Chapter Summaries

Margaret carried Lu Yuan and the Old Dean back to the Night Watchers branch, where she placed the Old Dean in a medicinal vat and began treating Lu Yuan. She warned Lu Yuan that the Empire and other factions might pursue him for reversing the Guardian’s rampage, then offered him the branch’s Potion supplies to practice with.

• Margaret carried the injured Old Dean and Lu Yuan back to the Night Watchers branch while Lu Yuan struggled with his low sanity and disturbing visions.
• Margaret warned Lu Yuan that his role in stabilizing the Guardian’s rampage had attracted attention from the Empire and other factions, and urged him to conceal what he could.
• Margaret lowered the Old Dean into a vat of medicinal liquid to keep his condition stable until help arrived from Headquarters.
• Margaret brought Lu Yuan to a room stocked with Potions and told him the supplies would be available for his practice because the Night Watchers needed someone with his medical knowledge.
• Margaret used Copper Needles and water vapor to begin treating Lu Yuan.

Margaret examined Lu Yuan, treated his depleted sanity, and gave him a Holy Light Stone to detect abnormalities. The stone revealed that the Drowner had moved from Lu Yuan’s shadow onto his leg, and Lu Yuan went to sleep after checking on the Old Dean.

• Margaret found that Lu Yuan had less than twenty percent of his sanity remaining and treated his lingering injuries.
• Margaret infused a special potion into Lu Yuan’s wrist, restoring some of his sanity, and gave him a Holy Light Stone.
• Lu Yuan tested the stone and discovered faint red marks, then used the Worm of Knowledge to see the Drowner clinging to his left leg.
• Lu Yuan read that the Drowner had changed in an unknown way, but chose not to touch it or alert Margaret about the stone’s red glow.
• Lu Yuan checked on the Old Dean, and Margaret said the old man was stable but his condition was not optimistic.
• Lu Yuan returned to his quarters, changed, and fell into a deep sleep.

After waking, Lu Yuan received his official Forbidden Society badge from A.M. and learned that he had been named Scholar, Number Seven. A.M. questioned him about curing the Guardian and answered one of Lu Yuan’s questions before asking whether the thing Lu Yuan brought out of the Sea of Knowledge had started to go wrong.

• Lu Yuan woke after a long sleep and found that Margaret’s medicine had continued restoring his Sanity.
• A.M. waited in Lu Yuan’s room, shared meat broth with him, and presented him with his official Forbidden Society badge and codename, Scholar, Number Seven.
• Lu Yuan learned that the Forbidden Society had seven members and that his former badge could be used to recruit someone temporarily.
• A.M. asked whether Lu Yuan had cured the Guardian, explained that the Great Ascendant had told him about the incident, and awarded Lu Yuan three points of credit.
• Lu Yuan asked how many entities supported the Forbidden Society and whether entering the Sea of Knowledge always brought something back; A.M. said the Society relied on two entities and asked whether Lu Yuan’s discovery had started to go wrong.

Lu Yuan heard A.M.'s warning that a scheme in Bronze City was nearing fruition, then explained to Klaus how he had saved the Guardian. Klaus inferred that Lu Yuan could tailor medicine to people, promised to keep the ability secret, and warned him that others might try to exploit it.

• A.M. told Lu Yuan that the Drowner was basically harmless but could not be removed without returning to the Sea of Knowledge, then urged him to leave Bronze City before an unnamed scheme came to fruition.
• A.M. vanished before Lu Yuan could learn what the scheme was, and a Night Watcher brought Lu Yuan a replacement coat and meat soup.
• Klaus summoned Lu Yuan and asked what price he had paid to save the Guardian; Lu Yuan credited a Wish-bearing seed, his worm, and the medicine he had prepared.
• Klaus inferred that Lu Yuan could understand someone's foundations and formulate medicine for them, and Lu Yuan acknowledged the ability while describing its limitations.
• Klaus promised not to report Lu Yuan's ability, warned that others might forcibly raise his Order to exploit him, and asked him to help the seniors once he had advanced.
• Lu Yuan left Klaus's office determined to reach Third Order quickly, knowing that saving the Guardian had drawn attention to him and that those coveting his ability might soon act.

The Guardian confronted the Person on the Wall in the Tower of Erudition, intending to destroy the skull despite the risk that the tower and he would be destroyed together. Arthur and Hilde discovered the confrontation and raced toward the Tower Top to stop him.

• Lu Yuan sensed a faint ripple from the Tower of Erudition, then returned to his residence without investigating.
• The Guardian used the tower’s inscriptions to uncover the skull’s condition and decided to destroy the Person on the Wall rather than accept its influence over him.
• The Person on the Wall warned the Guardian that attacking it would destroy them both, but the Guardian advanced without responding.
• Arthur and Hilde noticed the inscriptions flickering and the cold pressure descending from the Tower Top, then realized the Guardian had gone there.
• Arthur and Hilde rushed up the Spiral Staircase, hoping to persuade the Guardian to stop before the tower collapsed.

