Chapter 108

Chapter 108: The Illusory Sun

Duncan was starting to understand why people in the world feared and hated the Vanished so much, and why they treated the captain of the Vanished like a walking plague.

Because in a way, this moving calamity really was like a plague.

In a dark, chaotic space, Duncan quietly turned his gaze on the little flames jumping between his hands, feeling the power hidden inside this fire that acted so gentle toward him.

Fire was the most special thing in this world. It was not only the bearer of light and warmth; it also protected mortal civilization so it could grow in a world full of danger. It kept the balance between the supernatural domain and the Mortal Realm, and it symbolized the Gods’ divine blessing and protection over the mortal world.

In almost every field that involved the supernatural, “fire” held a special place and role.

But his fire seemed to carry some faint yet extremely dangerous… traits. Even among the supernatural, it was more terrifying than any other flame.

It held extreme corruption, extreme secrecy, and an extreme power to seize and to profane.

From what he knew for now, the spirit form fire already had the power to corrupt and twist supernatural objects. It could also be used to occupy the bodies of the dead, and it could hide inside the souls of the living. Even the Saint’s power could not fully purge it. As long as the right moment came, the fire would smolder inside the soul and build a secret path leading to the Vanished.

This was basically a plague that was almost impossible to detect or wipe out. At least for now, the so?called power of the Saint seemed to do nothing against this kind of flame.

Duncan let out a soft breath.

He still did not know what use this faint link between him and Vanna could have. But at least for now, it seemed that as long as there was a suitable “medium” and some kind of “trigger”, he could directly see and hear what was happening around that Saint. From what he had sensed earlier by the “mirror”, he should also be able to project his own power to some extent to the Saint’s surroundings—the most effective way would be to corrupt the “fire” near the Saint.

When the passage formed, he clearly sensed that there was “fire” beside Vanna, and that fire was responding to his gaze. Together with the experience he had gained while controlling the spirit form fire before, he could be sure that “fire” had to be one of the conditions for building the link.

As for what exactly counted as a suitable “medium” and “trigger”… for the first, he could at least be sure for now that “mirrors” and “fire” could act as carriers for the projection channel—in the “technical” terms of the supernatural field, they were “ritual tools”. As for the second…

Duncan recalled the words he had heard when the link had suddenly formed:

“…it might instead connect them to the Vanished…”

Right after hearing that sentence, he had sensed the passage form. So the trigger was probably hidden in those words.

“The word ‘Vanished’…”

Duncan’s understanding of the supernatural field was limited, but even with what little he knew, he understood how special “names” were in the supernatural.

The name Duncan Abnomar, and the name “the Vanished”, both carried power.

He had, for the moment, a rough answer in his heart:

When Vanna, this “carrier”, spoke the name “the Vanished” near fire and a mirror, the link between her and the Vanished would be strengthened at once. If, at that moment, Duncan then took the initiative to answer that “call” from his side, the passage would form.

As his thoughts slowly calmed down, Duncan also drew back his gaze from the distant “stars”.

He bore no grudge against the Deep Sea Church, and he had no malice at all toward that young inquisitor lady. Naturally, he did not plan to use this link to harm her. But if this connection could now and then bring him some useful information… that would not be a bad thing.

The dark, chaotic space and the scattered lights faded like flowing water. Duncan opened his eyes and saw that he had “returned” to his own cabin.

The Golden Sun Mask, made in imitation of the Sun, lay quietly at his hand. The pigeon AI was crouched on the table near the mask, dozing.

Earlier, he had sent the bird off to chat with Goathead, but for some reason Goathead had not wanted to talk and had sent the bird right back.

After a brief hesitation, Duncan reached out and picked up that Sun mask.

Although there had been a few small accidents and he had somehow run into a lot of unexpected information, things had finally gone back on track—he now had time to study this “Sun sacred relic”.

He first turned the mask over a few times, checking the details of its shape and the exact material it was made of. While he was doing that, he suddenly noticed that one corner of the mask seemed to have been chipped.

From that chipped spot, a dull, murky color faintly showed through.

