Chapter Summaries

Angel entered the Disparity Arena, where he had to choose a teammate to face the shadowy Invisible Calamity and could be forced to fight it himself if his choices failed. With Rabbit Girl’s help, he learned the opponent was a Void Spirit Predator vulnerable when its Wailing Soulstone appeared, and she narrowed the teammate options to three candidates.

• The masked referee explained that Angel could either relinquish control of his teammate or manipulate them, and that losing a battle could leave Angel facing the opponent in its complete form.
• The referee revealed the shadowy opponent and displayed a pool of potential teammates, but offered no information about their identities or abilities.
• Angel contacted Rabbit Girl, who identified the opponent as the Invisible Calamity and explained that the arena tested strategy, knowledge, and choices between manipulation and relinquishment.
• Angel asked the referee about individual differences, and learned that the contestants had been selected to retain only their races’ conventional talents and average abilities.
• Rabbit Girl explained that the Void Spirit Predator exposed its Wailing Soulstone during its burst attack, making reaction speed essential to striking its weakness.
• Rabbit Girl narrowed the teammate choices to a Ratman, a dwarf child, and a Wind Candle Spirit.

Angel considered three candidates for the disparity arena and chose the Grain-Thief Ratman for its reliable danger intuition and agility. After controlling the ratman and preparing for the duel, he discovered that his Nightmare Illusion Node had been left behind when the ratman entered the arena.

• The Rabbit Girl explained the Grain-Thief Ratman's Peril Omen, the Coppermarked Dwarf cub's energy perception, and the Wind Candle Spirit's strengths and risks.
• Angel chose the Grain-Thief Ratman, judging it the steadiest option for a one-strike fight against the Void Spirit Predator.
• Angel selected control mode and sensed the ratman's fear, vigilance, and passive Peril Omen through their mental link.
• Angel spent several minutes testing the ratman's abilities, then withdrew from control and learned more about its fighting instincts.
• Angel attached a Nightmare Illusion Node to the ratman and ordered the battle to begin.
• The ratman vanished into the disparity arena, while the Nightmare Illusion Node remained behind because the ratman's physical state reset upon entry.

Angel controlled the Grain-Thief Ratman and defeated the Void Spirit Predator by destroying its Wailing Soulstone, then selected a Thorn Dancer to fight the Rock-Seat Bear Turtle. The Thorn Dancer found and pulled out the creature’s vital root, winning the second battle.

• Angel used the Ratman’s Peril Omen to evade the Void Spirit Predator’s ambush and stabbed its exposed Wailing Soulstone, defeating it despite severe injuries.
• The masked referee healed the Ratman, declared it the winner, and announced that Angel could choose a combatant for the next match.
• Rabbit Girl identified the next opponent as a Rock-Seat Bear Turtle and explained its defenses, earth-control abilities, and vulnerability to roots buried on its back.
• Angel followed Rabbit Girl’s recommendation and let a Thorn Dancer fight the Rock-Seat Bear Turtle.
• The Thorn Dancer dodged the turtle’s attacks, reached the mountain on its back, pulled out a glowing root, and won the match.

Angel cleared the Disparity Arena’s three matches and prepared to guide Rabbit Girl through her final white-point challenge. Rabbit Girl entered a new trial built around a towering Staircase Pyramid, where a sinister reflection introduced the arena as its own.

• Angel won all three Disparity Arena matches, and the Masked Referee sent him back to the hall.
• Rabbit Girl told Angel she would enter the final white light circle, and Angel agreed to guide her from outside.
• Angel and Rabbit Girl discussed the dangers of the golden challenge point and watched Gray Porcelain evade the White Lion Valkyrie’s attacks.
• Rabbit Girl entered the last white point and found a seven-tier Staircase Pyramid rising in a dark space.
• Rabbit Girl selected the Text Panel option asking why there was a mirror, and her reflection stopped copying her and welcomed her to its arena.

Rabbit Girl learned that My Arena was a seven-floor tower, with each level guarded by a version of herself embodying a facet of her memories. She reached the first floor and met her Artistic Self, who explained that every trial required Rabbit Girl to ask a question she could answer but her counterpart could not.

• The Person in the Mirror told Rabbit Girl to climb My Arena and defeat the being at its summit.
• Angel guided Rabbit Girl to the tower entrance, where she found an art-filled first floor and a guardian who looked like her.
• The Artistic Self explained that she shared Rabbit Girl’s thoughts and memories, but embodied only her artistic facet.
• The Artistic Self revealed that seven versions of Rabbit Girl guarded the tower’s floors and that each trial involved asking a question Rabbit Girl could answer but her counterpart could not.

