The Devil’s Cage

Kakroom!

When it was almost afternoon, the dark heavy clouds turned into a downpouring rain after a loud thunder.

The rain poured down relentlessly, each drop was as big as pearls as they smashed onto the land loudly.

The people of the city quickly took shelter but despite escaping the rain, the people’s curious gazes were glued to a group of men on the main street of Forest City.

The group contained quite a number of men, starting from the core of the temple, each of them would stand opposite another man and the pair would be 3 meters apart from the next pair. The line of men was extended towards the entrance of Forest City but the most concerning part was their outfits.

Each of the men was wearing bright and glaring armor, a longsword was attached to their waist and despite it being sheathed, it didn’t conceal the glares of the blade.

Every one of them had a big kite shield in front of them, it was black overall and had a blood raven icon on top, extending its wings.

The people who saw the shield felt like raven’s caw was echoing in their ears.

“What happened?” the people wondered.

However, as the citizens of Forest City, they knew what was the right move for them.

All the people stood beside and watched, no questions were asked and no one was going to step up and cause trouble or stop them.

The unlucky bastards from the past told them what the consequences were for doing so.

Under the curious gazes of the people, Hayden Ow was nervously waiting.

He shouldn’t be this nervous but when he thought about what Ren told him about that lord, the branch manager of Forest City couldn’t hold back his shivers.

He had longed for the independence of Funeral Society for a while now and he had enough of living under another’s thumb.

Even though serving under a new Majesty still had some rules and limitations, the removed shackles were enough for his hard work to show its best effect, hence guaranteeing completion of what the new Majesty ordered.

Fuaaaa! Huaaaa!

The rain got bigger.

The heavy rain even disrupted Hayden Ow’s vision.

Fortunately, technology being on the rise allowed the branch manager to not suffer delays in his operation.

“His Majesty has arrived!”

The voice from his earpiece ushered Hayden Ow to give his orders.

Chang!

The big kite shield that stood in front of the guards on both sides of the street were picked up by their respective owners, the longswords together with their sheaths were laid horizontally in front of the kite shield.

The iron surfaced kite shields were knocked with the sheathed swords in a rhythmic manner as though they were war drums.

Dang, Dang Dang!

Even the rain was overpowered by the unified clunks, the downpouring rain felt like nothing to the guards as they were concentrating in knocking their shields.

Gawk!

Under the rainy veil, a scarlet red aviary figure soared across the raindrops and flew towards the sky.

It was very fast, to the point that no one at the scene could catch a glimpse of what it was, even Hayden Ow with the best eyesight could barely make out the aviary figure.

But!

It was enough!

“Welcome, Your Majesty!”

Hayden Ow knelt down on one knee.

“Welcome, Your Majesty!”

The guards standing on both sides of the street knelt down together on one knee as well.

The clunking from their swords and shield stopped but the rain was still overpowered by the sonorous greeting.

The sonorous greeting even rolled up the raindrops like waves and it still wasn’t the end; the raindrops were being blown away by the sound.

“Welcome, Your Majesty!”

“Welcome, Your Majesty!”

Three sonorous greetings caused the wind to blow.

At the end of the street entrance, a car broke through the rainy veil and appeared in people’s sight.

It was just an extremely common car but under the situation, the normal car wasn’t that normal anymore.

Likewise, the person inside the car wouldn’t be normal as well.

The driver, Inspector Oaker had sweats all over his forehead and his hands gripping the steering wheel was slightly shivering.

He was overwhelmed by the scene and after he gulped down a mouth full of saliva, he turned around to the old monk at the passenger seat and Kana and Tanya at the backseat.

“Did they get something wrong?” Oaker asked.

“Um, His Majesty Bird of Death didn’t travel with us.”

“He told us to rendezvous with him here,” the old monk replied without showing any extra expression.

His apostolic living throughout the years allowed the old monk to never change his expression even if the sky crumbled or the earth cracked.

However, it didn’t mean he could deal with the problems at hand.

Kana?

Although she was quite arrogant and untamed during other times, when she was greeted with such a heavy scene, she sat back and was at a loss for words. All she did was stared blankly at the welcoming group.

“H-He, is that strong?” Kana muttered to herself in a very soft voice.

It seemed like the grand scene before her eyes had exceeded her wildest imagination, even though she knew Kieran successfully defeated the God of Forest City.

“Yeah!”

“2567 is very powerful!”

“Very, very, very powerful!”

Tanya replied right away when she heard Kana’s mutters.

The half-assed crystal gazer obviously tried to use some more appropriate words but her weird mind didn’t hold such terms in the first place, hence “powerful”.

However, the use of a single term was enough to represent Tanya’s joy.

As for the absent Kieran?

Tanya didn’t even care. All he knew the stronger Kieran was, the happier she would be.

“Tanya…”

Looking at her friend who was humming an out of tune melody, Kana tried to speak with her mouth opened but in the end, it was a helpless sigh; the old monk and inspector shook their head with bitter smiles together as well.

They knew what kind of personality Tanya had, so…

“Shall we continue?” The inspector asked the old monk.

Oaker thought that the old monk was the only reliable person in the car.

As for the two little girls behind him, he wouldn’t even think about it.

However, to Oaker’s surprise, before the old monk even spoke, Tanya jumped up from the back seat, bending over her petite body in the middle and said loudly “Advance! Advance!”

Oaker looked at Tanya who suddenly got hyped for no reason with a puzzled gaze before he unconsciously turned back to the old monk.

“We’ll follow Tanya.”

“Advance.”

The old monk said as such because he knew the changes that occurred to Tanya.

“Fine.”

Oaker clenched his teeth and stepped on the peddle.

However, he didn’t fully step on it, not even half but only a slight touch on the peddle and naturally, the car wouldn’t go any faster.

Tanya though wasn’t happy about the tortoise advancing speed since she was restless.

“We are going to miss it!”

“We are going to miss it!”

Tanya mumbled anxiously. She didn’t care about Kana asking questions beside her as she opened the car door and jumped out, trying to move forward on her own.

Huuu!

The moment the door was opened, a violent wind struck.

The downpouring rain was suddenly stopped and the dark clouds in the sky were blown away.

Dashes of gold were scattered down through the dispersing clouds, shedding sunlight over the land. Soon, the golden light combined and revealed the sun behind the clouds.

Gold! The scene was filled with golden glory!

Gawk!

A raven’s caw sounded in the sky.

The scarlet-red figure dived down from the sky rapidly and landed on a person’s shoulder firmly.

The crow feathered mantle which was bathing under the sunlight was like a golden banner, waving along with the wind.

The light from the sun had concealed Kieran’s face the moment it came down, hence what the people around saw was a golden figure instead.

It was elegant, grand, and holistic.

Everyone couldn’t hold back their reverence to the golden figure, they really wanted to crawl on the grown before this holistic figure, except for Tanya.

Tanya didn’t see the gold with her eyes but only Kieran.

So, she ran faster towards Kieran and grabbed him by the feathered mantle, she smiled brightly as if a great burden had been lifted.

“I made it!” She said softly.

Woof, Woof Woof!

A dog’s bark came from the Frost Wolf pup as it popped its head out from Kieran’s leather mail, it was barking at Tanya in confusion.

Although the Frost Wolf had intellect like a child, it still didn’t know what Tanya was doing, Kieran too.

Kieran looked at Tanya with a questioning gaze.

Tanya smiled first before tiptoeing before touching the Frost Wolf pup on its forehead.

“You’ve made it too.”

The moment her words subsided, the sunlight grew denser.

The gold grew brighter and more dazzling.

However, the gold wasn’t from the sun itself anymore but…

From Tanya.