As Lily Bai, Nine Li, and Zane Lin were flying along, a swarm of beautiful butterflies suddenly appeared, fluttering around them in a dazzling dance.
Lily Bai and Nine Li, both curious, reached out their hands to try and touch them.
The butterflies weren’t afraid of people at all.
"Be careful," Zane Lin warned, his face full of suspicion. "The way they showed up is really odd."
"Aren’t you being a bit paranoid, Sixth Brother? It’s just a bunch of butterflies—are they going to eat us or something?" Nine Li teased.
"Better safe than sorry." Zane Lin drew his sword and slashed at the butterflies.
The butterflies couldn’t take a hit; whenever his blade touched one, it instantly turned to powder.
Powder drifted down, sprinkling all over him, and he quickly brushed it off, still on high alert.
Still, he got caught anyway.
Suddenly, his vision blurred, his spiritual power drained, and he dropped straight out of the sky.
"Sixth Brother! Sixth Brother! What’s wrong?" Lily Bai and Nine Li both rushed over, trying to catch him.
But then the butterflies suddenly twisted into a tornado and swept him away.
Lily Bai and Nine Li landed on the ground, exchanged a knowing smile.
"Senior Sister, isn’t this kind of... not very nice?" Nine Li asked.
Lily Bai replied, "What’s not nice about it? When he was yelling for us to rush to our deaths together, he didn’t think it was ‘not good’ then, did he?"
"Do you think Mirage will kill him?"
"Who knows? It’s his own fate now!" Lily Bai said.
"Still, Mirage is really tricky to deal with," Nine Li said. "She’s impossible to guard against."
"Every one of the Ten Fiendish Elites is tough to handle," Lily Bai said. "Mirage isn’t even the most troublesome—she’s just the best at making all sorts of toxic and illusion powders, but her actual combat skills are pretty weak. She’s a butterfly spirit, after all!"
"So who’s the most troublesome then?"
Lily Bai said, "Bifang, ranked number one, has the highest combat power, is smart and cunning, and is seriously hard to deal with."
"You seem to know a lot about the Demon Emperor’s subordinates," Nine Li remarked.
"I’m a Demon Slayer, remember!" Lily Bai said. "Every Demon Slayer gets a demon-beast dossier—and it’s updated all the time."
"Alright, alright... So where are we headed now?"
"Redleaf Valley." Lily Bai held the Coordinate Compass, leading Nine Li to their destination.
It wasn’t actually that far.
They flew past a dense mountain forest of sky-high stone pillars, and the ground below suddenly changed color.
Crimson leaves blanketed the whole mountain.
Layered, pure, and absolutely stunning.
"Wow! This place is gorgeous!" Nine Li exclaimed.
"This is the place." Lily Bai put away the compass and activated her Heaven's Eye to investigate.
Then she and Nine Li landed in the mountains.
There was a hidden barrier in the mountains, invisible to the naked eye, but Lily’s Heaven’s Eye revealed it.
At the edge of the barrier, someone appeared.
It was Baxa.
Nine feet tall, with piercing eyes and sword-like brows, his whole presence radiated power and danger.
His true form: lion’s head, dragon’s body, golden scales like impenetrable armor... He looked like a dragon, but wasn’t quite a dragon.
An ancient beast.
His cultivation was no lower than Azure Flame’s.
These two were the Demon Emperor’s right and left hands.