Chapter Summaries

Angel learned that only three Settlement Tickets were available, while Juanjuan scrambled to get ahead of its rivals. After Moon Dew warned that rare parasitic Dream Beasts could threaten Dawn's Dream, Angel sent a warning to everyone, and Juanjuan contacted him with a new hint from fate.

• Juanjuan asked Angel to delay sharing the Settlement Ticket news, but Angel explained that he had already revealed it in the workshop illusion.
• Juanjuan rushed off to tackle a Large Dream Bubble, while Angel considered how the limited Settlement Tickets could drive competition for Dawn Points.
• Moon Dew described how she subdued a powerful Dream Guest and asked Angel about the Dream Crystal Plain and possible Dream Beast threats.
• Moon Dew warned Angel that rare native Dream Beasts could parasitize Dream Guests and follow them into reality, so Angel sent the warning to everyone outside Dream Bubbles.
• Juanjuan told Angel that the Sun and Moon Wizards had overheard its conversation with Camilo, then revealed that fate had given it a hint.

Juanjuan explained that the Flower Moon Fairies would eventually discover Dawn’s Dream through Dream Guests, their own future dreams, or Moon Dew’s return to reality, and proposed negotiating with them before that happened. Angel rejected Juanjuan’s plan because its bargaining chips relied on Moon Dew’s secret and could pressure her into choosing sides.

• Juanjuan told Angel that the Flower Moon Fairies knew Moon Dew well enough to notice her changes and investigate her connection to Dawn’s Dream.
• Angel realized Dream Guests from Dawn City could reveal Dawn’s Dream to the Flower Moon Fairies, while the fairies might also enter it themselves or sense Moon Dew when she returned to reality.
• Juanjuan proposed using Dawn’s Dream as a bargaining chip to negotiate with the Flower Moon Fairies for access to Moon God Mead and possible future cooperation with Milk Spring Village.
• Angel warned Juanjuan that its actual leverage came from Moon Dew’s secret and promised Drunken Thorn Rose, so using it could hurt Moon Dew and make her side with the Flower Moon Fairies.
• Juanjuan admitted it had hoped to talk Angel into joining the negotiation, but Angel remained unconvinced.

Angel brought Moon Dew and Juanjuan together to discuss how to handle the Flower Moon Fairies learning about Dawn’s Dream and the Drunken Thorn Rose. He advised Juanjuan to avoid approaching them first and let them initiate talks, leaving the group with a strategy but no meeting with the fairies yet.

• Angel told Juanjuan to wait for Moon Dew before deciding how to address the Flower Moon Fairies, then chose Egret Lake Park as their meeting place.
• Angel explained Juanjuan’s warning to Moon Dew, who said she was not worried that the Flower Moon Fairies would discover what she had revealed.
• Juanjuan arrived at Egret Lake Park and proposed that Moon Dew lead negotiations with the Flower Moon Fairies, but Moon Dew misunderstood and was surprised by the idea.
• Juanjuan explained that it had not meant to use Moon Dew as a threat, while Angel warned that making Moon Dew lead could make the fairies feel she was turning against them.
• Angel suggested Juanjuan make no approach and let the Flower Moon Fairies come to it, since they would want to contain the spread of the Drunken Thorn Rose information.

Angel and Juanjuan agreed on a plan to make the Flower Moon Fairies negotiate by letting Moon Dew honestly explain why she wanted to remain with Dawn's Dream. After confirming that the Witch's Cottage had returned to independent operation, Angel prepared to leave with Moon Dew, who recalled that her mother's diary might describe whether she could sense the fairies arriving.

