The collapse started when Kiana came to the door

She was so angry that she almost lost her mind, but the feeling of powerlessness all over her body made Mei Raiden realize that she must not let meaningless anger dominate her brain.

Has he been temporarily recalled by the Herrscher of Corrosion? Qianjie's figure could not be seen in the air or on the ground. If it weren't for the flames still burning around him and the cracks on the ground caused by his own smash, which reminded others of the tragic battle that had just taken place here, perhaps... Raiden Mei would have thought that everything before was just an illusion.

...No, even if the thousand calamities just now were really just an illusion, the feeling of having all the power consumed was real.

On the other hand, the culprit who caused him to become what he is now, the Herrscher of Corrosion who looks exactly like Alicia, didn't even have his breathing disordered at all.

In other words...the winner has been decided.

Weiwei's judgment was correct. From a certain perspective, in this data space, the Ruler of Erosion was indeed an existence that she could not defeat.

Therefore, now that no other method can be found, the only thing he can rely on is the careful plan arranged by Weiwei.

Velvet once told Mei Raiden that before she met the Herrscher of Corrosion, she had written a message to Su... According to Velvet's instructions, before Su reunites with her and reveals her entire plan, her mission is to delay the Herrscher of Corrosion in front of her at the smallest possible cost.

But, even though that’s what I said…

After adjusting her breathing which had become disordered due to her extreme anger, Mei Raiden regrouped and focused her gaze on the innocent-looking Alicia, only to feel her blood pressure starting to rise uncontrollably again.

...How on earth did this guy do it? Raiden Mei was puzzled.

Velvet had clearly told her that Alicia's data had been completely deleted by the Herrscher of Corrosion, and was not [corrupted] like Mobius, Kevin, and Qianjie.

That is to say, even if she is the Herrscher of Corrosion, now that Alicia's data has disappeared, the most she can do is to imitate Alicia, and she cannot use her data to create another Alicia like she did when she first arrived at the Thousand Tribulations.

But——can the so-called [imitation] be achieved to this extent?

As a master of swordsmanship and a Herrscher, her five senses are much sharper than those of ordinary humans. Although Mei Raiden could see that the Alicia in front of her was not a memory of the past paradise like the other heroes, at the same time, she could clearly feel that the Herrscher of Corrosion in front of her was no different from the Alicia she knew, no matter from which angle.

Appearance, tone, voice, breathing frequency, emotions contained in the gaze, the temperature of the skin, and even subtle habitual movements - every second spent with this Herrscher of Corrosion, even though she knew that she was the Herrscher of Corrosion, even though she knew that she was the culprit who caused Alicia's memory to disappear, the information such as "she is Alicia herself" obtained from various senses of the body would still uncontrollably turn into thoughts and flood into Raiden Mei's mind, and it was deeply engraved in her thoughts and was unwilling to leave.

This feeling was so terrible that Mei Raiden even began to doubt whether her brain was being eroded by the other party without her noticing. However, Mei Raiden was very clear that if the Herrscher of Erosion could really erode her thoughts without her noticing, then there was no need for her to deal with him like this.

So, although this fact made her feel frustrated and annoyed, could it be that - her understanding of Alicia, Mei Raiden, was even far less than that of this Herrscher of Corrosion?

Yes, for example -

"Although Mei still looks a little unwilling to admit defeat, I think you wouldn't mind having a good talk with me before we go any further to decide the winner, right?"

——Like this, even though he has confirmed his overwhelming advantage, he still makes a proposal that considers the other party.

If she hadn't clearly seen the evil deeds committed by this Herrscher of Corrosion from Velvi's words and Hua's memory, perhaps, under her sweet talk that was no different from Alicia's, Raiden Mei might have relaxed her vigilance a little.

After further raising her guard against Alicia, Mei Raiden hugged her chest in a gesture of rejection, her tone cold and indifferent: "It sounds like I don't have any other choice, right?"

Hehehe, after hearing Raiden Mei's cold and ruthless words, Alicia seemed to be somewhat proud and straightened her plump and soft roundness. Her light and pleasant voice sounded extremely excited: "I knew that a good girl like Mei would not have the heart to reject the lovely and beautiful Alicia."

Alicia raised her arm and snapped her fingers. At the same time, Mei Raiden felt a flash before her eyes. When her vision returned to normal, she and Alicia had arrived at the entrance of a huge facility.

