Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Grand Duke Frederick reluctantly accepts Franco IV’s costly terms for access to the newly discovered New Plane. Kotel suggests taking over the Franco Family, but Frederick argues that Franco is too dangerous and self-interested to coerce safely.
• Kotel agrees to lead a pioneer expedition. Frederick privately explains that he wants to move his family’s power to another plane because the Strathlade Kingdom’s campaign for freedom and democracy threatens the old rulers.
• Franco IV brings Kotel and elite fighters to the New Plane using an Interplanar Teleportation Scroll rather than a permanent portal. He hints that the expedition’s access to the plane will eventually become binding.
• Kotel explores the unfamiliar world, noting its lower concentration of elements and a vast forest populated by beasts without Magic Power. After flying beyond the forest, he reaches an ocean and encounters a mermaid.
• The mermaid identifies him as a human from an Alien Plane and asks whether he has come seeking a way to become a True God.

Character developments and interactions

• Frederick is pragmatic and anxious about his family’s survival, though he maintains a sentimental image of his relationship with Franco. He accepts a painful bargain because he sees the New Plane as a refuge.
• Kotel is bold and confident in his abilities, readily volunteering to explore. His curiosity leads him from the castle to the ocean.
• Franco IV proves shrewd and calculating: he commands a high price, controls access through scarce scrolls, and keeps the expedition’s true implications to himself.
• The mermaid appears calm and knowledgeable, immediately framing Kotel’s arrival in terms of godhood.

Significant themes

• Political upheaval and survival: The old aristocratic order fears being displaced by democratic change.
• Power and exploitation: Franco turns his family’s discovery into leverage, while Frederick must pay to protect his own interests.
• Exploration and transformation: The New Plane offers both danger and the possibility of a radically different destiny, hinted at by the mermaid’s question about becoming a True God.

Key plot points and events

• Kotel meets a mermaid who reveals that Hades has a unique rule: anyone who kills another person can take their identity and place in society. Killing a king would make the killer king; killing a God could make the killer a God.
• The mermaid proposes luring the Dream God—a newly born True God with few followers—to Hades. There, the world’s power would suppress the God, while a group of Legendary Professionals attacked.
• The Dream God is unusually dangerous because their Divine Kingdom exists within the shared sea of dreams, where they can seemingly make anything imaginable happen. The plan depends on Hades weakening them.
• Kotel is asked to seize a kingdom by killing its king, then have its people worship the Dream God to draw the God into Hades. The conspirators would attack, and whoever dealt the final blow could claim the God’s place.
• The mermaid gives Kotel one of her scales as a means of communication. He leaves determined to pursue this shortcut to godhood.

Character developments and interactions

• Kotel begins cautiously, questioning the plan’s feasibility and the dangers of fighting a God. Once he sees a possible route to becoming a True God, ambition overrides his reservations. He accepts the scale and commits to participating, though he recognizes the opportunity as something he must seize.
• The mermaid reveals herself as a persuasive strategist with a plan already prepared alongside other Legendary Professionals. She recruits Kotel by appealing to his ambition and offers him a specific role.
• Their exchange is wary and transactional: Kotel initially tries to mislead and assess her, while the mermaid makes clear that cooperation is preferable—but threatens that he could otherwise become part of her “collection.”

Significant themes

• Ambition and the lure of shortcuts: The prospect of bypassing the arduous path to godhood tempts Kotel despite the extreme risks.
• Power, identity, and succession: Hades’ rule makes status transferable through murder, turning kingship and even divinity into prizes.
• Collective action against overwhelming power: The plan relies on many Legendary Professionals and Hades’ anti-God mechanism to challenge a being no individual could defeat.
• Risk and manipulation: The Dream God’s power makes the scheme perilous, and the mermaid’s confident recruitment leaves open how much of the plan—and its risks—Kotel truly understands.

Key plot points and events

• At Franco IV’s banquet, Kotel learns from the Mermaid that a group of Legendary Professionals is preparing to kill a god. Unsure how much of her account is true, he decides he cannot afford to wait: the Dream God may be the only god they will get a chance to kill.
• Kotel sends a short summons—“Kill a god. Come quickly”—to the Legendary Professionals he knows, then begins explaining the discovery and the Mermaid’s group to them.
• Meanwhile, Jiang Hao watches the people he has brought to Pluto. They are building settlements and cultivating crops, unaware that Pluto’s lush landscape is only a dream masking its barren reality.
• Jiang Hao considers turning the Dream God into his Avatar and taking control of dreams, but discovers that the Lord of Omniscience has concealed the Dream God’s future. He judges the Dream God too important to attack directly without risking a confrontation.
• Instead, Jiang Hao decides to trap the Dream God and gain leverage. He uses the Fate Tablet to fix a future in which Kotel traps him, then causes more than a dozen Legendary Professionals to appear on Pluto.

