The gathering place where the fire spreads, the people who disappeared inexplicably, the cathedral that replaced the chapel, the ubiquitous chanting, the flames rising into the sky, the ashes fluttering like snowflakes, as far as the eye can see, the place I entered, was full of grotesques and sacredness.

The cathedral bears the symbol of Shinrikyo doomsday, and its appearance feels ancient, quaint, solemn and mysterious, but for me this mystery is also dangerous. Standing outside the door, you can see the people inside: the choir, the priest leading the eulogy, the believers bowing their heads in prayer, the familiar smell that even if you are dead and alive, you will never forget. It evokes thoughts and feelings about the past, as well as a familiar enthusiasm for combat.

I sensed the threat, but the hunter's acumen also made me aware that the desperate invasion of the deepest night had weakened in this grotesque place—or rather, the deepest night had not weakened, but its mystery, compared to the mysteries of the Doomsday Shinrikyo religion, was no longer as overwhelmingly powerful as it was normally felt.

The Night of the Depths is a terrible mystery to any mere powerful occultist, consisting of a nightmarish environment, despair that grows with the passage of time, negativity of all kinds, and an indescribable but pervasive weirdness of a certain negative meaning. Perhaps comparing another environment full of "mystery", "Valpurgis Night", is more reflective of its mystery.

The Night of Valpurgis was the predecessor of the repeater.

The mystery of the deepest night, which is comparable, is certainly not weaker than that of Valpurgis Night.

But even so. For the first time, when the Doomsday Shinrikyo Cult, which had been latent in its activities, came before my eyes in such a positive posture to release the most direct hostility. The mystery of the Doomsday Shinrikyo itself. Still let them create a battlefield of their own in the middle of the night.

In this battlefield, the Cult of Doom Shinrikyo has no restraints, nor does it need to withstand the pressure of the deep night, and it is impossible to fight with all its might.

All this, when I see this church, these choirs, priests and believers, I feel that it is everywhere. It was full of immediate threats, and I was the first to recognize these things. There is no evidence, and there is no need to prove it. Occult experts rely on their intuition to determine the situation. And the hunter is the same.

The choir's singing and the rhythm of the organ are like a chorus in people's hearts. Their prayers are like telling, singing. Wandering from time to time. Sometimes it is firm and contagious, and people can't wait to join in and experience the faith and hope that comes with that pious faith.

People, including occultists, join the Cult of Doomsday Shinrikyo out of desperation, draw nourishment from the doomsday truth, and expose themselves to a self-destructive hope. The void in their hearts was filled. They are happy, even if they have to face death. It's the end of the world. It is because they are happy that they feel hope from death, from the yearning for the end times, and from the great power that all things must wither, which is not transferred by human will. So they no longer resist the end of the world, but look forward to it. They hope that they can bring this spiritual liberation to everyone they love.

Yes, the terrible thing about the Doomsday Truth Religion is that they do not spread the doomsday truth because of greed, fear, despair and any kind of negative thoughts, they also know how to think and know self-control, but the direction of their thinking and self-control, the root and the future they seek are completely different from normal people.

They love the world and have people they love, but in the eyes of normal people, their "love" is weird and doesn't even fit the definition of "love", thinking that this kind of love will only bring destruction, and this is exactly what happened.

Why do people have faith? Why do people believe in the end times? Why will the end of the world, on that day be the truth? Perhaps it is precisely because the end of the world is a more conceptual death, which people fear and resist but are completely unable to really stop it. Isn't such a thing, which is not subject to human will, and which is an objective existence even in science, and the biggest issue, in line with the meaning of the so-called "truth"?

Here, all the sounds, all the smells, even the air I breathed, seemed to be infected by the grotesque and intense smell of the apocalyptic truth.

If I lay down my arms and join them, they will surely welcome with their hands held high. However, we are enemies......

Now that this is the case, it is probably impossible to do it immediately if you want to escape. I walked into the church and walked down the long red carpet between the rows of chairs, but not a single believer looked up at me. Priests, choirs and believers are doing what they have to do with devotion. Their prayers are incomprehensible and their pronunciation is distorted and eerie. But there is only one prayer that anyone can understand:

"Flesh and blood are like grass and trees, glory is like an epiphany, grass withers, flowers wither, but death is not the end, just as the truth endures forever." Led by the priest, the crowd made their final remarks.

I waved the hem of my trench coat and swept away the ashes from it, and where I stood, soon dust flew and the bright red and clean carpet became dirty. It's a provocation, but what I see is that no one here cares. Whether it is a priest or a believer, their eyes are still only on each other, their eyes are very clean, but what they have done is probably terrifying. And with a clean eye and a self-sacrificing mentality, doing the most heinous things in the eyes of normal people is also the reason why they are called a cult.

I would have long ago not been deceived by the virtues they displayed and the goodness of their humanity that they usually showed. Because, when all these beautiful things are in the service of "doomsday truth", it will surely become the most terrible and sharpest minions one day.

"It's a pleasure to be able to preside over this service for all of you, even though we don't advocate any one form of Lord." The priest smiled, and then the faithful burst into good-natured laughter. They can understand what the priest is saying, but forgive me for not being ignorant and not being able to appreciate the meaning of this sentence. Maybe. Is this a sarcasm?

