Ch.209The Sixth Entanglement – Bebop with the Sun God (7)

Sol Invictus, who had been pretending to conserve what little divinity remained in his gladius, raised the weapon skyward and began releasing the sunlight stored within.

It was a warm light. A light that gave life and illuminated all things. The divinity preserved within still radiated pure light, unlike its master. But that was all it was.

Like moths drawn irresistibly to flame, someone approached Sol Invictus upon seeing that fire. Two people. Judging by their silhouettes, a parent and child.

Despite the considerable distance, Sol Invictus could hear coughing. Tuberculosis, was it? That must be it. There were many diseases beyond human power to cure—an easy domain for gaining worship.

Sol Invictus didn’t understand the principles by which he healed diseases or reattached severed limbs. He only knew he had the right to heal wounds. Gods operate on rights, not principles.

Looking closer, he saw the man was forcibly dragging a child who was trying not to approach Sol Invictus, even while coughing. So that explained why he sensed only one person’s worship.

Still, a girl with tuberculosis couldn’t escape from an adult’s grip. Soon the father brought his daughter before Sol Invictus and willingly knelt down.

Sol Invictus happily inhaled the scent of worship. Knowledge and Action might call this apostasy, but it’s equally absurd to expect worship without giving anything in return. How strange that such a god wouldn’t understand this.

The Unconquered Sun placed his fingertip on the head of the man kneeling before him with his daughter in his arms. The moment his middle finger made contact, a pleasant sense of connection flowed through his body.

The skin and nail of that finger tore away like tattered cloth in the wind, revealing what lay beneath. Inside was his own body from when he was young and full of vitality. The fingertip glowed with golden light.

Sol Invictus whispered with a voice full of joy, barely restraining himself from drooling.

“You truly intend to offer your worship. He wouldn’t extend a helping hand even after seeing this poor child, would he? Isn’t that right?”

Sol Invictus didn’t pity the child either. In truth, he didn’t know the God-President’s intentions. Still, he believed that like himself, the other would have little interest in humans, as befitting a god.

The man nodded. He was a manual laborer. Are there still miners in this era? Apparently they don’t leave everything to those metal contraptions.

“That’s right. I’ve prayed so many times after hearing there was no hope for recovery, and begged so, so many times I can’t even remember how often…”

Not quite ripe enough yet. Knowing it would taste undercooked if consumed now, Sol Invictus indulged the man a little. He whispered seductively.

“Yes, yes. How could there be limits to a father’s love for his child? And how could an omnipotent being claim something isn’t his responsibility? A god shouldn’t be like that! He shouldn’t have let such a child fall ill in the first place. If she did fall ill, he should have healed her. Isn’t that why gods exist?”

He couldn’t let the man deny divinity altogether. Only changing which god he depended on would be effective. The man pushed his still-struggling child forward.

It almost looked like she was being offered as a sacrifice. Sol Invictus couldn’t understand why this little brat would resist so stubbornly when she had no reason to be devoted to Knowledge and Action.

Nevertheless, he placed his hand on the girl’s head. Using the divinity he had regained by consuming worship, he sent his heat coursing through her body. There were stones in her lungs.

Had she inhaled stone dust? Sol Invictus had no idea what caused this condition or why it happened, but he could tell it couldn’t be healed as it was.

Better to cut it out entirely and create anew. Sol Invictus extended the hand that wasn’t stroking the child’s head. The tip of his middle finger burst open, revealing the divine body within, which he held like a blade.

“There will be pain, but you’ll be cleansed and healed, child! After that, you’ll regret struggling when your father brought you here…”

Once again, while the child was focused on his words, Sol Invictus thrust his blade-like fingertip straight through her chest. The unpleasant sound of flesh tearing echoed.

Sol Invictus poured healing divinity into that small body while tearing out the tissue masses turning to stone. He threw the mostly hardened tissue mass to the ground.

The child coughed up blood, but that was all. The massive penetrating wound and organ loss that would have been untreatable by human healing magic was rapidly recovering through Sol Invictus’s divinity.

“You will regret it. Well, how does it feel? Don’t you regret it? You have been healed. This simple thing the God-President refused to do! Know this! Know it and worship me.”

With that, Sol Invictus had used up all the divinity remaining in his body. He poured out all the divinity he had been saving—which Knowledge and Action had allowed him to preserve—into the child.

The child, feeling where the hole in her body had momentarily been, opened her mouth wide and took a deep breath. She rejoiced in doing what would have been impossible with the shattered lungs that had been discarded on the ground.

Yet she remained wary of Sol Invictus. Like all children, she had a nature that pushed away what she didn’t understand, and she had grown cautious through the changes in her parents after they began corresponding with him.

