Chapter Summaries

Yu Sheng’s group used Zheng Zhi as a human map detector while searching for signs of the Artificial Saintess, and Eileen’s bizarre suggestion triggered a supernatural response. Zheng Zhi was sent to safety as a strange space formed around an underground parking entrance, leaving Yu Sheng and the others to investigate it.

• Yu Sheng led Zheng Zhi, Eileen, Huli, and Luna on a nighttime search, but they found no clues and avoided Special Operations Bureau patrols.
• Eileen suggested that Zheng Zhi write a letter or diary to trigger his Spiritual Vision, and Yu Sheng handed him paper and a pen.
• As Zheng Zhi wrote, mist and snow appeared, and his hand began producing strange symbols until Yu Sheng stopped him and Huli restored his senses.
• Zheng Zhi pointed out something at the underground parking entrance, so Yu Sheng sent him through a door to spend the night at Uncle Yun’s place.
• Yu Sheng, Eileen, Huli, and Luna sensed that another space had overlapped with theirs as the parking entrance transformed into a blood-red cavern.
• Yu Sheng and the others advanced toward the distorted entrance, preparing to face whatever was inside.

Yu Sheng’s group crossed into an unknown Otherworldly parking lot, where they found a dead Artificial Saintess whose mind had been remotely destroyed. A rift then brought Hermetic Society forces into the garage, and Yu Sheng’s group fought back as he unleashed his blood-based weapons.

• Huli spotted the motionless Artificial Saintess, and Luna confirmed that her mind had melted after a remote self-destruct order.
• Yu Sheng’s blood failed to revive the Saintess, and Eileen found game tokens and candies in her clenched hand.
• Snow fell inside the garage as a rift opened, bringing Brass Knights, Hermetic Society soldiers, and white-robed priests into view.
• The white-haired sage called Yu Sheng’s group heretics, and the Brass Knights and soldiers attacked.
• Huli raised a spirit-energy barrier while Yu Sheng used his Blood Needle Launcher to animate enemies’ armor and weapons with blood.
• Yu Sheng’s group threw a blood grenade that spread a crimson fog toward the hostile forces.

Yu Sheng and his allies fought the Hermetic Society soldiers in the underground parking garage, but a priest unleashed a devastating lightning storm that badly wounded them. As Eileen began sinking into Yu Sheng’s blood, she murmured that she would offer a sacrifice.

• Luna and Eileen attacked the Hermetic Society formation, while Yu Sheng’s Fox Carrot Missiles broke the priest’s barrier and Luna cut down Brass Knights.
• Eileen darted through the soldiers’ ranks and smashed their knees with her frying pan, disabling Brass Knights and wounding the human soldiers.
• A gold-glowing priest invoked the Holy Realm and unleashed a lightning storm that blasted Eileen apart, destroyed several Fox Tails, and hurled Luna and Yu Sheng away.
• Yu Sheng found Eileen’s severed head beside him as another group of Brass Knights arrived, while Huli endured the lightning and fought back in her nine-tailed form.
• Yu Sheng told Eileen to summon the mass-produced dolls, but her head sank into his blood as she murmured, “Sacrifice.”

Eileen emerged from the pool of blood in a taller form and joined Yu Sheng and Fox Girl against the Hermetic Society. She used her spider form and frying pan to repeatedly attack the Great Sage, leaving the fight ongoing as she targeted his legs.

• The Hermetic Society priests attacked Fox Girl with thunderbolts, while the Great Sage caught and absorbed one of her explosive fox tails.
• A hidden spider limb impaled a priest, and Eileen rose from the pool of living blood, delighted that she had grown taller.
• Eileen bound and struck the attacking priests and Brass Knights, then approached the Great Sage as he transformed into a towering, godlike form.
• Eileen shifted between her doll and Spider Goddess forms to evade the Great Sage and smash his knees with her frying pan.
• Eileen crawled beneath the Great Sage’s spreading thunderstorm and continued battering his toes and shins as Yu Sheng watched.

Eileen and Luna fought the Hermetic Society forces as the Great Sage was defeated and destroyed himself in a blast of light. The unstable rift vanished, and the transformed underground parking lot returned to normal.

• Eileen battered the Great Sage while Luna slipped through the Brass Knights’ defenses and killed a priest preparing a spell.
• Luna attacked the Hermetic Society soldiers, but the unstable rift began cracking and psychic energy surged through the parking lot.
• Eileen pinned the Great Sage and demanded to know whether he had ordered the long-range meltdown and killed the Artificial Saintess.
• The Great Sage revealed his body was filled with light and began to self-destruct, forcing Eileen to flee toward Yu Sheng.
• The Great Sage’s explosion killed the Hermetic Society forces and left a crater, then the rift disappeared and the transformed parking lot contracted back to normal.

