Recaps

Bai Fei questioned Hu Wei about changes in the Faith Game, and he revealed that the gods had begun summoning players and permitting their faiths to fuse. The chapter left the players considering whether a second faith could coexist with their original one, while Hu Wei’s possible connection to Chaos remained unconfirmed.

• Bai Fei told Hu Wei that Li Jingming had become a Follower of Deception but continued collecting memories, and she had traded one of her own memories for the information.
• Bai Fei explained that she feared not finding a way to continue carrying out her Lord’s Will more than she feared disappearing, impressing Hu Wei with her understanding of annihilation and rebirth.
• Hu Wei revealed that audiences with the gods had already begun and that the gods were loosening the restrictions on players’ faiths.
• Hu Wei described the change as permitted faith fusion rather than betrayal, prompting Yan Chun to ask whether players could receive a second faith.
• Yan Chun guessed that Hu Wei might be making Chaos his second faith, and Hu Wei’s reaction suggested the guess was correct without confirming it.

Cheng Shi distrusted Hu Wei’s claims about chaos and suspected the Grand Marshal was manipulating the group despite his show of generosity. After Bai Fei entered the Tower of Reason, Cheng Shi tried to escape but was driven inside by the War Machine Soldiers, leaving all four players within the experiment ground.

• Bai Fei considered Hu Wei’s revelations while Cheng Shi questioned whether his claims were true and recalled Su Yida and Chenosli.
• Hu Wei entered the door first, and Yan Chun followed, eager to witness an experiment of the Tower of Reason.
• Cheng Shi invited Bai Fei to go first, then tried to flee toward the Wall of True Knowledge after she entered.
• The wall of fire went out, allowing the War Machine Soldiers to find and surround Cheng Shi.
• Cheng Shi charged through the door to escape the Soldiers, and the doorway vanished after all four players had entered.

Cheng Shi and his companions explored the Tower of Reason’s Void Experiment Ground and learned that the World Tree of Gasmella was the real-world counterpart of the Conjugate Whisper. The account ended with the tree’s future destruction, the loss of its sole fruit, and the fall of the Tower of Reason.

• Cheng Shi woke to Hu Wei explaining that they had reached the wrong Experiment Field, then saw the Whispering Tree and recognized its resemblance to Gasmella’s World Tree.
• Hu Wei led Cheng Shi, Yan Chun, and their companions through the bustling experiment ground, where Cheng Shi and Yan Chun recorded the scholars’ research.
• Hu Wei explained that the Void Energy Department had cultivated Conjugate Whisper to grow between void and reality, with the tree in Gasmella as its counterpart.
• Cheng Shi learned that the tree would grow for over five hundred years before flowering and bearing its only fruit.
• The Twilight Church invaded Gasmella, took the fruit as scholars watched, and burned the tree, with the resulting fire heralding the collapse of the Tower of Reason and civilization.

Hu Wei recounted how the Twilight Church’s chaos erased the records of the World Tree’s fruit and Gasmella’s Void Experiment. After ending the history lesson, he sent the group to explore freely, leaving Cheng Shi wary of his hidden purpose.

• Hu Wei explained that no one knew who took the World Tree’s fruit or what it did, because the Twilight Church left no records and Gasmella’s experiment ended in disaster.
• Cheng Shi reflected on the Twilight Church and denied inwardly that he was its emissary, then offered Hu Wei a saying about Destiny forging events.
• The Dice in Cheng Shi’s breast pocket jolted after he spoke, but Hu Wei and the others did not notice.
• Hu Wei ended the trial’s lesson, warned the group to avoid making a commotion, and vanished using Chaos to disguise his departure.
• Cheng Shi realized Hu Wei was still nearby and had concealed his presence, while Bai Fei, Yan Chun, and Cheng Shi each went their separate ways.

Cheng Shi followed a death song from the Tree of Reality and Illusion into Nothingness, where Fang Shiqing was trying to summon a Doctor of Forgetfulness with a golden Mask. He awakened as a Bone Soldier before Fang Shiqing and her injured companions.

