Above them, the beast shook. Its eyes spun like planets in turmoil.
"Then," stated Gasgorin, "someone came. Killed them all. Not dead—worse. Damned." His tone became bitter. "Particularly after something Bijob called 'The Battle of Guts & Sorrow.'"
The manifold changed, something taking its place: a heavy, looming shape, a solid black with only the red burning in its eyes. Zhìzūn Xiūzhēn Dàshī fled, Gasgorin whispered, "in an attempt to preserve his eternal flesh. Because of that thing. When I said infinity can die, what I meant was true. And it did—over and over. Every author who dared oppose him was murdered, taking their armies with them to hell. Soldiers, artists… all devoured."
"Raktanetrah," Gasgorin spat, as if spitting ash from her mouth.
Lincoln gazed, his drunken stupor dissipating as the figure in the manifold shifted.
The man stepped across a battlefield that was not land so much as a lurching sea of bodies—armies of every size and shape, from giants wearing silver armor to insectoid swarms, all jerking in silent agony. The shadow did not wield a sword or possess magic; it merely was, and where it stepped, men fell into nothing—armor folding inward, flesh unraveling like yarn, and screams being eaten by nothing.
Gasgorin's tone was deep and even. "Bijob told me that name was 'the blood-eyed one.' He didn't resist. He judged. Every blow that struck him was swallowed before it could take hold. Every soul he touched was drawn beyond the brink of the Dao, and not even the Dao could recall them."
Lincoln swallowed hard, his eyes past the silhouette. "And you've… seen him?"
Gasgorin didn't react. The red eyes in the vision shifted—just so, in their direction.
"The Battle of Guts & Sorrow was just the start," Gasgorin said slowly, his tone level, his eyes on the manifold. "Raktanetrah did not stop there. He hunted every cultivator of the world. Mortals don't realize—the church doesn't say anything about it, keeping the faith unadulterated—but Bijob, he knew.".
The vision shifted: cities shrouded in haze, temples on mountainsides burning, and disciples scattering like ants as the red-eyed shadow pursued them.
Gasgorin continued. "The thing did not kill them—it damned them. Pain forever, so calculated you'd have to think he was born solely to be a master of cruelty. And he was more skilled at it than any other living cultivator." He glared at Lincoln, lips curling into something between a sneer and a scowl. "Makes you wonder who the real good guy was."
Gasgorin's tone was husky and frenetic, words spilling out as if the memory itself were pursuing him.
"To avoid him, the Author split himself—endless, infinite, fractal copies. He knew that even if one shard survived, he could crawl back from Pātāla, the pit where Raktnetra damns souls. So he scattered into cultivators—each one born worthy of Heaven, but cut from his own hunger. Pragmatic to the marrow. Egoists are so sharp they'd cut through anything. If kindness earned them a mantra, they played saint. If slaughter raised their realm, they butchered bloodlines without blinking. They schemed, lied, manipulated, and looped across eternities—millions, billions, and trillions dead in their wake—just for one shred more power to crawl back into himself."
Gasgorin spat out the words, almost choking on them. "They were shameless. Saints when it worked. Monsters when it paid. Always moving, never stopping."
He dragged in a breath. "But Raktnetra… he was worse. He didn't need cultivation. He slipped into ordinary people, anyone, anywhere, twisting them, turning farmers and beggars into knives aimed at the author's fragments. He lived inside every shadow of those infinite realities, patient and venomous. He turned desperation itself against them."
His hands clenched. "And the fragments saw it. They knew infinite parts weren't enough. So they bled themselves together. Thirteen of them. Thirteen cultivators worthy not of Heaven, but of Void itself—after Nirvana, after everything. Thirteen minds sharper than infinity, thirteen hands strong enough to cage Raktnetra."
He hesitated, eyes clenching, voice dropping to a whisper as if he hated speaking the words he did.
He was waiting. He had planned for it. He had anticipated that.
Silence pressed down.
Gasgorin spoke with a rough voice, like every single word was ripped from his chest with a hook. He did not make eye contact, not wanting to look at anybody.
"The Jade Mountain Massacre."
The mere name drew the air down. He shifted, fists clenched, as though the memory burned his skin.
"Thirteen sects of cultivators assembled on Jade Mountain's manifold. thirteen infinites shoulder to shoulder across worlds." His words grew faster, fragmented. "On each right shoulder their Empresses rode. Closest—three Empresses worthy of Void. Behind them, three hundred, each capable of cleaving Heaven. Further still, three thousand of Earth, each and every one of them a legend in her own right." He shook his head. "And at their feet—three hundred million concubines. Pregnant. Expecting. Their unborn transformed into living batteries, mantra reservoirs fueling armies that had no end."
He took a deep breath, then pushed the rest out.
"Seven Gold Generals on the left shoulder, fourteen Silver Ministers, and twenty-one Bronze Saints. On the left foot, princes and princesses in the millions—each of them born with power leaning towards Void, Heaven, or Earth."
His voice grew tight, every word sharpened with old bitterness, as if even uttering their names placed a stone on his tongue.
"Under it all—the armies. Not a metaphor. Endless. Each sect marching with sufficient numbers to drown the planet. Swords stacked like sheaves. Lines drilled to kill without regard. And all of them with hunger."
Finally, Lincoln sat up. His eyes were red, his jaw working as if the words burned their way out.
"Then it was a war. Why are you talking about a massacre?"