Yu Sheng and his companions defeated the Hermetic Society cultists, and Yu Sheng died after making his final requests before his expected revival. The Great Sage Golendel was reborn at the Hermetic Society’s capital, but his new body suffered the same catastrophic leg injuries as before.

• The Great Sage destroyed himself and collapsed the spatial rift, leaving Yu Sheng’s group with no captives or spoils.
• Huli, Eileen, and Luna gathered around Yu Sheng as he lay dying, and Eileen closed his eyes after he gave his final instructions.
• Luna carried the Artificial Saintess, and Huli opened a portal so the group could return home through the Teleportation Hub.
• Golendel was reborn in the Hermetic Society’s Holy Realm and prepared to report to the Holy Seat.
• Golendel fell on the stairs when both his legs suddenly shattered, and he realized the injuries had returned.

Golendel’s attempts to escape the curse failed, while Yu Sheng reflected on the Hermetic Society’s rift and Eileen’s blood sacrifice after returning to the Soul Wilderness. There, he found Luna waiting for visitors who had not arrived and suggested creating a cemetery for weary souls.

• Golendel destroyed his cursed legs and ordered mechanical prosthetics, but an invisible force crushed them and filled his mind with a warning that he was guilty.
• Yu Sheng reviewed the battle, wondering how the Hermetic Society had opened a passage outside a Dark Alley and why the High-ranking Priest had sacrificed himself to close the rift.
• Yu Sheng recalled Eileen’s omen form and the blood sacrifice that had summoned the Spider Goddess’s projection.
• Yu Sheng returned to the Soul Wilderness and found Luna waiting outside the cathedral for visitors who had not appeared.
• Yu Sheng gave Luna game coins and candies and suggested making a cemetery behind the cathedral for weary souls.

Yu Sheng returned home and took Eileen to the Nexus Pyramid to examine her fatigue and possible shrinking. Eileen revealed her enormous spider form, then struggled to figure out how to walk on eight legs.

• Eileen waited for Yu Sheng at home, while Huli slept on the sofa and the smaller Eileens gathered around her.
• Yu Sheng suddenly appeared and startled Huli, whose flailing tail knocked Eileen around.
• Yu Sheng asked whether Eileen's blonde body showed signs of shrinking, and she described growing increasingly tired.
• Eileen produced one translucent spider leg, and Yu Sheng brought her and Huli to a spacious hall in the Nexus Pyramid to investigate her other form.
• Eileen transformed into a gigantic black spider with a woman's upper body, boasted about her long legs, and attempted to work out how to walk.

Eileen tested the abilities of her new Spider Goddess battle form, which proved powerful but temporary. After she shrank back, Yu Sheng tried using his blood to reactivate the form, but the brief transformation ended almost immediately, leaving them to consider repeating the original sacrifice procedure.

• Eileen practiced moving in her eight-legged form and discovered that it could summon black Threads of Omen, while her golden threads belonged to her other form and could not be used at the same time.
• Eileen's battle form weakened after several hours and shrank back into her 66.6-centimeter doll body.
• Eileen asked Yu Sheng to help recharge her so they could test whether the battle form could be reproduced.
• Luna emerged from hiding and stabbed Yu Sheng's arm so Eileen could absorb his blood.
• Eileen's aura surged and her body briefly grew, but she quickly shrank back, prompting Yu Sheng to suggest repeating the full sacrifice procedure.

After Eileen’s growth test showed little effect, Yu Sheng suspected her ability had a cooldown, and the group returned home to rest. Eileen then drifted through an unusual dream that revealed fragmented memories of her early training and her first meeting with Shirley.

• Eileen absorbed Yu Sheng’s blood after popping off her head, but she barely grew and quickly shrank back.
• Yu Sheng suggested Eileen’s ability had a cooldown, and Eileen accepted the idea before joking about using a straw next time.
• The group returned to No. 66 Wutong Road, where Huli fell asleep in a ball of fur and Luna prepared to take the nameless Saintess’s remains to The Lost Ship.
• Eileen arranged for four of her bodies to sleep in a chest and curled up beside Yu Sheng with her blond-haired shell.
• Eileen dreamed of voices discussing her setup and compatibility, then remembered a tall woman teaching her to run and fight.
• Eileen heard Shirley introduce herself and offer to have Ah Gou teach Eileen general knowledge.

Eileen drifted through memories of her battle with the Spider Goddess, then followed the Boundary Bridge through a vision of the ancient Crossroads and fell through its layers. She landed beside the tower in a wasteland and recognized the hill as strangely familiar.

