Chapter Summaries

Eight dragon elders asked Nozdormu to let dragons serve as Financial Custody Consultants for the Gold and Silver Commerce Association, but he refused despite Malygos explaining the deeper causes of the dragon clan’s decline. Malygos then played a recording, hoping it would change Nozdormu’s mind.

• Eight dragon elders requested that Nozdormu approve cooperation with the Gold and Silver Commerce Association to safeguard stored treasure in exchange for custody fees.
• Nozdormu rejected the proposal, arguing that treasure had corrupted the dragon clan and that cooperation with humans was dangerous.
• Malygos analyzed the dragon clan’s decline and argued that its structural weaknesses, rather than its love of treasure, were the primary cause.
• Nozdormu refused again and threatened to punish any dragon who contacted or cooperated with humans privately.
• Malygos produced a recording device and played it, claiming the recording would persuade Nozdormu.

Nozdormu tried to stop the dragon elders from allying with humans, but recordings of his secret obsession with treasure left him vulnerable to their pressure. He agreed to cooperate with Zhou Ming’s forces and, after sleeping in his treasury for seven days, accepted that he was just as driven by treasure as other dragons.

• Nozdormu threatened to kill Malygos and the other elders after they revealed recordings of his secret treasury and urged him to cooperate with humans.
• Akelis and the other elders invoked the Dragon God’s oracle and urged Nozdormu to put the dragons’ interests ahead of his prejudice against humans.
• Wulawus showed Nozdormu a video call with Zhou Ming, who offered to delete the recordings if Nozdormu agreed to an alliance.
• Nozdormu reluctantly agreed to cooperate with the Gold and Silver Commerce Association to resist the Light Church.
• After sleeping in his treasury for seven days, Nozdormu concluded that he was a dragon whose body was honest about its desire for treasure.

The Magic Association established trade and transport links with the Dragon Race, while Zhou Ming argued that their cooperation had already made the dragons allies and strengthened the Magic City’s defenses. Old Wolf and the elders accepted his reasoning, and Old Wolf awarded Zhou Ming 10 million Contribution Points.

• The Magic Association built two Space Teleportation Arrays between the Magic City and Dragon Island, and the dragons requested goods and financial-custody work.
• Zhou Ming promised to commission giant-sized Magic Phones for the dragons and arranged further sales of useful products.
• Old Wolf refused to award Zhou Ming 10 million Contribution Points, arguing that paying the Dragon Race for cooperation did not amount to subduing them.
• Zhou Ming explained that the dragons’ reliance on the Association and their strategic value would make them allies, especially as reinforcements for the Magic City.
• The elders agreed that the Dragon Race’s proximity would help defend the Magic City, and Old Wolf gave Zhou Ming the 10 million Contribution Points.

Zhou Ming presented the Empire Fortress Plan to the rulers of twenty-eight human empires as a preemptive campaign to stop The Light Church’s expansion. After he argued that the Church threatened their rule and offered no path to survival except decisive violence, all twenty-eight emperors approved the plan, setting the stage for mass killings.

• Zhou Ming helped draft the Empire Fortress Plan, which would establish twenty-eight core fortresses across the human empires to resist The Light Church.
• The emperors of the twenty-eight empires gathered in Magic City and negotiated the plan behind closed doors for several days.
• The emperors objected to the plan’s proposal to kill Church members and believers on a vast scale, while some supported it.
• Zhou Ming warned the emperors that The Light Church would overthrow them if they did not strike first, and threatened to treat opponents as Church sympathizers.
• All twenty-eight emperors raised their hands to approve the Empire Fortress Plan, heralding a coming bloodbath.

After completing preparations for the Empire Fortress Plan, Zhou Ming returned to the Yadoud Kingdom and decided to spend several years testing methods to eliminate the Light Church. He assessed the kingdom’s military and industrial resources, leaving him confident that he could begin his experiments.

• Zhou Ming finished training the emperors and Magic Association officials to implement the Empire Fortress Plan, backed by thirty thousand high-ranking mages and plans for twenty-eight fortresses.
• Zhou Ming canceled his plan to explore the Magic Beast Forest, visited friends in the Vitros Empire, then returned to the Yadoud Kingdom in Raging Fire 2.
• Siweenis welcomed Zhou Ming and was delighted to learn he planned to stay in the kingdom for around three years.
• Zhou Ming explained that he would use the Yadoud Kingdom to test ways to defeat the Light Church, hoping to develop a method that could later be used widely.
• Zhou Ming questioned Siweenis about the kingdom’s troops, firearms, Red Gunpowder, steel, and other resources, then gained confidence in his ability to begin his experiments.

