Chapter Summaries

Aaron entered the apocalyptic Eighth History to search for survivors and discovered that the mortal world was merging with the Spirit Realm. When an Eighth Primordial creature attacked, he used dark avatars to evade it, but the danger remained.

• Aaron arrived at the ruined border of Green Forest and the Romani Duchy, carrying a bone fragment as the key to the Eighth History.
• Aaron saw the gray, lifeless landscape and set out to find survivors, then sensed a Spirit Realm creature tearing through the void.
• Aaron recognized the creature as an Eighth Primordial and realized the apocalypse had intensified the fusion of the mortal world and the Spirit Realm.
• Aaron concluded that facing the dangers of the Eighth History was necessary for his advancement into a true Longevity One.
• The Thousand-Armed Centipede charged at Aaron and blocked Spirit Realm escape, so he created eight dark avatars and scattered them.
• The centipede's eyes destroyed three avatars as it prepared a wide-area attack, and a sudden change erupted.

Aaron escaped a Primordial Worm in the decaying Spirit Realm and discovered that it had nearly infected him. In an apocalyptic Green Forest City, he entered a ruined department store and came face to face with a mysterious girl in a red dress.

• Aaron used the Sword in the Stone to escape a giant Primordial Worm that devoured the Thousand-Armed Centipede and infected his dark avatars.
• Aaron purified himself in Green Forest City, expelled and burned a worm, and learned through divination that the creatures were Primordial Worms associated with a world's decay.
• Inid and a boy scavenged near a department store, but the boy suffered a Resentful Hand Curse after eating dog-food biscuits.
• Inid spotted a girl in a red dress and fled with the boy, while Aaron noticed them and marked them before entering the store.
• Aaron climbed to the second floor, where the girl in the red dress turned to face him.

Aaron escaped a strange girl whose touch left an unexplained mark on his palm, then went looking for the two survivors. He found Inid facing the Hyena Bandit Gang and intervened as their leader threatened her.

• A strange girl attacked Aaron with white fibers, but he burned them away and stabbed her with the Sword in the Stone; she exploded and reappeared beside him.
• The girl slipped her hand into Aaron’s before he teleported away, leaving bluish-black marks on his palm that even Furnace Fire could not remove.
• Inid killed the Hyena Bandits with a one-use talisman, but their Extraordinary leader remained unharmed and threatened her.
• Aaron appeared before Inid and the Hyena leader, revealing that he had survived the strange territory.

Aaron questioned Inid and the hyena leader about the apocalypse and learned that the Spirit Realm's Age Controllers had fallen before the Spirit Realm invaded reality. After the hyena leader lost control and Aaron killed him, Aaron demanded that Inid reveal where she had obtained her banyan leaf talismans.

• Aaron asked the hyena leader when the apocalypse began, and the man estimated that it had started more than a decade earlier.
• Inid said apocalypse believers blamed the Outer Gods, but the hyena leader called her a liar and described the Age Controllers falling one by one before the apocalypse.
• The hyena leader recounted the Spirit Realm's invasion and the suffering that followed, then began losing control as black spikes grew across his body.
• Aaron burned the hyena leader to ashes with Furnace Fire, leaving a dark spiritual spike behind, and offered the spike to Inid as a reward.
• Aaron asked Inid where she had gotten her banyan leaf talismans, and when she claimed she had traded for them without seeing the trader, Aaron accused her of lying.

Aaron used his power as the Apostle of Heart to separate Inid’s desire into an incarnation, then made the real Inid agree to guide him to the shelter. Inid’s desire returned after Aaron dismissed the copy, and he reassured her that he would not slaughter the shelter’s people without reason.

• Inid tried to use a hidden banyan-leaf talisman to escape, but a woman seized her and took it.
• The woman revealed that she was an incarnation of Inid’s desires and offered to lead Aaron to the shelter.
• Inid pleaded with Aaron to choose her over the copy and promised to take him to the shelter and Teacher Ayi Fa.
• Aaron snapped his fingers, causing the false Inid to vanish and returning Inid’s desire to her.
• Aaron gave Inid the banyan-leaf talisman and reassured her before she led him toward the shelter.

Aaron followed Inid to her refuge camp, where Ayi Fa recognized his immense power and explained that the apocalypse began with the fall of the Age Controllers and the merging of the Spirit Realm with the mortal world. She identified the cause as the fallen Age Controller known as the Rancher, who governed June.

