Shadow of the Evil God

"No matter whether you think you can say something or not, you can tell me. Because if you don't, there will always be a distance between us." Cesar emphasized, "Haven't we already handed over the most important secrets in each other's hearts?"

She immediately emphasized her tone, "What if I say that I feel nervous and uneasy when I see you chatting casually with so many important people, and I think you will disappear? What if I say that I just want you to be silent, not talk to anyone, and follow me like the sword-wielding guards recorded by our ancestors, and do nothing else but accompany me until I die - I want you to be my personal guard, lover, or even shadow?" Fields stared at him without blinking.

Although he wanted to fool around, he was forced to admit it. "Uh, this won't work."

"I knew it wouldn't work." Phils's expression suddenly turned gloomy, as if she had fallen from the sunshine into a grave.

"Listen to me," Cesar said slowly, "at least you've said it, so we have something to discuss. First of all, think about it, Corini is not someone who can stand in the front. She is a shadow, dependent on Count Thane for her existence. Without someone standing in the front, Baiyan can't even be a shadow. He is simply a servant with a sword. Am I right?"

"That's right." Fils pursed her lips, her tone full of self-loathing. "And I know you're the one standing in the spotlight. Sean and Garcia can't argue with you, and I'm even worse at speaking than Corini. I didn't want to think about this, but you insisted on digging it out of my head. Can't I just pretend I know nothing?"

Perhaps because the medicine had dried, Cesar slowly sat up against the sticky sheets, feeling like he was tearing himself off a mousetrap.

He grimaced in pain. "I don't know if this is a custom of your Soholi school or what, but this White Eye, he's a loyal guard trained by Corini with the help of her parents when she was young, right?"

"I heard that, but that's all I heard."

"Korini merely created a guard according to ancestral custom, but they didn't actually need each other. Perhaps they had sex at first, and perhaps there was a touch of love involved, but later, Korinni herself flirted with others, toying with the men and women who had the misfortune to fall into her hands. Ultimately, the two grew suspicious of each other, leading to this ridiculous and playful ending. I think this story is rare, but it at least shows that ancestral customs aren't always reliable."

Phils stared at him strangely and shook her head. "This is unreliable? What else is reliable?"

"I don't think there's anything that's guaranteed to work," Cesar said.

Er's tone changed, "Everything will deteriorate and fade. Instead of hoping for something eternal and unchanging, it is better to put aside suspicion and concealment, and be ourselves when we are alone, put aside other thoughts, say whatever we want to say, do whatever we want to do.

do what."

"There's nothing inappropriate, and nothing you can't say? You just think what you think?"

"I think this is the most precious thing. Group 6#999Four:9Three'6One!999" Cesar thought for a moment and said, "Think about our respective unique identities, and then think about all the people we've met so far. Is there anyone else who can be as frank and open as we are? No one else. Instead of relying on the customs of our ancestors, why not rely on ourselves and express everything we dare not or cannot express elsewhere?"

At first, Firth listened silently, but then her gaze shifted. A flush rose on her cheeks, and then her gaze quickly sharpened, conveying a long-suppressed irritation. She pushed against his numb chest and pounced, kissing him hard—or more accurately, biting him on the lips. He gasped in pain, and his head slammed back against the pillow. Only after she had scraped his lower lip with her canine teeth did she manage to straighten herself up slightly.

"I really want to bite you like this," Fils glared at him. "Now I really bite you. If I suddenly can't control my emotions later, I want to use more intense methods."

"As long as you can heal me," Cesar paused for a moment, then said, "It's okay if you want to stab me with a sword."

Hearing this, she flinched again. "But isn't this wrong?"

"There's nothing wrong with it, probably not." Cesar shrugged and said, "You're a mage, why put yourself in other people's rules and regulations? No matter what different things you want to try, I will accompany you to try it. In return, you will also support me in doing things that others cannot accept, right?"

Firth studied Cesar for a moment. Seeing he remained silent, her gaze inched closer, as if trying to peer through his eyes into his soul. Her skin, stained with water droplets, gleamed in the candlelight, her flaxen eyelashes matted together, and her dark blue eyes were more focused than ever, as if completely unaware of the existence of other people and things.

