Chapter Summaries

Kangkai narrowly survived the Constructed Beast’s Metal Shards, and Punk discovered that the shards tracked intense energy fluctuations and weakened when divided. While Punk prepared a spell to exploit that weakness, Bahang armored himself with Battle Qi and resumed attacking the Constructed Beast.

• The Constructed Beast ambushed Kangkai with enchanted Metal Shards, leaving him badly wounded after he dodged most of them.
• Punk told Bahang to hold off the Constructed Beast while he helped Kangkai evade the Metal Shards.
• The Metal Shards shifted targets when Bahang charged, leading Punk to realize they tracked violent energy fluctuations and lost strength when split up.
• Punk deduced that the Constructed Beast relied on an automated system to control its Metal Shards and began constructing a spell.
• Bahang used Battle Qi Transformation Armor to evade the weakened Metal Shards and attack the Constructed Beast with his hammer.

Punk used a summoning spell to distract the Metal Shards with fast-moving Chirada Rabbits, letting Kangkai destroy the weakened constructs. As Bahang struggled against the Constructed Beast, Punk stopped stalling and released his spell, while the team continued to face the enemies guarding their path toward Tishashar.

• The Constructed Beast focused on Bahang while Punk finished casting Garden Destroyer and Kangkai recovered from his wounds.
• Punk summoned hundreds of Chirada Rabbits and ordered them to use Lesser Haste, drawing the Metal Shards away from Kangkai.
• Kangkai activated Chainsaw and Vibrating Blade and destroyed the scattered Metal Shards, confirming that they were weaker when separated.
• Punk suspected the Metal Shards and Constructed Beast had been made by different creators as Bahang began to tire and his hammer cracked.
• Punk abandoned his attempt to draw out Bahang and Kangkai's hidden Trump Cards and finally focused on releasing his spell.

Punk, Kangkai, and Bahang worked together to destroy the Constructed Beast by stripping away its magical shield and disabling its defenses. With the beast reduced to scrap, Punk turned his attention to the final enemy, Tishashar.

• Punk used Kinetic Shrapnel to shoot down the Metal Shards, and he and Kangkai went to help Bahang.
• Punk told Kangkai and Bahang to hold the Constructed Beast in place while he prepared a spell, and Golem Unit One bound its legs with Steel Bind.
• Punk cast Lesser Disintegration and shattered the beast's magical shield, allowing Bahang to smash apart half its head.
• Golem Unit One bound the beast again, and Kangkai destroyed its four eyes before it could regain its defenses.
• Punk fired Strong Magnetic Sphere into the beast's damaged head and declared that only Tishashar remained.

Refugees in Dolais descended into violence and looting, and Dichido stopped a man from killing noble children by appealing to the crowd's conscience. A woman then revealed that captives were imprisoned in the mansion cellar, and Rotolan realized their rescue could trigger further chaos.

• Refugees in Dolais looted noble homes, killed residents, and turned the streets into a scene of destruction.
• A burly refugee prepared to stab a noble boy, but Dichido intervened and Bilan used her Apprentice Level alchemy to make him stumble.
• Dichido shielded the noble children and challenged the refugees for taking revenge on the innocent, causing some to lower their heads in shame.
• A middle-aged woman emerged from the cellar and begged someone to rescue her daughter and others locked in cages.
• Rotolan recognized the danger as sturdier refugees began entering the cellar.

Dichido, Rotolan, and Bilan fled after refugees enraged by the abuse of enslaved commoners turned against them, while Hett decided to disguise himself and Lord Golath as refugees to escape the approaching self-destructing believers. The chapter left Bilan wondering who in Dolais City was buying souls as Hett hurried to protect Golath.

• Refugees brought out cages of tortured prisoners, and Kariya’s mother wept over her unresponsive daughter.
• The refugees blamed the nobles and their servants for their suffering, then threatened Dichido, Bilan, and the others.
• Rotolan and Bilan escaped with Dichido over a high wall, leaving three children behind as the refugees could not follow.
• Rotolan told Dichido that the prisoners’ souls were sold to a powerful buyer, and Bilan wondered who in Dolais City was responsible.
• Hett learned that self-destructing believers were approaching the Lord’s Castle and decided to flee in disguise with Lord Golath.
• Hett ignored the ministers’ pleas about noble dignity and rushed to Golath’s bedchamber to protect him.

