Tonight, Alice joins the hunt.

“Rock solid,” Alice said softly.

"The prophet Moses struck the rock with his staff, and water came out of it."

“The Father’s angel struck the rock with his staff, and fire came from the rock.”

"So... is it water or fire?" Alice raised an eyebrow slightly.

She turned her head to look under the bed where the pebbles had been placed. The next moment, the bed in the room suddenly flipped up under the influence of gravity. Dust swirled, but the dust was instantly suppressed by the cold wind, and in less than half a second, what the prophet Lucinda had hidden under the bed appeared before her eyes.

It was a line of text, a line of text representing all mortals in this world.

'EVERYONE ELSE'

The puzzle of events was quickly pieced together in Alice's mind. She remembered clearly that in the prophetic drawing left by Lucinda, the number 'EE' was written in the position representing the number of people in the last disaster.

The end of the world, the apocalypse, the end of everything.

Everyone is going to die, and their time is coming soon; there are about five days left until the deadline.

She looked away from the bed and continued walking. In a fleeting moment, she spotted a mismatched piece of paper among the clippings covering the wall.

—It was a painting, an illustration depicting scenes from the Book of Revelation. In the painting, the Heavenly Father sat enthroned in the heavens like the sun, surrounded by trumpeting angels and the four living creatures that descended. His radiance poured down from the heavens, falling upon the earth as a raging fire that burned the earth and its thorns!

“Four living creatures… cherubim, angels.” She closed her eyes, then slowly opened them. “Looks like I’ve stumbled upon something unexpected…”

"Based on the previous intelligence, are you... planning to completely wipe out the Earth with the flames of the sun?"

She spoke calmly, questioning the sky obscured by the roof.

The next moment, she suddenly heard the sound of the earth rumbling.

The mountain collapsed, and large chunks of mud, sand, and rocks slid down from the top of the collapsed hill, causing the earth to tremble and compressed, turbid air to burst forth from the fissures underground.

"Methane." Alice chuckled softly, lightly stepping on the ground, her body passing through the roof and soaring into the sky. The next moment, the hut where Lucinda was located was swallowed by a fissure in the earth, releasing a vast amount of underground gas that shot into the sky at a speed comparable to Alice's flight!

“You should understand, this won’t kill me,” Alice said softly. She raised her hand, and a wisp of fire slid down before the gas surge could catch up with her. A cold wind blew by, as if trying to extinguish the flame, but another gust of wind hindered it, allowing the flickering flame to successfully descend.

The world in the girl's eyes turned pure white in that instant, followed by a sudden burst of shockwaves. She raised her hand, creating a barrier that blocked the shockwaves before they reached her. An ice storm then descended from the sky, surrounding her and ensuring her safety.

The land is buried with the remains of many Native Americans, which is why Alice can unleash powerful magic unrelated to the Church so easily.

The land beneath this area contains the remains of many Native Americans, and the accumulated remains and various humus deposits have formed a naturally occurring swamp.

“This method won’t kill me,” Alice repeated, her body continuing to rise under the force field. The pre-detonated swamp crater, however, was blocked by the descending ice storm. Boiling flames surged upwards like demonic claws reaching out from the ground, but their upward momentum was gradually slowing down.

"You have to do it yourselves."

She spread her hands, and more icy winds were summoned, gathering beneath her, swirling, and transforming into a massive vortex covering several kilometers. The vortex, mixed with fragments of frost, slowly pressed down on the raging fire surging from the ground, and the scattered flames were immediately swept away in all directions.

The flames were suppressed by the cold wind, while faint thunder rumbled in the sky. She looked up and saw an out-of-control plane plummeting from the heavens, its trajectory passing right over the very spot where she was standing!

"It's meaningless."

Alice said coldly, freeing one hand to simultaneously cast a new spell towards the sky. More wind gathered, slamming into the out-of-control plane like a hammer from the side!

However, at that crucial moment, a trigger-based alert spell engraved within her body made her heart skip a beat. Just moments ago, she sensed that a hidden detection spell she had placed in the church had been triggered—someone had left the church!

Damn it, I was overly cautious!

The girl cursed inwardly, but in that short time, the huge passenger plane that had crashed crossed the clear sky and arrived in front of her in an instant!

That's too late.

Alice's pupils suddenly contracted as she clearly saw a pair of enormous, pale wings on the trajectory of the crashing passenger plane!

'boom--!!!!!'

Chapter 44: Two Swords Attack Simultaneously

Being hit directly by a falling plane is no pleasant experience. Even using simple mathematical formulas, the total kinetic energy is at least two trillion joules. However… two trillion joules of kinetic energy is only equivalent to five hundred tons of TNT. This wouldn't be fatal for Alice, or to be more precise, it wouldn't even be considered a crisis.

The crashing plane plunged her into the massive crater of exploding methane gas, which triggered several more large-scale secondary explosions of flammable gases within the gas field. Flames and shockwaves tore the earth apart, turning the area where the small hill stood into a huge crater. Deep within the earth, even more complex geological movements rapidly occurred. Then, even more flammable gases erupted from the ground.

