Chapter 515

Chapter 515: After the Sun Rekindled

The Sun had lit up again.

After being extinguished for a full twelve hours, the Dark Sphere hanging motionless in the sky once again became “the Sun” that brought warmth and light to this world, and it began to move again.

In Pland, in Frostholm, in Lightwind Harbor, everyone who had seen the Sun go out now saw Visions001 restored again.

However, the terror caused by the Sun’s extinction did not fade so easily. Residents in the city-states were still uneasy. Scholars and priests looked at the relit Sun with the same confusion and tension they had felt when they watched it go out. The cities’ administrators were still trying to confirm the situation in other cities. Everyone was desperate to know—what had happened?

The swirling colored paper swept across the deck like a gust of wind, passed through a window, and fell into the captain’s cabin. Lucretia’s figure gathered from the paper slips. She stepped up to her scrying crystal, activated it, and waited a little anxiously for the reply from the other side.

As soon as Tyrian’s image appeared, she spoke quickly: “I can see that the Sun has lit up again from here. What is it like on your side?”

“Of course it has here too. At least for now, it looks like we are still looking at the same Sun,” Tyrian said. There was a hint of fatigue in his eyes, but he still seemed in good shape. “I may need some time before I can calm the mood in the city. Right now everyone is afraid the sky above their heads will fall into darkness again…”

“…The Sun is a symbol of safety. It has sheltered our days for ten thousand years without change. In other words, once it goes out even once, the most basic, solid sense of ‘safety’ in everyone’s hearts is badly damaged,” Lucretia sighed and voiced what she was thinking. “No one can help worrying about it. Not even me.”

“Did you gather any useful information while the Sun was out?” Tyrian asked. “You have all kinds of instruments over there…”

Lucretia nodded at once: “Yes. After the Sun went out, a set of observation devices I set up on the Radiant Star received strange signals coming from inside that ‘glowing geometric body’. Once I sort out the data, I’ll send you a copy. See if the scholars in Frostholm can make anything of it. Later, I also need to go to Lightwind Harbor again and check whether the monitoring devices the Truth Academy placed around the city found anything…”

“All right. I’ll wait for your news.”

Lucretia made a small sound of assent. Then she hesitated for a few seconds before speaking: “How is Father? He was still at sea when the Sun went out…”

“I’ve been in touch with him the whole time. Everything on the Vanished is normal, maybe even… better than in the city,” Tyrian let out a breath. “I’ll contact him again later. Don’t worry. If I sense anything wrong… I’ll tell you at once.”

Lucretia nodded lightly. After saying goodbye to her Big Brother, she casually extinguished the scrying crystal in front of her.

…

On the Vanished, in the captain’s cabin, the image of Lawrence, captain of the White Oak, appeared in the Oval Scrying Mirror before Duncan. Lawrence was reporting the latest situation:

“The sea around the White Oak has returned to normal. That strange phenomenon hasn’t appeared again. It seems that as the Sun lit up again, everything started going back on track…”

“How is navigation?”

“The Stargazing Room can see the ‘Starry Sky’ again,” Lawrence said with a quick nod. “But the Spirit Realm lenses still need some time to recalibrate. For now, we can roughly tell that the White Oak has not drifted too far off course.”

“Good. Report to me at once if anything else happens.”

The illusory spirit form flames around the edge of the mirror rose and fell, and Lawrence’s image in the mirror slowly faded. Duncan still stood before the now-normal mirror, frowning in thought.

The Sun had recovered. The situation was more or less what he had first expected. Visions001 was indeed having problems, but this huge, ancient “device” would not fully collapse in a short time. It might keep going for a long while yet, through repeated failures and repairs. Today’s extinction was only temporary—and, in the same way, its rekindling was also temporary.

More than the Sun’s brief extinction, what Duncan cared about now were the other things: the strange phenomena that had happened after the Sun went out.

The first strange phenomenon was the loss of contact with every city-state except Pland, Lightwind Harbor, and Frostholm.

If all communication across the Boundless Sea had gone down, it would have been less troubling. But three city-states had stayed normal. If Pland and Frostholm were special because they had become “Visions”, then what about Lightwind Harbor?

The second strange phenomenon was even more puzzling than the “lost communication”: what exactly was that “boundary” the White Oak had observed?

