Recaps

Golas escaped the Evil God's corruption and confronted Wade, while Joey encountered 0-013 and learned how Leila's plan had set Senegal's coup and the opening of the Gate of the Abyss in motion. The chapter left Wade and Golas fighting as Joey learned that Leila had sacrificed herself to carry out her final Decree.

• Golas used Wade's safeguards to regain a youthful body and break free of the Evil God's influence.
• Wade confronted his former student Golas over his cruel experiments and the damage they had caused, and the two Demigods began fighting in earnest.
• Joey found 0-013, who explained that he was free after fulfilling his contract with Leila and was still bound to carry out her final Decree.
• 0-013 revealed that Leila had planned the coup and the Gate of the Abyss to create enough sacrifices to open a passage out of the Forsaken Land of the Gods.
• Joey learned that Leila had chosen death rather than betray her family or Wade, and that her scheme had been shaped by an ancient prophecy about someone with black hair and black eyes.

Joey encountered Maimaiti, who confirmed that the Gate of the Abyss could be opened, but he soon forgot why he had returned to the battle. Wade killed Golas and, with Wayne, opened a door that sent Joey to his old home, where Tony’s journal revealed the truth about his father and an escape route to another world.

• Maimaiti explained that a Transcendent’s strength depended on more than sequence, confirmed the Gate of the Abyss could be opened, and then vanished.
• Joey rushed back to the battle to stop Wade from killing Golas, but forgot his purpose as soon as he arrived.
• Wade killed Golas, collected his Demigod beyonder characteristic, and told Wayne to begin; Wayne spilled his blood to summon an illusory door.
• The door pulled Joey away, and he recognized that Wayne was his father, Tony Crevi, as Wayne said goodbye.
• Joey found Tony’s journal in the restored basement of their old home and learned Tony’s identity, his connection to Leila, and the Bronze Gate escape route Tony had prepared for him.

Wade tried to use 0-013 and the Gate of the Abyss to reach Leila, but an Angel named Maimaiti arrived as the gate opened. Joey returned to the Main City, found Alisa leading a fleeing group, and learned that Beckett was badly wounded.

• Wayne invoked 0-09 while Wade praised Leila's plan to open the Gate of the Abyss with sacrifices and use 0-013 to find the beacon.
• Wade seized 0-013 and prayed for a road to death, but he and Wayne lost their memories briefly before Maimaiti appeared and greeted the trembling Gate of the Abyss.
• Joey learned the Divine Maiden Army had been defeated and hunted, recognized Alisa's seeds as the likely source of its food, and set out to find her.
• Joey found Alisa in a dilapidated building, embraced her, and learned that Beckett had been struck in the chest by an arrow.
• Joey took Alisa to Beckett's hideout, sent her away to speak privately with Beckett, and traded sharp remarks with the wounded man.

Joey learned that Beckett’s army had been betrayed and fled with Alisa, the eldest princess of the Senegal Empire, while uncovering why Michelet Winter wanted her dead. After Beckett betrayed them and was killed, the soldiers recognized Alisa and escorted her as the eldest princess.

• Beckett told Joey that the Second Prince had turned against his civilian army, and Joey took Alisa away from the camp.
• Joey and Alisa watched Beckett’s army flee, and Joey explained that Michelet Winter sought to kill Alisa because her agricultural technology threatened the nobles’ power.
• Cavalry surrounded Joey and Alisa, and Beckett revealed that he had led the soldiers to them before accusing Alisa of making him feel ugly.
• A red-armored soldier stabbed Beckett, and Joey suspected the Color Out of Space had worsened Beckett’s bitterness and rage.
• The red-armored man addressed Alisa as the eldest princess and respectfully showed her the way.

Joey tried to help Alisa escape execution, but Michelit captured them and had Alisa executed before the crowd. Charles arrived with the Ironclad Army just as Michelit was about to kill Joey, and challenged him to kneel.

