PART IV: AFTER THE DEFEAT OF THE BLACK MAGE

Chapter 9: Odium, the Awakened Laboratory

In an unknown location, Senya commanded her Lab Tech bot to play a recording marked TB-0024. The bot warned that the source of the recording was unverified and asked for confirmation if she still wanted to hear it, despite it posing a risk to system integrity. Senya commanded it to play the recording anyways, which prompted the bot to project a hologram of the Angler Company logo and play back a recording of Nicky’s phone call with their father as he fell off Karote.

As Senya listened to Nicky’s accusations, the bot interrupted and explained that it was receiving an emergency call from an unknown caller. A surprised Senya wondered whether it was from her father, and whether he had detected that she had hacked into communications. Senya was unnerved by Nicky’s claim that he had been programmed by their father and realized that the Angler family was just a group centered around their father, with even his children referring to each other as siblings merely for show.

Senya told the Lab Tech bot that she didn’t care whether Nicky had thought of her as family, as family was merely another code type to her. Nevertheless, she told the bot that she hadn’t wanted him to break the way that he had. In response to her words, the bot merely replied that it didn’t recognize her command, to which Senya laughed to herself that she was trying to have a chat with a glorified record player, adding that she must have picked up a bad habit from the old robots in Hotel Arcus.

Just as she told the bot that she would rather talk to it than Laha, Laha herself entered the room and demanded to know what she was mumbling to herself about when their father was trying to get a hold of her, adding that she hadn’t called Senya all the way just so that she could putt around in a corner. (A/N: Laha is Senya and Nicky’s younger sister and has the same blue hair and pink diamond-pupil eyes as the other Angler children.)

Laha then explained that their father had found something useful, for which he was on his way to Odium personally. Senya noted that it was good timing, as one of Darmoor’s Apostles was on her way there too, adding that between their father and the Apostle, the blocked door being guarded by Odium’s dolls would open soon enough. An annoyed Laha then ordered Senya to follow her if she understood the situation, as their father was waiting.

Meanwhile, the Adversary was called to Edelstein by Claudine, who explained that she had something important to share. At the Secret Plaza, Claudine greeted them warmly, noting that it had been a while since they had last spoken. She then laughed and added that she would have thought that they would be less busy after saving the world. Nevertheless, she thanked them for their actions, as Edelstein was now at peace because of them.

Claudine then explained that the Resistance had been trying to keep Edelstein safe and quiet. She told the Adversary that even after the Black Wings had been driven out of Edelstein following the Black Heaven incident, the threat of the Black Mage had forced them to divert their attention from rebuilding the town, despite them having reclaimed Edelstein and the Verne Mine. She explained that they had been putting off taking care of the city because of that, but with the Black Mage’s defeat, everyone was now working together to finally start the rebuilding effort.

(A/N: Main Resistance classes and Xenon get some exclusive dialogue here, in which Claudine tells them that she hopes that Edelstein’s local concerns hadn’t distracted them too much from saving the world. She then thanks them for all their help.)

However, Claudine admitted that they would never have everything quite the way it had been. She explained that aside from the property damage, the looting, and the mine having output issues, the people themselves had changed. She told the Adversary that many of their colleagues had gone missing, been injured, gone rogue, or been killed in the fight against the Black Wings and the Black Mage, with all of them leaving empty chairs, both big and small.

(A/N: Main Resistance classes and Xenon get some additional dialogue here, in which Claudine notes that they must already know what she’s talking about, as she’s sure that the situation is the same everywhere.)

Nevertheless, Claudine added that they still had to keep going anyways, vowing that they would fix and recover whatever they could. She explained that no matter how hard it was, they now had their freedom and their peace, and so she believed that everything would be okay.

(A/N: For the main Resistance and Xenon, Claudine instead says that the situation might be just as tough as before, though a different kind of tough. Nevertheless, she believes that they’ll be able to handle it. She adds that they hadn’t fought simply because it had been the right thing to do, to which the Resistance member agrees and notes that they had done it in order to win back their peace and freedom with their own hands.)

Just as she noted that they had many people to thank for securing that freedom, she caught herself and laughed that she was talking as though everything was over when the Adversary was still out fighting.

(A/N: Cygnus Knights get exclusive dialogue when Claudine talks about having many people to thank for securing Edelstein’s freedom. She explains that though she still hasn’t forgiven the Knights for their old betrayal, the Resistance would’ve lost if they had tried doing everything themselves. She notes that it must’ve been hard for the Knight especially, with reconciling between the Cygnus Knights and the Resistance, for which she thanks them. The dialogue then returns back to the generic script, with her noting that the Adversary is still out fighting.)

The Adversary explained that even with the Black Mage’s defeat, there were other threats that still existed. They added that any help from the Resistance could make a great difference, just as it had during the war against the Black Mage. Claudine paused hesitantly before explaining that the Resistance had come together for individual freedom, not for any great cause.

She added that they had only just gotten that freedom back, and so asking them to help outsiders now was just too soon. However, she conceded that it would be good to think about bringing freedom outside Edelstein together, as no one could empathize with oppression better than they could. Claudine then realized that she had gotten off-track and explained that the reason why she had called them was because the Resistance had finished their check-up on Cosim, whom the Adversary had brought in after the mission to Karote.

(A/N: I was surprised that we ended up going back to Maple World after our trip to Karote. Since Cosim had led us right to the doorstep of Odium, I was sure that we would’ve gone there immediately. Although, I guess it makes sense that we wouldn’t enter Odium so haphazardly when Neinheart had mentioned a couple of times in the Karote storyline that they weren’t prepared for a long-term expedition.

Interestingly, GMS has continued to use gender-neutral pronouns to refer to Cosim, although satsu, who does excellent translations of KMS storylines very soon after they come out, has confirmed that Cosim is canonically male in KMS.)

Claudine and the Adversary then went to the medical room, where the other Resistance leaders greeted them. Checky then asked Wendelline whether he was right in his assessment about Cosim. Wendelline confirmed that he was right, adding that Cosim needed a doctor, not a mechanic. She told the group that she had never seen anything like Cosim before, as his internal organs looked as though they had been created out of machinery and assembled together to function like human organs.

However, she added that no human could possibly have survived the damage that he had sustained. Upon taking a closer look at Cosim, the Adversary was surprised to see that his grey hair and round pupils were oscillating between their current state and the blue hair and diamond pupils that Senya and Nicky had.

Checky admitted that Resistance technology wasn’t always top-of-the-line, adding that his repairs hadn’t been effective. He explained that it was a miracle that Cosim was functioning at all, likening his injuries to a busted heart or crushed lungs in humans.

Belle added that it also seemed that most of Cosim’s injuries had been sustained in an explosion. She explained that though Cosim was supposedly a child of the Angler Company founder, she found it strange that the Company founder wouldn’t take better care of his children. She noted that Cosim’s damage was old, meaning that he should have had plenty of time to have gotten repaired. Elex then suggested that it was possible that the explosion had made that impossible. Brighton agreed, adding that Cosim could have been damaged in the same explosion that had destroyed Company headquarters.

The Adversary asked Brighton whether he thought that Cosim might have been involved in the explosion, to which Brighton noted that Cosim seemed to have a habit of getting involved in things. Suddenly, the Adversary recalled how T-Boy had said the same thing about Cosim, and how he had been sure that Cosim would help them. They then wondered what that said about Cosim and the Angler Company.

Claudine told the Adversary that according to rumors, the Company had been facing a run of bad luck. She then asked whether Neinheart had told them anything about it, to which the Adversary replied that Neinheart had mentioned that the Cygnus Knights were also looking into it. Claudine explained that when they had attempted to interrogate Cosim, he hadn’t provided any clear answers, especially about the Company. However, she believed that he might talk to them and allowed them to speak with him privately.

(A/N: Something funny that happened in the KMS test server was that after this cutscene between the Adversary and the Resistance finishes, the player returns back to the Resistance infirmary room map with Cosim’s NPC. However, the version of the infirmary room that was used was the one from after completing the Evolution Lab prequest, and so there was a comatose Orchid lying in bed in the background while we talk to Cosim. This was corrected by the time that Odium was officially released.)

The Adversary greeted Cosim and thanked him for helping them at Karote. When they asked whether he was feeling better, Cosim replied that everything was fine, and that the rest of his damage needed to stay unrepaired.

(A/N: If the player has completed Detective Rave’s Case Notes, the Adversary notes to themselves that Cosim’s voice seems strange no matter how many times they hear it, which is a reference to how his voice occasionally trails off into mumbles. They think to themselves that when they had first met him in Savage Terminal, they had thought that it had been because of his helmet, but they now realize that it’s because of his injuries. Considering that Checky mentioned that Cosim has the human equivalent of broken lungs, it’s not hard to imagine why his breathing must have been affected.)

Cosim explained that his body had been designed by “that man”, adding that he would function as designed if he were to return to peak condition, and so it would be best for him to remain in his damaged state. He then explained that he was not the only one who had been damaged, adding that the same explosion had critically damaged the same man. When the Adversary asked whom he was referring to, Cosim told them that it was the man whom Nicky had spoken of, causing them to realize that Cosim was talking about his father.

The Adversary then asked to clarify that he was referring to the explosion at the Angler Company headquarters, which was the same explosion that had driven the Company underground. However, when they asked him whether he had anything to do with the explosion, Cosim remained silent on the matter. He then explained that his father had lost his power source in the explosion, and that he needed a vast quantity of energy in order to recover.

(A/N: When Cosim says this, there are two pieces of exclusive dialogue that can trigger.

If the player has completed Detective Rave’s Case Notes, we’ll recall how Senya had created a device to turn the waters of Savage Terminal into acid, which would boil away all the impurities on the moon, leaving behind a perfect source of energy, which we realize was meant to sustain her father.

If the player has completed Reverse City, we’ll recall T-Boy’s experiments to harvest Erda from the upstream of the Arcane River, which we realize was meant to collect energy for his father.

Depending on which of these storylines that you’ve played, it’s possible to get one, both, or none of these exclusive dialogues.)

Cosim added that his father would do absolutely anything to restore himself to full functionality, even sending his broken children into harm’s way, knowing full well that they would be targeted if any of them were spotted and caused rumors to spread that the Angler family was still alive. He explained that just as he had feared, the God-King of the High Flora, Gerand Darmoor, had personally sought out the Company after hearing the rumors. Darmoor had then told the Angler family about the existence of a new Adversary in possession of a Seal Stone.

