Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

"I'm not stupid." Alice rolled her eyes at her older sister. "If anyone, whether an incarnation, a god, a transcendent being, or just some harmless ordinary person, dared to touch my timeline, to 'suppress' or even 'bestow favors' upon me when I was still weak..."

"...So no matter who this guy is, or who's backing him, I'll crush him completely, leaving not a trace. And since I think this way, I assume Flora feels the same way."

Her tone was resolute, and Patchouli beside her nodded in agreement. And the response they received was…

Luo Ye clapped her hands.

"Very good, then you should have mastered the content of the third lesson."

"Huh?" Alice's expression froze slightly.

"Is there anything strange about it?" Luo Ye looked at her with some puzzlement: "You came to me because you wanted to know the battle format between transcendent species, right? And since you have already become transcendent species and know how to be killed, then you should naturally know how to wage war?"

"It's...it's that simple? The struggle and smearing of the source world lines...isn't this exactly the same form of war I originally envisioned?"

Luo Ye tilted her head and looked at her silly younger sister.

"How complicated do you think it is?"

She sighed, looking disappointed in him.

"It seems you really do need to observe some ready-made practical examples... Luckily, I was prepared." She held out her hand, taking out a tablet computer typical of this era. And the next moment...

...The final scene of the world of the Undead King is revealed within.

"You two idiots, open your eyes and look carefully!"

Chapter Twenty-Three: The Sky of Sudden Change - Part Seven

"This world is going to be destroyed, and my time is running out."

In the throne room, the grey-haired, fair-skinned wolf girl rose upright from a pool of dissolved pus. The pale yellow liquid, a mixture of peptide fragments, metal ions, saline solution, and other necessities for life, parted at her will—she sighed, picked up Ainz Ooal Gown's guild token, and headed towards the transfer door to the floor outside the hall.

—Her toe crushed a grayish horn, the last trace of Albedo in this world… Even having gained thought and learned the truth, the female body still could not escape the deathly abyss stripped of all external interference by her own will. And since she could not break free, her only fate was eternal slumber.

waste.

The wolf girl felt she had lost her patience—if the concept of patience even existed in her mind.

She entered through the transfer door and emerged from the top floor of the Great Tomb of Nazarick—she could clearly sense the immense magical source appearing in the outer barrier of the Great Tomb; it was Ainz Ooal Gown, the last master of this tomb. Its arrival was accompanied by a heart full of anxiety and rage.

There's nothing to worry about.

She glanced at it briefly before looking away from the source of magic. But as her gaze continued upward, touching the celestial dome, she clearly saw the raging sea of ​​stars overflowing from beyond the heavens.

That was... a powerful creature.

She could see that each star possessed a formidable fighting power surpassing that of any other individual in this world. She could see that even these powerful beings were ruled by supreme rulers. She could even see that the universe beyond this continent and another universe beyond that universe were locked in a long and tumultuous war, and that the end was imminent, descending upon this world, and even upon this universe.

The world is about to be destroyed; the wrath of the King of Gods and the Lord of Demons will clash once more on this land. All living things except themselves will perish.

No, perhaps I'll die too. After all, power...

...There is always a price to pay for acquiring power.

[The mysterious being who bestowed this power upon me, or rather, granted me the right to acquire it. What price does she expect from me?]

【everything?】

Or is it more than everything?

She shook her head slightly, mentally prepared for the future she was destined to reach. Having redefined herself, embodying the concept of 'hunting,' she had long since lost the notions of good and evil, gain and loss she once possessed as a mortal. In her eyes now, simply being in this largest and final hunting ground created by heaven and earth was the greatest happiness.

"Everything is about to end... there's no need to delay any longer."

She raised her fingers and stroked the guild token from top to bottom—her eyes reflecting the countless links flowing out from the token's core. These links connected every brick and living thing in the great tomb beneath her feet.

She saw the guardians trapped and locked in their respective floors.

Gao Kangda, Demiurge, Shalltear, Cortex, Rubedo, Pandora… the auras and forms of these powerful beings—who in the past could have been annihilated with a mere flick of a finger, and who were undoubtedly among the strongest on this planetary plane—were all revealed in her vision. And the next moment…

She cut all the links on the token.

The entire great tomb trembled, stones disintegrated, sand vaporized, and the living beings born from the guild tokens instantly disintegrated into fragments of mass as their structural elements were completely extracted. Whether strong or weak, intelligent or foolish, death came in an instant.

