Chapter Summaries

The soldiers overcame the Minotaur by adapting to its fear spell and using poison to weaken it. Harpie abandoned it, and the soldiers killed it from within, leaving them to claim its rewards.

• The Minotaur used its blood to cast a fear spell, sending soldiers fleeing until Lancelot led them to cover themselves with leather.
• The soldiers used a human wall and a trench to trip the charging Minotaur, then climbed onto it and poisoned it with a soldier’s skill.
• The poisoned Minotaur called for Harpie, but she refused to help and flew away to pursue better merits.
• As the Minotaur weakened, the soldiers pursued it, and a warrior crawled down its throat and cut its heart, killing it.

After Lancelot and his Soldiers killed the Minotaur, he used their new power and the victory to build support for a march on the Royal Capital. At the final checkpoint, he demanded knighthoods for his men, while the King's court tried to entice them to pledge themselves to the King.

• Lancelot celebrated the Minotaur's defeat by having his Soldiers requisition food and promising that they deserved knighthoods.
• Lancelot led seven thousand Soldiers and the Minotaur's preserved remains toward the Royal Capital, gaining supplies and new recruits from nobles along the way.
• The King blocked Lancelot at the final checkpoint and offered him the title of Baron of Kentania.
• Lancelot rejected the title and demanded that all his Soldiers be made knights, pointing to the Minotaur as proof of their achievement.
• Some Soldiers secretly met with the King's men, while the court Earl offered them Baron titles if they pledged themselves to the King.

King Harry III captured the Soldiers and tried to claim their divine power, then offered land and slaves to win Lancelot’s army over. Lancelot mocked the reward as inadequate, leaving Harry furious as the army waited at the checkpoint.

• The Court Earl brought the captured Soldiers before King Harry III, who demanded to know how they had gained their power.
• The Soldiers explained that a divine envoy had granted their power, but Harry III ordered them beaten and realized their painlessness made them formidable opponents.
• Harry III sent messengers to find the divine envoy and offered the Soldiers land, slaves, livestock, and honorary Knighthoods to delay a conflict with Lancelot’s army.
• Lancelot ridiculed Harry III’s reward, arguing that the land and provisions were insufficient for Knights.
• Harry III cursed Lancelot as the Soldiers remained before the checkpoint, their resentment growing as the delay continued.

Lancelot incited his Soldiers to overthrow nobles and seize their lands, turning the Lottas Kingdom into chaos as the Soldiers became a new Demon Tide. Yang Weite watched without intervening, while the Soldiers divided into rival factions and began exploiting the villagers.

• Lancelot led the Soldiers in capturing the King's checkpoint, forcing the King to flee to the Royal Capital, then rewarded squad captains with villages and land.
• Lancelot's Soldiers seized the lands and castles of Grand Dukes, while the nobles fled and the Soldiers' ambitions grew beyond his control.
• A noble called the uprising the new Demon Tide before dying, and neighboring kingdoms began fearing that the Soldiers would invade them next.
• Little Panda challenged Yang Weite to deal with the Soldiers, but Yang Weite said the chaos would wash away the weak and reveal true warriors.
• Lancelot's Soldiers split into thirty factions, and their leaders imposed harsh taxes and abuses on the villages they controlled.

The Soldiers’ lapse in watch allowed masked attackers to capture many of them, and the remaining Soldiers discovered their companions displayed on iron rods. Yang Weite watched their crisis unfold as a Soldier used Mind Link to alert the other Card Players, who still saw one another as kindred.

• The Soldiers’ watch rotations broke down as some sentries slept and others abandoned their posts to indulge themselves.
• More than a dozen masked figures entered the castle and bound the sleeping Soldiers.
• The returning Soldiers found their captured companions impaled on iron rods and feared they could be killed repeatedly.
• Yang Weite explained to Little Panda that order restrained people’s chaotic impulses, despite the Soldiers’ complaints about him.
• A Soldier awakened Mind Link and alerted the other Card Players, who rallied around their captured brothers.

After becoming Navia Grand Duke, Lancelot gathered forces to rescue the Card Players captured by Great Knight Vistok. He pleaded for their release, leaving the imprisoned Players convinced that he could still be trusted.

