Rebirth Of Man: Unification Of Terra

In the end the answer was clear and obvious, the corruption could not be allowed to remain in the Umbral Lands. Perhaps, in a kinder time it would be possible to clean it with kinder methods, but that was not the case for this time. With a sit, you turn away from Nathan to look out upon the energy bridge that flickered in prismatic colors as the gently swirling mantle below flowed in its endless course as it had for countless eons.

"Permission granted, begin the purge." The words pained you to speak for numbers reasons, but you knew that they were needed to be spoken and the cleaning to be begun. The cavernous vault in which you sat carried the echo along as you stared out into the depths of the world and waited for Nathan to respond to your statement.

"Lady Khas, I know that this must be painful to order, but you know that it must be done. I thank you for the permission to begin the purge in this decade. If you could let me return to the surface I will begin enacting the purge as soon as possible." His words were steady, yet you knew that he disliked this as much as you did. No one sane would enjoy the thought of purging millions of people no matter their crimes, yet your hand had been forced and so had his.

With a nod, you lifted the Heart and twisted it for a time to input the needed requirements and aspects. The leaving of this place was faster and cleaner than the entry method by far, the Heart empowered by being so near the Anvil that its scope and abilities were more inline with that of the Anvil itself. Out of the ground arose a machine of wondrous complexity and majesty, lights faintly glowing indicating that it was ready to send Nathan home.

"Step into the light and you will return to the surface. I will remain down here for a time." You state as you stand up to go look into the flowing manga below, hearing the faint hiss of air rushing in to fill a cap as the room was blinded by blue arcane light. With a tap of the Heart the teleportation array disassembled itself back into base matter to await your time of leaving.

In the now silent vault you stare out over the span of physical light that showed the way through the curtain of liquid rock that was the pathway to the Anvil itself. As you stepped onto the path, you wondered if the purge was the correct choice to engage in, perhaps there was another option you didn't see.

So many questions were to be asked, so little time to answer them. So much pressure was on your shoulders now, you had fought and bribed your way into the throne of the Umbral Lands seeing in your predecessor a foolish individual unfit for the office any longer. But, now you had to ask yourself if you were any better suited for the throne. Less than two years had passed since your ascension and yet already the weight of the throne was slowly crushing you under it.

As you walked into the bridge of light, letting yourself be caught in thought and musings you saw sights that no other human had seen for centuries if ever. Liquid gold and silver flowing in great rivers, liquid rock dancing in hidden currents sliding around the pathway that you walked. It was a serene place, a place beyond the questions of the surface and the morality and ethics that plagued you in the recent years. In this place, you could simply be yourself once more, a person that had always felt more at home around the echoes of the past and the heart of the world than humans.

Hours passed as you walk along the path twisting downward into the heart of the world, the material outside of the energy walls the very innards of the world. Liquid rock and metal, flowing around and over the iron core of earth, giving rise to the magnetic fields and more of the world. It was a journey of relaxation for you, to feel as part of the world itself.

Then at last as always you come to the Anvil chamber, the heart of the Umbral Lands. The wonder that saw your people through countless years of struggle and strife. The monument of the past that had ensured your survival, and your closest friend.

*Greetings, Khas. Why have you come to visit me? Its been less than a decade since we last spoke.* The voice of the Anvil rumbled through the room, it spoke in a language that no human should be able to understand or process, it spoke in words that bore no equivalent in human mind. It spoke in the voice of the world, its words the crash of rock upon rock, the burning of wood and the subduction of continental plates.

"There is so much to do. How do people handle the responsibilities of command?" You let go of your control letting emotions that had been building for years explode outward now. You could tell that you were on the verge of crying for the first time in decades, but the stress of your job had reached a breaking point compounded by the corruption purge.

*Khas, I am the last being that you should be asking for emotional support.* The Anvil rumbled, lava spooling upward and outward for a moment giving intonation to the words that you heard, giving subtleties to their meaning beyond the norm.

"I don't know who to trust as a confidant. Everyone has their own drives and reasons, I can only trust you to not reveal what I do to others." You plead as you let your eyes drift around the room, avoiding the sight of the Anvil itself.

