Chapter Summaries

Cheng Tian turned the Demon King's summoned forces against him and used Merlin's shadow to cripple Astaroth's mana. He teleported behind the defenseless Demon King and unleashed a rapid strike, leaving Astaroth's vision in darkness.

• Cheng Tian converted the Demon King's four summoned Cyclopes into his own meat shields, prompting Astaroth to summon an airborne force of Satans and Red Demons.
• Astaroth discovered the Red Demons feared Cheng Tian because of his hatred with their clan and his five Legend Points.
• With Dominator and Night Parade of a Hundred Demons on cooldown, Cheng Tian summoned the Flame Cat Couple and used the Juste Magic Book with a Blue Shock Orb to summon Merlin's shadow.
• Merlin's spell halved the summoned enemies' MP and locked their mana for ten seconds, preventing Astaroth from summoning or using his Psychic Shield.
• Cheng Tian teleported behind Astaroth and launched his three Killer Beans-fueled Thousand Strikes, plunging the Demon King's vision into darkness.

Cheng Tian used a Gouki-inspired Instant Hell Kill to nearly destroy Demon King Astaroth, then executed him while Merlin’s phantom kept his mana locked. A magical map of the Demon King’s Castle unfurled after Astaroth’s death.

• Cheng Tian manifested Zero Style: Gouki and struck Astaroth’s thirty weak points in a relentless Instant Hell Kill, dealing 9,630 damage.
• Merlin’s phantom continued to lock Astaroth’s mana, leaving the badly injured Demon King unable to recover or resist.
• Cheng Tian crushed Astaroth’s temple beneath his foot and told him the Great Demon King would not save him.
• Cheng Tian drew the Devourer of Worlds and killed Astaroth with a final slash across his neck.
• The Demon King’s Castle Map flew out of Cheng Tian’s inventory and unfurled as magical power flowed across it.

Cheng Tian broke Astaroth’s illusion with the Demon King’s Castle Map, killed him, and captured his escaping soul so he could not revive. After fulfilling and surpassing his promise to Arthur, Cheng Tian gained an enhanced Arthur’s Proof, and the Demon King’s Castle began to shake as demolition started.

• The Demon King’s Castle Map shattered Astaroth’s illusion, and sunlight burned the unprotected monsters and Astaroth’s corpse.
• Cheng Tian’s Ghost Gauntlet captured Astaroth’s fleeing soul and increased the storage limit of Soul Salvation.
• Cheng Tian declared that he had fulfilled his promise to Arthur and patted Arthur’s Proof.
• Arthur’s Proof ranked up to Legendary Gold and granted Cheng Tian Arthur’s Knight template and its exclusive skills.
• The sunlight reduced Astaroth’s soulless corpse to ashes, and the Demon King’s Castle began to tremble.

Cheng Tian perfectly cleared Demon World Village after killing Demon King Astaroth, earning new equipment and skills while freeing Bazett from the instance’s influence. As the settlement ended, he opened Astaroth’s treasure chest and found a skill book called Illusory Phantasm.

• Cheng Tian and his group escaped as Demon King's Castle collapsed, and Bazett carried the Princess to safety.
• The instance confirmed that Cheng Tian had ended Astaroth and cleared every stage, freeing Bazett and granting him Juste Belmont’s Grimoire and Combination Magic.
• Cheng Tian reviewed his new Knight Arthur template abilities, including Mithril Treasure Chests, and considered how to exploit the armor drops.
• Cheng Tian noted that killing another Demon King in an A-rank or higher instance would upgrade his title, and thought of the Dragon Quest Demon Kings as possible targets.
• Cheng Tian opened Astaroth’s treasure chest and discovered a skill book named Illusory Phantasm.

Cheng Tian examined the Illusory Phantasm Skill Stone, a powerful ability that let him draw attacks and reverse his own resource use when the phantasm was destroyed. With no skill slots left, he weighed which ability to forget before leaning over to see what Bazett had obtained.

• Cheng Tian read Illusory Phantasm’s effects and realized its pseudo-reversal could restore his own skills, items, and mana while leaving enemies’ losses intact.
• Cheng Tian reflected that Astaroth’s forced second playthrough had been especially dangerous without the map Arthur and the other human Knights recovered.
• Cheng Tian found that all six of his Innate Skill slots were occupied and considered forgetting Demon's Concerto to learn Illusory Phantasm.
• Cheng Tian compared Librom's Tear and Styx Water Essence as ways to free a skill slot, while noting that a second class advancement remained out of reach.
• Cheng Tian asked Bazett what she had received and saw that her Skill Stone was called Cycle Curse.

