It Begins
The three of them were gone. Stripped of presences that strong, the cavern turned bleak in a single breath.
The path they had taken collapsed with a dry clatter, and only a cold wall remained, as if the way had never been there at all.
Inside the hollow, only Pele, San-gun, Dan Chuyeon, and Mi Soryeong were left.
Rain fell. Pele raised a transparent membrane to catch what poured through the hole in the ceiling, and the soft drum of it against the barrier sounded quietly through the stillness.
"Come here."
"Yes."
Dan Chuyeon hauled his tension-stiff body toward the goddess. Sweat slid to the point of his chin.
"Don't fret. Just open it."
He swallowed.
Slowly he worked the lock of the necklace. Perhaps he was wound too tight; his sweat-slick fingers kept slipping, and every time they did, he felt as though he had committed some mortal sin. Up above, people were staking their lives against villains, and he could not even undo a single clasp. The wretchedness of it sank all the way into self-loathing.
"Easy."
Pele soothed him. Time was short, and still she did not lose her ease. The boy in front of her was young yet, short on experience and short on power. As a goddess she had seen many children like him. Nerves were only natural. That he had come without cowering, head up, was already worth praise. She comforted him, and her eyes glittered like the sun. For a moment the true face of Pele showed through: patron goddess of Hawaii, and a mother of another kind.
"Undo the clasp there and turn the handle. It'll open."
His breath came hard and fast. Like a fledgling obeying its mother, Dan Chuyeon undid the lock with sudden ease.
At last it appeared before the heir: the thing his father held dearer than his own life, the thing the family had guarded for generations.
"Ah..."
A low sound of wonder escaped him. He had expected something out of the ordinary, but what came forth blew every shallow guess of his clean away. It had been beautifully cut into an oval. The surface curved in one unbroken sweep, without a single edge, and not a grain of dust clung to it. No jewel in the world could compare. That alone would have been staggering, and yet its true worth lay elsewhere.
The scent of grass brushed past. Even in a god's domain his body had felt faintly ill at ease; now it settled, as if he were lying in an open field.
Life stretched.
Shoots pushed out of leaves. Moss crept over the walls. Insects became butterflies in an instant and took to the air, while vines crawled across the ceiling.
"Whoaaa..."
"Grrung. Grrung."
"Mm..."
"Haa..."
Everything that lived was drawn to the light. Freed from its cramped prison and apparently delighted, Life flaunted itself far more than usual. This was a space where a god dwelled, and still it slipped into the domain as if it were nothing—a miracle that overwhelmed even a god's aura and dyed it its own.
Life had descended.
Dan Chuyeon understood by instinct why his family had guarded this thing all their lives. It was something that must never go out into the world. The moment it became known, the world would turn into a battlefield.
Thump.
He clutched his chest. It hurt. His heart thrashed, his blood ran faster and faster, and his vision narrowed until only Life remained.
This is...
He understood. He and that stone were resonating. The power of nature his master had taught him rejoiced as violently as if it had met family long thought dead. The power whispered.
Touch it. Hurry.
Take it into yourself.
Everything you are is there.
In a daze, Dan Chuyeon drew the stone from the necklace and brought it straight to his mouth—
"Snap out of it, you idiot."
"Ghk!"
Pele's knife-hand stopped the reckless act cold. The boy who took the blow clutched his throat and very nearly died of it.
"Hah—! What just happened?"
"Later, have your master beat some mental discipline into you. Frail as this, and you..."
With all the tenderness of tossing one last treat at a brat who already got on her nerves, she knuckled him on the head.
"Ow!"
"Hold that out."
"Yes..."
Crestfallen, Dan Chuyeon held Life out, and Pele's hand settled over his.
"Focus, and listen. I'm going to make Life mine and use that power to break the seal. When I do, you have to guide it so the power doesn't run wild."
She was utterly grave.
"...Guide it?"
"Yeah. Just keep this little troublemaker from going berserk."
"...And how am I supposed to do that?"
"Hmm..."
Pele stroked her chin.
"Like driving a car? No, wait. For you it's a bicycle, right?"
Dan Chuyeon stared.
So how, exactly, was he supposed to do that!
He was dumbfounded. This person—no, this goddess—was catastrophically bad at explaining things.
"Ahem. Child of Nature, what I say doesn't really matter."
She cleared her throat, as if she herself were embarrassed.
"You just have to listen to nature's voice. Trust yourself. Trust your power. You'll understand what to do on your own."
"That's..."
Isn't that way too vague?
He never finished the sentence, but Pele smiled warmly, as if she already knew the rest.
"It's all right. You can do it."
"...No."
Don't brush this off with a line that belongs in a comic. This is serious.
He swallowed the sigh that nearly escaped. Either way, he had to try now. He was already astride the tiger, and there was no getting down.
Rrrumble—!
