Chapter Summaries

At Anvil, Benjamin trained Jack in runes while managing the base and investigating the growing threat from invading species. After defeating an Avian-kin group, Benjamin learned that both the Avian-kin and Insect-kin were hunting humans, leaving him concerned that several civilizations were escalating their plans.

• Benjamin strengthened Jack's body and taught him rune theory while overseeing Anvil's defenses and operations.
• Benjamin learned from the base's intelligence reports that powerful, numerous Insect-kin with a collective consciousness had defeated the base's former defenders.
• Benjamin flew north and killed most of a group of more than fifty Avian-kin approaching Anvil.
• Benjamin used Soul Search on the Avian-kin leader and learned that the Insect-kin were sacrificing humans to widen a Spatial Passage and might drain the plane's Plane Origin.
• Benjamin killed the Avian-kin leader and returned toward Anvil, resolving to seek more intelligence about the escalating invasions.

Benjamin rescued a group of refugees from the Insect-kin and discovered the invaders’ belief that the Jack Plane might provide a route to the Central World. The advanced civilizations had focused on the Jack Plane because its fragile spacetime laws could allow a passage to the center of the World Cluster.

• Benjamin killed the pursuing Insect-kin and rescued the fleeing refugees with help from nearly a hundred human fighters.
• Benjamin ordered his fighters to improve their flight training, then watched them treat and supply the survivors.
• Benjamin searched the slain insect leader’s memories and learned that the Insect-kin’s souls formed part of a collective consciousness.
• Benjamin discovered that the Jack Plane might contain a passage to the Central World, the unreachable center of the World Cluster.
• Benjamin learned that advanced civilizations had turned toward the Jack Plane because its evolving spacetime laws might make opening that passage possible.

Benjamin concluded that the Jack Plane’s weakened spacetime laws might allow a passage to the central world and resolved to strengthen his forces. After rescuing the surviving humans in the area, he warned Jack that their growing population made them a major resource and would bring danger.

• Benjamin suspected that the Spirit Race and Insect-kin’s movements were linked to the Jack Plane nearing another stage of evolution, and he decided to intensify Jack’s training while opening a spatial portal as soon as possible.
• Jack taught the refugees at Anvil Base, where they praised Benjamin’s support and the humane conditions provided under his Wizard Standard Prisoner-of-War Treaty.
• Jack reflected on Benjamin’s food-making Alchemy technique and decided to study harder until he could master it.
• Benjamin praised Jack’s progress in basic education, then told him that all surviving humans in the area had been rescued and warned that their community had become a valuable resource.

Six months after Anvil Base became the last human settlement in the northwest, Jack defended its eastern corridor against a coordinated assault by the Insect-kin, Dinosaur-kin, and newly allied Vine-kin. The enemy commanders ordered a renewed charge into the base, determined to uncover the secret the humans were protecting.

• An alarm sounded at Anvil Base, and its residents took their assigned defensive positions as Jack guarded the eastern corridor.
• Jack killed two invisible Insect-kin infiltrators, then fought coordinated groups of Dinosaur-kin attackers.
• A Vine-kin joined the assault and blasted Jack backward, while commanders from all three races arrived in the corridor.
• The Insect-kin and Dinosaur-kin began retreating after heavy losses, but a powerful energy blast struck the Vine-kin, which healed after shielding the passage.
• The enemy commanders concluded that the humans were deliberately prolonging the fighting to hide a dangerous secret inside the base.
• The Dinosaur-kin commander ordered the three races to charge deeper into Anvil Base and discover what the humans were doing.

Benjamin confronted three commanders from the Vine-kin, Dinosaur-kin, and Insect-kin after they broke through the base’s defenses. He defeated them, but the Insect-kin’s final threat and a shaking ground left the danger unresolved.

• The three commanders reached a sealed metal door and watched Benjamin emerge from behind it.
• Benjamin stopped the Dinosaur-kin’s blade with two fingers, broke it, pinned the Vine-kin’s vines, and threw the Insect-kin into the Dinosaur-kin.
• The commanders used substances that boosted their power at the cost of their bodies and charged Benjamin together.
• Benjamin’s Li-Fire Extinction Divine Light pierced the Vine-kin and Dinosaur-kin, then he killed the Insect-kin with a slap.
• The surviving Insect-kin head warned Benjamin that he could not hold the base, and Benjamin crushed its soul after searching it.
• The ground began to shake.

