I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 446: The Royal City of Hosen Kingdom, the Royal Bloodline

City of Fire Protection

The Palace Guardʼs training grounds had been moved out into the countryside, and the corpsʼ ranks had swelled considerably.

For days now Anu had thrown himself into recruiting and drilling the Palace Guard, and bit by bit the whole corps was taking shape before his eyes. Its ranks held not only Lizard People but Snake People, folk of City of Fire Protection, and soldiers drawn from Maya Province and other provinces besides.

Among them, the most eye-catching by far were the Beast Knights of every stripe.

A Beast Knightʼs mark was unmistakable beside Ability Users of any other profession. Each one moved with a magical beast of towering size at his side.

Beast Knights fell mainly into two kinds, the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights and the Earth-Piercing Beast Knights. Just now the two were leading their soldiers against one another, testing out one tactic after another.

In the sparring the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights plainly held the upper hand, though the Earth-Piercing Beast Knights were nothing to scoff at either. The instant one of them burrowed into the ground, there was nothing to be done about it, even if you could have beaten it otherwise.

In the end the contest ground down into a stalemate, with both sides even finding breath enough to holler insults back and forth.

”Itʼs not fair! You can fly. How are we ever supposed to catch you?” An Earth-Piercing Beast Knight, half-buried in the earth, jabbed a finger up at the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights wheeling overhead.

”Donʼt you burrow just as well?” One of the riders above plunged straight down at them, like a hammer in a game of whack-a-mole. ”Then ditch your mounts and come settle it in the open!” a Wind Lizard Dragon Knight shouted.
”No fair, Commander Anu! Your lot were stronger than us to begin with, and turning into Beast Knights only stretched the gap wider!” On they went, fighting and fleeing by turns, until there was no telling how far the chase had carried them.

For all their complaining, the Earth-Piercing Beast Knights relished this very trick of theirs, diving underground and refusing to fight fair.

Commander Anu watched a perfectly good sparring match degenerate into a shouting contest and a game of dodge-and-whine. Exasperated, he turned to the Earth-Piercing Beast Knight mouthing off the loudest.

”Fine, then. How about I turn you into a Lizard Person too?” ”And anyone else whoʼs game, step right up.” Every Snake Person soldier knew that Anu and his kind had once been Snake People themselves, and after all this time together their trust had grown steadily.

Little distance remained between them now, and they no longer guarded their words as carefully as before. At once one of them spoke up, ”Commander Anu, how in the world did you and your people turn into Lizard People?”

It seemed as good a moment as any to call a halt to the drill, and every Beast Knight dismounted to rest. Anu planted his lance in the earth, leaned back against his Wind Lizard Dragon, and cast his mind back over the past. He kept the telling brief, skimming past the many details he could not speak of.

”Lord Kurmis saw the famine. He saw the horror of people driven to eat one another.” ”And in that moment he resolved that he must...”

”At last, with the power of the Life Sovereign, and with the Scarlet Goddessʼs help, Lord Kurmis brought forth the Brown Ball Vine.”

”But the power of a sovereign deity was too immense for us to control. That life-creating force could bring forth the new crop we wanted, yes, but it could just as easily twist and warp the very form of our lives.”

”The Brown Ball Vine came into being, but this is the shape we were left with.” A silence fell over them all, until Anu spoke up.

”Still, no matter. This shape suits us just fine.” ”Didnʼt you say it yourselves, that weʼre stronger now, and faster too?” ”Worth a little envy, if you ask me.”

Anu flexed the powerful frame beneath his chainmail, an impressive figure indeed. ”As for you sorry lot, you couldnʼt hope for a frame this magnificent even if you tried.”

Everyone burst out laughing. Still, the Earth-Piercing Beast Knight could tell well enough that Anu was only trying to comfort them, and he spoke up.

”Commander Anu might well become a great apostle himself one day. Then he could take on the Godʼs Form.” ”An apostle. Thatʼs about as close to a god as any mortal ever comes.” ”An apostle isnʼt really even a mortal anymore.” Anu felt a flicker of hope at the words too, though he dared not dwell on it long.

