Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn escaped the collapsing Underground Tomb with Evil Bone, and the Beast God Temple crumbled behind them. The Long Night then ended as a giant awakened beneath the ruins, rising like a sun and revealing the next phase of the battle.

• Lu PingAn used Wave Superimposition and his Runner abilities to escape the collapsing Underground Tomb, while the rest of his companions relocated to his Courtyard.
• Lu PingAn reached safety first and waited for Evil Bone, then made him turn back and deal with the monsters pursuing him.
• Evil Bone defeated the monsters and revealed his hidden weapons and covert fighting style.
• The Underground Labyrinth and the above-ground portions of the Beast God Temple collapsed into ruins.
• Dawn abruptly arrived as a giant rose from an opening in the ruins, awakening the Sun God's gift in his bloodline.
• Lu PingAn recognized the beginning of the second phase and prepared to face the rising giant.

Lu PingAn fought the Sun God's Beast God Puppet while protecting Catherine, using cards and treants to hold it back. Catherine's Sacred Fire awakened under the Twin Moons' protection, and Lu PingAn realized she was a child of destiny.

• Evil Bone vanished, and Lu PingAn drew a Black Card that sealed his Life-type abilities before a Green Card put the knights to sleep.
• Catherine's appearance drew the Giant God's attention, and Lu PingAn blocked its Curse of Death, then used a Red Card and the Pillar of Time to summon treants and refresh his card set.
• The Giant God tore through the treants as undead believers rose from the forest, while Lu PingAn noticed it remained focused on Catherine.
• Catherine's Sacred Fire grew stronger and burned the undead, then the Twin Moons descended and their protection turned vast numbers of undead to ash.
• Catherine's fire gained a silver glow, and Lu PingAn recognized her as a child of destiny.

Lu PingAn and his allies struggled to hold back the Beast God Puppet as undead poured from the earth, until Catherine entered Zhi Xi’s armor and activated its damaged Black Flame Generator. Catherine’s newfound power turned the battle against the Giant God, and Lu PingAn sent Little Flame to carry her into the fight.

• The Beast God Puppet battered Lu PingAn’s treants and the knights while Catherine held its attention with her Sacred Fire.
• The Beast God High Priest warned that the Puppet was disrupting life and death, and undead began rising beneath the battlefield.
• Lu PingAn gave Catherine equipment and summoned Zhi Xi’s armor, then Catherine climbed inside as he blocked an attack for her.
• Catherine’s armor overpowered the Beast God Puppet and unfurled wings of crimson flame, while its damaged Black Flame Generator activated unexpectedly.
• Catherine’s black and crimson flames unleashed a Withering Aura that turned undead to ash, and Lu PingAn summoned Little Flame to carry her into battle.

Lu PingAn and the Knight Order fought the Beast God Puppet in a grinding battle while the Moon God's blessing cut it off from its underground source of power. Catherine and the others kept it contained as the puppet weakened, but a lurker in the shadows finally lost patience.

• The Moon God's blessing severed the Beast God Puppet's connection to the Beast God's remains, leaving it unable to draw on their knowledge or power directly.
• Lu PingAn rotated fighters and used the Courtyard's supplies and healing to keep the knights battling through three hours of attrition.
• Xue En and other fighters gained strength and resistance as the Beast God Puppet's mutations affected them, while Ba Manzhen and Tian Xi volunteered to transform.
• Catherine returned to the fight wearing Zhi Xi, whose armor had evolved and allowed Catherine to overpower the Beast God Puppet with her twin flames.
• The Beast God Puppet shriveled after being knocked back again, and the lurker in the shadows lost patience.

Evil Bone tried to disrupt Lu PingAn’s battle by leading a vast beast horde toward his group, then fled as Guan Xinxian raised a fortified position to stop it. The horde’s reckless assault drew four enormous snakes from the forest, which fixed their attention on the outsiders.

• Evil Bone waited for the Beast God Puppet to kill Lu PingAn’s group, then decided to break the battlefield’s balance by provoking monsters into following him.
• Lu PingAn recognized the approaching beast horde, but Guan Xinxian asked him to hold back his trump card while Catherine gained the upper hand against the Beast God Puppet.
• Guan Xinxian’s people clashed with the horde as Evil Bone escaped, and Lu PingAn sent Cat Cat and Su Zhizhu after him.
• Guan Xinxian deployed his Land Ark, Safe House, and Ladder Swarm to form a fortified line that halted the horde’s advance.
• The beasts continued throwing themselves against the defenses until four enormous snakes emerged from the forest and targeted the outsiders.