• Lancelot became Navia Grand Duke through his father's help and noble customs, while his father gained the title of Earl.
• Lancelot learned that neighboring kingdoms were forming a coalition and decided to gather the Card Players before the invasion.
• Lancelot led his personal guard, mercenaries, and loyal Knights to the castle, where Vistok's men were roasting captured Card Players on iron rods.
• Lancelot recognized Great Knight Vistok and asked him to spare the Card Players, calling them Heroes who had merely gone astray.
• Lancelot's soldiers questioned why he did not attack, but he refused to risk their safety, moving the captured Card Players with his plea.

Lancelot united the surviving Card Players as the Six Kingdoms Allied Army entered the Lottas Kingdom. His father feigned cooperation with the nobles to buy the Card Players time to train, while the allied army prepared traps and argued over its future spoils.

• Lancelot stopped himself from charging the Great Knight, then led his disciplined troops to defeat the enemy and rescue scattered Card Players.
• Lancelot gathered 5,422 of the original seven thousand Card Players, while some fled and several hundred died during the fighting.
• After the allied army crossed into the Lottas Kingdom, Lancelot's father told him the nobles had offered to make him king if he betrayed the Card Players.
• Lancelot's father proposed pretending to accept the offer so the nobles would delay their advance and give the Card Players time to train.
• The nobles prepared traps while some advanced without waiting and were defeated by Lancelot; the allied leaders continued plotting to divide his territory and capture Card Players.

Lancelot trained five thousand Card Players into a coordinated army by using the kingdom’s resources and assigning skills strategically. As a two-hundred-thousand-strong Noble Allied Army advanced along the Lottas River, Lancelot’s strategists debated whether to defeat its columns separately or destroy its fleet and cut its supply line.

• Lancelot paid Farmers and other locals for food and supplies, allowing his Soldiers to gain levels and helping the population earn money.
• Lancelot organized scouts, ranged attackers, defenders, healers, and support units, then used the newly trained army to rout smaller noble forces and capture thousands without losing a Soldier.
• Lancelot learned that two hundred thousand enemies were advancing in eastern and western columns along the Lottas River, supported by a fleet.
• Lancelot’s strategists proposed luring one column away from the river or sailing downstream to burn the fleet and sever the enemy’s supplies.
• Lancelot prepared to choose between the two plans as his army moved toward the advancing enemy.

Lancelot rejected his strategists’ plans and chose a direct attack to crush the eastern army and demonstrate his forces’ superiority. Marquis Atkins advanced confidently, but the battle turned against him when Card Players disabled most of his archers, forcing him to change tactics.

• Lancelot studied the eastern army’s camp and decided to attack head-on rather than rely on ambushes or schemes.
• Marquis Atkins mocked Lancelot and deployed his combat troops, planning to use cavalry flanks and reserves while expecting support from the western army.
• Atkins’s army advanced under military discipline, and Albert ordered 3,500 longbowmen to prepare a volley.
• Ten Card Players cast Forgetfulness Spell on the archers, leaving fewer than one-tenth able to fire effectively.
• Albert recognized the spell’s effect, reported the enemy’s power, and ordered the archers to fall back as spearmen advanced under shield protection.

Lancelot’s Card Players used Sleep Spell, giant transformed fighters, and a barrage of spells to disrupt the allied army’s advance, while its Great Knights drove the giants back. The allied phalanx regrouped under ice attacks, but Rocket finally broke its formation with fire.

• The Card Players cast Sleep Spell on the advancing phalanx, throwing its ranks into chaos and crushing morale.
• Fifty Card Players used Giant Transformation Technique and armor to charge the infantry as Knights attempted to stop them.
• Knights fell into Ground Collapse Spell traps, but ten Great Knights arrived and wounded the giants by targeting their leg joints.
• The Great Knights withdrew to recover while the allied phalanxes regrouped and continued advancing.
• Three hundred Card Players fired Ice Arrows, slowing the phalanx as soldiers sheltered beneath their shields.
• The Card Player Commander ordered Rocket, and fire caused the allied phalanx to collapse.

Marquis Atkins used the allied infantry as bait to exhaust Lancelot's forces, then tried to trap them in an encirclement. Lancelot led the Card Players through the northern line, where they overwhelmed the enemy Knights while the Great Knights remained on the sidelines.