• Inid led Aaron through a concealed entrance into the underground refuge camp and explained why survivors avoided cities and wastelands.
• Inid showed Aaron the camp’s cultivation room, where survivors grew mushrooms and ferns and raised earthworms for food.
• Inid introduced Aaron to her teacher, Ayi Fa, who rejected his story about being lost in the Spirit Realm.
• Ayi Fa used her crystal ball to perceive Aaron’s radiance and was nearly overwhelmed before Inid steadied her with a Green Banyan leaf.
• Aaron asked Ayi Fa to explain the apocalypse, and she said the fallen Age Controller called the Rancher was responsible.

Aaron learned that Rancher was the Lord of Fallen and Chaos, whose hidden authority over destruction made the world’s end inevitable. He also discovered that Ayi Fa’s shelter relied on a mysterious being claiming to be Grandmother Green Banyan, leaving Aaron suspecting an impostor.

• Ayi Fa explained that Rancher devoured the first Age Controller, bred Primordial Worms, and ultimately consumed the remaining Age Controllers as the world ended.
• Aaron connected his earlier vision of a worm-like creature to Rancher and considered how he might reach the Gate of Longevity while the other Age Controllers were dead or wounded.
• Aaron asked Ayi Fa where she had obtained the Green Banyan leaf talismans.
• Ayi Fa said a green banyan-like presence had called to survivors in a dream and offered protection in exchange for prayer, enabling them to make talismans from ordinary leaves.
• Ayi Fa identified the being as Grandmother Green Banyan, and Aaron suspected another evil god was using that identity to spread its faith.

Aaron stayed at the shelter as an honored guest after Ayi Fa recognized the strange mark on his palm and gave him three talismans to suppress its corrosion. While Ayi Fa explained the dangers of the post-apocalyptic world to Inid, Aaron considered ways to improve the shelter’s food supply, then saw the girl in the red dress appear again.

• Aaron asked to stay at the shelter, and Ayi Fa accepted while warning him that the mark on his palm came from a strange phenomenon.
• Ayi Fa gave Aaron three green banyan-leaf talismans that might suppress the strange corrosion.
• Inid escorted Aaron to a room, then returned to Ayi Fa and described how he had divided her desire to create another version of her.
• Ayi Fa told Inid that powerful Beyonders had died in the war against the Primordial Worms, while survivors and corrupted Beyonders brought further danger to humanity.
• Aaron considered using Thought Alchemy to create a new food source, but his spirituality warned him as the girl in the red dress appeared again.

Aaron used three green-leaf talismans to suppress the strange entity marked on his palm, then ate a Longevity One remnant and explored the shelter. After conjuring food for a hungry girl, he asked Inid to trade him more purification talismans, and she was alarmed by the mark on his hand.

• Aaron used three of Grandmother Green Banyan's talismans to make the red-clad entity disappear, though he sensed the mark would eventually summon it again.
• Aaron ate the Longevity One remnant and said he would explore the Spirit Realm while waiting for his spirituality to digest.
• Aaron surveyed the shelter's marketplace and used Thought Alchemy to conjure ordinary food from the survivors' dreams.
• Aaron gave the food to a starving girl, then asked Inid whether she had more green-leaf purification talismans to trade.
• Inid recognized the gray mark on Aaron's palm and asked what powerful eerie thing he had encountered.

Aaron negotiated a daily food trade with Ayi Fa and investigated the shelter’s unusually high child mortality, suspecting that children with spiritual gifts were being used as offerings or materials. He later detected Ayi Fa beginning a ritual to pray to Grandmother Green Banyan and make talismans.

• Aaron offered to provide two to three hundred pounds of food each day and proposed a fast-growing crop, but Ayi Fa and Inid remained cautious about publicizing it.
• Ayi Fa agreed to trade three hundred pounds of food per day for at least one talisman from Aaron each day.
• Aaron gave Maya bread in exchange for answers and asked where the shelter took children’s bodies after they died, but a woman quickly led Maya away.
• Aaron considered whether the shelter was sacrificing, selling, or experimenting on spiritually gifted children and decided to enter influential people’s dreams for more information.
• Aaron sensed that Ayi Fa had begun a ritual using candles, a knife, and essential oils to pray to Grandmother Green Banyan and make talismans.

