Page 3970

Should he concern himself with collateral damage? Now, at this late juncture?

Yes, of course he should. If it could be helped, then it should be. The entire purpose of the Prime Hunt was to free the mortal world from the Children’s influence. Destroying it instead, while sometimes necessary, was not a significantly better option.

And of course, there was the additional concern of the Crystal Titan. If Koh pursued Avar’s vessel now, the Titan might well interfere.

But then again, he might not. His lack of presence at the battle in the Luthic had been quite noticeable, given how long it had lasted and how much destruction it had ultimately wrought around the world.

He must have been greatly indisposed to have missed such an encounter. Treading through another realm, perhaps?

Sermung was an especially strange figure, Koh thought. Despite having investigated him multiple times in the past, Koh had never found any hint of the Children upon him. By most accounts, Sermung was a very mild-mannered, average-seeming man. Yet the tales of his deeds throughout history were anything but.

There were multiple stories about how some immense natural disaster would occur. An earthquake. A hurricane. A lightning storm. A tsunami. It didn’t seem to matter what kind it was, because Sermung, supposedly, would simply appear and... make it stop.

As if he could command the world itself to calm down.

There was some precedent for that type of ability, of course. Any sufficiently powerful soul could suppress the natural world around them within their “sphere of influence” as it was sometimes called. The emperors had done so multiple times during their last battle.

But even they had only calmed the raging storm around them for a brief time. They hadn’t actually stopped it for good.

Perhaps it was simply a matter of scale. Koh had to wonder if it would have been too much for Sermung, as well.

Having witnessed the man on the battlefield a few times in the past, Koh still did not know what to make of him. He seemed to hold back quite often. Either that, or the stories about him were greatly exaggerated.

Then again, they were bound to be exaggerated to some degree, regardless. Such was the nature of reputations that spanned the world.

But there was one aspect of the Titan that Koh had been wanting to learn more about--and now that he was finally free of Ettol’s influence, perhaps he could.