Let me tell you something. Since

  you are currently in a bind. I feel like you will need this

  information. I try to play by the rules and not interfere in the game

  unlike my friend but there is no rule about giving out vital

  information. So I'm putting my finger on the scale here.You

  call Rakshasa demons, not in the ancient sense of tutelary spirits and

  lesser deities that guide man along his destiny but mere corrupters and

  tempters from beyond that can be summoned by infernal rite. Not neutral

  guides but tricksters and fiends who tempt you with beauty and

  prosperity.You

  would be right in a sense. Their king was quite successful in becoming a

  syllogism for Chaos and Birth, but you are missing something. The

  Rakshasa were once mere beings of flesh like you. Once they played the

  game of life like you. They may be the most faithful servants of the

  enemy but they are not the enemy itself. You have been merely

  identifying the symptoms and calling it the disease.

  I

  don't understand. How could they have achieved such power—power to

  bypass causality—if they were born of flesh and not of mind. The power

  the Rakshasa wield is nothing like any Theurgy available to mankind. It

  resists classification and experimentation furiously.

  Oh

  believe me. There is a difference between mere tricks conjured by

  sapient's observation of the world and true arcane power wielded by

  those who bypass causality. One is merely wielding one's observation and

  interpretation of the world and the other is wielding the primordial

  forces of the world undiluted.Your

  mistake is asking why it is instead of what it is. There are many

  things in this world that do not obey the simple logic of cause and

  effect that you humans live by and I have not spoken of them all, let

  alone killed them.But that is getting off topic. Allow me to tell you who your enemy truly is.Your enemy is a blind idiot storm of progress and endless growth corrupting all in its path in the name of love.It

  is formless. A storm of kaleidoscopic light and fractal imagery

  stalking the void. It slinks between stars, bringing down grand

  explosions of evolution and growth where once lifeless rocks become

  vibrant rainforests, life prospering in the very crevices of time and

  space as physics is subverted. Do

  not let this deceive you. Do not confuse beauty with goodness. I am

  merely asking you to extend your judgement beyond surface level and

  consider what may happen when once orderly systems are thrown out of

  balance, ecosystems thrown into chaos and atomized civilizations given

  the technology of the gods without the wisdom and guidance to properly

  use them.Scientists

  of the Panhuman sphere have long since wondered where all the aliens

  were. Why was humanity so alone in the stars, free to atomize into

  dozens of tiny clades and subcultures obsessed with metamorphosis and

  change.I'll tell you where the aliens went.The

  lucky ones destroyed themselves in monopole fire and black hole

  detonations. Their worlds may be reduced to inhospitable tombs but they

  know peace. The unlucky ones are damned to an eternity of metamorphosis

  without identity, struggling, metamorphosing and dying over and over

  again with no refrain from the blinding light. They yearn for stillness,

  for peace, a shade from the blinding light.Let this be your solemn warning.

  "Hail,

  despondent child of Terra. Do not worry. There is no glory to be had in

  slaying the helpless, even if they reject our salvation. I merely wish

  to convince you to renounce the dark and embrace life. I am An Raggaar,

  World-calming Third, child of Rhuxis. Reject my mercy and you will

  never make any more mistakes."

  My

  face is ashen white as I stare up at the golden spider. Its voice is

  jovial yet raspy, disguising the cruelty of its actions. I notice ornate

  carvings stained red with the blood of knights, and I can't help but

  think of it crushing humans to pulp under its legs. My lips tremble as

  my leg muscles tighten. Every nerve in my body is telling me to run, but

  I know how pointless it would be.

  "W-Why?

  Why won't you kill me? N-not that I want you to. Please please don't!"

  Beads of sweat run down my forehead, and my heart pounds like it's going

  to rip its way out of my chest. I look around and see how the corpses

  of dead knights and attendants become consumed by the scenery, plants

  growing in their skulls and vines running through their exposed

  intestines, and I nearly wretch.

