Hey

God, I feel so horrible writing this. You lot have been waiting for so fucking long, and it took me more than a month to give an update. I can only apologize deeply for wasting another month, for not keeping my word once again, and for worrying you all needlessly. 

When I last gave an update, I'd planned to release SOW Ch.24 by the month of September itself, and then play catch up in October. By November—which has already crept up on us and I never even noticed—it should've all worked out and gone back to normal. Never in my life did I ever imagine scuffing another frickin month with absolutely no progress to any of my stories. I'd turned off all the social media, even patreon and discord, promising to become a writing-hermit and complete the damned chapter first. 

Then disaster struck. 

We lost our court case (a property dispute) which had been ongoing for over 7 years now, after being guaranteed a hundred percent victory by our shit of a lawyer—who'd been draining every drop of our income for almost a decade. I had to go out of city over the matter and couldn't quite focus on writing. A week later, we lost a second case (a check bounce one this time) and I had to bail out my father for the second time this year. By the time this was all solved (not really, just pushed back) and I turned back to writing, it was already waaay overdue. And the chapter—which I'd expected to be under 10-12k words—just kept getting bigger and bigger until it crossed 20k. 

...Sooo yeah. I now have a 22k words, whooper of a chapter, ready to be posted in a bit, all of which covers the events of just 1 day—and I don't even think it's all that good really. My confidence is an all-time low rn, feel like I lost the rhythm of writing from this almost 3 months gap, and just want to get this chap out of my bloody throat already.

On a plus note, I've had a lot of time to think upon the future of SOW and I feel like I can finally say with confidence that I know where it is going. So, after this chapter, you should definitely see an improvement in the plot and characters—especially Harry's chosen 5.

Just wanted to take this chance to give out a massive wave of gratitude to all those who're still sticking with me, and all those who've promised to sub back after I get active, and especially to those who've been worried after my health. You lot are literally the only reason I haven't committed murder or suicide (just exaggerating, don't worry). Still feel like both were equally probable lol.

All of you deserve better, and I really, really hope I can deliver this time. 

Gonna post the chapter in a few hours, or definitely by tomorrow if I decide to edit some more. See you in a bit, peace!