Benjamin held off the Spirit Race’s elite Level 6 attacker while recalculating Anvil Base’s teleportation array, enabling Jack to evacuate more than ten thousand survivors to the Backup Base. The Tentacle Mother destroyed Anvil Base, and its central eye searched the rubble for Benjamin.

• Benjamin identified the Spirit Race’s summoned attacker as an elite Level 6 threat and ordered Jack to lead everyone into the Underground Shelter.
• Benjamin stayed behind to recalculate the teleportation array while Jack guided the survivors to safety.
• Benjamin’s Protective Array briefly shielded Anvil Base as he separated the Tentacle Mother’s spatial disturbances from the array’s coordinates.
• After Jack signaled that everyone had entered the shelter, Benjamin corrected the coordinates and teleported more than ten thousand survivors to the Backup Base.
• The Tentacle Mother struck Benjamin and split Anvil Base apart, then searched the wreckage for him.

Benjamin defeated the Sacred Spirit’s attack with help from an ancient human defender nearing the end of his lifespan, then persuaded the old man to bring humanity into the Wizard Civilization. The wizards and their enormous Cannon Fodder Legion prepared to enter the human world.

• Benjamin fought the Sacred Spirit while defending himself with spells until the old man appeared and destroyed it and the surrounding aliens.
• Benjamin rebuilt his body, brought the old man to the backup base, and reassured Jack that the stranger had protected humanity.
• The old man saw the people living with hope and asked Benjamin to ensure humanity could continue living that way.
• Benjamin explained the Wizard Civilization’s terms, and the old man agreed to join it and help humanity join as well.
• Benjamin announced that the passage could now be opened as more than twenty High-Rank Wizards and hundreds of billions of Cannon Fodder Legion gathered at the Purgatory Sulfur Plane.
• Benjamin told the assembled wizards to get ready, and they released their auras.

The King of the Sacred Spirits mistook the Shadow Dragon Race for the leaders of a rival civilization, then fled when the creatures on the other side of the spatial rift seized his tentacles. With Karl’s power, Benjamin widened the passage for the Wizard Civilization, then accepted Karl into it and Jack as his apprentice.

• The King of the Sacred Spirits emerged above Anvil Base and headed toward the spatial rift over the Backup Base, where he mistook the Shadow Dragon Race for the masters of the monsters.
• The King of the Sacred Spirits attacked the cannon fodder, but when Benjamin forced the rift wider, creatures on the other side grabbed his tentacles and made him sever them to escape.
• Benjamin used Karl’s power to expand the spatial passage, allowing the Cannon Fodder Legion to enter the new world.
• Jack recognized Gavin’s remains, buried him, and accepted Benjamin as his teacher; Benjamin introduced him to Viola, Clark, and Castillo.
• Benjamin gave Karl a Longevity Elixir, and Karl agreed to join the Wizard Civilization.

Benjamin reorganized his legion, sent half its forces to help Karl rescue the world's humans, and traced the sealed Spirit Race passage to reconstruct it. The rift began to open again, and Benjamin ordered his forces to attack.

• Benjamin watched the other wizards depart and considered the danger posed by the powerful civilizations in the plane war.
• Benjamin ordered his legion to consolidate and sent half its forces to help Karl rescue the world's humans.
• Benjamin found that his true body faced less suppression because Karl's recognition had earned the wizards some acceptance from the plane's origin.
• Benjamin led his legion to the sealed passage used by the King of the Sacred Spirits and analyzed its lingering spatial traces to locate the Spirit Race's plane.
• Benjamin reconstructed the passage's spatial array, began reopening the rift, and ordered all forces to attack.

The Sacred Spirits planned to conquer the Stepping-Stone World’s resources before attacking the Central World, but Benjamin’s army invaded the world and annihilated its Bat People defenders. After discovering that the Spirit Race had enslaved the Bat People and locating its stronghold, Benjamin led his legions toward the Holy City.

• The Sacred Spirits mocked a one-tentacled king’s warning and ordered their forces to confront the invading army in the Stepping-Stone World.
• Benjamin led his army through the spatial passage and learned that the Spirit Race was using the world as a stepping stone to invade the Jack Plane.
• The Black Giant Legion and Dragonblood Mushroom Legion wiped out tens of millions of Bat People after the Black Giant Priest killed the first guards who attacked Benjamin.
• Benjamin scanned a surviving Bat Person and discovered that a biological tentacle had permanently controlled its nervous system.
• Benjamin extracted memories revealing the Holy City as the Spirit Race’s stronghold and ordered his legions to march there.

