Chapter 493: Sacred Mountain of Light and King of the Sky Messengers

A squad of sky messengers, nearly ten strong, together with an aircraft trailing a dreamlike rainbow behind it, cut through the high sky, drawing every eye, whether by day or by night.

All along the way, people came rushing out of the winged people's villages below, circling beneath them and then bowing down in worship.

Of course, when most of the winged people looked up, the first thing their eyes landed on was not the sky messengers at all, but Ray's aircraft.

Even the messengers flying alongside him, born with wings to soar the sky themselves, could not help a remark at the sight of that aircraft.

"That's... a little too flashy."

Yet even as the words left his mouth, a trace of envy showed plainly in his eyes.

Ray's Miracle Tool of an aircraft was steeped through with a nymph's fantastical color, and whether in power or in form, it was the kind of thing that made people long for it.

They crossed Matale, passing along the way through the Good News Kingdom, founded long ago by ancient sky messengers, and a scatter of small kingdoms squeezed into the gaps between larger ones.

Every night, they would come down to rest on the ground a while.

Ray, together with Number Two and Number Three, would take the chance to observe the customs and character of these other winged kingdoms.

These two kingdoms' territories were far larger than Matale's, and their strength greater as well, but at their core there was no great difference between them. They still belonged to the very same tier of civilization.

They still relied on smelting techniques and hand workshops every bit as primitive as before. Most of the winged people went about barely clothed, and their food was just as simple. A thousand years ago the snake people had prepared and eaten the Curled Ball Fern by the plainest of methods, and this was no different.

Even their nobility did little more than add a few edible greens gathered from the jungle onto their plates, and wash it down with a cup of cloudy wine.

Beneath each great kingdom, the land was carved up into territories large and small, each one like its own vassal state, obeying the king in name only. As Ray passed overhead, he often saw these little kingdoms within kingdoms fall to war over their borders, winged people clashing in midair, spear against spear, or loosing arrows at one another as they fought.

The winged people's own serfs, out in the villages, farmed at the mountain's foot just as the snake people once had, breaking their fields with crude wooden tools.

When it came time to water the fields, though, several of them would carry a water-bearing craft low through the air together, scattering water across the whole field as they passed. It was a sight never to be seen on Ruhe Beast Island.

Every village and town had at least one windmill standing tall, sometimes several. They seemed to have a particular fondness for the power of the wind.

Besides all this, the winged people hardly built roads at all. They rarely walked upon the ground to begin with, and so scarcely a road ran from one winged village to the next.

The settlements were all points separated by wilderness and jungle, scattered like stars, and only between cities was there any chance of a waterway or a road to link them.

Watching all this, Ray could not help but turn to Number Two and Number Three beside him.

"It just struck me how great Oran was, and that person called Kurmis as well."

"The two of them, near enough on their own, changed the whole face of Ruhe Beast Island, and pushed its civilization forward as well."

Ray had never once laid eyes on Kurmis himself, but he still knew of how the god had made the Brown Ball Vine, and gone by the name of the Lord of Harvest.

The Kite Demon Spirit said, "It's not as if you need to eat. Or anything an alchemist makes, either."

It sounded as though she meant that, however great those two might be, it had little enough to do with demon spirits.

They didn't even eat the things those two made, after all, and the Abyss Royal City's own Miracle Workshop could turn out things far better than theirs.

Ray grinned, his translucent blue eyes seeming to catch and bend the light.

"I can eat now, though."

The closer they drew to the Sacred Mountain of Light, the denser the winged people's population grew, and naturally, the more cities appeared as well.

At last, they reached the Oracle Kingdom.

This was also the final stop on the road to the Sacred Mountain of Light.

Ray, following along with the sky messenger squad, entered the city amid all the ceremony and bearing with which the winged people greeted a divine messenger.

Most of those who lived within the city itself were free-born winged people.

They made their living mostly as merchants, craftspeople, patrol guards, or blacksmiths and masons, and the like.

Trace their lines back far enough, and in truth, they were all descendants of the winged people's own nobility.

