Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary

Plot and events

• Lude briefs Sally, Crow, and Silverback on a warehouse operation involving the Black Tide Society and the Night Duty Bureau.
• The plan is to exploit an anticipated attack: Crow will create a distraction and keep the two factions in a prolonged stalemate, while Sally and Silverback infiltrate the warehouse, plant explosives, and remove valuable items.
• Lude refuses to let the others accompany him because he must lure away Thunder Emperor Thorn, the Black Tide Society’s strongest fighter, in order to rescue someone else.
• He warns that Sally and the others would be killed or hinder his escape if they joined the confrontation.
• Although worried and jealous, Sally accepts his decision and leads the team as ordered. Lude leaves alone to monitor and manipulate the developing battle.

Character developments

• Lude demonstrates strategic control, self-sacrifice, and a willingness to face overwhelming danger alone. He is also revealed to have strong feelings for the person he intends to save.
• Sally struggles with concern and jealousy but ultimately prioritizes Lude’s orders and safety. Her loyalty is strengthened by her gratitude toward him as both captain and benefactor.
• Crow remains cautious and supportive, prepared to restrain Sally if her emotions overwhelm her, though he is bewildered by her deductions.
• Silverback receives a practical support role focused on transporting the stolen goods.
• Sally realizes that Lude’s unusual withdrawal of his hand after she touched it suggests guilt and romantic feelings toward another woman.

Themes

• Loyalty and duty: The team follows Lude despite personal concerns because they trust and respect him.
• Self-sacrifice and protection: Lude deliberately isolates himself to protect his companions while taking on the most dangerous opponent.
• Jealousy and unspoken affection: Sally’s romantic feelings surface as she recognizes Lude may love someone else.
• Strategy and controlled conflict: The operation depends on carefully balancing opposing forces rather than simply defeating them.
• Found family and gratitude: Sally emphasizes that Lude rescued the trio from a desperate life and gave them security, making their loyalty deeply personal.

Character interactions

• Lude assigns each member a precise role and firmly rejects Sally’s implied request to accompany him.
• Sally touches Lude’s hand and asks him to return safely; his deliberate withdrawal becomes the basis for her romantic analysis.
• Crow questions Sally’s jealousy and worries about her reaction, while Sally explains her reasoning and reasserts that they must obey Lude.
• After leaving, Lude senses that Sally may understand his feelings and worries she could act unpredictably, but he trusts her enough to proceed.
• The chapter ends with Lude using the Red Sparrow’s mental connection to observe and adjust the battle from a rooftop.

Chapter Summary: “My Heart Is Fire”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Lude monitors the Night Duty Bureau and Black Tide Society operations around the city:
  • Neilong’s team approaches the portal undetected.
  • Jensen’s team causes trouble near the Grand Auction House by invoking the Night Duty Bureau’s authority, provoking a counterattack from the Black Tide Society.
  • Bordeaux’s team fights the guards at the artifact warehouse, while Lude uses the Ring of the Owl to interfere with Red Sparrow’s memories and conceal them.
  • Francis’s team waits in a bathroom, intending to assassinate the auction house’s leadership once the other teams create enough chaos.
• Lude realizes that the director is likely fighting a mysterious sixth-tier spellcaster within a silence field, cutting off Red Sparrow’s communication.
• Sally and Crow’s group defeats the warehouse guards using Crow’s anesthetic blades and begins looting valuable artifacts and materials.
• A massive explosion erupts from the west. Jensen’s team has gone offline, and the Red Sparrow supporting them is dead. This confirms that Thunder Emperor Thorn—not the previously encountered sixth-tier spellcaster—was responsible.
• Jensen’s team’s attack had been strategically reckless because Thunder Emperor Thorn was positioned nearby to protect Don Juan and Siana’s ritual. However, their sacrifice reveals Thorn’s location.
• As Sally’s team continues looting, a Night Duty Bureau Arcanist named “My Heart Is Fire” charges into the Black Tide Society’s forces and detonates himself. His explosion, amplified by steel balls packed into his clothing, devastates the enemy formation.
• Realizing the danger and the scale of the attack, Lude abandons stealth and orders Sally, Crow, and the others to retreat immediately.

Character Developments

• Lude remains a calculating coordinator, constantly assessing the battlefield and manipulating events from a distance. He uses the Ring of the Owl tactically and recognizes the strategic value of Jensen’s team’s deaths despite their poor judgment.
• Sally and Crow demonstrate their effectiveness in combat and looting. Sally maintains her playful greed by taking a ruby necklace, while Crow secretly pockets gemstones despite the group’s stated focus on useful artifacts.
• Francis is shown to be waiting for the right moment to strike at the auction house’s leadership, though his inactivity frustrates Lude.
• Thunder Emperor Thorn is established as an extremely dangerous force, powerful enough to eliminate Jensen’s team almost instantly and feared even by Siana.
• The Night Duty Bureau Arcanist is revealed as a suicidal, emotionally unstable fighter whose unusual Secret Art allows him to turn himself into a massive explosive weapon. His actions show both terrifying commitment and the Bureau’s willingness to sacrifice personnel.
• Jensen’s team is portrayed as tactically reckless: their assault achieves the valuable goal of locating Thorn but also suffers catastrophic losses and strengthens the Black Tide Society’s reputation.

