Chapter 122: Chapter 122: If Language Isn’t Persuasive, Make Up for It with the Deterrence of a Floating Cannon
Qi Suian descended the spiraling underground passage and soon reached his destination.
Unable to see in the pitch-black darkness, Qi Suian pulled a flashlight from his Subspace Pocket.
"Murals?"
At the bottom was a slightly cramped, circular space. With the passageway, the entire structure resembled a long, thin cylinder.
The center was empty, but the walls were covered in a continuous mural, its end connecting to its beginning.
The murals weren’t painted with pigments; instead, they had been carved directly into the rock.
The carvings were very simplistic, only a slight improvement over stick figures.
’So where does it begin?’ Qi Suian began his inspection. Since the mural was a continuous loop, with no clear beginning or end, his only option was to view it in its entirety and then piece it together.
The mural depicted figures worshipping the sun, then the sun being sealed in a bottle, followed by an age of suffering for the people. Finally, the sun was released from the bottle, and the cycle returned to the beginning, with the figures worshipping the sun once more.
"What are your thoughts?" Qi Suian asked the AI directly.
[A cycle, but one that is constantly moving forward.]
[You see, the figures in the worship stage are dressed in what looks like animal hides, while during the stage where the sun is bottled, they wear something akin to ancient-style clothing.]
[The suffering stage shows them in modern attire, and by the end, when the sun is released, they are withered skeletons.]
[So this isn’t a short-term event. It’s a long-term cycle, spanning the entire history of humanity in this land of perpetual day.]
"That doesn’t add up. Who left these carvings? The time span is so long, who could have done it?" Qi Suian grew more confused. "It can’t be updating in real-time, can it?"
[There is one possibility: the Sun Puppets,] the AI answered.
[What if the Sun Puppets weren’t created from nothing, but are all the previous victims, returned to the mortal world?]
[That would also explain the ashes on them. It’s because they’ve long been dead.]
[And the bandages are merely tools used to bind their forms together.]
[If my analysis is correct, you might need the help of the Sun Puppets to survive.]
"You mean I’m supposed to break the cycle?" Qi Suian instantly understood the implications, but he just shook his head. "I can’t do it."
"Judging by this progression, the core of everything is the sun in the bottle. You, me, and even the Tai Sui God... we’d just be cannon fodder."
Qi Suian had a very clear understanding of his own limitations.
If it weren’t for the Floating Cannon, they would have no way of killing the Sun Puppets.
"Besides, I’ve become a ’desecrator.’ The Sun Puppets want me dead on sight. Why would they ever help me?" Qi Suian said.
He was certain of one thing: it was highly unlikely that any puppet could break free from the sun’s control.
Qi Suian understood that the sun had now reached its final stage—the stage where it emerges from the bottle.
With his current power, he had no means of resisting it whatsoever.
But it wasn’t all bad news. The area he was in was probably the only safe house where one could survive until the very end.
"Wait, did the figure on the mural just move?" Qi Suian said abruptly. "That figure wasn’t in this position when we were looking at it before."
A photographic memory was a minor ability for Qi Suian.
Combined with his high stats, Qi Suian noticed something was wrong with the mural at a single glance.
With his keen perception, he knew it wasn’t an illusion; he recognized the change instantly.
The AI immediately ran a comparison and displayed the two images side-by-side.
The facts proved Qi Suian wasn’t mistaken; a change had indeed occurred.
"If this were some kind of optical illusion that changes depending on the angle, I could understand."
"But I haven’t moved an inch, and you’re a carved mural."
"Moving and then pretending you didn’t? That’s just insulting my intelligence," Qi Suian said, exasperated.
He then silently asked the AI if it had detected any clues.
The AI, of course, was already conducting a comprehensive, in-depth scan via its reconnaissance network.
This change was truly bizarre. Logically, the reconnaissance network had been active the entire time.
Yet it hadn’t detected the slightest bit of movement, which meant this change was capable of evading the reconnaissance network.
It couldn’t help but remind Qi Suian of the Sun Puppets, whose appearances were just as sudden.
They could only be perceived by an observer.
Thus, Qi Suian suspected that he was simply unable to see the entity, not that it didn’t exist.
As for the reason, it was naturally because of the sun in the bottle.
’What other reason could there be?’
[Scan complete. Cause cannot be determined,] the AI replied.
Qi Suian, meanwhile, stared at the figures on the mural.
The figure he was staring at couldn’t move, but the ones he wasn’t observing would change.
’Is it my luck that’s bad, or is there something wrong with the way I’m observing?’
Qi Suian figured that since he’d gotten here by relying on luck, the best way to solve this was to rely on luck again.
[Perhaps you should try changing your position. You might be able to observe it through other means.]
Hearing the AI’s suggestion, Qi Suian thought it was worth a try and walked a lap around the cramped, circular space.
Naturally, he found nothing.
If it were that easy, the reconnaissance network would have picked up some trace of it.
