Chapter 166: A Grieving Mother

Chapter 166: A Grieving MotherThe silence after the monster’s fading was heavy. It pressed into the cracks of the broken city like cold water filling old wounds.

Mob rose slowly from his knees.

His sword dissolved into light, drifting away in silent fragments. His wings stretched behind him, feathers trembling with each ragged breath he took. The faint flowers blooming around him glowed softly in the dawn light, their petals bending under the quiet wind.

He looked at them for a moment. Then his gaze lifted, golden eyes flickering in the dim morning. He could feel Lucifer’s aura burning somewhere north—deep and heavy with grief and rage. He felt others there too. Broken. Tired. But still standing.

He exhaled shakily, his wings shifting once. Blood and tears mixed down his face, dripping onto the fractured pavement before he stepped forward.

Greta watched him quietly. Her chains flickered around her shoulders, broken links falling onto the ground with faint metallic clinks. She looked at Mob as he passed her, seeing the flicker of silver-blue glyphs still glowing faint along his bare arms. His eyes didn’t meet hers. He just walked, wings trailing quiet light across the torn asphalt.

Vulpina was kneeling in the rubble, her tails limp across the bloodstained ground. Her hands trembled over her lap, claws curled inward as silent sobs shook her small frame. Tears dripped from her chin, splattering onto the cracked cement where they vanished without trace.

Greta turned her gaze from Mob to Vulpina. For a long moment she said nothing. The wind blew across them, carrying smoke, ash, and faint drifting motes of Mob’s fading divine glow. Greta knelt slowly beside Vulpina. Her old knees cracked against the concrete. She placed one hand gently on Vulpina’s back, feeling her shaking breaths under her palm.

Vulpina didn’t look at her. Tears kept falling. Her lips moved in silent prayers to gods that never listened.

Greta looked at her quietly. Her own daughter’s face flickered through her mind—just for a moment. A memory of warm mornings, cinnamon bread, laughter across a long kitchen table. Gone now. Centuries gone. But the pain never dulled. It only settled deeper. Like bone rot.

She rubbed Vulpina’s back gently, her fingers trembling despite her strength.



"I know," she whispered.

Vulpina’s shoulders shook harder at those words. Her claws dug into her own kimono, tearing it slightly as grief tore through her chest like knives.

Greta didn’t try to say more. Words were useless in this pain. She only held her there, silent in the burning city as the morning light flickered through drifting smoke.

Mob spread his wings wider. A burst of pale wind rippled outward, stirring ash and broken paper across the dead square. His golden eyes burned with quiet purpose as he lifted off the ground. Dust exploded beneath his feet. The cracked street fell away as he rose higher, passing burned towers and shattered windows. The dawn painted his wings in streaks of white gold, each feather shimmering as it cut through the rising sun.

He didn’t look back.

He flew straight and fast, the city blurring beneath him in streaks of red and grey. Flames burned in gutted buildings, sirens wailed in the distance, helicopters circled the shattered skyline like lost insects. His tears dried in the cold wind, leaving pale salt lines down his cheeks.

Somewhere below, he saw a mother clutching her dead child against a collapsed bus. Further down the avenue, a hunter dragged himself away from a burning squad truck, his lower body gone, screaming into empty streets. Mob closed his eyes briefly. The world felt so loud. But his heart was quiet. Too quiet.

He felt Lucifer’s aura pulse again.

It was faint but deep, soaked in grief and rage that burned with a cold certainty. Mob angled his wings, the silver runes along them flickering brighter as he cut through the dawn sky like a silent meteor. Each beat sent faint echoes of Eden’s Requiem trailing behind him, dissolving drifting shadows into harmless silver dust.

Below him, Greta watched the fading glow in the clouds as Mob disappeared toward the horizon.



She kept her hand on Vulpina’s back.

The kitsune mother’s tears fell harder now, sobs echoing down the broken street. Greta closed her eyes and bowed her head.

She didn’t pray. She no longer believed in gods.

But in that silent moment, kneeling beside a grieving mother in the ruins of a dying city, Greta hoped—just for a heartbeat—that the gods would listen to someone else.

Mob flew faster, the skyline breaking apart around him. His tears no longer fell. His eyes burned quiet and golden. His wings cut through the cold air, each feather glowing with a faint resonance that trembled against the edges of reality.

He could feel it in his chest. The silent voice of his sword, gone for now but waiting. The distant hum of Eden’s Requiem still clinging to his bones like fading starlight. His grief was a quiet, endless ocean. It didn’t rage. It didn’t scream. It just moved deeper, filling every corner of his trembling heart.

He lowered his head as he flew, the dawn wind whipping through his hair.

And he thought of Francisca.

He thought of her laugh.

Of her tears.

Of the way she said, "I’ll wait. I’ll always wait for you."



His chest tightened. His wings beat harder. The ground blurred into streaks of blood and ash far below.

He was coming.

For Lucifer.

For Ella.

For all of them.

For the dying world that still clung to its last fragments of light.

And with each silent beat of his wings, the world felt his quiet promise ripple outward.

The sovereign angel was here.

And the dawn burned a little brighter because of it.

Elsewhere

He stood among the bodies.

The clone Lucifer’s chest rose and fell in slow, deliberate breaths. His bare feet shifted slightly against the blood-slicked pavement, toes curling against cooling flesh. His black hair fell forward, dripping with streaks of red. Around him lay the remains of dozens of clones—some torn in half, some decapitated, some burned beyond recognition by the crimson aura that still flickered faintly around his arms.