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Okay, it probably was his fault, but in Jake’s defense, he had been somewhat mentally occupied with taking down the Ashen Phantom Devourer.

“You mentioned that you made it here with the help of a C-grade entity,” the King said as they flew up.” Will this entity be willing to assist both of us?”

About now, it should probably be made clear that Jake had not shared much of how he had traveled across the world, much less talked about Sandy. He just said he had made an ally that could help him traverse the world far faster than by himself, and that was why he had time to strategize and such even while moving forward.

No actual details about Sandy had been shared for several reasons. The primary of which being that Jake just didn’t like sharing information about others without permission. Telling everyone who Sandy was and Sandy’s abilities just didn’t sit right with him, so he kept things simple.

Moreover, Sandy was not the type of worm that one should be told about. Sandy was the kind of worm one just had to experience.

“I am sure it will be fine,” Jake said to the King as they soon reached the layer of clouds Sandy could operate in.

Jake and the King stopped as Jake kept watch to make sure no C-grade decided they looked like prey. Neither was in good condition to have a serious fight, so they would rather just wait for Sandy to make it there.

Ten or so minutes passed before Jake felt an aura approach. Jake looked up and saw Sandy descend from a layer of clouds above the one they were in. Jake smiled, but his smile quickly froze as he felt more auras. Several more auras.

All of them were far more powerful than Sandy’s, making them at or near mid-tier C-grade.

“EAT BOTH AND GO!?” Jake heard Sandy’s voice yell in his head from afar.

“Yes!” Jake confirmed.

“Don’t resist the pull,” Jake warned the King, and just in time too.

With great speed, Sandy barreled down and opened their mouth as Jake and the King were gobbled up. Sandy then quickly began flying close to the layer of clouds leading to the lower-leveled region below.

Inside the stomach, the King had stopped to admire what had happened while Jake stared outside. There, far up in the air, several figures now emerged. There were more than a dozen of them, and as they got closer, Jake got a proper look.

It was a group of griffins. Dense wind magic revolved around them as they tried to chase down Sandy, who was flying away at an equally fast pace.

”Sandy…” Jake said. ”Why are they chasing you?”

He kind of already knew, but he just had to ask anyway.

”Greed is indeed a sad thing. I have personally always believed that sharing is caring. That is the true way of the worms,” Sandy said with a holier-than-though tone.

”You stole something from them?”

”Permanently borrowed sounds nicer,” Sandy said with a bit of cheek before promptly changing the subject. ”I barely managed to get in a snack before you came back. What happened, and who is that scary as hell thing you also made me eat?”

”I am aware you are speaking about me,” the King interrupted, being all scary by picking up on them speaking telepathically. ”Incredibly interesting, this place. We appear to be within the Soulshape, and yet at the same time not. Some undefined space, perhaps?”

”Yeah, I was just about to tell Sandy who you are,” Jake said. ”Oh, by the way, this is Sandy. Sandy is a friend of mine and also happens to be the Chosen of Snappy. Or, well, the Boundless Hydra, Lord Protector of the Order of the Malefic Viper, is probably his official title.”

”I see,” the King said, not putting much weight on such titles.

Jake proceeded to explain to Sandy what the two of them had been up to and where they were headed. Sandy was only semi-distracted as the griffins managed to pour their magic into their strongest member, making the beast shoot forward with incredible speed, catching up to Sandy.

This resulted in claws scratching Sandy’s rock-like skin and a lot of wind magic trying to rip Sandy to threads. This kept on for a while, and the worm began to take damage as Sandy decided it all got a bit too much, activated some skill akin to Jake’s One Step, thus teleporting them forward tens of kilometers five times in a row.

I am more surprised Sandy couldn’t make a wormhole,Jake joked to himself… fully aware that Sandy potentially could make a wormhole, and even if they couldn’t now, then Sandy no doubt would be able to in the future.

During their talk, Sandy managed to get far enough away for the griffins to give up, resulting in the worm once more getting away with a successful robbery. After Jake explained everything, they had some small talk as Jake moved on to the next topic at hand.