Significant Themes

• Sacrifice and strategic value: Jensen’s team and the suicidal Arcanist are effectively expendable assets. Their deaths are tragic, but their actions produce important battlefield advantages.
• Chaos as a weapon: The Night Duty Bureau deliberately creates disorder across multiple locations to divide the Black Tide Society’s defenses and open a path toward the auction house’s leadership.
• The danger of miscalculation: Jensen’s team attacks too close to Thorn, demonstrating how a seemingly useful operation can become fatal when the enemy’s protective arrangements are misunderstood.
• Dark humor amid violence: Lude’s sarcastic observations about Francis hiding in a bathroom, Crow stealing gemstones, and the Arcanist’s “terrorist equipment” contrast with the chapter’s brutal combat.
• Power and vulnerability: Even powerful organizations rely on communication, deception, and positioning. Red Sparrow’s signal is cut off, teams disappear, and Lude must constantly revise his understanding of the battle.

Character Interactions

• Lude remotely observes and coordinates the various teams, criticizing their decisions while occasionally intervening directly.
• He manipulates Red Sparrow’s memory through the Ring of the Owl, protecting Bordeaux’s team from detection.
• The Black Tide Society counters Jensen’s intimidation campaign, turning the Night Duty Bureau’s show of authority into an open battle.
• Sally and Crow cooperate in defeating and looting the artifact warehouse guards, while indulging in small acts of personal greed.
• Lude evaluates the relationship between Don Juan and Thunder Emperor Thorn, correctly inferring that Thorn will remain close to Don Juan unless the situation becomes critical.
• After the Arcanist’s explosion tears through the Black Tide Society’s line, Lude urgently orders Sally, Crow, and the others to flee, shifting from observation to immediate crisis management.

Chapter Summary: “Thunder Emperor”

Key Plot Points and Events

• After the lesser monsters are defeated, Lude realizes that a powerful final enemy is about to appear.
• Lude orders the Night Duty Bureau agents, led by Deputy Director Bordeaux, to retreat. Although Bordeaux is confused because the mission is incomplete, Lude refuses to explain, recognizing that the agents are effectively doomed.
• Lude draws the White Flame Holy Sword, which he has recently upgraded into a weapon approaching the level of seventh-tier Rubedo Alchemy. The sword is made from the rare and powerful material Holy Steel.
• Before Lude can act, a marble pillar traveling at tremendous speed crashes into the agents, killing and dismembering them. Lude does not intervene because he cannot save them in time.
• The attacker appears on the rooftop: Thorn, the legendary Thunder Emperor. Despite his thunder-associated title, Lude quickly realizes that Thorn’s Secret Art is not related to lightning.
• Thorn orders Lude to surrender or die. Lude responds with a surprise attack, striking at Thorn’s neck with the full force of the White Flame Holy Sword.
• Thorn effortlessly blocks the blow with the edge of his bare hand. The clash sends Lude through three walls, while Thorn receives only a minor cut that heals almost immediately.
• Lude injects a third dose of Wyvern Blood Essence, transforming his eyes and enhancing himself for the battle.
• The chapter ends with both combatants accepting a second round.

Character Developments

• Lude: Demonstrates his willingness to sacrifice or abandon others when he knows they cannot survive, highlighting his practical and ruthless judgment. His confidence is shaken by Thorn’s overwhelming defense, but he quickly adapts by using Wyvern Blood Essence and preparing for a more serious fight. His skills as an Alchemist are also emphasized through the continued improvement of his sword.
• Thorn: Is introduced as an immensely powerful and composed opponent. He displays extraordinary physical strength, speed, durability, and regeneration, stopping Lude’s strongest attack with one hand. Despite his intimidating power, he remains calm, formal, and almost scholarly.
• Bordeaux: Shows respect for Lude and is inclined to follow his orders, partly because Lude helped create his weapon. However, his concern for procedure and the need for an explanation contrasts with Lude’s urgent understanding of the threat.
• Night Duty Bureau Agents: Their deaths establish Thorn’s overwhelming danger and demonstrate that ordinary combatants are helpless in the confrontation.

Significant Themes

• The gap between ordinary fighters and supreme beings: The agents are destroyed instantly, while Lude and Thorn operate at speeds and levels of power that make normal people seem almost irrelevant.
• Pragmatism versus responsibility: Lude chooses not to waste time trying to save the agents, prioritizing the greater threat and his own survival.
• Preparation and escalation: Lude’s upgraded sword and use of Wyvern Blood Essence show his constant preparation for stronger enemies and his willingness to escalate his abilities.
• Calmness under overwhelming pressure: Both Lude and Thorn remain composed despite their extreme speed and destructive power, treating the confrontation almost like a controlled contest.
• Hidden power and mistaken assumptions: Thorn’s title suggests a lightning-based ability, but Lude discovers that his true Secret Art is unrelated, making him more difficult to predict.

