Under the night sky, with its sunlight gone, the Glass Temple showed another side of itself. Countless mirrors reflected a fantastical sea of stars, and anyone standing inside felt as though the Milky Way itself had closed around them.
And there, quietly, amid this beautiful scene ringed by the Milky Way, the horseshoe crab had died. Its death was nothing grand or dramatic, and yet it was the kind that would go down in history.
Its death was like the instant a shooting star streaked across the midnight sky.
The witch doctors stood quietly in two rows, gazing up at the lonely, star-strewn dome above, as though mourning the horseshoe crab's death.
But almost at once, inside the temple, they saw a terrifying shadow surge out of the Mother of Life's own body.
In an instant, it swallowed every last bit of light around them.
The witch doctors' own forms vanished into the darkness, and every building behind Lava Mountain, the whole city besides, went with them.
Once the darkness had swallowed them, the witch doctors could see nothing at all, feel nothing at all, and could not even sense themselves.
In the whole world their sight could reach, the only spot of light left was the small patch where the Life Sovereign, Shelly, stood.
They saw, in the darkness behind the girl, a demonic god gazing down at the pitiful horseshoe crab.
The horseshoe crab's corpse floated up into the air, held by nothing at all.
Gurgle gurgle~
Boundless shadow surged within the girl's small, slight body. The one gleam of light left in all that darkness fell across her face. She pointed at the horseshoe crab's corpse and said, "I am the Ruler of Life, the Life of the root god behind the three great authorities, the Creator's eldest daughter."
"Upon you I bestow the power to mand every microorganism there is!"
"You shall be the god of every microorganism, the source from which all microorganisms spring!"
"You seem to be nothing at all, and yet there is nowhere you are not. You dwell inside every living thing, and in the sky, the mountains, the forests, the wastelands, and the deep sea alike."
"You are not the world that lies plainly in sight, and yet you are the natural turning and cycling that the world cannot do without."
"Every living thing in this world lives out its life alongside you, and when it dies, it is by you that it is broken down."
At last, Shelly broke into a radiant smile, and said, "You are the great beast of Void."
"And you are my sand table, my world in a tank."
As the last word fell, a half-transparent brand, glimmering faintly, dropped from the demonic god's hand and pressed itself into the horseshoe crab's corpse.
The tenth Ruhe Seal had been born.
The whole world began to change. Every microorganism, every kind of fungus and mold, seemed to cheer at once, stirring to sudden life.
It was as if they were celebrating the birth of their new master, celebrating that fungi and molds too had won the Life Sovereign's recognition and begun their leap from ordinary matter toward mythical life.
A change came over the horseshoe crab's corpse that turned everything upside down.
Steeped in the Life Sovereign's own divine power, the microorganisms still lingering inside the corpse began transforming into mythical creatures.
Inside the corpse, every kind of fungus and mold changed violently, devouring one another even as they multiplied and reproduced in a frenzy.
In the end, they broke free of the horseshoe crab's own body.
On the surface of it, huge white patches of mold welled up out of the horseshoe crab's corpse one after another, each giving off the light of Void.
The patches kept piling up, and at last grew into shapes of every kind.
Great clusters of spore pods sprouted across the horseshoe crab's body, and the spores fed on its flesh and blood without pause, until before long nothing of it was left.
At last, with a soft pop, the horseshoe crab's corpse vanished pletely, swallowed up inside the bursting white spore pods.
In truth, it had simply turned into countless tiny things too small to see.
But no matter how small, none of it could escape the Life Sovereign's sight or her grip. Shelly gave her hand a wave.
"e back!"
Countless white threads of mold came flooding together, forming one huge, mushroom-shaped body.
Atop this strange creature's head sat a mushroom cap, enormously wide, like a wicker hat several sizes too large.
Its pure-white body glowed, drifting through the air like a great white parasol thrown open.
The ing of a Ruhe beast was always a terrifying, dreadful thing, and yet this one carried a sense of sanctity and mystery that no Ruhe beast ought to have.
Shelly walked up in front of the "Mushroom Mold," and stroked its handsome, oversized cap. The threads of mold covering it were as soft as hair.
Some of the threads even pulled free on their own, curling around Shelly as if trying to win her favor.
Shelly laughed at once.
