Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

【Ming Yanwei. My name is Ming Yanwei!】

I... am not Luo Mi!

The scene before her eyes seemed to abruptly stop, and the next moment, Ming Yanwei found herself standing on the edge of the Luo River. She instinctively reached out, and a bow and arrow appeared in her palm. Then, the blurry figure from her memory, the immortal being, suddenly appeared on the other side of the river!

"No, you are me. You are Luo Mi."

Arrows rained down like a storm, and Ming Yanwei was riddled with holes before she could even parry. Her body was destroyed, then rebuilt. But the moment she tried to nock an arrow to retaliate, an arrow from across the river pierced her head!

"You are my afterlife, my vessel, and I will be resurrected in your body."

The voice from the opposite bank of the river was cold and solemn. Ming Yanwei had just recovered her senses when her five fingers, which were trying to draw the arrow, were all broken by another barrage of arrows. She couldn't help but let out a muffled groan and squeeze out a soft cry from her throat.

"Why?!"

"Why would a hunter need to give his prey a reason?" Luo Mi's voice rang out again, and this time she was already on this side of the river. With a sudden thrust, she severed Ming Yanwei's ribs. She went a step further, grabbing Ming Yanwei's throat!

However, the scene around them twisted violently the next moment. In the blink of an eye, they switched from the banks of the Luo River to a narrow, modern alley! Several rag dolls that looked like thugs suddenly leaped out and, incredibly, managed to grab Luo Mi before she could react. Then, the dolls' flesh and blood exploded into fireworks!

“You are not entirely invincible, Luo Mi.” Ming Yanwei took a step back, and the scene around them shifted again, transforming the alley into an Olympic archery range. Luo Mi, however, became the target, fixed to the disc!

"This is not reality at all; you can't exert any power here! If you want to defeat me, you can only do so on a mental level!"

A bow appeared in her hand, and with a powerful pull, arrows rained down like a waterfall, instantly riddling Luo Mi, who was trapped on the target, with bullets from both front and back. But before Ming Yanwei could even catch her breath, her vision was filled with falling fire!

"Is that so?"—She heard Luo Mi's whisper in her ear. And in an instant, the flames melted away everything she had set up!

The enormous venue turned to ashes, and the fictitious audience was burned away.

The scene changed several times, but the burning fire continued to follow, turning everything into a burning sea!

"What gave you the courage to think you're superior to me? Have I become so arrogant in my later life? You haven't even witnessed the vastness of the multiverse, yet you dare to face the wrath of a quasi-saint?" She stepped out of the flames, grabbing Ming Yanwei by the neck and lifting her in front of her, just as she had done on the banks of the Luo River. Her fingers tightened slightly, and suffocation occurred to Ming Yanwei along with the breaking of her spine!

“You…you…” Ming Yanwei was still struggling, and the scene around her writhed several times but was interrupted again.

“You don’t even understand what it means to retrieve your memories and past to use against me, or what purpose it serves.” She looked at her, her gaze contemptuous and disdainful. “You are more fragile than I thought.”

Her hand suddenly stopped. An expression of disbelief appeared on her face.

"You... how could this be... why are you so fragile?" All the confidence in her eyes vanished, replaced by utter shock and disbelief.

"You... you haven't even established your own convictions yet!?"

"You're not from No. 4 Middle School yet?!"

Section Twelve: Mingyanwei, Part Two

It's not No. 4 Middle School.

Not being from the Fourth Middle School means not being a true god.

This means that one does not possess the complete light of the soul.

This means that the existence of both Tao and Zhi does not occur at the same time.

So……

So what does this mean?

"This means that if you resurrect by consuming her, you will have to confront the conflict with the very thing that put you in such a dilemma. It means that you will eventually face the same fate again: death if you fail, death if you succeed. It means that you must take the risk again, deceiving yourself and the multiverse, making both of them believe that you have died again."

A voice broke through the battlefield on the shore of Luoshui Lake—Luo Mi turned her gaze and saw an indifferent woman at the end of the river, who seemed utterly ordinary and dressed in a school suit—she instantly learned the woman's background by reading the memories of Ming Yanwei, whom she controlled.

“…Luo Ye.” She gritted her teeth, squeezing out a few words. “There shouldn’t have been any third-party interference in this battlefield… Did you arrange all of this?”

“Not entirely, but I did put in a lot of effort.” Luo Ye pushed up his non-prescription glasses. “I triggered your resurrection mechanism ahead of time, I deceived your detection methods, I made things that should have happened in your next life after unlocking the fourth stage of your genetic lock and establishing a new path and principles happen ahead of time. I made you… appear here.”

Luo Ye tilted her head slightly, a slight smile playing on her lips.

"Are you angry?" she asked with an unsettling smile.

