Chapter Summaries

Ceylon chose to join Rhodes Island after her father agreed to let her go, while Schwarz remained suspicious of the organization and Hoshino. After a half-month research trip, the group returned with two new Operators, and Ceylon chose frontline medicine as Silence dealt with an unsettling gift from the Logistics Department.

• Schwarz warned Ceylon that Penguin Logistics was dangerous, but Ceylon dismissed the rumors and decided to leave for Rhodes Island despite her father's objections.
• The mayor explained to Schwarz that he had approved Ceylon's departure because he feared Hoshino's interest in young, beautiful girls.
• Hoshino passed the time at Siesta's music festival, refused Exusiai's request to show her Stand, and waited for Eyjafjalla's research to finish.
• After half a month, Eyjafjalla's group departed Siesta with two new Operators, while Schwarz stayed wary and Ceylon looked forward to joining Rhodes Island.
• The Logistics Department gave Silence a down vest made from feathers she had shed, and Silence confronted Warfarin about the insulting note.
• Ceylon chose frontline medicine after learning how Rhodes Island's Medical Department was organized.

Ceylon joined Rhodes Island's Medical Department and toured its divisions, discovering that the frontline medical team was far more chaotic than she expected. The chapter ended with her meeting Shining and becoming captivated by the mysterious doctor.

• He Chou reviewed Schwarz's extensive résumé, declared her record ordinary, and assigned her a shared dorm room with Ceylon.
• Warfarin bit Ceylon to taste her blood, found it too ordinary, and led her away from the Blood Analysis Department.
• Ceylon chose to visit the frontline medical division and met Ansel and the talking medical cart Lancet-2.
• Hibiscus offered Ceylon a nutritious meal, while Ansel silently warned her not to eat it.
• Gavial arrived dragging an injured Eunectes and demanded that the staff treat her.
• Ansel introduced Ceylon to Shining, whose black eyes left Ceylon speechless.

Ceylon adjusted to life at Rhodes Island and reflected on her bond with Schwarz, while Hoshino struggled to find a safe way to use Jizo Mitama. A letter from Leithanien’s younger twin princess arrived as a plea for help, apparently intended for Hoshino.

• Shining met Ceylon before leaving to see Liz, and Ansel advised Ceylon to treat her Rhodes Island colleagues less formally.
• Ceylon reviewed Rhodes Island’s departments while Schwarz explained that she worked in the Sniper Department and believed the Special Operations Department was stable because its leaders were hard to assassinate.
• Ceylon remembered that she had studied Originium applications to find a cure for Originium Infection, and looked to Schwarz as the reason behind that goal.
• Hoshino considered how to use Jizo Mitama without losing control or damaging her reputation, but found no good way to provoke a suitable opponent.
• Doctor Kal'tsit showed Hoshino a plea for help from Leithanien’s younger twin princess, which had been sent to Rhodes Island but was meant for Hoshino.

Hoshino traveled to Leithanien to investigate its history and seek an audience at the High Tower palace. After the Ministry of Foreign Affairs debated whether to receive her, she entered the tower and met one of the twin princesses behind a gauzy curtain.

• Hoshino discussed the lack of an official invitation with Kal'tsit, who advised her to scout the surrounding villages before approaching the royal capital.
• Hoshino arrived in Leithanien and explored its fog-shrouded towers and the campus of William University.
• Hoshino searched the university library for Leithanien's history but found the account of the twin princesses' overthrow of the Witch King vague and incomplete.
• Hoshino applied for an audience at the High Tower palace, prompting the Ministry of Foreign Affairs to escalate the decision through its ranks.
• The voice at the top of the tower approved meeting Hoshino but insisted on keeping a veil between them.
• Hoshino entered the tower and discovered that only one person sat behind the curtain, despite expecting the legendary twin princesses.

Hoshino met Leoni of the True History School and heard her suspicions about the hidden history of the Witch King and the twins. As necromancers prepared to help the Witch King return, crystal giants attacked Hoshino and Leoni in the moonlit streets.

