Recaps

After the fire for General Clerion’s fallen soldiers, Li Ang occupied Calundru Castle while Clerion left to continue fighting the Snake Worship Cult. In Erudition City, Justus provoked the rebel army into uniting under a ruthless gladiator, but the rebels began a costly assault and refused to negotiate.

• Clerion and Li Ang spread lime through Calundru Castle after burning the camp, while Ansen mourned the dead soldiers.
• Clerion accepted the loss of his territory, and Li Ang promised to build a memorial before occupying the castle.
• Clerion left Calundru Castle, and Li Ang reflected on how nobles labeled capable commoner lords and generals as cunning.
• In Erudition City, Justus struggled to control the plague, disruptive nobles, and the slave rebel army besieging the city.
• Justus sent the Imperial First Legion into a staged breakout and used the nobles’ guards to provoke the rebels into ending their infighting.
• The rebels chose a gladiator as their leader and launched a fierce assault on Erudition City, refusing communication and accepting heavy losses.

Erudition City descended into riots and a desperate siege after rebels broke in through the waterways and trapped the city’s people. As gladiators climbed the walls using improvised wooden scaffolds, Justus faced defeat until a Lion Territory cavalry horn sounded outside the city.

• Rebels entered Erudition City through the waterways, sparking a riot as nobles tried to flee through the northern water gates and were caught in the fighting.
• The rebels seized or sank the port’s ships, leaving Erudition City without an escape route, while Justus sealed the waterways and redeployed troops to suppress unrest.
• The rebels launched a full-scale assault, assembling interlocking bamboo-and-wood scaffolds against the walls and climbing them under fire.
• Justus ordered spears, rolling logs, and hot oil used against the attackers, but the rebels raised more scaffolds and gladiators began gaining the battlements.
• As the defenders suffered mounting losses, gladiators reached Justus and he prepared to face them without fleeing.
• A sharp horn from outside the city sounded the charge signal of Lion Territory cavalry.

Li Ang’s reinforcements broke the rebel army outside Erudition City and surrounded the surviving gladiators, but their leader Castro attacked to seize Alina. Wendilf killed Castro with a dazzling sword technique, leaving Alina safe.

• Li Ang’s cavalry, Amy’s Griffin Claws, Risadiran’s Noldo force, and Creon’s wagon-mounted Plague-Exorcists routed the slave rebels outside Erudition City.
• Li Ang’s forces surrounded the gladiators, and Alina recognized the tortured Brutus among them.
• Castro rejected Li Ang’s demand to surrender, used Brutus as a hostage, and then charged toward Alina.
• Li Ang ordered his soldiers to attack, but Castro broke through the Noldo Rangers and nearly reached Alina.
• Wendilf pulled Alina to safety and killed Castro with a low dive and a swift sword strike to his neck.

After Li Ang’s forces defeated Castro and the gladiators, Brutus explained that Snake Worship Cultists had transformed Castro through a failed sacrifice to Az-Dahaka. Li Ang sought to recruit the surrendered gladiators for the Lionheart Kingdom and challenged their strongest champion to a duel to earn their obedience.

• Wendy killed Castro, and the surviving gladiators surrendered after suffering heavy losses.
• Brutus told Alina and Li Ang that Castro had forced the gladiators to obey him and described how Snake Worship Cultists had cut him open and performed a sacrifice.
• Li Ang and General Clerion concluded that Castro’s superhuman strength came from the cult’s ritual, which they believed aimed to create a being controlled by Az-Dahaka.
• Brutus explained that the gladiators no longer trusted the Bacchus Empire and would follow only a victor; Li Ang offered them the Empire’s greatest enemy as their new leader.
• After deciding none of his companions could take the challenge in his place, Li Ang called for the strongest gladiator to duel him.

Li Ang offered food and freedom from slavery to the starving gladiators besieging Erudition City in exchange for their loyalty. He defeated their champion, Sigismund Sinclair, by trickery, and the gladiators accepted his leadership.

