Chapter Summaries

After recovering from using Touch of Afterimage, Lin Jie and his companions discovered a heavily armed group bombing Urquhart Bay to force the Guardian Deity to surface. They hid among the rocks to observe, while signs of agitation stirred beneath the lake.

• Sergeant William revived Lin Jie, who said he could not use Touch of Afterimage again for at least twenty-four hours.
• William spotted an exploration ship carrying armed men who threw nitroglycerin explosives into the lake.
• Lin Jie and William identified the intruders as professionals trying to capture the Guardian Deity, and Lin Jie rejected a direct confrontation.
• Lin Jie, William, and Alistair concealed their fishing boat among the rocks and watched the intruders bombard sections of Urquhart Bay.
• Lin Jie sensed the Guardian Deity's spiritual energy growing agitated as the explosions continued.

Lin Jie, William, and Alistair witnessed the Guardian Deity drive a hostile survey ship into danger while guiding their own boat safely to shore. The fog vanished, leaving the lake calm and the survey ship’s fate uncertain but marked by screams and the smell of blood.

• Lin Jie observed that the survey ship used repeated explosions and underwater readings to map a powerful spiritual source beneath Loch Ness.
• At night, a thick fog covered Urquhart Bay as the force beneath the lake awakened and overwhelmed Lin Jie, William, and Alistair with spiritual pressure.
• The Guardian Deity disabled the survey ship’s instruments and engine, then sent chaotic currents to drive it through the fog.
• A gentle current carried Lin Jie, William, and Alistair’s boat safely toward shore while the survey ship struck rocks and its crew screamed.
• The fog disappeared after the trio reached sheltered shore, leaving the lake calm and the smell of blood in the air.

After the survey ship was wrecked, Lin Jie deduced that its survivors would return to a concealed base at Urquhart Castle. He and William reached the ruins late the following night and detected signs that people were hiding there.

• Alistair prayed to the Guardian Deity and asked whether they should leave, but Lin Jie and William argued that they needed to eliminate the organization behind the attack.
• Lin Jie reasoned that the shipwreck survivors would avoid the authorities and return to a nearby forward base, then identified Urquhart Castle as the most likely location.
• Alistair recalled the castle's grim local legends, while William prepared his weapons and agreed to investigate.
• Lin Jie, William, and Alistair hid their boat, rested while Lin Jie recovered, and set out late the next night.
• The group climbed the cliff behind Urquhart Castle and entered its ruins, where Lin Jie sensed the scorched herbal smell of an alchemical potion and confirmed that people were hiding there.

Lin Jie, William, and Alistair infiltrated the Urquhart Family’s ruined castle and discovered an underground workshop preparing to capture the guardian of Loch Ness. As Alistair struggled to contain his anger, Lin Jie spotted a locked journal on a desk that might reveal more.

• William led Lin Jie and Alistair through the castle ruins to the cellar entrance and used a mirror to spot two armed guards.
• William distracted the guards with a thrown stone, then silently killed them with his military knife.
• The three descended into the cellar and found a secret workshop where uniformed workers made alchemical explosives and processed enormous fish skins.
• Lin Jie and William saw rune-covered nets and chains with barbed anchors designed to capture the guardian of Loch Ness.
• Alistair grew furious at the organization’s plan, but Lin Jie stopped him from acting impulsively and noticed a locked journal on a nearby desk.

Lin Jie, William, and Alistair infiltrated the Eternal Serpent’s workshop and stole its confidential journal. After Alistair translated it, they learned the cult planned to capture a Primordial Dragon Species and use its blood in a massive ritual at the Paris World’s Fair.

• Alistair distracted the workshop members while Lin Jie’s flashbang blinded them, allowing William to climb through the ventilation system and steal the black journal.
• The three escaped the cellar, and William picked the journal’s copper lock with a hairpin.
• Alistair translated the journal, revealing that the Eternal Serpent had activated an Inert Spirit Field to target a creature called the Primordial Dragon Species.
• Alistair read that the cult intended to capture the creature, draw its blood, and combine it with extracted memories and energy from millions of people at the Paris World’s Fair.
• Lin Jie, William, and Alistair realized the Eternal Serpent planned a massive sacrifice at the fair, but the journal’s final pages had been torn out.

