Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

Zhan Lan covered her forehead with a melancholy expression, raised her eyes, and watched as the furnishings inside this Ark world were constantly being corrected and updated at a high speed of hundreds of times per second.

—That was clear evidence of the continuous alteration of the past timeline. Her companions, the ingenious Miss Patchouli and Miss Alice, and their adversaries, had repeatedly interfered with the past, triggering dramatic changes that reflected in the present. She saw the decorative style on the ground change fifteen times in half a second, saw the doors on both sides of the corridor constantly increase, decrease, and change materials. She saw the spirit servants responsible for maintenance constantly shifting positions in the corridor as if they were appearing in the blink of an eye. For a moment, her vision simply vanished, the entire Ark world annihilated by the erasure of its source.

She was exposed to the starry sky. Of course, two seconds later, another starship appeared at her location, its structure and style completely different from the previous Ark world. The Eldar, who should have been asleep and enjoying themselves in the endless loops, were awakened in this starship and, like ignorant masses in the Middle Ages, prayed to the Eldar gods in the temple inside the spaceship.

The corridor where she had been standing had been converted into a church. She saw the Eldar chanting scriptures like ascetics while whipping themselves. Ha, it was obvious that the Eldar gods had encountered a great crisis in the past and were using this method to exploit their believers. Clearly, they were facing defeat.

Zhan Lan shook her head, as if in denial.

And then, in the next moment, the solemn church before her was transformed, due to historical revisionism, into a venue for a mad feast. The Eldar priests who were devoutly praying one moment were now indulging in a drunken revelry the next. They enjoyed the treasures and delicacies plundered from various worlds, savoring precious nectars. Then, amidst decadent music, they embraced each other, corrupting and degenerating like rotting reptiles—

Then, the past was revised once again.

One moment, the scene was one of extravagant debauchery, at best a typical underground bar in modern Shanghai, but it was replaced once more. A stench of foul-smelling liquid, blood, and shattered organs mingled together. A filthy place, resembling a cult ritual, appeared before Zhan Lan. She heard screams of agony, the cracking of bones breaking, and saw a grotesque, genetically engineered beast embracing a slender spirit girl, devouring her flesh and engaging in wanton mating. The faint moans of pleasure emanating from it suggested that the seemingly pitiful victim was clearly enjoying herself!

What utter depravity!

Zhan Lan sighed. Clearly, the Eldar gods were being brutally beaten. She had only casually accessed the memories of an Eldar hedonist and discovered that, in that hedonist's mind, the Eldar gods' image in mythology was virtually identical to these people now. Apart from the long-lost God of War, Kane, and a few others who remained chaste, all the Eldar gods were currently living a life of debauchery reminiscent of Greek mythology. And as the saying goes, what goes up must come down; if the gods were like this, mortals naturally couldn't escape it either.

It is evident that the script of this universe is operating steadily, guided by the will of the writers of Middle-earth and the demons.

In the original Warhammer universe, four thousand years in the past, the Eldar civilization would fall into corruption, leading to the birth of the Lord of Pleasure and the destruction of the original gods. And now, in the End of War universe, everything recorded in that era is about to be replicated.

Pitiful mortals, pitiful race, pitiful civilization, pitiful gods.

But what good is just being pitiful?

Zhan Lan gazed at everything before her, feeling neither joy nor sorrow. She knew perfectly well why she had arrived at this place at this time and why she had chosen this ark.

For it is her will, her power. It is her nature and responsibility as the Hooked Bird. For she foresaw and decided that this place, this ark, would be the source of the Eldar's calamity in the modern era.

The scene before her eyes changed once again.

This time, she could barely see a complete Eldar—she only saw a mass, or rather, a clump of living flesh forcibly crammed together using technology, psionic energy, or simply brute force. From that white mass extended hundreds, even thousands, of hands and feet—some slender, some twisted, some pale, some deformed. And at the end of each bizarre limb was an Eldar face, some pretty, some handsome. And—

—Singing at the top of one's lungs.

