Chapter 17 Hao Ren Originally Thought

Hao Ren originally thought that a "spirit realm detective" like Pierre, who wandered on the fringes of the magical realm, wouldn't have very good intelligence channels, so he didn't pay much attention to the things Pierre told him. After all, this kind of person is only equivalent to a scavenger in the mystical world. What they can access is only the shallow knowledge that the aliens disdain. Even the demon hunters are not very interested in this group of people wandering between humans and aliens. But Hao Ren obviously overlooked one point: after the "Mythological Collapse," many things were lucky enough to escape the demon hunters' strangulation, and the ultimate destination of these things was precisely the humans who were not valued by all forces.

It's just that the number of these scattered legacies is really small, and the distribution is really chaotic. In the contemporary era of comprehensive decline of mysticism, no one organizes them at all.

People like Pierre definitely don't know much about the overall alien world. His explanation of the "Mythological Collapse" is also the deceptive nonsense that those mumbo-jumbo mystics have made up themselves. But the "Sun Wheel" he mentioned is probably a real thing, because he mentioned the key phrase "Shadow of Divine Wrath," which makes it hard not to associate it with the mysterious shadows that caused the conflict.

"What is the Sun Wheel?" Vivian also became interested in this term, and she asked curiously.

Pierre took out a wrinkled scroll from his bag and carefully spread it out on the table by the dim light: "This scroll is very precious. I found it in a crypt in the Egyptian region and almost lost my life for it... I believe this thing depicts that Sun Wheel."

Hao Ren and Vivian curiously gathered around at the same time. They saw that the scroll was yellowish-black in color and looked like parchment. The edges of the scroll had obvious burn marks. This scroll, which had been around for who knows how many years, depicted a beautiful disc-shaped object. The disc surface was distributed with circles of mysterious patterns, and in the center of the pattern was a round hole that looked like a groove or socket. The surrounding of the disc was also drawn with lines representing sunlight. Hao Ren noticed that two standing ancient Egyptians, a man and a woman, were also drawn in the corner of the disc. This seemed to be describing the size of the disc using human height. If this scale was correct, then the disc should be ten meters high.

Next to the disc pattern, you could see several paragraphs written in ancient Egyptian characters. Because these characters were right in the burnt part of the scroll, most of them were unreadable. Only a few scattered short sentences could be read: "The halo of the sun... gods and beasts... suppression and punishment."

It seemed to be an ancient, mumbo-jumbo incantation.

"Did you see it? Very exquisite. Judging from the age of this scroll, such exquisite pictures are simply impossible. The Egyptians of that period did not have such painting skills, and they had never made such paper," Pierre pointed to the details on the scroll with a flushed face, "But here are indeed ancient Egyptian characters, so this should be left by an 'awakened one' who obtained mysterious knowledge, probably similar to an ancient spirit realm detective. Also, look here, on the surface of the disc, you can still see some faint golden traces. This place used to be smeared with golden dye. After analyzing the composition of these pigments, I found that they contain gold. Ancient Egyptian painting has a characteristic, that is, they will truthfully color the things in the picture, and the more important things are, the more so. So we can judge the race and living area of the people in the picture based on the skin color of the characters on Egyptian murals—Joseph's coat of many colors was found in this way... oh, that's not important."

"Golden pigment? This is indeed not a technique that Egyptians of that era would use on scrolls," Vivian became more interested in this topic, "So the material of this disc may be gold?"

"Such a huge gold creation, and so exquisite, and more importantly, it is also linked to words like 'sun' and 'god.' This is undoubtedly the Sun Wheel," Pierre nodded vigorously, "Humans of that era could not create this kind of thing. They couldn't even imagine it, so only the 'Tara' could create this kind of artifact. As far as I know, the Sun Wheel is a huge golden device. The symbols on it depict very profound magical mysteries. It is a key tool used by the Tara people to suppress the Shadow of Divine Wrath..."

Hao Ren interrupted him: "What is the Shadow of Divine Wrath as far as you know?"