• After the allied infantry fled, Marquis Atkins told Robert that their sacrifice had drained the enemy's mana and that Marshal Shepherd had completed the encirclement.
• More than a hundred Card Players broke formation to pursue prisoners, but Lancelot ordered them killed for disobeying.
• When another allied force appeared behind and on both flanks, Lancelot used his scouts' reports to turn his army toward the northern encirclement.
• The Card Players used their remaining Rockets and then charged under Lancelot's lead, despite having spent most of their army-wide skills.
• After a prolonged fight, the northern line was reduced to a little over four hundred Knights, whom the Card Players defeated with overwhelming numbers and skills while the Great Knights watched.

Lancelot’s Card Players endured the Knights’ charges, countered their tactics, and wore down the enemy army. When Marquis Atkins fled by ship, the nobles and soldiers broke into a rout, and many surrendered after hearing they could become slaves who raised Rats and later earn their freedom.

• Lancelot’s Card Players resisted the Knights’ charges and used cloaks, Angel wings, stone platforms, and Free Snipe to evade lassos and shoot Knights from their horses.
• The Knights’ morale weakened as their attacks failed and their Battle Qi ran low, while Marquis Atkins and the Great Knight commander judged that the Card Players were still insufficiently pressured for their plan.
• Marquis Atkins abandoned his horse and armor and escaped downstream by fast ship, prompting the nobles and soldiers to flee in panic.
• The fleeing soldiers crowded the riverbank, fell into traps, and shoved one another into the water as they searched for boats.
• The Card Players called for the soldiers to fall down and surrender, offering them work raising Rats for a set term before they could become free and return home.
• More and more soldiers lay down with their hands behind their backs to surrender.

Little Panda learned that the Demon Tide would grow stronger, while the Card Players consolidated power and turned into the Saintly Order. Years later, the Empire prospered under their rule, and a boy known as Big Rat struggled to survive with his sister in the Rat Farm.

• Wenren Sheng told Little Panda that the next Demon Tide would be the special demon monsters Principal Collector wanted to collect.
• Lancelot conquered the eighteen human Kingdoms and became the Da Lotus Emperor, then established the Saintly Order in a vast hall built with forced labor.
• The Saintly Order claimed it had ended the Demon Tide by defeating the Minotaur Demon God and driving away the Female Eagle Demon God.
• An Earl's family was exiled to the Rat Farm after his daughter tried to kill a Saintly Order member and take his power.
• Big Rat survived by raising newborn rats, avoiding other rat keepers, and using drained swimming-pool water, and he taught his younger sister the same habits.

Big Rat bred Red-Eye Rats in the Rat Farm, but a shortage of rats led to his imprisonment in a rat house. After seven days, he emerged with a giant Red-Eye Rat and rescued Weil, leaving the Rat Farm facing an unknown threat.

• Weil showed Big Rat the red-eyed rats she had raised, and he identified a male and female that bred after eating ordinary rats.
• Big Rat fed the Red-Eye Rats so many ordinary rats that he could not meet the overseer's monthly quota.
• A member of the Saintly Order uncovered falsified rat records and ordered Big Rat, the overseer, and others locked in rat houses without food for seven days.
• Weil secretly fed saved baby rats to Big Rat's Red-Eye Rats, which devoured one another instead of eating him.
• A giant Red-Eye Rat emerged when the rat house opened, killed the Doorkeeper, and spared Weil before Big Rat appeared and picked up his sister.

Wenren Sheng turned Little Illusion into a puppy and sent her into the Demon Tide World to help Yang Weite seal Collector, forcing her to face its hardships. Little Illusion was taken in by Weil, who brought her into the rat-infested sewer nest where she lived with Big Rat.

• Big Rat and his sister ate the newborn Red-Eye Rats, and the growing swarm began spreading a Demon Tide through the sewers beneath Saintly Hall.
• Wenren Sheng explained that Collector had enabled the world to produce Demon Tides, then transformed Little Illusion into a puppy and tasked her with helping Yang Weite seal Collector.
• Little Illusion struggled to survive in the Demon Tide World, going hungry and nearly being caught by Wanderers.
• Weil found the starving Little White Dog in the city, took her back to the underground nest, and made her a bed and shelter.

