Lord of Cosmos

Jasto wiped the tears from his eyes and fought the strange, mixed emotions he was experiencing for the first time. A strong feeling, stronger than any other, came over him: fear. He became afraid for his life, afraid of dying now and losing everything, and of his life and struggle becoming meaningless.

Jasto realized he was in no condition to face Yousef. His body had suffered severe injuries, his strength had failed, and his energy was almost depleted. He had to withdraw, heal himself, and return to face him again on equal terms. Jasto stood up and ran away. Yousef chased him, firing beams at him.

"Running away, Jasto?" Yousef said. "Do you feel the fear now that the Ghlizan felt as they fled from your burning fires?"

Jasto ran panting, his heart pounding violently, fear having taken hold of him. The beams chased him, exploding on his body at times and around him at others, causing him new wounds. But he resisted, got up, and ran quickly, fleeing for his life, fear pulsing in his eyes. Yousef was behind him like a raging bull, laughing with malice as he bombarded him with a barrage of beams. Just as Yousef had cured Jasto of his emotional atrophy, he had also taken on a part of his evil nature and his love for hunting his prey and seeing their fear.

Jasto shouted for help from his soldiers, his heart pounding, but he found Yousef appearing next to him, kicking him and pushing him into a nearby rocky slope. Jasto felt his bones groan and saw his reflection in Yousef; he realized what a hideous, terrifying monster he had been. He felt fear of himself for the first time. His eyes widened, and he stood firing his beams in a desperate attempt to survive. But Yousef charged with his crystalline body through the heat, gathered heat between his fists, placed them on his chest, and then pumped all the heat at once in a continuous stream that pierced Jasto's body and flowed inside him until it burned him. Jasto's eyes turned white, and he spat blood from his mouth and fell to the ground.

"My curse... be upon you," he said. "You will live now... a monster. My genes will haunt you... enjoy."

Jasto fell a lifeless corpse. Yousef began to pant, sweat pouring from his body. He then returned to Akira and placed his hand on him, healing his wounds and fractures. Akira lay on his back, looking at the sky mixed with green, red, and blue.

"Did you kill him?"

"Yes. Fixing the atrophy of his mind didn't mean he would change. That wasn't guaranteed. I had to kill him for all the souls he took. Have you seen any of the leaders of Earth's armies that exterminated the Native Americans or the Aboriginal Australians regret and repent for what they did? Have you seen any of the men of the Inquisition in Andalusia regret the heinous torture machines they invented to exterminate the Arabs? Have you seen an English or French general regret killing millions in Africa and India? Those who lead the armies of the most powerful civilizations of their time never change, because even if you make them feel and sense, their racist ideas and their belief in their ethnic and civilizational superiority authorize them to commit atrocities in the name of this civilization. You can change the world of feelings and emotions, but the world of ideas is more dangerous and difficult to change. I may have changed Jasto's emotional world, but his world of ideas based on racism has not changed, and he will soon return to his former ways, but perhaps he will reduce his killing of innocents a little, no more. I only fixed his brain so that he would feel regret and fear before he died, just as the Ghlizan felt it. I wanted to break his arrogant, conceited self before I broke his body."

Akira sighed. "But you lost your speed. Will you use his cursed power from now on? What do you say to cloning my power?"

Yousef wiped the sweat from his forehead, and the crystal on his skin disappeared into his body. A great weakness overcame him. "These Franks are strong," he said. "And there are many fierce enemies in the universe. We need every power that brings us closer to our goals."

Akira looked at him with pity. "Don't let your quest for power make you forget your good nature. Don't forget who you are, or let their vile, malicious nature control you. I'll contact the comrades and tell them the latest news."

Yousef smiled and nodded.

***

The philosopher Domarto entered the Star of the East Lodge in the capital, Ghardaia. It was one of the lodges built to gather philosophers and thinkers to make plans and weave ideas to overthrow the religious theocratic government on the planet of the Franks. There were ten thousand lodges on the planet of the Franks before the outbreak of the revolution. They hid their plans and principles with false claims that these lodges were for practicing permissible natural and experimental sciences and conducting experiments away from the eyes of the public. But they were a cover for the great revolution that changed the face of the universe, not just the face of the planet of the Franks. So they decided to build these lodges on any planet they entered to plan to change the ideas and philosophies of this planet to fit the ideas and philosophies of the Franks.

Domarto looked at the lodge filled with ancient inscriptions and symbols and contemplated the single large eye engraved on the ceiling of the lodge, surrounded by drawings of revolutionaries conquering the soldiers of the King of the Franks and his monks. The walls of the lodge were decorated with mosaics, and in the middle was a round table with a few chairs around it. Sitting on one of them was the huge-bodied, muscular historian, contemplating some books and taking notes. Sitting opposite him was the mastermind behind all the Franks' technologies and their deadly weapons, the scientist Lavosier.

Lavosier was milky-faced, leaning toward whiteness. Half of his face was red iron and the other half was skin. He had two blue artificial robotic eyes that analyzed everything and stored it in a memory chip at his ear. If he wanted to retrieve information or something he had read, he would go back to this chip, and it would quickly display what he wanted inside his eyes so that no one else could see it. He was bald, and most of his body was a mixture of manufactured robotic limbs and real parts. He was an example of a true cyborg. The Franks did not care about making robots to bear the burdens of life for them because robots were a dangerous invention that other civilizations might exploit to destroy them without aiming a single cannon at them, as happened on Earth. So the monks forbade the making of robots and executed anyone who dared to do so. The Revolutionary Council and the philosophers settled on the same opinion and saw that robots were a great danger to them because they were easily hacked by other civilizations. But they allowed the Franks to mix robotic parts with their bodies and change their appearance as they wished, which the monks had forbidden before and rejected categorically.