• Cheng Shi heard a woman's song grow clearer as he approached the giant tree, then the Dice of Destiny pulled his consciousness into Nothingness.
• Fang Shiqing tried to use a blood-spattered golden Mask to summon help for her wounded team, but repeated attempts had failed.
• Fang Shiqing's companion urged her to save her final Skeleton Warrior page rather than risk her life, while she insisted she trusted Cheng Shi and wanted to try again.
• Cheng Shi's body, lying as a corpse beneath Fang Shiqing and her companions, opened its eyes and shed its decayed flesh.
• Cheng Shi rose in a new body and greeted the three companions with a remark about Fang Shiqing's revealing outfit.

Cheng Shi reunited with Bailing and Fang Shiqing, then recognized Cui Qiushi and learned that Zhao Qian had been a City Builder and a Fire Keeper. When Cheng Shi asked Fang Shiqing how she had brought him into their trial, she seemed surprised that he did not already know.

• Bailing tackled Cheng Shi, and he reunited with her and Fang Shiqing before greeting Cui Qiushi.
• Cheng Shi recognized Cui Qiushi as the son of Old Cui and connected him to the Order Knights and the Fire Keepers.
• Cheng Shi asked whether Zhao Qian had been one of Cui Qiushi’s comrades, and Fang Shiqing confirmed it.
• Bailing and the others mourned Zhao Qian, whom Cui Qiushi identified as a City Builder who had joined him.
• Cheng Shi asked Fang Shiqing how she had brought him into the trial, and she asked whether he did not know how.

Cheng Shi joined Fang Shiqing, Bailing, and Cui Qiushi in the final day of their chaotic trial after Fang Shiqing used a Mask to summon him. After learning about their situation and meeting the rest of their team, he offered to take charge of the game.

• Fang Shiqing explained that consuming a Mask had summoned Cheng Shi into their trial, and he gave Cui Qiushi an S-rank defensive Mask to help him survive.
• Bailing jokingly offered to repay Cheng Shi with her body, but he refused to let her get anything for free.
• Fang Shiqing told Cheng Shi that their group had endured four days of a five-day chaotic trial and that three other teammates and several NPCs were sheltering in nearby ruins.
• Fang Shiqing described the other teammates, including an Erudite Scholar of the Void Energetics, an Elemental Judge, and a prisoner with Silent Protection.
• Cheng Shi introduced himself as a 2,401-point Doctor of Forgetfulness and declared that he would take over the game.

Cheng Shi learned that he and the Fire Keepers were trapped in a desperate battle in Gasmella, where they had to reach an experimental site and recover an un withered Whispering Flower Petal. He suspected Destiny had arranged the mission to lead him to the World Tree’s fruit, and the chapter ended with him promising they would win.

• Fang Shiqing and the other Fire Keepers were stunned when Cheng Shi revealed his score was 2,400, and Fang regretted failing to recruit him earlier.
• Fang Shiqing explained that they were city guard knights in Gasmella, where the Twilight Church and Bellicose Knights had overwhelmed the city’s defenses.
• Fang Shiqing said they needed to find the scholars’ Void Experiment Ground No. 69 and obtain an un withered Whispering Flower Petal before the World Tree was destroyed.
• Cheng Shi connected Gasmella, the Tower of Reason, and the World Tree’s fruit to Destiny’s arrangement, then watched the Dice of Destiny change its face from six back to one.
• Cheng Shi calmed himself after the die stayed still and assured the Fire Keepers they would win the trial.

Cheng Shi learned that Gasmella had fallen after the City Guard Knights were infiltrated and overwhelmed, and he agreed to join Fang Shiqing’s squad undercover. He warned the Fire Keepers to bear with him if the situation got out of control, leaving them unsure whether their costly external aid could be trusted.

