Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

“Strictly speaking, I have no interest in this civilization. I even have to twist my own avatar's thoughts to convince myself that this civilization has the potential to rise. In fact, if you, Zhang Jie, weren't here, I wouldn't bother wasting time sculpting this cosmic dream. But what's done is done, and now, this civilization is about to trigger a chain reaction while reaching the minimum standards. The era of technological explosion is about to... or rather, it has already arrived.”

"Therefore, this is the Sixth Kingdom. The Kingdom of Ascension. I have put in a lot of effort to keep this kingdom in a constant state of 'development.' It will not stop, so it meets my standards."

"Well... this is the last one."

Alice's finger pointed to the last point, the seventh point, which was even further away than the sixth point.

"The Seventh Kingdom, the Fallen Kingdom. The war-torn kingdom owned by Sehmet, built by billions of sorcerers and great sorcerers. There is no civilization there, only war and slaughter. And I just conducted a final test, and that kingdom has maintained this state all along. It has always met my needs. After all, sorcerers cannot change."

"So, Zhang Jie, do you understand what I've done? And what will happen next?"

She didn't expect Zhang Jie's reply; she simply continued explaining her own strategy.

"Seven kingdoms, seven ideologies. 'Emptiness' as the foundation, 'Pride' as the spine, 'Ordinary' as flesh and blood, 'Rebellion' as the skeleton, 'Ideal' as the goal, 'Sublimation' as the blood, and 'Degradation' as the end or shadow."

"Seven kingdoms, seven ideologies. One is Qin, and the other is the other six kingdoms. The seven ideologies they represent can be combined and integrated to form a new and complete kingdom."

She gently exhaled a long breath.

“I spent a lot of time setting up this scheme. I did a lot of tedious things and wasted a lot of precious time. If I could record what I did in writing, even the simplest description would be 200,000 words long. And now, all the causes have come together to form the effect.”

The next moment, the colors of the scroll between her and Zhang Jie faded, all external light and shadow receding. It returned to the original state she had created it in. Then, she closed the scroll that depicted the seven kingdoms of the universe.

"This script is my original work, but because it has a prototype, it is ultimately an external source."

“Then,” Alice paused slightly. “The Outer Codex: The Seven Kingdoms' Struggle for Life—is about to be completed. When the final fallen kingdoms descend upon this universe, the ritual will draw them, draw them and all the forces they represent, making them hostile to each other. It will set them on the brink of a relatively evenly matched war.”

"Now that I'm telling you this information, you should already know what it means behind the scenes."

Alice used an affirmative sentence, not an interrogative one.

Zhang Jie did not answer, nor could his current public image allow him to. Since he intended to exhaust his past dreams in his dreams, he could only remain silent for now.

But Alice didn't actually expect his response. She stood up and took the scroll with her.

“My plan has been revised many times. I always make mistakes, so the plan I’m implementing now is the fifth contingency plan after the previous ones. And that’s why I will devote all my energy to the ceremony and the war in the coming days.”

She turned her head and her gaze, peering through the obstructions at the fake god that existed in the very center of this sixth kingdom in the form of a sphere of light.

“I have no time to manage the fake gods here. Most of my incarnations will be withdrawn, and this kingdom is about to face disaster. As for you, Zhang Jie, if you still cherish the ideals of ‘making great achievements’ and ‘protecting the country,’ then take over the reins and drive its operation with your will.”

“After all, this is for you…” She stepped toward the door.

The figure vanished, leaving only the phrases behind.

"...It's not a bad thing."

Alice's whereabouts were eventually completely lost.

In this office, which has reconnected with the world, Zhang Jie, still unwilling to wake up, falls into deep thought.

He doesn't think for long.

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

And so, time flowed on, and soon, all events pointed to that most opportune moment. When the storm of Originium swept through Lungmen, when Zheng Zha's avatar gazed at the sky, when the Central Plains were thrown into turmoil, when Zhang Jie took over the fictitious God, when Xiao Honglu restored order and watched the mortal army conclude a war against the Sirens, Alice reclaimed most of her avatars and reassembled her physical form in the star system known as 'Evelyn'.

She held the scroll in her hands, gazing at the two sides of the starry sky. In this eternally lonely expanse, she stood alone.

