by Ryan Johnson
“Why can’t things just stay forever?” asked Marina.
“I wonder that myself, but this is how things are in the Mortal Realm. This Realm was created to conceal the Demons and Devils of the Realm of Evil. With Lusìvar gone forever, those evil ghosts can’t escape that Realm, and we are safe forever.”
“But not without my love,” said Marina. Marina looked back at Valverno’s face and brushed a hand against his hair, the feeling of his hair felt the same as hers. “I may have three seeds, but I still feel empty without him. I just feel so alone now,” cried Marina.
You’re never alone, Marina, whispered a ghostly voice.
Sora and Marina were started. They stood to their feet and away from Valverno’s body. The ghostly voice was quick and sudden; it frightened the girls’ grief and quickly became startled.
Even the creatures behind the girls were startled by the voice. And in response, the creatures were ready to attack, thinking it was Lusìvar still back from the dead. The Pangaeans and soldiers carrying weapons were ready to attack as well.
Sora drew out her last kukri, and Marina pulled up her magic bow and pulled the string to magically summon a magic arrow ready to fire.
“Who’s there?” the girls’ voices demanded in unison.
I am everywhere and nowhere, the voice continued. At one point, I was to walk on land, and maybe fly through the air. But now, I can do what a god can do and be wherever he wants to be, wherever he needs to be. And I did say I would always be with you… Marina… as well the three seeds you carry within you.
Marina’s eyes widened. “Valverno!” she shouted. “You still live.” She quickly turned to see his body, but it still remained dead. “But how…”
As Sora said, I am no longer part of the Mortal Realm, but still remain part of it. I am no longer the demigod as I used to be, as I turned to something else. Something with more meaning than being a mortal, I have become a god that can shift between different Realm and still remain Valverno.
“Oh, Valverno. I don’t care what you are or what you look like,” said Marina, with her nose taking a sniff and wiping away her tears. “I just want to look at you endlessly. I want to see your smile, your eyes, your smile, and even your living body.”
You don’t need a physical form of myself to keep yourself happy, Marina. I will always be with you from the ground and to the sky.
“The sky?” Sora looked to the sky and saw a strange ray of light flickering in the sky above in the form of smoke and clouds. “Marina, look up there,” she said to Marina, pointing to the sky.
Marina, the creatures, the Pangaeans, and the humans saw where Sora pointed to the sky, and they all saw the clouds above them forming into a strange shape of a brightening light.
The ray of light turned into a large cloudy, form of a big fog floated in the sky. Cracks of lightening thundered a shape of a large human body with two massive wings and legs. The clouds themselves were lighting bright like a starry moon.
“Val…Valverno!” gasped Marina, seeing the ray of clouds swarming above the land. The cloud taking into formation of the hybrid she married.
Do not despair, Marina, echoed Valverno’s voice. I will always watch over you and protect our seeds for them to grow. You will be the water to nurture them, and I will be the rising and setting sun to watch them grow and blossom with life. And one day, you and they will do what I have done: watch over the Mortal Realm as demigods.
“I’m sorry, Valverno. I am not you in this Realm; I am only a Siren, Marina the Siren.”
That’s you only need to be. Your name, Marina the Siren. You don’t need dragon wings or a tail to be another me; you only need your name and your heart to be a lovable demigod. And one day, we both will watch over the same Realm in the same form. And during my time as a demigod, I was most proud of one thing, having you as my lovable wife and the father of three.
“It now seemed only yesterday you gave you devoted your oath to me.”
And for all eternity, Marina. I will always honor and keep that oath and remain at your side. Then the clouds started to drift away to reveal the three moons and millions of stars sparkling over a bright purple night sky.
“No, don’t leave me alone, my love,” shouted Marina. She dashed from Valverno’s body and toward the edges of the crumbled building.
I will never leave you, Marina, as you have never left me alone when I felt despair. I will always be will you for all time to come, even to the far reaches beyond death itself.
