Chapter Summaries

Cleric Sven and the Dawn Followers reached Baron Ashton's fortress, where they gave the exhausted survivors food and protection from the Abyss. Sven explained that his mission came from a Divine Oracle to bring hope to the afflicted land, while Father Thor questioned whether they truly served the Church of Dawn.

• Sven sent Griffin Knights to search for survivors, and they spotted a fortress with humans between two mountain peaks.
• Baron Ashton hesitated to open the gates until Father Thor recognized Sven and confirmed that the newcomers were servants of the Lord of Dawn.
• Ashton told Sven that Father Thor's Divine Arts had protected the castle from Abyssal whispers and that the Armored Bear Legion had recently destroyed an army of Abyssal Servants.
• Sven learned that Commander Borgeld had advanced ahead of them and ordered a Griffin Knight to find her before the Abyssal Deities could strike.
• The Dawn Followers shared food and Divine Arts with the castle's survivors, easing their fear and exhaustion.
• Sven told Father Thor that his Divine Oracle had sent him to plant hope in the land, prompting Thor to reconsider his duties and the Church's failures.

Cleric Sven persuaded Baron Ashton to join the fight against the Abyss, while the Armored Bear Legion attacked Oren City. Grand Duke Oren revealed that he had embraced a new power and claimed it would protect his family.

• Father Thor accepted Sven's teachings about Dawn and recognized the Empire's Church of Light as part of the Lord's faith.
• Baron Ashton agreed to stay and fight the Abyss with Sven, while sending his child north under an escort guided by the Griffin.
• Sven warned Baron Ashton that the land was growing corrupted and might become the Abyssal God's divine kingdom.
• Borgeld led the Armored Bear Legion against Oren City's walls after the Oren Family refused to let her reach the Abyssal Altar.
• Grand Duke Oren stood after being unable to walk for more than a decade and declared that he had chosen a new great existence for protection.
• Grand Duke Oren's son accused him of taking refuge in the Abyss, but Oren denied serving the Abyss and revealed his purple power.

Grand Duke Oren accepted power from an Abyssal Evil God to protect the Oren Family, and Borgeld’s army breached Oren City and attacked his residence. Borgeld confronted the newly empowered grand duke, whose brief transformation exposed the corruption behind his Legendary power.

• Grand Duke Oren declared that the Oren Family had been abandoned by the Church of Dawn and said he had turned to a new faith to protect his territory from the Abyssal Invasion.
• The Armored Bear Legion smashed through Oren City’s northern wall, and Borgeld led the assault toward Grand Duke Oren’s residence.
• Borgeld’s forces pushed past Sti and his defenders, but Grand Duke Oren emerged as a Legend and used the Divine Art of Void Sinking to immobilize the Armored Bears.
• Volibear broke the spell, and Borgeld fought through the Oren knights before attacking Grand Duke Oren with Surtr’s armguard, disrupting the Abyssal power within him.
• Grand Duke Oren briefly mutated into a demonic form before suppressing it, leaving the watching army stunned.

Sti Oren rallied Oren City's collapsing defenders, but Grand Duke Oren invoked the Abyssal God and transformed his soldiers into Demon Kin. Borgeld fought the deity's projection with spiritual lightning as the Abyss threatened to consume the city, while Sti resisted and Ryan sensed the Spirit Ocean's energy disappearing.

• Sti Oren stepped into the sunlight and rallied Oren City's troops, but the Armored Bear Legion continued to slaughter them.
• Grand Duke Oren answered the approaching defeat by summoning the Abyssal God, transforming his soldiers into Demon Kin and turning part of Oren City into the deity's domain.
• Borgeld attacked Grand Duke Oren, whose body the deity controlled, and used spiritual lightning to stop the Abyssal projection from spreading further.
• The Abyssal God unleashed darkness to devour Oren City, while Sti Oren rose with his sword and resisted it in Oren's name.
• In the distant Frozen Earth Territory, Ryan felt the Spirit Ocean's energy surge away, put down his history book, and called for Brandt.

Cleric Sven learned that Oren City had vanished into a Dark Domain, while Brandt brought Ryan’s Stag Legion to Corland Royal City to confront the Abyssal threat and retrieve the missing Armored Bear Legion. Brandt took command of Corland Kingdom’s Kingdom Legion and marched south, joined by reinforcements from Sera Kingdom and Andara Kingdom.

