Bai Meow raised her tiny finger and pointed it at the old man sitting atop the ruins of the building;

At this moment, she regarded him as an enemy who deserved no mercy.

“A bad guy? That sounds exactly like the foolish childish nonsense a little kid would say...”

As though looking at a hopeless piece of “scrap,” the Human Guardian smacked his dry lips, which were cracked to the point of splitting, then pushed himself up from the spot where he had been sitting.

“We who carry out the will of the gods—if the world defines us as ‘evil,’ then there isn’t a single good person left in this world!”

That answer, exactly like the one he remembered from the “barbarians,” irritated the Human Guardian;

And under the influence of that anger he had not revealed, he changed his mind.

Before carrying out the order to slaughter the city, he decided to deal with the barbarian before him first.

He had even begun to think that whether Dibiles’ people were killed by his own hand no longer mattered.

Only Bai Meow—only her—had the Human Guardian decided he absolutely had to kill!

In his eyes, a child who couldn’t distinguish good from evil had no need to go on living, even if she wasn’t someone who absolutely had to be purged.

With a faint “shff,” the old figure suddenly closed in on Bai Meow at a speed even young people couldn’t catch.

He condensed a white ball of energy in his hand, locked onto the space ahead, and slammed it down.

“Beastkin girl, I’ll help you reincarnate right now. Before you die, you’d better regret your foolishness.”

As his words fell, the gaseous attack drew close to Bai Meow’s body. It looked soft and harmless, yet her instincts sounded an alarm.

With a flick of her tail, Bai Meow rose off the ground, then twisted around and appeared behind the spot where she had been standing in the blink of an eye.

At the same time, the gaseous attack came crashing down.

The ground seemed to have been bombarded. It didn’t even have the chance to crack before its surface was directly reduced to powder.

Still standing, Bai Meow felt that the ground beneath her feet was considerably lower than before.

Still, the change didn’t hinder her from moving afterward.

The instant the Human Guardian’s strike came down, she moved toward his side and launched a swift attack from the direction of his left shoulder within a single breath.

As she raised her dagger and slashed, the Human Guardian’s body remained still, but his legs instantly slid backward, moving as swiftly as if he were gliding across ice.

The increased distance caused the dagger to miss, but that was only the reality of this moment;

On her next breath, Bai Meow lowered her body, slapped the ground with her flexible cat tail, and continued to skim forward, carrying on the charge she had begun earlier.

The Human Guardian didn’t panic. He raised both hands toward the front and swung down the balls of energy clenched in his left and right hands at the same time.

The enemy’s attacks came from both sides. If things continued like this, Bai Meow would be struck head-on before she could hit him.

Before that could happen, she flipped in midair, locked both legs onto the enemy’s front, and drove both feet down.

Bang!

Using the enemy’s arms as a foothold, Bai Meow’s body immediately sprang upward;

As she rose and avoided the energy balls, she threw a dagger diagonally downward.

A moment later, the dagger closed in on its target without veering off course. The target showed no intention of moving.

Just as the dagger was about to pierce him, the Human Guardian’s body suddenly changed, scattering like clouds and mist and becoming a mass of white vapor drifting nearby.

Crack!

With a “whoosh,” the dagger passed through the mass of white vapor, then stabbed into the ground;

As expected, the Human Guardian, having changed his form, hadn’t suffered the slightest injury.

Bai Meow had undoubtedly encountered such a strange opponent for the first time.

Her ability to analyze the situation was still lacking, so she couldn’t clearly understand that

she shouldn’t be fighting—at least, she absolutely shouldn’t be fighting this guy!

The might of the “Three Protectors of the Faith” lay not only in their strength, but also in the forbidden spells they possessed.

Not only did magic and elemental attributes counter one another; forbidden spells also had their own countering effects.

At this moment, Bai Meow had unfortunately encountered the opponent she was least suited to fight head-on;

the forbidden spell she possessed strengthened her own power;

while the Human Guardian’s ability to turn into vapor meant that her attacks, no matter how imposing, had no chance of hitting him even once.

As long as there was no contact, even the strongest attack power would have nowhere to be used.

If neither side used a forbidden spell, Bai Meow would definitely be the victor;

But if that wasn’t the case, then the cruel reality was this:

In this battle, Bai Meow’s chances of victory were infinitely close to zero.

As the second round began, the scattered white vapor gathered into a certain shape. From close by, it looked humanoid.

In this state, the Human Guardian could maintain high-speed movement while still retaining his gaseous properties.

This wasn’t sprinting. It should be understood as flight.

Bai Meow’s body had just begun to fall back down when her opponent flew to her side in the blink of an eye.

The Human Guardian didn’t need a weapon to unleash his full strength. He was the type who could fight in close quarters.

He raised his vaporized arms, which looked extremely soft, clenched both palms into fists, and hammered them down toward the front.