Then the cloud faded from everyone’s eyesight and a yellow haze flickered appeared from the eastern horizon: the yellow sun rising with a yellow haze yellowing across the eastern sky.
However, there are ways for a demigod to return, if one can only lit a fire and let it turn to ashes and let a god rise from it, continued Valverno’s voice.
Then the sun rose high over the eastern horizon in a matter of minutes and Light sprouted all across the sky, turning the night sky into a bright dawn of a new age.
Marina, Sora, the creatures, the Pangaeans, the three White Knights, the humans, and Shimabellia and Isla Maeli witnessed the rise of the sun. The sun was bright as bright light can get, and something that can blind a human’s eye if the human looks at the sun for too long.
Marina blinked and looked back at Valverno’s body. “What he said, it sounds like some sort of message. But I don’t know what it means.”
“I get what he is saying,” yelled Alfhild’s voice. The Elf drew out an arrow and fired it from her bow, shooting it toward the sky. It exploded in the air and turned into a great small spark of a fiery flame. Then it fell like a comet and toward the crumpled building and toward Marina and Sora and the body of Valverno.
“Look out!” shouted Okinawan’s voice. The lizard-man darted toward Sora and Marina and pulled both ladies in his arms and out of harm’s way.
“Wait! My husband!” Marina tried to let herself be released of Okinawan’s grip, but his grip was strong she couldn’t bust herself free. For a full thirty seconds, Marina was briefly trapped in Okinawan’s grip, and she complained for him to let her go until she was finally released and quickly rushed back to the ruins.
Then the fire lit a fiery blaze on Valverno’s body and incinerating the entire body within its red flames.
From Marina’s view, her eyes widened as the flames engulfed the crumpled building and gazed at the flames burning Valverno’s body to a crisp like over burning red-raw meat into a black burnt crisp. His body began to melt into a pile of ashes and the fire sparked no more; Valverno’s body was now a pile of ashes.
Marina was in shock even more. First, Valverno’s face laid in her hands. Now, he was a pile of ash and dust. “How… how could you!?” she screamed in anger. Marina held out her bow and fired many magic arrows from it rapidly, firing at the Elf who burned Valverno’s body.
Alfhild raised out her hand, chanted a single word no one could translate, and a barrier protected her from Marina’s rapid firing of arrows. Then she saw the Siren dropping her arrow and charging toward the Elf. And soon enough, the Elf had herself pinned to the ground by the angry Siren with drooling teeth.
“How could you do this to my loved one who gave his mortal life to save yours and all the other Pangaeans? Valverno gave his mortal life to save the Mortal Realm, and this is now you repay him? By burning his corpse without giving him a proper funeral he justly deserves?”
“No,” answered the Elf, refusing to fight back.
“Then why?”
“Because of a prophecy told by the ancient Pangaeans, and I’ll say the last half.” Alfhild cleared her voice and spoke:
The day when conflict is adjourn
The demigod whom all have awed
Shall have a fire rise and burn
And from the ashes shall rise a god
Marina only shook her head in response. “What
does that mean?”
Suddenly, a quick light flashed beside Marina and Alfhild. Then another flash came but in a different spot. In seconds, strange colored raindrops poured from nowhere atop the ashes of Valverno.
Then, the ashes of Valverno’s body began to glow and a wave of a rainbow cloud swarmed around the ashes. Marina moved back from the Elf and saw the ashes rise into the air with the colorful cloud. It lit bright under the sun’s yellow dawn.
From the bottom, two long snakelike lines formed in unison with ashes forming around the two lines in a large figure forming into a pile of cloud. Then after forming, bright rays of light sparked from the swirling cloud of ashes. The light was blinding, but Marina’s eyes stayed vigilant as the igniting into a shining color of pure white and blue.
Then the ashes formed into an egglike appearance that drifted down to the ground, glowing like diamond in the starry night sky with no moons. The egg looked like a fossilized crystal buried in the earth for hundreds of thousands of years.
