Unlike usual, Lucian was alone tonight, not because of any serious reason, such as having quarrels with his women and the like, but simply because he knew that the script would likely finish cooling down tonight, so he decided to remain alone for now.
Lucian pondered for a while after receiving the message from the System that the script had finished cooling down, and then took out his phone.
[Lucian: Hey, wanna see Nous now?]
Lucian sent a message to Herta in case she wanted to meet Nous again, given that his ultimate escape technique, the script, was available once more.
[Herta: No. I'm making a cake for Ruan Mei, no time.]
[Lucian: Oh, so you're basically blowing up the kitchen?]
[Herta: Nonsense! Are you questioning a genius? It's just making a cake—what's so difficult about that for a genius like me?]
[Lucian: Let's do a video call. I wanna see.]
After Lucian sent this response, Herta did not reply until several seconds later.
[Herta: No time. Not talking to you.]
[Lucian: Just like I thought, you're really blowing the kitchen up.]
Herta, however, did not reply again.
Clearly, she had really blown the kitchen up, but as always, she was too stubborn to admit it.
Lucian chuckled, put away his phone, and finally responded to the System.
"System, activate the script."
[Random character script starting...]
[Acheron]
[Randomly drawing a conceptual ability...]
[Law of Calamity: Any lifeform that harbors ill intent or engages in ill action toward you or toward your relatives will be affected by the Law of Calamity and will thereby suffer various misfortunes. It is a passive ability, and the severity of the resulting misfortune varies according to the intensity of the ill intent or the ill action.]
"A passive ability?"
Lucian muttered in surprise as he learned about his new conceptual ability.
"So, it will stay active in the background? Not bad..."
"But any lifeform, huh..."
"Does that mean even the Aeons could trigger it? If it hits with the same force Nous used to calculate me, does that mean THEY might suffer a misfortune on the level of Lan's arrow or something?"
He already liked this conceptual ability, since with it, he could tell who held ill intent simply by seeing who ran into misfortune.
As for Acheron being the script's protagonist, he had more or less already anticipated it, considering that most past script protagonists were, more or less, individuals who had mingled with him in some way or those who would benefit him in his current situation.
Just as Lucian was thinking about Acheron, his vision suddenly contracted sharply before his body vanished from the room.
===
Meanwhile, inside the bedroom at the end of the hallway, Acheron had just entered meditation when a strange force suddenly yanked her back to reality.
"Am I... getting drowsy...?"
It should be noted that after becoming a Self-Annihilator, one's body would no longer require sleep, so the sensation of drowsiness was something Acheron had not experienced for a very long time.
However, if that were truly the case, why was she suddenly feeling drowsy now?
Acheron felt it was highly suspicious and attempted to resist the unknown drowsiness, but no matter how she struggled against it, the result was poor—she could not resist it at all.
"Really... strange..."
Acheron muttered in a daze, then collapsed onto the bed, her eyelids growing unbearably heavy, finally shutting and unable to open, ultimately falling into a state beyond conscious choice.
Just before her consciousness was fully drawn into dreamland, she sensed that she was dreaming, yet it did not quite feel like an ordinary dream. Rather than a dream, it felt as though she had returned to the day she became a guardian of her homeland, Izumo.
In the nameless star system, two planets were entwined in each other's tragic fate, dancing an eternal waltz around a black sun, which was in truth a 'Shadow of IX.'
At first, one of the two planets gave birth to people, and then those people bowed, naming the land beneath them 'Izumo.'
Eventually, when the people of Izumo looked up and saw the other planet that also circled the black sun alongside theirs, they called the planet above 'Takamagahara.'
Once, they dreamed of one day visiting Takamagahara, of developing a friendly relationship with its inhabitants, and even of establishing a home there. However, under the black sun's influence, Takamagahara soon spawned demonic beasts that senselessly slaughtered the people of Izumo.
===
Izumo, Izumo Kingdom, Wagatsuma.
In the corner of a small city known as Wagatsuma stood a beautiful and cozy natural hot spring bath.
Inside this hot spring, natural rocks surrounded the pool, the steam was thick and sulfurous, and at this moment, it was unusually quiet and peaceful because only one person was currently using it.
It was a beautiful and tall woman with long black hair that reached her thighs, bright violet eyes lined with red eyeliner, and two red horns rising from her head.
Naked, without any fabric covering her beautiful body, she buried herself in the scalding water, leaving only her head exposed—and this caused her shoulders, and everything below the surface, to turn red from the heat, while the tense and sore muscles throughout her body gradually relaxed, at least a little.
Raiden Bosenmori Mei was her name—she was the wielder of the 'Sentinel' known as 'Howl' and one of the Izumo Kingdom's guardians.
Even though it sounded impressive, Howl, the purple-black long sword that lay beside the pool atop a pile of her clothes, was a heavy reminder of how terrible this world truly was, because of the existence of the 'Kami.'
Kami.
In the eyes of Izumo's inhabitants, they were the evil gods that came from Takamagahara, invading demonic beasts that had gnawed the land of Izumo into festering sores for more than a hundred years.
