At the speed of light, Lilith reached Bai Zemin's body before his head hit the ground. She hurriedly held him and with the highest level of gentleness placed him on his back to allow his body to rest in an upright position.
Little Xiao Xiao immediately became a little frenetic as Bai Zemin fell unconscious. This little pink dolphin seemed to really like the human she had just met as she not only began to squeal noisily like a baby crying at the lack of her closest relative but also began to move in Bai Zemin's unconscious embrace to reach his face and look him in the face with big eyes brimming with worry.
Lilith temporarily ignored the little pink animal as all her attention was focused solely and exclusively on the young man who had just lost his consciousness. She frowned and the first thing she did was to make sure that Bai Zemin's pulse was stable; something she confirmed in a second and was relieved that his heartbeat was as powerful as that of a wild bull.
Although Lilith was a Sixth Order existence, she was somewhat useless when it came to healing or alleviating negative status effects as her skills were mainly focused more on mass control be it physical, magical, or spiritual. But even if she could do anything about it unless she wanted to receive the punishment of the Soul Record for breaking the rules, she couldn't do much about it either.
The only thing that relieved Lilith tremendously was the fact that except for the slightly labored breathing and sweat running down his face, Bai Zemin did not show any strange signs that were in any way indicative of harm to his well-being.
"This little scoundrel probably forced himself again," Lilith whispered softly as she stroked Bai Zemin's face with one hand.
She reached so far as to slightly cool the breeze blowing from the four cardinal directions to help Bai Zemin's high body temperature fall within normal parameters.
Even without having been by his side, Lilith could clearly figure out what had probably happened.
Considering that she was fully aware of the large number of zombies on the bridge between the two districts and considering that in the past Bai Zemin had chatted with her about what to do with the 20,000,000 zombies that were likely to congregate there due to the two large cities north and south of the bridge, it was more than clear that he had pushed himself harder than he should have in order to wipe them all out as quickly as possible.
Moreover, considering the rather miserable condition of the bridge, Lilith could accurately judge that the battle that had been fought here had probably been a lot more challenging than Bai Zemin thought it would be when he arrived for the first time. Otherwise, it would be impossible for 20,000,000 Unclassified zombies to force an existence capable of facing Third Order existences like him into this miserable state.
Lilith's gaze was lost on Bai Zemin's face, and even she didn't know how to feel about it as dozens of thoughts flashed through her mind.
Bai Zemin was undoubtedly handsome, but Lilith had seen Higher Existences like Lucifer, Medes, Nikolay, etc; existences that basically represented the peak of perfection in the universe as far as appearance was concerned. Therefore, it was obvious that even though she was staring at his face as if she was in a trance, what was keeping her in that state of "hypnosis" was something else.
"This little scoundrel really is dangerous to any woman." Lilith sighed as she caressed his face.
Bai Zemin's personality was like a magic drug; once discovered no woman would be able to let him go. To women who didn't know his personality too well, he could be just a tremendously handsome but tyrannical and selfish young man.... But to those women who fought at his side and knew his true self after spending hours upon hours beside him, Bai Zemin's personality was no different than nectar for the bees.
Even Lilith noticed that she was slowly starting to fall. But the most ironic thing of all was that despite being aware of this fact, one would expect her to be able to avoid falling now that she knew.... Nothing could be further from the truth; despite knowing this, Lilith could do nothing about it.
No... It wasn't that she couldn't do anything about it, rather it was that....
"... I don't even have the will or the courage to refuse to let such a thing happen," Lilith muttered not knowing whether she should laugh or cry.
Suddenly, Lilith felt an extremely familiar aura approaching her from the distance and approaching swiftly in the direction of the bridge. The speed of the owner of that aura was high enough to close the distance that currently separated them in the next few seconds.
After a few moments of consideration, Lilith slowly stood up and walked a couple of steps forward. She stood in such a way that Bai Zemin's unconscious body was behind her as she looked in a southern direction with a faint smile but indifferent eyes.
"I guess it's better to say hello now to avoid awkwardness later."
Her voice was carried away by the wind and swallowed up by the distance.
Instead of hiding her presence, she made herself known for anyone to see.
Approximately ten seconds later, the person Lilith was waiting for finally appeared within her line of sight and since the bridge was a perfect straight line without any large structures or obstacles, that person also noticed Lilith soon after having approached a few more kilometers that were closed in a matter of two or three blinks of an eye.
This person was none other than Shangguan Bing Xue, who after making some fast work after teaming up with Wu Yijun and Nangong Lingxin had managed to secure over 1,600,000 Soul Stones in the basement of the mansion currently occupied by Bai Zemin.
She had even arranged for several teams to be in charge of moving the corpses of the slain beasts that after being struck by Infinite Reduction's lightning again regained their colossal size; otherwise, it would have been impossible for so many corpses to fall into the spatial storage ring despite having quite a considerable size inside.
