"We're the same, it seems," said Skullius. "Both of us are supposed to be dead. You were meant to have perished long before now, like me. Isn't that right, Ciumin?"

…!!!

Boron was speechless for a moment.

Skullius didn't wait for his reply. A blue paper page appeared in one of his hands. It was about as large as he was. With a deft swing, he sent it flying towards Boron, but it hardly resembled the properties of an ordinary paper then. It streaked like a shooting star, whipping past Boron.

The Deity remained stunned. A split-moment later, he clutched his neck. Only then did he realize that his armour had been carved through, a gash ripped into the flesh underneath.

"And there's another instance where you should have died," said Skullius to the Deity, who remained shaken.

Boron's concern wasn't the wound, though, or how it had even been caused. He glared at Skullius from behind the visor in his armour, wrath rising. The aggro effect of Skullius' Garmma Mail capitalized on that.

<When did you learn my—

"Your real name?" Skullius cut him off. "You're a prodigy. You can figure that out. Your time is almost up, by the way." He conjured six pages in three of his hands and pulled back to throw.

Boron's instincts flared. Again, his desperation forced strength through him. It wasn't an Andori that he conceived of this time. As his eyes bulged with madness, he extended his arm out and made a grasping motion.

<You gleamed my memories.> he said sharply.

"Worse," said Skullius, and he flung the projectile papers. They flew out like speeding stars. They were hardly meant to kill, though. Boron suspected as much when they merely nipped him in the arm, leg, and side after effortlessly ripping through his armour. He boldly remained still and made a grasping motion with his outstretched arm. Some invisible force fell from above to settle between his fingers. Skullius didn't miss that.

There were staunch rules within four-dimensional space, like how energy expanded and rose upwards. A prodigy could learn to manipulate these rules. Boron was doing that at the moment. It was scarcely a profound feat, though, Skullius imagined. The longer you lived within four dimensions, the more familiar you became with the rules and how to use them. There must have been old creatures who had the capacity to live here too.

That must have been why Skullius felt like he was being watched since coming here, though he couldn't sense by whom. But was there a need to guess? He could think of nine beings who probably had access to fourth-dimensional powers.

In another one of his hands, Skullius conjured a book. It looked like the pages he'd been summoning, blue and exquisitely designed. On its cover was a likeness similar to Boron's.

"I have more than just your memories," said Skullius, flaunting the book. "This is you. All that you are, all that you were, and all that you will be. Your goals, your Direction. I have inherited it from you."

Boron grew so furious at the words that his armour began to fail. His Zu'sse began rising instead. He gnashed his teeth.

"You're wired like a common man despite having the ambitions of a god. Your father hoped that you could be much more than he could imagine, more than his mind ever could conceive of. He hoped that you could be different and meet an end that was more… honorable than his." Skullius' expression went sour as he stared at the book. He looked… sorry. "I was wired like a common man before, but that stopped being true moments ago." He looked at Boron. "So take my words as absolute. Don't view them as mockery. I don't loathe you, so I wouldn't say this to make your extinction more of a misery than it's already poised to be."

Boron waited with bated breaths. Was he being judged? Why was there a finality in Skullius' words? Why did he believe that finality somewhat? Did it have to do with the way the bastard's demeanor had changed – how he somehow felt like royalty now?

"There is no right path," Skullius said. It indeed was a ruling. "You and Quintess were wrong. The Aspire to Divine is not in right and the Primeval Deities aren't in the wrong. You judged their actions and motivations by virtue of their morality… and that's why you were doomed to die falling short of both."

….

Boron was barely 10% himself, the rest, raw, unadulterated rage.

<Fall short?>

He raised his arm, brandishing whatever throng of unseen energy he had collected from above and cocking it back as though it were a spear ready for a throw. It was massive and lethal. Boron's fingers were slowly disintegrating just by handling it.

<Neither is wrong nor right?>

<Doomed to die?>

…

Boron drew in a breath.

<Who are you to decide that?>

Skullius considered before answering. He flipped through the pages in the book he held and sighed.

"I'm an Authority," he said. "Whether you believe me or not does not matter. That pennon of energy you are about to throw doesn't matter either. Your Direction says so."

Boron had had enough.

He was a prodigy indeed. Constantly falling victim to the rules of this dimension allowed him to comprehend them, at least one of them. Energy from impacts rose upwards here. It didn't dissipate – it was stowed away. There was a way to collect it and reuse it, but the user had to be more than twice as sturdy as the mass of energy they collected for use. Boron didn't meet that requirement, but he gambled anyway.

All that stock of energy from the impacts between him and Skullius from earlier was condensed into a great throng shaped like a wobbly spear.

Just holding it was intense. It felt fatal. How could an attack like this possibly not matter?

How could none of it matter?

Ciumin had survived long after his father died and escaped his Enslavement Pact to live on his own. He'd broken against the mold and survived on his own until he reached Divinity. 𝚏𝗿𝗲𝐞𝚠𝕖𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝕖𝚕.𝚌𝗼𝗺

How did that not matter?

He'd become a Deity quicker than most because he was a rare talent. Even those in the Aspire to Divine recognized that.

How did that not matter?

Was there… was there a truth about the Primeval Deities he admired so much that he didn't know?

Were they and the Aspire to Divine the exact same thing? Was it an illusion that neither Boron nor Quintess could see through?

But then how did Skullius see it? How could a mere fresh Divine see through it!

No!

It had to be a lie!

<I'll live through your machinations!> Boron raged at the stationary, composed, Sovereign of the Null Verse. <Then I'll find out myself!>

…And he flung the throng of energy while applying the effect of Parlay. It would not miss!