"Sorry about this. Making you play tour guide."

"It's the holy maiden's duty. ...Or so I'd like to say, but even I've been too busy with official business to visit, so this is a good excuse."

The ancient temple of Canaan.

Likely the oldest surviving structure of the spirit faith. The brick walls had crumbled, and the grounds were overgrown with weeds.

"You showed him--Ren--around this place too before heading to The Hegemon City Elmekia, right?"

"Yes. My Sylph and Undine love this place, so I thought maybe Ren's spirits would feel the same way."

A faint smell of dust and mildew hung in the air.

The chapel Elies stepped into was filled with faintly cool air.

A forsaken sanctuary.

The windows that had once been bright with stained glass were now hollow voids, and the tables, chairs, and altar had all weathered away with time.

All except one thing.

--A statue of a winged girl.

--Her raised right hand clutching something like a piece of fruit.

In the hall, only the dust-covered stone statue remained enshrined.

"A statue of a spirit once revered as the Spirit Princess. Because she has the form of a girl with wings, some scholars call this statue the 'True Angel' to distinguish her from the angels of Heaven..."

"You remembered everything I told you."

"'A princess who commands all spirits. By extension, some scholars go so far as to claim she's the being who governs the very balance of the world'--I remember that too."

Shion squinted against the sunlight spilling through the holes in the ceiling.

Elies crossed her arms in front of him.

"I'd like to hear the rest of the story. You said you've been investigating the Silent Agency--so why would you be interested in a chapel of the spirit faith?"

"A while back, I spent some time thinking about the Silent Agency's true identity. Before the Gate of Heaven in Elmekia was destroyed."

Sword Saint Shion had been concerned about the Silent Agency's identity for years.

As leader of Party "Melody of the Spirits," which had explored hidden lands across the world, he had seen more ruins believed to have been destroyed by the Silent Agency than anyone else.

"There are three things about the Silent Agency that caught my attention."

Shion gazed at the statue of the winged girl as he spoke.

"First--these are clearly not natural disasters or coincidences. There is someone out there destroying the gates with clear intent. The Gate of Heaven we used in Elmekia was demolished without a trace within hours. That confirmed it for me."

"Yes, there were no natural disasters like tornadoes or lightning in Elmekia at the time."

No cataclysm capable of destroying a gate had been observed. Someone had attacked and destroyed it--that much was certain.

"Building on that, second--the one destroying the gates is neither human nor Roaming Beast. The Silent Agency's destruction has been ongoing for over a century, which rules out any human lifespan. And the gates have been destroyed on a worldwide scale, which rules out Roaming Beasts."

Each species of Roaming Beast had its own native habitat.

While several species were powerful enough to theoretically destroy a gate, the locations of the destroyed gates didn't match any of their territories.

"What's the third? I could've guessed the first two, but I can't figure out the third."

"I'll start with the conclusion. The Silent Agency's true identity is what the Three Sages of the Epitaph called 'the shining ones.' In other words, the very catastrophe that the Sword Emperor Eleline and the Three Princesses fought in the End War."

"...What did you say?"

Elies had heard about the Three Sages of the Epitaph from Ren.

Citizens of the Divine City Sieramiris, who in ancient times had devoted themselves to the study of the ancient summoning arts.

It was "the shining ones" who had attacked their city, and driven by their obsession for revenge, the Sages had conspired with The Hegemon City Elmekia to bestow the Eidos.

"Is that your theory?"

"No. This isn't speculation--it's the only logical conclusion. When you put the first two observations together, every other possibility is eliminated."

Shion's tone was firm and assured, his gentle face belying the strength behind his words.

"The fact that they're targeting the gates of both Heaven and the Underworld means they obviously understand what the gates are. Taking on both angels and demons simultaneously--grasping how terrifying that is and still destroying the gates anyway--in the modern era, Elmekia Dusk was the only group I could think of that might do something like that."

"...I see where you're going."

Internally, Elies felt the pieces click into place.

She could finally see the path Shion had taken to reach his conclusion.

"But it wasn't Elmekia Dusk. Which means there are no candidates in the present day. So that leaves the past--"

"Exactly. Three hundred years ago, there was something that waged war against the angels and demons."

The catastrophe that had triggered the End War.

If it had existed three hundred years ago, that also explained how the gates had been under attack for over a century.

"Full disclosure--you're the third person I've told this to."

