"There are, in truth, Four Levels to Awakening. The level of the Adamantine is the first. Some call it Arhathood, others call it Sainthood or Saintship. It is the the most common form of Awakening. This is where one turns one's very physical body into a vessel for an Omniscient. Often Adamantines become Omniscient in their next rebirth. Saints are often Adamantines as well. Unfortuantely, it is one without Waking-Mind Meditation. It is pure perfected Ekstasis-Gnosis. But its Wisdom is incomplete. And worse, its Compassion (the Enlightenment-Thought) is lacking."

From the Broken World Manuscript

They brought Raxri out of the sterile hell-womb they had woken up into. They felt better, but sluggish. As if they had been frozen for far too long and needed to move their limbs. To get heat moving through them. To get them limber again. They had made their way to one of the courtyards of the compound—this one atop the crown of the Skull of the Dead Divine. Another large pagoda was erected here, within a statue of the Omniscient Dattreya Wairini, the Twice-Awoken.

They stayed outside, where they had erected a kopitiam. Sutasoma ordered a bunch of condensed milk coffees for her, Mijja, and Raxri, and then poor-knight's toast. It was called mendicant knights toast because it was often made by the poor knights of Soreh and the Kingdom of Lea (pronounced "lee", by the way). It was a sliced bread soaked in beaten eggs mixed with milk, then fried. All very easy things to do, and it was easy to steal eggs from the local villages back then.

A sweet dish was all Raxri wanted at this point. They could feel their body stronger now, again. It had no doubt been injected with all sorts of medicines, remedies, and herbal concoctions. All their vitamins have no doubt been delivered. They deserved just a small modicum of luxury, they thought. And what a luxury this was.

They ate their extremely sweet treats (South Utter Islanders are well known for loving their sugary treats, particularly using condensed milk for their dishes and deserts and pastries after having been invented by the primeval Arataians, who ruled the Jade Sea that once was above water in between the islands of Jhonxiya and Nilatpa) underneath a giant dragonflower parasol. They sat on a raised platform, sitting cross-legged on pillow chairs, upon a low hexagon wooden coffee-table. All of this overlooking the city of Selorong. Its spires the fingers of a dead god trying to reach the sun—or perhaps the very entrails of a sky ripped open.

Raxri knew there was much to discuss. But at that moment, all they could think of was savoring the condensed milk coffee (a mixture but popularized after the wartorn lands of Sengvat) and the poor-knight's toast. It was sugary goodness. Do I have a bit of a sweet tooth that I never indulged in? Raxri suddenly remembered the adobo cooking of Akazha, and a pang of melancholy surged through them. Like a light suddenly turned on in mid-dawn.

While they ate, Raxri couldn't help but admire their new arm. It glistened in the sunlight. A beautiful and perfect black. It wasn't overly glossy either—at times looking like a completely matte black, giving it the look of clay. And with the apperance of clay, it looked more and more like flesh. They could feel pistons whirring somewhere underneath. They focused for a moment, sinking into meditation, letting their Ardor Furnace—ah, the heat felt so comfortable—arise from them. Their Breath burned and burgeoned, and carried Raxri's Ardor through their body, sending it flurrying through their porcelain arm. The pistons worked over time, and Raxri accidentally crushed the coffee cup in their hand.

"Whoa!" Raxri looked about, sheepish. "Forgive me. I... didn't know that was possible."

Sutasoma shrugged and waved her hand. "It's no matter. I'm a lot more glad with the fact that you're comfortable enough to try and begin Breath Cycling again." She turned and asked for one of the attendents, Yoze, to come and clean and give them another condensed milk coffee. Yoze nodded, and everything was replaced in a matter of minutes.

As Yoze cleaned up, Sutasoma said: "Ah, before we go on ahead, Raxri, this is Mijja. Mijja is... here to help you with something."

Mijja bowed to Raxri. "I am pleased to make your acquaintance, Raxri Uttara. Heaven Dancer. I was tasked by the Doctor Myu Fan to aid you, particularly in fulfilling Akazha's Death Curse."

"Death Curse?"

Sutasoma nodded. "Many of my students develop fierce Death Curses as part of their Magick Initiation. It just so happened that Akazha's death curse is... to kill her father, Altai Gozon."

"Her father?" Raxri blinked. To kill someone was karmically negative, but to kill one's own father... what exactly had happened to Akazha? Raxri can only have nothing but compassion, but at this point, what would be the right path? To dance down the path of vengeance or...?