Duncan frowned. The next second, the pigeon that had been napping on the table suddenly opened its eyes. It flapped its wings, hopped around, and squawked: “Iron plated with copper! Iron plated with copper!”

When Duncan heard the pigeon, the chipped part of the mask looked even more glaring to him. He quickly scratched at the damaged spot with his fingernail and studied it for a while. At last, with a blank look, he reached a conclusion—

It really was damned iron plated with copper, not even gold?plated.

Some spots on the corner of the mask had even started to turn green…

“Isn’t this just cheating people!”

The gap between what he had expected and what he had found finally made Duncan mutter out loud. He stared, very depressed, at the heavy lump of iron in his hand and thought of the “resell” plan he had had before he started studying the mask. His heart felt icy. “I was counting on squeezing a few more layers of profit out of those cultists… even a mass?produced sacred relic shouldn’t be made like this, right?!”

The pigeon AI rolled its eyes at his grumbling, flapped its wings, and squawked: “Can you even guarantee your melons are ripe?”

It took Duncan a moment to get what the pigeon meant—it was basically asking, “Are all the goods in your shop actually genuine?”

He thought about the pile of defective modern industrial products back in his shop, looked at AI with a blank face, and said: “Shut up.”

After that, he ignored the annoying bird beside him and turned his attention back to the golden mask.

Now that he had confirmed this thing really was a cheap, mass?produced item, he no longer had any worries about his “test”.

A faint green flame rose from his fingertips and flowed like water over the patterns on the surface of the Golden Sun Mask. Under Duncan’s control, it then slowly seeped into the inside of this “sacred relic”.

A mass?produced sacred relic was still a sacred relic. Even if this thing was really just iron plated with copper, the runes carved inside it and the Sun?shaped design on its surface still had to be able to produce an supernatural effect. Since that Sun priest could use it to communicate with his “deity”, it meant this Sun mask could be studied according to the usual rules for supernatural items.

Duncan actually had quite a bit of experience in the field of studying supernatural items. His main method was to set them on fire whenever things did not add up—the most recent example was burning Alice’s coffin box with the green flame. Facts had proven that this research method worked very well.

As he felt the flames gradually invade the inside of the mask, Duncan also focused his mind and began to sense what information might be hidden inside this supernatural item.

This was a mass?produced piece, and its “rank” was definitely far below Alice’s doll spirit coffin. Duncan believed he would soon figure out how this thing worked and what it could do, then corrupt it in reverse and usurp it for himself.

With that thought in mind, he probed into the truth hidden deep inside the mask—yet in the very next second, things went far beyond his expectations.

A blast like roaring thunder suddenly exploded in his mind, as if a passage had been blown open inside the depths of this seemingly ordinary mask. His spirit, which had sunk into the mask, suddenly felt a vast, scorching power spill out everywhere. Right after that, he felt as if he had “passed through” a tunnel, or pushed open a great door, and grand, magnificent visions flooded into his mind!

It might have lasted only a second, maybe even less. It was just a few flashing images—in those images, he saw a blazing fireball burning fiercely, hanging alone in the dark void of space.

The Sun—a true, burning star, pouring out a vast gravity…

In that shocking heat and rending gravity, Duncan faced the scorching of that fierce sun directly. Yet he did not turn to ash in the Sun. That star seemed to be only a phantom from ages long past. It kept the majesty and presence it had once truly possessed, but it could no longer really affect the Mortal Realm at all.

Duncan could only stare in shock, his gaze fixed on this blazing sun burning in illusion, and then watched as it slowly turned by a small angle in his sight.

On the far side of the Sun lay dim, pale flesh and countless curled, withered tendrils. Those hateful limbs, stretching for millions of kilometers, all crowded around a half?open, half?shut, gigantic eye that had been dead and decaying for who knew how many ages.

The burning corona blazed on a false shell woven and held up by that flesh and those tendrils—releasing a power that tried its best to imitate the Sun, yet was, in the end, only a replica.

A faint, drifting voice, almost like a hallucination, sounded by Duncan’s ear:

“Flame Usurper… extinguish me… please…”