Punk, Bahang, and Kangkai confronted Tishashar in her chamber after defeating her guardians and discovered she was absorbing the power of faith. Tishashar overwhelmed their attacks with corrupted faith power and drove Bahang toward a potentially fatal strike.

• Punk and the others entered Tishashar's chamber, where he noticed pale yellow power of faith flowing into her.
• Tishashar attacked, and Bahang, Kangkai, and Golem Unit One charged while Punk equipped the golem with alloy steel armor.
• Punk's Inflict Greater Damage spell struck Tishashar but failed against her faith-powered barrier.
• Tishashar strengthened herself with corrupted faith power, knocked Golem Unit One into a wall, and forced Kangkai to dodge.
• Bahang met Tishashar's strength head-on, but she stabbed her free limbs toward his ribs as he struggled to hold her back.

Punk, Kangkai, and Bahang fought Tishashar, a half-step master who poisoned Bahang and summoned explosive spiders. Kangkai’s powerful slash severed two of Tishashar’s limbs and wounded her face, while Punk noticed a small wooden box hidden beneath her abdomen.

• Punk used Kinetic Siphon to halt one of Tishashar’s limbs, and Kangkai struck the other with Chainsaw, allowing Bahang to dodge a fatal blow.
• Tishashar’s blade poisoned Bahang, who drank an antidote potion while dodging her acid attacks.
• Punk, Kangkai, and Bahang regrouped around Tishashar, and Punk judged that she was a half-step master stronger than any two of them together.
• Tishashar summoned swarms of dark-green spiders, and Punk warned that they could explode.
• Kangkai used Battle Qi Condensation and Qi Gathering Slash to sever two of Tishashar’s limbs and cut a deep wound across her face.
• Punk noticed a small dark-brown wooden box hidden beneath Tishashar’s abdomen.

Punk tried to steal the wooden box beneath Tishashar, but she stopped him and swallowed the Legendary Equipment after its connection to the room’s faith-energy supply was severed. Enraged by the interruption of her advancement, Tishashar unleashed a corrosive mist that forced Punk and Kangkai to defend themselves.

• Punk opened Any Door and sent a Mage Hand toward the wooden box, but Tishashar blasted it apart with exploding spiders before it could reach the prize.
• Tishashar’s distraction gave Kangkai time to recover and escape, while she dug up the box and swallowed it, breaking the pillar of faith power that connected it to the ground.
• Punk inferred that the chamber had once been a mage’s laboratory and that Tishashar had used the equipment and the base’s defenses without controlling its energy circuits.
• Tishashar blamed Punk and the others for ruining her advancement, then spread a pale-green mist that corroded everything it touched.
• Punk used Chaos Cloak to hold back the mist, and Kangkai protected himself with Oubai’s Phantasmal Form.

Bahang and Punk worked together to overwhelm Tishashar after Kangkai weakened her, leaving her trapped and badly injured. Punk then used Any Door to position himself behind her head and prepared to strike first for the treasure inside her stomach.

• Kangkai’s aura weakened after the green mist brushed him, while Bahang entered berserk mode and summoned Moradin’s steel armor.
• Bahang charged Tishashar and forced her back with a hammer blow, while Punk used Kinetic Stasis to freeze the toxic mist daggers she sent at Bahang.
• Kangkai withdrew from his incorporeal state as Bahang and Tishashar shattered each other’s limbs and Bahang lost his hammer.
• Bahang pinned Tishashar with his bare hands, and Punk prepared Inflict Greater Damage with the High Priest’s dagger.
• Punk used Any Door to appear behind Tishashar’s head, intending to kill her and claim the wooden box inside her stomach before Bahang could reach it.

Tishashar detonated herself, severely injuring Punk and devastating the stone chamber. Punk recovered enough to move, then gathered the surviving loot and Golem Unit One as Kangkai searched the wreckage.

• Punk emerged to attack Tishashar, but she laughed and began swelling as she prepared to self-destruct.
• Punk opened an Any Door, but the explosion caught half his body and crushed his bones and muscles.
• Punk removed his destroyed internal organs and used Simulated Organs to restore temporary bodily function.
• Kangkai retrieved the wooden box from Tishashar’s belly, while Punk decided to reclaim the Legendary Equipment later.
• Punk found Golem Unit One badly damaged but with most of its magic core intact, and carried it toward Kangkai.

