Recaps

Zhou Qing and his companions stopped Saundin’s experiment, but Mithras died and left Riko a White Whistle and a strange feather. The group descended to the Fifth Layer, where they found Namiki’s village and the Rabbit Girl reached Namiki’s remaining soul at the cost of her freedom.

• Zhou Qing and his companions reached the Steel Base, where Riko and Rabbit Girl joined them and Saundin’s daughter Prometheus welcomed them.
• Riko and Mithras entered Saundin’s laboratory, where he tortured Fallen Ones and revealed his plan to use Mithras in an experiment.
• Saundin restrained Prometheus and Mithras, but Zhou Qing and Romantina fused into Divine Land and broke into the Steel Base to stop him.
• Saundin escaped and used the Ascension Curse to evolve, while Mithras left a White Whistle that Riko used to empower Rabbit Girl.
• Rabbit Girl and Dugu Bo defeated Saundin, who died after asking Rabbit Girl to care for Riko’s White Whistle, and Riko gained a feather that formed a powerful wing.
• Zhou Qing’s group descended to the Fifth Layer, found Namiki at Nami Village, and learned that its Equivalent Exchange rules were tied to her resentment over her children being eaten.
• The Clockwork Gentleman revealed that a reborn Namiki had escaped the village, and Zhou Qing recognized her as the Fallen One Wei Sa had found at an auction.
• The Rabbit Girl traded her freedom to reach Namiki’s partial soul, while Hope demanded three hundred tons of magnetite ore for her return.

Zhou Qing and his companions uncovered Namiki’s history and helped Timidit confront the fear behind Nami Village’s Guardian. As they prepared to explore further, they found a Recorder behaving strangely in the Red Iron Ore Field.

• Hope revealed his Sun Moon Continent origins and negotiated a lower ore quota, while Zhou Qing’s group toured Nami Village and encountered its strange rules of exchange.
• After Riko’s White Whistle was damaged, Mahaha was punished but later restored it, carving a new whistle that carried the soul of Riko’s friend.
• Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo defeated the Purple Slime and captured its remains, while the village rewarded them with a Mental Energy Crystal.
• Riko found Timidit in a ravine, and the Hope Worms projected Namiki’s memories, revealing Timidit’s painful history and the fate of Namiki’s children.
• Zhou Qing explained that Namiki had created a warm inner world through the Heart of Dreams and that Timidit’s fear had given rise to Ifranci, the village’s Guardian.
• Zhou Qing urged Timidit to face Ifranci and take responsibility as Namiki’s mother, then sent Dugu Bo to ask Dark about obtaining a Heart of Dreams.
• Dark proposed the Undying Princess or Riko as payment, while Riko suspected he wanted the Heart of Dreams to help the Fallen Ones explore deeper.
• Mr. Watch gave Zhou Qing two evolving Phoenix Machine Staffs and a Black Tome, and Zhou Qing later found the Recorder at the Red Iron Ore Field acting strangely.

Zhou Qing helped Aitaljia confront Nami Village’s past, leading her to absorb its residents and reunite with Namiki before joining his group. The party then ascended to the Sixth Layer, explored the Swarm Kingdom, and learned that powerful guardians stood between them and the Seventh Layer.

• Zhou Qing joined Aitaljia in approaching Nami Village, where she began devouring the Fallen Ones while Riko and Rabbit Girl tried to stop her.
• Timidit protected Namiki from Ifranci, and Zhou Qing helped her reconnect with Aitaljia as Hope shared Namiki’s happiest memories with her.
• Dark urged Aitaljia to accept the Fallen Ones, who joined her and helped her reach god-level power as she rebirthed the villagers within her Inner Scenery World.
• Aitaljia mourned Namiki’s passing, accepted Zhou Qing’s invitation to travel with him, and welcomed Timidit into their group.
• Zhou Qing’s group activated the Sky Ladder, learned from the Recorder that the world had once been called Earth, and ascended to the Sixth Layer.
• The group entered the Swarm Kingdom after Romantina’s spiritual detection overwhelmed her, and Zhou Qing observed how its insect swarms functioned as part of its qi.
• Taros and Tais introduced the group to the Swarm Kingdom’s communal customs and food-producing worms, then explained how to reach the Seventh Layer.
• Taros and Tais warned that two powerful guardians defended the route downward, and Zhou Qing recognized one guardian’s beam as a Cremation Cannon like Saundin’s weapon.

Zhou Qing’s group uncovered the Swarm Kingdom’s collective consciousness, helped it understand the limits of its ambitions, and obtained a Spiritual Link Soul Guidance Device. They used the White Whistle to reach the Seventh Layer, arriving at Sky City and beginning to explore its abandoned-looking outskirts.

• Zhou Qing rejected Taros and Tais’s plan to control the Swarm, learned how pheromones directed its members, and suspected the Swarm possessed a collective consciousness.
• Taros and Tais tried to hatch a stolen Bug Egg, but the Swarm’s Brain Bug emerged, captured the outsiders, and revealed that it planned to merge their minds and souls into the Swarm.
• The Brain Bug explained the Swarm’s history and its effort to ascend by becoming a world, then tested Zhou Qing and his companions to find someone who could understand it.
• Zhou Qing chose a Spiritual Link Soul Guidance Device instead of a dream-based wish, and Taros fashioned it from the Purple Slime while explaining its powers.
• The Brain Bug gave Romantina the Heart of Dreams as a safeguard, and Taros led Zhou Qing’s group to the White Sphere Device at the Altar.
• Zhou Qing activated the device with the White Whistle, and Riko played “Fireflies,” sending the sphere toward the Seventh Layer as the Swarm responded to the song.
• Zhou Qing and his companions reached Sky City, crossed a rope bridge in strong winds, and began exploring the Seventh Layer.
• Riko identified a Hamaslama, and Zhou Qing’s group prepared and ate the extinct Second Layer delicacy before finding moss-covered buildings that Zhou Qing suspected were warehouses.