Chapter Summaries

Ryan revealed that he had helped provoke the deaths of priests in Gerald territory and offered to resolve the resulting crisis. At Moonlight Manor, he asked Knight Tiffany to save Gerald by helping the counts turn the coming war in their favor.

• After clergy and Gerald soldiers died in a violent clash, the Dark-Eyed Count ordered Knight Reck to seal the town and hide the news from Cleric Awen.
• Ryan met Kemon Gerald on the road, told him his father was at Moonlight Manor, and escorted him there while Brandt restrained Knight Fore.
• Ryan admitted that people he had sent had killed some priests, while Gerald's own people had killed the others, and argued that the priests had provoked their victims.
• At Moonlight Manor, Ryan told the counts that he could defeat Gerald and leave it vulnerable to the Empire and the Andara Kingdom.
• Ryan appealed to Knight Tiffany to save Gerald as he had saved its bloodline and dignity a century earlier.

Ryan persuaded Gerald to join the Empire’s side, and Knight Tiffany attacked Cleric Awen as the Stag Legion entered the battlefield. Count Pascal then used the agate to make Awen vanish, leaving the Crusaders in disarray.

• Ryan was confined at Moonlight Manor after asking Knight Tiffany to help kill Cleric Awen, while the Gerald counts debated whether to side with the Empire or the Church.
• Melan Gerald convinced the Dark-Eyed Count that Gerald had to pursue victory, citing their lack of food and the death of his son Mostain at the hands of a Church priest.
• Ryan revealed that his army had already marched toward the battlefield, secured the Gerald counts’ oath with his own blood, and urged Knight Tiffany to depart.
• The Witch Ghost Legion and Gargoyle Legion launched a major assault as Ivy joined the battle, and Knight Tiffany arrived and struck Cleric Awen from behind.
• The Stag Legion charged under Gerald’s banner, and Gerald’s soldiers turned against the Crusaders as reports spread that their granaries were burning.
• Knight Tiffany shattered Awen’s divine arts with an ancient sword technique, and Count Pascal made Awen and the ground beneath him disappear with the agate.

Ryan secured Gerald’s alliance with the Empire and negotiated a trade road with Andara Kingdom before traveling toward the Imperial Capital for his reward. Along the way, he learned that Grand Duke Rodriguez’s plan for a Mage Association was stirring political conflict among the Empire’s nobles and mages.

• Ryan and Count Pascal secured Gerald’s support for the Empire, while Ryan promised grain and Life Potions and later negotiated a trade road linking Andara Royal City with Gerald Territory.
• Loren Columbus abandoned his complaints against Count Pascal and praised the nobles’ united efforts after Sera Kingdom withdrew its troops and King Adams celebrated the victory.
• Ryan told King Adams that Gerald’s alliance would prevent Sera Kingdom from threatening Andara Kingdom and proposed a profitable road, which the King approved.
• Count Pascal explained that the Church of Dawn would need another southern war to restore the Pope’s authority, while fighting had already erupted in Thousand Lakes Province.
• Ryan predicted that the Emperor would not raise his title because no suitable land remained, then began traveling to the Imperial Capital with Avril and Beard.
• Ryan and Avril discussed Grand Duke Rodriguez’s proposed Mage Association, its appeal to struggling mages, and the history of wars between mage groups over resources and ideals.

Ryan arrived in the Imperial Capital amid the Empire’s brutal southern war and met Emperor Columbus III and Elector Volvo, disagreeing with them over the campaign. The next day, the Emperor publicly honored Ryan for his northern victory, and Ryan received a genuine blessing of light.

• Avril told Ryan how the old Life Magic conflict between Ivy and Blood God ended in war, with Ivy winning the battle but Blood God’s faction dominating Life Magic research afterward.
• Ryan entered the Imperial Capital and learned that public reports of southern victories concealed enormous casualties and a fierce struggle against the Church of Dawn.
• Ryan had breakfast with Columbus III and Volvo, declined to advise on the southern campaign, and said the Empire should not fight its wars on Imperial land.
• Ryan visited his shop and prepared to attend the palace ceremony, where the Emperor planned to announce his northern victory and reward him.
• Columbus III praised Ryan before the gathered nobles and citizens, and Ryan received a genuine divine blessing in the name of the God of Light.