Character developments and interactions

• Kotel shifts from cautious investigation to urgent action. He recognizes the risks in the Mermaid’s claims but chooses to gather allies rather than lose time testing her story. His message prompts surprised questions from his old friends.
• Jiang Hao shows strategic restraint: although he wants the Dream God’s power, he prioritizes the Creation Serpents as his primary enemies and avoids provoking the Lord of Omniscience prematurely. He chooses capture and leverage over a direct fight.
• The Mermaid is absent from the scene but shapes Kotel’s decisions; he suspects she wants to use him and may be withholding crucial information.
• The Lord of Omniscience remains an unseen but powerful opponent, protecting the Dream God’s future and occupying himself with purging Corruption.

Significant themes

• Urgency and uncertainty: Kotel must act before he can verify the truth.
• Power through alliances and leverage: Kotel recruits fellow Legends, while Jiang Hao seeks control of the Dream God rather than an immediate battle.
• Strategic restraint: Jiang Hao distinguishes between immediate rivals and secondary enemies, avoiding a costly conflict.
• Appearance versus reality: Pluto’s beautiful landscape conceals a barren world, reflecting the chapter’s wider emphasis on hidden motives and concealed futures.

Key plot points and events

• Two enslaved Orcs, young Bakar and the gray-haired Baldena, discuss Grand Duke Kotel’s offer: Orcs who worship the Dream God will lose their shackles and receive a year’s supply of food and rum. Bakar objects to abandoning the traditional Orc gods, but the promised drink weakens his resolve.
• After getting drunk and falling asleep, Bakar finds himself in a vast, starless dreamscape. An immense temple appears, along with people arriving from across the darkness.
• Bakar reunites with Baldena, who explains that Kotel built the temple in a dream and that worshippers gather there nightly to pray for the Dream God, Pers the Omnipotent, to descend.
• The worshippers’ prayer produces streams of visible white light—their Faith—which a hidden mage observes with astonishment.
• A group of powerful figures, including Kotel, has been waiting in the dreamscape for the Dream God to appear. After half a month of unsuccessful attempts, a hooded figure claims his luck is excellent. A brilliant light suddenly breaks through the darkness, suggesting the god may finally be coming.

Character developments and interactions

• Bakar begins proud and resistant to worshipping an unfamiliar god, but material incentives make him less certain. He trusts Baldena and follows him into the temple.
• Baldena acts as a calm, protective guide, explaining the dream temple and accompanying Bakar to prayer.
• Kotel remains patient and confident that the Dream God can be drawn in.
• The hidden mage is fascinated by seeing Faith take visible form.
• The hooded figure unsettles the others with his prediction, prompting suspicion that he may have risked revealing their position through Divination.

Significant themes

• Faith and religious change: Traditional devotion is challenged by incentives and the possibility of a new god.
• Power and exploitation: The promise of freedom and necessities is directed at people already held in slavery.
• The nature of belief: Faith, normally invisible, becomes tangible in the dream realm.
• Risk and uncertainty: The group’s efforts to summon a god could succeed—or their attempt to manipulate divine forces could expose them.

Plot points and events

• The Dream God, Perth, descends into a Temple where believers are praying. Instead of blessing them, he reveals that he knew the Temple was a trap: the unusual prayers and a divination alerted him to the godslayers’ plan.
• Despite their shock, the Legendary Professionals attack. Kotel and an Orc charge, a Mage unleashes a mental spell, and a white-robed elf grows a forest from Seeds. Another group summons insects and elemental forces, including a massive lightning bolt and a flood.
• The attacks appear devastating, but Perth reveals that the dream is his Divine Kingdom, where he can control reality. He erases the water, turns the lightning into a ring, and absorbs the other attacks.
• The elf animates powerful tree guardians, but they cannot get any closer to Perth. As he prepares to send the attackers to the Underworld, a clay tablet suddenly falls from nowhere and hits him.

Character developments and interactions

• Perth is confident and amused, having knowingly entered the ambush. He demonstrates overwhelming control of the dream and taunts the godslayers.
• The godslayers move from stunned disbelief to coordinated aggression, then to alarm as their attacks prove ineffective.
• The white-robed elf shows resourcefulness by using Seeds to grow and animate a forest, but even this fails to overcome Perth’s power.
• The attackers’ reliance on preparation and teamwork contrasts with Perth’s effortless command of the dream.

Significant themes

• Power and domain: Perth’s strength comes from fighting within his own realm, where he can shape reality.
• Knowledge and deception: The trap fails because Perth detects the unusual faith linking the worshippers to him.
• Limits of preparation: Even carefully chosen tactics and powerful attacks cannot guarantee success against a god on his own ground.
• Uncertainty: The unexpected tablet interrupts Perth’s apparent victory, ending the chapter on a cliffhanger.

