Chapter Summaries

Yu Sheng watched the tower with Huli, Xuan Che, and the Eileens while waiting for the Special Operations Bureau, but the tower began teleporting as the Bureau's forces attacked. Realizing it was about to escape, Yu Sheng asked Huli to launch him toward it.

• Yu Sheng contacted the Special Operations Bureau and hid nearby with his companions to observe the tower.
• Yu Sheng questioned Xuan Che about his fighting style, and Xuan Che explained that he was a physician who relied on powerful equipment and basic martial arts.
• The tower began flickering and humming as its teleportation process spread across the structure.
• The Special Operations Bureau's Hunter Owl bombers and Deep Dive Unit arrived and unleashed heavy fire on the tower.
• Yu Sheng realized the tower was escaping and asked Huli to give him a tail so she could launch him toward it.

Yu Sheng rode Huli’s tail to the Order Pillar and disrupted its teleportation by interfering with the spatial ripple generated by its jump. The tower was thrown out of hyperspace into an unfamiliar, desolate region among the stars.

• Yu Sheng decided to fly alone to the tower’s peak, and Huli launched him with her foxfire while Eileen and Xuan Che watched from below.
• Yu Sheng reached the tower as it phased out of reality and pressed Huli’s tail against its transparent peak.
• Yu Sheng sensed the tower’s spatial distortion and added noise to one of its waves by opening a door.
• The jump interference caused the Order Pillar’s phase conversion and navigation systems to fail, forcing the Sage to abort the jump.
• The Order Pillar emerged in an unfamiliar, dark region of space.

After the Pillar of Order was thrown off course, the Sage ordered repairs and the Artificial Saintess’s recovery, only for Yu Sheng to appear outside the spaceship and terrify its crew. Yu Sheng stayed alive in space, spoke with Eileen, and continued searching for a way inside the drifting tower.

• The Sage learned that the Pillar of Order’s navigation and gravity systems were damaged, and ordered the crew to prioritize repairs and prepare the Artificial Saintess for combat.
• The Sage suspected the people who had appeared in the fog were behind the ship’s troubles, then saw Yu Sheng crawling outside a porthole and ordered knights to eliminate him.
• Yu Sheng crawled along the tower’s hull carrying Huli’s tail, while the crew lost sight of him in a damaged surveillance blind spot.
• Yu Sheng told Eileen he had disrupted the tower’s teleportation and was trying to find an entrance; Eileen relayed that Huli’s tail had only lost its connection.
• Yu Sheng opened a door to No. 66 Wutong Road and returned Huli’s tail, then told Eileen he would keep exploring and look for local specialties.

Yu Sheng infiltrated the Pillar of Order by using his blood to locate a safe route through its outer shell and opening a door inside. As the Sage ordered the intruder hunted, Yu Sheng wandered through the tower and contacted Baili Qing by phone, continuing to use his blood to scout ahead.

• Yu Sheng used his blood to inspect the tower’s interior and found a safe passage beneath an armor joint.
• Yu Sheng opened a short-range door through the tower’s outer shell and entered without triggering its damage alarms.
• The Sage’s staff failed to find Yu Sheng outside, then detected an intruder in a passage near the Core Area, prompting the Sage to order his elimination.
• Yu Sheng found himself lost in the tower’s corridors and discovered that his phone had an interstellar signal.
• Yu Sheng messaged Baili Qing, who told him she had heard Huli launched him toward the tower and had tried calling him.
• Yu Sheng cut his palm again and sent his blood through the walls and floor as he continued deeper into the tower.

Yu Sheng was cornered aboard the tower-like spaceship by Brass Knights and members of the Holy Ascetic Society, then fought them despite his severe injuries. As he lay near death, he whispered that some things were supposed to live.

• Huli and Eileen (Pro) examined the patterns in the pit while Xuan Che worried about Yu Sheng, and Eileen (Steel) said Yu Sheng had been talking to her on the phone.
• Yu Sheng rested in a corridor aboard the spaceship and called out the enemies who had been following him.
• Brass Knights and black-robed members of the Hermetic Society surrounded Yu Sheng, and he charged them with his Tetanus Staff.
• Yu Sheng smashed one cultist's Power Armor and gravely wounded him, but the Brass Knights and cultists struck Yu Sheng down with a barrage of blades.
• As the enemies hesitated around him, Yu Sheng whispered that some things were supposed to live.

After Yu Sheng’s apparent death, his blood and phone sent Baili Qing a message, while the Hermetic Society believed the invader had been defeated. The Sage then learned that cleanup and action teams were vanishing inside the tower as an unseen threat infiltrated its systems.

