“I’ve seen people organise small insurgencies, as they stand on an elevated platform to give rousing speeches.” Nexus, who was sitting on Gaius’ body, swayed back and forth. “But this is the first time I saw how an insurgency is created.”

“Another first for me, then,” Gaius replied evenly. “Besides, Demigod Nox just overthrew the Southern Houses as the new rulers. He’s going to retain most of them as administrators, but the damage has been done. Stirring up a rebellion is just going to help my case later.”

The two were talking softly in a extensive set of ruins. After Gaius’ little talk, he’d taught Tetsu what to do next, and then stepped though the passageway that led to Orb. Thankfully, the sensation of crossing over was far more tolerable — the boy just felt like a ball squeezed through a rubber tube.

“Still, to think that he would themselves call themselves the People’s Revolution,” said the artificial intelligence. “Sounds fishy to me. Thankfully, they don’t exactly wear red…”

“It seems like you’ve been reading some history books and novels of the Cold War, eh?” Gaius rubbed his nose. “I don’t think Marx crossed over here, though. And even if his ideology took hold on Orb, there are enough mystical factors here that should prevent the failures that communism experienced in its later years.”

“Is that so?” Nexus asked, a hint of doubt in its words. “Anyway, this place looks a lot worse in person than when looking through the Map.”

“Naturally. You miss out all the little details,” replied Gaius. “The smell, the silence, the clammy air that congregates when thousands die with their bodies unattended too.”

Houses in varying states of disrepair lined the streets of the town he was in, which Tetsu had called Desin. It was a town that had been abandoned by the Southern forces, which meant that when the forces of the East-West Alliance came calling, the only thing that put up any semblance of resistance was a poorly armed militia, who were promptly slaughtered.

Tetsu had gnashed his teeth when he recounted the next part of Desin during the war. The leader of the town and his bodyguards, who were a Squire and fully-fledged Soldiers respectively, fled the town with everything valuable they could lay their hands on while the defenders expended their lives on the battlefield.

And then…the true nightmare began.

The Alliance forces pillaged the city, killing or rounding up its inhabitants for slavery. The Western Holdings in particular had even brought their own slavers along, capturing anyone who could move and placing them all in cages that were immediately transported off the field.

As for the women and children in particular…Tetsu didn’t want to talk about it, especially given that a child was listening to his words, but Gaius didn’t need to think to know what happened. The man’s eyes were enough to tell him everything.

He could picture it. A ragged band of injured and crippled soldiers, after surviving grievous injuries on the field, returned to see their homes scattered to the wind. Their families kidnapped or killed on the spot. It was little wonder that when word of their town head deserting reached them, none of these men were willing to accept another leader anymore.

They’d lost their faith. Only their instinct to live and to take revenge was driving them on.

Gaius looked at the crumbling tower he’d stepped out from. It housed the passageway between Orb and the Intersection, but as it was, it was too dangerous to leave it standing. The passageway was below ground, anyway, so the tower wasn’t needed to conceal it.

The little boy mocked himself as he drew a new sigil. Ignition, wildfire and explosion now. If I had a class, it would be Fire Mage now.

He took five minutes to draw one…after taking five hours to look at the guide for sigils he’d purchased from Heritage Basestation’s Exchange. He was beginning to understand that even these sigils had their own uses in combat, even though they were usually tailored to everyday life and common professions like farmers and construction workers.

From what he could gather, the wildfire sigil was used by farmers to clear forests, creating arable farmland that was fertilised by ashes. As for the explosion sigil…well, Gaius was about to use it for its intended purpose.

Demolition.

Gaius leapt into the skies, and after making sure that he was a good distance away from the tower, the Demolition sigil aligned itself with the barrel of the Moonshot, and then winked out of existence.

“Hold on tight, Nexus.” The wooden sculpture climbed into the boy’s tunic, and he fired a second later.

A small speck of blinding light appeared on where the Moonshot’s projectile hit, and the tower broke apart. Countless small fragments shot into the sky, while others buried themselves into the ground or other ruined infrastructure. A strong wind slammed into Gaius, whose Engine was automatically operating its Barrier ability, shaking his body and buffeting it.

The dust cloud had cleared by the time Gaius had regained his balance, and the boy hissed softly in shock. “Note to self: do not use the explosion sigil in close range. Or in medium range.”

“Are you sure you got this from a cheap guide off the Exchange?” Nexus popped out its head. “Demolition my ass. You use this in any city and I guarantee that half the buildings inside would collapse in a day or so.”

A few hundred metres away, a house crumbled apart, sending a giant column of dust into the air. Crows took to the skies as their meals were buried under rubble, and the little boy stared at the huge cloud.

“Oops.”

“Don’t you ‘oops’ me! This sigil is dangerous! If you fire a few of them at once onto the ground, you might just create a natural disaster!” The artificial intelligence shook its head, but as it took in the expression on the boy’s face, the shaking slowed down to a stop. “Uh. Oops?”

“Oops indeed. And here I was wondering how to force a bunch of Paragons and a Demigod out of a particular capital city,” said Gaius, his voice quiet. “Or to instil fear in a bunch of smaller villagers.”

“But you’re going to end up killing a lot of people. Innocent ones, at that.”

“I’ll do anything if it means I can get a shot at the Last Star,” replied Gaius. “Even if it means climbing up a mountain of corpses. It’s the Battle for Centoria all over again — I get but one shot.”

Another house collapsed, and the boy looked at it coldly. “I never had much of an ambition, you know. I just wanted to live, and to make sure those that I cared about were safe. But in the end…”

The wooden sculpture was quiet, and in silence, the boy flew away from the ruined city.