It was given to him by Li Qingping, saying it was a Phoenix Feather, and would definitely come in handy. Cezar bowed his head, picked up the feather that drifted to the ground, and silently watched.
"Yaguba, I’m so useless... you must be blaming me,"
He murmured softly like a clockwork doll that had stopped, tears streaming from the shadow of his bangs, "I killed Li Qingping... it’s all my fault, someone as useless as me should never have struggled, that way Li Qingping wouldn’t have been implicated..."
However, at this moment, the Phoenix Feather in Cezar’s hand suddenly burst with a dazzling brilliance.
The feather rapidly transformed in shape within a short time, burning in his hand like fire. But Cezar never let go, just widened his eyes slightly, staring blankly at the card appearing in his hand.
On the card was slowly depicted a giant bird reborn from flames. Its eyes were so magnificent, as if reflecting all the colors of the world.
The flames burning fiercely on the card gradually healed Cezar’s hands and wounds, fusing the torn skin together, the blood reversing back into his body.
At this moment, his pupils were reflected in the fiery red, a memory flowed into his mind like a tide:
A "Phoenix" only evolves into a generational "Anecdote Fragment" under the condition that the previous holder died and had previously given the Phoenix Feather to someone else.
And because the previous holder, Li Qingping, had died, the Anecdote Fragment evolved at this moment.
Just like the mythical Phoenix rebirthing through death, it reached Cezar’s hand.
Cezar paused for a moment, suddenly realizing that Li Qingping had long anticipated he might die, or rather, he had already prepared to die from the start.
The Phoenix’s flames deepened and lightened, gradually carving out a line of text in the light fiery veil:
"Even a Caged Bird has a day of freedom."
"So cheesy... Li Qingping, you are not suited to write poetry at all, no wonder you didn’t share it with me that day." Cezar stared blankly at the text, suddenly bursting into a laugh.
The text quietly faded away in mid-air, then, orange light patterns illuminated every line on the card’s back, like oil being poured into a machinery’s trough.
Cezar stopped his tears, took a deep breath, and tightly grasped the "Phoenix" in his hand, then whistled.
The reindeer descended from the sky at the sound, and he leaped to ride the Christmas Sled, speeding towards Whale’s Mouth.
His long white hair blew high, his green pupils reflected a chilling radiance, and his expression had never been so calm.
Cezar looked up at Yaguba who was hovering in mid-air, then drove the sled away, reaching to catch the icy, incomplete corpse falling from the Shark’s back.
He lowered his eyes, took one last look at the damaged face, and while flying towards Ruth, crushed the generational Anecdote Fragment in his hand.
The roar fell, and the orange light patterns flashed briefly. Amidst the piercing shriek that could tear the sky apart, a giant red bird wrapped in flame soared after Cezar.
Overwhelming heat waves came crashing over, raising waves on the sea, then evaporating into scorching white mist.
Meanwhile, the distant, dark blue Shark suspended in mid-air slowly regained consciousness.
Its form expanded rapidly, covered entirely in a hard and chilly metallic sheen.
Yaguba grew to twenty meters in length, like a massive yacht, enshrouded in black tides, flying straight at an astonishing speed.