But soon enough, she made a puzzled sound instead.
"Hm!"
"Weren't you a different shape before?"
At Shelly's question, the "Mushroom Mold" began to change at once.
It dissolved into countless threads of mold, and the threads turned to spores.
At last, like countless soap bubbles, it reshaped itself back into the form of a horseshoe crab.
Except this was a huge, pure-white horseshoe crab, many times larger than before.
It looked far more beautiful too, as though carved out of a single cloud, and every so often pure-white spore pods could even be seen drifting off its body.
But look closely, and there was no telling it apart from the real thing. Its body was structured exactly the same, and it had every organ a horseshoe crab had.
It came up to Shelly's side just like an affectionate little kitten, nuzzling against her arm before lying down at her feet.
Shelly climbed up onto the white horseshoe crab's back and settled herself there.
"Fly!"
And then, sure enough, the white horseshoe crab really did take to the air.
It carried Shelly carefully out of the Glass Temple, flying above the sea of blood mist cup blossoms, circling around the volcano's mouth where black smoke rose in billows.
Shelly was overjoyed, and told the white horseshoe crab to go faster.
"Faster, faster!"
She let the wind whip her long brown hair into a wild dance, and in her excitement she slapped at the white horseshoe crab's shell over and over from where she sat on its back.
In an instant, the white horseshoe crab simply came apart, and Shelly went plummeting straight down toward the volcano.
But just then, the black smoke above the volcano swirled up into one enormous vortex that caught Shelly and held her aloft, and she rode the wind down to the barren slope beyond it.
Around her, spores began condensing out of the air bit by bit, forming once more into a large "Mushroom Mold."
Shelly looked at her pet and nodded, satisfied.
At least she hadn't accidentally swatted it to death. That was already pretty good.
"Mm!"
"This one's not going to die so easily."
This mount of hers was still much too small, not nearly strong enough yet.
But given enough time, it would naturally grow stronger, little by little.
And turning into the shape of a horseshoe crab was only the beginning. So long as these threads of mold broke down enough dead bodies, it would be able to take on all sorts of living forms.
It might look weak and small for now, but the power and authority the tenth Ruhe Seal had granted it was undiminished all the same.
Barring some mishap, it would climb step by step to bee a Life Myth, and eventually breed a race of its own, its own line of life ability's divine blessed ones.
Shelly walked on ahead, and the "Mushroom Mold" came wobbling and bouncing down the slope behind her.
At last Shelly made her way back into the temple.
She picked up the horseshoe crab's old home, the glass tank.
Clang, clang!
Shelly rapped on the glass tank, and said to the "Mushroom Mold," "Get into the glass tank."
The Mushroom Mold broke apart at once into countless threads and squeezed its way into the glass tank, spreading out until it filled the whole thing.
Shelly cupped the glass tank in her hands and said, happily, "Hurry up and get used to the authority I've given you, and then pack the whole world into my glass tank."
"Do you hear me?"
"The whole world!"
In the days that followed, the mold inside the glass tank kept on changing, steadily growing used to its own authority, digesting the power Shelly had given it.
And Shelly came to look in on it every day, watching whatever was taking shape inside.
On the first day, Shelly peered through the glass at what was inside. "Lava Mountain's e out."
Inside Shelly's glass tank, Lava Mountain first appeared as nothing more than a tiny speck, and then kept spreading steadily outward toward the edges.
On the second day, Shelly saw a forest appear inside the glass tank, and whooped with joy.
She shouted back at the witch doctors behind her. "Look, quick, the forest's e out too!"
By now, the glass tank had already simulated the forests, mountains, and valleys of Ruhe Beast Island.
And by the third day, Shelly saw a city.
Every day, the mythical mold named Void, the future Ruhe myth, split off a portion of its own spores and threads of mold and sent them out into the wider world, out across the whole of Ruhe Beast Island.
These spores and threads of Void's mold then used its own authority to mand the microorganisms in every corner of the great island, sensing the world through them.
And now, the microorganisms across this whole great island seemed to have e alive, carrying on one marvelous conversation after another.
"Did you hear? There's a fire on the mountain up north, and the animals have all run off west."
"There's a new city over here. It wasn't here before."
"That tree at the village entrance died today."
