Recaps

Leike resisted the Person on the Wall’s attempt to exploit his childhood memories, but remained trapped on a Rock Platform in the Gray Mist. Lu Yuan entered Leike’s displaced consciousness with the Worm of Knowledge and called out to find him.

• The Person on the Wall showed Leike the childhood memory of his transformation and tried to twist his final wish, but Leike’s resolve held firm.
• Leike refused to submit to contamination, and the Person on the Wall withdrew into the Gray Mist, leaving him stranded.
• Lu Yuan carried the unconscious Leike away from the Copper Wall and found that an external force had drawn Leike’s consciousness elsewhere.
• The Worm of Knowledge formed a bridge to Leike’s consciousness and reassured Lu Yuan that the Key would let him return.
• Lu Yuan used the Worm of Knowledge to enter the Gray Mist, called for Leike, and saw something move below.

Lu Yuan entered the Gray Mist realm to reach Leike, but the Person on the Wall granted Leike the Right of Wish-Stating and sent him back to the Pipe Network. Leike found Lu Yuan’s consciousness still trapped, called Klaus for help, and the Person on the Wall appeared before Lu Yuan.

• Lu Yuan discovered that Time Bestower could not be used in the Gray Mist realm and that his connection to the Worm of Knowledge was faint.
• Leike heard Lu Yuan calling, tried to jump between Fragment Platforms, and was blocked by an invisible barrier.
• The Person on the Wall told Leike that his price had been paid and granted him the Right of Wish-Stating.
• Leike fell through the Gray Mist, glimpsed a deep Rift with carved steps and human figures, and then returned to the Pipe Network passage.
• Leike found Lu Yuan motionless with his consciousness elsewhere, contacted Klaus through a Communication Crystal, and asked him to come.
• The Gray Mist parted before Lu Yuan, and the gigantic face of the Person on the Wall appeared at eye level.

Lu Yuan encountered the Person on the Wall in the Gray Mist, learned it was bound by rules and expected him to seek it out, then returned to Leike. They discovered that details of the entity’s wishes could not be spoken aloud, and Leike warned that many people in Bronze City might have been drawn into its Stone Wall.

• Lu Yuan faced the Person on the Wall, which said it knew of the Key’s authority but could not touch something else on him or force him.
• The Person on the Wall said it was waiting for Lu Yuan to seek it out of his own accord, then vanished into the Gray Mist.
• Lu Yuan returned to his body and told Leike about the gigantic face and its apparent dealings with Grey Covenant believers.
• Lu Yuan and Leike found that attempts to describe the details of wishes made to the Person on the Wall were erased from their speech.
• Leike said he had seen many people on the Stone Wall’s steps, suggesting that people in Bronze City had been drawn into it, as Klaus approached.

Lu Yuan, Leike, and Klaus connected the Person on the Wall to the Grey Covenant and suspected the Tower of Erudition was its hidden contact point. As the Copper Wall’s deterioration threatened Bronze City, Lu Yuan concluded they needed to eliminate the Grey Covenant before descending into The Abyss.

• Klaus arrived with Glock and two Night Watchers, confirmed Lu Yuan and Leike were not contaminated, and heard their accounts of the Person on the Wall and the sealed information they could not reveal.
• Lu Yuan reasoned that the Grey Covenant’s two Third Orders had acted independently, possibly at the Person on the Wall’s prompting, and warned that reading its memories could let it locate someone.
• Klaus, Lu Yuan, and Leike independently identified the Tower of Erudition as a possible hidden contact point, but Klaus ordered them not to act on the unproven suspicion.
• Lu Yuan reported that the Copper Wall’s cracks and spreading inscriptions had worsened, and proposed that the Person on the Wall was trying to release the Root or that something in The Abyss was weakening the seal.
• Lu Yuan warned that a collapse of Bronze City’s defenses could bring the Ghouls back and urged the group to deal with the Grey Covenant before descending into The Abyss.

