Brain bloom

Casablanca Flower.

"Tumi."

"Moonshadow Grass".

"hyacinth."

The names of various plants—no, of the four seasons—danced at the tip of her pen. With each name she wrote, a strange, transparent feather would flutter out from the bottomless darkness, as if lifted by the wind, swirling and rushing towards the sky.

Without exception, all of these feathers were jet black. It was only then that Mori understood. The evil, oppressive feeling that permeated the entire Flower Kingdom was because the dandelions had summoned back all the darkness waiting to awaken from all corners of the world.

In places unseen by the public, our compatriots have been waiting peacefully.

"Cactus".

"Baobaba tree".

Oleander.

"Psychedelic mushrooms".

More and more soul feathers drifted and converged into the sky. Each feather was embedded in the invisible wings, becoming one of its full yet incomplete feathers.

"Sen Shi." Dandelion wrote this name carefully, filled with love and gratitude.

Upon seeing this, Mori was stunned for a moment, but his soul did not drift away.

"Don't you plan to give your soul a bath and purify it?" Dandelion asked. "How did you manage to resist Wing Cloud's summons?"

"This……"

"It won't have any effect; on the contrary, it's quite comfortable, a strange feeling like your soul is high up, looking down on everything." As someone who had experience with it, Mimosa explained and reassured Sen, "This is very helpful in enhancing the strength of our mental power and increasing our overall strength... But how do you resist it?"

Mori himself found it strange that no feathers were growing from his head.

After thinking about it carefully, I think it must be because my soul is very pure.

"Then, I'll write 'strawberry' and see..." Dandelion muttered to herself, writing the word "strawberry".

Soon, a jet-black feather floated out from above Mori's head and slowly merged into the sky full of feathers.

Volume 1 #405 The Soul of Travel

At this moment, the experience Mori felt was extremely rare. She might be able to understand what a soul was, after all, after arriving in this world, whether it was magic or other levels, she would always have to deal with something as ethereal as the soul.

But now—

For the first time, she personally experienced what it felt like to have a soul that was feathered.

Moritoki could feel her body with perfect clarity. Yes, she was standing there, able to sense the unique aura of the Land of Flowers. Her slender legs were starting to ache, and maintaining a stiff posture for so long wasn't exactly comfortable. Moritoki could feel all of this.

But—it's not just that.

At the same time, another force from a higher level, seemingly able to perceive the time and destiny of this world, is converging into lines, which in turn weave into circles, clearly displaying the skeleton of a vast world before Mori.

This high-level perspective, Mori realized, came from the soul that had become a feather.

Or rather, an incredibly important part of the soul.

"My God, such black feathers?!"

Dandelion cried out, her panicked voice breaking the sacred and peaceful Winged Cloud Ceremony. This chaotic scene caused the Mimosa, who stood beside Dandelion and considered herself a senior of the Four Seasons, to frown slightly. She, too, was enjoying that strange perspective.

But looking down from her soul's wings that had floated high into the sky, the mimosa also noticed something was amiss.

A single black feather, out of place with all the other feathers, seemed to encompass the entirety of the night.

Even she, the shy herbaceous person who had uprooted plants twice, had her soul tainted by evil to an unprecedented degree. Her soul feathers were merely transparent with a slight hint of black.

However, compared to Miss Strawberry, whose soul should have been made more noble and sacred by her divine status...

It's really not worth mentioning.

She was extremely dark-skinned.

“...As expected of Mori Toki,”

"Hmm, Mori's feathers are quite unique."

She herself was completely baffled.

Two states were strangely superimposed on all her perceptions: the ground, where her physical senses perceived the world from a mundane perspective; and the feathers of her soul, adrift high above, were immersed in a myriad of incomprehensible sensations.

She slowly rose to the surface, this slow journey seemingly taking her to some incredibly distant place.

"Princess Dandelion, continue..."

"Hmm..." Coming back to her senses, Dandelion immediately continued writing names, "Magnolia, Evening Mist, Arsdeltai Dewflower, Saffron..."

These names weren't memorized by dandelion, but rather heard. She was a royal princess, with pure and clear blood, inheriting the most powerful force from darkness.

Even in the dead of night, across the ethereal dream world, she could see her kin gathered there, waiting for the Winged Cloud to reincarnate them. It was these kin who announced their flower names one after another, and then, through the dandelion's register, they drifted towards the sky.

Sen felt something was strange he had never felt before.

"you."

"..."

Beyond the sphere woven from fate and time, it seems someone is greeting Mori from an incomprehensible and incredible height.

"Wake up."