He pulled his lance from the ground and turned, and his gaze came to rest on the fields beside the road. Day by day the crops there ripened before his eyes, growing lusher and more abundant.

The broad grin on Anuʼs face softened by degrees into a gentler smile, one warmed through by something called hope.

”This yearʼs harvest is shaping up well. Surely thereʼll be no famine this time!”

The Beast Knights gathered up their gear and called their companions over, chiming in with him, ”At the very least, the provinces at the center of the kingdom shouldnʼt see famine this year. Word is His Majesty the King still has to move grain out to the southeastern provinces though. His Majesty has been troubled over it of late.”

Anu thought of his own family from long ago, of the kin who had starved to death for want of food, of the brothers and sisters that poverty had sold off to some corner of the world, never to be found again.

He thought too of the chaos that had once gripped Suinhor, of the famines and the floods of refugees that broke out year after year. Anu said quietly, ”At least fewer people should starve to death this time.”

Standing at the raised paths between the fields, Anu watched the crops grow thick and lush, and something he could not name stirred within him. Abruptly he turned to look at his soldiers.

Lizard People and Snake People stood shoulder to shoulder. They had been cursing one another only moments before, yet now they looked thick as brothers, even if their tongues still gave no quarter.

But Anu had no intention of letting them off easy, and made ready to run another round of drills. ”Come on, come on! Didnʼt you say it was no fun fighting when one side flies and the other burrows? Fine then, we wonʼt split up by Wind Lizard Dragon Knights and Earth-Piercing Beast Knights this time. Form your own mixed teams instead. Pick two commanders, mix the Wind Lizard Dragons and Earth-Piercing Beasts together on each side, and letʼs see who comes out on top.” Anu couldnʼt help himself, snatching up his lance again and waving his men forward. ”Quick now, get moving!”

”Lord Kurmis brought forth the Brown Ball Vine, and gave us food enough to eat.”

”So it falls to us to train up a mighty force to protect this kingdom, so that monsters like ghouls or foreign invaders can never again tear apart the life we want to live.” ”Otherwise, what was the point of eating our fill?”

The two teams clashed in the sky, each displaying a formidable martial strength.

Wind Lizard Dragon against Wind Lizard Dragon, Earth-Piercing Beast against Earth-Piercing Beast, with ordinary soldiers following in the Beast Knightsʼ wake, lending support with extraordinary tools of their own.

The charging power of a Beast Knight was simply beyond anything a Land Dragon Knight could match. The one was an ordinary soldier, after all, the other an extraordinary profession.

The Palace Guard Corps was still deep in its training when an Ability User on a magic carpet arrived out in the countryside, seeking Anu.

The Snake Person on the carpet waved a hand and called up to the rider on the Wind Lizard Dragon, ”The King summons you, Commander Anu.”

Only then did Anu stow his lance and fly off toward the city. Rows of palace pillars stood in ranks, slipping behind one after another as the two figures passed between them.

Anu followed close on King Morabiʼs heels. To any onlooker it might have passed for idle conversation, yet in truth they were weighing a matter of the gravest importance. King Morabi told him, ”This very day, the Scarlet Goddess Herself has sent down a divine oracle.”

”Whichever of Suinhorʼs people can find the ceramic figurine will earn the chance for an audience with Her, and may even set a single wish before the divine being.”

Anu looked up, startled that the Scarlet Goddess would offer up so great a reward.

Ordinarily, never mind making a wish before a god, merely to be granted an audience with a divine being was enough to send believers into a frenzy.

At present the whole of Suinhor, high and low, was hunting for the ceramic figurine. Out on the ocean, Suinhorʼs fleets scoured the waters and ran down pirates on every side, until the plague of piracy that had once run rampant across the seas was swept clean away.

The temple, too, was sparing no effort of its own. Divine Servants in great numbers and squads of Ability Users had descended on the coastal cities, searching high and low for any trace of the ceramic figurine. The figurine itself stayed hidden, though the search turned up no small number of Abyss Cult heretics and ghouls along the way.

