Chapter 750: Ancient Consequences
“Ow…my eyes…”
It took Leon and Isa about the same amount of time to recover, but it took the former a second longer than the latter.
Which is why, when Leon’s eyes finally recovered, he first noticed that Isa was staring with an almost absurd amount of intensity towards the source of their sudden blindness.
He was about to ask her what had her so gobsmacked, but was stopped before he could say a single word. Instead, Isa’s finger directed him to stare at what he thought was the blank wall from before.
In reality, something incredibly strange had appeared.
“What are you…what is that?”
“I don’t know, but you can sense that energy right?”
“It feels so…ancient.”
Leon and Isa were not trained scholars or archeologists in the least bit, but they at least sense that this mural, or whatever it was that Rodenia had summoned with her presence, was something that was older than even the shrine itself and that she was somehow connected to it.
There was something about this strange glowing mural that did something. To them in their back of their brains but they weren’t sure what it was. However, they did at least have one idea on what to do for the time being.
“What the-Isa, what’re you doing?”
“I want to copy that big glowing mural, but I need parchment and charcoal or something like it at least,” Isa answered. “The two of us have no idea what it is, so maybe we can make a copy and report it back to HQ. The scholars and librarians probably have at least one book on…whatever this picture was depicting.”
“That’s…a good point. Let me help you.”
“Thanks.”
It took the duo awhile to copy the image as best as they could, due to neither of them being very good at drawing, but they eventually managed to do so.
When the image was finally fully copied though, their original plan to. Bring it home was immediately thrown out the window when Rodenia said the following.
“I know who to ask about this picture. We gotta go…that way.”
“Huh? Rodenia, where are you going?!”
After that, the rest was history.
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“…it took us a while to get Pearl Tusk Harbor, and we figured it would take us longer to find a boat willing to take us to Roaring Tide,” Leon explained.
“But then we learned of something called a ferry service that was being used to bring people back and forth between the two continents. The Nimona, I think?,” Isa added.
“Yeah, that ship! Nice crew, weird vessel.”
“Hmm.”
As riveting as this story was to hear for Zhen Liu, right now, his attention was more focused on the drawing they had brought before him.
The drawing in question reminded Zhen Liu of old hieroglyphics he had seen once or twice before in history books of a previous lifetime, more specifically they were done in the style of old Egyptian lore.
Zhen Liu chalked this similarity up to what he had been calling, “cultural convergent development”, and didn’t really mind that it looked this way. What did grab his attention though, was what this image depicted.
‘Why would, wait…didn’t Logos and Pathos say one of my predecessors was related to the religion of these guys?’
The image in question was that of a human figure and a giant serpent, the former of which was riding on the latter’s back, while the two were descending from what appears to be a starry night sky. Not exactly an unusual image to see in old school iconography, most people would assume it was an image depicting the descent of a deity or something. What was unusual was the newr perfect copy of the seal that was etched into Zhen Liu’s hand being present on the hand of the figure in the mural as well.
As far as Zhen Liu knew, this image was either depicting one of his predecessors or it was himself in the event that timeloops turned out to be an issue he had to deal with later.
Thankfully for his ass, it turned out to be the former.
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‘Aight, can y’all explain to me how and why the [Chaos Body Forge] seal is being artistically depicted in what another religion’s holy ground? I’ve played video games, I’ve read about OOPARTs, so how and why does this picture exist?,’ Zhen Liu asked with mental manic vigor. On the physical, visible, surface though, he appeared to be just in deep thought to Leon and Isa.
If they knew how much of an excitable mess he was underneath that display, they would’ve probably been a bit more hesitant in sharing any other information they may have had in regards to this image.
∆Ey yo! Now that is a picture I haven’t seen in a long, long time!,∆ Pathos admitted with a happy tone. ∆Wait, was this back when we tried to mimic the look of those angels? Oh they weren’t happy about that.∆
=No…this appears to be that time from even before that. I’d recognize those constellations anywhere, even if they’re just pictures now. And to remind you, that’s when we decided to go with that…what was the term she used again? Astral… something.=
∆Astral Spirits.∆
=Yes, that. Thank you.=
∆Anytime.∆
‘Okay, cool, you guys have memories about the person being depicted, WHO ARE THEY?!’
‘Godsdammit.’
‘Of cour-wait a minute….is this the part where you tell me that the Tri-Colored Serpent was actually a kaijin my predecessor made, and not a divine messenger/deity that had been the subject of worship for the better part of several centuries?’
=No.=
‘Why don’t I trust that “no”?’
∆This is the part where we tell you that the Tri-Colored Serpent was originally a bodiless deity that contacted the Starcaller so that she could make them body in order to fulfill the prayers of their persecuted people and free them from the millenia of servitude they were forced to carry.
‘…WHAT THE F-‘
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From the girls’ perspective…
“What…what is that look on Xiao Liu’s face? I have seen make it a few times and it always gave me the feeling he was freaking out or something?”
“It might actually be that. I’ve seen that face pop up a few times, especially when we had to fake a crime scene or two.”
“Fake a what?”
“Tell you about it later, and it appears he has made them gobsmacked now. Wonder what he told them?”
“We could ask him about it later.”
“True.”
“Are guys sure it’s okay for us to be eating these candied apples? I ain’t complaining because they taste good, but…”
“Meh. We’ll work it off later anyways.”
“Okay.”
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“I have a vague idea of what this image might mean, but I’m going to have to actually physically go to this shrine in order to get you something more concrete. Do you have a map?,” Zhen Liu asked after handing the picture back to Leon and Isa while doing his best to maintain a cool expression on his face. A part of him was tempted to keep the damn thing close, but he had the feeling that it was a better idea to have them hold on to it instead.
“Oh! Of course! We got one after Rodenia-”
“I can guess the rest of that statement,” Zhen Liu interjected. “You guys said it was pass Spider Hell?”
“Yes.”
A quick look of the map confirmed to Zhen Liu that the aforementioned shrine, aka the place formerly known as Vulture Town, was about another day away from Spider Hell by beast back. Give or take snack breaks.
While he committed this map to memory(read: had Logos make a copy back at the Library), Zhen Liu couldn’t help but notice two pair of eyes being pointed in his direction.
More specifically, they were the type of eyes associated with burning questions.
He could already guess what he was about to be asked, so he might as well jump on that landmine.
“Something tell me you want me to at least explain part of that image?”
“What? Oh, no, it’s just…well…actually…”Isa began to trail off because she couldn’t muster up the courage to actually ask. Thankfully, that was what Leon was for.
“Elsa has been telling us a bit more about the kaijin and you, the kaijin lord,” Leon explained, “and how you’re able to create life from seemingly nothing.”
“Yeah…”
“So…we have to ask… especially since that mural didn’t show itself until Rodenia showed up, so…did you or at least, someone with similar powers to you, create our-”
“Imma stop you right there, the answer is now,” Zhen Liu interrupted. “None of my predecessors had anything to do with the creation of your religion’s deity. I can create kaijin, not gods. Very different ballpark.”
“Oh…that’s a relief…”
“Then what’s going on in this pic-”
“You ever heard of the concept of reincarnations, er, I guess…incarnation? Your deity wanted to show up on Valresta, but they needed some help getting a body that could handle all their…divinity. My predecessor helped facilitate that.”
“Oh…that makes sense….hold up, what?”
