Chapter Summaries

Lynn reunited with Feather Pen in the void beyond time, but the great decline had aged her and weakened her laws to the point of death. She refused to let him preserve her by remaking her as part of his dream, and left him believing they would meet again.

• Lynn discovered that Feather Pen had become mortal and was nearing the end of her life.
• Feather Pen told Lynn she was relieved that Zuo Zuo was with him and believed the girl would help him endure loneliness.
• Lynn tried to restore Feather Pen by spreading his golden dream around them, but its new order was disconnected from the world's laws.
• Lynn proposed transforming Feather Pen's primordial source so she could live within his dream, but she stopped him because he would eventually have to burn the dream away.
• Feather Pen embraced Lynn and said she believed that they and everyone else would be reborn in his dream and meet again.

In his dream, Lynn and the Writer Lady spent her final days rebuilding cherished places and reliving their happy memories together. After she suddenly vanished, Lynn was left alone with her Feather Pen, begging for her return.

• The Writer Lady asked Lynn to recreate their old home and turned him into a tabby cat so she could hold him.
• She told Lynn how afraid and hurt she had been when he ignored her, and he apologized as they held each other.
• The Writer Lady began writing a new book about the tabby cat while Lynn played pranks and stole her Feather Pen.
• The Writer Lady vanished, leaving Lynn alone in the quiet hallway with the Feather Pen.
• Lynn cried out from a rooftop, asking for his Feather Pen back and pleading for the Writer Lady to return.

Lynn mourned Feather Pen in the void, then reunited with Zuo Zuo after she awoke from a long sleep. He told her he had defeated their enemies, but his white hair and sorrowful manner showed the cost of the years he had endured.

• Lynn accepted Feather Pen's death and vowed to carry her share and everyone's hopes through the final stretch.
• Feather Pen's lingering warmth and words sustained Zuo Zuo as she slept, entrusting Lynn to her care.
• Zuo Zuo woke in the void and recognized Lynn, whose hair had turned completely white.
• Zuo Zuo threw herself into Lynn's arms, cried, and asked what had happened to their friends and enemies.
• Lynn said everyone was fine and that he had defeated the gods and darker threats, while Zuo Zuo sensed his sorrow meant the victory was not complete.

After reuniting in a world where everyone else had perished, Zuo Zuo and Lynn mourned their lost family and returned to Dark Night City. Lynn resumed his pursuit of finality and asked Zuo Zuo to become part of him so he would not lose her again before their coming battle.

• Zuo Zuo realized from Lynn’s silence that he was the only survivor of the age and that everyone in Dark Night City was gone.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo about the century that had passed, the Apocalypse, the Empire, and how he had become the final Black King and sole survivor.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo returned to Dark Night City and erected a monument for the people they had lost.
• Lynn explained that he would use his boundless Great Dream to fuel the Flame of Finality and continue toward a decisive battle.
• Lynn asked Zuo Zuo to become part of him because he feared losing his last remaining bond before he reached the next step.

After reuniting with Zuo Zuo, Lynn found comfort in her return despite their bickering and pranks. As he carried her through Dark Night City, he realized how much their shared past meant to him and finally cried again.

• Zuo Zuo promised to stay with Lynn until the end and became his left hand and last attachment in the dream of order.
• Zuo Zuo tried to keep Lynn from becoming lost in grief, but their attempts to comfort each other repeatedly turned into arguments and roughhousing.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo to leave, and she tearfully tried to go before he grabbed her and kept her bundle.
• At their campfire in Dark Night City, Zuo Zuo ate the roast meat Lynn conjured, and Lynn tricked her into eating meat covered in pesticide.
• Lynn carried the unconscious Zuo Zuo over his shoulder and remembered their years of adventures together, then shed tears for the first time in a long while.

Lynn and Zuo Zuo endured centuries of isolation in Dark Night City, with Zuo Zuo keeping Lynn from sinking into grief over their dead friends. As the city’s past began to reappear and their memories started changing, Lynn realized the time war had truly begun.

