"this is where the negative and the positive meet and hug and kiss.

this is the negation of the negation.

this is the position of the positive.

some mystics think of the world in terms of fulmination.

that is to say—god blazes in everything. the ultimate essence of everything is god. or spirit. or the absolute.

maybe "god" is too disingenuous a word now. or maybe it is too simple or base a word now. other faiths use it as a name, which reduces god to language.

this is the ultimate esoteric truth of the theists.

other mystics think of the world in terms of quiet.

that is to say—there is no-god. it is emptiness from which all arise. everything has no ultimate essence.

this is the ultimate esoteric truth of the nontheists."

From The Treatise On The Inconceivable and the Reality of Reality

A slender, tall, elfin woman stood before a ruined homestead. How unfortunate it was, she thought, that the most beautiful of things suffered the most. She stepped back and sighed.

Out here, in the far corners of Wegr. On the jutting side-spires. Some wished to live extricated from the debts and social obligations of the City. Alas, Capital subsumes even sanctuary: it would never be destined to be. Goblins, haunts, phantoms, and ghoul-witches stalked Wegr's bordermarches.

Wegr haunted itself. It clings to its own existence.

She stepped back and bowed, uttering a short prayer of peace. The ruins steamed and smoked. Destroyed by some goblin warlock. She towered over it. She was taller than most others would be in this region of the archipelago. Around 2 meters in height.

The Ultramystic spun. Her skirts flared—she had two. One from the tight, expensive black dress clung to her body. And another from the white blouse wrapped around her chest, layered over her tight bodice. Skin-tight silk gloves intertwined with her fingers. It blackened her entire arm, stopping at the point where the black dress' own sleeve began. Her black dress glistened—its neckline climbed up to her throat. On her feet, flowers embroidered themselves to her flat-shoes. Slightly frayed at the edges. Black silk socks embroidered with a single silver lotus up to her thighs.

Aside from her face, her ring and pointer fingers, and her thighs, she showed no skin. Her skin was the color of sun-bleached sand. Her hair the unnatural pale-cream of alchemy-fires.

She spun to face the battalion of goblins. Weapons drawn. Toothy maws grinning. Standing before the forest of lung-vein-like obsidian stone.

I will let you know now what these goblins looked like. If you can imagine—corpses reanimated. Voices and language wrought from death rattles and final screams, for they had no more knowledge of sound-producing. Eyes bulbous and large. Nails overgrown into tangled claws. Their locomotion was the desperate clinging to the memory of human mobility. Their feet hit the ground ankle first. They dragged themselves with broken limbs and dangling jaws. Their teeth grown so sharp they were tusks.

The goblins waved their swords and spears at the Ultramystic. Behind them, a single goblin—nothing but a single head, a halo of hair spread out behind them, and then nothing else but a nervous system and digestive system from the neck down.

It made sense. Goblins were hungry ghosts. To become nothing but an eating-thing was the appopriate karma for someone who lived the same way in their living-life.

But these goblins—manggal, they were called in Selorong, and that name stuck across the southern region of the Utter Islands—held witch powers. Cultivated, somehow, either from life or from a black sorcerer who deemed it humorous to teach a ghost how to harness the dark sciences.

The Ultramystic sighed. May my Killing be Omniscient. Until all beings are free. She uttered a prayer: "O, intercessor of all awakened-murderers, Mahasiddha Yetasongga of the Shrieking Lance. Guide my hand and bless my blade. That I may liberate these beings from their present suffering. May All Killing Be Omniscient—AHOM!"

She opened her eyes. In the next second, an invisible god had reached down and tore them in two like paper. Ultramystic Sutasoma Dumorogmon reappeared on the other side of the battlion.

The only one left alive was the goblin manggal. She screamed as the Ultramystic's Ultimate Cutting Technique crashed against her magick barrier. It turned moved its hair like appendages. Performed the hand signs and ululated in death-scream emulation the mantras needed to summon a burning meteor from her eyes.

It sped toward the Ultramystic faster than she thought it could.

The meteor crashed into the Ultramystic's body and it exploded into a miniature nuclear explosion. It enveloped the entire Ultramystic's corpus—all 2 meters of her.

Interesting, thought the Ultramystic. Ultima Magick. Rare for a ghost to wield. Who taught her to Cultivate this...?

The Ultramystic stepped out of a reality-fold. Behind the manggal. It screeched as the Ultramystic seized its face with her hands. The manggal stared in horror, the Ultramystic looked upon her with ultimate compassion. "May you find peace, and may your Mindstream be reborn within the Heavens of Infinite Light. Ultimaslash!"

You could not see the Ultramystic move. With nothing but her pointer and middle finger, she cut the manggal eight times.

Before the manggal could realize that it had been carved up into 16 parts, the Ultramystic performed the Final Rites hand gestures. 16 gestures with one hand in the span of a second.

Before the manggal's corpse could hit the ground, it was eaten up by pureblack fire. So were the rest of the goblin's corpses. Nirvana Flame. Fires of Unsurpassable Perfection. Something one could only use upon corpses, to ensure their karma was quickly cleansed and they would be reborn in one of the Enlightenment-Heavens.

