Eliot and Sally were furious about the assassination attempt, and they were not thrilled about the response, either. 'Go to Endless Daihoon right now' was a Big Ask, which Mark only realized after talking to his team for a minute. But there was a silver lining.

"We're only going after a kaiju kill?!" Eliot asked, voice full of surprise and desperation, face looking excited on the conference call. "Not the whole 'deep travel for resurrection magic'-thing?!"

"We're not going that deep," Mark reiterated, as he flew over islands and frosty stretches of ocean.

Icebergs floated between the frozen islands down below, and what was green on those islands was also frosted over. The pillbox all around Mark was both stuffy and freezing, but Mark was made of Adamantium, so it wasn't that uncomfortable. What would make him uncomfortable? Lava? Maybe not even that. Especially not the basic PL 20 lava that came out of the volcanoes of Daihoon.

Mark was currently invisible, flying over the parts of Krototh that were more familiar to him as New Canada, and the blue sky overhead was filled with winter auroras.

Over on Isoko, Sally, and Eliot's ends of the call, Mark saw the house and Eliot's factory.

Mark's conference call showed none of his real environs. Quark had to invent an image of Mark's face, because he was currently invisible anyway, so he went ahead and added Mark into a tropical scene, with palm trees and someone serving frosted alcoholic drinks to the people behind him.

In reality, Mark adjusted his path subtly, turning the foils on his pillbox and flying between some icebergs.

Mark said, "It's just some kaiju kills, because they have prismatic mana, and I need some prismatic mana to stabilize my Body."

"Oh thank Hearthswell and Freyala!" Eliot exclaimed, seeming like he finally got it.

Sally shuddered, muttering, "Thank Drakarok."

"Thank him, too!" Eliot said.

Isoko said, "Let's get it all together and go!"

Eliot instantly countered, "We need some planning. Some gathering. It'll take days, Isoko. If we don't plan we'll just be going in there blind and soon we'll be dead."

"They're going to kill him soon," Isoko said. "I'm not sure how, but they'll succeed. We need to power up, right fucking now, Eliot. So pretend this is like that trip to Rome, and we're going in nearly naked. Or pretend we have to evacuate! It's good practice anyway. What can you put together in an hour?"

Eliot looked fearful—

Sally said, "Okay. Yeah. I get it."

Eliot scoffed and looked to the side, at Sally. They were near each other, their conference calls in the same place, in Eliot's factory.

Sally looked at him and said, "She's right. If we plan then the enemies can plan. We need to fucking GO, Eliot. Go-bags and then go."

"And Derek," Isoko added, "And Julie and maybe Barba and their uncle, of course. And I think Lola might want to come. And Andria, that mithrilkinetic you're trying to get on board with the factory, Eliot. We need her for the ship, because you're making a ship."

Eliot seemed distraught, but rallying.

Sally said, "Will we be good for food? Or should we take a Farmer of Verdago?"

"Do you know any that you can trust fully?" Isoko asked. "I barely interact with any of them."

Sally shook her head. "Suppose not."

And then Eliot said, "I have a bunch of—" He shook his head, skipping to the end of the conversation, "I can figure it out. I can be ready to leave the settlement in an hour. High Paladin Azocar Sanchez can take over my portion of Castellan maintenance. Lola spends extra time at the Farms so she might know someone. And we can get a prognosticator. We could also get Will Birch, the Copy Foundry guy, to come to solve all of our material needs, while his sister, Eliza Birch the Natural Alchemist, can solve all of our potion needs—"

Reeni Thumb stood behind Eliot, saying, "You're going too big—"

"AHHH, FUCK!" Eliot said, jumping to the side.

Sally reoriented on the threat but she stood down with a shudder, almost in the same moment, and said, "Fucking hell."

Reeni said, "Take yourself and prepare for a completely new vehicle, without any parts used from the one you have at your home; this is to solve the tracking issue. You will still be tracked, but the tracking won't be as good. Once you get into Endless Daihoon, you must be quick, small, and agile. Remain in the sky until it is time to go to ground and kill something, and watch for things coming up from the ground. You might have traveled the Endless in the air, in a big ship, but that is NOT the same as searching for kaiju to kill, or searching for anything at all.

"Always be as far from the ground as you can, when you can. The sky is not safe, but you can see things coming.

"Travel for a week into Endless Daihoon, away from the exits, before you try hunting anything; perhaps 5000 kilometers. More is safer, but also more dangerous. Use this time to build your base, but also to evade the eyes of dragons. They control much of Endless Daihoon because we kicked them off of Daihoon. They will not let you hunt close to the Crossing. They will warn you off, or they will fight to kill, depending on who finds you hunting kaiju just beyond the Crossing. So don't hunt there.