• Sigismund questioned why Li Ang was rescuing Erudition City, and Li Ang warned that the Red Death would spread if the city fell into chaos.
• Li Ang offered the gladiators two months of grain and promised they could become Commoner Knights rather than slaves.
• Sigismund introduced himself as a vagrant without a homeland and challenged Li Ang to defeat him before he would lead the warriors into Li Ang's service.
• Sigismund's fast, unconventional greatsword thrusts kept Li Ang at a distance until Li Ang feigned mastery with his eyes closed and then threw his scabbard to distract him.
• Li Ang tackled Sigismund, twisted his arm into a lock, and made him yield.
• Sigismund agreed to organize his troops, and the gladiators pledged themselves to Li Ang after he promised them food and freedom from slavery.

Li Ang reorganized the rebels into the Pande Free Legion, but the soldiers lacked a cause until Sigismund publicly declared Li Ang the Child of Prophecy and Pande’s true king. Sigismund’s speech stirred the legion and forced Li Ang to confront the political dangers, while a flashback revealed the tragic fate of the original Commoner Knights and their leader.

• Sigismund and Brutus selected two thousand trained fighters from the eight thousand rebels, forming the Pande Free Legion, while Jocelyn led the others to settle at Calundru Castle.
• Li Ang recognized that the new legion had lost its purpose and needed a conviction before facing the Snake Worship Cult.
• Sigismund proclaimed Li Ang the Child of Prophecy and Pande’s true king, giving the gladiators a cause to fight for freedom and stable lives.
• Li Ang rebuked Sigismund for making the declaration without permission, but Sigismund argued that the commoners needed a hero and that Li Ang’s army would provoke the kingdoms regardless.
• The story recounted how Claire and her husband formed the Commoner Knights to protect ordinary people, only for a coalition army to destroy them and kill Claire.
• The surviving leader, later known as King Vidis of Fieltzwe, realized that he had fought for peace and stability, but war had brought only death.

Sigismund’s rebellion and the relief of Erudition City led Li Ang to promise Governor Justus that he would head for Imperial Port to fight the Snake Worship Cult. In Siyuan City, Emperor Marius followed Li Ang’s strategy, evacuating the people and leaving the capital to trap the Fear Legion and Hila Yuzas’s rebels inside.

• Sigismund’s actions revealed his commitment to fighting for freedom, while Alina and General Creon led the Plague-Exorcists into Erudition City to contain the Red Death.
• Li Ang met Governor Justus, agreed to save Imperial Port first, and refused Justus’s offer to join the Bacchus Empire.
• Emperor Marius received Alina’s letter confirming Erudition City’s relief as the Fear Legion, commanded by Maltis, and Hila Yuzas’s rebels threatened Siyuan City.
• Emperor Marius followed Li Ang’s advice, evacuated Siyuan City’s people through the western harbor, and burned or destroyed the supplies left behind.
• The Fear Legion and Hila Yuzas’s rebels entered the abandoned capital and clashed, while Sura’s Shadow Wolf Pack and General Agason’s forces sealed its gates from outside.

Emperor Marius held the Fear Legion inside Siyuan City under siege while reflecting on his uneasy alliance with Li Ang. Meanwhile, Li Ang and Justus advanced toward Imperial Port with reinforcements, and the chapter ended as Sigismund returned with Snake Worship Cultists in pursuit.

• Emperor Marius used crossbows, trenches, and obstacles to contain the Fear Legion inside Siyuan City while Maltis kept her forces off the walls.
• Emperor Marius told General Agasong that Li Ang was both his friend and his greatest enemy, and that Li Ang’s letter had prompted his withdrawal from Siyuan City.
• Li Ang and Justus left General Clerion in charge of Erudition City, where Ansen stayed to search for a treatment for the Red Death.
• Li Ang led nearly four thousand troops from Buyulin Village toward Imperial Port in a noisy, full-kit march intended to reassure its defenders and draw enemy attention.
• Jocelyn warned Li Ang that Sigismund had returned and Snake Worship Cultists were chasing the scouts.

Li Ang led his army away from the Snake Worship Cult’s overwhelming forces and returned to Buyulin Village, where he prepared to defend against an imminent attack. There, Risadiran introduced Elisa, a pursued former cultist whose forked tongue revealed a strange connection to the enemy.

