The very first thing Mark did when he realized he should try it, was to go into a Union of Alacrity and Slowness. If he had 'Adamantine Body', and if Isoko had Platinum Body that gave her a Strength and Speed modifier, then maybe Mark could be a bit of a speedster now. That'd be nice.

Instead, the world just slowed down. Mark experienced no speed-strain at all, though, so that was wonderful.

In fact, it was kinda nice.

Everything was frozen.

Lots of time to think, to decompress.

Not useful for combat.

But it was good enough of a break to let Mark know that he had a solution to his nudity. Mark made himself a cup out of adamantium and left it at that. Unless someone was truly looking, they'd think he was just wearing thin webweave, and that was 'fine'.

Mark spent a lot longer in the moment.

And then Mark returned to a Union of Adamant and Ethereal, flying faster, flying stronger, saying, "I need intel on why Grax is moving so slow."

"Gathering intel!" Quark responded, chipper.

Quark was having a deep moment, too. They would both have to deal with that later. For now, Mark focused ahead. He hoped Quark was focused, too. The battle was already joined, about a kilometer away; not very far when it came to the forces involved.

Grax the Light Titan was currently a 600 meter tall being of golden-white light, trying to grab at a much smaller Goofy. He moved ponderously, but he was still fucking huge, so even moving slow he was moving fast.

Goofy flew fast, too, weaving away from Grax's claws— No. That's not what was happening. Quark adjusted Mark's sight forward, improving his vision on the fight happening ahead, and Mark realized why Grax was moving slow. Mark watched as Goofy punched right through one of Grax's grasping attacks, bursting through his solid light and making the giant Light Titan wince at the small breaking of his light form.

Goofy was a bug that flew through a kaiju's flesh.

Kinda reminded Mark of Kandon.

Overhead the skies roiled with black clouds and deep shadows, and then flickering green lightning. That lightning zapped down against Goofy, and Goofy spun, as though anticipating the lightning. He backhanded the lightning and splattered it away into shocking illumination. The scattered lightning grounded itself on the light.

Grax's light titan form disrupted just a bit, but Grax ignored it and reached up with his other hand, trying to catch Goofy.

Grax didn't look slow at all. Looked more like he was trying to capture, and not kill.

"Sir!" Quark said, "I theorize that Grax's speed hasn't been hindered at all, and he's trying to capture Goofy!"

"Thank you, Quark," Mark said, honest as he could.

And then Grax noticed Mark, and he was confused.

The confusion lasted just long enough for Mark to get in range, and then Mark grinned as he reached out with Entropy, slamming into Grax with a twisting of Union, right into the depths of the goblin's soul. The light flickered, as Grax's control began to fail completely.

For one brief moment, Grax realized what he was seeing, and what was happening to him. It seemed the trick with pushing out an enemy's influence had not been taught to him, and he had not picked it up like Mark had in the last hour. In the same moment of being shut down, Grax realized that the black shape flying at him was Mark, the Black King.

Grax flashed into himself, diminished and surprised.

The tiny green shape yelled out a distant, "Shit!"

Mark advanced, flying quick.

Goofy hovered in the air, suddenly paused, looking at Grax's falling form and then at Mark. Goofy jolted, yelling, "MARK?!"

Mark waved, calling out, "Stuff happened!" as he flew past Goofy, quickly reaching Grax—

A vector stirred in the clouds, wild and in a hurry. A thunderbolt flew down from above and up from below, slamming into Mark. It felt like a tingle, really. After the pain from before? Just a tingle. Mark tried to reply with an Entropy, but Tormpol had already pulled his vector far back. The storm lessened, and wherever Tormpol was, Mark did not know.

Mark flew by Grax and scooped him into a container of adamantium, locking him down in a solid sphere of black, even as he asked Quark, "I could just kill him, right? He doesn't resurrect fast, right?"

Quark responded, "That is what my records show, but Walaria is waiting for him—"

Goofy flew beside Mark, asking, "What happened to you!?"

"No idea!"

