During the time of the Amatsunese-Shennin wars, an invading flotilla swept through a river town and seized control. These Holy Amatsunese Imperials were about to strike a menacing, ultimate blow upon the National Armies of Shen. Finally expunging the world of two threats—the Ultranationalist People's Army and the Communist People's Party.

There, in that river town, was a run down temple with a half-destroyed pagoda.

Everyone had fled. Except for a Jeng master. Now Jeng—Jeng is a branch of the Infinite Truths Law that focused on the experience of pure, boundless, unhindered meditation. To that one can eventually attain Instant Enlightenment. A thousand years of training for a single half-second of Awakening.

The Amatsunese general, clad in his magitech armors, where elemental spirits powered it with an internal miniature Karma-Engine core, went to the Jeng Master's Temple. When he arrived, the Jeng Master was sweeping the floors, as if nothing had happened. As if no invasion was taking place!

Incensed, the general yelled at him for not performing the proper respect rites. "Fool. Do you not realize? You are standing before a man who can decapitate you without blinking an eye!"

The Master stopped sweeping. He said: "And do you realize?" He smiled. "That you are standing before a man who can be decapitated without blinking an eye?"

From The Paradoxes of the Eighty Two Ghost Immortals

I should have been there, Raxri thought.

I should have been there when she died. I should have asked for her forgiveness. I should have thanked her. I should have knelt down and groveled and told her that she was the best master a student like me could have asked for. I should have, I should have, I should have.

Raxri's mind blanked.

Come on, Raxri. Think.

Akazha did not move.

What do I do now?

Is there anything else to do?

Can I die, now, too? I give up. I give up I give up I give up. I am shorn of all my friends, again. I am alone, again. I have no one to fight alongside me. Sintra Kennin is gone too. Achi Angko. Isura and Goton. All gone. All away. I have nothing, once again. And no doubt, that damned Trasan chases after me yet! What should I do when nothing can be done?

This isn't like me. It isn't like me to be defeated before the battle has even begun but... but perhaps the fight is over? Perhaps Heaven has finally won?

Raxri looked up at the sky. Without their intention—or perhaps, with?—their hand twitched to the right, touching Akazha's rigid fingers. They were so cold.

And she was beginning to smell like a true corpse.

It is time to die. I think. Let heaven find me. Let everything happen to me now. I do not deserve compassion, nor do I deserve time or love or respect. Love is for the next me, who shall be born when I die. May my next life be unburdened from karma I suffer. Then Raxri began chanting the mantras they had learned about during their time in Giant Stone Monastery.

Let it be done. Let it all be over.

Let the world end, finally, in the Post-Calamity of Hingsajagra.

Let me die.

NO.

Somehow, somewhere. Another Raxri—was this the Raxri of the before-time?—summoned something from their heart. An unspooling thread, fulminating with the power of the vajra. He took the thread and spun it like a lasso. Until it formed a noose.

Then, with this Vajra Noose, this Other Raxri tossed and bound Raxri's mind. This mind, now choked by its own emotional fetters.

Raxri blinked. Was this... meditation?

They grit their teeth. No.

YES. NO.

Was this their... killing intent?

What's happening? Who... who are you?

I AM THE WRATH THAT SHATTERED THE SPINES OF GODS.

Raxri blinked.

Opened their eyes.

They were on the moon.

White soil. Black universe above them.

Twisting dragons of purelight, melting into ribbons. Knots of streaming darkness creating the closest approximations to eternity. Wells of gravity turned into palaces. Grand supernovas emanating with the sound of 100,000 mantras uttered at the same time, exploding in the shape of a mantra garland. Shooting stars, everywhere. The reality of reality is that it is the longest explosion to ever exist.

In front of them was a vast crimson soul. It looked like a child, but it spoke with their own voice. And it was a voice of burning fire and inferno. It looked like what Raxri would've looked like fifteen years in the past.

"Where am I?"

"THE VOID."

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"What?"

Before the soul, two eyes ripped open. Then a third eye in between them. As if the Void itself had a face. And it was staring at Raxri.

"THE MIND PALACE OF ALL THINGS. THE EMPTINESS BETWEEN EVERYTHING IS THE SUBSTANCE OF AWAKENING."

"What... what's going on?" Raxri patted themselves down. Their body was pure white. Luminant and solid like milk in the shape of a man. A realization dawned. They looked at the little soul and said—"Am I... dead?"

