Chapter 1237
The Rising Sun
Eivass meticulously examined and scrutinized Protino, trying to discern the foundation of his words.
Was it confidence, or arrogance?
Or did he carry a secret that Eivass was unaware of?
“Amon…”
Eivass softly murmured Protino’s current faith.
The god Amon—that was the title of the Second Sun in Horus, and also Taiyi, worshipped by the Taichu Empire.
Eivass now knew that Taiyi was the first Pillar God of this World.
It was the first Pillar God of the first Origin River, born after Candlemaster re-created the Origin River and decompressed the Sin Thorns, using their power to remold the Material Realm.
—The Path of the Sun, the primal creator.
Compared to the Great Abyss, which symbolized the end and the forbidden, Taiyi indeed seemed to possess a power of restraint…
Protino did not offer Eivass further explanation.
He simply changed the subject and began to talk about what had just happened.
“As for you,” Protino said with a worried expression, “killing a Priest of the Lord of Benevolence in public… do you know what that means? Although I haven’t been here long, and I know he wasn’t very popular, I still feel that was a bit too provocative…”
When he arrived, he happened to witness Eivass killing Aziz and twisting his soul into a Mirror Demon on the spot, sealing it within a palm-sized makeup mirror.
That mirror was now placed beside Eivass.
As a Mirror Demon, when the small mirror was closed, Aziz could neither see nor hear anything from the outside world. He would remain completely lucid, alone in pure darkness… until someone else opened the mirror.
Eivass had successfully slain the enemy who had cursed his parents and severely punished him—
This should have been a triumphant revenge. But for some reason… he felt an emptiness.
Perhaps it was because the victory was too easy, or the kill too swift, or perhaps his feelings for his biological parents were not as deep and clear as Eivass had thought… After all, he had no memories of them. While his foster father harbored schemes, he had also truly loved him.
His life was not painful, merely driven by a fixation—the desire for retribution and revenge against this person. It was an influence from the Shadow Heavenly Envoy on the Material Realm.
Now that this small fixation was fulfilled, Eivass was not as happy or excited as he had imagined.
—It was by no means a desire to forgive anything, nor a desire to comprehend anything.
But simply a feeling that…
He hadn’t killed enough.
“What does it mean?”
Eivass smiled and looked up, “It means I will kill more people.”
His tone was casual and indifferent.
As if these were not harsh words, but a statement of fact.
In that instant, the air in the carriage turned frigid.
Protino looked at Eivass in astonishment, his eyes fixed on him. He then glanced subconsciously at Zhu Tang beside him, before turning back to Eivass.
Eivass knew what Protino was thinking.
—Had he been corrupted by the Lord of Benevolence’s power? Had he become someone who acted recklessly based on his own strength? Did he want to incite a war, or interfere in Anxi’s politics?
Did he represent himself, or the new Hrasal Empire? Or was this at the behest of the Church and the Elves?
Was this a judgment from the gods, or the great violence? Where would Anxi go? What about the Abyss Heavenly Envoy who was about to be overthrown? Would the lives of ordinary people undergo irreversible changes? Was the Sun about to fall?
Seeing Protino’s hesitant expression, Eivass gradually withdrew the smile from his face.
“I will kill more people.”
He repeated, “Many, many more, until rivers of blood flow. I will change an era… like a Monarch, like a god. But I will be neither a Monarch nor a god.”
For some reason, as soon as Eivass said these words, his right eye twitched.
He subconsciously reached out and touched his dim yellow right eye. He felt no throbbing blood vessels… but rather a faint hum, like the grumble of a hungry stomach.
—It was the stirrings of the Amber Egg.
“We’re here.”
At this moment, Leviathan’s childish voice came from outside the carriage.
As the Dragon Carriage came to a halt, they arrived at a residence.
This was where Protino was currently staying.
