Bouncing his twin children on his knees, Gen exchanged smiles with his beloved Bei, eager to taste the sumptuous dinner feast she prepared using the bounty from his latest hunting trip. As much as he loved his infrequent trips out into the forests with his friends, these quiet moments were what he lived for, spending time with his beautiful family in their cozy little home. A simple but fulfilling life, one which made his younger self’s dreams of glory and riches seem cold and empty in comparison. So long as his wife and children had enough food to fill their bellies and warm beds to sleep in at night, what more did he need?

A sombre sigh drew his attention away from his perfect life, and he found an unfamiliar grandfather sitting across the table from him. Even without his embroidered silk robes or gold, silver, and jade ornaments worn about his person, one could tell this grandfather was a wise and powerful man of means from his bearing alone. Stroking his perfectly groomed moustache and silken white beard, the grandfather shook his head in poignant disappointment and said, “Little worm, an endless font of regret and disappointment. Time and effort this Sovereign has sown, yet failure is all We reap.” Gesturing at the surroundings, the grandfather scoffed at Gen’s home and family as if offended. “And now, this Sovereign sees why. Is this what little worm desires? Heaven Blessed with luck and talent, yet possessed by such meagre dreams and lack of ambition, a waste of potential and promise.”

Oh, this poor old man must be senile and have come to the wrong home. “Bei, some tea for our guest please.” Smiling at the grandfather, Gen said, “Good sir, we are but a humble village, and I a simple man. I do not understand your meaning and I fear you have the wrong home, but you are welcome to join us for dinner. My lovely wife is an excellent cook, and my children well-behaved.”

“Enough little worm. Focus.” Gesturing around them once again, the grandfather said, “All this is but a figment of imagination, for there is no home, wife, or children. We sit within a pitifully lacking Natal Palace, one crafted without proper foundation or support, but also crafted without aid and even touched upon the Truth without guidance. An impressive achievement which blinded this Sovereign to little worm’s innate failings, a promising talent and ultimately, poor investment.”

The world spun as Gen was overcome with a sudden headache, his body aching and eyes blurring. “No,” he said, shutting his eyes for relief, but there was none to be had. “No, I don’t... you’re wrong. This is real. This is my life. I am Gen, hunter and chief of the village. My wife Bei gave birth to two children, a boy and a girl. Brother? Samat? Where are you? Help me explain. Deng? Kash? Are you there?”

“You are Gen, yes, but this is not your life. Your brother died before you were born. Your wife died shortly after your nuptials. You have no children and you murdered your parents.” There was no malice in the gentleman’s tone, only apathetic boredom, as if listing chores for Gen to do instead of revealing life-shattering revelations. “You, little worm, are this Sovereign’s shame and Disciple. Remember your life, the one you lived, not the one you’ve imagined here. Remember the things you’ve done and people you’ve killed. Remember it all and suffer. Use the pain, embrace it and think: why do you hurt, little worm?”

“No...Stop!” Despite Gen’s pitiful protest, the rejected memories flooded into him and his world shattered to pieces, never to be rebuilt again. Qing-Qing, Baledagh, Laughing Dragon, and more, Gen remembered everything he went through before he crafted his perfect little world, his place of safety and solace to hide away from the harsh reality of his crimes in reality. The memories continued emerging in his mind, memories of torture, bloodshed, cannibalism, and worse, a life filled with horror and misery while lived amongst the most vile subjects humanity had to offer.

Mother in Heaven... What have I become? Pa... Ma... I’m so sorry...

The burden of his sins weighed heavily on Gen’s shoulders and he fell to his knees in the darkness of the void. “Why?” he asked, looking up at the Uniter, for this old monster was no Mentor of his. “Why couldn’t you leave me be? I didn’t want this, I never wanted this...” Hands, his hands, covered in Pa’s blood while Ma pleaded for him to stop...