Cosim then paused and told the Adversary that they had a visitor. Just then, Brighton entered the room and explained that someone from the Cygnus Knights had just arrived who wanted to speak to them urgently. The Adversary stepped out and was surprised to find that Oz had arrived at the Secret Plaza. Oz greeted the Adversary and explained that the Cygnus Knights’ reconnaissance team had just returned back from surveying the wreckage of Karote, and that they had reported that the tower had rebuilt itself.

Belle noted that it made sense, as the destruction of Guardian Kalos meant that there was nothing stopping the tower from remaining complete. She then asked if it meant that the laboratory was open now. Oz explained that it was possible, and that she also had more bad news. She explained that right after the Glory Guard had retreated after defeating Kalos, their scouts had spotted anglerfish-shaped airships moving in on Karote. She added that if the scouts were right, it meant that the Angler Company was moving in on Odium as they spoke.

The Adversary then recalled what they knew of Odium - that it was a laboratory hidden in the sky where most of the Adversaries had been born. (A/N: Some Adversaries, like the First Explorer, were likely created outside the laboratory.) Though they still weren’t sure who had built it, or why, or even what had happened there, they remembered how T-Boy’s father had mentioned that the experiments in Odium had been painful. They recalled how the researchers of Odium had used living beings as tools, and how they had literally thrown their experiments out the laboratory if they were defective.

They then recalled how after some time, the researchers had eventually emptied the laboratory and left forever, which was how Odium had been shut down, possibly forever. The Adversary also recalled how T-Boy had called the researchers ‘old geezers’. Oz then told the Adversary that she had sought them out because of a fugitive that she and the Blaze Wizards had been chasing. She explained that they had lost the fugitive’s trail right near Karote before revealing that the person whom they had been trailing was Kaling.

(A/N: Hoyoung has some exclusive dialogue here, in which he’s shocked to hear about Kaling and wonders what she would want all the way up there. Taotie then emerges from Hoyoung and tells him that he ought to be careful, as there’s going to be trouble at the laboratory. Hoyoung teases Taotie for sounding afraid and asks if he’s suggesting that they give up in advance. Taotie gets annoyed, but he silently notes to himself that Kaling seems to want the Four Perils so badly that she’s even going to the laboratory herself. He then hopes to himself that he’s wrong about what it is that he thinks that Kaling is after.

Lara also has some exclusive dialogue here, although she just wonders whether Kaling has gone to Karote in order to reach the laboratory.)

The Adversary then recalled that Oz had once mentioned that there was a chance that Kaling was associated with Darmoor. As Darmoor and the Company founder were doing business together, they noted that they would finally be able to see how Kaling fit into the mix. Oz then explained that the Empress had sent her in order to aid them, as well as to ask the Resistance for their help too.

Claudine suggested that Brighton, a fellow mage, accompany Oz and told them that they ought to hurry, as even with the dimensional boundaries between their worlds broken, the deserts of Grandis would still take a while to get to. Cosim then appeared and told them that he could help them with that, as he could teleport four people to Odium right away, including himself. The Adversary asked if he would be alright, as he was still recovering. Cosim replied that though he wouldn’t be able to stay for long, he would still be functional enough for the journey.

Cosim then teleported them to the top of Karote, where Oz marveled at being able to see such a large artifact. Brighton agreed, adding that any magician would be excited to see something like Karote. He noted that Guardian Kalos had to have been quite formidable to knock the tower down over and over again.

The Adversary then noticed a series of steps that led to the entrance of Odium. Cosim told the Adversary that he wouldn’t be able to go any further, to which the Adversary asked if he was worried about running into his family. Cosim confirmed their suspicions, though he told them not to worry, as he had called someone stronger to help them, adding that they would find him inside the door.

Before he left, Cosim also warned the group about the mechanical dolls that the researchers had created to filter out intruders. When Oz asked him what he meant by ‘filter out’, Cosim explained that the researchers hadn’t simply abandoned the laboratory, but rather, they had converted all of Odium into a machine that could continue running without them, with the dolls being placed to eternally watch over the laboratory.

Oz realized that if the researchers’ guards were still in Odium, then their research might still be there too, as she couldn’t think of any other reason why they would still maintain the laboratory. She then asked Cosim whether by ‘dolls’, he meant to say golems, to which Brighton added that he had been thinking of androids, as well as the implications of their operation. He noted that it took a considerable amount of energy to power just one mechanical doll, let alone an army of them, and wondered what could possibly be powering them all. He then added that it reminded him of what Gelimer had wanted from the Verne Mine.

Oz also wondered why the researchers had even left in the first place, as it would have been far simpler for them to have stayed if they had wanted to keep Odium operational, rather than building and powering so many dolls. She noted that the researchers must have had a good enough reason to leave. Cosim then explained that, in a sense, the dolls were merely components of the larger machine, and that Odium’s backbone was somewhere deep inside the laboratory, with only the researchers knowing where or what it was.

The Adversary realized that Cosim was talking about Odium’s power source. They then recalled how he had mentioned that the Company founder had lost his power source, and that his children were searching for a replacement. Brighton realized that the Angler Company was likely attempting to steal the power source for the Company founder. Oz noted that the Company founder also wanted the power of the Adversary, as Odium was where Adversaries had been made, meaning that the founder’s goals could be related to that too.

Brighton complimented Oz for her sharp thinking and told her that he was glad that the Cygnus Knights had sent her out, adding that he believed that she would help them out a lot. (A/N: The way that I started shipping Oz and Brighton over a single sentence. Belle will never recover from this betrayal.) Cosim then told the Adversary that he had shared everything that he knew and wished them luck, adding that he hoped to see them next time.

After Cosim teleported away, the Glory Guard arrived in Odium, which was filled with holographic plants and several Guardians that the Adversary recognized from Karote. Oz recognized the Guardians from Neinheart’s report, which had explained that the researchers had made them to bring in potential Vessels of the Adversary. The Adversary noted that the Guardians looked slightly different, though they realized that it was likely because the ones that they had seen in Karote had been modified by the Company founder.

As they moved closer, they realized that the Guardians had been reprogrammed to obey the Angler Company. Just then, the Guardians detected a life force and moved in on a man with cybernetic Anima features in the form of rabbit ears and a tiger tail. The Guardians analyzed the man and detected no anglerfish insignia on him, which caused them to identify him as an enemy.

As the Guardians began to attack, the man cried out for help and the Adversary decided to save him. However, Oz reminded them that according to Cosim, there were no humans left in Odium, meaning that the man was just a mechanical doll. However, the Adversary replied that regardless, the man had called out for help. Brighton noted that they were about to face a battle no matter what, and that they might as well help if they could.

The Glory Guard moved in and destroyed the Guardians, after which the man thanked them for saving him.

(A/N: Hoyoung and Lara have some exclusive dialogue here, in which they both wonder whether the man an Anima. Lara gets some additional dialogue, in which Brighton reminds her that the man is a doll, not a person.

Explorers also get some exclusive dialogue, in which they notice the man’s ears before apologizing for staring, explaining that they have a friend who has animal ears like his, which is a reference to Rondo. The man is intrigued and replies that he finds it more surprising that they don’t have ears like his, adding that everyone in his village have ears and a tail like his.)

The man then asked the Adversary who they were and how they had come through the door before realizing that they were a Vessel, adding that there was one amongst the intruders as well. He realized that the Adversary was the one who had defeated Guardian Kalos and introduced himself as Alter, one of the Constables who looked after Odium. He then greeted them as the Vessel of an Adversary, explaining that he was under the impression that their kind had gone extinct after the researchers had decommissioned every model at the end of the war.

Confused, the Adversary asked him which war he was talking about, to which Alter explained that it was the war to slay the last god left in the world, adding that they must have heard of it. The Adversary then realized that Alter was referring to the war against the Ancient Gods. Alter told the Adversary that after the Ancient War, the researchers had disappeared in accordance to the will of the world, hoping to wash away the sins that they had committed in the laboratory.

(A/N: I have no idea what’s happened to the GMS translation team, but ever since the Destiny update, they’ve been doing a terrible job with translating the KMS dialogue. Historically, they’ve always been really bad at it, given how many notes I make about GMS omitting important dialogue in previous sections, but their work after Destiny is significantly even worse.

In GMS, Alter’s dialogue is just: “After the war, the researchers shut down their experiments and sequestered themselves from the world,” which omits the line about how they had disappeared in accordance to the “will of the world”, which is another way that the game refers to the Overseers, with the lore implication being that the Overseers themselves were the ones who had ordered the elders to abandon Odium. There’s another omitted detail later on that also explains how the will of the world had tasked the elders with conducting the Adversary experiments in the first place.

The translation team has a long history of omitting out many important plot points in the past, such as the First Explorer explaining that his power had been given to him by the Overseers, or the Cygnus Knight story revamp omitting entire sentences of text that were meant to give important context about the Ancient Gods.

I understand that some things get lost in translation, but that’s not a good excuse for them to just leave out important pieces of story altogether. I use the camera feature of Google Translate to translate new stories when they come out, and so I’m aware of the gist of what the direct KMS text is saying, but the vast majority of people who will only ever read the GMS text will just never get to see crucial pieces of story, and then they’ll just be completely lost when these little details are brought up in future content.

Aside from the glaring lore omissions, there are lots of smaller issues that constantly crop up. I mentioned in the Karote section about how the team’s mistranslation created a continuity error with how the Interdimensional Portals are created. On top of everything else, there are so many basic mistakes that have been pile up from Destiny onwards, like improper grammar, spelling, and especially capitalization, all of which could easily have been caught and fixed. The word “Vessel” is capitalized so inconsistently that it’ll be spelled both lowercase and uppercase in the very same conversation. Proper nouns like “God-King” and “Transcendent” are spelled lowercase, despite having been established terms for years.

I don’t want to blindly accuse the translation team alone of doing a bad job when it’s entirely possible that they’ve just been given limited information to work with by Nexon, as is the case with a lot of localization teams in other games. At the same time, I don’t know what goes on behind the scenes at Nexon, and so there’s just as good a chance that the localization team actually is at fault. Regardless of who it is, though, I just want there to be a better means of communication with them.

