When Edric saw Lucien, his whole face changed.

For one bare instant, he stopped being a man and became pure, unguarded relief.

Then that relief exploded.

"GAHAHAHA! Nephew!" Edric roared, already charging forward with all the subtlety of a collapsing mountain. "I knew you wouldn’t stay dead for long!"

Before anyone could intervene, he caught Lucien in a crushing embrace and planted a loud kiss on both of his cheeks.

This time, Lucien let him.

He had already heard from the others what the Silvermine and Copperrock families had done while he was still only an echo, fragile and unfinished in the field of remembrance.

They had come. Again and again. They had spoken his name into the process as if stubborn affection itself might be one more anchor dragging him back.

So even when Edric’s beard scratched his face and the kiss landed with all the grace of a tavern brawl, Lucien only wiped his cheek afterward and smiled.

"Uncle Ed," he said, "I’m back."

Edric laughed so hard he frightened birds off the nearby roofs.

Tears were openly running down his face.

"Rain," he declared at once, slapping his own chest. "Terrible rain today."

The sky above them was bright and cloudless.

No one exposed him.

Lucien smiled wider.

He had missed this.

Not only the people.

The shape of them. The way they loved too directly. The lack of distance.

Maxim approached next, shaking his head as though Edric had personally embarrassed the entire bloodline, but the warmth in his eyes ruined any attempt at composure.

"You really came back, nephew," Maxim said.

Lucien inclined his head.

"I did."

Maxim grinned despite himself and clasped Lucien’s forearm instead of going for an embrace. It was a more restrained greeting, but the force behind it said enough.

Ellen followed close behind.

She greeted him with softness and visible relief, and it was only after returning her greeting that Lucien’s gaze lowered slightly and paused.

Then he noticed it.

Her stomach.

Lucien blinked once, then looked up at Maxim.

Maxim coughed into his fist with the kind of embarrassment that only made the truth more obvious.

Lucien laughed under his breath.

Ellen smiled. It was the smile of a woman carrying something good into the future.

Lucien bowed his head slightly.

"Congratulations to both of you."

"Thank you," Ellen said warmly.

Then Sylvia came forward, and with her came a boy around eight years old.

Lucian.

Edric and Sylvia’s child.

The boy’s eyes were wide with excitement, but he clearly had enough discipline drilled into him to keep from throwing himself forward like his father would have done.

He bowed properly instead. 𝚏𝐫𝚎𝗲𝕨𝐞𝐛𝕟𝚘𝐯𝚎𝗹.𝕔𝐨𝗺

"Big Brother."

Lucien’s expression softened.

He crouched slightly so the boy would not need to crane his neck too far.

"You’ve grown."

Lucian brightened at once, though he tried to hide just how pleased he was.

Lucien’s eyes briefly flicked to the bracelet on the boy’s wrist.

The Tear of the First Light was still there.

Intact.

That alone made something in Lucien settle. If it had remained unused, then at least no truly life-threatening disaster had reached the child in his absence.

He rose again and rested a hand briefly on Lucian’s head.

"We’ll talk later," he said. "I think all of you have too many things saved up to say."

"That is because you’ve been gone for too long," Edric said cheerfully.

"That sounds like a skill issue on my part," Lucien replied.

Edric laughed so loudly again that even Maxim gave up pretending not to enjoy any of this.

The reunions did not stop there.

Soon, the current lords of the neighboring territories came.

From Needlehard came Roneth.

From Hornvale came Aldren.

Lucien recognized them immediately, and the same was true in reverse. Both men had changed from the men he once knew. Their postures had grown steadier. Their eyes held the sharpness of men who had been forced to make decisions that changed the lives of others. Lordship sat on them differently, but it sat there all the same.

Their parents had retired.

Now the territories were theirs.

And those territories had flourished.

Not as greatly as Lootwell, perhaps, but enough to make clear that alliance with Lucien had once planted more than politics. It had planted ambition.

Aldren reached him first.

He started with something dignified, abandoned it halfway through, and ended by clasping Lucien’s shoulders with an expression hovering between laughter and accusation.

"You are impossible," Aldren said.

"So I’ve been told," Lucien answered.

Roneth shook his head.

"No. Impossible in the insulting way. We finally become proper lords and then you return from death as if that’s an acceptable form of travel."

Lucien smiled.

"I’ll try to behave more reasonably next time."

"You will do no such thing," Aldren said immediately.

They all laughed.

The conversation that followed was brief, because too many people still wanted a piece of Lucien’s return, but it carried the easy warmth of those whose friendship had survived both time and absurdity.

Then came another arrival.

The air shifted.

Then the representatives of the ducal houses appeared.

Jadecrest. Rubycrest.

Caelum emerged first, composed as always, but the moment he saw Lucien, that composure cracked more honestly than most commoners would ever dare in public.

Lioren came beside him, and if Caelum still made any effort to remain dignified, she made none at all.

They came to him quickly.

"Brother," Caelum said, and for all the steadiness in his voice, relief still slipped through.

Lioren looked as though she might cry first and speak later.

Then she did both.

"You came back," she said.

Lucien laughed softly.

"It seems I did."

Lioren wiped at one eye with absolutely no concern for appearances.

Then, once the first emotional shock settled enough for her to become herself again, the words started coming.

And once they started—

they did not stop.

She thanked him again for the mana circulation and breathing techniques he had given her long ago. She explained, with increasing excitement and decreasing restraint, how her Euphoric Vein had changed under proper discipline.

