Nissa’s connection to Amonkhet was weak and painful, but the land retained fragments the city’s teachings denied. She found memories of an older world, eight gods rather than five and catacombs emptied of bodies Bolas had claimed. The apparent timelessness of Naktamun had been manufactured after mass destruction.
Bolas had arrived when the Mending reduced old planeswalkers’ power and built a route toward recovering dominance. He killed most adults, altered the surviving children’s memories and reshaped the gods. Several generations then grew inside a story whose only author was the dragon they worshipped.
Chandra and Nissa’s discovery changed the question. The Gatewatch was not searching a functioning culture for one hidden weapon; it was standing inside the weapon’s factory. Freeing people required more than exposing a lie, because family, faith and every measure of achievement had grown around it.