After storing all the mutant beast corpses inside his storage ring, Bai Zemin looked around to confirm that he had not left anything behind before he proceeded to walk in a southerly direction together with Lilith and Shangguan Bing Xue.
Sure enough, even though the three of them were walking, their bodies seemed to constantly appear and disappear as if they were blinking. One instant they were here but in the next second, they were five meters ahead and so on continuously until their backs were no longer visible as they disappeared into the distant horizon.
Walking with the elegance of a goddess and the seductive charm of a demoness, Lilith glanced sideways at Shangguan Bing Xue and noticed that Shangguan Bing Xue's spirit seemed a little low. However, despite knowing the reason behind the ice princess's low mood, Lilith not only did not help her but instead pushed her further by engaging in conversation with Bai Zemin again and again.
In one of those conversations, the curiosity of Lilith was piqued when she looked at the little pink dolphin in the embrace of Bai Zemin.
"Hey, you little scoundrel. What's the matter with this little animal? Did you make it your pet?" Lilith said as she stared at the little dolphin.
Bai Zemin looked at Lilith and for a moment he could have sworn that her eyes shone brightly as if they contained millions of stars within them as she looked at the little animal in his embrace; it was a look practically identical to the look Shangguan Bing Xue had been giving Xiao Xiao all this time.
'I guess cute creatures have an advantage over women after all.' Bai Zemin chuckled secretly as he caressed the harmless-looking little animal gently.
"This little one is named Xiao Xiao and will temporarily stay with us as an ally as it is the only way I can communicate with the mermaid princess and have her keep her part of the pact." Bai Zemin said slowly as he kept his eyes straight ahead, wishing to arrive already to rest.
"Eh?" Lilith blinked as if she had heard something surprising and said with some skepticism, "You already met a race leader and struck up a relationship with her?"
"I'm afraid Bing Xue and I already met three race leaders." Bai Zemin smiled bitterly and shook his head.
The appearance of the beast leader and the zombie leader had come as a great shock to Bai Zemin. After all, this was the first time he had come face to face with existences at his level as far as subclass was concerned.
"The power of a leader-type existence is really different." Bai Zemin said as he recalled the fierce battle on the bridge that had occurred a couple of hours ago. "Even though my current power makes me an invincible existence to any Second Order creature and only a Third Order existence with level 150 or above can probably take me on face to face, that zombie and that ape were only level 101 existences but they managed to give me quite a few headaches."
Although in the past Bai Zemin had faced goblin leaders, the leading power that the goblins had was somehow fragmented into four. Therefore, even though Geminder was the highest leader among the four goblins, he did not receive 100% of what a leadership subclass would give him if the goblins recognized only him as their leader.
"Leader-type characters are encouraged by the Soul Record. That's why they receive a small power boost for each living being under their wing and with the increase of living beings that said character leads the power boost can grow to terrifying proportions." Lilith pointed out casually.
She knew that as a member of the Demonic Army, one of the most powerful factions in history, as well as the largest at present, the power Lucifer received as single leader was probably as colossal as anyone could ever imagine.
Not only Lucifer; all the other leaders of Higher Existences were the same.
Unlike in fantasy novels where the main character could become the strongest alone, in the real world, things were different. Here, a lone character could never become the most powerful because even if that person reached the top of the universe he or she would eventually be defeated by someone of the same stage but with a faction.
A faction not only represented a lot of manpower to help in performing different tasks but also meant a percentage of raw power for the leader of that faction.
"Now do you understand a little of the reason I told you that you needed to build your own faction?" Lilih smiled weakly as memories of Bai Zemin growling in disagreement flashed in her memory. "Even though you are strong and in the future, you will be a lot stronger than you are now, you would eventually run into a wall that you could never break down because this is a wall that can only be broken down slowly from the beginning."
"You mean I am now breaking that wall without me even realizing it?" Bai Zemin said after some silent thought.
"Right." Lilith nodded casually. "Even though you don't notice it, in the future you will see how from day 1 all your efforts will pay off. Even those efforts you thought were in vain will eventually prove their worth. You just need to wait and naturally the universe will answer you."
"… Don't worry, I'm slowly seeing the fruits of everything you told me I needed to do." Bai Zemin looked at Shangguan Bing Xue with a weak smile as he said these words.
Although temporarily only Shangguan Bing Xue was of real help to him, as time went by they would all begin to show their worth. Moreover, Bai Zemin was aware that living alone was impossible; he needed humans to perform other tasks. It was impossible to do everything by himself unless he was an omniscient and omnipresent being.
The reality was not a light novel where the loners were invincible. Even the strongest eventually needed the help of someone weaker, as crazy as that might sound.
Today, for example. If not for Bai Zemin being the leader of a faction, even though he could have faced the zombie leader and the beast leader, the battle would definitely not have been as "smooth" as it had been.
As Bai Zemin and Lilith chatted, Shangguan Bing Xue listened quietly.
'So the reason why he set out on faction building was not because he wanted to but because this woman told him to.' Shangguan Bing Xue sighed inwardly.
Slowly but surely, she was realizing that Lilith's influence over Bai Zemin was indeed big. But… After a few moments of consideration, Shanggauan Bing Xue felt that it was only natural since Lilith had been there for him when there was no one by his side.