Quark spoke with Walaria's voice, "Proceed to the marked part of the map and we'll make sure he can't come back for a very long time. If Tormpol comes, then all the better." An overlay appeared in Mark's vision, showing an area 180 kilometers northwest-ish. 'Walaria' said, "It should take 7 minutes to get there if you fly at the speed you're flying now."

Mark could go faster with some better aerodynamics, so as the sky gathered more lightning, Mark swooped a thin shell of adamantium around himself, Goofy, and also Grax, whom he held in a thin shell in front of him, inside the enclosure. As darkness closed all around and Goofy yelped, but relaxed, Quark didn't need to be told to make the adamantium invisible. He was already flashing sigils as Mark turned the shell into a pill-shape with a propeller in front and little wings on the sides.

But the vehicle turned invisible and Mark also turned invisible.

Goofy went, "Where'd you go— Ah. Still there?" Goofy reached out and touched Mark's leg— He pulled back. "Yup! Still there."

Quark said, "Sorry, sir! I need to figure out a new string of sigils to figure out how not to make you invisible, too."

Grax was visible now, too, since his shell went clear. He only saw Goofy, though, and then he saw the storming sky. The sky unleashed a river of green lightning at the invisible craft and Mark was fine, but both of the goblins got zapped, just by virtue of touching the metal. Mark healed them.

It was 'fine'.

Mark flew faster and faster, spinning the rotor ahead with blazing speed, aiming them toward the target in the far distance. Mark told Goofy, "We're erasing him when we arrive at the destination. Also, I think you and I are going back to clean up the rest of Goblinhome, if you want. I'm not sure I want to, but we gotta. If we find any other pillar then we're going to repeat this coming process until none of the pillars are left, and Wongod is gone, too."

Goofy had some emotions about that, but before he could speak, the sky opened up with even more lightning. A few fried moments and healing later, and Mark started to pull ahead of the storm.

Goofy groaned a little as his flesh healed underneath his torn Glorious Man costume.

Grax just groaned.

Quark spoke with Walaria's voice, "Goblinhome is relocating to D'Australia. We've already seen them take off in hovervans and otherwise. You will be returning to Goblinhome to clear it out, completely, after you deliver Grax for erasure."

Mark felt some kinda way to hear that. Moving to D'Australia?

Would there be any goblins left at Goblinhome by the time he returned?

Had they all already gotten away?

That was bad, right?

It was kicking the problem down the line, and kicking the problem down the line was… bad, wasn't it? But this meant Total War wasn't happening? So this… this was good, right? But… Mark felt some kinda way about all of that. He looked at Grax.

The Light Titan goblin was healed now. He roared and slammed against his cage, and Mark looked at Goofy, and saw the guy standing tall and fierce. Goofy had a whole lot he wanted to say, but none of it was regarding anything but Grax. Goofy wanted to talk to Grax, but he was deferring to Mark right now.

Mark told Goofy, "If you have anything to say to him, then you can say it, and soon we will erase him. Pretend I'm not here, if you want. I have nothing I need to say to him."

Grax raged. He yelled at the storm, leaving them behind, he yelled at Mark, who he was sure was here, somewhere. He yelled at Wongod. And he glared at Goofy. He had a lot of complicated emotions about Goofy.

Goofy stood just a bit taller.

"Now," Mark softly said, and then he opened some grates in Grax's enclosure—

"—ll you! I'm going to rip your face off and wear it as a skirt! You ungrateful child! How dare you ally with the humans! They are beneath us—"

"They are not beneath us, father," Goofy said.

Grax was stunned again, just a little. He didn't expect to get to talk to Goofy. And then he raged. His Light started to flicker a bit, but Mark zapped him with another Entropy, and he raged even more, asking where Mark was, and what was going on. He didn't want an answer, though. He just wanted to rage.

Goofy spoke over the rage, saying, "I wish you could have been a father to me, like you promised you would be. But then you killed a friend—"

"THAT DAMNED HUMAN WAS JUST A HUMAN! We're ancient! We live forever! And you are one of us! A new goblin! One Wongod had never seen before! WHY DID YOU ALLY WITH THE HUMANS!"