Flicking his sleeves, the Uniter almost looked ashamed and apologetic. “Alas, fate and circumstance left this Sovereign with little choice. You, little worm, suffered grievous injury at the hands of your foe, and now you lay comatose and senseless with broken skull and distended brain.”

“He cheated.” The snarl slipped out as Gen wrestled with his memories and emotions, rage and sorrow vying for supremacy within. “He trapped the Spirits and left me without their guidance. With their help, I could have torn him limb from limb, beaten him as easily as turning my hand. It wasn’t fair. It wasn’t right...”

“Perhaps, but such is the price one must pay for excessive reliance on... the ‘Spirits’.” The Uniter spat out the word as if it left a poor taste in his mouth, his tone haughty and patronizing. “This Sovereign warned you, did he not? The razor’s edge, little worm, tread it lightly. Surrender too much or resist too little and doom yourself to a life of mediocrity. You, little worm, you glimpsed true power and twisted it to your advantage, but still you indulged your dark desires for the sake of indulgence alone. This, more than anything else, brought about your downfall. Little worm’s life was spared thanks to this Sovereign personally distracting the Devourer, but the whelp grows resistant to Our persuasion and beguilement.”

Bristling with resentment over his lost paradise, Gen asked, “Then why wake me from my dream? Why not leave me to die in peace?”

Oozing with condescending amusement, the Uniter scoffed. “There is no risk of death, not with this Sovereign here to Heal you, but for all its wonders and complexities, the mind is a fragile thing. The flesh endures, but the mind is gone and this Sovereign lacks the patience to mend it, leaving only this remnant behind, the weak and naive village boy who could not bear to face the truth.”

So Gen’s evil half was dead and gone? No, the other Gen was still him, but a Gen bereft of love and compassion, conscience and morality, all tossed aside in his pursuit of power. A grave mistake, but one he would not make again. “I will not be your tool,” Gen declared, finding strength in his grief and remorse even as the pain threatened to overwhelm him. “My sins may damn my soul in the eyes of the Mother, but at least I will die in Her light.”

“Religion, hmph. A feeble excuse for those happy to remain ignorant of the workings of our world.” Waving his displeasure aside, the Uniter sighed and said, “No matter. Little worm is mistaken, for he is no longer of any value to this Sovereign. This relationship began with such high hopes, but little worm disappointed at every turn. Perhaps one of the others will prove superior, but all lack little worm’s most desirable quality.” Gesturing at said quality, it was only then Gen realized his hands had turned metallic, a reflection of reality now that he’d lost his shelter. “A puzzling conundrum ‘Blessings’ are, so infrequent this Sovereign rarely has a chance to study them, much less learn the key to unlocking humanity’s full potential, but with luck, this one can still be salvaged.”

The Uniter snapped his fingers and Gen’s body flooded with pain, his headache intensifying and mind growing so cloudy he couldn’t even catalogue his aches and injuries from his beating. Speaking over Gen’s agonized groans and whimpers, the Uniter continued, “This Sovereign intended to guide little worm for decades to come, nurture a Disciple with patience and guidance, but time is no longer our ally. The Devourer walks a new Path and already proves great hindrance, an anomaly and outlier this Sovereign sought to eliminate, but little worm failed and fell. Fear not, for little worm can still be of use and the mission accomplished yet, though considerable potential will be lost. This Sovereign abhors waste, but distant water cannot quench nearby fires.” Chuckling at a joke which was lost to Gen in the throes of pain, the Uniter added, “Now, this Sovereign must borrow this form to correct little worm’s mistakes, so return to your dreams, where there is no loving family to await you.”

With those words, countless Spirits burst out of the Uniter’s embroidered robes, no, from the embroidery itself, streaming out in numbers greater than he’d ever seen before. It was all Gen could do not to recoil in horror as the void filled with their horrific forms and their wailing filled his ears, dragging him away and condemning him into the Father’s maw for all that he’d done. Failure was all he was good for, torment his lot in life, misery what he deserved, and suffering all he would know, this and more they promised, screaming their message in a thousand tongues and again in a thousand more. When the madness settled and he came to once again, Gen laid bound and helpless upon the rack while he, the other him, the soulless him, stood ready with tools they both knew all too well.

