The Priest of God

Outside the God-Given City, more and more trilobite men kept gathering.

Every one of them stood trembling, watching the giant beasts out in the ocean, jaws gaping as though to swallow the very sun out of the sky.

Some were so frightened their legs gave out. They fell to the ground and scraped backward across the sand, then crawled away to hide behind the crowd.

"What is that?"

"There's no way a monster can be that big!"

"What are these monsters after? Don't tell me they're going to crawl up onto the shore!"

The King of Wisdom, Redlichia, came down to the shore as well, guarded within the crowd, and he became the pillar everyone leaned on.

The moment he saw those terrible giants roaring at the sky, he turned and looked up toward the summit of the pyramid temple.

He knew that these monsters must be myth-born lives created by God Yinsai. Their forms were somewhat different, but one glance was enough to tell him they carried the power of the Fusion Monster Shelly.

The King of Wisdom raised his hand high, drawing every eye toward him.

The people looked to this powerfully built trilobite man in his crown, whose every word and gesture could sway them all.

"There is nothing to fear!"

"These monsters are servants of God."

Redlichia had only to speak, and his voice echoed inside the mind of everyone there. Some strange power settled over the restless, panicked crowd, and in an instant they fell silent.

Once they heard that these monsters were servants of the divine, their fear left them. They watched the fusion monsters from a distance and marveled at the divine's tremendous power.

He sent several of his sons to calm the people, and forbade anyone to go near the giant monsters.

Redlichia himself hurried up to the temple atop the pyramid, and found the divine standing before it, admiring his own handiwork.

Yin Shen lowered his gaze, watching Redlichia climb higher, one step at a time.

Until at last he stopped, and knelt down before him.

"Well?"

"Do you like it?"

Redlichia froze for a moment, not understanding what God meant by that.

Yin Shen went on, "This is my gift to you!"

"With them, nothing in the deep sea or on the land will ever stand in your way again."

"Didn't you want to build a great civilization? How could you call it great, penned up on this one island?"

Redlichia stared at God, dumbstruck. He had never imagined that God would grant him a gift like this.

God asked him, "You don't like it?"

Tears streamed down Redlichia's face, and he shook his head.

"God, Your firstborn son will never forget this day."

Then he thought a moment longer, and went on, "God, might I give this chance to my son instead?"

Not a trace of feeling could be heard in Yin Shen's voice. "Only those who hold the power of wisdom can commune with and command these fusion monsters. No mortal could ever master a myth-born species like this."

Redlichia said quickly, "My son Yesael can surely do it. He has inherited my bloodline and my gift."

One could hear in his voice just how dearly Redlichia loved his son.

"Bring him to me tomorrow, and I will grant him the brand that lets him master a fusion monster."

Yin Shen had no objection. In giving these fusion monsters, he meant not only to help Redlichia realize his ambitions, but also to have the trilobite men raise the creatures on his behalf.

Through death and rebirth, again and again, through that shifting passage between embryo and life.

The Mythical Matter held within these fusion monsters would only keep growing, until one day enough of it would be born out of them.

Had making a fusion monster not meant drawing on and spending Shelly's Blood of Myth, Yin Shen would have liked to make a few more of them, and reach that goal all the sooner.

Yesael was still down at the shore, watching the spectacle of the monsters, when someone called him back to the King of Wisdom's palace.

In his stern father's eyes he saw a joy that could not be held back. The moment his father caught sight of him, he came down from the throne without waiting and rested a hand upon his shoulder.

His father's gaze was full of expectation, a look that weighed heavily on him and stirred some quiet joy in him all the same.

"Yesael, are you ready?"

"From tomorrow on, you will become a priest of God!"

This was the first time Yesael had ever heard the word, and his face went blank with confusion.

"A priest?"

"What is that?"

Redlichia answered him, "One who worships and serves the divine being. God's agent among mortals, the one who proclaims His will."

"You will receive the divine's permission to choose one of the fusion monsters as your companion, and become an extension of God's will in this world."

The moment Yesael heard of the creatures called fusion monsters, his eyes lit up.

"I am willing."

All night long Yesael was too excited to sleep. He left the palace and walked along the high wall, too restless to keep still.

Beneath the moonlight, the whole of the God-Given City lay spread before his eyes. He gazed out at the boundless line of the horizon.

He clenched his fist.

"The sea, and the land."

"I will conquer you both."

He stood like that before the palace, watching the sea, until dawn broke and his father led him up to the temple.

This was the second time he had come face to face with God.

As before, he did not dare look directly upon that towering being who stood beyond time and its passing years. He followed his father's lead and bowed his head in humility beneath the altar.

From somewhere high above came the divine's voice.

It asked him.

"If you had a fusion monster of your own, what would you want to do?"

The excitement that had gripped Yesael since he heard the news the day before still had not faded. He kept his head bowed low in a show of reverence, and when he spoke his voice was forceful and full of feeling.

"O Great God Yinsai, if You would bless me with the power of a servant of God, I wish to go and explore the ocean in my father's place."

"I do not mean only to raise a new city in the depths of the sea, a second God-Given City, and carry Your glory out across the ocean, God Yinsai."

"I mean also to find that land out of legend at the very end of the sea, and to let the people of the God-Given City open up a new paradise there."

"Just as my father has said."

"We are the firstborn of God, the Divine Chosen masters of land and sea."

"We shall surely conquer the sea, and in the end we shall rule the land as well."

Yesael spoke with such passion that he could not help trembling himself. He could feel his own blood boiling.

He was not like Redlichia. Redlichia was cautious and humble at his core, while Yesael was all daring and impulse.

Redlichia heard his son out, and looked at him with eyes brimming with pride.

"Yesael, do not fail your father's hopes."

The divine touched a finger to Yesael's forehead, and light spilled outward along that fingertip, forming the mark of an eye upon his brow.

"From this day forward, it is yours."

Inside Yesael's mind, another voice rose up, a chaotic, frenzied consciousness binding itself to his own.

He could feel it, somewhere on the other side of the sea, a fusion monster bound to his fate from this moment on.

In the trilobite myth Hymn of the King of Wisdom, it is recorded that on this day God appointed the second King of Wisdom, the one who would carry on his will.

Yesael, son of the Great Redlichia, became the God-Given City's first priest, the divine's mouthpiece.

From that day on, servants of God known as priests appeared in this world.

They could command and raise fusion monsters, that myth-born species, letting them fuse with other creatures to gain all manner of different powers.

Each of them possessed the might of myth and eyes that could see straight through to the hearts of men.