Thank you for reading. For being an interactive audience. For commenting.

  I am… so depressed after writing this lol. It's the longest project I’ve ever completed. It's also the most dark, most oppressive manuscript I’ve put to paper. At times, I found myself tearing up along with Raiten. Especially towards the end.

  I always planned for the Kiren to die. I feel like I made that a bit obvious at some points in time—but, when I actually wrote the scene… man I’m a soppy bastard lol. He reminds me a lot of some of my friends. Endlessly supportive and optimistic—the type of person you’d always want by your side.

  Regardless, I know that this volume has some issues. A lot of it is filled with fights, with an atmosphere that can sometimes be unrelenting, and of course, with quite a few pacing/worldbuilding hiccups. I apologize for these—this craft is still new to me. The serialized webfiction part, that is. I think I am going to move forward regardless of these issues—try to take them into account and address them in the next volume.

  That’s not to say the story will bend to them.

  I still have a clear plan for the future of our angry little protagonist.

  Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  But I can assure you, Volume 3 will have a lot more progression elements, less mindless action (still going to be action-packed, I’ll just restrain myself quite a bit lol), and of course, more suffering. Yet, there will also be more character interactions, more dialogue, more character moments, and well… more of what this story is meant to be at its roots.

  So I hope you’ll join me for that. V3 will mark the completion of the first major arc of LWT—followed by two other arcs in the coming volumes.

  Post V3 will also allow me to release the side stories in the universe. Side novels/novellas of different characters that may become important later—though you do not need to read these in order to understand our main story. I hope you do though—I think I’ll surprise you with my storytelling range (hopefully).

  I have a rewrite planned for either after V3 or after I’m done with the series as a whole. It depends on how things turn out. I do plan on publishing, but that’s far in the future. For now, at least, I will probably take a 1 week hiatus to sort some logistical stuff out with V3 before posting all chaps I have on patreon, and starting to post back on the regular schedule for Royal Road.

  Regardless, thank you so much once again.

  I hope that you too, dear reader, can keep moving forward. No matter what happens. No matter what harms you suffer, what trials you must endure, just put one foot in front of the other.

  One step at a time.