• Hoshino spoke with the princess, who said her younger sister was sick and noted that letters from her had caused concern.
• Leoni introduced herself as a member of the True History School and said the group was investigating the concealed history of the princess and the Witch King.
• A gathering of necromancers declared that the Witch King would return and vowed to clear the way for him, even at the cost of their lives.
• Hoshino questioned whether the True History Association had more members, then shielded Leoni when a crystal giant appeared and attacked.
• Hoshino cut down the crystal giant and carried Leoni away from the flying shards as more giants emerged and she fought through them.

Hoshino destroyed the crystal giants and left Rhodes Island's operators to clean up and detain Leoni. Kal'tsit realized the Empress was using Yae Sakura's presence to frighten the Witch King's remaining worshippers, and told Red to remind the shrine maiden to charge for Rhodes Island's prestige.

• Hoshino cut down the crystal giants, set Leoni down, and left the battlefield for others to clean up.
• Forest Watchers detained Leoni as part of a joint Rhodes Island and Leithanien operation, while Schwarz and Red helped clear the scene.
• Hoshino recognized Forest Watchers, Schwarz, and Red as Rhodes Island operators and wondered at their grim, silent teamwork.
• Kal'tsit told Red that the Empress intended to use Yae Sakura to panic the Witch King's remaining worshippers.
• Kal'tsit instructed Red to remind Yae Sakura to charge for the use of Rhodes Island's prestige.

Red received a new mission to find Yae Sakura and help her collect payment from the Leithanien Empress. Hoshino confronted the Empress about the Witch King and discovered her younger sister, who appeared to be frozen in time and gravely ill.

• Schwarz and the Forest Watchers burned the corpses and guarded Leoni in a hotel room while Red listened to Kal'tsit’s call.
• Red told Schwarz and the Forest Watchers to find Yae Sakura, help her clean up afterward, and remind her to collect a large payment from the Leithanien Empress.
• Hoshino teleported to the tower and questioned the Empress about the Witch King and the necromancers pursuing her.
• The Empress said the first person to drive a sword into the Witch King was not her, and Hoshino inferred that it had been her sister.
• Hoshino entered the younger Empress’s chamber and found her lying motionless on a bed, with blackness where her eyes should have been.

Hoshino used Fenghuang Down to enter the Witch King's dream and command him to awaken in three days. Meanwhile, scholars watched footage of her sword strike and prepared their corpse-dragon research project, the Serpent of the Courtyard.

• Hoshino checked that Jizo Mitama would not appear as a boss for two more days, then used Fenghuang Down to draw the Witch King into a dream.
• Hoshino posed as Terra's will and tempted the Witch King with the All-Knowing Eye and the promise of endless knowledge.
• Hoshino commanded the Witch King to awaken three days later, then left the dream and returned to the princess's bedside.
• Scholars watched a recording of Hoshino's sword strike and called its brute force an insult to knowledge.
• The scholars considered using a combined spell and revealed their research subject, the corpse dragon called the Serpent of the Courtyard.

Scholars raised a colossal crystal serpent built from infected corpses and launched it as a weapon. Hoshino transformed into Memento and faced its attack after receiving a mission to destroy it.

• The scholars presented their crystal serpent, chose a pilot, and connected him to it with probes that worsened his infection.
• Three days later, Hoshino saw the enormous serpent rise from the ground near the city-state.
• Hoshino transformed into Memento and rushed to confront the serpent, spotting corpses tangled beneath its crystals.
• The system assigned Hoshino a mission to destroy the serpent and offered the Void Blade as a reward.
• The serpent revealed hundreds of crystal machine cannons and fired at Hoshino, flattening a mountain behind her as she dodged.

Hoshino fought the crystal serpent and discovered that the wizards piloted it by sacrificing one another. After destroying the construct and its cockpit, she burned the wreckage and the wizards in a grand cremation, while Red appeared behind her.

• Hoshino used Domain Expansion: Stasis to stop the serpent’s machine-gun fire, then changed forms to Goushinnso Memento and attacked through its flames and Soul Torrent.
• The serpent swallowed a new wizard pilot, and Hoshino realized that the previous pilot had been converted into nutrients.
• Hoshino climbed the flying serpent, cutting through its weapons and limbs while her sword set its body and the trapped wizards ablaze.
• Hoshino pierced the cockpit with her sword, bringing the serpent down onto the watching wizards.
• Hoshino watched the wreckage and wizards burn, told the others there was no need to clean up, and Red appeared behind her.

