Chapter Summaries

Fu Qian disrupted the force manipulating Jian and the Wenlos family, allowing Jian to escape through a broken window. He left Olyntel behind after the cultist tried to stop him, and badly wounded him with a burst of cold.

• Fu Qian inferred that an unseen presence had directed the Wenlos family and the others to leave Jian alone with it, but the command was interrupted and four people fell asleep and began wandering like puppets.
• Jian and Olyntel resisted Clear Dream while Miss Wenlos watched in terror as her body distorted and she asked what had happened to everyone.
• Olyntel accused Fu Qian of being unnaturally resistant to death, then lost control of his technique when Jian crawled through the broken window and escaped.
• Fu Qian followed Jian, but Olyntel blocked his way with an illusory barrier and insisted that he wanted to give Jian more time.
• Fu Qian told Olyntel that he had been fired, then struck him with a biting chill that blew much of the flesh from the left side of his face.

Fu Qian incapacitated Olyntel and left him with a Dimensional Poison wound intended to draw the cult’s attention. He pursued the force manipulating the blood fog around the Wenlos mansion, forcing it to reveal itself and discovering an unexpected figure.

• Fu Qian slapped Olyntel unconscious, then added Dimensional Poison to his wound so the cult would have to deal with it.
• Fu Qian left through a broken window and found the Wenlos mansion swallowed by blood-red fog while Jian fled through it.
• Fu Qian realized the fog and misleading sensory impressions were meant to keep him away from Miss Wenlos.
• Fu Qian climbed to the rooftop and used the maw in his chest to draw the fog into a powerful current.
• The fog grew unstable and revealed a rapidly moving presence, which Fu Qian confronted and found had bat wings and red eyes.

Fu Qian confronted Jacques, a member of the Blood Clan, over the changes to Miss Wenlos and demanded an explanation. Jacques admitted he had altered her appearance in exchange for tasting her blood, but Fu Qian questioned whether Jacques had considered the difference in their species’ standards of beauty.

• Fu Qian examined the unconscious Jian and asked Jacques what he had learned about her condition.
• Jacques mistook Fu Qian’s chest mouth for contamination, and Fu Qian insisted that he explain his investigation.
• Jacques introduced himself and questioned why Fu Qian was stopping him from taking Jian away.
• Fu Qian accused Jacques of repeatedly mishandling the case and refused to let him leave until they resolved it.
• Jacques said he had changed Miss Wenlos’s appearance as a gift after tasting her blood, making her eyes more beautiful.
• Fu Qian asked whether Jacques had considered that their species might have different ideas of beauty.

Fu Qian uncovered that Jacques had altered Jian while trying to treat her, and argued that the commandments behind Jacques’s methods were the real problem. Jacques remained determined to cure Jian, but the chapter ended with him furious at Fu Qian’s claim.

• Fu Qian deduced that Jacques had sought Jian out because her blood was valuable to him and that Jacques’s interventions had caused her worsening condition.
• Jacques admitted that he had watched Jian after seeing her strange behavior at the art salon, where the effect of a blessing had been twisted.
• Fu Qian learned that Jacques had tried to remove Jian’s blessing, then shared the glory of the Child of the Stars with her when the first treatment went wrong.
• Jacques vowed to find a cure, but Fu Qian told him to consider that the commandments—not Jian—were at fault.

Fu Qian questioned Jacques about vampires and the Commandment, learning that their power came from the stars and that their protective aura was called the Untouchable. Jacques revealed that reversing Jian’s connection to the stars would require destroying the world, and Fu Qian unleashed the Glorious Tyrant.

• Jacques explained that vampires were Children of the Stars who could perceive the Commandment as the stars’ radiance.
• Fu Qian concluded that something was wrong with the stars, provoking Jacques to declare him an enemy of the vampires.
• Jacques described the Untouchable, a Commandment blessing that kept vampires hidden from human notice.
• Fu Qian compared vampires to the Castoffs of the Stars and asked whether Jacques could reverse Jian’s connection to the stars.
• Jacques said the only simple way to undo Jian’s connection was to destroy the world, and Fu Qian unleashed the Glorious Tyrant.

