Chapter Summaries

Caroso and Malfurion secretly cooperated while staging a battle, exchanged information about the dungeon, and arranged to work together. Malfurion then defeated Caroso in front of the others and carried Messiah away, leaving Bai and Teresa convinced that Caroso had lost.

• Caroso attacked Malfurion, who recognized his strength and called out to identify himself as an elf on a rescue mission.
• Caroso and Malfurion staged a fight while secretly discussing their companions, missions, and the danger of changing camps.
• Caroso warned Malfurion to keep their identities secret because Perus and the Pander Empire were at war, and Malfurion agreed to cooperate later.
• Caroso deliberately left an opening, and Malfurion blasted him away with Moon's Wrath, crushing nearby skeletons.
• Malfurion pulled Messiah's cage to him and fled with her while Bai remained tangled by the Earth Elemental and Tom hid behind a rock.

Messiah returned to Anwen and warned him that an unknown force knew the Forest of Elves’ plans and possessed magic designed to counter elves. At the Fifth-Level Magic Guild, Nimel and Jaina discovered an ancient Divine Punishment Array and considered how its principles might threaten powerful professionals if adapted for ordinary people.

• Caroso’s group regrouped and decided to keep gathering forces while Tom teased Bai about her feelings for Caroso.
• Messiah reported to Anwen that Caroso’s forces knew the Forest of Elves’ deployment, and Anwen suspected someone could read his thoughts through Great Prophecy.
• Anwen questioned whether the unknown force served the Goddess of Night Church or represented a fifth faction, then considered retreating and strengthening the entrance defenses.
• Nimel and Jaina found an ancient magic array whose effect resembled the Divine Punishment Array, though its mana requirements differed from those of the current era.
• Nimel proposed adapting the array to gunpowder or blood energy, and Jaina warned that the knowledge had to remain secret and be restricted to the Church of the God of Wisdom.

Caroso and Teresa gathered a powerful Undead Army while the other dungeon challengers built alliances and pursued missions. To escape the cemetery without facing the elves, Caroso decided to challenge the dangerous Brave Warrior Trial, and Teresa insisted on joining him.

• Nimel studied the magic array and considered how ordinary people might use it, while Jaina worried that empowering commoners could threaten the existing order.
• Over five days, Caroso and Teresa subdued powerful cemetery forces, including five eighth-tier Ghost Dragons and five eighth-tier liches, and led their Undead Army toward hell.
• Malfurion connected with the Goddess of Night Church through the Thieves Guild, while Norman, Anduin, Varian, Uther, and Vareesa regrouped and planned their next missions.
• Anduin reported that Jaina was inside the Church of the God of Wisdom but could not meet them, and the group discussed how Vareesa and the other elf might earn their trust.
• Caroso explained that the Brave Warrior Trial was their safest route out of the cemetery and that only heroes could pass it.
• Caroso planned to enter the trial alone, but Teresa refused to let him go without her.

Caroso and Teresa entered the fog-shrouded Brave Warrior Trial while Bai stayed behind with Tom, who became fascinated by her cards. After his attempts to use them failed, Bai demonstrated cardmaking for him.

• Caroso and Teresa bumped fists and entered the fog to attempt the Brave Warrior Trial.
• Tom asked Bai to lend him cards and offered a scroll about refining the underground minerals in exchange.
• Tom tried channeling magic power into Bai’s cards, but both cards exploded as he investigated how souls were used in their creation.
• Tom asked Bai to demonstrate cardmaking, and she gathered materials and began carving and painting a blank card.
• Tom watched Bai work and recognized her masterful skill at carving stones and making pigments.

Tom studied Bai's card-making and learned how soul-binding revealed a card's attributes, then wondered how the method related to his alchemy. Leona arrived and demanded that he marry her, and Tom challenged her to a duel.

• Bai gave Tom a blank card and showed him a bound card, allowing him to understand the principle of soul-binding.
• Tom examined an unbound Freeze Spell card and saw its attributes after learning how to read bound cards.
• Leona flew into the underground graveyard and confronted Tom, insisting that he marry her and threatening to take him by force.
• Bai moved away as Leona drew her sword and shield, while the nearby undead cowered before her power.
• Tom opened his card case and challenged Leona to a duel.

