The tiny figure, no bigger than a palm, floated before Suiko. Its entire body was translucent, glowing with a faint watery blue light like a frozen drop of morning dew.
Suiko froze.
"What... are you?"
The little one drifted into her palm and slowly took shape.
She looked like a young girl, barely over an inch tall. Her long hair flowed down like water, and her delicate features looked like they had been painted. A layer of water gauze, as thin as cicada wings, draped over her body and shimmered with rippling light.
Her face was very pale, as though she had only just recovered from a serious illness.
"I am the Water God of this lake."
Her voice was soft and fine, like wind chimes stirred by a gentle breeze.
"I was trapped at the lake bottom by that Snake Demon for three years."
Suiko's pupils contracted slightly.
"Water God?"
"Mm."
The girl nodded and floated before Suiko, looking up at her.
"That Snake Demon stole my Trident and used its power to seal me at the lake bottom.
"It used my Divine Weapon to disguise itself as the Water God, forcing the villagers to sacrifice their children and using the essence of the children's lives to maintain the Divine Weapon's power..."
She lowered her head, her voice filled with deep self-blame.
"It was all my fault. If it hadn't ambushed me, so many children wouldn't have suffered."
Suiko looked at her, a complicated feeling rising in her heart.
She had been sealed away three years ago.
In other words, this Water God had been imprisoned at the lake bottom for three whole years.
No light, no sound, no one to speak to her.
Only endless darkness and loneliness.
Suiko remembered the dream she had once had. In it,