"A legend circulates among spirit realm detectives, that in ancient times the earth was ruled by gods, and those gods who have now become mythological stories once really existed, such as Odin and Zeus—these gods are very powerful, but they are not invincible, because their arrogance attracted a disaster that descended on their heads, which is the Shadow of Divine Wrath. The Shadow of Divine Wrath is the dark side of the gods' hearts, an unstoppable shadow force. This shadow fell from the depths of the universe to Earth, tore apart the ancient gods' mental defenses, and triggered various internal wars. As the problem became more and more serious, the gods gathered together and asked the 'Tara' clan, who also came from the dark depths of space, to create an artifact, which is the Sun Wheel. The Sun Wheel is cast from sunlight, so it can effectively combat the dark power of the Shadow of Divine Wrath. The most powerful warriors among the gods joined forces in a fierce battle in the cloud sea west of Mount Olympus, driving the Shadow of Divine Wrath to the side of the Sun Wheel, and finally sealing them inside the wheel. But this battle ultimately had a disgraceful ending..."

"A disgraceful ending?" Hao Ren was taken aback, "What happened?"

"The power of the Sun Wheel was so powerful that it aroused the greed of the gods. They all tried to get their hands on the wheel under the pretext of wanting to help guard the seal, so after the battle triggered by the Shadow of Divine Wrath ended, they launched another internal war driven by greed..."

Vivian immediately curled her lips: "Bullshit. How could they fight if I was there."

Pierre was stunned: "Huh?"

"Um, never mind her," Hao Ren awkwardly shifted Pierre's attention, "Just tell us what you know. It's best if you treat us like ordinary people. I really want to know what the various legendary versions are like in your spirit detective circles."

Pierre moved his mouth strangely. When he got excited, he always forgot the identities of the two people in front of him, but when he calmed down, he remembered that these two people were precisely the "insiders" of those bizarre mythological stories he was talking about, so a strong sense of disharmony surged into his heart. But he still suppressed this feeling: "The legend is like this: the gods fell into a second battle, but there was no winner in this battle. The Sun Wheel suddenly erupted with a force, severely injuring all the gods who took action, so they realized that no one could control the power of the wheel at all, and that only the Tara—these 'gods' from the dark depths of space—were the most powerful. In the end, the wheel was handed over to the Tara for safekeeping. The Tara people placed the wheel in their golden manor, which, if I'm not mistaken, is the land beneath our feet."

Pierre's account came to an end, and Hao Ren also began to sort out the information he had just obtained.

The myths and legends circulating among humans are mostly distorted, but Pierre's account can still partially match Vivian's memory and Hesperides' description. The "Tara" in the story is undoubtedly the Ancatro family, who recently lost contact. This family was not very active in the mythological era, but now it seems that they belong to a group of people who are powerful but have no interest in the secular world, and the Shadow of Divine Wrath refers to the Shadow of Chaos. The spirit realm detectives believe that the Tara came from the dark depths of the universe. This is probably a false rumor. Perhaps the Tara knew that they came from an alien planet in another universe, and this statement turned into "dark depths of space" as it spread.

Currently, the biggest difference between the "spirit realm detective version" and the "alien family version" is the addition of a Sun Wheel.

That thing seems to be the key element in sealing the Shadow of Chaos.

"Do you remember making something similar?" Hao Ren glanced at Vivian, "Or seeing something similar?"

"No impression," Vivian shook her head, "But we should have sealed the Shadow of Chaos in something back then: it was an intangible shadow, and it had to be sealed into a tangible object to be controlled."

"Even Hesperides and Wayne don't know about this wheel. Luckily we met this spirit realm detective, otherwise we might have missed the most important thing after entering the Ancatro territory," Hao Ren sighed, "But do you think it's appropriate to let this spirit realm detective continue to be active?"

Vivian shook her head: "I admire his enthusiasm for the pursuit of knowledge, but it's better not to involve this person. After all, he has a heart... Who?!"

Vivian's eyes suddenly sharpened as she was speaking, and she shouted in a low voice, staring at a corner of the room. The surrounding air was immediately filled with sharp ice crystals. After she finished speaking, something suddenly appeared in the corner of the room, which was originally empty.

A small handful of silver-white flames rose from the ground and gradually formed a human shape. The white-haired girl who walked out of the flames greeted Vivian and Hao Ren: "Long time no see."

Hao Ren was shocked: "Bai Huo?!" (literally, "Defeat Fire")

"...It's Bai Huo..." (literally, "White Fire")