"Akazha Han Narakdag is her chosen name, her Law Name after she had been initiated into the Mandala of Kroma Nagmi," said Sutasoma. She took a bite of her toast. "Her birth name was Dian Gozon, and she was the first daughter of Altai Gozon. They had groomed her into becoming a perfect heir... until she decided she wanted nothing to do with Altai Gozon's business empire."

"Business Empire?"

"Altai Gozon is the owner of one of the most widespread and most powerful drug smuggling cartels in Selorong and in the Charnel Isles, you see. He is the Thrice-Crowned King of the Triad."

Raxri felt the air go out from them, even as they sipped from their sweetened coffee. "What company Akazha must have kept..." Yoze came back with the new condensed milk coffee.

"That is why she fled to the end of the world, Raxri," said Sutasoma. "But now her Curse is the death of Altai Gozon. And this is something I must arrange. Thankfully you have a Physicker with you." She gestured to Mijja.

Mijja shrugged. "Physicker-in-Training," she said, raising a finger to correct the Sutasoma. "Er, Master. Specializing in Medicines and White Magicks."

Sutasoma snickered. "Right. Physicker in Training."

"White Magicks?" asked Raxri.

She nodded. "Healing magicks, rituals, and the like, using one's own Ardor to heal another with the appropriate mudras, mantras, and ritual components," she said. "Doctor Myu Fan even said I had a natural talent for it." Raxri said nothing, but the mention of Doctor Myu Fan did fill them with a certain modicum of respect and reassurance.

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"I hope the Doctor is doing well," said Raxri, smiling. "I miss her."

Mijja smirked. "I'm sure she misses you too. But she's doing pretty good, though she can't leave Zanmetia in Pemi. And that's why she made me go to you, to make sure you had a healer beside you because I think... I think everyone around you knows you're going to be in a lot of danger." Saying this, Mijja suddenly realized the weight of responsibility she had on her shoulders. I hope my healing will be enough, then.

Sutasoma continued: "In truth, Raxri Uttara, I am fully capable of slaying Altai Gozon myself. But the political repercussions of such an act... I cannot endanger the entire commune for it. Selorong hangs in a deadly balance right now. All Alignments are simply waiting for one of the other Alignments to fuck up. Then there will be all out Alignment War. The likes that will supercede in consequence the Second World Revolution."

"How? How do you know this, master?" asked Mijja.

"It is simply dialectics," she said. "An examination of the material conditions aided by some geomancy and astromancy. The world will never be the same once one has made a move. And so, this all important task is laid upon you, Raxri Uttara."

Raxri blinked. "To... me? I'm not sure if I can kill someone..."

"You can, and you must, Raxri Uttara." Sutasoma sipped from her coffee. "Did you not know? That some people need killing?"

"But to kill is karmic suicide. And will it not be a stain on my Enlightenment Thought and Compassion Cultivation?"

Sutasoma shook her head. "Nay. In fact, one of the most important obstacles to Compassion Cultivation is the ability to Kill In Compassion. This is known as Enlightened Killing, or sometimes Omniscient Killing. It will be very important for you. Hingsajagra is a dangerous world. It is a world of violence, and if you do not kill, you will be killed. Perhaps maybe that's what happened to you, and why you've lost so much of your power?"

"What happened to me..." Raxri looked down on their hands. "I... do not know." Their memories lingered back into their last encounter with the Five Triumphant Immortals. Mentra's words. Ashtasi's words. Reyayu's words. "What spite and hatred they hold for me. What kind of monster was I in my past life?"

Mijja raised an eyebrow. Askance danced upon her face. "You believe in what those losers think of you?"

Raxri blinked. They looked at Sutasoma first, who was smiling and nodding, and then at Mijja, who was looking in their direction with a small kind of innocence. "They failed to kill you once. And now they failed to kill you again, now without your abilities and Cultivations. Maybe they are not as good as you think they are? Perhaps even they are worse?"

Raxri bit their lip. Stifled a laugh. What Mijja was saying was so absurd that Raxri couldn't help but look at it from a different perspective. There was a mote of truth to what she was saying, but Raxri was just not sure if that mindset could be applied to this situation. "I might have ruined lives. They would not be so ardently ferocious against me if I hadn't done something just as wrong to them."

"That's not true," said Mijja. Though she did not follow up with a reason. She pouted and she looked like a rabbit for a moment.