I’ve been in touch with PirateIzzy, who also sends feedback along with me to GMS in order to address not just story issues, but bugs and mistakes, and while some of that feedback does get acknowledged, a vast majority of it is just me screaming into the empty void of player feedback. I think that all of us are aware about how terrible Nexon is with taking feedback, which makes me wish that there was at least some acknowledgement, if nothing else, that the stuff that players are catching is actually being sent to the relevant groups internally, since it really deters people from wanting to keep reporting issues when no one seems to be listening and nothing seems to get changed.)

Alter also explained that the researchers had left Kalos and the other Guardians on watch, while the Constables maintained order, as they had hoped that it would be enough to keep their technology out of the wrong hands. However, after Kalos had fallen, strange airships had appeared in the sky, with the intruders somehow knowing exactly what they were looking for. He explained that the intruders had spread out and had taken the residential district with precision tactics and coordination, reprogramming the Guardians to turn on the Constables.

Brighton asked if the technology in the laboratory was still intact, to which Alter replied that the intruders had only taken the residential district, with the laboratory still remaining secure. He explained that several Constables had barricaded themselves inside, where they were devising a strategy to retake the residential district. However, he added that the intruders had captured multiple Constables, who were being interrogated as they spoke. He explained that he had managed to escape from their interrogations, though he expected that the intruders would soon find him.

Alter told the Adversary that he had hoped to find a way to reboot the Guardians and restore their previous firmware, though he had instead run into them. He noted that a Vessel arriving in Odium at such a moment was a highly improbably contradiction, and that the researchers would have called it destiny.

The Adversary then told Alter that there was a corrupted Transcendent in the world down below, and that they had come in search of the power of the Adversary in order to stop him. Alter suggested that they visit the residential district as their first stop, explaining that the other Constables would accept them as he had, as they were a true Vessel, and one from outside the laboratory, at that.

Alter then asked the Adversary to clear a path, and so the Adversary fought through the Enhanced Olivine Guardians and the Enhanced Diamond Guardians. Just as they began moving forward, Oz heard the sound of machines approaching. Alter realized that the intruders had arrived and suggested that they hide. They then saw Senya and Laha appear with fortified Angler Company robots.

Upon witnessing some of the Guardians exploding, Laha noted that she had thought that someone was destroying the Guardians, though she was unimpressed to find that they were merely self-destructing because of conflicts in their systems, adding that the researchers were foolish for having made so many ‘junk robots’. Laha then asked Senya whether Darmoor’s Apostle was here yet, adding that since she knew how to enter the laboratory, they ought to call her and quit wasting their time.

Senya told Laha to be patient, reminding her that their father had warned them not to push Darmoor, as he was an important client. She added that their father’s words were applicable to Darmoor’s people as well, and that while she didn’t care whether Laha destroyed all the Constables, she reminded her sister to watch her attitude, warning that there would otherwise be trouble.

She also reminded Laha of what their father did to things that he couldn’t control, to which Laha angrily told Senya to be quiet, threatening to rip out her memory chip and toss it into the sea before storming away. As Senya watched Laha leave, she noted to herself that she was sure that their father had heard their conversation. (A/N: There’s quite a bit of foreshadowing in this storyline to the point that it’s well worth rewatching it twice in order to pick up details that were missed the first time.)

Alter was shocked to know that the enemy knew of a way to open the door, and that they wished to destroy all the Constables. Just as Oz began wondering who the Apostle of Darmoor could be, Senya called out to the Glory Guard and asked them to reveal themselves, promising that her sister was gone. She then brightly smiled at the Adversary and asked how they had been, noting that she hadn’t expected them to arrive so soon. She then knowingly asked whether somebody had helped them along, though she added that they likely wouldn’t tell her who it was anyways.

The Adversary ignored her question and instead noted that the girl whom she had been speaking with was her sister. Senya introduced her sister as Laha Angler, adding that they likely hadn’t met before. She joked that Laha was a simpleton who never listened to her, adding that, as an older sister, she worried about Laha a lot. She noted that her little brother didn’t listen either, though he had at least been cute. She admitted that his face had been ugly, though she regretted making fun of him for it. (A/N: This is likely a reference to the scar that Nicky received from Barr’s gunshot in Reverse City.)

The Adversary then realized that Senya was referring to T-Boy, and that if the Company didn’t retrieve him, then it likely meant that he hadn’t survived the fall off Karote.

(A/N: GMS localized this as the Adversary noting that Senya talking about T-Boy in the past tense means that he likely didn’t survive. I really don’t like this translation because it omits the implication that T-Boy’s body wasn’t found, which hints that he’s alive. Even without this hint, however, it’s almost certain that he’s not dead. Nicky was built with the same materials that his father was built with, and his father survived the fall from Karote multiple times after Kalos destroyed the tower.)

Senya then warned the Adversary that they should stay out of Laha’s way, as Laha wasn’t one to use her words to express herself. She then noticed Alter and recognized him as a doll created by the ‘old men’. She laughed that the Adversary was the same as they had been back in the desert, still getting attached to lifeless objects.

(A/N: If the player has completed Detective Rave’s Case Notes, Senya will instead say that we’re the same as we had been back in the sewers and the desert. She adds that it makes sense, given our history, and calls us “Watson”, which is what we were called while assisting Detective Rave.)

She then amusedly noted that they ought to stop trusting people before thanking them for cheering her up. With that, she decided to take her leave, explaining that she was busy enough with her father’s work that she would look the other way while they left, adding that they wouldn’t change anything by sticking around anyways. After Senya left, the Glory Guard headed through the doors and entered the residential district.

There, they encountered two more Constables with mechanical Anima features named Sya-sya and Kaya. Alter introduced the Adversary as a true Vessel, to which Kaya noted that their presence indicated an unprecedented level of activity in the world down below. Sya-sya added that Guardian Kalos and his subordinates were down, the laboratory was under threat, and a true Vessel had appeared, causing her to wonder whether the researchers were aware about those developments.

Alter then asked Sya-sya and Kaya to let the other Constables know that they were all in danger, as he had overheard the intruders mention that they had found someone who could reach the laboratory, meaning that they had no use for the Constables anymore. Sya-sya was shocked, realizing that it could only mean that they had brought one of the researchers, noting that such a thing would be impossible. Kaya noted that it wasn’t necessarily impossible, and that if it was true, then they were all in danger.

Kaya asked about the Constables in the laboratory, as well as the test subjects inside. Alter replied that their investigation was still pending, after which he suggested to the Adversary that they enter the laboratory together, as it would help them in their research to learn more about the power of the Adversary. He also added that he would be unable to reach the laboratory without them.

The Adversary asked where the laboratory was, to which Alter pointed out the gold-roofed complex in the distance. He explained that the researchers slept in the red-roofed buildings in the residential district and worked in the gold-roofed complex. He told the Adversary that in his caretaker duties, he had spotted traces of the researchers’ work still in the laboratory, which he believed would contain the answers that they were looking for.

Alter then explained that there used to be stairs in the center of the village that led up to the laboratory, though the Constables in the laboratory had deactivated them as part of their barricade. Though there was another way inside, he explained that the path was blocked by Angler Company robots. With no other choice, the Glory Guard decided to head the long way, where they found a huge number of Company robots occupying the route. The Adversary then suggested that Brighton and Oz attack from both sides, while they and Alter distract the enemy.

(A/N: Battle Mages and Blaze Wizards get some exclusive dialogue here, in which either Brighton or Oz, depending on the player’s job instructor, will praise their skills and note that they’ve been a good student.)

The Adversary then fought through the robots, with Alter noting that their combat skills were practically immeasurable. Suddenly, Laha arrived and smugly declared that she had been right to think that something was off. She recognized the Adversary as the famed warrior of the Alliance who had been giving her family difficulties. However, she laughed and added that she wasn’t mad about it, as she hated her family anyways. Upon seeing how unimpressive the Adversary appeared, Laha expressed her disappointment in her siblings for failing to defeat them.

Laha proudly proclaimed that she was different from her siblings, adding that her father should have sent her in the first place. She explained that she was 100% android, and that if she had been sent instead, not only would Kalos have been subdued, but unlike Nicky, she would never have allowed the Adversary to escape. Her face then contorted in anger as she declared that Nicky had gotten off easy. She promised the Adversary that if they ever ran into her father, they would undoubtedly wish that they had died at Karote.

The Adversary then yelled for Alter to get back as Laha shot a blast of energy from her exosuit. Laha claimed that her attack had been self-defense, as she had been ordered to guard the door to the gold-roofed complex. She then told the Adversary that whatever happened next was on them before threateningly declaring that she wasn’t as careful as she should be with human bones. However, she promised that she wouldn’t kill them, at least not yet.

The Adversary then faced off against Laha and managed to defeat her after a fierce battle. Laha was shocked that she had been beaten, and upon realizing that they didn’t even have the Godsphere, she declared that they had no right to even call themselves an Adversary before mocking them, claiming that they weren’t as special as they were said to be after all.

(A/N: The Godsphere is how GMS has decided to localize the term “spear of god” in KMS, which refers to the original Seal Stones created by the elders. At first, I thought that the translators had chosen to translate it as “Godsphere” instead of “Godspear” because the direct phonetic translation of both words is exactly the same in Korean, which doesn’t differentiate between the different “ph” sounds in each word. However, I later learned that KMS uses the actual Korean word for “spear”, meaning that the original name for the Seal Stones is undoubtedly “spear of god”.

I think that I might know why they decided to go with Godsphere instead of Godspear. At the end of this storyline, the Adversary is presented with a round Godsphere, which has been degraded from overuse. The GMS translation team likely localized it as Godsphere because they saw the shape and assumed that all Godspheres exist in the shape of a sphere.

Later on, we learn that this Godsphere isn’t even a Godsphere, but rather, it’s the World Heart - the original template upon which the actual Godspheres were based on, just like the Seal Stones. Because of this, it makes even less sense to call it a Godsphere when we haven’t actually seen any real Godspheres in the story to label them all as spherical.)

Laha angrily asked what her siblings and her father saw in them when Oz and Brighton rushed to the scene and found the Adversary and Alter facing off against Laha. Alter then told them to hurry, as they now had a chance to open the door. He told the Adversary that since they were a Vessel, no door in Odium would stay locked for them.

Just as the Glory Guard opened the door and headed inside, Alter asked the Adversary to let the other Constables know that the residential district was still in danger. The Adversary immediately realized that Alter was planning to face Laha alone in order to buy them time and urged them not to. However, Alter told them that he had done nothing but stay behind them ever since they had met. He then asked to be allowed to correct that error and fulfill his duties as a Constable.

