Chapter Summaries

Hao Ren and Hassu investigated Amthura’s final words and searched for the missing Ankatro Family members, while Vivian’s stories eased tensions between the Demon Hunters and other races. As the investigators worked, the group’s hunting instincts faded unnoticed and shadows began stirring beneath the hall’s wreckage.

• Hassu concluded that the missing Ankatro Family research materials might explain Amthura’s dying words, while Bai Huo reported that Elder Andal, the patriarch, and others were missing.
• Hassu sent Tutanin and two Demon Hunters with Wayne Walter to search the Ankatro patriarchs’ resting place for Andal and warned them to raise the alarm if they encountered a Chaos Shadow.
• Bai Huo explained that Demon Hunters respected Vivian because generations of their ancestors had been bullied by her, prompting Vivian to recount her hunger-driven clashes with them.
• As the investigators analyzed the hall, the tension and hunting instincts among the gathered groups quietly disappeared.
• Shadows beneath the rubble, furniture, and corpses in the hall began to stir.

The Chaos Shadow ambushed Hao Ren and the others inside the Family Hall, forcing them to retreat under Bai Huo’s holy-fire protection. Outside, the Demon Hunters held a defensive line while masters began a Great Exorcism Ritual, and Izax and Elizabeth joined the fight against the shadows.

• The Data Terminal detected the Chaos Shadow, and Hassu warned everyone as blackness spread through the Family Hall.
• Hao Ren and the others fought their way toward the exit along the path of holy fire Bai Huo created, while Lily worried about her fur catching fire.
• The group retreated into the square, where the Demon Hunters formed a holy-fire barrier against the shadows pouring from the hall.
• Hassu ordered the Great Exorcism Ritual, and several master-level Demon Hunters began chanting to cover the Family Hall in silver light.
• Izax and Elizabeth left the barrier to attack the Chaos Shadow, banishing and smashing the creatures as they surged toward them.

Hao Ren and the others fought an endless tide of Chaos Shadows while the Demon Hunters completed an exorcism ritual. The ritual erased the Shadows from the Family Hall, though the berserk Hunter’s recovery remained unexplained.

• Hao Ren joined Izax and Elizabeth in destroying the Chaos Shadows as they poured from the Family Hall.
• Vivian sent her ash bats into the battle, and Hassu said the Demon Hunters needed a few more minutes to finish their ritual.
• A Chaos Shadow possessed a Demon Hunter who was maintaining the holy-flame barrier, and he attacked his companion.
• Hesperis fought the berserk Hunter, and Vivian stunned him with a swarm of electric bats until his eyes suddenly cleared.
• The Demon Hunters completed their ritual, and a pillar of light engulfed the Family Hall before all the Chaos Shadows disappeared.

Hao Ren and the others defeated the Chaos Shadows in the Family Hall and discovered that a controlled Demon Hunter recovered after Vivian shocked him, possibly because of her connection to the ancient seal. As they investigated how the shadows appeared, Bai Huo and Hesperis recalled that they had struck when the Demon Hunters relaxed their guard.

• Hassu and Bai Huo investigated the cleansed Family Hall while the Demon Hunters maintained the holy flame barrier, and Hassu declared the crisis over.
• Hesperis brought back the Demon Hunter who had been controlled by a Chaos Shadow, and Hassu found that his mind had recovered after Vivian's electric attack.
• Hao Ren suggested that Vivian's role in the ancient seal might have let her counter the Chaos Shadows, and she admitted she could not clearly remember sealing them.
• Hao Ren, Izax, and the Demon Hunters reviewed what had happened, but initially found no obvious cause for the shadows' sudden appearance.
• Bai Huo recalled that the shadows had appeared when she relaxed around Hesperis, who also remembered briefly forgetting that Hassu was her enemy.

Hao Ren and the others investigated the sudden disappearance of the Demon Hunters’ innate hostility and found evidence of a blood-exchange ritual in the Family Hall. Master Tutanin returned with Elder Andal, who appeared vacant and unresponsive.

• Hao Ren, Vivian, Hassu, and Hesperis connected the simultaneous loss of innate hostility to the Chaos Shadow and returned to search the Family Hall.
• Hassu sent Bai Huo to contact Master Tutanin and warn him about a possible Chaos Shadow attack.
• Lily suggested the Demon Hunters and Ankatro Family had lost their hostility during the banquet a month earlier, possibly allowing them to summon the Chaos Shadow.
• Hesperis discovered unusual goblets and other objects at the banquet table, and Vivian identified Demon Hunter and Ankatro blood in the goblets.
• Hassu found traces of a damaged blood-exchange ritual before Bai Huo reported that Master Tutanin had returned with Elder Andal.
• Hassu removed Elder Andal’s hood and found her vacant and unresponsive.

