Recaps

Fu Qian and the others traveled in the ark through a surreal realm, passing a green door into a beautiful shoreline beneath a strange starry sky. As they approached land, flowers formed a sun and the vegetation gathered into a giant cocoon, leaving Aiko unsettled.

• A Kai and Aiko heard faint humming aboard the ark as its endless descent continued.
• The ark stopped at a strange seafloor beneath a star-filled sky, where enormous, oddly shaped structures surrounded it.
• Fu Qian spotted a vibrant green door, and the ark accelerated through it into a springlike shoreline.
• Fu Qian saw that the vanished doorway had become an abyss filled with lightning and monstrous shapes.
• Flowers gathered in the sky to form a sun, and the shoreline's greenery assembled into a huge cocoon.
• Aiko asked what the place was as the transformation unsettled everyone.

Fu Qian and the others watched the ark pass through a reality-bending scene as Lord Stos identified it with the Long Night a thousand years ago and explained that the era had blurred the boundary between the real and unreal. When a towering spire appeared beyond the ship, Su Gao and Fu Qian went to investigate.

• Fu Qian suggested the ship might be a once-real vessel traveling through time and space in a transcendent state.
• Lord Stos identified the scene as connected to the Long Night a thousand years ago.
• Lord Stos explained that the Long Night had changed fundamental rules and blurred the boundary between reality and unreality.
• The ark passed through the giant cocoon, and the scene outside changed to a towering spire.
• Su Gao went to investigate the spire, and Fu Qian followed her.

Fu Qian and Su Gao explored the ark’s higher levels, concluding that the living ship’s nature was changing its passengers and that the outside world could not affect the vessel. They found little new on the top level and ended by examining the approaching, featureless spire.

• The Old Man stayed behind while Fu Qian and Su Gao entered the ark’s middle level, where Fu Qian confirmed that they could see the spire but not the levels below.
• Fu Qian and Su Gao concluded that the ship’s concepts were transforming its passengers and that the ark’s shielding kept the outside world from affecting them.
• Fu Qian and Su Gao finished exploring the middle level without finding anything beyond a clearer view, then went up to the top level.
• Fu Qian and Su Gao saw that the top level was much as before and examined the approaching spire, whose smooth white surface had few visible details.
• Su Gao slowed down and let Fu Qian take the lead as they continued their exploration.

Fu Qian and Su Gao searched the Ark for someone who might be aboard, and Fu Qian’s invitation led them to a tea room where Nepheli appeared. He suspected Nepheli had been secretly directing events, but remained unsure whether the woman before him was truly there or another deception.

• Fu Qian led Su Gao through the wheat fields to the door where they had first boarded the ship.
• The door opened by itself, revealing a tea room where Nepheli invited Fu Qian and Su Gao inside.
• Fu Qian identified Nepheli as a possible hidden force behind the Mal Brothers’ actions and greeted her using his alias.
• Nepheli asked when Fu Qian had realized she was aboard, and he explained that Marco’s behavior had aroused his suspicions.
• Fu Qian questioned whether Nepheli was truly present, then smelled and drank the tea she had prepared.

Fu Qian explained why he had revealed his and Su Gao’s identities to Nepheli, then suggested that she wanted to keep the ark’s journey going so she could witness the Long Night from a thousand years ago. Nepheli admitted she had no malice and asked them to stay aboard and watch longer.

• Nepheli acknowledged that she could project herself anywhere on the ship and confirmed that their conversation was private.
• Nepheli asked Fu Qian why he had revealed the secret and brought Su Gao to meet her.
• Su Gao promised that only the three of them would know what they discussed, while Fu Qian pointed out that Nepheli’s presence was significant too.
• Fu Qian suggested that Nepheli wanted to preserve the chance to witness the ark’s journey through the past.
• Nepheli agreed that the opportunity was rare, said she had tried to reduce the ship’s harmful effects, and asked Fu Qian and Su Gao to stay and watch longer.

