Chapter Summaries

Shade and Megan discussed the Corpse Ghouls’ connection to the island and Megan’s hatred of the ancestor who desecrated her father’s corpse. After Megan left, Shade spent the afternoon with Miss Sylvia, who showed him her new factory’s fabrics; their intimate reunion ended with her asking how far he had gone with Galina.

• Shade agreed with Miss Sylvia that the third Corpse Ghoul was likely Hohenheim Edwards, and he asked Megan to contact the Mirror Society to confirm the identity.
• Miss Sylvia revealed that Corpse Ghoul Green had stolen bodies belonging to descendants of the abandoned Green Lake Town residents and sent them through the lake to the island.
• Megan told Shade she wanted their ancestor dead but would not imitate his cruelty, and Shade promised to protect her before she and Audrey left for Green Lake City.
• Miss Sylvia explained that Megan and Audrey lacked clear personal goals, then showed Shade the fabrics and nylon products she had developed for her Weaving Factory.
• Shade and Miss Sylvia spent an intimate afternoon together, and she asked him how far he and Galina had gone.

Shade spent time with Sylvia and Margaret before accepting Margaret’s request to watch for a Gray Gloves agent in Green Lake City. Back in the city, he met Doctor Schneider for a walk and asked why the doctor thought the place was wonderful.

• Sylvia sat on Shade’s lap while they read in the study, and Margaret returned to find the room tidy.
• Margaret asked Shade to help identify the Gray Gloves agent her brother had secretly sent to Green Lake City, and Shade agreed to keep an eye out.
• Shade returned home, learned Luvia had new information, and went back to the Green Lake Inn to meet Doctor Schneider.
• Shade and Doctor Schneider walked through the city at night, and Shade asked why the doctor liked the place so much.

Shade and the Doctor planned to draw out the Demon haunting Green Lake, while Luvia revealed that the Seer Association wanted Laplace Klein Howard captured alive. Shade then learned from Priest Augustus that the Edwards Brothers’ Corpse Ghouls were sustained by Deathbringer Angel bones and arranged for the Priest to come to Green Lake and help recover them.

• The Doctor told Shade that Green Lake’s atmosphere of fear and conflict attracted evil beings, then planned to choose a waterside site for a ritual to pull the Demon’s main body into reality.
• Shade learned that the Seer Association had shifted its goal to capturing Laplace Klein Howard alive, and Luvia said she would join the Association’s group traveling to Green Lake.
• Shade agreed to clear a path to the island before Luvia arrived and said he would not stop her from going.
• Shade visited Priest Augustus and asked him to examine a severed Corpse Ghoul limb; the Priest confirmed the three Edwards Brothers had been revived using Deathbringer Angel bones and their souls were likely held in the Half Skull.
• Shade arranged for Priest Augustus to travel to Green Lake that weekend and asked him to help reclaim the bones, since Shade could not safely approach the island.

Shade returned to Black Mist Camp and uncovered that the campfire demon had altered his companions’ memories and turned people’s existence into currency. He rejected the demon’s offer and demanded to hear the camp’s rules before his brief visit ended.

• Shade entered the Fifth Epoch with seawater for activating Undying Longing and hurried through the dangerous darkness to Black Mist Camp.
• Shade reunited with Miss Liya Higgins, Old Mrs. Miles, and An DeEr Ade, then asked repeatedly where they had obtained their black coins.
• Shade’s questions broke the group’s altered memories, and the three companions remembered what had happened.
• A giant face made of coins and flames rose from the campfire, and Shade recognized it as another demon.
• The demon admitted it had turned visitors’ existence into Power of Existence and offered to restore the group’s lost memories in exchange for silence.
• Shade refused the demon’s offers and asked it to explain the rules of the camp.

Shade questioned the Demon Face about Black Mist Camp’s rules and rejected its offer to trade existence for coins. After Mrs. Miles and the boy paid for directions to Merchants, Shade and his companions followed the scales into the fog.

• The Demon Face explained that visitors could trade portions of their existence for coins and tempted Shade with offers of power and information.
• Shade used seawater to activate the conch, and Mrs. Miles called for Richard Knight Jackman, but only his rusty sword appeared.
• Mrs. Miles traded three coins for directions to a Merchant who might help her find Jackman, and Shade and Miss Higgins noticed that she had become semi-transparent.
• The boy traded three coins for directions to a Merchant who could help him use his dagger to seek revenge.
• Shade rejected the Demon Face’s invitation to trade and led the group into the fog, following the scales.