• Joey used his luck-transfer ability to help Alisa slip into the crowd, but Michelit caught her and knocked Joey down when he tried to intervene.
• Michelit had Joey and Alisa dragged to the Gallows Platform and accused Alisa of causing the Empire's upheaval.
• The crowd pelted Joey with stones and debris as he pleaded for Alisa, who told him to keep living before the execution blade fell.
• Michelit burned Alisa's body and head to ashes, then approached Joey to execute him as well.
• Charles arrived with the Ironclad Army and demanded that Michelit kneel before the prince, warning him against rebellion.

Emperor Eng’s sudden death reignited the war, which Michelit won before claiming the throne. Joey escaped the Death Prison and discovered a hidden sunflower field and cottage that suggested its owner was from Huaxia, while Michelit confronted Maimaiti and others as the Phantom Gate began opening.

• Emperor Eng appeared before the crowd, declared his support for the Ancient Sun God, then died after coughing up blood, and Michelit blamed Charles for poisoning him.
• Michelit defeated Charles’s forces, took the throne, and decreed that the cultivation method for the “Hope” seeds would be made public.
• Joey used a page from the Gray Fog Space to find a route out of the Death Prison, dug through the ground, and discovered a life-giving tree surrounded by sunflowers.
• Joey found Huaxia calligraphy in a cottage, grew convinced that its owner might be a fellow countryman, and left the sunflower field without disturbing it.
• Michelit arrived at Earl Aaron’s Estate, revealed his metallic body, and met Maimaiti, who watched the Phantom Gate widen and reach into the void.

Joey returned from the World Inside the Door after losing his humanity, then reunited with Katrin and confronted Michelit, who recognized him and demanded information about the woman who opened the Gate of the Abyss. Joey identified her as Nur Maimaiti Plato, the God of Mischief, leaving Michelit shaken and Katrin asking whether She had not been dead.

• Maimaiti hurled a gigantic mythical creature into the Gate of the Abyss, whose suction swept Joey and others into darkness and unleashed the dead, Night Demons, and beasts.
• Joey wandered through the World Inside the Door for an unknown length of time, losing his memories and becoming beastlike before finding a way back to Senegal.
• Katrin and Michelit found Joey, and Michelit questioned him about a beautiful blond woman with gold-rimmed glasses; Joey realized Michelit had killed Alisa and secretly wanted revenge.
• Michelit exposed Joey's identity, injured him, and agreed to swear in the Winter Family's name not to attack him after Joey refused to answer without protection.
• Katrin explained that the Empire's Sealed Artifact could wield power comparable to an Archangel's and that three Saints were cultivated to restrain one another during each imperial succession.
• Joey revealed that the woman was Nur Maimaiti Plato, the God of Mischief, and Michelit reacted in shock as Katrin asked whether She had not been dead.

After Michelit attacked Joey, Katrin took the blow and died after revealing how she had longed to escape the Winter Family’s expectations. At the Gate of the Abyss, Wade’s advancement was interrupted by Michelit, Wayne fled through the gate, and Maimaiti noticed that her brother was missing as someone emerged from a nearby house.

• Michelit launched a surprise attack on Joey, and Katrin shielded him, suffering a fatal wound.
• Katrin learned that Old Tony was alive, spoke about the life she had been forced to lead, and died in Joey’s arms.
• Joey used Church solution to destroy Katrin’s corpse and stared silently at the Color Out of Space.
• At the Gate of the Abyss, Wade began an advancement ritual to retrieve Leila’s soul, but Michelit struck him and halted his growth.
• Wayne used 0-013’s Decree to suppress Wade’s mutation, then escaped through the Gate of the Abyss while Michelit and Wade fought.
• Maimaiti watched the battle and wondered where her brother was as a figure emerged from a nearby house.

Aya Yvon returned to the ruined Main City and confronted Maimaiti, Joey, and the others while explaining the Sun God’s fall and the corruption that drove the angels into hiding. After Maimaiti suggested the prophecy came from something beneath the ground, Yvon ended the discussion by announcing that he intended to kill everyone.

