Chapter Summaries

Leonard and Shermane planned a Red Gloves operation to capture Mr. K at an East Borough gathering, but they abandoned the attack when Leonard sensed a demigod watching the attendees. Shermane met Leonard afterward, leaving the operation’s target and next move unresolved.

• Leonard met Shermane, learned about her Madness Ring and her cannery’s wartime troubles, and asked her about Mr. K’s activities.
• Shermane reported that Mr. K was recruiting attractive attendees and that unfamiliar Beyonders were buying Mystical Items and weapons at his gatherings.
• Leonard decided the Red Gloves would raid Mr. K’s next gathering, while Shermane attended as usual and avoided the fighting.
• Shermane and Leonard entered the gathering separately, but the Red Gloves did not attack before it ended.
• Leonard told Shermane he had canceled the operation because he sensed a demigod watching everyone inside the venue.

Leonard discovered that a Saint of the Aurora Order might be operating in Backlund and canceled his surveillance operation. At the Tarot Club, Gehrman recruited members to hunt the Mystic Saint Butis, while Cattleya and Audrey agreed to prepare for the mission.

• Leonard told Shermane that a Sequence 4 Saint was likely present at the gathering and canceled their operation so he could report to the Church.
• Shermane returned home and used her Magic Mirror to report to the Empress.
• At the Tarot Club meeting, Emlyn announced that the Church of Evernight had released him and other detained Sanguine, and he described donating one hundred pounds to a relief collector.
• Gehrman offered a commission to hunt the Aurora Order's Mystic Saint, Butis, explaining that the Empress would handle any angel who intervened and that Mr. Fool would watch over the operation.
• Cattleya agreed to prepare for the hunt after Gehrman offered her the spoils of the mission and knowledge to finish digesting her potion within a month.
• Angel offered Audrey the Manipulator formula and Beyonder characteristic if Audrey finished digesting her Dreamwalker potion in time, and Audrey agreed to join the preparations.

Alger prepared to advance to Ocean Songster at the Storm Abyss, while Fors finished her Scribe acting and completed her promotion ritual with Reinette’s help. Angel and Klein discussed their advancement and the threats surrounding them before Angel questioned Wensa about the Primordial Demoness and wrote to Queen Mystic Bernadette; Fors’s promotion meant the hunt for the Mystic Saint could soon begin.

• Alger told the Tarot Club he was returning to the Storm Abyss to advance, and Mr. Fool advised him to seek the elven ruins on Sonia Island.
• Fors told Xio she had finished digesting her Scribe potion, then rested before completing her advancement ritual.
• Angel and Klein discussed their acting, the effects of George III’s fall, and the dangers of entering the Forsaken Land of the Gods.
• Angel suspected Klein’s relationship with Mr. Fool was unusually close, then questioned Wensa about the Primordial Demoness and learned she could seek information from Krismona beneath Trier.
• Angel sent a letter to Queen Mystic Bernadette, and Reinette confirmed that Fors’s promotion ritual was complete.

Rigg’s team defeated a Fallen Shadow with a petrification charm from Colin Iliad, prompting Angel to consider trading more charms through the Tarot Club. Meanwhile, Leonard learned the Church had attributed Angel’s deeds to the Goddess, and Angel received a letter from Bernadette Gustav.

• Rigg used Colin Iliad’s charm to petrify the Fallen Shadow, saving his exploration team and deciding to request more charms from the Chief.
• Angel agreed to sell more charms after Mr. Fool relayed Sun’s request and considered arranging a trade involving Audrey and the City of Silver.
• Angel startled Trissy awake while she was dozing at Saint Angelica Church, prompting her to prepare for another sermon.
• Leonard heard Bishop Electra describe the Calamity Angel’s role in protecting Cons and asked Pallez whether Angel had changed pathways.
• Pallez explained that the Church’s account of Angel’s deeds could provide faith-based anchors, then advised Leonard to prepare for the fate Hermits’ gathering.
• Angel received a letter from Bernadette Gustav at the Iris Flower Winery.

