Chapter Summaries

Charles sensed that a powerful devil was approaching from Purgatory and concluded he could not defeat it. He decided to flee with the entire Abyss World, and the Abyss’s will cooperated with his plan.

• Charles surveyed the weakened Abyss World and saw that it remained connected to Avernus, which threatened to swallow it.
• A powerful devil duke in Purgatory spotted Charles and said he would soon come to kill him.
• Charles realized the approaching enemy might be a seventh-rank devil and judged that neither he nor the Abyss’s forces could win.
• Charles chose to escape with the entire Abyss World instead of fighting, and the Abyss’s will cooperated.

Anog struggled to survive in Purgatory while devils drove him away without pursuing him, unaware that they were waiting for a duke-led legion. As Anog headed back to the Abyss World to kill Kolsama and seize Charles’s authority, Charles made the Abyss World break free from Purgatory, leaving Anog stranded outside its restored boundary.

• Anog recovered from his injuries by eating stored devil corpses, then grew suspicious when devil nobles stopped pursuing him after attacks.
• Anog attacked devil settlements and found that their counts quickly drove him away but let him escape; one count revealed that a duke-led legion was on its way.
• Anog headed toward the Abyss World, planning to kill Kolsama and seize Charles’s authority.
• Charles used his control of the Abyss World to break it free from Purgatory and send it drifting away.
• Anog reached the former border and watched the Abyss World recede beyond the restored crystal wall, crying out that he had not gotten back on yet.

Charles drove his Abyss World away from Purgatory and toward the Bottomless Abyss, losing much of the power the Abyss Will had lent him along the way. Once the world was set on its course, he planned to strengthen his wizard tower and ties with Isata, while prioritizing advancement as a wizard before increasing his demon rank.

• Charles watched his layer of the Abyss World break free from Purgatory and accelerate toward the Bottomless Abyss, ignoring Anog's calls.
• Charles lost much of the power bestowed by the Abyss Will as the world spent its strength escaping Purgatory, and he reflected that Hachiwote had died by being too greedy.
• Charles decided to capture more elemental planes to supply his five-story wizard tower and to seek greater investment from Isata of the Wizard World.
• Charles resolved to advance from a fifth-circle wizard to a sixth-circle wizard before raising his demon rank, then began planning which elemental-plane cores to capture.

Charles’s Flame Ratman troops enforced his tax policy across the Abyss World, and the Blood Ring Ratman Cavalry arrived at Foul Dung Camp to collect its tribute. The Greater Berserker Demon had saved the camp’s demonic medicines and stood ready to pay as the cavalryman demanded the taxes.

• Charles left the settlements under the watch of Greater Demons and sent his Flame Ratman troops to collect taxes.
• When swamp water threatened Foul Dung Camp’s demonic medicines, the Greater Berserker Demon mobilized the settlement to protect them before the collectors arrived.
• An Intermediate Demon complained about the tax burden, and the other demons killed and ate him after he feared his words would bring disaster.
• The Blood Ring Ratman Cavalry arrived, and the Greater Berserker Demon took comfort in having enough demonic medicines to pay the tax.
• The leading cavalryman pressed his spear to the Greater Berserker Demon’s chin and demanded Foul Dung Camp’s taxes.

Charles turned the Abyss World into a productive domain, expanding settlements, trade, and resource extraction while earning immense profits. He also began a canal project to improve Styx shipping, leaving demon laborers toiling under brutal overseers as the excavation neared completion.

• Charles's Flame Ratmen spread across the Abyss World, founding cities in strategic locations and expanding resource production.
• Goods from the Wizard World poured through Millstone Fortress's enlarged Abyss Gate, while Abyssal resources were shipped out for trade.
• Charles's trade network and taxes generated more than a hundred million Magic Stones per month, with Yugoloths also caught in his system of extraction.
• Demon laborers excavated a canal near the Sun Furnace to improve Styx transport, while Flame Ratman overseers whipped them to work faster.

Charles arrived after the Styx canal was completed, praised the Flame Ratmen, and ordered them to build a road to the Sun Furnace while limiting labor-slave deaths. He carved a path through the mountain with Doomsday Wildfire and left the workers celebrating his supposed mercy.

