Chapter Summaries

Shade overheard Professor Sanchez and Professor Ma Faer discussing the trap at Aurora Manor, where a Sea Burial ritual node had sealed everyone inside. Their conversation left Shade wondering whether the Nature Church had discovered another ritual node.

• Shade learned from the bartender that Aurora Manor had once belonged to a merchant who disappeared after dealing in jewels and pearls from shipwrecks and the seabed.
• After the professors left, Shade used Echoes of the Past at their table and heard Professor Sanchez discussing the manor.
• Professor Sanchez revealed that Aurora Manor was a node for the Sea Burial ritual and that the Scarlet Secret Society had sealed it with the Relic No Entry Sign.
• Professor Sanchez said the manor's former owner had helped the Scarlet Secret Society move money for cultists and Fishmen thirty years earlier.
• Professor Ma Faer questioned why the Nature Church had stationed Ring Arcanists at the manor without informing them and wondered whether it had found a second ritual node.

Shade learned that the second Chosen One was linked to a rare symbiotic demon and infiltrated Aurora Manor to find Leisha. He bypassed the manor’s spatial barrier and sensed that the Great Witch Sivie Aurora was upstairs.

• Shade heard Professors Sanchez and Ma Faer discuss the second Chosen One, the demon within them, and the danger of the Sea Burial ritual in Coldwater Port.
• Shade crossed the sea and entered Aurora Manor’s grounds, where he found fresh bloodstains and evaded the police blockade.
• Shade used Space Stabilization Aura and Space Jump to bypass the No Entry Sign’s spatial lock.
• Shade entered the servants’ quarters, changed into dry clothes, and found no one in the manor’s corridors or entrance hall.
• Shade recognized Sivie Aurora in a portrait and felt his badge grow warm, indicating that the Great Witch was upstairs.

Shade reached Aurora Manor and learned that Fishmen and Scarlet Secret Society spies had trapped the guests while the Church fought them to a stalemate below. He reunited with Leisha on the third floor and prepared to investigate the basement, but his badge heated as the Great Witch approached.

• Shade used Moon Shadow Illusion to bypass the guards and entered the crowded second floor unnoticed.
• Shade learned that the Fishmen had occupied the basement and Wine Cellar after a battle with the manor's defenders, while the guests waited upstairs.
• Shade followed Leisha's maid to the third floor and reunited with Leisha, who hugged him and asked why he had come.
• Shade told Leisha about the attack on Sophia Manor and explained that he wanted to investigate the Fishmen and search for ritual information in the basement.
• Shade began mentioning someone possessed by a Demon, then clutched his chest as his badge heated and signaled the Great Witch's approach.

Shade hid in a wardrobe while Leisha negotiated with Sivie Aurora over shares in the Aurora Family’s shipyard and the construction of warships. Their tense discussion ended with Leisha objecting after Sivie touched her hand.

• Shade hid inside a wardrobe and asked a maid to stand in front of it before Sivie Aurora entered to speak with Leisha.
• Sivie offered Leisha cash or dividends instead of the shipyard shares Leisha had demanded.
• Leisha proposed taking one-tenth of the shares in exchange for helping the Aurora Family while having its shipyard build ships for her.
• Sivie questioned the request to build warships and said she needed time to consider it, while Leisha argued that the Aurora Family could not avoid political change.
• Shade listened as Leisha and Sivie discussed their bargaining positions, then heard Leisha accuse Sivie of rudeness for touching her hand.

Shade hid in a wardrobe while Princess Leisha spoke with Sivie Aurora, but a spider triggered his sneeze and revealed him. After recognizing Shade and his badge from Galina, Sivie realized Galina had tested her the previous day to protect him.

• Sivie Aurora questioned Leisha about her family and discussed Catherine Cavendish and Galina while Shade remained hidden in the wardrobe.
• A spider crawled toward Shade’s nose, and he sneezed loudly enough to reveal that someone was inside.
• Sivie explained that she had smelled the sea on the hidden person and asked Leisha to bring her out.
• Shade emerged, introduced himself as Leisha’s lover, then jokingly claimed to be Galina’s agent and showed Galina’s badge.
• Sivie recognized Shade Suellen Hamilton from news in Tobesk and concluded that Galina had tested her to protect him.

Shade convinced Sivie Aurora that the second Chosen One posed a grave threat because a Demon from the Third Epoch dwelled inside him. Sivie accepted Shade as a friend of the Aurora Family and lent him a powerful golden ring so he could explore the manor’s wine cellar.

