Chapter Summaries

Lu Yuan broke through to Guard II, expanding his Sanity capacity and gaining inner vision that revealed the Worm of Knowledge, the Key to the Sea of Knowledge, and a dormant presence in his shadow. He was then summoned to an emergency meeting with the Night Watchers, where he met two transferred squad captains.

• Lu Yuan advanced to Guard II, raising his Sanity cap from 120 to 140 and gaining an active skill that traded cap for immediate Sanity recovery.
• Lu Yuan used his new inner vision to see the Worm of Knowledge and the Key to the Sea of Knowledge embedded in his left eye.
• Lu Yuan discovered a dormant Drowner in his shadow, a remnant of someone who had drowned in the Sea of Knowledge, and decided to monitor it.
• The Worm of Knowledge reacted comfortably to Lu Yuan's improved guard, but refused to taste it because it was still digesting knowledge aura.
• A Night Watcher summoned Lu Yuan to an emergency meeting called by Deputy Chief Klaus.
• Lu Yuan joined the meeting and met transferred squad captains Franz and Conrad.

The Night Watchers considered a Church proposal that revealed the Church knew about their Seed, while Hogger reported evidence tying inner-city figures to the Grey Covenant. The group voted to protect the Seed and keep its existence secret, then turned back to the inner-city investigation.

• The Church sent the Night Watchers a letter proposing cooperation on the Sea of Knowledge Fishing Project and offering to assess and safeguard ancient items, which Lu Yuan recognized as a demand concerning the Seed.
• Hogger reported that Baron Von Linde and two Merchants' Guild members had aided the Grey Covenant, and Klaus ordered them dealt with as Von Klein had been.
• Lu Yuan explained the Seed's history, its connection to Wish, and the danger and potential shown by the Seed that caused the Fungal Hyphae incident.
• Klaus argued that the Seed could not be destroyed by the Night Watchers, and Lu Yuan said its Wish likely came from Bronze City's residents longing for safety.
• The nine Night Watchers voted seven to protect the Seed, two to abstain, and none to abandon it; Klaus ordered everyone to keep it secret.
• Klaus declared the Seed matter settled and asked Hogger and Boer to report further on the inner city.

Klaus ordered simultaneous raids on three suspected Grey Covenant collaborators and reassigned Lu Yuan to search Baron Von Linde’s residence for traces others could not perceive. After preparing for the operation, Lu Yuan and Hogger’s team entered the Inner City at night, leaving the raid underway.

• Hogger and Boer identified Baron Von Linde and two Merchants' Guild members as suspected collaborators, and Klaus ordered all three locations raided simultaneously.
• Klaus assigned Lu Yuan to search Von Linde’s residence for Grey Covenant traces and warned him that someone might be watching him.
• Hogger briefed Lu Yuan, Franz, and Conrad on the residence, their entry routes, and their roles in the raid.
• Lu Yuan returned to his lodgings to prepare, then followed Hogger’s team through the North Gate after Glock’s signal activated.

Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers raided Baron Von Linde’s estate, where Lu Yuan found Glazed Water residue and a hidden plant-fiber fragment in the cellar. When the mutating Baron attacked the team, Lu Yuan’s fire weakened him and Hogger beheaded him, though the Baron’s head was still moving and repeating his desire for power.

• Hogger led Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers into Von Linde’s estate and sent Franz and Conrad to secure the sides.
• Lu Yuan searched the cellar, found crates with Glazed Water residue, detected an unfamiliar concealed presence, and recovered a wooden fragment identified as dead plant fiber.
• Lu Yuan rushed upstairs after a Night Watcher was injured and found Baron Von Linde transforming and fighting Hogger.
• The Baron’s mutation spread as he fought Hogger, and Franz’s musket shot failed to penetrate his wooden armor.
• Lu Yuan struck the Baron with an incendiary round, allowing Hogger to cut off his head, but the severed head continued moving and repeating that he wanted power.

After Baron Von Linde transformed into a rampaging tree-like Aberrant, Lu Yuan secretly sent the Worm of Knowledge to devour its core, causing the creature to wither. The Night Watchers suspected an unseen powerful killer, while Lu Yuan kept his role hidden as they began searching the ruined study for evidence of the Grey Covenant and the Tree.

