Next page on the 28th

Thanks for reading, everyone. In the meantime, here's another joke for you.

I once told my son I loved him. And he believed me. Haha.

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Doubtless, there was much to catch up on. And to his surprise, he noticed that neither Xander nor anyone else was already here waiting for him.

Had Xander not been the one to send the signal? It was a very short list of people who could have done that--unless some kind of great shift had taken place, of course.

That was always the fear, wasn't it? That he would return to an annihilated Vanguard. A successful Abolish.

A destroyed planet.

Historically, that had always been their outward objective. But over time, Sermung had come to know that Morgunov and Dozer were a bit different in that regard. Not like most of their predecessors. Sure, they still paid lip service to the idea, especially in front of their men; and sure, they still gave refuge to plenty of truly omnicidal monsters within their ranks. But they did not actively pursue that agenda like in days long past.

Unless, again, something had changed.

He stepped to the edge of the cliff and took in the view of the Waress Mountains.

The center of the Eloan continent. The high winds were frigid and punishing, but they didn't bother him in the slightest. From this high up, he could see so far into the distance that the curvature of the planet was made obvious on the horizon. And near the edge of the surrounding mountain range, a sea of clouds was visible, rarely broken by holes that allowed him to see the flooded land beneath.

This peak that he was so close to belonged to the second tallest mountain in the world, Mt. Ninora. The tallest, Mt. Vinayoaka, was also in this same mountain range, though it was several hundred miles to the north.

That location would have served just as well as this one, but there were not many others. For the purpose of these rocky cocoons, geography was key. Both resonance and altitude were important, along with other minutiae. Xander had explained it all to him in excruciating detail, of course, but in the end, Sermung had only been able to wrap his head around eighty percent of it or so.

Close enough, he'd figured.

He did know that these peaks were quite good for one other thing, though.

Observation of souls and aura. They flowed, too, all around the planet. And from places like this, if one knew how, one could see a lot more than just the physical aspects of this middle realm.

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But now, at least, they could take the fight to the enemy much more easily than at any point in history.

Ground could actually be taken.

He sometimes wondered what his predecessors might think of this development. If they would be proud.

Through great fortune, however, he'd already gotten some direct answers to that. And thus far, at least, they had made for quite the heartening meetings. Reminders of the grand quest. The unity of the human spirit. Even across entire Ages.

But it wasn't enough. He was still hoping to encounter more of them and hear their thoughts. He just didn't know how much to get his hopes up. At this point, it was clear that, yes, many of the ancient masters had survived their supposed "death" in the middle realm, but that didn't mean they'd survived their ventures into the higher realms.

He'd found their traces.

Unso, for example. That man, for all his flaws, was still perhaps not deserving of the grisly fate that had befallen him within the Impassable Canyon.

Being turned into a paralyzed husk and feasted upon by nightmare-inducing soul eaters for decades. Maybe even centuries.

Sermung was not sure that anyone deserved that. But at least he'd been able to end the man's suffering.

Moreover, he could not help wondering if such a thing might happen to himself, one day. And how long it might be before someone else came along and did him the same favor.

Tenebrach, of course, assured him that he would never allow such a thing to happen--that he would simply release his soul before it ever came to that. Which, of course, was the reaper's own, classic way of trying to be comforting. Sermung appreciated that much, at least.

But surely, Unso's reaper would have tried to do the same. And there was no trace remaining of whoever that had been. Not even the weakest of aura tethers.

He'd been trying to stop dwelling on that, though. A bad habit.

Keep focused, he reminded himself. Multiple thought processes were a curse, if he didn't keep them in check. At this point, he'd found it much more efficient to stick with just the one and resort to those only when necessary.

Efficient. And peaceful.

He certainly needed as much of that as he could possibly get, these days.

Unfortunately, he very much doubted that this return home would be peaceful at all.