Chapter Summaries

Gleipnir entered the Lightless Expanse and discovered that the Carnival Night Clown had trapped her in a dream while controlling her body to alter the ritual and escape its seal. Angel agreed to take control of her body, and the Clown’s expression changed as he intervened.

• Angel used his God's-eye view to see that the Lightless Expanse contained a copy of the cellar, and he and Gleipnir suspected the Carnival Night Clown was behind the change.
• Gleipnir entered the door alone, but Angel saw her lower her head and fall asleep while she experienced a seemingly real cellar and encountered an Angel impostor.
• Gleipnir realized the cellar was a dream because the Text Panel was missing, and she exposed the impostor as the Carnival Night Clown.
• The Clown admitted it planned to manipulate Gleipnir into changing the ritual so it could break its seal, then revealed it had taken control of her body.
• Gleipnir told Angel what had happened and asked him to take control of her body; Angel agreed, and the Clown’s expression abruptly changed.

Angel stopped Carnival Night Clown from using Gleipnir to break its seal and discovered the Lightless Expanse sealing ritual would release it after twenty-four hours. Gleipnir identified the Clown as the NPC Abigail Barbosa and learned it was tied to Pai Pai, while Angel began studying the ritual formation diagram.

• Gleipnir realized Carnival Night Clown was only a projection in her dream and could not touch her.
• Angel took control of Gleipnir’s body, found the seal beneath the shadow in the southeast corner, and intercepted its Wonderland information.
• Angel learned the ritual would automatically release Abigail Barbosa after twenty-four hours and found the formation diagram for the seal.
• Angel told Gleipnir Abigail’s name and asked her to check whether the Clown had NPC information.
• Gleipnir saw Abigail Barbosa’s NPC information and learned that contacting it could trigger the side quest “Unfinished Bet,” which connected it to Pai Pai.

Gleipnir questioned the Carnival Night Clown about its arrival in the waking world and learned that a wager required it to find someone in Modern City and help them. She suspected Pai Pai had sent it to help Prada Media Company, possibly by assisting Yusuf, and the clown withheld the details of its task.

• Gleipnir told the Carnival Night Clown that her companion had not entered the Lightless Expanse, and the clown guessed that he controlled her through a hidden consciousness avatar.
• Gleipnir traded answers with the Carnival Night Clown and asked why it had come to the waking world.
• The Carnival Night Clown revealed that it had made a wager requiring it to find someone in Modern City and help that person with a private task.
• Gleipnir inferred that Pai Pai had sent the Carnival Night Clown to help Prada Media Company and suspected its target was Yusuf.

Gleipnir and Abigail exchanged information about the Lightless Expanse, the Illusory Dream Game, and Pai Pai’s preparations. Gleipnir explained that she and her companions had summoned Abigail to help save Prada Media’s Beauty Pageant, and Abigail’s reaction to hearing the name Modern City left her purpose unresolved.

• Gleipnir reasoned that Pai Pai had likely wagered with Abigail to help Prada Media and then negotiated with Abigail over what information they would reveal.
• Abigail explained that the cellar-like Lightless Expanse was an anchor point formed where the Dark Corner overlapped with the waking world.
• Abigail revealed that Pai Pai had created the Illusory Dream Game, while Abigail had shaped Gleipnir’s dream and said she would awaken when the spell ended or her body left the Lightless Expanse.
• Abigail explained that the dream protected entrants from being marked by the unstable Dark Corner aura, which could make them more likely to be pulled into the Dark Corner.
• Gleipnir told Abigail that they were in Modern City and explained that the Prada Beauty Pageant was declining because Pai Pai and her Carnival Night Clown had vanished.
• Gleipnir said she and her companions had summoned Abigail to save the Prada Beauty Pageant, and Abigail’s pupils contracted when she heard the name Modern City.

