Arc 8Chapters 176–200
No recap yet.
No recap yet.
Bronya learned that the Underworld suffered from Fragmentum attacks and shortages while its people blamed the Upper District for abandoning them. She joined March 7th and Stelle to investigate, and Dan Heng returned with Sampo, who could explain why Wildfire had left Boulder Town.
Sampo explained that Underworld forces had gone to the Upper District, and Bronya hurried back to stop a clash. The group reached the Upper District, where the Silvermane Guards welcomed Bronya’s return.
Bronya rejected the nobles’ call for an assault and arrested them, preserving the peace between the Silvermane Guards and the Underworld’s Assault Team. She then went to Kliperburg to resume negotiations with the Assault Team’s leader, her mother Cocolia, while March 7th, Dan Heng, and Stelle served as intermediaries.
Chu Mu waited apart from Bronya while Natasha and Oleg negotiated with her over the Underworld’s demands. Bronya quickly agreed to reforms and cooperation on the Stellaron, then learned that her older brother was waiting to see her.
Chu Mu, Natasha, and Svarog watched Bronya negotiate in the Council Hall as Svarog played encrypted recordings of Chu Mu’s childhood sacrifices for Xiao Bu. The memories ended with Bronya denying that she had an older brother and asking who Chu Mu was.
Bronya learned that she had forgotten her childhood brother, Chu Mu, and resolved to face him before discovering he was in the holding cell confronting Cocolia. Cocolia taunted Chu Mu, blaming him for giving Bronya up and insisting her thirteen years of raising Bronya mattered more than their brief childhood bond.
Chu Mu confirmed that Cocolia had erased Bronya’s childhood memories and, despite his grief, refused to blame either her or Bronya. Bronya still could not remember him, but she chose to speak with Cocolia alone in hopes of learning what happened and recovering her memories.
Bronya confronted Cocolia about her lies and the harm she had caused, and Cocolia explained that she had followed the Stellaron’s promise to destroy Belobog and create a New World. Bronya rejected Cocolia’s claim that the plan was for her own good and condemned the deaths and lost memories it had caused.
Cocolia tried to make Bronya join the Stellaron’s New World, but Chu Mu intervened and offered himself as its vessel instead. The Stellaron took Chu Mu and Cocolia through a spatial rift, leaving Bronya alone as the others arrived.
Cocolia embraced the Stellaron’s power and remained convinced it would create a New World, though she was enraged that it had abandoned Bronya. In a dark dream, Chu Mu learned that the Stellaron had rescued him and knew some of his sealed memories, then proposed an alliance based on their shared history of destroying civilizations.
Chu Mu let the Stellaron believe it had taken control of his body, then revealed he had trapped its consciousness inside the puppet while hiding his own in the Red Sun. The Stellaron briefly regained control by overwhelming Chu Mu with memories, just as someone arrived at Everwinter Ridge.
Cocolia severed her alliance with the Stellaron’s consciousness and seized the Stellaron’s power, but Himeko’s orbital laser cut her off and left her transformed into a Fragmentum monster. Bronya and the others confronted her on the platform, and Cocolia refused to abandon her belief that the Stellaron would create a New World.
Cocolia summoned the Engine of Creation, but Himeko and Welt destroyed it with an aerial strike, allowing the group to attack her. Cocolia absorbed the Stellaron’s power and became the Mother of Deception, while Dan Heng explained that the Fragmentum consumed individual wills into a collective one.
Cocolia confronted the copied consciousnesses of Belobog’s past Supreme Guardians inside the Stellaron and chose to pursue its power rather than Preservation. Back on Everwinter Ridge, the Stellaron vanished into her hand and Cocolia appeared to return to normal, but the others remained wary.
Cocolia attacked the group after the Stellaron twisted her, and Stelle was swallowed by it before accepting the role of Belobog’s Savior and taking up the Flame Lance. Bronya confronted her mother, but Cocolia’s answer revealed that the Stellaron had given her the power of Destruction.
Welt suppressed Cocolia’s Stellaron-fueled power long enough for her to confess her crimes, reconcile with Bronya and Serval, and warn Belobog about the Stellaron before she vanished. The Stellaron’s original will then admitted it had taken over Chu Mu’s body, leaving the crew to decide how to deal with it.
The Stellaron Will offered to return Chu Mu’s body in exchange for its freedom, but Belobog’s people and the Astral Express Crew refused to treat Chu Mu as a research subject. Stelle then revealed that Chu Mu had a plan: he wanted her to kill him.
Stelle relayed Chu Mu’s farewell as he chose to destroy the Stellaron’s will rather than risk letting it overwhelm him. He comforted the Astral Express Crew and the people of the Underworld, then urged Bronya to face the future.
Stelle relayed Chu Mu’s guidance to Bronya, helping her accept her role as Belobog’s new Supreme Guardian and plan reforms. Bronya vowed to seek out Chu Mu’s old haunts until she remembered him, while Chu Mu prepared to say goodbye to March 7th.
Chu Mu helped March 7th and Bronya face their feelings about forgotten pasts before Stelle used the Flame Lance to destroy the Stellaron’s Puppet. As the Stellaron died, it found Chu Mu’s hidden consciousness and struck him with a chaotic flood of information, leaving his fate uncertain.
After the Stellaron Will was destroyed, Bronya and Seele grieved Chu Mu’s disappearance and remembered their past with him. Chu Mu regained consciousness in a void, spoke with Yaoshi, and pleaded for six months to return to Deep Blue Star, see his family, and receive a new body.
Belobog rebuilt its government after the Stellaron was sealed, with Bronya dismantling the nobles’ power and establishing a citizen-led deliberative body. The city began recovering as the Fragmentum vanished and the people prepared to reclaim lost areas, though the Eternal Freeze would thaw only gradually.
Bronya continued rebuilding Belobog while retracing Chu Mu’s routes through the Underworld and searching for her lost childhood memories. Seele encouraged her to become Supreme Guardian—or choose happiness instead—and led her toward the Orphanage, where they spotted a walking trash can.
Stelle told Seele and Bronya about Natasha’s investigation into Wah’s experimental medicine and the letters revealing his later repentance and work on a blizzard immunity formula. Bronya decided the drug should be tested before wider use, and the group arrived at the Rivet Town Orphanage, where the steps stirred memories for her.
Bronya visited the old Orphanage with Seele, where Natasha and Oleg had recreated the classroom from her childhood. A drawing and keepsake from her brother brought her memories rushing back, though what she remembered remained unrevealed.