Zhou Ming began an experiment to determine whether he could break the faith of The Light Church’s clergy, broadcasting the proceedings across the Yadoud Kingdom. The experiment opened with him condemning their god and challenging the captive clergy to prove their faith as the trials began.

• Zhou Ming decided to test whether faith in the gods could be shaken, believing the results would determine how he dealt with believers.
• Zhou Ming’s task force swept the churches of the Yadoud Kingdom, killing more than seven thousand who resisted and capturing over three thousand clergy.
• Zhou Ming divided the captives into six groups at a secret experimental base equipped with surveillance devices and arranged to broadcast the experiment to the kingdom.
• Zhou Ming accused the God of Light of plotting to rule the world and condemned the clergy as accomplices.
• The clergy denounced Zhou Ming as a blasphemer, and he challenged their god to save them before declaring the experiment underway.

Zhou Ming tested whether gourmet food could shake the faith of five hundred believers in the God of Light, while ensuring they had enough food to survive. After seven days, most had held firm, but foodie Frederick’s resolve began to crumble as he faced Zhou Ming’s cooking.

• Zhou Ming prepared gourmet dishes and unappetizing survival food for his trial, prompting many subjects to vow they would never eat food provided by a blasphemer.
• Queen Siweenis and Nabe predicted that the believers would not abandon their faith for gourmet food.
• During the first seven days, 107 subjects starved to death rather than eat, while the others endured rancid leftovers and Dark Cuisine.
• Frederick, a devoted foodie, struggled to resist the aroma of Zhou Ming’s cooking after seven days of eating rancid bread.
• Zhou Ming stopped cooking, asked Frederick to choose between gourmet food and faith in God, and waited for his answer.

Frederick finally chose food over his faith after nine days of resisting Zhou Ming’s cooking, and the first experiment ended with an overall conversion rate of 3.6%. Zhou Ming judged food an inefficient strategy and began a second experiment to test whether money could turn believers away from the gods.

• After seven days of refusing Zhou Ming’s food, Frederick still claimed on the eighth day that he chose faith in the gods.
• On the ninth day, Frederick gave in, chose food, and ate a meal he called unbelievably delicious.
• Frederick’s Faith Rope snapped, and he told the remaining test subjects that the food had been worth giving up his faith and life.
• Over the month-long food experiment, 217 of the 500 test subjects starved, 105 committed suicide, 160 survived, and 18 betrayed their faith.
• Zhou Ming concluded that food’s 3.6% conversion rate was too low to justify much further effort and launched a 500-person experiment called “Money and Faith.”
• Zhou Ming predicted that the money experiment would convert at least 50% of its test subjects.

Zhou Ming tested whether temptation could make 500 members of The Light Church betray their faith, first using treasure and then sexual desire. The treasure test converted only 35.3% of its subjects, but the beauty test ended with a 99.5% conversion rate.

• Zhou Ming's Golden House experiment tempted 500 Church members with treasure, but only 35.3% betrayed their faith after a month.
• Zhou Ming recruited Sabina and prepared a drug and 3,000 women for his Beauty and Faith test.
• Hobbs resisted the women at first, kicked companions who faltered, and told the weak-willed to shut their eyes.
• On the ninth day, the subjects were forced to take Sabina's drug, and nearly all surrendered to desire and betrayed their faith.
• Zhou Ming's live broadcast was suspended after the test reached a 99.5% conversion rate.

Zhou Ming tested whether family, life, or faith mattered most to believers, but his fourth and fifth experiments showed that most would sacrifice loved ones or themselves rather than abandon the God of Light. In the sixth experiment, he began uncovering evidence about where believers’ souls went after death, raising the possibility that heaven was a lie.

• Zhou Ming forced five hundred believers to choose between their faith and their families, and fewer than 15 percent abandoned their faith while more than 2,500 family members were executed.
• Zhou Ming tested whether believers would give up their faith to live, and 275 subjects chose death rather than reject God.
• Zhou Ming concluded that he had won only the beauty experiment, with the other four rounds producing little success in converting believers.
• Zhou Ming began the sixth experiment and used scientific methods to investigate where the souls of believers went after death.
• Zhou Ming found serious problems with the Church's claims about heaven and began uncovering truths that could overturn what people believed about it.

Zhou Ming discovered that nearly all believers’ souls were destroyed and converted into holy power instead of reaching the God of Light’s Heaven. He staged a soul-ascension experiment to prove it, and the chapter ended as the marked souls began dissolving before the watching believers.

