Chapter Summaries

Moria defeated the shadow possessing Old Sem, but Wilson escaped into the blood-filled cup and emerged stronger. Li Wen used Craving Light on him as Xion and the others moved to stop him, while Wilson split his soul between two bodies and attacked.

• The shadow beneath Old Sem disappeared after Moria challenged it, and Old Sem’s corpse collapsed as Moria began coughing black blood.
• Wilson split off a piece of his flesh, escaped into the cup, and drank its blood before emerging as a small figure made of living flesh.
• Li Wen told Xion to deal with Wilson, and Wilson declared that he would use their corpses as fuel.
• Li Wen sent a gray moth from her shadow into Wilson’s eye with Craving Light.
• Wilson controlled a second body and attacked Li Wen, but Xion struck that body down while Wilson’s blood spears pierced it instead of Xion.
• Wilson’s whip split Li Lin in two, then he attacked a crowd of illusory Takes while the others prepared to act.

Wilson used chaos to make the banquet guests attack one another, but Moria’s Rite of Adherence freed and healed the survivors before he collapsed. As Li Wen tended to Moria, Wilson consumed the dead’s blood and transformed further, leaving Xion’s team facing the still-growing threat.

• Wilson unleashed high-level chaos, causing everyone except Take, Xion, and Moria to attack those around them.
• Wilson’s re-forming second body wounded Xion, while Moria struggled against a curse that made his prayers inflict severe backlash.
• Moria completed the Rite of Adherence, dispelling the chaos and healing the hall, but one person had already died and Moria collapsed.
• Li Wen used Prayer Incantation and Divine Prayer to keep the dying Moria alive.
• Wilson drank the newly produced blood, grew a pale, perfected body, and set the hall ablaze while vowing to kill the survivors.
• Xion destroyed Wilson’s second body and regrouped with his team as a teammate suggested retreating to seek reinforcements.

Xion and the surviving players faced Wilson as the boss grew stronger with every death, but Li Lin noticed powerful buffs on Take that might give them a chance. Wilson summoned a horde of dwarves, and Xion sacrificed his life force to attack it with the Candle of Cherished Light; Wilson responded by creating a stone copy of the candle.

• Xion told his teammates that teleportation scrolls would not work and planned to use the Candle of Cherished Light against Wilson while the others sought an escape.
• Take retreated to protect Li Lin as he pointed out the powerful buffs on her status panel, including one that limited damage she took.
• Wilson summoned chained dwarves through a gate and ordered them to attack the remaining players.
• Take fought at the front while Li Lin warned that the dwarves resisted control effects, and Xion lit the candle and burned through the horde.
• Xion charged toward Wilson, which used Sculptor to create a stone candle that looked like the original but could not produce the same flame.

Xion and Li Wen overwhelmed Wilson, whose craving for light left it helpless as the manor hall lay in ruins. Li Wen set Wilson ablaze and revealed that she had destroyed its backup Rebirth Ritual, leaving it to beg for its life.

• Xion struck Wilson with Judgment Strike and hurled the candle flames at it, causing a blast that devastated the hall and killed many gnomes.
• The explosion extinguished nearly all the fires, and Wilson panicked under Craving Light, repeatedly tearing at its flesh in a futile attempt to escape its yearning for light.
• Li Wen used Spell-less Arc Light to slash Wilson's neck, and the light ignited its body in flames that would burn until it died.
• Wilson claimed that its Rebirth Ritual could save it, but Li Wen revealed that she had found and destroyed the ritual in another room.
• Wilson lost hope and begged Li Wen to spare it, offering her the Wilson family...

Li Wen killed Wilson, ending the Crimson Feast before it could benefit Take. Afterward, Xion learned that Li Wen’s Radiance spell matched the traces at Ake Town’s burned church, raising the terrifying possibility that a trusted Ritual Priest was a Dark Dawn mole.

• Li Wen refused Wilson’s offer, severed his reaching hand, and killed him with a Divine Strike, leaving only ashes.
• Li Lin explained that Wilson’s Crimson Feast ritual had been meant to let Take gain Wilson’s fruit, but Wilson’s death ended it; he admitted the plan had gone wrong.
• Xion’s team gathered around him after the Candle of Cherished Light left him aged and depleted of spirituality, and he decided to relinquish his captaincy.
• A team member told Xion that Li Wen’s spell signature matched the Radiance traces at the Ake Town church, where the team had believed Pastor Mog died.
• Xion realized that Li Wen might be a Dark Dawn mole and that someone had used curses and infernal fire at the church.

