Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn expanded the Secluded Courtyard by consuming Aidal's Friendship Teapot, but found that Bane's Wishbone could not be absorbed without greater power. Big Cat urged him to seek advancement through the rules of this world rather than rely only on paths tied to Earth's gods.

• Lu PingAn dismantled Aidal's Friendship Teapot, gaining 517 Life Points, a new Alchemy Lab construction option, and the Lake of Divergent Calamity.
• The expanded Secluded Courtyard raised its capacity to about 2,100 mortals and provided more Ship Tickets.
• Lu PingAn tried to absorb Bane's Wishbone, but the Courtyard rejected it because its Death-type and curse-type rules exceeded his current abilities.
• Big Cat explained that Lu PingAn needed to reach Silver Tier or take a Tier Three Death-type side profession before he could handle the unity of life and death.
• Lu PingAn hesitated to advance the Parasitic Tree before finding a suitable symbiotic magical plant, and Big Cat pointed out that this world's rules could help strengthen his foundation.

Lu PingAn and Big Cat discussed the potential and risks of divine career paths, then realized he could use the Holy Fire Prayer path with the Sacred Fire in his Courtyard. Catherine’s Heavenly Luck had also passed Lu PingAn powerful fire-control knowledge, leaving him to seek a skilled fire controller and consider how Sun Fire might attract more luck.

• Big Cat explained that divine career paths could lead to immense power but warned Lu PingAn against following a single path to its end.
• Lu PingAn considered learning the Holy Fire Prayer path, and Big Cat pointed out that he could draw on the Sacred Fire in his Courtyard rather than relying on the absent Sun God.
• Lu PingAn examined his new Fire Control Art and Flame Affinity abilities and traced their strength to his Investment in Catherine.
• Lu PingAn recalled that Catherine had used Heavenly Luck to reach Rule-level power, merge black fire with Sacred Fire, and become a blazing seraph.
• Big Cat urged Lu PingAn to find an outstanding fire controller, and Lu PingAn inferred that commanding Sun Fire could attract Heavenly Luck in the endless Long Night.

Lu PingAn studied Sacred Fire and sought Catherine’s guidance, but her fire-based methods were unsuitable for him and the absent Sun God had weakened the Holy Fire system. He successfully connected to the Sacred Fire Network and became a Tier 0 Fire Prayer, gaining several altered abilities.

• Lu PingAn asked Catherine to teach him Holy Fire techniques, but she explained that her instinctive fire control would be dangerous and of little use to him.
• Lu PingAn studied Sacred Fire scriptures and learned that believers summoned it through faith and the Sun God’s name, though the god’s departure had greatly reduced its power.
• Lu PingAn invested in other Holy Fire Priests to share his studies, but their instruction offered him almost no progress.
• Lu PingAn completed a job change ceremony by connecting to the Sacred Fire Network and summoning a faint Sacred Fire.
• The Life Bank transformed his class into Tier 0 Fire Prayer and granted him Holy Fire Exorcism, Holy Fire Descent, Sacred Fire Mastery, and Holy Fire Summon.

Lu PingAn learned that the Earth Sealing Technique was failing after a sealed monster escaped and killed an entire village, prompting Chandler to organize patrols and evacuations. As the prophecy seemed increasingly credible, Lu PingAn studied the Eternal Blazing Sun’s scriptures and concluded that its Holy Fire was a powerful form of contamination.

• Lu PingAn’s team returned after killing Shuang Hao, a two-headed flying monster that had devoured everyone in a village.
• Chandler inspected the failing Earth Sealing Technique and identified Shuang Hao as a monster sealed sixty-seven years earlier.
• After learning how many demonic monsters had been buried throughout Schlei Territory, Chandler asked to mobilize the Knight Order, and Lu PingAn approved patrols and temporary relocations to Schlei City.
• Lu PingAn and Chandler recognized that the patrols and evacuations would do little to stop the coming danger, while news of the seal’s failure made Lu PingAn busier preparing for the prophecy.
• Lu PingAn studied the Sun God’s scriptures and concluded that the Sun Holy Fire was an overwhelmingly powerful contamination.

Lu PingAn analyzed Sacred Fire and discovered that its purification was actually a Sun God curse that burned a creature’s normal parts to isolate pollution, often killing heavily mutated beings. Big Cat began investigating the curse’s life-based mechanics and possible applications, while Lu PingAn considered what the findings meant for Sacred Fire beyond this world.

