3.5
The battle scenes are still improving, thankfully. There was more lore on the world, even though it was still pretty small. The newest addition to the party feels odd. This character feels like they were added for comic relief, and it just doesn't fit well. Also, I feel like this series just keeps adding a bunch of characters and bloating the cast. It's getting to a point where there are so many characters, it's getting difficult to remember whose who. [I did NOT expect the Emporer and Etherow to clash at this point in the story, I thought their battle would be near the end of the series. The one perk of their clashes is that the Emperor seems to not be able to tell what Etherow's frame power is, so he's constantly on the wrong foot. The reader also doesn't know what his true power is, so we want to know what it is as much as the Emperor. It's also interesting to see Kajiwan's descent into madness. He was always a bit nuts, which I had assumed from what Titania said about his mind. But seeing him go down to the bottom of the pit of madness is interesting. I really hope the Reincarnated Trio ditch him and go off on their own at some point. They all clearly don't want to follow him but are being forced to. ( )