Ray took a room at the very top of a tall tower and, as he always did, leaned out over the windowsill to take in the view below. To his eyes, every winged person's daily life was a piece of the scenery.

Looking down, he saw a mail courier delivering packages, floor by floor.

The winged courier spread his wings and flew between the tiers of buildings clinging to the steep mountainside, landing again and again at one winged family's door after another, handing over a letter or a package to whoever waited within.

A Rainbow Tree Letter was something only a nation's own power could put to use, and no ordinary person had the standing for one. In the lands of the winged people, a courier who delivered mail by hand was no uncommon trade at all, and communication between them was, if anything, easier than it had ever been back on Ruhe Beast Island.

Watching all this, Ray found himself suddenly seized with the urge to go out and walk around for himself.

"Number Two, Number Three, let's go down and take a look too!"

Ray called for the Big-Head Demon Spirit and the Kite Demon Spirit, and the three of them headed down together.

In the cities of the winged people, many ropes ran between one building and the next, strung with pulleys as well. Ray often saw the winged people there send things along these ropes and pulleys, passing an item down to another level below.

And so Ray now found himself gripping an iron bar, sliding down one of those ropes toward the level beneath.

"Whoa~"

It felt nothing like flying through the sky, but it was thrilling all the same, in its own way.

He shot past building after building clinging to the mountainside, and every winged person along the way stared at him in open shock. No small number of them bowed on the spot, or even dropped to their knees.

"My lord!"

"My lord!"

"..."

Ray paid it no mind. He knew that stopping to explain himself would only make things more complicated.

So he went on his way, looking about him, hoping to find somewhere he could get something to eat.

Along the way, he saw a few winged children running about.

The children chased one another with little toy windmills in hand, laughing and shrieking, and to Ray's surprise, they too had learned to slide along the ropes between the tiered mountainside buildings, just as he had.

Many of these children had not fully grown yet, their wings still undeveloped, so they could not fly properly. All they could manage was a few low flaps close to the ground.

The grown-ups were plainly afraid of Ray, but the children were bolder by far.

"Where are your wings?" The moment they saw him their mouths fell open, and the children behind pushed the children ahead of them, until they had all come right up before Ray.

"It must've happened in a fight with an abyss monster. The abyss monsters took them away, those horrible monsters." The children had taken Ray for a wingless sky messenger, and Number Two and Number Three, naturally, for his own battle companions, or a pair of seal puppets.

"I've heard about that!" The children had heard no end of stories about sky messengers battling abyss monsters, and among them was the tragic, moving legend of one whose wings had been torn away by an abyss monster, never to fly again.

"Don't be sad. It's a mark of honor." The children, who worshiped the sky messengers deeply, went on to comfort Ray as best they could.

Ray stood there among the children, at a complete loss for how to answer.

But the children were soon called away by the grown-ups, and Ray made his way down another level, until at last he found a small inn.

Watching Ray eat with such gusto, Number Two and Number Three could not help asking him about it.

Number Three asked, "How does it taste?"

Number Two put in, "Is it good?"

Ray closed his eyes and swallowed the last bite of his food, then spoke with the utmost gravity.

"Mm!"

"It's delicious!"

In truth, the food in a plain little inn like this was nothing special, but for a metal puppet who had gone countless years without tasting anything, simply being able to taste at all counted for something rare indeed.

Ray took a sip of the wine as well.

"This one's sweet."

Number Two asked, "How sweet?"

Number Three wanted to know as well.

"What does sweet even feel like?"

A fire demon fed on fire essence, and a stone demon needed only eat stone. A wing demon looked as though it would eat anything at all, but at its core it was no different from any other demon.

None of these demons possessed a true body of flesh and blood, and so, naturally, none of them had any sense of taste, or of pain, or anything of that kind.

Ray said, "I can't really put it into words. But sweet is a taste that makes you feel happy."

The Kite Demon Spirit, full of curiosity, said, "A taste that makes you feel happy?"

The Big-Head Demon Spirit let out a buzzing hum of their own, the flame inside their head swelling and swelling.

