 Hi everyone, this is Chih-chou. Welcome back to my channel and welcome back to reading set number 4. And what we're going to do in this video, we're going to read Book of Death, Fall of Harbinger number 1. And this book came out in 2015 and it was a one-shot that was sort of associated with a story or a crossover, well not a crossover, but sort of a story that Valiant Comics put together their event for 2015 and the main event was called Book of Death and they released, well eight sort of, but four one-shots that were related to the fall of, to the Book of Death event that they were doing, okay? And Fall of Harbinger is one of those books and we're going to have a read through this and I'm not going to give, try not to give too many spoilers on this because we are going to read this. I'm just going to let you know that this is sort of a, all four Fall of books that Valiant put out, they're sort of focused on a certain type of certain character and they look at that character throughout the timeline of the Valiant universe doing some flashbacks and looking into the future and that's what this story is about, the Fall of Harbinger, right? So the four books were Book of Death, Fall of Harbinger and this was written by Joshua Dysart and the art was by Cano and Cano is a Spanish artist, his name is Jose Angel Cano Lopez but he signs his name, he goes by Cano when he's doing the artwork and he's done work with DC and Marvel and some work with Valiant Comics and Joshua Dysart is one of the best storytellers around, right? He's done work for a lot of different publishers from DC to Dark Horse to Image to IDW and he's done some independent stuff and he's done a ton of work for Valiant Comics. He's actually the writer for the first Harbinger series for the Valiant relaunch that came out in 2012 and I highly recommend that series. It ran for 25 issues and it had issue number zero with the Bleeding Monk, I believe and that series was absolutely fantastic and it crosses over with the Harbinger Wars and into bloodshot for about four or five issues, right? So Joshua Dysart wrote this and Cano did the artwork, okay? And the Fall of Harbinger is one of the books, one of four that was related to a book of Death mini series. There was Fall of Harbinger, okay? And this is another cover, it's Fall of Harbinger number one again, okay? And they release multiple covers Valiant for this story especially but in general they release a few different covers, okay? And then there was Fall of Bloodshot and Fall of Bloodshot is absolutely magnificent as well. That's one cover and that's another cover for Fall of Bloodshot and Fall of Bloodshot, it was a tear-jerker, really it brought tears to my eyes. If you're familiar with the character and you've read this story, you'll know why and it's absolutely magnificent. While Fall of Harbinger was more on the epic level, it was very personal as well, it was very epic. Fall of Bloodshot was just extremely personal, very, very emotional, Fall of Bloodshot. And then there's Fall of Ninjak which is again a fantastic read, very good read, okay? And the artwork for this was absolutely brilliant. The story for this is Jeff Lemire and the story for Fall of Ninjak is Met Kindit, okay? And the artwork for this was beautiful as was the artwork for the other two as well. And then the fourth Fall of book that Valiant released was Fall of Exo-Man of War or yeah, Fall of Exo-Man of War for the book of Death story art, right? And Exo-Man of War was very good as well. It was a heartfelt story, okay? As far as how I would rate these comics goes, I liked all four of them. Fall of Exo-Man of War was, it was a good read. It was an epic like the other ones. Fall of Ninjak was absolutely magnificent. It was epic as well, very epic as well. Fall of Bloodshot was magnificent. And Fall of Harbinger was absolutely brilliant. For me, I would rate Fall of Harbinger, Fall of Bloodshot as my favorite out of the four. Fall of Ninjak, close second, Fall of Exo being, I don't want to say my least favorite, it was fantastic read, but it wasn't, it didn't have as great an impact on me. And what I want to do is sort of, instead of giving you any spoilers for this, I want to put this into context, into context. So you know how this is related to the rest of the event that Valiant did. So these are the Fall of, you know, the character for the Book of Death one shot, okay? Now, the crossover that Valiant did was, put this here, the crossover that Valiant did was the Book of Death. That was the main story arc. Apologies about the glare right now. Hopefully we'll get rid of most of it when we do the reading, when we get it out of the bag. But with new comics, because