Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

As a result, some of the 'pavilion chiefs' were promoted to 'county magistrates', and among the 'county magistrates', the 'prefects', who were equivalent to the fourth level, were born.

The second battle has begun.

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

“Yes, you are resurrecting.” Andromeda’s fingers tapped together lightly. “You were killed by a guy named Fenrir. And your death triggered something strange—perhaps it was your own doing, or perhaps some wondrous artifact. Perhaps some great being is watching your growth. In any case, you used this death to construct some kind of scheme with ‘dying at the hands of Fenrir’ as the core element.”

“You have replicated Fenrir, replicated me… and the resurrection rituals used by many of your kind. You have degraded yourself to your past life, constructed a new life, and devoured it. And now, you are only one step away from success. And all those individuals that could have hindered you from taking this step will no longer hinder your growth.”

"I envy you, someone who has it all so easy. You're really annoying."

Her gaze deepened, yet Lin Xi detected little malice within it. The moment she finished listening, she realized there wasn't a trace of truth in what she said. And this meant…

“My past self is dead. My present self is also dying.” She pointed to her heart. “So, am I now the person I was in my past life, or the person I am now?”

“Nine out of ten,” Andromeda gave her a cruel answer. “More than nine in your past life, less than one in this life. Right now, you can still be considered Lin Xi, because you still control the changes in your outward consciousness. However, in reality, you have already become ██. Once you trigger a certain key, you will completely transform into her.”

"So... that's why I'm behaving so strangely. Is it because I'm about to die?" Lin Xi's eyes turned completely golden. And the ends of her hair gradually changed to a pale purple color.

"Yes, you're going to die."

"And you wouldn't even consider resisting this death. Because you've already lost the power to resist it. And your other question. Alice and I aren't hiding anything from you. Because the person we're talking to is another 'she' beneath your surface consciousness. Different levels, so naturally you can't understand what we're saying."

But you don't need to worry—if you still have the capacity to worry—because you will soon be abandoned, you will soon collapse, you will soon perish.

She gazed at Lin Xi.

Lin Xi's calm eyes remained unchanged.

Her eyes reflected the starry sky, and beyond that starry sky, the celestial body besieged by the plural four was decaying.

The mountains split open, and a pale hand emerged from them.

The earth's crust cracked, and pure white wings unfolded and blossomed from the bottom.

As the 'prefects' and 'magistrates' wielded various mathematical, spatial, and logical weapons, arbitrarily altering the surrounding cosmic constants in an attempt to completely erase that star from the cosmos, the final transformation finally came to an end. And with the formation of a faceless Valkyrie, whose fully unfolded form was nearly a ray of light, all the artificially created celestial phenomena returned to their respective forms.

Connect... interconnected.

The gamma-ray burst that was supposed to erupt between the eyebrows of the beautyless woman was instead linked to the 'prefect' who released it—every cell of his body burst forth with overloaded light. He was then instantly incinerated into ashes.

The negation of the event that should have arisen in the chest of the woman without beauty is commensurate with the plural 'magistrates' that constitute it—their forms are as faded as a simple sketch erased by an eraser. Not even a record will remain in the world.

The mass that should have manifested in the abdomen of the faceless woman collapsed, and the area its energy was directed towards was linked to almost all the remaining 'Pavilion Chiefs'—a tidal wave of energy exceeding the limit of their extraordinary power pulled and squeezed them onto an overlapping coordinate. And in an instant, they were compressed into a sesame-sized mass.

The Qin army was almost wiped out the moment the faceless woman revealed herself.

Then, the faceless creature slightly lifted, casting its non-existent gaze upon the endless expanse of the heavens—the emperor had already repelled the wretched, disruptive sun. And the emperor's gaze was fixed upon her.

—She will die.

No matter how hard she tries, she will die.

At the very moment death approached, Lin Xi blinked.

“Thank you for your clarification.” She nodded and was about to leave when Andromeda did not stop her. She paused briefly as she approached the door. “Finally, could you reveal my name from my past life?”

“No need for thanks.” Andromeda waved his hand. “Although Alice and I are enemies, being enemies doesn’t mean we have to fight before we’ve even met. Besides, this information can’t be used as a bargaining chip… and, I can’t tell you that name directly right now.”

“However…” she paused. “If you walk westward, you will find the King on the left side of the forest.”

Lin Xi did not answer.

Her clothes had changed at some point, now featuring a strange combination of white and gold. Her long, flowing purple hair was now draped over her shoulders.

