Chapter 53: Epilogue

Epilogue

When the three geniuses were alone in Nazarick again, Ainz summoned them immediately to his private office. They stood in front of him only long enough to kneel when they'd entered, only to rise and pull up chairs to speak across from him at his command. Even without a face, he was clearly concerned.

"Her final prophecy spoke of Ragnarok. Do you know what that is?" Ainz asked bluntly, his skeletal hand opening and closing in a continuous rhythm.

They traded looks and Albedo finally spoke, "My Lord, we know only what the Supreme Ones spoke of with you in our presence... it took all of you away for a full day, it was so... lonely." She bit her lip briefly, but when Ainz held his silence, she refocused away from memory.

"It's the only thing that scares me here." Ainz said without ambiguity. "It did not just take 'your' supreme beings away, it took 'all' the supreme beings of the second world to deal with it, it was a world ending battle, a titanic struggle like nothing you can imagine, we even worked with our enemies to defeat it." He raised his hand to stop Demiurge's imminent vote of confidence.

"No, don't, Demiurge. I am heartened by your confidence, it took thousands like myself and below, to put it down. It involved world items that ravaged everything. Neia was never within the second world, and I have never spoken of this event to her. It means she saw the future. It means that event is going to happen here. Not for a long time, as best I can tell, too many other events seem to happen first. But... all that means is that we have time to prepare. Do you understand?" Ainz asked in a commanding voice.

"Mein vater, can we win? I remember the Supreme Beings all but emptied the treasury of items that day in the hopes of victory." Pandora's Actor had a clearly worried voice, and he made, for once, no dramatic gestures.

"I never plan to lose. Nazarick does not know defeat. But if we are to win, we will need everything. In short, we will do tomorrow and every day after, whatever must be done, to take over the world, and strengthen it to prepare for the coming storm. These weak beings are useless for that, but in a thousand years, if we can make them strong enough? And if other allies come to us from the Second World? We can win. Preserve the bodies of heroes, study them and learn everything, and I mean everything. We will take no chances." Ainz took a long pause and closed his hands into twin fists that did not open up again as he added...

"I once said this world was an unclaimed chest of jewels. But now I know differently, it is my armor, and I am the one who will wear it, its people are my weapons, and I am the one who will wield them. Now... go, and do everything in your power, to armor and equip me before the storm comes. Give me this world, then make it unbeatable." Ainz answered in his most noble voice, and in a somber, fearful mood, the Guardians left his presence. Shivers were running throughout their bodies with every step, their planning delayed only by their inability to speak through their awe for several minutes.

...Elsewhere...

In the days after the ruling that shocked the entirety of the Sorcerous Empire and its neighbors, debate was hot in the streets. Taverns stayed open longer just so people could keep arguing. Schools of learning made debating the ruling the 'final exam' for rhetoric classes and the greatest legal minds of the great empire ripped into it both pro and con.

The elves, of course, were universal in their distaste, petitioning the queen at all hours day and night to plead with the Sorcerous Empire to ignore it. In the end to set the elves at ease, it required a public letter from Neia herself stating that she acknowledged the points made by her accusers and was satisfied with the 'end result'. Though it was noted by those closest to her, including the Elven Queen herself, that she never specified what she meant by 'end result'. But it quieted the elves.

Throughout the runup and the trial, Enri's agents had steadily identified and eliminated the most aggressively supportive of a death penalty and guilty verdict. The end result was that fire pokers who might have rebelled were gradually losing influence and ability. As a result the former humans of the Slane Theocracy began accepting support in Kami Miyako not long after. Thanks in part to Boabdil and Enri's combined efforts, as the ruling against the one they saw as their oppressor resulted in a more favorable view of their rulers. Within two generations, there were none left who were not loyal.

A view that continued to soften as the many orphans of the war began to return as their educations in the Sorcerous Empire were completed and they started to come of age. This process continued over the next fifteen years, until few lived who remembered life without the undead monarch over them, and even fewer who held a less than favorable view.

If any of those covert actions had been driven by Enri's bitterness about the Agante provoked rebellions of the war, she never openly admitted it.