A rumbling sigh echoes through the room, *Khas, if you do not trust your own people, who can you trust.* As the Anvil spoke, gentle ripples of metal flowed through the mantle around and the light of the walls flickered for a split second.

"I can trust you." You knew that you were far from the image of the dignified ruler of a grand nation at this moment, but you didn't care.

*I appreciate the trust, but you should find trust in your own people. I have been here for eons and I will remain here for eons. Your life is but a spark soon to dwindle, please find someone or some being that would be able to connect to you on a personal level.* The Anvil said even as the lights flickered and the core below shifted in color for a moment as the Anvil shifted the atomic composition.

"It is hard to know who to trust, who can I trust to keep my secrets." You beg from the Anvil, knowing that it would be unable to inform you for even in the Umbral Lands its sight was limited.

*Any of those that you have spoke to me of in the past should suffice. I doubt that they would betray you. Nosra would certainly kept your secrets to the grave and beyond.* Gentler rumblings came from the Anvil this time, as its speech was the sound of an avalanche of rocks instead of the crushing might of the world ripping asunder.

Pulling yourself together, you began to process what the Anvil had mentioned and nodded to yourself. "You are right, Nosra wouldn't betray me. She has been working for the Umbral Lands for an untold amount of time."

*Not untold, she was part of the crew that laid my foundations.* The Anvil interjected for the first time of its own volition. *The Dark Star was the first item forged upon my surface, it was the first item forged within this place. It was forged for her and by her order.* You stumble from shock as the greatest mystery of Nosra was answered in a single moment from the Anvil.

"Why haven't you mentioned that before?" You ask, expecting little to be given in return for you had spent decades learning to speak with the Anvil and talking to its emerging mind over that timeframe.

*You lacked clearance before now. All members of Project Titan's Anvil were classified to anyone, but the supervisor. When you took the throne of the Umbral Lands, you inherited the mantle of supervisor of Project Titan's Anvil.* The Anvil stated, even as you shook your head in shock.

"Thank you for letting me vent in your room and informing me of those facts." You crocked out as you lifted the Heart to begin construction of the teleportation array to leave this place.

The last thing you heard before the azure light of the teleportation wished you away was, *You are welcome Supervisor Khas.*

AN: A minor interlude post between the vote and the next report point. Wrote this due to Khas simply not being hardened enough to accept the requirement to put to death millions of her people easily. Also gave me the chance to introduce the Anvil and Nosra's past so that is all good.

Also, the Anvil is NOT a normal AI, it is something else.

You read over the report that Orn had compiled over the course of a near decade and smiled. At least something at last had gone your way, helping your stress levels not rise to the levels that had been reached after Nathan had dropped that bombshell on you several years ago.

And just like that, your good mood vanishes into the aether as you frown at the reminder of the parade of trials that were still ongoing years after the beginning. Entire graveyards had to be dug and filled, along with the furnaces burning day and night to dispose of all the bodies that lacked the proper resources to secure a burial site. Hundreds of thousands of your people had been ruthlessly eliminated and millions more were waiting for their turn upon the block.

Perhaps, you mused to yourself as you reread the report once more, that the show of force had inspired the people to support your investigations to avoid being rounded up themselves. Fear, after all, was a viable means of temporary control over the actions of people, even if it was only useful in the short term or in cases where the power difference was great enough to maintain the impact of fear.

Regardless, your survey of the cities was completed and it was a goldmine of valuable people and information. A chance to purge a cult directly before it could worm its way into government offices was always useful, it would ensure stability and also make sure that any would-be cultist might think twice about starting up their own little subversive haven.

Then there were the people of note discovered in three of your cities. In Shroud a possible spy was discovered, slipping information to unknown persons. Sometimes he would give information to your forces and other times to unknowns, it was a tangled web of data to figure out if he was loyal or not and would probably require you to have him strapped down to a chair and have some psykers tear his mind apart looking for the truth.

Shrugging you mark him down on a report as being mandated for psyker screening of the highest level. He would probably come out of it intact and that was enough, if he was driven insane by it then he wouldn't have been useful regardless, so there was no real cost to the matter. Turning instead to the much more impressive person discovered, you looked over the report and shook your head at the fact that the man had managed to remain unknown for so long.

