The silk is a needle, the touch is a blade,
To bury the soul in the debts that were made.
A hand made of blossom, a heart made of lace,
To wipe every scar from the turn of the face.
The weaver is slowing, the weaver is still,
To bend like a reed to a beautiful will.
For in the perfection of pleasure and skin,
The only true prison is deeper within.
The Ninth Architecture had been a war of hunger, but the Tenth Architecture—the Lust-Lattice—arrived as a war of "Sufficiency."
It did not descend with a miserable neighing sound. It did not wreak havoc with entropy. Instead, the violet sky over New Oakhaven began to turn the color of crushed peonies. The turbid air, once thick with the smell of burnt grease and meat paste, was suddenly replaced by a scent so sweet it made the lungs ache: the smell of honey, warm rain, and the skin of someone you loved but had long since forgotten.
Daxian stood on the precipice of the Sun-Eater, his body filled with injuries, his skull partially exploded. His wooden meat-arm, still wet with the black ichor of the Void-Leeches, began to twitch. But it wasn't a twitch of pain.
The jagged, black-wood bark began to soften. Small, pale pink blossoms began to sprout from the shattered bones of his elbow. The violet crystal in his skull began to dim, replaced by a soft, amber warmth that whispered that he had done enough. That the massacre was over. That he could finally, truly, sleep.
"Dax... I... I don't want to fight anymore."
Vane's voice was no longer a miserable neighing rasp. He was sitting on the deck, his Sovereign-Hammer lying in the mud. His brass skin, once peeled ruthlessly and scarred by a thousand battles, was beginning to smooth over. The fractured bones in his arm were knitting together with a rhythmic, pulsing heat. His left eyeball had popped out, but now, the socket was filling with a soft, glowing silk that felt like a caress.
"The air... it's so soft, Dax," Vane whispered, his gaze no longer blood red, but a dazed, liquid gold. "Why are we fixing the pipes? The water... it tastes like wine now."
"Vane, stand up!" Daxian commanded, but even his own voice felt heavy, like it was being muffled by velvet.
He looked at the city. The Lust-Lattice was descending—a web of translucent, gossamer threads that draped over the iron towers like a lover's shroud. Wherever the threads touched, the meat paste and the shattered bones of the previous massacre didn't just vanish; they turned into flowerbeds. The blood river in the plaza turned into a stream of liquid silver that sang as it flowed.
"The most dangerous enemy is not the one who wants to kill you. It is the one who wants to 'Heal' you until there is nothing left of the person you were. Ambition is a 'Soot' that only grows in the cold. In the warmth of the Lattice, the Sovereign of Rot is just a weed in a perfect garden."
The Fighting Scene: The Massacre of Mercy
The slaughter reached the climax when the "Hand-Maidens of the Lattice" manifested.
They weren't machines or ghosts. They were "Perfect-Biological-Templates," their skins made of iridescent silk, their eyes filled with a profundity of absolute peace. They didn't move with lightning speed to strike; they moved with a leisurely aerial battle grace to embrace.
"HEAL," the Maidens spoke, their voices an enormous piercing melody that caused Daxian's bones to fracture not from force, but from "Growth."
A group of Maidens drifted toward the Forge-Shadows. Kael stood there, his skin opened and flesh split, his iron pylon raised. He was intensely struggling against the scent of the air. He saw a Maiden reach for Elio.
"STAY... AWAY!" Kael roared, charging forward.
He smashed down ruthlessly with the pylon. But the iron didn't hit bone. It hit a cloud of rose-petals. The Maiden didn't retaliate. She stepped forward and touched Kael's scarred face with a smile of disdain for his suffering.
"You have been in pain for so long, little error," she whispered.
Kael's pylon fell. His shattered bones snapped into place. His skin was opened no longer. He fell to his knees, his eyeballs popped out in a dumbstruck expression of pure, terrifying bliss. He began to weep—not tears of blood, but tears of clear, sweet nectar.
"NO!" Daxian shrieked, charging forward from the ship.
He slammed mercilessly into the first wave of Maidens, his meat-arm stretching out to wreak havoc. But every time he smashed apart a Maiden, she simply dissolved into a cloud of perfume that entered his lungs and slowed his heart.
He was unhindered by his enemies, because they refused to be his enemies. They were his "Satisfactions."
"YOU WANT... TO... FIX... ME?" Daxian roared, coughing out blood that was already turning into gold-dust. "I... AM... A... MISTAKE!"
He grabbed a Maiden by her silk throat. He racked his brains to find the "Noise," but the violet crystal in his head was being smothered by "Pleasure." He peeled the skin ruthlessly off her arm, but instead of meat paste, he found only light and honey.
