As time passed, the princess's strength was abandoning her. When Shiwa revealed all of this to her, Kisita understood.

"Even so, did you need to take my life, Simba Shiwa?" she gasped, her breathing becoming difficult.

"I had to take from Nsemi what he held most dear. Besides, I couldn't have a face as long as you were alive," Shiwa explained.

"I beg your forgiveness for all the undue suffering my father caused you. What will you do with my remains?" she asked with a final burst of life.

"Know that the rest of your family will also perish by my hand. You will be the Shiwa Lioness's corpse, and I will have a tomb built in my country that is worthy of the woman you were. Today a Kongo princess dies, but a queen is born who will reign over the entire world," she said.

At that, the angel of the Kongo people closed her eyelids forever and let out her final breath.

Shiwa dressed Kisita's lifeless body in her legendary battle gear and mask. She exchanged her clothes with the princess's, which were in a trunk. When she came out of the royal cabin, her men thought they were looking at Princess Kisita. But at the sound of her voice, they understood... The warrior who had entered the cabin would never come out again. Her fighters changed into Kisita's guards' uniforms, so that they could go into Egypt as impostors.

The skewed story that would be served up to the Egyptians would be that the Lioness and her men had perished during the attack on the three ships, claiming many victims among their crew members in the process. Her corpse would be evidence of that.

The announcement of Shiwa's death proved fatal for Matondo, but it appeased Nsemi. The brave Nfumu succumbed to the loss of what had been his last reason for living since his beloved Simba had left him.

Shiwa went to Pharaoh Thalmes's royal palace to be introduced to him by Prince Kheros, who was overjoyed to see the woman he thought was Kisita. The royal family gathered, and a sumptuous ceremony was held to welcome the future princess of Egypt. Having been raised by Matondo, the girl knew all the manners of a lady of an emperor's court. All that leaked through of the ruthless warrior she had been her whole life was her powerful charisma and her conquering gaze. Not a single man could take his eyes off her throughout the entire evening, not even the sun god.

When Kheros announced that he wanted his wedding to be arranged as soon as possible, his father recommended that he be patient while he found out more about the Central Empire princess. Shiwa knew that the pharaoh desired her and that the royal family might soon be divided because of it. She intended to take full advantage of this.

The Lioness's ten fighters had to return to Kongo. They were the only ones who knew the secret of the new Kisita. But this posed a problem for Shiwa. She had to make sure her secret would never be revealed. To do so, it had to be buried with them. Her best corporal, Selemani, was part of the group. He was her childhood friend and the only man she knew she was in love with, but the Lioness also knew that there was always a huge sacrifice to be made for any great victory. She succeeded in convincing Kheros that these men from Kongo were spies sent by Nsemi and that they had to be executed outside the kingdom of Egypt, where no one would know who they were and where no one would find their bodies.

So, approximately thirty Egyptian soldiers led the ten fighters far from the kingdom, into the merciless jungle in the northern part of the Central Basin, from which no one ever returned alive. When they were about to be killed, Selemani and two other fighters, in a movement that combined cunning and extreme agility, managed to escape into the jungle. The remaining seven were murdered and their corpses left for the wild animals.

The three fighters who achieved the impossible by surviving in this unforgiving jungle became the first leopard-men.

There had been unease in the royal palace since Shiwa's arrival. The pharaoh now wanted to cancel his son Kheros's marriage and make the Lioness his concubine. However, in her opinion, it was much better to be the prince's wife. She had noticed that Khemes' health was rather fragile and that he probably would not live long enough to become king. It was then that she realized that only time separated her from the Queen of Egypt's throne.

Whenever Ahmonphis, the sun god's private emissary, secretly came looking for her, in order to bring her to the king's apartments, Shiwa knew exactly how to arouse Kheros's curiosity and thus defeat Thalmes's end run. Unfortunately, one day she did end up being forced to meet the pharaoh one-on-one.

Completely disguised, she left her quarters clandestinely and was led by the emissary to one of the immense royal palace's secret rooms. Of course, only the emissary and the king knew about this meeting.

In the secret chamber, a table was set with plates of fruit, a jug of wine, and some goblets. Ahmonphis invited her to take a seat as she waited for the pharaoh to arrive. She sat down and, in turn, invited the emissary to have a glass of wine. She discreetly poured some Nswadi poison into the jug before serving the king's emissary; he drank the wine down in one gulp and then left.

The pharaoh arrived a few moments later. Driven mad by the Lioness's charm, he promised her the most beautiful jewels in the world, as well as an immense palace in Nubia, on the condition that she refuse to marry the prince and become his mistress. In response, she accepted the proposal and assured the king that she would see him again in three days, when she would no longer be what she called "temporarily indisposed." Before leaving, playing the role of a captivated woman, she caressed the Egyptian sovereign's chest with one hand and, with the other, had him savor the delicious wine that perfumed the room. Two days afterwards, that was the end of King Thalmes.

A month later, Shiwa married Prince Kheros in a lavish ceremony at the palace of the young Pharaoh Khemes, and, as promised, had Kisita's tomb built in the mountainous region of eastern Kongo, near Mount Umwali.

The news of Nfumu Matondo's death broke the Lioness, filling her heart with emptiness and destroying her appetite for revenge. It was for the honor of her king, her only master, Matondo, and for him alone, that she had always fought. It was to this man that she wanted to offer Nsemi's head. It was for him, whom she called her real father, that she had been determined to conquer Egypt and the world. The mountain warrior realized that in wanting to win it all, she had only managed to lose everything. Condemned to live in the Kongo Princess's body, Shiwa's lie became a reality that she could never change. It occurred to her then that it was actually Kisita who had killed Shiwa.