The group was rushing to get out of the lands of Darkness, pumping as much mana into the carpet as they could spare. Nothing in this place could possibly endanger them at this point, but they wanted to get home as soon as possible.

The carpet was flying so fast that before they had even fully processed that they were finally out of the lands of Darkness, they were already at the portal that would take them home.

As soon as they got to Hedonia, they noticed that the number of guards had increased. But they were in too much of a rush to get home to think about it too much.

They had a lot of things to do, but plopping themselves onto their beds and going into a deep slumber was the most important of all. But first they had to pop by Hedonia’s hospital. Every single one of them was exhausted, so a quick little healing session was welcome. But for James, it wasn’t quite as pleasant as it was for the others.

Even though Lunaris had healed him as much as she could, he still had plenty of wounds all over. And his newly regrown body wasn’t exactly at maximum strength.

As soon as the healer touched him, all the windows in the hospital shattered from the reckless fool’s screams.

And yet, nobody pitied him. This was a classic learning moment, used by parents all over. When a child gets hurt, they bring him to the hospital, and the healer casts the most painful kind of healing magic on the wounds. Naturally, the most painful spells are the most effective too, but the pain actually serves a purpose too. Many fools were saved from themselves by learning these painful lessons when they were still wee lads.

But even though James had been taught this lesson repeatedly, he was still just as reckless.

Lunaris and Helios weren’t going to nag him about it anymore, they knew he only did what had to be done. They loved him like a true member of their family, and they didn’t want to criticize him for his heroic deeds, as reckless as they were. They could only hope that he’d play it safer in the future.

As soon as the healing was done, the entire group began clapping.

“Who’s a tough little man?” Lunaris tousled his hair jokingly.

“Yeah, you deserve a lollipop young man!” Helios laughed along with the rest of the group.

“All right, all right. I guess I deserve that.” James smiled. He knew he had brought it upon himself. Even he was shocked by just how reckless he was sometimes.

They made their way to Helios’s house, where he paid the mercenaries and the dwarves right away. Even though nobody was even thinking about payment at that moment, Helios knew just how exhausted they must’ve been. So he pulled out the various expensive bottles he had purchased, along with entire coffers full of gold, and handed them out to their companions.

Denmac, the dwarves and Emilia were about to refuse and insist that they didn’t do it for the money. But nobody had the energy for that whole song and dance of social pleasantries, so they just took it.

Now that they were back in Hedonia, their bodies seemed to finally feel the cumulative exhaustion that they had been actively fighting. The visit to the hospital actually seemed to make it even more intense.

The group didn’t even have the energy for heartfelt goodbyes. Instead, after one big group hug during which they all nearly fell asleep while standing, they quickly darted towards their respective homes.

James and Lunaris remained at Helios’s home, dashing to their own rooms without a word so they wouldn’t fall asleep right there on the floor.

Even worse than after their previous mission, the three slept for two entire weeks. Luckily, Helios had used his last ounce of energy to warn Cadmus that they had arrived and that they’d be sleeping in for a while.

But not even he expected them to sleep for two entire weeks. When he finally woke up, there were thousands of missed calls and messages on his AetherPhone.

With great difficulty, he woke up his friends, having to cast several waterballs on them until they finally got up.

“Wow, we slept for way too long.” Lunaris told James and Helios, who were barely able to open their eyes as they ate breakfast in the kitchen.

“I know. Dad has been blowing up my phone, I guess something big must’ve happened. Though it can’t be that bad if he didn’t come wake us up.” Helios said while gulping down some cereal.

They nearly fell asleep again several times, but eventually they slowly pushed each other towards Cadmus’s office.

“Children! I’m so happy to see you alive and well, completely unscratched!” Cadmus shouted gleefully, as if nothing at all was wrong.

Helios winced, still not fully awake. “Oh my, you’re so loud!” He said while embracing his father.

“How could I not be loud? You come back after the most dangerous mission of your life and you don’t even stop by! I was overjoyed to hear you were all alive! I could hardly keep myself from coming over. Well, I actually did come over, but you were all sleeping so soundly, I just couldn’t bring myself to wake you up.” Cadmus grinned.

After a quick little banquet that allowed them to wake up and fill their stomachs, during which they told Cadmus everything he wanted to hear, Helios got serious.

“Something happened while we were gone, right? You wouldn’t have called me so many times otherwise.” Helios asked.

Cadmus didn’t want to mar their reunion by bringing it up right away, so he had acted as gleeful as possible. The news was bad enough that he even thought about waking them up a week ago. But after such a hellish mission, he knew they needed their rest. The fact that they slept that much meant that their bodies and their powers really demanded that rest, and interrupting it could have grave consequences. However, now that they had their banquet, it was indeed time to get serious.

“It’s the Darkness.” Cadmus sighed. “The stalemate is ancient history now. What started with small skirmishes turned into a full-blown war all over the world. Much earlier than we anticipated.”

The trio looked at each other. But they weren’t surprised. After they saw the amount of energy just one city had stored up, and just how powerful a single agent could get, they knew that a full-blown war was close.

“But it’s nothing like the previous wars.” Cadmus continued. “It’s as we feared. They are using their energy reserves to launch attacks wherever they desire. Instead of giant battles with several armies crashing against one another, the attacks are seemingly random. Well, there are still giant battles, but on top of that, we have to deal with their new strategy. An army of their pops up somewhere in the world, destroys an entire city, and then they disappear as if they were never there, before any other kingdom can come and assist them. The casualty count is already in the millions.”

The news was much worse than they thought, but the trio knew they had to keep their cool.

“What about Hedonia?” Helios asked. “Are our defenses sufficient to beat such an army if they attack us?”

“No.” Cadmus shook his head dejectedly. “I’m afraid that with the information their spies had already gathered about us before we got rid of them, their forces know just how strong we are. In other words, if they do attack us, they wouldn’t underestimate us. All it takes is sending an army, or even two from their strongest Stygian cities, and we would be toast.”

“How come you aren’t panicking though?” Lunaris asked as she looked at Cadmus. “I know you, you definitely have something prepared, don’t you?”

Cadmus blushed, his gray beard swaying as he walked around the room nervously. “Well, yes and no. I do have a plan that could save every single person here in case they did attack, but I can’t put it into action. Not yet, at least.”

“Well, what do you need?” Helios asked.

Cadmus suddenly stopped pacing around the room. “James”. He answered solemnly.