The Captain

The First Book of The Last Horizon fourth Series of Will Wight

The Captain

Author	Will Wight
Language	English
Series	The Last Horizon
Genre	Sci-Fi/Fantasy
Published	April 4, 2023
Media type	ebook, paperback, audiobook
Followed by	The Engineer

Synopsis

“To survive in this galaxy, you need a wand in one hand and a gun in the other.”

On a little-known planet, Archmage Varic Vallenar casts a grand spell to empower himself with the magical abilities of his alternate selves. The ritual works too well, granting Varic not only the magic but also the memories from six lives.

Including their gruesome deaths.

Now, Varic has power greater than any wizard in galactic history, but he knows that won’t be enough. The enemies he faced in those alternate lives were apocalyptic in scale. Terrors of technology and magic. Nothing that he, or anyone, can defeat.

Sun-eating extra-dimensional insects, shadowy secret organizations, genetically enhanced alien super-soldiers, ruthless mega-corporations, and hordes of cyborg undead all lurk in the darkest corners of the galaxy, and Varic knows that any of them can become a world-ending threat at any moment.

All these are beyond any wizard, no matter how many spells he’s mastered or how many interstellar warships he’s rallied to his cause. Hopeless, Varic finds himself trying to preserve what little he can from the coming doom.

Until he hears rumors of a mythical starship, an invincible vessel of heroes made to do battle against galactic threats.

A ship called The Last Horizon.

Plot Summary

For a chapter by chapter summary, see /Summary.

Finding The Last Horizon

Varic Vallenar conducts a ritual that makes him into a sixfold Archmage. However, Varic gains the memories of five alternative lives where he experiences galaxy ending threats. Varic leaves the Vallenar Corporation in attempt to prevent the threats from reoccurring

One year later, Varic stops the creation of the Iron King and casts the Iron King into the sun. Varic's plans and preparations were now complete, and not knowing what else to do, Varic begins teaching at the Magic Tower. Varic attempts to teach and prepare his students for the future, but ends up suspended for a month from the Magic Tower for his teaching methods. During this month, Varic finds a job listing to search for The Last Horizon and decides to search on his own using the clues on the listing. Eventually, the Iron Legion finds him, provoked by Varic’s attack on the Iron King. Varic flees, and ends up near the planets where The Last Horizon should be.

After exploring the planets, Varic finds The Last Horizon. Varic convinces Horizon, the world spirit of the ship, that he is worthy to be Captain, though he found Horizon’s reaction concerning. He officially becomes the Captain of The Last Horizon. Suddenly, the Iron Legion catches up to Varic, and Varic gets to test out Horizon’s capabilities. He is quickly disappointed by her, and attempts to fight off the Iron Legion ships on his own. Horizon instead takes them back to hide, and she convinces Varic to hold tryouts for new crew members, which would increase her strength.

Gathering Crew Members

In a virtual space created by Horizon, tryouts for crew members are held, testing viable member’s abilities via personal combat. Varic tests multiple potential crew members, until he reaches the final round, where Raion Raithe is his opponent. Varic is startled, having known Raion in an alternative life. They meet for the first time again, before starting the fight. Eventually, victory goes to Varic, and Raion is summoned into The Last Horizon. As Raion is questioning the purpose of the crew, Horizon explains how each crew member gets a great deed granted from her and the rest of the crew members, and the Varic unintentionally requested the extermination of the Iron Legion. Raion officially decides to become the Knight of The Last Horizon, with the goal to exterminate the D'niss and their leader, assuming they return within five years.

Meanwhile, Omega, Shyrax, and Mell, who also participated in the tryouts, reach their last opponents and are told to await their potential invitation. Neither are particularly happy with this response, and Omega begins his search to find the Captain of The Last Horizon.

With Raion as the new Knight, The Last Horizon is able to escape the Iron Legion ships. Varic then decides to look for someone to fill in the role of the Sword of the Last Horizon, and they decide on the Fallen Sword, Sola Kalter. Horizon teleports Raion and him to Sola’s location, where she is taking down an Iron Hive and saving the survivors. Together, they fight their way to Sola’s starship, from where Sola destroys the Hive using her gun, Worldslayer. Varic formally extends an invitation for Sola to join the crew of The Last Horizon, informing her of their intention to wipe out the Iron Legion. Though Sola has her doubts, she ends up signing an open-ended contract, so as to not have duplicate requests, to become the Sword of The Last Horizon.

