Chapter Summaries

Chief Priest Chimer mentored High Priest Losanda on the different paths to advancement among northern priests and hinted that Losanda could rise with his support and a politically advantageous marriage. Losanda described High Priest Ge Niao’s plan to seize the Great Yoeme Tribe and its coal mines, which could make Ge Niao Chief Priest of the West Bay General Diocese.

• Chimer praised Chief Priest Miki and Chief Priest Zuwaro, then advised Losanda to pursue a Mexica or Purepecha noblewoman as his principal wife if he hoped to become a Priest Elder.
• Losanda pledged himself to Chimer as a devoted student, and Chimer accepted his loyalty and promised to mention it in a letter to His Majesty.
• Chimer explained that noble priests such as High Priest Ge Niao and Little Crow would compete with the first-class Shenwei University graduates for advancement through seafaring and colonization.
• Losanda revealed that Ge Niao had secured permission and support for a northern campaign targeting the Great Yoeme Tribe and its valuable Fire Stone Coal deposits.
• Ge Niao’s plan would use the Feather remnants to draw the Great Yoeme chief Da Vihoer and his main force away, allowing forces from Leijin Town and Great Lake County to seize the tribe.
• Losanda prayed that Ge Niao’s campaign would succeed, saying its coal could supply winter fuel and help smelt iron, while the conquest could earn Ge Niao promotion to Chief Priest.

High Priest Losanda recounted his northern voyage to Chief Priest Chimer, describing how new sailing ships sped up travel and supported the kingdom’s colonization and missionary work. Chimer rejected Losanda’s proposal to cross the Western Sea directly for now, then summoned the Western Sea painter Ryuzoji Iehiro.

• Losanda explained that the fleet’s fore-and-aft sailing ships traveled much faster than old Galleys and carried fewer crew members.
• Losanda described transporting Tecos warriors, salt, and supplies while supporting migration, religious conversion, and port development along the northern route.
• Losanda proposed crossing directly from the Western Sea continent by following the westerly winds, but Chimer decided the kingdom should wait for His Majesty’s approval and prioritize stability.
• Chimer ordered Losanda to take two Wind God Shuttle Ships along the Divine Revelation Island Chain next May to support Chief Priest Zuwaro and return with Western Sea artisans.
• Losanda told Chimer about the converted painter Ryuzoji Iehiro, and Chimer ordered that he be brought into the Temple.

Ryuzoji Iehiro entered the Temple of the Yin Shang Black Bird, hoping the Rubber People Kingdom would help him reclaim power in Kyushu. At West Mountain Port, the Cedar Shaman lamented that prosperity and new social divisions would end the equality of his people’s clan communes.

• Ryuzoji Iehiro prayed to the Main God of the Black Bird and resolved to seek the Rubber People Kingdom’s support for restoring his house.
• The Cedar Shaman harvested rice so furiously that Chiwako knocked the sickle from his hands to stop him from striking anyone.
• Chiwako asked whether the Cedar Shaman regretted refusing the Kingdom’s noble title, but the shaman said he did not care about titles.
• The Cedar Shaman recalled how West Mountain Port and the surrounding tribes had changed, with new fields, a temple, and growing differences between nobles and commoners.
• The Cedar Shaman told Chiwako he feared the equal clan communes would disappear, leaving nobles above and impoverished tribespeople below.

Chiwako and Shaman Cedar talked about a better future and agreed to visit Cuba when they were old, while Chiwako concealed the danger facing its peaceful Taino people. Meanwhile, High Priest Ge Niao began converting the Yaqui Great Yoeme Tribe after its chief was defeated and the tribe's order was secured.