Upon realizing that the door had been opened, Laha angrily ordered Alter to get out of her way, though he continued distracting her long enough for the Adversary to make it through. From a distance, Senya observed what was happening and thought to herself that she had, after all, warned them not to cross Laha before silently noting to her father that they were on schedule. Meanwhile, the Glory Guard climbed up the steps to the laboratory and encountered three Constables named Na-Sol, Haram, and Aro. Na-Sol was shocked that they had gotten through the door and demanded to know whether the intruders had sent them.

The Adversary explained that the Constables had sent them from the residential district in order to request reinforcements. Na-Sol recognized that the Adversary was another Vessel and realized that their presence was why the door had opened. However, he then asked the Adversary whether they expected him to believe that they had met more Constables in the residential district, as they hadn’t had any contacts from the residential district since they had shut down the stairs. He added that the last Constable who had escaped from there was sick with guilt over it as they spoke.

Suddenly, Tai Yu appeared and told Na-Sol that though he understood how he felt, he cautioned him against jumping to conclusions. He then added that he could personally vouch for the Adversary. Noting that it was their first time meeting, Tai Yu warmly greeted them.

(A/N: Hoyoung has some exclusive dialogue here, in which Tai Yu will tell Na-Sol that he’s Hoyoung’s Master, and that he had helped Hoyoung out with a few things as well. Hoyoung is understandably very shocked to see his Master after so many years.

Lara also gets some exclusive dialogue, in which Tai Yu will tell Na-Sol that he once met Lara down in the world below, and that he’s helped her out with a few things too.)

Tai Yu explained that he was nobody special, and that he had just happened to be passing by when someone had asked him to lend them a hand. An unconvinced Brighton sardonically asked whether he just happened to be in the area, though the Adversary pointed out that Cosim had mentioned that he would send someone else to help them.

(A/N: Hoyoung gets some exclusive dialogue here. After he recalls that Cosim had sent someone to help them, he notes that he hadn’t expected that the help that Cosim had sent would be his Master. He confronts Tai Yu, claiming that he hadn’t even explained where he was going after leaving the Hermitage, and asks what he’s doing all the way out in Odium. Oz asks Hoyoung if he knows Tai Yu, to which Hoyoung explains that he’s the famous sage, Tai Yu, who’s also his Master.

He then adds that Tai Yu had left him alone in the Hermitage before disappearing and asks Tai Yu if he has any idea how worried he was. Tai Yu laughs and says that there’s no need to shout, noting that Hoyoung is looking healthy. He asks Hoyoung how he’s been, noting that he doesn’t seem to be afraid of getting scolded anymore. He then smiles and adds that it looks like Hoyoung is all grown up now. Hoyoung then asks him how he knows Cosim, which leads into the generic script below.

Lara also gets some exclusive dialogue here. She thanks him for helping her last time, adding that thanks to him, she’s been able to keep the bell safe. She recalls how he had told her that they would meet again after she learned to wield the bell properly and smiles brightly that his words had come true. Tai Yu notes that she’s helped a lot of people on her journey, even going so far as to help another dimension. He adds that she’s been working hard and laughs that his apprentice ought to be taking notes from her.)

Tai Yu explained that he sometimes bumped into Cosim during their work for the elders. He added that though the ‘old geezers’ wouldn’t like him helping the Adversary, there was nothing that he could do about it, as he could afford to deal with the consequences later if the Adversary was the one in trouble.

Na-Sol then asked whether it was true that there were still active Constables in the residential district, to which Aro mentioned that they ought to tell Winnie, as he would be happy to hear it. However, Na-Sol nevertheless believed that the residential district was a lost cause, adding that false hope wouldn’t do them any good. Oz then explained that the Angler Company was trying to open the door to the laboratory by interrogating the Constables in the residential district.

Brighton added that since their interrogation had failed, the Company had brought in someone from outside. Oz and the Adversary then concluded that Kaling was the one whom the Company had called in. Na-Sol was surprised, adding that he had never thought that he would hear that name again. Haram was equally shocked and noted that it couldn’t be her, as the elders had sealed her before they had left. Aro then realized that her seal must have degraded over time.

When the Adversary asked if they knew Kaling, Aro explained that Kaling was one of their creators, and that she had been the sweetest person in the laboratory when they had known her.

(A/N: Hoyoung gets some exclusive dialogue here, in which Taotie emerges and notes that he was right earlier about Kaling’s goals. Hoyoung is surprised that Taotie, of all people, knows something that he doesn’t before asking how it is that he’s the only one out of the loop. Taotie replies that his own memory is still a bit fuzzy about the whole thing, and that there’s nothing helpful that he could share anyways. He then adds that if he’s right, then Hoyoung will see it all himself soon enough. After Taotie disappears, Hoyoung wonders what’s gotten into Taotie today before concluding that he’s still mad about Tai Yu sealing him away.)

Realizing that the Adversary didn’t know about Kaling’s history in Odium, Aro explained that the other researchers had left journal entries about her, and that they might find something useful if they could wade through the mess in the laboratory. She clarified that by ‘mess’, she was referring to the guards that the researchers had left behind. Brighton noted that it was obvious, as the researchers wouldn’t have left guards if there wasn’t anything to protect.

Aro explained that the guards also functioned as cleaners, which meant that they might have paper records mixed between them. She then gave the Adversary an intercom to stay in touch before they headed inside. Before the Adversary left, Aro told them that the records from April, June, and November were the most pertinent ones.

The Adversary first obtained the record from April, which described how the researchers had been created by the will of the world in order to put an end to the rampages of wild, unaccountable gods. The researcher explained that in order to confront the last god standing, they would unite the Godsphere with their Adversary of the Gods, whom they would awaken in Odium.

The researcher then wrote that though most of their Vessels came from outside Odium, some Vessels had been found amongst the researchers, such as Kaling. The researcher noted that despite Kaling’s scientific achievements, they had doubts about whether Kaling would be compatible with the Godsphere, and whether her body could withstand all the trials.

(A/N: The Shangri-La storyline reveals that this researcher was named Aroa, who was a close friend of Kaling and also the person upon whom Aro, the Constable that told us to find the research notes, was based on.)

The researcher described how they had once asked Kaling whether she was sure that she wanted to undergo the experiments. They had explained that the experiments would be extremely dangerous, and that she might live in pain for the rest of her life, if she lived at all. They had also told her that she would almost entirely lose her sense of self, such as her experiences and her memories of the people whom she loved, until there would be nothing left.

In the research notes, the Adversary read that there was a critical flaw in their methods, which was that Vessels in Odium lost their egos and, over the course of the repeated experiments and harsh trials, everything that made them human would be stripped away from them, such as their individuality and their values, with the sole exception of their desire to become an Adversary and their tenacity to fulfill their assigned destiny.

(A/N: This likely explains why Alter is so obsessed with returning to Odium and becoming an Adversary, as the experiments have psychologically warped him into believing that it’s his sole purpose in life, to the point that he won’t even accept that he’s a defective Vessel who’s fundamentally incompatible with the Godspheres.)

Kaling had happily told the researcher that though she understood the risks, there was no one in Odium who wanted peace more than her, adding that if she could contribute to even one step towards attaining that peace, she was content with becoming a test subject. The researcher then described how they had found themselves believing Kaling when she had told them that she would be okay.

The Adversary then obtained the record from June, in which the researcher wrote about how they had discovered that Kaling had created four small robots, which she had excitedly explained would be sent to the world below and consume fiends. She admitted that though the robots were small, they would become bigger by consuming little fiends, such as magpies and rats, until they would have hundreds stored inside them.

(A/N: These four robots are the Four Perils. I don’t know how I feel about the Four Perils being machines instead of living things because the idea of them being mechanical feels so strange when they behave a lot more like spirits by phasing through and dwelling inside someone’s body. I feel like I might’ve liked it better if they were monsters that Kaling created from Erda, which would’ve tied into her Erda fusion experiments in Yum Yum Island, as well as what the Memory Keeper said about the Goddesses having once taught people how to manipulate Erda in the distant past.

The reference to magpies and rats alludes to several fiends that we encountered in Hoyoung’s storyline, such as the giant magpie and the Rat Monster. Incidentally, Taotie never actually ate the Rat Monster. He explained in the story that he considered rats to be “lowly cuisine”, and it was later revealed that he had actually eaten the Flea Monster that was possessing the rat.)

The researcher had then asked what she was planning to do by gathering so many fiends. Kaling had replied that she would perform a new kind of experiment. She had explained that they had both the Vessels and the Godspheres, meaning that all they needed was a power source to make the Vessels stronger, adding that they would be able to create an extremely powerful Adversary through the combined life force of all the fiends inside the Four Perils.

(A/N: Kaling’s plan to inflate the power of an Adversary with the combined life force of hundreds of monsters is extremely reminiscent of the experiments that resulted in the creation of special Specters like Gilmore, which involved stuffing the host body with countless Specter souls from the Abyss.

The main difference between these two experiments seems to be that whereas Kaling’s plan was meant to augment the power of a being who already had a holy relic (the Godsphere), the Specter experiments were performed with the intent of allowing a mortal who otherwise had no means of killing immortal beings to trick the holy relics of the gods into recognizing them as their wielders, which would then enable them to kill the Ancient Gods with their own relics.)

The researcher had written that they shouldn’t have been surprised, and that they should have known what would happen. However, they had also written that no one had wanted to believe that Kaling - the best of them - had already begun to change, despite it being clear through her talk about creating sentient machines with their own egos designed to consume in order to gain power.

(A/N: Hoyoung gets some exclusive dialogue here, in which he recognizes the photo of the plushie-looking Taotie robot on Kaling’s desk. Taotie clarifies that he and the plush robot are technically different, as the plush was him from before he gained consciousness. A surprised Hoyoung asks him whether he’s going to turn back into a plush if he loses all his power, noting that Taotie had still been able to move when he had become small after losing all the fiends that he had consumed. Taotie explains that he can’t return back to being inert now that he’s gained sentience, adding that he wouldn’t want to either.)

The Adversary then read the final entry from November, in which the researcher had confronted Kaling, who had completely lost her sense of self because of the experiments. The researcher had told Kaling that people had started calling her four robots – Hundun, Qiongqi, Taowu, and Taotie – the Four Perils, which had become monsters that were hurting people all across Grandis.

