That was a scrutinizing gaze.

It wasn’t friendly. If anything, it felt like it was trying to pry something out of him, inch by inch, sweeping over him and measuring him.

But the boy being watched knew nothing about it. He was burning with fever until he was a little muddled. A fine sheen of sweat had beaded on his forehead. Soft black hair was soaked by sweat and stuck to his temples. That pale, pretty face had gone flushed, blooming with an unhealthy red.

Maybe he sensed Mansendis’s gaze, or maybe he slipped into a nightmare—either way, the little Omega who had finally stopped crying suddenly started to sob softly again.

"Hot... it hurts... so awful..."

Wen Yuzhi gave a small, faint whimper.

His voice had already gone hoarse from crying. Caught half-asleep, half-dreaming, that soft voice came out low and rasping. He sounded like a kitten that hadn’t even weaned yet, crying weakly—so pitiful it was hard to bear.

Facing a life that was so delicate, so small that it felt like he could crush it to death with one squeeze, Mansendis truly couldn’t summon even a trace of threat.

He even felt it was laughable that the sweet scent had made him alert in the first place.

No matter how you looked at him, he was soft and harmless to this extent.

...Were human cubs really that fragile?

For a moment, that question rose in Mansendis’s mind. But he hadn’t seen many cubs with his own eyes, and as for the little ones within his own clan...

Everyone knew the Saint Clan were born as warriors. Even newborn cubs had sharp forelimbs and strong physiques.

Comparing that to Wen Yuzhi—who had broken into a high fever just from being rained on—Mansendis had to marvel that there truly were creatures in this world that were that fragile and easy to shatter.

If he left it alone...

This human cub had a very high chance of not making it through the night.

Mansendis withdrew his gaze, his eyes complicated.

He made a decision.

He bent down and picked up the little Omega who was curled inside the quilt—quilt and all.

Unconscious, Wen Yuzhi hazily felt his body lift off the ground.

He entered a warm, broad embrace.

Different from his mother’s soft arms, this embrace was firmer, filled with strength.

Two solid, powerful arms wrapped him tight. The noisy rain at his ear seemed to grow louder, but this time, Wen Yuzhi didn’t feel any cold raindrops landing on him.

He was always sheltered beneath something safe and reliable.

That feeling was like returning to childhood, back when his father was still alive—back when his father would also hold up a sky for him, a sky not disturbed by the wind and rain of the outside world.

Wen Yuzhi couldn’t help leaning deeper into Mansendis’s embrace. His head rested on the man’s shoulder. Both hands clenched tightly around the other’s collar, like a small animal with no sense of security—once it found even a hint of warmth, it would desperately try to hold on.

Fortunately, Mansendis’s hands were steady.

He held the cub tight and moved through this pitch-black, cold, severe rainy night.

He could feel the other’s arms loop around his neck. The fragile cub curled in his arms like a little cat. Even the air he breathed out brushed against Mansendis’s neck.

And this kind of intimate contact was something Mansendis had never had before.

He was born alone. The so-called blood-bond of family—he had never experienced it from the moment he was born. He had never felt anyone else’s closeness, either.

Even with the Saint Clan of his own kind, there was a clear barrier of hierarchy between him and them. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

So he had never imagined that one day, he would be this close to a human cub.

It was simply unbelievable.

.......

The muddy road that Wen Yuzhi had to tread carefully for half a day—Mansendis reached the end of it in no time at all.

Carrying the cub in his arms, he returned to the center of the ruins where he had first been. The gifts piled on the ground had already been washed into disarray by the heavy rain.

But right now, Mansendis had no time to bother with that pile of gifts.

Nearby, he found a scale that had once fallen off. Without hesitation, he used that scale to slice open his fingertip.

Pale-gold blood dripped down, drop by drop.

And that blood—enough to drive the outside world into a frenzy—was fed to the cub in his arms, and Mansendis didn’t even blink.

Mm... cool...

Driven by thirst, Wen Yuzhi—burning with fever and unconscious—began to swallow those “liquids” as they slid into his throat.

He had no idea how precious they were. He only craved that hard-won coolness.

For that, he gripped the man’s collar tighter, tilting his head up and urgently demanding more.

Mansendis allowed Wen Yuzhi’s desire.

He didn’t stop him. Instead, he cut the wound larger, making it more convenient for the cub in his arms to drink.

As more and more blood flowed out, Mansendis’s face gradually turned pale.

But even so, he never stopped supplying it.

Only when Wen Yuzhi was full—his soft cheek rubbing lightly against the man’s chest, his brows easing in satisfied relaxation as he fell asleep again in the other’s arms—did Mansendis finally pull his finger back.

That wound healed in the blink of an eye, leaving no sign it had ever been cut.

Wen Yuzhi still slept, unaware.

He couldn’t see, so he didn’t know that the man holding him had changed back into his original form. The giant beast—so huge it could blot out the sky—paused for a moment, then ultimately chose to place the cub beneath the softest part of its belly.

