Chapter Summaries

Ling An, Tide Sis, and Changli reached Mt. Firmament and learned that its time-flow barrier had fallen into turmoil. After Ling An tested the Time-Reversal Instrument and caused it to break, Tide Sis attacked him, and Sorrowful Cry rescued him while Changli wondered how he had gained control over other Tacet Discords.

• Changli explained that Mt. Firmament's time flowed differently from the outside world and had become unstable.
• The group arrived at Mt. Firmament, where Changli identified a Jiting Time-Reversal Instrument that could restore the broken bridge.
• Ling An flew across the bridge and asked Tide Sis to use the instrument to rewind him.
• The instrument failed to affect Ling An and broke, leaving Tide Sis covered in soot.
• Tide Sis attacked Ling An, but Sorrowful Cry carried him into the sky as Changli watched in surprise.

Ling An stayed behind to confront the Fractsidus while Tide Sis and Changli headed toward Rainbow Town to find Jinhsi. As Ling An unleashed his Tacet Discord allies on the thugs, Tide Sis assured Changli that the destruction was normal for him—and that he was still holding back.

• Changli led Ling An and Tide Sis through the Insulating Light Curtain into Mt. Firmament, where temporal turbulence threatened anyone who left the area.
• Changli sensed that the Fractsidus had imprisoned the Sentinel and that Jinhsi was in trouble, so Ling An stayed behind while Tide Sis and Changli followed Jinhsi's resonance traces toward Rainbow Town.
• Ling An swiftly defeated one Fractsidus Artificer and summoned the Bell-Ringing Turtle, Glacio Rider, and Sorrowful Cry couple to deal with the fleeing thugs.
• A tremendous tremor shook Mt. Firmament, and Tide Sis told Changli that Ling An's commotion was small compared with what he made when serious.

Changli and Tide Sis searched Rainbow Town for Jinhsi, but Ling An arrived and overwhelmed the Fractsidus Artificers. Tide Sis and Changli realized that Ling An’s recent change in temperament might be caused by the half of Dreamless’s authority he had seized.

• Changli and Tide Sis slipped past the Fractsidus guards and found Rainbow Town without any sign of Jinhsi or its native inhabitants.
• Changli planned to lure away the Fractsidus Artificers, but Ling An suddenly descended into Rainbow Town and pinned dozens of them to the ground.
• Ling An questioned the Artificers about the black-haired woman with golden eyes, killing two with Crimson Gold Flowing Flame when their answers displeased him.
• Tide Sis challenged Ling An about his litter-box attendant remark, and Changli learned that he had already dealt with the Fractsidus guards along the road.
• Tide Sis told Ling An that he seemed to have changed and used the royal “We”; Ling An connected the change to seizing half of Dreamless’s authority.
• Tide Sis explained that Dreamless represented war and that Ling An’s inability to balance its power could be influencing him, warning that every power came at a price.

Ling An learned that taking half of Dreamless's authority was turning him into a Threnodian, but Tide Sis and Changli suggested there might be a way to resist the change. After destroying the Fractsidus Artificers, the group entered a hidden chamber behind a waterfall and met Xinyi, whom Ling An recognized as Snow Woman.

• Ling An realized Dreamless's authority carried the responsibility of destroying civilization and feared he would become a Threnodian.
• Tide Sis reassured Ling An that she would help him, while Changli suggested Jiting's research on Mt. Firmament might offer a way to stop the transformation.
• Ling An incinerated the Fractsidus Artificers after they pretended to be deaf and called him Lord Half-Threnodian.
• Tide Sis found a mechanism behind a waterfall, and Changli identified the people inside as Rainbow Town's remaining residents.
• Ling An changed into his cat form and entered the hidden chamber with Tide Sis and Changli, where Xinyi introduced herself as Rainbow Town's overseer.
• Ling An recognized Xinyi and blurted out that she was Snow Woman.

Ling An, Changli, and Tide Sis learned that Jinhsi had gone to Knocking-Heaven Pass to retrieve the Core Heart needed to reach the trapped Sentinel. After Changli revealed that Ling An had cleared Rainbow Town of the Fractsidus, Ling An stayed behind to learn the location of the dangerous Tacet Discord Glory of Treading Light and pursue it for a reward.

