“... and after that you both know what happened with the black hole thing and the Deep,” Sofia finished explaining.
Erredis looked at Sun, seeming a bit confused, “Any idea? For us to get frozen like that… Time magic?”
Sun shook her head, “No time magic. It feels strange to say that with what just happened to Sofia here but time magic is not a thing anyone is allowed to use. Believe me, I tried… If you stray too far into that path… The universe itself will stop you,” Sun explained, her gaze lost in the distance.
“Do you mean the Lords?” Sofia asked, “Whenever Aphenoreth appears, time freezes in a very similar manner…” Just because she was not able to speak of Time’s death, she could still indirectly probe Sun for how much she might know about it.
“Maybe. I’m unsure, honestly, but you really do not want to try. Really not. Really really not…”
Erredis gave a worried pat on the back to the blonde goddess, “You alright, Sun? Need a drink?”
“I’m good. Just bad memories. I accumulated quite a few over thirty thousand years…”
THIRTY THOUSAND?! Holy…
Sun shook her head and put a smile back on her face, “Anyway, didn’t want to ruin the mood, so… What that guy did was not actually stopping time, because you can’t. Most likely what happened is, he accelerated your thoughts to the extreme, effectively slowing your perception of time down to a crawl.”
“That should not be possible either,” Sofia rebutted, “My connection with Aphenoreth protects me from soul-altering attacks.”
“Hmm… Assuming you say the truth, it might not have been recognized as an attack,” Sun hypothesized, “Or… There’s another possibility…” Sun paused for a second, and she walked up to the room’s window, looking to the void outside, “they could have hijacked the Lord’s rune manifesting during the reforging to emulate the Inquisitor’s ability. And then you were the only one unaffected exactly because of that protection of yours, or because of your name, or your ‘blessing’.”
Erredis stood up, “No way! That’s suicide! Even for a God! Even for you!”
“Not necessarily,” Sun answered, turning back and pointing at Sofia, “Just look at her.”
“I’m hardly a normal example, but it’s true that I’m relatively safe. I do have Aphenoreth’s rune inside me right as we speak, kind of,” Sofia agreed, “And I know from Orator that Aphenoreth is currently busy, whatever that means. So maybe that saved that god from a surprise inquisition?”
“I don’t know…” Erredis said, pacing around the room, “how many Gods would even be strong enough to activate the rune? Let alone be stupid enough to try it just to spit some drivel?”
“I think it was more a message for me and the system than it was for Sofia,” Sun explained. “I hoped this wasn’t the case but I am starting to think that Moon was right… The God we’re facing… Could be a survivor from the lost epoch.”
Erredis stopped walking around, “A survivor? There are still survivors?!”
“There were some,” Sun said with narrowed eyes, “Gods and Recessed both.”
“I’m completely lost,” Sofia commented.
“Let me give you the broad strokes,” Sun offered, teleporting the trio outside of the castle and beyond the mana barrier without warning. They were standing in the void, a few hundred meters away from the bone platform, in a mana bubble Sun had created. An illusion of the planet appeared below them, verdoyant and lively, “this is Veliadren, our home, ”Sun explained, “and this,” she said, as the image of the planet became gray and depressing, covered in large thunderstorms visible all the way from space, “this is what it looked like, thirty thousand years ago when I first opened my eyes.”
“This looks quite bad…” Sofia observed, her eyes fixated on one particular tornado-looking cloud that occupied almost a fifth of the visible sky.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“It was,” Sun continued, “and I was alone to witness it, the first divine being born after the lost epoch. What you’re watching right now is what I saw back then, a dead world covered in ash and mana anomalies, ravaged by apocalyptic natural disasters. And this was already towards the end of it. This had been going on for who knows how long. Long enough for people to start adapting and once again prosper despite the situation, at least. When the population was large enough, naturally their strongest emotions became Gods. First me, then Death, and you can guess the rest of the story, the world and its population recovered. I did a lot of the cleanup myself, barely aware of what I was doing and why.”
