Smerkel gazed up at the starry sky while Iva stood beside the fire watching him.

The demigod suddenly spoke, finding nothing extraordinary about Smerkel’s wish.

What Smerkel yearned for but could not reach had been Iva’s daily reality.

“If you truly wish it.”

“I can take you to see.”

Smerkel turned to look at Iva, not yet comprehending his meaning.

“To see?”

“Where?”

The myth in dark silver robes spoke calmly: “God’s realm!”

“That dream star sea formed from the dreams of all living beings.”

Smerkel studied Iva in disbelief, finally beginning to understand that before him stood more than just a strange-looking person.

Iva’s origins must be beyond his imagination.

Even the Snake Mother Sermos could not enter God’s realm.

“You can enter God’s realm?”

Iva nodded: “I cannot take you elsewhere, but I can show you the dream star sea.”

Before Smerkel could respond, he noticed Iva beginning to move.

He looked toward the horizon where only clouds hung, nothing else visible.

But Iva seemed to see something else, a massive ship radiating brilliant golden light.

It straddled dreams and reality, traveling along the edges of all living consciousness while still able to influence the laws of this world.

Iva said: “Dawn approaches. The Divine Boat is returning.”

Smerkel knew nothing of the Divine Boat, for until now no one had entered God’s realm.

Until today, they had only known of God’s realm created by the Creator. What existed within God’s realm, what sights it held.

How they would enter God’s realm after death, what form they would take.

The snake people knew nothing of these things.

Their creator, the Mother of Life Shelly, had never told them.

Then Iva displayed powers beyond Smerkel’s imagination.

Power flowed from Iva’s body, mythical light traveling along the earth toward the heavens as an enormous gate appeared behind him.

This was a massive gate of dark silver stone, radiating immortal light.

Upon it was carved a flower that resembled a path leading mortals to myth.

The flower cup bloomed, bearing reflections of all things.

The faces of all living beings appeared within the highest flower cup.

All desires converged here, joy and sorrow intertwining and conflicting. Yet when Smerkel looked closely, he could not make out clear details, as if it had not yet gathered all desires.

The gate was incomplete, giving the impression of recent construction, not yet polished or intricately carved.

Yet even in this state, it left viewers spellbound.

“Gate of Desire.”

Though Smerkel had never seen this gate before, he spoke its name.

He understood this was no object mortals could possess.

Iva beside him must be a deity descended from the Creator’s realm, an existence equal to the Scarlet Witch who ruled the Blood Kingdom of the Deep Sea.

Smerkel suddenly felt fear, wondering what merit he possessed to stand beside a deity.

Iva ascended the steps of the Gate of Desire. The two stone doors opened slowly before him, bridging the boundary between reality and illusion.

Iva turned back to look at Smerkel: “Come.”

Smerkel suddenly felt at ease. If this divine being paid no mind to mortal status, why should he hold himself back?

Smerkel followed behind him, walking in a daze through the Gate of Desire.

Smerkel felt his body and mind twist as he entered a strange realm beyond mortal existence, where ordinary things could not survive.

“Where is this?”

Iva told him: “This is the boundary between the real world and illusion.”

Smerkel looked at the void dark world: “Have we reached God’s realm?”

Iva stood in the void gazing into the distance, as if waiting for something: “Not yet. Only by boarding the Divine Boat can we reach the Creator’s realm.”

Soon Smerkel saw the Divine Boat Iva had mentioned.

A massive golden ship tore through the darkness, its hull radiating brilliant light. At its prow was a metal human head ram, and its sails bore golden sun patterns.

Looking closer, the sun pattern resembled an eggshell.

An egg containing dreams.

When Smerkel’s eyes met the metal ram head, he felt it look at him.

He felt judged in that instant, the good and evil within his heart rising up to conflict within him.

His thoughts could find no peace.

The ship drew closer.

As the ever-growing Divine Boat approached, it became an enormous entity blocking all sight. Even with his head tilted far back, Smerkel could not see the top of the solar sails.

Yet Iva seemed very familiar with this ship.