A burning bundle of cloth thrown from the ship into the sea should, in theory, keep drifting away in the direction opposite the ship’s course. Yet while the Sun was out, those bundles all “stopped” near some “boundary” after drifting only a few hundred meters…

And according to Lawrence’s report just now, once the Sun lit up again, this strange phenomenon vanished as well. The mummified corpse “Sailor” had run several more tests to confirm it.

Duncan furrowed his brows tightly.

The phenomenon the White Oak had observed was actually tiny in scale. Compared to the “loss of contact” across all the city-states on the Boundless Sea, that “boundary” was limited to the space around a single ship. But what lay behind that phenomenon seemed far beyond imagination.

Vaguely, Duncan felt he had brushed against some crucial “secret” of the Boundless Sea. The “true face” of this whole world seemed to be hidden in those twelve hours after the Sun went out.

Just then, a call from far away suddenly broke his train of thought.

Duncan came back to himself at once and glanced over the mirror before him.

In the next second, the translucent spirit form flames once again wrapped around the mirror. The depths of the mirror turned pitch-black, and Tyrian’s figure appeared within.

“Father, over there you…”

“Everything is fine here. The Sun has recovered, hasn’t it?” Duncan cut him off before he could finish. “How is Frostholm?”

“Everything is fine here in Frostholm,” Tyrian answered at once. “With you ‘watching over’ the cemetery, the pressure on the Church and City Hall has dropped a lot. Order across the city is under control now, but the citizens’ fear will need time to calm. I’ll call a meeting later to discuss how to explain the Sun’s extinction to ordinary people…”

Duncan noticed that while Tyrian spoke, he kept sneaking glances this way, as if… carefully watching for changes in Duncan’s expression.

He quickly understood why.

“Relax. I’m still me. I have not been swapped out for something from Subspace just because the Sun went out for a short while,” Duncan said with a calm smile, speaking the blunt truth. “If you don’t believe me, go to the cemetery and confirm it face-to-face with my ‘avatar form’?”

“Ah, no, I didn’t mean anything like that!” Tyrian explained in a rush. “It’s just… Lucy was a bit worried about you…”

“I know,” Duncan cut him off and waved casually. “But you can relax. My mental health is perfectly fine. Instead of worrying about me, tell me about the city. Has communication with the other city-states been restored?”

“We can receive signals from Cold Harbor now, and Psychic Communication with other distant city-states has also been restored,” Tyrian said with a nod. “I’ve already sent people to ask about the situation in each city-state. We should soon…”

He stopped suddenly at that point, and his gaze shifted to the side.

It seemed someone had entered the domed office and was reporting something to him.

Duncan did not speak. He immediately withdrew his gaze and hid the link between the mirrors. This was to avoid frightening the “ordinary person” on that side.

After a few minutes, the flames around the edge of the mirror burned up again. Duncan heard Tyrian calling him and turned his gaze back to the mirror.

Tyrian’s image appeared in the mirror again, and this time he clearly still looked stunned.

Duncan noticed the change in his expression and frowned slightly: “What happened?”

“We… just got in touch with Cold Harbor and asked about what happened in their city-state while the Sun was out,” Tyrian said slowly, as if weighing every word. “They were very surprised. They have no idea that the Sun ever went out!”

Duncan’s expression hardened at once.

After more than ten seconds, he seemed to think of something and broke the silence in a grave tone: “Be clear. Is it that the people in Cold Harbor never saw the Sun go out? Or is it that they never experienced those twelve hours at all?”

Tyrian froze for a moment, then quickly grasped what Duncan meant.

“You mean…”

“Confirm it again. See whether Cold Harbor has any record of a break in communication with Frostholm. If, in their view, the whole world was always normal and their link with Frostholm was never cut… then this is much more complicated than we thought.”

“Yes, I’ll check at once,” Tyrian said quickly. “And I’ll confirm with the other city-states one by one!”

Duncan nodded and waved away the flickering flames around the mirror. Just as he was about to think this through, Goathead’s startled shout suddenly came from not far away: “Captain! Something’s not right! Come take a look at the enchanted sea chart!”

“enchanted sea chart?”

Puzzled, Duncan turned and quickly walked over to the chart table. His eyes swept over the eerie enchanted sea chart, wreathed in mist.

In the next second, he saw the projection of the Vanished on the enchanted sea chart and… a city-state marker slowly appearing beside that projection.

“We’re… near Lightwind Harbor?”