Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Her physique hadn't improved; she simply could see further than before. If someone were to test her abilities with a detection spell, they would find she was still the same level 59 werewolf warrior. But beyond that, her thoughts, due to her contact with the gods, transcended the rules of this level, making her an observer and overlord outside the established order.

Is it hard to understand? Let me give you an example.

A character in an anime once commented on the phenomenon of time stopping: "Even if you multiply your power by infinity and push it toward eternity, it's only a small fraction of what's needed to stop time for a moment. Because what you need to fight is the power that makes the entire universe work; in other words, you have to fight the universe itself."

This is the truth for the characters in anime. But in reality, stopping time in this universe is extremely easy.

How easy is it? If a viewer watching this anime on a computer presses the pause button, time in this universe completely stops. They can pause for as long as they want, rewinding or fast-forwarding at will. And this kind of thing, this kind of power, could perhaps be called the power of God.

The werewolf girl didn't become a person outside the computer, nor did she possess full divine power. But now, she has a finger that can press a button on the outside. And this finger is also an eye, thus elevating her to a level above many other beings.

She stands tall, and she sees far.

So she was right. At least she was sure she was right.

"You guys are really pathetic."

She lifted her foot and walked into a large hall. In the hall, several of her former colleagues watched her with puzzled expressions as she tore through the wall to enter. This puzzled look quickly turned into wariness as the murderous intent surrounding her arose.

"Lupsrechina! What are you doing?!"—The headless knight maid, Yuri Alpha and leader of the Pleiades maid troupe, was the first to react. She gestured for the other maids to conceal themselves while blocking the wolf girl's path and shouting at her. However, the next moment, the wolf girl's form had already passed her!

—It's like passing through a realistic phantom!

With a 'thud,' the head maid's head fell to the ground. Her legs also collapsed to her knees, and a thin wisp of black smoke rose from her body, then dissipated into nothingness upon contact with the air.

It's dead.

He died a simple, clean death.

The other combat maids then realized that they could no longer leave the hall, nor could they send out even a single warning signal!

"What have you done, Beta!" The battle maid, whose true form was slime, screamed at her, unleashing a black tidal wave of energy, much like a witch's howl, that surged towards her. Yet she still bypassed it, forcing its attack to barely touch the ground before dissolving from its active slime into putrid water before it could even reach it!

The fourth of the battle maids, Solusham Epsilon, thus followed in the footsteps of the leader.

Of the six sisters, two... no, three have died completely.

The wolf girl then gave her answer at a leisurely pace.

"You ask me what I did? Ah, it's very simple."

"I'm just cutting the chains on you, letting you return to your original selves." She flexed her fingers and took the battle axe she was carrying off her back.

"Unfortunately, you don't seem to have the willpower to climb back from the brink of death after the effects and enhancements of the Great Tomb are removed... Ah, what a pity, I thought I could continue to be your sister."

She glanced at the two remaining combat maids, who were already on high alert, and the group of huddled-up henchmen whose names she had no interest in knowing. Then, she shrugged.

“Your vision is too short-sighted; you can’t see right from wrong, good from bad… well, you don’t even know what right and wrong mean. Such a fate is truly too tragic, too lamentable, too insignificant, too regrettable. And I intend to save you.”

Before she could finish speaking, her former colleagues swarmed at her, unleashing combat techniques and secret arts powerful enough to kill her four times over!

So she sighed and positioned her battle axe in an attack stance.

"Then let me help you free yourself from this pitiful and foolish fate, so that you may obtain true happiness."

She had already foreseen the outcome; she knew the battle... the one-sided slaughter would end in five seconds.

So, at the sixth second, she left the now silent hall.

It's a pity there wasn't a single qualified one—she couldn't help but sigh softly.

After all, she had simply severed the link between these individuals and the guild tokens. She discarded all external interference—such as 'identity,' 'enhancing abilities,' 'race,' 'treasures,' 'memories,' and other miscellaneous things bestowed upon them by the guild tokens, which were more like shackles than gifts. In doing so, she restored their true nature—she even considered this a gift, but she hadn't expected these seemingly strong individuals to be so incredibly weak.

Mediocre people—that's how she defined them.

After all, she was the first to receive this gift. And she emerged from the void of death almost instantly. Then she redefined herself. And since she could do it, others should be able to as well.

"Perhaps they lacked a process of reflection." — The wolf girl pondered, passing through several rooms and even crossing a floor in the process. The eighth-floor guardian, known as the most dangerous, whose power only manifested after death, lay silent at her feet, and she ultimately arrived at a conclusion consistent with many of the previous answers.