• Baron Ashton told Cleric Sven that Oren City had become a Dark Domain and that the Abyssal God had supposedly descended upon Norris Continent.
• Brandt arrived in Corland Royal City with the Stag Legion and explained that Ryan had sent him to stop the Abyssal invasion and find the Armored Bear Legion.
• Brandt received supreme command of Corland Kingdom’s Kingdom Legion and arranged for it to support the Stag Legion’s southern campaign.
• Brandt refused command of the southern nobles’ allied army, then led the Stag Legion south while supplies from the Northlands followed.
• The Griffin Knights Legion of Sera Kingdom and the Hall Knights Legion of Andara Kingdom arrived to join the campaign, as Ryan declared that the Abyssal God would not take his followers.

The Lord of Dawn answered the believers’ prayers in Dawn City with a Divine Oracle, giving Ryan’s campaign against the Abyss religious legitimacy and inspiring a new army of Dawn Followers. As forces converged in the corrupted south, Brandt joined Cleric Sven at Ashton Barony and learned the Armored Bear Legion had been cut off by the Abyss.

• Tens of thousands of believers prayed in Dawn City, and the Lord of Dawn answered with a sacred beam and an oracle calling for a holy war against the Abyss.
• Ryan authorized the Dawn Followers to march south, and their army set out for the Corland Kingdom under his blessing.
• Brandt led the Stag Legion to Ashton Barony and told Cleric Sven that the Armored Bear Legion was trapped beyond the Abyss’s destruction of Oren City.
• Brandt explained that Ryan wanted people in the corrupted land to become Dawn Followers, and Sven declared himself a missionary who would spread Dawn’s faith.
• Baron Ashton accepted Sven’s invitation to become a Dawn Follower, while news of the Divine Oracle spread across the Norris Continent.

Emperor Columbus IV and Pope Solarian each sent forces toward the Abyssal-invaded lands in response to the Divine Oracle, while Ryan grew wary of the Church of Dawn’s renewal. The chapter left Ryan arranging for his father to delay his arrival near Oren City as he wondered whether the Lord of Dawn had truly awakened.

• Columbus IV and his nobles decided to form an army under the Imperial Second Legion and send it south to fight in the name of the God of Light, placing Count Clayton and Count Pascal in command.
• Pope Solarian rejected calls for the Church of Dawn to rule the Andara Kingdom and sent the Holy Kingdom Knights eastward to spread the faith along a new Path of Dawn.
• The Holy Kingdom Knights traveled without attacking noble territories, prompting nobles and Ryan to wonder how Solarian had changed the Church.
• Ryan told Avril that imperial and Church armies would relieve pressure on the Abyssal-invaded land, then ordered Higni to kill a few wicked people along the knights’ route.
• Ryan wrote to his father, urging him to delay the army’s arrival until the events in Oren City had ended, and questioned whether the Lord of Dawn had awakened.

Brandt used fire, Obsidian, and Loz’s spatial magic to open a gateway to the Abyssal Divine Realm, then led the Stag Legion through it toward Oren City. Inside the city, Sti Oren struggled to hold out while the Armored Bear Legion drew off the Demon army, and the chapter ended with reports that a human army had appeared outside.

• Brandt ordered fire oil and Obsidian poured into a pit at the Oren City Ruins, then had Mages intensify the flames to weaken the space.
• Loz used Magic Crystals and magical materials to open a gateway through the fire, revealing Oren City within the Abyssal Divine Realm.
• Brandt placed a boulder across the flames and led the Stag Legion through the gateway after declaring their enemy was a Deity.
• Sti Oren kept Oren City’s defenders fighting while hiding that the Demon army outside had been transformed from the city’s people.
• The Armored Bear Legion attacked Grand Duke Oren’s forces and drew the Demon army away from the city, giving Sti’s people time to hold out.
• A soldier told Sti that a human army had appeared outside Oren City.

Brandt’s Stag Legion and the Corland Kingdom Legion arrived in the Abyssal Divine Kingdom to rescue the beleaguered Armored Bear Legion. As the armies attacked the Demons and Sti led Oren’s soldiers into battle, the Armored Bear Legion surged out to meet Brandt’s advance while Grand Duke Oren threatened Borgeld.