• Angel explained that Juanjuan's proposal could redirect the Flower Moon Fairies' resentment toward Dawn's Dream, and Juanjuan agreed to let Angel handle any risk of being remembered by Wonderland Authority.
• Angel and Juanjuan agreed that Moon Dew would tell the Flower Moon Fairies the truth, and Moon Dew readily accepted the plan.
• Angel accompanied Moon Dew to the Witch's Cottage and confirmed that his god's-eye view worked only partially there, showing that the cottage had regained its independence from Dawn's Dream.
• Angel explained his conclusion to Moon Dew, who realized the fairies had been unable to visit while the cottage was a Dream Bubble and asked whether she could see them the next day.
• As Angel and Moon Dew prepared to return to Dawn's Dream, Angel asked whether she could sense the Flower Moon Fairies arriving; Moon Dew recalled that her mother's diary mentioned a similar experience.

Moon Dew found her mother Moon Bell’s diary in the Witch’s Cottage and learned that the cottage could alert its owner when outsiders arrived. Angel could not open a sealed iron box there, but in Dawn’s Dream he used his God's-eye view to discover a blank diary and two pages from a travelogue written by Basil.

• Moon Dew crossed the Witch’s Cottage’s shifting air maze, entered her mother’s study, and returned with Moon Bell’s fifth diary and a sealed iron box.
• Moon Dew showed Angel a diary entry saying the cottage had reminded Moon Bell that Granny Tang had arrived, and explained that the cottage could alert its owner to outsiders.
• Moon Dew asked Angel to open the iron box, but Angel could not penetrate it in the Witch’s Cottage and suggested examining it in Dawn’s Dream.
• Moon Dew took Angel back to Dawn’s Dream, where Angel used his God's-eye view to see inside the box.
• Angel found a new blank diary containing two pages from a travelogue whose author was Basil.

Angel read Bazel's handwritten account of being stranded in an enclave of the Deep Dream Civilization and learned how he sent the pages into the Dream Realm before his memories could be erased. The notes revealed that Deep Dreamers bonded with virtual mass quanta, which enabled creation.

• Angel recognized the manuscript as Bazel's record and read that Bazel had sought the Astral Spirit Realm but instead arrived in a place resembling the Dream Realm.
• Bazel recorded that two Deep Dreamers sealed his coordinates and told him their location was an enclave of the Deep Dream Civilization.
• Bazel identified the two Deep Dreamers as Liumuian and Kezluoge and learned that their flame dust was virtual mass quanta.
• Bazel discovered that he could not leave with his memories of Deep Dream intact, so he tore out the manuscript pages and sent them into exile space.
• Angel concluded that Moon Bell had likely found the pages and began reading Bazel's annotations about Deep Dreamers and their contracts with virtual mass quanta.

Angel learned that Virtual Mass Quanta were all-purpose materials used to synthesize objects, then told Moon Dew that the sealed box held a blank diary and Basil’s travel notes rather than clues about her mother. As they resumed searching for Dream Bubbles, Moon Dew wondered whether she and her mother came from Deep Dream, while Angel remained uncertain about Moon Bell’s past.

• Angel read Basil’s notes about Virtual Mass Quanta, learning that public quanta made temporary objects, private quanta could create permanent ones, and their origin might be miraculous.
• Angel considered whether Juanjuan could use fate perception to locate a Deep Dream enclave through Basil’s notes, but the iron box holding them remained sealed.
• Angel told Moon Dew that the box contained a blank diary and two pages of Basil’s travel notes, then handed her the diary to read.
• Moon Dew was disappointed that the box offered no clues about her mother, and Angel reassured her that he would share any news about Drunken Thorn Rose.
• Angel and Moon Dew resumed looking for Dream Bubbles, and Moon Dew speculated that she and her mother might have come from Deep Dream.
• Angel told Moon Dew that she probably was not from Deep Dream because the Flower Moon Fairies had watched her grow up, but he could not rule out the possibility for Moon Bell.

Angel helped Moon Dew locate a newly formed Large Dream Bubble, then coordinated with Nomephins about the maze’s final treasure chests and Wall of Questions. Juanjuan returned from an exhausting Dream Bubble and told Angel about the troublesome child it had entertained.

