Chapter Summaries

Brando heard Viscount Test’s account of his curse and learned that Magnuske’s subordinate had gone after Bogg Nesson’s daughter, Antitina. Test vanished before he could explain further, leaving Brando worried that the Circle of Unity still threatened Antitina.

• Test told Brando that the Lionheart Sword’s summons had trapped him in a recurring nightmare, and he offered a secret in exchange for help.
• Brando initially refused to deal with Test, but agreed to hear him out when Test said the secret concerned a woman close to him.
• Test began revealing that Magnuske’s subordinate had gone to find Bogg Nesson’s daughter, then a phantom swept him away before he could finish.
• Brando found a section of the iron gate torn off, questioned a boy who had heard nothing, and hired him as a temporary local contact.
• Brando returned to find Antitina asleep and carried her to bed while Freya watched; afterward, he connected Test’s warning to the Patrol Cavalry who had once pursued Antitina.

Brando investigated the Highland Knights’ visit to his family and hired Dian as an attendant, promising to bring Dian’s ailing mother along. He traveled with Freya and Antitina to his family’s mill, where he was recognized by Uncle Dawn and confirmed that he had returned home.

• Brando learned from Dian that Highland Knights in blue-green surcoats had visited Old Scott’s mill a week earlier.
• Brando offered Dian work as an attendant and promised that Dian could bring his mother with him.
• Antitina agreed that the visitors were likely the Highland Knights, and Brando decided to meet them and visit his family.
• Brando, Freya, and Antitina left Brags and followed the Bucci River toward the mill, where Brando felt guilt and anticipation about returning home.
• Uncle Dawn recognized Brando, and Brando told him that he was back.

Brando returned to his family estate and reunited with his mother, Winsa, whose embrace helped him merge his past and present and awaken to his own Vonder. The chapter ended with Winsa telling him he would have to explain something to Highland Knights Grand Commander Bunid, leaving Brando confused about the knights’ presence.

• Dawn guided Brando, Antitina, and Freya through the estate and revealed through his callused hands that he was a powerful swordsman.
• Brando greeted his father, Old Scott, but Scott silently turned away and left him standing outside the house.
• Winsa recognized Brando, embraced him, and comforted him as he apologized for leaving.
• Brando became Awakened as his feelings from his previous life and his life as Brando finally merged.
• Antitina and Freya cried while watching Brando reunite with Winsa, who comforted them and teased Brando about the two girls.
• Winsa asked Brando how he planned to explain things to Bunid, prompting Brando to realize the Highland Knights were at the estate.

Brando reunited with his parents and recounted his journey before discovering that Princess Griffine had come to the manor with the Highland Knights. After Brando defeated Griffine in a brief sword bout, she asked to speak with him alone and began explaining why she had come.

• Winsa welcomed Brando, Freya, and Antitina, and Brando told her how he had escaped Ridenburg and settled refugees in Tonigell.
• Dawn summoned Brando to meet Scott, where he found Bunid and Princess Griffine waiting in the courtyard.
• Scott challenged Brando to prove himself, but Griffine asked to spar with him instead.
• Brando countered Griffine's attacks and accidentally caught her against him while disarming her.
• Griffine asked to speak privately with Brando and began to explain why she had come with the Highland Knights.

Princess Griffine told Brando that his grandfather, Sword Saint Darus, had taken responsibility for a past crisis to repay a debt between their families, then revealed that she was Brando’s betrothed. After Brando challenged her motives and apologized for his actions in Ambersell, they reaffirmed their trust and she named three people who might know the truth about Mount Alqash.

• Griffine explained that Darus had accepted blame for an old conflict and that the Kolkova family owed the Cardilosso family a debt.
• Griffine asked Brando about the future he had promised Eluin, then revealed that King Anson had arranged a marriage contract between them.
• Brando accused Griffine of using the betrothal to bind him to her, and Griffine reminded him of what he had done to her in Ambersell.
• Brando apologized, and Griffine asked whether she could still trust him; he affirmed that he remained committed to their ideal for Eluin.
• Griffine told Brando that the Silver Queen, the First Wind Spirit King, and the Pope of Fanzan were still alive and connected to the events at Mount Alqash.

Brando revisited the sawmill where he had trained with his grandfather and, by reconciling his past experiences with his life in Vonder, reached the Side of Truth and gained control over space and time. As he heard someone practicing swordsmanship nearby, Antitina met a youth named Dian, who said he urgently needed to speak with Brando.

