Chapter Summaries

Louis received reports of the war against the Holy Eastern Empire and the Jade Federation before arriving with Red Tide’s fleet at the Golden Feather Flower Theocracy. Alwin’s warships destroyed the Theocracy’s biological fleet and sea monsters, clearing a path forward.

• Louis learned that Red Tide had encircled the Holy Eastern Empire’s capital, Kalien had counterattacked into Jade Federation territory, and the Federation had begun an artificial dragon project.
• Louis reached the Golden Feather Flower Theocracy with Vale and saw its golden shield on the horizon.
• Thorn Jellyfish gathered around Red Tide’s fleet, but Alwin ordered the ships to ignite walls of flame and burn them away.
• Louis saw the Theocracy’s bone warships regenerate after being hit and told Alwin to finish the fight quickly.
• Alwin turned the three battleships toward the attacking fleet and used incendiary shells to blast apart the bone ships.
• Deep-sea giant octopuses seized the Thunder, but Red Tide’s depth charges and Demon Explosive Bombs killed the remaining sea monsters and destroyed the surviving bone ships.

Louis and the Red Tide fleet breached the island’s faith shield and landed, then fought through corpse-fed trees, flesh-grown buildings, and stitched monsters. After clearing the vanguard’s path through the island’s horrors, Louis ordered the advance toward Avalonia.

• Alwin tested the golden barrier with a shell, and Louis used Deep Blue Type Four airburst shells to put the shore’s rooted worshippers to sleep and collapse the shield.
• Reno led the Knights of Red Tide ashore, where Aike discovered the beach was made from ground-up corpses and the troops burned the blood-filled golden trees.
• The assault team encountered flesh-grown buildings whose residents copied familiar faces, and Louis disrupted their psychic resonance with a high-frequency whistle before ordering the street burned.
• More than three hundred Thorn-Linked Stitchers charged the vanguard, and Reno’s knights, Steam Tanks, adhesive rounds, and artillery destroyed them.
• Louis declared the surrounding threats cleared and led the vanguard toward the Holy City of Avalonia.

Louis led the Red Tide Legion through the Holy City’s endless Stitched Monsters and entered the transformed temple alone. There he found Eduardo fused into a golden tree beneath the Golden Thorn Feather Crown, which suddenly flared as the corpses on the walls opened their eyes.

• Vale and the Red Tide Knights formed a shield wall and fought off waves of Stitched Monsters, while Sako helped clear the attackers.
• Louis left Vale’s shield and used a terrifying golden pressure to destroy or scatter the monsters blocking his path.
• Louis reached the temple, now transformed into a living hall, and saw twenty-four corpses pinned to its walls.
• Louis discovered Eduardo fused into a golden tree, with the Golden Thorn Feather Crown connected to his brain and the hall’s nerve network.
• The crown erupted in emerald-green light, the hall contracted, and the twenty-four corpses opened their eyes.

Louis fought through the Crown of Golden Thorns’ puppets and defeated Eduardo after resisting the crown’s attempts to overwhelm and replace him. He ripped out and crushed the crown’s core, leaving the hall in ruins as Eduardo disintegrated.

• Louis used Trajectory and his abilities to defeat the Crown of Golden Thorns’ combat puppets and psychic attacks.
• Eduardo urged Louis to join them, then twisted the hall into a vortex and tried to drag him into it.
• When the attack failed, Eduardo transformed and sent thorny copies of Louis to replace him.
• Louis’s violet mist consumed Eduardo’s remaining life force, and Louis ripped the crown’s green core from the mass of thorns.
• The hall collapsed, Louis closed Eduardo’s eyes, and he crushed the core, releasing green mist into his mind.

Louis absorbed the green mist, gained a fifth power, and discovered memories suggesting the Primordial Mage came from his world. After Louis dealt with the source of the monsters, he reunited with Vale and the Red Tide Knights and said they would talk back on the ship.

• Louis broke down the green mist's attempt to copy the Primordial Heart and absorbed it, seeing memories of the Primordial Mage, the Theocracy, and Eduardo's death.
• Louis gained a fifth halo whose abilities let him identify vulnerabilities, project thorns that disrupted powers, and briefly borrow another's attributes.
• Vale and Sako led the Red Tide Knights through the Stitched Monsters while enduring the strain of holding their formation.
• The monsters suddenly collapsed after Louis dealt with their source, and Vale ordered the Knights to rush forward and support him.
• Louis emerged unharmed from the central hall, reassured Vale, and said they would talk back on the ship.

