Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"So, Imaginary Number Navigation?" he asked, his finger twitching slightly. The imaginary number navigator then flew gracefully to him and was sealed into a thin card by an unknown force. He then spread his hands, and hundreds, even thousands, of cards containing various mechanical, spiritual, and flesh-and-blood components emerged from around him, forming a complex sphere around the navigator card.

“Imaginary Number Submarine.” Zhao Zhuikong nodded. “I agreed to the director’s request to make a detour to the Seventh Singularity to help her rescue two people—we’ll be passing through there eventually anyway.”

“Ah, we do indeed have to go through that.” Xiao Honglu opened his hand and closed it inwards, and in an instant, all the thousands of cards spliced ​​together, connected, and merged into one. And when a new card was constructed, the entire structure of the Seraphine-Houmihara Academy-Chaldea complex underwent a drastic and sudden change from the inside out!

Numerous intricate and complex instrument components emerged from the outside of the composite structure, their vague outlines appearing out of thin air. Feeding on the disordered chaos of the Earth's surface, they rapidly filled the interior like sprouting plants, growing in size and then connecting and integrating with each other in the process of piecing them together, generating and putting into operation the various functions desired by the creator—it was like an eggshell that completely enclosed the composite structure, and the moment the outer shell was successfully constructed, more operating mechanisms also emerged, perfectly filling the excess space beneath the shell!

The contained Chaldea agents and the survivors of Homurahara screamed in terror as the interior of the entire complex twisted, deformed, and altered its structure before their eyes—few could remain calm when the walls and floors began to move and slam into their heads. Just as panic gripped their hearts, plunging them into utter chaos and madness, a vast and subtle mental disturbance brought all their irrational actions to an abrupt halt.

Zhan Lan took control of the minds of all the 'mortals,' including Olga Marie, forcibly calming them and implanting all the knowledge and false memories of using the instruments within the new machine into their minds. When they regained consciousness, they found themselves standing in their proper positions, methodically operating this steel behemoth.

Zhan Lan altered their memories, their personal diaries, electronic documents, and even the corresponding magical knowledge in their minds, the related magic circuits in their bodies, and even the memories of their muscles themselves. She also casually erased the event of Seraphine's annexation of Chaldea, and then changed history to a development where 'Homurahara Academy was originally the sponsor of Chaldea, and it unified the three into one after the apocalypse according to a pre-prepared plan.'

From this point on, everyone's will and memory became distorted, without their knowledge.

There are four unmodified individuals who are not considered human, and each has its own value—the reason for not modifying Akuta Hinako is to convey her willingness to cooperate to Gaia, while Lanling Wang is secondary. The reason for not modifying Da Vinci is to make her a vigilant figure aware of her own identity, preventing Olga Marie and others from doing inappropriate things at inopportune times. As for the fourth unmodified individual, Doctor Roman… his true identity is the foundation upon which he can retain his complete memories.

After all, his true identity is King Solomon, and without the intervention of reincarnators, the only way for mortals to defeat the Demon King without relying on outward gods or enlightened beings. And this divine duty of his is still useful even now.

So, the reincarnators made all the arrangements.

And all of this operates entirely according to the will of the reincarnators.

The chaotic earth was torn apart, accompanied by the crisp sound of order and disorder being torn apart like shredded paper. The entire Chaldea Imaginary Number Submarine Agency, which had already transformed into a sphere, sank into the chaotic ocean of imaginary numbers.

Then, it points directly to the other side of history.

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

Fujimaru Ritsuka rubbed her eyes. Before her stood a massive gate, like twin towers, constructed from huge stones and logs—a structure so imposing and magnificent that for a moment she almost mistook it for the dwelling of a Titan.

“Senior, once we pass through that door, we’ll reach Ur,” Mash reminded her. “Is there anything else we need to do before we go in?”

Following behind the two was the rebellious knight Mordred. After speaking with the princess, Fujimaru Ritsuka took the healing medicine and summoned only this one Knight of the Round Table. Perhaps because he had suffered too much trauma in Mist City, this knight remained silent after being summoned, not even removing his helmet, simply providing protection for Ritsuka and Mash.

Ritsuka glanced back again.

She saw a blue and white figure about a hundred meters away—although the agreement had ended, Anastasia was still following them somewhere a hundred meters away. She didn't explain, and Fujimaru Ritsuka couldn't ask, but sometimes when Fujimaru Ritsuka woke up at the campsite, she would see that one side of the campfire was not burning properly, and every camping trip was safe; the group was never disturbed at night.

Fujimaru Ritsuka then turned her gaze away and let out a slight breath.