(A/N: In the KMS test server, the artwork of Kaling shown in this scene depicted her right eye as orange, with the sclera colored black, just like how she appears in the present day. This image was changed when it was released in the official servers and showed both of her eyes to be blue. In the Shangri-La storyline, Kaling was shown to have her orange and black eyes when she was freed from her seal, and so I’d assume that the change in her eye color was because of the contamination - the phenomenon that eroded her humanity and ego.)

The researcher had told Kaling that her experiment was a failure and had ordered her to stop immediately. However, Kaling had told them to be silent, claiming that they had no right to decide whether her experiment had been a failure. She had mocked their belief that the Four Perils were hurting people all over Grandis, claiming that it hardly mattered when Grandis had a new war every other day. She had explained that Grandis was a deathtrap, and that it would have been the same, even without her robots.

Kaling had then told them to stand down and wait for a bit longer, claiming that her research would pay off once she combined the power of all the fiends, challenging them to call her experiment a failure then. In the notes, the researcher had written that Kaling’s experiment had been left unfinished, as before the Four Perils could gather enough power for her, the last remaining Ancient God had been forced into slumber at the end of the world.

(A/N: The Cernium storyline revealed that the final battle of the Ancient War took place on the land that Cernium was later built on, which literally exists at the end of the world, as it’s on the edge of the forgotten sea that bridges Maple World and Grandis.)

With the era of the Ancient Gods coming to an end, all the researchers - even the ones who had turned a blind eye to Kaling’s experiments - had agreed that the Four Perils needed to be stopped. The researcher wrote that Kaling had been sealed away in a place that the researchers could not reach, and in a way that left no trace. (A/N: It’s shown in the Shangri-La storyline that Kaling was sealed away within Odium itself.)

The researcher had then written that the Four Perils had been cleaned up by one of the last Vessels of Odium, with their research ending with yet another sin. Having finished reading all the records, the Adversary returned back to Tai Yu, who noted that judging by the look on their face, they had finished reading about Kaling. The Adversary asked him whether he already know what had happened in Odium, which Tai Yu confirmed, adding that he had been there before.

Upon recalling that he had arrived in Odium before they had, the Adversary realized that Tai Yu was a Vessel. Tai Yu confirmed their suspicions, though he added that he was a defective Vessel.

(A/N: Instead of having Tai Yu reveal that he’s a defective Vessel, the GMS localization decided to have him instead joke, “I’m not a ship, if that’s what you’re asking,” when we ask him if he’s a Vessel. Although Alter was thrown off the edge of Odium, neither Kaling nor Tai Yu were. Kaling was kept because she was a researcher, and while Tai Yu’s backstory is unknown, he was likely kept because he was useful to the elders.)

The Adversary noted that the research journal had mentioned that a Vessel had stopped the Four Perils and asked if he was the one who had done it. Tai Yu was amused that the records had noted all that down, though he claimed that it was ancient history now that Kaling and the Four Perils had awakened once again.

He revealed that Kaling had already acquired two of the Four Perils, though he added that the good news was that she would never have all four of them at once, as the elders had taken care of one, while the other had been sealed inside his apprentice, joking that his pupil was friendly enough to have won him over.

(A/N: Hoyoung actually has a completely different script after he returns back from the laboratory. Tai Yu asks him where he had run off to and jokingly asks if he’s incapable of staying in one spot. Hoyoung defensively retorts that he had only been off reading the research journals, to which Tai Yu notes that judging by the look on Hoyoung’s face, he hadn’t liked what he had read.

Hoyoung then notes that the records had mentioned that a Vessel had sealed the Four Perils away before explaining that he had been wondering how Tai Yu had gotten to Odium in the first place. He then asks Tai Yu whether he’s really a Vessel, to which Tai Yu replies that he is, though unlike Hoyoung, he’s only a defective Vessel. He then tells Hoyoung that no matter how hard Kaling tries, she’ll never be able to gather the Four Perils because one of them had been taken care of by the elders, while the other was clinging onto Hoyoung.

Taotie then emerges and angrily retorts that he’s not clinging and threateningly asks Tai Yu whether he’s asking to see the full power of the great Taotie that badly. Hoyoung then amusedly notes that Taotie is starting to sound like himself again, adding that he had been worried about Taotie for a while there.

Lara gets some exclusive dialogue after the generic dialogue between the Adversary and Tai Yu. After he explains how Kaling will never be able to assemble the Four Perils, Tai Yu points out the bell mysticant and tells her that if she hasn’t realized it yet, the bell had been created in Odium by the researchers, who had poured their efforts into it in an attempt to keep the contamination away. He adds that he doesn’t think that the researchers had ever believed that the bell would ring when they had made it.

The GMS localization was once again needlessly vague for this part and only said that the research team had built it as a “failsafe”. A failsafe for what? Who knows? Clearly not the GMS playerbase if this is all that we have to go on. I’ve seen people mistakenly believe that by “failsafe”, the writers had meant for the bell to act as a backup power source for Odium, which makes me seriously wonder how GMS Nexon could be this bad at its job.

That aside, there’s also a cool Easter egg hidden inside the laboratory for Lara to find. After this conversation, if you’re playing as Lara and you go to the map “Sunny Laboratory 3”, you’ll find something that looks like a tank filled with pieces of metal floating in liquid. After you click on the tank, Lara will remember what Tai Yu had told her about the bell being created in Odium. She realizes that the tank is where it had been made, with the pieces of metal being leftover pieces from its creation.

Lara notes that someone’s heart must have desperately hoped for the bell to successfully ring, even after countless failures. She then tells herself that though she doesn’t fully understand everything that’s happened, she vows that she’ll never give up, and that she’ll make sure that the sound of the bell ringing will resonate far and wide.)

Aro then interrupted and asked the Adversary about what had happened in the residential district, explaining that the last Constable who had escaped wanted to speak with them. Aro introduced them to Winnie, a Constable who looked like a little boy. Na-Sol explained that Winnie was the one who had deactivated the stairs between the town and the laboratory, and that he had been by himself until the Adversary had come along. Na-Sol began telling the Adversary that Winnie still hadn’t told them what he had seen in the residential district when Haram interrupted.

Haram told them that before they continued, he wanted to tell them that the Constables were ready to help, and that they were even planning to power the stairs back up fairly soon. Na-Sol added that though they were merely dolls built to serve a purpose, they had all been together for a long time, and so they needed to look out for each other. Winnie then spoke up and asked the Adversary if they were the one who had mentioned that there were still Constables in the residential district.

When the Adversary confirmed that there were, Winnie accused them of lying, claiming that it was impossible. He explained that when he had shut down the stairs, he had seen all power to the residential district being cut, resulting in not just the lights shutting down, but the Constables themselves. He then noted that despite having been in Odium for so many years, none of them had any idea that the entire residential district’s power switched off if it wasn’t connected to the laboratory.

(A/N: Right after Winnie says this, the scene cuts over to a shot of the residential district, in which all the Constables are powered off and lying dormant on the ground. Amidst them all, a powered-off Alter suddenly awakens and his blue eyes start glowing pink.)

Winnie explained that because of the power being cut, it wasn’t possible that the Adversary could have met any Constables there, adding that any Constables that were still intact would have been in sleep mode. Oz insisted that they had, in fact, met several Constables, including one named Alter, whom she explained had helped them reach the laboratory.

A surprised Aro replied that all the Constables knew each other, and that there was no one named Alter in Odium. Confused, Brighton wondered how that fit with all that they had seen in the residential district. Oz pointed out that the Angler Company had tried hacking Kalos, and that though the Company hadn’t been successful, they had managed to take him over for a short time. She noted that the Constables were physically weaker than Kalos, meaning that their cybersecurity might be weaker too, such that the Company could have taken them over completely.

At her words, Brighton realized that everything and everyone whom they had seen in the residential district had been controlled by the Angler Company. The Adversary immediately realized that they had been tricked, but just as they began warning the Constables not to power the stairs, the stairs were suddenly powered on as Kaling appeared, floating down from the sky on her umbrella onto one of the roofs.

(A/N: For all classes who aren’t Hoyoung and Lara, if the player hasn’t completed Yum Yum Island, Kaling will note that they haven’t met and introduces herself as Kaling.

If the player has completed Yum Yum Island, Kaling will note that it’s their first time meeting in person and recalls that they were the one who had broken into her laboratory. She then calls them rude for wrecking her test subjects while she had been away, though she quickly laughs and says that it doesn’t matter because they were all failures anyways.

Hoyoung gets a different script, in which Kaling recognizes him as the mannerless investigator from Cheong-woon and laughs that she hadn’t expected them to meet in such a place. She asks him whether he still has Taotie, though she adds that it doesn’t matter because she doesn’t even need him anymore.

Lara also gets a different script, in which Kaling recognizes her as the owner of the bell and calls her the Hero of Narin, though she corrects herself and says that she should instead refer to Lara as the Adversary. She notes that Lara hasn’t brought Gri, whom she calls a “mangy little street wolf’”, to which Lara gets upset and tells her not to talk about Gri like that.)

Kaling thanked the Adversary for helping her return to Odium, and to express her gratitude, she offered to show them around, noting that the elders had left some rejects in the laboratory. She then summoned a horde of failed test subjects from inside the laboratory and told the Adversary that they could play with the monsters instead. As she turned to leave, she laughed that she was off to reclaim the power that had been stolen from her.

(A/N: In one of the optional side quests at the end of this storyline, it’s explained that these test subjects were the ones that the elders hadn’t been able to dispose of. Both the Disintegrating Test Subject and Failed Subject monsters don’t look remotely human, despite having likely been Vessels. They appear to be formless blobs of darkness with some plated armor, with the Disintegrating Test Subjects having bull armor and the Failed Subjects almost looking like Specters, with green moss covering their armor plates. Unfortunately, Shangri-La doesn’t elaborate on these creatures that much, and so we don’t know whether they became like this from the contamination or something else.)

After the Adversary defeated the monsters, Na-Sol asked if they were alright before explaining that someone had activated the stairs from the residential district as soon as the Constables had finished restoring power to them. He added that he had no idea how Kaling had done it, as the only stair controls were up where they were currently at. He noted that the stairs had been made to protect the laboratory, and that putting controls down below wouldn’t make any sense.

Tai Yu explained that though Kaling was a Vessel, she was also contaminated, meaning that the elders’ security systems would have picked that up immediately. However, he realized that the elders’ security measures only applied to doors, which would remain closed to her, but as stairs couldn’t be closed, they would have connected for her after recognizing her as a Vessel.