With a sigh, the Ultramystic put both hands behind her back. Observed the wastes. Her fire-white hair whipping about her. Glinting as her violet eyes glinted. The promise of twilight.

Her astrolabe earring shifted, spun. Slowly, at first. Then, quickly. Now rapidly.

Hm. It spun so fast that it—came apart. Technofragments. In every direction.

She observed it for a moment. Then, she said: could it be...? Quick mudra with one hand. Five hand seals in the span of a second. Exhalation—she unlashed herself from gravity.

The Ultramystic soared across the sky. Her long white over-blouse and her fire-white hair billowed in the wind.

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

Her beauty was terror—it was the thunderclouds rolling in. Or the prophesied fate of an unsheathed sword. Her hooded eyes burned with the color of lilac. Her round spectacles dug lines into the corners where her eyes and nose became inseperable. Eyebags hung under her eyes. Her fatigue was as matter-of-fact as the blackness of storm nimbuses.

She flew with the whimsy and wonder of a witch's first flight. But she was doing this so that she could sense any magickal disturbances. One can feel it—because Ardor is lightning. The existence of magnanimous Ardor Furnaces charges the particles around them, ever so slightly. Hence the haloes, aureola, nimbuses, and wisdom fires.

As the Ultramystic soared through the skies. She felt the first omen of coming disturbance. It was an Ardor Furnace she'd only felt once before—when coming down to rest upon the small town of Ojas. Upon the Charnel Isles.

They had said, back then, that Raxri Uttara had dropped by. The Ultramystic did not know who that was, but they could feel the cutting lightning-body of a fellow martial mystic. It was enthralling. She could feel their Killing Intent from kilometers away.

She felt that same Killing Intent now. Buffeted, somewhat; yet just as wide-reaching. Truly? The reports from Heaven were true? The Heaven Dancer returns...? Though her face did not show it, a giddy fire erupted from her cinnabar fields.

A second wave of uncertainty followed after that. As she crossed the highest point of the city. It was a spear of bad-omen static lancing down straight from the sky.

A warning from heaven. She stopped mid-flight, and turned around. She hovered in place for a moment. Watching the skies. They come...? To Wegr? But why...?

But it was nothing but vague bad-omen feel. An unquenchable feeling to keep looking behind your bad.

She shuddered and rubbed her hands together. First things first—greet a fellow martial mystic. It's not everyday someone like a mystic visits Wegr, of all places.

The Ultramystic Sutasoma Dumorogmon was ready for them. She wondered whether Raxri would truly have cloud-hair and fire-red eyes, as the rumors and whispers had always said.

Suddenly she was a starry-eyed novitiate. In the temples of her Mystic-Monk Master. Giddy to see who she will have to face in occult conflict. Suddenly she was naked upon the waters, absorbing all the vajra she could, to attain the power to break god's spines. Again, her heart was a drum of anticipation for all the things that smelled of better times.

---

Raxri followed the instructions faithfully. Perhaps, a bit too faithfully.

They trudged through dogpiss smelling alleyways, interspersed with the overwhelming scent of laundry detergent or shampoo or conditioners. Overhead, bats the size of women and long-necked, long-legged herons with feathers sharper than ritual kerises. Under Raxri's foot, black grass growing in between the cracks of the parched dried stone and clay that constructed the majority of this city's architecture.

As they walked through the alleyway—men and women lounged about. Half-naked men smoking or playing chess or mahjong or betting on fighting cocks. Women carrying laundry or clay jars of water. Young children tending to errands, reading, or taking care of their younger siblings. They all looked all too normal. They all looked all too strange.

The bystanders watched Raxri pass by. Their eyes veritably upon the strange figure they carried upon their back. But evidently this was not the strangest thing in their lives. A few moments of ogling before they went back to what they had to do.

A child had passed by once. Asked: "Teyeh! Where are you going? What's that for, on your back?"

Raxri shook their head. "It's a secret, little one."

The boychild harrumphed. "I'm big now, like Dada. I know. Can! Can!"

Raxri managed a slightly embarassed smile. "Ahaha... I know you can. But I cannot, keh? Not now."

"Okay teyeh. Take care. You will need it."

Raxri nodded in thanks as the boy tumbled away.

A lump in their throat. Impossible to swallow.

Raxri pushed on. We're all only ever going forward.

Before long, the tree with flowers so pink they might as well be the blood of semidevils. The petals fell to the ground. Bleeding pearl. Fired hollow point bullets. Then the gate. As tall as them, made in a six-sided hexagon shape. It was the only entrance through a tall adobe wall painted white, roofed with jade tiles. Expensive place. The only one that did not smell like shit and piss. At least, not overwhelmingly so.

Raxri knew it was the true one. The dragon lions—spiritual guardians against ghosts—stood proudly upon lotus pillar pedestals. Each one half Raxri's height. Carved and molded out of the blackstone of Wegr.

Raxri stopped in front of them. The blackstone dragon lions blinked.

Raxri stepped back.

When the lions sensed that Raxri was no ghost—though they might as well be at this point, they were so emaciated!—they stopped moving. But their eyes still moved, following Raxri's movement. Unconcerting.