Character Interactions

• Lude and Bordeaux: Bordeaux asks why the team must retreat, but Lude ignores him, signaling the growing distance between Lude’s private understanding of the danger and the agents’ limited perspective.
• Lude and Thorn: Their interaction immediately becomes a battle of overwhelming force. Thorn offers surrender, while Lude answers with a surprise strike. Thorn’s effortless defense establishes his superiority, but Lude refuses to submit and prepares for a rematch.
• Lude and the fallen agents: Lude’s inability—and decision not—to save them reinforces his isolation and pragmatic outlook as he faces the true enemy alone.

Summary: “Scorching Sun and Earthquake”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Lude activates the third Wyvern Blood Essence, transforming his body with crimson scales, slit pupils, horns, a Red Dragon spine, and a bladed tail. Unlike the earlier Essences, this grants him temporary explosive power rather than permanently enhancing his body.
• The transformation can last only about three minutes, or roughly an hour from the perspective of Lude and Thunder Emperor, who are moving at fifty times normal speed.
• Thunder Emperor attacks first with a devastating punch. Lude narrowly evades it and counters with Dragon Breath Explosive Fist, injecting compressed flame energy into Thunder Emperor’s body and detonating it internally.
• Thunder Emperor explains and names his own technique, Earthsong: Voidquake, which uses vibration to weaken and shatter an opponent’s bones through an apparently ordinary punch.
• The two exchange increasingly powerful attacks. Lude uses his sword and activates Furnace Monarch, generating flames hot enough to vaporize the surrounding stone and form a fire dragon.
• Thunder Emperor responds with Voidquake, obliterating the fire dragon and extinguishing the flames across a wide area. Lude realizes that Thunder Emperor’s natural strength vastly exceeds even his own accumulated enhancements and weapons.
• Lude reflects on the unfairness of Thunder Emperor’s innate power, which was supposedly foretold by his father’s astrology as the result of an innate War God Fate.
• Rather than becoming discouraged, Lude begins laughing with genuine excitement. He declares that he is happy to have found someone so powerful because it proves that such heights can be reached.
• Lude announces his belief that if another person can attain a level of power, he can eventually attain it as well. His confidence and ambition visibly intrigue Thunder Emperor.

Character Development

• Lude: Demonstrates increasing mastery of his powers, combining his transformed body, flame abilities, Secret Art, and Holy Sword. Although he recognizes Thunder Emperor’s overwhelming superiority, he responds with enthusiasm rather than fear or despair. His ambition becomes clearer: he wants not merely to survive, but to reach the same level of strength.
• Thunder Emperor: Remains calm, analytical, and composed throughout the fight. He recognizes the danger of Lude’s techniques and explains their mechanics without arrogance. However, Lude’s confidence and determination finally provoke genuine interest and a slight change in Thunder Emperor’s expression.

Significant Themes

• Earned power versus innate power: Lude’s strength comes from modifications, training, techniques, and powerful artifacts, while Thunder Emperor appears to have been born with extraordinary abilities and destiny.
• The unfairness of talent and fate: Lude acknowledges that Thunder Emperor’s existence seems fundamentally unfair, especially because his power was linked to a divinely or astrologically predetermined fate.
• Ambition and self-belief: Instead of being intimidated by Thunder Emperor’s superiority, Lude treats him as proof of what is possible. His belief that he can eventually equal anyone who surpasses him becomes the emotional climax of the chapter.
• Combat as mutual recognition: Their battle is not merely an attempt to defeat one another; through their exchanges, each recognizes the other’s techniques, ingenuity, and potential.
• Limits and temporariness: Lude’s transformation is immensely powerful but unstable, emphasizing the difference between temporary explosive strength and Thunder Emperor’s seemingly effortless, inherent power.

Character Interactions

• Lude and Thunder Emperor exchange respectful observations about each other’s techniques during combat.
• Thunder Emperor identifies the mechanics behind Lude’s explosive flame attack, while Lude correctly analyzes the destructive vibration hidden within Thunder Emperor’s punches.
• Their conversation gradually shifts from technical evaluation to philosophical confrontation: Thunder Emperor questions Lude’s certainty, while Lude asserts his faith in limitless personal growth.
• Lude’s declaration of ambition changes Thunder Emperor’s attitude from detached observation to genuine curiosity, ending the chapter on a note of mutual interest.

