He nodded. "All right, I agree."
The nymph froze, unable to react. Only after two seconds did her eyes suddenly widen. "Really?"
"Really." Nairmis smiled. "But do you know if there are any other spirits nearby? Anyone willing can come."
The nymph paused, then the tremendous surprise struck her, and she floated into the air and spun around.
"There are some nearby. I know a few. They were all injured in yesterday's disaster, and now they're hiding in fear. I'll go get them!"
Before she had finished speaking, she had already floated off toward the low woods, so eager that she even forgot to say goodbye.
Watching her cheerful figure disappear, Nairmis shook his head with a chuckle.
He was in a good mood. He cradled the lyre beside him in his arms and rested his fingertips on the strings. After a moment's thought, he decided against playing yesterday's soul-soothing tune.
Instead, he chose another melody, his fingers plucking the strings. It was light and bright, its notes skipping and tumbling through the air with a rhythm that made one want to sway along.
The Music Divinity glowed faintly within him, forming a subtle resonance with the Emotion Divinity. It was no longer merely music, but a power that touched the depths of the soul directly.
Joy, pure joy.
The leaves on the treetops began to tremble gently, the insects in the grass stopped crawling, and the animals began to approach.
In the distance, a gray-feathered bird tilted its head, then spread its wings and took flight, following that trail of golden notes.
Then came a second, a third-little birds of unknown species with colorful wings gathered from every direction and fluttered around him.
Some landed on his shoulders, some perched on his knees, and some circled above his head, their chirping intertwining with the music of his lyre.
Nairmis smiled without stopping his fingers, and the cheerful melody grew brighter still.
In the distance, behind the thick trunk of an old oak, Hemera, the goddess of day, concealed her divine power and secretly peeked out.
She should not have been here. Last night, she had heard her older brother, Hypnos, the god of sleep, praise Nairmis, and it had sparked an intense curiosity in Hemera.
Her brother was courteous yet distant toward most gods, never speaking harshly or offering excessive praise, so today she had been unable to resist coming.
She huddled in the old oak's shadow, gazing across most of the valley at the figure playing the lyre.
Then she stared, transfixed. Nairmis sat on a rock beside the pool, his golden hair falling over his bare shoulders and back, its strands glimmering warmly in the daylight.
Birds wheeled around him, and a pale golden feather drifted slowly down, catching on the ends of his golden hair.
Hemera found herself unable to look away. Those notes slipped into her ears and surged through her veins all the way to her heart, making it beat faster.
Her fingers picked unconsciously at the bark, her gaze entranced, as primal desire took root in her heart.
When the piece ended, Nairmis raised his hand, lifting his fingertips from the strings. He looked up at the birds flying around him and smiled.
"Come down." He gently extended his left hand, palm open and facing upward.
A bird with brilliantly colored plumage circled once, then landed in his palm.
Seven or eight colors blended through its feathers from its crown to its tail, shimmering with an enchanting luster in the daylight.
Nairmis gently stroked its breast feathers with his thumb, feeling the warm beating beneath the fine, soft down. The bird narrowed its eyes and tucked its neck down in his palm.
A moment later, he lifted his hand slightly. The bird spread its wings and soared into the air, and the rest of the flock scattered after it, each flying back the way it had come.
The valley grew quiet again. Nairmis withdrew his hand and began to look within his body.
The Emotion Divinity was operating steadily, his divine power slowly increasing. But when he looked at the other divinities, his brow furrowed slightly.
Tools, musical instruments, music, crafting-although these four divinities were also operating slowly, they grew by being used rather than perceived.
These divinities required him to keep creating, keep using, and keep spreading them before they could obtain the nourishment that supplied divine power.
Moreover, his inherited memories told him something even more important: divinities bound to specific creations like these were unstable.
Once another god surpassed him, these divinities would leave him without hesitation and pass into the hands of whoever was more skilled.
Hmph, fickle divinities. They went with whoever did it best.
He clenched his fists, already deciding inwardly to do more with his hands and create more, striving to nail these divinities firmly within his body in their respective fields.
Then he noticed something else. Deep within his body, the two unfamiliar divine essences that had always lain quietly in a corner seemed to have grown somewhat larger.
He paused and examined them carefully. Fate Divinity-that thing had been there since his birth, yet he still did not know where it had come from. Even after examining it for a long time, he had not the slightest clue.
He turned his attention to the other one, Record Divinity. As soon as his consciousness drew near, a faint fluctuation of time divine power escaped from it.
Then something unexpected happened. An unfamiliar glowing mass of consciousness suddenly sprang out from within the Record Divinity and plunged straight into his mind.
Nairmis shot to his feet, nearly letting the lyre slip from his hands.
What was that? What had come out of his body?
He instinctively took half a step back, his pupils contracting sharply. That glowing mass of consciousness hovered quietly in the center of his mind. Its surface shimmered without any sign of aggression, yet it made every hair on his body stand on end.
His first thought was of Ourea, the mountain god, whose consciousness had been crushed by the God King. He remembered that horrific scene.
Then he recalled the legends of possession from his previous life-if the consciousness of some ancient being had been lurking within him all along, waiting to seize control of his body in one stroke when he let his guard down.
Nairmis did his utmost to steady his breathing. The Emotion Divinity trembled faintly within him, and a soothing warmth surged up, allowing his taut nerves to relax a little.
He closed his eyes and looked at that mass of consciousness again, more carefully this time. It was responding to the fluctuations of the Emotion Divinity, and that response actually carried an aura of the same origin.
Or, more precisely, the aura emanating from that glowing mass of consciousness was unmistakably the essence of his own Emotion Divinity-exactly the same aura, without the slightest difference.
He was bewildered for a moment. Although he had lived for a very long time, he was essentially still a raw recruit born only a day ago, with no experience in such profound matters as changes in divine essence, the emergence of divinities, or the coalescence of consciousness.
He did not know what was going on, but instinct told him that if he did not touch it, he would never know the answer.
He hesitated for a long time, then made a decision. His consciousness reached forward and gently touched that mass of light.
A voice sounded in his mind, halting and broken. "Ob...tained...Record...God...head..."
Nairmis's eyes snapped open.
That voice was his. His own voice.