"I want to try it too."

Ray looked at Number Two and Number Three.

"You just have to put in the work, and then take on God's Form. That's all there is to it."

Number Two and Number Three fell silent.

Ray seemed to sense their own longing too, and his deep blue eyes shifted, ever so slightly.

"Or maybe we can think of another way."

---

All along the road, Ray's little band of adventurers had tasted every flavor of the winged people's lands, and seen every manner of city and building.

At last, Ray caught his first sight of the sky messengers' Sacred Mountain of Light.

The sky messengers all let out a cheer, one after another.

"We're here!"

These sky messengers never seemed to care much for coming down off the mountain. They preferred to live up on the Sacred Mountain rather than stay in the mortal world below.

"We're back."

Lomier, a little excited himself, flew up beside Ray.

"The Sacred Mountain is just ahead, Ray."

Aboard the aircraft, Ray looked up, and saw a mountain range that seemed to shimmer faintly with gold beneath the sunlight.

Raising his eyes higher, he could just make out its topmost peak, wrapped in cloud, the outline of buildings showing dimly through.

It was a towering range of mountains, standing at the very center of the three great winged kingdoms.

Its height and breadth even surpassed Fenbuk, the winged people's own mountain of old.

And yet, set beside the Mountain of Life's Origin, it still fell far, far short.

That mountain range was not natural at all. It was nothing but a Heaven Pillar, driven straight into the earth.

The aircraft touched down upon the Sacred Mountain, and Ray took in one white, magnificent building after another. He could still make out the winged people's own style in them, but they surpassed every city and every structure he had seen along the whole of his journey.

Great temples and spires rose up, ring upon ring of archways set into the cliffs around them, every building crowned with a pointed roof and square windows, their walls carved with figures of extraordinary craftsmanship.

But once Ray had gone deeper inside, he found there were far fewer sky messengers here than he had imagined.

Across the whole of the Sacred Mountain of Light, there were only about a hundred sky messengers in all.

It did not even measure up to the number of sky messengers in the Avel people's legends, from hundreds of years before.

After all these years had passed, why were there fewer of them now, not more?

Carrying that question with him, Ray made his way, little by little, to the winged people's Radiant Temple.

Lomier led the way ahead, and told him as they went.

"It is the King of the Sky Messengers who wishes to see you. She has been waiting for you a long while now."

Ray said, "I've been hoping to meet the legendary King of the Sky Messengers, Duma, myself. They say her beauty and her nobility go beyond anything of this mortal world."

"And they say it's not only her face that's beautiful and noble. Her heart is the same."

"If not for her, the snake people of the Avel Peninsula back then might well have died out long ago, and that last battle might never have been won at all."

Lomier was overjoyed to hear Ray say such things.

He led Ray up to a great pair of doors, and there he stopped.

Then he made a gesture of invitation.

"Please, go in!"

Ray went in, but Lomier stayed behind, keeping watch outside the door.

Even so, his eyes kept drifting sideways, as though he too longed for a glimpse of what lay within, a look at the King of the Sky Messengers herself.

Ray's footsteps echoed through the hollow temple, but once he had come inside, he found no divine statue at all, only an empty Altar.

Beneath the Altar, Ray saw a single figure.

A holy light poured from her four pairs of long, white wings. She wore a plain white robe, and her fine, clear features carried a bearing that belonged to no mortal world at all, the kind that made anyone want, without meaning to, to fall to their knees before her.

Yet Ray sensed in her a presence that did not belong to this era either, the very same presence he carried himself, one that traced back to the primordial age.

Ray found his thoughts, without his willing it, turning to her other identity.

"This is Xiao's daughter."

"A child born of mythical life."

Ray looked at the female sky messenger before him, and knew now, beyond any doubt, exactly who she was.

Other things could be faked. This presence could not.

She was Xiao's daughter, though some, of course, had also once called her the Divine Child.

Ray was just about to step forward and speak. What he had not expected was that at that very moment two more figures should emerge from either side of the Altar.

Ray's steps stopped short at once, his face going blank, the words dying in his throat.

