Chapter Summaries

Lin Ye finished designing the Winter Is Coming instance’s military forces and missions, then left Creation Space after the Firmament completed its review of Raging Waves. Raging Waves was approved with 100,000 challengers and a limit on point losses, allowing Lin Ye to keep using it and earn points.

• Lin Ye equipped Bear Country with 6,000 nuclear bombs and a Dead Hand system that would launch them all if its leaders failed to respond within an hour during a war.
• Lin Ye designed Winter Is Coming’s two-stage missions, four warfare modes, and possible challenger spawn locations in Tank Country, Horse Country, and elsewhere.
• After three days in Creation Space, Lin Ye left when the Firmament notified him that Raging Waves had passed review.
• The Firmament set Raging Waves’ challenger limit at 100,000, retained its war and penalty systems, and capped each person’s point loss at 1,000 per run.
• Lin Ye estimated that Raging Waves could earn him at least 20,000 points a day if challengers submitted immediately.

Lin Ye reviewed the worldwide attention surrounding Raging Waves and learned that the Dahe Settlement had suffered devastating losses. With Minamoto no Yorimitsu replacing Xiaochuan as Emperor, the settlement began reforms but faced years of recovery.

• Lin Ye decided to leave Raging Waves unchanged as a stable source of points and planned to rest while Winter Is Coming was completed.
• Lin Ye saw that news outlets and forums were focused on his success and the unprecedented difficulty of Raging Waves.
• Lin Ye learned that the Emperor had fallen from LV4 to Level 3, the Dahe Settlement had lost many elite people, and its overall ranking had plunged.
• The people and the Firmament replaced Xiaochuan with Shogun Minamoto no Yorimitsu, who began sweeping reforms in the weakened Dahe Settlement.
• Lin Ye concluded that the Dahe Settlement had brought its downfall upon itself by choosing to challenge him.

Lin Ye watched South Korean broadcasts accuse him of stealing technology and claim he had Goryeo ancestry, then saw Kim Geun-seok challenge him to a dungeon-design contest. Lin Ye dismissed the challenge as a ploy and turned off the television.

• Lin Ye watched a South Korean news report accuse him of plagiarizing technologies from the South Korea Research Institute.
• A second report claimed Lin Ye was descended from a Goryeo professor and that his technologies belonged to South Korea.
• Kim Geun-seok appeared in a video, accused Lin Ye of theft, and demanded he either move to the South Korea Settlement or accept a dungeon-design duel.
• Kim Geun-seok proposed that both designers create dungeons without weapons used in their previous dungeons, with Lin Ye required to surrender his technology if he lost.
• Lin Ye recognized Kim Geun-seok as the designer he had knocked out of the top 50 and decided not to waste time answering the challenge.

After learning that Zhao Jianyu had been erased by the Firmament, Lin Ye confronted the cruelty of life on Azure Star and went to meet Dean Ding Chang. He arrived at a secluded sanatorium and found Ding Chang gravely ill with late-stage pancreatic cancer.

• Lin Ye received a call from Bai Tianhao, who said Ding Chang wanted to meet him privately.
• Bai Tianhao told Lin Ye that Zhao Jianyu had been erased by the Firmament the day before.
• Lin Ye reflected on the danger ordinary people faced and drove to the address Bai Tianhao sent him.
• Bai Tianhao met Lin Ye at a secluded sanatorium and explained that Ding Chang came there for weekly treatment for late-stage pancreatic cancer.
• Lin Ye entered Ding Chang's room and saw him frail and bedridden.

Lin Ye visited Ding Chang, who recounted how Zhao Jianyu became a Dungeon Designer to avenge her parents and was erased after challenging Kim Geun-seok. Ding Chang warned Lin Ye that his influence had made powerful challengers imitate his dungeon mechanisms and weapons, putting him at risk.

• Lin Ye met the ill Ding Chang, who mourned Zhao Jianyu and offered to tell her story.
• Ding Chang explained that Zhao Jianyu and her twin sister Zhao Jianxin became orphans after their parents were erased by the Jin Family Chaebol, and that he raised them.
• Zhao Jianyu became a Dungeon Designer to avenge her parents and quickly advanced to Level 2 with her dungeons Street Battle and Kowloon Walled City.
• After Kim Geun-seok challenged and insulted Lin Ye, Zhao Jianyu challenged his dungeon, then was drawn into two more South Korean dungeons and lost enough points to be erased.
• Ding Chang warned Lin Ye that challengers were copying his Reward and Punishment Mechanism and advanced weapons, making him a target.

