Chapter Summaries

Hao Ren fought the corrupted Hercules and seized the scepter after Hercules briefly regained control of his body. He then found himself in Hercules’s spiritual world, where Hercules began to explain the artifact, its core, and Hao Ren’s companion.

• Hao Ren suspected that a surviving soul within Hercules was limiting the Shadow Minions, and the Data Terminal said his demigod intuition might be meaningful.
• Hao Ren ordered Nolan and the drones to attack Hercules while avoiding the scepter, then climbed toward the artifact as bats shielded him from the giant’s counterattack.
• Hao Ren called out to Hercules, and Hercules briefly suppressed the scepter’s power, allowing Hao Ren to pull it free and seal it in a dangerous-goods container.
• Hao Ren lost consciousness and awoke in a wilderness within Hercules’s spiritual world.
• Hercules introduced himself and said he would tell Hao Ren what he knew about the artifact, its core, and Hao Ren’s companion.

Hercules told Hao Ren about Olympus’s fear of its destined destruction and Vivian’s role as the Pardoner. He revealed that Vivian had made the scepter and entrusted it to Zeus, leaving Hao Ren to consider whether greed had kept Olympus from returning it.

• Hercules described the Olympian gods’ cruelty toward humans and said Zeus believed Olympus was doomed to destruction.
• Hercules said Zeus thought mixed-blood descendants might escape the disaster and identified Vivian as the Pardoner who could forgive the world’s exiles.
• Hao Ren concluded that Zeus had misunderstood Vivian’s role because he did not know the Origin Ark had carried out the pardon.
• Hercules explained that Vivian had seized a core from Athena’s laboratory, then returned three days later with a scepter containing it.
• Hercules said Athena believed Vivian could not safely possess the scepter, and Zeus kept it after Vivian later seemed to forget it.

Hercules revealed the scepter’s history and accepted his death after asking Hao Ren to thank Hesperis. As Hercules and the memory world disintegrated, Vivian summoned the true red moon to counter the spreading evil and restore order.

• Hercules told Hao Ren to thank Hesperis and chose to rest rather than seek rescue.
• Hao Ren blessed Hercules in the Goddess’s name before Hercules and the Mount Olympus memory dissolved.
• Outside the mental world, Hercules’s body began breaking apart as the escaped evil power erupted and threatened to collapse the alternate space.
• Vivian and Hesperis confirmed Hao Ren was safe but unconscious, while Lily and the others struggled to contain the spreading black tide.
• Vivian summoned the red moon, whose three tolling bells dispersed the dark servants and restored balance to the world.

After Hercules's mental world collapsed, Hao Ren became trapped in a vast, distorted starry illusion and discovered its mirror-like boundary. When the mirror shattered, he woke beneath the red moon with Lily beside him.

• Vivian summoned a red moon whose solemn light purified the Shadow Monsters without harming the others, while a tiny evil spirit stared up at it from her jar.
• The moonlight purified the land, and Old Hunter Mohabun watched the ashes where Hercules had stood before turning into white ash himself.
• Hao Ren found himself in a distorted starry sky, unable to reach the Data Terminal despite their mental link remaining intact.
• Hao Ren used mental concentration to leap across the stars and eventually found a mirror forming the illusion's boundary.
• Red cracks spread across the mirror until the starry sky shattered, and Hao Ren woke on the ground with Lily's tail brushing his arm.

After Hao Ren recovered from his vision, he and his companions escaped the collapsing pocket spacetime and returned to the real world. Hathaway agreed to go with them to Colperus, and Hao Ren found Pierre, the Wang Brothers, and Catherine waiting in the forest.

• Lily told Hao Ren that Vivian had summoned the Red Moon after Hercules died, while Vivian said she felt better than before despite spending much of her power.
• Hao Ren and the others returned to the ruined manor, where Hathaway said she could reverse the space and lead them back to the place they entered.
• Hathaway reversed the spell, and the ancient magic tower crumbled into ash as she emerged into the real world for the first time in two centuries.
• Hao Ren and Vivian invited Hathaway to join them at Colperus, and she accepted after hearing that the Demon Hunters needed her knowledge.
• Hao Ren returned to the forest village, found it swallowed by vegetation, and located Pierre, the Wang Brothers, and Catherine keeping watch nearby.

After the village’s curse vanished, Pierre agreed to help the Wang Brothers and Catherine return to normal life. Hao Ren’s group followed Hathaway to retrieve Hercules’s buried metal box, and Hesperis’s blood opened its seal.