Klaus and Lu Yuan inspected the worsening Copper Wall and learned that the Bronze Pillars were rising faster, then returned to the Branch to plan a descent and deal with the Grey Covenant. The meeting revealed that the Grey Covenant might have as many as six Fourth Orders, while Margaret was also a Fourth Order who could be mobilized.

• Klaus and Lu Yuan approached the Copper Wall, where bulges, cracks, falling inscriptions, and a flickering gray light showed that the wall was worsening; Lu Yuan copied four groups of inscriptions for Bolen.
• At a Bronze Pillar monitoring point, a Night Watcher reported that the pillars were rising at increasing and uneven rates.
• Klaus convened the Branch's leaders and said they needed to handle the Grey Covenant before descending to investigate what lay below the Copper Wall.
• Lu Yuan listed the Grey Covenant's known Fourth Orders, and Leike reported encountering another powerful, unidentified Fourth Order in the Pipe Network.
• Klaus assessed the forces they could mobilize and called on Margaret, who agreed without hesitation, revealing that she was a Fourth Order.

Lu Yuan and Klaus planned an ambush against the Grey Covenant, seeking allies and preparing to exploit Jie and Nine’s injuries before the Copper Wall deteriorated further. Klaus then led Lu Yuan to meet the Guardian, whose presence weighed more heavily on the air as they climbed the Clock Tower.

• Klaus revealed that Margaret was a Fourth Order Transcendent and outlined potential support from the church, the Earl’s Mansion, the Guardian, and the Night Watchers.
• Lu Yuan proposed tracking Jie and Nine, separating them, and attacking while they were still injured; Klaus assigned preparations for the operation.
• Klaus warned Lu Yuan not to reveal the Tower of Erudition’s deduction, and Lu Yuan told him the Person on the Wall had said Lu Yuan would seek it out one day.
• Klaus explained that Bronze City’s inscriptions restrained both Eerie and Guardians, and said the Grey Covenant’s injuries gave the Night Watchers only a limited window to act.
• Klaus and Lu Yuan left the Branch and climbed toward the Guardian in the Clock Tower, where the air grew increasingly heavy.

Lu Yuan and Klaus gathered support from Guardian, the Church, and the Earl’s Mansion for a planned strike against the Grey Covenant. As their allies assembled at the Branch, Klaus explained that finding the Grey Covenant’s hideout would require using the Tracking Crystal only once they were ready to attack.

• Klaus reported the Grey Covenant’s strength and secured Guardian’s agreement to join the fight.
• Klaus sent Lu Yuan to ask the Church for help while he negotiated with the Earl’s Mansion.
• Agnes brought Lu Yuan to Archbishop Adrian, who agreed to support the operation.
• Lu Yuan and Adrian returned to the Branch, where the assembled allies prepared for the attack.
• Klaus explained that the Tracking Crystal could locate Jie and Nine, but activating it would alert them, so the group would rely on its passive signal before using it.

Klaus led a team to locate and surround the Grey Covenant’s hideout in the Inner City. Inside the workshop, the Covenant continued a ritual around an unhatched Seed, unaware that the Night Watchers had found them.

• Klaus outlined the assault plan, assigned the Church and Earl’s Mansion to support the operation, and said the Guardian could strike once as a final safeguard.
• Lu Yuan told Leike he suspected the Wooden Men were connected to the Person on the Wall and asked him to help obtain a sample during the mission.
• The team traveled through the Outer City, and Klaus activated the Tracking Crystal, which pointed to a sealed stone building near the Tower of Erudition.
• Inside the abandoned workshop, J, Jie, Nine, and Q guarded five wooden constructs and an unhatched Seed while they prepared a ritual.
• J questioned why the Seed had not reacted as the ritual’s pattern calibration neared completion, while Jie’s injuries continued to weaken her.

J and the injured Jie and Nine tried to escape their workshop after Klaus tracked them down, while Klaus’s forces surrounded the building. Adrian’s blessing blocked Bronze City’s Inscription and Jie’s mental attack, leaving J to assess their failed defenses and move.