"This city's going to break out in plague and sickness, because a whole group of people came in off the sea and brought back germs from outside that don't belong here."
"The old snake person north of the village died in the night. The mold that lived inside him has no home now. Did you hear?"
"The wing demon I'm attached to just flew across the sky to the north. There's a big wind blowing up there."
These microorganisms existed in every corner of this world, and knew the secrets of every single place in it.
And this was exactly how Void's mold gathered the world's secrets, and made them manifest inside the glass tank.
At first, all that formed were the outlines of land, forest, mountain, and city, nothing but rough shapes to look at. But little by little that changed, and living things actually began to appear inside the world within the glass tank.
Shelly looked at the glass tank on the table, so pleased she stamped her feet.
"Look, quick!"
"Snake people!"
"The snake people have turned up too, and all sorts of animals!"
"I've packed them all in, every last one of them, inside my glass tank."
These living things were all much too small.
Shelly squeezed one eye shut and stuck her whole head right into the glass tank, as though that were the only way to see clearly.
In truth, the naked eye alone could never have seen any of it. Shelly could see it only because she was drawing on divine power of her own.
In Shelly's eyes, these living things were not some frozen sculpture. They were constantly changing, constantly moving.
When their real-world counterparts traveled from one place to another, the versions of them inside the tank made the same long journey right alongside them.
Shelly leaned her head into the glass tank, looking down at the simulated world inside, and watched these snake people, smaller than the tiniest insect, going about their lives. She could even watch them die, watch them pass away.
"Ah!"
"It died."
When they died, these living things vanished from the world in the tank as well, consumed by the threads of mold and folded back into the raw stuff that world was made of.
Void's mold held the Ruhe Seal that gave it mand over every microorganism there was.
And every death of every living thing in this world, every plant's decay, every final vanishing and breaking-down, all of it had something to do with microorganisms.
Bit by bit, a rough outline of the whole of Ruhe Beast Island appeared inside the glass tank, and it kept filling itself in, and fast, until the tank truly seemed to hold a real world inside it.
Inside it, one could see not just the whole shape of the world, but the birth, aging, sickness, and death of every living being reflected back too, the whole cycle of the world's own change cast there like a shadow.
Shelly was terribly pleased with herself. This was her masterpiece, after all, and once God came back, she meant to show it to God, and prove just how clever she was.
She held her glass tank up high and went dashing all over the temple.
"Pack in a bit more. Pack the whole world in."
The witch doctors watched her race around cradling the glass tank, watched Ruhe Beast Island itself packed away inside it.
For some reason, a powerful dread rose up in their hearts.
She looked at the witch doctors and said, "So? I'm amazing, aren't I!"
The witch doctors bowed to her respectfully. "Your power is beyond all measure."
Lately Shelly had not much cared for that kind of flattery. "This isn't power. This is wisdom."
"And who besides me could ever make a pet this amazing."
Shelly lifted her glass tank up high and pressed her eye right against the glass.
"Before long, it'll build out the realms beyond Ruhe Beast Island too, every last place that holds life."
"And by then there'll be a whole sphere inside my glass tank."
That sphere was called the world.
Called Earth.
"When that happens, I really will have packed the whole world into my glass tank."
"Nothing will be able to escape my eyes. The world will be my garden."
Shelly ran wild around the temple holding up her glass tank, the witch doctors close on her heels, as though terrified she might drop it and shatter the thing by accident.
At last, Shelly came to the main hall of the temple, to the foot of the statue where light gathered in dazzling splendor.
Shelly set the glass tank down on the altar. She was waiting for God to e back.
But it happened to be exactly noon just then, and the sky's blazing sunlight poured down, refracting through the Glass Temple's panes and gathering together until Shelly could hardly keep her eyes open.
Shelly pouted, unhappy.
"The sun's too bright. It should be darker."
With that, she reached out a hand and stuck it into the glass tank.
In that same instant, the whole sky over Ruhe Beast Island was blanketed in boundless darkness.
Everyone on Ruhe Beast Island lifted their heads to look at the sky. They could see nothing at all, only that light itself had vanished entirely from the world.
"Why's the sky gone black?"
"An eclipse?"
"That's strange."
Ordinary people, oddly enough, weren't all that afraid. The stronger someone was, the more their heart raced with panic.