• A Hermetic Society member reported Yu Sheng’s words at death, while the society amputated an injured fighter and prepared to transfer his brain into a mechanical body.
• The Brass Knight escorted the cultists away as Yu Sheng’s blood absorbed his belongings and used his phone to ask Baili Qing whether she wanted the cultists of the Holy Ascetic Society.
• Baili Qing agreed and offered support, but Yu Sheng’s message warned that reinforcements might alert the cultists and prompt them to destroy the ship.
• A black-robed member told the Sage that the invader had been dealt with, and the control hall relaxed until the recovery team’s signals disappeared inside Corridor D-2.
• An operator heard a clear voice on the monitoring channel, and the Sage ordered the returning action team to the Server room before learning that its signals had also vanished near Corridor D-1.
• The Sage ordered a second team deployed, surveillance maintained, and the passages between D-1 and D-2 sealed and searched.

A Hermetic Society squad was trapped by the ship’s doors and captured by the Special Operations Bureau, while Yu Sheng proposed bringing an entire Artificial Saintess system, including its Saint Coffin, to Boundary City. The chapter left Baili Qing and Song Cheng considering the unusual plan.

• Allen-27 sensed something wrong as his squad crossed a door and realized the corridor beyond was an illusion concealing Special Operations Bureau agents.
• Allen-27 warned his comrades that the ship’s doors were dangerous, but the corridor’s sludge-like walls restrained and pushed him toward a door.
• Baili Qing and Song Cheng’s team captured the Hermetic Society members who crossed through, and Xu Jiali subdued one who resisted.
• Song Cheng asked Baili Qing why the operation made the Special Operations Bureau seem like the villains, and she said the details did not matter if the Crossroads stayed safe.
• Baili Qing received Yu Sheng’s message asking about the Artificial Saintess’s Saint Coffin, and learned he wanted to bring the entire system to Boundary City.

The Sage struggled to contain a spreading mutation aboard the Pillar of Order while preparing the ship to jump and ordering the Artificial Saintess awakened. As Mixture No. 4 entered her Holy Coffin, the liquid suddenly turned crimson.

• The Sage learned that more sections and crews had vanished, while the ship’s systems and personnel reported signs of a spreading disease and strange hallucinations.
• The Sage ordered reachable cabins to stay sealed, directed repairs to the Navigation System, and demanded the Artificial Saintess be restarted in combat mode.
• A monk reported that the Artificial Saintess refused to leave the Holy Coffin to pray for the dead, so the Sage ordered Mixture No. 4 injected and took responsibility for the risk.
• Hermetic Society operators began the Saintess’s restart, and the pale-blue Mixture No. 4 turned crimson after reaching the Holy Coffin.

Yu Sheng confronted the Artificial Saintess after she broke free of the Holy Coffin and slaughtered the Hermetic Society friars. As the Saintess attacked him with a failing body and memories of a crusade, she stabbed Yu Sheng, leaving her fate uncertain.

• The chief operator destroyed the Holy Coffin’s controls and connections, but the Artificial Saintess burst out and killed the friars in the room.
• Yu Sheng revealed that he had revived and secretly explored the spaceship by transferring his will through the blood he had spread throughout it.
• Yu Sheng sensed the Saintess’s anger, sorrow, and apparent sense of justice, and tried to ask her about a wheat field in her memories.
• The Saintess charged Yu Sheng, while a vision showed her as a young crusader rushing toward a demon alongside the spirits of her fallen knights.
• Yu Sheng noticed the Saintess’s body was malfunctioning and tried to keep his distance, but she suddenly regained speed and stabbed him in the chest.
• The Saintess stopped moving as Yu Sheng collapsed beneath a pillar and wondered whether she had died.

Yu Sheng touched the Artificial Saintess’s blood plasma and entered her memories, witnessing how a village girl was recruited, transformed into a saintess, and turned into the Iron Doll. The vision ended with her final memories fading, while Yu Sheng remained gravely wounded beside her body.

• Yu Sheng realized he could communicate with the dead after touching the Artificial Saintess’s blood plasma.
• Yu Sheng witnessed the girl’s childhood in a village, where she trained with a sword and heard stories about the Saint, knights, and demons.
• The girl left home with other chosen youths after her mother urged her to return someday.
• The messengers sent the girl to the Extraction Room, and she later became a saintess who fought alongside knights.
• Yu Sheng saw the woman’s cognitive mask collapse as her armor and sword transformed into the Iron Doll’s black metal body.
• The woman reached toward Yu Sheng before her final memories vanished into darkness.