No more helpless intoxication from ordinary food and drink. No more being ruled by her constitution instead of ruling it. Now she could absorb chosen substances deliberately, refine them, and turn them into controlled enhancements and buffs without being drowned by them.

Lucien listened patiently through all of it.

Her joy was too real to interrupt.

When she finally paused to breathe, Lucien nodded once.

"That means you turned a curse into an asset."

Lioren smiled.

"No," she said. "You showed me how."

That answer warmed him more than praise would have.

Then came King Midas and Pope Augustus.

As they approached, Lucien’s friends and the younger lords gave way almost instinctively.

The moment Lucien saw Midas clearly, his brows lifted.

The king had reached the Metamorphosis Realm.

That alone was enough to earn real surprise.

In this small world, where the laws were weaker and ascension was harsher and less forgiving, that was no small feat. Outside of Lucien’s pets and other absurd exceptions, no one else had crossed that threshold.

Midas noticed the reaction at once and looked almost unbearably pleased with himself.

Lucien could not even blame him.

Augustus, beside him, looked much worse.

Too pale.

The Cryogenic Chamber had preserved what little time he still possessed, but preservation was not life. It was only delay.

When the two men reached him, their eyes lit with the same unmistakable thing:

wonder.

Midas laughed first.

"You really did it," he said.

Augustus laughed too, though his sounded closer to relief that had finally exhausted itself enough to become joy.

Lucien looked at them both, then returned the smile.

Midas wasted little time before talking about his own achievement.

He described, with great satisfaction and only moderate exaggeration, how he had broken into the Metamorphosis Realm largely by his own effort.

Lucien applauded him sincerely.

He had his system. The Primordial Slime’s knowledge. Drops. Contingencies. Ridiculous resources. A thousand unfair advantages dressed as hardship.

Midas had ambition and recklessness and enough self-belief to force open a realm through a world that resisted him.

That deserved respect.

"You did well," Lucien said.

Midas folded his arms and pretended not to stand taller.

"I know."

Then Lucien turned to Augustus.

He did not make the old man say the need aloud.

Instead, he reached into his inventory and took out an epic drop from the Revenant Asphodel.

Petal of the Last Dawn.

The moment Lucien explained that it could extend lifespan, Augustus snatched it and swallowed it so fast he nearly choked on his own desperation.

Midas looked at him in stunned disgust.

"At least pretend to be holy," he said.

Augustus was already too busy changing color.

The effect took hold almost immediately.

The pallor began fading. A healthier hue returned to his skin. His sunken weakness loosened. The man looked years younger in the span of moments, dragged back from the edge where time had already begun measuring him for departure.

Augustus touched his own face as if he could not quite believe it.

Then he laughed.

Loudly.

So loudly that even Edric, still nearby, turned to assess the competition.

The gathering watched in silence for about three seconds.

Then Clara arrived and struck Augustus on the head.

"Please mind your manners in front of my Lord, Pope," she said.

"Ugh! Clara, my daughter!" Augustus protested immediately, rubbing his head. "The Marquis just gave me more life. You should be celebrating properly!"

The word daughter came out so naturally that half the people around them pretended not to hear it out of politeness.

Clara, however, heard it perfectly.

And though what came from her mouth was still devout formality—

"As expected of my Lord."

—the smile she failed to suppress betrayed how deeply that moment had pleased her.

Lucien broke into open laughter at that.

The fact that even after death and revival and continent-spanning faith, Clara still hit the Pope on the head like this was a correction heaven itself had approved.

It was all too ridiculous not to laugh at.

And still more people arrived.

The afternoon stretched on, and instead of tiring, Lucien found himself sinking deeper into a warmth he had not let himself fully feel in years.

He spoke with Leo, Supreme Chief of the Beastman Tribes, who immediately demanded another spar.

Lucien declined with visible honesty.

"It would be unfair right now," he said.

Leo clicked his tongue, looked deeply disappointed for about two breaths, then accepted it with a warrior’s practicality.

Elunara’s father came as well, and through that conversation Lucien understood something else.

Elunara had, at last, begun forgiving parts of her past. Not forgetting but loosening the grip of it enough to live without carrying the wound in her teeth.

She had turned her focus toward cultivating the children once under her care, who were no longer children now.

That news pleased Lucien.

Then, through an offhand exchange with the southern leadership and one very poorly hidden shift in Sebas’s expression, Lucien realized something else entirely.

Sebas was getting lucky.

With Elunara.

Lucien nearly laughed in the man’s face.

He held it in... barely.

Sebas, apparently noticing too late that several lines of conversation had just intersected against him, straightened with the doomed stiffness of a loyal retainer whose private life had unexpectedly become visible.

Lucien only smiled.

Sebas deserved happiness too.

And somehow, realizing that here, in this world of roots and old ties and quietly moving lives, made Lucien’s chest feel lighter than many grander victories ever had.

That was when Marie and the others noticed something they had only partly understood before.

Lucien was different here.

He was more unguarded.

He did not look like a man waiting for the next blade to arrive from an unseen angle.

He looked—

At home.

The Big World had made him sharper. Always in motion. Always calculating.

This place held something older than all that.

Here, Lucien did not need to be entirely on edge to remain himself.

Here, parts of him that had gone quiet in the Big World rose again without effort.

Marie watched him for a while and smiled.

So did the others, though hers was the softest and most relieved of all.

Lucien, for his part, simply stood in the middle of it all and let himself feel the truth plainly:

This was his root.

And no matter how far he went, how large his territory became, how impossible the worlds around him grew—

this part of him had always been waiting here.