"...surrender to them, carrying Lucius's head, and we will be granted our freedom."

After saying this, Ileria turned to smile at Lucius: "Is what I said correct, 'master'?"

Lucius didn't say anything, just stared at her with a serious expression.

The Assyrian girl snuggled into the soft and warm blanket, shrinking into her chest, and rubbing her head, showing a comfortable expression like a cat snuggled by the fireplace.

"Answer her," said Anada, looking at Lucius's neck.

Lucius was frightened.

But he had to respond to Anada's request.

"Don't be impulsive first..."

"Ah," Anada nodded, "so he really said that."

"Yes, but you know, Anandiyabu," Lucius stumbled, "Anandiyabu, he did say that, but he, you, you think about it, he once wanted to kill you, send you to the death arena, make you die in the mouths of those four lions-"

Anada calmly says, "You also sent me to the arena, just at noon today. I almost died."

Lucius was speechless.

Anada said, "Give me a reason not to have to trade my freedom for your life."

Lucius, with a hoarse voice, said, "I thought we had reached a consensus."

She gestured in the direction of Arandieyb with her chin. "Sorry, things have changed."

"Do you believe that damn Akadian will keep his word?"

Lucius was raging.

"He's playing you for a fool! Once you kill me, he'll immediately turn you into a runaway slave, arrest you, and curry favor with that damn Enriler family's Ashur! Don't tell me you've forgotten that Ashur is one of your mortal enemies!"

Anada was unaffected.

"I think I can take a chance," she said.

She drew her sword.

"Okay, okay!"

Lucius sat on his horse, shrinking his body back, "You win! You say, what do you want, I'll do it."

"Set me free and give me back my freedom."

"You're dreaming," his handsome face twisted in the rain, "Do you think I'm a fool? Set you free? I was exiled, hunted, and now I have nothing. Once you regain your freedom, you will leave me behind!"

He laughed in desperation and ugliness.

"I have nothing left, but I still have you. Don't think you can let go of me! I will firmly hold on to you, just like the waist rope on your body and the shadow behind you!

"Either we leave together. You protect me and leave Ninyevi, and I will do my best to help you find your sister. I will not break my word!

"Or I die now. As for you, you are a thorn in the eyes of Ashel and meat in the flesh of Anandiyabu. Anandiyabu will not keep his promise to set you free! When I die, you can accompany me to play as a runaway slave!

"Perhaps after you die, you can see your sister and your whole family again."

Before he could finish his words, the sword edge heavily swung onto Lucius' face filled with ferociousness, pulling him down from the warhorse.

Lucius rolled into the mud and blood, spitting out blood.

She looked down at him from above.

"Finally telling the truth?"

He was shaking all over, half from the cold, and half from fear, as he covered his face.

"You forced me to," he said.

"Just testing your worth," she said contemptuously with a laugh. "Compared to that nauseating false mask before, your current expression is even more pleasing to the eye, so I can beat you up without any burden."

He tentatively said, "You won't kill me, right?"

"As long as you work hard to find my sister and continue to be my slave, there's nothing wrong with it," the silver-white mother lioness said calmly.

She didn't feel that a title could have any restraint on herself, nor did she think that the odd outfits and complicated rules of the southern people, where cloth was scarce, could affect her mind. She was only loyal to the sword in her hand and to herself and her family.

Stolen story; please report.

"But this child is no good."

She gently patted the Assyrian girl tied to her.

"Don't think of taking revenge on her, I won't allow it," she tapped his head gently.

Elira shrunk even tighter in her embrace, trembling slightly and sniffing softly.

Lucius struggled to climb up from the underground, covered in mud.

With a hoarse voice, he said, "Okay, I'll release her and give her freedom."

"Good," said Anada.

"From now on, she's my servant."

Lucius looked at her, then at the Assyrian girl.

He suddenly realized.

Gritting his teeth, Lucius said, "Well done, Elira. I underestimated you."

If he still couldn't see that he had been tricked by Elira, he was not Lucius anymore.

The girl had already awakened, and she might have never fainted at all. She had been carefully observing the two of them and waiting for an opportunity.

She watched as he and the lioness mother had a rift because of leaving Niniwe and saw how Anada's attitude towards him changed to suspicion. She watched as he hesitated for a moment in response to the conditions offered by Anandiebub, not immediately translating for Anada. The suspicion between the two grew.

Elira took advantage of this fleeting opportunity, breaking the mutual trust between Anada and him and winning Anada's trust and protection.

Anada stripped away Elira's relationship with him as a master and kept her by her side because she didn't trust him and was afraid that he would take advantage of her language barrier.

"No problem," Lucius said unwillingly, "from now on, she's your servant."

