Anticidence 1

--Eyna--

Eyna absently let her fingers run over the iron casket. It was the evening before the demon's appointment and dusk had already neared.

Just a few hours ago Eyna had received the newly produced metal box personally brought by Neal's father. As her financial background was more or less well known throughout the city being in good relations with her could be of utmost importance.

Even though it was made in a haste, while cutting near the deadline of just four days, the finished product seemed in no way cheaply made. The precise carvings on the metallic surfaces could clearly be felt under the tip of her finger. Although it was just an imitation of the original case, the grotesque figures decorating the box let Eyna involuntary shudder with no need to look at it visually.

It was truly a fitting casket to contain an artifact of the deceased Lucifer.

Eyna didn't even have to pay for this masterpiece of craftsmanship as it was gifted to her by Neal's father as a benevolent present. The thought behind this action was evident, hoping to be able to strike future commerces with her which could possibly bring a much higher profit than just a single iron casket. Eyna naturally didn't refuse the gift.

Currently, she was comfortably seated on a couch in one of the living rooms of the mansion. A radiating fire in the chimney kept the freezing temperatures from intruding into the house. To fight further against her body growing colder, a wooly blanket covered her down to her feet, only revealing her head and two arms.

The predicted cough had not come from when she had slept a night without a blanket, so Eyna was still more or less in a healthy state. However, this didn't lower her hatred towards the creeping cold that winter had brought with him.

Throughout the past few days, Eyna and Leraye had refined the plan of escaping the city, including every single means of transport she would use and the time spent at each location.

Eyna's thoughts circled mainly around the petroleum train which would bring her near the city wall. Petroleum was discovered by humans during the never-ending war and its use as a means of transport was soon invented. Apparently, the train was powered by a liquid that was brought up from below the surface and would move the wheeled vehicle through combustion.

Few rails had been built up to now as there was much opposition on the basis of the potentially harmful exhaustion gas polluting the surrounding. Therefore, all lines were limited inside the city walls, but it was still one of the fastest and most intriguing means of transport.

The war of the divine hadn't only brought disadvantages. Surely, around ninety-five percent of the human population was completely annihilated and most of the surviving dependents had to subordinate themselves to the godly races while living in poverty to fight every day for their lives.

On the other side, this invasion brought knowledge into the human realm of which one never had heard of. None of it was directly taught by these arrogant creatures but it was more of a passive exchange from living under their orders. The survivors' will to outlast this calamity further enhanced the rate of new scientific breakthroughs. One of these achievements had been the petroleum train.

The sudden ringing of the hall clock standing in the corner of the room indicated the beginning of the next hour and jolted Eyna out of her thought. Four hours until midnight and she still needed to do some final preparations for the following day.

With difficulty, Eyna separated herself from the warm and cozy blanket, stored the counterfeited metal box safely in a chest, and exited the room.

In the hallway she quickly noticed her butler having motionlessly stood there for an unknown amount of time. He was truly dedicated to his job.

"Have you done what I said?" Eyna asked immediately.

"Of course," he replied and the following rustling indicated him lifting up the bag he was currently holding in his hand. Eyna received the object and quickly inspected it for its correctness.

The cube had the size of a head and was entirely made out of ice, instantly cooling the warmed hand holding the object.

The six surfaces were all flat, except for a finger-sized hole digging up to the center of the frozen dice.

The hallway itself had a frigid temperature as the marbled floor and the walls made out of stone couldn't store the warmth very well. Therefore, the frozen water hadn't yet begun to melt and the cube had kept its original shape.

Nonetheless, she nodded to her butler and was readying herself to go outside.

"I will go outside for a bit. Alone," she explained to Agares.

"I'm not being followed right now?" Eyna added a question.

"No, the demons do not want you to get any unnecessary attention from the angels so they try to keep themselves as far away from you as possible," he argued.

Eyna nodded in realization. It was true that she had never noticed any pursuers, but this also could easily be explained by her limited perception as a mortal.

