I don't want to conquer witches anymore.

Chapter 316 I Provide Music for You with My Soul

Alice blinked, looking somewhat confused, and asked:

"Am I... the future savior?"

“Not necessarily. I suspect you are the ‘John ​​Connor’ of this world, but not necessarily a savior in a good sense. It’s even possible that the opposite is true. You are actually the destroyer of the world, and the attackers traveled back in time to kill you in order to save the world.” Duke rolled his eyes and poured cold water on Alice without any mercy. “The latter possibility is even more likely. After all, I have already seen your potential to destroy the world.”

The Song of Destruction.

For a small, incomplete, and illogical world like Witch Game, this move is simply the most powerful strategic weapon of mass destruction. For this small world, the Song of Destruction, which can trigger disasters and cause the rules to collapse due to loopholes, is a more terrifying strategic weapon than any nuclear bomb or forbidden spell.

Back in that world of dinosaurs and ants, if the ultimate deterrent hadn't been a meteorite, but rather two powerful hymns of destruction, the world would probably have been destroyed faster than a meteorite hitting the Earth.

Such power was unprecedented. Duke had only heard that Jasmine had mastered this exclusive spell, but at that time he was still inside Talia's "belly" and had not been able to see the power of the Song of Destruction with his own eyes. Now he could finally fulfill his wish and see the real thing on Alice.

Why?

Alice struggled to break free from Duke's embrace and swam to his side, swimming forward alongside him. As a natural mermaid, Alice's swimming talent was unmatched by Duke. Even with Duke's divine body and the added advantages of strength and speed, he couldn't compete with the mermaid's natural advantages. So, before long, it was Alice pulling Duke's hand and accelerating forward.

While swimming forward, Alice retorted with dissatisfaction:

Why would I want to destroy the world?

"How should I know? Maybe it's because all the merfolk were wiped out, so you're just giving up and planning to destroy the whole world with them?"

Duke said it casually, but as soon as he said it, Alice fell silent. Although she had no memory of it, she still felt a little guilty—a voice in her heart was telling her that Duke was right.

If the mermaids were really wiped out, Alice felt she might just go all out and destroy the world.

Alice thought for a moment, then asked, "When will I become the savior of the world?"

"If saving the world could protect your last remaining treasure, you would choose to save the world without hesitation, wouldn't you?" Duke raised an eyebrow. "For example, if the kingdom were destroyed and most of the merfolk were killed, but someone negotiated with you, saying that if you chose to save the world, you and your remaining companions could survive, return to normal life, and have the right to happiness, would you still destroy the world?"

“…No.” Alice shook her head. Duke really understood her better than she did, which left the little mermaid somewhat bewildered. “Unless…”

"Unless that person betrays you after using you, or has been lying to you from the beginning, saving the world doesn't really save the world."

Duke abruptly stopped speaking, and at the same time, he suddenly pulled Alice, who was swimming forward, back to the spot with a sudden force. He raised his other hand, took out the Mute's Dagger, and pointed it forward.

A robot appeared on their inevitable path.

It looks like a robot designed based on a tape recorder, about the same height as Duke, with two simple and crude speakers on its chest. The design looks somewhat cheap, the kind of robot that would be ruined if it got wet. However, it is standing in the deep sea and is not affected by the seawater.

Its head turned toward Duke and Ellie, and a speaker on its chest rang out, playing aggressive music on the seabed.

A tremendous roar resounded. The human voice and volume were naturally no match for the machine. The seawater began to vibrate due to the intense sound waves, stirring up the seabed and creating a whirlpool!

Duke's body was pulled by the flowing seawater, and he did his best to avoid being swept into the whirlpool.

But the recording robot's target is not Duke.

The sound of "divine punishment" rang out from its speakers, and it addressed Alice, saying:

"Surrender and let us end this endless cycle!"

The vortex was closer to Alice, and her physical strength was far inferior to that of Duke, who possessed a divine body. She was immediately drawn into the vortex and could not escape the strong suction no matter how she twisted.

Clearly, for Heavenly Punishment and the forces it represents, neither making Alice a savior nor a destroyer is the right answer, because it's obvious that no matter which option Alice chooses, the world will enter a cycle of reincarnation. Therefore, the only worthwhile action for Heavenly Punishment is to kill Alice.

However, perhaps Alice is not the only target of divine punishment; she is merely the "first priority." Since there is a first priority, there must be a second and third priority... It's just that Alice is the strongest tide singer among the mermaids, capable of easily using the Song of Destruction, which is why she is listed as the first priority.

No wonder Ida made me find a way to learn the Song of the Soul!

With that thought in mind, Duke reached out without hesitation and placed his hand on the three lines of the Soul Requiem score on his chest.

Then, the love song he had recorded earlier started playing.

Alice, still struggling, paid no attention to the love song, seemingly unaffected by her own singing. But then, Divine Punishment suddenly turned its head, stared at Duke, and emitted a mechanical, synthesized voice:

"Is that Alice's voice?"

