I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 450: The Stone Carving of Queen Star and Divine Messenger Polo Reappears in the Mortal World

Maya Province

Buyin Port, in Green Field County, could just as well be called Fishing Port.

A legion built chiefly of beast knights arrived at the city. Anu swung down from his wind lizard dragon, dressed in an embroidered silk knightʼs uniform, the sea wind lifting his fine, delicate cloak.

The nobles came out in a crowd to receive him, their voices rising as one, ”Our respects to the Kingʼs honored envoy, Commander of the Palace Guard Corps, Lord Anu!”

Gasps rippled through the crowd, threaded with murmurs. Word had already reached them that their visitor was a lizard person, and still, seeing him with their own eyes left them stunned.

Anu pulled off his helmet. ”I come on the Kingʼs business, and it canʼt wait. Is everything ready?”

The magistrate of Green Field County hurried forward. ”All ready, my lord. Weʼre short on ships, though. Pontiff Menroʼs people came through before you and took away most of what could be mustered, ships and soldiers both.”

Anuʼs brow furrowed. ”Those are His Majestyʼs soldiers, not the templeʼs. Call them back. Now.”

”But Pontiff Menroʼs people...” the magistrate faltered.

Anu turned a sharp look on the magistrate. ”Do you want to go on being the Kingʼs subject, or would you rather go over to Menro and serve as his attendant?”
After that, Anu took the port in hand. As the Kingʼs envoy, an Oath-Taker, and Commander of the Palace Guard Corps, he held full authority over every soldier and every ship stationed there.

He led them all in it himself, putting the portʼs ships in order, mustering men, issuing one appointment after another.

A few days later, he boarded a ship himself.

Flocks of wind lizard dragons wheeled overhead or perched along the deck, combing every corner of the sea for the faintest clue.

Ahead of the flagship, two special aquatic magical beast knights patrolled the waterʼs surface.

But combing the sea like this, hunting a needle in the water, was never Anuʼs main strategy, of course.

Inside the cabin, Anu summoned a mysterious Seal Imprint and worked it, bit by bit, into a fragment of a bronze mirror.

”Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint.”

”Lord Kurmis! Grant this mirror shard Spirituality. Trace back through its past and all that has gone before it, and let me know where it came from and everything it has been.”

The mirror began to swell, expanding little by little, until at last a face pressed out from within it, as though the thing were coming alive.

Before Anu could put his question, the face in the mirror spoke first. ”Out at sea.”

”Out at sea.”

Surprise and delight flickered across Anuʼs face. ”No wonder Menro came all this way. The ceramic figurineʼs presence really is everywhere here.”

He pressed it further. ”Whereabouts at sea?”

But the mirror only said the same thing, over and over. ”Out at sea.”

It called to mind the portraits and teacups that had come alive in City Lord Shanaʼs residence, back when the Evil God of Original Sin, Xiao, first descended.

Even so, along the connections between threads of Spirituality, Anu could still faintly sense the ceramic figurineʼs presence somewhere out on the sea. He could even trace, dimly, the routes it had traveled.

But that had held true only before the ceramic figurine possessed its nesting dolls. Now that it had them, it had concealed every trace of its presence, leaving Anu to sense its position only dimly, through the Authority of Spirituality and the connections it carried.

Anu followed the trail, pressing deeper and deeper into the open sea.

Days of sailing passed, and still his target did not surface.

What he came upon instead were the traces of a naval battle. Several ships burned upon the water, flames roaring, thick smoke billowing into the sky.

Wooden barrels and scattered debris drifted across the sea, and among them floated corpses soaked pale by the water.

The fighting looked to have ended long ago. The ships had burned to pieces, leaving nothing but wreckage, and there was no telling what had started it.

After studying the scene a while, though, Anu began to form a guess.

The Royal Navy captain beside him stepped forward at once. ”Pirates, by the look of it, my lord?”

Anu turned a faintly mocking eye on the captain. ”Since when do pirates have alchemical cannons?”

Alchemical cannons were the newest alchemical artifact to come out of the Land of Sunrise. For now, only Suinhorʼs elite navy carried them. There was no way pirates could have gotten hold of any.

The captain scrambled to recover. ”Then these were the pirates, and the Royal Navy wiped them out.”

A wind lizard dragon snatched a tattered flag off the water and flew it over. On it was the emblem of some trading company. ”These are pirates?” Anu asked again. ”Surely these are just ordinary merchant ships?”

