Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

She failed because the trap was too obvious. But she also succeeded because someone was connected to this world. As long as she descended, the erosion phenomenon would inevitably occur on her counterpart. And based on this, by comparing the information stored in the Moon Grail of this world and parallel worlds, it would be possible to uncover, or rather deduce, some hidden clues that someone had deliberately concealed.

After comparing the information, Alice identified this "someone" as Sesshouin Kiara, the captain of the Inshu team, and the first true enemy she faced after entering this infinite world. In this exchange from afar, or rather, in a one-sided, covert attack, Alice gained a slight advantage.

She has discovered some secrets, and now all she has to do is identify the traps within them and exploit them.

[Sesshouin Kiara is likely a native of some external world called the Moon Realm. She once ascended from a mortal to a native true god possessing the light of the soul by seizing and corrupting the Moon Grail. However, I think the Sesshouin Kiara I encountered in the Legend of the Gods and Demons wasn't a true god—because despair is the key to entering the main god realm, and how could a true god possibly experience despair?]

[She was likely an individual from a parallel world that the native true god of that otherworld was about to devour during his ascension, when he attempted to unify parallel worldlines. Realizing his own transformation and distortion, he fell into despair, and at the very moment he was about to be assimilated and become part of the main body, he was pulled into the main god space. However, even though he escaped at the last moment, the essence of the true god still lingered deep within her soul.]

Therefore, even though she was a mortal back then, she was able to climb to the pinnacle of mortal existence and touch the threshold of transcendent life in such a short time. Therefore, even though she possessed the essence of a true god, she would still be severely injured by the apocalypse I compiled. Because at that time, she was actually just a mortal with some characteristics of a higher life form, and knew nothing about true combat.

No wonder I was able to win back then.

The next moment, the radiance reflected from the moon's surface became the new medium for erosion, and Alice then traveled along the radiant path of sunlight shining on the moon's surface, easily eroding a new incarnation into the corona on the sun's side. The building blocks of this incarnation were rays and light emanating from the star's interior, and as she grew a fleshy structure, she slowly drifted down from the corona's side, briefly pausing on a huge flare.

Solar flares are essentially violent solar activity, comparable to the combined light and heat of billions of fully-fledged Tsar Bomba nuclear bombs exploding simultaneously. Of course, even if Alice were currently in flesh and blood, their impact on her would be little greater than the breeze brushing past her feet. But Alice's purpose here wasn't to wash her boots.

She glanced at Earth, at the Seventh Singularity, where her script was running smoothly and without any errors.

So she reached out and touched the sun's core along the path of the solar flare—she had already devised a strategy and method to deal with Sesshouin Kiara. And now was the time to create the necessary tools.

Then, the erosion phenomenon begins to form from the interior of the sun.

Section 46. First Cycle. The Planned End.

About half an hour later, Alice withdrew her hand from the surface of the sun. The mature star in the main sequence stage before her was still burning fiercely, but its internal nature had undergone some irreversible and drastic change.

The corona is her, her gaseous form constructed from layers of plasma, some dense, some sparse. There are countless of her, numbering around thirty trillion. Each gaseous form possesses a complete structure at the micrometer scale. Some are reading books, some strolling the streets, some spreading their long hair, the ends of which become roads, some curling up, transforming into a thick book to be read—the Alices of this layer are the more leisurely Alices, essentially doing nothing, cultivating their minds in various ways.

The color sphere and the light sphere are also her; in this layer, she is pure light. Each different frequency of light wave then forms an image of Alice. Of course, light exhibits wave-particle duality. Therefore, she exists more often in particle form. Their attire varies slightly, but they are generally depicted as warriors or officers. They fight each other using all sorts of weapons, both imaginable and unimaginable to humans, practicing various strange and wonderful techniques. And the essence of those weapons or techniques is actually also a series of Alices, who revel in fighting and killing each other.

The star's core is, of course, still her, where stellar matter undergoes violent reactions. And the shockwaves released with each explosion naturally bear the image of Alice. These Alices are scholars and researchers, undertaking research projects on stars, the void, and even themselves. They create all sorts of strange instruments, and countless groundbreaking achievements are developed every moment. They enjoy researching and being researched; their very existence signifies change.

Thus, every part of the sun became her. And the sun itself naturally became a part of her. Countless Alices merged together on the surface of the sun, and beneath the corona emerged a beautiful face that belonged to her, covering half of the star's surface. Then, before disappearing, this face cast an exploring gaze towards the far reaches of space.