Chapter Summary: “God-Hunting Greatsword”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Thunder Emperor acknowledges Lude’s unusual confidence and lack of fear, offering him respect and asking whether he prefers aerial or ground combat. Lude responds that he is comfortable with neither, so they resume fighting in the sky.
• Their battle becomes so powerful that each collision produces thunderous shockwaves, destroys the clouds, and reduces the city beneath the Void Boundary to scorched ruins. Although only ten seconds have passed, everyone witnessing the fight is stunned.
• Observers—including Director Duncan, Don Juan, Sally, Francis, and Neilong—realize that Lude and Thunder Emperor are both operating at the level of powerful Eternalists.
• Sally’s group abandons the battlefield, recognizing that they cannot assist Lude and would only hinder him. Sally is frustrated by how dramatically Lude’s strength has increased in just over a month.
• Francis is terrified but relieved that the battle is contained within the Void Boundary; otherwise, Enamel City would likely have been destroyed.
• Neilong becomes envious and alarmed at Black Tide Society’s sudden rise in power. The presence of an Eternalist allows Black Tide to challenge the dominant societies, while Cuckoo Society appears increasingly weak due to internal conflict and ineffective influence.
• Lude tries using the Dragon Lead Warhammer, but its low-quality material begins to fail under the force of the battle. His demonic sword, Hemophilia, is destroyed by Thunder Emperor’s attack after Lude wounds Thunder Emperor’s face. Only the White Flame Holy Sword can withstand their clash.
• Lude launches a coordinated attack: he uses Wyvern Firebreath and detonates his own Psionic Energy to accelerate himself, then strikes with the White Flame Holy Sword using God-Hunting Sword.
• The sword’s flames transform into God-Hunting Black Flame, a deadly force capable of creating wounds that even Eternalists struggle to heal.
• Thunder Emperor counters with Earthsong: Voidquake, producing a massive compressed-air shockwave. Rather than retreat, Lude uses another Wyvern Firebreath to distort the attack’s trajectory, allowing it to narrowly miss him.
• The chapter ends with Lude pressing the attack and taunting Thunder Emperor to take his sword strike, while Thunder Emperor reacts with genuine surprise for the first time.

Character Developments

• Lude: Demonstrates immense growth in combat ability, creativity, and determination. He willingly risks injury to exploit openings and uses the environment, heat, and explosive Psionic Energy tactically. His refusal to retreat shows his increasing confidence and battle instinct.
• Thunder Emperor Thorn: Displays respect for Lude’s courage and recognizes him as a worthy opponent. Though still extremely powerful, he is visibly surprised when Lude alters the trajectory of his Voidquake and continues advancing.
• Sally: Realizes that Lude has far surpassed the level where his companions can meaningfully assist him, leaving her impressed but frustrated and insecure about her own progress.
• Francis: Moves from fear and disbelief to relief that the devastation is restricted to the Void Boundary.
• Neilong: Becomes jealous and strategically concerned about Black Tide Society’s sudden access to an Eternalist-level fighter.
• Don Juan and Duncan: Both are shocked to discover that Lude is not the only overwhelming power present and reassess the scale of the conflict.

Significant Themes

• Rapid growth and changing power hierarchies: Lude’s dramatic advancement and Black Tide Society’s new strength destabilize the existing balance among the major societies.
• Respect earned through battle: Thunder Emperor respects Lude not because of status, but because Lude faces overwhelming power without fear or despair.
• Resource limitations versus true power: Lude’s weapons are destroyed because they cannot endure Eternalist-level combat, emphasizing the gap between ordinary artifacts and genuine divine-grade strength.
• Ingenuity over brute force: Lude survives not by overpowering Thunder Emperor, but by creatively manipulating heat, air pressure, movement, and timing.
• The destructive scale of power: The fight demonstrates how beings at the Eternalist level can devastate entire cities even while exchanging only a few attacks.
• Ambition and envy: The reactions of the surrounding factions reveal how quickly a single powerful combatant can alter political and organizational rankings.

Important Character Interactions

• Lude and Thunder Emperor: Their exchange evolves from mutual evaluation into a fiercely respectful duel. Thunder Emperor offers recognition, while Lude answers with defiance and increasingly dangerous attacks.
• Sally and her companions: They accept that the battle is beyond their level and retreat, though Sally privately struggles with feeling useless.
• Don Juan and Siana: Don Juan marvels at the battle and Lude’s strength, while Siana quietly continues preparing a ritual and secretly draws an obsidian dagger, suggesting an undisclosed agenda.
• Neilong and the major societies: Neilong mentally compares Black Tide Society, Radiant Light Society, Lord Society, and Cuckoo Society, recognizing that the appearance of an Eternalist has radically changed the political balance.

Chapter Summary: “Fire Dragon Scorches the Heavens”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Lude finally lands a direct blow on Thunder Emperor, but Thunder Emperor’s extraordinary bones stop the black-flame blade from cutting deeply.
• Thunder Emperor expels the flames from his wound, removes damaged flesh and bone, and rapidly regenerates. He praises Lude for being the first person at his level to injure him, but declares that Lude must be defeated because he stands in the Black Tide Society’s way.
• Realizing that he cannot win through a prolonged direct battle, Lude decides to create an opening for his strongest killing technique. However, his desire to defeat Thunder Emperor causes him to temporarily forget his original mission.
• The two fighters exchange a series of powerful attacks. Thunder Emperor repeatedly counters every one of Lude’s techniques with Earthsong: Voidquake, using vibrations infused with his true intent to shatter both physical, elemental, and even mental or killing-intent attacks.
• Lude recognizes the overwhelming advantages of Thunder Emperor’s body: immense strength, speed, stamina, regeneration, and near-perfect defensive control. He also understands why his brother Don Juan created such a powerful body for him.
• Lude eventually finds an opening and strikes Thunder Emperor with Dragon Breath Explosive Fist. He transforms his hand into dragon claws, grabs Thunder Emperor, and unleashes a tenfold version of the technique without a conventional punch.
• He detonates the accumulated Flame Order energy inside Thunder Emperor, blasting him thousands of meters into the sky and giving himself time to prepare his ultimate attack.
• The surrounding battlefield has become a massive sea of fire, apart from the protected Grand Auction Hall. Lude draws in the flames from across the city, creating a huge fiery tornado and gathering them into the Fire Salt Crystal on the White Flame Holy Sword.
• With the sword glowing like a miniature sun, Lude begins casting Fire Dragon Scorches the Heavens, setting up a potentially decisive attack against the airborne Thunder Emperor.