• Moon Dew used her dream sight to find a huge opening in the trees, and Angel accompanied her to the newly formed Large Dream Bubble before she entered it.
• Angel contacted Nomephins and arranged for the final Wall of Questions to stall Decayer and Liriel until he could meet them at the maze exit.
• Juanjuan emerged from a Dream Bubble after earning nearly three hundred Dawn Points and hid from the six-year-old boy who had been its Dream Guest.
• Angel contacted Juanjuan, who described entertaining the boy through tricks, a pumpkin ride, and a fight against an imaginary dragon.
• Juanjuan declined Angel’s offer to help it get revenge on the boy and asked what Angel had wanted to discuss.

Angel asked Juanjuan about Dimension Projectors and learned about their forms, their possible ruins, and Basil’s connection to the Source World. After discussing whether Juanjuan could use an item to locate Moon Bell, Angel warned it about the Flower Moon Fairies, while Moon Dew brought an elderly woman to a place from her memories in Dawn City.

• Juanjuan explained that Dimension Projectors were higher-dimensional beings who projected their power or will into the constant dimension, either by taking over a body or creating one.
• Juanjuan said Projectors sometimes left behind ruins that could contain knowledge, artifacts, or possible anchors, but it doubted that any ruins offered genuine coordinates to the Astral Spirit Realm.
• Juanjuan identified Basil as a Legendary Wizard of the spatial branch who had joined Newk Academy’s Wayfaring School and had been seen in the Source World ten years earlier.
• Angel declined Juanjuan’s offer to help contact Basil and asked whether it could use one of Moon Bell’s belongings to prophesy her location; Juanjuan said trying it in reality might work.
• Angel told Juanjuan that the Flower Moon Fairies might soon arrive at the Witch’s Cottage and ended their call.
• Moon Dew brought a gaunt old woman to Egret Lake Park in Dawn City, where the woman recognized a tree connected to her memories and walked away into the dream mist.

Moon Dew chose to search for Dream Bubbles alone so she could grow up, while Angel supported her and took Moon Bell’s iron box to investigate. Angel then went to the Interrogation Labyrinth, where Decayer and Liriel found clues to the final treasure chest as he prepared the final Wall of Questions.

• Moon Dew told Angel she wanted to see Granny’s regrets in Dawn City and chose to pursue Dream Trapping Authority.
• Moon Dew asked Angel to let her find the next Dream Bubble alone, and he supported her while giving her a Cyclone for communication.
• Moon Dew handed Moon Bell’s iron box to Angel in case it could reveal a clue, then entered a Medium Dream Bubble on her own.
• Angel left Dawn’s Dream and used a permanent teleportation card to reach the Sealed Land, where Nomephins told him Decayer and Liriel were close to finding the final treasure chest.
• Angel descended to the Interrogation Labyrinth to control its final Wall of Questions, while Decayer and Liriel followed a pinewood scent and found the chest’s location.

Liriel and the Decayer followed the pinewood fragrance to the final Wall of Questions, where Nomephins revealed that the last treasure chest could only be opened after they completed the trial. A mysterious great being had upgraded their reward and would personally ask the final questions, so Liriel prepared the Decayer to proceed cautiously.

• Liriel extinguished the ninth pinewood-scented candle, and its fragrance led her and the Decayer toward the labyrinth's exit.
• Liriel confronted Nomephins at the final Wall of Questions, where a golden treasure chest emerged from its mouth but evaded her grasp.
• Nomephins explained that the chest would open only after the pair completed the final Wall of Questions, whose reward a great being had upgraded.
• Nomephins revealed that the great being would personally ask the questions, hoping the outsiders' answers might inspire them to solve an unsolvable puzzle.
• Liriel and the Decayer stepped aside to agree to act respectfully and avoid revealing unnecessary thoughts when they met the great being.

Liriel and the Decayer traveled through visions of worlds being born and destroyed before meeting a powerful figure who asked them three questions about the world. They began preparing separate answers, while Liriel wondered whether their host was troubled because it intended to create a world.

