Yeom Ki sat at his desk, his hands a blur of motion as he transcribed Data from the Jade Tablets his informants had given him onto the ledgers and notebooks in front of him. He then took the relevant information and broke it down, sending it to the retentive departments and field agents. It felt like his brain was trying to process fifty different things at once, and thanks to the Split Mind technique, that might not have been that far off.

When he'd started the Origin Sect all those centuries ago, his goal had been to iron out some of the... inconsistency and hypocrisies he'd noticed in the Cultivation community, especially among the more powerful groups. Maybe it was the naivety of youth, the thought that he was somehow the "main character" of this story. That he could somehow change the world all by himself. Or merely a difference in upbringing, seeing the world through a different lens.

Whatever the reason was, Yeom Ki had to admit, he would have never had imagined in a thousand years how much paperwork it took to keep a Sect running.

Just as the massive pile of papers disappeared through the short-range teleportation formation, the door to his office burst open, and an older man walked through. Wu Song dumped another stack of reports on the Yeom Ki's desk, pointedly ignoring the Sect Leader's looks of sorrow and defeat. With a sigh, Wu Song sunk into the chair across from the young man and said in a tired voice.

[Wu Song] - "These are the last of the investigation reports. So far, we've weeded out twelve known spies; eight from the Pillars, three Mages, and surprisingly one from the Temple of Fire."

Yeom Ki's hands didn't even stop as he looked up, raising a brow.

[Yeom K] - "Is it? that prick Fēnghuǒ never liked us very much. I'm not surprised that sis-con has kept tabs on his baby sister's 'pet' for all these years."

Wu Song coughed and turned his head away before continuing,

[Wu Song] - "Be that as it may, I believe we've managed to root out the immediate threat. Though I feel like I must mention that we've likely missed Avalon. They've always been a... slippery bunch."

Yeom Ki laughed, half-mocking,

[Yeom K] - "Oh, I'm sure we have. And I'm sure that old coot knows we know too."

While officially a neutral party, it was an open secret that Avalon had an ear to nearly every door in every significant power. The nature of mentalists meant that their spies were exponentially challenging to locate, and in turn, spies were extremely difficult to plant on Avalon itself. Sure, people still tried, but more often than not, things didn't end well. While Avalon might have been numerically the smallest of any major power, that didn't mean they were someone to take lightly, by far.

Wu Song sighed, then looked over at the Sect Leader. He hesitated, unsure how to ask the next question, before sitting up straight and asking in a serious voice.

[Wu Song] - "Sir... I have to ask..."

Yeom Ki's hands stopped, and he stared at the older man, one brow raised and a slight frown on his face.

[Yeom Ki] - "Yes? Was there something else?"

Wu Song paused, thinking about how to word his concerns.

[Wu Song] - "Yes... Sir, I was wondering. What actually is going here. With... All of this? I understand that a Fallen Star is important, more so one this powerful... Still, I can't help but feel what we did, what we're doing, is... Wrong, somehow."

Yeom Ki squinted his eyes and tilted his head,

[Yeom Ki] - "Wrong... how?"

Wu Song roared, his eyes going red as his fist slammed into the desk, making the room shake.

[Wu Song] - "Dang it Ki! Don't play these games with me! You know what I mean! I've tolerated your secrets and deflections in the past because I believed you truly had people's best interests at heart. That you really wanted to make a difference, to change the status quo. Yet you were willing to break the Original Dictum for this thing! YOU! The Sect Leader! The Founder! Two people died because of your secrets Yeom Ki! How many more?"

The Original Dictum. The founding principles of the Origin Sect. When humans first learned how to manipulate Spiritual Energy from the Maker, he laid down several laws for them to follow.

1 - A Cultivator is a Guardian, a Protector of those who can not protect themselves.

2 - A Cultivator will use their power to uplift, not to dominate.

3 - A Cultivator will not steal what does not belong to them.

4 - A Cultivator will not take the life of another without just cause. 

5 - A Cultivator will seek to grow, push their limit in all things, and breakthrough them.

Of course, this was eons ago, long before humans and other sapient life arrived in the newly formed world. And like so many things over the ages, the Original Dictum was slowly forgotten by the majority of Cultivators. They began to become drunk on their own power, seeking to dominate and rule as kings or even gods.

One Legend even said that the Firmament was a punishment from the Maker, a prison to stop the Cultivator's hubris and lust for power from spreading into the greater cosmos. Of course, no one knew the truth of these matters, or even if the Original Dictum were indeed from the Maker or just a myth.

Nonetheless, they were the principles and Law that acted as the foundation of the Origin Sect. When Yeom Ki had first proposed the idea of using them, many had laughed at him; the world of Cultivators ran on the Laws of the Jungle where the strong ate the weak and became stronger. There was no place for the outdated Dictum in modern cultivation.

But to everyone's surprise (maybe even to Yeom Ki's), it had worked.