She sat on the edge of the bed, bending down, her wet hair falling down, covering his face. Her bare knees clamped his wrists, holding them tightly; his fingertips rested on her energetic calves, and with a slight pressure, the delicate skin would sag inward, a few drops of sweat breaking under his fingertips, making her moan unconsciously.

Phils's lips moved slightly, and at first she only bit his earlobe, then she bit up half of his ear. "Do you think I'll bite it off?" She gritted her teeth.

"Then I hope you can glue it back on."

"You taste like sand and sweat. It's awful. And when you get home, you collapse on the bed and make it look like a dirt pit."

"sorry......"

Phils poked his cheek with her finger and said something back. "Don't answer. I just wanted to try to curse you, but I couldn't find the right words."

Cesar could feel her saliva secretion increasing, coating his ears in layers, soaking them completely, as if they were soaked in sweltering honey wine, making his consciousness intoxicated. From time to time, he could hear the sticky sound of saliva secretion, sometimes a hissing sound of inhalation, sometimes a whirring sound of breathing, mixed with her hazy whispers. She grazed his ear with her teeth, and pressed the tip of her tongue against his earlobe, slithering around like a little snake, stirring his mind.

He felt a little dizzy, his eyes blinded by her wet hair. He wanted to say something, to let out a long breath, but two nimble fingers reached up. They first gently touched his jaw, then stroked his cheek like feathers, and finally, they found their way into his mouth.

Firth grabbed his tongue, pressing the tip of her nimble index finger and thumb against the surface of his tongue and pulling it straight out. Her slender fingers slid over the indentation of his tongue, circled around the ends, gripped it firmly, and then flicked the tip of his tongue like a pebble.

Only when she had pulled and played enough, put his sore tongue back and loosened her mouth, did Cesar breathe a sigh of relief.

"It didn't feel very satisfying." Fils hugged her knees and fell to the edge of the bed, curling up in a ball. "I wanted to do this so badly before, but after doing it, I felt so empty."

"you are annoying."

"Aren't you annoying too? You try to find out what I'm thinking when I'm applying medicine or feeding you soup. I'm just pulling your tongue! Go wash the glue off yourself!"

"Okay, okay, I'm going to go wash off the glue all over my body. If you want to sleep, go first..."

Phils turned her face towards her and said, "Carry me over too."

Cesar raised his eyebrows, not knowing whether to say that she was moody or that she could never really get angry. Any emotion in her heart would not stay for long, so he had to pick her up. He listened to her mumbling all the way and took her clothes stained with green paste and immersed them in a wooden basin of warm water.

The medicine on his body quickly dissolved in the warm water, and the water seemed to become warmer, bringing a soothing feeling to the body and mind. Phils leaned against him, then stretched her body and stretched her hands towards the ceiling.

She lifted her arms, examining her nails, which shone crystal clear in the mist. Her clothes gradually fell away, eventually becoming just a few pieces of thin cloth floating on the water, her slender figure looming in the mist.

"Aren't you afraid of fainting again?"

She turned around immediately.

Holding his shoulders, biting his ear, she said softly in a lazy voice: "Then reach out and hug me, kiss me. If I pass out, you can carry me back the way you came and sleep with me."

The sound made his heart feel like it was about to bleed.

Cesar embraced her slender waist, pressed his lips to her fair shoulder, and kissed her softly. Phils hugged his neck, rubbing his cheek against hers, rubbing her soft, delicate, pear-shaped breasts against his, almost flattening them. She scratched his back with her nails and used her wet lips to explore her favorite ear, sucking on it and breathing into it, making her body feel numb, as if she were about to melt in sticky mud.

"Do you want to say something?" she asked in a low voice.

Cesar thought for a moment, trying to distance himself from the feeling she brought to him. "I sense you're bored," he said.