Key plot points and events

• Jiang Hao’s Fate Tablet, a Greater Divine Artifact made from the River of Fate, traps the Dream God and draws Kotel, the Orc, the White-Robed Woman, and the Godslayers into the dream conflict.
• The Dream God invokes his authority over dreams, claiming omnipotence. He floods the dreams of every living being in the Multiverse with light and turns their dream-figures into worshippers.
• The Fate Tablet counters him with the decree “Omnipotence is forbidden here!” The light collapses, and the tablet imposes further restrictions: the Dream God cannot leave or use Divine Power, and gods’ resistance to elemental and soul attacks is weakened.
• The Mermaid urges a joint attack. Kotel charges despite recognizing that their apparent “plane suppression” is actually the work of a Greater Divine Artifact. The White-Robed Woman uses a small door to bring the Ancient Tree Guardians directly to the Dream God.
• The Lord of Omniscience’s Avatar emerges from the Dream God, breaks the chain forbidding Divine Power, and lets the Dream God kill an approaching Guardian. He then reaches for the Fate Tablet, recognizing it as the greatest threat.

Character developments and interactions

• Dream God: Initially confident in his dream-world omnipotence, he is abruptly constrained by the Fate Tablet. His vulnerability becomes clear when Divine Power is suppressed: unlike gods who have mortal class levels, he has no independent combat abilities.
• Lord of Omniscience: Reveals that he planted an Avatar inside his creation to protect him. He intervenes decisively, freeing the Dream God from one of the tablet’s restrictions.
• Kotel: Understands that a powerful artifact—not the plane itself—is suppressing the Dream God, but chooses to attack because defeating him could let the victors claim his position.
• Mermaid and White-Robed Woman: The Mermaid rallies the group, while the White-Robed Woman uses her door to reposition the Ancient Tree Guardians for an attack.
• The Lord of Omniscience’s protection turns the fight from a coordinated assault into a renewed contest over the Fate Tablet.

Significant themes

• Limits on power: The Fate Tablet’s rules challenge the Dream God’s claim to omnipotence.
• Power and vulnerability: Divine status does not guarantee strength when a god’s particular source of power is restrained.
• Ambition amid danger: Kotel and the others see the chance to replace the Dream God even as they face overwhelming risk.
• Protection and dependence: The Dream God’s survival depends on the Lord of Omniscience’s hidden intervention.

Key plot points and events

• The Lord of Omniscience reaches for the Fate Tablet, but Fate ultimately makes him release it. He then uses a scroll containing the Multiverse’s history to suppress the future and tries again to seize the tablet.
• The Fate Sovereign intervenes, destroying the Lord of Omniscience’s Avatar with a colossal hand. The Fate Tablet declares, “This place is a prison!” and seals the Dream God and the Godslayers inside a self-reforming barrier.
• The Dream God tests the prison with his Divine Power, but realizes he cannot escape by force and that the Fate Sovereign seems to want him alive. He instead traps the Godslayers with him and announces they will have to play a game.
• Outside Pluto, Jiang Hao reports that he has captured the Dream God. The Lady of Night tells him she is leaving, as planned, and explains what she will take and leave behind.

Character developments and interactions

• Lord of Omniscience: Attempts to resist Fate by using history to constrain the future, but is killed before he can claim the tablet.
• Dream God: Shifts from trying to break out to accepting that brute force is futile. He asserts control over the Godslayers by keeping them imprisoned with him.
• Fate Sovereign: Demonstrates overwhelming power, eliminating the Lord of Omniscience’s Avatar and confining the Dream God rather than killing him.
• Lady of Night and Jiang Hao: Their exchange is calm and practical, reflecting that Jiang Hao expected her departure. She promises to continue supplying Divine Power to his priests.

Significant themes

• Fate versus free will: Even gods with Supreme Divine Power can still be influenced by Fate.
• History as a weapon: The Lord of Omniscience tries to use the past to suppress the future, but cannot escape Fate’s control.
• Imprisonment and power: The Dream God’s strength cannot overcome the Fate Sovereign’s endlessly renewing barriers.
• Continuity and return: The Lady of Night leaves the Moon Demon God behind as a possible route back to this era—or a means of resurrection if her plan fails.
  The Lady of Night will take the Night Demon God, the Mother of Fallen Nature, and the Mother of Stars with her. She plans to put the Moon Demon God to sleep on the moon and sever his connection to Faith.

Key plot points and events

• As the Lady of Night fades back to her Divine Kingdom, Jiang Hao offers her a blessing: good turns will lead to a better future, while bad turns will be kept from becoming the worst. Smiling, she gathers three other divine beings into her Divine Body and passes through a mysterious stone door.
• Jiang Hao awakens from his Sleep. The life and landscape he had created on Pluto vanish, leaving the migrants from other planes stranded in the Untamed World. He checks that they are safe, then contacts Ieta Cavendish, offering help and urging him to return from the Astral Plane.
• Ieta converts his stored Faith into Divine Power and tries to break free. The Astral Plane’s Rules, manifested as chains linking him to emerging black heads, drag him back. Since he lacks the power to shatter the plane’s restraints, he concludes that he needs a summoning ritual from the Main Plane.
• At the City of Ten Thousand Machines, a four-armed Dwarf leads the Church of Machinery and Steam in a mass ritual. The Believers’ fervent prayers awaken the city’s machines and summon Ieta.
• The ritual’s power clashes with the Astral Plane’s Rules. The chains snap, allowing Ieta to return to the Main Plane—where he is shocked by the state of his Church.