Shade, Miss Higgins, Old Mrs. Miles, and the boy crossed Black Mist Camp, where Shade won a card game and confirmed that the shadows could recognize the Myriad Aspects of Impermanence Cards. They reached the boy’s destination, and the boy approached the Merchant’s stall.

• Miss Higgins led the group through Black Mist Camp until a shadow challenged them to a card game.
• Shade played a Rhodes Cards match, used Flower 12 to win, and received three black coins.
• Shade realized the card-playing shadow had recognized his mystical card and began to understand Tree Father’s purpose.
• The group continued until the Black Scales indicated they had reached the Merchant the boy sought.
• Shade warned the boy to consider whether he should act at all, and the boy went to the stall.

Shade, Miss Higgins, and Old Mrs. Miles encountered the Fate Base, an Unknown Level relic that could divine anything, and Miss Higgins used it to locate an affordable Mithril mine. Shade then asked it why he had come to this world, and the chapter ended as an answer appeared beside his ear.

• The boy bought a mysterious parchment scroll, which burrowed into his body before he left alone for camp.
• Shade and Miss Higgins found the Divination House blocking their path and learned that its Crystal Ball rested on the Unknown Level relic called the Fate Base.
• Miss Higgins explained the Fate Base's limits and warned against divining the future or matters related to gods.
• Miss Higgins paid two coins to divine where she could find an affordable, undiscovered Mithril mine and reacted with excitement to the answer.
• Shade paid two coins and asked why he had come to this world, then heard a voice beside his ear.

Shade learned through divination that his arrival in the world resulted from an impossible accident, a collapse of Time and Space, someone’s desperate wish, and a chain of errors, and the Witch said he had begun his Demigod Road by seeking his origins. At the campfire, Shade translated the final line in Mrs. Miles’s blank notebook, and Miss Higgins began explaining what it was.

• Shade’s divination revealed several causes behind his arrival, but the shadow ended the session before he could ask more.
• The Witch told Shade that investigating his origins had set him on his Demigod Road.
• Shade, Miss Higgins, and Mrs. Miles visited a merchant, where Miss Higgins recognized an Infant Fruit and Mrs. Miles bought a mysterious notebook.
• Back at the campfire, Shade translated the notebook’s final line: “If my memory cannot remember her, then please record her story.”
• Miss Higgins sighed and began telling Shade what the notebook was.

Granny Miles used Golden Memories to relive how she met Richard Jackman, and Shade reflected on the women he had met and his guilt about loving several of them. The chapter ended with Granny Miles asking whether Shade wanted to let go of the people he loved.

• Miss Higgins explained that Golden Memories could summon someone through three recorded memories and warned that nearby people would be drawn into them.
• Granny Miles used her blood and the relic to record how she met Richard Jackman as a fifteen-year-old girl.
• Shade and Miss Higgins witnessed the sunny memory in which Richard rode past Granny Miles, returned, and offered to escort her to Little Hangerton Village.
• After the memory ended, Shade recalled meeting Dorothy, Luvia, Miss Galina, Iluna, and Little Mia, and admitted he felt guilty for loving multiple women.
• Granny Miles told Shade that his guilt showed he understood his actions, then asked whether he wanted to let go of the women he loved.

Shade and Miss Higgins listened as Mrs. Miles recalled how she and her husband confessed their feelings, prompting Shade to remember his own relationships. After Shade pretended to leave, a boy ambushed Miss Higgins, blamed witches for destroying his country, and was killed by her.

• Mrs. Miles described the night she and her husband exchanged keepsakes beneath the stars, and Shade recalled how he had confirmed his relationships with Luvia, Dorothy, Leisha, and Galina.
• Shade said he had to leave and departed into the black mist, but a dagger suddenly flew out and targeted Miss Higgins.
• The boy An DeEr Ade attacked Miss Higgins with a black relic dagger, but Shade restrained him with chains.
• The boy claimed witches had destroyed his country after his family and people were killed for digging up a witch's mineral deposits.
• Miss Higgins killed the boy after he threatened to murder all witches and made a misogynistic remark, while Shade withdrew his chains.

Shade and Miss Higgins prevented a Demon from claiming the boy's soul, leaving Shade bound by a contract to buy it back later. Back home, Shade told Luvia he had seen the Fate Base, a relic tied to the Old God the Golden Master, and she rushed to the Association to investigate; Shade was left pondering love and the reason he had come to this world.

