Chapter Summaries

After the East Borough disaster, Sno funded relief for survivors and discussed Lavish’s plan to take the workers’ movement to the Forsaken Empire. He then assigned Adelina a mission involving a doll and urged Trissy to prepare for hunting demigods, leaving the two women arguing over Adelina’s transformation and their past attraction.

• Sno mourned the eight thousand deaths in the East Borough, gave Jana money for food and medicine, and ordered Passion to deal with hoarders.
• Lavish told Sno he would travel to the Forsaken Empire to build the workers’ movement, and Sno gave him funds and cautioned him about Feysac.
• Trissy emerged from invisibility with Adelina, whom Sno recognized as the transformed Prince Edsac.
• Sno gave Adelina a doll and explained that she was to attract lustful desire, while Trissy was to learn how to hunt demigods and properly act as Pleasure.
• Adelina asked whether she could become a man again, and Sno described how she could switch pathways before teasing her about traveling with Trissy.
• Trissy denied being attracted to Adelina, and Sno pointed out that Trissy had also been made from a man.

Sno advised Klein to delay leaving Backlund because the Moretti siblings were arriving soon and future Catastrophes threatened them. He urged Klein to help his family become Beyonders, leaving Klein troubled by the risks and the coming Apocalypse.

• After leaving Audrey's coming-of-age ceremony, Sno returned home and found Klein waiting there with Lily.
• Klein asked Sno to help him obtain a new identity so he could leave Backlund and prepare for his advancement ritual.
• Sno told Klein that Benson and Melissa would arrive in three days and advised him to meet them.
• Sno warned Klein that more Catastrophes were inevitable and urged him to make his family Beyonders so they could protect themselves.
• Sno revealed that the Apocalypse would arrive in a little over ten years and said only demigods would be qualified to survive that era.
• Klein considered Sno's advice but remained uneasy about exposing his family to the dangers of the Beyonder path.

Klein worried that Benson and Melissa would be vulnerable when they came to Backlund, and Sno urged him to help them become Beyonders and arrange safe housing. Klein agreed to rent one of Sno’s expensive properties so his family could live near official Beyonder outposts and St. Samuel's Cathedral.

• Klein recalled the deaths and illnesses caused by the Great smog and feared for Benson and Melissa, who knew nothing of the Beyonder world.
• Sno proposed that Benson and Melissa learn the Acting Method and become Beyonders, offering pure Beyonder Characteristics to reduce the risks.
• Klein questioned Sno’s motives, and Sno explained that he wanted to prevent resentment if Klein’s family came to harm in his territory.
• Sno warned Klein that Melissa might be recruited by the Church of Steam and Machinery because she planned to apply to Backlund University of Industry and Technology.
• Klein agreed to let Sno arrange a secure home for Benson and Melissa and chose one of Sno’s rental properties despite its nearly doubled market price.

Benson and Melissa arrived in Backlund and were brought by Sno to meet the man they believed was their dead brother, Klein. After sharing family memories and recognizing him, they spent the afternoon catching up, and Melissa realized Klein had rented the house.

• Benson and Melissa arrived at the Backlund station, where Sno approached them with a sign and said a friend wanted to meet them.
• Benson agreed to go with Sno, who took the siblings by subway to a house in North Borough.
• Melissa recognized the young man at the door as Klein, while Benson initially doubted that he was really his brother.
• Klein invited Benson and Melissa inside, and their family memories and his habits convinced them that he was truly Klein.
• The siblings talked through the afternoon until Klein suggested dinner, prompting Melissa to realize he had rented the house.

Klein reunited with Benson and Melissa in Backlund and tried to reassure them about the expensive house and his work for the Church of Steam and Machinery. After explaining that Beyonders had caused the Great Smog, he urged his siblings to become Beyonders so they could protect themselves, leaving the decision before them.

• Melissa questioned Klein about the house, and Klein said his friend had rented it to him cheaply and showed Benson shares worth a thousand pounds.
• Melissa suspected Klein had an unusual relationship with his wealthy friend, while Benson wondered how Klein had gained such connections after faking his death.
• Klein told Benson and Melissa he worked for the Church of Steam and Machinery and had helped start a bicycle company with one of its believers.
• Melissa rejected going out to eat, and the three siblings prepared and shared a lavish meal together.
• Klein explained that Beyonders had played a major role in causing the Great Smog and warned that dangerous Beyonders and future chaos threatened their safety.
• Benson understood that Klein wanted them to become Beyonders, and Klein urged them to do so for protection.