Weil and Big Rat prepared to attack the Saintly Order member’s black cats with an elite force of Rat-Humans, while Weil cared for a puppy she had found. After traveling to a forest, Big Rat reconsidered his plan and agreed to gather fresh intelligence first.

• Weil hid the puppy’s barking from Big Rat, who let her keep it but remained focused on revenge against the Saintly Order.
• Weil brought the puppy to her Red-Eye Rat nest and explained that summoned black cats had been killing their rats.
• Big Rat ordered Weil to select six hundred elite Rat-Humans to ambush the black cats.
• Big Rat and Weil led the force through the slums to a forest, where they planned to lure the cats into an attack.
• Weil warned that the cats might have grown stronger, and Big Rat praised her reminder and decided to gather intelligence before acting.

Little Illusion watched the big rat seek a way to defeat the Saintly Order’s black cats, then helped him discover how to weaken them. After hundreds of cats died, the big rat planned to become emperor, while Little Illusion resented his boast and his treatment of her.

• The big rat and Weil learned that thirteen rats could not defeat one black cat, and Weil warned that poison would draw the Saintly Order’s attention.
• The big rat rejected retreat and the Deity’s authority, insisting that rats should be able to gain power like the Saintly Order.
• Little Illusion drew circles and lines in the dirt, but the big rat kicked the figures apart and cursed at her, prompting her to bite his leg.
• The big rat returned from the forest with Green-Eye Rats and explained that eating them drained the black cats’ power and stopped them from leveling up.
• The big rat sent Green-Eye Rats toward the city, then had Red-Eye Rats retrieve several hundred dead black cats two days later.
• The big rat celebrated his victory and declared that he would become emperor, while Little Illusion resentfully claimed he had needed her help.

The big rat discovered that teaching Red-Eye Rats the meanings of 0 and 1 and having them devour one another could let them level up, creating a new group he called Digital Rats. He could not yet reproduce the method for himself or Weil, while Little Illusion remained trapped and hoped Wenren Sheng would give it a way out.

• The big rat realized Little Illusion had been bluffing with repeated strings of 0s and 1s to get roasted pork, and Weil consoled him that crippling the Saintly Order's summoned creatures was still a success.
• The big rat connected the Red-Eye Rats' evolution to self-devouring and decided to teach them the meanings of 0 and 1.
• After half a month of training, the big rat let the rats that had mastered the numbers devour one another, and some began gaining levels.
• Little Illusion was astonished that the rats could evolve this way and pleaded silently for Wenren Sheng to let it out or give it a leveling system.
• The big rat cultivated evolved Red-Eye Rats capable of reaching level ten and named them Digital Rats, but he could not apply their method to himself or Weil.

Great Emperor Lancelot concealed his reasons for sparing the brother and sister while presenting it as mercy to the Saintly Order. Big Rat turned the emperor’s decree and its rat quota into leverage, securing six hundred Lotus Acres from an Earl.

• Lancelot told Ikes that greed was the Saintly Order’s true threat and claimed the brother and sister had been pardoned because a Saintly Order member had wronged them.
• The Court Eunuch delivered the decree granting Big Rat and Weil free-citizen status in exchange for supplying fifty thousand Red-Eye Rats to the royal family each year.
• Big Rat accepted the decree and bribed the Court Eunuch with jewelry and silverware, while secretly memorizing the document as protection.
• Big Rat used the decree to pressure an Earl into transferring six hundred Lotus Acres to him by threatening to blame the Earl if he failed to meet the rat quota.
• The Earl yielded the land and cursed Big Rat, who remained confident that the Saintly Order would not harm him while he had Red-Eye Rats.

Wenren Sheng sent Little Panda back to the Demon Tide World, where it found Yang Weite searching the land for a power that would not fall. Yang Weite revealed he would give farmers a World Tree, leaving Little Panda to question how this power would help them.

• Wenren Sheng discussed Water Margin with Little Panda, then sent it to the Demon Tide World to stay with Little Illusion.
• Little Panda found Yang Weite farming alongside Old William, who urged him to marry Weierna.
• Yang Weite explained that he was searching the land for a power that would not fall as the Saintly Orders declined.
• Little Panda explained why cultivated crops struggled against weeds, and Yang Weite connected this to the farmers’ strength and resilience.
• Yang Weite declared that farmers were the foundation of the world and said he would give them a World Tree.