Chapter Summaries

Ryan faced a food crisis in Northwind Province after the Emperor diverted grain to the southern war, while the nobles refused to use their own stores to feed their people. At a meeting in Frozen Earth Territory, Ryan pushed the responsibility back onto the nobles by asking whether they would let their people starve or uphold their supposed mercy.

• The Emperor's wartime requisitions cut off food supplies to Northwind Province, and the nobles looked to Ryan to resolve the crisis despite hoarding their own provisions.
• Ryan considered selling food, ignoring the crisis, coordinating the nobles' stores, or importing grain, then invited the nobles to Frozen Earth Territory for the Divine Grace Festival.
• The nobles gathered and complained about the war and shortages, while insisting their stored food was too valuable to give to slaves and commoners.
• Shaya attended the noble meeting to represent the young Northwind Governor, and Ryan opened by explaining that population growth had outpaced the province's food supply.
• Ryan asked the nobles whether they would let their people starve until the population fell or show mercy and help them survive until spring.

Ryan offered Northwind Province’s nobles food for the winter and urged them to cultivate their own lands, using the Swampland harvest as proof that they could become self-sufficient. Grand Duke Mayers and Chrysus realized that Ryan’s aid could give him influence over the nobles’ territories and make him the true power in the province.

• Ryan framed the food shortage as a consequence of the southern trade guilds’ failure to supply grain and argued that Northwind Province had to endure the crisis together.
• Ryan offered to sell the nobles food and warned that the war could keep the southern lands from supplying them for years to come.
• Ryan called on the nobles to cultivate their lands, revealed that he had made the Swampland produce a harvest, and promised to help them grow food.
• Shaya returned to Thundercloud Mountain and told Chrysus what Ryan had achieved at the meeting.
• Chrysus and Grand Duke Mayers concluded that Ryan’s offer could extend his authority into the nobles’ territories by making him the province’s source of food.

Grand Duke Meyers revealed that the curse caused by the family’s blasphemy would soon overwhelm them, and he urged Chrysus to eliminate Ryan before Ryan could obstruct their plans for Northwind Province. Meanwhile, Ryan resisted the Dragon’s temptations, continued absorbing the Dragon Heart, and fell asleep as his power began increasing rapidly.

• Grand Duke Meyers told Chrysus that the Meyers bloodline’s curse would erupt within thirty years and that they needed to secure Northwind Province for a sacrifice to purify it.
• Grand Duke Meyers ordered Chrysus to find a way to kill Ryan, then explained that he had supported Elector Volvo because Chrysus was better suited to Volvo’s methods than to Freud’s.
• Grand Duke Meyers argued that the Empire’s growing strength against the Church justified his admiration for Freud, but said Chrysus’s temperament had determined their choice of Elector.
• Grand Duke Meyers explained that Meyers would use covert means to kill Ryan and warned Chrysus that anyone obstructing the family’s rise was an enemy.
• Ryan rejected the Dragon’s attempts to tempt him, insisting that he needed to grow stronger before confronting Meyers.
• Ryan’s absorption of the legendary Blaze Dragon’s heart accelerated, and he fell asleep amid the gold as his vitality drove his Knight Breathing Technique forward.

Ryan weighed the cost of building the Great Wall and sought wealth to fund it, while advising Andara’s King on rebuilding the Royal Family’s army. In Dawn City, an assassin disguised as Queen Leta’s maid attacked him, and Ryan suspected someone had secretly transformed her into a weapon.

• Ross warned Ryan that the Great Wall would require immense resources and cost at least one hundred million Gold Coins, but Ryan refused to cancel the plan and urged the Alchemy Academy to seek a solution.
• Ryan returned to Andara Kingdom as a defense adviser, where the King assembled an army of more than ten thousand soldiers for the Royal Family.
• Ryan visited Dawn City and asked Queen Leta to let him use its wealth to fight the enemies of the Northlands.
• A maid disguised as Melanie stabbed Ryan with a purple dagger, but Ryan caught it and survived its sinister poison as the maid burned to ashes.
• Ryan comforted Queen Leta and concluded that someone had secretly infused Melanie with supernatural power, then wondered whether a noble had ordered the attack.

