My Kingdom

Eli, King of Yinsai, came back from the Sky Temple with his royal court guards. From far off he could already make out the sea, and the magnificent city standing beside it.

The Sky Temple was his again, but the God-Descended City was the true capital of the Yinsai Kingdom.

He spoke of the intelligence just sent back from afar. "Stian has sent word. The Xilong family and the Samo family are hand in glove."

"Exactly as I thought."

"So the Samo family are the second to think of betraying the kingdom."

The minister beside him admired Eli's methods without reserve, and made a show of his own submission and reverence.

"If the Samo family's Ruhe Beast can be reclaimed as well, the other two Royal Bloodline families will have no choice but to submit entirely."

A smile crossed Eli's face. He said nothing, and let himself sink into a reverie of his own.

By then he would hold power and glory to rival his grandfather King Yesael's own, and the whole Yinsai Kingdom would answer to a single will.

That will would be his and his alone, King Eli's.

Grrr!

A giant beast burst up out of the earth and split the royal court guards' formation clean in two. Caught completely off guard, more than twenty of them tumbled straight into the great sand-pit it left behind.

The guards around them broke into shouts at once.

"Under attack!"

"Form ranks!"

Everyone scattered and drew in around the King and his Ruhe Beast.

What shocked them more still, however, was on the seaward side, where another Ruhe Beast was hauling itself up out of the water and coming straight for the King.

From sea and land alike the trilobite men closed in, warriors of the Xilong and Samo branches of the Royal Bloodline families.

Unhurried, the King moved to meet the enemy's Ruhe Beast, and gave an order as he went.

"Sound the horn."

"Have the garrison inside the city come out to meet us."

The horn call rang out, carrying word to the distant God-Descended City.

In truth there was hardly any need to send word. A disturbance this large, the whole God-Descended City could not possibly have missed.

"Someone is attacking the King!"

"Open the gates! Go to King Eli's aid!"

"Everyone, fall in! Ready yourselves for battle!"

Atop the walls and below, all was chaos. Some shouted, others ran.

But just then a golden figure came drifting down from on high to stand atop the city gate.

The dazzling colors and the strange, divine countenance drew every eye.

He spread his hands. Outside the walls a golden phantom shape dozens of meters tall loomed up, every movement matching his own.

The colossal illusion could do no real harm, yet it struck terror into everyone within the city all the same.

Sure enough, everyone froze where they stood.

Soldiers who had been about to charge outside shrank back one after another, too frightened to take another step.

"Th-that... that..."

"Quick, look up on the wall!"

"What is that thing?"

From outside the walls, the colossal shadow gazed down over the God-Descended City.

It terrified the guards on the wall, and touched off an enormous panic at the same time.

Down in the streets the crowds streamed away into the distance without end, screaming, "Run!"

The God-Descended City's own soldiers gave ground in fear, or huddled trembling in corners, dreading that the colossal shadow might notice them.

Several priests of God of the Yesael family charged out even so, and fixed their eyes on Polo.

"Just who are you?"

"Just what are you?"

The colossal shadow spoke up, "I am the Messenger of God!"

"You who have abandoned your faith in God, divine punishment will find you in the end."

The priests did not believe a word of it. Yet the stranger's transcendent power already lay beyond anything they could imagine. Not even King Yesael, who had once planted the Sun Cup, could have raised an illusion so immense.

"Impossible!"

"You are a fake!"

"A fake."

"Everyone, do not be afraid of him. The power God has granted us will surely defeat him."

Several priests called up soldiers to charge out of the city, while they themselves launched their attack on Polo.

A sweep of the colossal shadow's hand, and the power of Dream came drifting down from on high.

"The power God has granted?"

"The gift God has given me stands far above yours."

People fell into a deep sleep in droves, hundreds upon hundreds of them collapsing to the ground.

No one dared come any closer after that. Numbers meant nothing at all before power like this.