Fu Qian confronted Jacques while using the Glorious Tyrant’s power to distort the world’s laws, hoping it could help treat Jian’s condition. Trapped in Jacques’s blood-red cocoon, Fu Qian learned that the world was being corrupted by nightmares and tried another power before Jacques could finish treating Jian.

• Fu Qian approached the fallen patient, and Jacques demanded to know what he was.
• Fu Qian’s distorted form spread cracks through the void as Jacques’s blood-red patterns enclosed him in a conceptual cocoon.
• Fu Qian’s power began corrupting the cocoon, shocking Jacques, who asked where Fu Qian came from and what kind of nightmare he was.
• Fu Qian declared himself correctness itself, though the Glorious Tyrant’s distortion had not yet grown strong enough to threaten the cocoon.
• Jacques said he would keep Fu Qian contained while he treated Jian, and Fu Qian activated Old Day Engraving.

Fu Qian used the power of wounds to break apart Jacques’s giant cocoon and free Jian from its grasp. He agreed to meet Jacques’s fellow vampires, but when Jacques attacked, Fu Qian identified himself as an Apostle of the Dark Moon.

• Fu Qian’s wounds opened and closed rapidly, creating cracks that spread through Jacques’s giant cocoon.
• Through the cracks, Fu Qian saw Jacques treating Jian, whose body had nearly returned to normal while the blood marks on her face worsened.
• Fu Qian stepped toward Jacques and said he would take over treating Jian; Jacques agreed to stop taking her back if Fu Qian would return with him.
• Fu Qian asked when Jacques could gather the other vampires, but Jacques said they could not meet before dawn.
• Jacques formed a spear from red, vine-like patterns and prepared to attack Fu Qian, who invited him to ask his questions first.
• Jacques asked what Fu Qian was, and Fu Qian answered that he was an Apostle of the Dark Moon.

Fu Qian confronted Jacques outside the giant cocoon, where he used his pollution to crack the barrier and suggested the vampires might come from nightmares. He identified the World Within the Painting as a possible clue, then faced Jacques’s threat with the Gun of Death as he reached into the cocoon again.

• Fu Qian challenged Jacques to face the corruption he feared and pressed his hand against the giant cocoon, the manifestation of No Passage.
• Cracks spread through the barrier, and Jacques accused Fu Qian of coming from a nightmare; Jacques revealed that the vampires had investigated the nightmares appearing in Lairding.
• Fu Qian hinted at the World Within the Painting, and Jacques recognized the reference to its seven lights.
• Jacques drew the Gun of Death and demanded an explanation from Fu Qian.
• As Jacques taunted him about the barrier, Fu Qian reached his right hand into the slit in the giant cocoon.

Fu Qian shattered the cocoon, treated Jian, and negotiated a meeting with Jacques before Jacques departed. After Olyntel arrived, Fu Qian received confirmation that the containment mission had succeeded.

• Fu Qian used Internal Organ Critical Hit on the cocoon, endured the backlash, and broke it open to reach Jian.
• Jacques hesitated to kill Fu Qian and agreed to meet him Saturday night at the Celestial Cult's West District church.
• Fu Qian placed his hand on Jian's forehead, and her Edicts resisted the Glorious Tyrant's distortion.
• Jacques withdrew his spear and left after asking Fu Qian to keep his word and cure Jian.
• Fu Qian summoned Olyntel with Meditative Hesitation, and the mission was declared complete.

Fu Qian finished treating Jian Wenlos, drove Olyntel away, and completed the task with a reward of Sanity Value and Fine Wine. The task summary led him to suspect that the Wenlos family’s butler had helped Natalie and that Mr. Wenlos had paid him off to keep Natalie tied to him.

• Fu Qian blasted Olyntel away, woke Jian Wenlos, and assured the Wenlos family that she was well.
• Olyntel demanded that Fu Qian come to the West District church, but Fu Qian vanished in a flash of light.
• Fu Qian completed the task and received Sanity Value +20 and Fine Wine.
• Fu Qian considered how Olyntel had arrived so quickly and suspected the Wenlos butler had used Olyntel’s protective charm to alert him.
• Fu Qian concluded that Mr. Wenlos had paid off the butler to keep him and Natalie bound together, possibly saving the unborn child.

