Gravity was affecting him still, it was still pulling him down, his sword was pulling on his belt where it had been put into it's scabbard, his clothes, baggy as they were, were also hanging down, his body was feeling stress, his hair flowed down, but not towards the railing, but towards the tower, at least for the last two.
It was as if his biological body was shifted in gravity, but everything else wasn't, as if he was about to climb because that was his turn, it was a weird and peculiar feeling, hard to describe and almost impossible to ignore, at least for now when it just started, be it that he was hopeful to be able to ignore it a bit later after he climbed and counted for quite some time.
This was his active, this was his power, this was his skill, this was something he could do, something that was his, perhaps one of the very few things that were both his and his other self's his, something he couldn't wrap his head around yet, something that was almost completely new to this version of Cades.
He had never owned something real, even his clothes and dagger were but mere illusions of this place from what he could tell, even his own body was not real, everything was false right now, the only real thing he might've actually owned was the battlefield, and that had been taken from him, but now, as he walked, he was happy, he was not sane, he was not calm, he was happy as he started counting anew, as he waited for the next big battle, but more so, because he realized he owned something, he owned many actives of course, but for some reason he just hadn't realized yet, perhaps because the other Cades had never used this active for it's intended purpose, perhaps because he was a bit more sane after the fight, well, either way, Cades started walking, and he started smiling as he did, praying that this endless tower would not be as long as it had seemed to be when he fell down along it's side.
This Cades, different from the other one that was still missing, somewhere different, perhaps even going through something similar, was not sane, he was not good, he was not evil, in a sense he was a newborn, a being born from emotions, a being born from loss and having nothing, a being that would best be compared with a bloody diamond, a diamond that wanted to be clean, a diamond people wanted but didn't want as soon as they knew it's origins.
He was obsessed with owning, he was obsessed with exploring, he was obsessed with fighting, he was, just as all are, obsessed with living his life, he was obsessed with being free of the trash, free of what might even be called his mother, he hated himself, he hated his other self, but he simply wanted to have something, anything, that he could touch, he wanted to be something, something with actual, physical mass, he yearned for his freedom from the other him's mind, the place that was more like a cage to him than anything else, the place he could call his birthplace and wished ot never have to call his graveyard, the place in which he would just be lost amongst all the trash he pushed down onto him, pressuring him like a diamond bathed in the blood, the blood he gained as he watched through the other's eyes, the blood he gained as he yearned to kill, as he yearned to hurt, as he yearned to live, the blood that Cades knew was now flowing through his body, the blood he knew to be a mere false thing, the body he knew to be irreal, the should he knew to be his, the should he knew to be but a copy.
Nevertheless, the current him was a him, the current Cades, this Cades, was a something, and he was climbing, and he owned an active, and he had a skill the other him didn't have, and he could do something his original self could never do, and he had talent his other self would never have, and he was a worker and eh was a guard, and he was someone, someone that had never met another living being, that might be, aside from his other self and illusions, but he was ready, and just as he was, he felt something, having climbed for merely a few minutes, until the count had reached two hundred and eighty, so, about four minutes and forty seconds if he was correct.
And yet, he was at the top of the tower.
This entire place was indeed filled with lies, illusions, half truths, inconsistencies, madness incarnate, and so, so much more, he didn't even really care anymore, he just stood up, still not seeing any real colours, the light still burning in his eyes, and yet, he was able to see, even through his closed eyes, the sheer brightness of hundreds of the colossal beings hovering all around him, all chained to something, something that he somehow knew, and as he knew, he knew something else.
He opened his eyes, and he saw, the light still burning, but he saw a hand, a gigantic hand far above him that held countless chains in a single hand, and each of those chains was connected to the beings he now, finally, got to really look at, the light that had pained his eyes suddenly stopping the paining and instead becoming soft and inviting.
The beings looked like flying, bright white, top hats, rimmed with golden ornaments that Cades couldn't even begin to understand, including the golden eye that was visible under the thin layer of ehetrian skin, countless eyes at that, most of which were looking at Cades, filled with something he could only describer as anger, or, perhaps envy, perhaps, also pity, but he wasn't certain.
Out of the bottom of the hats, anyway, there came out countless constructs made of hard light, each glowing brightly and even now still hurting his eyes as he looked at them, but he was certain that they were tentacles, be it that they just looked like moving snakes of light, all moving, just as they had done when he had just looked at this place using his mana sense.
Beneath it all there was endless darkness, just as always, but this time, it was filled with light from above, the exact opposite from the place where he'd been before, the realm filled with the endlessly flying islands, that place he had been so eager to leave if he ever got the chance.
Cades, however, ripped himself away from the view, and turned around, heeding the strange call he had felt all this time and finally seeing something, that something being, or rather, resembling, a door.