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However, you are the one person furthest from your utopia.

If you are just a receptacle, just a mirror, if you cannot even see the reality you have neglected...

Then you have reached your end, before your path has yet to reach its.

Your Majesty...

Your audience is over, Sankta.

Your request I will not answer.

Now, bear witness to my end.

New guests at my Pavillon. Very well. Come forward, twins.

I recognize you both.

At first, a pipe organ hums in the distance, its sound reaching the throne loud and clear.

A gentle shade of gold follows. Like a splotch of rich ink soaking into view, the color climbs over the palace walls before melting the Pavilion down.

Brilliant rays of light dye the clouds aureate, and Zwillingstürme's glowing sunset illuminates the black spire that had long ceased to exist.

You truly are attached to that throne, Herkunftshorn.

Twenty-three years ago, when Hildegard and I made our way here, you were sitting on it just as you are now.

Summoned here late at night by a creed, your subjects crawled beneath the steps as your melody shredded their souls away, not daring to make one move. You were disinclined to even take notice of them.

Judging by your attire... you have both proclaimed yourselves the Kaiserinnen of Leithanien?

The blades painstakingly forged by the nobles are now pointing back at them, freshly resharpened.

How amusing.

I won't deny you. Lieselotte and I were born from your Arts. Our flesh and blood, as well as our power, were born from the nobles' boring ambitions. Indeed, we are only creations.

But precisely because of that, we can be loyal only to Leithanien.

Answer, then: how did you serve the Leithanien you are devoted to?

Hildegard and I do not judge ourselves by our merits, Herkunftshorn.

But at the very least, when the people of Zwillingstürme lift their heads, they should be able to see a brilliant sunset, instead of dark clouds brimming with the metallic tinge of blood.

That is our dream, and what we work towards.

How naive.

Do you wish to continue indulging yourselves in the illusions you weaved, and enshrouding your minds from the truth?

Humanity is shackled by repulsive rules. Our legs cannot walk. Our eyes cannot see.

And what kind of future can you possibly bestow to Leithanien, given your wayward minds and narrow sights?

Is the Witch King, who nearly drove Leithanien to the brink, actually rebuking us for our incompetence in giving her a future?

Lieselotte, we don't have much time.

We've performed together on every one of the twenty-three celebrations of Leithanien's rebirth, and your skills have never faltered. I hope I can put the same trust in your combat practice.

You and Leithanien have my shield, Hildegard.

I admire your experience, courage, and achievements, Herkunftshorn. You overthrew prejudice and the old order—more firmly entrenched than the Spires are now—and brought opportunity to every Leithanian.

You gave the nation unprecedented vitality, and were to be revered as the greatest monarch in its history.

But then you pushed the country into war, erected even more terrifying spires, and inflicted suffering a hundred times more painful to the very people you had given hope to. You were ruined by your own desires.

Herkunftshorn, our widespread standards, our harmonious melodies, and our arts and morals make Leithanien what she is.

But you rocked her foundations, undermined her survival, and made her your own vassal.

Your meddling turned the entire country into a resource to be exploited. And it is only righteous that everything you have explored or mastered belongs to Leithanien.

So we're here to retrieve it.

A spire that remains only as a shadow should not exist in the first place. To think it actually lingered over Leithanien these past twenty-three years.

What did you call it earlier... your 'Pavillon'? A palace?

No matter. Today will be your last, and this place shall serve as your final grave.

Originium clusters surge from thin air, first hitting Grimmacht's blade before fragments splash onto Ewigegnade's shield.

Black and red unite into one. A dazzling gold. An intense purple.

Their Arts are condensed to their very limits, like unchangeable, primitive blocks of color. They collide, but cannot blend into each other, and only splash before the throne, seizing every inch of space.

An ear-splitting rhythm accompanies the explosion of colors. Their weapons, originally instruments, perform two movements in two completely different styles, at the same time and place.

Brass, woodwinds, strings, percussion, keyboards, and even bell trees, as well as death whistles...

The rusty reeds beneath Sargon's golden sands, the flame-wreathed amber under the sludge of the Black Flow, the rootless flowers buried deep in the frostbound soil of Sami, and the boundless chaos itself in this Kargereich...

