Chapter 40 – Burn the Men, Take the Women
Ignoring—or rather, paying no heed at all to her foster mother's "advice"—Annie continued deeper into the Oberon's Sanctuary after bidding her farewell.
The scorched black earth was not only endless but also distorted by some kind of spatial force. Anyone lacking sufficient strength who entered would never be able to leave, and sooner or later, they would be roasted alive. This fully reflected the ferocity—or one might say, the primitivity—of the god who had created this Sanctuary.
Myths did not only shape the forms of gods. The immortality of the divine came from the divine nature, and divine nature came from myth. This meant that gods with constantly changing myths were more likely to absorb human civilization. Otherwise, they grew ever closer to merciless nature—what were called Heretic gods.
The master of the Sanctuary Annie had entered was just such a typical wild god, and an ambitious one at that. Unlike most other Spirit King of the Netherworld, He paid far too much attention to the mortal realm. The battle at Mount Nichirin had been His doing. While not all Spirit King of the Netherworld stayed quietly within their Sanctuaries, few stirred up as much trouble as this one.
Annie pressed on. At some point, the scenery around her began to change.
The temperature remained high, yet water appeared on the ground. The land gradually fractured into pieces by water. As Annie continued forward, there was less and less land, and more and more pools of water—deeper too, until whole lakes appeared.
Even with the constitution of a God-Slayer, Annie felt somewhat parched under the scorching heat. She crouched down, dipped a finger into the water, tasted it with her tongue, and immediately spat it out.
It was salty water.
This must be the Salty Pool, and the scorched earth she had just traversed must have been the Great Wilderness. If so, then her destination was not far.
The structure of a Sanctuary fully reflected what its master valued most. In Annie's eyes, it was already perfectly clear what this "lord" valued.
Her expression remained calm. She gathered her cloak and continued forward.
Japan's God-Slayer came from a place of slaughter. The Eastern European Marquis and the Chinese Cult Leader also hailed from times when blood drenched the earth. None of them were ones to restrain their inner lust for destruction.
To stop them from ruining the peace of others, one had to address the root cause. Though this was not the far side of the ocean, since her feet now tread this land, Annie felt she could act just as she did in her homeland.
The water around her grew until there was no more land to be seen.
The sky had turned blood-red, as though ablaze, the clouds shimmering like tongues of flame.
The world around Annie had become an ocean. The sea was not calm, but neither was it stormy—an endless, magnificent expanse. Finally, she saw the colossal plant.
From the smooth surface of the sea rose a peak of overwhelming majesty, nearly filling the entire sky. It was the center of this world—everything began from it, and everything ended in it.
In myth it had many names. It was once considered the dwelling place of the Heavenly Emperor, called Mount Tokou. More commonly it was known as Jianmu, Fusang, Fumu, Panmu, or Fumu again under different characters. All traced back to the ancient Chinese "She Trees," the sacred trees linking heaven and man.
As Annie drew nearer, the divine tree became clearer. Its vastness could not be perceived by the human eye. In fact, it could not be perceived in any human way. It could only be constructed in the Netherworld, and could only be observed by Netherworld methods.
The very light of this world was provided by it. Ten golden divine birds, formed entirely of flame, took turns rising from its branches below, ascending to the highest point, then descending again, plunging into the sea, only to emerge on the other side—an endless cycle of rising and falling.
Its swaying branches and leaves extended beyond the limits of vision. Without Annie's special authority, she could never have approached it at all.
Here, light and fire were indistinguishable. Only because Annie was both a Fairy King and a God-Slayer could she endure this sacred radiance.
Annie stopped. Even she could go no farther.
But she had not come here to climb trees. Clearing her throat and warding off the heat from her body, she called out in a loud voice:
"Divine King, I beg an audience."
No answer. Not even the ten great fire-turkeys from the scriptures paid her any mind.
But Annie seemed unbothered. Stubbornly, she called again and again. Her voice echoed beneath the divine tree, utterly out of place in this world.
At last, when she shouted once more, something seemed to respond.
The ten firebirds upon the tree ceased their endless cycle of climbing skyward and diving into the sea. Instead, they all swiveled their heads toward her in unison.
Their gazes were no longer vacant as before, but lively, almost possessed.
In their eyes Annie saw every kind of look—violent, serene, cold, piercing, profound.
"So damn noisy!" bellowed the bird perched atop the tree. It glared down at Annie with furious eyes. "Can't you see we're busy here?"
Its gaze was especially sharp—eyes like lightning, like a starving eagle.
"Ah, a chick," said another bird with a deep, penetrating gaze. It had just crawled out of the water, staring directly at Annie's nether regions.
"Tenth Brother, are you blind? How could someone that ugly be a girl?"
"You're the blind one! Don't believe me? Go fly down into the water and take a look."
"Who cares if it's a man or a woman? Just grab and find out. If it's a man, burn him. If it's a woman, bully her till she cries!"
"Wait—didn't Father say there was supposed to be a brat? Is it this one?"
The flock of firebirds quarreled noisily right before Annie's face.
Yet no matter how fiercely they cursed, or how crudely they spoke of what they would do to her, their asses never shifted an inch.
This forced Annie to suppress—for the moment—her impulse to simply put a bullet through the lot of these avian hooligans.
"I wish to see your Father," she declared again, filtering out their filthy provocations, her voice ringing loud.
"No audience! No men!" shouted the bird at the very top. At that moment it was still lavishly radiating heat to supply the needs of the world. "As for women, ugly ones aren't allowed either!"
Then—smack!—it suddenly took a blow, nearly knocking its head right into its own crotch.
It yanked its head back out with a "pff," then whipped around and roared:
"Who? Who hit me? Brothers, let's—eh? Ah, Father, you're back!"
In Annie's eyes, the bird wore an absurd range of expressions for a creature with only one head—for beside it, at some unknown moment, there now stood a handsome man, glaring at it furiously.
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