Gleipnir persuaded Abigail to trust her by claiming she was an astrologer, then learned Abigail had entered the real world to find Yusuf as part of a wager with Pai Pai. Angel realized Pai Pai’s disappearance was linked to Dark Corner and considered whether rescuing her and Prada Media Company’s missing elites could revive the company.

• Gleipnir claimed she was an astrologer who could divine the future, and Abigail tested her claims by sensing her consciousness through the Illusory Dream Game.
• Abigail accepted Gleipnir’s sincerity and explained that the plaza was a simulated safe zone from Dark Corner.
• Abigail told Gleipnir she had come to the real world to fulfill a wager by finding Yusuf, whom Gleipnir believed was connected to Prada Media Company.
• Abigail revealed that Pai Pai had made the wager with her, shocking Gleipnir.
• Angel received Gleipnir’s report and realized Pai Pai’s disappearance was connected to Dark Corner, then considered rescuing her and the missing Prada Media Company elites.

Angel entered the Lightless Expanse to obtain the Dark Corner’s mark while avoiding Pai Pai’s Illusory Dream Game, and learned the missing Prada Media Company members were scattered in the Dark Corner. After receiving the permanent Call of the Dark Corner effect, he prepared to release Abigail and began uncovering the sealing ritual’s formation.

• Angel used Nightmare Illusion aura to suppress the Illusory Dream Game’s magic, then entered the Lightless Expanse with his true body.
• Angel learned from Gleipnir that Pai Pai and the missing Prada Media Company core members had been separated in the Dark Corner, and that Abigail would pretend to be Gleipnir’s familiar when they met Yusuf.
• Gleipnir received the side quest Unfinished Bet after agreeing to help Abigail return to Prada Media Company and revive the Prada Beauty Pageant.
• After spending five minutes in the Lightless Expanse, Angel received the permanent Call of the Dark Corner mark and decided to dismantle the sealing ritual.
• Angel sent Gleipnir out of the Lightless Expanse, then brushed dirt from the shadowed southeastern corner to reveal the sealing ritual’s formation.

Angel unsealed Abigail from the Lightless Expanse and learned that outsiders who enter the Dark Corner receive a mark, confirming that Zuniga was already marked. After parting from Gleipnir, Angel headed to scout the missing former Noble Knight’s villa while checking on several people through his God's-eye view.

• Angel learned from Abigail that the Dark Corner marked outsiders, and concluded he did not need to warn Zuniga before lifting the seal.
• Angel dismantled the sealing ritual, and Abigail revealed that he had entered the present world with his true body before withholding further details.
• Abigail escaped as the Lightless Expanse faded, and Angel parted ways with Gleipnir near the entrance to Ruins Paradise.
• Angel postponed drawing cards because Kang Mu had gone to Modern High School for Danni’s style party, and set out to scout the former Noble Knight’s villa in Eighth Town.
• Angel used his God's-eye view to check Kang Mu, Zuniga, Lizi, and Connors as they pursued their activities and quests.

Angel discovered that the mutant magician's tranquil tunnel could slowly purify the Call of the Dark Corner and asked Connors to test whether it affected the Grotesque-Face Virus. He then searched the former Noble Knight's villa for clues without finding any, just as Zuniga arrived in Eighth Town to visit the same residence.

• Angel noticed the tunnel's quiet barrier had begun continuously purifying the Call of the Dark Corner and asked Connors to send someone to test its effect on the Grotesque-Face Virus.
• Angel crossed Clear Water Canal and reached the former Noble Knight's villa, whose dangerous-looking pink water was actually colored by harmless algae.
• Angel searched the villa's rooms and grounds, comparing them with what he remembered from God's perspective, but found no differences or clues.
• Pattern Lady relayed that Zuniga wanted to contact Angel, and Zuniga told him he was traveling to the West Eighth District to inspect the villa.
• Angel told Zuniga he was already at the villa and had found nothing, suggesting the former Noble Knight's clues might not be hidden in the way he expected.

