His Devious Harbinger: How To Tame A Wicked God?

The rain goddess and Cina wrestle until he wins by hugging her until she's too tired to move.

"What do you want!" She yells at him. 

"Marry me!" He replies in the same tone, rubbing his cheek on her melon. 

"No!" She refuses him loudly. "You are a foreigner!"

"But I am a man first." He raises his head and looks at her. "I won't ever find anyone like you. Please marry me. I want to show Rilyah what true beauty is."

She has no idea who Rilyah is. But this god is crossing his limits. How could she, the main face of rain, can marry a god who is not from this world? But it's a sad truth that he's indeed stronger than her and she's too fat to move. "Alright!"

"You agree?" Cina blinks his eyes.

"Give me one month." She smiles at him. "I will compensate you for the damage that my fake face did. However, you can't visit me for a month."

"After a month, you will marry me?" He asks her again suspiciously.

"Definitely!" She grins at him. "Come back after a month. If you still want to marry me, I will definitely become your bride and get married in this shrine."

"I can wait for a month." Cina plants a kiss on her cheek. "Be prepared. I won't let you sleep for a second on our first night."

After saying his piece, the tree god leaves the shrine.

Amami -- the rain goddess -- has to take a cold bath before she deals with the forest in the temples. The priests come back, unable to see the rain goddess huffing and cursing a certain tree god. The other faces of rain god come back. She sends them on their ways to find information on the fake rain god.

Every cloud on planet earth is looking for Ari and Misaki. The spirits, who travel between the worlds, have been told to look for them. The rain goddess keeps her promise.

"Does he really think that I am going to marry him?" She lays down on the small garden behind the temple and starts doing sit-ups. "I am going to lose all the weight in the next thirty days. Then, he will lose interest for sure."

If she's no longer fat, he wouldn't bother her anymore.

***

"Ah!" Cina sniffs his palms as he walks home in a daze. "Her melons smell so good."

The rain god -- should he call her a goddess -- is rather a softball of cotton. If he hadn't seen the melons, he would have thought that he was fooled again. Now, he's going to tell Rilyah who is a true beauty. 

That third moon thinks of herself as a beauty. Hmph! A beautiful must be huggable and comfortable. Look at the rain goddess! Her voice is sweet like the sound of drizzle. And she smells like the rain, as expected of the rain goddess. 

His cotton ball!!! She will marry him after a month. 

Surely, he's old enough to get married now. After spending time with Misumi, he also wants his own little cotton balls.

"What's going on?" Cina furrows when he feels an oppressive aura from the house. It's dark and gloomy, heavy yet penetrating, and he finds himself sweating. Though fear grips his bones and flesh, and the veins on his legs become atrophied with terror, Cina drags himself toward the house -- Rilyah and Misumi are inside.

When he enters the house, he hears Rilyah's sobbing voice. The fear is replaced by adrenaline. He rushes toward the sitting room and slides open the door. Rilyah is kowtowing on the floor. A trail of blood starts from the middle of her forehead and drips on the floor from her chin as she keeps kowtowing while chanting apologies.

"Who is --" The words are lost when Cina sees the dark god sitting on the seat, leaning against the wall with a stoic face, and carrying Misumi in his arms. 

The child is only a few days old, but she doesn't cry as the man, whom she met for the first time, strokes her gently despite the hardened look on his face.

"Adira?" Cina's knees become weak. "H-How? W-W-Why?...I-I C-C-Can Explain. Don't hurt Rilyah."

"I already know everything." Adira grimaces at him. "Do I dare to blame you, Cina? You were helpless back then."

"That is true but --" Cina glances at Rilyah. "She was also a child."

"I didn't ask her to kowtow to me." Adira scrunches his brows. "I only asked where the Renasir is."

Cina's heart drops to his stomach. How could they answer? "Mother is…"

"What did you say?" Adira looks at him scornfully. "Mother? Renasir is your mother? My daughter is your sister. Cina, do you want me to pull your tongue out?"