Character Developments

• Lude: Demonstrates strategic awareness by recognizing that he cannot defeat Thunder Emperor through endurance or ordinary exchanges. His frustration and pride also become more apparent, as he becomes personally invested in overpowering Thunder Emperor and loses sight of his original objective. He successfully creates the opening needed to unleash his ultimate technique.
• Thunder Emperor: Reveals astonishing durability, regeneration, stamina, and defensive mastery. His bones withstand Lude’s blade, and his vibration-based technique neutralizes nearly every attack. Although confident and dominant, he acknowledges Lude’s strength and treats him as a serious opponent.
• Don Juan: Though absent from the battle, his influence is emphasized. The body he forged for Lude is portrayed as extraordinarily powerful, though still inferior to Thunder Emperor’s overwhelming combat abilities.

Significant Themes

• Strength versus strategy: Raw power alone cannot overcome Thunder Emperor, forcing Lude to rely on deception, timing, and creating an opening.
• Mastery of a single technique: Thunder Emperor’s repeated use of Earthsong: Voidquake shows how perfecting one ability can counter a wide range of more elaborate techniques.
• Endurance and regeneration: Both fighters possess exceptional recovery, making the battle less about surviving one injury and more about finding a decisive, irreversible attack.
• Pride and obsession: Lude’s original purpose is eclipsed by his personal determination to defeat Thunder Emperor, showing how combat can consume his judgment.
• Brotherly influence and legacy: Don Juan’s creation of Lude’s body highlights the importance of family power and the burden of living up to an exceptional sibling.

Character Interactions

• Thunder Emperor openly praises Lude after surviving his blade strike, but immediately frames him as an enemy who must be eliminated.
• Lude responds defiantly despite understanding that Thunder Emperor is stronger in a direct fight.
• Their exchange becomes an escalating contest of technique: Lude launches increasingly powerful attacks, while Thunder Emperor repeatedly destroys them with Earthsong: Voidquake.
• Lude ultimately outmaneuvers Thunder Emperor with a deceptive, close-range version of Dragon Breath Explosive Fist, creating the distance and time needed to prepare his ultimate fiery attack.

Summary of “Earth Dragon Thunderclap”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Lude unleashes his strongest attack, [Fire Dragon Incinerates Heaven], concentrating the heat from burning buildings across nearly half a district into a massive gold-red dragon of fire. Its force is estimated at roughly fifteen kilotons, comparable to the Hiroshima atomic bomb.
• Thunder Emperor Thorn calmly faces the attack. He briefly suppresses his presence and killing intent, then releases them in a sudden, explosive burst.
• Thorn counters with [Earth Dragon Thunderclap], compressing his shockwave, killing intent, and “truth” into an azure lightning strike.
• The two attacks collide in midair, producing a moment of unnatural silence before unleashing a catastrophic shockwave.
• Much of Enamel City’s Lower District is destroyed. Buildings collapse, carriages are thrown aside, and many Night Duty Bureau agents, Black Tide Society cultists, and bystanders are killed or severely injured.
• Francis attempts to protect his subordinates, but reacts too late to save most of them. Crow, Sally, and Silverback survive and flee the Void Boundary, as do other spellcasters who had come merely to attend the auction.
• Lude survives the clash but is badly wounded and has exhausted his greatest technique. Thorn also suffers serious damage: his right arm is covered in black cracks that resemble the wounds caused by Lude’s [Slaughter Lightning].
• Despite Lude’s attack failing, Thorn acknowledges his strength and perseverance. He declares Lude an opponent worthy of respect and prepares to kill him with [Earth Dragon Thunderclap].

Character Developments

• Lude: Demonstrates extraordinary power and determination by creating an attack far beyond what his own strength should allow, aided by the third dose of Wyvern Blood Essence. Even while facing certain death, he remains focused on learning from Thorn’s technique. He recognizes that Thorn has fused killing intent, domineering will, and true intent into his Secret Art, gaining valuable insight.
• Thunder Emperor Thorn: Reveals a calm, scholarly side beneath his fearsome reputation. He respects Lude’s courage and ability, but remains vastly superior in combat. His willingness to use his strongest technique indicates that Lude has pushed him farther than almost anyone in years.
• Francis: Acts decisively by ordering his forces to seek cover, but the battle’s speed and scale make his warning ineffective. His inability to protect his subordinates emphasizes the overwhelming gap between ordinary fighters and Eternalist-level combatants.
• Crow, Sally, and Silverback: Survive the destruction by using Silverback’s transformed body as protection, then escape immediately. Their reaction highlights the instinctive fear and pragmatism of lesser combatants caught in a battle between monsters.

