Chapter Summaries

Merlin tested the Illusory World on the Holy City and learned more about Ditas’s ambition to complete it, then continued strengthening his mental power. After Arka relinquished control of the Saitu Plane, Merlin persuaded him that they could safely contest another Plane, and the two departed for the Open Region.

• Merlin used the Illusory World to envelop the Holy City, placing its people and Archmages in an illusion without their awareness.
• Ditas told Merlin that the Illusory World could expand endlessly and urged him to reach Illusion Heart and complete it.
• Merlin returned to the God-Sealing Disc and continued absorbing Divinity from the dying Demon God Vanna.
• Two years later, Arka released control of half the Saitu Plane’s Elemental Origin, and Merlin accepted control as its Plane Lord.
• Merlin drew Arka into an illusion to demonstrate his power and assured him he could handle the threat of Great Legendaries.
• Arka agreed to join Merlin in claiming a Plane, and they left the Saitu Plane for the Open Region.

Merlin and Arka traveled through the Void Realm toward the Firecloud Plane and defeated a beastman ambush. After learning that powerful beings were contesting the ownerless Plane, they had the surviving beastman lead them there, hoping to claim it.

• A group of beastmen concealed themselves in the Void Realm and prepared to ambush travelers near the Firecloud Plane.
• The beastmen trapped Merlin and Arka’s Aurora Boat in a gray net and demanded their treasures.
• Arka broke the net and killed seven beastmen, while Merlin stopped their leader with an illusion and Arka bound him.
• The surviving beastman explained that the Firecloud Plane had become ownerless after its Giant King was killed and that powerful beings were fighting over it.
• Arka told Merlin that controlling the Plane might let him merge his nine offspring and become a High Treefolk, and Merlin agreed to go.
• The beastman led Merlin and Arka toward the Firecloud Plane after Merlin promised to let him leave safely.

Boldo returned to the Firecloud Plane and clashed with Tuota, eventually agreeing to share control of the Plane Core. Merlin and Arka arrived afterward, and Merlin recognized someone inside as a mutual acquaintance.

• Boldo entered the Firecloud Plane and drove out or killed the foreign races competing for it.
• Tuota arrived and attacked Boldo, who evaded his blows through his superior speed.
• After fighting for three days and nights, Boldo agreed to Tuota's demand that they control seventy and thirty percent of the Plane Core, respectively.
• Merlin released the beastman who had guided him and Arka to the Firecloud Plane.
• Merlin detected a mutual acquaintance inside the Plane and flew in with Arka to meet them.

Merlin and Arka fought to take control of the Firecloud Plane while Merlin trapped Tuota and killed Boldo, giving Arka time to absorb the Plane’s Elemental Origin. A Rock Clan Great Legendary arrived and awakened Tuota, leaving Merlin facing two powerful enemies until he summoned Ditas through the Illusion Pearl.

• Boldo and Tuota began swearing a pact to jointly control the Firecloud Plane, but Merlin and Arka appeared before they could finish.
• Tuota sent Arka flying with a punch, but Merlin trapped Tuota and Boldo in his third-step illusion so Arka could seize the Plane Core.
• Merlin attacked the helpless Boldo with his Fusion Spell and killed him while Arka absorbed the Elemental Origin with help from his nine offspring Treants.
• A Rock Clan Great Legendary arrived and disrupted Merlin’s hold over Tuota, who awoke and attacked Merlin as the Rock Clan member contested Arka for control of the Plane.
• Merlin summoned the Illusion Pearl and unleashed the Illusory World, where Ditas promised that its power could deal with the two Great Legendaries.

Merlin held Tuota and Heiluote inside the Illusory World while Arka fused his nine offspring Treants and became a High Treefolk. After the Rock Clan progenitor ordered Heiluote home, Merlin received a parallel command from the Supreme Arcane Mage to return to the City of Arcane and gather with its Spellcasters and Great Legendaries.

• Merlin trapped Tuota and Heiluote in the Illusory World but struggled to maintain it as Arka drew upon the Elemental Origin.
• Arka fused all nine offspring Treants into his true body and became a High Treefolk.
• After Merlin withdrew the Illusory World, Arka fought Tuota and Heiluote, injuring Tuota and matching Heiluote's attack.
• The Rock Clan progenitor summoned Heiluote back to the ancestral land, and Heiluote left the Firecloud Plane.
• Zado's avatar relayed the Supreme Arcane Mage's command for Merlin to return to the City of Arcane with its Spellcasters and Great Legendaries.