For now, only this hot spring offered her a rare breath of relief in this grim and desperate world.
Mei's mind slowly went blank as she closed her eyes, thinking of her future as well as Izumo's, when the dense steam above suddenly collapsed inward.
*Swish!*
It was not a whisper of wind, but as if the space itself had been pierced.
In the next second, without any warning, a man appeared from the void above—his position eerily precise, directly above Mei's head, a mere ten centimeters from her scalp.
Mei hadn't fully opened her eyes yet when the light dimmed, and a heavy, unfamiliar aura crashed down upon her!
*Splash!*
"Ugh!"
Unprepared, the impact slammed Mei hard enough that her vision went dark, her back thudding against the pool's rocky wall with a muted grunt of pain, causing the scalding water to splash wildly.
In that chaotic moment, a warm, slightly crisp sensation suddenly pressed firmly against her lips, making her eyes widen in shock.
Before her eyes, a man's face—right there, so close that she could clearly see his golden pupils—was gazing back at her.
Sharp features, a high nose, eyes as piercing as blades—who else could it be but Lucian?
Lucian himself hadn't expected such... lucky timing.
Just as his gaze cleared, what he saw was the epitome of a beautiful Asian woman—a Yamato Nadeshiko. And by sheer coincidence, she was directly beneath him, and somehow their lips had actually met.
Not anticipating landing on a human cushion, Lucian's hands instinctively pressed against the pool walls beside the woman, preventing his full weight from bearing down on her. Even for an Emanator like him, the hot water, the unfamiliar body heat, and the sudden, distinct wet contact of lips still left him somewhat stunned.
Lucian inevitably recalled the moment when he had just entered Castorice's script—this incident was more or less the same as when he had first met her, though this time it was clearly far worse than that.
"..."
Deadly silence filled the bath.
Only the sound of water dripping and their suddenly heavy breaths echoed within this silent atmosphere.
A fraction of a second passed before Mei snapped out of it and immediately pushed Lucian away.
"GET OFF!!!"
Mei's sharp shout exploded as lightning flared in her eyes, while her right elbow shot toward Lucian's chest like a cannonball, followed by her left palm, which slashed toward his neck!
Years of fighting had honed her body into instinctive reactions.
In her eyes, a pervert who had just stolen her first kiss deserved to die!
"Wait!"
Lucian braced himself against the pool wall, his body bending backward like a water snake as he narrowly avoided Mei's elbow strike, while her palm slash only grazed the skin of his neck and ultimately caused no harm.
He couldn't help but curse the System for the absurd script entrance.
Thanks to it, Acheron's first impression of him had been that of a pervert peeping on a woman bathing, and even worse, stealing a kiss.
It was truly ridiculous.
As for why he believed the woman before him was Acheron, it was simply because this emotional, black-haired beauty was actually Acheron in her youth, though now her name was Raiden Bosenmori Mei.
Seeing that her two strikes had both missed, Mei, already covering her body with a white towel at her side, felt her rage flare.
*BANG!*
Mei kicked off the pool floor hard, propelling her body upward before her right leg lashed out like a steel whip, slicing through the air with a spray of water toward Lucian's head!
Seeing this, Lucian's eyes flickered with slight surprise, but his reflexes were absurdly fast—his right hand had already left the pool wall, and with a kick against the pool floor, his body slid backward.
*Whoosh!*
Mei's whip-leg brushed Lucian's hair as it passed.
Water splashed, figures blurred—her three consecutive strikes were dodged by the slightest margin!
"Bastard!"
Mei, realizing her opponent actually had skill, finally understood why he dared to peep on the bathing wielder of Howl.
Nevertheless, since her bare hands couldn't subdue this wild pervert, she would do it the hard way.
*Swish!*
Mei's left hand flashed toward Howl on the poolside, and in that instant, the purple-black sword's cold sheath met her fingertips.
However, just as she was about to grip the hilt and unsheath the blade, Lucian's hand moved faster!
Predictively precise, Lucian's hand covered Mei's hand with astonishing force, his five fingers clamping like iron and locking her hand down instantly!
In that instant, Mei's entire arm was pinned, unable to move, as Lucian's domineering hand pried her fingers off Howl's hilt!
"LET GO!"
Mei shouted and struggled, her other hand punching toward Lucian's abdomen.
"Calm the hell down!"
Lucian frowned slightly, flipping Mei's right wrist and pressing it down with unyielding, calculated force as he twisted her body half a turn in the water until she ended up with her back against him, facing the pool wall, his free left hand then snatching her other wrist and forcing both her arms to bend behind her.
Now locked in place, Mei had no leverage left.
If an outsider came in and saw their current awkward and ambiguous position, it would be impossible to explain.
===
{Note: Because the lore behind Izumo and Acheron's life as Mei is still ambiguous and has not been revealed in detail, their lore in this fanfic will not fully follow the canon and may contain many inconsistencies with it, as it will mainly be an original story.}
===
[A bonus chapter for every 500 Power Stones.]
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