Jake had already made Miranda aware the Ashen Phantom Devourer was gone, but he still needed to talk to her and the Sword Saint. He wanted to know what had gone down in Haven and let them know he was coming with post-haste.

The King and Sandy seemed to strike up a conversation as Jake took out a token and infused some energy. He waited for a few minutes, but nothing happened. Jake frowned, wondering what was up. He was not nervous but just guessed that she was probably busy as she also planned on heading straight for Haven once Ell’Hakan was gone.

Instead, he turned his attention towards a certain god he knew had to be waiting for his telepathic phone call.

And he clearly had based on how fast the Viper responded.

”My Chosen comes out victorious in this first chapter of the story, huh?” Villy said. ”Though I am more interested in your little interaction with that metal caster.”

”I figured,” Jake said, also primarily wanting to talk about that. ”So, off the cuff, thoughts on what went down? Should I just have killed him?”

”Maybe, maybe not,” Villy said. ”What I can say is that no matter what you did, there was no winning if you view your true opponent as Eversmile. Because he is not about winning or losing, to begin with. No matter the outcome, it is still a result and thus a data point for him. So, I guess in a sense, you could say he succeeds no matter what, as even no result would still be a result worth noting for him.”

”I get that part. Kind of. Eversmile is a maniac, but I don’t think he is stupid… why waste so much on William? There must have been easier ways to get someone like him than all the mess he went through,”Jake said.

”The metal caster is unique. His state before the system, where his brain itself deviated from the norm, is not something you will ever see with the system present. It simply can’t be there, so him being in that state before already makes him interesting. You also misunderstand something… Eversmile’s investment is not only due to the caster but who the caster was killed by. The person who just made his former follower into a heretic. You are as much a subject of his experiment as the caster is. And, if I am perfectly honest, so too am I due to our out-of-the-ordinary relationship as Patron and Chosen,”Villy explained.

Jake nodded along, once more reaffirming to himself that trying to understand what Eversmile was truly up to was a waste of time.

”Any comments on what else has been going on?” Jake asked.

”Not much; things seemed to go as you wanted. But one piece of advice. Keep your useful relationships intact. I initially wasn’t sure if it was even something for you, but Nevermore has a dungeon path that is suited for parties, and seeing as you and quite a few of those around you will reach C-grade around the same time, it seems like an obvious thing to participate in,” Villy said. ”Besides that, I don’t really have much to add. Outside of you potentially understanding why Yip’s Chosen went after you and why that is not necessarily a bad thing.”

”Definitely did get more out of making him leave than expected,” Jake agreed. ”Do you think he will keep making problems?”

”Oh, Jake… this was just the first arc of your story. I am sure there is far more to come, and the fact that Yip has not made any moves himself either is proof of this. Better be prepared to keep dealing with him and others who may want to make trouble for you in the future,” Villly said a bit teasingly.

Jake sighed. ”I guess my intentions towards Earth is a good call then?”

”Depends on what you want out of your home planet, but I would overall say that is the best course of action. One that will also hopefully come with other rewards down the line while also assisting those around you,” Villy semi-agreed. ”Anyway, I have some stuff to deal with myself to prepare for what is to come. Keep up the good work. Ah, one final note. It should be possible for you to make another teleporter out of your universe quite a bit easier now if you make use of those snakes in the mangrove. One of them has some talent in space magic, so I would look into that.”

“Noted,” Jake said. ”Good luck with whatever you are up to… actually, what are you up to?”

He felt Villy’s amusement as the god answered. ”Visiting an old friend and looking into some equipment upgrades of my own. You are not the only one who has gear that has fallen behind. I haven’t had a good upgrade in Eras, you know?”

Jake was a bit surprised, even if he probably shouldn’t be. It only made sense that gods also needed equipment and also that Villy could use equipment even if he had been a beast in his mortal days. Ascending to godhood changed things in ways Jake didn’t know yet and had no desire to find out. At least not yet. He would figure it out when he became a god himself or at least got a bit closer to godhood.

