Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Her name is Sajo Aika.

Thus, Chu Xuan appeared in the place he expected to be—in front of a house in Tokyo marked with 'stripes'.

He adjusted his glasses on the bridge of his nose, in which a shimmering, enormous silver shadow was reflected.

"The perfect vessel, the White Qilin of the Seas." — He said calmly. He rang the doorbell.

Chapter 55: The Spokesperson of Chu

When the door opened, time within was frozen. The power to freeze time came from the young girl seated on the carpet in the center of the main hall. She was dressed in finery, every part of her hair and fingertips meticulously and beautifully styled. In the side room behind the main hall, the mortals who should be her biological parents and sisters were frozen in time forever.

She seemed to have foreseen Chu Xuan's arrival, or rather, Chu Xuan allowed her to witness his own arrival. And when Chu Xuan walked through the gate and entered the hall of the Sha Tiao family, she, according to the customs of this country, offered him the most devout respect.

She bowed deeply, her palms, knees, and forehead touching the carpet simultaneously.

Her voice was clear and melodious, the ultimate embodiment of the word "pleasant to the ear" in human language.

"This humble servant, Ai Ge, is honored to meet Your Majesty today. I am filled with trepidation and dare to ask, may I address you as 'Father'?"

Chu Xuan pushed up his glasses.

“When I was preparing for the Sacred Hunting Ceremony, I set up several backup lower-level permissions. One of these permissions was transformed into a humanoid individual with intelligence during the subsequent evolution of the ceremony. You can indeed call me Father. Because you were indeed created by me and you were given a pre-determined way to use this tool.”

"Phew, that's wonderful! Aigo's life can finally have value!" The girl's voice was full of joy, a joy that clearly came from the bottom of her heart. She couldn't possibly be unaware of the ephemeral nature of this world—it was meaningless, it was nothingness, it was an end more tragic than death.

She was delighted by this, and then gently inquired of Chu Xuan—for all her gentle words and humble demeanor were merely an act. She was actually still considering other strategies.

"Father, how do you intend to use Love Song?" she asked weakly, her voice like the mournful cry of a fledgling bird, enough to sway even the most hardened man.

However, the term 'heartless' does not apply to Chu Xuan. In his eyes, everything will return to its original state, and the beautiful body of the pitiful girl in front of him is practically nothing to him.

A silver snake appeared in his eyes.

"The SERRS, created based on the Ritual of Death and dependent on the Ritual of Hunting Saints, certainly possess formidable combat power and computational ability that surpasses the limits of true gods, but it is still an unnecessary burden to me. Part of this power is my bargaining chip, and the rest I will use to make usable tools."

“You are the entity with authority that I have set. From the very beginning, your birth duty was to exist in the world as a vessel for the power of SERRS. This will not change just because you have a human form. Your intellectual judgment has made you my ‘daughter,’ but you are still essentially my tool.”

A serpentine shape emerged from his eyes and quietly landed on his palm.

“You can choose to refuse, because I have many other options. While being born into human form through your intellect and autonomy will certainly increase your usefulness, it will also deviate from the function I originally intended for you.”

"Father, will Aigo die?"

“You were never truly alive, so naturally you have no option to die,” Chu Xuan replied calmly. “All sentient beings in this square-shaped moon world are merely intellectual entities formed from the power of the two saints. They possess wisdom, intellect, and souls, but they lack the light of the mind and the qualification to unlock their genetic potential.”

"You've never lived, so how can you say you're dead?"

"Then, please give Aika a chance to serve Father with her life. Aika wants to stay by Father's side forever, to help you through your troubles." The petite girl bowed deeply to Chu Xuan again, her voice sincere and poignant. "Please, please give Aika a chance!"

Chu Xuan did not answer.

A glint of light flashed in his eyes. He moved the timeline forward and pinpointed the exact moment when the Hunting Saint Ritual transformed into the Dao Competition Stage, and the bubble world on the edge of the ritual area was formed. He immediately captured the moment when Aika Sato's birth mother conceived. As he tried to intervene, a barrier with distinct power characteristics appeared in front of him!

He recognized this kind of power, and the source of this power had recently been at the same table with him, discussing important matters—it was the power of the clone Chu Xuan.

This is because the clone's power barrier collapsed and disappeared after it appeared once, leaving no trace.