His soft, thin robes billowed as if waving to someone aboard.

The solar sails moved, light shining upon both Iva and Smerkel.

In a flash of light, they appeared on deck.

The ship was laden with life’s dreams.

Dreams of snake people, winged people, and various animals.

Dense clusters of dreams floated above deck, their oily iridescence reflecting the beginning and end of each life.

Smerkel never imagined that simply chatting with a traveler would lead to such an extraordinary experience, seeing sights never before witnessed.

These were sights known only to the dead, secrets never revealed to the mortal realm.

And now he was privy to these secrets.

Smerkel gazed at each life dream, walking excitedly across the Divine Boat’s deck.

He finally understood what the Divine Boat was, finally comprehended the journey mortals took after death.

So this is where all who die board this ship, traveling to the resting place God has prepared for them.

Iva told him: “It is not over.”

“When truly entering God’s realm, each life dream undergoes judgment. Those with more good than evil become beautiful life dreams hanging in the sky.”

“Those with more evil than good become dream lamps hidden in darkness, until perhaps one day their nightmares might dissipate.”

Smerkel asked Iva: “What determines this good and evil?”

“Is it God?”

Iva looked at Smerkel and said: “No, it is oneself.”

“It is each person’s own heart.”

“In this world, whether good people or bad, whether virtuous or evil, deep in their hearts they clearly know their own good and evil, right and wrong.”

“Even if they do not admit it.”

One may deceive others, but the heart knows its own truth.

Smerkel asked: “What if someone treats their evil as good, deceiving the judgment?”

Iva suddenly smiled, looking at Smerkel earnestly: “Then that person will cycle through their ‘good’ again and again, forever tasting what they believe right across millions of years, never finding release.”

Hearing these words, Smerkel felt a chill to his bones.

He suddenly understood the true meaning of Iva’s words about being able to deceive others but not oneself.

The Divine Boat journeyed through darkness. As dawn began breaking in the mortal world, the Divine Boat passed through God’s realm’s gate, arriving at the dream star sea.

Iva stood at the prow gazing into the distance and spoke: “We have arrived.”

Smerkel immediately focused his attention, observing every change around him.

He wanted to remember every sight here.

This was momentous, for he might be the first snake person to reach this realm alive.

The first person of this era to arrive here.

Smerkel’s vision and perception could not grasp the massive gate of God’s realm. To his eyes, he saw only an endless wall stretching into infinity, its magnitude defying mortal comprehension.

The wall bore an enormous crack, its summit lost in the infinite above.

Only brilliant light streamed through this cosmic fissure, spreading like a divine fan across the dark void.

The life dreams aboard the Divine Boat began their transformation, each soul revealing its true nature. Some blossomed into colors of transcendent beauty while others vanished into darkness, each fate determined by the weight of choices made in life.

As they passed through this celestial threshold, the initially blinding radiance gradually settled, like consciousness slowly awakening to profound truth.

Smerkel finally beheld the dream star sea he had yearned to witness, this vast chronicle of all existence.

His mouth fell open in wonder as he rushed to the Divine Boat’s prow, mortal eyes straining to comprehend immortal mysteries.

“Each light holds a life?” he whispered in awe.

“Each gleam captures an entire journey from first breath to last?”

The vastness of souls represented in this cosmic sea left Smerkel’s mind reeling. Here floated the sum of all consciousness, all joy and suffering, all triumph and tragedy.

An endless river of life dreams flowed from eternity’s horizon, while above them countless stars sparkled with the crystallized hopes of dreamers.

They formed in sleep’s embrace only to scatter upon waking, ephemeral yet eternal.

This sea bore little resemblance to the physical stars that hung above the mortal realm. The natural heavens, though vast and deep, threatened to consume the observer’s soul in their cold infinitude.

But this dream star sea lived up to its ethereal name, suffused with the essence of dreams and illusions. Everything here felt simultaneously unreal yet more real than reality itself.

Like stepping into the heart of a fairy tale, yet knowing that every story here had been lived, every emotion genuinely felt.

