Somewhere in a quiet office, Mr Ignis relaxed back into his obsidian desk with a sigh of exasperation.
His rocky desk standing Infront of him like a thick stone slab, its surface still as rough as ever, now displaying a yellow file.
"The Keeper disappeared shortly after you left to catch Jules," Sol explained in a calm tone, never losing her smooth and royal tone.
She stood still, hovering over the colourful chimera fur rug, her arms folded in disappointment.
"The Keeper's probably gone to go find the boy himself." Mr Ignis assumed in a long and worn-out sigh.
"Well, it won't be able to find Julius in Lake Mnemosyneon, not unless it somehow has Julius's reflection." Sol sighed with disappointment, her eyes like miniature suns now aimed at the file on the obsidian slab.
"That's...Julius's." Sol realised aloud, her folded arms shifting a bit.
"It is. I wanted to go over some things." Mr Ignis explained as he extended his arm to gesture to the folder, from where he leaned back comfortably as he sat.
There was a long silence.
Sol looked over her shoulder at the empty corner where the cosmic eye had previously been staring.
Sol dropped her arms, placing the back of her wrist against her hipbone. "I can imagine."
"So, his father...-" Mr Ignis began, his eyes narrowing with curiosity on the subject as he leaned forward to place his elbows on his desk.
"-A cosmic entity," Sol answered calmly, her glowing face shifting with reluctance.
"Right, as you mentioned before, but...What exactly is that?" Mr Ignis asked, clasping both of his hands together, his mouth hidden behind his bundled rock hands.
Sol sighed in exasperation before reluctantly answering. "To be honest...even I don't even know."
She paused as if letting the mysteriousness of the subject settle with Mr Ignis. "What I can tell you is that...thing... would be what to us gods, like how mortals perceive gods like me, is exactly like us gods with...that." She finished as she gestured vaguely to the empty corner where the eye made from sparks had previously hovered moments ago.
Mr Ignis's red-hot eyes simmered for a moment on the thought. "So, you're saying...-"
"-It's the equivalent of the god of all gods? Yes." Sol huffed with a dramatic roll of her flaring eyes.
"I know it's immensely powerful, does what it wants and somehow...Impregnated a human, which birthed a cosmic-human hybrid into the world." Sol added in an almost frustrated tone, trying to make Mr Ignis understand the gravity of the situation.
Mr Ignis was silent, his burning eyes still simmering as he struggled to grasp the overwhelming knowledge.
What struck out to Mr Ignis were the words "God of all gods."
He understood the concept that gods might hate one another, some might fear one another, yet for a sun god to state that this...thing... was collectively above all gods...
"How do you know all of this?" Mr Ignis finally breathed as the light returned to his coal eyes, the rocks visibly burning up again with understanding.
"Well..." Sol breathed reluctantly before beginning to explain the story
...
TWO YEARS AGO
Deep, deep within the solar system, the sun blinded anyone who dared to look at it.
Its shape was spherical, with a distorted surface that resembled lava weaving itself into what looked like a spinning orb of pure heat.
The light emanating from the sun was like the outline of a familiar glowing woman, who happened to be buried deep within that very same sun.
Sol sat cross-legged, hovering as she sat in the deepest crevices of the ball of flame.
Her thoughts were calm and flowed like air through a human's respiratory system.
"The sun is beautiful today." She thought to herself in silence, as she always did every day.
She sat with her eyes closed, her hands flat over each other in her lap, with both palms facing up.
Her attention was poured solely into the awareness of the sun's thin surface, like a bubble of flame.
Then, suddenly, she felt this strange feeling, like coldness forming into intangible balls inside her head before flowing freely.
The other sun deities were scattered throughout the ball of flame, doing the same, treating it as a hollow earth as they each settled into separate areas.
Each member was busy managing and overseeing the sun.
However, overseeing this process was constant and therefore boring.
With other gods watching over the sun, if one god were to leave, it wouldn't affect the process.
Sol opened her fiery eyes suddenly, freeing her from her deep meditation as she breathed a sigh of boredom.
"Today is the day of the finals." Sol thought to herself with a slow hum as she contemplated.
"I do not care for mortal tradition, especially one that does not concern me." Sol reminded herself in deep thought.
"Though staying here any longer is a bore, I've outworked even Ra this last century...I'm sure one visit wouldn't hurt." She contemplated again, deciding heavily before closing her eyes again.
Now, dear reader, pay attention because this might sound tricky.
Sol had, using her very experienced use of magic, created a tiny shadow on the planet Earth.
She, with her godly control of the sun, had diverted all the sun's light away from this particular shadow.
Then she distorted the form of the shadow into the shape of something humanoid and feminine using magic.
Sol had stretched a piece of the shadow down, letting a swishing trail of shadow fall from the back of the shadow's head.
Then, colouring this wild, flowing stretch a shade of bright burning red, she made the shadow's skin a nice golden tan with a youthful appearance.
Then she gave the shadow a brown tunic, black wristbands and a black pair of rag bottoms.
She finished the creation, now almost completely human, by making the woman's iris a deep crimson.
