“You suspect that the Lost Star is the Abyss Sovereign?” Thasvia asked.

“Think about it,” said Hereward. “The maddened Anren had such a visceral reaction to Gaius that he literally made a beeline for that kid. Even if he’s not the Abyss Sovereign, he has to be linked to the Crying Abyss intimately.”

Gemini pondered for a moment. He had met that kid named Gaius some time ago. He was an extremely odd Demigod, capable of lasting for whole hours in a one-sided battle of Divine Will. His combat ability was probably at the peak of Orb itself, and to make matters worse, he had two Zeroth Armaments.

“I think it’s very possible,” said Gemini. “I met him once, not too long ago, and he had this…unnerving quality to him. He was trying to continue the conflict between the Wildlands and the Five Lands, to the point that he even attempted to break down the dome that covers us right now.”

“What happened next?”

“I stopped him from doing that,” Gemini replied. “And then we had a little argument about our beliefs…oh.”

“What do you mean, ‘oh’?” Hereward asked, curious.

Gemini replayed the entire encounter in his mind, and then began to feel guilty. “Well. Um. I think I might have been the one who set him on this path of, you know, making a new world.”

“That’s not funny, and you know it,” said Thasvia.

Liamar roared once, conveyed the same thoughts.

“I was trying to talk him out of whatever he wanted to do,” said Gemini, “and I convinced him that his efforts in trying to get the Five Lands to work together was useless, since the Demon God was already dead. Furthermore, I told him that Orb was headed down the path of war. Whether the Wildlands was destroyed or not would have no bearing on that result, and I even did some analysis for him.”

“You…idiot. You blithering idiot.” Hereward held his head. “Why on Orb did you decide to break his beliefs in such a way? Look at…never mind.”

“To be fair, no one could have known that someone would react this badly to getting told that their beliefs were wrong,” said Thasvia.

“Didn’t we already have a precedent about the Human God and the Demon God?” Hereward asked.

“But Gemini didn’t know about that bit back then,” Thasvia replied.

“Fair enough. Still, this is probably a very egregious example of making one’s own enemy, if nothing else.” Hereward clicked his teeth. “In the end, we now have to fight each other…and I don’t really like my chances.”

“Me too,” said Thasvia. “I’m not a good fighter…”

Everyone looked at each other for a moment, and Gemini found his eyes drifting towards Aldnath, whose presence had been so faint that he hadn’t paid much attention to him. Did the Dragon of Time have some opinion on the whole thing? Or was he just content to remain silent?

Before he could ask, Liamar roared once, sending giant chunks of information into his head once more. With that single roar, the Worldshaper conveyed the sentiment that there was nothing to be done about the past, that there was no helping it if the Abyss Sovereign really was Gaius, and that they should really be heading into the black monolith now.

For some reason, Gemini had a feeling that there was a heavy emphasis on that last bit. The Worldshaper was probably bored with old history…and, if the records were right, he was more interested in challenging the primeval powers of the original Orb.

“Alright, we’ve spent enough time debating old history,” said Gemini. “Let’s enter the tower. I’ll bring you guys into that cavern we talked about.”

With him at the lead, Gemini brought the others into the base of the black monolith. There was nothing much to look at, since this place clearly wasn’t for anyone to live in. It was just a structure to convey power upwards and nothing else.

Like the Divine Ladder, in many senses.

Before long, they arrived at the last few stairs. Beyond them was a small doorway, which would then expand into a huge cavern. This was the object of their training today — Hereward intended to getting everyone together to resist what he theorised was the primordial energies of creation itself. If they couldn’t endure the lightning here, it was very possible that the Abyss Sovereign would crush them all with his opening salvo.

Frankly, Gemini didn’t understand how the Demigod that had struggled to beat him in a battle of Divine Will would be this formidable that quickly, but listening to Hereward was always the safest choice. Besides, it wasn’t all that inconceivable — maybe that little fellow could harness some stray energies or whatnot.

Black lightning crackled and danced around the air as everyone poked their heads out of the doorway…the elderly-looking Aldnath included. Gemini, who was paying more attention to everyone else rather than the black lightning, was abruptly struck by a sense of pity. If he had a camera here, this would have been a nice scene to engrave in posterity.

A picture of the great gods poking their heads out of a door would sell for quite the nice sum, right?

Chuckling to himself, Gemini corralled his burgeoning fear and stepped out of the doorway. It was quite different from the last time he came by — there wasn’t any black lightning in the area until he showed up back then. Now, however, the cavern was already filled with lightning, ready to strike at any moment.

Was it a change precipitated by his entry back then? Or was it due to the Abyss Sovereign’s festival of creation?

A thunderclap rang out as a bolt of black lightning darted towards him. His thoughts ceased as Gemini forced out thick layers of divinity, far thicker than any of his previous efforts thus far, but to his shock, the black lightning tore through them like paper.

Throwing himself back, Gemini braced for impact. Fortunately, however, he wasn’t alone this time, and the air in front of him turned into an opaque purple block as the other great gods acted.

The newly-erected defence lasted for a full second, before it shattered into countless fragments. A single wisp of darkness shot out of the resulting cloud, and pain exploded throughout Gemini’s body as it ravaged his nerves and skin. As he fell backwards, twitching, the others pulled him back into the doorway, saving him from further agony.

“That freaking hurt,” Gemini growled. “Thanks for the assist, though.”

“We’re not done yet. Focus and contain that wisp of power, before it dissipates!” Hereward and the others sat down around him, their divinity sweeping through his body over and over in a bid to understand this new power.

At the same time, Gemini drew upon all his thought strands to understand this primordial power. Without the assist from the others, this wouldn’t have been possible, so he could not afford to faint here and waste everyone’s time.

It was insane to think about the lengths he would go to in order to strengthen himself, but extraordinary times required extraordinary measures.

Unfortunate, but that was indeed the sad truth.