"You're right. I'm extremely bored!" Firth shouted, nearly deafening him. "What the hell does your sword practice have to do with me? I haven't drawn the magic circle I wanted to draw in a long time. I haven't used true knowledge in a long time. I can't do anything I really want to do, and I can't get any of the knowledge and materials I really want. Every day the temple staff fights with the treasurer of Noyen. How long will they fight? Every day I stay here is a day of my life wasted! I might as well be living in a dog pit now!"

"You can think of this as a preview of a life of being restricted in every way." Cesar rubbed his buzzing ears. "There will be many days like this in the future. You have to get used to it. If you can't, you have to endure it."

Fils held him close, like a bracelet around him. "Desperate," she muttered.

"At least you have something to complain about now, and it's just agitation. It's better than staying in the old man's castle."

"Is the old man deliberately delaying the people from the temple so that we can't follow him out?"

"possible."

"He can't keep putting it off."

"Maybe the old man wants to delay that thing until it happens?" Cesar stroked her smooth back. "Once the city is in chaos enough, many things that couldn't happen before can happen."

"For example, asking you to defend the city?" asked Firth.

"this......"

"If you are drafted into defending the city, I will go with you." She hugged him tighter.

"Things can easily happen on the city walls."

"I feel uneasy staying in the hotel alone, and I feel even more uneasy when I think about the possibility that you might have developed a deep affection for someone while defending the city."

"I can guarantee that the mercenary captain will not go to the top of the city wall. She is just here to work for the temple." Cesar reminded her.

"You've already mentioned the candidate before I even mentioned him by name!"

Chapter 37: The Cursed Ajiehe

"We have to name someone," Cesar said thoughtfully, "How about I change it to Corini?"

Phils raised her delicate white hands and clasped his cheeks tightly with her ten fingers. "Do you still want to be my stepfather?"

"I'm just giving you an example." His tone was unclear due to being caught. "Those are the only two examples I can give you, right? I haven't even met one of them. I just heard that there are many people who admire Corini. Is that true?"

She shook her wet hair vigorously, splashing water everywhere, and then her eyes widened with excitement. She held his face tighter, as if she wanted to dig her fingers into it.

"She's so vulgar! So vulgar! Do you know what I can't stand most about her? When I was ten, I was holding a bunch of scrolls and wanted to ask her some semantic questions, but she was walking in the courtyard with the earl's young nephew, as if she were a young noble lady. She just sent me back to study on my own. How many times has this happened? I—"

Phils became more and more excited as she spoke, her chest heaving, her slightly raised shoulder blades shaking constantly, and strands of her water-soaked hair curled up and fell down, sticking to her cheeks and spreading over her narrow shoulders.

Cesar listened silently, taking her hair in his hands, one strand at a time, and plaiting it on the right side of her head. He then twisted it into a pigtail, then the left side. By the end, Phils had finally stopped her endless complaints, closed her eyes, interlaced her fingers on her chest, rested her chin on them, and immersed herself in the misty atmosphere.

He quite liked the intoxicating herbal scent in her hair, perhaps because the herbal scent left on her body was very light and fragrant, while the actual mixed herbal juice was too pungent.

"I can't open my left eye..." Fils said after he finished putting his hair up. "My eyelashes seem to be stuck in my eye."

"Shall I help you get it out?"

"You're right." She seemed to have suddenly realized something and opened her other eye to look at him. "I've always rubbed it with my hands, but now, I shouldn't just do it by myself like before!"

Cesar shrugged and put his right hand on her shoulder, pulling her closer to him.

Your father, whom you never met, did it when you were a child." He said casually, "Well, you should actually say the other way around."

"Then, come and help me fill in this part." Phils grabbed his left hand, held it tightly, and buried it between her chest, which was sparkling with water droplets. "Corini has a father, a sword-wielding guard, and a lover, but I have nothing.

"I have nothing, and now you are taking all their responsibilities for me, so I have everything. In addition, all of Corini's people are dead, but you are still alive and well, which means that I am at least better than her in this matter!"

Is that how it was said? Cesar was surprised, but seeing the triumphant glow on her face, like the bright moon, he said nothing, but leaned over and put the tip of his tongue on her slightly trembling eyelids.

