Chapter Summaries

Evan reunited with Anita before fleeing the ruined harbor with the surviving soldiers as Harkins and the Child of the Sea Goddess, Tide Herder Tienkute, approached. At sea, Harkins killed the three clam monsters, revealed the Black Sea’s Heart of the Ocean, and accused Tienkute’s side of betrayal.

• Evan and Anita parted after promising to prioritize their safety and keep in contact using communication terns.
• Rear Admiral Coverdale returned to the ruined harbor, and Evan spotted Harkins and Tide Herder Tienkute approaching through his seabird network.
• Evan convinced the others to retreat, and they evacuated the soldiers to cover inland as Harkins sailed out of the estuary.
• Harkins killed the three clam sea monsters, removed the sapphire that was the Black Sea’s Heart of the Ocean from the Sirius Crown, and walked across the waves with it.
• Tienkute confronted Harkins and demanded the item, but Harkins accused him and his allies of being the real betrayers.

Harkins sacrificed the Heart of the Ocean to Hipponoe, while the pirates and people across the Leyton River Valley invoked her name to anchor her return. Fisher became a Raging Tide Priest and completed the ritual that freed Hipponoe from her three-hundred-year seal.

• Harkins invoked Hipponoe, and her enormous eye appeared beneath the Black Sea as the sea fell still.
• Harkins dropped the Heart of the Ocean into the water, where Hipponoe absorbed it and the sea began surging upstream through the Leyton River Valley.
• Elite pirates cut off their left little fingers, shed blood into the waves, and spread Hipponoe’s name throughout the valley to build her anchor in the Mortal World.
• Fisher saw the Raging Tide Priest ritual, cut off his left little finger, and worshipped Hipponoe while Pipps knelt and chanted her name.
• A lock-like sound echoed across the sea as Hipponoe broke free of her three-hundred-year imprisonment and began returning to the Material World.

Harkins freed Hipponoe and completed his transformation into a fourth-order Lawbreaker. As Hipponoe confronted Ecto, Harkins emerged from his cocoon and declared that his pirates would wage war for freedom.

• Harkins's promotion ritual was completed when he freed Hipponoe, and he transformed inside a blood-red cocoon.
• Hipponoe returned to the sea, healed Moxidis, and accelerated Harkins's transformation before heading toward Ecto's approaching storm.
• Ecto arrived as Hipponoe departed, and Tienkute regained his power as a Child of the Sea Goddess.
• Harkins emerged as a fourth-order Lawbreaker, and his pirates celebrated his advancement.
• Harkins proclaimed that his crew were princes of freedom who could wage war against the world, and an unseen voice challenged him.

Ilvedi confronted Harkins and Tienkute at Tulip after the battle between the goddesses, then revealed his Titled Saint Artifact, the Sword of Severing Everything. He unleashed its power against them, forcing both to use their abilities to evade as Evan watched from below.

• Harkins sensed an attacker behind him, struck with Eight Arms Fist Gun, and found Ilvedi standing unharmed in the air.
• Ilvedi confronted Harkins and questioned Tienkute about the losses suffered by the Brotherhood and the Sea Monster Mother.
• Harkins and Tienkute joined forces to face Ilvedi, who said he would hold them until Saint arrived.
• Ilvedi summoned the Sword of Severing Everything, a Titled Saint Artifact empowered by his title and Purcell's divinity.
• Ilvedi swung the holy sword at Harkins and Tienkute, who desperately used their abilities to escape the strike while Evan watched from below.

Ilvedi crippled Harkins and Tienkute, but the Goddess of the Black Sea rescued them and drew some pirates into her service. As the Tulip Alliance’s strongest forces arrived aboard the God-Demon Wings, Ilvedi prepared to deal with the scattered treasure and turned to the navy for help.

• Ilvedi’s sword strike left Tienkute badly wounded and severed Harkins’s arm, then split the pirate ship Eternal Imprisonment Icon and scattered its treasure into the sea.
• A whirlwind and waterspout whisked Harkins and Tienkute away, while waves invited Hipponoe’s followers to become probationary Raging Tide Priests; Fisher and Pipps entered the sea.
• Ilvedi refrained from attacking the ordinary people who hesitated by the water and took out his Alchemy Secret Box to collect the Netherlands Banking Group’s treasure.
• The Legendary Battleship God-Demon Wings arrived carrying Augustus, Bronte, Pope Saint, and the Horn of Destruction, who called for Ilvedi to catch up.
• Ilvedi noticed the navy watching from shore and decided to have them help recover the treasure.

