Realm Lord
Chapter 104: The Sun God

Chapter 104: The Sun God

Arthur stood over the body of Jonas, his eyes hung low beneath heavy brows, his arms lay limp at his sides as he stared at the headless corpse below him. The stone floor beneath them was stained dark with blood that had pooled and begun to congeal around the severed neck, a sight that Arthur knew would haunt his dreams for years to come.

He did not know Jonas long but he knew him long enough to recognize the man’s worth. Jonas had always worn a smile on his face, the expression seeming almost out of place on his rugged features. Despite his large and rough, even intimidating exterior, with shoulders broad as an ox and hands that could crush stone, Jonas had been just a big teddy bear at heart.

Jonas always looked for the good in every situation, no matter how dire. How he never raised his voice in anger, even when others lashed out from fear or frustration. And most painfully of all, Arthur recalled the stories Jonas had shared during quiet moments—tales of a daughter with pigtails and gap-toothed smile, and a wife with kind eyes waiting for him back home. A home he would never return to now.

Arthur’s fists clenched tightly at his sides, nails digging crescents into his palms deep enough to draw pinpricks of blood. His teeth gritted together with such force that his jaw ached, but the physical pain was nothing compared to the anguish that tore through his chest.

"I-I’m sorry," he whispered, voice cracking under the weight of guilt. "I’m sorry I wasn’t strong enough to keep you alive..."

His words hung in the still air of the ancient chamber, echoing slightly before fading into silence. The promise that followed came from somewhere deeper, somewhere primal and resolute within his soul.

"I promise... I promise I’ll get stronger, so that one day nobody dies because of my weakness ever again."

Arthur remained standing over the body in silence for a long moment, paying his final respects to a man who deserved far better than this brutal end in a foreign world.

Finally, he turned his attention toward the rest of the room, forcing himself to focus on the task at hand rather than the grief that threatened to consume him. The room he was in was an altar room, dedicated to some sort of deity of this realm. Elaborate carvings covered every surface, worn by time but still discernible.

’The rose field was dedicated to the god of nature,’ Arthur thought, recalling the first altar he found. ’What would a place like this be dedicated to, I wonder.’

He dragged himself over to the ancient altar that dominated the center of the room, his boots leaving smeared footprints in Jonas’s blood. The altar was crafted from a single massive block of stone, cracked and weathered by time. Arthur ran his fingers over the cool surface, feeling the ridges and grooves of inscriptions carved deep into the rock.

The altar was covered in words written in a language he did not understand, flowing scripts that might have once been painted or inlaid with precious metals. He couldn’t make sense of a single character, causing him to grunt in frustration, the sound echoing off the stone walls.

’Maybe I should study the language of the realms when I get back to Earth,’ he thought, assuming—hoping—that return was still possible.

Despite his inability to read the text, Arthur noticed some fading carvings etched into the altar’s surface, similar to those he had found at the previous site. He leaned closer, hoping to gain some information from the pictographs.

On the altar was a carving of what appeared to be a sun with a stylized face at its center, rays of light emanating outward in all directions. The craftsmanship was remarkable even after what must have been centuries of decay, the expression on the sun’s face both benevolent and terrible in its power.

’A sun with a face... where have I seen that before?’ Arthur wondered, the image tugging at his memory.

Then, like a lightbulb going off above his head, recognition dawned. ’The king was wearing a mask that looked just like it in all his paintings!’

Arthur recalled the massive portraits that lined the great hall where the king was wearing a sun mask eerily similar to the image in front of him in every painting.

He scratched his chin as he pondered the implication. ’Well, I’m no genius, but if I had to guess, this is an altar to a sun god... or god of light or something.’

Arthur studied the altar a while longer, tracing the carvings with his fingertips as if touch might reveal secrets that sight could not. Eventually, he remembered that the chamber walls were also covered in elaborate drawings and inscriptions. His attention was drawn to the left wall where the narrative appeared to begin.

Walking closer Arthur’s eyes widened as he finally got a proper look at the wall decorations. ’There are so many,’ he thought, taken aback by the sheer density of images that covered the stone surface from floor to ceiling.

As he moved closer, another realization struck him. ’T-they tell a story!’

The images weren’t random decorations but panels arranged in sequence, telling a progressive narrative across the decaying stone wall. Starting at the beginning of the leftmost wall, Arthur began to analyze the tale to the best of his ability, his brow furrowed in concentration.

The first panel depicted a gathering of many different oddly proportioned figures, some with animal heads, others with multiple limbs or impossible features. Among them, Arthur recognized the same symbols he had come to associate with the sun god and the god of nature from the previous altar. Upon closer inspection, he had an epiphany about the identities of the remaining characters.

’T-they’re all gods...’ he realized, his pulse quickening. It was a drawing of a vast assembly of deities, each with their distinctive attributes and symbols, gathered as if for some cosmic council or judgment.

And in the middle of them all was something peculiar that caught Arthur’s eye. A cloud was drawn—small and seemingly insignificant compared to the grand figures surrounding it, yet deliberately placed to draw attention. It appeared almost like an anomaly, a mistake in an otherwise consistent mythological tableau.

Arthur took mental note of this odd detail before moving his torch to illuminate the next panel in the sequence. What he saw there made him reel back slowly, his eyes widening in shock and disbelief.

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