Chapter Summaries

Lu Huayu arranged to record Black Rose’s defeat while Umberlee fought a monstrous devil-ray amalgamation. Meanwhile, Xue Yunfeng realized Gaia had trapped Black Rose’s reserves in a mine where they could not log in, and suspected she had targeted Hill.

• Lu Huayu told the Doomsday Boss that he would record Black Rose’s attack using an openly placed spy in their guild.
• A devil-ray amalgamation appeared, and Umberlee asked Lu Huayu to record it so she could show the footage to Sekolah.
• The amalgamation attacked Umberlee with water poison, but Umberlee stabbed it and prepared to kill it while Lu Huayu filmed.
• Ball Ball reported that Black Rose’s reserves in the mine could not log in, and Xue Yunfeng deduced that Gaia had excluded elements needed to form their bodies.
• Xue Yunfeng explained that Gaia could not take Oaisis’s fortune by force and concluded that she had made her move against Hill.

Xue Yunfeng explained that Gaia had been manipulating Ellie and targeting Hill, while Hill independently sensed that Ellie had become tainted and waited for Gaia’s avatar to reveal itself. As Eden’s forces advanced into the mine with Damboro’s princess, Hill concealed the maze formation and watched for an opening.

• Xue Yunfeng reasoned that Gaia had lost much of her power and was using the newborn Ismail heir as political leverage while still pursuing Hill.
• Xue Yunfeng explained that Ellie’s greed and fixation on Hill suggested Gaia had controlled her soul, and Susu noted Hill’s growing killing intent toward Ellie.
• Hill recognized that Nature Consciousness loathed Ellie as it did tainted undead, then waited beneath the mine for Gaia’s avatar while Black Rose prepared to intercept the intruders.
• Eden’s commander urged his forces to hurry and reassured Damboro’s princess that her spell blocking the Undead’s logins would hold.
• Hill quietly restored the mine tunnel’s concealed wall as the princess entered, while Eden’s commander politely dismissed her and Black Rose hid their amusement.
• Hill suspected that Gaia exploited the women’s extreme personalities and that their rapid advancement through mismatched energy crystals had helped drive them toward those extremes.

Hill watched the Damboro princess and the approaching forces, then observed Ivan and Paintbrush as their group prepared for the battle. When the Damboro princess offered Ivan a palace and explosions erupted around them, Paintbrush fled for cover, urging Blue Abyss to hide with her.

• Hill concluded that Ellie had endangered herself by relying on luck while consuming increasingly powerful Oaisis Energy Crystals, and returned to waiting inside the mountain wall.
• Ivan told Paintbrush that Eden's group needed to fight so their allies would keep receiving benefits and remain loyal.
• The Damboro princess mocked the group, and Ivan politely said Paintbrush had come to accompany him.
• The Damboro princess offered Ivan a palace in Damboro, prompting the Undead to erupt in laughter as explosions shook the area.
• Ivan pulled the dazed Damboro princess toward the rear while Paintbrush sought cover and called for Blue Abyss to hide with her.

Paintbrush confronted the possibility that Eden had manipulated her into drawing Hill into its conflict with the Heaven-Defying Alliance. As Black Rose closed in and the Eden group faced danger, Ji Lanyuan and Ivan argued over Eden’s hidden motives, leaving Paintbrush questioning Ivan’s choices.

• Hill examined his discomfort with a sternly dressed Undead woman and reminded himself not to mistake personal dislike for evil or treat her as an enemy.
• Hill observed that Black Rose had wiped out Eden’s rear guard and was advancing while the Eden leaders hesitated to retreat.
• Ji Lanyuan warned Paintbrush that Black Rose had anticipated their operation and that Hill might be helping its side.
• Ji Lanyuan accused Eden of accepting Gaia’s money and exploiting Paintbrush’s campaign against the Heaven-Defying Alliance to target Hill.
• Ivan defended Eden’s actions as innocent, but Paintbrush challenged him for thinking that fairness was not enough.

Hill watched tensions rise among Paintbrush, 'Ji Lanyuan,' and Ivan while waiting for Gaia to reveal herself. Rose sent spiders into the mine after the princess of Damboro, prompting Hill to warn 'Xue Yunfeng' that he feared she would interfere with his coming fight.

• 'Ji Lanyuan' mocked Paintbrush and Ivan, while Paintbrush told her friend to stay out of her romantic life.
• Hill listened to their argument and waited impatiently for Gaia to appear, while Umberlee picked at the monster by the ocean.
• The Eden visitors fled after an hour, and Paintbrush and 'Ji Lanyuan' escaped through a passage in Hill's maze as 'Old School Striking King' pursued them.
• Hill realized Rose could enter the mine and send spiders after the fleeing princess of Damboro, potentially skirting her promise not to attack the undead territory.
• Lily relayed Hill's warning to 'Xue Yunfeng,' who said Hill was likely making the maze more dangerous because he feared Rose would steal his kill.

