Chapter Summaries

Iluna learned from If that the Sixth Epoch had been reset repeatedly and that Shade’s presence was new, then sought him out to learn how to reach the Goddess in the Lake. After spending lunch with Shade and Dorothy, she resolved to protect the people she cherished and keep their story from ending in tragedy.

• Iluna questioned If and deduced that the Sixth Epoch had undergone multiple resets, but If withheld what had happened in the earlier versions and warned that she might be able to save someone she cherished.
• If vanished after telling Iluna to conceal their meeting and reminding her that two games remained.
• Shade and Dorothy woke at noon, and Iluna visited Shade to ask how to reach the Goddess in the Lake for a story she was planning.
• Shade worried about Iluna, reassured her that he and Luvia would help her, and invited her to lunch with Dorothy.
• Iluna and Dorothy enjoyed lunch together and exchanged business cards before Iluna left by carriage.
• Iluna decided to hold on to the people she loved and prevent the new story from becoming a tragedy, while Shade wondered at the ominous words he heard about the meal.

Shade investigated the Grave Robbers who had visited Green Lake Central Island and learned that all but one had died or gone mad. He obtained the surviving Grave Robber’s address and planned to investigate Rotten Eye Barry’s casino after sunset, then headed toward the Duin River slums.

• Shade told Luvia about Iluna’s troubled visit, and Luvia urged him to avoid relics that could stir negative emotions for a week.
• Shade visited Rotten Eye Barry’s Rhodes Cards Casino and received a file saying the Grave Robbers were dead except for one mentally disturbed survivor.
• Rotten Eye Barry tried to recruit Shade for another job, but Shade refused and left after invoking Captain Rades’s name.
• Shade questioned a beaten man outside the casino and learned that Rotten Eye Barry had arrived in Green Lake City over twenty years earlier and might pray in a hidden room.
• Shade decided to inspect the casino’s innermost room after sunset and went to the surviving Grave Robber’s address beside the Duin River.

Shade questioned the dying grave robber Jack Sibir about the expedition to Green Lake Central Island and uncovered clues linking it to water ghosts, Durut Giles, and Hader Ferrero. After promising help for Jack’s family, Shade watched Rotten Eye Barry investigate the house and left wondering whether Barry was connected to the island’s secrets.

• Shade visited Jack Sibir at his home on Pudding Lane and used holy water and the Confusion Thaumaturgy to restore Jack’s clarity briefly.
• Jack told Shade that two finger bones had been sold to a merchant in Kassenric, while a similar bone fragment had gone to Hader Ferrero.
• Jack explained that the grave robbers had returned from Central Island with erased memories, worsening nightmares, and a curse that drove them mad; he also revealed where he had buried the stolen objects.
• Jack identified Durut Giles as the expedition’s mysterious leader and recalled that water monsters attacked the escaping boats, leaving only two of the original three to reach shore.
• Shade gave Jack’s wife five pounds for the family and left, then watched Rotten Eye Barry arrive with two subordinates to question the household.
• Shade concluded that Barry’s visit might connect him to the water ghosts or the stolen objects, then returned to human form and headed toward the riverside.

Shade recovered a Deathbringer Angel bone fragment from Hader Ferrero’s grave and discovered that Rotten Eye Barry was a follower of the God of Drowning in the Deep Sea. He left Barry’s secret prayer room without alerting him and returned to the Green Lake Inn to contact Megan.

• Shade dug up Hader Ferrero’s grave and found a weak Deathbringer Angel bone fragment among the burial objects.
• Shade entered the casino at night and infiltrated a hidden prayer chamber beside Rotten Eye Barry’s office.
• Shade used Echoes of the Past to hear Barry pray to the God of Drowning in the Deep Sea and identified him as a Drowning Order cultist.
• Shade left the casino without alerting Barry and returned to the Green Lake Inn to ask Soren Green to contact Megan.

Shade investigated the mysterious fountain pen owner, Durut Giles, and learned he was a history lecturer at Saint Fabri Academy in Weilun Dai'er City. After traveling to Mikella Blast Furnace City, Shade infiltrated city hall to observe the arms-export negotiations for Leisha.

• Shade wrote Megan a letter asking for information about the Water Ghost, the Grave Robbers, and Rotten Eye Barry, and Mr. Green agreed to send it through her messenger.
• Professor Brownell informed Shade that Durut Giles had arrived in Mikella Blast Furnace City three years earlier and lectured at Saint Fabri Academy in Weilun Dai'er City.
• Shade crossed into Mikella Blast Furnace City, witnessed a border soldier remove a young man who challenged his special treatment, and passed a political parade without reacting.
• Shade entered Glass City's city hall by hiding beneath a carriage, used Puppet Manipulation to control a stranger, and disguised himself as a conference attendee.
• Shade reached the 404 Conference Room and determined that about ten people sat at the negotiating table while more than twenty watched from the walls.

