Chapter Summaries

Lynn witnessed the Great Purge of an earlier era and the Fallen being dragged into Foundation Hell, where he realized he had returned to the time of the Old Days War. As Raven’s message told the Old Gods to “Endure,” Lynn watched the past unfold without interfering.

• Lynn recognized that the Jailer was carrying out the Great Purge, casting a demigod and two World-Class Professionals from World 241 into Hell as an invading swarm approached.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo entered Foundation Hell and witnessed the Great Fall, where Fallen from many worlds were dragged down by scarlet chains.
• Zuo Zuo asked whether they could change the past, and Lynn refused, believing that a guardian of history could not interfere.
• Lynn spotted a group of calm beings on the shore and recognized them as the God of the Old Days, realizing he had returned to the time of the Old Days War.
• Ravens flew into the Black Mist, and many Fallen recognized them as the bearers of hope in their worlds, even as Raven walked alongside the Jailer.
• Lynn intercepted a raven’s message to the Old Gods: “Endure.”

Lynn discovered that the Raven he had heard in the distant past was his own former self, and followed his fate to witness that self meeting the Gods of the Old Days. The past Raven promised to bring them home but told them they had to keep waiting for the right moment to escape Hell.

• Lynn realized the voice he had heard belonged to his former self, Raven, and continued tracing his fate through time.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo watched the Gods of the Old Days gather in the North Sea months later, waiting for Raven to arrive.
• Raven appeared before the Old Gods, who welcomed him with the warmth of family and friends reunited.
• Raven told the Old Gods that a Great Fall had ended an era and that many Demigods and world-class beings had been taken into Hell's ranks.
• The Old Gods told Raven that Old Seven and many others had died or been assimilated by Hell, and they pleaded with him because they could no longer endure waiting.
• Raven promised he would bring their bones home but said they had to wait for the right moment to face the Jailers and the Female Host.

Lynn entered the raven’s past body and searched its memories to learn how the Old Days War and the New World’s history had unfolded. He discovered that the ravens’ role in guiding civilizations turned into mechanical control after the Great Lord’s influence vanished, provoking widespread resistance and a longing for the age of the deities.

• The Old Gods pledged to fight alongside the raven, and Zuo Zuo realized he was Lynn’s past self, the one tied to the Old Days War and the Flesh Dominator.
• Lynn reached out to the departing raven and entered its body to search through its memories.
• Lynn’s memories showed that the ravens began as fragments of the Great Lord’s soul and helped their Female Host rebuild the New World from the remnants of the Old World.
• The ravens repeatedly intervened to prevent tyranny and preserve a cycle of renewal, guided by the Great Lord’s lingering influence.
• The Great Lord’s influence vanished, leaving the ravens to intervene mechanically and causing civilizations to resist what they saw as control over their destinies.
• The resistance grew into condemnation of Violet and its history, and people began longing for the lost age of the deities.

Lynn witnessed Raven’s memory of hunting and killing the first God of the New World, a revolutionary who had discovered there was no truth in a world ruled by the Violet Empire. After the God’s death, the Empire tightened its control to prevent Deities from emerging, while Raven was left with emotions he could not explain.

• The Violet Empire returned under the Four Kings Council, and its Old Guard crushed resistance and silenced criticism of Violet.
• After generations, a revolutionary defied the Empire, broke beyond the Demigod realm, and became the New World’s first God.
• Raven and the Empire surrounded the God, who accepted death rather than see the world reset and warned that others would rise if the oppression continued.
• The God died, and Raven later found a book containing a photograph and a nursery rhyme about Ravens bringing a torch before winter.
• Lynn felt Raven’s grief and confusion as the memory showed him crying despite Ravens having no hearts.
• The Empire reclaimed the Divine Spark and imposed strict controls to prevent Deities from appearing, making even private discussion of Deities or Violet dangerous.

Lynn recounted how Raven developed a heart during the Violet Empire’s oppressive rule and tried to make Painter end it. Painter rejected him, revealing that she had long known about and tacitly approved the empire’s rule.

