Chapter Summaries

Yu Sheng approached the Star Gate on Huli’s Fox Tail, but a Living Saint detected them and attacked. With Fox Tail nearly destroyed, Yu Sheng launched himself toward the Star Gate’s Main Ring and faced the pursuer.

• Yu Sheng and Huli slipped past the Star Gate’s defenses by using the brown dwarf’s magnetic field as cover.
• A Living Saint emerged from the Star Gate and fired Light Cannons at Yu Sheng and Huli.
• Luna identified the attacker as a Living Saint, while Eileen prepared a disaster of blood and light.
• Yu Sheng ordered Huli to ram the Star Gate, and Fox Tail used its final burst to launch him toward the Main Ring.
• Fox Tail struck the Living Saint’s sword and exploded as Yu Sheng turned toward the pursuer and made a gun with his fingers.

After Yu Sheng died instantly at the star gate, the Living Saint experienced a brief trance and failed to detect him, while his companions joked about his death at the Otherworld Inn. During his revival, Yu Sheng discovered a connection between the star gate and the Eden Gate, and saw a bound Living Saint being drained to power the unstable gateway.

• Yu Sheng crashed into a force-field generator at the star gate, and the Living Saint froze before recovering and reporting that it had experienced a trance.
• Eileen and Huli joked about Yu Sheng's death while Luo objected, and Yu Sheng reappeared as a face in the Inn's wall to speak with them.
• Yu Sheng sensed a blood-based connection while waiting to revive and instinctively understood how the star gate operated.
• Yu Sheng saw an unstable fissure in the chaos between life and death and identified it as the Eden Gate.
• Yu Sheng spotted a winged giant resembling the Living Saint bound beside the fissure as light poured from its body into the gateway.
• Yu Sheng revived in the Inn's control hall, and Huli rushed to him and clung to his arm.

Yu Sheng and his companions considered whether the Hermetic Society’s Living Saint had been modeled on the Shadowless Bones and whether the angel had been secretly influencing the Society. They left the Death Border to warn their allies, while the Holy Seat visited the chained Shadowless Bones in the Holy Realm with two Living Saints at his side.

• Yu Sheng described his vision of the Shadowless Bones to Eileen, Huli, Luo, and the others, and they connected the luminous Giant to the Living Saint he had seen before.
• Luo argued that the Hermetic Society could not have mastered a genuine angelic relic and suspected the Shadowless Bones might have been awake all along, possibly influencing the Society through its Living Saints.
• Yu Sheng and Luo wondered whether the Shadowless Bones had allowed the Hermetic Society to bind it to the Eden Gate because that was what it wanted.
• Yu Sheng steered the cloaked Otherworld Inn away from the Death Border and planned to warn the fleet, Baili Qing, and the others before reaching the Holy Realm.
• At the Holy Realm’s Sacred Furnace, the Holy Seat showed Golendel the chained Shadowless Bones and praised its use as fuel for the Eden Gate, while two Living Saints stood behind him.

Baili Qing coordinated with Yu Sheng to use a captured Hermetic Society stargate for a surprise fleet insertion, while learning that the Living Saints and Shadowless Bones posed uncertain threats. She and Hong prepared to move the Crossroads fleet toward Shuju and await the operation’s next stage.

• Baili Qing spoke with Yu Sheng and learned he had secretly taken control of a Hermetic Society stargate and arranged transit through the Great Void Spiritual Pivot.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing to move the fleet through the gate near Yao Lu to high orbit over Shuju, where they would pressure the Hermetic Society while he searched the Holy Realm for Eden Gate.
• Yu Sheng warned Baili Qing that the Living Saints might be dangerous derivatives of the Shadowless Bones, and Baili Qing agreed to wait for his further message after securing the border stargate.
• Eileen called Baili Qing a Steel Poker Face before Yu Sheng ended the communication, and Hong teased Baili Qing about her changing expressions.
• Baili Qing updated Hong on the revised plan, and Hong prepared to depart toward Shuju with the fleet.

The Hermetic Society’s cruiser returned to Sacred Realm carrying the Angel Catalyst, while the Holy Seat prepared to welcome the cargo and guard the awakening Eden Gate. Yu Sheng sensed the catalyst had reached the planet and opened a door, only to find Sacred Realm desolate.

• The Dark Star cruiser, identified as the Philosopher's Stone, arrived at Sacred Realm after carrying the Angel Catalyst through dangerous hyperspace disturbances.
• The Holy Seat sensed Eden Gate resonating with the catalyst and led the Priests toward the starship berthing platform.
• Yu Sheng and his companions waited near the border Star Gate until he sensed that someone had taken the catalyst on Sacred Realm.
• Yu Sheng checked the area around his blood trace, opened a door, and found a desolate alien world on the other side.

