Sunny lay stretched out along one of the circular booth seats in the party car, data pad resting flat on his stomach, gently glowing. As the only person who ever sticks around here, the party car was quiet as usual.
Sunny scrolled the data pad with one lazy finger.
"Historians often start the planetary history of Jarilo-VI from the War of the Gods…"
He stared with dubious belief.
'Right. Because calling it a war between people doesn't sell as well.'
He turned slightly, resting his head on one arm, thumb flicking downward.
"…the eleven Perun States and the Veles Union Army scorched the land…"
"…an early spring completely changed the fortunes of war…"
Interestingly enough, Jarilo was the name of their imaginary spring war god. To those ancient people — who must have been a technologically underdeveloped civilization created from a resource-starved offshoot of humans — then this might as well have been divine intervention.
Sunny stared at the word Jarilo for a few seconds longer than he meant to.
Then moved on.
"…developed from hunter-gatherers to space exploration…"
"…top-tier technological advances…"
"…exhausted resources…"
"…arrival of a Stellaron…"
That word made his thumb freeze mid-scroll.
He stared at it. Stellaron.
Cancer of All Worlds.
The databank's terminology was always so sterile.
He tilted his head back, eyes drifting toward the window. Somewhere down there — beneath layers of ancient, choking snow — was the impact scar. Where the Stellaron must have landed on this world.
There were two of them. Bound deep in the folds of his soul where no one could see. Where Sunny himself couldn't see. He had no explanation for how it worked, why it worked, or how he knew it would work. But that didn't matter, because in the end, it did work.
He returned his gaze to the screen.
"…Jarilo-VI's glorious but short-lived civilization…"
"…Belobog, the city of shelter…"
"…the survivors forgot the name Jarilo…"
Outside, the snow still clung to the mountains in layered sheets — compressed and bitter. What little meltwater there was, barely had the strength to stain the surface.
Rereading the passage a few times, Sunny efficiently highlighted a few key — or questionable — points.
One of them was referring to the god that the ancient civilizations believed in; Jarilo.
Sunny could easily understand that a weak, small, and powerless group of people would want to believe in something greater than them. What didn't make sense, however, was that a civilization that must have had people infected by the Nightmare Spell would believe in something intangible.
Firstly, when people are sent to another world to fight and survive against harrowing abominations, it becomes very hard to believe in a god that doesn't exist. After all, there are people and monsters that could wield miracles that surpass those imaginary gods.
Witnessing such things could easily collapse those beliefs.
Secondly, when a person witnesses strange and powerful abilities directly, their beliefs would be redirected to that target.
Summoning the Vessel of Remembrance, Sunny telepathically wrote down:
"Jarilo was a real entity. Saint?"
To bring about a sudden change in seasonal weather was certainly possible for a Saint with related abilities. What was confusing was that with such foundations, especially with a powerful individual who could live for millennia, how did Jarilo-VI succumb to forces like the Eternal Freeze?
Unless it was really just a spring that arrived earlier than usual — which didn't convince Sunny whatsoever — then something must have happened to that Saint.
It was possible that the invading Antimatter Legion could have killed them. If multiple Doomsday Beasts had attacked — at least a dozen — then that Saint certainly could have been overwhelmed.
Either way, how that Saint died was none of his concern. What Sunny was trying to figure out was related to the Engine of Creation.
During his trip, Welt seemed to have noted down a plethora of things regarding the massive automaton. One of which concerned how it was created.
Supposedly, the Engine of Creation was an ingenious mix of technology and Aspects. This was commonly referred to as SpellTech — a combination of modern technology and Awakened powers. Compared to the common methods of the IPC, however, the Engine of Creation seemed to be both completely different, and much more sophisticated.
It seemed to contain an endless reserve of Soul Essence from an unknown external source. If that source was intangible, then that meant it operated on infinite energy that couldn't be cut off. The Lance of Preservation could be considered the command key of the construct, and caused the Engine of Creation to automatically operate according to the wielder's will.
That was what Clara had said, at least. Although he wasn't sure how she knew so much, Sunny believed it was right to consider her view, considering her entire Aspect was related to automatons. That wasn't even accounting for her actual technological skills.
Back to the Engine of Creation, Welt had theorized that an Awakened must have been involved in it's creation — one with immense power tailored towards technology. Despite being created hundreds of years ago, the Engine of Creation seemed to be much more advanced than modern automatons — by multiple generations, in fact.
There were three possibilities: the first was that a Saint with a technological Aspect participated in it's development. As far as Sunny knew, the IPC didn't have any Transcendents in that field.
The second possibility was that a genius was involved, with ideas far ahead of the times.
The third possibility was that the previous two possibilities are both true.
Sunny sighed. He clicked the side of the data pad, watching it's screen dim. There was too little information, and too many questions. Like: since when could Welt summon black holes? Why wasn't there a Soul Core when he looked under his soul? Why did he wait until the last moment to help? Why did the Engine of Creation's head explode in the first place?
If the Engine of Creation was created during Alisa Rand's time, was that Saint still alive? Or was Jarilo a completely different Saint? Was a Saint even involved in the Engine of Creation's… creation?
Sunny leaped to his feet. The planned date to challenge the Second Nightmare was the Winter Solstice — his birthday, funnily enough. Although he was horrified of the inevitable encounter between Sparkle and March, sacrifices had to be made.
Until then, Sunny decided that he was going to be a detective. Detective Sunny…