XIETIAN
Lol feel like it recently sped things up a lot. Although it shouldnt change his plans in the short term yet now that we know there's very strict rules about higher existences interacting with lower existent world's with the soul punishment thing. So he's essentially protected until he becomes 5th order. And by then he should have no problem squashing any 8th order being easily. I feel like when he becomes a higher existence someone's gonna challenge him (looking at you dragon race) and he's just gonna annihilate the entire faction including the dragon god guy lol
Dunno, maybe I'm just analyzing from a reader point of view here...but I'm actually curious why Lillith still had doubts despite feeling traces of Bai Zenmin and Bing Xue, and hearing the initial account from the emporer. She knows about Bai Zenmin's irregular title....like despite the "common sense" I would think she would have put two and two together a bit faster, prior to hearing his name....maybe the power scale threw her off? Can't wait to read her reaction though :)