Angel traveled to Trier to investigate Nast Solomon’s disappearance and possible corruption with Bernadette and Element Dawn, while they debated whether to involve the Church of Steam. In Backlund, Klein sent Rabbit Gehrman into Saint Wind Cathedral of the Church of Storms.

• Angel replied to Bernadette, agreed to meet her in Trier, warned Klein to stay in Backlund, and reported the matter to the Goddess, who gave no response.
• Angel entered Trier in disguise and met Bernadette and Julian, Element Dawn’s leader in the city.
• Julian revealed that Element Dawn had indirectly located Nast Solomon in Belon near Aurmir but had not investigated the village or confirmed Nast’s condition.
• Bernadette raised the question of whether to notify the Church of Steam and Bornova before they acted.
• Klein emerged from the History Void, disguised a rabbit as himself, and sent Rabbit Gehrman into Saint Wind Cathedral of the Church of Storms.

Klein prayed to the Lord of Storms for help against Amon and Adam, and Archbishop Radar gave him a confidential file on the dangerous Grade 0 Sealed Artifact, the Never-Ending Theater. As Klein weighed the artifact’s corruption and whether he could use it, Angel and Bernadette arrived at Belon Village to investigate possible corruption from the Mother Goddess of Depravity.

• Klein sent Rabbit Gehrman to Saint Wind Cathedral to pray for help advancing to Sequence 2 and opposing Amon and Adam.
• A dark cloud passed over the cathedral, but no lightning struck; Radar Valentinus then gave Rabbit Gehrman a parchment before he left.
• Klein received the parchment above the gray fog and learned that the Never-Ending Theater could trap humans in dangerous plays and was corrupted after the Four Emperors War.
• Klein considered whether the artifact’s corruption came from a sefirah and whether the Lord of Storms had sent the file to discourage him from using it.
• Angel and Bernadette arrived in Belon Village, where they suspected corruption from the Mother Goddess of Depravity might be present.

Angel and Bernadette investigated Nast Solomon’s presence in Belon Village and learned that he had settled in a forest west of the vineyards, where strange plant growth had begun. As they headed toward the forest, Priest Raymond secretly revealed their approach to the Great Mother.

• Angel and Bernadette discussed the Hidden Sage and the cosmic corruption that might have affected Roselle before visiting Belon Village’s church.
• Angel posed as a Tribunal investigator and Bernadette showed Priest Raymond a portrait of Nast Solomon.
• Raymond said Nast had come to rebuild an ancestral home in the western forest and had recently hired villagers to work there.
• Raymond described strange nighttime animals and grapevines growing again after the harvest, prompting Angel and Bernadette to head for the forest.
• After the women left, Raymond gathered his money and began confessing to the Eternal Blazing Sun, but then revealed that he served the Great Mother and warned Her that enemies were entering the forest.

Angel and Bernadette uncovered and destroyed a site of the Mother Goddess of Depravity’s corruption in the forest near Belon Village. The corruption there was only one-fifth of what Nast carried, leaving their investigation unfinished.

• Raymond invoked the Great Mother before the Eternal Blazing Sun, so Angel petrified him and erased his remains in the Mirror World.
• Angel and Bernadette decided to investigate Nast’s hideout themselves rather than alert the Purifiers, who might persecute the entire village.
• Angel and Bernadette entered the forest house, where they found an altar surrounded by forty corrupted newborns.
• Angel’s mirror substitute and Bernadette fought off the infants and the corruption, with Angel using the City of Calamity’s authority to trap the escaping red wisps in the Mirror World.
• The altar shattered and released pale mist into the Spirit World, and Angel told Bernadette that only one-fifth of Nast’s corruption had been cleared.

