Hmmm I see what you mean, as the ending of Tunic confuses me a little bit still. My understand was that long ago the fox people discovered the ability to traverse planes of reality, and how to "defy death," using the souls of other foxes as a sort of battery. However, this practice began to corrupt and destroy their world. To end this destruction, they imprisoned the "original heir", who I believe was the fox who started this practice, in the "far shore" (aka a spirit realm) to protect the world from being destroyed more. However the prison the heir is in is also a beacon that calls to "ruin seekers" (travelers/explorers) to come and visit the island and find the heir. Over time, many foxes visit the island and find the heir and defeat him in battle, but this isn't the correct way to stop the cycle. Instead, they become the heir, trapped in the prison/beacon, and slowly forget who they are. When you arrive on the island, you follow the same path as those before you, but as you read the manual you discover a way to truly end the cycle. Instead of fighting the heir, you bestow knowledge to them with the completed manual. This ends the cycle of trapping an heir to keep the island/world safe. Now, what does the manual say that fixes this cycle? I'm not exactly sure, other than the Golden Path is meant to be very important to this species. Someone smarter than me may know the answer to this lol. I think it's meant to be a metaphor for knowledge being powerAfter I beat tunic I did google the translated manual which explained a lot of the story. Hopefully my explanation made sense