I am God LSLCCF

Chapter 499: The Witch Doctors' Fate and the Star Realm Divine Kingdom

In the distance, the Floating Sons drifted farther and farther away, and with them, that never-ending twilight receded bit by bit.

Only now did anyone realize, with a start, that this stretch of sky stood in the dead of night after all.

Shelly plopped herself down on top of the white stone, replying to what Hila had just said.

"Look, I've got one this big now!"

"Now I can make anything float that I want to float, and fly as high as I want to fly!"

Hila looked at the floating island. A chunk of Floating Stone no bigger than a fist had already been enough to send this island, several kilometers across in every direction, soaring into the sky.

This one, now, measured a full meter or more.

Hila found herself wondering just how large a thing a stone this size could lift into the air.

She asked Shelly, "So what else do you want to make float?"

After a moment, she turned her head and fixed Hila with a bright, sharp-eyed look. Just as Hila thought she was about to say something, she broke into her signature grin instead.

"Haven't decided yet. But something this fun, I've definitely got to stock up on lots more of it, because I'm definitely going to find a use for it someday!"

Hila glanced again at the travel wish list crumpled in Shelly's grip.

"Are there still wishes on it left unfinished?"

Shelly nodded.

"At the bottom of the sea, up north, there's a secret base Iron Skull built. Iron Skull said it wants me to come and take a look!"

Iron Skull was the Sele Sea Spirit.

Back before it had become a Life demigod, back when it still followed at the side of the Sele family of the Royal Bloodline, its signature feature was the cap perched atop its head, which looked something like a steel helmet but was in fact a carapace. Beneath that "steel helmet" hid the true body of the Sele Sea Spirit, a form not unlike that of a squid or an octopus.

In those days, it could raze whole cities and topple entire nations with a single charge, an absolute tyrant of the seas.

After she finished speaking, something else occurred to Shelly, and she wrote a new wish on the very last line of her list.

"Go to the moon."

Just then, Yin Shen pushed open the greenhouse door and walked inside. This was the first time He had appeared since the witch doctors had turned the floating island into a Divine Kingdom domain.

Shelly and Hila fell in behind Him at once, Shelly breaking into a little run to catch up.

"God, wait for me!"

Then she circled around Yin Shen as she talked, hopping and skipping, describing over and over exactly how she had set off her fireworks.

Yin Shen listened to her chatter as He walked on into the depths of the greenhouse.

Looking up from here, one's gaze passed straight through the dome of the glass-domed greenhouse, bringing the moon and the stars nearer to view, while far below, at the very bottom edge of sight, lay the endless roiling sea of cloud.

Yin Shen gazed quietly up at the dome overhead, then spoke all at once.

"It does not feel quite the same as the God-Given Land."

The God-Given Land, too, was an island adrift between the sky and the starry sea, and it too had its own beautiful garden, but the feeling it gave was nothing at all like this place.

Hila nodded.

"This place feels bigger, and more open. Open enough to frighten a person."

Shelly said, "The God-Given Land was just like a dream. Everything there glowed, even the spirits themselves."

The Dream Starry Sea was a starry sea born of dream, beautiful, fantastical, and resplendent.

The true Realm of Stars, though, was cold and terrible.

The witch doctors trailed along beside them, gazing up at the starry sky together with the Supreme Divine Beings.

Witch Doctor Left Hand asked quietly, "Tell me. Why is it that a place so empty, so dark, so cold can still stir a longing in people, whether they will it or not?"

"And if they knew what waited the moment they set foot there. The most terrible dead end in all this world, one the Forbidden Zone of Death itself could not match. Would they still want to go out there?"

Witch Doctor Skull said, "They still would, I should think!"

Witch Doctor Left Hand asked, "Why?"

Witch Doctor Skull answered flatly.

"I do not know."

Witch Doctor Skull looked up at the stars overhead.

"But I do know this. Even when we know exactly what lies beyond the sky, something in us still cannot help wanting to go up and see it for ourselves."

For a moment, every witch doctor fell silent.

It really was just like that.

No one knew why. No one knew what drove them to go.

Still, they simply wanted to go.

