Recaps

Ash and the Banshees retreated through the underground river after Jules destroyed [Big Guy], while Blood Port prepared for a possible attack through its tunnels. Zoe learned that Jules had defeated thirty Banshees, despite their overwhelming advantage over ordinary soldiers.

• Ash ordered the Banshees to evacuate the Untouchables through the underground river, and Nini led Frey and others into the water.
• Jules destroyed [Big Guy], shot off Ash's arm as she escaped, and ordered the priests to seal the cave with cement.
• Blood Port entered emergency preparations, and Zoe inspected underground routes with Hodge and a Faithguard Army squad.
• Hodge explained that a Banshee could defeat a fully equipped company, and Zoe learned that Jules had beaten thirty Banshees.

Zoe and Hodge discussed how Castel’s organized army and industrial capacity could counter powerful Transcendents like Jules, and considered ways to use Cognitive Interference for production. Gaia told them Castel and Blood Port were preparing for wartime mobilization and an offensive alongside Isabella’s forces.

• Zoe learned from Hodge that coordinated troops, fortifications, logistics, and industry could counter the Banshees’ battlefield strength.
• Hodge explained that Jules’s ability to summon weapons could affect a battle but was unlikely to outweigh Castel’s industrial system across an entire war.
• Zoe and Hodge considered whether Jules’s creations and Cognitive Interference could be used in production, despite the risk that fabricated objects would become Pollution.
• Gaia told Zoe that the Banshees were reviewing the battle, injured Untouchables were receiving treatment, and Castel and Blood Port would enter wartime status for an offensive alongside Isabella’s forces.
• Gaia fined Zoe fifty Leo for not wearing a hard hat.

Little Bu learned that the Holy See had attacked the Untouchables underground and hurried to Blood Port to help her injured kin. At the hospital, she reunited with Gaia and Zoe and heard that most of her people, including Frey, had survived.

• Rebecca pulled Little Bu from the testing grounds and told her the Holy See had attacked the Untouchables and Lord Ash had brought many of them to the hospital.
• Little Bu and Rebecca boarded the Black Pearl, which Jeremiah sailed to Blood Port.
• Little Bu wondered whether prosperous Blood Port could become her home as she and Rebecca rode to the hospital.
• Gaia and Zoe met Little Bu and Rebecca at the hospital, where Gaia reassured Little Bu that most of the Untouchables had survived and Frey had returned.

Theus promised the displaced Untouchables a new home in Blood Port and Castel after they lost their homeland, while weighing whether their supposed misfortune posed any real danger. In sealed-off Rhine, Lina found the ruined Gear Sage, which recognized her as an authorized user.

• Little Bu reunited with her people in the hospital lobby, and the Untouchables mourned their lost homeland and Big Guy.
• Theus told the Untouchables that Castel would eventually march into Rhine and promised Blood Port and Castel as their new home.
• Theus decided the Untouchables' alleged misfortune was a risk worth accepting, noting that Frey had been unharmed by his long contact with them.
• The Untouchables calmed down and thanked Theus, while Little Bu cried in his arms.
• After the Holy See sealed the underground entrance in Rhine, Lina searched the rubble and found the damaged Gear Sage, which identified her as the authorized user Lina.

Theus let the injured Untouchables recover, dealt with Castel’s urgent administration, and publicly revealed the Banshees’ defeat to correct overconfidence in elite fighters. As Castel’s leaders and Isabella gathered around him, he reflected on how their lives had changed and marveled that the Empress now fought at his side.

• Theus arranged medical care for the Untouchables, then returned to his office to handle Castel’s accumulated administrative work.
• Theus decided to publish the details of the Banshees’ defeat by Pope Jules, hoping to discourage the Faithguard Army from relying too heavily on Transcendents.
• Theus found Isaac, Josh, Tata, Erwin, Ken, Gaia, Zoe, Alexei, Patriarch Ignati, and others gathered in the corridor.
• Theus reflected on how Josh, Zoe, Gaia, and his other companions had changed since arriving in Castel.
• Isabella returned from the battlefield with Galahad, and Theus told her he could hardly believe the Empress was fighting at his side.