• Green light appeared on Jie and Nine, revealing that Klaus had marked them, so J ordered a breakout and gathered the ritual materials.
• Klaus surrounded the workshop with Leike, Lu Yuan, Margaret, the Earl’s attendant, and two hooded figures, then Adrian blessed the group with golden light.
• Margaret revealed her power as an Eerie Transcendence contracted to a Deep Sea entity, while Klaus formed a Bone Sword from his Bone Ring.
• Jie activated Bronze City’s Inscription to suppress Klaus’s side, but Adrian’s blessing blocked the suppression.
• Jie unleashed a Mental Erosion Wave, but the blessing protected Lu Yuan, and J prepared to act after both of her opening moves failed.

Margaret and the Night Watchers’ group attacked J, Nine, Jie, and Q in the Workshop Ruins. As the battle spread across the insect-covered ground, Q was seized by a Pale Figure that resisted his corrosion, while a second Night Watcher prepared to strike.

• Margaret drained moisture from the area and forced J to abandon his ranged attack and charge at her in Black Armor Membrane.
• Klaus and Attendant attacked Nine, who blocked their strikes until Jie transformed and drew Attendant away from him.
• Two Hooded Night Watchers used Leike’s Insect Tide to circle behind J, but Q formed from black liquid and blocked their path.
• One Hooded Night Watcher released a Pale Figure from his chest, and it seized Q with claws that resisted corrosion and pinned his liquid core.
• The second Hooded Night Watcher transformed his arms into rows of blade-teeth and brought them down toward Q.

J and Margaret fought at close range as Margaret’s extraction began drawing blood from him, while Leike and Q tried to rescue one of the Wooden Men. One Wooden Man reached beyond the Insect Tide, but Q’s escape left him badly damaged and the others moved to stop him.

• Margaret drained moisture from J’s Black Armor Membrane, but the dehydration hardened its remains into a shell that let him contaminate her Water Membrane with concentrated paste.
• J and Margaret exchanged close-range blows until Margaret began extracting blood from inside J’s body, forcing him to retreat.
• Leike used the weakened black-water wrapping to send a Wooden Man through the Insect Tide toward the edge of the battlefield.
• Q burst free from the Two Hooded Figures and lashed the Insect Tide passage, interrupting the transfer after one Wooden Man had already reached beyond its outer edge.
• J resealed the wrapping while the Two Hooded Figures moved toward Q, preventing the remaining Wooden Men from being taken away.

Lu Yuan discovered that the Wooden Man was the transformed body of a man whose infection connected him to an immense world of trees, and he carried it toward the Guardian. A mysterious Tower of Erudition student caught up with Lu Yuan and revealed that he could counter Time Bestower.

• Lu Yuan inspected the Wooden Man and lost Sanity as he saw how a man drank dark green liquid, became lignified, and connected to an endless world of trees.
• Lu Yuan concluded that the Grey Covenant was using the infected to summon something from that world, then wrapped the Wooden Man in his coat and ran toward the Guardian.
• Inside the Workshop Ruins, J watched Margaret drain him while Q, Nine, and Jie were overwhelmed by their opponents.
• Lu Yuan used Time Bestower to accelerate away from an approaching presence, but Stasis failed when the pursuer interfered with it.
• A young Tower of Erudition student caught up to Lu Yuan and remarked on his ability to carry Time Bestower.

Lu Yuan was nearly attacked by K, but the Guardian intervened and overwhelmed him after discovering that Bronze City's Inscription had helped K resist the Guardian's domain. Just as the Guardian was about to kill K, a beam from the Sea of Knowledge took K away.

• K reached for Lu Yuan and the Wooden Man, but an eyeball from the Guardian's aura appeared behind Lu Yuan and stopped him.
• The Guardian froze the battlefield, seized K's wrist, and disintegrated his body, but K reformed several meters away with Bronze City's Inscription helping him escape the domain.
• The Guardian confronted K about borrowing the power of Bronze City's Inscription and then immobilized him completely with his pitch-black aura.
• A beam of light from the Sea of Knowledge struck K and made his body, aura, and presence vanish from the Guardian's grasp.
• The Guardian watched the light fade toward the Tower of Erudition and said that it had gotten involved.

