Jīshí stood on the Mountain top, staring down into the valley in front of her as dozes of Origin Sect members moved about, busily preparing for the assault. It wouldn't be too much longer now before they began, and the tension in the air was palpable. Even still, the Lord of Stone stood in silence, an eerie bastion of calm within the chaos of war.

Thanks to her powerful eyesight and the "spirit" binoculars developed by her research team (using data taken from Alpha), she was able to easily make out the most minor of details within the enemy Sect's Fortress, even from over 10 kilometers away and through their advanced Array Defenses. They, too, scurried about, trying their best to prepare for what was about to happen.

The Fortress itself was impressive, by usual standards; at just over 600 square kilometers, it was more of a city than a fortress. The 100,000 Cultivators and more than 600,000 Mundane Warriors spoke of its true nature, however.

They wouldn't have been the first to think they stood a chance, to think THEY would be the ones to stand firm where others had failed. That THEIR shields and arrays were strong enough to resist. And in any other scenario, they would be right; even SHE would struggle to break through their Shielding Array, the ingenious fusion of centuries of Magic and Spiritual Arts that it was.

Little good it would do the now. Not against what came next.

With a deep, weary sigh, Jīshí lowered her binoculars and turned away from the cliff face, deeper into camp.

She stopped near a group of cultivators standing by a large metal construct as they inspected it and ran the final checks. Close by, overseeing the operation, Yeom Ki stood with a young woman, his back to the approaching Elemental. The face of the woman, Qi Mingxi, if her memory severed, was visibly red, marred with tear streaks as Jīshí caught the tail end of their conversation.

"Sect Master! I still don't understand. Why must we keep doing this? Don't you care that the world sees us as Demons now? Has this war not cost everyone enough blood already?! Is delivering this finishing blow really worth our Souls?!"

Yeom Ki was silent for a long moment, and when he turned to face the Disciple, Jīshí flinched at the sunken, aged weariness of his face. It was eerie how much he had changed, how unlike it was to the perpetually smiling, sometimes serious, sometimes childish face of the Sect Master they had all come to know. But then this war had changed all of them, some in more ways than others.

When Yeom Ki replied, his voice was stern and mechanical as if repeating the same thing he had told himself in the mirror thousands of times.

"... Yes. We have to do whatever's necessary to stop the Pillars from contacting 'Them.'

If they do, if 'They' learn of this place, of what's buried here... it won't just stop at our World. If it means the Salvation of millions of Worlds, I will gladly burn my Soul on that altar..."

With those words, he turned back to the construct and yelled out.

"Alpha! Are you ready? It's about time we finished this."

There was a whirl of gears and the sound of straining metal as the construct lunged upward and shook itself like a dog as Spiritual Technicians scrambled to get out of the way. A synthetic but oddly cheery, given the circumstances, voice spoke.

"Aye, looks like all systems are operational and ready to go. So we're finally doing this? About time. Linny boy! Is the platform finished?"

Lin Weiyuan sighed at the nickname but looked up from his new data-pad and responded anyway.

"Yes, Mr. Alpha, the Earth-movers have reported that everything is good to go on their end. You're clear for Operation Starfall."

The large metal Titan rocked back and forth with excitement as he turned and immediately headed in the direction of the platform.

"Great! Let's get this show on the road, people! Time to save the Universe!"

Ten minutes later, Jīshí watched Alpha roll onto the large, kilometer-wide stone platform dug into the mountainside for this day. Ringed around the platform were hundreds of onlooking Origin Sect members. They'd all lost loved ones in this war, and they'd all been waiting for this day, the day it all finally ends. It only seemed right to see it through to the end...

A deadly silence settled over the mountaintop as the AI that was at the center of all of this, for better or worse, settled into the center of the platform. Jīshí, too, for her part in all of this, would see this to the end. She refused to look away, to pretend that she wasn't a part of the tragedy about to take place.

Not this time.

As she stood by the cliff-side, she sensed Yeom Ki, Qi Mingxi, and Lin Weiyuan approach from behind. The Elemental didn't turn to acknowledge her companions, not wanting to tear her eyes from the Fortress in the distance. The group simply stood in silence for a moment longer before Yeom Ki called out.

"Begin Operation Starfall!"

At that trigger, hundreds of thin liquid metal rods shot out of Alpha's frame, burying themselves deep into the platform. The mountain itself began to rumble and the metal "roots" buried deeper and faster, seeking what they needed, reshaping it, forging the mountain itself into a new form. Into a Weapon. Across the valley, the Fortress burst into activity; they had noticed something was happening and didn't hesitate to act.