they're glossy, they still have a certain amount of great glare to them as well, okay? But this is the main story arc that Valiant did, the main event that Valiant did, which was the Book of Death, all right? And this is Book of Death, number one. Here's number two. Here's number three. Just one of the covers for number three. They released multiple covers for this. We'll take a look at a couple of them. And the story for Book of Death is told by Robert, Robert Vendetti, and the artwork was done by Robert Gill, Doug Brathworth, David Barron, and Brian Reber. Okay. And this is Book of Death, number four. And this was really, this was fantastic. I love, I love a lot of the crossovers, a lot of the events that Valiant is doing. All in all, they've all been fantastic. Harbinger Wars, which was amazing. Valiant was amazing. Or The Valiant was amazing. 4001 was amazing. But for me, Book of Death is my favorite right now, because it tied into a lot of things and it was very epic. It covered a lot of characters and it did a lot of flashbacks as well as looking to the future, right? So these were four of the covers for the Book of Death event that they did, the four issues. And this is Book of Death, number four as well, right? And I highly recommend this read because it focuses on Eternal Warrior and the Geomancer. And it gives us a lot of history and looks into the interaction, the relationship between the different characters, right? And this is another cover of this Book of Death, number four. And on this one, they have a little, you know, advertisement, I guess. And it says, flip this book for Wrath of the Eternal Warrior preview. Because what happens is, the Book of Death miniseries, the four issues directly kick into Wrath of the Eternal Warrior. Okay. And this is Wrath of the Eternal Warrior issue number one. And I got, like, on multiple covers. This is three of the covers. Okay. And it ran for, the series ran for, I think, 12 or 13 issues. I should have looked this up. But it's an amazing series. If you like the Eternal Warrior, this is sort of the quintessential, the defining series for the Eternal Warrior. And the Book of Death, the four issues, are the prelude to this. They're really the same, you know, they should be considered to be part of Wrath of the Eternal Warrior series. So Wrath of the Eternal Warrior didn't just run for 12 issues or 13 issues. It ran for 16 issues. You got to add these four to it. Because this directly kicks into Wrath of the Eternal Warrior. And it's a fantastic read. And it sort of looks into, you know, what happens with the Eternal Warrior after he dies, right? And, you know, the struggle that he goes through and what he has to, what he has to do before his rebirth, right? So we have Fall of, Book of Death, Fall of series. There were four issues. There were one-shots. We have the Book of Death, the event, the four issues that they're doing that kicks off into the Wrath of the Eternal Warrior. Okay. And all of these are standalone. These four here, you can read by themselves. You don't have to read this to be able to read this. You don't have to read Wrath of the Eternal Warrior to be able to understand these. And you don't have to read this to be able to understand Book of Death. The only thing I would say that you should do in a specific order is read the Book of Death, four issue miniseries, and then kick into Wrath of the Eternal Warrior. And anytime you want, you can read a one shot of these guys because they're not really connected. They just put these events out at the same time. And there's four other books that Valiant put out that are related to this as well. And those four books we've already done a reading for. And they're basically the story arc of Legends of the Geomancer. And these were sort of incentive story that Valiant put out to retailers. They basically, if they ordered 25 issues of Book of Death, number one, they got Legends of the Geomancer, number one. If they ordered 15, I believe, Book of Death, number two, three and four, they got Legends of the Geomancer, two, three and four. Okay. And what Valiant stated when they did this, they said that they would not reprint the story of the Legends of the Geomancer ever again. And this series is a must read. Okay. And that's the, once Valiant said that they weren't going to release this in reprints at all, I ended up getting my hands on them. And we did the reading for all four of these books. Now I've buried number two, number three, and number four. I couldn't find them in my books, but I did end up getting, I ended up buying a lot of Legends of the Geomancer, number one. It was a pretty good deal when Brexite happened, when