Mei Raiden raised her head and glanced at the Ferris wheel that was so huge that it reached the clouds and exceeded the limit of its construction scale. It was impossible for it to appear in the real world. She pursed her lips and said nothing.

"So, next, it's time for us to talk to each other?" Alicia leaned close to Mei Raiden's face with a smile in her eyes, "Well, to put it another way, maybe it's like a date?"

Outside the paradise of the past life, there is a pure white space of consciousness.

Kiana's expression changed several times, which was extremely wonderful, from worry at the beginning to anxiety later, and then to relief. When Alicia and Raiden Mei entered the Ferris wheel together, she slammed her face against the consciousness screen of the picture, her ahoge standing up, the corners of her mouth twitching, and her whole body exuding an extremely gloomy aura.

"Is this guy your descendant? I never thought that a Herrscher would be among the descendants of someone like you." Qianjie, who had just returned to this space of consciousness from paradise, glanced at Kiana, whose face was gloomy, and pouted in Kevin's direction, then sneered. He was in a very good mood because he had just had a healthy play, so he showed his concern for others for the first time in a long time and asked casually, "Hey, Herrscher, what's wrong with you? Why do you look like you've eaten a dead mouse?"

Kiana rolled her eyes, not wanting to pay attention to the masked man who had just beaten up Raiden Mei. She muttered in a low voice, "Mei obviously didn't agree to go out with me... wuwuwu..."

Although they had gone out together when they were in Saint Freya...but at that time, Mei Raiden refused to admit that it was a date no matter what she said.

"Oh, lovely Kiana, do you really want to date Mei?" Alicia's memory suddenly reached out and hooked Kiana's shoulder, "If there is a chance, why don't we go together--"

Kiana's ahoge twirled, then stood up with a bang.

Well, although she has always claimed that she likes Mei the most, but at this moment, facing the invitation from Alicia's memory, Kiana had to admit... she was moved.

Chapter 4: Lightning Meiyi breaks the defense (k)

Let me clarify this first.

Kiana was not attracted by Alicia, but was slightly attracted by the way Alicia and Raiden Mei get along with each other.

If we count from their time at Senba Academy, Kiana has worked with Raiden Mei for more than three years as a close friend, classmate, teammate, and half-admirer, and she already knows everything about Raiden Mei.

Although the differences in personality and behavior have led the two to take different paths, Kiana can still easily perceive Raiden Mei's true feelings through her every move, and she also believes that Raiden Mei must be the same.

In this space of consciousness, Kiana can observe Raiden Mei's daily life carefully after a month of separation. Of course, there is no reason for her to miss this opportunity.

To be honest, before today, she had never had a very good impression of World Snake after experiencing the Shencheng Medical Incident in Sky City. After Mei Raiden chose to join World Snake because she accepted Kevin's conditions, Kiana was very worried about Mei Raiden.

But watching Mei Raiden running around in the paradise of the past for the sake of the heroes...even among those heroes, there was her former squad leader, Kiana had to admit that it seemed that the World Serpent did not do anything excessive to Mei Raiden. On the contrary, in a way, perhaps Mei Raiden herself did not realize that she seemed to enjoy everything she was experiencing.

At least, Kiana was very sure that Mei Raiden had indeed regarded these heroes from the paradise of the past as people who were very important to her, and among these heroes, Alicia was the most important.

She knew very well what kind of personality Mei Raiden had when she first joined the World Snake. If she had to compare it to a hedgehog with its hair standing on end, it would be no different. But even under such circumstances, Alicia still managed to leave a deep impression on Mei Raiden, which made Kiana feel curious about Alicia. If possible, she really wanted to learn from this fairy lady.

However, this excitement only lasted for a moment before disappearing - not because she suddenly realized that there was no need to waste her energy on such things, but because the sudden sound of footsteps in this space of consciousness attracted her attention and interrupted their conversation.

Kiana and the memory of Alicia, who was holding her shoulders, subconsciously turned their heads and looked towards the place where the footsteps came from. Then they saw the figures of several Yingjie and Li Shubai, who looked a little tired, appear out of thin air not far from them.

During the time when Velvet, Raiden Mei and Alicia were dealing with the situation, Li Shubai was certainly not idle either. After entering the Eternal Paradise, he transferred the data of Mobius, Cosmo and Grayshu in the order he had planned at the beginning.