Mu'Ka would go on to make a fortune selling prison goods and was a full convert not six weeks after Neia's departure. He began issuing paroles to those most loyal, putting them out through the Temple in the capital to manage, creating the first work release programs, and with her help, networking to wardens around the Minotaur Kingdom to bring in the priests that served Kiril's Angel, and popular art began to portray Kiril as an undead not long after.

Mu'Bin returned to the fortress of Last Home and found himself being put into command, undertaking the long, arduous task of rebuilding it. Guided by a new philosophy, he began trying to build his fortress soldiers up, while staving off the Devor raids he couldn't defeat, by leaving actual cattle meat in salted barrels for raiders to take away, pretending he had been so cowed that his 'warriors' were being butchered by their own rather than face the Devor again. A deception that continued as the faith began to spread like wildfire.

Lovien died in prison two hundred years into his sentence, and was buried naked in a field to make it a little more fertile.

Neia's prophecies were recorded and analyzed in detail, and she occasionally attempted to stimulate a prediction whenever the necklace was removed to be drained. These prophecies were gathered together into 'The Book of All Days' compiled after her death and held in the private library of Nazarick, off limits to all except a handful of Guardians, though often touched even when it wasn't read, by father, and mother alike.

Stories of the annihilated Devor spread like wildfire among the population, and more and more pressure was put on the Ard'Rhi and Rhigan to militarize. Pressure that only intensified as Black Justice grew in power and influence as year went into year.

The slave narratives sold wildly among the growing economic class who sought out stories out of the west, and the lands of the demon of the west. The result being that many felt the sentence should have been that she be kept in the Minotaur Kingdom. In addition, the old Theocracy with its long term plans for destruction of nonhumans, the stories of their brutality, and their overthrow drew sympathy from the population who saw themselves as oppressed by the Devor in the same way. This further inflamed the militancy movement, and empowered the priests who traveled from the west bearing the doctrine, 'Weakness is a sin'.

Mu'Sula got his wish, no end of stories, and wealth for year after year. Overseeing the implementation of undead labor and giving up the information and connections needed to bring the underworld to heel, he remained Nua's right hand until her departure. After which he retired to his home, and compiled all her stories together into a book, 'One Thousand and One Nightmares and Dreams' which became an instant bestseller and served as the basis for numerous plays for centuries after he was gone. He dedicated the book 'To my first friend' and spoke well of her to the end of his days.

...Papal Estate...Three Months Later...

"Push, push!" Neia said urgently as she held her wife's hand.

"I am pushing, what does it look like!" Skana shouted, "I swear it was easier to kill Remedios than to deal with this!"

Pestonya stood near at hand as Skana labored on the bed. Fourteen hours later, and she was finally saying, "I can see the head. Woof!"

"Yeah well there's a lot more after that!" Skana shouted and squeezed Neia's hand as tightly enough that even the Black Paladin winced at the strength of the grip.

"Almost! Woof!" Pestonya said a little later, and then, a reedy wail filled the air.

"A girl!" Pestonya said, and laid the child to Skana's breast.

Neia hovered over her and touched the little cheek with a gentle caress. "Welcome to the world little one. I'm glad to meet you... Zyanya."

Skana smiled wearily and looked at the little bump slowly growing on Neia's belly. "I'll be happy no matter what, but you know, I hope you've got a brother for her in there."

Neia grinned, "Call it intuition... but I think I do. I'll be right back, I'll let Mu'Treiu know she's got a little sister to dote on."

...Menowa...Two Years After the Trial...

Nua stood before the massive crowd that took up most of the square and wrapped up another story centered sermon, and then one by one she read off the names of a list, and one by one the names she called up, walked up the center row to array themselves before her.

"These youth survived the perils of the Devor captivity, for two years they have struggled and toiled to become strong, for two years they have pushed their bodies beyond the limits of endurance, for two years they shed sweat and blood to become strong, now... they have earned the armor of Black Justice, they have earned the glories of His Majesty's Runecraft, and are the FIRST of their kind, a minotaur unit of Black Justice escorts! Now I'd like to introduce their commander..."

