“Alright,” said Gaius, “what else am I missing? I’ve long forgotten.”

The boy looked at the pile where he’d picked up the sigil guide, which had tripled its size in a single month. To its left was a giant pile of weapons, mostly daggers and knives, and to the left of that pile was an even larger pile of generic artefacts.

Guided by the artificial intelligence, he’d robbed virtually every single person who’d dared to step in a fifty-kilometre radius around the Library of Ancients. It wasn’t that far at first, but as what apparently seemed to be rumours began to spread, the boy had found himself needing to travel further and further. Some of them were also repeat victims, but after the first round, they’d learned to comply the hard way.

“Well, that’s all you need. Or rather, you passed that threshold long ago,” said Nexus. “You have enough gemstones to buy over the entire Southern Continent if you traded them for gold too. That route is definitely open to you.”

“Tell a Demigod to release some of his power in exchange for resources, eh?” asked Gaius. “Sounds fine and all, but would he agree?”

“…no,” Nexus replied. “He was hellbent on destroying Heritage Basestation and Ark City by proxy, which hints at the presence of something important within each and every beastfolk.”

“You didn’t mention that last part before,” said the boy.

“No.” The sculpture climbed out from Gaius’ tunic, and jumped onto the middle pile. “After seeing this stupidly enormous pile of weapons that we are going to melt down, I just thought of something. What if…”

“What if?”

“What if turning mad isn’t the only thing you get after killing someone, like the beastfolk?” asked the artificial intelligence. “If, like these weapons, there’s something incredibly useful in their core? Something that even Demigods would covet?”

Gaius trembled. “Something that accounts for why beastfolk are physically superior, and why they have abilities that humans don’t naturally have?”

“It’s been staring at us in the face, hasn’t it?” replied Nexus. “You just need to make the association, speak it out loud. The restriction will not loosen until you say it.”

“So…it’s a secret of the gods,” said the boy. “Let’s go somewhere more comfortable before we talk about this.”

Picking the trembling sculpture up, the boy headed for the Map Room, the official designation for the lounge that housed the Map of Stars. It wasn’t an inspired name, but it was better than calling it ‘That Room’ or ‘The Room’. On the way, Gaius checked his equipment, used his Blink a few times for fun, and slapped his cheeks twice.

The boy was nervous.

He seated himself down on the sofa and placed Nexus onto the table the moment he entered the Map Room. “It’s in the creation myth of Orb, isn’t it?”

“Go on,” said Nexus.

“The demons of myth gained their legendary trait — eternity and immortality — from their primogenitor, the Demon God. But what did the humans and beastfolk gain from the Human God?” Gaius murmured, seemingly to himself. “For the beastfolk, it was their traits. For the humans…I’m not sure. Maybe they were the unlucky ones, or they served as a base template of life.”

He looked at the artificial intelligence. “Can you add anything on?”

Nexus shook its head silently, but that silence was encouraging, in and of itself. Gaius took a deep breath. “But if we look at it on a deeper level, the beastfolk and the demons had to be imbued with power from their ancestor. And for the great gods, such a power can only be…”

“Divinity.” The artificial intelligence completed its sentence, and at the same time, the room began to shake. For a moment, the boy could see fragments of a black chain fall from the ceiling, which vanished a second afterwards. Gaius took a deep breath, and calmed his suddenly-frantic heart.

He glanced at the sculpture. “What just happened?”

“What do you mean, what happened?” Nexus asked back. “Go on.”

Gaius rubbed his nose. “You just interrupted me, shook the room a bit, and then act as if as nothing happened? You’re weird.”

“You’re the weird one. You blanked out for a moment, and then you start telling me that I did something.” The sculpture snorted. “Maybe you were under an illusion or something. Anyway, yeah. Divinity — in the form of beast traits — is within the bodies of every beastfolk. That’s one damn good motive to kill a whole bunch of them, isn’t it?”

“But who in the world would…” Gaius stopped speaking. “No. If I could make such a deduction, there were others that would probably could. Demigod Nox probably made this connection quite recently, given his non-participation in the Second Extermination.”

“But what cause would he have to go after these theoretical fragments of divinity?” asked the artificial intelligence. “In the end, we still don’t know enough. And unfortunately, we don’t have that much time either. Your pieces have begun to move.”

“My pieces?”

“Perhaps not yours entirely. But the Map of Stars will tell you what you need to know.” Nexus looked at the artefact, where the sculpture and two crude figurines had been keeping watch for the past one month. “The beastfolk forces — or rather, the revolutionary forces — have succeeded in their strategic manoeuvre.”

Gaius looked at the screen that had popped up, and walked towards it to inspect it in greater detail. “An encirclement. How did the Houses not realise it?”

“Probably from a combination of institutional corruption, bullshit and an unhealthy dose of self-confidence,” replied Nexus. “But you don’t have time for that, and it’s going to be a drawn-out fight anyway. You just need to focus on Nox, and for that reason, let’s go forge a weapon to kill Demigods.”