Whatever else may be said, Son of Heaven wants to thank every reader who made it this far.
I know many readers have already left because the later parts of this book were poorly written, boring, and padded.
Your criticism is fair-spot-on, absolutely spot-on~ Let me, Son of Heaven, bow my head and apologize. Let's sit down and talk~
Writing Volume Six was far easier than I had imagined, and far harder, too.
The easy part was that saving Waukeen, conquering the Great Desert, becoming Shogun, the great battle of the Moonsea, ascending to godhood, and the subsequent War of the Spider Queen were all things I had already thought through and planned. I only had to write them out step by step, so in terms of content, this part was actually easy to write.
Yet the simpler something is, the more complicated and difficult it can become.
I had to flesh out that content with enough words to make it vivid, engaging, and fully realized.
That, instead, was very difficult.
So, now that I have finished this volume, how would I assess Volume Six-Golden Road?
To be honest, I think a few parts of this volume turned out well: rescuing Waukeen, Reynard, the protagonist's ascension, Ao's appearance, and the interactions between the Four Ruinous Powers. Overall, though, I would give myself a failing grade. Some parts were simply too long, some were unnecessary, and some were things I felt needed to be written out fully and clearly, but which readers found tedious and overlong, such as the fight against Lolth.
More importantly, the protagonist's characterization and some characters' storylines got out of control.
From the beginning, I envisioned Aaron as someone who took things as they came, aligned with Chaos Undivided, with ideals and a grand vision but without