DATALOG 237
THE PURGE OF NANG-HOC

Compiled by Sister Chen, Archivist of the Bright Path

Written in exile, Day 24 of The Thaw, 41 AP

Sister Chen’s note

The Purge of Nang-Hoc took place on day 24 of The Thaw, 31 AP. Ten years ago today. I have spent months gathering accounts of the battle that forever changed the Bright Path. Each testimony was difficult to obtain - some extracted from classified Jade Domain archives, others shared in whispers by survivors who still wake screaming from memories of that day. Together, they tell a story not just of violence, but of transformation. Of how faith can be twisted by trauma, and how even the purest light can be corrupted to serve darker purposes.

These records must be preserved, though their implications disturb me deeply. I see patterns in them that others seem blind to. Connections that suggest what happened at Nang-Hoc was not just military strategy, but carefully orchestrated manipulation. Whether my suspicions prove true or false, future generations must know how our Path was forever altered in the blood and fire of that terrible day.

From the Combat Log of Colonel Lin Hao, Jade Domain 3rd Infantry

The outer defences of Nang-Hoc were formidable - ancient stone walls reinforced with salvaged metal, every approach covered by Neo-Cong heavy weapons. Beyond these fortifications stood the temple itself, its spires reaching toward a sky already dark with smoke. Our orders were explicit: take the temple at any cost, leave none alive.

I led the assault personally. I had been given an entire regiment, over a thousand Troopers. We advanced in separate assault waves through the flooded rice paddies, under withering fire, using fallen troopers as cover. The water turned red with blood. The Neo-Cong had positioned their guns well - interlocking fields of fire cut down my troops in swaths, while their snipers picked off our battle controllers with terrifying accuracy. I lost hundreds in every wave, just crossing a bloody field. We attacked again and again, until we reached the walls.

The fighting at the gate was savage. Neo-Cong defenders fired on us at point blank range. I kept sending my Troopers into certain death against the gate, until their bodies piled high enough for the rest of us to use them as cover. Their sacrifice won’t be forgotten.

When we finally breached the gate, the Neo-Cong in the inner courtyard fought to the last. They had sworn to protect the temple, and they kept that oath. No quarter was asked, and none was given.

The temple's defenders were different from the Neo-Cong. Where the rebels had fought similar to ourselves, the monks fought with a fury brought on by desperation. Most of them were not warriors, but under the direction of the few that were, they transformed their sacred spaces into killing grounds, turning every shrine and meditation hall into a defensive position.

Inside the temple proper, the air thick with incense and cordite, we fought room to room, corridor to corridor. I had to sacrifice entire units to clear individual prayer chambers. The monks used anything, from ancient ceremonial daggers to kitchen knives, and I saw many of my Troopers fall to blades in close combat. We responded in kind, with shotguns and blades. The marble floors grew slick with blood.

The central library was their last redoubt. The last monks had barricaded themselves inside. When we breached the doors, a massive explosion killed the breaching squad and the remaining monks. The battle was over.

(Additional handwritten note by Colonel Lin Hao)

Some of the monks seemed to have escaped through a tunnel that we discovered in the library. I sent a squad to hunt them down, but none of them returned. I had lost almost my entire regiment at that point, apart from a handful of Troopers, now directly under my command. I made the decision at that moment to save their lives and not to lose them all - we sealed the tunnel and I omitted its existence from my report.

Testimony of Sister Maya, former monk at Nang-Hoc

After the outer walls fell, after our loyal Neo-Cong defenders were slaughtered, we knew our time had come. Each monk carried a blade blessed by the elders, each of us ready to make our flesh a final offering to the Path.

The close combat was intimate, terrifying in its proximity. We fought among burning texts and shattered statues. I encountered a Trooper in one of the corridors. She hesitated when she saw my face, not dissimilar from her own. They look so young, these fresh trooper clones. So lost. I used her moment of hesitation to plunge my kitchen knife into her. I prayed for her as she bled out in my arms. Fresh out of a birthing tank and basic training, she couldn’t comprehend why she had to die.

But we were too few, and they came in endless waves. For each one we killed, three more appeared. Their boots tracked blood across our meditation mats. Their bullets shattered ancient wisdom carved in stone. Everything we had preserved through the Great Collapse was being destroyed in hours.

When the evacuation order came, I was defending the library. The elders commanded us to save what we could - not just our sacred texts, but our youngest initiates, the seeds of our future vengeance. I watched our most precious scrolls being passed hand to hand into the tunnels as gunfire drew closer.

The last thing I saw before entering the passages was Elder Sister Hua, one of our teachers, detonating her explosive vest as Jade Domain troops breached the library doors. Her final prayer was lost in the roar of the blast.

We emerged miles away, into a night lit by the flames of our burning home. That's when the Emissary found us, her white robes pristine, a plain chrome collar around her neck. Troopers appeared that had followed us through the tunnel. She killed them all with bright blue lightning seemingly emitting from her hands. Afterwards she spoke, and her words transformed our pain into purpose.

"The light of the Path is not gentle," she told us, her neural collar casting strange shadows. "It is a purifying flame that must burn away the corruption of this world. Your temple had to fall so that this truth could rise from its ashes."

I understood then. Our peaceful ways had been a weakness. The Jade Domain hadn't desecrated our temple - they had given us clarity. The Path was never meant to be one of quiet contemplation. We are the flame that will burn their empire to the ground. Every clone we kill is an offering to our renewed purpose.

They thought they broke us at Nang-Hoc. Instead, they forged us into something magnificent and terrible. Our prayers are now battle cries. Our meditation is the perfect focus of lining up a kill shot. Our Path blazes with holy fire, and we will burn until nothing remains of those who tried to destroy us.

Final Report, Colonel Lin Hao

(Found on her body after a Neo-Cong ambush, several months after the Purge of Nang-Hoc))

Nang-Hoc fell as ordered. Casualties far exceeded projections at 90% killed, but acceptable given the strategic value. However, something has changed in the Neo-Cong's behavior since the purge. Their attacks are different now - more ritualized, more savage. They leave our dead arranged in patterns we can’t begin to understand.

Yesterday we found my forward patrol. They had been tied to trees, their bodies decorated with prayers written in their own blood. The monks we thought we broke have become something else. Something worse.

I dream of the battle inside the temple sometimes, of burning books and orange robes turned red. We took their sanctuary, but I fear we may have created something far more dangerous: true believers with nothing left to lose.

Sister Chen’s Addendum

In hindsight, I see the pattern. The way the temple fell, but a select few conveniently managed to escape. The Emissary's perfectly timed appearance. The way our rage and pain were channeled and weaponised for an endless war. It’s far too convenient

Some call me heretic for these questions. They say the flames of our renewed Path will purify the world. But as I read these accounts, I wonder: are we truly carrying the light, or have we simply become another tool in Prime's great machine of perpetual slaughter?

The ruins at Nang-Hoc still stand, a charred skeleton of our former peace. And in its shadow, a new Bright Path burns, fed by an endless cycle of violence that serves purposes far darker than any of us understand.

[Sister Chen vanished three days after writing these words. She hasn’t been seen since.]