Chapter Summaries

Orsaga explained to Wanwan how Abyss Creatures endured hostile planes and clarified that the creatures she knew from the Demon Council were different from the powerful natives of the Bottomless Abyss. He reassured her that she and Orsaga might also be constrained by a Worldview, saying that it really could be so while he ate pages from Les Misérables.

• Orsaga described how Abyss Creatures survived harsh environments and suppression from plane consciousness.
• Wanwan asked whether Orsaga meant the Abyss Creatures ruled by the Demon Council’s Abyss Overlords and Demon Kings.
• Orsaga explained that the Demon Council’s Abyss Creatures were different from the powerful native creatures he meant, then told Wanwan to think of them as upgraded versions.
• Orsaga tore pages from Les Misérables and ate them as he consumed the newly produced world.
• Wanwan asked whether she and Orsaga might unknowingly be constrained by a Worldview like Hadi Auditore.
• Orsaga told Wanwan not to worry too much, saying it really could be that way.

Orsaga showed Wanwan books revealing that her original world was a patchwork of wuxia stories and that their current world was also depicted in a book. Wanwan recognized scenes from her past and reaffirmed her devotion to Orsaga.

• Orsaga gave Wanwan books by Huang Yi, and she read about herself and the people from her original world.
• Wanwan thanked Orsaga for saving her from her original fate and asked why her world contained more factions and powerful figures than the books described.
• Orsaga explained that her world had merged with several others and gave her more than eighty wuxia books to read.
• Wanwan asked whether their current world was also inside a book, and Orsaga showed her a book titled "Abyss Demon of All Realms."
• Orsaga showed Wanwan images of his birth and their first meeting, and Wanwan prostrated herself, saying she had never forgotten that day.

Orsaga reassured Wanwan that her world and identity were only one of countless possibilities, and urged her to overcome her fear by seeking greater power. After showing her alternate versions of herself, he explained that authors might only observe and record one possibility, leaving Wanwan to wonder why he allowed others to write about him.

• Orsaga told Wanwan that her fear of being shaped by a worldview showed a lack of confidence, and advised her to seek enough power to face the unknown.
• Orsaga said that even if Huang Yi had created Wanwan's world, she could gain enough power to confront him or make herself the author and him the character.
• Orsaga tapped Wanwan's forehead and showed her countless alternate versions of herself across different worlds and circumstances.
• Orsaga explained that authors such as the one behind The Twin Dragons of Great Tang might merely observe and record one possibility, and that countless versions of those authors also existed.
• Wanwan recovered from the strange perspective and asked Orsaga why he allowed others to record his information in a disrespectful novel.

Orsaga explained to Wanwan that people who learned his name formed connections that let his influence reach their worlds, but that recorded accounts could never capture enough information to threaten him. He then reached through screens into another time and space, dragged out an author and a reader, and killed them.

• Orsaga told Wanwan he did not care how people regarded him and that their spread of information about him benefited him.
• Orsaga explained that those who learned of his existence could form hidden connections through which his power influenced their worlds in unpredictable ways.
• Wanwan worried that enemies might learn from the books, but Orsaga said written accounts could capture only meaningless fragments of him.
• Orsaga reached through a computer screen, seized an author who updated only five hundred words a day, and crushed him to death.
• Orsaga reached through a phone screen, dragged out a reader who had complained about the author's update, and killed him.

Orsaga explained to Wanwan how authors, readers, and observers existed in layers of spacetime, then demonstrated that he could find and kill them. He ended by crushing a light dot representing one of his observers and the distant world connected to it.

• Orsaga explained that many beings lived within other beings’ thoughts and were constrained by their worldviews and limited abilities.
• Orsaga pulled authors and readers from successive layers of reality into the room, where the authors calmly accepted their deaths and piled into a mound of corpses.
• Orsaga told Wanwan that authors and readers could themselves inhabit another author’s mind-world and were not necessarily above her.
• Orsaga created a shifting model of the multiverse and explained that its light dots represented beings who had observed traces of him.
• Orsaga crushed one light dot, causing the distant world it represented to collapse, and told Wanwan that powerful beings could kill their observers.