• Von Linde's headless body erupted into branches and roots, destroying the study as Hogger, Franz, Lu Yuan, and the injured Night Watcher retreated.
• Conrad arrived from the backyard and reported that the private soldiers had been subdued while the group prepared to confront the Aberrant.
• Lu Yuan sensed the Worm of Knowledge's hunger, located the core in Von Linde's chest, and sent the Worm to devour it.
• Von Linde and the spreading branches withered, and the Worm returned to Lu Yuan after consuming the core and gaining knowledge.
• Hogger and Franz suspected that an unseen powerful figure had killed the Baron, but said nothing as Hogger confirmed the remains were dead.
• Hogger ordered Franz and Lu Yuan to search the wrecked study for evidence connected to the Grey Covenant or the Tree.

Hogger interrogated the Baron's household and executed the three people Eric identified as direct participants in the Grey Covenant's operations. The Night Watchers secured evidence of the Baron’s dealings and mutation, but left the mutation’s source unresolved as they reported back to Klaus.

• Lu Yuan and the others searched the manor, finding alias-based transaction receipts and plant fragments but little direct evidence of the Grey Covenant.
• Eric confessed to helping the Baron smuggle ore and manage Grey Covenant funds, and described monthly payments, a sealed box of dark-green liquid, and the Baron's claim about a tree awakening.
• Ludwig and Yorn confirmed their roles in the Baron's dealings, so Hogger executed Eric, Ludwig, and Yorn while ordering the other captives taken to the Branch for Klaus to judge.
• Hogger and his team arranged the manor to appear as though the Baron's mutation had killed its occupants, then sealed the remains and other evidence.
• Lu Yuan reported finding Glazed Water residue, wooden crates, and a dead plant fragment in the basement; Hogger concluded the Grey Covenant connection was proven but the group had not caused the Baron's mutation.

Lu Yuan and the others joined a meeting where the Earl confronted Bronze City's factions over noble crimes, the Tower of Erudition, and the Ascension Society and Church. After hearing evidence against the nobles, the Earl turned to question the Tower about an Imperial envoy.

• Lu Yuan, Hogger, and Conrad arrived at the Branch and found Klaus meeting with representatives of the Ascension Society, the Tower of Erudition, and the Earl.
• Klaus invited the returning Night Watchers to join, and Hogger presented the Notebook and evidence from the operation against Baron Von Linde.
• Klaus showed the Earl evidence of noble wrongdoing and Von Linde's uncontrolled mutation, and Hogger confirmed the evidence was conclusive.
• The Earl praised the Night Watchers' actions and quietly sent his attendant out with a Communication Crystal.
• The Earl asked Calvin and the female Mentor whether the Tower of Erudition had received an Imperial envoy, noting that the envoy's arrival had not followed local notification procedures.

At a meeting in Bronze City, The Earl confronted the Tower of Erudition over missing noble descendants while Klaus challenged the Ascension Society’s demands and heard the Church’s proposal. After The Earl left with the Ascension Society, Calvin outlined the revised Fishing Plan, scheduled for tomorrow night with all participants below Third Order.

• Calvin explained that the Tower of Erudition had followed orders from The Center and said the task was complete; The Earl demanded a full report on the missing noble descendants and accepted that willing participants would bear the consequences.
• The Ascension Society demanded an item Klaus possessed, while Agnes asked the Night Watchers to share what they had in exchange for compensation.
• Klaus rejected the Ascension Society’s demand for lack of evidence and told Agnes he would consider the Church’s proposal if its Bishop attended; The Earl adjourned the meeting and ordered the Ascension Society to follow him.
• After The Earl and the Ascension Society left, Klaus asked Calvin about the Fishing Plan, and Calvin distributed its blueprints to Klaus and Agnes.
• Calvin said the operation would take place tomorrow night and that participants had to be below Third Order, warning that stronger mental fluctuations could destabilize the passage to the Sea of Knowledge and attract things from its depths.