They need to think; they lack the capacity to think. They deserve to think; only then can they find salvation.

So, the wolf girl tapped her head, reflecting for a few seconds on her previous foolish actions. Then she continued downwards, passing those seemingly weak individuals and heading directly to the lower level where the throne room was located.

The Great Tomb remained silent. All communication channels, both internal and external, were cut off, and all exits for relocation were sealed off. Perhaps some of the floor guardians had realized something was wrong, but that was irrelevant.

Or rather, it was too late.

Because in the next second, the wolf girl had already arrived at the door of the throne room, reached out her hand, and knocked on the door.

"May I come in?"—Her voice was purer than before. Although one could still barely discern some of her past vocal qualities, there seemed to be a significant difference.

She waited a moment, but received no reply. So—she knocked on the door a second time.

"If you don't answer, then I'll take that as agreement."

"Chief Steward Albedo?"

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

Meanwhile, in the capital of the kingdom.

Ainz Ooal Gown, using the alias "Flying Swordsman," suddenly felt a sudden, inexplicable pang of heart palpitation—a strange sensation that came and went like a tidal wave. Before he could even begin to ponder why he was experiencing this hallucination when he clearly didn't have a heart in his chest, the strange feeling vanished without a trace.

"Has something happened?" It tapped its chin, about to reach out and connect with the guardian in the Great Tomb via [Message] to obtain information. However, at that moment, a cry of surprise beside it diverted its attention.

"Lady Feifei! Look, there are so many stars in the sky!"—That was the exclamation of Narberal Gamma, the third sister among the battle maids. And as Ainz Ooal Gown followed her finger and looked up at the sky, the soul flame in its eye sockets suddenly trembled violently for no apparent reason!

It was daytime, a clear day with not a cloud in the sky. Yet, beyond the heavens, billions of stars appeared in the sky, visible to the naked eye! And whether it was an illusion or not, upon seeing those blazing stars, it clearly sensed an undisguised, incomparably intense hatred within them!

It suddenly remembered the village called Kahn, which, it was said, had been destroyed by Albedo three days earlier because it had sheltered people who had slandered it.

So, what if we replace the subject?

Even if it's just a slight, even if it's just a one-sided understanding, what would a loyal subject do when his king is humiliated?

Chapter Twenty-One: The Sky of Sudden Change - Part Four

At the top of the royal city stood a tall tower, which was usually used as a watchtower. Typically, sentries would take turns standing guard at the top of the tower every hour. But sometimes, there were exceptions.

After all, the capital had been at peace for so long, so it was normal for the defenses to be a little lax. And it was during this occasional lull that visitors from other regions set foot on this building.

Alice and Patchouli arrived here.

The sky was a deep blue, and the sight of countless stars in the daytime sky came into view of the many inhabitants of the land. This caused them to gasp in amazement and shout. The sounds and commotion of commotion rose and fell throughout the royal city. Amidst this slight chaos and the whistles of suppression that swept across the city, the two witches found a suitable spot on the top tower.

The two stood shoulder to shoulder, gazing up at the sky.

—And the stars in the sky disappeared as their gazes were directed toward them.

"When the ruler is distressed, the subject is disgraced; when the ruler is disgraced, the subject dies." Patchouli raised an eyebrow. "Alice, you have lost an avatar, and this world is about to face its end. So, shall we stop them?"

“No need. Let them come if they want. This continent is the final battlefield. Deciding everything here is only natural.” Alice shook her head. She saw that relative time on the outside was flowing rapidly. The last million years of this thirteenth era were being reduced on a massive scale at a visible rate.

She knew what was going on, because she was both the master of the little devil and, because she and Luo Ye were one entity, the master of Sha Tiao Ai Ka. Therefore, when her avatar was destroyed, these two subordinates simultaneously adjusted the relative time flow of this dimensional star to the maximum, pushing the end of the universe from the outside.

They wouldn't descend before Alice and her companion left the continent, as they didn't know if it would disrupt their plans. Even so, they would make this land pay a price—when relative time is adjusted to its maximum, ten thousand years is but a day and night. In other words, even if the war on the outer reaches takes millions of years to resolve, the end of all life on this land will be only about a hundred days away.

At most a hundred days, at least a few days, but if the witches leave now, destruction will come in an instant.

But Alice has no intention of leaving.

After all, while her contemplation had yielded results, her argumentation was far from over. Her gaze shifted to the distant great tomb, its layers of magical protection and physical barriers proving utterly ineffective against her. She easily pierced through them, then focused on the wolf girl who had already fought her way to the very bottom. Within that newborn girl lay the very process of her established argument.

