Akamy: The Path of the Kwasar
Revenge, Tara discovered, was much easier to imagine than to execute.
Finding Silence was no longer the problem.
She could feel him.
Every time the creature moved through the occupied territories of Asaka, every time it gathered Rapax around itself, every time it came close enough for Nexo to touch that cold, corrupted presence, Tara knew.
The problem was everything surrounding him.
Silence had learned.
He remembered the woman who had wounded him.
He remembered the blind Fighter who had somehow become capable of tracking creatures that could disappear from ordinary sight.
And perhaps, somewhere behind the intelligence of the Rapax, the Sumaya themselves had understood what Tara was becoming.
Silence was never alone.
Sometimes twenty Rapax surrounded him.
Sometimes fifty.
During collection operations, hundreds.
They formed layers around him.
Scouts.
Hunters.
Winged guards.
Creatures designed to intercept anyone attempting to approach.
Saga eventually summarised the problem perfectly.
“We can find him.”
She pointed at the map.
“We can reach him.”
Another point.
“We can even hurt him.”
Then she looked at the others.
“But we'll be dead before we get a second hit.”
Nobody disagreed.
Sahara leaned over the map.
“So we stop trying to reach Silence.”
Tara turned towards her.
Sahara smiled.
“We make Silence come to us.”
THE TRAP
For almost three weeks, the Matrix stopped hunting.
At least...
that was what they wanted Silence to believe.
They disappeared from the routes they had previously attacked.
They stopped raiding collection convoys.
Stopped destroying Rapax gathering points.
Stopped responding to several minor incursions where civilians had already been evacuated.
The resistance appeared to be retreating.
Weakening.
Breaking apart.
Meanwhile, Saga went to work.
The Rogue spent six nights inside occupied territory.
She watched the Rapax.
Not how they fought.
How they worked.
That distinction became everything.
Bodies collected throughout the surrounding regions were not immediately removed from Asaka. The Rapax brought them first to temporary harvesting stations.
There, the dead and captured were separated.
Ordinary bodies went one direction.
Unusual specimens went another.
Warriors.
Individuals with rare physiology.
Those who had survived attacks that should have killed them.
People displaying unusual powers.
They were marked.
Preserved.
Inspected.
And whenever an especially valuable specimen appeared...
Silence came personally.
Saga returned before dawn on the seventh morning.
Exhausted.
Cut across one arm.
Smiling.
“I know how we get him.”
There was an old subterranean Asakan forge beneath the mountains.
It had once produced blades for several warrior clans before the region was abandoned generations earlier.
Part of the structure had collapsed.
One entrance remained usable.
One ventilation shaft.
One ancient delivery tunnel.
And at its centre:
a great stone chamber enclosed on every side by mountain.
No windows.
No open sky.
No room for wings.
Sahara explored every metre of it.
Measured every passage.
Every crack.
Every possible exit.
Then she began modifying the terrain.
She did not build a trap where she wanted Silence to stand.
She built a trap where Silence would believe he had chosen to stand.
That was the difference.
The Matrix attacked a Rapax collection convoy.
They killed most of the escort.
But deliberately allowed one creature to escape.
What it saw before fleeing was carefully constructed.
Tara.
Apparently wounded.
Her blindfold torn.
Collapsed beside dead Matrix warriors.
Then Sahara and Saga apparently dragging her away towards the mountains.
The message was obvious.
The blind Sapiens who could detect Rapax had been badly injured.
Vulnerable.
Still alive.
The kind of specimen the Sumaya would want.
The kind Silence would want personally.
They repeated the deception twice.
Signs of blood.
Discarded equipment.
A trail leading deeper into the mountains.
Enough information to follow.
Not enough to look deliberate.
Then Tara disappeared beneath the old forge.
And they waited.
Akamy sat opposite her in the darkness.
“You're sure he'll come?”
Tara's blindfold covered her ruined eyes.
“No.”
Saga looked offended.
“That is not encouraging.”
Tara smiled faintly.
“I know him.”
Her fingers rested upon the hilts of her two katanas.
“He'll come.”
Sahara checked the final detonator.
“And his army?”
“That,” Saga said, “is why the mountain is about to have a very bad day.”
The trap had three stages.
The first was separation.
Once Silence entered the forge, controlled collapses would destroy the access tunnels behind him, trapping most of his escort outside.
The second was visibility.
The central chamber had been filled with microscopic ash taken from the old furnaces and mixed with an adhesive resin used by Sahara's clan for tracking animals.
An invisible creature might disappear from sight.