Tom defeated Leona in their card match despite her attempts to bend the rules, and their clash of power endangered Bai. The chapter then followed Caroso into the Brave Warrior Trial, where he faced a vision of Morning Star City on the brink of defeat and Osiris refusing to surrender.

• Leona used the laws to improve her luck, but Tom won their first two card rounds and exposed her attempt to change a card during the match.
• Tom countered Leona's card manipulation with Space Law, but Leona attacked him, triggering a violent clash that filled the canyon with spatial cracks.
• Bai used Angel's Wings to evade the cracks until the fighting eased, then vanished into the Brave Warrior Trial's domain.
• Caroso arrived at Kolia Manor in a vision of a defeated Azure Wolf Province and heard Osiris urge him to flee.
• Caroso briefly regained his memories through the barrage, then turned it off to continue facing the trial and its illusion.
• Finn Roland and Emmanuelle Yixite demanded Osiris surrender, but Osiris refused, and Finn ordered the bombardment of Kolia Manor.

Caroso watched the illusion of Azure Wolf Province’s defeat and the deaths or capture of the people he loved, forcing him to confront his fear of losing them. He rejected Finn Roland’s accusation that he regretted starting the war, and the Brave Warrior Trial remained in turmoil.

• Osiris raised his power and defended Morning Star City, but enemy forces destroyed the city while Caroso fought eight eighth-rank professionals in the sky.
• Saya died defending Caroso, and a rogue killed Osiris while Azure Wolf Province fell to the invading forces.
• Emmanuelle Yixite revealed that Presia had fallen and showed Caroso the heads of Ailin and Teresa, while Kasim displayed Elizabeth’s corpse and described Russell’s death.
• Bai was captured, and the trial’s space developed violent spatial rifts before the Goddess of Night sensed danger and stopped the figure carrying Nimel’s corpse from provoking Caroso.
• Finn Roland blamed Caroso for the deaths, but Caroso insisted that his allies had acted on their own convictions and that regretting their choices would insult them.

Caroso faced the Corrupted Card in a vision of a ruined battlefield and confronted his fear of becoming like him. He fought the Corrupted Card in a deadly duel, with both sides summoning dragons as the battle continued.

• Caroso rejected Finn's accusation and charged Finn, Emmanuelle, and their forces, but the scene shattered and shifted to a blood-soaked battlefield.
• Caroso recognized the Corrupted Card on a ruined throne, restored his memories, and summoned Guanshi Zhengzong and Card God's Follower.
• Caroso reopened the barrage to intensify the pressure on himself and began fighting the Corrupted Card, whose strength and experience surpassed his own.
• Caroso sealed one piece of the Corrupted Card's armor and traded blows with him, using the death lines to threaten his opponent's ability to revive.
• Caroso summoned the Blue-Eyes White Dragon while the Corrupted Card summoned True Red-Eyes Black Dragon.

Caroso defeated the Corrupted Card by cutting off its access to blood energy, stealing its weapon, and draining its mana before shooting it. After clearing the Brave Warrior Trial, Caroso received the God Card Obelisk the Tormentor.

• Caroso severed the paths through which blood energy entered the Corrupted Card, then fought it in a brutal dragon and sword battle.
• Caroso used Shut Up, Priest to copy three Warrior cards and kept fighting after the Corrupted Card stabbed him.
• Caroso grabbed the Corrupted Card's sword and used Yours is Mine to steal it, draining the Corrupted Card's mana.
• Caroso shot the weakened Corrupted Card through the forehead with the Ancient Dust Revolver and won the trial.
• Caroso received Obelisk the Tormentor, an eight-star God Card that could grow with its holder.

Caroso defeated a Corrupted Card and received a real Giant God Soldier God Card, but collapsed from his injuries and exhaustion. Bai cleared her own trial and obtained a fake Osiris's Sky Dragon, then found herself in the White Desert, where a trial-space error brought the unconscious Caroso down beside her.

• Caroso received the Giant God Soldier card after defeating the Corrupted Card, then fainted from his injuries and depleted mana.
• Bai faced an illusion in which Kong died protecting her, but she persevered by remembering Caroso and her plan to revive Kong.
• Bai cleared the Brave Warrior Trial and received the fake Osiris's Sky Dragon card.
• Bai awakened in the White Desert, where her mana drained into the ground and she could not fly.
• A crack in the sky released the injured Caroso, and Bai caught him before he hit the ground.

