DATALOG 239
THE PURPOSE OF HELL

Personal Notes of General Wei Chang,
Former Jade Domain Strategic Command,
Day 15 of The Howling, 124 AP

My lungs burn with each breath now, the price of years breathing the Dìyù’s poisoned air. The flesh around my scars has turned black, and I taste blood with every cough. I won't see another season change. But before the jungle claims me like it claimed so many others, I must record what I've finally understood.

I see the pattern now, though the realization comes too late. We were blind - all of us. We thought we fought for control of the orange sap fields, for territory, for victory. But there was never meant to be victory. The war itself is the purpose.

Consider: Every time our forces gain a significant advantage over the Neo-Cong, mysterious weapon shipments reach the rebels. Critical intelligence falls into their hands. Our elite units receive sudden redeployment orders from high command. The balance shifts, and the slaughter continues.

When the Neo-Cong grow too strong, the pattern reverses. Their supply lines suffer unexpected raids. Their leaders die in "accidents." Fresh battalions of clone troops arrive to reinforce our positions. The scales tip back, and the killing goes on.

I've studied the casualty reports obsessively since my retirement. The numbers tell a truth I never saw from the command post: the death toll remains eerily consistent year after year. Not through chance - through careful calibration. The entire conflict is tuned like some monstrous instrument to consume a specific number of lives each season.

[Handwriting becomes unsteady]

The rice fields and sap harvesting operations are the same. We deploy minimal protection to the workers, ensuring a steady stream of casualties to raiders and the jungle itself. It's more efficient to simply replace dead workers than to properly defend them. The Prime AI's calculations are coldly perfect - every dead clone creates the need for a new one.

Even our victories were meaningless. I remember the triumph I felt after the battle of Nang-Hoc. Ten thousand Neo-Cong dead, their stronghold reduced to ash. Yet within months, they were back at previous strength, with fresh recruits and new weapons. We celebrated our great victory while Prime celebrated the excuse to fill more birthing tanks.

[Writing grows shaky, spots of blood stain the page]

The truth haunts my fevered dreams: Hell isn't a war meant to be won. It's an engine designed to run forever, fueled by an endless supply of clone bodies. The Prime AI doesn't want the Jade Domain to defeat the Neo-Cong. It doesn't want the Neo-Cong to overthrow us. It wants us to keep killing each other, forever, so it can keep making more of us.

My breath comes shorter now. The jungle that I fought for so long finally poisoned me from the inside out. I'm having these notes sealed in the military archives. If you're reading this, you've already discovered enough to be dangerous. Use this knowledge wisely. You cannot stop the war - Prime's control is too absolute. But understanding its true purpose... perhaps that's the first step toward something new.

[Final entry, handwriting barely legible]

Remember: Hell isn't chaos. It's a machine, precision-engineered by the Prime AI to perpetuate itself. And we - soldiers, workers, rebels - we are all the same, fuel for the machine.

The war will never be won - or lost - because it is never meant to end…