The four of them landed a few meters from the group of six. They barely had any clothes on at all. No runic tools or weapons on them either. Vidalia and Souldealer gave them some clothes from their spatial storage before exchanging any words.

Their eyes held the same familiarity and sensibility that Sam knew. Whatever they had been through, at least it didn't fuck with their minds too much.

"Do you recognize us?" Einar asked.

Worldscribe narrowed her eyes. "Not you, but this here is the lightning boy, Sam, right?"

He nodded.

Sesha, beside her, stepped forward, staring at him.

"Where is he? Is he fighting against the demon lord?"

"Calm down. We are not on pigman world. This is our world, and some time has passed since we last saw each other." Sam tried to de-escalate the situation.

The difference in time was a hard thing to swallow for them as well after coming out of the Highsword dungeon. For these people, that time had doubled. Sam turned towards the metal-human. The sleek, angular lines of deep silver, green, and blue that made his flesh gave the illusion of life, as if blood was flowing beneath it.

He was fully human. Well, at least he was shaped like one. And the eyes still held light of humanity in them.

Damian had never fully explained, but Sam and others had seen how human the golem acted. At the time, he thought Damian might have done something forbidden, but with time, Sam had learned how impossible it was to do those kinds of experiments. And he believed in his friend. 𝒻𝑟𝘦𝘦𝘸ℯ𝒷𝑛𝘰𝓋ℯ𝘭.𝘤𝘰𝘮

Damian had learned how to do prime spells for years now; the threat of gods was ever-present, and despite how easy it would be to use a pathfinder to make powerful tools against the threat, he had never even thought about it, even for a single second.

"Where is Damian Sunblade?" A deep artificial voice came out of the metal man's mouth, drawing everyone's attention.

"He is in a dungeon. We can't reach him currently." Einar replied.

Then Vidalia stepped forward.

"I know you have a lot of questions, and we will answer them all. But till we confirm that your presence is not threatening to our people, we politely ask you to come with us and remain there. We will try to contact Damian and Landbreaker."

"Landbreaker? Supreme Commander?" Lifewarden asked hurriedly.

Hearing the name of their leader, all Highswor members' attention shifted immediately. Slowly, Souldealer, Einar, and Vidalia explained the situation to the newly awakened as gently as they could. Sam, on the other hand, was busy thinking about what his next move should be. What answers should he give to Astraea and the other gods, if they come asking.

"So he is gone..?" He heard Sesha's lost words behind him.

She had spent a lot of time preparing to fight against the demon lord as revenge for killing the person she was closest to. She must really be rethinking her purpose in life now. The golem did not ask too many questions and just listened to everyone talk instead.

After a while, the golem and Silverspell moved away from the group and started checking their status with borrowed status tools. Sesha was a transcendent as well, but she was not interested in her powers at all.

The others, Runefather, Worldscribe, and Lifewarden, were now only second rankers. Their true names were not valid anymore.

Beep

Beep

Beep

Sam's receiver started going insane suddenly. It was connected to the invisible network that bound their whole world. And it only beeped like that when..

"A Legendary or above rank monster is nearby," Sam said to all the questioning eyes looking at him.

"Legendary!?" Several voices echoed.

"Sea God," Vidalia's voice almost cracked. "We need to leave."

No one objected to that. In the time Sam connected a waygate to the Farpoint, a massive, grey-scaled anomaly of monstrous size was already visible in the distance. Suddenly, several slimy sea-horse type monsters jumped out of the ocean near them and charged straight towards them.

In a single second, dozens of attacks flew towards the approaching horde of monsters. Einar had let her fiery birds free. The Spellmaster used the water near them and turned it into thousands of sharp poles, instantly killing all those who were still in the water near the beach. Souldealer let several of her exploding light constructs go free as well.

But the thing that widened Sam's eyes was none of those.

It was what the metal man did. A blinding white flame enveloped the body of the metal man, and he jumped up. From several meters above them, the man shouted, "Solar Cannon."

The blinding white flames disappeared from all around his body, just to concentrate it all on his core. A second later, the air rippled, and a hot, scorching shockwave hit them. A hundred-meter radius beam of pure light energy shot through the ocean air, disturbing the surface of the ocean violently. The vengeance of the beam only calmed when it hit its target.

The massive gray-scaled legendary monster.

The beam left a perfect round hole in the very center of its flesh. The screeching sound as the monster died was uncomfortable to hear. In liters, deep red blood flowed out and pooled around the gigantic corpse that was sinking ever so slightly with every second passing.

Before anyone could even process the thing, the island was covered in dozens of large shadows. Sam's receiver was giving warnings without stopping. A horde of flying legendary sea-snakes of many colors was descending at top speed.

Sam gritted his teeth and shouted,

"Leave it! Hurry up! Run!"

The waygate was open.

Hearing his voice, all ran towards the swirling blue waygate. None wished to try fighting an endless fight where monsters could reach them faster than they could walk ten steps.

Sam moved to the side and pulled out his sacrium sword. A massive storm enveloped all the flying monsters above, slamming them to the side.