Oz wondered why Kaling had waited for so long to connect the stairs, to which Brighton pointed out that it took an immense amount of energy to make anything move at such a scale. He noted that when the stairs had been down, the lights had gone out and the Constables had stopped moving, causing him to realize that the stairs were also a power conduit.

The Adversary pointed out that the Angler Company was likely looking for the source of that power, though they wondered what it was that Kaling wanted. Oz recalled how Kaling had mentioned that she wanted to get back the power that had been stolen from her. The Adversary, realizing that they had been used, apologized to the Constables for opening the door to the intruders and putting them all in danger.

However, Na-Sol told the Adversary not to blame themselves, as he and the others had also been responsible by mistakenly hoping that the other Constables might be down below. He explained that they had abandoned all the Constables below after sealing the laboratory, and that none of them except Winnie had been ready to admit it. Tai Yu then asked what their next move was, to which the Adversary decided that they would go after Kaling. Tai Yu agreed to come with the Glory Guard, adding that he might be able to lend a hand.

Inside the laboratory, Kaling continued searching for her target. She noted to herself that it now made sense why there wasn’t a trace of him anywhere, even in places that no one was ever meant to find, and even down in the darkest little secrets. She added that even the most knowledgeable information networks had been unable to track down Hundun, the last of the Four Perils.

(A/N: GMS localized that last sentence as “You’re the one no one could ever track down… Hundun, the Fourth Peril,” which omits the part about no information network knowing where Hundun is. That detail was supposed to explain why Kaling was running the Information Broker Bureau when Hoyoung meets her in Cheong-woon, as she was using the bureau in order to find Hundun’s location.)

Kaling told herself that she had thought that the elders might have had a hand in his disappearance, but she was furious to find that they had used her monster as a battery. She then approached Hundun, who was sealed inside an enormous container that drained his energy and funneled it through a power network to sustain Odium’s operations. Kaling noted that Taotie, who had latched onto Hoyoung, was now just dead weight, but she believed that Darmoor would be able to help her make up for the gap that Taotie left.

She then addressed Hundun and claimed that he was different, as he was the strongest of the Four Perils, adding that she was glad that she had never given up on him. Suddenly, she inspected him closer and was furious to find that the elders had fused him with the Godsphere. She angrily asked out loud whether the elders had forgotten what happened if the Godsphere was placed inside a being that was unprepared to accept it.

(A/N: I honestly feel so bad for Kaling after seeing what had happened to her in her past. Seeing Hundun forcibly fused with the Godsphere by the elders, despite being unprepared for it, likely reminds her about how the elders had done the exact same thing to her. Hoyoung and Lara’s storylines had Kaling make some offhand mentions about how much she hates the sages of Grandis, and at the time, it seemed that Kaling was a generic evil villain who hated the elders for stopping her plans to destroy Grandis.

In retrospect, those offhand lines get a lot more impact when we realize that the elders were a lot less morally upstanding than we would’ve assumed after seeing Tai Yu. After learning the truth about the Adversary experiments, we realize that Kaling and Alter are victims who had their humanity and sense of self stripped away from them, leaving them without any free will or agency of their own.

Thinking about this whole storyline, I feel like these experiments might actually be one of the most abhorrent things that I’ve ever seen done to someone before. Adversaries are meant to be pure embodiments of the will of the people - they’re the most brave and selfless people in the entire world, and the kind of integrity and honor that they have is exceedingly rare. There’s just something so appalling about the idea of taking these good people, torturing them with drugs and tearing apart their flesh with machinery, and then literally just throwing them away if they’re not “good enough”.

It’s not even the fact that they were tossed aside like garbage that’s the worst part - it’s the fact that the elders have thrown them away only after they’ve been thoroughly defiled. These people were once the greatest champions of humanity and the elders made it so that they can never get back the parts that they used to love about themselves - their decency, their selflessness, their love for the people whom they once had a strong desire to protect, and most importantly, their ability to choose and change their own destiny for themselves.

The game has done a lot to demonstrate that free will is a fundamental right that every single person has, and that humanity’s ability to govern themselves is a force powerful enough to overcome even a god. Here, the Vessels that the elders experimented upon have that crucial power stripped away from them, leaving them with nothing except a compulsion to fulfill a destiny that someone else forced onto them.

Being an Adversary is more than just having the determination to save the world - we’ve seen clearly that we, the player, were able to defeat the Black Mage because we had not just determination, but our own free will and our love for others that carried us to the end. In contrast, the Vessels of Odium had their emotions taken away from them, and most can’t even love anymore because the only emotions that they’ve retained are those that allow them to fulfill their mission as Adversaries.

The worst part is that people like Kaling and Alter, who were considered defective Vessels, are still cursed with that same intrinsic desire to fulfill their purpose as an Adversary, despite the fact that they’re not capable of fusing with the Godspheres. Nevertheless, they have no choice but to desperately try to prove that they’re good enough to accomplish this goal that was forced onto them because they fundamentally can’t accept that they were deemed useless after all the suffering and torture that they’ve been through.

Both Kaling and Alter are stuck fighting a war that’s been over for millennia, and they’ve been hardwired such that they can never move on, even while the whole world moves on without them. One of the biggest themes in this game is generational trauma - that the sins of the past keep echoing and bleeding into the present.

We’ve seen it in Maple World with how humans drove the half-blood demons back to slavery in Tynerum, and how their descendants - such as Damien and his demon army - inherited that trauma and inflicted it back onto the descendants of humans in the present day. We also see it in how the White Mage - in trying to defeat the Overseers - became the very thing that he sought to destroy by manipulating other people’s destinies, just as the Overseers do.

Here, we see the same thing on Grandis, with how the Overseers traumatized the elders by forcing them to compromise their core values, how the elders traumatized their Vessels through experimentation, and how their Vessels - like Kaling and Alter - joined Darmoor and inflicted more pain and trauma on the people of Grandis.

It reminds me of something that Detective Rave had mentioned to Corbo about what the person who had saved them from slavery had said: “No one is born evil. An evil world makes evil people, and evil people make an evil world. Only those who rise above it can break the cycle.” In contrast to this idea of generational trauma, we’ve seen a contrasting line of people choosing to break the cycle and rise above their pain.

In Limina, Tana - who had suffered to the point of wanting to die - helped the Adversary overcome their own mentality of being ready to die for the world and instead showed them that they needed to have the desire to survive. In Cernium, when Seren is consumed by her own trauma of feeling like she’s trapped with no hope of salvation, the Adversary helps her realize that her salvation is in her own hands. During that conversation, they cite how, during their own darkest time, Tana had been the light who had helped them, with them, in turn, now passing down that light of hope and breaking the cycle of suffering.)

Just then, Laha arrived and noted that she had wondered where Kaling had wandered off to. Kaling turned to find Laha arriving with several Angler Company robots. Laha explained that she hadn’t known about the part of the laboratory that they were in. She thanked Kaling for opening the door to the laboratory, after which she pointed out that Kaling had promised the Company anything relevant to the power of the Adversary, and that Kaling was trying to take it for herself.

However, Kaling retorted that the Company had promised her anything to do with the Four Perils. Laha then attacked Kaling and pointed out that Kaling herself had mentioned that Hundun was fused with the Godsphere, which had transformed him into a power source large enough to sustain Odium. She then added that her father would have made taking Hundun their first priority if he had known about it. An angry Kaling asked Laha if she thought that she could cross an Apostle of Darmoor and get away with it before asking where the Angler family’s loyalty and business sense had gone.

Laha retorted by asking Kaling when she had been planning to reveal that the Four Perils were part of the Adversary experiments, adding that in regard to her family, Senya would probably try to stop her, and so she told Kaling that they ought to wrap up before her sister arrived. As Laha and Kaling began to fight, the Glory Guard and Tai Yu fought through the Company robots and test subject rejects before arriving at the heart of Odium, where they were surprised to find Kaling and Laha fighting.

The Adversary realized that the laboratory would collapse from the damage if Kaling and Laha weren’t stopped. Just then, Oz noticed Hundun inside the large container, causing them all to realize that he was Odium’s power source. A surprised Tai Yu explained that the monster was Hundun, the last of the Four Perils, to which Oz noted that he had mentioned that the researchers had taken care of him. Brighton also noted that Tai Yu had been surprised to see Hundun, meaning that he hadn’t known about him.

Tai YU explained that though the elders had their weak points, they also had their own sense of duty and morality. As they had known that their experiments had done harm to people, they had wanted to make things right and atone for their sins after the Ancient Gods had fallen dormant. However, he noted that the elders had perhaps decided that they hadn’t been at fault for the Four Perils. However, the aghast Adversary pointed out that even if the elders hadn’t been responsible for Hundun, they had still used a sentient being to power their laboratory.

Just then, Hundun spoke from his prison and echoed the Adversary calling him sentient, asking if that was really the first descriptor that came to mind. As Laha and Kaling continued battling, Hundun projected a hologram of himself and created a bubble around the Glory Guard so that they could speak privately. He laughed and told the Adversary not to mind Kaling and Laha, whom he called fools, explaining that it was them whom he wanted to speak with, as he had been waiting quite some time for them to arrive.

Hundun explained that with the stairs down, his power hadn’t been able to reach the residential district, but once they had set foot inside the laboratory, they had been in his domain. He recognized the Adversary as not only a Vessel, but one that had been completed once before. He explained that even in his current state, he had been able to see many of the things that had been happening in the world below.

(A/N: Hoyoung get some exclusive dialogue here, in which Hundun suddenly senses Taotie inside Hoyoung. He tells Taotie that though he doesn’t know which hole he’s crawled out of, Taotie is quite strange for clinging to a Vessel of all things. Hoyoung laughs and tells Taotie that Hundun sounds just like him. He then jokingly adds that Taotie should get to know Hundun in order to see what he can find out. Taotie angrily asks Hoyoung whether what he said even makes sense in his head.)

Hundun then asked the Adversary how they were still intact, pointing out that completed Vessels traditionally had a much different destiny. The surprised Adversary asked what destiny he was referring to, to which Hundun began scanning them in order to find the answer himself. Upon finishing, Hundun was shocked to find that they were an Adversary who had gotten off the path while maintaining their ego, causing him to wonder whether that was even possible.

Oz noted that Hundun seemed to know quite a lot, to which Brighton asked Tai Yu whether he had anything to say about it. Tai Yu explained that as Hundun had been conscious and powering Odium since the end of the Ancient Gods’ time, he had likely assimilated all the knowledge left in Odium, adding that he might even know secrets that only the elders knew.