They had no idea what was happening, and it was exactly that not-knowing that made it all the more terrifying.
Because they knew this was absolutely not an eclipse.
But if it wasn't an eclipse, who could possibly wipe the sun out of the sky?
Just then, had anyone been able to look in from outside the world itself, they would have seen two enormous hands closed around part of the planet.
Only the hands were so enormous that no one could make out clearly what they truly were.
Shelly looked up past the dome above her, watching day turn into night, and let out a delighted shriek.
"Aaah!"
"Look, quick, I've blocked out the sun!"
"The sun's gone, because I'm not letting its light in."
A smile touched the corner of the Life Sovereign's mouth, a smile that still carried every bit of its innocence.
But the witch doctors standing at the side of the great hall, every single one of them, were struck with panic, staring in slack-jawed shock.
To the witch doctors watching, the innocent look on the girl's face was as horrifying as anything could possibly be.
Once a child held the power to create life and to destroy the world both at once, there was no imagining which she would choose, creation or destruction.
She created not out of kindness, but simply because she found it entertaining.
She destroyed not out of malice, but for that very same reason, because she found it entertaining.
And the only one who had ever really seen Shelly as a child at all was Yin Shen.
In the witch doctors' eyes, Shelly had never once been a child. She was a supreme sovereign, sacred from birth, a supreme god who cared for nothing and answered to nothing but the Creator's own will.
In that moment, a legend rose up in the witch doctors' minds, a myth of the trilobite men.
The Supreme Three Gods had each inherited a share of the Creator, one God's Spirit, one God's Form, one God's Domain.
Redlichia had inherited the Creator's wisdom, gaining humanity along with it. The spirits had been born from the Creator's own beautiful dream, inheriting all that was good in it.
Then what had the Life Sovereign, Shelly, been given?
Shelly had her head tipped back toward the sky, cheering.
And yet her hand kept pressing downward, without her even noticing.
She seemed entirely unaware that the whole world, beneath that hand of hers, was drawing closer and closer to ruin.
The end was ing.
The witch doctors, every one of them, were frightened speechless by the sight, gaping at the world beyond the dome.
Left Hand was frightened too, but she was the first to recover herself. Heedless of her own standing, she rushed to the front at once and cried out, "No, O Supreme Mother of Life!"
"Please, You must not do this!"
And just then, inside the temple wrapped in darkness, boundless light bloomed forth once more.
The light looked much like before, endless radiance turning the whole space blazing white, and within that blazing white stood a single shadow.
But the light and shadow inside the temple before had only been illusion. What appeared now was the true Eternal Star itself, the Lord of Creation, Yinsai.
"...?"
At first, Shelly was honestly confused. She'd clearly blocked out the sun. Where was this light even ing from?
And just then another hand reached out, closing gently over the hand she had pressed down against the whole world, and a figure in a white robe, black-haired, appeared right behind Shelly.
Shelly understood at once. God had e home.
She spun around happily and cried out at the sight of Yin Shen, "God, You're back?"
God Yinsai took Shelly's hand in His, looked too at the world inside the glass tank, and asked her, "What is it called?"
Shelly explained, excited, "Its name is Void, because normally you can't see them at all."
"It's really amazing..."
Shelly went on explaining her new pet to God Yinsai, who listened quietly.
At last, Shelly said, "God, I've packed the world into my glass tank."
God Yinsai looked at the glass tank, and said just one thing, "It ought to have a lid. Only then is it truly packed inside."
Moonlight City
A brand new Miracle Temple had just been established in the city. Believers in the God of Desire were still few here, and with the temple not even fully open, the place looked all but deserted.
Even so, every member of the temple had been up preparing since before dawn, and had e outside early to wait.
Because some great figure was about to arrive.
When the visitor came, it was without a sound. He simply appeared, all at once, inside the temple.
But the divine servants had been ready for this, and stepped forward at once to bow.
"Master Oran!"
The one leading them came forward and called out to Oran, "Headmaster!"
Oran was the headmaster of the White Tower Alchemy Academy, and so his nominal students were countless, scattered across the whole of Ruhe Beast Island.