Oh how Gen screamed when the other him set to bloody work, and how it smiled to watch him suffer. On and on this went for what felt like an eternity, and when the pain grew too much to bear, a second voice whispered in Gen’s ear. “There is no need to suffer so. Surrender, and your pain will disappear.”

And in his pain and desperation, Gen foolishly believed him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

With the Demons out in full force to guard Gen’s retreat, there’s little I can do to kill him, but there is still plenty of fighting to be done. The Enemy forces are in disarray as the tribal Defiled flee the field, heeding the instructions of their Spectre parasites to get as far away from me as possible. Thrilling as it is to send hundreds of thousands of Defiled into a panic, my mood is dark as I lead my quin-riders away from the Demons and take out my frustrations on the retreating Defiled.

Which only serves to put me in a fouler mood.

Exterminating one’s enemies sounds fun and all, but it takes a real toll on the psyche. The battle is no longer a battle, but a massacre, a bloodbath of butchery and carnage. It’s one thing to kill a person in self defence, but another thing altogether to stab someone in the back while they’re running away. This isn’t the first time I’ve chased down fleeing Defiled, and it certainly won’t be the last, but no amount of rationalization or justification will ever make me feel good about what I do here. Defiled or not, they are still human lives, ones which Mahakala claimed could be saved.

I’m not saying I want to save them. Killing these savages is... prudent, if not necessary, but doing it like this leaves a bad taste in my mouth. There are no innocents here, but it’s hard to see the Defiled as soulless monsters when they run screaming from you in wide-eyed terror.

Not too too hard seeing how they’re all wearing human-skin face-wraps, but still...

Though panic reigns supreme, some of the Defiled are still holding their ground, namely the intimidating, heavily armoured bunch standing a kilometre away. Soon enough, orders from Hongji arrive telling the cavalry to stand down and return to camp. No doubt the Colonel thinks the Defiled retreat is a feint or a trap and doesn’t want his cavalry to overextend, but I know better. The tribal Defiled are running because they are more or less controlled by the Spectres within them, and the Spectres are terrified of being Devoured, but the Defiled soldiers? I kept thinking there was something off about them, and I think I’ve finally figured it out.

They’re not Defiled, not really. Gen, his mounted bowmen, the disciplined soldiers, none of them are ‘true’ Defiled. Or maybe I’m wrong and it’s the other way around. The tribal savages, the ones we’re used to seeing, most of them are little more than hate-filled meat-sacks for the Spectres to guide, but these new Defiled, these disciplined soldiers, I’d say they’re more like... well...

The closest analogue I can think of is... me.

Don’t get me wrong, they’ve gone well past the point of drinking tea with Spectres, and in keeping with the analogy, I’d say they have a metric butt-tonne of Spectre squatters bunking inside their heads, but the individuals themselves have yet to submit to their spiritual overlords, much like what happened with Baledagh and me. Scary as it is to see what I could have become, I’ve no doubt the Spectres inhabiting those stoic Enemy soldiers are freaking the fuck out about being Devoured, but it sure as hell doesn’t show in their host’s expressions. Even as I ride back to the Imperial camp, the Enemy soldiers busy themselves rounding up the fleeing Defiled to keep them on the battlefield, forcing the shirtless savages to join the armoured soldiers in their formation.

A line of tribesmen followed by a line of soldiers, a literal meat-shield for the army of Imperial soldiers turned Defiled.