• Brando recalled his childhood, his grandfather's sword training, and the people connected to the events at Mount Alqash as he walked through the abandoned sawmill.
• Brando's memories and experiences merged, allowing him to Awaken and reach the Side of Truth, where he demonstrated his ability to alter matter through time.
• Brando inspected his changed abilities and classes, including his new Two-Handed Swordsman class, and realized his past knowledge had been recognized by the system.
• Brando heard someone practicing swordsmanship in the night and turned toward the sound.
• Antitina noticed a figure hiding in the bushes, and Dian emerged to tell her he urgently needed to speak with Brando.

Antitina learned that desperadoes had searched her former home and the old Nason family house, where they dug beneath a tree for something tied to her father’s inheritance. In Stag Forest, Brando realized Freya was hurt by learning her friends had known of her noble origins, so he took her by the hand and led her somewhere.

• Diane told Antitina that armed men had searched No. 52 Gravedigger Street before digging beneath a tree at No. 47 in the Juan District.
• Antitina recognized No. 47 as her childhood home and remembered her father’s will mentioning a rendezvous at the Baden Ball.
• Antitina paid Diane to return to the house and gave him the code phrase “The mountains of Chablis” for sending word of trouble.
• Brando found Freya practicing swordsmanship in the woods and praised her progress.
• Freya asked Brando whether he had known her origins from the beginning, and Brando understood that she feared others valued her birth instead of her efforts.
• Brando took Freya’s hand and led her toward Stag Forest.

Brando brought Freya to the refugee settlement near Bucci, where she saw the people who still relied on her and renewed her sense of duty to her homeland. They arrived as Little Finis and the Bucci youths clashed with Brags Patrol Cavalry over Count Nakin’s attempt to reclaim their land, and Freya intervened; the chapter ended as Little Finis explained the dispute.

• Brando led Freya through the forest to the refugees’ settlement and urged her to ask whether the people of Bucci cared for her only because of her birth.
• Freya saw the refugees and accepted that she was both Everton’s daughter and Bucci’s daughter, then agreed to meet the villagers.
• Old Maden worried that the refugees were losing food and hope as Count Nakin sought to evict them from his land.
• Little Finis and the Bucci youths fought the Brags Patrol Cavalry, and Freya disarmed their captain before he could strike Little Finis.
• Brando and Freya asked what had happened, and Little Finis explained the Patrol Cavalry’s earlier attack and Count Nakin’s plan to reclaim the land.

Freya and Brando calmed tensions between the Bucci people and the Patrol Cavalry, and Brando encouraged Freya to keep working toward a future where the people could determine their own fate. The Patrol Cavalry Captain Oujin explained that his men had been searching for criminals, and Little Finis said he recognized them.

• Freya persuaded the Bucci people to calm down after rumors spread that the nobles planned to drive them from the forest.
• Freya worried that the Bucci people's fate depended on her power, and Brando encouraged her to help change the rules that gave nobles control over them.
• The crowd dispersed, and Brando and Freya left the Patrol Cavalry waiting while Freya reunited with Little Finis and the former Militia members.
• Oujin told Brando that the Patrol Cavalry had pursued a group of suspected criminals, then fought with Little Finis and the others along the way.
• Little Finis told Brando that he thought he knew the criminals.

Brando led the Patrol Cavalry to raid a hunters’ camp and uncover Cultists of the Circle of Unity, including White Wing Cavalry deserters and a detailed military map of Brags Castle. The map pointed toward Antitina, and Brando arranged to interrogate the captives while summoning her.

• Brando escorted the Patrol Cavalry to the camp after Little Finis described its inhabitants and their distinctive swords.
• Brando agreed to teach Little Finis swordsmanship, while Freya urged him to consult Maden about the boy’s future.
• The Patrol Cavalry raided the camp, killed the night watchman, and captured five surviving Cultists after their leader killed himself.
• Brando recognized White Wing Cavalry swords among the evidence and learned that the captives belonged to the Circle of Unity.
• A Patrol Cavalryman found a detailed military map of Brags Castle marked with two red circles, including one at Number 52, Gravedigger Street.
• Brando asked Freya to bring Antitina and persuaded Oujin to interrogate the captives before sending them to prison.

Antitina traced the Cultists’ interest in the camp to her father’s hidden inheritance and used her necklace to reveal a letter he had concealed. The letter connected her father to Brando’s family and hinted at a long-running mystery involving the Marshal’s relics and Princess’s request.