"NO. YOU HAVE DIED ONCE BEFORE. BUT YOU HAVE NOW BEEN BROUGHT BACK. IT IS NOT YET YOUR TIME TO DIE. BUT YOU MUST GO."

"Who are you?"

"I AM YOU. I AM THE BEING IN YOUR WOMB AND I AM THE BEING THAT YOU WERE BEFORE YOU DIED AND I AM THE BEING THAT YOU WILL BECOME. I AM NON-SELF."

Raxri quivered. They slowly forgot their own name. "I will become... you?"

"EMPTINESS IS THE MIND. YOU ARE IN YOUR OWN MIND."

"My mind?"

"NOT YOURS. YOUR MIND."

"Your Mind...?"

"CORRECT."

Raxri, inexplicably, somehow, understood what that meant. A real understanding that they could not adequately convey. They shivered. "Wh—Okay. What must I do? If I am talking to... Your Mind?"

"YOUR MEDITATION PROWESS HAS BEEN ENOUGH. YOU HAVE BEEN ABLE TO BRING YOURSELF INTO EMPTINESS, DIMLY AWARE OF YOUR MIND'S OWN DEVIL NATURE."

Inexplicably, Raxri understood what this meant as well. Just barely. "O-Okay. So what do I do? What does that mean?"

"PULL YOURSELF TOGETHER. SET YOUR HEART ABLAZE. DO WHAT YOU CAN IN THIS LIFE, WHILE YOU STILL HAVE IT. I AM ON YOUR SIDE, HEAVEN DANCER. BECOME WHAT YOU MUST BECOME."

"I..." Raxri blinked. They were crying and their tears were pure black soot. "I—What do I do? Do I... go to the Ultramystic?"

"YOU KNOW EXACTLY WHAT YOU MUST DO. YOUR SADNESS AND GRIEF CLOUDS THE CLEAR LIGHT OF YOUR MIND. CUT THROUGH IT. THIS, TOO, IS EGO."

Raxri found themself nodding, but they couldn't quite grasp completely what was being said. "So I do go to the Ultramystic?"

"YOU KNOW THIS TO BE TRUE."

"And... And then what?"

"AND THEN YOU WIELD THE GOD OBLITERATING VAJRA, AND FINISH WHAT THE PARTY HAS STARTED. YOU WILL ONLY BE DONE WHEN THE PARTY HAS TURNED THE WHEEL."

"Who—what? Who's the Party?"

"ALWAYS REMEMBER. THE WHEEL IS TURNED NOT BY A SINGLE PERSON BUT BY THE CLOUDS OF WITNESSES AND THE ARMIES OF THE WRETCHED. IT IS CHANGED NOT BY THE ARISTOCRACY BUT BY THE SLAVES. THE PRISONERS. NOT BY THE CONQUEROR, BUT BY THE SUBALTERN. NOT BY THE ASCETIC, BUT BY THE WANTER.

"LET WRETCHED ROYALTY HAVE THE LAST ARGUMENT OF KINGS.

"AS WE SHALL WIELD THE FINAL REBUTTAL OF THE WORKING CLASS."

Silence.

The Tranquil Dark.

Dissipates the consciousnesses...

...which yet arrive from clinging to material things.

---

Akazha's death had been a quiet one.

Spirit flurrying low. Force-fire becoming only as strong as a candle. There was no repose left for her. She knew this as much. When she lost consciousness as Raxri carried her to the docks, she knew that will be the end of it all.

She knew, no doubt, that her talisman tattoos would be strong. But she did not know if that blasted Trasan had some form of sympathy to her. She scoffed to herself—Pathetic. I have a chance to die against the most basic form of sorcery in the Islands.

And so, as her consciousness darkened, she uttered Dak Emmara Senje's salvation mantra.

The vastness of space opened up before her. Seven great lights burned through her retinas. And then, a cavalcade of images. Overwhelming her inner body. Her Mindstream. The Karma of her life... being taken by Dak Emmara Senje.

She found herself on the moon. Or what looked like the moon.

Ah. So death has claimed the witch?

The mindstream looked up. Akazha uttered her final mantra. One that the Ultramystic had taught her at the very beginning of their training. "If you will die, you must learn to cut through the Ego, so that your next rebirth might be one pointed towards Awakening. Or, if you have cultivated enough during this time, maybe upon death you will attain Real Enlightenment."

