“This is the right thing to do,” Logan tells me. I haven’t asked, but after seeing what the Rock Trolls have been doing without Hvitserkur around maybe he’s just confirming it to himself.

  “You mean this what we’re doing right now, or going after the Rock Trolls?” I ask him.

  “Both, actually.”

  We’re waiting for Freya to finish with the Shop in Reykjavik. When given the opportunity to take some revenge on the Rock Trolls, she gladly joined us with the only proviso that she needed to restock at the Shop so that she could pull her weight and inflict maximum damage. We only have to wait a minute before she emerges.

  Since the last time we saw her she’s Evolved to an extension of her Mythic Class, into an Enhanced Legendary Class. She looks slightly younger or perhaps more vibrant than in those days, but her imposing height and piercing blue eyes are still there, plus her cybernetic arm has clearly had an upgrade and is now a sleek, deadly liquid metal. There’s no doubt Logan’s eyes linger on her when he thinks I’m not looking.

  Freyja Bjarnadottir, Ironclad, Savior of Reykjavik, Steadfast, Survivor, Beacon of Hope, Resolute, Reborn (Level 3 Ironclad Warrior) (Enhanced Legendary)

  Health: 5610/5610

  Mana: 2680/2680

  Conditions: Glutton for Punishment, Hardened, Aura of Command, Sentinel’s Gaze, Embolden, Wing and a Prayer, Reinforcement, Legendary Regeneration

  “Ready?” I ask her, looking her straight in her intense blue eyes.

  “Yes.” She glances at Logan, perhaps wondering why this kid is higher Level than she is.

  I Step to Jeff with both of them and we instantly appear beside him. A quick glance over to see Jeff nod lets me know he’s ready. Although I could Step to our last destination, I open a Portal instead to ensure we give plenty of notice. It looks safe so I manifest the Portal in the middle of a forest beside a meditating FInn. Like other times I’ve visited Finn, he sits cross-legged with his hands thrust into the Earth beneath him. As soon as we appear he opens his eyes, and it’s Jeff that tells him.

  “Hey bro, good to see you. Bronwic’s killed Hvitserkur, but the Rock Trolls are massacring the population on the world they went to. You keen to help?”

  Finn moves only his eyes between Jeff, Freya, Logan, and I.

  “I appreciate you coming back again to give me the choice. My place is, and will always be, on the Earth. But if I was to leave, it would be to do something like this. For Jon, and for the world sacrificed instead of ours. Thank you Bronwic,” he ends and closes his eyes again, resuming his meditation. For me, this closes out the chapter with Finn. I had to give him this opportunity; it felt only right.

  “Anyone else?” asks Jeff. The forest around us is thriving and the air is crisp and clean, so I pull in a deep breath and pause just for a second. I can see why Finn visits here.

  “If we ask more people to come, I don’t know where to draw the line, and I don’t want to start bringing people that we have to worry about,” I answer. “Let’s go.”

  I trigger Dimensional Step and we instantly appear in the spot I first came through to confront Hvitserkur. The ground where he was is ripped up as if something was pulled out forcibly, which I guess it was. The rest of the area is deserted and barren; there is nothing but rocky ground for miles around us.

  “Where are they?” asks Freya.

  I pull up my minimap and zoom out, then project it down on the ground in front of us.

  “Whoa!” exclaims Logan.

  “You can see that this kind of terrain has been established for more than a thousand kilometer radius,” I tell them to give an idea of scale. Around and beyond the edges, I highlight tens of thousands of dots with red and more with white. There used to be Rock Trolls within the circle of rocky terrain, but all of them have now left the area. I wonder what’s driving them. In the end it doesn’t matter, they’re slaughtering and expanding as fast as they can, though their terrain isn’t following behind them anymore.

  “Are the dots the Rock Trolls?” asks Logan, and I nod.

  “I can filter on active combat to find the ones we should take out first. I’ll leave you guys to it, maybe pitch in a bit if it looks like we won’t get to them fast enough.”

  “You don’t really need us here, do you?” asks Freya. She has no idea what I’ve been doing for the last six months.

  “No,” I agree. “But you deserve to be part of this, it needs to get done, and I want to understand what Logan can handle now. It’s been a while. Righting this wrong together and getting some XP in the process feels right.”

  Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

  Nothing here is really going to move the needle on XP for me, they’re just not high enough Level, but for the others it will probably mean quite an accelerated rate of progress.

  “I’ll keep us moving as quickly as I can to the hottest spots. If I leave you it’s to take care of something we won’t get to in time, and I’ll definitely be back.”

  I always try to keep in mind how much trust people show in me when I’m probably their only ticket back. Maybe there’s a chance they could save up enough to buy a crappy spaceship at the Shop or someone could get lucky and run into a Portaling specialist or a setup, but most likely it would be a very, very long road to get back home.

  “If you need a break or need help, just signal,” I send to them over the GPC, and they all , her appearance nod.

  “Let’s rock and roll!” exclaims Jeff as he equips the rest of his armor from his Inventory and layers his defensive Skills on top. Logan seals himself in his new armor and as Freya triggers some Skills I can see her body morph by adding layers into something very similar but tougher, more resilient.

