“There’s supposed to be three days left!” Hereward glared upwards. “We can’t afford to dally anymore. Queen Hyperion, you stay here and wait for the others. Don’t let any spectres pass through.”
“You two…”
“Yeah. Send the others to follow in our wake,” Hereward replied. “We’ll clear the path ahead.”
The ruler of the Western Holdings took a deep breath, and nodded. “Fair fortune be with the both of you. Don’t…die out there.”
“Mm.” Hereward glanced at Gemini. “Come on. No time to lose. I don’t know how the Abyss Sovereign pulled this off, but as it stands, it seems that the process will end at midnight. We don’t have much time.”
He bolted off, running towards the staircase leading up. Gemini followed suit, keeping pace with the frenetic Sentinel of Space, and as they climbed up the steps, he asked, “How did you know that we don’t have much time left?”
“We were using the grey border to estimate the time left to Celestia’s completion, no?” Hereward asked. “It links all it touches to his new world, providing a base in which natural laws can be interpreted from. It’s essential to his new world.”
Gemini nodded, and then understood. “So, that quake we felt earlier…it was the Abyss Sovereign trying to change things around?”
“Yes.” Hereward nodded gravely, his feet a blur as they smashed down on the steps beneath. “I believe that Celestia is meant to be a copy of Orb, in some senses, which is why a key component of its creation was the copying of topography and its natural laws. Right now, however, the Abyss Sovereign intends to fill up the remaining area with his own interpretation and understanding; you can think of it as a second border spreading outwards from the Cradle of Creation.”
“And once the two borders meet…”
“That’ll be it. Celestia will have everything it needs. Creation would soon follow. We won’t have much of a window to change anything,” Hereward replied. “Orb, as you know it, will end.”
With those ominous words, the two of them burst onto the next floor, which was full of spectres. There was something distinctly different about these spectres; Gemini could sense a touch of life in them. A core of clarity, submerged in the rawness of insanity.
To his side, Hereward shook.
Gemini glanced at the great god, concerned. These spectres were probably the ones that had sent the Sentinel of Space into a catatonic state earlier on. “Hereward?”
He called out again.
Hereward took a deep breath. “Sorry. But…”
“If you can’t bring yourself to attack, then let me do it,” Gemini replied. “What’s most important is your—”
“No. I’m fine. It’s time to face the ghosts of the past, after all,” Hereward replied. “No matter what happens, Orb must learn to live with the people of the past. If I avoid them, how can I lead my children into the future?”
“Children…sleep, for now. You will be awakened in due time. Either in Celestia, or in Orb.” Hereward opened his hands, palms facing skyward, and a stupendous pulse of energy swept out. The shadowy forms of the spectres turned into dust a moment later, liberating a sea of white orbs that immediately shot through the ceiling and vanished.
A spike of pain, a pain that came from a thousand disparate thoughts slammed into his soul, pierced through Gemini’s head a moment later. He wasn’t alone in this regard; to his left, the Sentinel of Space had doubled over, wheezing and gasping in agony.
Words rang out in his mind as those disparate thoughts gathered into coherent sentences, and for all his power, Gemini found himself unable to blot out those utterances.
“Why do you oppose utopia? You, who values memories, do you not know the pain of a hundred millennia of absolute stillness?”
“I don’t want to remember how I died! How I, in my foolishness, abandoned my family and died away from them!”
“My most vivid memories were that of agony. Do you hate me this much, to demand that I keep them?”
Questions and statements continued to bounce off the inside of his mind, and Gemini gritted his teeth. He could vaguely tell that this was a continuation of the interrogation from before, but as long as he believed in his own convictions, then—
“Even if you lose your memories, that doesn’t mean that they never occurred,” Gemini whispered, his voice hoarse. “Don’t run from your past. Agony, loss, weakness — all these are part of you. Don’t disdain them. That’s not how it should be. Everyone is flawed; only by accepting them can you overcome them.”
The voices weakened, if only slightly, and Gemini took this chance to seal them away in one of his thought strands.
As the pain faded, Gemini got back up. Hereward had already recovered, but a sense of old age was emanating uncontrollably from the great god.
“What happened to you?” Gemini asked.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“The past happened,” Hereward replied, a peaceful smile on his face.
“You look like you’re at peace,” Gemini noted quietly. “Why? What did those spectres say to you?”
“That they were fine,” Hereward answered slowly. “And they thanked me.”
“Thanked you?” Gemini blinked.
“Yes.” Hereward let out a sigh. “Even after a hundred thousand years, they never lost faith. They believed in me, their creator. ‘Gods can do no wrong’.”
Gemini repeated the statement slowly. “To them, everything you do will always be right. You’ve always acted to protect them, no? To preserve them as they are.”
Hereward nodded slowly, and then watched the last of the white orbs vanish into the ceiling. “The Abyss Sovereign probably didn’t expect this. If I’m not wrong, he intended to use those spectres to test our convictions, but…”
He chuckled. “Come on. Let’s keep moving.”
As Gemini followed Hereward up, he couldn’t help but reflect on the convenience on having the true Orb’s God of Creation in spearheading the charge. Hereward was the best person that could have dealt with the spectres’ insane, last-ditch efforts to interrogate the wills of their slayers.