Ayi Fa taught Inid ritual studies and prayed to Grandmother Green Banyan to make Purification Charms, allowing Aaron to trace the ritual’s passage to the being’s true body. There, he discovered Grandmother Green Banyan was a chaotic entity made from remnants of dead beings, and learned from Olivia that Lin had died because the Mother of Night had gone mad.

• Ayi Fa taught Inid how to conduct rituals and used seven banyan leaves to make Purification Charms for Aaron’s trade.
• Aaron sent his inspiration through the ritual passage and found Grandmother Green Banyan’s true body in a forest growing from bones.
• The banyan produced the heads of many beings, including Olivia, and Aaron realized it was a chaotic entity formed from the remnants of dead mythical and Secrecy existences.
• Aaron asked Olivia where Lin was, and she said Lin was dead and that the Mother of Night had gone mad.

Aaron learned that Mother of Night had gone mad and suspected Rancher was tied to the fallen Fate Controller [Crimson Creator], but chose to wait and see. After trading black bread for a purification talisman with Ayi Fa, he warned her that a concealed Non-Human Existence had infiltrated the shelter and was approaching them.

• Aaron's inspiration revealed that Mother of Night had gone mad and that Rancher was connected to the deaths of several beings before the chaos disrupted his vision.
• Aaron reasoned that Rancher might have arisen from Black Swamp and served as a vessel for the resurrection of [Crimson Creator], then decided not to intervene in the Eighth History for now.
• Aaron refined 300 pounds of black bread for Ayi Fa and received a purification talisman in return.
• Aaron told Ayi Fa that a concealed Non-Human Existence had infiltrated the shelter and was approaching them, and she asked for his help.

Ramajie infiltrated Ayi Fa’s shelter to kidnap children for the Shadow King, but Aaron exposed him and blocked his escape. After learning the Shadow King was a former Guardian who had lost control, Aaron used his power to pull an identical figure out of Ramajie, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

• Ramajie entered the shelter’s core and selected children to sacrifice for the Shadow King.
• Ayi Fa arrived with a group, and Ramajie tried to escape using Shadow Leap and his Vanishing Cloak.
• Aaron declared invisibility forbidden, forcing Ramajie to reappear before Ayi Fa and the others.
• Ramajie demanded children for the Shadow King, while Inid identified him as the leader of the Shadow Bandit Gang.
• Ayi Fa explained that the Shadow King had once been a Guardian from the Shadowless Order who lost control after the apocalypse.
• Aaron snapped his fingers and pulled an identical figure out of Ramajie, making it real.

Aaron split Ramajie’s guilty personality from him and learned that the Shadow King required spirit children as sacrifices to control its worsening madness. After forcing Ramajie to let his repentant self take over, Aaron watched him die, and a nonhuman-level characteristic emerged from his body.

• Aaron gave Ramajie’s guilty personality a physical form, and the kind version confessed to helping the Shadow King sacrifice spirit children.
• Kind Ramajie said the Shadow King went mad every half month and demanded at least seven children, then offered to reveal its location and weaknesses.
• Real Ramajie tried to attack, but Aaron sealed mystical abilities and forced him to submit.
• Aaron returned control of Ramajie’s body to his repentant personality and ordered him to prove his resolve by dying.
• Kind Ramajie drove a dagger into Ramajie’s throat, and a black eye-shaped nonhuman-level characteristic formed in his blood.

Aaron confronted the uncontrolled Shadow King in a hidden cave, using radiant power to drive back the darkness and trap the monstrous former ruler. He questioned the Shadow King about why the Mother of Night had gone mad, but the creature only begged for more as time ran short.

• Aaron left Shelter after reassuring its members that he would deal with the Shadow King's forces himself.
• Aaron used Spirit Realm Teleportation to enter the hidden cave where the Shadow King was concealed.
• The Shadow King attacked Aaron with living darkness, and Aaron summoned a phantom sun to force it back and kill the insects within it.
• Aaron found the Shadow King transformed into a towering mass of shadow bearing five masks and trapped it within a ring of white fire.
• Aaron directed the Light of Redemption at the largest mask and asked why the Mother of Night had gone mad, but the Shadow King only pleaded for more.