”My lord, pirates donʼt always fly the Pirate Allianceʼs colors,” the captain said smoothly.

Navy, merchant, and pirate ships could be genuinely hard to tell apart at times. On that point, at least, the captain was not lying.

On this particular matter, though, the Royal Navy captain was plainly lying through their teeth.

Anu knew perfectly well that no small number of men had used this chance to profiteer wildly from the war at sea, scheming up merit for themselves by every means available.

Still, seeing it with his own eyes, he could not help the anger that rose in him.

Anu was not a man who could let such things slide. ”Iʼll find out who did this. And then Iʼll tell His Majesty.”

The Royal Navy captain lowered their head and did not dare say another word.

They likely had a good idea who was responsible. They had, after all, done much the same thing themselves.

Just then word came back from the aquatic magical beast knights ahead. They had spotted more than a dozen survivors on the water.

”Lord Anu, there are people still alive up ahead!”

”Quite a few of them!”

Anu rushed to the shipʼs rail at once and gave the order to pull the survivors from the water.

”Get them out of the water!”

More than a dozen men and women were hauled aboard, every one of them barely clinging to life, but alive all the same.

One among them was strange, though. It was a child.

It was not a common thing, taking a child out to sea.

Soaked to the skin and plainly spent, the child spoke. ”I was traveling with my father, going back to our old home in Red Earth Province. We never thought weʼd run into a few ships along the way. The moment they saw us they spat fire, and our ship...”

The child dissolved into sobs and could no longer get the words out clearly.

Anu turned to the other survivors. ”Does anyone here know him? Is there family among you, or anyone heʼs connected to?”

The child tensed at once and blurted out, voice pitched high, ”I stayed in my room the whole time! None of them ever saw me!”

Anu had thought nothing of it. He had only meant to ask whether anyone could look after the poor child.

Every other survivor shook their head, and he sighed inwardly.

”Another orphan.”

Anu had known great hardship himself, and so an ordinary personʼs suffering cut him all the more keenly.

Once he had confirmed the rescued survivors were in no serious danger, he stepped away to his real business.

At every stop the ship made, he searched the surrounding waters again for any trace of the ceramic figurine.

The child, meanwhile, followed the other survivors toward the interior of the ship.

But just as it was about to step inside, its mouth curled into a crooked, twisted grin.

”Foolish mortals.”

”Foolish lizard people.”

At the bow, meanwhile, Anu drew out the mirror shard his Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint had fused and raised it toward the sun.

He stirred the Power of Spirituality within it, reaching for the faintest touch of the presence that belonged to the ceramic figurine.

The mirrorʼs reflected light glanced over and fell, by chance, upon the child.

The ”child” turned its head at that very moment, and the instant it saw the mirror shard, its legs very nearly gave out beneath it.

The words were out before it could stop them. ”Not this thing again?!”

”No, hold on. Thereʼs the Power of Spirituality in it too.”

”This oneʼs a follower of that Feathered Serpent. The lizard person who can borrow the Feathered Serpentʼs power.”

The smug, self-satisfied look it had been wearing dissolved at once into anxious panic.

Its eyes darted furtively in every direction, hunting for some way to flee.

It knew the mirror at a glance. This was the very bronze mirror it had once possessed to bewitch Grand Elder Xin Jisi, and now the thing had been charged with the Authority of Spirituality, its power of perception far keener than before.

As a servant of the God of Original Sin, it understood all too well how singular and how powerful the force of Spirituality could be.

At the same time, it knew Anuʼs identity as well, and knew he could draw upon the power of the Feathered Serpent, Kurmis.

It had meant to disguise itself as an ordinary person and stay hidden. It had never expected to walk straight into Anu instead.

Yes. This child was the ceramic figurine.

Anu, however, had no idea. He went on pouring his full strength into the mirror shardʼs power.

”Thereʼs a great deal of that monsterʼs presence here. It lies in every direction.”

”Some of it is days old. Some of it is fresh.”

Anu addressed the face that Spirit Activation had woken within the mirror. ”Tell me. Where exactly is it?”

”Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint. Spirituality Origin.”

”Tell me. Where exactly is that monster?”

This time the animated face finally changed its answer. It no longer said ”out at sea.”

Instead it began repeating the same mechanical words over and over.

”Right here.”

”Right here?”

Out on the deck, the ceramic figurine was terrified out of its wits, its whole body gone numb.

It came within a hair of crumpling to the ground, its whole body sinking lower.

A beast knight nearby stepped in at once and hauled the ceramic figurine up, though it hung there as limp as ever.