—She will die.

No matter how hard she tries, she will die.

Chapter 46: Beyond

Rhodes Island is a large, mobile land-based facility. Its main body is a land-based ship excavated from underground, with its principles and materials largely unknown. Inside, there is a vast and expansive space.

Lin Xi still remembered what Alice had told her before, that concept, that dream—if she hadn't met Andromeda here, she might have truly taken it all as a dream and overlooked all the subtle changes. But now…

Why did she lie to me?

Why would she tell a lie that could be exposed at any moment, and which has indeed been exposed now?

She wandered aimlessly through the ship's interior, occasionally encountering Rhodes Island uniformed staff members and exchanging greetings—everyone seemed to know her, and they weren't surprised at all by her changed eye and hair color. A white-haired, pale-skinned girl with pointed ears even complimented her long hair in a friendly manner. As she responded to the girl, she glanced at the nameplate on the girl's chest.

Warfarin, a medical officer—that's the girl's name. She was born into a race known as the 'Sarkaz' in this world. In other worlds, the 'Sarkaz' are referred to as demons or monsters.

This perfectly matched the scenario Alice had concocted in front of her. And when she encountered the catgirl who really was named Kal'tsit a while later, she even began to question Andromeda's words.

But this 'questioning' only lasted for a short time—because she soon met more people and naturally began to talk and converse with them.

She encountered a girl with hair similar to hers and scales on her neck who gave her a strangely colored cake. In the corridor, she met a rabbit-eared woman in a hospital gown and received a oddly flavored candy as a prank. She encountered a Liberian medical worker with an ethereal aura, almost like a machine, and exchanged research information with her that she herself didn't understand but could recite offhand. She even met a Felin woman with cat ears, who seemed like a seasoned warrior, and then found herself looking at her with a very strange gaze.

The woman's name seemed to be Hei, and it looked familiar; she felt she must have met her somewhere before. Although she hadn't managed to start a conversation with Hei, a clear realization had already formed in her mind.

This is a real world where everyone has their own personality and thoughts.

Alice's words were a lie. But this lie was like a bubble that would burst at the slightest touch.

She still didn't understand why Alice would use such a flimsy lie to deceive her. After weighing the cause and effect, she could only come up with a vague answer: 'It would keep me from thinking too much about Terra before I arrived here.' As for why Alice wanted to stop her from focusing too much on this place, she had no idea. Perhaps she needed more information to get the truth.

No, it's not actually necessary.

It was only after Lin Xi realized this that she was completely unconcerned about Alice's deception. It was as if Alice's words to her actually followed some kind of unspoken understanding between them. 'She' had already grasped the meaning, only that the information was beyond her comprehension.

These things, these truths... are irrelevant to me.

—【Because you will soon be abandoned, you will soon collapse, you will soon perish.】

Andromeda's words echoed in her ears. And she knew it was the truth.

And indeed, just as Andromeda said, she didn't even have the desire to resist death. It was as if welcoming death was her expectation.

I now believe that Andromeda's claim of being enemies with Alice is true.

Alice definitely knows me, knows me from my past life. She expects my past self to achieve her goals and hasn't focused her attention on me in this life. Since she's willing to let me come to this land, this land of Andromeda, it means that in her eyes, the revival of my past self is inevitable.

[I will die, and my former self will take my place. Andromeda told me the truth perhaps hoping that I would fight against my former self. Even if I couldn't succeed, at least it would cause some trouble for my past self and for Alice.]

She looked at her hands.

She knew she could clench her fist, but she also knew that even if she did, she had no desire to strike anyone... or even herself. Even with this dark fate clearly laid out before her eyes, no resentment or bitterness lingered in her heart.

It's as if I was created for this purpose...

Is this reasonable?

She didn't receive a reply, and she didn't feel that the answer to the question was important to her.

Then, she pushed open the closed automatic doors and partitions. Naturally, without any hindrance, she arrived at the top bridge of the Rhodes Island landship. Looking out from the bridge, she found the world to be so vast... and so small.

Before her stretched an endless wasteland. There were no animals, no plants. Only layers of sand piled up and brown rocky hills of varying sizes. In the crevices of these hills grew patches of dark crystals that shimmered in the sunlight. As she gazed at them, she could sense a trace of energy contained within the crystals.

Energy, energy dissipates outward. Information remains within this dissipated energy.

