Minister Zhongli's voice has a soft and youthful yet

  wizened quality to it as it works its way into my mind. I'd read up on

  him previously. Kid's young, by Tian'Chao standards. Just 200. Shit,

  he's half as old as me. His voice resonates in my skull as our neural

  link is established across the void through the storehouse of minds—the

  Alaya-Vijnana.

  "Greetings.

  Lord Argetlam of the Astral Knights. I have heard of you, newest lord

  of the Knights of San Sophia. I presume you aren't fighting on behalf of

  any nations in the Panhuman sphere? If so, what drives you here, given

  the… strained relationship between the Celestial Realm and the Realm of

  Humanity?"

  I

  grimace underneath my helmet and let out an annoyed growl. What

  explanation should I give him for why I am here? Should I tell him about

  the promise I made to her? Eligos laughs distantly in the

  back of my head, wounded though he may be from this recent purification,

  as dizziness rushes through me. Her voice rings through my head.

  Keep

  moving forward. Never stop. Never look back. One day you will find your

  answer to this… this Antinomy. Please survive for me. Live, thrive, and

  I will be more than happy with you.

  Get ahold of yourself, Argetlam. Time to come up with a good enough excuse for why you came here, an actual explanation.

  "Minister

  Zhongli. I assure you that I fight under no flag and for no cause other

  than my own. What drives me here is purely my own free will. The

  reasons why I am here I would like to keep private, but let's just keep

  it at the matter of me wanting to nip what may be a future problem for

  our friends in the Nur Kingdoms in the bud."

  There, that was a solid introduction. Now for the next part. "As

  for why I picked you for help, I am not bound by petty species loyalty.

  The wise commander does not play fair. He tilts the board as far as he

  can in his favor, covers all routes, and denies all avenues of escape

  for his enemy. That is the path to victory. That should be enough to

  tell you why I picked you."

  It's

  a valid explanation. The Rakshasa Sultanates we will be hitting are

  situated along the borders of the Nur Kingdoms, one of the more isolated

  periphery spots in the Panhuman sphere of civilization. Once a distant

  frontier of the Second Imperium, the place fell into ruin when it fell

  and collapsed into a shitload of warring petty states and kingdoms. They

  eventually coagulated into a few major decentralized kingdoms in recent

  centuries.

  Official policy

  on Rakshasa Overgrowths is that, while they are rotting shitholes,

  they also serve as staging points for Rakshasa crusades, thanks to the

  Rakshasa ability to defy conservation of mass. Just about the scariest

  thing in this universe is a Rakshasa crusade. So people like me gotta

  clean them out every decade or so to make sure they don't get any funny

  ideas.

  But that isn't

  the real reason why you are here, Argetlam. You are here for something

  else, aren't you? Killing time until your death, are you?

  Shut up! I quiet that treacherous voice down and wait for Zhongli's response.

  There is a slight pause on the other end before the minister responds, hesitation tinged in his voice.

  "I….

  see. I'd like to request permission to transmit the details of the

  Baise De Fleet and its composition along with the information our scouts

  have picked up on the enemy forces to you so that you may come up with

  accurate battle tactics and countermeasures. May I proceed?"

  An

  eyebrow perks up beneath my helmet. Why the hell would he do that?

  Couldn't he just do it himself? I'm pretty sure the Imperial

  Examination system includes military science as part of the curriculum.

  My mind goes through the possibilities. He could easily be using this as

  an opportunity to slip hostile memetics into our systems.

  On

  the other hand, if he really is being a naive idiot and entrusting me

  with such knowledge, we—I— could perhaps use it later. Perhaps save a

  copy and sell it to the highest bidder. Not for the money of course but

  for fortifying the Panhuman sphere against future Tian'Chao imperialism.

  A

  sharp stinging sensation buzzes through my skull. I suppress a grunt

  of…. surprise as Eligos gives me a little reminder of the terms of our

  deal.

  You are meant to teach me where nobility is found on the battlefield, Eligos says. I

  do not see the nobility in this. Aren't you meant to embody Chivalry

  and Honour? Your ancestors surely would be ashamed seeing you plotting

  to betray an ally in such a manner.

  Cease this foolishness at once before I rescind my part of our deal.

  Alright! Alright! Just cut it out goddamnit! The mention of my ancestors sends a gust of heat to my cheeks, shame running to my core at how far I have fallen. "I apologize, Minister Zhongli, but yes, permission granted. I recommend adding additional encryption."

  "Apologize for what? Also why would I need to add additional encryption?"

