Chapter Summaries

After the Battle of the Valley of Mist, Ryan learned that the Church of Dawn’s forces included soldiers from an Otherworld Plane and planned to gather information on their movements. He visited the King of Nant and advised him to summon the kingdom’s nobles to the royal city, hoping to use the war to reclaim royal authority.

• The Church of Dawn and the empire withdrew from the Valley of Mist after heavy losses, and Ryan learned that the Church had brought its soldiers there using Eternity’s divinity.
• Ryan and Aatrox identified the captured soldiers’ homeland, Daogu Kingdom, as an Otherworld Plane, and Ryan warned that the Church’s armies in the South might be larger than they knew.
• Ryan told Count Clayton that the Church’s other forces and the neighboring nobles’ neutrality made the war harder to manage, then ordered more scouts south.
• Ryan entered Nant Royal City and told the King of Nant that the Church of Dawn had persuaded his nobles to remain neutral and undermine his authority.
• Ryan advised the king to summon the nobles’ armies to the royal city in the name of protecting him, then use the crisis to regain command and build support among overlooked southern nobles.

Ryan and the Nant King forced the Nant nobles to answer the King's summons and built an allied army to face the Church of Dawn. The southern nobles arrived first, Wicks Logan was named supreme commander, and Count Vaughn became his deputy as Ryan prepared them to confront the approaching church army.

• The Nant King asked Count Clayton to send imperial troops against nobles who ignored his orders, and imperial knights arrested more than thirty of them.
• Ryan made the captured nobles write orders for their armies to march, using Count Vaughn's ring to authenticate his letter.
• Wicks Logan arrived with the southern Noble Allied Army, and the Nant King named him supreme commander once the other armies arrived.
• Ryan learned from Wicks that the Church of Dawn's massive army was near the Lint River and was led by Saint Charles.
• Ryan made Count Vaughn deputy commander and warned him that he would have to prove his loyalty against the Church of Dawn.

Ryan killed Archbishop Albright after disrupting the Church of Dawn’s camp, then returned to help Count Clayton launch a surprise attack. The battle began with Expatio commanding the Church’s forces and facing Aatrox, Clayton, and two dragons.

• Ryan and Count Clayton discussed how the Holy Son of Dawn might use the war to gain power and influence.
• Archbishop Albright waited for the Holy Son, planned to let Dean bear blame for failure, and secretly prayed to obtain Divine Essence.
• Ryan led soldiers into the Church of Dawn’s camp to poison its river, then attacked Albright’s church and escaped after Expatio intervened.
• Ryan returned under cover of night and killed Albright, then destroyed the slope as he fled from Expatio.
• The Florian Empire launched a surprise assault the next morning while Ryan remained in Nant Royal City to keep the King and nobles from changing sides.
• Expatio took command of the Church’s forces, but Aatrox and Clayton’s two dragons forced him onto the defensive, and he burned his life force rather than retreat.

The Imperial Army entered Nant Royal City to avoid further losses while Ryan and Count Clayton weighed how to survive the Church of Dawn’s superior forces. At dawn, the Holy Son of Dawn began a vast attack on the city with a newly formed sun.

• The Holy Son of Dawn and the Holy Light Knights reinforced the Church army, and their cavalry clashed with the Imperial Legions until nightfall.
• Ryan proposed slaughtering the Church forces in the Valley of Mist, but Count Clayton rejected the plan and they considered retreating to Nant Royal City or removing its King.
• The Imperial Army feigned an attack and entered Nant Royal City, while Saint Charlie allowed them to take refuge inside.
• Ryan imposed restrictions on the city’s residents and arranged guards for the King as he suspected the Church was preparing a larger assault.
• At dawn, the Holy Son of Dawn absorbed the first sunlight and formed a new sun that began swallowing Nant Royal City in blinding radiance.

Ryan escaped Nant Royal City as divine power destroyed it, then ordered the Nant Kingdom burned and stripped of resources so the Church of Dawn could not use it. As the scorched-earth campaign spread and Higni advanced into a new power, Count Clayton reached the emperor with the remnants of the Imperial Second Legion and was ordered to fight on with his noble army.