In particular, Raxri realized they were following... Akazha's corpse.

Odd. Did they know I come bearing the cadaver of one of the Ultramystic's students?

Raxri walked up to the hexagonal doors and knocked.

No one answered at first. Not even the dragon lions moved. They had completely forgotten Raxri's presence. Now staring straight at the opposite wall on the other side of the stone alleyway.

Raxri knocked again.

Again.

Harder. And harder.

A wind billowed behind Raxri. Sending their hair and clothes flurrying. The sound of doll shoes striking the stone ground.

"Knocking harder will not get me to answer you quicker." A deep, luscious voice. Milk-like. Close to the sound of the goddesses. A voice borne from smoking somaflower petals over the years. Filling the lungs with spirit healing winds.

Raxri turned. Was this...?

The woman towered over them. Draped in a double-blouse. She was beautiful in that elf-goddess sense. Her short hair only accentuated her long proportions—alien. Arms that reached her thighs. Long legs. Strange proportions. Her ears long and sharp—like swords. The telltale sign of demon-initiation. Her beauty was a dream—impossible to grasp, all attempts at explanation incomplete. Her eyes were purple candlewicks within dark chasms. Her skin the color of death-care.

She was twice as tall as Raxri. Our Heaven Dancer gulped. "Um—"

The Ultramystic reached out with a long hand. "What is that? On your back?" Her finger was an ivory branch. Knuckles adorned with ruby jewels. She bled without bleeding.

Raxri opened their mouth to speak. She gasped, and lowered her finger.

"It is... Akazha han Narakdag."

"My student. O, my beloved disciple." She reached forward and moved the cadaver with nothing but her mind. It floated over to her hands, unclasping from the contraption on Raxri's back.

The Ultramystic Sutasoma Dumorogmon reached for the cadaver. Her hands, which moments before had folded reality, now trembled—a faint vibration, like a plucked string in an empty hall. She gathered the wrapped form of Akazha han Narakdag into her arms. The weight was a specific gravity of absence.

She remembered this weight from a century ago.

Teaching a girl to summon fire. The solid trust of the teenager with charred palms. This trust is replaced, now the silence of a forgotten letter.

A single, shuddering breath escaped Sutasoma. Then, from eyes that had subjugated the very gods, tears of black tar dripped. Each tear a fossil of a lesson she would never get to give.

A somber moment passed. Eternity stolen from a choked wail.

The Dragon Lion statues came to life. They took the wrapped cadaver and carried them through the doors of the Ultramystic's Sanctuary.

"Come, seeker," said the Ultramystic, turning to look down upon Raxri. Her face was smeared with blackness. She wiped it away. A futile-effort. It only smeared her cheeks more, branding her with sorrow. "Eat some noodles with me. We need to set some things in order."

Sutasoma offered out one hand—clean. She performed the sacred gestures with the other.

Sudden, like blunt lightning.

Nevertheless—Raxri could not reject it. How can they? They reached out and took their hand.

That moment—the winds whipped about their feet. Raxri's loose clothing billowed. Sweat suddenly dried. The cold dry air lifted them from the ground. Their stomach lurched—that was the feeling of falling. But only for the smallest second. Flying, they say, was nothing more but falling where you want. That is why it is the ultimate freedom.

Flight magick seemed so impossible to Raxri, but here the Ultramystic performed it as easy as breathing. They flew up. Arced over the city, and then over to a dead god machine, ten-storeys tall. Its square helmet-head had been repurposed. The crown of his head refashioned a bonsai garden. In the middle, a small noodle shop, shaped like a stilt-pagoda.

The Ultramystic guided their arcing flight to softly land upon the floor of the bonsai garden. Feather-like, Raxri padded to the ground. Unharmed. Momentum gone and disappeared.

The noodle shop was a temple to the very act of noodle cooking. A six-sided pagoda, hewn out of teak. The tables within were hardwood circles, chairs of cheap plastic make. Cut corners to make the business survive.

Four, five customers stuck around. One lounged, reading a newspaper. A bowl of untouched, steaming noodles in front of him. Two—a boy and another boy, young but not too young—conversed with each other as they chowed down on fried noodles. The taller boy doused the noodles in soy sauce. Grimaced—he had put too much.

The Ultramystic took the seat outside of the pagoda itself, by its outer pavilions. Flanked by hedge and sculpture. The fat bald smiling man behind the teak counter waved at Ultramystic. "THE USUAL?" he shouted over the audio-drama blaring from his radio-pearls.

The Ultramystic nodded. Smiled. Raised two fingers and then gave a thumbs up. The man did the same, and nodded. His smile never faded. "That's Kenting," said the Ultramystic. She gestured for Raxri to seat. They did. "I'm a regular here, in Kenting's Noodlehouse."

"O-Oh. I see." Raxri gathered themselves. The act felt like trying to cup water with bare fingers, a futile choreography of the will. Their mind was a room where every thought was a different radio station playing at once.

"Ah, forgive me," she bowed. "I should not have thrown you into the maw like that. I am Sutasoma Dumorogmon. The Ultramystic of Wegr and Selorong."

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