I think there is some valid criticism, but what were you expecting? Lindon had stolen the rarest resources and elixirs to prepare for multiple advancements. It’s actually wild to me that they were interrupted and still made it because they were driven.
I also think you fundamentally misunderstood why Lindon doesn’t consume Northstrider completely and kill him. His duel with Malice couldn’t start until his duel with Northstrider is over. The oath prevented Malice from interfering , but not Lindon. So he left Northstrider live to abuse or bait Malice into breaking the oath by interfering or make her ascend or kill her while she can’t fight back.
I think some of the rushed feeling comes from not having the advancement explained in the same level of detail that it was in previous books. Realistically, Yerin’s advancement to herald only took slightly longer than Mercy’s did, but the mechanics of Yerin’s got a much longer description because it was the first time we’re witnessing that level of advancement. Lindon’s advancement to sage is also well explained, even though he didn’t know it was sage he was stumbling towards at the time. Now that Lindon and team know intellectually how the advancements happen, they pave a smooth road for the others so in some ways it doesn’t feel as earned.
A lot of the work to get to herald or touch icons has been happening throughout the earlier books, and Will just didn’t waste words reiterating it. Orthos has been meditating on the nature of dragons since childhood. Ziel has been fighting his remnant internally since his character was introduced, and protecting others for much longer than that. Yerin & her blood shadow were killing before she ever picked up a sword, and she’s held Penance, killed a monarch with it, and come within a few breaths of dying herself before advancing to under lord.
While it’s accurate to say these advancements seem simple, seems is still the operative word.
Yeah, I agree with you here OP really seems to have either missed some important things, or is being willfully ignorant (pun intended). Book is great, all killer no filler. Being a frothing rabid fan of these books I would love if there was more filler, but I respect the pace and urgency Dreadgod and waybound forced the reader to experience
All I will say, is that you should read the book more carefully. Most of these ideas would be cleared up if you did. Let me say here though: Lindon was jacked up on resources and he had stabilized his friends with Monarch treasures so their souls could support faster advancement. Orthos did not get a “free Icon”. He had already been close to the Dragon Icon due to his lifelong meditation on what it meant to be a dragon. The infusion of Northstrider’s power just cemented that understanding. Yeirin resisted the sword icon, which was strange, but the Death Icon fits her new form more anyways. Eithan also resisted Icons when he was on Cradle. Yeirin had been honing her Death Strike, based on her memory of Ozriel, the entire book and had been surrounded by Death all her life. Parents, mentor, etc. Lindon left NS alive to avoid being immediately killed by Malice thereafter. You could find most of the answers to your ideas by reading a bit more carefully.
If malice was afraid that Lindon will attack her and that's why she ran it makes no sense. Lindon could attack her after the soul oath and before it, but by helping northstrider she could better her odds even if not immediately. Lindon suffered for a looong time after taking northstrider's power. It is a very far fetched story line just to cut her out. She's a monarch ffs, she can find ways not just give up.
Lindon couldn't balance their souls so much, will took so many shortcuts dude, emriss even said that they would be unbalanced for a while and they fought without any problems. We have seen kelsa reverse her iron body, an iron body!! And they can just advance to monarch just for fun? All the monarchs came together to heal yerin, they had said because of a minor imbalance she couldn't advance for decades if not centuries and monarch imbalance, pffft fine, fit the story so why not.
I'll say it again a better plot would be to give the gang an uninterrupted year with Lindon sweating them out. In the book people just join the fight whenever to fit the storyline... Why would yerin fight a random Shen battle.... To travel back to Lindon, weak storylines.
No, icons aren't pebbles you can gather and trade,orthos wasn't close to an icon, i could understand it if he had been an underlord 300 years. But it's a joke to say a gold could meditate to get understanding about an icon.
All the gang has seen death, they have killed many lost many, doesn't give the death icon. Eithan manifested the death icon by fxkn killing himself so that's also stupid.
