Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

They marched on and came to a desolate wilderness. There had once been a thriving village here on the map, but it had been burned to the ground by an inexplicable fire from the heavens.

"We've heard you're a very famous ancient figure. Can you answer our three brothers' questions?"—Three brothers, each with a different personality—calm, cunning, and volatile—saw two people amidst the ruins and asked them their questions.

"Why were we all burned to death by heavenly fire when we did nothing?"

Jun replied, "That's because a civilian ship of the Fairy Clan passed through an altitude of 10,000 kilometers above us. Its stellar sail generated a downward jet of thermal energy as it released excess heat. And that's the truth behind the Heavenly Fire."

His answer seemed reasonable, but the three brothers ignored him and just looked at Gu.

"Because we are too weak, too weak to make the other side take us seriously," Gu replied.

"What are you going to do?"

"I plan to find a place where they can't even look down on us. If they can't see us, we'll be safe."

"That sounds reasonable. We'll go look for it with you then."

So the two people became five. And they continued on their way.

They continued on and came to a dark land. Before they arrived, an ordinary starship of the Night Demon race test-fired an old-fashioned light-devouring bullet into the 'clearing'—perhaps just to clear out inventory, or perhaps just to give the new operator some practice—and on this 'clearing', a tribe called Aya had once migrated through.

"Gu, do you believe there was ever light in this world?"—Gu and his companions finally found a pale young man on this land where there was no longer any light. His name was Wei, and his smile was as bright as the sun.

“I don’t know, but we can look for it together,” Gu replied, taking Wei’s hand.

“Alright, I’ll search with you.” The young man grabbed Gu’s outstretched hand.

So the five became six, and they continued on their way.

They continued on, arriving at a labyrinth of distorted and twisted space. It was said to be a time-space corridor created by toys carelessly discarded by the Minotaur children. After they exhausted themselves, with Jun solving the puzzles and Gu splitting open the barriers, they saw vast expanses of white bones frozen in their escape postures.

When the toy fell, there once stood a kingdom here. A kingdom of mortals, larger than any tribe they had ever seen.

Then they were trapped in the corridor of this time and space, and in an instant, ten thousand years were washed away.

Mortals can only live for 1,500 years, making them the only short-lived species among the countless intelligent beings on this boundless continent that are neither recognized nor accepted. For them, the passage of 10,000 years is nothing but death.

However, they were not all dead, because in the center of the corridor, near the toy, two more people survived to this day due to the error in the flow of time.

Their names are different from those of the ancients because they were born in city-states rather than tribes. So one of them was called Jieyin, and the other was called Zhunti.

They asked Gu.

"If we live in a virtual world, can we avoid such a fate?"

Gu shook his head and gripped his axe tighter.

"I don't believe in fate, but I will find a place far more distant than illusion."

“Then we’ll go with you.” — The two young men grasped Gu’s hands.

As a result, the team grew from six to eight people.

And they continued onward.

go ahead.

Moving forward with a goal, but without direction.

The team grew little by little, and Gu had more and more companions around him.

They encountered Ding from the Ao tribe, Po from the Shi tribe, and La, who had lost his tribe and simply adopted the tribe's name as his own. They met all sorts of different companions.

They made contact with Gu one by one, and after these encounters, they decided to join Gu in searching for that distant place at the edge of the world. Their power grew stronger and stronger, and soon they became a significant and powerful force among the many human tribes.

However, they are still only the most powerful among humans, because they have very few opportunities to come into contact with other races.

Very few, extremely few, unbelievably few.

Because humanity inhabits only a relatively vast piece of land, and such land exists in countless pieces across the world inhabited by all races. And the area inhabited by all races is the boundless, vast sky above these countless pieces of land.

A person might pay attention to a group of ants, but would an ordinary person pay attention to a group of bacteria?

For most of the myriad races, mortals exist only in ancient and obscure texts. For an even smaller fraction, however, mortals are objects of observation, experimentation, or even entertainment.

Ah, yes. It's like dissecting a mouse, like staining a bacterial colony. Medical students only realize the mouse is a life deserving their pity during the first few times they do it. And even the kindest student wouldn't think they need to care about the bacteria that die while being stained.

And so, one day, Gu and his companions finally found the edge of the world.

Because... it's time to stain the bacterial community.

They saw pure, clear light descend from the sky, and thousands of giant hands descending from the clouds to grasp at all mortals on the earth.

Gu saw more than his companions—he saw the executor who 'stained the bacterial colony.' He saw that face etched into his memory.

He saw the demon with bat wings.

Jun had once taught him about the hierarchical structure within the demon race. Clearly, this was just an ordinary lower-ranking demon.

That was true many years ago, and it is true now, many years from now.