"Of course not." Luo Mi snorted softly, slightly increasing the pressure on Ming Yanwei's neck—a painful groan immediately escaped the latter's nose. Then, the deliberately released sound of bones cracking echoed around them.

“But I will kill your companions as revenge for being fooled by you.”

"Then why don't you do it?" Luo Ye's smile widened. "Do it, kill her. After you kill her, you will be resurrected in her place, replacing her soul and body, falling from a Quasi-Saint to a Fourth-Order being who can't change his path. Then you will be annihilated by my hand, body and soul, and you will never have the chance to be resurrected a second time."

"...You think I wouldn't dare?" Luo Mi's voice was cold and resolute. "I've even fought in the Battlefield of Creation. Do you think I would back down under this level of threat?"

“Of course I thought you wouldn’t dare.” — However, Luo Ye readily admitted her attitude. And she added another sentence. “If ‘you dare,’ if you would be so impulsive, so reckless, so foolish, then I would have already killed your past life, and there would be no need for this pointless behavior between us.”

Luo Mi stopped talking.

Luo Ye's smile vanished completely.

Ming Yanwei rolled her eyes, looking like she was going to die! Going to die! And you two should at least ask for my opinion! Then, without a doubt, neither of them looked at her at all.

then……

With a flick of her wrist, Luo Mi slammed Ming Yanwei into a large, distant riverside rock, embedding her firmly within it, as if throwing away trash. Her gaze remained fixed on Luo Ye, and after several minutes of deliberation, she finally spoke.

“What…do you want?” she asked.

“Abandon the reincarnation of ‘Ming Yanwei,’ sever the causal links in her body and set her free. Then you go back to sleep and wait for another resurrection.” Luo Ye replied calmly, “If you can manage it, give this girl some care before you leave. Let her have a greater chance of breaking through to the Fourth Middle School—that’s all.”

“This is a greedy request, but I will remain calm until you finish explaining your exchange.” Luo Mi lowered her eyes, and bows, arrows, and swords appeared around her, completely different from those she had used in her battle with Ming Yanwei. As the nascent Eastern goddess of the hunt, she, to some extent, held all authority and concepts related to hunting—even though she had died in the distant past, these authority still belonged to her—and she was ready to use them.

"If your offer can't keep me calm, then," she sneered, "so what if I'm annihilated, body and soul, permanently destroyed? I can at least disrupt most of your current plans, taking with me this companion you want to help, named Ming Yanwei, and maybe even one or two more, to be completely obliterated!"

Intimidation is pointless; there's no doubt she'll take direct action. Although she fell for a scheme, reviving at the wrong time within the wrong entity, and encountering the wrong opponent, she is still the former Quasi-Saint, still the peerless powerhouse who participated in the primordial creation war in the distant past and left her mark. And she…

She reached out and caught an apple-like object that Luo Ye had thrown to her.

what is this?

She frowned, but the next moment her eyes were filled with shock that she had forgotten to suppress!

This is... the crystallization of multiverse blood! A treasure from the depths of the Void Seas. Regardless of its other functions, its very existence is a precious proof that allows the dead to be banished from eternal darkness by the Void Seas (the Abyss of Death)! And such a massive one is enough for her to abandon her next life, 'Ming Yanwei,' and define a suitable reincarnation body to smoothly descend into it and be resurrected!

In other words, this thing can increase her chances of reincarnation and breaking free from old obsessions from a maximum of 50% to at least 70%. This allows her to more effectively combat conflicts of the Dao, instead of having to reincarnate countless times with the constant possibility of failure, and without even being able to guarantee that her Dao and obsessions in the 'next life' won't be an unsolvable knot like in her 'previous life'!

She instinctively gripped the apple tighter!

"I told you you'd calm down," Luo Ye said calmly. The moment she spoke, the fruit in Luo Mi's hand flickered like a television screen with a poor signal, as if it might dissipate into nothingness at any moment.

This was both a guarantee and a contract. She adjusted her non-prescription glasses, watching Luo Mi, who had once again regained control of her emotions, returning to a state of complete composure and engaging in calm reflection.

"I have to admit, your price is very convincing. But..."

“But you need a way out,” Luo Ye replied with a light laugh. “I understand. Having lived to your level, you’ve long since become indifferent to life, death, victory, and defeat. Apart from the Dao and attachments you can’t let go of, only things like face can make someone like you hesitate a little—after all, even if a transcendent species surpasses everything in the old world, in the new world, as long as they have companions and kin, they still have weaknesses and shackles.”

Luo Mi remained silent.

After several seconds, she spoke in a deliberately annoyed tone, "In Ming Yanwei's memory, you should be a more taciturn and understanding person. What makes you so sharp? What are you trying to hide behind your harshness?"