After escaping the Great Rift, Punk and Kangkai traveled toward Dolais City while carrying the gravely wounded Bahang. Kangkai stopped to camp and cook, unaware of the disaster awaiting them back in the city, while Punk continued looking for a chance to kill his companions.

• Bahang survived Tishashar's self-detonation after Moradin's Divine Spells, his Battle Qi, and Kangkai's potions helped save him, but he remained unconscious and had permanently lost much of his combat power.
• Kangkai told Punk the legend behind Brook of the Rock Rabbit, and Punk dismissed it as a tale invented to fool children.
• Kangkai spotted a rabbit, killed it with a kicked stone, and decided to camp so he could tend to Bahang's worsening injuries.
• Kangkai began preparing the rabbit and asked Punk for salt and water, so Punk used Minor Matter Separation to produce both from the air and ground.

Kangkai cooked rabbit-and-wild-grass soup while Punk kept Bahang suspended in water, and the smell woke the badly injured dwarf. After eating, Bahang learned that Tishashar had destroyed his ancestral hammer, while Kangkai and Punk kept the Legendary Equipment they had found secret.

• Kangkai cut up a rabbit, added wild grass, and cooked the soup over Punk's magical flame.
• The soup's aroma woke Bahang, whose burns were healing unusually quickly, and Kangkai brought him another potion.
• Punk and Kangkai ate the soup with Bahang, who gulped down his serving while still trapped in the water sphere.
• Bahang remembered his hammer and learned from Punk that Tishashar had smashed it.
• Kangkai told Bahang that Tishashar had left no valuable loot, while he and Punk concealed their discovery of the Legendary Equipment.

Punk massacred most of the refugees with Mass Sleep, drained the survivors’ life force to heal himself, and then located Golath. He and Bahang found Golath and Hert among the refugees, while Kangkai faced the decision of how to restore order in Dolais City.

• Punk cast Mass Sleep over the refugees, killing most of them and leaving a dozen survivors.
• Punk ignored Kangkai’s objection and used Life Siphon on the survivors, restoring his lost organs.
• Punk divined Golath’s location after Bahang urged him to search for the missing lord.
• Bahang spotted Hert among the refugees, and Punk used Mage Hand to lift Hert and Golath out of the crowd.
• Hert blamed the refugees for the revolt, while Kangkai hesitated over how to handle the city’s nobles, refugees, and remaining Tishar Church believers.
• A group of chuunibyou squad members arrived before Punk could speak up for the refugees.

Dichido pleaded with Kangkai to spare Dolais City's refugees and hold its nobles responsible for the crisis, while Hert tried to blame the refugees and discredit Dichido. Kangkai chose reconciliation and shared responsibility, and Punk left to prepare a trap that would use Dichido, Rotolan, and Bilan as hostages against him.

• The refugees fled when Dichido called out to Kangkai and Bahang, and Punk lifted Dichido, Rotolan, and Bilan onto a rooftop.
• Dichido knelt before Kangkai and argued that the nobles and City Guard had helped cause the city's chaos, asking him to forgive the refugees.
• Hert knelt and accused Dichido and the refugees of conspiring with Tishashar, while Kangkai struggled to reconcile order with mercy.
• Dichido challenged Kangkai to give the refugees a chance, and Kangkai ordered the nobles to open their granaries while the refugees helped rebuild the city.
• Punk dismissed Kangkai's decision and left to prepare a trap, intending to abduct Dichido, Rotolan, and Bilan as hostages.

Five days after the Gray Bone Plague was eradicated, Bilan and Dichido confessed their love, but Punk abducted Bilan and threatened to extract her and Rotolan’s bone marrow unless Dichido and Kangkai came to the White Tower in Nialan Town.

• After Kangkai mediated a settlement in Dolais City, the refugees began rebuilding the city and the church priests used his antidote to eradicate the Gray Bone Plague.
• Bilan and Dichido shared a kiss and confessed that they had been waiting for each other to express their love.
• Punk appeared in their home and tried to seize Bilan, but she escaped his Mage Hand with Haste and attacked him.
• Punk disrupted Bilan’s spell, tortured her with Lesser Pain, and bound Dichido with vines when he tried to intervene.
• Punk imprisoned Bilan in an Arcane Cage and told Dichido that Bilan and Rotolan had two days left before he extracted their bone marrow.
• Punk escaped through Any Door to the White Tower in Nialan Town, forcing Dichido and Kangkai to come there if they wanted to save the women.