Xue Yunfeng and Susu discussed Hill’s fury at Gaia and the danger she posed, while Gaia attacked the Damboro princess and tried to seize control of Hill’s Maze. As Hill continued to oppose her, Ivan finally began to grasp how powerful Hill was.

• Xue Yunfeng explained that Hill wanted to destroy Gaia’s avatar completely to protect the Earth Bears, and Susu agreed that Hill would not risk their safety.
• Xue Yunfeng reported that Ellie and the whale beneath her had been blasted into fragments, while Umberlee skinned Ghostfish on another front.
• Hill watched Gaia emerge through the Damboro princess, dismiss Rose’s hidden Mutant Silk Spiders, and kill several of them as they fled.
• Gaia tried to wrest control of the Maze from Hill, but he refused to yield any control and continued moving through it.
• Ivan realized he had underestimated Hill because the Undead had mistaken accounts of Hill’s feats for myths, and he began to panic.

Ivan regretted siding with Gaia as she failed to break through Hill’s maze and began insulting Asmodeus, raising the risk of a disastrous defeat. Hill kept Gaia contained while Black Rose’s forces closed in and he opened a route for Old School Striking King’s group.

• Ivan realized Gaia was far weaker than he had expected and worried that he would be blamed for his decision to support her.
• Gaia confidently taunted Hill from within the maze, claiming she would devour him and recover much of her strength.
• Hill answered Gaia through the cave walls, and she attacked the rock with a black vortex without silencing him.
• Ivan feared Gaia’s insults might provoke Asmodeus and reconsidered the consequences of being associated with her.
• Hill saw that Black Rose’s main force had arrived and that Eden’s forces had already lost half their numbers.
• Hill opened a door in the maze for Old School Striking King, who led several dozen people through while he continued testing Gaia’s limits.

Hill paused his fight with Gaia to watch Old School Striking King and Cunlü’s group defeat Ji Lanyuan and Paintbrush. He returned to Gaia’s cavern as her attendants lay wounded, and Gaia’s anger gathered into a black aura.

• Hill recognized that Gaia’s divine power could create a dangerous single-element space, so he decided to make her reveal all her abilities before killing her.
• Old School Striking King and Cunlü led the Heaven-Defying Alliance clans in cornering Ji Lanyuan and Paintbrush’s group while other Undead pursued Eden’s survivors.
• Old School Striking King and Cunlü fought as a team, healing their allies and mocking Paintbrush as she attacked them.
• Cunlü used a thorny bramble armlet to torment Paintbrush while Old School Striking King beat Ji Lanyuan.
• Hill returned to Gaia’s cavern and found every Eden Undead except Ivan down, their bodies cut by his spinning red leaves.
• Gaia watched her wounded attendants and raised an angry black aura.

Hill watched Gaia attack the cave while he tried to identify the Divine Artifact she might be seeking and prepared to protect himself. After stopping Gaia from retrieving a gray stone, he sealed it away and recorded her abilities, leaving its significance unresolved.

• Hill realized Rose had fled toward an outer mine tunnel while the Undead blocked her route into Kane Valley.
• Gaia cast Death Cloud Spell through the cave, hoping to locate Hill, but the clouds did not reveal him.
• Hill put on his spell-absorbing hyleaot steel cloak in case Gaia possessed a dangerous altered Divine Artifact.
• Gaia's subordinates begged for help as their wounds rotted, while Ivan abandoned her and returned to town.
• Gaia threw a gray stone, but Hill's vine knocked it away and placed it in a Lesser Divine Artifact-grade sealing box.
• Hill recorded Gaia's Wailing Chains and cautiously accepted the sealed gray stone.

Hill realized Gaia had used Void Stone to evade Oaisis, then trapped her and her attendants with earth and force-field magic. Gaia escaped with most of her attendants, but Hill traced her true hiding place to the Chaos Sea.

• Hill recognized the little box as Void Stone and inferred that Gaia had used it to conceal the group’s destination from Oaisis.
• Hill sealed the Maze Formation and used earth and force-field magic to crush the passage around Gaia and her attendants.
• Hill tested Gaia with Mordenkainen’s Sword and noted that her force-field magic seemed weakened, while several attendants died in the attack.
• Gaia unleashed black swords and used Gem Jump to send her surviving attendants away, but Hill stopped her from escaping.
• Gaia tried to erase the teleportation traces, and Hill detected chaotic negative energy that led him to the Chaos Sea.