Gasgorin's reply was prompt, stinging, and almost brutal in its certainty. "When a war is fought, one side falls, a golden eagle arrives on the battlefield, and one man is left standing."
Gasgorin's voice was like a blade drawn too quickly, breathless and keen. The hologram shimmered around him, armies evaporating into mist as he spoke.
He didn't battle them. He obliterated them. One word—Bhramastra—and thirteen armies shattered like glass. Not slain, not spared. Cursed. Patala consumed them whole before he ever took his second breath. A crater of scalding filth, strangling stench, each moment worse than the last.
The brow of Lincoln furrowed, unable to visualize it. Gasgorin continued, his fingers curling as if still hot from that curse.
The heir? On his third breath, he was thrown into the Swamp of Degeneracy. They fed upon one another there—clawed, bred, grew back worse with every iteration. Flesh twisted, faces lost, nothing left but screaming.
The hologram changed, the figures twisting in repulsive loops. Gasgorin's voice fell lower, a near-whisper.
"The concubines—cursed on his fifth step—into the world of labor that has no end, each task more burdensome than the last, no place to numb. And the sages—" he hesitated, letting the picture brand itself into their minds—"his thirteenth step condemned them to climb forever. Bare feet on a mountain of needles, no summit, no rest."
The silence weighed heavily, the sort of weight which makes the air in your chest feel heavy.
"After his 18th blink, the generals," he continued, tone dead, eyes far away, "he confined them to a white room. Their swagger, their arrogance, their so-called brilliance—gone. He took it away from them. Left them like beasts. Lustful, mindless, crowding each other in a box like cattle."
He didn't hesitate long before continuing, words gushing fast and unchecked. "And at his 31st breath, the ministers—the clever ones, the negotiators. He cast them into an abyss. No light, no end. Each one was given a coin. To go free, all they need to do is put all coins into one box."
Lincoln frowned and attempted to interrupt. "That's not so ba—"
"They can't," the man growled. "That's the beauty of it. They bicker, they beg, but never consent. At least one coin always falls into the other box, perpetuating the cycle. They edge close, but not close enough. Forever stuck in argument, scratching at each other in the dark."
The words hung there, sharper than knives, and the ensuing silence was even more stifling.
Gasgorin's voice cut through the smoke like a blade.
On his fiftieth step towards them," he uttered, "the Empress came to her doom. They were all thrown into the pit of Greed—doomed to fight at one another's throats for a kingdom of gold that turns to dust the moment someone claims it. And still, the cycle grinds on. Kill, cheat, torture, repeat.
His eyes did not blink. The silence that enveloped him was more deafening than any scream, every gasp sharp enough to cut the air.
On his hundredth breath, they reached them," the words tumbled from his lips like gravel, coarse and unyielding. "The thirteen cultivators. The ones who'd seen everything, endured everything. They were not afraid. They'd already resigned themselves to whatever fate awaited. When they separated from Zhìzūn Xiūzhēn Dàshī, they accepted it—live or die, if they weren't powerful enough, then so be it. They'd fall. That was the norm.
He leaned forward, voice tightening. "But they'd had one question remaining. Why him? Why should he sit in judgment on them from above when all that he'd done made them saints? They'd atoned for their sins—power, immortality, greed—but him? He'd destroyed ninety-nine percent of the universe. He'd destroyed more lives than they could even count, schemes a thousand times grander than theirs. And for what? Because the universe was 'corrupted'? Because he'd decreed a shred of it was 'pure'? That made no sense."
Gasps echoed through the hall, yet his voice never wavered. "When ninety-nine percent of Bhu-Loka had already been consumed by decay under Kali, the meaning of purity had shifted. Majority determines the truth. But he simply said, icy cold—"he parodied the words, each syllable hammering like a sledge, "'That. Doesn't. Matter.'"
"'They thought they'd never regret it," Gasgorin said, voice slicing through the silence. "They were so damn wrong."
He leaned forward, nearly spitting. "He grafted them with something worse than pain—horror itself. Not the kind you become accustomed to. No. This was absurd, meaningless fear, the kind that devours your lungs and causes you to scream at nothing. Not blackness, not fire, not even a void—just nothing. A silence so pure it stifles you.
Gasgorin's hands cramped up when he talked, as if he could still hear it. "And every breath makes it worse. They swore they wouldn't regret eternity, so he gave it to them. Bound them to a tree-shaped rock on the Ganesha Path, Stage Four. You walk there long enough, you'll hear them. Still screaming.".
"They craved eternity. He invited it. Now they're tied to a tree-like rock, still screaming. If you ever hike stage Four of the Ganesha path, you'll hear them. Don't confuse it with wind—it's them."
He slouched back, shaking his head.
"Raktnetra was not evil. He was just good at it. Better than anyone he battled. And not because of some master plan, but because of that abject obsession of his. To reach a world that does not need him. He knew he was wasting his time. He knew he was a hypocrite. Still, he pushed—no shame, no rule, no line he would not breach. He'd save anything, anyone… except himself."
Gasgorin laughed bitterly. "He was an onion constructed of irony, a rotten layer stacked upon another.".
The air wavered. The manifold peeled away, leaving only Gasgorin's voice.
"He said one thing to me, that Bijob son of a bitch. The second you think he's after you—" Gasgorin's gaze darted to the darkness, voice falling to a whisper— "—you're already damned."