“The explosives have been planted, Xerae. That’s the six hundredth one.”

And there’s more to make and plant, Jerome thought as he was dragged by Selene toward the rear of their camp to go shovel shit with some other male Sprouts. The whole place was stinking and because of his more enhanced sense of smell, he was continually assaulted with the smell of horse shit.

“Remind me again why I’m doing this?” he asked, glaring at the back of her full head of silver hair. “I’ve got other things to do, Selene.”

“No, you don’t. Your explosives seem to work, Jerome. And you’ve convinced even the most skeptical of us to join the production.”

Namely, Fei Lin. Or probably Forester, he didn’t care.

“Shoveling shit into the filtration system — which I created by the way — is just one of the many layers of creating these explosives. I don’t need to be there physically to help make saltpeter.”

“Which you happen to know can be used to make these explosives — which you aren’t revealing to anyone else! So if you want to keep us all in the dark about the whole process, you better be there to supervise!” she screamed in frustration.

As they reached the rear of their camp, the stench of horse shit became overbearing for him. But he bore it. Only Sheela and Nyx would understand what he was going through right now but they had both bailed out on him, joining the team of Sprouts that went to assault the Messengers and chip at their defenses a little.

“Damn, those horses can stink up a place! What the fuck have the Messengers been feeding them?”

Selene snorted behind the makeshift face mask she now sported, made from a piece of cloth. “Saltpeter is used to cure meat, Jerome. And to enrich the soil for agricultural purposes.” She glared at him. “Mortals also use it for medicinal purposes.”

“But are those the only uses of it, Selene? Because I’m sure there’s one other use — starting fires. So if it’s flammable, it sure can be used to make explosives. But I’m sure no one thought about it. Because everyone already has the Sacred Arts and can make explosive techniques anytime they want.” He chuckled.

They walked through a guarded opening in the wall and out into the open. The smell was stronger here so he had to wear his own face mask hanging around his neck. The greenery of the forest and the cool wind should have helped to ease the tension in his muscles but the tranquility of the scene was disturbed by the grunts of the Sprouts shoveling the mountain of horse dung he had dumped a few dozen yards away.

“I should have moved it back a few more yards,” he muttered.

“Yes, you should!” Selene bit out. “But we can’t exactly cry over spilled milk now, can we?”

She dragged him onwards. When they reached the site of the filtration system, he couldn’t help but scrunch his nose up at the smell.

“How did you even manage to age such a huge mountain of dung in just three days like that?” She asked, looking up at the giant heap of horse shit a few dozen yards away. “It was a lot bigger than that three days ago.”

“Experience,” he said and she gave him a flat look. He couldn’t exactly tell her he had runes for that, she’d pepper him with questions continuously about them. And it was still big. “It would have been better if the smell reduced with age though. It would also have been better if it was a mountain of bat guano instead. Guano is richer in saltpeter. The more saltpeter we can get a hold of, the more explosives we can make.”

“Really?” She gave him a look. “Bat shit is richer in saltpeter?”

“That’s what I said, yes.”

“Well, thanks for giving up that little detail,” she said sarcastically.

Jerome sighed. “I know you think I’m hiding things from you, Selene — and I am. But it’s not for whatever reasons you might think. The knowledge I have can be dangerous. Very dangerous.”

“Come to watch us middling lowlives, yer highness?” Bram asked in an accusing yet unserious tone, before giving an extravagant yet mocking bow. He was almost covered from head to toe in shit, as was every other male with him, who stopped their work to see what was going on. “Forgive da dirt and stench, yer highness. If we could lift a mountain of shit with our mental energy — like ye can, we’d be clean as ye!”

Jerome looked away in guilt. Sacred artists weren’t stupid. You drop a mountain of shit in the middle of a forest and they begin to ask questions and make assumptions. Right until they figure something out.

“Jerome has come to join you all,” Selene announced, punching him hard on the back and hurting her hand for it. “What the fuck are you even made of!?”

Jerome gave her a side look, smirking. He turned his attention to the guys in front of him and asked, “Okay how can I help, guys?”

“Er, we don’t have an extra shovel,” someone from team Baelor said in a deep gravelly voice.

“Don’t worry about it.”

“Ye should take off that strange, nice cloak of yers, yer highness,” Bram said with a smirk on his face. Why weren’t any of them covering their noses by the way? “Don’t want ta get horse shit on it.”

“Enjoying my misfortune, I see.” He gave the man a pointed look. Jerome used his psychic energy to pull his hair into a top knot to keep it out of the way — can’t get shit it now.

The bastard shrugged, and shook out his head of full blonde hair before doing to it what he did to his. “Ye set us up ta this; only fair if ye join us.”

Selene huffed, cradling her hand before walking back into camp.

“By the way,” Jerome said, moving closer and changing his countenance. Bram became serious immediately and straightened up. “I wanted to ask you something” — he looked at the others and they quickly went back to work — “Something about what you called me sometime in Terra Praeta — ‘Daemon’. What does it mean?”

Bram reared back, pleasantly surprised. “Well, ye see. I’m not really good at explaining stuff, but I’ll try. A daemon i—”

“Let’s work as we discuss,” Jerome said. He took off his long coat and cuirass, baring his upper body, and chucked them into his storage ring.