”Poor kid, youʼve been adrift out there too long!”

”Get inside and eat something. Have some water.”

The ceramic figurine hung like a dead snake, in no mood to hear a word the beast knight said. Its whole mind was fixed on Anu.

That mechanical voice kept surfacing in its mind, over and over, again and again.

”Right here.”

”Right here.”

Anu rubbed his chin, never once suspecting his quarry might be aboard his own ship.

The mirrorʼs earlier answer, ”out at sea,” had been vague enough, after all. He took ”right here” to carry much the same broad meaning.

Standing at the bow, he gazed out across the distant sea.

”Looks like itʼs somewhere close by.”

”It canʼt have gone far. Itʼs still in these waters.”

Anu gave the order to everyone present, to the beast knights under his command and the Royal Navy soldiers alike.

”Step it up. Search this stretch of sea, every last inch of it!”

Hanging limp as a dead snake in a beast knightʼs grip, the ceramic figurine heard that order and felt as though it had glimpsed light in the darkness.

Light flickered up in its eyes, and it turned to look at Anu.

”It told you already. Right here.”

”And you still canʼt find me?”

Strength came flooding back into its whole body at once, and its confidence with it.

It thought to itself, ”These foolish mortals really are stupid past saving.”

”Not like me. Iʼve got wits every bit as sharp as my masterʼs.”

The ceramic figurine had just rallied its spirits and started back toward the cabin when Anu suddenly called out to it, mirror shard still in hand. ”Stop right there!”

The ceramic figurineʼs body went rigid, its mind exploding with questions.

”Whatʼs he calling me back for?”

”Has he found me out?”

”It canʼt be, can it?”

”Then whatʼs he calling me for?”

By then Anu had already come over and patted the child on the shoulder.

The ceramic figurineʼs body went slack again at once, and it opened its mouth to say something.

But Anu spoke first. ”Poor little thing.”

To Anuʼs eyes the child was simply shy with strangers, or else frightened of lizard people.

That was natural enough. A child who did not take fright at the sight of a lizard person would have been the strange one.

Anu turned to the beast knight. ”Put him in the big cabin next to mine, in with everyone else. They can all keep an eye on him.”

Then he dropped his voice to a private warning. ”And watch that lot. They may try to silence him.”

Then Anu turned back to the ceramic figurine. ”Donʼt be frightened. Once we put in to shore, Iʼll find someone to take you home.”

The ceramic figurineʼs face twisted into an utterly stiff expression, terror and a smile impossible to tell apart on it.

It nodded mechanically. ”Mm... mm...”

”Hm?”

The ceramic figurine felt as though it had escaped death itself by a hair. ”So he hasnʼt found me out after all?”

Then fury blazed up inside it. ”Then what is this creature playing at, jumping out at me like that?”

Everything kindly arranged, Anu turned back to find the child staring at him fixedly, its expression strange.

Anu returned a gentle, understanding smile.

A look of gratitude, most likely!

The ceramic figurine, seething with rage, watched the detestable lizard person turn an unsettling smile on it.

It could not help a shudder. ”What is wrong with this thing? Whatʼs he grinning about?”

”Has he found me out or not?”

In the dead of night, the shared berths below deck rang with the snoring of soldiers and sailors, a chorus rising and falling.

The ceramic figurine, disguised as a child through its nesting dolls, slipped quietly out of the room and made its way down to the lowest deck.

In a corner crammed with casks of liquor, it drew its own Teleportation Gate out of its belly and gripped the door key tight.

It raised the key high overhead and pressed the most heartfelt of kisses to its handle.

Then the little figure, which had always held itself proud and aloof, dropped to its knees on the floor with a thud.

”Door Nymph, Rosa, grant me Your power!”

”This time my mind truly is free of every distraction. I hold nothing but gratitude toward You, and reverence for the Supreme Divine Being.”

”Ah!”

”O Great Messenger of the Creator, a living being shaped by the Dream Sovereignʼs own hand.”

”Grant me Your blessing! Carry me away to that distant place of my dreams, the place my very soul aches for!”

Its show of devotion looked, for all the world, like a saintʼs.

Having worked itself into a fit of self-hypnosis, thoroughly moved by its own performance, it slotted the key back into the door once more. Still it would not open.

”Argh, argh, argh!”

”Why is it still not opening?!”

The ceramic figurine seethed with frustration, desperate to curse a blue streak.

