Before leaving, Lunaris insisted on grabbing the corpses of the neophytes and the agent.

“Guys, help me out, will you?” She asked as she was dragging the corpses, trying to stuff them into her magical storage.

The guys were appalled by the highly disgusting request. But it’s not like they hadn’t done much more disgusting things in the past few days, so they helped her out. She was right, the corpses could have their uses. They didn’t feel bad about it either, these were murderers hell-bent on destruction, so at least their corpses could do some good for the world.

Now that James had absorbed the energies of the Bloodwell, and Denmac had divined the information they needed, the gang was finally ready to return to Hedonia.

And they had to hurry. Denmac managed to divine the list of traitors within the ranks of Hedonia, and they didn’t want to postpone the cleansing for a single second.

As they were rushing home, the lands of Darkness were no less perilous than before, and yet they felt entirely different. They were all much stronger now, and more experienced. But James in particular had made immense progress. Even without fully understanding his new powers, he was feeling unbeatable.

With a confidence that they didn’t have on the way in, they were leaving the lands of Darkness at breakneck speeds. They didn’t even bother with stealth. Any demon that caught wind of their movements found itself cut in half by a saw or a wave of fire.

Denmac seemed as sleepy as ever as he was infusing his powers into the flying carpet, making it zoom between the trees as the rest of the group was lazily cutting down demons.

With no real enemies to stand in their way, before long, they were out of the lands of Darkness.

“This doesn’t feel real.” Lunaris exclaimed.

“I know what you mean. We fought so hard to get in, and now we stroll out of there like we’re out on a leisurely afternoon walk.” Helios replied.

Coming out of those lands and their oppressive atmosphere made them feel like they had been reborn. Breathing in the sweet air that lacked the corrosive aura of the Darkness was a delight like no other. Even the bright, unfiltered light of the sun felt like a divine gift from the beautiful blue sky.

But as wonderful as it felt to bask in the sunlight, appreciating the simple things they had always taken for granted, they had a job to do.

Now that they were out of there and there was no interference blocking the AetherPhone, Helios sent the list of traitors to his father.

“And we’re done!” Helios shouted as a huge weight was lifted off his shoulders.

“Wow, that was a lot simpler than I thought it would be.” James said with a confused expression. “I thought there’d be trials and a huge investigation and whatnot.”

“No need for trials. Denmac got the list of names, now all dad has to do is round them all up before they can fight back. Other diviners can look through their memories and abodes to confirm their guilt. By the time we get back it’ll probably be done already, we’ve already done our part.” Helios answered.

With the list being sent, they technically didn’t have to hurry back anymore. But they still missed home, and they were exhausted both physically and mentally from the mission. The group made haste to the capital of Andarmat and took the portal to Hedonia, without stopping for even a second.

Moments later, they were back in Hedonia. The sight of the familiar buildings and faces almost made them cry from happiness. They felt like they came back from a war.

Unfortunately, they had to make a quick trip to the hospital. Despite Lunaris putting a lot of effort into healing them, the injuries the guys received needed proper treatment.

After a few hours of screaming from having their flesh regrown at the hospital, including James’s hand, the gang made a beeline for Helios’s house, ready to fall into a deep slumber for a few days and really unwind. War or no war, Darkness or no Darkness, they had been going through the cycle of battle and training for way too long. Even if the stalemate broke tomorrow, they still wouldn’t lift a finger for a few days. They were beyond exhausted, and they had truly earned their rest.

But before they could pass out in their respective beds, they had to part with Denmac.

Helios pulled out a heavy bag of coins from his storage and handed it to Denmac.

“You were a great help, buddy. We couldn’t have done it without you.” Helios looked at Denmac for a few seconds and then he pulled out another bag. “You know what, that’s not enough. You deserve this too.”

“My god, that’s way too much. You even gave me those priceless bottles of wine!” Denmac protested.

“Don’t worry, you deserve it. We all thank you.” Lunaris bowed her head.

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James didn’t know what to say, especially since he wasn’t paying anything, so all he could do was bow to Denmac.

But then he bowed to Helios and Lunaris too. He felt so grateful for everything these two people had done for him that he felt the need to express it as often as possible.

With teary eyes, Denmac found it hard to say goodbye. “I must give my thanks as well. This was quite an adventure, to say the least. I never experienced such danger in my entire life, and I’ve been on plenty of missions, believe me! But it was also quite thrilling, and I feel like I’ve made a lot of progress. And more importantly, I made some good friends.” He smiled.

Denmac wanted to say something else, but he hesitated.

“Don’t get shy on us now. Tell us, mate.” Helios smiled.

“Well, if you don’t mind, please do hire me again. Not that I can’t find work, but I have a feeling adventuring with you guys would be a lot more exciting than anything else I could do.” Denmac took a long look at each of them, but especially at James, still in awe at the powers he displayed. “Though I’ll understand if you don’t need my services again. I don’t know if I could even be useful to such powerful mages.”