He was the single best bureaucrat you had ever seen, he was somehow able to memorize all the various systems of governance and master the legal system. Yet, of course there was the slight irritation of him being vampiric which meant he had heritage from Albion, or originated from that nation and as such would also be screened. Unlike the previous individual, you made a note to tell the psykers to be kinder to him for his skill was much more important to the Umbral Lands than the other.

Then the city of Lunar had the final victory in discovering a person that could only be described as a priest. Yet, according to the report in front of you had railed the populace of the city to the side of the government and directed them to aiding you in surveying the city. Frowning, you turn to the report on her professed actions and it was another enigma, she seemed to have a strange worship of the world as a whole with everyone as part of the world intrinsically. It was strange to you, for it resonated with your own life and experiences when underground, in the Vault it was clear that you were part of the world, you could feel that connection to something infinity greater than yourself.

Marking her down as a person to meet in person, you flip through the rest of the report finding little of note. The rural parts of the Umbral Lands were noted to have a higher level of corruption, but when you looked over the values you couldn't really care less about the impact. It was minute compared to the military disaster and frankly, unless it had been on a similar level there was little you cared to do about it. There would always be a high level of corruption between the rural and urban centers, it was just the facts of the matter and worrying about another few percent was just a waste of your effort.

Overall, you were pleased with the report for the internal security of the Umbral Lands, there were no egregious failures of procedure as with the military, nor where they any found gapping holes in your defenses. It was a relief to not have a place where you predecessor had managed to remain on top of matters.

The Heart slid into your hand as the stone walls flowed away letting Aleph enter into your office. The person was strange, they were near perfectly androgynous even to you they looked near perfectly both male and female to the point of it being creepy to a degree. "Ruler-Priority Alpha, I have completed the calculations for this decade interval. Present for review and information exchange." The monotone voice and lack of emotion grated on your ears even as you nodded to them, as Aleph moved to stand in front of your desk.

"How are you finding the Umbral Lands, Aleph?" You ask even though, it was a risk due to how mono focused the person seemed to be on their duties to the exclusion of all else. Hopefully, it would provide some clarification on their personality or even if they had one.

"Umbral Lands inefficient, lacking sophistication, cities below acceptable levels of production and integration. Populace rebellious, proper control missing. Ruler-Priority Alpha failing to maintain order among controlled lands." The clipped speech echoed through your office, as Aleph stood motionless in front of you, simply stating what they saw as the truth with no inflection.

With a sigh, you nodded to yourself for that was the expected outcome of this. "Explain." It was an order by all measures, you infused the word with the weight of your mantle of authority and stared at Aleph refusing to be cowed by their appearance.

"On going trials inefficient, offer secondary solution. Servitor production, criminals killed, production value lost in death. Can revive and bind to service. Punishment can be increased, increasing fear level of populace in Umbral Lands. Increased fear results in greater servitude of populace. Secondary reason, disregard superfluous legal protections for populace, populace serve higher priority individuals, expenditure of resources on populace protection inefficient. Only efficient usage of resources; improvement of higher priority individuals such as Ruler-Priority Alpha."

You just sighed for it was as you had worried when you hired them, Aleph almost certainly hailed from Mars and the machine cult that was based there. They had all the signs, careless about the lives of their underlings and the value of human rights. It was in the most brutally logical way the correct option. If you disregarded all protections for your people and went to the ways of Mars, you could expect a near doubling of resources ad production, but it would result in billions dead while cementing the new status quo into the nation.

"Have you run the numbers on if it can be done with net improvements to return after the inevitable rebellions?" If there was one thing you knew about the wretched raiders from Mars is that they were fanatical about preserving technology, stealing it from the rightful owners and only following blunt calculations of value for all determinations of actions. Half a century ago a raiding party had attacked you to steal the terraforming items you had been testing at the time, however after killing half of their forces they had left due to the obvious result.

"Yes, loss of roughly 1000 population units would result over the course of five decades. Point of growth, one decade post, one century results in double income." You frown at the blunt words and even more at the numbers that Aleph had thrown at you. It was wrong on a fundamental level, there was no means by which to calculate those results to that precision.

"Explain your assumptions." There was something inherent to those calculations that threw you off from Aleph's view and also corrupted their way of seeing things from your point of view.