It was as if that longing for the stars had been carved into the very instincts of every intelligent species.

They gazed out at the boundless starry sky, as though those glittering stars truly held some kind of magic, one that never stopped tugging at the hearts of every intelligent being.

Day by day, time passed, and the changes in the witch doctors' domain grew greater and greater.

Ever since the witch doctors had fused their Mythic Domain into this floating island, they had stopped treating it as a temporary camp and had truly begun to think of it as their home for the future.

Whenever they walked through the island, they found themselves wondering whether there was something more they ought to add to it.

As they walked through the lower level of the Divine Kingdom's city, one of them said, "We ought to build a laboratory here, to keep records of witch doctor divine techniques."

They looked at all the empty, echoing rooms and thought back to how lively the Witch Doctor Cottage had once been.

"We should build some galleries and bridges here, to connect all these rooms together. That would make the place feel a good deal livelier, and if anyone ever comes to visit, they would have somewhere to stay."

Ideas like these kept bubbling up one after another, and the whole of their domain kept changing right along with them.

"The glass-domed garden ought to be split into several levels. That would make much better use of the space."

"Should we not build a great gate at the edge of the island, to serve as the way in and out of the divine domain?"

One day, inside the city of the Divine Kingdom, the witch doctors gathered together around a long table, and began discussing what they could do, what they ought to do.

"First, find a way to raise the floating island beyond the sky, and make it a true Witch Doctor Kingdom."

"Second, create entirely new witch doctor vocations."

"Third, found a Witch Doctor Academy."

"..."

Once the discussion was over, every one of the witch doctors sat there, stunned.

"Why does it feel as though there are so many things we want to do?"

The witch doctors had always simply followed the Supreme Divine Beings, and before now it seemed they had never once stopped to think about what they ought to do, or what they themselves wanted to do.

The Supreme Divine Beings had always arranged everything for them already, so all they had ever needed to do was obey.

Witch Doctor Left Hand suddenly said, "Should we not wait until later to do all of this? Why are we already planning and discussing it now?"

Witch Doctor Torso burst out laughing.

"That is true. But sometimes, once the thought comes to you, you simply cannot help yourself."

Witch Doctor Skull waved it off.

"It is nothing much. We are only talking it over, livening things up a little."

And yet, once a thing like this actually got started, it really did become something else entirely.

Hila, at least, noticed the change in them soon enough. Nothing of the sort could ever truly be hidden from a supreme divine being. As for Shelly, if she paid it no mind, that was only because she simply didn't care.

Hila summoned them before the hot air balloon boat, in the garden of the Cup of Desire. The golden-haired spirit was draped in a divine robe marked with the sigil of God's Dream.

The sun hung just behind her, and yet she seemed to shine brighter than the sun itself.

It left the witch doctors unable to look at her directly, and they knelt to the ground, bowing in humility before this Sovereign Deity.

Hila asked them, "Of late, you all seem to have grown very busy?"

The witch doctors, thrown a little off balance, wondered whether they had let their own affairs distract them from more important business.

But Hila only smiled as she looked them over.

"I have seen how full your days have become, how every one of them now holds something you wish to do."

"You are no longer as you once were, not knowing what to do with yourselves, not knowing where you ought to go."

Hila looked out at the floating island beneath the sun, at the Divine Kingdom the witch doctors had so carefully built, and broke into a radiant smile.

"Perhaps the time has come for us to part ways."

A flicker of panic went through the witch doctors, and they hurried forward, wanting to say something.

"Lady Hila."

"We are not..."

But no sooner had the words left their mouths than they swallowed them back down, because in their hearts, that was exactly what they had been thinking, exactly what they had wanted to do, and to deny it now would only be to deceive the Sovereign Deity.

All they could do was press themselves flat to the ground in terror, speaking through their own trembling.

"Lady Hila, we still want to follow You, to follow..."

Before the witch doctors could even finish, Hila gave a small, gentle shake of her head.

The witch doctors fell silent at once, not daring to say another word. Everything they thought, everything in their hearts, lay utterly bare before a supreme divine being.

But Hila did not blame them for it. Instead, she spoke, her words carrying a blessing.