Wan Tiancheng approached the Buddha Realm after attaining Buddhahood and climbed the Spirit Boat Gate’s lotus steps, unaware of hidden dark-red patterns and a concealed power. The gate opened for him, and he stepped inside.

• Orsaga considered how observer-written books could offer glimpses of likely futures, though interference from powerful beings made those predictions unreliable.
• Wan Tiancheng drew close to the Buddha Realm’s entrance, the Spirit Boat Gate formed from the World-Crossing Treasure Seal.
• Wan Tiancheng began climbing the scripture-covered lotus steps, which imposed increasing suppressive force as part of the Buddha Realm’s trial.
• An unseen power concealed details around the steps, where translucent dark-red patterns pulsed among the sacred scriptures.
• Wan Tiancheng reached the summit as the Spirit Boat Gate opened and walked through it.

Wan Tiancheng entered the Buddha Realm and discovered a grotesque, dangerous land where the Spirit Boat Gate had become a blood-and-flesh gate. After rescuing a fragment of a soul nailed to the gate, he faced an overwhelming attack from an immense being.

• Wan Tiancheng copied and enhanced the strength of a flying skull, then destroyed it with a slap.
• Wan Tiancheng saw that the Buddha Realm was crawling with monstrous plants and creatures, and found the Spirit Boat Gate transformed into a flesh-covered gate with a corpse nailed to it.
• A dying will from the corpse warned Wan Tiancheng to run, while a blood-colored pillar struck from the gate and his ability struggled to copy its power.
• Wan Tiancheng shattered the pillar, broke the corpse's head and one bone lance, and seized the Remnant Soul pinned there.
• The rescued Soul Fragment urged Wan Tiancheng to flee as a gigantic gray-mist finger descended and devastated the surrounding region.

Wan Tiancheng escaped the Buddha Realm through a spatial rift, only to be pursued by a giant Eye of Thunder in another world. He survived by sacrificing part of his body, while the lightning destroyed the world and the eye departed with his remaining bodily tissue.

• Wan Tiancheng fell through a rift and crashed into a mountain, then emerged from the ruins seeking answers about the Buddha Realm and his attacker.
• Feeling danger approach again, Wan Tiancheng began opening a spatial rift as a giant Eye of Thunder formed in the sky.
• The eye's red lightning caused blood-red, swastika-marked palms to emerge from the eyes of the world's inhabitants and immobilized Wan Tiancheng.
• Wan Tiancheng severed the parts of his body still outside the rift and escaped just before the lightning struck.
• The lightning pierced the planet and shattered it, while the Eye of Thunder collected Wan Tiancheng's remaining bodily tissue and left.

Wan Tiancheng escaped the force pursuing him and questioned the Buddha King’s chief disciple about the corruption of the Buddha Realm. He realized he might also be vulnerable to the unseen influence, while the Buddha King, now a monstrous survivor on the ruined Spiritual Mountain, called out to his Lord through a thread reaching Tai Huang Tian.

• Wan Tiancheng escaped the relentless pursuit after fleeing across many worlds, but felt guilt over the innocent people who had died during his flight.
• Wan Tiancheng asked the recovering Soul Fragment what had happened in the Buddha Realm, and the chief disciple traced the corruption to strange murmurs that had begun several years earlier.
• The chief disciple explained that the force had secretly corrupted nearly everyone in the Buddha Realm, including the Buddha King, without any warning.
• Wan Tiancheng connected the Buddha Realm’s corruption to his failed attempts to copy the enemy and decided to find a place to examine himself.
• The Buddha King remained the sole living creature on the ruined Spiritual Mountain and roared to his Lord through an invisible thread connected to Tai Huang Tian.

The Spider Demon remodeled the plane and scripted Wan Tiancheng and his companion’s ordeals to cultivate food for Orsaga, while worrying that the result would disappoint him. Orsaga dismissed the concern, explaining that he wanted only an entertaining specialty snack and did not expect the plane to produce anything powerful enough to strengthen him.

• The Spider Demon judged the Buddha King's food bland and continued reshaping the plane into a source of ingredients for Orsaga.
• The Spider Demon revealed that he had allowed Wan Tiancheng and the Buddha King's first disciple to escape and had prepared a convoluted script of trials to make them more delectable.
• The Spider Demon prayed to Orsaga because he worried that his finished food would not meet Orsaga's standards.
• Orsaga ignored the prayer's concern and explained that he had only hoped to make an interesting snack from the plane's unusual inhabitants and forces.
• Orsaga reflected that cultivating truly nutritious food or creating powerful demons was too costly compared with other ways to obtain results.