After the meeting, Klaus assigned Lu Yuan to lead a Night Watcher team guarding the entrance to the Sea of Knowledge retrieval operation at the Tower of Erudition. The next morning, Lu Yuan set out to check on the Seed and found that the lock on Room 7 had been replaced.

• Hogger reported that the Baron’s mutation had ended with his torso erupting into branches that withered, and Lu Yuan added that the Baron had received a dark green liquid from an unidentified person and spoken of “that Tree.”
• Klaus took the plant fiber fragment to investigate the Tree and ordered Lu Yuan to lead a team to the Tower of Erudition, where the Night Watchers would build a Sanity Barrier at the entrance.
• Agnes waited for Lu Yuan in the corridor and told him, “See you tomorrow night,” before he returned home and considered the factions’ shifting attitudes toward the Seed.
• Lu Yuan woke, cultivated Guard, and went to check on the Seed in Room 7.
• A Night Watcher told Lu Yuan that Klaus had authorized him to enter Room 7 and handed him a new key after he found the lock had been replaced.

Lu Yuan inspected the Seed, then discovered that repeated work on Ghoul Brain Cores had apparently made him resistant to their backlash. Klaus assigned him to lead a mission to the Tower of Erudition, where Calvin Morton and Selina Winter were waiting.

• Lu Yuan found the Seed transformed into a golden, warm presence, and the Worm of Knowledge rested in its aura before Gray-White Text identified it as Hope.
• Lu Yuan inscribed twelve Ghoul Brain Cores without losing sanity and suspected that he had developed resistance to the low-level material.
• Klaus briefed ten Night Watchers on the dangerous Tower of Erudition mission, distributed Sanity Rings, and named Lu Yuan their captain.
• Lu Yuan traveled with the Night Watchers to the Tower of Erudition while reviewing Klaus's positioning diagram and avoiding the River of Light overhead.
• Calvin Morton and Selina Winter met Lu Yuan's group at the tower entrance, and Calvin invited Lu Yuan to follow him.

Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers entered the underground hall beneath the Tower of Erudition to prepare a sanity barrier for the Sea of Knowledge harvesting operation. Lu Yuan discovered that the Tower planned to use living brains in insect-filled bodies as containers, then felt the Tower’s watching presence target him again as he wondered whether everyone else was already under its judgment.

• Calvin led Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers down a hidden passage and explained the three zones of the harvesting operation; Selina confirmed that anyone inside would be sealed in if the barrier failed.
• Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers reached the underground hall, where Calvin ordered them to take their positions and warned them not to enter the Sea of Knowledge or look inside during harvesting.
• Lu Yuan saw more than twenty Tower of Erudition students restrained beyond the inner barrier and used his Seeker senses to discover that insects had replaced their bodies while keeping their brains alive.
• A presence from the Tower of Erudition’s Main Tower noticed Lu Yuan, but Gray-White Text’s sanity assessment showed he was unaffected.
• Lu Yuan’s sanity fell to 63/140 as the oppressive presence persisted, and he wondered whether it had already judged everyone in the Tower of Erudition.

Lu Yuan and ten Night Watchers opened a Sanity Barrier before a Branch of the Sea of Knowledge while church personnel protected them with an Angel's Blessing. Twenty-three worm-transformed students entered the river and regained human form, leaving Lu Yuan to guard the gate with the Night Watchers.

• Lu Yuan realized that the twenty-three students had been turned into worm-filled vessels with the Empire's authorization, and his Worm of Knowledge recoiled from them.
• Lu Yuan and ten Night Watchers activated the array, pooled their sanity, and formed a barrier between reality and the Branch of the Sea of Knowledge.
• Church personnel activated their blessings, reducing the strain as the Sea of Knowledge surged and the Bronze City vanished from Lu Yuan's sight.
• More than twenty worm-covered figures approached the barrier, and Lu Yuan opened a gap so they could enter the Branch of the Sea of Knowledge.
• The students regained human form as they entered the river, and the final girl told Lu Yuan she did not regret contributing to the Empire before joining the others.
• Lu Yuan remained at the barrier with the ten Night Watchers, watching the students disappear into the Sea of Knowledge.