• Lu PingAn used Sacred Fire and experimental equipment to study how the flames affected living creatures.
• Lu PingAn told Catherine that Purification Holy Fire was a Life Curse that ignited normal parts rather than mutated ones, explaining how it isolated pollution or killed its host.
• Catherine explained that evolved forms of Sacred Fire had different targets and effects, including limited impact on fully mutated high-ranking creatures such as demigods.
• Big Cat proposed that sunlight marked living creatures as normal and that those markers became accelerants when pollution invaded.
• Big Cat concluded that Sacred Fire was a potent Life Curse linked to the sun and urged Lu PingAn to gather more texts and knowledge for further research.

The Sindar explorers were overwhelmed by undead and demonic creatures in the forest, where a damaged underground seal had unleashed a flood of monsters. The reborn Sun God’s radiance stirred the sleeping Beast God into full awakening, and it vowed to extinguish the sun.

• The Sindar explorers encountered red demonic vines, twisted monsters, and far more undead than the expected timetable suggested.
• The forest’s damaged seals allowed underground mutated creatures and undead remains to surge to the surface.
• The Beast God, already half-awake, was provoked by the newly reborn Sun God’s radiance.
• The Beast God fully awakened and vowed to extinguish the sun.

Lu PingAn used Sun God Sacred Fire and the weakened Divine-Blood Sun Vine to create the Tier 0 Lamp Fire Grass, a fragile plant that could absorb and emit light. He planned to breed it into a stronger magical plant capable of helping him control the Purification Holy Fire.

• Lu PingAn recognized the Eternal Blazing Sun as the God of Life's power and saw a chance to develop his Life-type abilities.
• Lu PingAn combined the Flame Transformation Blood Vine Seed with the awakened Sun God Bloodline Holy Fire to create the Lamp Fire Grass.
• Lu PingAn tested the Lamp Fire Grass and found that it could absorb sunlight or Purification Holy Fire and emit light for four hours after two hours of charging.
• Lu PingAn planned to breed and graft the Lamp Fire Grass, beginning with its parent plant, the Sun Vine, to strengthen it toward Tier 2.
• Lu PingAn noted that the plant's single divine-blood source made its genetics unstable and wished he had more Sun God divine blood.

Catherine led the Sealing Knights on a patrol to relocate villages, burning one when its residents refused, while building support among the knights for her future role in the Knight Order. After relocating several villages, her group prepared to return, but an accident occurred at the final village.

• Catherine ordered the Sealing Knights to burn a village whose farmers refused to relocate, and the knights escorted the villagers to the next settlement.
• Catherine considered her mother's advice to use the patrol to establish her influence and build a loyal group within the Knight Order.
• Knights, including two captains, privately approached Catherine with gifts and offers of loyalty, and she accepted their gestures.
• Catherine reflected that the knights hoped to survive under Lu PingAn, whom she regarded as a good person compared with other outsiders.
• Catherine's group relocated several villages and prepared to return, but an accident occurred at the final village.

Xue En trained newly transformed beastmen while adapting to his rapidly strengthening body and received Marian’s records on the Bear Person Guard Legion. Marian then asked him for help with an urgent matter, leaving him unaware of what had happened.

• Xue En began training the recruits at the Courtyard, and Li Wen and Su Keqing were absent after suffering injuries or illness.
• Xue En assessed his growing strength and continued training while trying not to bring misfortune upon the recruits.
• Marian visited Xue En with records on the Bear Person Guard Legion, explaining that the Bear people’s inheritance was incomplete and long neglected.
• After Xue En joked that Marian might need him to lead reinforcements, Marian asked him to help with a matter he had apparently already heard about.

Lu PingAn assessed his newly bonded team and weighed who could become a dependable deputy as his members pursued separate missions. While he returned to research, Catherine encountered a group of royal family members whose presence suggested the Holy Capital had fallen into chaos.

• Lu PingAn decided to build a stable core team and judged Xia Qin and Guan Xinxian too altruistic to lead it, while he considered Cat Cat dependable but unsuited to be a deputy.
• Lu PingAn praised Catherine and hoped to secure her loyalty, then learned she had stayed behind to help disaster victims and requested reinforcements.
• Marian, Cat Cat, and a support team set out to assist Catherine, while Lu PingAn privately asked Cat Cat to find out why Catherine had stayed.
• Catherine stood before a luxurious golden tent bearing the emblem of royalty and found frightened members of the royal family.