Hundun noted that such knowledge was poor compensation for his lifetime of so-called service to them, adding that though he had cursed his lot for many years, if meeting the Adversary had been part of that lot, then it might have been worth it. He then told the Adversary to come closer before telling them that he would give them what Kaling and Laha had come for. He then presented a circular blue gem, which he explained was the last Godsphere of Odium.

He noted that it was also what the Adversary had been after - the power to go against the gods - adding that there was no other reason for a Vessel to come to the laboratory. He explained that though its power had degraded over time, it still had the same spark, and that the elders had treasured it greatly. He then revealed that the Godsphere was what had kept his power cycling through Odium, and that it was what was keeping him alive, which meant that he would die after the Adversary accepted it.

The Adversary asked him why he would willingly give it away, to which Hundun explained that he had been imprisoned for eons, and that retaining his sentience had caused him to suffer even more. He added that Kaling’s return posed a threat to the world and to himself, and so his sentience had given him a choice to decide what purpose he would give his life to, which he had decided would be to make trouble for Kaling.

Upon seeing the Adversary’s hesitation, Hundun reminded them that they needed the power of the Godsphere to save the world. The Adversary realized that he was right, and so they accepted the Godsphere from Hundun, who laughed that they had made a wise decision, adding it was just like a Vessel who had strayed from the Path to make that choice. He then reminded them that the Godsphere was well-worn, and that it would take a highly specialized expert to restore it.

(A/N: You would think that the Heroes would get some exclusive dialogue about Freud at this part. This storyline was also the perfect place for Xenon to recognize that he has a lot in common with the Adversaries of Odium, since both of them are cyborgs fused with a Seal Stone. Unfortunately, the writing team has been ignoring pretty much everyone except Hoyoung and Lara lately.)

Hundun’s barrier then shattered as he noted to himself that he had done all that he could. He then thought to himself that even if his body fell into Kaling’s hands, he would do no more harm, as his body was merely ordinary matter without the Godsphere. He then wondered what the elders would think of the Adversary, adding that his only regret was that he wouldn’t be able to see their faces, as he believed that the Adversary would be able to upend the old order in a way that he never could, which he considered to be a pleasant thought for the end of his long life.

As Hundun passed away, the power being supplied to Odium was cut off, causing Kaling to stop her fight with Laha, who angrily asked when the Glory Guard had arrived. Upon noticing the Adversary, she was even more furious to find that they were in possession of the Godsphere. Meanwhile, Tai Yu told the Adversary that there were people who could help restore the Godsphere in the realm of the sages.

He then opened up a scroll, which created a large golden hanging scroll of a mountainside before them. Upon seeing the Adversary’s amazement, Tai Yu explained that the realm of the sages, Shangri-La, wasn’t normally accessible to most, as there was a spell in place that kept it from outsiders.

(A/N: Hoyoung gets an alternate script here. When Tai Yu opens the scroll, Hoyoung asks why he had suddenly created the hanging scroll. Tai Yu asks Hoyoung if he’s forgotten already, reminding him that that the realm of the sages was a land that few could enter. He explains that in the past, Hoyoung had entered Shangri-La through his dreams, and that this time, they would enter with the hanging scroll.)

A furious Kaling ordered them to stop and unleashed dark magic upon them, but the Glory Guard successfully managed to enter the picture and disappeared before her attack reached them. Just then, Senya arrived with several Angler Company robots and asked Laha if she was happy now, adding that her actions were the very reason why she had been meant to stay put until their father arrived. Senya then pointed out that the Adversary was gone with the Godsphere, and on top of that, Laha had angered their client, adding that she was disappointed in her.

A terrified Laha then noticed her father, Alter, approach from the shadows. Kaling was surprised to find that Alter was the Company founder, noting that he looked different from what she remembered. She then realized that his body had been destroyed in the explosion, and that he had created his new body in the form of Odium’s Constables.

Alter greeted Kaling as an Apostle of Darmoor and apologized on Laha’s behalf for her ungracious actions. He noted that children could be quite unruly when they weren’t being supervised, to which Kaling told him that Laha had claimed to have acted on his orders. She then asked whether he intended to become enemies with Darmoor, to which Alter explained that there had been a misunderstanding, as he had never authorized Laha to attack her. He then conceded that Darmoor deserved more than a simply apology before approaching Laha.

(A/N: It’s been speculated before that Alter is an Apostle, although this interaction between Alter and Kaling can confirm that he isn’t, as Alter definitely wouldn’t be this obsequious if he and Kaling had equal rank. Alter frequently refers to Kaling as a client and calls her an Apostle in order to distinguish her as someone esteemed, which suggests that he’s just a business partner with Darmoor, with his Apostles being extensions of that relationship.

Although it was speculated for a time that Alter is the Angler Company founder’s true name, the Angler Company epic dungeon, which is set right after the events of this storyline, has a heavy implication that ‘Alter’ is just a pseudonym that he uses while inhabiting his Constable body, leaving his true name unrevealed to us as of now.)

Laha pleaded with her father, claiming that she had only done it for his sake, to which Alter reassured her that he knew that, as he had designed her to bring him exactly what he had wanted, adding that she didn’t need to make excuses for that. He noted that it was commendable of her that she had wanted to bring him the Godsphere and all the power of Odium, adding that he knew that she would never let him down like her brother.

Upon hearing his words, a terrified Laha promised him that she wouldn’t, adding that she only did what he had made her to do. Alter then thanked her before ripping out her mechanical heart and destroying it. He then asked Kaling whether she was satisfied, adding that Hundun was hers to take, and that he believed that even without the Godsphere, she would find some use for it. Kaling warned Alter that his next mistake would be his last, adding that he ought to consider himself lucky.

(A/N: Much like with Kaling, the way that Alter treats his children reflects his own unresolved trauma about how the elders had treated him. Alter stole technology from Odium and used it to create his own cyborgs that he uses and disposes of whenever he feels like it, which seems to be him unconsciously acting out what the elders had done to him.

Although the experiments are said to erase the Vessels’ sense of self, it seems like defective Vessels still retain a portion of their ego, like how Kaling’s anger at how the elders had treated Hundun was reflective of her anger at how the elders had treated her. Similarly, Alter taking on the role of the elders as he creates his own cyborgs with no free will of their own feels like it’s his way of taking back his agency.

From how he was traumatized by the elders, it feels like he’s associated their behavior with having power, such as how they asserted their power over him through using and discarding him as they saw fit, and now he’s mirroring that behavior with his children in order to feel like he has some sense of control over himself after his agency was taken away.

Despite this, however, he can’t disentangle himself from the constant reminder that he’s a failure in his creators’ eyes each time that Kalos knocks down Karote, an enormous, self-building tower that he put everything into constructing just to prove that he’s capable of being what the elders wanted, and then still getting called “defective” and “unworthy” no matter what he does.

On top of that, him taking out all his trauma of not being good enough on his children reinforces that same behavior into them with how all of them treat people and machines as tools for them to get what they want, which also adds to the narrative of generational trauma. Despite this, it seems like Senya and Cosim are attempting to rise above that cycle of abuse through rejecting their father’s conditioning and making an effort to care about something beyond what they were instructed to do.)

As Kaling turned to leave, she noted to herself that she had finally gathered all the monsters that she needed, and that all she needed now was the Godsphere. Alter then ordered Senya to have the androids haul out all the technology left in the laboratory, as he believed that they would be able to get something out of what the elders had left behind.

After Alter left, Senya approached Laha's broken body and noted to herself that her father had killed Laha in front of her in order to demonstrate that he could kill her too. Though she knew that he was more than capable of it for now, she also noted that things changed. She then decided that she needed to see Cosim.

Meanwhile, the Adversary awoke to the sight of Oz, Brighton, and a smiling Tai Yu. The Adversary asked if they were really inside a painting, which Tai Yu confirmed before welcoming them to Shangri-La, where the elders had imprisoned themselves.

(A/N: Both Shangri-La and the scroll that Tai Yu used to transport us was first alluded to years ago in one of Hoyoung’s Hyper Skills called “Dream of Shangri-La”, which temporarily allows him to enter the scroll in order to become invincible. It seems like Hoyoung is actually entering the realm of the sages when he uses that skill.

Aside from the main storyline for Odium, the writers also included three small side quests set after the Odium storyline. Since we ended up in Shangri-La at the end of the storyline, it seems weird to me that we go back to Odium for some reason, and so I’d assume that these quests happen after the Shangri-La storyline, probably sometime after the Carcion storyline.)

Kaya and Seri:
In the residential district, the Adversary encountered Kaya, who explained that the Constables were still suffering from side effects of the Angler Company’s hacking, which occasionally caused them to forget how to move. He told the Adversary that he needed to go see his sister, Seri, who had lost her memories in the aftermath of the hacking.

The Adversary noted to themselves that Kari and Seri, despite being dolls, were just like a human family. They then offered to see Seri in his stead, and so Kaya gave them a power cell and asked them to bring it to Seri. He also asked them not to mention that he couldn’t move, nor to draw attention to Seri’s memory loss.

The Adversary then went to see Seri, who thanked them and asked whether anything had happened to Kaya. As Kaya had asked them not to tell Seri about his inability to move, they made up an excuse that he was on urgent business. Seri told them that she was grateful to the entire residential district for taking care of her with her memories gone, adding that Kaya was a good friend to be taking care of her. The Adversary replied that it made sense, given that Kaya was her brother, to which Seri replied that Kaya wasn’t actually her brother.

Suddenly, Seri began malfunctioning and began repeating over and over again that it was all her fault, noting that her head felt like it was about to split open with all her memories. Just then, Kaya rushed over and told her that it wasn’t her fault, and that nobody blamed her. Seri then collapsed as Kaya asked the Adversary where the power cell was. The Adversary gave the power cell to Kaya, who plugged it into his sister. Kaya then blamed himself, claiming that he would have come himself if he had known that his body would soon be able to move.

Kaya explained that when the intruders had invaded, the Constables had cowered in fear of the darkness cast by the large airships. After the Constables had lost power, he had been laying inert when he had overheard a conversation between Senya and Laha about hacking into a Constable who was said to be particularly kind, as Laha was having trouble hacking into the others. After the intruders had been repelled, Kaya had discovered that Laha had hacked into Seri, causing her to spread the virus into the other Constables.

