Gemini watched on helplessly as the ocean of spectres continued to pursue the retreating Five Lands. Even with the North’s Locomotives, their insane firepower and Ark City’s impromptu creation of a Mass Driver via sigils, the spectres in pursuit were simply too numerous, too swift. The binding that the Abyss Sovereign had cast on him and Thasvia was too firm for them to break out of within a short period of time, but for every second they spent here…

Drawing out more divinity, Gemini ground against the nebulous energy that was fixing him in place. The binding itself was an application of Divine Will, but in its case, it was less of ‘Divine’ and more of ‘Will’; a tremendous resolve was the reason behind its longevity and endurance. In fact, Gemini couldn’t even call the thoughts that powered it a resolve anymore; it was very close to an obsession.

Black smoke swirled up to the skies. One of the Locomotives had been critically damaged; if no one came to the rescue…

“No choice,” Gemini muttered. “Thasvia, watch over me. I’ll create a clone of myself there and help in fighting off the enemy.”

“Now?”

“Not much of a choice there,” Gemini replied. “The demons are also involved in this battle. I can’t just stand by and let the spectres take them out. After being enslaved by the Demon God, and then dragged into a nonsensical war, this is the least they deserve.”

“Then just descend upon one of the demons, instead of creating a clone—”

“That demon will almost certainly die,” Gemini replied. “I will not kill anyone for my ideals. It’s just some damage to me; and if it’s my spirit clone, it might not be destroyed.”

Gemini grimaced as he drew some of his own divinity out of his body. It was one of the few things he couldn’t create with the other divine powers that had been stuffed into him. This even included the odd product that was created after the Human God and the Demon God’s divinity interacted with each other; this was a working of his truest self. However, using one’s own divinity would corrode away at the user’s consciousness and sense of self; the more they used it, the less of a person they became.

There wasn’t much of a choice, however.

Sending a spirit clone to descend upon one of his believers was far easier and less dangerous, but that would almost certainly guarantee the death of that demon. Not only did he have a lower combat strength in such a form, Gemini was also intending for that clone to be destroyed in battle; he did not want to risk being corrupted by the pervasive power of the Abyss.

After all, he had seen for himself the outcome of being corrupted. Gemini was confident that he could withstand the Abyss, but whether he wanted to was another question altogether.

Pain pierced through his head as a second him appeared a few metres away from his real self. Transferring a few thought strands into the clone, Gemini willed his main body to continue the onerous task of freeing itself from the bindings, and then turned his attention over to his clone.

His vision changed a moment later. Now, in his eyes, were two glowing beings floating awkwardly in mid-air. Thasvia and his main body were straining against a faint, silvery-grey ring, one whose hue darkened and brightened randomly.

Gemini felt his lips twitch.

Both lips, in fact.

“I’m going over first. Store my main body into your Divine Kingdom once it breaks free, and tell Lila that I’ll be alright.”

Thasvia stared at the him in the clone, before nodding slowly. “I’ll see to it myself.”

“Thank you.” Gemini took a deep breath. The body he was in had the composite physique and qi reserves of a Demigod, as well as a few threads of Gemini’s own divinity that had been left over. “I’m going, then.”

Without waiting for her reply, Gemini threw on a burst of speed and charged towards the rear of the enemy spectres. The divinity in this clone of his burst out and coiled around his hands, and the Demon Sovereign began to prepare his attack. He wasn’t interested in letting out his strongest attacks only when he was on the verge of death; that was something that bad fighters did.

Black and gold sparks danced around his hands as he closed in on the spectres. Soldiers were already fleeing from the smoking Locomotive, which was in turn giving off a rather dangerous vibe. If Gemini didn’t get it wrong, the entire thing was going to explode soon.

Explosions burst out of the Locomotive’s hull as Gemini continued to close in, gathering strength at the same time. For some reason, his instincts were telling him that firing his first shot at the soon-to-explode Locomotive was probably the wisest idea, and the Demon Sovereign didn’t stop to think twice.

Golden specks of light appeared throughout Orb as Gemini drew his right arm back, the muscles of his clone tightening to a point. His will whirling madly, Gemini focused the pure strands of divinity and bound them together with his mind, forming a black lance that had little golden specks of light.

Some of the spectres pursuing peeled off a moment later, wheeling around to charge at him in a crescent formation, but before they could even close in, Gemini hurled the lance at the rear of the pursuing spectres.

“Go.”

A single flash of gold light seemed to sever the sky from the ground, leaving thunderclaps in its wake as it plunged through the intercepting spectres. The land beneath Gemini’s current position, which had already been flattened and glassed over by presumably the Five Lands, buckled and rippled a moment later, sending a ripple through the continent itself.

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Hundreds of dazzling stars winked into existence a heartbeat later, as the hurled spear stabbed into the gigantic mass of spectres, tore through the now-abandoned Locomotive and overtook the leading spectres.

There was no sound, nothing. Just the silent blooming of a few hundred tiny stars as the spear disintegrated, forming a shimmering black and gold wall.

Golden light tore through the writhing ocean of darkness as exhaustion overtook Gemini, forcing him to stop. That attack, though impressive, was never meant to obliterate the entire horde. There were simply too many enemies, too many Demigod-ranked spectres for his attack to cut down their numbers.