Rabbit Girl learned that the Artistic Layer allowed seven questions and punished invalid ones with the Lamp Calamity, then used Angel’s outside knowledge to pass her first valid question. The Artistic Me remained confused when the judge accepted Rabbit Girl’s unfamiliar information as true.

• Rabbit Girl’s opening question was ruled invalid, and the Lamp Calamity began at 1/7 as the Artistic Me explained the arena’s rules.
• Rabbit Girl realized she could seek outside knowledge from Angel, since the Artistic Me only knew what Rabbit Girl had known before entering the arena.
• Angel told Rabbit Girl about composer Vimer Meijeff and the four pieces in his Ocean Suite.
• Rabbit Girl named the four pieces, and the red Lamp Calamity glow receded as the judge ruled that she had passed.
• The Artistic Me asked whether Rabbit Girl had truly stated real knowledge rather than fabricated it.

Rabbit Girl cleared the first three floors of My Arena with Angel’s help, defeating the fragments of herself tied to art, craftsmanship, and wordcraft. She left the third floor and continued toward the remaining challenges.

• Artistic Self vanished after telling Rabbit Girl that freedom required an independent soul, and Rabbit Girl answered that Artistic Self could be both her and herself.
• Rabbit Girl reached the Craftsmanship Layer and defeated Craftsmanship Self by answering Angel’s question about the Transmutation Mercury Agent.
• Craftsmanship Self vanished, saying she had waited to be defeated by reality, and Angel fell silent after Rabbit Girl called his illusion doll real.
• Rabbit Girl entered the Wordcraft Layer, where Wordcraft Self explained that the floor covered language, persuasion, and related skills.
• Rabbit Girl answered Angel’s question about the full name and terms of the Luo Oath, and the judge confirmed her answer.
• Wordcraft Self vanished after telling Rabbit Girl she liked talking with her, and Rabbit Girl continued toward the next floor.

Rabbit Girl cleared the fourth, fifth, and sixth floors of My Arena with Angel’s help, though the Self of Natural Knowledge unsettled her by realizing how she had gained outside knowledge. She reached the seventh floor and learned that its Self had absorbed the memories and skills of every defeated version of herself.

• Rabbit Girl defeated the Self of Body and Mind after Uncle Ku gave her pointers, then answered a question about a Chrono-loop Worm’s maximum trace-back duration.
• Rabbit Girl cleared the Layer of Natural Knowledge by identifying the effects of Skirted Umbrella Herb, but the Self of Natural Knowledge deduced that outside help or tools had supplied her knowledge.
• Angel reassured Rabbit Girl that the Self of Natural Knowledge admired the possibility in her that could connect to the unknown, and Rabbit Girl continued to the sixth floor.
• Angel helped Rabbit Girl defeat the Self of Schemes through an intelligence deduction, and she agreed to hear a spoiler about the final floor.
• Rabbit Girl entered the seventh floor and met a nearly identical version of herself, who explained that the motes from the defeated selves had carried their skills and memories to her.

Rabbit Girl confronted the seventh-floor version of herself, who challenged her reliance on Non-Selves to clear the arena. After Rabbit Girl explained her urgent priorities and reminded her that they were one person, the ego accepted her identity, endured the Lamp Calamity, and cleared the trial before merging into Rabbit Girl as she returned to the great hall.

• The seventh-floor self identified Rabbit Girl's knowledge gaps as evidence that Non-Selves were helping her clear the trials.
• Rabbit Girl defended her choice to prioritize clearing My Arena quickly so her teammates could face It and defeat It.
• Rabbit Girl told the seventh-floor self that they were the same person, causing her to abandon her sense of superiority and declare the floor cleared.
• The Lamp Calamity struck the seventh-floor self instead of Rabbit Girl, and the Person in the Mirror's sigh brought the red light to a green adjudication light.
• The seventh-floor self explained that she had cleared the trial by becoming a variable, then merged into Rabbit Girl as golden motes.
• Rabbit Girl fell through the dissolving arena and returned to the great hall.

After Rabbit Girl completed her trial, Angel entered the final golden-point challenge, where he met Nomephins, who offered to explain the challenge’s rules and answer his questions. The true trial had not yet begun, and Angel was left to decide what to ask before time ran out.

• Angel explained that Rabbit Girl’s other selves had returned their experiences to her, and she thanked him for helping her understand the result.
• Rabbit Girl and Gray Porcelain worried about Angel’s upcoming challenge at the central golden point, which would confront the demon god’s divine thought.
• Angel entered the golden point with Proverb and arrived in a star-filled space above a golden ocean.
• Angel used the Text Panel to speak and look down, discovering Nomephins beneath the glass floor.
• Nomephins denied being the demon god’s divine thought and said the Book Fairy had sent it, in part, to explain the challenge’s rules and answer Angel’s questions.

