“They keep getting smarter with every battle,” Gaius dodged three energy blasts directed at him, before slashing at the pursuer on his heels, only for his target to double back by a metre or so. More blasts landed on Gaius’ barrier, sending weak tremors through his body.

As the boy tumbled backwards, he activated the Dragoon ability, which had been usable an hour or so after Paragon Abele forcibly scattered it. The Dragoon rushed out of his right hand, but ten separate shots of energy landed on it as it flew towards his target.

This time, Gaius could feel something inside his chest quiver. It was the Engines that had integrated into his body — he’d seen it long ago, when he first destroyed the Divine Ladder — but it was deceptively hard to sense. Without him looking for it on purpose, the boy would never have discovered the effect his Abilities taking damage had on his body.

The whirling blade of qi missed its target, forcibly diverted by the simultaneous attacks from the other Knights laying down support fire. Gaius could only click his tongue at such a sight — it seemed that the smaller the enemy forces were, the more competent they were at fighting. Part of it was clearly because there was more space to move around, but that wasn’t all. Their fighting capabilities were more pronounced; it seemed that they were behaving more like individuals in a unit now, rather than just drones heedless of life and death.

I cannot rely on my strength at arms now, Gaius thought grimly. He swept his gaze around the battlefield, and focused on the Knights providing support fire. Threads appeared in his vision as Gaius called upon the Blink ability he had, and in the next moment, he’d warped over to one of the Knights that was shooting at him. With a single carefree movement, Gaius slammed the Terminus in his right hand into the enemy’s throat.

The Knight gurgled, but before Gaius could withdraw his right arm, the dying Knight’s hands had shot up, holding on to the boy’s arm tightly. On instinct, the boy kicked out three times in rapid succession, and the grip loosened. Kicking himself away from the Knight, Gaius raised his arms as another volley of energy blasts landed on the dying Knight. Cubes of solidified air bore the brunt of the damage, but Gaius was still too close for comfort.

Engulfed by the resulting explosion, Gaius directed the Dragoon, which was still tracking his first target, to return. Immediately afterwards, he Blinked towards yet another Knight that had fired at him, slashing out at his target. The Knight dodged backwards, only to explode when the Dragoon bisected him from behind as it returned to Gaius. Satisfied, the boy turned around to look for his next target, only to frown when he saw what they’d done.

His enemies had taken up yet another formation. This time, instead of being scattered around, they were within arm’s reach of each other. Only the Knights that were holding on to melee weapons were still standing apart from the rest, but for all intents and purposes, they had changed into a defensive formation.

Five Knights charged at him, while the others poured out supporting fire. He’d weakened the supporting contingent somewhat, but now that they were together, Gaius didn’t dare to take the risk of engaging in close-quarters combat with that many foes.

Once again, the Dragoon shot out of his body, orbiting around him as he met the Knights flying towards him in combat. Their eyes, the only part of their face unobscured by their helmet, narrowed slightly as Gaius closed in on them. With the Dragoon intercepting the incoming shots, the boy attacked without any restraint, slicing through the enemies one by one. Armour and flesh came apart, unable to resist Gaius’ Terminus — and the ease of doing so made Gaius frown.

If he had to liken it to something, it would be that these people were now controlled by some rudimentary computer program, rather than real players. Alarm bells began to ring in his head, but before he could do anything else, an enormous pillar of light was falling from the skies.

A colossal presence billowed outwards, far stronger than any Paragon Gaius had encountered thus far — the only thing Gaius could equate it to was the Last Star, Nox, back in Lumari.

A Demigod had arrived.

Gaius felt an urge to laugh madly as the semi-divinity began to take form. A man, dressed in a simple blue robe, glanced at Gaius, and the other Knights he was engaging melted away like ice, turning into mist that dispersed a few seconds later. An eyepatch hid his left eye, while the right was just a globe of translucent blue crystal that had a violet core.

His skin was white, a touch of an ocean-blue making him glow oddly in the morning sun. He was unarmed — but Gaius knew full well that these Demigods didn’t actually need a weapon unless they were dealing with their peers. And no matter how well Gaius could fight against a Paragon, he wasn’t yet qualified to challenge a Demigod head-on.

Plans fell into place in his head. Gaius fervently hoped that Nexus would live up to its promise that it would observe Gaius at every possible opportunity through the Map of Stars, because he had a feeling that something had gone wrong.

“Why would a Demigod appear here?” Gaius asked, voicing out the question in his heart.

“You have been betrayed.” The Demigod paused, and shook his head. “And so have we.”

Azure lighting split the skies at these words. A ripple of power emanated outwards from Eo-Seu, and Gaius trembled as a vision entered his mind. He recognised the person in focus immediately — it was the Lifespring, the God of Water. Five people surrounded the great god, their weapons ablaze with a horrible, black radiance, trapping Conrah in a rippling black pillar that towered to the skies. Surprise coursed through Gaius’ body — he recognised someone amongst the five.

Xanadu, the Phantom Blade. He had no idea why or how she was doing this, but he had been surprised by too many things anyway.

The great god was injured. The cup floating around him was cracked. Streams of glowing water continued to stream out of it endlessly, like the golden blood dripping madly out of Conrah’s wounds. In the background were countless blue towers, but all of them were beset by black lightning. Thousands of the Lifespring’s soldiers, all clad in their distinctive blue armour, were on their knees, motionless.

And all of them were facing an ash-gray star that stood out in the morning sky. It wasn’t visible anyway else — Gaius had never seen such a star before, and he couldn’t see outside this vision either.

