The day comes. The Systemless Squad is ready for battle, and our armies are gathered here in a large mass of military excellence.

The U.S. is going to be completely off-guard. They simply have no way of knowing what we are actually doing, and won’t until it’s far too late. They think that The Goddess’s Domain is the only way through to the multiverse. If they caught on that one or two of us have already traveled secretly through to other worlds, they might be prepared. But even that they didn’t manage to do.

I’m not entirely sure why, with their strength, they don’t see us coming. But I won’t question it, just like I won’t question the electronics malfunctions that helped us to take back California so easily.

Instead, I will focus on the present. And now that we have installed the Quantum Decryptor, we can send entire armies through the multiverse at a time, completely undetected.

The time for dramatic speeches and cheers is not yet. Once everyone crosses through, once our forces on Mystix are coordinated, maybe there can be a cool speech. But until then, we will focus on the actual travel side of things.

Even the biggest portal cannot take our entire army to Mystix all at once. So we are sending smaller battalions at a time, one per hour, in case there are attacks on either side of the portal we must defend from.

First group in, of course, is the main one, led by me, Eryk Solbourne, A-Rank [Adventurer] and leader of the Systemless Squad.

Francis is with me. So are Julie, Delta, and Esther. Pablo Rosas isn’t far behind, and close by are also Abby Faulkner and her lava-based companion G’L’K. The Goddess is not here; she is too valuable a political target, so she will accompany one battalion in the middle. But most of the rest of our strongest warriors are traveling here, right now. We eight alone make up considerable strength in our overall forces.

I look at Francis, then at Delta. My two closest friends in the entire world. Or soon to be, all the worlds. “Are we ready?”

“Pretty much,” Delta says.

“Yep,” Francis says.

“Then let us step through this gigantic portal and enter my homeland.”

We do.

A giant swoosh of light. My hair blows as if a large fan pushes it.

And then–

We’re here.

The other side of the portal spits us out at the coordinates that Master Keitou sent to us via a quantum courier beaver.

We’re in what I immediately recognize to be a mighty Anti-Mage Fortress.

The defenses are nigh-impenetrable. The entrances to underground tunnels are heavily guarded, the walls are packed with automatic bows and arrows, as well as stolen American anti-aircraft equipment. Any siege on this location would last months, and would likely completely wear down any force that attempts to take it.

But we are not here to stage a great defense. We are here to stage an incredible offense.

The eight of us wander around a vast, grand hall in the center of the fortress. The room is lined with twenty-foot-tall statues of robed wizards in various interesting poses. These must have been grand sages in the day before the Destiny Deck System took over. An unimaginable day eons ago, honored by the very people that wish nothing more than to restore a systemless way of life.

I disagree with their values. But I respect their wishes. If not for the U.S., though, I wonder if we would still be in conflict about this very thing...

So. This is Mystix.

I am here in the flesh for the first time in two years. In my personal timeline, that is. In the Mystix timeline, my first time in well over a century.

But the very air I breathe is inviting, nostalgic in a way that I cannot quite describe. I am home, and it welcomes me.

So does a certain gray-haired mage standing at the center of the hall to greet us.

A certain sibling of mine named Rare Solbourne.

They look positively regal now. And so much older that they could be my grandparent easily. They look good, to be sure. But it is certainly a strange look to any outside observers.

They smile at me and approach with all intentions of cordiality. It hasn’t been all that long since our last meeting, since I astral projected myself to meet them and accidentally let them attack and subdue Mestopholees and then ruin the multiverse by allowing the Americans access to The Goddess’s Domain. It has truthfully only been a few months since that day. And yet it also feels like it has been just an eternity.

“Good to see you,” Rare says.

I clock them in the mouth and knock them out.