Just because the first 11 books are top notch and we love them doesn't mean that waybound does the series justice. Don't defend it as a matter of principle, have an opinion please. I also love the series, some of the best books I've read, but it was an ending for an ending's sake.
Now that is just invective. I do have an opinion, as a matter of fact, and my opinion is that Waybound is an excellent ending. This entire comment is barely coherent.
Malice ran because she felt the duel had ended. She had sworn an oath not to harm the man mid-duel and to get away from him afterwards. Lindon didn’t kill NS, I imagine, to maintain ongoing immunity, which was explicitly outlined during the duel but could have been circumnavigated afterwards, like with a parting shot. I’ll admit it was shaky writing but it’s not outright bad, just some extremely complicated intrigue. Plus, Lindon was in no capacity to fight and NS’s condition was unclear. Simply leaving and processing his gains was perfectly reasonable, because if NS had gotten up, he would have been in trouble. This scene is pretty nuanced imo.
Equating what happened with Yeirin with their circumstances is a false equivocation. Her advancement was so unprecedented and bizarrely premature (becoming a Herald as a newly minted Overlord is very strange). Their advancement was abnormally fast but essentially orthodox. Emriss mentioned Mercy and Ziel potentially having issues, but those issues could easily just have to do with possible limits on future advancement, that could be fixed with Abidan resources, rather than limits to their current power at current advancement. Furthermore, besides Yeirin, none of the newly minted Monarchs were outstanding in their contributions to the final fight. They helped, but acting as though they came out of the gate at full power despite their unusually rapid advances is ridiculous.
If Yeirin had tried to travel herself, she would have never made it. She was far away. She needed help. I’m not sure what your issue there was. Admittedly, her being spit out there was random, but it was a perfectly entertaining fight. Also, of course Lindon needed help facing the WD. Without their presence, he would have died.
You might think a more fully fleshed out training sequence would have been better. That’s your prerogative.
Sure, none of the rest of them manifested the Death Icon, but they got Icon’s most appropriate to them. Also, Yeirin was the one meditating in the Ozriel hall and perfecting a Death technique. Also, the only one who had experienced more death was Ziel, but the Shield Icon works for him and his powers while Death works better for Yeirin. Sword and blood paths are literally referred to as Slaughter paths oftentimes. In the eyes of everyone, she was Death, especially with her technique.
Orthos was a Lord longer than Lindon was before Lindon got his Void Icon. I get that Lindon was a little non-standard, but Orthos has always been close to the dragon Icon. Sure, Gold’s can’t touch Icons, but they can embody them through action and philosophy. Then, when they get to Lord, they can try to reach them more proactively. Orthos had centuries of embodying the Dragon and years to try to touch the Icon as a Lord, while regularly consuming and absorbing the memories and the experiences of dragons. Consuming NS’s power just made it click. It makes perfect sense.
Kind of agree. I still enjoyed the book as an ending but I really wonder why Will felt he had to end the series in 12 when it was clear that this could have been 12 and 13 and done it a much more satisfying way. So many times throughout this book something that happened off screen was shoehorned in by an on page mention and it was very frustrating. These were all scenes we would have seen earlier in the series.
We got 50% into the book before the pace picked up. Then we got an entire book worth of plot jammed into 30%. Then we got an extended epilogue for 20%. It was a weird choice. I respect that authors have the right to choose when they want to move on but I wish it hadn't come across so strongly in DG and WB that Will wanted out of this series.
Truee. We all wanted an end, but this event soup. To harsh. We saw a time skip before, could have just made 12 months within interference from reigan where the gang spends a lot of off camera time advancing while we see mad King on camera.
But this was just a jumbled mess of everyone advances cz we want it
Definitely possible. Just kinda sucky being on the other side of it after getting pretty emotionally invested over that many books. Wish Will the best moving forward but in the last month this book has gotten even worse in my mind. I will eventually do a reread a long time from now and see if I still feel that way. Just where I am at.