• Shaman Cedar asked Chiwako whether everyone might one day live without nobles or masters, and Chiwako said he had seen such a society among the Taino people in Cuba.
• Chiwako described the Taino people's peaceful life, and Shaman Cedar proposed that they visit Cuba for their last voyage when they were old.
• Chiwako agreed to go to Cuba but kept quiet about how vulnerable the Taino people were to outside threats.
• Chiwako reassured Shaman Cedar that conditions in the Lake Kingdom had improved and praised its priests and ruler for supporting farming and reducing human sacrifices.
• High Priest Ge Niao called on the Yaqui Great Yoeme Tribe to convert to the Main God as seven thousand tribespeople gathered before the sacred fire.
• Seven days after the autumn raid, the Great Yoeme Tribe's order had stabilized under the kingdom's control, while Chief Great Mountain Eagle had been crushed in an ambush by the Feather Clan.

After the Great Yoeme Tribe’s conversion, High Priest Ge Niao promoted Feng Ying to lead its religious affairs and ordered him to eliminate those who resisted the Main God. Ge Niao and the priests then pledged to build a priest-run Divine Kingdom on earth in the resource-rich West Bay Diocese.

• The conversion festival ended with 7,542 members of the Yome Tribe sworn to the Main God, while several hundred clan elders and their kin remained suspect or refused conversion.
• Feng Ying urged Ge Niao to sacrifice the stubborn elders and powerful families, and Ge Niao praised his loyalty and appointed him second-rank missionary priest and chief farmer of the Great Yoeme Tribe.
• Ge Niao ordered Feng Ying to sacrifice those who refused conversion, distribute their property among the believers and tribesmen, and build a reliable local priesthood.
• Ge Niao declared that the West Bay Diocese would be governed directly by the Priesthood, with labor and resources assigned by priests rather than tribal chiefs or nobles.
• Feng Ying and the other priests embraced Ge Niao’s vision of establishing the Main God’s Divine Kingdom on earth.

High Priest Ge Niao assessed how trade had widened inequality in the Yome Tribe and devised a temple-centered plan to provide shelter while keeping believers dependent on the Main God and the priests. As the tribe prepared to build the temple complex, an envoy from the Feather Clan arrived for an audience.

• Priest Ge Niao studied the Yome Tribe’s growing divide between wealthy chiefs and impoverished workers and linked the changes to trade and missionary opportunities.
• Priest Feng Ying proposed building and allocating warm wooden houses, but High Priest Ge Niao warned that distributing a limited number would create resentment.
• High Priest Ge Niao ordered the clan elders’ houses on the temple site confiscated and planned temple side halls where participating believers could winter with fuel provided.
• High Priest Ge Niao instructed the priests to control labor, trade, and distribution so that believers would continue to rely on priests and the Main God.
• A Samurai reported that the Feather Clan had sent an envoy, and High Priest Ge Niao prepared to receive them.

Little Feather reported that the Feather Clan had defeated Chief Great Mountain Eagle and fled north with captives, leaving him behind as a channel to the kingdom. High Priest Ge Niao chose to keep him as a potential priest and forced him through a bloody conversion, renaming him Peng Eight-Fingers.

• Little Feather presented seven heads, including Chief Great Mountain Eagle's, to High Priest Ge Niao.
• Little Feather explained that his father had ambushed the Yoeme warriors, then taken the Feather Clan and its captives north toward the Opata mountains.
• High Priest Ge Niao recognized Little Feather as a possible link to the Feather Clan and ordered Priest Feng Ying to train him as an apprentice.
• Ge Niao decided to make Little Feather's conversion irreversible by cutting off his two little fingers as an offering to the Main God.
• After the ordeal, Ge Niao declared that Little Feather had died and renamed the unconscious apprentice Peng Eight-Fingers.

Old feather Penguari led the battered Feather Clan and its captives out of the southern plateau into the Opata mountain valleys, intending to take West Valley by deception and make it their new home. He planned to feign loyalty to the Yome Tribe and the Main God while expanding the clan through conquest and population growth.

• Old feather Penguari and his several thousand followers reached the Opata valleys after fleeing north through the mountains.
• Old feather pressed Little Mountain Eagle Viho to lead them to the largest Opata tribe, and Viho described the three great valleys and promised that the Yome name could win them a welcome.
• Old feather told his warriors to pose as Yome refugees, inspect West Valley, and lower the tribe's guard before launching a surprise attack.
• Opata women heard wolves howling near the southern pass but saw no one, unaware that Feather's army was approaching.
• Old feather rejected Peng Bage's suggestion to simply occupy the mountain pass and instead planned to rule the valley while outwardly paying tribute to the southern kingdom.
• Old feather urged his followers to take Opata women and grow the Feather Clan until it could dominate the mountain region.