Lin Ye thanked Ding Chang for helping him in the Imperial Sea dungeon and learned that Ding wanted revenge for the Zhao Jianyu sisters. Convinced the Jin Family Chaebol had targeted Zhao Jianyu to get to him, Lin Ye chose Kim Geun-seok and his allies as challengers for Winter Is Coming, then submitted the completed dungeon for review.

• Ding Chang warned Lin Ye not to accept Kim Geun-seok’s online challenge and urged him to keep creating dungeons that would bring honor to Great Xia.
• Lin Ye thanked Ding Chang for trusting him with command in the Imperial Sea dungeon and asked whether he wanted to avenge the Zhao Jianyu sisters.
• Ding Chang admitted that he would have fought Kim Geun-seok if he were younger and his dungeons had not been blocked.
• Lin Ye concluded that the Jin Family Chaebol had deliberately targeted Zhao Jianyu because they suspected her connection to him, and decided to uproot the threat by selecting Kim Geun-seok and the Kim Family Conglomerate as challengers.
• Lin Ye added a faction map called Stick Country to Winter Is Coming and set it as the challengers’ starting location.
• Lin Ye submitted Earth Online: Five Permanent Members: Winter Is Coming for review with an initial limit of ten thousand challengers, and the Firmament began its evaluation.

Lin Ye’s new 10,000-person dungeon, Winter Is Coming, passed review at Purgatory-level, earning him a one-day Points-Doubling Card. He opened voluntary registration for one hour and challenged Kim Geun-seok to enter with his conglomerate for a contest of supremacy and a fight to the death.

• Azure Star reacted to Lin Ye’s golden announcement that his new 10,000-person dungeon had entered review.
• The Firmament approved Winter Is Coming as a Purgatory-level dungeon and awarded Lin Ye a one-day Points-Doubling Card.
• Lin Ye arranged to open voluntary registration immediately and launch the dungeon in one hour, naming Kim Geun-seok as his sole designated challenger.
• Lin Ye recorded and uploaded a video challenging Kim Geun-seok to enter Winter Is Coming with his conglomerate and raise the stakes to a fight over who was superior and who lived or died.

Kim Geun-seok prepared to challenge Lin Ye in his new dungeon, hoping to seize his technology for the Kim family, while Kim Chan-hoon warned him not to underestimate Lin Ye. When Winter Is Coming opened, Kim Geun-seok waited to enter with the support of company personnel arranged by his father.

• Kim Geun-seok watched Lin Ye accept his challenge and told Kim Chan-hoon he wanted to defeat Lin Ye or recruit him for South Korea Settlement.
• Kim Chan-hoon questioned Kim Geun-seok’s choice of opponent and warned him that Lin Ye had defeated the Emperor and wiped out 200,000 people from Dahe Settlement.
• Kim Geun-seok explained that he had barred Lin Ye from using weapons from Raging Waves, believing the restriction would weaken the new dungeon and let the Kim family acquire Lin Ye’s technology.
• Kim Chan-hoon agreed to the challenge but ordered 5,000 company personnel to assist Kim Geun-seok, who objected before yielding to his father’s authority.
• The announcement declared Lin Ye’s new dungeon, Winter Is Coming, officially open, and Kim Geun-seok waited for the dungeon to begin.

Lin Ye opened Winter Is Coming, a Purgatory-level dungeon, and Kim Geun-seok was selected to enter with 9,999 other challengers. The briefing revealed that the challengers would lead Stick Country against the vastly larger Bear Country, leaving Kim furious at the imbalance.

• Lin Ye reviewed the 5,000 volunteer challengers, noticed they were surnamed Kim or Park, and let the Firmament randomly select the remaining participants.
• Kim Geun-seok decided to bring all his weapons and technology into the dungeon, believing Lin Ye would not detect his hidden equipment.
• The Firmament deployed Kim Geun-seok and the other challengers into Winter Is Coming, where Kim found himself in the Black House and met Kim Company subordinates who said 5,000 company elites were there to help him.
• The Firmament's briefing identified Stick Country as the challengers' base and Bear Country as their enemy, with Volgograd, Saint Petersburg, and Moscow as targets to conquer.
• Kim Geun-seok saw that Stick Country had only 100,000 square kilometers compared with Bear Country's 17 million and grew angry at the disparity.

Kim Geun-seok examined Lin Ye’s new Winter Is Coming dungeon, whose missions required challengers to capture a major Bear Country city or submit to it. Lin Ye then introduced a choice of combat modes, and Kim Geun-seok concluded that the system had obvious loopholes.

