Chapter 1379: The Best-Friends Banquet
Planet Jura – The Beating Heart of the Empire
Beneath the gentle shimmer of floating lights that adorned every street, square, and rooftop, a single figure moved steadily through the masses.
The city was alive with joy, its people dancing between ribbons of color and bursts of laughter—but this man, old and hunched, cut against the tide like a shadow slipping through candlelight.
Wrapped in a voluminous cloak that swept behind him like the wings of a forgotten beast, the old man gently pushed past celebrants. The thick fabric concealed his slumped back, exaggerated like the hump of a desert camel, and his hood drooped forward, hiding his face entirely. He looked like a relic of a different age—unassuming, unimportant... unnoticed.
"Heh~"
Reaching the base of a broad stairway leading to the ceremonial platform—a stage reserved for announcements of national magnitude—the man paused. He scanned his surroundings. His breath was shallow.
No one seemed to pay him any mind.
Then, with unexpected urgency, he began his ascent—one step, then another, faster and faster, despite his age. Whatever he carried beneath that cloak was clearly massive; the way his back bowed with effort betrayed its weight.
But fate doesn’t always let secrets pass in silence.
"Hmm? Mama, look!"
A little girl, no older than five, tugged on her mother’s elegant gown and pointed upward with wide eyes full of innocent curiosity.
"The hunchy man is climbing the stairs!"