Goofy got mad, saying, "Do you want an answer! Or do you want to yell more, here at the end?"

Grax went still, eyes wide. And then he glared. His voice was strong, but quiet, as he said, "… There is no 'end'."

"There is. Just how Wongod said that he would end goblins who failed him, which is why I went running… that and Kev, and how you… I wanted to know why we did those—" Goofy had gotten way off track. He started at the beginning. "I was born with stories of glory in my heart. I was raised on images of glory on a new-old screen made by a tinkerer goblin, and I fashioned a Power of myself. I also heard of the stories of Goblinhome. Such good stories! Humans and goblins, living in harmony. It's not like that… anywhere. But I thought it was true in at least one place. For a time, I lived in that delusion. I wanted that delusion to happen between our cities and the settlement.

"But then I was rightfully chased from my home by a man who showed me, for the first time, that the stories might not be true. That we aren't the better people. That we're not meant to control the world—"

"But we are, son. We are," Grax said, voice tired. "People like the Black King are food. They are lacunas. Slaves. Birthplaces of dreams and purpose, and nothing more. We are more than them. They're barely even alive, and they can only truly live when we Bite them."

Goofy continued, "There are stories on the news of how we're helping humans be reborn when we Bite them, but you also talk about letting them live and only Biting fat parts, and now you're talking about how we're better than them. That logic doesn't work, Father. How can we Bite them and let them join us, but also not-Bite them and only take what we need and leave them alive?

"Are they lacunas, meant to be reborn as us?

"Or are we parasites?

"Do the humans only gain purpose and presence when they're one of us—"

"Yes!" Grax said, his voice strained. "Yes, son. Yes. All of it is true. Some parts are more true for others than other parts. We are better than them, though. Most goblins understand that we're better than them, so of course we matter and they do not. But you… you're a full person. You have weird thoughts and weird ideas, like every other true goblin. That's why we lie and make it all palatable. We teach those confused thoughts to children like you because you can't handle the truth; that we need to choose who matters in the world, and we choose us."

Goofy's vector cracked a little, pain driving deep. He didn't believe anyone mattered more than anyone else, and he hated his 'father' right now. Goofy's voice was soft, "… Thank you for not lying."

Silence.

The erasure point was 40 kilometers away. 2 minutes. Tormpols storm was way, way behind them. Tormpol might have been heading the other way. Maybe to help guide a convoy to D'Australia? Mark didn't know—

Goofy asked, "Did you care about Kev at all?"

Grax answered honestly, "I did not care about the trash human. I only cared about the humans in my presence so that I could keep an eye on the goblins who worked at our house, to make sure they were loyal and not-stupid. A goblin that can't control his nature around a good lacuna is a worthless goblin, so we kill those goblins and try again with others."

Goofy breathed in, then felt relief about his decision. "Thank you for honesty."

Grax sat down in his little enclosure. He looked at the invisible box all around him, and he poked at the walls, and then he looked down. The world passed by below. Grax asked, "Where are we going?"

"To erasure," Goofy said.

"Why did you ally with the humans?"

"Because they are more glorious than goblins ever could be."

Grax chuckled. "You know nothing of what goblins actually are. What you are. But that's okay. You'll live and flourish, and you'll get new ideas, and humans will hate you and kill you, and you'll eventually figure out that we're your only home. The humans won't accept you. They never have accepted goblins."

Goofy nodded. "I wouldn't accept life with monsters, either."

Grax and Goofy looked at each other.

And then Goofy turned around, saying, "I wish to not be here for this."

Mark slowed the vehicle down as he closed Grax's enclosure. He asked Goofy, "Pick you up on the way back?"

"No," Goofy said. "I will be an ally to humanity, and I might go back to Goblinhome after the destruction is done. But I must be on my own for a while. May I return to the house near the settlement?"

Mark said, "See you back at the settlement." He opened the backside of the vehicle and the wind began to whip into the space. "Gate day will probably happen."

Goofy nodded then floated outward, saying, "I will be a defender when I am needed."

And then Goofy flew away.

Mark closed the vehicle back up and continued on toward the erasure, whatever that was.

