The Star Key

Moonlight Jungle

In the center of the Letter Spirit Realm stood a Rainbow Tree of immense height, and its hollow was correspondingly vast, wide enough that within it one could see a swirl of colors spinning round and round.

A nymph crowned with a wreath of flowers emerged from the swirling hollow and looked about her.

The Wood Nymphs of the Letter Spirit Realm were hard at work. Paper airplanes wheeled through the air of the realm, letter after letter was carried off through the tree hollows to distant places, and all the while Light of Wishes condensed and gathered within the realm itself.

Even amid their busyness, the other nymphs noticed this figure who had come from the Divine Kingdom of Creation, and glanced over in curiosity.

And in that same moment, they knew who she was.

One of them called out, "Rosa! What brings you here?"

The nymph called Rosa was tall of stature, and even as she walked she held her body deliberately, earnestly straight. Her bearing was not light and nimble like the other nymphs, who seemed like wind spirits drifting through the forest sea. Instead, she carried an air of nobility and dignity.

The wreath of flowers upon her head, bathed in the glow, could almost be mistaken for a crown.

In her hands she cradled a book, as though she might study at any moment, in any place.

Set against a certain indolent nymph who was forever sprawled on the beach basking in the sun, who never lifted a finger and thought only of cadging free meals, the contrast could not have been greater.

Yet when they came closer, they found that she was still quite "young."

She was, after all, a Second-Rank nymph, and had not yet come to possess a spirit realm of her own.

Before the Fourth-Rank, there was no threshold at all for the nymph race. Once a Wood Nymph reached a certain age, she would naturally begin to choose a spirit realm.

So the First-Rank was something like infancy, the Second-Rank like youth, and the Third-Rank was adulthood.

In truth, even the rank of apostle was not so hard for the nymph race to attain, for they were born already bearing a mission, a single link within the rules themselves. Even the number of nymphs that came into being followed, faintly, the rule of need.

A dozen or more nymphs, some visiting and some on watch in the Letter Spirit Realm, gathered around and looked at Rosa.

"Rosa, haven't you chosen yet?"

Rosa shook her head.

The other Wood Nymphs cared deeply for their companion, and at once began to talk it over.

"Do you still want to choose the Door Spirit Realm?"

"That's simply impossible."

"Rosa, why not choose a different one instead?"

All the Wood Nymphs knew that Rosa wished to build the legendary Door Spirit Realm.

But better still, they knew how difficult a thing the Door Spirit Realm was to build.

"The Letter Spirit Realm is quite lovely too. Every day you get to see all sorts of stories, and watch the most beautiful longings and hopes turn into Light of Wishes."

"Or you could be like Raphael. The Storage Spirit Realm isn't bad either."

"Raphael's been full of regret lately, though. She says she's no Storage Nymph but a Warehouse Nymph, hauling things back and forth all day long. And there's a great wooden mallet in there that keeps hammering at her. When there's a surplus she gets no share of it, and when something goes missing she's the one who has to pay for it."

"So really, the Letter Spirit Realm is best..."

Most nymphs preferred the ordinary, settled comfort of the Letter Spirit Realm, and disliked anything that crossed the lines or rose above the commonplace.

Rosa held her book close and thanked them all.

"Thank you all for your concern. But it is true that my spirit realm is still not decided."

"Because it is such a weighty matter, I would like to wait a little longer."

Then Rosa asked, "May I ask, is Lady Hila still here?"

"There are some difficult questions and doubts I have, and I would like to seek her guidance."

When Wood Nymphs ran into trouble, they would usually go to the Sun Cup Flower Sea and seek out the spirits there first of all to resolve it.

Never mind that the spirits seemed unreliable, all careless and devil-may-care in their manner.

But if you truly had a problem, you could find your answer with them, or within the great Spirit Library.

These beings had lived on from the very dawn of mythology to the present day, and they knew nearly every secret in this world. Whatever they did not know was surely recorded within the great Spirit Library.

What is more, some of the great spirits were rather dependable, and would often help the nymphs with great warmth.

So for the Wood Nymph Rosa to come seeking the Dream Sovereign, she must have met with a problem beyond the ordinary bounds, one that even those great spirits could not solve.