Marina walked toward the egg, drawing her curious gaze and full attention away from the Elf who trotted away from the angry Siren. Marina slowly strolled to the object and touched it with the palm of her right hand.
Suddenly, the object moved like a hatching egg, which made Marina move backwards. The upper half moved quickly and broke into two different shapes and the bottom half turned into humanlike legs. The upper half revealed a human torso with spiky, red hair sticking up, sunburnt skin, a scar on across an eye, and closed eyes then open to reveal emerald eyes. And the figure had crystalized scales on legs, wings and a dragon tail.
Marina’s eyes opened wide open to see Valverno…alive!
“VALVERNO!” screamed Marina. Her voice was loud it could kill a make a Dragon go deaf. The Siren quickly wrapped her arms around the newly resurrected hybrid and she tightly squeezed to see him alive. “Oh, Valverno. You’re still alive!”
“What matter what form I take, I will still live on,” he replied, in a human voice with no distorted draconic tone. “That’s the advantage of being a half god and half mortal.” Then he turned to see Flavius standing with the Dragon King.
“That’s… that’s impossible. You can’t be living like this. You would need to be…”
“…a god, Flavius, which is what I am now.” Then Valverno’s entire body glowed a white mist around his body like the dawning sun. “And also thanks to this!” Valverno removed a hand from Marina and plunged something out of his wing: a red-golden feather.
“Is that what I think it is?” asked Okinawan.
“The feather of a Phoenix, Okinawan,” said Valverno. He fully let go of the Siren who was tearing down tears of joy from her eyes, to look upon the feather. “The Phoenix is the only creature of the Mortal Realm not to be a mortal or a god. It is unknown what kind of creature the Phoenix is, but it is know it bursts into flames when it dies and is reborn from the ashes. I was given this power, this feather at one point when I ruled Shimabellia in the early years of the Third Generation.
“I was receiving gifts from the early humans that learned how to live outside of caves and learn craftsmanship with their bare hands. One day, a mysterious large bird with red-golden feathers came and gave me a feather, which I accepted without hesitation. Now, every time that I die, my body will die but still rise up again from the ashes, like when I went down in a cave or when Lusìvar shot me with a spear. I died but I came back from the dead, from the of a Phoenix feather.”
“My boy, you are full of surprises,” shouted Ganymede. “But disobeying the laws written by the gods is strictly forbidden.”
“You fail to notice something: I’m half god and the son of the god that made those laws. I can easily make exceptions or bend those laws slightly. And I can even summon up mortals to the Realm of the Gods.”
“Ah, you can?” asked Marina.
“Just watch!” Valverno replied. He wrapped his arms around her waist.
Then a lightning bolted beneath the feet of Valverno and Marina and a cloud formed. Then it soared into the sky, following dozens of more lightning bolts striking feet of a few selected mortals: Flavius and his siblings, the group of Pangaeans Valverno mostly knew, and Sora and her father.
Valverno’s and Marina’s cloud took the lead and swiftly soared into the sky and through the white clouds. And a bright light appearing and dimming quickly after they went through a door-shaped cloud, there was a large gate standing atop a large silver staircase.
Their cloud landed on flat ground made of silver marble. On the staircase, two lines of white-robed people with yellow halos floating over their heads: Angels.
They were the same celestial beings of Valverno’s and Sora’s mother. They endlessly cheered and shouted out Valverno’s name. There were many faces Marina and Valverno didn’t recognize, but a few ahead of them Valverno knew instantly: the first two were of Geraldus and Alaric.
Standing on the bottom of the staircase, Geraldus and Alaric didn’t wear white robes or have halos but wore robes that resembled Flavius’s uniform when he strolled into the final battle.
With them, three other people that were a male Elf almost looking like Alfhild, a large demihuman with bear ears, and a dark tanned man that is a male Amazon.
Valverno smiled to see his old Pangaean friends (Desmond, Hector, and Herus) standing with two humans that were Desmond’s descendants. Valverno was tempted to run to them, but Flavius and his siblings rushed ahead of him to see their father living in the Realm of the Gods.