• The village and its fused residents rapidly decayed as the warped flow of time was compensated, and Pierre explained what had happened to the Wang Brothers and Catherine.
• Pierre promised to help the three survivors reach their hometowns, while Vivian offered them a way to contact the Shadow Council in Athens.
• Hao Ren’s group entered the village ruins, where Hathaway led them to a buried black metal box that Hercules had hidden.
• Lily dug up the box, and Hathaway explained that Hercules had left it behind as a repository of records sealed by Zeus.
• Hesperis put her blood on the box, and its mechanisms clicked as it began to open.

Hao Ren opened the Olympus legacy and found four scrolls whose contents caused a brief disturbance in spacetime, so he stored them for later study. He brought Hathaway to the Ice Fortress to tell Bai Huo and Hassu about the missing Demon Hunters, leaving her to face her homeland as an undead.

• Hao Ren used the Runes of Leta and Hesperis's bloodline power to open the ancient case, revealing four scrolls.
• Hao Ren read the first scroll and triggered a brief distortion in the nearby sky and spacetime before he put it away.
• Hao Ren stored the scrolls and divine staff, then decided to take Hathaway to Korperus and report their discovery to Bai Huo.
• Hao Ren's group teleported to the Ice Fortress, where Demon Hunters watched Hathaway enter the Frost Temple.
• Hao Ren introduced Hathaway to Bai Huo and Hassu as the only one of the twelve missing Demon Hunters they had found.

Hao Ren and Vivian settled Hathaway’s return to the Demon Hunter Order before taking the recovered artifacts to Raven 12345. She identified the black fragment inside the divine scepter as material connected to the Godslayer Sword and possibly the Dream Plane mastermind.

• Hassu and Bai Huo accepted Hathaway back into the Demon Hunter Order, while Bai Huo began introducing her to her interests.
• Hao Ren told Hassu what he knew about the twelve missing Demon Hunters and Hercules, then returned home with Vivian and Lily.
• Hao Ren and Vivian went to Heaven and showed Raven 12345 the divine scepter and the sealed scrolls.
• Raven 12345 suppressed the scepter’s released aura and extracted the black fragment hidden inside it.
• Raven 12345 revealed that the fragment shared the Godslayer Sword’s material and might be its original raw material or a failed casting containing the Dream Plane mastermind’s aura.

Hao Ren and Raven 12345 examined a fragment of Primitive Material tied to the God Slayer Sword and traced its aura to a chaotic, godlike being that likely could not have forged the weapon. The fragment was purified and left with Hao Ren, while the identity of the sword’s true creator remained unresolved.

• Raven 12345 explained that the fragment was unstable unfinished or defective material, while the God Slayer Sword was a completed weapon with an Echo Wall.
• Raven 12345 identified the aura as belonging to a powerful, blind Primordial Chaos born from the universe’s early disorder, but said such a being could not understand or manipulate the material world enough to forge a sword.
• Hao Ren concluded that the Child of Chaos was not the God Slayer Sword’s creator and wondered whether another faction was involved, but Raven 12345 cautioned that they lacked evidence.
• Raven 12345 attributed the scepter’s ability to neutralize hostility to the Creation Goddess’s power in the Staff Crystal, though the crystal had been drained and could no longer confirm her theory.
• Raven 12345 tossed the purified fragment to Hao Ren and told him to keep it; the God Slayer Sword remained unaware that she had bitten a piece off its head.

Hao Ren and Raven 12345 determined that the scrolls’ reality-warping power came from the forbidden truths they recorded about the Lord of Madness and the Creation Goddess. After Raven entrusted Hao Ren with the scrolls and universe fragment, he suggested the illusory starry realm he had entered might have been inside the fragment.

• Raven 12345 identified the scrolls as ordinary materials whose recorded truths carried the Lord of Madness’s power.
• Raven 12345 explained that learning forbidden knowledge could turn people into vessels for an evil god, and suspected the people of Olympus had opposed the Lord of Madness while studying it.
• Raven 12345 said the Olympians’ efforts to encrypt their records may not have saved them from being consumed by the nightmares they studied.
• Raven 12345 entrusted Hao Ren with the four scrolls and the universe fragment for further investigation.
• Hao Ren told Raven 12345 that after Hercules died, he had entered a distorted starry illusion and suspected he had been inside the universe fragment.

