Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Pointless.

Time has no meaning for true gods. At least not for the true gods who created the time loop. Because if true gods wished, they could shift their own timeline at any time to the primordial chaos at the beginning of the universe, or to the eternal heat death at the end of the universe.

This is the power of the true God, and also the limitation of the true God. Bound by the cyclical script of a single universe, the true God cannot perceive single universes outside of that single universe; therefore, the timeline of that single universe is their end. And they often accept this end, regarding their demise, which comes with the end of the cosmic era, as their destiny.

Perhaps some true gods might try to resist this predetermined end, but they often cannot achieve such a degree of change. The very nature of destiny is its inevitability and irreversibility. Compared to the 'script' meme that has already permeated the entire multiverse and plunged countless true gods into eternal slumber, the supreme beings that a mere single universe can nurture are far too insignificant. After all, within the vast multiverse, in the vast majority of single universes, the birth of native true gods is merely a byproduct of the 'script's' operation. Their very existence depends on the script, so how could they possibly rebel against it?

They cannot do it; the vast majority, or rather almost all, of the true gods cannot do it. Only in that minuscule possibility, like one in a grain of sand in the Ganges, might one or two true gods manage to break free from the constraints of the script, thus gaining the qualification to enter the multiverse. And those beings who can accomplish such an unparalleled feat will be called 'spiritual positions,' 'fourth-order high,' and 'Mahayana' in the primordial world within the sight of the saints.

Mahayana, what is Mahayana?

Surviving the calamity is the path to Mahayana Buddhism.

So what is a calamity?

Those ridiculous heavenly lightning strikes that even rely on the laws of physics to manifest?

Those uninteresting inner demons and evil thoughts that can be easily erased as long as the so-called 'Dao Heart' is perfected?

Those vulgar struggles, those conflicts arising from entangled causes and effects, those tribulations that can be easily overcome simply by calling for enough help or managing inter-divine relationships?

What a joke! What kind of calamity is this? Things that can be avoided hardly qualify as calamities. This kind of petty trick might at most trouble those less experienced extraordinary beings, causing distress to those cultivators who haven't yet gathered the light of their hearts. But for a true god, this level of obstacle isn't even worthy of being called a trial; it doesn't even qualify as resources, let alone a calamity.

The so-called calamity is actually the end of a single universe. It is the eternal annihilation of all things, the final result of all ages. It is the inevitable end that will descend upon all things at the end of an era. Only by overcoming such a calamity can one obtain power surpassing that of a true god.

Therefore, in the multiverse that does not belong to the Primordial Celestial Realm, beings capable of such great achievements are called "Transcendent Species" by mortals qualified to know their deeds—transcendent species that transcend the universe, transcend the script, and thus gain the qualification to directly confront and contend with those eternal and immortal great beings. As for whether a Transcendent Species can become a Saint, that is a much longer road ahead.

This is why all sentient and insentient beings bound by the 'script' meme yearn for 'transcendence'. Because whether short-lived or long-lived, their souls are filled with the fear of this inevitable end.

And it was precisely because of this that the moment Patchouli found the slightest flaw in the Awakener, the outcome of the battle between the true gods was already decided.

She used the Andromeda Galaxy's oppression of the Milky Way to ignite a deep-seated fear of destruction within the souls of all sentient beings within the galaxy. When this fear became a driving force, causing the Enlightened One—who was the sum of all awakened beings within the galaxy and ruled over its spiritual realm—to no longer perfectly manipulate her own power—it was only for a moment, not a fatal flaw for a true god. Yet, in that very moment of vulnerability, she intertwined her own timeline with that of the Enlightened Ones, leaping directly towards the end of the universe!

She led the Awakened One directly to the end of the universe. She wanted to force this great being, who was at the pinnacle of true godhood, to undergo tribulation!

This is suicide; the destruction brought about by the end of the universe makes no distinction between friend and foe. Whether it is a true god or a mortal being below the true god, all who come here will face their own end.

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

Everything fell silent.

At the end of time, on the edge of doomsday, in the embodiment of cosmic heat death, Patchouli was born in human form. She stood quietly on a boundless, pale desert, each grain of sand a final remnant of a withered galaxy.

Interestingly, the heat death of this single universe is not the extreme emptiness and cold that follows the infinite expansion of the universe. Nor is it like other universes interfered with by script memes, abruptly stopping at a suitable point in time—no, it is completely different from them. In this universe named after the moon, the end of all things is a great collapse after a great rise. When all the stars and all civilizations have developed to the peak that the script can tolerate, everything will return to its original state.

Civilization collapses into nations, nations collapse into cities, cities collapse into villages, villages collapse into solitary lives, and lives collapse into cells that move from aggregation to separation. And after that, cells decompose into molecules, into atoms, into the most basic particles, and they accumulate together, in trillions upon trillions, piling up into a single, pale grain of sand.