Yu Sheng used his remaining strength to place the Iron Doll in the iron coffin and died as a soul-infusion ritual activated around it. Elsewhere, the ship trapped the Hermetic Society in the control hall, where the Sage’s rallying speech ended with the ship confronting him.

• Yu Sheng pushed the Iron Doll into the iron coffin, smeared blood across the holy coffin, and promised to prepare an alchemy array before turning to dust.
• An alchemy array formed around the holy coffin, and the damaged equipment connected to the iron coffin began repairing itself.
• The ship cut off the control hall from every system, and the Hermetic Society prepared for battle as the Sage urged them to embrace martyrdom.
• The ship’s floor, walls, and consoles came alive, trapping members of the Hermetic Society in metal as a face emerged from the wall and challenged the Sage over the people whose memories he had extracted.
• The Sage began to defend the sacrifice as noble, but a metal pipe struck him before he could finish.

Yu Sheng battled the transformed Sage, Babor-3, who sacrificed Hermetic Society members while growing into a lightning-wreathed monster. Yu Sheng hurled him into space, where Babor-3 survived and used an amulet to request a Graceful Shelter.

• Yu Sheng attacked the Sage with the ship’s metal and altered gravity, while the Sage resisted with thunder and lightning.
• The Sage transformed into a monstrous mass of flesh and electricity, killing Hermetic Society members as they cheered his sacrifice.
• Yu Sheng opened the control hall to space and struck the Sage with a falling pipe, sending him flying out of the Pillar of Order.
• Yu Sheng sealed the viewport and watched the Sage accelerate away without exploding.
• Babor-3 endured the vacuum, used a ruby amulet to request a Graceful Shelter, and vanished into the void.

Yu Sheng captured the remaining Hermetic Society cultists and sent them to the Special Operations Bureau, while the Sage escaped with a blood mark left by Yu Sheng. He began taking control of the spaceship, planning to bring it back as a local specialty for Eileen.

• Yu Sheng failed to track the teleporting Sage but kept a blood mark on him and turned to question the surviving cultists.
• The cultists refused to reveal their secrets, so Yu Sheng sent them through a doorway to Baili Qing, Song Cheng, and the Special Operations Bureau agents.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing that the Artificial Saintess had died and the holy coffin had been damaged, then proposed bringing the spaceship back by consuming it.
• Baili Qing agreed to let Yu Sheng handle the ship, and Yu Sheng asked the Bureau to reimburse his interstellar roaming charges.
• Yu Sheng restored the damaged control hall as his takeover of the spaceship neared completion, intending to bring it back for Eileen.

Yu Sheng took control of the Pillar of Order in space and brought it back to the valley, where it landed beside the Black Forest. He introduced the ship as a local specialty from outer space, leaving Little Red Riding Hood and his companions stunned.

• Yu Sheng examined the damaged Pillar of Order, synchronized with it, and used its Phase Engine to jump back to the valley.
• The squirrel, the hunter, and Little Red Riding Hood watched the wasteland near the Black Forest transform into a foundation and roadways.
• The Pillar of Order emerged through a crack in the sky and landed in the prepared foundation beside the Black Forest.
• Little Red Riding Hood helped a dizzy Yu Sheng after he stumbled out of an illusory doorway, and he said he had brought the spaceship back from outer space.
• Yu Sheng opened a doorway to bring Eileen, Huli, and Xuan Che from No. 66 Wutong Road to the valley.
• Eileen reacted in disbelief to Yu Sheng calling the spaceship a local specialty, while Xuan Che and Huli praised his exploits.

Yu Sheng showed Little Red Riding Hood, Eileen, Xuan Che, and the others the captured Pillar of Order and revealed that the Hermetic Society had turned living people into weapons, including the Artificial Saintess and Brass Knights. He explained that the Society’s sage had escaped, but Yu Sheng had marked him and intended to kill him when the opportunity came.

• Yu Sheng introduced Xuan Che and the others, then opened a door into the Pillar of Order so they could explore the ship.
• The group examined the ship’s ornate corridors, and Yu Sheng discussed removing the Hermetic Society statues and decorations.
• Yu Sheng led everyone to the holy coffin and explained that the Artificial Saintess had originally been a person, as had the Brass Knights.
• Yu Sheng recounted how the Hermetic Society transformed living people into weapons, leaving some with bodies or souls trapped in mechanical shells.
• Eileen and the others reacted with anger, while Yu Sheng said he had sent the surviving heretics to the Special Operations Bureau and would eventually hunt down the escaped sage.