Evan collected the pirates’ plunder for Rose Sword Saint Ilvedi and secretly recovered Crimson Lake Light and the Thistle Crown. Far offshore, Sea Witch Hipponoe and Sea Monster Mother Ecto’s battle threatened the nations around the Black Sea until the Pope arrived and invoked Holy Descent.

• Ilvedi gave Evan an Alchemy Secret Box and ordered him to collect the pirates’ stolen treasures, promising to recommend him to Livina.
• Evan searched the wreck and recovered the bank consortium’s valuables, then secretly took the pirates’ possessions, Crimson Lake Light, and the damaged Thistle Crown.
• Hipponoe and Ecto revealed their Mythical Forms and fought with their divine authorities, stirring catastrophic storms and tsunamis across the Black Sea nations.
• Augustus of the Lightning Halberd brought the God-Demon Wings to the battlefield, where the Pope invoked Holy Descent and another great being descended.

Saint and the angel Belenus intervened in the clash between Hipponoe and Ecto, defeating the Sea Monster Mother and ending the coastal disaster. As the God-Demon Wings sailed home, Saint hinted that the Goddess’s Church might be challenging Sirius’s long-held dominance at sea.

• Belenus arrived and stopped Hipponoe and Ecto’s attacks, warning the two goddesses to end their clash.
• Ecto defied Belenus and struck at him with lightning, but he used the Sun Crown divine art to destroy her attack and scatter her clouds.
• Belenus defeated the Sea Monster Mother, while Hipponoe withdrew and the storm and tsunami subsided.
• Saint revealed that the Goddess had given him a mission to rebalance the power between the Black Sea goddesses and prevent large disasters from harming the Human World.
• Ilvedi asked Saint whether they had known the Sea Witch would be unsealed, and Saint hinted that Sirius had held maritime supremacy for too long.

The Netherlands Banking Group used the promise of Silver Island’s vast silver reserves to draw Sirius into a scheme, while Evan returned to Newen Harbor and learned he had been awarded Holy Baptismal Pool Water. Livina offered him the potion, which could rapidly raise his physical strength to the peak of a Second-Order Formal Knight, and Evan faced a shortcut toward becoming a Peak Knight.

• Philip II heard envoy Silas present a survey estimating Silver Island’s silver reserves at twenty-five thousand tons and ordered Thorn of Fire to seal the council palace.
• Silas revealed that the Netherlands Banking Group had used the island’s discovery as bait to secure benefits from Sirius and provoke it into conflict with other powers.
• Evan and the Storm Cape’s crew returned to Newen Harbor after more than twenty days at sea, and Evan noticed the busy harbor’s ships and cargo.
• Evan reported to Livina and learned that Bishop Benedict’s promised reward for inventing Siren's Song had arrived as Holy Baptismal Pool Water.
• Livina explained the potion’s effects and offered it to Evan, who could use it to approach the peak of the Second Order and potentially become a Peak Knight quickly.

Evan accepted Livina’s mission to join the autumn escort fleet on a voyage across the Black Sea to the New Continent, where he hoped to find the materials needed to become a Formal Wizard. At Cowper Manor, Angie completed her cannon-resistant Venus Flytrap project just as her teacher returned.

• Livina gave Evan Holy Baptismal Pool Water and explained that drinking it would earn him the title of God-Favored Knight and a lifetime fief in the Tulip Duchy.
• Livina assigned Evan to the autumn escort fleet bound for the New Continent, and he accepted, hoping to find Evil Spirit Dust for his Spirit Communication Potion.
• Evan agreed to prepare more Extraction Potions while the Storm Cape underwent maintenance, then left to begin preparing for the voyage.
• Livina told Evan to stop pursuing the First Princess matter and warned him that Emerald Light and the seas were becoming more dangerous.
• Angie demonstrated that her War Venus Flytraps could catch heavy crossbow bolts and declared her breeding project ready for cannon testing.
• A voice interrupted Angie’s celebration, and she recognized her returning teacher.

Faletis sent Evan and the Storm Cape with an autumn convoy to the New Continent while the kingdoms dealt with the aftermath of Harkins’s attack. Meanwhile, Hipponoe’s return awakened the Eye of the Storm and brought new inhabitants to her ancient underwater city, Heracleion.

• Evan sailed from Newen Harbor with the Storm Cape, the Endeavour, three cruisers, and twenty-five merchant vessels on a six-month voyage to the New Continent.
• Faletis and the Tairo Kingdom returned sixty percent of the Banking Group’s stolen goods after collecting security fees, while keeping the rest and prompting the Group to plan a new headquarters in Tairo.
• The Pope issued a Kill Order against Harkins, but Harkins and his pirates vanished under the Sea Witch’s protection.
• Hipponoe’s return gradually awakened the Eye of the Storm, an underwater basin positioned on Sirius’s established route between its kingdom and the Golden Sea.
• Hipponoe’s followers and powerful sea creatures began clearing the ruins of Heracleion, her ancient underwater city.