The Tarot Club met after the Great smog in Backlund, and Klein introduced Sno as Mr. Moon while reading new diary pages. Perrdax’s diary raised the possibility that a transmigrator called The Writer had shaped the world’s history, leaving Klein alarmed by the Sunset Shut-in Group’s connection to that figure.

• Audrey thanked Mr. Fool, Devil, and The World for their roles in the Great smog, then said the cleanup in Backlund had prevented her from finding more of Roselle’s Diary.
• Fors and Sno presented diary pages, and Klein introduced Sno as the Tarot Club’s new member, Mr. Moon.
• Klein read Roselle’s notes about the Twilight Hermit Society, the Spectator pathway, and The Writer.
• Klein read Perrdax’s account of outsmarting a Reader pathway woman and his theory that the world’s history followed his former world’s history unusually closely.
• Perrdax speculated that The Writer might be a transmigrator conducting a ritual to become a god and warned that Roselle’s death might have a hidden cause.
• Klein connected Perrdax’s suspicions to the Sunset Shut-in Group and recalled that its leader appeared to be a The Writer.

After reading Roselle’s diary, Klein concluded that a transmigrator known as the Writer was steering history toward wars and resolved to protect Melissa and Benson by making them Beyonders. At the Tarot Club, Derrick reported that the City of Silver had escaped its cycle of fate and identified Ouroboros as the Fate Angel, while Sno warned that the names of Kings of Angels were dangerous knowledge.

• Klein connected the Writer’s historical manipulation to the Sunset Shut-in Group, Duke Negan’s death, and the possibility of a coming world war.
• Klein decided to make Melissa and Benson Beyonders, then invited the Tarot Club members to begin.
• Derrick thanked the Fool for his advice and reported that he had helped the Chief break the City of Silver’s cycle of fate by finding the Fate Angel in a mural.
• Sno said the Angel was Ouroboros and warned Derrick that speaking his name could be dangerous.
• Derrick recounted the City of Silver’s discoveries, including the eight Kings of Angels, and Sno cautioned Audrey against seeking their names.

At the Tarot Club, Emlyn asked how Sanguines could grow stronger, while members completed several transactions, including Klein selling a Faceless Beyonder Characteristic to Sno. Audrey asked Mr. Fool about the Backlund Great smog, and Sno revealed the Aurora Society’s secret accommodation with the Loen royal family, leaving Derrick reconsidering whether Elder Lovia had truly betrayed the City of Silver.

• Derrick told Fors that unexpected delays meant she would have to wait another day or two for the Spirit Devourer's stomach pouch, and Fors said she could wait.
• Emlyn revealed that he was a pure-blooded Sanguine and asked how Sanguines could increase their strength without help from their elders, prompting Fors and Audrey to question him about Sanguine ranks.
• Klein sold Sno an unprocessed Faceless Beyonder Characteristic for 3,800 pounds, and Sno offered Audrey an Extraordinary Item that could alter her appearance and figure.
• Audrey asked Mr. Fool about the cause of Backlund's Great smog and Prince Edsac's cooperation with the cultists; Mr. Fool replied that the root remained unknown but clues existed.
• Sno revealed that the Aurora Society in Backlund had received secret royal support and reached a tacit understanding with the Loen authorities, then said Jack's father was likely a member.
• Derrick recalled Sno's earlier suggestion that Elder Lovia might never have betrayed the City of Silver and reconsidered the exploration team's fate.

Audrey presented Grellint with a mysterious Stand Arrow at his ball, while Sno completed digesting the Baron of Corruption potion and learned the ritual required for his next advancement. The chapter left Grellint puzzled by Audrey’s reaction and Sno needing to create a sufficiently intense coincidence without using Beyonder Abilities.

• Audrey attended Viscount Grellint’s ball and arranged to meet him in the study, where she gave him a mysterious item she called a Stand Arrow.
• Grellint recognized references to Sno’s Stardust Fighter and asked Audrey which Stand the arrow would grant, but her expression turned strange.
• Sno completed digesting the Baron of Corruption potion and determined that he needed a ritual before advancing to Sequence V.
• Sno learned that the ritual required him to designate a target and coincidentally achieve his goal without using Beyonder Abilities or investigating the target’s whereabouts.
• Sno considered winning the lottery an easy way to fulfill the ritual, but Roselle had not introduced lotteries.