• Lynn explained that after the Battle of Heaven, Raven lost the Great Lord’s influence while the Violet Empire imposed worship and punished dissent.
• Raven wandered through the mortal world, witnessing people’s suffering, until he shielded a mother and daughter from Divine Punishment and vowed to resist every winter.
• Raven entered the Royal Court, revealed his face, and demanded that the Four Kings let him see their Female Host.
• Raven condemned the Violet Empire’s oppression to Painter and argued that its rule betrayed the Great Lord’s intentions.
• The Old Guard forced Raven to his knees and dragged him away, while Painter watched with indifference; Raven realized she had approved the empire’s rule and was no longer Nanako.

Raven recounted how the Divine Realm’s new order sealed away the path to godhood, then repeatedly harvested and destroyed civilizations while erasing their histories. After centuries of witnessing the suffering, he promised the Origins trapped in hell that they would resist and fight their way to a sky of their own.

• The azure girl freed Raven from his cage, and he warned her that leaving the New World to her had been the Great Lord’s worst decision.
• Raven returned to the ravens, rejected claims that he was Lynn or the Violet Great Lord, and declared that he would resist every winter.
• Raven guided civilizations through countless eras and watched the Divine Realm’s harvests drag powerful beings into hell and leave their civilizations vulnerable to war.
• Raven witnessed the Divine Realm establish cycles of destruction and rebirth, while people forgot the histories of earlier eras.
• Raven found the imprisoned Origins of bygone eras and vowed that they would resist together and fight their way to a sky of their own.

Lynn and Zuo Zuo learned that Lynn’s past self had led the Old Gods in a rebellion that ended in defeat, and Lynn realized that past self was destined to die. As Lynn tried to travel further into the future, a black-robed figure attacked his past self, and Lynn fought to stop him.

• Lynn and Zuo Zuo understood that Lynn’s past self had led Hell’s rebellion in the Old Days War, which ended with the Old Gods slaughtered.
• Lynn concluded that his past self was certain to die because their connection meant he could not have existed otherwise.
• Lynn left his past self and prepared to travel further into the future for answers from Painter.
• A black-robed figure sent a huge hand through a time rift to kill Raven, and Lynn intercepted the blow with blackfire.
• The black-robed figure said Raven was eternal and that he had followed Lynn through causality to the distant past.
• Lynn drew his saber and attacked the black-robed figure.

Lynn fought off a black-robed figure who promised they would meet again, then faced a renewed wave of invasions across history. While protecting the timeline, he investigated his raven self’s plans to rally the Old Gods and noticed that the raven regularly returned to Hell to share power with the others.

• Lynn battled the black-robed figure, overpowered him with his greater reserves of blackfire, and watched him vanish after warning that they would meet again.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo that the enemy had unraveled the causality around him and that the endless war was about to resume.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo fought off hundreds upon thousands of Nightmare Demon invasions across historical junctures over the following years.
• Lynn observed his raven self gathering Origins to the Old Gods’ faction and questioned why he would lead them into a seemingly hopeless rebellion against the Jailer.
• Lynn noticed that his raven self returned at a regular time to share souls and power with the other ravens, and questioned why a resistance leader would keep that routine.

Lynn realized that his past self planned to destroy the raven swarm, unleashing its firstborn power to shatter Hell and devastate the Jailer Group. He traveled to the moment the plan would begin and suspected the Painter had just discovered the truth about the Great Lord’s lost Origin.

• Lynn inferred that his past self could detonate every raven in Hell, causing Hell to collapse and unleashing firstborn power against the Jailer Group and possibly the Painter.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo that his past self was waiting for the Painter to fall into uncontrollable chaos before starting the plan.
• Lynn traveled through time and arrived beneath the black sky as the Painter’s emotional upheaval drew ravens and Jailer swarms into Hell.
• Lynn concluded that the Painter had finally learned the truth about the Great Lord’s lost Origin.

Lynn discovered that the Great Lord would eventually be assimilated into the Lord of the End’s resurrection, but he could not locate his past self after enemies blocked their causal connection. He found the invaders’ main force at the canyon where his past self had arrived, and the black-robed figure revealed the destructive fate history had in store for him.

• Lynn learned that the Great Lord’s war would end with him being assimilated into the Lord of the End’s resurrection.
• Lynn and Zuo Zuo realized they could not find his past self because enemies had interfered with their causal connection.
• Lynn sensed simultaneous invasions across Hell and the Main Universe, then used countless incarnations to destroy the polluters emerging from the rifts.
• Lynn found the main force gathered at the canyon where the Flesh Dominator would later be born and saw his past self approaching.
• The black-robed figure said they had not come to kill Lynn’s past self and described how he would unleash the ravens’ Firstborn Power in Hell.

