Black lightning flickered in the middle of the hollow, nameless cavern that marked the very centre of the world. It was a place that spanned both the false and true Orb, connecting the surface to the Intersection and to Heritage itself.

It was the final resting place for innumerable lives that had perished when Tiadall and Pabar descended upon Orb.

After removing the world seed that was Cybral three months ago, the cavern had hollowed up. Gaius hadn’t quite noticed back then, but once he started exploring the possibilities of stuffing spectres underground, he soon found that the centre of the world was actually a vast field of crystalline tombstones. Each of them contained ten thousand hibernating souls, the lives that the original gods of Orb had saved when the greatest of calamities descended upon Orb.

More and more of these lives would wake up over the next three months. Now that he had secured the near-infinite power source that was the Crying Abyss, Gaius intended to awaken the slumbering souls here and guide them into Celestia. If Celestia was destroyed, every single soul there would enter Orb’s circle of reincarnation, and a baby boom would take place for the next thousand years or so.

Gaius placed his hand on one such tombstone, and his divinity began to churn. He wanted to see for himself the tragedy of the original Orb, when the Epochal Boundary and the Eternal Presence descended upon this dimension.

“Not this one,” Gaius muttered, before moving on to the next. The gravestone lit up with faint light as he left; the little infusion of energy he had done would awaken them in a week or so.

The moment of the two ancient gods’ advent had led to the near-total extinction of all life back then; few even got to see the battle. However, there were actually some people that had managed to survive the initial impact — the apostles of the original gods managed to stay alive for a few days.

Or so the brief, scattered memories of the Crying Abyss told him, anyway. He was looking for the crystalline tombstone that stored the souls of these apostles, in order to better prepare himself for any future nasty incidents.

What would creating Celestia result in? Gaius didn’t know, but since he did know that the ancient gods were actually interlopers from another dimension, he had to be prepared. If beings on the level of Pabar and Tiadall could annihilate an entire world and its gods effortlessly, Gaius could not just sit by and let such a risk occur. At the very least, he intended to secure the entire dimension Orb was in, and then…

Gaius felt a headache at those thoughts. What about Earth? Was it also in a different dimension from Orb?

“Bah. I’ll deal with it when I find out.” Shaking his head, the Abyss Sovereign moved on to the next gravestone, making sure to infuse some energy into the gravestone at the same time. Touching the next gravestone, Gaius glanced through the final memories of everyone once more, before shaking his head.

The experiences he felt were near-uniform; a blinding flash of white light, and then absolute void representing death. A gentle warmth would follow up next as the original gods of Orb saved those poor souls, before a comfortable, cooling sensation lulled those souls into a never-ending slumber.

This was fairly boring work, but there were always some strong wills in every gravestone. People, whose last moments were that of a strong yearning to live, as well as incredible obsessions, had slightly different last moments. One of them, for instance, had enough strength to stare out at the sky, which had been coloured in a prismatic radiance and a deep night.

Gaius repeated the process over and over again, until the inside of his skull began to throb badly.

Rubbing his forehead, he turned on the spot and returned to the highest floor of the Cradle. The continuous bombardment that had been harassing the Five Lands earlier had changed rhythm; it would seem that Nexus wanted to try adding a musical dimension in artillery fire.

A voice popped up from his throne. “You’re back.”

As Nexus hopped onto the throne’s armrest, Gaius floated up, landing on a balcony. Directing his eyes into the endless sky, he assessed the brilliant skies slowly, before turning his gaze onto the southern region of the Central Circle. The Five Lands’ little outpost on this continent was too far for him to see physically, but he could sense the Demon Sovereign and the Goddess of Wind within the Five Lands’ encampment.

“It would seem that they discovered one of my homefield advantages,” Gaius murmured.

“No matter,” Nexus replied, as the sculpture joined him on the balcony. “They cannot affect the flow of the whole continent. Maybe some obscure formation or the great gods could help them recapture some of the expended energy, but we’ll always be at a net positive.”

“They’ll probably speed up their advance,” Gaius replied quietly. “Now, the question is if they can actually advance to begin with. How will they next move? I look forward to their answer.”

“You sound eager.”

“Maybe.” Gaius chuckled, before cupping his ear. “Interesting. The soldiers are assuming that they’ll be able to save those who have departed for Celestia if they defeat me.”

“That’s not going to happen, right?”

“Not in the slightest,” Gaius replied. “That’s just how it is. Even if they were returned here, everyone would have lost their memories the moment they entered Celestia. After all, I cannot let historical conflicts taint this utopia of mine, no?”

Shaking his head, the Abyss Sovereign looked up into the darkening sky. There was nothing much for the day; in fact, the possibility that the Five Lands would fail to even fight their way here within three months was very high.

And yet, some part of him was waiting with trepidation.

It would seem that deep down, he harboured a small hope that they could prove him wrong.

He stared up at the sky for a few more minutes, and then walked away from the balcony. “Nexus, I’m going into Celestia for a moment. There’s something that needs my attention there.”

“Your attention?”

“Yes,” Gaius replied, before letting out a sigh. “I wanted to create a monument to Weiwu, remember?”

“Go on, then.”

“Take care of things here, then.”

Nodding at the little sculpture, Gaius snapped his fingers once and vanished from the spot.