Recaps

Chloe realized the Pirate King's Court on White Sand Island was the center of Gem Bay’s dreamlike mutation, where Pollution Serpents fed the palace pollution gathered from the Storm Ocean. With the palace nearing an unstoppable transformation, she and her Moth Chasing Flame squad prepared to summon an evil god and crash it into the palace.

• Chloe concluded that the Fishmen were part of a dream whose true protagonist was likely at the Pirate King's Court.
• Chloe found Pollution Serpents covering White Sand Island and carrying pollution into the palace at the heart of Gem Bay.
• Chloe warned her squad that the palace was absorbing pollution from the entire Storm Ocean and would soon become too powerful to stop.
• Chloe and the Moth Chasing Flame members chose to sacrifice themselves rather than return for reinforcements.
• Chloe began preparing rituals to send a message to Castel and summon an evil god, planning to crash the hydrogen-filled airship and its dynamite onto the palace.

Chloe and Moth Chasing Flame prepared to sacrifice themselves to stop the palace monster from crossing a dangerous threshold. Remembering the home and life she had built in Castel, Chloe led the ritual, which unleashed Cognitive Interference and summoned an evil god before the palace was engulfed in flames.

• Chloe sensed the palace monster was nearing a threshold that could doom the Storm Ocean, but had no time to seek reinforcements.
• As she prepared to sacrifice herself, Chloe remembered her mother, her dead comrades, and the happier life she had found with Theus in Castel.
• Chloe ordered Moth Chasing Flame to begin the ritual, and the cultists embraced their madness and focused their will on protecting what they cherished.
• Their shared will shattered reality's boundaries, causing the Sea of Unconsciousness to surge into the real world as Cognitive Interference.
• The ritual bypassed its usual steps, summoned an evil god, and sent the airship crashing into the palace before immense flames swallowed everything.

Kyle fought with the Faithguard Army as Fishmen overwhelmed Castel’s defenses and the rising sea reached the battlefield. The chapter ended with Hodge realizing that the monsters grew stronger when they stood in seawater.

• Kyle panicked under the Fishmen’s assault, but the political commissar gave him a loaded rifle and Sweet Fruit Wine, and Kyle returned to firing.
• As the monsters increased in number, Banshees used explosive packs to clear corpse piles while the battle line fell back toward the fortress.
• Kyle noticed seawater had risen into Castel’s core district, while Fishmen swarmed the western fortress and began chewing through its concrete walls.
• Ash led the Banshees in a brief counterattack that cleared monsters from the fortress before the soldiers resumed firing.
• When soldiers noticed Fishmen taking several bullets to kill, Hodge pointed out that the monsters grew stronger in seawater.

Kyle reported that seawater strengthened the monsters, but Sea Urchin Monsters soon shattered the fortifications and forced the defenders to retreat. As Kyle carried wounded soldiers into the tunnels, the fortress was struck again and a massive figure came crashing toward him.

• Kyle told Count Theus that the rising seawater made the Fishmen harder to kill, and Theus rushed to inform Alexei.
• Kyle saw Sea Urchin Monsters smash through the western fortress while Ash covered the Faithguard Army's retreat with her Gatling Guns.
• The Sea Urchin Monsters attacked Kyle's fortress, collapsing part of it and exposing the soldiers to the monsters.
• Kyle helped the commissar evacuate unconscious soldiers into the basement, then returned upstairs to rescue more people.
• Kyle saw the commissar and captain retreat, but a deafening impact sent a massive figure crashing toward him.

Kyle and the retreating Faithguard Army rescued an unconscious Banshee as rising seawater and Sea Urchin Monsters overwhelmed Castel’s outer defenses. At Castel Cathedral, Theus learned the Banshees were badly wounded and the cathedral might not withstand the rising water, while Alexei urged him to escape if the battle turned against them.

• Kyle, the captain, and the political commissar dragged an unconscious Banshee into the basement with help from wounded survivors before the fortress collapsed and seawater flooded in.
• Faithguard Army reinforcements arrived and ordered the troops to abandon the outer fortresses and hold Castel Cathedral.
• Kyle learned that the battlefield situation had worsened and that the Banshee was severely injured as the army retreated through the Webway.
• Alexei reported to Theus that the Faithguard Army had withdrawn, the Banshees were nearly incapacitated, and the cathedral could struggle against Sea Urchin Monsters if the water kept rising.
• Alexei urged Theus to board the airship and seek imperial reinforcements if Castel could not be defended.

