Liora continued her travels through the Crucible, following the large number of threads extending from the unconscious elderly Devil puppet, in order to find his other bodies.
Every time she met one, she wouldn’t hold back in the slightest and would immediately take action, striking with all her strength without uttering a single word.
At first, she would waste a few minutes each time she discovered a puppet, but as time passed, the time spent gradually grew lower.
By the end, she could basically kill a puppet in mere seconds, eliminating it in a single strike.
Her swift actions only served to make the rumors of her hunting the Unknown even more widely spread. Following the Dog Devil, no City Lord dared to step forward and try to stop her, allowing her to do as she pleased in their territory.
--
Liora didn’t know how much time had passed since this hunt began, nor how many puppets she had destroyed during that time.
All she knew was that the number of puppets that had fallen in her hands numbered in the hundreds, if not thousands, while the crimson sun had risen and set a couple of times.
"But finally, things are about to end.", Liora whispered, as in her field of vision, less than a dozen threads remained.
Seeing this, she selected one of them as per usual and rushed toward its location.
--
As the wings formed using Dusk Armament flapped behind her back and boosted her momentum, it didn’t take long for Liora to arrive at her destination.
The moment she did, she instantly noticed something different.
Every single elderly Devil puppet she had met so far was staying in the city, having obtained a suitable identity and integrating into it.
Even when the destruction of the other bodies became apparent and the puppets tried to escape, none of them had gone very far before being found by Liora.
However, the current target of Liora was obviously different.
Glancing at the vast stretch of land that was covered in fresh grass before her, Liora was slightly surprised.
This place looked more like a farm field rather than a place in the dangerous and barren Crucible.
"Either this place is a trap, or I’ve finally found the elderly Devil’s true body.", she judged, mostly leaning towards the latter.
With a flap of her wings, she slowly lowered her altitude, landing just outside the grass-covered area.
Raising her head, she took a brief look into its depths, and after hesitating for a brief moment, she stepped forward.
Instantly, she experienced a familiar sensation as the almost forgotten texture of grass pressed against her feet.
Still, this didn’t cause her to let her guard down. Remaining as cautious as ever, she slowly walked deeper into the field.
To her surprise, despite this land being completely out of place, signaling something unusual, nothing strange occurred during her walk.
No unexpected enemies appeared, nor did any hidden array suddenly activate on its own and attack her.
Throughout the rest of her journey, Liora faced no obstacles.
Before long, she reached the center of the green land, finally arriving at the location where the other end of the invisible thread was pointing to.
Yet, unlike what she was expecting, she didn’t see the elderly Devil’s true body calmly waiting for her arrival. In fact, she didn’t see him at all.
The only thing waiting for her was a lone stick-like plant that rose from the ground, like a flagpole that someone had placed.
If other Devils were to meet this strange plant, they wouldn’t recognize its identity and would simply think of it as a result of some kind of mutation.
After all, their inherited memories would not contain information about such a common, seemingly useless plant.
But Liora, having awakened the memories of her past life, immediately recognized it.
It was a standard, ordinary-looking culm of bamboo that one could find almost everywhere, with no special aura nor any particular characteristics.
If it were not for it being the only living creature in this obviously weird stretch of land, and Liora seeing the other end of the thread sink into its body, even she would not have suspected anything.
"Is this the true form of the elderly Devil?", she couldn’t help but whisper, her eyes flashing with undisguised strangeness.
Compared to the opponents she had previously faced, the bloodline that the elderly Devil had awakened seemed quite embarrassing.
Compared to Lord Embers, who was a rare vampire, to Blasphemer, who had awakened a mysterious holy bloodline, or even someone like Eshara, who was part of a race whose deeds had spread throughout the Heavens, the elderly Devil’s race was much more common.
"A bamboo?"
"How... peculiar.", Liora organized her words while trying her best to contain her laughter.
She couldn’t be blamed.
No one could have ever expected that the mysterious Unknown, a Devil known and feared by both ordinary and ranked Devils alike, was actually a mere bamboo.
"No wonder your actual combat power is so low. In fact, it would have been quite strange if a mere bamboo were any stronger."
Although Liora’s voice was not low at all, the bamboo before her showed no reaction, as if it were truly an ordinary plant rather than a Devil.
Liora didn’t think that the elderly Devil was acting.
Since she had killed so many of his puppets and had managed to reach this place, it was obvious that she possessed a way to track him.
No matter how much the elderly Devil pretended to be an ordinary bamboo, it would do nothing to change his final fate.
As such, Liora arrived at another conclusion.
"Can your original body not move, speak, or even fight back?", she realized, and subconsciously, she couldn’t help but recall the first Devil she faced when she arrived at the Crucible.
It was a plant Devil—just like the elderly Devil in front of her—with the difference being that it was not a bamboo, but a tree with the ability to form a domain.
The elderly Devil didn’t only remind her of that Tree Devil because they were both plants, but also because they were equally helpless when their hiding place was found.
"No.", Liora suddenly shook her head.
"If anything, the elderly Devil has it worse. The Tree Devil could at least form a domain to hide itself. This guy is truly helpless."
Yet, despite his natural disadvantages, the elderly Devil had actually survived for so long and had even managed to reach the first place on the Crucible Ranking.
His ability to create puppets had clearly helped, but Liora knew that even with such an ability, the fact that he had done so was a feat by itself.
"You’re quite unlucky. If you were born in another Crucible, you might have succeeded.", Liora spoke, seemingly talking to herself, knowing that even if the elderly Devil could hear her, he was unable to respond.
After a brief moment of sentimentality, Liora suppressed those inexplicable thoughts and slowly approached the lone bamboo.
A small dagger formed in her hand, and after she twirled it around her fingers, she thrust it forward, embedding it deep into the bamboo.
The moment she did, the whole bamboo began to shake violently.
A loud, high-pitched shriek rang in Liora’s ears as the bamboo began to wither.