Angel and Bernadette investigated Nast’s ruined hideout, finding evidence of his experiments with corrupted infants and clues that he may have been searching for Emperor Roselle’s mausoleum. They uncovered the empty grave of Nast’s father, then encountered Saint Viève, the Eternal Blazing Sun Church’s Grounded Angel, as they headed toward Belon Village.

• Angel concluded that most of the Mother Goddess of Depravity’s corruption was still elsewhere, possibly within Nast, after she and Bernadette destroyed forty malformed infants.
• Angel and Bernadette searched Nast’s ruined house, finding nautical charts, books about Roselle, and the corpses of malformed infants; they suspected Nast had left to pursue his mission, possibly involving Roselle’s mausoleum.
• Bernadette explained that corrupted believers could mistake an evil deity’s influence for guidance, then discovered Savini Solomon’s grave behind the building.
• Angel and Bernadette opened Savini’s grave and found it empty, leading them to suspect Nast had taken his father’s ashes and that his buried desire was to resurrect him.
• Angel and Bernadette set out for Belon Village to investigate the villagers’ corruption, but Saint Viève appeared in the sky beside the sun.

Angel and Bernadette faced Saint Viève, who intended to purify Belon Village after Nast Solomon spread the Great Mother's corruption there. Bornova arrived and proposed screening the villagers instead of killing them all, and Viève nodded as the chapter ended.

• Saint Viève confronted Angel and Bernadette, identified them, and said she had come to eliminate the fallen priest and purify the tainted believers.
• Angel and Bernadette explained that Nast Solomon had spread faith in the Great Mother before leaving, and Viève said the Purifiers would track him while Belon Village underwent a thorough purification.
• Angel questioned whether innocent villagers had to be purified, and Viève asked whether Angel would risk hidden corruption to spare them.
• Bornova appeared and argued that the villagers should recite the Eternal Blazing Sun's honorific name so they could be screened and monitored rather than killed indiscriminately.
• Saint Viève considered Bornova's proposal and nodded.

Angel and Bernadette reviewed the aftermath of Nast Solomon’s cult in Belon Village and learned that the churches had no way to track him. Bornova then revealed a possible route to a Conqueror characteristic in Red Swan Castle, while Sevillea Sauron’s mirror opened into a dark void.

• Bernadette told Angel that Nast had recruited more than a hundred villagers, used strange powers to make them believe in the Great Mother, and taken away infants born through horrific supernatural pregnancies.
• Bernadette explained that the Purifiers had detained contaminated villagers, relocated the others, and planned to burn Belon Village, while Nast remained untraceable after the Golden Compass Sealed Artifact was corrupted.
• Angel and Bernadette discussed where Nast might have fled and asked their allies to watch for him, then Bornova thanked them for helping the Church of Steam and pointed Angel toward clues in the Sauron Family’s Red Swan Castle.
• Angel wondered whether Bernadette had offered the lead because she thought Angel might switch pathways, and noticed that Bornova seemed more human than before.
• Sevillea Sauron dismissed her distracted butler, went to her bedroom, and watched a dark void appear in her dressing mirror.

Angelica Zaki, now a Demoness of Catastrophe, confronted Clarice and Sevillea in Trier and questioned them about Conqueror characteristics. Clarice revealed that the Demoness Sect’s characteristic had been offered to the Primordial and directed Angel toward Red Swan Castle for the Sauron Family’s lost characteristic.

• Clarice visited Sevillea and urged her to advance during the war between Intis and Loen, citing Helene Sauron’s rise to Sequence 5.
• Clarice identified Irene Watson as the Golden Queen, Angelica Zaki, and discussed her ties to the Demoness Pathway.
• Angel sealed the nearby Mirror Tunnels and confronted Clarice and Sevillea, compelling Clarice to cooperate by threatening Sevillea.
• Angel asked about the Conqueror characteristic once given to the Demoness Sect, and Clarice said it had been offered to the Primordial.
• Angel asked about the Sauron Family’s lost Conqueror characteristic, and Clarice identified its former owner as Formonda Champagne Sauron and pointed her toward Red Swan Castle.