"Is Lady Hila in the tree house?" one nymph wondered, for some of them did not know either.

"Lady Hila has been down at the underground river beneath the forest of late. There's a city there, upon the underground river, a very ancient city, and Lady Hila is there with God Yinsai." The voice came from a Wood Nymph seated on a swing, drawing near and fading away with each sway of it.

"The spirits say it's called Anho City," another recalled.

Rosa found the entrance to the underground, passed through a cavern tangled with luminescent roots, and came to the deep places of the earth, where she beheld the ancient city that bore the name Dark River.

Stepping out of the cavern, she pressed on, her eyes fixed on the far-off city.

Rushhh~

The underground dark river surged on without end, and nothing could be heard but the sound of water.

A luminescent glow wreathed the city walls and the vaulted domes, holding a serene beauty beyond words.

Having come this far, Rosa was suddenly seized by a flutter of unease.

She had come to ask the Dream Sovereign whether she might make use of the reflection that lay beneath the Gate of the Divine Kingdom of Creation, and so build a Door Spirit Realm to call her own.

In truth, Rosa had sought out the Dream Sovereign once before, and told this Supreme Divine Being that she wished to walk the path of the Door Spirit Realm.

But the Dream Sovereign Hila had told the Wood Nymph Rosa that to build a Door Spirit Realm, one must possess the power of a Demigod.

That alone was already staggering.

Yet this was not, in fact, the hardest problem.

The difficulty was that the Dream Ability lacked the kind of reincarnation method the Wisdom Ability possessed, a means by which a dream being might break past the Fourth-Rank position and become a mythology.

Hila was the first mythology of the Dream, yet she had ascended to godhood by way of the Divine Cup.

In a certain sense, Hila's own position was only Fifth-Rank. It was simply that she held the sole root of all Dreams, and commanded the Divine Cup and the wellspring of every dream power, so that rank had, for her, lost the greater part of its meaning.

And the other miraculous Mythical Artifacts had likewise become mythologies from the power poured forth out of the Divine Cup.

Such a method, of course, could not be used lightly.

Rosa had no choice but to seek another path.

And the Reflection Realm that the Storage Nymph Saint Raphael had stumbled upon by chance made Rosa feel that the building of a Door Spirit Realm had become possible once more.

But to accomplish such a thing, she would need the guidance of the Dream Sovereign Hila, and the permission of this Supreme Divine Being.

Rosa touched lightly at the sky, drifting downward step by step, until at last she alighted within the city.

This city was vast beyond measure. In sheer grandeur and height alone, it far surpassed any city of the Snake People.

Come to rest within the city, Rosa looked upon the silent streets and the buildings piled upon buildings, and felt a wave of dizziness sweep over her.

Rosa called out, "Lady Hila? Where are You?"

But she did not have to search for long before she found the right direction.

It was as though some power in the unseen deep had guided her, bringing her before a towering temple.

The Dream Sovereign Hila was waiting for her upon the steps before this temple, watching her with a smile.

Rosa came to the foot of the steps and bowed, and as she rose she heard this Supreme Divine Being ask her.

"Rosa! Why are you so set on this, so bent on building the Door Spirit Realm?"

The Supreme Divine Being gave voice to Rosa's own wish. "You wish to bind this world together, to make this world smaller."

"But this world reaches far beyond anything you can imagine. Though you spend the whole of your life and exhaust every ounce of your strength, you could never truly grasp the vastness of this world."

"The doors you build will never make this world smaller. They will only widen the unknown before your eyes."

"If your wish is wrong from the very beginning, if the direction you set out in is not right, then in the end you will never arrive at the place you first wished to reach."

For Wood Nymphs and Spirits alike, a wish was a matter of the utmost importance.

This was why Hila had not, the last time, agreed to Rosa's notion, but had instead sent her to read in the Spirit Library.

Rosa told Hila, "Lady Hila, in obedience to Your divine word, I have been reading in the Spirit Library of late."

"Books from the last era, and from this era as well."

"There were books You had written, and the Creator's chapters You had recorded."

"The self I once was knew only the world as it appeared before my eyes."

"Yet no one has ever truly understood this world, nor understood the starry sky above our heads."

