The vision is sudden, brutal. Abel falls to Cain’s rage, again and again, as if stitched into the bone of reality. When the twins move to pass quietly by, Cain snarls: “You think you’re better? You’re just like us.” Abel resurrects momentarily to echo, “Just like us!” before promptly crumpling once more.

 

The implication and curse are clear: all brotherhood ends in betrayal. But Pollux and Castor do not run. They bow their heads and declare in defiance, “We are alike—and yet, we are more.” The loop breaks, permitting the twins to progress—but the unease of what else they might face remains.

Lucifer arrives not with horns or flame, but in a blaze of divine beauty that nearly blinds them. He offers no temptation, only admiration—reflecting back their highest, most perfected personas. In his gaze, they see themselves beloved, powerful, untouchable. It is everything Narcissus hinted at, everything Merlin flirted with—but here, fully formed and dangerously enchanting.

 

Yet something doesn’t ring true. With a breath, Pollux draws Michael’s sword and slices through the illusion, shattering the glamour and leaving behind only silence—and the weight of knowing who they are, free from performance or praise.

Mammon appears next, not with menace but with the glittering promise of security. His horde of treasures spills out endlessly—gold, silver, jewels stretching far beyond the eye.

 

“You’ve done enough,” he murmurs. “Rest here. Be remembered. Nothing comforts like cash.” His laughter is cold, and the offered wealth begins to sour, then rot. With a knowing glance between them, the twins activate Perseus’ winged boots, rising just high enough to glimpse the decay at Mammon’s core. The boots carry them forward, even as the demon’s offers grow more desperate, dissolving into distant noise.

The boots begin to falter, and the twins descend into a warmly lit hall where laughter rings out and tables groan with impossible feasts. At the head sits Beelzebub, his rotund form barely hiding talons, his smile full of teeth. “Come,” he grins. “Stay. You’ve earned a hero’s feast... a taste of eternity.”

 

But the invitation hums with hunger. Castor steps forward and invokes Saturn’s gift—the power to name a boundary. One word suffices: “No.” The table flickers. The guests vanish. They continue on.

Water begins to spill into the room, and the ground falls away. The twins descend into a submerged cavern, enveloped in darkness. Here dwells Leviathan—not as a beast, but as grief itself. Waves of sorrow, shame, and abandonment press in, flooding every sense, whispering of what they’ve cast aside to survive. It threatens to drown them in memory.

 

But they remember Poseidon’s wisdom: “Powerful currents may run deep — but one need not drown in secrets or shame that's not theirs to keep.” They steady themselves, gather the exiled parts with compassion, and guide them upward—toward a light they now know will always return.

From oceanic depths to a jagged mountaintop beneath a starless sky, Chernabog looms. Shadows slither and writhe in tortured ecstasy around him. He offers power wrapped in beauty, knowledge without effort, pleasure without price. The twins begin to falter—until they whisper the name Apollo. With it, the first blush of sunrise creeps across the horizon. The light does not burn Chernabog—it reveals him. He recoils at first, then grows still, mesmerized by the shift in his form. While his gaze lingers on his own reflection, the twins slip away.

In a quiet glade beyond, a gentle old man in white awaits them. The Gnostic Demiurge smiles, arms wide. “You are loved. You are chosen. Rest here. Worship me alone.” His words soothe, his warmth disarms—but his offer is clear: surrender your divine spark, and call him the One. The twins nearly yield—until the pulse of Cupid’s arrow flares within them. “You are Sophia’s mistake,” they say softly. “The spark we carry is her gift. We are not the same.” The illusion shatters, and they pass through, sovereignty intact.

 

The Beast does not simply arrive—he surrounds. Darkness consumes everything. From within, voices echo their every fear: that love is conditional, that failure is final, that they are—and will always be—alone. Shadowed hands tear at them, whispering seductions of despair. In panic, the twins cling to each other, not in strength, but desperation. The Beast strikes. With a scream of void, he claims Castor, and hurls Pollux into a separate realm. The deepest wound is not pain—it is separation.

Pollux awakens in a landscape of razor precision and cold light. Geometry replaces nature, and every mystery has been dissected, named, nullified. Ahriman stands before him: perfect logic, pure rationality. “There is nothing beyond what can be proven,” he says. “Let go of longing. Let go of him. Rest in certainty.” The comfort of numb reason tempts—until Pollux remembers Uriel’s words: “Gnosis cannot be learned—only revealed by looking within.” He lifts the sword and walks forward. Ahriman’s domain begins to collapse, howling in the wake of embodied truth.

At last, in a chamber lit by neither flame nor star, Hades waits. He makes no demands, issues no lies. “You have come far,” he says simply. “What do you seek?” Pollux answers without hesitation: “My brother.” And offers his own immortality in exchange. Hades pauses, then nods. Castor returns—mortal now, but whole. The god of the underworld accepts the offering not as payment, but respect. And in doing so, Hades becomes the next and final torchbearer.