The passing of a legend was a powerful, complicated thing.

The last time, Rowan had been a bit too busy dealing with his own problems to feel anything. This time, Rowan got to feel the full impact even though he was gasping for breath and still reeling from the impacts of his deck.

The second the man’s will broke and life drained fully out of the king’s body, the world shuddered. Something out there was fundamentally altered. Ripped away, forever.

Even with all that the man had cost him, with all that his presence and actions meant for Rowan and his allies, a sense of profound sadness took root in his very soul, made all the worse by the fact that it was his hand that had taken the legend’s life.

He did not, however, feel even a hint of remorse.

No, the only thing that Rowan could muster was a profound sense of relief when the flood of blood finally stopped sinking into his skin. No longer supported by the voraciousness of his skill, Rowan toppled on top of the desiccated corpse, just focusing on trying to breathe.

With the demon, the energy that had come in was torn to shreds, tamed, and then forcefully assimilated. Looking back on the process now, especially with a different point of comparison, Rowan realized that the blood had affected him. He very nearly lost his mind, the literal thirst for blood overwhelming him.

With the king, there was no need for such complicated absorption processes. The blood was torn out of the man’s body, and its power was shoved right into Rowan’s.

Rowan felt bloated. He felt like another drop of blood would send him over some kind of edge he wouldn’t recover from.

And then his Natural Renewal triggered.

Rowan spasmed, resisting a scream only by the virtue of the fact that his muscles were too stiff to release it. Scarlet Envy and Natural Renewal were both powerful, essential cards in his deck.

One worked subtly, in the background, always a reliable presence that barely even made itself known. The other was controlling, demanding, and he couldn’t miss the impulses it sent at him if he tried.

And now the two were caught in outright war, with his body as the battlefield.

Scarlet Envy had earned itself a bounty of blood and power, and it refused to relinquish its prize. Natural Renewal saw the power for the poison that it was, and fought to purge it through any means necessary.

Both cards reached out at once, laying their claim to the well of power Rowan had sundered from the king’s body, and anything caught in their game of tug suffered. That anything just so happened to be Rowan’s entire soul and body.

And it was both, Rowan could feel it.

The physical pain was just one portion of the agony he was suffering. His soul, his deck, or pretty much every part of him, was under just as much pressure. Pressure that made it hard for him to think, to focus, to do anything.

Vaguely, Rowan was aware of the voices shouting his name. He might have even felt a hint of the hands gripping him, turning him onto his side. And vaguely, he heard angry words exchanged about blood and choking and potions and danger.

None of that mattered to him.

Then the words popped up in front of him.

Error!

Safety margins exceeded!

Card use exceeds intended parameters!

Querying database for past precedence on direct intervention…

Divine influence detected!

Loading solution…

Briefly, Rowan felt relief. Letters formed around the presence of the two cards, and they faltered. Hope sprung forth.

Then Rowan’s heart card erupted into a halo of purple-golden light, and the pain surged back even more intensely.

Divine influence detected!

Cards limiters failed!

For a moment, Rowan’s world was nothing but pain. The power inside of him pulsed, struggling to both worm its way into his body and to surge out of his body as orange-colored vapor.

System intervention failed!

Initiating contact with administrator…

Attempt failed!

Loading procedural guidelines…

Attempt failed!

No procedural guidelines found!

ł ₳₥ ₴ØⱤⱤɎ, ₥ØⱤ₮₳Ⱡ.

If he could have, Rowan would have whimpered. Right there, plain as day, his death sentence was declared.

They had won, they did the impossible. They made a plan, well, Kayla made a plan, and Rowan was the one who stepped in to save the day. They all served their part. They exceeded expectations. They managed to kill people so far above them that they should have been pancaked a couple of hours ago.

And he was going to die just because his card got too greedy.

That, if anything, was finally enough to snap Rowan out of the pain, the suffering, and the fear. Ascribing emotions to his cards was one thing. Clearly, they carried some level of awareness. Some level of agency, too.

However, it was ultimately he who decided to fully engage the card. He who had clung to every scrap of power he could so he’d hold out until the moment when Harold finally drew his last breath. He wasn’t about to foist responsibility for that on anyone, least of all the card that had saved his life.

Of course, with that realization also came the one about what he had to do.

Trying to separate himself from what his entire being was going through was impossible. So, Rowan didn’t. He embraced the pain, both of his body and his soul, and he dove right into it.

