Chapter Summaries

Hao Ren and his companions arrived in Athens with Doudou, while Becky’s shopping plans prompted Vivian to recount her disastrous attempts at international trade. As night fell, Athens’s hidden nocturnal powers learned that Vivian had arrived and began wondering whether she would interfere with the Day of Return.

• Hao Ren brought Doudou through the trip in his pocket dimension, then released her into a bathtub, where she protested by spraying him with water.
• Becky and Nangong May returned from sightseeing with bags of purchases, and Becky explained her plan to resell foreign goods for profit.
• Vivian revealed that she had tried international trade between Egypt and Rome, but repeatedly lost money and bankrupted her investors.
• Vivian hinted that she might tell the others stories about the Trojan War or visit the ancient city to look for something she had left behind.
• After nightfall, Athens’s hidden nocturnal inhabitants spread word that Vivian, the Countess who summons the Red Moon, had arrived and might take action regarding the Day of Return.

Hao Ren followed Vivian through Athens’s ancient streets to find Hesperis, one of Vivian’s surviving nonhuman acquaintances. Vivian led the group through the city’s Shadow Interlayer and warned them of its dangers before they reached Hesperis’s shop.

• Hao Ren questioned Vivian’s directions as she led the group through Athens’s oldest streets to find a Mythical Era survivor.
• The group entered a strange, shifting neighborhood where the streets grew empty and the pedestrians seemed like lifeless scenery.
• Vivian warned Hao Ren, Lily, and Izax to stay close, avoid doors and shadows, and not speak to pedestrians in the Shadow Interlayer.
• The group followed Vivian through the maze as modern buildings vanished and the streets disappeared into mist.
• Hesperis greeted Vivian outside the last modern-looking shop, and Vivian welcomed her acquaintance.

Vivian brought Hao Ren and the others to the Shadow Interlayer in Athens to meet her old friend Hesperis, who now used the name Christine and revealed herself as the surviving Greek goddess of Dusk. Hesperis described a ruin beneath the Parthenon that might connect to the Ancient Kingdom, and Heiserana arrived at the shop to meet Vivian.

• Vivian led the group through the Shadow Interlayer to Hesperis's antique shop, where Hesperis greeted her and introduced herself as Christine.
• Lily recognized Hesperis as the Goddess of Dusk, and Hesperis explained that a few ancient deities had survived the Demon Hunters by being quick-witted, lucky, or weak.
• Vivian introduced Hao Ren and the others, then asked Hesperis about the ruin found by Heiserana and the Lucas Family.
• Hesperis explained that the Parthenon ruin required two relics held by Heiserana and the Lucas Family, and that its active temple facilities and primal power suggested a link to the Day of Return.
• Hao Ren asked about a gate and survivors inside the ruin, but Hesperis said no one had found anything beyond the entrance or encountered anyone living there.
• Vivian reacted uneasily to the prospect of meeting Heiserana, who arrived outside the shop and called out for her.

Hao Ren and his companions met Heiserana, a sentient bat created by Vivian who had become head of the Heiserana Family. Vivian revealed she had come to investigate a ruin, but Heiserana warned that the uncooperative Lucas family stood in their way.

• Vivian turned into a swarm of bats and hid throughout the shop when Heiserana arrived, so Hao Ren and the others gathered the bats and restored Vivian.
• Heiserana greeted Vivian affectionately, introduced herself to Hao Ren's group as head of the Heiserana Family, and questioned Nangong May about sirens.
• Vivian told Hao Ren that Heiserana had once been one of her bats, which she had forgotten for a thousand years until the bat became sentient.
• Vivian explained that she avoided settling among other Bloodkin because of the noisy politics and the misfortune she believed she brought to those around her.
• Vivian told Heiserana she had come to investigate a ruin, and Heiserana warned that the Lucas family would not cooperate.

Vivian and Hao Ren learned about the rival nonhuman factions competing over the newly discovered ruins in Athens, and Heiserana arranged to summon the Lucas family’s elder. Hesperis received a visitor from the real world, and Heiserana explained that her shop served as a gateway to the deeper Shadow World.

