Chapter Summaries

Iver confronted Albert about his identity and reassured him that he would protect Isabel, then questioned Yunus about Anastasia’s apparent death and disappearance. After learning that Yunus had obtained Anastasia’s hair ribbon, Iver concluded that the girl Yunus saw was alive and was likely a familiar True Illusion.

• Albert explained that he had recognized Iver because Isolde’s Tears had passed from him to Isabel and then to Iver.
• Iver called Albert his father, promised to respect Isabel’s choices and protect her, and ended their conversation.
• Yunus told Iver that he had seen Anastasia alive in Avalon and received her hair ribbon, despite Mr. Maxim insisting she had treeified and died.
• Yunus described Mr. Maxim’s evasive behavior, and Iver examined the ribbon and learned that Sherlock had planned to catch the ghost.
• Iver ruled out a ghost and concluded that Yunus had seen a living person or a familiar True Illusion, pointing out that the fairy lady had vanished from the room.

Iver and Sherlock explained that Miss Neelim had come through a nearby entrance to the Fairy Kingdom and revealed how time and identity changed for those who stayed there. Yunus realized Anastasia had likely been taken into the Fairy Kingdom as a child, leaving the question of what happened to her unresolved.

• Sherlock entered Iver’s room and told Yunus he already knew he was the prince and would stand with the queen.
• Sherlock and Iver deduced that Miss Neelim came from the Fairy Kingdom, drawn by Yunus’s homesick song, and that a nearby entrance must exist.
• Iver explained how humans who stayed in the Fairy Kingdom gradually lost their language, memories, and human identity, while elves could endure the passage of time differently.
• Iver questioned why Mage Maxim showed no longing for Anastasia, and Yunus recalled that Maxim said she had died more than twenty years earlier and had become a tree as a child.
• Sherlock identified Yunus’s account of Maxim and Anastasia as the key to the mystery.

Sherlock and Iver uncovered that Anastasia had been secretly sent to the Fairy Kingdom to delay her treeification, and Grace admitted she and Maxim had arranged the deception. Grace revealed that the human who helped them was called Spider, whom the Fairy Queen called James.

• Sherlock deduced that Maxim had always known Anastasia was alive and that she had been sent to the Fairy Kingdom under the Moonlight inheritance.
• Grace appeared with the sleeping Neelim and revealed that her former name was Grace Moonlight.
• Grace explained that she and Maxim had hidden Anastasia in the Fairy Kingdom so she could enjoy a childhood before returning to undergo treeification.
• Grace said that Yunus had rescued the real Anastasia after she was accidentally pulled through a Fairy Hole, allowing the fairies to find her again.
• Iver asked about the human friend who had suggested the plan, and Grace said he called himself Spider and the Fairy Queen called him James.

Madam Grace described the elegant old man who had helped her, and Iver suspected he was Professor Moriarty, possibly seeking to steal Iver’s power. Iver persuaded Madam Grace to take him to meet the Fairy Queen that night, hoping to uncover the truth.

• Sherlock and Iver questioned Madam Grace about her old friend James, who she described as an elderly, powerful Inheritor of the Dedication and Adaptation Paths.
• Iver connected the description to Professor Moriarty and reconsidered why his adoptive father had spared him and reacted furiously when Iver died.
• Iver asked Madam Grace whether she could bring him into the Fairy Kingdom, and she said she could take one person at a time.
• Madam Grace said she had last entered the Fairy Kingdom the previous April and had seen Janet there, but had met the old man only once.
• Iver asked Madam Grace to take him to see the Fairy Queen and promised to keep Anastasia’s situation confidential.
• Madam Grace agreed to take Iver to the Fairy Kingdom at two o’clock that night, and said she could bring the sleeping fairy Neelim with her.

Iver entered the Fairy Country for the first time with Grace and discovered he could use its wish-fulfillment magic. As the fairies escorted them toward the Queen, Grace watched in astonishment as Iver walked onto a Rainbow Bridge that she could barely trust herself to cross.

• Madam Grace fed Iver a sparkling drink, and he entered the Fairy Country after the swing carried him into a surreal world.
• Iver used his breath to float, met a group of fairies, and learned that they thought he was a human balloon.
• Iver summoned a mirror and changed his clothes with wish-fulfillment magic, then Neelim arrived and claimed him as her friend.
• Grace asked the fairies to guide them to the Queen, and they created a Rainbow Bridge for the group.
• Iver tasted a piece of the bridge and strode onto it while Grace wondered how an adult could still believe in fairy tales.