• Xinyi told Changli and Ling An that Jinhsi had left for Knocking-Heaven Pass, where the Core Heart could unlock Sleeping Dragon Court and provide access to the trapped Sentinel.
• Changli explained that Ling An had already cleared the Fractsidus from Rainbow Town, and Xinyi thanked the group for their help.
• Xinyi warned that Glory of Treading Light, a tiger-like Tacet Discord stronger than Overlord-Class, guarded the area near Knocking-Heaven Pass.
• Tide Sis and Changli left for Knocking-Heaven Pass after Tide Sis told Ling An to meet them there later.
• Ling An asked Xinyi for Glory of Treading Light's location and learned Rainbow Town offered a bounty, then claimed he was curious about what she had looked like when young.

Ling An left Xinyi after she offered him a photograph and flew to confront Glory of Treading Light, whom he intended to subdue. He defeated the powerful Overlord-Class Tacet Discord with one punch and demanded that he submit or die.

• Xinyi agreed to give Ling An a photograph from her youth while keeping their payment arrangement unchanged.
• Ling An reflected on his companions, his dangerous connection to Threnodian authority, and the photographs he kept as records of his life.
• Ling An flew to Glory of Treading Light's territory and found the Tacet Discord sleeping beside a creek.
• Glory of Treading Light attacked Ling An after he declared the Gourd would be his new home.
• Ling An struck Glory of Treading Light into the mud and ordered him to submit or die.

Tide Sis and Changli reached the sealed entrance to Knocking-Heaven Pass and activated the Time-Reversal Instrument, while Ling An defeated and captured the Glory of Treading Light. Ling An returned to Rainbow Town and told a stunned Xinyi that he had made the Glory his underling, then invited everyone to a snowy hot spring.

• Tide Sis and Changli discussed the Sentinel and the dangers of retrieving the Core Heart before Tide Sis activated the Time-Reversal Instrument.
• Ling An summoned four Tacet Discords to help him beat the Glory of Treading Light, then captured it in his Gourd.
• Ling An flew to Rainbow Town after wondering whether Knocking-Heaven Pass might contain information about his body.
• Xinyi assumed Ling An had returned because the Glory of Treading Light was too powerful, but Ling An claimed he had defeated it and made it his underling.
• Ling An told Xinyi about a hot spring on Mt. Firmament and suggested they visit it together.

Ling An produced the Glory of Treading Light as proof that he had defeated it, shocking Xinyi and the soldiers in the chamber. He subdued the Tacet Discord and made it give a strange meow, leaving Xinyi wondering whether Ling An was the Sentinel in disguise.

• Ling An summoned the Glory of Treading Light into the chamber, and the startled soldiers mistook its arrival for an attack.
• Xinyi asked Ling An to move the beast away, and he climbed onto its back and slapped its forehead until it bowed its head.
• Ling An scolded the Glory of Treading Light and threatened to rebuild it missing a limb if it refused to obey.
• Ling An ordered the Glory of Treading Light to meow, and it made an awkward sound that amused the gathered soldiers.
• Xinyi watched Ling An control the Tacet Discord and wondered whether he was the Sentinel in disguise.

Ling An discovered that Xinyi's photograph showed someone who closely resembled Snow Woman, then went to confront the Fractsidus Society Overseer at Sleeping Dragon Court. At Knocking-Heaven Pass, Jinhsi insisted she alone should attempt the second resonance to save Mt. Firmament, while Ling An's encounter with the Overseer ended with her summoning Tacet Discords and Fractsidus Artificers.

• Xinyi gave Ling An an aged photograph, and he was startled by its resemblance to Snow Woman.
• Ling An learned that the Fractsidus Society Overseer on Mt. Firmament was a pale-cyan-haired woman and headed toward Sleeping Dragon Court to find her.
• Changli explained that Jiting's second resonance research might restore the Sentinel's temporal power and resolve Mt. Firmament's time-flow barrier.
• Jinhsi arrived injured and insisted that, as the Sentinel's only Resonator, she had to undergo the second resonance despite the risk of overclocking.
• Ling An found the Fractsidus Society Overseer, asked whether she knew Scar, and watched her summon Tacet Discords and red-clad Fractsidus Artificers.

Ling An disrupted Phrolova’s plan to contain the Sentinel on Mt. Firmament, overwhelming her forces as the Sleeping Dragon Court opened. He reached the court before Jinhsi and the others, where the Sentinel appeared and mistook him for a Threnodian.

