I enjoyed the first 4 books a lot, it was starting to ramp up. The timeskips threw me because as most consumers of this type of fantasy, I prefer a slow power creep and getting used to the world they’re in.
This new book however, feels like the author wanted to make a handbrake turn on the previous few books. What began as a systematic introduction to Ed becoming a dungeon lord in a foreign world with moral grey area, became Ed completely owning his powers and getting some uber buff and now he controls thousands and entire armies and complex military strategy and a bunch of other a$$ pulls. The story became some kind of a cheap imitation of the first and doubly so some kind of facile OP main character slop.
There are some nice moments still, and some story progression albeit it asspully, but these are ruined by the quite frankly 1990s quality of sound effects over everything. I listen to audio books to create the atmosphere from the authors words, not artistic choices forcing me to experience a moment in some cheap way they deem it should be. Every battle and inspiring moment being back by some low quality midi fueled heroic music, just cheapens the whole damn thing.
What a shame.