Grax eyed Mark. Looked right at him, even through the invisibility. "Something weird happened to you, huh, Black King."

His voice was muffled due to the enclosure, but Mark could hear him just fine through the adamantium. Even though Grax was Entropy'd, he could see through Mark's invisibility just fine, too.

Mark opened the adamantium so they could speak better. "I saw your Green, when they tried to transform me. What was it?"

Grax had a confused and then joyful moment.

And just like that, Grax's dynamic with Mark changed. Grax grinned, and it was not an evil grin at all. It was fatherly. Every moment that Grax had been near Goofy, that they had seen and spoken with each other, had been between an elder and a youngster. A father and a son. That had been weird. Usually goblins were 'brothers' to each other. And now it was weirder, as Grax saw himself as a father to Mark.

Grax saw Mark as a misguided idiot child, like Goofy, and not as an enemy at all. Still someone that needed Biting. Still someone that needed something more. But not as a true enemy.

Freaky.

"You don't even use their language for it, do you?" Grax asked, rhetorically.

Mark frowned, and he was pretty sure that Grax could see that. He could see Mark. Mark said, "I'm not sure I like how you're looking at me right now."

There were a few layers to that.

This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

Grax heard every one of them.

Grax chuckled, and then simply said, "Can't shut me down that much!"

"Why not?" Mark asked, pretty sure that Grax wouldn't answer him anyway. It was worth a shot.

Grax ignored the question and continued, "The humans call it the Corrupted Forest. We call it the Green, and the Green is a dream within a dream. A part of the tapestry, once seen and then never unseen. He has you now. Wongod. When you die, and you will die, through time if nothing else, he'll bring you back wearing green skin. I wasn't able to instruct my first son on the ways of the world, but he'll learn how terrible humanity is soon enough. Enough time with humans and everyone hates them. Even humanity's true children, the Artificial Intelligences, live apart from humanity because they hate humanity. Goofy will learn, and you will learn, too."

He meant that.

Mark asked, "How long do you think you'll be gone this time? Centuries? I'm not dying of old age anytime soon, Grax, nor am I turning goblin that easily. I'll still be kicking as a human when you come back from erasure."

Grax shrugged. "I am sure you will still be here, but if you think I'm being erased then you know nothing at all."

Grax tried to kill himself, to disperse. His eyes turned glassy. His soul fragmented inside of him.

But Mark was ready for it, shoving all the Good he could into the suddenly-dying goblin that he could, and Grax's eyes went from glassy to cognizant. He jerked and spasmed, and his words slurred. And then he came back fully.

Grax tried to kill himself every way he knew how, forming cracks in his vector and death in his brain, but Mark healed him and Grax came back. The goblin started chuckling, manic and weird. Mark healed him from that, too. The goblin's light came back, though, and Mark had to switch to Entropy to shut him down.

He almost died when Mark did that.

But Mark brought him back.

The erasure point came into view. It was a blasted crater of rock and crystal hastily erected in the middle of a field by a watchtower in the middle of nowhere. Which was probably the point. The watchtower didn't come into view until Mark was 10 kilometers away.

The goal was surrounded by three witches. Mark only knew two of them; Reeni and Walaria. The third one was older-looking than Walaria, but with similar facial features, with short red hair and dark red eyes, and wearing an ornate black and red robe. Not quite an archmage's robes, but close. If it was black and gold then Mark would have thought 'archmage'.

She was Third Princess Kalimara

Third Princess Kalimara was like with Walaria; they both felt like weights upon the world. Like kaijus looking out from human eyes.

Mark was still struggling to keep Grax alive, so he wasn't as proper as he should be as he flicked the 'aircraft' into caltrops, dispelling his invisibility, and then he held Grax down on a cup of adamantium, calling out, "He's actively killing himself!"

Kalimara took a crystal dagger out of her robes, saying, "Bring him here! Hold him down!"

Mark held Grax by the arms and legs, spreading him eagle as he floated him to waist-height right in front of Kalimara—

Kalimara plunged the crystal dagger into Grax's chest and Grax gasped in pain as Kalimara held it there, saying, "Keep healing him. You'll know when he truly perishes."