• Heiserana explained that the Lucas family, Bethmos’s Shadow Demons, and her own family were the strongest factions in Athens and were contending over the ruins.
• Heiserana said the Lucas family shared control of the ruins’ entrance with her but intended to exclude anyone who was not Bloodkin.
• Hesperis said her status as the Olympus family’s heir and Vivian’s seniority could help them gain access to the ruins.
• Heiserana summoned a servant and ordered him to tell the Lucas family elder that the Countess who summons the Red Moon wished to receive him.
• A ringing sound heralded a visitor appearing in Hesperis’s shop, and Heiserana explained that the shop connected the real world with the Shadow World and guarded its deeper levels.

Hao Ren and his companions learned about the Others’ hidden sanctuaries and followed Heiserana into the Shadow Fortress beneath Athens. As Heiserana described the ruins’ extraordinary energy, Vivian’s uneasy relationship with her became clearer, and the group prepared to explore the fortress before heading to the ruins.

• Heiserana explained that many Others’ sanctuaries had remained sealed since the Long Winter, leaving their locations and fates unknown.
• Heiserana invited Hao Ren, Vivian, and the others to visit Athens’s hidden Shadow Fortress, and they agreed.
• Hesperis marked the visitors so they could enter the fortress’s first three layers and opened a passage through the Shadow Interlayer.
• Heiserana led the group through the fog toward the fortress and said it would provide a safer route to the ruins.
• Heiserana praised the ruins’ abundant magical energy, prompting Hao Ren and Nangong May to wonder whether they led somewhere other than the Dream Plane.
• Vivian explained her discomfort with Heiserana, and Heiserana grew hostile toward Hao Ren after Vivian said he supported her.

Hao Ren and his companions crossed a deadly fog into Another City in the Shadows, a hidden sanctuary beneath Athens. They surveyed its strange, history-spanning architecture as Vivian criticized how little the residents had accomplished.

• Heiserana warned the group to stay on the path because the fog contained centuries of memories that could trap and consume anyone who wandered into it.
• Hao Ren saw historical apparitions and the remnants of people lost in the fog as the group continued onward.
• The fog cleared, and Heiserana revealed Another City in the Shadows, a safe zone beneath the gloomy sky.
• Hao Ren learned that the city's varied buildings came from settlers, renovations, and materials brought in from outside.
• Vivian criticized the residents for focusing on flashy, impractical projects, and Hao Ren reminded her of her dream of living in a castle, prompting her to jab him in the back.

Hao Ren and his companions explored the Shadow Fortress, where Heiserana explained the outcast sanctuary’s guardians and dwindling population. They reached Heiserana’s mansion, whose enormous family emblem showed Vivian’s portrait.

• Hao Ren learned that the mirror passages connected the Shadow Fortress to the outside world and met Ganrudal, the ancient tree guarding their gate.
• Vivian recognized Ganrudal as the treant she had mistakenly tried to grow as a fruit tree, and he addressed her as his former mistress.
• Heiserana explained that the city held only tens of thousands of residents, many of whom slept for centuries, and recalled Vivian sending her there around eighteen hundred years earlier.
• Heiserana led the group to her family district and welcomed them to her mansion, where Vivian found a huge portrait of herself displayed as the family emblem.

Hao Ren and his companions visited Heiserana’s lavish mansion, where Vivian’s descendant hosted a chaotic banquet for her. Heiserana explained how her family obtained blood through modern, legal channels, leaving Hao Ren reflecting on how the ancient conflict between nonhumans and Demon Hunters had adapted to human society.

• Heiserana welcomed Vivian and her companions to a grand hall filled with her assembled Vampires.
• Heiserana announced the banquet, and the formally dressed Vampires rushed to the tables and ate noisily.
• Heiserana explained that her family could eat ordinary food but relied on blood to maintain their strength.
• Hao Ren asked where the blood came from, and Heiserana said they used hospital blood banks and supplies collected under contracts with willing human groups.
• Hao Ren considered how nonhumans and Demon Hunters had infiltrated human society as their long-running conflict continued.

Hao Ren and his companions attended a Vampire banquet at Heiserana’s home, where Lily’s oblivious appetite helped defuse the shock of discovering she was a Werewolf among Vampires. The next night, Hao Ren learned that the Lucas Family’s clan leader had arrived.

• Heiserana described how her Vampire family’s human supporters ran businesses under the guise of ordinary companies.
• Lily nearly choked after Heiserana noticed her ears, and Vivian revealed that Lily was a Werewolf.
• Heiserana ordered the Vampires to ignore Lily’s identity, and Lily went back to eating.
• The banquet ended when Lily ate herself to sleep, and Heiserana arranged rooms for the guests.
• Hao Ren left the house the next night and learned that the Lucas Family’s clan leader had arrived.