Hao Ren and the others discovered that Andal had placed herself under a Mind Binding spell to escape Chaos Shadow’s influence. With Hassu unable to undo it from outside, the group agreed to let Izax enter her mental world and try to reach her.

• Tutanin explained that the vacant Andal had been wandering near the tower, and Hassu found her instinctively scavenging spoiled food before giving her rations and water.
• Hassu detected that Andal had cast a Mind Binding spell on herself, apparently to prevent Chaos Shadow from driving her into a berserk state.
• Hassu said the self-cast spell was extremely difficult to undo, but Izax offered to enter Andal’s mental world and speak with her soul.
• Tutanin objected to letting a demon approach Andal’s soul, but Bai Huo persuaded Hassu to give Izax’s method a chance.
• Hassu approved the attempt, and Izax began the soul ritual on Andal.

Andal recovered from Mind Binding and explained that the Sun Disc—not a damaged seal—had released the Chaos Shadow after the Demon Hunters unknowingly triggered it. She revealed that Vogus and other Ankatro Family members might be alive in a nearby shelter, and offered to lead the group there.

• Izax freed Andal from Mind Binding, and she awoke surrounded by Hassu, Hao Ren, and their companions.
• Andal recognized Vivian and reacted as if she feared being asked for money, though she dismissed the old encounter as unimportant.
• Andal learned that a month had passed and said the Chaos Shadow had withdrawn from her mind after she lost the ability to think.
• Andal explained that the Sun Disc was an ancient device kept by the Ankatro Family, and that the family’s actions had triggered it to release the Chaos Shadow.
• Andal said the Sun Disc might influence innate hostility between races, as Elder Amthura had suspected.
• Andal revealed that Vogus and other Ankatro Family members may have survived frozen in a shelter, and agreed to take the group there.

Hassu and Hao Ren followed Andal to the Ankatro Family’s underground shelter, where she explained how Elder Amthura’s bloodline purification research had led to the Chaos Shadow outbreak. They reached a frozen hibernation facility where survivors had sought protection from the shadows.

• Hassu left Demon Hunters behind to watch the Family Hall and led an elite group with Hao Ren to the Ankatro Family’s ancestral resting place.
• Andal opened the obelisk’s hidden entrance and guided the group down to the underground shelter.
• Andal explained that Amthura’s ritual sought to remove innate hostility between races, but a different force in the hall had triggered the Chaos Shadow outbreak.
• Andal recounted how Abaddon and Croanne attacked Elder Marduk before the Chaos Shadow spread through the city and forced survivors to flee.
• The group reached a frozen hibernation facility, where Andal said the unthinking sleepers could not be invaded by the Chaos Shadow.

Hao Ren, Andal, and the others opened the malfunctioning cryogenic hibernation bay and rushed to save the Ankatro Family members inside. The rescue continued in the hall outside, where Andal discovered that Vogus had survived.

• Andal explained that she had stayed outside the shelter because Mind Binding let her resist the Chaos Shadow and protect the hibernators.
• Hao Ren and the others entered the cryogenic hibernation bay, where leaking coolant and damaged systems showed that the facility had malfunctioned.
• Andal began the awakening process while Lily thawed the frozen controls, and the group opened the hibernation containers to find the Tanans in critical condition.
• Vivian, Hao Ren, the Demon Hunters, and Hao Ren's Autonomous Mechanical Units carried the hibernators out and worked to save them.
• Andal announced that Vogus was alive.

Vogus survived the cryogenic chamber and explained the Ankatro Family’s inherited beliefs about the Chaos Shadow and its connection to innate hostility. He revealed that the Sun Disc was a calamity-bringing artifact and the original vessel of the Chaos Shadow, leaving Vivian and the others to confront its damaged seal.

• Andal moved the surviving Vogus beside Hesperis, whose light helped heal the injured Tanans.
• Hassu and Hao Ren told Vogus that a month had passed and only a few hundred people in Ankatro territory had survived.
• Vogus recognized Vivian and described the Chaos Shadow as an abstract darkness passed down through ancestral teachings.
• Vogus theorized that the Chaos Shadow was linked to innate hostility and emerged when that hostility disappeared, restoring it among the races.
• Vivian asked to inspect the Sun Disc, and Vogus warned that the ancient artifact was the original vessel of the Chaos Shadow and might be the source of innate hostility.