Sutasoma shrugged. Part of her clothes slipped from her right shoulder and she reached down to pull it back up. "Deluded beings are not always the greatest agents of karma," she said. "Ignorant beings have free will. And in this free will they perform intentional acts that cause them even worse karmic retribution. I'm sure you know already but here I am to remind you: karma does not work in the strictest cause and effect sense. There is no divine force or destiny that is waiting to give you the punishment you deserve. There is no heavenly ledger or utilitarian wet dream akashic record. That is not karma. Karma is the weight of your volitional actions, and thus dictates where your atoms go when they die upon the dispersal of your body. Part of it goes into the earth, while others—the air, the breath, the Ardor, all which house the aggregates parts of your Mindstream—go to form into new beings. This is why one being has multiple past lives. There is a continuum of consciousness but this is not a singular thing. Else, that would constitute a self. And there is no Self."

Raxri leaned rested their cheek on their knuckles. They had been dressed in rather lax clothes. A simple sleeveless turtleneck top, cropped so that it showed off their abdomen. With their broad shoulders it fit nicely, while giving them that strange, hard to pinpoint androgyne look. For their bottoms they wore a simple sarong that was tied and pleated multiple times. It was wrought out of a beautiful silk, dyed indigo and embroidered with silver lotuses. Raxri couldn't help but be truly appreciative of whatever had been given to them at this point, where they had truly lost everything again.

Sutasoma continued: "Whatever your sin, it has not made it so that hell takes you forcibly. That means that karma is purifiable, and we can make things better."

Right, the karma purification rituals. I remember. Raxri nodded, hearkening back to their time in Giant Stone Monastery. They sighed and sipped their coffee.

Sutasoma continued: "I spoke with Akazha one last time."

Raxri paused for a moment. Nodded. A heavy leadenness in their heart.

Sutasoma was relentless: "She had one last wish on top of her Death Curse. She wanted to grant you her Cultivation fields." She reached into a fold in space, and then pulled out a silver flask. Raxri could immediately feel the waves of witch-power emanating from it. "All the Omniscients over all the Heavens, and all the Demigods Under Heaven. She wished for you to inherit her power for whatever task you need to fulfill. This elixir here is the distilled jouissance of her Cultivation Womb—the Devil Witch Matrix."

"An elixir...?"

"You must needs drink it," said Sutasoma. "Following a receptacle ritual. Will you accept?"

Raxri thought for a moment. They said... "Once I drink this... Akazha will be an ever part of me?"

"Your Cultivation Womb will be inexplicably changed and perverted by Akazha's, creating a wholly new Enlightenment Being within you."

"What is the Cultivation Womb?"

Sutasoma nodded, realizing she hadn't given Raxri a good answer just yet. "Ah, of course. Well, to be true and sure with you, it is not somethign you have to worry about too much just yet. But in essence..." Sutasoma mumbled a mantra and performed two hand seals. Upon her brow burst a small third eye in the shape of a gold starburst. Then she looked down upon Raxri's heart. "Your Cultivation Womb has the shape of the Adamant Sword Womb, as that is the Cultivation that you have been cultivating for the past few moons. Your Cultivation Womb is essentially the shape that your Ardor Furance takes, and this models and influences the abilities and skills that you can actually perform. The Cultivation Womb flows through all the meridians, more importantly through your Ability Meridians, which will mandate how many Abilities and what kinds of Abilities you can perform."

"Huh. This be true?" Raxri tapped their chin. "So... what must I do?"

"Well, if you accept Akazha's power, I must necessarily initiate you into Kroma Nagmi's Mandala, and I will become your Magick Master for learning Kroma Nagmi's Slaughter Magicks."

Raxri blinked. "Slaughter... Magicks?"

"Magicks that express the truest realities of Enlightened Killing," she said. "It's a mandatory philosophy to know, now, in this savage world and within the feuding Realms Belligerent."

"So it is magick for slaughtering...?"

"Magick that deals with the very concept of Murder, Killing, and the Enlightenment required to perform it properly. Along with that you must choose a Martial Art to joint-cultivate it with. You could go down the Adamantine Sword but... we don't offer that here."

"You don't offer the Adamantine Sword? I thought..."

"Well, it is the most common Sword Art in all of the Utter Islands. However, here in the commune we offer two more specialized Sword Arts—the Deathless Sword, which focuses on death-defying sword arts and perfecting the concept of avoiding Sword-Death, or Dialectical Sword Art or just DiaSword, the art of fusing the Nine-Pointed Star Blade with Masangwan Dialectics. DiaSword is easy to learn but hard to master, making it perfect for teaching it to the People's Army."

"The People's Army?"

Mijja bit the inside of her cheek.

"Yes," said Sutasoma. "Remember that if you become my disciple, Raxri, you will become part of something greater than yourself. You will join the Clear Light Relentlessly Cutting The Void—the mass movement of communists, dialectical materialists, and demonists who work to dethrone all kings, whether they be divine, financial, or technocratic, until we dethrone the very Demiurge that enthralls all."

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