I agree with some of the points. Rest of it can be explained by time distortion plot device.
One thing that bugs me is how easily they are able to manifest or share icons between Lindon and Orthos. Icons are a manifestation of someone's authority, can't see how Lindon and Orthos seem to borrow each other's authority.
Oracle sage temporarily gives the ability to SEE to the team. This is something that has never happened before, remember the silent king battles in previous books , it's too convenient and breaks the rules that were established previously in the series. Enough material to split it into 2 books.
Still overall a decent ending to this series. Thanks Will and hidden gnome team for giving us this book .
Doesn’t the 8-man empire basically share each other’s authority? I thought one of the benefits of having a contracted partner is that you can share authority in addition to madra?
Regarding 8 ME
Sages borrow strength from heralds. That's not new. Sharing Icons was not described. 8 man empire peculiarity was explained somewhere as a consequence of their armour .
Hence my assumption that there needs to be a medium for transfer of these fundamental power. I am genuinely interested in the mechanics of how this shared icons , authority etc work.
Other example I could think of is Yerin being able to get closer to the sword icon through more fully integrating her remnant. There’s also the description of Reigan Shen where he bonds a remnant with strong spacial authority. It doesn’t automatically push you to Sage but I’m guessing it gives you an advantage over other people trying to do the same. I’ve only been through the book once so I’ll have to go over the details of what happened with Orthos. As another response in the thread pointed out, I think Beach as of the way the book is written, things seem to be happening a lot faster for everyone else than they did for Lindon when there really hasn’t been that much difference. Orthos had been meditating on what it means to be a dragon for 300 years, he took in a bunch of black dragon remnants, and then he got Northstrider’s centuries of memories of dragons and his dragon authority. What I took from everyone’s rapid advancement is that if you have the resources and someone to guide you honestly (as well as multiple Monarchs to stabilize your advancement) you can advance as quickly as you want, relatively speaking. It seems more that this has not been the case because the Monarchs don’t want to share resources or knowledge with people who aren’t close to them or oathbound to the Dreadgod situation. They wouldn’t even tell each other what Lindon and crew stole from them.
I do have to say, Mercy’s Herald advancement went exactly how I pictured it lol
Interesting. Seems like what you would prefer is just anyone who doesn't think it is amazing to be quiet. I love this series. I think Waybound has problems. Both can be true.
It felt very rushed at times. Some of the advancements like Mercy's were done fairly well and other times it felt deux ex magicka. Same with some of the combat portions with Lindon. There were too many moments where I actively thought while reading "Lindon just mentioned X that he prepared or did off screen and this is definitely something we would have gotten in earlier books but now we don't because the series has to end in this book."
There was just a lot to get done in this book and even with the increased page count my number one worry coming into this book ended up being true. It was rushed. Too much to do and a weird pacing choice to start us off slow before getting into the meat of the events. Then we get 20% of the page count used up for an extended epilogue of fan service and to shut the door on these characters entirely. This is just one guy's opinion. It felt like Will really wanted to end the series whether that resulted in the best version of that ending or not.
It was way too much for one book, I kinda felt that way with Dreadgod as well. I think for everything that happened, the series should have been 14 or 15 books, not twelve. Both books were all fight scenes and nothing really else.
The Mikael thing was a major sour note for me, it felt so out of character and just kinda cheap. Yerin's icon was another major weak point in my opinion.
Overall, I'm happy with how it worked out in the end, but the book just wasn't great. So much was just hand waved away, and having Lindon ascend to where he did honestly just felt like an advertisement for the new series.
Worst part was the bloopers though, these were by far the worst bloopers in the series, and I feel cheated lol
I kiinda agree, but some of these aren't valid
1. All of them had decent willpower or willpower training, and a whole lot of resources. And it's one Underlord and two Overlords who became archlords. Not too much of a stretch.