Eager as I am for the battle to start anew, out on the exposed northern flank, my tired allies are less than enthusiastic about the process. Fatigue and melancholy hang heavy from their shoulders as they rest where they can, their morale low and courage faltering at the sight of this fresh, elite army arrayed against them. Fighting off hordes of shirtless savages is one thing, but now we face a disciplined, well-equipped army of former Martial Warriors who’ve been turned by the Enemy. Normal Defiled are tough and fearless, but they’re also reckless and impulsive which makes them simple to deal with. If the Imperials had fought this battle on an open field, we would have been overwhelmed by the Enemy’s superior numbers within minutes, but hunkered behind our defensive positions, there was only so much surface area for the Defiled to assault. The Enemy didn’t even bother to surround Sinuji beforehand, though I suppose they had to worry about Imperial reinforcements riding to the rescue or something. Regardless, as hard pressed as the Imperial forces were, we were only engaged with a fraction of the Enemy forces at any given time, while the majority were stuck waiting around for their turn on the front lines.

The field is thick with corpses of the fallen, and some of those Defiled tribesmen never even came within spitting distance of the walls, but they don’t care. They’re here because the Spectres want their pound of flesh, and they don’t care who they get it from.

This disciplined Defiled army presents a different sort of threat. Yo Ling showed the Empire what an organized Enemy force could do when led by a competent commander, and the Imperials have yet to figure out how to react. Even without knowing what I know, every soldier in Sinuji can see the Enemy not only outnumbers us, but they’re also better equipped to boot, with every single soldier clad in heavy armour or better. One could even argue the Enemy army is also better trained than the Imperial forces thanks to guidance from the Spectres, and doubly so because a large portion of our troops are little better than glorified militia, with little to no experience fighting against disciplined Martial Warriors on a battlefield.

Truth be told, I’m not entirely certain Sinuji could hold against this fifty-thousand strong army of Enemy soldiers, even without the tribal auxiliaries to support them.

Luckily, after a brief, but stressful interlude, it turns out the Enemy army has a different plan in mind. Mounted on one of the few surviving gajashias, Gen breaks away from the army and rides towards Sinuji alone, his progress slow and stately as if out for a morning jaunt. I’m surprised he’s already conscious considering I literally bashed his face in, but the Spectres are probably masking the extent of his injuries as they often do, or he has someone skilled in Healing to support him. Regardless of how he recovered so quickly, this is my chance to end things once and for all, so without waiting for him to spew his despicable lies and hate-filled rhetoric, I ride out to meet him on the fields of Sinuji.

Needless to say, Argat is not happy, but at least he knows better than to bring my morale down before a duel.

Having learned from my earlier mistakes, I reach for Balance and shut out the mass of Spectres still swirling about my Core. It’s only been a few days, but already it feels so needlessly complicated absorbing Chi this way, having to focus and keep myself anchored amidst Heavenly Energy’s bipolar personalities, the calm embrace of the Mother and the raging demands of the Father. Lean too far one way or the other and things go wrong, either rendering me slow and talent-less or turning me into a rage-filled murder hobo. On the other hand, Devouring Heavenly Energy to turn into Chi comes with neither of those downsides and is as easy as flicking a switch, because all I need to do is think about opening my Core to the world, and the world rushes in.

Problem is, Devouring won’t help me here. I’m topped up on Chi, there are no free-floating Spectres to Succ, and I need Balance to keep the Spectres in my gut from manipulating my thoughts.

Stopping halfway between the Defiled army and Sinuji, Gen dismounts and awaits my arrival, his smile far too cheerful for someone who just got the beating of a lifetime. His armour bore the brunt of the damage and remains wholly intact, but I felt muscles tear and bones break beneath my assault. I hurt him, I know I did, so why is he so... calm? It’s eerie how he just stands there with one hand behind his back and the other stroking his beardless chin, not posturing like a young noble but merely doing what comes naturally to him. Whereas he normally gives the impression of someone trying too hard to be cool, here he looks so composed and relaxed its as if he’s done this a thousand times before, like we’re old friends meeting for a chat instead of hated enemies here to duel to the death.