Nearby, Valverno caught the appearance of someone else familiar: the old princess he rescued from the Ice Dragon in the Northern Region. The White Knight of Charity he briefly allied before dying by the Five-Headed Dragon, and she taken from sight by Sora running to meet her predecessor.
Then Valverno turned away and looked up at the staircase to see the crowd of Angels cheering him. But his attention was turned toward the top where he saw a Dragon with white, glowing crystal scales.
Beside the Dragon was a tall, elegant, beautiful woman with hair like Sora’s and a silver robe with golden feathered wings. He smiled big to see his mother, Celestreá la Mùne, and his father, the Crystal Dragon, standing side-by-side.
And behind them on high top corners stood two humanlike giants, if they were guardians. One was completely in black robes and the other in white robes. Valverno instantly knew the black robe being was the God of Shadows, Origenes, and he looked the same when Valverno summoned him in the Mortal Realm during his battle with Belverda and Uragiru.
And it would mean Adelpha was on the right and she looked beautiful like his mother, but he paid them little attention.
Then he looked to Marina and offered his hand to her. “Follow me, Marina. I want to introduce you to someone.”
Marina only nodded her head in response.
Valverno smiled and looked to the top of the staircase. He then led Marina to the top of the staircase to where they met an Angel and a Dragon God up close. After which, Valverno released Marina’s hand and walked closer to meet Celestreá la Mùne.
“My son, how I missed you so,” said Celestreá la Mùne. She hugged her son as Valverno hugged her in turn.
“Mother, I’ve done it. I’ve beaten the Demon Prince, and I did bring my—”
“Mother!” cried Sora’s voice.
Soon, Sora jumped between and tugged on both the necks of her half-brother and her mother. “Oh, Mother. I missed you so much.”
“Sora! My dear daughter! My, have you grown into a beautiful woman.” Celestreá la Mùne pulled away one arm from Valverno and around Sora; two children reunited with their mother.
“Don’t forget me, my family,” said Ganymede, joining in on the family reunion. He alone lifted them all in his arms, due to his massive size.
After a big family hug, Ganymede placed his family down, and they all separated from each other. They
all were happy to see each other again, after the many of millennia of not seeing the eyes of each other. Then Ganymede and Sora moved away to reveal the newest member of the family: Marina.
“Mother, this is Marina. Marina, this is my mother, Celestreá la Mùne.”
Marina bowed in the presence of Celestreá la Mùne, but Celestreá la Mùne only pulled the Siren closer to her and both hugged in a graceful manner. “I am rather glad to have another fine daughter, and one my son loved at first sight. You really are a beautiful woman I see, and the right person to bare my son’s children. I welcome you into the family and as my daughter-in-law, Marina the Siren.”
“I’m glad to have married him, Mother,” whispered Marina.
Then the Crystal Dragon strolled over to Valverno. “You did such an excellent job and proved yourself a true demigod.”
“You have wonderfully given your mortal life to save all mortals in the Mortal Realm, even this young woman I can call my second daughter,” said Celestreá la Mùne, brushing against Marina’s hair. “Even when your mortality reached its final limits, your love of your family and all of mortals have made you fulfil your destiny and brought the balance of Light and Shadow of that Realm.”
“For a demigod isn’t just about the strength of his muscle or the power of being a half-god, but the strength of his heart. Now, at long last, Valverno, my son. You can and join us, in the Realm of Paradise or you may call the Pangaea.”
The large gate ahead of Valverno opened wide to reveal a large terrain of green grassland and open valleys of beautiful flowers and plants. And many species of Pangaean descent roamed across the land and on without end. There were also many humans seen playing with many demihuman children.
It was the Realm of Paradise Valverno looked upon, but Valverno wasn’t interested in walking into there. He looked at his parents and Marina walking to his side. “Father. Mother. As greatly as I desire to, I don’t feel like I am ready yet. All my life, I lived in the shadows as an outsider, then as a warrior, then a ruler, than an outsider again, and nothing more.