Theus gathered Castel’s leaders and allies to discuss their defeat at Rhine and asked Nini what had caused it and how they could improve. The chapter ended as Nini considered how to become stronger.

• Isabella arrived in person, and Theus teased Beatrice about her regrets over failing to protect the Empress and later serving as Pope of the Candlelight Society.
• The Prince explained that he had tried to assassinate the Empress to show that Tis had not submitted and to inspire those who resisted after him.
• Theus led the crowded gathering into the chapel and addressed Castel’s people about their defeat at Rhine.
• Theus asked Nini what had caused the defeat, and she cited their lack of knowledge about Jules’s abilities, overly aggressive tactics, and insufficient strength.
• Theus asked Nini how she thought she could become stronger.

Theus explained that the Banshees’ greatest battlefield advantage lay in coordinating forces through Mind Link, making them command centers rather than lone fighters. Nini realized the battle groups Theus had organized could let Banshees lead mortal troops against enemies they could not defeat alone.

• Nini and Gaia suggested increasing the Banshees’ strength and armor, but Theus asked them to consider their true battlefield advantages.
• Rebecca identified Nini’s six arms as useful, while Erwin argued that Mind Link could solve battlefield communication problems.
• Erwin described how reconnaissance airships relayed commands and improved army coordination, especially in large battles.
• Theus declared that Banshees should serve as durable battlefield command centers, directing forces and beyond-visual-range strikes.
• Theus reminded Nini of the Banshee-led battle groups, and Nini realized they were meant to let her fight alongside mortal auxiliary troops.

After Castel’s defeat, Theus proposed using Transcendents to support ordinary soldiers across the battlefield, prompting the group to imagine new military applications for their abilities. Theus and Alexei agreed to reorganize Castel’s forces and test a more coordinated battle system in the war against the Empire.

• Theus explained that Banshee-centered battle groups could project individual power across the battlefield, and the Banshees reconsidered their tactics.
• Galahad, Isabella, and Monica imagined using a Knight’s abilities with vehicles and weapons, while Monica suggested Galahad ride a bomb.
• Chloe proposed using an armored iron box to bring her vision ability and a Dragon Breath Cannon to the front lines.
• Theus asked whether they still feared the Pope, and Alexei argued that Castel needed to reorganize its forces and improve coordination.
• Theus agreed to test a new order of battle during Castel’s war with the Empire.

After the failed battle against Pope Jules, Theus began Castel’s general mobilization and discovered that people across the Castel Alliance were united in support of their homeland. As Alexei and the Silent Temple priests headed north to rebuild White Crow, the alliance’s growing sense of belonging left its people ready to defend what they had built.

• News of the failed battle against Pope Jules spread, and Theus launched general mobilization after finding that people in Castel and Blood Port supported the Banshees and opposed the enemy.
• Theus recognized that Castel’s order and shared achievements had earned stronger loyalty than he had expected, and the flame emblem and Castel’s name inspired its people.
• Alexei left Blood Port for the Northern Territory with Helena and priests from the Silent Temple as Gwen’s control over the White Calamity grew and the white mist receded.
• Nora traveled north with books, and Theus gave her basic technical texts and promised support for rebuilding White Crow; Patriarch Ignati recorded Theus’s words, “Knowledge should be precious, not expensive.”
• People across the Castel Alliance increasingly regarded the region as their homeland, united by the threat of someone seeking to destroy it.

Isabella returned to the front lines with Galahad and prepared to intensify her campaign, determined to reclaim the crown and match Castel's growing power. Tis's offensive had slowed in her absence, and the opposing armies remained locked in a stalemate.

• Isabella rode with Galahad, who complained that he could not use his ability to speed up their journey, while she refused to travel in one of his dangerous vehicles.
• Galahad's reckless driving had earned him the reputation of Blood Port's fastest, and he considered modifying his vehicle with his mechanical skills.
• Isabella decided to conquer more of the Empire before Castel could act at full strength, believing Jules and the Holy See could not overcome her experience in large-scale warfare.
• Isabella and Galahad returned to Tis's front lines, where the offensive had slowed in their absence and the two sides had reached a stalemate.
• Isabella remained confident that her forces' bolt-action rifles gave them an overwhelming advantage, despite rain delaying the delivery of Gatling Guns.