Angel interrogated Clarice about the Demoness Sect’s leadership and its operations in Trier, then confronted her in the Mirror World. Angelica returned in under thirty seconds, having defeated Clarice, while Sevillea survived the petrifying attack.

• Angel questioned Clarice about Vermonda Sauron, the Demoness Sect’s higher-ups, and their color code names, and her divination confirmed Clarice’s answers without proving they were true.
• Clarice revealed that Judith, the Saintess of Gray, was the Primordial Demoness’s offspring and that the sect had thirteen High Sequence Witches.
• Clarice admitted she was responsible for the Mirror People in Trier, though Angel suspected the information Clarice gave might be misleading.
• Angel promised to spare Sevillea, then vanished with Clarice and Angelica into the Mirror World as petrification spread through the room’s reflective surfaces.
• Sevillea threw her Magic Mirror away to escape being petrified, and Angelica returned after defeating Clarice in less than thirty seconds.

Angel defeated Clarice in the Mirror World, spared Sevillea, and returned to the City of Calamity. There, Angel's Mirror Person revealed she could leave the city and had sent the evil spirit Sauron to deal with the Sauron Family's problems.

• Angel defeated Clarice, who vanished after her petrified corpse broke apart, and told Sevillea that the Unaging Demoness might resurrect through her hidden Mirror Person.
• Angel spared Sevillea but took a lock of her hair as a precaution and asked her to recite Angel's honorific name.
• Sevillea tried to contact her mother but received no response, while Angel searched the Mirror World and found no trace of Clarice.
• Angel returned to the City of Calamity and offered to share four hours of each day with her lonely Mirror Person.
• Angel's Mirror Person said she could leave the city and revealed that she had sent the evil spirit Sauron to deal with the Sauron Family's problems.

Angel learned how the City of Calamity’s boons and the Sauron evil spirit’s bargain could help her prepare to enter Fourth Epoch Trier, where many divine seals and Outer Deity influences remained. The chapter ended with Klein preparing for the Mystic Saint hunt as Audrey planned to advance to Manipulator.

• Angel learned that the Mirror Person had bestowed War Bishop powers on Sauron’s evil spirit, which could be withdrawn and controlled.
• The Mirror Person said Sauron’s evil spirit had agreed to help kill Vermonda Sauron in exchange for a Sequence 2 characteristic, and she believed Loen would win the war.
• The Mirror Person warned Angel that entering Fourth Epoch Trier would require disrupting other forces’ attention and fully digesting her Demoness of Catastrophe potion.
• The Mirror Person explained that several Outer Deities could influence Earth through their former Sefirot and named the Celestial Worthy as the being who sealed the Sefirot.
• Klein reviewed prayers and messages above the Gray Fog and learned that Audrey had finished digesting her Dreamwalker potion and planned to advance to Manipulator.
• Klein concluded that the preparations for hunting the Mystic Saint were nearly complete, with the Hermit due to arrive in Backlund.

Klein weighed the remaining paths to advance and planned a hunt for the Mystic Saint, while worrying about Angel’s growing involvement in the war. At Anniversary Square, Audrey used Winter Solstice Mass to fulfill her ritual and advanced to Sequence 4 as a Manipulator.

• Klein reviewed the possible Seer, Marauder, and Apprentice characteristics, crossed out Pallez’s treasure lead, and settled on hunting Butis, the Mystic Saint, as his best option.
• Klein considered Angel’s potion digestion and the likelihood that the war would eventually force her to fight, then began planning the hunt for Butis with the Tarot Club’s help.
• Audrey attended Winter Solstice Mass at Anniversary Square with her family and Susie, privately asking whether she was being despicable by using the crowd’s grief for her advancement.
• Audrey suppressed her distress to prepare for the potion and, amid Archbishop Anthony Stevenson’s prayers and the emotional resonance of tens of thousands, drank it and advanced to Sequence 4 as a Manipulator.

