Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn trained in the Courtyard while trying to break through as a sixth-rank Fighter and Runner, then decided to ask the Moon God for guidance. He learned that the Moon God of Red Star wanted help escaping a Twin Moon God who had not yet ascended and was formerly a eunuch singer.

• Lu PingAn sparred with Eve while Chris disciplined Eve, Phil, and Cat Cat during the Courtyard’s midnight training.
• Lu PingAn told Chris he had reached the threshold for sixth-rank Fighter and Runner but felt he lacked the right foundation for advancement.
• Chris joked that she could custom-make him a Fighter profession that tore space apart, while the Library had refused his request because it could not create nonexistent things.
• Lu PingAn decided to speak with the Moon God after his combat practice against Moon God Knights produced little progress toward becoming a Moon God Knight.
• Lu PingAn learned that the Moon God of Red Star was anxious because her assigned Twin Moon God was an unascended demigod, the brother of a Red Star higher-up and formerly a eunuch singer.

Lu PingAn pursued a settlement on Mercury 42 to create a secure home and economic base for his growing team. At the Grand Bazaar, Moon Ring asked him to help the Moon God leave the Red Star Republic and find protection in the Eastern Kingdom.

• Lu PingAn considered how his personal growth was tied to the welfare of his team and planned to rebuild My Town on Mercury 42.
• Lu PingAn assessed Mercury 42 and wondered whether the Moon God had also chosen the world as a destination.
• Moon Ring, a Rule-level Phosphorus People and divine descendant, approached Lu PingAn to discuss the Moon God's predicament.
• Lu PingAn explained that Boris, a demigod called Banshee, and the Red Star Republic's other Twin candidates posed serious problems for the Moon God.
• Moon Ring revealed that the Moon God needed the Eastern Kingdom to accept her and let her leave the planet, and she appealed to Lu PingAn as a natural ally.

Lu PingAn negotiated the Moon God Phosphorus People's migration to Mercury 42 while balancing their interests against other local forces. After the major agreements were settled, the Gu City Branch School project unexpectedly gained official support, and the Moon God entrusted Lu PingAn with the alliance.

• Lu PingAn agreed to negotiate with the Moon God Phosphorus People and asked about the Sacred Fire and the Moon God path in return for helping them find territory.
• Lu PingAn assessed the Moon God's strength and worked to bring in native Eastern Kingdom forces so the Phosphorus People would not dominate Mercury 42.
• Lu PingAn rejected foreign groups that lacked the strength or standing to join and upheld a framework that limited the region to three countries.
• Lu PingAn completed negotiations with the First Batch of interested forces and arranged for an office and contact point to remain behind.
• The Gu City Branch School proposal gained Wanjing's attention and became a Key Development Project of the New Era 2000, bringing official personnel and funding.
• The Moon God vanished from the starry sky after the alliance was made and placed the pact in Lu PingAn's hands.

Lu PingAn met with Accountant Wang, who warned that the Rebirth Merchant Guild’s trade routes and industries were not generating enough profit. They rejected illegal people-smuggling and began planning new businesses to develop the guild’s territories while interplanar travel remained available.

• Accountant Wang told Lu PingAn that the guild had accumulated connections and trade routes but little wealth, and that its Mercury 42 industries were not profitable enough.
• Lu PingAn reviewed the finances and acknowledged that the guild lacked industries to develop its new territories, while its shipyard’s profits belonged to the Phosphorus People.
• Accountant Wang rejected using the Courtyard to smuggle people, warning that it would invite trouble from the authorities.
• Lu PingAn explained that the Courtyard was gradually becoming a God's Ark and would eventually lose the ability to travel aboard someone else’s ark.
• Lu PingAn and Accountant Wang discussed using the remaining year or two of interplanar travel to establish industries, including agricultural machinery and film screenings.

Lu PingAn recognized that his team needed to invest heavily in developing its territories on Mercury 42, then asked Catherine to oversee the work under conditions that would protect her role and ambitions. His Spiritual Intuition suggested that their prosperity—and Catherine’s service—could lead toward his path to enlightenment and her immortality.

• Lu PingAn took Accountant Wang’s advice and decided to buy equipment, production lines, vehicles, and industries for the team’s Mercury 42 territories.
• A vision of thriving cities united by trade led Lu PingAn to suspect that fair trade and civilizational prosperity were central to his spiritual path.
• Lu PingAn asked Catherine to manage the team’s growing territory, recognizing that his political and institutional commitments meant they could no longer abandon Mercury 42.
• Catherine agreed to serve as an administrative deputy rather than the team’s representative, and asked for support in pursuing advancement toward Rule-level power.
• Lu PingAn gave Catherine access to his funds for investment, promised her Life Points and tutoring from Chris, and suggested that her work might bring her immortality.