Merlin learned that war had broken out between the Spellcaster Civilization and the Rock Clan, entrusted Firecloud Plane and Saitu Plane to Arka, and became a Ninth-level Spellcaster while traveling back to Santo City of Arcane. He arrived at the City of Arcane and encountered another returning figure.

• Zado told Merlin that the Supreme Arcane Mages had summoned all Great Legendaries because war had broken out with the Rock Clan over the Xiling Plane.
• Arka offered to guard Firecloud Plane and Saitu Plane for Merlin, and Merlin agreed after they each took half of Firecloud Plane's control.
• During his journey back, Merlin absorbed Divinity, increased his Mental Power, and constructed his remaining Ninth Level Spells, becoming a Six-Element Ninth-level Spellcaster.
• Merlin arrived at Santo City of Arcane after eight months and began replenishing the magic power in his Spell Models.
• A figure appeared behind Merlin and asked whether he had returned to the City of Arcane as well.

Merlin returned to the City of Arcane and learned that a War of Civilizations had erupted against the Rock Clan, leaving the Spellcaster Civilization in a dire position. Summoned to the front, Merlin flew to assemble with the other Spellcasters after Zado warned him to prioritize survival.

• Merlin reunited with Arot and met Sate'an, who had become an Archmage and one of the strongest Spellcasters below the Legendary realm.
• Merlin noticed that numerous Great Legendaries had gathered in the City of Arcane, suggesting a serious crisis.
• Zado told Merlin that Blackfire Monarch and Santo the Arcane Mage had gone to the Xiling Plane, where war with the Rock Clan was going badly.
• Zado explained that the three Supreme Arcane Mages had ordered every Great Legendary to bring Spellcasters of the Seventh Level or above to the front.
• After warning Merlin that even Monarchs could die in the war, Zado sent him to the assembly as the city bell rang.

As Spellcaster Civilization prepared for war against the Rock Clan, Merlin and six powerful peers formed a team and boarded a vessel bound for the Xiling Plane front. Legend Zado hinted that Merlin could play a decisive role in preventing the conflict from becoming a full War of Civilizations.

• Merlin told Sate'an, Arot, and the others that the Rock Clan had likely been preparing for war and that a War of Civilizations might be unavoidable.
• Santo the Arcane Mage's Storm Avatar ordered Spellcasters of Legendary rank and above to gather forces and Potential Mages of the Seventh Level and above to head to the Xiling Plane front.
• Sate'an proposed that Merlin, Arot, Rael, Orga, Seden, and Vick form a team, and all seven signed a contract pledging never to abandon one another.
• Santo summoned the Potential Mages aboard a vast Rune Formation vessel and set off with them for the front.
• Merlin asked Legend Zado why Potential Mages were being sent to fight, and Zado told him that Merlin could help suppress the Rock Clan and prevent a full-scale war.

Merlin learned that the conflict with the Rock Clan remained below the Legendary level and discussed Illusion Heart with Ditas while traveling to the front. After arriving at the White Extreme Plane, Sate'an led the City of Arcane Potential Mages in choosing to fight for the Xiling Plane.

• Zado explained to Merlin that both civilizations were keeping the conflict below the Legendary level to avoid a full War of Civilizations.
• Merlin told Ditas about the possible war and asked him to explain Illusion Heart in greater detail.
• Santo announced that the Potential Mages had to enter the frontline Planes within a month or face severe punishment.
• Arot described the frontline struggle and warned that the Rock Clan had transformed the Xiling Plane into a barren stronghold.
• Sate'an and Rael persuaded the group to target the Xiling Plane, and Sate'an ordered them to set out.

Merlin, Sate'an, and their team entered the transformed Xiling Plane and headed north to confront the Rock Clan. They encountered a besieged Spellcaster team, and Rael revealed his strength by destroying thirty Rock Clan members with one attack.

• Merlin, Sate'an, Arot, and the others saw that the Rock Clan had turned the Xiling Plane into a lifeless world and found a grave for the Xiling People.
• Arot explained that some Xiling People survived elsewhere, while Sate'an warned that Spellcasters could suffer the same fate if they failed to resist the Rock Clan.
• Sate'an chose to lead the team north despite Arot's warning that the Rock Clan's defenses there were strongest.
• The team followed powerful elemental fluctuations and found five Spellcasters surrounded by more than a hundred Rock Clan members as their Rune Formation began to fail.
• Rael went alone to face thirty Rock Clan members, including two near-pinnacle fighters, and crushed them all with a single palm strike.

Sate'an, Rael, and their squad joined forces with the Amazing Squad and set out to destroy Tanlong City, the Rock Clan's largest stronghold in the area. As Sate'an prepared to break through its defenses, Merlin reassured Arot that the battle would give them plenty of chances to fight.