Since she was in midair, Bai Meow had no way to step on the ground beneath her feet and use it to exert force again.

That made it extremely difficult for her to avoid the opponent’s frontal attack in midair.

Fortunately, Bai Meow had learned a combat technique from Bai Shui...

Throw the item in your hand—such as a dagger—then, before it truly fell, move your body downward and step on it with both feet, using it to exert force a second time in midair.

The change in position caused the Human Guardian’s powerful strike to miss. Bai Meow was clearly more agile than he was.

It was worth noting that regardless of whether the user held one item or two, this technique could be used multiple times.

Bai Meow brought both feet together and stepped onto the dagger’s extremely narrow surface. The instant she leaped upward, her tail drooped, then curled up from below.

With a sharp “clack,” Bai Meow caught the weapon with her cat tail;

Immediately afterward, her right hand touched the tail, and as her body arched backward and fell toward the ground, she once again gripped the dagger in her palm.

At that moment, the Human Guardian descended to the space opposite her;

Just as Bai Meow shifted her gaze forward, a white shadow suddenly attacked from behind her.

Having a threat behind her made Bai Meow uneasy. The instant the shadow truly drew near, she swiftly turned around.

Then she saw that the person standing before her was the Human Guardian, her opponent.

Front became back, yet the enemy Bai Meow had originally been facing had neither moved nor vanished.

In other words:

There were two enemies, one in front of her and one behind her, and both could be said to be the same person.

Creating a second self and allowing it to exist in this world for a short time was the magic the Human Guardian himself took pride in. Its name was

—Cloud Clone!

When the Human Guardian had scattered into vapor just now, he hadn’t been doing nothing;

on the contrary, before deciding to attack for the second time, he had already prepared to use this clone to overcome Bai Meow.

Whether it was the original or the clone, the two enemies in front and behind posed threats Bai Meow couldn’t possibly ignore.

Thus, Bai Meow decided to exploit the difference in timing, trying to defeat the two opponents one after another before they could catch her between them.

The winding white vapor was instantly cut apart by the sharp weapon;

Even though she couldn’t damage formless gas, scattering it posed no problem.

After breaking through the attack of the opponent in front of her, she swung one arm, causing the weapon in her hand to carve several traces through the space before her.

When the white shadow in front of her couldn’t stop because of its forward momentum, the slashing marks branded into the air left traces across its surface.

A sound like cotton coming apart rang out. The white shadow before Bai Meow scattered and vanished, revealing that it was the clone.

The real body was behind her.

Bai Meow turned around again, and before her body had even steadied, she saw layers of white vapor forming a cloth-like attack and rushing toward her, ready to wrap her up.

With no time to think, Bai Meow instinctively cut through the white cloth. Immediately afterward, blazing arrows of fire shot toward her.

This was a great fire-element spell, so it wasn’t strange that the Human Guardian could use it.

At the critical moment, Bai Meow raised her dagger to block in front of her. The overlapping flames then erupted around her.

After enduring the terrifying heat, Bai Meow was drenched in sweat, and she had lost a considerable amount of water from her body. Still, the arrows hadn’t pierced her.

Those weapons were called “Sharktooth Daggers.” Myin had given them to her some time ago. Their quality was no worse than the divine blade “Unstoppable,” making them equivalent to divine artifacts.

If Bai Meow had used another dagger to face the flaming arrows head-on,

then before the battle ended, the weapon in her hand would have broken, and her heart would have been pierced in an instant.

“Incredible! A savage, ignorant beastkin actually possesses a divine treasure that even we devout believers have no way of obtaining.”

The Human Guardian took a serious look at the Sharktooth Daggers.

A moment later, a flicker of envy passed through his gaze as he looked at Bai Meow, mixed with unmistakable jealousy.

He had changed his mind. He no longer believed this battle would be a waste of his time. Instead, he began to feel fortunate that he had chosen to attack just now.

“Once I kill you, the divine treasure will be mine. What’s taken from a barbarian is free for the taking.”

At this moment, the civilized and devout man’s eyes radiated a greedy light.

The Human Guardian hadn’t moved only after speaking. Before his words had even ended, he had already arrived within arm’s reach of Bai Meow.

A fierce blow capable of taking her life came crashing down. If two or three more seconds passed, Bai Meow would certainly lose her life.

But in the end, the Human Guardian didn’t wait, because he couldn’t afford to waste even a single second.

From behind him, the other dagger that had been stabbed into the ground not long ago cut toward him along a silver trajectory.

The Sharktooth Daggers were spiritual weapons capable of attacking on their own according to their wielder’s will.

Bai Meow hadn’t recalled that dagger because she had been waiting for this very moment—the instant her opponent had to temporarily maintain a physical form in order to concentrate his strength and strike!