Both O'Connor and Imhotep are still far away. Without interfering with time, their exact impact time is still nearly four months away.

War...war is inevitable.

War... war will never be too late.

When Alice felt the time was right, she reached out and, ignoring the spatial limitations, directly grasped the two stars that represented the protagonist and the antagonist respectively!

Then--

--collision!

In the vastness of space, all was silent. Yet, at the instant the binary stars shattered, a massive rift, resembling a vertical eye, extended outward from the point of impact!

The constants of the universe collapsed at this moment.

From the highest heavens to the deepest hells, from all corners of the earth, every super-being within Alice's calculations turned its attention to her at this moment!

Then, his gaze turned to fury.

Because the fire truly ignited. From the land of Qin, from the ring sun of the Cosmic Dream, from the Originium Storm of Terra and the myriad stars, blazing golden flames suddenly burst forth!

At that moment, the radiance of all the stars transformed into pure gold. All the gold converged towards the fissure at the point of impact. And then!

—The lion-headed goddess extends her hands from the golden light!

“Hello, Sehmet.” Alice gazed at it and slowly unfurled the scroll in her hands.

The Book of Revelation unfolds.

The lion's head then raised, its divine face looking indifferently at the girl who was beginning the ceremony!

Side Story: Memories of Creation, Part 2

We won.

We finally won.

After paying a heavy price, the battle to open the heavens finally came to an end.

Ancient times are the victors, Jun is the victor, and humanity is the victor.

Gaia is the loser, the innate demon god is the loser, all races are losers.

The victor takes all, the vanquished loses all. The victor enjoys eternal glory in his new territory, the vanquished rots into dust in the bottomless abyss of ruins—this is how mortals originally thought it would turn out.

Yes, that's exactly what they expected.

They originally thought that as long as they overthrew everything from the old era, the good days of the new era would naturally come to them. They thought that what they were destroying was only filth and shackles, but they did not realize that everything did not work out according to their wishes.

Gaia lost.

Gu and Jun, two mortals who inexplicably and explosively ascended to sainthood, even grasping the rudiments of an inner universe in a very short time, were defeated. She originally had no physical form, but the phenomenon of decay still occurred in every corner of her body with her death. And her body—

—It is the entire multiverse itself.

She will die; she is already dead.

When she dies, the entire multiverse will also die.

While the allied forces of creation were still cheering their victory, still celebrating their triumph, and still dividing up the spoils of war, the phenomenon of collapse began to emerge from the edge of the multiverse. The multiverse's previously unstoppable growth and expansion abruptly ceased, and then, starting from the most distant, conceptual boundary, all things vanished into nothingness at an astonishing speed beyond the scale of time.

The infinite multiverse degenerated into the finite multiverse at the moment of Gaia's death.

It revealed a tangible boundary. The total number of universes in the multiverse also became measurable.

Moreover, the total number of these measurable universes is also decreasing rapidly at an unobservable rate.

No one knows how many of them disappeared, no one knows how they disappeared, no one knows what happened to them before they disappeared or the rate at which they disappeared. In fact… no one even realizes that they are disappearing.

Their destruction was silent, without a trace, without corpses. All records about them, and the records of the creatures born from them left in other universes, were silently forgotten as if they had never existed. Even if some of them participated in the war of creation and were actually part of this victory celebration, their demise remained completely unnoticed.

The allied forces were unaware that in winning everything, they had also lost everything. They cheered amidst mountains of corpses and seas of blood, completely oblivious to the dwindling numbers of their comrades—after all, these poor souls were few in number. And all of them were of foreign origin.

They are aliens, and they are not human.

In this battle that shattered the heavens, the number of mortals was not very large.

However, now, it is mortals who rule and control everything on this land.

They were unaware that several of their alien comrades had mysteriously disappeared, and while they were unaware, they didn't really care. After all, their most powerful enemy had fallen, so what else was there to worry about? In fact, in the current multiverse, only two individuals were aware of and concerned about this phenomenon.

Gu, and Jun.

A robust young man carrying a giant axe on his shoulder, and a bespectacled young man holding a jade tablet in his hand.

They now stand atop the highest heavens, above all others. And at that very metaphysical zenith, they gaze upon the billions of beings on the verge of destruction, and the multiverse inhabited by them.

