Nina went back to her room to sleep.

In this world, most people go to bed early and rise early – the time after the sun fades is dangerous. The glow of the World Scar will cause the distortion of the entire world to reach its peak. Even if there are lights to protect the city, people must be cautious when facing the night.

Without the ability to gather outside, and without many entertainment options, reading books at night is not as dangerous as reading at sea, but it can easily lead to mental exhaustion, auditory and visual hallucinations, and occasionally attract unnecessary peeping from the night. So, all things considered, the safest way is to go to bed early and wait for the sun to rise the next day.

Duncan, however, was not sleepy at all.

He turned off the lights in the house, put on his shirt, and stood near the window, casually admiring the night view of Pland City-State while recalling his conversation with Nina after dinner.

Nina remembered a big fire, and the memories left in his body also included such a fire – in the fire, "he" led a six-year-old girl out of a collapsing, burning building, while in the distant streets were chaotic crowds and pervasive mist.

However, only the two of them remembered the fire – Nina had mentioned these things to other adults, but they were dismissed as "a child's confused memories after being frightened." The newspapers from eleven years ago also clearly recorded the "truth": at that time, only a factory leak caused mass hallucinations at the junction of Pland's lower city and the Crossroads District, and there was no record of any fire.

Duncan frowned slightly. Another suspicious point in this matter was "himself."

According to Nina, "Uncle Duncan" actually didn't remember the fire either. Only she herself had remembered this matter all along. When she was a child, she even mentioned the fire to Uncle Duncan (although it should have been "Ron" at that time), and Uncle Duncan was also one of the adults who thought she "remembered things wrong after being frightened."

But now, the scene of the fire appeared in Duncan's memory – it was the original owner of this body's memory, remaining in the deepest part of his mind.

What was the problem? Why, in Nina's memory, her uncle didn't remember the fire at all, but Duncan found the corresponding scene in the depths of this body's memory? Was Nina's uncle lying all along? Or had this memory been sealed away until a ghost captain took over this body, and the deepest memory surfaced?

Duncan tapped the window lattice unconsciously with his fingers, silently sorting out the timeline in his mind.

He integrated the information he had obtained from those sun worshippers:

Eleven years ago, the Sun Fragment first appeared within Pland City-State, and the extraordinary phenomenon caused by the fragment may have affected a large area.

Also eleven years ago, Nina became an orphan. In her and Duncan's memory, there was a fire at that time, which happened in the lower city – but other than them, no one remembered the fire, and there was no evidence to prove that a fire had ever occurred.

After that, the Sun Fragment lay dormant in the city-state, with no further movements. The only record left by a certain event that year was the "Crossroads District factory leak incident."

Over the years, Nina and her only relative depended on each other.

Four years ago, the followers of the Sun God in Pland City-State tried to awaken the sleeping Sun Fragment in advance and held a dangerous sacrificial ritual, but the ritual failed and was extinguished by Vanna, the newly promoted probationary inquisitor, leading a team. Their cult forces were severely hit, and after a large-scale purge, the Sun God Cult was expelled from the city-state.

But although the ritual did not reach the final step, the heretics' attempt to "awaken" may have had some impact. The Sun Fragment began to gradually emerge from its slumber after that.

Around that time, the "uncle" who depended on Nina contracted a strange disease, and gradually degenerated under the torment of the disease, eventually accepting the lure of the remaining Sun Cultists in the city and becoming a cult minion.

Not long ago, news of the Sun Fragment's activity began to attract Sun Cultists to gather in the city again. The cultists, who had been lying low for four years, held a sacrificial ritual again, and what happened after that… was Duncan's intervention.

Throughout the timeline, many things seemed to be subtly connected, but they all lacked key evidence.

The most suspicious thing was eleven years ago. What kind of extraordinary phenomenon did the Sun Fragment trigger at that time? Did that fire really exist?

Did the city-state authorities erase the truth of that accident, erase the traces of the fire? Then, out of consideration for maintaining order, did they announce the whole thing to the public as a collective hallucination caused by a factory leak?

But this could not explain why the fire was completely absent from the memories of so many people – unless the authorities also went to great lengths to reshape the memories of all those involved.