Lu PingAn organized Mercury 42’s development work while weighing the danger of a bounty on Chris and Kitten. He decided to travel to Siberia to recover a fragment of the Moon God, despite the hunters who might follow him.

• Lu PingAn left Catherine and the Purchase Group to secure supplies for Mercury 42, while Ancient City agreed to invest in a University City and trade projects.
• Lu PingAn saw the enormous bounty on Chris and Kitten and recognized that hunters might target him.
• Lu PingAn learned that the Moon God had sent him the predicted location of one of her severed fragments, a God's Relic in Siberia.
• Lu PingAn chose to pursue the relic as part of his Path of the Moon and prepared to face anyone who followed him.

Lu PingAn traveled into Siberia, where he discovered that Stars and Stripes mercenaries had been waiting to ambush him. After killing them and surviving the harsh demonic wilderness, he recognized the Siberian Demonic Domain as a place where powerful professionals could settle private grudges.

• Lu PingAn's car broke down in a snowstorm, so he continued on foot through Siberia's frozen wilderness.
• Lu PingAn spotted assassins lying in wait and killed the mercenaries who ambushed him, along with a demonic eagle.
• Lu PingAn found US passports and dollars among the mercenaries' belongings and suspected the Stars and Stripes Federation had targeted him.
• Lu PingAn punched out a cave, warmed it with Sacred Fire, and rested with the mercenaries' field rations.
• Lu PingAn killed a heavily demonized bear, then learned that Siberia had become a dangerous no-man's-land known as the Siberian Demonic Domain.
• Lu PingAn concluded that the region was a suitable place for High-Level Professionals to settle private grudges.

Lu PingAn confronted an assassin whose ghostly projection could not be harmed, then exposed the assassin’s hidden main body and let his companions capture him. Fang Wen learned the assassin worked for Grey Mountain Company and that Aus Company had increased Lu PingAn’s bounty over Green Planet’s recent profits.

• Lu PingAn waited for the stalker, fought the ghostly figure, and sent wolves into the mountains to reveal that its main body was hidden in a coffin.
• The assassin’s main body fled, but Hua Xueyi and Xue En intercepted him while Lu PingAn waited by the fire.
• Fang Wen took the captured assassin away for questioning and returned with information about Grey Mountain Company and the mercenary squad supporting the job.
• Fang Wen explained that Aus Company had raised Lu PingAn’s bounty because Green Planet had gained valuable products and mineral resources.

Lu PingAn defeated a mercenary whose Doomsday Projection made him a promising scout, while the team considered how to use his remains. As the supernatural cold killed Lu PingAn’s wolves and made travel harder, forces from the Red Star Republic and other countries entered the mountains, all searching north for a lost inheritance.

• Lu PingAn’s team examined the defeated Star Soro’s Ghost and discussed turning his remains into a puppet or other weapon.
• Big Cat said she could make a cursed killing doll with roughly Tier 7 strength, though it would only fight for a few minutes.
• Xue En told Lu PingAn that his wolves had frozen to death, prompting Lu PingAn to recognize how severely the supernatural cold hindered his creatures.
• Lu PingAn’s Eye of Truth could only confirm that their destination lay north, so he decided they would have to proceed one step at a time.
• Red Star Republic forces entered the forbidden zone in armored vehicles and tanks, while aircraft brought other groups into the mountains; their divine-power pointers all aimed north.

Lu PingAn adapted his gardening powers to the frozen wilderness of Demonic Siberia and prepared to face those tied to Big Cat’s Karma. He began creating a cold-resistant botanical arsenal and sent his team to gather dangerous local species for further experiments.

• Lu PingAn realized Earth’s professionals would fight fiercely over the divine inheritance and that the frozen environment weakened his Life-type abilities and Sacred Fire.
• Lu PingAn decided to prepare for the enemies and examiners connected to Chris and Big Cat’s Karma instead of rushing toward the inheritance.
• Lu PingAn ordered the Rule-level Exploration Team to avoid combat and collect altered plants and animals from the wilderness.
• Lu PingAn used his points and gardening powers to cultivate cold-resistant magical plants, but his attempt to mutate a magical wolf ended in a pile of flesh and blood.
• Lu PingAn turned the frozen wilderness into a Botanical Garden and ordered the team to collect extraordinary species from local forbidden zones.