After the Crimson Feast collapsed, Li Wen declined Xion’s request to assist the Kingdom Investigation Bureau and agreed to travel to Canaan with Moria instead. Halik and Nasha then led everyone outside, where they discovered the mansion’s butler had been dead all along.

• Xion apologized for the dead players, introduced himself as Derek Xu En, and asked Li Wen to come to the Royal Capital to answer questions about her conflict with Dark Dawn.
• Moria identified himself as a member of the Holy Temple and refused the invitation on Li Wen’s behalf, saying he had to take her to the Holy Temple.
• Li Wen agreed that she needed to go to Canaan with Moria, since the Holy Temple guarded the Pilgrimage Road and the original of the Radiance Spectrum.
• Xion accepted their refusal and decided he could cite the Holy Temple’s involvement to his superiors.
• Halik and Nasha rushed back into the hall and led everyone outside, where they found the mansion’s corridor decayed and the butler’s corpse lying in the dust.

Li Wen left Wilson's ruined manor after learning that the villagers' bodies could not be found and the adjutant was already dead. Back at the tavern, she prepared to travel to Leicester with Moria as Granny Marsha revealed why she had helped kill Wilson and gave Li Wen her treasure pouch.

• Li Wen and the others saw that Wilson's lavish manor had been an illusion concealing a rotten, abandoned building.
• Li Wen told Xion that villagers' bodies were buried beneath the manor and that a survivor might be in its basement.
• Xion searched the manor, found no villagers' bodies, and reported that the adjutant had been dead for at least half a year.
• Li Wen returned to the tavern and decided to travel to Leicester with Moria to pursue the Original Text of Lineage.
• Granny Marsha gave Li Wen her treasure pouch and began recounting her old connection to Wilson.

Li Wen learned that the Ghost Fairy had been imprisoned in the Fey Market and watched it leave. She traveled toward Leicester City with Moria, questioned her about Light Chasing, and proposed hitching a ride on Taranis Sky Continent, leaving Moria surprised by her knowledge.

• Li Wen asked why Granny Marsha had not saved Petri or stopped Young Wilson, and the Ghost Fairy revealed that the Fey Market was a cage imprisoning it.
• The Ghost Fairy transformed into a raven and flew away after suggesting they might meet again in the North.
• Xion arranged a carriage for Moria and her companions, and Moria set off with Li Wen toward Leicester City.
• Li Wen asked Moria about Light Chasing, and Moria explained that she had been told to bring its practitioners back to the Holy Temple.
• Li Wen proposed using the Circle of White Birds Society's Taranis Sky Continent to reach Leicester City faster, surprising Moria with her knowledge of its route.

Li Wen used a ritual to contact the Circle of White Birds Society and secure passage to Talanis on the Floating Island. A Society mage arrived to take her and her companions there, but the chapter ended before he revealed how they would travel.

• Li Wen and Moria agreed that reaching Black Dragon Territory on the Floating Island would be faster, but they needed a mage with a Directional Teleportation Array to take them aboard.
• Li Wen rented an inn room and performed a ritual to send a letter addressed to Lady Ruby Marimana on the Taranis Sky Continent.
• A cyan-robed mage on the Floating Island received Li Wen's unauthorized letter and found the Circle of White Birds Society emblem and her request for delivery to Lady Ruby Marimana.
• A tall mage from the Circle of White Birds Society arrived at the inn and said he had been ordered to take Li Wen to Talanis.
• Li Wen gathered Moria and the two Wild Mages, and the group told the Society mage they were ready to leave.

Li Wen and the Wild Mages arrived on Taranis Sky Continent, where Marymana received them in her Mage Tower and questioned Li Wen about her supposed teacher, Miranda Atlin. Li Wen used her knowledge of Miranda and Marymana’s friendship to maintain the deception, and Marymana began reminiscing about their past.

• Li Wen activated the teleportation scroll and arrived with the Wild Mages on Taranis Sky Continent.
• Marymana questioned Mephisto about how she had delivered the unauthorized letter, and Li Wen claimed Miranda Atlin had taught her how.
• Marymana brought Li Wen and her companions into her Mage Tower and asked how Miranda was doing.
• Li Wen said Miranda had gone to another continent half a year earlier to advance and had not returned, while Marymana worried about the ritual.
• Li Wen claimed Miranda had accepted her as an apprentice because she was serious about reading, and Marymana laughed and recalled their friendship.