Benjamin’s army crossed the wasteland and reached the Holy City, destroying a fortress the Spirit Race had set up to test its strength. After entering the city through its purple mist, Benjamin confronted the gathered Kings of the Sacred Spirits.

• Benjamin led his army past Bat People cities, ordering it to advance quickly as the controlled inhabitants charged and died.
• Benjamin found a fortress guarded by Bat People and towering constructs, then erased it with a blast of colorless light.
• Bat People scouts fled to report the destruction to the Holy City.
• Benjamin used his True-Delusion Breaking Pupil to detect the purple mist’s trick and led his army through it into the Holy City.
• Benjamin saw the city’s central tentacled structure and more than a dozen Kings of the Sacred Spirits hovering above it, then taunted them.

Benjamin overcame the Kings of the Sacred Spirits’ perceptual distortion and defeated them, allowing his legion to overrun the Holy City. He let one injured King escape through a Spatial Passage, then sealed the passage after recording its coordinates and parameters.

• The leading King of the Sacred Spirits revealed its true form and used its power to distort the senses of Benjamin and his legion.
• Benjamin used the Return to Void Armor and True-Delusion Breaking Pupil to escape the perceptual field, explain how it worked, and dispel the purple mist.
• The Kings of the Sacred Spirits attacked Benjamin, but his armor repelled them and his Final Ray defeated them.
• Benjamin ordered his legion to eliminate resistance and collect spoils as the Black Giants and Dragonblood Mushroom Legion stormed the Holy City.
• A wounded King of the Sacred Spirits secretly escaped through a Spatial Passage, and Benjamin recorded its coordinates and sealed it against destruction.

After defeating the Spirit Race, Benjamin transformed its depleted plane into a grain of self-growing soil and returned to the Jack Plane. He then received an urgent message from Jack and teleported to help.

• Benjamin's forces captured or subdued the remaining Sacred Spirits and Bat People, and he judged the stripped plane to have little value left.
• Benjamin sent his army and its captives back to the Jack Plane, then flew beyond the plane barrier to cast Self-Growing Soil Creation.
• The spell compressed the dying plane into a grain of self-growing soil, which Benjamin sealed in adamantine.
• Benjamin returned to the Jack Plane and received Jack's message asking for help.
• Benjamin recalled his army into his Internal Grotto-Heaven and teleported to the coordinates Jack had sent.

Benjamin arrived at the battlefield where Karl faced more than a hundred Level 8 aliens gathered near ancient human ruins. After learning they sought something connected to the first mutations and the Central World, Benjamin rejected their offer of cooperation and declared that the Wizard Civilization would conquer them.

• Benjamin teleported to the battlefield and found Karl confronting over a hundred Level 8 aliens while Jack hid nearby.
• Jack told Benjamin that the aliens had attacked as he and Karl gathered surviving humans, and that the hostile species seemed wary of one another.
• Karl explained that the area contained ruins of humanity’s previous civilization and might be where the first mutations occurred, leading Benjamin to suspect it was close to the Central World.
• A fire elemental offered humanity protection and entry to the Central World in exchange for the location of its world, but Benjamin refused to cooperate.
• Benjamin summoned the Black Giant Legion and Dragonblood Mushroom Legion and declared that the Wizard Civilization had come to conquer the aliens and claim them as spoils.

Benjamin and the wizards crushed the Alliance of Seven Races, capturing its Level 8 forces and pursuing the survivors through their Spatial Passages. After the other Level 7 Wizards entered the passages to finish the fight, Benjamin turned with Karl and Jack to investigate the previous era’s human civilization ruins.

• Benjamin faced the Alliance of Seven Races, and Clark, Castillo, Wizard Augusta, and Viola emerged through a spatial rift to reinforce him.
• The wizards overwhelmed the alien forces, silencing the Insect Race and sealing several groups of Level 8 Lifeforms.
• When the aliens attacked and tried to flee, the wizards captured them, while Benjamin’s Black Giant Legion and Dragonblood Mushroom Legion rounded up the survivors.
• Wizard Augusta and the other Level 7 Wizards forced their way through the Spatial Passages to pursue the aliens, while Castillo thanked Benjamin and Viola returned home.
• Benjamin brought Karl and Jack to look for treasures left by the previous era’s human civilization.