“It’s nothing,” she said to Mash with a smile, soothing the girl’s unease with her gentle words. “I was just thinking about the Holy City of the Sixth Singularity. Back then, we also faced such a majestic and towering city gate.”

“Back then, we were so grateful to Miss Xuanzang for helping us open the gates of Camelot…” Mashu gently clenched her fist at her chest. “She must have returned to Hoshinoda by now.”

“Yes, Miss Xuanzang was so intelligent, knowledgeable, and determined. She must have already returned to the Lord of a Thousand Knowledges to receive his teachings.” Ritsuka smiled and agreed. “She paid a huge price to open the path to the future for us. And we, who have come this far, must not let her sacrifice go to waste.”

So, she took Mash's hand and led her through the enormous gate leading to Ur—they had never wondered why such a huge gate would appear here.

Chapter 73 The Way of Opening Up

"And so, the war was about to begin."

"A war that is sweeping through this era, this world, this universe."

"And its origin is a simple decision made by an ignorant mortal."

—Before creation, in an unknown era, the unknown carved their names on stone in Chinese and the corresponding grammar.

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

Fujimaru Ritsuka had envisioned many scenes behind the door—lush, dense forests, ferocious beasts and monsters, hostile deities descending to earth and their minions, and a city sealed deep within the jungle, where the inhabitants were emaciated and had even all turned into corpses.

The worst-case scenario she envisioned was that King Gilgamesh would misjudge the situation, and that Quetzalcoatl would be a wicked god. He might cruelly slaughter the inhabitants of Ur, or unleash his reign of terror upon the land. If that were the case, she would have to consider Quetzalcoatl as a target to be defeated, and until then, preserving her own life would be a more important priority.

She thought a lot, she guessed a lot. Perhaps it was because she guessed too much that she failed to notice Ur's situation of only being able to enter and not exit, and the true meaning represented by that huge stone gate. And since even she hadn't noticed that her Servant Mordred was not her Servant Anastasia, nor her junior Mash, nor the little beast Fou on Mash's shoulder... naturally she couldn't figure anything out.

However, whether she wanted to or not, whether she thought about it more or less, when she finally crossed that door and passed through the raging wind and sand that had suddenly arisen behind it—she finally learned two facts.

First, it is meaningless—all of one's thoughts, worries, and hesitations are meaningless.

Second, insignificance—one is insignificant, one's companions are insignificant, and everything one possesses and loses is extremely insignificant.

Yes, who, after seeing this sight, would still feel that they have meaning, that they are not insignificant? Who, standing at the edge of the vast starry sea, looking up at a thriving and magnificent galactic nebula, would still feel that everything they had struggled for had even the slightest meaning?

Ritsuka's mouth gaped open, speechless for a long time, and she didn't even realize that she could breathe in the starry sky. Behind her, Mash and Mordred were also staring at the vast nebula with expressions of shock, until a 'clang' sounded as Mordred's longsword fell to the ground, bringing them back to their senses.

“Miss Anastasia…is this what you mean by not looking at the stars…” Fujimaru Ritsuka murmured. She saw billions of stars twinkling within the nebula. These weren’t objects conjured by magic or illusions, but real, enormous planets, at least the size of Ceres. As she spoke, a verdant planet even drifted past her at a distance of about three thousand kilometers. She could even see the mountains, rivers, cities, and even giant star-dwelling beasts, each nearly a hundred kilometers in size, clearly visible to the naked eye!

She even noticed that those dragon-like behemoths also saw her, and saw one of them flapping its wings and breaking free from the ground, stirring up countless waves of true ether that rapidly approached their group!

“No, that’s not what I meant.” Anastasia, clutching the plush toy ‘Pa’ tightly, came to her side. “That’s not what I meant, it never was…”

"...and the way we came is gone."

These words instantly snapped Fujimaru Ritsuka and the others back to reality. They then realized they were atop a pristine rock floating in space! At least a hundred kilometers in all directions were pure void, and the colossal dragon-shaped beast, detached from the planet's surface and surging with immense energy, was less than three thousand kilometers away!

They couldn't understand how humans could breathe and speak in space, much less how they could so clearly grasp distances within space. They only knew that in a minute at most, that colossal object would appear beside them, and they would be powerless against it!

No, perhaps there is a way!

Mordred instinctively reached for the sword she had picked up from the ground, but Fujimaru Ritsuka's outstretched hand stopped her from raising the blade. Despite being in a bizarre situation she had never been prepared for in her life, and shouldn't have been, this Chaldean girl maintained an unprecedented level of composure at this moment.

"Don't make a move. The other party might not be hostile," she said in a deep voice, her tone serious, earnest, and certain. "Making a move would be pointless. The other party should be an intelligent being and should be able to communicate."

