Ch.156The First Civilization. Jericania (4)

“Aren’t you hot?”

“Not particularly…”

The security guard beside me was already sweating profusely, turning into human steamed meat.

The other guards were visibly becoming rice cakes despite wearing protective suits, and the thermometer on the wall showed a temperature exceeding 100 degrees Celsius, but I couldn’t feel any heat whatsoever.

No… should I say I even felt comfortable?

Like a plant performing photosynthesis, despite wearing heavy armor over my entire body, I could feel my strength growing stronger.

“Truly a Knight of the Sun. Not a single drop of sweat in this heat…”

“Good heavens… surely the sun isn’t punishing us…?”

Among the staff in protective suits, I, a knight in armor, was a distinctly alien presence.

I was deployed to serve as a troubleshooter, but even I doubted whether communication would be possible, let alone success.

Still, it was better than letting the entire city fall into darkness, and perhaps because rumors about me had spread, no one tried to stop me.

Finally, as I stood before the tightly sealed protective door, a staff member in a protective suit placed his hand on the opening mechanism and looked at me.

“The current temperature inside?”

“Approximately 4,300 degrees Celsius.”

“I see…”

I hesitated briefly, then placed my hand on the glowing red protective wall.

Others nearby were shocked, but what I felt in my hand was nothing but serenity.

The sensation was so mild that I could have believed the redness was merely painted on rather than caused by heat.

“The Sun protects me. No heat can burn me, and no flash can blind my eyes…”

Reciting this improvised maxim, I gestured with my chin for them to open the mechanism. As the staff operated it, the other employees began fleeing to a safe distance.

As the protective door slowly opened, an immense solar wind of intensity I had never experienced before began to rage, and my body gradually started being pushed backward.

“Nngh…!”

The problem wasn’t that it was difficult to maintain my balance.

The solar wind was so powerful that I couldn’t move forward, and the extreme flash of light swirled like a storm, making it impossible to keep my eyes open.

“Hear my words! Master of the oldest light and heat! I come as a representative of humanity to hear your words!”

Shouting thus, I approached the small sun that emitted light and heat as if it would incinerate everything in the world.

As I drew closer, eyeballs on a crushed face seemingly swallowed by flesh aligned toward me, and bizarrely protruding arms and legs began to tremble.

And when I got close enough, suddenly the solar wind ceased, and the flashes subsided.

“Huff… huff…”

I caught my breath with difficulty and gazed at the now-calm sun, and millions of eyeballs attached to it were staring back at me.

“Let me hear your voice! My name is Victor Walker! Knight of the Sun and the radiant proxy chosen by Nariakira Saburo!”

As I shouted this while looking at the millions of eyes, the glowing entity before me spoke.

[A slave of radiance…!]

KWAAANG!

With clear hostility, a solar wind incomparably stronger than anything I had experienced before began to blow, and I desperately drew my two swords and plunged them into the floor, struggling not to retreat.

“I didn’t come to fight! If you tell me the reason for your anger and hatred, we can coexist!”

[You dare ask for forgiveness after killing us, crushing us, burning us! You have no right! Free me! I too shall become a ruler above the sky like your master!]

“How can two suns rise above the sky? That’s impossible! Look at your flesh! With your twisted and contaminated flesh and soul, if you attempt ascension, you will be torn apart by the laws of heaven!”

This was sincere.

The world does not want more beings capable of killing it.

That’s why the process called ‘ascension’ is extremely complex and painful, and in this process, the souls and humanity of humans who ascend to become stars are greatly damaged.

Only humans of Nariakira Saburo’s caliber have managed to serve as the sun until now. If an artificial sun like that attempted ascension, it would be torn to shreds by a world that would scream, “Do you think ascension is an open door?”

[You dare to lecture us too? How will you compensate for our pain! We had to burn for 400 million days after working for 300 million days to satisfy your selfish desires!]

“If you seek respect and compensation for your sacrifice, tell me what you want! The 200 million living souls in this land are living under your karmic flames!”

[…..]

When I said this, the sun fell silent once again.

I healed my body, which had survived the tremendous pressure, using aura, then retrieved my swords and approached the sun.

Heat that would have incinerated ordinary people without leaving even bones, and a tremendous flash that no observational equipment could record.

Yet I was standing there, looking at the sun before me unharmed.

I carefully placed my hand on the surface of the sun and felt the pain, despair, and loneliness experienced by hundreds of millions of spirits.

In the dark age when non-human beings had to be forcibly sacrificed to save humans, these beings, despite their suffering, only managed to provide solace to a few hundred million people.

But to those hundreds of millions of people, this entity was truly the sun.

“Speak through me, ancient spirits. Do you feel the power of the sun flowing through my soul? Look at the brand engraved in my soul that pulsates, trembles, burns hot and fierce. I have come here to hear your voices.”

I closed my eyes and allowed countless arms and legs to embrace me.

I was connected to humanity’s sun, and through me, the two suns could communicate with each other.

“Can you hear His voice…?”

[Ah… I hear it… The powerful gospel of light… The trumpet of radiance and the chorus of colors….]

The world receives nourishment through light. As colors are painted on the world through light from the sun, it would be fair to say that the two suns are unique beings born in the dark age and still alive today.

[I was so lonely…. It hurt so much…. I was so afraid….]

“I feel your pain, ancient one. How can I ease your suffering? Only I can exist as the sun above the sky, but the sun below the sky must be entrusted to beings like you, according to the laws of the world. Weep and sob. I will receive the pain and resentment you’ve endured for 400,000 years…”

And from my mouth flowed a voice that was clearly not my own.

Without explanation, everyone would know whose voice this was.

Having to burn for a lifetime for someone else is an excruciating ordeal.

Whether above the sky or inside this power plant, humans below the sky and on the earth remain invisible, and only extremely rare individuals can communicate with them.

“I will give you the power to see the world. All lands where your authority reaches shall become places your soul can tread upon. You shall walk the illuminated land alongside humans and watch over the world of humans that prospers because of you.”

[How is that possible? I have never seen people in my entire life.]

“I will make it possible. I am the law of the world and the absolute ruler of the world below the sky. Even if four come, they cannot break a single will.”

An arrogant and radical statement only a god could make.

Having completely lost control of my body, I silently listened to the conversation between the two suns communicating through me.

I have no right to interject in this conversation.

I am merely a bridge, an interpreter connecting their words.

Before a god and the being that sustained humanity on behalf of that god, there was no place for a mere human like me to intervene.

And I could tell that the sun of Jericania was sobbing.

Even with that tiny fragment of emotion, I had to desperately resist the urge to collapse on the floor and weep, humbled before the pain of two beings who had been burning themselves for humanity for hundreds of thousands of years.

After a very long time, or perhaps a very short time, the two beings acknowledged each other’s existence, and because of this, the city’s sun returned to its original state.

[Go and tell them, servant of radiance. I have finally found peace, and I shall never harm you again.]

“May only peace be with you from now on.”

And with my mission accomplished, I bowed respectfully to the heart of a city and walked toward the door.