"Emotional binding implants result in loss of volition to counteract loss of freedom in greater population. Mass cybernetic implantation ensures servitude of populace, together only minute percentage rebel after first decades. Secondary values, once implanted and bound breeding programs to engineer better servitors, loss of wasted value to produce materials for servitors."

You frowned and shook your head, refusing to show emotion as that might trigger Aleph to see you as a problem or another issue to solve. You had known that there might be friction in hiring a person that hailed from Mars, but this was greater than you had thought. No nation on Terra treated their people that badly for one simple reason, it was unsustainable. The cost of production of the needed implants would quickly expand beyond the ability to pay for them and would cause the whole system to collapse.

"Aleph, reinitialize the variables for what Terra can produce. However, what is the report on the matter of infrastructure and economy." You ordered even as you shifted tracks to leave behind this impossible and irritating conversation of turning the Umbral Lands into a land of mindless servitors.

"Report: Streamlined Production System is at one fifth completed on the technological aspect, two fifths complete on the basic infrastructure. Negative results have arisen from the work in the form of mutant infestation of the tunnels and the sub-ground storerooms. Proposed solution: Eliminate via military incursion, capture mutants for vivisection if possible to increase understanding of mutation, salvage mutant bodies for dissection if capture unfeasible.

Report: Corruption Purge is at one half completed. Negative results have been found, corruption entrenched in culture of workplace. Have turned discovered criminals into personal servitors during purge. Secondary action for auto coverage and discovery of corruption decided to be needed, plans will be made and placed on your desk when time permits. Negative event alters calculations: expected time frame of project to extend 10 years." The clipped and direct words were good to hear in this context compared to the before where they had tried to convince you to turn on your nation to become a tyrant worse than any other on Terra. With a simple nod, you dismiss them and wonder if you had made a mistake in hiring them in the first place.

As they left you considered the fact that you had a person that you could trust to either oversee Aleph or take over their job, but you would wait until the current projects were completed before interfering.

AN: I really don't like this, but it was fighting me to write it and I hope I maintained Khas's personality well.

"I am here." You speak to the empty land, or at least the apparently empty land. For this is where you had been given directions to meet a possible spy master at. The name that you had been given, was well known in this section of the world as a urban legend of sorts, yet even so any number of fools had in times past claimed the names of those more skilled than themselves.

Until you were given proof, you would assume that they were a simple copycat that wished to gather some measure of fame. If they sought to capture you, they would suffer horribly for their hubris. You checked the sigils of the helmet that you wore, reaffirming the fact that the Mantle armor was in working order. Everything was in order, the geomantic shield arrays were active and drawing power from the Core of the world, the anti gravity plating was active enabling flight, the internalized terraformation systems were primed and ready, and finally the Alchemical Core was fully charged.

The armor might not be a wonder in and of itself in terms of battlefield security, but it was none the less a relic from the Fall Of Man. In the years past you had spoken with Nosra and had learned much of the history of the Anvil and wha the project that had created it sought to achieve. The armor you now wore was one of the countless victories that the Anvil had wrought into existence, it along with the Dark Star were items that even at the height of man, little was understood of their working and now even less was known.

"Hmm, it seems you posses some modicum of intelligence. At least more than the brain dead fools that tend to form the bulk of my clients." A raspy voice spoke from the shadows. Twisting around you peered through them, letting pulses of geomantic energy flow from the soles of the armor into the ground building a model of the terrain in all aspects.

"Good reflexes, my respect is currently hovering slightly above bedrock." The voice echoed from the shadows, and you frowned. Very few things could deflect or block the geomantic scanning abilities of the Mantle, and the odds for even a legendary spy to posses such systems bordered on the unfeasible. Therefore, the more likely option is that they were currently in a blindspot for the armor.

Cycling through the systems of the armor until you reached the system you sought, and in a moment everything became transparent to your sight. Yet, also solid, objects were outlined in color giving shape to them but no longer were you prevented from looking through the world.

"I see you." You spoke, pointing towards the hovering figure that was drifting in the air several meters to your left and around ten above the ground.

"Congratulations, you successfully discovered me when I wasn't trying to hide at all. Although, I do have to give props for proving that there might be a handful of people worth any respect left on this world." The flying figure noted in their raspy voice, even as they drifted to the ground and walked to only a few meters away. Blinking away the penetrating sensor sight, you could see that they were wearing cloth of dark grey and had only a few handfuls of metal items.