With the seawater rising over Castel and the expeditions to the Storm Eye apparently lost, Theus rallied the people in the command center to keep fighting. The chapter left Castel preparing to resist until the last moment, even if no miracle came.

• Theus refused Alexei's suggestion to abandon Castel, insisting that hope remained while the airships were still unaccounted for.
• A researcher brought Chloe's report from the Pirate King's Court, which ended with her saying she could no longer return; the evil god's brief fluctuations had also vanished.
• Theus discovered that the sea serpent around his neck had disappeared, suggesting that all the banshees sent to the Storm Eye, including Nini and Chloe, had died.
• Alexei told Theus the next airships would take at least four more days to build, while seawater was expected to reach the main cathedral that night.
• Theus admitted he did not know whether they would win, but promised to struggle alongside Castel's people until the very last moment.
• The people returned to their duties, preparing Castel's defenses and vowing to make their will and lives its final wall.

Theus returned to Worker Theus’s body on land, where he discovered that his sea-based thread abilities no longer worked. He encountered Monica, now grown, and learned that she could not return to Castel even if the island came back.

• Theus left Lord Theus’s body and returned to Worker Theus, expecting to gather information and continue searching for a way to save Castel.
• Theus realized he was no longer underwater and that the receded seawater had taken away his ability to see and control the threads.
• An unfamiliar Banshee confronted Theus with a scimitar, and he recognized her as Monica.
• Monica questioned Theus about his chest wound and thread powers, while Theus asked how she had survived outside the Symbiotic Pact’s range.
• Monica said she could not return to Castel, even if it returned.

Monica recognized Theus by intuition and believed him when he revealed his identity, then explained that the force that eroded her in the past was the Sea God, not Pollution. Theus was left confronting the truth about Monica’s mysterious transformation and the god’s influence.

• Theus revealed to Monica that he was her Lord Theus, and Monica said she trusted him based on her banshee intuition.
• Theus recounted how he had met Monica in the Abyssal Trench and how he had purified her after she was overcome by what he thought was Pollution.
• Monica told Theus that only half of the Pollution had been purified and pointed out that the amount surrounding her had been unusually great.
• Theus reconsidered Monica’s past symptoms and remembered that purifying her had released a strange aura that triggered a storm.
• Monica explained that she had heard something speaking to her after summoning the Machine Soul and identified the threads Theus had held as part of a god’s authority.
• Monica told Theus that the Sea God, not Pollution, had eroded her.

Theus learned from Monica how the Sea God’s followers revived their fallen deity through a thousand years of sacrifices and how the Sea God’s soul became bound to her. After Theus purified that soul, Monica revealed that she was now the Sea God.

• Monica told Theus that the Abyssal Trench led to the Sea God Temple and that the Sea God’s remnant had begun merging with her.
• Monica explained that the Sea God’s corpse produced the ocean’s Pollution, and its flesh formed the monsters that were actually devoted Sea God Church believers.
• She revealed that the believers’ sacrifices had revived the Sea God, which had been driving creatures from the Abyssal Trench before accidentally binding part of its soul to her.
• Monica explained that Flesh Magic and the shattered Banshees’ Cognitive Barrier connected her to the Sea God’s soul throughout the sea.
• Monica told Theus that his purification had annihilated the Sea God’s soul in the ocean, leaving her as its sole remaining soul, and declared, “I am the Sea God now.”

Theus learned that Monica had become the Sea God but knew nothing of the danger threatening Castel, so he brought her toward the Storm Eye. There, they discovered Nini and other Banshees had crossed from the other side, leaving Theus overjoyed that Nini was alive.

• Theus realized Monica had merged with the Sea God's soul and warned her that Castel was flooding and a monster in the Pirate King's Court was absorbing the Sea God's power.
• Monica admitted she knew nothing about events in Castel, and she and Theus set out for the Storm Eye to investigate the Sea God Temple and stop the threat.
• Theus and Monica reached the Storm Eye, where Monica sensed a Mind Link with Nini.
• Nini and several Banshees surfaced from the sea, and Theus recognized Nini and rejoiced that she had survived.
• Nini's group explained that they had crossed through the Storm Eye while investigating the seawater pouring from it, and they reacted warily to Monica and the talking corpse.

