Time was not on Antiel's side when we first met in Himitsu no Koa. Had she exited limbo any sooner, I might have taken her up on her offer to assist me; but, as of that moment, all promises and favors were irrelevant to my domain. The mythical machine, Koa, was charging, and would soon complete a mission decades in preparation. I would disappear along with my temple once it was activated, only to be replaced by another who would finish what I started.
That said, the Great Machine did actually finish its preliminary stages during the she-elf's visit. She had barely even touched her meal by the time our surroundings changed. Koa had been programmed to summon me when it was ready to activate, and it had done as it was told without complaint. The pleasant warmth of the fireplace found itself replaced by cold lights on brass walls at that moment. Pipes and conduits of all kinds lined the massive chasm we now found ourselves in: heralding things that were best left unseen and unheard. This was the place where a great traitor would be borne; the place where a new era would begin; and the place where Antiel would serve as a witness of things to come.
"Very well," I spoke while rising from the rocking chair that had accompanied me into the darkness. I moved toward Antiel afterward, passing her by on my way to an alchemical machine that was just barely visible in the room's dim light. It sat upon a raised dais linked by bridges to a circular platform that ran the circumference of the room. Beneath this construct was a crystal of some kind: larger than anything found in the natural realm and blacker than the deepest night. "While you can't serve me, you can serve my successor. She's an annoying little snit and quite the pervert, but she'll welcome your aid. Her name is Skadi Esther Night, and her divine title will be Lady Luck of the Depths or something similar." Pausing, I opened a hatch on the rather peculiar machine in front of me. Beneath the metallic door lay two chambers: each filled with items that thrummed with the power of the World Trees. "I, on the other hand," I began anew while examining these artifacts for abnormalities before closing the door anew, "Will disappear from this world as one of its great traitors: my name erased like the dreaded Godslayer himself."
I wasn't lying at the time, fully believing that the rest of the pantheon would hate me for what I was about to do. The mortals couldn't care less, because the object being stolen was too intangible for them to grasp. Only the conclave and wisest of individuals would recognize the value of my theft, but, at that moment in time, they were busy with the chaos caused by Dalanesca's realm. Mendean would have been the sole person aware enough of my machinations to hinder me in that chaos, but, now that he had fallen, there was nothing standing in my way. Everything was prepared for the grand event, but I held back from activation until after informing Antiel of what was about to happen.
"I'm going to let you in on the biggest secret in the world right now, Antiel," I continued while thinking on the seed and twig I had collected in the past several weeks. "Most deities fall involuntarily. I, on the other hand, will not. Though I was born biologically in Parvpora, my soul is not originally from Revaliir. I'm a scout from another universe entirely, one that infiltrated your world on the eve of Timedeath. My sole purpose for visiting places like Revaliir has always been to copy the resident universe's knowledge and then feed it to the leader of my world's survivors. Now, after years of preparation, that mission comes to a close for this world."
In tandem with my syllables, the machinery around us came alive. The wall lights transitioned to a spectral hue now that the keys were secured, and the low, ever-present humming escalated to a higher decibel. My mind opened up to people who knew me at this point, a subconscious slip of regret. Naota and Katerina were alive and well even in the midst of chaos, and they got a front row seat to the happenings after I returned to my rocking chair at the base of the sphere.
On the distant land of Bakulaw, where the tip of Himitsu no Koa still jutted out toward the giant rift in the sky, the island's inhabitants had begun to scatter from Ground Zero. While most were distracted by the disorder caused by the schism in Dalanesca's realm, remnants of a siege not long forgotten glowed with new life. Glyphs surrounded the tower's peak, gradually growing in intensity until a deafening roar filled the landscape. A massive ejection of energy shot out from the spire once the sound peaked, causing a column of golden light large enough to see from all of northern Parvpora to manifest. The rift gobbled up every last bit of this ray, closing only once the final speck of information was absorbed.
In that moment, the name Natsumi crumbled from all the documents in the land. Even mortals who possessed insufficient willpower had the name stricken from their minds, as if everything about me had been scratched from existence in the span of several minutes. I was essentially a ghost of memories now, left free to depart without incident or regret.
Back in the temple, the machine's death knell was already quieting following the channeling. The lights died back to their original state, and all mechanical noises ceased. Antiel was one of the few in Revaliir left with my name, having been in the eye of the storm the entire time, even if she might have felt a bit disoriented from being exposed to the arcane energy of so many secrets. Perhaps she didn't quite understand what had happened, either, so I decided to explain it to her.
"Mission, complete. All of this universe's secrets have been copied and transferred off world, and my name has been erased. The memories of all men, women, and children alive or dead have been given to The Handler, though this will force my temple into a state of hibernation for several decades to come. You will be the last visitor here for a long while, and the very last person to see me in my temple."