Akazha uttered the mantra. It is inexplicable to the human tongue when uttered by a wandering Mindstream.

But it worked. When she uttered the mantra, the syllables spooled out of her mouth in scarlet light. She took the floating string of light formed into syllables and wielded it like a blade. With it, she decapitated herself.

The black universe opened its eyes. And then opened its mouth.

Akazha was gone. Only the Mindstream now.

A hundred horrifying images. The Wrathful Awakened, all that have ever attained Enlightenment and Awakening and Universal All-ness—these were the forms they took to destroy death and life and all blockers of Enlightenment. All demons that attempted to destroy the Teachings and the Doctrines and the Codes. These Wrathful Awakened that slew Immortals and Creator Gods and Chakravartins and Mahabrahmas and Highest Beings... all of them have been ultimately slain in the face of Death, who is also Awakened.

"DO YOU UNDERSTAND."

Seven lights spooled forth from The Maw. This was the end.

If one were to be reborn into the stygian lands of Dak Emmara Senje, one would be closer to those suffering in the Hells and the Underworld, and can help alleviate their suffering through karma-cleansing practices and by teaching the various Paths to Real Awakening—that is, the various paths to Violence.

"THE UNIVERSE EXPERIENCES ITSELF. NOW FALL BACK INTO THE LUMINOUS MIND, FROM WHICH ALL THINGS ARISE."

The mindstream knew it understood. "You are nothing but the wave rolling in the middle of the ocean, but has never realized that it was a wave and that there was an ocean. To find enlightenment is to realize you are not the wave, but the ocean."

It turned into an avernal crow. And then the Maw took them. Took them to the Paradise of Hell.

---

Raxri awakened. In a pool of sweat. The dead body of Akazha, unmoving to their right.

What was that...? What the hell was that?!

Silence. Raxri pushed themselves to a sitting position. What must I do?

They watched Akazha's unmoving body for a moment. Even in death, she was beautiful. Or was it that death had made her beautiful? Every now and again, as Raxri rifled through their thoughts, they would suffer pangs of hyperguilt.

Akazha laid unmoving and there was nothing their guilt would do about that.

So much potential, gone. In just a moment. If I were stronger...

NO. No time for regret. We only ever move forward. Raxri folded their legs into a lotus seat. They closed their eyes and meditated. With their mind's eye, they manifested a miniature Raxri, summoning a vajra noose, and then using that to bind and investigate the source of their guilt.

Why did they feel guilty? It is because they could not protect Akazha.

Why could they not protect Akazha? Because they did not have enough power.

Why did they not have enough power? Because... they died. And they did not dedicate themselves to recultivation.

I must recultivate. Raxri opened their eyes and looked up. They inhaled—twenty times. To subjugate their thoughts, and then to subjugate their guilt. I will use this as a means to move forward. I have to.

What now must be done?

Find the Ultramystic. Recultivate power. Find the... God Obliterating Vajra.

Raxri turned to Akazha beautiful cadaver and whispered—"I will bring you home."

Boots clanged against the steel ladders.

In a few seconds, both Atrami and Feng had returned. How long was I out?

"Does everything fare well, here?" asked Atrami as he walked in. He still wore his pure clothes.

Raxri nodded. "Yes. I am feeling much better." He looked around and found the bell; gave it back to them.

Atrami received with a nod. "It's time to wrap Akazha in the preservation silks. So that she would get the burial or cremation that she deserves."

Raxri nodded. "If you can... If you can wrap her in such a way that I can carry her on my back?"

"Ah, I think that can be arranged," said Feng, grinning. "I know just the Stopping Talisman for that." She pulled out a sutra strip. Upon which was inscribed the stopping spell. "This will keep Akazha's body in rigid stasis. As if they were cast in cement. Will render it very easy to carry her cadaver across Blacklight, at the least. Though once I attach it and utter the proper incantation, the magick only has 24 hours before the strip loses power."

Raxri nodded. 24 hours? That should be enough time. It has to be. "Thank you kindly. Your efforts will not be in vain."

"We trust you, Raxri. If it would be up to me, however," said Atrami, starting to wrap Akazha's body now with Feng's help. "I would bring her to an embalmer or a monk."

Raxri nodded. "I plan to bring her to her old master."

"Her old master?"

Raxri nodded. "The Ultramystic."

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