The King's Son Named Sky

Star stood before the whole of the Xilong family. For the first time, she found the courage to shoulder the responsibility that was hers as heir to the Sky Temple's High Priest.

"I know you are all afraid. We have no home now. The King has driven every one of us out."

"But it is not our fault!"

Every head lifted. In their eyes burned a light of defiance.

The more she spoke, the more freely the words came, and the more fired up she grew.

Under the gaze of every one of them, she shouted with all the strength she had.

"The King is a tyrant. He has murdered his own kin and defiled the halls of the divine."

"We must not go on enduring the cruelty he inflicts upon us. We must rise up and fight back against them."

"He is not fit to sit upon that throne any longer. We must join with the other Royal Bloodline families and cast down his rule."

Someone in the crowd took up the cry at once. "That's right! The King did wrong. Why should we be the ones to pay for it?"

"We are King Redlichia's descendants too, the noble Royal Bloodline. What right did he have to kill our clan chief for no reason at all?"

"And he attacked the Sky Temple! He is no King any more. He has forsaken his faith in God."

Only a moment before, the clanspeople had hung their heads in despair. Star's call rekindled their courage one by one, and together they set out behind her on a new journey.

They made their way to the city-state of Samo.

It was the domain of the Samo family, and the first ally and reinforcement they meant to seek out.

However, they had barely reached the outer villages of the Samo city-state and made contact with the Samo family.

The escort the Samo family was sending never reached them. Instead they ran headlong into men who had come to hunt them down.

Astride a fearsome great beast, Stian, the King's son whose name meant sky, came tracking their trail.

Farther off came two more priests of God at the head of two hundred elite soldiers of the Yinsai Kingdom.

"This is bad!"

"It's a Ruhe Beast! The King has sent men to kill us!"

A terrifying Ruhe Beast erupted from the sand to block their path, and one bite took a trilobite man whole.

Atop the Ruhe Beast, Stian looked down on them with cold eyes.

"Running?"

"And where do you imagine you can run to?"

"You blasphemers, and the Samo family that dared to betray the King, shall all suffer the King's punishment."

Stian had taken Star and uncovered proof of the Samo family's betrayal in the same stroke. He was overjoyed.

A feat like this was certain to win the King's praise, and it would count for much toward his own becoming king one day.

The Ruhe Beast's tentacles swept down and ran more than a dozen trilobite men in the village clean through, several of them Xilong family.

Star flung out her hand. "Divine technique!"

A force out of nowhere shoved every clansperson around her clear, and left her own body exposed, straight before the Ruhe Beast.

Roar!

The Ruhe Beast's roar spattered her from head to toe in slaver.

The gruesome maw came down over her from above, a pitch-black cavern about to swallow her whole.

She was too frightened to move.

Before power this absolute, she realized, every plan she had made was worth nothing, and her courage in the face of the Ruhe Beast was as laughable as a clown's.

"Descendant of Shelly, I'm your real enemy!"

A golden figure appeared before Star. Alone, incredibly, Polo stood against the colossal monster, more than twenty meters tall.

Root-tendrils spilled out one after another from beneath his golden robe. They stretched into vines dozens of meters long, coiled upward and bound the Ruhe Beast fast, and in that same instant Star was saved.

Prince Stian stared at Polo, as stunned as Star had been the first time she saw him. "What are you?"

Polo broke into a grin. "I'm the one who's come to punish you in God's name!"

Stian erupted in fury. "Kill him!"

Grrr!

The Ruhe Beast felt his fury too. Its eyes went blood-red, and its whole body swelled like a ball fit to burst.

One after another the vines snapped. At any moment the Ruhe Beast would tear itself free.

Polo's authority was Dream. In raw strength it was still no match for the Ruhe Beast and its life ability.

At once Polo gathered the power of Dream, ready to reach straight into the Ruhe Beast's mind and drag it down into a dream.

At that moment, Star sprang up.

She scrambled up over the vines, over the Ruhe Beast itself, and rushed straight up to stand before Stian.

The prince drew a divine weapon forged from the tentacle-tip of a Ruhe Beast, and faced Star without the least trace of fear.