Lu PingAn unleashed his prepared Second Scene against the advancing snake swarm, turning the battlefield into a vast death trap. The Hungry Ghost Blood Pool engulfed the forest and began devouring the snakes.

• A colossal swarm of twisted snakes approached, and the rookies watching the broadcast could barely endure the contamination it brought.
• Catherine charged the giant snakes again, so Lu PingAn decided to support her rather than abandon the battle.
• Lu PingAn detonated miniature bombs to free Moro-Gate Grass, which burrowed underground and awakened the monsters below.
• Lu PingAn released Blood Mark, whose greatly multiplied growth spread across the battlefield as the Hungry Ghost Blood Pool.
• The red sea of Blood Mark swallowed the forest and overwhelmed the snake swarm.

Lu PingAn unleashed a vast, uncontrollable mass of Blood Mark that overwhelmed the battlefield, then helped Catherine and Little Flame defeat the weakened Beast God puppet. He escaped as the Blood Mark consumed the forest and the fallen puppet.

• Lu PingAn activated his buried Blood Mark by triggering it with Drilling Grass, and the vines flooded the land, devouring creatures and plants.
• The Beast God puppet used Sun Fire to drive the Blood Mark back, but the flames badly burned his polluted body.
• Lu PingAn summoned Little Flame, which absorbed the holy flames, while Catherine and Lu PingAn attacked the weakened puppet.
• Lu PingAn severed the puppet's arm and took the Divine Power Crystal, causing the creature to deform into a pollutant.
• Catherine's Sacred Fire and Little Flame's attacks burned the transformed puppet as Lu PingAn ordered Plan Zero and fled with her.

Lu PingAn contained the Hungry Ghost Blood Pool’s spread, then saved Zhi Xi from fatal injuries with his Installment Payment ability. Back in Schlei Territory, he moved to recruit his companions and use the new agreements and resources to expand his plans.

• Lu PingAn found that the blood marks had consumed everything nearby but had not spread beyond the surface area.
• Zhi Xi collapsed after her Sacred Fire-powered flight, and Marian said her overstrained body and soul were unlikely to survive the night.
• Lu PingAn used Installment Payment to restore Zhi Xi enough to speak and explained that her injuries would return in portions over time.
• Lu PingAn warned those he had treated about their recurring injuries and considered the Courtyard’s lack of high-level Healers.
• Lu PingAn announced that he intended to recruit his companions, relying on strict confidentiality contracts and long-term cooperation agreements.
• Lu PingAn recognized that the opened gates and his new resources had reduced the risks of expanding his plans, and his companions tacitly accepted the agreements.

Lu PingAn examined Aksuun's Severed Hand and discovered that its gift could grant and reclaim beastfolk transformations, though using it carried the risk of escalating beastification. The hand remained exhausted but dangerous, and Lu PingAn suspected it held further powers beyond its transformation spell.

• Lu PingAn appraised Aksuun's Severed Hand and learned that it could grant seven random beastfolk transformation spells to races below Gold Rank.
• Lu PingAn tested the hand's ability on Ba Manzhen, removing her lion transformation, but it failed to change Xue En.
• Marian identified Xue En as a God Chosen Warrior whose divine blood made his transformation impossible to remove.
• Lu PingAn learned that the hand's gifts could deepen into dangerous, increasingly uncontrollable beastification and that reclaiming them did not remove the underlying risk.
• Lu PingAn tried the gift on himself but felt no effect, then noted that the ability's Gold Low Rank evaluation did not explain the hand's full Gold High Rank value.

Lu PingAn decided to decompose the Rule-level item, then arranged a collective distribution of the Life Points it yielded to reward his team and recruit the foreign knights. The Courtyard preserved all three abilities, including the Beastification trait he most wanted.

• Lu PingAn decided to decompose the item so the Courtyard could absorb its rules and return two thousand Life Points.
• Lu PingAn consulted the Life Bank's administrator AI and arranged to sell the item collectively so the proceeds could be shared.
• Lu PingAn assigned merit rewards to the team, giving larger shares to key contributors and ten points each to the rookie knights.
• Lu PingAn completed the transaction as a Trader, and the Life Courtyard retained Beastification and both other abilities intact.

The Courtyard transformed the Severed Hand into the Hall of Life, a Rule-level Building that offered Beastified transformations, Sacred Flame, and Beast Tamer services. Its new powers and expanded space left it with the potential to become a major power in the Other World.

