Avery handed Zane an Interspatial Ring.

“What’s in it,” said Zane, inspecting it.

“20,000 sky-grade stones,” she said, patting the ring.

“…What.”

“It's a long story.”

She then explained the long story, to all their consternation.

Now she was quite rich. So rich she wasn't even sure what to do with all the money.

First she bought lots of sweets-related things. A castle made of pure chocolate. A volcano that spewed only cotton candy. That sort of thing.

Then she got kind of stuck.

“That is when I made some wise long-term investments,” she said.

The first thing she bought was a massive array graded for galaxy-wide use. “Let’s see…” she said. She took out a wand and pointed it at the sky. Instantly clouds began to form. Soon tufts of it sagged heavily in the sky.

It was more impressive than just that, she assured them. She could summon clouds wherever she wanted. She could send clouds to rain on annoying people. She could also move them around to give shade as she lay there on a beach. It was quite expensive to change the weather on a planetary scale actually, which was why she always kept a thousand Sky-Grade Stones in her cloud fund.

She then frowned. “That kinda feels like a supervillain thing, though, doesn’t it?”

She thought about it for a bit. “My wealth has immediately gone to my head,” she declared.

She also spent a few 100 Sky-Grade stones on a set of invisible clothes woven from the world's most expensive clear fibers. She proudly showed it off for them to see.

“Let’s see… what else… ah! Follow me.”

She led them away, out of the Faction proper—past crowds of shocked passersby. Past a Zane statue.

There they came across what might be the most lavish manor Zane had seen in the entire faction.

“Tada!” said Avery. “It’s for Reginald.”

There, in the front yard, was a quite nonplussed-looking Superbara munching on a massive carrot. Two servants were fluffing him, and a third held a giant umbrella over his head to keep off the sun.

“…”

“Anyway,” said Avery. “So that's what I've been up to.”

“Ah,” said Reina, still a bit bewildered. “Is… is that all?”

“Let’s see… oh! Yeah—I’ve also been up to some stuff that could be actually useful!”

Avery seemed quite proud of this fact.

She’d done a lot of meditating in her time away. It helped she could do it while she napped. Her Law of the Mirage was almost all the way complete—she just needed to get one more Concept. It augmented her Signature Title well, she said. “I can make some new super-realistic minions—they can even mimic up to Tier 5 Laws! Here, look.”

She made a Zane.

“…Why do you always use me,” said Zane.

“You’re very easy to draw, big fella,” she said, patting him on the back.

Zane was not sure how he felt about this.

… It was a remarkably accurate Zane. It even somehow managed to replicate almost all the feel of Zane’s domain—it even had the look and feel of that little Destruction-light, even if it didn't have the sting. From a short distance it could be indistinguishable. He blinked at it. Fake-Zane blinked back.

Hmm.

“Lemme try something,” said Avery, rubbing her hands to gather.

She materialized some curtains in front of Zane. Then fake-Zane walked up to him, turned around, and mimicked his stance, so they were identical. Zane frowned at it and it frowned back.

Avery opened up the curtains.

“Alright!” she said to Evan and Reina. “Which Zane is which?”

“Woah…” said Evan, who looked like he was having some trouble.

“That one,” said Reina instantly. She pointed to the real him, to his relief. Even he wasn’t sure he could tell from a distance.

“Wait—how?” said Avery, squinting at it. “I could swear it’s perfect…—is it the nose?”

Reina pursed her lips. “Something about him…”

In the end, even she couldn't describe it. She just said that she would know her Zane anywhere.

“Well anyway," said Avery.

Once she'd gotten to the Thousand Seas Tribe, all the Elders had wanted her to stick to this training plan they made. But she just did what she found fun, and it kept working, so they just gave up and let her do her thing.

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***

It was Reina's turn—Zane could see just from the look on her face, even without feeling, that she was relieved to be back. She was glowing a little next to him.

“It got even more hectic after you left,” she said. She liked to be busy, but even for her things had gotten to be a bit much.

Most of her work was running the primary elixir supplier for all the Dragonspire Galaxy. She’d also gotten a few dozen Levels in her off-time, and made time to learn a Concept as well. Somehow she managed to keep it all together and do it all to her usual very-high standards. It was always a mystery to Zane how she could find so many hours in the day.

He would have been more concerned if he didn’t know this kind of stuff was what she lived. But still—she felt a weekend with Zane would do her good. With Great Sage Mind, he could feel the contentment radiating from her as she leaned up against him, resting her head.

They saw a few of her bodyguards—Level 600 elves—milling about in the distance, keeping an eye on things.

After Zane had left last time, she’d locked down the World Tree Faction fast. Now everything there was running like a well-oiled machine apparently. She’d made it known to everyone that it was important, especially in wartime, to fall in line. There was a gleam in her eye when she said that that made him slightly nervous, like thinking of a few nefarious folk in particular.

Then she went back to affectionately looking at him.

“We’re drastically ramping up elixir production across the board,” she said. Demand would ramp up even more in years to come. “Speaking of—I’ve created a few special labs of our top alchemists to refine our highest-end elixirs. They’ve just finished a batch of essence elixirs meant for our Core Disciples. But I requisitioned just some for us.”