Understanding the true nature of this place, one felt crushed beneath the accumulated weight of history contained within. Its profound depths and overwhelming presence far surpassed the physical cosmos.

This was the final harbor of all life, civilization’s eternal resting place, the dust of history made manifest.

Here too lay God’s own chronicle, each soul’s story carved into eternity’s memory, preserving countless lives that had walked the world and faded away.

The sea’s source and first half contained dreams of an earlier age, holding the collected consciousness of the Trilobite People and the People of the Abyss. Only in its final reaches did the dreams of the current era float.

The Divine Boat had brought them to this newest portion of the eternal sea.

From his place at the prow, Prince Smerkel watched dream after dream drift past, each one containing the complete story of a snake person’s life.

Though he had never met these souls in life, through this mystical confluence he came to know their stories, their hopes, their sufferings.

Prince Smerkel could barely contain his mounting excitement as he turned to Iva with urgent question.

“If I seek someone’s life dream, no… if I seek the dreams of many who were close to me, how might I find them?”

Iva regarded him with knowing eyes: “When did they pass from the mortal realm?”

Prince Smerkel replied: “Five years past.”

Iva’s voice carried certainty: “We are near.”

He lifted his gaze skyward: “Those you seek float just above us now.”

At that moment the Divine Boat released its cargo of dreams, each one rising like a luminous bubble to join the vast sea above.

The great ship began its turn, preparing to resume its eternal patrol of reality’s edge.

Anticipation seized Smerkel’s heart.

The prince broke free from the Divine Boat’s deck, propelling himself toward the dream star sea with desperate purpose.

Finding himself suspended in the void, he waved his arms in swimming motions, navigating this ocean of souls as if diving in earthly waters.

Iva’s dark silver robes rippled with otherworldly grace as he too rose upward, his movements through this sacred space infinitely more refined than Smerkel’s mortal struggles.

If Prince Smerkel moved like a novice swimmer, then Iva glided through space as naturally as a spirit through water.

Colored bubbles of consciousness continuously drifted past Smerkel as he turned his head, searching with increasing urgency.

“Not this one.”

“Not this one either.”

As they ascended higher, the flowing light within the dream bubbles began to coalesce into recognizable form, revealing a familiar cityscape.

Moonlight city.

At last, he found himself face to face with those who had perished in war and catastrophe, their stories preserved forever in this ethereal sea.

Yet all suffering and catastrophe lay overwhelmed by the beauty of memories past. Though Smerkel’s eyes did not witness those painful scenes directly, his heart conjured them unbidden.

Smerkel gazed silently at these life dreams before speaking to Iva, his voice heavy with the weight of command’s burden.

“That fateful day, the Divine Boat must have groaned under its burden, its decks overflowing with dreams of those I sent to their deaths.”

Iva remained silent, asking only:

“Have you found who you seek?”

Smerkel shook his head as he pressed onward.

Life dreams stretched endlessly before them, countless as stars. Finding a single soul’s dream among this infinite expanse seemed an insurmountable task.

Though time flowed endlessly onward, Smerkel’s determination never wavered.

Having come so far, he knew his next glimpse of this dream star sea might only come with his own death.

He could not bear to waste this precious chance.

Then his eyes caught a dream unlike any other, suspended between light and shadow.

Smerkel drew closer, recognizing it even before examining its details.

This was Luqi’s life dream.

He recoiled as if touched by searing flame, instinctively retreating, unable to face what lay within.

The prince felt his heart trembling with dread, his body shaking.

These were scenes he dared not recall.

Though he might laugh and sing cheerful songs, these memories haunted his midnight hours, refusing to fade.

With terror etched across his features, he turned to Iva with trembling voice.

“Are there more dreams like this?”

Iva, in his vast knowledge, explained: “This too is a beautiful life dream. It has undergone judgment, divided between darkness and color, with light already overwhelming shadow.”

“Some souls cling desperately to their obsessions, even to memories of deepest pain and regret.”

“Though these memories and mistakes were never theirs to bear, they cling to them for reasons only their hearts know.”

“Yet all obsessions eventually dissolve in time’s flow, and then this dream will naturally reach its destined end.”