Louis reunited with Rachelna, rewarded her husband Ronald with responsibility for rebuilding part of the Southeast Province, and issued plans for the Calvin family’s surviving relatives and the devastated former Theocracy. He began integrating the Southeast into Red Tide’s system, then learned that patrol boats had intercepted the false emperor, Lampard.

• Louis welcomed Rachelna and thanked her for supporting him, then offered Ronald an earldom and exclusive trading rights around White Stone Harbor.
• Louis ordered aid for surviving collateral branches of the Calvin Family while denying them titles and hereditary privileges.
• Louis ordered the Avalonia Archipelago burned and excavated, then placed under a naval blockade as an exclusion zone.
• Louis ordered the toxin-affected population in the Southeast Province into withdrawal, reconstruction labor, and evening classes.
• Louis marked the Southeast Province for integration into Red Tide’s industry, agriculture, administration, and trade networks.
• Vale told Louis that Red Tide patrol boats had intercepted the false emperor, Lampard, and Louis welcomed the news.

Louis rejected Lampard’s plea for an island and ordered Vale to dispose of him. Meanwhile, Kalien’s victories against the Jade Federation were overshadowed by news of Louis’s conquests, driving Kalien to hasten the war and Raymont to consider his remaining options.

• Louis dismissed Lampard’s abdication deed and claim to a promised island, then ordered Vale to dispose of him.
• Kalien trapped the Jade Federation’s forces at Sunset Gorge, pushed into the Gemstone Corridor, and led his knights in destroying three Prototype Alchemical Dragons.
• Duke Raymont feared Kalien would turn against him as the prince took control of military orders and supplies.
• A knight reported that Louis had conquered the Avalonia Archipelago and the Holy Eastern Empire, annihilated the Golden Feather Flower Church, and killed its god.
• Kalien ordered his army to seize the Jade Federation’s wealth and resources before Louis could turn eastward.
• Raymont recalled Louis’s destruction of his family and realized he had only one choice left.

The Jade Federation’s leaders learned that Louis Calvin had conquered the Holy Eastern Empire and decided to awaken their god as their last defense. Kalien then led ten thousand knights through an abandoned mine tunnel toward Crystalrock City, unaware that the route led into a prepared trap.

• The Federation directors discovered that Louis Calvin had occupied the Holy Eastern Empire and the Golden Feather Flower Church’s state, and Clement ordered the awakening of their god.
• Duke Raymont urged Kalien to withdraw from the Federation’s concentrated defenses, but Kalien refused and insisted on attacking.
• A captured Federation deserter provided an abandoned mine tunnel map, and Kalien chose to lead ten thousand knights through it while Raymont staged a frontal feint.
• Kalien’s knights crossed the tunnel without resistance and emerged above a basin near Crystalrock City.
• Kalien ordered the knights to charge downhill toward the seemingly defenseless city as they entered the prepared platter.

Kalien led five thousand Imperial knights into a basin that awakened as a colossal diamond-and-gold creature, which crushed and devoured his army. Watching from afar, Duke Raymont learned that the Jade Federation had awakened its guardian deity and agreed to defect with the Empire’s remaining forces and defense intelligence.

• Kalien’s knights charged into the basin, where unnatural heat and gravity crushed them into the golden molten ground and fused their armor to their bodies.
• The basin’s rocky shell fell away, revealing a colossal creature that had used the basin as its body.
• Kalien rallied the surviving Transcendent Knights and attacked the creature, but its diamond leg shattered his sword without taking damage.
• The creature drew the trapped knights and Kalien into its maw and devoured them, leaving the basin empty of survivors.
• Duke Raymont watched the massacre as a Federation councilor revealed that the creature was the Jade Federation’s guardian deity, awakened after three centuries of offerings.
• Raymont offered the Empire’s remaining legions and defense intelligence to the Federation in exchange for a place for his family in its new order.

Lin Ze witnessed Ernst August’s rebirth as a True Dragon and pledged the Dragonblood Guard to his campaign. After learning of the dragon’s return and Mamon’s metal-attraction ability, Louis prepared the Southeast Province for danger and departed with the Supreme Mage for Magewood.

• Lin Ze told the awakened Ernst August that the Empire had collapsed and his sons were dead, but Ernst dismissed the loss and announced his return to end the world.
• Louis learned that Mamon had devoured Kalien’s ten thousand Knights and that Ernst August had awakened as a True Dragon.
• Louis ordered Lambert to replace metal armor, prepare alchemical iron-filings bait for Mamon, and withdraw the army if the creature appeared.
• Louis initiated evacuations and wartime controls across the Southeast Province while preparing to leave.
• The Supreme Mage arrived at Calvin Castle, and Louis left with him for Magewood to pursue the Primordial Mana inheritance ritual.

