It was surreal: Kai was so used to ending battles half-dead and covered in grime that feeling this good seemed wrong. But as much as he had drained himself, consuming the Abhorroid had restored him in multiple ways. He'd definitely been covered in monster entrails, but as his armor disappeared, it seemed to shed all of that, leaving him clean. The Beggar King's Robes reliably sat around his waist, so he was even clothed.
He tried to regain his balance by looking toward the city, but that almost made it worse. Over the battle he had seen it from the heights of his giant form, as well as frequently from the air. The landscape around it had been entirely reshaped by the battle, plus some of the walls had collapsed. Even if he had saved the city, it left him just as disoriented.
Then Zae Zin Nim and Omilaena appeared beside him, and his world reordered itself. Ironically, they were the ones who were a bit battered this time, both had clearly been slammed into various surfaces, and some of their clothes had taken a beating. They still looked better than they ever had as far as he was concerned.
"Is anything exploding?" Kai asked. He'd expected his voice to be monster-deep, but it was surprisingly quiet in the aftermath. "Is somebody dead or dying that I should worry about?"
"It's over, Kai," Omilaena said with a smile. "You can relax."
Zae Zin Nim nodded. "Yes, we were victorious."
"Good." Kai stopped holding back and lunged at them, grabbing his wives and pulling them tightly against him. His hands instinctively transformed into claws, but only possessively: he never wanted to let them go again.
"Tighter," Zae Zin Nim murmured. "We won't break."
"You know what?" Omilaena slipped her arms around both of them as they relaxed together. "With all these new breakthroughs, we can justify an extraordinary amount of dual cultivation. There's no reason to do anything else for at least a week, I think."
Kai growled his approval. The restoration of his battered mind and soul left him feeling human enough for intimacy again, or perhaps the breakthrough had awakened different hungers. They were all one and the same, of course, as he'd always known.
"Did you get taller again?" Zae Zin Nim asked suddenly. "This is becoming a bad habit."
"I'm not sure, I-"
"You did it!" Inafay appeared out of nowhere, shooting toward them at great speed and tackling the group. Kai was too steady for her to knock them over, so she spun around them before coming in for a hug. "Holy shit, I can't believe we... wait, am I interrupting?"
"This is the time for celebration." Zae Zin Nim pulled back enough to give Inafay a more sisterly hug. "Orotaisin is well?"
"He's fine, I just flew ahead when I saw you. I know we lost a few people, and we'll have to mourn for them later, but right now I just can't believe we made it. It's... really over. Hey, Lofgan! Come show Kai your new trick!"
Orotaisin and Lofgan joined them, eager to tell about their battles in the Elemental Nations. Soon after, Juray and Raghi arrived via teleportation, setting off a new round of hugs. As even more people crowded onto the devastated plain, Kai accepted that he wasn't going to get private time with his wives any time soon.
And, a few very frustrated parts of himself aside, he was fine with that. Just being surrounded by so many friends was exactly what he needed. He realized that this was what he had always imagined when he was a young man, dreaming of putting his life against the incursions.
There was something inside the emptiness within him - not happiness or anything so abstract, it was small and pokey. Kai sorted through his essence and then tasted metal in his mouth. He reached in and pulled out what proved to be Omilaena's earring, which she had shot into the Abhorroid.
"Oh, I should return this to you." Kai handed it to her and Omilaena took it delicately with the very tips of her fingernails.
"Thanks," she said, "but I think I'm going to disinfect it first."
Zae Zin Nim laughed first, which set off a rush of laughter in sheer relief that they were alive. Kai could never have imagined the path that he took to get here, but as he looked over the group, he found himself laughing too. His teeth were a little too sharp, but it didn't matter.
.
..
.
Of course the aftermath wasn't solely celebrations. Some who had lost friends or family could justify them as a sacrifice in defense of the continent, but others mourned, or raged, or slipped away and said nothing.
And the rebuilding... Kai didn't want to think about how long it would take to restore all of the cities. Everywhere the invaders had touched needed a lot of work, and the cities that had been flattened might never be rebuilt. The Frontier wall, as the last incursion had proved, would never be the same. Gunjin and the other perennially serious adults were already thinking about what they could do for the next one.
For now, his own emotions were only silent and somber as he attended the funeral of Bonto of Birtaegal. That was what they had written on his grave, which was set in the middle of Yulthens alongside all the others who had given their lives defending the city during the invasion. There were more graves than he wanted to think about... but they had given Bonto a larger than average tombstone, and he saw many Krysali setting crystals of remembrance in front of it.
All of his students had reunited, drawing together in the wake of Bonto's death. He was the only one of them who had died, though he saw several new scars and Mariyay appeared to have replaced a severed arm with a mechanical one. Kai realized that they had their own story, separating from his, and he could leave the continent to them.
Not just yet, of course. Kai shifted back from the crowds, respecting the silence, until he reached the entrance. Krainuun stood there, head bowed slightly, while Gunjin leaned against the stone arch with his arms crossed. They hadn't been speaking, but they both looked to him when he arrived.
"What happens to Krysal after this?" Kai asked.
"For once, it will not be my problem." Krainuun released a long breath. "We are continuing with the plan, so Krysal will decide its own future. There are still some who are angry over the past, but recent history has... had an effect."
"I still think it's a mistake," Gunjin said, "but each nation can decide their own business. Just so long as they keep supporting the Frontier defenses."
"I do not think that will be a problem, given what everyone has survived."
"What about the wall?" Kai asked. "Is the phased construction working at all?"
Gunjin scowled at the floor. "Some of the Earth Union elites can form phased bricks, but it takes a long time, especially given how much we have to rebuild. And the bigger problem... they're still not as strong as the original wall. Whoever built it was at least a whole additional phase beyond anything we can create."
There was nothing that could be said about that, because it only returned to the mystery of the first incursion. It seemed unquestionable that the abyss at the center of the continent was no longer just a random fact of life, a flaw that made Deadwaste a bad place to live. Someone had known it was there and built a wall specifically to suppress whatever it was.
And, if the invaders had been telling the truth, they were surrounded by a body of water called the Deadlake. Kai wasn't sure whether it had been created to deal with the abyss, or whether the abyss had been what killed an ocean-sized lake, and he had no idea which of those scared him more.
"The elites can manage in the future," Gunjin said. "We took some losses, but we got replacements sooner than expected. I expect over the next years we'll be getting a lot more."
"Do we count from the end of the incursion?" Krainuun asked. "Or did the final monster reset the counter?"
"We have absolutely no idea, but we'd better plan for the worst." Gunjin turned to Kai, staring up at him with a strange gaze. "A lot of our strategy will depend on what you do, of course. Both in the intervening years and when the event itself arrives."
Kai could only shake his head. "We're still deciding what's next for us. It's hard to say... my life changed completely over the past seven years, so I can't guess where I'll be in another seven."
There was nothing they could really say to that. After they remained at the funeral for a while longer, they began to slip away: Gunjin to his endless watch, Krainuun to his office to plan for his retirement, and at last Kai on his own. He didn't have to go far before Omilaena and Zae Zin Nim appeared beside him, mirroring his somberness... but only for a while.
"Are you done?" Omilaena asked. "Can we get to our extremely important training now?"
"I think that's the last ceremony," Kai said, "and even I'm sick of talking about the future. Focusing on the present sounds good... let's go home."
"And where is home, for us?" Zae Zin Nim asked.
"Wherever we want it to be."