Wake up? She was just a feather, meant to merge into the Winged Clouds... How could she wake up? The soul feather of Mori felt bewildered, for awakening and sleeping were things the body should do; the soul was meant to wander and travel, and there was no such thing as suffering or fatigue.

Can……

Who is calling out?

"Don't sleep! Don't go with them!" The message conveyed was even stronger.

"Who?" As Mori's mind cleared up a bit, this question naturally came to mind.

"The only person who exists in your heart is yourself. Or rather, you are myself."

This arrogant and strange statement clearly came from the miniature primordial god within his heart. This being, who shared the same origin as Morishige, hadn't shown up for a while, and Morishige had thought He had completely disappeared.

Once he understood this, Mori Toki formed an outline of Him in his mind.

Suddenly, a beautiful figure appeared on the wings. The primordial god, not large in size but stunningly beautiful in appearance and figure, stood with her arms crossed beside the black feather of Sen Shi. She was a soul-like being, transparent and clear, yet no matter how far Sen Shi floated into the sky, she always remained perfectly parallel to Sen Shi.

At this moment, Mori's soul formed a connection with it, a connection that was formed outside of fate and time.

“You understand me, recognize me, and acknowledge my existence. Thank you,” He said with a smile.

"……what?"

"Sigh, every time I see you do something so silly, I start to doubt whether I am a real god. I have to lend you a hand at times like this, otherwise we would be doomed."

His position is completely different from that of the forest; if one insists on understanding it, perhaps he comes from a higher dimension.

Mori asked, "I don't understand, what's going on now?"

"It's not time to travel yet." He had a bitter smile on his face.

"travel?"

"You will become the fuel for the Winged Cloud, propelling it on its journey, but we must continue to live."

"I still don't understand." Mori was completely baffled. What was going on?

"I know you can't understand, don't worry."

He stretched out his hand.

Before the black feathers of Mori Shi would merge with the transparent feathers, becoming part of the pair of wings and enriching them—the soul feathers of Mori Shi, having been taken away from their original world, were freed from some powerful constraint.

"……what?"

“You shouldn’t get involved in this Winged Cloud,” He said.

This time, the voice was right next to her ear, without any obstruction. Mori realized that she was no longer a feather, but a humanoid soul with the form of a girl. Although she was pitch black and not transparent at all, it felt even more outrageous.

Here, fate does not bind everything, nor does time kill everything.

What determines the shape of the world is not the ordinary sensory experience; everything is novel. For example, sound can be smelled, touched, and embraced. It can also be molded and shaped, incorporating itself into every drop of the river of destiny in unconventional ways.

“I have brought you here—to the level where we should exist. To understand this using the knowledge in your mind, it must be at least deeper than the silent world. It should be said that this is the dimension of God.”

"……what?!"

"I think it's too complicated to explain. How about we just wait quietly for Yi Yun to finish?"

"Explain yourself! My feathers are so black, I need to wash them clean!"

If Mori had a forehead, it would be covered in sweat. It was like accidentally discovering a layer of dust inside a computer case, but being told not to clean it—it was utterly torturous. Her soul, which should have been pure, was instead shrouded in darkness.

The Primordial God looked helpless: "Who told you that black means dirty?!"

"Isn't that so?"

"I caused the blackness!"

"Uh."

Sen Shi couldn't understand why he, who was supposed to participate in Yi Yun, had been suddenly captured and placed in what was supposedly a divine dimension, listening to gods explain these bizarre pseudo-scientific spiritual theories?

The primordial god, who should have been residing in her heart and occasionally uttering a few lame jokes, was looking at Mori with a troubled expression.

Do you know what I just said?

"I don't know, but why won't you let me participate in Wing Cloud?"

“Because after participating, we will become mortals. Or... let the Winged Clouds—no, let all the souls truly begin their journey. Ahead lies a vast and unknown place, and I cannot comprehend where we will travel to.”

He kept his eyes fixed on Sen Shi's face, and it was obvious from her embarrassed expression that she didn't quite understand. The Primordial God knew very well that he was simply not good at explaining, or perhaps the things involved in this Winged Cloud were far too vast and profound.

"Winged Clouds are not something interesting, much less a simple folk custom of the Four Seasons."

"Oh?" Mori became interested.

"First of all, you should know about the soul of travel. These guys aren't cannon fodder, but rather, for some reason, they are insiders who know the fate of their own souls—the meaning of the soul's existence is 'travel'."

Sen Shi was intrigued by the topic; the Primordial God's eloquent explanation likely touched upon concepts at the level of truth. Otherwise, he wouldn't have deliberately brought her to this dimension for this kind of naked, soul-to-soul exchange.

And these contents are likely describing the most fundamental aspects of the soul.