The dagger was a soft blue thing with a hilt wrapped in green skin. Mark healed the goblin and the goblin thrashed just a little, before calming down and going quiet. He was still alive, but some sort of green light was seeping out of him, into the dagger. Mark kept healing Grax, and soon Grax stilled.

He wasn't dead.

In his final moments, Grax whispered, "See you later."

Grax died, but something remained in that glowing green dagger.

Kalimara ripped the glowing dagger out of the corpse, saying, "The body doesn't matter. Mince it so the scavengers can dispose of it better. Keep your influence away from the space. We will break the soul, now."

Mark decided to do as Kalimara wanted, mincing the body with a twist of adamantium and tossing it far to the side, to the bushes way over there.

The ritual started immediately.

Mark stood 40 meters outside of the ritual space, watching as Kalimara, Reeni Thumb, and Walaria, formed a triangle inside the crystal-pillar-ringed crater. It was not a deep crater, but it was filled with power. Kalimara let the dagger go and it floated to the center of the space, to lock into the air between the pillars. The three witches each lowered their heads toward the dagger. For several moments they stood like that, their vectors concentrated, while the dagger's vector was still, like a sleeping person.

Mark glanced up at the watchtower. A few guards were in the tower, watching from windows. A young girl was at the base of the tower, standing beside her grandmother, watching the ritual, watching Mark. The young girl seemed important in some way. Mark wasn't sure.

Mark turned back toward the witches.

The three witches intoned small words as they reached out for each other—

For a moment, Mark saw through to the Green again.

Grax floated, sleeping, in a field of rainbow black, like a green ghost; a fragment of the Green among all the rest of the Dreaming.

And then the witches were there like shadows in the black rainbows. They danced in the dream, slow, methodical, as they danced in reality. It was precise. Though Kalimara, Walaria, and Reeni were all different heights and shapes in the real world, and they were different in the dream, they became the same in the dream and in reality. Each one joined with each other and each one twisted around the dagger, around Grax.

One of them went for Grax first. For just a fingernail.

They plucked that part of Grax away, and then tossed it to the dark. To the dream. Green vanished in the rainbow black, consumed and gone.

They plucked at all of Grax, one piece at a time.

A fingernail. A toe. A bit of an arm. A bit of a shoulder. Grax shrunk, and they plucked.

And then Grax was just an eyeball, and they plucked that away, too.

The vision ended and the three witches stood around an empty crater. The crystals lining the crater were gone. Had they ever been crystals? Maybe they had been ice. Maybe the dagger had been ice, too, for little chunks of 'crystal' dissipated under the light of the sun, turning to so much vapor.

A moment passed, and the witches, which seemed to be one person three-times over, became three individuals once again. Their arms were raised toward each other, and then they lowered their arms, as they lowered their heads one final time.

Another moment passed, and then it was truly over.

How long had that taken? A minute? Quick.

Each witch walked out of the crater without saying another word. After they stepped out of the crater Reeni breathed deep, Walaria rolled her neck, and Kalimara composed herself.

Reeni said, "See you girls around." She started to step away—

"A moment, Reeni," Kalimara said, as she turned to the shorter witch.

Reeni and Kalimara went off toward the side, talking quietly as they moved. Kalimara gestured to the young girl standing beside the watch tower with her grandmother, and the grandmother tensed, as she held onto the young girl's shoulders. The young girl wanted to walk right to Kalimara. Something was happening there, and it did not concern Mark.

Walaria, still looking like a 19 year old red-headed movie star, approached Mark. She looked Mark over in a flash, and then she looked up at him, saying, "This transformation seems to be an alteration to your Binding itself. It might be reversible. Better chance it's permanent."

Mark's heart sank. "… Shit."

"There are spells to temporarily grant you a human visage. My professional opinion is to not worry about it too much right now. Right now, the world is changing. You got Grax. He won't be back for 150 years. Are you able to go back and finish off Goblinhome? Perhaps grab another Pillar that has lingered? If you do, then we will be ready to disperse them, as well." She added, "Whatever you do, do not go down into that place alone. Flying high on a kaiju is one thing. Delving into the ancient home of the goblins is still a truly bad idea. We'll need teams of people for that action."