• Eileen recalled fighting the Spider Goddess and sealing the disaster in a forgotten Different Dimension.
• Eileen followed the Boundary Bridge through a foggy space and saw the ancient Crossroads, with its city-states, Obsidian Pillars, giants, and dragons.
• Eileen lost her grip on the tower, and the Crossroads collapsed as a voice ordered the simulation stopped and the Council activated.
• Eileen fell through the Small Island and deeper layers of light and shadow before landing in tall Nameless Wild Grass.
• Eileen struggled upright, surveyed the Boundary Bridge embedded in a wasteland hill, and thought the place looked familiar.

Eileen dreamed that she had been created by the Ancient Holy Spirits as an experimental model and that the Boundary Bridge had pierced the Crossroads into the Soul Wilderness, then recounted the fragments to Yu Sheng. After Baili Qing called Yu Sheng to discuss the Hermetic Society’s infiltration of Boundary City, Eileen suggested that the events in her dream had all occurred on the same day and asked whether Yu Sheng had been there too.

• Eileen explored a ruined hill in her dream and saw the Boundary Bridge and a tower vanish as she reached the Soul Wilderness.
• Eileen met Yu Sheng in the Soul Wilderness and rapidly told him she had dreamed of being an Ancient Holy Spirits experimental model and of the Boundary Bridge crashing through the Crossroads into another dimension.
• Yu Sheng questioned what Eileen remembered about her creation, and she summarized herself as a special Alice doll before they argued over her failed first mission.
• Yu Sheng and Eileen woke to Baili Qing’s call, and she asked Yu Sheng to come discuss the Hermetic Society members who had infiltrated Boundary City.
• Eileen connected the Omen Goddess’s arrival, her first mission, the Boundary Bridge’s passage through the Crossroads, and the tower’s fall into the Soul Wilderness as events from one day, then asked Yu Sheng whether he had been there.

Yu Sheng wondered whether he had been connected to the Othergod’s arrival three thousand years earlier, but Eileen’s questions yielded no answers. At the Special Operations Bureau, Baili Qing examined traces left by the Hermetic Society’s invasion and found evidence that its members had used a powerful controlled energy source to open rifts.

• Eileen asked Yu Sheng whether he had been present when the Othergod descended, and he struggled with memories of his former home and the Soul Wilderness.
• After Eileen fell into the sink, Yu Sheng dried her, then Huli crashed into him when she rushed from her room.
• Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli went to the Special Operations Bureau, where Baili Qing invited them to eat while discussing the Hermetic Society’s invasion.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing that the Hermetic Society could open rifts inside the Crossroads and create artificial Otherworlds around them.
• Baili Qing showed Yu Sheng an illusion of the underground parking lot and identified hidden lines in the wall as traces of irradiation from a controllable, ultra-powerful energy source.

Yu Sheng and Baili Qing connected the Hermetic Society’s rift technology to the dormant Dark Angel Shadowless Bones and planned to lure the cultists with false intelligence about Angel Catalyst remains. Yu Sheng then asked Baili Qing about Eileen’s dream, and her revelations showed that several Ancient Holy Spirits had personally shaped Eileen.

• Baili Qing told Yu Sheng that the Hermetic Society’s rifts used technology stolen from Luo and an energy source that might be the dormant Dark Angel Shadowless Bones.
• Yu Sheng recalled the cultists’ need for a stronger catalyst to stabilize a door, and Baili Qing explained that the bureau had planted rumors about escaped remains to bait them.
• Yu Sheng suggested that Luo spread matching intelligence through her contacts on Grey Dwarf Star, and he and Baili Qing refined the operation’s details.
• Yu Sheng described Eileen’s dream and asked Baili Qing what its references to the Lost Ship, the captain, and the Crossroads meant.
• Baili Qing identified Falling Star Lady and Star Thrower as titles of Ancient Holy Spirits and learned from Eileen that the Ancestor of Dolls, the captain, Falling Star Lady, and Star Thrower had each helped create or teach her.

Yu Sheng and Baili Qing discussed Eileen’s memories of the Classical Era and the mysteries surrounding the Boundary Bridge and The Crossroads. At the Special Operations Bureau, Yu Sheng began planting an unstable door into counterfeit Angel Catalysts to prepare bait for the Hermetic Society.

• Eileen recalled that the Ancient Holy Spirits had blessed her, and Yu Sheng teased her about failing her first mission.
• Yu Sheng pointed out how Eileen’s account of the Classical Era suggested The Crossroads had been radically reshaped, and Baili Qing said her eyewitness testimony greatly advanced the Council’s research.
• Yu Sheng, Eileen, and Huli went with Baili Qing to a secure laboratory to inspect counterfeit Angel Catalysts made by the Bureau.
• Baili Qing explained that the Bureau had given the fakes mental-pollution properties and would stage recovery operations and crackdowns to make the bait convincing.
• After the laboratory was cleared, Yu Sheng entered with Eileen and began implanting an unstable door into one of the crystals using the Boundary Bridge’s blueprint.