Klein stored Sno’s piano Above the Gray Fog while Sno prepared to leave Lily behind and travel by sea. To fulfill his Sequence V potion ritual, Sno set out for Pritz Harbor hoping to encounter a Pirate General by chance, without deliberately steering fate.

• Klein answered Sno’s prayer, accepted the sacrificed piano, and stored it in an empty corner Above the Gray Fog.
• Sno told Lily to stay home with a month’s supply of dried fish and instructions to pray if customers arrived.
• Sno reasoned that his Destiny Path ritual required accumulated coincidences and could not be faked through deliberate investigation or trivial random choices.
• Sno chose to travel the Sunia Sea and set his target as encountering a Pirate General by chance.
• Sno took the sea route to Pritz Harbor, using a ticket Jana had bought and hoping to keep his fate from becoming entangled with Klein’s.

Leonard discovered that Klein’s coffin was empty after a vivid dream made him suspect Sherlock Moriarty’s identity, while Klein sensed a spiritual warning and decided to leave his siblings for a while. Meanwhile, Sno left Pritz Harbor aboard the Black Pearl, letting dice decide his journey, as fate kept him from boarding the White Agate.

• Leonard dreamed of Klein and recognized similarities between him, Sherlock Moriarty, and figures from his past.
• Leonard opened Klein’s coffin and found it empty.
• Klein saw a vision of gravestones through the fog, then decided he could no longer delay dealing with the problem surrounding his Sherlock identity.
• Klein told Benson he had to leave, and Benson encouraged him to protect himself while he was away.
• Sno used a die to choose the Black Pearl and bought a first-class ticket after the White Agate was delayed.

On January 8, 1350, Sno boarded the Black Pearl with his piano and explored the luxury liner, using coins and dice to choose where to go. On the promenade deck, he met Sera, who recognized him as the author of Phantom Blood and Battle Trend and rushed off to fetch her books for an autograph.

• Sno brought his piano aboard the Black Pearl, where he had booked passage to Bayram as a musician.
• Sno flipped a coin to choose the regular restaurant, prayed to Mr. Fool, and ate a simple meal while listening to the passengers.
• Sno rolled a die and went to the promenade deck, where he removed An Zhi Yu and drew the attention of the other passengers.
• Sera approached Sno, learned he was traveling to Bayram, and recognized him as the author of Phantom Blood and Battle Trend.
• Sera asked Sno for an autograph and hurried away to fetch her books.

Sera told Sno about Emperor Roselle’s Great Secret Treasure and her plan to find one of its Stone Tablets. Sno recognized the legend as genuine, wished her luck, and left without asking why she had approached him.

• Sno warned Sera that traveling alone across the seas was dangerous, but she said she could defend herself.
• Sera explained that Roselle had hidden a Great Secret Treasure on the Sunia Sea, with four Stone Tablets pointing to its location.
• Sno believed her account when she described how the Stone Tablets’ coordinates could be used to locate the treasure.
• Sera said she hoped to find just one Stone Tablet and planned to try her luck using the coordinates.
• Sno wished Sera success, paid for their drinks, and went to his room, leaving her puzzled by his response.

Sno followed the dice’s directions aboard the Black Pearl, then returned to his room when the captain warned of an approaching storm. As Sno played piano through the storm, he heard something strange in the corridor and let the dice decide to ignore it and keep playing.

• Sno entered the first-class lounge, where he overheard a passenger complain that a thief had stolen something aboard the ship.
• The captain warned the passengers that a storm was coming, and Sno used a coin toss to decide to return to his room.
• As the storm rocked the Black Pearl, Sno put Heavenly Punishment into his piano and improvised music to match the waves and rain.
• Sno heard a wet, slapping sound in the corridor, and the All-Nuo Council rolled a die that chose to ignore it and keep playing.

Sno obeyed the die’s command to ignore strange wet footsteps outside his cabin and go to sleep. By morning, the ship’s crew were waking the passengers and directing them to the second-deck ballroom after a serious incident.

• Sno reflected on the benefits of unifying the All-Nuo Council and prepared to pray to Mr. Fool.
• Wet footsteps approached Sno’s cabin, but the die landed on six, so he went to bed without investigating.
• Sno woke at dawn, prayed, and completed his morning training while wondering whether Klein would still get to eat merman cheek meat.
• Sailors hurried through the corridor, knocking on cabin doors as passengers gathered and demanded answers.
• A distorted announcement apologized for a serious incident and told passengers to proceed to the large ballroom on the second deck.