the UK pound dropped a little bit, it was a seller that was selling five of these things from the UK. So I ended up getting my hands on them. So this is Legends of the Geomancer, number one. I don't have the covers for Legends of the Geomancer, two, three and four to show you guys right now. But if you want to have a read through this, you can read it through the videos or take a look at the videos. And the stuff is available online as well. People have uploaded it. And the CEO of Valiant sort of stated that he really didn't have to spend the extra money to get these incentives. If you're low on funds, people would be sharing this information. So it was very happy to have this information shared, the story arc shared. And this is absolutely fantastic. I won't give too many spoilers if you plan on watching those videos, but basically it gives you the origin of the Anipata brothers, basically the Eternal Warrior, Armstrong and Ivar. And it gives us the origin of the Geomancer. And this as far as I'm concerned is a must read for the entire Valiant universe. Okay, so we ended up having the main event, which was the Book of Death, right, which was four issues that kicked into wrath of the Eternal Warrior. We had the once shots associated with the Book of Death, which told the story of four of their main characters doing some recaps and looking through the future to see, you know, what's going to transpire into the future. We had the Legends of the Geomancer, right, Book of Death, Legends of the Geomancer, which was sort of the origin of the Anipata brothers and the origin of the Geomancer. And really, Eternal Warrior had a huge part to play in the Book of Death, which kicks into the wrath of the Eternal Warrior. And there's a background story to Legends of the Geomancer that is a must read if you really want to appreciate what's going on with the Geomancer and the Eternal Warrior. Okay, and just to show how epic this story arc was for the Valiant universe, I think as a tribute, what Valiant ended up doing was printing variant covers for the Book of Death, for the four issue mini-arc that were a tribute for Rye number zero that came out in the early 2000s. And Rye number zero is probably the most epic standalone comic that Valiant put out in the 1990s, the first Valiant launch, I guess, right? Because basically what this dead was, take the character Rye and Bloodshot, right? And look at their origin and span all the way into the future and show us how Bloodshot and Rye were connected, right? And talked about all the characters, main characters in the Valiant universe, which is sort of the same way that the fall of these four issues sort of handle their stories, right? They're sort of told in the same way as Rye number zero. And we did a reading for this book as well for Rye number zero because it was a pretty important book. It's first full appearance of Bloodshot and it shows us, you know, the origin of Rye and the death of a lot of different characters. It's epic. Like for the 1990s Valiant, it is the most epic book they put out. And these are just two of the variant covers that Valiant put out. And there's two more. This is for the Book of Death, the variant for Book of Death number two. And this is the variant for Book of Death number four. And unfortunately, I don't have the the variants of these for Book of Death number one and number three, but I will be grabbing them at some point in the future, because I love, I would love to frame these all in a row, right? As I mentioned before, I think when we did, when we looked at some of the stuff previously, as you know, if you're watching my videos, I do love Valiant reads. I do love Valiant reads. Okay, so what we're going to do is, you know, we've read some Valiant so far, we've read Magnus number five as well, which was a first appearance of Rye, right? And that was a, as far as I'm concerned, that's one of the most important books Valiant has put out. Magnus number five and the flip book was the first appearance of Rye, right? We've done the reading for Rye number zero, which is the 1990s epic standalone. We've done the reading for Legends of the Geomancer, all four issues, because it's extremely important. It gives the origin of the Geomancer and the Anipata brothers, okay, how they came to be. And what we're going to do right now is have a read through Fall of Harbinger, okay, Book of Death, Fall of Harbinger, the standalone that came out in 2015. And to me, this was magnificent as sort of same opinion that a lot of other people that have talked to online, the one person that I've talked to in person, the comic book owner, consider this to be one of the best reads, you know, he's ever