Chapter Summaries

Li Yue and Nahida began using Illusions to expose corruption within the Akademiya and recruit useful scholars, starting with Alhaitham. After a staged murder accusation led Cyno to arrest Alhaitham, Alhaitham resisted, and the two clashed outside a café.

• Li Yue told Nahida to create problems within the Akademiya using Illusions so its corrupt members would reveal themselves and useful people might join them willingly.
• Li Yue and Nahida targeted Alhaitham, but he noticed them following him and led them into an alley, where they vanished.
• Cyno received a recording and witness testimony accusing Alhaitham of murdering a scholar, then found him at a café.
• Cyno tried to arrest Alhaitham, who blocked Cyno’s spear with his sword and refused to surrender.
• Cyno rushed in to restrain Alhaitham but could not move his arm.

Li Yue manipulated events to make Cyno hunt Alhaitham, then approached him while he tried to return to Sumeru City in disguise. After revealing his ability to imitate Alhaitham and stealing his Akasha Terminal, Li Yue said he had chosen Alhaitham because he needed people to help him oppose the Akademiya’s rule.

• Alhaitham fought Cyno, escaped by diving into the harbor, and evaded the search along the shore.
• Li Yue explained to Nahida how Alhaitham’s escape suggested he was not part of the Akademiya’s dark faction, while Cyno still needed to be tested.
• Alhaitham disguised himself as a Fatui mercenary named Aisen and headed back toward Sumeru City to investigate why Cyno had sought his arrest.
• Li Yue and Nahida stopped Alhaitham, and Li Yue introduced himself as Aizen Sousuke, who sought the Throne of Heaven.
• Li Yue transformed into Alhaitham and revealed that he had used Alhaitham’s appearance and weapon to frame him, then showed that he had stolen Alhaitham’s Akasha Terminal.
• Li Yue told Alhaitham he needed people to help him because he believed the Akademiya’s rule was rotten and could not lead Sumeru into the future.

Li Yue recruited Alhaitham by threatening that Sumeru might be destroyed, and Alhaitham went undercover as the desert mercenary Aisen. Meanwhile, Cyno incorrectly deduced that Alhaitham was fleeing to the desert and set off to intercept him at Caravan Ribat.

• Li Yue argued that Sumeru had no true Dendro Archon and convinced Alhaitham to get involved by warning that Sumeru could be destroyed.
• After Alhaitham tried to overpower Li Yue and Nahida, their control of trees defeated him, and he agreed to join them under the identity of Aisen.
• Li Yue said he intended to become Sumeru's god or destroy Sumeru, and he proposed recruiting Cyno to help govern the nation.
• Cyno investigated the vanished corpse and Alhaitham's flight, then deduced that Alhaitham was a desert mercenary returning to his group.
• Cyno assigned work to the Disciplinary Officers and left Sumeru City for Caravan Ribat to capture Alhaitham.

Li Yue, disguised as Cyno, killed Grand Sage Azar in an illusion-framed assassination that implicated both Cyno and Alhaitham. The pair escaped through a Portal, while Sumeru’s remaining Sages took over the Akademiya and worried about whether their secret plan could continue.

• Li Yue entered the Akademiya disguised as Cyno, bringing Alhaitham disguised as a desert mercenary, and attacked Azar after Alhaitham failed to stop him.
• Li Yue’s illusion made Alhaitham believe Azar had escaped, but Azar was actually dead with Cyno’s spear and Alhaitham’s sword wounds in his chest.
• Azar’s assistant saw the corpse and raised the alarm, while Li Yue revealed his true appearance and opened a Portal for himself and Alhaitham to escape.
• The Akademiya identified Cyno and Alhaitham as Azar’s killers, and the news spread through Sumeru City as the two disappeared.
• The remaining Sages assumed control of the Akademiya and debated the assassination, their secret plan, and whether it could continue.

Dottore took control of Sumeru’s sages and prepared Scaramouche to ascend to godhood using the Electro Gnosis. Meanwhile, Li Yue set plans in motion against Cyno and Alhaitham, but Cyno’s investigation at Caravan Ribat uncovered a desert leader’s ambitions to unite the tribes and attack the rainforest, leaving him confronting two mercenaries for answers.

• Dottore seized control of the sages after Azar’s death and continued the god-creation plan, with Scaramouche as its intended subject.
• Scaramouche took the Electro Gnosis from La Signora after beating her, while the Doctor prepared a divine body and planned his ascension.
• Li Yue sent Disciplinary Officers to arrest Cyno and directed Nahida to seek out Tighnari at Gandharva Ville.
• Cyno waited at Caravan Ribat for Alhaitham, then overheard desert mercenaries claim that Sumeru had no Dendro Archon and that a leader planned to unite the desert tribes.
• Cyno confronted the mercenaries with his Staff of Scarlet Sands and demanded that they tell him everything they knew.