Lu PingAn and his companions explored a frozen secret realm, fought its monstrous inhabitants, and discovered that the crying woman at its center was the Eternally Hunted Holy Maiden Maria. After monsters killed Maria, the realm reset and she appeared again, leaving her true nature and threat uncertain.

• Lu PingAn entered a realm covered in corrosive black snow and found it crawling with enormous, six-eyed monsters.
• Lu PingAn and Blood Vine slaughtered the attacking swarm while researchers collected samples, and Chris determined the monsters were spore-like rather than ordinary living creatures.
• Lu PingAn located the realm’s center and saw a weeping woman whose presence made him fear he might die if he approached.
• Monsters attacked and devoured the woman as Lu PingAn watched, but the realm then reset and she reappeared.
• Lu PingAn recognized the woman as Eternally Hunted Holy Maiden Maria, a being recorded at the highest threat level.

Lu PingAn recognized the weeping woman as a remnant replaying her apocalyptic death and decided to use her despair in a new painting. He became a Despair Painter and walked into the scene to drag her into his artwork.

• Lu PingAn watched the woman die repeatedly and saw dogs and Cat Cat succumb to the supernatural despair around her.
• Big Cat and Chris concluded that the woman was likely long dead and that the scene was an endlessly repeating remnant of a high-pollution source.
• Lu PingAn painted the scene’s despair and hope, using his Mirror fragment and powers from his combined paths.
• Lu PingAn left the woman out of the painting and walked toward her, changing into forms of immense power.
• Lu PingAn dragged the weeping woman toward the painting and acquired the mixed profession Despair Painter.

Lu PingAn captured the weeping woman inside a cursed painting and discovered that it could give her a new path to survival. After forming the unique Desperate Painter profession, he turned his attention to exploring the dangerous Siberian Demonic Domain and confronting the hunters.

• Lu PingAn and Chris examined the cursed painting, and Chris sensed that the dead woman inside had gained a soul and a chance to survive.
• Lu PingAn explained that even something seemingly dead might begin again, while Chris questioned how the woman could return to life through killing or fusion.
• The foreign realm collapsed as its disintegrating colors flowed into the painting, which the system identified as Redemption, a Gold Low Rank Cursed Item.
• Lu PingAn gained the unique Desperate Painter profession, combining abilities from Runner, Scholar, and Gardener, and learned its Brush of Despair and One Who Yearns for Salvation abilities.
• Lu PingAn decided to treat the Siberian Demonic Domain as a treasure trove and set out to confront the hunters before they could approach him.

Lu PingAn forged a unique path toward the Rule-level while treating his new ability as a toy. Meanwhile, foreign mercenaries clashed with Red Star forces in Siberia, and the conflict escalated into a full-scale battle as Red Star treated them all as invaders.

• Lu PingAn took a step that set him on a unique path he could continue beyond the Rule-level, though he saw his new ability as an amusing toy.
• Flower Flag mercenaries and Red Star forces encountered each other in Siberia and opened fire.
• Red Star forces attacked the mercenaries with ground troops and airships, driving them deeper into the dangerous mountains.
• Red Star officials rejected Flower Flag explanations, suspecting an invasion after finding numerous foreign fighters and Rule-level combatants near the god’s inheritance.
• The fighting spread to mercenaries and warriors of many nationalities, and Red Star declared that all invaders would be killed.

Lu PingAn emerged into a battlefield in the Crow Mountain range and learned that foreign forces and the Red Star military were fighting over a God's Relic. He avoided joining either side and headed deeper into the snowy mountains to claim the relic, which his new profession seemed to need.

• Lu PingAn emerged from a secret realm, sensed nearby battles through Battlefield Intuition, and learned from a captured mercenary that foreign invaders and the local military were fighting over a God's Relic.
• Lu PingAn decided to pursue the relic while avoiding both armies, and he used the battlefield chaos to evade danger and the hunters tracking him.
• The Red Star military sent more troops as foreign fighters were driven toward the Great Snow Mountain, while Lu PingAn used intelligence from Fang Wen's radio equipment to follow the conflict.
• Lu PingAn gathered his assets and moved deeper into the snowy mountains, determined to obtain the relic because his newly acquired profession seemed to crave its power.