• Sivie Aurora questioned Shade about his humanity and his relationship with Galina, then became interested when he revealed that he had escaped the Fishbone Pirate Ship.
• Shade sent Leisha and the Maid away and told Sivie that the Church and Saint Byron’s professors were investigating the second Chosen One in Coldwater Port.
• Shade revealed that the second Chosen One carried a Demon from the Third Epoch, and Sivie warned that the danger exceeded what a Second Ring Arcanist could handle.
• Shade asked to investigate the Fishmen in the manor’s wine cellar, and Sivie lent him the Sage Level Relic Ancient Witch's Golden Ring - Right One.
• Sivie said Shade could be considered a friend of the Aurora Family, despite still wondering whether he was truly a man.

Shade met Sivie Aurora, then entered Aurora Manor’s Wine Cellar through a hidden passage to investigate the Fishmen and their records. He followed blood traces to a breached wall, where a cold draft, strange lights, and indistinct murmurs suggested a passage beyond.

• Shade learned that Sivie Aurora’s spider had detected the scent of Fishmen on him and was warned that the strongest cultist underground was only at the sixth ring.
• Shade told Leisha he would go to the Wine Cellar and urged her to keep the Fishing Rod and seek Aurora’s help if necessary; Leisha hugged him and gave him a Steam Bomb.
• Shade reached the hidden passage through the Gardener’s Cottage and entered the Wine Cellar from behind a concealed door among the wine barrels.
• Shade avoided three armed sailors and a hidden Ring Arcanist, then used Blood Echo to follow the Fishmen’s bloodstains through the cellar.
• Shade found a hole where the Fishmen had smashed through a bricked-up wall and heard murmurs amid candlelight and strange blue light beyond it.

Shade discovered that Daknis was negotiating with the Scarlet Secret Society and Fishmen, then disguised himself as a cultist to infiltrate their hidden chapel. He identified the gathering’s leaders and ritual traces, but remained outnumbered by four Ring Arcanists as he considered his options.

• Shade overheard Daknis and another Blood Spirit School member negotiate with the Fishmen for help escaping Coldwater Port and a Fish Training Ring.
• Shade killed a low-ranking Fishman who had left the secret passage, disguised himself in its robe, and hid its corpse in his pocket.
• Shade entered the Damp Chapel and found a gathering of gray-robed Fishmen praying before a bone emblem to the Lord of the Scarlet Spiral.
• Shade spotted Daknis, another Blood Spirit School member, and two black-robed Ring Arcanists among the congregation.
• Shade counted four Ring Arcanists in the chapel and considered using his Steam Bomb or the corpses in his pocket if a fight began.

Shade used a Steam Bomb to disrupt the gathering in the Damp Chapel, then attacked the cultists and seized their book. He ended the chapter surrounded, holding the surviving Fishman priest at gunpoint as a hostage.

• Shade tied a corpse doll to a Steam Bomb and sent the bundle into the chapel, where the Fishmen gathered around it.
• Shade lay flat as the bomb exploded, killing many Fishmen and wounding him only with a graze.
• Shade struck the Scarlet Secret Society's Ring Arcanists with Silver Moonlight, then teleported toward the front of the chapel.
• Shade took the leather-bound book from a Fishman priest and killed him with his sword.
• Shade blocked a bone arrow with his Moonbeam Greatsword, grabbed the remaining Fishman priest, and held him at gunpoint while the surviving cultists surrounded him.

Shade escaped the Damp Chapel through a hidden passage, unaware that the Scarlet Secret Society had sealed a siren behind its far door. Trapped by a collapse, he faced the sealed door as Daknis claimed the Fish Training Ring and awakened the mouth in his palm.

• Shade realized the cultists’ prayers and the blood on the floor were powering a ritual, killed the praying fishman priest, and fled through a passage blasted open by his spell.
• The cultists’ Sixth Ring Arcanist stopped Daknis from pursuing Shade and revealed that a siren had been sealed behind the passage’s far end.
• Daknis received the Fish Training Ring, spoke its incantation, and awakened the mouth in his palm, which spoke in a language that sickened the cultists.
• The cultists collapsed the passage behind Shade and began cleaning up the ritual traces before a woman arrived, demanding to know who was setting off Steam Bombs beneath her home.
• Shade reached a rusted iron door marked with the Scarlet Spiral’s emblem and recognized sealing prayers on its frame, but an explosion collapsed the passage and slammed him against it.

