Faith is an odd subject.
When most people refer to faith, they often mean reverence toward a higher being — devotion, prayer, surrender. Christians speak of their lone almighty Lord, one god to rule all hearts, while the polytheists — Hindus, for instance — offer their belief to the great trinity of Brahma, Vishnu, and Shiva, each maintaining the cosmic wheel through creation, preservation, and destruction.
But what, I wonder, do gods themselves have faith in?
Is a deity's faith directed toward their people, in the fragile hope that mortals will continue to love them? Or does an exalted being — far removed from time and suffering — hold faith in something higher than itself? Something more ancient, more terrible, and more inevitable than any divine name?
Something like death.
If that is the case, then what does nature have faith in? The storms, the oceans, the black void between stars — what creed do they whisper to themselves when existence grows cold and meaningless?
Across the ages and galaxies, faith has manifested in endless shapes.
The Kralscells. Those great primordial forces that stand between concept and consciousness are worshiped in their own fractured ways by the multitude of facets from the Shattered Faith.
The Kralscell of Hope has his cult, the Novflaris, who burn their bodies to offer light to the void.
The Kralscell of Invention is adored by the Ingenious Coalition, machinists and dream-weavers who pray through the act of creation.
And the Kralscell of Flowers — gentle yet cruel in his rebirth — is tended to by the Century Petals, gardeners of both beauty and decay.
Each Kralscell has a faith made in their name. Each one has a culture built around their worship, their terror, their myth. Even when they are hailed as destroyers, beings that decimate planets, dismantle civilisations, or reshape reality for no reason at all. Their names are still whispered in reverence.
Perhaps that is faith's cruelest irony: that it grows strongest when people are afraid.
Because beneath all the prayer, all the praise, and all the ritual, the true root of faith may not be love.
It may be fear.
Fear of the unknown.
Fear of what waits after death.
Fear of being small in a universe that feels infinitely aware of your insignificance.
So I can only ask: why do we fear? And what purpose does that fear serve?
Contrary to this universal dread, there exists a being whose faith is… different. Some call him the [Traveler on a Journey]. Others call him the [Evil Spirit of Revelation], or simply the Kralscell of Sentience.
He is recognized as omnipotent — an entity who moves across the fabric of creation as easily as breathing. Yet, he denies being a god. He claims no dominion, no temple, no throne. And still, mortals and gods alike believe in him — as an object of reverence, awe, and sometimes terror.
They say he appears at the edges of dying worlds, sitting beneath skies split in half, watching their collapse as if searching for something he once lost. To others, he is the spark of adventure itself, the invisible hand that nudges a dreamer to leave home. To a few rare ones… he is a curse.
The Empyrean Crusaders are the clearest example of this paradox.
A minute order of luminous warriors and philosophers, the Crusaders are often seen as chosen beloved by the Kralscell of Sentience. Their creed is built upon the Traveler's example: to move, to change, to understand. Yet, none truly know if the Traveler favors them or merely tolerates them as an experiment in devotion.
Those who are not part of the Empyrean Crusaders, however, often split along two very different paths in their attempts to worship the Traveler — or perhaps to chase his shadow.
The first path belongs to the Cult of the Nameless.
They are the fanatics — men and women who abandon their identities and burn their names from history in hopes of being recognised by Traveler. They follow his unpredictable wanderings between galaxies like pilgrims following a flame across a storm. Many die along the way.
The second path is the quieter one. The path of the Travelers.
These are the wanderers who take on the title not as a worship but as a way of life. They roam the universe seeking meaning, freedom, or escape — their dreams as vast or small as their courage allows. Some become wandering doctors, tending to forgotten colonies on frozen moons. Others open casinos in the sunken palaces of ocean planets. Some build libraries in the ruins of dead civilizations.
Their stories are strange, fragmented, and sometimes contradictory — yet all share one truth: each Traveler is running from something. Be it guilt, memory, or fear itself, they travel because staying still would mean confronting what hunts them.
Seer Qilin was one such Traveler. Once a speaker of her homeworld's dying faith, she abandoned her throne of visions to drift among the stars with the Fire-Cloud mercenaries. A band of childish soldiers and dreamers.
It is rare for Travelers to meet. They are not an organization or faith, but a phenomenon. A scattering of souls across existence, united only by the impulse to keep moving. Yet wherever they go, legends follow: tales of kindness and chaos, of miracles and catastrophes. Entire worlds have been saved or doomed by the passing of a single Traveler.
And there is one rule, one understanding shared among all who encounter them:
You must never, under any circumstance, ask who a Traveler was before they began their journey.
For that question is forbidden. Not by law, but by fear of what the answer might awaken. Behind every Traveler's name lies a story of unbridled potential. And potential, unmeasured and unrestrained, is the closest thing this universe has to divinity.
For some, that potential is creation.
For others… annihilation.
"Greeting, young lady, and welcome to Innurvos." The voice came from a man of glass and brass, an Enjindron. His eyes flickered with warm circuitry as he bowed slightly. "May I know your name and your reason for coming to the utopia planet of the Ingenious Domain?"
The woman before him adjusted the scarf around her neck, her silver eyes reflecting the twin suns above the docking bay. A faint hum surrounded her — the kind of silence that follows someone who has traveled too far to remember where home is.
"Traveler," she said simply. "And I'm searching for someone."
The mechanical man tilted his head, processing her answer. The title alone carried a quiet weight, one that even machines could sense. He didn't ask further. He knew better than to ask who she had been.
Because somewhere, in the endless expanse of the cosmos, the true [Traveler on a Journey] walked again — and every step he took set the stars trembling.
And this woman, whoever she had once been, had chosen to follow.