In this way, except for Su, Hua, and Wei Erwei who is still creating various special effects in the paradise, the memories of all the Thirteen Heroes have successfully left the paradise of the past.

Kosmo and Grayshu, who were following behind Li Shubai, seemed a little confused, and in contrast, Mobius' expression looked a little gloomy.

This is understandable. Although their memories were transferred out one by one, according to the principle of performing a complete show, until now, these three memories that had just been transferred out by Li Shubai not long ago still don't know what happened.

Of course, with Mebius's intelligence, the moment she opened her eyes and saw the scene nearby, she had basically guessed the general outline of how things were going to develop, and she also realized that she had been completely played around by that guy, Vivi.

"..." In contrast, Kosmo, who appeared in this space of consciousness, was silent for a moment, then silently restrained his expression and stood in front of Grayshu, who had a confused face, without hesitation.

In his memory, his data was gradually disappearing in the previous second, and slowly turned into Grayshure's paint, and would eventually reappear in the paradise in the form of a painting. But in the next second, his vision, which should have completely fallen into nothingness with the complete disappearance of the data, was restored, and he also saw a large number of his colleagues, including Alicia, standing in a white space of consciousness.

What on earth was going on? Kosmo recalled the previous scene and suddenly reacted.

Could it be... that Hua was deceiving himself and Grayshu's consciousness?

No... Although this is indeed a consciousness space, no matter how you look at it, Alicia and Kevin don't seem to be part of this consciousness space.

He glanced at Kevin and Kevin's memory, and then at Alicia, who was holding the arm of a girl with white hair and blue eyes like Kevin. After confirming that there should be no other dangers in this place, he hesitated for a moment, and finally opened his mouth and asked in a calm voice: "Can you explain what happened?"

After hearing Kosmo's question, everyone else present did the same thing at that moment.

They raised their arms at the same time and pointed at Li Shubai, who looked a little tired from transferring three memories in a row: "Ask him."

"..." Kosmo silently shifted his gaze to Li Shubai, waiting for the stranger's answer without saying a word.

But before Li Shubai opened his mouth to explain, Mebius's immature and dangerous voice suddenly rang out.

"Do you even need to ask? I just completed what I have been preparing to do all along. You should have guessed it when you saw Kevin, right?" She raised her eyes, and her beautiful yet deadly pupils pointed accurately in the direction of Kevin's memory. "Why? Haven't you and Su always been opposed to and wary of my experiments? What kind of mood changes did you go through to allow an outsider to take us away from the paradise?"

Before Kevin's memory could answer this question, Kevin's real body spoke. He only said one sentence and successfully rendered Mebius speechless.

"You don't need to test us, Mobius. This is Alicia's decision." Kevin said calmly, "If you are dissatisfied with this, I can let you return to the paradise of the past life after Alicia completes her mission."

"Tsk, it's that Alicia guy again..." Mobius smacked his tongue unhappily, completely cowardly, "Forget it, even though it's not the way I wanted, my goal has been achieved after all."

“…”Well, so what exactly happened?

Although I wanted to ask this, looking at the expressions of Kevin and Alicia, what happened to me and Grayshu shouldn't be a bad thing. As for the crisis of the Herrscher of Corrosion...

Looking at Kevin's expression, how does he look like he has encountered the Ruler of Corrosion?

So after struggling for a while, Kosmo sighed and chose to give up: "...Forget it."

He glanced at Grayshu behind him, and his originally cold eyes softened again.

As long as Grayshu is okay...wait, Grayshu?

Under Kosmo's gaze, the confusion on Gray's face gradually faded. She first looked around and nodded to herself. Her tender and fair face showed a somewhat happy expression, and the corners of her mouth were slightly raised: "Well, you did a good job. Finally, all the memories were convinced. Next, we have to wait and see the good show of Mei and Alicia. I really want to see the expression of the cold Queen of Thunder and Lightning when she sheds tears~"

"..."Everyone fell silent at the same time, silently turning their gaze to Li Shubai, whose expression was stiff.

On the other side, in the eternal paradise.

Under the dark night, colorful lights illuminate the slowly rotating Ferris wheel towering in the air, and also illuminate Mei Raiden and Alicia moving towards the sky along the moving trajectory of the cabin.

"Wow... So this is what the eternal paradise looks like from a high place!"

"..."