The Lucas family’s clan leader visited to meet Vivian, who woke late after spending the night evading Heiserana’s attempt to sleep in her hair. As Hao Ren and his companions joined the reception, Heiserana defended her unconventional family and its origins, revealing that her group of outcasts had once destroyed nearly every Vampire family in the shelter except the Lucas family.

• Vivian emerged looking exhausted and unkempt after spending the night disintegrated into bats to keep Heiserana from crawling into her hair.
• Heiserana accused Hao Ren of being a potential pervert, then calmed down and went to receive the Lucas family’s envoys.
• Hao Ren gathered his companions and joined Heiserana’s reception, where the Lucas family’s impeccably dressed clan leader asked to meet Vivian.
• Heiserana mocked the clan leader’s formal appearance and defended her family when he criticized the disorderly reception hall.
• Hao Ren recalled that Heiserana had gathered Vampire outcasts and, in just three days, led them in wiping out every Vampire family in the shelter except the Lucas family.

Heiserana recounted how her family seized power in the Athens Sanctuary, then made peace with the Lucas Family. Vivian arrived to meet the Lucas leaders, and after a chance discovery about her clothes eased the atmosphere, she asked to inspect the newly discovered ruin beside the Parthenon.

• Heiserana explained how her family used its unusual holy resistance and a three-day surprise attack to establish itself as a power in the Athens Sanctuary.
• Heiserana said the Lucas Family had accepted her new family rather than risk a costly war that would benefit the Bethmos Family.
• Vivian arrived late, and Jean Lucas greeted her formally before she criticized the Lucas Family for its lack of ambition and progress.
• Andrea recognized the outfit Vivian was wearing as one she had designed, easing the atmosphere between the guests.
• Vivian asked Jean Lucas to let her inspect the newly discovered ruin beside the Parthenon.

Vivian tried to bring Hao Ren and his companions into the Bloodkin-discovered ruins, but Jean Lucas refused because Lily was a Werewolf and he considered the ruins Bloodkin property. Vivian revealed that the ruins were likely part of an Olympus temple, challenging Jean’s claim to own them.

• Vivian asked Jean Lucas to let her and her companions enter the ruins, but he objected to bringing outsiders into a sensitive Bloodkin site.
• Jean learned that Lily was a Werewolf and refused to let her near the ruins, prompting Lily to angrily defend herself and her people.
• Hao Ren questioned Jean’s racial prejudice, while Izax offered to explain world peace to him by force before Hao Ren stopped him.
• Vivian pointed out that the ruins’ entrance lay in the Parthenon and argued that the site was likely part of an Olympus temple rather than Bloodkin property.
• Jean admitted the ruins were reached through the Parthenon, and Vivian accused him of claiming someone else’s house as his own.

Vivian challenged the Lucas family’s claim to the Olympus ruins and insisted that her group be allowed inside. As Jean agreed to open the gate, Hao Ren and the others began investigating whether the instinctive hostility between nonhuman races had a deeper cause.

• Vivian argued that the ruins belonged to the Olympus family and said their relics should not be used for selfish ambitions.
• After Jean questioned her memory of Zeus, Vivian insisted that she and her companions enter the ruins.
• Vivian explained to Hao Ren that rigid racial traditions had once been normal, while Heiserana described the long-standing hatred between nonhuman races.
• Heiserana admitted that she instinctively hated Werewolves, and Hao Ren wondered whether racial antagonism was embedded in their bloodlines.
• Lily suggested the hostility might stem from a problem with nonhuman races’ DNA, and Hao Ren connected the mystery to their history on Earth.
• Jean agreed to open the ruins’ gate under Vivian’s authority and ordered his subordinates to prepare the sacred artifacts and ritual.

Jean Lucas reluctantly helped Vivian’s group reach the ruins through the Parthenon in Shadow Athens. As the Bloodkin prepared the gate, Hao Ren secretly recorded its spatial magic, then headed the wrong way into the temple.

