A howling gale surrounded the two of them as they arrived at the highest floor of the tower. It wasn’t hard to tell that they were at the highest floor, since there was literally nothing else around them. The top of the tower, save for the staircase they were, was completely smoothened out, and no evidence that there used to be a giant room here remained.

What remained was an unblocked view of the sky and the vast world.

“There,” said Hereward. “That seems new.”

He pointed at a set of floating staircases, which led to a floating platform of smooth, black marble. Unlike the ominous, evil motif that that had punctured the preceding floors, Gemini could only sense an overwhelming serenity from that direction.

The Demon Sovereign nodded. “Yes. He should be there. Let’s go.”

Their footsteps echoed on the unnaturally smooth surface. With the walls and everything else that used to make up the top floor of the Cradle absent, Gemini now had a bird’s eye view of the continent they were on. He couldn’t see any spectres around the area either, and it was easy to see why.

After all, they were so high up that Gemini could see the shoreline of the Central Circle itself.

“We’re at least a few hundred kilometres aboveground,” Hereward replied.

“Didn’t you say that the Abyss Sovereign did something to the space inside to make it seem that way?” Gemini asked, annoyed. “I thought gods can never be wrong.”

“You’re using that phrase wrongly…”

The two of them fell silent as they continued to climb the floating staircase. Each step doubled the horrifying presence radiating at the very top, but to Gemini, this was something he could now confront without much fuss. Nothing much needed to be said about Hereward, whose footsteps were as steady and measured as ever; Gemini hadn’t expected anything less from the old God of Creation.

With a faint jolt, Gemini realised that the crimson sky was gone, leaving behind the black dome that disabled the use of the many Shot artefacts that had crippled the war effort entirely.

It wasn’t just that too; the grey border that had swept through the whole of Orb was also closing in on the Cradle of Creation. It was still a distance away — the original estimate had left them with three days — but the Abyss Sovereign was literally filling up the gap by scanning the remaining area himself.

Whether that would work or not Gemini had no idea, however.

After ten more steps, the two of them arrived at the floating platform. In the very middle was an azure orb, protected by layers and layers of black and white barriers. Grey light spilled out from the entire thing occasionally, creating a surreal scene in which everything was either in black, white or grey.

The shadowy representation of Celestia hung above the tower, but up close, Gemini could pick out its ethereal quality, as if it didn’t quite belong to Orb.

“Welcome.”

A quiet voice swept through the area, and Gemini turned to look at the source. There, at the far end of the platform, was a throne. A young man sat on it, his face neutral and dispassionate. Two orbs, one black and one white, orbited his head in what seemed like a crown of sorts.

At first glance, the young man looked like a lawyer or businessman from Earth — suit, inner shirt and all — but the colour of his clothes was either so white or so black that he seemed distinct from the world itself. Like a pop-up person in a picture book, the Abyss Sovereign, in his place of power, was half-divorced from Orb.

“We’re here,” Hereward replied. “I suppose it’s not going to do anything, but I’ll at least try to negotiate. Can you not do this? Creating a dimension from within one itself will leave indelible strains upon Orb. You will harm Orb’s fabric of reality.”

“But the damage is not permanent,” the young man replied, his words slow.

Hereward pushed on. “Your Celestia is unsustainable. There is no way it will survive forever.”

“True. But it should only cease to work after four or five billion years, in which time I would have expected the people inside to come up with not just ways to ensure their safety, but also methods and inventions that will allow them to explore the cosmos of this dimension and other, adjacent ones. Your world — how long did it last? Three hundred and thirty-thousand years, before Tiadall and Pabar crushed everything in sight. Don’t worry about the five billion years; if I didn’t do anything, civilisation on Orb would have collapsed three to four months ago.”

“How did you—”

“I took the liberty of experiencing the past when I was fulfilling my promise to him. Your people now live in Celestia, which is an infinitely better place than Orb, so I consider my promise fulfilled.”

“Promise?”

The Abyss Sovereign ignored his question, saying, “So? Any more arguments about why Celestia is a bad thing?”

“The risk of opening up a new dimension…”

“Completely negligible if you don’t try to stop the process.”

The great god let out a sigh. “Seems like negotiations have broken down, but again, I didn’t expect it to succeed in the first place. Both of us are fundamentally different in terms of goals and ideals. If talking could work, we wouldn’t be here at all.”

“Yes. For the benefit of the world, I must do this.” The Abyss Sovereign got up from his throne. “I don’t expect anything in return, save for peace in our time. You two know this. Therefore, step aside. Let me complete my grand undertaking. Let me end this pointless strife. I cannot change the hearts of people. But I can change the world that gives rise to conflict.”

“It would be unbecoming of us to step aside. There are things I want to protect. Things I find unacceptable,” Gemini replied.

The Abyss Sovereign stared at him evenly, and then let out a small smile. “I asked everyone who climbed the Cradle their reason for fighting. But logic can only bring you so far. If you want to alter my world with your own ideals…”

Light flashed in his eyes. “Prove to me that you’re worthy.”