A cosmos coexists with its voice within the Witch King's melody. Notes are woven, conducted, and played by his hand, notes to sing a melody of the 'Witch King,' notes to sing a melody for the 'Witch King.'

This mortal realm will never again know a symphony this clamorous, harsh, and illogical, yet also spectacular, majestic, and striking.

Ewigegnade and Grimmacht's duet is so simple in comparison.

The notes gently rise and sharply fall, with the dignified and imposing pipe organ resembling a castle encircled by mountains, while the ethereal violin is like a waterfall pouring by the citadel.

The sound of water splashing onto rock is still clearly audible in the room furthest from the waterfall, but even in the closest it does not sound so noisy.

The two act like one, their movements as harmonious as if they had never split.

The symphonies sing a war song: two generations of Leithanian Kaisers fight before the throne, the entire Pavillon both their sand table and military formation. History bends and rewinds at this moment—

Gaul's flagship crosses the river valley under Corsica I's lead, soldiers bumping shoulders as they form a thick cloud and tear apart Sturmland's iron curtain-like defense line.

And then, Herkunftshorn's silhouette introduces its reign at the pinnacle. He stands atop the Spire, heaven and earth at his beck and call. The elements, thunderbolts, and sandstorms are all at his disposal—

To swallow everything.

Under the omnipresent dust clouds of blood, Ewigegnade and Grimmacht's movements are unremarkable.

They sneak into Vedunien under the cover of night and with a feint from the Kurfürsten's coalition army, and make a beeline for the Spire.

The Spire opens its doors, welcoming its visitors. The unsuspecting spire casters rush into formation, and one by one turn into the red leaves of late autumn.

Shield and sword shatter the Genesis Spire.

Just like that night twenty-three years ago.

My Pavillon, and everything in it, are disintegrating, dying.

The Pavillon... This imperishable hall is not my creation, nor the work of anyone else.

It is the accumulation of mankind's immeasurable sacrifices.

Technology, arts, evolutionary experience—every choice, every regret, every affection, and every resentment. Every hope and every despair.

Every thought and every prayer, the birth and death of every civilization, everything remembered and everything forgotten.

The Pavillon is humanity.

The Pavillon is our will.

Through annihilation the will has taken form, and from chaos the order was given birth.

A will true to reveal the origin. A will firm to conquer the source.

Originium.

The beginning of annihilation and the source of chaos were both mine to wield, and thus I compelled Originium to reveal the nature of its being, to present the fact of its origin.

But I became aware that no matter how Originium grows, overwrites, recreates...

It speaks the same truth, a truth laid bare right before our eyes all along.

It says the creator who was at the source of making was also a creation.

It says the dominator reigned long before its domain came to exist.

It says hope is lost, and eternity is no more.

And what truth did I obtain but heavier chains, and a more ruthless resolve at the origin, the root of all creation?

Undeniable as the silence of death. Unextinguishable as the light of stars.

Cruel was the maker. Vile was the maker. Sly was the maker.

By his hands our determination was shattered, but not annulled; maimed, but not overthrown.

It forged our sharpest sword. It built our toughest prison.

The truth is laid bare for all to see, but how can a seeker challenge the truth with their volition and sanity splintered?

Let the truth be seen by all eyes. Let the reason be heard to all ears.

Your determination has guided you to my Pavilion. More will follow.

You will see in me a nightmare, a traitor to freedom, a... tyrant.

But if the Genesis Spire has failed to reach the boundary with its thrust, then a pioneer must be there to step foot on a place beyond space and time.

If the root of all creation poses nothing but shackles, then we shall be the hands holding its chains.

If the Creator has willed the extinction of his creation...

Then we shall be the bell to toll his demise.

Void cannot and <i>will not</i> be the truth. I will never allow it, nor will I excuse it.

Harken well Herkunftshorn's ultimate vision, his sin, his final will:

The Creator must perish.

I see that your power has grown since our last meeting, twins.

The portion of Herkunftshorn which he discarded long ago is standing before him.

But you have perceived not yourselves, and known not... freedom. You have relinquished... humanity.

I had hoped Leithanien's sword and shield to be more than weapons.

Heed, my audience.