• Aya Yvon appeared in the ruined streets, trapped Michelit in a repeating loop with Universal Light, and caused Joey to return to Earl Aaron's Estate through 0-013.
• Yvon asked Maimaiti about a fish in the Black Sea, and she confronted him as the Defiler who had betrayed their father.
• Yvon calmed Wayne’s agitation and revealed that Sequence 0 of the Defiler was called the Sun, declaring that he meant to open the Star Gate and bring back the Ancient Sun God.
• Maimaiti and Yvon explained that the Outer Deity’s corruption drove them to flee, and that a being awakened underground split the Azure Sea and turned the region into the Forsaken Land of the Gods.
• Joey asked who had revealed the prophecy, and Maimaiti indicated that it came from beneath the ground.
• Yvon clapped and told everyone that he wanted them to die.

Yvon completed his Sequence 1 advancement ritual while Maimaiti disrupted it, and Joey summoned the Light Thief of the Universe's Dark Side to break their control. Wayne sacrificed himself to strengthen the summoning, and Michelit and Wade transformed as the battle surged toward a desperate confrontation.

• Yvon's ritual aged and killed people around him as 0-013 announced his advancement, while Maimaiti failed to claim her Uniqueness and fought to disrupt the ritual.
• Yvon and Maimaiti's powers threw time and space into chaos, and 0-013 forced Joey, Wade, and the others to run toward the combatants.
• Joey invoked the Light Thief of the Universe's Dark Side, drawing black filth from the ground and halting Yvon and Maimaiti's attacks.
• Wayne sacrificed himself in a summoning ritual, and his death strengthened the growing black sphere after Joey tearfully called him Dad.
• Michelit remembered his purpose and transformed into a blazing sun, Wade became a Dark Moon Demon Wolf, and a voice called the Wolf Soldiers as Night Demons charged into battle.

Wade and Maimaiti battled the descended Defiler while Yvon faced Color Out of Space, and Joey struggled against a supernatural mutation. After a prophecy invoked Mother Earth, the ground began shaking and the vegetation grew at an unnatural speed.

• Wade fused the Beyonder Characteristics of Golas and Michelit, became an Angel, and attacked Yvon as the Defiler gathered strength.
• The Defiler descended, shattered Yvon’s universal light, and began drawing Joey into a transformation by calling him “my child.”
• Yvon escaped the Defiler on a dragon he painted, but the Defiler pursued him and devoured the dragon.
• Maimaiti rode Wade into battle against the Defiler, while Yvon fought Color Out of Space and the Night Demons rampaged through the battlefield.
• Joey noticed that the Gate of the Abyss had vanished, then heard a prophecy to Mother Earth as gray mist spread around him.
• The earth began to tremble, buildings collapsed, and plants rapidly grew to towering heights.

Alisa appeared in the Forsaken Land of the Gods and took control of the battle, leaving Joey to suspect that the Color Out of Space lay at the center of events. Joey sent a message through the Round Table Hall, while Helena and Clyde received a warning that Abundance would return and began considering what the Goddess of Harvest’s return might mean.

• Alisa emerged as the Bronze Bell tolled, transformed the battlefield with a flourishing forest, and began identifying those present.
• Yvon used 0-013 to redirect the Defiler’s hunger toward Maimaiti and tried to escape with the Color Out of Space, while Alisa’s vines and the Gate of the Abyss constrained the others.
• Joey suspected that someone had deliberately arranged his appearances at crucial moments, slipped away from the battle, and sent a message through the Round Table Hall seeking information about the Color Out of Space.
• Helena and Clyde heard Mr. Hermit warn that Abundance would return and that they should gather information about her.
• Clyde considered how the return of the Goddess of Harvest could reshape the churches and the system established by the Seven Gods, while Helena resolved to gather information for Mr. Hermit.

Joey learned that Alisa had orchestrated events to open a passage from the Forsaken Land of the Gods, and that he had unknowingly become the catalyst for her plan. As the land was drawn toward the stars, he and Alisa spoke of their shared homeland, and Joey told her that Huaxia had won the war.