After Monica's arrival restored the wounded Banshees, Theus learned that Moth Chasing Flame could unleash [Chrysalis] to destroy the Pirate King's Court monsters, but the weapon demanded ten thousand voluntary souls. He contacted Chloe's soul inside the [Pupa], and she urged him to use the taboo as their last hope.

• Monica's immense life force healed more than a hundred wounded Banshees, and Nini accepted Monica and her companion after a Mind Synchronization.
• Theus returned to Castel Cathedral, told the Banshees to prepare for battle, and met Richard, who offered Moth Chasing Flame's forbidden weapon.
• Richard revealed that activating Brother Kaeschi, called [Chrysalis], required ten thousand voluntary souls, including at least fifty Transcendents.
• Richard explained that Chloe's soul was inside the [Pupa] and gave Theus a diary, dip pen, and knife to contact her with his blood.
• Theus wrote in the diary, and Chloe urged him not to fear using the taboo because it might be their last hope.

Theus learned from Chloe that the Pirate King was absorbing pollution and that killing him could save Castel, but he chose a different plan. Monica reversed the seawater’s flow, exposing a land route between Castel and Gem Bay and giving Castel the chance to counterattack.

• Chloe revealed that the Pirate King had redirected the Sea God Church’s sacrifices to himself and was sharing pollution through his connection with the cultists.
• Theus rejected Chloe’s plan to kill the Pirate King, saying her information had helped him find a better option.
• Theus told Monica to make the seawater recede, and she used her power as half a Sea God to send it rushing back toward the Storm Eye.
• The reversed waters spread rain across the Storm Ocean, while the Black Pearl’s crew and Castel’s defenders realized the sea was rising or receding around them.
• With Castel’s defenses no longer submerged or under assault, Theus declared it was time for Castel to counterattack.

The Faithguard Army and the Banshees defended Castel Cathedral until Monica used the Sea God's authority to drive back the seawater and turn the battle against the monsters. After celebrating their survival, Theus and Alexei discussed how to attack the Pirate King's Court in Gem Bay, and Theus chose both proposed plans.

• The Faithguard Army held Castel Cathedral against the sea urchins and Fishmen while Alexei organized defenses and explosive attacks.
• The Banshees arrived, cleared the Fishmen from the fortress, and helped the Faithguard Army repel the monsters.
• Monica reached Castel and made the seawater recede, allowing the defenders to defeat the monsters and save the island.
• Theus and Alexei reviewed the victory, and Alexei proposed bombing the Pirate King's Court or marching there with the Faithguard Army and Banshees.
• Theus decided to pursue both plans against the Pirate King's Court.

Theus sent a remotely controlled airship carrying a massive bomb to attack the Pirate King while the Faithguard Army prepared to advance. The bomb exploded above the Pirate King's Court, but Monica sensed that the Pirate King remained completely unscathed.

• Theus decided to launch an airship bombing while the Faithguard Army advanced on the ground.
• Nini and Monica guided an unmanned airship carrying a bomb packed with more than five tons of explosives toward the Pirate King's Court.
• Nini dropped the bomb, which detonated after the impact destroyed the airship and lit up the night sky.
• Theus ordered the nearby people informed about the explosion and asked Monica to check the Pirate King.
• Monica sensed that the Pirate King was still there and appeared completely unscathed.

After learning that the Pirate King had become immune to all damage, Theus realized that its power came from Pollution and proposed a way to exploit it. He left the chapter considering whether they could burn the Pollution.

• Theus questioned Monica about why the Pirate King had survived the bomb unharmed, then recalled that his ability had identified Chloe’s body as a shell.
• Theus wrote to Chloe, who warned him not to try to resurrect her and asked him to explain what had happened.
• Theus recounted the events, and Chloe concluded that the Pirate King had become a forbidden existence immune to every form of damage.
• Chloe revealed that she knew a possible solution, but Theus decided to look for another way because the price might be too steep.
• Theus realized that the Pirate King’s power came from Pollution and wondered aloud whether they could burn it.