• Sigismund reported that tens of thousands of Snake Worship Cultists had abandoned the siege of Imperial Port and were advancing toward Li Ang’s army.
• Li Ang ordered the army to retreat toward Buyulin Village, warning that the cultists’ numbers and fearlessness could trap them in a deadly melee.
• Li Ang and the Noldo Rangers fought a retreat, killing many cultists while delaying their advance with mounted archery.
• Justus’s Imperial Guards formed defenses at Buyulin Village after Snake Worship Cult warriors attacked it, and Li Ang prepared for the approaching enemy.
• Risadiran introduced Elisa, a young woman who had fled the Snake Worship Cult and claimed she was no longer one of them.
• Li Ang saw that Elisa had a forked tongue and heard her hiss before speaking.

Li Ang questioned Elisa, a former Snake Worship Cult priestess, and learned that famine and political turmoil had driven the cult’s invasion of Pande Continent. The chapter explained how priestess rule had left Amara impoverished and revealed that Elisa’s exile was part of the High Priest’s effort to control the expeditionary army.

• Li Ang questioned Elisa about her origins, her defection, and her rivalry with the other priestesses.
• Elisa said famine had struck Amara Continent and that the Snake Worship Cult’s rulers no longer followed the Goddess’s will.
• Li Ang learned that the priestesses had seized power after the first High Priest died and had formed a council that knew little about governing.
• The Snake Worship Cult’s wars, neglect of farming, and lavish spending had left its followers hungry despite the cult’s wealth.
• Elisa had tried to poison rival priestesses because she wanted to change their rule, but the attempt failed and she was exiled to Pande Continent.
• The High Priest had declared Elisa a rebel to bring the expeditionary army under her control, while Snake Worship Cult warriors watched Elisa to prevent her return.

The High Priest tried to use Elisa and the Fear Legion to seize control of the Snake Worship Cult’s armies on both continents, but her expedition to Pande stalled after a Bacchus Empire fleet destroyed supplies and ports. Elisa escaped her guards and reached Risadiran, who recognized that the Snake Worship Cult’s troops attacking him were trying to escape the siege of Imperial Port.

• The chapter explained how the Cobra and Viper factions and Maltis’s independent Fear Legion limited the High Priest’s control over the Snake Worship Cult’s military.
• The High Priest framed a Viper general with Elisa’s treason, prompting the Fear Legion to kill him and allowing her to install a loyal commander and seize his army.
• The High Priest sent Elisa to Pande and ordered the Cobra priestesses to gather at Imperial Port so she could frame them, bring in the Fear Legion, and take control of their troops.
• A Bacchus Empire fleet wrecked the ports and supplies before the High Priest’s expedition could depart, while Maltis’s Fear Legion sailed independently toward Siyuan City.
• Elisa poisoned one of her guards, escaped with the Black Iron Spear, and fled toward Imperial Port before a Cobra Warrior chased her to Buyulin Village.
• Elisa offered Risadiran advice about the Snake Worship Cult, and Risadiran concluded that the cult troops attacking him wanted to escape their failed siege of Imperial Port.

Li Ang planned to lure the Snake Worship Cult army toward Erudition City and ambush it while Justus entered Imperial Port. After the army passed through Buyulin Village, Li Ang’s troops took refuge in the haunted ruins of Serindil, where Sarah and Sigismund spotted enemy warships offshore.

• Elisa explained that the Cobra faction priestesses had lost interest in attacking Imperial Port and intended to march on Erudition City instead.
• Li Ang persuaded Justus to let the Snake Worship Cult pass through Buyulin Village and planned a pincer attack at Fidne after moving his troops through Serindil.
• The lord’s army withdrew from Buyulin Village, and the Snake Worship Cult’s main force swept through it toward the northwest.
• Li Ang’s troops reached Serindil, a deserted former fishing port scarred by generations of slavery and rebellion, and rested there for the night.
• During night watch, Sarah and Sigismund saw warships approaching offshore, and Sigismund sounded the alarm.

Emperor Marius discovered that the Fear Legion had escaped Siyuan City and confronted Maltis and the Adder Vanguard at Qizha Village. At Serindil, Li Ang’s forces fought the Fear Legion as its undead riders emerged from the sea, and Li Ang ordered his troops to hold the beach at all costs.