Right into the conflict which drove his cards to clash and rend his body apart to begin with.

Rowan had never tried such a thing before. Never felt his cards quite as closely as he did at that particular moment. His perception went past the illusion of cards, straight to the bundle of energy that made them up.

Energy trapped, leashed, and bound around the tiniest fragment of soul stuff, just enough of it to be more than a simple object, just enough for the ‘card’ to continue performing a skill it once knew in life.

Rowan reached out for his two struggling cards, and then, like he would do to children, sternly asked them to play nice, please and thank you.

To the Stalwart Hero’s shock, it worked.

The two forced tearing him apart paused, glared at one another, and started working together.

Error!

Card balance achieved!

Loading prior solution…

Things jolted, then started flowing together even more smoothly. Natural Renewal pushed the energy towards Rowan’s soul, and Scarlet Envy happily gobbled it up, integrating it there.

The orange energy made Rowan’s soul swell as it was concentrated there, but some massive presence, far beyond anything Rowan had ever felt, divinity included, reached out and poked the core of his being.

The nudge was slight, but it sent countless ripples over the sphere of Rowan’s soul, ripples that made integrating the orange energy ridiculously easy. Rowan wasn’t sure how long that continued. He watched, transfixed, until that vast presence gently pulled away.

He did know, however, that he was tired. Beyond tired, really.

With one final weary sigh, his whole being basking in a sense of relief, the Stalwart Hero passed out.

—

Consciousness came back to Rowan in very slow increments.

The first thing that he truly felt was the slow, gentle rocking underneath him, and some kind of rough cloth that covered his body. It reminded Rowan of the one time he’d used a hammock, or of stepping onto a boat.

That was enough to send a jolt through his consciousness that fought to bring him back to the surface, but it didn’t really help speed things along.

The next thing he became aware of was the steady squelching sound from all around him. That threw him for a loop, but when he finally forced blurry eyes open, they landed on a pair of boots that was steadily making its way through mud.

Marching. He was in the middle of a marching army.

That was plenty reassuring on its own. If they still had an army that could march, then it was likely that the rest of their plan, past the disastrous beginning of it, had gone well enough.

Rowan tried to call out, but even opening his mouth made him aware of how dry and cracked it felt, sending him into a coughing fit that immediately provoked shouting and calls for help.

Then a familiar pair of hands was there, cupping his face and forcing him to look up. He gazed lovingly into his fiancée’s eyes, at least until she proceeded to stuff a potion bottle into his mouth.

Rowan’s first instinctive reaction was to gag and try to get away, but the second the sweet liquid touched his tongue, he could think of nothing but getting more of it into his system. He drank deeply, refusing to even come up for air until the entire bottle was gone, then mumbled a request for more.

Olivia obliged him the first time, but bopped his nose when he asked for more still. “That’s a potion, you dummy.” Her voice was relieved, but fragile. “It’s meant to help your body replenish missing nutrients and liquids. That one packed an equivalent to eating five feasts and chugging gallons of water, all in a single bottle. And you’ve already had two.”

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Rowan grumbled, but grabbed her hand and collapsed deeper his back, relieved and breathing easier. The feeling of having a desert in his mouth had fled as well, leaving him feeling fatigued and oddly wrung out, but fine enough.

It was only then that he realized how much his card had spoiled him. Somehow, over the course of just several months, he’d gotten used to the feeling of perfect health. Especially since his acquisition of Natural Renewal and the way that card seemed to soothe even the most remote corner of his soul.

That fact that he could even feel as ‘bad’ as he currently did was vaguely alarming in that sense.

“What happened? Where are we?” Rowan asked softly as he took a second to look around himself. Other than the vague withering jungle look of the wastes, he could not figure out where they’d taken him at all.

It was, however, interesting to note that he was apparently on a stretcher, and that they’d laid him on the ground when he finally started showing signs of being awake.

“Well, after that stunt you pulled with the king, the battle wrapped up rather quickly,” Olivia said, shifting slightly so she wasn’t kneeling next to him in an awkward position. “The other two really weren’t much of a threat, not with that Cartian assassin there to assist us.”

The woman’s expression was still sour, and Rowan was brought back to the moment when Kayla had revealed that she was in contact with the kingdom dedicated to the Goddess of Secrets. It wasn’t pretty, especially the reactions of the nobles in their midst, but then again, that sort of thing was easy to overlook when you had your own king gunning for your head.

