In the ruins of a once-prosperous and bustling city, Liora sat facing the sky, her eyes gaining an even deeper red hue as they reflected the crimson sun.

It had been quite a few days since her struggle with the Unknown began, and this city and all of its residents were some of the unsuspecting victims of this struggle.

If the two of them did not stop, Liora suspected that it wouldn't take long for the Crucible to turn completely barren.

Thankfully for the other Young Devils, the Unknown seemed to have accepted his defeat and backed down, letting Liora's name stay in the first place for the past twenty-four hours.

However, Liora understood that his silence was only temporary.

How could the Unknown—whose many years of planning had gone to waste—possibly retreat without a fight?

So, she waited.

Time quickly passed as Liora quietly admired the scenery.

Just when she began wondering whether she should take her tools out to outline this scene, she felt a demonic aura rush toward the ruined city.

Her expression remained unchanged as she instantly guessed that person's identity.

Only a few seconds later, the owner of the demonic aura finally arrived, landing on the street not far away from her.

"I finally found you!", the elderly Devil spoke while gnashing his teeth, his words filled with hatred and hostility, as if he had suffered humiliation in Liora's hands.

His words were clearly addressed to her, yet Liora could see that he didn't recognize her as the person he had once met in the City of Embers, but simply as the Crimson Maiden.

Obviously, Liora's previous guess, that the many bodies of the elderly Devil didn't share memories, was true.

After he made this opening remark, the elderly Devil didn't communicate with Liora any further.

Without hesitation, he waved his hands, causing hundreds of puppets that looked identical to him to appear. These puppets not only possessed the same appearance as him, but even the same aura.

The moment they appeared, the many bodies seemed to have received the same instruction, as they immediately began to form a siege around Liora.

The many elderly Devils cooperated seamlessly, forming teams of five.

Some of them were responsible for attacking, others for defense, while others simply tried to make it impossible for Liora to escape.

Faced with the siege and noticing that the original form of the elderly Devil had quietly slipped into the sea of puppets, Liora showed no nervousness.

With a light push against the ground, she rose to her feet and, before anyone could react, vanished.

When she resurfaced, she was standing in the shadow of a stone boulder, and more importantly, beside one of the many elderly Devils.

As she stretched her hand, a small needle formed above her palm, and with a flick of her index finger, shot straight toward the elderly Devil.

The elderly Devil was unable to put up any defense, and without further ado, the needle pierced through his forehead.

A small hole, followed by countless tiny cracks formed all over his body, and, with a loud bang, his body exploded, turning into thousands of pieces of wood and subsequently into dust.

This failed to escape Liora's eyes.

"So it's not clones. It's puppets.", she realized as she raised her left hand and defended against the incoming blow.

The elderly Devil standing closest to her ignored his companion's death.

While Liora was busy killing him, a sword of wood had appeared in his right hand, which he swung toward her with all his strength.

With a clang, the sword struck her black armor. As expected, though, it left no trace of damage behind.

Yet, although it failed to penetrate her defense and deal any damage, the sword—despite being made out of ordinary wood—didn't even crack in the slightest, much less break.

A hint of surprise flashed in Liora's eyes as she witnessed this scene.

Clearly, even though the combat power of the elderly Devil was not very high, far below that of the Blasphemer, his means were equally as strange, if not even more.

Still, Liora quickly recovered from this momentary shock.

Before the elderly Devil could adjust his posture and continue attacking, she reached out and grasped his head.

With a light squeeze of her fingers, the head began to crumble like fragile glass before exploding—following in the footsteps of his dead companion.

"It seems that I may have overestimated you...", Liora suddenly spoke.

"Although your ability to create so many puppets is quite amazing, your overall combat power is far below that of the Blasphemer's."

"No wonder you have been hiding like a rat all these years. If you had shown up, you would have long died at the hands of the other ranked Devils."

Though their confrontation was brief, Liora had understood most of the elderly Devil's details.

