And in the fiery heat of the rebuttal, a response was penned by the instigator:
Do not impugn my honor by proposing I am of the Xionist flock, for they have long-since faded into obscurity, mentioned only in whispers by madened cabals who cling to shreds of forgotten knowledge. But such identities remain beyond this exchange, for I have doted upon the thoughts encapsulated within your letter, and have found them to only confirm my gravest of fears:
You assert that the gods are to man as we are to insects, and that we are to forfeit our will with only trust that man’s best interest will be maintained. But this is fallacy, for men and the gods were made alike; only in light of the cataclysm of Aegis have we grown to see them as beings of greater power than we, for they have woven that delusion deep within our hearts and minds. In truth, it was man the gods most feared and coveted in the beginning, the Enemy greatest of all, hence his instigation of chaos among the Brothers of Old. He, too, was of the Light, even though his dominion came to darkness and corruption in the end. But that primordial desire to rule and have a domain of his own, it lingers in the hearts of all who are born of The One, and this is evident by the many suffusions of boons within our realm, each one a desperate scramble to claim dominion over mortal men.
We may not fathom the ways of the gods, but do not fall prey to the belief that they know us better than we understand ourselves. Your Lion claims he is for man, and perhaps that is his deepest intention, yet he knows not our ways nor can comprehend our potential, for he is not of us. How can he say he cares for our freedom, when he has stripped freedom from other men who have dared to stand against his mission and pursue their own path? He seeks to control that which he does not understand, and thus his vision of freedom dramatically contests our own.
So tell me, Espouser of Gold, what shall your Lion do when all is said and done, and the last resistance of men has been banished beyond oblivion? Do you truly believe he will cast away his hard-earned dominion? No – he will seek to preserve it, to make it everlasting, as any despotic power. On that day, the farcical shroud of mercy will be cast aside, and free will shall be left as a smoldering remnant in the wake of a seething light. Man will have forfeited his freedom, and we will be left as slaves. Even now, you are played as a pawn upon a board, bound to the whims of an oath which, though perhaps you share in sentiment, are not written by your own hand, but by another, distant one. I do not wish for man’s fate to be woven by a hand who shares no part in it.
Your words are condemning, but they shall not stand against the might of Man. When my deed is done, then I shall rest, and shall not return. Divine and demonic, light and dark, none among them shall linger any further in our world, and there shall only be Man to stand against the Void. But until then, you have only to see me rise to the height of my mission and creed; and it shall be greater than any yet mustered among the descendants, nor those who dwell in our lands.
Thus is my promise unto you, O’ Scion of the Light. Know it well.
— Vicar of the Flame in the Shadow