The ringing of bells, the tapping of the wooden fish, the chanting.
The singing of hymns, the chanting of praises, the sound of prayers.
The prayers, confusion, and entrustments of the people across countless worlds regarding "the gods" all flooded into Iver's heart.
Even though he could not understand their languages, Iver could still understand what they were doing.
They were the anguished cries uttered when one encountered unbearable pain in life, when one's path had already reached its end.
If everything before one's eyes was an illusion, if everything one possessed was meaningless, if everything one gained would eventually be lost, if everything one held on to would eventually leave... then did the entire world still have any meaning at this moment? If closing one's eyes meant saying farewell to the entire world forever; if even one's family and friends died, leaving one to be forgotten by the world, with everything one had created turning to nothingness, and the wheel of the world possibly even reversing the cycle of reincarnation... then to an individual, what difference was there between one's complete disappearance and the destruction of the collective, the nation, the race, or even the entire world? In that instant, countless fragments of memory flashed before Iver's eyes:
A baby's cries rang out, drowning out all chanting, followed closely by the howling of shells tearing through the air. Explosions drowned out everything.
War and destruction. Plague and death.
Birth. Adulthood. Weddings. Funerals.
They were all "realities" and "histories" that seemed both real and unreal.
Iver instantly understood their essence—these were scenes repeatedly reenacted during several past cycles of reincarnation.
Each cycle differed only slightly, yet people always did similar things.
And when the world's history reached a certain time and place, it was suddenly covered by a murky yellow