Time stands still here, for this is the end. One more step forward, and this boundless sea of ​​sand will collapse into an immeasurable dot. Then, what will follow is the renewed eruption of primordial chaos and the beginning of a new era.

Those true gods bound by the script will stop here, except for those who transcend species and reincarnators.

As Patchouli reached out and scooped up a clump of pale sand from her feet, examining it closely as she contemplated the material structure of countless star systems and the last remnants and tombstones of the civilizations that inhabited them, a blurry figure gradually became clearer not far from her.

That is the 'Awakened One,' and also the billions of enlightened beings who have come together to become the 'Awakened One.' When Patchouli appeared in human form before it, it also changed through countless forms in the process of going from blurry to clear. And when the human form of the same size as Patchouli finally manifested, two possibilities shifted back and forth on its surface.

One image depicts Siddhartha Gautama, the prince of the Kapilavastu dynasty, a high-nosed, deep-set-eyed Buddha, seated atop a lotus throne, gazing compassionately down upon the vast sea of ​​sand.

And another… no, take that back. Because at that moment, the image of the Peacock Prince silently dissipated. What remained was a beautiful and mature woman. She had slightly wavy long hair and delicate features, and Patchouli had long ago acquired the identity this image represented from Alice's memories.

She is Sesshouin Kiara, who did not fall into the path of Mara, but instead attained enlightenment and liberation through her own wisdom. Her appearance here is both reasonable and natural, after all, the 'Awakened One' is the aggregate of all enlightened beings in the galaxy. And in many parallel worldlines, she could easily grow into a demonic bodhisattva who is an enemy of the 'Awakened One'; it is only natural that she would be reborn as one of the many enlightened beings in a worldline that has not yet been resolved!

Words were unnecessary, and Patchouli had nothing to say to Sesshouin Kiara.

She simply gestured a "please" to the Awakened One, Sesshouin Kiara. Then, she took a step forward and walked towards the end of time and the universe.

Thus, in Patchouli's perception, the vast sea of ​​sand transformed into an infinitesimally small point of light. Following this, from the most primordial chaos, she arrived at the beginning of the next era.

She neither died nor was injured—just as Alice easily traversed the barriers of eras in the world of the Elder Scrolls, this was commonplace for a reincarnator, as natural as eating and drinking. The intercosmic protection granted by the Supreme God easily helped her overcome the calamity brought about by the end of the world itself. Beyond the calamity, natural phenomena such as the Big Bang, spacetime storms, and distorted entropy were easily exempted by her own divine authority. And she stood at the moment of the birth of the gods in the next era, awaiting the arrival of the Awakened One.

She made no aggressive moves; she simply presented the path to transcendence to the Awakened One, Sesshouin Kiara. Unlike the Reincarnators who were protected by the main god and were considered half-transcendent beings from the beginning, thus unable to advance to the next stage through this method, the native true gods could undergo a fundamental transformation simply by overcoming this obstacle.

The path to transcendence is right before them; whether to take it or not is up to them. Patchouli, however, didn't actually have much expectation for this outcome, which was largely a foregone conclusion.

So she waited a little while at the beginning of this era.

At the very moment when the newborn gods were about to be born from the primordial chaos, she returned to the end of the previous era.

She did not see the form of the enlightened one, Sesshouin Kiara, but where He had originally stood, there appeared a grain of sand that shimmered with myriad colors and was gradually returning to ordinariness.

The Buddha has passed away. In the end, He was still unable to transcend the end of the era that this immeasurable eon pointed to.

Patchouli then picked up the grain of sand. Time returned to its normal point in time.

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

Thus, the war at the border of the Galactic Heart came to an end.

History is altered in all records, in the memories of all sentient beings below the true God. The concept of 'Awakened One' is thus transformed.

It never existed in the first place. After a prince of the Kapilavastu dynasty attained enlightenment under the Bodhi tree, he passed on his lineage and then departed for some unknown, hidden place—a few records remain in the rumors, suggesting that the prince eventually ascended to a distant, otherworldly realm called 'Star Heaven'. And that is the final destination of all those who attain enlightenment.

'Star Knowing Heaven' has replaced 'The Awakener'. It has replaced it, overriding all its deeds across billions of world lines in this universe—whether in the current main world line or other parallel world lines. All destinies and all deeds have thus been superseded.

The 'Awakened One' never existed from the beginning. And since it never existed, the battlefield at the galactic center also vanished into nothingness. The galactic center, which had been tilted by gravitational tides, was corrected back to its original shape. And outside the galactic center, the 'Starry Sky,' with a radius of one light-year, quietly floats in the center of space.