The gaze was cast out in an instant, and in that instant, Alice's face sank beneath the sphere of light, transforming once more into countless Alices. These Alices then worked together to devour and overwrite the timeline occupied by the actions of 'manifesting her face' and 'casting her gaze'. Soon, the original Alice suspended in the corona vanished without a trace, and the various anomalies on the sun, and the timeline in which they occurred, were meticulously altered, making the star appear as it did half an hour earlier, even to the true god's eyes.

This was both bait and a trap. Through her investigation of Sesshouin Kiara's background, Alice roughly deduced her path to advancement—either to delve into the Earth's core, devour the planet, seize the identity of the Counter Force, and become Gaia; or to delve into the interior of the sun, dominate the vast majority of the planetary system's mass, and thus cause annihilation—both possibilities were quite likely, and Alice believed she would choose to pursue both simultaneously. And if she made such a choice, then a surprise awaited her.

Of course, there's a third possibility: Sesshouin Kiara might choose nothing at all, instead arranging a new path of power. This wouldn't be surprising, given that the origins Alice detected were rather outdated, and errors or even version updates were possible. However, that wouldn't matter; power is power, and possessing such a massive amount of mass in this planetary system is already a huge advantage.

After all, Alice doesn't need to worry about the erosion of the saint's path. Her 'role-playing game' in those six singularities wasn't for nothing.

[So, that's about it for the arrangements here. Although my victory over Sesshouin Kiara back in Legend of the Gods and Demons wasn't exactly a resounding triumph, a win is a win.]

If I can win once, I can win a second time.

However, to prevent any unforeseen circumstances, I still need to eliminate as many other variables as possible... Ah, this stage may be relatively small, but there are a lot of random people around outside.

Across the circular table, Alice's gaze fell upon another part of the scene—the script she was writing was unfolding smoothly across Mesopotamia. As her gaze fell, she witnessed the moment Tomoe Gozen was killed by Jusudera. The stone tablet, tainted with an even greater share of 'destiny' through this struggle, was, as she had wished, thrown by the dying Tomoe to the battlefield near the Temple of Blood.

Everything went smoothly. The flame-shaped bird avatar she left beside Flora could clearly sense Flora's sudden shock upon learning of Ba's death, followed by a volcanic eruption of rage. Almost instantly, she tore through space from within the temple of Imanitic and forcibly teleported herself to the edge of the underworld in Kusa City, the place where Ba's now-fifty body had finally fallen.

What happened next was naturally not suitable for children.

In short, when Fujimaru Ritsuka, Gilgamesh, and the others awoke from Uruk through the ritual, the enraged Flora ripped the head, along with most of the spine, from the body of Jusudara, a Grand Heroic Spirit. And it was precisely because of her brief departure that the stone tablet that had been swept away by spatial turbulence to the Blood Temple successfully came into contact with the medium for summoning.

It was still a corpse, still a 'gun'. When an Imanitian warrior died in battle against a monster, her blood-soaked weapon 'coincidentally' landed on a stone slab. A summoning ritual, which Flora might normally detect with a trace, but which she was absolutely certain would be completely undetectable now, began. Cherry Bomb Tool Anastasia had arrived.

The newly awakened Bomb Princess seemed destined to encounter the murderous Enkidu once again.

And so, the cold sun fell. This blow destroyed the Blood Temple and Enkidu. By the time the others realized what had happened at the Blood Temple, Gorgon, no longer lying in wait, had crushed the useless princess back onto the Throne of Heroes. And minutes later, the observation post in Uruk witnessed the boiling sea.

It's the same recipe, the same taste. While there are a few bewildered mortals like Fujimaru Ritsuka who can't understand why things were going so well just moments ago but have suddenly turned into a full-scale war, the rest of the events unfolded much more smoothly. Except for the Ur region, which has been turned into a time-isolated island by Zheng Zha's will, all the goddesses have once again begun their battle.

The gods of this world always love humanity. Without reason, these goddesses are willing to destroy everything else for humankind. However, with the absence of Jusuddra and Quetzalcoatl, even with the assistance of the goddesses of Venus and the Underworld, Fujimaru Ritsuka and her group in Uruk were unable to successfully participate in the all-out war between the Imanitecs and the relentlessly fighting Tiamat—they simply couldn't break through the defenses formed by tens of millions of Rahm or Imanitec war beasts. A direct dialogue with the two goddesses, who were already bloodthirsty, was out of the question.

This singularity is beyond saving—that's the assessment of the decision-makers within the Chaldea organization. And that's why, despite Fujimaru Ritsuka's strong opposition, the continuous spirit particle transfer ultimately unfolded on her and Mash.

First cycle complete.