In the end, he came up empty.
Qi Suian sat down cross-legged, his mind racing as he tried to figure out why.
Then, he felt a strange, unsettling presence, as if someone was watching him.
He scanned his surroundings but found nothing.
Then he suddenly looked up, and it nearly scared the soul out of him.
He saw that the spiraling staircase of the passage he’d come down, through a trick of perspective, had formed a bizarre, bandaged human face.
Moreover, this face had been watching Qi Suian the whole time. It had seen his actions and heard his muttering.
When it saw Qi Suian look up, it broke into a smile.
But because of its immense scale, the smile looked utterly terrifying in Qi Suian’s eyes.
"Holy shit! Holy shit!! Holy shit!!!" Qi Suian cursed three times in a row. If not for his rationality holding him back, he would have already ordered the Floating Cannon to blast the thing.
"AI, are you seeing this? If not, connect to my visual system directly."
[Observation successful. It seems to be a form of observation based on a visual illusion. The entity is real and is suspected to be capable of communication.]
Only after connecting to Qi Suian’s visual system could the AI see it; otherwise, it was invisible to its own sensors.
"Sooner or later, I’m going to gouge my eyeballs out and give them to you to use as modules," Qi Suian retorted.
Every time the Tai Sui God connected to his visual system, it did so by inserting a connector from his viral bloodline armor deep into his brain.
It was a physical connection.
That’s why there was always a strange sensation.
Fortunately, Qi Suian was a walking collection of ailments, so this was just one more to add to the list. Besides, this connection was one of the milder symptoms he had to deal with.
[Thank you for your generosity. However, you should probably try to communicate with the entity now.]
After careful consideration, Qi Suian spoke up. "Have you eaten?"
It was the most basic of greetings.
The entity was clearly taken aback by Qi Suian’s question, not expecting him to say something like that.
"If you haven’t, then eat this." As he spoke, Qi Suian took out his Floating Cannon. After adjusting the charge, he prepared to let loose a Dark Energy Beam.
"Wait... don’t shoot."
The visual illusion intensified. The bandaged face began to magnify continuously, transforming into a long, strip-like being wreathed in ash as it drew closer to Qi Suian.
"Don’t get too close to me. If my hand slips, it’s game over," Qi Suian warned, telling it not to move.
The bandaged face was quite obedient and stopped.
"Alright, talk. What’s the situation?" Qi Suian seized the initiative. He figured he’d just start asking questions and see how it responded.
As for how to survive, that could wait. He had to take things one step at a time.
"Human, you should not be here. The sun will devour you." The bandaged face’s voice was ethereal.
Qi Suian nodded. "And?"
’Of course I know that. If I could have escaped, I’d already be hiding out in space to avoid the sun’s wrath.’
"The sun’s fury is not something you can withstand. Therefore, if you wish to survive, you must extinguish the sun," the bandaged face said.
"Huh? Me?" Qi Suian’s tone was filled with disbelief.
The difficulty of that was no less than Ben Bo’er Ba trying to kill Tang Monk and his disciples.
"Yes, only you..." the bandaged face continued.
"Hang on. You tell me how to extinguish it," Qi Suian cut it off directly. If it couldn’t give him a reasonable explanation, his Floating Cannon did not suffer treacherous fools.
He would make sure it was dead beyond dead.
’Can’t kill what you can’t observe, but now that I’m observing you, you can just wait for death.’
"With ash, bury the flame, and the sun will..." the bandaged face continued.
But before it could finish, Qi Suian interrupted it again.
"I won’t even bother asking where the ash comes from or how much I’ll need. I’ll just ask you this: how am I supposed to get close enough to the sun to bury it with ash?"
’This thing is clearly up to no good,’ Qi Suian thought. ’Maybe I should just kill it. Save myself the trouble of it plotting against me.’
Qi Suian was desperate to get away from the sun in the bottle, let alone try to "solve" it.
To be honest, as long as he didn’t mess with it, nothing major would probably happen. At worst, the cycle would just restart.
But if he actually dared to make a move... the Earth-Moon impact in the Profound World was a perfect cautionary tale.
He’d poked the hornet’s nest with his meddling hands, and the entire planet had been shattered by the Blood Moon.
"You’re not just speaking without thinking, you’re actively trying to get me killed..."
"If you don’t give me an explanation for this, I’m going to blast you from head to toe until you’re nothing but little pieces," Qi Suian threatened.
He had to find a way to pry more intelligence from this lying bandaged face.
Of course, if he really couldn’t get anything out of it, that was fine too. Killing it would solve the problem just as well.
He couldn’t just leave it be. As the saying goes, how can you let another person snore in your bed?
Qi Suian had claimed this place, and he definitely couldn’t allow another threat to exist here.
Killing it was the best solution.
"This place is..." the bandaged face began to speak.
Qi Suian’s words didn’t carry much weight, but his Floating Cannon had all the deterrent power he needed.
It perfectly made up for his own shortcomings.
