The Spring of Hidden Mist.
It was that outdoor hot spring pool again.
Lilia was naked, shrinking into the furthest corner of the pool.
She only dared to keep half of her head above the water’s surface.
Her gold and blue heterochromatic eyes stared fixedly at the opposite side of the pool.
That woman, Lucia.
This time, she didn’t make a move like she had before.
She simply leaned lazily against the rocks at the edge of the pool.
Her eyes were closed, and half of her long, pitch-black hair was submerged in the water.
On the shore, Lilith stood with her head bowed.
The entire courtyard was eerily quiet.
Lilia’s heart hammered against her ribs.
What on earth was this pervert up to?
She didn’t believe for a second that Lucia was being kind enough to simply bring her here to enjoy the hot spring.
Underneath this calm surface, there was definitely a conspiracy brewing.
Time passed minute by minute.
Lucia remained motionless, as if she had fallen asleep.
But the more she acted like this, the more Lilia’s skin crawled.
She quietly channeled the Spatial Magic she had recently recovered within her body.
Under the water, she condensed a tiny Water Blade.
Then, controlling it, she let it glide silently toward Lucia.
She didn’t expect it to actually wound the other woman; she just wanted to test her.
Just as the Water Blade came within half a meter of Lucia’s body, there was a sharp “pop,” and it shattered into mere droplets on its own.
From start to finish, Lucia didn’t even twitch an eyelid.
Lilia’s heart sank.
As expected, this pervert had been guarding against her the whole time.
“Want to play with the water?”
Lucia spoke suddenly.
Her voice stirred a ripple of echoes in the empty courtyard.
Lilia flinched in fright, her head shaking rapidly.
“No, no, meow!”
“Come here.”
It was those two words again.
Lilia’s body froze instantly.
Every pore in her skin was screaming at her to “run fast.”
But she knew she had no choice.
She shuffled slowly through the water.
Each step she took closer felt like she was walking toward an execution ground.
Finally, she stopped a full step away from Lucia, not daring to move another inch.
Lucia opened her eyes amidst the swirling mist.
Those blood-red pupils were more captivating than any gemstone.
She reached out and gripped Lilia’s wrist.
With just a gentle tug, Lilia lost her balance and fell entirely into her embrace.
It was the same posture as last night, the same fragrance.
Lilia’s body instinctively tensed up.
She prepared herself for a new round of torment.
But this time, Lucia didn’t do anything excessive.
She simply let Lilia lie in her arms and began to scrub her back.
Her movements were light, the strength applied just right.
Lilia’s mind went blank.
What… what was this situation? A back scrub? She didn’t believe it for a hundred reasons.
This was more uncomfortable than getting a direct beating! Every inch of skin that was touched reminded her of last night’s humiliation.
Yet, her body unfaithfully began to relax under such treatment.
“Your body is much softer than last time,” Lucia whispered in her ear.
The heat of her breath made Lilia’s ear itch.
Lilia’s cheeks flared up instantly.
She wanted to retort, but she couldn’t get a single word out.
Because what Lucia said was the truth.
She really… wasn’t as resistant as she had been last time.
This realization caused a wave of immense panic to surge from the depths of her heart.
She was being assimilated! She was being slowly eroded of her will by this pervert using a kind of malicious tenderness!
No! Absolutely not! She had to do something to break this situation!
Lilia’s mind raced.
An attack would be easily neutralized, and running away was even more impossible.
Wait! She remembered the experience of the sneak attack using chili water.
Although it ended in a miserable defeat, it had at least broken the composure of that eternal ice-queen face!
An unexpected attack was the only way that might work! Now that she was a second-tier apostle, her control over spatial magic was much stronger!
A crazy and bold plan formed in Lilia’s mind.
She lay in Lucia’s arms, relaxing her body and pretending to be drowsy.
Secretly, however, she focused her mental energy to the highest degree.
She quietly mobilized the Spatial Magic within her.
She didn’t condense any offensive spells.
Instead, she broke the magic down into countless invisible “coordinate points,” attaching them to every single drop of water in the entire hot spring pool.
This was an extremely delicate operation that consumed a massive amount of mental energy.
Cold sweat soon broke out on her forehead, but she gritted her teeth and persisted.
She was going to give this pervert a “surprise” she would never forget.
“Why have you stopped talking?”
Lucia seemed to notice her abnormality, and her scrubbing motions stopped.
“Sleepy, meow…”
Lilia mumbled indistinctly, burying her face even deeper.
“Then sleep,” Lucia said, continuing to scrub her body.
Lilia closed her eyes and concentrated all her mental power onto the water droplets she had marked.
Now! She roared with all her might in her mind!
—Spatial Swap! Activate!
In the next second, a miracle occurred.
All the water in the hot spring pool, along with the steam, vanished into thin air.
An entire pool’s worth of massive ice blocks—which she had forcibly teleported from the ten-thousand-year-old glaciers of the Black Iron Mountains—crashed into existence!
“Crash—!”
Lucia and Lilia, along with countless blocks of ice, slammed heavily into the empty bottom of the pool.
Bone-chilling cold instantly enveloped their bodies.
The massive force of the impact left them both a bit dazed.
Lucia clearly hadn’t expected this turn of events.
Her body, which was holding Lilia, stiffened for a fraction of a second.
In that one second, Lilia clearly saw the look of shock and disbelief on her face!
Success! She actually succeeded! She had made this high-and-mighty perverted Demon King suffer a setback!
“Haha… Hahahaha! Meow!”
Lilia scrambled out of the pile of ice blocks.
Ignoring the fact that she was naked, she stood with her hands on her hips atop a block of ice and let out the most arrogant laugh of her life.
“Lucia! You didn’t expect this, did you! Meow!”
She stomped one foot onto a large block of ice and pointed a finger at Lucia, who was also sitting in the ice pile, soaking wet with shards of ice hanging from her black hair.
Lilia laughed so hard that tears started to well up.
“This young lady is not to be trifled with! That’s what you get for bullying me, meow!”
This was what victory felt like! This was the feeling of pulling the Demon King who ruled the world down from her altar!
On the shore, Lilith was completely petrified.
Her mouth hung slightly open as she stared at the two disheveled figures at the bottom of the pool, her mind a total blank.
The… the young lady… she actually turned Her Majesty’s private hot spring… into an ice cellar?!
And subjected the supreme Majesty to…
Lilith’s brain stopped functioning.
She was already prepared for the entire Spring of Hidden Mist to be leveled to the ground.
However, beyond her expectations, the predicted thunderous rage did not descend.
Lucia just sat in the pile of ice.
She slowly raised her head and looked at the little thing laughing wildly on the ice with her hands on her hips.
In her blood-red eyes, there wasn’t a trace of anger.
Instead, a never-before-seen light called “interest” was growing and gathering in the depths of those pupils.
Then, she smiled.
It was a smile mixed with surprise, praise, and an intense sense of possessiveness.
“It’s a lot of fun, isn’t it?”