• A Greater Demon-level Flame Ratman blasted away the canal’s final obstruction, allowing the Styx to flow through it.
• Charles descended through a portal, praised the canal workers, and ordered them to carve a road up the mountain to the Sun Furnace.
• Charles ordered the Greater Demon Flame Ratman to keep deaths among the labor slaves below five hundred thousand, and the overseer agreed.
• Charles used Doomsday Wildfire to slash through the mountain, making the road project much easier, then departed through a portal.
• The Greater Demon Flame Ratman told the labor slaves that Charles had limited their deaths, and they knelt and praised His Majesty’s mercy.

Mark had grown wealthy and powerful by managing trade for Charles, who summoned him to plan a vast shipping network for the Sun Furnace. Charles assigned Mark to organize cargo routes and ports along the newly opened canal, leaving him to prepare the transport operation and explore further trade.

• Mark luxuriated in his wealth and planned to take most of the profits from his poorer relatives.
• Charles returned to Millstone Fortress and summoned Mark to his palace.
• Charles showed Mark a map and explained that the canal to the Sun Furnace had opened, enabling construction of a major resource-smelting hub.
• Charles ordered Mark to establish shipping routes, build enormous Styx cargo ships, and construct ports along the canal.
• Mark asked about buying raw materials from other planes to smelt and resell, and Charles told him to work out how to profit from the trade.

After Mark left to pursue new profits from trade and the Sun Furnace, Charles considered becoming an evil god, specifically the God of Flame Ratmen. He saw faith as a way to strengthen his followers and himself, and began imagining Millstone Fortress as his earthly divine kingdom.

• Mark left in high spirits and planned to use the Sun Furnace to process minerals from the Dwarf World for profit.
• Charles discovered that he seemed to have the potential to become an evil god.
• Charles considered how evil gods combined faith, divine spells, and the power of their earthly divine kingdoms to strengthen themselves and their followers.
• Charles reasoned that becoming the God of Flame Ratmen could help him maintain loyalty and empower his Ratmen through faith and divine spells.
• Charles imagined turning Millstone Fortress into an earthly divine kingdom and reconnecting with Purgatory to increase his strength.

Charles considered whether to use the Ratmen’s growing faith to pursue godhood and weighed the risks of different kinds of divinity. He chose to return to Isata to investigate whether wizards could become gods and to buy elemental-plane coordinates, leaving his Abyss forces with tasks before traveling through the Abyss Gate.

• Charles studied how gods formed divinity, ignited divine fire, accumulated divine power, and condensed a divine spark.
• Charles weighed becoming a Ratman racial god against choosing divinity tied to fear, death, or slaughter, and considered the dangers of each path.
• Charles stored the Ratmen’s power of faith in a crystal ball and decided to return to Isata for information about wizard godhood and elemental-plane coordinates.
• Charles assigned development tasks to his greater demons and Flame Ratmen because the Abyss World’s growth had slowed.
• Charles communicated with Scorchflame at the Abyss Gate and traveled to Isata as a fifth-ring wizard and peak fifth-rank great lord of the Abyss.

Isata welcomed a new group of wizard students while a hidden White Mountain Boros wizard discovered that Isata had been recruiting on his territory. Among the arrivals, Duss Augustus joined other second-rank apprentices who planned to form an alliance, and the chapter left his companions mocking his family's missing elder.

• Isata's knights escorted newly arrived students from the port toward the academy, while a hidden second-ring wizard watched from the ship.
• The white-robed wizard realized Isata had been recruiting students in White Mountain Boros territory and fled to carry the news back.
• Duss Augustus traveled with several second-rank apprentices who agreed to band together and asked how many Magic Stones each had.
• After Duss said he had only six Magic Stones and knew nothing about the Augustus elder who had traveled to the Wizard Continent, the other apprentices mocked the elder's fate and talent.

Duss Augustus arrived at Isata with the new apprentices and discovered that his family carried a dormant Demonic Beast bloodline, prompting an old wizard to react with surprise at his surname. Meanwhile, Charles prepared to return from the Abyss, and Isata’s wizards anticipated his arrival for their own reasons.

