Chapter Summaries

Lu Yuan learned from Agnes that he could resonate with copper Inscription artifacts and that she wanted to enter the Sea of Knowledge. During the fourth night, the North Spinning District faced no Ghoul attack while the inner city endured a major outbreak and damage to its water network.

• Agnes examined Lu Yuan, warned that Copper Resonance could erode his sanity, and said training might let him reach the Fifth Order.
• Agnes confirmed that Lu Yuan carried the aura of the Sea of Knowledge, asked about entering it, and offered to help him join the Church while withholding the matter from her report.
• Lu Yuan noticed that the defensive runes were weakening and that only one nun remained at the North Spinning District position, but no Ghouls emerged from the cave that night.
• Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers saw Holy Light and explosions over the inner city, where Glock identified the battle as the Church activating the Holy Light Array at Old Council Square.
• Glock received a report that the inner-city Collapse Point had produced over ten times the North Spinning District's peak Ghoul numbers, including giant individuals, while a logistics messenger reported that Ghouls had severed the waterworks' Copper Pipe main line.

After the Inner City came under attack, Lu Yuan learned that the Ghouls had abandoned North Spinning District to target the Copper Pillars and that Laurina was being transferred to Headquarters. With the Branch reassigning six Night Watchers and supplies running low, Lu Yuan reorganized the defenses and sent Laurina a request for potions and intelligence.

• Lu Yuan read Laurina’s letters and concluded that the Ghouls had shifted from North Spinning District toward the Inner City and the Copper Pillars.
• Lu Yuan asked Bolen to repair the surface Ground Conduction Structure, while Glock refused to let him descend into The Abyss.
• A Branch officer ordered six of Glock’s Night Watchers reassigned to defend Old Council Square and delivered supplies, but no Potions.
• Lu Yuan counted the remaining ammunition and personnel, then narrowed the defensive line to the entrance and east side.
• Lu Yuan wrote Laurina requesting Eeriebane Potion or other destructive potions and intelligence, and asked the officer to deliver the letter.

Lu Yuan and Bolen discovered that someone had tampered with the Conduction Network and that its pipes were corroding from within, so Bolen repaired three damaged sections. That night, gray-green light flowed backward through the network from underground, and Bolen warned that the pollution could spread to the surface.

• Bolen found disturbed soil beneath three Copper Plates and discovered severe corrosion along the inner walls of the Conduction Network's pipes.
• Bolen repaired three breaks in the network while Lu Yuan observed and gained basic Inscription Studies knowledge.
• Lu Yuan told Glock about the tampering and internal corrosion, and Glock ordered an investigation while keeping the matter confidential.
• On the fifth night, Bolen detected gray-green Inscription light flowing from underground toward the surface through the repaired network.
• Bolen warned Lu Yuan that the reverse flow could spread underground pollution through the pipes and contaminate the uninscribed ground.

Lu Yuan and Bolen discovered that the pollution flowing through a modified Copper Pipe was unnaturally stable and traced it toward the Bronze City's underground Pipe Network. They led a small team below the city, where they found a dark passage with smashed lamps and old blood, and the chapter ended as Lu Yuan ordered them forward.

• Bolen concluded that someone had replaced part of the original Copper Pipe and that it led to an underground pollution source rather than directly to The Abyss.
• Lu Yuan agreed to investigate the Pipe Network with Bolen, Boer, Kael, and two veteran Night Watchers.
• The team opened a fungus-covered access hatch and descended into the damp, dark underground passage.
• Bolen checked the copper framework while Boer noted that the Pipe Network had once been maintained and lit.
• Lu Yuan spotted smashed lamp fixtures and a trail of dried blood, then ordered the team to move.

Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers crossed the contaminated Pipe Network, avoiding several kinds of Aberrants before encountering a pack of human-faced creatures alongside two Great Ghouls. The chapter ended with Lu Yuan realizing the creatures were intelligent and appeared to be accompanying the Great Ghouls like pets.