• Ryan broke open Nant Royal City’s eastern wall, then made the King of Nant declare the kingdom’s nobles traitors before killing Wicks Logan and escaping with Borgeld as divine power erased the city.
• Ryan told Count Clayton he would burn the Nant Kingdom so the Church of Dawn’s million-strong army would lack supplies, and enlisted Flame Dragon Christman to attack noble territories.
• Christman and Higni set noble estates ablaze, while Arryris froze rivers and Ryan’s mages dug up groundwater; the fires spread across the kingdom and Higni awakened a dark power, advancing into legend.
• The King of Nant announced that more than a hundred nobles had betrayed him, and fleeing nobles found neighboring lords unwilling to shelter them.
• Count Clayton led the surviving Imperial Second Legion north to meet Floyd, who ordered him to fight for the empire with his noble army until the legion could be rebuilt.

Count Clayton and Ryan prepared the Florian Empire’s forces for war against the Church of Dawn, while the empire’s scorched-earth campaign left Saint Charlie struggling to feed and shelter Nant’s refugees. The chapter ended with Saint Charlie learning that Emperor Columbus had entered Nant in person.

• Count Clayton told Ryan that the emperor intended to kill the Holy Son of Dawn, draw Solarian from the Holy Mountain, and seize Church-controlled Otherworldly Planes to replenish the empire’s dwindling resources.
• Ryan trained arriving imperial troops as Count Clayton explained that many of the empire’s Otherworldly Planes were dying and that Dawn’s sun-powered territories remained viable.
• A priest brought Nant refugees to the Dawn army, where Saint Charlie faced the choice between helping them and preserving supplies for the coming war.
• Saint Charlie ordered the refugees driven away after Archbishop Sean warned that feeding them would exhaust the army’s provisions and undermine its campaign.
• A knight reported that Emperor Columbus had personally led a great army into Nant, shocking Saint Charlie.

Floyd Columbus ordered the Elemental Legion to attack the Church of Dawn while the imperial army moved toward the ruins of Nant Royal City. The battle became a brutal struggle against the Church’s resurrecting soldiers, and Grand Duke Rodriguez’s mages prepared the forbidden spell Heavenly Collapse.

• Floyd Columbus sent Apollo Rodriguez’s Elemental Legion, supported by Munro Columbus and two thousand cavalry, toward Nant Royal City.
• The Elemental Legion met Expatio, Mountain Man, and other Church of Dawn fighters, while the Prophet Witch Bora, Rosalind, and Klar Sterling arrived as reinforcements.
• The Elemental Legion charged into the Holy Legion and killed thousands, but priests revived many of the fallen Dawn soldiers.
• Munro Columbus led the imperial cavalry into the battle, while Floyd Columbus ordered the rest of his army to bypass the fighting and head for Nant Royal City.
• Grand Duke Rodriguez, Brutus, Tasi, and Stuart gathered more than a hundred Mage Towers and prepared to unleash the forbidden spell Heavenly Collapse.

After Heavenly Collapse cleared the Cloud Sea and restored communications, Emperor Floyd led four of the Empire’s strongest Extraordinary Legions against Saint Charlie and the Church of Dawn. The battle spread across several fronts, with the Empire’s rule-wielding legions overwhelming Dawn forces as the emperor reached the battlefield.

• Four Legendary Mages completed Heavenly Collapse, dispersing the Cloud Sea and restoring communications across the Empire’s territory.
• Floyd advanced with the Temple Knight Legion and Bauhinia Knight Legion, while the Nightmare Knight Legion and Divine Rune Knight Legion took the flanks; he and Saint Charlie declared their intent to destroy each other.
• The Feather Dragon Legion and Holy Kingdom Knights joined the Dawn forces, and the Temple Knights clashed with their former Church counterparts.
• The Divine Rune Knight Legion crushed the Grey Blood Legion, and Berto’s Legendary attack failed to kill any of its knights.
• The Nightmare Knight Legion trapped Matilda Alvarez and the Angel Attendants within the Nightmare World, while Dawn Guards and other Church forces moved to support their allies.
• Floyd arrived as Damon directed the Holy Kingdom Knights in their fight against the Temple Knights.

Floyd Columbus led the Florian Empire’s forces as they crushed the Church of Dawn’s armies, killing several legends and forcing Saint Charlie to confront the prospect of using Dawn’s power. Saint Charlie invoked the Divine Art: Kingdom of Heaven, and his domain collided with the divine kingdom battlefield gathered around Floyd, turning the war into a clash that would end only when one side fell.

