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I'm so happy I enjoyed this series finale, since ending on this medium-high note will allow me to feel on balance pretty good about a series that has been an up-and-down experience. The start of this one was not promising, but once the heavy action kicked in about 20% in I never stopped being engaged. The stakes of each scene were clear and important, unlike say a major plot line of the previous book which felt terribly side-questy for so late in a series. I really loved the long falling action section and got surprisingly a teensy bit emotional, too, which was a great sign that I did come to care about these characters who felt like cardboard for so many books. I also enjoyed the high level of closure we got with callbacks to events and characters as far back as book 1.

This book still suffered though from the same drawbacks as the whole series, which is that I felt like it could have been pared down for greater impact. All the major factions showed up, but did the inclusion of the 8 Man Empire really add much of anything? A few factions and characters that got so little page time over the course of the series could've easily been cut and helped me care more about the others. Also so little of the magic system is ever explained, so one path or technique is the same as any other to me, and I often glazed over when characters were discussing the magic. I'm not familiar with this entire sub-genre so I get that this stuff is part of the appeal, but I personally would've enjoyed this whole shebang more if the magic system had been streamlined and simpler to grasp and for new magic-related developments to feel organic rather than utterly random and plot-contrived.

At a certain point though I learned to just let go and have fun with this, and there were plenty of cool as shit moments along with a hefty dose of Will Wight's signature humor (delivered perfectly by Travis Baldree). Without Baldree's lively audio narration I may have DNF'ed the series many books ago, but I'm glad I stuck with it and got taken on such a fun auditory ride. I wasn't bothered by the power levels on display or the lack of tension I've seen others complain about due to feeling like the characters couldn't die -- the series has always felt this way, and I don't think that tension existed for me at all in any of the previous books, so just because everyone has insane power levels now didn't really change anything for me. The foes have increased in power correspondingly, and the protagonists still needed to struggle and work together in satisfying ways to fight them. The joy of the series for me has always at its core been about the cleverness, creativity, collaboration, and determination of the protagonists in overcoming insane obstacles, and we got a lot of all those things in this final volume. With that and through providing a satisfying conclusion to a long series, Waybound probably lands in my top tier of Cradle books.