The two of them casually chatted a bit longer before cutting the connection.

In the real world – Sandy’s stomach – the King looked absentminded, likely talking to Sandy. About what, he had no idea, and he didn’t want to snoop either. Instead, he entered Serene Soul Meditation and dove into his Soulshape to check up on things.

Miranda had not spent a lot of time around the Sword Saint prior to her return to Haven. She had talked to him quite a lot during this entire planning stage, but that had also been their first real interaction. Everything else she knew about him had been hearsay.

She had feared that when she returned to Haven, there would be some issues, but she soon learned that the old swordsman was as domineering as Jake. Within an hour of their return, the people from the United Cities Alliance had been captured and contained, with those fighting back promptly seeing their heads removed from their shoulders.

This allowed Miranda to go to her old office without having to deal with many other things. When she entered the building, all of the former attendants looked at her with relief, the city having been rather tumultuous for the last few hours with an old man cleaning house.

Miranda greeted the attendants as Lillian took charge of the former leaders of the Haven, who had, fortunately, all survived this endeavor. In fact, the people from the United City Alliance had not killed a single soul or even caused any real problems besides slowly undermining Phillip, who had been the temporary leader.

Entering her office, Miranda instantly saw the mess of papers. It had clearly been searched through, and no one had bothered to clean it up, not even the man sitting behind the desk.

”Enjoyed being the leader for a little while again?” Miranda asked Phillip, who looked bored out of his mind.

”Thank god you are back,” Phillip sighed. ”I must admit, for a moment, it was nostalgic, but that is only until I remembered how tedious it could get. At least you are back now, and from what I heard, you have already finished cleaning things up. Ah, speaking of cleaning… you should go look at the cellar later.”

Miranda smiled, knowing exactly what was in the cellar. ”Things are indeed being restored to how they were. I will go down and look later, but for now, I will need to focus on properly getting a handle on things. Having not been here for so long, I have quite a few issues to deal with, and the system has bombarded me with messages to me as the City Lord.”

”Good luck with it all,” Phillip said with some schadenfreude. ”How about Lord Thayne? Will he be returning too?”

”He is on his way here,” Miranda answered as Phillip finally got up from the seat and stretched.

”Good to hear; that means I can finally leave,” Phillip smiled. ”One thing… Lord Thayne should probably go check with Arnold once he is back. I heard he had several private talks with that orange fellow, and I don’t know what they talked about, only that even the United Cities Alliance left him alone. Considering the emotion-affecting Bloodline… I don’t like the situation.”

”I will let him know,” Miranda nodded as she frowned. She had a hard time seeing the man choose to ally with the nahoom… but… it was possible. No one truly understood him, and dependent on what he was offered, it was possible he had changed alliances. She would leave it up to Jake to find out.

”Well then, I will be on my way. I haven’t been able to indulge myself for months,” Phillip smiled as he waved while heading out of the office. ”Say hi to the peacekeepers for me.”

Miranda just shook her head as he headed off. He had changed quite a bit after the Myriad Paths event, but he still had the qualifications of a leader. One of the reasons he had been put in charge was because of the peacekeepers of Haven. They were effectively the police force, and most of them were old soldiers from the Fort. Considering the peacekeepers were already respected, she could see how the United Cities Alliance had issues taking control. Though they had made quite some progress.

They still struggled with the Pylon, though. Which was a bit funny, considering the Pylon they had tried to claim was not even the real one. Miranda briefly closed her eyes as her vision shifted to the cellar. Several skeletons were lying down in the cavern beneath the office, with all of the altars from Yalsten still humming with power. The defensive spell she had made before leaving still held strong, and the United Cities Alliance had failed to breach it.

Ell’Hakan could have overpowered it, and maybe his servant would have been able to also, but they had clearly not tried to help. Ell’Hakan had made it clear from the beginning that he did not want them to actually take over Haven and wanted her to keep living. It all made little sense.

The entire invasion had been… weird. And it had ended too abruptly too. This bizarre situation was exactly what they planned to discuss whenever Jake returned.

That, and the future of their planet.