had and one of the best reads I've ever had as well. Okay, hopefully I'm not building it up too much. It may have a greater impact, Fall of Harbinger may have a greater impact for those who know the Harbinger series, who are familiar with some of the characters, but it should be a good read no matter what. If you're new to this story, I think it should be a good read as well for you. Okay, I hope so anyway. So I'm gonna put on my glasses and we're gonna crack this open and that was sort of the intro to this read, sort of pretty epic, but Book of Death was a pretty epic event that Valiant did. So again, the grade on this is near meant, right? I don't know if this was my previous reading copy, but I do take care reading my books as well. And again, the story for this is by Joshua Dysart and the artwork is by Kato, Fall of Harbinger and I might give you a little bit of background on some of the stuff that may be happening here and apologies about the glare, reading older books, one good thing with them is they weren't glossy so we're not getting any glare with the new books. And we haven't done too many new books. I think there's, you know, we've done five readings for books from the 2000s. Four of them were Book of Death, the Legends of the Geo Master. One of them was Josako's The Fixer and I think this is going to be the fifth reading that we're going to do for 2000 series, right? A comic book from the 2000s. And one thing that Valiant does, which is really good, is they usually give us a summary of what has transpired so far before the story begins so everyone sort of gets a nice little recap if you read those stories or has a nice intro to some of the characters, some of the background that you need to know for the stories, okay? So let's read the fine, fine print here as well and I'm going to try to tilt the pages so we get as little glare as possible. So the fine print for this Book of Death, Fall of Harbinger number one, September 2015, Valiant Entertainment, LLC, Office of Publication 424, West 30, 33rd Street, New York, New York, Copyright 2015, Entertainment, Valiant Entertainment, All Words Reserved, All Characters, The Distinctive, Likeliness, and Related Indicia featured this publication or trademark of Valiant Entertainment. The stories, characters, and incidents featured in this publication are entirely fictional, printed in the US. For more information, please visit valiantuniverse.com and that's the first printing of this, okay? And let's take a look at this. Let's read the backup. It was transpired so far. And this story takes place after the first Harbinger series, the 25 issues, right? And the number zero with the bleeding monk. Peter Stanczak is a sciat, human beings with mental abilities that grant tremendous power. Until Peter emerged to oppose him, the world's most powerful sciat was Toyoharada. A billionaire industrialist, philanthropist, and mentor to generations of gifted individuals, seeking out promising young sciats through his secret harbinger foundation. Peter and Harada are the planet's only two omegas, the most powerful sciats of all. Harada believes in imposing world peace at the end of a sword. Peter believes humanity should be free to pursue its own destiny. The world's oldest known sciat is a powerful precog called the Bleeding Monk. The monk led Harada to find and train Peter, but he warned Harada that Peter was doomed to be the great destroyer, liable to wreak untold devastation. Peter formed a team of renegades to fight Harada, faith who has the power of flight and a sunny disposition. Charlene, a firebrand with pyrokinetic abilities. Tork, a disabled young man whose mind makes him an unstoppable powerhouse. And Chris, an ordinary human who grew up with Peter and became the team's strategist. These renegades exposed Toyoharada and brought down his corporate empire. At a price, Charlene was killed in the battle and Peter went into hiding. Against a Bleeding Monk's council and with Peter nowhere to stop him, Harada waged war to realize his vision. This is the story of the fall of Peter Stanchek, his friends and his enemies. This is the story of the fall of Harbinger. The two main characters from here that the story focuses on, or the main character the story focuses on is Peter Stanchek and his nemesis, Archenemies Toyoharada, the person that's in the background here and we'll see him in the story and we're going to see all these characters mentioned. So let's begin this read. Brilliant color, nice artwork. 