The evil temple vanished. In its place stood a magnificent plaza, its architecture almost solemn and grand. Sculptures of all the Eldar gods were placed in the most majestic and sacred poses along the perimeter of this circular plaza. Their gazes looked down upon the distorted anomaly located at the center of the plaza, above the offering altar.

This is art.

This is the art that flourished at this point in time after the history of the Eldar was revised many times—this race, this civilization, regarded such acts as sacred and beautiful. They devoutly used themselves as materials to create these works and offered them as sacrifices to the gods they revered.

Everything had finally reached its final stage, when the sacrifice—which completely negated the existence of a race's gods—was offered by the devout members of that race. The shameless massacre of a true divine group by the transcendent race was finally coming to an end.

Of course, this is just a prelude. The real blade that will kill the Spirit Race gods is actually the corruption and evil of the Spirit Race that they have always wanted to eradicate but have never succeeded in eliminating—they gained their power because of the Spirit Race's endless will, and naturally, they will be dragged into the abyss when that will transforms into resentment. Just like the fate that the deposed human emperor would have originally suffered, the Spirit Race gods clearly lack the will and magnanimity of an emperor.

Zhan Lan turned her head away.

Beside her, a stranger with a familiar face was sitting on the same bench she was sitting on.

Blonde hair, blue eyes, the hands of a puppeteer—and this stranger's clothes were different from Alice's blood-red dress.

“Alice from the Demons,” Zhan Lan said, uttering her name.

“Long time no see, Zhan Lan.” The clone Alice nodded to her.

"You recognize me?"

"When I was copied over, the original had just finished its first exploration of the world of Gods and Demons." The clone Alice's lips curled up. "Of course I know you, Zhan Lan. When I opened my eyes in the Demon Team's main square, I was able to avoid being beaten up by Zheng Zha on my side by giving you your name in time. Strictly speaking, I still owe you a favor."

"So you're not planning to make a move?"

"Why would I take action? Is there some deep-seated hatred between Zhongzhou and demons?" The clone Alice tilted her head slightly, frowning with a puzzled expression. "Is it because of what Luo Hao did? That was just playful banter between beings beyond the same species. If you feel uncomfortable, I can apologize to Miss Sirin on her behalf."

“No need!”—Cirin’s voice drifted from afar, then vanished without a trace after those brief words.

So the clone Alice shrugged, looking helpless.

There's no way around it; for a transcendent being, a mere single universe is far too insignificant. It's as small as a tiny hallway, only three meters square. Even if someone lowers their voice, a conversation spoken in one corner can be clearly heard even from the opposite end of the diagonal line.

The world is so small. At least, it is so small to them.

"So, you've come to repay that favor from back then?" Zhan Lan turned around and continued watching the sacrificial ceremony. "If this kind of thing can be considered a favor, then favors are far too cheap—I don't really believe it."

She sensed Alice, the clone beside her, shrug a second time.

Whether you believe it or not is your business. Whether I repay this favor or not is my business. I feel it is, and that is it to me. If I feel I have repaid it, then it is repaid.

“…You really are a egotistical person.” Zhan Lan’s eye twitched.

"Thank you for the compliment, but you are just as good." The clone Alice nodded, acknowledging the praise.

—What she considers praise.

Following closely, the sacrificial ceremony came to an end under the watchful eyes of the clone Alice—she and Zhan Lan watched as the offerings on the altar, imbued with reverence and pure faith, vanished in a radiant glow. In the next instant, the chain reaction, having finally crossed the critical point, suddenly erupted throughout every corner of the Eldar civilization.

In that instant, all the statues of the Eldar gods came to life. They roared and tried to escape, but endless strings of puppets shot out from the void, binding them tightly. For billions of years, all the Eldar's corruption, evil, and darkness had gathered into a tide. And the tide, flowing along the net of puppet strings, engulfed them all in the blink of an eye!

They roared, but to no avail. They struggled, but to no avail.

The many spirit races who witnessed all this looked on in horror at their own struggles, roars, cries, and pleas within the dense web of the dark tides. Something called courage turned to dust in their hearts. And the moment the last brave one disappeared, from behind each living idol and each bound deity, a pair of slender hands reached out.

The clone Alice's hands, the clone Alice's arms, the clone Alice's upper body, and they all wore blood-red dresses.