One man alone had sealed off an entire city, and stripped thousands upon thousands of people of the courage to resist.

No reinforcements came out of the city to save Eli. Outside its walls, the King of Yinsai stood utterly alone, with no one to help him.

Caught between the encircling forces of the Xilong and Samo families, Eli sank steadily deeper into a desperate position, and there was no one now who could come to his aid.

One Ruhe Beast against two. The situation felt strangely familiar.

For a moment, a powerful sense of the absurd welled up in him. So soon, and already he understood exactly how the old High Priest of the Sky Temple must have felt.

It was as if some overwhelming power were toying with him in the palm of its hand.

That power was called fate.

In truth, it was the will of God.

Eli too had noticed the commotion at the God-Descended City. That colossal shadow, whatever it was, had sealed off the reinforcements inside, and utterly extinguished any hope he had left.

The only difference was that the Sky Temple and the Sacred Mountain had been a dead end, while the God-Descended City opened onto the sea.

The King swung his scepter, drew on the full strength of his wisdom ability, and struck a Ruhe Beast full in the eye with everything he had. Beneath him the Great Beast Nini surged forward at once, drove the other Ruhe Beast back, and tore free of the battlefield to race off into the distance.

Still fighting the Xilong and Samo families on Eli's behalf, the royal court guards never imagined he would simply abandon them and flee.

"My King!"

"My King!"

"The God-Descended City is that way! That way!"

Eli fled.

He fled back into the sea.

Star stood atop the great beast's head and looked down on the royal court guards below.

"I am Star of the Xilong family of the Royal Bloodline, and the new High Priest of the Sky Temple."

"God's servant, and the one who conveys His will."

"Your King has lost. Surrender!"

In so short a time, something in her had changed completely. Facing so many people she did not falter at all, and facing death and danger she no longer wept.

What truly changes a person is never time itself, but everything gained and lost along the way.

The Distant Sea

Most schools of fish drifted in the warmer waters close to shore. Out here, far from land, even life itself grew sparse.

A band of unexpected visitors came bursting into a trilobite man village abandoned decades before.

The one at their head wore a crown, and looked utterly wretched.

Ever since the Battle of Lost Wisdom Kingship decades before, the Yinsai Kingdom had gradually abandoned its cities out on the distant sea. Eli had once thought of coming back here, but he had never imagined it would be like this.

Out on the open sea Eli waited for his two remaining sons, hoping they would come back with their Ruhe Beasts and let him turn around a battle already lost.

What finally reached him instead was word that one son was dead, and the other had surrendered.

"Dandy is dead?"

His three sons had been named, in turn, for Sky, Earth, and Sea, a name for each that once proclaimed Eli's own great ambitions.

And now Sky and Earth were both gone. Only Sea remained.

"Hahahaha!"

"What is this supposed to mean?"

"Is it telling me something, or is it laughing at me?"

"Is it saying that neither Sky nor Earth was ever mine?"

"That my fate, after all, is to hide away in the cold, deep sea?"

He laughed on and on. However hard he tried to hold himself together, he could not keep the desolation from welling up inside him.

Of the three fusion monsters that had once belonged to the Yesael family, only one remained in the end.

And it was the very first of them, the one God had granted to Yesael at the beginning.

Unwilling to accept it, he gazed out at the coastline of the Origin Site. "My kingdom."

"The Yinsai Kingdom of King Yesael, how could it be lost in my hands?"

Eli could not bring himself to accept his own defeat. He had lost his power, his glory, his strength.

This pained him more than losing his own life would have.

He turned away, and with the followers who remained to him went on deeper into the vast ocean.

The descendants of King Yesael had retreated back into the sea.

The second King of Wisdom, Yesael, had once crossed the sea and found the Origin Site where the divine and the firstborn King Redlichia had descended, and there he laid the foundation of the Yinsai Kingdom.

Now his grandson had lost everything all over again, and returned once more to the deep sea.