"Who knows?" Luo Ye tilted her head and shrugged. "Maybe it's just because I'm not talking to my stupid sister or her colleague. So I'm too lazy to lower myself? If I could handle such annoying social obligations, maybe I wouldn't be wasting my time talking to you here?"

"Is that so? But I feel that you changed your behavior because you care about your companion." Luo Mi toyed with the illusory fruit in her hand, watching it flicker between her fingertips. "Perhaps, can I ask for more?"

“You can try.” Luo Ye stretched out her hand, and from her center, the aura of decay and corruption silently spread outward. In an instant, nearly one-tenth of the flowing Luo River was dyed into an inky black realm, and this blackness itself was the manifestation and aggregation of all stagnant and rotten things.

"Let's see if I'm hiding my true nature now, or if I'm revealing it."

“That’s a good suggestion.” — And a good way out — “I haven’t stretched my muscles in a long time.”

“Then,” Luo Mi grasped a mulberry bow, an arrow nocked, “let’s see if your resolve is just an act, or the real deal!”

The next moment, the falling fire and the surging, vast Luo River transformed into a rain of arrows, crashing violently into that ominous and deep dark kingdom!

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

Ming Yanwei suddenly opened her eyes.

She felt absolutely awful—her head ached, her back ached, her neck ached, her whole body ached—she felt that if she were still a mortal, she would have just run headfirst into a herd of raging horses. Although she didn't know how she could survive being trampled by thousands of horses, the feeling was truly unpleasant.

It's painful, but it's okay. As long as the painful neural signals are blocked or deleted along with that memory, this mistake can be easily and pleasantly resolved. But before that…

What just happened?

She couldn't remember clearly, perhaps because of the severe blow to her brain—she hadn't yet had time to consider why a dignified, extraordinary being like herself would suffer amnesia due to such a blow.

then……

"You're awake, Ming Yanwei." — A cold and calm voice sounded in her ear, a voice that momentarily reminded her of Chu Xuan. She turned her head sharply, startled. Because what appeared before her eyes was a guy who looked like he had just rolled around in a doghouse!

Luo Ye!

Her school uniform suit at that moment could even rival Brother Sharp's!

Ming Yanwei's pupils suddenly contracted, and in the next moment, the painful memories from before flooded into her vision! She remembered Luo Mi, the time when she was beaten up by Luo Mi, the helper who suddenly appeared with Luo Mi's rage, the provocative conversation, and the huge rock that she had crashed head-on into!

She remembered everything!

She subconsciously looked around and was shocked to find herself on a broken rock floating in the shattered void. Among the rocks, vegetation, and water scattered around her, the outline of the Luo River could be vaguely seen!

Luo Mi was no longer there; only Luo Ye and herself remained. When she realized this, she suddenly felt a sense of relief, as if an invisible burden and shackle had been removed from her body!

She clearly realized something.

“Miss Luo Ye, she… that person… has already…?” She didn’t dare to say the name 'Luo Mi' directly.

"Hmm, Luo Mi has already left." Luo Ye glanced at his tattered suit and frowned. However, when the restoration phenomenon appeared on the surface of the fabric, it was corrected by another force, leaving it still in its damaged and ragged appearance—Luo Ye simply ignored it.

"I fought with that guy. She hasn't revived yet, so she can't and doesn't dare to use any powers above level four. Plus, the location here is quite special, so I should say I had a slight advantage," Luo Ye said calmly. Then, as if anticipating Ming Yanwei's question about 'where is this,' he added another sentence.

"Where this place is doesn't matter; it's not good for you to know too much at this stage. In short, you just need to know that as long as the battle here isn't excessively intense, it won't be noticed by the life forms outside, such as Hu Hai or Sekhmet. And this place will soon collapse and disappear, ceasing to exist."

"Is...is that so?" Ming Yanwei's lips twitched, accepting the answer—but what could she do even if she didn't? There was nothing she could do.

Oh no, she can still do something. For example…

“Um, Luo Mi…”

“She won’t appear again.” Luo Ye gave the answer once again before she could finish speaking. “I made a pact with her. I paid her a fee, and she gave up on you as her ‘next life’ and found another reincarnation to replace you. From this moment on, you will no longer be troubled by the karma of your past life. Of course, this also means that your luck will drop significantly. If you cannot advance to the fourth level or even higher by the end of the war, then your fate will probably be quite grim.”

"Oh..." Ming Yanwei opened her mouth. She felt... as if nothing was real?

Ah, that's true. I just had a dream where someone claiming to be from my past life berated and beat me up. And then…

And that was it?

Because Miss Luo Ye appeared out of nowhere and swept through everything with lightning speed... everything was resolved cleanly and efficiently. All that was left was a stunned Ming Yanwei, her face etched with utter bewilderment.

Isn't this a bit too frivolous?

Is there some mistake?

Should we...?