Li Wen met Marymana aboard Talanis and offered to solve the problem she had been investigating, while refusing Marymana’s offer to teach her and insisting that her group would leave at the next stop. Marymana provided rooms for Li Wen and her companions, and Li Wen waited in her room after they went to explore the floating island.

• Marymana welcomed Li Wen as Miranda’s apprentice and offered to teach her magic, but Li Wen declined and said her group would leave at the next stop.
• Li Wen told Marymana she could help with the search for someone skilled in rituals and Array Studies, explaining that she had learned of the need through a Hollow Forest Cabin bounty.
• Li Wen introduced Moria, Halik, and Nasha to Marymana, who assessed the group and found Moria difficult to read.
• Marymana arranged rooms in the tower and offered to have Golems show the visitors around Talanis.
• Halik and Nasha went to explore the floating island with Moria, while Li Wen stayed in her room and answered a knock at the door.

Li Wen demonstrated her array expertise to Marymana, who took her to an Array Core beneath Talanis and asked her to find errors in a damaged Magic Power Nexus component. Li Wen agreed, but questioned Marymana’s trust in her as the chapter ended.

• Marymana tested Li Wen by sealing her in a barrier array, and Li Wen broke it by disrupting its magic flow with the Crow Feather Dagger.
• Marymana brought Li Wen to an Array Core beneath Talanis and showed her a tiny crystal component covered in Magic Script.
• Marymana explained that the crystal’s array patterns had stopped working and asked Li Wen to identify the errors.
• Li Wen said she could find the problem, then questioned whether Marymana truly trusted her with a component whose destruction could endanger Taranis Sky Continent.

Li Wen agreed to search Talanis’s Array Core for a fault while Moria and his companions explored the Floating Island. Marymana then discussed Li Wen with her teacher Goodmel Heron, whose reassurance about the missing Upper Labyrinth key was cut off.

• Li Wen accepted Marymana’s offer of Mage Tower authority and estimated that she could find the array problem within two days.
• Moria admired Talanis’s protective barrier while Halik and Nasha discussed its famous residents and history.
• Moria reminded the others that they would leave for Leicester the next day, where he planned to hand over the Wild Mages and return the girl with the Path of Light Chasing to the temple.
• Goodmel Heron asked Marymana whether a magical problem troubled her, and she told him Li Wen might meet the requirements for a task.
• Marymana worried that the Arcane Academy had lost the Upper Labyrinth key and that The Truth Society might have obtained it, but Goodmel assured her the key would never reach them.

Li Wen deciphered the Minotaur Crystal Fragment’s array and used the work to delay joining Moria in Leicester. After Taranis Sky Continent arrived, she finished her analysis and asked Marymana for a Magic Map of Leicester so she could prepare for advancement on her own.

• Marymana warned that the key must never fall into The Truth Society’s hands, while Marymana resolved to have Li Wen keep studying the Minotaur Crystal Fragment.
• Li Wen identified the crystal’s Original Array and realized it powered a complex seal or a gate meant to bar entry.
• Marymana told Li Wen that Talanis had arrived at Leicester and that her companions were waiting, but Li Wen asked them to leave without her.
• With Marymana’s support, Moria left for Leicester and told Li Wen to meet him at Leicester Gospel Cathedral, though Li Wen planned to avoid him.
• On the night Taranis Sky Continent arrived in Leicester, Li Wen completed a blueprint of the array’s problematic sections and requested a Magic Map as her reward.
• Marymana agreed to provide the map after Li Wen said she intended to prepare for advancement to Stage Two on her own.

Li Wen left Talanis with Marymana and arrived in Leicester, where she refused to go with her to the local Magic Society. Meanwhile, cleaner Edward Harriman was hired by a mysterious stranger to find a powerful Transcendent carrying a black package at Black Raven Port.

• Marymana teleported Li Wen to Leicester and offered to teach her magic, but Li Wen declined to accompany her to Artificer's Hand.
• Marymana told Li Wen she could summon her from a marked spot in Leicester while Talanis remained nearby, and Li Wen walked alone into the city.
• Edward Harriman reflected on his work as a cleaner and the outsiders who had appeared in Leicester after Ironblood Flint's death.
• A tall, shadowy stranger asked Edward to find a powerful unknown Transcendent expected at Black Raven Port around three in the morning the day after tomorrow and bring back his black package.