Bai struggled to keep Caroso alive and carry him across the White Desert toward an oasis while both her powers and resources were unavailable. After a snake bit and poisoned her near the lake, she dragged the unconscious Caroso toward water as her vision blurred.

• Bai bandaged Caroso with strips torn from her clothing after finding him unconscious and bleeding.
• Bai carried Caroso toward a distant oasis, pushing through exhaustion and the desert's extreme heat and cold.
• Energy from the White Desert seeped toward Obelisk the Tormentor in Caroso's pocket.
• Bai reached the oasis, but a snake bit her ankle and she killed it with her carving knife.
• Bai saw that the venom had turned her calf purple, then dragged Caroso toward the lake as the poison clouded her vision.

Bai dragged the unconscious Caroso to a lake in the White Desert, but collapsed after drinking sand and being bitten by venomous snakes. Caroso woke, realized where they were, and began treating her even as the lake’s magic worsened her poison.

• Bai reached the lake and tried to revive Caroso by feeding him water mouth-to-mouth, then passed out beside him.
• Caroso woke and found Bai unconscious with purple veins and sand in her mouth.
• Caroso recognized the white sand as the White Desert, where chaotic laws and divine remains suppressed his powers.
• Caroso carried Bai to the lake, cleared sand from her mouth, and helped her drink, but her purple veins grew darker.
• Caroso removed Bai’s clothes to inspect her injuries and found three snake bites on her body.

Caroso and Bai recovered in a magical lake, where Caroso absorbed its power and the Giant God Soldier bound itself to his soul. After the Forbidden Land began to crack, the two emerged near Teresa, who had been watching Tom and Leona fight.

• Caroso carried the injured Bai into the lake, and they both recovered as its water drained away.
• Bai woke in Caroso's arms, realized she had removed her armor while overheated, and hurriedly got dressed.
• Caroso absorbed the lake's liquid magic power, healed completely, and neared the peak of the eighth rank.
• Caroso found the Giant God Soldier absorbing power in his pocket, and the card forcibly bound itself to his soul as the Forbidden Land cracked.
• Teresa saw Caroso and Bai emerge unharmed, then told Leona that following her sister's path would keep her from winning.

Tom defeated Leona with a God Card, but her desperate attempt to wield the Eternal Blazing Sun led her to a new understanding of her power and a draw with Tom. Watching them, Caroso grasped part of the Sun’s laws, while Bai began learning to make cards by drawing on the power of heaven and earth.

• Caroso and Bai emerged to find Tom and Leona fighting, and Caroso explained that a powerful ninth-ranker could challenge a demigod.
• Tom drew on the graveyard’s materials and souls to create the God Card Primordial Light, while Bai, Caroso, and Teresa studied his card-making and control of the world’s power.
• Leona tried to break through the underground world to reach the moon, but Tom’s Primordial Light overwhelmed her and he told her to leave.
• Leona recalled her rivalry with her sister Diana and her mother’s death, then realized she had pursued victory rather than her own desires.
• At the brink of death, Leona connected with the Eternal Blazing Sun and gained a new form of power; she and Tom’s Primordial Light clashed before both withdrew.
• Caroso gained part of the Eternal Blazing Sun’s laws, and Bai began trying to create cards using the power of heaven and earth.

The Goddess of Dawn realized the dungeon was a blank in history that could affect the outside world, while Messiah questioned the gods’ old conflicts over faith. After Tom sensed a disturbance in the past and forgot what he had been investigating, Bai completed a ninth-rank card based on her inner landscape.

• The Goddess of Dawn told Messiah that the dungeon existed in the cracks of time and had revealed memories of the divine war and her transformation into the Eternal Blazing Sun.
• Messiah questioned why the gods had fought over faith, and the Goddess of Dawn explained that many Outer Gods had pursued amusement or pride rather than faith itself.
• Tom sensed that someone might have returned from the future to alter his past, tried to examine Caroso’s memories, and then forgot why he had been watching him.
• Bai used what she had learned from Caroso and the battle to create the ninth-rank Golden Legendary Field Magic card White Desert.
• Caroso congratulated Bai on reaching the ninth rank, while Teresa lamented how far behind the two of them she felt.

Bai understood Tom’s law and used it to spot the leaders of the Undead Army as her group prepared for the coming battle. On the tenth day, the new task demanded the elimination of rival factions, while Caroso, Bai, and Teresa appeared with an undead-and-demon force that made the contest a five-way struggle.