Ryan visited Grand Duke Fleming and learned that dwindling Life Potion ingredients threatened the Empire’s ability to sustain its war in the South. As the nobles argued over whether to continue the war, they pressured the Magic Academy to produce mages capable of countering the Church’s Divine Arts.

• Ryan met Grand Duke Fleming and Countess Blade Rose in the Imperial Capital, where Fleming warned that the South war was unsustainable as Life Potion production declined.
• Fleming blamed the sea demons’ growing power for the Empire’s naval defeat and predicted that the Empire would lose its war against the Church.
• Countess Blade Rose said the Emperor wanted her to lead the Mountain Rock Legion south, but she wanted to learn how the fighting was going before risking her troops.
• Ryan realized that several powerful nobles supported the war for their own ambitions, leaving the Empire caught between pressure to continue fighting and pressure to stop.
• Imperial citizens flocked to the Magic Academy while nobles debated the war, and they demanded that mages deliver direct power against the Church’s Divine Arts.
• The nobles threatened to reduce funding for the Magic Academy, leaving the Grand Mages under pressure to produce results.

Ryan watched Mage Peacock demonstrate a blizzard that blanketed the Imperial Capital, then learned how the Empire planned to use it in the southern war. At the nobles’ meeting, he challenged a proposal to send the Northlands armies to the front and exposed the political struggle over who would bear the war’s heaviest losses.

• Ryan accompanied Avril to Mage Peacock’s demonstration and recognized that her snowfall was meant to impress the Empire’s nobles.
• Mage Peacock’s magic covered more than half the Imperial Capital, and the blizzard lasted for three days.
• Ryan attended the Council of Elders and learned that a magic array powered by six mages could sustain the snowfall for up to thirty days.
• Chrysos explained that the nobles wanted the Northlands armies to use the snow to advance into the Carlos Kingdom.
• Ryan warned that the depleted Northlands armies might lose against human forces, opposing Chrysos’s plan to place them on the bloodiest front.

Ryan rejected Chrysus’s effort to commit Northlands armies to the southern war and later helped evaluate mages competing for Grand Mage Macken’s vacant tower. He recognized Mage Lyman’s Shadowwood Mycelium as a Spiritual Plant and supported testing its power against the Church’s priests.

• Ryan argued that the six Northlands provinces had suffered heavy losses and pressed Chrysus to specify how many troops they should send to the southern war.
• Chrysus declined to name a troop commitment, and the nobles watched the political confrontation between him and Ryan.
• Ryan met Grand Duke Fleming and four mages seeking support for the vacant Mage Tower, including Mage Lyman of Forest Rhythm.
• Grand Duke Fleming exposed that Lyman had made a pact with an Abyssal Demon, while Lyman demonstrated Shadowwood Mycelium that could attack hearts and channel Abyssal power.
• Ryan said the mycelium could help counter the Church’s priests, and Grand Duke Fleming offered to recommend Lyman for the tower if he proved its usefulness.
• Ryan sensed that the Shadowwood Mycelium had the familiar presence of a Spiritual Plant.

Ryan learned from Mage Lyman about the Woodlands, the powerful Night Elves, and a mysterious disaster in the East Coast sea, then warned Lyman to stay within Imperial borders if he went south. Meanwhile, the nobles argued over escalating the war into the Carlos Kingdom, and Ryan suspected the Empire’s leaders were preparing their next move.

• Ryan asked Mage Lyman about the Woodlands, and Lyman described its four regions, the elves’ long lifespans, and the Night Elves’ ambition to rule the world.
• Lyman explained that the Night Elves worshipped a fallen elven deity and commanded formidable Fallen Valkyries, then revealed that a massive tide had appeared off the East Coast before the previous Divine Grace Festival.
• Ryan advised Mage Lyman not to cross the Empire’s borders or enter the Carlos Kingdom if he went south for the war.
• Count Castro, Grand Duke Mayers, and Grand Duke Rodriguez argued in Florian Palace for continuing the war and taking it into the Carlos Kingdom, while opposing nobles resisted sharing the costs.
• Ryan connected the nobles’ debate to a possible plan by Emperor Florian, Grand Duke Rodriguez, and Elector Volvo, drawing on Count Pascal’s report that Otis Brooks had sent him one million Gold Coins.