Fu Qian questioned Nepheli about her manipulation of the Ark and learned that she had planned to use the team to purify and take control of it. Nepheli asked him to keep Stos calm during the ship’s final voyage, while Fu Qian hinted that Stos’s golden fire might matter.

• Fu Qian accused Nepheli of undermining Professor A Kai and confirmed that she had secretly influenced the Ark’s time and agitation.
• Nepheli admitted that she had sabotaged Professor A Kai’s miracle and reflected that extraordinary paths could leave later researchers with no room to advance.
• Fu Qian inferred that Nepheli had once received answers that were already surpassed, and she acknowledged his insight without explaining further.
• Nepheli revealed that she had hoped the team would purify the chaotic ship so she could contain and control it.
• Nepheli said the Ark would take one final voyage and asked Fu Qian to keep Stos calm, warning that destroying it could endanger everyone aboard.
• Fu Qian replied that Stos had come because of the golden fire and suggested Nepheli might be connected to it.

Fu Qian questioned Nepheli about the golden flames and learned that they appeared during a healing miracle called Tyrant's Gift. Nepheli confirmed that the miracle’s pioneer had named it, leaving Fu Qian to consider what the name might imply.

• Fu Qian linked Nepheli’s knowledge of the golden flames to Ariel and suggested that Su Gao could be trusted with the conversation.
• Fu Qian’s remarks led Nepheli to suspect that the Night Watchers might know about the Warehouse and its affairs.
• Nepheli admitted that she possessed a healing miracle that calmed the agitated and produced golden flames, though she did not know what they meant.
• Fu Qian agreed to keep the discussion brief and said they would leave after finishing their tea.
• Nepheli named the miracle Tyrant’s Gift, and she confirmed that its pioneer had chosen the name.

Fu Qian and Su Gao returned from Nepheli’s peculiar chamber and persuaded Stos to wait rather than risk forcing the ark through the darkness. Their discussion was interrupted when a new passage appeared on the ark’s lowest level.

• Nepheli made the chamber and spire disappear as the ark entered a darkness without stars, then reflected that reality and symbols had become indistinguishable.
• Fu Qian and Su Gao returned to Stos, Aiko, Old Man, and Professor A Kai and reported that the ark seemed stable and its interior changes appeared to originate from the ship.
• When Stos asked whether they should resort to their last measure, Fu Qian said they had no evidence that either waiting or forcing their way through was safer.
• Su Gao backed Fu Qian, and Stos decided they would wait for evidence before acting.
• Professor A Kai suddenly stood up, and a new passage leading downward appeared on the lowest level.

A Kai’s miracle opened a new passage from the Ark into a lightless void, and Su Gao led an expedition down it with Fu Qian and Stos. The three began descending while the passage seemed stable, but the darkness below impaired their sight.

• A Kai explained that his attempt to connect with reality through a gentle miracle had caused a disturbance and apparently opened a new passage.
• Su Gao volunteered to investigate the passage, and Aiko offered to take her turn after Su Gao had already ventured out once.
• Fu Qian joined Su Gao, and Stos insisted on accompanying them as the group’s only Second Order.
• Stos warned A Kai and Aiko to stay put and avoid using miracles while the three explorers descended the wooden ladder.
• Su Gao led the way into the darkness, where Fu Qian reported that they could not see and that the darkness seemed to be suppressing their sight.

Fu Qian, Su Gao, and Sir Stos explored a lightless wooden passage beneath the ship, but it stretched on without an end. When they heard Aiko’s signal that something was happening aboard the ship, Sir Stos returned to investigate while Fu Qian stayed with Su Gao to continue exploring.

• Fu Qian entered the darkness with Su Gao and Sir Stos and found that sight and supernatural perception were suppressed, though sound still worked.
• Su Gao led the group down a wooden ladder into a narrow passage with wooden walls and a regular floor.
• The three Transcendents traveled far along the straight passage, but it showed no sign of ending, so Sir Stos proposed turning back and breaking through.
• A strange signal sounded, and Sir Stos recognized it as Aiko’s message that something was happening on the ship.
• Su Gao ordered Sir Stos to return to the ship while she continued investigating with Fu Qian, and Sir Stos left after Fu Qian supported her decision.