From the crowd, stood the largest minotaur any of them had ever seen. He walked to the fore and stood in front of the formation. "I am Mu'Ulm, former second in command of Neia Baraja, formerly of Kirakira prison, formerly of the eastern border of the Devor, and you are now the first of my free soldiers. Our task is the security of merchants, travelers, and pilgrims through all the lands of our kingdom and beyond, wherever our charges go, we go. The rules are simple, you fight hard, and if you die, you make sure the ones who killed you have nightmares about the fight for as long as they live!"

A merchant raised a hand from the crowd, "Ah, what about the Devor... I travel east and... when I go to the villages to collect harvests, the royal guards won't go with me?"

Mu'Ulm laughed, "Then we go with you, and if we encounter the Devor, then let me quote my commander when I say, 'We fucking kill them all!"

As he spoke, the weapons and armor were distributed, and quickly donned and equipped. Magicine crossbows from the Understone Empire, Runecrafted axes, shields, and armor from the Azelian mountain dwarves, they were an impressive sight, and when Mu'Ulm finished speaking, their axes began to strike their shields and take up the call.

"We can fight back! We can fight back! We can fight back!" The former peasant minotaurs shouted with martial vigor.

...Crescent Lake...Five Years Post-Trial...

Bertra approached the palace on the peasant day, the day when the peasant council's representatives from around the Elven province gathered together to present their problems to the nobles and the Queen herself, she entered quickly enough after flashing her pass, and made her way into the council hall.

She bowed deeply when she saw Queen Zesshi seated at the head of the table already.

"First to arrive as usual." The Queen remarked as Bertra took her seat.

"Of course, Your Majesty, it's always a pleasure." Bertra replied with a genuinely warm expression on her face.

"I thought you hadn't intended to represent the peasants of Crescent Lake this year, weren't you going off with that Soren fellow?" Zesshi asked, "You were raving about him last time we spoke."

"Oh that?" Bertra grinned, "He was OK with postponing it so I could present my new proposal."

"New proposal?" The Queen asked with interest.

"Yes, thanks to the use of undead labor on farms, we've got a bumper crop of unskilled laborers, I wanted to sponsor the building of libraries that doubled as skilled labor training facilities, the costs of operation to be offset by a tax on nonessential undead labor." Bertra suggested eagerly.

"You know..." Zesshi said as she became thoughtful, "You've really taken to your new life, to a shocking degree, I honestly never thought you would."

Bertra lowered her gaze for a moment, "It's all the life I've got, and you know, after that thing with Lovien... my community, my neighbors... they were so good, so supportive of me, wanting to ensure I was OK, looking out for my shop, being patient with my discomfort... so different from what happens, I mean happened, in the Theocracy. This is my home, and these are my people, and you are my Queen, I'm happy now, here, under you, and will spend the rest of my life this way if I can. Though I'll raise a cup and keep candles lit for Raymond & Ginedine for as long as I live."

"Not without me, you won't, next time, we drink to them together." Zesshi admonished her very lightly, and Bertra bowed her head.

"As my Queen commands it. Now about that proposal..." She said, just as the peasants of other districts began to filter in.

...Papal estate...Nine Years Post-Trial...

"Just like that, Gottfried!" Neia said as her son advanced with his sword against the taller Mu'Treiu.

The minotaur girl avoided deftly and tried to hip check him, only for him to roll forward instead of fall, avoid it, and hit her in the back of the leg with a practice sword, only for her to land on the knee and respond by swinging with her practice ax and strike him in the bicep.

Neia clapped her hands, drawing an end to the match. "Congratulations, you're both dead, not exactly ideal, but... better than flailing." She approached the two and embraced them tightly, "You'll do great things one day." She tussled the jet black hair of Gottfried's head and savored his toothy grin.

"The Devor won't know what hit them." Mu'Treiu said as she idly tossed her ax in hand, catching it by the handle each time without glancing at it.

She looked over to the wall where Zyanya was taking up a wooden bardiche. Her auburn hair and green eyes shone brightly as she turned to where her siblings were. "My turn, since neither of you lost, I guess I get to face you both!"