After fleeing the Holy Capital, Prince Pan Tai.Y. Stewos and Princess Laina reached the border with help from a Rainbow Prophet, while Catherine and their guards tried to secure the loyalty of local knights. The royal siblings remained wary of their new allies and questioned the prophet’s claim that an heir of the Sun God could be found in the remote region.

• The little Prince followed an agreed script to reassure and praise the kneeling knights, while Catherine ended the tense exchange.
• Catherine explained that Glory Crown’s fall had stripped the Holy Capital royal family of much of its power and left its heirs vulnerable to outsiders.
• Pan Tai.Y. Stewos asked whether the knights were trustworthy, and Laina warned him that they were interested in the siblings because they were useful.
• Laina’s brown-skinned Female Knight explained that royal children with Crown Divine Grace were being targeted, and that the siblings had fled to avoid becoming trade goods.
• The group summoned a Rainbow Prophet whose guidance had helped them reach the border, but the Female Knight dismissed his prophecy about an heir of the Sun God.

Catherine and her companions fled toward the border while Evil Bone and several local lords’ knights pursued them, but the attackers’ hesitation and Schlei Territory’s intervention kept the royal family members from being captured. As reinforcements arrived, Evil Bone recognized old acquaintances among them and reconsidered abandoning the hunt.

• Cat Cat agreed to carry Catherine’s message to Lu PingAn, inviting him to consider the Crown System’s power.
• Evil Bone used his access to the border intelligence network to discover the two royal family members’ arrival and sell their information to six local families.
• Three territories sent elite knights disguised as bandits to hunt Catherine and her companion, who escaped repeated clashes and reached Stone Cellar Village in Schlei Territory.
• Catherine’s strength, the pursuers’ divided loyalties, and Schlei Territory’s patrol knights and reinforcements made the attackers hesitate to strike decisively.
• Evil Bone prepared to flee and seek a Ship Ticket, but seeing old acquaintances among the reinforcements made him unwilling to give up the hunt.

Lu PingAn learned how Evil Bone died in a chain of battlefield mishaps caused by fighting Xue En, whose greatly enhanced misfortune made him a lethal opponent. He reviewed intelligence on the two royal Highnesses and their entourage, then became interested in the Rainbow Prophet's prophecy about the Sun God's successor.

• Lu PingAn heard how Xue En and Evil Bone fell into a trap and Evil Bone died amid battlefield chaos and repeated accidents.
• Catherine told Lu PingAn that the two Highnesses had been refused entry to the lord's manor and were staying at the largest inn.
• Catherine reported that the royal entourage numbered sixty-seven, with few capable fighters, and had followed a Rainbow Prophet's prophecy to the town.
• Lu PingAn examined the royal family's abilities and ordered Catherine to keep watch on Prince Little Wang, whose Crown Spear seemed stronger than his reputation suggested.
• Lu PingAn read the attendants' accounts of Little Wang's foolish behavior and wondered whether the Rainbow Prophet's Sun God's successor might be the Beast God.

The royal party met Lu PingAn at his residence and discovered that its living, flame-bearing flowers held Sacred Fire. As Lu PingAn explained that he had created the plants, the royal family members were left stunned.

• Princess Reina and her companions traveled through Schlei Territory and hoped its new lord would let them live.
• Gray Master recognized the flames on the estate's plants as Sacred Fire, astonishing the royal party.
• Lu PingAn met the group over a lavish meal, and Princess Reina asked whether he was one of the East Country People.
• Lu PingAn said he had made the flame-bearing flowers by combining plants with local specialties and offered to give them two, leaving the royal family dumbfounded.

Lu PingAn showed his guests the results of his Lamp Fire Grass experiments and rejected the idea that he was the Sun God’s successor. Just as he warned that the Seven Calamities left little hope for the world, a knight reported that a large number of dead had appeared outside the city.

• Lu PingAn introduced several experimental Lamp Fire Grass varieties and explained that his plants could survive in the local environment, though practical combat strains would take years to develop.
• Prince Pan Tai lost interest and was sent away, while the other guests listened closely and worried that Lu PingAn’s Sacred Fire research was blasphemous.
• An old prophet took Lu PingAn’s work as evidence that he was the Sun God’s successor, but Lu PingAn rejected the prophecy and warned the guests about the coming calamities.
• Lu PingAn decided not to send anyone searching for the Beast God’s remains, unaware that someone had already disturbed them.
• A knight burst in and announced that a large number of dead had appeared outside the city.