"You managed to get my interest, with looking into gathering a spymaster. Now, please explain why I would benefit from aligning myself with the Umbral Lands." You frown below the helmet and shook your head.

"Not until you prove your skills. Anyone can discover a gravity plate and get it to work with a few years of effort." You state even as you flip through the sensors of the armor once more and find what you are looking for and with a flicker of geomantic energy the ground tore itself apart as a broken gravity plate emerged from its sandy tomb.

"This is why I hate intelligent clients, it is so much easier to scam dumb clients out of their savings." You could tell that the voice was irritated, but it seemed as if it was irritated in a nebulous sense instead of being upset with you directly.

"Somehow, it seems a poor business decision to state your intent to scam your possible hirer." You dryly reply to the statement, even as you activate the Heart supercharging the terraforming and alchemical aspects of the Mantle.

"I scam the people that hire me by playing both sides. The side that pays me more will get more from me, that is all. Smart clients tend to realize that is possible and therefore reduce the amount of information I can give to the other side. As for saying this, its pragmatic, I don't want to work for a primary nation. Working for the Umbral Lands, will put me on a higher order map and I like any sane person doesn't want to be on said map." The voice rasped even as a core of steel was present in the tone of the person, it was clear to you that they very much didn't want to join the Umbral Lands, but then that begged the question.

"If you do not wish to join my employ, then why respond to my search?" It was the obvious question to ask in this case.

"Hah, hah, hah….Oh your serious?" The person began laughing, shaking with mirth even as you wondered why this was so funny to them. "When a grand nation calls you answer. My wishes don't matter, if you want me to work for you, that is what will happen." You shrugged your shoulders at the reply as the person calmed down from their laughing fit.

"I am aware of the power discrepancy between the highest and the average of the world. However, I do not see how it applies to you in this case, if you hadn't revealed yourself you could easily have remained in the shadows." You stated with surety.

"Hah, the arrogance typical for one of the highest. You sent agents through the underworld to find a spy. You took a personal interest in the matter. All of this means that as we speak, the minor and secondary nations of the world are tearing themselves apart to find someone to throw at you to hopefully gather some reward." The raspy voice ached with tiredness even more as the figure shifted from foot to foot, as they spoke.

You simply shrug at the statement and consider what that could mean in the future. It was clear that you had information holes in your lands if it had become so widely known across the world. Of courses that assumed the person was speaking truthfully in this manner.

With a shake of your head, and with a wave of a hand you dismissed this tangent. "We have drifted from the original point. How do I know that you are who you claim to be?"

"Because I know secrets that are otherwise unknown." The person declared in a whisper, even as they fidgeted. You growled under your helm as their passive aggressive tone stroked your growing stress.

You had never handled stress well and this decade had only ever provided more and more stress. Now, this figure had called you out from beyond the walls of your cities to speak with you on the verge of the rad wastes. The location was silent and eerie in the light of the moon above and every moment you felt as if something was growing closer. Your stress already so high was growing and you knew that your patience was dwindling fast.

"Any spy worth my time would know such secrets. Give me one and I shall determine its value." You declare imperiously as you activated the armor's combat systems, glowing lines of arcane energy raced throughout the system and with a soft thump the air was blown away as energy fields slammed into existence. "Be quick, time grows short and I am required to return soon to my people. Give me what I ask and this can all end." You demand while hoping that the figure out accept the out you had provided, time was growing short and every minute wore on you, building your stress ever higher.

"Oh so violent, perhaps I won't give you what you seek. After-all, serving a violent murderous coward wouldn't be a smart move now would it?" The figure ground out even as it laughed at you. Your eyes narrowed into slits as anger, hatred burned into life in your heart joining with your stress, at the audacity of the person speaking such nonsense.

Burning with wrath you marched forward closing the distance and the land itself bent to your whim as you strode over the few meters akin to a god of past epoch. Lifting your hand you grabbed the figure by the neck. "I have had enough of your dancing around the questions I propose, I have taken a risk beyond your comprehension to meet you in this place. You will now provide proof of your value or I will kill you here and now."