Isabella and Galahad rode toward the smoke rising near their army’s camp and discovered that the battle had turned against them, possibly because enemy artillery struck before Tis’s delayed Gatling Guns arrived. A captured cook began explaining how the camp was breached, leaving the attack’s full course unresolved.

• Isabella and Galahad spotted smoke and hurried toward the army’s camp, where gunfire and explosions continued.
• Isabella recognized that the blasts came from artillery weaker than Castel’s naval guns but powerful enough to threaten Tis’s army without its Gatling Guns.
• Galahad captured a fleeing cook from the Third Battalion, who revealed that his unit had been scattered and the camp had been breached.
• The cook began recounting events from several days earlier, when Isabella returned to Castel after its defeat at Rhine and Tis’s advance slowed amid fortified enemy positions and strained supply lines.

Isabella learned that the Holy See had deployed a powerful new weapon, the Steam Tank, which had surprised Tis's army and thrown its camp into chaos. She decided to regroup her troops and considered whether the muddy roads that hindered her Gatling Gun could trap the tank too.

• After supply problems slowed her advance, Isabella returned toward Blood Port and questioned a soldier about the Holy See's new weapon.
• The soldier reported that the Holy See had attacked Tis's camp with enormous iron machines that shelled the troops.
• Isabella and Galahad recognized the machine as a Steam Tank, which advanced under the protection of fanatical Holy See believers.
• Galahad shot the bishop standing on the tank, but the believers continued marching and singing as he fired on them.
• Isabella told Galahad to protect her while she gathered the troops, reasoning that they could regroup and that the muddy road might also immobilize the Steam Tank.

Isabella tried to lure the Holy See’s steam tanks onto muddy ground, but a towering mobile fortress appeared and sent her army fleeing. Theus learned the dimensions and capabilities of the new weapons and faced Isabella’s request for aid.

• Isabella rejected Galahad’s suggestion to withdraw and planned to trap the steam tanks in muddy ground near a lake.
• A massive moving fortress appeared on the battlefield, and Isabella and Galahad stared at it in shock.
• Theus received a report that Isabella’s New Army had been routed by two steam tanks and the Holy See’s mobile fortress.
• Erwin told Theus that the weapons had long-range cannons and that Isabella had retreated over a hundred kilometers before regrouping.
• Theus learned that Isabella had surrendered territory as a buffer and was asking Castel for aid.

After the Holy See deployed unfamiliar steam tanks and battle fortresses, Theus gathered Castel’s researchers to assess the threat. The meeting ended with serious doubts about whether Castel’s airships and existing heavy weapons could counter them.

• Theus learned that Isabella had never seen the Holy See’s steam tanks and battle fortresses, and wondered whether Jules might be connected to their origin.
• Theus called Richard, Gaia, Tata, and the other researchers to an emergency meeting and distributed frontline reports on the weapons.
• The researchers were shocked to learn that the enormous machines had already been used in battle and discussed their size, cannon, and destructive power.
• Erwin warned that the enemy’s artillery could threaten Castel’s airships, which were poorly protected against heavy guns.

Theus approved upgrading Castel’s military and explained why he had restrained both unchecked expansion and reliance on mystical technology. Gaia presented the grenade launcher and hand grenades, which had begun entering service but could not defeat Steam Tanks.

• Gaia urged Theus to authorize more powerful weapons, and he agreed.
• Theus explained that he had restrained his subordinates’ expansionist ambitions and wanted Castel to develop fundamental science rather than rely solely on mystical creations.
• Gaia introduced the grenade launcher, which could fire hand grenades or Pollution-propelled shells for attacking personnel and breaching fortifications.
• Monica joked about Ash’s length, and Ash threw Monica out the window.
• Gaia described hand grenades as lightweight weapons against personnel, and Theus moved the discussion on to heavier weapons because neither weapon could stop Steam Tanks.

