Sayeth Oryx, “I have made preparations. If I am defeated, I know it will be because My understanding of the universe was incomplete. I know that I will fall to something mighty, something that craves might, something that loves which I love, which is a principle and a power, the versatile, protean need to adapt and endure, to reach out and shape the universe entirely for the purpose of endurance, to mutate and redesign and test and iterate so that it can prevail, can seize existence and hold it, certain that this is everything, that there is nothing to life except living. And it has two faces, yet it is one shape. One face is the objective, which is to exist, and the other face is that will to sacrifice things and ideas for a single mission, the mission of becoming the shape, a shape that is a principle, the utter commitment to survival, to drawing the right sword and choosing where to cut: that edge, that sharpness, that logic of swords. So I will prepare a book, which is a map to a weapon. And My vanquisher will read that book, seeking the weapon, and they will come to understand Me, where I have been and where I was going. And then they will take up My weapon, and they will use it, they will use that weapon, which is all that I am. They will become me and I will become them, each of us defeating the other, correcting the other, alloying ourselves into one omnipotent philosophy. Thus I will live forever. Aye mak sicur.”

Sayeth we the Hive, “Oryx our King is defeated in echo and in form, in world and in throne. His children are defeated, His tribute is cut off, His faithful son is fallen, His prodigal son entrapped and enervated by the Will of Thousands who would use Him as bait for richer feed. Yet we survive in our Thousands of Billions, so numerous in our thriving mass that we could reach from moon to world and back to moon if we stood upon each others’ brows. We live on by the law that we were taught, the Devouring of the Unfree, and that law is manifest in our flesh, which is pared to bone by the Knife of Need and Challenge. And we in our Thousands of Billions do possess a will. Let us test the testament of our King who is Oryx. Let us challenge His legacy as He has challenged us. For there is no surer tribute to the dead than to kill all they left behind, so that only the invincible and necessary will endure. He was not invincible. Thus we must ask after the necessity of His legacy and the need to obey His taboo. Was not Xivu Arath beheaded, and yet summoned back by Oryx, who remembered Her as war? Was not Savathûn beheaded, and yet conjured back by Oryx, who conspired with Her cunning? Aiat, it must now be so. For if His legacy is true, it will come unto us and defeat our blasphemy. And if it is not, what we attempt cannot be blasphemy, for we have survived Him and surpassed the power of His will. Aiat, aiat, aiat.”