• Kim Geun-seok read the dungeon’s settings and missions, noted Bear Country’s vast territory and cold weather, and judged that capturing one of its cities seemed manageable.
• The Firmament announced that challengers who chose the city-capture mission could select land combat, air combat, Naval Warfare, or Total War, with the choice locking unrelated weapons in single-branch modes.
• Viewers praised Lin Ye’s innovation, while others mocked the South Korea Settlement and argued over Kim Geun-seok’s chances against him.
• Kim Geun-seok suddenly claimed that Lin Ye’s combat-mode selection system was hastily designed and riddled with loopholes.

Kim Geun-seok chose air combat, believing the mode’s rules would disable Bear Country’s anti-air weapons and give his superior aircraft an advantage. After most challengers surrendered, he ordered the remaining independents to follow the Kim family, but learned that Singh, the A San prince ranked forty-eighth on the Hero Ranking, had objected.

• Kim Geun-seok recognized that choosing air combat would disable land and naval weapons, including Bear Country’s anti-air defenses.
• Kim Geun-seok chose air combat, relying on South Korea’s Nightingale helicopters and Black Hawk fighters and avoiding the long journey required for a land campaign.
• Kim Geun-seok learned that four thousand challengers had left the instance, despite the Kim family having sent five thousand subordinates.
• Kim Geun-seok ordered the remaining independent challengers to follow the Kim family, and his subordinate reported that nearly all agreed.
• Kim Geun-seok learned that Singh, the A San prince ranked forty-eighth on the Hero Ranking, was the sole challenger who objected.

Kim Geun-seok negotiated with Prince Singh, who had entered the Purgatory-level instance to inspect Lin Ye’s weapons and technology. Singh agreed to support Kim’s plan to attack by air and offered more than a hundred top-tier aircraft.

• Kim Geun-seok learned that Prince Singh had joined the instance and ordered his men to invite him respectfully.
• Singh told Kim that he had come to see Lin Ye’s weapons firsthand before his royal family considered buying them.
• Kim explained his aerial battle plan and argued that capturing one main city would let them win without confronting Lin Ye head-on.
• Singh praised Kim’s strategy and offered him more than a hundred top-tier aircraft to deploy.

Kim Geun-seok became the dungeon commander and chose aerial warfare, then assembled 5,600 aircraft to attack Moscow. The fleet took off from Hanseong with Kim Geun-seok and Singh aboard the Golden Bird and headed for Bear Country.

• Kim Geun-seok welcomed Singh’s hundred fighters and promised to conquer Bear Country’s main city without Singh having to fight.
• The Firmament made Kim Geun-seok dungeon commander and assigned the remaining challengers Mission One after the deadline to choose Mission Two passed.
• Kim Geun-seok selected aerial warfare, which locked weapons and technology unrelated to air combat and moved the challengers’ aircraft to airfields around Hanseong.
• Kim Geun-seok ordered his secretary to gather pilots and prepare the aircraft, and the secretary reported 5,600 fighters ready for battle.
• Kim Geun-seok ordered the fleet to attack Moscow, and 5,600 aircraft took off from Hanseong with him and Singh aboard the Golden Bird.

Kim Geun-seok launched a formidable aerial force for the Winter Is Coming instance, making viewers wonder whether Lin Ye had allowed him to exploit his strengths. In the hospital, Ding Chang warned Bai Tianhao that Lin Ye might have misjudged the aerial-combat challenge and urged him to avoid taking reckless risks.

• Kim Geun-seok sent a large, well-equipped formation of Black Hawk fighters and support aircraft into the sky, impressing the livestream viewers and exciting the Goryeo audience.
• Ding Chang watched the instance from his hospital bed with Bai Tianhao and asked the young researcher to assess the situation.
• Bai Tianhao said he trusted Lin Ye's decisions and would not presume to criticize him.
• Ding Chang explained that the duel could not seriously change either designer's fate, then advised Bai Tianhao to protect himself and avoid impulsive challenges.
• Ding Chang worried that Lin Ye had made a mistake by offering aerial combat, since Kim Geun-seok could use his specialty while Lin Ye's fleet and missiles were unavailable.

Ding Chang urged Bai Tianhao to warn Lin Ye that Kim Geun-seok’s technology bet was a trap, but Bai trusted Lin Ye to be prepared. As Kim’s air force entered Bear Country, Lin Ye remained confident that its outdated aircraft could not match Bear Country’s Su-57 fighters.

