Just as Max stood beside Alice in front of his mother's statue—sharing quiet monts, exchanging soft words, and feeling a calm he had not known in a long ti—his expression suddenly shifted.
Sothing dark brushed against his senses. Sothing violent. Sothing wrong.
A presence so vile it twisted the air itself.
Max's eyes narrowed sharply. His aura surged cold.
"Demons are here," he said, voice low and filled with dangerous intent.
Before Alice could react, his figure vanished from the ancestral chamber in a burst of force so fast the runes on the walls trembled. Alice hurried after him, her own aura flaring as she chased him out of the elven territory and into the open skies of the Lower Domain.
Beyond the edge of the Lost Continent, the world stretched into a vast, endless ocean. Waves shimred under the sunlight, and the horizon was a seamless line of water and sky.
Two figures stood above that endless expanse.
One stood calmly atop the water's surface, her feet touching the waves as if the ocean itself submitted to her presence. She was a demon—an elegant yet terrifying beauty—with dark crystalline patterns on her arms and long flowing hair the color of obsidian. Her aura was oppressive and monstrous, radiating power strong enough to suffocate lesser beings.
She was a peak Divine Rank cultivator. Tenth level. One of the strongest in the demon race.
Above her, lounged casually atop a thick cluster of clouds, was Balthazar. His posture was relaxed, one leg hanging over the edge as though he were enjoying a pleasant view instead of preparing for a confrontation.
"Do you think he will show up?" the lady demon asked, her voice smooth but laced with malice. She looked up at the demon sitting in the clouds with a cold smile.
"He should," Balthazar replied lightly. "My sources say he left the Middle Domain and descended to the Lower Domain. If he senses our presence here, he'll co. Especially you—your aura is loud enough to draw him instantly."
The lady demon smirked. "You better be correct."
Balthazar tilted his head lazily. "Are you sure you want to fight him? I hear he's very strong. If not the strongest human genius alive aside from Lucien."
The lady demon chuckled, lifting a hand and letting a droplet of ocean water rise into the air before crushing it with her fingers. Her smile was cruel.
"No matter how strong humans pretend to be, in the end they are nothing more than cattle to us. Aren't they?" Her voice dripped with arrogance.
"You're absolutely right," Balthazar said with a sly smile of his own. His eyes glinted with cunning amusent as he looked toward the elven lands.
"Let the cattle co."
Just then, Max appeared before them—silent, composed, and cold. His arrival shook the air itself, and both demons instantly shifted their attention toward him.
He looked at the lady demon first, then at Balthazar with a frigid glare.
"Balthazar," Max said, his voice carrying a calm sharpness that cut like a blade, "I didn't co looking for you… yet you deliver yourself to ."
A mocking sneer curled on his lips.
Balthazar only shrugged, pretending to be helpless. "What can I say? My subordinates can be very stubborn." He tilted his head toward the lady demon standing on the water. "et Mariona. One of my strongest people. She enjoys fighting. When she heard about you, she wouldn't stop pestering until I agreed to bring her here."
Hearing that, Max turned his gaze fully toward Mariona. Her aura was indeed terrifying—dense, oppressive, brimming with killing intent. A peak Divine Rank expert.
But to Max, her strength felt insignificant.
She was powerful… but not to him.
Max's eyes returned to Balthazar, and he smiled—a bright smile, but one filled with unmistakable provocation.
"Tell , Balthazar. How many demon geniuses returned from the Heavenly Lord Secret Domain?"
The words hit harder than any attack.
Balthazar's expression darkened instantly.
Because the truth was a humiliation the demon race could not forget.
Not a single demon genius had returned.
When the Heavenly Lord Secret Domain opened, the demon race sent so of their strongest young elites, confident they would dominate. But when the portal reopened… none of them ca out. At first, the demon race thought the secret domain was unusually cruel this ti. They assud the humans would also suffer massive losses.
But then news spread—humans returned. Many of them. Stronger than ever, reaching peak Divine Rank all at once.
Realization struck the demons like thunder.
Their geniuses did not die because of the domain.
They died because soone eliminated them.
Soone from the human race.
Every demon knew it… but they could not publicly say it. Not with Mark already showing a terrifying reaction when the truth reached him. Not with the higher-ups deciding to stay silent to avoid stirring the human geniuses further.
Balthazar's voice dropped to a chilling whisper. "You will regret this, Max."
He raised a hand without taking his eyes off Max.
"Mariona. Kill him."
"My pleasure," Mariona replied with a wide, devilish grin.
Her figure blurred instantly, moving so fast that even the ocean beneath her buckled from the pressure. She reached Max in a blink, her sharp demon claws aiming straight for his neck—fast enough to rip apart a mountain.
But before her claws could touch him…
The space around her hands rippled.
The distortion spread like a calm wave.
And then—
Collapse.
The very fabric of space folded inward, devouring her arms entirely. One mont her hands were there, deadly and poised to kill. The next mont, they were gone—swallowed by the void without leaving a trace.
"What?!" Mariona gasped, horror flooding her face as she stumbled back. She reappeared dozens of ters away, staring at the stumps where her arms used to be.
Her heart pounded wildly. She had never seen space behave like that. She did not even understand how it had happened.
She only knew one thing—
If it were her body instead of her hands, she would have been dead by now. And that thought terrified her completely.
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