Lynn defeated another invasion by the Nightmare Demons, but the past version of himself took a step that unexpectedly changed the future. Lynn froze history and searched the timeline for the cause of the alteration.

• Lynn used Blackfire to slaughter the seventy-two Nightmare Demons, while the Black-Robed Figure escaped and promised they would meet again soon.
• Zuo Zuo asked whether the repeated invasions could accomplish anything, and Lynn wondered who would stop his past self from changing history.
• Lynn watched his past self approach a rift valley and step forward with the resolve to change the future.
• The step triggered a torrent of altered cause and effect, and Lynn saw memories of himself winning the Old Gods War and blowing up all of Hell.
• Lynn used the Time Divine Spark to freeze history, then rushed through the past as a raven to find where the timeline had gone wrong.

Lynn discovered that his descents into living Ravens had subtly strengthened them, and that their shared souls had amplified the effect enough to alter history. He concluded that he and Zuo Zuo might have to become the missing figures in the history they remembered, but the story left their next move unresolved.

• Lynn realized the Nightmares might not have caused history's changes and began searching for another explanation.
• Lynn traced the cause to his descents into living Ravens, which had expanded their souls and increased their strength.
• Lynn explained to Zuo Zuo that Raven's soul-sharing had amplified those small changes across the Raven Swarm.
• Lynn feared his actions had increased the chance that the Ravens' destruction would devastate Hell, possibly as part of the Black-Robed Figure's scheme.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo that they might need to fill in the missing piece of history themselves, as the White Hair Person they had once seen seemed like them.

Lynn descended into his past self, Raven, and prevented him from activating the ravens and leading the Old Gods’ planned uprising, preserving the history that led to the future. As the Old Gods’ war began without Raven’s intervention, Lynn struggled against Raven’s desperate will to reclaim his body and apologized as he suppressed him.

• Lynn stopped Raven from activating the ravens, and Raven sat silently as the Old Gods’ war began without his planned attack.
• Lynn told Zuo Zuo that their intervention had become part of history and that Raven might have failed in the original past.
• Raven’s will began fighting Lynn’s control, driven by his resolve not to let down the Old Gods waiting for him.
• Lynn suppressed Raven’s struggle while Raven cried that missing the chance would condemn them to countless more years of dark rule.
• Lynn apologized repeatedly and clutched his chest, accepting that he might have to kill Raven.

Lynn witnessed the Great Revolution’s predetermined defeat and the deaths of the Old Gods, then returned to the rift valley burdened by the souls lost because of his interference. After speaking with Painter about Raven’s future and the history she intended to preserve, he remained alone with his guilt.

• Lynn descended into the Great Revolution as Raven and watched the Old Gods and his companions die in a battle whose outcome was already set.
• Lynn returned to Outside Time, collapsed in the dream of order, and told Zuo Zuo that the deaths were his sin and that they had to keep moving forward.
• Lynn met Painter among the ruins, learned she had come from the time she brought him to Wandering Soul Alley, and heard that Raven would be reborn without his memories.
• Painter said she would soon begin her plan and keep Lynn safe in Hell until his future self became his present self, while Lynn left without answering where he was going.
• Lynn returned to the rift valley with the remains of those killed through his interference and wished that his past self could have killed him.

Lynn left the past behind and traveled to the End of Time, where the Black-Robed Figure and the Nightmare Swarm awaited him. Unleashing his full Blackfire, Lynn challenged them to a final battle.

• Lynn returned to the River of Time and ignored the Time War’s incursions, choosing to move toward the future.
• Lynn summoned the Blackfire he had anchored in the future and told Brain they were going to the End of Time.
• Lynn confronted the Black-Robed Figure and deduced that it had been using small historical changes to hinder his progress toward understanding Finality.
• The Black-Robed Figure said they were racing to reach the finish line before Lynn entered the End of Time, and warned him he would fail there.
• Lynn released his full Blackfire, terrifying the Nightmare Demons, and called on them to fight.
• Lynn began a conceptual battle across the endless void, using it to test his accumulated power and unleash his pent-up hatred.

After losing to the calamity at the end of time, Lynn used Zuo Zuo’s recordings to study it and concluded that his current timeline would eventually overwrite the future. He suspected the Time God-King was still alive and realized that causality and time were the threats most capable of stopping him, while Zuo Zuo questioned whether he could sever all his ties to the past.

