When I typed the words "Volume Complete,"
I felt a vast, quiet peace.
After a tremendous climax like the Sword Immortal's, bringing the story down to a smooth landing was actually harder than writing the climax itself.
As I wrote on, my intensely exhilarated emotions from this period gradually and gently settled, too.
This world, along with my heart, had found its peace.
And so we could keep moving forward.
Now I was sitting at my desk. I'd just finished lunch, poured myself a cup of warm water, and begun writing this volume-end summary at an unhurried pace.
I'll write as much as comes to me. If my words fail to convey what I mean, please don't hold it against me. After all, my heart... is already on vacation.
This volume began with an ambush at the Long River and ended with Jiang Wang making a name for himself at the River Viewing Terrace. It had a sense of fated, cyclical return.
Even now, I sometimes found myself wondering,
What did Jiang Wang at this end of the Long River feel as he looked back at Jiang Wang on the other side?
And looking back from early May at the person who wrote the first line of Hardships of the Journey, I couldn't help feeling conflicted...
Hardships of the Journey had a sprawling structure, with two main parts: the Lost Realm battlefield and the Yellow River Assembly.
Making the Yellow River Assembly the central climax was an extremely risky decision.
Because it was too difficult.
The first challenge of the Yellow River Assembly was that every reader had enormous expectations for it. After all, it was the grand event of the world, foreshadowed from the very first chapter.
To meet those expectations, it had to deliver an experience that surpassed