Banda rushed over the walls of the town, taking only a sparing glance before heading on. They had decided to sweep past just to to assess but as expected, the town was deserted. Otto had no doubt taken them all to the Demon Gate.

  He sped through the Misty Forest too fast for most of the monsters to even turn their head before he was gone. A shadowy figure within a tree loomed in a tree, but the boundaries of his sense touched it first. Banda lunged slightly to the left and mauled the giant spider’s head into green gunk without even missing a stride.

  Eres took note of how his Sense had detected the creature before hers. “How did you improve your aura manipulation so much?”

  “I fought the centaur.” Banda answered bluntly.

  A questioning look came about Eres’ face at first, but soon something clicked. “Paron?! An old centaur with a spear?”

  “Yeah.” Banda confirmed as he took note of the name.

  “Hmm~” Eres hummed a tone like something between interest and exasperation. “You run into trouble easily when I’m not around.”

  Banda glanced back briefly. “Paron said you are an Oracle.”

  A sudden pause took Eres as her frivolity waned. “...That’s right.”

  “Why did you not use your power to warn us?” Banda then asked.

  “I told you...” Eres’ eyes narrowed slightly. “Fate is not infallible. Besides, I do not receive visions about everything. Just what’s most important.”

  Banda had more to say to that, but edge of the forest came into view. He committed himself more vigilantly as he prowled into the swallow hills of the mountain range’s base and stopped behind cover just ahead of the Demon Gate.

  Two Rank 1 humans stood guard in front of the black iron door, and no one else. Banda wondered what the use of it was. He could kill those two humans in an instant. It wouldn’t even slow him down.

  “A trap?” Banda asked.

  “I doubt he would do something that pointless…” Eres mused. “They’re likely little more than his crows to warn of our arrival. But we don’t have time to sit around and figure it out.”

  Banda thought the same. He burst out silently without warning and shattered the skulls of the two hunters before they could react.

  Banda kept keen watch over all his surroundings as the bodies fell, but found no other human nor trick of the land. Only the isolated tracks of a crowd in front of the gate.

  Eres followed Banda’s line of sight as she rejoined him. “Looks like Otto sacrificed them too. But I wouldn’t be surprised if he pulled off some sort of trick.”

  Banda turned his gaze from her to the open iron gate, to the darkness within through which even his eyes could not see through.

  “Wait.” Eres stopped him as he was about to take the vanguard. The atmosphere around her felt a little heavier than usual, and more sincere. “The Gemini will offer you power. Enough to be tempted. Choose me instead.”

  Banda looked back into her firm, domineering eyes for a while, then nodded. Though the look in his own eyes did not change. He took the vanguard without delay this time, and the two ventured into the dark.

  The path was shorter than he expected, even at their walking pace. It took only moments until they came across two paved stone paths. Above each were the painted images of a golden sun and a silver moon.

  “The sun is for men.” Eres said as she walked towards the moon path. “I’ll see you on the other side.”

  Banda watched her disappear beyond the shadowy entrance of her paths, then walked down his. He went with guarded vigilance, waiting for a fight to come, but found only darkness beyond the dim glow of the ground a mere yard around his feet.

  “You are a fool to trust her.”

  Banda spun around at the strange voice that spoke to him but found nothing. Not with his natural senses nor his aura nor even his instincts.

  “What has she shown to warrant that trust?” The voice spoke again from another direction. And with every word, it became more familiar. “When have you ever had reason to trust anything but your own power?”

  Banda tried to ignore the words, but they reached deep into the core of his being and he could not deny them. A trick, he thought at first. But it was not. These words were his own.

  “What king allows himself to be chained and commanded? You are no more than a dog.”

  Repulsion boiled from his core.

  “She’s holding you back. Binding you. Did you think she truly cares for you? What do you know of the fickle nature of affection? She will use you until you are depleted, then cast you aside.”

  Banda was silent. An empty uncomfortable feeling arose within him.

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  “She is lying. Always lying. A schemer. Discard her… before she discards you. Plunder and hunt alone as you’ve always done. That is the only path to strength.”

  Banda gazed ahead with sharp feral eyes.

  ---

  Eres walked calmly through the dark.

  “It is futile.”

  She did little but turn her eye to the voice she had been expecting.

  “You cannot defy fate forever. Even if you chain one who can. You will drown, as they all do.”

  Her stride did not falter.

  “His destiny will outshine yours. Try as you will, there will come a day that he breaks free of your reigns and stands above you. What is your fate but to raise another high at the cost of everything?”

  Eres’ expression grew grimmer and colder. Her stride was not hurried, but there was a forcefulness to it now.

  “Foolish girl. Still controlled by emotion. Consorts are replaceable. Did you become smitten after only the first. That attachment limits you. Such a tender weakness. Naive. Are your ambitions so paltry that you would falter for something so trivial?”

  Antagonism against the traces of despair surged within her, but still she walked forward.