Character developments and interactions

• Jiang Hao resumes action after his Sleep, checks on the displaced migrants, and offers Ieta practical help.
• The Lady of Night responds warmly to Jiang Hao’s blessing, then departs through a mysterious portal with the other divine beings.
• Ieta Cavendish remains trapped despite gaining Divine Power, but recognizes that a coordinated summoning ritual can overcome the Astral Plane’s restraints.
• The four-armed Dwarf acts as the ritual’s fervent leader, directing the Believers and machinery.
• The Believers unite in worship, demonstrating their devotion to the God of Machinery and Industry.

Significant themes

• Faith as power: The Church’s collective prayers create the force that enables Ieta’s escape.
• Limits and cooperation: Ieta cannot defeat the Astral Plane alone; he needs support from the Main Plane.
• Technology and immortality: The Church’s creed rejects fragile flesh in favor of machinery, presenting mechanical life as eternal.
• Hope amid uncertainty: Jiang Hao’s blessing promises that bad outcomes can be restrained and better futures remain possible.

Key plot points and events

• After Ieta Cavendish’s resurrection, the gods launch a coordinated attack while he is vulnerable and lacks a Divine Kingdom.
• Bloodthirsty Hunter Malar intercepts the first strike, then attacks Ieta himself. Dusk God blocks Malar and spreads a protective barrier over the City of Ten Thousand Machines, buying Ieta time to gather Divine Power.
• The Goddesses of the Forest and Spring join the assault, motivated by the threat steam poses to their domains and Divine Ranks. Their combined attacks struggle to pierce Dusk God’s powerful defense.
• Other gods escalate the hunt with meteors and golden lightning, while demons invade the city and attack Ieta’s Believers.
• Demon Lord Graz’zt reveals that the gods helped him enter the city, hoping the demons will consume Ieta’s followers and prevent Ieta from gathering Divine Power.
• Graz’zt offers Ieta a way out: join the Bottomless Abyss, regain his power, and become both a True God and a Demon Lord. Accepting would make him a powerful addition to the Abyss.

Character developments and interactions

• Ieta Cavendish is newly resurrected and exposed, with little power or protection. He is the target of both divine enemies and a demonic temptation.
• Dusk God acts as Ieta’s defender, prioritizing the time needed for Ieta to rebuild his strength rather than pursuing Malar.
• Malar attempts to kill Ieta but is forced into a confrontation with Dusk God.
• The Goddesses of the Forest and Spring act together against Ieta, seeing him as responsible for the spread of steam and the decline of their influence.
• Graz’zt exploits the gods’ betrayal and Ieta’s peril, presenting the Abyss as a refuge while seeking to turn Ieta into a Demon Prince.

Significant themes

• The cost of transformation: Steam advances despite resistance, threatening older powers and reshaping the world.
• Political hypocrisy and shifting alliances: The gods secretly cooperate with demons when it serves their goal of eliminating Ieta.
• Temptation and compromise: Ieta is offered survival and immense power, but only by joining the Abyss.
• Vulnerability and power: Ieta’s fate hinges on whether he can gather enough Divine Power before his enemies overwhelm him.

Plot points and events

• Ieta Cavendish rejects Graz’zt’s whispers and orders his priests to kill the demons and protect his followers.
• Graz’zt attacks Ieta’s mind while the Abyss corrupts his consciousness, leaving him confused about whether he is a god or a Demon Prince.
• The Goddesses of the Forest and Spring seize the opening and fire an emerald arrow at him. Jiang Hao secretly alters Fate, diverting the arrow and ending the Abyss’s corruption.
• Ieta regains his identity and strengthens his defenses with help from the Dusk God and the Goddess of Ice and Snow. Malar withdraws, and the Forest and Spring goddesses abandon their attack after sensing Fate’s protection.
• The other attacks from the sky stop. The Dusk God and Ice and Snow turn their attention to Graz’zt, killing demons threatening Ieta’s believers.
• Graz’zt widens the Abyssal Gate and sends tendrils against the barriers, which repeatedly decay and reform.
• The Goddess of Capital arrives and uses her Money Power to compel Graz’zt to close the gate, cutting the Abyss off from the Main Plane.

Character developments and interactions

• Ieta Cavendish shows resolve by defending his followers, but Graz’zt’s assault nearly destroys his sense of self. After Jiang Hao intervenes, he becomes cautious and reinforces his defenses.
• Jiang Hao quietly protects Ieta by changing Fate, preventing both the arrow strike and the Abyss’s corruption.
• Graz’zt exploits Ieta’s mental vulnerability and the Abyss’s influence, but ultimately retreats when the Goddess of Capital confronts him.
• Malar chooses survival over an unlikely hunt; the Forest and Spring goddesses likewise stop pursuing Ieta once Fate’s protection becomes clear.
• The Dusk God and Goddess of Ice and Snow shift from defense to offense, coordinating to protect Ieta and his believers. The Goddess of Capital’s arrival ends the confrontation.