• Floyd Columbus fought through the Church of Dawn’s forces, and his power killed Knight Silas while imperial knights wounded Knight Damon.
• The Florian Empire’s Extraordinary Legions killed several Church of Dawn legends, while the Bauhinia Knights charged toward Saint Charlie and the descending angels.
• Aicas manifested twelve wings and summoned heavenly soldiers, while Tai empowered the Church’s Holy Light Knights and Durand blessed the Dawn Believers at the cost of his own strength.
• Saint Charlie weighed the price of using Dawn’s origin, then invoked the Divine Art: Kingdom of Heaven.
• Floyd’s crown shattered as his power formed a rival divine kingdom, and the two kingdoms collided around the soldiers on the battlefield.

Ryan and Count Clayton weighed when to join Emperor Floyd’s war in the south as reinforcements gathered for the empire. On the Divine Kingdom Battlefield, Floyd’s attempt to nurture a god drew a devastating response from the Church of Dawn, while Ryan sensed the resulting power from Carlos Province.

• Ryan and Count Clayton discussed the emperor’s need for the war and considered delaying their entry until Grand Duke Russell arrived, so the Imperial Second Legion and Clayton forces could recover.
• Count Clayton learned that twelve Extraordinary Legions and two Noble Allied Armies were approaching, and Ryan cautioned him against rushing south with their forces still wounded.
• Floyd ordered the Nightmare Knight Legion to support the Elemental Legion, then led the other three Extraordinary Legions in an assault on the Church of Dawn.
• Floyd offered the Divine Remains an entire world, and their fused essence awakened as a new god that took control of the Divine Kingdom Battlefield.
• Saint Charlie denounced the Florian Empire’s attempt to nurture a god, and the Light-Chasing Knight tore open the battlefield and struck at the newborn divine will.
• Ryan sensed a peculiar aura from the south, and his illusory Dragon Spirit appeared and gazed greedily toward it.

Archbishop Dean led the Church of Dawn to Carlos Royal City, seeking to seize King Carlos and advance his standing within the Church. He used divine power to darken the sky and send Holy Light Knights into the city, while the Red Scale Knights struggled to defend the king and the city gates fell.

• Archbishop Dean diverted his army toward Carlos Royal City and decided to take King Carlos to the Dawn Holy Mountain.
• Grant Teton and the Red Scale Knights confronted the Dawn believers and initially drove them back from the city.
• Archbishop Dean invoked darkness and cold, then opened a beam of dawn light through which Holy Light Knights descended into Carlos Royal City.
• Grant ordered the gates closed and led the Red Scale Knights to protect King Carlos as they fought enemies inside and outside the city.
• Holy Light Knights battered the city wall and gate with heavy hammers until the gates of Carlos Royal City collapsed.

Archbishop Dean’s Church of Dawn army besieged Carlos Royal City while Grant Teton’s exhausted Red Scale Knight Legion defended the palace. After Dean summoned a Legendary Armor and shattered the palace’s defenses with Holy Strike, Ryan arrived with an imperial force and a Dragon Spirit as the king was about to be seized.

• Archbishop Dean demanded the King of Carlos submit to the Church of Dawn, while Grant Teton held the palace and sent carrier pigeons for help.
• Ryan warned Count Clayton that the attack on Carlos was meant to prevent imperial troops from supporting the Emperor, and Clayton dispatched two thousand soldiers south.
• The Red Scale Knight Legion fought for twelve hours before Dean used Faith Essence to animate a Legendary Armor, which broke through the magical defenses and wounded Grant.
• Dean ordered his army to attack the palace and sent troops to block the imperial reinforcements, while the two thousand soldiers fought their way up the mountain road.
• Dean unleashed Holy Strike, destroyed the palace’s protective formation, and ordered the Holy Light Knights to seize the King of Carlos as Grant fell.
• A Dragon Spirit appeared above the royal city, and Ryan fixed his attention on the Legendary Armor.

Ryan helped secure Carlos Royal City by destroying the Church of Dawn’s forces, then joined the Florian Empire’s nobles as their armies advanced into the Nant Kingdom. The Divine Kingdom Battlefield collapsed, Chi lost to the Lord of Dawn, and Floyd ordered the empire’s forces to attack.