"You need not be afraid."

"Nor need you worry."

"You need not fear being far from us, for we remain within this world always."

"Nor need you fear the days without a mission, for you have already found the meaning of your own existence."

Hila drew closer to the witch doctors, and to them it was as though the sun itself were drawing near.

Only, next to the terrible sun of the waking world, this sun of dream brought with it nothing but warmth, nothing but the most beautiful of illusions.

The Sovereign Deity's voice came drifting out of the dream, ringing through every mind.

"As I have said before. When you find the meaning of your own existence,"

"when your hearts begin to stir, the time of our parting has already come."

"If there is anything in this world that can be called fate, then perhaps this is it."

"When your heart stirs, when the moment destined for you arrives,"

"that is the very moment the wheel of fate begins to turn."

"Do not resist it. Do not waver, and do not hesitate."

"Every moment of hesitation, every moment of wavering, is a chance at fate let slip away, a betrayal of the very moment you have waited a hundred million years for."

Hila raised a hand, and the witch doctors rose to their feet.

Hila stood tall and slender, and even the witch doctors looked somewhat small standing before her, especially with their heads bowed low.

Hila first laid a hand on the shoulder of Left Hand, who stood at the far left, then walked past each of them in turn, looking every one of them in the eye as she spoke.

"Witch doctors."

"Go and find your meaning in this world!"

"Go and prove that you once existed in this world, that you once lived, burning bright and dazzling."

"You are not merely something the Creator made. Your name is witch doctor."

For a moment, the witch doctors could not even speak. Every one of them stood there with eyes brimming with tears, and together they cried out.

"Lady Hila!"

The Sovereign Deity, radiant as the sun, walked off into the distance, and the witch doctors stood rooted to the spot in the deepest reverence, but just before Hila's shadow vanished into the sea of flowers, she suddenly turned her head and spoke, one soft line.

"Oh, that reminds me."

"You ought to go and tell God."

Her expression full of encouragement, Hila told the witch doctors.

"After all, God is your true Creator!"

The witch doctors bowed the Sovereign on her way, then looked at one another, turning over in their minds the last words the Dream Sovereign had left them with.

Before long, the witch doctors made their way to the cabin of the hot air balloon boat, though they seemed a little uneasy, a little afraid, as they climbed the steps.

The witch doctors were more than a little afraid. This time, after all, they had not come to await orders or to greet the Creator as they always had before. They had come to say that they were about to set out on journeys of their own.

Light slanted in through the window, spilling into the cabin.

The Creator, Yinsai, sat there in that plain, high-backed chair, though the witch doctors did not so much as look, did not dare to raise their eyes to see.

But they could feel it, could feel the radiance of that Eternal Star pouring down from somewhere far off, spilling out across everything around them.

"God Yinsai!"

In the witch doctors' eyes, Yin Shen was simply too immense, and far too distant.

Even Shelly, by comparison, was a terror one could at least comprehend, the visible shadow of a world-ending demon god.

Yin Shen's existence had already surpassed everything else entirely, a being beyond all understanding, beyond all knowing.

However many countless years they had followed the Creator, they had never once so much as glimpsed His true shadow.

God Yinsai seemed to have already known why the witch doctors had come. His voice was faint and light, neither sorrowful nor glad, like moonlight spilling across the ground.

There was light in it, and yet a thread of cold clarity too.

"Then this is the last stretch of the journey we will walk together."

"After this, the journey will be your own."

God Yinsai rose slowly to His feet, the smooth white robe draped over Him without a single crease. His body, given form through the Projection Divine Technique, gave off a faint glow and cast no shadow at all upon the ground.

As He rose, He spoke, slowly.

"Long ago, I created you to seek out wisdom on Shelly's behalf, and you carried out that task well."

"And now, at last, the time has come for you to end that mission and begin a fate all your own."

The witch doctors pressed themselves flat to the ground, and spoke together as one voice.

"To obey Your will, to submit to Your intent, is our highest honor."

"Whether in the past, the present, or whatever is yet to come."

These were not empty words, nor mere flattery, but words spoken from the heart, in earnest truth.