Naturally, King Morabi had no wish to see the goddessʼs Pontiff, Menro, be the one to fulfill the divine oracle first. There was no telling what demands Menro might make.

Perhaps every future King of Suinhor would be made to accept coronation at the templeʼs hand. Or perhaps Menro would ask to become an apostle himself and linger in the mortal world for a thousand years. Whichever it proved to be, it was nothing King Morabi wished to see come to pass. Should the temple be the one to fulfill the oracle, then from that day on every move the King of Suinhor made, every policy of state the kingdom set, might have to bow to the templeʼs command.

Of late several of Suinhorʼs fleets had swept the sea, wiping out one band of pirates after another, and their victories had been considerable. Yet not once had they achieved the one goal that truly mattered, finding the ceramic figurine, servant of the Evil God of Original Sin. And so King Morabiʼs thoughts had begun to turn toward the Beast Knights.

The king glided forward, his serpent tail winding beneath him, and spoke to Anu, who followed behind with his helmet cradled in his arms.

”I hear that you Beast Knights carry the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint, an imprint that can fuse oneʼs consciousness into any object, letting you feel its power, and even come to know its history and its past.”

Anu nodded, and told King Morabi, ”Not every Beast Knight. Only those of the Third Rank.” In truth, even a Third-Rank Beast Knight was not guaranteed to master the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint in full. More often than not, what they held was only a fragment of it.

Still, by drawing on the power seed Kurmis had bestowed on him, Anu could indeed summon a burst of tremendous strength for a time, laying claim in that moment to the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprintʼs complete Power of Law.

And in truth the power was nothing so grand as knowing an objectʼs whole history and past. It worked more like this. Fuse the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint with a stone, and you would naturally come to know something of that stone, the patterns running through it, how many cracks lay hidden within.

Fuse with the wind, and you would know how the wind flowed.

Fuse with a piece of wood, and you would know where it came from, from which very tree it had grown. This power was less a gift bestowed from without than an instinct the thing already carried, bred into it from birth.

King Morabi led Anu out onto a corridor that overlooked half the buildings of the palace. There the king came to a stop, and from the far side an attendant emerged bearing a box. Morabi told Anu, ”I have here a shard that the ceramic figurine once possessed.”

”If you draw on the power of the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint, you should be able to sense the ceramic figurineʼs presence within a certain range.” Shards like this one all traced back to the Land of Sunrise. Long ago, when the ceramic figurine had set out to tempt the Grand Elder Xin Jisi, it had possessed a bronze mirror as tall as a man, and that same mirror had since fallen into Oranʼs hands.

Break it apart, and there were easily a thousand shards or more to be had.

Out on the sea now, a great many people carried shards just like this one, hunting for the ceramic figurine. Anu took the box and glanced over at King Morabi.

”My king, you would have me take to the sea and hunt down this monster they call the ceramic figurine?” He understood well enough what Morabi intended, and felt no reluctance at the thought. Besides, the Palace Guard Corps had only just finished its basic training, and a taste of real combat would do the men no harm.

The only question was just how strong this creature called the ceramic figurine truly was.

Rumor had it the ceramic figurine was nothing much to fear, but that verdict had likely come from the mouth of some god. And a mere mortal who took a godʼs idea of ”nothing much” at face value would not find death far behind.

What was more, the ceramic figurine served the Evil God of Original Sin. There was no telling what tricks it kept in reserve, and it could hardly be taken lightly. The mission carried no small amount of risk. Seeing Anu lost in thought, King Morabi took it for hesitation.

He said, half as a promise, ”If you can fulfill this divine oracle, perhaps you might win the divine beingʼs blessing to spread your faith throughout Suinhor.”

At these words Anuʼs head snapped up, his eyes suddenly alight as they fixed on King Morabi. ”Spread the faith...”

King Morabi clapped Anu on the shoulder and said nothing more.

But within Anuʼs heart it was as though King Morabi had thrown open some door, and in that very instant a voice seemed to echo through his mind.