Significant themes

• Fate and intervention: Jiang Hao’s subtle alteration of Fate overturns attacks that seemed certain to succeed.
• Faith and divine power: Protecting believers matters because their loss weakens a god’s ability to gather Divine Power.
• Identity and corruption: The Abyss attacks Ieta by destabilizing his sense of self, not merely by physical force.
• Pragmatism and shifting alliances: Gods abandon battles when the cost becomes too high, while temporary cooperation helps hold back Graz’zt.

Key events

• Waukeen, Goddess of Capital, uses her Money Power to infect Graz’zt’s body and soul, creating a new consciousness within him. Rather than risk fighting four gods outside the Abyss, Graz’zt flees. Waukeen expects his weakened state to make him vulnerable to betrayal among the Demon Lords.
• Ieta Cavendish thanks the allied gods for protecting her and promises to visit them with gifts once her Divine Kingdom is built. The Goddess of Ice and Snow offers to remain in the Void and guard her.
• Waukeen asks to join Jiang Hao’s Primordial Core Pantheon for protection from the Tyrant. Jiang Hao reveals that his own project—creating a world—may bring him into conflict with the Creation Serpents and the Lord of Omniscience.
• Given the chance to withdraw, Waukeen chooses to stay and face the danger. Jiang Hao offers pantheon members the option of placing Avatars in a future Crystal Sphere System, allowing them to revive if they fall in the Multiverse.
• Jiang Hao asks Waukeen to act as his envoy to Corellon, chief god of the Elf Gods.

Character developments and interactions

• Waukeen turns past betrayal into resolve: having once fled Disaster and trusted Graz’zt, she now chooses to confront the coming threat alongside Jiang Hao’s pantheon.
• Jiang Hao is candid about uncertainty rather than promising victory. He welcomes Waukeen but gives her freedom to leave, while also offering the pantheon a practical safety net.
• Graz’zt is forced to retreat, his strength and stability undermined by Waukeen’s attack.
• The allied gods cooperate to protect Ieta, while Waukeen’s recruitment begins to extend the pantheon’s relationships to Corellon.

Significant themes

• Trust and betrayal: Waukeen’s revenge on Graz’zt echoes her earlier experience of being betrayed by him.
• Courage and choice: Waukeen chooses to face danger instead of relying on escape or another powerful ally.
• Collective survival: Jiang Hao’s pantheon offers protection and a means of revival, making cooperation a strategy for facing overwhelming enemies.
• Uncertainty and ambition: Jiang Hao pursues the creation of a world despite being unable to guarantee victory over the Multiverse’s oldest powers.

Key plot points and events

• Pluto’s landscape repeatedly transforms as Jiang Hao sleeps, shifting from barren wilderness into forests, oceans, and thriving ecosystems, then back again. The sudden changes terrify its inhabitants.
• Franco IV realizes he has been trapped on a wilderness plane and assumes a powerful god is forcing its people to develop it. A voice promises to let him leave if his kingdom reaches 300,000 people within five years.
• At the battle for Chiled, the Twenty-One Kingdom Coalition Army retreats. The Goddess of Capital’s alliance with Strathlade has deterred further divine Avatars, while the Steam Church’s weapons help defend against smaller attacks.
• Avram Krell explains that Ieta Cavendish has completed his Divine Kingdom. The Primordial Core Pantheon is shifting its attention away from the City of Ten Thousand Machines, giving the allies time to prepare for ascension.
• Avram delivers the Dusk God’s invitation for Fiona Russell to receive the Healing Authority in his Divine Kingdom, potentially setting her on the path to True Godhood.

Character developments and interactions

• Franco IV moves from panic toward resignation and practical resolve, choosing to build up his kingdom in hopes of earning freedom.
• Fiona Russell learns she may soon receive the Healing Authority. She also asks whether Avram will be given an Authority, mindful that he is among the original followers who have not yet begun ascending.
• Avram Krell remains calm about his own prospects: the Goddess has entrusted her Church to him, and he expects that this will let him become an established True God immediately when he ascends.
• Black Dragon Bamas envies Fiona’s opportunity and privately dreams of asking his master, Andrew, for the Agriculture Portfolio so he can become a god himself. He trades teasing remarks with Avram, who jokes that Bamas can meet the next divine Avatar.
• Jiang Hao withdraws to sleep while holding Pluto, inadvertently causing the world’s unsettling transformations.

Significant themes

• Godhood as a path of power and status: Authorities, Divine Kingdoms, and patronage determine how characters may ascend and what level they can reach.
• Power and dependence: Mortals such as Franco have little control over their circumstances, while alliances with gods shape the course of wars and individual destinies.
• Adaptation under coercion: Franco chooses to work toward his imposed population target rather than waste effort on an impossible escape.
• Ambition and hierarchy: Bamas’s hopes and Avram’s confidence highlight the characters’ competing ambitions and differing prospects for divine advancement.