"...?"

"Why are there three of them?"

Ray realized, too, that the three figures were utterly identical.

Three eight-winged sky messengers.

The three eight-winged sky messengers stood side by side, looked to Ray, and spoke as one.

"Ancient Spirit from the Origin Site of the Gods, you are welcome here."

Ray said nothing for a long moment, as though caught frozen in place.

He studied the three eight-winged sky messengers before him closely, and saw that the one on the left had a hollow, vacant look in her eyes, and yet gave off some vast, powerful wave of mental force.

The one on the right seemed to be recording something, moment to moment, an invisible domain taking shape around her that governed everything nearby.

Only the one in the middle had eyes that looked truly alive, carrying something of a living person's own feeling and warmth.

"Are these three puppets?"

"No. They don't feel like puppets."

"Then what are they?"

Something clicked in Ray's mind, and all at once he understood.

"A Wisdom Consciousness, a Desire Personality. That one must be a Memory Vessel."

Ray looked to Duma.

"You've split your own power into four parts. So you didn't reincarnate according to the complete Path of Wisdom?"

The Duma in the middle stepped forward, drawing closer to Ray.

This was Duma's own Personality, the part of her that led the rest.

She stood taller than he did, which left Ray rather small beside her, forced to tilt his head back just to meet her eyes.

But Ray could see her face clearly now too, and through that holy radiance he made out a certain melancholy in her eyes and features.

Duma said, "So you saw it. You are worthy indeed of a being out of the primordial age."

"It is a kind of divine technique, one that lets me hold the power of several apostles at once."

"But it is not that I have made three of myself, three-in-one. Everything is still led by the one true Personality."

This was a radiant divine technique of Duma's own making, one that traced back, naturally, to their former Lord of Radiance, Xia. It came from his secret technique of splitting a God's Grace Stone into four pieces, together with the method for crafting the divine artifact known as the Marionette of Fate.

The Path of Wisdom was where it had all begun, and these two secret techniques, in turn, held within them everything about how the power of Mythology could be put to use.

Duma had come into possession of this piece of Xiao's own secret art, and naturally she had not let it go to waste. What was more, she had used it to search out her own path toward godhood.

But Duma had not gone so far as to refine herself into an artifact outright. She had only drawn out the parts of it she herself could put to use.

She split her own God's Grace Stone into four pieces, and then, using the method for crafting the Marionette of Fate, fused three of those stones into three bodies she had made for herself.

These represented, in turn, her Wisdom Consciousness, her Desire Personality, and her Knowledge Memory.

All three still shared a single Consciousness between them, with the Personality among them still leading the whole.

But this was not like an ordinary fourth-rank apostle turning out puppets in quantity, since even a fourth-rank apostle could only ever produce masses of third-rank puppets at most. What Duma had done, splitting herself apart like this, was equivalent to holding the power of three fourth-rank apostles at once.

Yet this method was not merely what Duma had made it sound, a way to strengthen her own fighting power.

More than that, it was the way Duma had chosen to protect herself while working toward becoming a Mythology, since a full reincarnation was simply far too dangerous, and it would cost far too much time.

Ray suddenly looked all around, as though searching for something.

"Where's your own Spirituality?"

"There should be one more piece somewhere."

The King of the Sky Messengers did not answer Ray directly. She only asked him, "Ancient being of the First Era, where do you suppose my Spirituality lies?"

Ray studied her expression, and guessed at something more.

"Every sky messenger on the Sacred Mountain of Light, that's your Spirituality?"

The most important part of Duma's divine technique was not that she had split herself into three.

It was that she had given her own Spirituality to every sky messenger there was, and that was exactly why, even after the Gate of Spirituality had been defiled, sky messengers could still be born at all.

Ray was the kind of man who liked to get to the very root of a thing. He lowered his head, sinking into thought.

"So the technique you're using isn't the old method of reincarnation?"

"No. It isn't entirely a new reincarnation technique either. You have no power of Mythology to serve as your own pillar, so you've had to add something of your own into it."