• Antitina arrived with Freya and told Brando that the captured Cultists might have come for her father’s hidden inheritance.
• Antitina recalled her father’s will and identified a clue to where he had left his belongings.
• Antitina used her blood and necklace to reveal writing on the blank parchment, then gave the letter to Brando.
• Brando read a letter from Antitina’s father, Xiphad, to Pamid describing the Marshal’s relics, preserved evidence, and a dangerous undertaking.
• Brando recognized that Xiphad may have served under his grandfather and asked Antitina whether she knew Pamid; she did not.

Brando and Antitina investigated the letter from her father and searched the house where her parents once lived for his hidden inheritance. They found a rusted iron chest bearing a royal-linked crest, but its contents remained unknown.

• Brando questioned Antitina about her father and learned that the Cultists had searched his former residence but likely could not read the letter.
• Brando, Antitina, Freya, and Di'an entered Brags' Public Graveyard and found the house where Antitina's parents had once lived.
• The group met Old Sly, the Tomb Keeper, and entered his coffin-filled house to search for Antitina's father's inheritance.
• Antitina directed Brando and Freya to dig beneath the Black Pine Tree in the backyard, where Freya struck a buried iron chest.
• Brando recognized the chest's crescent crest as connected to Eluin's royal bloodline, and Antitina explained that her father had been a noble from Xifah.

Brando, Antitina, and Freya opened Antitina’s father’s inheritance, where Antitina found her parents’ farewell messages and a hidden military cipher. After Freya deciphered it and they recovered Darus’s belongings, Brando recognized the stone fragments and gray crystal as possibly connected to his grandfather and a mysterious vision.

• Antitina opened the inheritance and read her father’s letter, then broke down when a Recording Crystal showed messages from both her parents.
• Antitina found no belongings of Darus among the valuables, so Brando reasoned that her father had hidden clues in the package left to her.
• Brando removed a paper strip concealed inside the Recording Crystal pendant, and Freya identified its symbols as an old Cruzian Military Cipher.
• Freya deciphered the cipher as a map, leading them to retrieve an iron box containing a gray crystal, reddish-brown stone fragments, and a Papyrus Map.
• Antitina recalled that her father had collected the fragments as keys to somewhere, and Brando suspected they were connected to his grandfather and the vision.

Brando connected his grandfather’s Grey Gemstone to the Dark Dragon and recognized Antitina’s father’s map as one tied to the Min’er People, but his questions about Pamid and Xiphad remained unresolved. The chapter ended with Griffine receiving word that the Silver Queen had made a woman from Eluin, closely connected to Count Tonigell, a countess.

• Brando recognized his grandfather’s Grey Gemstone as a soul fragment of the Dark Dragon, though he questioned whether Darus could have been the Dark Dragon.
• Freya showed Brando and Antitina a secret map that Brando recognized as a map Tumen had placed in his mind, marking the Osopao Plains and other Min’er locations.
• Brando asked Charles about Pamid and Xiphad, and Charles identified them as Darus’s attendants who had disappeared after receiving orders from the Crown Princess.
• Charles told Brando that a countess’s subordinate had sent him a magical message and began to relay news about Dirfiel.
• Griffine recalled asking Brando to marry her so he could rule Eluin legitimately, while Brando put off answering because he already had a fiancée.
• Madam Hill gave Griffine a letter reporting that the Silver Queen had made a woman from Eluin with a close connection to Count Tonigell a countess.

Brando discovered that the Cruzians had taken Qian, the Azure Spear, from the Dead Frost Forest and learned that the Silver Queen had made her an Imperial Count. He rejected calls for restraint and declared that he would go to war to protect her, leaving Princess Griffine to recall how her father’s nobles had once answered a similar crisis.

• Charles told Brando that Donas Bernie’s convoy had passed through Yanbao, and Medissa recognized Boimer as an officer who had entered the Dead Frost Forest with them.
• Brando connected the convoy’s timing to the expedition’s departure and ordered a search for evidence, while Charles reported that Miss Roman had already mobilized the territory.
• Charles confirmed that Boimer and Babain had rented a farmer’s carriage near Bernichel after the explosion, changed carriages along the route, and reached Deldertar in mid-August carrying something the Cruzians later presented as a rare beast.
• Princess Griffine told Brando that Qian had been granted the title of Imperial Count by the Silver Queen, confirming that the Cruzians had taken her against her will.
• Brando rejected Macaro’s warning against provoking the Empire and declared that he would answer the Cruzians with war to keep his promise to protect Qian.
• After Brando left, Princess Griffine told Madam Hill that her father’s nobles had once faced the same kind of choice.

