High above the Heaven-cleaving Fortress were a small circle of demons, numbering around twenty in total. The incredible undulations erupting out of them could only belong to that of Paragons, and Gaius willed his vision to change.

Strands of grey mist were surging upwards, passing through a now-omnipresent black fog that pressed down on everything. If Gaius had to hazard a guess, that black fog was the reason why everyone was feeling a weighty burden on their shoulders — it was probably the formless pressure weighing down on him right now.

Grey mist surged out of his own body, and his Domain expanded outwards to drive away the black fog.

“Gaius?” Isabelle asked.

His vision returned to normal, and Gaius turned to look at Isabelle, who was staring at him.

“That Domain of yours…”

“Yeah, I did that,” Gaius replied. “Go back to the others first, and make sure nothing happens.”

“What are you going to do?” Isabelle asked.

“Get some warm-up,” Gaius replied. “These enemies are the perfect targets for a good fight here.”

He wasn’t joking about it. A few seconds ago, Gaius had peered into the energy-gathering structures that these demons had, and they were all strings that had been wrapped into a ball. Although that was the standard for just about everyone else here, the demons’ version didn’t just have cracks here and there; they even had strings trailing out randomly.

Was that the reason behind why some Paragons and Demigods were stronger than the others? Gaius had taken a glance with those strange eyes of his during the briefing earlier, and those little balls within everyone else had varying numbers of cracks.

Oh, and every single ball had a chunk bitten out of it. From what Nexus had told him while they were in Heritage, those chunks represented the vows that they had all made. Gaius didn’t get why vows would have such an effect, but again, this was Orb…

That would have been his usual reaction, anyway. Now, with his understanding of the world, Gaius had a feeling that the energy-gathering structure he saw within everyone was actually a visual representation of their free will. It was a simple extrapolation.

Knights and beyond had a portion of their will restricted.

Knights and beyond also happened to have a ball-shaped energy-gathering structure that was missing a chunk.

These two definitely had to be related, one way or another.

“How would you even know that?” Isabelle asked, her voice drawing Gaius back to reality. “You haven’t even crossed swords with them yet, so…”

Gaius pondered for a moment, and then decided to share his observations with Isabelle. She already knew about his ability to sense the energy-gathering structures within people, so just telling her more about what he could see in-depth wasn’t much of an issue.

“Remember those eyes I have?” Gaius asked. “I was looking at the demons up high, and their energy-gathering structures don’t look all that healthy. If I’m not wrong, once comes down to a battle of flinging energy at each other, they’ll have major issues after a while.”

“How do things like that seem unhealthy?” Isabelle asked.

“Well, it’s kinda small, but I could see lots of little cracks in their energy-gathering structures,” Gaius replied. “And it’s…unravelling.”

He thought for a moment. “Yeah, unravelling.”

“Well, that at least explains why the upper airzone has seen the least losses so far,” Isabelle mused. “So it’s not that dangerous there?”

“Yes, but that really, really depends on who we’re talking about,” Gaius replied. “And besides, there’s more to battles than just energy-gathering structures, right? You can have the finest of structures, but you’ll still get killed if you lack combat sense and other things like artefacts.”

“Oh.” Isabelle’s face fell for a moment.

“Don’t even think about it,” Gaius replied. “And I’m not sure where you stand in the food pyramid of Orb now, since we’re both pioneers of a really odd path. At least I’m confident in myself, but…”

“Fine, fine.” Isabelle pouted.

“You’ve tried that so many times that I’ve gotten used to saying ‘no’ one way or another,” Gaius replied, a grin on his face. “Well, maybe if you defeat a friendly Paragon in a legitimate spar, I’ll think about it…but if you do, who’s going to keep me company when I hang at the back?”

Something like a bolt of enlightenment struck her. “Right, right…what if someone takes my place? That’ll be bad, right? Everyone’s gunning for you, so I must protect you properly…”

Gaius had a feeling that there were one or two things that were a bit odd, but since things were going the way he wanted them to, he wasn’t going to make too big of a fuss.

“Alright. I’m going to handle the people up there for a moment, so just look after the kids for me.” Gaius squinted at the sky. The Five Lands was already retaliating, and he shot up to join the rising group. The power disparity between their current group and that of the demons were vast, though; Gaius could sense the presence of a Demigod within them. Eyes fell on him as he joined the group, but they looked away as the Terminus appeared in his hands.

From the looks of it, most of the people here were aware of the fact that a teenager who was barely older than seventeen, yet had a Zeroth Armament, had arrived on the front lines.

Unfortunately, he didn’t recognise most of the people here, save for a waving Ying Xin, who drifted over immediately.

“Fancy seeing you here,” said the beaming Paragon. Her smile faded a few seconds later as she looked at the enemy Paragons. “You had no obligation to join this battle, not like we actually need much help given the enemy line up. For some reason, they aren’t sending out any of their Demigods.”

“Consider it a warmup,” Gaius replied. “I haven’t stretched my limbs properly for a long time.”

“It does seem that the last public battle you had was against the Human God,” the Paragon noted. Well, it’s good that you’re being rather cautious, but you aren’t going to be posted in the upper airzone, though.”

“Once I start pumping out huge explosions, the Demon God’s probably going to send a familiar spirit or two to my location directly,” Gaius replied. “Best to be prepared first.”

“Good point.” Qi blazed around her, and Paragon Ying Xin smiled. “Prepare yourself, then.”

The two groups began to move a moment later.