Chapter 78: Chapter 82: The Fire that Exists Only in Dreams
Nina went back to her room to sleep.
In this world, most people went to bed early and rose with the dawn—the time after the sun set was dangerous, and the faint glow from the Creation of the World would lead to the most severe degree of distortion across the globe. Even with the protection of city lights, people had to face the night cautiously.
Unable to go out and gather, lacking many forms of entertainment, reading books at night wasn’t as dangerous as reading at sea, but it could easily lead to mental exhaustion, auditory and visual hallucinations. Occasionally, it would even attract unwanted peering from the darkness. Therefore, considering everything, the safest method was to go to bed early and wait for the sun to rise the next day.
Duncan, however, did not feel the slightest bit sleepy.
He turned off the lights in the room and stood near the window in his shirt, casually admiring the night view of Plunder City-State beneath the night sky while recalling his conversation with Nina after dinner.
Nina remembered a great fire, and the body’s residual memory he occupied retained that same event—a fire in which “he” had escaped a collapsing, burning building with a six-year-old girl, while chaotic crowds and pervasive fog filled the distant streets.
Yet only the two of them remembered this fire—Nina had brought it up with other adults, only to be dismissed as “confused memories after a child is frightened.” The newspapers from eleven years ago clearly recorded “the truth”: at that time, at the boundary of the Lower City District and Cross District, there was only a factory leak that caused mass hallucinations, with no record of a fire.
Duncan frowned slightly, another dubious point was on “himself.”
According to Nina, “Uncle Duncan” actually didn’t remember the fire either, and it had always been only her who remembered the incident. When she was young, she even mentioned the fire to Uncle Duncan (who should have been “Ron” at the time), and he, like the other adults, thought she had “misremembered after being frightened.”
But now, Duncan’s memory contained images of the fire—those were the deepest recollections of the body’s original owner.
Where did the problem lie? Why was it that in Nina’s memory, her uncle had no recollection of the fire, yet Duncan found corresponding images in the deepest memories of this body? Had Nina’s uncle been lying all along? Or had the memory been sealed until a Ghost Ship captain took over the body, causing the deepest memories to surface?
Duncan tapped the window frame unconsciously with his finger, silently sorting through the timeline in his mind.
He integrated the information he had obtained from the Sun Cultists:
Eleven years ago, the Sun Shard first appeared within the territory of the Plunder City-State, and the Transcendent phenomena it caused could have affected a wide area.
Also eleven years ago, Nina became an orphan. In her and Duncan’s memories, there was a fire at that time, which happened in the Lower City District—but apart from them, no one else remembered this fire, nor was there any evidence to prove it ever occurred.
Thereafter, the Sun Shard lay dormant within the City-State, without any further anomalies. The only record left from the event of that year was the “Cross District factory leak incident.”
Over several years, Nina and her only relative depended on each other for survival.
Four years ago, followers of the Sun God within Plunder City-State attempted to awaken the dormant Sun Shard ahead of time and performed a dangerous sacrifice ritual. However, it was extinguished before completion by the newly promoted Judge-in-training Fenna, whose team dealt a heavy blow to the cult’s influence. After a massive crackdown, the Sun God Church was expelled from the City-State.
Although the ritual did not reach the final step at that time, the “awakening” attempt by the Heretics might have had some effect, and the Sun Shard began to gradually awaken from its dormancy.
It was around that time that Nina’s “uncle,” upon whom she depended, contracted a strange illness and, under the torment of sickness, gradually fell into depravity, eventually yielding to the enticement of the remaining Sun Cultists in the city and becoming one of their minions.
Time moved to not long ago, when activity from the Sun Shard began to attract Sun Cultists back to the city. The Heretics, lying low for four years, performed the sacrifice ritual again, and what followed… was Duncan’s intervention.
Throughout the timeline, many events seemed vaguely interconnected, yet all lacked key evidence.
The most suspicious event was from eleven years ago—what Transcendent phenomena did the Sun Shard truly trigger at that time, and did the fire really exist?
Did the City-State authorities erase the true account of that incident, wiping away the traces of the fire? And then, considering maintaining order, did they publicly announce the whole event as a mass hallucination caused by a factory leak?