• Emperor Marius entered Siyuan City and found it occupied by Devoured made from Hila Yuzas’s former rebel soldiers.
• Sura deduced that the Fear Legion had escaped by sea, so Marius rushed to Qizha Village to destroy its ships.
• Marius found the stranded warships damaged and was ambushed by Maltis and the Adder Vanguard emerging from the water.
• At Serindil, Li Ang and the Noldo Elves saw Fear Legion riders advancing underwater and discovered that destroying their heads could kill them.
• Sigismund led bare-chested gladiators into the surf, where they cut down hundreds of Python Knights before the undead reached firm ground.
• As the Fear Legion counterattacked and the gladiators’ line began to break, Li Ang ordered Wendy to direct the rear and sent the Imperial Guards forward to hold the beach.

Li Ang and his allies fought the Fear Legion on the shore until Kloze and the Mettenheim reinforcements turned the battle with chains and greatswords. After the victory, Li Ang founded the Silver Hand to defend the land from the Snake Worship Cult, and Kloze revealed that he had returned with an ironclad.

• Li Ang, Justus, and their troops held the Python Knights in the surf while suffering heavy casualties and stopping deserters from breaking the line.
• Amy shot Python Knights with her musket, then recognized Kloze and the approaching Mettenheim men as reinforcements.
• Kloze led the Mettenheim warriors into battle with chains, while the gladiators used chains to break undead necks and restrain their horses.
• The reinforcements helped the defenders defeat the Fear Legion, and Li Ang named the new knightly order the Silver Hand with Kloze as its first Knight Commander.
• Li Ang learned that Kloze had returned to Mettenheim in September and brought an ironclad despite the difficulty of long voyages.

Kloze returned to Imperial Port with a Mettenheim ironclad and helped defend the city before pursuing the fleet that had trapped him there. Li Ang learned that the city’s defenders had been led by Ivaillo, a former swineherd serf, while Emperor Marius escaped Maltis’s Adder Vanguards and a band of ragged Mettenheimers arrived to confront them.

• Kloze and the Mettenheim Brutes helped Imperial Port withstand the Snake Worship Cult’s siege, then pursued the fleet that had blockaded the harbor until storms forced them to withdraw and follow overland toward Serendil.
• Li Ang questioned whether the enemy fleet had really belonged to the Snake Worship Cult, since the cult forbade eating fish, and Kloze said its ships resembled the wrecks of the Fear Legion.
• Jocelyn reported that the wrecked ships were unusable and the Netherworld Horses could not be controlled, so Li Ang ordered the troops to strip the horses’ armor and prepare to march to Fidne.
• Kloze told Justus that Ivaillo, a former serf and swineherd, had become Imperial Port’s leading defender after its officials and nobles vanished or died, and had held the city with help from the Mettenheimers.
• Emperor Marius and Agasong fled Maltis and her two hundred Adder Vanguards after the Imperial Knights were nearly wiped out, while Maltis turned toward the sea.
• A storm drove damaged warships toward Qizha Village, where a ragged band of Mettenheimers landed and their leader ordered an attack on Maltis and the Adder Vanguards.

Lord Li Ang arrived at Fidne Village ahead of the Snake Worship Cult's army and learned from an elderly tribune that Lord Fabius and Governor Livius had devastated the region while trying to build up their forces. The five thousand people they had forcibly conscripted were hidden in the eastern mountains, and Li Ang was left to wonder where they were as the cult's army approached.

• Lord Li Ang reached desolate Fidne Village ahead of the Snake Worship Cult's army and sent Risadiran to investigate its survivors.
• Risadiran seized an elderly tribune, who told Li Ang that the Red Death had never reached the village and that Lord Fabius was its lord.
• The tribune explained that Governor Livius and Lord Fabius had forcibly conscripted nearly eight thousand people, including women and children, to strengthen their position amid the civil war.
• Governor Livius and Lord Fabius killed nearly three thousand people they suspected of joining the Snake Worship Cult, then plundered the surrounding area for grain.
• The tribune told Li Ang that the father and son had taken the remaining five thousand forcibly conscripted people into the eastern mountains.

Li Ang used Elisa’s disguise as a Snake Worship Cult priestess to draw Livius and Lord Fabius out of hiding and capture Fabius at the family estate. With the Snake Worship Cult army approaching and his forces short on men and arrows, Li Ang prepared to defend Fidne Village and lure the enemy into the valley.

