Title: The World After the Fall Vol. 5
Author: singNsong (Original Story), S-Cynan (Adaption), Undead Gamja
Publisher: Ize Press
Language: English
Format: Paperback
Pages: 304
Genre: Fantasy, Action
Publication Date: February 20, 2024
The Story
Jaehwon’s tournament to “become the new Castle Lord of Gorgon” proceeds; however, Jaehwon himself is growing bored of its proceedings. Therefore, he challenges the six remaining participants, all heads of a sect, to face him at the same time! Three withdraw leaving three behind; however, it will not be a battle of strength. Instead, Geukryeong Ja, the head of the Divine Maiden Sect, has a different idea… the Morality Test.
Shortly after the test, things come to a halt. As shown in the previous volume, fiends were on their way to Gorgon, and a Colossal Fiend, one of three in all of Chaos, is among them. A battle rings out to protect Gorgon!
Once the battle had concluded, a month passed and Jaehwon spent his time sparring with the six heads of the sects that had taken up their residence in Gorgon. It is here that he determines that they are all far too weak to even go on the Abyss Expedition. He offers them two choices… to force their stage adaptations or to abandon the system and become an awakened. Caiman is the only one who wishes to become an awakened so Jaehwon reveals a special tower in which time passes much more slowly. This will be their training grounds.
While Jaehwon and Caiman continue to train, a meeting is held between the leaders of the three castles. The meeting was to discuss the incident with the Golden Sky; however, Jaehwon’s qualifications as leader of the next Abyss Expedition come into question!
Characters
Like last time, we have several new characters in this volume to get to.
First off, Geukryeong Ja, head of the Divine Maiden Sect. She can cast an aura that brings out the true hearts of the people who cannot resist it. Plus, with her little ploy to expose Jaehwon through her Morality Test, she has proven to be rather underhanded and cunning…. Much unlike the sect that she represents. This alone is a red flag that shows that she is not to be trusted and once you get to the end of the volume, you begin to see that you were right to suspect her all along!
Next, we have Seolha, aka “The woman with the chain scythe.” She was one of the remaining participants in the tournament when Jaehwon challenged them all at once; however, she withdrew. Despite her withdrawal, there is something off about her. It’s not until the end of the volume that we discover her true nature, and through her, we uncover the true nature of another character as well. Sorry for being vague but this is a huge reveal and I don’t want to say too much but I will say that it has something to do with an event known as The Great Disappearance and why people don’t trust awakening as much as Jaehwon would have hoped.
Next, we have Hwidong Gal, the Cold-Hearted, Head of the Garuda Fortress. He’s very brash and strict in both looks and demeanor. He’s the one who challenges Jaehwon’s qualifications in leading the next Abyss Expedition. Not only does he question his qualifications but he lobbies to try and lead the expedition himself! Time will tell if he will truly succeed; however, he is pretty serious about so who knows?
Lastly, we have Aisa Lindcroff, Lord of the Dryad Fortress who… mainly remains silent through all of this so I can’t really say too much on him just yet.
Outside of this, Jaehwon didn’t get much in the way of development; however, he did name his new special move the Spiral Strike. At least we have something new to read during his battles side from “STAB! STAB! STAB!”
Final Thoughts
Despite the abrupt end to the tournament, the action that followed was… kind of a letdown. It was built up as this grand battle on the horizon and most of the action happened “off camera.” We did get some scenes of Jaehwon battling the Colossal Fiend; however, the focus wasn’t placed on the battle as much as I would have liked. In fact, I think that it was decided a little too quickly and easily. There wasn’t much of a struggle with everyone else fending off the smaller fiends either. While the battle was depicted as grand, especially in the artwork during its aftermath, the battle itself didn’t live up to the hype. When you tout a huge battle such as this, I’m expecting a bigger payoff.
The big reveal towards the end of the book with Seolha took me by surprise. It does answer a few questions but raises many others. We also have a new evil faction to deal with by the name of Rupture and we did get a nice little history lesson with them. They seem like a group that has humanity’s best interests in their mind but much like any terrorist organization, their methodologies are completely flawed. How they will play a role going forward remains to be seen but we did get some interesting tidbits that could suggest a few directions.
Looks like we’ll have to wait for Jaehwon and Caiman to finish their awakening training to have any input on the meeting between the three fortresses and the six heads of the sects. After the display we were given, the meeting could very well be over or Jaehwon could show up at any moment. I guess we’ll find out in Volume 6 but it seems that with the fiend invasion over and done with, the next steps towards the Abyss Expedition will be taken… whether that’s beginning the expedition and embarking on more time-slowed training… a step will be taken!
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This item was provided for review by Ize Press