Helios and Lunaris looked at each other and nodded. They looked at James too, and he understood what they meant right away. They had spent all of their time together for almost a year now, so at this point the three didn’t even need words to communicate such basic things.

“We’d be happy to. You were a great help indeed, and we could use you.” Lunaris answered with a smile. “Although we’re going to take it easy for a short period of time so we can fully recover. I feel like we would be doing ourselves a disservice if we rushed into anything without properly giving our minds some rest. And after that, we’ll train hard. I don’t know how we’ll face this Garantep guy if he’s as powerful as you say, but it’ll take a lot more power than we have at the moment.”

The two guys nodded rapidly. Especially to the resting part. As tough as they were, they needed some rest too.

At the mention of Garantep, Denmac’s body trembled involuntarily.

“Actually, I think we’ll need more than just you.” Helios continued. “During our training camp, why don’t you find another mercenary whose skills complement ours? You’ve seen our powers, you know what would work well in our group.”

Denmac’s sleepy face immediately lit up. “I sure will! You can count on me, I already have a few names in mind.”

The three friends said goodbye to the mercenary that proved essential to their mission, and had even grown to be their friend. And with that, each of them retreated to their respective rooms inside Helios’s house, and they fell asleep as soon as their heads hit the pillow.

Knowing that they had to face an enemy so much stronger than the one that very nearly killed them, who would most likely have a bunch of other agents surrounding him, they slept like it was the last time they’d ever touch a bed in their lives.

Helios initially had a bit of trouble sleeping, but once he received confirmation from his father that the traitors had been dealt with, he too feel into a deep slumber.

Not one of them got out of bed for three whole days.

Once they finally woke up, James couldn’t believe his eyes.

“Is this calendar right? It can’t be right! Three whole days?”

“Oh damn, my phone is full of messages.” Helios chuckled nervously.

“Wow, I’ve never slept this much in my entire life.” Lunaris said as she was yawning.

“I’m actually even more surprised that you guys slept as much as me. Usually you’re out and about way before I wake up.” James felt a bit relieved. It would’ve been incredibly embarrassing if he had been the only one that slept this much.

But instead of getting to work, they just stared at each other for a few seconds.

“One more day?” James asked.

“Make it two!” Lunaris answered.

“Or maybe even three? Nah, that’s too much, forget I said anything. Let’s just make it two days.” Helios added.

Each of them swiftly retreated back to their rooms, and didn’t come out for another two days.

This time around, they truly felt well-rested and ready to take on any challenge. Although 5 days of doing absolutely nothing was a lot, especially in a world infested by Darkness and agents, the rest period had done wonders for their mental and physical wellbeing.

And now they were more motivated and ready than ever.

Although they didn’t really need extra motivation to embark on their mission. Curing the curse, recovering James’s darkness powers so they could provide the insight they needed to defeat the Darkness, and killing agents that cause so much harm to their world was more than enough motivation. But one can burn out even from doing heroic things, so the period of rest had been essential.

Doing absolutely nothing had probably been even more productive than if they had spent the time training hard. The degree to which this rest multiplied their future mood and energy more than made up for it. It would make them much more efficient for what was about to come.

“Now we need to figure out how we’ll beat this Garantep guy.” Helios stated. “We had enough trouble with the last agent, and he was a small fish compared to Garantep.”

“I know, I’ve been worrying about it too. If Denmac’s assessment of him was accurate, then this is not something we can do with our current level of power. Even if we get mercenaries to deal with the other agents that would definitely surround him, and that’s enough of an issue in and of itself, Garantep alone could kill us all.” Lunaris added.

James didn’t say anything. He was just listening intently with his eyes closed.

“I’m not worried.” He said.

Helios and Lunaris raised their eyebrows.

“What I mean is that I’m not worried, depending on the amount of time we have available. If we can spend months training, then I think we can prepare properly. Look at how much we’ve accomplished so far! Even just properly getting used to our newfound powers will make us so much stronger than we are now. The question is, can we afford to waste that much time?”

Lunaris and Helios thought for a long time, not daring to respond without thinking it through.

“I think we can spend three months training.” Lunaris finally answered. “There’s technically nothing urgent about it. The war’s stalemate could go on for many more years, theoretically. And while a lot of death and suffering is happening every day, I think we can do a lot more good if we get as strong as we can, so we can deal with the stronger enemies.”

Helios nodded. “Three months sounds about right. It’s not like we’d actually go before we feel like we’re ready, so the deadline isn’t set in stone. But we should definitely try to make it within three months. The longer we take, the more things can go wrong. Especially since we’re making so much progress, the dark side can’t be happy about it. They might just send a superior agent to assassinate us so that you can’t ever recover your powers. Or even the stalemate could break, you never know. Anyway, now that we’re well-rested, we do need to get to work.”

Images of cozily reading a book and lying in bed all day long flashed through James’s head. But as sweet as that sounded, he knew Helios was right. They had to get to work.