“They snuck in during that attack earlier, taking advantage of our weakened state to assassinate our Lord,” said the Demigod. “The Preserver is willing to expend half his divinity to step in, but only if we bring him someone.”

“Me, no?” Gaius closed his eyes. When he next reopened them, the vision had vanished, and the Demigod was floating as majestically as ever. “Who betrayed me?”

“One of the Plenum.” The Demigod raised his hands. “Surrender and come with me. The great gods cannot — must not — be destroyed, or this world will be doomed.”

“And if I say no?”

A tremor pulsed outwards, and Gaius felt his bones rattle slightly from the impact. “In that case, I will take you down myself.”

Gaius gripped the Terminus in his hand tightly, his heart pounding madly the whole time.

“You cannot win,” said the Demigod. “I am one of His oldest familiar spirits. Like them, you might be wielding a Zeroth Armament, but that is not enough to overcome the difference. Surrender, and you will be—”

Without warning, a torrent of qi rushed out from behind Gaius, slamming into the Demigod. A moment later, Paragon Saito flew towards Gaius, a gentle smile on his face. “Kid, it’s not time for you to go yet.”

“So, the famous Stormbreaker,” said the Demigod. “You were here the whole time. And you’re willing to fight me, for this Knight’s sake. Are you insane?”

Paragon Saito ignored the Demigod, and passed an artefact over to Gaius. “Take this. You should be able to track my…those people down. Things are moving rapidly, and as we speak, the Plenum is already turning you into a wanted criminal of sorts — they’ve made a deal with the Human God too. Shizo was more persuasive than we thought. Ying Xin has been overpowered, and was taken into custody just two minutes ago. When I received her message, I knew that something was up. You’re in danger.”

His words, rushed and hurried, overwhelmed Gaius for a moment, but his instincts took over. The boy nodded, and the Paragon smiled. “Good. I can only hold our foe off for at most ten minutes. You must be gone from Feng-Lang by then.”

Saito’s eyes gleamed brightly. “Good luck.”

He turned towards the Demigod. Lightning coursed through his body, and blood began to well up from his skin. Gaius opened his mouth to speak, but the Paragon simply smiled. “Don’t worry. I was never meant to be around for tomorrow’s sunrise anyway. Now go. You have things you want to protect too. I just gave you my burden.”

Gaius swallowed a lump in his throat, and then, against his conscience, began to flee. A thunderclap echoed around Feng-Lang’s shoreline as Gaius threw on a burst of speed. In his vision, he could see a black zone that surrounded the Lifespring’s Demigod — and like the one that he’d seen around the Last Star so many months ago, he couldn’t use his Blink ability within it. Space was rigid and frozen in that space, something that seemed to be a characteristic of Demigods.

The boy continued to look back every so often as he continued to flee the battlefield. The details of Paragon Saito and the Demigod fighting were too small to be seen by now, but the byproducts of the two’s fighting were making its mark on the environment. Feng-Lang’s eastern shoreline had been struck by thunderbolts and giant waves repeatedly, while further inland, giant swathes of land had been turned into molten ground or flooded plains. Between the two fighters, Paragon Saito was clearly on the defensive — and yet, he was still enough of a threat that the Demigod couldn’t ignore him.

Gaius bit his lips as the lightning-clad figure tumbled backwards, having taken a giant tsunami of azure light head-on. The Demigod closed in without any hesitation. An awful clarity descended as the Demigod punched out with his right fist, and a red mist erupted from Saito’s back. His body, now floppy, began to fall with an agonising slowness. His presence began to fade away, and within seconds, Gaius could no longer feel Paragon Saito’s existence.

The Demigod glanced at the falling Paragon, and Gaius felt his heart clench up. Gritting his teeth, the boy threw the mounting sorrow towards the back of his mind, and expelled even more qi from his body. The passing air shattered the already-weakened barrier around him, and his skin began to well up with blood as Gaius crossed what seemed to be the sound barrier.

And yet, he was still in the frozen space. He was nearing the edge, but Gaius knew that the Demigod wasn’t going to let him escape this easily.

In the moment that thought crossed his mind, dread surged into his mind. Paragon Saito’s presence bloomed once more, resurging madly for one last encore. Gaius turned around in shock as a small star glowed madly, its brilliance outstripping that of even the morning sun. The Demigod took a step back, and another, but in the next second, the Paragon’s battered body had closed the distance to the Demigod and hugged him tightly.

“Remember your promise,” an aged voice said quietly in Gaius’ ears. “Good luck.”

A lightning-blue sphere expanded rapidly a moment later, engulfing Feng-Lang’s eastern shore, a huge chunk of the Territory and the sea with a thunderous roar. The sea level dipped as vast amounts of superheated vapour shot skywards. Grey clouds gathered above the entire Eastern Territories as the globe of lightning-blue energy continued to expand, atomising both land and water where it touched. The destroyed areas of Feng-Lang vanished entirely, swallowed up by the raging, final act of Paragon Saito.

At some point, the frozen space had turned fluid once more, and Gaius could once again use the Blink ability. The boy, however, stayed for a few minutes, fixing the image of Paragon Saito’s funeral pyre, burning it into his memory like so many other images.

“Goodbye, Paragon Saito,” Gaius murmured, as the horrifying globe of energy began to subside, leaving only a battered Demigod behind. The Paragon’s self-detonation had taken the wind out of his enemy’s sails, one so thorough that the old man’s corpse never remained. “I’ll make sure your family gets away safely.”

Gaius stared at the unmoving Demigod hovering above the dried sea. Rain began to fall, and as the first drops landed on the boy’s shoulders, Gaius called upon the Blink ability, and vanished.