Impressions and Memories

For a very long time.

Mona would stand in the darkness, then sink into deep contemplation for a long while.

As a supreme being who transcended time and had no physical body, he could understand the cycle of life and death that living creatures experienced, but he still found it difficult to feel what it was like.

Let alone the fear or sadness that came with it.

Over the past hundred years,

being able to take pleasure in something new or feel even a flicker of interest had already been an exceedingly rare experience for him.

What accompanied him most

was nothing but indifference and loneliness.

As for the humans who had once piqued his interest,

all he had bestowed upon them

was a single sentence, a word of praise.

That was all.

And that simple sentence

was the entirety of this devout believer's life in summary.

"Time really does fly."

As Mona looked at these souls, he often found himself reflecting on the past.

It was like a dream from a distant age.

When he saw people or things that seemed similar to something in that dream, hazy memories would surface.

But whenever he tried to savor them,

the feeling had already vanished.

The memories of those days seemed to be rejected by the divinity within his body, continually fading away into the river of time.

Thus,

Mona had chosen to create a unique Divine Artifact, so that the impressions and memories that kept vanishing might have somewhere to rest.

"This should do."

Mona's gaze slowly shifted to the [Divine Artifact].

His hand curled slightly.

A thin, crystal-clear, translucent sheet appeared in his palm.

It was so thin it was almost impossible to see.

Although,

among the many Divine Artifacts, it looked utterly unremarkable.

Yet it symbolized one of the most powerful and mysterious aspects of his divine power.

Mona lightly touched it with his fingertip.

[You infused the Divine Artifact with the last of your divine power, completing the final piece of the puzzle.]

[A new Divine Artifact has been born.]

[You obtained: Layer]

[It looks tiny, but it contains an extraordinarily wondrous power.]

[It will use the reflection of consciousness within souls, supported by divine power, to create a wondrous, illusory realm beyond reality, belonging only to souls.]

[Layer]: A Divine Artifact that constructs a corresponding spiritual world from dreams reflected by the consciousness within souls. Layer connects to the corresponding real world, but does not affect the physical matter within it.

After emitting a radiant glow,

it flew toward the fragile clusters of soul-light in the dark corners.

The moment the thin sheet touched those souls, it melted away, as though turning into a drop of clear liquid.

Then,

the clusters of soul-light burst into dazzling radiance.

Countless beams of light kept streaming from the souls.

They spread through the dense darkness, sending ripples across it.

In an instant,

a white point of light began spreading through the darkness.

Soon, it illuminated the entire dark space.

[The consciousnesses of the souls of your followers are shining.]

[Layer is using the followers' consciousnesses to project the Dream World within their souls.]

[When the boundless white light fades, a scene resembling the island on the Drawing Board appears before you.]

That was precisely what this Divine Artifact did.

Mona had created it

not to make it affect that world,

but to change the silent world he inhabited, a dark place where nothing ever changed.

After collecting all the consciousnesses within those souls,

[Layer] quickly used the dreams of the dead as its material.

Within the darkness, it created a separate, wondrous space.

It was an island from a dream.

Mona quietly raised his head.

By then,

the darkness that had always enveloped him was gone.

In its place

was a hazy, pale golden sky.

Above the firmament,

time seemed to have vanished.

The sun and the moon hung high on opposite sides of the sky.

Like dawn,

and also like dusk.

Beneath the light of the sun and moon,

high above,

a towering White Temple stood between them.

It was the [Temple of Eternity] in this mirrored world.

Except that, unlike the one in reality,

the mountains beneath it were broken apart.

It seemed to float amid the strange radiance of the clouds, becoming a temple in the sky.

On the flat ground, a sea of pale blue flowers surrounded the temple in the sky.

This was the "true" appearance of the [Temple of Eternity], the symbol of the gods in the eyes of the believers.

Though it did not look real,

it truly represented what people believed in their hearts.

In the minds of these dead believers, the Temple of Eternity looked just like this.

And the pale blue sea of flowers clearly symbolized the [Rot Spirit Flower], the messenger who surrounded the gods in people's hearts.

Before long,

the frail clusters of light floated up into the sky, becoming stars one by one as they slumbered there forever.

That was everything [Layer] had brought to these followers.

Relying on Mona's soul-related divine power, it had used the dreams reflected by the consciousness within the followers' souls as its material.

For the dead followers, it had built the dream they had longed for in life.

And so,

this place would become the best refuge for these souls.

If he had to describe this place in a single word,

Heavenly Kingdom,

or perhaps Paradise,

would be the best way to put it.

Mona looked toward the island's edge.

He knew

that beyond the border of this utterly dreamlike island, there was still nothing but endless darkness.

But with just a thought from him, the island's borders would immediately expand.

Although

this dream world, which defied reality, could not be filled with objects drawn using physical materials or Divine Artifacts such as the [Paintbrush],

it could be expanded through impressions and memories.

It was finite,

and yet infinite.

Mona pondered for a moment, then closed his eyes, recalling something.

When he opened them again,

a number of pristine white Obelisks had appeared on the island, which had seemed so small before.

They were some of the hazy memories that had not yet faded, inscribed and recorded in this world through his impressions and memories.

Various words and images were engraved upon the gleaming surfaces of the Obelisks.

They were impressions from memories of the past that he had not yet forgotten.

"So that's how it is?"

"Perhaps that's how it is."

Mona strolled beneath the towering Obelisks, looking at the words and images carved into them.

At times, even he could not tell whether they were things from that world he had once known.

But this was enough.

As his gaze shifted,

he noticed that the river on the ground seemed to reflect something else as well.

Several sleeping [Artisans] were floating in the river that flowed across the plain. Their eyes were tightly shut, and their faces wore devout expressions.

"Is it because they possess Spirituality?"

Mona was somewhat surprised.

But then he understood.

[Spirituality] was the core power within the colors of a soul, the opposite of matter.

Those with higher [Spirituality] could perceive things beyond the material world.

Thus, though these believers' bodies could not enter this world,

they could occasionally enter this dream world in their sleep and glimpse a scene from this magnificent, radiant Heavenly Kingdom.

[The Dream World you created has given the souls of the dead a Heavenly Kingdom in which to rest.]

[At the same time, some devout believers with higher Spirituality may also glimpse this Heavenly Kingdom by chance.]

[In their dreams, they will also receive a wondrous spark of insight. A new profession is about to emerge within the Tribe.]