  The

  eight-legged spider laughs through fangs pierced with diamonds and

  ruby, and I can't discern if it's from companionship or arrogant

  cruelty. "Believe me. We Rakshasa are not uncivilized savages like you

  deep-drinkers are. We would never be so barbaric as to kill those who

  cannot defend themselves, and it would be a stain upon my honor to end

  your life without giving you the choice to gain freedom from death. Our

  great monarch was born to a species who sold their own young to be

  slaughtered in a hideous world with no justice or morality. He attained

  his enlightenment, turned the arid lands bountiful with life, and he

  surely would wish that none would have to suffer like he did."

  I

  look around at the maimed bodies of the knights beside me and notice

  the dried blood on my shoes and calves, the thick iron scent of spilled

  blood mixing with the scent of Ozone. "Freedom from death? Wha-what do

  you mean by that?" Shaky rapid breaths exit me as my heart palpitates.

  What happened to Adelle? Where is she? If she doesn't fight back then

  maybe she can live. Please, I want to see her one more time.

  The

  spider lets out a laugh, face filled with mirth as it speaks. "We were

  once a destitute, corrupt, and savage race. A traitorous race that sold

  their own young to be eaten and hoarded blessings like wealth. We were

  the natural prey of the world. Every route led to our own death."

  An

  Raggarr speaks with a grand and eloquent tone, one of his arms raised

  to the heavens as if reciting a soliloquy. "Then she saved us. Her

  holiness, Luminary of Light, the First Anchorite, the Horticulturist,

  Mother of Ghouls, Daughter of the Sky, most-holy Sphere and Reverend

  Queen of all-Patterns. From her womb came the ghouls. When we were

  stricken dead, they would revive us. When the world was causal, they

  taught us how to work adjacent to it."

  "And they told us our birthright was everything. Absolutely everything."

  "Then

  why? Why do you do this then? Why do you kill us and terrorize us?

  Strike that same fear into our hearts that you yourself experienced.

  Why?" The words escape me, and I feel so stupid. I close my eyes, and

  tears escape me as I prepare for the creature to charge and cut my head

  from my body.

  "Isn't it

  obvious? The Ghouls yearn to bind themselves to others, and we yearn to

  give others salvation. We are not selfish people who covet immortality

  for ourselves like you would in our situation. We diagnose that all evil

  is born from an inability to let go of past grievances and forgive each

  other, to take the leap of faith needed to trust one another. Symptoms

  like alienation, violence, cruelty and debauchery are simply born from

  your inability to love each other."

  "The

  Ghouls grant us a clear solution. Our minds are rendered blank when we

  rise. When we wake, we do not remember who we hate or why we hated them.

  We do not remember those traumas that keep us awake at night. We are

  given a second chance. A chance to be better. But that which rises must

  first have sunk."

  My

  stomach sinks at those words, then a harsh static runs through my

  mind—that same static I felt when I heard the Clan Elder. Then singing.

  It sounds so beautiful, the words in a foreign language, yet I know

  exactly what they mean. I see a young man, face smooth and without the

  scars of battle, wrestling with a four armed creature wreathed in

  lightning.

  The

  adversaries priming, like wolves within the snow. Our consciousness is

  dying, too stubborn to let go. I see what I truly am, an alloyed core

  guided by invisible hands. Yet I risk more than my pride and honor. My

  soul is in ashes but I will never kneel.(I

  remember what it was like to earn my first cybernetic. It was centuries

  ago, during the great age of Auruk piracy. I was but a young lieutenant

  then, face scarless and eyes filled with ambition yet unworthy of the

  blessed machine. My first trophy was the skull of an Auruk captain. I

  wrestled with the four armed bastard, chest scarred from his

  electromagnetic blade, and won myself glory. We drank and sang poems

  extolling our glory and the glory of the Khans. How young I was, how

  foolish I was,)

  I

  know this voice. It is the voice of the Clan Elders that I heard.

  Whatever your name is, do you hear me? I see the metal colossus tearing

  through the thick jungle. The pound of hypervelocity shells detonating

  and tearing the overgrown sod sounds like the hammer of the gods in my

  ears. Its flight pack incinerates the greenery, giving it a shroud of

  acerbic smoke. Missiles fly from its back and detonate in great

  fireballs of plasma.