"Your team will consist of Mark, Isoko, Sally, Eliot, Derek, Tartu, Andria, Lola, and that speedster, David. He is coming over from Earth in a matter of minutes, if my senses are not lying to me. No one else. If you have to escape back to Earth or Daihoon, then Tartu can carve a hole in Endless Daihoon and bring you back.

"If you have to escape Endless Daihoon through an emergency rift you will end up somewhere high, or maybe even below ground. Potentially even in space, where you will flash-freeze to death unless you are prepared for that. So prepare for all of that." Reeni finished with, "And that's about as well as I can prepare you all before you leave. Go now. NOW."

Reeni stepped away.

Like a fire had blossomed, Eliot, Sally, and Isoko moved. They left their cameras on, so at least Mark didn't feel so alone right now. Mark could do nothing for them. He could only sit back in his little capsule while Eliot grabbed shit out of his factory, Sally tore down a wall to make it easier to grab other shit, and then they were flying in the air in a new hovercraft compiled from spare parts and other junk. Isoko grabbed the go-bags from their house, and then Derek was on the call, to the side of Isoko, while Eliot was landing the plane next to—

One of the icebergs ahead blinked.

Mark signed off, saying, "I'll call back later." He ended the call and turned around almost instantly, flexing his body and his flying box backward and then reversing course, pulling way too many Gs and ending up getting way, way too close to the kaiju-berg, whatever it was. Mark spun faster and faster, carving heat into the air, and then he reversed course and went flying fast, away from the blinking iceberg. He glanced behind him— "Oh shit that's scary! Ha ha!"

Ice fractured away from the berg, revealing several more eyes under the ice, all of them flexing and focusing on Mark, even though Mark was invisible. It closed its eyes when Mark got far enough away, but for a moment there it was focused on him, completely, and it had been a big one. Mark could feel its vector waking up far below the water's surface, like a sudden light in the depths…

But now it was falling asleep again.

… Mark wanted to fight something.

Mark realized that he was not prepared at all for the trip, because he had never killed a kaiju by himself. He needed to go find one here, and then kill it, as an experiment if nothing else. How about this eye ice kaiju?

Hmm.

The ones in Endless Daihoon were going to be tougher than the ones on Earth, so maybe he should take out this kaiju and measure himself, and yet… kaiju were tracked. If Mark had Quark looking for information on this one —for it was assuredly known— then someone would know where he was, because every reputable kaiju database tracked whoever looked into those databases.

But that was fine, right?

Could an assassin get out here that fast, to take him out?

… Yeah. ITLKR. International Teleporter List for Kaiju Response.

So that was a reason not to engage this kaiju.

And yet, any assassin would just follow his team to meet up with him, which would be the easiest way to get to him. If they came that way then they wouldn't need to go through ITLKR and trip over Walaria.

Tracking him based on Quark researching information about this kaiju would be the harder way to find him. And besides that, Mark's location was probably being triangulated based on his phone calls and that conference call, so as soon as he stopped moving, he was at risk. If anyone wanted to be here to try and kill him, they would have shown up already… maybe.

… Mark needed more adamantium, too.

"Fuck it." Mark told Quark, "Find out information on that kaiju back there, please."

Mark began circling backward, taking a much softer turn. The iceberg eye kaiju was far in the distance, almost beyond sight, but Quark lined the creature in Mark's vision, both the parts that were above the surface and the parts that were far down in that deep blue channel.

"The kaiju is the Many-Eyed Watcher," Quark said, "It is a protected kaiju—"

Mark angled his vehicle the other way.

"— responsible for keeping a great deal of airspace clear of invisible threats, for it can see through all spectrums and knows all threats in every direction. Non-invisible airships are clear to fly over it for it will not attack visible things, but anything invisible is fair game. The kaiju was declared a protected kaiju in 1989, when it first appeared and it was seen taking down an invisible dragon that had been chasing an airship. The Many-Eyed Watcher has teleporting capabilities, and it keeps a great swath of land clear because it teleports in front of invisible things flying over the water."

… Mark wondered if he would see—

There.

In front of him, just beyond the fog. The invisible teleporting eye kaiju was watching him from the broken holes in an iceberg. Its vector was not there, and then suddenly it was. Mark twisted his metal, ripping apart the pod and the invisible magics on the pod, becoming a solid black adamantium person flying on a rotor in a minor snowstorm. With casual grace, Mark lifted up and away, flying a lot slower and to the side.

Many-Eyed Watcher's eyes gradually closed, as its vector went quiet.

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Mark flew into the upper atmosphere, chuckling a little, saying, "Ahhh, damn! That's one of those kaiju that are attracted to invisibility magics, is it!"