The Guardian attacked the Person on the Wall atop the Tower of Erudition, and their clash pulled them into the Skull’s domain, where most of his power was suppressed. Arthur could not contact Klaus because the tower had been sealed, while the Guardian and the Person on the Wall prepared to negotiate after he left a crack in the Skull as leverage.

• The Guardian transformed his face into a giant eye and struck the Person on the Wall’s Skull, triggering a destructive clash atop the tower.
• The shockwave threw Arthur and Hilde down the Spiral Staircase, and pale gray mist swallowed the Guardian and transported him into the Person on the Wall’s domain.
• The Guardian recognized that the domain suppressed his power but could not fully defeat him, leaving the two wounded opponents with no clear way to overcome each other.
• Arthur tried to contact Klaus with a Communication Crystal, but the Guardian’s blockade prevented the message from leaving the Main Tower.
• The Guardian revealed that he had attacked to demonstrate his ability to damage the Skull, and the Person on the Wall considered the crack in its bone face a reason to yield in negotiations.

The Guardian negotiated with the Person on the Wall as Ghouls began surging against Bronze City’s underground defenses. The Person on the Wall revealed it had taken the black stone and released it early, sending darkness through the Tower of Erudition toward the depths below.

• At the Northwest Branch, a Night Watcher found bite marks on all four Copper Pillars as the sealing Inscriptions began to fail.
• Night Watchers heard Ghouls rushing up from the Collapse Pit, and Glock ordered the Protective Barrier sealed before a Great Ghoul’s claw was sheared off.
• Glock sent a warning across Bronze City, prompting the Holy Armor Army and Iron Guard Battalion to reinforce old sealed openings.
• The Person on the Wall told the Guardian it was trapped in its skull and intended to wait until its body was restored.
• The Person on the Wall revealed the black stone it had taken from Kame and merged it into its face.
• Darkness flowed down the Tower of Erudition past the injured Arthur and Hilde and continued toward the tower’s foundation and the depths beneath Bronze City.

A black stone bound the Guardian and the Person on the Wall together, triggering a surge of activity beneath Bronze City. After warning that disaster was imminent, the Guardian left Klaus and the Night Watchers to prepare the city for a battle that had arrived earlier than expected.

• Blackness spread through the Tower of Erudition's inscriptions, and Ghouls underground stopped gnawing and surged toward the surface.
• The Guardian realized the black stone had bound him and the Person on the Wall into one body, while the Person on the Wall declared that the game had begun.
• The Guardian lifted the tower's seal and told Arthur to evacuate bystanders and hold the entrances below, though the rules prevented him from saying more.
• Arthur relayed the warning to Klaus, who sent reinforcements to the Main Collapse Pit and ordered Night Watchers to defend the underground entrances.
• Klaus arranged patrols and civilian evacuations near the Collapse Zones as Bronze City prepared overnight for the coming disaster.

Unable to sleep, Lu Yuan visited the growing Seed Hope, borrowed Margaret’s Potion Room key, and practiced brewing until an urgent Night Watcher assembly was called. Klaus announced that Bronze City faced serious trouble and ordered every available Night Watcher to deploy.

• Lu Yuan visited Room 7 and saw that Hope had grown, gaining five sanity points from its aura.
• Lu Yuan borrowed Margaret’s Potion Room key after checking on the Old Dean, whose life remained precarious while he awaited help from Headquarters.
• Lu Yuan practiced brewing Potions, increased his Pharmacology to 49/100, and restored his sanity with a Sanity Potion.
• Lu Yuan noticed unusually heavy activity outside the Branch and received an order for all captain-ranked Night Watchers and above to assemble.
• Klaus told the gathered Night Watchers that Bronze City might face real trouble and ordered every available Night Watcher to deploy.

Klaus ordered Lu Yuan to escort 210 East District residents, including skilled craftsmen, to Oak Forest City while Bronze City faced a growing threat. As the convoy left, Boer revealed that all four Bronze Pillars in the Pipe Network Layer had been damaged by enormous creatures, leaving Lu Yuan worried about the city.

• Casper warned Lu Yuan that Night Watchers stationed outside Bronze City had been summoned back, suggesting a serious crisis.
• Klaus assigned Lu Yuan to escort the East District residents to Oak Forest City and refused his offer to stay and help defend Bronze City because he was only Second Order.
• Lu Yuan gathered his supplies, met Boer and Dunn at the East District, and led a convoy carrying 210 residents and sixteen Night Watchers eastward.
• Boer told Lu Yuan that Jurgen was training under Leike and that all four Bronze Pillars in the Pipe Network Layer had been damaged by creatures estimated to be a thousand meters long.
• Lu Yuan watched Bronze City recede behind the convoy and hoped Klaus and the others could hold it.

