He Who Fights with Monsters

1. Jason gets a racial gift letting him physically enter his storage space, and an offer from the World-Phoenix of a gift (Nirvanic Transfiguration) that he leaves unanswered. Shade admits he always knew the token would resurrect Jason on Earth. In Sydney his uncle Hiro Asano helps him sell gold; Jason secretly heals a children's hospital, becoming the media's 'Starlight Angel', then fights the Blood Riders biker gang in a rolling gunfight that earns him 'Starlight Rider'.
2. Craig Vermillion, a greater vampire, explains Earth's three factions: the vampire Cabal, the Network, and the media-driven Engineers of Ascension (EOA). A Network silver-rank assassin kidnaps Jason on orders from the Lyon branch, but he breaks the collar and learns they hold another outworlder. He then confronts Network director Annabeth Tilden in her kitchen and offers to train the Network in return for that prisoner.
3. Jason reveals magic to his family, heals his grandmother's Alzheimer's, and helps the Network revamp its training. He kills a river-hydra anchor monster in a dimensional incursion. An airplane bomb meant to stop him en route to France kills Network committee member Keith Culpeper, and Jason takes the EOA yacht that waited to finish the job.
4. The Lyon Operations Director, Adrien Barbou, sells out to the EOA and seals himself and the outworlder in a secret astral space. Jason accepts the World-Phoenix's Nirvanic Transfiguration to cross the sealed barrier, which reforges his body and soul into a gestalt and turns his eyes silver. He fights through and rescues Farrah Hurin, who has returned as an outworlder, and takes her home.
5. Dawn, the World-Phoenix's celestine agent, appears as an artist's avatar and explains that the original Builder made Earth and Pallimustus from identical templates, and that the Network founder's changes are draining Pallimustus's magic into Earth. A coming monster wave will let the Builder invade Pallimustus. Jason kills her avatar for not telling him where Farrah was, while his family takes essences and Farrah reaches silver rank.

Jason decides to take a break and explore Earth, and with Farrah and Craig Vermillion's help he develops a more nuanced aura-stealth ability. At his farewell party Asya Karadeniz tells him that his childhood friend Greg has been cleared to learn about magic, and Jason introduces Greg to it in the most confusing way possible before setting off to travel. Behind him, Dawn's warning about the link between the two worlds is still unresolved.

Not verified: no rank data for the end of this volume in our cache.