Angel and Zuniga searched for the former Noble Knight’s clue, while Angel learned more about Xiadia’s murder and the suspicious circumstances surrounding her life. Lizi suspected Xiadia had been a spy during the Fashion Guild’s conflict with Prada Media Company, but her identity and family remained unknown.

• Angel reasoned that the villa’s clue was likely a riddle based on knowledge, and Zuniga examined its posters, paintings, and tapestries for anything unusual.
• Angel asked Lizi about the Fashion Guild’s knowledge of the former Noble Knight, but she knew only about the current knights and requested files from headquarters.
• Lizi told Angel that Xiadia, a former Tina Entertainment cleaner, had been murdered by her supervisor, who had confessed after hiding her body beneath the cleaning room floor.
• Angel revealed that fifteen skeletons were hidden throughout Tina Entertainment, and Lizi resolved to inspect the locations despite the risk of angering the company’s leaders.
• Lizi described Xiadia’s strange living arrangements and expensive cosmetics, then suspected she had been a spy during the five-year-old conflict with Prada Media Company.

Angel and Lizi investigated Xiadia’s identity and concluded that she most likely came from the Underground District, while Lizi planned to contact the Dark Round Table and Prada Media Company for records. Lizi then obtained files on Alfred Royst, the Dark Round Table’s former Noble Knight, whose intelligence updates had stopped five years earlier.

• Lizi explained that Xiadia’s remains could not be returned without confirming her real identity, and she suspected Xiadia came either from another city or the Underground District.
• Angel reasoned that Xiadia could not be from another city, so Lizi decided to contact the Dark Round Table and Prada Media Company and search for someone with an information-related Style Eye ability.
• Lizi told Angel that Arina was a spy planted at Prada Media Company, recruited from the Underground District after being caught conning a Foreign Affairs Department official.
• Angel questioned why Arina had her own side quest, “Girl on the Tightrope,” and decided to tell Gleipnir about her later.
• Lizi’s assistant retrieved records on Alfred Royst, and Lizi told Angel that updates on the former Noble Knight’s intelligence had stopped five years earlier.

Angel reviewed the Fashion Guild’s intelligence on Alfred and learned about the Corner-Croucher, a child from the Dark Corner who was hunted after the Yaxixi Circus sheltered it. Studying Alfred’s final years, Angel found evidence that Alfred had planned his trip to the Dark Corner and noticed suspicious gaps in records of his movements on the surface.

• Lizi showed Angel the Fashion Guild’s intelligence on Alfred, including a passage about the child linked to Alfred’s disappearance.
• Lizi explained that the Fashion Guild called the child the Corner-Croucher, classified it as an Indeterminate, and failed to capture it after the Dark Round Table took it away.
• Lizi told Angel that the Fashion Guild’s hawks had targeted the Yaxixi Circus for sheltering the Corner-Croucher, but moderates intervened and Sisley survived.
• Angel created and read an illustrated compendium of Alfred’s life, focusing on his activities and friendships before he disappeared.
• Angel concluded that Alfred had planned to enter the Dark Corner after mailing a letter to a friend, and memorized the names of Galindo, Joyce, and Pesici for later investigation.
• Angel noticed that Alfred’s movements on the surface were recorded as having unknown destinations and suspected someone had tampered with the intelligence.

Angel investigated whether the Fashion Guild’s records about Alfred had been tampered with and suspected the Dark King was involved. After learning that the original intelligence officer had been uniquely transferred away, he brought Zuniga to Alfred’s villa to search for clues, beginning with images in the former Noble Knight’s bedroom.

• Angel theorized that the Dark King might be a senior Fashion Guild figure who knew Alfred and had altered the record of his trips to the surface.
• Angel asked Lizi to find Alfred’s original intelligence officer, but learned the officer had been uniquely transferred to a distant branch office and could not be contacted.
• Angel concluded that Alfred’s intelligence had likely been tampered with and considered investigating the Fashion Guild if the villa revealed nothing.
• Zuniga arrived at the villa dressed neatly in preparation for meeting a fellow countryman, then inspected the house with Angel.
• Zuniga argued that Alfred’s bedroom was the likeliest place for hidden clues and began examining the canvas and tapestry there.