• Bai said she had not broken through, but she had begun to understand ninth-tier laws and could see the world’s essence and identify the Undead Army’s leaders.
• The tenth-day task ordered factions to become the sole survivors, occupy Barrington, and eliminate rival eighth-tier heroes and ninth-tier leaders.
• Anduin, Norman, Varian, and Uther discussed their strength and planned to bring Jaina, Malfurion, and Vareesa into their faction.
• Vareesa urged Malfurion to ally with humans, but he refused to betray his race, and the two parted on bad terms.
• Teleport arrays opened across a snowy frontier, bringing out Bai’s undead and demon troops, while Caroso, Bai, and Teresa rode Ghost Dragons into the sky.

Caroso led a vast army of high-tier Graveyard and Hell troops toward Dawn City, while the factions reacted to his unexpected strength. After contacting Varian and claiming allegiance to the God of Wisdom faction, Caroso declared war on Dawn City and ordered a siege, leaving Gabri confronting the threat of the Law of Death.

• Teresa and Caroso set out toward the Goddess of Night Church's territory with their army, while Zoltan followed and Anwen sent Vareesa and Malfurion to investigate.
• Nimel recognized Caroso in images from an Eye of Truth and ordered Naxxis to have Jaina contact him.
• Gabri prepared Dawn City for the approaching army, while Varian received Caroso's call and agreed to bring troops and hire Thieves Guild experts without involving Norman or Uther.
• Caroso's army reached Dawn City, and he announced an attack on behalf of the Church of the Lord of Eternal Life before firing at Varian.
• Gabri blocked Caroso's shot and identified the Law of Death, as Caroso ordered the Undead Army and demon army to begin the siege.

Caroso’s army launched a surprise assault on Dawn City, and Gabri’s defenders suffered heavy losses before counterattacking with angels, archers, and Arrow Towers. Despite Caroso’s catapults destroying one tower, his forces remained pinned down as Varian questioned the Holy Son’s strategy.

• Great Demons Teleported to Dawn City’s gates and battered its walls while Ghost Dragons and other Cemetery troops attacked the city.
• Corpse Demons’ cries killed many low-tier defenders, infuriating Gabri and prompting him to order a counterattack.
• Gabri sent angels, Griffin Knights, and waves of arrows against Caroso’s army, but both sides suffered heavy casualties.
• A Ghost Dragon crashed onto the wall, where soldiers and priests weakened it with attacks and purification magic.
• Gabri ordered the Arrow Towers to fire, and Caroso responded with catapults that destroyed one tower without turning the battle in his favor.
• Varian watched Caroso’s unsuccessful assault and wondered whether the Holy Son had ever studied strategy.

Caroso fought Gabri while Bai’s White Desert field suppressed the battlefield, and he used a combination of cards to withstand Gabri’s attacks. Caroso remained heavily outmatched, but he held on as reinforcements approached.

• Caroso doubled his mana with the Card God's Follower card and charged at Gabri.
• Bai spread the White Desert field across the battlefield, suppressing everyone except Caroso and Bai.
• Caroso attacked Gabri with Meteor Fall and used his red-eyed power, but Gabri answered with a moonlight sword slash.
• Caroso made Line Breaker kill bees summoned by Swarm Attack, increasing its attack power, then used two Scales of Earth cards to give it immense armor.
• Caroso survived Gabri’s moonlight slash but realized Gabri had broken through much of his armor, while Gabri had yet to send anyone else into the fight.
• Someone told Caroso that reinforcements were almost there.

Caroso ordered his forces to retreat from Dawn City, while Bai used a newly created Legendary card to cover their escape. Caroso regrouped with Zoltan, who agreed to protect the retreat despite being furious about Caroso’s reckless attack.

• Caroso ordered the Hell and Cemetery troops to flee, and Gabri sent Dawn City's forces after them.
• Bai summoned the Shadow of the Card God and cast Wall of Eternal Blazing Sun, creating a barrier that delayed Gabri's pursuit.
• Caroso endured Gabri's attack and escaped with his troops while Bai's barrier held for three seconds before her mana ran out.
• Caroso met Zoltan's army and claimed that he had attacked Dawn City to offer it to their lord, but had underestimated its defenses.
• Zoltan rebuked Caroso, then told him to reorganize his forces while Zoltan covered their retreat.