Nomephins explained the Scholar's Nine Chapters and why Angel had to complete a trial to stir the Cruel Scholar's divine will. Angel entered the Heart Chapter, where Nomephins revealed that he must choose three examiners and answer questions shaped by their ideologies.

• Nomephins told Angel that the Scholar's Nine Chapters were trials for meeting the Cruel Scholar, and that the sealing ritual required Angel to complete at least one chapter.
• Nomephins explained that the Heart Chapter was among the trials suited to Angel, then the challenge began as a white cube rose from the golden sea.
• Angel entered the cube and met a Lamp Demon host calling itself Heart Demon, which offered no explanation before prompting him to begin.
• Nomephins secretly explained that Angel had to select three floating cubes, each containing an examiner, and answer their questions in order.
• Nomephins warned Angel that the examiners held differing ideologies, so their abstract questions could demand answers that involved choices and compromises.

Nomephins explained the Heart Chapter’s Appeasement and Sincerity paths and told Angel he needed to use the Sincerity Path once without relying on it for every answer. As Angel prepared to choose an examiner, Rabbit Girl relayed the rules outside, Gabriel entered the final black position, and Little Demon warned Angel that the Sealing Stele’s size revealed nothing about the examiner inside.

• Nomephins explained that Angel could appease an examiner by tailoring his answers or pursue the Sincerity Path by answering from genuine conviction, which could draw Cruel Scholar’s attention if his answers had depth.
• Nomephins said Angel had to complete the Sincerity Path once to ensure Cruel Scholar’s divine consciousness noticed him, but warned him not to use it for all three answers.
• Angel sensed Rabbit Girl contacting him through a Nightmare Illusion Node and sent her the Heart Chapter’s rules.
• Rabbit Girl explained the rules to Gray Porcelain, who agreed that identifying an examiner might matter more than choosing an easy question.
• Gabriel emerged after completing the second challenge, saw the remaining black position, and entered it before Gray Porcelain could explain Angel’s trial.
• Little Demon called Angel a fool for trying to identify the examiner by the Sealing Stele’s outline and said its size did not indicate the creature inside.

Angel tried to learn about the examiners sealed inside the Diamonds, then persuaded the Little Demon host to choose one for him by promising to finish the challenge efficiently. The chosen Sealing Stele released a nonhuman examiner made entirely of spiritual energy, leaving Angel facing the kind of opponent he had hoped to avoid.

• Angel feigned choosing several Diamonds and used Extrasensory Perception to test the Little Demon host's reactions, but it saw through his trick.
• Angel realized the Little Demon host mainly wanted the challenge completed quickly and appealed to its desire to get off work by promising an efficient answer.
• The Little Demon host tested Angel's confidence, then hinted that he should choose a small Sealing Stele.
• Angel touched the small Sealing Stele, and its blurry silhouette emerged as a bizarre, tentacled examiner made entirely of spiritual energy.

Angel faced a Mind Flayer examiner who asked whether collective or individual consciousness was closer to perfection. After gathering intelligence that revealed the Mind Flayers’ devotion to collective consciousness, Angel chose to appease the examiner and began firmly endorsing its worldview.

• The Mind Flayer asked Angel which was more perfect: an emotionless collective consciousness or a civilization of passionate individual minds.
• Nomephins identified the examiner as a Mind Flayer associated with the Lust Demon God, while Laplace gathered further intelligence from Mystic Dragon Eya and Ms. Gosha.
• Angel learned that Mind Flayers devoured intelligent beings’ thoughts and memories, passed their accumulated wisdom to a king, and used hosts to produce descendants.
• Angel concluded that the Mind Flayer’s question tested whether he would defend human individuality or affirm collective consciousness.
• Angel told the Mind Flayer that collective consciousness was undoubtedly more perfect.

Angel argued to a mind flayer examiner that collective consciousness could prevent infighting while preserving art and innovation, and described individual loss as a return to an enduring whole. The examiner remained engaged with his vision, but the chapter ended before it revealed whether Angel would pass the trial.

• Angel defended collective consciousness as a way to end internal conflict and guide civilization toward ascension.
• Angel argued that collective civilizations could create art through shared perception and that their art could surpass individual achievements.
• Angel claimed a collective superbrain could test unconventional ideas faster and more fairly than individual civilizations, which could suppress innovators.
• The mind flayer examiner asked why an individual should sacrifice for the whole, and Angel compared collective consciousness to bodies, ecosystems, and other systems in which individuals sustain the whole.
• Angel concluded that collective consciousness preserved every individual's will and wisdom, making sacrifice a return rather than an end.