The suppressive presence the Abyss Sovereign emanated ballooned rapidly, and he began to float off the ground, supported by the sheer amount of energy his body was now emitting. A dark swirl of absolute darkness rotated behind him, a vision that, like its master, didn’t seem to quite exist in the world. Gemini, who was now completely capable of facing such a suppressive will alone, glanced at Hereward, whose movements had been sealed entirely.

A small sword appeared in Gemini’s hands a moment later. It was regrettable that everything had to come down to this, but again, how could someone with their own vision and resolve compromise this easily?

The only way was to thrash one side first, and then talk to them later.

Gemini glanced at the heavily protected Cosmic Egg, and turned his gaze to Hereward, who had taken his little sigil. Having taken the last step, he was now no different from the Abyss Sovereign. His own will swept out a moment later, repelling the pseudo-world of the Abyss Sovereign and freeing him of the various restraints that had bound him up until now.

The Abyss Sovereign took out a small knife, silvery and all, and then gazed at him evenly. “Shall we begin?”

“Let’s go.”

The two of them shot off the ground a moment later, weapons at the ready. Sigils winked to life behind the Abyss Sovereign, which immediately blasted out arm-sized beams of light. At the same time, thirty-three gigantic sigils manifested all around the tower, filling up the sky as they lit up with a deadly blaze.

Gemini glanced at the enormous workings of energy, and then generated his own sigils. Unlike the Abyss Sovereign, whose sigils were actually proper ones, the sigils that Gemini had created were manifestations of energy that carried his will, much like the little heart he had made earlier. It was a bit draining to make them all at once, but—

His thoughts cut out as the Abyss Sovereign abruptly reappeared right in front of him. Silver flashed through the sky as a hostile will flared up madly, restricting the area in which Gemini would dodge to.

A shattered blade of energy arced skywards a moment later, and Gemini glanced at his sword in disbelief. The blade had been cut cleanly upon contact with Gaius’ knife, and the Demon Sovereign didn’t quite understand how that was possible.

Without stopping to explain, the young man in front of him slashed out three more times. Gemini tried to dodge, but the enemy’s attacks were too swift for him to evade completely.

That knife had cut through the thick layers of energy with absurd ease, but instead of dwelling over it, Gemini lashed out with his left foot, slamming it into the hunched-up body of his opponent. It didn’t do much, but in that moment in which the Abyss Sovereign defended, Gemini took the chance to punch out twice.

Energy surged out of his fists, washing across the enemy and sending him reeling. Before Gemini could rejoice, however, the giant sigils in the sky lit up with a piercing blaze, and time itself seemed to rewind.

The Abyss Sovereign was back in his original position, as if he hadn’t been swamped by copious amounts of Gemini’s divinity. In that moment of surprise, he closed in on Gemini, and stars exploded in his vision as the Abyss Sovereign smashed him to the ground with a heavy blow.

His back burning, Gemini got up slowly with a grimace, before staring at the gigantic sigils in the sky.

“I didn’t know how to pull someone into a battle of Divine Will,” said the Abyss Sovereign, who had touched down on the floating platform. “But I could, with some tinkering, reproduce the same experience you gave to me some time ago. Did you like it?”

He appeared to Gemini’s left and punched out once. Gemini rolled away on instinct, but the world seemed to rewind once more, and this time, he was rolling towards an incoming kick.

Pain erupted in his torso as the force of the kick sent him flying away, but in that moment, most of Gemini’s thought strands were now busy dealing with the threat that those enormous sigils that filled up the sky posed. They weren’t anything as crude as attacks or anything; these sigils somehow allowed the Abyss Sovereign to go back into the past or something.

Forcing out divinity from all over his body, Gemini steadied himself once more, just in time to see an incoming lance of light. In that moment, his thought strands whirled wildly, creating a randomised set of movements in which his body would execute.

Since the enemy could turn back time or rewrite reality — Gemini wasn’t sure which was the right answer — not setting a response in stone was the only way to deal with the enemy.

And it worked.

As the lance of light missed his head by a hair’s breadth, his divine will caught up and replayed the thirty-three different skirmishes that had occurred in various realities. Since Gemini’s response was completely randomised, he had managed to dodge the Abyss Sovereign’s attack, which was predicated off movements that he had executed in the previous iteration.

It wasn’t a perfect solution, but it was a good one nonetheless.

The Abyss Sovereign reappeared up close once more. This time, however, Gemini had caught the instant in which time was rewound over and over again.

“You figured it out…but your solution isn’t perfect, though,” said the Abyss Sovereign. A fist appeared in Gemini’s vision a moment later, smashing into his lungs and forcibly expelling the air inside. “After all, the fewer movements you have, the greater the probability of you replaying a movement, no?”

Another fist smashed him back onto the ground, and the entire platform shuddered madly.

The Abyss Sovereign landed on the platform, glanced at Hereward once, and then shook his head. “Maybe you should have trained your actual fighting ability more.”

“That’s redundant in a utopia, though.” Gemini got up slowly. “Come on. Round two.”