Sorry for taking so long to announce this, but I have been busy with my job in real life (currently working 9 hours a day/6 days a week just at school). I'll get back to writing as soon as I can, but for the remainder of my current semester (ends July 27th), I'm going to be very busy and unable to get much done. Rest assured, I haven't dropped this and I will be continuing to write it when I have time. It's just that by the time I get home from work, I'm too tired to do much else. There should be a good number of releases between July 27th and the start of the new semester on August 17th as I will have my vacation then and will actually have time to write.
Book 8 is currently planned to be 14 chapters long. So here are some details.
Book 8 - Spoilers
Spoiler :
Xiaomei's family is directly responsible for the nonsense that is going on in the Eastern Kingdom, having secretly poisoned the Emperor and forcing him to change his policies to allow for the power struggles going on at the moment.
It will also reveal a little more about what the heck is going on with the Invasions and what the Hero System is.
More details - Invasion
Spoiler :
The "black star" that remains in the sky after the Invasion is literally a hole in space. When there are enough of them, they will connect and open like a "tear" in the sky. The result is a massive hole in the sky that an enormous army and numerous Guides can pass through, allowing for an Invasion on a worldwide scale to be initiated. This is what Constantinople had to deal with in the past, but the holes were sealed by others.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
There are currently 3 holes. One in Constantinople, one outside of the Eastern Empire (the biggest of the three, monsters frequently pass through it with ease), and one in the Saharan Peninsula (this one hasn't been shown yet and is the smallest of the three). In the future, one will appear near Anzio/Antium and one will be in the Archipelago Islands
More details - Hero System
Spoiler :
There are indeed other "Heroes." The "False Heroes" that Zedd spoke about will appear at some point. They are people who have inherited other Hero Legacies that function differently from Garnet's, which is known as the Mana Beast (the dragon like entity that appears inside of her yet refuses to talk to her), yet grant similar levels of power. The "Heroes" are results of different experiments in an attempt to create a being powerful enough to combat the leader of the Guides, a lich that has spent multiple lifetimes stealing powers from the dead like Garnet has.
The four most powerful Heroes right now are
Mana Beast - Garnet
Four Cardinal Spirits - Shaman
Physical Reinforcement - Conduit
Spirit Elementalist - Avatar