One hour ago.
Dawn light broke, dewdrops wetting the city-state's mottled stone roads.
The streets bustled with human voices.
In the cracks of the noise, a thin, ragged hooded cat-eared girl ran like a frightened young beast, alert yet desperate.
Stepping on morning-dew-soaked stone slabs, golden blood continuously dripped from her bare calves.
Clutched in her arms, several coarse black rye bread loaves.
She rushed past the high platform.
She squeezed through crowds where vegetable vendors and pedestrians intertwined.
She stumbled, staggered, yet dared not look back.
Each gasp was like a knife cutting her lungs, each heartbeat slammed painfully against her ribs.
But she couldn't stop.
The children in the sewers were still waiting for her to bring food back.
"Thief!"
"Criminal!"
"Catch her, don't let her escape!"
Surrounding curses lashed at her back like whips.
Some threw rotten vegetables at her, some stuck out feet to trip her, and more just watched coldly, lips curled in mockery.
She couldn't see them clearly, only distorted faces.
Her legs no longer obeyed, muscles seeming scorched by fierce fire. Each step forward felt like tearing sinew and bone.
Her vision also began gradually blurring, the world swaying and tilting before her eyes.
But she couldn't stop.
Run!
Even with just one breath left, she had to run!
She bit through her tongue, using pain to awaken her remaining will.
Ahead, the platform edge.
She didn't hesitate. Her cat ears suddenly stood up, pupils contracting to thin lines. Borrowing the last of her momentum, she leaped down!
Wind roared in her ears. The cat-eared thief closed her eyes, not daring to look.
Thud—landing on the ground, she rolled in place.
Keep running.
"So... hungry... so tired..."
The cat-eared thief murmured. Hunger and exhaustion filled her bones like molten lead. Her running gradually weakened.
Finally, with a thud, she seemed to crash into something?
"Hiss~"
...
"Cifera?"
"What's going on?"
Looking at the golden blood behind the cat-eared girl, Aglaea's face turned frosty.
Ryuga's eyes similarly couldn't conceal his killing intent.
"Why'd you bump into me?"
After hissing for a while, Cifera finally noticed the seamstress lady beside her.
"Seems like you bumped into me."
Ryuga immediately laughed.
"I..."
Cipher was about to argue a few words when the pursuing soldiers' shouts caught up from behind.
"Catch her, catch her! Don't let her escape!"
Cipher's whole body trembled, instinctively wanting to dodge but nearly fell.
Behind her, several low growls and urgent claw sounds rang out.
The relentlessly pursuing three hounds rushed straight up, fangs gleaming, hot breath almost spraying on the back of her neck.
"They're actually letting free dogs on a child? Too despicable—"
March 7th drew her bow.
Aglaea's golden threads churned.
Following the hounds were over a dozen fierce mercenaries.
Just a few black rye bread loaves—was it necessary for over ten grown men to chase with hounds?
"Poor Cifera."
"I'll help you out."
Ryuga snorted coldly. His eyes, like frost blades, exuded bone-chilling coldness and the oppressive feeling of dominating life and death.
"Wither!"
With those two words, divine punishment descended.
An invisible force of decay poured out, devastating everything.
The three sprinting hounds froze instantly.
Before they could even whimper, their bodies visibly aged, withered, rotted at inhuman speed, turning to white bones that crashed to the ground.
Immediately after, bone joints shattered inch by inch, the gray-white remains collapsing like sand and scattering.
The dozen-plus mercenaries met the same fate.
The white bones hadn't even fully fallen before turning to flying sand and disappearing without trace.
Only heavy armor, clothes, and sharp blades scattered across the ground.
[Wither] wasn't just the 'slow' effect from the game.
The street fell deathly silent.
"..."
Aglaea's eyes widened. You're really not the Death Titan?
"Little one, scared?"
Ryuga smiled gently, turning his palm. A blue-purple shadow flame quietly flickered in his palm.
It flew toward Cipher.
Cifera swallowed hard, her small hands clenching her clothes, her little head stubbornly shaking vigorously.
The flame entered her heart without any burning sensation.
On the contrary, it felt cool.
Then she felt strength surging back like a tide.
"..."
Aglaea's beautiful eyes widened another circle.
Confirmed—not the Death Titan.
"I, I'm healed?"
Cipher sat on the ground, holding her calf and examining it back and forth.
Where's that huge wound?
Ryuga couldn't help but laugh. He could absorb life, and naturally could also bestow life.
Cerydra was active a thousand years before the story began.
And Cipher was from the same period as Cerydra and Hyselins.
In Character Story 2, when she first arrived at the Holy City, she disrupted Aglaea's weaving hall.
At that time, Aglaea left the cat-eared thief a letter: "Little glutton, having fun? ...Good thing that Knight Commander wasn't here, or she'd definitely pin your tail down with her sword edge."
Hyselins was precisely the Holy City's Knight Commander.
When little Cipher wove with Aglaea, she often heard her tell stories of those heroes.
The violin's final lament, the chess piece fallen in a dead end, the path shattered into a thousand pieces...
'Violin' referred to Hyselins.
'Chess piece' was Cerydra.
'Path' was Tribbie.
...
Ryuga bent down, pinching Cipher's little face.
"What?"
"Heh~, just think you're cute. Meeting is fate—how about I take you to eat something delicious? Mm, your seamstress lady can pay."
Aglaea: Can I refuse?
"You're a good person."
Hearing there was food, Cipher immediately flew with happiness.
She conveniently issued Ryuga a good person card.
Of course, she didn't forget her black rye bread, still clutching it in her arms.
Outside Cloud-stone Restaurant, three people and one cat sat under a sun umbrella to cool off. Ryuga found Cipher adorable and handed her the menu.
Little Cipher was truly cute, just like Bailu.
"Order whatever you want to eat."
"Hehe, then I won't be polite. You're really a good person."
Another card.
Aglaea 乛_乛: Is there a possibility the person paying is me?
Cipher drooled as she held the menu, ordering a huge table full of earth beast steaks, golden honey cakes, and such.
Soon the dishes arrived.
Cipher devoured her food, her face covered in grease.
Ryuga was amused. He suddenly understood a bit why Kasumi(Sakura's Clone) didn't like Okhema.
"Lord Demon God."
A sudden loud call nearly scared Cipher's tail into bristling.
Ryuga looked up. A group of people were parting the crowd toward him, and the leading woman seemed somewhat 'familiar'?
"Caenis!"
Aglaea's brows contained frost as she glared at the newcomer.
"???"
Ryuga blinked. Wait a minute... oh right, in the story it was the 27th 'Caenis'.
Very similar in appearance to the Caenis a thousand years later.
This wasn't strange.
The Cleaners all used alchemy to replace the spines in their bodies with mysterious metal ones.
Sometimes even their personalities would be overwritten by predecessors.
As the Cleaner's leader, Caenis's 'will' was the most tenacious. When she selected successors, she naturally preferred those whose appearances resembled her own.
Her personality was completely overwritten.
She didn't want to wake up in the morning facing a stranger's face.
Ryuga: "You're looking for me?"
"Yes!"
Caenis's eyes turned, and she plopped down on her knees: "Elder Council member Caenis kneels to beseech Lord Demon God to ascend the throne, rule over Okhema, and lead us toward a new future."
Cerydra: ???
To be continued…