Hill fought Gaia to stop her from taking the original Bottle of Life, but pushing beyond the world's limits sent him and his Mage Tower to the Upper Realm. With Hill temporarily gone, Xue Yunfeng warned that Triton could now act, and the group realized war was about to begin.

• Hill suspected Gaia was influenced by Ssendam and attacked her, severing the hand holding the jar and ordering a Killing Vine to secure it.
• A black spider emerged and took Rose's prize while Hill used nature's power to purify the Bottle of Life and suppress its summoning force.
• Oaisis sent Hill's Mage Tower to the Upper Realm, then moved Hill and the bottle there when Law Lines expelled them beyond the Planetary Wall.
• Xue Yunfeng told the gathered clan leaders that Hill had been thrown into the Upper Realm after using power beyond the world's limit, while Lily, Windmill Jasmine, and Killing Vine could still act through avatars.
• Xue Yunfeng warned that Triton had held back because Hill was the true danger, and the others cheered as they realized war was starting.

Xue Yunfeng explained that Hill had been barred from Toril for a hundred years after using his strength to suppress Gaia’s Bottle of Life. Hill found himself stranded in Oaisis’s barren Upper Realm with the dormant artifact, unsure whether he wanted to keep it.

• Xue Yunfeng told the gathered Undead that Hill could not return for a hundred years and explained Gaia’s lingering power and possible connection to Ssendam.
• Lu Huayu and Xue Yunfeng discussed the Chaos Sea and why Umberlee would avoid linking her mind with Ssendam.
• Hill inspected the isolated Obsidian Mountains and reassured Liszt, who was reorganizing the Mage Tower.
• Hill explained that Gaia had hidden a spark of her soul among the Bottle of Life’s seeds, while the artifact had resisted its goddess and then fallen into a thousand-year slumber.
• Hill weighed the Bottle of Life’s usefulness against his reluctance to handle it.

Hill wrestled with whether to keep the Bottle of Life, an artifact from the collapsed Greek universe, while Liszt returned to his side in the Upper Realm. Hill chose to use the Bottle’s seeds to create a forest and planned to give the artifact to Telashir’s Goddess of Agriculture in exchange for something valuable.

• Liszt reunited with Hill and urged him to stop hesitating over the Bottle of Life, while Purvi declared he wanted to be a whale again.
• Hill learned that visitors from the mountains were approaching and opened a rift to pour water from the Elemental Sea onto the Upper Realm, angering Oaisis.
• Hill redirected the water into a river and prepared the mountain peaks with soil and shells.
• Hill used the Bottle of Life’s seeds and his Magic Book to plant forests and vegetation across the mountains.
• Hill decided to keep only the seeds he needed and take the Bottle of Life to Hai Weilsen to trade with its Goddess of Agriculture.

Liszt realized Hill had made a public display to draw attention away from the Bottle of Life, which might conceal a danger to the young Earth Bears. As the bottle was sent into the demiplane and Hill spoke of his homesickness, he and Liszt wondered why visitors kept approaching despite the mist and Hill’s obvious reluctance to meet them.

• Liszt inferred that Hill’s ostentatious use of magic had drawn attention away from the Bottle of Life and its potentially dangerous former power.
• Liszt sent his strongest puppet to carry the Bottle of Life into the demiplane, while Hill said Hai Weilsen could use it to grow clover for the bears.
• Hill told Liszt that he missed home and planned to complain about the stone ball’s poor judgment, prompting the ball to fall silent.
• Liszt reflected on Hill’s origins and suspected that Oaisis and the World Tree had played a role in choosing him.
• Hill noticed several people flying toward them through the mist and asked Oaisis why they still dared to come.

Hill drove off the Upper Realm mages who wanted to learn where he stood on Ismail’s arrival, then settled in to watch the Undead prepare for the coming battle to defend Umberlee. The chapter ended with Hill watching the Undead turn their preparations into a new song.

• Oaisis explained that the Finch Family feared Ismail’s arrival would change life in the Upper Realm, while Hill realized Oaisis had never intended to provide the mages with a proper home.
• Hill used his Crystal Fan to send the hovering mages back where they came from, then learned that Princess Scarlet had given birth to a son resembling Ismail and that Xue Yunfeng had thwarted Gaia’s plans.
• Oaisis admitted that Aoskar wanted Hill to open a secret passage to the Wind Elemental Plane, and Hill asked to use the Undead’s giant screen to watch events elsewhere.
• Hill asked whether Triton was behaving after he left Kane Valley, and the reply said the Undead had prepared for battle.
• Liszt prepared Hill’s bathroom and viewing setup, and Hill turned on the screen to watch the Undead respond to the coming battle by composing a song about a bear who had left home.

Hill discovered that the Undead had turned his departure into a banner-filled protest but chose to let them stew. Triton resumed the war after learning Ismail’s son had no Sea God blood, and the fighting reached Basia City, where Linde learned that Ellie had vanished.