Alice withdrew her gaze, simultaneously sensing that the upper limit of her interference power had further increased. She wasn't surprised by this outcome. After all, even though she always managed to botch her plans, the people or things that caused her to fail often possessed power far beyond her expectations.

In other words, even if she makes a mistake, it will only happen in crucial areas. It would be strange if she made a mistake in something insignificant.

So she shifted her focus. After arranging everything, she turned her attention to another area that needed her attention.

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

The Moon World is an interesting world. Within this world system, there exists a universe and planets, but the laws of physics only apply like a veil over the surface of these planets, and only work on that surface. In the vast expanse of space beyond these planets, theoretically only items relying on true ether and spiritual particle technology can function properly.

This is very interesting. Because even in the pure, empty space where even true ether is so thin as to be negligible, some traditional fundamental rules still function. And among these rules, 'light' occupies a rather vast domain.

The speed of light still exists, and the wave-particle duality of light still exists. And those flourishing cosmic civilizations residing deep within space, far from remote places like the Orion Arm, naturally continue to utilize 'light' and the various phenomena derived from it as natural phenomena that can be analyzed. The unknown alien civilization that created the Mooncell is a prime example of this.

After all, the so-called Mooncell is essentially just a giant photonic crystal calculator. So-called spiritual technology largely refers to the application of light. And precisely because of this, even if alien civilizations in the deep universe possess all sorts of incredible advanced technologies, the traditional and outdated method of optical observation still retains a place in their observation systems.

Like most reincarnators on the magic-free Earth, they create star maps by observing the light emitted by celestial bodies many years ago, and then decide whether to send forces to explore or suppress a particular planet after careful consideration. However, they probably never imagined that while they were observing stars billions of light-years away, a 'star' billions of light-years away was also casting its probing gaze upon them.

Outside the Milky Way, about 160,000 light-years from the galactic center, lies an irregular galaxy smaller than the Milky Way but containing 20 billion stars. It is called the Magellanic Clouds, and in a certain region of this galaxy, a colossal star, feeding on civilization, leaps ceaselessly through space.

Known as the 'Predatory Planet,' it is an alien weapon with the same origin as Mooncell. The civilization it created has long been lost or has ascended to a more distant region, leaving only this massive stellar fortress to roam several star systems around the Milky Way, purging any civilization that has developed to a certain level.

A large filter—maybe that's what it is.

Its form resembles a steel star, while thousands of starships of varying sizes drift and float around it. When it observes an active civilization, it will rush to the star system where that civilization is located and release its starship. From the starship, powerful destroyers will emerge, scorching the earth, shooting down gods, and shattering civilizations. After everything settles down, the civilization that has gone from prosperity to ruin will be made into another starship and travel with the feeding star to another feeding area.

This is a rather interesting little thing, at least quite interesting in the eyes of a reincarnator of true god-like status. According to records from Mooncell and many parallel world lines, it can be determined that it visited Earth 14,000 years ago and left behind three starships. Their achievement was the destruction of a part of the divine civilization, but they ultimately failed to fulfill the mission given to them by the traveler.

The planet's rebellion was one reason, and the betrayal by Mooncell, a being of the same origin, was another. The only one of the three starships to successfully reach the moon, 'Attila the Colossus', was captured and suppressed by Mooncell on the inner side of the moon. Attila's true form, as a weapon of destruction, was also bound deep within the moon by the mechanism of the planetary journey, only occasionally having dreams in which she becomes the king of the Huns.

Flora encountered the Servant Attila, who had been forcibly summoned, in the Third Singularity. Attila, upon her arrival, was instantly killed by Flora's pre-prepared curse, which replicated her legendary deeds, shattering her spirit core before she could even begin her destructive mission. This Servant did not subsequently appear on Chaldea's Spirit Origin Chart, a detail Flora wouldn't normally concern herself with.

Flora didn't care, but Alice did. Her first interference with Mooncell began then. And now, she's turned her attention to preying on the wandering stars, a goal with an even deeper connection to Attila.

She knew that the predatory star had been trying to annihilate Earth's civilization again after its failure fourteen thousand years ago. She also knew that its failures were due to the interference released by Mooncell, which hindered its ability to locate the Milky Way—it had always wanted to see the Sun. Therefore, Alice made the Sun see it.

And the instant this colossal machine saw that ray of sunlight, over a hundred thousand years old, within the interior of the predatory planet, in a structural component—whether useful or not—Iris's form silently materialized from this structure.

This is also a phenomenon of erosion.

