Chapter 180

Chapter 180: The History Scholar Talks of History

What was wrong? A lot was wrong.

Duncan stared wide-eyed at the old gentleman in front of him. Very soon he realized that Morris had no idea what the jet of flame he had seen in Duncan’s eyes really meant. This scholar knew nothing about the fragments of the Sun. He had most likely taken Nina for another “supernatural being”, like Duncan’s retainer, or some other thing that had slipped out of Subspace.

That was indeed what Morris thought. The moment he saw that erupting flame, he had taken his “student” as a being similar to Duncan. As for why this “Subspace family” had one who looked like a giant and another who looked like a mass of fire, he did not think about it at all. When it came to Subspace, strange was normal. There were no living people in that place anyway, and the big bosses there could grow in whatever shape they liked…

However, seeing Duncan’s reaction now, Morris faintly realized that things might not be as he had guessed.

“Nina, she…” The old man spoke hesitantly. After the terror and shock from before, he now felt a new emotion rising in him—worry for his own student.

Even he felt this worry was a little ridiculous, because that jet of flame—no matter what its true body was—was clearly powerful to a staggering degree. A being that strong could not possibly still be his frail and ordinary student.

Duncan shook his head.

“Nina is not the same as me—she is an ordinary person, and she always has been,” he said slowly, his expression very serious. “She herself does not know that there is anything special about her. As for the flame you mentioned… that may be ‘something else’.”

“I… do not quite understand.”

Duncan looked at Morris for a long moment. In the end, he still did not bring up the matter of the Sun fragment directly. Instead, he suddenly changed the subject: “Do you know much about the so?called ‘true Sun god’ worshiped by the Suntists?”

“The true Sun god?” Morris frowned. He did not know why Duncan had suddenly steered the talk here, but he still answered quickly: “Of course I know a bit. After all, those cultists have existed for a very long time, and many of their ritual acts of worship are part of historical research.

“‘True Sun god’ is what they call their own deity. But believers of the True Gods usually do not say it that way. We call It the Black Sun, or the Black Sun god. In some very old texts, ancient scholars even called It the ‘Creeping Sun Wheel’.”

“Creeping Sun Wheel?” Duncan raised his eyebrows. He had heard the name Black Sun before, but this title “Creeping Sun Wheel” was new to him. The name at once brought back the vision he had seen through the Sun mask he had used as a medium—the rotting limbs under a glorious corona, the eerie Eldritch Gods burning fiercely.

“Yes. Outside of specialist circles, very few people mention that name, because it comes from records passed down from the Ancient Kingdom Era. The earliest manuscript was written in the Critt script. That makes the title ‘Creeping Sun Wheel’ carry a certain mystical pull, and spreading it too widely among ordinary people might have bad effects.”

Morris nodded as he explained these details. While he talked about academic matters, he seemed to forget the terrifying “reality” behind Duncan. He slipped back into the mood from days ago, when he had visited this antique shop and chatted happily with the shopkeeper.

He even felt that the buzzing noise in his head had faded away without him noticing.

“The Critt Ancient Kingdom…” Duncan was quite surprised. “Those cultists who worship the Sun god have such a long history?!”

“…Yes. As unbelievable as it sounds, those heretics who worship the Creeping Sun Wheel can even be traced back to the High Age of the Ancient Kingdom. And if we remember that Vision 001?the Sun only rose from the sea after the Critt Ancient Kingdom collapsed…” Morris paused here. He seemed to struggle with himself for a few seconds before going on. “In truth, orthodox academia and the Four Gods Church have never been willing to face this question head on. If we look at the era when the Sun Vision rose, the faith in the Black Sun is actually older than the history of Vision 001.”

For a while, Duncan said nothing.

The history of the Black Sun being older than the history of the Sun Vision was a very reasonable fact, yet it was one that the Four Gods Church was not eager to admit.

Because admitting this fact meant admitting something else at the same time—that one claim made by the Sun believers was true:

The “true Sun god” had been the real Sun in the Age of Antiquity, and the later?rising Sun Vision was in fact only a “profane construct” that had stolen the Sun’s divine authority.