• The system explained that transporting souls through the Plane Crystal Walls cost too much divine power, so the God of Light destroyed most believers’ souls and turned them into holy power.
• Zhou Ming told Group Six’s utterly devoted believers about the fate of their souls, but they rejected his claim and accused him of blasphemy.
• Zhou Ming proposed an experiment using soul-marking powder and selected fifty volunteers who wanted to prove they could ascend to Heaven.
• Zhou Ming’s team killed the volunteers, marked their extracted souls orange-yellow, and released them while detectors tracked their ascent.
• Believers watching the livestream celebrated as the souls rose, but then cried out in alarm when the marked souls began dissolving.

Zhou Ming demonstrated that most believers’ souls disintegrated instead of ascending to heaven, and explained that the God of Light used them as sources of holy power. Control experiments disproved claims that his medicinal powder caused the disintegration, leaving many believers’ faith shattered.

• Fifty souls rose into the sky, broke apart into glowing particles, and vanished, prompting Zhou Ming to challenge the believers’ faith in heaven.
• Zhou Ming repeated the ascension experiment with two more groups, and all one hundred souls also disintegrated.
• Zhou Ming told the crowd that heaven had limited capacity and that the God of Light used most believers as tools and nourishment.
• Some believers accused Zhou Ming of tampering with the souls, so he conducted control experiments with partially dyed souls and souls sealed inside Magic Puppets.
• The partially dyed souls disintegrated in the sky, while the souls inside the Magic Puppets remained unharmed, disproving the claim that the powder erased them.
• The Magic Puppets and many believers broke down and rejected the God of Light, as Zhou Ming won the experiment.

Zhou Ming exposed the God of Light’s deception, won the support of most people in the Yadoud Kingdom, and planned to spread the truth across the continent. The Light Church answered with a divine oracle promising paradise in ten years, then marked the Yadoud Kingdom for destruction.

• Zhou Ming promised free healthcare, jobs, and aid to the people of the Yadoud Kingdom, urging them to rely on their own efforts rather than the gods.
• More than 40 million people abandoned their faith in the God of Light, and Zhou Ming’s approval rating rose above 80 percent.
• Zhou Ming mobilized his intelligence agencies to spread the truth about believers’ souls to neighboring regions.
• A Red-Robed Elder contacted the God of Light, who issued an oracle promising paradise to every devout believer in ten years.
• The Light Church steadied its believers and decided to kill those in the Yadoud Kingdom who had exposed the truth.

Cardinal Archbishop Obarhe, Holy Magician Yulis, and Holy Knight Hilbert received the God of Light’s order to eliminate every Traitor of the Gods in the Yadoud Kingdom. They planned to gather forces from hundreds of Light Saint Kingdoms and invade with an overwhelming army within three years.

• Obarhe, Yulis, and Hilbert learned that the God of Light had ordered the destruction of the Yadoud Kingdom and its more than fifty million Traitors of the Gods.
• The three discussed the Yadoud Kingdom’s organization, swift attacks, and advanced weapons, which had inflicted heavy losses on The Light Church.
• Hilbert said the God of Light would provide elite legions and let them mobilize forces from more than five hundred Light Saint Kingdoms.
• Yulis warned that distance, allied kingdoms, and the Yadoud Kingdom’s weapons could prevent them from using enough of those resources effectively.
• Hilbert proposed raising ten million troops to defeat the surrounding kingdoms, building defensive lines, and then invading the Yadoud Kingdom with more than thirty million soldiers in a hundred routes.
• Obarhe and Yulis agreed to Hilbert’s Human Wave Tactics plan.

From January to April of Winter Season, Light Church forces and supplies gathered in the Bachirut Light Saint Kingdom for war against the Yadoud Kingdom. Cardinal Archbishop Obarhe celebrated the growing army, while Hilbert warned that firearms meant they would need more than ten million troops.

• Light Saint Kingdoms sent vast quantities of supplies and soldiers toward the front, and more than 1.5 million troops arrived in Bachirut within three months.
• The Bachirut army grew to two million, including twenty thousand Holy Magicians and thirty thousand Holy Knights.
• Cardinal Archbishop Obarhe and the other leaders praised the assembled Holy Knights and believed their elite forces could defeat the Yadoud Kingdom.
• Hilbert cautioned the commanders not to underestimate Yadoud firearms and said victory required more than ten million men.
• Cardinal Archbishop Obarhe shouted that the God of Light would grant victory and that the Yadoud Kingdom would fall.

Zhou Ming calmed the Yadoud Kingdom’s panicked ministers and nobles after learning that the Light Church planned to invade with a massive army. He outlined the Kingdom’s defenses and firearm buildup, then promised secret weapons to counter the Church’s Holy Magicians and Holy Knights.