• Ling An recognized Phrolova as the woman who had protected Scar in Qichi Village, then summoned Glory of Treading Light to fight her forces.
• Phrolova unleashed a surge of Tacet Discords and retreated toward the Sleeping Dragon Court as Ling An’s underlings routed her army.
• Tide Sis, Changli, and Jinhsi delivered the Core Heart to Xinyi, who opened the Sleeping Dragon Court.
• Ling An reached the court first and saw the Sentinel appear as a colossal Jiaolong beyond the transparent veil.
• The Sentinel looked at Ling An and asked if he was a Threnodian.

Ling An confronted the Sentinel in Sleeping Dragon Court after learning it could not restore the flow of time on Mt. Firmament, then challenged it to fight in Jinhsi’s place. Their battle tore open the mountain, and Ling An emerged at its summit demanding to know whether the Sentinel had seen his Crown.

• The Sentinel sensed that Ling An was an anomalous Threnodian and refused to reveal how Mt. Firmament’s time flow could be restored.
• Ling An declared that he would fight the Sentinel in place of Jinhsi, and the Sentinel accepted his challenge.
• Ling An unleashed his full strength and struck the Sentinel with a spear, breaking through Sleeping Dragon Court’s ceiling.
• Tide Sis, Changli, and Jinhsi sensed the battle and rushed toward Sleeping Dragon Court.
• Ling An and the Sentinel’s clash blasted apart the mountaintop, and Ling An landed at its summit and asked whether the Sentinel had seen his Crown.

Ling An fought Jué above Mt. Firmament while Jinhsi and the others searched for a way to stop them. Jué unleashed his remaining temporal power to seal Mt. Firmament and all of Jinzhou in eternal stasis, leaving Ling An caught in its spreading wave.

• Jinhsi urged Tide Sis and Changli to stop Ling An and Jué, fearing their battle would worsen Mt. Firmament’s crisis.
• Ling An traded blows with the injured Jué, enduring the Sentinel’s spectro lightning and powerful sword strikes.
• Jué decided to expend his remaining temporal power to seal Mt. Firmament and Jinzhou after concluding the temporal crisis could not be resolved.
• Jué coiled into an infinity symbol and released temporal stasis, freezing Ling An, the snow, and everything in its path.
• Jué declared that Jinzhou would fall into eternal stasis and said, “Let it all end.”

As the Sentinel's stasis spread across Mt. Firmament, Jinhsi struggled to protect herself, Changli, and Rover while Ling An resisted the Sentinel and summoned his subjects. Millions of Tacet Discords across Jinzhou marched toward Mt. Firmament, but the Sentinel declared that their arrival would change nothing.

• The Sentinel's stasis swept over Mt. Firmament, and Jinhsi used her Resonance Ability to shield herself, Changli, and Rover.
• Changli urged Jinhsi to give up, but Tide Sis saw Ling An still resisting the Sentinel's power.
• Ling An called, “My subjects, step forward!” and his summons echoed across Jinzhou.
• Baizhi discovered that Tacet Discords across Jinzhou were all heading toward Mt. Firmament.
• Tacet Discords of many types and ranks gathered on the mountain and advanced against the spreading stasis.
• The Sentinel told Ling An that the Tacet Discords were destined for stasis and could not change the outcome.

Ling An absorbed the frequencies of countless Tacet Discords, broke free of the Sentinel’s stasis, and launched a renewed attack in Crownless form. The Sentinel invoked its reversion authority to destroy him, leaving him on the brink of death.

• Ling An declared that frequency and will could escape eternal stasis, and the trapped Tacet Discords shattered into streams of frequency that reached him.
• Ling An absorbed the incoming frequencies, broke free of stasis, and claimed his identity as Crownless and master of the frequencies.
• The Sentinel warned Ling An about reversion power and resolved to kill him, fearing the danger he could pose to civilization.
• Ling An attacked the Sentinel with the power of countless frequencies while the Sentinel slowed him with stasis and fought back with a colossal sword of light.
• Changli explained that Jinhsi needed to complete a second resonance with the Sentinel to save Jinzhou, but the battle left no opening to intervene.
• The Sentinel invoked its reversion authority against Ling An, and Tide Sis sensed that he was only a hair’s breadth from death.

The Sentinel used its power of reversal on Ling An after deciding that the Threnodian’s influence threatened Jinzhou, disrupting its prophecy for Jinhsi. Tide Sis rejected the Sentinel’s judgment and leaped toward Ling An, determined to share the reversal and save him.