Hao Ren confirmed that the divine scepter held a fragment of a universe and began reading the second scroll under Raven 12345’s precautions. The scroll described the new god’s alliance with the ancient Starry Sky People and the creation of a layered prison for Lord of Madness, leaving Hao Ren questioning the accepted history of the Guardian Giants and the Firstborn.

• Raven 12345 confirmed that the scepter’s core was a fragment of the universe, returned it to Hao Ren, and preserved its information for analysis.
• Hao Ren returned home with Vivian and, after several peaceful days, began reading the second scroll using Raven 12345’s safety tools.
• The scroll described an outsider god sealing Lord of Madness and allying with the ancient people among the stars, whom Hao Ren tentatively identified as the Starry Sky People.
• Hao Ren read that the new god and the ancient people built a ninety-nine-layer prison and appointed ancient people as its eternal wardens.
• When Raven 12345’s crystal warned that the scroll’s power had reached a dangerous level, Hao Ren stopped reading and recorded his findings.
• Hao Ren noted that the scroll’s history was absent from Guardian Giant records and questioned whether the Guardian Giants and the Firstborn were truly the Creation Goddess’s first creations.

Hao Ren and the others noticed that the little weakling had begun understanding speech and showing emotions, and they suspected Vivian’s altered red moonlight had caused the change. That afternoon, the Data Terminal reported that a drone monitoring station had found the Dream Plane rift corresponding to the Outer World's Rift Nebula.

• Hao Ren explained that the second scroll described the Pastoral Era and the Creation Goddess’s reinforced prison for the Lord of Madness.
• Hao Ren and Vivian observed that the little weakling understood speech and displayed clear anger, and Hao Ren recalled that her behavior had changed after their visit to the Alternate dimension.
• Hao Ren, Vivian, Lily, and Nangong May discussed possible causes of the weakling’s changes, and Hao Ren suggested Vivian’s altered moonlight might have affected her.
• Vivian said she needed time to recover before summoning the red moon again for Hao Ren to examine.
• The Data Terminal informed Hao Ren that a drone monitoring station had located the Dream Plane rift corresponding to the Outer World's Rift Nebula.

Hao Ren learned that a signal matching the missing gate-opening crystal’s information sample came from an apparently empty region of space, and he prepared to investigate it. He left the cause of the vast vacuum zone—and whether it concealed a Creation Goddess relic—unresolved.

• The Crystal Core Research Station detected a remote-sensing signal from the New Frontier that matched the sample from the missing crystal by more than ninety percent.
• Muru and the drone swarm’s collective consciousness showed Hao Ren a star map locating the signal in an ancient region where a ten-thousand-light-year vacuum contained no detectable matter or rift.
• Izax and Vivian concluded that something was likely blocking the detectors, while the Data Terminal noted that powerful relics or Guardian technology could interfere with the drone swarm’s instruments.
• Hao Ren ordered Nolan to prepare for the journey and decided to bring Doudou and Little Weak Chick, hoping they might react to the Creation Goddess’s power.

Hao Ren and his crew investigated a vast vacuum zone where a breach in the Wall of Reality was believed to be hidden. They discovered a half-destroyed temple drifting alone in space, which Vivian recognized as resembling the temples in Corpus Space.

• Hao Ren and Vivian cared for the weak little chicken as it began signaling when it was hungry and communicating more clearly.
• The Giant Turtle Rock Platform crossed into the ten-thousand-light-year vacuum zone, where the dust clouds ended at a sharply defined boundary.
• Hao Ren, Nolan, and Muru concluded that matter might have been removed from the region, though they could not explain how the breach in the Wall of Reality had vanished.
• Nolan sent out shipborne probes to search the vacuum zone, and one found an artificial structure drifting in space.
• Hao Ren and the others examined the upper half of a temple severed cleanly through its middle, and Vivian noted that it resembled temples in Corpus Space.

Hao Ren and Lily investigated a floating stone temple whose design resembled the Creation Goddess’s temples despite being a mortal-made structure. Inside, Hao Ren discovered an unexplained darkness beneath the temple’s severed floor and went to investigate it.

• Hao Ren noted the temple’s resemblance to the Creation Goddess’s temples, while Muru confirmed that no known mortal race should have seen the original designs.
• Hao Ren chose to inspect the temple with Lily, and Nolan teleported them to its exterior.
• Hao Ren and Lily entered through an opening in the temple’s upper section and explored its vast central hall.
• Hao Ren saw that the building had been cleanly severed and found an abnormal darkness beneath the floor.
• Hao Ren grabbed Lily by the tail and headed down to investigate the darkness.