Vogus explained the Sun Disc’s history and the Ankatro Family’s responsibility for containing the Chaos Shadow. Hao Ren, Vivian, Izax, and Hassu entered the Corridor of Disaster to reach the Sun Disc, where Hao Ren immediately sensed the source of the threat.

• Vogus told Hao Ren that the Sun Disc had released growing numbers of Chaos Shadow, which his ancestors had sealed back inside it with Vivian’s help.
• Vogus explained that the Ankatro Family had hidden the Sun Disc in the Corridor of Disaster and continued guarding it out of responsibility for uncovering it.
• Vivian decided to enter the maze, and Hao Ren chose Izax and Hassu to join them because only the strongest should face the danger inside.
• Vogus opened the Space Gate and warned the group that they would lose contact with the outside until they reached the Sun Disc.
• Hao Ren crossed the gate first and immediately sensed the source of the disaster.

Hao Ren and his companions crossed into the Corridor of Disaster, where a powerful presence watched them as they navigated the shadow maze. They reached a stone door bearing an ancient warning, but the source of the curse and the force beyond it remained unseen.

• Hao Ren, Izax, Hassu, and Vivian entered the Corridor of Disaster and sensed its oppressive, alien atmosphere, though Vivian could not feel the powerful presence the others detected.
• Izax and Hao Ren led the group through the winding corridor while they avoided making light that might attract the Chaos Shadows.
• Hao Ren checked the time with the Data Terminal, whose bickering with him briefly eased the group's tension.
• After hours of walking, the group reached a wider section of the corridor and found a stone door emanating a hostile aura.
• Vivian read an ancient Rhetan inscription warning that those behind the door were trapped by an eternal curse and that no one remained to grant forgiveness; it was signed Cassandra the Awakened.

Hao Ren and his companions opened the gate at the end of the Corridor of Disaster, unleashing an overwhelming force of mental corruption that even Izax could barely withstand. With the corridor's exits sealed and their minds deteriorating, Hao Ren decided to invoke Raven 12345's power through divine arts.

• Hao Ren and Izax opened the ancient stone gate after reading the name Cassandra carved into it.
• A destructive aura poured from the darkness beyond the gate, overwhelming Hao Ren, Hassu, and Izax while leaving Vivian unaffected.
• Izax tried to enter the passage but retreated after nearly losing control to its mental corrosion.
• Hao Ren resisted the urge to destroy the passage and learned from Izax that the corridor's exits had closed as the aura spread.
• Hao Ren remembered his role as a pope and chose to channel Raven 12345's power to counter the aura.

Hao Ren used Raven 12345’s Divine Descent Art to protect himself, Vivian, Izax, and Hassu from the destructive aura in the corridor. The group reached a vast hall and found a Sun Disc identical to the artifact left by the Creation Goddess, though its condition was strange.

• Hao Ren called on Raven 12345’s name and summoned a divine incarnation that blessed him with sacred power.
• Raven 12345’s incarnations also blessed Vivian, Izax, and Hassu, shielding all four from the destructive aura.
• The group entered the corridor under glowing shields marked with Raven 12345’s irreverent divine phrases.
• Hao Ren and the others reached a grand hall and found the radiant Sun Disc floating above a crystal altar.
• Hao Ren recognized the Sun Disc as fundamentally identical to the golden disc he had found on Planet Sulun, but noticed that it was in a strange condition.

Hao Ren discovered that the Creation Goddess’s Sun Disc, a key component of the Creation Engine, had been corrupted by a powerful contaminant. As the group searched for a way to contain it, Hao Ren realized the God Contract might be suitable.

• Hao Ren and his companions found the Sun Disc in a sacrificial hall, where black matter seeped from it and corrupted the surrounding runes.
• Hao Ren scanned the disc and learned that foreign matter had entangled itself with its energy system, while Hassu identified the hall’s failing purification magic.
• Hao Ren confirmed that Vivian could not sense the disc’s aura, and she suggested touching it, but Hao Ren rejected the dangerous idea.
• The Data Terminal warned that no available storage container could safely hold the divinely contaminated disc without security on the level of the Crystal Core Research Station.
• Hao Ren searched his portable space for divine artifacts and, after dismissing a collection of unlikely objects, settled on the God Contract as a possible solution.