  I open a Portal to a group of almost a hundred Rock Trolls and the others burst through, offensive Skills blazing. Jeff pulls two massive sledgehammers from his Inventory and immediately engages a group of Rock Trolls, his enormous physicality overwhelming Monsters that are twice his size. It’s a testament to how angry he is that he doesn’t use any of his newer ranged Skills, his focus is purely on smashing as many of them as he can with a satisfying crunch. Freya doesn’t get up close, but constantly cycles through different weapons from lasers to plasma blasters to the sci-fi equivalent of machine guns.

  Logan is on a whole new level, using stored kinetic energy to blast Rock Trolls apart at high speed and taunting, inviting Rock Trolls to strike him. When they do, their blows slow down before they even reach him and he blasts them right back with their own force and more, then he virtually explodes across the ground to the next one.

  I don’t bother doing anything, I just keep an eye on my minimap and Omnipresent, and how the conflicts across this single continent are going. A couple minutes later we’re done here and I use Dimensional Step to take us to the next location, a steep canyon with only two ways in and out that are controlled by Rock Trolls. Below in the canyon is a prison and work camp for the indigenous species with abhorrent conditions. The others make quick work of them and I Step us to the next group, and the next.

  We fight maybe two hundred battles in the space of a few hours, and only twice do I need to Step away and blast a large group with Tempest Siphon and Resonant Strike. Occasionally I trigger Echoes of Einherjar to test it out some more; I summon my spectral warriors to fight alongside Freya, Jeff, and Logan. They don’t manage to get many strikes in before a group of Rock Trolls is decimated, but I get a better feeling for the kind of situation I might want to use this Skill in, probably to supplement low Level combatants fighting swarms slightly above their Levels. Not the case here though.

  The anger and passion I thought I’d feel eliminating these Rock Trolls doesn’t rise up like I thought it would. Maybe it’s because the others are doing all the killing, or maybe because I’ve already taken out Hvitserkur. It’s definitely the right thing to do. In the in between moments I realize it’s because we’re not fighting for humanity, not particularly advancing our cause. Just cleaning up a very meaningful mess that I was involved in creating.

  I Step all of us to one of the last Rock Troll groups; we’re nearly done. Just a couple left and then one underground horde of them which I’m not worried about. The spaces won’t be that enclosed for us given the Rock Trolls are twice our size or more, and if they have frustrating traps in place like the ability to collapse the corridors then I’ll just hit them all with my Skills from above ground.

  Jeff and Freya race off, but Logan stays behind and stands beside me, watching the other two tear the Rock Trolls apart.

  “Not into this, Unc?” he asks. He’s gained another Level which is great to see and has obviously noticed my lack of enthusiasm, which Jeff never suffers from.

  “What seems like a long, long time ago your Uncle Robb got through to me that we should always be fighting for humanity first, and always. This is a worthwhile thing to do and I feel bad saying it, but it just doesn’t feel quite the same as fighting for Earth or humans. I guess I didn’t even fully notice, but even during the six long months I spent clearing our solar system of threats, what drove me was the thought that those creatures might reach Earth while I wasn’t there. Those images going through my mind of attacks on all the places I’ve been and fought at on Earth, and so much more. At this point maybe I’ve seen more places on Earth than any human ever has. Zero travel time and an apocalypse are one heck of a combination.”

  Logan looks thoughtful as Jeff and Freya finish their battle and dart back toward us.

  “I’m not sure what drives me,” he admits. “I want to protect myself and the people I know, sure. I want you to be proud of me and to be able to come with you, to explore. I guess I want people to recognise I’m good at something too, and most of what gets respect now is your ability to kick ass.”

  “Not entirely, but I do agree with you,” I admit.

  “Did someone say kicking ass?” exclaims Jeff. “You’re kicking a lot of ass, Logan!”

  We both laugh at that and Freya gives us a sideways look; perhaps she’s not used to Jeff’s energy and the mood is definitely not as grim now as it was when we arrived. There’s been plenty of chance to work out some emotions and we’re almost wrapped up.

  Suddenly, for a split second my vision is flooded with a scene from Foresight and time expands out to show me an overwhelmingly foreboding underground cavern with what I immediately recognise as a similar situation to the Dark Mana research facility that was the catalyst for my Class followed by a massive, rippling explosion that originates from the Pyramids in Egypt and causes enormous widespread damage all through northeastern Africa, the Middle East, and up through southeastern Europe all the way to Romania. The vision ends, but it leaves me with no doubt the outcome would be catastrophic for the whole planet and hundreds of millions of people.

  “Foresight?” asks Jeff, immediately on the highest possible alert while Freya looks at us in confusion.

  “Another Dark Mana research facility on Earth, and another catastrophe in the making,” I growl.

  “Another one? What the fuck is going on?” Jeff says.

  There’s no time to stand here talking. I trigger Dimensional Step and we appear in the middle of the Pyramids. Immediately I feel the deep thrum of Dark Mana resonate through my very being. There’s no confusion about what’s happening this time, and it’s a different me today than the last time.

  “Wait here, or leave,” I say, and Step straight down a hundred meters.

  https://www.audible.com/pd/Sentinel-Audiobook/B0DZ3Z1194?