Chapter Summaries

Hao Ren and his companions reached Hearth City, where Willy introduced them to his father, the city’s governor, and endured his contempt. After the governor allowed the travelers to stay, Willy offered to introduce Hao Ren to Master Auro, a scholar who could tell them about the world’s past.

• Willy explained how scholars predicted the Ascension Phenomenon as the group traveled toward Hearth City.
• Willy identified himself at the city gate and vouched for Hao Ren and his companions, gaining them entry.
• Hao Ren saw that Hearth City was built inside an abandoned factory, with makeshift shacks and a fortified garbage wall.
• Willy brought the group to his father, who mocked Willy and dismissed the spoils he had brought back from battle.
• The governor welcomed Hao Ren and the others as warriors and permitted them to rest in the lower district.
• Willy explained that he was treated as a bastard and offered to introduce Hao Ren to Master Auro, a respected scholar.

Hao Ren and his companions discussed why the residents of the Ark had lost their knowledge of their world, then questioned Scholar Auro about the worsening cold. They learned that the Ancestor's Great Furnace had been out for five years, leaving the Ark's life-support system close to failure.

• Willy brought Scholar Auro to meet Hao Ren and his companions in their guest room.
• The group considered how the Ark's civilization could have regressed so completely, and the Data Terminal suggested a lost generation or mass memory purge.
• Hao Ren noticed that residents still maintained working electrical equipment, indicating that some of the Ark's systems and factories remained functional.
• Scholar Auro said the Ancestor's Great Furnace had been out for five years and that winter was worsening across the world.
• Scholar Auro warned that the mild beginning of winter meant the coming cold could last an extremely long time.

Hao Ren and his companions heard Scholar Auro's account of the ark world's history and the divine artifact said to protect it. As they suspected the artifact was hidden in the Ancestor's Great Furnace, electrical arcs suddenly burst from the machine.

• Scholar Auro told Hao Ren, Lily, and Willy that the gods had divided humanity into four kingdoms and cursed the world with hardship and recurring disasters.
• Hao Ren asked whether the Sea of Erdos held other giant turtles and who had made the one carrying their world, but Scholar Auro said there was only one and the gods had made it.
• Vivian and the Data Terminal reasoned that a powerful artifact might have helped the refugee fleet evade the Guardians for ten thousand years.
• Hao Ren suspected the artifact was hidden in the Ancestor's Great Furnace, but Vivian noticed that enormous electrical arcs had erupted from the machine and were racing across its shell.

Hao Ren and his companions witnessed a catastrophic blackout after the Central Control Station’s reactor failed, then accepted a mission to escort Scholar Auro to the royal city. The Ancestor’s Great Furnace had also erupted with fire and light, and the Four Kingdoms agreed to a temporary ceasefire while their scholars gathered for a council.

• The reactor’s failure triggered widespread power surges and plunged Hearth City into darkness, sending its residents into panic.
• The castle governor and his knights restored order, and backup power brought some of the city’s lights back on.
• A soldier summoned Willy and Hao Ren’s group to the castle, where the governor announced that the king had called a council after the Ancestor’s Great Furnace changed, prompting a temporary ceasefire among the Four Kingdoms.
• The governor ordered Willy to lead a small escort for Scholar Auro to the royal city, and Willy reluctantly agreed.
• The governor asked Hao Ren and his companions to join the escort, and Hao Ren accepted so he could investigate the furnace.

After the castle’s power failed, Hao Ren and his companions prepared to leave Hearth City with Scholar Auro to investigate the Ancestor’s Great Furnace. Auro arrived in a bizarre homemade tractor and drove the group onto the road, leaving them bouncing violently as they set out.

• Scholar Auro reported that the spirit of electricity had returned weakly and warned the castle governor to prepare for winter, but the governor dismissed his concerns about peace with the Iron City-State.
• The governor sent a group led by a stout man to Metal Town and ordered Hao Ren and his companions to leave Hearth City with Auro.
• Lily worried that the group would have to walk dozens of kilometers to reach the Ancestor’s Great Furnace with the elderly Auro.
• Auro arrived in a smoking, makeshift tractor, while Willy called for everyone to climb aboard.
• Auro floored the accelerator and drove the group onto the repaired main road, jolting the passengers so violently that they had to brace themselves to stay in place.