Hao Ren and Lily explored the temple’s black spatial rift and watched its ancient reliefs come alive. When Hao Ren’s divine-blood stigmata touched a mural, the carvings shattered and the rift surged, swallowing them both.

• Hao Ren used a probe to analyze the black mist and learned it was an unknown spatial phenomenon with severed spacetime order.
• Hao Ren studied the temple’s reliefs and confirmed they depicted the Creation Goddess, while Lily tried to pry a brick loose for Dog’s Treasure.
• Lily noticed the reliefs moving, and Hao Ren watched a battle scene of knights charging a monstrous mass beneath a crystalline mountain come to life.
• Hao Ren touched the mural with the stigmata left by the Goddess’s blood, causing the reliefs to crack and fall from the wall.
• The black mist boiled upward and swallowed Hao Ren and Lily as they tried to flee.

Hao Ren and Lily were swallowed by a mysterious black fog that separated them and carried Hao Ren into the missing lower half of the space temple. Isolated from the Giant Turtle Rock Platform, Hao Ren found his supplies and equipment were still accessible as he prepared to explore.

• A black fog swept over Hao Ren and Lily, and they vanished into a spatial distortion that then disappeared from the temple.
• The Data Terminal confirmed that Hao Ren and Lily were alive but could not contact them, so Vivian urged the crew to gather nearby drones and plan a rescue.
• Hao Ren drifted alone through a dark void and worried that Lily had been sent somewhere else.
• Hao Ren fell into a circular hall in the missing lower half of the space temple and found broken pillars and objects floating above it.
• Hao Ren failed to restore contact with the Giant Turtle Rock Platform, but confirmed that he was unharmed and could still use his portable space and supplies.

Hao Ren explored the ruined temple and discovered it stood above a barren, chaotic wilderness. Nearby, Princess Veronica led a dwindling band of royal guards through the same wasteland, hoping to reach the Holy Mountain and warn the kingdom of an advancing Chaos threat.

• Hao Ren inspected the ruined temple and found no clues about Lily on its lower level.
• Hao Ren stepped outside and saw the temple perched above a lifeless wilderness beneath a dark, chaotic sky.
• Veronica and her surviving guards crossed the wilderness under the failing protection of the Golden Battle Flag.
• Veronica worried that the Chaos Minions would reach the kingdom within half a month, but her group had no reliable way to deliver a warning.
• Sir Morian blamed the Order State's monks for withdrawing, while Veronica defended them and continued toward the Holy Mountain.

Veronica led her knights through a Chaos attack toward the Holy Mountain Kasuan, hoping its temple could offer them refuge. They found the temple in ruins, but a strange man descended the mountain and blasted the Chaos Minions with explosive orbs.

• Veronica admitted to Sir Morian that her account of the Holy Mountain came from a fragmentary ancient book, while Morian urged her to keep hope alive.
• Chaos attacked after the Golden Battle Flag exhausted its light, and Veronica led the knights in a desperate charge through the monsters.
• A young knight fell from his horse and was swallowed by darkness as the group fought forward.
• Veronica and the knights reached Kasuan and saw that its temple was mostly destroyed, with only a faint trace of the Light of Order remaining.
• A strange man ran down from the mountain, throwing explosive orbs that annihilated Chaos Minions and shouting that Humanitarian Care had arrived.

Hao Ren rescued Veronica and her knights from the Chaos Army and led them toward Kasuan Mountain, where the Golden Battle Flag drove the monsters back. The group continued on foot after their warhorses succumbed to the spreading darkness.

• Hao Ren charged down from the Sacred Mountain, blasted apart hundreds of monsters with a Disintegration Missile, and called for Veronica's knights to follow him uphill.
• Veronica ordered her soldiers to follow Hao Ren, who fought off nearby monsters with explosives, a plasma spear, and a pistol as they forced a path through the Chaos Army.
• Hao Ren led Veronica and Knight Morian up the mountain while Veronica imagined he was a surviving guardian from a previous age.
• The Flag Bearer's Golden Battle Flag finished charging and its light drove the monsters into the darkness, thinning the mist and ending the immediate threat.
• Veronica ordered the knights to dismount when their warhorses began to deteriorate, and the horses collapsed and were swallowed by darkness.