After defeating the Demon King, Cheng Tian and Bazett returned to the Human World, where the Princess watched the land recover while the Demon World remained unsettled. Back home, Cheng Tian discovered that videos of him and Bazett had gone viral, but he ignored the attention and opened the Steam page for Silent Hill F.

• Cheng Tian considered Bazett’s Cycle Curse a versatile control and teleportation skill, despite its B-rank evaluation and long cooldown.
• The Demon King’s defeat restored sunlight and greenery to the Human World, while the Demon King’s Castle was carried back to the Demon World and the Great Demon King’s response remained uncertain.
• Cheng Tian and Bazett returned home through silver teleportation pillars as the Princess remained dazed by the restored Human World.
• Cheng Tian learned from his customers that videos of his Sugar Figures, cosplay, and Batmobile had become popular online, with Bazett’s cosplay clips drawing especially strong attention.
• Cheng Tian ignored the flood of friend requests, messages, offers, and insults, then opened the Steam page for Silent Hill F.

After watching Silent Hill F playthroughs, Cheng Tian searched the mission center and found a School Days instance, but decided he had no interest in entering it. Back in his private space, he learned that his Knight Festival Invitation had changed, opening a campaign against Archduke Garibaldi.

• Cheng Tian reflected that powerful weapons could strip horror games of their fear and wondered whether the space had horror-themed instances.
• Cheng Tian found the School Days instance in the mission center, marked it KEEP, and returned to his private space without entering it.
• Fina showed Cheng Tian that the Knight Festival Invitation had been emitting strong magical fluctuations since his return from Demon World Village.
• Cheng Tian examined the changed invitation and learned that Archduke Garibaldi's vanguard had attacked the Knight Festival, allowing him to bring up to two players into an alliance campaign against the archduke.

Cheng Tian activated Arthur’s Knight Festival Invitation, triggering a Great Expedition warm-up mission for the Scorching Sun Legion. The legion’s members joined the mission, and Cheng Tian was transported to meet Arthur as the battle against Garibaldi approached.

• Cheng Tian learned that his strength and the Scorching Sun Legion’s power exceeded the Knights of the Round Table dungeon’s limits, so Chosen Space would add random modifiers to strengthen Garibaldi’s forces.
• Cheng Tian decided to intervene and launched the Scorching Sun Legion’s Great Expedition warm-up mission, “Crush Garibaldi’s Ambition.”
• The new forty-player PVE mission drew attention from organizations monitoring the mission center, and all its slots quickly filled.
• Cheng Tian checked the expedition roster and recognized many players who had joined the Scorching Sun Legion through earlier dungeons.
• A silver pillar of light guided Cheng Tian to another Arthur.

The Scorching Sun Legion arrived at the Lion King Fortress during the Knights of the Round Table Legion’s battle with Garibaldi’s forces. Cheng Tian sent Eileen to scout for the legion’s banner, and Burst Owl reported its location near the eastern seaside cliff as players summoned their mounts.

• The Scorching Sun Legion appeared at its encampment beside the Lion King Fortress amid the Knight Festival’s chaos.
• Cheng Tian ordered Eileen to locate the Knights of the Round Table Legion’s blue-red-blue banner bearing a leaping lion.
• Eileen transformed into a Wind Element and vanished to scout the area.
• Burst Owl wrote that the banner was near the eastern seaside cliff.
• Cheng Tian headed east as players summoned mounts around the encampment.

Cheng Tian joined the Knights of the Round Table’s defense with his newly upgraded Guardian Beast Mammoth, rallying the scattered knights against Archduke Garibaldi’s attackers. Arthur and the others confronted the attackers’ leader, Phantom, as Cheng Tian’s allies caught the Sky Walker in a powerful attack.

• Cheng Tian watched the legion members arrive on an assortment of ordinary and unusual mounts, then summoned Mammoth.
• Mammoth emerged larger and blacker after Uthan’s Ancient Metal Beast modifications, with its Guardian Beast Transformation sealed but its strength greatly increased.
• The knights rallied behind Mammoth as Archduke Garibaldi’s fast-moving Phantom-led Sky Walkers attacked during the forced march.
• Arthur drove back a Sky Walker while Phantom split into three clones to escape.
• A Cycle Curse dragged Phantom’s clones back, and a storm-wrapped arrow struck them.

Cheng Tian joined Arthur after Phantom was killed, and the British expedition set out to eliminate Archduke Garibaldi. On the march, they discovered that Garibaldi had withdrawn his forces to the Golden Fortress, bypassing the expected intermediate battles.