2. Mercy has crazy talent, and we have enough hints all the way from the first book that people's remnants resemble them. I think this is fine.
3. Oh come on, I think even you know that this is fine. His archlord revelation is to be a tank, and everyone knew he was gonna be a guardian even from the last book.
4. I do understand this, but she decides to advance in order to protect Blue. But reaching two icons one after another was a bit much. Would've been better if she just reached the death icon directly - she's been gaining authority on that since wintersteel
5. I agree, this shouldn't have been so easy. At the very least, that scepter should've been used to stabilize his spirit so he can manifest his remnant
6. I loved this, but I also agree. Just because it felt satisfying doesn't mean it made sense.
7. This is a repeated point. You critiqued sage advancement and herald advancement already, monarch is just sage + herald, don't double count 😑
8. Also agreed.
9. Strongly disagree. We've established already that he can consume authority. Steal enough, he should get a temporary icon, at least until he can vent it. Orthos absolutely was ready for the dragon icon, he just needed a trigger, and this was it.
10. Disagree, this was a CLEVER plan. He's left to live so that Malice is bound by oath to not interfere.
In summary, I think the starting bits were REALLY good, the middle and end were way too rushed and haphazard, though. (The final dread God battles very very.. off screen? Didn't feel climactic at all). He really should've made this into at least 2 books.
I think there is some valid criticism, but what were you expecting? Lindon had stolen the rarest resources and elixirs to prepare for multiple advancements. It’s actually wild to me that they were interrupted and still made it because they were driven. I also think you fundamentally misunderstood why Lindon doesn’t consume Northstrider completely and kill him. His duel with Malice couldn’t start until his duel with Northstrider is over. The oath prevented Malice from interfering , but not Lindon. So he left Northstrider live to abuse or bait Malice into breaking the oath by interfering or make her ascend or kill her while she can’t fight back.
I didn’t notice that! That was the one point here I couldn’t refute.
All for legit discussion but there’s been a lot of name calling and insults on this thread. Let’s cool off everybody or I’ll have to lock it.
Ok! Taking criticism however crude in stride, great on your part!
Not asking you to do that at all! If anyone starts insulting you personally again lmk. I’ll take care of it.
Alright, Mr Whi(gh)te yo. Literature bxch!
I appreciate a good Breaking Bad reference! Let’s NOT go cook meth though.
I think some of the rushed feeling comes from not having the advancement explained in the same level of detail that it was in previous books. Realistically, Yerin’s advancement to herald only took slightly longer than Mercy’s did, but the mechanics of Yerin’s got a much longer description because it was the first time we’re witnessing that level of advancement. Lindon’s advancement to sage is also well explained, even though he didn’t know it was sage he was stumbling towards at the time. Now that Lindon and team know intellectually how the advancements happen, they pave a smooth road for the others so in some ways it doesn’t feel as earned. A lot of the work to get to herald or touch icons has been happening throughout the earlier books, and Will just didn’t waste words reiterating it. Orthos has been meditating on the nature of dragons since childhood. Ziel has been fighting his remnant internally since his character was introduced, and protecting others for much longer than that. Yerin & her blood shadow were killing before she ever picked up a sword, and she’s held Penance, killed a monarch with it, and come within a few breaths of dying herself before advancing to under lord. While it’s accurate to say these advancements seem simple, seems is still the operative word.
I agree with some of this but some of this reads like you just skimmed the book such as thinking malice didn't notice northstrider was alive.