Smerkel stood motionless, seeming to turn Iva’s words over in his mind.

“Though these memories and mistakes were never theirs to bear, they cling to them for reasons known only to their hearts.”

His expression transformed in an instant.

“Of course!”

“Everything was my fault, my command. What responsibility could they bear?”

“He must have died filled with hatred, must blame me, for I sent them to their deaths.”

Smerkel finally drew close, peering through the bubble’s wall to witness the scenes within.

He saw Luqi’s anguished cries, his moment of choice, his desperate wavering between madness and despair.

“Why? Why must we be the ones to die?”

“I should tell the Wing Demon tribe, let them block their retreat on the Great Serpent Road. Let them taste the bitterness of suffering.”

“No, that way not only Moonlight city’s people would die, but many more besides.”

“I am His Highness’s follower. I cannot betray him.”

“I can hold Moonlight city. I can lead everyone to survival.”

“Prince Smerkel will return soon. They will come back quickly.”

“It’s over. Everything is lost.”

The scene froze on its final moment.

Wing Demons plunged from above, their wind-blade gusts forcing eyes shut as Luqi led his last soldiers in street combat.

A flash of cold light accompanied the Wing Demons, and all vanished into darkness.

Prince Smerkel watched these scenes flow past in silence, tears suddenly streaming down his face.

Iva observed Smerkel, sensing the powerful emotions surging through him.

He asked the prince: “Do you regret it?”

Smerkel stared at Luqi’s dream, nodding stiffly: “Yes, I regret it.”

He clenched his fists: “But if I had to choose again, I would make the same choice.”

Smerkel’s gaze fixed on Luqi’s dream as if speaking directly to him.

“I see myself clearly now.”

“I have made peace with myself.”

“My weakness, my choices, my cold-bloodedness, my responsibility.”

“The parts of myself I hate most are still myself.”

Smerkel pressed his forehead against Luqi’s dream: “Yet even so, even if thousands curse my name, I must fulfill my duty.”

“This burden belongs to me. I am Alpens’s son, heir to the order and city-state he built.”

“I must protect it, must preserve this hard-won order, must guard civilization’s flame kindled in wilderness.”

“If someone must choose what to sacrifice to protect everything else.”

“Then… let it be me.”

Smerkel cried out: “Luqi, you did nothing wrong.”

“You need not forgive me. Please hate me, for I sent you to your death, sent all of Moonlight city’s people to their deaths.”

“None of this was your doing. You made no mistakes.”

“I traded your life for victory and peace. I swear to honor that price by preserving this hard-won peace and protecting the city-state built upon such terrible sacrifice.”

Finally, the dream wavering between darkness and color trembled faintly.

Color overwhelmed darkness completely, gradually consuming the entire dreamscape.

The dream transformed into something beautiful.

Luqi wore his armor, face beneath his war helm filled with passion as he drove his chariot through the city gates toward a distant figure fighting valiantly.

That figure’s spear pierced a stone colossus’s head as he roared like a war god.

Luqi reached his side, calling out loudly.

“Your chariot awaits!”

The figure grasped Luqi’s hand, mounting the chariot.

Together they drove onward, standing side by side as if they would chase the horizon forever.

Obsession dissolved as the dream found completion.

Perhaps because it could no longer maintain its conflicted state.

Or perhaps because of Smerkel’s words.

Smerkel left the star sea, his heart still turbulent with emotion.

But he knew what he must do next.

Some things came ordained by birth. Avoiding them served no purpose. He must shoulder the responsibilities that were his to bear.

His father King Alpens had grown old, and he was the only heir to the throne.

“It’s time to return,” Smerkel whispered.

Searching for Moonlight city’s dreams and Luqi’s dream had consumed much time. A day and night had passed unnoticed.

Now the Divine Boat, having completed another patrol, passed again through God’s realm’s gate before them.

Smerkel noticed then that the dream realm held not only the star sea but also sun and moon.

The moon cast cool radiance while the sun stretched its rays.

Looking closely, the sun resembled an enormous cup.

