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Real, living, human mortals. The older he’d gotten, the more he’d learned about the history of the world--the history of how oppressed normal human beings had been by forces beyond their control.

Or more accurately, by reapers.

Which was perhaps a strange point of focus to make, considering he was beholden to one himself, but he knew that Marlizia felt even more strongly on this subject than he did. She was the one who’d convinced him of the truth of it, after all.

Eleg was under a stranglehold. For thousands of years. It was the battleground and plaything of those whose time should have long since passed.

‘We are thieves of the youth,’ was how Malizia had put it. ‘We have all the time in the world, and yet it’s not enough. We have to steal away what little time mortals get by shaping the world to our will. Not just in petty and pointless wars, but also in the organization of society. I thought the Vanguard would be different with their rule of non-interference in mortal governments, but that has proved to be just another placating lie. Each new generation of human beings should have the chance to remold and reforge civilization anew. But they can’t do that when they’re stuck under the countless quiet tyrannies of superpowered immortals.’

Which was why, above all else, Daro Bright felt that his work--his true work--was too important to gamble with. Marlizia was obviously not like the rest of her kind. If they discovered what he was trying to accomplish...

It didn’t even bear thinking about. There would be no chance of survival. Not for him, Marlizia, or anyone near them.

But the actual task of excising reapers from the world was certainly no easy feat. Cancerous though they were, they still served an important function in the ferrying of souls into the afterlife.

In the prevention of feldeaths from being born, more specifically. Without an alternate solution to that little problem, removing reapers from the world was the same as dooming it. In Daro’s estimate, feldeaths would overrun the world and annihilate all of humanity within five hundred years.

He knew the stakes. The fire that he was playing with.

But he was also prepared to abandon the project entirely if a workable replacement for reapers could not be found.

Next page at noon

Thanks for reading, everybody.

Page 3768

Which was why he was particularly concerned about it being discovered during this conflict. He knew the prying eyes and ears were out there. Searching for a way in. The Vanguard and Abolish both. And others, too. The Old Wardens. The Andanatt. Those bastards might well be the greatest threat of all, as far as he was concerned.

And maybe one more whose name he did not yet know. Assuming they even had a name in the first place. He knew so little about their existence that they might not have even been real. It might’ve just been a feeling in his gut. That there was some unknown extra party out there, observing from some unknown place in some unknown way.

But beyond doubt, Daro Bright knew that if any of those groups found out what he was planning, they would stop at nothing to get in his way. They wouldn’t just kill him. They would seek out anything he’d touched in the last thirty years and annihilate it.

Including the Anvil, of course. His Fusion Forge.

Right now, he had to protect that above all else. Creating it had been an undertaking like none other. He had, quite literally, poured his very soul into it. To the point that he had needed two months to recover. And even then, he still hadn’t felt the same afterwards.

He likely never would, either. That was what it meant to harness the soul to such an extent. To sacrifice part of it, essentially. Fully recovering from that may’ve been simply impossible. Even for the undead.

His reaper, Marlizia, had not been pleased when she discovered his thoughts on that. It was her soul, too, after all. And that deal was even more than she’d bargained for, no doubt. It had been difficult enough to convince her that they should risk their lives in the attempt to construct the Anvil in the first place; so to then learn that they might never again be whole... well, that was just the cherry on top for her.

She had come around, though. Eventually.

The Anvil was his masterwork. It had been what allowed him to create these various “workspaces” for everything. Every future project. Every important idea.

Every single thing that needed hiding from the intrusive eyes of the world.

The Anvil was the beginning of everything. If he could just live long enough, survive long enough, then he could change this world. He could fulfill Marlizia’s dream for her. The one she hadn’t dared tell him about until he’d already been her servant for a hundred years.

He could give mortals a chance.