• Lu Yuan led the group past four light-fearing Aberrants clinging to the passage walls.
• Lu Yuan pulled a young Night Watcher away from a Wall-Born Aberrant that reached out from the bricks, then guided everyone through without touching the walls.
• Lu Yuan spotted eye-tipped vines watching from a side passage and silently directed the group along the main passage.
• Lu Yuan shot a human-faced, quadrupedal Aberrant, whose cries summoned more creatures from the darkness.
• Lu Yuan ordered the group to target the Aberrants' necks, and Boer spread burning oil across the floor to reveal three more Aberrants and two Great Ghouls.
• Lu Yuan realized the human-faced Aberrants were lingering beside the Great Ghouls like pets and had intelligence.

Lu Yuan used Time Bestower to kill the Face Hounds and cripple two intelligent Great Ghouls, then ordered the group to capture them alive for study. After detecting a large number of approaching Sources of Pollution, the group fled through the Pipe Network, where the Living Wall attacked them.

• Lu Yuan recognized that the Great Ghouls were intelligent and had been using their secretions to catalyze a person into a Face Hound.
• Lu Yuan activated Time Bestower, killed the three remaining Face Hounds, and crippled both Great Ghouls with Boer's Copper Sword.
• Lu Yuan told the group to bind the Great Ghouls alive, and his dissection revealed grayish-green filaments in their severed limbs.
• Environmental Perception warned Lu Yuan that many Sources of Pollution were approaching, so he ordered the group to retreat with the captives.
• The group ran through the Living Wall area, where the wall-dwellers grabbed at them until Lu Yuan shot one arm off the young Night Watcher.

Lu Yuan and his companions escaped the Pipe Network with two living Great Ghouls, while Glock reported evidence of deliberate pipe contamination to Klaus. Laurina’s final letter revealed that the Tower of Erudition had sealed itself and pointed Lu Yuan toward a hidden item in the Third Tower laboratory; as the seventh night began, he prepared to dissect the captives and investigate the Tower.

• Lu Yuan used Mithril alchemical flame to burn back pursuing vines, Face Hounds, and Crawlers, then led the group out of the Pipe Network with two captured Great Ghouls.
• Lu Yuan ordered Boer to secure the Great Ghoul torsos behind the Alchemy Workshop so he could dissect them and examine their brains.
• Glock told Klaus that the Copper Plates had been tampered with and that source contamination had flowed through the pipes; Klaus ordered him to return and report any similar findings directly.
• Lu Yuan told Glock that the Pipe Network Great Ghouls deliberately created hunting dogs and coordinated with Face Hounds, then revealed that he had captured two alive.
• Lu Yuan read Laurina’s letter, which reported unusual alchemical material transfers and the Tower of Erudition’s lockdown, and urged him to retrieve something from the Third Tower laboratory.
• As the seventh night began, Lu Yuan resolved to dissect the Great Ghouls the next day and consider what to do about the Tower of Erudition.

Lu Yuan dissected a Pipe Network Ghoul and found living gray-green fungal hyphae that had built a parasitic mucus-producing organ inside it. Bolen confirmed that the organ's pulse matched the Conduction Network's backflow, linking the Ghoul infestation to the spreading contamination.

• Lu Yuan noticed scraping beneath the shaft cover and gray-green matter corroding the Copper Powder, so he told Boer to add another guard and replace the powder every two hours.
• Bolen told Lu Yuan that the Pipe Network Great Ghouls had acted intelligently and volunteered to examine them for clues about the backflow.
• Lu Yuan began dissecting the smaller Great Ghoul while Bolen and Kael assisted, and he found living gray-green fungal hyphae woven through its muscle.
• Lu Yuan placed a hypha in a container, where it invaded and transformed Ghoul muscle tissue; his analysis identified it as an unknown fungal species.
• Lu Yuan found a parasitic cyst built into the Ghoul's palm, with an inner wall rooted through by the same hyphae.
• Bolen compared the cyst with a corroded Copper Pipe fragment and found that their pulses matched the Conduction Network's backflow.

Lu Yuan discovered that gray-green fungal hyphae replaced the Ghouls’ brains and controlled their bodies, raising the threat that they could spread into The Abyss. He prepared the outpost for a possible incursion and went to the Inner City to deliver his findings and seek supplies, but support and Mithril remained uncertain.