• Zuo Zuo teased Lynn and provoked him until he let her out of the Black Room, and she celebrated when she saw him smile.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo settled into a fragile routine, with Zuo Zuo interrupting his grief whenever he brooded over their lost friends.
• Over a long stretch of lonely days, Lynn’s silences grew less frequent as Zuo Zuo continually drew him back from despair.
• As the blackfire in Lynn’s dream expanded, Dark Night City began to blur and appear prosperous again.
• Zuo Zuo glimpsed familiar figures returning as Lynn and Zuo Zuo’s memories began to be replaced, and Lynn declared that the time war had begun.

Lynn and Zuo Zuo traveled upstream through time to stop the forces behind the Time War from killing his past self. They arrived at the moment before Lynn ascended the Throne, where Nightmare Demons were attacking the Sanctuary gate.

• Lynn realized the Time War’s enemies had turned against his past and decided to travel back with Zuo Zuo.
• Lynn transformed into a raven and carried Zuo Zuo upstream along the River of History, choosing the moment he least wanted to revisit.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo awoke in a raven’s corpse in Hell and identified the place as the mountain at Hell’s center.
• Lynn sensed the attack on the Three Sanctuaries and crossed the Divine Realm to the Sanctuary where he had ascended the Throne.
• Lynn’s arrival forced the Nightmare Demons back, and he confronted them at the gate behind which his past self’s Throne stood.

The Nightmare King offered Lynn a chance to save his family by abandoning the Main Universe, but Lynn rejected the bargain and chose to keep fighting for a future for everyone. He destroyed the Nightmare Demons and pursued the Nightmare King through the time rift as the time war began.

• The Nightmare King spoke to Lynn through a time rift and offered him and his family a peaceful future if he stopped opposing the Nightmare King's master.
• Lynn asked whether the Nightmare King could bring everyone in the Main Universe back to life, and learned that most people would have to be sacrificed for his family's survival.
• Lynn rejected the offer, saying his family would not accept a future purchased with the lives of others, and chose to forge ahead.
• Lynn killed the Nightmare Demons with blackfire as the Nightmare King warned that his forces would attack Lynn across every point in time.
• Lynn tore through the time rift to pursue the Nightmare King, declaring that he did not care about the threat.

Lynn broke through into a temporal tributary overrun by Nightmare Demons and burned every nightmare there, including the Nightmare King. After Zuo Zuo comforted him, Lynn admitted that he had wavered over whether to rewrite history.

• Lynn charged through the rift and emerged in a tributary of time where Nightmare Demons had overrun the world.
• Lynn unleashed Blackfire and slaughtered the Nightmare Demons, confronting the Nightmare King and promising to hunt him through every rebirth.
• Lynn burned the Nightmare King and every remaining nightmare until the sky collapsed and the world was left in flames.
• Zuo Zuo took human form, held Lynn, and comforted him as his trembling fist slowly unclenched.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo that Brain had wavered, and Zuo Zuo admitted that rewriting history would not be wrong if it could bring everyone back.

Lynn and Zuo Zuo returned from the past after stopping an invasion, but Dark Night City began disappearing as the Time War continued to distort history. Lynn realized that the enemy’s projections could keep returning until they reached the end of time, and he raced onward to confront the crisis.

• Lynn repaired the Sanctuary’s rift, then left the past without visiting the people behind its sealed doors.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo returned to reality, where Lynn found that only an instant had passed and the invaders’ figures had vanished.
• Dark Night City began dissolving into darkness, so Lynn took Zuo Zuo and fled through time and space.
• Lynn explained that the Time War had erupted across history and could erase the foundation of his present existence.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo that the enemies he killed were only projections and that the seal at the end of time might have weakened.
• Lynn spread his wings and raced through the river of time toward the end of time.

Lynn returned to the Abyss shortly after his first arrival there and confronted the Nightmare Demons invading Aivier and the others. He faced the Self-Binding Angel but did not turn to look at her.