After leaving the Wenlos mansion, Fu Qian examined his Fine Wine reward and headed to the Celestial Cult’s West District Church to keep his promise to visit Olyntel. Disguised as Herbert, he found Olyntel’s location by planting a question in a young cultist’s dream and descended to investigate.

• Fu Qian examined the Fine Wine reward, considered its temporary effects, and put it away.
• Fu Qian transformed himself to resemble Herbert and reasoned that posing as a vampire would help distinguish him from Anke and persuade the Children of the Stars to act.
• Fu Qian arrived at the Celestial Cult’s West District Church and decided to find Olyntel while observing the cultists.
• Fu Qian opened a dream for a young cultist, asked where Olyntel was, and received directions to the injured man’s treatment room.
• Fu Qian followed the directions and descended the stairs toward Olyntel.

Fu Qian infiltrated the Celestial Cult’s western church and reached Olyntel, who had been left alone in the inner sanctum. He reunited with his old friend and found that Olyntel’s Dimensional Poison had vanished, though his face remained badly disfigured.

• Fu Qian used Clear Dream to persuade a young worshipper to abandon his post and leave the locked door open.
• Fu Qian entered the church’s inner sanctum and followed Olyntel’s familiar presence to his room.
• Fu Qian knocked, entered, and greeted Olyntel, who said he had known Fu Qian would come.
• Olyntel showed Fu Qian his ruined face, and Fu Qian observed that he seemed to have recovered from the Dimensional Poison.

Fu Qian learned that Olyntel had chosen to keep the scar left by his treatment, then listened as Olyntel accused him of stealing Jian’s blessing. Olyntel refused to tell Mr. Wenlos, and Fu Qian left him with a final taunt.

• Olyntel thanked Fu Qian for the treatment but kept the scar on his face as a reminder of his heartbreak.
• Olyntel told Fu Qian that the Cult’s saints had confirmed Jian was fully healed and that her father was grateful.
• Olyntel accused Fu Qian of being a vampire who had manipulated events and stolen Jian’s blessing.
• Fu Qian invited Olyntel to share his accusation with Mr. Wenlos, and Olyntel refused.
• Fu Qian told Olyntel that he seemed to be the one deceiving himself.

Fu Qian questioned Olyntel about the Harmony Saint Hall and learned that its members mastered forbidden-level Star Laws, confirming that one had cured his Dimensional Poison. A lantern lit by Fu Qian’s life flame revealed that Olyntel had kept him in the room to activate a trap, but Fu Qian calmly picked it up.

• Fu Qian challenged Olyntel’s belief that he could change Mr. Wenlos’s mind and taunted him about his defeat.
• Olyntel admitted he had deliberately inflicted Fu Qian’s scar and explained that members of the Harmony Saint Hall were decision-makers who had mastered forbidden-level Star Laws.
• Fu Qian concluded that a human Saint’s Star Law had expelled the Dimensional Poison and cleared his Death Scar.
• A lantern in the corner began lighting on its own, and Fu Qian recognized that his life flame had ignited it and was bound to his life.
• Olyntel revealed that he had prolonged their conversation to activate the lantern, but Fu Qian picked it up without showing alarm.

Fu Qian discovered that Olyntel had trapped him with the Heartflame edict, linking their lives through a lantern and making him a target for the cult's hunters. He left Olyntel uncertain by pretending to know more about the lantern and the Star's chosen than he did.

• Fu Qian examined the ordinary lantern, and his presence ignited it as Olyntel revealed their lives were linked.
• Olyntel explained that Fu Qian could kill him by extinguishing the lantern, then admitted he had deliberately become trapped to lure Fu Qian into the Heartflame trap.
• Fu Qian deduced that Olyntel's shadowy surroundings formed a cage and that the lantern had already ignited the edict's spark.
• Olyntel revealed that the lantern was a permanent weak point whose scent the cult's hunters would detect at a special time each day.
• Fu Qian guessed that the hunters would track the lantern at sunrise and mocked Olyntel by claiming his people understood the Star's chosen better than he did.

