Chapter Summaries

Lynn used keepsakes stained with Messiah’s blood to fuel the Soul Lamp and entered the polluted Vatican with the Blood Cloak. He contacted Sheng Luo, learned survivors were trapped beneath St. Peter’s Church, and heard her threaten whoever had caused the tentacles’ grotesque transformation.

• Lynn fed Messiah’s bloodstained dress and bandages into the Soul Lamp, lighting it and driving back the tentacles attacking the Blood Cloak.
• Lynn and the Blood Cloak entered St. Peter’s Central Square, where the lamplight drew a swarm of Children of the Sea that began weakening it.
• Lynn avoided fighting the Sea Spawn and used his Controller backdoor to send repeated connection requests to Messiah’s remote terminal.
• Lynn reached Sheng Luo, who told him the Flesh God Cult had destroyed the Magic Array and released pollution throughout the Vatican.
• Sheng Luo said she and others were trapped beneath St. Peter’s Church near the Underground Holy Temple, and she vowed to kill whoever had transformed the tentacles.

Lynn used the Soul Lamp and a grenade to test how the Old God reacted to attacks, then transformed the Sea Spawn with potions into cat-eared girls. He and Blood Cloak remained surrounded by the altered creatures, whose attacks weakened the lamp.

• Lynn told Messiah he had the Soul Lamp and Seraphim blood, then ended their call after she angrily accused him of being a pervert.
• Lynn threw a Machine Intelligence Grenade at the Sea Spawn, causing their numbers to multiply as the erosion marks revived them.
• Lynn poured his potions into the erosion marks, transforming the Sea Spawn into cat-eared girls.
• Blood Cloak questioned Lynn about his bizarre potions as the cat-eared girls attacked and weakened the Soul Lamp.
• Lynn grabbed a cat-eared girl by the scruff and gained happiness while the group remained surrounded.

Lynn and the Blood Cloak continued deeper into the underground sanctuary as his potion transformed the sea spawn into cat-eared girls. Messiah and the battered clergy faced a new assault by the weakened but disturbing cat-eared monsters, leaving Messiah fighting while wondering how Lynn had caused the change.

• Lynn delighted in the cat-eared girls surrounding him, then reassured the Blood Cloak that he would not use the potion on it and continued onward.
• Messiah and the surviving clerics held the last sanctuary beneath the Seraphim statue as its protective light weakened and corruption spread.
• A nun reported that the sea spawn had begun growing cat ears, and Messiah said the strange changes had weakened them enough to help the defenders.
• The sea spawn launched another assault, but the defenders were shocked to see packs of cat-eared girls charging from the darkness.
• Messiah warned the others that the cat-eared girls were still sea spawn and fought them as their bodies regenerated into more attackers.

Messiah and the clerics lost the Seraphim statue’s protection and were overwhelmed by monsters, but Lynn arrived with the Seraphim's Soul Lamp and purified the Great Hall. Messiah thanked and embraced him, while Zuo Zuo revealed that Lynn had timed his rescue from outside the door.

• Messiah fought off waves of monsters as the Seraphim statue cracked and the Light Curtain shrank.
• The statue broke, the Light Curtain went dark, and giant tentacles seized Messiah as the clerics and nuns faced the darkness.
• Lynn entered carrying the Seraphim's Soul Lamp and used the Matriarch's Tea Bag to dispel the Erosion Marks and destroy the corruption.
• Messiah recognized Lynn, thanked him, and embraced him after he joked that she should hold him.
• Zuo Zuo revealed that Lynn had waited outside and timed his entrance, so Lynn stunned Zuo Zuo to silence her.

Lynn rescued Messiah and the surviving Vatican clergy from the corruption, then learned how the Vatican fell and that the Flesh God Cult had entered the Hermitage to reach an evil god. The survivors had escaped with the warning after their Heavenly Lord activated the seven sacred statues and stayed behind to hold off the contamination.

• Lynn appeared before the surviving clergy, who thanked and praised him, but he warned them that the broken Soul Lamp would not protect them if the Sea Spawn returned.
• Lynn asked Messiah how the Vatican had become corrupted, and she explained that clergy had vanished while the Saints investigated the gate to the Hermitage.
• Messiah revealed that the Vatican had been under the Old Days' gaze for days, and that she and the other Saints had been contaminated while many priests became Sea Spawn.
• Messiah told Lynn that their Heavenly Lord had remained in the Sanctuary, surrounded by Sea Spawn and facing the Magic Array, and had confessed that he could not stop the Flesh God Cult from entering the Hermitage.
• Messiah explained that the Heavenly Lord used her blood to activate the seven sacred statues and sent the survivors to warn the outside world that the Flesh God Cult carried an artifact that shielded it from Sea Spawn contamination.