Lin Jie, Alistair, and William tried to disrupt the Eternal Serpent Cult’s attempt to capture the Guardian Deity of Loch Ness. The cult drove the deity from the depths with infrasound, and the chapter ended as it unleashed a silent attack on the cult’s launches.

• Lin Jie concluded that the Eternal Serpent Cult would soon attempt another capture and proposed using the team as bait to disrupt it.
• Lin Jie, Alistair, and William followed three cult launches toward the middle of Loch Ness in a disguised fishing boat.
• The cult used infrasound to torment the Guardian Deity and force it to surface in its true, starry elemental form.
• The cult fired rune-engraved harpoons, but they passed harmlessly through the deity.
• The cult activated rune resonance to form a spiritual cage around the deity, and the deity opened its mouth as Loch Ness began to boil.

Lin Jie disrupted the Eternal Serpent's steamships and Whaling Cannons, giving the trapped Guardian Deity the chance to destroy its captors and escape. The Guardian turned its starlit head toward Lin Jie's fishing boat.

• The Guardian Deity destroyed one steamship with a pillar of water, but the Eternal Serpent sacrificed blood to complete the rune cage and trap it.
• Lin Jie ordered William to bring the fishing boat closer and planned to use his Spellbreaker Bracer to disable the cultists' machinery.
• The black-clad leader ordered the surviving cultists to aim their Spirit-Breaking Whaling Cannons at the Guardian's head.
• Lin Jie used the Spellbreaker Bracer to jam the steamships' engines and disrupt the cannons' pressure systems.
• The Guardian shattered the rune cage, tore apart the surviving ships, and swallowed the cultists in a whirlpool.
• Lin Jie collapsed from exhaustion as the Guardian turned toward his fishing boat.

After the UMA escaped the Eternal Serpent Cult’s ritual, Lin Jie and William searched the wrecked steam launch and discovered the cult’s plans before its survivors were killed by a mind-bound curse. Lin Jie used the dead leader’s lingering memories to send a false success report, hoping to buy the I.A.R.C. time to prepare.

• The UMA silently thanked Lin Jie and the others before sinking beneath Loch Ness, and William urged Lin Jie to secure the wreck before the cult could report what happened.
• Lin Jie and William swam to the wreck, where they found three surviving cultists and learned that their operation, “Prometheus Extraction,” aimed to capture a Primordial Dragon Species for a ritual in Paris.
• The black-clad leader began to reveal that the cult’s Mentor had placed Cognitive Shackles in senior members, but a serpent rune killed him and the other survivors before they could disclose more.
• Lin Jie noticed the cult’s transmitter receiving a signal and used Touch of Afterimage on the leader’s corpse to recover fragments about its communication method.
• Lin Jie sent a coded message claiming the target had been secured, hoping to delay the cult while he and William returned to London with intelligence.

Lin Jie and William recovered a sinister tablet from the Eternal Serpent Cult leader that revealed a calamity star linked to Paris and the cult’s ritual. To avoid cult survivors and a possibly monitored telegraph office, they took Alistair south to Fort Augustus and boarded a train to London.

• Lin Jie recovered from reading the cult leader’s memories, and he and William searched the corpse before the sinking ship disappeared beneath the lake.
• Lin Jie found a star-chart tablet showing Paris linked to a calamity star and wrapped it for I.A.R.C. to study.
• Lin Jie and William returned to the fishing boat, where Alistair reported seeing cultists flee into the woods.
• Lin Jie and William decided to avoid Inverness and its telegraph office, then sailed with Alistair to Fort Augustus.
• The three travelers boarded the first steam train to London after reaching Fort Augustus before daybreak.