• Hill heard the Undead’s mournful song and saw the Heaven-Defying Alliance’s banners, but decided not to confront them.
• Xue Yunfeng realized the protest targeted Young Master and hoped Hill would keep the magical plants from retaliating.
• After Ismail escaped with his son, Triton abandoned the truce and attacked Umberlee and the Undead.
• The Moon Clan and Eden’s forces turned on the Undead around Basia City, setting the city ablaze.
• Linde rushed to the command tower, where Xue Yunfeng told him Ellie had reportedly been blasted apart, and Susu noted that Ellie had not appeared for days.

Linde, Xue Yunfeng, and Susu discussed Ellie’s likely revival, the Ster family’s plans to leave Basia City, and the political forces shaping the conflict. Hill watched Dieter evacuate civilians as the city’s defenders faced the battle, and lamented that Basia City had vanished.

• Linde explained that Ellie might choose revival to protect her parents, while Xue Yunfeng concluded she would delay death because Devils could not claim her soul.
• Linde predicted that his parents would take Ellie to the capital if Basia City suffered heavy damage, while Dieter would remain to fulfill his duty as the family head.
• Xue Yunfeng explained that Gaia would keep away from the ocean and might need Ellie inland, while Linde said Dieter would seek refuge with him.
• Perfect Baldhead asked whether Dieter would hold out until Eden retreated, and Linde repeated Mr. Lu Huayu’s prediction that Eden’s forces faced a dead end.
• Hill watched Dieter direct civilians to a base outside the city while Earl Ster and his guards stood between them and the battle, then said Basia City had vanished.

Hill watched the former Earl Ster help defend the city and reflected on how travel had taught him not to rush into growing up or assume he understood people. He and Xue Yunfeng then learned that Ismail’s oath to the River Styx had bound the Ismail family to bad luck, while Lucimar remained unaffected because he had already left the family.

• Hill saw the former Earl Ster order his eldest son to protect the civilians and take up the rear guard himself.
• Hill told Liszt that travel had helped him understand there was no need to hurry to grow up, then asked Oaisis whether he had given Ismail his luck.
• Oaisis explained that Ismail had vowed to offer the Ismail family's luck if his child was its purest heir, and the River Styx had accepted the oath.
• Oaisis told Xue Yunfeng that Lucimar would avoid the curse because Ismail had expelled him from the family before swearing the oath.
• Oaisis confirmed to Hill that Ismail would return to the River Styx after death, and Hill asked him not to tell Ismail or spoil his remaining life.
• Xue Yunfeng laughed as he told the gathered guild leaders that Ismail and the Ismail family were bound to bad luck, prompting them to ask whether Oaisis was serious.

The Undead discussed the Ismail Family’s future while Oaisis considered the consequences of Ismail’s choices. In Basia, the Ster family prepared to leave for Kane Valley, and a mysterious woman appeared in an azure whirlwind above the port.

• Young Master explained that Ismail had never cared about the Ismail Family’s future, and the Undead discussed how Oaisis could not protect him from the consequences.
• Battle Domain Thunder and the Nightmare Family reached Basia City, helping its civilians reach safety while the royal army continued holding out at the port.
• The former countess rode toward the royal army’s barracks, and the former count followed with his troops to support her.
• Dieter told Doni to let Ted in and decided to leave the cliff base for Kane Valley, allowing each family to choose whether to go with him or head to the capital with his father.
• An azure light rose over Basia Port, and a woman’s figure appeared within the whirlwind.

Dieter saw his parents’ scheming over Ellie’s revival fail and began arranging for himself and the Knights to leave for the capital, while he and the Undead discussed the nobles’ misjudgment of the Heaven-Defying Alliance. The chapter ended with Dieter noticing the enormous bunkers behind Umberlee as she taunted Triton, dwarfing his family’s own shelter.

• Battle Domain Thunder bluntly reminded Dieter that Ellie had once said she would rather die than be controlled by Devils again, and Dieter explained why his parents’ attempt to use their friendship had hurt him.
• Dieter reasoned that his parents had hoped to exploit the Undead’s response to Ellie’s revival, while Night Sleep Tayan blamed their greed and their failure to understand the Heaven-Defying Alliance.
• Ted arrived and realized Dieter was no longer accepting his family’s subtle apologies, as Dieter organized the Knight Order members who would leave with him.
• Dieter learned that Umberlee had been taunting Triton to lure him toward a bunker’s weapons, while Battle Domain Thunder and Night Sleep Tayan argued about the cost and size of the bunkers.
• Dieter saw two twelve-story bunkers standing behind Umberlee and compared them with his family’s much smaller six-story bunker.