• Cheng Shi learned how the City Guard Knights had retreated toward the inner city after their captain died and Gasmella fell to the Twilight Church’s forces.
• Cheng Shi concluded that spies had infiltrated Gasmella and suspected that Chaos believers had also entered Fang Shiqing’s squad.
• Cui Qiushi named several suspicious recruits, while Fang Shiqing explained that the squad had to accept scattered soldiers to survive.
• Fang Shiqing identified Griffis, a Battle Marshal and quartermaster, as someone the Fire Keepers partly trusted, and admitted they could not fully trust their other three teammates.
• Cheng Shi agreed to return with the squad disguised as a surviving City Guard Knight and asked them to bear with him if things got out of control.

Ji Yue led the battered remnants of the Forty-First Knight Squad and confronted Griffis after he tried to heal her without warning. When Fang Shiqing brought Cheng Shi to the camp, Ji Yue killed Griffis and exposed Cheng Shi as a Reason Corroder and follower of chaos, just as black hands emerged from the void above him.

• Ji Yue caught Griffis attempting to stab her and challenged him about his allegiance, but he claimed he still served Truth and said he had come to heal her.
• Griffis made a direct romantic advance, and Ji Yue warned him that his position as the squad’s Priest had saved him.
• Fang Shiqing returned with Cheng Shi and reported encountering a Priest who had withdrawn from battle, so Ji Yue summoned her dagger and killed Griffis.
• Ji Yue introduced herself to Cheng Shi and questioned his identity, then declared that he was a Reason Corroder and a follower of chaos.
• Two black hands burst from a split in the void and attacked Cheng Shi.

After Ji Yue exposed Cheng Shi as a Chaos worshipper, he killed Fang Shiqing and Bailing, then used a healing ability that also stirred Chaos worshippers into betraying their squad. As the ruins erupted into battle, Cheng Shi realized that nearly half the team were insiders and wondered whether he had infiltrated the enemy instead.

• Ji Yue recognized Cheng Shi and attacked, so he changed plans and stabbed Fang Shiqing to death before she could explain the misunderstanding.
• Cheng Shi used Bailing as a shield against Ji Yue’s lances, and Cui Qiushi raised the Holy Light Great Wall to protect Bailing; Cheng Shi then killed her from inside the barrier.
• Cheng Shi called on his fellow Chaos worshippers and cast Shared Divine Grace, healing everyone while lowering the sanity of Chaos believers.
• Arcade answered Cheng Shi’s call by attacking a comrade, and other Chaos worshippers followed, turning the ruin squad into a chaotic battle.
• Cheng Shi watched the betrayal spread and realized that at least half the squad were insiders, leaving him unsure which side he had infiltrated.

Cheng Shi staged a massacre to make the chaos believers turn on one another, while he and his companions survived by faking their deaths. Ji Yue recognized that Cheng Shi was a Battle Marshal and the Fool, then speared him through the shoulder as he tried to bluff his way out.

• Cheng Shi posed as a true believer in chaos, killed Cui Qiushi, and urged the believers to make the ruins more chaotic.
• Cheng Shi healed the crowd, then stabbed himself, prompting some believers to kill themselves and others to flee.
• Fang Shiqing, Bailing, and Cui Qiushi revealed that they had survived and discussed how Cheng Shi's ruse had worked.
• Ji Yue returned and accused Cheng Shi of being a Reason Corroder, but realized he was actually a Battle Marshal who had used the Edict of Passage to become a believer in war.
• Ji Yue identified Cheng Shi as the Fool, and Cheng Shi deduced that she knew Fang Jue before Ji Yue speared his shoulder.

Cheng Shi revealed that he was the Clown and explained how he had prompted the chaos among the enemy believers. After Ji Yue agreed to cooperate, Cheng Shi tried to bring Mo Wu into the alliance, though Mo Wu remained suspicious of him.

• Ji Yue and Fang Shiqing restrained Ji Yue before she could kill Cheng Shi, and Ji Yue questioned how Cheng Shi had summoned players.
• Mo Wu and the Prisoner emerged from the ruins, and Cheng Shi openly declared that he was the Clown.
• Ji Yue demanded an explanation of Cheng Shi's healing ability and offered cooperation, while Cheng Shi said he preferred working with Mo Wu's Order.
• Cheng Shi explained that his hints had stirred the enemy believers' own madness and criticized Ji Yue for using the knights' deaths as leverage.
• Ji Yue accepted Cheng Shi's offer to cooperate, and Cheng Shi placed Mo Wu's hand atop theirs to include him.
• Cheng Shi held Mo Wu's wrist and remarked that his slow heartbeat made him seem like a bad person.

