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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.