Set a Great Fire atop the Seven Hills and Burn Destiny to Ash

"A sergeant major of Rome?" Bai Zhou blinked. What sort of officer was a sergeant major? How many men could he command? This head had come from one of the tallest golden-armored gods, one he had picked with particular care—a proper "great general" who guarded the city gate, and who back then had been the first to fly out from the wall and face the blood-red skeleton head-on. At least from Bai Zhou's point of view, this gate-guarding "great general" was unfathomably strong. Even several kilometers away he had felt a suffocating pressure, and he could not make out the other's depths at all. But... A doubt that had once welled up inside him rose again in Bai Zhou's heart. "Rome"? The mechanical voice carried by that verifying pillar of light had judged the identity of this enormous head as: Legion of Rome, a professional soldier under the eagle banner. Yet Bai Zhou remembered clearly. The "Dragon Knights" he had met later, falling out of the sky—the so-called Imperial Guard—had all said they came from the "Xiluo Empire." The Xiluo Empire and Rome... what was the relationship? Was the power the golden-armored gods belonged to different from that of those Dragon Knights, or was "Xiluo" actually another name for "Rome"? Bai Zhou turned it over in his mind. As it looked now, so-called "Zhuluoji" was not the Deep Ruin Realm he had first imagined, but a real epoch of ancient civilization—some glorious age that history had buried in the past. What the Gold Pass had brought him to was not a tomb buried beneath the Ruin Realm, either. It had crossed time and carried him to a "past" that truly existed. If that was so, then through the countless years the ruins of Trojan civilization had stood still, Rome in the outside world would not have stopped where it was. After that empire unified many civilizations, it seemed to have changed beyond recognition long ago, passing through upheavals Trojan civilization likely knew little of. So-called Xiluo was perhaps an ultimate form, more flourishing and more terrible, after Rome had unified the world. So even a sergeant major would be terrifyingly powerful, perhaps beyond anything Trojan civilization had anticipated. When Bai Zhou took out the sergeant major's head, the Wolf Knight statue's strange silence and the mechanical voice's mention of "overfulfilling the trial" let him faintly glimpse the tip of the iceberg of this change. It made Bai Zhou think of the skeleton race. In the mouths of the golden-armored gods, those rebellious miner skeletons were remnants of the Bone Tribe. Perhaps, countless years ago, they too had belonged to a civilization of their own, until Rome destroyed it. By the same reasoning, Bai Zhou was, in a sense, also a "remnant of Troy." Only, set beside the skeletons reduced to miners, Trojan civilization—which possessed the High Priest and the Wandering Wooden Horse, and which Rome had destroyed only by exhausting every scheme to poison it—was clearly far stronger. "Rumble..." The whole temple was trembling. Every wisp of air, even every grain of dust, seemed to be softly calling Bai Zhou's name. "Fire Tender, you have done it." The temple intelligence housed inside the Wolf Knight statue spoke then, in a cold mechanical voice: "You have passed the two trials and gained the temple's recognition." "—From this moment on, you are the new inheritor of Trojan civilization." The instant the words fell, a blaze of golden light descended from the sky, enveloped Bai Zhou, and vanished in a flash. This pillar of light was identical to the one he had met before, when he swung Nine Basic Slashes and broke the seal to burst out of the sealed chamber. The fatigue in his body, and the pain like tearing muscle, vanished in the blink of an eye. His spirituality recovered rapidly as well, as if spring had returned to the earth and all things were reviving, and a frozen riverbed chimed and murmured as it thawed. Bai Zhou felt his weakened body suddenly fill with surging strength. He gave his head a shake, and his spirits lifted. This golden pillar alone, equivalent to a one-time concentrated form of Tears of the Moon Goddess, meant the greatest purpose of this journey was already achieved. Yet this was clearly only the beginning—not even the beginning. At most, a prelude. "Crack... boom!" The Wolf Knight slowly rose from the shattered pedestal. Eyes formed of emerald met Bai Zhou's. "Troy's Sun Temple, sealed for ten thousand years, has at last received the inheritor of the High Priest's prophecy." "We have finally waited until you came, Destined One... Bai Zhou." The Destined One? The High Priest's prophecy? Bai Zhou's heart stirred. He could not help looking up. Above him, sprawled at the rim of the skylight, was the High Priest monster. Those turbid, uncomprehending eyes sent a chill through him. But beside Chi, sealed there in plain sight, were the last words left by the Scarlet Queen of old: "I am tired." "But do not carve an elegy into the ruins of civilization. What flows through the song is not despair." "One day a successor of Troy will set foot here. He will not know me, yet he will inherit the sun." "He will cleave open your sacred halls, trample your solemn ancestral temples, and slaughter your blasphemous people!" "—Rome! This is prophecy! Still more, it is a declaration!" "The King's Fire has not gone out. What has been extinguished is only the scarlet." "But my curse has only just begun to breathe..." Perhaps these last words of the queen were also the prophecy Chi had left for the civilization. Only, inherit the sun... me? Bai Zhou blinked twice. On the