Ace’s eyes blinked open. As the world slowly unblurred, Ace realized it was bouncing up and down in rhythm with the sound of turning wheels. The last thing he remembered was collapsing to the floor, so he was surprised that he was now sitting. He turned his head to see what it was leaning against. His eyes fell upon a verdant cape, then glanced up to meet Riven’s gaze as she looked down at him.

Ace immediately shot up straight. He looked around to see he was in the back of the group’s wagon, traveling down a path in the middle of an open grassland. Behind him was the city of Wishmoore. With the exception of Halvor who was guiding the horses, the rest of The Hangmen were all in the wagon, staring at Ace.

Riven placed a hand on Ace’s shoulder. “Easy.”

Nausea overwhelmed Ace.

“Here.” Kai tossed Ace a snack bar from a pouch on his waist. “You’re probably a little out of it because you haven’t eaten anything in a while.”

Ace unwrapped the snack bar and started to eat. “How long was I out?”

“Couple hours.” Draxl handed Ace his canteen. “Take some water too.”

“Thanks.” Ace let out a massive sigh. “What happened while I was out?”

“Quite a lot,” Galina said. “For starters, we saw what Elric was hiding underneath his apothecary.”

“Where are they? Are they alright?” Ace asked, stumbling over his own words.

“They’re fine,” Galina assured him. “We took them with us.”

“Where? Actually, wait, how did you get out?” Ace asked.

“Well, when we found Elric’s charred corpse we knew whoever he contacted definitely wasn’t going to help us,” Galina said.

“Oh, fuck. I’m sorry. I could’ve stranded us there,” Ace said.

“It’s a good thing I was there,” Riven said. “I found the [Planar Connector] Elric used as an anchor and—”

“You mean we found the [Planar Connector],” Draxl interjected. “Or did you forget Kai and I did most of the work.”

“Objectively incorrect,” Riven said. “Now, did you find the traps surrounding the [Planar Connector]? Yes. Did Kai disarm them? Yes. But, I was the one who found it.”

“I suppose that is technically correct,” Kai admitted.

“Which is the best kind of correct,” Riven said. “Once we had the [Planar Connector] I could use it to take us back to Wishmoore.”

“Do you still have it?” Ace asked.

“Yes, but unfortunately because I didn’t have an anchor it’s now permanently inert.”

“Still might be worth something,” Draxl said.

“If nothing else it’s a memory,” Galina said. “And memories are priceless.”

“How’d you get the kids out?” Ace asked.

“Well …” Riven awkwardly turned to the front of the wagon where Halvor sat.

“I may have gotten a little upset when I saw the children,” Halvor said.

“You ripped several iron bars out of the ground with your bare hands,” Draxl said.

“It was very impressive,” Galina said.

“Super cool!” Cili exclaimed.

“Thank you,” Halvor said. “I’m just not very proud of that side of me.”

“What about me?” Ace asked.

“Halvor carried you,” Kai said.

“Oh, thanks man,” Ace said.

“You’re very welcome,” Halvor replied.

“Where are the kids now?” Ace asked.

“They’re with Arthur,” Cili said.

“Who?” Ace asked.

“Arthur Ward. He’s the representative from the Armistice Order we saw,” Kai said.

“You gave to the Armistice Order?!” Ace exclaimed. “They have our chains around their necks. Aren’t they gonna be executed?! ”

“No!” Cili shouted. “Arthur’s super nice! He wouldn’t do that!”

“He was very kind,” Galina affirmed.

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“Kindness doesn’t matter! Galland was nice, but even he said he couldn’t stop us from being executed,” Ace said.

“The reason Galland couldn’t stop it was because he belongs to the sect that worships the Chained Maiden. The chains are specific to that sect. If he went against it, it would be sacrilegious,” Riven explained. “Arthur’s sect worships the World Ox, which focuses a lot on helping children. All of the World Ox’s churches double as orphanages.

“I doubt Arthur gives a shit about the chains. If anything he’ll just be pissed off at the Chained Maiden sect for branding children. In fact, the reason he was here to begin with was to buy the barn and make it into a church for the World Ox. He said the children could stay there for as long as they want.”

“What if the other sect tries to take the children to punish them?” Ace asked.

“Doubt it,” Draxl said. “Arthur’s a sect leader, same as Galland, and he’s just as powerful. It’d cause too much trouble going against him, even if it was from other people in the order.”

“Okay, that’s good,” Ace said.

“After that things were pretty simple,” Kai said. “Halvor carried you back to Wishful Wanderers and dumped you in bed. We expected you’d be awake the next morning, but you weren’t.”

“I lost 5 gold because of that by the way,” Riven said.

“I’m … sorry,” Ace replied.

“Good. You should be sorry,” Riven said.

“How did me not waking up lose you gold?”

“She bet Cili that you’d be awake by the morning,” Draxl explained.