Seeing this, Sol Invictus clicked his tongue. I just can’t understand children. I have no idea how to win them over. One worshipper is enough anyway.

The man wept at the sight of his child breathing properly, completely healed in an instant, albeit in a somewhat horrific manner. Then he looked at Sol Invictus.

“You, you really healed her. Then…”

Sol Invictus now grew urgent like a child with two candies before him. He refused to let more time pass before devouring the worship before him.

“Don’t speak. Words are insufficient. Just reach out your hand. That’s enough…”

The man reached out to Sol Invictus. Sol Invictus did the same. The moment their fingertips touched—the miner now full of willingness to apostatize from the God-President and serve him instead—Sol Invictus exploded.

Literally exploded, scattering blood and chunks of flesh around like a bursting bean pod. The chunks of flesh couldn’t contain what was inside. They couldn’t withstand it at all.

The blood-soaked man barely raised his head through the thick red mist that had formed. What stood before him was the complete opposite of the mist’s gloomy bloodiness. There stood a war god made of gold and marble.

His skin was marble. It was as intricate as if hundreds of sculptors had worked to create such a delicate marble statue.

He was as massive as when he wasn’t being worshipped, but his unkempt beard and hair had been replaced with neatly arranged locks. The golden laurel crown he wore was named Authority.

As Sol Invictus began to move, cracks formed in his marble body. Light leaked from within. Golden light as bright as all the glory he had earned began illuminating the surroundings.

With a brilliant halo shining around his head, the god grabbed the thick blood mist left by his exploded former body with both hands. The saying that mist cannot be grasped didn’t apply to gods.

He pulled it around his neck. A warrior heading to battle needed a red cape. With the blood mist as his cape, he spoke to the miner looking up at him.

“Rejoice. The sun has finally walked out from the dark part of the celestial sphere and begun to illuminate all things. And it was your hand that removed that darkness.”

Sol Invictus’s voice was infused with compassion he had never possessed before. What he couldn’t have when dominated by bestial desires, he could now possess after those desires were satisfied.

He willingly helped his worshipper to his feet. He extended his hand to the child beside him as well, but the child pushed herself up from the ground on her own. He wanted to burn her in his displeasure, but doing so would cost him his only worshipper.

Gaining worship wasn’t everything. Maintaining it was what truly mattered. Therefore, Sol Invictus still needed this believer. He needed him until he could demonstrate his power to more people.

He began illuminating the surroundings with the power rightfully his. He scattered light bright enough to be visible even to the three people who had just arrived in Centralia.

Though the sun had clearly set long ago, and this small town should have no people left, daylight-like brightness filled the surroundings. The detective with covered eyes spat out his words.

“Things are getting complicated again. Always happens.”

The light that initially burst forth like a flash soon subsided to a level comfortable for the eyes. Though stars and the moon were clearly visible in the sky, the ground was as bright as day. When there were many gods, the world often ended up like this.

Willis, who had been covering his face with his coat, finally raised himself again. After looking outside, he sighed.

“If a fifteen-thousand-dollar driving job could be easy, that would be a miracle in itself. They won’t chase us right away, so should we start the car first?”

Fortunately, the driver remained calm. Everything so far had been anticipated. However, Dr. Albert shook his head. They could escape, but they shouldn’t.

A showy god like Sol Invictus would have emitted light as soon as he regained his divinity. That meant it had just happened. He was probably still in the stage of filling his divinity with worship. This might be their only chance.

“If we’re going to handle this, we need to go now. What if we return like this and the God-President doesn’t give separate orders to the Divine Security Bureau, and that Sol Invictus truly gets loose? Besides, that god just regained his divinity. His mind will be hazy with satisfaction while he’s replenishing his divinity! So now is the best time.”

“There’s still light but no fire yet. He doesn’t know we’ve come this far. Let’s go. If we don’t move now, we won’t be able to move at all.”

The detective pulled a rifle from his duffel bag. It was already loaded. All they had was hope that Sol Invictus would remain careless until the end, the expectation that finding the worshipper could turn the situation around, and a box of bullets. Better than usual. While his mindset was similar to normal, having a whole box of bullets was rare.

After driving for quite some time, the three people got out of the car with its loudly rumbling engine and crept into the street that was as bright as day, muffling their footsteps. Hiding when light was excessive was as simple as hiding when darkness was excessive.

Centralia had no tall buildings, making it poor for sniping. Yet it was wide enough to make walking around difficult. That ambiguity made searching challenging.

Still, the detective remembered the direction from which the light had burst. It came from somewhere in the middle of the town. The detective raised his binoculars and confirmed that the town’s hospital building was far away.