There's no need to describe the details—they're dead, that's all.

As the entire Great Tomb crumbled into dust due to the destruction of the Guild Token, the magical barrier separating the outside also collapsed. The source of Ainz Ooal Gown's magical energy was initially stunned by this dramatic turn of events. What followed was an overwhelming, palpable grief that surged in all directions.

The last remaining member of the Battle Maid Corps, Nabeul, who had survived by going out to gather intelligence with Ainz Ooal Gown, was also dead. Her true form was a dual illusion, so she disintegrated into a pool of dissipating shadow before Ainz Ooal Gown, vanishing into the sunlight without uttering a single word. And now, only one survivor remained in the entire Great Tomb of Nazarick.

The story has no reason to continue.

However, the corrective power of script memes has been slow to materialize.

The wolf girl didn't know why, because she didn't even know what a script meme was, or what corrective power was. She simply threw the guild token, which was crumbling into clumps of earth, at her feet. Then, she stepped across the sand that had become a dead land and headed towards the place where the last survivor was.

She saw layers of green light emanating from the Undead King—she knew what it was: an aid, and a shackle. It was the forced calm passive provided by the imposed concept of 'undead'. This passive would forcibly calm Ainz Ooal Gown's mind when it was in a state of violent fluctuation, and attach a mechanical mindset to him. For this undead, this was even its greatest asset in 'believing' that it could control its forces.

"Useless." The wolf girl snorted and raised her battle axe.

She despised individuals whose emotions were controlled by external forces, and who even relied heavily on or identified with this 'control'. In her eyes, this was even lower than the status of a slave.

She walked to a spot about a hundred meters away from Ainz Ooal Gown, her battle axe pointing slightly forward—though she looked down on it, she was still willing to let it make the first move.

Since the result is the same anyway, it doesn't matter whether it's faster or slower.

The moment she stopped, the aura of the Undead King finally stabilized after hundreds of bursts of green light. A tangible tide of grief surged back towards the center from all directions, and once everything settled down, all these emotional changes appeared in the form of ghostly blue soul flames in the empty skeletal eye sockets.

The wolf girl tilted her head.

"I won't ask why you did this," Ainz Ooal Gown's voice was as calm and deep as the wolf girl had expected. Like an iceberg, it suppressed endless rage and sorrow. Ordinary mortals might feel fear or even retreat at the sight of this undead king's aura and resolve. But to the wolf girl at this moment, it didn't even amuse her.

She simply listened quietly, waiting for the immortal's next move.

"I'll only ask you one thing: are you... Lupsrechina Beta?"

“Lupsrechina Beta?” The wolf girl tilted her head to the other side. “That woman is long dead. The first to die, the first to perish, the first to vanish without a trace. She is already in the past, and of course I am not her.”

"what?"

"Can't understand? Hmm..." The wolf girl raised an eyebrow, pretending not to notice the hidden magical energy surging beneath the undead's feet. "She did something foolish, offending the wrong person in that village called Carne. And naturally, she had to pay the price. The price was erasing herself, killing herself, denying herself—she reached the conclusion of severing all her own ties through her own thinking. And from her corpse, I was born."

“She and I are indeed the same individual; my body, soul, and will all originate from her. But we are also completely different, because she is merely a slave, while I am a free hunter.”

Her words initially confused Ainz Ooal Gown, but his mechanical mind quickly grasped the crux of this nonsensical philosophical argument. It was... that it had once had a chance to salvage the situation, and it had given it up.

“I understand.” It nodded. “You killed all my children, and I had the chance to stop it. I ignored Lupsrechina’s strange behavior. I decided to stay in the capital instead of returning immediately to comfort her. The mistake was mine. And for this news, I thank you.”

“Because you let me know that the enemy I am about to kill is a stranger with whom I have a blood feud, not one of my children who betrayed me—that’s good, so I won’t feel any burden when I kill you later.”

The wolf girl responded with a cold laugh.

"Self-deception? How interesting. You don't even know the nature of the power you possess, nor the nature of the companions around you, making decisions solely based on the morality and worldview bestowed upon you by others. Ha, a piece of trash is a piece of trash, Suzuki Satoru. You're a piece of trash over there, and you're a piece of trash here too."

"You...you actually knew!?" The azure flames in the Undead's eyes suddenly dimmed.

"What's so strange about that? Or do you think you're hiding it so well?" The wolf girl sneered. She could already sense the impending war from beyond the sky, and any further delay was pointless. She lowered her horizontally held battle axe slightly and uttered cold words from her throat.