Theus proposed trapping the Pirate King in a huge steam engine and having Monica summon a Machine Soul to make him burn himself as fuel. On Castel Island, Kyle’s patrol discovered a strangely dried-out Fishman and summoned a Banshee for help.

• Theus reasoned that the Pirate King might be able to harm himself and wrote his idea to Chloe in the diary.
• Chloe did not answer, but Theus took the trembling diary as agreement and believed his plan might work.
• Kyle patrolled Castel Island with his squad and regretted staying in the Faithguard Army instead of returning to the factory.
• Kyle and his patrol spotted a shriveled Fishman crawling toward them and sounded the warning whistle.
• A heavily armored Banshee arrived before the patrol.

Nini discovered that the island's monsters were dying and turning into Pollution, which was moving toward the Pirate King's Court. A colossal new airship passed overhead, and Nini revealed it would travel there to bring back an inexhaustible fuel source.

• Nini arrived after Kyle called for reinforcements and inspected the wounded Fishman.
• The Fishman died and immediately turned into Pollution, which began moving toward the Pirate King's Court.
• Nini learned from other observation posts that monsters across the area were dying without seawater and turning into Pollution.
• A gigantic yellow airship, the Sky Veil Behemoth Class, passed overhead, and Nini explained that Theus had ordered it built by combining several planned airships.
• Kyle worried that the island's factories would run out of fuel, and Nini said the airship would fetch a piece of fuel that would never burn out from the Pirate King's Court.

Theus sent Castel’s enormous Sky Veil Behemoth airship to Gem Bay to haul the pollution monster from the Pirate King’s Court, hoping to use the Storm Ocean’s pollution as fuel. While the airship operation began, he and Moth Chasing Flame prepared a much larger core furnace, and a researcher proposed increasing its size further.

• Theus decided to transport the Pirate King’s pollution monster in a giant airship after smaller plans to bring over a Pollution Serpent proved impractical.
• Moth Chasing Flame built the Sky Veil Behemoth Class airship, which took off from Castel’s Eastern Test Site and headed toward Gem Bay.
• Theus hoped the airship could lift or drag the monster so Castel could use the Storm Ocean’s pollution as fuel.
• Theus and Moth Chasing Flame began designing a new core furnace, but Chloe refused to help because she was already dead.
• A Moth Chasing Flame researcher asked Theus whether they should make the new furnace even bigger.

Theus considered Tartaglia’s proposal to hollow out Castel for a vast central furnace that could power factories and potentially propel the island. He agreed to have the plan refined, but Castel’s people struggled to figure out how to lift the enormous Pirate King for transport.

• Theus reviewed Tartaglia’s plans for a giant furnace inside Castel and recognized its potential to centralize steam power and support future electricity generation.
• Tartaglia proposed using Castel’s Webways as furnace maintenance routes and suggested the furnace could eventually power a propulsion system for the island.
• Theus was tempted by the possibility of using the Pirate King’s pollution to make Castel move or even fly, and told Tartaglia to refine the plan.
• Tartaglia introduced himself as Tata and said he had grown up on the Empire’s Western Frontier, which war had destroyed.
• Castel’s people began trying to transport the Pirate King, but the Banshees could not work out how to attach lifting slings to its enormous body.

Nini and Gaia argued over whether Banshees should risk approaching the Pirate King's monster to thread lifting cables beneath the airship. Nini reconsidered her rushed plan after Gaia and Theus opposed it, leaving the engineers to seek a safer approach.

• Nini proposed that armored Banshees thread the lifting cables directly beneath the Pirate King's monster, relying on their durability and shared Life Pool to survive injuries.
• Gaia objected that the monster could crush the Banshees and insisted that engineering plans could not treat injuries or deaths as acceptable costs.
• Gaia challenged Nini to design around unexpected accidents and the limits of the Banshees' abilities rather than what they could manage under normal conditions.
• Nini fell silent, recognizing that she had been rushing and relying on wishful thinking.
• Theus agreed with Gaia through the Mind Link, and Nini glared at the distant Banshees, asking who had broadcast the argument.

Theus oversaw plans for a centralized steam furnace and pipeline network beneath Castel as the island’s industrial system expanded. Meanwhile, Nini and Gaia used a massive quantity of explosives to free the Pirate King’s fused monster from the Pirate King’s Court, ending with a huge explosion witnessed by Theus.

