“So, this is the inheritance the Demon God left behind.” Gemini narrowed his eyes at the black orb. It was the size of his fist when he first located it from afar, but now that he was up close, it was still the size of his fist. Clearly, this little orb had the ability to defy physics, but again, so did many of Orb’s wonders.

A great god’s holy symbol also represented their inheritance. This was a fact that he had understood when he drew close to the black orb, something that perhaps only the other great gods would know.

Gemini wished he didn’t know that, however. Now that he did, the Demon Sovereign finally understood what the God of Water did in his last moments; the Lifespring had crushed his own inheritance and knowledge.

Conrah had severed the path towards a true understanding of water.

That fact lingered in his mouth like a bitter pill, a bitter pill that Gemini couldn’t spit out. The only thing he could do was to relegate this knowledge into the back of his mind, and then maybe find the God of Water’s familiar spirits when he had time. Most of them had flocked over to help the other great gods when the latter faced off against the Demon God — to his knowledge, there were still some of them alive.

They deserved closure, at least.

Life returned to Gemini’s eyes, and he examined the fist-sized orb of darkness in front of him. The little orb looked smooth at first glance, but little squares dotted its surface, squares that were only discernible through his Divine Will. Enormous amounts of information were stuffed into each square, and Gemini couldn’t help but stare at the first square.

His mouth began to babble. “Boundless One. Hypothesised to be the state of the extra-karmic entity, the Abyss. Hypothesised to be the state of the high-dimensional entities Pabar and Tiadall. Unachievable with all known means. Following slates contain all relevant experiments related to the Pit and Boundless One.”

Gemini wrestled for control over his mind, and the babbling ceased. Blood was streaming down his eyes, the byproduct of having torn his eyes away from the little alluring orb.

At the same time, the insides of his head were burning, overloaded. Gemini could sense that his mind and soul had been injured with that single glance; if he had been a moment slower, he could have received incredible damage. That little bout of babbling earlier was just an introduction of a fraction of the immense information the orb had transmitted to him; even now, most of his unconscious mind was still working overtime to categorise and deal with the cognitive overload.

“Is the Demon God stupid?” Gemini muttered, rubbing and massaging his head. “No one can receive your inheritance if you stuff so much information inside! At the least, give a warning or something!”

Grousing to himself, Gemini willed the flames in his head to die down. This orb definitely had a tutorial on how to control the black dome outside; he would have to search it out by himself. However, looking at the orb directly was too dangerous. If anyone save for him and the great gods looked at it, their minds would break on the spot.

If Aria or Lila looked at the orb directly…

Fear gripped his soul, and in that instant, he nodded to himself. This orb could not be brought out as-is — there was simply too much information for anyone to withstand.

A small knife appeared in front of him, one made from his Divine Will. It was a representation of his desire, but with no other will trying to impede him, Gemini knew that his desires were absolute.

“Sorry, Demon God,” Gemini muttered. “But I need to cut up your little inheritance…please don’t take offence.”

The knife flashed, and the ball fell apart into hundreds of tiny slabs. Each of these slabs, however, still had enough information in them to knock out anyone who gazed at them, but that was miles better than having their brains turn to mush on the spot.

Nightmare scenarios of Aria looking at that damn thing were therefore averted, although Gemini had no intention of letting his little darling look at such a compressed mass of information, slab-ified or otherwise. Such dense information might have some adverse effects on her growth, and the Demon Sovereign had no desire to see his little Aria start talking about economics, governance and divine secrets one year into her birth.

For his little family of three, having one person cursed by destiny was more than enough.

Those tiles of pure darkness rotated around him, each of them now carrying information he could safely process. These pieces of information, each denser than a continent, were incredibly important to Gemini. As a nascent great god, he knew that he was, in overall terms, inferior to the mature great gods of Orb; the only thing he had going for him was combat capability.

Fortunately, the other great gods had been wrecked so hard by the Demon Sovereign that they had to recover. Upwards of a dozen millennia would be needed before they could take independent action once more. Only the Sentinel of Space still maintained combat capability, but Hereward would have died if Gemini hadn’t regained his body back then.

The Demon Sovereign back then was quite the terrifying opponent too, now that he thought about it. Fortunately for the Five Lands, the World’s Blight had chosen to stuff his newly-created weapon with as much divinity as possible, instead of creating a balance of divinities.

Shaking his head, Gemini took a deep breath and calmed his mind, clearing it of any stray thoughts. He didn’t dare to think in parallel for this particular task; his brain would probably start smoking if he took in more than one tile of information.

“Wait, hold up.” The Demon Sovereign caught himself before he started on this long, laborious task. “I should do it outside. Not here.”

The first sweep of his hand stored away these tiny slabs.

With his second, he was back on Orb.

And with his third, Gemini had returned to Quinn’s side, who was currently taking care of a shivering Pai-Relix.

Gemini frowned at this scene, but that was the extent of it. Without a word, he wrapped the two of them with his divinity and teleported everyone back to the cottage directly. He would have preferred flying to save on divinity, but his right-hand man was currently out of commission.

Unfortunate, but it wasn’t much of a deal.

“I’m back!” Gemini called out.

A set of soft footsteps rushed over to the cottage door.

“Welcome back,” Lila replied. “How’s thi—what happened?”

Gemini glanced at Pai-Relix. “Long story…”