• Duss endured the other apprentices’ mockery and declared that he would become the Augustus Family’s first wizard.
• The apprentices arrived at Isata, where Duss coughed in the murky air and was sent with the others for talent inspections.
• An old wizard found a dormant Demonic Beast bloodline in Duss and reacted with astonishment when Duss gave his name as Duss Augustus.
• Scorchflame cleared the area around the Abyss Gate after receiving Charles’s message that he was returning to Isata.
• Anderson celebrated how Charles’s work had helped him build his wizard tower and considered expanding it to four stories.
• Noah sensed Charles’s return and planned to negotiate for a larger market share while privately questioning Charles’s advancement as a demon lord.

Charles returned to Isata through the Abyss Gate, releasing a terrifying aura that transformed the skies. Below, Dus’s bloodline test caused a crystal ball to blaze with dark-crimson light, and the wizards suspected he was related to Charles Augustus.

• Charles’s arrival stirred the Abyss Gate and filled Isata with oppressive, scorching aura as wizards and apprentices watched in alarm.
• Dus’s crystal ball began glowing through its tent while he was being tested, frightening him and the old wizard.
• A Second Ring Wizard examined Dus’s identity and recognized the significance of the Augustus surname and the crystal ball’s reaction.
• Charles emerged from the Abyss Gate and announced that he had returned to Isata.
• Dus’s crystal ball’s dark-crimson light expanded more than a hundred meters, prompting the Second Ring Wizard to exclaim about his bloodline.

Dus’s extraordinary bloodline test drew the attention of two Second-Ring Wizards, but the gray-robed wizard abandoned his attempt to claim Dus after realizing he was an Augustus. Meanwhile, Charles returned from the Abyss in his Demon Lord form, alarming Isata’s wizards and astonishing Noah with his increased strength and sixth-tier Devil heart core.

• Dus’s test made the crystal ball blaze and shatter, prompting a Second-Ring Wizard to seize him and claim him as a student.
• The first Second-Ring Wizard warned the gray-robed wizard that Dus was an Augustus, and the gray-robed wizard set Dus down and fled.
• Charles emerged from the Abyss Gate in a towering, armored Demon Lord form, and his aura frightened wizards across Isata before he withdrew it.
• Anderson and Webster noticed that Charles had grown stronger, while Noah judged him to have reached the peak of the fifth tier.
• Noah recognized a sixth-tier Devil heart core in Charles’s armor and wondered how Charles had acquired it, then consoled himself that Charles’s wizard advancement would be difficult.

Charles returned to Isata and received the Wizard Sage title, but his fifth-circle power transformed the expected badge into one for a Fifth-Circle Wizard Sage. Noah realized that Charles had become a fifth-circle wizard as well as a fifth-rank Demon Lord.

• Charles transformed into human form and sensed the Wizard World’s will preparing to invest him as a Sage.
• The Wizard Sage badge descended but stopped halfway, leaving Charles and the Sages of Isata uncertain about what had gone wrong.
• Charles released his fifth-circle wizard aura, which swept across Isata and caused the badge to tremble and explode.
• The Wizard World’s rule authority reformed the badge into a larger Fifth-Circle Wizard Sage badge, shocking the Sages.
• Noah approached Charles and asked why the badge had changed, and Charles said it was because he was also a fifth-circle Wizard Sage.

Charles returned to Isata as a Five-Ring Wizard and received the Wizard World’s Sage badge, which recognized his rank and helped with studying the Sea of Rules. The gathered sages congratulated him, and Charles reassured Anderson that he remained his student before Noah asked whether he had brought back good news.

• Noah learned from Charles that he had become a Five-Ring Wizard, and Charles accepted the Sage badge after sensing its properties.
• The Wizard Sages gathered in Isata while Anderson reflected on how Charles’s return from the Abyss had changed his fortunes and Webster regretted not taking Charles as his student.
• Charles accepted the title, and the Four-Ring Wizard Sages bowed to him; he saluted Anderson and said he was still his student regardless of rank.
• Charles described the Abyss as dangerous and invited Webster to visit the layer he controlled, but Webster declined, saying he needed to stay in Isata and teach.
• Noah asked Charles whether he had brought back any good news.