After Kalien died and Raymont surrendered, the Jade Federation conquered the Empire with poison gas, forced refugees, and Mamon, then destroyed the Imperial Capital’s defenses. As Raymont demanded that Mamon march against Louis, a powerful being awakened in the royal tombs and forced the Federation’s forces to their knees.

• Kalien’s death and Raymont’s surrender shattered the Empire’s army, and soldiers deserted in droves as the Jade Federation advanced.
• The Federation captured towns with alchemical poison gas and breached fortresses by driving potion-dosed refugees against their walls.
• Mamon used its magnetic power to destroy Imperial defenses while Raymont guided the Federation through the provinces he had once ruled.
• The Supreme Board celebrated the Empire’s fall, discussed demolishing the Imperial Capital, and bet on how long Louis Calvin would last against Mamon.
• Mamon crushed the Imperial Capital’s defenders and gates, while Raymont told General Batur he wanted Mamon to destroy Louis’s Red Tide Fief.
• A dark golden pillar erupted from the royal tombs, and a dragon’s roar made Raymont kneel as a being opened its eyes.

August emerged as a True Dragon with five thousand Dragonkin Guards and confronted Mamon, while the Half-Dragon Guards routed the Federation army. The chapter ended with the Half-Dragon Guards advancing toward the clash between August and Mamon.

• August emerged from the ancient tombs with five thousand Dragonkin Guards and charged the Federation forces and Mamon.
• August's roar forced Federation soldiers to their knees, while Mamon resisted his bloodline suppression and shattered part of his domain.
• Mamon struck August down and bit into his flank, attempting to drain his Dragon Blood, but August sent blood-flame chains into Mamon's crystalline body.
• The Half-Dragon Guards crossed the Federation's poison gas and destroyed its front ranks, triggering a rout that swept through the army.
• Raymont fled but was killed by a half-dragon Knight whose gaze recalled the Blade of the Empire.
• After crushing the remaining Jade Federation knights, the Half-Dragon Guards advanced toward August and Mamon's ongoing battle.

August and the Dragon Guard defeated Mamon, and August destroyed Crystalrock City in revenge against the Jade Federation. He then flew east to reclaim the former Empire’s lands and establish a new nation under his rule.

• August and the Dragon Guard pried open Mamon’s crystalline armor, allowing August to tear out and swallow his core.
• August healed and evolved, then flew to Crystalrock City to confront the Jade Federation’s directors.
• August shattered the council chamber’s defenses, turned Isabella into a gold statue, and transformed Clement into a gemstone flower.
• August destroyed Crystalrock City, reducing its streets, towers, workshops, and fleeing inhabitants to molten gold.
• August flew east, declaring that he would reclaim the former Empire’s lands and create a new God's Kingdom.

Louis met the Forest Keeper in Magewood and learned that knights’ blood energy and magic both originated in a struggle against dragons and the dangerous power of Original Sin. After the Forest Keeper transferred the portion of sloth into Louis, the Keeper vanished, leaving Louis determined to stop the Dragon King’s true descent and gather the rampaging Original Sin.

• Aurelian led Louis through Magewood to a portal and sent him onward alone.
• Louis met the Forest Keeper, who revealed that the Dragon Emperor was a half-dragon feeding on knights’ blood energy and that dragons had once treated humans as livestock.
• The Forest Keeper explained that the Primordial Mage divided Original Sin among seven disciples, and that the seals had recently been broken, possibly by Loken.
• The Forest Keeper told Louis to prevent the Dragon King’s true descent and gather the rampaging Original Sin with the Primordial Heart.
• The Forest Keeper transferred sloth and Magewood’s accumulated magic power into Louis, then vanished as the great tree withered.
• Louis emerged from the ordeal and said he knew what to do.

August attacked Louis’s Southeast Province and devastated its defenses, even after Lambert’s trap wounded him. As the Red Tide Knights made a final charge for Lord Louis, Louis arrived and stopped time across the battlefield.