"You are your mother's child." Neia laughed.

"Damn right she is." Skana said as she came in with Enlaith behind her, bearing refreshments.

"Alright, good luck." Neia said as she stepped out of the way of the trio of young combatants.

"To who?" CZ asked.

"All of them." Neia answered seriously.

...Menowa...Twelve Years Post-Trial...

"So, are you going to help me, or what?" Nua asked Solution as they stood by the ornate above ground grave holding Raymond's body. The blonde elf tossed her knife up and down impatiently.

The maid demon grinned inhumanely wide. "Prove to me you're serious."

"I got all the undead farms established, I had Mu'Sula get all the bandits in the area to either turn themselves in, or kill those who didn't, I got most of the capital converted and a new priest in place, and I'm about to leave to get started. How much more serious can I get?" Nua demanded crossly as she furrowed her brow at her former teacher.

"Feed me. And I'll help you. His Majesty has already given me approval, but nothing is free and if you can't do this much, I don't believe you'll succeed." She cackled lightly.

"Feed you what?" Nua asked with blunt forcefulness in her voice and approached the maid demon.

"That." Solution said, and pointed to Nua's left hand. "Give me that, and I will guard the rest of you."

"You always have a high price for your help, don't you?" Nua asked with a deep breath.

"Yes, but I always deliver the goods." Solution pointed out with a teasing finger raised.

"Fine, take it." Nua replied and held out her hand and raised her knife to sever it.

"No... I want it fresh, still on the bone." Solution replied, and Nua relaxed her arm to let the maid demon take her forearm with surprising gentleness between her fingers.

"You can bite down on something, I'll give you that much." Solution said with the kind of magnanimity only a sadist offers.

"Gee, thanks." Nua replied sarcastically, and snatched up a stick from the ground, she shoved it into her teeth and bit down.

Nua watched as her arm was slowly brought up to Solution's chest, and her hand placed on the maid demon's breast. It was fascinating in a way, intimate, and the softness of the maid demon's skin was enticing even to her. Her eyes could not tear away from the sight of her fingers disappearing into the flesh, and then... the pain hit.

Nua's eyes flew wide open and she howled into the stick as her flesh, nerves, and bones were dissolved all the way to the wrist, her entire body shook, she dropped her knife and held onto the stone with her free hand, landing by chance on the folded hands representing the way Raymond's body rested within. It felt for a moment to her as if he was holding her through the pain, and then it was over.

She withdrew her arm as Solution's grip eased, and stared at the stump where her hand had been. Her body was still shaking with pain and with tears of agony rolling down her face when Solution smacked her lips.

"Wow, you really do taste good, I really did wonder, but... now what to do about your ruined hand..." She tapped her cheek in an exaggerated fashion as if she had no idea.

'You've got something in mind... I know you do... it hurts still... oh my god that hurts...' Nua thought, her arm shook and she couldn't look away from the cauterized stump.

"Ah, that's right! This!" Solution laughed, reached into her body, and pulled something out, she moved too quickly for the elven priestess to respond, and suddenly the pain was gone. Nua stared uncomprehendingly at what had been placed there.

"Try it out, tell me how you like your new hand?" Solution said smugly. "I knew you could do it, so I had this made for you, a present from teacher to student.

"What is it?" Nua asked as she moved her forearm around and tried to work the 'object'.

"A magicine hand out of the Understone Empire, with some collaboration from the Runesmiths. Heavily enchanted doesn't even 'begin' to describe it. Perfect for seizing power." Solution's inhuman smile didn't leave her face. "So, are 'you' ready to go?"

"Yes, the city states of the wood elves east of the Triumvirate will know His Majesty's Justice. Or my name isn't Nua Calen Aiwenor." She said with a determined voice as her heartbeat began to race. "Now are you coming with me, or not?"

"Do I get to eat?" Solution rubbed her hands together ravenously and revealed her salivating mouth.

"No. If what I gathered is true, you will get to feast." The priestess replied sweet as a demon to Solution's ears.

The [Gate] opened, and they never did settle on who rushed through it first.

