Kafka was no soft-hearted deity, one to casually shelter every homeless child she found.
This was precisely why Silver Wolf was convinced her motive for keeping Zao Wu was anything but simple.
The girl’s thoughts moved with lightning agility, flashing through the palace of her memories to extract everything she knew about Kafka.
Kafka had once spoken of her home planet, where the inhabitants, without exception, worshipped Idrila, the Aeon of Beauty, and swore to protect Their perfection with blade in hand.
But one day, They vanished without a trace.
This wasn’t to suggest Zao Wu had any connection to Idrila of Beauty.
It was simply Silver Wolf’s way of acknowledging a stark reality.
Zao Wu—he was just inhumanly beautiful.
So beautiful that he had even moved Kafka, an ultimate connoisseur of physical beauty.
As for Silver Wolf’s own opinion of Zao Wu…
Hmph.
What was there to say?
At most, she was glad that the next time she wanted to play a co-op game, she wouldn’t have to control two characters by herself.
That was a relief.
Expecting Blade or Kafka to play games with her?
She’d have better luck building a sentient robot from scratch.
“Going to check on Zao Wu.
I hope Blade hasn’t broken him.” Silver Wolf tossed the comment over her shoulder and left the room.
She casually blew a bubble with her gum, a practiced gesture to feign nonchalance and mask the flicker of genuine concern she felt for the boy.
Kafka merely smiled, her pink pupils deep and unreadable.
“Ah Ren is actually far gentler than you imagine.” “Heh…” If Silver Wolf hadn’t personally witnessed the man in a full-blown rampage, she might have actually believed her.
— When Silver Wolf returned to the main hall, the space before the fireplace was empty.
With a flick of her wrist, she materialized a virtual interface.
The fingertips of her fingerless black gloves flew across the screen.
In an instant, a portal shimmering with a cyber-pixel aesthetic appeared before her.
She stepped through, emerging a second later into a frigid, snow-swept wilderness.
An involuntary hiss escaped her lips.
Blade’s tall silhouette stood against the storm, unflinchingly facing the wind and snow.
His clothes billowed around him, yet he remained as still as a mountain.
Zao Wu, in contrast, was a pathetic sight.
Clad only in a set of thin, unisex pajamas, he was trembling uncontrollably in the biting wind.
Even so, the white-haired boy refused to release his grip on the sword—the Xianzhou curio known as the “Shard.” Its malevolent aura pulsed, and its hilt had already torn bloody gashes across all ten of his fingertips.
The blade of the “Shard” was flawless, its dark steel imbued with a sanguine glow.
Kafka had said his body was a hundred times more sensitive than a normal person’s.
That meant this environment, which even Silver Wolf found chilling, must feel like a sub-zero circle of hell to him.
“This is bad…
Is this kid the same type as Blade?” He was a natural prodigy at self-torture.
Silver Wolf’s delicate brows furrowed.
She muttered to herself as she trudged toward Zao Wu, leaving a trail of small footprints in the snow.
She couldn’t bear to imagine the consequences if Zao Wu were to walk the Path of Destruction.
Could he…
go even further than Blade?
To a point of absolute no return?
She had, of course, noticed that Zao Wu was wearing her pajamas.
Kafka must have grabbed them for their unisex style and because they were a decent fit.
Silver Wolf never really cared about things like that.
At most, she had felt a brief jolt of surprise upon realizing it was the same set she had worn yesterday and hadn’t yet washed.
“Blade!
Zao Wu is not your toy!” Silver Wolf snapped, a rare note of anger in her voice as she addressed the man.
Blade didn’t turn or speak, his gaze remaining fixed in appreciation on the boy who held the sword beside him in a perfect stance.
Zao Wu diverted a sliver of his focus to defend Blade.
The rest was dedicated entirely to resisting the gnawing cold and the sword’s baleful energy.
In truth, he was remarkably adept at finding the cleverest path, the most optimal solution in any situation.
Yet, at moments like this, he was as stubborn as a fool.
“No, Sister Silver Wolf…” he managed to say.
“I was the one who asked Brother Blade to teach me swordsmanship…” It had been right after Blade had asked him—”So, want to learn the sword from me, kid?” Zao Wu had shot back a question of his own: “If I learn…
will Sister Kafka not make me leave?” Blade’s reply was blunt: “She doesn’t discard those who are useful.” Zao Wu’s resolve hardened.
“…I will become a useful child.” Blade had then turned and walked out into the blizzard.
Zao Wu had flinched, the constant warmth of the fireplace behind him like tentacles, coiling around his frail body, pleading for him to stay.
He had untangled himself from those wisps of heat, one by one, and chased after Blade’s towering figure.
…
The fact that Zao Wu could even hold the Shard had far surpassed Blade’s expectations.
This only fueled his interest.
He had commanded the boy to stand in the storm, sword in hand, simply to see how long he would last.
Silver Wolf’s arrival might have been enough to halt Blade’s madness.
It was not enough to sway Zao Wu’s resolve.
He stubbornly refused the girl’s concern, though he didn’t forget to thank her politely.
It was a gentleness that seemed etched into his very bones, even if he couldn’t remember what had forged that part of him.
Was it the cold data of life sciences, the genetic modifications and surgical experiments?
Or was it just a simple, desperate hope?
Mothers like polite children.
He stood in the snow, sword held fast.
Gradually, he no longer felt the cold.
He stopped trembling.
He even stopped blinking.
His entire being seemed to ascend into a state of no-self, a transcendent state of the clear sword-heart.
But in reality…
—he had simply frozen solid.
Even his consciousness had dissolved into the vast, white void.
He could no longer think.
His final wisp of memory was the sound of Silver Wolf’s uncharacteristically panicked voice, followed by Blade’s bafflement.
“?” “How did he die?” “What do you mean, ‘how’!?
Not everyone is immortal like you, you idiot!” Silver Wolf’s Aether Editing could alter certain parameters of reality, but it couldn’t rewrite vital signs.
If it could, she would be the expert in life sciences, not Ruan Mei.
Together, she and Blade carried Zao Wu’s rigid body back into the warmth of the cottage.
After a dose of anti-frostbite medication and a long exposure to the hearth’s heat, his frozen body and mind slowly began to thaw.
He tried to flutter his eyelids, but when he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness.
To prevent snow blindness, Silver Wolf had adjusted her goggles and placed them over his eyes.
He heard her indignant voice nearby, sticking up for him.
“Kafka, aren’t you going to rein him in!?” “Now, now.
Ah Ren didn’t mean any harm.” “But this child is just so silly.
Why push himself that hard?” Blade had silently weathered Silver Wolf’s tirade without a word of defense.
Now, however, he lifted his head, his single red eye—the one not obscured by his bangs—locking onto Kafka’s smiling face.
“Perhaps he’s afraid you’ll throw him away.” At these words, Kafka’s hand, which had been reaching for the boy’s forehead, paused for a beat in mid-air.
But it landed nonetheless, gently brushing the tips of Zao Wu’s snow-white hair.
She gave it a light stroke, her smile unwavering.
“Still a fool, then.” —o—