• Mage Rael and Sate'an swiftly killed the remaining Rock Clan warriors, then learned from the Amazing Squad that Tanlong City held nearly twenty thousand warriors and had formidable defenses.
• Sate'an and his companions decided to attack Tanlong City, and the Amazing Squad agreed to guide them there.
• A Rock Clan commander in Tanlong City ordered another patrol after sensing nearby Spellcaster activity.
• The Amazing Squad led Sate'an's party close to Tanlong City, where Rael admitted he could not quickly break its protective barrier.
• Sate'an said he could breach the defenses in at most three strikes and flew toward the city, while Merlin told Arot they would have many chances to fight.

Sate'an and his Spellcaster squad attacked Tanlong City, breaking its defenses and overwhelming the Rock Clan forces. The surviving Rock Clan members formed their Ancestral Form to face Sate'an as both sides prepared their strongest attacks.

• Sate'an shattered Tanlong City's protective barrier with a Fireball and confronted the Rock Clan leaders.
• Sate'an fought the three strongest Upper Rock Clan members while Rael and the others restrained the rest of Tanlong City's elite forces.
• Merlin summoned the Dark Demon Spirit, which crushed three Upper Rock Clan members and rampaged through the Rock Clan ranks.
• Sate'an killed An Molong with a Fusion Spell, prompting the surviving leaders to summon the Ancestral Form.
• More than ten thousand Rock Clan members fused into a hundred-meter-tall Rock Giant, and Sate'an rose to confront it.

Sate'an destroyed the Rock Clan’s Ancestral Form at Tanlong City, and the Rainbow Squad went on to seize most of the Xiling Plane’s strongholds. As Spellcasters gained momentum across the front lines, Ancestor Hanla sent Aili and the newly formed Ancestor Squad to defeat the Rainbow Squad and retake the initiative.

• Sate'an defeated the Ancestral Form assembled by more than ten thousand Rock Clan members, while Merlin and the Amazing Squad watched.
• Rael and Sate'an agreed to sweep the Xiling Plane, and the Amazing Squad offered to guide them to Rock Clan strongholds.
• Over the next month, the Rainbow Squad destroyed eleven strongholds, including one defended by a powerful Ancestral Form, and helped return most of the Xiling Plane to Spellcaster control.
• Potential Mages from Santo City of Arcane boosted Spellcaster morale, and Spellcasters began turning the tide on other combat planes.
• Ancestor Hanla ordered Aili to take the Ancestor Squad, whose Ancestral True Body could rival an Ancestor Grade, to the Xiling Plane and annihilate the Rainbow Squad.

Santo the Arcane Mage learned that Hanla had sent the Rock Clan’s Ancestor Squad to attack the Rainbow Squad on the Xiling Plane, so he dispatched Borte’s Overlap Squad to intercept them. Meanwhile, Captain Aili split the Ancestor Squad by creating Heart Core duplicates, sending the two groups in different directions to distract the Spellcasters and reach the Rainbow Squad.

• Santo the Arcane Mage told the Blackfire Monarch that Merlin and his team had turned the tide on the Xiling Plane, prompting Hanla to send the Ancestor Squad after them.
• Santo the Arcane Mage revealed Borte and his elite Overlap Squad, whose five Spellcasters could wield power comparable to a Great Legendary, and ordered them to stop the Ancestor Squad.
• Captain Aili led six Rock Clan members onto the Xiling Plane and explained that their mission was to exterminate the Rainbow Squad.
• Aili and the other Rock Clan members sacrificed portions of their Heart Cores to create weak duplicates with matching auras.
• Aili split the real Ancestor Squad and its duplicates into two groups, sending them in different directions to draw away Spellcaster squads while pursuing the Rainbow Squad.

Overlap Squad pursued Ancestor Squad but was lured away by decoy heart cores, while Rainbow Squad faced the real Ancestor Squad. The chapter left Sate'an confronting an Ancestral Form whose power felt Legendary.

• Borte led Overlap Squad into the Xiling Plane to rescue Rainbow Squad and defeat Ancestor Squad.
• Sate'an and Rainbow Squad found a Rock Clan team waiting in an abandoned town.
• Borte used Overlap Squad's Rune Formation to attack what seemed to be Ancestor Squad, but discovered the enemy had been a decoy made from heart cores.
• Borte realized Ancestor Squad had gone after Rainbow Squad and raced to catch up with his team.
• Ancestor Squad sensed the decoy heart cores had shattered and merged into an unusually powerful Ancestral Form.
• Sate'an sensed the Ancestral Form's Legendary power and recognized that Rainbow Squad was in trouble.