14 months earlier, Keeper Base Earth's Moon, Year 2183 CE. Curtis, it looks like the pressure is bottoming out on the catcher of that. Could it be empty? No report from the nan of swimmers, Anna. Maybe it's clogged. Curtis Manfield, come quick. Something's wrong. Let us through, please. What's happened to him? The Bleeding Monk has bled to death on a Bleeding Monk. The Bleeding Monk is a person that was mentioned here and he was the original Syod and he was a pre-cock. He could see into the future and look at all possibilities. And one thing that would happen to him is he was constantly bleeding. And if you want to read more about the Bleeding Monk, I believe it's harbinger number zero and it's the Bleeding Monk story arc. And this is the blood that, so the Bleeding Monk is dead. That has been around for thousands of years, right? I'm racing away from earth, trying to get as much distance as I can. Currently about 600,000 miles from Petersburg, Pennsylvania, where I was born. My name is Peter Stanczak. I am the Omega and I'm flying to my death. There are people I will miss, but I'm not sad. It's past my time, has been for a while now. I never expected to live so long. I never expected to be so happy in the end. Or to have my first friends by my side. Let's do this. It's Chris and that's Faith. The three of the people that we mentioned in the back. writer Joshua Dysart, artist Kano, letterer David Lamphere, cover artist Raul Allen. Raul was not a lot of work. So we have Peter Stanczak flying through space. Bleeding Monk is dead and Peter's in space. Foundation Zone. Somal Coast Global Administration Hub. Empires. The empires of the future are the empires of the mind. Toyo Arrata. Hello Monkeeper Curtis Manfield. Mayfield. Omega Peter Stanczak, president of the Harbinger Foundation. We'll see you now. Curtis, always good to see someone from the sunlight of snow perception node. Mr. President. So this is Peter, right? We've troubling news. And so since we refuse to interact with you, your tech, I'm afraid the only way is face to face. I already know the monk who does not die is dead. Well, I guess that's why you're the president. He came to me last night in a vision. He told me it's over, Peter. It's the end of everything. He said that Arrata has finally returning to earth. That he's more powerful, more blind and more destructive than he has ever been. Nothing will survive his arrival. This is the outcome of struggle to counter since the moment I was given sight. But all my manipulations have been in vain. Never once was our course in doubt. My failure is a testament to Arrata as well, I imagine. I should have killed him when he was a boy. I won't survive this psychic impact that's about to hit this planet. So I have ended. Goodbye, Peter. Wait, there's nothing we can do that can't be right. I cannot see beyond the arrival of the unrestrained Arrata mind. That means only one thing to me, finality. I see the sunlight and snow perception node has just convened a series of debates with itself and passed a vote. Very hard for us to inform you that we don't have the resources to evacuate all sapient life from earth. We'll stay planted side as long as we can. Assist in a in any way possible, but I'm afraid that when the time comes, we're out. We wish all organic matter across this planet the best. We are so very fond of you. 12 years before, I had been the last human being to ever see Toyo Arrata. At my school for dissident scyots, what is it? I better get master stenchak. Arasama. Your presence here violates all opposition party treaties. We're well within our rights to defend themselves. That's Peter talking. I've only come to talk. Dad, something's wrong. Look at him. It's okay, Faith. Yesh. If I'm not back in an hour, contact the opposition council. Be careful, darling. That's Peter's wife and Peter's dog. What is this? Some kind of ship? A resignation chamber with self-triggering scyot inhibitors similar to my sleep bolts. I spent most of my time in here now, but it won't hold me for much longer. What does that mean? Are you dying? I don't know. Maybe. It's becoming harder and harder to contain my mind and my physical form. I'm worried of what'll happen around me when I fully lose control. If I undo everything I've fought for because of one last disastrous mind squall, well, I simply can't allow it. I refuse to be an extension of the bomb that created me. I'm leaving Earth, Peter. I'm going off somewhere to, I guess, to die. Yes. What is referring to there? My squall is when a scyot loses control of their abilities mentally and they just destroy everything around them, right? So Toyo Harada is worried that he's going to lose control and he's going to cause an event that's going to destroy everything, even planet Earth, right? So let's read this again. I'm leaving Earth, Peter. I'm going off somewhere to, I guess, to die. Yes. But