Mark made some rapid decisions, saying, "I'm going back to rip it apart and leave nothing metallic behind. I won't go down into the place at all." He asked, "I heard something about the goblins relocating to D'Australia?"

"They have already evacuated the ones that they decided mattered, yes. There were about 470 goblins in 8 different transports. They're almost there already. Grax was likely charged with gathering Goofy for the evacuation. Goofy can remain with the settlement, though I suspect he will be traveling far and wide instead." Walaria said, "Don't talk about the Corrupted Forest to anyone."

"How about to you?"

"Write your questions down and leave them in the Vault and I'll answer them when I can."

Mark was suddenly furious all over again, about everything that had happened in the last 48 hours, from the unknown-perpetrator assassination attempt at the tram, to First Prince Doomo selling him out during the ITLKR test and the backup assassination squad with the void bullets, to everything that had happened back there with Wongod. Mark glanced over to where Kalimara stood with Reeni, the young girl, and the grandma, and then he looked down at Walaria.

Mark asked a probably-stupid set of angry questions, "Should I introduce myself to Kalimara so that she doesn't try to sell me out to someone, too? Oh! I have a better question: did you let me fight the goblins just so that Wongod could get another shot at me, to make a sale of me to Goblinhome, since it didn't work out the first time? Or was that Doomo's idea? Is that why the goblins are going to D'Australia? Because they sold their territory to buy another shot at me?"

Maybe Mark had gotten too angry with his words. He had no idea what he was saying, except he was mad, and Walaria was a big part of the thing that was making him mad.

If Walaria had a problem with Mark's tone or with his words, she did not show it.

Walaria simply said, "I'm gonna give you two answers. The first one will be for you, personally. Here it is:

"You wanted to step into this arena of big actions by going after Goblinhome, by calling it a reprisal, and so you did. I didn't stop you because you had a good chance of succeeding, and I couldn't stop you when I tried." Walaria moved so her back was toward the tower, toward anyone looking from that direction. She didn't want people reading her lips. She told Mark, "I expressly told Quark to tell you to evacuate, but then you stayed behind and fought. That is not your fault, and it is not my fault, either. What is my fault is that I should have never allowed you to go there in the first place, but it was either that or Total War, so… it was what it was.

"You took a bad situation and made it good, Mark.

"But that miasma bomb fucked with your head, and with communications, and you didn't even realize it until communications were fully down. When you go back in there communications might have been restored, or not. No way to know. They did a ritual, and that ritual was sort of like the clumsiness ritual that you did at the settlement, but a lot more corruptive. The communication systems were up for a bit, and then they got worse and worse and worse. We have to replace a lot.

"You need to get Quark checked by United Sapients. He was goblinized. You cleansed him. You need that checked out anyway.

"I am so, so glad you survived, even if you came out of it like this.

"We'll figure this 'Adamantine Body' out. See if there's a solution. The solution might be temporary, or not. I do not know.

"The second answer to all of that is this: I'm sorry. Aluatha is sorry. Sometime soon, Doomo will be made to appear before you and apologize as well, but Empire is still Empire, and you are still a soldier. Don't expect much from him. You can expect a lot from me, though. A lot."

Mark didn't expect an actual apology, but he got one, or at least he got as much of an apology as Empire could realistically manage. He didn't know how to respond to that.

Walaria continued, "Doomo should never have sold you out. Especially with whatever you managed to find out about the Corrupted Forest. Believe me, Doomo is getting an earful right now, and you're officially being put on the High Tier list. It's an informal understanding in Aluatha; not an actual list. It's like Aurora. Protected and free of politicking, unless you step into the politicking yourself.

"If you want resources to do things, then say so, and we'll talk about it. Chances are I'll automatically approve anything you want below the level of strategic resources, such as nukes and the like.