The instant she finished speaking, the Star-Dwelling Dragon suddenly accelerated, covering a distance of over a thousand kilometers in a flash as if edited out. The dragon's face, whose sheer size rivaled that of a modern town, was already less than a few kilometers away from the group.

—And it unleashed a tremendous roar that would make even the bravest warrior tremble with fear!

"roar--!!!!!"

The roar resounded through the heavens and earth, transforming into tangible sound waves that impacted in all directions. Judging solely from its appearance, it wouldn't be surprising if an energy blast capable of instantly vaporizing a modern metropolis were followed by this roar. However, appearance aside, reality is reality. The moment that extremely powerful, tangible sound wave propagated through true ether and resonated in the ears of the visitors, the guests, represented by Fujimaru Ritsuka, did not feel even the slightest desire for battle or fear.

Because that sound has meaning.

Because the essence of that roar is actually a mixture of billions of different languages.

The moment it echoed in the minds of Fujimaru Ritsuka and Mashu, the unrecognizable parts were filtered out by the brain's self-protective mechanisms. What remained was a simple sentence they could understand, constructed from modern English, Old English, Sumerian, Chinese, Japanese, Russian, French, German, Latin, and Hebrew.

—"Hello, outsider."

Words can hardly express the shock that gripped the group at that moment, because not all intelligent beings are capable of maintaining rational thought when they see 'a colossal mountain' speaking to them. This has nothing to do with the power they possess or the achievements they have made, but is purely a test of their ability to observe and understand the outside world.

But some people survived this test.

“Hello, I am an emissary of Chaldea, Fujimaru Ritsuka.” Fujimaru Ritsuka stepped past Mash’s instinctively raised shield and came to the front of the group. “I have come to see Kai… We have come here to visit the master of this place.”

She spoke in Japanese, the language she knew best, and the next moment, she felt a blur of light and shadow before her eyes. When she came to her senses, the original rock beneath their feet had been moved to the back of the dragon beast and placed upon a smooth, massive scale. At the tip of the scale, a vast amount of keratin and flesh material sprouted, instantly forming a normal humanoid figure with its lower body connected to the scale's tip not far in front of her!

He looked like an ordinary Sumerian man, dressed in simple linen clothes, his upper body adorned with patterns symbolizing blessings and martial prowess. Judging from the style of the patterns, it was clear that he was of common citizen status. Then, as other Sumerians would greet each other, he bowed and saluted, speaking modern Japanese in a tone largely the same as Fujimaru Ritsuka's.

“You can call me Asu. As you can see, I am just an ordinary resident of Ur. At most, I am qualified to participate in hunting, but I am not even qualified to become a city guard. Of course, that was many years ago—I heard from my new companions who recently came to the Dragon Kingdom that Chaldeans from the future have come to visit Uruk. It seems that you must be those outsiders.”

Ritsuka had to exert a great deal of effort to suppress her urge to complain and to stop focusing on things like "an ordinary resident of Ur" and "not qualified to be a city guard"—she felt that if this guy flapped his wings, the entire city of Uruk would be blown away. If he rolled around in the air, perhaps Mesopotamia would need to be remade.

This thing should be a world-destroying behemoth in mythology, but judging from its tone, it's just an ordinary member of this so-called 'Dragon Kingdom'!

[I was wrong! King Gilgamesh! I shouldn't have questioned your deduction. You're absolutely right. I must deal with Ur first before I can even think about Imanitic! Because even if this guy who calls himself 'Asu' is talking nonsense, as long as what I've seen isn't an illusion, then even if it's just him, he can decide the fate of everything in the Seventh Singularity!]

She and her companions exchanged glances, and then, without prior arrangement, saw similar emotions in each other's eyes. Good, this was a consensus, and since it was a consensus, they should work together to make it a reality.

“Well, Mr. Aso. You just mentioned that ‘Dragon Country’…” Ritsuka hesitated, then tentatively asked, “Could you explain it to us? And what about the people who are here, the Uruk people who came here before…”

Before she could finish speaking, the half-human connector who called himself 'Asu' appeared directly in front of the group. The next moment, the wings of the giant dragon beast suddenly spread out, and in the same instant as the spatial coordinates changed drastically, countless messages and knowledge transformed into tangible images and flooded into the group's minds.

They saw an ancient record, a piece of history, a memory.

That was a long time ago, back when this person who called himself 'Asu' was truly just an ordinary citizen of Ur. Then, they saw a powerful god descend from the sky.

