The atmosphere froze, Her words resonating above Sefirah Castle.
The Fool frowned, understanding the situation.
"Did you side with the Ancient Sun God to betray me?"
"…"
"Since when? No, was it since the beginning?"
Amanises watched Him in silence.
"You weren't even close to Roselle in the first place. So why-"
"…Do you truly not understand?" She asked Him.
The Fool's gaze met Amanises's under the veil.
He glared at Her.
"I don't. Killing Roselle was necessary."
"That's the problem. It wasn't."
It could have been avoided.
The Fool shook His head.
The Evernight Goddess should be the more reasonable person here, so why was She saying this?
"He was corrupted. If I hadn't killed Him, the Mother God of Desire would have had full control over the new Sequence 0 Black Emperor."
"Then you could have saved Him."
"…"
The Evernight Goddess drove in the final nail.
"You had the power to save Him, yet you chose to kill Him instead."
The Zhou Mingrui She knew was a person who tried to save others more than anyone else.
Someone who sacrificed Himself for others.
Temporarily sealing the corruption, or defeating the Mother God of Desire—there were a lot of ways.
He would have attempted to save Him first.
Because Roselle was a remnant from the old era, the Fool would have never considered killing Him first.
Moreover, rescuing the Black Emperor wasn't even an impossible task in the first place.
"The one I knew would have tried to save Him until the end, even if everything seemed hopeless."
The Fool laughed in disbelief.
An alliance against the one who prioritized His own goals without caring about the sacrifices. Against the one who had lost sight of His humanity and forgotten what was once important to Him.
She had betrayed Him for the same reason He had tried to overthrow the Ancient Sun God.
"This is ridiculous."
To Her, the Fool couldn't be considered a 'remnant of the old era' anymore. He had lost Himself.
She knew it since the day He had gotten rid of Roselle, His judgment blinded by divinity and His past values nowhere to be found.
"Amanises, the Ancient Sun God has been replaced by the original. Didn't you say that the remnants of that era were part of your humanity?"
Indeed. But you can't be considered a member of that civilization anymore.
Maybe the Evernight Goddess couldn't be called that either. After all, after thousands of years and becoming gods, the traces of that epoch had been worn out, time influencing Their values.
"It is."
And that's why she made this decision.
"Because that era is so precious to me, the only thing I can do is to preserve what's left of it by protecting the Earth."
They could never go back to the old era.
Now they had to accept it. The old civilization had now become the current Earth.
They had to protect what They had left.
As they talked, the Fool's eyelids started to get heavier, his mind drowsy.
"You…"
The Evernight Goddess stared at Him.
Of course, She wouldn't drag out time talking to Him for no reason. Who knew what card He had up His sleeve. She couldn't risk giving Him the opportunity to retaliate.
Her eyes lingered on the cross piercing His heart for a moment before She continued, "The Ancient Sun God was right."
The Fool had been blinded by personal feelings, maybe also guided by a desire for convergence, and wanted to kill the Ancient Sun God.
The Evernight Goddess gazed at the Fool.
She had seen Him descend into madness due to time wearing Him out.
He had too much humanity—and as years passed, had thus become too tired.
This abundance of humanity and His upright values had prevented Him from being able to bear the passage of time.
The Fool was too weak, not suited for being a pillar.
Yet They needed someone strong to overcome the apocalypse. Someone who would last.
That's why the Ancient Sun God didn't help Him. They needed someone else to bear that role or the Earth would fall, so He simply let the Fool fall by Himself.
Time would solve things. When the Fool disappeared, They could wait for another Lord of Mysteries to appear.
To begin with, if the Fool's plan to get rid of the Ancient Sun God succeeded, They would be deprived of an important force to face the upcoming apocalypse.
The Fool's desire for revenge was endangering the future of everyone.
"I will become the Lord of Mysteries again. His presence isn't needed," The Fool insisted.
That wasn't true. They needed all the strength They could get.