After organizing everything and giving Wu Yijun a brief explanation of what was taking place, Shangguan Bing Xue hurriedly left the base to head south at full speed. Like everyone else, Shangguan Bing Xue was very clear that the sooner she finished her job the sooner Bai Zemin could return to the base to get the rest he definitely deserved after all he had done.
But... Little did she expect that after approaching to the central area of the bridge where Bai Zemin said he would wait for her, what awaited Shangguan Bing Xue was the sight of a woman so beautiful that even someone proud like her who had been praised as the most beautiful woman on countless occasions was forced to admit her own inferiority.
Shangguan Bing Xue subconsciously stopped her steps when she was 50 meters away and for a moment was stunned looking at the lady in front of her. However, there was not much she had to look at to realize that regardless of whether it was figure, appearance, demeanor, aura, charm, etc; Shangguan Bing Xue could not hold a candle before the black-haired woman.
Even the natural coldness that Shangguan Bing Xue had formed in her character throughout her life was incomparable to the chilling coldness that appeared and disappeared in the woman's red eyes in front of her, like a snake hiding waiting for the moment to strike at its prey.
"Who are you?" Shangguan Bing Xue asked as she reached for her sword from the scabbard at her waist.
She frowned tightly as she noticed Bai Zemin lying unconscious behind the unknown woman. Although she felt relieved internally as she could tell that Bai Zemin seemed to be out of danger and did not even appear to be injured, Shangguan Bing Xue did not understand the current situation.
It had only been approximately 50-60 minutes since she had left for the base and returned, but for some reason, the mighty Bai Zemin was now passed out on the ground and a woman she had never seen in her life was standing beside him.
Lilith stared at Shangguan Bing Xue for a couple of seconds and her eyes flashed peculiarly. Her red lips pursed into a beautiful smile that contained a hint of mockery as she slowly said, "As arrogant as ever, eh? I'm pretty sure your education should be good enough to know that before you ask someone's identity you should first introduce yourself."
As arrogant as ever? Shangguan Bing Xue frowned and a flash of confusion shone in her blue eyes, "Do you know me?"
"... You ask if do I know you?" Lilith actually looked surprised at Shangguan Bing Xue's question. It was as if among all the simulated conversations she had expected to have, such a question never existed.
She chuckled and shook her head before slowly saying, "Let's just say I know you. Since you are indeed still an arrogant brat, Shangguan Bing Xue, let me introduce myself first."
Shangguan Bing Xue's expression changed slightly as she realized that the woman 50 meters ahead of her seemed to know more than just her name. However, she didn't have too much time to be surprised when the next words from the said woman forcefully shook her core:
"My name is Lilith. Let's just say I'm something like the wife of the little scoundrel behind me and now I'm taking care of him. As for my power scale..." Lilith looked at Shangguan Bing Xue with a scornful smile and said coldly, "Well, let's leave it at that even if you were 100 times stronger than your current one, you still couldn't do anything against me."
Shangguan Bing Xue did not seem to hear Lilith's last sentence at all as her brain somehow froze somewhere in the first part.
She looked at the woman who introduced herself as Lilith and said with disbelieving eyes, "You.... What did you say?"
"Mm? I said my name is Lilith."
Shangguan Bing Xue unsheathed her sword as a wave of irritation began to rise in her heart. She didn't understand why, she just knew and felt that just like a bull seeing something red, the more she looked at the woman in front of her the more Shangguan Bing Xue became angry.
"I don't care about your name... Dare to repeat what you said after that." Shangguan Bing Xue's beautiful voice slowly became tinged with chilling coldness capable of freezing one's bones.
"Mm... I said that regarding my power scale, even if you were 100 times stronger than your current one, you still couldn't do anything against me." Lilith smiled derisively as she looked at Shangguan Bing Xue with disdain.
"This bitch.... She clearly knows what I mean but she keeps taunting me." Shangguan Bing Xue gritted her teeth and muttered in such a low voice that it was even hard to hear her own. Then, she looked at Lilith in a way that even spirits could be scared but all she got in return was the same smile that she was slowly beginning to hate more and more.
As if all sense of intelligence had left her, Shangguan Bing Xue turned into a creature that was only guided by her instinct and with a mighty stomp, her body disappeared from its previous position, closing the 50-meter distance that separated her from Lilith in an instant.
Shangguan Bing Xue was undoubtedly fast not only because of all the pure Soul Power she had absorbed after defeating enemies above her league but also because she had invested half of her gained status points in Agility. With almost 600 points of Agility, 50 meters of distance was nothing in his eyes.
It was just that in Lilith's eyes, Shangguan Bing Xue was not much different from a turtle.
Really thank you very much to all those who send gifts to the novel and support with valuable Golden Tickets. I hope we can all keep it up <3