Yeah, I agree with you here OP really seems to have either missed some important things, or is being willfully ignorant (pun intended). Book is great, all killer no filler. Being a frothing rabid fan of these books I would love if there was more filler, but I respect the pace and urgency Dreadgod and waybound forced the reader to experience
All I will say, is that you should read the book more carefully. Most of these ideas would be cleared up if you did. Let me say here though: Lindon was jacked up on resources and he had stabilized his friends with Monarch treasures so their souls could support faster advancement. Orthos did not get a “free Icon”. He had already been close to the Dragon Icon due to his lifelong meditation on what it meant to be a dragon. The infusion of Northstrider’s power just cemented that understanding. Yeirin resisted the sword icon, which was strange, but the Death Icon fits her new form more anyways. Eithan also resisted Icons when he was on Cradle. Yeirin had been honing her Death Strike, based on her memory of Ozriel, the entire book and had been surrounded by Death all her life. Parents, mentor, etc. Lindon left NS alive to avoid being immediately killed by Malice thereafter. You could find most of the answers to your ideas by reading a bit more carefully.
If malice was afraid that Lindon will attack her and that's why she ran it makes no sense. Lindon could attack her after the soul oath and before it, but by helping northstrider she could better her odds even if not immediately. Lindon suffered for a looong time after taking northstrider's power. It is a very far fetched story line just to cut her out. She's a monarch ffs, she can find ways not just give up. Lindon couldn't balance their souls so much, will took so many shortcuts dude, emriss even said that they would be unbalanced for a while and they fought without any problems. We have seen kelsa reverse her iron body, an iron body!! And they can just advance to monarch just for fun? All the monarchs came together to heal yerin, they had said because of a minor imbalance she couldn't advance for decades if not centuries and monarch imbalance, pffft fine, fit the story so why not. I'll say it again a better plot would be to give the gang an uninterrupted year with Lindon sweating them out. In the book people just join the fight whenever to fit the storyline... Why would yerin fight a random Shen battle.... To travel back to Lindon, weak storylines. No, icons aren't pebbles you can gather and trade,orthos wasn't close to an icon, i could understand it if he had been an underlord 300 years. But it's a joke to say a gold could meditate to get understanding about an icon. All the gang has seen death, they have killed many lost many, doesn't give the death icon. Eithan manifested the death icon by fxkn killing himself so that's also stupid. Just because the first 11 books are top notch and we love them doesn't mean that waybound does the series justice. Don't defend it as a matter of principle, have an opinion please. I also love the series, some of the best books I've read, but it was an ending for an ending's sake.
Now that is just invective. I do have an opinion, as a matter of fact, and my opinion is that Waybound is an excellent ending. This entire comment is barely coherent. Malice ran because she felt the duel had ended. She had sworn an oath not to harm the man mid-duel and to get away from him afterwards. Lindon didn’t kill NS, I imagine, to maintain ongoing immunity, which was explicitly outlined during the duel but could have been circumnavigated afterwards, like with a parting shot. I’ll admit it was shaky writing but it’s not outright bad, just some extremely complicated intrigue. Plus, Lindon was in no capacity to fight and NS’s condition was unclear. Simply leaving and processing his gains was perfectly reasonable, because if NS had gotten up, he would have been in trouble. This scene is pretty nuanced imo. Equating what happened with Yeirin with their circumstances is a false equivocation. Her advancement was so unprecedented and bizarrely premature (becoming a Herald as a newly minted Overlord is very strange). Their advancement was abnormally fast but essentially orthodox. Emriss mentioned Mercy and Ziel potentially having issues, but those issues could easily just have to do with possible limits on future advancement, that could be fixed with Abidan resources, rather than limits to their current power at current advancement. Furthermore, besides Yeirin, none of the newly minted Monarchs were outstanding in their contributions to the final fight. They helped, but acting as though they came out of the gate at full power despite their unusually rapid advances is ridiculous. If Yeirin had tried to travel herself, she would have never made it. She was far away. She needed help. I’m not sure what your issue there was. Admittedly, her being spit out there was random, but it was a perfectly entertaining fight. Also, of course Lindon needed help facing the WD. Without their presence, he would have died. You might think a more fully fleshed out training sequence would have been better. That’s your prerogative. Sure, none of the rest of them manifested the Death Icon, but they got Icon’s most appropriate to them. Also, Yeirin was the one meditating in the Ozriel hall and perfecting a Death technique. Also, the only one who had experienced more death was Ziel, but the Shield Icon works for him and his powers while Death works better for Yeirin. Sword and blood paths are literally referred to as Slaughter paths oftentimes. In the eyes of everyone, she was Death, especially with her technique. Orthos was a Lord longer than Lindon was before Lindon got his Void Icon. I get that Lindon was a little non-standard, but Orthos has always been close to the dragon Icon. Sure, Gold’s can’t touch Icons, but they can embody them through action and philosophy. Then, when they get to Lord, they can try to reach them more proactively. Orthos had centuries of embodying the Dragon and years to try to touch the Icon as a Lord, while regularly consuming and absorbing the memories and the experiences of dragons. Consuming NS’s power just made it click. It makes perfect sense.