Only a being like a witch doctor could ever grasp even a trace of the Creator Yinsai's true greatness, could ever know what He truly meant to this world.

That was because no one needed to flatter the sky or the cosmos. Every thread of praise, every trace of longing, welled up from the heart alone.

God Yinsai asked the witch doctors, "What is it you wish to do, from here on?"

Witch Doctor Skull spoke for all of them.

"We wish to build a true Kingdom of the Heavens. First we shall raise our Divine Kingdom up into the Star Realm."

Witch Doctor Right Hand hurried to explain.

"The Star Realm means simply the Realm of Stars, the starry sky above our heads, the domain that lies beyond the mortal world."

God Yinsai said, "The Star Realm Divine Kingdom, then!"

Magic Tool City

This city the demon spirits had built grew livelier by the day. Winged merchants who had traveled from far away, great magic tools of every conceivable kind, and demon spirits of every color under the sun all came together to dress the place up into something like a fantasy kingdom.

The single most important thing happening in Magic Tool City of late was, naturally, the imminent completion of the Myriad Magic Tool, the Sun's Wing.

Once a goal was set, the potential a person could unleash was extraordinary beyond measure.

The Sun's Wing was the very first Myriad Magic Tool ever built, and the resources it demanded were beyond all imagining.

The magic gold alone had piled up into a small mountain within the city, and more than half the demon spirits in all of Magic Tool City had, at one point or another, taken part in building the Sun's Wing.

The newly born demon spirits, for their part, completed their own journeys of coming to know their powers and gathering knowledge upon this very Myriad Magic Tool.

Fortunately, the few core components that would have demanded the greatest expense of all did not need to be made from scratch.

The Sun's Wing's owner, Ray, had given his own Mythical Organ for the purpose, together with the power of his traveling companions.

After nearly three years of labor, the Sun's Wing was finally completed, just ahead of the date they had set.

On this day, every demon spirit in the city turned out, and countless more of the Demon Spirit race hurried back from elsewhere as well, all just to catch a glimpse of the Myriad Magic Tool's power.

The sky was thick with mechanical-fish airships, mechanical flying-lizard airships, even mechanical flying-dragon airships.

Aboard them stood and sat crowds of demon spirits.

Kite demon spirits drifted and danced through the air, and here and there winged people looked on.

Farther off, several powerful figures could be seen watching from atop their own Seal Puppets.

Before the temple, too, a dense crowd had gathered, every face turned up toward the colossal shape draped in cloth behind it, a presence that stood nearly a hundred meters tall.

Whoosh!

The cloth was pulled away, revealing a colossal mechanical creation with its wings spread wide.

Even the several third-rank stone demons standing there, and the third-rank Seal Puppets summoned by the Sky Messengers, looked utterly dwarfed beside that mechanical creation.

With the cloth gone, a closer look showed it stood somewhere between eighty and ninety meters tall, its spread wings a full hundred meters and more across.

Sunlight struck the metal plates across its wings and threw back sheet after sheet of golden light.

In that moment, the whole of Magic Tool City erupted into cheers, airship after airship unfurled long banners at once, and somewhere in the city, divine-technique fireworks even began going off.

"The Myriad Magic Tool!"

"The Myriad Magic Tool, the Sun's Wing."

They cheered the birth of this Myriad Magic Tool, a moment that stood as nothing less than a milestone for the whole of the Demon Spirit race.

Just then, Ray led Number Two and Number Three aboard the Sun's Wing.

They climbed up a ladder through an opening cut into the underside of the Sun's Wing.

Once inside the hull, they stepped onto a metal platform, which rose on its own and carried them up to the level above.

They arrived at the single most important place within the whole of the Sun's Wing.

The power chamber.

Once inside the power chamber, Ray stepped up onto a raised altar.

Atop the altar sat an enormous crystalline sphere, threaded through with a dense tangle of pipes that crisscrossed between the ceiling and the floor.

He reached out a hand and pressed it into his own chest.

His chest seemed to turn to light itself, letting his hand pass straight through, and he drew out something shaped like a small sphere.

It was Ray's Mythical Organ, the Mechanical Heart.