  The

  raven in the updraft, I soar on borrowed wings. With heart beneath the

  construct. Red echoes in the fractured canvas, singing to my weary mind.

  Protected from the calamity, I am one of my own kind.(Yes.

  I hear your calls for salvation, despondent child. My mind is blurry,

  driven by instinct as I smash through the teeming hordes of life without

  death. You who represent life grown cancerous, hear me. I am the anvil,

  the hammer, the kiln. I am the flame and the breath. Abide by me or

  die. I have fought on a thousand battlefields and I have never known

  defeat.)(I will save you. Just guide me to where you are. Be my shining lodestar and I will raise you from hell.)

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.

  "Child.

  Your face went blank, and moisture is streaming from your eyes." An

  Raggarrs deep voice bellows out and I jolt. The smell of acerbic smoke

  hits my nostrils, and behind the golden spider I see the great bellows

  of flame, the crackle of distant explosions in my ear. He's close. I

  just need to buy time.

  "What

  of your loved ones? Your friends and family? When your brothers and

  sisters embrace you, do you ask who they are? Can you not nod in

  agreement with recollection of your childhood with the gentle nostalgia

  of memory? I would not desire to live empty and ignorant for only a

  little more life." My voice is shaky and uncertain as I muster up my

  courage. The spider tenses, muscles flexing under chitin before a great

  roar fills my ears.

  "IMBECILE!

  You do not listen and you do not learn. It does not matter who we were,

  only who we are and who we will be. There is no past. Only now, only

  what comes after. Death has always cleansed all evils. It is the shield

  against despair. One does not need to know what transpired there, in the

  shining fecund of one's youth. Experience is inferior to existence.

  Memory is fallible. What happened there must be good, because it was

  your enlightenment. No other detail matters."

  An

  Raggarrs voice bellows with a sublime fury, his tone utterly fanatical

  as if reciting holy scriptures. I flinch at his verbal assault, the

  scent of burning foliage entering my nostrils with renewed intensity.

  The roar of the Clan Elder's flight pack distant but getting more

  intense. Just a few more moments.

  An

  Raggarr raises his upper right arm, and a vortex, glittering and

  prismatic with yellow flames and blue bolts of lightning and violet

  particles rotating around a center of pure unrefined power, opens up.

  "The Ghoul finds you fascinating. It yearns for its other half, and it

  seems to have chosen you." Everything the Vortex touches grows

  uncontrollably, trees of bone with leaves of flesh grow from the corpses

  of the Knights, entwining with rising foliage in a hideous yet…

  strangely beautiful sight.

  The

  vortex approaches at a gradual place, its brilliant center surrounded

  by the swirling elements like an eye peering into my soul, gaze

  unbreaking as it marches towards me. Behind it, An Raggarr readies his

  blades dripping in yellow plasma and blue lightning. "I must apologize

  to you. It has been quite the fascinating conversation, but to rise to

  the sky, one must first be sunk in the deep. Rejoice, child, for

  salvation awaits."

  Tears

  flow down my face as it speaks, words escaping me when I try to speak.

  This world has gone very wrong. I don't want to lose them. Those

  precious few moments of joy I had with Adelle and Argetlam and my

  father, those things I must do before my death. I will not live as some

  ignorant husk empty of recollection, without those moments of joy.

  Something

  flares in your soul, running through thousands of kilometers of psychic

  sporocarp with lysergic gleaming through the fruit body gills. Signals

  race down faux neurons on dense microbial highways - - - little detrite

  spores of consciousness - - - and somewhere an kaleidoscopic eye, a

  necropolis of neurons—knowing all, perceiving none, seeing nothing but

  the depth and shadow of forms subterranean, twitches.Not yet.

  Then

  something, a 152 millimeter autocannon shell imbued with Shakti and

  given ontological depth, thunders through the air at hypervelocity

  directly into An Raggarr's golden carapaced chest, and the world erupts.