Harkins and Fisher organized the newly restored Raging Tide Church in Heracleion as the Goddess’s followers assembled forces for a war against the Sea Monster Mother. Harkins departed to gather materials for a Legendary Battleship, leaving Fisher in charge while the conflict’s eventual location remained uncertain.

• Harkins met Fisher at the Raging Tide Temple and learned that Fisher’s devotion had rapidly raised him to dean-level clergy, frustrating Harkins’s plan to monopolize the church’s power.
• Fisher praised Harkins’s lost arm as proof of loyalty to the Goddess, and Harkins accepted the praise while secretly resolving to seek an alchemical replacement arm.
• Harkins said the Goddess had promised him power to build a Legendary Battleship, and he asked Fisher to preserve the church’s human-led core while he was away.
• Fisher agreed to oversee Heracleion as sea fairies sang, fishmen drilled with steel weapons, Drowned Souls moved through the city, and Storm Giants served as commanders.
• The Goddess’s reborn faction gathered monsters and prepared to fight the Sea Monster Mother for control of the Black Sea, with conflict potentially reaching human trade routes.

Evan and Milan heard several terrifying legends about the New Continent while sheltering from a rainstorm in Thomastown’s tavern. The stories left them with accounts of an immortal avenger, a haunted church, and a vanished Roanoke Island settlement.

• Evan and Milan watched a Mestizo People dancer perform at the Fox, Badger, and Honey Tavern, where Milan teased Evan about his conservative views on romance.
• Lumberjacks told Evan and Milan that a tribe had sacrificed itself to Uhao, giving rise to a vengeful spirit that hunted colonists and returned even after being killed.
• A lumberjack described the Haunted Spirit Church north of Thomastown, where Ghost Nuns supposedly killed anyone who entered.
• A plantation overseer told the tavern patrons that all 116 people and their livestock had vanished from Roanoke Island, leaving only the word “Croatoan” carved into a tree.

After arriving in the New Continent, Evan learned about its dangerous supernatural legends, colonial politics, and heightened mana activity, then resolved to pursue his Knight’s Path alongside wizardry. The fleet was about to split between northern and southern routes, while Evan’s teasing of Milan left him worried they would soon face danger.

• Evan and Milan left the tavern after hearing frightening New Continent legends, and Evan decided not to search for Evil Spirit Dust recklessly.
• The five warships and twenty-five merchant vessels completed their voyage through the Tesca Current without incident, and the fleet prepared to split its route at Thomastown.
• Evan studied the New Continent’s eleven colonies, their competing political arrangements, and Colonel Robbins’s three rules for surviving there.
• Evan concluded that the New Continent’s more active mana made it especially dangerous, then returned to the Storm Cape and read Gell’s notes on physical power liberation.
• Milan questioned Evan’s commitment to the Knight’s Path, and Evan revealed that he had reached Peak Knight physical limits and wanted to master Full Body Liberation.
• Evan joked that Milan might have to run from evil spirits with him, and Milan complained that following Evan always seemed to involve fleeing and feared trouble was coming.

Evan led Storm Cape and two cruisers south through the New Continent, escorting merchant ships to Far Sail Territory before sailing on to Fort Dearborn. There, his invention that helped prevent scurvy earned him a warm welcome and the support of Rear Admiral Damon Brand.

• Evan gave Captain Robbins Healing Potions and secured his promise to share knowledge and introduce him to influential contacts in the New Continent.
• Evan led the southern fleet along the coast, accepted gifts and business invitations from merchants, and delivered the final two merchant ships to Far Sail Port without encountering a pirate attack.
• Evan and the two cruisers sailed to Fort Dearborn, where they completed their rotation and handover.
• Vice Admiral Gustav welcomed the arriving officers and sailors, and Rear Admiral Damon Brand thanked Evan for helping nearly eliminate scurvy among sailors.
• Evan learned that Damon had also graduated first in every subject at the Royal Naval Academy, and Damon offered to help him whenever he needed anything in the New Continent.

Evan delivered two hundred Trade Muskets to the East Lun Branch Company and accepted Commissioner Niekado’s invitation to observe a trade with the Yucatan Tribe. As the convoy traveled inland, Evan considered whether the native Atelian People might possess Extraordinary Inheritances.