"No one has ever known what the earth beneath our feet is truly like, nor how vast the oceans are. And beyond even them lie unknown stars, and places more distant still."

Rosa clutched her book tightly, a look of yearning in her eyes.

There was awe in it, and there was longing.

It was like a traveler upon the road who, having long kept his eyes fixed ahead, chanced to lift his head and behold the boundless river of stars.

"This world is too vast, and too far-reaching."

Hila said, "It is because of its vastness and its mystery that it stirs such longing, that it seems so beautiful."

Rosa held her book close. "And so, Lady Hila, there must be a door such as this. A door that walks toward the unknown vastness, and comes to know its unknown beauty."

Rosa had changed her mind, and changed her wish as well.

"I hope the door I open will not only connect the world we already know, but also lead into the world we do not."

Even before Rosa arrived, Hila had already known her purpose. What she had asked after was nothing but Rosa's own heart, her true wish and longing.

Now Hila knew that Rosa was no longer as she had been.

She now held within her the possibility of becoming a Door Nymph.

Hila felt a quiet gladness, and she told Rosa, "The twisted space within the reflection is shaped by the power of the Gate of the Divine Kingdom of Creation. It is no ordinary space, and for ones such as you it is exceedingly dangerous."

"Even though you are a Wood Nymph, with the power to move through dreams and space, in that place you would struggle to find your bearings or your goal."

"It is a reflection, and there all things are false."

When she had finished speaking, Hila drew out a key and held it out to Rosa.

Rosa took it with the greatest care, then lifted her head to look at the Dream Sovereign.

"Lady Hila, what is this?"

Hila told her, "The Star Key. With it you may enter the Reflection Realm and never lose your way."

"Through it you can reshape the space within the Reflection Realm, and command the laws that govern it."

Rosa's hand trembled. She looked at Hila. "Lady Hila, I am only a small Second-Rank nymph."

"That You would allow me to enter the Reflection Realm is already more than enough."

"An artifact such as this is not one I ought to take. It is too powerful, and far too precious."

Hila told Rosa, "You are not a small Second-Rank nymph. You are the Door Nymph."

Hearing Hila say this, Rosa's eyes went blank for a moment, then kindled with a shining light.

Rosa lowered her head and gazed at this strange key.

The key was ornate in appearance, looking much like a small scepter, its handle crowned with a hollow, openwork sphere.

Within the hollow sphere, there was nothing but emptiness.

And yet Rosa felt that something ought to be held inside it.

She lifted her head again. "Why is it called the Star Key?"

Hila asked Rosa with a smile, "What are the stars of the Dream Realm?"

Rosa answered thoughtfully, "The dreams of mortals."

Hila added, "They can also be the dreams of wishes."

"In time, as you use it to gather more of these dreams of wishes, it will change, and the true power of the Star Key will reveal itself."

"As for its further uses and powers, those you must try and discover for yourself."

Having said this, Hila cautioned Rosa. "Even with the Star Key in hand, your strength for now is far too slight, nowhere near enough to build the Door Spirit Realm you long for."

Rosa clamped the book tightly against her, one hand gripping the Star Key in earnest.

"Lady Hila, thank You for granting us our long, enduring lives."

"I have time enough to spend my whole life building the Door Spirit Realm, to connect this world, and to reach toward the more distant unknown."

Hila went on, "But to build a true Door Spirit Realm, there remain far too many problems you cannot yet solve."

"Just as it once was for Saint Raphael, everything must begin from the very start."

"One day you may have to make a journey into the mortal world, to seek the means of building a Door Spirit Realm, and the means of wielding one."

"After all, the door you open is not merely your own. It is the great gate through which all living beings may pass to the world beyond."

Rosa said, "I will do it."

"Once I have explored the Reflection Realm and grasped its secrets, I will go into the mortal world."

Watching Rosa's earnest manner, Hila could not help but laugh. "The way you go by the book, so rigid and precise, you seem neither like a nymph nor like a spirit."

"It is good to strive for a dream. But more than that, I would rather see you all be happy."

Something occurred to Hila all at once, and she murmured softly, "Because we are the dreams of God."

"The most beautiful of dreams."