Benjamin discovered that the stones in a ruin stayed unchanged and undetectable unless physically observed, then began excavating the Forbidden Zone to find more ruins. Five years later, Jack and Karl returned after gathering the humans and saw the Forbidden Zone transformed into a vast basin filled with exposed ruins.

• Benjamin followed Karl and Jack to a ruin that Karl said had already been thoroughly scavenged.
• Benjamin used his True-Delusion Breaking Pupil to discover that the ruin's stones remained unchanged while unobserved and escaped detection by scanning methods.
• Benjamin restored an observed wall with Void Ashes Return-to-Origin Hand and concluded that many undiscovered ruins might remain hidden.
• Benjamin ordered the ground excavated piece by piece, while Karl and Jack were assigned to gather the surviving humans on the Jack Plane.
• Five years later, Jack and Karl completed their mission, and Jack saw that the Forbidden Zone had become a several-thousand-meter-deep basin exposing countless ruins.

Jack joined Benjamin at the excavation site as the Core Ruins neared their final exploration. Inside the ruins’ transfer passage, Benjamin defeated a guardian curse and explained how wizards could destroy curses by breaking their elemental structure.

• Jack reported to Benjamin that everyone on the plane had been rescued, and Benjamin said the Core Ruins would be ready for a final exploration soon.
• Half a month later, Benjamin led Jack through the ruins’ Public Transfer Area and explained its material-resonance teleportation system.
• A black mist guardian appeared and attacked Benjamin, but its body resisted both magical and physical attacks.
• Benjamin identified the guardian as an amalgamation of curses that tried to invade his soul, then destroyed it by shattering its fundamental elemental structure.
• Benjamin explained to Jack that curses could be defeated by finding and breaking their elemental structure.

Benjamin and Jack explored the layered laboratories beneath the ruins, finding research on the Mushroom People before reaching the central laboratory, where extreme spatial pressure forced Benjamin to send Jack back. Benjamin discovered records of world nesting technology and concluded that its failure had likely triggered the upheaval in the plane.

• Benjamin and Jack passed through the laboratory layers, collecting research materials and finding extensive studies of the Mushroom People in the ninth layer.
• Benjamin sent Jack back after the central laboratory’s dense, pressurized space made both of their Return to Void Armors shake violently.
• Benjamin examined compressed objects and documents in the central laboratory and learned that the researchers had been studying technology to compress one plane into another.
• Benjamin found a log titled “Nesting Experiment Phase Seven” and suspected that the technology’s loss of control had caused the plane’s upheaval.

Benjamin surveyed the recovered research and world nesting technology before Viola warned him that a parasitic Insect-kin had stolen part of Karl’s control over the plane origin. Benjamin left the excavation site and headed to help Karl suppress the creature.

• Benjamin left Jack to help the Tentacle Tree researchers clear and study the ruins, then returned to his command post to review the recovered materials.
• Benjamin sorted the Mushroom People research, the Core Ruins materials, and the incomplete records on world nesting technology, storing the documents for later study.
• Viola contacted Benjamin and reported that Karl had discovered part of his control over the plane origin was missing.
• Viola explained that a parasitic insect creature was hiding across the plane and eroding its origin, making it difficult for Karl to track and suppress alone.
• Benjamin received the creature's coordinates from Viola, told Jack the situation, and vanished to help Karl.

Benjamin, Viola, and Augusta attacked the Parasitized Insect-kin’s immense swarm of Parasite Beasts to weaken its hold over the plane origin. They began clearing the hosts while Karl stayed behind to stabilize the origin, and Augusta battled a powerful Dinosaur-kin commander.

• Viola told Benjamin that the Parasitized Insect-kin had taken about a third of Karl’s control over the plane origin, leaving Karl to stabilize it while the others fought.
• Viola explained that reducing the number of parasite hosts would weaken the creature and allow Karl to suppress it and drive it from the plane origin.
• Benjamin, Viola, and Augusta reached a plain crowded with Parasite Beasts, Dinosaur-kin, and Avian-kin whose bodies were controlled by worms.
• Benjamin released the Black Giant Legion and Dragonblood Mushroom Legion, while Viola summoned her plant-folk and Augusta charged the swarm’s Dinosaur-kin commander.
• Augusta shattered the commander’s bone blade with a punch as Benjamin and Viola entered the battle and began killing hosts and removing their parasite worms.