"What are you doing here — did you come looking for me?" Rulu stared at C.C. in stunned disbelief, utterly astonished by her appearance.

  "Of course I did. Why else would I risk this much to come to a pce like this?" C.C. frowned and looked at Rulu with reproachful eyes.

  "How did you know I was here? Was it you who set off that explosion just now?" Rulu pressed.

  "Didn't I tell you before? I can sense your location. As for the explosion — yes, that was me. But never mind all that. Come with me, quickly."

  "Where to?"

  "Just follow me — unless you'd rather be caught by the Sanctuary's people." C.C. gnced around, then moved swiftly through the shadowed alley.

  Rulu asked no more questions and followed C.C. through the alleyways. After a short while, the two arrived at a storm drain access point on the street. C.C. crouched down, shoved the circur manhole cover aside with force, and slipped inside.

  "Of course — we can escape through the sewers. The humanoid armored soldiers are too rge to follow us in here, and even if we run into Sanctuary soldiers underground, I can handle them." Rulu understood at once. He followed C.C. down into the drain and pulled the cover shut above them.

  The two then made their way quickly through the city's underground sewer network. Fortunately, they didn't encounter any Sanctuary soldiers along the way. They emerged from the sewers at a safe location, acquired a vehicle from nearby, and drove to the area around Blue Sea City's cemetery, then continued on foot into the wooded grounds within.

  "All right — we should be safe here." Rulu stopped in the cemetery woods and leaned against a tree trunk, breathing hard. C.C. was exhausted too, and rested against her own tree.

  After a good while, Rulu recovered. He looked over at C.C. and said, "C.C., I owe you tonight. Without you, I really wouldn't have made it out alive."

  "Rulu, you fool!" C.C. said sharply, and she looked genuinely angry. "I told you from the start it was a trap. I can't believe you actually went through with the assassination attempt on Prince Suwen. Do you realize — not only could you have gotten yourself killed, you could have gotten me killed too. And Nana as well!"

  At those words, Rulu blinked — then his own temper fred. "C.C., you have no right to say that," he shot back. "If it weren't for you, I never would have taken such a desperate risk in the first pce. You're the one who drove me to this."

  "What? How does any of this have anything to do with me?" C.C. said, taken aback.

  "How does it have nothing to do with you?!" Rulu said furiously. "If you hadn't refused to share a single piece of intelligence with me — all to preserve your precious neutrality — I wouldn't have been cornered with nowhere to turn, and I wouldn't have had to take such a reckless risk just to assassinate Prince Suwen."

  C.C.'s expression stiffened. She tried to defend herself: "Even so, you didn't have to do it this way. As long as you kept hiding, Prince Suwen couldn't have touched you. You didn't have to kill him."

  "Yes I did. I absolutely did." Rulu's voice turned cold and hard. "Let me ask you something, C.C. — are you on my side or not? If you're not, then why did you just run out to save me? What exactly are you thinking?"

  C.C. was quiet for a moment, then said, "All I know is that you can't die, Rulu. I need you to do something for me in the future. Everything else is none of my concern."

  Rulu gave a cold snort. "Right — you saved me because you need me to do something for you ter. Well, let me be perfectly honest with you: I'm going up against the entire Sanctuary, and I'm willing to pay with my life if that's what it takes. What happened tonight will happen again. I will not stop until I've achieved my goal."

  C.C. studied Rulu's face in silence, searching his expression carefully. When she realized he meant every word, she let out a slow sigh. "Why put yourself through all this? You're from the Sanctuary yourself — you're even a prince of the Sanctuary. Why do you hate it so much?"

  "You want to know? Fine. I'll tell you." A light of hatred burned in Rulu's eyes as he spoke in a low, heavy voice. "Seven years ago, my mother and my sister were assassinated within the Sanctuary and killed. I was the only one who escaped. The people responsible for that assassination were, for the most part, members of the Sanctuary's imperial family — including Suwen."

  "I see. So that's why you want revenge against the Sanctuary — you want to avenge yourself on its imperial family."

  "No. My target isn't just those individuals. My target is the entire Sanctuary — and above all, its Emperor."

  "But isn't he your father? And wasn't it the others who killed your mother and sister, not him?"

  "Hmph. True, he didn't kill my mother and sister himself, but he's not much better. After my mother and sister died, I went to the Emperor and demanded he bring the killers to justice — every st person involved in that assassination. Do you know what he said?"

  "What did he say?"

  "He said..." Rulu's jaw tightened, "...that it wasn't necessary. He said my mother and sister had brought it on themselves — that they died because they were too weak, and that was why they were so easily killed. If that weren't the case, why were all the others in the Sanctuary still alive while only they had died?"

  C.C. murmured quietly, "That is indeed a cruel thing to say. Though it does sound exactly like something he would say."

  Rulu continued: "I also asked the Emperor whether he had ever truly loved my mother — and if not, why had he brought her to the Sanctuary in the first pce? He said that to him, my mother was an object. He had believed this object had some value, and that was why he had brought her there and kept her close. But her death proved him wrong — my mother had no value after all. Someone like that had no pce by his side, no pce in the Sanctuary. He said he would not make the same mistake again."

  "Is that so..." C.C. gave a faint sigh, at a loss for what to say.

  Rulu drove his fist into the tree trunk with a heavy thud, then hung his head. "That Emperor — that man never loved my mother. Never loved my sister. He doesn't deserve to call himself a father. In his eyes, anyone without value has no right to remain in the Sanctuary. To earn the right to stay, you must prove you're stronger than everyone else — you must defeat and destroy more people than anyone else. Only the victorious are worthy of a pce in the Sanctuary, worthy of immortality."

  "Cruel as it is," C.C. said quietly, "survival of the fittest is the w of this world. Don't you all subscribe to that same belief?"

  "So being weak is a sin, and my mother and sister deserved to be killed for it — is that what you're saying?" Rulu's voice cracked with anguish. "Do you know what my sister was like? She was just like Nana — gentle and thoughtful, always looking out for others. She never hated anyone. She only ever thought about other people. Why did she have to die, while the vile people who murdered her get to live on? I refuse to accept it. That Emperor must answer for what he's done. I will make him understand that what he said is not the truth — that he has no right to sit on the Sanctuary's throne, and no right to rule this world."