Throughout the years of Korven's investigations, she had discovered numerous miracle users. Many have simple abilities like Blilinyc and his explosions. At the same time, many have complex, multistep abilities, such as Cansyk's confusing ability, known only by its name, curse. Although there are dozens of well-known miracles in Kilder, and many miracles outside the public eye, none of them have the ability like this. No miracle is powerful enough to banish anyone into an unending dark void remotely. No miracle can take someone's body, keeping them alive through only the head and limbs. But every single miracle has something in common. Every miracle has rules.
Korven's realization that her dagger had come with her led her to recall the most basic aspect of miracles she had forgotten amid the panic and noise of the void, as if the screech of the void was purposefully placed to distract her from thinking. But as Korven calms down, the sound does too. Even though Korven only calmed down to try to think clearly, the reaction that the void made to her shift in mentality led her to the first rule,
"The void knows what I am feeling; this must mean the void is in some way connected to my mind." She says to herself, taking a mental note of the 'rulebook'.
With this rule, Korven tries again to connect the void to any miracle she knows about.
"There are many miracle users who can manipulate an enemy's brain, but none in Kilder, and even they can't trap someone in their own brain." She adds, reflecting on her current theory of being trapped in her own brain.
In the midst of reflecting on the theory of being in her own brain, Korven is reminded of her arms, her arms that are completely covered in blood, because that's the only thing visible.
"In any true darkness, nothing is visible unless it emits its own light, like an angler fish at the bottom of the ocean. But blood doesn't emit any light. What does blood have to do with my mind?"
With the realization of blood acting as some sort of source of light, Korven adds the second rule to the 'rule book' of this miracle.
"Blood has something to do with the miracle, as it acts as some sort of rule book."
Korven adds another rule,
"Although I lost my body, I was somehow able to keep my head, arms, and dagger. These three clues should be enough to help me find my way out, but how are they connected? Am I missing something?"
Korven tries to connect the dots but finds no sign they have anything in common. Instead of dwelling on what she can't change, she remembers something else—another rule.
"I can't activate my miracle in this area." She says, before pausing,
"Maybe I'm just not thinking about it right." She posits.
By now, Korven has stopped thinking, or even mumbling to herself, choosing just to speak outloud, not like anyone is around to hear her.
For the third time, Korven cuts herself with the dagger, activating her ability, but this time, shes not doing it to find a way out. Again, she chooses only slightly to jab her finger. Whilst a small cut on her finger like this would be lucky to afford her a second of memory, that's more than enough for her experiment. Instead of trying to picture a memory from before she got shifted, she just pictures the moment when she entered.
"Rule 4 would be that my miracle doesn't work, but maybe it just doesn't work with memories from before." She theorizes.
Just as she clears her mind, trying to activate her miracle, she is proven correct: for half a second, she hears her past self speak,
"None of these work. Who are you?"
And with that, Korven is back in her body. With a grin on her face, a grin that she presumes is similar to Yiun Glint's when he invented the first heart-lung machine. The grin of genius. As Korven discovers what might lead to a means of escape.
"Speaking out loud this whole time worked. If it weren't for the sound of me complaining, I wouldn't have been able to tell the void from my memory apart from the void of the present."
"Anyway, it all worked out in the end because I finally understand." She says, a grin spreading across her face.
"My miracle didn't work earlier when I tried to enter a memory from before my shift. But I can enter my memories from when I shifted." Of course, she concludes that,
"The memories from before are false, they are only memories of memories, they are memories of my mind but not this body."
She hesitates, knowing that she's getting closer to the truth, before she continues speaking as if there was someone there listening to her.
"That, of course, must mean that I am separated from my past self, my mind trapped here while my body might exist in the real world."
Her grin grows, looking down in satisfaction that she outsmarted the void. She continues her theory, seemingly talking to the void, or whoever is behind it.
"All miracles come with limitations, yours has one as well, doesn't it?" She says with a light laugh, before lifting her dagger into the air.
"After the first hour I spent here, or at least what I thought was an hour, I thought to myself, 'If I don't find a way out, I'm going to lose my mind.' That's when I realized something: that was your plan. In fact, you have already succeeded at least once, turning someone insane by forcing them into this void. But I don't think Tynro escaped, did he?" she asks, looking into the darkness, pretending to talk to it.
"Tynro disappeared when he looked into the Chosen Angels. This is clearly how, but I'm not convinced you thought of everything," she looks at the dagger illuminated in blood once more,
"You forgot about your limitation."
Korven activates her miracle before retracing her exact steps from the moment she appeared in the void.
"Just like how I appeared into this void with a dagger, Im assuming Tynro appeared with his notebook, how else would he be able to write down his mindless scribbles? A smart man like that probably lasted a couple of days, maybe a week, before eventually going insane. Honestly, I don't think I would've lasted nearly that long in here. Luckily, you messed up. Tynro was able to write in his notebook from here, meaning your limitation isn't what I thought it was; the notebook existed in both this world and the real world. As his mind unravelled, so did his notes. in both worlds. What I was reading weren't the notes of someone losing his mind from the dedication of hunting a cult, but a man stuck in a prison created to drive him insane."
She arrives at the exact spot where she first appeared. Any normal human would have no way of differentiating this piece of void from any other; nevertheless, Korven was able to retrace her steps by playing her memory over her reality and finding her past self's landing spot.
"I then realized, if everything that happened to the notebook also happened in the real world, the same thing must be going on with my dagger. If I'm right, then I'll be able to activate my own ability by cutting my palm from this world, breaking the rules of this world, sending this mind back into my actual body, escaping from your creation."
She cuts the space where her real body should be, hoping that her body still exists in the real world. As she finishes the cut, blood starts to pour out from where her chest would be if it still existed, then she pictures a random memory—a memory of her walking to church with her parents. For a few minutes, she floats, silently praying that when she appears back, she'll see the walls of her apartment and not the pitch-black walls of the void.
She feels her memory fading away, like she's waking up from a dream she doesn't want to leave. She closes her eyes as she materializes back into her mind, scared to open them, scared that she has no other ideas to escape.