Yu Sheng and his companions emerged from the gate onto a barren, hostile world instead of finding the Dark Star cruiser or the Hermetic Society’s Holy Land. After White Cut discovered something nearby, they flew toward a ruined camp, leaving the planet’s identity and the camp’s occupants unknown.

• Yu Sheng opened the gate at the Dark Star cruiser’s coordinates, but found an unfamiliar, poisonous world with no sign of the ship or a spaceport.
• Luna detected no artificial traces nearby, while Yu Sheng confirmed that the blood signal pointed to a location within about a hundred meters.
• Huli sent White Cut and Salt Baked to scout, then used her other tails to dispatch four Fox Cannon Drones as escorts.
• White Cut found something beyond the mountains, and Huli carried Yu Sheng there while Luna followed with Shadow Leap.
• Yu Sheng recognized the planet as possibly a desolate star, and Huli compared its fissures to cold stars described in an Argraidean astrology database.
• The group arrived at a sheltered camp containing habitat compartments, protective walls, inactive antenna equipment, and scattered wreckage.

Yu Sheng and his companions searched an abandoned outpost on a dead planet and found a booklet containing its former occupants’ notes. The notes revealed that they had tried to transform the planet with help from an inexplicable voice and power, and the chapter ended with Yu Sheng noticing a date marked Holy Calendar, 11XX.

• Yu Sheng, Huli, Luna, Eileen, White Cut, and Salt Baked found an abandoned camp with no signs of life.
• Yu Sheng entered the best-preserved residential module with Huli, who shrank into a small fox to explore it.
• Huli found a badly damaged academic booklet, and Yu Sheng read fragments about dead celestial bodies, gravitational faults, and the universe’s history.
• Yu Sheng discovered the former outpost occupant’s notes describing a failed Modification Plan Seventeen and an inexplicable voice that had offered guidance.
• The notes said the occupants intended to rebuild the dead planet with the help of an industrial Aircraft Carrier in orbit, and Yu Sheng spotted the footer date Holy Calendar, 11XX.

Yu Sheng realized that he and his companions had arrived on the Sacred Realm several hundred years too early and were trapped inside a time Barrier. Meanwhile, the Holy Seat learned from Golendel that Eden Gate had intercepted the interference, though Yu Sheng returned to Black Stone Station to warn Luo that something had happened.

• Yu Sheng dated the abandoned camp to Holy Calendar 11XX and confirmed that the group had arrived on the Sacred Realm centuries before its later settlement.
• Yu Sheng launched three of Huli’s tails in different directions, and each lost contact beyond the area.
• Yu Sheng concluded that a defensive system had trapped them in a time Barrier and suspected Eden Gate was responsible.
• The Holy Seat questioned Golendel, who said Eden Gate had caught the unknown interference in its time Deep Well and that it could not escape or send information.
• Yu Sheng returned to Black Stone Station and urgently told Luo that something had happened.

Yu Sheng learned that Eden Gate had trapped the Holy Land in a temporal anomaly, while Luo traced the Boundary Bridge’s ancient defect to a missing temporal anchor. Yu Sheng realized the gate’s defenses were part of the gate itself, then opened a passage as the Unified Fleet prepared to advance.

• Yu Sheng and Huli told Luo that every attempt to reach the Holy Land led to a dead star in the 11xx year of the Holy Calendar.
• Luo discovered records showing that the Boundary Bridge’s missing temporal anchor had caused its Descent to pierce The Crossroads’ past and trigger the Epochal Transition.
• Yu Sheng experienced a vision of a great tree spanning time and worlds, then concluded that Eden Gate’s defense system was part of Eden Gate.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing to pressure the cultists into bringing the catalyst to the gate so it would reveal itself, then stepped through a doorway toward the dead star with his companions.
• The Unified Fleet received the spatial-rift alarm near Shouji, watched a massive rift open, and surged toward the Star Gate.

The Unified Fleet launched a surprise assault through the Star Gate, overwhelming the Hermetic Society’s defenses and destroying its armed fortress. Hong boarded a crippled cruiser and slaughtered its crew, but a radiant winged figure appeared and attacked her.

• The Unified Fleet forced its way through the Star Gate, whose transmission system erupted in red energy and plunged the defenders into chaos.
• Wraith bombers struck the defenders with graviton bombs while shield ships and arsenal ships attacked the Star Gate’s weapons and armed fortress.
• Fortress Torpedoes hit the armed fortress, setting off its main reactor and breaking the station apart.
• A damaged Dark Star cruiser tried to hide among the wreckage, but Hong appeared aboard and killed its commander.
• Hong moved through the bridge, evading and reflecting the cultists’ attacks as she killed them and struggled to restrain her thirst for blood.
• A beam tore through the bridge where Hong had stood, and a winged figure surrounded by holy light appeared.

