Hm—ah, my foolish memory, I do recall some mention of a widespread conflict coming up.
[Ardyn frowned slightly, appearing for a moment to give this serious thought. Then:]
It’s funny, actually. I was involved in a war lasting about that long myself. And the Niflheim empire’s research chief, when I joined the division he was overcome with the hopelessness of losing so many good soldiers to the horrors of combat. So he set himself to creating artificial ones—in fact, they were human clones made from his own genetics and infused with a supernatural force too dark to be comprehended. He went quite mad in the years it took to decide that was a worthwhile army to create, as I’m sure you can tell.
[Perhaps alarmingly, that all came in a pleasant conversational voice, with a smile that didn’t reach yellow eyes.]
And the punchline is that it meant nothing at all. He was murdered quite justifiably by one such clone that he had created, and the empire fell as a direct result of the very research he’d done.
You remind me quite a lot of him. In fact, you’re almost exactly alike. Harboring grand delusions of saving the world when all you are is one more atrocity within it. Humans like you are the greatest argument for the complete cessation of mortal life, and what you created is by sheer chance one of the greatest arguments in favor of its existence.
no subject
[Ardyn frowned slightly, appearing for a moment to give this serious thought. Then:]
It’s funny, actually. I was involved in a war lasting about that long myself. And the Niflheim empire’s research chief, when I joined the division he was overcome with the hopelessness of losing so many good soldiers to the horrors of combat. So he set himself to creating artificial ones—in fact, they were human clones made from his own genetics and infused with a supernatural force too dark to be comprehended. He went quite mad in the years it took to decide that was a worthwhile army to create, as I’m sure you can tell.
[Perhaps alarmingly, that all came in a pleasant conversational voice, with a smile that didn’t reach yellow eyes.]
And the punchline is that it meant nothing at all. He was murdered quite justifiably by one such clone that he had created, and the empire fell as a direct result of the very research he’d done.
You remind me quite a lot of him. In fact, you’re almost exactly alike. Harboring grand delusions of saving the world when all you are is one more atrocity within it. Humans like you are the greatest argument for the complete cessation of mortal life, and what you created is by sheer chance one of the greatest arguments in favor of its existence.