Trapped underground after the passage behind him collapsed, Shade opened an iron door and found a pool containing a seductive, unseen creature. While resisting its influence, he searched a cult scripture and discovered a legend about the Golden Pearl, but the creature remained in the pool.

• Shade found that the passage behind him had collapsed and opened the iron door rather than risk being buried alive.
• Shade entered a dark room with a glowing pool and felt a presence watching him amid gathering Whisper Elements.
• A beautiful arm emerged from the water and tried to draw Shade closer, but he hurt himself with a blade of light to resist the urge.
• As a woman’s laughter and splashing water continued to tempt him, Shade searched the Scarlet Secret Society’s scripture for guidance.
• Shade found a legend describing how an ancient evil god created the Golden Pearl from the tears of the Fishmen it killed.

Shade discovered a record of a Golden Pearl possibly connected to divinity, then faced a beautiful entity in a pool that tried to tempt him with the promise of fulfilling all his desires. He resisted her charm and wagered his freedom on a fair game of Rhodes Cards, sworn before Ancient Gods.

• Shade read records suggesting the Golden Pearl might be connected to divinity, but found no further information before a woman emerged from the pool.
• The woman used overwhelming charm to tempt Shade with physical desire and the promise of merging their souls, but he resisted by thinking of Mia and his desire to become a god.
• Shade told the woman she was not interesting enough and demanded to leave, but she refused and insisted they merge.
• Shade proposed a Rhodes Cards wager: if he won, she would let him leave, and if he lost, he would merge with her.
• The woman swore to gamble fairly in the name of the Twilight Creator, and Shade swore in the name of the Father of Infinite Tree.
• The woman formed a deck of cards from water, and the wager was ready to begin.

Shade played a card game against the woman imprisoned in the pool and won, but stayed after she offered to reveal how to obtain the Golden Pearl. When he looked at her, he saw his deepest desire reflected in a vision: the mysterious woman who was his “Another Me,” while the creature wrapped around him and questioned why he existed in the Sixth Epoch.

• Shade added Origin · Balance and Founding Silver Moon to his deck and beat the woman in the first round of their card game.
• Shade drew a King in the second round, and the woman conceded and opened the iron door to let him leave.
• The woman offered to reveal how Shade could obtain the Golden Pearl if he came closer and told her what he saw.
• Shade approached the pool and saw that the woman was a grotesque mass of flesh made from a head, hands, and legs.
• The creature showed Shade a vision of himself facing a Mirror, with a long-silver-haired woman visible within it, and Shade realized he had seen his “Another Me.”
• The Mermaid coiled around Shade, identified Gluttony and Greed in his desires, and asked why someone like him existed in the Sixth Epoch.

Shade escaped Desire’s embrace, learned how to reach the Golden Pearl, and ate a piece of Desire’s flesh despite its risks. He gained the thaumaturgy Great Sin Chains and temporary power, but the chapter left his body and desires altered as he recovered from the experience.

• Desire seized Shade, but the silver-haired woman in the pool addressed it in an ancient language, allowing Shade to awaken and break free with Silver Moon.
• Desire showed Shade an incantation for taking the Golden Pearl and explained that he could avoid the gods’ notice by contaminating the Sea Burial ritual through Blasphemy.
• Desire offered Shade a piece of its flesh, and Shade ate it despite being warned that consuming it would amplify all his desires for at least a month.
• Shade gained the thaumaturgy Great Sin Chains, which could bind enemies and seal their supernatural power in proportion to their desires.
• Shade recovered from the flesh’s visions and nausea, finding that his spirit and physical condition had improved.

Shade escaped the hidden chamber beneath Aurora Manor after absorbing the Flesh of the entity in the pool, which warned that they would meet again. He emerged at an abandoned sea-cliff dock and discovered that the Sea Burial ritual had turned the seawater red.

• Shade questioned the entity about its intentions, then left after it said it wanted to witness his desires and expected to meet him again.
• The entity watched Shade depart and remarked that he did not know what he truly was.
• Shade forced his way through a narrow passage and crawled out through the cliff behind Aurora Manor.
• Shade found an abandoned dock, a skeleton, and signs that the Scarlet Secret Society had once used the site to transport dangerous items and escape.
• Shade stepped into blood-red seawater and recognized that the Sea Burial ritual had begun.

Shade returned from the Red Ocean and found thousands of people in Coldwater Port bearing the Mermaid Curse and walking toward the sea. He reached Aurora Manor, then found Leisha on the beach with the curse suppressed and asked why she had come there.