As his gaze lingered, Smerkel discerned something upon the great cup’s surface.

Smerkel asked Iva: “What is that?”

Iva answered: “God’s Island.”

Smerkel asked: “What lies upon the island?”

Iva told him: “A brilliant Sun Cup Flower Sea grows there, nurturing beautiful dream spirits.”

“The sun manifests the spirits’ power, while this dream star sea is their blessing upon mortals.”

“The most powerful spirit, messenger at the Creator’s right hand and sovereign of dreams, once bestowed blessing upon mortals, hoping all life after death would circle near the Creator’s side.”

Iva’s robes billowed outward like arms embracing the star sea.

“Thus.”

“This star sea was born.”

“All souls found their resting place, all civilizations and life their final harbor.”

Smerkel heard of spirits for the first time, never imagining this vast dream star sea originated from a single spirit’s blessing.

“Spirits? Can you tell me more about them?”

Iva told him: “They are an ancient sacred race. Their story cannot be told in few words.”

Smerkel hugged his harp: “Perfect. I can listen as we travel.”

They boarded the Divine Boat together as Iva began his tale.

“They are beings born of beautiful dreams and wishes, the most wonderful creatures in existence. They dwell in the Creator’s garden, possessing miraculous power to create all things.”

“Long, long ago.”

“They lent their miraculous power to mortals, giving them the ability to create all things.”

“Mortals celebrated a festival called the Wish Festival. On this day, children would make wishes to the spirits, who would answer the most pure and kind requests.”

Smerkel listened with longing: “Such wonderful beings truly existed.”

But he recalled key points from earlier how Iva first mentioned the Sun Cup Flower Sea, then called it the Creator’s garden.

The ship prepared to cross the gate.

He suddenly looked toward the sun in shock, and the island’s silhouette barely visible within its rays.

The island lay steeped in dense wish-light, layers of great power and myth flowing from its surroundings.

“Then the Creator and God are also up there?”

He strained his eyes, hoping to glimpse where God and the Creator dwelt.

Iva told him: “You are too weak.”

“Forget gazing upon the Creator even the two beneath the divine throne, you lack the qualifications to look upon them.”

“I once looked directly at the Creator and was instantly consumed by eternal power.”

Hearing Iva’s description and seeing the scene before him, Smerkel’s mind reeled from the impact.

“Is the great Mother of Life on God’s Island?”

Iva nodded.

“Yes.”

“She is also there.”

Smerkel thought he had his answer, missing the significance of “also.”

The Divine Boat carried them from the dream realm, returning them to reality.

Smerkel looked around, finding themselves where they had begun, in that uninhabited jungle.

The campfire had long since died.

Before the cold ashes, Iva and Smerkel faced each other, knowing the time had come to part.

Though their meeting was brief, each considered the other a friend.

Before leaving, Iva gave Smerkel a Sun Cup flower.

Smerkel asked with a smile: “If I pray to spirits with this, will wishes truly come true?”

Iva said: “That depends if your heart is pure enough, whether the spirits would favor you.”

Smerkel immediately gave up, spreading his hands: “Then I certainly don’t qualify.”

Yet even as he said this, Smerkel sighed in wonder.

“What beautiful beings they must be! No wonder they exist only in God’s realm.”

Iva departed without farewell.

Smerkel suddenly called after him: “Are you a spirit?”

Iva did not turn: “I am not.”

After a pause, Iva added:

“Remember the story of two brothers I told you?”

Smerkel certainly did: “Of course, Weishi and Henir.”

Iva told him: “I am that nightmare flower that devoured Weishi.”

Smerkel froze, watching stunned as Iva vanished into the jungle.

After a long while, he couldn’t help but say:

“Ancient kings, Weishi, Henir, saints, spirits, and the nightmare flower threading through the brothers’ beginning and end.”

“What an incredible story!”

With that he too turned to leave, heading toward the City of Fire Protection.

As Iva continued his journey, something strange caught his attention.

Though day had fully dawned, as he studied the lamp he had never been able to light, something felt different from before.

Looking carefully, he discovered a faint light flickering within.