Significant Themes

• The destructive consequences of overwhelming power: The duel devastates an entire city district, showing that battles between extraordinary beings endanger everyone nearby.
• Respect between rivals: Thorn does not dismiss Lude after defeating him. Instead, he honors Lude’s perseverance and promises him a meaningful death.
• Growth through observation: Even while injured and facing death, Lude studies Thorn’s technique and learns from it, demonstrating a relentless pursuit of strength.
• The difference between mortal and transcendent power: The collateral destruction and helplessness of the surrounding fighters emphasize the immense gulf between ordinary people and Eternalist-level beings.
• Strength of character: Thorn values Lude not merely for his power, but for continuing to strive despite knowing he cannot win.

Character Interactions

• Lude and Thorn: Their confrontation shifts from a contest of attacks to a mutual recognition between powerful warriors. Lude’s strongest strike injures Thorn but fails to defeat him, while Thorn responds with admiration before delivering what he intends to be the killing blow.
• Francis and his subordinates: Francis warns them to take cover, but the shockwave arrives too quickly, leaving most of them vulnerable.
• Crow, Sally, and Silverback: They work together to survive the blast and quickly escape, reflecting their awareness that remaining near the duel would mean certain death.

Chapter Summary: “A Righteous Backstab”

• Lude and Thunder Emperor Thorn’s clash reaches its climax. Thorn’s ultimate attack, [Earth Dragon Thunderclap], had matched Lude’s [Fire Dragon Incinerates Heaven], but the exchange severely injured Thorn. His arm was covered in fissure-like wounds, and his psionic power had fallen to roughly one-third or one-half of its original strength. However, Lude had exhausted the fuel needed to use his strongest attack again and knew he could not withstand another direct confrontation.
• Lude resorts to deception rather than force. Pretending to prepare another ultimate technique, he positions his hands around his forehead and concentrates energy there, causing Thorn to focus on his glabella. Instead, Lude suddenly unleashes an overwhelming burst of alchemical light—his improvised “Sun Fist.” The blinding flash temporarily incapacitates Thorn, allowing Lude to escape.
• Thorn is enraged but distracted. After recovering, Thorn discovers that Lude has vanished and prepares to destroy the surrounding area. However, he senses that Don Juan is in danger and abruptly changes course, rushing back toward the Grand Auction House. This suggests that Siana has successfully drawn Thorn’s attention away from Lude, buying him approximately a minute to recover.
• Lude survives at tremendous cost. He collapses in an alley after the third Wyvern Blood Essence burns out completely, leaving him overwhelmingly exhausted. Thorn’s attack had only grazed him, but the shockwave destroyed Lude’s entire left arm, part of his shoulder blade, and several ribs. His injuries are so severe that even his Flame-Bathed Healing ability is nearly exhausted.
• Lude creates a prosthetic arm. Using Resist-Steel spears, Dragon Lead, fragments of the magic sword, and Magic Light Iron claws, he activates Heart of the Furnace to forge a mechanical left arm. Drawing on his earlier research into Livini’s prosthetics, he attaches the arm and successfully links it to his psionic energy. Despite his injuries, he immediately begins worrying about Siana’s safety.
• The chapter shifts back to the Grand Auction House. Earlier, Don Juan had been confidently observing the battle with Siana, boasting that he would soon obtain power through her ritual. His confidence collapses when he realizes that an obsidian dagger has been driven into his lower back. The attacker is not revealed before the chapter ends, creating a cliffhanger.

Character Development and Interactions

• Lude demonstrates resourcefulness, courage, and pragmatism. Rather than stubbornly fighting a battle he cannot win, he uses trickery to survive, accepts severe physical damage, and immediately engineers a replacement limb.
• Thunder Emperor Thorn is shown as both overwhelmingly powerful and honorable in his own way. He respects Lude’s apparent willingness to face death, but his pride makes him vulnerable to the Sun Fist trick. His concern for Don Juan also reveals a strong sense of loyalty or obligation.
• Siana remains mostly off-page, but her actions are crucial: she appears to have lured Thorn away and thereby enabled Lude’s escape.
• Don Juan shifts from arrogant confidence to sudden vulnerability when he is attacked from behind.
• The interaction between Lude and Thorn is defined by mutual recognition, deception, and combat respect. Thorn offers to face Lude’s ultimate technique directly, while Lude exploits that confidence to blind and evade him.

Significant Themes

• Survival through ingenuity: Lude wins time not through superior strength but through misdirection and unconventional technology.
• The cost of power: Both fighters suffer devastating consequences from their ultimate attacks, emphasizing that immense strength requires an equally immense sacrifice.
• Honor versus pragmatism: Thorn values a direct and honorable confrontation, while Lude chooses deception because survival and his larger goal matter more than combat etiquette.
• Transformation and adaptation: Lude’s damaged body and newly forged prosthetic symbolize his willingness to rebuild himself and continue despite overwhelming setbacks.
• Betrayal and hidden motives: The final backstab against Don Juan introduces the possibility of treachery within the ritual’s power struggle and leaves the chapter on a sharp note of uncertainty.

