The book was underwhelming to say the least. Aurelius had expected a huge opus. Instead, the copy Aleyah brought him the next day was a measly hand-sized thing with pages so thin, Aurelius couldn't comprehend how it had survived the trip from another continent.

The translation dictionary, on the other hand, was the kind of opus Aurelius had expected. Not that that brought him much joy. In anycase, while he resumed his patheticly fruitless exercising with Cade, he put his mind to work at learning the common tongue of the western continent and labored his way through the 'Book of the Conqueror'.

Fortunately, the book wasn't as complex as Aurelius had thought based on what Aleyah had told him about its writer, Obelium the Oid. It only took him some days to translate the first paragraph.

'In the beginning, when Lundkirk was a small and oppressed nation of broken rock, the Conqueror was born. Enemies of prosperity he slayed with the might of his devoted people, and land he made anew. The unrighteous world he sought to conquer all for the unappeased and abused, who would be welcome to his riches as long as they swore their loyalty to the Right Way.'

And so it continued.

***

It quickly became evident that the book wasn't quite what he'd expected. All the books he'd heard about or seen were historical accounts of some kind. The Book of the Conqueror seemed like a method of persuading the people of conquered nations to join Kendrick, the Conqueror of the West, in his quest.

Despite its simplicity and lack of concrete content, Aurelius was enraptured with the book. Many nights he spent awake reading in candlelight. He learned the language faster than expected. Before, it had taken him days to understand a single page, as he was unfamiliar with the dictionary and couldn't understand the forms of words. In just a few weeks he'd made it almost 10 percent into the book that was about 500 pages.

He'd progressed a lot in the language and was starting to recognize words and their meanings in context without so much as glancing at the dictionary. He was also trying to get a grasp on the pronunciation by studying the dictionary further.

Obviously, Cade caught on to what he was doing. When she asked about it, he told her he was reading it just because Aleyah happened to have it, and he was curious. In essence, it was to pass the time by using his mental energy on some task. Though skeptical at first, she seemed to buy the excuse. She still didn't know about the Zalfarian War resuming.

He hadn't brought it up from the very beginning for a few different reasons. First of all, it wasn't public knowledge yet. Even he wanted to tell himself it wasn't true, so Cade and Aleyah would've just thought he was crazy.

Furthermore, if Cade knew his motives, she would've gone crazy. After all this, to even be thinking of willingly taking any kind of part in war was idiotic. Aurelius knew that. As Aleyah had said before, he may have paid the consequences for his actions. However, he'd done nothing to repent.

He'd been gone from home for so long. He was afraid for how his absence had affected his mother. He knew that if he went back now, he wouldn't be able to leave. And he couldn't end his journey here. He wouldn't crawl his way back home.

***

"It's like he isn't even human," Aurelius said with a groan as he kept his body upright with his hands. "The book talks about him like he's a thing that achievements just gravitate towards."

"Aha," Cade commented helpfully while she held her two materialized poles still with her hands.

Their rehabilitation methods had improved quite a bit over the weeks. This time, Cade had made support beams for him to use as he swayed his body to simulate walking movements without feeling anything. It hadn't done much good except for developing Aurelius' upper body, as he had to hold himself up.

"How can people follow a person like that? Why do they want to?" Aurelius said, his expression twisting painfully, half from exertion and half from emotion.

Cade tilted her head. "Some people just seem to have fate on their side. Who wouldn't want to follow that?" She raised her brows at Aurelius. "They're like an unstoppable force."

"But no one is." Aurelius groaned, looked down at his useless bare feet, and huffed. His arms were already sore. How the hell were they already sore?

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"Mmm, we like to believe."

Aurelius looked up at her, straining with effort. There was something meaningful in her serene gaze. "We?"

"Me, you, everybody. You see how people went crazy over you. They don't see you much differently than the Conqueror of the West, oh Ender of Reigns."

Aurelius staggered slightly and almost fell. "What?"

"Right, you haven't heard. That's what everybody's calling you now. First the liveD and now the Ender of Reigns. They're mystifying you for some reason. I'm not sure why; it's not like it's always in a positive way. That's just what people do, I guess," Cade said, crossing her arms and tapping her foot on the ground. "Now come on, move a little."

Aurelius stayed still. He'd almost forgotten the effects of his actions. "What are they saying that's negative?"

Cade clicked her tongue. "Oh, come on. You don't need to worry about that right now."

"No, tell me. What's happened? What have I caused?"