the world I've built, it will not stand without leadership. You must take over the Harbinger Foundation. No one else can. If you leave me in charge, the first thing I'll do is hold planet-wide elections. You must know that, Peter says. Fine, Peter. Just make sure you're powerful enough to win them all. Goodbye, Harada. Harada crossed the Nimbus Ring that he himself had built and that was it. That was it until now. Ten months ago, the Psyche scionically activated minds of Earth began to hear an incessant buzzing. As the source of the psychic signal grew closer, the buzzing became louder. There could be no doubt. Harada was coming home. Seven months ago, a powerful, modicron-level Psyot in unified Korea, Mind Squall, killing thousands. So this is what a Mind Squall looks like. Psyot lose control. Six months ago, the inactivated began to hear the approaching signal. They were even less able to deal with it. Mental illness, virtually extinct, began to spike species-wide. Five months ago, infant mortality rates started to climb as newborns went insane in their cribs. The signal grew. Political harmony became fragile. Chamber of Global Congress, established by President Stanczek, so he held elections as a congress. We call to the representatives from the divinity ultimatum. Only your divinity can stop Harada. And divinity is a god-level being in the valiant universe. And I guess this is his council. So where is the savior now? We must assume that divinity lacks interest in such material matters. The divinity council says. Material matters? This is all human life we're talking about. You psycho-fant sort of psyots are going at it. Four months ago, a disagreement between two reps in our highest democratic body devolved into full psionic conflict. Enough, Peter steps in. I had officially lost control of the perfection Harada had forced upon us. Enters their minds like this, stops them right off. I'm taking the floor. Harbor Foundation is actively researching for the physical location of the approaching Harada mind. The closer the signal gets, the easier it is for our hyper-psychics to pinpoint. Though at great risk to themselves, he says. As soon as we have a location, I will go out and confront Harada personally. Ambassador Aretha Franklin of the sunlight of Snow Perception node. The Harbor Foundation humbly petitions you, lift your ban on tech trade to provide us with a faster ship than any we currently have. The Sunlight on Snow Perception node. The SOS Perception node has just conveyed. Debate and vote it. We will provide a starship at our highest non-sentient tech level. It would, of course, be unethical to send a thinking machine to a gunfight. Particularly one according to our projections is a suicide run. They are going to send just tech. Once a long time ago, I was a boy. Always in over my head. Then I became a man, a leader. I'm scared, Peter. It's also incomprehensible. You're leaving us forever. For what? A husband, a father. Maybe at last a hero. Peter. Enough with the brooding man. It's the end of the world. That's one of Peter's friends from, uh, we meet him in the first Harbinger series from 2012. All of these characters get introduced there again. Renegades. Together we help bring about what faith called the superhero singularity. Of course, they're just... Of course, they're just projections from my mind constructed from memory and imagination and set free to act and be on their own. But they feel real and it's the best I can do now. This is what you think we'd be like if we were old and beautiful and fulfilled, huh? You all deserve it, Harleen. The kind of happiness of faith. After all these years, after everything we went through together, I'm curious to hear what you would say to us now, Peter. Ha ha ha. Yes, I love that, Chris. Let's do that. Faith says. Chris, how are you still so boring? Can we just party like we used to? Who knows how much longer we've got? Tork's right. Let's blow this mother out. Peter agrees. Peter, of all this, going off to fight Harada is just the same as it ever was over and over again. You never really got off that particular wheel, did you? Harada's what? 60 years older than you? Who's to say that even if you do survive, his fate won't be yours in six decades? The thought has crossed my mind, Peter says. Screw this. Nobody wants to see their heroes grow old. Let's be young again. What would my last words to each of them be if they were really, if we were all truly here together at the end of history? To Chris, I'd say that I finally know what love is and that of all my mistakes and I've made a few, I regret what I did to her the most. To Charlene, I would say that a great sadness of my life