Ryan survived an assassination attempt in Dawn City, then went to Andara Kingdom’s capital to advise its army and assess the kingdom’s resources. He arranged for the Church of Light to lease northern wasteland, leaving the kingdom with a long-term plan for settlement and defense.

• Demon Hunter Rosalind failed to kill Ryan, and Darryl’s search for the hidden Legend forced Rosalind to abandon the royal capital.
• Ryan concluded that a noble enemy was behind the assassination and warned the nobles to remain alert while he traveled to Andara Kingdom’s royal capital.
• Ryan advised King Adams to send the royal army north in spring to confront the Rhino Orcs and help pressure Sera Kingdom.
• Ryan discovered that Andara Kingdom lacked strategic resources and proposed leasing abandoned northern land to the Church of Light for cultivation.
• King Adams waived the rent for ten years and granted the Church of Light a fifty-year lease, with later terms set at fifteen years.

After an assassination attempt, Ryan blamed the Church of Dawn and used the Empire’s support for the Andara Kingdom to strengthen his position in Northwind Province. He supplied the Emperor with blast-furnace blueprints to aid the southern war, then turned his attention to spring planting and land reclamation.

• Ryan publicly accused the Church of Dawn of trying to disrupt the Empire’s aid to the Andara Kingdom and linked it to the assassination attempt.
• Columbus III sent a delegation to purify the Andara royal bloodline and deployed the Dragon Rider Cavalry from Winged Gorge, while Count Pascal stationed the Gargoyle Legion along Northwind Avenue.
• Ryan reassured the Andara royal family that the Empire’s presence made the kingdom safer from the Church of Dawn.
• Ryan sent blast-furnace blueprints to the Emperor, who ordered alchemists dispatched south and granted Ryan the Swampland south of Frozen Earth Territory.
• Ryan prepared for spring by sending at least two thousand people to reclaim wasteland on the nobles’ lands.

Ryan’s plans to raise food production and develop Northwind Province advanced as nobles reclaimed wasteland, Zero Crossing City attracted gem traders, and Frozen Earth Territory began building roads. The chapter left Ryan at the Fortress Defense Line, where the Thorny Jungle’s spiritual plant, Nastrond, had become the kingdom’s first line of defense.

• Ximi directed Baronet Norton’s serfs to enrich reclaimed wasteland with manure, earthworms, rotten wood, and plant scraps so it could grow crops.
• Ryan discussed gem trading, Swampland development, and silt transport with Viscount Miles, then invited him to witness the Eight Knights’ proceedings.
• Ryan oversaw the arrival of Nidhogg’s people and the start of road construction, while Mage Luna and Mr. Ross developed a golem-based roadwork machine.
• Ryan inspected the Fortress Defense Line and found that the Thorny Jungle and its spiritual plant, Nastrond, now formed the first line of defense.

Ryan strengthened the Frozen Earth Territory’s defenses and investigated the strange behavior of nearby orcs before Count Pascal arrived with news of an impending northern war. The Crusader Atonement Army was heading toward the Andara Kingdom, and Ryan learned it might attack the Dawn-following noble territories east of the kingdom instead of entering the Sera Kingdom.

• Ryan spent spirituality expanding the Thorny Jungle into a formidable defensive line, while Ulf warned that nearby orc tribes kept approaching despite their food supplies and the cold.
• Ryan ordered Ulf and Brandt to tighten security, then returned to Rhino Horn Mountain as spring arrived and the unfinished conflict between royal and divine authority resumed.
• Count Pascal arrived in Zero Crossing City with the Gargoyle Legion, explaining that the emperor had sent it to protect the Andara Kingdom and that the Wyvern Legion had already entered the kingdom.
• Pascal warned Ryan that the Church of Dawn’s Crusader Atonement Army was powerful and ruthless, and said its arrival would make the Andara Kingdom a bloody battlefield.
• Ryan told Pascal that his eastern contacts expected the army to avoid the Sera Kingdom, and Pascal predicted it would instead enter the Dawn-following noble territories east of Andara.

Ryan learned how the Geralds’ ancient system of knights and monarchs had left their territories too weak to withstand the changing age, while the Church of Dawn planned to use them against the Andara Kingdom. The Crusader Atonement Army arrived in Dark-Eyed Count territory under the devout priest Arvin Griffith.