Lu PingAn and Chris confronted Zhu Dakai, an eighth-tier Blade of Aropos seeking revenge, on the snowy battlefield. After Zhu Dakai revealed his limits and began using divine power, he unleashed a Berserker transformation, leaving the fight poised to escalate.

• Zhu Dakai appeared before Lu PingAn and revealed himself as Chris’s longtime enemy, a Demon Hunter devoted to Aropos’s absolute justice.
• Chris warned Lu PingAn to flee, but Zhu Dakai saw that she was a clone and identified Lu PingAn as her main body’s link.
• Chris and Zhu Dakai clashed while Lu PingAn held back, judging that they might win if Zhu Dakai’s strength was limited.
• Zhu Dakai said he would have to sacrifice Lu PingAn because of his connection to Chris, then used his class abilities despite suffering divine punishment.
• Zhu Dakai howled, turned red-black-eyed, and used Berserker rage to break through his own moral and divine restrictions.

Chris and Lu PingAn battled the fully beastified Zhu Dakai, whose immense strength and regeneration overwhelmed their attacks. They chose to retreat, but Zhu Dakai struck Lu PingAn down before he could escape, triggering the Moon Factor’s first rescue and consuming his first revival armor.

• Chris fought Zhu Dakai in cat form, using precise strikes while Lu PingAn spread Sacred Flame across the battlefield.
• Lu PingAn and Chris judged that they could survive the fight only by revealing their remaining trump cards, so they agreed to retreat.
• Chris attacked from Zhu Dakai’s blind spot with toxin- and curse-coated blades while Lu PingAn created Blood Vines and more Sacred Flame to hinder him.
• Zhu Dakai smashed through the Blood Vines and flames, reached Lu PingAn, and destroyed his upper body with a single claw strike.
• The Moon Factor restored Lu PingAn to his state from one second earlier, using his first revival armor.

Lu PingAn and Chris fought the regenerating Two-Headed Wolf, but both sides withdrew when more dangerous players arrived. Lu PingAn escaped with fragments of the wolf’s heart and muscles, planning to develop his Replicate ability and prepare for their next encounter.

• Lu PingAn used Replicate to restore Chris, who then used Sunset Clouds Fall East to tear apart the Two-Headed Wolf and seize his heart.
• Chris crushed the heart, and Lu PingAn replicated her again to repair her cracked body as the Two-Headed Wolf regenerated.
• More players arrived, so Lu PingAn and the Two-Headed Wolf agreed to withdraw rather than risk becoming prey while the battlefield was still crowded.
• Chris vanished after Lu PingAn told her to save her cards, and Lu PingAn left with fragments of the wolf’s heart and muscles.

Lu PingAn traveled deeper into Siberia after surviving his clash with a Rank Eight opponent, while he and Chris prepared to grow stronger and exploit the limits of the Blade of Aropos’s judgment. As artillery and other threats closed in, Lu PingAn lost the trail to the Moon God’s Legacy and decided to capture professional searchers for directions.

• Lu PingAn celebrated his progress after surviving a battle with a Rank Eight combat Professional, while Chris remained troubled by her defeat.
• Lu PingAn reassured Chris that they would surpass the Balance Calamity Beast of the past, and their linked emotions helped steady her.
• Lu PingAn considered exploiting the Blade of Aropos’s limited ability to judge evil, but Chris warned him that harming innocents would trigger severe judgment.
• Lu PingAn continued traveling and testing his Replication ability, hoping the God's Relic would strengthen his Runner (Moon God/Space) aspect.
• Lu PingAn fought several encounters in the snowy mountains, lost the trail to the Moon God's Legacy, and decided to capture professional searchers to guide him.

Lu PingAn rescued Tie Hao, an Eastern Kingdom spy who had been left badly wounded in the snowy mountains, and exchanged intelligence with him at an outpost. After learning that a fragment of the Moon God had fallen nearby, Lu PingAn asked Tie Hao to help him find it.

• Tie Hao, gravely wounded and unable to contact headquarters, prepared to destroy his documents before dying beneath a boulder.
• Lu PingAn moved the boulder, healed Tie Hao with the word "Installments," and identified himself as a Bureau of Anomalous Affairs operative.
• Lu PingAn brought Tie Hao to an outpost, where Tie Hao ate and agreed to exchange intelligence while two captured men watched in fear.
• Tie Hao revealed that he had learned a fragment of a god had fallen in the area, and Lu PingAn clarified that it was a fragment of the Moon God.
• Lu PingAn asked Tie Hao to help him find the fragment, appealing to Tie Hao's family.