A snowpyre clawed at its throat as an invisible blade stabbed into it, and blood sprayed out as it twisted inside, sending its companions into a fluster. The culprit, Gaius, was floating a few metres in front of them, operating the second ability he’d gained from assimilating the second flawed Engine he’d brought. The original name, Floating Knife, was too much of a mouthful, so the boy began to call it the Dragoon instead. Another snowpyre fell over as the boy tossed the weapon Nexus had crafted into its throat, and Gaius nodded in satisfaction.

“So? What do you think?” Gaius spoke to the sculpture hanging off the top of his head. “Would this be able to stabbity-stab a Demigod?”

“Only if said Demigod focused on training their abilities and qi,” replied Nexus. “Which many of them do, anyway. You should note that my standards for you — a body as tough as a Lord — is predicated upon my extrapolation of the General Formula to its limit.”

“Can you use words with three syllables or less?” Gaius replied.

“Of course, Master Gaius.” The boy could almost hear some pity in its voice, if not for the fact that it was literally unable to include emotions without lowering its pitch, tone and pace of speaking. Nor could anyone else do that, for that matter.

“My assumptions of bodily toughness and strength are based on cultivating the General Formula,” said the artificial intelligence. “As a mantra, it is flawed. No one in their right mind could use it without suffering from extreme pain, other than a certain little boy who has not been making headway for the past few months. If pain is a characteristic of similar mantras…”

“Then not many people are going to cultivate them?”

“Yeaap. Which is why you can probably kill a Demigod, because most of them generally don’t focus on their body,” said Nexus. “As to whether you can overcome their qi defences is another issue, however. I’ve been working on an elegant solution to handle that part for you.”

Gaius floated over to retrieve the weapon he’d tossed out.

The silvery, almost-prismatic glow was eye-catching, even while Gaius was invisible, drawing the eyes of the remaining, fearful snowpyres towards him. None of them knew what was going on, except that there was something unbelievably pretty above them.

“No matter how I look at it,” said Gaius, “this is a defect. How am I supposed to use this on a Demigod if his attention is drawn to it whenever I take it out?”

“There’s a button on the pommel. There are a few others hidden elsewhere, so don’t go pressing buttons you don’t know about.”

“Oh.” Gaius pressed it, and the glow faded. “But what’s the poi— oh. So I could try drawing everyone’s attention, and shank em with my left hand. Got it.”

“Eh, you’re rather quick on the update, but you’re not going to handle a demigod that way,” replied the sculpture. “Anyway, the Terminus is capable of destroying most constructs of energy in a single blow, which means that the standard defences aren’t going to hold up against you.

It paused, for a moment, as though as it was thinking of something, and said, “Hurry up and kill these snowpyres. The forces of what you called the Republic of Francois are beginning to tighten their noose. Be ready to teleport there if the Demigod Nox shows up.”

The Dragoon danced wildly, and moments later, the small group of snowpyres fell apart into multiple pieces. Ether cores rolled out of them as Gaius set fire to the corpses. After pausing for a moment to pocket them, the boy vanished on the spot, returning to the Library.

“No matter how many times I do this, it feels like I’m pressing B or something,” muttered Gaius.

“Pressing B?” Nexus asked. “What does that mean?”

“Think it was a game I briefly dabbled in on Earth. I can't remember the name of it anymore,” replied Gaius. “Lots of free time once you stop taking up that many assassination requests, after all. I remember spending afternoons tossing knives, looking up material to enhance my art of framing and playing with children at playgrounds.”

“Wow. What a life,” replied the artificial intelligence, in a tone that the boy couldn’t place his finger on. “What else do you remember about your daily life?”

Gaius pushed open a door, and walked towards the Map of Stars. “My students, I guess. Always a fun bunch. You have no idea how much I struggled to care for them at first.”

He shook his head. “Anyway, that’s all in the past.”

“If you say so, Master Gaius.” The sculpture hopped off his head and took its place at one corner of the Map of Stars. The other three sculptures, which had been sitting together and filled with a single order, got up and occupied a corner each. Before Gaius could ask what they were doing, however, the four sculptures raised their hands, and a sphere appeared in the middle of the table-like artefact.

The Library trembled, and the sphere expanded rapidly, uniformly, engulfing the boy.

His surroundings changed. He was now floating in the sky, but Gaius could still feel his feet on the solid ground of the Library. Below him was a seemingly-endless stretch of ground, where an enormous body of troops had formed up into a giant triangle.

The air shimmered around them, and Gaius could vaguely recognise the warped air as the product of Palisade artefacts being used. It was just that they were far too strong, too sturdy from what the boy thought was possible. Kilometres away from this cluster of troops, which had to number over seventy thousand, in every direction, was a solid wall of advancing troops.

He didn’t know how such a situation was possible, but like a tightening noose, the forces of the Republic were closing in slowly. A hundred-plus men were hovering above each advancing “wall”, clearly on escort duty as they moved in to attack. It had been three days after Gaius helped to break Isabelle’s family out, but he didn’t know it was that possible to be this encircled in such a short time.

He could see the triangular formation tremble as the walls continued to close in, and Gaius couldn’t help but wonder why they weren’t moving. Against an enemy force armed with ranged weapons, spreading out would prevent excessive casualties and buy more time.

“Nexus, did the entire defensive line collapse onto this corps?” asked Gaius, using the only term he knew to refer to the body of troops below him.

“Yes,” replied the artificial intelligence. “The past three days, while you were busying yourself with the Terminus, the Republican forces at the centre had been retreating, baiting the enemy troops to follow. I didn’t, however, expect that the entire...corps would follow in pursuit.”

“That’s dumb.” Gaius shook his head. “What’s going on with their commanders?

“Who knows?” replied Nexus. “Maybe there’s a mole in there or something.”