Cheng Shi exposed Mo Wu as a hidden Source of Calamity, and a chaotic attack forced the group into a fight. Mo Wu escaped after Cheng Shi struck him with lightning, but Ji Yue’s furious response drew the Bellicose Knights and forced everyone to flee through the void.

• Mo Wu urged the group to cooperate and find the Experiment Field, while Cheng Shi questioned why Mo Wu seemed so confident that his secrets were safe.
• Cheng Shi deduced that Mo Wu was a Mage of chaos and revealed him as the Source of Calamity.
• Mo Wu unleashed chaos that made Ji Yue, Fang Shiqing, and Cui Qiushi attack their companions, then struck at their minds with his whip.
• Cheng Shi fired a thunderbolt that destroyed Mo Wu’s whip and injured him, prompting Mo Wu to flee as the group regained control of their bodies.
• Ji Yue blasted the ruins with spears in anger, then opened a void passage and urged everyone to escape because the disturbance had attracted the Bellicose Knights.

In the Void, Ji Yue explained how she became tainted by the divinity of War after bringing a battlefield into her Void. Cheng Shi realized she had done so not only to gather weapons but to study the Lord of Grace, and Ji Yue confirmed his suspicion.

• After Ji Yue brought the group into the Void, Bailing clung to Cheng Shi and joked about becoming his one-day girlfriend.
• Ji Yue explained that her talent limited her to six travelers and that the Wall of True Knowledge blocked entry to the Void Experiment Ground.
• When Cheng Shi provoked Ji Yue, Fang Shiqing calmed her by holding her arm, and Ji Yue admitted she had been tainted by the divinity of War.
• Ji Yue recounted imitating War's believers, winning a trial based on the founding of the Nation of War, and moving its battlefield into her Void.
• Cheng Shi realized Ji Yue had brought the battlefield to study the Lord of Grace, and Ji Yue confirmed that he was right.

Ji Yue revealed her plan to create a second version of herself and explained that the Soul Salvation Society had been founded to make it possible. Cheng Shi secured Ji Yue and the Prisoner’s oaths of secrecy with a golden Mask, and the Prisoner finally spoke, expressing his longing for companions.

• Ji Yue explained that she intended to use a Whispering Flower Petal, a Twin Potion, and a human corpse to create a second Ji Yue for research.
• Ji Yue revealed that she had founded the Soul Salvation Society to find a way to infuse a soul into a corpse.
• Cheng Shi asked Ji Yue and the Prisoner to swear not to reveal what he was about to tell them, and presented a golden Mask as the oath’s guarantee.
• Ji Yue swore an oath toward the Mask without hesitation.
• The Prisoner dropped his chains and spoke, saying he was tired of loneliness and hoped to find companions.
• Fang Shiqing recognized the Prisoner’s words as a melody of Hope and a hymn of Order.

Cheng Shi revealed that the Fire Keepers sought a path for humanity to replace the gods and invited the three members of the Mutual Aid Society to join them. He asked them for their answer, and one immediately agreed.

• Cheng Shi told the Scholar and Prisoner that he was a Fire Keeper and explained humanity could become divine.
• Cheng Shi described the Fire Keepers’ mission to find a path to godhood and place a suitable human on a divine throne.
• Cheng Shi explained that the Fire Keepers recruited people willing to resist oppression and accept that someone else might achieve success.
• Cheng Shi asked the three members of the Mutual Aid Society to give him their answer.
• One of them firmly agreed to join.

Ji Yue joined Cheng Shi’s self-proclaimed Fire Keepers, convinced that their pursuit of the gods matched her own. Cheng Shi then led the group through a hidden passage into the void, where they encountered the legendary Giggle and Mock.