It could not disappear from matter.
Every movement through the suspended powder would reveal displacement.
Every contact would coat skin, wings and claws.
They would not truly see Silence.
They would see the world moving around him.
And once he bled...
they would see even more.
The third stage was the most important.
No escape.
The ventilation shaft had been collapsed.
The old delivery tunnel mined.
The ceiling reinforced except for one section Sahara had prepared to bring down if necessary.
They were not going into Silence's territory.
They were forcing the most dangerous Rapax on Asaka into a room designed specifically to kill him.
Saga looked at Tara.
“Still think revenge is romantic?”
“No.”
“Good.”
Sahara drew her katana.
“Because this is engineering.”
HE CAME
Tara felt him first.
Her expression changed.
Akamy saw it immediately.
“How many?”
Tara opened Nexo.
Presence spread through the mountain.
One.
Five.
Twelve.
More.
Dozens outside.
Then—
that coldness.
That unmistakable wound in the living world.
Tara whispered:
“Silence.”
Saga drew her blade.
Sahara breathed out slowly.
Akamy rose.
Nobody spoke again.
The footsteps never came.
Of course they didn't.
Silence did not announce himself.
But Tara felt him crossing the outer chamber.
Twelve personal guards with him.
Forty more following through the main tunnel.
Others spreading across the mountain.
He had brought an army.
Saga mouthed:
Now?
Tara shook her head.
Not yet.
Silence moved deeper.
Closer.
The Rapax escort followed.
Tara waited.
Her heart began hammering.
Memory attacked.
A rainy house.
Tharan.
Lira.
Mina.
Saya.
She forced everything down.
Not now.
Closer.
Silence entered the central chamber.
Eight guards with him.
The others remained beyond.
Tara raised one finger.
Sahara smiled.
Pressed the trigger.
The mountain roared.
Stone collapsed behind Silence.
Thousands of tonnes of rock crushed the main passage.
Rapax screamed on the other side.
A second detonation destroyed the eastern tunnel.
The floor shook.
Dust exploded through the chamber.
Silence reacted instantly.
Too late.
Saga dropped from above.
Her katana entered the neck of the first Rapax guard.
Akamy struck the second before its claws fully extended.
Sahara's blade opened the abdomen of a third.
Tara moved towards the fourth without seeing it.
Long katana.
One cut.
Dead.
The chamber erupted.
FOUR AGAINST SILENCE
Silence vanished.
The others could no longer see him.
Tara could.
“RIGHT!”
Saga ducked.
A claw passed above her head.
Sahara threw a pouch against the floor.
It burst.
Ash filled the room.
Something moved through it.
A humanoid outline.
Wings.
Tail.
Claws.
For half a second—
Silence had shape.
Akamy attacked.
Her katana cut across the creature's shoulder.
Black blood appeared.
Silence screamed.
The sound filled the chamber.
Tara felt something inside herself smile.
He remembered pain.
Good.
Silence struck Akamy.
She flew across the room and hit a pillar hard enough to crack stone.
“AKAMY!”
“I'm alive!”
Barely.
Saga attacked low.
Silence jumped.
Sahara anticipated the landing.
Her blade cut through one wing membrane.
The creature became visible again as blood spread across its side.
Tara entered.
Right blade.
Heavy cut.
Silence blocked with one claw.
Left blade.
Thrust.
The shorter katana entered the same side Tara had wounded years before.
Silence roared.
Tara froze for one fraction of a second.
She knew that resistance.
That scar.
The wound from the night he murdered her family.
“You remember me.”
Silence's tail struck.
Tara sensed it.
Turned.
Too slow.
The impact launched her across the chamber.
Her blindfold remained intact.
Her ribs did not.
Pain exploded through her chest.
She rolled.
Stood.
Breathed.
Fought.
The remaining Rapax guards attacked simultaneously.
Sahara intercepted two.
Saga disappeared between them.
Akamy returned despite blood running from her mouth.
One arm hung unnaturally.
Broken.
She fought with the other.
The Matrix moved like a single mind.
Not because they shared Nexo.
They did not.
Because they knew one another.
Months of training.
Months of surviving together.
Sahara knew when Saga would disappear.
Saga knew where Akamy would leave an opening.
Akamy knew when Tara's head moved that something invisible was approaching.
And all three trusted Tara's voice.
“DOWN!”
They dropped.
Silence passed above them.
“LEFT!”
Sahara turned.
Cut.
“BEHIND!”
Saga stabbed backwards without looking.