Lu Yuan led the residents east from Bronze City, where church checkpoints and Eerie creatures appeared along the official highway. A Sunk One attacked a resident carriage, and Lu Yuan drove it back with incendiary rounds, though the convoy remained on the road with the threat beneath it unresolved.

• Boer reassured Lu Yuan that the official highway was safe, but Lu Yuan suspected the church checkpoints were part of a net surrounding Bronze City.
• A church guard inspected the convoy, let it pass after checking Lu Yuan's Night Watcher's Badge, and warned that the road ahead was not peaceful.
• Lu Yuan spotted Lost Souls in the forest and ordered the Night Watchers to keep the convoy moving without provoking them.
• A Sunk One pulled a resident carriage into a Collapse Pit and sent fungal tendrils after its passengers and Dunn.
• Lu Yuan fired Copper-Shell Incendiary Bombs to burn the Sunk One's fungal growth and free Dunn and the resident, forcing the remaining fungus underground.

Lu Yuan’s convoy survived a Sunk One, a Gut-Bursting Beast, and nearby Lost Souls, but a colossal Eye-Spine Centipede appeared in the forest. Unable to flee or fight it, Lu Yuan ordered everyone to stay in the carriages and use Ghoul Brain Cores to release their smell.

• Lu Yuan spotted a Sunk One disguised among the carriage passengers and shot it with a Copper-Shell Incendiary Bomb.
• Lu Yuan warned the convoy about approaching danger as a giant beast charged from the forest, and the Night Watchers wounded it with Alchemical Great Crossbows.
• Lu Yuan severed the beast’s attacking tongue with an Alchemy Flame Bullet, stopping its charge and killing it.
• Lu Yuan detected a high-level Source of Pollution and saw a colossal Eye-Spine Centipede advancing through the forest.
• Dunn identified the creature, and Lu Yuan ordered everyone to stay in the carriages and gave the Night Watchers Ghoul Brain Cores to crush and release their smell.

Lu Yuan led the convoy past the Eye-Spine Centipede by masking everyone with the scent of shattered Brain Cores, then continued west as he suspected something in Bronze City was drawing Eerie creatures toward it. The exhausted convoy stopped at a deserted carriage inn, where Lu Yuan found signs of a sudden attack and wondered whether anyone had survived.

• Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers crushed Brain Cores to disguise the convoy as low-level Ghouls, and the Eye-Spine Centipede passed without attacking before heading west toward Bronze City.
• Lu Yuan realized that the Eerie creatures they had encountered were moving toward Bronze City, suggesting that something had happened there.
• Boer proposed stopping at a carriage inn to rest and resupply, and Lu Yuan agreed after seeing how exhausted the people and horses were.
• Lu Yuan ordered Boer to keep the residents in their carriages while he and three Night Watchers searched the inn.
• Lu Yuan found an empty stable, blood in the courtyard, and abandoned food in the taproom, but no sign of what had attacked the inn or whether anyone had survived.

Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers searched a slaughtered inn and found twenty-seven dead, including three Nuns, with most victims showing no physical wounds. They recorded the deaths and discovered that every corpse carried faint pollution, while the powerful Eerie thing responsible had apparently left.

• Lu Yuan found a dead inn attendant and detected a weak source of pollution on the corpse.
• Lu Yuan and the Night Watchers searched the inn and found twenty-seven bodies, including three calmly dead Nuns and victims pierced by dried tentacles.
• The Night Watchers confirmed that nothing living remained and reported that most victims had died without visible wounds.
• Lu Yuan examined the corpses, confirmed that they all carried faint pollution, and found no lingering aura from the Eerie thing.
• Old Muller gave Lu Yuan the death count and preliminary findings, and Lu Yuan recorded the deaths and unresolved clues for the Branch.

Lu Yuan sealed the inn’s contaminated corpses in a stable stall and prepared to burn them before the convoy left. As the residents began departing, the contamination awakened, and twenty-seven corpses transformed into Eerie entities and surged through the opened door.

• Lu Yuan ordered the Night Watchers to move the corpses into a sealed stable stall, clear the inn, and keep residents away from it.
• Lu Yuan recorded the weak pollution in his notebook and allowed the residents to rest in the courtyard while the Night Watchers stood guard.
• Lu Yuan ordered the convoy to leave before dark, but sounds from inside the stable revealed that the pollution was rising and an Eerie entity had emerged.
• Lu Yuan evacuated the residents, armed the Night Watchers with crossbows and Molotov Cocktails, and ordered them to hold their fire until the stall door opened.
• Twenty-seven corpses transformed into Eerie entities and poured from the stall; the Night Watchers fired silver arrowheads at the first two.

