If Angel had been the one naming them, then starting from the lowest mural, they would have been: "Above the Throne," "Ascending the Throne," "Road of Glory," "Tightrope Walker"... "Cradle."
Angel's naming logic had prioritized what was depicted, with the story he imagined serving only as a supplement.
But now Angel realized that the story he had imagined was simply wrong.
He had always believed that "Above the Throne," the mural in the lowest hall, was the ending of this story of "the newborn would ultimately become king."
But "Tightrope Walker" had slapped Angel in the face.
According to the story Angel had imagined, the mural shown after "Tightrope Walker" should have been "Road of Glory."
Yet the protagonist in "Tightrope Walker" had already shed his cumbersome, bloated armor and discarded his spear. Why, then, was he still wearing armor and carrying a weapon in "Road of Glory"?
Wasn't that a contradiction in the sequence of events?
Or rather, the entire sequence had been reversed.
The true order should have been "Road of Glory" first, then "Tightrope Walker."
In other words, "Above the Throne" was not the final mural. It was the beginning of the story—the first mural!
Instead, what they had taken to be "Cradle," the mural carved at the crown of the tree, was the true ending of this story!
Still, both Angel and Laplace remained puzzled.
A newborn undergoing long years before finally becoming king—that was normal thinking. But why had it now been reversed? Why had the king returned to the cradle in the end?
Was there some deeper meaning behind it? Or had their analysis still been wrong? Perhaps the Tightrope Walker was not discarding his armor, but summoning armor and weapons from the Bottomless Abyss? Although Angel himself did not believe that conjecture, he