It was neither luxurious nor grand. Although in an oasis city, owning a detached house with a garden was considered prosperous, this two-story duplex, covering at most a hundred square meters, seemed somewhat inadequate to host an Amon Priest.
Old Ibn, after alighting, looked around, appearing somewhat dazed.
Eivass turned back and said to Protino, “I thought you would be living in a palace. Didn’t Aimel Nour arrange housing for you?”
“I wouldn’t dare live in a house provided by the Lord of Benevolence,”
Protino said helplessly, “The slaves served me with extreme caution, and people always came to ask for my evaluation. A single careless word could cost several people their heads. Shamefully… I don’t want to bear this level of responsibility. Just the thought that a casual curse from me could lead to an entire family’s demise sends shivers down my spine.”
“That shows you are a good person, Protino.”
Eivass said as he walked ahead, without looking back, “Good people have no need to be ashamed. They should be ashamed.”
“But…”
“Protino,” Eivass said, holding the mirror and pointing it at Old Ibn beside him, “Do you know, his sister adopted Aziz. Meaning, he is essentially Aziz’s uncle.
“And then, his entire family was killed by Aziz.
Upon hearing this, Protino froze for a moment.
Eivass then pointed the small mirror at himself, “And my biological parents were also cursed to death by him.”
Protino stood there stunned for a few seconds.
Then he quickly caught up, walking alongside Eivass.
“…I’m sorry, I didn’t know.”
He whispered into Eivass’s ear, “So… this is a righteous revenge?”
“It’s not revenge, Protino. At least not yet.”
Eivass tilted his head slightly and said earnestly, “This is healing trauma.
“If poison has entered the bone marrow, one must scrape the bone to remove the poison. Anxi has long since rotted to its core. No matter what help or punishment is given to them, the medicine will only superficially affect the skin and flesh.”
He hadn’t had this awareness originally.
Although Avalon culture emphasized helping those in distress, his foster father’s education was “think about the people around you.” Thus, Eivass had helped others since childhood but was unwilling to engage in conflict with them.
Later, after gaining power from the Church, he also began to emulate the Elves’ attitude—to try not to interfere in mortal politics.
And now…
Perhaps it was due to the gradual resurgence of memories from his past life, or as he “traveled ten thousand miles” and came to understand more and more of the world… Eivass gradually realized that he could not do nothing.
Yes, his archenemy, the enemy he must defeat, was the Ring Heavenly Envoy; the perpetrator of world destruction was the sealed Twilight Seed, and those who were infected by madness were the Whisper of the Void.
Then the question arises—
—Does one have to touch the Void to be corrupted into an evil person?
—Does touching the Void mean that person is beyond redemption?
From what point did he start judging others’ good and evil based on their Path?
Just like the Avalon bureaucrats at the beginning, condemning someone simply because they were a Transcendent?
“I’ve gradually come to realize something, Protino.”
Eivass said, stopping on the steps.
The Blood Heavenly Envoy before his death flashed in his mind.
He remembered the underground catacombs of the Iris Flower.
He remembered the Blood Slaves raised by the Children of the Moon.
He remembered the desert guide Anar, the petrified Rock Cell City, the scars left by salt torture on the Snake People Priestess, the polite Grandet, the ignorant yet barbaric Harpies, and the worship in Heaven City.
And what finally appeared in Eivass’s mind was Aziz.
Aziz was neither a beginning nor an end.
He was just a link in the process, an insignificant ant, a pebble found anywhere by the roadside. He was not indispensable, yet he was an inevitable person within such an environment.
Eivass turned back and looked at the Third Ring, bathed in sunlight, beautiful, sacred, and radiant.
And under the shade of the modern silver skyscrapers, the almost invisible oasis in the distance, and the further yellow sands.
“If defeating the things that make people unhappy can make them happy?”
Eivass slowly said, “If mortals defeating the gods they cannot oppose brings peace to this world?”
If his purpose in life was to devour the Ring Heavenly Envoy and slay the Void…
Then if he killed the Void, and the world didn’t change?