“Ya, let’s do that,” Bram grumbled and went back to work. Jerome could tell he wasn’t happy with the outcome he got. He probably wanted to use the chance he got to explain the term ‘daemon’, to rest.

He Shaped a shovel out of the multitude of metal chunks from the Messengers armor he had acquired and went to work.

“Strange how ye can just Shape metal like it’s essence,” Bram said. “So Daemon. Ye really don’t know what it is, eh?”

Jerome ‘hmmed’, throwing shit into one of several pits filled with water that had been dug around the giant heap of aged horse dung. There were formations drawn at the bases of the pits to help filter the dung through the water and extract the nitre — or saltpeter as everyone seemed to know. It was strange he hadn’t heard anyone say ‘nitre’, which was the older of the two words in his previous world.

“A daemon is an entity who brings continuity to a clan or family over generations… or forever.”

“Huh?” Jerome stopped to gawk at him, not expecting such a definition.

Bram chuckled. “Continuity can have a very varied meaning so think of it broadly. It’s that or a very brilliant person who’s a discoverer of knowledge and concepts — or a very uniquely powerful person.” He gave Jerome a pointed look. “There have been many descriptions. But one thing is for sure: a daemon’s family line is forever more powerful than that of the average family in the world.”

“I thought it meant something like… ‘demon’?” Jerome tested the waters to see what he knew.

“No.” Bram shook his head. “ A ‘demon’ is a dark and vile being from the abyss. The Church believes in that shit, we Vortheans don’t.”

“The abyss? What abyss?”

Bram pointed downwards. Jerome raised an eyebrow at him. Was there such a thing as hell here, and he didn’t know about it?

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Bram shrugged again, his dirty blonde hair waving about in the wind. “Like I said, the Church believes in that shit. To them, there’s an abyss down below filled with shit crazy monsters that’ll make magical beasts look like hamsters.”

“But Vorthe doesn’t believe this?”

Bram shrugged again. “Meh. Some do and some don’t. Depends on who ye ask, I suppose. The general consensus is that we all are reincarnations of our past lives — cogs in a complex machine in a never-ending cycle. All of that happens in the Astral plane though. You know, the heavens.”

Jerome thought about his words for a moment. Like Sheela, Bram was quite smart but didn’t look or act like it. Only when one listened — truly listened — to people like them would one get to see their brilliance.

“So what’s the difference between a demon and a daemon?”

Bram pointed down again. “Demons come from down below, daemons are born to human parents. Demons are chthonic beings, daemons are not.”

“Oh, so that’s how it is.”

Jerome heard Achilleia sigh in his head. “You shouldn’t yet be in this phase of your education, Xerae. But I guess if you’ve learned about the Ouranai, then it’s okay for you to learn about the Chthonai.”

You mean Chthonians, right?

“Aye,” Bram said. “Simple way to look at it is, demons are from below; daemons are from above — well, technically not from above. There’s the—”

“The Ouranai. I know about those.”

“Yes! The Ouranai are entities of the heavens, they say!” Bram became more animated as he grew more excited. “But humanity only knows very little about them. Daemons, demons, and Ouranai, eh? The world is sure full of mysteries.” He chuckled.

“Hmm,” Jerome replied in good spirits. He was happy to get this cleared up. Thinking he was comparable to a demon wasn’t good for his heart.

“I don’t mean to be a spoil sport but just so you know, Xerae. You are Chthonai — Chthonian, Kthani, Kthanika, there have been many names over many eons. The darkness you will inherit was born from the souls of millions of the dead and dying. You’re halfway in the abyss yourself, so to speak.”

Way to ruin my mood, Achilleia. Do you know what a ‘Malakai’ is then? He segued.

“Nope. Only ever came across it in your memory. I like the Greek meaning though: Messenger of God.” She chuckled playfully.

I prefer to think of myself as Mother Nature’s emissary.

“That, you are, Xerae… that, you are.”

Jerome looked up the next moment, sensing trouble approaching. He stood, bracing himself on his shovel. The other workers sensed the incoming sacred artists a moment later and stood as well, looking up. But they quickly left his vicinity when they noticed the golden aura that was almost upon them.

“I must have been dreaming all this time…” Forester chuckled from within the cloud of golden aura surrounding him in the air. “...and only now just woke up. The cur can shovel shit, just like he’s supposed to in my dream!”

His minions laughed at his words like they had heard pure comedy.

Sycophants, Jerome thought. “What do you want, Forester? I’m busy.”

“Oh!” He held up a memory crystal in his glowing hand. “Only to preserve this moment forever!”

The minions behind him laughed again. Harder this time. The bright golden light of the Sovereign’s aura was not enough to limit Jerome’s reach so he plucked the memory crystal out of Forester’s hand with his psychic energy. Of course, he activated the pod of Hezvar to prevent anyone from sensing him use his psychic energy.

Jerome watched Forester’s facial expression transform comically into one of shock. He didn’t respond for a few seconds. When he regained his senses, Jerome had put away the memory crystal and was back at shoveling more shit into the pits.

