Hello Readers!

As I said in the author’s note, Volume 4 marks the end of The Burning Flowers’ first arc and since there will be a pretty significant time skip between that last chapter of V4 and the start of V5, I’ve decided it’s the most ideal time for me to take a bit of a hiatus. I’ve been meaning to do this for a little while but hated the idea of just stopping in the middle of the action, though this isn’t because I have writers block or anything like that.

The simple fact of the matter is that I have quite a bit of editing I need to do in regards to my other project here on Royal Road, In the Maw of the Gods. As I’ve said in the description for this book, Burning Flowers in In the Maw’s prequel, but I will admit that when I started writing in Ijiria and Omaruo, I didn’t really expect it to become as grand of a story as it did, and even intended while writing the first book of In the Maw for it to be a stand-alone series. Because of this, I didn’t go into In the Maw with a lot of the lore in mind since that story takes place predominantly in the magicless Omaruo, but since entering Ijiria more prominently, I have realized I quite like thinking up the history of the multiverse and the realms around Ijiria. It’s become more vivid and complex in my head when writing Burning Flowers, but since I didn’t want my creativity to be hindered by the simplicity of In the Maw, I have contradicted a lot of lore established in that original series. The first book is especially littered with information that isn’t even remotely canon anymore and I’m sure anybody that starts with Burning Flowers and checks out my other work will quickly see that. That’s not to say there are any large plot discrepancies, the information about the setting and history is quite off. The plot of In the Maw and what was foreshadowed for Burning Flowers is still mostly accurate.

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Unfortunately, there is a lot to be done to incorporate everything into it, and at the moment, I’ve barely been fitting my work on Burning Flowers into my schedule. Doing both at the same time is far too much for me, but I really don’t like the idea of leaving In the Maw’s inconstancies on Royal Road any longer than I already have. That is why I will be taking a break from writing until the 1st of March so that I can handle this and make sure the two stories match each other.

As always, I want to thank everybody for reading my work and I look forward to returning to The Burning Flowers in a little over a month!

-Gerald Fishburg