"This looks good enough." Sol mused to herself, quite proud of her creation, before enacting her final step.
She took a piece of her own consciousness, wrapped in a blue ethereal mist that stemmed from Sol's own inner being, and transferred it into her new creation.
Then Sol closed the eyes of her flame body, bringing her attention back to earth, where she left the body of her new corporeal creation
When Sol opened her eyes again, she found tanned-skin human palms facing her.
She saw the serene surface spilling into green at her feet, blades of glass swarming In front of her and stretching toward the horizon.
This technique was what sun deities referred to as a "shade."
By making a shadow that could never be destroyed, the sun gods realised they could use magic to manipulate the shadow to use as a vessel for some time.
This technique was only found because of the deities' long time away from all creation, especially in Sol's case.
Or in human terms, they had "too much time on their hands."
Sol used this method to prevent herself from burning the earth with her presence by instead visiting indirectly.
Of course, she could've made the shade match her own fiery appearance but that would draw too much attention.
Though that didn't mean there weren't drawbacks to the technique.
For starters, just because the shadow that had been made didn't disappear doesn't mean it can't be exposed to light.
If a strong enough light source were to be brought to a shade, in theory, it would expose the shadow to light and destroy the shadow.
Therefore, destroying the shade.
Secondly, the method also hinges on the consciousness of the user being transferred into the shade to use it.
On paper, this seems okay until you realise two things.
Firstly, one cannot imbue all their consciousness into a shade; not only is it just not possible, but even if it were, it would mean risking losing access and control to their original body.
Secondly, to imbue consciousness, it must be protected by a layer of mana, though a layer is meant quite literally.
Too little mana will not protect your consciousness, and the technique will not work.
It would be akin to pouring water on the floor when you need to hold it in the correct container, like a glass.
Although too much mana will also override the shade and cause damage to it, after all, shadows are not meant to contain mana in the first place, like other things in this world naturally are.
Therefore, a user's power is limited in the body of a shade and does not nearly have as much power as their original body.
Thus, Sol could walk the planes of the earth without burning a thing, though as she passed a river, she noticed in the reflection of the mirror that the iris of her eyes had changed colour.
Her eyes now resembled a ring with an orange glow, like fire, instead of the deep red that Sol had originally created the shade's appearance to have.
This small change was the effect of having Sol's consciousness imbued into a shade.
In front of Sol, beside the clear stream, was the grassy path that Sol traversed.
The blades of grass she stumbled upon seemed untouched as she relearnt how to walk after being used to hovering like candleflame for so long.
The clear path, green from endless blades of grass, now began to fade with fainter colours.
The path grew increasingly beaten as Sol travelled the progressively weakening path with each step she took.
The shades of green were still abundant when you turned your gaze to the right places, though rocks and gravel were becoming more frequent.
The grass, untouched a moment ago, now had a slight bend as Sol approached it.
The grass was forward, as if it had been trampled on beforehand enough times to alter the direction the grass grew in the area.
The grass swerved down into a rock valley, Sol noticing a sudden gap in a large mountain on the side of the valley, next to where the path bent down.
The mountain was ginormous and plain in colour; its front featured a wide opening that was blocked with darkness.
The opening looked as though it had been carved out; the shadows sculpting the opening gave the cave an ominous look.
A wide curve stretched along Sol's now red glossed and very human lips, her fiery-ringed eyes flaring imperceptibly with recognition.
"So, it's still here..." She mused to herself with a single rasp of laughter, her arms folded, before finally stepping into the cave.
The cave was pitch black, apart from the ever-so-faint glow emanating from Sol's eyes in the dark, like two monsters' eyes.
The cave's path was long and tunnelled downward, venturing deeper into the cave.
The path was surprisingly spacious, the walls comfortably stretched apart just enough to wheel a small cart into the cave if one wanted to do so.
The darkness continued further, each step practically a guessing game for Sol, even with the faint illumination of her glowing eyes.
Until Sol found a collection of withered vines blocking faint slits of light and the muffled sound of...civilisation?
"Found you." Sol cheered silently within her heart, her red lips stretching into a wide grin as she reached toward the vines and easily shoved them aside.
Suddenly, as the vines parted with a flick of Sol's wrist through the strands, cyan light flooded over Sol.
Immediately finding herself at a stone ledge, the tips of her toes brushing crumbs of rock over the edge.
Sol looked over the long drop as she stilled herself, then tilted her head up and found herself overlooking an expanse that continued seemingly endlessly.
Sol recognised blue crystals embedded into the rock floors and ceilings, between the wooden structures plentiful within the area, illuminating the civilisation like a supermarket, although dimmer and with a blue tint.
"Ahh...how I have missed you, Nioavellir." Sol breathed to herself in a sigh of relief, watching the hustle and bustle of beings all unique in look.
Then her gaze paused, spotting a large stone ring in the distance among the other larger structures.
She nodded with a warm smile before stepping down where the side of the ledge curved, the stone sliding down from the opening in the wall she came from.
Sol soon found herself stepping through crowds, each person that passed her so monumentally different from the one before them.