After the battle at the Workshop Ruins, Arthur Heinz faced Klaus over his secret cooperation with the Person on the Wall. Klaus heard Arthur's reasons for the Fishing Plan and ordered an investigation while preparing for a dive into the Sea of Knowledge.

• The Guardian withdrew his domain, and the Insect Tide contracted to reveal Klaus's defeated opponents, including Nine, J, and Q.
• The attendant killed Jie, while Klaus signaled Margaret and the Two Hooded Figures to spare their remaining captives.
• Adrian watched the Seed and warned that The Center's old fossils would find it interesting before Arthur Heinz arrived with Vice Dean Kame.
• Klaus confronted Arthur Heinz about cooperating with the Person on the Wall, and Kame defended the plan before Klaus struck him aside.
• Arthur explained that the Fishing Plan was intended to obtain a means of reinforcing the breached northeastern border, where Eerie things had overwhelmed Withered City.
• Klaus put away his Bone Sword, ordered an investigation, and told Arthur to gather people for a dive the next morning.

After the battle, Klaus kept the Grey Covenant captives alive because he suspected they were sacrifices in the Person on the Wall’s plan, then took Lu Yuan to show the Guardian the Wooden Man. The Guardian’s failing control over his Transcendence worsened as he examined it, and he reacted with alarm.

• Adrian placed a life-sustaining blessing on Nine, and Margaret imprisoned Nine, J, and Q in separate cells at the Branch.
• Klaus explained that he had kept the Grey Covenant members alive to avoid completing a possible sacrifice and to exchange them with the Empire, while Jie had been killed to deter others.
• Klaus told Lu Yuan that the Tower of Erudition had been under suspicion and that the Vice Dean would be interrogated over his dishonesty.
• Lu Yuan described his vision of a vast tree-filled world and an enormous presence, so Klaus took him to the Clock Tower to show the Wooden Man to the Guardian.
• The Guardian, leaking uncontrolled black aura, examined the Wooden Man and asked where it had come from.

Klaus reported the Wooden Men and Seeds to the Guardian, who took custody of them and warned that their creation needed to be investigated. Lu Yuan learned that the Guardian was losing control and found two dangerous, low-probability ways to help him before returning to the branch for the coming interrogation and dive.

• Klaus told the Guardian that five Wooden Men and their Seeds had been recovered, and the Guardian took one into his care.
• The Guardian warned Klaus to determine how the Wooden Men were made and how often the process succeeded.
• After Lu Yuan left, Klaus asked how long the Guardian could hold on, and the Guardian said he could last through the next dive, even if the Ghoul appeared.
• Lu Yuan used Deep Study and discovered that the Guardian was nearing a loss of control, with two possible plans carrying success rates below five percent.
• Klaus told Lu Yuan to attend the noon interrogation and prepare more items made with Eerie Inscriptions before the afternoon dive.
• Lu Yuan returned to his quarters, where the Worm of Knowledge crawled out of his left eye.

Lu Yuan and the Worm of Knowledge absorbed a Consciousness Crystal, then Lu Yuan prepared engraved Ghoul Brain Cores before joining Klaus to interrogate J and Q. Q disclosed details about the Wooden Men and warned Klaus away from the Copper Wall, but withheld why the Grey Covenant had come to Bronze City.

• The Worm of Knowledge absorbed the Consciousness Crystal and merged temporarily with the smaller bug, increasing Lu Yuan’s knowledge and sanity.
• After sleeping and recovering some sanity, Lu Yuan engraved more than a dozen Ghoul Brain Cores with help from the Worm of Knowledge.
• Lu Yuan followed Klaus to interrogate the shackled J and Q in the Branch’s underground room.
• Q explained that the green liquid could improve a person, cause them to turn to wood, or rarely transform them into a Wooden Man, and said K had the other Seed.
• Q refused to explain the Grey Covenant’s purpose in Bronze City, warned Klaus not to touch the Copper Wall, and Klaus and Lu Yuan left the room.
• Lu Yuan told Klaus that Q’s account of the Wooden Men was likely true but suspected Q was conveniently blaming K for the Seed.

