Alice in the Land of Steam

Is Chapter 1111 finally here?

Alice saw Carabosse's face through the intertwined swords and sickle blades.

Although she looked so small, no more noticeable than a speck of dust against the background of the universe, Alice still kept her eyes fixed on her face, as if the evenly matched confrontation was no longer important, and what really mattered was how her enemy would react. But she was undoubtedly disappointed, because the dark witch's face was still calm, and her dark eyes made it impossible to see any change in emotion.

Steel and fire collided fiercely. Both sides could feel each other's strength. The blades of the two swords were trembling, shining with cold fire; Shadow's giant sickle was burning, rolling with dark flames. Ellie released all her strength without reservation. She even maintained the same forward posture as the Armed Goddess in the driving space, as if she was not fighting against the dark witch through this mecha, but herself. In comparison, Carabosse's reaction was too bland. If this was a game, seeing such a bland opponent, I'm afraid she would not be able to muster any passion, right?

"You are--"

Alice gritted her teeth, her will and faith turned into a constant stream of energy that was injected into her body, providing her with even more terrifying power. The Armed Goddess suddenly increased her strength, and the sharp swords pressed forward, pushing the burning shadow scythe back bit by bit. Among the large withered black flame flowers, the genius player's angry question came: "Do you look down on me!?"

Even though he was at a disadvantage, Carabosse remained calm: "I never underestimate any enemy."

“In that case, why do you want to fight me with such a casual mentality!?” Alice’s eyes seemed to be burning with flames. The star-blue jet from the back of the machine kept pushing her forward. Its momentum grew with Alice’s momentum. At this moment, it had extended into a brilliant starlight, dividing the static universe and the dark canvas as the background into two, and also setting off the Armed Goddess like a brave and burning warrior, with an indomitable momentum: “Do you think that with this level of power, you can fight against me!”

"I never slack off in any battle." Carabos turned the sickle handle expressionlessly, adjusting the direction of the sickle blade, and cleverly removed the impact from the front. However, this technique was undoubtedly a sign of retreat and escape for the talented player who had already been angry. It proved that the power of the Dark Witch Carabos was just like that, and was far from as terrible as Sister Livia and others described: "Then don't even think about defeating me and this Armed Goddess!!!"

Alice suddenly increased her strength, and the power that burst out poured out without reservation. The edge of the sword suppressed the defense of the sickle, and the power of the Armed Goddess also suppressed the power of the Dark Witch. With the forward push of the two swords and the retreat of the sickle blade, the positions of the two opposing sides also changed. The Armed Goddess gradually rose upwards, while the Dark Witch gradually sank downwards. In the end, the composition of the picture was completely changed - the Armed Goddess was a meteor falling from the sky, and the Dark Witch was a mountain struggling to support itself. From left and right to top and bottom, this wonderful change of position seemed to indicate the final outcome of this battle: the meteor would of course penetrate the mountain, because the height gave it speed, and speed is power, and the side with greater power would undoubtedly win.

This is an unchangeable rule on the battlefield.

"That's it, Carabosse!"

Inside the cockpit, the genius player looked down at the Dark Witch from a high position. Seeing that the blazing shadow giant sickle could only retreat under the pressure of the aggressive steel swords, and even the shadow flames that formed the sickle handle and sickle blade had begun to tremble and whine, with a tendency to collapse, she couldn't help but smile with a confident smile, and felt that choosing her original super robot as the design direction was the right thing to do: "This is the power of idealism!"

"Idealism?" Carabosse didn't seem to care about her own failure, but was very interested in the words that Alice said inexplicably: "From the literal meaning, it means... belief determines victory or defeat?"

"That's right, this is the essence of super robots. As long as we stick to our beliefs and believe in ourselves, love, justice and courage will never lose!" Alice's eyes were sparkling, and she was still upset about Carabosse's previous comments: "It's not the childish fantasy of a six-year-old child as you said!"

"Then I should apologize for this. You accidentally discovered the truth of the universe, the absolute law, an unavoidable fact." Carabosse said slowly. She had been suppressed to the lowest point. The blazing flames on the sickle blade gradually began to dissipate. Across the heavy flames was the extremely oppressive blade of the Armed Goddess. However, she did not consider the situation that the two blades were about to fall on her. Instead, she asked in a tone that was not sarcastic, but on the contrary very serious: "So, your belief is victory, Alice?"

This was the first time she called out the name of the talented player in this battle.

Alice was stunned for a moment, then replied without thinking: "Nonsense! If it's not for victory, why should we fight?"

Why do we fight if not to win?

There is a sense of philosophy in these words. Karabos couldn't help but think that fighting is for victory. Isn't this also a major feature of so-called game players? They can forget themselves and fight in the virtual world, just for an honor that no one cares about when they return to the real world; they will have an enemy that they want to defeat with all their strength, and they are even willing to do things that they have always disdained in order to defeat that enemy: practice their skills, learn new techniques, and sharpen their mentality... But often when they encounter difficulties in real life, they can't show such courage. Why is that?

"not enough."

Carabosse suddenly said, "It's not enough to just want to win, Alice."