He kissed her eyelids, plucking out two long, tangled lashes, and licking her salty blue eyes. Phils blinked, her eyes rolling, as if she was finding the experience wonderful. So she leaned up, holding onto his shoulders, and unexpectedly pressed her soft lips to his half-closed eyes, licking them gently with her nimble tongue, the tip of her tongue like a little snake sliding across his eyeballs.

Cesar felt as if she had licked his heart as well, and the blood that seeped out was licked away by her like water droplets on the skin, or even sucked dry.

Maintaining composure was almost a test, a test of his restless spirit. Her habitual concealment and endurance made her extremely precocious and taciturn, but when these were revealed, she became somewhat childish, her moods unpredictable, and with an unmanageable liveliness, sometimes coming up with unimaginable ideas, other times making unexpected moves that made it difficult for him to control himself.

He let out a long sigh and said, "I thought you would be more concerned about the difference in your magic levels."

"Of course I care about this," Firth said, "but I really can't make up for it before I go to Itris. I used to be able to do some exploration on my own, but now that I'm under the temple's nose, I can only tinker with herbs all day."

"You don't like studying herbs?"

"How could I possibly enjoy studying this kind of thing? What I enjoy studying is—" She glanced toward the door, then leaned close to his ear and lowered her voice, "The true knowledge that analyzes the essence of the world, do you understand? No worldly knowledge is as worthy of care as this. Although studying this knowledge may offend the major temples, it won't stop the ideals of people like us."

"You've developed so many different kinds of medicines that have so many uses. Isn't that something you should be proud of?"

"Why are you so proud? These bottles and jars are only for you. They have no other use." Firth turned and leaned against him, tilting her head back and raising her index finger. "Do you think you would be proud to stand in front of Count Thane or Garcia and argue with them? My ancestors said that lovers should be each other's crutches, otherwise, they will crawl on the ground like cripples. So this is a necessary measure, of course..."

She murmured the ancestral precepts of the Soholi school while she curled up in his arms, resting her head on his shoulder and her limp hands on his chest, mumbling a few words, her voice becoming lower and lower. Cesar knew she was already a little sleepy, so he picked her up, rinsed her twice with a small bucket, and wiped her clean with a towel.

From time to time, Fils muttered that she was still awake, and it looked as if she wanted to continue the night's battle with herself, despite the dark circles under her eyes. As he wiped her body, she splashed the water from her hair all over his face. As he changed the dirty sheets, she tossed and turned on the mattress, her round white hips, her slender waist, her two pigtails twisting and turning, she looked like a snake struggling in the mud, trapped and unable to escape.

Finally, after Cesar had made the bed, she lifted her face from the covers. It was slightly pink, her eyes squinting beneath her lashes, her vision hazy. He leaned over and kissed her. He felt her smooth, white arms slide around his neck, folding over and hugging him tightly. "It's so cold..." she mumbled. "Put the covers on."

Cesar reached across Phils's lower back and pulled the covers up, covering them both. Her skin gradually grew warm in the warmth of the covers, just like his. She shifted her sleeping position unconsciously, tossing and turning until she was lying directly on top of him, her face buried in the pillow, her chin resting on his shoulder, her soft, pointed breasts pressed against his chest, her fingernails scratching at his neck and shoulders.

"Are you dissatisfied with the hotel bed?"

"I have no complaints, but this bed is not mine and I can't take it with me. You are different. With you, I can lie down however I want and lean wherever I want..." Phils yawned as she spoke. While he was still trying to listen to her speech, she had fallen asleep.

......

As Musali entered Ajeh's military tent, the howling wind and snow were silenced by the giant python. It was incredibly warm, as if it had coiled itself specifically to protect her. She sat cross-legged and curled up on the ground, beside a low table where the little book she had read lay. She looked up at the sound of Musali's footsteps. It was late at night, but she hadn't lit a butter lamp, completely immersed in the darkness.

"You came here at the intersection of day and night, did you want to see her, brother?"

"I don't want to see either of you," Musali said. "I'm just giving a copy of the target's portrait to each chief, and I'll give you one if there's any left."

"I'm not an assassin."