“What about the army? Did they manage to stop Lucius from doing whatever that asshole of a king was forcing him into?” The question wasn’t as dire as it would have been if there wasn’t a sea of soldiers around them, but the fact that they still had an army didn’t really tell Rowan how much of said army was left.

“Apparently, their half of the plan went off without a hitch. The poison they slipped to the Mercenary King worked flawlessly, and the dosage was perfect. Actually, he woke up just before you. He’s at the head of the army with the rest, helping us march faster and eliminate threats. They should be here soon, actually.”

As if that were their cue, the army parted ahead of them, revealing the worried faces of Rowan’s friends and allies as they made their way over.

In the lead was Lucius himself, face forlorn and wrinkled with worry. “It is an immense relief that you are finally awake, my lord,” the big man whispered, falling to his knees right there in the mud. “You can now leverage whatever punishment against me that you please. The only thing I ask is that you spare my troops.”

Rowan genuinely didn’t know what to say to that for a solid few minutes. The only thing that finally prompted him to speak was the growing tenseness of the kneeling man’s shoulders.

“Please stand, Lucius. And I do think I’ve asked you to call me Rowan before, so you can start there with your ‘punishment.’” The Stalwart Hero took a deep breath, waiting for Lucius to follow his directions. “Now, as far as I’m concerned, that’s the end of that.”

“But, my — I mean, Rowan, I —”

A raised hand forestalled further arguments as Rowan slowly struggled to his feet. Olivia protested at first, but she helped him up when she saw that he was serious, and Blake rushed up to do the same, shooting Rowan a relieved smile.

When he was finally up and feeling only slightly woozy, Rowan met the Mercenary King’s eyes. “Listen, Lucius, I know none of that was your choice. I know that you were forced to betray us. You wouldn’t have tried to warn us, such as you could, otherwise. So, I refuse to punish a man who was so obviously pained by what others were forcing him to do.”

“Well said,” Blake beamed, clapping a hand on Rowan’s shoulder and earning himself a warning hiss from Olivia.

Lucius himself was silent, but Rowan almost swore that when the big man nodded at him, there were flashes of tears in his eyes.

“Oh, enough with the sappy shit,” Kayla crowed, thoroughly ruining the moment with her cocky grin. If he couldn’t sense a deep well of envy and discomfort through their link, Rowan would have felt far more upset. “We need to keep going. You do feel good enough for that, right?”

Rowan took a shaky step forward, but when his body cooperated and kept him upright, he nodded. “I’ll manage.”

“Good. We can talk as we march. We need to wrap this up quickly and take care of the more important problems,” Kayla said.

Olivia tensed at the woman’s reminder, expression getting guarded. It was enough to make Rowan desperate for context that would make her react like that.

“What actually happened while I was out?”

The more Rowan walked, the more his body shed its sleep, and the better he felt. By the time they made it to the front of the army and called for the march to continue, he felt practically good as new. The only thing that lingered was a vague sense of being stretched a bit too far, deep in his core.

“It’s more of what was happening when the king got word of us setting off and launched all his plans at once,” Kayla grumbled, her steps growing more aggressive in response to her agitated mood. “There’s war. Well, civil war? Or there was supposed to be one.”

“I hope you understand that you’re making absolutely no sense!” Rowan snapped, the mere idea of what such a thing might mean for the baron making his gut churn.

“Relax, you worry wart. Your precious baron family is just fine. Well, most of them, anyway. I did make some moves to protect your lady love’s brother, but you’ll understand when I say he wasn’t strictly a priority, right?”

Growing frustrated with the woman, Rowan instead turned to Olivia, knowing she’d have grilled Kayla for whatever she was worth at the first sign of trouble coming after her family.

“My brother’s stuck in the capital, as you might know. That’s where all the danger is. My parents are still in Rest’s Remorse, and the king’s army was dispatched to first encircle the barony and wait for his orders before either razing it to the ground or extracting my father’s surrender. The same thing is happening to all the nobles that refused to follow the king’s orders. Surrounded, and waiting for his royal majesty to swoop in as a prospective divinity and lay down the new rules,” Olivia explained.

“So, they’re not in any immediate danger?” Rowan sought to clarify.

“My brother might be. If the king’s agents have him. But she,” Olivia angrily motioned towards the smug heroine, “assures me that my brother’s been in collusion with Cartian agents that have been trying to cause an insurrection for a while, and that they’ll protect him. For what good her word is.”

