Chapter Summaries

Zhou Xu upgraded the Lizardmen stamina and strength projects, learning that later projects required multiple enhancements to reach level two. He connected the prerequisites to the Blue Lizard Sword and Shield Soldier project and considered the limitations of the Dragon Lord class, leaving the speed project and its likely Green Lizard Infantry link for later.

• Zhou Xu raised Lizardmen Stamina Enhancement to level three but found that no subsequent projects unlocked.
• Zhou Xu unlocked Lizardmen Strength Enhancement and raised it to level two, gaining a slight strength increase.
• The strength and stamina projects connected to Blue Lizard Sword and Shield Soldier, and Zhou Xu realized he needed to raise more than one enhancement project to unlock later projects.
• Zhou Xu planned to raise Lizardmen Speed Enhancement to level two and expected it to connect to Green Lizard Infantry.
• Zhou Xu found no Lizardmen Spearmen project and considered that he might someday learn enough about the Dragon Lord class to add one.

Great Zhou’s population surpassed ten thousand, mostly through Lizardmen births, while Zhou Xu’s administration surveyed newborns and assigned their talents. At the mountain border, an energy passage opened and vanished, and Zhou Xu learned that passages would initially form at monthly intervals, growing more frequent as the World Shards drew closer.

• Wang Dong reported that the Population Survey Bureau had identified one newborn with three-star potential among nearly two thousand newborns.
• Great Zhou’s engineers cleared the forests and built a defensive camp at the mountain border, where Shi Lei’s forces guarded against energy passages.
• A patrol signaled that an energy passage had opened, and Shi Lei’s troops formed up around it until it closed without incident.
• Shi Lei sent Zhou Xu a report describing the passage and his estimate of how long it had remained open.
• After receiving the report more than a month later, Zhou Xu asked Bolevin about the intervals between openings and learned that they initially occurred once a month.

Zhou Xu weighed the threats posed by the energy passage and the Ratmen while prioritizing internal development. After upgrading Lizardmen Speed Enhancement to level two, he unlocked the Boiling Blood project and learned its powerful but deadly cost.

• Zhou Xu judged that the energy passage was too dangerous to enter while it opened only once a month, and noted that the grassland passage opened every seven days.
• Li Ce's forces continued harassing the Ratmen, while Jikum held back under Claw's order to rest and regroup until next year.
• Zhou Xu set aside studying programming and upgraded Lizardmen Speed Enhancement to level two, connecting it to the Green Lizard Short Spear Soldier project.
• The upgrade revealed Boiling Blood, which greatly strengthened Lizardmen by burning their blood and could spread strength from fallen users to their allies.
• Zhou Xu considered Boiling Blood's lethal nature as he compared it with the Blue Lizard Sword and Shield Soldier and Green Lizard Short Spear Soldier projects.

Zhou Xu connected troop and building projects to unlock the Raptor Cavalry, then spent the winter raising its level while the Ratmen held back. In early autumn of the second year, the Ratmen launched a counterattack, and Li Ce prepared the southern forces to meet their charge.

• Zhou Xu upgraded the Green Lizard Short Spear Soldier and Blue Lizard Sword and Shield Soldier projects to level two, unlocking the Raptor Training Ground and then the Raptor Cavalry project.
• Zhou Xu received an enormous-risk warning when he tried to upgrade the Raptor Cavalry, and he waited until winter had passed before raising it to level two.
• The Ratmen remained largely inactive through winter, then launched a counterattack in early autumn of the second year despite Li Ce's intensified harassment attacks.
• Li Ce ordered the Raptor Cavalry to withdraw and draw the Rat Tide toward nearby plains, where the Blue Lizard Spearmen and Green Lizard Short Spear Soldiers took their positions.
• Li Ce ordered his troops to form ranks and engage as the Rat Tide charged within spear range.

Li Ce ordered the Lizardmen to retreat toward their border defenses while maintaining formation, expecting the Ratmen's counterattack to continue. As Claw refused Jikum's call to commit the regular army, suspicion between the two Ratmen leaders remained unresolved.

• The Blue Lizard Spearmen held their formation against the Rat Tide while Raptor Cavalry and Green Lizard Short Spear Soldiers attacked its flanks.
• Li Ce ordered the Lizardmen to fight as they retreated toward their border defenses, and assigned Soros to command the flank troops.
• Jikum urged Claw to deploy the regular army and encircle the retreating Lizardmen.
• Claw rejected Jikum's proposal, wary of heavy casualties and suspicious of Jikum's ambitions.
• Jikum sensed Claw's distrust and withdrew without pressing his suggestion.