Meanwhile, the Iron King reawakens, having been revived. Interested in Varic, who had been the one to kill him, the Iron King sends the Legion out to kidnap Benri Vallenar.

The following day, Varic returns to the Magic Tower to resume teaching. The recent events had inspired him to give individualized information to each of his students that should set them up to be better mages. Suddenly, the Magic Tower was under attack by Omega, who was after Varic. The two fight, and Varic calls Horizon for backup. The Last Horizon is able to defeat and capture Omega. Soon afterwards, ships from the Vallenar Corporation, led by one of Benri’ Vallenar’s clones, show up.

On the ships, Benri attempts to convince Varic to return to the corporation, so Varic asks Horizon to teleport him away. Back on the ship, Varic offers Omega a seat on the ship in exchange for his cooperation, to which he rejects. Varic predicts the person who sent Omega after him plans to go after Benri next. Horizon teleports Varic and Raion to the battlefield where the Vallenar ships were being attacked, saving them. They find out the enemy after them is the Iron Legion. Varic orders Horizon to recall them, but she doesn't respond.

The Last Horizon vs. The Iron Legion

Meanwhile, Benri accepts a deal with the Iron King, who wants his help capturing The Last Horizon. Benri releases his cloning spell, Mirror of Silence, to the Iron King, who uses it to multiply the fleet surrounding the starship. Back on The Last Horizon, Sola and Horizon realize that the Iron King has returned. Horizon tries to recall Varic and Raion, and fails, realizing that her teleportation has been blocked off. While they are surrounded by Hunter ships and their clones, Omega escapes and is recaptured by Sola while Horizon takes care of the battle.

Back with the Vallenar Corporation, Varic overloads the ship they are on to travel back to The Last Horizon as fast as possible. Eventually the ship fails and hurls towards a nearby colony. Raion stops the ship from crashing, but they find out that the Iron Legion has captured a version of Benri. The colony is then attacked by the Iron Legion. Varic and Raion are able to fight off the Legion until a Behemoth begins to emerge. As it is immune to magic, Raion summons his Red Divine Titan and fights it alone. The power of the Titan surprises Varic, as in his alternative life the Titan was never so strong. However, once the Behemoth is defeated, the Divine Titan comes after Varic. Varic realizes that the Divine Titan had been corrupted somehow. Varic manages to get the Titan to release Raion, and Horizon is able to teleport them back once again.

Back on The Last Horizon, Varic decides to go to Galactic Union to pick Mell up as their Engineer, so The Last Horizon travels back to the Magic Tower. However, the Galactic Union surrounds them to take The Last Horizon for themselves. They travel away from the Union, and end up in Dark Space. During a meeting with the crew to determine their next course of action, Varic finally reveals that he has met Raion and Sola in alternative lives. Sola and Raion eventually convince him to go after the Grand Hive directly, a plan that had caused his death in one of his lives.

For their plan, Varic manages to convince Omega to sign a provisional Pilot contract with Horizon. Omega requests to go after Solstice as his goal. Now with a Pilot, The Last Horizon is able to reach the Grand Hive undetected. The attack on the Grand Hive is seemingly a success, and it is left in pieces. To Varic’s surprise, they find a cocoon holding the real version of Benri, placed there as protection by the Iron King. After some discussion with Sola and Horizon, they all realize the Iron King is still alive and begin to attack the cocoon, but are unable to prevent the Iron King emerging from it.

The Iron King emerges and tries to claim The Last Horizon. Varic realizes that the Iron King is now immune to magic when connected to the Iron Legion. He is about to give up when Horizon shares her magic with Varic. With his new pinnacle spell, Terminus Mundi, Varic brings himself and the Iron King into another world and they fight. With the help of Omega, Varic is able to seal the Iron King away again.

Horizon initially wants to hold the King in her vault, but Varic decides to not risk the Iron King from escaping. Instead, they release the King into the world created by Terminus Mundi, and Varic, Raion, Horizon, Sola, and Omega kill the Iron King together. Varic then plans to pick up the rest of the crew.