Chapter 109

Chapter 109: Flame Usurper

A violent feeling of falling came out of nowhere and tore Duncan’s spirit away from the blazing sun. He felt as if a powerful gravity were dragging him through a deep, long tunnel. The burning corona and the flesh that held it up rushed away from his sight. The next second, he felt a solid pressure against his back.

It was the back of his chair.

Duncan snapped his eyes open and gasped for breath. He felt his heart beating harder than it ever had. On his retinas, it was as if there was still a blinding light left behind by that burning star.

The truth of the flesh beneath that sea of fire was etched even more sharply into his mind.

After a few more seconds, these strong impressions slowly faded in his mind, and only that one vague sentence still echoed in the depths of his memory—

“Flame Usurper, extinguish me, please…”

Duncan frowned slightly. He was sure he had really heard those words.

Was that… sent to him by that “Sun”? Had that thing sensed his spying and then sent him this… signal that sounded like a plea for help?

Duncan rubbed his forehead. While he guessed at the truth behind this “help” signal, he went over the details of that blazing sun again in his mind.

There was no doubt that this was what the followers of the “ancient true Sun” worshiped—the “true Sun” they talked about.

To be honest, in that brief moment when he first saw it, Duncan had really felt a surge of emotion. The sea of fire of that blazing sun had shocked him so much that he almost thought he was truly seeing the “Sun” from his own memories and understanding, the very star he had once seen from Earth…

The more stirred up he had been then, the more stunned and lost he had felt after seeing the truth on the far side of the Sun.

The front of that Sun really was exactly the same as the “real Sun”, completely matching what the Suntists had described. But that sight was only the outer shell of the Sun. Inside it… was nothing but an unnameable mass.

Duncan recalled that pale, murky flesh and the shriveled, decaying state of the tendrils that crowded around the eye.

The “creature” wrapped inside the shell of the Sun did not seem to be in good shape.

In fact, Duncan even thought it was already “dead”—the feeling of lost life was so strong that even from far away, just peeking at it, he could feel that breath of “death” rush at him from the depths of his soul.

It was basically the burning corpse of an Elder God.

And that corpse of an Elder God was asking him for help, hoping someone would come and extinguish the flames on its body.

A corpse crying for help—this was both contradictory and horrifying, bizarre beyond reason, yet it still fit the already twisted “logic” of this world.

Duncan slowly sorted out his tangled thoughts and remembered that, during that brief glimpse, there had been another very striking detail: the way that “Sun” had addressed him—it had called him “Flame Usurper”.

Was that unnameable mass of flesh really calling out to him? Had it truly sensed the approach of this uninvited guest and spoken because of that? Was it really not just shouting blindly in a haze?

If that plea really had been meant for him, then this was a very clear form of address—Flame Usurper…

Duncan lowered his head and rubbed his fingertips together, watching a small flame burn quietly there.

The green spirit form fire waited obediently for his command, ready to corrupt other flames and seize the power of other anomalies.

A second later, Duncan dispelled the spirit form fire in his hand.

Whether that “Sun” had really been speaking to him or not, and whatever exactly “Flame Usurper” was supposed to mean, none of it was something he could deal with right now. The cultists in the city?state of Pland were still hiding in the shadows. He neither had the ability nor the standing to deal with the “Sun god” behind them.

Besides, how was he supposed to “help” that burning Sun? Use this little bit of spirit form fire of his to burn over that whole giant mass? He would burn himself out long before he finished! And anyway, just because the thing had asked him for help did not mean it was “on his side”—who knew what would happen if that Sun were extinguished? What if the flames were actually a seal, and once they went out, the unnameable thing inside the Sun would wake up and go on a rampage? Would it still remember the favor of him “putting out the fire” then?

It was never a wise idea to casually deal with something that was basically a deity.

Duncan shook his head, feeling only a bit of sighing in his heart—the so?called “Sun god” really was not the Sun he knew.

Maybe, in this world, he really would never see true sunlight again.

The Golden Sun Mask, made in the shape of the Sun, still lay quietly on the table. The shine on its surface had grown dull, as if the energy inside it had already been used up.