"You've finished asking me about one thing. If you don't attack, I'll have to make the first move."

She saw Ainz Ooal Gown's jaw open and then raise the spellcasting token in his hand.

Thus, immense magical power gathered, and all sorts of top-tier artifacts revealed their brilliance. Thus, spells manifested through incantations, and thus...

"Magic Enhancement..."

'Pa-ta--'

Before it could finish its incantation, all its numerous protective gear and trigger-based spells were rendered useless. For before it could even utter its first verse, the wolf girl's form passed through it like a phantom, piercing through the multiple layers of composite magical barriers around its body, and swung down its battle axe, seemingly without a trace.

None of the preparations were of any use.

The red bead-shaped world artifact in its abdomen, which resembled its core, silently snapped. The incantation it was chanting, the flow of magic it controlled, its staff and protective gear—all silently broke. And when this break severed its spine and destroyed the integrity of its body, even the top of the system template it saw appeared with a huge fracture.

The dark soul fire in its eyes went out.

Its form then disintegrated into a pile of broken bone fragments, which shattered sparsely on the gravelly, necrotic ground.

—The result was indeed the same; whether it was faster or slower, it really didn't matter.

So the wolf girl put away her battle axe. She gazed at the star-studded sky, awaiting the impending destruction of the world.

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

The world was destroyed.

The instant the star cluster shattered the celestial canopy, boundless light and fire, wind and darkness descended from the heavens, tearing the entire planet's stars into tattered fragments.

The strong and the weak, the mediocre and the ambitious, those who aspired to change the world and those who simply wanted to live their lives peacefully, all perished in an instant. Without a ripple, without a moment's resistance, they entered eternal slumber without even realizing what had happened, their bodies and souls disintegrating together in the energy surge, annihilated in this era.

There were a few exceptional individuals: the most powerful dragon kings on this land, as well as some reclusive former transmigrators and their descendants. They were in agony because they sensed the impending destruction and tried to resist, but all of them struggled for milliseconds in the tide of annihilation before disappearing.

All living things died.

The earth was torn into millions of fragments, with over 95% of the land completely obliterated in the tidal wave of destruction. Only a few fragments remained. And among these remaining fragments, the one beneath the wolf girl's feet was the largest.

Fragments, fragments suitable for duels.

When the heavens shattered and the barrier of time vanished, the era of this universe effectively came to its final day. The end of the world simultaneously arose in every corner of these twin universes. Angels and demons, gods and mortals, flesh and steel tore at each other, engaging in all-out warfare, spreading the flames of war to countless worlds.

All living beings are fighting each other, so no one or nothing will disturb this duel.

As the King of Gods and the Lord of Demons appeared at opposite ends of the shattered fragments, each revealing their true forms as different young girls, the wolf girl casually crushed her battle axe, refining it into a dagger more suitable for close combat.

"Are you here to kill me?" the wolf girl asked, gripping the dagger in reverse.

She had roughly guessed the identity of the being who had granted her the qualification for ascension—because she could see through them, through the King of Gods and the Lord of Demons—their life levels were very high, but in terms of power, they were only roughly equivalent to hers, or even subtly restrained by her. Therefore, it was obvious that, without the addition of an extra entity, what she had encountered was their master.

Lupus Lecchina Beta has paid the price for her actions. The price is the erasure of herself, ceasing to exist in this world forever. However, such a price may be enough for that noble being. But for His followers, it is probably far from sufficient.

then……

“No, you’re here to kill us.” — She received an unexpected answer.

"Huh?" She raised an eyebrow.

The Lord of All Demons in Blackwing shook his head: "Master's wisdom is as deep as the sea. Every thought, every judgment, every decision, and every action we take is inevitably under Master's control. Master knew we would appear here at this time, and Master knew we would show hostility towards you. And you bear traces of power originating from Master."

The white-clad king of the gods nodded slightly: "We have disappointed our master, for we have brought neither victory to our master nor victory to ourselves. That is why we are here, and that is why we have met you. Because you are our executioner, you will judge our mistakes on behalf of our master. Because you are our assistant, you will represent our master's will and grant us our final chance."

The wolf girl blinked.

The past and the future appeared in her vision, and in an instant, she discerned the true nature of these two powerful beings.

They… no, their essence is actually similar to that of the past Lupus Lecchina Beta! Because like that battle maid who had long since died, they were all heartless puppets and servants!

It turned out to be the case.