"Any visible Lord will perish, and therefore it must be false." The priest seemed to be able to see through my thoughts, turned his gaze, and said to me in a gentle voice, "The truth is intangible, and we don't need to see it because. As long as we calm down and feel it, it is all around us and never leaves us. The end is inevitable. Just as death is inevitable, it is not the end. ”

"A lot of religions have used similar terms, like reincarnation, what you're talking about. It's not very attractive. What a novelty. "I calm my restless heart, the environment here is contagious, and so is the priest himself, a contagion that comes from a firm belief in something, what to do every day and every night, and to keep achieving something. If it were an ordinary person, it would definitely be in such a situation. Just a few words to be convinced.

I do not deny the inevitability of death, and I have never seen an example of a successful rejection of death. Death is indeed what it is necessary to follow. One of the most basic laws, if we say that this is the truth. I won't say no either. However, confusing death with the end of the world, and then giving the concept of the truth of the end of the world, making everyone obey the end of the world, and everyone rushing to push the end forward, is a strong contradiction to my worldview, outlook on life, and values.

I don't think they're right, of course, maybe in their eyes, I'm doing something wrong. However, with such a macro proposition as "death" and "doomsday" as the core of the dispute, it is difficult for me to accept that I am so small as a human being.

There is hardly any place in their thoughts and behaviors that I can accept, and basically it is unacceptable to normal people.

However, these fellows, who struggled with this instinctive aversion for an unknown amount of time, eventually grew into the behemoths they are today - their birth, development, survival, and growth can write a thick history just by looking at them from the perspective of the apocalyptic illusion.

I don't think my small self can change something like this. The only thing I can do is kill them, even if their truth makes them fearless of death.

"Yes, perhaps most religions will use reincarnation as a key part of their teachings. But it is precisely because of this that this cycle of rebirth and death proves that truth and humanity are intertwined, and that it is a beautiful prayer in itself. "People want to integrate their knowledge into their understanding of the truth," the priest said. Or, draw nourishment from the truth to enrich one's own knowledge. ”

"I don't understand, please don't tell me these big things." I replied calmly.

"Mr. Takakawa, being willing to be a fool is a fool in itself." The priest was slightly displeased, "Please don't close your eyes, cover your ears, stop thinking, that will make you lose a lot." ”

"You know what? Father, my thinking does not stop, it has a compulsion. I tapped my temples, and this is not a lie, it is because I can't stop that reflexive, divergent thinking that I am the way I am now, for me, thinking itself is pleasant, but in many cases, forced thinking becomes a pain, "If I can, I hope it can give me the right to choose according to my will." ”

The priest was a little surprised, but the expression quickly turned into a smile, as if he could understand. I couldn't feel the disguise, he really seemed to think he understood me.

"Thinking is pleasant in itself, but the most important thing is that you have to think about the most essential things so that you don't get distracted by the dross that comes with thinking." "You are suffering because you think too many things that are not critical, that are not important, that are not so essential," said the priest. If you can concentrate your mind, on a truth, to recognize it, to interpret it, then every time you have something, it will make you feel brighter. ”

"For example, doomsday truth?" I asked mockingly.

"Yes, doomsday truth." As if he could not understand my ridicule, the priest said seriously and solemnly: "There are many truths in this world, but the truth of the end is the closest to us, the truth that we can experience the most in our daily life, and it is also the truth that will bring the strongest emotions. People's deepest and oldest emotions often come from the unknown, but in the final analysis, it still comes from the death that the unknown brings. Death is the end of the end, the end is the process of death, there is no process, but only the end, which is meaningless to people, so for people, the end is the most appropriate truth, specifically, it is not an absolute truth, but a relative truth, which embodies a general conceptual humanized understanding of death. ”

"Relative truth. It's really a novel way of saying it. I couldn't help but laugh. Truth is not relative in its original sense.

"If it is the absolute truth, then people only have fear of it, and that is the fear that cannot do anything but suffer in silence." "But when truth and humanity come into contact with each other, collide and merge with each other, and finally come out with a human answer, which everyone is happy to follow, believe in, and even pay for, and through these thoughts and actions, the end that can be reached is no different from the end of absolute truth - the difference is only in the process of reaching the same end, with fear or with joy, whether it is rejected in order to resist or to accept this truth," said the priest. And that's where the value of apocalyptic truth lies. It makes people not resist the truth, but try to understand it, to devote themselves to it, even if it is death before their eyes. ”

At this point, the priest looked around at the crowd below and said, "Death is not something to be feared, but the fear of death is instinctive, but death cannot be changed, so we must change." ”

"But doomsday and death are different concepts!" I loudly retorted, "Wanting to end and death is also a different concept than having to endure it and death." The difference between these concepts is that it is the embodiment of human nature and the instinct of life, and also the meaning of human existence - if everything is going to be destroyed, then what is the meaning of our birth and existence if this result is alone? ”

"Everything is going to die. The end is before death, life is before the end, and the source of life, the meaning of birth, is connected to the meaning of death. Without death, birth is equally meaningless. "As for the meaning of the birth and existence of human beings, it is that it is part of this cycle. ”

"It's really inhumane." I said in a deep voice. (To be continued......)