Plot points

• Fiona Russell travels through the Outer Void, protected by spells, and notices that the moon has remained crimson for over a month—far longer than its usual brief change. No one knows why.
• She reaches the Dusk God’s Divine Kingdom, where nearby divine realms are gathering. The Goddess of Capital’s and God of Machinery and Industry’s realms are also expected to arrive in the region.
• The Dusk God welcomes Fiona and proposes a way to transfer the Authority of Healing. Rather than handing over the Authority immediately, the god will give her a God of Healing Avatar that she can control.
• The Avatar will let Fiona wield the Authority indirectly at True God level, but it cannot generate its own Divine Power from Faith and will eventually collapse unless the Authority is transferred before it runs out. Other gods can replenish its power temporarily.
• In return, the Dusk God asks for half the Faith Fiona receives during her first two hundred years as a True God. Fiona judges the bargain worthwhile and accepts.

Character development and interactions

• Fiona begins anxious and suspicious, fearing the Dusk God may try to revoke their earlier agreement or pressure her into giving up the Authority. When she admits she is afraid, she steadies herself and resolves to face the discussion.
• The Dusk God’s gentle manner and practical proposal ease Fiona’s fears. Fiona shifts from panic to calm calculation, assessing the long-term cost against the opportunity to advance toward godhood.
• Fiona and the Angel share a brief, polite exchange: the Angel addresses her as “Your Highness,” while Fiona protests that she has not yet earned the title. The Angel implies Fiona soon will.

Significant themes

• Trust and power: Fiona worries about the imbalance between a mortal and a god, even when a witnessed agreement should protect her.
• Ambition and sacrifice: The bargain trades a substantial share of future Faith for a major step toward becoming a True God.
• Uncertainty: The unexplained crimson moon and the looming need to transfer the Authority before the Avatar collapses foreshadow risks that remain unresolved.

Key plot points

• Fiona Russell visits the Secret Potion Symposium’s headquarters, a hidden Demiplane, after reflecting on the popularity of the game Legend of the Dragons.
• The Symposium’s six leaders expect her to unveil a potentially lucrative Death-Resisting Serum. Instead, Fiona announces that she plans to establish a Church and wants the Symposium to become its foundation.
• The leaders reveal that they suspected Fiona was a Demigod seeking control of an Authority. They have prepared the Demiplane as a trap, confident its accumulated power can suppress her.
• Fiona unleashes a holy, Magic-breaking light that dissolves the Demiplane’s traps and formations. She explains that the remote Demiplane lets her use her power without having it drained away.

Character developments and interactions

• Fiona is ambitious and direct: she has been developing medicines to gain influence and now openly seeks an institution to support her Church.
• The Symposium’s leaders shift from welcoming partners to defiant opponents. They reveal that, beneath their reputation as potion makers, they are a long-established organization with substantial hidden power.
• Fiona responds to their challenge calmly and decisively, demonstrating that their preparations cannot contain her.

Significant themes

• Power and institutional control: Fiona’s goal is not merely to create a Church, but to bring an established organization under its influence.
• Appearance versus reality: The Symposium seems commercially focused and weak, yet has secretly fortified its headquarters; Fiona likewise appears unthreatening but possesses overwhelming power.
• The value of resources: Gold cannot purchase many rare magical materials, while a mass-producible life-saving potion could give the Symposium access to the goods and influence it lacks.

Key events

• Jiang Hao observes Fiona Russell take control of the Secret Potion Symposium. Rather than immediately building a Church, Fiona opens a hospital in Senriledeli City, intending to use effective, mass-produced medicines to serve commoners and slaves and attract large numbers of Believers.
• Avram Krell has nearly taken over the Church of Ice and Snow. He is poised to inherit its organization and Believers when the Goddess transfers her Authority to him.
• Jiang Hao discovers that Black Dragon Bamas is being beaten by a Demigod-level Red Dragon. The Red Dragon came after Bamas boasted, while mating with a Blue Dragon, that he was the “King of Ten Thousand Dragons.”
• Jiang Hao intervenes with a drop of water carrying his power of Fate. The Red Dragon flees, but Fate turns him into Bamas’s unwillingly obedient “Fate Puppet.” Bamas rides on his back and beats him in return.
• When Jiang Hao asks whether Bamas truly wants to rule Dragonkind, Bamas eagerly claims the title—while adding that he would accept being an “Agricultural Dragon” instead. Jiang Hao offers to help him become King of Ten Thousand Dragons if he brings a Kistherian kingdom from the Sea of Chaos.

Character developments and interactions

• Fiona shows strategic initiative: she plans to build influence from the ground up by providing practical care to people overlooked by the world’s religious and medical systems.
• Avram is close to becoming a god, with the Church of Ice and Snow ready to serve as his foundation.
• Jiang Hao is pleased by the progress of his early followers and imagines the Pre-God Meeting becoming a “Meeting of Gods.”
• Bamas is boastful but devoted to Jiang Hao, relying on his master’s intervention and eagerly accepting a grand ambition. Jiang Hao indulges that ambition, turning the confrontation into an opportunity to advance Bamas’s rise.

