Chapter Summaries

Shen Yu prepared Little Knight to enter an Abnormality’s mental world by disguising him with a Crimson Cloak, then asked Godseeker to take them to Wolf. They arrived at the cavern where Wolf waited and greeted Shen Yu.

• Shen Yu explained Cogito extraction to Grimm and learned that envisioning the Troupe could create a channel across the barrier.
• Grimm advised Shen Yu to disguise Little Knight with an Abnormality’s outer shell, so Shen Yu cut and shaped part of his Crimson Scar armor into a child-sized red cloak.
• Grimm warned that Little Knight’s ancient power could destroy the cloak, so Shen Yu planned to have him rely on his Nail rather than cast spells.
• Shen Yu, Little Knight, and the Grimm Hatchling returned to the Void, where Godseeker objected to Little Knight wearing the cloak before agreeing to transport them to Wolf.
• Shen Yu and the others appeared beside an azure lake, and Wolf turned to greet Shen Yu and his new companion.

Shen Yu endured the fifty-year solitude imposed by Lonesome, using meditation to preserve his mind and emerging with greatly heightened Prudence. After testing his new Linked Will ability, he received a letter from Angela and discovered a second envelope addressed to her.

• Quirrel thanked Shen Yu for letting him see the lake again and offered his Nail to the Little Knight, but Shen Yu urged him to wait for a new world.
• Back in reality, Shen Yu was trapped in the Old Lady’s room by Lonesome’s midnight price and spent what felt like fifty years alone, eventually calming his mind through meditation.
• Shen Yu returned to his dorm room with the Little Knight and found that his Prudence had risen to EX and his Sanity to 100 out of 300.
• Shen Yu activated Linked Will and found he could connect to the Little Knight and his Doppelganger, X, while controlling his original body and sharing their perspectives.
• Angela entered the office and gave X a letter; when he opened it, he found a second envelope addressed to Angela.

X used the code hidden in A’s letter to unlock additional departments, including Research and Development, while Shen Yu traveled there to obtain Cogito. He encountered Binah and answered her riddling questions plainly.

• Angela took an extra letter addressed to her and left to investigate who had sent it.
• X found the command "rootAuthority = true;" hidden in A’s letter and entered it into the computer.
• The system restarted with nine departments unlocked, and X discovered that he still could not access the Script.
• X opened the route to Research and Development and headed there to obtain Cogito.
• Shen Yu entered the department and met Binah, who asked why he had come.
• Shen Yu told Binah that he was there to get Cogito.

Shen Yu collected Cogito from Binah and witnessed a failed Abnormality extraction that destroyed the test subject. After apologizing to One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds, he left unaware that Old Skull and Conquest discussed why he had not received the Crown.

• Binah showed Shen Yu the Cogito warehouse and questioned his Grade 9 Fixer background after noticing his powerful mind and the Defender's Crest.
• Shen Yu stayed to watch Binah inject Cogito into Nameless, whose body and mind disintegrated during the extraction.
• Binah suspected Shen Yu might be inhuman and noted that he could equip multiple types of E.G.O., but Shen Yu declined her invitation to transfer departments.
• Shen Yu apologized to One Sin and Hundreds of Good Deeds for Little Knight's attack and received a good work result, but Old Skull gave him no accessory.
• After Shen Yu left, Old Skull asked Conquest why he had not given Shen Yu the Crown, and Conquest explained that the lost lambs could not bear its power.

Shen Yu entered Little Red Riding Hood’s mental world and injected himself with grade-three Cogito, using his memories of Quirrel to stabilize the process. He succeeded in bringing Quirrel into the world, though his attempt to address Little Red Riding Hood’s mental issues remained unfinished.

• Shen Yu read the Cogito instructions and decided to test the injection in Little Red Riding Hood’s mental world.
• Shen Yu used Little Knight’s Dream Nail to enter Little Red Riding Hood’s mind and witnessed scenes of a bloody past involving a wolf and the girl.
• Shen Yu injected grade-three Cogito in the desolate mental landscape, and chaotic visions began to drag his consciousness toward the Abyss.
• Shen Yu focused on Quirrel’s appearance and presence, forming a humanoid figure from the light that emerged within his mind.
• Quirrel materialized before Shen Yu, who welcomed him to the new world.