Lynn tried to restore the Seraphim Statue and the broken soul lamps so the group could explore deeper and find the Heavenly Lord. His power instead made the statue come alive and fly away, while the lamps became calamity-attracting relics, leaving Messiah attacked by tentacles.

• Lynn agreed to help the group find the contamination source and possibly rescue the Heavenly Lord, but Messiah warned that they lacked protection for the journey.
• Lynn used God's Equation on the Seraphim Statue and the soul lamps.
• The repaired Seraphim Statue gained the ability to move and flew out of the hall, while Lynn admitted he could not summon it back.
• Messiah picked up a repaired soul lamp, which released tentacles and caused her to lose sanity as the others tried to free her.
• Lynn inspected the lamps and discovered that his repairs had turned them into relics that attracted or created calamities.

Lynn turned Messiah into a flesh-candle lantern to replace the broken Soul Lamp, and the group used her holy light to escape underground and reach the Great Hall. They then spotted the Holy Angel Statue battling tentacles above the city, while Lynn led everyone toward the Vatican to take advantage of the distraction.

• Lynn revealed that his repaired Soul Lamp had developed strange properties, then turned Messiah into a living lantern as his backup plan.
• The group followed Messiah’s light through the underground passage and reached the surface, where tentacles attacked them.
• Lynn had everyone cluster around Messiah’s light as they crossed the erosion marks and left the Great Hall.
• The group saw the Holy Angel Statue fighting tentacles above the Temple, trapped inside an invisible barrier around the Holy City.
• Lynn ordered the group to sneak into the Vatican and steal their base while the Holy Angel Statue distracted the enemies.

Lynn sent the clerics and nuns out of the corrupted library before leading Messiah and Lady Blood Cloak to the Portal to the Hermitage. There, they encountered the Heavenly Lord of the Hidden Cultivation Society, Azephala, who knelt beside the passage into the hidden land.

• Lynn warned the clerics and nuns that the path ahead was too dangerous, then used his Warp Engine to send them outside.
• Lynn, Messiah, and Lady Blood Cloak descended to the library’s flooded lowest level and found the ancient gate to the Portal to the Hermitage.
• The gate opened by itself before Messiah could explain how to unlock it, and the Gaze of Cthulhu returned as the sky lantern’s light weakened.
• Lynn spotted a yellow-robed figure kneeling before the passage into the hidden land and identified her as the Heavenly Lord of the Hidden Cultivation Society.
• Lynn’s panel identified the figure as Azephala, the society’s oldest devout believer, who had guarded the Hermitage as darkness overcame her faith.

Lynn and Blood Cloak confronted the corrupted Heavenly Lord, who tried to expose them to Cthulhu’s gaze and turn Lynn into a sea spawn. Lynn used the Matriarch’s Tea Bag to suppress the gaze and charged into battle, where Cthulhu’s tentacles emerged to attack them.

• The Heavenly Lord told Lynn that he wanted Cthulhu awakened and invited him to become a sea spawn.
• Cthulhu’s gaze threatened to overwhelm Lynn and weaken Messiah’s lamplight, so Lynn burned a Matriarch’s Tea Bag to reset its intensity.
• Lynn gave Messiah his remaining bags and charged the Heavenly Lord with Blood Cloak.
• The Heavenly Lord sang a song that stirred the hall’s Erosion Marks and summoned two enormous tentacles from the abyss.
• Lynn dodged a tentacle and slashed it with holy-enchanted Monomolecular Swords, but its black blood began corroding his body.

Lynn fought the resurrecting Heavenly Lord, who revealed she was the First Apostle’s younger sister and declared that Cthulhu’s awakening could not be stopped. As Lynn fled with Lady Blood Cloak and Messiah, the Heavenly Lord’s tentacles withdrew and a wave of pollution engulfed the Vatican.

• Messiah burned the Matriarch's Tea Bag to reset Cthulhu’s attention, giving Lynn an opening to strike the figure in the Yellow Garment with his Monomolecular Sword.
• The Heavenly Lord regenerated from the scattered flesh, revealing herself as a young woman who resembled the First Apostle.
• The Heavenly Lord told Lynn that the First Apostle was her older brother and that she, her brother, and their father had founded the Hidden Cultivation Society two thousand years earlier.
• The Heavenly Lord unleashed a flood of Cthulhu’s tentacles, and Lynn grabbed Lady Blood Cloak and Messiah and fled through the roof into the sky.
• The Heavenly Lord made the tentacles withdraw, and darkness and pollution descended as Lynn’s erosion and sanity warnings rose.