  Like I'm going to tell him. "Ah,

  nothing. I was just thinking about…things, things I'd rather keep

  private. As for why I recommend additional encryption. Well, there is no

  such thing as excessive security measures. Don't want any Rakshasa

  Cyberdemons slipping in."

  There is a brief pause on the comms, and then the Minister responds. "I

  see. Very well then. We have approximately 12 standard Terran hours

  before our Alaya-Vijnana drive finishes calculations and we can proceed

  with operations. That should be enough time for you to use our intel to

  your advantage? Don't worry. The Four Sprouts system will let us adapt

  instantaneously. I'm honestly surprised that you humans don't have

  something like that yet."

  Condescending

  asshole. Probably some Dragonblood noble that signed up for this to get

  some cheap glory for himself so that he could climb up the ranks of the

  Celestial Bureaucracy. Privileged asshole probably wasn't even trying

  to brag about how superior the Dragon Realms information sharing

  networks are to ours. I guess all these bureaucrats pick up the same

  smug tone after going through the Imperial Exams.

  "Thank

  you very much, Minister Zhongli. Just be warned that our Alcubierre

  drives are a lot slower than your information based drives, so you may

  start engaging before we can catch up. I'll make sure to account for

  travel delay in planning."

  "Thank you very much, Lord Argetlam. I'll be seeing you soon."

  A

  gust of shame blows through me as the neural link cuts off. He probably

  didn't mean it. The Tian'Chao do enjoy a much higher standard of living

  and have demonstrated greater combat effectiveness than Panhuman

  militaries. It's just…. No, forget about it. Focus on the mission at

  hand.

  I'll plan out what to do with Chagri and Honorius. I'll figure something out.

  The

  elevator creaks and rattles as I descend into the steelwork inner guts

  of my Command Citadel, into the Oghuz quarters. The place is in uproar

  as the Oghuz Freeborn ready themselves for The Hunt. Halls that had just

  hours ago been filled with drunken cheers and singing become logistics

  depots manned by the women of the clan. Fighters, smooth and elegant

  with a panoply of nuclear tipped missiles under their smooth jet-black

  wings, launch from Electromagnetic Catapults into the unknown, their

  pilots fully integrated into them such that man and machines are one.

  I

  find Chagri in the hangar bays tending to one of the Clan Elders,

  those millennia old warriors so modified with cybernetics and Aetheric

  technology won through glorious battle that they are more akin to

  walking tanks and fortresses than men. A colossal figure stands before

  him, over 30 meters tall and composed of dark metal that gives it a

  brutal industrial look, its face only possessing a single blue slit for a

  feature. In its hand is a 152 millimeter high velocity monster of an

  autocannon, resembling a massive assault rifle fit for a titan like it.

  On its right shoulder is a 50 millimeter chain gun, and on its back a

  number of colossal missile batteries, each missile 24 inches in diameter

  and tipped with anti-demonic runes.

  Chagri

  himself sits on a grey box filled with ammunition next to the honored

  Elders, his mechanical figure covered in a green ghillie suit and his

  trusty 15 millimeter HMG in hand.

  I

  raise an eyebrow at the ghillie suit. "Hey, Chagri, you know that those

  Rakshasa hunt your choices right? They seek out the possibilities you

  generate with your every choice, right?"

  A

  core concept that you can find in just about every religion in the

  Civilized Galaxy is the duality between Simplicity and Complexity,

  possibility and actuality. The Father of Greatness blessed man and all

  sentients with the capacity for choice, the capacity to forge order and

  meaning, form and function, from Chaos. Choices are an engine that turns

  potential into actuality, yet each choice creates a forking of pathways

  not taken, possibilities unfulfilled.

  Rakshasa

  is a broad classification for demonic beings antithetical to order

  created when there is too much entropy, too many possibilities, in a

  system. Choices are the primary means through which humans generate

  possibility. So you put two and two together.

  A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

  "Yeah."

  He turns his gaze from the honored Elder, probably cutting off

  transmissions between the two so he can focus on me. Or he is talking

  behind my back. "And what about it?"

  "Then why the hell are you wearing a ghillie suit! You don't need it!"

  He

  stretches mechanical servos as he rolls his neck and shrugs his

  shoulders. "Yeah, because it looks cool. That's all that matters. Those

  attendants of yours will send back pics and recordings of our exploits

  here to the wider public, and I want to look my best."

  I

  simply stare, my gaze probing. I want to tell him how fucking stupid

  the idea of focusing on looking cool on the battlefield is, especially

  during a routine clean up operation that nobody in the Panhuman sphere

  cares about, but I decide to hold my tongue. "So, anyways, I want to

  test something," I begin. "But first, I want to speak to your Clan

  Elders."

