Over halfway there! What a journey it's been so far, I do hope you feel the same way.

Chaining last Volume's success, the group this time tackled the troublesome Shrine, and even managed to subdue it fully. Without threats nor a reward to look forward to, it really has lost all of its purpose. The Gods are steadily losing ground to our heroes, but is this really the best course of action?

Alas, Vastoria remains in her comatose state. Still on a tightrope inches away from death, she waits for Migu and the others to rescue her from her perilous predicament. Thanks to a certain swordsman, however, the medium by which they would have accomplished that had been broken. What a bummer.

I have some big plans I sincerely hope will work out as well as they are working out in my head for the next couple of Volumes. Namely, from the latest twist, we encounter a strange scenario where the big bad and scary Gods show hints of underlying humanity within them, not to mention how they are now part of the team responsible for bringing Vastoria back.

I would like to explore their characters a bit more. Being tired Gods all the time can't be all that they're good at, so I'd like to showcase their side of the story a bit more. After all, despite how sinister their goals may sound like from afar, they in fact do sincerely just want everyone that has ever, is and will ever exist to be happy. Depending on how the story progresses, we could either see Migu start to understand them on a more fundamental level, or she could still remain averse to them and their plotting nature. Anyone's guess, really.

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As for the Volume's layout, you may have noticed the first third being completely about Migu and Energy, before going back to explain what the others were doing in the meantime. We learn that one group really couldn't have done it without any of the others, which was really tough to write out properly. The amount of planning and backtracking I had to do just to make sure everything aligned warrants some level of praise, you know?

We also got to meet a new character for the first time in a while—Nerys Edris! I wanted to originally save her for a bit later, but I realized I was already past halfway done with the entire thing, so I figured holding out any longer would detriment her character growth. She's a pir-err, seafarer from an unknown era. Then again, as an ever-seabound individual, it really doesn't make too much of a difference at all when she's from.

And all this led to our heroes getting the closest they've ever been to escaping Heaven 2.0 yet. Mere centimeters away from touching down on the World of the Living, they were regrettably transported back to the top—"at their most inopportune moment."

Migu seems undeterred, however. Vastoria's safety guides her to her latest quest, this time with a pair of very scary allies. Let's wish her the best of luck in her future endeavours—they seem to be quite the handful...