Fu Qian and Su Gao continued exploring the strange passage after suspecting Nepheli had prompted the earlier warning to keep them from endangering the Ark. Su Gao perceived the passage as an endlessly long coffin, and they pressed on until a woman’s voice spoke in their minds to a child.

• Fu Qian and Su Gao continued into the unknown passage, reasoning that Nepheli might have caused the disturbance to discourage their exploration.
• Fu Qian concluded the passage was likely a symbolic manifestation rather than part of reality, and Su Gao revealed that she could see it as an endlessly long coffin.
• Su Gao said the coffin-like passage seemed to have an end, so Fu Qian urged them to keep going and see what lay ahead.
• Su Gao stopped when a woman’s voice spoke in their minds, gently telling a child to lie still and assuring them they would win.

Fu Qian and Su Gao crossed the drawn door and discovered that their journey had unfolded inside a child’s dream in the Long Night a thousand years in the past. As they sensed an all-encompassing tide, Su Gao’s body began turning to porcelain and cracking.

• Fu Qian and Su Gao decided to pass through the drawn door, believing they had reached the limit of the child’s dream.
• Fu Qian regained his sight and found a family home with a coffin hidden beneath a bed.
• Fu Qian sensed that the child alone lay in the coffin, humming and patting himself while imagining his mother’s presence.
• Fu Qian and Su Gao looked outside and confirmed that the home stood beneath a sunless and moonless sky in the ancient Long Night.
• Su Gao sensed a tide washing over everything, and her body began turning to white porcelain as cracks spread across her palm.

Fu Qian observed Su Gao experiencing the Long Night’s destructive tides in the Gods' Burial Ground and used the White Ring to help anchor her sense of self. As Su Gao continued to suffer and asked whether Fu Qian could still hear her, he summoned Sword Three Missing One.

• Fu Qian observed the chaotic stars and the cracks spreading across Su Gao’s porcelain body as she sensed the Long Night’s tides.
• Su Gao described a storm tide filling all places and said that every will struggled against the apocalypse as the Long Night passed.
• Fu Qian placed the White Ring on Su Gao’s thumb, and it helped her porcelain fragments resist the chaos.
• Fu Qian noted that Su Gao’s fragments did not turn into the tiny bodies he had seen forming another doll, distinguishing the two creations.
• Fu Qian activated False God Incarnation and summoned Sword Three Missing One as Su Gao asked whether he could still hear her.

Fu Qian used Sword Three Missing One to let Su Gao strike him and restore her shattered body amid the chaos. They returned to the Coffin Path, where Su Gao found her sight and resistance to the darkness had improved, and Fu Qian urged her to tell the organization what had happened.

• Fu Qian gave Su Gao Sword Three Missing One and told her to attack him until he said to stop.
• Su Gao repeatedly wounded Fu Qian, and the sword's effects restored order to her shattered body without repairing its original cracks.
• Fu Qian stopped Su Gao, then had her open a way back to the Coffin Path with the sword.
• Fu Qian used False God Incarnation to see the coffin-like passage, while Su Gao confirmed that her vision and resistance to the darkness had improved.
• Su Gao asked whether to keep the experience secret, and Fu Qian told her to report it to the organization and say he had acted as her bodyguard.

Fu Qian and Su Gao returned from a passage tied to a child's Mind World and explained what they had experienced. After hearing that the ship's amber bodies had begun releasing feathers, they decided to keep waiting aboard the ark, where the passage then folded away.

• Aiko called Fu Qian and Su Gao back after amber bodies on the ship began moving and releasing feathers.
• Su Gao told Stos that the passage and what lay beyond it belonged to a child's Mind World, and described the scene and conversation they had found there.
• Fu Qian admitted that Su Gao had cut him after he briefly lost control under the Mind World's influence.
• Su Gao proposed waiting aboard the ship, and Fu Qian agreed, believing Nepheli had caused the disturbance to draw them back.
• The downward passage folded away as Stos frowned in thought.