The Temple of Flames completed its ritual to free Qian from the crystal around her, while High Priest Valachi weighed the political consequences of the Azure Spear and her connection to Count Tonigell. As Qian learned that she had been made a countess and was expected to lead her people, Sidney announced that someone had come to see her.

• Valachi, Sidney, and Caesar watched Qian emerge from the crystal after the priests' exhausting ritual, and Valachi ordered Sidney to take her to bathe and dress.
• Valachi reflected on the Sanctuary's weakening influence, the Empress's power, the Azure Spear, and Count Tonigell's role in the Sanctuary's troubles.
• Sidney's attendants dressed Qian in a gown and addressed her as a countess, explaining that the Emperor had ennobled her and that her fief bordered the mountain dwellers' homeland.
• Qian listened as the maids hoped her new position would bring autonomy and safety to their people, but she remained confused and asked where the lord was.
• Sidney knocked and told Qian that someone wished to see her.

Qian met Silver Queen Constance at Saint Conti Palace and refused to swear loyalty, while Brando prepared to return to his territory to recover her. The chapter left Brando learning that the holy war had begun, as news arrived of a great Toquenin army marching toward Anfur Pass.

• Nair and Amon surveyed the Sacred White Plains, and Nair vowed to cross the limit of their patrol range the next day.
• Constance told Qian she had made her a count and demanded her loyalty, threatening Eluin and Brando if Qian tried to leave.
• Qian thrust the Azure Spear at Constance, but it could not harm her; Constance ordered guards to take Qian away and received a confidential dispatch from the Wilds of the Four Borders.
• Scouts discovered a huge Toquenin army marching north toward Anfur Pass as incursions into Yanila Su decreased.
• Brando told Princess Griffine he intended to retrieve Qian and prepare Eluin for possible war, and Griffine appointed him envoy for the nations participating in the holy war.
• Brando asked whether the holy war had begun, and Griffine confirmed that it had.

As the Holy War spread across the continent, Griffine appointed Brando to lead a diplomatic mission to Cruz and chose Haruze to accompany him. Back in Tonigell, Brando prepared his forces and reviewed the territory’s resources, leaving the mission’s preparations underway.

• The Lionmen marched toward Cruz while the Wind Spirits attacked the Cruzian Crimson Legion, and the Fanzan armies began assembling.
• Griffine named Brando head of the diplomatic mission and selected Haruze as Eluin’s royal representative, telling him he must grow into his role as king.
• Brando returned to Tonigell and began selecting attendants and assistants for a mission he intended to use as cover for taking an army into Cruz.
• Roman rushed through a report on Tonigell’s finances, and Flada explained that war preparations had strained the territory’s funds and manpower.
• Brando redirected attention toward supplying Valhalla and asked Flada how long the territory could sustain all the Valkyries and maintain construction in the Black Forest.

Brando negotiated with Tania for Buga support, equipment, and help reclaiming the Azure Spear, then prepared to meet Prince Lainaret. Leisimeca changed her mind about the mission to the Cruz Empire and asked Haruze to let her accompany him.

• Brando welcomed Haruze and Leisimeca to Valhalla and told Haruze he would begin teaching him magic next month.
• Tania told Brando the Council wanted the Azure Spear reclaimed, and Brando negotiated for Buga assistance and a magical shipyard while Tania pointed him toward the Hazel people for advanced shipbuilding technology.
• Brando secured a thousand gargoyles, three hundred Iron Golems, an Aether Dragon, and help collecting materials from Tania.
• Brando told Antitina he would meet Prince Lainaret to cause trouble for the Cruzians in return.
• Leisimeca asked Haruze to let her accompany him on the mission to the Cruz Empire, and Haruze agreed to seek permission.

Brando met with First Prince Lainaret to discuss the Holy War and the forces supporting Lainaret in the Cruz Empire. They agreed that Lainaret should protect his allies by staying out of sight, while Lainaret warned Brando that the Silver Queen might use Brando’s captive subordinate to pressure Eluin.

• Brando visited Lainaret in Valhalla and asked about the First Prince’s supporters as the Holy War began.
• Lainaret named the Octaviel Family, the Nona Family, and Old Chancellor Nidwen as potential allies, and explained that Veronica supported him personally but the Erisik Family might not.
• Brando proposed that Lainaret secretly unite his supporters and preserve his strength until the Silver Queen’s authority weakened during the Holy War.
• Lainaret accepted Brando’s plan and said he trusted him, while Brando agreed to cooperate with the First Prince.
• Lainaret warned Brando that the Silver Queen could use his captive subordinate to force Eluin into submission, and Brando thanked him for the warning.