• Lu Yuan opened a Ghoul’s skull and found living fungal hyphae woven through its body, with a crystalline growth replacing its brain.
• Lu Yuan concluded that the hyphae controlled the Ghouls and warned Bolen that they might spread from the Pipe Network into The Abyss.
• Bolen offered to inscribe a seal on the Copper framework, while Glock agreed to seek Mithril and Exorcism grenades and reported that the Branch was monitoring officials using old drainage facilities.
• Lu Yuan increased inspections of the vertical shaft, recorded the autopsy findings, checked the outpost’s limited weapons, and left Boer in charge of the defenses.
• Lu Yuan traveled to the Inner City, where he saw exhausted residents waiting for water and delivered the sealed fungal sample and report to a Branch clerk.
• Glock told Lu Yuan that Klaus would try to obtain Mithril, but the Inner City’s weapons were unavailable and its leaders were divided over the Tower of Erudition.

Lu Yuan discovered that Fungal Hyphae had spread from the Pipe Network to the surface and learned they were rapidly corroding the Copper Powder barriers and transmission channels. Agnes agreed to arrange his entry into the Tower of Erudition on Day Eleven, while the infection continued to advance.

• Lu Yuan visited the Church to ask for Agnes’s help, but she was away on a mission, so he left a message asking her to come to the North Spinning District Alchemy Workshop.
• Lu Yuan detected pollution in a building, found a person mutating from Fungal Hyphae in the basement, and killed it with a Silver-Plated Bullet.
• Lu Yuan and Bolen assessed the infection’s spread in both directions from the Water Collection Chamber, while Boer reported that the discoloration in the shaft had doubled since morning.
• On Day Nine, Bolen warned Lu Yuan that the transmission channel was corroding twice as fast, and Lu Yuan found that several Copper Powder Rings were increasingly covered by Fungal Hyphae.
• Agnes examined the Fungal Hyphae, agreed to arrange Lu Yuan’s entry into the Tower of Erudition on Day Eleven, and told him to wear the Church’s inner robes and follow the other visitors.

Lu Yuan investigated the spreading Fungal Hyphae in North Spinning District as the Pipe Network failed and the contamination broke out through an old drain outlet. With reinforcements and renewed control of the infrastructure in place, he planned a mission to seal the Water Collection Chamber before dawn.

• Bolen discovered that contamination had corroded a transmission pipe, and Lu Yuan ordered the damaged section cut out and sealed.
• Lu Yuan found that the Fungal Hyphae had gone quiet around the drain covers, then learned that they had escaped through an old outlet near the Old Textile Workshop.
• Lu Yuan ordered the outbreak burned and contained with Copper Powder, which slowed the Fungal Hyphae but did not destroy them.
• Glock arrived with reinforcements from the Holy Armor Army and the Iron Guard Battalion, along with weapons and supplies.
• Lu Yuan learned that Klaus had regained control of the Outer City's infrastructure after Baron Von Klein and three City Hall officials died, and that the Tower of Erudition had softened its stance.
• Lu Yuan, Glock, Heinrich, Wolf, and Bolen planned an operation to seal the Water Collection Chamber before dawn.

Lu Yuan led a thirty-five-person force into the Pipe Network Layer to confront the spreading Fungal Hyphae. The Iron Guard Battalion’s Furnace Fire cleared a path through the growth and the Living Wall Area, but parasitized Crawlers followed them overhead, showing signs of adaptation.

• Lu Yuan divided the ammunition and supplies among the forces, and everyone rested before the operation.
• At three in the morning, Wolf led the assembled team down the shaft, where Lu Yuan found gray-green growth covering every rung.
• The team entered the Pipe Network Layer and found the floor, walls, and ceiling covered in living Fungal Hyphae that reacted to their movements.
• Wolf’s Iron Guard Battalion used Furnace Fire to carbonize the growth and clear a route through the passage and Living Wall Area.
• The team passed through the Living Wall Area, where fungal tissue replaced the insides of the embedded beings and Furnace Fire permanently killed it.
• Lu Yuan warned the team about the Crawlers, but they saw that the parasitized creatures resisted light and followed overhead; Wolf proposed attacking them.

