This letter was approved by the High Censor and sent by his Seal. If Lónghua is well and able, she will receive this, and, I ask, relay it to you.
Do not share this information with anybody. You are not supposed to know it. The High Censor has seen fit to allow me to share some of these secrets with you, given these exigent circumstances. Lónghua will be in receipt of this letter, and so she, too, will know that you know these things that few outside the Emperor’s Own know.
The Imperial Cult teaches that the spirits of the dead join the Strength of the Southern Wind when they depart the body. The Mandarin have long known this to be a euphemism. To be more clear, the Emperor and the other Gods upon Materia use their magic to mark the souls of mortals. This mark, the Sacred Mark, is a promise. It is a promise that the soul will fulfill its duties in the afterlife. It is a promise to Ashkahala, First of the Dead, who commands the legions that defend the underworld against Hell.
The Sacred Mark is ancient and strong magic. Some things are capable of resisting its pull for a time. Perhaps even a long time. But very, very few things are capable of breaking a Sacred Mark.
I believe yours to be broken. You are unmarked, unpromised. Unmoored. You have no place.
First, the immediate implications. When I first guessed that your Mark may be sundered, the possibilities seemed dire. Perhaps, if you died, your souls would be simply obliterated. Or perhaps the evil creature that inflicted this upon you had managed to mark and promise your souls to the Lords of Hell, instead. Hence my command that you avoid dying. Having spoken with many here at the Censorate and having read a great many of their recommendations, I find these possibilities unlikely. My best guess now is that, should you die, your souls will roam Materia, much like the ghosts of many local legends. Unlike those ghosts, though, there will be no reprieve; no wrong that can be righted and no burden that can be lifted that would free you to leave for the underworld. You would be immortal, but miserable, watching a world pass, age, and die, unable to touch, barely comprehending. As such, I still advise you to remain among the living.
Second, we must attempt to infer what we can about how this happened. One thing that is understood in the order of the Mandarin that is rarely spoken of elsewhere is the creation of Wights. Wights do not possess souls, but they are created with the power of harvested souls. “Origin” wights are created when a demon infuses a slain body with the partially-digested, corrupted remnants of a mortal soul. So when you encountered the undead dragonborn in the crypt, that orb you reported must have been the chalice of souls that he was attempting to release into the unearthed bodies.
This seems like a simple enough ritual: the infusion of a number of corrupted souls into a number of dead bodies. Thus, it seems unlikely that the blasting away of your Sacred Mark was intentional. But it also seems strange that the blasting should even be possible, even with the ritual interrupted at an untimely point as it was. It’s possible that the undead dragonborn has been feeding on the memories imprinted into the body it inhabits, trying to abuse the secrets of the Emperor and the Mandrain in order to improve upon its demonic magic.
There is much more to know about how your Mark was broken and may be restored, and there is much that comes to my attention that needs doing in the Imperial City. Assist Lónghua as you are able. When she releases you from service and as soon as you are able, meet me here.
Again, much I have discussed here is secret knowledge of the Mandarin order. I trust you to keep it, and yourselves, safe.