After their desperate escape from the tomb-like Scripture Repository, the interior of the Mist Train had fallen silent. The earlier roar of destruction already felt unreal, replaced once more by an oppressive "stagnation of information."
Koyoi pressed her hands against her trembling knees, watching the blur of opaque fog rush past the window. Only the steady clack-clack of wheels against the rails told her that time in this world hadn't stopped entirely.
The pale lanterns flickered with a fragile light, echoing Koyoi’s own unease. Beneath the seats, piles of soot stirred with an eerie motion, as if still vibrating from the world’s fundamental upheaval.
Across from her, Kuon held the golden book—the Catalogue of Truth—spread reverently across his lap. A blinding residue of divine power rose from its cover, warping the air into a strange, unnatural void. To read the invisible script, Kuon’s artificial left eye pulsed with an unsettling blue light, the mechanism emitting a soft click as it shifted its focus.
"The cipher of the Principles is finally starting to unravel," Kuon said, his voice low. "Brace yourself, Koyoi. According to this Catalogue... the gods were never a natural part of this world."
"Not natural? What do you mean?" Koyoi asked, clutching her drawstring pouch. Beside her, Asahi tightened his grip on his sword, eyes scanning the shadows.
"Those Observers... thousands of years ago, they extracted impurities—'excessive prayer' and 'obsession'—that had pooled in the cracks of the Principles," Kuon explained. "They used them as a nucleus to cultivate recording vessels. What we now call 'gods.'"
The revelation hit Koyoi harder than a crack of thunder. To the Observers, gods were neither sacred nor feared. They were merely convenient "adjustment parts" to keep the world stable. They fueled this false reality with the gods' pure love, discarding and dismantling any that wore out, only to recycle them back into new seeds.
Overwhelmed by the flood of truth, Koyoi sank to her knees on the grimy floor. She pressed her palms against the boards and let out a long, ragged breath.
"Don't call them parts," she said, her voice turning resolute. "The tears those children shed, the warmth we felt... all of it was our only truth."
Inside her pouch, the Rain God’s droplet pulsed warmly, as if blessing her resolve. Around them, the boundaries of the world seemed to harden and redefine themselves. Asahi stood ready, precisely adjusting his stance to match the shifting shadows with every passing minute.