“I’ve hunted enough monsters to know when someone’s about to wake up,” Cili said.

“How is that related?” Kai asked.

“You learn the difference between a monster hibernating and sleeping. Ace looked like he was sleeping.”

Kai nodded his head. “Huh.”

“Since you still weren’t awake in the morning, I carried you over to the wagon,” Halvor said. “It’s a good thing you taught me how to handle horses when you did.”

“How did I pass out anyway?” Ace asked.

“That depends,” Draxl said. “What happened to Elric?”

“Uh, yeah, Elric.” Ace was silent for a minute before he answered. “Elric made his skin into some impenetrable element. Something to do with carbon, I don’t really remember. I used one of the dragon piercer bullets that Kai gave me, and [Possess] to launch it into his eye since that was the only place not protected by his skin. The moment it impacted, it exploded, and he just fell over. After that, I felt deathly ill and drained of all my energy. Took a few steps, then collapsed.”

“It was probably essence burnout,” Draxl said. “It was essence burnout.”

“Essence burnout?” Ace asked.

“Essence is your soul’s stamina. If you use too much of it without rest, you experience what’s called essence burnout,” Draxl explained. “ While burned out, you lose access to your essence, meaning you can't use any skills. In your case, you burned out after using only one skill. For your body, it felt like you ran a hundred miles in an instant.

“The only cure for burnout is to rest until your essence returns. If anything you’re pretty lucky to have recovered after just a few hours. The more essence you have the longer it takes to return. For most it takes days. For those with a lot of essence, it can take weeks or even months.”

“Months!” Ace exclaimed. “How do they not die from dehydration or starvation?”

“While burned out, your body focuses on recovering essence and enters a form of hibernation, so you won’t die,” Draxl said.

“Hold up Draxl,” Riven said. “Are we sure it’s burnout? I mean, Ace, didn’t you say you got your first skill in Kaimen?”

“That’s right,” Ace said. “Why would that matter though.”

“Okay, let me try to think of an analogy,” Draxl said. “You know how whenever you get hit, you close your eyes?”

“Yeah, I know that.”

“Closing your eyes is the natural response. Everybody does it. However, fighters train themselves not to close their eyes, so they can focus on their opponent. They work to overcome this natural impulse they were born with.

“Similarly, your body keeps a reserve of essence that it refuses to expend. It does this to prevent essence burnout. So long as you have that essence, you literally cannot burn out. However, just like closing your eyes, not using that essence is a natural impulse that can be overcome. The thing is, it takes a lot of training. You only got your skill a few weeks ago, hence why it’s weird that you managed to tap into that reserve.”

“Perhaps his desire to kill Elric was so strong that his body used everything it had,” Galina suggested.

“Oh, like I don’t care what happens to me, so long as I take you down,” Cili said. “That’s fucking awesome.”

Ace’s best guess was that when he invoked his epithet he bypassed that mental barrier. However, he didn’t dismiss the fact that what Galina said could have some truth to it.

“Maybe,” Ace said. “I’ll try to avoid doing that in the future.”

“If it does happen, we’ll just get Halvor to carry you again,” Kai said. “Isn’t that right, Halvor?”

“Of course!” Halvor exclaimed from the front of the wagon.

“See,” Kai said.

A faint smile crept onto Ace’s face.

“I think you’re all up to speed now,” Riven said. “You got any questions?”

Ace leaned back, staring up at the canvas draped over the wagon. “Um, yeah, kinda. It’s pretty dark though.”

“Even better,” Riven said.

“When I put that bullet through Elric’s eye, it was the first time I ever killed anybody. I’ve seen people die, but when you do it yourself, the adrenaline feels different. I wanted to know”—Ace took a deep breath and closed his eyes—”does killing people always feel that good?”

Ace regretted the words the moment they left his mouth. He kept his eyes shut, scared to see the looks on his friends' faces. The silence was heavy and long. Too heavy. Too long. Nobody spoke, that much Ace expected, but the sound of wheels turning, the horses’ hooves clopping, were gone.

Ace opened his eyes to a monochromatic world. The world was the color of hopelessness. It was a color Ace had seen only once before, when it was accompanied by smoke, warm blood, and cold bodies.

Ace could feel his heart beating in his chest like a drum. In a panic he looked down at himself; he was the only person, the only thing not robbed of its color. He scrambled out of the wagon. Fortunately, everything on him remained unaffected by whatever was happening.

As Ace burst out from the wagon, he saw everything around him frozen in time; the color of hopelessness encircled Ace, with one notable exception: a man clad in cracked armor covered in rust and moss that stood on the road just in front of the wagon

Ace came to a screeching halt as he came face to face with the armored man.

A sword with a rusty blade riddled with cracks hovered in the air just in front of the man. Color flooded the blade as Hero wrapped his fingers around its handle. “Hello, Mr. Lustres.”