Duncan reached out, wanting to pick up the mask, but the moment his fingertips touched it, a faint cracking sound reached his ears.

The mask, which had been very solid iron (plated with copper), suddenly seemed as if it had gone through millions of years of weathering and decay. In the next second it turned to dust in his hand and scattered away on the air.

AI hopped over, flapping, and spread its wings in front of Duncan as it gestured: “Happy, pop, all gone!”

Duncan paid no attention to the bird begging to be smacked. A faint understanding rose in his heart—

This mask was, in the end, only a mass?produced sacred relic made as an imitation. Those Suntists seemed to be best at using all kinds of rituals to make this kind of limited?effect replica. These replicas had a bit of the power of a real item, but their lifespan was always worrying.

The function of the Sun mask was probably to act as some kind of communication channel. Lower?ranked priests used it to contact the deity they believed in, or the “spawn” under that deity. Just now, he had forced the mask to unleash all its power with the spirit form fire, letting it briefly have the effect of a genuine item and letting him glimpse the image of the Sun god through the passage—and those few seconds had directly used up the mask’s entire “lifespan”.

“Maybe I’ll have to find a way to get a real one in the future…” Duncan said thoughtfully as he watched the ashes drifting in the air. “If it takes one of these every three seconds, they really can’t stand the burning…”

He did not plan to actually “save” any Sun god, but he was still quite interested in the secrets those Suntists were hiding, and he was full of curiosity about the history before the Great Annihilation. He felt he would keep doing research in the field of the supernatural. The wool on those cultists… still had to be plucked.

But as his research went deeper, he would have to find ways to pluck some higher?quality wool.

After a short rest to recover his strength, Duncan left his cabin.

Goathead, who had been spacing out by the chart table, turned his head at the sound. He first checked to see whether the pigeon had come out with Duncan. Only when he saw that Duncan was alone did he breathe a sigh of relief. “Ah, great Captain, your loyal and—details omitted—servant has been dutifully steering in your stead. I wonder if your latest ‘voyage afar’ went smoothly? I sensed your soul traveling very far again, but this time it didn’t seem to be a human city?state? If you plan to go that far next time, you could actually tell me beforehand…”

“How much do you know about the ‘true Sun god’ those Suntists believe in?” Duncan waved a hand and asked directly.

After spending some time with Goathead, he had come to understand the other’s temperament more and more, and he had grown more confident in his own “captain” identity. When they talked and he asked questions now, he was no longer as cautious as at the beginning. It felt fine to casually ask some questions that were not directly related to the essence of the Vanished.

It also let him test, while he was at it, just how much this strange Goathead really knew about the supernatural.

“The true Sun god?” Goathead was taken aback for a moment, then spoke with some hesitation. “To be honest, I don’t really know. I only know that the cultists who follow the Sun god are all both mad and foolish, but I don’t know what kind of thing the deity behind them actually is… Still, the Sun god’s ‘divine blessing’ does exist. Those cultists do gain some strange powers once their faith is devout enough. That’s also why this cult could slowly grow.”

As he spoke, Goathead gradually reacted. “Ah, why did you suddenly bring this up? Don’t tell me you just…”

“I was just thinking,” Duncan said slowly, sighing, “if a so?called ‘deity’ is being roasted over a fire by its own believers, and those believers don’t know anything about it, and keep working overtime to throw more wood on the fire every day, while they mistake the ‘corpse oil’ rendered from their deity for the divine blessing that deity has granted them… then the whole thing is a bit ironic. It would be too much even as a joke told in hell.”

The enchanted sea chart room grew quiet. Goathead actually did not pick up the thread of the conversation. This made Duncan glance at him in surprise. “Why aren’t you talking? Aren’t you usually very chatty?”

Goathead spoke in a rather muffled tone. “…This topic is way too terrifying. I don’t dare say anything, and I don’t dare ask anything. I can only say, Captain, your insight is truly impressive…”

Duncan could not help but laugh.

He did not know if it was his imagination, but he was starting to feel that even this Goathead before him did not seem as sinister and dangerous as at the beginning. The atmosphere on this ship… seemed to be slowly getting better?