It was a war of laws and minds.
When the clash began, it looked brutal: arms flew, legs severed, bodies thrown.
And yet—here is the truth that would confuse any reader if left unexplained—
not a single body was harmed.
What we were cutting wasn't meat. It was permission.
The Galvan soldiers were wrapped in a law‑shell: a conceptual overlay that told their bodies what they were allowed to feel and what they were allowed to survive. When we "severed" limbs, we were severing the soldier's connection to that overlay—breaking the imposed rule that coordinated their movement and fear.
They spat blood because their minds couldn't reconcile the contradiction: I was struck, I should be broken, I am not broken.
The blood wasn't gore.
It was a symptom—like static bleeding out of a system when the signal is disrupted.
A visible sign that their internal law was cracking.
That is what power and control look like at their cleanest and most disgusting: not swords and chains, but influence—tearing one person down from an original thought and replacing it with a stronger one.
And I could feel how easy it would be to become the thing I hated.
To overwrite rather than awaken.
To command rather than invite.
To be the empire in different clothing.
I held my self‑law tighter and kept my hands clean—not from violence, but from the deeper sin of ownership.
The Lie Inside the Title "Guardian"
As we pushed forward, I watched the others fight.
Sethren's chant struck the ground and the stones responded, not as magic but as memory.
Mira's herbs distorted the Galvan rhythm, forcing their lullaby into imperfect notes.
Kova tore through formations with brutal economy, never wasting a strike.
Eira moved like a question made human, cutting habit‑loops open just long enough for choice to breathe.
And still, the longer I watched, the clearer another truth became:
Some guardians were fighting for no purpose beyond the desire to learn, or to gain freedom from influence, or to keep their own fear from swallowing them.
They weren't evil.
They were unfinished.
And unfinished people are dangerous when you hand them a noble title.
"Guardian" can become permission.
Permission to act selfishly while calling it duty.
Permission to be vindictive while calling it justice.
Permission to betray an alliance and justify it as "necessary," because necessity is the favorite word of cowards and tyrants alike.
I saw those impulses moving beneath the surface of our group—small fractures, hidden greed, private resentments.
I saw through it.
And still I stayed quiet.
Because if I acted early—if I tried to correct them before the world was ready—then the timeline would twist into a worse shape. The war I wanted to end would deepen. Zianttra would become more broken than before.
So I held the burden alone.
And I hated how familiar that felt. �
Most of all, I desired a companion.
Not a follower. Not a worshipper.
Someone to share the weight—not so I could feel adored, but so the load of my own awareness wouldn't grind my self into dust.
But companionship, I've learned, is rare among those who make wars their identity.
Too many want a mirror.
Too few want a partner. �
The Accursed Game
Should I not keep using the word I? It sounds self‑imposed. Self‑important.
But what else am I supposed to do when my mind is always three people speaking at once—three wars at once—and every choice I make feels like it was decided by the past before I ever arrived?
Sometimes I wonder about my creator—whoever they may be, or may not be—and why my "choice" feels like a corridor built by decisions I don't remember making, with only a few doors I'm allowed to open.
Worse than that: why embed this accursed truth of power inside my head at all?
This accursed game of thought and action dulls the sense of self. It makes you question whether you're living… or simply performing an inevitability.
Even so, I can feel the game nearing an end.
Not because I'm winning.
Because I'm getting close to the hidden truths behind it all.