Vanna felt her brain wasn't quite working.

She was no stranger to this feeling of her brain being insufficient—back in her student days, she felt this way every time she listened to Mr. Morris's lectures, but since she entered adolescence and successfully replaced most of her brainpower with muscle, she hadn't felt this way for many years.

Now, that familiar feeling was back.

She looked at the "glowing ball" in the giant's hand, blinked several times, and only then did she understand the other party's words and the object in his hand on a rational and literal level, but her emotional side was still dazed—this was…the sun of this world?

"Want to touch it?" The giant looked at Vanna's stiff appearance, smiled kindly, and extended the "sun" in his hand a little towards Vanna, "It's not hot anymore."

Vanna felt that this sentence was unprecedentedly strange, but she didn't know how to react.

After hesitating for a few seconds, she stretched out her hand as if possessed—with a feeling she couldn't explain, she curiously touched the glowing ball in the giant's hand.

It was only the size of a fist—a human fist, and in the giant's hand, it looked almost like a delicate little bead. The surface of the little bead seemed to have many intricate structures running, with dense light flames surging, alternating bright and dark areas, and from time to time, some hair-like subtle rays of light rose up and fell back to the surface.

It felt only slightly warm to the touch, like hot water slightly warmer than body temperature.

Vanna was a little dazed. She thought of the familiar appearance of her sun—rising from the sea every day, with a magnificent double ring of runes, capable of bringing light and warmth to the entire world, an astonishing "miracle," an ancient and magnificent "vision."

At the same time, she also remembered the captain saying that the sun had another appearance, a more glorious, more enormous appearance—just recently, the captain began to try to tell his followers some knowledge from the Subspace, and among those knowledge, there was the concept of stars and the universe.

To be honest, Vanna didn't quite understand the captain's teachings, and even Mr. Morris and Miss Lucretia seemed to not fully understand, but at least Vanna understood one thing…no matter what kind of sun it was, it shouldn't be a…fist-sized ball.

The warm "little sun" left her hand.

The giant sat down on the edge of the large pit. He put the "sun" in his palm, put his hand on his leg, and lowered his eyes, as if immersed in memories and thoughts. After a long time, he said in a low voice, "They were full of wisdom and good at using all kinds of methods to explain the operation of the world. Although they were naturally weak, they could rely on 'science' to fight against things that were much stronger than them. I always thought that if they were still here, if they could develop to this day, perhaps they could explain what this 'sun' is…

"But when it fell, the world was already silent, and the last person had turned into that tower. Those clever minds and imaginative insights had disappeared from this world—and I can't figure out what happened."

Vanna was silent for a while, but she wasn't just silent—she was telling the captain what had happened here.

She told the captain—she might have found the "sun" that the cultists mentioned at the gathering.

It was in the hands of this giant who called himself a god, and it looked…really possible to "take away," with just one hand.

The giant didn't seem to care about Vanna's silence or her communication with some unknown existence on the level of consciousness. Memories enveloped this lonely former god. He gazed for a long time at the small "star" in his hand that once illuminated this world, illuminating his mortal people, and after a long time, he said to himself, "I have been thinking, thinking about what exactly destroyed this place… It didn't happen in an instant, traveler, it was a very long process."

"Process?" Vanna immediately noticed this word.

The giant nodded, and in his recollection, he said, "In the beginning, there were some abnormal phenomena that could not be explained by existing knowledge. Clouds suddenly disappeared and then suddenly appeared. Unexplained flashes of light appeared in the atmosphere. The weather went wrong, and plants no longer grew normally;

"Then, the abnormal phenomena began to affect deeper and more disturbing areas—gravity was changing, and there were discontinuities in the passage of time in various places;

"In this process, we observed that increasingly intense red light, like a crack, spreading from beyond the sky, as if fixed in the sky and covering our world, distorting the starlight in the distance. Some kind of…'deformation' eroded the world, and everyone was helpless.

"The archives were established at that time."