But it had heard that every dream spirit stayed connected to the world of dreams, and that their very names carried a strange power. Rosa might well hear every curse the moment it was spoken.

So the ceramic figurine forced itself calm and talked itself into a fresh round of self-hypnosis.

”It must be that I am not devout enough. Again.”

”Again.”

Again, and again, until ”again” had turned, bit by bit, into a hundred million agains.

No matter how the ceramic figurine prayed, no matter how sweetly it flattered the Door Nymph, Rosa, none of it did the slightest bit of good, not even once dawn came.

The ceramic figurineʼs composure shattered completely at last. It had pinned every last hope on this door.

”Damn it.”

”Does this door even work?”

”No, hold on. Is there even such a thing as a Teleportation Gate?”

Out on the eastern horizon the sea had already begun to blush red. Dawn was coming.

The ceramic figurine knew that if it did not return soon, it risked raising suspicion.

Especially from that lizard person, Anu, who for reasons it could not fathom had arranged for it to sleep right beside him, among the soldiers of his own legion.

Just then a shrill cry came down from the sky outside.

It was the cry of a wind lizard dragon.

Anu and the handful of lizard people beast knights who had spent the whole night searching outside had finally returned.

The ceramic figurine felt the ship rock several times. That was the sound of wind lizard dragons landing on the deck.

”This is bad. Heʼs back.”

The ceramic figurine bolted for the upper deck, only to spot several lizard people coming through the passage just as it got there.

It spun around at once and ducked into a corner.

There it smothered every last trace of its presence and its existence.

A whole night in the air with his wind lizard dragons had left Anu feeling the fatigue.

He had meant to press his advantage while the iron was hot, sweeping the entire stretch of sea by surprise under cover of night, using the power of his Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint to catch that monster off guard.

But he had come up with nothing at all.

His Spirituality and his instincts both told him his quarry lay somewhere in these waters. No matter what he tried, he could not find it.

His wind lizard dragons had worn themselves out on the flight as well, so Anu had no choice but to turn back for now.

”That monsterʼs a cunning one,” Anu told the other beast knights, ”and it must have some formidable divine technique of concealment. Even the power of the Spirit Fusion Seal Imprint canʼt find it.”

”Then what do we do?” one of the beast knights asked.

Anu was in no hurry. ”Weʼre not the only ones searching. The gods themselves are all hunting that monster.”

”And its one road out has been sealed shut. Catching it is only a matter of time.”

”Whatʼs more, Apostle Oran has borrowed an artifact of overwhelming power from the God of Demon Spirits, one that carries the power of a miracle.”

”Once Apostle Oran arrives, weʼre certain to find it.”

The lizard people beast knights could not hide their eagerness. ”When does Apostle Oran get here?” one of them asked.

”The artifact is in the hands of one of the God of Demon Spiritsʼ own kin,” Anu told them. ”Apostle Oran is waiting on them to send it over. It shouldnʼt be long now.”

”The apostle is coming here?” another asked.

”Itʼs all but settled,” Anu said. ”The ceramic figurine is out in the waters southeast of Suinhor. Of course theyʼll come.”

The beast knight blinked. ”They? Whoʼs ʼtheyʼ?”

Anu gave a mysterious smile. ”Youʼll find out when the time comes.”

Gazing out over the sea, Anu looked as though he could already picture it, the ceramic figurine hunted by every god, nowhere left to run, living each day in ceaseless dread.

”A monster called the ceramic figurine. A servant holding the treasure of the Evil God of Original Sin.”

”Apostles and the divine chosen are only the beginning. Even the gods themselves may descend upon these waters, and all of it for its sake.”

The lizard people were struck with awe. This much commotion alone was already more than enough.

Yet not one of them could have imagined that this was only the beginning.

”Gods... they would truly come down here?”

Every word of it fell straight into the ears of the small figure hiding around the corner at the end of the passage.

The ceramic figurineʼs mind raced at once. ”Apostle Oran?”

”The aspiring divine being of the Desire Divine System? Now heʼs coming after me too?”

”An artifact that finds me? What artifact could possibly find me?”

The ceramic figurine thought it over carefully, searching its memory for just what sort of artifact this could be.

”No, wait...”

”A miracle tool?”

”An artifact of the God of Demon Spirits, Elena?”

As it turned Anuʼs words over, an answer surfaced slowly in its eyes, and with it came a blank stare and a trembling mouth.

”It canʼt be. It canʼt be that artifact!”

Still talking, Anu and his men eventually moved into the room next door.