surface he was silent, watching the Wolf Knight without a change of expression. In his heart, his thoughts had long been a tangle, running wild through more things than he could count. In truth, just then, he felt a quiet relief. When he activated the Gold Pass, he had still worried: what if the place he returned to was not Troy, but inside a city of the Xiluo Empire? If patrolling golden-armored gods caught him, he might spend the rest of his life weeping behind iron bars in the empire's cage. But as it looked now, the starting point the Gold Pass was anchored to had always been inside these ruins of Trojan civilization. Only by passing through the ruins of Trojan civilization could one reach Rome. In a sense, this place was the most important link between Bai Zhou, standing in the present world, and "Zhuluoji." In the future it might also become his most important relay for teleportation. "From now on, you are no longer the temple's lowest Fire Tender, but the one who inherits the temple." The Wolf Knight statue's mechanical voice echoed through the empty ring-shaped altar. "No temple rank, however high, is enough to describe your weight. No established mission can confine your words and deeds." "Because, from this moment—" "You will bear this temple, and all that this civilization is." As the voice fell. The ancient scarlet tree that led toward the skylight stirred without wind. Every branch swayed and leaned, all at once, slightly toward where Bai Zhou stood, as if in homage. The leaves rubbed together with a rustle like a tide, as if ancient knights were congratulating the birth of a new king. "Hum, hum, hum." Hazy points of light, with a resonant low hum, welled up at the same time from every corner of the temple. Weathered walls, cracked ground, the ancient altar, and the reliefs on the walls... From every place in the temple, seen and unseen, countless tiny points of light seeped out. These points seemed solid and yet transparent, like fireflies. In great swaths they gathered into brilliant, rotating clusters of stars, and slowly thronged in toward Bai Zhou from every side. Bai Zhou looked closely and found that the points seemed small but were in truth vast. Look carefully, and each point, however tiny, could magnify without limit in the eye, becoming vivid images of every kind. Some points were a brilliant gold, and the light moving within them was like the record of some hero's undying epic. Some were silver-white outside, and the image within showed a craftsman swinging a great hammer, forging flame-refined steel before a furnace. In some blue-green points, a philosopher in a long robe rested his chin on his hand in thought. In some red points, a warrior swung his blade and spilled hot blood. Still more points let Bai Zhou see ordinary people in joy and anger, sorrow and delight, praying to Heaven... Some were born. Some died. Some were glorious. Some were ordinary. Light and shadow flowed on, passed down from generation to generation... A civilization's history played without cease in the midst of it. They seemed drawn by an invisible force, circling Bai Zhou where he stood in the middle of the plaza, forming something like a brilliant, solemn river of stars. A many-colored ribbon of light slowly flowed around his figure. Then the colored ribbon, like a river of stars—and the countless flowing images within it, the joys and sorrows, the loves and hatreds—plunged sharply downward, and crashed full into Bai Zhou. "Hum!" The splendid, dazzling points of light touched his skin. A mark was quietly branded upon his left wrist, and in the turn of an eye its form was complete. "This is..." Bai Zhou at once rolled up his sleeve and looked at his left wrist. There had already been an "imperial sword of authority" the High Priest had given him—that God-Chosen Mark from the Scarlet Queen. But now, beneath the God-Chosen Mark, a complex miniature altar had appeared in plain sight. Light and shadow outlined the sacred form of this square altar. Upon it were three tiers of candlesticks, extremely similar to the altar that truly stood at the center of the Sun Temple. It sat in harmony with the God-Chosen Mark above, as if that mark were one of the offerings placed upon the altar. Yet the two in fact operated on their own, neither interfering with the other. The instant he saw the altar, Bai Zhou felt from the bottom of his heart a flood of emotion, at once heavy and grief-stricken, warmth woven through with cold, as if he resonated with countless unseen people and felt what they felt. In this moment his consciousness linked, for a brief instant, with some vast existence he could not see. Countless images flashed before his eyes, too blurred to make out. "The great affairs of a state lie in sacrifice and in war. The temple bears a civilization's history, and the altar is a civilization's crucial symbol." The Wolf Knight spoke in explanation: "As the inheritor of the civilization, you ought to receive this Altar Mark." "It answers the real altar that exists here. With it as hub and key, you can link directly to this Sun Temple, and thereby to the essential root of Trojan civilization." The altar? The root? Bai Zhou blinked twice. He understood, and he did not fully understand. He could not have said why, but it felt formidable. "The essential root is all of Trojan civilization's history, from nothing into being. It is Troy's complete lineage, its epics, its crafts, its philosophy, and the true names of all its departed people..." The Wolf Knight's voice resounded grandly over the empty altar. "All the past is contained within. A civilization's history is borne by the