Like its gloomy, ominous exterior, the interior of the Cradle had this black, evil vibe going on. Black walls, with nasty-looking spikes and reliefs carved all over them, were thrown into stark relief by the white ball of light that lit up the entire first floor, which was a huge, empty room.

“One would assume that there is a trap here,” Gemini muttered, surveying the area in silence.

“Maybe not on the first floor,” Hereward replied. “Let’s go to the stairs.”

The six of them nodded, and then made a beeline for the stairs. Gemini could feel an immense pressure weighing down on him the moment he placed his foot on the steps leading up, as if they were walking under the effects of ten-fold gravity or something.

“This sack of old bones isn’t really suited for this,” Demigod Xie muttered under his breath.

“That’s not something we can control, unfortunately,” Queen Hyperion replied. “Darn. If only Eliza was here.”

The old man nodded furiously “Yeah, what happened to Demigod Eliza? I heard that she’s the strongest Demigod in existence, so why didn’t she come here?”

“She was more interested in protecting Ark City as they retreated,” Queen Hyperion replied. “To be fair, the floating city had like a few hundred thousand spectres attacking it when the Abyss Sovereign stopped the Shot artefacts from working. It was natural for her to escort her mobile homeland out, no?”

“There are so many problems with that notion, to the point I don’t know how to begin. Times have changed, huh. Maybe this old man should have gone out more often.”

The archduchess cleared her throat. “My queen, Sir Xie, we should focus on climbing this flight of stairs first. Falling down at this advanced age can be very problematic.”

“You’re calling me old now?” The ancient-looking Demigod rolled his eyes. “Fine, I’ll shut up and focus on climbing.”

After around a minute or so — the spiralling staircase was a lot longer than it seemed, and Hereward had cautioned against the reckless use of qi, divinity and divine will to speed things up — the six of them finally reached the next floor.

Gemini generated a sword in silence as he took in the enemies on the next floor.

Six spectres had appeared on the second floor, but they weren’t ordinary spectres. No. Save for the shadowy motif that these spectres had, their enemies looked like the spitting image of Gemini and the others.

“Copies of us? Hereward muttered.

“Copies or not, we just need to kill them all,” Thasvia replied. “Focus fire on each of them individually and take them out piecemeal.”

The rest nodded, but before they could even act on anything, the white light shining down on them intensified into a glare, and before Gemini knew it, he was now in a small stone chamber. The same white light was still shining down on them, but everyone else, save for the spectre that looked like him, had vanished.

“…What’s the point of doing this?” Gemini muttered, shooting a glare at the generated fake. “Well, whatever. I’m just supposed to kill you, right?”

“Not quite yet,” a toneless voice replied. “Let us talk first.”

“You are…the Abyss Sovereign. Gaius.” Gemini paused. “Well, I do owe you a debt for not killing me…but is it not your limitation? You can’t kill. Not personally. Not through a direct cause-and-effect.”

“Yes.”

The candid admission made Gemini frown. He hadn’t expected the Abyss Sovereign to answer this honestly, but that didn’t change things. “So, what do you want to talk about?”

“What do you think of Celestia?” he asked. “What do you resist it?”

“Why do I resist it?” Gemini asked. “Isn’t it obvious? The process of your so-called salvation will wipe out our memories as we enter your new world. I have people I care about, family that I love. By taking those memories away, by making the people I care about forget me — is that not killing me?”

“So…were I to remove this feature, you would not oppose me?” The shadowy copy of Gemini tilted his head.

Gemini paused. “You are acceptable with this change?”

“I don’t see why not. But you must prove to me that this change is worth it, if nothing else. But — and touch your heart — is this the only thing that’s stopping you from standing aside?”

The Demon Sovereign wanted to affirm his words, but something was stopping him from doing so. His counterpart eyed him slowly, and then shook his head. “Seems like there’s something else too. Think about it, while you enjoy a self-introspective fight with your clone.”

White light surged once, and the absolute presence that had shrouded the spectre that looked like him faded away. Letting out a roar a heartbeat later, a sword of black smoke appeared in its right hand, and Gemini brought his own sword up to intercept its falling slash.

The strength behind the enemy’s attack made him frown, but Gemini didn’t think too hard about it. Right now, they were in the Abyss Sovereign’s stronghold. It was very possible that any spectres fighting here would experience an increase in overall combat ability, which was why—

His thoughts cut out as the spectre struck out viciously with a horizontal slash, blasting him to the right. On instinct, Gemini parried the next few strikes hurriedly, and the Demon Sovereign shook his head.

Now wasn’t the time to be thinking.

“Why are you still alive?”

Gemini froze, as his own voice came out from the spectre, who had lowered its sword slightly. “You…speak?”

“I’m not too different from anyone else. I don’t see why I can’t.” The spectre flourished its sword twice. “But you, an enabler of the Second Extermination, are quite different from just about everyone else. Demon Sovereign. But you aren’t going to make it up for the beastfolk who have lost their family. You alone think that everyone cherishes their memories.”

Without warning, the spectre dashed towards Gemini. “But have you asked the family of the dead beastfolk? Or, for that matter, those who have lost everything in war?”

Air screamed as the spectre locked blades with him. “Such hubris.”