Would everyone be happy in a world without the Void?
As the Brave prophesied to save the world, who was he protecting… whom?
“When the world changes and cycles, all things remain eternally unchanged.
“The righteous will remain righteous, the filthy will remain filthy. Kings will always be kings, and slaves will always be slaves.
“No one rises, no one falls, and all things remain unchanged. The universe is already solidified, like an Amber Egg…”
Eivass recited the words once spoken by the Ring Heavenly Envoy, subconsciously touching his right eye.
He slowly uttered the last sentence, “The world repeats in an eternal cycle, just like the Ouroboros Ring.”
—Now, Eivass finally understood why the Ring Heavenly Envoy yearned for the Path of Metamorphosis.
The Ring Heavenly Envoy was indeed Eivass himself.
Without any change, he would eventually walk this path.
It was precisely because of the incomplete memories of his past life, and because he had experienced enough of the native knowledge, education, and cognition, that he had diverged from the Ring Heavenly Envoy.
—But at the same time, they were different.
One was tired, while the other stood up.
Just as the sun rises in the east and sets in the west.
When one sun sets, another sun rises.
Haina watched Eivass, her eyes widening slightly.
Her right hand instinctively clenched—it was the gesture of holding a sword.
Even Haina was stirred by Eivass’s words…
Although she seemed not very intelligent, she was once a chief. She did possess this knowledge, but after learning it, she found it useless.
Neither astronomy nor mathematics could help her become an Extraordinary.
Whether she was skilled in literature or music, recited poetry or composed music, it had no impact on her social status—what ultimately decided everything was how far she could go on the Path of Authority.
Back then, Haina had pondered one thing—
Avalon was a kingdom of knights, but why were there no more knights to be sung about today?
—Perhaps because becoming a glorious and righteous knight like in the stories no longer yielded power.
Or perhaps because… the knights in the stories were the chosen ones.
They were gods who descended, adopted sons of elves, friends of fey, darlings of the world.
They were the protagonists, unrelated to the path of a knight.
And now…
“Do you know, Protino?”
Eivass said earnestly, “A god resides in my eye.
“A true god… Amber, one of the Nine Pillar Gods. My right eye is the Amber Egg, currently absorbing my soul as nourishment and about to hatch.”
While Protino looked on in astonishment, Eivass continued:
“In three days, the god will be born.
“The birth of this desert comes from Engraving; the birth of this oasis comes from Taboo.
“Amber is about to descend, and the Abyss Heavenly Envoy will return to this land. I want to let the god of this land personally see what this world has become.
“—Then, using the power of the god who created all this, I will change all of it forever.
“With Amber’s power to reshape the earth, and the Great Abyss’s power to recreate the rivers. With my power… I will begin to change this country, this World.”
As for the Sin Thorns…
They were indeed the firstborn of this world, the ancestors, their forefathers.
But worshipping ancestors did not mean sacrificing the lives and futures of their descendants.
The dead are dead, and the living remain.
Since that is the case, let the deceased make way for the living.
—Even if they must be worshipped, there are other places where they can remain.
“I want to completely change this world,” Eivass said firmly, his pupils shimmering with a perfectly coordinated glow of purple and red, “and not just save it from the Void—”
“The power of conflict…”
Protino murmured, “Is this the power of conflict?”
In the cultural beliefs of Horus, all things originated from conflict and opposition—a stark contrast to the principle of harmony in Taichu.
Horus people believed that the invincible, eternal radiance of the Sun was precisely due to the conflict and opposition of two forces. The essence of creation came from opposition, not gentleness.
Just as archenemies can make each other stronger, goals or hatred can foster growth, and two nations viewing each other as rivals can simultaneously become superpowers…
Undoubtedly.
It was Eivass’s hatred for all this ugliness that enabled him to obtain the power to transcend fate.
—Just like a rising sun.