• Sti saw Brandt’s Stag Legion charge through the Demons outside Oren City and point toward the Armored Bears.
• Brandt’s cavalry crushed the demon forces, then followed Sti’s directions toward the Armored Bear Legion.
• Ryan’s Spirituality energy sustained the Armored Bear Legion as Borgeld fought Grand Duke Oren, who had gained a Deity’s authority.
• Borgeld heard that Brandt had arrived and led the Rampaging Warbears in a lightning-charged charge against the Demons.
• Brandt drove his Stag Legion toward the Armored Bears while Garick and Sven led the Corland Kingdom Legion into battle under holy radiance.
• Sti led Oren’s soldiers out of the city, hoping the Lord of Dawn’s light would prove the Oren Family’s faith.

After the Corland army entered Oren City, Sven led the Dawn Followers in purifying its Abyss-tainted streets and comforting survivors. He judged the Church of Morning Radiance for protecting its cathedral while leaving the city’s believers exposed, then took control of the cathedral after its clergy were destroyed by divine light.

• Sti welcomed Garick and the Corland army into Oren City, and Garick explained that the Stag Legion came from Baron Ryan’s territory.
• Sven led the Dawn Followers through the city, spreading purification light as frightened residents watched from their homes.
• Sven and the Dawn Knights found human survivors turned into Demon servants, destroyed them, and comforted a man whose family had lost their souls.
• Sven confronted the Archbishop of the Church of Morning Radiance for keeping protective candles at the cathedral instead of distributing them to the city’s believers.
• Sven invoked a beam of judgment that reduced the cathedral’s clergy to ashes, then took control of the cathedral in Dawn’s name.

Cleric Sven purified Oren City while Grand Duke Oren secretly sought to contact Ryan, as the city’s defenders watched an army fight the Abyssal Evil God. Borgeld used the Gram Sword Sheath to awaken the Frost Lord, whose strike wounded the Evil God before Ryan’s Spirit Domain absorbed the Frost Lord’s remaining will and recognized Borgeld as his subject.

• Cleric Sven demanded the Oren Family’s grain, while Grand Duke Oren asked why the city had been swallowed by the Abyssal Divine Realm.
• Grand Duke Oren asked Garick to help him contact Ryan secretly, then sent five Griffin Knights with a letter after learning Sven was Ryan’s godson.
• Grand Duke Oren saw arrows rising toward the Deity’s projection and hurried to Oren City Cathedral to send his message to Ryan.
• Brandt considered using the Gram Sword Sheath against either the Evil God’s projection or the demonized Grand Duke Oren as the armies faced overwhelming odds.
• Borgeld took the Gram Sword Sheath and stabbed it into Volibear’s paw, channeling its power to summon the Frost Lord.
• The Frost Lord tore through the Evil God’s domain with a lightning strike, then gave Volibear a bead of blood before Ryan absorbed its remaining will and recognized Borgeld as a subject of his Spirit Domain.

Ryan demanded that Grand Duke Oren spread the Dawn Doctrine in exchange for his help, while Oren City’s survivors prepared to flee the void Divine Kingdom. As the procession reached the gateway, the Abyssal Evil God returned, forcing the evacuation into a race against time.

• Ryan learned that his spirituality reserves were nearly exhausted, then wrote to Grand Duke Oren that the Dawn Doctrine must spread across the land called Dawn.
• Grand Duke Oren and Garick welcomed the returning Stag and Armored Bear Legions to Oren City, where Sven’s Dawn Followers comforted the civilians.
• Brandt warned Grand Duke Oren that everyone had to leave the void Divine Kingdom by the next day, and Oren agreed after asking for half a day to gather the family’s possessions.
• Grand Duke Oren killed more than seventy percent of the servants in his estate while the Dawn Followers aided the civilians, many of whom embraced the Dawn Doctrine.
• Borgeld counted her Armored Bear Legion, worried about its casualties, and asked Brandt to tell Sven to share responsibility for their losses.
• Brandt sensed that the Abyssal Evil God had returned, ordered the procession to hurry toward the gateway, and Borgeld said the enemy was still some distance away.

Brandt and the fleeing forces escaped the Void as an Evil God pursued them, then joined a vast human army blessed by Sven and the Lord of Dawn to fight the Demon Kin in the Norris Continent. As the Demons poured through a vast breach, Brandt opened a Rift and ordered the armies to drive them south.