"PERISH!" Daxian screamed, his voice a miserable neighing of defiance.
He smashed her apart against a cooling-tower, the enormous shock creating a deep pit of blossoms. He was filled with injuries, but the Lattice was "Healing" them so fast his body was screaming in a massacre of rapid-regeneration. His skull was partially exploded, but new bone was knitting over the violet crystal, trying to bury his "Noise" forever.
Up on the Sun-Eater, Silas was intensely struggling.
The Grand Chronicler was being buried in silk. The ship's biological core was no longer a miserable state of rot; it was turning into a giant, pulsing lily. Silas's indigo form was being reduced to dust and replaced by a "Perfect-Lattice-Ghost."
"Dax... it's... it's so quiet..." Silas wailed, his gaze blood red no longer. "I can't hear the miserable neighing sounds! I can't hear the 'Grief'! I... I think I'm happy!"
"SILAS! FIGHT IT!" Daxian roared, smashing mercilessly into a Maiden who was trying to kiss his wooden brow.
Daxian was a lunatic taking risks. He realized that "Power" could not defeat "Pleasure." He couldn't slaughter an enemy that loved him. He had to wreak havoc on himself.
He looked at his meat-arm—the limb made of the flesh and blood of his enemies. It was becoming too beautiful. The bones jutting out were becoming branches of silver-lilies.
Daxian gritted his teeth, his smile of disdain returning through the fog of honey.
He didn't hit the Maidens. He slammed mercilessly his own wooden arm into the jagged, rusted iron of the ship's engine-casing.
CRACK.
The bones were fractured again. The blossoms were crushed into meat paste. The pain—sharp, jagged, and "Noisy"—tore through the Lattice's "Pleasure-Field" like a lightning bolt. Daxian coughed out blood, real, red, turbid blood.
"PAIN... IS... THE... ONLY... PERMISSION!" Daxian roared, his gaze blood red once more.
He charged forward with the enormous force of his own agony. He used the "Noise" of his shattered bones to bombarded the Maidens' resonance. He wasn't a god of rot anymore; he was a Sovereign of the Scar.
He reached the "Mother-Loom" of the Tenth Architecture—a towering lattice of silver-flesh and gold-veins that sat at the center of the pink clouds.
"DAXIAN," the Loom spoke, the voice an enormous piercing of pure empathy. "WHY DO YOU CHOOSE THE SOOT? WE ARE GIVING YOU THE ORIGIN-BEAUTY."
"BECAUSE BEAUTY... IS... A... PRISON!" Daxian screamed.
He slammed mercilessly into the Mother-Loom, his meat-arm smashing down ruthlessly on the gold-veins. The enormous shock of the "Pain-Infection" caused the Lattice to crack and bleed black ichor. The blossoms turned back into meat paste. The honey turned back into blood.
Daxian wreaked havoc. He peeled the skin ruthlessly off the Loom, revealing the cold, clinical "Standardization" that lay beneath the pleasure. It was just another "Law," dressed in silk.
"PERISH!" Daxian shrieked, smashing apart the Loom's core with his shattered bones.
The enormous shock of the destruction sent a wave of turbid air across the Abyss, turning the pink sky back into a bruised, broken purple. The massacre of mercy was over.
The silence settling slowly over New Oakhaven was bitter.
Daxian fell from the sky, crashing heavily into the ground of the central plaza. He lay in the deep pit, his body filled with injuries, his bones shattered, his skin opened. He looked like a miserable state of a man, but his blood red eyes were clear.
Kael stood at the edge of the pit, his skin opened once more, the blossoms on his face having rotted away into soot. He was holding Elio, who was crying—real, jagged, painful tears.
"It... it hurt, Architect," Kael whispered, coughing out blood. "When the 'Peace' left... it hurt more than the fire."
"That... is... because... you're... Alive, Kael," Daxian wheezed, gritting his teeth as he forced himself to stand.
Vane and Silas crawled toward him, their bones jutting out, their gaze blood red. They were miserable states, but they were unrivaled spirits.
Ambition is not a 'Comfort.' It is the 'Friction' of the soul against the dark. I have slaughtered the Hunger, and I have smashed apart the Pleasure. I am the Sovereign of the Scrap. And my kingdom is a blood river of beautiful, jagged, painful mistakes.
Daxian looked at his wooden hand. The flowers were dead. There was only the Soot.
"Fix... the... pipes," he whispered, as the World-Tree began to grow once more, its bark thicker and more jagged than ever before.