Punk used Bilan and Rotolan as hostages to lure Kangkai into the White Tower, where Kangkai’s powers failed and he was left unable to move. Dichido and the girls were outside the sealed tower as Punk prepared to face Kangkai alone.

• Bilan and Rotolan remained imprisoned in the White Tower while Bilan feared for Dichido’s safety.
• Dichido arrived with Kangkai, but Kangkai stopped him from rushing into the tower and promised to rescue the hostages.
• Punk challenged Kangkai and offered to release the three hostages if Kangkai entered the White Tower to fight him.
• Kangkai demanded a divine oath, and Punk swore before Mystra not to take revenge on the three before releasing them.
• Kangkai entered the White Tower, and a summoned iron gate sealed the exit behind him.
• Punk’s prepared magic immobilized Kangkai and prevented him from using his necklace’s etherealization.

Punk countered Kangkai’s Divine Spell by trapping his dispersed spatial-element body, then killed him with a compressed Kinetic Cone. After claiming Kangkai’s Divine Spell Necklace, Punk discovered something inside it that abruptly unsettled him.

• Kangkai’s phasing failed to free him, and Punk explained that the Divine Spell transformed his body into spatial elements dispersed throughout the surrounding space.
• Punk used an enhanced spatial confinement array to immobilize Kangkai as his phasing duration ran out.
• Punk struck Kangkai with a mana-compressed Kinetic Cone, killing him before he could attack.
• Punk cleaned Kangkai’s severed head, carried it to the corpse, and claimed the Divine Spell Necklace.
• Punk found no anti-theft protections on the necklace, but the feedback from its contents immediately froze his good mood.

After discovering that Kangkai had hidden the Legendary Equipment elsewhere, Punk decided to use the evil divination spell "Filthy Foresight" and planned to sacrifice Kangkai, Bahang, and half of Dolais City to find it. He emerged from the White Tower carrying Kangkai’s head and approached Dichido and Bilan, who had been waiting outside.

• Punk searched Kangkai’s necklace and found no trace of the little wooden box containing the Legendary Equipment.
• Punk considered using "Filthy Foresight," a sacrificial communication spell that could contact dangerous beings, to learn where Kangkai had hidden the box.
• Punk gathered Kangkai’s remains and planned to sacrifice his corpse, Bahang’s corpse, and half the population of Dolais City.
• Punk dispelled the White Tower’s iron gate and dismissed the oath he had made to spare Dichido and Bilan.
• Dichido comforted Bilan as they waited for Kangkai, but Punk emerged carrying a spherical object and walked toward them.

Punk emerged from the White Tower carrying Kangkai’s severed head, then killed Dichido and extracted Bilan’s and Rotolan’s souls. He left the three companions dead or captured as souls, with Rotolan accepting that she might someday help him.

• Bilan saw Punk leave the White Tower carrying Kangkai’s head and realized he had killed Kangkai.
• Dichido charged at Punk, but Punk pierced his chest with a Mage Hand, tore out his heart, and crushed it.
• Bilan mourned Dichido as Punk told her his soul would not reach the divine kingdom and extracted her soul into a gemstone for Golem Unit Two.
• Punk turned to Rotolan and refused to spare her, then extracted her soul after she asked whether she might someday become his help.

Punk killed Bahang in Dolais City's Lord's Castle after exploiting his poisoned, weakened state, then left to attend to another task. At the city gates, a woman and her daughter found a magically appearing steel gate sealing the exit as the storm approached.

• Punk entered Bahang's room and attacked him while Tishashar's poison prevented him from recovering his battle qi.
• Punk's Kinetic Cones shattered Bahang's defenses and left him unable to fight.
• Bahang revealed that he had hidden the wooden box, but Punk killed him with a final Kinetic Cone and collected his body and remains.
• Punk discarded Bahang's storage ring and vanished from the crumbling castle into the gloomy sky.
• A woman and her daughter saw a steel gate appear and seal Dolais City's entrance, so the woman hurried home with the child.