HERMON Look up at the darkening skies, look intently, gaze ceaselessly, as those before you did, who sought not solace for themselves, but forbidden truth — and not everyone could withstand its merciless light... Look through the dust of the ages, through the funeral mists of battles long past, through the echoes of ancient tragedy, whose reverberations tremble ominously in the torn fabric of existence. Look, for you are here, and your hour—do not hope—is not eternal. And the measure of your gaze shall be exacted, and your will shall be sorely tested. Behold, then, what is revealed in the rising darkness by the gaze of the immortal sentinel, for thus do the sentinels peer into the cold gloom, standing unyielding upon their barren crags, at the outermost frontiers of existence, piercing the bounds of the known with their anxious gaze. Look, as they do: the wind pierces their Names, the moonlight passes through their ghostly shadows. They stand there like giants, frozen outside of time, clutching in their hands their weapons of destruction — and withering flowers, still retaining the scent of their first spring. Their faces seem lifeless, as if carved from dark stone; yet neither winds, nor frosts, nor heat have left a mark upon them—for time no longer has power over them. They are the eternally watchful, the accursed, condemned to oblivion, yet their eyes remain alive, burning with defiance through the mists, through the rifts in space, through time itself, merciless as it is. And their own radiance smoulders, growing ever brighter, which will inevitably one day outshine the heavens, for its name is hope… They wait, anticipating their own dawn as a deliverance; long, long centuries flash before their eyes like a single endless moment — sweeping past and vanishing into the darkness… Yet they wait and wait, for they know: one day they will be called, one day liberation will come, and their waiting will end. They know — everything will come to an end, and every beginning will be like it… – Look — whilst you are still allowed to see… I 1. The Light teaches through its legends. The Light desires to preserve its existence unchanged. And the Light seems unshakeable. And the heavens, its abode, soaring high and flawless, seem eternal and indestructible — but not everything is as it strives to appear before the scrutinising gaze. The delusion weighs heavily. The bonds are cracking. And the gilding is flaking away from the heavens.