Royal Authority and Divine Authority

Deep in the night, the Sky Temple lay silent and mysterious, wrapped in moonlight and a sea of cloud.

Three monsters, each the size of a small hill, wound their way through the lake, then hauled themselves out of the water and made for the Sky Temple beyond.

Through the darkness the fusion monsters clawed their way up the stairway, and behind them a thousand soldiers of the God-Descended City surged into the Sacred Mountain, weapons in hand.

Someone inside the city had opened the gates, and the soldiers packed thick along the stairway were led inside. A long-planned assault had come down upon this God-Servant City.

Before anyone could gather their wits, they had already been plunged into chaos and slaughter.

In truth, it had never once crossed their minds that anyone would dare attack the Sacred Mountain and its temple.

"Ah!" Screams went up one after another, and no small number of people dropped to the ground.

"It's the men from the God-Descended City! They're the King's own guard." Someone in the panic had recognized them by the moonlight.

"The King's soldiers? Why would the King's soldiers attack the temple?" Some still refused to believe it was really happening.

The soldiers of Eli, King of Yinsai, were seizing this God-Servant City at astonishing speed.

Still more shadowed figures pressed on toward the Sky Temple at the very summit, the highest point of the Sacred Mountain.

That was the true heart of this place, where those who held the office of sacrifice and divine service made their home.

At that moment, the master of the Sky Temple stepped forward, and furiously called out the name of the King of Yinsai.

"Eli, why do you attack God's hall? Do you mean to defile the divine being?"

One fusion monster answered the old priest's command, swinging a vine-whip that swept up dozens of soldiers and hurled them from the height. Two more fusion monsters rushed forward at once and blocked its way.

Out of the darkness came a voice, heavy and full of authority.

"It is you who defile the divine being, you degenerates of the Xilong family, you who share Schlode's guilt."

"It was you who touched what was forbidden, you who defiled and destroyed the God-Given Cup, and so brought the calamity upon us."

"You are the true shame of the royal line, the chief authors of the fall of royal power."

"And now you would steal and occupy the hall of the divine as well. As King of Yinsai, how could I ever tolerate a sin so unforgivable?"

Eli, King of Yinsai, stood atop the head of the fusion monster Nini, riding its rippling advance into the heart of the God-Servant City. Down the broad passage it came, drawing slowly nearer to the old priest and the battle beyond.

He watched in silence as his enemy sank little by little into a desperate position. Facing two at once was no easy thing for any single beast.

In the end, the Xilong family's fusion monster was trapped and bound fast by the other two, and the old priest was seized and dragged before Eli.

The old priest looked at Eli, and the fury that had burned in him only moments before began all at once to ebb away.

"Eli, can you still not let go of the wrong Schlode once did?"

Along the broad temple corridor, Eli advanced step by step toward the old priest, scepter in hand.

"Schlode was one of your Xilong family. The wrong he committed is a wrong your family must answer for."

Eli, the new King of Yinsai, drove his scepter through the old priest and killed him, just as Redlichia had once passed judgment on the sinner Ense.

To carry out an execution in this manner was the greatest insult and punishment that could be dealt to a royal house.

His guilt would forever be nailed to that pillar of shame, borne witness to by every generation after.

Eli turned his head, and looked out over his soldiers and everyone within the God-Servant City.

"It is finished!"

"The Xilong family deceived God. They deceived King Yesael."

"Schlode of the Xilong family broke the forbidden law. In the name of divine oracle he deceived King Yesael into his final battle against the sinful people. And that same breaking of the forbidden law killed King Yesael, and cost us the Royal Authority of Wisdom that God had granted us."

"All of it, every part of it, came from Schlode of the Xilong family passing himself off as one touched by divine revelation. How could defilers of the divine like these ever be fit to occupy the hall of the divine?"

"I, Eli, your king, am God's spokesperson, God's own agent in the mortal world!"

A thousand soldiers roared and cheered, while everyone else within the God-Servant City dropped to their knees before Eli, declaring their submission.

Eli dug out the bone between the old priest's brows, the Seal of Ruhe that God had granted to the Royal Bloodline family, the authority to command a Ruhe Beast.