• Nomephins guided Liriel and the Decayer through a realm showing civilizations and worlds repeatedly forming and dissolving.
• Liriel and the Decayer met a golden, humanlike figure playing chess, which recognized their backgrounds and invited them to answer three questions.
• The figure asked what the world was, where it came from, and where it would return, then sent them into a crystal dome to prepare.
• Liriel and the Decayer agreed to develop answers from different perspectives, with Liriel choosing wizard rationalism and the Decayer choosing civilization and philosophy.
• Liriel considered why their host had asked the questions and suspected it might be trying to create a world.

Angel staged a display of Deep Dream traits so Liriel would report the Interrogation Labyrinth as Deep Dream to the Cruel Scholar. While Liriel answered his questions about the world, her account of how worlds formed led Angel to reconsider the Dream Wilderness and Dream Crystal Plain as worlds whose underlying principles he still needed to understand.

• Angel arranged a spectacle of golden flame dust to convince the Cruel Scholar, through Liriel's report, that the Interrogation Labyrinth lay within Deep Dream.
• After five minutes of thought, Liriel and the Decayer left the Glazed Dome together to answer the great figure's three questions.
• The great figure separated Liriel and the Decayer onto opposite sides of the glaze, then began questioning them independently.
• Liriel described the world as a collection of desires and said it originated when consciousness and desire restrained disorderly energy.
• The great figure asked Liriel how higher-dimensional energy could be verified and why the first consciousness had been born, and she answered that it arose through authority and external force.
• Liriel's explanation made Angel recognize that the Dream Wilderness and Dream Crystal Plain had the foundations of worlds, but that he still needed to understand the principles behind their existence.

Liriel and the Decayer answered Angel’s questions about what the world was, where it came from, and where it would end, offering complementary views on order, cognition, and civilization. Angel accepted both answers and gained ideas for sustaining Dream of the Nightmare Realm, while the two contestants were reunited after the game ended.

• Liriel answered that restrained desire could stabilize the world, while unchecked destruction would dissolve it into chaos.
• The Decayer defended Angel’s actions regarding Prussia Civilization, then described the world as an ordered system shaped by cognition and knowledge.
• The Decayer said the world’s continuation depended on civilization and the pursuit of knowledge, not on preserving any single material world.
• Angel considered how Liriel’s principle of creation and the Decayer’s principle of civilization could support Dream of the Nightmare Realm.
• Angel placed a final game piece, and Liriel and the Decayer each saw their opponent’s great dragon fall on their side of the board.
• The board vanished, the great one briefly revealed a divine face, and Liriel appeared beside the Decayer as they wondered about His power.

Decayer and Liriel passed the trial and chose to ask whether Angel was creating a world, receiving a cryptic answer before being sent back to Nomephins. They discovered their reward was a single Unspeakable Wish Page, and Nomephins asked which of them would use it.

• Angel judged Decayer and Liriel’s answers a pass and offered them one question as a reward.
• Decayer and Liriel declined to ask about the Deep Dream Enclave because answering would lead to their memories being wiped.
• Liriel asked whether Angel was creating a world, and Angel said his predicament was connected to world creation but that he was not the one creating it.
• Angel sent Decayer and Liriel through golden threads back to the final Wall of Questions, where Nomephins directed them to open their reward chest.
• Nomephins revealed that the chest contained an Unspeakable Wish Page, which could grant one small wish chosen at random, and asked who would use it.

Liriel let Decayer use the golden Wish Page, and he vanished, leaving her frightened until Nomephins assured her he was alive. While Nomephins explained the Method of Consciousness Persistence to Liriel, Decayer appeared before Angel, who offered to show him the current state of the Prussia people.

• Liriel gave Decayer the Wish Page because he had previously yielded opportunities to her, and Decayer tore it open under Nomephins's guidance.
• Golden light swallowed Decayer and made him disappear, prompting Liriel to fear that the page had granted his wish to embrace nothingness.
• Nomephins told Liriel that the Wish Page could not kill its user, then began explaining the Method of Consciousness Persistence after she confirmed she wanted to learn it.
• Decayer appeared in a strange mechanical room and found Angel waiting for him, having arranged a backdoor in the Wish Page with the help of a mysterious lord.
• Angel told Decayer he would show him the current state of the Prussia people, and Decayer agreed to set out with him.

