The sharp blade had already pierced into the Apprentice Death God's windpipe.
He tensed his limbs, his body temperature slowly rising, the blood in his heart gradually boiling, igniting tiny sparks of red light...
Then, this sticky blood seemed to have a consciousness of its own, drilling towards his forehead, and as it gushed out along the wound, it also illuminated his [Death God's Emblem]...
At that moment, his body seemed ablaze, filled with scorching energy at the cellular level, negating the effects of the anesthetic for a third of a second.
The Apprentice Death God seized this opportunity without hesitation.
His hands were tightly controlled by Yun You, unable to exert strength or move.
But he still had two legs...primed and ready.
So in the next moment, the Mad Spirit twisted his waist and turned his hips, kicking away the metal junk pressing on his foot with his right leg, and swung a fierce whip kick towards the unsuspecting Yun You...
"Boom—!"
Without any surprise, this kick landed solidly on the girl's waist and abdomen, making a thunderous crash.
The violent collision raised layers of dust, obstructing others' view.
And as the obstructive dust settled, the middle-aged woman who had been watching from afar, Meng Nan, suddenly widened her eyes...instinctively covering her mouth, as if she had seen something unbelievable...
Lying in the pile of trash, the Mad Spirit slowly lowered his right leg, and that leg was smoking.
In front of him, Yun You still half-knelt there, her hands gripping the dagger tightly, stabbing the Mad Spirit's neck without the slightest sign of retreat.
But...a terrible wound faintly appeared on her left side.
A significant portion of her left waist was directly caved in by the kick, causing the surrounding flesh to swell rapidly...the ribs were also shattered, and her liver was likely severely damaged.
In fact, at the moment of being kicked, the girl clearly felt the sound of bones breaking, realizing the grim fact that her liver had been directly torn apart.
Viscera themselves lack pain sensation, but the membrane encasing the organs reported the liver's rupture to Yun You with such intense pain that she nearly fainted.
At that moment, she felt darkness encroaching, almost passing out.
But fortunately, at the last moment, she barely managed to open her eyes, piercing her palm with her nails, using another kind of pain to forcibly keep herself conscious.
She couldn't help but feel that this Apprentice Death God truly lived up to the name of a monster crowned by the gods, weak to the extreme yet able to deliver such a threatening kick in the face of death, almost taking her life.
However, she felt that the Mad Spirit should have no energy left to kick a second time, so she did not let go or think of escaping. With the resolve of either succeeding or dying trying, she continued to press the blade.
She made up her mind.
Today, either she or the Apprentice Death God would meet their end...
Either you die, or I perish.
But the intense pain from the organ damage was making her feel increasingly powerless.
This was a sign of rapidly diminishing physical strength...
She could never fully plunge the knife into the Mad Spirit's throat.
"This can't go on...his physique is far superior to mine, and the anesthetic's effect is wearing off..."
"We can't drag this out, absolutely can't!"
Yun You thought and turned her head to shout at the middle-aged woman Meng Nan and the long-haired child: "You two! Stop just watching! Come help!"
She initially thought Meng Nan would come over first, and the long-haired, white-eyed child would stay put.
But the reality was completely contrary to her expectations.
Hearing her call, the white-eyed child, who had not moved all along, suddenly stood up, then jogged over to Yun You's side, helping her hold down the knife...
Meanwhile, Meng Nan hesitated, not moving for a long time.
"I know what you're worried about; you just want to sit on the fence...afraid of him and his backers seeking revenge..."
Yun You bit her lip, shouting loudly: "But think about it...do you...really have a choice?"
"You've seen him at his weakest, do you think if he lived, he'd let you go home like that?"
The straightforward words instantly enlightened Meng Nan.
Indeed...with an Apprentice Death God who is so arrogant and ruthless, having suffered such utter humiliation, it's impossible for someone like Meng Nan, who witnessed it, to be left alive.
Killing her to silence her would inevitably happen.
Understanding this, Meng Nan dared not hesitate anymore, quickly rushing to Yun You's side and using her high heels to repeatedly stomp on the Mad Spirit's hand that blocked the knife.
To the Apprentice Death God who scorned commoners, this was nothing short of an ultimate insult...
"Bastard! Filthy commoner! How dare you...!"
His face flushed with anger, cursing continuously, somehow finding the strength to hold his ground against the three of them once more.
"People aren't born to be slaves or playthings for others..."
For the first time, Yun You put away her maniacal grin, speaking coldly: "If you think you're superior, then I'll chop off your head! Let's see how high above so-called ordinary people you really stand!"
The four of them grappled like this.
In such moments, skills and scheming became meaningless.
What they battled for was their obsession with life and the resolve in their hearts.
Each gave their all, not daring to relax the slightest.
And in this life-or-death struggle...
In an unnoticed corner, a pair of eyes that had already dimmed suddenly lit up again.
Its owner was the business suit-clad robot that the Mad Spirit had knocked down.
At that moment, though more than half of the robot's body had turned to ashes, in an irreversible state of death, its eyes shone brightly, as if this was a final moment of lucidity before death.
Undoubtedly, it was because it witnessed the Apprentice Death God being beaten up...which gave it immense pleasure.
Truth be told, it really disliked the Apprentice Death God, despising such self-proclaimed superior beings, loathing them for being high and mighty...kicking others around like dirt.
It itself was abandoned and scrapped by the upper class of Nest City, leading to its current derelict state.
So, it could empathize with the commoners, and even as a creature of the Death Domain, it tried its best to avoid tormenting those civilians, giving them a peaceful death.
Yet at times, it also hated how passive and submissive the commoners seemed.
Once it had a very dear "human" friend from the underclass who also had a rebellious spirit, fighting for fairness all their life.
The robot believed that was a person...what a true person should be like.
And now, it seemed to see the shadow of its friend in Yun You.
Both fought against the same unfair fate, daring to point guns at the strong.
The robot sincerely hoped Yun You could win the life-and-death contest.
It wanted to help this girl, for once, it saw its friend fail due to lack of support, and it did not want to witness such an ending again.
The robot acted immediately.
It snapped off a broken steel pipe from itself, raised it, aiming at the Apprentice Death God's head.
"Stranger girl..."
The robot gazed at the red scales on Yun You's hand, channeling all its remaining strength into its arm.
Its consciousness was gradually fading, all the energy it had from the [Death Domain] became the foundation for its final strike.
Thus, when the robot gathered all its strength, its body had dwindled to just half a torso and that segment of arm.
The rest had become mist, dissipating in the world.
"Burn...to your heart's content..."
"I'm quite curious...to what degree can this 'spark' of yours burn."
"Will it ignite into a conflagration that consumes everything? Haha, let's wait and see."
With that, the robot hurled the steel pipe, the last glimmer of light in its eyes dimming completely.
"Swoosh—!"
The sharp steel pipe sliced through the air, like a silver shooting star, unimpeded, and under the astonished gazes of the people, directly pierced into the Apprentice Death God's head, making a squelching sound as it went in.
Meanwhile, the knife held by Yun You and the long-haired child also followed suit, plunging into the Mad Spirit's throat, sealing his fate.
The outcome of life and death was finally decided at that moment.