is never having been able to see see her achieve all of her potential. To Tork, I'd apologize for always thinking I was better in him when really we were the same, scared, hungry for love and respect than friendship. And to Faith, after she convinced me to go into rehab, we spoke at least once a week until the day she, well, until the end. I would tell her she was the one person who always believed in me. Everything I am now, it's all an effort to deserve her admiration. This is nice man. This is what I always wanted for us, you know, to be ballers. Wish I could have been part of this crew. I failed you, Joe. You saved me when I was nothing. Then the first time I saw a chance to be something I abandoned you. I'm sorry. Yeah, well, what are you gonna do? It was like 200 years ago, you know. This is Peter. Here's what I have learned. No matter how long you live, no matter who you become or what you've done to change, it's who you were in the beginning, where you came from. You'll always carry that with you. The only foundation you have to build, build your future, self-on, is your past. Some of that past is good, strong, level, rock. As I get closer to the approaching unrestrained, her out of mind, the wave of psychic static becomes everything. This was the price, Chris. We all knew we'd eventually have to pay for the deal we made with Herata to build us a better world. Peter, we never made that deal. He forced it on us. The psychic heat of the Herata mind presses it on me. I can no longer maintain their projections, and suddenly I experience every inch of emotion I felt when they each first died. Joseph Irons, age 18, an escaped mental patient and narcotics addict, murdered by order of Toyo Herata. His killing kicks off a renegade, sigh-out insurgency against Herata global conglomerates, when the largest corporation in the world, then the largest corporation in the world. Charlene Dupre, Flamingo, age 19, died saving faith during the battle to expose Toyo Herata as the greatest Robert Barron in human history. Over here, man. Hey, can you no longer project your alter ego shell? Get back. Clear this hallway, or we'll have to taze all of you. John Tokelson, age 34, first sigh-out reality TV star, dies of complications from spinal Bephida. Don't let TMZ seem semi-crying to our excess. Those people are monsters. Faith Herbert, Zypher. Age 97, dies peacefully of heart failure while sleeping next to her loving husband, Obadiah Archer, after a long, success-successful career as the world's most popular superhero. Her free-nurse is the most attended and recorded history. Christine Hathaway, age 64, ex-political prisoner, founder of the Herata opposition party, assassinated on the eve of her re-election to the United States Senate. The sessions of Herata protect the future. Herata denies all association with the sessions, having declared them a terrorist organization. He is doing this to me. Toyo, all the sadness compressed into a single moment, I feel like I'm going to vomit. The ship disintegrates as it hits the event horizon of the unrestrained Herata mind. I fall towards a source of the destructive psychic wave. There's a creature surrounding him. I see him at the center of a rolling plasma wave. My teacher, my mentor, my oldest and last surviving enemy. Toyo, Herata. The only other omega level scythe known to man. And he's not alone. I've been waiting a decade for you to save me. I'm so sorry for what's about to happen. And then his broken body and dumps into mine. Everything he has ever thought, felt, and done pours into me. I am a thimble. He is an ocean. Herata proof up, Peter proof. I relive his fate. I spend months alone in the void, crossing the great nothing of space towards our sun. I land on the North Pole of Mercury, where the temperature is stable at negative 136 degrees. I can feel myself starting to break out of the cocoon of my own matter. Something beautiful is about to happen to me. I start vibrating at a strange frequency, rattling free from my physical cage. And that's when I'm ambushed. I'm so high on the ecstasy of transformation that I'm unaware of the danger until it's too late. My transcendence isn't interrupted. There's some kind of trans-dimensional psychic eaters. They have no culture, no sentience, just hunger incarnate. Unlike moss to a flame, by the enormous amount of energy I'm kicking off. I'm enslaved. They feed on me constantly. How many have they leapt on at the moment of enlightenment? Was this Buddha's fate, Jesus' countless transcending aliens? It's impossible to know how long I want Mercury. Inside the constant psychic feeding, there is no sense of time. Almost succumbed and nonexistent, they use the