Chapter 35: Phlogiston

The golden spear lay horizontally across the opposite seat, spanning nearly the entire width of the car. The tinted glass blocked some of the light, making the Spear of the Sun God appear even more radiant. Like a dragon’s eye opening in the darkness, the spear resembled a vertical reptilian pupil.

According to Phaethon, the Spear of the Sun God was saturated with a high concentration of phlogiston. Yet, the spear simply lay there before him.

"So, what exactly is phlogiston, Miss Apollonia?"

[...]

"Miss Apollonia?"

"Wait, I can speak? It seems he has consented to me discussing this with you. Do you know why I despise Helios? Because of his arrogance. He is so arrogant that he would sacrifice even himself. He believes he can act like a parent, deciding what is good and what is bad. Now he has hinted that I should be the one to explain this to you—it is truly disgustingly arrogant."

"I have a feeling he might cut you off again at any moment..."

"Fine, then I shall seize this opportunity to tell you. Phlogiston is the power of the sun. Divine Machines are the manifestation of this power, but it can take on many forms—such as spiritual energy (qi)."

"Is spiritual energy also phlogiston?"

"The radishes you eat—did they not grow from the ground after basking in the sun? Theoretically, all energy on Earth ultimately originates from the sun. For instance, temperature differences caused by sunlight generate wind and hydroelectric power; sunlight allows crops to grow, and oil and coal are merely solar energy from the past stored within the Earth’s strata."

"Then why doesn't coal have spiritual energy?"

"Probably because coal was illuminated by the sun of the past."

"Is there a difference? Was the sun of the Jurassic and Cretaceous periods different from today?"

"A good question." Apollonia expressed her appreciation. "But I do not know. If they are all the same sun, why is a radish a spiritual object, while oil is not? Oil has been buried for millions of years; it should at least be a legendary, divine nectar. This question has always troubled me. I suspect it might have something to do with... with humanity, because there were clearly no humans in the era of the dinosaurs. If you give me more time, I should be able to find..."

"That is enough Q&A for now." Helios’s voice interrupted Apollonia’s speculation. "She knows only this much; there is no other information."

"You really are arrogant, just as she said." With the channel cut off again, Shang Luo felt a nameless anger burning within him.

Unsurprisingly, Helios did not respond to his remark.

So, what exactly is phlogiston?

Shang Luo stared at the spear. If even Apollonia did not know all the secrets of phlogiston, Shang Luo decided he would find the answers himself. And the Spear of the Sun God before him was clearly an excellent subject for study.

"So you won't let me touch it, eh? I happen to have a bit of a temper myself. You don't want me to touch it? Well, I insist on—"

"Awoo~" The sound of a lion suddenly reached his ears. Shang Luo turned his head to look: the massive face of the white lion was pressed against the car window. Its enormous head occupied the entire window, its face flattened against the glass, and its sandbag-sized paws were clawing at the frame.

Shang Luo was startled, but then he saw the white lion’s eyes. There was no hostility in them; its round pupils were shifting about, as if searching for something.

"Do you want to come in?" Shang Luo asked tentatively.

The white lion immediately stepped back, ceasing to press against the door, allowing Shang Luo to open it for it.

"You really can understand me?" He tried opening the door. The white lion, named "Luoluo," darted in immediately. Ignoring Shang Luo entirely, it headed straight for the Spear of the Sun God on the other side.

Opening its mouth to grip the shaft, "Luoluo" moved sideways toward the car door. The lion’s head strained to maintain balance, its eyes darting toward the door to gauge its position. Shang Luo hurriedly stepped aside to clear a path for the massive head.

The white lion shuffled to the door and gave a sharp flick of its head, dragging the entire Spear of the Sun God out of the vehicle before leaping out itself. Shang Luo felt the car’s suspension "float" upward, as if the spear were far heavier than it appeared.

Come to think of it, Apollonia also seemed significantly heavier than she looked. When she stayed inside her music box, the box felt as heavy as a brick. It seemed that any object containing phlogiston was heavier than it appeared.

"Are they going to kill someone?"

When Phaethon stepped out earlier, she had boasted, "I do not use the Spear of the Sun God on mortals, unless I am in a bad mood." Shang Luo was now certain that her temper was indeed rather poor.

He leaned against the backrest and looked out through the rear window. The white lion had just delivered the spear to her side, and Phaethon appeared to be negotiating with someone behind her.

"United Fruit?" Shang Luo remembered that the creditors were supposed to be these people. Yet, there was a clear emblem on their vehicle: the "Lanfang Tax Police Regiment" written in black characters on a yellow background. The Lanfang Company was the holding company of United Fruit; they were the creditors of the creditors—the head creditors.

The people who got out of the car were heavily armed and of diverse ethnicities. There were Black men, white men, indigenous people from the New World, and even tattooed Māori, but not a single Han Chinese among them. Everyone wore steel-plated bulletproof vests, a stark contrast to the retro scale armor of the Imperial Guards, and carried automatic rifles that sat somewhere between a rifle and a submachine gun. Hanging beneath the rifles were not magazines, but drum magazines.

Phaethon stood in their path with her arms crossed, her high ponytail fluttering in the hot Las Vegas wind like the crest of a Roman soldier’s helmet. When the white lion delivered the spear, Phaethon pulled the shaft from the lion’s mouth, swung it in a half-circle, and slammed it heavily into the ground.

Inside the car, Shang Luo felt the ground vibrate slightly, as if an artillery shell had exploded nearby.

Phaethon did not stop. She extended the spear toward the leading Māori man, the tip stopping steadily just inches from between his eyes.

The Māori man instinctively reached out to block it. But the moment his hand touched the Spear of the Sun God, a brilliant light erupted from the tip, as dazzling as a second sun.

"It’s that light from before..." Shang Luo remembered; he had seen this radiance. When he had swung that hammer toward Apollonia, the same light had burst forth. Only this time, the blast was not directed at him, but at the "salesmen" who had come to collect their debt. And seeing the light again, he felt only that it was blinding, without being knocked to the ground as he had been before.

The men stood there as if petrified, motionless, as though their brains had been formatted.

"Hmph, I didn't even do anything. You threw yourselves at it," Phaethon sneered, swinging the spear in another half-circle before walking back toward the car, carrying the weapon in one hand.