Ukatan Church Basement
Hao peered into the absolute darkness of the church basement. Since Ukatan church was built atop a hill, the basement extended a good bit underground. It was a narrow hallway of crumbling stone, with a rotten stench permeating its area magnified by the dampness of the confined space. Several stone pillars supported the underground basement, and beside these pillars lay ominous coffins in a neat row. The coffins were all an austere black, made of iron covered by decaying black paint. Chains and restraints lay snugly atop each of these coffins, open and inviting. Spiritual traps to siphon the matter of the soul. Hao knew that they would have to be used soon. An ordinary person would not have seen any of this however, such was the choking darkness within the underground confines of the basement. Within this blanket of black, Hao sat on one of the coffins, looking directly at something inside the shelter of shadows.
Hao called out,
"Everything has been done and established. But tell me, why do you come to me for assistance? Not withstanding the proximity to your abode of course, but perhaps it is a hint of ironic susceptibility that pushes you to choose me, the neutral overseer?"
His voice rang out in the tunnel, echoing his mellow and steady tone into a pitched and sinister ring. There was merely silence for a few seconds, before a reply streamed out from a mouth within the recesses of the sickening darkness.
"Tell me... O servant of Christendom, a kingdom which I have served, what is it that holds the flame in your heart? What ignites the impenetrable steel of coldness that you engender, what ignites your long ashen coals? Think, and understand. That same drive rings with me. Is it duty to Christendom? Nonsense. Honor? Worthless. Generosity? Preposterous. You understand, do you not? The world so wronged and twisted, so filthy in the recesses of what is known as humanity. You understand do you not? To heal is to restore, but the methods by which restoration can be applied range infinitely. But truth has reared its ugly head to me and spoken its words to me. To heal is to lose. To save the head, one must hack off the limbs if one must."Hao's lips coiled into a frown as he narrowed his gaze at the being before him.
"I understand, I understand, I understand"
He replied sarcastically, mocking the being's repetition.
"But tell me, where do you derive this decision, this judgement oh so fitting to the darker tones of the word? Our goals seem intertwined yes, but the extremes of our ideals differ. Enlighten me, estranged one, as to why the body must lose before being restored?"
The clanking of metal. An abnormal sound that echoed through the tunnel as if roaring out its singularity. A humanoid figure stood before Hao, still wreathed in darkness so as to make his form incomprehensible.
"I initially believed all could be saved. That the body need not suffer to heal. But as time changes all, so too did my views. Through a sea of decay and purification I meandered to grasp the faint light called honor and yet that glimmer turned out to be merely the visage of the truth known as human nature. Our goals are grand in scale, such that we require the aid of this farce known as the holy grail. Grandness is a human value, subjective and prone to change, and how fitting is it that our goals be deemed grand in the context of human nature itself. It is inherently a twisted root, a parasitic monstrosity that only causes strife. To pull out the roots is to save the entire field, while to trim the stem is to allow the pest to flourish in another time."Hao's frown twisted into a slight smile of admiration as he heard the corrupted one's words. Everything would come to be as planned. The neutral overseer and a relic of the grail would lay down the net by which the war itself would be undermined.