Isn't it enough for victory? Alice was annoyed by the witch's condescending preaching attitude, and naturally disdained her words: "Who said it's not enough? At least now I am suppressing you, not the other way around! I am not a guy like you who can only show off your strength with words! You keep saying that you will not underestimate your opponents and will not relax in any battle, but in fact you are so arrogant. If you really go all out, why don't you drive your constructed mecha? What about the Creation Machine that is said to be able to easily suppress and destroy the extraterrestrial disaster beasts? You can't hide it, right?" Every time she questioned, the force on the blade increased. Carabosse could feel the anger of her opponent, but the more so, the calmer and more unshakable she was, because she knew that anger would make people lose their reason, so that they would be immersed in a wrong cognition and fail to perceive the threat that was so close.

"Who gave you—"

She spoke, her voice floating through the battlefield where swords and scythes clashed, reaching the ears of the genius player: "I didn't have the illusion that I was driving a construct mecha from the beginning to the end?"

"Varied--!?"

Alice's pupils suddenly contracted. Before she could think about the hidden meaning of this sentence, Carabosse suddenly gave up resistance. After losing the support from its master, the blazing shadow sickle collapsed in an instant. The shadow and flame were like black snowflakes, drifting away, swirling, surging, withering, and then dying. This scene, under the dark and deep curtain of the universe, inexplicably gave people a feeling of purity and holiness.

Alice looked at this scene in astonishment. Before she could wrap her head around it, the two swords of the Armed Goddess were already driven by inertia, firmly and unquestionably slashing down towards the position of the Dark Witch. The steel blades slashed through the void with a hissing sound, passing through large tracts of withered black snow, and heavily slashed at the defenseless Carabosse, instantly bringing up a cluster of gorgeous blood flowers, but the bright and somewhat dazzling scarlet color only stayed in Alice's eyes for a moment, and soon turned into dark mist and dissipated quietly.

Time and space seemed to be infinitely stretched at this moment, and the tiny figure was falling down, like a feather falling into a bottomless abyss. Alice was sure that she had used all her strength in this sword, and there was no possibility of mercy. The huge and terrifying kinetic energy it carried could even push a heavy warship, turning it into a burning meteor and falling rapidly. But the scene of Caraboss slowly falling into the abyss was so clear, just like a slow motion in a movie, with an unparalleled impact, so that Alice could even see the criss-cross wounds on her chest, every intricate and gorgeous pattern on her fluttering black skirt, and the faint smile outlined at the corner of her mouth...

Wait, she's smiling? Why?
Obviously I have already lost...

Alice stayed where she was, not pursuing the opponent. This was not because she was so surprised that she lost her judgment, but because a scene that made people feel panic and shock was gradually reflected in the pupils of the genius player.

The darkness is rising, like a rising tide.

It was not the darkness that Caraboss had summoned with the power of Dark Apocalypse. In fact, it had already been torn apart by the gunfire of the Armed Goddess, leaving no trace. However, after the darkness was torn apart, it was still darkness. That was the stage where the Armed Goddess confronted the Dark Witch. It was once mistakenly believed that it was the area arranged by the latter for this battle, but now it seemed that it was not the case.

In fact, it is a planet.

On the distant skyline, a cold arc was rotating along a fan-shaped section toward the outer circle. The huge curved surface slowly rose, like the rotation of a planetary gear, showing the scene on the other side of the planet in front of everyone. It was a cold, shocking, and indescribable huge matrix, which was composed of a series of tiny unit arrays. Those matrix units were arranged in an orderly manner along the cross-section of the giant celestial body, and looked like the gear structure inside the differential engine, neat and precise. However, in fact, they were square patios covering a huge area, with red steel edges and corners, and the bottomless internal cavity was deliberately built into a track structure, as if it was built to transmit some special substance. However, when not started, they were all deep and dark without exception. At a glance, hundreds, thousands, or even tens of thousands of stern and cold man-made holes, more orderly and silent than the most powerful army ever born in human history, break into your pupils in a terrifying manner. The panic, trembling and even the feeling of a blank brain at that moment cannot be described in words.

Thick cables and pipes spread upward along the four walls of the skylight, and spread along the millimeter-precise spacing between the skylights, connecting every unit of the entire matrix. These cables and pipes were all flashing with a dark blue glow full of technology. The light changed its frequency rhythmically, and the huge matrix began to breathe. It looked like it was releasing some mysterious signal to the vast universe. The giant celestial body seemed to come alive at this time, and was endowed with some great imagery, which made people hold their breath and deeply feel their insignificance and weakness in the universe. Perhaps only such a magnificent, spectacular and shocking technological creation can find its place in the vast universe - even the Armed Goddess is just a slightly larger ant in front of it. So just now, the ants fought hard on the back of the giant celestial body, but actually did not cause any impact on it.

At the center of the matrix, surrounded by 23,128 square atriums in a radial pattern and connected by 12,914,128 magic optical cables and transmission pipelines, is a huge tower. Its height stands out even in this cold steel forest. Its tapered structure that gradually converges from bottom to top makes it look more like a giant probe. There are 13 circular orbits that extend upward from bottom to top, from large to small. The largest ring is almost comparable to the ring of a star, but when it converges to the end, the smallest ring is not much bigger than a person. This huge contrast highlights a strong, extreme sense of shock that can only be established on a cosmic scale.

The dark witch who was falling into the abyss smiled silently. Against the backdrop of the giant celestial body, the solemn matrix and the ring-shaped orbital structure that served as the background of this scene, this smile was so meaningful that it was difficult to describe it with a word, a sentence or a brief thought.

"This is the Construct Mecha you are waiting for."

A cold and calm voice echoed under the curtain of the universe: "Creation of the Holy Machine, Apostle of the Star Realm, Alien Philosopher——"

"Dyson Sphere."

Give me some meow