Oh my god! After a year and a half, it was finally finished!
This should count as the longest book in Wooden Old Seven's writing career. Although many parts didn't turn out as ideally as I'd hoped, and I took quite a few detours, I'm already very satisfied.
The part I'm most satisfied with should be the volume about Crossing the Border.
That was the core plot I'd decided on from the very moment I wrote the outline. The first eight volumes were all laying the groundwork for that moment.
And in the end, I recreated the scene from my mind, wrote it down word by word, and presented it to all of you.
Seeing your feedback really gave me an indescribable sense of accomplishment.
I was very happy, and very gratified.
Of course, the price was that this book followed the outline too rigidly, making the structure and pacing in the middle somewhat bloated, bland, and tedious.
When I first started writing this book, I even dreamed of fighting my way into the neighboring Warhammer world. But I had a feeling that would definitely make it fall apart. A lot of readers might not get it either, so I might as well stick honestly to the outline.
And ever since I finished the Crossing the Border volume, it felt as if all my energy and spirit had poured away in one rush.
Quite a few of you thought the book was about to end back then, and using a Spring-and-Autumn brushstroke to wrap it up there probably would have worked pretty well.
But Wooden Old Seven is someone with obsessive-compulsive tendencies. Ending it there would ultimately have left the plot incomplete, which was why the final two volumes came afterward.
It was just that my writing state was gone