Shen Yu entered a drought-stricken village in search of Little Red Riding Hood and found her as a frail child living with her grandmother. After hearing how a hunter had supposedly killed the wolf, he noticed a strange wardrobe and offered to hunt the wolf for a discounted price.

• Shen Yu told Quirrel to stay hidden with Little Knight while he went into the village to look for Little Red Riding Hood.
• A starving villager pointed Shen Yu northeast, where he found a pale, sickly girl in a red cloak sharpening an axe.
• The girl led Shen Yu inside after her grandmother asked to hire him to hunt the wolf, though she insisted they had no money.
• The grandmother described how the wolf had swallowed her and Little Red Riding Hood before a hunter cut them free and killed it with stones.
• Shen Yu noticed a creaking wardrobe, tore firewood apart with his bare hands, and offered the family a discounted wolf hunt.

Shen Yu investigated the wolf’s attacks with Quirrel, Little Knight, and Little Red Riding Hood, then confronted the hunter when he returned without catching it. After Little Knight used the Dream Nail on the hunter, Shen Yu asked Little Red Riding Hood where the cemetery was.

• Shen Yu brought Quirrel and Little Knight to the Old Lady’s house, where they learned that the hunter would return at dusk and that the wolf had killed many villagers.
• Little Red Riding Hood followed Shen Yu with an axe, and Little Knight’s Dream Nail revealed her thought that she had to prove she was not a burden.
• Shen Yu examined the village’s grieving residents and heard Little Red Riding Hood describe how the wolf had killed several children and their relatives.
• At dusk, the hunter returned with little food and admitted that he had failed to catch the wolf, while villagers blamed Mia for her child’s death.
• Shen Yu offered to buy the hunter’s wolfskin, and Little Knight struck him with the Dream Nail before Shen Yu asked Little Red Riding Hood about the cemetery.

Shen Yu uncovered evidence that Hunter had impersonated Wolf and confronted him after Hunter ambushed him. At the cottage, Old Lady asked Little Red Riding Hood to call Hunter the next day, while a white claw reached through the door.

• Shen Yu and Quirrel dug up the bones and concluded that someone had smashed them with a blunt weapon, while Shen Yu suspected Hunter had disguised himself as Wolf and eaten people.
• Shen Yu and Quirrel found a dark, wolf-like figure near a ransacked house, and it claimed Hunter had forced it to act and had a gun.
• Hunter shot at Shen Yu and attacked him with an accomplice, but Shen Yu survived and crushed the accomplice's pitchfork tines to powder.
• Little Red Riding Hood cared for Old Lady, who asked her to call Hunter the next day so she could go see a doctor.
• Little Knight heard someone at the cottage door and drew their Nail as a white claw reached through the gap.

Shen Yu and his companions encountered the gray wolf as it tried to apologize, but it transformed into a giant blue monster after the villagers turned on it. Shen Yu entered the ravaged village to confront the wolf, which lunged at him.

• Hunter admitted that there was only one wolf and said it could not die, even if it was killed and skinned.
• The gray wolf brought apples to Little Red Riding Hood's house to apologize, but Little Knight attacked it and drove it away.
• The gray wolf reached the village, where the villagers surrounded it and began plotting to butcher it for meat.
• The villagers' greed and the gray wolf's resolve triggered its transformation into a giant blue wolf, which killed villagers beneath a blue moon.
• Shen Yu and his companions returned to the village and found bodies and frightened survivors as the giant wolf turned toward Shen Yu and lunged at him.

Shen Yu, Quirrel, and Little Knight fought the giant wolf, using the Dream Nail to uncover its thoughts and exploit the moments when its black mist faded. As the moon turned red and the wolf began summoning desire-born wolves, Shen Yu faced an escalating threat whose limits remained unclear.

• Shen Yu and his companions attacked the wolf, but it unleashed black mist that made their strikes pass through it and inflicted Sanity loss with its howl.
• Little Knight used the Dream Nail to reveal the wolf’s thoughts about being made into an embodiment of sin, and Shen Yu froze it so the others could land their attacks.
• Shen Yu and Quirrel timed their assault for the mist’s disappearance, splitting the wolf’s body, but the two halves kept fighting independently.
• Hank watched in terror as Little Red Riding Hood dragged him into a house and warned him to stay quiet.
• The wolf’s halves rejoined beneath a blood-red moon, and Little Knight’s Dream Nail revealed that it could summon wolves formed from people’s desires and sins.