Key events

• Siana stabs Don Juan in the lower back with an obsidian ritual dagger. He cannot sense or feel the strike, and his prophetic instincts fail to warn him.
• She then attacks with Thousand Shadows, her family’s blood-red blade, using its Blood Torrent technique to unleash a storm of sword-shadows.
• Don Juan counters with Demon Tide, the Black Tide Society’s crystal Relic, and unleashes Hellstorm. He hopes the clash will buy enough time to cast an Illumination spell.
• When he invokes the Radiant Monarch, pain erupts through his body and his spell fails. He realizes Siana has used the dagger to give him a Blessing tied to the Abyss. The Blessing itself went undetected, but it conflicts with the Radiant Monarch’s light, preventing Don Juan from using the Illumination Art.
• With Don Juan incapacitated and his main countermeasure neutralized, Siana declares that he has lost.

Character developments and interactions

• Siana reveals careful planning and a willingness to exploit her opponent’s strengths: she identifies Don Juan’s reliance on prophecy and Illumination magic, then turns that reliance against him. Her attack is also driven by a desire to honor her parents’ memory.
• Don Juan is shown to be powerful and resourceful, but his confidence in his sixth sense and magic leaves him vulnerable to a strategy he does not understand. Once he grasps the dagger’s effect, he recognizes that Siana has outmaneuvered him.
• Their confrontation is both physical and tactical: Siana’s Thousand Shadows contests Don Juan’s Demon Tide, while her ritual trick defeats the Illumination Art he hoped would save him.

Significant themes

• Preparation over raw power: Siana wins by devising a countermeasure, not simply by overpowering Don Juan.
• The danger of hidden costs: A seemingly harmless Blessing becomes destructive when paired with a conflicting divine power.
• Knowledge and uncertainty: Don Juan’s usual foresight cannot protect him from an unfamiliar mechanism he cannot perceive.

Key plot points and events

• Siana confronts the helpless Don Juan, who begs for mercy and claims he deserves gratitude because he killed his own father—the man who murdered Siana’s parents.
• Don Juan reveals that since childhood he has used his Secret Art to make his older brother, Thorn, obsessively devoted to him. He warns that Thorn will unleash his full strength if Don Juan dies, endangering both Siana and Lude.
• Siana chooses a compromise: she mutilates Don Juan with Blood Torrent, then drives her sword into his chest and fills him with cursed blood. The combined divine powers begin slowly destroying him, leaving him alive and suffering.
• Thorn breaks into the room. Siana escapes through a window, but Thorn’s Voidquake blast overwhelms her and sends her crashing into ruined buildings. He abandons pursuit to rescue Don Juan and heal him.
• Elsewhere, a badly weakened Lude searches the dangerous streets for Siana. Black Tide Society cultists are rounding up escaped spellcasters as ritual sacrifices. Despite the danger and his condition, Lude continues because he promised to get Siana out.
• Lude finally spots a flash of red in an alley and finds her.

Character developments

• Siana balances revenge against her parents’ killers with the need to keep Lude alive. She avoids killing Don Juan but inflicts a drawn-out, horrifying punishment on him.
• Don Juan reveals the full extent of his manipulation and ruthlessness, having conditioned Thorn’s devotion from early childhood. Even while being destroyed, he takes satisfaction in believing Siana spared his life.
• Thorn demonstrates both overwhelming power and genuine attachment to Don Juan, immediately stopping his attack on Siana to save his brother.
• Lude remains determined and loyal despite severe exhaustion, continuing his search for Siana through hostile territory.

Significant themes

• Revenge versus restraint: Siana finds a way to punish Don Juan without triggering the greater danger of killing him.
• Manipulation and corrupted loyalty: Don Juan’s bond with Thorn is built through deliberate magical conditioning rather than healthy affection.
• Sacrifice and loyalty: Siana considers Lude’s survival, while Lude risks himself to keep his promise to rescue her.
• Cruel justice: Don Juan’s fate is less a clean execution than prolonged suffering, reflecting the brutality of the conflict.

Character interactions

• Don Juan tries to exploit Siana’s concern for Lude by warning that his death would provoke Thorn.
• Siana and Don Juan’s confrontation pits his self-serving justifications against her knowledge of the harm his organization caused her family.
• Thorn’s devotion to Don Juan overrides his pursuit of Siana, as he turns back to save and heal his brother.
• Lude’s search for Siana gives their relationship a continuing thread of trust and obligation amid the surrounding violence.

Plot points and events

• Lude reflects on his unusual vision: the world appears muted because his soul cannot fully process the colors visible to an Ancient Dragon. The vivid red he sees leads him to a blood trail in an alley.
• He finds Siana badly injured, having crawled there after being struck by the Thunder Emperor’s Voidquake.
• Lude examines her and discovers catastrophic injuries: shattered bones throughout her body, punctured lungs, and severe damage to several internal organs. Siana says the wounds are fatal and that she has no way to heal herself.
• Lude refuses to accept that conclusion. He plans to stabilize her with help from an expert in Illumination Art and investigate artificial organs, though he recognizes that immediate surgery and transport will be difficult.
• A Black Tide Society patrol approaches. Siana warns Lude not to kill its members, since Thorn, the Thunder Emperor, has a connection to every core member. Lude tells her to stay quiet and leaves to face the patrol.