They watched, they looked down, they remembered the faces that had perished, they remembered everything they and their comrades had sacrificed for this victory. And in this eternal silence and impending doom, one of them finally spoke first.

"From this day forward, nothing will be above man," Gu Ping said calmly, carrying an axe and looking like a weary old farmer. "Mortals will become the sole rulers of this world, and all living things, inanimate objects, or anything else will be inferior to them."

His words were powerful. The instant they were spoken, every 'human' in the entire multiverse felt joy and elation. And all living things other than 'humans' simultaneously felt an invisible burden suddenly weigh on their hearts.

"Your wish has been fulfilled, Gu." Jun looked indifferently at his only companion. "But we paid a very high price for it."

“It’s worth it.” Gu nodded, then continued, “And the price we have to pay is not just that. We haven’t done enough for humanity.”

That's not enough. So, what else needs to be done?

Jun gently stroked the jade tablet in his arms as he observed the entire multiverse. He quickly determined the exact time required for a universe to perish.

There are still many years. Although it's not a long time, it's still many, many, many years.

"The collapse of the multiverse is not a process that can be accomplished overnight. During this period, we have ample time to gather the mortals inhabiting the surrounding universes of the primordial world. And when everything is destroyed, or when that time comes, we can build a new multiverse on the ruins, free from any external interference," Jun suggested. He even drafted a preliminary plan for carrying out this project at the same time.

“That’s not enough, too many people will die.” But Gu replied, “We have already achieved final victory, there is no need for humanity to shed unnecessary blood.”

“Then we can directly send all mortals into our inner universe. After Gaia’s universe is eliminated, we can still construct a new multiverse.” Jun abandoned the above plan, changed some details, and created a new diagram.

“Still not enough,” Gu shook his head again. “I think mortals don’t need a new master.”

Jun adjusted his glasses. His hand froze for a moment, then he threw all the prepared plans into the trash can—he understood Gu's meaning. He also understood the unspoken implications behind the scenes.

"You mean, you and I should both die here?"

His voice was soft, and his tone held no particular emotion. He simply gazed at his only trusted companion, awaiting Gu's response.

There was no hesitation in Gu's conclusion.

“Yes,” Gu nodded. “I should die here, to open the heavens and unify the Dao into three parts. My death will be exchanged for Gaia’s complete death. Because I vaguely sense that she is not completely finished, and there are still some tricks left. This way I can delay her resurrection a little, and my inner universe will be reincarnated as the Human Emperor, protecting my mortal people while dealing with her last remnants.”

“You should die here too, Jun. Your death will redefine the order of heaven and earth, removing this already damaged multi-pillar structure. And implant the concept of ‘humanity as the eternal protagonist’ into it and confuse it with it. Let humanity take over the lost heavenly order, and from now on, all stories must have humans as the protagonists.”

“…Even if we don’t die, we might still be able to do this.” Jun’s gaze lowered slightly, but he was ultimately only offering a dissenting opinion rather than opposing it. “I can try to devise a plan that benefits both sides. We can personally support humanity to become the eternal protagonists. Or urge them to become protagonists instead of forcing them to grow like this.”

“I know,” Gu replied calmly, his gaze descending from the highest heavens to gaze upon the vast and boundless multiverse, which was transforming from infinity to finite.

He saw his comrades cheering their victory, setting out celebratory wine. He saw all things springing forth on the primordial continent, the mortals who had seized dominance huddled together in their new homes, their eyes greedily and longingly fixed on their spoils. He saw infants being born, babbling their first words. He saw youthful spirit, their blood boiling with passion and heroism. He saw the entire human race thriving, and a smile of satisfaction appeared on his face.

“But I insist on doing so.” He forced out the words with a smile, turning his head to look at his only companion.

“Jun, I don’t believe that anyone, anything, or any other thing should be above all mortals. Including Gaia, including us. Don’t you feel it? Our humanity is being stripped away, and the more we grow, the more serious it becomes. Perhaps soon we will become like Gaia, perhaps soon we will no longer care about the lives of mortals. And I don’t want that.”

“The Way of Heaven should not exist, and the intelligent individual in the position of the Way of Heaven and Earth should not exist, Jun.” His tone was sincere and urgent: “We have come this far, so let us finish the rest of the journey.”

Jun pushed up his glasses.

A blood-red river was reflected in those clear lenses.