...Devor Capital...Nineteen Years Post Trial...

"What do you mean... they're all dead?! My cousin led that unit!" Emperor Mocetu roared and flung his cup at the wall, shattering it against the stone of his palace court.

"Sire..." The bearman shook as he knelt in front of the lionman emperor. "Just what I said, your cousin died of his wounds after telling us what happened. They'd severed his arms and legs, and had him tell one what happened and then... well according to him." He gulped hard, and pushed forward.

"There were minotaurs in armor, led by a massive champion even larger than you, he had a white ax, a huge shield, and wore thick armor. There were only a hundred of the cattle, but they wiped out the entire force that went after the caravan, and then went after the village, and killed our harvesters."

Emperor Mocetu shot to his feet, walking on the pads of his golden feet, he paced away from his stone seat. "This isn't the first group of harvesters we've lost, though we haven't lost anything that severe in what, around twenty years? Not since my father's time."

"No, sire, we haven't. Even from the cows, the stories we got were mixed." The bearman advisor said reluctantly. "Far too absurd to be believable."

"I've ignored rumors before, but..." Emperor Mocetu stroked the fur beneath his jaw, "I remember hearing one of the stories had a minotaur champion with a white ax."

"I remember that one, sire, the story goes he was the second in command of a demon that served the undead empire to the west, the last successful harvest, some of the prisoners said that the temples that were springing up everywhere, had armor like what the survivor reports, and weapons to match, and that those came from her religious order. Also, that last harvest we lost some meat when the cows rioted, they kept shouting, 'we can fight back'. According to the statement we got from the survivor, the big one with a white ax claims he did it with only one other warrior, a human woman from the far west, who has promised that her children would kill us all."

"Well... we can't have that." Emperor Mocetu said with a snarl, "Send word to the ambassadors Mixtan and Tenochtan. And also, send a messenger to the king of the cows, tell him he must turn over all weapons and armor and disband that religious order immediately, or we will invade his Kingdom and turn it into a ranch like we did when his ancestors dared to resist in the east."

"Sire, do you really think we need the rest of the Triumvirate?" The advisor asked with his black eyes going wide.

"No, they're only cows, and what little we know of the empire beyond them, it's just an undead, and what did he conquer? Pffft, nothing, demihumans, elves, humans, and the degenerate idiots that treated cows like equals who ruined their own country before he even got there. An empire of trash... but I want horror engraved on their minds for a thousand years. We'll teach the west what terror means, and if the religious order in the west interferes, well we'll teach them the meaning of fear."

Emperor Mocetu laughed cruelly, "I'll teach them a lesson they will not forget."

The bearman advisor was about to start laughing when his mouth stopped before a sound could escape from his mouth. He glanced at the window through which light shone and cast the great shadow of their mighty emperor. 'Why do I hear the sound of laughter... out there?' He wondered, and a chill ran down his spine.

...Papal Estate...Twenty Years Post-Trial...

Neia sat alone in her study in the papal manor, a book in her hand and a light stone just over her shoulder, she turned the page and sighed with a roll of her terrifying eyes."

"Something wrong my love, you've been here for hours?" Skana inquired from the doorway, "Do you have any idea how long it takes to find you in a manor this size?" She put her hands on her hips and huffed in mild annoyance until Neia looked up and Skana saw her wife's expression.

"Neia... really... what's going on?" She entered and crossed the room with long and purposeful steps, her hands went out and touched Neia's right shoulder, while her left hand went to Neia's chin and tilted her head up.

"I was... well just reading, you know a lot of books have been written about us since the war ended. I was reading one... and I swear, I'd really like to meet the couple in these books. They're so confident, all knowing, I mean that Neia, and her lover, Skana, they seem like goddesses of war, and oh such a wonderful war it must have been, so glorious and..." The sarcasm dripped like syrup over pancakes from the lips of the pope.

Skana managed a little smile, "It's just what writers do with those they see as heroes, you shouldn't think too much about it."