• Joey deduced that the Color Out of Space and the Gate of the Abyss had helped bring back the Goddess of Life, while Alisa defeated Yvon and Maimaiti and sent them into the Color Out of Space and the Gate of the Abyss.
• Alisa revealed that she had worked with the Sage Tree to use the two Angels and the Defiler to complete the Color Out of Space and open a passage to the stars.
• Alisa explained that she had secretly shaped events, erased people's memories, and awaited Joey, whose arrival set the stalled plan in motion.
• As the Sage Tree's roots pulled the land toward the Starry Sky Gate, Joey asked Alisa what year she had crossed over and learned that she had left Huaxia during a war.
• Joey told Alisa that Huaxia had won, described its strength and prosperity, and reassured her that her homeland still bore its name.

Alisa explained that she had separated her emotions from herself and had allowed the revolution to unfold, then used the Gate of the Abyss to lead Senegal’s survivors out of the Forsaken Land of the Gods. Joey was left behind, but Wade rescued him and sent him through a doorway to safety at the cost of his own life.

• Alisa told Joey that her emotional counterpart had died saving him and that she had let the conflict grow to gather energy for the Color Out of Space.
• Alisa opened the Gate of the Abyss and sent Senegal’s remaining people through it, then gave Joey a bugle before departing; Joey saluted her and played a farewell call as the land collapsed around him.
• Wade found Joey in the darkness and carried him to a doorway Wayne had left as a contingency, purifying the Defiler’s influence with his holy light.
• Wade pushed Joey through the doorway and stayed behind, while Golas and Michelit briefly spoke with him before disappearing.
• Wade fell as his holy light faded, and he imagined reuniting with Leila in a sunlit world.

Joey woke up in the body of Joey Clive after surviving a mysterious sea expedition and returned home to his impoverished siblings, Barbara and Wilson. He discovered a fishlike Beyonder scale and learned more about 0-013 before reuniting with his family.

• Joey woke in a hospital with Joey Clive’s memories and met his worried younger sister, Barbara.
• Joey told the Sheriffs he had lost his memories of the sea and left the hospital with Barbara.
• At home, Joey examined a Beyonder scale from his instructor, Freya Polly, and recognized it as resembling a creature from the godforsaken land.
• Joey questioned 0-013 about his new identity and learned that the book was a manifestation of an authority that could bear different names.
• Wilson returned home, and Joey embraced both siblings as Barbara revealed her relief through a gruff complaint.

Joey experienced a terrifying vision of a blood-red moon and an enormous eyeball summoning him, only to wake at home and realize he had never left. After Wilson and Barbara went out, Joey brought 0-013 Above the Gray Fog and asked it what had happened to him.

• Joey received a telegram signed by Rugger Giles and was lured to 3 Levitt Street, where a blood-red moon and Rugger's voices tried to control him.
• Joey saw Barbara chopping a bloodied arm in the kitchen and was seized by tentacles extending from the enormous eyeball before a chest pain jolted him awake.
• Joey discovered Wilson and Barbara beside him at six in the morning and learned he had only been shouting in his sleep.
• After Wilson and Barbara left, Joey took 0-013 Above the Gray Fog and asked what had happened to him.

After the other survivors from the sea vanished dead, Joey went with Sanctuary investigator Harvey Jeffrey to the Church, where Harvey revealed himself as a monster and attacked him. Joey saw through Harvey’s terrifying illusion and fought back, but Harvey escalated the fight by gouging out his own eyes.

• Harvey Jeffrey told Joey that Rugger Giles and the other survivors had died of sudden heart attacks, leaving Joey the only one alive.
• A photograph of a mathematical formula triggered painful fragments of Joey’s erased memories, and Harvey soothed him with a healing light before taking him to the Church.
• Harvey led Joey into a strange passage, transformed into a six-limbed monster, and accused him of stealing what belonged to him.
• Joey used Spirit Vision to see through Harvey’s monstrous appearance and illusion, then charged him and beat him.
• Harvey broke free, recited an invocation, blasted Joey into the ceiling, and gouged out both his eyes.