The giant suddenly stopped here. He looked at the tower again, as if because he was not used to communicating with people, he would always suddenly fall into thought or be absent-minded when he was halfway through speaking, but soon, he spoke again:

"The long process had a rapid end. When the archives were destroyed, I briefly felt…that some kind of 'thing' touched our world. That thing took a long time to get close, and caused that long doomsday in the process of getting close, and its final 'touch' was the final arrival and end of destruction. However, a long time has passed, and I still haven't been able to figure out what that 'thing' is."

"You said you felt something 'touching' this world?" Vanna couldn't help but widen her eyes. Unconsciously, she had begun to use honorifics when speaking to the giant. "Didn't you really 'see' what that thing was?"

The giant recalled it very carefully, and showed Vanna a hint of apology: "Sorry, traveler, I can see that you care about this, but what I have said is all I know."

Vanna pursed her lips. She had to suppress the regret in her heart, and then turned her gaze to the "little sun" in the giant's hand.

We can't let this thing really fall into the hands of the Black Sun's offspring and remnants.

After hesitating again and again, she finally decided to be a little more frank.

"There are ill-intentioned people who have been eyeing the 'sun' in your hand… I don't know if they will find this place, and I don't know how to explain their origins to you, but…"

She was only halfway through speaking when the giant raised his hand again and placed the "light sphere" in front of her: "Do you want to take it away?"

The giant's tone was gentle, and he had a smile on his face.

Vanna was stunned for a moment, and after reacting, she quickly waved her hand: "No, that's not what I meant, you may have misunderstood…"

"It's okay, traveler," the giant interrupted Vanna again. He still said in that calm and friendly tone, "I can feel your goodwill, and…I don't think you can necessarily take it away from me."

Vanna was slightly startled. After realizing that the giant was not joking, she finally hesitated and reached out to the glowing sphere—this time not to touch it, but to try to pick it up.

The warm touch came again. Vanna felt that she was holding a solid object, but just as she was about to use force, that touch suddenly disappeared.

The sphere turned into a phantom, passing through her palm.

She looked in astonishment at the sun that she couldn't pick up.

"I don't know when, it became a part of me," the giant's voice came from the side, "Perhaps it was the day I picked it up… A phantom picked up another phantom, and they can never be separated again.

"Traveler, you can't take it away, so it seems that the ill-intentioned people you mentioned shouldn't be able to take it away either."

The giant stood up from the ground.

He patted the sand off his robe, carefully put the "sun" close to his body, then bent down and picked up the huge staff: "We should go, traveler."

Vanna subconsciously asked, "Where to?"

"Walk around the world. There are still many things here. Although you can't see what they look like now, I want to introduce you to their stories and appearances," the giant turned his head and looked at the distant sand sea. "You can also tell me on the road about the origins of those 'ill-intentioned people'—this world has been dead for many years. I haven't talked to anyone for too long. This is the first time I've heard…news from outsiders."

He paused, then lowered his head and glanced at Vanna: "I had almost forgotten what curiosity was. Thank you for reminding me."

"Aren't we going to take a look down there?" Vanna pointed to the tower in the center of the pit. "I thought…"

"There's nothing to see there anymore. What you see here is all there is to it," the giant shook his head and turned to walk towards the distance. "Let's go, it's going to get dark again. The alternation of day and night here is always very fast, but perhaps we can reach another ruin before dusk—a place where you could once see the sea."

Listening to the giant's words, Vanna looked back at the "tower." She said goodbye silently in her heart, then turned and followed the giant who was already a dozen meters away.

…

Duncan sat behind the chart table, maintaining this posture for a long time. After who knows how long, he took a deep breath.

Vanna had found the "sun," in a very…incomprehensible state.

But for some reason, after hearing Vanna's report, he had no other feelings besides the initial surprise and doubt. Even the surprise quickly faded, leaving only a feeling of…"I see."

Perhaps it was because he had already witnessed the ten-meter-diameter "moon," or perhaps it was because he had already seen a "solar flare" that could jump on the deck. Having survived in this strange and distorted world for so long, his ability to accept things had been fully trained.

Then there was only one question left—

Vanna can't take the "sun" away.

That's a little worrying.

(It's double monthly ticket time now, please vote~)

(End of this chapter)