Hao Ren and his companions raced through the wasteland with Scholar Auro, pursued by a rival vehicle from the Iron City-State. They reached the Ancestor's Great Furnace safely, where Hao Ren focused on the enormous structure ahead.

• Scholar Auro drove the group out of Hearth City, and Willy explained that wasteland drifters resented people from the city-state.
• Lily spotted a pursuing vehicle covered in leather and human leg bones, driven by an Iron City-State scholar who challenged Scholar Auro.
• Scholar Auro and the Iron City-State scholar raced across the wasteland, trading insults as both vehicles sped toward their destination.
• The two vehicles arrived safely at the Ancestor's Great Furnace, and Scholar Auro's vigorous driving strength vanished once he climbed down.
• Willy told Hao Ren that the High Tower Kingdom's capital stood beside the Furnace, while Hao Ren stared at the structure.

Hao Ren and his companions reached the High Tower Kingdom’s royal city after the Ancestor’s Great Furnace malfunctioned, and learned about the Four Kingdoms and the city’s sacred role. As Scholar Auro went to meet the king, Vivian sensed something in the furnace calling to her.

• The Data Terminal reported that the Ancestor’s Great Furnace’s reactor core had shut down and was unlikely to explode soon.
• Willy led Hao Ren and the others into Furnace Fortress, where he explained the city’s legends and the ancient pact that protected it during ceasefires.
• Scholar Auro described the Four Kingdoms’ origins and the roles their capitals played in the sealed world.
• Scholar Auro left with the gathered scholars to meet the king, while Willy took Hao Ren and the others toward a guesthouse.
• Vivian looked toward the Ancestor’s Great Furnace and told Hao Ren that something there had called to her.

Hao Ren learned that entering the Ancestor's Great Furnace meant confronting its Blood Servant guards and lethal Underworld power, but he remained determined to repair the damaged reactor. At the entrance, the group discovered the guards were radiation-sick warriors rather than divinely transformed protectors.

• Vivian sensed a brief summons near the Ancestor's Great Furnace, and Hao Ren suspected it was connected to a legendary artifact created by the Creation Goddess.
• Willy warned Hao Ren's group that the furnace was deadly and guarded by Blood Servants, but Vivian used Blood Magic to calm him and learned the locals did not know how to repair it.
• Hao Ren sent Willy back to rest and led the group through the damaged royal city toward a furnace entrance.
• The group reached the guarded entrance, where the Data Terminal detected severe radiation leaking from behind the reactor walls.
• The Data Terminal explained that the Blood Servants' mutations came from prolonged radiation exposure, not divine power.

Hao Ren and his companions forced their way past the Blood Attendant Warriors to reach the Central Control Station, insisting they had come to repair the reactor. As they entered, Willy and others from the royal city arrived.

• Hao Ren rejected teleporting into the Ancestor's Great Furnace because the energy fluctuations could restart the reactor, and the group decided to break through the checkpoint openly.
• Vivian and Hao Ren approached the guards, but the Blood Attendant Warriors attacked after Nangong May called out that they intended to repair the reactor.
• Nangong May transformed into her Siren form, while Lily, Hao Ren, and the others fought off the guards and reinforcements without killing them.
• Hao Ren reached the Central Control Station and found its gate open, then spotted Willy leading a group sprinting toward them from the royal city.

Hao Ren’s group forced their way into Ancestor's Great Furnace, and Willy caught up with them before they entered the Central Control Station. After Vivian and Hao Ren posed as divine Judicators of Ice and Flame, the crowd knelt and let them proceed inside.

• Willy broke free of Vivian's Blood Magic, went to inform Scholar Auro, and then joined the royal city soldiers as they rushed to the Blood Attendants’ alarm.
• Hao Ren told Willy that Ancestor's Great Furnace was malfunctioning and that his group intended to repair it, while Willy struggled between his beliefs and his curiosity about the ancient stories.
• A royal city noble ordered the soldiers to prepare their crossbows, so Vivian unleashed her icy aura and claimed the Ice Witch would judge the world.
• Hao Ren presented Lily as a Fire Witch, and the crowd began calling them the Judicators of Ice and Flame as they entered the Central Control Station.
• Nangong May conjured ice balls, prompting the crowd to hail her as the Serpentine Ice Witch, before she shut the metal door behind the group.
• Hao Ren said the deception would keep the crowd from interfering for now, then led the others toward the control room.