Cyno learned that Alhaitham was in the desert with a powerful man called Aizen Sousuke, who planned to unite the desert and rainforest, and set off to capture him. Meanwhile, Li Yue, calling himself Aizen Sousuke, defeated a rival tribe and secured its allegiance, while Alhaitham remained baffled by Li Yue’s power and plans.

• Cyno interrogated a desert mercenary, learned that Alhaitham was traveling with a lord who intended to unite Sumeru, and took the captives to the Fatui before heading into the desert.
• Li Yue revealed that he had taken control of Chief Camus’s tribe and challenged a neighboring tribe to an annexation battle alone.
• Li Yue stopped Kasa’s blade with one finger, broke it, and killed Kasa before defeating two more warriors who attacked him.
• Li Yue restrained the opposing tribe with his power, forced its chief to surrender, and persuaded the tribe to pledge allegiance to him.
• Alhaitham watched Li Yue’s victory and wondered why he pursued unifying the desert instead of taking control of the Akademiya.

Li Yue led Camus’s growing tribe to challenge the Tanit tribe, whose elders agreed to settle the annexation through a contest of strength. Li Yue defeated the Tanit tribe’s falcons, leaving the elders stunned.

• Li Yue led Camus’s tribe to annex nine tribes in two days, turning it into a major desert power.
• Li Yue marched toward the Tanit tribe, drawing smaller tribes that followed to watch.
• Babel gathered the Tanit tribe’s nine elders and warned them about Li Yue’s strength and his tribe’s demand to annex them.
• The Tanit elders argued over who would represent their absent matriarch while Camus mocked them and laid out Li Yue’s challenge.
• The Tanit elders accepted the challenge, but Li Yue defeated their fighters and falcons, leaving only himself standing.

Li Yue, posing as Aizen, annexed the desert tribes and built a vast oasis city, convincing many that he was their new god. As Cyno infiltrated the unified tribes to investigate him, he heard the mercenaries celebrate Aizen and talk of conquering the rainforest.

• Li Yue forced Babel and the Tanit tribe to submit, then annexed the surrounding desert tribes over the following week.
• Li Yue built a huge covered city beside an oasis and filled it with trees, turning it into a refuge for the desert people.
• Cyno disguised himself as a mercenary and infiltrated Li Yue’s tens-of-thousands-strong tribe to learn about Aizen and Alhaitham.
• Cyno joined a crowd listening to Camus tell how Aizen had united the desert for its people.
• The mercenaries praised Aizen’s conquests and began claiming he would lead them to conquer the rainforest.

Cyno learned that Las Noches believed the Lesser Kusanali never existed, while Alhaitham worried that Li Yue planned to conquer Sumeru and prepared desert warriors for his next order. Alhaitham revealed that Cyno had been framed for Azar’s murder, then a second Cyno appeared and challenged him to a bad joke contest.

• Cyno questioned Chief Camus, who claimed the Lesser Kusanali had never existed and said Li Yue would unite all of Sumeru under his rule.
• Alhaitham considered Li Yue’s power and the desert’s military advantage over the rainforest as clan chiefs gathered warriors for a coming campaign.
• Alhaitham discovered Cyno following the clan chiefs and told him that Sumeru City believed he had killed Grand Sage Azar and fled.
• Alhaitham explained that he and Cyno had both been framed, and another Cyno appeared and admitted to framing him.
• The two Cynos traded bad jokes, leaving Alhaitham to question why they had started a joke contest.

Cyno rejected Li Yue’s invitation to join the desert tribe, while Lumine and Paimon arrived in Sumeru seeking answers about Khaenri’ah and the Dendro Archon. They learned the Akademiya was in turmoil after the Grand Sage’s assassination and that war between the desert and rainforest was about to begin.

• Cyno lost a cold-joke contest with Li Yue, who revealed his Aizen disguise and invited Cyno to join the desert tribe; Cyno refused but was allowed to stay.
• Lumine and Paimon traveled to Sumeru after Lumine failed to get answers about the events five hundred years ago from the other Archons.
• At Gandharva Ville, Lumine and Paimon met Tighnari, Collei, and Momo Hinamori before heading to Sumeru City.
• An Akademiya student denied Lumine’s request to meet the Dendro Archon, explaining that the Grand Sage had been assassinated and the sages were managing the resulting turmoil.
• Katarina told Lumine and Paimon that adventurer commissions were unavailable because the desert was preparing an all-out war against the rainforest.