Elira spoke up.

"The law does not recognize it," her voice was hoarse, "the code stipulates that a slave cannot make a free person his servant, only nobles can make free people servants."

Anada stared at Lucius.

Lucius shrugged.

"I don't know, I've never had a servant, the code has so many provisions, who would read them all."

"I have finished reading it all."

Elira weakly said, "The statute also states that senior slaves have the right to use property and can have servant slaves, who serve the slave. Unless the slave gives up the servant or she dies and the servant is taken back by the owner, the owner has no right to summon her servant.

"I am already your captive, let me be your servant, mistress. I only request of you, do not make me serve others, especially Lucius.”

There was a change in the hollow black eyes, it was the flames of anger.

"We used to trust him, but he betrayed my sister, insulted her seating ceremony, said he would marry her, but then he went around with Menis, being cozy… until she died, she was washing her face with tears. You are really greedy and foolish, that's why you are facing such a deadly disaster now - Cynthia is the future empress of the empire decided by the two famous families of Enlier and Menis, how can you, a rat, jump up and down in the middle?"

Even if lightning struck Lucius, he couldn't be more surprised: "What did you say? What empire empress?"

But Elira no longer spoke.

Anada still stared at Lucius without blinking.

"Alright, servant."

Lucius said awkwardly, "When this is over, find a contract artisan and we'll complete the transfer procedures."

"Very good."

The mother lioness raised her sword and gently pressed it on her left cheek. A scar appeared above her left ear.

Blood flowed out of the wound and was diluted by the rain, staining the snow-white left face a light red.

"This is called a 'pledge wound', a custom of our Ice Sea."

Anada said lightly: "Before this wound heals, you'd better keep your promise and handle her affairs, or I'll kill you."

Elira let out a sigh and closed her eyes tiredly. Her forehead was burning, and she could no longer hold on.

·Thank you, mistress, please don't give up on me, and please don't die.

Lucas was very unhappy.

"Is it necessary to make things so absolute?" he asked angrily. "I promised to help you find your sister too! If you kill me because of this small matter, how can I help you find your sister?"

Her jade-like eyes stared at him.

She said each word slowly: "If you're even thinking of reneging on this 'small matter.'"

"Then I don't have to count on you keeping other promises either."

"I might as well kill you and find another way."

Lucius took a deep breath.

"There's no need for that," he said, shaking his head and speaking weakly, "I'm not a bad person... Please forgive me for my insults just now, those were just impulsive words. Trust me, I just want to survive..."

She interrupted him, "Do what you promised, that's all I care about. As for whether you're a good or bad person, what's it got to do with me?"

Her yellow eyes looked around, and she saw more and more figures in the rain.

Anandebyub's ambush team was basically complete, with a total of about thirty or forty people, but they were all standing far away and cheering, no one dared to attack.

Anada drew back her sword and picked up the throwing spear she had retrieved from a knight's body when she brought back her horse.

She turned her horse's head and charged toward the enemy's main force. She threw the spear with all her might at the two most prominent knights.

A scream came from far away.

She saw a figure fall off a horse. The nearest knight rode away, and the other dozen or so soldiers scattered.

Anada was very familiar with Anandebyub's voice. She recognized that the person who screamed was not the slave trader Anandebyub, but one of his bodyguards.

Unfortunately, she picked the wrong person. She thought regretfully.

She turned her horse's head and said to Lucius without good grace, "Why are you still lingering underground? Don't you really want to leave?"

Lucius hurriedly mounted the horse.

"Don't go to Phrygia or Troy," Illere said, "the Minor Changes of the Nineteenth will soon come, we can't be too far from the city."

Lucius asked hastily, "What changes? What does this have to do with Cixi as the emperor's queen?"

Illere ignored him.

Anada gently stroked her hair and asked, "What do you have in mind?"

Illere coughed and said, "In the northeast direction of the imperial city, there is a deserted area in the mountains. There is an abandoned temple of Niyat -"

Lucius changed his face.

Illere smiled with satisfaction.

"No one knows, that land belongs to the Bell family, and that temple is the last refuge of our family, stored with a lot of food and water inside.

"It's precisely because no one dares to go there that it's still safe. Let's hide there for a while and heal our wounds first."

"Don't joke around, I don't want to go to that haunted place!"

He looked toward Anada and explained, "That's a barren land! Everywhere is filled with the bones of ancient beasts, no one can survive there, and even animals and plants don't visit there for hundreds of years! And there's the haunted temple, my father mentioned it. The temple is said to have a history of thousands of years, it was created during the great flood, and inside is the oldest text of the Riven, recorded with mysterious square characters, which is said to be able to 'summon the poison thread at the end of time and space'."