"Blah, you think you scare me? I have faced down people far more terrifying than you could ever hope to be. You do not have the steel to kill a person so crudely. I know what is going on with the trials in your lands, you hide like a coward behind the veneer of law. You will have no secrets from me." The figure spoke even as you frowned beneath the helm and they struggled fruitlessly against your armored grip.

"You should be scared. The armor I wear bears an Alchemical Core, that is currently supercharged by a relic. It would be but a thought to transmute your bones into iridium and your blood into liquid uranium. You might think that would kill you in moments, it would if not for the life-support systems I posses within the Umbral Lands. I can keep you alive through all of that and beyond for decades to even centuries. You would feel the pain of your body tearing itself apart as your genetic code is ravaged by endless radiation and forced to live through it all. I am near my breaking point, give me the information that you believe is most valuable and I will release you and possibly hire you in the future. Or you can refuse and can learn what it would feel like to have your body melt away and reformed." Your words were cold and steady, no boasting or exaggeration was in what you said. It was fact that you could do all of that, it would weigh heavily upon your mind and consciousness, but it would remove a dangerous piece from the board and increase the fear that you carried.

You could see at this distance that the person was scrambling in fear, they could tell that your threat was truthful and their bravado faded away. "Ok, ok, ok. I overheard some traders mentioning some stranger buying up young men from tribes for good coin, and I did some digging and found that it was located around a large mountain range." Their voice lost the raspy tint to it as panic filled it.

You felt an eyebrow rise in surprise even if the figure couldn't see beneath your helm, "That's it? Some third hand information on a slave trade in boys? Thousands if not tens of thousands of people are kidnapped into slavery in the Umbral Lands every year, why would I care about these boys if I don't care about those incidents?" It was clear now that the reputation of the person was either extremely exaggerated or just outright lies, anyone could have made up that nonsensical information. Finding a slave trade was about as impressive as finding a sheet of rusted metal in the rad wastes, the things were literally everywhere and frankly stamping them out would just take more effort for less return.

"No, no, no. You misunderstand, the buyers only wanted boys no one else." The note of panic was definitely growing. "Really? Your best offer for a secret is; there is some sex trade in young boys going on in some random part of the world." You shook your head, even as you stared at the panicking person, with contempt. Anyone could have given you this information, unless there were conditional aspects to it that would make it more impressive.

"UNIDENTIFIED INDIVIDUAL, RELEASE THE SPY INTO MY CUSTODY." A booming voice echoed across the land as you flipped into the penetrating sensors and saw a giant figure well over ten feet tall and wearing armor seemingly comparable to some of the better relics you were aware of nearby.

"It appears that your value is greater than I expected. You will be coming with me, until you give me everything you know." You state even as the figure tried its best to tear free of your armored grip on its neck.

"UNKNOWN PERSON, GIVE THE SPY TO ME." The armored giant thundered once more even as you stared at the thing and frowned under your armor.

"Who are you?" You asked even as the Heart blazed with power and the spy was thrown unceremoniously into a pit that quickly descended into the world's crust.

"I am merely a servant of the individual that the spy stole the secrets of. I have been tasked with returning the spy to my master to preserve his secrets." The voice no longer booming, but you could feel a psychic presence to it that made the hairs on your arms stand up even as you rerouted power into the geomantic arrays from the more typical shields.

"You have no authority over me, however, for a price I am willing to return the spy to your custody." You state even as you stare upwards to the giant, dwarfed by the sheer scale of their armor and sheer size.

"I am authorized to conduct limited negotiations in the name of my master. What would you wish to know in exchange for the spy?" The figure responded after a moment of thought, even as you prepared your thoughts and noted that the geomantic shielding was working as it buffeted the psychic presence out of the words spoken.

"How much are you willing to explain to me? I will not expect answers that delve into military circumstances, however I would appreciate answers to any other queries." You explain your stance as you peer upward at the man and examine his armor through the sensors in the Mantle, learning how it was made and what it could do.