  Chagri lets out a

  mechanical laugh at my request. "I'm sorry. The Elders only speak to

  Clan-Kin. But I can, err, relay the request for you."

  Beneath

  the meters-thick steel plating of the Honoured Elder lies a body of

  jagged radial crystals frozen in both time and space, forever cycling

  Shakti and information around a heart of Quantum Computing. Oghuz

  tradition has it that those who survive long enough on the battlefield

  and gain enough glory for themselves cease being human. They become the

  Ongon, the divine guardians of the clan encased in the stars. That

  belief—the information held in those traditions—shapes reality.

  That's

  exactly what I'm counting on. "I seek the honored elders' help. I want

  to test if his nature as the Ongon of your tribe can be used as a focus

  for our Exorcism rite. The process would involve mixing both of our

  theurgic foundations and systems of belief to empower the honored elder

  into a truly transcendent being capable of burning away the Rakshasa

  horde. A fusion of what we refer to as Angels and what you refer to as

  Ongon."

  Chagri lets out a

  low mechanical chuckle at my offer. "You know, it really isn't that

  difficult. Clan Khatal and its Khan converted to Islam while retaining

  their worship of the Ancestors and the stars. They just say that the

  Ancestors become Angels after attaining their Glory. Unfortunately,

  we're not Clan Khatal. I'm not giving up my worship of glorious conflict

  anytime soon. There is nothing like the glorious smell of plasma

  turning sand to glass. You can rip that smell from my cold dead hands."

  "I'm

  not asking you to give up your worship of anything. Where the hell did

  you get that idea? I am just asking you to cooperate with me." How the

  hell can he smell anything anyway? He is approximately 96% machinery.

  Maybe he just remembers it from before he got all chromed up, way before

  I met him.

  He pauses,

  frozen like a deer in headlights, then raises his hands in defeat.

  "Yeah, okay. Listen, what I will say is that you're gonna need a skilled

  Astrologer to pull this off. Our Ongon are engraved in the stars, and

  your angels lie somewhere beyond this material world, in the realm of

  Information and Mathematical computation."

  My

  mind goes to that Albino guy that helped me out, Roland. The feminine

  one. He said that his father was descended from the Chaldean Stargazers.

  And Miss Oliphaele is also descended from the Stargazers. That gives

  me an idea. "Yeah, I know a guy. Listen, I can't be everywhere at once,

  and I gotta talk to Honorius, so can you lend me some help? Just two

  guys is all I need." I hold up two fingers to emphasize my request.

  I feel his gaze bearing down on me even though he lacks a face. So I keep at it.

  "Listen,

  most of the attendants don't trust your people, so I gotta generate

  some sort of comradery between the two of us. Most of the Astral Knights

  are too proud to let themselves get sent here. Just…. Please."

  He keeps staring at me, and the shame that I'm here begging my friend for help instead of getting my men under control sinks in.

  "Fine."

  He makes a snapping motion with his fingers. "I'll assign Mikhail and

  Tugril for it. Never ask me this again, or I promise I'll duel you and

  humiliate you in front of your attendant and my clan so thoroughly that

  you'll start reconsidering whatever life choices brought you to meeting

  me in the first place." His voice module somehow generates a smile in

  his voice.I smile uneasily in return."Thanks." Yet something in my

  blood runs at those words, and my chest tightens.

  Disgusting. Such

  base cowardice and feeble submission. Are you truly the brave and

  gallant knight that I contracted with? Just for that, I ask that you

  duel him. Preferably with death or glory at stake. If you refuse, then

  commit an act of bravery in the coming battle for me.

  Eligos!

  I promise that I'll show you why humans give their lives in battle!

  What they fight and bleed for. Just…. Give me a second. A second, a

  minute, a year. C'mon. You seem quite patient given you are, what, as

  old as human civilization. Fine, I'll commit an act of bravery if it

  means shutting you up.

  Very well. Don't disappoint.

  Geeze, was he always this active? I just had him suppressed and he's still annoying me? I should probably get that checked out.

  Ah,

  whatever. Still there's one thing bothering me. "Hey, what about the

  elder's approval? Didn't you say you were only relaying the requests.

  Why were you speaking so definitively, as if he couldn't disapprove."

  He

  freezes and clasps his hands together, his posture low, and he lets out

  a shuddering noise from his voice box. "Yeah…. Yes. He said yes. Trust

  me. You can't hear it because we communicate via Quantum Entanglement,

  and the clans have our own realm in the Alaya-Vijnana that is strictly

  off limits to you bios. Trust me."

