The perpetual night of Janusopolis and the dawn of Okhema were magically stitched together by a dazzling, flowing Infinity Gate spanning the center of the banquet hall.
This was not a gate for battle, but a bridge for celebration.
People moved between the two city-states, their figures flowing and mingling on either side of the gate, gathering and dispersing without pattern.
One moment, reveling in song under Okhema's golden morning glow, the next, stepping into Janusopolis's tranquil starry night to rest and whisper.
Phaethon leaned against a cold, rough stone pillar on the Janusopolis side, a bottle of low-alcohol fruit wine held loosely between his fingers.
He did not join in the flowing merriment, merely gazing through the Infinity Gate's hazy glow at the world on the other side, gently wrapped in the Dawn Device's light.
Under that dawn symbolizing rebirth and hope, Mydei and Phainon—the sworn enemies who had been at each other's throats not long ago—were now "dueling" in an extremely… down-to-earth manner.
They sat facing each other across a long table piled high with Okhema's delicacies, heads buried as they stuffed themselves, cheeks puffed out like hamsters.
A vague, non-committal snort escaped Phaethon's nose—*Hmm~ Weren't they at each other's throats before, ready to beat each other's brains out? Getting along now, are they?*
Nearby, Cyrene was whispering and giggling behind her hand with Hyacine and Castorice.
Their gazes would occasionally drift toward the two "warriors" engrossed in eating, and then, as if seeing something exceedingly funny, bubbling laughter would ripple out like clear silver bells.
*Probably chatting about something amusing? Hmm… probably? Women's topics are always so hard to figure out.*
Phaethon silently mourned for a few seconds the future reputation of Phainon and Mydei in Okhema.
A little further away, Aglaea was speaking quietly with Tribbie and Trinnon.
This "Golden-Weave" young lady now had less of her usual aloofness and divinity in her brow, replaced by a touch of genuine relaxation.
A faint but sincere smile lingered at the corner of her lips. Clearly, the recent quiet from the Council of Elders had saved her much mental energy.
The Dawn Device's light softly outlined her delicate profile and also fell upon Tribbie and Trinnon's serene faces. Everything seemed so peaceful and harmonious, as if heralding the dawn that must eventually follow the night.
Phaethon tilted his head back and took another swig of the fruit wine. The cool liquid slid down his throat, yet it was like igniting a weak flame. An indescribable anxiety, rising with the alcohol's warming effect, suddenly seized his heart, turning that slight tipsiness instantly heavy.
*Decided to be the deliverer?* The thought churned in his mind, carrying self-mocking bitterness. *Big words are easy to say. But then what? What to do specifically?*
*In terms of power?* He weighed the strength within him.
*True, I'm no longer the weakling from before, but to say I could overpower everything, ignore the Black Tide, ignore the cycles, ignore Amphoreus's rules?*
*Far from it! How can the light of a firefly compete with the bright moon? No, not even a firefly… at best, a grain of unwilling dust.*
*Theoretically speaking… accelerating an object to the speed of light, E=mC², that world-shattering energy could indeed reach "Emissary-level" destructive power. Theoretically absolutely workable!* This thought had briefly excited him.
*But unfortunately… The essence of Amphoreus is a supercomputer running the world's program!*
He recalled his experiments. When he tried to infinitely accelerate a small metal sphere, what happened? The sphere didn't tear space, but… dropped frames!
Its trajectory was no longer a continuous arc, but became a stuttering teleport. Then, it started clipping—ignoring physical collision.
Finally, after a violent, utterly illogical jump, that pitiful sphere vanished from the air as if erased by an invisible eraser—"swallowed" by Amphoreus as erroneous data.
Phaethon had exhausted methods testing it. The limit of physical rules Amphoreus's "server" could stably process in its current state only supported accelerating objects to about one percent the speed of light.
Any faster? The entire physics simulation system couldn't keep up with the frame rate, began to corrupt.
As for Cipher's near-miraculous "divine speed"? Phaethon was more inclined to believe it was a kind of "cheat" based on the essence of the Amphoreus world.
Her "fast" wasn't acceleration in the physical sense at all. It was more like directly grabbing the data flow within Amphoreus, performing instant data packet capture and position relocation.
That's why she could ignore inertia, ignore conservation of energy, to be unbelievably fast.
*And that thing in my head…should he call it "golden finger" or "system"?
*Collecting the abilities of everyone in this world? Sounds wonderful, like an ultimate cheat.*
*But what then, once collected? Could it break this damn cycle? Don't be ridiculous!*
*What more… can I beg the system?* Phaethon inwardly scoffed.
*Look at how stiff, cold, utterly emotionless the system was when conversing with me. I estimate even if the world exploded the next second, it wouldn't blink an "eye."*
*Moreover, given the increasingly wild and imaginative nature of those two guys in his head (the system and the author), their outlandish and sometimes insane interactions that forced him to actively block out certain information*
*I don't believe in their reliability one bit! Counting on them to save the world? Might as well expect Mydei and Aglaea to simultaneously pursue Teacher Anaxa.*
So… after much deliberation and countless deductions, he concluded:
this situation was unsolvable.
A cold conclusion heavily pressed on his heart.
*Sometimes, I also fall into an absurd fantasy: What if I had a true comedy script? One punch to explode the Black Tide, casually doing daily stuff could save the world.*
*Or just go for a true abstract script? Rules? Logic? Non-existent! Everyone goes crazy together, maybe the world gets better by going crazy.*
*But now?* He thought self-mockingly. *Ended up with a not fully comedic story, which is just…completely unfunny, right? Now I am stuck here… _(:3 ⌒ﾞ)_.* (see the emoji side way, it will be a lying down position. Which basically mean like wanting to give up)
*Sigh…* A great sense of fatigue surged up. *Saving the world, and it still has to follow logic?*
*What should be done… Could it be that the Amphoreus world truly… has no salvation?*
The fruit wine's cloying sweetness seemed to still linger on the tip of his tongue, but the bitterness in his heart had long since spread into a vast ocean of hopelessness.
He looked through the Infinity Gate's glow at the cheerful laughter and conversation of those bathed in the down of "hope", only feeling that light is distant and blinding.
Phaethon drank down another mouthful of bitter fruit wine.