Angel and Zuniga searched Alfred’s bedroom for clues in a swimsuit canvas and a girl-idol tapestry, but Zuniga’s increasingly bizarre theories yielded nothing. As they considered using Daily News, Zuniga began telling Angel about a Targeted News result he had received after the Smoke Screen Scholar’s challenge.

• Angel and Zuniga examined the canvas and tapestry, and Zuniga argued that the simpler canvas was more likely to hide a clue.
• Zuniga proposed that the canvas’s tan lines, patches of sunlight, or the woman’s hand gesture encoded numbers or a star chart, but Angel rejected each interpretation.
• Angel contacted Gleipnir about Zuniga’s supposed star chart, and Gleipnir dismissed it as dust before Angel ended the call.
• Zuniga suggested that the clue might be obvious once they looked at the pictures differently, then proposed checking Daily News for clues.
• Zuniga explained that Targeted News only worked on visible people, then told Angel he had used it on a bakery clerk after failing the Smoke Screen Scholar’s challenge.

Angel realized April First was likely a Dreamseeing NPC after Zuniga revealed a Daily News report about his hidden “reality” and Angel saw him disappear from the Instance. Zuniga then received a new Daily News clue about his own fate, directing Pattern Lady to paint Doodle in an Underground District corridor.

• Zuniga explained that Targeted News had identified April First as connected to an Outsider from Beyond the Heavens and mentioned his hidden “reality.”
• Angel reasoned that April First was likely a Dreamseeing NPC after finding he had vanished from Modern City.
• Zuniga revealed that he had given April First a sealed Initial Page that could let him become a mage without a challenge.
• Angel reconsidered his assumption that Dreamseeing NPCs were always important figures and recognized that ordinary background characters could also be Dreamseeing NPCs.
• Zuniga received Daily News saying the King of the Mountains had persuaded Pattern Lady to paint Doodle on rental walls, and recommending the corridor between Fifth Town and Thirteenth Town in the Underground District.

Zuniga learned that people from his homeland might be in the passage between Fifth Town and Thirteenth Town, while Angel used Traffic Insight: Viralization to investigate the Missing Knight Case. The ability identified people connected to the case, but its strongest lead was outside the Instance, and Angel began examining the remaining targets.

• Zuniga sent a duplicate of Pattern Lady with her collaborator to the passage between Fifth Town and Thirteenth Town to draw a Doodle.
• Angel declined to be Zuniga’s Targeted News subject and decided to use Traffic Insight: Viralization on the Missing Knight Case.
• Angel selected the option to find the person behind the case, spending twenty popularity points to reveal roughly twenty connected people as colored orbs.
• Angel found that the gold orb’s target was outside the current Instance, suggesting the person chiefly responsible for Alfred’s disappearance was in the Dark Corner.
• Angel opened a blue orb, and a figure appeared before him amid shifting scenes.

Angel examined the remaining orbs for clues about Alfred’s disappearance and uncovered several figures tied to the Missing Knight Case, including a mysterious half-human, half-doll in an underwater church and Vera Montclair, the former Fashion Guild president and likely Dark King. He turned his attention to the final purple orb, whose contents remained unknown.

• Angel found that Gana’s book collection might have helped Alfred overcome a mental block and reach Dark Corner.
• Angel learned that Sisley Nicholson had brought the circus’s orphaned survivors to Alfred, prompting his involvement in the incident.
• Angel discovered that a half-human, half-doll in an underwater church had helped Alfred take the step that caused the incident.
• Angel recognized Vera Montclair as Alfred’s former superior and concluded that she was likely the Dark King behind the Dark Round Table.
• Angel turned to examine the final purple orb.

