Recaps

Iver and Aleister gathered with the other participants in the New Moon Ritual, most of whom had ties to Aleister, as the Stibnite figures erupted into a bitter argument. The final participant, Sour Wine, arrived just before Winged Flame ended the fighting, leaving the ritual poised to begin with its examiner already exasperated.

• Iver identified the old mage as Pelican, Clown Laro as a court jester presumed dead, and the woman beside Laro as Princess Noel Valentine.
• Laro traded insults with Andrea Walter, repeatedly drawing her anger back onto himself while Aleister joined in and taunted her.
• Professor Lasimi appeared, and Andrea accused him of betraying Valentine VII and Prince Heinrich by luring them to the Spirit Tower.
• Sour Wine arrived as the ninth participant and mistook the participants’ quarrel for fierce competition in the ritual.
• Winged Flame awakened the stone statue and shouted for everyone to stop arguing, after apparently waiting for all participants to arrive.

Winged Flame explained the dangerous rules of the New Moon Promotion Ritual, including its death-based victory conditions and the consequences of failure. As the ritual began, Iver realized that dying early might give him a strategic advantage.

• Winged Flame announced that the ritual would last three hours and select three winners by points, while participants had to survive and complete a special victory condition.
• Winged Flame explained that participants could surrender by raising a hand and saying “I surrender,” though doing so counted as ritual failure and could carry injuries back to reality.
• Winged Flame revealed the conditions “Three Choices, One,” “Sin-Laden,” and “Holy Resurrection,” including that cursed souls could interfere with killers and the highest-scoring dead participant could be resurrected to win.
• Iver reasoned that dying early might let him observe opponents and earn points as a soul, while the survivors would still face a timed elimination.
• Sandro asked Winged Flame about the duration and frequency of the Sin-Laden curse, and learned that it lasted three minutes, could be used once per hour, and could cause considerable trouble.
• Winged Flame began the ritual, and the world sank into darkness.

Iver awakened inside a vivid oil-painted ballroom and deciphered the Candlebearer’s cryptic promotion ritual, which revolved around completing paintings and escaping. He resolved to learn how to complete a painting and find the other candidates, especially Aleister.

• Iver realized the smiling guests and white Candlebearer statue were part of an oil painting, then matched the guests’ expressions to join their dance.
• Winged Flame explained that Iver had awakened without knowing who he was or why he was there, and the ritual listed three paintings with competing completion routes.
• Iver reasoned that candidates would have to compete over each painting’s outcome, though the dead could still influence the ritual and vie for victory through points.
• Iver concluded that surviving alone was not enough: he needed to complete a painting and escape, or die with the highest score to win.
• Iver decided to investigate how to complete a painting and search for the other candidates, preferably Aleister.

Iver realized the banquet in the painting was not a real historical scene but a human painter’s imagined version of the past. The chapter left him startled when Sasha said the arriving host was her son, Cain, whose existence contradicted the history Iver knew.

• Iver danced while listening to the guests and learned from Sasha that she had arrived two days earlier and was Lord Zagreus’s lover.
• Iver recognized that Sasha and the other guests looked human, unlike the elves who would have attended a banquet in the Banquet Lord’s era.
• Iver concluded that the painting was created during the human era and drew on records of Sister Sasha, while its details reflected the painter’s mistakes and imagination.
• After Iver finished his wine, Sasha announced that the banquet’s host was her son, Cain.
• Iver realized Cain could not have existed during Zagreus’s era and was baffled by the painter’s historical error.

At the banquet celebrating Zagreus’s death, Iver faced a timed choice between three explanations for the feast and chose Funeral and Sacrifice. He returned to the dance floor as other people entered the painting, while Aleister appeared in a vivid, childlike world and ordered an attack.

• Cain arrived at the banquet, led the guests in toasts to Zagreus, and transformed the gathering into a wild feast.
• Time froze, and Iver found three doors labeled Funeral and Sacrifice, Celebration and Revelry, and Madness and Slaughter.
• Iver chose Funeral and Sacrifice, then found doors marked by different numbers of lit Three Petal Flower petals before returning to the banquet.
• Iver noticed the dance floor had grown crowded and saw a blonde woman invite Cain to dance.
• Aleister, transformed into a red fire fox, ordered a crow to attack a staff-wielding baboon in another world.