Theus reviewed proposals for weapons capable of defeating Steam Tanks, rejecting Tata’s explosive train-sized guided shell and learning that Richard’s powerful howitzer required a Transcendence to operate. The chapter left Theus confronting the absurdity of his inventors’ designs and reaffirming his rejection of their more reckless ideas.

• Tata presented a train cannon whose shell was train-sized, guided by a steering wheel, and fitted with an ejection seat and parachutes.
• Theus summoned Monica and assigned her to work with Tata on a new project, then ordered Tata to personally test the cannon with the Faithguard Army.
• Richard introduced the Deep Sea-III self-propelled howitzer, which had a sixteen-centimeter caliber, a range exceeding ten kilometers, and a weight of around fifteen tons.
• Richard explained that a Transcendence had to interface with the cannon’s Machine Soul to move, aim, and fire it, so it could not simply be towed by a steam tractor.
• Theus reconsidered the rejected proposals and concluded that the inventors’ designs were increasingly outrageous.

Theus approved mass production of Castel’s new weapons and considered using Pollution’s unpredictable effects in prototype mortars. He lifted restrictions on weapons supplies to Tis, uniting Castel’s leaders behind the fight against the Holy See.

• Theus ordered Gaia’s grenades and grenade launchers mass-produced, and directed Tata and Richard to produce their train cannons and self-propelled artillery.
• Gaia explained that larger Pollution charges caused unpredictable effects, and Monica suggested maximizing the charge and blanketing enemy positions with shells.
• Theus approved prototype mortars for testing on the front lines after Gaia welcomed Monica’s proposal.
• Theus ended restrictions on weapons supplies to Tis and promised full logistical support despite concerns about trusting Isabella.
• Theus argued that Castel and Tis had to set aside their rivalry against the Holy See, and Castel’s leaders showed their resolve.

Nora kept watch in the Northern Territory and resolved to help rebuild her ruined homeland, but Gwen brought news that Nora could return to the battlefield using a new self-propelled artillery weapon. Gwen took Nora to the train platform to travel to Castel and find her a steel warhorse.

• Nora reflected on her memories of the Northern Territory and decided to build it into the next Castel.
• Nora watched over Grisha and thought about how Alexei's energy towers could protect people from hunger and cold.
• Gwen arrived and told Nora that Castel had summoned them to fight after Isabella's army suffered setbacks against a wicked weapon used by the Church.
• Nora said she could not fight in her current condition, but Gwen explained that Richard had made a self-propelled artillery weapon that Transcendents could operate.
• Gwen carried Nora toward the train platform, promising to fight beside her as they traveled to Castel to find Nora a steel warhorse.

Nora traveled with Gwen toward a new body while learning that the Holy See’s Steam Tanks had forced Isabella’s forces into a desperate defensive campaign. Isabella had trapped some tanks in mud but now preserved her army and maneuvered to buy time for Castel.

• Nora realized Gwen had left her old body in the Northern Territory and worried about abandoning it and its flowers.
• Gwen told Nora they were not going to Castel because the Holy See had launched a full-scale counteroffensive with Steam Tanks.
• Isabella surrendered territory and trapped one batch of Steam Tanks by bogging them down in mud after blowing up an upstream dam.
• The Holy See sent several more Steam Tanks to the front, making direct combat nearly impossible for Tis’s new army.
• Isabella preserved her forces and maneuvered around the enemy to buy time for Castel.

Nora and Gwen signed on to operate Castel’s self-propelled artillery and headed for the battlefield as reinforcements. Galahad drove them to the front while Isabella raced ahead in a car of her own.

• Gwen presented Nora with a conscription order that she had signed on Nora’s behalf, and Nora headbutted her in anger.
• Nora and Gwen traveled to the battlefield, where they learned that Castel’s new self-propelled artillery urgently needed operators.
• Galahad picked them up, startling Gwen, who recalled having once punched him flying during a sparring match.
• Galahad explained that Isabella was driving the neighboring car and that most of the reinforcements were priests from the Silent Temple.
• Isabella sped ahead, and Galahad accelerated to catch up with her.