After Red confirmed that Hoshino had erased every trace of the battle, Hoshino accepted the Empress of Leithanien’s lavish reward and returned two days later to claim her mobile tower. She set out to remake it into a shrine and entered as smoke rose from its spire and something shattered in the capital.

• Red explained that she had been sent by Doctor Kal'tsit to find and clean up traitors, then waited with Hoshino until the flames erased the battlefield.
• Red delivered Doctor Kal'tsit’s message that the Empress of Leithanien had borrowed Hoshino’s power and should be charged more for it.
• Hoshino accepted three tons of red gold, a hereditary title, a mobile high tower, and sixty years of energy from the Empress, joking that she might demand the Empress’s position after her next deed.
• Two days later, Hoshino found that the tower fit over her burned-down shrine’s ruins and decided to alter it into a more suitable shrine.
• Hoshino saw smoke rise from the tower and heard something shatter across the capital, then entered with Jizo Mitama prominently displayed to exorcise the monsters inside.

Hoshino climbed the tower to confront the Witch King, using Jizo Mitama to break the soul-lines controlling the staff. She reached the boss room and faced the Witch King’s monstrous, line-covered form as it demanded Jizo Mitama.

• Hoshino rode the tower’s chain elevator upward and confronted a royal guard controlled by the Witch King.
• Hoshino summoned Jizo Mitama, which shattered the guard’s soul-lines and freed him from control.
• Hoshino and Jizo Mitama subdued the tower’s controlled support staff, catching them as they fell unconscious.
• A blonde maid recognized Jizo Mitama as her farewell gift from the world before Hoshino left her by the boss room’s door.
• Hoshino entered the boss room and found the Witch King transformed into a mass of black lines that demanded Jizo Mitama.

Hoshino tricked the Witch King into attacking Jizo Mitama, then used the Spirit-Commanding Blade’s Stasis ability to destroy Jizo Mitama with a strike that bypassed its defenses. She turned to the Witch King’s remaining mass of strands and prepared to attack its soul.

• Hoshino feigned retreat and ordered Jizo Mitama to hold the Witch King back, while Jizo Mitama vanished from sight.
• Hoshino removed Jizo Mitama’s restrictions, and the Witch King became enamored with its crimson armor and wrapped itself around it.
• Hoshino let Jizo Mitama attack itself, then confronted it during her fall from the tower.
• Hoshino used Stasis to freeze Jizo Mitama’s flames and struck through its defenses, shattering its armor.
• Hoshino stepped on the Witch King’s strands and threatened it with a sword that cut souls rather than flesh.

Hoshino destroyed the Witch King's remaining soul with the Taixu Divine Sword, rescued the princess, and fled the scene. The Empress reviewed the surveillance footage and learned that Hoshino had left in the mobile fortress.

• Hoshino summoned the Taixu Divine Sword, which shattered the Witch King's soul after it lamented its long pursuit of knowledge.
• Fu Hua saw a vision of a little girl studying and wondered about the question of where Originium came from.
• Hoshino confirmed the possessing soul was dead, tucked the princess back into bed, and fled after waving at a surveillance camera.
• The Empress reviewed the footage and concluded that Yae Sakura's shikigami had defeated the Witch King and rescued the princess.
• The Empress learned that Hoshino had driven away in the mobile fortress and suspected the shrine maiden did not want to meet her.

Red, Schwarz, and Forest Watchers returned from Leithanien without completing their cleanup assignment, while Hoshino transformed the mobile fortress into a shrine. Kal'tsit speculated about Leithanien's secrecy before Hoshino brought the renovated Yae Shrine to Rhodes Island and splashed hot-spring water onto its observation window.

