I was once more in Sanctuary Valley. Countless monsters were attacking the village and destroying everything in sight. Outmatched, there was no way that we would be able to fend off the onslaught.

As I prepared to make my last stand, one of the villagers vanished in a flash of light. The light struck a monster, removing all trace of its existence. One by one, the villagers sacrificed themselves to destroy the attacking monsters.

Before long, I was utterly alone.

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I awoke to the sight of an unfamiliar ceiling above my head. It took me a moment to recall where I was.

I was still an aching mess, but my improved regeneration had certainly proved its worth. I was feeling well enough that my random aches and pains wouldn’t slow me down too much.

Munching on some bitter fruit I had found the day before, I set to work scavenging what I could. The city was mostly ruined and half the plants were dead, but there was still plenty to dig through.

I was quite pleased to find a few ceramic jars to replace the one I broke fleeing from the monkeys. As I packed them away, I realized that there was a particularly large resource I still needed to deal with.

Mana rich materials were necessary for making sigil paints. Filled with abundant mana, the flesh and blood of powerful monsters were some of the best resources around. Looking at the titan’s corpse, I wondered just how potent such a nightmarishly powerful creature’s blood would be.

Harvesting from the ridiculously large corpse was much more difficult than I expected. There was still some vile mana lingering around the corpse, even long after the titan’s death. I couldn’t get close enough to use my knife, so I improvised.

Focusing a large amount of mana into a new spell, I wove together the mana forms for invisible force and some new components to focus the energy into a narrow point.

Even dumping over 50 points of mana into the spell, I barely managed to tear into the colossal beast’s hide. If I was having this much trouble damaging the thing after it was already dead, I really didn’t want to imagine what trying to fight it would have been like. It was no surprise that the people of Tanru had failed to defeat it.

With some careful probing from a long stick, I managed to fill a few jars with the titan’s vile smelling blood. I wasn’t looking forward to trying to paint with the stuff, but I could easily feel the potent mana held within.

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While I was looking through the ruined buildings, I did take a look at the building I damaged with my spell. I had indeed punched all the way through. It made me wonder just how far the effects of the blast had traveled.

I hadn’t seen many creatures other than birds during my search. It made sense that animals would have avoided the mountain top even if they could have made it up the cliff. Had I known that a titan had claimed the ruined village for its own, I would have stayed away as well.

I had found a surprising number of edible plants after some looking. I figured that the patches where I found the vegetables had likely once been gardens, so I once again thanked the shades of the villagers. Their hard work long ago was once more proving to be a great boon to me.

I really hoped that they weren’t mad about what I did with their skulls.

Returning to my chosen dwelling, I set down my most recent armful of tubers. With the titan dead, the ruined village was probably the best place I could ask for to make my home. It had plenty of food, shelter from the elements, and even a difficult climb to keep away most beasts.

It wasn’t quite what I had expected to find at the top of the mountain, but I was very happy with the place I had found. I could see myself staying in the area for quite some time.

With my supplies taken care of and a couple marks of sunlight left, I decided to see what was past the northern edge of the village. The Three Sisters had always been the furthest point in the jungle that I had been able to see, so I was quite curious as to what I would find.

Walking through the ruined foliage that the titan had stomped through, I made good time to the edge of the village. The buildings extended almost all the way to the cliff face, including a small watch tower.

The structure looked mostly intact, so I decided to try climbing up for a slightly better view.

The view was worth it. Even from the top of Lookout’s Peak, I had never been able to see so far. The jungle stretched on almost as far as the eye could see in most directions. To the left and right, I was able to see the tops of the other two sisters. The villages on them didn’t look much better than the one I was in but I figured that I would likely benefit from exploring them at some point.

The other two mountains didn’t hold my attention long. Instead it was the water to the northeast that caught my eye. I had never seen a lake so large. The expanse of water was so massive, I couldn’t see the other side even from my elevated vantage. Stretching further to the north and the east than I could see, I didn’t even know how long the shore was.

While looking at the shore, I noticed a rather odd patch of land. It looked like much of the jungle had been cleared away from a large, semicircular area next to the water.

It was too far to tell, but it looked like there were some sort of structures surrounded by a wall in the clearing. The sight alone would have been enough to stoke my curiosity. Far more importantly, the thin trails of smoke I was sure I saw rising implied something I didn’t dare hope for.

Perhaps I wasn’t truly alone after all.