Shade infiltrated a negotiation session to memorize confidential documents, then recruited the Follen Brothers to gather more by revealing their ancestor’s identity and warning them about the Church. The chapter left Shade considering the Edwardz family’s prophecy and the Space Chosen One’s possible Two-in-One nature as he threw the Crystal Shoes.

• Shade sat unnoticed in the conference room, memorized negotiation documents, and left after the session ended.
• Shade warned the Follen Brothers that the Mirror Society’s Invisible Man had arrived and discussed their family prophecy and possible reunion with a surviving relative.
• Shade revealed that their ancestor, Laplace Klein Howard, had been a Twelfth Ring Diviner who betrayed the Seer Association, and Eric agreed to collect confidential meeting documents in exchange for protection.
• Shade warned the brothers that the Church might trace their identities and urged them to stay away from Green Lake Central Island.
• Shade discussed the Space Chosen One’s Two-in-One trait with “she” and threw the Crystal Shoes.

Shade returned home exhausted after using the Crystal Shoes, then joined the Study Group as the Doctor distributed their mission rewards and relics. Luvia claimed the Nether Iron Coins, Dorothy asked to borrow them for an experiment that night, and Priest Augustus took the Sage Level Divine Favor shield badge, with payment to be settled later.

• Shade arrived in the attic at home nearly drained, and Dorothy helped him recover before he printed the documents he had copied for Leisha.
• Shade and Dorothy rode to Doctor Schneider's Clinic, where Dorothy asked about arranging special spring activities with Leisha for the next Celebration Day.
• The Doctor announced the group's mission rewards, including a bonus, an academic evaluation increase, the Mind Peering Mirror, and a pair of Nether Iron Coins.
• Luvia claimed the Nether Iron Coins, while Dorothy asked to borrow them that night to experience her soul leaving her body for story inspiration.
• After the group declined the Sage Level Divine Favor shield badge, Priest Augustus agreed to keep it and settle the others' shares later.

After the group divided the spoils from their mission, Shade discussed his dangerous plans for Green Lake with Priest Augustus. That evening, Dorothy began an experiment using Nether Iron Coins to experience her soul leaving her body.

• The group distributed its relics and other spoils, donating the dangerous fingernail relic to the Academy and leaving the wooden blowpipe to Dorothy.
• Luvia said she had reached the Sixth Ring, and Shade confirmed the Academy had arranged a Summer Exams test that could advance him from fourth year to sixth year.
• Shade gave Priest Augustus a bone fragment from the Grave Robbers’ grave and said he planned to return to Green Lake Island as early as the following Tuesday.
• Shade and Priest Augustus witnessed police confronting two students suspected of being Kasonlik spies, and gunfire struck one of the students as he fled into the lake.
• Dorothy insisted on testing the Nether Iron Coins, and Luvia placed one over each of Dorothy’s closed eyes as Shade prepared to time her soul’s departure.

Dorothy and Leisha risked exchanging souls while Dorothy was temporarily dead, forcing Shade to use a dangerous miracle to save them. After confirming both were alive, he confronted Leisha and left her to rest, still angry about their reckless experiment.

• Dorothy’s soul left her body, and Leisha’s soul rose from it as the sisters attempted to exchange places, leaving their souls overlapped and unable to separate.
• Shade used False Immortality and Sleeping Princess to pull Dorothy and Leisha back from death, sacrificing his Library Retrieval sorcery.
• Shade struck the overlapping souls with Soul Whiplash, separating them so Dorothy returned to her body and Leisha vanished back to Yodel Palace.
• Dorothy awoke with the new Spirit Rune Whisper—Dead, while Shade left for Yodel Palace after telling Luvia to watch over her.
• Shade checked that Leisha was alive and learned that the sisters’ tendency to Fuse had intensified; he told Leisha to rest and meet him at Galina’s with Angelina the next day.

Shade rescued Dorothy and Leisha after their souls were restored, then confronted them about making dangerous decisions without telling him. Dorothy apologized and asked him to punish her another way, leaving Shade and Luvia flustered as the night took an unexpected turn.

• Shade escaped Yodel Palace, then stopped Director Anlos's pursuers by killing two attackers and knocking out the third.
• Director Anlos said the attackers might be part of a third-party force and hinted that a Prince could be involved.
• Shade returned home and reassured Luvia that Princess Leisha was safe but needed to rest.
• Dorothy apologized for her and Leisha's actions, and Shade required them to promise to consult him before future decisions concerning themselves.
• Dorothy asked Shade to punish her in another way, and Luvia offered to stay while insisting she would not be punished.

Shade spent a spring Sunday at Galina Manor, reconciling with Leisha and discussing Angelina’s future before enjoying a date with Galina. When Galina was summoned to the palace, Tifa led Shade to her room and made her intentions clear.

