The days until the final World Boss battle came and went, one by one, flashing by impossibly quickly, each seeming to last only long enough to let me realize and dread how little time we had left before vanishing into the ether, gone forever … though maybe my constant (ab)use of [Focussed Approach] and [Unshackled Knowledge] had something to do with it.

Speaking of, I'd actually hit Level 87, the first Level for something other than combat I'd gotten in a while, and along with it, a new Skill that could not have possibly been more perfect for what I was doing.

Arcane Infusion

There is magic everywhere, but it is rarely enough to cause effects of any sort.

This Skill changes that, allowing you to draw out the innate properties of any object by infusing it with mana to create enchantments based on said properties, or superimpose a different object's supernatural properties onto an object you wish to enchant, though there may be compatibility issues.

In other words, it was an enchanting Skill that had taken my crafts to a whole other Level.

Yet even with all my efforts, the gear made from the bodies of the World Bosses was only "good."

Not even "good enough," just "good."

Better than anything of the sort available for manufacture previously, at least in the melee-weapon/armor department, but, for me at least, Nagelring was better, and that was the weakest ancient weapon held by anyone, as far as I knew.

Though I wasn't upset about that. It wasn't like I used a sword all that often; in fact, even this blade was largely wasted on me. Demanding a better one would have been ridiculous and entitled.

In fact, if it hadn't been Dietrich who'd given it to me, I'd have likely lent it to Miller by now.

But as "inferior" as my products had been, they were still perfectly servicable, and I was constantly improving.

Especially after I'd figured out that I could freely experiment with materials even without [Focussed Approach] active, as long as I used [Restoration of the Old] to return everything I "ruined" to its original state, ready to be turned into something actually servicable.

And I was improving; the more I made the ability my own, the more I could work normally, without letting myself be drawn into the fugue state, the siren song growing quieter every time.

I looked around the workshop, which was looking exactly the same as it had when I'd started using it, all signs of wear and tear on the tools and machinery erased by my Skill, the floor sparklingly clean thanks to Mr. Deeds, the need to save the remains, even the dust, requiring collection over destruction, and the countless materials that had once lined the walls were, uh, still there.

Well, ninety-nine percent of what had once been there was still present, and the one percent I'd used up had been replenished already, easily replaced from vast storage silos that held the butchered remains of the three primordial beasts.

I probably hadn't left the Untersberg in … well, days, possibly as much as an entire week, sunlight a distant memory.

Of course, it had only been that short a span of time, a mere fraction of a percent of my entire life, yet somehow, returning to the "real world" left me feeling strangely melancholic.

Weird how quickly you could get attached to things …

A wave of my hand tore open a portal between Germany and Colombo, the capital of Sri Lanka.

Even though I'd more than gotten rid of the impulse to use gestures to trigger [Guide's Shortcut] in combat, something about not doing it when I could just felt wrong.

I stepped out into a vision of hell … or rather, what happened once the fires had gone out, buildings collapsed, and the dead begun to rot.

The first time I'd visited this place had been at the very beginning of this madness, a brief stop at the airport to add it to my portal locations, then teleported off … elsewhere, I didn't remember.

Nor did I have any significant memories about Colombo either.

But it sure as shit hadn't looked like this.

I took a deep breath, only to immediately regret it as I got a whiff of what a city like this smelled like after it had been torn apart by monsters and left to fester beneath the tropical sun for … I looked around it again, trying to figure out the timespan. A couple of months, at least.

And the thorough annihilation of a city such as this had been such a common occurrence that I hadn't even heard about it, even in the most distant and abstract of ways.

Hell.

Should I … no. Putting the buildings back up with [Restoration of the Old] might make me feel better, but I felt like what to do with this place, whether to leave it as a monument or rebuild it, was up to the locals to decide.

Fucking hell.

Cursing internally, I cast [Animal Transformation] to shift into an albatross and began my flight south, towards the mousetrap that had been built for Leviathan while I'd been busy in the workshop.

But even as the ground beneath gave way to the ocean, my mind remained stuck on the ruined city.

When had that disaster occurred?

What had been responsible?

Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

And most importantly of all, where was that monster now?

Part of me was glad I'd come here now, when the ruins had begun to overgrow and the bodies had already been dragged away by wild animals or the like, rather than earlier, when the human misery and death would have been that much more visceral … yet part of me also felt guilty for not having done anything.

As if I could have actually made a difference back then … or even had the time.

And wasn't that an asshole thing to say, even if it was true. I'd spent every moment of my time doing something important, something to improve the state of the world and everyone's chances of survival … yet seeing what had happened in the absence of someone capable of stopping city-wrecking monsters was a gut punch.

That was the one thing I really hated about flying as a bird. It always left me alone with my thoughts.

Too high to pick out details on the ground, too removed from the rest of the world to feel connected to it, and unable to even wear earphones and listen to music to drown out the world around me.

In a brighter, better world, flying would have remained exhilarating for a while longer.

In this one, even with the entire planet laid out beneath me … it was more akin to a prison that locked me in with my thoughts. And flying over the ocean made all that a thousand times worse.

Tough times don't last; tough people do.

I wasn't sure where the quote came from, or even where I'd heard it, but it came to mind now, emerging from the deepest recesses of my memory. So I tried to focus on it, to repress the dark thoughts … and it worked. Somewhat.