"I won't become mad again. To begin with, you also need a Lord of Mysteries for the apocalypse, and I am the closest to that position. My absence will weaken you. I won't repeat the mistakes of the past, so-"
The Evernight Goddess shook Her head.
She hadn't really planned to betray Him at first.
She had watched the situation. Although She had made an alliance with the Ancient Sun God, She had told Him that She would 'observe' first. The Ancient Sun God had thus told Her to see by Herself.
However, the reason She was here now was because She judged that there was no hope.
The Fool resisted the sleepiness, His movements sluggish.
He had to find a way out of this situation.
"Do you remember?" She said.
The Fool was already turning crazy.
She knew why His humanity was slowly losing control, and His divinity increasing.
In the past, He became mad due to His abundance of humanity; yet now, it was the exact contrary.
Was it during the Smog of Backlund? Or, when He decided to descend onto the real world? Or, when He had created the Tarot Club in the first place?
Was it when He had stopped noticing that His actions went against the promises He had made to Himself? When He saw it as normal and forgot He shouldn't do that despite His already precarious mental state?
'I sealed myself in Sefirah Castle to not hurt my believers any longer.'
"What are you talking about?"
'Then why did you leave it?'
'…I decided to move on.'
"The reason you are becoming crazy now."
With the Sequence 0 Fool's powers, he voluntarily trapped himself within Sefirah Castle, cutting himself off from the world.
He didn't want to hurt others again.
He wouldn't have any living followers this time. No believers, even less a Blessed. He wouldn't interact with the outside world. Being alone wasn't a problem, he was used to it.
"…It's because you broke the principle sustaining your last bit of humanity."
By 'moving on' from the past, acting as if nothing happened, and forgetting it… instead of learning from it and keeping it in mind.
The more He did that, the more His humanity became unstable and closer to madness, because He could never truly forget it. The more He acted contrary to His humanity, the more His divinity grew, and the more this vicious cycle continued.
He hadn't really moved on.
Since the beginning, since She had met Him in Backlund, the Fool was already turning mad.
Instead of being of help during the apocalypse, He was a latent danger. Not only would He be extremely vulnerable to mental attacks, but having an out of control pillar by their side would put them all in danger.
Above all, he swore to himself to never leave Sefirah Castle.
He had broken His own values by leaving Sefirah Castle.
"When you descended as 'Gehrman Sparrow' and left Sefirah Castle by your own will, your fate was already sealed."
It was at that moment that His state started to worsen even more, showing the first signs of loss of control.
Then, like in the past, He would become mad and bring down His believers along with Him.
What He had asked the Star to do proved it. The Beyonders from the three Pathways hearing ravings as well.
"I told you I am developing anchors, so I can stabilize my state by spreading faith…" The Fool countered.
Even if He gained more anchors, His humanity would still continue to degenerate, so He wouldn't be able to get better.
The fact that He hadn't noticed it proved it.
Ironically, like the old man who wanted to resurrect his wife, corrupted by the Hidden Sage but unable to see he had turned into a monster, the Fool was also blinded by denial.
People who were mad couldn't notice their own madness.
Fortunately, the Evernight Goddess had acted before the tragedy could happen and He could destroy His believers like in the past, thus minimizing the casualties.
Knowing that He wouldn't understand no matter how much She tried to explain it to Him, She stepped back.
"As for the next Lord of Mysteries, you don't have to worry."
The Evernight Goddess left Sefirah Castle.
Laughably, descending as Gehrman Sparrow was the only attempt that was made regardless of benefits. An attempt to go against His divinity.
Yet, it still went against His humanity as well, as by doing this, the Fool had broken His own principle—trapping Himself above the gray fog and not leaving on His own—. Moreover, pretending and putting on a mask also went along with the tendencies of the Seer Pathway more.
As Amanises left, Amon stepped forward and took a seat next to Him, smiling.
Since when was He here?
His sight blurry, the Fool didn't notice the crimson star lighting up next to Him. Instead, His gaze was fixed on Amon.
"It's been a while. Should I call you Mr. Fool?"