“Give that back!” Forester barked.

Jerome ignored him but the bastard wasn’t having it. He was intent on embarrassing him. Forester flicked his wrist and a giant hand made of light appeared out of nowhere, picked up shit, and dumped it on him. Jerome stood again. Having protected himself with a barrier, he pushed the dung away from himself with his psychic energy before turning to face the team of Sprouts in the air.

The twins were among them so he directed his question to them.

“What is all this about? You should all be harassing the Messengers and gathering intel. Have you found evidence of a Judge amongst them? How many hundred thousand legions or so are we to deal with?...”

The twins didn’t even look at him as he went on listing things they should be doing. Instead they were smiling mockingly at Forester who was glowering down at him, waiting for the arrogant Royal Sprout to do something. Jerome stopped talking and let silence speak for him instead. His countenance alone demanded an answer and the twins sensed it — fortunately for them. They would have lost his respect if not.

“We found something,” they said together, eerily synchronizing their speech. The mirth never left them though.

“What is it?”

~~~

They stood inside a cave system a few miles west of their camp. Jerome was staring at a hovering cloud of deep blue otherworldly essence at a particularly hidden corner of the cave. Lightning was zipping in and out of it and he could see that it was unstable.

“And you say you sensed this when?” he asked.

The twins held their hands over their noses to try and block out his stench. They even leaned away from him anytime he spoke.

“This morning,” one of the twins said.

“About a third of a quarter ago,” the other completed.

“We came to investigate it as soon as we sensed it…”

“But this was how we found it…”

“No, it seems to have changed…”

“A little.”

“A little?” He turned to them curiously. “How little?”

Steel-blue eyes, which reminded him of the Itakar Scions, met his and they both held their free hands in front of them, taking a step back. Their actions were so synchronized that he thought his mind was playing tricks on him. But they also reminded him of the fact that he was still covered in shit.

Jerome snorted and turned away. “It’s still… blooming, so to speak. Portals need a lot of energy to open. You saw the opening of Terra Praeta so you know what I mean.”

They nodded. They had come in with him alone. The rest of their teammates were waiting outside, too afraid to come near the portal, perhaps. Well, except for Forester. He didn’t come along with them and was sulking back at the camp for not being able to retrieve his memory stone.

Who knew shit could deter arrogant young masters…

“But it seems to be taking too much time.” Jerome materialized his spear in his hand and commanded it to scan the portal. Only through a feedback loop between his ring and spear could he interpret the information from the tear in space. If not, he was just as blind to it as anyone in the Core Formation Realm.

His nanites would have helped but Achilleia built them, which made them way too powerful to be used that way for someone in his Realm. His computation ring on the other hand was a quantum computer by design, which could help him sift through a tremendous amount of data, organize it, and interpret it into something his mind can understand.

“I sense that it will take less than a quarter to fully open,” he said. “But this is good.”

“It’s good?” they asked together.

“Hmm. The Church is trying to be as stealthy as possible. That’s why it’s taking time. They can’t push too much charge into their gravisars, otherwise they ruin their plans.”

“And you know this, how?” one of them asked again.

“My spear.”

“We mean how do you know it’s the gravisars creating the portal?” the other asked.

“Oh! I didn’t explain that, did I? The gravisars have a core inside them that’s made of folded space. I call them void beads. The void beads are powered by giant crystals made from ascended elements. And with that, the void beads make space heavier, so to speak.

“It’s the same principle at work when creating portals, you see. The void beads bend the fabric of space to connect two points in space that were hitherto separate.”

“He really is a daemon,” one of the twins said.

Wait, that didn’t sound like they were talking to him.

Jerome turned to see them looking at each other. They just stood there, eyes unblinking and looking into each other’s eyes. He decided to see where this all would lead so he waited, watching them stare each other down. If he could make an educated guess, he’d say they were communicating psychically. Which he had suspected for a while now but it was still surprising to witness it.

“I think that’s the easy part, Xerae. The hard part is knowing how they are doing it.”

Something tells me you already know, Achilleia. Care to offer a tip?

“No.”

Did you have to be so insensitive? He chuckled.

“I know that didn’t hurt you, Xerae. You’re too thick-skinned for an insult like that. They’re coming out of it.”

Jerome folded his arms and stared them down when they faced him. He could see it in their eyes. He had caught them doing something they would’ve rather kept a secret from everyone.

“You two are not just twin Sprouts, are you?” He held a hand up to keep them from saying anything. “I’m not going to pry. Sprouts can’t sense tears in space. But I didn’t pry when you said you sensed this portal” — he thumbed in the direction of the tear in space and they flinched — “I have my secrets too and I’d prefer it if no one pries. Do we have a deal?”

They nodded. “Thank you, Jerome,” they both said in sync. “That has never happened with someone close by before.”

“Now that’s eerie.” Not to dwell too much on the topic, he segued. “I need to study the portal to get a better understanding of the portal, and…” He looked around the dark cave noticing a few things that made him smile. “Bat guano.”

“Huh?” the twins asked curiously.

“Bat droppings” — he pointed — “have more saltpeter in them than horse dung. We need to get enough people in here to excavate.”