• Galina asked Leisha and Angelina whether they wanted to accompany her to the Green Lake Region, and Shade arrived with roses and a metal rose gift.
• Leisha apologized to Shade for her reckless actions, and he embraced her after she promised to explain herself if she ever faced a similar choice again.
• Galina, Leisha, and Shade discussed Angelina’s wish to become a Witch, the lack of a suitable Great Witch mentor, and her possible enrollment at Zaras Academy of Literature or correspondence study in Tobesk.
• Galina sent Leisha and Angelina back to the city, then spent the day with Shade riding, picnicking, reading, and planning their Green Lake Region operations.
• Iluna joined Shade and Galina for lessons and spellcaster sparring, but a royal letter summoned Galina to see the King.
• After Galina left, Tifa took Shade to her room and locked the door while beginning to unbutton her collar.

Shade returned to the Green Lake Region in the rain, where Megan Edwards shared new information about the Invisible Man and the Edwards family’s ancestor. They decided to return to the island soon, before powerful Church and Seer Association forces arrived.

• Shade drew a Nether Iron Coin from God's Gift Box and received a weekly task to record his expenses on at least two days.
• On his way to Green Lake Inn, Shade left food, warm clothing, an umbrella, and canvas in John’s trash bin and planned to ask Galina to arrange shelter for him.
• Shade met Megan Edwards at the inn, and his badge reacted to the Witch’s power as Audrey Edwards’s soul appeared within her.
• Megan told Shade that Laplace Klein Howard, the Edwards family’s first-generation lord, had been a traitorous Thirteenth Ring Diviner of the Seer Association.
• Megan reported that the Church and Seer Association were sending more powerful people to the Green Lake Region, so she and Shade planned to return to the island soon.

Shade finished describing his investigation into the Grave Robbers, then joined Megan Edwards to investigate Rotten Eye Barry’s businesses while Barry was occupied with Kasonlik Merchants. At Barry’s warehouse in Green Lake City, Megan arranged for rival gangsters to attack first, and she and Shade entered after her Followers confirmed the site was clear.

• Shade told the Witches that only two Grave Robbers remained alive and that most of Lust Edwardz’s stolen Burial Objects had been sold or buried near Green Lake Town.
• Megan invited Shade to investigate Rotten Eye Barry’s lairs, explaining that Paradise Island Pharmaceuticals had arranged for Kasonlik Merchants to keep him busy.
• Megan and Shade reviewed five suspicious locations and chose Barry’s warehouse on Roggett Avenue as their first stop.
• Megan arranged for nearly twenty men in black to storm the warehouse, where they killed Barry’s trusted subordinates before departing.
• Two of Megan’s six-ring Followers entered the warehouse and signaled that it was safe for Megan and Shade to go inside.

Shade and Megan discovered that Rotten Eye Barry’s gang was raising Water Ghosts for the Drowning Order, then traveled to its territory on Goloje Street to investigate without attracting attention. Megan revealed she had recovered enough to use ordinary sixth-ring power and prepared to enter the gang’s district with Shade.

• Shade led the group to a hidden cavern beneath the freight depot, where they found coffins containing corpses transforming into Water Ghosts.
• Megan identified the Water Ghost cultivation chamber and connected its rituals to the Drowning Order, while Shade learned that most of the victims had been homeless people.
• The group destroyed the corpses and ritual matrix, sealed the cavern, and left before Rotten Eye Barry could learn of their discovery.
• Shade and Megan traveled to Goloje Street, the core territory of Rotten Eye Barry’s gang, intending to investigate its roughly forty combat-capable members discreetly.
• Megan used a transparent force field to shield herself and Shade from the rain, then removed the book-shaped Pendant from her neck.

Shade and Megan searched Rotten Eye Barry’s lair and found Human Transmutation research linked to the Edwards Family, raising questions about Megan’s ancestry and her father, Alphons Edwards. They uncovered a hidden safe containing a living heart and documents.

• Megan showed Shade the Angel Level Relic Tome of Yearning and used its stored Thaumaturgy, No Man’s Land, to put the slum gang members to sleep.
• Megan retrieved a flawless Black Pearl from Barry’s black-market shop, while Shade refused to take the gang’s money and suggested donating it to the poor.
• Shade and Megan found Barry’s laboratory and learned he had been experimenting on Corpses with material describing Human Transmutation.
• Megan identified the Human Transmutation papers as coming from the Edwards Family and wondered whether Alphons Edwards had been a test subject; Shade offered to verify her lineage using her blood.
• Shade and Megan discovered a concealed safe beneath the laboratory floor and found a living heart in a jar alongside letters and documents.