The cause and effect have become clear. When the original Chu Xuan initiated the Dao Competition ritual and trapped the Demon Team in this desolate bubble plane on the edge of the universe, the clone Chu Xuan also took the opportunity to glimpse some of his arrangements and planted some seemingly minor but ultimately troublesome foreshadowing within them. The entity with the authority gaining intellect and being reborn as Satiao Aiko was a casual move by the clone Chu Xuan; its effect was minimal, but it would disrupt the original Chu Xuan's overall strategy.

Admittedly, the original Chu Xuan could easily alter the timeline and strip away Aika Sato's essential authority before her birth, thus restoring her to her original form as an entity with authority—he could do this easily. However, he could not do it easily because Aika Sato had been subconsciously enlightened by the clone Chu Xuan, so much so that everything she had shown since Chu Xuan's arrival possessed a certain profound meaning that perhaps even she herself was unaware of.

The dual identities of 'beautiful, innocent girl' and 'daughter who is essentially a prop' are both troublesome. This is because Zheng Zha is allergic to the former, while Alice is allergic to the latter. Of course, Chu Xuan knows that their 'allergies' will not affect the stability of the team—

They're not that stupid... not that ungrateful teammates. This little trick can at most create a fleeting thought in their minds, and then it will vanish without a trace in an instant, like wiping dust off glass.

But this is still not a good thing. It's bad, very bad. Because it in itself means that the Demons have interfered with the Central Plains team. And whether this subtle flaw will become a serious problem in the future is difficult to predict at this moment.

Chu Xuan stopped interfering with the timeline and began to think further.

Setting aside the uncertainties that come with it, a self-generating, sentient humanoid prop can indeed bring more benefits to the team in the execution of the plan. This is because it transforms from a disposable prop into a reusable prop with a growth potential. And beyond that, there are even more…

He stopped his thoughts, which were heading towards dangerous territory. Some questions were simply unthinkable without the proper identity. Just as the clone Ex would never allow his thoughts to stray into areas related to the essence of Luo Ye, the area Chu Xuan had just pondered was also one he deemed inappropriate for him to be involved in.

This is a pre-set warning.

But this warning gave him a different kind of inspiration.

"I see. It contains threats and traps, but its essence is a request for cooperation? A roundabout way of putting it." Chu Xuan adjusted his glasses, uttering a sentence he should be saying now within this past timeline.

He was actually referring to two things. One was related to the clone Chu Xuan's purpose, which doesn't need to be elaborated on here, as the clone Chu Xuan should have already known his decision when he said that. The other thing referred to his current situation, expressing the demands that the individual Satō Aika made of him—

Stripped of meaningless words and gestures, what Satou Aika demanded was to leave as a living individual and serve Chu Xuan under his command, rather than be used and discarded as a one-time consumable. Her equivalent was her eternal obedience and loyalty.

—This was certainly not a price to pay for someone who could escape their predetermined fate, work alongside the reincarnator Chu Xuan, and even have a chance to join the reincarnation team. Therefore, she used humble language and a subservient posture as aids, hoping to use the last weapon of the weak—the compassion of the strong—to achieve her goal.

Thus, Chu Xuan returned to the normal timeline. He was still standing in the hall of the Sato residence, where Sato Aika had stopped time with her talent, demonstrating her value. The girl he had originally intended to use as a one-time consumable item was still respectfully kneeling at his feet, awaiting his judgment or pity.

However, Chu Xuan showed no mercy.

He raised a finger and turned it half a circle counterclockwise.

The next moment, this entire planet, this bubble world with only the Earth-Moon system as its scale, began to collapse rapidly from the edge outwards! The timeline was broken, the spatial axis was extracted, the earth cracked open, and celestial matter was thrown into the void and then completely turned into chaos. All civilizations and their associated living beings inhabiting the earth's crust decayed and collapsed in an instant due to the disintegration of the world's own structure, disintegrating into molecules, into atoms, into quarks and strings, and even chaos, and then converging towards Chu Xuan's fingertips before sinking into the ocean of energy in the void!

"Father!?" The girl at his feet barely had time to scream before Chu Xuan's finger, which had been pointing downwards, touched her brow as she looked up. The next moment, her flesh and blood body was completely annihilated and destroyed, leaving not even a trace, before it was re-formed by the chaotic, unknown object that had gathered the entire bubble world!

Melt the world, forge one body.

When the new Satray Aegean was reborn, her soul and body were reanalyzed and cleansed by Chu Xuan. She was still herself; she didn't even understand what had happened to her. She only knew that the silver snake shadow had become one with her, in other words, she had become a fully filled vessel!

"You can't afford the price, so you need to repay it with your work. Go, as my representative, to the very center of the stage. You decide what to do, but you must make a difference."