"The temperature outside the shield is close to four thousand degrees, which exceeds the heat that acetylene and oxygen can reach. It seems that the oxygen will soon run out. Tsk, all this trivial stuff."

Alice raised her hand, and the magical energy that had seeped into the fuselage exploded violently at the moment of impact. Amidst orange flames and flying metal fragments, the large passenger plane blocking her path was instantly dismantled into pieces. She casually dodged a few flying steel pipes and sharp metal pieces, stepping on the right side of the fuselage's internal structure to pass through the constantly exploding and burning cabin. Undoubtedly, there were no survivors on board, and seconds later she emerged from the tail section, traversing the scorching air and returning to the ground.

The explosions behind them continued, the crashed passenger plane triggering multiple explosions after hitting the crater. Flames and dust coalesced into clouds, rising into the sky to form a circular canopy thousands of meters high. A thick, murky wind then swept in all directions, filling everything in sight with dark red and light black smoke.

"Two layers of shields lost, seventeen layers remaining." Alice hovered silently about a thousand meters above the ground, watching the surging flames rapidly expand in all directions. The sound of sirens could be heard in the distance; a convoy of forest rangers and police was rushing in—with such a commotion, even with communication networks cut off, the naked eye could still see the crashing plane and the subsequent explosions and fires.

The surroundings gradually quieted down—not a complete silence, but a pure, singular sound. Alice pressed her hands down, and the ritual magic 'Traloc,' which had automatically stopped due to loss of control, resumed operation. A biting wind descended again, dispersing the smoke and extinguishing the flames, cutting off the flammable gas in the swamp crater. The cold, damp wind collided with the scorching smoke in mid-air, and rain immediately fell.

Warm rain, muddy rain.

Rain fell on the scorched ground, forming a thick fog. This fog then condensed again in the subsequent cold winds, turning into even more numerous falling droplets. Visibility gradually disappeared as swirling air currents of hot and cold air blurred the sky for kilometers around. Light was refracted into strange shapes by the distorted air, resulting in enormous rainbows in the sky.

A rainbow of nine colors, a ring-shaped rainbow.

The edges of the rainbow spread outwards, resembling the vast aurora borealis in the deep polar night.

[Rainbow Goddess Iris... Oh right, this isn't Europe, so using Greek magic isn't very convenient. Ah... That's why I hate America. Those barbarians, what kind of country are they, with no history or tradition?]

Alice pondered, and the two previously damaged shields were roughly repaired and restored in the brief ten seconds. She stared at the basin below where the mist was boiling, feeling slightly frustrated.

Death did not take any further action.

"Stopped...tsk, are they unwilling to put in real effort? Or...are they short-handed?" She turned her head, looking into the distance at the edge of her vision. After determining the direction and then extending it a long distance, she knew that the church she had previously arranged was located in that direction.

The straight-line distance is approximately 700 kilometers. Traveling there at full speed with an anti-gravity field activated would take about an hour. However, if one could pay some magic to forcibly construct a rainbow bridge over North America, this travel time could be reduced to just a few minutes.

So, should we do it this way?

"I'm not going." Alice shook her head slightly.

I had emphasized this repeatedly before leaving: do not touch those two trees or the snakes in them, and do not leave the ground covered by the main church building. Now that there's a 99% or higher probability that Death is an angel, the rest of the group should be safe as long as they stay inside the church. However, even so, the spell was still triggered, and someone still dared to leave that safe place.

Communications were cut off, and the north-central United States was too treacherous to march across due to massive rainfall and the hurricane created by the Wind Serpent. Even the possibility of a direct missile strike from above the clouds was eliminated by the Great Library hovering high in orbit. Therefore, it was clear that those remaining there would not face any external interference that would force them to leave the church.

Therefore, leaving would be a complete suicide mission. Alice had no interest in showing even the slightest pity to such an ungrateful person.

The spell was only triggered once, and only one person left. Therefore, at least the others remain inside.

[Fine, to prevent this from being a deliberate ploy by Death to sow discord, I'll send back the intelligence I've gathered here and see if those clever people can come up with anything new from it... Forget it, there's no need for me to hold a grudge. At this time, we need to make the most of every resource, so maintaining communication is essential.]

Alice drew a few runes in the air with her finger, and a complete intelligence document was quickly written by the automated AI in the Great Library. She then spent a few seconds verifying it before encrypting the document and sending it via satellite to the place where she needed to deliver the message.

[It's now almost certain that Death is an angel, and the world will be destroyed in five days by a solar attack. Based on previously gathered intelligence, this should be a powerful solar storm generated by a massive solar flare. Hmm, connecting to the satellite network and doing some calculations in the cloud...]

She tilted her head, deep in thought, her brain generating a tremendous amount of heat from its rapid processing. Her pretty face flushed, and the hot breath escaping from her mouth and nose quickly condensed into pale steam. After about fifty seconds, a precise answer appeared in her mind.

Five days from now, the sun will experience an unprecedented solar flare, releasing enough thermal rays and high-energy particles to completely vaporize an asteroid. And coincidentally, at that very moment, Earth's orbit will perfectly overlap with the flare's eruption path.