Hong confronted the Hermetic Society’s Living Saint during the assault on the stargate, while the Unified Fleet defeated the defenders. Meanwhile, Yu Sheng and his companions arrived in the Sacred Land of the past and headed toward a time root of Eden Gate.

• The Living Saint appeared in the bridge hall, killed the remaining Hermetic Society believers, and silently offered Hong candies before suddenly flying into space.
• Hong joined the effort to suppress the stargate’s defenders, then escaped through a mirror as the damaged Dark Star cruiser began falling toward a brown dwarf.
• The Unified Fleet destroyed the star fortress and disaster reserve node module, overwhelming the remaining stargate defenders.
• Yu Sheng, Huli, the little doll, Luna, and Eileen crossed the poisonous Sacred Land and asked Yu Sheng which direction to take.
• Yu Sheng pointed toward Eden Gate and explained that one of its time roots was rooted in the Sacred Land of the past.

Yu Sheng waited in the Eden Gate’s time-root for the Hermetic Society to connect the Angel Catalyst, planning to reach it across time and space. After the Crossroads fleet captured the border Star Gate, the Holy Seat rushed the catalyst’s activation, giving Yu Sheng the opening he needed to draw it toward the Eden Gate’s unstable Light Screen.

• Yu Sheng explained to Huli and Eileen that the Eden Gate’s roots extended through time and space, and located the Angel Catalyst near them in the past.
• Yu Sheng waited for the Crossroads fleet’s attack to reach Holy Realm while Huli stayed beside him.
• A messenger reported that the Crossroads fleet had captured the border Star Gate, and the Holy Seat ordered the Angel Catalyst connected before its tests were complete.
• Yu Sheng cut his palm and used the blood connection to reach toward the catalyst as the Holy Seat brought it to the Eden Gate.
• Yu Sheng silenced Golendel when he tried to warn the Holy Seat, and the Angel Catalyst broke free of its stand and plunged into the gate’s unstable Light Screen.

The Angel Catalyst triggered the Eden Gate, allowing Yu Sheng and his puppets to emerge as the Holy Seat prepared to fight them. Meanwhile, Baili Qing’s forces used a blood-mist dispersal device to clear sections of the facility and target the defenders near the Star Gate Power Furnace.

• The black Angel Catalyst fell into the Eden Gate, distorting time and causing the gate and its power systems to fail.
• The Holy Seat restored the Priests’ ability to move and ordered them to retreat as black-haired, red-eyed puppets poured from the gate.
• Yu Sheng emerged within a gigantic face above the gate, identified himself to the Holy Seat, and sent fox tails and foxfire sweeping across the area.
• Baili Qing met Marine Corps soldiers in the corridor and had a Heavy Deep Diver operate a device that spread blood mist into the building’s walls and ceiling.
• Baili Qing told Hong to deliver a dispersal device near the Star Gate Power Furnace, expecting the power furnace to defeat the cultists defending it.
• The device stopped on its own, and the character “proper” appeared on the wall beside it.

The Unified Fleet fought to capture the Stargate while Yu Sheng’s takeover of the structure advanced, and Baili Qing sensed the newly claimed megastructure greeting her. At Eden Gate, Eileen Legion’s attack faltered under cult reinforcements, but Yu Sheng revealed that there were two Eden Gates.

• The Generational Garrison retreated into the Stargate’s Main Ring and fiercely resisted the Unified Fleet’s landing forces.
• Baili Qing sensed Yu Sheng’s takeover spreading through the Stargate and crashed into an anti-aircraft position after seeing his face appear on its armor.
• High-ranking Priests rallied at Eden Gate as reinforcements arrived, forcing Eileen and Huli to flee across the battlefield.
• Huli told Eileen that the Holy Seat had disappeared and that Luna had pursued him.
• Yu Sheng joined Huli and Luna, then warned Eileen that there were two Eden Gates.

Yu Sheng destroyed Eden Gate while escaping with Eileen and Huli, but sensed that the true rift source lay elsewhere underground. As the Holy Seat struggled to respond to mounting crises, the Star Gate appeared above the world.

• Yu Sheng and his companions fled through the mountains as Eden Gate collapsed and exploded, severing the puppets' connection.
• Yu Sheng told Eileen he sensed a second, larger rift source underground, while the Hermetic Society's aircraft pursued them and then lost their life signs.
• The Holy Seat learned Eden Gate had been destroyed and that the border garrison had sent the message, “It has awakened.”
• The Holy Seat and the priests saw a massive ring-shaped structure emerge in the sky and recognized it as the Star Gate.

Yu Sheng brought the stargate and the Unified Fleet directly to orbit over the Holy Seat, beginning an orbital assault on the planet. As the bombardment continued, he and his companions joined Baili Qing aboard the flagship Mass Effect, where Yu Sheng met Hong, the Crossroads Affairs Officer.