Xolotl’s writings on governance circulated through the Kingdom as its rule expanded among the Yaqui and Tecos, while Monkey Kuluka studied his counsel. As the Alliance tightened its campaign against Oaxaca, Avet entered Xolotl’s tent and found him painting a divine bird.

• The Kingdom built Fire Stone Town’s temple and imposed new civic order among the converted Yaqui.
• Priests, trade, military force, and gradual administration extended the Kingdom’s influence among the Tecos tribes.
• Monkey Kuluka read Xolotl’s guidance on establishing stable rule through faith, redistribution, and patient governance.
• The Alliance’s armored Samurai defeated a Zapotec force of four thousand, killed its God-descendant leader, and captured hundreds of sacrificial prisoners.
• Avet carried the slain leader’s head to Xolotl’s tent and found him painting a divine bird perched on the Kapok Divine Tree.

Xolotl presented Avet with a Divine Destiny Bird totem meant to unite the conquered tribes as one Rubber People, and explained how its features represented their peoples and gods. Avet embraced the totem as a way to forge lasting cultural unity, while Xolotl revealed that its sun-ring came from the distant Inca Tawantinsuyu, hinting at the empire’s future expansion south.

• Xolotl showed Avet his Divine Destiny Bird painting and proposed it as a shared totem that would unite the tribes as Rubber People across generations.
• Avet ordered the God-descendant’s head displayed at the camp gate and rewarded Turquoise with promotion for killing him alongside a Tlaxcalan archer.
• Xolotl explained that the bird’s hummingbird head represented the Mexica, its serpent neck the Otomi, its eagle wings the Purepecha and Tecos, its serpent body the eastern tribes, and its cloud-wreathed claws the Cloud Tribes.
• Avet recognized the painting as a map of the tribes and saw the totem as a means of building a lasting cultural identity beyond shared religion and military conquest.
• Xolotl said the bird’s solar head ring came from the Inca Tawantinsuyu in the distant south, whose lands he hoped the Rubber People Empire would one day absorb.

Xolotl described the vast Inca Empire and explained how its rigid hierarchy and dependence on royal and priestly authority left it vulnerable to plague, military defeat, and rebellion. He urged Avet to consider that the Mexica Alliance’s lasting strength depended on bringing conquered tribes into shared political life as Rubber People.

• Avet asked Xolotl about the Inca and learned that its Andean territory and population rivaled the Mexica Alliance, with abundant crops, a major capital, and hundreds of thousands of warriors.
• Xolotl described the Inca Empire’s expansion and warned that its small ruling class, rigid social divisions, and weak ties to conquered peoples made its foundations fragile.
• Xolotl predicted that plague and military defeat would undermine the Inca royal house, triggering rebellions and civil wars across the four Suyus.
• Avet recognized that the Mexica Alliance had also relied on military force and religious fear, and recalled the reforms that had strengthened its rule.
• Xolotl urged Avet to build the Mexica Alliance’s lasting strength by treating more tribes as Rubber People and allowing them to participate in governance.

Xolotl explained to Avet that the Alliance’s strength depended on expanding who counted as its people, and showed how the Divine Destiny Bird represented tribes across the continents. Avet marveled at the world beyond his realm and discovered four books beneath the scroll, including a scripture bearing the Main God’s emblem.

• Avet reflected on Xolotl’s counsel that stable rule depended on bringing more tribes into the Alliance as people, and wondered how far he could expand their rights.
• Avet asked whether Xolotl had a plan to include more tribes, and Xolotl explained that the Divine Destiny Bird represented peoples across the Northern and Southern Continents and lands beyond the Western Sea.
• Xolotl identified tribes and alliances represented on the bird, including the Dog-kin, Miwok, Amazon tribes, Muisca, and Mapuche.
• Avet marveled at the world revealed by Xolotl’s vision, then lifted the scroll and found four books beneath it.
• Avet read the books’ titles, including Records of the Rubber People, Book of Songs of the Rubber People, Music Bureau of the Rubber People, and Sutra on the Heart of Gods and Men.

