Chapter Summaries

Vivian, Hao Ren, and Heiserana traveled north toward a hidden realm near the Arctic Circle, while Heiserana tried to convince Vivian to accept her family’s wealth. The group reached the realm’s entrance after Heiserana’s declaration coincided with trouble striking her company.

• Heiserana brought the group from Helsinki to a secret airport near the Kemi River and spoke with Boris, the chairman of Solanko Company.
• Lily and Nangong Sanba questioned Vivian about her misfortune, and Vivian recalled how it had ruined powerful kingdoms and empires.
• Heiserana declared that Vivian was the Heiserana Family’s progenitor and that everything the family owned belonged to her.
• Boris received news that two Solanko factories in North America had run into trouble, prompting Hao Ren to demand that Heiserana take back her declaration.
• In the vehicle, Heiserana blamed Hao Ren for surviving Vivian’s misfortune, while Vivian explained that she had once worried about making him bankrupt.
• The off-road vehicle jolted as Heiserana announced that they had reached the entrance to the hidden realm.

Hao Ren and his companions opened the hidden realm along a river and discovered that it contained an entire ancient town. Heiserana warned them to be careful as Nangong Sanba began stabilizing the spirit-filled space.

• Heiserana led the group to the Twin Stones and waited for their shadows to reveal the path across the river.
• Heiserana, Duncan, and Cassandra crossed the water with a spell, while Lily fell in after mistaking the magic for a natural path.
• Heiserana rang the bronze bell, making the hidden town and its ghostly inhabitants appear around the group.
• Heiserana explained that the secret realm contained a town and could only be entered or exited on seven days each month.
• Nangong Sanba placed runes and burned magical oil to stabilize the spirit domain as Lily and Nangong May prepared to face the spirits.
• Hao Ren and Heiserana grew uneasy after Nangong Sanba warned that invisible spirits were watching them.

Hao Ren and his companions explored the cursed town, learned more about the mysterious wizard Baptiste, and discovered that the town’s original inhabitants had become indistinct spirits. Lily sensed ghosts gathered around a wooden platform and began hearing fragments of their memories.

• Hao Ren led the group toward a large mansion after spotting it from a watchtower, while Vivian warned them to watch for traps.
• Heiserana explained that the wizard Baptiste had traveled across Europe and might have disappeared in a battle two centuries earlier.
• The group reached a clearing surrounded by decaying houses, where Nangong May transformed into her Siren form and Lily investigated a collapsed wooden platform.
• Nangong Sanba said the town was filled with spirits too weak and fragmented to communicate, and Vivian suggested they were the vanished human residents.
• Lily saw shadowy townspeople gathered around the platform and heard them speaking about a child, a witch, the lord, and a failed attempt to exorcise evil.

Lily discovered that she could see and hear the spirits in the lost town of Domir, helping Hao Ren’s group investigate its forgotten history and strange ash-covered streets. After Lily realized many of the spirits were repeated projections rather than ghosts, Vivian proposed they were memories of the town or echoes produced by a stronger force, leaving Hao Ren uneasy about what that implied.

• Lily heard voices and saw faint spirits near the platform, then told Hao Ren and the others about them.
• Nangong Sanba used enchanted powder to reveal the spirits, but Lily could see them far more clearly than anyone else.
• Hao Ren asked Lily to watch the spirits, and the group learned that Domir had vanished from historical records.
• Nangong May noticed ash covering the town, though the group found no signs of a fire that could have produced it.
• Lily discovered that many spirits were duplicates moving along fixed paths, and Vivian suggested they were projections rather than human ghosts.
• Cassandra and the Data Terminal explained that genuine masses of undead would produce an overlapping aura, prompting Hao Ren to realize the town’s spirits were stranger than they seemed.

Hao Ren and his companions explored a deserted town where hollow spirits and old houses revealed traces of a terrible past. As the town’s lamps and the lord’s mansion lit up like a remembered night, Heiserana sensed a living presence inside.

• Nangong Sanba explained that the town’s spirits might come from imprisoned souls or memories forcibly turned into phantoms.
• Lily entered an abandoned house, where its empty oil lamp suddenly lit and illuminated the room.
• Cassandra warned the group as lamps began lighting throughout the town, and Lily heard echoes describing illness, a burned witch, and the absent lord.
• Hao Ren led the group to the mansion, where they found the name Heimowen on a fallen plaque and entered the brightly lit building.
• Hao Ren confirmed the hearth’s flames gave off no heat, and Heiserana sensed what might have been a living person near the staircase.

