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Gavin raised his cane, channeled his spiritual power into it, and then drove it down with force.

This time, he did not aim for the heart, because he still wanted to leave himself some room for negotiation. He merely wanted to show Lilith through his actions that he had the resolve to strike!

Yet from beginning to end, Lilith had shown no indication that she cared much about Liana at all. The instant he drove the cane down, Lilith even turned her head away, no longer looking in their direction.

Gavin was both furious and humiliated. He secretly poured even more strength into his grip, completely disregarding the fact that Liana was nothing more than a frail girl hovering on the very edge between life and death.

Not far away, Daoist Kumu wore a look of panic, but even with his Saint-realm strength, there was nothing he could do in a situation like this. He could only watch helplessly as the cold cane thrust toward the girl’s delicate body.

Liana closed her eyes as well, seemingly resigned to her fate.

**Clang—**

The crisp sound echoed in everyone’s ears. It was like an iron nail striking glass. Gavin’s eyes suddenly widened. His hands felt numb from the intense backlash that had surged through the cane.

He lowered his head in bewilderment. The cane had not pierced the girl’s tender body. Instead, it had been stopped by a layer of translucent black crystal.

“What… is this?” Gavin was stunned. The layer of crystal was as thin as a cicada’s wing and breathtakingly beautiful, like an exquisite work of art crafted by the gods themselves.

But weren’t beautiful things supposed to be all the more fragile? Then why, no matter how hard he tried, could he not break through this layer of black crystal?

“What? Not going to continue?” The girl’s voice rang out.

“What—?!” Gavin turned around in horror, only to discover that the golden-haired monster girl had somehow appeared right beside him.

She stood there with both hands behind her back, calmly watching him as though she had all the time in the world.

“When did you…?” Gavin found it difficult to comprehend. He was, after all, a peak Ninth-stage powerhouse. How could someone possibly approach him so silently and effortlessly?

He instinctively looked toward Landon. But the sight made his soul nearly leave his body, and his terror only deepened. The golden-haired girl was clearly still tormenting Landon over there. So how could she possibly be standing here as well?

“A… a clone?” Gavin asked shakily. He looked at the girl beside him. Aside from the absence of that gray scarf around her neck, she was completely identical to the golden-haired girl in the distance.

“You could think of it that way.” The girl smiled as she spoke. Her voice was still sweet and enchanting, yet it made Gavin feel as though he had fallen into an icy abyss.

“No… How can I fall here? I can’t die. I can’t die!” The girl’s smile seemed to snap the final thread holding Gavin’s mind together. The courage he had painstakingly mustered collapsed in an instant.

At that very moment, he unleashed one of the Gongsun family’s forbidden techniques. It was a forbidden technique capable of temporarily stimulating his potential. Although the backlash was considerable, he could no longer afford to care about that.

In an instant, his speed surged to a terrifying level, surpassing even that of most first Heavenly Strata Saint-realm powerhouses. He shot toward the distant horizon, which, to him, was the only place where a chance of survival remained.

Then, the wind rose. When one was flying through the sky at high altitude, fierce winds were perfectly normal. But Gavin sensed that something was wrong. The direction of the wind was wrong.

His speed was so fast that he had already surpassed most of the winds in this world, so why… Why was the wind blowing from behind him? He turned his head. And then he saw it.

A gigantic pair of wings suddenly unfurled from behind the golden-haired girl. They resembled the wings of a bat, yet they were far more imposing and terrifying, covered in savage scales that looked as hard and cold as black iron.

The wings stretched more than 40 meters across, making the girl herself appear exceedingly small in comparison. Thus, the moment those enormous wings spread open, the terrifying pressure of the wind was forced outward in a violent surge.

The girl vanished in an instant. Gavin heard the roar of the raging wind and saw darkness descend. The sunlight was obscured by an enormous shadow. It happened in an instant.

The golden-haired girl appeared before him. Those enormous wings remained fully spread. The wind stopped. Because all the wind had gone into supporting those wings. Like subjects gazing up at their supreme king.

The girl reached out and seized Gavin by the throat. Various colors of light flickered around Gavin’s body, yet they vanished in an instant like sparks. One after another, they were snuffed out.

Whether it was cultivation techniques, formations, talismans, or even artifacts, all of them became completely useless at this moment. They desperately burned themselves, yet they could not stop that slender, fair hand.

“Ugh… ugh… please… spare me…” With his neck clutched in the girl’s grasp, Gavin was like a fish gasping for air after being removed from water, his eyes bulging as though they were about to pop from their sockets.

He thrashed violently with both hands, even trying to fight back, only for the girl’s other delicate hand to casually twist one of his arms until it snapped.

“How wonderful.” The golden-haired girl carefully examined Gavin’s miserable state and said with a smile, “To be able to die so easily, Landon must be very envious of you.”

**Crack!**

Under the girl’s delicate hand, Gavin’s neck suddenly twisted to one side. His struggling body abruptly went still. His limbs hung limply. His pupils lost their focus. He was dead. He had died so simply, so effortlessly.

It seemed entirely unbefitting of the status of the Gongsun family’s head, one of the three great families of Maplefall Town. But in the face of death, all living beings were equal. Lilith was the exception.

She lowered her eyes indifferently, casually tossed Gavin’s corpse aside, and then turned into black liquid and disappeared as well.

***

Elsewhere. The real Lilith stopped punching.

Looking at Landon, whose body had almost become a mass of writhing, deformed rotten flesh, she chuckled.

“Oh my, Ye Family Head, lift your head and take a look. The last person who could have saved you has already died. How was it? I’m a good girl who always keeps her word, right? I said I would make you fall from the altar, and I made sure you fell from the altar. You’re not saying anything. Are you still hoping for something? For example… the Demon Emperor?”

Lilith stroked the soft fur of the scarf around her neck. “Come on, Little Gray. Give me a cry.”

“Mew~” The sound was very soft, and only Landon could hear it. It did not sound like a fox. But what the cry sounded like did not matter in the slightest. What mattered most was the aura contained within that voice.

Landon was very familiar with it, because he had sensed it in the Blood Essence before. It was the aura of the Demon Emperor.

“Gurgle… gurgle… whimper…” Landon’s body began to tremble violently, and he let out strange sounds that were difficult to make out. By now, speaking had become exceedingly difficult for him.

Gradually, those sounds turned into low, mournful whimpers. He was crying. And he was crying miserably.

“Hey, hey, does it really have to be like this? You’re making it look like I’m bullying a child.” Lilith complained unhappily.

“Gurgle… gurgle… what… exactly… are… you?”

“What am I?” Lilith smiled. Perhaps out of interest, she chose to answer this time. She leaned toward the dozens of ears arranged haphazardly across Landon’s body and spoke in a voice that only he could hear.

“What exactly I am, I’m not really sure myself. But if there ever comes a day when this world is completely destroyed… Then I will definitely be the culprit behind it all.”