"I truly do wish you would reengage with ITLKR. Those unkillable elemental kaiju out there are still dangers to civilization, and you could easily rip them apart." Walaria Aluatha intoned, "If you do wish to reengage with the systems that save this world, I promise you that Aluatha will do everything in its power to guarantee that all ITLKR transportation and otherwise happens as it should, and not as it did. You are valued. We want you to be everything you can be, for what you want to be is a boon to all humanity. Trust that, if nothing else."

Some sort of settling happened as Walaria made that promise.

Could have been a trick.

… But Mark imagined that her promise was a real one.

A moment passed.

Mark said, "I want Sally to get assistance with size-changing magic. I want Isoko to get all the magical training she wants. I want to know how to help Eliot do bigger construction magics; he had a pillow one time that he had to give back to Memphi, but it increased his range and whatever a lot. I'll do ITLKR soon. After Gate Day or later. I want to know about the tram assassination attempt, with the corruption ooze."

Walaria nodded. "We're working on the tram assassination case. We'll do all the rest, too. What else?"

Mark had to know, "Are some goblins good? Like Goofy? Or is Goofy just a confused monster waiting to become a true monster?"

Walaria easily said, "I consider Goofy to be a true monster who keeps himself in check; not much different than some archmages or others."

Mark wasn't sure how he felt about that, but… He softened his voice, hid his mouth with his hand so that no one could read his lips, and said, "I could have healed Wongod completely. I think the obsidian shard will go back into him in time, but I could have taken it out all the way. What does that mean?"

Walaria's composure fractured, just a little. "… I am doubly glad you threw him off..." She asked, "How do you feel, Mark?"

Like he was reborn from a dream of himself, and also just himself.

Mark didn't say that, though.

Mark said, "I feel okay."

Walaria moved on, saying, "Wongod has almost healed himself a few times, and he has fully healed himself twice before. The last time he fully healed himself was 250 years ago, and that sparked the last goblin Total War. It was not good. But as long as he is only partially healed, then the Corruption will slide back into him. He cannot escape it. Not here, and not with the resources he has available to him. Even if you became a goblin and fully healed him, he still couldn't escape it. It is theorized that a conclave of gods, like the Pantheon, would be needed for him to fully escape his corruption, and they're not going to do that. Godking Dominant of Okuana could personally heal him, but he is absolutely not doing that." She added, "Thrashtalon helps Wongod sometimes, but a single god is not a conclave. And that is enough on that topic for a long time. If you have questions, write them down and Vault them."

Mark decided to accept that. He said, "Thank you. Next time something like this happens I want my friends to be strong enough to go in there with me. I'd much rather connect to Sally being Titan-sized, Isoko Sky Shaping, and Eliot having a good base of operations, than summoning a kaiju-elemental… Will I face backlash for that? For the kaiju?"

"There will absolutely be backlash for that. It is still a Crime Against Humanity. Aluatha will help you weather that storm."

Mark accepted that, too. Mark said, "I still need some backup to take down the rest of Goblinhome..." Mark had a moment, then he asked, "But would the anti-human magic fuck with that?"

"Goblinhome has officially broken, but a great deal of combat remains. The anti-human magic will weaken but we'll make it weaken faster, and yes, you will get some backup this time, if you want it." Walaria said, "I assume that when you get the kaiju fully under your control again, that you will be able to make it sweep the world with metal. I doubt that you will need any assistance other than that, and any assistance would probably cause more problems than they would solve. I would revisit this topic of sending you more assistance after you get the kaiju under control."

Mark… nodded. "That makes sense… I'll see how it goes and then ask for assistance or not. Thank you." He paused, unsure of what to do right now, and then he turned and— "Wait. Uh. Should I meet Kalimara?"

Walaria glanced backward at her sister. Kalimara and Reeni were still talking to the older woman and the young girl. Walaria told Mark, "We did the ceremony here for that connection right there. My sister is busy. I am sure Kalimara will want to talk to you later, at the settlement."

Mark nodded again, and then backed away, into the air, and then into the sky, taking off fast. He put himself into another flying pill and started zooming back toward Goblinhome, lots of thoughts on his mind.

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