Li Ce’s exhausted Lizardmen main force retreated into a newly built border fortress, where the walls, spear slits, and spiked rollers helped repel the Rat Tide. As the defenders rested and held back from counterattacking, Slave Soldiers began climbing the fortress walls.

• Tash led the Lizardmen main force through repeated battles and reached their border, where the Claw spotted the newly built fortress.
• Li Ce’s messengers had alerted the fortress, and its troops covered the retreat before shutting the gates against the Rat Tide.
• Lizardmen soldiers thrust crystal-iron spears through the gates and dropped spiked wooden rollers from the walls, killing many Slave Soldiers.
• The Claw realized the fortress would be difficult to capture and accused Jikum of knowing about it, but Jikum denied it and privately resented the Claw’s earlier decisions.
• Li Ce kept his exhausted main force inside the fortress to rest while its garrison defended the walls.
• Slave Soldiers began climbing the fortress’s outer wall with their bare hands.

The Lizardmen used boiling oil to stop the Ratmen from climbing the border fortress, forcing Claw’s troops to withdraw. At the Ratmen’s forward camp, Jikum proposed a mass assault from multiple directions, and Claw ordered them to try it.

• The Lizardmen poured boiling oil down the fortress wall, burning Ratmen and making the surface too slippery to climb.
• Claw ordered the surviving Ratmen to withdraw, and Li Ce chose not to pursue them because his soldiers were exhausted and the enemy still had plenty of troops.
• Claw gathered his officers at a forward camp to discuss how to overcome the fortress, but their debate produced no solution.
• Jikum warned that going around the fortress would leave the Ratmen’s supplies and main force vulnerable to a Lizardman attack.
• Jikum suggested surrounding the camp and attacking from all directions with a large force, and Claw ordered the Ratmen to carry out the assault.

The Ratmen surrounded the frontier fortress and launched repeated assaults, but Li Ce used the defenses and timely sorties to wear them down. As Claw’s forces struggled to make progress, Jikum proposed bringing the Ratmen’s regular army into the battle.

• The Ratmen split their larger force to surround the fortress, and Li Ce deployed troops and defenses along its walls.
• Zhou Chongshan’s three hundred riders supported the defense by firing volleys of arrows over the walls.
• After three days of daily attacks, Li Ce sent the Blue Lizard Spearmen through a gate to push back the Rat Tide.
• Li Ce alternated sorties with retreats into the fortress, frustrating Claw’s forces and worsening Claw’s temper.
• Claw summoned Jikum, who showed him recovered rolling logs and suggested it was time to commit the regular army.

The Ratmen tried to provoke Li Ce’s Lizardman troops into abandoning the fortress walls by taunting them with Bal’s flayed face, but Soros stopped them from taking the bait. The Ratmen then brought out powerful Rat Demons, which began hurling barrels at the fortress.

• The Ratmen regular army advanced and a Ratman wearing Bal’s skin taunted the Lizardmen into fighting.
• Li Ce’s Lizardman soldiers demanded permission to attack, but Soros called out the trap and ordered them back to their positions.
• Li Ce learned that the Ratman wearing Bal’s face was Claw, known as “The Flayer.”
• Rat Demons emerged from the Ratmen army, and Soros explained that they were powerful and resilient but not very intelligent.
• Ratmen soldiers brought wooden barrels to the Rat Demons, who hurled them toward the fortress walls.

Li Ce’s defenders repelled the Ratmen’s first assault after Rat Demons hurled slave soldiers onto the walls and battered the fortress gate with logs. The Ratmen returned after nightfall, and hidden hands began emerging from the woodpile inside the fortress.

• Rat Demons hurled barrels packed with Ratmen Slave Soldiers onto the wall, where Li Ce and the Blue Lizard soldiers fought to stabilize the defense.
• Li Ce asked Soros how they had fought Rat Demons before, then noticed Rat Demons using logs to batter the fortress gate.
• Li Ce ordered the defenders to pour boiling oil on the Rat Demons, forcing them to retreat and prompting Claw to withdraw the army.
• Li Ce ordered the battlefield cleared and the damaged gate reinforced while the fortress remained on high alert.
• After dark, the Ratmen returned with a massive Rat Tide, and hidden hands reached out from beneath the stacked logs inside the fortress.

Claw committed the full Rat Tide to a night assault while the Skinning Corps infiltrated the border fortress, forcing Soros, Li Ce, Zhou Chongshan, and Tash to fight on multiple fronts. The fortress gates finally collapsed, and countless Ratmen Slave Soldiers surged inside as its defenders faced imminent defeat.