Aleister used her knowledge of Jacob’s fairy tale “White Horse King” to align herself with the White Horse and steer him toward challenging the Giant Bear. After the baboon mage fled to the Golden Lion, the Lion revealed he would never allow the White Horse to rule.

• Aleister recognized the animal world as the setting of Jacob’s fairy tale and identified its characters with figures from the Land Partition War and the War of Heavenly Punishment.
• Aleister joined the White Horse, while a baboon mage arrived and demanded to become his adviser; Aleister attacked, but the mage escaped through a portal.
• Aleister persuaded the White Horse to distrust the baboon’s motives and the Golden Lion’s ambitions, and the White Horse agreed to investigate the Lion.
• The baboon mage reached the Golden Lion and reported that the White Horse wanted to become king.
• The Golden Lion told the baboon that the White Horse could serve him but could never rule, because subjects would not fear a king who shared their food and way of life.

Sandro, the old mage known as Pelican, identified the Great Serpent as Duchess Bayard and devised a plan to survive the New Moon Ritual. He then realized the ritual let participants reshape a painting’s meaning by altering its events, and believed this insight guaranteed his victory.

• Sandro concluded that the Great Serpent was Duchess Bayard, a powerful Child of the Moon allied with the Church, and decided to avoid opposing her.
• He planned to act as a strategist, help multiple groups complete their paintings, and use his contributions to secure enough points to survive.
• Sandro reconsidered the Snow White Queen painting and wondered whether its figures could represent the Beast Lord and the Constant Self rather than the Empire and Silver Crowned Dragon.
• He realized that participants could change a painting’s meaning by removing events that did not fit the future they wanted, thereby twisting the past.
• Sandro understood that the ritual’s choices were possible stories to create, not correct answers, and concluded that he was guaranteed to win.

Iver and Princess Noel investigated the banquet’s strange history and realized they might have to correct its contradictions themselves. Andrea exposed Cain as an impostor and stabbed him with poisonous crystal spikes, leaving his fate uncertain.

• Iver questioned Andrea’s devotion to the Blood Angel while dancing with Sasha.
• Princess Noel joined Iver, and they discussed the banquet’s references to the Mad Dragon and the Host of the Banquet’s death.
• Iver and Noel reasoned that the banquet might depict a history that never happened and that they needed to identify and correct its false details.
• Andrea pierced Cain with scarlet crystal spikes and accused him of pretending to be a Child of the Moon.
• Iver realized Andrea had attacked Cain because his body contained no Child of the Moon blood.

Iver realized Andrea was exploiting the painting’s hidden rules to kill key characters and seize contribution points, so he and Princess Noel intervened. Andrea unleashed a massacre, but Iver fought back with divine arts and petrified her, though the battle’s outcome remained uncertain.

• Iver realized Andrea had planned to kill Cain during their dance and suspected that the woman claiming to be Sasha was an impostor.
• Iver told Princess Noel to kill Sasha, and Noel destroyed her before Andrea could claim the contribution points.
• Andrea recognized that Noel had stolen points from her and attacked the guests with blood swords, then tried to kill everyone in the painting.
• Iver blocked Andrea’s Fireball with Nine Pillar Gods Protection and attacked her with the Fire of Petrification and a pitch-black gale.
• Andrea fired soul-purifying lightning into the darkness, but Iver’s petrifying flame struck her and turned her to stone.

Iver petrified Andrea and explained the formidable abilities of Blood Lords, while Princess Noel admitted that courage was the only resource she had left amid Antimony’s collapse. Iver told her that risking herself was avoidance, not courage, and that it would solve none of her problems.

• Iver petrified Andrea as she prepared to unleash a powerful lightning strike, and her statue shattered when she fell.
• Iver explained that Andrea was likely a Blood Lord, whose flexible spellcasting and extraordinary vitality made her difficult to kill.
• Princess Noel described Antimony’s political and economic collapse and her inability to find a way to save the country.
• Noel said she had entered the dangerous advancement trial because courage was the last thing she could offer.
• Iver told Noel that her self-endangerment was avoidance meant to preserve her self-esteem, not a solution to Antimony’s crisis.

Iver realized the banquet was a ritual recreating Sister Sasha’s sacrifice, then presided over it by offering his own flesh and killing the guests to complete the Candle Holder’s sacred rite. He asked Noel to dismember and kill him so he could revive, leaving her to decide whether she could survive their coming fight.