It was utterly insignificant among the demon race; it was merely a nameless minion.

Even so, in its eyes, everything on this continent was like dust. It had long forgotten what it had done on this land. At most, it remembered its ship crashing on this land—it had simply come to 'stain the bacteria'.

The greatest malice toward an intelligent race is to regard it as nothing.

Side Story: Memories of Creation, Part 2

All experiments involve risks. Even staining bacteria is no exception.

When the ancient axe cleaved open the forehead of the demon noble youth, the demon's eyes were still filled with shock, disbelief, and rage.

Can an elephant be killed by ants?

Can an ant kill an elephant?

Even if it meant that other ants paid a heavy price in order for this one ant to kill the elephant?

Haha, what a joke.

The reason an ant is an ant is precisely because it is so incredibly small. And the weak should not be able to overcome the strong.

However, when the impossible happens, all calculations become futile. After all, no matter how rigorous the theory or how accurate the judgment, it is all ineffective in the face of pure facts.

“Gu, I have already blocked the detection spells in this area and eliminated the signal that this demon sent to the unknown region when it died. For the time being, the demon race should not notice the disappearance of such a low-ranking individual. But this is only temporary and cannot be kept secret for long.”

Jun always knew a lot, and Jun was always capable of a lot. Gu never considered why Jun was able to accomplish so many extraordinary feats that even the myriad races could not. He only knew that Jun was his partner, and now this partner's abilities were reaching the limit of what Gu could influence.

"Gu, what do you plan to do?" Jun asked, looking at him.

Gu raised his gaze and saw the shattered landscape.

In the previous battles, he had no room to hold back; all he could do was fight with all his might.

Because mortals are finite, because flesh and blood are finite. In this vast sky, not all races can strengthen themselves indefinitely and thus grow—there is a chasm called 'transcendence,' and since an event many, many years ago, no mortal has been able to cross the boundary of transcendence.

Gu was still just an ordinary being. But the land beneath his feet had shattered. Cracks tore open in the ground, spewing out lava and raging storms.

This world is about to be destroyed.

His still-mobile companions went to rescue the residents who had miraculously survived the natural disaster. But what they received was not entirely gratitude. After all, the battle had started because of him, and he could not prove that the thousands of giant hands that fell from the sky were meant to wipe mortals from the world.

Perhaps that demon didn't intend to kill anyone?

Perhaps those hands simply intend to take the people of the land away and visit them elsewhere?

Perhaps... perhaps they were messengers from a distant heaven, sent to bring these suffering inhabitants of the earth to a better place?

There is neither evidence to prove nor evidence to deny it.

The tribespeople who died in the disaster did not hate a dead demon, but dared to direct their hatred toward the warriors who came to save them from their suffering.

They hate, they curse, they despise.

Ah… they're always like this. Short-lived species, struggling to survive, are always accustomed to inflicting their inner malice on those who have shown them kindness. Because they know that kindness will tolerate malice out of morality, while evil will only retaliate heavily in the face of malice at the first moment.

Jun was about to do something, but Gu refused.

Even so, they are still his kind. They are still his compatriots, born of the same kind and of the same race.

—【I am not you, Gu. I am completely different from you.】

—【Because I possess kindness, but kindness must also submit to my order.】

The long-lost auditory hallucinations resurfaced in his mind, but Gu, as he had done many times before, chose to listen without making a decision. He looked away from the ravaged earth beneath his feet and then answered Jun's question.

“I have proven one thing,” he said calmly and slowly, “Even at the ends of the earth. On this land…”

"...There is no pure land where our people can live in peace and happiness."

He saw his companions staring at him in disbelief, their eyes filled with the fear of their shattered dreams. He took a deep breath and continued.

"So, since it doesn't exist, we'll create one ourselves. Since pure land doesn't exist, we'll create our own pure land."

"I... will pave a way forward for my people!"

His voice was clear and resonant, and he spoke with unwavering conviction.

He looked at his companions, and they all looked at him expectantly with affirmative eyes.

Ah... they're with him. They'll fight alongside him.

As he made this announcement, he heard that auditory hallucination resound in his mind once again.

—【For whom are you paving the way?】

For the first time, he answered that voice in his heart.

I have paved the way for my people.

—What kind of path will you pave for them?

I want to give them a peaceful and joyful pure land.

—【What do you consider to be true peace and joy?】

[We will not be bullied or ignored; every member of our tribe will live with dignity. No outsider will oppress our people.]

—【What would you do if a foreign tribe visited the path you opened for them?】

I will kill them.

—Even if they haven't shown any hostility towards you or your group?

Wolves and sheep can never coexist peacefully.

—【So that's it. Now I understand why you and I are so different.】