A long silence ensued; Infori, who had been frantically seeking an answer to his question, finally received it. Yet, the answer was far from what he had hoped for.
He had hoped that Noya had merely transferred his consciousness to the Pathways of World, but the reality was far more shocking.
The Infori whom Flynn had brought here was, in fact, lifeless; he had died completely and ended up in this dimension. His eyes widened, his body went rigid, and his consciousness seemed to momentarily sever.
He tried to process the situation.
His red eyes—still alive, not yet fully extinguished—fixed upon Noya, who had been standing before him the entire time.
"You've got to be kidding me...!" he said, attempting to refute Noya's answer. "There's no way I could die from just a massive attack like that. I've survived worse!"
Noya closed her eyes for a moment, then delivered a statement that cut deep into Infori's heart. "I know, Infori. You might have been able to handle that attack, but technically speaking, your body in the Overworld is now like an abandoned chrysalis."
"...?!" Infori fell silent.
The look of disbelief that had been etched on his face slowly faded. He stared at Noya, as if still waiting for her to laugh and reveal that her words had merely been a joke.
But Noya did no such thing.
"...What do you mean?"
His voice was quieter than before.
Noya opened her eyes, gazing at him with an unreadable expression. "Your body is still in the Overworld. It hasn't vanished, nor has it been severed from your life force. You can still move, even feel pain. But the thing that was supposed to connect you to that body is no longer there."
Infori lowered his head, his gaze dropping to the ground. His hands slowly clenched into fists.
"No..." He shook his head, trying to reject an explanation he didn't even fully comprehend yet. "If that's the case, why am I still able to stand?"
He walked past Noya, then stopped behind him. Infori then pointed out a fact: the arched doorway—which ought to have been there, marking the end of that person's destiny—was still missing.
The path stretched on, branching into three undecided directions.
"And why isn't that arched doorway there yet?" he asked.
"Because you haven't fully let go."
The answer left Infori speechless; his eyes remained wide, his mouth agape. It was a reply that succeeded in complicating a situation that was already complex enough.
Noya took a slow breath. "Your destiny isn't finished yet, Infori. You haven't even chosen your own path. And death is still a long way off. That is what makes your situation different from everyone else's. You can still move, but that doesn't mean your body is in the state it's supposed to be."
Infori lifted his face, wearing an expression that defied description. "So... as long as I haven't chosen my destiny, I won't die?"
"That's not it."
"Then what is it?!" Infori's voice rose. He glared sharply at Noya. "If I'm still alive, why do you speak as if I'm already gone?"
Noya did not answer.
The silence that followed felt more painful than any answer he could have given. Infori gritted his teeth. He lowered his head, struggling to hold back the emotion welling up in his chest.
"...I don't understand."
Noya gazed at him calmly. "Listen, your destiny was meant to be that of a Believer. A savior ordained centuries ago."
Infori looked up again; what he was hearing now came as quite a shock.
"What?"
"You are a successor; long ago, there was someone who became a Believer and carried out the duty of maintaining the balance of Orleans," Noya continued. "However, a divergence in your destined path created an imbalance. Slowly and imperceptibly, that divergence threatens to shatter the fabric of reality governing all destinies here."
Infori fell silent for a moment, trying to process Noya's complex statement. Yet, he understood it. It was a hard truth to accept—that he, in this instance, was the anomaly.
Especially after learning that, long before him, someone—likely a Nephilim—had been chosen as a Believer. Someone tasked with upholding the balance of Orleans, or perhaps even the Overworld and the Underworld.
Infori had once heard a story about a calamity destined to befall Orleans. It was a disaster that had already occurred—long before he was born, to be precise, a century ago.
"...I once heard of a calamity that recurs every hundred years. One that is due to happen again soon. A disaster in which the fabric of reality and the balance between the two worlds begin to collapse."
Noya was taken aback by this sudden statement. Information regarding Vael'Nyth—the "Lost in Destruction"—was the stuff of legend; not everyone living in the current cycle of time knew of it.
For Vael'Nyth was a calamity, a crisis destined to occur within the cyclical timeline of Orleans. It was an inevitable disaster that struck every century. When Vael'Nyth—the "Lost in Destruction"—unfolded, the roots of the Sacred Tree would sense the presence of something that ought not to exist. And at that moment, the two worlds—originally separated by the fabric of reality—overlapped.
"So, you know."
"So, my duty as a Believer is to prevent that catastrophe from happening, isn't it?"
Noya took a deep breath before finally answering. "Orleans wasn't always the way it is now. There was a time when the boundary between the Overworld and the Underworld could no longer maintain its balance."
"The boundary... Everness?"
"That's right."
When the time cycle turned, all manner of calamities could unfold. Chaos itself would merge with life—a union that nothing, absolutely nothing, desired. The light of the sacred tree would fade, swallowed by darkness.
"The light would dim, and darkness would envelop the entire world. Moment by moment, until nothing remained. No time, no space. Only us—walking within the dimension that serves as the foundation of destiny for all life. A infinite dimension of space and time," he said. His voice grew quieter as he spoke. For some reason, Infori could sense it—that this cycle had been running in tandem with the relentless march of time in Orleans.
Noya drew a long breath amidst a dimension far more silent than an old, long-abandoned house.
"Vael'Nyth isn't merely a disaster from the outside. It is something that has been waiting within the world's cycle. And whenever that cycle nears its end, the boundary separating the two worlds begins to lose its strength."
Infori stared at him. "So, all this time..."
"Yes."
Noya nodded slowly. The boundary between realities had begun to collapse unnoticed by anyone—crumbling in silence, yet destined to strike when the time was right.
"That disaster... it will surely return."