Kind of agree. I still enjoyed the book as an ending but I really wonder why Will felt he had to end the series in 12 when it was clear that this could have been 12 and 13 and done it a much more satisfying way. So many times throughout this book something that happened off screen was shoehorned in by an on page mention and it was very frustrating. These were all scenes we would have seen earlier in the series. We got 50% into the book before the pace picked up. Then we got an entire book worth of plot jammed into 30%. Then we got an extended epilogue for 20%. It was a weird choice. I respect that authors have the right to choose when they want to move on but I wish it hadn't come across so strongly in DG and WB that Will wanted out of this series.
Truee. We all wanted an end, but this event soup. To harsh. We saw a time skip before, could have just made 12 months within interference from reigan where the gang spends a lot of off camera time advancing while we see mad King on camera. But this was just a jumbled mess of everyone advances cz we want it
I’m wondering if maybe it became not as fun for him to write?
Definitely possible. Just kinda sucky being on the other side of it after getting pretty emotionally invested over that many books. Wish Will the best moving forward but in the last month this book has gotten even worse in my mind. I will eventually do a reread a long time from now and see if I still feel that way. Just where I am at.
I agree with some of the points. Rest of it can be explained by time distortion plot device. One thing that bugs me is how easily they are able to manifest or share icons between Lindon and Orthos. Icons are a manifestation of someone's authority, can't see how Lindon and Orthos seem to borrow each other's authority. Oracle sage temporarily gives the ability to SEE to the team. This is something that has never happened before, remember the silent king battles in previous books , it's too convenient and breaks the rules that were established previously in the series. Enough material to split it into 2 books. Still overall a decent ending to this series. Thanks Will and hidden gnome team for giving us this book .
Eithan said Lindon could work his authority through Blue and Orthos almost as well as himself 2 books ago.
Doesn’t the 8-man empire basically share each other’s authority? I thought one of the benefits of having a contracted partner is that you can share authority in addition to madra?
Regarding 8 ME Sages borrow strength from heralds. That's not new. Sharing Icons was not described. 8 man empire peculiarity was explained somewhere as a consequence of their armour . Hence my assumption that there needs to be a medium for transfer of these fundamental power. I am genuinely interested in the mechanics of how this shared icons , authority etc work.
Other example I could think of is Yerin being able to get closer to the sword icon through more fully integrating her remnant. There’s also the description of Reigan Shen where he bonds a remnant with strong spacial authority. It doesn’t automatically push you to Sage but I’m guessing it gives you an advantage over other people trying to do the same. I’ve only been through the book once so I’ll have to go over the details of what happened with Orthos. As another response in the thread pointed out, I think Beach as of the way the book is written, things seem to be happening a lot faster for everyone else than they did for Lindon when there really hasn’t been that much difference. Orthos had been meditating on what it means to be a dragon for 300 years, he took in a bunch of black dragon remnants, and then he got Northstrider’s centuries of memories of dragons and his dragon authority. What I took from everyone’s rapid advancement is that if you have the resources and someone to guide you honestly (as well as multiple Monarchs to stabilize your advancement) you can advance as quickly as you want, relatively speaking. It seems more that this has not been the case because the Monarchs don’t want to share resources or knowledge with people who aren’t close to them or oathbound to the Dreadgod situation. They wouldn’t even tell each other what Lindon and crew stole from them. I do have to say, Mercy’s Herald advancement went exactly how I pictured it lol
Yes. Will pushed consume too far for plot.