Tired of the Cultivator's oppression and driven by eons of repressed frustration and fear, mortals flocked to the Origin Sect in shocking numbers. The first few years were chaotic, and more than once, they had come close to the brink of collapse. But Yeom Ki's charisma and dedication, as well as a community build on uplift and support each other, instead of competing and stepping on your peers, held it all together. In a few short centuries, the Origin Sect had grown from an experiment most thought was doomed to fail to a major world power that could stand toe to toe with the then "Four Pillars of Cultivation."

Yeom Ki slammed his hands on the table and stood, his eyes glaring at the older man. The room's atmosphere was tense before Yeom Ki's shoulders sank, and he fell back into his chair with a sigh. The young Sect Master rubbed his eyes and spoke in a tired voice.

[Yeom Ki] - "I'm sorry, Wu Song. You're right; I haven't been acting like myself lately. Even still, I can't explain right now. Not yet, not while so many things are still unknown. There's more going on here than either of us realize. The fewer people that know, the better. For everyone."

Wu Song stood up, still seething,

[Wu Song] - "Don't give me that boy! You're not the beating, broken man I found digging himself out of a grave all those years ago. Stop trying to carry everything on your own. Wasn't that the whole point of this Sect? To gather people who could help you change this screwed up world?! Why are you still trying to hide things? Why are..."

Yeom Ki stood back up and roared back.

[Yeom Ki] - "BECAUSE I CAN'T! I CAN'T TRUST ANYONE! I have no idea who is listening, who is WATCHING. If the wrong people, if the wrong THING, learns what I know, then it's OVER. Everything. Me, You, the Sect, the WORLD. Do you understand what that's like? To always be looking over your shoulders? To always be watching what you say and to who? Lest something slip? The Pillars, the Counsel, the Mages, Avalon, they're all just big fish in a small pond, totally unaware of the things beyond what they can see or put their hands on.

They don't know what it means to be... hunted."

Wu Song took a step back, eyes wide and mouth agape, before he collected himself and stared down at his Sect Leader, feeling like he was seeing him for the first time. His eyes squinted, and he asked in a careful voice.

[Wu Song] - "Yeom Ki... Who are you, really?"

Yeom Ki stared in shock, his own eyes wide as if he couldn't believe what he had just said himself. Slowly, he stood straight, then walked around the desk, a dark and determined light flashing through his eyes. Wu Song's heart began to beat faster as he stealthily began circulating Spiritual Energy. Had he misjudged the man all this time? Was he really willing to get rid of him just to keep this secret of his? Wu Song wasn't a fool enough to think he could beat or even escape from the Prodigy who'd shot past him centuries ago, but he wasn't one to go down without a fight, either.

Yeom Ki stood in front of the older man for a silent moment before hitting the floor in a deep dogeza. He spoke in a voice that was both serious and pleading, in a way that left Wu Song's mouth agape once more. 

[Yeom Ki] - "I'm sorry. I've said too much already. I'm begging you; if you've ever trusted me in anything, trust me in this. I'll explain everything when I can. But now isn't the time. Please."

Wu Song frowned deeply as he stared down at the bowing man. His eyes narrowed before he turned toward the office door. As he left, he spoke, not bothering to look back.

[Wu Song] - "I don't like it. This whole matter smells of the kind of thing we've spent all this time denouncing and stopping. But I'll trust you this once, Yoem Ki. Please, don't let my belief in you be in vain."

With that, the older man closed the door, throwing the room into silence. Yeom Ki stayed bowed for a long moment before finally standing. He gave a deep sigh and pinched the bridge of his nose. Things had just gotten far more complicated than they should have been. He needed to find the Fallen Star quickly and confirm or deny his theories. He needed to know. If his fears were genuine, if 'they' were back, then it was no longer a matter of petty power struggles and squabbling children.

Lost in thought, Yoem Ki nearly lept from his skin as he turned around to see two jet black onyx eyes stared at him, half sticking out from his wall. As the Elemental pushed her head through the (supposedly inscribed for defense and concealment) walls of his office, the deep frown and narrowed eyes he gave him sent a cold shiver through his spine. 

As she walked over and sat in his chair, Jīshí folded her arms and propped her feet on her desk, before giving him a stern look.

[Jīshí] - "Yes... that's a good question. Who exactly are you, Yoem Ki?"

---

---

Through the next week, Alpha alternated between improving his Ammunition designs, modifying his weapons Blueprints to with his the CRAB frame, and experimenting on the Gem. While the first two were making some progress, he'd hit a roadblock with the Gem. No matter what he'd tried, he could not figure out a use for the strange energy. While it seemed that materials that were ionized by the spiritual particles showed greater strength, durability, and even enhanced properties to the more "mundane" cousins, the ionization process was painfully slow.