”To raise up in Suinhor a faith belonging to Lord Kurmis. To build Lord Kurmis a temple of his own.” Anu dropped to one knee, helmet cradled in his arms, and spoke to King Morabi.

”My king, I will search with everything I have.” Anu was an honest man, true to his word.

Whatever command his lord Kurmis gave, he carried out in full, never once holding back. When one of his companions was slain by Akmanmon, he had rushed to the battlefield at any cost to face those terrible monsters himself.

When a Miracle Tool came into his hands, he had not kept it for himself but shared its use fairly among all his companions.

So Morabi knew that when Anu spoke the words ”everything I have,” he meant them, and would truly give everything he had.

Anu was never a man of many words. The moment he finished speaking he rose to his feet and, facing King Morabi, backed slowly out of the palace. Then he turned and strode off with great steps to make ready for the task the king had set him.

Within the palace, Morabi watched Anuʼs retreating back, admiration and praise plain in his eyes. Yet in the end he could not help murmuring, ”If only you were truly one of the Snake People.” Night had already fallen by the time Anu returned to the Lord of the Volcanoʼs residence, where he gathered together every Lizard Person there.

In recent days no small number of Lizard People had come hurrying in from the Volcano Forest, and naturally some had made the journey back as well. Through all this coming and going, each of them had completed the transformation from ordinary Ability User into Beast Knight.

By now every Lizard Person among them had become a Beast Knight, their combat strength and every other capability raised by a wide margin.

Not that every Lizard Person had chosen to become a Wind Lizard Dragon Knight. Some had taken other magical beasts as their companions instead.

Anu told the Lizard People of his conversation with King Morabi that day, and of the promise the king had made him. ”The Age of Gods is drawing near. If we can find the ceramic figurine, temples and shrines to the Feathered Serpent God may rise in every corner of this world.”

”Lord Kurmis too will surely grow stronger still, and the Feathered Serpent Godʼs name will echo across the whole of Ruhe Beast Island.”

One by one the Lizard People rose from their seats as they listened, eyes burning as they fixed on Anu. ”Truly?”

”We could raise a temple to the Feathered Serpent God right here in Suinhor?” ”Would the Scarlet Goddess even allow it?”

Anu said, ”The Age of Gods is destined to come. King Morabi has already let Witch Spirits and Alchemists into Suinhor, and that is precisely because he has already seen the omens.”

The Lizard People cheered and leapt with joy.

Before long, the talk had even turned to what name the temple should bear.

”The Feathered Serpent Temple! What else would it be but the Feathered Serpent Temple?” one Lizard Person called out, offering the most obvious name of all. ”The God of Potions and Magical Beasts, or the God of Beast Knights, wouldnʼt be bad either,” said one Beast Knight, thinking of his own profession and his magical beast companion.

”What about the Harvest Temple?” The Feathered Serpentʼs power, after all, showed itself most in the Potion Seed and in the triumph of the Brown Ball Vine, and with the Harvest Sacrifice the Lizard People held each month, the word ”harvest” leapt at once to mind.

”Those brothers in the Palace Guard arenʼt bad sorts either. We could bring them over to our side, and get them to believe in the Feathered Serpent God too!” Some Lizard People were already scheming to win the other Snake People over to Kurmisʼs faith.

”Now that could work. Oh, and what do you all think the Feathered Serpent Temple should even look like?” The Lizard Peopleʼs talk spilled out in every direction now, and there was no reining it in.

Still, one Lizard Person raised a question that needed answering right away, turning his gaze to Anu, ”Chief Anu, the King wants us to hunt down the ceramic figurine. He surely chose us because the Wind Lizard Dragons can fly, and because you, Chief, can wield the power of the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint. So which of our people should we bring along this time, and where should we even begin the search?” If the aim were nothing more than finding the ceramic figurine, the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights alone would have been enough to bring. Anu weighed it a moment, then spoke, his mind made up.

”First weʼll head for Green Field County in Maya Province. It has a good many harbors, both large and small, and it lies close to the Volcano Forest besides, so we can swing by home along the way.”