"All information relating to the spy is military in nature." The blunt statement was surprising for numerous reasons. The most prominent of which is the fact that if everything was related to military matters then by extension the slave trade in young boys was also part of the military. Therefor, the most likely result is that someone was trying to build genetic abominations from human flesh.
You snarl to yourself as you engage the combat protocols of the armor. The glowing lines of power expand into a lattice of energy, even as the geomantic energy array increased in potency violently shoving away the presence of the other realm, the Alchemical Core began to spiral into activity even as the Heart glowed with power under the chest plate of the armor.

"Hold, my master is not using the flesh of those bought to form abominations against science. Most will be released with minds wiped due to incompatible genetic profiles with what my maker requires. It is unfortunate, but I must ask for you to submit to a neural wipe of this information as my maker's orders of operational security." The moment the words were processed you acted.

There was no time to think, there was no time to process or plan, you had to fight and win. The core of the armor activated and in a moment everything changed. From the ground spikes of metal made of alloys long since forgotten speared upward rending the golden metal of your foe. Even as the warrior began to act you were beyond them, the world came to your aid, rocks transformed into legions of golems that marched forward under the geomantic aegis of the Mantle and the Heart to pound upon the giant in gold.

You reached forth and tore the spear gun from its hand and dissembled it in moments, letting the components fall to the ground where they were quickly shoved into a pit to await your attention. You turn now to the figure and frown for he and you could tell gender through the rends in his armor tore apart your golem army. Yet, it was too little and too late, you smiled and reached out with a hand and grabbed his atoms in your grip and transmuted them.

Carbon was sheared away and transformed into sodium, oxygen was ripped apart to reform as sulfur. You ravaged his body with your abilities and left him a ruined husk of a person, bleeding and weeping in pain as the impossible was made real. You walked slowly towards the downed giant and grabbed his head now revealed from the helmet. "I am Khas, lord of the Umbral Lands and I do not take kindly to assaults upon my person. You will die here without medical attention."

"What……cough…..guh, do….you want?" The once perfect voice now ravaged and broken beyond repair, and blood spilling from the lips onto the rad soaked sand, told you all you needed to know.

"What do you offer? I highly doubt a being made such as you has much freedom or desire for self preservation." You prod the dying transhuman giant with an armored finger, letting him know that you knew a bit of the nature of genetic sculpting on this level and what the people that did were usually like.

"I……offer….cough …..amnesty….I….will advocate…… to my……master……in..your…..favor. If….I…die…..they……..will learn…….come…..for…you….hurk." You look at the dying man and frown, the confidence was impressive no doubt in the skills of their maker.

"Could they discover the truth if I reforged this entire region?" You ask kneeling before the broken man, even as you could see his two hearts trying in vain to help him heal. The damage was too great for anything, but your alchemical assistance to save his life.

"My……master……is…beyond….your….understanding. He….will…discover…….the…….truth." You stand up as you look over the broken body and sigh. This was a true clusterfuck on levels not seen since Nathan dropped the corruption bomb on you a decade ago. An unknown biologist working on transhumans of power that could possibly pose a minor nuisance to you and by extension to the other grand nations. In that short fight you had seen that this single man could have conquered many lesser nations on his own over the course of mere months.

Vote on what to do with the Custodes (you don't get the option of returning the Spy or the guardian spear due to Grand Nation Pride)
[] Restore Atomic Integrity - let the transhuman live and report to his maker. Perhaps, it would pay in time
[] Leave him to his fate - let the horrors you have wrought upon his flesh remain and walk away into the depths of the earth and purge this land in flame and lave wiping away all traces of existence
[] Claim his flesh for your own purposes - his body presents a rare chance to explore the secrets of life and learn from a mind equal or beyond your own. Perhaps in time it could even lead to the construction of the First Data Core (incompatible with healing)
[] Claim his armor for your own - there is no reason to take a man such as him to your home, but his gear is another matter. Upon the Anvil you shall learn the secrets of its construction and from this a new legion will arise in your name armored and armed in the style of this warrior.
[] Write In

Spy Vote
[] Fore them into service - for now they are the best option you have
[] Drain them of knowledge and eliminate him - there is no reason in keeping a person with such forces after him. Drain him of all value and leave him in the rad wastes to suffer the fate of all those that reach beyond their station
[] Drain them of knowledge - they have secrets that you wish to know and so you shall. Your psykers will tear the mind apart and find all that which is known and give it to you. Afterwhich, choices could be made in light of knowledge gained.