• Tartaglia brought Theus blueprints for an improved design that Castel could build.
• Over the following months, Castel constructed a central furnace and a vast steam-pipe network beneath the island.
• Castel’s education system continued to produce engineers, while Theus considered creating advanced tiers to train researchers.
• Nini and Gaia discovered that the Pirate King’s monster was fused to the Court and decided to use explosives to separate it.
• Nini and Gaia stacked explosives beneath the monster, and Theus allowed the plan to proceed.
• An enormous blast at the Pirate King’s Court raised a mushroom cloud as Theus watched from a distant shelter.

Theus and the others lifted the monster above the dried seabed and prepared Castel Island’s furnace to test whether they could leave the Sea God Temple. During the ritual, Chloe’s diary let her answer Theus, while Gaia’s grief over her lost friend remained unresolved.

• Pollution Serpents held the monster above the former Pirate King's Court while Skyveil Behemoth hauled its enormous body into the air.
• Theus decided to test the nearly completed furnace on Castel Island, and Monica, Nini, and Gaia began the Steel Prayer ritual.
• Theus placed Chloe’s diary and portrait atop the furnace, and Chloe protested through her handwritten messages as he insisted she was being honored.
• Gaia performed the ritual through her tears and remembered losing her brother, Monica’s memories, and finally Chloe.
• Gaia refused to write in Chloe’s diary, while Chloe and Monica remained silent, unable to comfort their former friend.

After the Machine Soul ritual fell just short of completion, Theus and Gaia concluded that the furnace needed the Pirate King monster as fuel. They chose a plan to lower its main body into the furnace first, leaving Theus back in the real world wondering where he had been sent.

• Nini completed the ritual, but the furnace briefly flared and then went dark, leaving Monica unsure whether the Sea God's soul had entered it.
• Theus guessed that the Machine Soul needed the Sea God's flesh and blood as fuel and decided they should put the Pirate King monster into the furnace.
• Theus saw the monster's vast body and dangling Pollution Serpents arrive above Castel, while Gaia explained that the serpents weighed almost nothing.
• Gaia outlined two ways to load the monster, and she and Theus chose to put its main body into the furnace before burning it to complete the Machine Soul summoning.
• Theus arranged for the furnace ceiling to be removed and the monster to be lowered through Castel Cathedral, then returned to the real world and woke in his worker shell, confused about his location.

Theus found himself trapped in an iceberg in the frozen waters of Shen'an after the Storm Ocean refilled and apparently swept his shell away. He reconnected with Ken and the others at sea and learned that Tis was at war with the Empire, while Scepter warned them to avoid going ashore there.

• Theus discovered he was in a frozen sea, with his lower body trapped in an iceberg, and guessed that the returning seawater had carried his shell from the Storm Eye.
• Theus reopened his long-unused connection and heard French Fries and the others celebrate that they could contact Scepter again.
• Ken told Scepter that the crew had investigated Castel, Gem Bay, and the Corridor of Despair before the seawater surged back and saved them.
• Scepter explained that the Holy See ruled the Empire, Tis was at war with it, and the Candlelight Society, Silent Temple, mechanical priests, and three of Theus's grand dukes had joined the conflict.
• Scepter warned the crew not to go ashore in Tis and suggested they try the White Crow Duchy of Shen'an instead.

Theus learned that Gwen was presumed dead, though her thread showed she was still alive, and returned to Castel. The island completed the hoisting of the Pollution Serpent into the Central Furnace, which seemed to awaken or change after receiving the Sea God's flesh and blood.

• Theus heard the Holy See had retreated from the sea and learned that Scepter believed Gwen had died in the Northern Territory, but he felt her alive through their thread.
• Theus ended the link and returned to Castel as the Banshees used Mind Link to coordinate the hoisting operation.
• Zoe confirmed nearby residents had been evacuated and precautions were in place before Theus ordered the airship to lower the monster.
• Nini and the securing teams guided the Pollution Serpent's tentacles across Castel and positioned its main body above the furnace.
• The airship lowered the monster into the Central Furnace, causing the furnace to tremble and Monica to sense that it was yearning for the Sea God's flesh and blood.