Not with a bang but a whimper. The ending is fine but because it’s fine I feel a bit let down. With the nature of magic and the intriguing worldbuilding, I was hoping for more of a focus on the interpersonal relationships and how empathy and the meta knowledge of the MC would result in a slow but overall positive change for the setting. Not to mention how, in a strange way, by being positive the MC was going against his own powers of darkness and as he aged it might actually cause a problem with his mental/emotional state. There’s also how the “hero” kid of the setting was put off to the side near the end and instead we got a political plot assassination “oh-wait-lets-solve-this-offscreen” kinda wallsplat of storytelling.
It could have been much worse, but the foundation makes it seem like it was building to be much better.