• Jean Lucas agreed to help Vivian’s group and brought them to the Parthenon in Shadow Athens, where the ruins’ entrance could be reached safely.
• Becky recognized the temple’s style and mentioned the Highland Gluck people, prompting Vivian to explain away her unfamiliar terminology to Heiserana.
• Hesperis declined to enter the temple, revealed her centuries-old wound from a Demon-Breaking Arrow, and returned to guard the gate.
• Heiserana and Jean combined their crescent-shaped stone tablets on a ritual altar, opening the way toward the ruins.
• Hao Ren pretended to examine the altar while the Data Terminal recorded the gate’s energy flow, then started toward the temple’s depths until Heiserana told him the entrance was outside.

Hao Ren and the others entered the alternate space and found a vast ruin filled with strange energy. Vivian recognized that its power was neither from the Mythical Era nor safe to use, and the group continued exploring after she regained her composure.

• Hao Ren, Lily, Vivian, Nangong May, Becky, Heiserana, Jean Lucas, and Izax entered the alternate space through the light-film portal.
• Hao Ren saw a cloud sea, floating mountain fragments, and a colossal broken Greek-style temple suspended in the sky.
• Nangong May and the Data Terminal detected powerful, distorted energy that the Data Terminal warned could harm Earthlings.
• Vivian told Heiserana and Jean Lucas that the energy was an uncontrolled, primitive form of arcane power rather than Mythical Era energy, and warned them not to draw on it.
• Vivian abruptly scolded Heiserana, then apologized and admitted she could not remember why the energy felt familiar and dangerous to her.
• Jean Lucas asked to continue exploring, and Hao Ren agreed to look around without disturbing the ruins.

Hao Ren and the others crossed the cloud roads toward the Cloud Temple while Vivian recalled the old Olympus family and explained how ancient beings built homes in alternate dimensions. They reached the temple, where Vivian still sensed a familiar place but could not recover her memories.

• Heiserana explained that thick fog marked the alternate world's boundaries, and Hao Ren checked on Vivian, whose mood had been affected by the strange energy.
• Heiserana directed the group onto glowing cloud roads, and Vivian remembered that Zeus's family had built them to connect their skyborne homes.
• Hao Ren led the group along the roads while Lily clung to his clothes and admitted that a fall through an unfinished glass bridge had left her wary of transparent surfaces.
• Vivian described how ancient nonhumans had built residences in alternate dimensions and said the area might once have been near a Mount Olympus.
• The group arrived at the foot of the Cloud Temple.

Hao Ren’s group explored the tilted temple in the clouds, where Vivian recognized statues of the Olympus family but could not identify the palace. The group found Rune of Leta carved into a wall deep inside the temple.

• Heiserana led the group across the floating stones to the temple, and Nangong May used her sea-serpent form to leap across.
• The group entered the temple as Hao Ren’s Data Terminal detected energy radiating from somewhere deep within it.
• Vivian recognized the statues in the inner hall as members of the Olympus family and described their relationships.
• Lily found Rune of Leta carved into a wall at the end of the corridor.

Hao Ren and his companions deciphered a Rune of Leta inscription that described the temple as a storage vault, research institute, archive, and prison holding an ancient object tied to the nonhumans’ origins. They followed the corridor into the Long Hall, where Hao Ren found a lifelike sculpture of Vivian.

• Vivian deciphered an inscription saying an ancient object was stored in the Long Hall and that Athena had been assigned to study its origin.
• Hao Ren suspected the object was connected to the nonhumans’ former home, while Vivian recalled the Olympian gods’ strange behavior before their destruction.
• Jean insisted that he would judge the temple’s power for himself, and Vivian forbade Heiserana from researching it.
• Hao Ren’s group followed Jean through the temple corridor into the spacious Long Hall.
• Hao Ren stared at a lifelike white stone sculpture of Vivian at the far end of the hall.

Hao Ren and his companions discovered a mysterious statue of Vivian in the ancient temple and began searching for the relic linked to the Dream Plane. The temple suddenly shook as dangerous radiation surged, forcing the group to face an immediate threat.

• Hao Ren, Vivian, Heiserana, and Jean found a statue resembling Vivian that had appeared in the hall since Heiserana’s last visit four days earlier.
• Becky examined the statue’s artificial-looking base, while Hao Ren and the others searched the hall for hidden passages to the laboratory and storeroom.
• Hao Ren recalled that the temple was also a prison and ordered the Data Terminal to scan for spatial rifts.
• Lily scratched the statue and discovered that its scattered powder floated back into place and reformed it.
• The temple began shaking, radiation burned Becky’s skin, and Nangong May shielded the group as the Data Terminal warned them to evacuate.