—The Earth's surface will be ablated; the high-temperature jets from the star's respiration will incinerate all life within a kilometer of the Earth's surface. The oceans will evaporate, and the Earth will revert to the ancient planetary era of three billion years ago. And then…

The world will once again be bathed in the light of the Father.

Reasoning is such a tedious thing; everything seen will remain ambiguous and vague until the final pieces of the puzzle are in place. However, once all the elements are obtained, the truth will appear in the eyes of the reasoner.

This world… or rather, the human civilization on this planet, was predetermined by angels in ancient times. They established order for this world, stipulating that history could only develop in the direction of a pre-written script. When will there be what kind of civilization, when will what kind of war occur, how many people will die, how many will live, who will come first, who will come last, who will be fast, who will be slow—all these variables were decided from the very beginning.

They wrote the script for humanity's millennia-long history, and then on October 17th, 2009, they brought everything to a close. Everything would end there; human civilization would be completely wiped from this planet, and then, depending on the circumstances, it could begin anew, or another civilization could remain on this world.

Alice didn't know why the angels wanted to destroy the world. Perhaps it was because the experiment was over and the site needed to be reset, or perhaps history was only written up to October 2009 and had to end, or even that they were just bored and decided to create the destruction of a civilization for fun... All these explanations were possibilities. However, they couldn't be verified. After all, the channels for obtaining information were insufficient, and mere speculation was meaningless.

However, they still have a weakness, and that weakness lies with these Awakeners.

If all that's needed is to correct the future and ensure history doesn't deviate, then the Awakeners have no reason to exist. No one needs to predict the future; the angels themselves can make everything unfold naturally. The very existence of the Awakeners proves their existence is necessary.

Alice took a deep breath. She had hovered high in the air for so long, yet death had not struck again, and she knew this confrontation was over. No, it wasn't a confrontation, merely a warning.

The angels haven't shown themselves; they're merely manipulating the minuscule odds of this world to fight me—this won't kill me, nor will the solar storm that will only erode one kilometer of the earth's surface five days from now. To defeat me and Patches, they must reveal their true forms and unleash precise, focused, and targeted supernatural power. Therefore, they will definitely appear after the fifth day. And that will be the real challenge.

But I can't wait until then. I won't do something as foolish as watching the enemy's plan succeed while I do nothing. I need to take the initiative, disrupt their rhythm, and ruin their plans. The spells at the church should have a restraining effect on angels, but the magic power is insufficient, and the intensity of the ritual might not be enough to restrain those angels. So... I'll need the cooperation of those people over there.

As for me, I have other things to do.

She deftly turned in mid-air and flew towards the city center not far away. The modern data storage system gave her many conveniences; although it was top secret to ordinary people in this world, she could easily know everything she needed to know.

For example...

The list of the Apocalypse's founders.

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

Zhang Heng felt like he was dreaming, a blurry, hazy dream. In the dream, his girlfriend forgave him for his actions, just as he always saw in his deepest, most beautiful dreams. She forgave him, and the two reconciled.

And what should they do after making up? Naturally, they kiss, embrace, two uneasy hands slowly approaching, touching, and holding tightly. Then they walk together along the beach at night, a cool night breeze blowing, the only sound the 'whoosh' of the waves. Under the bright moonlight, two trembling hearts slowly draw closer…

near……

The person before me gradually became blurry, and the tender words that touched my heart gradually faded into inaudibility. Finally, the whole world seemed to be shrouded in the gentle moonlight, and everything returned to chaos.

He instinctively reached out, trying to grasp that sliver of cool moonlight. But the instant he touched the glow, a numbing sensation, as if struck by lightning, pierced his body.

wake up.

Everything is nothingness.

Zhang Heng sighed and slowly lowered his outstretched hand. But just then, he found himself outside the window—he simply took a light half-step forward and silently stepped onto the church's exterior decorations, landing on the ground outside the second-floor window.

"I'm out." He looked at his hands, then at his feet. His gaze swept from left to right, then back to left.

Nothing happened.

Perhaps I should go back... The witch said not to leave the church; there might be danger outside.

He thought to himself, but just as he was about to turn back, the image of that cool moonlight resurfaced in his mind.

It was cool and quiet, as if the soul had been cleansed. Any fleeting thoughts that had just arisen were instantly extinguished and turned into nothingness.

No, I don't need to go back. I know exactly what I'm doing; it's my own decision, and I should see it through to the end.

Those two witches are untrustworthy—others are never trustworthy. She probably left us in the church to use us as bait, as experimental subjects—yes, that must be it, otherwise why would everyone else be here while the two of them are hiding?

She's definitely trying to use us as bait, tsk... everyone else's been fooled. I need to expose them and prove this place is in danger.

He thought to himself, but his body moved on its own. When he came to his senses again, he was already on the street outside the church—it wasn't raining, and the cool breeze was perfect for going out.

He decided to explore the surrounding area.

Section 45. Using Nine: A Group of Dragons Without a Leader

Zhan Lan raised an eyebrow, opened her eyes, and gazed at the town outside the church as if through the church walls. Just six seconds ago, she had detected Zhang Heng's departure from the church through a mental scan—although her expression remained calm, her heartbeat subconsciously quickened.