Those were the legendary feathered serpent god, Quetzalcoatl, the sun god of South America, and her leopard-like minions. They easily crushed the city and ordered Ur to offer living sacrifices every day—however, in reality, they did not eat the citizens of Ur but instead took them in to use as laborers to build temples and to train them as soldiers. It seemed brutal, but in fact, it was full of care for mortals.

Such days lasted for a while, perhaps a month, perhaps two months, until Mangtlund's proclamation resounded throughout the land, and then a new will descended from the void.

No one knew who He was, nor His name. The people of Ur only knew that He was a handsome man with yellow skin and black hair. After speaking with Him for a while, Quetzalcoatl vanished in the sight of everyone, dissolving his Servant form and leaving the singularity.

Then, the proclamation of the deity, who appeared to be of Eastern origin, resounded throughout the world.

"I will pave the way for you, I will be your guiding light."

"I give you fish, but you must find your own way to catch them."

"Grow up, until you can face the pure sky alone!"

With that sound, a pillar of light, reaching to the heavens and the earth, burst forth from the ancient temple of the Feathered Serpent God. And in the next instant, everything that glimpsed that radiance received a path to life advancement in its mind!

That was a divine power akin to creation, capable of transforming oneself, correcting genes, and modulating bloodline cells. Each living being received its own unique and most suitable form. The spacetime of the Ur region was then severed from the outside world; time flowed silently, while endless true etheric tides surged into the city from an unknown star system.

And so, everything began to change, everything began to evolve. To adapt to the cosmic environment, mortals grew scales, claws, and wings, transforming into mythical and powerful forms such as the hundred-headed dragon, the phoenix, the nine-headed phoenix, and the Dijiang. Yet their original selves remained—because they were only given the fish, not the fishing rod; the knowledge from the radiance was merely a purified seed, and how far it could grow depended entirely on individual effort!

That deity walked the path of creation, but what He created was not merely the path of mortals. Not only humans, but also birds and animals, trees, even mountains, rocks, and buildings underwent transformation—they multiplied, they developed, they grew, they became strange beasts roaming the stars, and one twinkling star after another!

This is indeed still Ur.

But the common people of Ur, separated by millions of years, have grown into mythical creatures, primarily dragons, each capable of suppressing an entire planet. Ur's beasts and livestock have evolved into powerful beasts that have formed their own communities and even developed new civilizations. And Ur's land and architecture are even more remarkable; they have transformed into stars, into the many structures that make up this nebula.

Ur still exists, but the city of Ur is no more. For all the people have become kings, ruling over vast stretches of the starry sky just as they once ruled over their houses when they were mortals.

A king cannot rule another king. The only one who can rule all kings is the nameless ancient god who created all of this from the very beginning, the king of kings.

However, the ancient god did not care about his rule. He simply sat quietly in the palace, which was still the Temple of the Sun, gazing at the vast starry sky while radiating boundless light.

Everyone is like a dragon, everyone transforms into a dragon, everyone surpasses the dragon.

He witnessed these mortal beings who received His grace grow to the limits marked in His records and surpass those limits; He witnessed all the separation, aggregation, and struggle within the earth and the sea of ​​stars that had become isolated islands of time.

Anyone can go to see Him, but He will not respond to anyone.

He simply watched silently as one worshipper, follower, challenger, rebel after another came to know that in God's eyes, their value remained 'nothing'.

Until today, until now.

The moment the Chaldeans regained consciousness, they found themselves standing before the steps of the Temple of the Sun.

The starry sky was on his side and behind him, but the enormous dragon beast named Asu had vanished without a trace.

At the top of the temple, the gaze of the true god descends.

Section 74 Questions and Answers Before God

The temple was vast and towering, perhaps as high as Mount Everest. Yet, climbing it was effortless and quick. The time it took for mortals to ascend the steps was arbitrarily cut off by the true god, making the Chaldeans feel as if they had only taken two or three steps to reach the top of the Temple of the Sun. There they saw the ancient god sitting atop the Sunstone, the one who had distorted Ur into such a form.

It was an Eastern man almost identical to the one described in 'Asu's' memories. Handsome, muscular, with dark eyes reflecting the vast starry sky. However, 'almost identical' implied a decisive variable. And that was an overwhelming presence and ideological erosion, unlike any god the Chaldeans had ever seen before!

My blood boils when I see His silhouette.

The will to fight is ignited when one recognizes His face.

Countless memories churned in their minds—memories belonging to mortals and to the followers themselves. These memories pointed to every effort they had made, every success they had achieved, the exhaustion and anticipation that followed each effort, and the satisfaction and fulfillment that came with each success. In an instant, their still-mortal hearts were filled with this fighting spirit and courage that originated from the depths of their being, making them want to strive, to fight, and to forge their own future!