• Ding Chang told Bai Tianhao to contact Lin Ye and warn him not to hand over technology if he lost the bet, but Bai said he believed Lin Ye could defeat Kim Geun-seok.
• Lin Ye left the livestream to eat while concluding that Kim’s Black Hawk aircraft were far behind Bear Country’s air force and had no air-to-air capability.
• Lin Ye reflected that Kim had chosen the easiest combat mode, but that his attack aircraft would be helpless against Bear Country’s Su-57 fighters.
• One hour into the Instance, Kim Geun-seok’s air force flew over Lake Baikal, where he and Singh saw a frozen, seemingly empty landscape.
• Kim dismissed the frozen wilderness as unfinished filler in Lin Ye’s map and took it as evidence that much of the Instance was an illusion.

Kim Geun-seok led Singh and 5,600 aircraft through Bear Country, convinced Lin Ye had built no air defenses and that he could quickly bomb Moscow. As his fleet began its attack, missiles struck the fuel tankers at the rear.

• Kim Geun-seok dismissed criticism of his plan and ordered his aircraft to fly through the blizzard toward Moscow.
• Singh agreed that Bear Country seemed to lack defenses and hoped Kim Geun-seok would bomb Moscow quickly.
• Two hours later, Kim Geun-seok's fleet neared Moscow without detecting any enemy aircraft, and he concluded that Lin Ye had no air combat units.
• Kim Geun-seok ordered his aircraft to split into three formations and attack Moscow from the east, south, and north.
• Missiles suddenly struck several fuel tankers at the back of Kim Geun-seok's fleet, setting them ablaze.

Kim Geun-seok’s fleet was ambushed by missiles from all directions, losing hundreds of aircraft before spotting any enemy planes. Firmament rejected his complaint and revealed that Bear Country’s Aerospace Forces were a permitted threat in the instance.

• Missiles destroyed a hundred fuel transport planes as Kim Geun-seok ordered his fighters to alert status and called for reconnaissance.
• A northern missile attack wiped out two squadrons and brought Kim Geun-seok’s remaining fighter count down to 5,200.
• Missiles struck from multiple directions, breaking the formation and reducing Kim Geun-seok’s force to 4,600 fighters.
• Prince Singh questioned Kim Geun-seok’s claims of certain victory while Kim accused Firmament of allowing ground-based attacks.
• Firmament ruled that the attacks complied with the instance rules and warned that Bear Country possessed a powerful air force called the Aerospace Forces.

Kim Geun-seok discovered that Lin Ye’s forces had surrounded his fleet with stealthy Su-57 fighters and ordered his aircraft to scatter and bomb Moscow instead of engaging them. The Su-57s countered with an aerial maneuver and unleashed missiles and gunfire on the challengers’ fleet.

• Kim Geun-seok saw enemy aircraft closing in from every direction and realized his fleet had been ambushed.
• Kim Geun-seok recognized that Lin Ye had equipped Bear Country with fighter jets that appeared more advanced than the Black Hawk fighters.
• The Su-57s revealed that they had tracked the fleet from beyond its reconnaissance range and attacked it with ultra-long-range air-to-air missiles.
• Kim Geun-seok ordered his 4,600 fighters to scatter, avoid dogfighting, and bomb Moscow’s main city.
• The Su-57s performed the Pendulum Maneuver and fired missiles, machine guns, and cannons at the challengers’ fleet.

Lin Ye’s Su-57s destroyed Kim Geun-seok’s fighter fleet in a missile barrage, killing Kim Geun-seok and Singh and wiping out the challengers’ aerial forces. The dungeon challenge continued because other challengers remained alive.

• The Su-57s launched tens of thousands of missiles and obliterated the challengers’ fighters in under five minutes.
• Singh cursed Kim Geun-seok as the fleet was destroyed, while Kim watched in despair from his protected helicopter.
• A missile struck Kim Geun-seok’s helicopter, killing him and Singh; Firmament announced that Kim’s mission had failed and deducted 800 points.
• Livestream viewers reacted to the defeat, while Korean commenters continued arguing over Lin Ye’s heritage and aircraft design.
• The aerial forces were wiped out, but the dungeon challenge continued because other challengers were still alive.

After Kim Geun-seok’s forces were wiped out, the remaining challengers waited at the Black House, only for Lin Ye’s prearranged stealth bombers to destroy it and kill them. The instance ended in total failure with a completion rate of 0.01%.

• The hundred challengers left behind at the Black House realized Kim Geun-seok had lost and feared the 800-point deduction as they waited for the instance to end.
• PAK-DA strategic stealth bombers appeared over Hanseong, and a Firmament notification announced that Bear Country had sent them to eliminate the remaining challengers.
• Lin Ye’s programmed response sent the bombers to attack the Black House with KH-101 stealth bombs.
• The bombs destroyed the Black House, and the remaining challengers perished or were teleported out.
• Firmament declared the mission a complete failure and reported 200 people erased, a 0% clear rate, and a 0.01% completion rate.