Shade and the witch discovered a heart relic in Rotten Eye Barry’s hideout, but contact with it worsened the lingering effects of an Angel Level relic on Shade. As they prepared to leave the heart as a trap, two powerful Ring Arcanists arrived, and the witch attacked them with enchanted rain.

• Shade and the witch found a grayish-white heart relic and letters in Barry’s stronghold, and the witch explained that the cult had used the relic in experiments involving corpses and Water Ghosts.
• Shade touched the jar and was overwhelmed by an icy sense of indifference, but “She” reminded him to pull away; the witch gave him a Cheering Agent after he revealed his lingering exposure to an Angel Level relic.
• The witch offered Shade comfort, and he transformed into a silver white cat, which she held while they decided to leave the heart behind as a trap.
• The witch sensed two cautious Ring Arcanists approaching, gathered their materials and Shade’s relics, and rigged the heart’s bottle to shatter when touched.
• Megan attacked the two brothers in black trench coats with sharpened rain, but they held hands and redirected the downpour into the ground.

Megan and Shade confronted the Edwards twins, Eighth Ring Arcanists from the Mirror Society, and exchanged information about Rotten Eye Barry and their family’s ancestors. Megan rejected cooperation and revealed that she had been waiting for reinforcements, leaving the twins surrounded by dozens of Sorceresses.

• The twins tried to enter Megan and Shade’s room through a Mirror, but Megan used her space-closing talent to shatter it.
• Megan pretended to be the twins’ aunt and questioned them about their family and their search for Rotten Eye Barry.
• The twins said they believed Rotten Eye Barry’s shipments were connected to the Edwards family’s ancestral territory and that Invisible Man suspected an ancestor remained on the island.
• Shade told the twins about Barry’s Water Ghosts, his connection to the Drowning Order and Unifier rumors, and his undead laboratory.
• Megan refused to share the materials they had found or cooperate with the Mirror Society, then revealed dozens of Sorceresses positioned around the alleys.

Shade and Megan Edwards escaped the Mirror Society brothers and rested aboard Megan’s yacht, where they saw a storm erupt over Central Island during the Church and Seer Association’s landing. Megan said powerful Arcanists would arrive next week and Shade told her his Teacher had given him an Alchemy Item to help him survive.

• The brothers used Mirror Image Bomb to scatter into mirror fragments, and Shade and Megan blocked the attack before the brothers escaped.
• Megan ordered her Followers to disguise the site as a Mirror Society operation and leave the relic on the third floor as a trap.
• Megan took Shade to her yacht on the Duin River, where he slept and dreamed beneath the Silver Moon.
• Shade awoke to the yacht rocking and saw a black cloud pillar and storm vortex rising over Central Island.
• Megan said the Church and Seer Association had landed on the island that day and their team appeared to be in trouble.
• Megan told Shade that several Twelfth Ring and Eleventh Ring Arcanists would arrive next week, and Shade said his Teacher had given him an Alchemy Item.

Shade and Megan raided Rotten Eye Barry’s Secret Private Villa, where Megan’s maids overwhelmed the guards and searched the house. Shade found coded letters in Barry’s study, including ciphers from intelligence agencies he had worked with, and discovered a third batch of encoded messages.

• Shade and Megan left for Rotten Eye Barry’s Secret Private Villa after deciding not to visit his black-market shop or yacht.
• Megan brought her trusted maids, who blasted open the villa’s gate and quickly defeated its guards.
• The maids found four of Rotten Eye Barry’s mistresses, who said he had planned to spend the night at the villa.
• Shade used the Door Key to enter Barry’s locked study and found blank letters that revealed coded numbers with a potion.
• Shade recognized the first letters as a Gray Gloves cipher and the second as a Military Intelligence Section Six cipher, then found another batch of coded letters.

Shade and Megan searched Rotten Eye Barry’s mansion, uncovering evidence of the Drowning Order’s shipments to Green Lake Central Island and a network of groups cooperating with someone called “That Gentleman.” They found a second island key and learned that the destination may be a place beyond the island itself, leaving Megan to offer to show Shade the door on their next landing.

• Shade and Megan found Unifier pendants, ledgers documenting years of shipments to Green Lake Central Island, occult books, and a cursed photograph that Shade survived by swimming down through its abyssal illusion.
• Jill reported that Barry had a strange Magic Eye, and the maids discovered a secret passage to the sewers, where they found warehouses, meeting rooms, Water Ghosts, and a prayer room.
• Shade and Megan searched the bedroom safe and found a wooden key matching the key they had forged on their previous island landing, giving Megan three keys in total.
• Megan and Shade read letters revealing that the Drowning Order cooperated with the Dragon Devouring Demon’s believers, The Tyranny Club, and The Truth Society over dealings with “That Gentleman.”
• Megan said Green Lake Central Island might encompass more than one island and offered to take Shade to the door there on their next landing.