There was doubt and unease.
But there was no time for idle words. The environment here was unsuitable for a long stay, so they quickly split up, each choosing a direction to search.
Their movements were swift.
After parting ways with Mei and the others, the calm expression on Kiana's face finally showed signs of disturbance.
Her complexion looked terrible.
Was it because this place was closer to IX?
Or perhaps this land had been eroded by Nihility for too long, the planet mostly consumed and unable to move forward any further?
Either way, being here—
At this distance, in direct contact with Nihility's power—she could feel its influence creeping over her.
The most immediate effect was a desire to give up.
When she first arrived here, a discouraging thought emerged in her mind.
What did any of this have to do with her?
Fate guided everyone to their own endings. There was no need to do anything extra. It was all meaningless.
It was only when she suddenly realized that she was thinking such things—that everything she did might be meaningless—that she became aware of the corruption taking hold of her.
That was what made the situation truly the worst.
She wasn't special.
She wasn't immune to Nihility's influence.
Realizing the truth only made her feel worse—her mood sinking further into negativity. She couldn't help but wonder if she couldn't even protect herself, what right did she have to change anyone else's fate?
What if she dragged herself down too?
What if things became even worse?
Was what she was doing truly meaningful?
Kiana slapped her own cheek. "Stop overthinking already! You've done all this—so what if it's meaningless? You've already done it! Are you saying all that effort was for nothing?"
She was already here. She had already taken action.
Shaking her head to clear her mind, she forced herself to focus entirely on the search.
However, on this planet abandoned by the Kami thousands of years ago, she wasn't the only one affected by Nihility's influence.
Elsewhere—
Raiden Mei, having experienced this kind of feeling once before, was no more resistant to the invasive, all-permeating corruption of this power. Her past encounter didn't grant her immunity.
In fact, because she had inadvertently come into contact with a fragment of that power when battling the Whale of Transfiguration, the lingering memory branded into her heart made her even more vulnerable this time.
Her body felt increasingly heavy.
Then, her mind followed.
It was as though invisible chains had been placed upon her. That was all she could feel now—making it hard to focus on finding any traces of human presence.
"The power of that whale..."
Mei recalled what she had felt that day when she touched the crystal it had left behind.
So this was the power of Nihility?
...Nihility—what an apt name.
She walked slowly, her hand resting on the hilt of her blade, her attention drifting elsewhere.
Kiana had touched that same crystal too. Would she be more severely affected than herself?
Then came the memory of their argument in the meeting room.
The memory of slaying Almighty Thunder.
The memory of her father.
Countless worries surfaced in her mind—and with each thought, the weight in her chest deepened.
Until—
"Who's there?!"
Sensing something amiss, Mei drew the Howl Edict Edge and fixed her gaze on the shadow from which a faint sound had just emerged.
She hadn't imagined it.
Something was watching her.
Could there still be Kami native to Takamagahara who had never gone to invade Izumo?
Mei advanced cautiously, her eyes scanning every detail around her, searching for whatever had been watching her.
But she found nothing.
She swung her blade, unleashing a burst of sword energy that cut through several lifeless, leafless trees. Even an invisible creature couldn't have escaped that strike.
"Nothing?"
Mei frowned, sheathing her blade again. Had she been too sensitive? Or was there something even more troublesome here than Kami themselves?
That possibility was not small.
Glancing around once more, Mei carefully stepped backward, convinced the latter was more likely.
Otherwise, why had the Kami abandoned this planet and journeyed all the way to Izumo?
Returning to her starting point, Mei still found nothing unusual. She stood there for a long while, deep in thought, wondering whether she should waste more time uncovering the cause.
"Could Kiana have run into the same thing?"
Mei touched the hilt of Howl, uneasy at the thought.
Kiana was strong—no one could deny that—but her real combat experience was limited, and Mei couldn't help worrying about her.
She found herself torn between staying and going.
After all, they had only been apart for a few minutes.
Standing there in indecision for a while, she sighed. Maybe she was just overthinking—possessed by some strange anxiety that made her so worried about Kiana.
Kiana's survival instincts should be excellent.
Right now, it was better to finish the task at hand.
With that thought, Mei increased her speed, and in the blink of an eye, she had left the unsettling area far behind.
...
On the other side—
An hour wasn't long, but it wasn't short either. After searching fruitlessly for that hour, Kiana had already returned to the meeting point.