Lu Yuan’s group burned the corpses mutated by residual pollution and left the inn, while he recognized that Eerie creatures were converging on Bronze City. At the Night Watcher Branch, Klaus gathered nobles and Merchants’ Guild leaders to demand resources for the city’s defense.

• Lu Yuan’s Night Watchers used copper weapons and Molotov Cocktails to destroy the Corpse-Mutants, then recorded how residual pollution awakened in corpses and what could stop them.
• Lu Yuan ordered the convoy to leave as the inn burned, and he and Dunn noted that the Eerie creatures were heading toward the city.
• Klaus explained that he had evacuated residents and moved supplies while preparing to confront the Great Ghouls beneath Bronze City.
• A Merchants’ Guild leader asked whether the city could be defended and whether the merchants could move their goods out first.
• Klaus told the assembled nobles and guild leaders to make whatever requests they wanted, provided the city was still standing.

Klaus forced Bronze City's nobles and merchants to commit people and resources as new Collapse Pits and organized Ghoul attacks threatened the city. As Night Watchers rushed to reinforce the pits, Lu Yuan had already traveled nearly half the way.

• A Night Watcher reported growing numbers of Forest Seed-contaminated Ghouls attacking the underground blockade and warned that new and old Collapse Pits could bring the total to nearly ten.
• Klaus ordered Fourth Order captains to reinforce the five known pits, but the messenger warned there were not enough Fourth Orders to cover them if more collapses appeared.
• The Earl offered some of his private knights, prompting Merchants' Guild leaders and Outer City nobles to pledge teams of their own.
• Klaus tied the nobles' fortunes to Bronze City's survival, adjourned the meeting, and announced that updates would be posted at the Night Watcher branch.
• After the meeting, Klaus reflected that Bronze City's true lifeline lay beneath the city at the Tower of Erudition, while Lu Yuan had already covered nearly half the journey.

Lu Yuan’s convoy continued toward Oak Forest City as he watched the Drowner parasitizing his left leg grow, though it showed no sign of moving. After meeting a merchant caravan and sharing a meal, the group reached a hilltop with Oak Forest City in sight.

• Lu Yuan used the Worm of Knowledge to inspect the Drowner and saw its black aura had spread across more of his left leg.
• Lu Yuan’s convoy met Gordon’s merchant caravan, and Gordon asked when Bronze City would reopen; Lu Yuan said the Night Watchers were suppressing Eerie incidents and repairing damage.
• Lu Yuan paid Gordon for smoked meat and dried mushrooms, which Boer and the others cooked for the convoy.
• After the meal, Gordon’s caravan departed, and Lu Yuan’s convoy resumed its journey toward Oak Forest City.
• After another day and a half on the road, Lu Yuan and the convoy crossed a hilltop and saw Oak Forest City in the distance.

Lu Yuan brought more than two hundred residents from Bronze City to Oak Forest City, where Earl Isabella arranged housing and a year of food rations for them. When Lu Yuan tried to contact Bronze City with a Communication Crystal, he received no response, leaving him and Boer uncertain about what was happening back home.

• Lu Yuan's convoy passed Oak Forest City's gate after the guards checked its documents, residents, and vehicles.
• The city steward led the convoy to prepared temporary houses, and Isabella met Lu Yuan and welcomed the residents.
• Isabella promised to provide the residents with food rations for a year and said Oak Forest City needed their craftsmen.
• Lu Yuan asked Isabella to borrow a Communication Crystal and tried several times to contact Bronze City, but none of his attempts received a response.
• Lu Yuan and Boer stood in the night looking west toward Bronze City before returning to their lodgings.

Lu Yuan completed the handover of more than two hundred artisans in Oak Forest City and learned that Klaus had arranged for them to settle there permanently, with the option to return. Isabella offered Lu Yuan a senior position and resources to stay, but he declined because Bronze City still needed him.

• Lu Yuan woke with his sanity fully restored and went with Boer to complete the handover at the Oak Forest City Night Watcher branch.
• Otto finalized the transfer documents and said Isabella wanted to meet Lu Yuan.
• Isabella told Lu Yuan that Klaus had arranged for the artisans to make Oak Forest City their new home, though they could choose to return to Bronze City.
• Isabella offered Lu Yuan authority among the Night Watchers and access to medicinal herbs, equipment, and manpower if he stayed.
• Lu Yuan declined Isabella's recruitment offer, saying that Bronze City and the people there still needed him.