Charles sent Scorchflame to investigate a fluctuation connected to Dus Augustus while he met with Noah and the wizard sages. Scorchflame found Dus, recognized Charles’s aura on him, and carried him toward Isata, leaving the blonde girl behind.

• Charles told Noah and the wizard sages that their business could expand, then sent Scorchflame to investigate a fluctuation below Isata.
• Scorchflame flew down to where Dus Augustus and the other apprentice candidates were waiting after their tests.
• The wizards recognized Dus’s surname and black hair, while Dus wondered whether his family’s vanished ancestor was connected to their reaction.
• Scorchflame landed before the gathered candidates, and the knights and wizards knelt and called him their lord.
• Scorchflame recognized Charles’s aura on Dus, promised him good fortune at Isata, and lifted him into his claws.
• The blonde girl asked Dus to take her too, but Dus told Scorchflame she was unrelated.

Charles told Isata’s wizard sages that Abyss World had separated from Purgatory World, limiting future devil-material supplies, and revealed that he had become the Abyss High Lord. He left the council chamber with the sages stunned after explaining that he had defeated the other demon lords and killed a sixth-rank devil.

• Charles told the wizard sages that devil materials would become scarcer because his Abyss World had separated from Purgatory World.
• Anderson was relieved that Charles would face less danger, while Noah asked whether a new Abyss High Lord had emerged.
• Charles revealed that he was now the Abyss High Lord, shocking the assembled sages.
• Charles explained that his fifth-rank demon lord strength, fifth-ring wizard abilities, and wizard tower had let him defeat the other demon lords.
• Charles said he had killed a sixth-rank devil and nearly wiped out its army, so Isata could receive devil materials until the remaining stock ran out.

Charles revealed that his Abyss territory was nearly the safest place in its layer and invited Anderson and Aiden to visit. After securing a more profitable transaction as a fifth-rank Abyss Grand Lord and fifth-ring Wizard Sage, Charles left to visit Anderson’s unfinished wizard tower, where Aiden began looking forward to opportunities in the Abyss.

• Charles told Anderson that only several sixth-rank beings or a seventh-rank being could threaten him in his Abyss layer, and Anderson considered visiting the Abyss to advance his demon bloodline.
• Charles said he wanted to research gods in Isata, and Noah advised him to consult the Grand Library using his authority as a Wizard Sage.
• Charles and the Wizard Sages finalized their transaction, with Charles receiving greater profits because of his new rank and status.
• Charles visited Anderson’s wizard tower under construction and greeted Aiden, who had once been his fellow third-ring wizard.
• Charles invited Aiden to visit the Abyss, and Anderson said Aiden could go after the tower was finished; Aiden eagerly imagined advancing as a wizard or demon.

Charles supported Anderson’s plans to gain influence in Isata and gave him ten scrolls that could summon Charles’s projection for protection. He then used his new access to Isata’s Grand Library to strengthen his magical foundation and began studying knowledge about gods.

• Anderson told Charles he planned to expand his wizard tower and contend for benefits within Isata, and Charles pledged his support.
• Charles gave Anderson a Demon-Sealing Box containing ten scrolls that summoned Charles’s projection in a crisis.
• Charles went to Isata’s Grand Library and received permission to consult its knowledge freely.
• Charles studied the fourth-ring materials, paused for several days to absorb what he learned, and strengthened his control over his power.
• Charles carefully examined the fifth-ring materials and found knowledge related to gods.

Charles learned how gods gained power and why the Wizard World prohibited faith, then considered becoming an evil god in the Abyss to strengthen his Ratmen and secure their loyalty. He weighed condensing fear divinity and recognized the dangers of transmitting faith across planes.

• Charles learned that gods drew power from faith and were bound to their planes, though powerful racial and evil gods could roam more freely.
• Charles learned that wizards could become gods outside the Wizard World, where the Wizard King's Court forbade preaching and cultivating faith.
• Charles considered becoming an Abyssal evil god so demons and Ratmen would worship him, raising his divine power and securing their loyalty.
• Charles considered condensing fear divinity instead of Flame Ratman divinity and sensed a few strands of faith from his Greater Demon Flame Ratmen.
• Charles recognized that ordinary believers could not transmit faith across planes, leaving distant believers unprotected and their faith vulnerable to theft.