• Ryan let the Dragon Spirit devour the Eternal Kingdom essence in the Legendary Armor, then watched the Frost Dragon kill Archbishop Dean and crush the charging Church of Dawn believers.
• Ryan pressured Grant Teton into ordering the Red Scale Knight Legion to annihilate the Church of Dawn troops, and the battle shocked the Florian Empire’s nobles.
• More than ten Extraordinary Legions advanced into the Nant Kingdom, while Grand Dukes Mayers and Fleming joined Count Clayton and Ryan to plan the next attack.
• Grand Duke Mayers challenged Ryan over the defeat in the Nant Kingdom, but Count Clayton accepted responsibility and Ryan revealed that he had killed two archbishops.
• The Divine Kingdom Battlefield shattered, Floyd learned that Chi had lost to the Lord of Dawn, and he ordered the empire’s armies to attack as the Extraordinary Legions arrived.

Floyd’s empire drove back the Church of Dawn, but the war left the Nant Kingdom devastated and the empire’s nobles fighting over blame and supplies. Ryan took the King of Nant’s decree and began compelling Nant nobles to surrender their armies, while warning that the next war would reach every corner of human civilization.

• The Holy Son of Dawn ordered a retreat as the empire’s Extraordinary Legions arrived, and Floyd chose not to pursue him relentlessly.
• Grand Duke Mayers blamed Count Clayton and Baron Ryan for the food crisis in Nant, but Floyd defended them and Ryan offered to resolve the trouble.
• Ryan invoked the King of Nant’s decree against the allegedly treacherous nobles, declaring that he would bear the infamy of killing them.
• Ryan told Higni to guard against the Church of Dawn’s hidden Black Swan Assassins, then flew with Arryris to Viscount Logan’s territory.
• Ryan accused Viscount Logan’s family of betraying the King of Nant and persuaded him to hand over his army.
• When Viscount Logan asked where the next war would begin, Ryan answered that it would reach every corner of human civilization.

Ryan led an expanding army through the Nant Kingdom, killing noble families and enforcing strict discipline after his soldiers began looting and slaughtering civilians. By the chapter’s end, he had divided six thousand men into six routes to pursue fleeing nobles and told the emperor that the matter was resolved.

• Ryan encountered the Empire’s Great-Horned Rhino Legion, then led his fifteen hundred soldiers to Count Vaughn’s refugees and ordered them to kill the nobles among them.
• Ryan’s soldiers slaughtered a noble family and looted its territory, so Ryan froze over a hundred men and forced the army to execute those who had disobeyed his orders; the survivors recruited men from the territory and continued onward.
• Ryan’s army grew to six thousand as it destroyed noble territories and seized hidden grain, while a three-hundred-man unit joined after executing more than three thousand rioters.
• Ryan praised Ronan, the knight who supervised the executions, and blessed him with Spirituality after the army completed an attack without harming anyone unnecessarily.
• Ryan divided the six thousand soldiers into six routes to pursue fleeing nobles, ordered them to use seized grain to feed refugees, and sent the emperor the message that the matter was resolved.

Floyd moved to strengthen imperial authority by restoring the Council of Elders while preparing to attack the Church of Dawn’s forces. Grand Duke Mayers and Grand Duke Fleming plotted against the Council’s revival and sought to put Ryan in command, while Grand Duke Rodriguez supported Floyd after receiving Count Teton’s proposal about Diana.

• Floyd ordered Grand Duke Rodriguez to bring the Mage Corps to the front and announced that he would reactivate the Council of Elders.
• Grand Duke Mayers and Grand Duke Fleming decided to oppose the Council’s revival, and Mayers urged Fleming to help put Ryan in command so Ryan would become a target for the nobles’ backlash.
• Floyd ordered the army to attack before the Church of Dawn’s third and fourth armies could join the Holy Son, and the Mage Corps prepared a magical array against divine strikes.
• Assassins killed members of the Council of Elders in the Imperial Capital until another force intervened and imperial troops began searching for the killers.
• Grand Duke Rodriguez told Brutus that Count Teton had proposed that Columbus V take more than one wife, recalling the earlier marriage arrangement involving Diana.
• Grand Duke Rodriguez prepared two hundred thousand imperial troops to march toward Dawn Holy Mountain and considered whether they could kill Solarian.

The Empire and the Church of Dawn began their battle at Dragon Bone Valley, where magic and divine power transformed the battlefield. After the Church turned believers, women, and children into Human Angels, the clergy summoned an even greater force from the Eternal Kingdom of Heaven.