Yu Sheng tried to revive the Artificial Saintess in the sacred coffin and explained the Hermetic Society’s crimes to his companions. After touring parts of the tower, he emerged to find the storybook characters causing chaos around the ship.

• Yu Sheng said he had restarted the sacred coffin’s repair process for the Artificial Saintess, though he did not know whether she would awaken.
• Xuan Che vowed to report the Hermetic Society’s human sacrifices to his sect, and Yu Sheng explained how the cult denied its members’ humanity.
• Yu Sheng and his companions inspected the tower’s living quarters and discussed bringing in Special Operations Bureau personnel to investigate and repair the ship.
• Yu Sheng showed the group the bridge, then left the tower with them after several hours of touring.
• Yu Sheng found the children running amok around the ship as Snow White led her seven Thunder Titans toward the tower, and Little Red Riding Hood shouted for Every.

After a long day, Yu Sheng returned home exhausted and fell asleep, only to find a new figure waiting in the familiar dream wilderness. A female knight appeared by the old bonfire, becoming the Shelter Wasteland’s newest refugee.

• Yu Sheng sent the children back to town by creating artificial dusk, then watched Xuan Che repeatedly fly into the valley’s boundaries before opening a way out for him.
• Yu Sheng and the others returned to No. 66 Wutong Road, where Yu Sheng collapsed into bed and fell asleep while Eileen helped settle him in.
• Yu Sheng dreamed of the day’s events and wandered through the familiar wilderness where the children had once sheltered.
• Yu Sheng noticed a female knight standing beside the old bonfire, holding her father’s steel sword, and recognized her from his fragmented memories.

Yu Sheng found the Artificial Saintess’s phantom in the Shelter Wasteland and asked Eileen to examine her. Eileen discovered the Saintess’s mind was badly fragmented, but her sudden attack suggested part of her remained active, leaving Yu Sheng to consider whether she was suspended between life and death.

• Yu Sheng found the golden-haired Artificial Saintess standing unresponsive in the Shelter Wasteland and reasoned that her mind had been sheltered after suffering trauma.
• Yu Sheng summoned Eileen, who examined the phantom with black threads and found that her mind was severely damaged and incomplete.
• The Artificial Saintess suddenly struck Eileen with her sword, then returned to standing motionless.
• Eileen proposed that the Artificial Saintess’s body and soul were split between the Holy Coffin and the Shelter Wasteland because she was both dead and alive.
• Yu Sheng considered Eileen’s explanation and wondered whether the Artificial Saintess was caught between life and death.

Yu Sheng discussed the captured Hermetic Society members and his stolen spaceship with Baili Qing, who offered navigation guidance and support from the Special Operations Bureau. After revealing that the Artificial Saintess and her knights were made from people raised as raw materials, Yu Sheng made finding the recruitment ground and confronting the Hermetic Society a long-term goal.

• Yu Sheng visited the Holy Coffin and urged its occupant to wake, saying he would help with its unfinished plans.
• Yu Sheng met Baili Qing, who said the Special Operations Bureau had begun interrogating the captured Hermetic Society members and that the Council was alarmed by the mass capture.
• Baili Qing warned Yu Sheng about interstellar navigation laws and offered manuals, star charts, and technical experts to study the spaceship.
• Yu Sheng asked Baili Qing to arrange crews to repair, renovate, and supply the spaceship, offering to cover the costs with the captured cultists' case or more Hermetic Society members.
• Yu Sheng told Baili Qing the Hermetic Society raised people as raw materials for the Artificial Saintess and her knights, and said he intended to pursue the group despite the difficulty.

Yu Sheng secured Baili Qing’s promise of future support against the Holy Ascetic Society and learned what he needed to make his captured spaceship legally operable. Xuan Che reported his bizarre visit with Yu Sheng to True Spirit Yuanling, while the Artificial Saintess revived inside the Pillar of Order and vanished into darkness.

• Baili Qing offered Yu Sheng high-level reinforcements-summoning privileges if he found clear clues to the Holy Ascetic Society, and promised to help secure his spaceship’s license and identification documents.
• Xuan Che told True Spirit Yuanling that the expert he had visited was the same person whose head had appeared in his Alchemy Furnace.
• Xuan Che described Yu Sheng’s Otherworld home and its strange inhabitants, then told True Spirit Yuanling that he and Yu Sheng had encountered the Holy Ascetic Society.
• The Artificial Saintess emerged from the Holy Coffin after its machinery stopped, then disappeared inside a mass of darkness.