  I

  turn my gaze towards the mechanical giant, gazing into the single slit

  it has for a face. Slender mechanical figures inscribe prayers and holy

  script into its gunmetal plating, nanometers thin etchings inscribed

  into the mechanical flesh and channeling raw information across its

  skin.

  The giant turns its

  gaze down unto me. A silent god glaring into my soul. It radiates

  power—pure power and wisdom. I remember hearing about beings like these

  when I was younger. Enlightened beings that descend from the realm of

  information and mathematical perfection in order to guide mortals to

  liberation. To protect humans from evil and destroy obstacles to

  enlightenment in their compassion.

  My

  brothers told me tales of Buddhas of blue skin and many arms, who wore

  animal skins and necklaces of skulls, and who wielded flaying knives and

  drank blood from skull caps in order to transform the most disgusting

  and reality-binding parts of our psyches into liberating enlightenment.

  The Tech-Monks told me of beings who attained enlightenment and saw past

  this plastic reality into the real world yet chose to go back to help

  others join them, to help those who cry out in anguish and relieve them

  of their suffering.

  Whatever. I shouldn't think about what I have lost.

  "Yeah, sure. I'll be going up. Be seeing you."

  I

  march past paintings of old kings, blessed saints, and honored knights

  as I move through the hallways of my citadel to the Central Church of

  blessed Charles De Magne. The halls are composed of pale silvery white

  marble laced with colorful patterns, swirling rainbows of blue and red

  and black intermixing on pale stone upon which sit mahogany desks and

  great library shelves whose roofs touch the ceiling.

  I'm….

  not entirely sure on the aesthetics here. Maybe I'm just a lowborn who

  can't appreciate true beauty, but I can't tell whether this is ugly or

  not. Aesthetic beauty and comfort weren't a factor when I claimed this

  from the previous head of the Order of San Sophia. Great feasts and

  splendid paintings, epic poems extolling those brave heroes who gave

  life and limb in the name of God and country, armor composed of gold or

  flashy expensive wonder weapons that barely did anything that a

  thousand other cheaper tools couldn't. Such excesses didn't matter as

  anything more than wastes of money and debasements of a soldier's true

  duty.

  Hedonism and excess

  breeds complacency and dereliction of duty. There should be no honor and

  glory in taking a life, even that of something with no ability to doubt

  itself and question its actions, simply a grim acceptance that it must

  be done. That ideally it wouldn't have to be this way but we don't live

  in an ideal world.

  I learned that all too well.

  Whatever. I shouldn't think about what I have lost or what I have never had.

  A

  sliding door opens, and I am greeted by the smell of flowers and the

  sound of prayers. My knights lie prostrating themselves and reciting

  prayers on the warm, wet soil, dirt staining their bone white armor and

  hardlight swords.

  "Oh

  Mani, bearer of truth who guides us out of the Darkness and into the

  light, sharpener of forms, and lord of meaning. We ask of you to aid us.

  Lend us your strength, oh Tathagata whom all beings derive strength

  from, so that we may fight the tides of dread entropy and grant order

  into Chaos."

  Their

  prayers, their cognition and choice of what to believe in, generates a

  wafting aroma of information, radial circuits inside their souls shaping

  possibilities into concepts and beliefs that affect reality. This

  information, this Shakti, gathers at the central church, a lightning

  rod for their beliefs and convictions, and is stored as fuel for the

  coming ritual. The steeple of the great gothic church glitters with the

  light of possibility.

  I

  trample flowers with my inconsiderate steps as I search for my

  lieutenant, maneuvering around prostrated knights. My HUD displays a

  location marker for a knight with a lion-headed helmet and red cape

  draped over his shoulder.

  When

  I find him praying on his knees with his head touching the ground, I

  activate the built-in Alaya-Vijnana link within each of us. "Hey,

  Geoffroi. Just so you know. I'm gonna need you coordinating and leading

  on the operational level after I link up with our friend from the

  Dragon Kingdom. You'll be in command while me, Bishop Honorius, and him

  go handle… something. Don't worry about what it is. Just know that you

  will be dealing with the stress of command for a time."

  My

  second in command doesn't respond for a minute, simply kowtowed with

  his pointer finger extended and his armor touching the verdant soil. I

  cross my arms until he responds, "Yes my lord. I promise to do good in the coming Katharsis. Here

  I vow to protect that which is yours and sand away all that is impure

  so what is beautiful may shine. I merely wish to ask what is enough to

  cause you to give your command to me? What might be of such priority?"

