Chapter 5: Hold the Line

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A/N: Two updates in one month. I'd say that's pretty good!

Many thanks to Advent for helping me with this, without him, this chapter would not have been possible for many more months. He wrote the bulk of this chapter based off what I gave him to work on; from there I went back and made the necessary edits and the like. Hopefully it looks good; because I'm exhausted.

Just wanted to thank everyone out there for their heartfelt support in these trying times.

...I slept for a good bit after that collapse, and although it did help...

...needless to say it threw off my update schedule. I'm mostly recovered now, although with more appointments -blech- coming up quite soon.

Busy, busy, busy~!

In other news, -at the time of writing this note- its finally my birthday~! Huzzah~! Another year older, another year wiser...and now I finally have a PS5 meaning I can FINALLY play Baldur's Gate 3 and Honkai...once I finally get the bloody things downloaded. That might take a bit, seeing as my internet is slow as hell on this old router of mine, but I'll get around to it eventually.

That's one nice thing about being older, I suppose. Lots of friends to celebrate your birthday with. Naturally, I count my readers among them.

In other news, Slifer and Advent really stepped up these last three days; Advent's helping crank out more chapters while Slifer's working on "A Golden Soul" and the like.

I'm aiming to get back to "Apples and Atoms" "Doctor of Demons" along with my other categories.

With my sixteenth-year-anniversary on this site rapidly approaching, I find myself reflecting on the little things in life. What was once a lazy pastime meant for me and a few friends really grew and evolved over time. There are days when I look back on the last fifteen years here and I wonder if anyone will remember me; if I made an impact, despite never making a single cent on any of these stories. Some days were happier than others, and some stories I enjoyed writing WAY too much; to the point where I'd stay up all night working on them.

And of course, there are times when I look to the future and wonder what will become of things when I'm gone.

Of course, I try not to dwell on the latter overmuch; I'm still alive and still writing. In an ideal world, I'd like to keep doing so for as long as I can. But old age is catching up to me and these days, the world is filled with so much madness and death. Feels like everyone's lost their minds sometimes. Even before that, so many friends and fellow writers I once knew are gone, now. Will I still be here in twenty years? Ten? Five? Its a chilling thought. But for now, I'm still here, still writing.

So here we go. The fate of this story depends on you, the reader. Your feedback determines the fate of this tale, and many others.

I'm just a humble author trying to make his way in this wild world, one word at a time.

Time and feedback will determine if this remains a story. Simple as that.

In other words...its up to YOU, the reader. Do let me know~!

So here we go. The fate of this story depends on you, the reader. Your feedback determines the fate of this tale, and many others.

As ever, I own no references, quotes, themes or memes. They're tributes to legends far greater than I.

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