• Shade swam through the red sea and saw cursed people marching into its depths, where the ritual would let the Mermaid Giant Corpse engulf the city.
• Shade knocked down a cursed man but could not stop him from rising and joining the procession, then ran toward Aurora Manor to find Leisha.
• Shade passed Church clergy and police holding back the cursed people and slipped into Aurora Manor, where he learned Leisha had gone to the beach behind it.
• Shade found Leisha beneath a grape arbor with her Mermaid Curse tattoo suppressed by relics and reassured her about her appearance.
• Shade asked Leisha why she had left her room and gone to the beach.

Shade stayed with Leisha as the Red Ocean’s curse intensified and the Mermaid Giant Corpse emerged, threatening to send a catastrophic wave into Coldwater Port. The Church, Academy, ships, and lighthouse keepers began their countermeasures, while Leisha suddenly faltered beside Shade.

• Leisha described feeling the Red Ocean calling her to merge with it, and Shade warned her not to look at the ancient underwater temple.
• Leisha noticed Shade’s improved appearance, and he told her that cultists had introduced him to a Mermaid.
• The rain turned red and viscous, and cursed people with swollen Fishman tattoos staggered from Aurora Manor toward the sea.
• A white pillar of light rose from the seabed as the Mermaid Giant Corpse and the phantom outline of an ancient building emerged behind the advancing waves.
• Church Ring Arcanists, Academy professors, harbor steamships, and lighthouse keepers began preparing to confront the creature.
• Shade prepared to assess the situation at sea, but Leisha groaned, dropped her umbrella, and clutched her forehead.

Shade removed the Fishman tattoo from Leisha and followed its pull into the sea toward the enormous Mermaid corpse. He reached the surface near the corrupted corpse, whose Spiral patterns threatened to overpower his senses.

• Shade used Silver Moon light to expose Leisha’s moving Fishman tattoo, then pinned it with the Fishing Hook and ripped it from her face.
• Leisha bound the tattoo to the hook, and Shade healed her face with water empowered by Gluttony.
• The tattoo pulled Shade into the sea, while Leisha returned to Aurora Manor after he promised to end the Mermaid Curse.
• Shade was dragged through the Sea Burial ritual matrix and saw that many of the corpses bore Fishman traits.
• Shade approached the enormous corrupted Mermaid corpse and sensed its linked Spiral patterns exerting a powerful influence over him.
• The tattoo pulled Shade rapidly toward the surface near the corpse.

Shade reached the ancient Fishman Temple inside the spatial anomaly surrounding the giant Mermaid corpse and followed his tattoo deeper into it. As the battle raged outside and waves threatened Coldwater Port, he advanced toward the dark gold fire he had sensed within the temple.

• Shade flew above the waves, saw the Fishman Temple surrounding the Mermaid corpse, and felt drawn to the dark gold flames inside it.
• The Church fought Fishman Ring Arcanists while Academy professors tried to calm the corpse and stop its waves from reaching Coldwater Port.
• The Mermaid corpse opened its eyes, revealed blood-red Spirals, and pulled Shade into the temple before its heart.
• Shade landed inside the temple amid fighting Ring Arcanists, then followed his tattoo through a side entrance without joining the battle.
• Shade ran deeper through passages lined with Fishman carvings, bones, and human corpses, recognizing that they resembled a site from the Witches War of the Fifth Epoch.

Shade reached the heart of the Old Sun Temple, where a Fishman High Priest, a Church Warlock, Sivie Aurora, and Daknis fought under the pressure of divine power. He attacked Daknis, revealed their past conflict, and learned that Daknis had expected a Level 0 Relic to kill him.

• Shade passed Professor Sanchez and entered the temple’s inner sanctum, where he saw Sivie Aurora, Daknis, a Twelfth Ring Fishman High Priest, and a Thirteenth Ring Church Warlock fighting.
• The Fishman High Priest, the Church Warlock, and Sivie Aurora each offered Shade a reward to help them, while Daknis warned him not to trust the witch.
• Shade suddenly attacked Daknis with a Moonbeam Greatsword, but Daknis’s demonic right hand bit through the blade and blocked his next strike with a Darkness Vortex.
• Shade asked Daknis whether he now knew Shade’s Ring, and the Church Warlock recognized him as the person who had reported Daknis to the Nature Church.
• Daknis blamed Shade for reporting him and revealed that a companion had died trying to curse Shade into encountering a Level 0 Relic.