• Zhou Ming had guards escort frightened elderly nobles from the Council Hall after they panicked over the Light Church’s invasion plans.
• The ministers and nobles asked Zhou Ming how the Kingdom could survive an attack by more than ten million soldiers.
• Zhou Ming said winter would delay the invasion until spring and described three lines of defense built by the Kingdom and the Godless Alliance.
• Zhou Ming claimed that expanding the Kingdom’s firearm forces to more than six hundred regiments would let them defeat the Church’s army.
• The ministers and nobles questioned whether firearms could stop the Church’s Holy Magicians and Holy Knights, citing past losses to a Legendary Magician.
• Zhou Ming assured them he had prepared secret weapons to deal with the elite forces.

Zhou Ming brought Siweenis and ten noble ministers to a secret base to reveal four strategic-level weapons intended to counter the Light Church. The visitors inspected the strange devices, but their capabilities remained unclear until Zhou Ming began explaining them.

• Noble ministers and nobles scrambled for ten slots to visit Zhou Ming’s classified weapons, and Siweenis asked to join them.
• Zhou Ming chose the visitors, including Siweenis, Prime Minister Erburi, Rudolph Duke, Old Fox Roberts, Count Torres, and Duke Koen Lei Lin.
• On May 5, Zhou Ming and Siweenis arrived with the visitors at a secret base near the Black Swamp and toured its vast underground facilities.
• The group saw four strategic weapons: a large firearm, a twelve-barreled crank-operated weapon, a vehicle-mounted honeycomb device, and an enormous aircraft.
• Roberts identified the likely power of the first two weapons, while the others questioned what the honeycomb device and aircraft could do.
• Zhou Ming began explaining the four strategic weapons after the visitors expressed doubts about their purpose and power.

Zhou Ming introduced four strategic weapons designed to devastate ordinary armies, but admitted they were limited against the Light Church’s high-ranking forces. He revealed that he had two undisclosed Secret Weapons for those enemies and then brought everyone to see an advanced communications device.

• Zhou Ming explained the capabilities of the High-Power Sniper Rifle, 12-Barrel Hand-Cranked Machine Gun, 50-Tube Short-Range Rocket Launcher, and 50-Ton Payload Large Bomber, prompting the others to praise their destructive power.
• Roberts questioned whether the four weapons could overcome the Light Legion’s Holy Magicians and Holy Knights, and Zhou Ming agreed that their threat to high-ranking forces was limited.
• Rudolph Duke and the others panicked that the Yadoud Kingdom could still be defeated, but Zhou Ming told them there were more than four strategic weapons.
• Zhou Ming said he had prepared two Secret Weapons for the church’s high-ranking forces but would not reveal or display them before the war.
• Zhou Ming took the group to a nearby laboratory and introduced an advanced communications device.

Zhou Ming demonstrated the Nokia 001 Magic Phone to Yadoud’s nobles and explained its strategic value, boosting their confidence in the coming war with The Light Church. The chapter ended with Zhou Ming angrily telling Emperor Aipusi to prepare to abdicate, while the nobles gaped at his iPhone 1.

• Zhou Ming showed the nobles the Nokia 001 Magic Phone, explained its features, and sold each visitor one for ten thousand gold coins.
• Zhou Ming described how Magic Phones could give Yadoud’s army real-time communications and an advantage over The Light Church, reassuring the nobles about the coming war.
• Zhou Ming recalled that Emperor Aipusi’s indecisive handling of the Empire Fortress Plan had let rebellion spread across the Laiding Sheris Empire despite reinforcements.
• Zhou Ming berated Aipusi over a video call, told him to prepare to abdicate, and hung up.
• The nobles stared in shock at Zhou Ming’s outburst and compared the iPhone 1 in his hand with their Nokia 001s.

Zhou Ming prepared the Yadoud Kingdom for war with The Light Church by organizing mass mobilization, food supplies, and expanded weapons production. As winter began to thaw, the Church’s five-million-strong Light Legion set out to invade.

• Rudolph Duke asked Zhou Ming about his Magic Phone, and Zhou Ming said it was not for sale.
• After returning to Dilo City, Zhou Ming placed the kingdom on first-level war readiness and planned to mobilize up to ten million people.
• Zhou Ming arranged grain imports and greenhouse cultivation to address the kingdom’s food shortage.
• Zhou Ming established a Magic Factory and led efforts to increase weapons production before the Church’s attack.
• On January 5, Cardinal Archbishop Obarhe rallied the Church’s forces to destroy the Yadoud Kingdom, and its five-million-strong Light Legion marched out.