The Hive were all but beaten. Thanks to Taox’s information, the Ecumene knew exactly where to strike and exactly who to target. Before long, Auryx, Savathûn, and Xivu Arath could not even emerge from their throne-worlds for fear of being killed again and again. Worse, hiding and waiting was not an option, either. Each of the siblings felt the gnawing of their worms inside them. Without a supply of destruction, the bargain offered to the Hive by their worm gods so long ago would soon destroy them from within.

After much debate and despair between the three ascendant siblings who had gathered within Auryx’s throne-world, it was Auryx who came up with a solution. What they needed to defeat the Ecumene was the power of the Deep that their worms gods had long kept from them. And the only way to get it was to become far more powerful himself by claiming the power held by his sisters.

By truly killing them.

So, Auryx took up his sword and gained great power by beheading his sister Xivu Arath who willingly allowed it. He then turned and killed his sister Savathûn who at the last second had tried to trick him by pretending to give up her life willingly but who actually was intending to kill him with a dagger she had in her hand hidden behind her back.

By killing his two sisters, each of whom had participated in the deaths of billions spread across well over three hundred worlds, Auryx gained enormous power. So much so that he was able to seek out Akka,one of his worm gods, and demand the secrets he needed to call upon the deep directly. Akka refused to give him those secret, so Auryx killed it and took the secrets for himself. He forged these secrets into what he called the Tablets of Ruin then returned to his Hive and proclaimed himself to be Oryx, The Taken King since he now had the power to take life and make it his own.

Within the year, the Ecumene Crisis Council (and not the Dakaua Ministry of War? Was this bigger than just a war now?) met in an emergency session. Somehow the war that had been going so well had unexpectedly reversed itself. Where before the three leaders of the Hive had been forced into hiding, now the one they recognized as Aurash / Oryx had reemerged in possession of a staggeringly powerful new weapon. He somehow had the ability to abduct individual targets from the physical world then return them drastically changed. These “Taken” came back completely under Oryx’s control and possessed “physically illegal” abilities.

Oryx’s ability to “take” and alter individuals greatly concerned the Ecumene, and why wouldn’t it? He had found a way to do something that they, as “lords of matter and physical law,” could not even conceive of. With Oryx now able to turn their own forces against them, the Ecumene Crisis Council predicted that their civilizations would be extinct within 220 years unless some countermeasure to Oryx’s new power could be found.

The leaders of the Ecumene directed all of their client races to immediately dedicate all of their economic and technological resources to stopping Oryx, but in the end it would not be enough.

Sources:
XXVI: star by star by star
XXVII: Eat the Sky
XXVIII: King of Shapes

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