Emperor Columbus III arranged rewards for Ryan, granting him fortress materials instead of a promotion and recognizing his role in choosing a candidate for the Magic Academy’s vacant Mage Tower. He then announced plans to invade the Kingdom of Carlos and remove its royal family, asking Ryan about the Carlos bloodline as the chapter ended.

• Emperor Columbus III proposed raising Ryan’s rank, but Grand Duke Fleming argued that Northwind Province had no land for another great noble and suggested building Ryan a fortress instead.
• Ryan asked the Empire to provide construction materials while Northwind Province’s nobles supplied the labor, and Columbus III agreed.
• Ryan recommended Saint Domain Mage Leman for the Magic Academy’s vacant Mage Tower, while the nobles debated the southern war and the role of mages.
• Columbus III declared that Cradock would invade the Kingdom of Carlos, seize its lands, and exile its royal family, whom he called usurpers.
• Columbus III asked Ryan what he knew about the Carlos bloodline and the four great nobles who had opposed the Sera Kingdom’s royal family during its founding war.

At the Imperial gathering, Columbus III recognized Count Olsen as the Carlos bloodline’s claimant and rallied nobles to support a war against the Carlos Kingdom, while promising to restore Otis Brooks’s title and lands. Ryan remained wary of the Southern War and planned to return north after handling the Emperor’s reward and the Northern Kingdom’s Braveheart Guild.

• Columbus III welcomed Count Olsen, who pledged the future Carlos kingdom’s loyalty and promised land and wealth to nobles who helped restore it.
• The Emperor called for war against the Carlos Kingdom and announced that he would restore Otis Brooks’s noble title and lands at Tares Plain.
• Ryan learned that Count Olsen had sought aid across the South before joining Elector Floyd Columbus, and concluded Olsen was now tied to the Empire.
• Count Pascal urged Ryan to join the Southern War, but Ryan agreed only to send troops to support his father, Clayton, and persuaded Pascal to send slave armies instead of his main forces.
• Ryan prepared to oversee the delivery of fortress-building materials and to address the lack of adventurers in the Northern Kingdom’s Braveheart Guild.

Ryan persuaded Elector Volvo to back the Northern Kingdom's Braveheart Guild in the South, using the postwar fortunes of dispossessed nobles to build wealth and political influence. On the southern battlefield, Mage Roman's corps was ambushed by the Church of Dawn, and the mages and Imperial knights were forced into battle against the Holy Light Knights.

• Ryan gave Volvo one hundred thousand Gold Coins as his share of the Northern Kingdom's Braveheart Guild's profits and described the riches waiting in the Northlands.
• Ryan proposed that Volvo help expand the guild after the Southern War by turning dispossessed nobles into adventurers seeking wealth in the Northlands, and Volvo agreed to work with him.
• Mage Roman arrived in the South and warned the inexperienced mages that they would be safe behind the Empire's elite knights and Light Shepherd Stuart.
• The Church of Dawn attacked the Mage Corps with Holy Radiance, shattering Stuart's golden barrier and sending arrows of light toward the mages.
• Mage Lyman raised a phantom canopy to protect the corps as Imperial knights charged the Church's army, whose soldiers were empowered by priests' sacrifice.

Ryan encountered Nidhogg’s desperate Dragon Spirit and let it enter his Spirituality Panel, completing his conquest of the world and opening the way to another Otherworld. As winter deepened in Frozen Earth Territory, Ryan led an expedition through a newly opened Planar Gate, unsettled by a sudden, supernatural chill.

• Ryan returned to Nidhogg, noticed ripples in the sky, and realized the hidden presence was the world’s newborn Dragon Spirit, deprived of the faith Ryan’s Spirituality Panel had absorbed.
• Ryan allowed the Dragon Spirit to enter his Spirituality Panel, where it swam among the panel’s lines; Nidhogg then felt fully conquered, and Ryan sensed that a passage to another Otherworld would soon open.
• Ryan arranged Nidhogg’s grain harvest and the migration of its people to Frozen Earth Territory, while residents there prepared for worsening blizzards and cold.
• Ryan woke one night feeling an unusually deep chill, then gathered Brandt, Borgeld, and a hundred companions to investigate through a Planar Gate.
• Ryan led the party through the gate after scouts confirmed the other side was safe, wondering why new worlds always seemed to open in winter.