Calvin and Selina activated the Tower of Erudition’s harvest, sending the students’ gathered knowledge back through the River of Light. As Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers maintained a barrier against the returning fragments, one Night Watcher was contaminated, and the Worm of Knowledge awakened in Lu Yuan’s eye.

• Calvin and Selina used the Sarcophagus to activate the inscriptions and begin the harvest, while Kame watched the River of Light flow backward and hoped the process would succeed.
• Lu Yuan and the ten Night Watchers held the barrier as knowledge fragments streamed from the river, and Lu Yuan passively sensed several fragments.
• A dense fragment struck the square-faced Night Watcher and made him mutter in an unfamiliar language as the knowledge began eroding his consciousness.
• Lu Yuan isolated the Night Watcher’s node and used the Seeker to strip away the implanted fragments, losing sanity as he glimpsed a person growing an eleventh finger.
• The square-faced Night Watcher recovered and thanked Lu Yuan, who warned him to keep dodging fragments.
• As the returning fragments multiplied, the Symbiotic Link pulsed with excitement and the Worm of Knowledge awakened, drawn by the Sea of Knowledge’s source aura.

Lu Yuan sent the Worm of Knowledge into the Sea of Knowledge and discovered that the students were walking through the corpse of an immense entity while believing they were in a beautiful sea. He used the worm to divert them from dangerous areas, but several students were already deeply polluted as they approached the corpse’s core.

• Lu Yuan sent the Worm of Knowledge through a barrier into the river, maintaining their Symbiotic Link so he could see through its perspective.
• The Worm of Knowledge revealed that the students’ colorful sea was a vast pool of blood inside a corpse, with bones and pollution appearing as pillars and an aurora to them.
• As Sister Lin led the students toward a massive vertebra, their legs began showing pollution, and one student became dazed after touching rotten flesh on a bone.
• Lu Yuan ordered the Worm of Knowledge to steer students away from dark gaps between the bones, and it altered their Guidance Marks with knowledge aura.
• Most students turned toward safer areas, but several were too deeply polluted for their marks to respond and remained near the dangerous bone gaps.

Lu Yuan watched the students reach the corpse’s core and learned that the Tower of Erudition had led them there through a deadly screening process. Sister Lin sacrificed herself to open a path through the vortex, leaving the survivors to continue toward their goal.

• The Worm of Knowledge showed Lu Yuan that five students who left the group were consumed by the corpse, while the eighteen who stayed together suffered slower contamination.
• Sister Lin led the remaining students to the corpse’s core, where she warned them to resist other knowledge and transferred her Guidance Mark to a boy.
• Sister Lin stepped into the vortex and used her Knowledge-Derived Worms, supported by the students’ rune energy, to carve a path through the black-red blood aura.
• Sister Lin’s body and then her brain were destroyed, and the Worm of Knowledge absorbed much of the knowledge she left behind.
• The small girl hesitated after Sister Lin’s death, noticed that part of something inside her had been drawn away, and then caught up with the group.

Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers endured a catastrophic surge of knowledge as the students opened the heart at the center of the Sea of Blood. The petite girl alone absorbed a fragment without being overwritten, while the Scripture filled with pages and three Silver Needles in the girl inside the Sarcophagus shattered.

• The students passed the mark forward as they crossed the Sea of Blood, and one by one they died while the vortex awakened and swallowed their knowledge.
• The last students reached the vortex’s center, where a boy used the mark to open the golden sphere and unleash a storm of knowledge that drained the Night Watchers’ shared sanity pool.
• The boy and then a tall girl were overwritten by complete fragments and shattered, sending their fragments through the Inscription passage to fill pages of the Scripture.
• The petite girl received the mark, and the fragment storm parted around her as she accepted a fragment without losing herself.
• The petite girl’s fragment filled five pages of the Scripture, three Silver Needles in the girl inside the Sarcophagus shattered, and Lu Yuan’s sanity fell to 21/140.

As the Degradation Circuit collapsed, Calvin and Selina endured the surging aura to fill the Scripture’s eighth page while the girl entered the heart in the Sea of Knowledge. The Symbiotic Link severed, and Lu Yuan lost contact with the Worm of Knowledge as the girl emerged in a vast, blood-dark hall and saw a headless body surrounded by five floating heads.