• Evan and his crew sailed the Storm Cape to East Lun Branch and delivered two hundred Flintlock Muskets to commercial agent Lisos.
• Commissioner Niekado invited Evan to accompany the company’s trade with the Yucatan Tribe, and Evan agreed to learn about the natives firsthand.
• Evan, Milan, Niekado, and their party rode inland with four carriages carrying trade goods.
• Niekado described the New Continent’s tribes and empires, explaining how divisions among the Atelian People had helped the Sirius People and colonial pioneers gain influence.

Evan visited the Yucatan Tribe with Niekado to trade and discovered that its strongest warrior carried a brown bear totem similar to the Eagle Warrior inheritance he sought. After Evan offered Chief Apusowa a fine rifle to begin negotiations, a tribesman burst in with urgent news about the returning Hunting Team.

• Evan and his companions traveled with Niekado to the Yucatan Tribe’s trading settlement and met Chief Apusowa and his Brown Bear Warrior.
• Evan recognized the warrior’s totem as evidence of another extraordinary inheritance and considered obtaining it through trade rather than force.
• Evan apologized for staring at the warrior and presented Chief Apusowa with a Hawken Rifle as a first-meeting gift.
• Chief Apusowa accepted the gift and invited Evan to say what he wanted in return.
• A tribesman burst into the longhouse and announced that something had happened to the returning Hunting Team.

Evan and Milan examined two hunters who had returned to camp skinned and dead, with flawless beaver pelts wrapped in their own hides. Chief Apusowa suspected the pelts were linked to an old legend and led a party toward Cold Water River Bay to find the three missing hunters.

• A sentry reported that two members of the Hunting Team had returned to camp and collapsed, so Apusowa and the others went to investigate.
• Apusowa used a pole to turn over the bodies, revealing their removed skins and two pristine beaver pelts beneath them.
• Milan sensed a terrifying curse on the pelts, while Evan noticed a spiritual presence and Apusowa recognized signs of an eerie legend.
• Apusowa said three hunters were still missing and set out for Cold Water River Bay with Uwaka Zha, Niekado, Evan, natives, and Faletis guards.

Evan's party reached Cold Water River Bay and helped the Crow-Men fight the cursed Skinless People attacking the hunting grounds. As Apusowa called to Bokatolo, Niekado recognized the name and identified the force behind the beaver-pelt curse as the legendary Bereaved Spirit.

• Uwaka Zha led Evan's party through the forest to Cold Water River Bay, where they found three Crow-Men fighting Skinless People.
• Niekado explained that the Northwest Fur Company's hunters had encountered a cursed beaver pelt before the skinning attacks began.
• Niekado ordered his guards to fire on the Skinless People, and Uwaka Zha charged into the attackers and overwhelmed them.
• Apusowa went to the riverbank and called out Bokatolo, seeking the source of the curse.
• Niekado recognized Bokatolo as the Atelian legend of the Bereaved Spirit and told Evan that it was behind the beaver-pelt curse.

Apusowa summoned the Great Bear Spirit to strike down Bokatolo, but Evan suspected the spirit had not been destroyed. The Brown Bear Warrior then attacked Apusowa from behind, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

• Niekado explained that Bokatolo was formed from the resentful souls of mothers whose children had been drowned during famines, and Evan knocked him unconscious when the spirit’s illusions began to lure him toward the river.
• Apusowa confronted Bokatolo, which declared that everyone who killed its beaver children had to die.
• Apusowa cut his palm and performed a drum-and-dance ritual to call on the Great Bear Spirit, apparently making Bokatolo vanish.
• Evan noticed that the evil spirit’s presence had not disappeared and grew wary when the Brown Bear Warrior approached Apusowa without ending his enhancement.
• The Brown Bear Warrior suddenly swung his Obsidian Saw Sword at the back of Apusowa’s head.

Evan and his companions fought to save Uwaka Zha after an evil spirit possessed him, and Evan forced the spirit out with Holy Water No. 3. The spirit was trapped inside Milan’s barrier, but it summoned smaller spirits to attack the birch stakes.

• Evan struck the possessed Uwaka Zha with his rapier as the warrior charged at him.
• Gary fought Uwaka Zha, but the possessed warrior’s reckless attacks drove him back, so Evan stepped in.
• Evan severed Uwaka Zha’s tendons and poured Holy Water No. 3 down his throat, forcing the evil spirit from his body.
• Milan erected a Spiritual Barrier around the spirit while Evan’s Silver Amulet blocked its attack.
• The spirit split its trailing hands into smaller spirits, which lunged at the five birch stakes.