While searching a ruined manor in the eerie town, Hao Ren experienced a vivid memory of an old butler and found the butler’s diary. Its entries revealed that the town’s illness continued after a suspected witch was burned and linked a mysterious scholar to the witch and the “King of Blood.”

• Vivian sent bats to search the manor while Hao Ren and the others began inspecting it.
• Hao Ren and Vivian explored the second floor, where they examined a servant’s room and its strange, heatless fire.
• Hao Ren experienced a memory of an old butler writing in the room and found parchment in the second drawer of the desk.
• Hao Ren used the Data Terminal to scan the diary and learned that Heimowen had grown suspicious and trusted a mysterious scholar.
• The diary described a witch’s death and burning, but the town’s children continued to fall ill and the adults grew weak.
• The diary’s writer reported seeing the scholar at the place where the witch was burned, speaking of the other side of the door and the King of Blood.

Hao Ren and Vivian uncovered how a mysterious wizard had manipulated Domir before the town was trapped in an alternate dimension. A man emerged from the mansion’s ash, and after Lily captured him, he identified himself as Lord Heimowen Ahtisari.

• Hao Ren and Vivian read the butler’s diary, learning that a strange illness and witch-hunt had preceded Domir’s transformation and that a foreign scholar with a blank black book had been involved.
• Vivian concluded that the scholar was the wizard behind the King of Blood ritual and suspected he had used the plague and witch incident to draw the town into a ritual, possibly with the Gate of Hell’s power.
• Hao Ren shared the findings with the others, who reported seeing ghostly servants and finding a basement full of rotten potatoes, wine barrels, and ash.
• The group heard footsteps and watched a mass of black ash descend the stairs and transform into a middle-aged man.
• When the man tried to flee, Lily knocked him down with a brick and restrained him; he told Hao Ren that he was Lord Heimowen Ahtisari.

Hao Ren and his companions questioned Heimowen, the strange lord who had emerged from the ashes, and discovered he remembered nothing of the town’s destruction. Heimowen recalled a devilish scholar who had deceived him and led the group toward the scholar’s home, where dense fog blocked their path.

• Vivian and Cassandra pressured Heimowen into answering questions, but he insisted he knew nothing and remembered eating before going to sleep.
• Hao Ren’s group showed Heimowen the ruined town, and he panicked when he learned that centuries had passed and he was now undead.
• Heimowen remembered that a devil had bewitched him, then identified the devil as a scholar who had sold his soul to hell.
• Heimowen said the scholar lived in an old house behind the town and offered to lead the group there.
• Hao Ren and the others followed Heimowen along a narrow path until dense fog blocked their way.

Hao Ren and his companions followed Heimowen through the fog sealing off the town and reached the wizard’s isolated mansion. Inside, they searched the wizard’s belongings and found an open book describing secret knowledge of the Twisted Realm.

• Heimowen walked into the boundary fog, which opened a path for him, and Nangong Sanba explained that the town’s supernatural features came from memory.
• Heimowen led the group through the fog to a dilapidated mansion he identified as the wizard’s hiding place.
• Heimowen said the wizard had bewitched him, and Hao Ren made him enter the mansion with the group.
• Hao Ren and his companions searched the dusty, ash-free interior and found an open book about the Twisted Realm.

Hao Ren and his companions uncovered Baptiste’s research into opening the Great Gate of Purgatory and learned that he had once opened it briefly before seeking an Ancient’s power. As they investigated the abandoned house, strange mist seeped inside, Heimowen crumbled to ash, and a shrill ringing sounded outside.

• Hao Ren examined Baptiste’s annotations in a spellbook and found that he had been studying how to summon Purgatory and stabilize a passage.
• Vivian identified a bottle of sulfur spring water as evidence that Baptiste had reached the first layer of Purgatory.
• Nangong Sanba read the experiment records and explained that Baptiste’s first gate had collapsed within an hour, likely prompting him to seek the King of Blood’s power.
• Vivian said no one knew what lay on Purgatory’s second layer because the connection was too unstable for a round trip.
• Lily and the others noticed a burning, fishy odor as pale mist entered the house, and Heiserana watched Heimowen collapse into black ash.
• Hao Ren ordered everyone outside when a shrill ringing sounded from beyond the house.