In an instant, hundreds of Siege Magics and Spiritual Arts flew across the valley towards their location at the top of the mountain. The Origin Sect wasn't caught off guard however, they had been expecting the enemy to make their move; at that moment, their own siege arts were released. Arts met Arts in a glorious display of power and light, the few that made it through the barrage, breaking themselves against either side's defensive arrays. Typically, this is how war was done in this world, forces throwing a continuous barrage of powerful arts at each other until one side's defenses finally caved. Naturally, this meant that the Defenders often had the advantage, as they had both the time and resources to dig in.

Alpha had changed all of that.

The exchange only lasted a few moments before the rumbling of the mountain stop, and with it, the Arts from both sides. There was a moment of hesitation before the entire Fortress flashed, and a massive crystal dome began to materialize over 'City,' and then another, and another. In the end, five massive crystal shields formed over the city as the enemy poured everything they could into their defenses. But Jīshí could already tell...

It wouldn't be enough.

In the next instant, as if in response, a forest of metal pillars suddenly rose from the stone platform. At that moment, the entire world was silent, as if someone had hit the mute button on reality, and even the birds or insects refused to break the silence. Slowly, a sound began to build from the center of the platform, quiet at first but slowly growing in volume as the seconds passed until it filled the Mountain and Valley.

"HehehehheheHahahahahhaHAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Lin Weiyuan sighed and placed his head in his hand.

"And people wonder why they've been calling us Demons..."

Alpha, oblivious to the young man's vexation, gave a final cry,

"BANZAI!

With that, the dimming twilight was turned to day as 20,000 cannons fired as one. Thousands of pillars of light shot high into the sky, quickly gaining altitude as they neared the target. Then, as they passed over the city, they unnaturally turned and began to fall downward. If one was unaware of what was happening, they might even call the sigh beautiful. Thousands upon thousands of tiny pinpricks of light, slowly falling to the earth like brilliant snow or tiny stars. But these weren't the kinds of stars you could wish on. No, these stars only granted one thing; a swift death.

As the first "star" touched the crystal dome, it erupted in a massive explosion. Unlike an explosion, one might expect, however, these expanded in a perfect sphere like tiny suns suddenly blooming in and out of existence.

And then the sound reached the mountain.

Like a terrible wind, the sonic waves from the attack washed over the mountain they stood on, buffeting the Sect Members as the lower level ones ran for cover, lest they fall into the still firing forest of Cannons below. Despite the noise, the AI's mad laughter was still plainly audible over the crescendoing attack.

At first, it appeared as if the crystal shield might actually hold, but as more and more of the stars made contact, the shield began to strain and buckle, twisting as each new impact tested its limits.

Then, the first shield broke.

With a sound like reality snapping, the outer crystal shield shattered, shards of crystalized Power exploding outward, digging deep furrows into the surrounding mountainsides and valley, before dissolving into Mana in Spiritual Energy. Something like the Crystal Shield might have once been called impossible, a Miracle born of the fusion of two different Paths.

But the "Stars" falling on it were a Calamity born of Three.

The second shield soon broke as well, and then the third, each falling faster than the last when the falling stars showing no sign of ending any time soon. As the last shield began to buckle under the onslaught, it suddenly burst forth with a brilliant white light and snapped back into place, somehow holding strong where the others had failed. Through the light of the tiny exploding suns, Jīshí could just make out a figure standing on top of the central Fortress. A bald woman in Monk's robes stood at the top of the highest pillar, arms reaching up as she poured everything she had into the final shield, even as blood began to seep from the pours on her bald head.

Jīshí knew she couldn't keep this up for long though, she had to have been burning her cultivation at an astounding rate to even achieve this much, and she was sure the woman understood just how hopeless it really was. Then, to Jīshí's surprised, the woman, who seemed to sense the Elemental's gaze, turned and looked at her, meeting her eye from far across the valley. The anger and crazy hatred that burned in the woman's eyes sent a cold chill down what accounted for Jīshí's spine.

And yet, at the same time, there was a desperate plea there, a frantic cry for help, begging her to stop this madness, accusing her of being the one that started all of this. Jīshí took a step back, her eyes wide as she slowly backed away from the edge, mouth open as if to deny the accusation in the woman's eyes. But before she could utter a word, the final shield collapsed, and the valley was flooded with starlight.

The stars crashed into the unprotected Fortress City, and the once lush valley turned into a Lake of Radiant Fire.

Jīshí fell to her knees and screamed, fingers digging deep furrows into her stone flesh as crystal tears fell, her eyes never blinking at the intense light of the fire lake below. As she stared at the terrible scene before her, a hand gently patted her shoulder and spoke softly.