• Yu Sheng sent the stargate to the Holy Seat, and the Unified Fleet emerged from hyperspace around it.
• The Holy Seat ordered its forces to prepare for battle, but the Unified Fleet began orbital bombardment before the planet's defenses were ready.
• Hong and Baili Qing examined scans showing that the planet's surface concealed a powerful interference source and an unusual ecosystem.
• Yu Sheng, Luna, Eileen, and the Nine-tailed Demon Fox appeared outside the Mass Effect and were invited onto its bridge by Baili Qing.
• Hong's Spiritual Vision reacted dangerously to Yu Sheng, but Baili Xue interrupted her and Hong cut off her vision.
• Hong introduced herself to Yu Sheng and his companions as a Crossroads Affairs Officer.

Yu Sheng briefed Hong on the suspected second Eden Gate, the Shadowless Bones, and the Dark Angel’s influence over the Hermetic Society as the Unified Fleet fought to capture the Holy Realm. Hong sent Baili Qing to use her powers for a planetary scan, while news that a Living Saint had killed cultists and offered Hong candy caught Yu Sheng and Luna’s attention.

• Yu Sheng told Hong that a second Eden Gate might lie beneath the Holy Realm and that the Shadowless Bones could be behind the Holy Ascetic Society.
• Huli reported that the Hermetic Society’s Holy Seat had vanished during a ceremony, and Yu Sheng shared clues suggesting the Dark Angel had influenced him for centuries.
• Hong ordered Baili Qing to prepare a shuttle and use her eyes with the fleet’s scanning array to search for the hidden Eden Gate.
• Yu Sheng offered to deal with the Shadowless Bones once Hong found the gate’s location.
• Hong said a Living Saint had killed the Hermetic Society believers around it before trying to share candy with her, prompting Luna to react.
• Baili Qing entered the Observation Room and reluctantly approached the ornate throne Hong had built so she could scan the planet.

Baili Qing used the Mass Effect’s scanning system to observe the Hermetic Society’s homeworld and was pulled into a vision of a crystal apocalypse, where a girl resembling her called her big sister. After she regained consciousness, she reported that the planet was hollow and likely concealed the Second Eden Gate, leaving the Unified Fleet facing a planet-sized structure.

• Baili Qing connected her consciousness to the Mass Effect’s antennas and plunged into a malformed spacetime abyss within the planet.
• Baili Qing saw herself trapped in growing crystal beside a young girl who apologized that the Cocoon could save only one person and asked to stay with her.
• Baili Qing woke as Baili Xue anxiously called to her, then recovered control of her body after only a few minutes had passed.
• Baili Qing told the bridge that the Hermetic Society’s homeworld was empty beneath its natural-looking surface and that the Second Eden Gate was likely hidden at the planet’s original core.
• Eileen, Yu Sheng, and Hong reacted to Baili Qing’s discovery, with Hong warning that the Second Eden Gate being the planet itself was a serious problem.

Yu Sheng, Luna, and Eileen headed for the Holy Realm’s largest Energy Focus aboard Huli, hoping to find a way into the hollow planet and its growing Eden Gate. As Hermetic Society priests prepared to sacrifice injured Artificial Saintesses to protect the Spiritual Infusion Furnace, a blazing object appeared over their position.

• Baili Qing identified several Energy Focuses on the Holy Realm and marked a damaged shield gap near a suspected facility in the mountains.
• Yu Sheng chose the largest Energy Focus as their destination and flew toward the planet on Huli with Luna and Eileen, using her tails for thrust.
• Hong protested that Yu Sheng had no Landing Shuttle, while Baili Qing jokingly called Huli’s approach the “Fox Radish Impact.”
• Hermetic Society forces struggled to repair the shields around the Spiritual Infusion Furnace as Unified Fleet bombardment and landing troops devastated the planet.
• A Black-robed Priest ordered injured Artificial Saintesses to be taken to the furnace and burned to awaken the Living Saint.
• A massive ball of fire appeared in the atmosphere above the defenders, alarming the priests and believers.

Yu Sheng, Eileen, Luna, and Huli survived Huli’s devastating orbital landing and entered a vast facility hidden inside the mountain. Luna recognized the place as connected to a temple, and after Yu Sheng glimpsed a mysterious white shadow, heavy footsteps sounded from deeper inside.

• Huli crashed into the mountain and wiped out the Hermetic Society members, then pulled herself free while Yu Sheng and the others searched for the facility entrance.
• Luna said she heard many sounds below and remembered having been to the temple before.
• Yu Sheng and the others found a breach in the mountainside and cautiously entered the damaged facility.
• Yu Sheng spotted a fleeting white shadow and warned the others that something extraordinary might be inside.
• Heavy footsteps rang out from the end of the corridor.