Death on the Nile

Without concealing the grim symptoms of his body gradually solidifying, Ima calmly closed his collar. "If not for that, why would I have come to Helios in search of a cure?"

He paused, then laughed self-mockingly. "Unfortunately, fate loves to toy with people..."

To others, Helios was certainly precious, but as a member of the Egyptian royal family and the high priest of Cat God Bastet, he lacked neither alchemical texts nor accumulated knowledge. He had no need to seek learning elsewhere.

He could obtain almost anything he needed.

So why travel all this way?

This journey beyond the Present Realm was solely to seek a treatment for himself, even if the chance was only one in ten thousand.

But who could have expected the Helios Chariot, the thing closest to the Era of Gods in this world, to explode halfway there?

After a long silence, Huai Shi sighed softly.

"Bastet truly favors you, Lady Ima."

Ima remained composed. "Who can say whether it is a blessing or a curse?"

This was the hidden ailment of the Egyptian Lineage, a faint shadow known to few.

Ancestral State.

It was a defect much like a hereditary disease.

Perhaps some realization, perhaps some emotional stirring, or perhaps simply coincidence—there were countless possible causes.

Or perhaps it was simply... old age.

His resonance with Cat God Bastet had surpassed safe limits, causing the Divine Blood he had been born with to begin purifying itself, accelerating a hundredfold, a thousandfold toward the form of the ancient gods.

A thousand years ago, this would have been a blessing enough to delight every member of his clan. It meant that he had received the favor of the Cat God, and perhaps, given time, could become Bastet's incarnation in the human world.

A living demigod.

But after