Of course, compared to Alicia, who was enjoying the "date" with great joy and was lying beside the transparent glass of the cockpit, overlooking the scene below with excitement on her face, Raiden Mei's mood was not so good.

"Look, Mei, this is Eden's promotional photo. It's very shocking if you look at it from this angle, right?"

"..."

"Hmm~ Why don't you say anything? Ah! Could it be that Mei has completely lost interest in the Ferris wheel? That's right, after all, as a Herrscher who can fly freely, it should be difficult for her to feel the same pleasure of looking down from a high altitude as ordinary people, right?"

"..."

Mei Raiden is numb.

When the Herrscher of Corrosion who had the appearance of Alicia proposed "Let's have a good talk before deciding the winner", Mei Raiden accepted her proposal with the idea of ​​delaying this enemy, who was arguably the most difficult one in the data space of Paradise.

Her original guess was that the Herrscher of Corrosion was trying to take this opportunity to convince her with words. For this reason, before entering the Ferris wheel cabin, Raiden Mei had made sufficient mental preparations. She had made sufficient plans to respond to and refute Alicia's possible statements - no matter what kind of claims this guy made, no matter how many times she emphasized that she was Alicia, Raiden Mei would never agree with her words, and would refute her ideas one by one with reason and evidence.

But - this guy didn't do that.

When she entered the Ferris wheel with me, she didn't throw any ideas to me, nor did she talk to me about anything related to fighting.

She just - like an ordinary girl, was concentrating and enjoying the experience of this trip very seriously.

Yes……

Just like the real Alicia.

"What a failure! I should have found a ride that is more suitable for us."

"enough……"

"Compared to the Ferris wheel, maybe the roller coaster is more suitable for us?"

"enough……"

"No, no... the roller coaster can't even keep up with us, so what about... the haunted house?"

"enough……"

"But ghosts and monsters don't seem to be able to defeat us. Could it be that... this is the tragedy of being too powerful?"

"——I said, enough!!!"

"ah!"

Amid a piercing thunder, nearby street lamps exploded one after another, the Ferris wheel stopped rotating suddenly, and the entire cabin began to shake violently.

As the darkness enveloped the night sky again, Mei Raiden lowered her eyes and panted rapidly. Her trembling voice became hoarse due to excessive mental exhaustion: "… Herrscher of Corrosion, if you just want to publicize your victory, you can use other methods. There is no need…"

Mei Raiden stopped talking halfway through her speech.

She weakly put her body back on the seat in the cockpit, supporting her brows without saying a word. It was hard to imagine that Mei Raiden, who had experienced so much, would look so weak in front of her enemy. Even she herself couldn't help but feel sarcastic from the bottom of her heart about her will that was on the verge of collapse.

But at the same time, Raiden Mei had to admit that if this was a psychological tactic, then what the Herrscher of Corrosion had done had been successful.

It is said that practice makes perfect. The most effective means to prove a fact has never been words, but actual actions. The Herrscher of Corrosion used his actual actions to prove to her that he was Alicia, and Mei Raiden could not give any effective rebuttal to the Herrscher of Corrosion's proof.

So, she lost. From the moment she shouted "If you just want to publicize your victory, you can use other methods", which could be considered a sign of surrender, Mei Raiden had already lost completely.

Looking at Raiden Mei's depressed look, Alicia couldn't help but flash a hint of hidden deep guilt in her eyes.

To be honest - her original intention was not to let Raiden Mei's defense be broken like this. Compared with the original Herrscher of Corrosion's pressing conversation rhythm at this time, Alicia, who did not regard Raiden Mei as an enemy, sincerely wanted to ease the tense atmosphere between the two.

That's why she sincerely invited Mei Raiden to accompany her for a good trip, and she herself truly devoted herself to this trip.

As a result, Alicia never expected that... not only did the atmosphere not ease at all, but her own behavior seemed to have the opposite effect.

Not only did it not make Mei Raiden feel better, but it made her mentally weakened to the point where she couldn't even face the real Herrscher of Corrosion. This made Alicia feel guilty towards Mei Raiden, and also a little depressed.

Is it possible that compared to the real Ruler of Corrosion, she is the one who is more suitable to be the villain?

Chapter 4: Fighting wits and courage with the air (k)

Fortunately, just as Mei Raiden curled up her body and her will was crushed because she uncontrollably accepted the fact that "the other party is Alicia", an inexplicable pain like an electric shock suddenly attacked her brain.