• Noel admitted she had been seeking danger to find courage, and she and Iver agreed they would fight when he no longer needed to cooperate with her, without ambushing each other.
• Iver recognized that the funeral and sacrifice choices reflected a ritual imitating Sister Sasha’s ascent, and concluded that the sleeping girl in Amber was the Forbidden wrapped in Amber.
• Iver declared himself the Banquet Master and began the funeral, cutting his wrists and gouging out his eyes before leading the guests to offer themselves and staining the Candle Holder statue with divine blood.
• Iver explained that the guests had eaten the Banquet Master’s flesh and were repaying the debt by joining the Endless Mad Banquet, then killed them all.
• Iver asked Noel to cut off his hands and feet, remove some skin, and kill him so the remaining blood could complete the ritual and allow him to revive.

Iver completed the Candle Holder’s Promotion Ritual by sacrificing his limbs and head, transforming the dead guests and musicians into a final, joyous dance. He chose the Grand Banquet door and finished the ritual, leaving behind a painting of the crimson revelry.

• Noel skinned Iver and severed his limbs and head to carry out his sacrifice.
• Iver offered his body parts as the Banquetor, transforming the Candle Holder and igniting the dead guests and musicians in red flames.
• A dead young man pulled Noel into the guests’ wild dance, which ended with the guests and musicians reduced to skeletons.
• Iver saw that petrified Andrea’s soul had not emerged, then faced the question of why the guests had died and chose the Grand Banquet door.
• Iver’s ritual became a painting of the crimson revelry, and a voice declared “Endless Mad Banquet” completed.

Iver entered the second painting and found Old Sandro dead, then learned that Clown Laro was the only living ascender there. The painting’s survivors had become animals, and Old Sandro identified Laro as a dog sunning himself nearby.

• Iver examined the three doors and wondered why two votes had disappeared from the third painting’s tally.
• Iver entered the second painting and met Old Sandro, whose spirit appeared beside him.
• Old Sandro explained that the ritual rewarded contributions and that fighting wasted time, then complained that the Great Serpent had killed him despite his withdrawal.
• Iver asked who remained alive, and Old Sandro said Clown Laro had become a dog sunning himself nearby.

Alester killed the old mage to keep the other Promoters from cooperating, then discovered that his staff held the Fire Tetrahedron, an Angel Shard of the Geometric Angel. As the Fallen Angel’s arrival approached, she planned to seek more shards and strengthen Iver so he could survive their coming fight.

• Alester rode on the white horse while examining the baboon’s staff, which she had taken after killing the old mage.
• Alester explained that she had killed the mage to isolate the remaining Promoters and prevent them from working together.
• Alester recognized the staff’s gemstone as the Fire Tetrahedron, an Angel Shard that held part of the Geometric Angel’s power.
• Alester considered recovering the staff in the Material Realm and using Angel Shards to strengthen the Paradox Flame Butterfly.
• As the Fallen Angel’s arrival neared, Alester resolved to seek other geometric shards and do whatever it took to help Iver win.

Aleister questioned whether the White Horse truly represented Arthur and suspected the ritual concealed a deeper story. She met Old Dog Laro, who explained his views on Stibnite and Narcissus and revealed he had entered the ritual prepared to die.

• Aleister noticed the White Horse's hesitation and suspected it was not entirely modeled on Arthur.
• Aleister reviewed the ritual's choices and asked whether horses could eat meat before leaving the White Horse to think.
• Old Dog Laro approached Aleister, revealed he knew her identity and her role in killing the Red Chancellor, and thanked her on Stibnite's behalf.
• Laro explained that the Crowley Family was a military family and that he had taken the Princess to seek the army's protection.
• Laro criticized Narcissus's mages for neglecting their people's needs and described how their pursuit of immortality had led to corruption and control by the Blood Angel.
• Laro warned the hidden mages that even an old dog still had teeth, and Aleister realized he did not expect to survive the ritual.

Aleister and the white horse led the small animals into battle against a terrifying beast army, and Aleister recognized the conflict as the legend of Sky Eating Beast Nibiru. She realized Viennes needed to curse the giant bear to fulfill the story’s conditions.