Gemini kicked out twice, an action that was mirrored by the shadowy version of him, creating some distance between them. “So, you’re here to interrogate my beliefs, having found them wanting.”

The spectre smiled, before closing in once more.

“Did it occur to you that some people have been disabled by their memories? Did it ever occur to you that your memories were not as valuable as you think they are? Did you never think that your memories, your motivations, were all just a lie, fabricated by the people in power?”

Each of these utterances, punctured with a heavy attack, wormed itself into Gemini’s head, and the Demon Sovereign frowned. He could tell what was going on here — the enemy was directly chipping away at his reason for fighting, behind his resistance to the Abyss Sovereign’s salvation.

He couldn’t quite say that they weren’t effective. Knocking aside another overhead slash, Gemini punched out with his left hand. “Even then, it is what gives people their identity! To wipe out everyone’s memories like this is no different from killing them and forcing them to start a new life!”

“And do you think that some people wouldn’t want that?” the spectre snarled back, twisting its body to dodge on the spot. “Corporal Nelson! Do you remember him?”

Gemini froze, and the spectre’s own left fist slammed into his torso in that moment of weakness.

“He was forced to eat his squad mates’ body!” A lateral kick slammed into Gemini’s flank, sending him skidding. “Those memories — do you really think he would want them?”

“Even if he didn’t,” Gemini forced out, his words spilling out instinctively, “they were proof of his friends and their selflessness!”

His body moved on its own, tossing his sword at the enemy directly. The spectre, however, was a bit too slow to react, and it staggered as the blade of energy ran through his stomach.

“To forget those memories would be to forget those people who selflessly given their life away!” Gemini slid into melee range, unleashing a barrage of punches. “Do you think Corporal Nelson would want to forget those people? Those people, who had given him the chance to live at the expenses of themselves! Would he want to forget them?”

The spectre slid backward from his assault. “You—”

“You can’t answer, right?” Gemini pressed on, gliding into melee range once more. His fists and elbows flashed out, bashing and peppering the spectre with close, heavy blows. “You can’t tell me that my memories have no value! Nor can you say the same for everyone else! Even in the worst of memories, there is always something worth holding on to! Memories define us!”

Gemini’s right fist, pulsating with a faint, nebulous light, shot out, plunging into the spectre’s chest. “If you want us to lose our memories, that’s no different from just creating new lives. In that case, tell the Abyss Sovereign to make his Celestia, but leave us out of it!”

With that utterance, the power inside his fist exploded outwards, and the spectre came apart in a cloud of black mist. The white ball of light that illuminated the room pulsed once a moment later, and the world around Gemini changed.

“Where am I now?” Gemini looked around. It didn’t look like he was on the second floor anymore, and—

“Oh, you’re out.” Hereward’s voice rang out. “Did you enjoy the experience?”

“Experience?” Gemini asked.

“The interrogation of your beliefs,” Hereward clarified. “You seem largely unscathed, especially since you came out quite quickly.”

“Not as quick as you, though,” Gemini muttered. “What did you face?”

“Oh, I just slapped my copy to death after a while. It was weak, after all…” Hereward’s lips twitched. “Probably because the entity it was copied from was also pathetically weak too.”

“…Just how low is your combat ability?” Gemini asked, curious. “Can you fight a Demigod like Queen Hyperion?”

“I would really rather not,” Hereward replied. “Did you forget the scene of your awakening? You were already holding me by the neck and everything, and that was after I brought lots of time with a battle of Divine Will. Here, I don’t think I’ll be able to do all that much.”

“…so why are you here then?”

“You’re looking down on me, aren’t you?”

Gemini chuckled, and then examined the room around him. The black, evil motif was still there, but there was something distinctly different about this particular area. For instance, the Sentinel of Space was seated around a table that sported the same dark motif that he had seen everywhere else.

“Something wrong?”

“Yeah,” Gemini replied. “This place…where are we now? It looks like a waiting room or something. I’m beginning to feel that we haven’t quite interpreted the Abyss Sovereign correctly, if he has the leeway to make something like this for us.”

“You’re not the only one.” Hereward closed his eyes for a moment, his hair waving in the windless room. “This feels like a trap. Somehow or another.”

White light flashed through the room, and Queen Hyperion fell down from the ceiling, landing onto the floor with a noisy crash. Her face was scarred, and her robes were tattered and torn. A pool of blood formed at her landing spot a moment later, and Gemini approached with a frown.

“No need,” Queen Hyperion wheezed, before pushing herself up slowly, and Gemini felt a chill run down his spine. Her blue hair now had shades of grey running through it, and her face now bore a few signs of aging.

“What happened to you?” Gemini asked, forcing himself to maintain a steady breathing pattern.”

“The Abyss Sovereign happened,” she replied, a grimace on his face. “I only killed the spectre through a fluke of luck. If it hadn’t gotten so close, I would probably have stayed there as a corpse.”

“Y-you should take a break or something,” Gemini replied, pointing at the chair.

He wasn’t going to ask what exactly happened during this interrogation. Hereward hadn’t asked him about his own interrogation, given that it was a very personal thing, and Gemini wasn’t going to do the same to anyone else either.

Even though he was curious.

A shudder came from the top of the tower, and Gemini felt the floor beneath his legs crack.

“What’s going on?”