Lamentatio Ultima, Stanza 413

You believe this place exists to punish you.
You are wrong.
Punishment implies judgment. It implies that someone, somewhere, has weighed your life and found it lacking.
Salusa Secundus does not judge.
It does not care.
The storms do not ask who you were. The heat does not care who your father was. The beasts do not pause because you once held rank, or title, or love.
This is not punishment.
This is revelation.
Here, you are shown what remains when all illusion is stripped away.
Most of you will die.
This is not failure. This is clarification.
A very small number of you will survive. Not because you are worthy—but because you are capable of continuing.
And those who continue… will be taken.
Not as men.
But as instruments.