Baptiste revealed that he had impersonated Lord Heimowen and trapped Hao Ren and the others in a life-draining barrier to power the Great Gate of Purgatory. Lily escaped by digging beneath the barrier and broke Baptiste’s staff, but he lunged toward the gate.

• Baptiste appeared outside the barrier and admitted that he had trapped the group to drain their power.
• Heiserana recognized Baptiste, and Hao Ren realized that the supposed Lord Heimowen had been the wizard in disguise.
• Baptiste used the gathered magic to open the Great Gate of Purgatory.
• Heiserana, Duncan, and Cassandra attacked the barrier, but their strikes failed to break it.
• Lily dug beneath the barrier, stole Baptiste’s staff, and snapped it, weakening the barrier.
• Baptiste suddenly turned and lunged toward the Great Gate of Purgatory.

Baptiste vanished into Purgatory after the Great Gate collapsed, but Hao Ren sent a probe through and began setting up a new gate to pursue him. As the fog cleared and revealed the full secret realm, a fire broke out in Domir Town.

• Lily tried to stop Baptiste at the Great Gate, but he blocked her and fell into its vortex as it collapsed.
• Hao Ren threw a probe into the disappearing gate, and its footage confirmed that it had reached Purgatory.
• Hao Ren prepared inspector equipment and Autonomous Mechanical Units to open a new gate into Purgatory.
• The fog dissipated, revealing that Domir Town occupied only part of a much larger secret realm.
• Lily spotted a blaze rising from the center of Domir Town.

After Domir Town’s supernatural fire reduced it to ruins, Vivian explained that the town’s past and present had been superimposed by corrupted spacetime, likely through Baptiste’s interference. While preparing to pursue Baptiste in Hell, Hao Ren discovered that Hell drifted relative to the universe itself, suggesting it remained in the gap between the Dream Plane and the Outer World—the Wall of Reality.

• A strange fire swept through Domir Town, turning its buildings into ash and revealing the ruins beneath the town’s earlier appearance.
• Vivian explained that Domir’s different temporal states had been superimposed and suggested Baptiste had used an Ancient Divine Artifact or ancient help to manipulate spacetime.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, and the others decided to pursue Baptiste in Hell, and the Autonomous Mechanical Units installed a portal generator.
• The Data Terminal reported that Hell’s coordinates had shifted repeatedly, and Hao Ren realized Hell drifted relative to the universe’s entire frame of reference.
• Hao Ren concluded that Hell was a fragment still wandering between the Dream Plane and the Outer World, making it the greatest gangrene on the Wall of Reality.

Hao Ren discovered that Purgatory was trapped between the Outer World and the Dream Plane, then led the group through a teleporter to pursue Baptiste. They entered the hostile wasteland and began searching for him with Vivian’s bats and Hao Ren’s probes.

• Hao Ren analyzed the data and concluded that Purgatory was a fragment lodged between the Outer World and the Dream Plane, damaging the Wall of Reality.
• Hao Ren activated his teleporter, and he and the others crossed into Purgatory to catch Baptiste.
• The group encountered Purgatory’s toxic, lifeless environment, and Nangong May transformed to withstand its hostile waters and maintain clean air.
• Vivian released bats that could track Baptiste by scent, while Hao Ren deployed probes to scan the wasteland.

Hao Ren and his companions searched Purgatory for Baptiste and the entrance to its second layer while investigating the planet’s strange atmosphere. Their probes revealed that Purgatory was wrapped in a vast, living cloud organism that produced its own light and heat, and the story left them marveling at its sealed, white outer surface.

• Vivian explained that Purgatory’s second layer lay more than ten kilometers underground and that its entrances were enormous hollows surrounded by crater-like structures.
• Hao Ren sent probes and Vivian’s Bat Army to search for Baptiste and the entrances while expanding their survey of Purgatory.
• A probe found microorganisms in the dense clouds that generated light and heat, leading the Data Terminal to identify the cloud cover as a vast living organism.
• The probe broke through the clouds and discovered a smooth, white outer membrane that quickly sealed the breach behind it.