Fu Qian and the others returned from the Ark to the underground level of the Institute of Curses, where Stos explained the golden flame’s nature and began identifying its source. The ship, Nepheli, and the Mal Brothers had disappeared, leaving Stos’s mention of the Jade Soul Master as the last clue.

• Fu Qian reasoned that the Ark’s time distortion was likely a replay of history and that Nepheli had helped close the passage.
• Stos asked Fu Qian about the golden flame he had seen in the illusory White-Headed Holy See, then demonstrated a similar power.
• Stos explained that the flame was his Second Order ability, which targeted the mind and which he called Madness Fire.
• Stos said the flame reminded him of an ill-omened fire someone had described, but Professor A Kai interrupted when the group suddenly returned to the Institute of Curses.
• Su Gao noticed that the Ark, Nepheli, and the Mal Brothers were gone, and Stos named the Jade Soul Master as the person connected to the ill-omened flame.

Lord Stos told Fu Qian and the others about Jade Soul Master, an unusual figure he had met after advancing. He explained that Jade Soul Master rejected supernatural power and taught people to understand their true nature, then revealed that the masked lecturer also worked at a nearby school under a false identity.

• Lord Stos asked the returning team to check for lingering effects, and Su Gao, Fu Qian, and Stos concluded the distortion had caused no serious harm.
• Stos told the group he had met Jade Soul Master while wandering after his advancement and asked them to guess where.
• Aiko guessed Jade Soul Master had taught at a church, while Fu Qian guessed he had given a philosophy lecture.
• Stos explained that Jade Soul Master had attracted a crowd by teaching that supernatural power was a false temptation and people should become their authentic selves.
• Stos discovered that Jade Soul Master also taught at a nearby school under a false identity, so he arranged to meet him face-to-face.

Lord Stos told Fu Qian about a wandering philosopher whose meditation visions included Madness Fire, prompting Fu Qian to connect the man’s ideas to the Jade Soul Master and Bitter Fruit. After the investigation ended, Fu Qian helped A Kai with his distortion and questioned him about flood stories, while remembering that Su Gao still had his ring.

• Lord Stos described meeting a philosophical wanderer who recognized Madness Fire as an ill-omened fire seen during meditation.
• Fu Qian connected the wanderer’s ideas about illusion and the self to the Jade Soul Master and the Mind World crisis involving Akons.
• Lord Stos said the investigation was over, dismissed the academy’s instructors, and offered Fu Qian further work if needed.
• Fu Qian told Lanaia that she was safe and pointed out that A Kai still had a problem.
• Fu Qian used the Return Edict to help A Kai and asked him about versions of the great-ship flood story.
• Fu Qian recalled Su Gao’s dark retelling of the story and realized she still had not returned his ring.

Fu Qian received a cursed eye from Nepheli and chose to accept the risks it posed. He entered the Warehouse’s containment scene for the Realm of Ultimate Bliss.

• Fu Qian found a blackened eyeball and a talisman bearing a message from the former head of the Institute of Curses, explaining that the eye could resonate with the eye held by the Native Council.
• Fu Qian considered how accepting the eye or responding to its call might reveal his intentions to Nepheli, but decided the clue and potential rewards were worth the danger.
• Fu Qian put on the Emissary Mask and brought the eye to the Warehouse, triggering a containment-breach task for the Realm of Ultimate Bliss, code 1-002.
• Fu Qian accepted the task and entered the containment scene.

Fu Qian entered a bright afterlife scene and woke in a grave as a crowd celebrated his apparent rebirth. After a blond man welcomed him to the Realm of Ultimate Bliss, Fu Qian gave the group the name Lu Ming.

• Fu Qian entered Containment Scene 1-002, whose briefing described a City of Light and the Pure Land.
• Fu Qian woke coughing in a freshly opened grave as a crowd cheered around him.
• A blond man apologized for digging up Fu Qian's grave and welcomed him to the Realm of Ultimate Bliss.
• Fu Qian told the man he was not angry, noting that his clothes had stayed clean.
• When asked what to call him, Fu Qian introduced himself as Lu Ming.