• Red, Schwarz, and Forest Watchers found the crime scene sealed by Royal Guards and worried that they had failed Doctor Kal'tsit's cleanup orders after the shrine maiden left without them.
• Hoshino ordered Heavy Bunny to renovate the fortress's aboveground sections into a shrine instead of improving its engines.
• Kal'tsit learned that the three-person squad had returned safely, then speculated that Hoshino had discovered a secret Leithanien was concealing.
• An alarm announced an unidentified fortress approaching Rhodes Island at extreme speed, and Kal'tsit recognized Yae Shrine on the reconnaissance screen.
• Hoshino's Yae Shrine drifted to a stop beside Rhodes Island, splashing hot-spring water onto the observation window as Kal'tsit waited for her debriefing.

Hoshino returned from Leithanien and told Kal'tsit that she had killed the immortal soul that had ruled the country, warning her that even gods could die. After the returning operators reported their failure, Kal'tsit sent Red to scout Yae Sakura.

• Hoshino arrived at Rhodes Island aboard Yae Shrine and told Kal'tsit she wanted to visit often and keep her dorm room.
• Hoshino revealed that Leithanien's rulers had all been the same soul, which she had killed and shattered completely.
• Hoshino warned Kal'tsit that even gods could die, leaving Kal'tsit shaken after she departed.
• Red reported that the operators' mission had failed and blamed herself for becoming less sharp.
• Kal'tsit assigned Red to scout Yae Sakura.

Kal'tsit sent Red to retrieve Hoshino's shrine, but Hoshino made the shrine fly, causing Red's mission to fail. The airborne Yae Shrine then returned to its former site in Lungmen, where Hoshino resolved to keep a lower profile.

• Kal'tsit questioned Red about her teammates and sent her to climb to the shrine as part of her mission.
• Hoshino activated the shrine's thrusters, and the airborne building shook Red off the cliff before she could reach it.
• Red returned to Kal'tsit and reported that she had failed the first stage of the mission.
• Ch'en and Swire argued in the Lungmen Guard Department before an alarm announced an unidentified flying object.
• Lungmen's citizens saw the flying Yae Shrine descend into place above the former shrine ruins, and Hoshino decided to keep a lower profile.

Hoshino settled the shrine on the mountain and resumed training Ch'en, then caught Red spying on their sparring. Red was left in Hoshino's hands as Hoshino noticed a change in her character card and considered a new idea.

• Hoshino landed the shrine, set out an empty offering box, and refilled its hot spring while checking her progress toward Dea Anchora.
• Ch'en visited the shrine, and Hoshino tested her swordsmanship before defeating her in their sparring match.
• Red watched the fight from the roof and was caught by Hoshino, who recognized that Doctor Kal'tsit had sent her.
• Hoshino carried Red down from the roof, prevented Ch'en from taking her to the Guard Department, and noticed an idea involving Lilia.

Hoshino kept Red at the shrine while Ch'en returned home unsettled, showing signs of a strange change connected to Crimson Sakura. As Hoshino waited for Red to return and pondered a shadowy boss, someone mysteriously appeared in Texas's car.

• Hoshino told Ch'en to go home and kept Red at the shrine, but Red slipped away while Hoshino waited for her to return.
• Ch'en realized her body had reacted to Red as if she were an assassin, then noticed a pink hair strand and redder pupils before collapsing into bed as her canine teeth began to grow.
• Hoshino saw that the previously blurry boss looked like a shadow with fox-like ears and wondered whether she would have to fight Hiyumaru.
• Texas and Exusiai drove toward a barbecue stand after work, then noticed someone had appeared in the back seat and was holding Texas's tail.

After escaping Red’s attack with Exusiai, Texas learned that Red had been testing her assassin skills and headed back to the Yae Shrine to challenge Hoshino again. Hoshino intercepted Red on the cliff and captured her, leaving Red bound at the shrine as she tried to free herself.

• Red attacked Texas in the car, but Texas and Exusiai fought back and escaped; Texas drove Exusiai to the staff dormitory to change clothes.
• Red regained confidence after attacking Texas and returned through Lungmen toward the Yae Shrine for another attempt.
• Red climbed the shrine’s cliff, but Hoshino jumped down and knocked her unconscious with a midair collision.
• Hoshino carried Red to the shrine, tied her up, and waited for her to wake while checking Lilia’s unlocking progress.
• Red woke, admitted she had failed again, and tried to free herself from Hoshino’s ropes.