• Bazett’s upgraded Cycle Curse and the knights’ attacks killed Phantom and ended his harassment mission.
• Cheng Tian met Arthur, whose group sensed a strange familiarity in Cheng Tian’s aura and his connection to Excalibur.
• Arthur declared an expedition against Garibaldi, and Cheng Tian agreed to help eliminate him.
• At dawn, the British expeditionary army set out after preparing through the night.
• Cheng Tian learned that Garibaldi’s forces had contracted to the Golden Fortress, where Garibaldi was gathering his troops.

The British expeditionary force reached the Golden Fortress, where Archduke Garibaldi had gathered his troops, while Cheng Tian sensed that their unusually easy journey concealed a threat. As an eclipse began, Garibaldi held a strange red egg-shaped object and named it a Behelit.

• Arthur led the expedition onward and upheld strict discipline, angering retainers who wanted to plunder Roman civilians.
• The British force reached the heavily defended Golden Fortress and faced the prospect of a costly siege against Archduke Garibaldi.
• The Scorching Sun Legion enjoyed comfortable travel, but Cheng Tian and other experienced players remained wary of the smooth progress.
• Cheng Tian sensed psychic resistance around the fortress and felt an increasing foreboding as an eclipse began.
• Archduke Garibaldi watched a red egg-shaped object’s features rearrange into a bloody face and said, “Behelit.”

Archduke Garibaldi transformed the Golden Fortress into a vast sacrifice ritual that sealed sun-based powers and marked its inhabitants as sacrifices. As the ritual began, Cheng Tian identified its connection to Berserk, while Zodiac Meteor shattered the eclipse and entered the ritual’s domain.

• The Behelit’s power engulfed the Golden Fortress in a scarlet storm, disabling Cheng Tian’s sun-related abilities and equipment.
• Cheng Tian recognized the eclipse and storm as the [Dark Age] Dungeon Modifier, and Librom identified the scene as a brutal large-scale Sacrifice Ritual.
• The living heads covering the Golden Fortress reshaped it into a gigantic hand, with Garibaldi standing alone on its middle finger.
• Garibaldi shouted “Sacrifice!” and branded every living person in the Golden Fortress, including Barbas and Samurai Muramasa, as a sacrifice.
• Zodiac Meteor shattered the eclipse and forced its way into Garibaldi’s ritual domain.

Archduke Garibaldi used a Crimson Behelit to begin a sacrifice ritual, offering the people of Golden Fortress in exchange for power to defeat Britain’s expeditionary army. Cheng Tian shattered the ritual with the Zodiac Meteor, but Garibaldi vanished, leaving the ritual’s outcome uncertain.

• A Crimson Behelit appeared in Golden Fortress, and Garibaldi’s growing desire for power led him to grasp it.
• Garibaldi activated the Eclipse of the Hour and sacrificed Golden Fortress’s soldiers and civilians to become a supreme being.
• Cheng Tian inferred that Garibaldi was trying to become a new God Hand and summoned the Zodiac Meteor from outside the ritual.
• The Zodiac Meteor struck the ritual’s core, blasting apart the storm around Golden Fortress and exposing the Gap.
• The God Hand structure was left with half a forearm, and Garibaldi disappeared as Cheng Tian searched for him.

Cheng Tian’s Zodiac Meteor shattered the False Solar Eclipse and opened the Golden Fortress, plunging it into chaos as people and monsters slaughtered one another. Arthur ordered the Britannian Expeditionary Army to attack, while Silver Guards summoned by Cheng Tian held the monsters back at the eastern gate.

• Cheng Tian used Zodiac Meteor to destroy the False Solar Eclipse, restoring his connection to the sun and dispersing the barrier around the gap.
• Civilians, soldiers, low-level apostles, and Ghost Beasts fought and fled through the Golden Fortress as its gates became accessible.
• Cheng Tian fired a signal into the sky, and Arthur ordered the Britannian Expeditionary Army to abandon its siege weapon construction and attack.
• Arthur and Cheng Tian advanced toward the fortress without knowing Archduke Garibaldi had swallowed a Zodiac Meteor.
• The Britannian Expeditionary Army reached the eastern gate and found Silver Guards summoned by Cheng Tian blocking the monsters' charge.

Cheng Tian turned Golden Fortress’s survivors against Archduke Garibaldi by rallying them against the monsters and spreading the claim that the Archduke had sacrificed them for godhood. When Garibaldi awoke amid the ruins, Cheng Tian and the united forces confronted him.