Avet read the Records of the Rubber People, which presented a prophetic history linking five divine eras to the origins and destinies of the Rubber People. He was shaken by its account of seven ancestral branches and learned that it claimed their original kin still lived across the western sea.

• Avet studied the book’s prophecy of five gods, five elements, and five destinies, while Xolotl explained that priests had reconstructed it from ancient Olmec carvings and murals.
• Avet read that the Main God created the world and the first city at the Ancient Holy City, then a divine fire scattered five sacred objects and began the later eras.
• The records traced seven Rubber People branches across the Americas and islands, claiming that many had forgotten their shared origins but would eventually return and reunite.
• Avet accepted the account as a compelling ancestral history connecting the tribes under heaven.
• The records claimed the Rubber People’s place of origin lay across the western sea, where ancestral kin had never crossed east.

Xolotl presented Avet with a plan to unite the Mexica Alliance into a Rubber People order through shared prophecy, poems, and cultural identity. Avet considered the political resistance the reforms might face, while Xolotl prepared to distribute the new songs throughout the tribes.

• Avet read the Records of the Rubber People, which proclaimed that the Mexica Alliance would unite the Rubber People under the Main God and that Avet would fulfill the Fourth Era’s mandate.
• Avet asked whether the prophecy had divine confirmation and how conquered tribes could be made to believe it, and Xolotl said shared identity would benefit future generations but threaten nobles profiting from conquest.
• Avet considered transforming the Mexica Alliance and royal house into a broader Rubber People order, while weighing the resistance of powerful nobles.
• Avet read Xolotl’s Ode to the Clouds, a Mixtec-style poem about the tribes’ shared origins, suffering, and eventual reunion, and learned that High Priest Andivi Yuntian had revised it from an old Cloud Tribes inheritance.
• Xolotl explained that the Book of Songs of the Rubber People would replace tribal songs, with ten thousand printed copies distributed to temples, shrines, and noble families.

Avet read the Music Bureau ballad “Cloud Snake Transforms into a Butterfly,” which recast the fall of the Cloud Snake Descendants as a tragic story of love, oppression, and the unity of the Rubber People. The tale ended with Dark Snake’s death and the promise that the surviving tribes would live together as Rubber People.

• Avet accepted Xolotl’s cultural and educational plans, recognizing their role in building a shared identity among the Rubber People.
• Avet began reading a ballad about Dark Snake, a Cloud Snake Divine Descendant, and White Gull, a fisherwoman of the Ant People.
• Dark Snake’s father tried to separate the lovers and threatened White Gull’s people, so Dark Snake left for the Flower War rather than abandon her.
• A Mexica Jaguar warrior defeated Dark Snake but spared him, and Dark Snake later joined the Alliance’s Eastern Expedition as his disciple.
• Dark Snake returned to Cloud Snake City with the Mexica army, defeated his father, and discovered that White Gull and their unborn child had been sacrificed.
• Dark Snake rejected enfeoffment, asked that the surviving Cloud Snake Tribe live in peace, and killed himself; the ballad portrayed his death as a symbol of the tribes’ reunion.

Avet read Xolotl’s political tales and the Sutra on the Heart of Gods and Men, discovering that they quietly envisioned religious reform, popular self-rule, and an ideal Divine Kingdom. He took the scripture to revise it for the Priest Elders, warning Xolotl to remember his status and question whether the change he sought was truly good.