"I wouldn't, but Mu'Treiu, Gottfried, Zyanya, have all signed on for command positions, for all our efforts to tell them how horrible war is... they want to go. I don't want them to! I don't want them to go! I can't lose them!" Neia exclaimed in a pitiful half wail. "I know this is hypocritical! We've trained them for war their whole lives, trained them to fight, lead, command, and rule... but now it comes to it... and I can't bear to risk my babies!"

"But I can't tell them no... I can't keep them back when the entire Sorcerous Empire is mobilizing." She blinked back tears, "What if they come back like me?! What if they don't come back at all?! Father would surely raise them... they're strong, loyal, good servants of the crown... but still, to know that their bodies lay lifeless somewhere, even for an hour..." Neia threw the book across the room and grabbed her wife by the wrist.

"Is there nothing we can do? I'm... fuck! I'm a prisoner in my home, of course there's nothing I can do but... isn't it possible to stop this war?"

Skana lowered herself to be on an even level with where her wife sat, she didn't even wince at a grip hard enough that she was sure it would have bent an iron bar. "We can't stop the world for our children, even if we want to."

She moved closer to her wife, close enough to kiss away her tears. "We can be brave. I know... nobody knows better than I what it is to see a loved one at risk... like when they took you from me and dragged you all the way to the Minotaur Kingdom, to see you wailing like a lost soul beneath a hood when you couldn't even cover your ears from the words of the witnesses. And it is even harder now, because these are our children. It's much easier, when it is just our own lives at stake, or when we're together."

She caressed Neia's cheek with both hands, and let her thumbs wipe away her tears.

"I want nothing more than to throw myself at my father-in-law's feet and beg... BEG... him to... spare our children... don't send them, don't risk their lives, those little lives we raised, or bore and birthed in pain, don't send them off to some far off battlefield, let them stay here, safe... with us, their parents." Skana leaned forward and kissed Neia on her forehead.

"But this is where our courage must be greatest, greater than at Hoburns, or Prart, or Kami Miyako, or Menowa... I know it is hard, even seeming impossible... but we can do it, and we'll bear the burden together." Skana whispered, and Neia reached out and pulled her down into a tight embrace.

"I don't want to lose them... not to death... and not to nightmare... what else do we have to give up...?" Neia whispered into Skana's ear.

"Control. They're making their own choices. We can't stop them, and we've prepared them as best we can... what we do is we make sure they know we're here for them when they come back, no matter what that means for who they become out there." Skana said softly, and stayed with her wife like that, until the sun rose the following morning.

Eventually, Neia woke and rang the bell for a servant, the sun was barely peeking through the windows when Enlaith arrived, and Neia ordered that their oldest children be brought.

They arrived in short order, Neia smirked a little as she sat in the chair beside her clearly still sleepy wife. Despite her age, Neia still appeared as strong and firm as they remembered in their childhoods, but as their other mother woke up, her expression became stern.

"In a few days, you're leaving on what you think is a grand adventure, something we've prepared you for, throughout your lives." Neia said sonorously, only the shaking of her hands gave away her nervousness, and that faded as Skana took them into her own.

"The truth is, we've prepared you to walk through hell itself, you've heard the glorious bardic stories and seen the plays of your parents but... those are entertainment. The truth is nightmare, nightmare that ruined who I was and made me into such a monster that I went on trial for war crimes. It's for that reason that I am seldom able to leave here. I don't want you to go, but 'if' you go, I want you to go, prepared. To understand as adults, what it did to me, to us." Neia took a cup of tea offered by Enlaith, drank it quickly, and while it was poured again, relayed the story as she remembered it. But she did not stop with the war, she went on to speak of the horror, trauma, and postwar years of which she'd never spoken to them before.

Their adult children sat across from them, eyes fixed on their mother as they tried and failed to imagine her attempting to end her own life.

"I know, hard to picture your mother that way, isn't it?" Neia's face became deeply ashamed as Skana squeezed her hand in reassurance. "Those are the parts of war and traumatic events that the bards don't speak of."

"But... you got better, right?" Mu'Treiu asked, then closed her mouth and scratched her horn as the faint memory of her human mother as 'the blood lady' ripping a skull open and severing heads, tickled her brain.