She could see it, as if she could see the emotions of mortals, observing these fragments of information. And these fragments, when pieced together, quickly formed a complete picture in her vision.

—About 330 years ago, there was a city here.

—The city was surrounded by water sources, from which forests grew, and farmland and houses were scattered. Eventually, they came together to form a city-state.

In her vision appeared the city from 330 years ago. Its technology was less advanced than that of Rhodes, but it was bustling and prosperous. People of various races gathered there, working and laughing together. They built a tall wall with their hard work and sweat, only to have it crushed by Rhodes's treadmills.

—Okay, so the last one was an illusion. What was crushed and collapsed was the special effect of the historical illusion she observed overlapping with reality. More than three hundred years ago, not a single landship had crushed that majestic city wall. Now, three hundred years later, Rhodes Island, in its journey, has merely crushed a patch of slightly protruding rocks and sand.

She continued to watch, observing how the settlement gradually grew from a small town into a thriving community. More and more people settled there, and the facilities became increasingly prosperous—she watched beautiful babies being born in the nursery, growing into beautiful young women. They dated, married, built careers, and eventually grew old with gray hair and a house full of children and grandchildren.

Towns became cities, cities became kingdoms. Ordinary people came and went, some bound by mundane concerns, others harboring ambitions. She witnessed grand plans, factories being built, mines and forests being developed. She saw the darkness beneath the surface, the struggles for power, the conspiracies, the wars, the flowing blood. Yet, no matter how tortuous and complex the process, this city, this kingdom, continued to prosper and grow stronger.

'Alice would definitely love a country like this'—this thought suddenly popped into her mind.

That thought faded away silently, and the ability to think independently returned to her existing personality.

"Do I like this kind of civilization?"—she asked herself.

"I don't know, but I don't think I hate it." — That's her own answer.

"So, is it important to me?" she asked again.

【………………】—Silence is another form of euphemistic negation.

And then, in the next instant, she saw the end of this city-state—she saw a calamity cloud, like a collapsing mountain, hurtling towards it. She saw despair on the faces of the most learned scholars, and panic gripping the hearts of the bravest warriors. She saw them calculate the inescapable fate, and saw them do everything in their power to protect themselves—uniting, building barriers, using the strongest structures as strongholds, and sheltering the old, weak, and disabled within.

Then... the Originium Storm descended, turning everything into shattered sand.

Natural disasters, in general, refer to storms composed of Originium dust, fragments, and the energy released from their aggregation. These storms not only erode life, allowing Originium to parasitize and grow on organisms, but also release enormous amounts of energy upon contact with sufficiently robust physical barriers.

Spending a few seconds in a high-intensity zone of Originium Storm is no different from being bombarded by naval guns for several minutes.

For primitive civilizations that have never encountered supernatural powers, nothing can survive a barrage of naval bombardment.

And so, the white-haired old woman lost all her children. And as despair swept over her, the Originium also engulfed her. The magnificent walls were ground into hills, the towering, continuous buildings reduced to scattered, broken fragments. In the end, not even the grass growing in the cracks remained; everything was crushed or assimilated, becoming dust or sand formed from crystals.

And so, time flew by.

More than three hundred years later, as the landship Rhodes Island rolled over their wreckage, all traces of them had been forgotten by the world.

The world is so small, too small to contain a city.

The universe is so small, too small to contain an independent me.

Lin Xi gently pressed her hand against her heart. In that brief moment, she had sensed an unusual throbbing and sadness within her.

I am going to die...

Even so, even if I am eventually forgotten, I should still make the most of my remaining time to do everything I can.

But... what should I do?

"You should be in the lab right now, researching a vaccine for Originium Disease. Dr. Lin Xi." A voice came from behind her, the voice of a scholar who sounded somewhat immature. She turned around and saw a Liberian woman with feathers on her ears and long pink hair. She didn't sense much familiarity from her.

But she couldn't read her emotions, and her instincts warned her, just as they had when facing Andromeda, to stop her from using the power of 'connection' on this Liberian scholar before her.

"Are you one of them too?" Lin Xi glanced at her, then turned back.

“Yes, but our positions differ,” the woman replied, gesturing for her to go somewhere. “My name here is Ceylon, you can also call me Loya.”

"What should I call you, my other self?"

"Luoye".

“Well, it’s a pleasure to meet you, Miss Ceylon.” Lin Xi nodded with satisfaction—she wasn’t even sure if she was truly satisfied—and then followed her. “So, is there anything you can teach me?”