He swallows his saliva. The Dark God minds it a lot. "Renasir Ari already accepted me as her son."

"Just because she did it, what gave you the right to be her son?" Adira scowls at him darkly.

"I might not remember everything, but I heard that she was my bride. As a mother of my only daughter, she's bound to be my wife."

Rilyah raises her head and widens her eyes. "D-Daughter?"

"Where's she?" Adira questions her again. "How could she leave a few days on a child in your care? When she was fighting for a nameless boy, she showed so much passion, and yet, she dares to leave our daughter in someone else's care. Tell me where she is."

"Adira, you are mistaken," Cina says to him, "about --"

"She has gone to another world." Rilyah interrupts Cina quickly, "Renasir Ari went somewhere and Ai went after her. They should be coming back soon."

"But, Rilyah…" When Cina starts to say the truth, Rilyah shakes her head at him.

"Why did she leave a newborn behind? What could be so important than caring for her newborn?" Adira narrows his eyes dangerously. "She also ran away from Iravan and prevented my child from taking my essence. My child is born weak."

The temperature of the room drops down as the pressure increases. Rilyah licks her lips in fear. 

"To do the shaping of the true name when she was pregnant without any main god around her… Such a careless woman!" Adira's voice is cold and bitter. "She doesn't deserve to be my bride or mother of my daughter."

"Adira, you are --" Cina opens his mouth to tell him the truth. 

Rilyah rushes to him and puts her hand on Cina's mouth. "Dark God, we will leave you alone with Misumi for a while."

Without waiting for the Dark God's response, she drags Cina out of the house.

"Why did you lie to him?" Cina glowers at her. "He thinks that she abandoned Misumi."

"What do you think?" Rilyah grabs his elbows and shakes him, clearly panicking. "Her second daughter is kidnapped and Renasir Ari is gone. It happened while we were here. We would be killed."

"Gods can't die." Cina stares at her face. "We shouldn't be lying to him. What would happen when they come back?"

"If we tell him now, he will punish us gravely. We might get cursed." Rilyah was quivering in fear. "Did you forget what I told you? He started the great war for Amara. In another world, he slaughtered countless people to get to Renasir Ari. What would he do now? This world might get destroyed by him if he gets angry. Didn't you feel his power?"

She pauses for a moment.

"You and I came to this world through the gate and he traveled all the way from Iravan. All of us came in different eras. He's been in this world for thousands of years already. Unlike you and I, he's not weak anymore. Dark God is too powerful. He will destroy this world, the gods, and adjacent realms to find his second daughter."

"But we need to find her." Cina urges, "What if he finds the truth from other sources?"

"If the child and Renasir come back, everything will be fine." Rilyah takes a deep breath. "Listen, we can't risk this world. It's weak and fragile. There are many worlds surrounding this world. Though it lacks in magic, it is acting as a balancing point for all the worlds and realms surrounding it. If the balance of the world is destroyed, it will destroy all the leaning worlds eventually. Renasir would never want that. When they come back, we will get punishments for sure… but we won't end up in Qeshaya. Renasir will save us."

"There must be a better way." Cina utters uneasily, "Rilyah, what would happen if Renasir Ari and Misaki are never found?"

"Then, we won't tell him." Rilyah straightens her back and says, "You gather your powers and concentrate on making the gates again. I will go after Renasir and Ai."

Cina bites his lower lip. This whole idea seems horrible to him.

"Going where?"

The penetrating cold voice makes them jump. Cina and Rilyah turn to the Dark God who is watching them quietly.

Rilyah steps forward. "Dark God, I want to go after Renasir Ari and Ai. They should have come back already."

"No." The Dark God holds Misumi closer to his chest. "That woman keeps running away, abandoning people behind. There's no need to look for them. If she cares one bit about our child, she would come back on her own."

"T-That…" Rilyah's voice tremble. "Dark God, I think that they might be in trouble. If you let me go --"

"We are leaving this world," The Dark God announces.