Their hands reached out from behind the gods, then embraced these pitiful deities as if holding lovers. The gods dissolved and crumbled rapidly in their embrace, turning into streams of blood that seeped into their long skirts amidst screams and pleas.

At this moment, almost all the gods of the Eldar perished. They lost the battle in the source world online, and naturally, they also lost the battle at the end of the world line, in the 'present'. There should have been members of a reincarnation team hidden among them, but now they have been completely erased, leaving not even their names behind.

And the 'now' time is three seconds after the main god's teleportation ended. Several more tens of seconds will pass before Sirin leaves the Jingyuan Federation. And two seconds ago, of the fifteen reincarnation teams participating in the final battle, only eight... seven had perished.

So, just minutes before Celine eliminated the New East America team, this Reincarnation team, which had vanished without a name and without a trace of its own, became the new losers, exiting the stage in eighth place.

But this is not the end.

Section Seventeen: Khorne and Slaanesh

Time stood still—Zhan Lan raised a finger to pause it.

"How many reincarnation teams are left now?"

The clone of Alice remained seated beside her, still exuding that leisurely, elegant, and unhurried demeanor. The Elven gods she had devoured and assimilated just moments before couldn't even elicit a burp from her. Their existence and demise were probably less important to the clone of Alice than her conversation with Zhan Lan.

“You can consider there to be six teams left.” The clone Alice glanced at the East America team, which would be wiped out a few minutes later. “We are the Demon Team, you are the Central Continent Team. There are also three old friends, India and Senzhou, and the West Sea, which is barely surviving. And one last piece of extra information, the Atlantis Team.”

"Atlantis Team?" Zhan Lan raised an eyebrow.

"Well, among the Celestial Team that you defeated, the survivor Luo Yinglong arrived at the Atlantis Team through a random team transfer. That's also the team where Luo Hao's true identity is located. At the same time, as far as I know, the Atlantis Team has also recruited several outcasts like me, Patchi, or your Sirin in the low-level team battles. Given enough time, it can be said that this team's potential is second only to the Central Continent and the Demons."

“It seems like they would be a formidable competitor… Are you planning to eliminate them beforehand?” Zhan Lan asked. “I haven’t seen any trace of their activity in the current universe.”

“They’ve simply gone into hiding,” the clone Alice shrugged. “They’re hiding in some remote and secluded place in another universe outside the main battlefield. After all, even if none of them are of the transcendent species, the Supreme God will allow them to return to their source world or other external universes they’ve experienced through karmic links. And as long as they don’t show themselves, there’s nothing we can do about them for the time being—unless we just blow up this finite multiverse.”

"I suspect there are transcendent species among them."

“That’s for sure.” The clone Alice sniffed in a human-like manner to show her agreement. “To be able to hide right under our noses, their team, even if they don’t have a Transcendent level member, must be possessing a Transcendent level treasure. But the absolute difference in strength is too great. Even if each of these four Reincarnation Teams has a Transcendent level member, they will still be at a significant disadvantage against either of our two teams.”

"After all, although unlocking the fourth stage of the gene lock is also considered a type of transcendent species, there is still a huge difference in size between small pebbles and flying peaks. The fourth stage is not without ways to kill transcendent individuals below the fourth stage, which is why they hide and never show their faces—until they accumulate enough power to contend with us."

She shrugged.

"There's no other way. Time may be meaningless to us transcendent beings, but if any of them can become a transcendent being within this meaningless time, then he or she can define time, anchoring that period of time and thus giving value to those meaningless moments. And that's all they can do, because it's the only way for them to win this war."

Zhan Lan pondered for half a second... pondered for half a second in this paused time.

"……alliance?"

“That’s a possibility.” The clone Alice nodded. “After all, this war is simple in some ways, but quite complex in others. You should know that you yourself are one of the triggers for the war outside, and the war here is more important to the outside participants than the war they are fighting—they will try every means to inject their forces into it.”

"So their investments have failed eight times."

"To be precise, it's seven times. After all, the eighth time hasn't been completed yet at this point, and there might still be some variables."