• Grand Duke Oren, the civilians, and the legions passed through the spatial gate while Sven warned Brandt that the Abyss invasion would continue in the Norris Continent.
• The Evil God appeared before Brandt as the gate closed, and Brandt shattered it with Ash Annihilation Vortex Sea before escaping through the Void.
• Brandt discovered the Griffin Legion, Dawn Followers, and Andara Kingdom army waiting beyond the Void, while Sven blessed the assembled forces with the Light of Hope.
• Grand Duke Oren swore that his family would follow the Lord of Dawn, and Brandt led the human armies against Demon Kin emerging from the shattered Void.
• After the Demon Kin flooded into the Norris Continent, Brandt ordered a retreat and followed Lord Ryan's instruction to drive them south, opening a Rift with the Gram Sword Sheath.

Ryan and Count Clayton discussed Emperor Columbus IV’s ambitions and the Empire’s growing reliance on its legions, while Ryan explained why he feared the Emperor’s claim to divine authority. Count Clayton revealed that dwindling Knight Life Potion production had driven the nobles to support a stronger imperial army, and Ryan dismissed the problem as unrelated to him.

• Ryan’s mother and other Imperial Legion officers visited the prosperous Frozen Earth Territory, and Ryan credited its growth to a great existence’s blessing.
• Count Clayton asked Ryan to delay the Imperial Legion’s advance and discussed the Emperor’s bid to become Grand Pope of Light; Ryan argued that royal and divine authority could not truly be equal.
• Ryan explained that he feared the Emperor might claim the Divine Oracle in Dawn City and absorb the Dawn Followers into the Church of Light, but learned Columbus IV was seeking divine favor rather than asserting imperial authority over it.
• Count Clayton said the great nobles supported the Imperial Legions because they needed a powerful Empire to oppose the Church of Dawn while remaining unable to defy the Deities.
• Count Clayton revealed that Knight Life Potion production in Neichiu Province had fallen by half in ten years, prompting Ryan to remark that the shortage had nothing to do with him.

Grand Duke Oren sought help rebuilding Oren City, while Ryan negotiated conditions with the kingdoms and agreed to support the effort so long as the war remained the priority. After Count Clayton departed to compete for influence in the region, Ryan learned the invading Abyssal Evil God had entered the Norris Continent through circumstances connected to Surtr and had detected spirituality.

• Grand Duke Oren refused Garick’s offer to relocate to Corland Kingdom and asked the allied commanders to help rebuild Oren City, promising his family’s support and wealth.
• Otto, Brandt, and Sven said they lacked authority to approve Oren’s request, so Sven agreed to seek Baron Ryan’s instructions.
• Ryan secured demands from the kingdoms, including Sera Kingdom’s request that Oren affirm its legitimacy and Andara Kingdom’s demand for mines, then agreed to help rebuild without compromising the war effort.
• Count Clayton warned Ryan that the Empire planned to spread the Church of Light in the region, while Ryan said the Church of Dawn would soon arrive and break the Empire’s blockade.
• Ryan learned from Brandt that the Abyssal Evil God had found a way into the Norris Continent because of circumstances involving Surtr, and that it had detected spirituality.

Count Clayton’s Light Faith Legion defeated the Abyss Demons at Baron Avens’s castle, replaced the local Dawn clergy, and brought the Baron under the Empire’s influence. At the Northern Kingdom Knight Academy, Ryan explained how humanity might contain the Abyss invasion, then challenged his students’ assumption that the Dawn and Light forces would cooperate.

• Count Clayton’s Dragon and the Empire’s cavalry destroyed the Demon army surrounding Aven’s Castle, and Baron Avens welcomed the rescuers as believers of the Light.
• Commander Clayton ordered General Augustus Fleming to judge the inactive Dawn clergy, who were executed as Light Cultists purified their blood and took over the church.
• Baron Avens accepted imperial aid and pledged respect to Emperor Flor, though he feared the Empire’s army might be more dangerous than the Demons.
• Ryan discussed the Abyss war with his students and explained that Extraordinary Legions could lose because they imitated Divine Kin.
• Ryan said human armies needed to confine the Demons to Oren City and suppress Abyss Church believers, then questioned whether the Dawn and Light armies could work together.