  I am flung back, blood erupts from my mouth, and it feels like all my

  organs are crushed by the shockwave as earth lifts up into the sky. A

  pair of lights, the thrusters of a flight pack, become brighter, and

  smaller streaks of light, 50 millimeter chaingun rounds, descend on the

  spider Rakshasa. A colossal metallic figure descends, the earth burning

  below his wings, illuminating his figure in flames and granting him an

  aura of acerbic smoke. A red light emerges from the single slit on his

  face as the Clan Elder's voice bellows in my mind

  Wrapped

  within a soulless shelter, I possess the dread of war. Is there still a

  peace to be won or are we wandering aimless and lost. Visions of a

  flame keep burning, broken but still not decayed. Fueled by the blaze

  awakened, human eyes remain afraid.Sacrifice

  my embers, to fuel the wildfire. Forge me better form, burn away

  reminders., I am flesh no more. Let us burn away the forest so new life

  can bloom.This

  is my rite of death. My thunderground. If I die, then let me die

  glorious and let my carapace become a shelter for new life.(My

  wings burn away the overgrowth, the tangled rot, the cancer. Shakti

  pumps through my systems and gives my bullets and missiles ontological

  depth. Flames blaze my path as I tear through the thick jungle and

  acerbic smoke shrouds me. Hear me, despondent child. I have come to save

  you.)

  He lowers a

  large open hand, beckoning me to jump onto his palm, and all I can think

  is why? Why go out of your way to save me when there are so many others

  to save? I gaze behind me at the molten mess that was once An Raggarr,

  utterly reduced to a pile of golden slag by the barrage of autocannon

  rounds, then a blinding white light emits from its body, surrounded by a

  vortex of swirling purples and yellows and blues, and nature's law,

  the law that all things must die, is defied. His body pieces itself back

  together, muscles knitting themselves together, bones pinning in place

  and golden chitins growing over the bloody green flesh. The blades held

  by his four arms gleam with plasma and lightning, and his chitins are

  glowing with heat, lightning arcing between the gaps.

  You fool! Come! Hurry! You need to live!

  I

  summon my spiritual automaton, a knight made of milky white fluid, it's

  armor containing the essence of Aries, the concepts of "protection,",

  "wealth,", "kingship,", and "triumph" imbued within it's plating and

  it's sword doused in the concepts of "pride,","venom,", "death," and

  "severance" contained within Scorpio, manifesting as a sickly green

  poison. I give it a single order, buy me time, that it will prosecute to the best of it's ability.

  It

  charges as I run in the opposite direction, the noise of eight metal

  legs scuttling through the greenery constant in my ears and getting

  closer. The noise of metal clashing against metal hits my ears and I

  dare to look back, watching as my knight fights mindlessly and slashes

  at the spider's side, poison disintegrating molecules, before An Raggarr

  roars in fury, unleashing a flurry of stabs with all four swords in its

  arms and impaling the automaton repeatedly, gutting it before lifting

  it up to the sky with two swords impaling it and splitting it in half,

  drinking the Shakti that spills from its bisected body.

  Shivers

  run up my spine at how easily it dismantled my creation, poisonous

  wounds in its side rapidly healing, but it worked. I jump on the Elder's

  palm and hear the terrible roar of engines, invoking the scales of the

  goddess Astraea which contain the concepts of balance and impartiality

  and invoking it on myself to not fall off his palm as we ascend into the

  sky. A sharp sensation runs to my bladder at the sudden acceleration,

  and I feel the need to lay down with my hands gripping the open vents in

  his palm, nausea weighing on me as I realize the height we are at.

  I

  close my eyes as a sharp sensation runs through my stomach, taking deep

  breaths while my heart palpitates, and my mind feels foggy. Darkness

  covers my body as the iron giant closes his hands gently to shield me. I

  need to know what is going on outside. I crawl forward on his palm and

  grasp his clenched middle finger, opening my eyes and peeking through

  the gaps between the fingers.