Lumine and Paimon accepted a private guard commission as Sumeru prepared for war with a desert united under the new god Aizen Sousuke. Dottore headed toward Las Noches to investigate Aizen, then watched Li Yue lead an army toward Caravan Ribat and wrongly concluded that Cyno and Alhaitham had secretly helped create a god.

• Katarina told Lumine and Paimon that a new desert god had united the tribes and that a war with the rainforest was approaching.
• Katarina offered Lumine and Paimon a long-term private commission guarding a wealthy merchant's daughter, and they accepted.
• Dottore questioned the Akademiya sages about Aizen Sousuke, then sent a younger segment into the desert to investigate him.
• Dottore traveled toward Las Noches, believing Aizen had been created to claim Sumeru's vacant divine throne after Nahida left.
• Li Yue gathered tens of thousands of desert warriors and led an elite force of more than ten thousand toward Caravan Ribat.
• Dottore secretly observed Cyno and Alhaitham marching at the army's front and mistakenly inferred that they had conspired to create Aizen and arrange Azar's death.

Li Yue killed Doctor’s young segment and led the desert army to seize Caravan Ribat before advancing on Sumeru City. With the army at the city gates, Doctor’s peak segment rushed to complete The True God so Scaramouche could oppose Aizen.

• Li Yue confronted Doctor’s young segment in the desert, pinned him down with Reiatsu, and destroyed his consciousness.
• Li Yue’s army reached Caravan Ribat, where the Fatui turned on the defenders and the Thirty-Three Group surrendered.
• The desert army took Caravan Ribat and marched toward Sumeru City, while Doctor’s peak segment learned of Aizen through the Doctor Network.
• Doctor ordered the Akademiya to accelerate The True God’s creation, hoping Scaramouche could fight Aizen.
• After two days of forced marching, the desert army arrived outside Sumeru City, and the sages argued with the mercenaries over Caravan Ribat’s fall.

The Akademiya completed Scaramouche’s transformation into the god called the True God, who appeared above Sumeru City to face the desert army. Li Yue summoned Takemikazuchi and struck the True God, leaving Scaramouche furious and demanding to know how Li Yue possessed Beelzebul’s power.

• The Sages returned to the Akademiya and urged Dottore to hurry as the desert army waited outside Sumeru City, but Dottore said the opposing god was waiting for their god to appear.
• The Akademiya shook as Scaramouche completed his ascension, and his giant purple mech emerged above Sumeru City, declaring that he had become a god.
• Aether, Paimon, Dianazade, and Dehya watched the mech and wondered what it was, while Dehya shared rumors that a new god had appeared in the desert.
• Scaramouche, now calling himself the True God, mocked Li Yue as a mortal, and Li Yue summoned the Electro giant Takemikazuchi in response.
• Li Yue attacked the True God with Takemikazuchi’s lightning blade, knocking Scaramouche backward and damaging the mech’s arms.
• Scaramouche demanded to know why Li Yue possessed Beelzebul’s power, then vowed to show the full strength of a god.

Li Yue defeated Scaramouche and The True God in the battle above Sumeru City, while Nahida and the Forest Rangers protected the city from the resulting flood. Scaramouche realized Li Yue had deceived him about the Dendro Archon, and the chapter left the desert mercenaries celebrating as Sumeru's sages confronted Dottore.

• Li Yue turned Scaramouche's blizzard against The True God, but Scaramouche used Lightning Shift to seize and seemingly crush him.
• Li Yue survived, struck The True God with a Blade of Lightning, and decapitated it with Takemikazuchi.
• Nahida, Tighnari, Collei, and the Forest Rangers watched from Sumeru City as Nahida grew trees to stop the flood caused by The True God's fall.
• Li Yue crushed The True God's head, took the Electro Gnosis, and mocked Scaramouche for relying on it.
• Li Yue revealed that Scaramouche had mistaken him for Aizen and questioned when Scaramouche had decided the Dendro Archon was still alive.
• The desert mercenaries celebrated The True God's defeat, while the Akademiya sages asked Dottore for help and he disclaimed responsibility for their god's weakness.

Dottore abandoned the Akademiya as the desert army entered Sumeru City, where Li Yue revealed that he had gathered its people as materials for creating a Philosopher’s Stone. Nahida interrupted the transmutation and appeared as Sumeru’s Dendro Archon, becoming the city’s last hope.

• Dottore paralyzed the sages, left the Akademiya, and wondered about Aizen’s motives while considering whether to cooperate with him.
• The desert army charged into Sumeru City, but Li Yue pinned both its residents and the invading mercenaries to the ground with his power.
• Li Yue explained that he had used the conquest of Sumeru to gather people for human transmutation and began activating a crimson alchemical ring around the city.
• A tree broke the ring’s formation, and Nahida appeared, identified herself as Sumeru’s Dendro Archon, and refused to let Li Yue proceed.

