God's Guidance

The Waters near Yesael City

A company of Yinsai Kingdom soldiers patrolled the surface of the sea, led by two young priests mounted on bizarre shrimp. They were among the very descendants upon whom the King of Wisdom, Yesael, had so recently bestowed that title.

Obeying the King of Wisdom's command, the young priest had crossed these waters again and again, until at last he could not help but ask, "Is the God-Given City really here?"

"We've counted every stone in this sea by now. If an island that big really existed, we'd have found some trace of it at least!"

The other priest beside him watched him with a smile. "Is it the Great King of Wisdom you are questioning? Or the power of God?"

The young priest fell silent at once, not daring to say another word.

"I get it!"

"I'll go on searching in earnest. The King's will is the King's will."

The other priest had already warned the young man once, yet in truth he too believed that this search of theirs would come to nothing.

He sighed, and began once more to tell the story passed down throughout the Yinsai Kingdom.

Everyone knew it already, and yet each retelling felt different all the same.

"Ense, who profaned the divine, slew his own younger brother Boon and seized the Ruhe Beast, the fusion monster God had granted him."

"With the power God had granted the trilobite men, Ense dared attempt the murder of the divine's own eldest son, his great father, Redlichia, the King of Wisdom."

His voice rose and fell, gentle and winding, as though he were chanting some great hymn.

"So grave a sin, arising within the promised paradise of the divine and the King of Wisdom, arising at the very foot of the divine's own hall."

"The divine being, disappointed and grieving, brought down divine punishment upon the people of the Yinsai Kingdom."

"The sinners' descendants were banished forever into the Deep Sea Abyss, and the people of Yinsai could never again return to the home that once was theirs."

"O divine being!"

"When will You forgive our sin, and pour Your radiance once more upon the nation of Yinsai?"

He finished singing the hymn, so widely known throughout Yinsai, and shook his head.

"Until we have won the divine's forgiveness, how could we mortals ever set foot again within the divine's own hall?"

Both priests believed this journey was doomed to bear no fruit, yet they carried out the King of Wisdom's command with careful, unwavering diligence.

They split into two routes and pressed deeper across the waters.

The young priest led a squad of soldiers, churning up waves as they cut swiftly across the surface of the sea. In the distance he caught sight of a thread of gold upon the water.

Against the pure, clear blue of the sea, that dazzling touch of gold stood out plainly.

"What's that floating out on the water?"

"Let's go have a look."

The whole group rushed over. Astride his bizarre shrimp, the priest reached out with his bone spear and scooped up from the surface that golden flower called the Sun Cup.

None of them had ever seen anything like it before. They had never even seen anything the color of gold, save for the sun itself in the sky.

"What is it?"

"It's the same color as the sun!"

"That's amazing!"

The priest caught the fragrance of the flower, and could not help but lean in closer.

Then, by pure reflex, he drew in a deep breath.

The Sun Cup's pollen followed his breath inward, its strange cells sinking deep into the young priest's body.

No one could have foreseen it.

This divine creation, in itself nothing so extraordinary, combined with the Blood of Myth within the young priest's body, and the change that followed turned everything upside down.

The blood of myth underwent some fundamental transformation.

Much as a fusion monster might devour the organs of some other creature and graft them onto its own body.

The first blood of myth upon the Wisdom Path, drawing from the Sun Cup itself, perfected a fragment of its own genetic code, and took a new step forward.

Wave after wave of golden phosphorescence floated up from the priest's body. Unconsciously his grip loosened on the Sun Cup in his hand, and it drifted free.

Wisdom ability gave its priests eyes that could see straight through to a person's heart. It granted them the power of mind reading and the ability to commune with any living being, but it had never once before been able to act directly upon any object outside themselves.

In this moment, everything had changed.

His power could now leave his own body, and act directly upon the world outside it.

As the golden phosphorescence poured off his body, the whole squad of soldiers beside him caught a fragrance that reached directly into the depths of their own minds.

Then, in utter shock and terror, every one of them found themselves unable to move at all, as though their very consciousness had been stripped away.

Their bodies froze in place, and slowly they began to sink down beneath the water.

