Nero's behavior could be said to have shown not the slightest bit of consideration... Of course, he really had not listened carefully to that mythological story.
Sunday stood where he was in silence, then sighed.
"Forget it. This is ultimately just an insignificant little episode in the history of the galaxy. It doesn't matter. What matters is where this gathering will head from here on..."
"Everyone, you've come at exactly the right time. The Charmony Festival is about to begin. If the opening act of the Harmony, the Order, were to be missing your presence, that would truly be a pity."
"Please allow me to welcome you all once again. Welcome to the Penacony Grand Theater, the center of sweet dreams, the location of the Stellaron, the absolute stage of the Charmony Festival... and also... the place where we have decided to fight to the death over Penacony."
"Ha... A duel!" Nero laughed. He hoisted Black Slash onto his shoulder, his expression full of confidence. "We should have started fighting long ago."
Fine cracks appeared across Nero's divine body. Within those tiny cracks, faint purple starlight gathered into rivers, as though some indescribable thing, an aura, an influence... had covered the young man in an instant.
At the same time, the surface of Black Slash and the ground beneath Nero's feet underwent the same change.
Sunday frowned at this. He could not quite understand what kind of change was taking place in Nero, but he could vaguely sense the tangled, yet strangely harmonious, powers wrapped around that child.
The powers from different Paths miraculously did not produce even the slightest conflict within him.
"Why are you challenging us to a duel at a time like this?" Stelle asked after glancing at the already eager Nero.
She had actually wanted to say that they were here to protect Sunday.
"Because our goals are the same, and the beliefs you and I strive for carry equal weight."
"Only by holding onto our beliefs can we bring true blessings to this world."
"Allow me to point out that falling into eternal sleep can never be equated with happiness, especially when people are still being manipulated at will in their dreams," Himeko said.
"Miss Himeko, even now, do you still believe that the Order only wants to turn the entire universe into its puppets?" Sunday asked.
"No matter how perfect the paradise you describe may be, a cage is still a cage," Himeko said.
Sunday: "..."
Compared to Himeko's answer, Nero's words were even more direct.
"Isn't this obvious? Once an individual loses their sense of self, what else could they be besides your puppet?"
"In the end, isn't it just changing from one of you into a whole group of you? To put it in a way that's easier to understand, they're all dead. So what happiness are you talking about?"
Sunday: "..."
"In that kind of world, people simply can't obtain true happiness. They're nothing but toys of a Aeon! Nero is right. They're all dead, so what happiness are you talking about?" March clearly agreed with Nero's bluntness.
Sunday: "...It seems everyone has misunderstood my intentions all along. Let me state this formally: my ideal is neither to resurrect a Aeon nor to ascend and become a god."
"There is only one thing I want to do, and that is to create a paradise without a Aeon, with only Order, one that can accommodate everyone's dignity and happiness, and belongs solely to us humans..."
"Who cares?" Nero interrupted Sunday.
The young man looked at Sunday like a strict teacher and reprimanded him.
"Since we're discussing the issue, don't stray from the topic. Don't beat around the bush, and even more importantly, don't detach yourself from reality."
"Who cares what your ideas are? Can you guarantee that after your ideas are put into practice, everything will develop exactly as you imagine?"
"Besides, just tell me this. If an individual no longer has a sense of self, does that mean they can't experience happiness? You think they're happy, so they're happy?"
"They've merely lost their sense of self and don't know anything anymore. Whether they're happy or not becomes irrelevant."
"I can take it one step further. Suppose a large group of people all enter dreams and indulge in spiritual pleasure and self-satisfaction."
"How many days can they live like that? Who will engage in production? Who will provide them with the nutrients necessary for their bodies to function normally?"
"Don't tell me you can make them farm and work. What makes you think they'll be willing to farm and work? If you force them to work and make them do things they don't want to do, will they still be happy?"