But this didn’t explain why many people’s memories also completely lacked any recollection of the fire—unless the authorities went to great lengths to Reshape the memories of all parties involved.
Moreover, there was one more thing—in this world, anomalies and phenomena were public knowledge; even children knew of the existence and dangers of Transcendent things, and the authorities were clearly aware of this, always adhering to a policy of “announcing dangers in advance to ensure citizens have self-preservation knowledge” to govern the city. If it was indeed just a fire caused by Transcendent forces… why hide it?
Unless… there was a bigger issue behind that fire, such that even the mere disclosure of the information could lead to a spread of dangerous elements spiraling out of control.
Duncan suddenly furrowed his brow.
“`
Or perhaps there was another possibility.
The characteristics of Transcendent phenomena are odd, and often the harm they cause is not limited to the physical aspect, they can even distort human cognition, to the point where they contort evidence already committed to paper—what if the memories of the event by the people, the cognitions, even the records of the City-State authorities and the Church, have all been tainted by the Sun Shard?
Duncan felt that perhaps his mind was going a bit too far, as a “novice” who was only half-versed in the field of anomalies and supernatural occurrences, his imagination might be getting a bit too carried away, but on the other hand, once this thought emerged, it seemed unstoppable.
Memories of the people, records of the authorities, even things written in black and white in archives from over a decade ago, all could be twisted and replaced—something he might not have believed in before, but now, he believed in it more than anyone else.
Because the place where he was standing was now called “Duncan’s Antique Shop.”
Here, everyone recognizes their old neighbor, Mr. Duncan, the antique shop owner.
Duncan let out a sigh of relief, lowered his head, and looked through the second-floor window at the gas-lit streets below.
Now only one question remained.
Whether or not the fire that occurred eleven years ago really existed, whether or not the Sun Shard contaminated the memories of the parties involved, and the records left by the City-State, there was one key point:
Why did Nina remember that fire?
…
In the Upper City District, within a mansion belonging to the Governor.
Fenna awoke from a nightmare.
But this time, the nightmare had nothing to do with the Black Sun, nor did it point to the Homeloss returning from the Subspace—she had simply dreamed of her childhood suddenly.
In that night filled with fog, smoke, blood, and frantic crowds, she, at just twelve, was carried on her uncle’s back, fleeing from the mob’s attack.
In the dream, she seemed to return to that helpless, fragile state once more, her proud martial skills and powerful divine arts rendered useless, she could only flee in panic, pursued by madmen and shadows, crossing pipes and valves above the factories with her uncle, looking down in terror at the city through the smoke and heatwaves, seeing boundless flames rising everywhere, spreading across the entire district visible to her eyes…
The young Judge, clad in her sleeping gown, sat up in bed, took a deep breath, and gazed out of the window—the clear radiance of the Creation of the World still hung high in the sky, and the clock hanging near the window showed that it had just passed midnight.
She felt as if she had sunk into a nightmare for a century.
Fenna got up, turned on the electric light, went to the vanity, and looked at her reflection in the mirror. She whispered the name of the Storm Goddess to regain the inner calm and let out a sigh as if comforting herself, “At least now I don’t dream about that ship anymore…”
Her voice had just fallen when she suddenly heard footsteps from the corridor outside, followed by a knock on the door: “Fenna? Did you have a nightmare, Fenna?”
It was her uncle’s voice—the Governor, the most revered man in the City-State.
“I’m alright.” Fenna steadied herself, then straightened her clothes and went to open the door.
Dante Wayne stood at the door, this middle-aged man with gray hair and gray eyes, not too burly, obviously just woken up as well, casually draped a coat over himself, and looked at his niece with concern as she opened the door.
Having lost an eye in an earlier incident, he now possessed a ruby-made eyeball that featured intricate gold patterns within; around the eye socket were ferocious scars from eleven years ago, giving his face an intimidating appearance.
But Fenna was already used to it; she knew her uncle was actually a kind and just man.
“I had a nightmare,” she said, rubbing her eyes, her voice tinged with resignation, “I didn’t mean to wake you up.”
“It’s nothing, I’ve been a light sleeper in my old age,” Dante Wayne looked at Fenna with concern, “Did you dream of your childhood again?”
“Yes, I dreamt of that time again.”
“`