Significant themes

• Faith and power: A god’s strength depends on the number and devotion of Believers, not their individual power; serving ordinary people can therefore be a powerful route to influence.
• Practical compassion as strategy: Fiona’s hospital responds to widespread medical neglect while also laying the groundwork for a Church.
• Fate and divine authority: Jiang Hao’s power can reshape events without conventional physical or mental control.
• Ambition and patronage: Bamas’s claim to greatness is backed—and potentially made possible—by Jiang Hao’s support.

Key plot points and events

• Bamas enters the Sea of Chaos to find the Kistherians, hoping to fulfill his master’s promise to make him King of Ten Thousand Dragons.
• The Sea’s shifting space, directions, and time leave him lost and increasingly mentally corrupted.
• James David arrives as an avatar and uses a Pure White Feather’s Blessing to calm Bamas and clear his corruption.
• Though Bamas initially rejects help, James explains that he can find the Kistherians. Using his insight into illusion and disguise, he leads Bamas to their hidden fortress-city.
• James departs once the kingdom is located. Bamas approaches the city, expecting submission, but the Kistherians charge out to fight him. Surprised, he decides to face them and show his strength.

Character developments

• Bamas shifts from confident and eager to frustrated and mentally strained, then regains his composure through the Blessing. He remains possessive of the mission and hostile toward the Kistherians, but their fearless response forces him to adapt.
• James David proves calm and capable: although he is only an avatar and not a fighter, his specialized perception makes him an effective guide. He completes his task and withdraws.

Character interactions

• Bamas resists James’s assistance because he fears losing the reward tied to the mission.
• James reassures him that he is there to help with navigation, not to take over the fight, and leads him to the kingdom.
• The Kistherians respond to Bamas’s arrival with a direct attack rather than fear or surrender, overturning his expectations.

Significant themes

• Chaos and mental endurance: The Sea of Chaos threatens both navigation and sanity.
• Pride and ambition: Bamas’s desire for recognition makes him distrust help and fuels his determination.
• Cultural difference and defiance: The Kistherians’ warrior society refuses the submission Bamas expects.
• Specialized strengths: James’s perception succeeds where Bamas’s brute force and combat instincts cannot.

Key plot points and events

• A vast swarm of Kistherians attacks the Black Dragon Bamas in the Elemental Vortex. Bamas initially devastates them with a sweeping blast of fire.
• A Kistherian Psion uses Mind Blast to interrupt Bamas’s flame attack, allowing the swarm to close in. Another Psion then hits him with Soul Shatter, leaving him helpless while the Kistherians pound his body and crack his scales.
• Bamas breaks free badly injured and prays to Jiang Hao, his contracted god. Jiang Hao sees how close Bamas is to defeat, sends him Divine Power, and summons a helper he had arranged beforehand.
• Empowered, Bamas unleashes a roar that deafens the Kistherians, then smashes through their encirclement. As he tries to regroup, a masked man appears and offers help.

Character developments and interactions

• Bamas shifts from confident contempt for the Kistherians to desperation as their coordinated attacks overwhelm him. He swallows his pride and calls on Jiang Hao, then uses the aid he receives to fight back.
• The Kistherians show both caution and discipline: rather than challenge Bamas one at a time for glory, they attack together and coordinate their Psions’ abilities with the swarm’s physical assault.
• Jiang Hao is alerted by Bamas’s Faith and responds with Divine Power, while also directing a previously arranged ally to intervene.
• The masked man’s appearance, and his offer to help Bamas, set up a new alliance or intervention.

Significant themes

• Collective strength versus individual power: The Kistherians nearly defeat a much stronger opponent by combining numbers, psychic attacks, and relentless pressure.
• Pride and survival: Bamas’s belief in his physical superiority gives way to the need to seek help.
• Faith and reciprocal aid: Bamas’s contract connects him to Jiang Hao, whose support arrives at a critical moment.

Key plot points and events

• James David returns to help Bamas, explaining that he came back because his Highness ordered him to assist. Bamas has refused help but accepts James’s offer on the condition that James handle the Kisthrean Empress while he fights the Kistherians.
• James slips through a vortex into the city and approaches the empress’s building, using invisibility and illusions to evade detection.
• A powerful magical storm attacks him. James sends an illusion ahead, which is battered by the storm and killed by a Legendary Nidro Water Python.
• Using another decoy to distract the python and empress, James reaches the empress and binds her with ropes, intending to capture her alive so she can lead the Kistherians in farming.
• The empress summons the python for help. James uses his White Mask to disguise himself as her and make her look like him, tricking the python into coiling around and crushing the empress.