Edward accepted a dangerous-sounding job to retrieve an item from Black Raven Port in exchange for one thousand gold pounds, driven by his sick daughter’s need for treatment. Meanwhile, Li Wen planned to use a trusted local contact to infiltrate the Wolf Pack Club and gain an advantage in Leicester’s coming treasure hunt.

• A hooded man gave Edward a strange badge and asked him to deliver it to someone at the Investigation Bureau’s port.
• The man offered Edward one thousand gold pounds to retrieve an item, and Edward accepted after thinking of his ill daughter and threatened job.
• Li Wen studied a map of Leicester and identified Black Raven Port as the likely site of the coming treasure hunt.
• Li Wen considered Leicester’s major Transcendent factions and decided the Wolf Pack Club would be the easiest to infiltrate, though its leader was dangerous.
• Li Wen chose the Logistics Department Head, a trusted local from the former Strategy Group, as her prospective contact, despite worrying that approaching her could alter fate.

Bai Lu joined a random party hunting wanted criminal Bernard Cross, but she suspected the target was supernatural after he fled the ruined house. She realized his escape was a diversion and raced back, arriving too late to find the party members gone.

• Bai Lu listened distractedly as the party leader explained their quest to capture or kill Bernard Cross and claim the reward at City Hall.
• Bai Lu smelled blood at Bernard Cross's ruined house and saw a figure smash through a window and flee.
• Bai Lu cast Swiftness and pursued the figure, realizing from his beastlike form and impossible speed that he was probably supernatural.
• Bai Lu realized the fugitive had used her group's presence as a diversion and raced back to their original position.
• Bai Lu found only bloodstains washed by the rain, with the other players gone, as heavy footsteps sounded behind her.

Bai Lu was ambushed by a wanted criminal transformed by the Cold Blood potion, while Li Wen watched from above and explained the drug’s effects. When the criminal attacked again, Bai Lu used spells to stop and injure him, but she remained in grave danger as he pressed his assault.

• Bai Lu warned the pickup group leader that their team had been lured into a diversion and that the others were probably dead.
• The wanted criminal ambushed Bai Lu, leaving her with only fourteen percent health, and Li Wen appeared above her in the Emerald Star Cloak.
• Li Wen explained that Cold Blood caused addiction and hallucinations, but in excessive amounts could turn users into powerful, beastlike attackers.
• Li Wen refused to intervene and left Bai Lu to fight the wanted criminal alone.
• Bai Lu stopped the criminal’s pounce with Stiffening Technique, struck him with Pain Lash, and then narrowly evaded his next attack.
• The wounded criminal lunged at Bai Lu again before she could cast another spell, leaving her in immediate danger.

Li Wen recruited Bai Lu to help with a task and led her to the Wolf Pack Club, where they sought access to its underground casino. The chapter ended as Bai Lu approached the front desk to ask how to enter.

• Bai Lu defeated the wanted criminal and demonstrated her Flash of Inspiration ability.
• Li Wen introduced herself to Bai Lu as Mephisto and told her that Miranda had left Leicester, suggesting Marymana could teach her instead.
• Li Wen offered Bai Lu a task, and Bai Lu agreed after Li Wen began to leave; Li Wen told her to retrieve a wolf-fang-shaped bone from the criminal's remains.
• Li Wen took Bai Lu to the Wolf Pack Club, where Bai Lu paid the one-shilling entrance fee and entered.
• Li Wen used Mind Talk to tell Bai Lu to ask the front desk how to reach the underground casino.

Bai Lu entered the Wolf Pack Club’s underground casino under Li Wen’s guidance and used a hidden variation of Telekinetic Touch to win more than fifty gold pounds. Her cheating drew the attention of the club’s boss, who summoned her and confronted her about flaunting magic.

• Bai Lu paid to join the Wolf Pack Club and entered its underground casino while Li Wen tracked her movements with the Magic Map.
• Li Wen instructed Bai Lu to join a dice game, then taught her a subtle variation of Telekinetic Touch that let her manipulate the dice unnoticed.
• Bai Lu followed Li Wen’s instructions to lose a few rounds before using magic to win at multiple games, amassing chips worth more than fifty gold pounds.
• A club servant summoned Bai Lu to meet the boss, who accused her of taking the Wolf Pack Club too lightly by using magic so openly.