Fortunately, they were creatures that could survive in seawater regardless, so their lives were in no danger.

The young priest of God, meanwhile, noticed none of it at all. His eyes shone with golden light, and all at once his consciousness found itself upon a golden island.

He saw the very place where the Sun Cup had once stood.

He stood upon the shore, a dense sea of golden flowers swaying all around him.

It spread away along the coastline, and buried within it lay a magnificent, splendid city, half-swallowed by Sun Cups.

"Where is this?"

He looked about in confusion. A moment before he had been out on the open sea, and he could not understand how he had suddenly come to be here.

How could an island like this have appeared out of nowhere, covered in a sea of flowers, as though it were a wonderland, a kingdom of the gods?

It was beautiful enough to steal the breath from his lungs.

Then he caught sight of that city with no walls around it at all, and the marsh ringed about with stone.

Realization struck him, and his pupils shot wide.

This young trilobite man had never once laid eyes upon the place himself, yet he had heard it spoken of more times than he could count.

"The God-Given City."

"This is the God-Given City."

He raised his head and looked out toward the center of the island, and there he saw the great pyramid.

Atop the pyramid, amid a shimmer of light, a temple could be seen, half-hidden, half-revealed.

"And that is... the Yinsai Temple."

At last he understood why this thing carried the very color of the sun.

This was something that had drifted out from the God-Given Land itself, a Sun Cup Flower that had bloomed at the very foot of the divine's own hall.

Elsewhere, Yesael City

The bloodline of wisdom ability had shifted, and Yesael, the Crown of Wisdom upon his head, was the very first to sense it.

"Who is it?"

"Who has perfected wisdom ability?"

He called upon the King of Wisdom's Authority and traced the source of the change at once, crying out the young priest's name, "Schlode!"

It meant covenant, and it was the sort of name the royal family favored greatly.

The King of Wisdom, Yesael, sped his fusion monster to these waters at once. The Yinsai Kingdom's guardsmen followed behind him and ringed the area about, tight and impenetrable.

Beneath the gaze of thousands upon thousands, the Priest of God, Schlode, rode his bizarre shrimp uneasily to a stop beneath the fusion monster.

Before a mythical creature like the fusion monster, that massive lord of the sea looked no bigger than a tiny shrimp.

Schlode came before the King, knelt, and offered up the divine creation he had found.

"Great King of Wisdom, Schlode offers you this creation of the divine."

"May God's radiance shine forever upon the nation of Yinsai."

The moment Yesael saw the golden flower, he cried out its name in astonishment, "The Sun Cup!"

He had seen this flower once before, and had learned its name from his father.

It was the divine creation Shelly, the Mother of Life, had once cradled in her arms, glowing with a color as brilliant as the sun in the sky.

He had never imagined that this object, one so unremarkable among the many creations of the divine, could hold such a connection to wisdom ability.

For an instant he felt, strangely, that fate itself had long ago been decided.

It was as though God's gaze had traveled along the river of time from far above, and had seen this very moment long before it came.

"God, have You arranged all of this?"

In his mind Yesael heard again the words his father had spoken to him when he was a child. "Yesael, do not be afraid."

"God has arranged everything."

His sharp gaze turned toward the young priest.

A thing like this could only exist within the divine's own hall. It could not possibly have appeared here.

"Where did this come from? What did you see?"

Beneath the weight of Yesael's gaze, Schlode's whole body trembled.

Stumbling, he gave an account of what had just happened to him and everything he had seen.

Yesael and the aged trilobite man beside him heard it all out. One broke into a relieved, joyful smile, while the other could not stop himself from dancing with excitement.

"The God-Given Land."

"He has seen the God-Given Land."

Yesael raised the Sun Cup high in his hands, cradling it as though it were the most sacred relic there could ever be.

He had felt this way only once before, the day he had first stood before the Crown of Wisdom.

Tears welled in his eyes, and even as he smiled, he let out a cry that tore raw from his throat.

"This... this is God's guidance!"

"God has not abandoned us. He has given us a future once more."

"So long as we go on following God's guidance, we will surely win God's forgiveness in the end."