• Count Pascal explained to Ryan that the Geralds’ knights remained followers rather than nobles until they fulfilled their ancestors’ promise to return to their homeland, and that the system could support only a small army.
• Ryan and Count Pascal concluded that the Church of Dawn intended to reinforce the Geralds so it could reclaim the Andara Kingdom’s faith, while the Emperor sought to push south from Thousand Lakes Province.
• Dark-Eyed Count Zeton Gerald and his brother Dirk Gerald worried that war with Orcs had depleted their grain and knights, and feared the Church’s Crusaders would lead them into war against Andara.
• The Crusader Atonement Army reached Dark-Eyed Count territory, led by barefoot priest Arvin Griffith, whose devout faith kept the notorious force in check.

The Crusader Atonement Army entered Gerald territory, and Ryan warned Count Pascal that the Church’s campaign could draw in the Sera Kingdom and its Griffin Legion. Gerald and the Andara Kingdom settled the Northern Orc crisis, then war erupted in May as Gerald and Sera attacked; Count Pascal fixed his attention on Arvin Griffith.

• Moonlight Knight Tiffany and the Gerald counts allowed Cleric Awen’s Crusaders to pass north but refused them entry into Gerald territory and agreed to support Dawn’s holy war against the Andara Kingdom.
• Ryan warned Count Pascal that the Sera Kingdom could join the conflict with its Griffin Legion, while the Gargoyle Legion and Wyvern Legion prepared to respond.
• Count Pascal sent Ryan’s assessment to Loren, who rapidly gathered the Wyvern Legion in the east to prove his loyalty and ability to the Emperor.
• After the Northern Orcs were driven out, both Gerald counts declared war on the Andara Kingdom, and the Crusader Atonement Army surged across the border.
• The Sera Kingdom marched its Griffin Legion north as the Gargoyle Legion raced toward the Crusaders, and Count Pascal vowed to kill Arvin Griffith.

The Wyvern Legion clashed with Cleric Awen’s Atonement Army, whose soldiers endured sacred chains and fought with overwhelming power. Count Pascal arrived to confront Awen, but their battle took an unexpected turn when Awen recognized something in a slain Gargoyle as his child.

• Loren Columbus sent the Wyvern Legion across the river, but Cleric Awen’s Dawn radiance burned the Wyverns and shattered their charge.
• Loren used royal blood to turn the surviving Wyverns into soulless weapons, while Cleric Awen forced the Atonement Army to fight through the agony of sacred chains.
• The Atonement Army and Wyvern Legion battled as the soldiers sacrificed Wyverns to the Dawn, and Loren called for Count Pascal’s delayed reinforcements.
• Count Pascal and the Gargoyle Legion arrived and attacked Cleric Awen, who recognized Pascal as the cause of his fall and unleashed the divine art Heavenly Kingdom.
• Pascal resisted Awen’s attacks and advanced with the intention of sealing him, while the Wyvern Legion suffered under the heavenly kingdom.
• Awen seized a slain Gargoyle and, seeing blood within it, asked whether it was his child.

After the Church’s Atonement Army forced Cleric Awen to flee, Ryan learned of the Pascal bloodline’s mysterious near-extinction and received news of the Andara Kingdom’s defeat at the hands of the Sera Kingdom’s Griffin Legion. Loren’s Dragon Rider Cavalry saved Andara Royal City, but the kingdom remained under threat as the Gargoyle Legion returned without capturing Cleric Awen.

• Cleric Awen fled with several Gargoyle Soldiers, while the Atonement Army pursued him and Loren’s forces remained in danger from the Gargoyle Legion.
• The Viscountess told Ryan how the Pascal bloodline had fallen from more than twenty-five thousand members to fewer than five hundred, and Ryan concluded that the Church of Dawn’s alleged curse remained unexplained.
• Steward Beard reported that the Griffin Legion had broken Andara’s southern defenses and was advancing on Andara Royal City.
• King Adams ordered Grand Duke Leta to defend the city, and the Witch Ghost Legion joined the battle but attacked civilians as well as the Griffin Legion.
• Loren Columbus returned with the Dragon Rider Cavalry, drove the Griffin Legion from the skies, and argued with King Adams over the Empire’s failure to arrive sooner.
• The Gargoyle Legion returned without capturing Cleric Awen, while the Griffin Legion’s withdrawal left Andara facing danger from both the south and east.