• August found the roads and settlements evacuated, then used greed’s attraction field to tear metal from a fortress.
• Lambert’s knights fired magnetic powder into August’s body, where it exploded and severely wounded him.
• Furious, August unleashed his draconic suppression and slaughtered defenders while the half-dragon knights swept through the battlefield.
• Lambert ordered most of the knights to scatter into the mountain forests, then stayed with fewer than a hundred of the strongest Red Tide Knights.
• Lambert led the remaining knights in a charge for Lord Louis as August raised his claw to strike them.
• Louis emerged from the void, froze the battlefield in time, and told Lambert to leave the rest to him.

Louis intervened in the battle and defeated August, ending the dragon emperor’s attempt to restore the dragons’ dominion. He left the battlefield as the land began to recover and the survivors hailed him.

• Louis appeared on the battlefield, halted the fighting, erased August’s dragon-breath attacks, and allowed Lambert and the Red Tide knights to retreat.
• Louis’s authority overwhelmed August’s Pride, provoking the dragon emperor to devour the Dragonkin Guards’ blood essence and enter a violent, unstable state.
• Louis stripped away the power sustaining August’s body and destroyed him with a blade of light formed from the five sins.
• Louis descended as life returned to the scorched earth, while Lambert, the surviving knights, and thousands of witnesses hailed him.

After the Dragon Emperor’s defeat, Louis recovered his memories as the first mage and confronted the Original Sin he had once separated from himself. He sealed it within his soul, leaving it contained for now as he resolved to spread reason and help civilization advance.

• Louis thanked Noken, whose thousand-year mission ended as his remnant soul faded away.
• Louis absorbed the Dragon Emperor’s remaining mists of greed and pride, completing the authorities of all seven original sins.
• Louis remembered that he had been the first mage, fought the dragons, and split himself apart to escape Original Sin’s corruption.
• Original Sin urged Louis to merge with it and become a god, but Louis rejected its lifeless utopia and challenged its claim that humanity could never escape desire.
• Louis argued that knowledge and civilization advanced in an ascending spiral, weakening Original Sin, and then absorbed it into himself.
• Louis used Eternal Vessel to compress Original Sin into cold chains around his soul, sealing it for the time being.

Forty years after the Red Tide Republic’s founding, Innie traveled from the capital to Red Tide City to receive an honor for her work in magical engineering. As the airship approached the city, she reflected on the society built under Louis and stood in solemn silence with the other passengers before the statue of the knight who had sacrificed himself to save the world.

• Innie prepared to attend the fortieth-anniversary honors ceremony while her mother, Mary, asked her to thank Lord Louis for saving their family.
• Innie walked through the capital and saw citizens studying, working, and living in the republic’s orderly society.
• Innie boarded the airship Truth and flew north toward Red Tide City, passing the transformed Dark Gold Wasteland and its wind turbines.
• The airship passed a massive statue of the sacrificed knight, and Innie and the passengers stood in silence as Red Tide City came into view.

At Red Tide’s fortieth-anniversary ceremony, Louis Calvin honored ninety-nine contributors and recognized their work in building the city’s future. After declaring that the world belonged to everyone willing to think and work, he returned to the castle as the crowd cheered.

• Innie watched the ninety-nine honorees gather at Red Tide Memorial Square, including Marshal Lambert, General Vale, Little Hamilton, Ed, and Physician Green.
• Louis Calvin emerged from the castle, and millions of people in Red Tide City cried, “Long live Lord Louis!”
• Louis pinned a commemorative medal on Marshal Lambert and remembered how Lambert had protected him on the Northern Frontier.
• Louis honored the engineers and Physician Green, then awarded Innie the golden Sun Medal and said her work had answered her father Smith’s question about whether the world could become better.
• Louis told the crowd that the world belonged to everyone willing to think and work, and fireworks lit the square as he walked back into the castle.

After Louis Calvin’s death was announced, the people of Red Tide mourned him while his family and the Regents gathered at the black pyramid in the Far North. Knowing his life had ended and that the seven great sins remained sealed within him, Louis entered the pyramid alone, leaving Vale to stand guard outside.

• Innie returned home with her contributor medal, and her family celebrated with her before the radio announced that Louis Calvin had died in Red Tide Castle.
• John’s father, Mary, John, Innie, and people throughout the capital grieved Louis as factories fell silent and white flowers filled People’s Square.
• Louis’s final recording urged people to carry the spark he had brought them as they worked, learned, and loved the world.
• At the black pyramid, Louis said farewell to Sif, Emily, his children, and the Regents, reminding the Regents that development must serve the majority and treat people as people.
• Vale asked to stand guard as Louis entered the pyramid alone, and its doors closed behind him.