Oran looked the person over, then glanced past them at the many divine servant apprentices standing behind. Some had already crossed the threshold into the extraordinary. Others were still outside it, watching.
"It looks as though you have done well here. You have taken on a good many students."
Before Oran had even arrived in Moonlight Province, someone had already e ahead of him and begun opening up a place of faith here for the Divine System of Iva.
Suinhor was the most populous nation there was, and so it held the largest number of seeds fit to bee ability users too.
It hadn't been long since the person had arrived here, and already they had picked out no small number of candidates fit to bee alchemists and tower keepers.
And one of the reasons Oran had e here today was to see just how well the person was doing.
The person answered happily, "It is because the gods sealed their contract. Only through that have the faithful of Moonlight City been granted the fortune of bathing in the radiance of the God of Alchemy."
The Contract of the Gods had brought enormous change for mortals, and for the gods of the mortal world its greatest effect was that their own servants were multiplying fast.
In this world, mortals who could bee ability users outright were never many.
But some people, though they might lack the gift to bee an ability user directly, had the gift instead to bee a god's servant.
Take the winged people's sky messengers. Faith alone was not enough. The role also called for a naturally strong spirituality, and whether one's divine blood ran deep enough was only secondary. A winged person whose divine blood fell short, but whose spirituality was naturally strong, could still bee a sky messenger directly.
The believers of the God of Knowledge were remarkable in their own way too. Sometimes a person with no gift at all, but with vast learning, would be called all the same, and suddenly find themselves turned into a witch spirit.
The line of desire was harder to judge, and it fluctuated wildly. Sometimes a person would go through some experience or other and suddenly find themselves qualified to bee an alchemist or a tower keeper. That had happened before too.
Every profession had its own requirements.
So a seed that looked unfit to bee an ability user at one temple might, from another angle, turn out to be a prodigy at some other temple.
In the past, though, people who did have what it took to bee a divine servant had been kept from ever crossing the threshold into the extraordinary, all their lives, simply because of how the lands of faith were carved up.
Seen this way, the sealing of the Contract of the Gods really was something the gods themselves needed. Their own lands of faith had already grown saturated, and only through the contract could they expand their own ranks of servants.
Once Oran had looked over these candidates for a while, he turned his gaze to the temple's entrance.
A rainbow tree stood planted in front of the Miracle Temple, a sight unique to their own line of faith, and many people used the place as a fixed point for sending their Rainbow Tree Letters.
Oran said, "On the wall beside the rainbow tree, you might carve the story of the Letter Nymph and the Storage Nymph."
The Chief Divine Servant nodded at once. "I have already arranged it. It will be finished before the temple's dedication festival, without fail."
Once inside, one could see the temple's statue hadn't even been put in place yet, proof enough that plenty of things still weren't ready.
Oran gave instructions to this temple's chief at once. "Throughout Moonlight Province, every main temple raised in every city must hold a statue of the Dream Sovereign within it. The shrines do not need one."
"As for the shrines elsewhere, let them hold chiefly a statue of God Iva, according to where their faith leans. Alongside it, for those who pray for marriage and love, a statue of the Golden Queen may be added, and for tower keepers and workshop masters, a statue of the Lord of Happiness and Wishes."
The person nodded, deeply respectful. "Understood, Headmaster."
At the student's invitation, Oran toured every facility the temple had, and listened too to their own ideas about how best to spread belief in the divine.
At last he came to the other destination of this trip.
Beside the temple, a brand new Alchemy Tower and a large workshop were under construction.
Its rank wasn't high, only a second-rank Alchemy Tower.
But it held a special meaning for Oran all the same.
Because the core of this Alchemy Tower would be the Cup of Desire Oran had brought here himself, the one that had grown a human head.
"Wait out here. I will open this Alchemy Tower myself."
Cradling the Cup of Desire with its grown head, Oran passed through the door and into the Alchemy Tower.
The Alchemy Tower had only two floors.
The first floor was a small alchemy workshop, and the second was the Tower Spirit's control floor.
For now, it was still entirely blank, since the core, the very center of it all, had not yet been put in place.
Oran took out the fully grown Cup of Desire, and an invisible hand guided it, setting it at last into the pool at the center of the Tower Spirit's control floor.