Hao Ren used the God Contract to purify the Sun Disc, but touching the stains left on it transported him to the Founding Star during the Goddess’s fall. He witnessed the Creation Goddess’s assassination and the beginning of the Great Extinction.

• Hao Ren held the God Contract to the Sun Disc, stopping its rotation and suppressing the black contamination.
• Hao Ren attached pages of the God Contract to the disc, and Raven 12345’s name purified the black shadows completely.
• Hao Ren touched the remaining black-red stains and was thrown into a collapsing palace on the Founding Star.
• Hao Ren ran through the ruined palace and witnessed a golden-red-armored God Slayer stab the Creation Goddess with a black sword.
• The Goddess fell, divine punishment destroyed the rebels, and the Great Extinction began as the Founding Star collapsed.

Hao Ren learned that innate hostility was caused by divine blood from the slain Creation Goddess contaminating the alien races, not by a curse. After explaining the discovery, he and the others connected the contamination to the alien wars and to the scorpion monsters of Tartarus.

• Hao Ren experienced a vision of the Creation Goddess’s palace collapsing and awoke at the altar with red marks on his hand.
• Hao Ren told Vivian, Izax, and Hassu that he had uncovered the secret behind innate hostility.
• Hao Ren explained that the God Slayer’s attack had splashed the Creation Goddess’s blood onto the Sun Disc, making it the source of the contamination.
• Hao Ren traced the contamination from the Sun Disc to the alien races, whose differing resistance affected their memories, behavior, and hostility.
• Vivian identified the scorpion monsters of Tartarus as a possible race transformed by severe contamination, and Hao Ren agreed.

Hao Ren explained that the Sun Disc carried corrupted divine blood that had spread innate hostility among Earth’s supernatural races, though purifying it could only prevent the situation from worsening. He then revealed the Dream Plane and the supernatural races’ origins to Hassu, who learned that their ten-thousand-year conflict began with the God-slaying War.

• Hao Ren, Vivian, and Izax discussed how the Sun Disc had spread innate hostility and whether purifying it could end the phenomenon.
• Hao Ren and Izax considered why the Sun Disc’s seal had failed after hostility between the races weakened, but they could not determine the artifact’s underlying principles.
• Vivian agreed that they should take the Sun Disc away for analysis, and Hao Ren realized it was time to explain the Dream Plane to Hassu.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, Izax, and the Data Terminal showed Hassu records of the Dream Plane and explained the supernatural races’ origins and the God-slaying War.
• Hassu understood that the Demon Hunters and other supernatural races had fought for ten thousand years because others had killed their creator.

Hao Ren and his allies sealed the Chaos Shadow and discussed how the truth behind the aliens’ war might help end the conflict. After returning from the labyrinth, Hao Ren realized that Vogus and the surviving Ankatro Family meant the real trouble was only beginning.

• Hassu learned that the Creation Goddess had done nothing to provoke the God Slayers, and Vivian and Hao Ren urged him to help end the races’ war.
• Hassu agreed to report what he had learned to the Demon Hunter Elder Council, while he and Vivian warned that making the truth public could provoke greater chaos.
• Hao Ren took the purified golden disc, and Izax used his magic to reopen the labyrinth gate after the hall’s mechanisms lost power.
• Hao Ren returned to the others, told Hesperis that the Chaos Shadow had been thoroughly sealed, and reunited with Hassu, Bai Huo, Lily, and the others.
• Vogus thanked the group on behalf of the surviving Ankatro Family, and Hao Ren said that seeing him reminded him the real trouble had only just begun.

After the disaster, Hao Ren told Vogus that the Ankatro Family were the descendants of the Tanans from Tanagrus, a world Hao Ren had already declared extinct. He also admitted that he had sublet their homeland to alien settlers, leaving him to face the consequences of his mistake.

• The survivors recovered at a nearby power plant while Wayne distributed food and Lily tried to comfort a Tanan child.
• Hao Ren asked Vogus about the Ankatro Family’s origins and revealed that they had once been called the Tanans and lived on Tanagrus.
• Vogus explained that his people remembered their homeland and had once tried to build a spaceship to search for it, but abandoned the plan.
• Hao Ren told Vogus he had visited Tanagrus and explained that the planet had been uninhabited for a long time and had returned to a primitive state.
• Hao Ren chose to disclose the truth despite having rented Tanagrus to Zorm, Muru, and their settlers.