Lu Yuan joined Leike’s interrogation of Kame, who admitted that he had intercepted Fragments from the Sea of Knowledge and handed them to the Grey Covenant after the Person on the Wall warned him of the leak. Kame offered the location of a Seed and a safer Harvesting method in exchange for being kept alive, then revealed that the Seed had already hatched and that the thing behind the Copper Wall might be close to escaping.

• Lu Yuan entered Kame’s cell as Leike questioned him about the severed limb and the Grey Covenant.
• Kame admitted that he had intercepted Fragments during the Sea of Knowledge leak and given them to the Grey Covenant, but said he could not name who arranged it.
• When Leike prepared to use a Swarm Insect, Kame offered to reveal a Seed’s location and a safer method of Harvesting the Sea of Knowledge in exchange for his life.
• Kame denied visiting the Pipe Network Layer but said the thing behind the Copper Wall was closer to escaping, citing increasingly regular tremors during each harvest.
• Kame told Lu Yuan and Leike that the Seed had hatched after he saw it at the top of the tower.

Lu Yuan and Leike learned from Kame that the Person on the Wall was incomplete and that the last Seed had hatched atop the Tower of Erudition. They joined Klaus and the gathered leaders for a meeting about the dive, which began with Klaus announcing a problem with the Bronze Pillar.

• Kame revealed that he had made a contract with the Person on the Wall and knew it was incomplete, but he could not disclose its true purpose or K's whereabouts.
• Leike and Lu Yuan reported Kame's claims to Klaus, including that the last Seed was atop the Tower of Erudition and that Kame had a more reliable Sea of Knowledge harvest plan.
• Klaus said the dive could not be delayed and summoned Lu Yuan and Leike to a meeting with the Ascension Society, the church, Earl Helmut, Arthur Heinz, and the Dean.
• Lu Yuan recognized the Dean, who had disappeared from the Tower of Erudition and now appeared greatly weakened.
• Klaus began the meeting by saying the Bronze Pillar had developed a problem connected to the previous Ghoul incident.

Klaus warned that the Copper Pillars were rising faster and said the group needed to descend beneath Bronze City to investigate the Abyss. Arthur revealed the Empire’s Sea of Knowledge harvesting plan and its connection to a Taboo Entity, while Adrian disclosed that a thousand years earlier a terrible Curse and war had devastated the region where Bronze City now stood.

• Klaus reported that the Copper Pillars’ emergence was accelerating and said the descent had to happen ahead of schedule to investigate the Abyss and prepare for the next Ghouls.
• Klaus said Jie had been killed, Nine, J, and Q had been detained, and K had escaped with help from an unknown force.
• Arthur explained that the Empire’s Fishing Plan used knowledge derived from a Taboo Entity’s head discovered during a North Sea expedition, and that harvesting in Bronze City had killed many Tower of Erudition students through Knowledge Erosion.
• Arthur said the Empire had pursued similar experiments elsewhere and insisted the underground expedition must resolve Bronze City’s problems and preserve stability.
• Adrian challenged Arthur over the lack of records about Bronze City and said church records described the region as a forbidden land where something fell a thousand years earlier, spreading a Curse and bringing the Eerie.
• Adrian recounted that an alliance of western cities and families, joined by the church, fought a devastating war in which Transcendence Path powerhouses, Inscriptionists, craftsmen, and nearby ordinary residents died.

Adrian, Arthur, and the Great Ascendant revealed what their factions knew about Bronze Sin, the head beneath Bronze City, and the Seeds. Klaus set the un-sprouted Seed aside until after the operation and disclosed that the final Seed had already sprouted atop the Tower of Erudition.

• Adrian described Bronze Sin as a vast inscription project built to suppress something beneath Bronze City and said the Church had come under the Angel's guidance.
• Arthur confirmed that Bronze Sin could restrain the head and explained that its inscriptions helped stabilize the Empire's Sea of Knowledge Fishing Channel.
• The Great Ascendant said the Ascension Society sought the Seed that had not sprouted and offered military support in exchange.
• The Earl called for stability in Bronze City, and Klaus said the un-sprouted Seed would remain with the Night Watchers until the operation ended.
• Klaus told Arthur that Kame had seen the final Seed atop the Tower of Erudition and that it had already sprouted.