Audrey advanced to Sequence 4 during the Winter Solstice Mass and noticed Leonard Mitchell and Shermane among the unusual Beyonders in the crowd. Leonard warned Shermane about planned operations against the Aurora Order, while the old voice explained that her potion acting required bringing pleasure to herself and others; afterward, Shermane returned home preoccupied with Leonard, as Tarot Club members gathered to plan a hunt for the Mystic Saint.

• Audrey used the Mass’s collective emotions to stabilize herself after advancing to Sequence 4 and discovered her new Manipulator abilities.
• Audrey recognized Leonard Mitchell and Shermane in the crowd and sensed that they had romantic feelings for each other.
• Leonard accompanied Shermane from the Mass and warned her to avoid East Borough gatherings because the Church of Evernight planned operations against the Aurora Order.
• The old voice told Leonard that Shermane’s acting had stalled and that the Demoness pathway’s Sequence 6 required bringing pleasure to herself and others.
• Shermane hid her Madness Ring at home and fell asleep thinking of Leonard, while Tarot Club members stayed behind after their final 1350 meeting to plan the hunt for the Mystic Saint.

The Tarot Club finalized a plan to use Fors as bait to draw out the Mystic Saint, Butis, while Angel prepared to support the hunt. As the operation began, Leonard learned Pallez might leave after the war, and Audrey received word of the operation at the royal New Year’s party.

• Klein congratulated Audrey on advancing to Manipulator, and the Tarot Club reviewed its plan to lure out Butis by using Fors as bait.
• The group arranged safeguards for Fors, including a magic mirror that would let Angel track her and project power to rescue her.
• Leonard warned that Saint Tenebrous could join the fight, then told Pallez that the hunt had begun; Pallez said he might leave after the war.
• Pallez teased Leonard about Shermane and explained that he was waiting to confirm the value of the Internal Relic in the Jacob Family treasure trove before leaving.
• Audrey attended Edessak Augustus’s New Year’s party at Sodela Palace and withdrew to watch the moon with Susie.
• A grayish-white fog appeared before Audrey, and she heard the message, “The operation has begun.”

Audrey, Cattleya, and Angel helped defeat Mystic Saint Butis, while Leonard’s Red Gloves team captured an underground gathering. Saint Tenebrous Kisma ambushed Leonard’s team, and Angel received Shermane’s emergency call as Kisma raised his sword over Leonard and Shermane.

• Audrey left the palace ball in Susie’s care and used Dreamland Shuttle to hurry toward Backlund Bridge.
• Leonard and the Red Gloves raided the underground gathering, subdued its Aurora Order organizer, and took Shermane with them.
• Kisma destroyed Leonard’s carriage and trapped Leonard, Shermane, and the Red Gloves with his Dominion of Shadows.
• Cattleya and Audrey defeated Mystic Saint Butis, while Angel watched from the Mirror World and released her Spirit World blockade.
• Angel received Shermane’s emergency call and saw Kisma poised to strike Leonard and Shermane.

Leonard and Shermane fought Saint Tenebrous Kisma after he attacked the Red Gloves, while Angel’s intervention and Pallez’s theft of Kisma’s ability turned the battle. When Kisma mortally wounded Shermane, Leonard activated the Calamity Charm against him.

• Angel recognized Kisma and sent power through the Mirror Tunnel to Shermane’s dressing mirror.
• Shermane’s mirror petrified Kisma’s armor, but he escaped as a shadow and attacked Leonard.
• The mirror’s influence freed Kisma’s grazed Shaman King soul, while Pallez stole Kisma’s ability to switch souls.
• Leonard attacked Kisma and prepared the Calamity Charm, but Kisma closed in before he could activate it.
• Shermane intercepted Kisma’s strike and was gravely wounded, and Leonard slammed the Calamity Charm into Kisma’s face.