Sirin was even faster.
"Kiana."
"They haven't returned yet?"
Sirin shook her head, her condition looking far from good.
"Did you find anything?" Kiana asked.
"...Some broken swords."
After a brief silence, Sirin opened a spatial rift. A rusted, broken sword fell out and clattered onto the ground.
She had traveled through many places using teleportation.
And she had found several of these broken blades.
Was this what the White-Haired Oni had been searching for—the traces of humanity? When Sirin discovered these swords, the realization that humans might once have existed on this planet left her shaken.
"There really were?!"
Kiana was stunned. She rushed forward, crouching to examine the blade closely. It was broken cleanly at the middle, weathered by time, yet the material was remarkably well preserved—its form still intact.
"Humans in Takamagahara? How is that possible? Weren't only Kami born here?"
Could it be that the Kami of Takamagahara were once humans—twisted into what they became?
Just like Izumo now?
But people completely engulfed by Nihility weren't supposed to turn into anything like that—they became those pitch-black, shadow-like monsters.
How could they have warped into the Kami, each corresponding to one of the Twelve Herrschers—and so many of them at that?
"I don't know either," Sirin admitted quietly. "If Takamagahara was once like Izumo... and those Kami really were twisted from humans..."
Then what the White-Haired Oni had said back in the meeting room might not have been wrong after all.
Kiana fell silent.
Her thoughts turned back to what she had seen in the PV, to every bit of information she had about Acheron, trying to piece the clues together.
After some time, Yae Sakura and the White-Haired Oni both returned—leaving only Mei unaccounted for.
Kiana could no longer concentrate on her deductions about Nihility, the Kami, Izumo, or Takamagahara.
Where was Mei?
Where had she gone?
The longer they waited, the worse Kiana's expression became.
"Wait here—I'll go find her!"
A minute later, Kiana could no longer sit still. Though she could withstand the environment of Takamagahara, Sirin and the others were clearly suffering from its influence.
And with no sign of Mei returning, she could no longer convince herself that Mei was safely on her way back.
"I—"
Sirin had just opened her mouth to say she would go with Kiana—that two searching together would be faster—when, suddenly, scarlet lightning split the distant sky.
Thunder roared across the heavens.
Hearing it, Kiana's heart trembled.
Without another thought, she rushed toward the direction where the crimson thunder had struck.
"Mei!"
When Kiana arrived at the scene, the lightning unleashed by the Edict Edge had already flattened everything within a hundred-mile radius.
A great battle had just taken place.
She didn't know how many times Mei had swung her blade, or how many times she had invoked the Edict Edge's power.
The enemies were endless.
Each time they were slain, new ones appeared—and the fallen ones would dissolve like water, merging into the newly formed shadowy figures.
Kiana appeared.
Seizing the brief pause before the shadows regenerated, Raiden Mei rushed to her side without hesitation. "We have to go! Now—before it's too late!"
There was no point in fighting.
Those things couldn't be killed.
And their numbers only kept growing.
Kiana stared blankly at Mei—or rather, at the visible signs of corruption overtaking her. A pair of crimson Oni horns now protruded from her forehead.
There was no time for questions.
On the scorched plain, the shadows came alive again, twisting and crawling out one after another in human-like forms.
Mei grabbed Kiana and ran. Along the way, they encountered the White-Haired Oni, Sirin, and Yae Sakura rushing toward them. Without hesitation, Mei told them this place could no longer be stayed in.
The White-Haired Oni and Yae Sakura summoned ice barriers to block the pursuing shadows temporarily, while Sirin swiftly opened a portal back to Izumo.
"Go!"
None of them knew what those creatures were or why they were fleeing from enemies that didn't seem particularly strong.
But if Raiden Mei was saying to retreat, there had to be a good reason. They trusted her judgment.
As Sirin called out, the group passed through the portal just before the shadows reached them, returning from Takamagahara.
Only then were they finally safe.
"What were those things?"
Even after leaving that suffocating, despair-filled world, the oppressive feeling clinging to their bodies hadn't faded.
The discomfort lingered.
"I don't know," Mei admitted, breathing unsteadily, relief showing only after she saw the portal close. "I've never seen anything like them. They crawled out from the shadows and had no weaknesses at all. No matter how many times I cut them down, they just kept getting back up."