Nahida confronted Aizen to protect Sumeru after he revealed how its people had rejected and forgotten her and Rukkhadevata. Outside Sumeru City, she summoned a giant Wood Person to fight Takemikazuchi, and the battle began with Aizen launching a second attack.

• Aizen told Sumeru's people that desert tribes had blamed Rukkhadevata for King Deshret's death and that the Akademiya had imprisoned Nahida for five hundred years.
• Earlier, Nahida failed to free Tighnari, Collei, and the others from Aizen's control, but she destroyed the alchemical array and resolved to confront him.
• Nahida declared that she would protect her people despite their past rejection, and Aizen agreed to fight her outside Sumeru City.
• Nahida summoned a giant Wood Person nearly as tall as Takemikazuchi, drawing surprise from the people of Sumeru and the Doctor.
• Takemikazuchi swung its Blade of Lightning, and the Wood Person caught it between its hands before Takemikazuchi formed another blade and attacked again.

Nahida fought Aizen with her Wood Person and Wood Dragons, then used a Wood Clone and a hidden wooden spike to pierce and seemingly destroy him. Sumeru’s people celebrated Nahida’s victory as the battle’s pressure lifted.

• Nahida used Wood Dragons and regenerated the Wood Person’s hands to withstand Aizen’s lightning attacks, then trapped Takemikazuchi with eight dragons.
• Nahida entangled Takemikazuchi and struck its head, but its lightning storm badly damaged the Wood Person.
• Aizen appeared behind Nahida and pierced her, but the body he struck was a Wood Clone created during the headbutt.
• Nahida revealed a wooden spike embedded in Aizen, which sprouted into branches that pierced and burst his body apart.
• Sumeru’s residents celebrated Nahida’s apparent victory, while Alhaitham and Cyno reflected on their recent time in the desert.

Aizen returned after Nahida defeated him, seized her, and began a human transmutation experiment that threatened all of Sumeru City. Nahida stopped him by threatening to summon the Heavenly Principles through her own death, and Aizen departed after revealing his ambition to stand above the heavens, leaving Dottore intrigued and Lumine and Paimon uneasy.

• Alhaitham and Cyno worried that their roles in Aizen’s campaign had made them wanted criminals and left them unable to clear their names.
• Aizen reappeared unharmed, seized Nahida, cut the Wood Person and Wood Dragon apart, and activated a transmutation circle around Sumeru City.
• Nahida threatened to sacrifice herself and alert the Heavenly Principles, forcing Aizen to stop his experiment and release her.
• Aizen said he sought a higher realm and intended to stand above the heavens before leaving through a spatial gate.
• The people of Sumeru celebrated Nahida’s rescue, while Dottore admired Aizen’s ambition and Lumine and Paimon remained troubled.

Nahida reclaimed her authority as Sumeru’s Archon and led the city’s recovery while Alhaitham and Cyno helped restore order. Alhaitham learned that Aizen and Hinagiku had secretly arranged to make him acting Grand Sage as part of their plan to control Sumeru.

• Nahida was welcomed as Sumeru’s Dendro Archon, cleared Alhaitham and Cyno’s names, and assigned them to pacify the desert people and Akademiya.
• Nahida summoned the Millelith to secure Sumeru City as Li Yue’s plan helped bring the desert tribes under her influence.
• Cyno took control of the Akademiya, while Alhaitham secured Caravan Ribat and returned to Sumeru City after a week of work.
• Cyno told Alhaitham that Nahida intended to appoint him Grand Sage, and Alhaitham headed to the Sanctimonious Palace to refuse.
• Alhaitham overheard Aizen and Hinagiku discussing their plan to make him acting Grand Sage, then recognized Hinagiku as Momo Hinamori.

Li Yue manipulated Alhaitham into accepting the position of Grand Sage, then learned that a real Touma Kazusa had reported Kashiwagi Eri’s novel after it sparked rumors at school. He went to help Eriri, and the chapter ended as she met with editor Machida Sonoko.

• Alhaitham suspected that Aizen and Momo Hinamori were impersonating the Dendro Archon and decided to become Grand Sage to investigate them.
• So Arrogant told the Chat Group that he had joined the Witch Cult as the Archbishop of Pride and taken control of the Archbishop of Sloth.
• Li Yue revealed that Alhaitham had accepted the Grand Sage position because he believed Nahida was an impostor he could monitor.
• Kasumigaoka told Li Yue that Touma Kazusa’s mother had reported Kashiwagi Eri’s novel, which had fueled rumors about Kazusa, Ogiso Setsuna, and Kitahara Haruki.
• Li Yue traveled to Kasumigaoka’s world, reassured Eriri by phone, and went with her to meet editor Machida Sonoko.