Galahad drove Gwen and Nora to the front in his nitroglycerin-powered car, where they were assigned to operate Richard’s new self-propelled artillery. The chapter left Nora examining the enormous gun as its mechanic began starting it up.

• Galahad accelerated his car so violently that Gwen and Nora were thrown around the cabin on the way to the front.
• Galahad explained that internal-combustion cars could not yet serve on the battlefield, but self-propelled artillery could.
• The new army carried the battered Gwen to the artillery zone, while Nora flew in on her own.
• Galahad explained that the artillery used on-site mixing and specialized machinery to load its ammunition, and that only Transcendents could operate it.
• A mechanic finished checking the self-propelled gun and pulled its control lever, causing its lower compartment to open.

Nora connected with a self-propelled artillery cannon’s Machine Soul and joined Gwen to cover the Tis New Army’s retreat. They reached a hillside overlooking the battle just as four Holy See Steam Tanks opened fire.

• Galahad sent Nora into a self-propelled artillery cannon, where she connected with its Machine Soul and learned to control it with her will.
• Galahad told Nora to drive toward the battlefield and help hold off the Holy See while the frontline soldiers withdrew.
• Nora and Gwen took self-propelled artillery cannons to the front without accompanying soldiers, with Gwen saying she had beaten her Machine Soul into obeying.
• Nora led Gwen up an earthen slope and surveyed the Tis New Army’s orderly retreat against the Holy See’s disorganized advance.
• The four Steam Tanks stopped, raised their barrels, and fired on the Duchy of Tis’s positions.

Nora and Gwen watched Tis’s disciplined soldiers hold their positions against the Holy See, then joined the battle in a self-propelled artillery piece. Nora destroyed two Steam Tanks and rallied Gwen to advance for the Holy Hall, the Bone White Crow, and Castel.

• The Duchy of Tis’s soldiers dispersed into trenches to avoid the Holy See’s tank fire, then stood and advanced under cover of their fortifications.
• Nora explained to Gwen that Tis’s ordinary soldiers showed unusual discipline and reflected Castel’s ability to empower mortals to resist supernatural threats.
• Nora aimed her self-propelled artillery at two stationary Steam Tanks and fired, destroying both with a single barrage.
• Gwen called out to Nora, who rallied them to advance for the Holy Hall, the Bone White Crow, and Castel.

Nora and Gwen led a charge that routed the Holy See's main force. Two remaining Steam Tanks charged them, but a Candlelight Society priest's supernatural defenses failed against explosives, leaving him and his tank engulfed in flames.

• Nora and Gwen charged down the hill in their self-propelled guns, firing and playing Temple prayers over the loudspeakers.
• The Duchy of Tis commanders sent their soldiers forward, and the Holy See's troops panicked and fled, causing hundreds of casualties in the chaos.
• The two remaining Steam Tanks charged Nora and Gwen as their priests prayed from the open hatches.
• A Candlelight Society priest used his Investigator powers to stop incoming bullets and challenged the Temple forces to a sacred duel.
• The priest mistook incoming explosives for stones and was engulfed in flames along with his Steam Tank.

Gwen destroyed a monstrous priest after it wrecked her self-propelled cannon, while Lina gathered the routed Holy See forces and sent them toward the Gear Sage. Nora and the Tis cavalry found the soldiers dead in a valley, their bodies arranged to face Castel.

• Tis soldiers attacked the Steam Tanks with grenades, and Nora and Gwen destroyed the tank that emerged from the smoke.
• A priest transformed into a monster, tore apart Gwen’s self-propelled cannon, and was dismantled by Gwen after she was dragged from it.
• Lina told the Gear Sage she would sacrifice it to bring a god into the world, then used the Pope’s written order to gather the routed soldiers.
• The Gear Sage led the assembled soldiers toward a valley as the Tis New Army cautiously followed.
• Nora and the Tis cavalry reached the valley and found the Holy See soldiers dead, shriveled, and arranged to face Castel.