Ryan searched a frozen mountain world for signs of civilization and eventually found Griff, a falconer who raised the eagles. Griff told Ryan he was the only person left alive in the world, leaving Ryan with a new mystery to investigate.

• Ryan sent scouts across the frozen mountains, but they found no humans or beasts.
• Ryan oversaw construction of the Northern Great Wall while continuing to search the new world.
• Egil used White Wolves to lure an eagle, allowing Ryan, Egil, Brandt, and Brock to track it to a hidden mountain fissure.
• Ryan melted the snow covering the fissure, and Brandt drove out the nine eagles inside without killing them.
• Ryan caught Griff after he came to investigate, and Griff said he had discovered Ryan's scouts more than a month earlier.
• Griff explained that he had traveled the world with his eagles and claimed he was the only person left alive.

Ryan learned that Griff was the last human in Hresvelgr World and helped him fight the Abyssal Kin threatening the dead world. After Ryan’s forces steadily defeated the monsters, a powerful legendary Abyssal creature emerged, forcing Ryan to order a retreat.

• Griff explained that the Abyssal Demons had petrified his people seventeen years earlier, leaving him and the eagles as the only survivors in Hresvelgr World.
• Ryan agreed to help Griff drive away the Abyssal Kin, and Griff enlisted the eagles to locate the monsters.
• After Griff lured the Abyssal Kin into separate groups, Ryan sent the Stag Legion and Borgeld’s forces through the Planar Gate to attack them.
• Ryan’s army fought through the night and killed more than ten thousand Abyssal Monsters, then continued defeating them in stages over the following days.
• After Ryan completed Griff’s Spirituality Blessing, a legendary Abyssal Monster emerged from a collapsed mountain, and Ryan ordered his army to retreat.

Ryan summoned Legendary Mage Aven to capture the Abyssal Monster in Hresvelgr World, then learned that its Bonefields might contain valuable relics and resources. When ghouls appeared and one resisted Ryan’s divine light, he concluded that Hobii of the Ghouls had entered the world and began preparing to call on Surtr.

• Ryan invited Aven to Frozen Earth Territory, and Aven arrived two days later to confront the Abyssal Monster.
• Aven used his Immortal Ivy and Mage Tower to suppress and capture the monster, then offered to help Ryan study similar lifeforms in the future.
• Griff explained that the monster had been born from a Bonefield, and he agreed to search the world for its hidden relics and eagles.
• Griff brought Ryan treasures from Bonefields and later reported that ghouls had appeared there.
• Ryan tested a captured ghoul with Morning Radiance Holy Light and saw that it carried Hobii of the Ghouls’ divine gift.
• Ryan ordered Griff and Borgeld to hunt the ghouls while he returned to Frozen Earth Territory and prepared a sacrifice to Surtr.

Ryan waited for news of Hobii while Griff and Borgeld explored a Bonefield and uncovered the Blood Eagle Feather, which awakened Hobii and drew them into his kingdom. As Borgeld and the knights fought the ghouls, Ryan located Hobii and tore open the kingdom with lightning, leading the Stag Legion in an attack.

• Griff led Borgeld and the knights to a Bonefield, where they defeated its ghouls and Griff found eternal Emerald Daggers.
• Griff uncovered a Forbidden Hoard containing the Blood Eagle Feather of Vidopnir, and Hobii appeared from the black mist.
• Hobii spread his kingdom over the area, turning one knight into a ghoul and sending an army of ghouls against Borgeld and the surviving knights.
• Borgeld and Volibear fought the ghouls while Borgeld's strength rose through their mutual power, but the knights gradually fell under the unending assault.
• Ryan called Hobii's name, found his location, and tore open the dark kingdom with lightning.
• Ryan ordered the Stag Legion to attack, and its knights charged into Hobii's kingdom.