• Li Ang occupied the Livius family estate and gathered about two hundred elderly villagers to help locate the family’s mines and support his ambush plans.
• Elisa posed as a Snake Worship Cult priestess and led the villagers to a major mine, prompting Livius and Lord Fabius to mobilize their soldiers.
• Lord Fabius followed Elisa’s group back to the estate and led soldiers through a hidden passage, where Li Ang’s forces surrounded them and forced Fabius to surrender.
• Li Ang ordered Lord Fabius to lead him to the captured villagers and release them.
• Wendilf reported that Snake Worship Cult scouts had been spotted nearby, and Li Ang prepared the village entrance with wooden stakes despite the shortage of trained fighters and arrows.

Li Ang and Elisa lured the Snake Worship Cult army into a narrow valley passage before triggering explosives that brought down the cliffs and buried most of the force. Li Ang, the villagers, and the manor’s defenders then attacked the survivors, leaving the valley cleared of standing Snake Worship Cultists.

• Li Ang watched the Snake Worship Cult vanguard enter the valley and approach the manor, where Elisa posed as a priestess commanding Lord Fabius’s soldiers and the rescued villagers.
• Elisa ordered the vanguard to attack the manor while her followers cut a narrow passage through the stake barricades, then directed the Cobra Warriors to attack from two sides.
• The main Snake Worship Cult army hurried through the passage, and a shot from the manor killed a priestess as Li Ang’s explosives began detonating along the cliffs.
• The explosions triggered landslides that buried the valley and trapped the Snake Worship Cult army, while the narrow passage left the soldiers with little room to escape.
• Li Ang, the female soldiers, the Noldor, and the villagers attacked the survivors, and within half an hour no Snake Worship Cultists remained standing in the valley.

Li Ang trapped the Snake Worship Cult army in the valley with landslides and smoke, then turned against Lord Fabius and his family's soldiers over their crimes against the villagers. After the villagers killed Fabius and the soldiers, Li Ang revealed to Amy that he intended to take the villagers away with him.

• Wendy and the Noldo Guard sealed the valley entrance with a fire while Li Ang lit a second fire at Fidne, filling the valley with smoke and suffocating the trapped Snake Worshippers.
• Li Ang ordered Lord Fabius to have the villagers recover their families and wealth and bring back Livius, promising to spare the disarmed soldiers if they complied.
• The villagers returned with the women and children and Livius's corpse, which had been mutilated after they found evidence that he and his soldiers had abused and killed women and girls.
• Li Ang had Livius's corpse thrown into the fire and called the soldiers Snake Worshippers, prompting the villagers to kill the soldiers and Lord Fabius.
• Amy questioned Li Ang about making the villagers do the killing, and he said he intended to take them away with him.

Li Ang finished eliminating the Snake Worship Cult at Fidne Village and led its villagers and seized supplies toward Calundru Castle before visiting Erudition City. Meanwhile, Kairos detained Emperor Marius at Fort Lela, Maltis vanished after capturing a Mettenheim commander, and Li Ang learned that Ansen had found possible clues to controlling Red Death in Brettwen.

• Li Ang’s forces and the villagers cleared and buried the Snake Worship Cultists’ bodies in the valley, while the Bacchus Empire’s governors maintained order during reconstruction.
• Kairos ordered Emperor Marius taken to Fort Lela, and Marius sent Agasong away to seek Justus or Alina before his own capture.
• Maltis defeated and captured a Mettenheim Legion Commander, then forced his regiment to take her surviving Adder Vanguards and their dead back to Amara Continent.
• Li Ang led more than six thousand people north, sent the villagers and supplies to Calundru Castle, and took the Silver Hand to Erudition City.
• General Clerion told Li Ang that Ansen had gone to Brettwen and had found clues related to controlling Red Death at an abandoned Snake Worship Cult nest.

Li Ang's men discovered a blood altar built from Red Death victims in Brettwen, where a mysterious voice identified Kloze as a potential Chosen shell before vanishing. Governor Kairos arrived escorting the imprisoned Emperor Marius, and his anguish over his son Antonius left the altar's purpose and Kairos's involvement unresolved.

• Li Ang and his men found Brettwen deserted, discovered blood flowing from a sealed temple, and warned Erudition City not to drink Lake Sava's water.
• The men broke into the temple and found hundreds of corpses surrounding a blood pool, where Castro's mutilated body lay chained to an altar.
• A disembodied voice described the ritual's thousand victims and called Kloze a promising Chosen shell, then vanished when Sammer reported an approaching army.
• Sammer identified the arriving force as Governor Kairos's, and Li Ang ordered his men to hide near the altar.
• Kairos brought the imprisoned Emperor Marius into Brettwen, panicked at the ruined temple, and mourned Antonius while Marius demanded an explanation.