last of my life force to ride me to Earth. By gifting the human race with psionic powers, I have only prepared a feast for monsters. It never lost control at all. It was his suffering we felt approaching us all the time. His horror, his struggle. And now, only we, the unified Stanczek, her out of mind, the singular Omega, can hope to stop these creatures. We are one. We know what has to be done. Refrain from using psionics if possible. It only feeds them, but keep our shield up. We won't hold them off forever, but it's a start and we need the oxygen strapped inside. Then cut off their food supply, destroy what's left of the her out of body, and therefore the her out of brain. Physically kill her out with our bare hands. This massive plasma wave is a product of her out as runaway kinesis on the material make up of space. We don't even realize we're still caught in this momentum falling backwards until we search past the moon. It took Peter days to reach her out in the depths of space. It takes us a matter of hours to return to earth. If we can keep the eaters off our off Peter's body out of our unified mind, if they have no psionic control or protection to save them, if they are weakened enough by the lack of food source, they won't survive the 40,000 mile per hour impact with the earth's surface. But the plasma wave cannot be stopped. Millions die as it washes past the earth to continue on in its way through space. When it's done, there are no more eaters left to enslave whoever has survived. There's the impact crater with Peter. Peter and Herata. Humanely we'll live on, did my children, my wife, but I Peter will not. The body's taken too much damage. The brain was boiled trying to keep my shield intact during impact. I'm slipping away. Peter, I'm sorry master. I can't keep us alive. We're going to die now. No Peter, we won't die. The transcendence I began on Mercury. I can finish it now. There's no physicality where I'm going. Where we're going. Come with me as one. I'm grasping, trying to hold on to the Herata mind, trying to ascend. Come with me Peter, let go of form. I struggle with everything I have left in me. As the Herata mind becomes pure, conscious light, we are wretched apart. I am left behind. Forgive me Peter, forgive me. Only a single element of humanity gets to move on. The rest of us are simply shaft. At the moment of my death, I am stroked by his heat, and in his light I glimpse vast universal truths. This is an ending, yes, but with great clarity. It is revealed to me that no ending is true. As long as time and space layer and fold and cross back again, what is experienced now is only real now. Somewhere else, another version of myself transcends the material playing together with Toyo. Dies earlier, or fails harder, or does better. This is an ending. This is true. No ending is true. Ten years later, Greece. My name is Yesh, as Peter's wife. My late husband, Peter Stanich, was the last of only two Harbinger Foundation presidents. Together, he and Toyo Herata are known as the great destroyers after the confrontation left humanity and our world utterly devastated. We will never know the truth of that conflict. All we know for certain is that Herata went mad and lost control. That he was coming for Earth, that Peter went out to stop him, that Peter failed. Welcome, Representative Yesh. It's an honor. Thank you for coming on such short notice. We're very anxious to see the newborn, SOS node, Isaac Hayes. As we rebuild, we often remember the time when the gods battled across the vast expanse of space. But that's all in the past. The child is kept in a protective environment, but all of her vital vitals are perfectly fine. The only difference is the most obvious one, of course. The constant, unending flow of blood. We live in the future now. Welcome back, Monk. Here's Fall of Exo-Mano War. Here's the Book of Death event checklist, right? It was Book of Death number one, and the Fall of Bloodshot was released with that in the same month, July. Book of Death number two, Fall of Ninjak. Book of Death number three, Fall of Harbinger, and it was Book of Death number four, Fall of Exo-Mano. Nice story, fantastic events, fantastic reads. And here's the Eternal Warrior number, Rath of the Eternal Warrior number one, that kicked off right after Book of Death, the four issue that was done. That was sort of a prequel to the Rath of the Eternal Warrior. Fantastic series, fantastic series. Rowell Lal and Robert Venditti. Fantastic. I hope you enjoy it. It's an epic piece, that's for sure. That's for sure. And that's Book of Death, Fall of Harbinger number one, released in 2015. That's it for now. I'll see you guys in the next reading.