Orsaga watched Sigil City build another Space Door while waiting for Lady of Pain to answer his offer concerning Primal Pain. She refused the deal, and Orsaga departed peacefully, leaving the Evil Serpent to question her decision.

• A new Space Door was erected in Sigil City as Orsaga watched from a distant mountain, unable to affect the physical world through his harmless projection.
• Orsaga explained that he had come to negotiate a deal, despite his reputation and the risks of confronting the High-level Plane directly.
• After several days, Lady of Pain told Orsaga she had decided to refuse his offer.
• Orsaga calmly accepted the refusal, said he might ask again later, and withdrew his projection and will without leaving a hidden move.
• The Evil Serpent asked Lady of Pain why she had refused an offer that would remove the burden of Primal Pain in exchange for valuable compensation.

The God Above Gods and the Order Serpents discussed Orsaga’s request for Primal Pain, deciding that the outsider posed an unknown threat and should be treated cautiously. AO then proposed increasing the sparse population of their young time and space and cultivating powerful beings into gods.

• The Evil Serpent regretted that Orsaga had left and explained that he had hoped to profit from a deal with Lady of Pain.
• Lady of Pain argued that Orsaga’s desire for Primal Pain suggested it had an unknown use, but she preferred to avoid empowering a potential threat.
• AO agreed with Lady of Pain and said Orsaga’s existence seemed instinctively opposed to their time and space, suggesting they might deny him entry in the future.
• Good Serpent supported Lady of Pain and AO, urging caution toward Orsaga and other external time and spaces.
• AO proposed using special methods to grow the sparse population of mortals and Supernatural Creatures and to cultivate powerful individuals as gods, drawing on a model Lady of Pain had encountered in the Dominia Plane.

AO proposed creating Gods with divine offices to maintain the rules of spacetime, and the Order Serpents and Lady of Pain approved the plan. After Evil Serpent suggested making powerful Demons their adversaries, AO agreed to develop the idea while ensuring the Demons would remain weaker than the Gods.

• AO proposed assigning Gods divine offices, with rewards for maintaining their rules and punishment or dismissal for failing.
• The Order Serpents and Lady of Pain approved AO's plan to establish the Gods as administrators beneath them.
• Lady of Pain and Good Serpent declined seats in the Pantheon, while Good Serpent offered to divide his power into divine offices.
• Evil Serpent suggested elevating powerful Demons to challenge the Gods and expose unqualified ones.
• AO accepted the suggestion but decided the Demons would not be stronger than the Gods.

Lady of Pain wondered why gods and Demons appeared in similar roles across different time and spaces, recalling how the races she and AO created resembled but differed from those in Dominion Time and Space. She contacted Koma and Sier, the two surviving beings she had brought back, while they were building Space Doors for Sigil City.

• Lady of Pain listened to Evil Serpent and AO discuss making Demons future opponents for the gods and noticed the situation felt familiar.
• Lady of Pain recalled that the races she and the others had created existed in Dominion Time and Space too, though they differed deeply in body and soul from their local counterparts.
• Lady of Pain considered how gods and Demons in Dominion Time and Space held positions similar to the ones being established in her own time and space.
• Lady of Pain contacted Koma and Sier, who were building Space Doors for Sigil City, and they asked what she wanted.

Lady of Pain absorbed Koma and Sier’s knowledge of Dominion Time and Space but found no answers about gods and demons beyond their origins as manifestations of Five-Color Mana. Meanwhile, AO and the other God Above Gods divided the roles of gods and demons, transformed their space-time into countless worlds, and named it the Multiverse.

• Lady of Pain asked Koma and Sier for information about the peoples and races of Dominion Time and Space, and they transmitted their memories to her.
• Lady of Pain learned that Koma and Sier understood gods and demons as natural manifestations of Five-Color Mana, but their knowledge did not resolve her questions.
• AO and Evil Serpent established that gods would maintain rules and order while demons would test them by finding loopholes and causing trouble.
• The God Above Gods reshaped their space-time into countless independent worlds, each with different rules, environments, stars, and dimensions.
• The God Above Gods felt their power increase as the transformed space-time seemed to reward their work.
• Lady of Pain suggested naming their space-time the Multiverse, and AO and the Order Serpents agreed.

