Gaius kept targeting the mountain of snowpyre bodies with the ignition sigil. It was a very simple sigil, and there was actually a cheap guide on sigils on the Exchange that catered to everyday use. Of course, he could have done it faster with a wildfire sigil, but he would find rather hard to explain why the entire hilltop was on fire.

Again, just like artefacts, Gaius had no idea why these sigils worked the way he did, but at this point of time Gaius wasn’t feeling up to analysing something he probably couldn’t solve. It was as though as there was some sort of restriction that dampened his ability to understand these things.

The ground was charred black by the time it was done. Gaius had taken exquisite care to ensure that any hint of a snowpyre’s body no longer remained, other than some blood that could be easily reasoned away. He had to be thorough, since what Gaius was doing was essentially the destruction of evidence. By leaving nothing behind, the young boy could claim that he was doing something as odd as having a campfire, and no one would say anything. But if any traces remained… awkward questions might follow, and no one wanted that — neither the Congress nor Gaius.

Therefore, burning the mountain of corpses down repeatedly was the best course of action. Besides, Gaius had taken enough ether cores — another twenty of them — enough to buy out some of the most expensive body-strengthening medicine on the market.

For a moment, Gaius wondered if the light from a fire here would work in staving off the dangers of stepping into complete darkness within Heritage. Shaking his head, he went over to the other side of the hilltop, opposite to where his projection had arrived, and leaped off.

His heart skipped a beat as his Engine took care of the rest. To the eyes that watched the hilltop turn red from the conflagration that had taken place, Gaius had seemingly vanished in the fire. His pursuit would end here, the boy they were tracking having disappeared entirely.

Gaius contracted the ever-present barrier to the surface of his skin, something that had surprisingly worked for him, given his understanding of the barrier as an immutable object. His ability to hear and feel returned to its original crystal-clear levels, and the whoosh of wind as he flew on had turned from a trigger of panic to a reassuring companion. A cloud scattered as he streaked through it, making his way towards the Library of Ancients.

From afar, he could see a seemingly-wooden building, and by all rights, he was too far to have seen any embellishments on what looked like a drab wall. But he could.

Pale blue light had dyed the walls of the Library of Ancients, revealing giant words written in numerous languages from Earth on it. Even at Gaius’ current distance, he was able to make out the different types of writing scripts — the common alphabet used worldwide, the logographic characters favoured by Japan and China, Arabic words…and a whole lot more that Gaius couldn’t recognise.

Snapping out of his tunnel vision, Gaius turned to search for the source of the icy lights. He didn’t have to look far.

An army of snowpyres were standing vigil over the Library of Ancients. Unlike the disorganised bunch he’d seen last week, the snowpyres that surrounded the Library was organised into uniform squads, which in turn made up larger contingents. Squads — Gaius was hesitant to call them mere groups — patrolled the perimeter of their encirclement.

These patrols were moving in a crisp fashion, and unlike the snowpyres he’d encountered thus far, they too were armed. If not for their distinctive eyes, or rather, the icy flames that burned within their eyesockets, Gaius could have easily thought them as a regular human or beastfolk army. If he were to fight them now, sheer discipline would have blunted his offensive power. The young boy could pick off one or two, but faced against a vigilant army, the missing would go noticed fast.

As a whole, only armies were qualified to fight armies. On Orb, one’s cultivation could negate this fact to a certain degree, but it wasn’t as if as Gaius was the strongest man on the continent. He was so far from that title that Earth might be closer to him.

The assassin of a past life increased his speed, only slowing down once the snowpyre army was in full view.

He stopped in mid-air when a gruesome sight entered his vision. Wooden stakes had been plunged into the snowy ground, and on them were heads. Gaius recognised one of these heads — it belonged to a newcomer like him, the ringleader of a trio that Gaius had deemed as idiots. A look of terror was still on the severed head — that Harvester had been killed on the spot.

Apparently, the corpses of the fallen Harvesters had been dealt with on site. Gaius couldn’t find any bloodstains caused by the dragging of corpses, which implied that their bodies had been devoured by the closest snowpyres. A reward for work well done, if nothing else. Gruesome, but it was a sound manpower policy from the perspective of a snowpyre.

There were other Harvesters, but these ones weren’t anyone that Gaius recognised. Even that idiot’s lackeys had apparently escaped, or perhaps failed to convince their leader that going near these snowpyres was a really bad idea. But it probably was a sight that these two would never forget.

Give credit where it’s due, thought Gaius. The Harvester, whose name he never knew, had to have something that made him confident enough to approach the encamped army. It was unlikely that even he would approach head-on and yell out a challenge…which meant that he had a way to avoid detection.

Something like one of the abilities of Gaius’ Stellar Core. Camouflage…or to be more accurate, invisibility. It was at that point that Gaius realised that he didn’t know much about the physiology of these snowpyres. How did they see others? Did these freezing flames in where their eyeballs should be allowed for conventional vision, and if that was the case, how was Gaius able to ambush the snowpyres on the hilltop then?

The young boy thought back to the ambush, immersing himself onto the hilltop of last week once more.

No. He hadn’t managed to sneak up on the snowpyres. In the aftermath of an adrenaline rush, and the killings that followed, Gaius’ own memories had become blurry. The young boy had never snuck up on these snowpyres — he had attacked them the moment they scaled the rooftop.

Gaius realised that the assumption that he’d made — that snowpyres relied on sight like the beastfolk and humans did — had been formed by his own, something he’d come up with subconsciously. Did they sense heat, the fundamentals of life? Was his silhouette a burning beacon of life and hate that the snowpyres would devour? Or did they sense qi, the power that flowed in the veins of every Harvester in this place?

There was too much information that Gaius lacked. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it would definitely never be the last time. And it wasn’t like Gaius could throw random people in front of these snowpyres and record the results, right?

Or could he?