The miner’s child had been so weak that even her photograph had to be taken in the hospital. Even if the miner was hiding here instead of evacuating, the only place he would be was the hospital where his child was.

Slowly drawing a line, the detective stopped his companions after roughly determining where Sol Invictus and his worshipper would be. They would be on the main road leading from the hospital.

“I think I know where they are, so I’ll go alone first. If something happens, we should at least try to call the Divine Security Bureau agents, so look for a phone. And…”

“I’m coming with you.”

Dr. Albert spoke with a determined expression. He believed he could still be of some use to the God-President. He didn’t believe it, exactly—it was closer to a logical judgment.

“I can at least buy time against Sol Invictus. Even if we encounter him, I can stall with conversation for at least a minute. Sol Invictus will want to spread his worship and will want us to become his wise men. So he’ll try to talk at least once. I’ll try to buy some time then… try to think of another solution. Understand?”

The detective nodded briefly. Then he spoke to the driver, who couldn’t shoot immediately and had already fulfilled his duty.

“You find a phone as far from here as possible and contact the Divine Security Bureau agents. Tell them Sol Invictus has regained his divinity. After that, I don’t care if you run or not, but if you run, you can kiss that fifteen thousand dollars goodbye. Do as you please.”

He wouldn’t refuse the safest mission. Willis ran to a nearby gas station, while the detective and Dr. Albert headed to a spot where they could see the main road leading from the hospital.

There were buildings on both sides, but they were only one story tall. Since this was just the center of a rural small town with scattered buildings, there would be plenty of angles to shoot from even at ground level.

The detective leaned against the final corner, carefully holding his rifle so the barrel wouldn’t stick out, and cautiously peeked around. In the distance, he saw something shining so brightly it made aiming difficult.

That massive figure was helping someone to their feet. What was that on his shoulder? He was wearing something like a cape, but its material was unidentifiable.

It wouldn’t matter since he wasn’t going to shoot him anyway, but it did obstruct his view. The detective maintained his aim, waiting for the wind to pass and the cape to stop fluttering.

Sol Invictus, as Dr. Albert had predicted, was intoxicated by the worship he had consumed, helping his worshipper to his feet, dusting him off, and acting like a proper god.

Nevertheless, he was no god. He was just a crazed arms dealer trying to give weapons to everyone without understanding anything.

The detective aimed precisely at the miner’s head. Normally he would have shot for the chest, but now he needed to kill him instantly in a way that couldn’t be healed.

Healing magic could restore the body, but if someone’s head was already pierced by a bullet, only a body without consciousness would be restored. Whether divine powers worked similarly or not, it was better to be certain.

The wind wasn’t blowing, and his aim was accurate. The detective squeezed the trigger. The rifle’s report echoed through the street that had been filled with nothing more than voices.

Bullets are faster than sound. By the time the sound rang out, the bullet should have already hit its target… but the miner was unharmed. Instead, the bullet was embedded in the marble back of Sol Invictus’s hand as he stood beside the miner.

Did he block a rifle bullet after seeing it? Given that he was injured despite being a worshipped god, he hadn’t reacted after seeing the bullet. He had literally instinctively deflected the incoming object with a body that didn’t even contain divinity.

The assumption that Sol Invictus wouldn’t be able to see the incoming bullet was correct, but the god’s body was stronger than expected. Impossible. The detective bit his lip.

Only then did Sol Invictus notice the detective and the doctor hiding at the corner. He drew the gladius from the scabbard that had formed at his waist and twirled it once in his hand.

As it spun, the gladius changed shape. It transformed into a form too unbalanced for a human to use as a weapon. Too unsuitable. Too unnecessary.

Sol Invictus, now holding a double-bladed sword with long blades above and below the handle, leapt lightly and landed in front of the detective. Holding a weapon that only a god could properly wield, he burst into hearty laughter.

“So you are the punitive force sent by Knowledge and Action! You’ve come so soon, which means you must have seen the glory of the sun spreading. Yet you still came to complete your mission—you too are warriors! I, Sol Invictus, love you for it. The risen sun shines graciously upon you… Will you drink the wine of a new regiment? Or will you maintain your loyalty? Choose.”

Though he didn’t immediately try to cut them down with his sword, his attitude suggested he would gladly do so depending on their answer. More than just “gladly”—he would be delighted to cut them down.

He would clearly cut them down in a single stroke while pretending to be surprised—”You’ll maintain your loyalty!”—and acting sad as if regretting the loss of excellent warriors.

War was always like that. And Sol Invictus, the sun god who claimed to be a war god, would be no different. The two men saw death approaching before their eyes.