“So what about those surviving gods?” Sofia asked.
“Well. To this day, I have no idea how they survived the collapse of the population, the lack of essence at the time should have destroyed all gods, no matter how powerful. Case in point, the previous Sun and Death were both gone. But they were there, hidden, and still alive, somehow. It wasn’t long before they came after myself and Death, perhaps thinking that they could forcefully gain some advantage over us, as we were still young and naïve.”
“I can imagine how that went,” Erredis commented.
“We killed them,” Sun confirmed with a bright smile.
“But there might be some who never revealed themselves and survived until today? How would you know that it isn’t just any other god?” Sofia asked. “They could also have just been lying the entire time even about those abandonment issues.”
“They might have, but Death, Moon and I have been keeping an eye on all divinities born after us. We already know of a few who very possibly joined Scripture’s side, but, for those who would be strong enough to pull such a stunt with the Lord’s rune, there are only a very select few.”
Erredis started counting on her fingers, “The strongest of the Gods and Recessed, right? You, Water, Love, Progress, Wealth, Death, Sorrow, Taxes, Suffering, Sickness… Am I missing anyone?”
“Peace, Life, Moon, Mana, Unfairness,” Sun continued, “and a few others, but generally speaking, these are the main suspects, not all of them would be able to try this, even. And I can vouch for every single one of them’s innocence in this matter.”
“You know them that well?” Sofia asked.
“Of course,” Sun answered with a smile, “Or I would have long dispatched them.”
Sofia felt that Sun was saying outrageous things yet her only reaction was : “But you let Scripture be?”
Sun sighed. “My time of killing other Gods is far behind me. We have laws and agreements now. It’s not that easy to interfere, even for me. Could I kill Scripture right now? Yes, I could, but not only would it not resolve your issues, it might be the start of a total collapse of the relative peace we have going on right now. And this… It was hard enough to get there.”
“So… What now? I do still plan on killing Scripture myself. That won’t be an issue, right?”
“Quite the opposite,” Sun laughed, “Nobody can say anything if you do it by yourself, not with the history you have with him. It’s personal, so to say, so any other God stepping in to stop you would be the one breaking our agreements. But you’re not quite there, Sofia. In the meantime, while I’m still quite busy with the Phageid, Moon will be searching for the culprit behind this shit. The High-Scribes are also hard at work to defend the system, so chances are that this mysterious lost epoch god won’t show up for a good while.”
“And if he does?”
“Unless he can hijack the Lord’s rune again, there will probably be several archangels rapidly approaching his location next time he dares do anything out in the open,” Erredis answered, “He must be hiding quite far from the planet even as we speak.”
“You would know?” Sun asked with a smirk.
Erredis rolled her eyes, “They only sent angels when I came down this time to help Sofia find her sister, so I guess my reputation improved a bit…”
“I have one last question,” Sofia said when the discussion died down for a moment, “if the culprit is a God, even from the lost epoch or whatever, is there any way I can learn of his domain?”
“That would be hard unless he says it himself or you get your hand on one of his essences,” Erredis explained, “But considering you were able to feel the essence link when they came close, it is more likely a god and not a Recessed, just because their plane is closer and easier to feel. That he could send you to Peace’s domain also goes toward that hypothesis, though an extremely strong divinity crossing all the way to the other side is not impossible.”
“Spoke a lot with Moon, I see,” Sun commented from the side.
Erredis shrugged, “Who else?”
“I’m right here, and always up for getting to know each other a bit more,” Sun said in an innocent voice.
“Hard to believe you're more than twice my age… Do you never get tired of it?”
“Tired? Come on, I know nobody in this room is tired, the Sun shines everywhere, you know?” the Goddess replied with a playful wink.
So even Erredis can blush…
Wait… Everywhere the sun shines…
No wonder she knew about the painting.
----------------------------------------