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Interesting. Seems like what you would prefer is just anyone who doesn't think it is amazing to be quiet. I love this series. I think Waybound has problems. Both can be true. It felt very rushed at times. Some of the advancements like Mercy's were done fairly well and other times it felt deux ex magicka. Same with some of the combat portions with Lindon. There were too many moments where I actively thought while reading "Lindon just mentioned X that he prepared or did off screen and this is definitely something we would have gotten in earlier books but now we don't because the series has to end in this book." There was just a lot to get done in this book and even with the increased page count my number one worry coming into this book ended up being true. It was rushed. Too much to do and a weird pacing choice to start us off slow before getting into the meat of the events. Then we get 20% of the page count used up for an extended epilogue of fan service and to shut the door on these characters entirely. This is just one guy's opinion. It felt like Will really wanted to end the series whether that resulted in the best version of that ending or not.
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Your submission was removed because it violates our "Be Kind" rule
Your submission was removed because it violates our "Be Kind" rule
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Your submission was removed because it violates our "Be Kind" rule
Your submission was removed because it violates our "Be Kind" rule
It was way too much for one book, I kinda felt that way with Dreadgod as well. I think for everything that happened, the series should have been 14 or 15 books, not twelve. Both books were all fight scenes and nothing really else. The Mikael thing was a major sour note for me, it felt so out of character and just kinda cheap. Yerin's icon was another major weak point in my opinion. Overall, I'm happy with how it worked out in the end, but the book just wasn't great. So much was just hand waved away, and having Lindon ascend to where he did honestly just felt like an advertisement for the new series. Worst part was the bloopers though, these were by far the worst bloopers in the series, and I feel cheated lol
Mikael thing?
u/datvigi the guy just got banned by reddit or some mod I think cz he used butt holes and other slurs in replying to me. Lol
Yeah yeah…. I wish this book has been split into two. It felt so hurried. Which is a shame.
I kiinda agree, but some of these aren't valid 1. All of them had decent willpower or willpower training, and a whole lot of resources. And it's one Underlord and two Overlords who became archlords. Not too much of a stretch. 2. Mercy has crazy talent, and we have enough hints all the way from the first book that people's remnants resemble them. I think this is fine. 3. Oh come on, I think even you know that this is fine. His archlord revelation is to be a tank, and everyone knew he was gonna be a guardian even from the last book. 4. I do understand this, but she decides to advance in order to protect Blue. But reaching two icons one after another was a bit much. Would've been better if she just reached the death icon directly - she's been gaining authority on that since wintersteel 5. I agree, this shouldn't have been so easy. At the very least, that scepter should've been used to stabilize his spirit so he can manifest his remnant 6. I loved this, but I also agree. Just because it felt satisfying doesn't mean it made sense. 7. This is a repeated point. You critiqued sage advancement and herald advancement already, monarch is just sage + herald, don't double count 😑 8. Also agreed. 9. Strongly disagree. We've established already that he can consume authority. Steal enough, he should get a temporary icon, at least until he can vent it. Orthos absolutely was ready for the dragon icon, he just needed a trigger, and this was it. 10. Disagree, this was a CLEVER plan. He's left to live so that Malice is bound by oath to not interfere. In summary, I think the starting bits were REALLY good, the middle and end were way too rushed and haphazard, though. (The final dread God battles very very.. off screen? Didn't feel climactic at all). He really should've made this into at least 2 books.