Some people were no shorter than a small child, though they featured thick beards that collected with soot as they hammered over some half-built structure.
Some were massive in structure, with thick and dark hide that wouldn't break so easily.
Some with fangs, some with gills, as they swept down a stream far off in the distance.
Sol looked up at a painted banner hanging from a lamp post, and she noticed a tiny winged figure perched on it.
Its skin was covered in brown short-haired fur, with white streaks splayed across its body as lines of white feathers stuck to its body.
It's head shaped like a oversized walnut flipped on its side.
It had no arms but two wings half the size of its body, like a hawk, that sat comfortably on its back.
Its legs were deathly thin, with brown claws that tangled around the lamp post like vines.
Beaneath the claws a banner hung, a brown rug painted with a well-drawn image.
A human figure stood painted over the parchment; his brown hair was shorter than a horse brush.
His skin was painted unbearably tan, his teeth painted to sparkle white, whilst his blue eyes shone with colour.
He was painted shirtless, apart from a single golden shoulder pad, with an aesthetically gifted physique.
On one shoulder sat a golden shoulder pad in the shape of an animal's teeth, the golden jaw wide with sharp golden teeth.
Sol rolled her fiery, tinted eyes at the image and carried on through the busy crowds.
Sol soon saw the stone ring come closer into view, its design like a thick grey ring with horizontal lines engraved across the surface of the wall.
A set of short stairs that rounded out led to a flat platform outside the entrance to a ring.
The entrance was a set of two large double doors, both the size of an elephant; the doors had a glossy wooden polish with a line of people standing outside.
On either side of the doors were the same painted banners of the tanned figure that Sol had seen earlier, with the word "champion" now painted at the top of the banner.
A long queue stood on this grey platform, starting from the doors, leading past the platform, down the stairs and back into the village.
Sol sighed deeply within her heart, crossing her arms as she huffed air a little too hot through her nose.
At the front, blocking the open doors, stood a large figure around three-quarters the size of the door.
His figure was broad, trapped under a tight-fitting black waistcoat and a black shirt rolled up at the sleeves.
His face was dog-like, like a rottweiler with two brown stripes of fur on his cheekbones, though he stood on two thick legs.
Just then, a cloaked figure suddenly barged into Sol as they walked past the line.
Sol parted her lips, shocked at the audacity, ready to snap something before feeling a familiar sensation coiled in her very being that distracted her.
It was like her mind, or rather the thoughts in it, suddenly went ice cold.
It was like the thoughts had turned into tiny balls of light, with the same temperature of ice as they floated out of her mind and exploded.
It was a feeling she had felt before, once, almost eleven years ago, randomly, whilst she sat in the sun as usual.
Her lips shut as she watched the cloaked figure pass her to approach the large dog-man, the figure only being half the size of the creature.
The suited dog-man took a glance at the figure, then another at a parchment in his own fur hand.
The dog-man nodded and stepped aside to let the cloaked figure pass.
Sol watched as the cloaked figure entered silently, her eyes subconsciously tracking them.
Sol blinked, seemingly realising she was in a trance.
She huffed a sigh and stepped forward to the dog-man blocking the entrance.
"Excuse me, I'm on the list, under the champion's plus one." Sol lied smoothly, forcing her voice into an overly excited squeak.
Her red lips part into a grin, though her heart smiles under the surface of her makeshift appearance.
"I don't see anything like that." The dog-man murmured in a rough voice.
Sol's grin immediately faltered, her hand shooting out to grip the wrist of the bouncer.
"Check. Again." Her voice lost all warmth in an instant, turning sharp and threatening as she looked up at the dog-man.
Her iris flared a bright orange, the ring of her eyes emitting the faintest sliver of flame.
"O-Oh, actually...I do see it." The dog-man played along fearfully, his fur skin shifting uncomfortably as his voice went up an octave.
"R-Right this way..." He stammered nervously, politely gesturing to the open doors as he stepped aside, deciding that this woman clearly was not worth finding trouble with.
"Thank you." The warmth to her tone returned in an instant, her lips curving with mock kindness as she stepped forward.
A red carpet, lined deep into the halls, greeted Sol as she stepped through the doors.
The lobby was packed with people slowly dispersing through the smaller doors ahead and into the main area.
Though Sol noticed as a flicker of black cloth slipped past a red door on the far side of the room, following with narrowed eyes as she pulled the same door open and stepped through.
The door led to narrow halls painted a very pale green.
Sol stepped quietly through the hall, noticing lines of doors with names of people or titles above each door.
Her gaze lingered carefully whilst examining as she turned a corner.
What she saw past the bend was the cloaked figure in the middle of the hallway.
A door behind them was still slowly drifting shut.
"Champion," scrawled over a sign on the door as it finally clicked into place.
"For a champion, they're quite small..." Sol thought to herself as she stood frozen, watching the cloaked figure.
The stranger's face was well hidden with a black hood over their head.
Though for a second, their eyes met Sol's.
Sol noticed the brown and amber hue to their eyes before they suddenly turned away in silence, soon leaving the hall in fast strides.
end of chapter 4