Cleric Awen learned that Pascal's Edge of the Divine Realm could block his heavenly kingdom, while the war in the North remained deadlocked despite a clash between eight Legends. In the Imperial Capital, Elector Volvo secured support for sending Northwind Province into the war, and Chrysos Meyers agreed in secret to create an opportunity to kill Ryan.

• The Pope told Cleric Awen that Pascal's remnant of the Edge of the Divine Realm could resist Heavenly Kingdom unless its spatial boundary was broken, and ordered him to bring the northern lands back to Dawn.
• Gerald, Sera, the Empire, and the Church shifted troops across the southern and eastern fronts, where both wars settled into stalemates and Ryan awaited the next escalation.
• Eight Legends fought across the river between Andara and Gerald territory, devastating the landscape without changing the balance of the war.
• The Pope sought a blessing for Awen that could break the Edge of the Divine Realm, while the Emperor urged the nobles to commit more forces to the northern war.
• Elector Volvo proposed sending Northwind Province and Baron Ryan to command the kingdom's troops, and Chrysos Meyers supported the plan to create a chance to kill Ryan.

Ryan used the Planar Gate to bring the Stag Legion to the grassland supply route and destroyed a convoy bound for the war, leaving Gerald’s forces and the Crusader Atonement Army starving. He arrived on the battlefield with food as the exhausted armies fought, and appeared to offer them the choice to continue.

• Ryan brought Master Brock and 2,500 Stag cavalry through the Planar Gate to the grassland route carrying supplies north.
• Ryan explained that Gerald and Sera depended on those supplies because years of war had drained their food and resources.
• Ryan ordered the Stag Legion to charge and kill the convoy’s people, then sent its supplies through the Planar Gate.
• After three days without deliveries, the Gerald armies and Crusader Atonement Army ran out of food and struggled against the Andara Kingdom’s forces.
• Cleric Awen used divine spells to revive the starving soldiers’ fighting strength, but the battle continued to go badly for them.
• Ryan arrived with the Stag Legion, ate roasted meat and drank ale in view of the hungry armies, and asked whether they would continue fighting.

Ryan’s army broke the Crusaders’ morale by cutting off supplies to the Gerald Noble Territory, leaving the enemy close to defeat. Count Pascal sought a way to kill Cleric Awen, and Ryan suggested that it might be possible.

• Ryan explained to Grand Duke Leta and the nobles that he had intercepted supplies and driven away game, leaving the Gerald forces with only days of food.
• The Gerald Counts and Knight Tiffany concluded that their army could not keep fighting, while Dark-Eyed Count proposed defeating the kingdom to seize its food and Golden-Eyed Count rejected the plan.
• Ryan told Count Pascal that the Crusaders might fight to the death if Cleric Awen ordered it, but that holding out for two days would likely end the war.
• Count Pascal revealed his determination to kill Cleric Awen, and Ryan said there might be a way, though he could not guarantee it.

Ryan proposed using political pressure and Gerald’s strength to kill Cleric Awen and defeat the Crusader Atonement Army. Count Pascal revealed the Pascal Bloodline’s history of clerical abuse and his revenge, while Ryan prepared to negotiate with Gerald and prolong the crisis with grain.

• Ryan outlined the conditions for persuading Count Pascal and Gerald to help kill Cleric Awen, including the risk of failure and Imperial suspicion.
• Count Pascal traded secrets with Ryan, who explained how he had brought his army to the plain using the Dragon Emperor’s Crown.
• Count Pascal revealed that Church clergy had fathered many children with Pascal women, contaminating the family bloodline, and that his father had died after discovering it.
• Count Pascal described killing the clergy connected to Danube Province and sacrificing the family’s bastards to bind their souls into Gargoyles under an agreement with the Eternal One of the Void.
• Ryan proposed that Gerald’s Moonlight could kill Cleric Awen by making Gerald face starvation and the loss of its wealth, honor, and future if the war continued.
• Ryan said he would negotiate with Gerald and sell them grain to keep the war going beyond the two days he had allowed; Count Pascal praised him and called his patron a demon.