• Ji Yue declared that she wanted to join the Fire Keepers, and Cheng Shi welcomed her despite privately realizing she had mistaken his fabricated story for truth.
• Ji Yue and the prisoner agreed to join, forming a second Fire Keeper group with three recruits from the original Fire Keepers.
• Ji Yue recognized that Cheng Shi had modified a Discarded Divine Artifact and explained that she had studied Truth and War as possible sources of protection.
• Fang Shiqing explained that she and the other City Builders had sought a petal of the Conjugate Whisper as an initiation gift, and Ji Yue respected their sincere resolve.
• Cheng Shi told the group to use Void Energetics to break through the surface beneath his feet, then silently appealed to the Lord of Grace for help.
• Ji Yue opened a path beneath them, revealing a crystalline staircase in Nothingness, and recognized it as Giggle and Mock.

Cheng Shi led Ji Yue, the three Fire Keepers, and a prisoner into Giggle and Mock, where each took on a strange form. He claimed the realm's Scrying Mirrors could help them cross the Wall of True Knowledge, and one appeared behind him, opening a staircase into Nothingness.

• Cheng Shi saw Ji Yue appear as a blood-dripping black veil, while Big Legs, Bailing, Cui Qiushi, and the prisoner became a torch, a spotted bird, a square stone, and a rusted French horn.
• Bailing celebrated becoming a bird, while the others reacted with surprise to their new forms; Cheng Shi noticed that he could hear them speaking this time.
• Ji Yue recounted Scholar Setavman's records and Scholar Bruno's discovery that Giggle and Mock was a river that could carry travelers through the void, then asked whether Cheng Shi would use it to reach Void Experiment Ground No. 69.
• Cheng Shi explained that the mirrors were Scrying Mirrors made by the God of Deception to observe amusing incidents in the void.
• A Scrying Mirror appeared behind Cheng Shi and opened into a spiral staircase, leaving the group poised to enter Nothingness.

Cheng Shi and Ji Yue traded competing accounts of the history behind the Wall of True Knowledge and the Conjugate Experiment of Void and Reality. Ji Yue explained that Grand Scholar Kevi and the Void Energy Department had lowered the Wall to preserve their research, leaving the experiment’s fruit to the Bellicose Knights, while Cheng Shi reflected that faith shaped how people recorded history.

• Cheng Shi urged the group to reach the Grand Scholars and ask for Whispering Flower Petals before the Bellicose Knights breached the Wall of True Knowledge, and Ji Yue corrected his account of the Wall.
• Ji Yue explained that the Wall had been built to resist Deception, not foreign enemies, and that the Bellicose Knights had entered only after the Grand Scholars shut it down.
• Ji Yue recounted how Grand Scholar Kevi and the Void Energy Department abandoned resistance so Chaos’s followers would not destroy the fruit of their centuries-long experiment.
• Ji Yue said the scholars hoped the Conjugate Experiment’s results would survive, but the research disappeared amid the invasion and its eventual fate remained unknown.
• Cheng Shi compared Hu Wei’s Chaos-tinged account with Ji Yue’s Truth-tinged account and concluded that history might have no single definitive version.

Ji Yue explained what the Whispering Flower Petals looked like and how they could be used, then led the group through the Scrying Mirror toward the petals. Cheng Shi arrived alone in a laboratory, where Kevi revealed that Destiny had told him Cheng Shi would come.

• Ji Yue said the petals were pure white, the fruits were pitch-black, and the petals could be used to make Twin Potions or a Shadow Oath Potion.
• Ji Yue chose to seek the petals and led the others through the Scrying Mirror, with the Prisoner, stone, little bird, Cheng Shi, and Fang Shiqing following.
• Cheng Shi emerged alone in a glass-walled laboratory filled with Conjugate Whisper branches and found an elderly scholar waiting for him.
• The scholar introduced himself as Kevi, a Tower of Reason scholar and the possible final director of the Void Essence-Energy Laboratory.
• Kevi told Cheng Shi that Destiny had said he would come, leaving Cheng Shi stunned that Kevi was Its believer.