Lynn endured the Old God's corruption by combining his power with Blood Cloak and using Self-Binding Angel's Holy Blood, then confronted Azephala and accused her of abandoning her faith. He provoked her with her brother's corpse, making her hatred flare as their conflict escalated.

• Lynn sent the fading Messiah into System Space and had Blood Cloak possess him to slow his loss of sanity.
• Lynn powered his frame with Self-Binding Angel's Holy Blood, purged the Erosion Marks, and drove back the darkness.
• Lynn transformed two Archangel feathers into burning blades and accused Azephala of abandoning her faith and siding with the Old God's corruption.
• Lynn taunted Azephala over her brother's death and revealed the corpse he had recovered from the Flesh Dominator.
• Azephala's hatred toward Lynn surged as he challenged her for failing to avenge her brother.

Lynn provoked Azephala into revealing that she still had human feelings, then used Remnants of the Past to uncover that she had unleashed the corruption herself. The chapter ended with her past actions exposed: she opened the gate to the forbidden grounds before the Flesh God Cult attacked.

• Lynn hurled Azephala's brother's corpse and attacked the tentacles, breaking through her darkness and returning to the plaza.
• Azephala saw the desecrated corpse, wept, and unleashed Cthulhu's tentacles against Lynn.
• Lynn fought into the great hall and taunted Azephala, arguing that her hatred and grief proved her humanity remained.
• Lynn activated Remnants of the Past, revealing that Azephala had opened the gate to the Hermitage's forbidden region after the First Apostle's death and before the Flesh God Cult attacked.
• The vision showed that Azephala had personally unleashed the corruption that had been suppressed for two thousand years.

Lynn confronted Azephala with the truth about her fall into dark faith and offered to reunite her with her brother if she joined forces against the Flesh God Cult. He left her with a choice: abandon her faith, ally with him, or keep opposing him.

• Lynn used Remnants of the Past to show Azephala how she had chosen dark faith after her brother died and had deceived herself about why she fell.
• Lynn told Azephala that her grief came from gaining the power she wanted while losing her brother and being unable to take revenge.
• Lynn brought out the First Apostle's restored corpse and offered to reunite Azephala with her brother if they killed the Flesh Dominator together.
• Lynn explained that Azephala's power depended on her dark faith and urged her to question whether the Old God had truly commanded her actions.
• Lynn offered Azephala the chance to abandon her dark faith, ally with him as an equal, or continue opposing him.

Lynn persuaded Azephala to consider an alliance against the Flesh God Cult by promising to resurrect her brother, though he could not guarantee the promise was true. Azephala accepted a trial arrangement in which she could attempt to corrupt Lynn after they defeated the cult, and Lynn received an Epic Faction Achievement and a level increase.

• Lynn argued that Azephala had no reason to serve the Flesh God Cult and offered to help resurrect her brother if they killed the Flesh Dominator.
• Azephala asked whether Lynn could truly resurrect her brother, and Lynn claimed that the Dark World had ways to restore even the dead.
• Azephala demanded that Lynn become her Sea Spawn, but Lynn refused and offered to let her try again after their alliance defeated the cult.
• Lynn shook Azephala's tentacle and declared them allies, and she eventually withdrew her tentacles instead of attacking him.
• Lynn triggered the Epic Faction Achievement Phased Abduction of the Sea Spawn and gained a level.

Lynn formed a pact with Azephala, bringing the Sea Spawn faction to neutral and triggering the quest to revive the First Apostle. Azephala revealed that she and the First Apostle were children of the Holy One, and began explaining how the Hidden Cultivation Society lost contact with its god.

• Lynn and Azephala concluded a pact, and the system announced the Sea Spawn faction was neutral and the quest Revive the First Apostle had begun.
• Messiah emerged from System Space and found Lynn and Azephala in an unexpectedly peaceful alliance.
• Lynn asked Azephala what had happened to the Seraphim and how the Flesh God Cult's elites entered the Hermitage.
• Azephala explained that she and the First Apostle were children of the Holy One, who founded the Hidden Cultivation Society to guard the Deep Sea seal.
• Azephala said the society eventually lost its god's revelations, the Hermitage's central region became inaccessible, and a new voice began whispering to them.

Azephala told Lynn and Messiah how the whispers in the Hermitage drove the Hidden Cultivation Society into bloodshed and revealed that she had secretly accepted their influence. She had taken the pollution into herself to spare her brother, then hid underground and became the masked Heavenly Lord.