Joey escaped Harvey’s attack, rescued Barbara with help from Nome, and resolved to kill Harvey before he endangered his family again. At the Heavenly Court gathering, Joey’s personas told Helena and Clyde that the Color Out of Space had been driven back and identified the beings taken with it as the Wisdom Angel and the Prankster.

• Joey fled Harvey’s transformed centipede body, then returned home and found a message saying Barbara was waiting at 3 Levitt Street.
• Joey sought help from Freya Polly, who brought Nome, a Sequence 6 Punishment Priest, to rescue Barbara; Harvey escaped after stealing a Sealed Artifact.
• Joey brought Barbara home, vowed that Harvey had to die, and discovered that red mist rose from his body while he slept unless he withdrew his spirituality.
• Joey hosted Helena and Clyde at the Heavenly Court gathering and explained that the Color Out of Space had been driven back into the stars.
• Joey’s Azure Dragon persona asked who had been taken with the Color Out of Space, and Mr. Hermit named the Wisdom Angel and the Prankster as siblings.

At a Gray Fog gathering, Joey learned from Clyde’s fragmentary old document about monstrous figures on the Eastern Continent and wondered where its people had vanished. After the gathering, he investigated his nightly possession and visited Freya, whose strange bat sculpture seemed to affect him, before deciding to use the school’s equipment to examine his body.

• Helena reported that the predicted Seven-Star Alignment had not occurred and that she had found no old-era documents, while Clyde submitted a copied page from pirate ruins.
• Joey read the document’s bizarre accounts of an altered self, a boy punished for killing a snake, and a son who ate his brothers, then wondered what had happened to the Eastern Continent’s people.
• Joey, using his Azure Dragon identity, asked about the Fortune Teller Sequence 7 potion formula, but Clyde and Helena had never heard of it.
• Clyde asked whether the Goddess of Harvest had returned in Joey Mott, and Joey gave an ambiguous answer that Abundance was no longer the Abundance of old and would need time to return.
• After the gathering, Joey watched red light recede from his body at sunrise, then visited Freya and felt an unsettling reaction to her bat sculpture.
• Joey told Freya that something might be wrong with his body and went to Hawkins University to use its equipment.

Joey was drawn into the Red Moon's dream through Freya's living sculpture, where he encountered Barbara and two other women fleeing danger. After he injured the eye on the church's cross to free them from its influence, Barbara recognized him, but Jennifer insisted he could not be real.

• Joey found Barbara missing and learned that she was among a hundred young women who had disappeared.
• Joey entered Freya's workshop and saw a completed living sculpture that fixed its eyes on him, knocking him unconscious as moonlight turned red.
• Joey awoke in the Holy Cathedral Church's hall inside the Red Moon's dream and decided to leave, but Barbara's cry for help stopped him.
• Barbara, Adela, and Jennifer barricaded the church against an unknown beast, while Joey suspected they were real people rather than dream figures.
• When the women stared at the cross's scarlet eye, Joey stabbed it with a chair leg and broke its hold over them.
• Barbara recognized Joey and rushed to him, but Jennifer warned her that he was not real because there were no men among the test subjects.

Joey discovered that Barbara, Jennifer, and Adela were being forced into dangerous dream experiments, then investigated the surveillance around Rugger Giles's house. He watched the house emit red mist at midnight, but the supernatural energy vanished before he could learn what it meant.

• Joey learned that Barbara, Jennifer, and Adela had been held in a castle and repeatedly sent into dreams, where four-legged beasts hunted them.
• Joey escaped the beasts with Barbara and realized they tracked people by sound, but both of them faded from the dream before he could learn how often the experiments happened.
• Barbara woke among wired-up test subjects, while Joey awoke in Freya's room and found the strange energy around the shattered sculpture gone.
• Joey questioned people near 3 Levitt Street and discovered that Sheriff's Office agents were watching Rugger Giles's house and searching for him.
• Joey observed the house at midnight as red mist surrounded it briefly, then disappeared along with the supernatural energy.