"I just hope you can make this cursed snake

Remember him, you can do it, right? Even if you can't, she can do it. "Musali said as he threw the portrait scroll that he had copied many times to her. Ajiehe still wrapped it tightly and looked at her without any reaction.

But it floated up out of thin air.

The oil lamp suddenly lit up, emitting a sharp hissing sound. The blood-red flame cast circles of light on her ordinary face. The gaping mouth shifted, for it was not her normal mouth, but an expression of a curse. Instead, her back gradually cracked, and a half-body covered in blood-red fur struggled out from the torn back. Its long black hair flew in the air, and its low, hoarse breathing was even harsher than the crackle of the burning lamp.

The scroll fell into the sharp, blood-red claws of the beast. "What do you need, Musali?" Ajeh's other self asked him. "The same violence as always? How long has it been since I instructed you to murder your father? Five years, or seven?"

Musali studied her, then shook his head. The split consciousnesses were Ajeh's true curse. The one always outside was the Ajeh, closer to a human. The other Ajeh, hidden within the wound, was the curse's core, a creature imbued with boundless malice. The bloodlines of the Kuna and Sasule merged for only a moment within his mother's pregnant body before being torn apart from the intact fetus, splitting into two distinct consciousnesses, one rooted in the wound of the other.

"I don't need any more guidance from you, sister. Maybe you can use it yourself. I just need someone to die, no matter how he dies." Musali said only.

"What do you think you're talking about, Musali?" Blood-red claws stretched out in the dark night, and the wolf head, with spider-like eyes and bloodshot eyes, lowered towards him. "Have you forgotten my teachings?" she hissed. "You murdered your father with such violence, and brought such pain upon him. Can you really pretend you don't know? Do you really think you can challenge and kill a sword dancer with your own skills?"

"I just......"

"Your father loved you so much. He took you on horseback tours across the grasslands, carried your dying body to his tent in a blizzard, and used his own warmth to bring you back to life. Have you forgotten? You were his most beloved child. What will this mean for your later actions? Have you forgotten? The more he loved you, the more pain he suffered when you betrayed him; the more pain he suffered, the more powerful you felt when you killed him and forced him to sacrifice himself for you." Her voice rose, turning into a roar. "This was your choice. Did you see it? Did you hear it? Why did you close your eyes and not see? Why did you cover your ears and not hear? Musali, my dear brother, did you flee to the Franks' territory to study or to escape?"

Musali wanted her to lower her voice, but in the end he didn't ask her to do so. He just focused on confronting her.

"I cannot return everyone's love, cursed Ajeh," he said quietly.

The blood-red, slender body leaned forward, and a pungent blood mist emanated from the gaps between its crisscrossing teeth. "Now you're even asking for help to kill someone completely unrelated to you. Why is that? Don't you want to go further down this path?"

“I live for my tribe and my people,” Mussari said. “I don’t look at those things.”

“But you started a war,” said Ajeh, gray-haired and veiled in her felt coat and hood. “Nothing you have done before can compare to it.”

Mussari shook his head and said, "I did start the war, but I didn't do it for the sake of war itself."

The split Ajiehe grinned, as if about to mock him. Covered in her hood and felt coat, she took a deep breath. At that moment, the chasm behind her suddenly opened, swallowing the newly-escaped blood-red creature whole. The feral, frantic sound instantly vanished, and the butter lamps went out. Only Ajiehe coughed twice, exhausted, her upright mouth splitting open at her throat.

She stroked the book on the table, seemingly lost in thought. When she spoke again, her voice was unusually calm. "I hope you remember this, brother. I hope the war you started will end the way you wish."

"I promise you, Ajeh," Musali whispered.

He stared at her, but Ajiehe didn't look at him. Her pupils were unfocused, as if she was staring into nothingness.

"She told me that once war begins, it won't work the way you want it to, brother," Ajeh continued. "Whatever you seek will ultimately result in painful death, endless violence, and destruction. You can neither control every Sassulei chieftain you summon, nor guarantee that the ancient two-headed serpent will remain stable as you and I desire. No matter how hard I try, a destined catastrophe will destroy it."