Duma looked at Ray, astonished that he had guessed so quickly, and nodded.

"The old method of reincarnation takes far too long. I had neither the time to spare for it, nor the courage to walk that road."

"I inherited his power, and his Radiant Path of the Sky Messengers."

"All I need do is go on making sky messengers, one after another, and step by step I shall become a Mythology."

Ray knew that the "he" in Duma's words meant her own father, Xiao.

Now, at last, Ray understood it all.

This was not the reincarnation technique of the primordial age, but it wasn't quite the current reincarnation method either.

To put it more precisely, it was a weakened version of the newer reincarnation technique.

It, too, split an apostle's power apart, and let only a portion of it reincarnate rather than the whole. In that much, the two methods were the same.

But this method had no power of Mythology to serve as its pillar, which meant its limits ran deep, and its hidden dangers were no fewer.

Once Ray had worked out just what method Duma was using, he raised his head and spoke to the King of the Sky Messengers before him.

"Duma, this method of yours really is faster than the old reincarnation technique."

"But even if you gave every last drop of your Spirituality to your sky messengers, there would still be a limit to it, wouldn't there?"

"And the moment one of them dies out there, you have no way to call your Spirituality back in time. That portion of your power is simply lost for good."

It was true. Without the power of Mythology as her pillar, Duma could never do as Sukob and Oran did, endlessly producing contract lawyers and tower keepers of her own.

As things stood, she could make and sustain no more than about a hundred sky messengers at once, and that was exactly why Duma had set such strict requirements for the position. Not every sky messenger on the Sacred Mountain of Light was necessarily third-rank, but every one of them had it in them to reach that rank.

More than that, she could only ever produce so many sky messengers to begin with.

What mattered even more was that the moment one of these sky messengers died out in the world, Duma had no way to reclaim that power at all.

Not only could she not grow her own strength this way, she would lose a piece of her Spirituality as well.

It was a method easy enough for someone to exploit.

Even so, this method could still shorten the time needed to become a Mythology by tens, even close to a hundred times over. What once would have taken two hundred million years might now take only a few million.

It still sounded like an impossibly distant hope.

Ray was, after all, no ordinary apprentice of the old Temple of Truth. He saw through every one of Duma's weaknesses at a single glance.

Astonishment lingered a long while on the face of the beautiful, holy, eight-winged sky messenger as she watched him.

"Was everyone from the primordial age like you, able to see straight through to the very nature of the Path of Wisdom at a glance?"

"Perhaps I never should have invited you here at all."

For a reincarnator to lay their own weaknesses bare before another was a dangerous thing indeed.

Ray laughed.

"It certainly looks that way!"

"But I'm no ordinary ancient puppet demon spirit. I come from the Temple of Truth."

A pride he could not quite name came into Ray's voice as he spoke the Temple of Truth's name aloud.

Ray looked at Duma.

"I wonder, did your father ever tell you about this place?"

Duma shook her head.

"The Temple of Truth? I have never heard of it."

Ray said, "It seems he never wanted to speak of where he came from."

Hearing the way Ray spoke of it, Duma understood at once that her father, Xiao, must have come from this place called the Temple of Truth.

Ray said no more about the Temple of Truth.

"But I do genuinely hope you become the winged people's own Mythology."

Duma asked, "Why?"

Ray said, "Because, at the very least, Xiao must never become the winged people's god again, let alone climb onto the divine throne of Spirituality."

Duma said, "You do not like him?"

Ray walked over to stand beside the Altar, looking at its emptiness.

Where Xiao was concerned, Ray carried feelings he could not quite put into words either.

They had both come out of the Temple of Truth, and yet Xiao had later turned traitor to it, gathering up Lan and Anhofus's reincarnation method and the Four-Part Secret Technique of God's Grace, and walking his own road to godhood.

Ray thought him a genius. Some of his ideas, and the secret arts he had left behind, still struck Ray with something close to awe.

And yet Ray hated what Xiao had done all the same. Killing Lan, the second Sage of Truth, was a sin nothing could forgive.