Lu Yuan and the others reached the Water Collection Chamber and found a pulsing Fungal Hyphae sub-core spreading through the Copper Pipe Network. Their assault burned away much of the growth, but the wounded core released a powerful pollution that overwhelmed nearby soldiers, and Lu Yuan knocked four of them unconscious before they could touch the fruit.

• The group passed the Crawlers and found the walls increasingly covered in living Fungal Hyphae that Bolen identified as a conductive network imitating Copper pipes.
• At the Water Collection Chamber, Lu Yuan saw a two-meter pulsing sphere surrounded by vines and Fungal Hyphae, and Bolen recognized it as the source of the rhythm.
• Lu Yuan ordered the group to burn the vines, the sphere, and the passage; Mithril flames stripped away the vines while Wolf's Iron Guard Battalion cleared the Copper framework.
• Wolf stabbed the sphere, which released pale blue gas and caused flowers and gray-green fruit to erupt from the remaining vines.
• The overwhelming sweetness impaired Wolf and four nearby soldiers; one Holy Armor Army soldier touched a fruit and began showing signs of infection.
• Lu Yuan activated Time Bestower and knocked the infected soldier, the other Holy Armor Army soldier, and two Iron Guard Battalion soldiers unconscious before they could reach the fruit.

Lu Yuan and the others destroyed the secondary core in the Water Collection Chamber and prepared to hold the passages while Bolen carved the copper framework. As parasitized Ghouls attacked, the defenders held the main passage and the Furnace of Purity Slag ignited the fungal hyphae of those approaching from the flank.

• Lu Yuan pulled Wolf away from the tempting fruit, collected samples, and ordered everyone back as the fruit’s spores infected several soldiers.
• Boer burned the flowers and fruit with Mithril while Wolf and the Iron Guard Battalion used Pure Fire to clear the lingering scent and contamination.
• Lu Yuan burned the weakened sphere, destroying the secondary core, and discovered a pulsing main vine trunk leading into the right passage.
• Bolen began carving the copper framework as the Holy Armor Army guarded the right passage and Wolf’s soldiers laid Furnace of Purity Slag across the other routes.
• Parasitized Ghouls charged from the right passage, and Heinrich’s seven-man formation held them back while flankers stepping on the slag began burning from within.

Lu Yuan’s group sealed one passage with Bolen’s Inscription, then discovered the vine’s new flower bud could unleash a Sanity attack when they planned to pursue its main core. With the team weakened, Lu Yuan realized the vines were vulnerable before they recovered and decided to strike the sub-core.

• Heinrich and Wolf killed the Great Ghouls while the defenders used the passage and burning slag to control the attack.
• Bolen completed the Sealing Inscription on the Copper framework, blocking the right passage and driving back the Ghouls.
• Lu Yuan learned that the other entrances could not be sealed for long and proposed following the main vine to locate its core.
• A flower bud rapidly grew at the vine’s Root and released a Sanity shockwave that incapacitated or weakened everyone except Lu Yuan.
• Lu Yuan recognized that the vine’s contamination was fading and concluded they could damage the sub-core before it recovered, preventing new nodes from growing for months.

Lu Yuan entered the vine-filled tunnel alone to investigate the source of the pollution and attack it with Exorcism Grenades. He used Time Bestower to evade the living walls, but the tunnel’s surging vines overwhelmed his dwindling furnace fire.

• Lu Yuan gathered supplies, received Wolf’s furnace fire on his copper sword, and told Boer to prepare the others to retreat if needed.
• Lu Yuan passed through the inscribed entrance and activated Time Bestower as he moved deeper into the tunnel.
• Lu Yuan found the main vine trunk and crossed the fungal hyphae while avoiding its branches.
• The tunnel walls surged toward Lu Yuan from every direction, and he cut through the vines with the furnace-lit sword.
• Lu Yuan realized the vine wave was thicker than he could clear and that the sword’s furnace fire was fading.