• The Sentinel explained that Ling An’s arrival had disrupted the prophecy in which Jinhsi would inherit its temporal power and resolve Jinzhou’s temporal turbulence.
• Tide Sis told the Sentinel that she believed Ling An would remain himself and insisted she would take responsibility for him.
• The Sentinel refused Tide Sis’s requests for a second resonance or another way to use restoration power to save Ling An.
• Tide Sis leaped toward Ling An to bear the power of reversal alongside him, as the frequencies sustaining his form began to disperse.

Ling An faced the Sentinel’s temporal power as the dead’s memories revealed that Jinhsi had died as an infant and her frequency had become part of him. With Tide Sis’s consent, Ling An began a second resonance that could let him inherit and counter the Sentinel’s power.

• As Ling An’s consciousness faded beneath the Sentinel’s temporal power, the memories of the dead showed him a mother dying while protecting her white-haired infant.
• The infant’s cry reached Mt. Firmament, and the Sentinel’s memory revealed that it had found the child and named her Xi.
• Ling An’s second resonance began, and Jinhsi recognized her own frequency within him and realized she had died as an infant.
• Ling An endured the Sentinel’s temporal power as it merged with his body, while Changli explained that the destined one’s command was required for the second resonance to succeed.
• Tide Sis looked toward Ling An and gave her consent.

Ling An and Jinhsi underwent a second Resonance as the Sentinel diverted some of its temporal power to her, leaving Ling An with most of the power and Jinhsi unconscious. Changli suggested Jinhsi could use restoration power to remove Mt. Firmament’s Time-Flow Barrier, but Ling An refused.

• The Sentinel redirected part of Ling An’s temporal power to Jinhsi, who entered Overclocking and completed a second Resonance.
• Jinhsi collapsed into Changli’s arms after inheriting temporal power, while Ling An emerged in a new form with most of the Sentinel’s power.
• Ling An explained that he had allowed the Sentinel to divert power so he would not inherit the full responsibility of protecting Jinzhou.
• Changli reasoned that Jinhsi could use restoration power to remove Mt. Firmament’s Time-Flow Barrier once she recovered.
• Ling An told the Sentinel, “But I refuse!”

Ling An challenged the weakened Sentinel after gaining control of its temporal power and overwhelmed it with stasis, driving it into the Sleeping Dragon Court. Xinyi arrived and ordered the area sealed off, believing the Sentinel had been attacked.

• Changli worried that Ling An intended to continue fighting, but Tide Sis trusted him to know when to stop.
• Ling An told the Sentinel their battle was not over and used stasis to freeze its barrage of diffraction lightning.
• The Sentinel attacked with its Light Sword, but Ling An stopped the falling lightning and trapped it in a domain of stasis.
• Ling An struck the Sentinel repeatedly and drove it into the Sleeping Dragon Court.
• Xinyi arrived with soldiers, saw the Sentinel fall, and ordered them to seal off the entire area.

Ling An reassured the Sentinel that Jinzhou could withstand Dreamless after he took half of its authority and Jinhsi inherited the Temporal Power. The Sentinel revealed that Tide Sis had founded Jinzhou long ago, leaving Tide Sis and Changli shocked by the truth of her past.

• Ling An told the Sentinel that Mt. Firmament's temporal flow had been fixed and that Dreamless had been crippled because he took half of its authority.
• Ling An said he intended to take Dreamless's remaining authority and trusted the woman who had promised to take responsibility for him; the Sentinel identified her as Lady Arbiter.
• The Sentinel revealed that Lady Arbiter had founded Jinzhou long ago, and Ling An realized Tide Sis was far more powerful than he had imagined.
• The Sentinel left the Sleeping Dragon Court and asked Tide Sis how Ling An was; she then asked about the Sentinel's injuries.
• The Sentinel explained Tide Sis's former identity to her and Changli, revealing that the guardian deity had once been a little dragon at her side.

Jinhsi inherited the Sentinel’s temporal power, ended the time stream over Mt. Firmament, and received the Sentinel’s authority. After the others left to deal with the remaining Fractsidus forces, Tide Sis confronted Ling An about a mysterious photo.

• Jinhsi woke and reassured the Sentinel before declaring that she would end the time stream.
• Jinhsi used her temporal power to dissolve the time-flow barrier above Mt. Firmament, then collapsed from exhaustion.
• The Sentinel caught Jinhsi, announced that she had inherited its power, and entrusted its authority to her.
• Xinyi recognized Ling An and nearly mentioned a photo, making him panic; Changli and Xinyi then left to eliminate the remaining Fractsidus forces.
• Tide Sis praised Ling An’s new form, and he offered to transform for her; she asked what the photo was.