Soon, the outline of 'Starry Sky' disappeared. And in 2004, on the Fuyuki City Bridge, which had returned to normal operation due to Sirin's will, Patchouli's humanoid form appeared at the top support platform of the bridge.

Alice had been waiting there for a long time.

She wasn't surprised by this outcome, because when she saw the 'Awakened One' falter due to the workings of the Fairy System, she knew the outcome was already decided.

"You've worked hard." She handed Patchouli a cup of black tea, a small celebration after the victory.

"It wasn't too hard, but thank you anyway." Patchouli accepted the black tea; her aversion to black tea had been cured when she left the Zero World. Then, she went to Alice's side, leaned on Alice's shoulder, and sat on the bridge roof, watching the magnificent night view of Fuyuki with Alice.

"And this is for you." She took an ordinary dagger from her pocket and handed it to Alice—it was just a very ordinary dagger. But in some online worlds where Sesshouin Kiara is neither a Mara nor a Bodhisattva, this dagger could bring about the death of the ordinary Kiara.

This was a blade specifically designed to kill Miss Qihuang, and now it has come into Alice's hands.

Chapter Sixty-Two: Changes in Circumstances and a Shift in Mind

Alice took the dagger. She examined it from head to toe, flicked it casually, and then slipped it into her sleeve. In that instant, she observed over a thousand parallel world lines through the causal lines connected to the dagger's tip. In all these parallel world lines, the girl named Sesshouin Kiara, without exception, failed to embark on the path to transcendence, instead living happily as an ordinary, beautiful young woman, before meeting her death.

She would be stabbed to death with a dagger by boys or girls who couldn't win her heart because of romantic entanglements.

She would be robbed, humiliated, and then stabbed to death by thugs while walking alone at night.

She would graduate smoothly, and then, while trying to become a school counselor, she would have an accident and die by dagger.

She would become a psychologist, but one day she unfortunately received a patient suffering from a mental breakdown and was subsequently stabbed to death.

She will...

She will face over a thousand deaths, and the instruments used to carry out these deaths will all be daggers—whether sharp or old, long or narrow, or flat—but they will all be sharp weapons. And these thousand-plus daggers will converge into one, the final result of which is the one Alice is holding at this moment.

This sword is capable of killing the individual 'Sesshouin Kiara'.

but……

Alice lowered her eyes.

"This dagger can only kill Sesshouin Kiara, who was naturally born in this single universe. It is probably not very useful to her as a reincarnator."

“I know.” Patchouli took a small sip of her black tea. “But this should be enough for you. Since this world is almost identical to that Miss Qihuang, the possibility that she won’t touch the true gods of those parallel world lines after she arrives is extremely low. Even if she doesn’t touch them, I think you will find a way to get her to use the power of those parallel world lines. And at that time, this dagger will come in handy.”

“That’s true.” Alice nodded slightly, making herself a cup of coffee and sipping it gently. The aroma of the coffee was, as always, the same taste she remembered. If she wanted, she could extract and recreate that feeling from her memory. But that kind of thing was rather meaningless to her.

“I was greedy.” She sighed softly. “After all, this is not the final battle. Without the permission of the main god in some way, it is actually very difficult for us reincarnators to kill each other, and we can hardly even hurt each other. At most, we can make that Miss Sesshouin and that Miss Ex lose once and go back to the main god’s space without any gains. Anything beyond that is simply impossible.”

"You know that much." Patchouli reached out and snatched the coffee cup from Alice's hand, then shoved the half-finished cup of black tea into Alice's hand—this wasn't uncommon; it wasn't the first time Alice had encountered this. She wasn't angry, after all, she wasn't particularly interested in coffee where she knew exactly where every molecule was positioned. The half-finished cup of black tea, however, brought her a sense of novelty.

She took a small sip—well, although it was fresh, it was still essentially the same English black tea she had casually made.

So she held her teacup, gazed at the night view outside the Dongmu Bridge, and blinked.

Patchouli is right; this battle is not the final one. And since it's not the final one, the reincarnators have plenty of ways to leave smoothly after defeat. This is especially true for reincarnators at the True God level, because even Alice herself isn't entirely sure how to bring herself to death.

Charging headlong into the core area of ​​the Saints' Battlefield would certainly be suicidal, but the problem is that for a mere True God, finding the core area of ​​the battlefield is already incredibly difficult, let alone getting close. Moreover, they themselves are still completely clueless about the fighting methods between Saints, and if they really wanted to get 'accidentally injured,' they might not even know the correct way.

Furthermore, Alice didn't believe that when saints clashed, there would be "aftershocks" or "collateral damage"—phenomena that clearly indicated the power wasn't fully contained, resulting in wasted resources. Even she herself could precisely erase every single atom of a randomly sized mortal object across hundreds of parallel worlds and a jumbled mess of timelines without affecting the surrounding environment. She felt that if any mortal or divine being truly killed by a saint's power, it certainly wouldn't be collateral damage, but rather death from directly confronting the saint's killing intent.