• Azephala explained that an Apostle went mad from the whispers, killed his wife, two Apostles, and more than a hundred clergy, then took his own life, prompting the Hidden Cultivation Society to forbid entry to the Hermitage.
• Azephala said that the whispers eventually took on the seraphim's voice, leading her brother to kill the Apostles in the Hermitage who had accepted them.
• Azephala confessed that she had already doubted their faith, but concealed it from her brother because she feared he would kill himself if he learned the truth.
• Azephala entered the Hermitage and called for all its pollution to come to her, hoping to spare her brother from the whispers.
• Azephala's brother believed his faith had quieted the whispers, while she hid underground and endured her transformation into a being of the Deep Sea.
• Azephala cut away her tentacles and corrupted skin, then adopted a yellow robe and mask and became the Heavenly Lord.

Azephala revealed how her concealment of her faith and the Old Days led to her brother’s death and her own transformation. She explained that she had sought oblivion but instead survived as a Sea Spawn with her own will, becoming the voice of the Old Days.

• Azephala told Messiah that the Old Days’ unrest caused the Pacific tsunami that killed Messiah’s parents and helped the Flesh God Cult infiltrate the Hidden Cultivation Society.
• Azephala explained that her brother discovered her transformation into a Sea Spawn after the corruption she had suppressed overwhelmed her.
• Azephala said her brother later died after falling into the Flesh God Cult’s trap, though he could have summoned the Seraphim’s phantom and survived.
• Azephala revealed that she had accepted the Deep Sea’s faith and released the Hermitage’s corruption because she wanted to die.
• Azephala explained that the corruption transformed her into the only Sea Spawn with a will of her own, making her the voice of the Old Days.

Lynn discovered that an ancient torch had calmed Azephala’s god and explained that it represented the Old Days’ resistance against Hell Borderland. He told Azephala that awakening her god mattered because the deity was the only one to escape Hell, and the chapter left Lynn determined to move forward with the new era’s struggle.

• Azephala told Lynn she wanted to turn him into a Sea Spawn because she needed powerful servants for her god.
• Lynn asked how the Flesh God Cult had breached Azephala’s defenses, and she revealed they had carried an item that calmed her god.
• Lynn used Remnants of the Past to examine the Great Hall’s history and identified the item as the Blood Pact of the Old Days, a bone torch used in the ancient uprising against Hell Borderland.
• Lynn explained that Azephala’s god would not attack the torch’s holder because a torch had once led the Old Gods in their march against Hell.
• Azephala asked why everyone wanted to awaken her god, and Lynn said the deity’s knowledge was vital because he was the only one to escape Hell.

Lynn, Blood Cloak, and Messiah traveled with Azephala to the Deep Sea Hermitage to stop the Flesh God Cult before it awakened the Old Days deity. They reached the corrupted outer halls and began moving toward the Core Seal, while Lynn received a new quest reward.

• Lynn decided to enter the Hermitage with Blood Cloak and Messiah, and Azephala opened the ancient Portal for them.
• Azephala warned them to stay close as she sent them through the Abyss, and Lynn completed the quest Delve into the Vatican, gaining two levels and the Blood of Sanity.
• The group arrived at the Deep Sea Hermitage, where Messiah recognized the ruined hall and learned that her brother had intended to train her as a new Saint.
• Azephala explained that the Hermitage lay seventy-five thousand meters below the Pacific Ocean in a trench created by the Seraphim to suppress her god.
• Azephala led the group through the corrupted corridors toward the Core Seal, using her control over Cthulhu's tentacles to clear their path.
• Lynn inspected the Blood of Sanity potion he had received as a reward.

Lynn, Messiah, and Azephala reached the Core Zone of the Sealing Ground and discovered that the Apostles of previous generations were still alive but corrupted. They encountered Tidecaller Stia, who controlled Cthulhu's Tentacles and emerged with the Apostles fleeing before her.

• Lynn and the others viewed the Erosion-tainted sea, and Azephala said the marine life nearby served her god and could become an army.
• Azephala explained that her brother had offered retired Apostles a choice: preserve their faith and help reinforce the seal, or become fish food.
• Lynn, Messiah, and Azephala reached the Core Zone entrance and found it wrecked, with Erosion-covered corpses and signs that the Flesh God Cult had entered.
• A Cthulhu's Tentacle pierced a white-haired cleric, and Lynn concealed himself and the three women with Ghost Mode as clerics rushed out.
• Messiah recognized the fleeing clerics as Apostles of previous generations, now contaminated by corruption.
• Tidecaller Stia emerged, boasted that Cthulhu would awaken and destroy the world, and revealed her ability to control Cthulhu's Legacy.