"Aigo will not disappoint you, Father!" The girl in front of him showed a joyful expression, and the next moment she transformed into a smaller silver snake shadow, sank into the ocean of energy and rushed towards the predetermined stage.

She moved quickly, perhaps arriving at her destination as soon as she set off. As her form completely vanished, Chu Xuan of the Central Continent team turned his head and glanced at the bubble containing the Demon Team from the sea of ​​energy—the bubble world carrying all the Demon Team members remained quietly there. And the enormous silver shadow, its size immeasurable by human comprehension, still lingered around the bubble.

He clearly felt his level rapidly plummeting from the fourth limit, instantly falling to the third level, where he could hardly survive in this ocean of energy. However, his stay here was only a moment, a deliberate pause, before he rose again from the third level, touching the third-level limit and then overcoming several barriers that shouldn't even exist, yet still failing to reach the fourth level.

His eyes shone with a pure, clear light, but he still hadn't unlocked the fourth-order gene lock.

His form was like a phantom, from which emerged characteristics of heretical true gods such as astral spirit, divine authority, primordial golden core, innate ancestral energy, ancient demonic talisman, Buddha's relic, and soul core, before all of them vanished. They disappeared without a trace from his limbs and bones, and the next moment even those limbs and bones ceased to exist.

His physical form vanished from the universe, yet his silhouette reappeared within this turbulent ocean of energy. He still hadn't unlocked the fourth-order genetic lock, but he far surpassed the norm, even exceeding the limits of all third-order beings among reincarnators. As for the exact extent of this surpassing, perhaps only beings at the level of true gods could spend a considerable amount of time observing him before arriving at an accurate assessment.

"It's not the right time yet." Chu Xuan pushed up his glasses.

His words materialized, stirring the ocean of energy into a turbulent, boiling state. In an instant, using those five words plus a punctuation mark as the core, he reconstructed a bubble world within this ocean of energy, identical to the one that had been annihilated before. All the vanished people, things, and even the world itself were reshaped, and he adjusted time to before the moment of his arrival!

Everything returned to its original state. In this world, exactly as before, there would be another girl, Sajou Aika, who was born connected to the origin, and in three days she would face the Holy Grail War that she was destined to encounter. She would fulfill the script that this world should have in place of the departed one, and all other causes and conditions would never have existed for her.

So Chu Xuan left—he had many things to do and there was no need for him to linger in this worthless, desolate, bubble-like world.

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

Meanwhile, in Mesopotamia, the core of the entire lunar universe, as Fujimaru Ritsuka led the Knights of the Round Table into the morning mist that gradually thickened, at the heart of the mist, above a desolate city that had ceased to exist just minutes before but seemed to have endured a thousand years, an ordinary bird pierced through the mist and flew into the decaying tower at the very center of this abandoned city.

If Fujimaru Ritsuka could see the bird, they would find that it looked exactly like one of the birds that had been startled by the sword energy.

If the Knights of the Round Table could look down upon this desolate and abandoned city from beyond the mist, they would find that if the city were clean and new, it would be the very city of Camelot that once held the hopes of the people of Britain.

If the Chaldeans were to follow the bird into the decaying tower and look directly into the throne room at its base, the Pale King, who sits atop the withered throne, would bring them a strange surprise—or perhaps a fright.

As the bird flew into the main hall, cooing like a pigeon, a dim, murky light emanated from the gaps in the Pale King's helmet atop the throne.

"Is it here?" She picked up her spear and touched the ground.

The next moment, countless strange creatures awoke from their slumber in the entire desolate and abandoned city.

"Has the two-thousand-year journey through the void finally come to an end?" Her gaze pierced through the thick fog, fixed on the Chaldeans who had become alert. The fall from Outland had taken longer than she had anticipated; according to her casual calculations, that number should be over two thousand years.

She didn't understand why she was so slow, nor did she care. The long years had allowed this spirit of the Holy Lance of the past to shed superfluous emotions. Because she had been nurturing the fragmented soul of that otherworldly Arthur, repeating that abhorrent memory, cursed to the end of time, over and over again. And now, her heart was filled only with obsession with her former master and extreme hatred for the betrayer.

She rose from her throne.

“Then you will all remain here forever.” Her words were brief, her voice chilling.

Section 56. The Second Cycle. Unreasonable.

The Chaldeans sensed something was wrong very early on.