Even so, there were times he found himself wondering.

If Xiao had only walked the right road, what might have become of him?

That included Anhofus too, this student of Haru's, whom Lan had once searched the whole continent for, hoping to bring him back into the fold of the Temple of Truth.

If Lan had found Anhofus again back then, and guided both these geniuses back onto the road that truly belonged to the Saints' own legacy.

If Xiao could have walked some entirely new road together with Lan and Anhofus, would the First Era have turned out completely different?

Would they, these descendants of the Divine King, have had some brand new story of their own to tell?

Perhaps it was only that Ray had fallen silent for too long, but Duma seemed to think he did not want to answer her question.

Duma asked again, "You spoke a moment ago of a new reincarnation technique. What is that?"

Ray came back to himself at last, and spoke.

"As it happens, that's tied to your father too. To escape the calamity of death, he reincarnated only his Spirituality into a Mythology, and that gave the ones who came after him their inspiration."

"It's the same as the Four-Part Secret Technique of God's Grace you're using, reincarnating only one's Spirituality."

"The divine chosen of this era use the god standing behind them as their own pillar, splitting off a portion of their own mythical nature to create an entirely new profession, and later drawing it back into their Divine Kingdom."

"But it's not like this method of yours. Because they have the power of Mythology itself as their pillar, they hold something close to a divine being's own authority, ahead of their time."

"They can ignore distance entirely, and create a whole new extraordinary profession."

"They can ignore distance entirely, answer another's prayer, and call back a returning spirit."

Duma shook her head.

"I have no way of doing that."

Ray looked at Duma.

"Actually, there's another way, and that's to go straight down the path of a mythical artifact."

"That way, without worrying at all about the purity or corruption of one's Divine Blood, you could grow strong very quickly."

"The Feathered Serpent God Kurmis is almost certainly using this very method. That's why he never has to bother with any distinction between beast knights, potions, and magical beasts. He simply devours it all."

"But if you go that way, you'll have no chance of becoming a Demigod, or vying for the Spirituality behind the four great Root Authorities."

Beast knights and magical beasts were, more precisely speaking, servants less of Kurmis than of the Golden Seed Jar.

Duma said, "Without the Gate of Spirituality, the sky messengers can never become true sky messengers."

Ray said, "There's one more way, too. Forge a mythical artifact, and with its power you could accomplish the very same thing."

Ray had heard that Suinhor's Red and Blue Twin Gods, and Anli, once one half of the famous Temple of Truth's twin geniuses, had used this very method.

Only those seeking after the four great Sources of Wisdom's Authority would ever go down a road like that one.

But Ray had no way of knowing that the Feathered Serpent Kurmis actually meant to walk this same road too.

It was only that the Red and Blue Twin Gods' own Mythical Artifact had already been forged.

The road was already half walked, while the Feathered Serpent Kurmis still stood, by comparison, at only its very first step.

Duma thought of her own father, God Xia, and having heard now of all these roads to godhood, she said, "Is the road to becoming a god always this hard?"

Ray said, "That's exactly why they're gods. Without that kind of unshakable conviction and devotion, how could anyone ever become a divine being?"

Duma studied Ray.

"Do you want to become a god yourself?"

"For a being like you, walking that road can hardly be much of a hardship, could it?"

In Ray's clear eyes, a faint reflection of blue sky and white cloud seemed to shimmer.

"Rather than become a god, I'd much sooner go see the world beyond, for myself."

Ray turned his head, looking out past the temple, as though gazing toward someone far away.

"My thanks to my own teacher, Lady Elena. It was she who saved the Abyss, and gave us as well the courage and the strength to seek out lands beyond our own."

"Because of her, we are fortunate."

---

Outside the Radiant Temple

Lomier had stood ramrod straight at the door the whole while, but now and again he could not help leaning close against the wall, catching a snatch of the conversation within.

He heard Duma say those very words, "Is the road to becoming a god always this hard?"

He heard, too, the sigh in Duma's voice as she said, "Without the Gate of Spirituality, the sky messengers can never become true sky messengers."