The Emperor’s Angel of Death

In this world, shooting stars don't represent good fortune. In fact, they are more often seen as "harbingers of disaster" or bad omens. So when one disintegrated in mid-air and a part of it fell into the forest outside the town, everyone hid in their homes, praying to the Emperor to get them through this dark night.

Some people were curious and wanted to see what the fallen fragments might be, perhaps some valuable metal. However, the fragments had fallen in the forest, and it was the dead of night. Out of fear, no one was willing to do this thankless job, but a girl quietly stepped into the forest.

This is a small act of rebellion. Anyway, she didn't have to receive guests tonight due to the special circumstances, and going out felt more like a reward. As long as she was quick and quiet, and her madam was distracted by other matters, she could seize some free time.

But if she was gone for too long, she would suffer even more severe punishment when she returned.

However, after many explorations, she knew very well how long she could disappear for.

The girl's name was Elizabeth, a very beautiful name that didn't seem to belong to her station, given to her by her mother. But she usually went by "Butterball," because she didn't want those men calling her name.

Her mother had once told her that one day, angels would come to redeem them, and at that time, they would call their names.

So she firmly believed that only angels could call her name, although she had never known what an angel should be like.

Therefore, compared to that dirty, sickening mansion and town, the huge, vaguely visible forest outside was her favorite place. She had concocted countless stories in her mind about that forest, as if those ominous trees could really give birth to terror or miracles.

Besides that, the second thing she yearned for was the towering spire in the distance.

Thorson V was a colony that had just been colonized for over five hundred years. Human industrial activities and cities had not yet completely devastated the planet, but towering city clusters had already appeared. Even in a small town on the periphery, she could see the faint glimmer of the city spire.

Elizabeth felt that angels might appear there, but she hadn't saved enough money, and perhaps never would. Still, she longed to go there and see it someday.

It was late at night, and as she stepped across the path outside the town and walked along the edge of the fields, she tried to muster the courage to approach the forest.

To her, it felt like a real battle, and she always doubted whether she could succeed.

The best of her sisters in the mansion had always warned her that anyone who entered that forest would never return, and began to tell her terrible stories that had happened to them, but her heart was filled with both fear and joy.

After all, what could be more terrifying than their lives?

Perhaps mysterious stories represented some kind of mysterious power.

At worst, if she could find something valuable in the fragments of the meteor, perhaps her plan to redeem herself and move away could be brought forward.

Elizabeth's third favorite place was an old, leafy tree that her mother had pointed out to her the first time she came near the forest. She always used it as a landmark for her explorations, but now, seeing it reminded her of her mother. In the moonlight, wearing a coarse cloth dress, she couldn't help but burst into tears.

After staying under the tree for a moment, she raised her oil lamp and carefully stepped into the forest. She knew which paths were passable, the problem was the exact location of the meteor's fall, after all, the forest was large and the meteor was small.

As she walked, she soon smelled it, a faint smell of burning.

And the smell of rust.

Blood?

These smells made her nerves and skin tense, instinctively wanting to turn around and leave, but she immediately forced herself to follow the smell.

Curiosity mixed with fear made her hands and feet tremble slightly.

Soon, she found the fragments, some charred metal. She picked up a piece, which still retained a little warmth, but it didn't look like anything valuable.

She followed the fragments all the way, the smell getting stronger and more complex.

"This is"

When she walked out of the bushes, she saw that a small clearing had been smashed out in the center of the forest. The surrounding trees were broken in half, and there were obvious signs of scorching on the ground. The fragments were scattered radially from here.

Many large pieces of debris had sunk into the ground, and it was impossible to tell what they were. This mess of metal had turned the place into a junkyard.

Suddenly, she noticed that a large tree on the right had revealed...

A hand?

When she tiptoed around behind the tree, she was startled.

A giant lay under the tree, lying on the broken giant trunk, motionless, as if dead.

She couldn't even tell if he was human, because the giant was much larger than anyone she had ever seen before, almost five or six times her size. A silver-gray armor covered his body, but it was already fragmented. Only the armor on his torso and right thigh was barely intact, but even the slightly intact parts were covered with scorching and bloodstains.

When Elizabeth noticed the other person's right hand, she gasped in surprise, making a sound, immediately covering her mouth, and then trembling back.

The other person's right hand was holding a sword, and on the sword was skewered a hideous, deformed head full of sharp teeth, which seemed to maintain the posture of flailing its claws before death, with a scarlet tongue hanging limply beside its mouth.

The next moment, the girl immediately thought of something—

Angels are the nemesis of dragons and demons, they slay demons and monsters, fearless.

This was a sentence her mother had told her in the bedtime stories she read to her as a child. That huge, terrifying head, could it be the so-called dragon, which means...

As she examined him from a distance, she couldn't help but think, is this an angel.

A fallen angel.

How could an angel fall?

She walked a few steps carefully and saw that the giant was surrounded by blood, some of which had clotted and dried, while other parts were covered with mud.

He was leaning against the tree, as if dozing off, indicating that he did not "fall down", but took a few steps after falling before collapsing.

From this distance, she could see that he had a human face, although huge, it was very handsome, but there were two ugly scars on his chin, which did not seem to have healed, and seemed to have been caused by huge claws.

The giant had several things hanging on his waist, some of which she didn't recognize, but some of which she did, such as a gun.

Seeing the gun, her stomach suddenly tightened. Why would an angel carry a gun?

She felt a strong sense of curiosity, mixed with fear. He was unlike anyone she had ever met.