• Lynn charged into the end of time, lost to the calamity, and returned to Dark Night City.
• Zuo Zuo told Lynn she had recorded the battle, and Lynn examined the images in a dream.
• Lynn concluded that their timeline would eventually replace the history at the end of time and that the calamity might not be much weaker.
• Lynn suspected the Time God-King was still alive at the end of time and that he and the Nightmares would launch a major counterattack.
• Lynn identified time and causality as the threats that could still kill him, and Zuo Zuo warned that becoming finality might require giving up everything from his past.

Lynn and Zuo Zuo confronted the possibility that he might have to erase his past to embrace Finality, and Lynn resolved to seek a way to preserve his memories. As the Nightmares tried to erase him from history, he changed tactics and repeatedly fought the Agent at the end of time to prepare for claiming time’s true authority.

• Zuo Zuo urged Lynn to consider burning away his past, but he stopped her and later admitted that doing so might leave him an empty shell.
• Lynn considered using an eternal witness to record history and preserve his memories, but concluded that he first needed the true authority of time.
• Lynn stayed in the present, divided his consciousness to fight the Nightmares, and focused on preserving history’s outcome rather than every detail.
• Lynn repeatedly challenged the Agent at the end of time to deepen his understanding of Finality while using the Time Divine Spark to restore disrupted history.
• The Nightmares used illusions of Lynn’s dead family to influence his past self, and Lynn buried the Sin Lord’s Corpse in Dark Night City while vowing revenge on the Deathbringers.

Lynn returned to the ancient Battle of Heaven to meet Dreamweaver, hoping to learn more about the Lord of the End and the path toward Finality. He found her gravely wounded after the Trinity’s defeat and revealed that he knew her name.

• After another battle with the calamity in the dream, Lynn reflected on how his blackfire resembled the calamity’s power and questioned his origins and the nature of Finality.
• Lynn traveled with Zuo Zuo to the end of the Battle of Heaven, where Dreamweaver, Ether, and Blood Core had reunited as the Trinity before the Great Lord’s avatar defeated them and broke them apart.
• Lynn reasoned that tracing the events further back might reveal how Dreamweaver’s inherited knowledge and the sinfire ritual had originated, and he went to find her.
• Badly wounded, Dreamweaver drifted toward the Chaos Domain and feared she would die before she could recover.
• Lynn caught Dreamweaver and held her as she struggled and accused him of being a dream phantom, then greeted her by name, leaving her stunned.

Lynn met Dreamweaver in the past after defeating the monster, but she struggled to believe he came from the future. He asked her to trace the origins of blackfire and discover how her Ancestors defeated the coming calamity, while she remained wary of him and his connection to the Lord of the End.

• Dreamweaver resisted Lynn’s claim that he came from the future until he revealed his blackfire, which made her fear that war was approaching.
• Lynn brought Dreamweaver to the New World and told her he had never gotten to see her one last time in his future.
• Dreamweaver questioned whether they would become friends and asked how Lynn had mastered the third stage of blackfire.
• Lynn told Dreamweaver that she had taught him blackfire in the future, then asked her to trace beyond its legacy and learn how her Ancestors defeated the calamity.
• Dreamweaver doubted Lynn’s story and questioned why he, rather than her and the others, would face the Lord of the End, while Lynn said he could wait.

Lynn kept Dreamweaver on a snowy world for a thousand years so the Mind Sea could restore her damaged primordial source and psionics. After she escaped and enslaved countless souls to grow stronger, Lynn stopped her and took her through mortal life, while she insisted the weak deserved to be preyed upon.

• Lynn brought Dreamweaver to a snow-covered world rich with gathered consciousnesses and promised to stay with her for a thousand years as she recovered.
• Dreamweaver repeatedly tried to escape and demanded to know whether Lynn loved her, but he said she was not his type and continued guarding her.
• After recovering some psionics, Dreamweaver evaded Lynn, massacred living beings, and enslaved their souls to replenish her power.
• Lynn forcibly freed the enslaved souls, restored them, and returned Dreamweaver to her previous world.
• The next day, Lynn took Dreamweaver through the Mortal World, but she rejected his apparent attempt to make her empathize with mortals and argued that the strong had the right to dominate the weak.