The interior of Lila’s house rippled away, replaced by a crimson sky. Gemini, who had been whiling the past few days in the comfort of Ark City, glanced at the odd sight immediately. The crimson sky was unlike the black dome the Demon God had called up; he couldn’t sense any visible changes this new sky was creating.

“It feels harmless to me,” Gemini noted.

“For now,” Hereward replied. “And the only reason why you think it’s harmless is due to your underdeveloped senses. This crimson firmament is doing something to Orb, but the effects are a lot harder to spot. It has something to do with one’s will and spirit, but further examination is required if we are to understand what it does.”

“Auh?”

Lila rubbed Aria’s head. “What kind of power would be needed to change the entire sky, though? The Demon God’s last resort was only effective on the Wildlands and nowhere else, but from the sounds of it, this sky covers the entire world.”

“Probably not too different from the black dome,” Gemini replied with a frown. “It’s only so much more encompassing due to the very minimal effects it has on Orb. Unlike the black dome, it doesn’t alter natural law, which means that one’s Will or divinity isn’t expended all that much in a similar area.”

“But given the scope of this thing,” Lila replied, “there’s got to be quite a lot of power used, right?”

Gemini nodded. “Maybe the Abyss Sovereign wants a cool backdrop for his festival of creation. And besides, a black tower against a red sky really gives off that ‘final boss’ vibe, doesn’t it?”

“Final boss?” Lila asked.

“Oh, it’s a concept for video games. We covered that topic sometime ago, right? Still remember it?” Gemini asked.

Lila nodded.

“Most, uh, modern video games are segmented, and at the very end of a segment, there’s usually an extra-powerful enemy. We call that a boss,” Gemini explained. “And well, at the end of the game, the boss there is a lot stronger, so we call that a final boss.”

“Oh.” Lila glanced at the black tower, which was visible even from an extreme distance. “So the Abyss Sovereign is the final boss then?”

“It’s a rather good metaphor,” Hereward cut in, a small smile on his face. “At the rate things are going, when the Abyss Sovereign is finally defeated, a new age of cosmopolitanism will set in. The horrors of war, even as the aggressor, will be seared into the collective memories of Orb for the next few generations. Those who invaded the Wildlands back then will be a very powerful anti-war force for the foreseeable future.”

“Not just that,” said Lila. “There’s more, right? Ark City, which managed to coerce the War Council into overseeing a fair trial for the perpetuators of the Second Extermination...technology-sharing agreements that was hastily invoked given the world-ending threat the Abyss Sovereign poses…”

“Yeah. In their haste to deal with the enemy,” said Gemini, “the Five Lands inadvertently laid down incredible foundations for a post-war unity. The Heaven-cleaving Fortress wasn’t half as successful when it came to fostering unity, since they had enough time to prepare and segregate their forces.”

“Nothing like a truly impromptu crisis to wake everyone up.” Thasvia sighed. “Even us great gods, perhaps.”

Liamar, who had been watching the whole thing, roared once, and Gemini grimaced from the flood of information that followed. The Worldshaper hadn’t expected so many things to happen in the past decade, from the destruction of the Divine Ladder, to the premature weakening and collapse of the Great Divide. As beings who used decades as the basic unit of time, it was no different from the entire world changing in a single day.

There were a whole host of other regrets too, but Gemini was a bit too slow to catch everything. Suffice to say, however, Liamar was wondering if the great gods should have been more active in building up their strength and their forces. If they had been as active as the Human God in Orb, would things have changed?

That was the gist of his regrets.

“We should take a more active role in building up our forces,” Thasvia murmured. “Even if we did not create a mortal organisation, we should put into practice the idea of choosing the brave and the worthy as familiar spirits and subordinate gods.”

“Subordinate gods?”

“To take over in the event we meet our demise. Conrah, our foolish brother, was plotted against and killed by beings from another time, leaving huge gaps that can never be filled. As a result, the seasons have gone insane. We have gone a whole year without winter, for instance, and rainfall is no longer evenly distributed throughout the world.” Thasvia sighed.

“With all due respect,” said Gemini, “the previous state of affairs in which the weather was controlled is not really natural. Earth doesn’t do that.”

“And people died from it, presumably,” Thasvia replied. “I have dispersed so many cyclical currents of air that I’ve probably saved around tens of millions in the past hundred thousand years. Liamar has busied himself with restraining the unbridled nature of fire, protecting forests and people from natural conflagrations and stupid accidents, and so on.”

“What about Hereward?”

“Me?” The Sentinel of Space glanced at Gemini. “Funny you should ask. But I spent most of my time in sealing up any spatial cracks that semi-divinities like to create whenever they have an epic showdown, or increasing the spatial stability of Orb.”

“That sounds like a really big deal,” Lila remarked.

“It is. Orb’s spatial fabric hasn’t recovered from the appearance of Pabar and Tiadall at all. Any further disruptions would probably tear this entire dimension apart,” Hereward replied. “Which is admittedly a good deterrent for anyone hoping to descend on this dimension again.”

“Dimension, huh.” Gemini rubbed his nose. “Does Earth exist in this dimension, but in a distant galaxy or something? Or is it in a different dimension altogether?”

“Your Earth? A different dimension. That’s the reason why you guys have Unique Skills, after all…”

“Alright, the two of you.” Lila cleared her throat. “Get down to business, if you please.”