And there was another point – in this world, anomalies and extraordinary phenomena were already public knowledge. Even children knew about the existence and dangers of extraordinary things. The authorities obviously knew this as well, and had been governing the city with a policy of "announcing dangers in advance to ensure that citizens have the common sense to protect themselves." If it really was just a fire caused by extraordinary forces… then why hide it?

Unless… there was an even bigger problem behind the fire, so much so that even the mere disclosure of the news would cause some dangerous factor to spread out of control.

Duncan suddenly frowned.

Or there was another possibility.

The characteristics of extraordinary phenomena were strange. In many cases, the harm it caused was not only limited to the physical level, but also distorted people's cognition, even to the point of distorting the evidence already written on paper – what if people's memories, cognition, and even the records of the city-state authorities and the church were contaminated by the Sun Fragment?

Duncan felt that his imagination was running a bit wild. As a half-baked "newbie" in the field of anomalies and extraordinary phenomena, his imagination was a bit too unrestrained, but on the other hand, once this idea came to him, he couldn't stop it.

People's memories, the authorities' records, and even the black and white words written in the archives more than a decade ago could all be distorted and replaced – he might not have believed this in the past, but now, he believed it more than anyone else.

Because the place where he was now was called "Duncan's Antique Shop."

Everyone here knew their old neighbor, Mr. Duncan, who ran the antique shop.

Duncan sighed softly. He lowered his head and looked through the second-floor window at the street illuminated by gas lamps.

Now there was only one question left.

Regardless of whether the fire eleven years ago existed, regardless of whether the Sun Fragment contaminated the memories of those involved and the records left by the city-state, only one thing was crucial:

Why did Nina remember the fire?

...

Upper City, inside a mansion under the name of a city magistrate.

Vanna woke up from a nightmare.

But this time, the nightmare was no longer related to the Black Sun, nor did it point to the Lost郷 (Shixiang) from subspace – she just suddenly dreamed about her childhood.

In that night filled with fog, smoke, blood, and chaotic crowds, she, only twelve years old, was carried away from the siege of rioters by her uncle.

In the dream, she seemed to have returned to her helpless and fragile state back then. Her proud martial skills and powerful divine powers were gone, and she could only flee in panic from the pursuit of madmen and shadows, crossing the pipes and valves above the factory with her uncle. She looked down at the city in horror amidst the thick smoke and heat waves, and saw the boundless sea of fire rising everywhere, spreading throughout the entire district as far as the eye could see…

The young inquisitor, clad in a nightgown, sat on the bed, took a deep breath, and looked at the sky outside the window – the clear light of the World Scar was still hanging high in the sky, and the clock hanging near the window showed that it was just past midnight.

She felt as if she had been immersed in a nightmare for a century.

Vanna got up, turned on the electric light, came to the dressing table, and looked at herself in the mirror. She whispered the name of the Storm Goddess, and after gaining inner peace, she sighed, as if comforting herself, and muttered: "At least I won't dream about that ship anymore..."

As soon as she finished speaking, she suddenly heard footsteps coming from the corridor outside the room, followed by a knock on the door: "Vanna? Vanna, did you have a nightmare?"

It was her uncle's voice – the city-state's most respected magistrate.

"I'm fine." Vanna calmed herself down, then tidied up her clothes and got up to open the door.

Dante Wayne stood at the door. The middle-aged man with gray hair and gray eyes, who was not too burly, had obviously just woken up. He casually put on a coat, and looked at his niece with concern after the door opened.

Having lost one eye in a certain incident, he now had a ruby eyeball – intricate golden patterns could be seen inside this eyeball, and there were hideous scars left from eleven years ago around the eye socket surrounding the eyeball, making his face intimidating.

But Vanna was already used to it. She knew that her uncle was actually a kind and fair person.

"Had a nightmare," she rubbed her eyes, her tone a little helpless. "Didn't expect to wake you up."

"It's nothing, getting old makes one sleep lightly," Dante Wayne looked at Vanna with concern. "Dreaming about childhood again?"

"Yeah, dreaming about that time again."