”More importantly, everywhere else has already been searched over and over by everyone else, while hardly anyoneʼs gone through those waters.”

This was precisely because those waters were far too strange, and sailing a ship across them far too dangerous, which handed someone with Anuʼs power of flight a clear advantage.

”As for how many people to bring...” ”Hmm...”

”Weʼll leave part of the Palace Guard Corps behind to hold the fort, and bring the rest along.”

”Let them go feel the character of the Volcano Forest for themselves, and take in the sight of Lord Kurmisʼs pyramid while theyʼre at it.” Someone else asked, ”Couldnʼt this monster called the ceramic figurine turn up on the mainland instead? Why does everyone keep running out to sea instead of searching inland?”

Anu had already learned a good deal from the king beforehand. ”Every road by which that monster might leave the Storm Sea has been sealed off. A god waits at the mouth of the Storm Sea for it, and if it dares to leave, thereʼs only one road left for it, and thatʼs death.”

”And the moment it so much as sets foot on Ruhe Beast Island, itʼs sure to be found. So the only place left for it to hide now is somewhere out on the open sea.”

Even so, finding the ceramic figurine would be as good as searching for a needle in the ocean.

Still, Anu placed some confidence in the power of the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint. It could not compare to the Earth Witchʼs sight, nor to the sheer unreasonable convenience of that Miracle Tool compass, but it stood at least a cut above anything another Ability User could offer.

With the preparations complete, the Palace Guard Corps at last set out on their very first mission.

The Wind Lizard Dragons spread their great fleshy wings and rose into the sky, a sharp claw jutting from each wing, a second keen hind claw joined to it by webs of skin.

Every Wind Lizard Dragon carried several riders apiece, and Anuʼs own bore more than ten. Down below, the Earth-Piercing Beasts ran at a furious pace, hauling supplies and soldiers alike. Their charge could hardly be called fast, though only when set against a Wind Lizard Dragon.

Still, the Wind Lizard Dragon Knights had to wait on the troops below, and their pace was slowed a great deal for it. So it was only after days of hard travel that the Palace Guard Corps finally crossed into Maya Province, where far off they caught sight of that sky-blotting column of black smoke and the rolling mountains and forests beyond. Anu turned back to shout to the other Lizard People, his voice bright with the joy of homecoming, ”Weʼre here. Weʼre home!” ”Look! Down there is Limestone City.”

At once every Lizard Person steered their Wind Lizard Dragons downward, their eyes fixed on the city below.

The Limestone Town of old had already grown into Limestone City, and even now it could be seen spreading further still. The kingdom had poured enormous manpower and resources into the place, and an endless stream of merchant caravans had breathed new life into what was once barren wilderness.

Every Lizard Person let out a cheer, shouting at the top of their lungs.

”Whoo!” They urged their Wind Lizard Dragons onward, skimming swiftly across the sky as they shouted. ”Weʼre back!” City of Fire Protection was well enough, but this was the place they truly missed. ”Wait, how did it change so much?” The lower they dropped, the more of Limestone Cityʼs transformation came into view.

”Weʼve only been gone a little while. How could it have changed this much already?” Caught up in the excitement, Anu and every Lizard Person with him plunged out of the sky all at once.

None of them noticed the shadow that had appeared, far off among the distant clouds.

The shadow was immense, yet being itself white, at a glance it melted seamlessly into the boundless clouds above.

It skimmed through the clouds and slipped into the forbidden reaches of Lava Mountain. Of this Anu knew nothing at all.

Farther off still, the very ceramic figurine Anu sought was there too, inside a glass bottle, its own looking glass raised to its eye. Its gaze was filled entirely with that vast white shadow, and shaken clean out of its wits, it never noticed the Lizard People at all, shrunk as they were to mere black specks within that boundless white.

Above the Sea of Clouds

Inside the Creatorʼs carriage, now shifted into its aircraft form, the white-robed deityʼs gaze pierced layer upon layer of white cloud. Then, all at once, He spoke a single word, one that caught the little spiritʼs attention. ”Pterosaur.”