Ray set his Mechanical Heart down on the altar, and pressed it into a fitted socket there.

In that instant, an immense power surged out from the altar and spread through the entire length of the Sun's Wing.

Every scrap of magic gold within the Myriad Magic Tool resonated at once with his Mythical Organ and his domain. In that instant all of it seemed to spring to life, fusing together into a single whole beneath his Mental Domains.

In that moment, Ray felt his own Mental Domains merge as one with the Sun's Wing itself, and the great magic tool seemed to become nothing less than a second body of his own.

Beyond that, tiny shadows began squeezing themselves out from the metal bulkheads of the Sun's Wing, letting out odd little sounds as they came.

Clack clack clack clack!

Small mechanical dolls came crawling out one after another from every corner of the hull, scattering to every part of the Sun's Wing.

The little mechanical dolls fell into line even as they shouted.

"Maintenance!"

"Maintenance!"

"Inspection!"

"Inspection!"

Just then, Number Three stepped forward as well.

His target was the enormous round crystal hanging above the altar in the power chamber. He gave his head a shake, rose into the air, and flew straight at the crystal.

No sound of impact ever came. Number Three simply merged straight into the crystal itself.

"Power furnace, activate."

Number Three's voice rang out from within, echoing through the whole chamber.

Fwoosh!

Flame kindled to life within the transparent crystal, and fire came surging along the pipes, reaching every corner of the Sun's Wing.

Puff, puff, puff~

Inside the once-dark hull, gas lamp after gas lamp flickered to life, until the whole ship blazed with light.

Seen from outside, the wings of the Sun's Wing spread wide at last, all the way open.

At the very same moment, jet after jet of flame burst out from the trailing edge of its wings.

Even so, the Sun's Wing had not yet taken to the air.

Just then, Number Two, the Kite Demon Spirit, flew up toward the topmost level, all the way to the Sun's Wing's control room, in the head of the vessel.

There, an oversized Globe sat at the very center of the room, and a massive painting hung upon the wall.

It looked, at a glance, like a star chart.

The Kite Demon Spirit dove straight in, merging into the vast painting itself, becoming nothing more than a shadow within it.

In an instant, the Globe at the center of the room began spinning wildly.

"Globe, activate."

"Course prediction underway. Target locked."

With that, the Sun's Wing came fully to life.

Flame jetted from behind its wings, and the colossal craft shot swiftly up into the sky.

The two legs that had stood upon the ground drew themselves up, while the tail fin behind them swayed ceaselessly in the wind.

As it flew, a vast "Barrier" enveloped it entirely, a terrible power pressing down across the very heavens, and every ability user in its path felt their heart quail.

It was no ordinary Barrier at all. It was the apostle's Mental Domains.

Only, it carried not just Ray's own power, but the Seal Imprint power of Number Two and Number Three as well.

"It's flying~" The demon spirits gave chase, though they could never hope to keep up with even its shadow.

"What tremendous Mental Domains." The powerful figures among the winged people marveled as they felt the force of those Domains.

"The power of an apostle!" Many of the winged people were feeling an apostle's power for the very first time.

"So this is what a fourth-rank tool is?" The onlookers murmured among themselves.

"An ordinary fourth-rank tool doesn't come close." Several demon spirits, overhearing, spoke up at once.

The demon spirits cheered and the winged people stood in shock, and together they watched the Sun's Wing race off toward the far horizon.

Yet once the Myriad Magic Tool, the Sun's Wing, had come into being, it could not itself be entered upon the Divine Cup.

A magic tool simply did not belong on the Divine Cup's roster of items at all. It was a living thing, something the Demon Spirit race had built with themselves as its very core.

In truth, it was an extension of the Demon Spirit race's own bodies and power.

But the ordinary tools the Demon Spirit race set into their magic tools would still be ranked upon the Divine Cup, as always.

Inside the hull of the Sun's Wing, Ray looked up at the burning power furnace overhead, and at the same time his voice carried all the way up to the control room above.

"Number Two. Number Three."

"Within these Mental Domains, the power of the three of us is joined together into a single whole."

"From now on we're one body, sharing this same magic tool, using these same Mental Domains."