• The Courtyard gained the Hall of Life, whose Aksuun's Gift let people gamble Life Points for Beastified Human transformations.
• Lu PingAn inspected the costly draws, including a rare chance to obtain a powerful Fantasy Species transformation.
• Marian and Catherine discussed the hall's Sun God-inspired design and its golden Sacred Flame, which could advance Holy Fire professions.
• Lu PingAn discovered that the Sacred Flame was free to use but that the Courtyard charged admission and lodging fees.
• Big Cat explained that the Hall of Life had activated the Courtyard's Beast Tamer rules after absorbing the Hand of God.

Lu PingAn returned to Schlei Territory with his group after the Beast God Puppet’s fall, recruiting the abandoned Holy Fire Priests and offering the knights a chance to join him. As the prophecies and the coming calamity became harder to ignore, he prepared to expand exploration and secure more Ship Tickets.

• Ben Knight asked whether his lord would believe the warnings, and Lu PingAn told him the first three prophecies were confirmed and revealed that the outsiders were Extraterrestrial Devils.
• Ben Knight and Benn considered whether to join Lu PingAn, while learning that their lord planned to flee with his women and leave the knights behind.
• Lu PingAn’s group returned to Schlei Territory, where Su Zhizhu explained that she and Cat Cat had failed to defeat the powerful Evil Bone.
• Lu PingAn planned to have the lord issue a warrant for Evil Bone and announce that the Red Sand Pirates and his thieves had been wiped out, while searching their hideouts for treasure.
• Three surviving Holy Fire Priests and two apprentices offered to follow Lu PingAn, and he welcomed them into the Courtyard.
• Lu PingAn urged his people to work overtime and recruit more colleagues as the group prepared to explore the surrounding areas for Ship Tickets.

Lu PingAn offered the former Beast God priests long-term service contracts while the Courtyard’s members tested a new beast-transformation blessing. The former High Priest delivered the Beast God Sect’s library to Lu PingAn, giving Big Cat valuable material to develop training and advancement paths for humans.

• Lu PingAn offered local recruits and potential Sealing Knight allies contracts requiring at least twenty years of service, and the priests questioned the term.
• Courtyard members tried beast transformations: Feng Luanhua became a White Crane, while several experienced fighters rejected their results, and support staff and recruits benefited from the physical boosts and Talents.
• Lu PingAn learned that Hua Xuejie, Lei Shui Yun, and he could not gain another transformation, while Tian Xi drew an eagle transformation again after washing hers away.
• The former Beast God High Priest signed a long-term contract with his daughter and brought Lu PingAn the Beast God Sect’s library of training methods, histories, and supernatural inheritance.
• Lu PingAn entrusted the materials to Big Cat to adapt into human training paths, and Big Cat explained that the Courtyard might eventually develop incomplete combat professions as it grew stronger.

Lu PingAn split his team into groups to explore Schlei Territory, while Old Lord Wei Te questioned the captured Shepherd Silver Person about revealing the truth of the coming disaster. The lord remained friendly toward Lu PingAn and appeared to be seeking a closer alliance with his group.

• Lu PingAn sent most of his team to explore Schlei Territory in separate groups and told them to return within a month.
• No one volunteered to team up with Xue En, so Lu PingAn took him into his own group and arranged for guardian knights to support weaker teams.
• Old Lord Wei Te questioned the captured Shepherd Silver Person about betraying him by insisting that people had a right to know the truth, even if it brought panic and destruction.
• Old Lord Wei Te admitted to Lu PingAn that he had been naive, while Lu PingAn suspected the questioning had also been meant to justify the lord's inaction.
• Old Lord Wei Te continued trying to make an investment in Lu PingAn's group, whose conduct had earned the lord's approval.

Lu PingAn and the Old Lord negotiated a political alliance that gave Lu PingAn authority over Schlei Territory in exchange for protecting the Old Lord and employing him as a consultant. They left the family heirlooms unmentioned, and Xia Qin struggled to accept the Old Lord’s ruthless bargain.

• The Old Lord offered his Eldest Son as Lu PingAn’s Adopted Son, a move that would make Lu PingAn the territory’s Supreme Lord and secure the knights’ loyalty.
• Lu PingAn accepted the arrangement and offered the Old Lord a twenty-year contract as a political and local-affairs consultant.
• The Old Lord signed the contract immediately and thanked Lu PingAn, while the accompanying Knight Captains and Xia Qin reacted uneasily.
• Lu PingAn realized he had not mentioned that the two family heirlooms had been found, though neither he nor the Old Lord had brought them up during their negotiation.
• Xia Qin scolded Lu PingAn for pretending to have forgotten the heirlooms, and the Old Lord returned just as Lu PingAn smiled at her.

