I, Xir-Kuur of the brood of Xivu Arath, challenged Oryx. He had communed with the Deep and fashioned the bones of the great worm into his Dreadnaught. So for the sake of the sword, I challenged him, full of the weight of purpose and the hunger for war that drives us all.

| Take up the knife. |

Against my sword, there was swallowing emptiness, a void that should have held stars. I thought myself blind. I thought myself dead, bone-mortar to shape the foundation of eternity.

| Take up the knife. |

Oryx Took me then, but I did not crave what he offered.

| Take up the knife. It is shaped like [unparalleled victory.] |

If it is not done by my own power, it is not earned. Thus has the sword logic ever been taught to us, and thus I have lived.

| Take up the knife. |

And so here I have stayed in this Dreadnaught: living and not-living, Taken and not-Taken. It might have been yesterday. It might have been an eon ago.

| Take. Live. Kill. Live. I am here. I am power, and I am victory. I am the knife itself. Come, take what you need. Your objective. A new weapon. |

Others come. And to the Taken, I say: take me if you can. I am Hive. I do not surrender. I do not—

| We are the knife. |