Angel created an illusion of Fool's Academy City so the Decayer could see how the Prussians were living. The Decayer discovered that the Prussians were being helped by outsiders and Auxiliary Hands as they began rebuilding their lives.

• Angel brought the Decayer into a real-time illusion of Fool's Academy City and took him on a sightseeing carriage.
• The Decayer saw Sibulin Library Station and learned that its faculty compiled classics from many races.
• At Enlightenment Academy, the Decayer saw hundreds of Prussians exercising and spending time outdoors, apparently transformed in just a few days.
• The Decayer approached the Prussians and noticed that each had a silver-white Auxiliary Hand while outsiders guided groups of them.
• Angel explained that the Auxiliary Hands helped the Prussians move and that life mentors guided them from imitation toward rebuilding themselves.

The Cruel Scholar’s factions gathered in his hidden library while Wicks and Kagu waited for the Pleasure Pavilion Master and the Decayer to awaken in Aisha Underground City. The Decayer and Liriel returned from the Dream Bridge with their memories blurred, though the Decayer secretly preserved his and chose not to recover them yet.

• The Mechanical Creator, Beast Lord, and Weird Lord discussed the coming talks, Balalaika, and the Secluded Warden in the Cruel Scholar’s library.
• Wicks and Kagu waited above Aisha Underground City for the Pleasure Pavilion Master and the Decayer, and the Cruel Scholar told them to bring the pair into the Heart Chapter once they awoke.
• The Decayer and Liriel appeared on the Dream Bridge after leaving the Interrogation Labyrinth, and Liriel asked why Nomephins had said the Decayer was the answer to making consciousness endure forever.
• Liriel and the Decayer both lost access to their recent memories, but the Decayer realized he could still retrieve his and deliberately kept them buried until he was far from the Abyss and the Cruel Scholar.
• Liriel took the Decayer’s hand and turned, bringing them back from the Dream Bridge to reality.

After waking from their Dreamwalk, Liriel discovered that three days had passed and that she had lost the memories of that time. As she prepared to meet Kagu and Wicks, the Decayer sank back into nothingness, though their names drew him to follow her.

• The Decayer suppressed his Dreamwalking dizziness with mental power, while Liriel noticed that he had become unusually silent and indifferent.
• Liriel found that the Entering Dreams Pool had been depleted by three days' worth of energy, and the Decayer confirmed the passage of time with the marks on his hand.
• Liriel questioned Little Mushroom and learned that she and the Decayer had shown no outward activity, while Liriel herself could not remember the missing days on the Dream Bridge.
• Little Mushroom reported that the Cruel Scholar's gaze had swept across Aisha Underground City and that Kagu and Wicks had returned to wait outside Dream Experience Hall.
• Liriel set aside her plan to search for her lost memories and went to meet Kagu and Wicks; the Decayer followed when he heard their names.

Liriel entered the Netherwander Realm with the Decayer and learned from the Mechanical Creator why humans who had visited it never revealed its coordinates. Guided by the Mechanical Eye, she traveled by ghostfire toward the Myriad-Degree Nexus, where the Cruel Scholar and a guest were expected.

• The Cruel Scholar sent Liriel and the Decayer through a bronze doorway in the Heart Chapter to recover Liriel's missing memories.
• Liriel arrived in the Netherwander Realm and confirmed with the Decayer that it was the afterlife world sought by Southern Region wizards.
• The Mechanical Eye explained that humans had visited the Netherwander Realm before but kept its location secret because living Demon Gods and Ancient Ones could be found there.
• The Mechanical Eye told Liriel that the Cruel Scholar would help her recover her memories and that she would need to cooperate to return safely.
• Liriel followed the Mechanical Eye through three ghostfire routes and reached a pitch-black forest of bones.