"Here, the two of you can use my Mental Domains, and call on the whole of my power."

"And now, through the Ritual of God's Form circle I've inscribed in the Third Chamber, the two of you can transform into God's Form as well."

"Just be careful, though. You're not real apostles, after all, and the moment you leave this place my apostle's Mental Domains won't be able to reach you anymore. You can only wear that form in here."

The three of them shared their power as one.

At least aboard the Sun's Wing, Ray's two companions could wield an apostle's own strength through his Mental Domains, and could take on God's Form as well.

Ray's own Mental Domains, in turn, gained two new powers of their own, fire essence and wind. The influence ran both ways.

Inside the power chamber, a shadow slowly drew itself free of the power furnace, and appeared before Ray.

It was Number Three, transformed into God's Form.

Number Three had become a young man with hair the color of burnt orange, though his eyes were narrow, half-lidded.

It was simply his habit to keep them narrowed like that, giving off an air of someone who could never quite muster the energy for anything.

Yawn~

Number Three yawned, standing there without a word.

Ray said to him happily, "Now you can eat food too!"

Number Three yawned again.

"I just need to top up my fire essence, that's all."

Ray and Number Three made their way up together, climbing stairs, passing through corridors, until at last they reached the control room at the very top.

Number Three noticed no one was in sight.

"Huh? Where'd everyone go?"

Ray pointed upward.

"Up there."

Number Three looked up to follow his finger, and saw a human silhouette drifting high above, upon the great painting.

Light and quick, like a phantom.

It was Number Two.

She had become a girl.

The girl wore a white slip dress, tight enough to wrap snugly around her knees.

Hearing Ray and Number Three's voices, she settled down at the edge of the great painting to look at them.

Her hair fell in a dense sweep of silver-gray, like a waterfall, its ends trimmed into one perfectly even line, though her bangs looked a little uneven, a little fine.

Her face and skin were extraordinarily pale, and to call that face beautiful somehow felt insufficient, or at least not vivid enough.

The very first sight of her called to mind, unbidden, the word purity, and after that one forgot the beauty of that face entirely.

Beauty taken this far no longer looked human at all. It looked far more like a doll.

She looked to be about the same height as Ray, but slight, weightless, as though a single gust of wind might carry her clean away.

Ray told her, "Number Two, you look really pretty."

Number Three narrowed his eyes and made a gesture.

"Real nice."

Number Two showed not the slightest reaction to Ray and Number Three's praise. She only said.

"I'm a kite."

She left the rest unsaid, but Ray and Number Three both understood well enough. She had no idea whether this shape of hers was pretty or not.

Ray looked up.

"Number Two, why are you sitting all the way up there?"

The girl drifted down from her perch, light as a fish slipping through water, cutting through wind and air, and touched down weightlessly before Ray and Number Three.

Smooth as a ribbon, she spun a full circle through the air, twirling once around the two of them, then drew her knees up, closed her eyes, and went on turning slowly, like a lazy spinning top.

Here, gravity itself seemed not to exist for her at all.

Ray and Number Two looked at each other, both of them pale-haired.

One a white shot through with blue, the other a gray shot through with silver.

Ray watched her floating there in the air, refusing to touch down no matter what.

So he said, "Are you a spirit? I've heard spirits all like drifting up in the air."

Number Two's voice drifted back, airy and light.

"I'm not a spirit!"

"I'm the wind. I'm a kite."

Ray asked, "So what if you're a kite?"

Still spinning, Number Two said, "A kite can't ever land on the ground."

Ray had always felt that Number Two was somehow unreal, like light or wind, impossible to ever quite grasp.

He had assumed that once Number Two took on God's Form, she would surely become more like a living being, a flesh-and-blood person.

But he had never expected that, though Number Two's transformation into God's Form truly did leave him dazzled, some things about her would never change at all.

Ray warned her, "If you go drifting around like that outside, the wind's going to carry you off in no time."

Number Two released her knees and stretched herself out, her whole body drifting up, head below and feet above.

Her head and her eyes met Ray's own from that strange upside-down angle, and she opened her mouth to speak.

"It doesn't matter."

"Because a kite always has a string."