All in all, this was an amazing read! The art is consistently great, and they did great on the action scenes. The FL was also really consistent and a great character, although a bit too self-sacrificial for my liking. You can really really tell when they cut off scenes for time's sake, and sometimes it can happen multiple times in a chapter, so the later half feels really jagged-y (since they don't rush *every* scene but still rush the story as a whole) and it can be off-putting at times... but tbh considering what happens to some stories of this genre I'd say they definitely did the best they could with what they had.
Now, for my thoughts on the ML: (some spoilers ahead)
I did end up loving him – I was skeptical at first, like I imagine most of us were, but by the end he had really grown on me and won me over. Just by the way the story starts you can guess he's the ML, tbh, but they sure took their sweet time to introduce him properly... this leaves a very weird sort of feeling with the first half as we follow mostly Eugene and Cain (there's a bit of Herrace too, but hinestly I was never sold on him lol), and you have to go through the grueling ordeal of watching them both catch feelings while knowing full well neither of them are endgame... I felt so sorry for Eugene, specifically (maybe because he was introduced first?) that I tried to shut off my rational mind and delude myself into believing he was the ML. Opsie, I guess...
Anyway! It still makes sense to me, personally, that Daniel was the final ML. But since the first half of the story is much slower in regards to the pacing and much more focused on the characters rather than the overarching plot, by the time the narrative starts placing all it's bets on Daniel (as Litia's pair), it still very much feels like we know Eugene and Cain better than we know him; and that feels super unfair, seeing as they get sidelined into the roles of "quietly assisting Litia from the shadows" and their screentimes plummet. So it does get hard to switch to Daniel's side when it's kind of "his fault" that this happens.... not that it literally is his fault, though. He didn't need to have a lot of emotional depth, but being introduced earlier than he was would've saved the readers a lot of heartache (imo).
The sidestories containing alternate endings for Eugene and Cain (and Herrace, but again, meh) was also pretty nice tbh! It was the first time I saw this sort of thing in a manhwa. But I wish we got to see kiss scenes for all them, tho!!! That should've been, like, the one baseline for all of them. But anyways... Daniel and Litia should've kissed at least once more before the end, too. We ended up having very little domestic interactions between them; the end of the main storyline was all about tying loose ends, after all, and in the end they didn't get side stories for themselves-- so strangely it feels like Eugene and Cain got more domesticity with Litia than her actual husband and father of her child lololol
All in all, this was an amazing read! The art is consistently great, and they did great on the action scenes. The FL was also really consistent and a great character, although a bit too self-sacrificial for my liking. You can really really tell when they cut off scenes for time's sake, and sometimes it can happen multiple times in a chapter, so the later half feels really jagged-y (since they don't rush *every* scene but still rush the story as a whole) and it can be off-putting at times... but tbh considering what happens to some stories of this genre I'd say they definitely did the best they could with what they had.
Now, for my thoughts on the ML: (some spoilers ahead)
I did end up loving him – I was skeptical at first, like I imagine most of us were, but by the end he had really grown on me and won me over. Just by the way the story starts you can guess he's the ML, tbh, but they sure took their sweet time to introduce him properly... this leaves a very weird sort of feeling with the first half as we follow mostly Eugene and Cain (there's a bit of Herrace too, but hinestly I was never sold on him lol), and you have to go through the grueling ordeal of watching them both catch feelings while knowing full well neither of them are endgame... I felt so sorry for Eugene, specifically (maybe because he was introduced first?) that I tried to shut off my rational mind and delude myself into believing he was the ML. Opsie, I guess...
Anyway! It still makes sense to me, personally, that Daniel was the final ML. But since the first half of the story is much slower in regards to the pacing and much more focused on the characters rather than the overarching plot, by the time the narrative starts placing all it's bets on Daniel (as Litia's pair), it still very much feels like we know Eugene and Cain better than we know him; and that feels super unfair, seeing as they get sidelined into the roles of "quietly assisting Litia from the shadows" and their screentimes plummet. So it does get hard to switch to Daniel's side when it's kind of "his fault" that this happens.... not that it literally is his fault, though. He didn't need to have a lot of emotional depth, but being introduced earlier than he was would've saved the readers a lot of heartache (imo).
The sidestories containing alternate endings for Eugene and Cain (and Herrace, but again, meh) was also pretty nice tbh! It was the first time I saw this sort of thing in a manhwa. But I wish we got to see kiss scenes for all them, tho!!! That should've been, like, the one baseline for all of them. But anyways... Daniel and Litia should've kissed at least once more before the end, too. We ended up having very little domestic interactions between them; the end of the main storyline was all about tying loose ends, after all, and in the end they didn't get side stories for themselves-- so strangely it feels like Eugene and Cain got more domesticity with Litia than her actual husband and father of her child lololol