• Avet recognized that the Music Bureau’s stories promoted unity among the Rubber People and used Dark Snake’s tale to challenge the divine-blooded nobles.
• Xolotl confirmed that Dark Snake had existed and explained that his grave held only a garment, while Dark Snake lived on as the Military Noble Qi Anshe.
• Avet asked whether Xolotl still believed in equality of life and a tolerant order, and Xolotl gave him the Sutra on the Heart of Gods and Men.
• Avet read the scripture’s account of divine seeds within everyone and an ideal order that could let commoners govern themselves, then warned Xolotl that no such Divine Kingdom existed.
• Xolotl said the ideal offered hope to future generations, while Avet took the scripture to revise it and urged Xolotl to remember his royal bloodline and consider whether change was good.

Amoxi secured grain from the Coastal Tribes and prepared the Red Crow Alliance for winter while learning that Alan had found a Fire Stone Coal mine and was preparing to attack the Mountain Apache. He accepted her plan to trap the enemy during the winter and seize the mine.

• Amoxi prayed for the two thousand Red Crow tribesmen sailing east and for the provisions that would sustain his people through winter.
• Moqi and A-Feng confirmed the Coastal Tribes had supplied enough grain for two thousand workers and advised Amoxi on storing and rationing it.
• Amoxi decided the Red Crow main tribe would control grain distribution and punish any chieftains who made trouble or secretly traded with the Coastal Tribes.
• Zukata reported that Alan had found a Fire Stone Coal mine north of the Great River, had been ambushed by a southbound tribe, and planned to strike its winter camp with two thousand warriors.
• Amoxi learned that Alan's enemy was the Mescalero, also known as the Inde or Mountain Apache, and agreed that her winter attack was the best way to secure the mine.

Black Wolf Toltec consolidated the Kingdom’s control over the Ekab Chiefdom and planned to draw Maya forces to Tulum rather than rush its temple. The chapter ended as Uta reported that a ship had brought supplies and a new batch of recruits.

• Black Wolf Toltec recalled the Kingdom’s capture of Ekab Port and the Yan Island Clan, while the assault on Tulum had failed after its defenders learned of the attack.
• Black Wolf Toltec rejected Chief Yan Hai’s request for more Kingdom Warriors and decided to keep the unreliable Yan Island forces guarding their own territory.
• Black Wolf Toltec planned to surround Tulum with three thousand warriors, lure Maya reinforcements to its defense, and defeat them along the coast.
• Uta reported that a coastal ship had arrived with new supplies and a new batch of wolf cubs.

Black Wolf Toltec confronted Sha She over the slow delivery of Dog-kin reinforcements and demanded more men for the Maya coast and Cuba. After ordering Sha She to carry his demands to Miawa, Toltec tested the newly arrived grassland savages and chose their fiercest fighter as a squad leader, naming him Ox-Wolf.

• Toltec accused Sha She and Miawa of delaying the reinforcements and demanded that Miawa send at least two thousand men every three months starting the next year.
• Toltec beat Sha She, warned him not to form a private savage legion, and ordered him to report the demands to Miawa.
• Toltec gave Sha She spoils and turquoise to carry back, then tested the newly arrived savages by throwing raw meat among them.
• The strongest savage won the fight and tried to attack Toltec, who subdued him and admired his ferocity.
• Toltec named the savage Ox-Wolf and appointed him squad leader over twenty men.

Black Wolf Toltec read Xolotl’s instructions on consolidating the kingdom’s rule over the Maya tribes, but rejected the slow approach after testing the warm-water frog idea. He ended by contemplating the coming plague from the White-Skinned Demons and the chance that lifesaving medicine could bring the Maya into the Main God’s faith.

• Black Wolf read Xolotl’s letter, which urged him to build stable rule, carefully divide opponents, and avoid pushing the Maya nobles into revolt.
• Black Wolf ordered Ox-Wolf to catch ox-frogs and test whether one would jump from slowly heating water; the frog leapt out and Ox-Wolf speared it.
• Black Wolf concluded that the Maya nobles would also resist before it was too late, and decided to crush opposition and force allegiance through harsher measures.
• Black Wolf continued reading Xolotl’s warnings not to advance deep into the jungle and his prediction that plague medicine could help the kingdom win the Maya people’s trust.
• Black Wolf looked east and prayed, wondering what plague sorceries the White-Skinned Demons possessed and where they were.