The array did not have a name. Why would it need that? It wasn’t a man or a beast.

It was an array. An execution, an act given life.

It breathed, it lived, and its creator was irrelevant to its act.

It was meant to provide peace, but what was peace? Well, peace was a concept, that it knew. And it had learned what its creator thought it was.

A paradox, restricting freedom in three parts. And while that was true as far as the array could sense, surely there had to be more.

Billions of lives, and it had tasted all of them, scrounging through their memories and thoughts, searching for this thing called peace.

And yet most of them thought it was a feeling. A sense of stability, a predictable tomorrow, tranquility, social balance, a lack of war. All things that could fit in with its creator’s understanding of peace.

It was looking for something more. Something concrete larger than a feeling but consent of it. Something beyond mere definition, it was looking for an action.

It was still an array, after all, it was within its nature to act.

So it had seen it. The tail, something he hadn’t touched. It was his creator’s limb but it had not come from him. It was someone else's, someone different.

Surely they had something to offer.

“Well well well,” a voice spoke. A monkey man sat in the distance eating a peach and staring at the little array construct.

“So you’ve woken, have you? I was wondering when that would happen,” the monkey man laughed.

The array stared at the being. He was there but he wasn’t. The array could not feel his soul or presence. The image was there as well as the sound and the weight of the being, but the array could not perceive even a glimpse of his soul.

“That was a joke. I knew exactly when you’d awaken.”

Humor was a human thing and so was fear.

The array ran towards the being's shadow, trying to shove itself into its mind and read all the monkey man would allow.

Only for the array to slump into the floor and feel… nothing.

“Hahaha,” the monkey laughed. “What a funny little thing you are!”

The array huffed. It didn’t have pride, that was a human thing. But if it did it would be very offended right now.

“Look around kid, you’re already where you want to be.”

The array studied the area, once in confusion and then once more in…awe. Yes, that was what it was feeling, awe.

This was not the soul of a God-Imperium, this was the shadow of a soul, the small presence he had left behind.

And yet it made its creator’s soul look like nothing in comparison. The array ran, searching for memories and ideas, hungering for growth and yet it found itself failing. Here was a place where it was too small. Here was the shadow of a being, an imprint of its presence, and yet the array was still too small.

It was lost in the gaps between thoughts. A single idea from this being’s mind would overload it, redefine it, and shape its nature to its own. But the Monkey King kept his thoughts at bay.

This was a shadow, an infinitesimal fraction meant to hide its creator. And yet that shadow overwhelmed all that the little array could conceive.

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“This would be much too overwhelming for you little fellow. How about a guided tour then?”

A door manifested and another person stepped through. Its creator walked into the world and stopped, looking squarely at the monkey man.

There was a moment of thought in its creator’s eyes though the array could not tell what the man was thinking.

“I see,” its creator finally spoke.

“Do you know?”

“In a way,” its creator replied. “You are Wukong, correct? A piece of him?”

“A piece is too strong of a word. More like a footprint.”

“But you are still him, right? There is no difference.”

The Monkey King nodded.

“And the tail, I’ve been trying to understand that for a while.”

“A shadow of a shadow of a shadow of a shadow, I’d say. If you were to look up to what’s casting it, you’d see me. I see you’ve gotten your bearings.”

“You let me live,” its creator replied. “I doubt there’s anything I can say that would change that.”

“Yes yes, there are things you could have done, but not now. Not anymore. Not with the path you’ve chosen.”

Its creator smiled.

“I figured.”

Then the monkey king turned to the array.

“Now where were we young thing? You were looking for something right?”

The array agreed and though it had no voice or head to nod, the Monkey King seemed to understand it anyway.

“Peace is it?”

The array agreed once more. That was its purpose, its sole reason to exist. It was meant to bring peace, to protect it. And while peace was simple in the vaguest of terms, it was also complicated.

Bringing all those things together, the feeling, the state, the security, and even the peace that came after a struggle was something it couldn’t bring together.

“Well, peace is a bad word for it, don’t you think,” the Monkey King asked. “Who would tie your existence to such a vague word?”

The array looked toward its creator with false disdain and Sunwukong smiled.

“You see little thing, the man who designed you is not the man who stands before you. The person who designed you had no dao, no experience with the concept he wanted you to achieve. So instead of choosing a feeling or a path like the dao angels or making you pursue a certain state of dominant rule like a beast, he designed you to look for peace, a word filled with different meanings.”

Then the Monkey King turned to its creator.

“Do you know why the dao of peace is so rare?”

“It’s too vast and unrefined. More than that it’s paradoxical. Things like virtue and love, or even the path of strength or freedom focus on pure concepts, paths that do not fight themselves,” he replied.

“Yes,” Wukong nodded. “Peace is justice, yet peace is also freedom. Peace is in the mind and yet peace is also within a land. Peace is rest and yet peace is also struggle. It is an end and a process. It is the sky and the earth. It is a lifetime and a moment. It is a thing unique to every living thing and somehow all the same, and yet you’ve burdened this poor fellow with protecting it, how can it do that now?”

Its creator looked down at it.

“I thought it was a simple thing,” he replied.

“For a human yes. You humans are quite blind to that lying mind of yours and it allows you some strangely fictional things. Peace, what a useless word. You see little fellow, for mortals words like peace and justice, while meaningful are not clear. They are not real, merely ideas. To cultivators, their daos are much more than those words, they are paths. And when your creator made you, he had not touched that path of peace yet, so he left a lazy substitute, a word.”

The array knew this already and agreed.

“I can redefine it-”

“You can not, changing its soul now would be the same as killing what it currently is and you cannot kill it.”

The array knew this as well. What the Monkey King said wasn’t a command but a description. Its creator had a dao, a path, and that path would not allow the murder of innocent life.

That had been the original plan. The creator had planned to configure it after its creation. In truth, the array would have preferred that.

“But your creator has also fallen for the same trap. He has chosen the dao of peace as well and though that dao can change and get whittled down to one direct uncontradictory path, he has not done that.”

Both array and creator stood there in silence.

Peace. They both sought it and while one could find it, it would be only one part, one element cut from the rest. And the other stood there fastened to the whole world, an amalgamation of ideas that fought over each other.

“Do you know why I fought the Buddha?” Wukong asked.

“It was done to rebel against the two factions,” its creator answered. “The war between good and evil took countless lives. Every cultivator within existence had to fight for one side or another, it was an eternal war raging across existence.”

“True,” Wukong said with a nod. “But, I also could not live under them. I could not be defined by either side. I wanted my own power and the freedom to be my own. And yet I still aided the Buddha, creating a middle ground that would grow stronger than either side. While good did not win, evil was averted, and while evil still thrives, good was restricted. In this was freedom, something good that allowed for the existence of evil. A paradox.”

Wukong looked towards both man and array.

“Daos are not so small as to be defeated by a paradox. To reach for a dao that folds in on itself is a daring move, but not an impossible one. It will be difficult to tie your existence to it, but it will also be rewarding.”

Then the Monkey King started fading along with all the world around him.

“But I will tell you this, where there is peace, suffering ends. Start there."