Neia shook her head slowly. "I'd like to tell you I got better, that the voice in my head that tells me I'm poison, that the voice that tells me I'll get everyone I love killed in the end, went away and never came back. I'd like to tell you I went into treatment, did everything the Sorcerer King said, and that I've been living happily ever after ever since."

Another cup of tea was handed to her and quickly finished before she continued.

"That isn't how it works though. I did everything I was supposed to, and more besides, and it is because of that, that I have you wonderful kids, this wonderful wife, and a life that to its last moment, will have been worth living. But...I still hear her sometimes. Oh, it isn't as loud or as frequent, and... I don't try to rip it out anymore. Instead I let it talk, I know what it says isn't true. If it were true, you all would not be around me now." She paused and looked around, a hint of glistening came into her eyes, and though her voice caught, it wasn't sadness, it was a kind of joy.

"Instead I sit with it, I try to understand what I'm feeling underneath those words. I know Remedios is gone and will never come back, so I know it is just me. My voice, my feelings, and I have to understand them. Loneliness? Fear? Anxiety? Am I just tired, spread thin like too little butter to spread over too many pancakes? Sometimes I think I have the answer, sometimes I don't. But I don't judge myself for feeling the things I feel anymore. Instead I cradle those thoughts and feelings like a bird fallen from its nest and calling for its mother to come and save it. And when it is quiet again, and when it has had its say, I part my hands and let it fly away again. Then I go back to my life, knowing that those who love me, those who support me, are there to lend a shoulder when I need it."

Her son was the first to speak. "But...why tell us this now?" Gottfried asked anxiously, inching closer as goosebumps rose on his skin and an intense look filled his sky blue eyes.

"Because Gottfried, you all volunteered for the Crusade, a war like there hasn't been since I stood in Kami Miyako and accepted Raymond's surrender. So you need to know what I have kept secret, so that you know what may be... and that you CAN come back from it, and your mother and I, we've had our adventures, good and bad alike. So now it's your turn, but when you all go, I wanted you to know that here we'll be, waiting for you, to help you, hold you, whatever you need. We will always love you, that's the point of all this, so that when you go out there, you know you can come back again."

AN: Well, that's it. This concludes this God Rising story arc. I'll be wrapping up the last of the stories that are unfinished, and then I will have concluded my Overlord work.

Barring commissioned pieces, which include the crusade storyline putting the Sorcerous Empire against the Triumvirate. THAT however, is a STOMP fic, which may happen, if you want to know more about 'that' you'll have to visit the discord server. (invite in the author page here on FFN) The TL;DR for that is: I write a 1-3 book (100-200,000 words each) series with old and new characters detailing the conquest of the beastman empires in the center of the continent. This would be a non-Neia centered fiction, but she would have a cameo or two. Nazarick and their armies fuck everything up, is the long and the short of it.

Additionally, you'll note some hints about other stories. Nua's conflict in the east. The Ragnarok event, the arrival of Loki, the appearance of players that threaten the balance, and of course the Age of Exploration, and much, much more. I've left open to you, a vast sandbox of opportunities that you can do what you want with, whether it is nothing, or to expand on this yourself as YOU see fit. Whatever you choose to do, even if it is nothing, thank you for staying with me to the end.

Additionally, if you want to read my ORIGINAL Isekai, you can do so on Royal Road, just search for 'Scales of Trust', and if you can afford to support it, well, every patron helps.

Acknowledgements and final thoughts:

This has been wonderful, I couldn't have asked for a better fandom, you're all amazing. The beta readers and discord members especially who took the time to help me along the way, but also the reddit users who promoted the various stories of the God Rising Author Universe, the readers who commented and left feedback of all kinds, the artists who did fan art that inspired me to do new stuff, yeah, you're all fucking wonderful. I don't know if I'll return to writing Overlord after reading V14, (waiting for translation to finish) but who can say? This has been great, and I hope you all live long, rich, wonderful lives. This has been a wonderful privilege that I will never, ever forget, and I'm proud not just of my own work, but of you who created based on it, you that loved it, you that took something from it, you that made it yours in your own way.

So, on that note, this is ABD, signing off.