"Star, you are no match for me."

The battle-hardened prince's contemptuous stare did not shake her in the least. Calm and swift, she drew a divine weapon of her own and surged at him.

Divine technique met divine technique, each locking down or disrupting the other's movements again and again.

Stian had the richer experience in battle, but Star's divine power ran stronger.

"Step into the realm of dream and illusion, all of you!"

Just then a golden radiance burst from every inch of Polo.

A beam of dreamlike starlight wound around Stian and his Ruhe Beast alike, and both of them lost consciousness on the instant.

Seizing the moment, Star drove her weapon straight through his chest.

"Ah!"

Star had killed Stian. Her whole body went slack, and the weapon slipped from her hand.

The courage and fearlessness of a moment before had drained away entirely.

She had never killed anyone before. Terror had hold of her, and her hands were stained with blood.

Her breath came in gasps she could not stop, and her heart felt ready to leap straight out of her chest.

Still holding the starlight bound around the Ruhe Beast, Polo drifted over to Star's side.

Star caught hold of Polo's robe and clung there, as though she had found something to hold onto.

"Star, are you scared?"

Star shot back stubbornly, "I'm not!"

Polo burst out laughing. He could see straight through her stubborn front.

"I told you, didn't I? I'm right here."

"We were always going to win!"

Star took back the Ruhe Beast that had belonged to her father and to the Xilong family. Farther off, the two priests of God who had been fighting the Xilong clanspeople and the village's defenders surrendered as well, and from their own mouths she learned the Yinsai King's orders.

"The King saw through my plan. King Eli has even sent men to the three Great Royal Bloodline families."

"Our plan to unite with them has failed. A fusion monster hangs over the other two Royal Bloodline families, and no one dares help us."

"We and the Samo family alone are no match for the King."

Polo sprang to his feet, bursting with excitement. "I have a plan!"

Star turned to him. "What plan?"

Polo pointed off toward the God-Descended City. "My plan is this..."

"We'll storm straight into the God-Descended City and beat that King of Yinsai in front of everyone!"

"He gets to ambush us on the road. Why can't we go and ambush him?"

"Go back right now and he's only got one Ruhe Beast left. Why should we be afraid of him?"

Polo's plan left Star stunned, and yet she felt it might actually work.

Polo puffed out his chest. "Don't be afraid. A true warrior meets the enemy head-on!"

"Don't worry!"

"Everything is God's guidance."

Star was still hesitating when Polo took her by the hand and pulled her straight outside.

"Hurry, now's the perfect moment! We can't let it slip away!"

"Ruhe Beast, heed my command."

"Move out!"

Polo's plan was reckless from start to finish. Star agreed to go along with it all the same, and made preparations of her own as well.

Together with the Samo family she sent a letter to the other two Royal Bloodline families. She had already reclaimed the Xilong family's Ruhe Beast, it said, and was marching now on the royal capital to challenge King Eli.

She did not expect them to actually help her. What she hoped was that they would do everything they could to hold the two princes back, buying time until the final battle was decided.

They set out, with the Samo family's heir and their Ruhe Beast close behind.

Star picked her words carefully. "Polo, did you really receive God's guidance?"

Polo blinked, thoroughly puzzled. "Huh?"

"Isn't that what all of you go around shouting?"

"Why do you all get to say it and I don't?"

Star stared at Polo, astonished.

"We cannot receive God's guidance, and that is exactly why we say that everything is God's guidance."

"Polo, you are the Messenger of God! You ought to be able to receive it! How can you speak so carelessly?"

The whole line of reasoning struck Polo as strange.

Why should someone who could not receive guidance be allowed to say everything was God's guidance, while someone who actually could receive it was not allowed to say so at all?

"Ah!"

"Anyway, God doesn't mind, and that's that."

That was what he said out loud. Underneath it, Polo was still a little afraid that God would shut him away once he got back.

Did God really not mind? Who could say!

How could they possibly guess at the will of God?

He felt he could not go on talking recklessly. Saying the wrong thing came at a price.

Something in Polo shifted. He had grown a little more mature.

Perhaps this was the true reason God had let him leave the God-Given Land.