Draught of Ultra-Concentrated World Tree Sap [Heaven (E)]

A flask with a warm golden-brown liquid that seemed to shimmer in the sunlight. The glass was high-grade and trapped the essence well, but Zane could tell by the mists they left on the inside that there was quite a lot in there.

A stopper held it all in.

She handed each of them a vial.

Besides managing a mass of production lines and shifting the slumbering giant of the royal tree into full war-mode, she was also sending teams out into the Galaxy, collecting rare ingredients to feed their war machine.

She was also busy finding the best talent to manage their archers’ training. Just a week ago she talked one of the Faction’s ancient Ancestors, Youji—once a legend of archery, and war hero in the last Chaos Wars—out of retirement. Just to oversee the training of their new guard.

It sounded like quite a lot to Zane, who looked at her brow furrowed. But she assured him she could handle it.

***

Dinner that night tasted of home—a mutated Dungeness crab seasoned to perfection. It melted in Zane's mouth. There was also salmon and Moon Fruit drenched in essence. Reina had brought a personal chef along who worked wonders with the local ingredients.

Later, after a few games of alien board games, Avery and Evan went off to bed, or exploring.

Reina took Zane by the hand, a mischievous look in her eyes, and led him upstairs.

She started to slowly undo her thin dress in a way that showed off how tight it was around her chest—around this point Zane lost patience and helped her with it. She let out a little surprised noise, and things went quickly from there.

Level up!

Essence Level 402 -> 403

Afterward she was splayed on him deep asleep, smiling softly. He was breathing heavy, chest rising and falling, but it didn’t seem to disturb her. He was just thinking how nice this was… he remembered thinking the same thing with her about when they first met. He wasn’t sure how long ago it was.

Then he saw large pretty brown eyes blinking sleepily up at him. “What’re you thinking?” she murmured, and he told her.

“It’s been a year, three months and six days,” she said. She still seemed mostly out of it; she yawned, snuggled back in, and fell asleep.

“…”

It felt longer to Zane. It felt like they’d come quite a long way.

Well—they did come a long way. He looked down again at the woman currently using him as a pillow. She might be the most powerful woman in the Galaxy.

He blinked.

…He still wasn’t quite used to it.

He sat up a bit—she growled, clung on tighter, and he went quite still.

He slowly lowered back down. She made an approving noise and kept sleeping.

…Some things really didn’t change. He felt quite relieved when she relaxed.

***

Reina had their weekend schedule all planned out. After a brief picnic and visit to Olympia beach the next morning, she convened a little meeting on the fifth floor of the main skyscraper.

“There’s some things all of you should know,” she said. “About what’s coming for us—the Monster armies.”

Evan nodded quickly. He had a notebook and a pencil out, ready to go. Avery also nodded. She had a scrying glass out, ready to take a capture of Evan’s notes.

Reina was all business now. “Every one of the Nine Great Factions has been ramping up their elixir purchases, especially the sub-factions on the frontier… the scryers predict the First Wave will come in nine or ten years. But it’s already beginning. The weaker dungeons are leaking—and a few have broken down entirely, suffering massive jailbreaks.”

Evan gasped.

“Here’s what I’ve gathered from researching past Chaos Cycles, and from the Temple’s intelligence guilds…”

She brought out a little plot of dirt and put it on the table. At first Zane wasn’t sure what was going on—then she waved her hand, and it began to shift. Little wood models started sprouting from the dirt.

A little wood Monster sculpture. It was kind of like what Noughtfire did, but with wood.

“Monsters gain greater and greater intelligence, and power, as Chaos Cycles progress,” Reina explained. “They’re now starting to assume their stations. Have you ever wondered what Monster Knight means? Or Grand Knight?”

Zane nodded.

“That’s their hierarchy in the Monster Army,” she said. “It's determined by something called the ‘Primordial Demon Bloodline.’ All Monsters have it—just in differing amounts, and that determines their powers. Normal Monsters might have 1%. Monster Knights, 10%—Monster Grand Knights, 20%, Lords, 30%—and so on… above Lord, their powers start rivaling even those of Godbeasts.”

She looked to Zane. “Zane—do you remember the corrupt Monster Waves in the Superdungeon we fought? Where the Knights were like the generals, and the Monsters were minions? It’s like that—there’s a chain of command.”

It did make sense.

She gave some more updates. There were even reports of Monster Grand Knights and Lords starting to break out across the galaxy. It seemed like the strongest, though, were still shackled—for now.

But things were unraveling fast.

“It only gets worse from here,” she said. “The Ancestors tell me most of the Monster Princes can fight True Gods. Then there’s a handful of Monster Emperors to deal with, that’ve been known to slaughter even Ancestors… and there’s supposed to be a stronger Monster still…”

She bit her lip and turned her eyes to him.

“Zane—when it gets bad, the Great Factions will have their hands full just staying alive. Even my Temple. I’ll spare as much as I can, but it’ll be up to us to defend Earth.”

Zane nodded again.

Somehow he had known that already, deep-down. It had been the case since he’d founded the Luminous Faction and met Reina and Evan and Avery now that he thought about it. And it’d only grown since.

His strength wasn’t for his own sake anymore.

He fought because he was a fighter—he knew, deep-down, some core part of him was made for it. And he fought for his friends and his home.

It was a nice thing, he felt, that the two went hand-in-hand.

He had nine years to get as strong as he could be.

He clenched his fist.

He would make the most of them.