Luo received data from the Special Operations Bureau and discovered that the psionic research matched her own work, then decided to confront the compromised Grey Iron Junkyard and draw out Old Qiao’s allies. She arrived at the junkyard expecting trouble, while Old Qiao remained hidden.

• Luo woke from a terrifying nightmare and used a hidden system to send the Bureau’s psionic data to Black Stone Space Station.
• Luo recognized much of the data as her own research and questioned Ryan about Old Qiao’s whereabouts and their local contacts.
• After learning that the Grey Iron Junkyard administrator might be working with Old Qiao, Luo ordered Ryan to prepare a visit there.
• Luo and Ryan traveled through the polluted lower levels of Steel Node City toward Grey Iron Junkyard.
• Luo spotted a modified Fairy-6Z shuttle near the junkyard and said she would welcome an attack from Old Qiao’s people.

Luo confronted Iron Hand at Grey Iron Junkyard after learning he had sold one of her trade routes. Iron Hand admitted he had altered a shipment’s jump route under pressure, and Luo left him facing the consequences of a betrayal he claimed he had not intended.

• Luo arrived by shuttle at Grey Iron Junkyard and met Iron Hand, the former junk kid whose mechanical arm she had given him.
• Luo and Iron Hand withdrew to his two-story building, where he explained that the middle-level recycling business was declining and he needed to plan for the future.
• Iron Hand told Luo that Old Qiao had approached him but insisted he had not shared information about her or her contacts.
• Luo showed Iron Hand a cargo manifest and jump codes proving he had redirected equipment and data meant for Node Planet YN-135 to a Black Domain Galaxy.
• Iron Hand said he had only added a delivery location and cargo, not expecting the ship to vanish after leaving Grey Dwarf Star.
• Luo reminded Iron Hand that he used to be honest and told him he had neither been honest when needed nor clever when it mattered.

Luo confronted Iron Hand over his ties to Old Qiao and left him to die after discovering that living metal had invaded his body. She then used a planned escape attempt as a trap to force Old Qiao to reveal himself, but her shuttle was intercepted by the missing Fairy shuttle as she descended into the Giant Wall’s lower levels.

• Luo learned that Iron Hand had worked with Old Qiao for four years and leaked Zolda Black Stone test data and Rift Generator blueprints.
• Luo discovered that Iron Hand had injected two of Old Qiao’s Gene Potions, shook his hand, and left him to die in a psychic fireball.
• Luo gave her badge to a young foreman to make him the new boss, then found a charred body sent by Old Qiao beside her shuttle.
• Luo revealed that the smuggling ship and high-wall passage were decoys meant to make Old Qiao believe she was trapped, and she flew toward the lawless lower levels.
• Old Qiao’s forces locked onto Luo’s shuttle, and the missing Fairy shuttle burst from an abandoned building to attack.

Luo and the guard captain survived an ambush by hijacking enemy systems during a desperate shuttle escape, then fled into the ruins beneath the Iron Nest. As Black Dot soldiers closed in, a sleepy girl appeared and put the squad to sleep, transforming them and their walker into a rose garden.

• Luo linked her mechanical limbs to the shuttle controls, evaded missiles, and turned a heavy drone against the attacking Fairy shuttle.
• Luo’s damaged shuttle crashed into the lower ruins, where she and the guard soldiers escaped before tactical walkers attacked them.
• Luo and the guard captain led the soldiers deeper into the ruins as Black Dot forces sealed the exits and pursued them.
• A Black Dot squad encountered a sleepy girl in a white nightdress carrying a rabbit plushie.
• The girl’s power overwhelmed the soldiers with drowsiness, and thorns and flowers grew over them and their walker.

Luo confronted Old Qiao in the lower levels of Grey Dwarf Star, where he demanded the Rift Laboratory’s Zolda Black Stone test data. As Old Qiao’s forces attacked, unexpected allies arrived and turned the fight against them.

• Luo led her guards through the abandoned lower district and used a rune card to begin forming a living doorway.
• Old Qiao arrived in a tactical walker and offered to spare Luo’s holdings if she handed over the Rift Laboratory’s original data.
• Luo accused Old Qiao of seeking the Zolda Black Stone data for Hermetic Society believers and warned that their faulty rift device could open a Great Void in the Dark Current Starfield.
• Old Qiao ordered his forces to destroy Luo and her guards, but incendiary bombs suddenly engulfed the district.
• A long-haired woman appeared in the flames and attacked the Black Dot soldiers, while Snake Princess charged Old Qiao’s walker and slammed it into the ground.