"Yes." Duke smiled slightly, the Mute Dagger still pointed at it. Looking at Duke's calm expression, it would never guess that he only had this one single from Alice. "So, does it remind you of your lover?"

"I am an intelligent AI, I have no lover," Tianfa said calmly. "According to Article 3 of the Emergency Supplementary Regulations, any creature that possesses the Song of Alice's Soul will be considered the first priority for hunting."

At the same time, its speakers began to warm up, seemingly preparing to unleash a second vortex to capture Duke as well.

However, Duke remained calm and composed, waved his hand at it to stop the love song, and said with a light laugh:

"Don't rush me. Besides Alice's singing, I have another unique skill that I'd like you to evaluate."

After saying that, he placed his hand on his chest again.

Then, the stirring requiem for the soul resounded throughout the world!

"Alice, sing out loud! I will set the tone for you with my soul!"

Chapter 317 War and Peace 4k2

The stirring requiem for the soul resounded, and the whole world was immersed in the resonance of this music.

"Alice, sing out loud! I will set the tone for you with my soul!"

Alice looked at Duke in astonishment, while the Heavenly Punishment also pointed its speakers at Duke and spoke as if facing a formidable enemy, using a synthesized electronic voice: "Attention all members of the Heavenly Punishment Project, this man's priority has been adjusted to T0, and he is now on the kill list ahead of Alice."

Soul songs have a limited range. Even the strongest Tide Singer, Alice, has her soul song limited in scope. It cannot directly touch everything in the world like Duke's Soul Requiem. To put it bluntly, these two are similar but completely different things. However, neither Alice nor the Heavenly Punishment realized this at the moment.

As inhabitants of this world, they have their own unique limitations in thinking. They instinctively tense up when they hear a sound similar to a song of the soul. A song of the soul that can affect the entire world is an unheard-of miracle for them. Therefore, their astonishment and their overreaction are normal.

The only problem is...

A soul requiem is not a song of the soul.

Duke closed his eyes and felt the Soul Requiem. Its essence was the "noise" generated by the resonance between his soul and the rules of the world. Before he possessed a divine body, Duke had deduced the essence of the Soul Requiem. However, after obtaining a divine body, he was able to understand the Soul Requiem more intuitively and directly.

Or rather, through the soul's requiem, one can understand the rules of the world.

"I'm now certain that this world has indeed been rebooted countless times. The underlying rules of this world are riddled with scars and remnants. The constant reboots have brought this world to the brink of complete collapse... However, it seems that Alice's Song of Destruction and Jasmine's Song of Destruction are not entirely the same in nature. They probably cannot truly destroy the world, but can only further burden it."

"But restarting isn't the most important rule in this world, and ouch—that hurts..."

Duke suddenly felt a sharp pain in his brain, and he bent over, clutching his forehead and groaning in pain. Analyzing the rules of the world was an immense burden for him. In the past, he had entrusted the task entirely to Soul Requiem, which was why he was able to steal the seeds of power from those witch games. However, because the acquisition of power was a spontaneous act of Soul Requiem, the number of power seeds he could acquire each time was always small.

If Duke were to actively use Soul Requiem to analyze the world, the power he could obtain would certainly be much greater than before... However, he cannot do such a thing yet—perhaps once he raises the strength of his soul to the legendary level, he might be able to do so.

Duke will then be a cheat code player with a built-in "Gate of Truth," able to crack any witch game at a glance, and no matter how harsh the world rules are, they won't be a problem for him.

But now is not the time; he cannot do it, nor is it necessary for him to do it.

Duke played the Soul Requiem not to analyze the world, but to help Alice.

He urged again:

"Sing, Alice!"

Alice took a deep breath, hid behind Duke, closed her eyes, and listened quietly to the melody, rhythm, and drumbeats of the Soul Requiem. She began to try humming along to the tune.

A certain power began to spread, and with the effect of the Soul Requiem, it spread throughout the world.

"Focus fire."

Faced with this scene, the Heavenly Punishment's eyes flashed red light continuously. According to its simple analysis, Ellie alone was enough to destroy the world, and Duke's threat might be even greater than Ellie's. If the two of them cooperated, the effect would definitely be greater than the sum of its parts!

Its chest-mounted speaker began to gather power, then emitted a deafening roar, creating a large vortex where Duke and Ellie were located. It then suddenly swung towards the sky and roared:

"Code name: Divine Punishment, launch!"

Space-based weapons above the water locked onto Duke and Ellie, who were located in the deep seabed. Then, the divine punishment that destroyed the Coral descended from the sky!

Duke and the others had been in the captain's cabin and hadn't seen what kind of attack destroyed the Coral. But now they finally understood: the Coral was destroyed by a high-temperature laser weapon that fell from the sky!

The laser weapon, accompanied by a piercing burning sound, pierced into the deep sea. Due to the nature of water as a medium, the laser beam dispersed, transforming from a single beam into a dazzling array of colorful clusters of light that scattered around Duke and Alice's location.

Seeing this, Duke did not hesitate to pick up Alice, take out his cheat device, and activate the "teleport" function. In the next instant, he appeared in the sea a hundred meters away with Alice, avoiding the spot that had instantly turned into a sea of ​​fire. Then, enduring the dizziness that made his head spin, he carried Alice and continued swimming forward.