• Soros took command of the battle on the walls while Li Ce directed the fortress's internal defense.
• The Skinning Corps infiltrated the fortress, killing Lizardman soldiers and throwing the interior into chaos.
• Li Ce organized a defense against the infiltrators, and Zhou Chongshan's human soldiers joined the fighting with swords and shields.
• Claw attacked all four walls with the full Rat Tide as Rat Demons renewed their assault on the gates.
• Zhou Chongshan and Tash fought to contain the crisis, while Soros had no troops to spare from the overwhelmed walls.
• The battered gates collapsed, and a mass of Ratmen Slave Soldiers surged into the fortress, leaving Zhou Chongshan and Tash stunned.

Li Ce’s troops used a Spear Formation and a Three-bow Ballista to halt the Ratmen’s assault at the fortress gate, while Raptor Cavalry arrived to strike the Ratmen’s rear. The cavalry met the Giant Rat Knights in a bloody clash as Claw’s attack began to unravel.

• Li Ce ordered the Blue Lizard Spearmen to form a line across the city gate passage and stop the Rat Tide.
• A Rat Demon smashed the Spear Formation with a wooden battering log, but a Three-bow Ballista fired through the gap and killed him and many Ratmen.
• Li Ce regrouped the Spear Formation in front of the ballista, and the two defenses slaughtered Ratmen entering the passage.
• Claw watched the defense turn against his forces and roared in fury as Raptor Cavalry charged into the Ratmen’s rear.
• Zhou Xu’s hastened reinforcements reached the battlefield, and Claw sent his reserve Giant Rat Knights to meet the Raptor Cavalry.
• The Raptor Cavalry abandoned their attempt to reach the Ratmen’s rear and collided with the Giant Rat Knights in a bloody melee.

The Ratmen breached a fortress gate but were held back by Li Ce’s defenses, so Claw committed his army to a final assault while Jikum began a blood ritual. The chapter ended as pierced Ratmen Slave Soldiers exploded, dousing the Blue Lizard Spearmen with corrosive blood.

• Li Ce redeployed troops and defensive equipment, stabilizing the fortress despite the chaos at the gates and on the walls.
• Jikum urged Claw to commit all the Ratmen forces, and Claw ordered the regular army to attack with all its might.
• Soros saw the Ratmen advance and noticed Jikum drawing a bloody circle and chanting, but did not know what he was doing.
• Li Ce’s Blue Lizard Spearmen sealed the fortress passage and killed the Ratmen Slave Soldiers who made it past the Three-bow Ballistae.
• Pierced Ratmen Slave Soldiers swelled and burst, splashing corrosive blood over the front Blue Lizard Spearmen and burning them badly.

Ratmen corpses exploded with highly corrosive blood, forcing the defenders to adapt while the Raptor Cavalry fought the Giant Rat Knights to the death. After a Wyvern Rider’s probe failed to reach Jikum, Soros ordered the Wyvern Riders to attack.

• Li Ce recognized that the Ratmen Slave Soldiers exploded when killed, spraying corrosive blood that threatened the Lizardmen.
• Li Ce ordered the Lizardmen to form a Shield Wall with great shields while the Blue Lizard Spearmen attacked from behind it.
• The Raptor Cavalry activated Boiling Blood and fought the Giant Rat Knights to the death after discovering that they also exploded when killed.
• Soros sent a signal for a Wyvern Rider to probe Jikum, but Claw’s Ratmen sword-and-shield squad blocked the short spear.
• Soros ordered the Wyvern Riders to gather and attack Jikum.

The Wyvern Riders’ attack on Jikum’s formation was thwarted by a Peeler ambush, while Soros realized the Ratmen slave soldiers exploded even when left alone. Li Ce’s troops retook and secured the fortress gate, and the news left Jikum collapsing inside his formation.

• The Wyvern Riders threw short spears at Ratmen soldiers, then three riders dove toward Jikum’s protected formation while the others provided cover.
• Peelers ambushed the diving wyverns and exploded in midair, badly injuring them and forcing the Wyvern Riders to retreat.
• Soros saw a Ratman slave soldier explode without being killed and warned Li Ce not to attack the Ratmen because they would explode on their own.
• Li Ce ordered the Spear Formation to push the Rat Tide out of the gate passage, then had his soldiers raise the collapsed gate and brace it with supports.
• As Ratmen continued exploding outside the secured gate, Jikum heard the news, shuddered, and collapsed.

After Jikum died and the Ratmen's ritual ended, the damaged fortress gate was close to collapse. Li Ce ordered the Lizardmen to bring it down on the Rat Tide, opening the way for Zhou Chongshan and Tash to lead cavalry into battle as dawn broke.