• Old Dog Laro explained that he was a jester only because a king trusted him, while Aleister and the white horse prepared to face the armored beast army.
• Iver calmed the white horse and wished it victory before it charged into battle with Aleister on its back.
• The white horse called down lightning on the enemy, while the giant Red Bear shattered the earth and injured many of the small animals.
• Aleister recalled Lord of Scales and Feathers’s account of Sky Eating Beast Nibiru and recognized the winged animals as the Winged Ones.
• Aleister realized what the legend required and ordered Viennes to curse the giant bear.

Iver explained how the Molting gave rise to five Pillar Gods, then chose the Gate of Division to complete the Animal World painting. The tale ended with the birth of the Lord of Scales and Feathers and the Winged Angel, while Iver and Aleister heard that the painting was complete.

• Iver revealed that the Molting had produced the Pillar Gods of Adaptation, Dusk, Wisdom, Strength, and Beasts, and Aleister connected the three paintings to the three transformations of the Pillar Gods.
• Iver explained that the Winged Angel had joined forces with the Hunting King to fight the King of the Earth, but the two parted after disagreeing over who could become king.
• When time froze and three gates appeared, Iver chose the Gate of Division and entered it.
• The crowned White Horse said it would seek the truth and left the Fox to guard the tower.
• The Mole transformed into a roc, devoured the Lion's remains, and demanded that the Old Dog call it Your Majesty; the Old Dog instead declared its loyalty to the Lord of Scales and Feathers.
• The roc and the White Horse took flight as the new kings, and the world became the completed Animal World painting.

Iver entered the third painting, “With Me,” while Aleister found herself in a modern city that was familiar but not her home. After Inspector Weber learned her name and adopted family, he asked which Moriarty she meant.

• Iver saw that two people in the third painting had lost their votes and wondered whether they had been sealed or whether Princess had joined the painting.
• Iver recognized “With Me” as a painting he had seen before and worried about the Ring Angel’s connection to his Promotion Ritual before entering it.
• Aleister appeared atop a Clock Tower in a modern city, became overwhelmed, and bent the metal railing with her strength.
• Inspector Weber approached Aleister, brought her down from the Clock Tower, and offered to take her to lunch.
• Aleister told Inspector Weber that her adoptive family’s surname was Moriarty, and he asked which Moriarty she meant.

Aleister ate at a burger shop with Inspector Weber and used his trust to learn about the world around her. She discovered that she had arrived in 1999, one hundred years in the future, and began to piece together what had changed.

• Inspector Weber took Aleister to Old Daddy Burger Shop, where she cried after tasting a burger and cola that reminded her of the past.
• Inspector Weber explained that Aleister shared a name with Queen Aleister I and that her parents had been killed by Demon Worshippers.
• Aleister asked why Inspector Weber trusted her, and he revealed that his headset detected lies; she used the conversation to learn that demons and Demon Worshippers still threatened Avalon.
• Aleister checked Inspector Weber's phone and discovered the date was August 8, 1999, exactly one hundred years later.
• Inspector Weber told Aleister about the Infinity God, Elementalists, and his hope that his daughter would become an electronic engineer.
• Aleister realized that charm had helped her draw information from Inspector Weber and suspected the two missing people had been arrested by the Bureau of Supervision.

Gray Falcon was captured by Avalon’s Bureau of Supervision after killing Sour Wine during the Promotion Ritual. Realizing he could no longer win, he decided to inform on the other Ascenders and use the city’s powerful guards to ruin their chances too.

• Gray Falcon stayed silent during questioning, believing Avalon’s rules would keep him safe from torture and give him a chance to outlast the other Ascenders.
• He explained that he had ambushed and killed Sour Wine rather than sign a pact, then escaped only to be caught by more than sixty inspectors.
• Gray Falcon recalled that he had missed chances to enter easier paintings because he had pursued the high score available in the third painting.
• When an interrogator asked whether he had accomplices, Gray Falcon eagerly offered to inform on the other Ascenders in exchange for a reduced sentence.

Professor Lasimi was arrested in a dream after unknowingly stealing the corpse of Avalon's former Minister of Finance, then forfeited his Promotion Ritual when Blood Coral woke him to evade approaching pursuers. He survived the ritual’s backlash with her Soul Revival Mixture and hurried to tell her what he remembered about the future he had seen.