In other words, in this single universe where the Dao is contested, whoever the two Sages want to kill will die. And if they don't want to kill anyone, then no matter how recklessly they act, they probably won't die. Just like those two who have pushed the battlefield to the vicinity of Proxima Centauri, just like Patchouli who swallowed the Milky Way whole, even though the Dao Erosion phenomenon is so abused, even though they act so recklessly, the Sages still turn a blind eye to it.

Because such minor changes in sovereignty are insignificant to the saints, and because this is a conclusion reached by the reincarnators during this period of testing the limits—even if this single universe were destroyed, the two saints probably wouldn't care in the slightest. The reason it's an estimate is because Alice doesn't believe she has the ability or the need to predict the saints' actions.

After all, it's about precisely provoking a saint's killing intent, thereby securing death... Damn! To be able to do something like that means the biggest secret in this Daoist struggle—the 'core of the saint's path'—has already been grasped by that reincarnator. Wouldn't it be better to just quietly make a fortune, collect all the benefits, and go home to level up? Why think about dying?

Alice shook her head, banishing those unrealistic thoughts from her mind. She knew perfectly well that even the above was mostly nonsense, because as a true god, she knew perfectly well that the source of her time loop was actually still in the original world she was born from. To destroy the person she loved, one would have to go to her original world, the place where Gensokyo had once been located.

It is obvious that the timeline there is under the protection of the main god, and the only reincarnators who could possibly bypass the protection of the main god and cause damage could not possibly unleash the power to strike across the timeline of a single universe at the stage of true god!

There might be a slight possibility that a clone of Zheng Zha could achieve this. However, since the final battle hasn't begun, the main god is very likely not to grant cross-target attack permissions between reincarnators. And if that's the case, then this battle is destined to be a fight to the death.

“I can’t tell if someone is alive or dead…” Alice sighed melancholy, deciding to stop thinking about such unrealistic things. Patchouli giving her the dagger was, in effect, a subtle reminder that many things were unnecessary.

Yes, Patchouli is now a true god. And the vision of a true god is naturally different from that of those below the level of a true god. As the one who orchestrates things, Alice often finds herself in the helpless situation of being "blinded by her own involvement." In such circumstances, a well-timed hint, or rather, a word of advice, would be an appropriate action.

So she sighed and revised many parts of the original plan. Trying to completely kill the true gods among some of the reincarnators was actually an extremely arrogant idea. And such an idea would have caused many characters on this stage to shed every drop of tears and blood.

Ah... I suddenly remembered, in my source world, or rather, in Luo Ye's source world, the country she was born in should be celebrating the Spring Festival at this time. So, let's just consider this a Spring Festival gift...

The girl thought to herself, and then she began to fix some of the minor errors that had appeared due to the revised plan. As she did this, she noticed Patchouli's little head resting gently on her shoulder, fast asleep.

She raised her finger as if to do something, but then quietly lowered it.

Well, it's not a holiday in this world. But since I thought of it, there's no harm in celebrating it—a smile appeared on her lips, and then, the long-awaited dormancy finally returned to her.

...Although it's only a part of her.

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

Viewpoint shift...

A strange bird swooped across the sky, its cry low. It gazed at the earth, at the two girls who, despite their different positions, identities, circumstances, and powers, had walked the same path for some peculiar reason.

The distance between the Temple of Blood and Uruk is not short. If measured by a modern world map, it wouldn't be so bad. But this is the Age of Gods, and the astronomy and geography of the Age of Gods are vastly different from those of the future.

Fujimaru Ritsuka tried to contact Chaldea several more times, but each time she was met with disappointment. Of course, she wasn't discouraged. She continued her journey west and south, overcoming all obstacles along the way.

She found an animal that looked like a cow, probably a subspecies of cattle, so she'll just call it a cow for now. Using some minor magic she could unleash after regaining her strength, and her own naturally serene demeanor, she managed to establish a partnership with the cow in about ten minutes—she gained a mount, and the cow received food and cleaning assistance. With this mount, her journey to Uruk was undoubtedly shortened considerably.

The estimated time is... about ten hours.

The princess maintained a distance from her, neither too far nor too close, silently watching her from an area eighty to one hundred meters away. The princess could hear her speak, but ignored any requests she made.

Yes, that's right. Even a simple request to chat, like singing a song for Miss Anastasia, was met with complete silence from the princess. Fujimaru Ritsuka knew she could hear him because after Ritsuka deliberately revealed information about the time loop, the princess gave a soft 'humph' in her ear. Other than that, she didn't react at all.

She will not offer any help or assistance.