Hao Ren and his team investigated the damaged ark’s Central Control Station, began repairing its generators, and followed Vivian’s sense of a divine artifact toward the fusion reactor. Outside, Nolan dismantled the lifeless arks, including the Qunluan, as the group’s efforts to salvage the ships continued.

• Hao Ren restarted the Central Control Station’s console and learned that the explosion had damaged the main generators rather than the deeper fusion reactor.
• Hao Ren sent Autonomous Mechanical Units to repair the generators while Nolan worked to take control of other arks and find a suitable planet for them.
• Vivian sensed the divine artifact near the junction between the generators and the fusion reactor, so Hao Ren led the group toward it.
• The Data Terminal found signs that the ark’s captain had died from a chronic illness, leaving Hao Ren troubled by the discovery.
• Nolan sent engineering drones to dismantle lifeless arks, while Elizabeth teased her for taking commemorative pictures of the stripped Qunluan.

Hao Ren and his allies repaired the Ark's generators while Nolan's drones took control of the Ark ships. Deep inside the Throne's reactor, they found a golden disk, and Vivian briefly seemed entranced by it before Hao Ren approached to inspect it.

• Nolan used infiltration cores to take control of Qunluan's engines and systems, then tested the ship's new controls.
• The people in the Throne's shelter waited anxiously as flashes and rumbles came from the Ancestor's Great Furnace.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, Nangong Sanba, and Lily blasted their way through sealed passages toward the Ark's energy hub while Data Terminal guided them around hazards.
• Data Terminal detected abnormal energy ahead and identified it as an artifact.
• The group found a golden disk embedded in a platform, and Vivian briefly lost focus when she saw it.
• Hao Ren told Lily to watch Vivian and walked toward the disk to inspect it.

Hao Ren and his companions discovered a hidden facility beneath the Ark, where they found evidence of a radiation leak and an area labeled the Final Vault. They opened the vault’s blast door and found a vast chamber filled with suspended metal boxes.

• Hao Ren approached the golden disk and, after the Data Terminal confirmed it was safe, examined the artifact and its metal base.
• The Data Terminal triggered a concealed mechanism, opening a passage beneath the disk, and Hao Ren left an Autonomous Mechanical Unit to guard the entrance.
• Hao Ren’s group descended into an intact underground corridor, where he found a staff card marked “Final Vault.”
• Lily found a child’s skeleton, and the Data Terminal determined that the child had died from radiation poisoning about eight hundred years earlier.
• Hao Ren and the group opened the facility’s final blast door and entered a huge cylindrical chamber filled with suspended metal boxes.

Hao Ren discovered that the Final Vault held 150,000 children in Dormant State pods, apparently after a disease killed the Ark’s adults. Recordings showed the children being frozen and later awakened in a chaotic early activation, which the Data Terminal linked to a reactor malfunction around eight hundred years ago.

• Hao Ren activated the control console, and the Data Terminal cracked its password and opened the empty Dormant State pods.
• Hao Ren found records showing that all 150,000 pod occupants were children and that the Final Vault had last opened 815 years earlier.
• Hao Ren theorized that a terminal illness had killed the adults while sparing the children, leaving the Ark without a functioning civilization.
• The Data Terminal played footage of sick adults placing the children into Dormant State before the facility shut down.
• The Data Terminal played footage of the children awakening in confusion and said a reactor malfunction had triggered the facility’s premature activation.

Hao Ren and his companions discovered and awakened an adult survivor hidden in a cluttered room aboard the ark. The man remembered that he was the ship’s “Father” and began explaining the catastrophe and the Starry Sky People, but his account remained incomplete.

• The Data Terminal found a hidden room containing a large hibernation pod with a living person inside.
• Hao Ren and Lily helped awaken and steady an old man who believed they were people he had awaited for centuries.
• The old man remembered that he was the “Father,” a healthy adult tasked with teaching the children and rebuilding society.
• The old man said his people had fled an ecological catastrophe aboard arks, protected by a golden disk given to them by a higher civilization.
• Hao Ren showed the old man images of the Starry Sky People, and the old man confirmed that they matched the beings pursuing his people.

Hao Ren and the others learned how the old man had survived the plague and been left behind when the Final Vault malfunctioned. After years of waking alone, he revealed that he had spent his remaining time recording his people's history.