• Jikum's blood ran out, ending the ritual, and the Ratmen skinners confirmed that he was dead.
• Li Ce's soldiers killed a Ratman Slave Soldier trying to crawl through the corroded gate, while the Rat Demon battered it with a ram.
• Li Ce ordered his soldiers to push the gate outward, crushing Ratmen and the Rat Demon beneath it, then had the Three-bow Ballista fire into the Rat Tide.
• Zhou Chongshan led three hundred Iron Hooves out of the fortress, while Tash led the Raptor Cavalry and military Giant Lizards into battle as dawn broke.
• Tash drove the Raptor Cavalry against the Rat Tide to protect the Giant Lizards, while Zhou Chongshan led the Iron Hooves toward the Ratmen regular army.

Zhou Chongshan and Tash coordinated their cavalry against the Rat Tide while Li Ce organized the fortress forces into a renewed assault. The battle reached a decisive clash as Li Ce sent out the Shield Dragons and used True Words to summon Skeleton Soldiers.

• Zhou Chongshan led the Great Zhou Iron Cavalry through the Rat Tide, fought off Giant Rat Knights and Skinflayers, then withdrew when the cavalry began tiring.
• Tash brought the Raptor Cavalry to join Zhou Chongshan, and the two forces charged together before returning to the fortress at Li Ce's signal.
• Li Ce held the Blue Lizard Spearmen at the gate until the cavalry returned, then sent the Spear Formation forward with the cavalry guarding its flanks.
• Razorclaw ordered the Giant Rat Knights to press the attack as the Rat Tide and Ratmen regular army clashed with the fortress forces.
• Li Ce sent six Shield Dragons into the Rat Tide to draw enemies away from his troops, then ordered the Spear Formation to attack and used True Words to activate Skeleton Soldier Control.

Zhou Chongshan and the defenders defeated the Rat Tide at the frontier fortress, though Claw’s body was not found and their own casualties were severe. Meanwhile, Zhou Xu witnessed the Old and New Continents merge into one World Shard without incident.

• Zhou Chongshan killed the last Ratman in sight and surveyed the battlefield’s heavy losses.
• Li Ce and the others confirmed that Claw’s corpse was missing and decided to report the battle to the Great King.
• Zhou Xu ordered the troop garrison camp and nearby personnel to withdraw before the World Shards merged.
• Three days later, Zhou Xu watched an aurora appear as land filled the gap between the Old and New Continents.
• Zhou Xu saw the two World Shards join together without causing tremors.

After the World Shards merged, Zhou Xu discovered that an unfamiliar stretch of land had appeared between the two regions, possibly serving as a climate buffer. He inspected Great Zhou’s newly unified territory and Wild Horse City, but the chapter ended when a Wyvern Rider brought him urgent intelligence from the southern front.

• Zhou Xu rode toward the grassland garrison camp and realized that the distance had grown far beyond what it should have been.
• Zhou Xu questioned patrol soldiers, who confirmed that an unfamiliar stretch of land had appeared after the World Shards merged.
• Zhou Xu speculated that the new land might restore terrain lost when the world shattered or help buffer the two regions’ different climates.
• Zhou Xu returned through the grassland territory and inspected Wild Horse City, where the centaur population had grown.
• A Wyvern Rider from the southern border fortress delivered the latest frontline intelligence to Zhou Xu.

After learning that the victory over the Ratmen had cost Great Zhou many soldiers, Zhou Xu decided to launch an offensive and ordered reinforcements to the southern border. At the fortress, Li Ce announced the rewards, and Zhou Chongshan’s surviving troops became the Assault Camp, swearing they were willing to die for the king.

• Zhou Xu reviewed the battle report and learned that the Ratmen had been nearly wiped out, but Great Zhou had suffered heavy casualties, including the loss of three hundred Raptor Cavalry and most of Zhou Chongshan’s iron riders.
• Zhou Xu decided to attack the Ratmen while they were weakened, ordered a thousand Lizardmen trainees and supplies to the southern border, and sent Li Ce his decision.
• Li Ce gathered the officers and announced that the king had ordered an offensive and granted rewards to the troops, including the honorary title Great Zhou Warrior for the fallen Raptor Cavalry.
• Li Ce summoned Zhou Chongshan’s soldiers and announced that Great Zhou’s First Unit would be renamed the Assault Camp.
• Zhou Chongshan and his soldiers knelt before the words “The Vow of the Vanguard: Death, Never Retreat!” and swore that the Assault Camp was willing to die for the king.