Overall, the combat power of each individual puppet barely reached the threshold to become a ranked Devil, and even when they cooperated, the puppets could barely compete with the top ten Devils of the Crucible Ranking.

Liora understood that the only reason the elderly Devil had managed to reach first place was not because of his powerful strength, but because the large number of puppets granted him a unique advantage.

"Have you been using these puppets to prey on weaklings all this time? No wonder no ranked Devil has ever seen and not much is known about you.", Liora stated, her voice flat yet filled with undisguised disdain.

Unfortunately, her words failed to arouse any reaction from her opponent.

The many puppets continued besieging her methodically, while his true form remained hidden, never taking the initiative to show up.

Seeing this, Liora exhaled softly.

"If this is all you can do, there's no reason for this battle to continue.", she whispered in a low voice.

Yet, the moment her words were finished, she didn't close her mouth.

Instead, her voice became louder, thunderous, low yet high-pitched.

Numerous distorted words escaped from her mouth and echoed throughout the ruined city, accurately reaching the ears of every single elderly Devil.

Having fought against him, Liora had spotted his weakness—the individual strength of each puppet was not high.

Even if other Devils discovered this, there would be nothing they could do.

After all, unable to target his true form, they could only kill everyone, hoping that they could get lucky and kill him.

But Liora was different.

She possessed a large-scale attack that directly targeted her opponents' souls—Tongue of the Abyss, coupled with Soul Tear.

As this ability that she had developed by herself was activated, the movements of the puppets around her slowed down until they completely froze.

Peaceful, angry, and stern expressions flashed across their faces before their demonic energy became unstable and they exploded, just like the elderly Devil had tried to do in the "Holy" City.

With their self-destruction, only Liora remained in the city, together with the elderly Devil's true form.

Unexpectedly, the elderly Devil didn't show much reaction to having a legion of his puppets killed.

Raising his head, he stared at Liora with hatred and opened his mouth to speak.

"Things are not over yet!", his voice echoed in her ears, and under Liora's eyes, he also exploded—not as a result of the Tongue of the Abyss but by his own choice.

At first, Liora couldn't understand why he had made such a decision, but when she glanced at the bottom left in her field of vision and saw that her Slaughter Points had remained the same, she realized what was going on.

"Have you been a puppet from the very start? No wonder..."

"It deserves to be someone who has remained in the first place of the Crucible Ranking for so long. You're truly cautious..."

Obviously, from the very beginning, the elderly Devil that had arrived in the ruined city was not his true form, but yet another, slightly stronger, puppet.

Glancing around her and seeing that there were no traces of the elderly Devil remaining, Liora guessed his purpose.

"Does he want to test my combat power? Perhaps now that he has seen my strength, he'll hide for the next twelve months and wait for me to leave the Crucible..."

Having interacted with many such Devils before, Liora could speculate what he was thinking.

If the elderly Devil had not seen her true strength, he might have considered opposing her.

But now that he knew that he stood no chance against her, he would simply find a secret place to hide in and wait for her to leave.

Unfortunately for him, Liora wasn't planning to let him go.

"It doesn't make sense to keep such an uncertain factor around. As long as I get rid of him, no one else can threaten me.", she thought.

With a thought, she disappeared, only appearing a few seconds later in a secret room hidden underground beneath the ruined city.

The room was empty, apart from a single person, or rather, a single puppet.

Glancing at the unconscious puppet of the elderly Devil that she had captured in the "Holy" City, Liora approached his still body.

Once before him, she placed her hand on his forehead. A crimson Devil Rune flashed in her palm and quickly sank into the puppet.

The next moment, her vision changed.

Out of nowhere, a large number of threads appeared, emerging from the unconscious puppet and extending in all directions.

Looking at these threads and feeling the familiar aura—an aura identical to the puppet—Liora's lips curved upward.

"Found you.", she whispered.

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