• The imperial army advanced on Dragon Bone Valley, where Count Clayton warned that the Church of Dawn had made the heights defensible.
• Floyd led the Empire into battle, and the Nightmare Knights, Divine Rune Knights, and Blaze Dragon Knights charged the Church’s army.
• The Holy Son of Dawn called on the Lord of Dawn, causing fallen believers to transform into Human Angels.
• The Elemental Legion raised an Airspace Prohibition Barrier, grounding the Human Angels and the Feather Dragon Legion, while blood mist empowered imperial soldiers and obscured the Church’s vision.
• Kaz Clayton and the Blaze Dragon Knights charged through the blood mist, but a crying girl transformed into an angel and blasted Kaz and his horse away.
• Thousands of nuns sacrificed themselves in prayer as the clergy called down the Eternal Kingdom’s power and invoked holy angels to descend.

Ryan continued suppressing the Nant Kingdom’s nobles while Floyd’s forces fought the Church of Dawn on two fronts. At Dragon Bone Valley, Floyd awakened the Imperial House’s power over the Norris Continent’s world essence, and Ryan learned that the emperor was restoring the Council of Elders to curb the nobles’ power.

• Ronan reported that the campaign had captured or killed many Nant nobles, and Ryan ordered him to continue despite the army’s fear of punishment.
• Count Teifel’s Great-Horned Rhino Legion and Count William’s Legions of Vampires attacked the Church of Dawn’s army in Lausanne, but the Church’s Radiant Light Array devastated the vampires and forced them to retreat.
• Floyd charged into battle at Dragon Bone Valley, inspiring the Imperial troops and using his golden sword to awaken the Norris Continent’s world essence, which stopped divine arts.
• Ryan received Grand Duke Russell’s letter reporting that Floyd had reinstated the Council of Elders and that nobles in the Imperial Capital were resisting the order.
• Ryan recognized that Floyd’s rising authority threatened the great nobles, including himself, and understood that he could no longer prevent the emperor from consolidating power.

Floyd used the world's fundamental sources to empower the Florian Empire's army, destroy Dragon Bone Valley, and turn the main battle against the Church of Dawn. As the empire attacked the Church's fifth army from a Void Passage, Cardinal Archbishop Lancaster sacrificed himself to summon a divine descent.

• Floyd empowered the imperial soldiers with the four fundamental sources and led them in a rout of the Church of Dawn's army.
• Grand Duke Rodriguez worried that Floyd's growing control over the army would make it impossible to restore the Council of Elders, while the Mage Association began its forbidden magic.
• The imperial mages destroyed Dragon Bone Valley and reshaped the land into a plain, allowing Count Clayton to lead the cavalry charge against the Church's forces.
• Floyd returned to battle as the Church's Holy Light Knights emerged through a radiant gate, and he vowed to defeat the Church on every front.
• In the south, Ophelia opened a Void Passage through which ten Extraordinary Legions attacked Cardinal Archbishop Lancaster's fifth army.
• Lancaster sacrificed his life, soul, and faith to call down a divine descent against the imperial legions.

Chi’s divine descent devastated the imperial legions, but Kara Enric and the Church of Light helped them resist and kill the Holy Light Knights. Floyd won the battle at Dragon Bone Valley and claimed the prisoners for the Empire, then received news from the Imperial Capital that the Council of Elders was crucial to the Empire’s needs.

• Chi consumed ten thousand Dawn Believers to manifest as a twelve-winged god, and the imperial Extraordinary Legions charged him with weapons empowered by seven-colored divine fluid.
• Chi’s waves of holy light and blazing radiance inflicted heavy casualties, but the imperial knights repeatedly rallied and attacked.
• Chi’s Gift of Mine forced the imperial soldiers to their knees, but Kara Enric stood, killed a Holy Light Knight, and the Church of Light’s clergy helped the legions rise again.
• Chi fell as seven-colored radiance rose into the sky, while his gaze turned north and Solarian roared from Dawn Holy Mountain.
• Floyd defeated the Church of Dawn’s army at Dragon Bone Valley, though the Holy Son of Dawn and tens of thousands of believers escaped with Saint Charlie.
• Floyd claimed more than two hundred thousand prisoners as subjects of the Empire, then received a report from the Imperial Capital identifying the Council of Elders as crucial.