Hila drew a little closer, watching the deity as she asked, ”Pterosaur? What is a pterosaur?”

Following God Yinsaiʼs gaze, she saw at once what those black dots were. ”God, they are called Wind Lizard Dragons! They are a kind of magical beast that has only just come into being.”

The white-robed, black-haired deity watched that great bird-like shape wheel across the sky. Into His mind rose a silhouette He had once seen only in films and books.

He and that other creature belonged to wholly different ages, and never once had He imagined that such a thing would one day fly right beneath His own two eyes.

Still less had He imagined that these creatures might owe their very existence in this world to Him.

”Perhaps, many years from now, their descendants will come to be called pterosaurs.” ”Or perhaps they will not be quite the same ones I remember.”

Hila propped her chin in her hands and leaned against the windowsill, watching the god. It was the kind of pose that would have made an ordinary person turn and look back at her, yet the black-haired deity stood utterly still, unmoving as a statue.

”God, You are forever speaking of things that do not belong to now, minding things that do not belong to now,” Hila said at last. ”Do You live in the past? In the present? Or in the future?”

Just then, Shelly came running over from the other end.

She was bursting with excitement. This stop had finally brought them to the one place she had most wanted to visit, Lava Mountain.

Not that she quite understood what there was to see here. In beauty it could not match Thunder Marsh, in wonder it fell short of Heavenʼs Mirror, in sheer desolate grandeur it could not compare to the Endless Desert.

The one thing it truly had to offer was danger.

A power that could bring ruin down upon the whole of Ruhe Beast Island, even the whole world. Perhaps that alone was reason enough for her excitement.

Just now, though, something else had caught Shellyʼs eye. She had spotted a pyramid here, of all places. ”God, look, quick! Thereʼs a pyramid down here too!”

”But this oneʼs such a strange pyramid! They built the palace right inside the tower.” ”Shut themselves up in there like itʼs some kind of tomb!”

In Shellyʼs mind, a temple belonged atop a pyramid. The pyramidʼs true purpose was to serve as a pedestal, a base that made the temple above look all the more towering and grand.

Shelly bumped straight into Yin Shen, still chattering away without pause.

And in Yin Shenʼs sight, the great white aircraft passed through the vast black curtain, arriving deep within what the Snake People called the Forbidden Zone of Death.

On the far side of Lava Mountain, facing the open sea, the black curtain lay behind them while ahead a great host of the Lava Monsterʼs kin lingered above the water. The power of these kin stirred up all manner of strange phenomena, warping the very air and folding reflections back upon themselves.

And beneath Lava Mountain there lay an ancient royal city from the First Era.

Yin Shenʼs head and gaze never so much as stirred, yet He lifted a hand and drew Shelly close against Him, she who stood no higher than His waist. ”Perhaps it is simply that pyramids are meant to be built this way, and it is ours that is the strange one.”

Shelly pouted. ”Thatʼs not it at all! We were the first. Theyʼre the ones copying us!”

The aircraft descended, and in a flash of light shifted once more into a hot air balloon boat. The colorful balloon drifted slowly down, settling at last within an ancient city.

They had reached their destination.

Black Rock City

This was the royal city of Hosen Kingdom, the Royal Bloodline, the very family to which King Henir belonged, and the place where the Glass Temple stood. More than once it had been destroyed in the fires of war, and rebuilt just as many times.

Through all the long drift of years, it had endured down to this very era. Shelly was the first to burst out of the balloon boat, a glass tank still clutched in her arms.

Inside the glass tank was her new pet, a horseshoe crab.

It was the only creature in quite some time Shelly hadnʼt managed to kill through care alone, though that might well have been thanks to the Witch Doctors rather than to her.

Shelly had, after all, declared that if the horseshoe crab ever died on her watch, the Witch Doctors would simply have to bring it back to health.

Shelly faced the sea, giggling as she turned to tell Yin Shen, ”God, I told You already! Iʼm going to make a pet that just wonʼt die no matter what, one that can leave the water and fly through the sky. And this is the very one Iʼll make it from!”