Sun Temple that civilization worships." "And now the weight of this history, the past of this civilization, is in your hands—Bai Zhou." Here the Wolf Knight's voice paused, and the tone lowered as the moment required: "To put it in words easier for you to understand—" "From now on, every person or thing of Rome that you kill can be offered to the Altar Mark on your wrist." "The Altar Mark links the real altar in the temple, and also links the civilization's history. According to the value of the offering, you may exchange it for a gift of knowledge from the civilization." "Including mythic epics, craftsmen's arts, classical philosophy, extraordinary secret techniques, the secrets of pathways, and even potion formulas." The Wolf Knight's voice rose from low to high, quickened from slow to fast, and echoed ever more grandly at Bai Zhou's ear: "Just as you have seen, Inheritor Bai Zhou." "We hope you will become the avenger in the prophecy, the one who sets Rome alight... For this, you will receive the whole of the civilization's generosity." The whole of it... Bai Zhou pressed his lips together and drew a deep breath. An inheritor of a civilization... was this how one inherited? Kill the people of Rome, and exchange them for the civilization's knowledge, with no upper limit—the more, the better? —Wasn't this forcing him to be the villain? But... Bai Zhou blinked twice. The heart in his chest thudded, refusing to behave. Good thing he had never been much of a good person to begin with. "Even..." The Wolf Knight's voice paused. The cold voice seemed to carry a trace of awe as it added: "Even if an offering's value is high enough, you may, through the Altar Mark, sacrifice the God-Chosen Mark that rests upon it, in exchange for... a distant strike by the High Priest across time and space!" The High Priest! At this, Bai Zhou looked up at the huge monster sprawled atop the temple. His pupils contracted. The last leader of Trojan civilization. The first and the last Scarlet Saintess to hold both divine authority and royal authority at once. A war angel, twice god-chosen, who had refused the War God's personal recruitment. A queen even Rome's Emperor had dreaded enough to poison and curse to death from afar. To exchange for a strike from afar by such a person? "This is really..." Bai Zhou cooled all at once. He raised his right hand, and his fingertips brushed the altar pattern on his left wrist. "The weight of a civilization..." Benefits like these would not come without a price. The condition for gaining everything was inheriting everything. On his wrist, the altar's pattern was complex and real. It had no weight at all, yet it lay heavy on Bai Zhou's heart. Troy's complete lineage. The grand epics bards had sung. The lost arts and secret methods of master craftsmen. Extraordinary secret techniques that could soar through the sky and slip through the earth. The secrets of potions... In a daze, Bai Zhou saw a fire blaze up to the heavens, and the wails of thousands within the flames. At last the fire burned out. Only a blank white land and empty ruins remained. Trojan civilization had died. Yet a civilization did not die out so easily. Even suppressed, even seemingly dead, it would return after countless years. As in this moment. Bai Zhou had inherited the civilization's weight, and shouldered its history and its past. And so Troy was reborn upon him. —It should be said that Bai Zhou, at this moment, was part of this civilization: the last person of a civilization that had ended long ago. He was this empty civilization, the only witness and executor to have crawled up from the depths of the abyss. So Bai Zhou felt he did not count as the civilization's inheritor, still less as some new lord of the civilization. It should be said that for a long time from now on, he was Trojan civilization, and Trojan civilization was him. After all, he was Troy's only living soul. Of course, there was one thing Bai Zhou knew with perfect clarity— Inheriting knowledge, inheriting power, inheriting authority, would certainly not come without a cost. To make an enemy of Rome, as a remnant of Troy, this road was never going to be easy. Yet Bai Zhou needed this power. Before the previous trial began, he had already prepared for it. What's more... From the very beginning, when he came by the Gold Pass to Troy's ruins, he had been destined to be inseparable from this place. Whether he inherited or not would not change his identity as a remnant of Troy. This had never been a choice worth agonizing over. So... "I am deeply honored." Bai Zhou looked at the altar before him and answered quietly, "I came precisely for this!" In this moment, Bai Zhou accepted everything openly. He was going to grow strong. So he was willing to accept this weight. The weight of a civilization. "Pat!" Having thought it all through, his mind clear, Bai Zhou lightly set his palm down over the altar pattern. —As if gripping a civilization's history and fate in his palm. Quietly, imperceptibly... The civilization's flesh and blood grew in a frenzy, inseparable from Bai Zhou's figure. Then, deep in his mind, it burst like thunder. "Boom!" In a daze, he heard countless grand voices. With endlessly flowing light and shadow, they came in unison from the Altar Mark beneath his palm— "Witness eternity's fall. Hear ten thousand years of silence." "Our existence, our hatred, our unfinished future... all are entrusted to you." "May you press ever forward—" They permitted. They acknowledged. They blessed. They cried out together, like some grand and fervent proclamation: "Set a great fire atop the Seven Hills, and burn destiny to ash!"