• Lynn realized he had returned to the time of the Red Moon incident and flew toward the Abyss, leaving the Colors of Chaos under attack.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo crossed into the Abyss and found Aivier, the Matriarch, and others facing powerful Nightmare Demons emerging through time rifts.
• Lynn struck down three Nightmare Demons and destroyed the Nightmare Swarm, warning the survivors that his existence was fixed in causality.
• The Self-Binding Angel recognized Lynn and asked if it was really him, but Lynn clenched his fists and refused to turn around.

Lynn fought the Nightmare Demons in the time rifts and pursued the source of a powerful attack into the shadowy void. There, he encountered the final Nightmare Demon of the Seventy-Two Pillars, who revealed that it had been born to oppose him.

• Zuo Zuo used the Blade of condensed blackfire to stop the Nightmare Demons from attacking Lynn, and Lynn swept them into the time rifts.
• Lynn warned Zuo Zuo not to unleash blackfire inside a timeline, then killed two Nightmare Demons and tortured the Human-Headed Serpent-Body Nightmare Demon for information about the figure from his past.
• An enormous black hand struck Lynn in the time rift, withstanding his blackfire before he followed its lingering power into the shadowy void.
• Lynn confronted a black-robed figure with a blank Pillar of Finality and recognized him as the last of the Seventy-Two Pillars.
• The figure told Lynn that he had been born within his lord’s dream as the nightmare created to deal with Lynn.

Lynn clashed with a black-robed figure wielding the calamity’s power, then pursued him through the River of Time. Lynn suspected the figure was an Agent of the Lord of the End and wondered what he truly was.

• Lynn struck the black-robed figure with his blackfire, but the figure blocked the slash and their collision tore a vast scar through the void and shook the River of Time.
• The wounded figure told Lynn that he had earned the right to challenge his lord, then warned that Lynn would not remain unruffled within time itself.
• Lynn pursued the figure as Zuo Zuo struggled to recover from the collision and asked what he was.
• Lynn identified the figure’s power as coming from the calamity and reasoned that it might rival his Flame of Finality in standing.
• Lynn speculated that the figure held part of the revived Lord of the End’s essence and might be the Lord’s Agent, while other Nightmare Demons were likely unqualified to wield that power.
• Lynn watched the River of Time and questioned whether the figure was a nightmare created by the calamity or something else.

Lynn followed the shadow into the past, where he discovered he had returned to the Time War he once sensed. He faced the Nightmare King and the other Nightmares, who had broken free of the End of Time’s restraints and chose a battlefield where using his full strength could damage history.

• Lynn descended into the River of Time and followed the shadow into a stretch of history several hours after he had left the Abyss.
• Lynn recognized the period as the time he had traveled toward the ruins of the Battle of Heaven, and Zuo Zuo realized they had been the ones fighting the Time War.
• Lynn reached the past void and confronted the black-robed figure, who said neither side could avoid the war as long as Lynn kept arriving ahead of them.
• The Nightmare King, the Mirror Demon, the Beast King, the Red Demon, and other Nightmare Demons descended in their true forms.
• The Nightmare King warned Lynn that the battlefield was chosen to prevent him from unleashing Blackfire without risking catastrophic damage to history.

Lynn and Painter joined forces to defend their stretch of history as the Nightmare Demons launched a battle designed to hold them back while others went to erase Lynn’s past. Lynn charged into the enemy ranks, but the demons summoned Pillars of Finality to anchor time.

• Painter appeared beside Lynn and revealed that she came from decades after the Nightmare War began.
• Lynn and Painter agreed to fight together, while the black-robed figure linked his power to the Nightmare Demons and began the attack.
• Some Nightmare Demons left the battlefield to target another course through the void and erase the Lynn of that time.
• Painter split into streams to intercept the fleeing demons as Lynn froze space-time with the Time Divine Spark and charged into the enemy ranks with Zuo Zuo.
• Lynn punched the Beast King away and cut through the Nightmare Demons, who summoned towering Pillars of Finality to anchor time.

Lynn fought off the Nightmare Demons and countered their attack with power borrowed from the Lord of the End, but the Black-Robed Figure nearly struck a lethal blow against his will. Lynn trapped many enemies in his dream of order and demanded to know who the figure was, who then released a wisp of calamity's black energy toward the distance.