Now, it belonged to Eli.

He had gained a fourth Ruhe Beast, and taken his first step toward consolidating and reclaiming the power of the throne.

Star had been asleep. She woke with a start, and ran out from the temple.

She still had no idea what had actually happened. It was already over.

Cold wind howled about the temple at the Sacred Mountain's peak. She stood high upon its foundation stones and watched as her aged father's body was dragged out, torn and bloodied beyond recognition.

The city below rang with the cheers of soldiers, and with sobbing. She stood at the height, her eyes unfocused, staring blankly down at it all like a thing of stone.

She felt as though she were still caught in some dream, one she had not yet woken from.

Everything she was seeing was nothing but a nightmare within a dream.

"This isn't real!"

"This isn't real!"

"This isn't real!"

When the body was carried past her, she could hold back no longer, and rushed down to throw herself over her father's corpse.

"Aaah!" It broke out of her at last, in loud, wailing sobs.

Eli, King of Yinsai, looked at Star. He knew well enough who this heir of the Xilong family was.

"Tears are the mark of weakness. One of the royal line should hold herself proud and upright even in death. How can you show so ugly a face as this?"

"No better than those lowly slaves and wretches. A disgrace, truly."

Distasteful as he found her, Eli had no intention of killing Star.

They were both of the royal line, and he could hardly wipe out another royal branch entirely. That would only weaken the strength of the royal house.

Eli had already settled on a plan of his own. Star would become his son's bride.

His son would take the Xilong family's place as the new master of the Sky Temple, and all who remained of that house, together with every priest there, would be turned into strength for himself.

"Lock her away!"

Still weeping, Star was dragged off by the soldiers, with no gentleness at all.

Senior priest though she was, she counted for nothing at all before Eli and his four fusion monsters.

The struggle between royal power and divine power, the trilobite men's own struggle, had begun this very hour.

Inside the prison of the God-Servant City, moonlight fell through a window narrow enough to admit no more than a single arm.

Star was searching for some way to escape.

She knew that if she stayed here any longer, only a wretched fate awaited her.

But two priests stood guard outside, and a fusion monster waited at the prison's very exit. The smallest sound from her would bring them and that beast down on her at once.

And hard behind them it would rouse Eli, King of Yinsai, that terrifying tyrant whose strength seemed to her past all matching.

Panic and fear gripped her, until her whole body went cold and shook all over.

"What should I do?"

"What should I do?"

Then, all at once, she thought of someone, that strange figure who carried such overwhelming, transcendent power.

Star knelt at once in the moonlight falling through the window, pressed both hands together against her chest in the posture of one praying to the divine being, and offered up her plea to the Divine Messenger Polo.

"Polo!"

"Messenger of God!"

"If you can truly hear me, please, answer my call."

"Please!"

"Save me!"

In the night, a faint breeze and a thin scattering of dreaming starlight descended upon the God-Servant City.

The dreaming starlight swept past the fusion monster, which felt nothing of it at all, and poured on into the passage that led to the prison. The two soldiers standing guard there dropped to the ground at once.

Pat!

Polo appeared inside the prison.

Wherever he passed, one trilobite man after another slipped into sleep, and the two priests of God there were no exception.

He passed straight through the stone prison's door, as though it were not even there at all.

"My companion, you've come looking for me at last!"

"Are you ready to begin that great adventure with me now?"

The moment Star saw Polo, it was as though she had caught hold of her one last hope.

"Divine Messenger Polo, I have fallen into grave danger."

"I beg you, rescue me from this place."

Polo grinned, swaying his head this way and that as he spun circles around Star, his splendid golden robe billowing out at the hem. "Of course! Saving you is exactly what I came for, isn't it?"

His steps came to a sudden stop, and he stood before Star.

He looked at her with both eyes, his expression unusually serious.

"But I've saved you, so you'll have to repay me for it."

Star met his eyes. "What repayment do you want?"

Polo answered without hesitation. "You have to perfect that projection divine technique of yours, and then teach it to me."

Polo had not forgotten the mission God had given him.