Unless the material already had spiritual ions to help attract more particles, it could take days for even a small sample to show any change. And that was with the Gem's help; he suspected it would take far longer merely relying on environmental radiation to do the same.

It didn't help that he couldn't figure out a way to actually control this process or energy himself, either. He'd expected as much, given Jīshí's low evaluation of his "compatibility" with spiritual energy, yet it still bruised the AI's ego a bit. He had made one discovery that showed promise, though. He had found that once the Armadillo Alloy's Orbital concentration reached roughly 20 times the average amount, the metal seemed to become supersaturated and wouldn't accept any more spiritual particles. In fact, it would actively repel them.

Using this principle, Alpha quickly constructed a containment chamber for the Gem, using magnetic fields to keep it in place. Over the next few days, the containment chamber's concentration of spiritual energy continued to rise to astounding levels. This alone broke so many supposed laws of Physics, Alpha was beginning to think he might need to just throw the whole textbook out the window.

Once the "pressure" had built up enough, Alpha could direct this energy out of a small opening, creating a kind of "Spiritual Laser." While the beam of concentrated spiritual energy was practically useless as a weapon (so far), what it DID do was drastically decrease the time for a material to ionize. It made sense; if the Ionizing process needed the spiritual particles to interact with atoms, increasing either the number of particles or atoms in a given area increased the chances of this interaction. The same principle was why air seemed to ionize at such a slower rate than a liquid or a solid.

Using this new "Ionizing Spiritual Laser," Alpha began experimenting on different materials, from everyday things like quartz and granite to rarer trace minerals and organic compounds. Living Cells, in particular, seemed to react strangely to the radiation. The Spiritual particles seemed to target DNA with singular ferocity.

In low doses, this could cause strange and seemingly random mutations in the plants he'd tested it on, though the process was slow and tedious. In higher, more concentrated doses, the mutations were wild and out of control, often manifesting in strange, tumorous masses in time frames that should have incinerated the biological material simply from the energy released by cell division.

Alpha had kept one of these samples, in particular, a baseball size pulsing, squirming mass of flesh and mucus that was once a Tardigrade, in a containment unit. Once the creature had stopped its rapid, malicious mutation, it had formed some kind of cocoon and even now was pulsing silently as the field kept it floating in the reinforced glass containment unit. He doubted the creature was viable, given its bio-metric readings, but curiosity had gotten the better of the AI.

As Alpha started to prepare for further experiments, he suddenly got an emergency signal from one of the Dummy Ants.

Surprised, Alpha stopped what he was doing. The Dummy Ant's might not have the smartest AIs programmed into them, but they were durable. Even if an Ant was destroyed during a hunting trip, the nanobot that made it up could simply reform it. Or at least bring the frame back to base if the damage was severe enough. They were programmed only to get in touch with Alpha if they had stumbled across something truly unique... or dangerous.

Alpha quickly connected to one of the Dummy Ant's, looking through its "eyes"... only to find the entire Ant Colony in total chaos.
Soldiers and Bait Ants scrambled through the nest, as the tunnels were shaken by the sound of explosions, while Worker's ran about, carrying Larva and Eggs further into the tunnels for safety. Alpha directed his Dummy Ant to follow after the Soldiers, the hive map he'd built over the last few months showing they were headed towards one of the secondary Queen's chambers. The second chamber had been built only a few weeks before, to house the newest batch of queens, and was quite a ways away from where the three Elder Queen's chamber rested further and deeper in.

As they drew closer, the sounds of explosions grew louder, and Alpha could even pick out what sounded like metal on rock. That couldn't be good. Soon, the group of Soldiers he'd been following emptied into the chamber, and Alpha finally got a look at what was going on.

Near one of the tunnel entrances, both Soldiers and Bait Ants swarmed over a little more than a dozen figures. They wore armor made of high-quality leather (if how hard of a time the Soldiers were having getting through it was anything to go by) and an unknown variety of metals. The weapons they swung, whether they be short-blades, hammers, or half-staves, all glowed with dim light, and each swing quickly sunk deep into the carapaces of the tough Soldiers. What surprised Alpha the most, however, was that attackers were all distinctly... not human.

Instead, they appeared to be bipedal Grey Wolves, their long snouts curled up toothy snarls as they mowed down the endless hoard of ants in a distinctly human manner.

And mow them down, they did; already, a small wall of Ant bodies started to form around the group as they slowly backed out of the tunnel. Even the body of one of the Juvenile Queens lay cold and still in one corner, split end to end. Thankfully, the other young Queen was nowhere to be found, seeming to have escaped while the Soldiers held off their attackers.

Still, Alpha couldn't help but feel a little annoyed at the strange creatures. These were HIS Ants. Where the hell did they get off marching in here and slaughtering them like insects (even if they technically WERE insects).

They could have at least asked, but no, now they'd forced his hand. It seemed Alpha would have to step in and... Mediate.

Ya let's go with that.