Eternal Blazing Sun

After Reiko fainted, the scene descended into chaos.

Jiang Hao paid it no mind. He had placed divine power on Reiko; if she was in danger, he would sense it. Since he sensed nothing, she was safe.

Jiang Hao closed his eyes and felt the immense tide of faith surging toward him.

Faith began to fluctuate wildly when Amenominakanushi descended. It peaked when the connection between Yomi and the Living World was severed and the crisis alert in Heijō-kyō was lifted, then quickly fell.

Even after that drop, the amount of faith was staggering.

The Eastern Isles have a population of three hundred million. They contributed faith from roughly ten million people, including about twenty thousand devout believers and a handful of fanatics.

Most of that faith is shallow, but there's strength in numbers...

Using the faith contributed by my followers among the primitive people of the other world as a benchmark, the two miracles I performed in the Eastern Isles brought in about as much faith as a large-scale ritual by more than 160,000 of them.

Blue Star's population advantage is terrifying.

After taking stock of the faith, Jiang Hao picked up the Yata Mirror.

It was another gain from the miracles he had performed in the Eastern Isles. If the Yata Mirror had been an ordinary object, he would have returned it. But it possessed mystical power, so he gladly kept it.

Jiang Hao ran a fingertip over the Yata Mirror, feeling its surface. The mirror is made of bronze. Its patterns are rather crude. Whoever made it lacked skill—or perhaps the craftsmanship of that era was crude in general.

There's a great deal of verdigris on it, probably from long exposure to air and reactions with oxygen, carbon dioxide, water vapor, and other substances.

On the surface, it's just an ordinary mirror.

But...

Jiang Hao poured divine power into the Yata Mirror. Golden flames sprang up across it, as though gasoline had met an open fire.

As one of the Three Sacred Treasures, a symbol of the Eastern Isles' imperial family and of Amaterasu Ōkami, the Yata Mirror had been worshipped by the people of the Eastern Isles for over a thousand years. The faith it had accumulated was immense.

After all, plenty of people in the ancient Eastern Isles had believed gods truly existed.

Jiang Hao thought that if supernatural power had existed on Blue Star, this mirror would have become a god long ago. Then again, if supernatural power had existed there, the mirror might never have received worship in the first place.

There were so many divine artifacts in the other world, yet no one worshipped them.

Under Jiang Hao's direction, that faith was swiftly converted into divine power.

The divine power flowed back into the Yata Mirror, continually transforming its ordinary material.

When the golden flames burned out, the entire Yata Mirror looked brand-new.

Its bronze had become an unknown dark material with a hint of warmth. The once-crude patterns had turned lively, as though they might leap from the mirror at any moment.

The Yata Mirror looked ancient and unremarkable, but Jiang Hao could sense that it had become a divine artifact.

He looked down at the mirror and considered its powers.

The Yata Mirror has two abilities.

First, it can create a mirror duplicate. The original can be me or anyone else the Yata Mirror has reflected. The duplicate has the same strength as its original, up to a Demigod's level.

Though "the same" isn't quite accurate. It still lacks something the original has.

Intelligence. A mirror duplicate has none and needs someone to control it.

The second ability is damage transfer. When a mirror duplicate is attacked, roughly eighty percent of the damage transfers to its original.

Jiang Hao turned the mirror toward himself.

Light flashed across its surface, and a man identical to him stood before him.

The same clothes, the same movements, even the same look in his eyes. The only difference was that the duplicate held no Yata Mirror.

"The Yata Mirror is a Divine Artifact, equal in rank to a god and above a Demigod. It can't create another Yata Mirror," Jiang Hao murmured, then punched his mirror duplicate in the chest.

The next moment, his own chest throbbed as though someone had punched him.

"This Yata Mirror is quite powerful."

Jiang Hao turned the mirror away. His duplicate began to blur, then vanished completely after three or four seconds.

Holding the Yata Mirror, Jiang Hao sighed with a trace of regret.

Too bad it can't duplicate gods and can only copy one target at a time. Otherwise, with the Yata Mirror, I could defeat anyone in the other world.

I remember there are two more Divine Artifacts in the Eastern Isles...

After some thought, he decided to leave that matter for now. I'd better return to the other world first. I have plenty of faith, but I haven't become a god as I expected, even though I've met the minimum requirement.

I don't know whether I've failed to become a god because Baron Ian Albert's memory—that a False God can become a True God with enough faith—is wrong, or because Blue Star has no supernatural power, making it impossible for me to ascend here.

If Blue Star's lack of supernatural power is the reason, I should become a god the moment I return to the other world.

If Ian Albert's memory is wrong, I'll have to search the other world for a way to become a god.

At a thought, a black vortex appeared in Jiang Hao's mind. He touched it with his consciousness. His vision went dark, and when he opened his eyes again, he was back in the other world.

At the same time, he discovered to his astonishment that he had gained two new authorities.

One was creation; the other was King of the Gods.

Together with his original authority over the sun, he now possessed three.

The only drawback was that his control over all three remained weak.

If each authority were a complete human being, the portion he controlled would amount to a single cell in that person's body.

The authorities of creation and King of the Gods must have come from Amenominakanushi. Is this that thing where believers think, "My god should be able to do this," and then their god actually can?

As Jiang Hao pondered this, he suddenly noticed that the world before him had grown brighter.

He instinctively looked up.

Above the Endless Forest, a sun hung high in the sky.

Two suns shone overhead, one near and one far.

Everything within sight was bathed in light.

"Eternal Blazing Sun!"

A commanding voice rang out from the void.

Divine punishment... Jiang Hao gazed at the sky. The moment he saw that sun, he knew what it was.

It was the wrath of Dawn Lord Amon Aito, one of the Seven Primordial Gods, descending from the void beyond the world.