Sno encountered the corpse of a passenger aboard the Black Pearl and heard Sera’s suspicion that a creature had come aboard during the rain. After the captain ordered patrols and a Requiem ritual, Sno agreed to hear what Sera knew about the ship over drinks.

• Sno recognized the dead passenger as the man who had listened to a theft story the previous day.
• Sera told Sno that she had heard wet footsteps during the rain and spotted water stains, leading her to suspect something aboard had killed the man.
• Captain Salazar announced the murder, requested help from doctors and Detectives, and ordered more patrols while passengers avoided being alone.
• Sno noticed that no children were among the passengers and wondered whether their absence was deliberate.
• Sno asked Sera what she knew about the Black Pearl, and she invited him to talk over a drink at the first-class bar.

Sno met Sera aboard the Black Pearl and agreed to help her investigate Roselle’s secret treasure after she shared a chart-based lead. Before discussing the ship’s suspicious circumstances, they began drafting another contract.

• Sera identified Sno as a Seer and introduced herself as a Detective who preferred the title Knowledge Keeper.
• Sera described the Black Pearl and its captain, Salazar, then offered rarer information in exchange for Sno’s help searching for sea treasures.
• Sera revealed that charts and symbols in the Grand Library of Lenburg pointed to a possible location connected to Roselle’s secret treasure.
• Sno used a coin toss to decide whether to accept Sera’s invitation, and the coin landed heads.
• Sno agreed to help explore the treasure lead but insisted they first discuss the Black Pearl’s problem, so Sera began writing another contract.
• The author’s note explained Sno’s plan to become a King of Angels and hinted that his godhood ritual involved a familiar meme or set of images.

Sera told Sno why she suspected the Black Pearl was a Ghost Ship and connected its unusual winter voyage to the thief Jack and the Storm Church’s interest in him. The chapter left Sno deciding whether to share what he had heard about Jack.

• Sera explained that the Black Pearl sailed in winter for the first time and had sped into a storm instead of avoiding it.
• Sno and Sera considered whether the Black Pearl was a Ghost Ship built to withstand harsh seas, possibly bound for a dangerous region tied to a powerful being’s remains.
• Sera revealed that she had boarded the Black Pearl while following Jack, a street painter and petty thief from Pritz Harbor.
• Sera said Jack had targeted only Black Pearl passengers before vanishing shortly before the Storm Church’s Mandated Punishers began searching the harbor.
• Sera suspected Jack’s secret was connected to the Black Pearl, while Sno weighed whether to tell her the information he had heard about Jack.

Sno and Sera used clues about Jack’s thefts to deduce that he was concealing a bloodline-linked Extraordinary pathway, and their hidden rolls pointed them toward the same origin. They suspected Jack, Salazar, and the ship’s recent death were connected to several possible treasures, leaving Sno wary of how well his hidden rolls had gone.

• Sno flipped a coin to decide what to tell Sera and described the deceased man and the merchant discussing a thief.
• Sera deduced that Jack might be disguising his true pathway with a Mysterious Item, whose side effect forced him to steal aboard the ship.
• Sno reasoned that Jack’s true pathway was tied to an ancient Angel bloodline and considered which families could fit the clues.
• Sno and Sera independently wrote down their guesses, revealed matching answers, and concealed them again.
• Sera wondered whether the previous night’s arrival and the deceased man were coincidences, while Sno suggested Jack might have learned of Salazar’s plan and sought a ride.
• Sera saw two possible treasures before them, and Sno suspected there might be three, then worried about his two great hidden-roll results.

Sno investigated the circumstances surrounding Barbosa’s death while gambling aboard the Black Pearl, where he learned that the ship’s passengers and cargo were unusually suspicious. After three hours at the table, he realized the ship carried an extraordinary number of Beyonders.

• Sno suspected a third party had murdered Barbosa, then went to the recreation room to gamble and listen for gossip.
• Gamblers said Barbosa had ties to pirates and speculated that Salazar might have killed him, while Sno found no sign that his own luck had changed.
• A gambler pointed out that Salazar rarely sailed in winter and that the first-class passengers seemed unusual.
• After Sno bought the table beer, a gambler revealed that passengers had brought almost no cargo and that Salazar’s private goods filled the ship’s holds.
• A blue-eyed middle-aged man suggested that the gamblers had boarded because they suspected something was wrong with the Black Pearl, and one gambler admitted it.
• After three hours of gambling, Sno realized he had encountered six Beyonders aboard the ship.