Chapter 47 The Ascended Heaven

Alice had to admit that this lost civilization, which had vanished without a trace, still possessed something. She encountered numerous obstacles in eroding the asteroid and transforming it into Alice. Its physical form was destroyed over a thousand times. That was complete annihilation, leaving not a single proton or neutron. In the worst instance, the asteroid's weapons even attempted to distort the timeline, trying to kill her in the past.

If it were an ordinary native true god, or even a slightly weaker one, one of the four types of reincarnators who hadn't reached their full potential, there might have been a possibility of them being overthrown in this war. However, unfortunately, Alice didn't belong to either of these two categories. Thus, after about two thousand years of war, this predatory planet ultimately became a part of Alice. And when she left the battlefield, that two thousand years of history and its corresponding timeline were casually devoured by Alice, bringing her back to the real world where the first cycle had just ended.

The battle ended, and they returned home laden with spoils.

When Alice arrived inside the planet, the enormous predatory celestial body had already been distorted by her will into the form she desired. At its center was a control tower, surrounded by layers of equally tall ring structures, making it look like a simple, large library—ah, that's right, she had transformed it into the style of a grand library.

Since it's a large library, the librarian would naturally be present there.

Alice wasn't sure when Patchouli had arrived. Perhaps a thousand years ago? Perhaps two thousand years ago? Perhaps just now? Or perhaps she'd always been here? It didn't matter; the important thing was that she was definitely here. And as Alice walked briskly through the carpeted corridor, past dimensional bookshelves overflowing with new knowledge, she saw the familiar figure at the very center of the control tower, just as she had hoped.

“Patch,” Alice said with a smile, “Do you like this?”

"Borrowing the 'Predatory Planet's' ability to collect civilizations, capturing it, and modifying the concepts attached to it into a 'Civilization Library' to grant me the opportunity to descend?" Patchouli said calmly from the main control platform, looking at Alice as if she were looking at a mischievous little devil: "The idea itself is not bad, but you should know that this is not in my plan, Alice."

“But you still came, Patchouli.” Alice strolled up behind Patchouli, stretched out her arms, and hugged her from behind. “Libraries and records of civilization, aren’t these things very fitting for you? Since they are things that fit you, I should naturally tie them with ribbons and give them to you as a gift.”

She whispered in Patchouli's ear, her hair playfully brushing against Patchouli's earlobe. She saw a faint blush creep onto that fair, delicate ear. Then—

She found herself thrown from the newly built Grand Library at near-light speed, crashing with terrifying potential energy into an innocent passing asteroid, shattering it into a trillion, ten to the power of twenty-four, or a hundred, scattered fragments—of course, this had no effect on her; such a simple kinetic impact didn't even require her to rebuild a body. She simply shrugged helplessly, and as she shrugged, she used her telekinesis to mold the shattered asteroid back into its pre-shattered form.

It's rare to see Patchouli looking shy, so taking a light over-the-shoulder throw isn't a bad loss.

When Alice crossed space and returned to the newly reborn Great Library, the library, whose control she had transferred, underwent more personalized changes in its details, transforming from a part of hers into a part of Patchouli.

Of course, she knew she could still do something. After all, the Dao Erosion wouldn't easily dissipate, and if she wanted, she could easily transform the book in Patchouli's hands or the remaining chair into herself. And if time were to flow a little further, she could even transform Patchouli's clothes into her own alien form, and after that—

“I’ll just throw you into the Galactic Heart for a good disinfection, Alice, if you really intend to slack off during work hours.” Patchouli, who was reviewing various alien data inside the new library, glanced at Alice as she entered the control tower for the second time. “Perhaps a standard gamma-ray burst would clear your head and allow you to focus your limited computing power on the right areas?”

However, the next moment, the seat beneath Patchouli transformed into Alice's—she was gently lifted up by the latter, and then felt the back of her head rest on Alice's shoulder.

“Then you can throw me into the heart of the galaxy now, Patchouli.” Alice nuzzled her cheek. “A gamma-ray burst would be nice too, we could take a shower together… Ouch!”

Patchouli picked up a book and smacked Alice on the head.

“That’s enough,” she said. But she didn’t seem to intend to break free from Alice’s embrace.

A triumphant smile crept onto Alice's lips. A long-lost sense of pleasure welled up inside her, and she suddenly felt that her hand might have a more suitable place to rest. However, as she moved the hand holding Patchouli slightly downwards, the warm touch from her fingertips told her that her restless finger had been moved directly to the vicinity of the library's stellar-powered engine nozzle.

—This library, formerly a predatory planetary library, doesn't need this outdated jet propulsion technology, so this nozzle is newly built. And this is also a small warning.