Fu Qian awakened in the Realm of Ultimate Bliss, where the gathered residents explained that newcomers arrived through the cemetery and later reincarnated. As the welcoming ceremony ended, a woman offered to guide him to his home, leaving Fu Qian suspicious of the Pure Land.

• Godo introduced himself and the gathered residents watched Fu Qian react to waking in the cemetery.
• A woman in a sheer robe told Fu Qian that the pleasure of awakening was something he could never experience again.
• Fu Qian stood, questioned why she called him a young man, and learned that first-time arrivals appeared in the cemetery.
• Fu Qian examined the bright, sunless cemetery and its distant town while Godo explained that everyone present had reincarnated at least once.
• Godo ended the welcoming ceremony and asked who Fu Qian wanted to show him home, but the woman offered to guide him herself and said she did not charge.

Fu Qian learned that the Realm of Ultimate Bliss was a place of endless reincarnation, where each self persisted through successive lives, and chose Keke as his guide. As she explained how reincarnation worked, his mission updated to require him to unravel the cycle and enter the next heaven.

• Fu Qian asked whether the realm's bliss meant that the self endured through infinite reincarnation, and Keke confirmed it.
• Fu Qian accepted Keke's offer to guide him, despite Godo suggesting he take more time to consider.
• Keke told Fu Qian that each tomb marked a newly ascended member and explained that reincarnation began when one self ended and another person was conceived.
• Keke said that escaping reincarnation meant transcending to a higher level of the Pure Land, and Fu Qian's mission updated to require him to unravel the cycle and enter the next heaven.

Fu Qian learned from Keke that the Realm of Ultimate Bliss pursued transcendence through intense desire and that the town’s horse-drawn carriages were driven by people trapped in the cycle of reincarnation. As they neared town, someone lay in the carriage’s path, causing it to swerve and nearly throwing Keke out.

• Keke explained that the women’s services helped people experience and transcend desire, and that she charged no fee because others were helping her.
• Fu Qian concluded that the Realm of Ultimate Bliss operated according to an inner logic centered on bliss without death.
• Keke led Fu Qian to a carriage, where she explained that its horse was a person punished with reincarnation for evil deeds.
• Fu Qian asked whether the realm’s definition of evil differed from humanity’s, and Keke said he would learn more soon.
• Someone appeared lying in the carriage’s path, and Fu Qian grabbed Keke as the carriage swerved.

Fu Qian learned about the Almsgiving Society and the Brotherhood as he and Keke entered the City of Ultimate Bliss. He discovered that murder was possible there, but its victims were forced into repeated reincarnation.

• Fu Qian recognized that the person who startled the carriage horse had staged a practiced fall, and Keke identified them as a member of the Almsgiving Society.
• Keke gave the fallen person a golden coin, and they accepted it before leaving.
• Keke warned Fu Qian to avoid the Brotherhood, whose members tried to force others to follow their beliefs through threats and beatings.
• Fu Qian entered the City of Ultimate Bliss and saw its bright streets and serene residents.
• Keke told Fu Qian that murder was an unforgivable crime, and that its victims were trapped in a cycle of reincarnation.

Fu Qian went with Keke to her ornate home in the City of Ultimate Bliss, using the chance to learn about the city and its factions. Keke accused him of pretending to be interested in her, and a crowd gathered at the door as a burly man declared that Fu Qian would interest him too.

• Fu Qian chose to visit Keke’s home because it was empty and her connections could help him learn about the city.
• Keke brought Fu Qian through a crowd of unusual onlookers and into her house.
• Fu Qian asked whether any members of the Brotherhood were among the crowd, and Keke said there were none but many people from other organizations.
• Keke accused Fu Qian of lying about being interested in her, and he replied that his interests might be different from what she expected.
• A crowd opened the door, and the burly man carrying a person strapped to a board bowed to Fu Qian and said he would interest him too.