Endlessly repeating that mantra, hell, any mantra, was its own kind of torture for someone with my night pathological need to constantly be doing something, but it was better than the alternative.

So when the atoll finally crested the horizon, it felt as though I was seeing it after having been lost at sea for weeks or months, not after flying for a few hours.

As for the atoll itself, it was, well, an atoll, a sunken volcanic island with a lagoon in the center of a ring of volcanic rock.

There were two things special about this place.

Firstly, it was right where Leviathan would be emerging from the sea.

And secondly, it hadn't been there a week ago.

A little geokinesis and a goddamn volcano spell I'd actually been taught but not dared to use yet, and soon enough, boom, new atoll.

Trying to fight the fucking Leviathan was going to be trouble enough; doing so without dry land to retreat onto would be a fucking nightmare.

Which was why Merlin and Fionn hadn't stopped at just one, forming a grand total of eight atolls, six in a ring around the one in the center, and a final one placed a fair bit back, with the seven others between it and the place the World Boss would manifest.

This last atoll was the one that I was aiming for, as it was intended to serve as a base for the fight, while the others had each been enchanted with its own kind of grand spell, ready to unleash violence the moment the serpent showed its ugly mug.

As I got closer, I started to chuckle, the sound odd from my avian throat.

Someone with a sense of humor had put up a cabana on the beach, complete with a coconut tree that was obviously the result of plant magic, though I wasn't sure whether or not I wanted to see what Merlin looked like in beach clothes.

Though "beach" wasn't exactly a good description of what I was seeing there, where the volcanic rock simply sloped down until it was beneath the waves.

All told, this place didn't look like much, but that was because it wasn't needed to house an entire army; rather, only a handful of people were going to be waiting here.

Every single ancient, and the mere handful of people who'd managed to hit Level 80, meaning Mia, myself, and I wanted to say … three? more, but I was neither sure nor had met any of them yet.

The plan here was simple, though, a repeat of the plan against Apophis, except the idea was to not screw it up again; the damn snake needed to actually be on the hook by whoever was playing tank.

Though, wouldn't it be just perfect if Leviathan turned out to be a whale rather than a snake and fucked the whole thing up?

I mean, it wasn't like serpent Leviathan was the only interpretation, just the most common one …

Still, I'd mentioned that before, and was fairly sure it had been taken into account when it came to making contingencies.

After a few more minutes, I landed lightly on the beach and transformed back into my human form, taking a couple of seconds just to roll my shoulders and stretch before walking over to the cabana.

The sole inhabitant revealed himself before I reached it, however, wearing his usual sharp uniform and heavy combat boots, which could not be comfortable in this heat.

"Captain Miller," I greeted, suppressing the urge to raise an eyebrow at the house. I hadn't pegged that as being his sense of humor. He still noticed, though.

"I have a Skill to put up temporary housing," he grumbled. "Blasted thing decided to get cute about it."

I let out a single snort of laughter, then caught myself, something he was polite enough to not comment on.

"Are you the only one here?" I wondered, having been out of the loop for a while, to say the least.

"Everyone else is still trying to fix up the other islands," he said, gesturing behind himself.

Right.

I'd already dropped off most of my gear, but I still had one thing to hand over.

Reaching into [Diplomatic Pouch], I withdrew a sword.

But it was not the sword I had held in my hands after the very first time I'd tried my luck at crafting.

It was still a jagged, sawtoothed thing that would leave cruel, ragged wounds behind, but it was oh so much more lethal now.

For starters, I'd further aligned the edges, allowing for smoother attacks and making the weapon much less likely to get stuck.

But the real meat came from what I had achieved with [Arcane Infusion], the magic innate to the bodies of World Bosses, transforming that collection of tooth and bone and transforming it into a weapon that ruled the elements!

… sort of.

It could hurl lightning, burn with flame, and unleash shockwaves inside a target to shatter bone upon contact.

In that sense, it was actually superior to some legendary weapons, but only that.

Using elements was cool and all, but the weapon was very much breakable and nowhere near as lethal as most of the old swords I'd seen.

Holding it by the bottom of its sheath, I then laid the hilt into my other hand as I presented it to him.

"I believe it is long past time that you received a weapon worthy of your skills," I pronounced, having successfully strangled the urge to comment about his age instead.

After all, as someone who had reincarnated at least six times in time that I knew about, he was definitely the one with the most "lived life," as well as the one who'd stepped onto planet Earth the earliest.

Miller looked at the weapon for a long moment, running his eyes up and down it, then carefully reached out and picked it up, slowly, almost reverently, sliding the blade from its sheath.

For a brief moment, his expression froze, tightening up into a neutral mask that gave nothing away but nevertheless conveyed information purely in that such an expression needed a reason to be adopted … and then he began to grin.

"Does it have a name?" he asked.

That caught me by surprise.

"No," I said, shaking my head, "I didn't feel I was good enough to create named weapons."

Not to mention that, ultimately, I felt that names should come after the weapon had achieved something. Simply declaring my weapon worthy of myth and song felt wrong, and naming it would have felt just like a way of making said declaration.

"In your opinion, are things ready for the World Boss?" I asked.

"It should be fine," he said. "Unless we end up needing help and wind up with egg on our faces."

Yeah … the Apophis fight had been encouraging, but trying to do this with just ancients and a handful of people who'd nearly reached that level of power could easily end badly … but who was I to make a claim about that?

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