Among cheat items, the "teleportation" function is probably the most convenient and least costly option. The side effect of teleportation only takes effect during the time you would otherwise waste on the road. For example, if Duke were to teleport 100 meters, which would normally only take him three or four seconds to run, then the side effect of teleportation would only last for three or four seconds.

Because Duke's absolute speed was already very fast (after all, he was a wanderer known for his agility), and with the added bonus of his divine body, the side effects of teleportation were almost negligible for Duke! He would only feel uncomfortable for three or four seconds after teleporting a hundred meters.

Duke ran away, but the soul-stirring requiem that resonated throughout the world did not stop. Alice, who was carried away by Duke, was still feeling the tone of this requiem and began to work on the lyrics.

The space-based weapon didn't stop its pursuit either, laser beams chasing after Duke and Alice who were constantly teleporting, destroying everything in their path. But no matter how fast the lasers were, they couldn't catch up with Duke, who teleported randomly every three or four seconds. His reaction speed, enhanced by his divine body, had become extremely abnormal. He could even activate his cheat item to teleport away just as the laser was about to hit them, dodging the attack and creating distance, forcing the space-based weapon to waste time calculating and locking onto its target again.

As the chase intensified, Duke realized that the space-based weapon, which appeared to be a laser, was not actually a laser at all, but rather an attack formed by the scorching sound of burning heat—the sound came first, not the light. It was precisely because the weapon's maximum speed was only the speed of sound, not the speed of light, that Duke was able to easily evade it with Alice!

"Duke! Duke!"

Like a headless fly, Duke suddenly heard a voice calling him. He looked over instinctively and saw a woman who looked very familiar, but whose body was so strange that he didn't want to admit he knew her.

Annie, who had just fallen behind, was standing in that direction, waving at them and calling out loudly, "Duke, over here!"

At this point, her mutations went beyond just having two long arms. In addition to those two long arms, she had also added three more fish tails to her original fish tail, which extended in different directions. The two newly grown arms were like lush trees, sprouting new arms as branches, forming a pair of terrifying wings with arms that could trigger trypophobia. At the same time, a basket made of skeletal arms was attached to Anne's lower back, making it look like a truck.

She flapped her "wings" and large fishtail, propelling herself through the water at an astonishing speed, faster than most mermaids and even faster than Duke, who occasionally teleported. Stephanie, meanwhile, sat trembling inside the basket made of skeletal arms, hugging her knees, too afraid to move.

This indescribable scene shocked even Duke, who had expected it. Stephanie and Alice, who were normal people, were even more shocked. The Little Mermaid, who was still thinking about the HITSONG, was so frightened that she burst into tears. She didn't even have time to think about the song anymore. She buried her face in Duke's chest, pale, and didn't dare to look at the terrifying Annie.

"...I'm starting to feel that entrusting the Bone Transformation to you was a mistake."

"Relax, these are all exoskeletons, they're not actually connected to nerves. I can just remove them later, right?" Annie stuck out her tongue. She seemed to know that her aesthetic sense was different from ordinary people, but with her unique aesthetic ability, she didn't care how shocking her current appearance was. As an extreme pragmatist, she continued to call out to Duke: "Come here quickly, I can help you shake off the pursuers!"

"Okay... okay."

Duke agreed somewhat reluctantly, but still activated his teleportation ability, instantly entering the bone basket that Annie was dragging behind him, which caused Alice to scream.

But Anne didn't care about any of that.

"Yay! Anne, let's go!"

After all the passengers were "safely seated," she chuckled, her fan-shaped fish tails spreading out together, and her arms, which resembled tree wings, taking flight in an instant, leaving the heavenly punishment, their space-based weapons, and even their voices behind her!

The underwater scenery around us began to recede rapidly.

The resistance of the water flow did not slow down Annie, who had undergone drastic modifications to herself. She fully unleashed her abnormal characteristics—she didn't even treat herself as a human being, but rather as an experimental subject. With her absurd bone-changing abilities and utterly shameless moral standards, she easily accomplished things that normal people could hardly imagine.

The Anne's underwater journey amazed her three passengers, but it did not amaze the heartless intelligent AI.

The camera of the Heavenly Punishment locked onto the speeding Annie, focusing on Duke and Alice, whom she had taken away, and a mechanical electronic voice began to weave a song.

In this world, all power is based on song. Therefore, as the most powerful Tide Singer, Alice will become the first target of the Heavenly Punishment. She is capable of becoming both the savior and the destroyer of the world, and in most possibilities, she will be the key factor in whether the world restarts.

As the enemy of the mermaids, Heavenly Punishment also possesses such power.

The vortexes it created earlier, the space-based weapons it used to destroy cities, were all based on the power of song… but these “songs” sounded more concise, like the simple sound effects in a song. This is a characteristic of AI, or perhaps its limitation. It is precisely because of this limitation that they cannot compete with the fully grown Alice, and can only try to stifle her growth before she matures.