The ceramic figurine crept warily back to the shared berth on the other side of the wooden wall, then leaned into the corner and pretended to rest, its ear pressed to the wall.

”Chief, what is this artifact, exactly?” one of the lizard people beast knights asked again.

”Itʼs an artifact shaped like a compass,” Anu said. ”They say it can point the way to whatever a personʼs heart longs for most.”

A jolt of fear shot through the ceramic figurine. ”The compass of the God of Demon Spirits, Elena?”

Its suspicion confirmed, the ceramic figurine felt everything inside it collapse.

It had heard Xiao speak of this artifact before. In itself it was nothing especially powerful. It carried no offensive force whatsoever.

But artifacts like this one were precisely the sort that could be most unreasonable in other ways.

It cared nothing for how skillfully you concealed your presence, or how deep you buried yourself.

It ignored every rule and could find exactly where you were, without fail.

The ceramic figurine was terrified beyond measure. It had not known a single peaceful day in all this time, living instead in constant dread.

But none of that fear compared to what it felt in this very moment.

It seemed to hear the tick-tock of a clock.

Tick!

Tock!

Counting down, bit by bit, toward the final moment of its life, ticking away what remained of its days.

”Who was it?”

”Who put that compass into Apostle Oranʼs hands?”

The ceramic figurine clawed wildly at its hair, mouth stretched wide, as though a scream like crashing waves were tearing its way out.

But in truth, not a single sound escaped, because it did not dare.

The ceramic figurine, in all likelihood, never imagined that it was the Door Nymph, Rosa, who had given Apostle Oran the compass.

No sooner had the Door Nymph, Rosa, handed it a door than she turned around and delivered to Oran the very compass that would hunt this figurineʼs soul down to the death.

With one hand she had granted it hope.

With the other she had rung its funeral bell.

The ceramic figurineʼs mind spun in chaos. On the other side of the wall the conversation carried on, Anu and the lizard people still talking about Apostle Oran.

”Come to think of it, Chief Anu,” one of the lizard people said, ”what is it the gods and the apostles are actually after?”

”Iʼm not too clear on that myself,” Anu only said. ”They say itʼs a stone carving. One that holds the image of some ancient queen and a divine messenger.”

The lizard person could not make sense of it. ”All of this for one stone carving?”

”Thereʼs got to be some earth-shattering secret behind that carving,” another said.

The lizard people traded guesses over what secret the carving might hold. Some said it must be a secret of the gods.

Others said it had to be an extraordinarily powerful artifact, a divine artifact.

And just then, a blinding burst of light erupted over the distant sea.

A pillar of light shot skyward, and in the heavens it took the shape of the sigil of the Cup of Desire.

Several lizard people knights crowded together at once at the cabinʼs round window, peering out.

”What is that?!”

Anu gazed at the sigil of the Cup of Desire and broke into a smile. ”That means Apostle Oran has arrived. Heʼs sending up a signal from the border waters of the Land of Sunrise.”

He turned to the other lizard people and asked, ”Want to go and meet him?”

The lizard people knights nodded eagerly, one after another. A spectacle like this was not a chance any of them would let slip.

The beast knights rushed together toward the deck.

The wind lizard dragons spread their wings once more, loosed a piercing cry, and flew off toward the distant sigil.

On the other side of the cabin partition, the ceramic figurine lay pressed to a window of its own, watching the pale light of dawn and the sigil of the Cup of Desire branded across the sky.

In that instant the terror inside it surged to its very peak.

It seemed to hear that ticking reach its very last second and sound an alarm like the toll of a funeral bell.

Dong, dong, dong, dong, dong!

The peal of that bell left it reeling and dizzy. It toppled right off the window ledge and crashed to the floor.

It no longer had room to care about anything else.

It bolted out at top speed, and the commotion even woke several soldiers from their deep sleep.

But when they turned to look, all they saw was a swinging door, with no trace of the panicked ceramic figurine.

The ceramic figurine rushed down to the lowest deck and drew out its Teleportation Gate once more.

It wrenched the key in the lock like a thing possessed, as though it meant to twist the key clean off.

”Open!”

”Open, I said!”

But no matter what it did, the door still would not budge.

The ceramic figurine could bear no more, and broke into a furious tirade.

”Liar! Youʼre a liar, thatʼs all you are! This door doesnʼt open at all!”

It clawed at its hair as though it meant to tear its own scalp off.

”Longing?”

”Not enough longing?”

”I donʼt long for it enough?”