“Hey, I’ll have you know you’re talking to the brand new Duchess of the Kingdom of Cartian, Her Holiness the Saintess! My goddess is a big deal over there. They contacted me the first moment I had to myself after being welcomed to this world.”

Kayla’s words were dripping with smugness, and Rowan really didn’t like the way satisfaction was radiating off of Tamara who was following a step behind the heroine at all times.

“I see you even have your first loyal follower,” Rowan said, eyes set on the exiled mage who winced but then met his gaze with no remorse.

“Hardly the first. No, that distinction belongs to the Deputy Tower Master of the Rhys Kingdom. Turns out, when the whole system is built on the basis of keeping mages under strict management and control, it’s easy to undermine an organization. Only the Tower Master was allowed basic liberties, like, you know, even leveling up to epic.”

Rowan noted, from the corner of his eye, that Blake and his party were looking distinctly uncomfortable. Curiously, the princess looked relatively well. She stood proudly next to Blake, and didn’t look the slightest bit like someone who’d just watched her father be drained into an exsanguinated corpse.

“Guess you’re the highest-ranked person around here now. Congratulations.” Rowan’s voice communicated exactly how indifferent he felt about the topic, but Kayla preened regardless.

At least she did until the princess herself spoke up, sounding just as smug as the heroine. “Actually, she isn’t. That honor would go to Blake.”

Rowan immediately arched an eyebrow at the other hero, who flushed and looked away.

“Apparently, ah, as Amanda’s future husband, I’m second in line to the throne?” Blake asked.

“We’ll make you the first,” the princess spoke with iron in her voice, eyes flashing dangerously. “My brother may be heir apparent, but he’s barely at the epic tier, and practically nothing in a fight. The kingdom needs a strong ruler to weather what’s coming for us. On that subject… I’d ask that you check out your rewards from this last battle, please.”

The princess was clearly directing her words towards Rowan there at the end, making him furrow his brow in confusion. The rewards, whatever they might be, were party wide. There was no reason to consult him in particular.

When he shot his party members a questioning look, he was met by wry smiles.

“Look, my friend, we’re not going to steal loot that clearly belongs to you. That regeneration card the king had… he was going to slaughter all of us, eventually. He wasn’t as directly deadly as the assassin, but that guy was already in a bad way with how fragile he was. He had to retreat back to Cartian for treatment post battle. Whatever you did, it saved all our lives,” Marcus explained when no one else did.

Rowan finally dove into his system to check things out. And then promptly froze.

There, just to the right of his class, was a big, fat, 78. Somehow, while he wasn’t looking, he’d jumped almost to the very peak of the epic tier. Two levels were all that separated him from the next level up and the potential to become a legend himself.

Even as he watched, the experience counter ticked up. It was a negligent amount, just a couple thousand experiences which was a drop in the bucket at that point, but it was there. A quick glance around revealed that every one of his [Knights] were accounted for, and most definitely not in combat.

That left one final option, prompting the Stalwart Hero to dive deep into his deck in search of the Knight Designation links.

He didn’t think he could have done such a thing before killing the king, but the experience had left Rowan keenly aware of himself and his power. That made it easy to track down all the solid links that made up the connection between himself and his knights.

As well the four, weak tethers that connected him to someone else.

Bron’s gambit must have worked, Rowan thought excitedly, though the emotion dimmed somewhat when he chased those links to their other end.

The hero couldn’t explain how he knew, but his instincts, or his card perhaps, clearly told him that the new, second generation knights did not have the ability to [Knight] others. The explanation came naturally to him: they could only pick cards from Bron’s deck, and while he could use it, Knight Designation wasn’t his.

Rowan moved past the disappointment easily, attention drifting instead to the loot notification blinking in his status window.

The window unfurled, and the two cards that were revealed took Rowan’s breath away.

[Heart] Founding King (Legendary, Passive)

You are the parent of a nation, and all shall exalt you for it.

Eidolon Body (Legendary, Passive)

Your body is the peak of Perfection, and it seeks to maintain that balance.

Rowan’s breathing picked up, eyes fully focused on the second card. The reaction of Natural Renewal within his deck was visceral. It felt like the epic consciousness of the card was bowing down to its clear superior.

Instantly, Rowan claimed that card, and the rest of his party members denied rolling for it just as quickly.