Iver crossed the Rainbow Bridge toward the Fairy Queen’s palace, drawing a crowd of fairies who transformed his journey into a musical spectacle. As he entered the snowy palace, he recognized its toy soldiers as the Fairy Queen’s powerful apostles and the children’s nightmares within her fairy tale.

• Fairies gathered around Iver, built him a cake carriage, and accompanied him as he played the piano.
• The carriage launched from the Rainbow Bridge and raced along an icy roller coaster, while most of the fairies were thrown away.
• Iver’s piano music opened the palace gates, and its wooden toy soldiers saluted him as he passed.
• Iver recalled that the toy soldiers were powerful apostles of the Fairy Queen, formerly believers who had become part of her eternal fairy-tale kingdom.
• Iver recognized the palace’s soldiers as the children’s nightmares, which also belonged to fairy tales.

Iver met Fairy Queen Titania, who revealed her power to read his thoughts and placed him in her birdcage with the robin. The robin turned out to be Iver’s adoptive father, James Moriarty, who said he had been waiting for him and that their meeting was fate.

• Iver arrived at Titania’s throne and met the Fairy Queen, who offered him the robin in her birdcage and two sleepy fairies.
• Titania read Iver’s thoughts, shrank him, and placed him in the cage beside the robin before falling asleep.
• Iver recognized the robin as his adoptive father, James Moriarty, and greeted him.
• James told Iver that the cage was a free place to come and go, and that he had returned only a few days earlier to wait for him.

Iver confronted Professor Moriarty about fate, the future, and his own purpose, then asked whether Moriarty had caused his biological parents’ deaths. Moriarty admitted that he had done it.

• Iver asked whether Moriarty had chosen him as an heir or merely as a key, and Moriarty explained that knowledge could shape actions and that fate arose from the past.
• Iver concluded that Moriarty believed fate could be changed through information from the future, and recognized that Moriarty’s goals differed from those of the Ring Angels.
• Moriarty reminded Iver why he had come, prompting Iver to recall that he had originally sought answers about his parents and Moriarty’s plans.
• Iver asked whether Moriarty had caused the deaths of Julio Alexander and Anne Alexander, and Moriarty admitted that he had done it.

Iver learned that Professor Moriarty had arranged his parents’ deaths and that he and Yulia had been created for Jacob’s plans, though Moriarty claimed he had disrupted their fated outcomes. Moriarty revealed that Iver was a fragment of the Reincarnation Angel and could open the Gate to the Past, offering the chance to change history.

• Bird James told Iver that he was Jacob’s experimental subject, modified and placed inside the Sacred Entity, a fragment of the Ring Angel.
• Professor Moriarty explained that Yulia was cultivated flesh with no parents and was originally meant to be adopted by the Barton Couple, while Iver was meant for Bishop Mathers.
• Moriarty admitted that he had caused Iver’s parents’ premature deaths, but argued that Jacob’s plan had destined them to die and that he had saved Iver from that fate.
• Iver demanded to know why Moriarty called him a key, and Moriarty explained that the Cicada Shedding had locked history against restarting before that event.
• Moriarty revealed that Iver was a fragment of the Reincarnation Angel who could open the Gate to the Past and allow them to change history from the day Amber was born.

Iver rejected the Gate to the Past, arguing that endless returns would erase the meaning of the present and make people’s lives a pursuit of a predetermined “best” outcome. Professor Moriarty revealed that the Gate’s purpose was not to change the past, but to change the future.

• Iver explained rerolling through a game analogy and argued that repeated attempts to improve one’s starting point consumed time and could make the present meaningless.
• Iver told Professor Moriarty and Gem Bird that he cherished his present relationships and experiences and would not trade them for a reset.
• Iver said that changing history would require opposing the Nine Pillar Gods, and Gem Bird admitted he had known that from the start.
• Gem Bird told Iver that the Nine Pillar Gods’ opposition could be turned into influence and power in the Dream Realm.
• Gem Bird declared that the Gate to the Past mattered not for changing the past, but for changing the future.

Professor Moriarty tried to persuade Iver to let him borrow Iver’s special nature, then revealed that he came from another layer of history where the world had ended. He left Iver confronting the truth that Moriarty had witnessed history collapse and rewind to Amber’s rise as a Pillar God.