The sea of spectres drew to a halt as Gemini finally lowered his right arm.

“But just because I’m not attacking…doesn’t mean there’s no danger.”

Thunder rumbled from the falling Locomotive, and Gemini turned away from the blinding sight of the detonating super-artefact as it washed away the spectres that had surrounded it.

It was his turn to be in trouble now.

“Heh. I killed a Demigod as a Paragon, and took down multiple Exemplars before I died.” Gemini cracked his neck. “And…I haven’t smacked people around for some time. Time to get to work.”

Far away, he could sense Thasvia straining madly against the bindings. His true self was also there, which meant that this was a battle where he would suffer no loss. The longer he fought, the longer the barrier would stay up. It was, in a sense, a repeat of his last stand back then, except that he still had a way out, and that there was truly something to be gained from staying alive.

Of course, Gemini hadn’t expected that he would have to face a repeat of being outnumbered a few million times over, but—

Strands of qi, too many for the naked eye to follow, extended out of his fingertips, filling the area around him with soft, pliable tentacles. Gemini cocked his head, watching as these threads wrapped around the incoming spectres and bound them up.

There was no point in killing what was probably an immortal army. What truly mattered here was that the spectres were unable to get past the barrier without battering at it for a significant amount of time.

Gemini, who had linked his current body to the enormous wall that now separated the fleeing troops of Orb from the chasing spectres, began to smile. The fact that the barrier was still standing was more than enough for him to understand what was going on, especially the confusing half-heartedness of the Abyss Sovereign.

The reason why the black-robed young man didn’t make a move to kill the enemy personally…was because he literally couldn’t. For some reason, the Abyss Sovereign had sworn off the murder of innocents by his own hands. Gemini didn’t know the details, but it was clear that there was a metric in which Celestia’s would-be God of Creation stuck to.

If his direct actions led to the death of innocents, like say, shattering a barrier that was clearly protecting other people from certain death…the Abyss Sovereign probably couldn’t act. The barrier that Gemini had called up earlier, however, was too far from the allied troops that the Abyss Sovereign could handwave it away as just an obstacle to the advance of his troops.

As for the spectres…the absence of any tactical brilliance whatsoever just added more proof to this hypothesis. Gemini had heard a few things about the Abyss Sovereign, back when they still called him the Lost Star, and the kid had apparently taken part in the war between the Eastern Territories and the God of Water. Even though Gemini himself didn’t personally witness it, it didn’t take much of a stretch to pick up even the basics of commanding. Even if he was freakishly bad at directing troops, simply doing so would have had a qualitative effect.

Judging from the messy, savage way the spectres were now charging at him, Gemini had a feeling that his hypothesis was right. It would also account for why the Abyss Sovereign didn’t dispose of him and Thasvia back then, despite being at his utter mercy.

Gemini let out a sigh, and the wriggling threads around him tripled in number. Snaking out madly, the soft yet resilient threads tangled the next wave of approaching spectres, binding them together once more.

“Not enough.”

Even more threads of qi snaked out from his back and his abdomen. These filaments, thicker than the earlier ones, lashed around madly, dispersing the ranged attacks that were closing in on him.

“Tch.”

The attacks directed at him, however, carried hints of the Abyss’ corrosive influence. At the same time, the assault gained a semblance of coordination as energy erupted in tandem from the spectres that hadn’t been tangled up yet. From this, it was clear that the enemy’s big boss had determined his origin — a clone, and apparently, in his eyes, clones didn’t really count as people.

Quinn would get mad at that.

Exhaustion nibbled away at the corners of his mind as actual opponents took the field. Acting on instinct, Gemini decisively severed the innumerable threads that had bound up so many enemies, covering himself in a layer of energy.

The red light vanished a moment later, as a deluge of silvery-grey light buffeted his body. At the same time, ten presences, each of them the equal to the familiar spirits that Gemini occasionally sensed, flared in life all around him, surrounding him in all directions.

The pressure they emanated was nothing to him, but the same couldn’t be said for the energy gathering in their hands. Their presence had been masked by a certain someone, only to be dropped at the very last moment by that very same person.

An open murder, making use of the instincts of other people, while absolving oneself of all responsibility.

In the end, it would seem that clones actually did count as people.

He had lost this round, but the war had been won, in a matter of speaking. The limits of the impossibly mighty enemy that stood between them and a future on Orb had been discovered.

The Abyss Sovereign, in an utter defiance of his being and his lofty ideals, could not kill. Even through indirect causes that had his influence in it. Ordering spectres to kill would weaken him greatly, but if these spectres did it of their own accord, that was a different question.

He could support those spectres by protecting them and hiding them, but he could not boost their offensive strength.

“Heh.” Gemini stared at a particular Demigod, and then gave it a thumbs-down. The last of the Locomotives had escaped from the immediate battlefield, and the Abyss Sovereign couldn’t interfere anymore.

The forces of Orb had, at least, preserved the strongest of their forces. The battle had been lost, but hope still remained. Of all the results that were possible, this was probably the best one.

Gemini smiled, allowing his body and muscles to relax. There wasn’t much left in his tank, and his job was complete.

Now was the time to go wild.

Channelling the last of his qi, the Demon Sovereign exploded into motion and charged at the closest Demigod.