AO and the other God Above Gods reshaped the space-time, establishing the Outlands, Infinite Peak, and Elemental Realms, then created divine offices and alternate identities for themselves. After several days, the Order Serpents and AO departed, while Lady of Pain remained in the Outlands to build Sigil City.

• AO gathered the worlds around Sigil City, named the region the Outlands, and raised Infinite Peak beneath the city.
• AO formed Elemental Realms to stabilize elemental energy and appointed primordial lifeforms as Elemental Gods.
• The Good Serpent created Seven-Layered Heaven, and the Evil Serpent created Nine-Layered Hell beside the Bottomless Abyss.
• AO proposed automatic divine offices, and the God Above Gods agreed to create special treasures and lifeforms as their alternate identities across the worlds.
• The Order Serpents departed to coil around and sustain space-time, and AO returned to his Pantheon to repair its rules.
• Lady of Pain stayed in the Outlands and continued constructing Sigil City as space-time completed its second creation.

Orsaga discussed his failed attempt to trade with Lady of Pain and planned to wait for curiosity and time to make her group more receptive to future deals. He assessed their strength as manageable but not worth fighting, leaving him intent on pursuing profitable trades instead.

• Orsaga told Golanel that Lady of Pain had decisively refused his deal, but said he had expected it.
• Orsaga explained that he would wait for curiosity and the passage of time to make the group try new things and become open to trading.
• Orsaga judged the group to be newly born and weaker than the old Chaos Gods, though strong enough that defeating them would bring little profit.
• Orsaga said he had abandoned plans to attack them and preferred to trade with them, but his race was on the plane consciousness's blacklist and Lady of Pain had witnessed him destroying worlds.

Orsaga discussed with Golanel whether to reverse time and space to change the birth of beings in a High-level Plane, but concluded the enormous cost would slow his growth. The chapter left him intent on waiting until he was stronger, while Golanel observed how his infinite energy continually expanded Crimson Heaven.

• Golanel teased Orsaga over his rare dilemma and listened as he regretted not meeting the beings sooner.
• Golanel warned that using Sole Dominator to alter reality and reverse the plane's history would likely cost more than it gained.
• Orsaga agreed that the plan would be a losing proposition and said cultivating a High-level Plane from scratch would be more practical.
• Golanel explained that an abyss lord's infinite energy continuously increased their power, making a costly temporal intervention a delay to that growth.
• Golanel inferred Orsaga's automatic growth from Crimson Heaven's rapidly expanding territory and increasingly stable internal space and time.

Golanel learned that Orsaga's immortality made him nearly impossible to kill, while his quiet work collecting abundant negative energy kept him from attracting enemies. Orsaga remained content with a peaceful life in the Bottomless Abyss.

• Golanel asked Orsaga about the differences between Great Demons, Abyss Lords, and Abyss Princes, but struggled to understand his explanations.
• Orsaga's countless revival points and automatic return to full strength meant that only the Abyssal Will had ever been able to kill him outright.
• Orsaga explained that even Abyss Princes could only slowly wear him down or imprison him, so he generally avoided provoking them.
• Orsaga spent most of his time gathering negative emotions and energy, which powerful beings considered too abundant to fight over.
• Orsaga's collectors moved on calmly when driven from other territories, helping him maintain a peaceful life with few enemies.

Orsaga amused himself by making creatures fight in a plane, then received an invitation from Mersaid to meet at the Eternal Obelisk. He chose to finish grilling and eating with his companions before responding, leaving the meeting for later.

• Allison joined Orsaga and Golanel, and Orsaga explained that he was raising creatures to fight and planned to send an avatar to talk with people from his old world.
• Orsaga's avatar on Blue Star abruptly became eager to get to work, bewildering Wanwan.
• Several days later, Mersaid invited Orsaga to the Eternal Obelisk to discuss something face-to-face.
• Golanel and the others questioned why Orsaga did not send an avatar, but he insisted they eat first because Mersaid was the one seeking him out.