Black blood sprayed across the floor.
They hurt him.
Again.
Again.
Again.
For the first time, the monster of Asaka was being hunted by prey that refused to behave like prey.
Silence became furious.
That made him more dangerous.
He struck Saga with his tail.
The tip entered her side and threw her against the wall.
She screamed.
“SAGA!”
“Don't—”
She tried to stand.
Failed.
Blood spread beneath her.
Sahara moved towards her.
Silence intercepted.
Claws crossed Sahara's torso.
Her armour split.
She stumbled backwards.
Still standing.
Silence hit her again.
She fell to one knee.
Akamy attacked from above.
Silence caught her by the throat.
Lifted her.
Akamy drove her broken arm deliberately against his wounded wing.
The pain made her scream.
But the movement brought her other hand close enough.
Her katana entered Silence's shoulder.
He threw her across the chamber.
She hit the ground.
Did not move.
Tara felt three presences around her.
Weak.
Alive.
But fading.
Sahara.
Saga.
Akamy.
Her family.
No.
Not again.
“Tara...”
Saga's voice barely carried.
Silence moved towards her.
Tara stepped between them.
Both katanas raised.
“No.”
The creature stopped.
Ash drifted around its invisible form.
Tara could feel it watching her.
Years had passed since their first battle.
Then she had been sighted.
A Fighter.
A mother.
Human.
Now she stood before him blind.
Scarred.
Covered in blood.
And somehow far more dangerous.
Silence disappeared completely.
Even the ash fell away.
Tara opened Nexo.
There.
Movement.
She blocked.
The impact nearly tore the katana from her hand.
Another strike.
Blocked.
Tail.
Duck.
Claw.
Turn.
For several seconds Tara survived.
That was all.
Survived.
Silence was stronger.
Faster.
Built to kill.
Tara was losing.
A claw opened her shoulder.
Another strike cut her thigh.
The tail wrapped around her wrist and hurled away the shorter katana.
Tara heard it strike stone somewhere beyond reach.
One blade left.
Silence attacked.
Tara blocked.
Her knees buckled.
Again.
Again.
Each impact pushed her backwards.
The wall was behind her now.
Nowhere left to go.
Silence struck her hand.
The long katana fell.
Tara was unarmed.
The creature approached.
Slowly.
It knew.
Tara felt its claw touch the cloth covering her eyes.
Then pull.
The blindfold tore away.
For the first time since the night her daughters died...
Tara's destroyed eyes were exposed.
Scar tissue.
Burned pupils.
Damage the healers had never been able to repair.
Silence stared at what he had done to her.
Tara felt the creature's satisfaction.
Then its claw closed around her throat.
Lifted her.
Her feet left the ground.
The world began fading.
Not visually.
There had been no vision to fade.
Nexo itself began weakening.
Sahara.
Faint.
Saga.
Fainter.
Akamy.
Still there.
Silence.
Everywhere.
Tara's heartbeat slowed.
And for one terrible instant she thought:
This is how it ends.
Then she heard Saya.
Not literally.
Memory.
Mama.
The last face Tara had ever seen.
The little cloth fox falling.
Mina's hand.
Lira calling her.
Tharan collapsing.
Everything she had carried for years came at once.
Grief.
Guilt.
Love.
Hatred.
And something beneath all of them.
Something Nexo had been trying to teach her from the beginning.
Tara had spent all this time reaching outward.
Trying to sense the world.
Trying to replace sight.
Trying to find others.
But Nexo was not vision.
It was connection.
Life did not exist around her.
She existed within it.
THE AWAKENING
Something broke open inside Tara.
Silence felt it.
His grip loosened.
Not voluntarily.
The chamber changed.
Tara heard nothing extraordinary.
There was no explosion.
No lightning.
No divine voice.
Only one impossible sensation.
Everything became clear.
Sahara's heartbeat.
Weak but stubborn.
Saga's blood moving too quickly.
Akamy's breath.
The microscopic tension in Silence's muscles.
The spiritual corruption inside his body.
Every fracture in his wing.
Every injury they had inflicted.
The old scar in his side.
The direction of his next thought before that thought became movement.
The mountain.
The air.
The dust.
The living.
The dying.
The monster.
Tara.
All connected.
Her burned eyes began to glow.
Amber.
At first faintly.
Then brighter.
Silence recoiled.
Tara fell to the ground.
Slowly stood.
Her eyes were open.
The damage remained.
Her physical pupils had not healed.
The venom had destroyed them forever.
But beneath and beyond that ruined flesh burned something new.