“…So those Suntists were right. Before the age of the Deep Sea, it was their ‘Lord’ who shone on this world,” Duncan finally said after half a minute of silence. “If the standard is ‘the older, the more orthodox’, then they are the orthodox ones.”

“There are many factions in academia and many different claims. But this is the most heretical of all the heretical ideas—almost half a step over the line into true heresy,” Morris sighed. “Yet the many manuscripts left from the Critt Kingdom do not let us dodge this problem.”

“Let us say those cultists hold a few pieces of the truth,” Duncan shook his head lightly. “But that does not change the fact that their faith is very dangerous to the world as it is now. No matter what their Lord was like before the age of the Deep Sea, Its current state is… tsk tsk.”

Morris listened, and then he suddenly came back to himself.

He woke from the calm mood of discussing scholarship with an old acquaintance and stared at Duncan in alarm: “Wait, by that you mean… could it be that you…”

“I happened to meet It once,” Duncan thought about it. He felt he should at least offer some weighty information to the old gentleman. After all, he had taken so much knowledge from this scholar for free that he felt a bit guilty. “How should I put it… It was so miserable that even I could hardly bear to look, and there was no hope of recovery at all. I do not think those Sun believers’ methods can bring their Lord back. If anything, I think they are only pushing their Lord toward even greater madness and distortion.”

He paused, then looked at the old gentleman across from him: “Do you want me to tell you what It looks like now? Maybe you could gain some inspira—”

Morris had felt his own mind trembling ever since Duncan started to speak. When Duncan paused for breath, Morris finally seized his chance. He let out a sharp cry: “No need!”

Right after that, he seemed to feel his reaction was a bit rude. He hurriedly coughed twice, then spoke with serious respect: “This is not knowledge I should be touching.”

“…Oh, right, sorry,” Duncan froze for a moment, then waved his hand quickly. “Then let us not talk about that. Let us talk instead about the Black Sun faith in the Mortal Realm. Those cultists have kept trying to resurrect their Lord, yet their crude live sacrifices have never had any effect. In history, have they ever achieved any ‘results’?”

“The Sun heretics have caused plenty of destruction, but if we are talking about truly ‘reviving the Sun’, that is not something mortal power could achieve,” Morris recalled slowly. “As far as I know, there are only a few records of the Black Sun’s power appearing on a large scale in history.

“The earliest record was in the Late Chaotic Dynasty. After the collapse of the Critt Ancient Kingdom, many unresolved historical problems piled up over a long time. Several city?states broke out into constant wars and famines. The Sun heretics took advantage of the chaos and carried out a bloody great sacrificial rite in a city?state named Charon. In the end they summoned a gigantic living fireball. That fireball floated over Charon for five days before it finally faded, and in the end it melted the whole city?state into a single piece of glass.

“Another time was in the classical Age of City?States. The exact cause is unknown now. All we know is that several small city?states at the edge of the civilized world vanished in a single night. According to eyewitness accounts, a huge glowing rift opened in the sky, and a Sun Wheel rose within it. The city?states were pulled up out of the sea by a huge force, torn into long narrow strips, and then fell into that rift.

“The most recent case happened at the very beginning of the New City?State Calendar, and it was also the strangest. That disaster left no eyewitness reports or records of damage at all. There was no proof, no records, no one who knew or remembered. We cannot even say for sure what year it happened or where it took place…”

Duncan listened in bafflement. At last he could not help speaking: “No one knows it even happened? How can that count as the Black Sun’s power appearing on a large scale? People do not even know which city?state was attacked?”

“Yes, that is how strange it was. This already went beyond what a normal scholar would study, but my position at the Truth Academy let me see some related documents,” Morris nodded, his face very serious. “That event did happen, because one morning a line of words suddenly appeared on the most sacred Chronicle Pillar of the Flamebearer Church.

“That one line mentioned a city?state that simply does not exist. It had only a single sentence:

‘Last message from Willheim. The Black Sun descended from history. We failed.’”