Ryan taught the knight cadets to consider how the Empire and the Church might lose the struggle to spread their faith, pointing to the land’s vastness, its population, and the interests of its nobles. Meanwhile, Garde Meyers’s Imperial force rescued a noble family and demanded that its territory abandon Dawn for the God of Light, leaving the Empire’s coercive preaching underway.

• Ryan challenged the knight cadets to consider how their opponents could lose and explained that the land’s scale, population, and nobles’ competing interests could undermine the Empire and the Church.
• Ryan told the cadets to think through those factors and return in a week with their own answers.
• Garde Meyers’s two-hundred-man force defeated demons and found a noble family fleeing amid the dead.
• Garde asked the noble family to accept the God of Light, and the nobleman said that his family followed the Lord of Dawn.
• Garde declared that the territory’s people would become believers of the God of Light and prepared to root out alleged fallen followers of the Church of Dawn.
• Imperial forces and Light clergy continued arriving in Zero Crossing City, taking over Church of Morning Radiance buildings and renaming them Churches of Light.

The Holy Kingdom Knights reached the Abyss-corrupted Thousand Lakes Region and helped defend Vera Fortress while Knight Damon learned about the local crisis. Duchess Vera and the other nobles concealed that Abyss Church cultists had emerged from their own families, and she suggested the Empire had killed the region’s clergy.

• Knight Damon led the Holy Kingdom Knights through the Abyss-tainted land toward Duke Vera's Territory, where Duchess Vera had agreed to support the Church of Dawn.
• The nobles of the Thousand Lakes Region crowded into five castles as Abyss monsters and cultists threatened their territories and family inheritances.
• Duchess Vera and the nobles agreed to hide the cultists’ ties to their families and avoid distracting Knight Damon from fighting the Abyss.
• Knight Damon and the Holy Kingdom Knights fought the Demons outside Vera Fortress, then entered the castle after the battle ended at noon.
• Knight Damon asked why the local clergy were absent, and Duchess Vera suggested that the Empire’s army had killed many of them.

Knight Damon led the Holy Kingdom Knights in a brutal purge of Abyssal Cultists across Duchess Vera’s lands, stripping her of authority as her own family’s corruption was exposed. As the Church of Dawn’s forces advanced, Isaac commanded the surviving Cultists to spread the Abyss Church’s faith and prepare a sacrifice to Surtr.

• Duchess Vera told Damon that the Empire had forced nobles to follow the Church of Light, and Damon resolved to restore faith in Dawn by judging the nobles’ devotion.
• Damon blessed Vera, then entered Vera Fortress with hundreds of Holy Kingdom Knights, whose divine power exposed and burned hidden Cultists before the assembled nobles.
• Damon ordered a purge of every heretic, and the Holy Kingdom Knights swept through Vera’s territories, exposing Cultists in House Vera and destroying the duchess’s prestige.
• Abyssal Cultists gathered in hiding, admitted they could not defeat the Holy Kingdom Knights, and sought a leader after their people lost places to hide.
• Isaac’s divine oracle ordered the Cultists to sacrifice Surtr, the Giants’ leader of Twilight, and to spread the Abyssal Lord’s faith in return for power.

Borgeld waited impatiently for war while Brandt focused on rescuing nobles and spreading the Dawn faith. In Acosta Viscounty, Viscount Ilo Acosta sacrificed his people to Isaac, prompting a battle between Holy Kingdom Knights and Imperial soldiers, while Dawn Followers entered the fighting to aid the wounded.

• Borgeld stopped trying to turn the sapling into a weapon after Ryan asked for it to be returned, but refused to leave the front while Brandt delayed the campaign south.
• Viscount Acosta emerged from his study transformed by the Abyss and declared that his territory would serve Isaac, ordering his soldiers to gather the people for sacrifice.
• Viscount Acosta sacrificed his wife and the people of Acosta Viscounty, while his heir condemned him and was overcome by the Abyss.
• Holy Kingdom Knights purified the mist and killed Viscount Acosta, but Imperial cavalry arrived and accused them of heresy, and the two forces charged into battle.
• A dozen Dawn Followers walked onto the battlefield, knelt among the dead, prayed for their souls, and gave food and water to the wounded.