• Lynn used Star Stillness and Blackfire to overwhelm the Nightmare Demons and shake the Pillars of Finality.
• The Nightmare King ordered the demons to summon their lord's power, and the Pillars opened a rift to the End of Time.
• Lynn endured the black waterfall of finality and punched through it, wounding Nightmare Demons still trapped beyond the rift.
• The Black-Robed Figure attacked Lynn's neck with a pitch-black halberd, but Lynn projected his dream of order into reality and escaped the strike.
• Lynn asked the Black-Robed Figure who he was, and the figure sent calamity's black energy toward the distant, dim expanse.

Lynn and Painter stopped a mysterious figure from killing Lynn’s past self, though Painter was gravely wounded in the attempt. The figure escaped through time, and Painter warned Lynn that pursuing him would have brought him face-to-face with the Calamity.

• The black-robed figure fired a lethal attack at Lynn’s past self, but Painter intercepted it and deflected its trajectory.
• Lynn reached Painter and helped her up as the black-robed figure and the Nightmare Demons withdrew through rifts in time.
• The Nightmare King urged the others to kill the wounded Painter, but none of them stayed.
• Painter stopped Lynn from pursuing the figure, warning that he would otherwise face the Calamity.
• Painter explained that the black-robed figure had occupied the position of the first of the seventy-two pillars and was likely the Calamity’s last Agent before its awakening.

Lynn and the Painter speculated that Lynn’s original-timeline self had used the true Time Divine Spark, perhaps alongside the Reincarnation God-King, to seize control of time and reenact history. As the Painter prepared to return without altering history, Lynn asked what she wanted from him and whether she believed he could give the Great Lord a new life.

• Lynn asked how the Time Wars had crossed the River of Time, and the Painter said time had never been bypassed because it had an eternal Controller.
• The Painter suggested that a true Time Divine Spark existed beyond Lynn’s limited one and had begun the reenactment of history.
• Lynn and the Painter conjectured that his original-timeline self had joined forces with Reincarnation to seize control of time, while the Lord of Time remained alive and fought over its control.
• The Painter warned Lynn that inheriting the full Time Divine Spark might expose him to another great danger when the River of Time reached its end.
• The Painter said she would erase her memory and avoid changing future history, and Lynn asked what drove her and whether she thought he could give the Great Lord a new life.

Lynn and Zuo Zuo fought the Time War across history, where repeated attacks gave way to a strike that changed the past and rewrote Lynn’s relationships. The chapter left Lynn and Zuo Zuo confronting a radically altered history in which their memories no longer matched.

• Lynn left the Painter without learning whether she had acted, then plunged into the River of Time with Zuo Zuo to fight the Time War.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo defended history through nearly a thousand battles, facing repeated Nightmare Demon attacks but never seeing the black-robed figure again.
• Lynn warned that the relentless, monotonous attacks could be meant to make them careless before a major strike.
• At a point 851 years in the past, dozens of Nightmare Demons slaughtered people in a remote technological world, and Lynn quickly suppressed them.
• After Lynn left, he realized the deaths had changed his teacher Blood Saw’s ancestry and caused a butterfly effect that rewrote his history and severed many relationships.
• Zuo Zuo’s memories of Blood Saw, the Dollhouse, and Miss Doll grew hazy as she encountered unfamiliar names from the altered history.

Lynn traced his existence back through the River of Time and discovered that his life stretched into the New World’s distant past, with a vast period in which he seemed dead. He and Zuo Zuo traveled to that era and witnessed a Jailer confronting a grieving woman after killing her Demigod husband.

• Lynn realized that returning to the same period too many times could disrupt the River of Time and erase him, especially when three versions of himself were present.
• Lynn traced his own causality back through more than a hundred thousand years and found a long, dark gap in his past.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo traveled to an ancient, shattered city where Lynn found the raven he inhabited was alive.
• Lynn identified the devastation as the work of a Jailer and witnessed a bloodied woman accuse the chaotic figure of killing her husband, the city’s king, for becoming a Demigod.
• The Jailer answered the woman’s grief by declaring that they sheltered all living beings.