[Book 13: Destiny Divergent]

He had been floating in darkness for a long time. Half-asleep, but fully aware of the world around him. Fully aware of the artificial self that had stolen control of his body. Fully aware of the impossible, delicate mix of two different divinities that swirled through his veins. In his waking periods, he would wonder about his true identity. There wasn’t much he could remember; he could only remember that there once existed someone dear to him.

I think it was called a…fugue state? He had been awakened from distant shudders that somehow passed through the black void. Rumbles that were both spiritual and material. Like someone watching a storm from the opposite side of an ocean.

As the rumbles intensified, memories flashed through his mind. Memories that didn’t belong to him. Images of a great beginning from eons ago played in his head, complete with emotions that did not belong to him. In those memories, he was a parent figure, who brought forth millions of children. These children were special; they had inherited a legacy of longevity, of revival.

His face, immaterial as it was, smiled as he watched them marvel at the miracle of life. Of existence. However, he wasn’t the only parent figure. There were others like him, immense beings who had created things in moments succeeding their birth. As the last such being to emerge, the others had watched in trepidation…and fear.

Eternity is the grail suited only for us gods. Let all others languish in our majestic perpetuity. And may your children be the incense to our authority. This sentence, spoken by a golden figure, had marked the start of the great war.

Before the memory could continue, the black void around him was shattered by a comet of absolute shadow. In that instant, his emptied mind filled up with memories and emotions — thoughts that had been sealed away.

Above him, all around him, was a starry sky. Rivers of brilliant lights. Below his feet was a globe of blue and green, a globe that looked so familiar to him. Finally, in his right hand — and in the hands of his other projections — was a limp, grey figure.

In his left was a crystal of coruscating sunlight.

“Save them. Save my children. Bring them out of this prison. Show them freedom,” a voice, one weakened and hoarse, whispered in his ears.

“The Demon God,” Gemini, who had remembered his true self, muttered. He looked around the place, and then at the figure in his hand. In his eyes, he could see both the present and a myriad of futures, but each and every vision he saw only affirmed one thing — that the person in his right hand should have died.

“Gemini?” The grey figure forced out. “How?”

“The Demon God has perished,” Gemini replied quietly, his thoughts now focused on the person he should have left behind forever. “As a parting gift, he returned my freedom, bestowed great power and conferred an immense responsibility.”

Gold light rose out of his arms, intertwining with the black energy coiled around him. “But I still cannot forgive him. For killing my friends. For twisting the natures of his children, even if he did not do it on purpose.”

Releasing the grip on the Sentinel of Space, the battlefield of Will vanished. Hereward grimaced once, and then shook his head. “Given what I put you through, I had half-expected you to kill me.”

“You gave Ark City a way out.”

“Only to give the Five Lands a shot at victory.” The Stabiliser shook his head. “But it seems that time was all that was probably needed. To think that the Demon God met his end this quickly. If he had stayed in the Wildlands, in his place of power, the Five Lands would not have assassinated him this quickly.”

“Assassinated?” Gemini asked.

“See for yourself.” The great god of space waved his hand, creating a small window. In it, he could see lots of ships, ships like the Acheron that had ferried the inhabitants of Ark City back into the Wildlands. However, those metal colossi were actually surrounding what looked very much like two stars that were busy surrounding a shadowy globe.

That shadowy globe was naturally the Demon God’s Divine Kingdom. The great god had brought it out with him, which could only mean that his true body was also inside.

An enormous inferno blanketed the shadowy world, but the fires were nothing compared to what came next. Before his very eyes, the ships surrounding the battlefield fired giant lances of prismatic light, lances that slammed through the Divine Kingdom with an absurd ease.

Gemini turned to the Sentinel of Space. “That power…was it from you?”

The Stabiliser shook his head slowly. “But it might as well be.”

The Demon Sovereign eyed his peer, and then decided not to press him on that utterance. There was no point in doing so anyway; he could still remember that the Sentinel of Space had this really odd penchant for sounding mysterious.

“What’s your deal in all this?” Gemini asked. “Before I…died or whatever, you told me that you were Orb’s God of Creation. You refer to the world before Tiadall and Pabar died, right? What do you intend to do? Why does the Mortal Light Dynasty have the ability to kill gods?”

“That’s probably my children’s doing,” Hereward replied. “And my goal…to restore them into being. To wake them up from their long slumber. That is all.”

Gemini debated with himself for a moment and decided to focus on more pertinent matters. “Where’s Ark City?”

“It’s floating above the Heaven-cleaving Fortress.”

“What’s the Heaven-cleaving Fortress? And what do you mean, floating?”

“Did you not look through the new memories you acquired just now?” Hereward asked, a touch of irritation in his regal tone. “Ark City’s now a floating city. I’m not sure which genius worked out how to do that, but there it is.”

“It’s a floating city now?”

“Yes.”

Gemini wanted to head over immediately, but the Demon God’s final words lingered on in his mind. His intuition told him that unless he wanted to see another Second Extermination, he would have to head over to the Wildlands first, and…

“Rally the defeated demons…”

The Sentinel of Space stared at Gemini. “You’re intending to save the demons?”

“I saw the past.” Gemini took a deep breath. “They don’t deserve this. No one does. And…if the demons, as a race, became the nemesis of the Five Lands…”

A face flashed through his mind. “I cannot have that, right?”

Hereward sighed. “Destiny truly is a fickle mistress. You were not supposed to return alive. Nor was the Demon God supposed to fall. My original intention was to get my children to help in the war, to contribute to their place in the world after the Demon God. But…”

Gemini considered his words for a moment. “But the war will continue. The Demon God knows it. They will invade the Wildlands. Slaughter the demons. If I don’t do anything, another Extermination will occur.”

“Yes.”

“It seems fitting that I, one of those who started the Second Extermination, be the one to stop this Extermination, doesn’t it?” Gemini took a deep breath. “They are like us. People. And with the Demon God gone, their madness will recede.”

“You, who have inherited the divinity of both the Human God and the Demon God, are in a very unique position,” Hereward replied, affirming his resolve in a roundabout way.

“And you?” Gemini asked. “Are you my enemy?”

The Stabiliser smiled.