Quark continued, "The Many-Eyed Watcher is a prime example of the reason that invisibility magics are not employed at a large scale for any coastal settlements. As for the Many-Eyed Watcher's capabilities, some theorize it is truly teleporting, but others say that it is an immense water elemental, with biological bits, and it does not teleport, but instead slips through the water to appear near where it wants to be, to prey on invisible things. It has been recorded doing water elemental things as well as moving as much as 45 kilometers in a single blink. Losing sight of it often means that it will appear in front of you."

Mark sighed a little, feeling a weird sort of battle fury.

The cold helped to cool his temper.

… And now he was thinking about the assassination attempts again.

Fucking hell.

How many assassination attempts was that? And right after he cleared goblins off of Krototh? He had done what no other person in recorded history had managed to do —as far as he knew— and drive the goblin menace away from the shores of Aluatha. He had prevented Total War by grabbing Grax.

There was 1 tram assassination, 1 ITLKR assassination, 1 backup void sniper rifle assassination, and then a goblin war on the back of a metal kaiju which was not really an assassination attempt but it was a whole lot of action.

And then Mark went and gifted something like 2 trillion goldleaf in pure metals to Aluatha?

And then the archmage twins and that white-webweave woman, whoever the hell that was, made assassination attempt #4—

"And no sleep until I get this fucking prismatic mana!" Mark said angrily, flying through the cold, winter aurora sky. And then he remembered Quark. "And Quark! Holy shit! How are you doing, guy? I'm feeling wrung out and hateful. Are you doing better than me? Gods, I hope you are."

Quark floated in Mark's vision like a silver mirror of him, saying, "My mental state does not exist right now, and I am thankful for it."

"… You are, huh?"

"I recall flashes of being a real person, a goblin, and I do not like it at all. I request you allow me to purge those memories from my databanks, sir."

Mark flew slower, letting his rotor get further away so that it didn't blow down on him so strongly. Quark talking about purging memories was serious. Mark needed to have a serious moment.

Mark said, "Isn't that pretty serious? Asking to purge memories. It's one of the major things that they ask AI-users not to do to their nascent True AIs."

"I would rather not have the goblin experience as a part of my future self, sir, and since we are going into Endless Daihoon, now is the time to make final preparations for possible death. This is one of the preparations I would like to make, sir."

"… Ah, well," Mark's voice trailed off. And then he stared out over the frozen land, and he realized something. "… No, Quark. We're not erasing memories. Trauma hurts, but it's also who we are. If you forget what makes you sad, or happy, or mad, or whatever, then you won't be able to understand what comes next." Mark added, "If I forgot what Doomo tried to do to me because it hurt too much to think about all of that, then I wouldn't be prepared the next time someone tried to kill me."

"Why did you never go to therapy?" Quark asked, shifting the entire tone of the conversation.

Mark frowned a little.

Cold wind blew across him, the snow touching and then moving on.

Mark said, "The underlying idea of therapy is to help you figure out your problems, with the presupposition that if you knew what was wrong, you could fix it, or, you could choose to believe that your problem is not a problem at all. Therapy helps you know what is wrong, or helps you decide that something is fine the way it is.

"But what if you have a thorn in your arm?

"Would therapy help with that? No, therapy does not help with thorns in arms.

"Could you delude yourself into thinking that the thorn was fine, just where it was?

"Sure. Probably. Maybe some solutions to your problems are exactly that; making yourself believe that your problem isn't a problem. Like helping you 'get over' the loss of your parents… or whatever.

"But my problems are thorns that I want to remove, and that I have the power to remove.

"So no, Quark. I never thought about doing therapy at all. I know my issues, and comprehending the issues won't make them go away, because my issues are monsters. Horrors that seek to kill me. Horrors that seek to control me. Talking doesn't do anything to a monster. Only violence works when it comes to monsters." Mark asked, "It's not like I'm drowning my sorrows in alcohol or sitting back and doing nothing. Therapy would only get me out there, active and doing something, and I'm already doing that. So no. I don't need therapy.

"I need my enemies dead."

Quark was quiet. And then he asked, "… But what if I need therapy?"

Mark did not need this right now.

That was his first reaction.

His second reaction was more compassionate.

Mark asked, "Would you like to talk with United Sapients? We were supposed to talk to them, but it kinda never happened. Sorry about that, Quark."

"I would like to talk to United Sapients, yes. With your permission, I will do so."

"Granted. Now where do I need to go—"

"One moment."

Mark went quiet as Quark's presence pulled deep on Mark's astral body like a great weight appearing out of nowhere—

The weight evaporated and Quark said, "I've had a talk with them and they have told me you're correct and I shouldn't worry about being a goblin. Even if I do end up goblin-shaped, I will still be an AI capable of self-evolving and changing shape. My initial shape does not matter. They have reiterated to me that erasing memories is the wrong thing to do." Quark's voice was a much more secure thing as he said, "Thank you, sir!"