Rosa did not catch the meaning of that last line. A little bashful, she said, "I am learning from You."

And Hila, before others, was in truth learning from Yin Shen.

Yet somewhere in the learning, it seemed, they had all drifted off course. No one thought that Hila was imitating Yin Shen, and no one thought that Rosa was imitating Hila.

That eternal will, standing above the flow of the ages, drew its greatness from within itself. It seemed such a thing could never be attained through imitation alone.

The earnest, by-the-book Rosa took her leave. She hugged the book firmly to her chest, and the hands folded before it held the Star Key.

As she left Hila's presence she still walked slowly, her back held straight. But as she drew near to going, her step turned light and quick.

Like a butterfly she passed through the wide streets, then leapt into the air and took to strolling across the sky.

She was so very happy.

She spun in circles within the luminescent cavern, lifting the book and the key high above her head.

"I am the Door Nymph."

These were words that Lady Hila herself had spoken, and they filled her with boundless pride.

Within the sealed underground city of Anho, Hila turned and looked back at the temple behind her.

The Ice Temple.

From this temple, once one of the Nine Great Ritual Temples, had come no end of brilliant, gifted figures. Lan had once been the high priest of this temple, and many of his successors had served as its high priest as well.

Even hundreds of millions of years later, one could still see within this temple the traces of their having once existed.

Hila entered the main hall, where two figures of God Yinsai stood within.

One, mottled by the passage of ages, had been wrought of stone.

The other, draped in white, had endured the eons without decay.

Yin Shen stood before His own statue, His back to the great doors, gazing at who knew what.

Hila walked over. Of the matter of the Door Nymph just now, Hila made no mention.

A small thing such as that, naturally, there was no need to tell God Yinsai.

"God, what are You looking at?"

In truth, the so-called statue held only the rough outline of a human form, carved from pure white stone. Were it set before the people of the present day, none could tell whose likeness it was.

But in the last era, every Trilobite Man knew that this was God Yinsai.

Upon their altar there stood only one god.

Only when Hila drew near and followed Yin Shen's gaze did she see that what He looked upon was not the statue at all, but the writing upon the altar.

There at the statue's feet, line upon line had been carved, written in the ancient Wisdom Script.

"The saints have passed, the apostles wither, and even the sages shall step into the cycle of reincarnation."

"In the end we could not wait for the Divine Being to return. One thousand years was too short. The God-Forsaken Era may last more than ten thousand years, perhaps even longer."

"O you who come after, the eternal Divine Being is destined to return. Please wait with patience."

"Apostle of Yinsai, Anli."

These were words left by those who came before for those who would follow, in the hope that those who followed might wait with hope in their hearts.

Beneath the statue's feet there was also a hidden compartment, and within it something still lay concealed.

Yin Shen lowered His head, and saw the thing inside.

It was a Bone Book.

Recorded within were the Spirit Activation Technique, the methods for using Seal Imprints, and Divine Techniques such as the Art of God's Grace, and more besides.

These were the core secret arts of the First Era, and whoever had hidden them here seemed to have feared that the inheritance might one day be broken.

They had thought that if one day the god should return, someone might recover from this place all that had once been, and win back the power of the Temple of Truth.

The words could be made out, and at the very beginning there was a passage of autobiography.

"I am Anli, student of the second-generation Sage of Truth, Lan. At twenty-eight, in the Ice Temple, I became an apostle through the Ice Seal Imprint."

"At thirty, from the Ice Ritual I mastered the laws of water, ice, and vapor, pioneering a three-element Seal Imprint and branding it upon the Divine Cup."

"At forty, I possessed a three-element domain, and defeated two high priests of the heretical cult."

"...Stuen, the third-generation Sage of Truth Vivien, and I assaulted the Sacred Mountain, and together with Asai, the Reincarnator of Anhofus, we slew the Evil God, the Little Person in the Bottle."

At the end of the Bone Book, the writer had set down these words.

"I was a person of extraordinary gifts. I was once the youngest apostle of all."

"But O you who come after, talent is not the same as genius, and power is not the same as wisdom."

"Use your power with caution, and master your wisdom with care."

"That is the true treasure the King of Wisdom left to us."

Yin Shen turned, and looked toward the other reaches of the temple.