Joey and Nome investigated Freya’s disappearance, uncovered a supernatural connection to a clay sculpture and sketchbook, and gained access to sealed Levitt Street. As they reached the sketchbook’s publisher at 9 Levitt Street, Nome began explaining the Church of Machinery and Knowledge’s military power.

• Joey told Nome that Freya’s disappearance might involve a clay sculpture, and they examined the broken figure in Freya’s home.
• Nome’s ritual magic confirmed that Freya’s disappearance was supernatural and pointed to a distant location.
• Joey showed Nome a sketchbook whose flipping pages revealed the same red-eyed monster, briefly trapping Nome in its vision.
• Joey identified the publisher’s address as 9 Levitt Street, and Nome arranged authorization to enter the sealed area.
• Nome brought Joey into Levitt Street and explained that the Church of Machinery and Knowledge held its standing among the Orthodox Churches because of its armaments.

Joey and Nome followed a lead about the picture book to its reclusive publisher, only to find him dead in a staged hanging. The corpse’s manner of death reminded Nome of a terrifying encounter with the Mechanical Church, and he began recounting how he had stumbled into a men-only club ten years earlier.

• Nome told Joey that a Sequence 7 from the Mechanical Church had once defeated his entire fifteen-man Templar unit in an instant.
• Joey and Nome visited the picture book’s publisher at his house in the hills, where they found him hanging from an attic beam.
• Joey recognized that the publisher had been dead for at least two days despite appearing to breathe, and Nome said he had seen the same manner of death before.
• Nome recalled being a Sequence 7 Waltzer at a ball ten years earlier, where Shanlin led him into a secret club.
• At the club, Nome watched Shanlin greet a man intimately, then recoiled when the man stroked his hand and called him handsome.

Nome fell in love with Shanlin and married him, only to discover that Shanlin was a man and that the wedding had been a Mechanical Church trap. Shanlin was transformed by the Mother Goddess's corruption, and as the corruption spread through the church, a powerful voice declared the heretics must die.

• Nome and Shanlin's romance deepened, and Nome proposed before they agreed to marry at the Church of Isamott.
• The Mechanical Church trapped the wedding guests, revealed that Shanlin was a man named Abu, and killed several Senior Investigators.
• Shanlin's body transformed as a voice spoke from his belly, and the Mechanical Church's weapons failed to stop him.
• Shanlin pursued Nome while the infant's cries spread the Mother Goddess's corruption, changing people's bodies and driving them to mate.
• Nome and the Mechanical Church members cooperated to lift the church's seal, releasing the horror within as a deep voice condemned the heretics.

Cain Ivanovich and Nome tried to stop Shanlin’s unborn child from bringing the Mother Goddess into the world, and Nome advanced to Sequence 6 inside a flesh cocoon as Shanlin died. The Sword of Judgment destroyed the area, and Cain asked the surviving Nome whether he had succeeded.

• Cain Ivanovich urged Nome to kill Shanlin while his Sword of Judgment struggled against the infant’s cries and the Mother Goddess’s influence.
• As Shanlin recovered and the infant began to emerge, Nome stabbed her with a silver cross, and Cain brought down the Sword of Judgment.
• Shanlin briefly regained consciousness, interrupting the chant, and Nome thrust the cross toward the infant as Cain’s strike hit.
• Shanlin’s belly swallowed Nome and formed a flesh cocoon; while trapped inside, Nome received supernatural energy through a kiss and advanced from Sequence 7 Waltzer to Sequence 6 Punishment Priest.
• Shanlin told Nome that her love for him had been real, revealed her name was Abu, and faded away as the Sword of Judgment destroyed the area.
• Nome crawled out of the withered cocoon, and Cain asked whether he had succeeded.