As they continued to ascend the Cradle of Creation, Gemini found himself floored by the extreme cases of these interrogations over and over again. Life, as a rule of thumb, wasn’t just black or white, but the final howls of these spectres almost always coalesced into questions that went to monastic extremes, providing the worst kinds of counter-examples for him.
“You alright?” Hereward asked, offering a hand.
“Yeah.” With his help, Gemini got up slowly, having been floored by the sixth interrogation. Despite having so much exposure to these interrogations, there was no such thing as gaining resistance to such an attack — these were words that struck at the very core of his resolve.
The great god stared at him for a moment, and then nodded slowly. “There are two things that are preventing you from taking the last step. You lack a boundless will, a grand ideal on the level of the Abyss Sovereign. Second, your current, unbounded state is an artificial one, formed by both the Demon God and the Human God.”
“Yeah, I know,” said Gemini. “Any suggestions?”
“Unfortunately, I don’t have any,” Hereward replied. “That said, for all intents and purposes, you are already a Boundless One. You are not restricted in form or function; your powers are unrestrained in application. However, your crippling weakness lies in your absence of grand ideals. Grand ideals, when truly internalised and made one’s own, can override any contrary cases.”
“For the greater good,” Gemini muttered. “Yeah. I can see it easily.”
The great god grimaced. “Yes. For the Abyss Sovereign, the end justifies the means; he is willing to end an entire world if he could ferry their souls over to restart on a new slate. The memories of individuals mean nothing to him, if it means that they can form new, happy ones henceforth. He has a wide plethora of arguments to support his actions, and there is existing evidence to show that his approach, though extreme, is the right one.”
He jerked his head at the staircase, beckoning for Gemini to follow. “It is a virtuous cycle for him. Due to his overwhelming might, he can actually execute absurd plans, driven by impossible idealism, that would seem appalling to the individual. The success of these plans — for instance, forcing the world into a state of unprecedented unity to deal with him — reinforces his conviction that he can indeed see these ideals through with his power, bolstering his will and might.”
“So on and so forth.” Gemini nodded. “This is the worst kind of opponent.”
“Correct. Orb is a world where one’s will and resolve is the key to power. Perhaps, in a different world, one’s will might not matter all that much, but the Abyss Sovereign is in his element here,” Hereward replied. “At the fulcrum of the absolute, existences with an unwavering drive become omnipotent, even more so than the Bounded Presences that make up this world. That’s why our only opening is now, when most of his grand might is directed at seeing his undertaking through.”
“Otherwise, we don’t really stand a chance, right?” Gemini replied.
“Correct. If we stop him here — unlikely though it may be — his resolve will crumble away. However, if we can insert our own modifications and see them through, we might be able to stand against the Abyss Sovereign after Celestia is created,” said Hereward. “After all, our own convictions would have succeeded in that sense. In doing so, we can at least force the enemy onto the negotiation table, and…”
“You thought that far ahead?” Gemini asked, his brows furrowed. He hadn’t thought too hard about what would follow if they were successful, but the same processes that had elevated the Abyss Sovereign to such heights should indeed apply to him, if only on a smaller scale.
“It’s hypothetical, though. But at least, you should experience a strengthening of your conviction, if not one else.”
“If it’s just me alone, I don’t think it’s going to matter much,” Gemini replied. “I’m just an indirect beneficiary.”
“Doesn’t mean you can’t cause havoc or pose some threat to his post-creation plans,” Hereward replied. “There are two Demigods with you too, so…well, they’ll probably lose their humanity if they carry on, but that’s really their own choice at this point.”
Climbing up the steps, he said, “That’s also a choice they’re prepared to make.”
Gemini thought about the two Demigods of the Western Holdings, and then frowned. He didn’t know what kinds of convictions these two were holding, but they were the nation closest to what the Southern Assembly had been. If the Western Holdings’ paramount rulers became even stronger…
He shook his head. Now was not the time for that, especially since Celestia’s creation was all but certain. What was most important now was whether they could affect the creation process.
The foundations of the Cradle abruptly shook, and the combined howl of thousands of spectres bounced off the walls of the tower. Clearly, Queen Hyperion had just obliterated the spectres that had climbed up to her current location; the spectres that had been drawn away by the two diversions earlier had finally caught up.
There was no way of knowing if the others were helping her, since the others hadn’t caught up. Hereward’s help had probably helped a great deal in maintaining the gap between the two of them and the others, since most of the spectres that should have slowed the two of them down had been obliterated with ease. The others, who were probably more injured than the two of them, probably took longer to climb up a flight of stairs than the time it took for Hereward to crush the spectres.
Another gigantic quake shook the tower as they burst onto the next floor, where three hundred spectres were waiting for them.
“All yours,” Gemini mumbled.
“No. Not this time,” Hereward replied. “Their physical bodies are really tough, so I can’t wave my hand and kill them all at once. I’ll need you to buy time for me to prepare the working…or we can kill them off one by one. Your choice.”
“…One by one, please,” said Gemini. “I think I can handle three hundred thoughts coming individually a bit better than them all at once. And it’ll let the others catch up too.”