Fu Qian taunted Olyntel with claims about the bloodkin and probed him for information about the hunters and their Edicts. After learning about the Fallen Saint Hall, Fu Qian opened Olyntel's lantern and blew at its flame while using False God Incarnation.

• Fu Qian claimed that bloodkin mastered saintly abilities from birth and conjured an imitation of the Gun of Death to unsettle Olyntel.
• Fu Qian suggested that hunters were like bloodkin and learned from Olyntel that their powers came from unusual Forbidden Edicts with a permanent cost.
• Olyntel warned Fu Qian that others regularly checked on him and pointed out that Fu Qian still had his lantern.
• Fu Qian opened the lantern, activated False God Incarnation, and blew at its wavering flame, horrifying Olyntel.

Fu Qian tested whether False God Incarnation could disrupt Heartflame’s bond and survived after the flame went out, though he was injured. He then used Blood Conquest to escape to an unfamiliar room, where a female cult member spotted him.

• Fu Qian kept blowing on the Heartflame lantern while Olyntel warned that its flame going out would kill him.
• Olyntel assumed Fu Qian was bluffing, but the lantern went out and Fu Qian remained standing, pale and injured.
• Fu Qian concluded that his sudden rank change had made Heartflame lose track of its subject long enough for him to survive.
• Fu Qian told Olyntel he might be dreaming, then activated Blood Conquest and vanished from the room.
• Fu Qian reappeared in an unfamiliar room, where a female cult member looked at him in alarm.

Fu Qian tested Blood Conquest's new sight-dependent leaps while escaping the church, provoking the cult and the Children of the Stars as he searched for a way to overcome the Stars Law. Back at his lodgings, he weighed his limited progress and waited for sunrise, but a visitor soon knocked at his door.

• Fu Qian startled a naked female cultist in a meditation room, and she attacked him with blue flames, which his leap evaded.
• Fu Qian realized that Blood Conquest now let him leap between places only within an observer's sight, then escaped the church while the old man tried to trap him in shadow.
• Fu Qian expected his actions to make Olyntel take reports of vampires seriously and to intensify the coming vampire gathering.
• Fu Qian returned to his lodgings and considered the factions' ignorance of the Dark Moon Cult and the World Within the Painting, along with the difficulty of destroying the Stars Law before the Witch ran out of time.
• Fu Qian put away his belongings and waited for sunrise, but someone knocked at the door less than ten minutes later.

Officer Lafady arrived to guard Fu Qian, while the Church’s hunter waited nearby as Amira arranged a response to the previous night’s events. After Fu Qian avoided drawing the hunter’s attention through sunrise, Amira took him to meet Reginald.

• Officer Lafady told Fu Qian he had been assigned to protect him and warned him to stay inside.
• Fu Qian spotted a Church carriage and sensed a powerful hunter waiting inside, so he used the Pope’s power to avoid provoking him at sunrise.
• Fu Qian ate breakfast while the hunter’s carriage remained still.
• Amira visited Fu Qian, told him she had reported the previous day’s events, and asked him to come with her.
• Amira led Fu Qian to meet Reginald, and Fu Qian greeted him.

Fu Qian questioned Reginald about the Pocket Watch and explained that it had once been a church relic stolen by a female thief. The carriage then brought him and the church representatives to the fog beyond the city, where the story left them facing the strange gray-white expanse.

• Fu Qian teased Reginald and boarded a carriage with Amira and the silent hunter Sir Simon.
• Fu Qian told Reginald and Amira that the Pocket Watch had belonged to a female thief who stole and damaged a church relic containing the blood of the Dragon of Time.
• Fu Qian named the Leisens as evidence, prompting Reginald to admit that he had deliberately let Fu Qian take the Pocket Watch after the church found it in a private collection.
• Sir Simon announced their arrival, and Fu Qian saw the endless fog beyond the city.