Lupus Lecchina Beta, a woman who paid the ultimate price for her actions. Alice neither killed nor tortured her, because Alice merely showed her a clear path, allowing her to cease to be herself.

This might be considered a gift from God, but it was a gift far too heavy. Because Alice severed all external interference from her, making her an independent, complete, and isolated ideal individual. She made her… pure.

She was no longer anyone's servant—not Ainz Ooal Gown's servant, not the universe's servant, not the script meme's servant, not even Alice's servant. Because she no longer needed a master, no longer needed friends, no longer needed companions, no longer needed reliance, trust, support, or any other social things—she had become an independent individual, existing only for herself.

The important thing is that she knows exactly what 'she' is.

By observing this experimental subject—not her servant but bearing the gifts she had bestowed upon her—Iris was able to demonstrate whether her findings were flawed.

“Patch.” She turned her head and looked to her side. “You still have absolutely no interest in them, and don’t want to do anything other than observe and record them?”

“Hmm.” Patchouli, standing beside her, nodded. “It’s always been like this. But I think… it doesn’t seem like a bad thing. Alice, would you judge for me whether it’s good or bad?”

“I can’t,” Alice shook her head. “But I can tell you some stories, some you definitely know.”

"Have you heard of..."

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

"Have you heard of... [Foucault]? Steward Albedo?"

In the lowest level of the Great Tomb of Nazarick, in the Throne Hall—a fierce battle had just ended. Broken banners and scattered feathers lay strewn across the floor, mingling with jade fragments and blood. At the very center of the Throne Hall, a grey-haired, fair-skinned werewolf girl toyed with the guild token of the Great Tomb of Nazarick.

The outcome of the battle was predictably one-sided.

This is normal. Even though Albedo's overall physical constitution is six times that of the werewolf girl, and her energy reserves are more than ten times greater, when she is in combat with the werewolf girl, all her skills, tactics, and even her hidden world-class items become ineffective—the werewolf girl can cut them off at will, and even kill Albedo's attempt to teleport away. The final result is that the battle is decided within ten seconds.

The wolf girl wiped out the guards and traps carefully laid by the guardian overseer in seven seconds, and then subdued her in three seconds.

When the guild token fell into the wolf girl's hands, the guardian steward's limbs and wings were all broken, and he was trampled under the throne by her back.

She didn't know why the wolf woman hadn't killed her. When the wolf woman asked that question, she wanted to yell at her, but the moment she spoke, a rib was broken by her foot, and she coughed up a mouthful of dark red blood mixed with some fragments of internal organs!

"It seems you don't know... no, of course you don't know him, Steward Albedo. Because he is an ancient person who died hundreds of years ago in another world. And during his lifetime, he proposed a very interesting concept."

Her mutterings earned her a furious glare from the fallen demon.

"You... what exactly are you?!"—The demon used the opportunity of his low shout to secretly mobilize the magic power within his body.

"Thing? No, I am not a thing. Nor am I a person, and I haven't decided what I should be yet. After all, redefining oneself is a difficult and delicate matter. I think I should be more careful." The wolf girl shook her head, lifted her toes, and stomped down again, breaking the remaining magic power in Albedo's body and her other symmetrical rib at the same time.

She heard a faint moan.

“Disciplinary power.” She lifted the female demon by the horns on her head, forcing her bloodshot eyes to meet her gaze. “While this might not be a very reliable theory in another world, I think you should take a good look at this term here. It might help you understand your true self.”

Do you know what disciplinary power is?

The wolf girl asked, then decisively crushed Albedo's jaw as she opened her mouth to spit at her. Her pretty face lost most of its charm in the agony, and she nodded in satisfaction.

"Very good, at least you've learned to listen. That's a good habit, and you should continue to do so."

She paused.

"The so-called disciplinary power, in my view, actually refers to the influence of knowledge such as morality, society, order, and customs on individuals. This is a kind of interference that is different from the interference caused by monarchical or theocratic rule. It starts from the smallest things and then penetrates into all aspects of life."

"Of course, this may be somewhat different from its original meaning, but it doesn't really matter. I'm just using something similar as an example. As long as it works, there's no need to nitpick the details too much."

Albedo: "…………" (Speechless, only able to glare angrily)

The wolf girl wasn't bothered by her hateful gaze, and continued to explain.

"Don't you find it strange? Who taught you that you should be Ainz Ooal Gown's servant? Who decided that you must love it? Who filled your personality with such complex changes? Who made you a demon, who made you inclined towards evil, and then who made you indifferent to all of this?"

Albedo: "…………" (Still glaring angrily)