The vast majority had gone dark.
Enya's words were like a bitterly cold wind, instantly cooling Gawain's rising excitement from the inside out. His expression settled, and he carefully considered the implications behind those words, "had gone dark." After a long silence, he finally asked, "Gone dark... what kind of 'going dark' do you mean? Are you saying they all went extinct for one reason or another?"
"Those signals flickered like distant lights in the night. Perhaps because of technological limitations, those flickering lights could convey only extremely limited information. Sometimes, the messages were so simple that they conveyed nothing more than 'I am here.' Then, at a certain moment, some signals would suddenly disappear, and no new messages would ever arrive again—the vastness of space buries too many secrets and truths. In that darkness, I can see nothing."
Enya spoke slowly, as though she were picking up yellowed pages from distant, hazy memories.
"I do not know exactly what happened to them. Like the other minds trapped on this planet, I can only speculate on those civilizations' final fates based on known phenomena. But some of them... I successfully deciphered the messages they sent. I can basically confirm that they were either destroyed by natural disasters or perished at the hands of gods."
Gawain unconsciously repeated her final words. "Perished at the hands of gods?"
Enya said softly, "At the hands of gods—their own gods. Among the very few signals I successfully deciphered, I truly heard their final cries amid their gods' wrath. Even across the distant stars, those voices remained so shrill and despairing that one could hardly bear to hear them."
"So, just as we suspected before, if Sentient Beings exist on other planets, and if their worlds follow the natural laws as we understand them, then