Well, it seems Patchouli really isn't in the mood—that's the conclusion Alice came to. This conclusion weighed heavily on her, even dimming the color of her hair. She pouted, tossing this little bit of frustration into the vast expanse of space outside the Great Library. The next moment, her 'frustration' transformed into an etheric storm covering an area of ​​nearly one light-second. Terrifying energy lightning spread through the void like a spiderweb, creating a massive natural disaster out of thin air.

Divine grace is as vast as the sea, divine power as imposing as a prison—in the vast multiverse, this saying is, in a sense, a realistic description. After all, the most powerful true gods do indeed possess the power to move mountains with a single thought, and this is actually still a kind of adaptation that their universes exhibit towards them.

The mundane adapts to the world, and the world adapts to the sacred—this is a truth within diversity, requiring neither proof nor refutation.

The next moment, the raging storm vanished completely, the violent ether calmed down, and a peaceful and serene aura spread in all directions. Energy transformed into matter, and the aesthetics of matter are like blooming flowers.

A vast expanse of stars, spanning a light-second, blossomed with an extraordinary sea of ​​flowers. This transformation was caused by Patchouli's gentle kiss on the lips of a dejected Alice. With the joy of the true god, a landmass to support this expansive floral sea was created from nothing. This land was quickly molded into a hollow planet by an invisible hand, loaded with a pseudo-stellar soul to establish physical rules, and thus generated an atmosphere, sunlight, water, and various mechanisms to maintain the ecosystem, ensuring the planet could function normally even when isolated beyond the galaxies.

This planet will be called 'Love'—a name inscribed in every corner of the celestial body. No matter how strange the culture and language of the civilizations that visit this planet in the future, they will all inevitably give it this name. And this planet will be permanently enveloped in a sea of ​​exotic flowers, and nothing but flowers will grow on this planet.

This is a certificate.

It is a testament that, while it may not signify anything particularly lofty, is destined to outlive most civilizations with lofty ideals.

As this star was sculpted, the previously static new Grand Library began to function. Space was torn apart, and portals for warp jumps were created. The 160,000 light-year distance between the edge of the Large Magellanic Cloud and the galactic center was arbitrarily erased. Then, someone would have their promise fulfilled.

—Iris will have to endure a long gamma-ray burst in the galactic core, which is teeming with supernovae.

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

As it turns out, extreme cosmic phenomena like gamma-ray bursts still pose a certain threat to true gods. Having decided to abandon treatment of her body, which had been thrown into the galactic core for a bath, Alice chose to regenerate a new body within the Great Library. When she opened her eyes, Patchouli had already finished cataloging the data carried by the asteroid. The remaining data would require more time to process.

Time still holds meaning for beings below the level of true gods.

Alice watched the busy figures. She knew and could see that Patchouli could gather the light of the soul at any moment, and in terms of combat power alone, she was even above the slightly weaker Fourth Middle School. But she also knew that Patchouli had stopped at this final step, standing still.

She knew why.

"Still haven't made a decision, Patchouli? The Path of the Stars, the Path of the Swarm, the Path of Crystallization—you haven't decided on these three paths yet?" She approached Patchouli, placing her hands on Patchouli's shoulders like a statue—Patchouli was originally a witch of Hypatia, studying the stars. Later, she became interested in the crystallization magic of the white dragon Hiss and began researching crystallization. After overcoming the fourth-tier barrier, the use of nanites became her new method. She transformed nanites into elf-like beings, creating the Fairy Kingdom—this was the Path of the Swarm.

Now, she finds herself facing three paths, all of which are viable, but she can only choose one.

Choosing the path of the swarm means you'll inevitably face the Mother of the Swarm, who will inevitably exist in the future.

Choosing the path of crystallization will inevitably lead to an encounter with the perfect white dragon, Seath, who has been sublimated from countless Dark Souls worlds.

Choosing the Path of the Stars… Ah, there's no need to worry about encountering Hypatia. But in the multiverse, there are probably countless powerful individuals who study the power of the stars—a path that seems to offer a bright future. And if she continues to climb this path, perhaps even the star gods and star lords of the primordial celestial realm will become her enemies.

Alice knew she wanted to choose the third option because her initial love for the stars was what allowed her to stand out in the school of Hypatia, becoming the Princess of Knowledge of the Celestial School and the most powerful, and ultimately the last, Information Mage. She wasn't actually afraid of those powerful beings from other realms who had progressed further on the path of the stars than she had. The reason she hesitated before taking this final step was because she didn't want to bring unforeseen disasters to those around her.

[Foolish woman, do you think I would care about the storms that might come my way in the future?]