• Shade and Miss Higgins stopped the Demon from taking the boy's soul and paid two coins as a deposit toward buying it back.
• Shade said goodbye to Miss Higgins and Granny Miles, postponing Granny Miles's final memory until his next visit.
• Shade returned home and told Luvia about the Fate Base, whose image appeared blurred in his book.
• Luvia recognized the relic, kissed Shade, and hurried to the Association to search for it.
• After Luvia left, Shade stood with Little Mia and reflected on love and his arrival in this world.

Shade resolved his doubts about love and his responsibilities, then went to Pukhov Village to ask the Doctor about a demon and how to bargain for a soul. The Doctor identified the demon as Prisitzin and explained its ability to move its body between unsealed coins, but Shade still needed advice on negotiating with it.

• Shade accepted that the people who chose to walk beside him had done so willingly, and his Destiny Ring responded as Greed flickered with spiritual radiance.
• Shade offered to help John find a place to learn to read and warned him to stay away from the river while fishing.
• Shade traveled to Pukhov Village and found the Doctor fishing from a coffin that could also serve as a boat.
• Shade described the coin-faced demon to the Doctor, who identified it as Greed Demon - Prisitzin and said it could transfer its body to any unsealed coin.
• The Doctor shared a stone-slab account suggesting a Mermaid had defeated and sealed Prisitzin, and Shade asked how to bargain with the demon for a soul he wanted.

Shade and Doctor Schneider captured the Wish Demon Zatanah, who agreed to help Schneider investigate Green Lake. Shade then went to the Blue Star Circus to investigate its links to Gray Gloves and a suspected relic, arriving as the troupe went about an ordinary morning at its camp.

• Doctor Schneider proposed using a rigged coin to win a wager against a demon, then asked Shade to help pull something from Green Lake.
• Shade and Schneider hauled Zatanah’s bottle from the lake, and Schneider persuaded the demon to help him in exchange for eventual freedom.
• Shade declined to join Schneider’s lakeshore investigation and set out to investigate the Blue Star Circus for Margaret and the Witches’ Task List.
• Shade found the circus camp at Kozvolts Village, where police questioned a troupe member and performers and workers went about their morning activities.

Shade investigated the circus and discovered that the unconscious man found nearby was Durut Giles, accompanied by Lust Edwardz’s soul. Lust explained that a dangerous, spreading tiger-like creature had frightened Giles into unconsciousness, and Shade set out to deal with it with her help.

• Shade inspected the circus’s souvenir stall, bought a special Moon 10 Rhodes Card, and learned that the troupe had found an unconscious man in the farmland.
• The stallkeeper told Shade that the troupe leader was away and that the unconscious man had been placed in the apprentices’ tent.
• Shade found Durut Giles unconscious in the tent and recognized Lust Edwardz’s soul guarding him.
• Lust told Shade that she and Giles had suddenly arrived near the village, where a tiger-like bad thing frightened Giles and caused him to faint.
• Lust sealed Giles inside a sphere of space and agreed to accompany Shade to confront the creature because she could not defeat it alone.

Shade and Lust Edwardz discovered and killed a tiger-headed animal trainer corrupted by the Sage Level Relic Darkmoon Circus. Tifa explained that the circus was still in its first descent stage, leaving Shade and the maids to identify and remove its core before the relic advanced.

• Shade and Lust Edwardz found that the caged tiger was actually an animal trainer transformed by a spell, then learned he had gone east to the river.
• Shade confronted the tiger-headed animal trainer by the river and, with Lust Edwardz's Dimension Slash, killed him and destroyed the summoned monsters.
• Tifa arrived with two mid-ring maids and identified the relic as the Sage Level Relic Darkmoon Circus, which could eventually massacre the surrounding region.
• Tifa explained that the circus had three stages and three possible cores: the Fool-Clown, the Wise Man-Diviner, and the Troupe Leader-Darkmoon Rabbit.
• Shade and Lust Edwardz reported that both clowns appeared normal, easing Tifa's concern that the circus had already reached its second stage.

Shade challenged the circus magician to a knife-throwing contest to free the boy being used as a target. He won with his cards and claimed the boy, but a strange golden apple appeared as the circus’s supernatural effects continued.