Aaron killed the Shadow King, then waited for the lady in the red dress and followed her into a place at the core of the world, where he discovered the Black Swamp’s connection to the Scarlet Sun. He escaped with the Power of Secret Source, but was left wondering whether aberrations were manifestations of the world’s corrupted will.

• Aaron killed the Shadow King with the Sword in the Stone and used divination to inflict Misfortune Accident on the thieves’ gang’s remaining three non-human captains.
• Aaron waited in the limestone cavern for the lady in the red dress and prepared ritual traps, but his rituals had no effect when she arrived.
• The lady took Aaron’s hand and brought him to a strange place that he identified as the core of the world and the deepest part of the ocean of subconsciousness.
• Aaron saw the Black Swamp and its Primordial Worms, realizing that the Rancher was formed from remnants left after the Scarlet Sun was stripped away.
• Aaron escaped the approaching swamp with the Power of Secret Source and discovered that the blue-black mark on his palm had vanished.
• Aaron wondered whether the lady in red and other aberrations were corrupted manifestations of the world’s will.

Aaron returned after defeating the Shadow King and helped Ayi Fa’s shelter promote a new crop called the Hope Tree. Inid spread claims about its food-producing power to nearby survivors, while knowing the crop had not yet been created and relying on Aaron to protect the shelter.

• Aaron returned to the shelter and told Inid that the Shadow King was no longer a threat.
• Ayi Fa agreed to help spread news of Aaron’s proposed Hope Tree crop to other shelters.
• Aaron named the crop the Hope Tree and described its ability to grow quickly in darkness and produce bread and meat.
• Inid gave candy to children at a survivor camp and told its leader, Ryder, about the Hope Tree.
• Ryder and several women asked to merge their camp with Ayi Fa’s shelter, and Inid said she would consult her teacher.
• Inid worried that the Hope Tree did not yet exist, but trusted Aaron to defend the shelter if bandits came to seize it.

Aaron used accumulated belief to create Seeds of Hope, which grew into food-producing trees and gave the Shelter’s survivors a source of food. After Ayi Fa shared seeds with other survivor leaders, Aaron continued spreading them from another Shelter.

• Aaron sensed that belief in the Hope Tree had gathered enough influence and used Thought Alchemy to create Seeds of Hope.
• Aaron gave the seeds to Ayi Fa, who planted one in the Shelter’s cultivation room with Inid and the other leaders watching it sprout.
• A month later, Ayi Fa showed Ryder and the visiting leaders mature Hope Trees bearing breadfruit and meat fungus.
• Ayi Fa gave Ryder Seeds of Hope and asked him to distribute them to those in need under a binding contract.
• Ayi Fa declared Harvest Day in honor of Aaron, while Aaron sent another batch of seeds from a different Shelter.

Aaron searched the ruined city of Tisago for a mythical creature and encountered Barbaro Nisa, a rational-seeming starlit whale who told him the apocalypse began when the Mother of Night fed herself to the Rancher. Barbaro sacrificed itself to release a new generation of its people and left its characteristic to Aaron.

• Aaron traveled across the continent, gave away his remaining Seeds of Hope, and hunted mythical creatures to strengthen the Crown Bearer.
• Aaron entered the ruins of Tisago and found a Seventh Primordial whale that could vanish and change its size under a special law.
• Aaron spoke with the whale, learned its name was Barbaro Nisa, and heard that it was the last of the Children of the Sea after the Spirit Realm’s oceans were destroyed.
• Barbaro leapt into the void, died, and released many Spirit Realm creatures from within itself, apparently reproducing its race.
• Barbaro’s leftover characteristic condensed into azure light and was given to Aaron.

Aaron advanced to the threshold of the Seventh Primordial and entered the Spirit Realm to reach the Gate of Longevity. After passing its trials and climbing the Tower of Babel as a Crown Bearer, he faced a sudden attack from the Rancher.

• Aaron swallowed the Seventh Primordial characteristic his giant whale friend had given him and meditated until his spirituality reached the threshold of advancement.
• Aaron entered the Spirit Realm and burned through the pale forest of failed challengers with his Furnace Fire.
• Aaron walked across the crimson river, resisting the spirits that tried to drag him under.
• Aaron claimed the Spirit Realm's crown and climbed the Tower of Babel, overcoming its guards and reaching the Gate of Longevity.
• As Aaron prepared to open the Gate of Longevity, the Rancher covered the tower in sludge and sent Primordial Worms swarming toward him.