Lu Yuan blasted through the vine tide with a Complete Exorcism Grenade and pushed deeper into the Pipe Network Layer. He found hundreds of human and Eerie hosts feeding a vast fungal network, then reached its central Main Core, a pulsing sphere woven from stolen brain tissue.

• Lu Yuan detonated a Complete Exorcism Grenade, clearing more than twenty meters of vines and Fungal Hyphae from the tunnel.
• Lu Yuan drank a Sanity Potion, reactivated Time Bestower, and continued deeper into the Pipe Network Layer.
• Lu Yuan passed 127 human corpses whose brains were being drained by vines, then encountered parasitized Great Ghouls and an unknown Eerie entity.
• Lu Yuan reached a cavern where humans, Ghouls, Crawlers, and unknown Eerie entities hung from an enormous inverted tree of vines.
• Lu Yuan saw that the network's Main Core was a pulsing sphere containing brain tissue Fragments woven together into a malformed consciousness.

Lu Yuan discovered that a newly conscious organism was eroding Bronze City’s Copper Pillar seal and realized it was desperate to escape upward for more nutrients. He questioned it about its origins and promises, leaving their confrontation unresolved as it offered secrets in exchange for its life.

• Lu Yuan saw the organism’s roots replacing the Copper Pillar and learned that the pillar’s runes were burning the organism’s tissue.
• The organism noticed Lu Yuan and spoke through the hanging corpses, claiming he carried the aura of one of its kind.
• Lu Yuan watched the roots keep spreading as the organism promised to stop and offered him knowledge, wealth, and power.
• Lu Yuan questioned the organism, which said a Seed had entered through a crack long ago and waited until the Pipe Network changed and the Copper grew weaker.
• Lu Yuan pointed out that the organism had consumed its hosts and still needed more nutrients, so its promise not to spread upward was worthless.
• The organism asked what Lu Yuan wanted and offered secrets about Bronze City, the Pipe Network, and where the Copper Pillars led.

Lu Yuan destroyed the fungal hyphae core with Eeriebane Potion, Exorcism Grenades, Mithril, and Holy Light, then took a dangerous Consciousness Crystal from its remains. After he returned to the Water Collection Chamber, contamination surged through the passages and he led the group in a retreat.

• Lu Yuan used Time Bestower to cross the vines, corroded the sphere with Eeriebane Potion, and planted two Exorcism Grenades in its exposed core and main-vine junction.
• Lu Yuan used Mithril to burn the severed vines and roots, helping the Copper Pillar seal recover as the fungal hyphae consciousness broke apart.
• Lu Yuan gathered a pulsing Consciousness Crystal from the sphere’s remains before the Holy Light destroyed the cave’s tree, hosts, and other remnants.
• Lu Yuan escaped through the inscription curtain while the remaining fungal roots entered dormancy, and the crystal warned of faint activity and unknown effects.
• Lu Yuan rejoined Boer in the Water Collection Chamber as contamination surged, then ordered the group to retreat while the Inscription Blockade trembled behind them.

Lu Yuan escaped the collapsing Pipe Network after destroying the fungal hyphae core and warned Glock and Klaus that its roots had damaged a sealed Copper Pillar. As Klaus reviewed the evidence that Lu Yuan remained human, the Night Watchers’ assessment of him neared its conclusion.

• The fungal hyphae network collapsed after losing its core, and Wolf led the survivors up the shaft as the growth withered around them.
• Lu Yuan told Glock that he had destroyed the core but warned that it could revive and that its roots had darkened the runes on a Copper Pillar.
• Lu Yuan cleaned up at the Alchemy Workshop, received replacement clothing and Sanity-stabilizing potions from Boer, and spoke with Klaus through a Communication Crystal.
• Lu Yuan recounted the Vault Cavern and the conscious core to Klaus, confirming that some Copper Pillar runes had begun recovering.
• Klaus told Lu Yuan to rest, then asked Glock for his assessment of Lu Yuan and read reports confirming that Lu Yuan had passed the Night Watchers’ tests.