Character development

• Lude shifts from cautious observation to urgent, practical resolve. Despite his own weakened condition and lack of suitable resources, he commits to saving Siana and immediately focuses on protecting her.
• Siana remains composed and considerate despite her extreme pain. She acknowledges the likely fatal nature of her injuries but still tries to prevent Lude from making a dangerous move against the patrol.

Character interactions

• Lude tries to comfort Siana with flirtatious praise, but her unusual response makes him sense that something is wrong.
• He examines her injuries, asks whether her Blood Manipulation or another ability can help, and promises to find a way to treat her.
• Siana warns Lude about the consequences of attacking the patrol; he cuts her off gently and insists she rest while he handles the threat.

Significant themes

• Loyalty and care: Lude’s determination to save Siana persists despite overwhelming obstacles.
• Hope versus reality: Siana believes her injuries are fatal, while Lude clings to medical possibilities he has yet to develop.
• The limits of power and knowledge: Lude is a highly capable alchemist, but his expertise cannot immediately address her injuries or the dangerous circumstances around them.
• Sacrifice and consequence: Siana’s attempt to escape the Thunder Emperor’s attack has left her near death, and the approaching patrol brings further danger.

Key plot points and events

• Delaine, a Black Tide Society officer, expects a promotion for capturing the badly wounded Siana. He spots her and moves to arrest her.
• Lude intercepts Delaine, impersonating a high-ranking division chief with the Collector’s badge. He claims Siana revealed that she sabotaged the Grand Auction House ritual, warning that its activation could devastate Enamel City and Northwind County.
• Lude sends Delaine racing back to warn the Society’s president, redirecting him from pursuing Siana and turning the warning into a potential career-making opportunity.
• Lude returns to Siana, whose condition has worsened. He forges a metal harness to carry her without aggravating her injuries.
• At a sewer entrance that leads out of the area, Lude finds Malinkov blocking the way. Lude offers to leave their master’s school if Malinkov lets them pass, but Malinkov refuses and demands a duel to the death under the ancient Sacred Rite.

Character developments and interactions

• Delaine shifts from eager hunter to alarmed messenger. His ambition makes him receptive to Lude’s warning once he realizes the danger could threaten the Society itself.
• Lude relies on bluffing and borrowed authority to protect Siana, then uses his alchemical skill to transport her. He tries diplomacy with Malinkov before accepting that a confrontation may be unavoidable.
• Siana, gravely injured and nearly unable to move, recognizes Lude’s old habit of assuming authority in Vienna. Despite her condition, she remains warm toward him and welcomes the promise that he will tell her what has happened.
• Malinkov rejects Lude’s offer, citing the cost of his recent fight and his hostility toward the Night Duty Bureau. His insistence on the Sacred Rite makes the conflict personal and seemingly irreversible.

Significant themes

• Authority as performance: Lude’s convincing use of a borrowed badge and confident manner lets him command Delaine without a fight.
• Ambition redirected by responsibility: Delaine’s desire for advancement is turned toward preventing a catastrophe.
• Loyalty and sacrifice: Lude prioritizes getting the badly wounded Siana to safety, even offering to abandon his school to avoid further conflict.
• Escalation and honor: Malinkov’s demand for a fatal duel contrasts with Lude’s attempt to resolve the standoff through negotiation.

Lude fought Malinkov while carrying the gravely wounded Siana, trying to end the battle before she died. After Malinkov struck Lude with Slaughter Lightning, Lude heard Siana whispering and panicked as he realized she was doing something.

• Lude refused to abandon Siana and drew the White Flame Holy Sword to fight Malinkov.
• Lude used three fire serpents and concealed blades in his mechanical arm to injure Malinkov’s palm.
• Lude fired a beam from his arm cannon, but Malinkov countered with Slaughter Lightning.
• Lude clashed with Malinkov’s lightning and took the attack head-on to shield Siana.
• Lude heard Siana murmuring and shouted at her to stop.

Siana sacrificed her flesh and organs to summon the Thorns of Agony and defeat Malinkov, leaving Lude desperate to save her. As his improvised treatment failed to heal her quickly enough, a scarlet pillar of light rose from the Kardashian Grand Auction House.

• Siana cast the Crimson Tide divine spell, and blood-red thorns erupted from Malinkov and engulfed him.
• Lude hurled the White Flame Holy Sword into Malinkov's skull, then realized Siana was dying from her sacrifice.
• Lude sterilized the alley, fused two of his ribs into Siana's spine, and joined their circulatory systems to transfer his blood and accelerate her healing.
• Siana's blood began to circulate with Lude's without rejection, but his dragon blood and healing power became exhausted as her heartbeat faltered.
• A scarlet pillar of light shot into the sky from the distant Kardashian Grand Auction House.