The puppet theater was hushed. The only sounds were the crackling flames of the candles and Rabu's footsteps as he climbed onto the altar.
When Rabu reached the highest point of the altar, he let out a breath of stale air, then turned back to glance at Frod.
Frod gave him a slight nod. That gesture seemed to lend Rabu courage. Like a devout knight, he knelt upon the raised platform at the center of the altar.
Everyone awaited the descent of a miracle.
Yet nothing happened. Only a faint beam of light descended upon Rabu's head through a crack opened in the ceiling of the puppet theater.
Outsiders could not even tell whether that light, in which they could see dust drifting through the air, was sunlight or a gift from the Will of the World.
Just as everyone was baffled, Rabu's eyes suddenly widened. He stared straight ahead, as though something stood directly before him.
But no one else could see anything. Some even secretly thought Rabu was putting on an act... Yet just as that thought arose, an incomparably vast aura suddenly descended.
It was the first time any of them had felt such an aura—vast, majestic, boundless... filled with sacredness and oppression. They could not sense its nature, yet they involuntarily dropped to their knees.
Beneath that aura, everyone felt as tiny as drifting dust.
Especially Knight Sabel. Not only did he himself feel small, but the Sin Demon within him was so lowly it seemed on the verge of dissipating from his body.
"Is this the descent of the Will of the World?" Though they could see nothing, it did not stop speculation from rising in their hearts.
In the entire puppet theater, the only one who could see what was happening was the person