• The old man explained that the Starry Sky People left after the golden disc began working, while his fleet wandered through a universe devastated by calamity.
• He recounted how the plague killed nearly all adults, leaving him as the sole guardian candidate to oversee the children in hibernation.
• He described being isolated and awakened every ten years to test himself until the Final Vault's mainframe failed and the children were awakened without him.
• After the system failure, the old man repeatedly woke and fell into despair, then realized he was wasting the children's time as well as his own.
• The old man pointed Hao Ren toward stacks of manuscripts and writing covering the room, declaring that they were his people's history.

Hao Ren brought the ark’s last parent out of the storage vault to see the descendants of the children he had watched over. The old man learned that their civilization had been interrupted, but found comfort in hearing them still speak their ancestors’ language.

• The old man told Hao Ren and the others how he had spent his final decades recording the ark’s history before returning to hibernation.
• After learning that the children’s descendants were alive but their culture and traditions had been lost, the old man asked to meet them.
• Hao Ren gave the old man a life-support collar and led him out of the storage vault for the first time in nine hundred years.
• Hao Ren restarted Ancestor's Great Furnace, restoring the lights and power as the shelter’s residents knelt and praised the heart of their world.
• Hao Ren explained that the descendants had forgotten the ark and lived as four warring kingdoms, and the old man smiled when he heard them speaking their ancestors’ language.

Hao Ren and his companions revived the Four Kingdoms’ ancient furnace and helped the old man recover from his long hibernation, giving him a chance to restore the civilization’s lost knowledge. The chapter ended with Hao Ren presenting the old man to the gathered people as their returned ancestor, ready to lead them into a New Era.

• The old man argued that the people of the Four Kingdoms had survived and prospered despite their ignorance, while Vivian doubted they could rebuild their civilization.
• The crowd spotted Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily on the platform and hailed them as the Judicators of Ice and Flame after the Ancestor’s Great Furnace restarted.
• Hao Ren urged the old man to pass on his knowledge himself and gave him a slice of golden fruit, which restored his vitality.
• Hao Ren told the old man that he had been frozen for eight hundred years and now had time to complete his work.
• Hao Ren raised the old man’s hand before the crowd and announced that their ancestor had returned to bring them the New Era.

After returning to the royal city, Hao Ren and his companions helped the reborn old man meet the rulers and scholars of the Four Kingdoms. The old man chose to travel to Star Fortress to share his history, and he took the name Lawrence as he prepared to work with Hao Ren on his people’s future.

• Hao Ren, Vivian, and Lily returned to the royal city, where crowds revered them and Hao Ren endured meetings with the High Tower Kingdom’s king and scholars from the other kingdoms.
• The old man said he wanted to visit Star Fortress and entrust his ancient manuscripts to its scholars, while seeking permission to travel freely and teach the people.
• Vivian warned the old man that his teachings could threaten the kings’ authority and clash with the people’s beliefs, but he said he understood how to introduce knowledge gradually.
• Hao Ren explained his origins and his group’s connection to powerful forces beyond the Ark, and the old man listened without much surprise.
• Hao Ren gave the old man a communicator and promised to monitor the Ark’s survivors and help find them a safe settlement.
• The old man chose the name Lawrence, though he only vaguely remembered it and did not know whose name it had been.

Hao Ren said goodbye to Willy and Scholar Auro, then returned to the Giant Turtle Rock Platform to decide where to send the repaired Ark fleet. The group chose Io as a temporary refuge while they continued searching for a permanent home for the Ark people.

• Hao Ren gave Willy photographs of forests, oceans, skies, and stars, then asked Scholar Auro to tell the king that Willy had helped repair the Ancestor's Great Furnace.
• Nolan teleported Hao Ren and his companions back to the Giant Turtle Rock Platform, where she reported that the drone swarm had taken control of the Arks and repaired some of their engines.
• Hao Ren ruled out Tanagrus and Horleta as destinations because of their inhabitants and existing claims, and he regretted that Sulun's Gate had been reduced to toxic, charred ruins.
• Nolan explained that the Arks could land on oceans and use their water systems to recover, making Io a possible temporary stop despite its lack of land.
• Lily suggested that the Arks stay on Io until they found a permanent planet, and joked that Hao Ren could arrange a long-term lease with the Sirens.