Ryan used food sales to test the honor of Gerald’s Counts while ensuring their army stayed in the war, then arranged a plan to make the southern nobles and The Church send supplies. The chapter ended with Gerald’s remaining food dwindling and its leaders being told to appeal urgently for reinforcements.

• Dark-Eyed Count sent ten knights to meet Foxskin Brunamigis, who had them sign a contract before directing them to food stored at Bex Knight Estate.
• Kemon Gerald and Knight Fore found enough food at the estate to sustain the war for ten days, but found no more at other knight estates.
• Dark-Eyed Count and Golden-Eyed Count told Cleric Awen that their supplies could last about ten days, and Awen ordered another attack.
• Ryan explained to Count Pascal that he had sold food to test Gerald’s honor, not to persuade the Counts to betray Cleric Awen.
• The Crusader Atonement Army consumed five days’ worth of food on the first day of the renewed war, leaving Cleric Awen desperate for supplies.
• Foxskin Brunamigis told Kemon Gerald and the Counts to write to the southern nobles and The Church, warning that the war would fail without food.

Foxskin explained that the Church of Dawn should fund Gerald’s war, prompting Gerald’s Counts to demand more food from the south. Ryan used food and battlefield pressure to weaken the Crusader Atonement Army and planned to meet the Moonlight Knight in ten days to enlist his help against Cleric Awen.

• Foxskin told Kemon and the Gerald nobles that Gerald was fighting for its own honor and wealth rather than for Dawn, and that the Church should supply the war’s food.
• Count Zedon Dark-Eyed and the Golden-Eyed Count agreed to write to the Corland Kingdom and Church cathedrals demanding more food, despite suspecting Ryan wanted to profit from the supplies he seized.
• Egil defeated Corland soldiers, spared their knight commander, and let Gerald’s forces take part of the food carts he had captured.
• Ryan explained to Count Pascal that food would reassure the armies and slow the fighting, and predicted that the Crusaders would weaken after supplies ran out again.
• Ryan told Count Pascal he would meet the Moonlight Knight in ten days and ask him to help kill Cleric Awen, while arranging for Lord Ivy to accompany him.

Gerald’s supplies ran out after Corland Kingdom intercepted food shipments, forcing the two counts to seek provisions from Baron Ryan. Ryan refused to sell, but Brunamigis revealed that Gerald’s knights’ estates held hidden wealth and produced a captured cleric as evidence.

• Corland Kingdom’s nobles accused Gerald of colluding with the Empire and stopped sending supplies, while the two Gerald counts worried about their dwindling food stores.
• Cleric Awen demanded provisions and pressed the counts to keep the war going, but no southern food convoy arrived because Corland Kingdom had seized the shipments.
• Cleric Awen challenged the counts’ claim that Gerald had seized food from Imperial forces, and Tiffany defended Gerald’s loyalty to Dawn.
• The counts decided they had no choice but to ask Baron Ryan to sell them food, and Brunamigis relayed Ryan’s refusal.
• Brunamigis said Gerald still had hidden resources and presented a captured Church cleric after describing wealth found at knights’ estates.

Brunamigis exposed how the Church of Dawn had drained Gerald’s wealth and used its falsified grain accounts to explain the church’s supposed stores. Ryan’s political strategy drove Gerald’s churches to refuse wartime aid, and the conflict escalated when Catfolk Assassins killed priests in the night.

• Brunamigis explained that the Church of Dawn had taken Gerald’s wealth over the years, and he killed a priest after the Gerald knights offered only three hundred Gold Coins for his ransom.
• Brunamigis revealed that the church’s claimed three hundred thousand jin of grain mostly represented years of falsified transport losses, with only thirty to fifty thousand jin actually remaining.
• Ryan predicted that Gerald’s nobles would choose their duty over fear of the Church, and churches across the territory refused to provide grain to Count Gerald.
• Gerald’s knights confronted priests who refused to open their warehouses, while the priests accused them of threatening the Lord of Dawn’s faith.
• Catfolk Assassins slipped into the churches at night and killed the priests.