  There's

  an old myth told by those within knightly orders like this one and

  those sworn to uphold human order. The Shroud entrusted to the Knights

  of San Sophia bears the memories of the fallen so that they may never be

  forgotten even after they die. The memories of all the previous masters

  of our order are stored within it for me to sift through. I took it

  upon myself to independently verify the validity of this myth.

  The

  Rakshasa are said to have a trinity of Gods leading them on their

  crusades. Nobody knows anything about them outside of their names, their

  children, who stand at the very apex of their society, and their

  titles.

  Chief among them is

  Sothoth, god of Chaos and Birth, King of the Blessed Sky, Pilot of

  Dawn, Emergent Jubilee, Pluriprotean and so many other pretentious

  titles. He is known to have twin sons. There is Abzathur, Sky-Prince,

  Bringer of Hope, and Lucent Abdicator. And then there is Kor Halak,

  Anointed son and Light-Blade.

  That's

  as much as we know about them. Neither have been seen in the Panhuman

  sphere since the Second Imperium, and too much knowledge has been lost

  to really say much about them.

  However,

  a memory flashes within my mind from when I tried to verify such claims

  myself through the shroud—a memory of one of my predecessors from

  millennia prior, during the Great Rakshasa blight.

  Sharp

  claws pluck my sinews from my bones one by one. I have long lost the

  ability to scream, yet I still try to. My limbs are bound by immaterial

  chains connected to thin air, and I can only look on at the tree of

  thorns before me, metal thorns long as spears from which tens of

  thousands men—my men—hang from, writhing in pain with most having lost

  the ability to think yet kept alive whether they want to or not by the

  infernal presence within this place.

  The

  Rakshasa have begun their work. The world will soon be beautiful.

  Flowers upon flowers bloom across the barren lands, and great trees

  stretch to the heavens, growing from craters. This world will become a

  writhing place where nothing ever dies. What suffers here will never be

  met with the sweet release of finality, only the endless metamorphosis

  and growth as insects and bacteria feed upon their carrion corpses, and

  plants grow within them while they are still conscious.

  This is a place of death. These are beings of death.

  Why?

  Had I done something in some past incarnation, some heinous crime to

  suffer this fate? Please. My God. Please let this be some test for you.

  Tell me to abandon my faith or suffer more and I will keep it, I

  promise I will keep my faith in the face of even the greatest trial.

  Just…. Make it stop. Please, I beg. Give me mercy.

  Another

  tendon snaps, and I try to scream, but I can't. I have lost the will

  to. Vines enter my body from the wounds created with every snip. I

  should be dead from blood loss, yet nothing dies here.

  "Why

  are you here? Well this isn't a test or anything like that. No god

  governs our fate other than ourselves. There is no trail ahead to guide

  us nor do we need one."

  The

  demon's hands gently hold my head up as he fills my vision. I can't

  think. I can only barely make him out. Colorful homelike armor and

  horns that signal an enemy of life.

  "You

  are here because you are a being marked by death, and it is my duty—no,

  my obligation—to save you from your shortening telomeres."

  "Yet

  you reject our salvation, your Emperors collude with the Dark, your

  priests pray to that which is killing them, and you reject our attempts

  at cooperation. I swore to my father and the Reverend Queen of

  all-Patterns herself that I would triumph over all darkness and uphold

  the light. You are beings of death. You possess an artifact of the

  enemy, and that makes you my enemy."

  "Don't

  worry. Your order won't go extinct. And you will be saved soon, but you

  must bear this indignity for the moment. Rejoice, for you shall never

  be touched by death."

  I want death. I want it now.

  "We can't always get what we want."

  I

  nearly vomit when I snap back to reality. I can't tell him. Geoffroi

  shouldn't know what might happen if I mess this up. Maybe it is

  cowardly, but he can't know that Kor Halak might be in the Area of

  Operation.

  "You

  don't need to know. If you hear the codeword "Nexus" on comms from me,

  then that is your cue to fall back with as many units as you can and

  leave the system. Don't bother waiting for me or coming back for those

  left behind. This is an order you can't disobey."

  Geoffroi stiffens and his voice lowers. There is a brief pause, then he responds in a lowered tone. "Yes, my lord. Bishop Honorius is waiting for you in the church, and the attendants who you requested have arrived. Follow me."

  My

  stomach tightens as he walks away, and I proceed to the church. I don't

  want to think about what hell I may have just led these men into by not

  cancelling this operation.