"Nothing too drastic. Numen was taken over by someone, but branches have begun disappearing, so I assume the new leader is trying to salvage the organization through reorganizing," Cade explained, but Aurelius wasn't satisfied. "You killed all their powerhouses in one go and drained all their funds on mercenaries. They lack manpower and finances, which means their influence is in danger of going extinct. The president seems to have turned against Numen as well. I assume that's because he sees it as an opportunity to accumulate more power for himself, but he's done well for the people thus far. I don't know how long that's going to last, though. Crime may have dropped significantly, but the number of gangs is on the rise. People who've benefited from the change praise you as the Ender of Reigns." Cade paused, frowning at Aurelius, who waited intensely. "The ones who haven't talk of you like a God of Destruction. They say you kill everything you touch. That when Numen regains power, it'll be a worse hell than before, and you're powerless to stop it."

Aurelius trembled slightly, inhaling through his nose. "What about Arkryk?"

Cade shook her head slightly. "I don't know. Aleyah says it's all mixed up in there."

"So chaos."

"We don't know that."

"We don't know because it is chaos!"

Cade was unshaken. "I don't know what you want me to say."

Aurelius's breathing became harder. He was on the verge of collapse. Everything he'd suffered for was just a waste after all. Worse than that, it had gotten him into this. What was he to do?

His teeth ground against each other as his head ached. His hands turned white as he gripped the beams on his sides. Cade fell silent, casting her gaze down as he held back sobs with rage.

Then suddenly her eyes rose, wide like the sudden smile on her face. "Look! Look at your feet," she almost squealed.

Aurelius turned riddled with confusion and looked down. His toes were curled and twitching. He looked at Cade, unsure what he was even feeling. When she saw his face, she jumped in elation.

She had forgotten her materializations, though, and the support beams disappeared in that same moment. Despite his efforts, Aurelius crumbled helplessly.

Cade lunged toward him in an instant. She caught him in her arms, skidding to a stop. Then she pulled him into an embrace, and he felt his heart dance in a way he had never felt before.

When Cade pulled back, they were face to face. Aurelius held his breath. The realization that now it really was just a matter of time before he could walk again made him think he might cry.

Cade chuckled sweetly. "You're almost on equal ground with infants now."

***

Later that night, Aurelius read the same sentence for the 42nd time just as mindlessly as the 41st time. It took a couple more reads before he realized what he was doing and sighed.

He turned, ready to blow out the candle by his bedside, but stopped to look down at his feet. With some effort, he got them to wiggle and smiled.

'So all this time you were in shock just like me,' Aurelius thought, slapping his thigh. There was still no sensation there.

Aurelius had worked on multiple theories, but the one he most believed in was that his body was so used to floods of essence coursing through it that the sudden cut-off caused the dysfunction. Fortunately, it seemed this could be fixed by having his body adapt to functioning like a normal person's.

Aurelius glanced at the book and stretched his neck. 'Just this one sentence,' he decided, though he was beginning to have a hard time keeping his eyes open.

"Ichti Solomonu," he whispered under his breath, "quan revrendus Arman Achlias, non safria il Chassiru."

Then he began to translate, looking through the dictionary by his side. 'Against Solomonia, a place revered for... uhh, and then..." He ran his finger through the text. "The conqueror suffered casualties. No, wait... No casualties?"

He repeated, "Against Solomonia... the conqueror suffered no casualties."

"Solomonia? Wait, that's... quan revrendus? Is that 'home of the reverend'? And then... Arman, meaning Soldier, and Achlias, meaning of God... Oh. Oh?"

"Against Solomonia, home of the reverend Soldier of God, the Conqueror suffered no casualties."

Aurelius blinked, a feeling rising in his heart.

'Gadreel's essence usage... Could it really be a mythical technique?' The thought occurred to Aurelius, not for the first time but stronger than before. 'That would explain why I haven't been able to understand it at all. There's some kind of secret to it,' he thought, elated even though it may have been foolish.

Maybe he wanted to believe that because it was suddenly possible that there was someone to guide him to that mystical realm. He couldn't know for sure, but from all that he'd gathered, an intuition came to him.

When they had first met, Cade had told Aurelius about Solomon and how he disappeared to let his country be taken. Aurelius had thought Kendrick had killed him, but if that were the case, it couldn't have been without casualties so significant there would be no lying about them.

'Instead of going after Kendrick like my father did, Solomon made some sort of deal," Aurelius concluded. 'So he's alive, and he's the only one who can help me regain my essence and go beyond!'