Zion remained in the command tent long after the whispers fell silent. A flicker in the air signaled the return of the ancestors—not just one, but a legion of Haiti's revolutionaries, each bearing wisdom born in blood and brilliance.
First among them stood Jean-Jacques Dessalines, his warcoat draped in shadows and salt, his saber dragging faint sparks across the floor of the spirit realm. Behind him came Toussaint Louverture, the strategist, calm and calculating, eyes like maps of lost empires. Then Henri Christophe, the builder-king, whose presence echoed with leadership forged in steel and stone. Lastly, Sanité Bélair, fierce and unbending, her voice already cutting through the room like a clarion call.
The candlelight in the tent pulsed like a heartbeat.
"You don't need gods for victory," Dessalines began, "You need systems. Strategy. You need to turn your enemies against each other before a single sword leaves its sheath."
Louverture stepped forward, spreading a scroll that seemed to draw its lines in real-time—Zion's front line, the Hive's movements, troop patterns, blind spots, and resource bottlenecks.
"Divide their unity," Louverture said. "Send false envoys. Offer deals that split their queens. Leak fragments of prophecy, forged if you must, that question their queen's authority."
"And use the terrain," added Christophe, tapping where the edge of the galaxy bent like a crescent around the battlefield. "Your base is on a flattened plane—exposed. But beneath it? Tunnels. Burrows. Black matter drift. Have your people dig. Hollow out sanctuaries, trap zones, pressure rooms. Collapse their legs beneath them."
Sanité Bélair didn't bother with maps. She approached Zion with a single sharpened word:
"Train the children. The ones the world ignores. Young gods. Young demons. Give them fire. If you don't, the Hive will."
Zion took it all in—his mind layering tactics atop visions, forging blueprints of war from centuries-old fires. But still, he asked:
"How do you hold unity with those who are not like you? With demons and gods who have never served, never bowed, never bled for a cause?"
"You don't," Dessalines answered flatly. "You hold purpose. Not unity. Give them a cause greater than themselves. Let that be the chain."
A silence fell. Then Dessalines drew closer.
"One last tactic," he whispered, "If the Hive devours knowledge… then feed it poison. Create false doctrines, false gods, false histories. Let them feast on lies. Let their evolution twist itself into madness."
Zion stared into the flickering map.
The war ahead would not be won by strength alone.
It would be waged in silence, shadows, and sacrifice