Angel identified the swimsuit woman in Alfred’s painting as his secret lover, whose name was Zoe, and began investigating her and Vera Montclair through the God's-eye view. He also realized the Sharp Arts Theater poster in Alfred’s room might be another clue, just as Zuniga noticed Angel had found something.

• Angel recognized the swimsuit woman from Alfred’s painting and learned from the Text Panel that she was Alfred’s secret, fatal lover.
• Angel searched for the half-human, half-doll but could not locate the Underwater Church, then found Vera Montclair questioning Ban Gu about Lizi at Tina Entertainment.
• Angel concluded Vera was investigating Lizi’s connection to Alfred and warned Lizi to reveal his existence if Vera confronted her.
• Angel found Alfred’s lover at a fashion show in the Sharp Arts Theater and learned that people called her Zoe.
• Angel noticed that the theater matched a poster in Alfred’s bedroom, and Zuniga asked whether Angel had discovered the Sharp Arts Theater as a clue.

Angel and Zuniga discovered that the woman in Alfred’s canvas was Zoe, his secret lover, and that she was connected to his disappearance. As they headed to Sharp Arts Theater to meet her, Dan revealed Zoe’s past and explained why the knight order may have overlooked her.

• Angel told Zuniga that his Traffic Bat’s special appendix had uncovered a clue in the canvas, and identified the woman as Zoe, who was at Sharp Arts Theater.
• Angel and Zuniga left Alfred’s villa and set out for Sharp Arts Theater, while Angel suggested the knight order might have failed to pursue Zoe because she denied knowing Alfred.
• Dan appeared and reported that Zoe was a famous former performer who now secretly owned Sharp Arts Theater and had built a legendary career.
• Zuniga realized the knight order may have dismissed the canvas as a common image of Zoe rather than evidence of a relationship with Alfred.
• Dan confirmed there had been no public rumors linking Zoe to Alfred, reinforcing that their relationship had been kept secret.

Angel learned that Zuniga was heading to Snake Road to investigate the Mountain Folk, then discovered the second Prada Beauty Pageant quest was complete. The third quest required rebuilding Prada Media Company's foundation, including recruiting at least fifty magicians, leaving Angel alarmed by the challenge.

• Dan told Zuniga that rumors portrayed Zoe as running secret, high-end nighttime gatherings at the Sharp Arts Theater.
• Dan showed Zuniga and Angel that mutants were preventing Leonard from drawing Doodles at a key fork on Snake Road, so Zuniga decided to go there himself.
• Angel traveled toward South Thirteenth District and learned that Gleipnir and Abigail had secured Yusuf's agreement to revive the Prada Beauty Pageant.
• Angel checked the second quest rewards and saw that his contribution was 35%, slightly higher than Gleipnir's and Star Worm's.
• Angel read the third main quest, which required restoring Prada Media Company's foundation within fifteen days, including raising ten million in starting capital and recruiting at least fifty magicians.

Angel and Gleipnir discovered that Prada Media’s existing resources could not satisfy the main quest, so they examined how to build a qualifying talent pool. After learning the tier rules and testing registrations, Angel found that his Modern Coins counted toward the startup capital, while the talent pool stood at 1/50.

• Angel learned from Gleipnir that Prada Media’s existing funds and magicians could not count toward the main quest, and they considered training new magicians from Challengers.
• Gleipnir pointed out that recruiting higher-tier magicians could count for multiple talent slots, and Angel checked the Fashion Guild’s Commoner, Celebrity, and Pinnacle classifications.
• Angel realized that Celebrity Tier magicians counted for ten Commoner Tier slots, making it easier to meet the talent requirement by recruiting experienced magicians such as Zuniga.
• Gleipnir registered herself in the talent pool, raising its progress to 1/50, while Angel delayed registering until he advanced to a higher tier.
• Angel registered the Modern Coins he carried and saw the startup capital progress update to 1 million/10 million.