[200 years ago—50 years after the cataclysm]

  General Taranis stood high atop a cliff overlooking the blood-soaked battlefield below, once again questioning his lack of emotion. His golden armor glinted in the red-dawn sunlight. He felt nothing— no pride, no remorse— as he watched his Asura warband butcher the last defenders of the city.

  The monk he had taken captive only a few short years yet countless battles ago, Venerable Lhao, stood slightly behind him, “You fight to end war, yet birth ten more. I wonder, when will The Wheel crush you, General?”

  Still nothing. He kept the monk around as an intentional annoyance. Someone to call his morality into question, someone to make him feel something. Taranis was part of the first generation that grew up after the cataclysm, he never saw the times before, never understood life without constant bloodshed and fear.

  Fear… even that he had crushed within himself decades ago. Emotion for one of his generation was equivalent to weakness, all that mattered in this world was strength. To him it didn’t matter what his intention was, good or evil we all landed somewhere in-between by the end, how he got there was irrelevant as long as the outcome was positive.

  Taranis turned to the monk, “It seems to me there is not much left in this world for The Wheel to crush… Do you think me a monster, Venerable? You sat in your mountain retreat, fed by the labor of the villagers around you. Sat on your cushion, meditating as if somehow it would make a difference in this world. So, has it? Show me where your inaction helped, show me the people you saved.”

  There was no anger in the accusation, for Taranis it was a simple statement of facts. This monk with his mountainous moral high ground seemed pitiful in his eyes, not worthy of an emotional outburst even if he were capable of one. It was all simple math for Taranis. Remove evil, lift up the people, and the result would be a better world. Why was this so complicated? Why did others view him as this… monster?

  The monk was predictably silent, as usual.

  No matter. Taranis turned away and began the descent into the city, his pet monk trailing close behind.

  They rode through a bloody barren land, the Rot already starting to spread its blackened fingertips from the countless corpses spread across miles of wasteland.

  General Taranis paused,“Tell me Lhao, what do you think of these creatures? This city, with naught but cannibals and thieves, did they deserve this fate?”

  Lhao pulled his horse alongside the generals, “I cannot imagine every one of these tens of thousands lying before us was responsible for the crimes you accuse. It is likely a significant number of these lost souls were coerced into battle against their will.”

  “Perhaps,” Taranis replied, “yet then what of personal accountability? You spend your days lecturing me on my evil actions, but at least there is a clarity in my choices. I understand the effects of my actions. I know we drive towards a hope for our people, bloody and messy as the path may be. These ‘lost souls’ as you put it, stood in our way of their own volition. What would have become of them had they refused their so-called duty? At best they would have fled, at worst they would have ended up exactly as they are now. I ask you then, how are you able to define my actions as purely evil when the end result is the same, when the end result brings our people closer to a better life. I ask you again, how is that evil?”

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  Lhao sighed, for as much as he despised the general for what he had done, and for as much as the general’s ways were completely antithetical to his own, he had to admit General Taranis was quite the debater.

  “General, why do you keep me with you? You ask to be challenged, yet you ever respond with a certainty that speaks clearly to your unshakable convictions. I fear nothing I say will sway you, so I question the point.”

  Taranis thought deeply, slowly bringing his horse up to a canter towards the city gates as the monk followed behind, “What is a general without conviction, Venerable? A general without conviction, a general without strength, is a general with no army. A general with no army is nothing. Therefore it is clear logic that a general without conviction is no general at all.”

  The monk was silent once again as they rode through the city gates. Taranis was not wrong in noting the horrors this place had wrought on humanity. The remnants of a city that quite literally ate itself stood before them.

  Lhao was physically and spiritually sickened as they rounded a bend to see the city square covered in a mound of corpses rising to the heights of the apex of the houses nearby. These were no combatants, these corpses were once citizens. The mound of corpses made clear the cities monicker, “The City of Sacrifice.”

  Even noting the horror in front of him, Lhao was somehow more disturbed by the fact that General Taranis seemed unaffected by the macabre scene.

  “What say you, Monk?” Taranis broke the silence between them without looking away from the corpse pile, “is what we have done evil? Was our slaughter unjustified?”

  Lhao found himself unable to reply, briefly distracted by two of the general’s Asura lieutenants approaching. He shuddered in revulsion. He could never get used to the red skin and the unnatural heat they gave off.

  The corpse mound pulsed like a rotten heart, as he stared at it. Fingers of black Rot crept from its base, the air reeking of a cloying sweetness—the sweetness a mockery of life.

  As Taranis surveyed the corpses, the briefest flicker of unease crossed his face, unnoticed by any but himself—the ghost of the boy who once flinched at suffering.

  He turned to the two Asura, “Burn the city. Burn it all,” was all he said as he reared his horse around and made for the gates.

  Lhao shook himself from his haze, thinking of the grand libraries and knowledge that would be lost. He found himself rushing after Taranis before he could truly think it through, “General! General, wait! We must rebuild, not destroy.”

  The general did not stop, but glanced his way, “This city is forever tainted. The Goddess Kalaratri, ‘The Night of Time,’ laid claim to this city and is not so easily swayed. You wish to rebuild? It will not save them. Only fire cleanses, monk.”

  With a determination he did not know he had, Lhao pulled the reins of the general’s horse, eliciting one of the most emotional reactions Lhao had ever seen from the man, a glance of near-amusement and a raised eyebrow.

  Surprised at how unsettling such a simple glance could be, Lhao nevertheless persisted, “I can purify it. Let me purify the city, cleanse it of Kalaratri’s corruption.”

  Lhao reached into the pack strapped to the side of his horse and pulled out a golden prayer wheel covered with runes that glowed a faint, sickly shade of purple, “General, this wheel once sealed a great evil. I can do this, I swear it, if you but let me try.”

  Briefly pausing, Taranis looked closely at the monk. Lhao spoke with a desperation, an emotional response that Taranis could never himself feel. Something near to jealousy washed over him, and in that moment, he made a choice that would have reverberative consequences through history.

  “Very well Lhao, have your little… ritual.”