Klaus, Arthur, and the others went to the sealed Tower of Erudition after learning that a Seed had sprouted within its grounds. At the Main Tower’s Bronze Gate, Lu Yuan identified the presence of the Person on the Wall and questioned whether it could pull them into its space; Arthur denied that it could, but Lu Yuan remained wary as the gate began to open.

• The Great Ascendant confirmed that a Seed had sprouted somewhere within the Tower of Erudition, and Klaus proposed investigating it.
• Lu Yuan and the others traveled by carriage to the sealed Tower of Erudition, with the Great Ascendant keeping pace alongside them.
• At the Main Tower’s Bronze Gate, Lu Yuan’s Gray-White Text identified the Person on the Wall in an incomplete form, and he realized its will had been watching him.
• Lu Yuan warned that the Person on the Wall might pull the group into its space, so Arthur explained its known methods of contact and argued it could not act without a suitable medium.
• Lu Yuan doubted Arthur’s explanation because Leike had been pulled in through a broken memory fragment, but he stayed silent as Arthur activated the Bronze Gate.

Lu Yuan and the others reached the top of the Tower of Erudition and found a sprouted Seed feeding on the Person on the Wall’s remains. The Seed infected the Great Ascendant’s arm, which he severed before it was consumed.

• Klaus told Lu Yuan that the Night Watcher and the Earl’s Mansion had arranged contingencies, with Hilde Winter and three Fourth Orders stationed in the Pipe Network Layer.
• The group climbed to the tower’s summit, where Arthur showed them the Skull and searched for the hidden Seed.
• The Great Ascendant found a black Seed beneath the Skull, and Lu Yuan’s Gray-White Text identified it as an Unknown Midst that had absorbed The Defeated.
• Lu Yuan warned the others to retreat, but roots from the Seed pierced the Great Ascendant’s metal arm.
• The Great Ascendant detached and threw away the infected arm, which black roots rapidly dismantled into writhing debris.

Person on the Wall’s Seed parasitized Skull and unleashed a black light that froze everyone in the Main Tower except Lu Yuan. Lu Yuan carried the others to the sealed entrance, then returned upstairs, where Great Ascendant remained standing and asked whether he had been affected.

• The Seed’s roots spread from Great Ascendant’s severed arm into Skull, bringing Person on the Wall’s remains to life.
• Person on the Wall unleashed black light that incapacitated everyone in the tower except Lu Yuan.
• Lu Yuan tried to escape with Klaus, The Earl, and the Attendant, but an invisible barrier sealed the Main Tower.
• Lu Yuan told Glock to find Leike and Guardian, then carried Adrian, Agnes, Arthur, and the Dean down to the bottom floor.
• Lu Yuan returned to the tower-top space, where Great Ascendant stood near Skull and asked if Lu Yuan had been affected.

The Great Ascendant revealed that he and A.M. had planned to imprison the Person on the Wall, though Lu Yuan realized the plan violated the Forbidden Society’s oath. To stop him, Lu Yuan summoned the true Person on the Wall and was pulled into the Gray Mist.

• The Great Ascendant confirmed that A.M. had chosen Lu Yuan and disclosed the name of their organization, the Forbidden Society.
• The Great Ascendant admitted that he and A.M. had planned to imprison the Person on the Wall, but Lu Yuan concluded that the Great Ascendant was using the society’s name for his own scheme.
• Lu Yuan realized he could awaken the suppressed Person on the Wall by calling its name and decided to risk being pulled in to stop the Great Ascendant.
• As the Great Ascendant reached for Skull, Lu Yuan called the Person on the Wall twice, causing silver-white light and cracks to spread across its bones.
• The true Person on the Wall spoke, freezing the Great Ascendant and sending black roots through his metal frame before Gray Mist swept the tower away.
• Lu Yuan found himself standing on a large Rock Platform amid the Gray Mist, near the highest of several floating platforms.