Two radiant amber eyes.
Not ordinary sight.
Something much greater.
Tara looked directly at Silence.
And this time...
she saw him.
Not his skin.
Not his colour.
Not the shape ordinary eyes would have shown.
She saw his existence.
His intention.
His spiritual outline.
His fear.
Silence stepped backwards.
Tara smiled.
“You're afraid.”
There were old stories about what happened when Nexo ceased being merely perception and became the warrior's primary relationship with reality.
Most Sapiens dismissed them.
Most who attempted the path never reached it.
Among ancient martial traditions, those rare beings possessed a name.
NEXO WARRIOR.
Tara had crossed the threshold.
Without being Kwasar.
Without teacher.
Without permission.
Without understanding how such a thing was possible.
Silence attacked.
Tara disappeared from where he expected her to be.
AMBER
The tail came first.
Tara moved before it moved.
Not faster.
Earlier.
That difference changed everything.
Silence's tail crossed empty space.
Tara caught it beneath one arm.
Twisted.
Her foot came down against the joint.
Bone cracked.
Silence screamed.
Tara recovered the shorter katana from the floor without looking.
Her amber gaze never left him.
The blade flashed.
The tip of Silence's tail fell to the stone.
The weapon that had murdered Tharan.
Gone.
Silence roared and attacked with both claws.
Tara entered between them.
Closer than any sane Fighter would.
Short blade cut the inside of one arm.
Long blade recovered from the ground on the turn.
Across the chest.
Silence vanished.
Tara followed him.
Not with her eyes.
With his soul.
He moved left.
She was already there.
Long katana.
Wing.
The blade passed through the damaged joint.
One wing collapsed.
Silence attempted to leap.
Tara cut behind the knee.
The creature fell.
Still it fought.
Claw.
Block.
Bite.
Turn.
Shoulder.
Thrust.
Silence struck Tara across the face.
Blood entered her mouth.
She smiled.
“You hit harder when I couldn't see you.”
The monster screamed.
Not rage now.
Panic.
It tried to reach the blocked passage.
Tara appeared between him and the exit.
Silence turned towards another wall.
No escape.
For years Tara had dreamed of this moment.
She had imagined screaming.
Cursing.
Telling him every name.
Making him understand every life he had taken.
But standing there...
she no longer needed any of it.
Silence knew why she had come.
Tara raised both katanas.
Right hand.
Long blade.
Left hand.
Short blade.
Her father's lesson returned.
The longer blade creates the question.
The shorter blade answers it.
Silence charged.
Tara stepped forward.
The long katana struck first.
Not at the monster.
At the claw.
Steel redirected the attack outward.
The question.
Silence's body opened.
For less than a heartbeat.
Enough.
The shorter katana entered the old scar beneath his ribs.
The exact place Tara had wounded years earlier.
The answer.
Silence convulsed.
Tara drove the blade deeper.
Nexo showed her the corrupted nexus of life inside him.
Not a heart exactly.
Something where physical body and the unnatural force animating it converged.
There.
Tara twisted.
Silence screamed.
Every Rapax outside the mountain seemed to answer.
The sound shook dust from the ceiling.
Tara pulled the shorter blade free.
Silence remained standing.
Barely.
Of course.
After everything he had done, death would not take him easily.
Good.
Tara wanted him awake for the last second.
She threw the shorter katana aside.
Both hands closed around the longer one.
Silence looked at her.
Amber eyes burned inside the woman he had blinded.
Tara whispered four names.
“Tharan.”
The blade rose.
“Lira.”
Silence tried to move.
“Mina.”
Tara stepped.
“Saya.”
The katana fell.
One perfect cut.
The monster's head separated from its body.
Silence collapsed.
And for the first time since that rainy night...
he truly lived up to his name.
Silence.
AFTER
Tara stood motionless.
Sword lowered.
Blood ran from the blade.
Amber light continued burning in her ruined eyes.
She waited.
For relief.
For joy.
For Tharan to somehow feel closer.
For the universe to become fair again.
None of that happened.
Her family remained dead.
Revenge had not restored them.
It never could.
But something inside Tara that had remained unfinished for years finally became still.
She whispered:
“I found you.”
Then:
“I killed him.”
A breath.
“For all of you.”
“Tara...”
Sahara.
Tara turned instantly.
Revenge ended.
Her friends remained.
She ran.
Sahara was badly wounded but conscious.
Saga's injury was worse.
Akamy had multiple fractures and was barely breathing.
Tara moved between them.