”Iʼve poured out every last drop of longing I have! I want this more than anyone else alive! Thereʼs not a soul in this world who could long to open this door more than I do!”

Right after that the ceramic figurine collapsed to its knees, weeping without restraint.

It was truly afraid now. It truly did not want to die.

”No!”

”Open! Open, please!”

”Save me.”

”Save me.”

But by this point, anger and frustration and regret were all equally useless.

And in that critical moment, with death closing in nearer and nearer, the ceramic figurine seemed for once to actually grow clever.

In a single flash, another idea came to it.

Face streaked with tears, the ceramic figurine lifted its head and wiped its eyes.

”No, wait. Thereʼs another way.”

”Thereʼs still another way.”

Its eyes went wide, its nose twitching over and over, and yet within them a faint light began to glimmer.

”Theyʼre not coming for me.”

”Iʼm just a little figurine. A nothing, beneath anyoneʼs notice. Theyʼre not coming for me.”

”Itʼs my masterʼs treasury they want. Itʼs whatʼs inside it theyʼre after.”

The ceramic figurine lowered the hand that had been clawing at its hair and said with great force, ”Thatʼs it. Thatʼs it, thatʼs it. Itʼs that stone carving theyʼre after.”

”That stone carving... which stone carving is it?”

The ceramic figurine threw open its storage space at once and began rummaging through it with both hands.

It was hunting the ancient carving that bore the image of a queen and a divine messenger, the very carving every god in the mortal world was after.

After a long while of searching, the ceramic figurineʼs hands went suddenly still.

”Found it.”

”This is it.”

Slowly it drew a single object out of its storage space, a stone carving of pure white with an ancient scene etched into its surface.

The carving showed the God-Descended City, the Yesael Palace, and the Most Ancient Race hailed as the Divine Children.

The fifth queen ever to ascend the throne of the King of Yinsai sat upon the throne of the King of the Most Ancient Race. Behind her stood a spirit robed in gold, bearing the Divine Countenance, and together the two received the reverence of the Most Ancient Race, the Divine Children.

It was a thing born two hundred and fifty million years ago, crafted by the very hands of the first Dream Sovereign, Polo.

The Stone Carving of Queen Star and Divine Messenger Polo.

And now, at long last, it had reappeared in the world, exposed once more within the mortal realm.

Holding it, the ceramic figurine could feel the power of a miracle surging in its grasp, and visions of that ancient, sacred scene rose before its eyes.

And at that very same moment, two different voices seemed to cry out within its mind.

”Throw it away. Just throw it away, thatʼs all. Throw it away and theyʼll never find you.”

”No. You canʼt. This is a treasure the master holds dear. This is no ordinary thing. This is something beyond all imagining, something that can never, under any circumstance, be lost.”

The ceramic figurine knew that throwing it away would lift the danger, at least for now.

But it also knew this was no mere treasure, nothing to be measured against ordinary artifacts or transcendent materials.

This was something Xiao had carried back from the previous era, a sacred relic of the First Era.

If it were ever lost, the ceramic figurine had no idea how Xiao might punish it.

Its master was a pillar of a world of darkness, terrifying beyond measure and harder still to fathom. What method would such a being choose to deal with it?

Death? Or something more terrible than death?

In that instant, it thought of the marionette that had been controlled and enslaved across the ages for a hundred million years.

Aboard the third-rank alchemy ship of the White Tower Alchemy Alliance, the sigil of the Cup of Desire burst forth.

Before long, two figures came rushing in.

Sukob appeared on deck and looked to the young man in the silver robe. ”Oran. You have it at last.”

A woman clad in black, her head covered and her face veiled, emerged from the still-dim, unlit sea and stepped aboard the ship. ”Are we to begin, then?”

Oran broke into a smile. ”The two of you. It did cost a fair amount of time, I will grant you that.”

”Even so, it is not too late. If anything, the timing could not be better.”

Sukob, Oran, and the Earth Witch, Metel, came together and stood at the center of the deck.

Oran drew an exquisite compass from within his robe and let it drop through the air, holding fast only to its chain.

The miracle tool, More Than Just a Compass.

Oran closed his eyes and stirred the compassʼs power to life.

”Compass.”

”Treasure of the God of Demon Spirits, Elena. A miracle born in accordance with the Laws of Creation.”

”Follow my heart. Point to the greatest longing I hold in this moment.”

Oranʼs voice carried out over the sea, his will stretching across the very distance of space itself in search of an answer.