As the Cup of Desire settled into the pool, its roots spread out along the basin at once, sinking deep into the magic gold, and slowly linking up with the Alchemy Tower's own ritual array.
Just then, Oran called out the name this Cup of Desire had once borne, "Gamel!"
"Try out your Alchemy Tower. This brand new body was forged for you."
The whole Alchemy Tower seemed to e alive all at once, giving off a powerful pulse.
Oran watched the ritual array beneath his feet activate, watched the Alchemy Tower rouse its own power, while the Tower Spirit grew accustomed to its new body.
At once, with the ritual array activated, a shell of light wrapped itself around the whole Alchemy Tower.
This meant the Alchemy Tower had been fully activated.
Oran passed through the core's shell of light, walked up to the pool, crouched down to look at Gamel's face, and after letting out a sigh, said, "Gamel!"
"This is your Alchemy Tower. I hope that through it you will cross into the fourth rank, and find yourself again."
"Moonlight Province is a good place. It is far from your homeland, I know, but its people are more numerous and its promise greater, and it suits you better."
Gamel had died long ago. Oran had kept him bound to the mortal world by force alone, using the Cup of Desire as his vessel, and even so his consciousness was fading away bit by bit. Only a fourth-rank Cup of Desire could truly hold wisdom of its own.
By now, Gamel had already forgotten a great deal. All that was left of him was a single thread of stubborn, unwilling longing.
Just then, hearing Oran mention his own homeland, he suddenly began to talk, calling out one name after another.
"Thunder City!"
"Sky Beast God!"
"Swamp!"
"The shrine... the shrine..."
He seemed to still remember his own homeland, still remember the shrine where he had once served, and the old divine servant inside it.
Oran felt a certain regret over what Gamel had gone through, and a certain hope as well.
The Cup of Desire held potential beyond pare. It was a flower out of myth itself. Countless Cups of Desire grew in the Miracle Garden, and yet precious few of them ever managed to break past their own limits.
But Oran hoped that Gamel, through the sheer force of his own longing, might break through that boundary and bee the one to shatter the wall at last.
"Gamel!"
"So long as you believe in yourself, you will surely find your way home again."
"I hope that one day I will see you in a wholly new form."
Oran rose to his feet, looked at the Cup of Desire in the pool, and spoke his last words, "I hope that many years from now, we shall meet again."
With that, he turned and walked away.
And up on the Alchemy Tower's higher floor, the human head inside the flower cup went on chattering without pause.
"Sky!"
"The Lost Kingdom!"
"And... a ship... a ship..."
At last, the head turned toward the north, and cried out one final name, "Sky Witch."
Elsewhere, Oran had finished all his business in Moonlight Province, and climbed onto his flying magic carpet, ready to leave.
But the moment the carpet lifted into the air, something strange appeared in the sky.
Oran brought the carpet to a stop at once and lifted his head to the sky.
A noisy clamor rose up across the whole city. Everyone in the streets stopped where they stood, looking up at the sky and at each other, talking over one another.
"What's going on?"
"An eclipse?"
"Why's the sky gone dark?"
"Is it about to rain?"
Oran stared upward in shock. He could tell that this was absolutely not an eclipse. An eclipse would never strip every bit of light from the sky in a single instant.
The very instant Oran had looked up, he had seen boundless darkness bearing down from on high, as though something had reached out and blotted out the sky itself.
Oran felt his heart seize with dread. Divine chosen though he was, in that instant his breath came short and fast, as though some catastrophe were about to fall and drown everything whole.
Oran had never felt anything like it before, not even the time he had stood no more than a few dozen miles from the Sky Beast God himself. Even then, he hadn't been this afraid.
And back then, at least, he had known the reason for his own fear. Now he could not even find a reason for being afraid at all.
Terrified as he was, Oran asked himself, at a plete loss, "I am afraid?"
"Why am I afraid?"
"Why am I so afraid?"
But fortunately, before long, the sky cleared again. The sun hung once more in its place, casting its light and warmth back down upon the mortal world.
The crowds in the street began to disperse, murmuring, "It really was an eclipse after all."
"A strange one, though."
But Oran was too shaken even to ride his carpet anymore. He came back down to the ground, staring fixedly up at the sky.
Only after a long while did he finally recover the ability to speak.
"What in the world was that, just now?"
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