Having put on multiple layers of coats she stepped outside the entrance door with the bag in one of her hands.

A gush of freezing cold air let her immediately want to return to the warmth of the burning fire in the chimney. However, Eyna steeled her nerves and made her way to her destination.

Her steps sounded damp and the voices of the few pedestrians still walking on the street were muffled. It was snowing. Through the countless snowflakes falling from the sky, her hearing ability was impaired and the journey took longer than she had previously anticipated.

Unlike the way to the academy which regardless of the weather she would find even with her eyes closed, her current destination was a place she had never been before.

However, by having studied the maps for a long enough time in advance, she still managed to make her way to the terminal station of the petroleum trains.

It was a place seemingly deserted, as all other noise had vanished and Eyna was left alone with the sound of her own footsteps and the periodic breathing of her lungs.

Before Eyna decided to take any action, she first circled around the whole site to ensure no other person was present. The whole process went without any major incidents except for the stray cat she met when walking over the train rails.

Having not noticed the tiny animal hiding under a passenger wagon Eyna unintentionally stepped on its tail and received for her inattentiveness a few ugly but harmless scratches on her arm. However, the aggravated cat then quickly escaped out of her sight… auditory sense once Eyna had moved her foot away from the captured tail.

The rest of the round tour went by with Eyna in a bad mood but without meeting any other living beings. Because the train schedule was aligned in relation to the sun, no wheeled vehicles were allowed to drive after the sun had set. Winter was right at the doorstep and rides had ceased already more than two hours ago which led to this completely deserted terminal station.

Under the protection of a passenger wagon, Eyna took out the frozen cube from her bag. Since she was blind, she couldn't make entirely sure that she was alone so she made her moves as unnoticeable as possible.

Eyna placed the head-sized object between the rails, the side with the small hole in it facing up.

In her hand, a small dagger had appeared which was previously hidden in the folds of her clothes. With one decisive action, she cut her index finger of the other hand.

Eyna's expression didn't nudge in the slightest while a thin stream of blood gathered on the top of her finger. Instead, she carefully moved her hand over to the frozen cube and let a few droplets fall into the hole.

Once the action was done, the blood on her injury had already clotted and she swiftly took out another item from the bag she had received from her butler.

It was another frozen object, this time being cone-shaped and having the size of the hole in the cube.

To close off the opening, Eyna inserted the icicle and used some molten snow to fill in the gaps. With the low temperatures, it all froze in no time and merged into one piece. The droplets of blood inside were completely sealed away from the outside world.

A faint smile rose on her face when the whole procedure had finished. Eyna didn't want to stay idly by and mindlessly assist the demons on their escape, as the circumstances were much too tempting. And she still had an ability hidden which none of the divine beings would know about.

Eyna raised herself up again, took the cube with her, and moved to the front of the parked train. There, a gigantic locomotive was leading the whole array of wagons that would pull them through the city on the following day.

Due to the blueprints she had secured in advance, Eyna could quickly orient herself and find the ladders leading to the cabin of the train driver. Luckily, none of it was locked but it wasn't much of a surprise for her. Since the arrival of the angels organized crimes pretty much ceased from existence as their wrongdoings would easily be uncovered even without the help of thrones. Nowadays, most crimes happen due to emotional outbursts or because of people, who had no money for food, stealing as a last desperate act of self-preservation.

Having climbed up she didn't waste her time and searched for the opening of the fuel tank. The tank of the train was a huge metallic cylinder using up almost all the space of the locomotive. Only through a hole located in the driver's cabin, one could refuel the train. Once Eyna had found this opening she swiftly unscrewed the lid. After a few moments of steeling herself, she then threw the frozen cube into the fuel tank. An echoing splash indicated that it had properly reached its destination inside the petroleum. With the cold outside temperatures, it wouldn't melt until the following day.

Having finished her undertaking Eyna wanted to leave the scene as quickly as possible. However, just as she jumped down the last ladder rungs a sudden voice cried out from behind her.