  “The path of the supreme is a callous one. Only by conquering everything can you stand above all. Plunder. Scheme. Destroy. That is the nature of a Queen.”

  Eres was silent before the taunts. Any words she spoke in return would be hollow. All she could do was continue to walk in the dark.

  ---

  Otto raised his gaze slightly. “They’re cutting it close. It seems whatever fix they found was not permanent. But their path would always leads back to me.”

  Shamura looked over with a slightly troubled expression. His mind was blank as always, so she could not know his true thoughts.

  “It won’t be long until the path to Eden opens for us.” Otto met her eyes with his ever firm sly gaze.

  Shamura mustered the effort to smile genuinely in return. He had never led her astray. He had always cared for her. She need only serve him to the best of her abilities, and those abilities would grow far greater after this.

  The stone statue before them morphed into flesh. Its form shifted constantly and smoothly between that of a gallant man and a beautiful woman, both captivating and otherly in appearance.

  Banda lunged from the dark to pierce his claws at the beastwoman’s skull, but a barrier of higher power nullified his strike completely.

  “There is no conflict in a place of love.” The gemini demon spoke sweetly and proudly, as Banda created distance and Eres entered into the lair.

  The gemini demon paid him no further mind. Instead, it held out their hands to Otto and Shamura. One with a dull golden light and the other a dull silver. “Yang and Yin is the power I offer. Take from hand this precious gift.”

  “You will receive the opposite of each, and the decision to trade. You must trade the light and all other traits Sacred grade and below. Bestow your treasured traits if you truly care for the other.”

  “Or… you may keep yours and receive it all. The power of both lights is beyond what you can imagine. The order and chaos of nature. Entwined whole. Be wary to keep these lights. For any who remain without it, will remain with us.”

  Otto smiled at Shamura, and her heart returned to memories of their past. The duo watched as the two of them accepted the lights.

  A channel of grand mana surged between them, connecting the two. Light moved between the paths and the channel closed.

  Otto raised his hand as the vestiges of iridescent mana faded away, to meld the dull gold and silver light of the aura that enveloped his hand in the color of brass. All while Shamura stared blankly in stunned silence.

  A wide, vicious smile spread across the face of the gemini. “Naive fool. Did you think you were truly loved? Cared for? He will find someone better.”

  Shamura’s expression frayed. “W…why…? You promised… Your promised to take me away from here! I did everything for you! I would do anything for you! You said you loved me!” She screamed at Otto in tears, but the bandit’s expression did not change.

  “You can’t give me the power I feel now.” He spoke with the same tone he always did. “I will always love you, Shamura. But I’ve outgrown you.”

  Shamura’s face fell in turbulent despair. The demon before her writhed in ecstasy at the height of her torment, at the despair that flooded her soul dense.

  Agony struck Shamura, but the pain did not wash away the grief and betrayal in her expression. Her azure soul started to seep out from her, then it ripped away all at once, twisting and consorting as the demon breathed it in.

  The halves of each of its face gleamed with malice, and Shamura’s lifeless body slumped to the ground. Still, Otto’s expression did not change.

  The gemini winced with zeal, then twisted itself back into its initial form. It paid Otto no mind, as though he were not even there. And held out two hands with the same lights towards Banda and Eres.

  “Take the gift, and choose.”

  Banda pulled his focus away from Otto, to take measure of the situation before him. This must be the power Eres had talked about before. They were meant to trust each other to both trade what they had.

  He was warned of temptation, but he found this power petty. The demon had spoke in tricks, so he could only assume what it was, but it felt beneath his own. Beneath the power of the chains. There was no temptation here.

  “Choose now.” The gemini spoke. “Choose… ch… choo… se…”

  The demon started to spasm and stutter without warning. “Please, stop! I beg you! Nooo!”

  It writhed in agony as it pleaded to one they could not see, but its pleas were not heard. A wound ripped down its forehead as the red demonic eye of a snake formed from the blood and flesh. The blood drained down black, corrupting the demon’s form.

  The gemini’s two faces rose to the side at the same time in excruciating spasms as the eye turned its gaze down upon the duo.

  Whatever it was, it felt different to Banda. Something far greater than the demon before. Before he had time to act, the paved lair flooded with mana more overwhelming that anything he’d felt before.

  The gemini’s mouth split open into a smile, but it was the eye that caused it. "Such golden chains... They hold no power here..."

  “The offer remains... Trade your sacred grade traits. However… If you betray the other, you will receive everything.”

  Banda could not prevent his eyes from widening. He thought of the Avatar that had bested him as a demigod. And he thought of the supreme golden mana. With that, he could guard any attack. Claw through any defense. Maybe even bend Gugal to his will and claim that boundless might as his own.

  “Look how both of your eyes lit up.” Otto’s mocking words snapped them both back into focus. “You can’t wait to take from each other. But I don’t blame you. That much power is… too great to pass up.”

  Otto walked past them and back through the dark path with those words, leaving behind an air thick with tension. Tension derived of guilt and desire.