?


    "Doctor Sanderson." Mimir spoke. "Please exin what you meant by Ms. Nino being a part of the enemy."


    "Please don''t say it like she''s still their ally." Ray replied. "What I wanted to say is that Nino came from the same world as them. Apparently she refused to work for their leader and lost her life because of that."


    "Lost her life…"


    Sam noticed a glimmer in Mimir''s eyes after a few seconds. Something told him that she had already deduced the truth and her next question proved him right.


    "So she knows what the enemy is after?"


    "Well, yes and no." Nino said with a shrug. "I''ve only heard about it but I never saw it in practice, that''s why I can''t tell for sure I have a perfect understanding of how to stop it."


    "Just tell us what you know."


    "Okay, sensei~?" smiling at him for a moment, she then cleared her thought and switched to a more serious tone. "As you might already know, there are some horrors beyond humanprehension. They''re beings with powers that far exceed anything we know of, and their presence alone is enough to throw the whole world into chaos."


    She didn''t need to say anything for them to understand. All of them had seen it with their eyes and experienced the terrible things it leaves in its wake on their own.


    "Those beings are usually indifferent to human existence, unbothered by the existence of worthless microbes like us. But as you might''ve already guessed some people simply can''t keep their hand to themselves."


    "Zeus, huh?" Sam said.


    "Yes…" Nino nodded.


    "Zeus?" Mimir''s eyes narrowed. "The Greek king of gods?"


    "Apparently." Sam sighed.


    "Zeus had always been obsessed with power. He is an arrogant fool who ims to be a god and seeks the means to cement his rule. However having control over his domain wasn''t enough. His sights were set on existence in its entirety and he isn''t willing to give it up."


    "Existence…"


    "Yes. He''s trying to rule over the entire multiverse. To be the one and only god." Nino''s gaze wandered down. "He doesn''t care how impossible such a goal might sound. He would stop at nothing to achieve it, and life is cheap in his eyes. I''m afraid a great many worlds have already perished because of him."


    "As I thought…" Sam said, rhythmically rapping the surface of the table. "Death is required for the process of creating those Keys he''s trying to obtain. Is that correct?"


    "I wouldn''t say it''s necessary." Nino shook her head. "It simply elerates the process, I think? I don''t remember the conditions very well, but…" pausing for a moment, she searched her mind trying to make sense of what their enemy was doing. "Humans are an intelligent race so… right! Since they''re an intelligent race, their sudden disappearance creates a disturbance in the universe. It was already proven that it''s one of the only ways to attract the attention of the Primordials. Some specte that those thingse to feast on the world after it is saturated with the souls of dead humans, but no one attempted to study them and lived to tell the tale."


    "Sounds like a great pain." Sam said. "By Primordials you mean that thing we faced yesterday, right?"


    "Yes. As far as we know, they''re the first living beings to ever exist." Nino exined. "They seem to be sentient but… it''s believed that their minds are tooplicated for us to understand."


    "Tooplicated, huh…"


    "The whispers." The words seemed to catch Kam''s attention as she fixed her gaze on the Japanese doll. "It''s believed that the Primordialsmunicate telepathically. Unfortunately, thenguage they use and the image they try show are indecipherable through any means, and being subjugated to them results inplete loss of sanity most of the time, but…"


    Silence filled the room once again, but it didn''tst for long.


    "I believe it would be better if I exined Zeus'' objective first. That way it would be easy for you to understand what happened in the past few days." Nino said, looking up at Sam as if to ask for his approval. When he responded with a nod, she turned to look at the others one by one before closing her eyes and taking a deep breath.


    "As I''ve already said, Zeus is trying to be the one and only god, but he isn''t just looking in the dark. He… he said that he had received a revtion. Most of us didn''t dwell too much on the whispers after hearing them, afraid to lose our minds like many others did. But Zeus wasn''t. He kept pondering the whispers for years then decades, and one day he dered that he had reached enlightenment, and that he got a glimpse of the Truth."


    "The Truth?" Sam''s eyes narrowed.


    "Yes." Nino nodded. "He imed that the Primordials were trying to teach us, those who had survived extinction, about the true nature of existence, and by consequence help us evolve to the next realm of existence. He believes that the knowledge they provided was nothing more than a drop of water in a vast ocean, and that by obtaining all of it he could evolve into the one true God, the pinnacle of all existence."


    "I see…" Sam said, now understanding what kind of enemy they were up against. "I think I get what you''re trying to say…"


    The Primordials were going aroundmunicating telepathically with any sentient beings they could find, revealing the truth of the universe in the process. Those who hear their whispers would lose their minds, but the few who are able to handle the burden woulde out of it with new powers. One look at the Runes was enough to conclude that they''re letters from some kind ofnguage, and those letters grant the ability to manipte reality.


    Even if they''re unaware of it, those who heard the whispers had learned the truth of the universe, and that allowed them to manipte it to a certain extent.


    Zeus wasn''t satisfied with the limited power he gained and is now seeking even more of it, hoping it would grant him the ability to mold Existence in the way he sees fit.


    "ording to Zeus, the Primordials had revealed a way for him to obtain Truth." Nino continued her exnation with a grim expression. "He called it Akasha. A location beyond space and time. The ce from which Existence itself originates."