Ryan rescued Borgeld from Hobii’s realm, but lost the Gram Sword when he trapped the deity with it. After Hobii departed, Ryan claimed the Blood Eagle Feather, awakened a Blood Hawk, and ordered the Bonefield cleared of ghouls.

• Ryan led the Stag Legion into Hobii’s realm and stabbed Hobii with the Gram Sword, using the Gram Scabbard to keep the blade embedded in the deity’s heart.
• Ryan and his army reached Borgeld, who had fought alone after her companions died, and brought her out as Hobii’s realm faded.
• Griff reported that the fallen Knight Retainers had not returned, and Ryan promised them gravestones in the Frozen Earth Territory.
• Ryan learned the Blood Eagle Feather could grant Hawk Spirit’s Blessing and evolve hawks into Blood Hawks, then used it to transform a hawk.
• Ryan ordered Brandt to clear the Bonefield of ghouls, while Griff left to find more hawks and train hawk hunters.
• Ryan realized the Gram Sword remained trapped in Hobii’s heart and lamented its loss.

Ryan received Count Pascal’s report on the Empire’s costly southern war, while Mage Lyman learned how brutal the fighting was and used his Shadowwood Mycelium to help break The Church’s forces. Lyman and the mages pursued the advancing battle, believing it could bring about a Legend and strengthen the Empire’s Mage Association.

• Ryan read Count Pascal’s letter listing the war’s casualties and destruction, and understood that the brief report concealed the full horrors of the conflict.
• Mage Lyman saw how priests, Holy Light Knights, and noble armies dominated the battlefield, and watched Mage Towers unleash devastating magic.
• Count Stirling recruited Lyman and supplied Magic Crystals, then led his Arcane Legion in a Dawn attack that pierced The Church’s defenses.
• Lyman spread Shadowwood Mycelium through the enemy ranks and later activated it, causing priests and knights to collapse into chaos as the Empire’s army advanced.
• Mages following Grand Duke Rodriguez cried out that a Legend could emerge from the war, and Lyman joined them in pursuing the battle.

The Empire’s army swept through the Carlos Kingdom after its victory over the Church, while nobles used the war to seize land and challenge King Carlos’s bloodline. As the Empire paused near the royal city, the Church regrouped there, and King Carlos recognized Knight Kiartil among its arriving forces.

• The Empire committed more support to the Southern War, and Count Olsen’s claim to the Carlos Bloodline intensified pressure on King Carlos.
• King Carlos learned that the Empire had entered his kingdom and that its army was capturing noble territories, while Crown Prince Ekdal Carlos urged him to focus on resistance.
• Archbishop Sala assured the King that Holy Mountain would send support, then fled toward it overnight, fearing the Empire’s advance.
• The Empire’s army swept across the Carlos Kingdom as nobles and Wandering Nobles seized land and killed those who resisted.
• The Empire halted near the royal city, where nobles from both sides traded accusations over their histories and bloodlines and fought duels.
• The Church of Dawn regrouped in Carlos Royal City, and King Carlos greeted Knight Kiartil with unease.

The Church of Dawn’s Temple Warrior Legion arrived in the Carlos Kingdom, and the Empire and Church began a massive battle on the plains before the royal capital. Count Clayton and Kiartiel fought as the two armies collided, while Elector Floyd charged the Cardinal Archbishop Ta Walter; the Imperial army then advanced under Kral’s order.

• Kiartiel brought thirty thousand Temple Warriors to the Carlos Kingdom, and the Empire chose a satellite city before the royal capital as the battlefield.
• Imperial Mage Towers destroyed the satellite city, and the Temple Warriors charged as Count Clayton led the Flamedragon Knights against them.
• Kiartiel used the divine art Heavenly Kingdom to suppress Count Clayton’s flames, but Clayton’s Sword of the World-Burning Curtain cracked the domain.
• The Temple Warriors invoked Radiance and battered the Flamedragon Knights, while the other armies joined battle across the plains.
• Floyd recognized Cardinal Archbishop Ta Walter, accused him of being the dead Cardinal’s son, and charged him as Ta Walter vowed revenge.
• Kral ordered the entire Imperial army to attack, sending hundreds of thousands of soldiers into the battle.