Kairos explained how the Snake Worship Cult poisoned and took control of Antonius, then used him to try to lure Kairos into bringing Emperor Marius to an altar. After Li Ang appeared and questioned the scene, Kairos revealed that the temple had contained no corpses when it was sealed, only Antonius.

• Kairos told Emperor Marius that the Snake Worship Cult had poisoned Antonius and taken control of him.
• Kairos recounted how Lady Aras mistook Antonius for Kairos’s lover, ordered a servant to shoot him with a poisoned needle, and then worsened his condition by summoning quack doctors.
• Snake Worship Cultists posing as priests treated Antonius, awakened him as a compliant puppet, and brought Lady Aras and the household into the cult.
• The cult used Antonius to try to make Kairos open Imperial Port to its army, then demanded Emperor Marius’s blood as the price for restoring Antonius.
• Kairos said he had seen the cult seal Antonius inside the temple, where there had been no corpses at the time.
• Li Ang appeared, and Kairos confirmed that the altar had held only Antonius when it was sealed.

Li Ang confronted Kairos and Emperor Marius at the village temple, where a resurrected monster emerged from the altar and Kairos pursued it in hopes of finding his son and the Snake Worship Cult priest. Marius revealed his hidden Shadow Wolves, while Li Ang left to search for Ansen, who was on a boat on Lake Sava with two strangers.

• Li Ang surrounded Kairos's guards, helped Emperor Marius leave their custody, and tried to dissuade Kairos from confronting him.
• A mutilated corpse rose from the altar, and Kairos asked Li Ang to let it go so he could follow it to the cult priest and his son, Antonius.
• Li Ang let Kairos pursue the monster and told him that the Snake Worship Cult army near Fidne Village had been wiped out; Kairos thanked him and left with his troops.
• Marius declined Li Ang's offer to escort him and revealed that Sura and the Shadow Wolves had been following Kairos.
• Marius told Li Ang that the Vipers were trained by the Shadow Wolf Pack, and Li Ang departed to find Ansen and return to Calundru Castle.
• Ansen was revealed to be on a small boat on Lake Sava with an unconscious, scale-marked man and an armed woman.

Ansen and Julia fled the lake with an unconscious man whose unusual poison might help cure Red Death, but Devourers pursued them through the swamp. Risadiran found them and fought alongside Julia, and the two bonded over accidentally killing their younger brothers and their shared hatred of the Snake Worship Cult.

• Ansen and Julia reached a swamp while carrying the unconscious man, but realized they had lost their way as Devourers crept after them.
• Risadiran arrived with Noldo Rangers, killed a Devourer, and sent Ansen south on horseback with the patient while he and Julia stayed to fight.
• Risadiran and Julia coordinated seamlessly against the Devourers and defeated them within minutes.
• Julia told Risadiran that the Bacchus Empire hunted her because she had accidentally killed her twin brother Julius after discovering her family served a Snake Worship Cult priestess.
• Risadiran revealed that he too had accidentally killed a younger cousin and encouraged Julia to meet Li Ang, who opposed the Snake Worship Cult.
• Julia said she wanted to destroy the cult, and she and Risadiran bonded over their shared preference for bows and crossbows.

Ansen discovered that a poison affecting Antonius might suppress the Red Death, while Li Ang’s coconut-water infusion helped them try to keep him alive. Their discussion of blood transfusions led them to suspect that King Ulrich had injected Noldo blood into himself, and that the royal family’s supposed madness might have another cause.

• Ansen returned to Brettwen and found Antonius alive but unconscious, apparently protected from the Red Death’s transmission by an unknown poison.
• Ansen treated Antonius in the village while Li Ang helped, and they agreed he needed fluids and consciousness restored so they could identify the poison.
• Li Ang infused Antonius with coconut water through a vein, hoping to stabilize him long enough to wake.
• Ansen connected blood incompatibility, the Noldo’s resistance to the Red Death, and King Ulrich’s interest in Noldo maidens.
• Li Ang and Ansen suspected that King Ulrich had received Noldo blood and that the royal family’s supposed madness might not be madness.