"At last... it's finally over. Be proud Jīshí, this is all thanks to you. You've got your revenge. You can finally rest now."

Instead of easing the Elemental's mind, however, Jīshí felt her Core grow cold. That wasn't Yeom Ki's voice... but it was one she was all too familiar with.

Still kneeling, she slowly turned her head up and looked into the face of a bald woman, one whose face was terribly burned skin turned to blackened charcoal as her eyes slowly dripped from their sockets. Jīshí screamed and scrambled backward as she tried to escape the figure in front of her. The burned woman reached forward, asking with a frown that only made parts of her charred face slosh off.

"What's wrong, Jī-jī? isn't this what you wanted?"

Jīsh, wide-eyed, could only scream and shake her head, and she continued to crawl backward until she bumped into the legs of another figure. Looking up, she choked back another scream as she stared into the blackened skeletal face of a large Bearman. The Skeletal Medved spoke as well, his voice the sound of rattling bones.

"You finally got your revenge, Girly, aren't you Happy? Or did you kill us for nothing?"

Jīshí rolled out of the way as the skeletal Bearman joined the burned Monk.

"N-no! This wasn't what I wanted! I-I just wanted to stop you! I just wanted to..."

"To do what? Save the world?"

A third figure knelt down beside her, the melted slag of what was once heralded as the most powerful armor in the world fused to his flesh in a twisted amalgamation. The single, ruined eye that peaked out from the melted helmet seemed to shine with mirth as the figure spoke.

"Please, we all know what the truth is, Jīshí. You like to think of yourself as Alpha's collar. The only thing keeping him from going wild, or worse, bringing the Federation down on us all. But we both know the Truth. He's just a tool for you. A means to an End. A weapon of your revenge. For all your talk of playing savior, for all your desire to play Hero, at the end of the day, you're still the same person who you've always been. Still the same person who would rather strangle the problem in the crib than put in the effort to see it not become a problem in the first place."

Jīshi crawled further away, only for her hand to mean empty air. Her breath ragged (despite not technically needing to breath), the Elemental turned around to see she'd reached the edge of the cliff, with the lake of fire still glowing below them. Turning forward, she saw the three mangled forms standing in front of her, looking down at her as they spoke.

"So Congratulations, Jīshí!"

"You got exactly what you wished for."

"See, even they're proud of you!"

They stepped away, and where once was the gathered Origin Sect members ringing the platform, a large crowd of bloodied and broken bodies stood staring at her, thousands upon thousands, filling the mountainside, their clothes in the style of the City of Gears.

The man in melted armor turned back towards her and walked forward. He looked down, his single, ruined eye filled with a mocking pity.

"Don't worry Jīshí, it's all over. You can Rest now."

Then, with a violent kick, he pushed the Elemental over the cliff-side, and into the Radiant flames below.

As Jīshí fell, her screams seemed to blend into the sound of a still laughing AI...

Jīshí awoke from her meditation with a scream. As she stood, her chamber rumbled and rattled, the elements reacting to her distress. Jīshí's current body couldn't sweat or even needed to breathe, but as the remains of the dream left her, she couldn't help but feel the need to sit down, her body shaking uncontrollably as her unstable mind began to lose control over its elements.

After a long moment, Jīshí began to calm down, having long dismissed the Origin Sect and Workshop members who had rushed to check on the commotion. How long had it been since she'd had a dream like that? Hell, how long had it been since she'd dreamed, period? Elementals didn't truly need sleep, not in the same way mortals did. Instead, they could enter a trance, a state of torpor, in which they "returned to their Element," becoming closer to one with their true essence.

It's easy to become "lost" in one's mind in this state, however, entering a dream-like state. In fact, some Elementals can spend decades, even centuries 'sleeping'... while others never wake up at all. Jīshí hadn't spent much time in torpor since her longest stay several centuries ago, but she'd thought she had already move pasted the nightmares, "grown out of them." What could have triggered them this time?

Was it what Yeom Ki had shared with her?

How long had he been carrying this secret alone? Did he have similar nightmares at first as well?

Jīshí had to admit that she wasn't too sure how to wrap her mind around what she was told. The Elemental had thought what she'd learned from Alpha was a world-shattering revelation about their world itself. Who would have thought that she would have another such revelation in her lifetime, let along so soon after the first? It almost felt like she had whiplash.

Who could have imagined that her World and the Federation weren't so separated as it might at first seem? But then again, it wasn't like she could talk to anyone about her questions and Hypothesis.

After all... "They" might be watching...