  And

  I see that golden spider jumping on all eight legs only to be struck in

  mid air by an autocannon shell, unceremoniously falling to the ground.

  The world outside is overgrown jungles and flowers blooming upon every

  tree, and in the distance is a great tree rotting with kudzu on every

  branch, stretching to the dome holding back the void. In the distance

  are the flashes of light, of bullets and missiles streaking through the

  air, and the Clan Elder unleashes chaingun and autocannon fire into the

  distance.

  It's so beautiful. The world is beautiful and horrifically wrong.

  He's gone. Rest easy little one. breath and shrug your shoulders, for I will shepherd you to safety.

  We

  land in an overgrown Cosmodrome, where a unit of Oghuz made their stand

  and died honorably. The Cosmodrome's brown decay glints in the

  artificial daylight, dense shimmering flowers growing everywhere,

  desecrating the corpses of fallen Rakshasa and Oghuz alike, bishop's

  lace peeking through the scarred land left behind by fire and war,

  poppies and foxglove strewing bloody petals across the wasteland as

  though the world itself is commemorating the fallen.

  I

  collapse onto all fours, my head pounding and heart pumping, and gaze

  down at the corpse of one such Oghuz, assault rifle in one hand and

  knife bloodied with green fluid in the other, a large sword impaled in

  his chest, piercing through the fusion battery he had for a heart,

  cradling the corpse of a Rakshasa crusader he took down as his last

  dying act. Monkshood grows from the hole in his chest, like the flowers

  placed on a corpse during burial.

  And I can do nothing but cry.

  I

  sob hysterically with my hands on the ground, tears wetting my eyes as I

  bury my face in my sleeve to hide my shame. The giant watches on in

  silence as I scream out into the world, balling into myself as I just

  want the rest of the world to disappear.

  Then the steel giant's deep voice rings in my ears.

  This

  is your first time seeing the recently deceased, is it? I know that

  look of despair when you realize that these are people with stories that

  will never be told, dreams that will never be fulfilled. I still

  remember my first time seeing a deceased kin of the clan, taking their

  memories and ensuring they will never be forgotten.Know

  this. Death is something that can't and must never be undone, but the

  fallen are meant to be remembered. By living, you carry on their will

  and preserve their memory, you tell others who they once were and

  preserve their dreams for someone else to pick up.Get

  up. I have carried the memories of too many of my friends and kin, but I

  have never conceded to despair. You are not yet sleeping in the dirt,

  so you must get up.

  The

  booming deep voice of the Clan Elder echoes in my ear. I get up, face

  wet with tears, my voice a shaky sob as I cry out to him. "Why did you

  save me? Why? I'm not someone who matters. Surely there must be

  something else more worthy of your time! A strategic objective that must

  be filled?! A squadron in need of help?! Anything! Why me? Why did you

  choose me?"

  Do you wish to die?

  I don't know.

  Do you wish to live?

  I don't know.

  Do you have something you must complete before you die?

  I think back to the facility I grew up in, the labs I see in my dreams and the masked men who treat me like a lab rat.

  Yes, I do.

  Then you wish to live.You

  are young. You are aimless, wandering without a reason to be. It is a

  great tragedy for someone to die a meaningless death with no great

  achievements to define your life by. You were crying out for help, a

  single voice crying out for salvation piercing through the cacophony,

  and I couldn't refuse.What do you wish to do before you die?

  I

  think back to Adelle and Argetlam. Adelle is just a civilian. She

  should be dead if she wasn't smart enough to figure out the Rakshasa's

  unwillingness to kill the unarmed. I need to see Lord Argetlam once

  more, I just want to speak with him.

  I want to save my friends and be recognized by Lord Argetlam.

  Then

  I know what we must do. All the things I want and believe are

  conciliatory to your own. Your will is my will and I will carry you to

  your dream.

  Who are you? I never got your name.

  I

  have an old name. I have lost many things, my pride, my honour, my

  lovers, but I retain my memories. My name is Mahmud. Mahmud Ufair

  Ghazani.