• The fourth, fifth, and sixth Silver Needles shattered as Calvin and Selina struggled to bear the pressure from the failing Inscription Channel.
• Calvin and Selina were briefly dragged into the Sea of Knowledge, then pulled back by a Tower of Erudition safeguard; Calvin saw that the Scripture had reached seven pages.
• Selina agreed to continue, and Calvin and Selina took on most of the pressure as the Scripture began filling its eighth page.
• The girl caught the immobilized Worm of Knowledge, spoke to it, and touched the heart, which opened and swallowed her with the Worm in her arms.
• The Symbiotic Link severed, leaving Lu Yuan unable to see the Worm; he drank a Sanity Potion and urged the Night Watchers to keep holding the barrier.
• The girl appeared in a vast hall filled with alien corpses and black-red matter, where she saw a headless body encircled by five floating heads.

Lu Yuan was pulled into the hall by the Key and confronted the five-headed entity as it tried to claim the Worm of Knowledge and inspect his mind. The Key drove the entity back, but Lu Yuan remained unable to free the small girl, who sent the worm to him and told him to take it away.

• The five-headed entity offered the small girl a Blessing in exchange for the Worm of Knowledge, and its blood-red ring trapped her in place.
• The Key pulled Lu Yuan’s consciousness into the hall, leaving his body motionless at the barrier as the Night Watchers and church personnel worked to stabilize it.
• Lu Yuan used Guard to restore his sanity, and the entity halted its attack when it recognized the Authority behind his left eye.
• The entity tried to inspect Lu Yuan’s memories, but the Key shielded him and flooded the hall with seawater from the Sea of Knowledge, making the entity withdraw.
• Lu Yuan tried to take the girl with him, but the blood-red ring blocked his approach; she pushed the Worm of Knowledge toward him and told him to take it away.

Lu Yuan returned from the Sea of Knowledge as the final knowledge fragment completed the bronze Scripture, and he led the exhausted Night Watchers out of the Tower of Erudition. The chapter left the girl behind in the crimson Dome, the twenty-three students dead, and Lu Yuan’s team alive but injured and suspicious of the Tower’s silence.

• The girl refused Lu Yuan’s offer to take her with him, then sent out her final knowledge fragment and left him to be expelled from the palace.
• The fragment struck the Scripture, completing its eighth through final pages before the bronze book closed, while Calvin and Selina collapsed.
• Lu Yuan regained consciousness as the inscription circuit shut down, the River of Light went still, and the pressure on the Night Watchers lifted.
• Lu Yuan counted the ten Night Watchers and found them all present, while the twenty-three students’ mounting frames held only gray-white powder.
• Lu Yuan ordered the Night Watchers to withdraw, and they left the silent Tower of Erudition without encountering its personnel.
• Outside, Lu Yuan checked his team and learned that one Night Watcher had taken a Sanity-stabilizing potion after suffering a minor mental injury.

After returning from the Tower of Erudition, Lu Yuan examined the damage to his allies and his own artifacts, then learned that Nora had been chosen by a god and had returned to her home. He reported the mission to Klaus and received a sanity-cultivation booklet, while events at the Tower revealed that its leaders had recovered twice the expected number of Scripture pages and something laughed from the darkness above.

• Lu Yuan ordered the Night Watchers to suspend missions and recover, then examined the exhausted Worm of Knowledge and dimmed Key while reflecting on Gray-White Text's record identifying Nora as a Divine-Chosen Transcendent who had arrived at her home.
• Lu Yuan brought the injured Night Watchers to the Branch, ordered the man with a mental-barrier crack to rest for seventy-two hours, and reported the mission to Klaus.
• Lu Yuan asked Klaus for sanity-cultivation materials, and Klaus gave him a worn booklet while warning him not to share it lightly.
• Klaus asked about the Tower of Erudition's students, and Lu Yuan said that none of them had returned.
• An instructor sealed the Scripture and left the Sarcophagus room, where the girl inside silently moved her lips as tears ran down her face.
• Arthur Heinz found ten pages in the Scripture instead of the expected five and ordered Kame to notify Headquarters, while laughter sounded from the darkness above the tower and its inscriptions briefly flickered.