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After defeating Bharata-Tamon, Lily had barely finished absorbing his Oborozuki Soul. The lingering radiance had not even faded from the arena when a massive horse-faced fiend with a dark brown body charged onto the stage. Wielding a long-handled spiked club stained with blood and steeped in resentful souls, he rushed straight at her.

The horse-faced fiend possessed Infernal Stage strength, yet after witnessing Lily defeat a Supreme God, he still charged forward without the slightest hesitation, immediately issuing his challenge.

He had absolute confidence in his physical body. In terms of sheer physique, the gap between himself and a Supreme God was not actually that great. Normally, a Supreme God’s overall combat strength exceeded that of Empyrean Stage experts by dozens or even a hundredfold, enough to utterly crush lower-tier deities.

However, that overwhelming advantage mainly came from their mastery of the Heavenly Path, secret arts, divine power, and similar abilities.

Purely in terms of physical strength, a Supreme God’s body was, on average, only several times to around ten times stronger than those of Empyrean Stage beings.

Yet there were monsters and Heroic Gods who relied solely on their physical bodies to break into the Empyrean Stages. Their physiques were more than ten times stronger than others of the same realm. Compared in that regard, they were not necessarily weaker than Supreme Gods, and a few even possessed bodies superior to those Supreme Gods who specialized less in physical prowess.

More importantly, they had all seen Lily engage in a fierce battle against a powerful Supreme God. At this moment, fragrant sweat drenched her body, and her chest rose and fell violently with every breath. Having relied on her physical body throughout the prolonged battle, her stamina had been heavily depleted, and she had not yet recovered!

Even if it meant taking a risk, this Infernal Stage horse-faced powerhouse intended to gamble everything! He would not give Lily even the slightest chance to rest.

“Watch this! Woman, you can’t hold on much longer, can you? When it comes to physical strength, I’m not much weaker than Bharata-Tamon!” The horse-faced fiend charged toward Lily, raising his spiked club high before smashing it down with terrifying force.

“You b̲a̲s̲t̲a̲r̲d̲!” Lily’s breathing was ragged. She had only wanted a brief moment to recover, yet the spiked club was already crashing down upon her. She had no choice but to force herself into motion despite her unstable breathing. With a sliding step, she narrowly evaded the blow.

Facing such a despicable opponent, although she had yet to recover her strength, her blade moved with even greater perfection.

The instant she slid past the descending club, she slashed horizontally. The horse-faced fiend was cut cleanly in half at the waist.

Even with only his upper body remaining, he still reached out with one enormous hand to seize Lily’s ankle. Lily leaped onto his back and drove her blade straight through his Spirit Sea.

“Kagami Lily, let’s see how much longer you can last!” A lean vagrant with reddish-brown skin transformed into a blur and rushed toward Lily from behind. A master of the Iai Technique, he reached her back and instantly drew his blade.

Breathing heavily, Lily raised Oborozuki Muramasa to block the strike.

“Get lost!”

These scoundrels were so shameless that they attacked before she had even finished absorbing the horse-faced fiend’s Oborozuki Soul. Lily exploded with extraordinary strength, sending the vagrant flying with a single burst of force. She quickly absorbed the Oborozuki Soul before facing the charging vagrant once more, a fragment of Oboro Tamahagane blade gripped in her hand.

She hurled it with all her might. Like a shooting star, the blade fragment pierced straight through the vagrant’s vital point.

“Kagami Lily, you’ve already exhausted your stamina, haven’t you? Hahaha! Such a beauty, your whole body giving off that intoxicating fragrance… you’re mine!” A four-meter-tall Heroic God with tattooed yellow skin charged at Lily, carrying an enormous stone pillar across his shoulder.

“Come!” Still panting, Lily appeared barely able to stand. Yet in the very next instant, she burst into motion, dodged, and counterattacked.

“Sister Lily…” Watching from below the stage, Nanako’s heart remained tightly clenched with worry.

Those countless Empyrean Stage deities gave Lily not the slightest opportunity to catch her breath. One after another, they surged forward to challenge her without pause.

Though every one of them was slain by Lily, she appeared to be weakening more and more. Her body was nearly soaked through, her beautiful hair hung loose, even her voice trembled, and every delicate step she took left droplets of moisture scattered across the floor.

Everyone believed her stamina could collapse at any moment. Everyone believed they might be the final challenger, the one to seize the greatest bargain imaginable and carry away the sweat-drenched beauty for themselves.

Yet despite such overwhelming temptation, although Lily appeared to be on the verge of exhaustion and defeat time and again, she always barely managed to win. The more this happened, the less the gods and demons could accept it. One after another, they threw themselves into battle.

Little did they know… This had been Lily’s plan all along.

It was true that she had expended tremendous stamina, leaving her body drenched with sweat. However, her physique was extraordinarily powerful. Her endurance was every bit as astonishing as her explosive strength, and her stamina remained far from being exhausted.

She deliberately exaggerated the signs of fatigue to lure these powerful opponents into believing they still had a chance.

Although Lily had challenged a million gods and demons, if some powerful beings simply held onto their Oborozuki Souls and refused to fight, there was nothing she could do to force them.

She had to make these Empyrean Stage powerhouses believe that someone far weaker than herself might actually defeat her and claim an unimaginable reward. Only then would greed overwhelm reason, driving them to challenge her at all costs.

So many powerful challengers had already died. Lily clearly looked as though she could barely remain standing. Surely her stamina had to be exhausted this time! All those fools who died before me were nothing but stepping stones! I am the true conqueror of the Goddess!

None of those Empyrean Stage powerhouses could resist the temptation of ascending to greatness in a single step. None could resist the irresistible prize of possessing the greatest beauty in all Three Realms. And so, one after another, they continued charging toward Lily. Only to line up for their own deaths.

“Something isn’t right…” A supreme expert like Kujaku Myōō saw through it immediately. “Judging by Kagami Lily’s reactions, her stamina should have been depleted long ago. It is impossible for someone to keep enduring indefinitely after reaching their limit. That woman has indeed expended an enormous amount of energy… but she hasn’t reached her true limit. She’s acting.”

Even so, Kujaku Myōō did not expose her. First, even if he revealed the truth, those Empyrean Stage challengers would not necessarily give up willingly. Second, allowing them to continue draining Lily’s strength would only benefit him. When the truly critical moment arrived, he could step forward, defeat her himself, seize her Oborozuki soul, and claim her as his own. Wouldn’t that be perfect?

Most of the other Supreme God powerhouses shared exactly the same thoughts. Their reasoning was sound. The only question was when Lily’s stamina would truly run dry.

“Lily…” Seated at the center of the main platform, Kiyoshi watched with blazing eyes, though concern also lingered within them. “You truly are an extraordinary woman. Even in such a desperate situation, you managed to devise a strategy of using yourself as bait to dismantle the grand scheme I prepared, defeating your opponents one by one.

“But this strategy could only be employed by an exceptionally beautiful woman like you. It is a double-edged sword. It may allow you to defeat gods and demons… but it could also become the cause of your own downfall. If you truly lose to one of those challengers, then even I would not be able to defy the wrath of the multitude to save you.”

Indeed, challenger after challenger climbed onto the stage, and challenger after challenger died. The gods and demons had already been driven into a blood frenzy. No one could stop them now.

In their eyes, they were drawing ever closer to conquering the greatest war goddess in all Three Realms. Only an inch away… Yet separated by an eternity.