Chapter 181: 'History, Pollution, and the Black Sun”

Chapter 181 “History, Pollution, and the Black Sun”

A message that suddenly appeared on the “Chronology Pillar”, a city-state that no one knew about, the battles that no one remembered, the defeats and sacrifices that no one saw, a history that did not exist in anyone’s memory, and after its demise, there was only a trace of its existence left in the world.

And even if the message amounted to nothing more than an extremely short sentence, it’s likely at the cost of countless lives from those Flame Bearers to transmit this message.

After listening to Morris’s explanation, Duncan fell into deep thought due to the shock.

He’s got a general idea of what this faith did according to the Flame Codex he read.

Unlike the storm, wisdom, and death church, the Flame Bearers followed a teaching that’s much more ethereal and harder to grasp: its history.

History was the memory of civilization. If history becomes corrupted, so does the memory of civilization itself. When that occurs, even reality itself could be bent to the corruptor’s will. Control history, control the world. To combat this threat, Flame Bearers are constantly working behind the scenes to fight against those who pose a threat. They are often forgotten, often never seen, and often perished within history itself. Nevertheless, their impact continues to be felt today in the form of everyday living.

So who did they worship? The “Eternal Flame” Ta Ruijin, a giant who guards against the corruption of history, the embodiment of civilization’s memory. According to the Flame Codex, the giant integrated the first flame created by mortals into its body. Through this flame, it records the correct history and grows with it in size, and once Ta Ruijin grows big enough, he will be immune to corruption and safeguard history in its entirety.

Of course, the origin story was nothing more than bullocks in Duncan’s view. He wouldn’t dismiss the Flame Bearers did work to combat the corruption of history, but the flame giant was a whole different matter.

“So they did something like that before already...” Duncan muttered thoughtfully.

“What did you say?” Morris didn’t process the comment and asked, “Did what before already? What do you mean...”

“It’s nothing, just talking to myself.” Duncan shook his head and met the old gent’s gaze with a certain severity, “The intel you brought is very important.”

Spreading his arms out, Duncan shakes his head in denial: “How am I supposed to know? I’m a law-abiding citizen. Even in my free time, I will report on the closest heretic to the authorities.”

Morris: “...?”

The older man obviously didn’t buy it and nearly choked.

Not minding the accusation, Duncan figured he better shift the conversation back on track less this spiral out of hand. “But I understand what you mean. Unless we can directly target the evil god, their influence will never wane. However, something is bothering me. Is the Black Sun’s influence really that strong? I’ve seen its lifeless state. Even when it communicated with me, it had to do it through a mental echo instead of speaking. How does a being that’s so weak able to pollute the world?”

The corners of Morris’s mouth visibly twitched: “No matter how bad the state of the Black Sun is, it is only weak in your eye... Unfortunately, we, mortals, are not so durable...”

Duncan felt an indescribable urge to rebuttal that claim and say he’s human too. However, he reconsidered the idea after taking the mental and physical health of the old historian into account. Besides, spouting something like that would only make him look weird and awkward when the other side already saw his true appearance.

It’s then Morris seemed to think of something else. After a pause, he added: “But your doubts may also point to the crux of the matter. If the state of the Black Sun is really as bad as you say, his pollution of the world really shouldn’t be so strong, at least it shouldn’t make the Suntists this tricky to handle... All this may perhaps have something to do with the existence of those sun ‘heirs’.”

“The offsprings of the sun...” muttered Duncan thoughtfully. His mind couldn’t help but think of the tall, thin black shadow that had appeared in Shirley’s dream before.

Although there was no clear evidence, he always felt that the thing was probably related to the legendary Sun offsprings.

The Black Sun has long fallen and can no longer shine on this world, but the heirs of the Black Sun continue to this day. If there’s any power causing the influence, it would be the next of kin.

But another key problem remains unsolved: the Black Sun doesn’t have the power to pollute history, and its descendants most certainly couldn’t.

Yet, the forgotten city-state of “Wilheim” did send a message that the Black Sun has returned from history. That meant history has been polluted at least once. In that case, who’s helping the Suntists to resurrect their god?