The Rainbow Squad was trapped by the Ancestor Squad’s Legendary-level Ancestral Form while Santo the Arcane Mage was kept from intervening by Ancestor Hanla. With escape impossible, Sate'an and Rael prepared to detonate their Mage’s Hearts to damage the enemy.

• Borte reported that the Ancestor Squad had tricked the Overlap Squad and likely intercepted the Rainbow Squad, prompting Santo to search for them.
• Santo found the Rainbow Squad in danger, but Ancestor Hanla blocked him from stepping in while Didimos and the Blackfire Monarch watched the projection.
• The Ancestral Form gravely injured Sate'an with one strike, revealing power comparable to a Legendary being.
• The Ancestral Form used Earth Vein Rock to trap the Rainbow Squad and the Amazing Squad, leaving them unable to flee.
• Sate'an and Rael agreed to detonate their Spell Models and manifested their seven-colored Mage’s Hearts.

Merlin stopped Sate'an and the others from sacrificing themselves, using his Third-stage Illusion and a Fusion Spell to destroy the Rock Clan's Ancestral Form. After Santo the Arcane Mage revealed that Rock Clan Ancestor Hanla had been watching, Merlin's companions learned how powerful he had become, and Borte arrived with the Overlap Squad.

• Sate'an, Rael, Vick, Seden, Orga, and the Amazing Squad prepared to detonate their Mage's Hearts against the approaching Ancestral Form.
• Merlin froze everyone with his Third-stage Illusion and struck the Ancestral Form with a Fusion Spell of four elemental Spells, shattering it.
• Ancestor Hanla reacted angrily, but Santo the Arcane Mage restrained him and told Merlin that Hanla had left.
• Merlin released the illusion, and Sate'an admitted that he still could not catch up with Merlin.
• Borte and the Overlap Squad arrived in a battered flying vessel and found the Rainbow Squad safe.

After Merlin helped secure the Xiling Plane, the Blackfire Monarch summoned him and asked whether he was close to perfecting the Mental Power System. Merlin concealed Ditas’s incomplete system, and the Blackfire Monarch gave him the method for advancing the Dark Eye to its seventh form, urging him to survive the coming War of Civilizations.

• Santo the Arcane Mage ordered Borte to join the Rainbow Squad in clearing the remaining Rock Clan strongholds, and the Spellcasters took control of the Xiling Plane.
• Merlin traveled to Santo Castle, where he discovered that the Blackfire Monarch had summoned him in Santo’s name.
• Merlin reunited with the enlarged Black Cat Didimos and learned Santo had left the castle days earlier.
• The Blackfire Monarch asked whether Merlin was close to breaking through the Legendary realm, and Merlin withheld the details of Ditas’s incomplete Mental Power System.
• The Blackfire Monarch warned Merlin about the dangers of the War of Civilizations and gave him cultivation information for reaching the Dark Eye’s seventh form.

Merlin learned how the Dark Legendary Ofras used the Dark Eye’s seventh form to seize control of Spellcasters and began merging his darkness-type Spell Models to cultivate the form safely. He started combining models from Zero-Level through Ninth-level, leaving the process underway as he struggled to keep the arrangement stable.

• Merlin examined the Dark Eye’s seventh-form method and learned that it required merging the Dark Eye with all his darkness-type Spell Models and then with his mental power.
• Merlin realized Ofras used the final step to crush Spellcasters’ mental power and turn them into puppets, and deduced that Ofras was a Mental Power User with a Mental Core.
• Ditas warned Merlin that Ofras’s method was not Illusion Heart and urged him to keep developing his Illusion.
• Merlin entered his Sea of Consciousness and forced his darkness-type Zero-Level and First-Level Spell Models to merge.
• Merlin began merging the remaining darkness-type Spell Models through the Ninth Level while using his mental power to stabilize their arrangement.

Merlin fused all six elemental Spell Models into Mage's Hearts and began the seventh form of the Dark Eye. As Merlin merged his mental strength with the Dark Eye, a blood-red eye began forming behind him.

• Merlin formed a dark-element Mage's Heart and realized he still needed to fuse all six elemental hearts to become a true mage.
• Merlin continued fusing his elemental Spell Models while the Spellcaster Civilization consolidated its control of the front line.
• Ancestor Hanla revealed the Rock Clan had six hidden Civilization-Level Prodigies and ordered Aruyo and Samaka to attack the Xiling Plane.
• Merlin formed Mage's Hearts for all six elements and began fusing the Dark Eye with his dark-element Mage's Heart.
• Merlin enveloped the Dark Eye with his mental strength, triggering a flood of violent sensations as a gigantic blood-red eye appeared behind him.