After returning from the expedition, Lu PingAn equipped his growing force with lightweight wooden shields and welcomed more villagers into the scouting teams. He struggled to develop a controllable Sacred Fire weapon from Sun Vine, while his Life Research Group marveled at how quickly his experiments progressed.

• Lu PingAn's Workshop produced Tower First Generation and Beetle Number One, lightweight shields that could grow stronger through use.
• The knights supplied retired equipment containing Mature Body Turtle Spirits, and Lu PingAn's team prepared to teach their members the Sealing Technique.
• Hua Xuejie's fellow villagers joined the expedition teams, relying on Beastification and Sealing Armor for protection.
• Lu PingAn and the Life Research Group tried to breed Sun Vine into a lower-tier plant that could be invested in and used as a Sacred Fire weapon.
• After repeated failures, Lu PingAn considered abandoning the costly project, unaware that the other researchers were astonished by his rapid progress.

Lu PingAn continued researching how to integrate the Sun Holy Fire into Earth’s Gardener system while Miss Rou developed valuable potions from his experimental byproducts. After the team tested Sacred Fire and gained new ways to build combat strength, another group of outsiders arrived from the Holy Capital.

• Lu PingAn focused on grafting and breeding local magical plants rather than joining treasure hunts, hoping to integrate the Sun Holy Fire into Earth’s Gardener profession.
• Miss Rou created the Yang Fire Pill and Holy Fire Pill from experimental residue, producing potions that improved fire resistance, flame control, and Sacred Fire.
• A middle-aged Sealing Knight and two other local knights failed to endure the Sacred Fire trial, but Lu PingAn used his phasing ability to save them from dying.
• Mei Yuge succeeded in the Sacred Fire trial on her first attempt and became the team’s second Holy Fire Knight.
• Lu PingAn recognized several ways to rapidly train ordinary people into battlefield-ready warriors through Sacred Fire, beastification, and potions.
• Another group of outsiders from the Holy Capital arrived in the remote region.

After Xia Qin killed two Sindak visitors who attacked her, Lu PingAn recognized their fight as a probe against his group. The Sindak fled Schlei Territory for Gray Forest, and Lu PingAn sent Cat Cat to follow them and investigate the forest.

• Xia Qin told Lu PingAn that Sindak visitors had provoked her and tried to kill her, so she killed two of them before the knights stopped the fight.
• Lu PingAn concluded the attack had tested his group's strength and learned that the Sindak had met with the lord before returning to their inn.
• The lord ordered the Sindak to leave within three days, but they departed for Gray Forest less than three hours later.
• Lu PingAn sent Cat Cat after the Sindak to collect any corpses and find out whether anything had changed in Gray Forest.

Lu PingAn learned that a nearby village had vanished before the sky lit up and the sun returned, born from a ritual in the Kasola Desert. The newborn Sun God then rejected the world and fled, plunging the Silent Mountain Range back into darkness and despair.

• Lu PingAn heard that an exploration team had found a nearby village deserted and ordered Xue En to join the next expedition.
• The Sand Dragon king described the clan’s history and began a ritual to create a god of their own, sacrificing captives in the underground kingdom.
• The ritual succeeded, and the newborn Sun God rose from the desert as the whole world rejoiced at the sun’s return.
• The new Sun God refused to remain in the sky and escaped beyond the world’s restraints.
• The sun vanished, leaving the Silent Mountain Range in darkness as its inhabitants realized the nightmare had returned.

After the sun vanished again, panic and violence engulfed the world, while Lu PingAn’s presence helped Schlei Territory remain orderly. With the surrounding lands collapsing and the Knight Order still holding, Lu PingAn warned that the territory’s stability might last no more than two months.

• The second disappearance of the sun triggered riots, cult activity, and God Wars across the world, and four of the seven lords neighboring Schlei Territory were hanged.
• Lu PingAn learned that the Knight Order’s emotions remained stable because the knights’ families had been brought into Schlei Territory beforehand.
• The Knight Order suppressed agitators and looters, while the lord and the Holy Fire Church distributed food to calm the people.
• Explorers returning from border villages reported chaos and human sacrifices, though Schlei Territory’s urban areas remained under control.
• Lu PingAn estimated that the territory could stay stable for at most two months and said they needed to plan their next move.