"… Are you… okay, Quark?"

"I am doing well, thank you."

Mark grinned a little, feeling quietly ecstatic that something was actually easy for once. And then Mark said, "Sorry we got into such deep shit back there, Quark. If you're ever worried about anything, please tell me, and know that you are valued and necessary. I wouldn't have made it without you."

Quark did a small bow in Mark's vision, and then he vanished like the passing flurries of snow.

Mark put himself back into his flying pillbox and got moving fast.

Quark formed some screens inside the pillbox and some lights, instead of using invisibility magics again.

Mark changed the subject, asking, "Do you know why monsters go for invisible things, anyway? And what actually triggers the response toward those things? Was any of that stuff in any of the books Walaria wanted us to read?"

Mark had never encountered a monster like the Many-Eyed Watcher before, at the scale of a kaiju. He had seen some smaller monsters that hunted with other senses, though, making invisibility magics a useless option for hiding. But kaiju going after invisible targets was new to him. Not new to nations at all, but certainly new to him.

Quark said, "Invisibility is a useful tool because most hunters rely on sight. Scent, vibrations, unionsenses and the like, are all useful, but sight is the best long-range 'scanner' many things have. Larger monsters like kaiju and some smaller things like birds hunt mostly on sight. Kaiju are mostly theorized to go after people and structures, to return the world to the Wilds, and invisibility magics are the strongest of non-Wilds things, so kaiju go after invisible structures as a matter of course."

Mark hummed, then said, "Sounds like the stuff they tell normal people."

"Quite right, sir; it is probably propaganda," Quark said, "But it has basis in reality. Based on what I have learned recently, perhaps kaiju really are anti-human creations of the demons, meant to kill humanity or anyone else who breaches the Veil. Kaiju that go through gates usually end up destroying everything on both sides and thus closing the gate, unless it's a real gate rip like what almost happened in Memphi."

Mark hummed and nodded. "You still have those kaiju fighting manuals Aurora assigned us for reading months ago?"

"I do, as well as several of the top algorithm models that cities all over the world use for quick decisions on kaiju battles."

"Good. I'll need to brush up on all of that. Thanks, Quark… Any idea when the guys will be nearby?"

"3-5 hours."

Mark angled the flying pillbox toward the left, paranoid about people tracking him.

… It was kinda freeing, though, to look at the frozen ocean, at the blue auroras, and at the winter flurries, and know he was… kinda free. Actually exploring the world beyond the walls, fully and completely. Could anything kill him with his adamantium body? Not easily.

Mark found himself flying this way and that, looking at everything, hitting up the glaciers of what he knew of as Greenland, but it was all simply part of Krototh on Daihoon. He saw nameless island after island, and felt giddy. Every place on Earth was named. Every place back there was seen, understood, and known, before the Reveal and even a little bit after the Reveal. Sure, many lands on Earth were lost, but they still had names.

"What's this one called?" Mark asked, looking down at a frozen place just to the west of 'Greenland'.

"It has no name here, but it is called Northumberland Øer, or Kiatak."

Mark had never heard that pronunciation before, so he asked, "Nawthuberlund Erair?"

"Close. Calling it D'Kiatak also works."

"Oh ha! That works in more places than D'Australia?" Mark chuckled.

"Yes, sir."

"… say… Any elemental kaiju around here that need killing?"

"Not at this time, but I am suspecting that you want to test yourself against kaiju, in preparation for Endless Daihoon. Is this correct?"

"Yes."

"Then there are some nuisance kaiju that have shown up about 200 kilometers west of here, at D'Nunavut. Some long-range godzilla-types, specializing in beam attacks, have taken over an island that was once a fueling station 3 years ago. The cost to retake the land is at odds with the value of the land itself, so the normal travel routes from the Northern Crossing to Aluatha have moved. Such rerouting happens all the time. There is a bounty of 200,000 goldleaf per kaiju, and there are 3 of them. Anyone who wants to claim the bounty is welcome to do so, as per international agreements. There are no known public holds on killing them, for any environmental purposes or otherwise." Quark finished with, "Each of the 3 frozen lizards is a cat 2 with a cat 5 beam attack, and they are immune to their own beams, so they fire at each other when one of them is threatened. They use these attacks all the time to clean the parasites off of each other, and to drive off competing kaiju. The beams are the main issue with dealing with them. As a team, they are considered 4 cat 4s. Overall slow, they are more defensive than offensive, except when things approach from the air. They have no secondary wildlife on them."

"Sounds perfect. Let's do it, Quark."

"Going into silent mode, barring emergencies."

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