Character developments and interactions

• James David is resourceful and controlled, relying on misdirection rather than direct combat. He privately recognizes Bamas’s pride and shamelessness, but plays along with him.
• Bamas remains arrogant and easily angered, refusing to admit James fooled his eyes. He frames his willingness to let James pursue the empress as a “gracious” favor, though James suspects he simply fears facing her.
• The Kisthrean Empress proves capable of reacting quickly under attack and commands a dangerous magical defense and a powerful serpent. James’s disguise turns her own summon against her.
• The Nidro Water Python follows the apparent identity of its target, making it vulnerable to James’s deception.

Significant themes

• Appearance versus reality: Illusions and disguises repeatedly undermine what characters believe they see.
• Pride and face-saving: Bamas’s refusal to admit he was deceived contrasts with James’s quiet pragmatism.
• Strategy over strength: James wins by exploiting the empress’s trust in her summoned beast rather than overpowering either opponent.
• Power and practical aims: The empress is targeted alive not merely for victory, but because her authority is needed to guide the Kistherians toward farming.

• James David overwhelms the Kisthrean Empress: The Empress breaks free from the Nidro Water Python by expanding to enormous size, then kills it without remorse. She attacks James, but he evades her by leaving an illusion behind and turning into air. Unable to identify or strike him, she spends nearly an hour destroying the palace in a fury.
• The Empress is controlled: When she finally stops, James enters her body in elemental form and reaches her mind. She dismisses ordinary mind control as ineffective against Kisthrean Monks, whose discipline makes them mentally resilient. James instead invokes Lord Sandru; a fragment of divine will crushes her resistance, allowing James to take control. He orders the Kistherians to leave the Sea of Chaos for Pluto.
• The Kistherians settle on Pluto: Their ancient knowledge and resources accelerate the world’s development, and a city is built there within a month.
• Jiang Hao investigates a change in history: Sensing a distortion in the Multiverse, he examines the River of Time. Other gods join the search, alarmed that someone has altered the past—an act that could endanger even gods who were once vulnerable.
• The Lady of Night falls: As Jiang Hao searches, the Lady of Night erupts into a radiance that illuminates the Multiverse, then vanishes. The chapter ends with the revelation that she has fallen.

Character developments and interactions

• James David demonstrates his skill at deception and elementalization, then relies on divine intervention when his own abilities cannot overcome the Empress’s mental defenses.
• The Kisthrean Empress shifts from confident predator to furious opponent, then becomes James’s controlled instrument. Her contempt for the Python and her belief in the resilience of Kisthrean Monks reveal her ruthlessness and pride.
• Jiang Hao responds to the temporal disturbance as a guardian of the world he created, while the other gods’ collective investigation shows their shared fear of history being rewritten.

Themes

The chapter contrasts physical and mental strength with power drawn from a higher authority. It also emphasizes the danger of altering history, the fragility of even powerful beings, and the transformative impact ancient civilizations can have on a developing world.

Key plot points and events

• The True Gods witness Lady of Night’s fall as she fails to claim the Authority of Creator. Her failure alters the timeline, prompting the gods to withdraw from the River of Time.
• Jiang Hao sends an Avatar to the moon to meet Lady of Night. She explains that “creation” encompasses the whole universe, making the Authority of Creator overlap greatly with Creation. She concludes that the viable route to becoming a Creator is first to create a world and its inhabitants—thus combining the roles of Creator God and Creator.
• Lady of Night reveals that she deliberately allowed herself to fall and be reborn in the present. The process cost her the Authorities of Stars, Darkness, and Inertia, reduced her Divine Rank from 19 to 18, and consumed over a million years of accumulated power. She retained the Moon and plans to regain her lost Authorities.
• Her fall threatens to rewrite the Multiverse’s timeline. Before falling, she used her Divine Power to freeze the point in time she had traveled to, delaying the collapse. After recovering her strength, she intends to return to the past and restore her place in history.
• Recognizing the danger of a timeline collapse, Jiang Hao asks Lady of Night what she knows about the Creation Serpents, as his conflict with them is about to begin.

Character developments and interactions

• Lady of Night is revealed as calculating and prepared: she accepted a major loss to escape a failed path toward Creator, while arranging a safeguard against the consequences of her fall. She has not yet chosen a new ultimate goal.
• Jiang Hao pieces together the relationship between Creator and Creator God, confirms that Lady of Night once held Darkness, and considers the threat her timeline safeguard poses to everyone. He remains wary of depending on others for survival and turns the conversation toward his coming war.
• Their meeting is cautious but candid. Jiang Hao directly asks whether Lady of Night will pursue Creation, concerned that her choice could make her an enemy; she assures him she will not.

Significant themes

• Power and its costs: Pursuing supreme Authority can require immense sacrifice, even from ancient gods.
• History and survival: A single being’s fall can destabilize all of time, making Lady of Night’s survival crucial to the Multiverse.
• Preparation and self-reliance: Lady of Night’s contingency plan protects her, while Jiang Hao resists placing his fate in someone else’s hands.
• Ambition and rivalry: The contest for Creation is crowded with powerful claimants, setting the stage for Jiang Hao’s impending conflict with the Creation Serpents.