"...Miryu."
"Krrrr."
The cavern shook once. A foul sensation scraped across Dan Chuyeon's skin, and gooseflesh rose.
"This is...?"
Pele's face turned savage.
The voice she spat vanished as flame.
"Everyone, get in close."
Drawing on the Life that filled the cavern, Pele completed a makeshift barrier. When the thing woven of fire and Life took shape, all of them breathed out in relief.
"What was that just now?"
"The Eclipse God unfolded a Sanctuary. He spread one like the place I'm in, up above us."
"What?!"
The color drained from Mi Soryeong's face.
"Miryu! Miryu's all right, isn't he?!"
"A Sanctuary is a domain that belongs to a god alone. If my power were whole, maybe. As I am now, I can't tell a thing."
At that bitter truth, Mi Soryeong beat a hand against her chest. San-gun licked her, as if to say it would be all right.
"He is all right... isn't he?"
"He probably will be."
Grave as things were, Pele steadied mind and body at once.
"We just have to do what we came to do. Don't worry about the ones who went up to fight. They aren't the sort to go down that easily."
"...Understood."
Dan Chuyeon looked at his mother. Her eyes, fixed on the ceiling, were wretched, and yet firm with faith in her husband.
Mom's strong.
It was a side of her he had never seen at home.
"We begin."
"Yes."
Dan Chuyeon stopped his groaning. Whether it worked or not, this was no time to argue.
Vmmm.
Beneath their overlapping hands, Life surged. Pele, goddess of volcanoes and of fire, faced a Life without end.
"Krrraaaah!!!"
Dan Chuyeon felt as if his hand would burst. Fire and Life, blocked by nothing but a palm, traded blow for blow. Fire devoured Life and swelled. Life crushed the fire beneath its sheer size and snuffed it out.
How am I supposed to control this!
Just holding on so he was not flung clear was all he could manage. Regulating Life was out of the question.
How did Dad ever handle this!
"Focus! Listen to nature's voice!"
Dan Chuyeon answered as if he were screaming.
"Yes!"
"You can do it! I guarantee it, and I'm a goddess!"
KUUUUUN!!!
Life shoved the goddess back. Under that brutal impact, the barrier cupped in their hands cracked, and fire and Life spilled free to tear through the cavern.
"Kyaa!"
"Graaang!!!"
San-gun called on the power of Heaven and shielded himself and Mi Soryeong.
"Gggh—!!!"
Seeing his mother nearly come to harm, Dan Chuyeon listened with everything he had. Do or die.
Nature's voice! Nature's voice!
He did not know what that even was. Let something—anything—reach him.
Let me hear it! Let me hear it!
He searched desperately for nature. Mi Soryeong's faint words, San-gun's growl, Pele's groan, the sound of the cavern breaking: he heard all of it. What they called nature's voice, he did not.
"...Damn it!"
He looked at the Life that had made this mess. With his father it had never acted like this. The moment it got loose, it rampaged like a madman.
"Listen to me! I'm Dad's son too!"
He drew up the power of nature, and nature wedged itself between fire and Life. It tried to mediate, but the two swallowed it and fought all the harder.
"Khak!"
A dull impact struck him from within, and Dan Chuyeon vomited blood.
"It's dangerous! Fall back!"
"No!"
Pele tried in a rush to shove him away, but Dan Chuyeon rose, bold as anything.
"...I think I can do it!"
"...Good! That's how a man ought to be!"
She hesitated a moment, then trusted those eyes burning with will.
"Hraaaaah!!!"
Dan Chuyeon drove nature in again. It was a shrimp throwing itself into a fight between whales, and the shrimp faced them as proudly as a warrior who did not know fear. It burst. It collapsed. It was trampled without mercy. And still it kept appearing, wedging itself into the battle between the two.
"Huk—! Khak!"
The blood he shed pooled upon the leaves. His skin went blue, and the light in his eyes began to die, but his knees did not bend and his hands did not let go.
"Splendid! You can, so keep going!"
"Hnnnngh!!!"
Pele cheered him on, and Dan Chuyeon threw warrior after warrior into the fray like a machine.
Then applause—clap, clap, clap—spread through the chaotic cavern.
"Keuheoheohung!!!!!!"
San-gun's cry shook heaven and earth. At that sound Pele's gaze turned. Beyond the barrier, a silhouette was walking toward them.
When the silhouette revealed itself, Pele snarled.
"A bastard who didn't even finish dying, and you dare show your face here..."
"I'm thrashing around so I don't finish the job, aren't I? I'm having a rough time of it. Cut me a little slack."
"A wretch thrown away even by his own father, and you still run your mouth!!!"
"And how did you figure out who I am?"
A beautiful man, black wings spread, tapped the barrier.
"Knock, knock. May I come in? I've come to bring you a good word."
The Eclipse God smiled.