“No.”
She pressed her hands against Saga's wound.
“Stay with me.”
Saga opened one eye.
“Did... you get him?”
Tara laughed despite the tears.
“Yes.”
Saga smiled weakly.
“Good.”
Then passed out.
“She isn't dead,” Tara said immediately.
Sahara looked at her.
“How do you know?”
Tara's amber eyes moved towards Saga.
“I can feel her.”
She turned towards Akamy.
“And her.”
Then Sahara.
“All of you.”
Sahara stared at Tara's eyes.
“Tara...”
“What?”
“Your eyes.”
Tara touched her face.
The blindfold was gone.
“What about them?”
“They're glowing.”
Tara became still.
“What colour?”
Sahara laughed through the pain.
“Amber.”
Tara said nothing.
She could not see the colour.
Not in the ordinary sense.
But she understood.
Nexo had not given her back what Silence took.
It had given her something Silence had never possessed.
THE END OF THE MONSTER
When the Matrix reinforcements finally broke through the blocked tunnels, they found an image that would spread across Asaka.
Sahara alive.
Saga alive.
Akamy alive.
All terribly wounded.
And Tara standing beside the corpse of Silence.
Blindfold in one hand.
Katana in the other.
Amber eyes burning.
The leader of the Rapax occupation was dead.
The effect was immediate.
Without Silence, Rapax coordination across Asaka fractured.
Some packs continued hunting.
Others retreated.
Several collection routes collapsed.
The war did not end.
But for the first time in years...
the survivors of Asaka celebrated.
Not victory.
Proof.
The monsters could die.
Even the worst of them.
Weeks later, when Sahara could walk without assistance, Saga had recovered enough to complain continuously, and Akamy's broken arm had begun healing, the four women returned to the mountain overlooking one of the surviving settlements.
Tara wore a new blindfold.
Sahara looked confused.
“Why?”
Tara smiled.
“The eyes aren't for looking.”
She tied the cloth.
“They remind me to feel.”
Beneath it, amber light remained faintly visible.
The mark of the Nexo Warrior.
Saga folded her arms.
“So what now?”
Tara remained silent for a moment.
Silence was dead.
The creature that had murdered her family was gone.
But the Rapax remained.
The Sumaya remained.
Raptax were appearing elsewhere in the Cosmos.
Putrids were rising from graves.
Entire planets had fallen.
The Astrals were terrified.
And somewhere beyond Asaka stood powers so vast that Tara still barely understood them.
She had achieved revenge.
Now she needed something larger than revenge.
“I killed the monster who murdered my family.”
Akamy nodded.
“But?”
Tara turned her covered amber eyes towards the sky.
“But there are thousands more like him.”
Silence.
Then:
“And things worse than him.”
Sahara understood.
“Urkulo.”
“Yes.”
Saga groaned.
“We're really doing this.”
“Yes.”
“Finding Genesis.”
“Yes.”
“Queen of the Sapiens.”
“Yes.”
“Possibly the most powerful Kwasar in Tzion.”
“Yes.”
“And asking her to train four women from a dying planet.”
Tara smiled.
“Now you understand the plan.”
Saga stared at her.
“I hate this plan.”
“You always say that.”
“And I keep following you.”
Akamy stood.
“Then we go together.”
Sahara placed one hand upon the hilt of her katana.
“Together.”
Saga sighed and joined them.
“Fine.”
Tara extended her hand.
One by one, the others placed theirs over it.
Four survivors.
Four warriors.
Four broken families.
The Matrix.
Tara thought of Tharan.
Lira.
Mina.
Saya.
For years vengeance had been the only road she could imagine.
Now another road existed.
Longer.
Almost impossible.
THE PATH OF THE KWASAR.
Only an infinitesimal number of Sapiens ever reached ascension.
Perhaps none of them would.
Perhaps Urkulo would reject them.
Perhaps Genesis would never even agree to see them.
Perhaps they would die long before reaching her.
Tara smiled.
Impossible things no longer frightened her as much as they once had.
She had already learned a power she was never supposed to possess.
She had already become a Nexo Warrior.
She had already killed the creature who had taken everything from her.
The blind Fighter tightened the cloth across her glowing amber eyes.
“Silence was my revenge.”
Her friends waited.
Tara placed both katanas at her sides.
“The Sumaya are our war.”
She turned towards the distant road.
“And if we have to become Kwasars to win it...”
Amber light burned beneath the blindfold.
“THEN WE BECOME KWASARS.”
And together, the four women began walking towards the impossible.