The Stalwart Hero didn’t exactly rip his former lifeline out of his deck, but it was close. The moment he did, a wave of weakness and wariness swept through him. His body, in no uncertain terms, let him know that it was on the verge of breaking.

The only thing that was holding him together were the passive effects of his regeneration card. With it gone, all its work was starting to unravel. Before the Legendary card could react, Rowan gripped it and willed it away into his deck.

And Rowan was whole again.

No, he wasn’t whole. He was better than whole. Cracking sounds rang out into the jungle around him as his body squirmed, flesh and bones altering themselves, shifting in ways that optimized his build.

Rowan wasn’t hideous. Before the fight, he had been in the best shape of his life, complete with a six-pack his self-torture had earned him. He was, however, rough looking. He was always looming over others, and his squareish frame and features didn’t do him any favors. Olivia clearly didn’t mind, citing on multiple occasions that she loved him and thought he looked cute.

Now, though, all of that was changing.

His features shifted just so, softening in places while sharpening in others. His shoulders were just that tiny bit less door-like, and more graceful. His proportions all still there, yet optimized in a way that, when everything settled, left the surrounding women shooting him appraising glances he’d typically seen directed only towards Blake.

Not that the other hero was in a position to notice. The second Rowan had replaced his old card, change had swept over his [Knights] as well. Not to the extent it did to Rowan, but he could tell that they were definitely benefiting from it. Somehow, the System knew that they wanted the new legendary card to make up for the loss of Natural Renewal.

“That was… intense.” Blake finally breathed out, raising his hands to feel out his own face and grimacing lightly.

“And how do you think I feel?” Rowan challenged, only to blink when his voice, too, came out subtly different, more pleasant.

“Boys, boys, you’re both pretty,” Kayla laughed, but there was an unmistakable smile on her face as she felt out her own changes.

There was one person who wasn’t happy to just sit around and wait, however.

“Is that it?” The princess flushed when all the eyes turned to her. “I mean, I’m sorry, but… you didn’t get any other cards, maybe?”

Rowan considered her, then finally sighed and summoned the other card. Founding King materialized in the air, and the second it did, the princess’s eyes were glued to it as she swallowed thickly.

“There’s also this one,” Rowan said unnecessarily, waving the card just because the way Amanda’s whole head tracked the glowing rectangle was amusing. Blake’s glare made him stop. “I’m guessing it’s important?”

“It’s… It’s the main Legacy of the Rhys kingdom. The card that acknowledged its creation. Every royal bloodline has a card like that, if they’ve proven themselves before the System. It’s also possible to earn the Golden-age King card, but it’s a bit weaker, or at least with a different effect. That one’s with my brother.”

Rowan stared at the card. Suddenly, just like that, he had something that would let him establish himself as the founder of a Royal Dynasty.

He didn’t like it.

“You want it?” Rowan asked bluntly, offering the card up to Blake whose eyes bugged out.

“Seriously, mate?” That was the response when the other hero finally managed one. “Just like that?”

Rowan shrugged. “It’s a single card. Maybe I could give it to my own kid, but then what would I give to the rest of them? I want my kids to have siblings they don’t have to go to war with over authority. Your fiancée clearly wants this card though.”

Olivia had flushed a scarlet red, but her eyes softened when Rowan explained his reasoning, doubly confirmed by the way she was snuggling up to him all of a sudden.

“Then… thanks.” Blake let out a sigh, claimed the card, then passed it off to Amanda. The princess hugged it to her chest, looking like she was about to cry.

A stab of avarice and envy made Rowan’s eyes shift over to Kayla, but the heroine just shot him a wink. Then she had to ruin the moment.

“Once again, let me be the voice of reason! We’re marching on the seat of our enemies, people. Focus up. I know we won’t exactly reach our destination any minute now, but still!”

Rowan rolled his eyes, then paused. “Wait, the seat of our enemies? Where the demon king is? But… don’t we still have one final legendary demon left?”

The heroine shrugged, looking unconcerned. “Don’t know what to tell you. Everything I’ve learned, both through mundane and divine means, shows the two are together. Blake’s goddess was pointing us in this direction too. No one knows why, but it seems the demon king is holding this particular general of his close.”

Rowan took a deep breath, then let it out as he gripped Olivia’s hand.

Apparently, they were marching straight as the demon king now.

“How fun.”

Rowan’s voice suggested it would be anything but.