A Dark Thought on Amaurot

[KageTokage]

There isn't much to suggest the "sound" was necessarily being caused by some specific malicious entity, either.

I have little doubt that the root of the Final Days lies with the aetherial sea/Lifestream/underworld, though. Something I find it a little odd in that regard is that while the way the cycle of life and death is stated as currently working is that souls are pulled out of the lifestream to inhabit the bodies of new lives, the first short story about Emet Selch also claims that souls would just spontaneously manifest in new lives, and given the Ancient's ability to glimpse at the very color of souls, it's safe to assume they weren't mistaken in that regard.

Did something about the natural order fundamentally change at some point, making it so new souls are no longer being born or is it simply luck of the draw whether a new life has a fresh soul or a "recycled" one?

There are many things we do know but also don't know about the nature of the world's souls, such as the fact that an Ascian's soul is not completely destroyed when it is "shattered" and rather is simply forced back into the cycle of life and death. But where exactly does that place the souls of those sacrificed to summon and empower Zodiark, though? Are they being held in limbo as part of his being (Emet Selch describes them as dormant and slumbering), unable to return to the cycle without some kind of intervention, or did they simply return to the lifestream and the Ascians intended to have Zodiark pluck them from there (Assuming they hadn't already been reborn) and restore them to life in new bodies?

Their whole scheme seems rather...flawed the more I think about it, and hinging more on possibilities then things they actually confirmed to be doable.