• Cheng Tian used the Prince’s Sword to summon endless Silver Guards, inspiring scattered Golden Legion soldiers to join the fight against the monsters.
• Cheng Tian used Domination to send masked Golden Legion servants into the crowd, where they spread the claim that Archduke Garibaldi had sacrificed Golden Fortress’s people to demons.
• The survivors’ hatred of Garibaldi increased, advancing Cheng Tian’s quests and bonuses as his forces pushed from the southern gate toward the city center.
• Ghost Warrior Muramasa and Barbas rallied their own subordinates, and both commanders believed the rumor and decided to turn against Garibaldi.
• Archduke Garibaldi awoke in the ruins surrounded by hostile forces, and Cheng Tian pointed the Prince’s Sword at him and declared that he was finished.

Archduke Garibaldi realized that the Eclipse of the Hour had begun the Dark Age by connecting the mortal world to the Astral World, turning surviving sacrifices into living gateways for monsters. As he attacked Cheng Tian, Bazett intercepted his strike, and Garibaldi's Golden Crown flew into Cheng Tian's arms.

• Archduke Garibaldi laughed after realizing the ritual had activated, while sacrifices across the world gained Sacrifice Brands that would draw monsters and create gaps between worlds.
• Archduke Garibaldi concluded that the Dark Age would threaten both the Evil Roman Empire and Holy Britain, regardless of whether the sacrifices died or escaped.
• Archduke Garibaldi raised his Golden Warhammer and used Meteor Shower to launch himself into an Aerial Crush aimed at Cheng Tian.
• Bazett activated Ogre's Wrath, boosted her Strength Attribute past one hundred, and charged to meet Archduke Garibaldi's attack.
• Bazett's collision with Archduke Garibaldi sent his Golden Crown flying into Cheng Tian's arms.

Cheng Tian caught Archduke Garibaldi’s Golden Crown and absorbed its power, strengthening the Blazing Sun Mask’s protective and healing effects. Garibaldi fell after the ritual failed, and Cheng used the Ghost Gauntlet to pull at the great sin soul rising from the corpse.

• Bazett’s enhanced attack struck Garibaldi head-on, causing him to drop his Golden Crown.
• Cheng Tian caught the crown and absorbed its healing essence, reinforcing Primal Shell and Clear Sky Warm Sun on his Blazing Sun Mask.
• The crown’s reinforcement let Cheng cast Primal Shell on an ally, transferring their HP damage to his MP, while Clear Sky Warm Sun became a passive self-heal when inactive.
• The Scorching Sun Legion fought as a team, allowing its members to receive basic guaranteed rewards through the legion-scale mission evaluation.
• Garibaldi dropped his Golden Warhammer and froze with his hand raised as the Eclipse of the Hour ritual failed and he died.
• Cheng used the Ghost Gauntlet to pull at the great sin soul rising from Garibaldi’s corpse.

After Garibaldi’s failed ritual and death, a golden Grail appeared and purified the nearby ruins and Sacrifice Brands. Cheng Tian’s Orochi power manifested a second, black Grail, and the two vessels joined and stopped before him.

• Cheng Tian’s fate-altering power helped the Zodiac Meteor breach the ritual barrier, causing Garibaldi’s ritual to fail and killing him.
• The golden Grail descended, purifying the nearby ruins and slowing the Sacrifice Brands on the Living Sacrifices.
• The golden Grail recoiled as Cheng Tian’s Orochi power formed a black Grail around him.
• Merlin recognized the black Grail as a dangerous but necessary seal and wondered whether Cheng Tian was linked to a darker version of Arthur.
• Arthur refused to claim the golden Grail solely as proof of kingship, declaring that serving Britain mattered more.
• The golden Grail and the black Grail overlapped, then floated before Cheng Tian and stopped.

Cheng Tian’s Black Grail merged with the Round Table’s Grail, and Arthur publicly accepted him as worthy to hold it. The Grail revealed Cheng Tian as the Lake Goddess’s agent, granting him authority to issue trials that could turn qualified players and NPCs into Grail Knights.

• Arthur declared Cheng Tian qualified to hold the Grail, calming the Knights who had witnessed its unexpected appearance.
• Space Prompt explained that Cheng Tian’s Black Grail had resonated with the Round Table’s Grail and that the Eclipse of the Hour had opened an erosive connection to the Astral World.
• Cheng Tian received the title Agent of the Lake Goddess, and a goddess-like phantom appeared behind him as the Knights and Merlin knelt in reverence.
• The title granted Cheng Tian authority to issue up to eight Grail Trials per month, allowing successful candidates to become Grail Knights.
• Space Prompt displayed the additional evaluation, “Mommy~ Washes Feet~~~.”