"Do you mean I should go over there now to get some insurance?" Zhan Lan frowned. "Or are you planning to tell me that Luo Hao went to fight with Xilin, just for this? 'Support' and 'correction' for an uncertain future? Is that what you mean?"

She asked, but the clone Alice just chuckled and did not give a direct answer.

And then, time began to flow.

In the macrocosm, the banished Eldar God of War returns from the depths of the Galactic Heart. He raises his sword to the heavens, roaring furiously at the shallow source of all this calamity, the warp that nurtures the power of the four supreme gods—

--"Come!"

His fighting figure was reflected in the depths of the souls of all intelligent beings in the galaxy at that moment, giving them, especially the spirit race, the passion and fighting spirit to resist and fight.

However, this spark vanished in the next instant—

The instant His challenge was uttered, a crimson blade of light pierced the air from the depths of warp. It arrived above the Eldar God of War in the blink of an eye. And this single strike contained the full power that a supreme deity could wield!

From ancient times to the present, from the past to the future, from time to space. This slash of light struck every node on the timeline held by the God of War, Kane. It struck every cell, every gene fragment, every molecule, every atom, every string, every wave. It struck every smallest quantum segment of everything He possessed!

—And the God of War decided to fight to the very end.

And so, in the next instant, all the Spirit Race who had just mustered a little courage, all the intelligent beings whose hearts were filled with passion upon witnessing the divine pronouncement, saw the same scene in their perceptions.

They saw the giant raise his sword to the sky, saw the unstoppable force of the falling blade. They saw the flawless divine body shatter under that single strike. They saw the fall and demise of the god.

The Eldar's War, the first and currently only 'War' born in this single universe, this finite multiverse, was utterly annihilated on the battlefield through the means of war.

His life and soul shattered completely, disintegrating into a thousand independent fragments that fell into the depths of the starry sea.

His fate ended there, and until the end of the world, when all things were in twilight, he was powerless and had no chance to recover.

He died.

Also dying was the last vestige of courage that the Eldar were about to unleash.

With His death, in the Warp, Khorne, one of the four supreme divine powers, was finally proven. The blood-stained bronze throne rose in the realm of war. Its radiance bathed everything in the universe that could be called "sky," turning it crimson. Countless invisible war hounds then surged forth, relentlessly attacking the depths of the souls of all sentient beings, igniting a scarlet fire of struggle within their hearts.

Therefore, all living beings in the world crave war.

At the same moment, right before Zhan Lan, at the spatial coordinates where the sacrifice was completed, a deep, hollow abyss appeared—a rift between the mortal realm and the subspace, a symbol of the supreme divine power invoked by the sins of the Eldar proving its existence. The instant it appeared, it surged forth in all directions, instantly covering most of the Milky Way!

The birth of supreme divine power requires sacrifices.

The sacrifice was the corruption of the entire Spirit Race.

The moment desire and emotion gained their masters, every surviving Eldar soul in the entire galaxy was marked with a symbol—regardless of birth or death, strength or weakness, resilience or cowardice. Their souls were labeled 'food' at that instant. An unspeakable terror then enveloped them, seeping into their very bones, freezing their very blood. One by one, the arks that once nested among the stars were extinguished, and those once noble civilizations turned to dust.

Alice, the clone beside Zhan Lan, disappeared.

When she reappeared, she was already seated with her clone Patchouli on the Throne of Desire deep within the warp. The first fallen Eldar souls became their first servants, and their fingertips then fell, commanding these primordial slaves to play the Song of a Thousand Passions and Desires.

The second supreme divine power is evidenced. Its name is Sinai, and when it appeared in the world, all fluids in the universe that could be called 'water' were dyed a deep purple. And all sentient beings in the world were thus filled with desire for all things.

Zhan Lan turned and left through the hole that had now transformed into a giant vortex. The warp storm that had swept across most—and now almost covered the entire galaxy—had destroyed all communication systems in the galaxy. The Eldar were nearly completely corrupted, the imprisoned Orcs were liberated, and the second most powerful mortal kingdom in the galaxy, besides the Eldar, suffered extremely severe damage as a result.

The connections between planets have been severed.