Cheng Shi realized Truth had guided Grand Scholar Kevi to wait for him amid the approaching threat from the Twilight Church. Kevi revealed that the Conjugate Experiment of Void and Reality had not yet produced results, but believed Cheng Shi’s arrival meant there was still time to save it.

• Kevi told Cheng Shi that Truth had revealed his arrival, though he had been waiting for a result rather than Cheng Shi himself.
• Kevi explained that the Twilight Church’s followers were gathering beyond the walls and that chaos threatened the Whispering Tree and generations of research.
• Cheng Shi connected Truth to Hu Xuan’s earlier account and reasoned that the gods had arranged events around the Dagger of Stars and his arrival.
• Cheng Shi asked whether Kevi would entrust him with the experiment’s results, but Kevi said the tree had not yet flowered and the experiment had no results.
• Kevi said Cheng Shi’s arrival gave him hope that they could still complete the experiment in time.

Cheng Shi learned that the histories of Gasmella’s World Tree fruit were fabricated because the fruit had not yet grown, and Grand Scholar Kevi asked him to preserve the scholars’ reputation. Kevi revealed that Cheng Shi’s sealed Prosperity Divinity could ripen the Conjugate Whisper, leaving Cheng Shi to wonder what the Lord of Grace hoped to gain.

• Kevi told Cheng Shi that the Conjugate Whisper had not yet produced a fruit, exposing the false accounts in the histories of chaos and Truth.
• Cheng Shi realized both factions had shaped the story of the missing fruit to serve their own purposes and understood why Kevi had compromised for Truth.
• Kevi asked Cheng Shi to let future generations know that the Tower of Reason scholars had truly grown a World Tree, and to keep his plea for a glimpse of Truth private.
• Cheng Shi told Kevi that he had never seen or carried the fruit, but Kevi said he could use the Prosperity Divinity sealed inside Cheng Shi to mature the Conjugate Whisper.
• Cheng Shi recognized that the Lord of Grace had placed the Prosperity Divinity in him and wondered what the deity expected to win.

Cheng Shi traded away his Prosperity Divinity to help the Fire Keepers obtain a Whispering Flower Petal, asking Kevi to preserve every Conjugate Whisper petal that had not withered. The Conjugate Whisper consumed the divinity but failed to flower or bear fruit, leaving Kevi devastated and the experiment's outcome uncertain.

• Cheng Shi agreed to let Kevi extract his Prosperity Divinity in exchange for preserving all unwithered Conjugate Whisper petals if enough flowers appeared.
• Kevi opened Void Rifts and sent Conjugate Whisper's roots into Cheng Shi, where they began consuming his Prosperity Divinity.
• Cheng Shi questioned Kevi's certainty that Conjugate Whisper would mature and bear fruit, but Kevi insisted the data and Birth experiments proved it would.
• The tree's leaves grew greener as it fed, yet no flowers or buds appeared, and Cheng Shi suspected the World Tree and its reflection might have grown together as new life.
• Kevi searched his experimental data in panic while Cheng Shi told him that the Prosperity Divinity had been completely devoured.

Cheng Shi witnessed the failure of the Conjugate Whisper experiment and realized that Truth had let Void Energetics scholars pursue a futile goal for centuries. As Kevi died believing the experiment had succeeded, Chaos forces invaded the fortress, and Ji Yue held them off while Cheng Shi’s teammates hurried to the laboratory.

• Conjugate Whisper’s growth peaked and its roots withdrew, revealing that the experiment had produced no flower or fruit.
• Cheng Shi understood that Void Energetics could never claim the authority of Nothingness and Existence, while the Grand Scholar grieved over the failure.
• Kevi hallucinated that Conjugate Whisper had bloomed and borne fruit, then died with a satisfied smile and his arm pointing toward the tree.
• Kevi’s death opened the Wall of True Knowledge, allowing Bellringer Knights to invade as the scholars watched the failed experiment and broke down.
• Cheng Shi’s teammates emerged from the Scrying Mirror and were confronted by Chaos spies rushing toward the laboratory.
• Ji Yue sent the others to find Cheng Shi and secure the experimental data, then used Void Rifts and lances to block the attackers as enormous black hands descended.