“I’ve seen what you’re capable of.” Cadmus carefully looked at James. “Even now, I can feel that you’re much more powerful than you were before the mission. Although I think even that is a massive understatement.”

Cadmus then looked at Lunaris and Helios too. “Though I can see that all my children have progressed quite a bit. Too lazy to sit down and actually go through your awakenings though, right?”

Lunaris and Helios blushed. The two of them did pass level 300, and James passed level 200. But they had been too exhausted to even bother going through their awakenings.

James wasn’t blushing though. He finally had a lot of power, and apparently it was already needed.

“Hedonia is my home now too, so I’ll do anything to protect it. Tell me, how can I help?” James asked.

Cadmus plopped down in his leather chair and sighed. “Well, it’s a bit complicated. Firstly, let’s talk about the war. While we’re an important target, the world is big, and among the hundreds of kingdoms out there, there are way more urgent targets than us.”

“So we shouldn’t be worried for now?” Helios wiped some sweat off his brow.

“No, we should be very worried.” Cadmus shook his head. “Just because the Dark side isn’t burning down our buildings at this very moment doesn’t mean we’re safe. With each city that is destroyed, even if it’s at the other end of the world, our side gets weaker and theirs gets stronger. We’re all in this together. So we need to help the others, as if the Darkness were attacking us directly.”

“But we also need to keep the people of Hedonia safe. Eventually, they will be coming for us.” Helios protested.

“No need to tell me, I’ve been thinking about that for a long while.” Cadmus replied. “And while I’ll do my best to protect them in the meantime, as I said, to fully ensure their safety, I’ll need James’s help.”

“I worry about the rest of the world too.” Lunaris said. “We do need to do something to help the war efforts, or they might as well take over the whole world. And think of all the innocents that could die!” Lunaris bit her lip nervously.

“We’ve actually already sent a substantial number of mages to assist the other armies. If anything, I might’ve sent too many. If we are attacked, all who will be left to protect Hedonia will be me, the several thousand mages too entrenched in their research to even see the sun, and the guards you see out in the streets.”

“And that’s why you need James.” Lunaris suddenly realized.

“Yes, it’s actually quite urgent.” Cadmus sighed. “I’m glad you finally woke up, because the more time passes, the higher are the chances of an attack. I couldn’t risk harming you by waking you up, but I was about to do it myself very soon.”

“How can I help?” James asked promptly.

“You see, I was thinking about the best way to defend our lovely little home here. Do we need more firepower so we can beat their armies? Do we need to erect impenetrable defenses? And the more I thought about it, the more I realized that if they did indeed decide to attack us, there’s nothing we can do. Inevitably, we’d get wiped off the map. They can send in as many armies as they want, wherever they want. Even if we triple our power, they can just quadruple their attacking force.”

“So how do we factor in?” Lunaris and Helios asked in unison, putting their hands on James’s back. Wherever he was going, so were they. At this point, that was basically a given.

“Oh, youth.” Cadmus chuckled. “Anyway, I never doubted for a second that you would return victorious. And that meant that you would return having killed Garantep, and having recovered James’s Darkness powers. Naturally, I took advantage of that fact, and I told our researchers to think of ways they can use your powers.”

Lunaris’s eyes shot open as she realized what he was implying. “You want to use their energies to teleport just like they do!”

Cadmus was stunned. “My god, you’re a really smart cookie. You’ve figured it out already. And I thought I was being original.”

Lunaris blushed again. “Well, you couldn’t have thought of ways to use James’s powers without actually interacting with them in any way. But we already know of a certain way to use the Darkness, they’re using it against humanity as we speak.”

“Precisely!” Cadmus shouted gleefully. “If we can’t fight back with equal firepower, and we can’t create defenses that they can’t get through, then the best option is to not get attacked at all. Which would be impossible under normal circumstances, but luckily these aren’t normal circumstances, not with James here.”

“What do you mean? Are you saying you want to teleport the entirety of Hedonia away?” Helios asked, confusion written all over his face. “What would that accomplish? The whole world is under threat anyway, where can we even go? And how is it any better than just using a normal portal to teleport the people away? We have plenty of portals, even if they’re expensive to use.”

Cadmus smiled slyly. “I don’t just mean teleporting the people. I mean teleporting literally the entirety of Hedonia. Including every single building and item and fleck of dirt!”

“That’s insane!” Helios exclaimed. “Is that even possible?”

“Hey, if it’s possible for them to teleport their armies like that willy-nilly, then we can certainly teleport our lands. You should know that better than me, you’ve seen how big just one city’s energy reserves are with your own two eyes.”

“Ok, but that still doesn’t solve the problem of where we can even teleport. The whole world is under siege!” Helios protested.

“It’s simple, my son. A pocket dimension! We’ve got millions of them, why are you so surprised?”

“A pocket dimension?” Lunaris protested this time. “Can a pocket dimension that big even be made?! That’s insane, it would have to house the entirety of Hedonia, and all the other pocket dimensions we already have!”

“It actually is possible! It just requires one little thing.” Cadmus snickered.

“…energy?” Lunaris asked quietly.

“Precisely, my dear!”

“How much energy do we need then?” Lunaris sighed. “Teleporting the entire damn thing is already more than what seems possible. But creating a pocket dimension that can house Hedonia? That’s even crazier.”

“It’s not that crazy, my dear.” Cadmus continued. “The fact that the Dark armies can just pop in and out wherever they please, destroying cities all over the world and then retreating back only to attack again, now that’s crazy. A few months ago I would’ve called you crazy if you told me this would happen. But now, we’re witnessing it with our own eyes.”

Cadmus waved his hand and a projection appeared over the wall. Tens of cities could be seen, burning with dark flames that seemed to cover every inch of the land.

“You can watch that and say that our plan is impossible?” Cadmus added. “Why, it’s downright modest compared to what they’re doing. And if we don’t succeed, Hedonia will be burning like that soon enough.”