"If you want them to be spiritually satisfied, you'll lack a productive class. If you want them to engage in production, you can't achieve a world where everyone is happy."
"What makes you think the vast majority of people possess that kind of one-in-a-million, self-satisfying, abundant spiritual world?"
"If you can't enslave them, then they'll be happy in their dreams, but people will starve to death, die of thirst, suffocate... If you think shortening a life that could have been longer and more brilliant into a momentary bloom is happiness, then why don't you just kill everyone directly?"
"Wouldn't that be much simpler than what you're doing now? There is fundamentally no difference between the two!"
As Nero once again unleashed his traditional skill, Sunday found himself unable to get a single word in.
That young man's mouth was like a heavy machine gun with unlimited ammunition, spraying bullets at him without pause.
Sunday stood where he was, able to do nothing but remain silent for a long time. Even when he tried to speak, the young man would drown him out with an even more forceful tone and louder voice.
Standing there in a daze, Sunday swayed back and forth under Nero's words, like a rootless duckweed. Before he knew it, beads of sweat the size of soybeans had already covered his forehead.
The original intention behind Sunday's ideal was beautiful, but his actions and the way he hoped to achieve that ideal had been rendered worthless by Nero's words.
They had become a hypothesis that could never be achieved or realized, trapped in a vicious cycle that could not succeed, becoming a road that could never have been traveled from the very beginning.
In Nero's depiction, once Sunday's plan was realized, not a single person would be able to obtain happiness, except himself in that brief moment.
Because at that time, at least one emotion called self-satisfaction would be able to blind him.
But Sunday soon realized that he was not the only one who had nothing to say. Nero's companions had also been silent for a long time.
Those people looked at the young man as if they had found someone to speak for them, someone who had said everything they wanted to say.
Especially after the young man brought up the question of "who will engage in production," their eyes lit up even more.
Because when the young man debated this issue, he did not say anything lofty and empty, nor did he use vague literary descriptions or philosophical arguments. Instead, he directly reduced the issue to the most practical matter.
In your method of making everyone happy, who will engage in production?
Who will work? Who will keep people alive? Who will preserve the self?
The human self and the ugliness within human nature are inseparable. Without a self, people can never embrace happiness. With a self, people block the road to happiness with their own hands.
What Nero cared about was very simple. He wanted to know, under Sunday's plan, how those who sank into dreams were supposed to confirm their own selves, how they were supposed to live while retaining that sense of self, and how they were supposed to live out an entire life like normal people.
"Looks like there's no way we'll be able to convince each other," Sunday said.
Without putting it into practice, he did not know how he should refute Nero. He even thought that perhaps after this incident, he still would not have the answers to those questions and would not be able to give Nero an answer that would make everyone happy.
But he had already come this far.
Sunday firmly believed in his ideal. Now, he was only one step away from achieving it. He thought that regardless of success or failure, he at least had to make an attempt and take the first step down this road.
If he succeeded, then naturally that would be good.
If he failed... then he could at least tell those who came after him that this road could not be taken.
Sunday faced everyone and said, "Fate has destined us to fight each other. Since things have come to this, let us use our respective Paths to show the universe a proper road."
"However, before the prelude to the future officially begins, I ask that you spend some more time considering the questions I have raised."
"Are day and night equal? Are the righteous and the sinful equal? If people are born weak, then from which god should the weak seek peace?"
"Of course, from themselves!" Nero answered directly. "As the book says: 'Seeking immortality and divination is no better than making your own decisions; praying to Buddha and chanting scriptures is no better than having the ability within yourself!'"
"Only you know what you truly want. Only you can make choices for yourself. Only you can bear the consequences of your own decisions!"
"Only by walking openly and honestly along your own path can you look back in your later years and say that you truly lived a whole life!"
"To be able to live so genuinely and openly, to savor every moment of your own life, to see the scenery of every second, and to experience every subtle change in your emotions, is already a rare kind of happiness!"