Lu PingAn responded to a horde of undead outside the city while the Royal Team struggled to understand why the Third Calamity had arrived early. He sent scouts toward Gray Forest and helped force through cremation measures as the knights began clearing the monsters.

• Lu PingAn learned that undead had appeared outside the city and that residents were resisting efforts to cremate the dead.
• The Rainbow Prophet realized the Third Calamity seemed to have arrived a month early, while Lu PingAn suspected the horde was not a true calamity-scale eruption.
• Cat Cat reported that timber cutters had encountered Corpse Monsters in Gray Forest and led them back toward the city.
• Lu PingAn ordered an aerial reconnaissance mission and banned people from entering Gray Forest as knights went out to fight the undead.
• The authorities spread a rumor that resurrected corpses would attack their blood relatives first, prompting residents to accept cremation.
• Lu PingAn gave the departing knights magical plants to test against the undead and watched the battle, considering whether to find a way out.

After the scouts reported that the dead were gathering, Lu PingAn assessed the group’s profits and began planning their retreat before the coming calamities. He learned the expected timing of the Third Calamity, then considered the danger the Fourth Calamity posed as gods lost their links to the dying world.

• The scouts reported that many dead had risen in the forest, and Lu PingAn sent Hua Xuejie and the others to rest while Catherine worked overtime.
• Lu PingAn reflected on how the dying world’s wealth and low danger had made the expedition unusually profitable, and concluded the group needed to prepare for further calamities.
• Lu PingAn exchanged copies of prophetic murals with Gray Master for information about the Seven Calamities and disclosed that the Third Calamity seemed likely to arrive early.
• Gray Master said the Third Calamity was expected in roughly twenty-five to thirty-five days and would peak within one or two months.
• Gray Master explained that the Fourth Calamity would bring gods into the mortal world as their links to the dying world broke, and Big Cat warned Lu PingAn about the consequences.

Lu PingAn and Big Cat discussed withdrawing before the fourth calamity turned the land into a battlefield of gods, as the team was not strong enough to survive it. When sunlight returned, the corpses outside the city began burning and charging the walls, signaling a new danger.

• Big Cat warned Lu PingAn that Demon Hour would bring gods and powerful creatures into deadly battles and urged him to withdraw within two and a half months.
• Lu PingAn recognized that his team lacked the strength to face Gold Tier opponents, though Cat Cat, Catherine, and others had potential to grow stronger.
• Lu PingAn decided there was no reason to risk his life for further gains, but the world suddenly filled with a humming sound.
• People outside Lu PingAn's window celebrated as daylight returned.
• Lu PingAn noticed corpses outside the city spontaneously combusting while the rest charged toward the nearest city wall.

Lu PingAn discovered that the awakened Beast God was a mutated God Corpse, and its rage at the sun began transforming Corpse Monsters and overrunning the city. As the Third Calamity started early, Lu PingAn ordered an evacuation while the disaster worsened around him.

• The Purification Flame awakened the Beast God’s corpse, and Lu PingAn recognized the colossal monster as a God Corpse.
• Chris warned that even at her peak, Big Cat might only have escaped from the creature, while Feng Luanhua reported that it was attacking the sun and heading north.
• Lu PingAn ordered everyone to gather Lamp Fire Grass and evacuate, bringing as many residents as possible.
• The God Corpse’s roar mutated the Corpse Monsters outside the city, which overwhelmed the knights and smashed through the city walls.
• Ms. Feng screamed that the corpses throughout the city were reviving, and she realized the Third Calamity had been triggered early by the Sun God.

During the Long Night, Lu PingAn led a refugee convoy through waves of Corpse Monsters as pollution spread across the earth. The journey brought them to the battlefield where they had fought bandits days earlier, with Evil Bone and a vast undead army blocking the way.

• The knights repelled repeated hordes of newly awakened Corpse Monsters while Lu PingAn explained that the collapse of the Earth Sealing Technique had released ancient beings and polluted the land.
• Lu PingAn distributed Holy Fire Fruits and Lamp Fire Grass, helping the convoy fight off monsters and ward away the earth’s pervasive pollution.
• Fear spread through the refugees and the team as they realized the Third Calamity had only begun, while Lu PingAn refused the lord’s requests to enter the shelter early.
• The convoy reached the ruined battlefield where they had fought bandits days earlier and found it filled with Black Mist and Corpse Monsters.
• Evil Bone led the advancing undead horde as it charged down the hill toward Lu PingAn’s group.