Kaya explained that Seri’s memories of helping the Angler Company had been buried from the back, and that when she was forced to remember them, she would collapse, as she had now, which was why the residential district had decided to keep her happy and safe, since her breakdowns drained her power reserves and would effectively kill her if she were to run down completely. He explained that soon, Seri would awaken with no memories again, and though it pained him that she wouldn’t remember him as her little brother, it would be good enough for him if she could live.

He then left to inform the Constables and asked the Adversary to take care of Seri if she awoke while he was gone. After Seri woke up and explained that she had no idea who Kaya was, the Adversary sadly noted that while the Angler Company had been unable to take the Godsphere, they had left scars on the village that would never heal.

Dad’s Too Busy:
The Adversary encountered two Constables named Miya and Hanho. Hanho greeted the Adversary and explained that they were analyzing the intruders’ hacking, as some of the Constables were still under the Company’s influence. However, as they were running out of power, some of the Constables were considering scrapping and recycling the others. Just as Miya began to say something, Kaya arrived and told the Adversary that Sya-sya had been looking for them. Miya then interrupted, but Miya’s grandmother, Bonnie, scolded Miya and told him not to bother the Adversary.

The Adversary noted that Miya had been created in the form of a small boy and gave him the holographic ball that he had dropped. Miya thanked them and explained that the ball was special to her because his father had made it for him. He then explained that though the intruders had left, his father had still not returned, and so she was living with his grandmother, Bonnie. He told the Adversary that after the power source of the laboratory had disappeared, her father and several other Constables had left to find a way to replace it.

The Adversary agreed to find his father, Haram, and to tell him that Miya missed him. The Adversary then went to the entrance of the laboratory and told Haram that Miya wanted him to come back. Haram explained that he also wanted to see Miya, and that his heart had been broken when Winnie had blocked the stairs, as he had felt that Miya might have been able to make it to the laboratory if they had allowed just one more person to follow.

However, he explained that he now understood that if they had left the stairs open for anyone else to follow, it would likely have been one of the intruders, and that Winnie had only made the choice that the researchers of Odium had hoped for. He added that when he had lost Miya, Winnie had been the nearest scapegoat for him, and so he had behaved in an unbecoming way, which had caused Winnie to hurry and reactivate the stairs. He explained that everything that had followed after that was more his fault than not.

He then wondered why the researchers had given them feelings, as mindless puppets without emotions would have been enough to perform their duties. He also wondered why the Constables had been created as a mix of children, adults, and the elderly, noting that some had even formed families. Just then, Na-Sol yelled for Haram to come and help, and so Haram asked the Adversary to help them collect energy sources from the leftover Angler Company robots.

After the Adversary collected enough power, Haram asked them to deliver a battery with power that he had saved up in order to recharge Miya’s holographic ball. The Adversary asked if it would be alright, as he needed that power to function. Haram replied that he was okay with it, as Miya was more precious to him than anything else. The Adversary then gave the power source to Miya for his ball and told him how much his father missed him.

System Repair:
At the entrance to the laboratory, Na-Sol greeted the Adversary and explained that everyone was hard at work to repair the village, though he added that it would take some time to replace the power source. He told the Adversary that their entire infrastructure was down, both physically and digitally, as the intruders’ viruses had been spread everywhere. However, he explained that they had fortunately been able to remove most of the viruses before they had reached the central system, though they would need to reboot the system first.

He told the Adversary that a system reboot wasn’t possible, as they would be vulnerable during the reboot and the system’s guards were currently unpredictable at best. He explained that the guards were in a similar state as the Guardians, though they would need more information before moving forward. He then asked the Adversary to check on the guards for him inside the laboratory.

The Adversary checked the guards in the laboratory, and upon finding nothing wrong with them, they reported back their findings to Na-Sol, who concluded that the guards must have been getting external interference before. He explained that while they had been checking the lab, he had spotted a record of an abnormal signal, which he believed to be the source of their problem.

He told the Adversary that the signal had come from inside the laboratory, specifically from the test subjects that the researchers hadn’t been able to dispose of. He explained that the intruders had tried stealing the dormant tech inside the laboratory while retreating, during which they had used several last-minute hacks, which had affected the test subjects. As the viruses would threaten the entire system if left unchecked, Na-Sol asked the Adversary to destroy the test subjects.

The Adversary then entered the laboratory and defeated the Disintegrating Test Subjects and Failed Subjects. After they returned, Na-Sol explained that he had been able to reboot the system, which had eliminated all traces of the virus. Just then, however, he discovered data inside the reboot program that didn’t seem to belong, which he discovered was a research diary written by an unnamed researcher. He realized that the fact that it had been hidden inside the reboot program meant that it had been intended to be discovered in such a situation.

The Adversary began to read the first record, which detailed that development of the Vessel was on-schedule and proceeding smoothly. It explained that the researchers were pioneering various methods to infuse human beings with pure energy. However, amongst the completed Vessels, there were some that had been exhibiting behavior outside the expected range, as the researchers providing the Vessels with as much power as their bodies could physically withstand was causing side effects. Nevertheless, the researchers believed that they couldn’t stop, as they needed more candidates.

The second record detailed how, based on the data obtained from the Godsphere experiments, they had successfully begun achieving mass production after several failures. With the exception of several defects, the researchers had successfully been able to fuse their Vessels with the Godspheres, allowing them to create the first line of Adversaries in Odium. However, the one flaw of the successful Adversaries was that Vessels who had successfully been fused with the Godspheres had lost their humanity, specifically their ego and their sense of self, which the researchers called ‘contamination’.

The third record explained how the Adversaries were fulfilling their roles as intended. Without their sense of self, they had stopped at nothing to single-mindedly accomplish the mission that they had been created for, with the Ancient Gods falling one by one at their hands.

The final record detailed how the researchers had successfully achieved their goal and ended the Ancient War. However, they knew that their research, which had crossed many unethical boundaries, could give birth to a new age of chaos. Additionally, the researchers were all aware that they, too, were slowly being contaminated alongside their test subjects. The record then ended with: “Thus, we have sealed ourselves away. Do not try to find us.”

(A/N: The way that the contamination works is pretty nebulous, but the way that I understand it is that the experiments to fuse Vessels with the Godspheres use cybernetics and drugs to erase the Vessel’s humanity and sense of self, such that the test subject becomes a literal empty Vessel that only exists to be filled with the Godsphere. Because of this, we can assume that defective Vessels are those whose egos couldn’t be completely removed, making them incompatible with the Godspheres. We can see this in how Kaling, Tai Yu, and Alter have all retained their own distinct personalities, even after the experiments.

While the nature of the contamination is unknown, it seems to be a magical force, rather than purely a psychological condition, since we’ve seen that it can be spread to others. It’s likely that Kaling, Alter, and Tai Yu all suffered from this contamination to a certain extent, although it remains unknown how much of that contamination, if any, was produced within them during the experiments, and how much of it was from them getting contaminated by the other Adversaries.

I’d assume that the reason why Tai Yu doesn’t appear to show any symptoms of contamination is because he was described as one of the last Vessels in the laboratory, meaning that there likely wasn’t enough time for him to be contaminated by it. In the Shangri-La storyline, it’s revealed that the elders created Shangri-La as a convergence of the four seasons in order to use the energies of its natural harmony to counteract the contamination and stop it from worsening. Since Tai Yu lives in Shangri-La, he’d have been able to stave off the trace amounts of contamination inside him, leaving him more or less the same as he’d always been.

The Adversary is said to be the only Vessel capable of retaining their humanity, which is highly likely to be because unlike the Adversaries of Odium, who were turned into empty shells for the Godsphere to inhabit, the Adversary was organically chosen by a Seal Stone. The way that we were created wasn’t through experimentation - it was because the Seal Stone had responded to the deep desire of the people of Maple World for us to live.

This symbiotic fusion came from the Seal Stone recognizing the Adversary as a living embodiment of the will of the people, and because of this, we didn’t need to be drained of our individuality and turned into an empty shell because ours is a completely unique existence of a person so brave and so selfless that the entire world cared about us deeply enough that each and every single one of them channeled an extremely powerful desire for our life to be saved through a divine miracle.

In contrast, the Adversaries of Odium were built in a laboratory way up in the sky, far removed from the world or its people. Unlike ourselves, those Adversaries never lived and fought together with others, and the chaos of the world during the time of the Ancient Gods likely made it so that people weren’t unified enough to have a collective will to work together.

For the elders, the idea that there could be a Vessel capable of fusing organically with a Godsphere was likely considered to be an impossibility, and for the longest time, the idea of humanity being united together - even in the present day - was just as impossible a feat because the balance of power naturally shifted towards those who used it to dominate and exploit others.

In part, that was why the Black Mage had to threaten to destroy the entire world, as he knew all too well that the people of his time were selfish and self-destructive. In order to change that, he became such a large enough threat that the people of Maple World would have no choice but to look past their own selfish interests and work together, in spite of their differences and their problems with each other.

That, more than anything else, is why the Alliance was able to form in the first place, as without the threat of the Black Mage, the Resistance and the Cygnus Knights would’ve continued ignoring each other, the Explorers would’ve remained their own individual faction, and the heroes of Grandis would never have been able to retake Heliseum with just the Cygnus Knights alone.

It was only through each and every single person choosing to rise above their selfishness that the Alliance could become a strong enough power to fill the Adversary with, turning them into a true Vessel of humanity, rather than that humanity having to be stripped away from them and leaving them an empty shell to be filled synthetically.

One question that this does bring up, however, is how the First Explorer fits into everything. In the Shangri-La storyline, we learn that the Godspheres were created by the elders using the original version that the Overseers had made as a template, and that Freud had created the Seal Stones using the energy of the original relic that had permeated into the continent.

The First Explorer was from Maple World, but as we already know, all the worlds used to be one mega-world during the era of the Ancient Gods, and so it’s possible that the First Explorer was an Adversary of Odium. The problem with this, however, is that it doesn’t explain how Sugar and the Goddess of Maple World fit into everything. Since the elders were the only people with access to the original relic, it makes you wonder how the First Explorer could’ve gotten his hands on a relic.

The other thing is that the First Explorer doesn’t seem to have lost his sense of self either. From our conversation with the First Explorer during the Explorer’s 5th job advancement, he sounds like he still has his own personality, memories, and emotions. That suggests that he might’ve been organically fused with the Godsphere, just like we have, although without more context, we’ll just have to wait and see how his story plays out.)