• Professor Moriarty argued that Iver could use time reversal to prevent future tragedies, and Iver admitted he did not trust him or want to give him access to his nature.
• Professor Moriarty explained that the Silken Grimoire could only parasitize Iver’s nature with his consent, while Iver warned that the Nine Pillar Gods would oppose the plan.
• Professor Moriarty revealed that he knew Ouroboros would one day complete the Path of Transcendence and change to the Path of Metamorphosis.
• Professor Moriarty told Iver that part of him came from another layer of history, where London in 1999 was the capital of the Camelot United Kingdom.
• Professor Moriarty said that the world in his layer of history was destroyed at the end of 1999, and history collapsed back to the day Amber was born and became a Pillar God.

Iver pieced together how Twilight, Taboo, Amber, and the repeating world might be connected, and suspected that the Sacred Entity had altered Moriarty’s soul and motives. Professor Moriarty explained that he sought reincarnation to uncover Taboo and prevent the world’s destruction, leaving Iver to consider the idea of killing the old world so a new one could survive.

• Iver connected the Source River of Error with the Ring Angel’s warning about an unchanging world trapped in cycles, and asked Moriarty whether his world line also had Twilight and Amber.
• Gem Bird said Amber had replaced the former Paths and identified Creation as the Source River associated with the later birth of several Pillar Gods.
• Iver reasoned that Moriarty might have been changed by a returning savior’s soul after meeting Anna Kingsford, and suspected Moriarty had left Avalon to test what Iver knew.
• Professor Moriarty said he sought the power of Reincarnation to return to the past, uncover Taboo, and disrupt the world’s destined destruction.
• Iver concluded that Moriarty’s doctrine of Premature Death could extend to the world itself: the old world might have to die for a new one to survive.

Professor Moriarty revealed that he had used Yulia’s illness to create a future regret for Iver and hoped Iver’s unexplained ability to revive her could help him return to the past. Iver refused to join him, learned about the future Path of Metamorphosis, and parted with his father determined to protect those around him.

• Professor Moriarty told Iver he wanted to reincarnate with him and admitted he had never tried taking Iver’s Traits or opening the door, but Iver refused.
• Professor Moriarty explained that he had supplied Yulia with medicine through the smuggling route and that she would have died after the Pelican Bar was shut down if Iver had not revived her.
• Iver realized that Professor Moriarty’s knowledge of the future differed from his own and asked what class the Ring Angel had created.
• Professor Moriarty explained that the Ring Angel founded alchemy and that the Elementalist class emerged after the Ring Angel ascended as the Pillar God of the Path of Metamorphosis.
• Iver said he would study alchemy and protect his loved ones, while Professor Moriarty invited him to observe the Rosy Cross Society’s Sacred Rite in Stibnite on May fifth before leaving.

Iver realized Professor Moriarty’s knowledge came from a different version of the future, making the Professor’s truthful intelligence dangerously incomplete. He suspected that the Pillar Gods had also intervened in events and that Moriarty’s return might have been orchestrated, but he did not know by whom.

• Iver recognized that seeing through Professor Moriarty’s intelligence could make him arrogant, warned himself not to become like James, and resolved to conceal his trump cards until he could kill the Professor decisively.
• While Fairy Queen Titania slept, Iver concluded that Moriarty was a transmigrated savior whose future differed from the one Iver knew, explaining why the Professor lacked knowledge of the Angel War and other events.
• Iver compared Moriarty’s account of Ouroboros and the Endless Knot with the game’s history and the future shown by the Lord of Scales and Feathers, identifying a major difference between the Professor Route and the Ouroboros Ring Route.
• Iver suspected Candle Holder or another Pillar God had interfered, and reasoned that the Pillar Gods who had shown him goodwill survived to the apocalypse while the Bear Angel and Serpent Father did not.
• Iver wondered whether Professor Moriarty’s return had been arranged by an entity such as Candle Holder, the Hourglass, Colorful Black, or Amber.

Iver realized the Ouroboros Ring Ritual had been moved forward to May 5, 1899, and planned how to prepare for the Fallen Angel’s descent while acknowledging he could not safely stop it. As he worried about splitting off another version of himself, Madam Grace arrived and mistook Titania for having locked Iver in a birdcage.

