Debauchery BioTech 11

Debauchery BioTech

Chapter 11

-VB-

It was a triumph for the Priesthood of Kalmaktama.

For the rest of the Inner Sphere, it was a new form of biological horror made manifest, and they wanted answers. 

Hanse reviewed the footage released by ComStar News Network, and suppressed the umpteenth shiver that made its way through his body while his eyes saw what people were claiming to be human souls. 

Human souls that were ritually sacrificed to produce some sort of esoteric effect over the entire Radstadt System. 

Just as “Karcist Croy” had proclaimed, Radstadt was now a place wholly out of their reach. Jumpships filled with Combine mechwarriors, pilots, and soldiers jumped into the system and then  drifted motionlessly until salvagers got to them. They came back with pictures of halls and bunks where people left their clothes behind after their bodies had exploded the moment the jump transition finished. 

He stared at the form of Karcist Croy, which shifted in and out of space. 

It was …

It was unbelievable. It was undeniable. It was horrifying beyond all means. 

Souls were real. Afterlife was real. 

And the goddamn cultists can devour your souls. 

Paradoxically, this reveal led to a sudden surge in people rushing to cathedrals and temples, begging for Buddha or God to protect their souls from the sacrilegious heathens. 

Hanse saw further than that, however. Where souls were real, people’s actions would change. Had changed, considering that the cultists had tangible proof of the afterlife (or at least souls). People walked more carefully. Spoke carefully. Began to thoroughly review if they had at any point in their life desecrated any places of worship. 

Money moved in vast quantities as people tried to buy spiritual forgiveness, not that the New Avalon Catholic Church was willing to start handing out indulgences. 

In fact, they self-policed themselves and arrested over a hundred of their own priests and nuns across the Federated Suns for selling indulgences. They began to openly preach that money could not be used to buy forgiveness.

Theological debates became a matter of spiritual life and death.

There would be religious riots as disagreements escalated into brawls. 

Religious killings.

A religious civil war, two worst types of wars combined into one. 

The last time this happened… It was over a thousand years in the past on Terra.

And it worried him. A lot. 

Already, the New Avalon Catholic Church was begging him to denounce “the heathens who take it upon themselves to become gods.” Because, of course, the Federated Suns had access to the written guidelines of the Priesthood of Kalmaktama, which then obviously got leaked. 

A religion that encouraged its followers to become gods, even if it meant spiritually, mentally, and physically changing themselves to something unrecognizable. 

A god has descended. 

To the Priesthood of Kalmaktama, that proclamation was both a promise and a reality fulfilled by their Karcist, because in the eyes of the cultists, a man who can create space dragons and biomechanical mechs was very much a god. 

Hanse initially had trouble understanding both Katarina and Melissa’s insistence that the Priesthood should not be underestimated. 

Now… Now he understood. 

What worried him more than the fat that space dragons existed or the fact that there was a not an insignificant chance of a religious civil war breaking out everywhere was the fact that … Melissa had been, was, and will most likely continue to be a secret follower of the Priesthood of Kalmaktama.

Yes, she was a Christian. 

No, she did not worship the Karcist as a god.

Yes, she and Katarina considered the Priesthood not just an ally but almost an equal. 

Hanse didn’t laugh at them out of politeness before. 

He no longer laughed at the idea at all. 

-VB-

When Croy received the question from Zend Karstein, he knew what it was really about. 

Archon Katarina Steiner, despite being a member of the Priesthood and thus a subordinate to him in … religious matters, felt uneasy about the power he and his Priesthood wielded. 

And despite the fact that this was the Archon of the Lyran Commonwealth and the mother of the soon to be Federated Commonwealth (because he did not see any other way the marriage between the First Prince Hanse Davion and the Archon Heir-Designate Melissa Steiner was supposed to go) who was making pointed questions about the true power in his hands, he really didn’t feel like being fully transparent about it. 

Because what ruler would find it acceptable that, should he truly wish it, someone else had the power to turn the Inner Sphere into a hellscape? 

A biological hellscape at that? 

At the same time, Katarina has been a good ruler and neighbor. He saw no reason to lie to her, especially since she should know that he would not harm her or the Lyran Commonwealth. After all, they have not harmed him and the Priesthood.

“Tell her what you know,” he said out loud in a room where only he stood. His words, however, crossed light years instantly and reached the ears and mind of Zend Karstein. Even though he wasn’t there to see it, he could still feel the zend bowing toward him.

‘I hear and I obey.’

He nodded. 

Then he turned to look at the new chamber that he had built on Radstadt. 

The Priesthood had, over the last month, slowly moved out of Zdice. Not only was it because the Priesthood as a whole wanted to make a statement but it was also because Radstadt was now one of the safest places to be. 

After all, it was the only system that could not be reached by any Draconis Combine soldier. 

And it was here that he intended to begin another project. 

One that would not have a human cultist at its base. One that would be his answer to weapons of mass destruction. It would be something that he’ll be able to release a handful onto a world. They will destroy anything and everything while poisoning the world against those who will never be able to change their bodies. 

A force of both destruction and rebirth. Something that will cleanse worlds without any good will left.

A god warrior.