Angel passed the first Heart Chapter trial by arguing that betrayal had no place in a true collective-consciousness civilization. He began the second trial, where a Big-Headed Examiner asked whether anything created by a perished civilization still mattered to the universe, and learned it was an orphan of a destroyed civilization.

• Angel argued that individuals in a collective-consciousness civilization would see their own best interests as identical to the collective's, leaving no logical basis for betrayal.
• The Mind Flayer Examiner admitted that Angel had lied about his stance but praised his argument, then declared that Angel had passed the first trial.
• Angel checked his progress, spoke with the Little Demon host, and accepted the host's selection of the examiner for the second trial.
• The Big-Headed Examiner asked whether creations from a completely perished civilization still held meaning for the universe.
• Nomephins told Angel that the Book Fairy knew the Big-Headed Examiner and that it was an orphan of a destroyed civilization, clarifying its personal stake in the question.

Angel learned the Decayer’s tragic history and realized its question about extinct civilizations reflected its own struggle to find meaning. He argued that the legacy of a vanished civilization remained meaningful through what it had created, and the Decayer began listening as he shared examples from alchemy.

• Nomephins recounted how the Decayer had come from a prosperous civilization, lost its homeland, and returned to the Academy City changed after its civilization was destroyed.
• Angel concluded that the Decayer’s question about extinct civilizations was a silent plea for meaning, then considered how to answer sincerely.
• Angel argued that existence and creation gave meaning without needing an observer, using fossils as an example.
• Angel described how Greenblood Gold, created by the now-extinct Forest Fairies, had influenced his work and made him value the gifts left by vanished civilizations.
• Angel showed the Decayer an alchemical array plate incorporating a pattern from the extinct Origin Knot Civilization, and the Decayer raised its head to look at it.

Angel argued that vanished civilizations lived on through the knowledge and creations inherited by later generations, and the Decayer passed him despite remaining unconvinced. The Decayer chose to stay and observe Angel’s final trial, after Angel’s progress reached 2/3.

• Angel told the Decayer that vanished civilizations endured through the wisdom and creations they passed on, comparing their legacy to nutrients that carried their imprints into new life.
• The Decayer admitted Angel had awakened it from its despair and declared that he had passed the trial.
• The Little Demon host persuaded the Decayer to remain nearby and watch Angel’s remaining trial, then revealed that the Decayer had once hosted the Heart Chapter.
• The Decayer asked Angel’s permission to observe his final trial, and Angel agreed after noticing that his Heart Chapter progress had advanced to 2/3.
• The Decayer asked whether Angel was truly interested in its earlier question.

Angel let the Book Fairy use his question for the Decayer, who wanted to know what had changed during its years away from Academy City. Angel disguised the question by asking whether the Decayer’s head had always been so large, and the Decayer agreed to answer.

• The Decayer offered to repay Angel’s kindness by answering one question, and Angel struggled to choose one before Nomephins suggested letting the Book Fairy ask.
• Angel questioned Nomephins about its motives and identity, then agreed to give the Book Fairy his chance to ask the Decayer.
• The Book Fairy asked Angel to find out what the Decayer had experienced after leaving Academy City, when it returned changed and afraid of death.
• Angel decided to ask about the Decayer’s unusually large head as a way to uncover that experience without revealing his knowledge of the Book Fairy.
• The Little Demon host assumed Angel was rushing to meet the Demon God, and the Decayer agreed to explain why its head had changed.

Decayer revealed that it was the last survivor of Prussia Civilization, destroyed after its pursuit of truth drew the attention of a forbidden existence. It had preserved both its civilization’s knowledge and its people’s lingering soul fragments within its own mind, and a Wonderland notification appeared after Angel heard its confession.

• Decayer told Angel and the Little Demon host that it was the sole survivor of Prussia Civilization, whose scholars had been called seekers of the Way.
• Decayer explained that Prussia Civilization had been destroyed when its pursuit of truth attracted a forbidden existence, and that it returned to its ruined homeland after receiving authority from Cruel Scholar.
• Decayer used that authority to gather Prussia’s remaining knowledge, then forcibly retained the scattered soul fragments the authority could not contain.
• Decayer revealed that the soul fragments had swollen its head and left it enduring constant broken noise, but it had chosen to protect them rather than let them disappear.
• Angel understood that Decayer’s questions about extinct civilizations were its way of seeking proof that Prussia had existed, and he felt grateful to Book Fairy for making the confession possible.
• A Wonderland notification appeared in Angel’s Text Panel after Decayer finished speaking.