead looking at him with resolute eyes.

“I’ve come here to ask you some questions,” Zheng Zha replied.

He immediately saw the muscles on the face of the deity before him twitching, and the emotion in his eyes, 'You're already so strong, what else do you want to ask me?' was almost undisguisedly expressed.

So he continued to ask.

"I want to know, why do you protect humanity?"

"Protect humanity?"—He saw the goddess's expression remain stable, but her inner emotions were in turmoil. The feathered serpent god's expression shifted repeatedly, but in the end, only a self-deprecating laugh remained. "Ha, as expected, I couldn't hide it. Indeed, although I don't know where you, the god-king, came from... or some even greater being, your power is undeniably immense. Great power inevitably comes with great insight, so for me to continue hiding it would only be a waste of time."

“Yes,” she nodded. “I want to protect humanity. And I don’t think there’s any reason… Don’t you think humans are lovely creatures? So fragile, so hardworking, just a glimmer of light, yet they can grow into towering trees without you even noticing… I love nurturing saplings. So, what reason is needed to shelter them from the wind and rain before they’ve grown into trees?”

Zheng Zha blinked, instantly dissecting the essence of the deity before him. He knew that this feathered serpent goddess was actually an alien deity who had descended from another planet, existing in the South American civilization as a cluster of microorganisms, plants, or rather, parasitic plants. Even her true form hadn't perished; rather, after the South American pantheon faded, she had traveled to a spatial rift, like the inner sea of ​​the planet inhabited by gods.

In other words, compared to those Heroic Spirits who are essentially boundary recording tapes or natural phenomena, this goddess is more like a living being with her own will.

A living being, a living being from another planet.

A living being with its own mother civilization, yet spreading love to alien creatures.

A living being with independent will and unwavering determination who would rather give love to refugees on the other side of the earth than to take care of a neighbor who is struggling to make ends meet.

Patchouli's voice echoed in Zheng Zha's ears once again.

—[If you truly care, why not go and take care of the Earth from your origin world—that's where your true kin live. Even pity for the weak should have its limits, and I think you understand that.]

“You are a tree,” Zheng Zha said with certainty, “an alien tree.”

“I don’t deny it,” Quetzalcoatl replied—she was indeed from another planet, and indeed possessed a life form resembling that of a plant. She and many of her kin had indeed crossed vast distances and descended upon the South American civilization after the destruction of her home planet’s civilization.

This is a fact, and a fact cannot be changed. Perhaps there are other developments in other fictional worlds, but at least on this stage, in this story, this is how she came to be.

Zheng Zha continued to raise questions.

"Then why don't you revive your own people on Earth and nurture those ancient inhabitants who truly share the same origins as you? Instead, why do you entrust your compassion to a group of alien natives who have no real connection to you?"

He gazed at Quetzalcoatl, watching him fall silent. And perhaps feeling his words weren't enough, he even added a sentence after saying that.

"Gaia's will may be one reason, but it can no longer be a problem that perplexes you. Now you can completely revive your own people on this land, revive your true compatriots who share your origins and race, instead of entrusting your compassion to these mortals who have little to do with you—"

"You are not a Heroic Spirit, and you are not required to obey the Holy Grail's commands. I can remove the contract binding you. Even Tiamat, whom you probably think you can't defeat, I can keep her in a perpetual slumber. You don't need to worry about any obstacles, or even care about my interference."

“Because I want a conclusion, and I only want one conclusion,” Zheng Zha said earnestly, looking at her.

Why do you want to protect the humans on this planet?

"Instead of protecting their own lost compatriots?"

The latter's silence thus became increasingly prolonged.

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

Alice looked away.

There's no need to worry too much about what happened in Ur City. After all, there are only two incredibly weak native deities there—ah, perhaps they're considered quite powerful by the standards of people or gods of this era. But even that level is just average in the eyes of a top-tier reincarnator who has experienced countless battles.

Yes, generally speaking, just like Alice and her group of top-tier reincarnators are merely "ordinary" in the eyes of the two saints outside the stage world. It's simply a matter of strength and weakness; there's nothing particularly noteworthy.

Quetzalcoatl's conclusion wasn't hard to guess; after all, she was a god of unwavering will. Even after consuming the Dao Eclipse, she wouldn't perish instantly. And since she wouldn't perish, her stance wouldn't easily change.

Quetzalcoatl will not change, and neither will Zheng Zha. Once he reaches his conclusion, he will naturally put his principles into practice, and the southern city of Ur is a suitable and agreed-upon platform for this endeavor.

She wasn't worried that Zheng Zha would disrupt her plans, at least not in this cycle. The path and theories of Quetzalcoatl would consume a lot of his time. And even if he miraculously escaped being bewildered, the alien god, now a native, would try every means to pull him into the human camp—this would be difficult, as Zheng Zha was almost impossible to suddenly be 'moved' or easily believe others' words—and if that didn't work, she would try to keep this exceptionally powerful warrior, Zheng Zha, trapped in the Ur Jungle.

Ah... an interesting god.

Alice flapped her wings boredly. Under her will, Ba, whom she was using as a temporary mount, was tracking Merlin and his group carrying the temple tablet at a speed that was always just a hair's breadth away, no matter how hard she tried. The city of Kusa, which she considered their final destination, was getting closer and closer to where she was now. Perhaps in just a few hours, she and Ba would be able to reach their desired destination.