In the Civic Plaza of Okhema, an atmosphere of despair weighed down on everyone like a physical force, making it hard to breathe.
And the voice of Anaxa sliced through that air, a blade tearing at the last shreds of hope in people's hearts. It resonated across the square with a kind of frenzied rationality.
"The truth is clear as day!" Anaxa stood on an elevated platform, his usual meticulous scholar's demeanor utterly gone. He shouted hoarsely, a single eye blazing with the fervor and desolation of one who believes he has glimpsed the ultimate truth.
"We are merely players in a cage, performing in a tiny experimental theater!"
"We trudge along the tracks laid down long ago by that so-called 'prophecy,' numb and repeating the same simulated cycle, over and over again!"
"Our joys and sorrows, our sacrifices and devotion—they are nothing but 'kindling' to fuel the data for this experiment!"
His words were ice picks, stabbing into the heart of every listener. "We are but strings of false numbers, ready to be reset or deleted at any moment!"
"The fate of every single one of us was written by that cold, extraterrestrial voice the moment we were born!"
"So-called free will is nothing but a self-important illusion generated by the program's operation!"
"The truth of this world, I have unraveled it! Hahahahaha!" Anaxa threw his head back and laughed, the sound brimming with the madness of watching a grand performance reach its finale.
He cared not at all that his earth-shattering words and state were being broadcast in real-time to every surviving screen across the world, woven through the "Romance" threads spun by Aglaea.
...
Not far away, Aglaea weakly lowered the faintly glowing slate in her hand.
The immense shock of Cipher being "regained" only to be on the verge of being lost again had utterly shattered the divine barrier she, as a Romance Demigod, had maintained for so long. It left her with her most vulnerable, most uncertain human self.
She looked at Tribbie beside her, her voice trembling with a hint of dependence:
"Teacher... should we... really let him... say all this? The people will break..."
"Agy," Tribbie's voice was unusually calm. Her small hand gently wrapped around one of Aglaea's cold fingers.
"We know. You're worried people can't accept such a cruel truth. You fear hope will be completely extinguished. But... we've reached the final juncture now..."
She gazed at the people in the square, frozen in shock, fear, or rage, and spoke slowly:
"If the world truly is as Lygus says, and the future of Amphoreus was destined for complete termination by the Aeon of Destruction...
Then perhaps the only thing we can do, before the final moment arrives, is to tell them the whole, unvarnished truth."
"As for how people choose to face it after learning the truth—whether with rage, despair, acceptance, or by letting humanity shine with a different light at the very end—that... is no longer something we can interfere with."
Tribbie's tone carried the serenity of one who has witnessed countless cycles.
Trinnon added gently but firmly from the side:
"But you must also remember, Agy. While they have the freedom and right to know the truth, this absolutely does not give them the right to use this despair to harm others. Order must be maintained, until the very last moment."
Aglaea took a deep breath, trying to calm her tumultuous emotions, and nodded.
"Don't worry, Teacher, I understand. The threads of 'Romance' can transmit images, but they can also restrain actions. I will do my best to guide and prevent anyone from committing evil in the chaos..."
Her gaze involuntarily drifted towards the wounded soldiers and civilians constantly retreating from various fronts and flooding into the square. Her eyes searched eagerly, longing to catch sight of that most familiar, lively figure among them.
...
Within the Vortex of Genesis.
"Asterion... just what are you..." The projection of Lygus fluctuated violently, showing he was under immense interference and confusion. "How did you bypass my monitoring and accomplish all this?!"
"Look at your feet," Phaethon pointed to the faintly glowing ground of the Vortex of Genesis.
"Every inch of this 'land' has been pre-sprinkled with powder of the Philosopher's Stone. It's the perfect carrier and breeding ground for the logic virus Anaxa wrote..."
Facing Lygus, he casually swiped through the blue-glowing administrator interface before him, his movements practiced as if he'd done it countless times:
"So... no matter where your consciousness projection was, from the moment you chose to truly immerse your consciousness into the Vortex, even attempting to manifest a physical form to interfere...
Your infection... was inevitable. You can no longer interfere with Amphoreus's simulations."
Lygus watched in silence as Phaethon manipulated the highest-privilege interface he once monopolized with such ease. An indescribable mix of a "researcher's" frustration and a peculiar sort of "appreciation" intertwined within him.
After a long while, his voice actually regained that unnerving calm, as if he had switched to another mode.
"Asterion, even if you've temporarily stolen the permissions, if you truly understood your own origin through that interface, you would realize... all this struggle you're doing now... is meaningless."
His voice became as cold as one pronouncing a verdict. "The so-called 'Deliverer' is nothing but a pitiful, wishful illusion born from the Amphoreus system's erroneous belief that it can resist a preordained fate during its operation. You are no exception."
"You must have discovered through the control panel by now," Lygus's tone even carried a hint of pity. "You are merely an anomalous variable in this cycle that cannot be traced to a source.
A piece of data redundancy that even the basic naming protocol failed to detect.
The Scepter didn't even generate a complete codename for you as it would for the most ordinary NPC.
Your name field... is largely blank. Not even question marks."
He slowly uttered words that could destroy any sense of meaning:
"In other words... you might just be a fleeting miracle born by chance in this cycle. A system error. Moreover, the one who set the final fate for Amphoreus is the Aeon of Destruction—Nanook!"
"A great existence that transcends countless worlds! And with what, pray tell, do you plan to change the end personally written for this world by an Aeon?"
Phaethon's finger, swiping across the interface, stopped.
Silence.
Lygus's words were the ultimate judgment, crashing down heavily upon his heart.
The other was not wrong. The truth he saw through that privileged interface was even more cruel, more absolute.
Amphoreus's fate was set by the Aeon Nanook himself. From its birth, it had been on a one-way road to destruction, and it had traveled too far down that path for any correction to seem anything but futile.