• Professor Lasimi entered a hospital morgue to raise corpses as Spirit Guardians, but was captured after reaching the sixth corpse.
• Avalonian authorities interrogated Professor Lasimi over the former Minister of Finance’s corpse, and he truthfully explained that he had not known whose body it was.
• The Grand Guardian identified Lasimi as a professor from Stibnite and planned to report the corpse theft to the Spirit Tower while investigating whether he was a Blood Slave.
• As his dream began to collapse, Professor Lasimi surrendered his Promotion Ritual and was awakened by Blood Coral before the pursuers could reach them.
• Blood Coral gave Lasimi a Soul Revival Mixture to treat the ritual’s backlash, and he asked her to prepare a ritual while he recounted what he remembered from the dream.

Inspector Weber told Aleister about the Doomsday Prophecy before a worldwide shock wave stopped time and presented the question, “Who is the King of Terror?” As Aleister and Iver recognized that their world combined contradictory worldlines, Iver chose Fallen Angel while Aleister chose Endless Knot.

• Inspector Weber escorted Aleister home and told her that Demon Worshippers had prophesied a King of Terror would descend from the heavens in July 1999.
• A powerful shock wave caused electrical failures, and time stopped as a question appeared with Endless Knot, Fallen Angel, and Shadow Angel as the choices.
• Aleister recalled contradictions involving the Ouroboros Ring Ritual, the continued existence of Fallen Angel, and her own identity as Isabel and Iver’s eldest child.
• Iver realized that multiple worldlines had been mixed together and chose the Fallen Angel door to protect Aleister and the other Ascenders.
• Aleister walked through the Endless Knot door without hesitation.

Iver discovered that the painting had advanced to the eve of the apocalypse, forcing him to weigh a loop ending that could save more people against a harder path toward breaking the cycle. He encountered another version of himself, who agreed that letting more people survive was the best choice.

• Iver assessed the dwindling number of living people and worried that the Old Mage could prevent Aleister from resurrecting him.
• Iver reflected on his fear of being forgotten and questioned what value he had beyond serving others.
• Iver opened the door and found Camelot in ruins beneath a strange red-and-purple sky, with one day remaining until the end of the world.
• Iver inferred that the Ouroboros Ring represented a repeating apocalypse and that A Thousand Years Later meant breaking the cycle.
• Another version of Iver appeared and agreed that letting more people survive was the best choice.

Iver met Ai Shiping, the Ring Angel, in the Dream Realm after his death and learned that Ai Shiping considered Iver and Aleister fragments of himself. Ai Shiping revealed that he had given his Pillar God power to Amber, whose cycles preserved the world, and left Iver questioning the cost of becoming a Pillar God.

• Iver encountered Ai Shiping, who said he had waited until Iver’s Soul of Transcendence separated and called himself Iver’s Shepherd.
• Ai Shiping explained that Iver and Aleister were parts of him and that reclaiming them would restore what belonged to him.
• Iver asked whether Ai Shiping had performed the Ouroboros Ring Ritual to let more people survive, and Ai Shiping showed him a world without the ritual.
• Ai Shiping brought Iver to the Eighth Source River and said one of them would eventually gain its power and become a Pillar God.
• Ai Shiping revealed that the world had restarted eight times, that Amber preserved it in a cycle, and that he had given her his Pillar God power.
• Iver realized Amber was not the Error Pillar God, and Ai Shiping asked how Iver had come to exist if becoming a Pillar God had no price.

The Ring Angel explained that the world had endured repeated reincarnations and that he intended to end the cycle by reclaiming Iver’s soul and power. Iver refused, suspecting the Ring Angel’s motives, and the Ring Angel opened a bottle of Blood Wine whose fragrance overwhelmed Iver.

• The Ring Angel revealed that he and Iver had once been the same person and explained how knowledge and repeated reincarnations had shaped Iver’s choices.
• The Ring Angel explained that this was the ninth reincarnation and that he planned to sever the cycle before the world reached its possible tenth and final restart.
• The Ring Angel said he had guided Iver through nine lifetimes to gather power and demanded that Iver surrender his soul, promising to reclaim Aleister later.
• Iver refused and questioned why the Pillar Gods had supported him rather than the Ring Angel.
• The Ring Angel admitted he wanted to return to his former world and opened a bottle of Blood Wine, whose fragrance irresistibly drew Iver in.