How early is "very early"? Hmm... probably when they stepped into the morning mist, and after five minutes they still hadn't reached the foot of the designated mountain, and the mist around them was getting thicker and thicker. The five Knights of the Round Table, realizing this in perfect unison, split up, three in front and two behind, forming a pentagram to protect Chaldea's master and servants in the center.

"Master, something's not right. We seem to have come to the wrong place."

Tristan kept his eyes closed. He gently plucked the bowstring, and several soft ripples of air echoed, dispersing the mist within a ten-meter radius around them. The echoes then lingered around the perimeter as solid sound waves, creating a semi-transparent defensive shield.

Beyond the fog, there was still fog. The fog was deep and thick, pale and chilling; even with the eyesight of a follower, one could not see anything twenty meters away. Within a ten-meter radius where the morning fog had been dispelled, scattered rubble lay decaying stones. The patterns on the stones were long since blurred beyond recognition, and black thorns and withered grass grew from the cracks.

This is not a good place, absolutely not.

Mashu instinctively raised her shield to protect Ritsuka. Ritsuka immediately nodded, tapped the terminal on her wrist, and prepared to seek help from the Chaldea control room.

She received no response.

“No, Chaldea’s signal has been lost.” Ritsuka shook her head vigorously. She carefully recalled the past few minutes and was surprised to find that Chaldea’s signal had vanished cleanly the moment the morning mist appeared. Unlike many times before, she heard no static and sensed no warning signs. She hadn’t even realized that Chaldea’s signal was gone!

"I can't get in touch with Chaldea." She tried again.

“Master, I have a bad feeling,” Bedivere, who was guarding her side, said in a deep voice. “It’s dangerous here. Please make a decision soon.”

"...Should we retreat?" Ritsuka hesitated for a moment, then immediately looked at the knight Gawain who was blocking the way. "I have a guess I want to verify. Mr. Gawain, can you unleash your Noble Phantasm to blast away this fog? It doesn't need to be fully unleashed, just try to see if you can do it."

“Understood.” Gawain nodded. The Holy Sword of the Sun in his hand shone brightly. “Knight Gawain, by the Master’s command, hereby unleashes his Noble Phantasm.”

He raised the holy sword high, its radiance overflowing and slightly extending outwards. Then, he pressed the sword down and slashed forcefully into the depths of the thick fog directly in front of him!

He couldn't bring himself to strike.

His sword froze in mid-air after only half a swing, as if an invisible hand was pressing down on his arm, preventing him from completing the simple sword-swinging motion.

"Huh?" Knight Gawain exclaimed softly. He tried again and came to the same conclusion.

“Master, I am unable to use my Noble Phantasm. It's not that my power is sealed, but rather that my body refuses to allow me to do so. Perhaps you will need to use a Command Seal to help me overcome this obstacle.”

“Is that so…” Ritsuka gently pressed her chin. “Then it seems my guess was correct. This place… should be a Reality Marble or a similar Otherworld. We should no longer be on the land of Mesopotamia, but have arrived at another Otherworld with different rules… No wonder Chaldea’s communications were cut off.”

“We can’t retreat, and it doesn’t feel right to break the barrier with brute force... We can only move forward. After all, the barrier must have an owner. And since the owner here didn’t attack us directly at the beginning, it means there’s still room for negotiation.”

“Since it’s the Master’s decision, we should obey.” Bedivere nodded in response. “But please be careful, I have a bad feeling. I suspect that our inability to unleash our Noble Phantasms might not be because this Reality Marble forbids their use…”

“But we can only keep moving forward,” Ritsuka replied, taking a deep breath and striding ahead. Mash followed her, and together with the Knights of the Round Table, they hurried forward.

At the very end of the line, Mordred, positioned at the lower rear corner of the pentagram, frowned. She hesitantly tightened her grip on the Sword of the Chosen, crimson lightning crackling at her fingertips where they met the hilt—she felt she could move freely in this area. However, the slightly depleted magical energy within her, due to the final summoning, made her hesitate. By the time she realized what was happening, Ritsuka and the others had already moved a short distance ahead.

"Hey! Wait for me!" She banished the thought that had just crossed her mind and quickly caught up with the others.

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

The deeper they went, the more cautious the Chaldeans became, as the white fog grew thicker and the surrounding ruins increased. Beyond the fog and ruins, in the barely perceptible darkness, they could vaguely see strange, gigantic creatures writhing and emitting terrifying groans. Gawain and Lancelot-Garonne tried to attack several times, but Ritsuka stopped them. They were then surprised to find that the monsters in the fog did not attack them.