• Iver concluded that the war had forced the Ouroboros Ring Ritual forward by a year, risking the Fallen Angel’s descent in May 1899.
• Iver decided not to interfere with the ritual directly and planned to stop the Griffin Legion’s bombardment before traveling to Stibium to rescue valuable people and search for supplies.
• Iver realized that the accelerated ritual meant Version 3.0 would arrive before Version 2.0’s problems were resolved, leaving him little time to prepare.
• Iver wondered whether the Ovum Moon Grimoire could create a clone by cutting off another version of himself, then feared he might create a power-hungry New Iver.
• Madam Grace arrived, saw Iver in a birdcage, and asked Titania why she had locked him up; Titania woke in surprise.

Iver explained why James had hidden in Titania’s cage and reassured the Fairy Queen after James left without saying goodbye. Titania sent Iver and Grace to find Anastasia, then ordered the fairies to prepare a chaotic feast and turned a toy soldier into her new caged bird.

• Iver told Titania that James had left and explained that James had used the Fairy Queen’s protection to avoid the Pillar Gods’ attention.
• Titania lamented James’s departure, and Iver promised he would return and offered to keep her company another time.
• Grace told Titania she had come to find Anastasia and asked whether Iver could accompany her.
• Titania sent Iver and Grace through a vortex, then ordered the fairies to gather guests, food, and entertainment for a grand feast.
• A toy soldier reminded Titania that the last grand feast had been held twenty years earlier, so she turned him into a parrot and pulled him into her birdcage.

Iver and Grace found Anastasia in the Fairy Kingdom, where Grace revealed that her daughter’s tree transformation was advancing and that Anastasia hid her appearance with True Illusion. When Iver saw the severely transformed girl, Anastasia’s illusion made her appear as a healthy young elf.

• Grace told Iver that every Fairy Queen was called Titania and recalled meeting the current queen when they were both young.
• Grace explained that Anastasia’s tree transformation had begun in her thirties and had reached its second stage by her fifties.
• Grace warned Iver not to show surprise or pity because Anastasia was sensitive about her appearance and used True Illusion to hide it.
• Iver and Grace found Anastasia half-asleep in a wheat field, with bark covering most of her body and branches growing from her arms.
• Anastasia saw Iver and used True Illusion, appearing as a healthy young girl who ran to Grace and asked why she had not announced her guest.

Mr. Iver discovered that Anastasia’s appearance was an illusion concealing her transformation into a tree demon. Grace explained that Anastasia’s transformation was advancing and that loud noises could harm her, leaving Mr. Iver warned to speak softly around her.

• Mr. Iver used his Path Power to see that Anastasia’s Maiden Form concealed a little tree, while Grace’s body glowed with mysterious markings.
• Anastasia asked Mr. Iver if he had come to burn her, and Grace explained that the fairies’ stories had frightened her.
• Grace told Anastasia that burning her after her transformation would help her ascend into the Dream Realm rather than remain stranded in the Material Realm.
• Anastasia said she wanted to stay with her mother, but Grace explained that her transformation made her increasingly sensitive to noise.
• Grace warned Mr. Iver that tree demons feared loud sounds and asked him to keep his voice down.

Iver told Anastasia the legend of the Forest Goddess, and she longed to help others as the tree spirit had. When she learned Yunus had come looking for her, Anastasia insisted on meeting him despite the risk that it would accelerate her transformation, hoping to save his soul.

• Iver recounted the Forest Goddess legend, and Anastasia asked whether she would become one too.
• Grace explained that the Forest Goddess was likely an elf nearing her ascension to the Dream Realm, and reassured Iver that Half-Elves were unlikely to undergo tree transformation.
• Anastasia asked Iver about Yunus and learned that he had come looking for her.
• Grace warned that Anastasia could not safely go outside, but Anastasia insisted on meeting Yunus and said remaining transformed might be painful.
• Anastasia told Grace that she wanted to give Yunus a gift and might be able to save his soul.

Yunus waited with Maxim for Anastasia, reflecting on his late friend and the promise that had brought him to the Fairy Kingdom. When Anastasia arrived, she thanked Yunus and revealed her true form as she transformed into a tree, asking him to take her out to see the world.

• Maxim asked Yunus to stay quiet when the others returned, and Yunus agreed while wondering why Maxim was angry with him.
• Yunus remembered how his friend Yunus had chosen to travel with Albert and had supported him through their journey.
• A glass carriage emerged from the moon carrying Iver, Madam Grace, Neelim, and Anastasia, and Maxim embraced his daughter when she arrived.
• Yunus returned Anastasia's hair ribbon and told her he had kept his promise to visit her.
• Anastasia thanked Yunus and transformed into a silver Elven-style harp, then revealed her tree form and asked him to take her to see the world.