Unlike Shangguan Bing Xue, who had Wu Yijun and Chen He, Bai Zemin was completely alone at the beginning of all this hell. He, unlike her and many others, had no one to confide in since even before the appearance of the Soul Record he had no friends.
In those moments of loneliness and darkness, the existence of Lilith for him should have been no different than a beacon of bright light illuminating his path. Therefore, it was no wonder that he listened to her so much and held her in such high esteem regardless of her strength.
"By the way, let me hold the little pink dolphin you carry in your embrace."
Suddenly, Shangguan Bing Xue's little ears twitched in an extremely cute manner when she heard certain words that attracted her attention. Although she did not look to her side to see what was going on, she was completely attentive now.
"This…" Bai Zemin hesitated when he heard Lilith's request and subconsciously looked at the little pink dolphin that seemed to be sleeping comfortably in his arms. He couldn't help but remember what happened when Shangguan Bing Xue tried to take Xiao Xiao away earlier and couldn't help but wonder if the same would happen with Lilith.
"What, you won't let me hug her?" Lilith pouted and looked at Bai Zemin with eyes brimming with reproach.
She should be fine… No? Bai Zemin said to himself trying to convince himself without much success about it.
Somehow, he felt a bad premonition and his instinct told him that it was better not to let Lilith hold the little animal. However, seeing the little girl look Lilith was giving him, Bai Zemin forced to tell himself that he was probably overthinking things.
"Well… You better be careful…" Bai Zemin said as he held the little dolphin underneath the fins and slowly moved her tiny body towards Lilith in an attempt not to wake her up.
"Of course, I'll be careful." Lilith rolled her eyes for a second before reaching out her hands to hold the little pink dolphin.
She had been haunted by the beauty of this charming little female-gendered animal from the first moment she had seen her. However, she had managed to resist the temptation while chatting with Bai Zemin to catch up and while teasing Shangguan Bing Xue.
But now that everything had calmed down a bit, Lilith finally couldn't take it anymore as her urge to want to hold little Xiao Xiao completely overwhelmed her and she finally made her request.
Seeing how Lilith held the little animal in her embrace and nothing happened, Bai Zemin let out an audible sigh of relief that Lilith did not understand.
Shangguan Bing Xue looked at Lilith with envy as her eyes were full of complaint when she looked at the little Xiao Xiao. This little animal was really beautiful and she wanted to hold her to pamper but what she received in return for her good intention was a stream of freezing water; but here was this hateful woman, succeeding without a problem.
However, things were not as simple as they seemed to be.
"So cute…" Lilith murmured in a soft voice as she stared at the small animal that had her little eyes closed and was sleeping happily with a slight smile on her mouth.
Lilith's ruby-colored eyes sparkled brightly as she looked at little Xiao Xiao and it was as if she had discovered some kind of treasure already as even while walking she couldn't take her gaze away from the dolphin.
But Lilith and the rest had not taken more than a few steps when suddenly little Xiao Xiao's body shuddered fiercely as if a wave of electric current had suddenly hit her. Her deep pink eyes opened wide and she didn't look sleepy at all as her big eyes stared at Lilith.
Lilith had no idea what was going on, but Bai Zemin and Shangguan Bing Xue clearly knew this kind of reaction.
As Lilith wondered what was going on with the cute little animal, Shangguan Bing Xue's eyes shined brightly as if a star-studded galaxy that seemed to have died came back to life and in slow motion her lips began to curve upwards.
"Watch out!" Bai Zemin unconsciously shouted as if the end of the world was approaching.
"Eh?"
Just as Lilith looked at him in confusion as it was absolutely impossible for an enemy with murderous intent to slip out of her detection, the little pink dolphin she was holding appreciatively just centimeters away from her face suddenly puffed out her cheeks like a squirrel keeping nuts in its mouth.
By the time Lilith realized what was happening, it was too late.
The little pink dolphin opened her mouth wide and moved her head forward as if she were heading a soccer. Then, a large jet of cold water came out of her mouth and at such a close distance and without having expected such an attack since she could not sense any malice at all from Xiao Xiao, Lilith received the jet of water directly in the face.
Bang!
Bai Zemin didn't know where all that water was coming from but Little Xiao Xiao continued to spurt water from her mouth for more than 5 seconds before she finally ran out of fuel. Xiao Xiao Xiao's chest area slowly returned to normal and her puffy cheeks lost puffiness quickly until they finally returned to normal.
"Pu pu pu pu!" Xiao Xiao Xiao shouted something in a high-pitched voice while looking at Lilith as if she was furious.
Then, as Lilith stood there silently as if frozen with her eyes closed, the little pink dolphin took the opportunity to break free from her grip and with a beautiful swoop returned to the hands of Bai Zemin, who subconsciously caught her.
Bai Zemin: "…"
Xiao Xiao: "…"
Lilith: "…"
Shangguan Bing Xue: "….. Hahahahahahahaha!"
As Bai Zemin looked at Lilith dumbfounded and little Xiao Xiao closed her little eyes comfortably again and as the victim of all this stood there with her eyes tightly closed with cold water dripping down her body, Shangguan Bing Xue couldn't even fight the urge to laugh which after a mere second was released with all her forces.
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