"Besides your own team, you mean?"

"Yeah. Dragon Emperor Calra and Goddess Resflaze."

"As I just told Elder Sister Kyelse. Sword Saint Shion--that man's prophecy, delivered to me when he appeared here, is most likely correct."

"Sword Saint Shion--the only human I have ever deemed worthy of receiving my Seal."

Sword Saint Shion had met with Dragon Emperor Calra and the Goddess Resflaze before the Party "Knight of Reincarnation" ever did.

All to verify his own suspicions.

And he had arrived at his conclusion.

"The Silent Agency is the End War catastrophe itself..."

Elies wiped the sweat that had unconsciously trickled down her cheek and murmured in a low, strained voice.

She could barely believe it. No--to be honest, she didn't want to believe it.

The catastrophe that had plunged the world into panic was biding its time, waiting to strike back. If something that terrifying was really happening, then Shion's worldwide warning made perfect sense.

"Could the true cause of the spirits' fear that I've been tracking all this time also be this End War catastrophe coming back? Is that why you came to Canaan?"

"It's a bit more serious than that. I wanted your opinion on something."

Shion fell silent.

He turned his back to the statue of the winged girl.

"This is just my theory, so hear me out with that in mind. Let's say the Silent Agency really is the End War catastrophe. Then I started wondering--what exactly is this catastrophe? And this is something that's been bugging me for a long time. The name 'Silent Agency'--why does it have the word 'silent' in it?"

"...Because there are almost no eyewitness accounts, right?"

The so-called mystery behind the ruined sites. By the time anyone found them, only the wreckage of the destroyed gates remained. No one had ever seen the culprit, which was why it had been given that name.

"That's part of it. But it's not that there were absolutely zero sightings. Even if we humans didn't notice, there had to be beings that could sense their presence."

"...The gate administrators. The angels and the demons!"

"Exactly. For instance, the Cupids are the ones tasked with overseeing the gates of Heaven."

That was one of the reasons Shion had traveled to Heaven.

Given his personal rapport with Goddess Resflaze, he would have been able to speak with the Cupids who managed the gates.

"Were there any sighting reports?"

"There were. But apparently the Silent Agency's appearance varied wildly each time--maybe a fixed form doesn't mean anything to them in the first place. They don't have physical bodies like we do, after all."

...No physical bodies?

That single detail made Elies's expression tighten. Not because nothing came to mind, but because exactly one possibility did.

"...Go on."

"When I talked to the Cupids, I found out there was one trait all the Silent Agency sightings shared. The Silent Agency truly doesn't speak. No matter how much the Cupids threatened or screamed at them, they never said a single word... But then I thought--is that really what's going on?"

The Silent Agency was demonstrably driven by a clear destructive intent when it targeted the gates.

Even when the Cupids spotted them, had they truly not uttered a single word? Why would they cling so stubbornly to their "silence"?

"What if they weren't choosing not to speak? What if the Cupids simply couldn't hear them? Not just angels--humans, demons, and dragons too. Because no one in the world could hear their voices, they came to be called the Silent Agency. That's my conclusion."

"...Shion, you can't mean..."

Her voice came out as a rasp.

Elies had realized it too. What the Sword Saint's words implied.

...There is one.

...There is exactly one kind of being whose voice angels cannot hear.

A being that could rival dragons, angels, and demons in power.

A being known to have existed long before the End War. That was--

"Before anyone called me a holy maiden, I was always alone. Whenever I talked to the spirits, every adult around me would stare at me like I was a freak."

"The voices of spirits, which no one but me could hear."

"That's right. The Silent Agency's true identity is spirits."

The conclusion Sword Saint Shion had reached.

It was the same answer Elies had arrived at in that very moment.

"If the End War catastrophe was spirits, then it makes sense that the Cupids couldn't hear their voices. It's no surprise they'd mistake their silence for literal muteness."

"...You're kidding... right?"

She forced the words out of her parched throat.

The tension had evaporated all the moisture from the back of her throat, leaving it dry enough to ache. She couldn't recall ever being this shaken.

"Or perhaps 'something resembling spirits but fundamentally different.'"

A winged being.

The golden-haired young man turned back to face the statue of the winged girl and continued.

"Something infinitely close to spirits, but not quite. And the fact that this winged statue of a girl has been called the Spirit Princess--I can't help feeling that it's hinting at exactly that."