"They must have been people who couldn't withstand Nihility's erosion," Kiana said, glancing occasionally at Mei's horns. "Just like how those corrupted by Honkai energy become zombies."
Those things looked exactly like the creatures Acheron had fought before she forged 'Naught'—
Most likely, they were beings corrupted just like zombies and Honkai beasts—no longer human, no longer anything, driven only by instinct.
"Let's talk about what everyone found," Kiana said after a deep breath, deliberately glancing at the silent White-Haired Oni. "I'll start."
"I found nothing unusual in my area," she said with mild frustration.
She had thought the others would also come back empty-handed—but apparently, that wasn't the case.
"I was delayed by those shadows," Mei said. "Not long after we split up, I felt something watching me in secret. Then those monsters appeared."
Those monsters had been her 'discovery.'
And their appearance lent even more weight to Kiana's earlier suspicion—that those were indeed...
In other words, those humanoid shadows were the strongest proof yet that there had once been traces of humanity in Takamagahara.
"Broken swords," Sirin said, tossing down several corroded blades she had gathered.
"I didn't encounter anything that dramatic," Yae Sakura added thoughtfully. "But I did see several stone monuments along the way—heavily eroded, barely recognizable."
So I was really the only one who found nothing?
Had she been too distracted, too preoccupied to notice anything around her?
Kiana felt a pang of frustration.
"White-Haired Oni," Mei said, turning toward him. "You've confirmed the traces of humanity. So—did you find your answer?"
"..."
The White-Haired Oni remained silent for a long time.
The others didn't press him for an answer. Discovering evidence that humans had once existed in Takamagahara was already a revelation so profound that it left them speechless.
By estimation, those remnants had to be at least a thousand years old.
"I already know the truth."
The White-Haired Oni's voice carried more weight than before. His eyes swept across their curious faces. "But... do you truly wish to hear it?"
"Isn't that obvious?"
Sirin, who had been waiting so long for this moment, glared at him. She had pushed herself past her limits time and again using the Edict Edge's power—all for this very answer.
"We followed you to Takamagahara to seek the truth behind the Kami's invasion, didn't we?"
"Even if that truth is cruel—so cruel that it drives one to despair?"
"No matter what it is, I want to hear it."
After everything they had gone through—after coming so close to the answer—who could possibly turn back now, even if it was unbearable?
"Tell us."
Kiana's curiosity matched the others'. "We're already mentally prepared for Nihility's strength."
The White-Haired Oni looked at her, his expression unreadable. He knew that even a will tempered by countless battles would inevitably falter before this truth. He doubted Sirin and the others were any more steadfast than he was.
But still—
"All of this... is meaningless."
Meaningless?
No one expected those to be his first words—the truth he had promised to reveal beginning with: 'Everything is meaningless.'
"Have you been too deeply corrupted by Nihility, turning overly pessimistic?" Sirin snapped.
He ignored her remark and continued quietly. "Salvation... was never a destination that existed to begin with."
Kiana froze.
Those words...
"Why do you say that?" she asked.
"Because..."
After a brief silence, the White-Haired Oni uttered something that made them all doubt their ears.
"Takamagahara is what Izumo once was."
Kiana's eyes widened in disbelief.
"What are you talking about?!"
"White-Haired Oni," Mei said carefully, "that's quite a claim. Do you have any proof?"
"Takamagahara... was once Izumo?"
Unlike the others, who were skeptical, Kiana's mind raced. The White-Haired Oni's words resonated with fragments of Izumo's and Takamagahara's historical records.
"Meaningless... once-Izumo... meaningless... So that's what it means..."
"Kiana, what did you realize?" Sirin demanded impatiently. The White-Haired Oni spoke like a riddle, but somehow, Kiana seemed to understand him.
He spoke as if it were fantasy.
How could Takamagahara possibly be Izumo's past? Izumo had never even ventured into the stars—how could it have originated from Takamagahara?
Though she had begun to grasp the idea, Kiana still found it hard to believe. "You mean... Izumo and Takamagahara are caught in a cycle, aren't they? That everything is meaningless because the present Izumo will one day become Takamagahara, and the Takamagahara of now will once again become Izumo—repeating endlessly, like eternal damnation?"
"...Rondo across countless kalpas," she whispered. "So this is what it truly means."
—All things shall return to their end, and all that has ended shall happen once more.