Before the Ending

There are probably about five or six chapters left before the ending. The final chapter may be a little longer, so I might split it into two parts.

The book is almost finished, so I can talk about a few things now.

First, about updates. The second half really has been exhausting. Many times, I wanted to give up and take a long vacation, but I knew all too well how hard it was to put a book down and pick it back up again, so I gritted my teeth and kept going.

The updates have indeed slowed down a little, but I'm already extremely satisfied with my writing pace.

One year and four months of serialization, 4.12 million characters—twice the update rate of The Sovereign of the Flood and three times the rate of Cold Heaven Emperor.

Even this month, when I said in my first post of the month that I could update 150,000 characters and that simply avoiding missed updates would count as a success, I still ended up surpassing 200,000 characters by today.

I'm not trying to take credit or say how hard I've worked.

Everyone works hard to make a living.

It's just that sometimes, when you're already exhausted and feel you've given everything you have, you don't expect praise. You only hope, deep down, that people won't point at you and rain down a torrent of abuse. That's all.

Novels are just a way to add a little variety to life. I know everyone's life is hard right now, and the general atmosphere out there is rife with hostility.

Still, I'll always say the same thing: the point of commercial fiction is to make people feel happy and exhilarated.

If you think a novel is bad, or find it unpleasant to read, pick up