Enormous bone wings spread out. This time, it wasn’t to tear enemies apart on a battlefield—

It was to block wind and rain for a frail, pitiful human cub.

The cold downpour kept falling.

But Wen Yuzhi wasn’t afraid anymore.

He had warmth and comfort. Even his sleep seemed especially sweet.

Somewhere he didn’t know, Mansendis barely closed his eyes, keeping his bone wings spread to shelter him for an entire night.

The silver-white giant beast lay in the center of the ruins. It was massive, silent, steady—like a sculpture cast from iron and poured bronze.

A pitch-black, noisy rainy night should have been infuriating.

Just like countless nights before, the torment brought by mental-energy disorder was far deeper and harder to endure than ordinary pain. Even Mansendis had to peel off scales and harm himself to maintain that last shred of clarity.

And this seemed to be something every Saint Clan had long since grown used to.

They were born with astonishing combat power and powerful physiques, and at the same time, they possessed the most chaotic, frenzied mental sea—like a curse of fate. The heavens gave them bodies that could be called monstrous, and also personally fastened this painful shackle onto them.

No Saint Clan could escape that destiny. Mansendis was no exception.

But...

Tonight, something seemed different.

The silver-white giant beast was crouched low, feeling the softness beneath its belly. In the damp air, that rank, restless blood stench still spread. Mixed within it, that clean, cool sweetness was almost imperceptible—light, faint, yet impossible to ignore.

It was like a soft feather, slowly combing those chaotic, surging mental energies down, little by little.

The boiling mental sea quickly returned to calm under that kind of soothing.

Maybe sensing something, the little Omega who had been sleeping deeply in warmth murmured. Unconsciously, he stretched out a hand and patted the “pillow” he was hugging.

Once, then again—carrying a faintly comforting strength.

Almost like a miracle, the murderous hostility in the silver giant beast’s heart really was soothed down at that moment.

It lowered its head and looked at the unconscious human cub beneath it, its eyes complicated. That lowered gaze was just like this pitch-black, icy rainy night—dark and unreadable.

Mansendis could, of course, clearly feel the changes inside his body.

His mental-energy disorder had lasted a long time. No one understood better than him how painful the turmoil of the mental sea was.

It was the kind of torment that could drive even a Saint Clan who feared nothing into madness.

Day after day, night after night, they lived under the agony of mental collapse, unable to break free, unable to find peace.

With almost no exception, every generation’s royal-blood Saint Clan eventually ended their lives in an extremely horrific way.

Mansendis couldn’t escape that destiny either.

Him staying on Kanirila was, in a sense, also waiting for death.

What Mansendis hadn’t expected was that before he completely lost his sanity, he would meet a human cub on this planet.

And under this cub’s comfort, the mental energy inside him slowly grew calm. Nearly as a rare exception, Mansendis gained the only brief moment of quiet he had had in these many days.

No matter how hard the rain fell, even the noisy rain didn’t seem as annoying as before.

......

There are no truly airtight walls in this world—especially not in an interstellar age where communication methods have developed to their peak. News of Kanirila being occupied by the Saint Clan had long since spread in a frenzy.

If it were just some obscure little planet changing hands, that would be nothing. But this incident involved two races whose strength was both exceptionally formidable.

The Padar people were born to plunder. Their reputation among the races of the universe was famously awful. These mole-like guys often ran off to harass races weaker than them, and they even robbed merchant starships traveling between planets. Their style was that of a complete bandit scoundrel.

Relying on those “glorious achievements,” their infamy among the races had once been nearly on par with the Saint Clan’s brutal image.

And who knew whether they had heard too many of those messy rumors, to the point the Padar people developed the illusion that they could fight the Saint Clan—because no one expected they would actually dare to hijack a Saint Clan cargo starship.

What happened afterward spread across every star sector.

One second, the Padar people were still celebrating the victory of this raid. The next second, the Saint Clan’s warships were densely covering the sky above them—and the one leading the Saint Clan army this time was that silver tyrant with a fearsome reputation throughout the outside world.

The outcome didn’t surprise anyone. In less than three days, those Padar people rolled out of Kanirila like homeless dogs, disgraced and miserable.

They lost face, and they even paid their own foundation into it.

Some rejoiced, some grieved.

Several planets that had lived near the Padar people and suffered constant harassment naturally cheered at this result. But as the Saint Clan’s fleet lingered longer and longer above Kanirila, that joy was gradually replaced by fear.

After all, the Padar people were hateful, but the Saint Clan were no good people either!

That was like one vicious wolf had just left, only for a tiger to arrive—and this tiger was a hundred, a thousand times more savage than the wolf.

How could those neighboring planets not be afraid?

Their people even began praying day and night, begging these terrifying Saint Clan to hurry up and leave.

And not far away from them, dense warships floated silently in the sea of stars.