Hao Ren and his group investigated Purgatory Planet’s energy source before discovering a huge shaft that might lead to its second layer. As they prepared to descend in the Bei Dou Xing, twisted mutant creatures appeared around the crater.

• The probe revealed Purgatory Planet’s smooth, cloud-covered surface before losing contact beyond a spatial boundary, and Hao Ren noted that the planet had no star.
• Hao Ren and the Data Terminal concluded that the clouds could not supply enough energy to maintain the planet’s heat and ecosystem.
• Vivian’s bats found a possible entrance to Purgatory’s second layer, and Hao Ren sent the Data Terminal ahead to mark it.
• The group reached a gigantic circular crater and found a deep shaft at its center, where the Data Terminal detected a vast underground space.
• Hao Ren brought out the Bei Dou Xing to carry the group down, but black mutant creatures suddenly emerged along the crater rim.

Hao Ren and his companions escaped a swarm of twisted Purgatory creatures by flying down a chasm, where Hao Ren recognized similarities between them and the Thirdborn. They continued toward the cavern’s depths, with no sign of Baptiste yet, until a glow appeared below.

• Twisted creatures swarmed toward the crater, so Heiserana and her followers got into the Bei Dou Xing and Hao Ren flew away from the horde.
• The monsters could not fly and retreated from the chasm, while some were shoved into its depths by their companions.
• May pointed out that the creatures resembled Terror Beasts and Flesh Beasts, leading Hao Ren to identify them as resembling the Thirdborn and question why they remained alive after the ecosystem’s reconstruction.
• The Data Terminal reported that probes had found another entrance to Purgatory and that no trace of Baptiste had been detected.
• As the Bei Dou Xing descended through the chasm, a faint glow appeared below, indicating that they had reached their destination.

Hao Ren and his companions descended through a deep cavern and discovered that the second layer of Purgatory was a vast, peaceful world beneath the planet’s outer surface. They realized the world was a continuous inner crust supported by colossal trees, and probes confirmed similar entrances elsewhere on the planet.

• Hao Ren’s group reached the cavern floor and drove toward light entering through cracks in the walls.
• They emerged into a huge green world beneath clouds that glowed like daylight, astonishing the group.
• Hao Ren recognized that the mountain-like structure behind them might be unusual and drove away to inspect it.
• Lily identified the structure as a gigantic tree whose trunk pierced the crust and whose roots formed the surrounding ridges.
• The Data Terminal reported that probes had found similar entrances and landscapes on the planet’s far side.
• Hao Ren concluded that Purgatory was a continuous inner crust beneath the planet’s outer skin.

Hao Ren and his companions discovered that the Purgatory Planet’s layered crust was formed by the petrified remains of the Firstborn’s giant trees and canopy. A probe then found a ruined city built by intelligent life, leaving the group with a new lead to investigate.

• Hao Ren and the Data Terminal scanned a third Pillar Giant Tree and found that it was dead, with most of the trees supporting the planet’s upper crust.
• The Data Terminal found that hollow Pillar Giant Trees connected the planet’s layers and likely served as respiratory tubes and sensors for the Firstborn.
• Hao Ren concluded that the Pillar Giant Trees had evolved from the Firstborn’s tentacles, while Lily suggested the Firstborn might be comatose.
• Vivian and the Data Terminal identified the planet’s outer crust as the Firstborn’s petrified canopy, which had once protected the original surface.
• The Data Terminal received an emergency transmission from a probe, which had discovered a plant-covered ruin that appeared to be a city built by intelligent life.

Hao Ren and his companions explored an ancient stone city near the Pillar Giant Trees and discovered evidence that a magical civilization had built it after The Sky Closing. The chapter ended when an unseen outsider shot a glowing arrow at them and a tall humanoid fled over a ruined wall.

• Hao Ren teleported his companions to the distant ruin and surveyed the vast stone city near the Pillar Giant Trees.
• Hao Ren wondered how the city had survived the Firstborn's upheaval and who had built it after The Sky Closing.
• Lily and the Data Terminal examined inscriptions and translated religious texts praising the sun, living things, and a Goddess.
• Nangong Sanba used Night Owl Potion to reveal that the city's ritual slabs and steles had carried magic.
• Lily caught a glowing arrow fired at the group as Hao Ren spotted a tall humanoid fleeing over a collapsed wall.