• Tifa advised Shade to focus on finding the diviner, and Shade noticed a magician using his apprentice as a living target at the circus camp.
• Shade accepted the magician’s challenge and arranged to win the target boy if he hit three apples.
• Shade threw cards while the magician attacked them with flying knives, and all three cards struck their apples after a prolonged clash.
• Shade won, claimed the boy, and dispersed the ordinary onlookers.
• Shade saw that the three pierced apples had turned black while the untouched apple became gold and rolled to his feet.

Shade and Tifa’s group investigated the Darkmoon Circus, learned that it trafficked children, and followed clues to its diviner. Inside her tent, they encountered a three-headed witch who threatened them and twisted the starry realm, so the maids began using power granted by the Great Witch of Balance to confront her.

• Shade won the circus’s target contest and obtained a Golden Apple, then treated the nailed boy and promised to return for him.
• The boy told Shade that the troupe leader had been taken by a female Horse-Human and that Mr. Merkel had been carried south by a winged creature.
• The boy confessed that the circus sold recruited children into slavery, then directed Shade’s group to the diviner’s tent.
• Shade found the Horse-Human whipping the troupe leader and chose to investigate the diviner first.
• Shade and his companions entered the diviner’s vast false starfield and faced the three-headed witch, who threatened them and plunged the stars into chaos.
• Tifa and the other maids formed a triangle and summoned the Chaos Witch’s emblem through the power shared by the Great Witch of Balance.

Tifa, Shade, and Lust Edwardz defeated the three-headed diviner with the relic Hope of the Day, then challenged her three predictions. Tifa and Lust Edwardz disproved theirs, and Shade asked whether a girl from an Unknown past would enter his dreams, leaving the final divination unanswered.

• Tifa and the other maids drove Hope of the Day out of control, weakening the three-headed diviner before defeating her.
• The three-headed diviner offered three divinations, and Tifa asked whether she would marry and whom she would marry.
• The diviner predicted Tifa would never be happy, but Tifa asked Shade to promise to stay with her, then declared the prediction wrong.
• Lust Edwardz asked whether she and Durut Giles could stay together forever, and the diviner said they would after death; Lust Edwardz happily accepted the prediction.
• Shade asked whether the girl from an Unknown past would enter his dreams, hoping to learn whether Long-Haired Luvia would meet him that night.

Shade and his allies stopped the Darkmoon Circus’s crisis, and he discovered that its accountant Mr. Merkel was a Gray Gloves agent awaiting a Delarion informant. Later, Audrey met Shade at the Green Lake Inn and revealed that the struggle over the Space Chosen One had become a conflict between the Edwards and Hamilton families.

• The three-headed diviner’s attempt to foretell Shade’s future caused her heads to sprout bursting eyes, and she fled into a Changing Room as the circus’s other bizarre beings disappeared inside it.
• Lust celebrated the crisis ending, while Tifa warned Shade that unstable spatial conditions would continue drawing dangerous relics to the region.
• Shade helped arrange for the Church’s Ring Arcanist Squad, rescued the boy and Mr. Merkel, and learned that the accountant was a Gray Gloves agent expecting to meet an informant the following night.
• Shade took the unconscious Durut Giles to the Green Lake Inn, where he arranged for a woman from the ship to meet him at two in the afternoon.
• Audrey told Shade she had arranged meetings with the Follen Brothers and her twin nephews, and asked for a family gathering at the inn the next day.
• Audrey told Shade that the Edwards and Hamilton families were confronting each other over the Space Chosen One and begged him to save them.

Shade reflected on the Edwardz family reunion and waited for Luvia, who returned with news about the Fate Base and her approved mission to Green Lake. That night, he met Long-Haired Luvia in a dream and asked whether the Ancient Moon Tower was connected to the Moon’s Chosen One and the Silver Moon Sage.

• Durut Giles refused to leave Lust behind, despite Shade telling him he had no family ties to the Edwardzes or Green Lake.
• Shade waited for Luvia, then learned from Vice President Mark that she had gone with the Seer Association president to investigate the Fate Base.
• Luvia told Shade that divination linked the Fate Base to a believer of the God of Wealth, and that the association had approved her mission to Green Lake.
• After Luvia fell asleep, Shade entered a dream of Long-Haired Luvia and heard her warn him not to trust everything Laplace Klein Howard said.
• Shade asked Long-Haired Luvia whether the Ancient Moon Tower had collapsed in her era and whether it was connected to the Moon’s Chosen One and the Silver Moon Sage.