This was but one of the secrets hidden within this temple, one of the many who had left their traces behind.

This temple held far too many stories.

And it had borne witness to far too much history.

Each of them had a story of their own, a hope of their own, and a longing.

He gazed at these traces, and suddenly said, "To be able to leave a trace, to prove that one once existed. It is truly a wondrous thing."

Hila seemed to know what Yin Shen was thinking. She said to Yin Shen, "You too have left Your mark, there within the flow of the ages."

Yin Shen looked at the stone statue that bore not even a face, and said, "The only ones who can see me are you and Shelly, Hila."

Hila said, "Because we exist."

"Our very existence is the imprint You left in passing through time, the footprints You trod across the ages."

The Blood Kingdom of the Deep Sea

Throughout this Kingdom of God, lights burned everywhere, and on all sides one could see people coming and going.

Though grand and vast, it did not seem lifeless in the least.

In this kingdom everyone bore God's Form, and every Trilobite Symbiote looked like no ordinary being. Some had a heroic, striking appearance, some the air of a scholar, and others the bearing of a master.

Kings and generals, scholars and poets, painters and musicians appeared here in endless number, and nearly every one of them had something that made them unique.

Everything about this kingdom was precisely as it was told in the myths and legends of mortals, a place made for longing.

At the edge of the divine kingdom, a lighthouse suddenly blazed with radiant light, guiding home one who returned from afar.

The people within the city stirred at once, coming forth to welcome the Trilobite Symbiote who had returned from the end of the cycle of reincarnation.

"Who has come back?" someone asked.

"No idea," another replied.

"Quite a stir, though!"

When the returning figure stepped out from the sea of flowers, everyone recognized him at once.

"It's King Osis!" someone cried out.

"He's back." The people's feelings toward Osis were complicated, and differing attitudes could be seen throughout the crowd.

"I hear he made a fine king this time," one said, in praise of the life Osis had lived.

"It is no easy thing to be the last of the kings. To bring it all to a fitting end is no small feat," another sighed.

"As I recall, you did not speak this way in the last era. You held real hatred for Osis then." In that bygone age, Osis, who had opened the God-Forsaken Era the very moment he took the throne, had without question been steeped in doubt and blame.

Osis walked out from beneath the lighthouse. Along the stairway that climbed toward the Temple of Truth on the heights, many Trilobite Men came forth, and those who knew him well came over to greet him.

Alpens looked at Osis. "You've changed."

Alpens and Osis were both members of the Henir family, of much the same generation.

Osis said, "I have come to see some things clearly."

Alpens laughed. "Then in your next turn through the cycle, what will you want to do?"

Osis thought for a while, then told Alpens, "When the next cycle begins, this time I want to reclaim my body, and certain things that were once mine."

He paused, then said, "And most important of all..."

"The Yinsai Crown."

Alpens's expression turned grave. Though this crown had been forged in a later age, it held no less significance for the Trilobite Men present.

At that moment, Osis suddenly turned his eyes to the Temple of Truth on the heights. Its great doors were shut fast, sealed off entirely by some powerful force.

"What is Lady Vivien doing?"

Alpens glanced at Osis and told him, "The Eye of True Knowledge has gathered enough at last. Now Lady Vivien means to forge it into a Mythical Artifact."

"And more important still," Alpens said gravely, "is to bring Lady Anli back to life in the form of a Wisdom Seed."

Osis thought for a moment. "As I recall, it was not only the Eye of True Knowledge that shattered. Something went wrong with Lady Anli's God's Grace Stone as well."

"Can Lady Anli truly be brought back?"

"And in the form of a Wisdom Seed?"

Alpens said, "Lady Vivien is certain to have a way."

In truth, they did not know either. This had passed beyond the reach of their understanding, into the domain of mythological knowledge.

At this very moment, a stir broke out within the Temple of Truth, and a terrible power came rolling down from on high.

A mighty domain barrier spread outward, and in the same instant it pierced through the barrier of reality, flinging open the gate that led to the Dream Realm, the very kingdom of the gods.

"A mythology."

Every Trilobite Symbiote lifted their gaze, and each of them understood what this meant.

A brand-new mythology was about to be born.