Most uncharacteristic of all is his silence, not uttering a single word even after I arrive. Instead, he merely watches me, studies me, as if seeing me for the first time, and I note a hint of surprise within his gaze. With the bearing of a wise old grandfather, he looks me up and down to take my measure, and I notice his fingers are still normal length and not at all sharp. It’s as if he were a different person wearing the same skin, which leads me to believe he has yet to wholly recover from his earlier beating. Not surprising at all since head wounds are tricky to fix, but I find this mute, zen Gen thoroughly unnerving to the extreme and almost wish he’d go on a rant about the Truth or something.

With Unity in hand and Tranquility strapped to my wrist, I dismount from Zabu and send him away, just in case Gen targets him out of spite. Silence blankets the battlefield as I stand across from my foe and expect him to open his mouth and speak, but Gen continues to stand there in tranquil serenity, utterly still except for his wandering eyes and chin-stroking hand. The Gen standing before me, he deserves all the wolves, tigers, and dragons emblazoned on his armour, not like the snivelling, weak-willed Gen I fought earlier.

Maybe I should’ve rinsed some of this blood off or at least put away the gourds of Chi-infused water. I look like a dirty drunkard who murdered a pig and rolled around in its filth...

Having studied me long enough, Gen cocks his head in silent question and waves me forward, a haughty invitation to attack if I’ve ever seen one. Problem is, his calm demeanour and confident attitude have me wondering if I’ve stepped into a trap, but if so, it’s already too late. Even if there are twenty mole-rat Demons lurking around us, I can’t walk away from this, not after already letting Gen get away once. Taking my stance, I opt to approach with caution instead of my standard, all-or-nothing charge, but my foe waits with the relaxed patience of a true Peak Expert, as if it were Akanai or Nian Zu standing across from me instead of the weak and worthless Gen.

Inching closer ever so slowly, I slip into striking range but continue to hold back, wondering what he’s got up his sleeve. Then, the point is moot as Gen makes his first move, a single step forward to close the distance. Reacting on instinct, I thrust out with Unity and freeze in surprise as the blade pierces through the Runic armour and bites deep into flesh and bone. Still wearing that same, calm smile, Gen wrenches the glaive out of my hands and leaves it protruding from his chest, barely even flinching as it quivers in mid air. Nodding in encouragement, Gen waves me forward and invites me to come quickly and finish the job.

Despite all my fears and reservations, the temptation is too much. Balance on Windy Leaf followed by Pierce the Horizon, and in the blink of an eye, Peace joins Unity embedded in Gen’s flesh. Locking onto my wrist with his steely grip, Gen’s smile widens even further as he looms overhead, not growing in size, but presence as he nods at my third and final weapon, indicating I should give it a try. Even though I’ve dealt him two killing blows, I still feel like I’m the one in mortal danger, not him, but nonetheless, I slide Tranquility’s dual blades between his ribs and marvel as he accepts the blow without flinching. Grabbing my left arm as well, Gen and I stand locked in this deadly embrace, and try as I might, I cannot pull free.

“Be proud, little Devourer,” Not-Gen says, his eyes twinkling in delight. “For this Sovereign has seen your potential and deems you too dangerous to leave alive.”

“...Who are you?”

Shaking his head, Not-Gen’s smile fades away as his physical forms ripples before my eyes. “Dead men need no answers.”

Behind him, a swarm of Spectres take the skies and rush towards us, freed from their fleshly constraints as the Defiled soldiers cut down the savage tribesmen as tribute to Not-Gen’s Demonic Transformation. My mouth goes dry and panicked struggles grow frantic, but his steely fingers dig deep into my flesh and hold me in place, too strong to break free but not strong enough to rend through flesh and bone. Then, all too soon, time runs out and the Demonic Ichor coursing through Not-Gen’s veins dissolves my Spiritual Weapons caught in his flesh.

The dam bursts.

The wall crumbles.

The forge breaks.

The drill cracks.

The Void shatters, and my Core, my Natal Palace, my Aura are no more. Everything within surges back out into the world, the Spectres no longer contained and Chi and Heavenly Energy no longer mine. Crippled and defeated, I fall to my knees and await death, for what else can a mere mortal do?

Chapter Meme