Chapter Summaries

Jack and the Circus left Amber City as Grand Bishop Terrence arrived and attacked the players before fighting Bayers. Terrence gained the upper hand, severing Bayers’s left arm.

• Jack transformed, carried Fuluoyin, Noah, Golov, Barton, Morey, and Connie away, and vanished from Amber City with the Circus.
• Terrence appeared at Jack Manor and killed the gathered players with spears of golden light.
• The players revived at their respawn point and watched Terrence battle Bayers from a distance.
• Terrence used a shadow to deceive Bayers and struck him through the chest with a sword of light.
• Bayers blocked Terrence’s next attack, but Terrence severed his left arm.

Chen Lun and Bayers joined forces against Terrence, with Chen Lun’s Spade Stance letting him see through the Saint’s light illusions. Their fight reached a standstill until Terrence unleashed a more powerful transformation.

• Terrence defeated Bayers’s Black Night and moved to kill him, but Joko appeared and attacked Terrence with a flaming greatsword.
• Terrence’s illusions initially failed to fool Joko, who identified his real position and drove him back with powerful strikes.
• Chen Lun revealed himself as Joko, the Spade Knight, and used Five-Sense Interconnection to locate Terrence’s true body through his illusions.
• Bayers rejoined the fight, and he and Chen Lun coordinated their attacks against Terrence.
• Terrence unleashed a sweeping blast of golden light that hurled Chen Lun and Bayers away, then manifested golden wings and a crown as pillars of light erupted around him.

Three days after Chen Lun and Bayers killed Terrence's Avatar, rumors spread through Amber City about the ruined manor and the supernatural events surrounding it. The story left the truth of what happened there unknown to the public.

• Chen Lun and Bayers defeated Terrence's Avatar, earning regional renown and becoming known in the mystical world as the Obsidian Twin Knights.
• Three days after the battle, residents of Amber City continued discussing the disturbances at the manor struck by the meteor.
• People in local bars spread rumors that the manor was haunted and bore the marks of divine punishment.
• The Public Security Office sealed off the ruins, fueling speculation about what had happened there.

After the battle in Amber City, the occult world learned that Bayers and Joko had killed Terrence’s avatar, while Chen Lun and the Circus traveled toward Mica City as he recovered and grew stronger. Chen Lun then went to Haolfekan village to bring Maggie back, where he reunited with Akbin.

• The Containment Bureau identified Bayers Wolf and Joko as S-rank wanted criminals, and occult circles dubbed them the Obsidian Twin Knights after news spread that they had slain Terrence’s avatar.
• Three days after returning, Chen Lun woke aboard the Circus’s carriage, spent his rewards to reach level 100 and raise Nature’s Favor, and felt his exhaustion begin to ease.
• Akbin sent word that Maggie’s lessons were finished, and Chen Lun learned she was in Haolfekan village.
• Chen Lun used divination to locate Maggie and arrived in time to catch a little girl who had stumbled while carrying boiled eggs for Akbin and Maggie.
• Chen Lun greeted Akbin and raised the eggs as he reunited with him.

After reflecting on the Obsidian Volume, Luobowan announced a day off and previewed the next arc. In the story, Chen Lun and the Circus arrived in Peacock City, where he sought the Silver Dragon Trade Association’s help while pursuing three genuine opportunities he remembered from the game.

• Luobowan described the difficulties and dissatisfaction he faced while writing the Obsidian Volume and explained what he hoped to express in King of Villains.
• Luobowan previewed the Blood Diamond volume, then announced he was taking a day off to organize its outline.
• Chen Lun and the Circus crossed the Weiling River and entered Peacock City after passing inspection and paying the entry fee.
• Chen Lun told Golov to take them to the local Silver Dragon Trade Association branch for help finding a place to stay.
• Chen Lun recalled that most rumors about Peacock City’s opportunities had been false, but three genuine opportunities remained undiscovered.

Chen Lun bought a winery in Peacock City and settled the Circus into their new home, Jack Manor. After gathering information about the city, Golov reported that the Harrington family, Moses Shipping, and the Blue Sail gang were its leading powers.

• Chen Lun used his Silver Ring Coin to secure a meeting with Todd at the Silver Dragon Trade Association and bought a former winery at a discounted price of eight hundred Gold Pounds.
• Chen Lun named the winery Jack Manor and sent Connie to hire servants while Golov, Barton, and Morey went to investigate Peacock City.
• The Circus members cleaned and settled into the estate, then celebrated their new home with a feast cooked by Fuluoyin.
• Golov, Barton, and Morey reported that the Harrington family, Moses Shipping, and the Blue Sail gang primarily controlled Peacock City.
• Golov explained that the Harrington family, despite holding only a viscountcy, was the city's most influential noble family.

Chen Lun researched Peacock City’s influential figures, supernatural factions, and major theaters, then chose the struggling City Garden Grand Theater as a public base for Jack’s Circus. He offered owner Hoyle Simon a chance to revive the theater, but magician Kewi scoffed at his grand claims.

• Barton explained Peacock City’s supernatural factions and Morey described the three major theaters to Chen Lun.
• Chen Lun decided Jack’s Circus would move into City Garden Grand Theater under the guise of its performing troupe.
• Chen Lun visited the theater and paid a street promoter to fetch its owner, Hoyle Simon.
• Chen Lun offered to help Hoyle make City Garden surpass the rival theaters and gain wider fame.
• Kewi, the theater’s magician, mocked Chen Lun’s promise.

Chen Lun demonstrated Jack's Circus's extraordinary animal training and magic to Huoyiner and Kewei outside City Garden. Impressed, Huoyiner invited Chen Lun inside to negotiate a contract that could save his theater.

• Kewei challenged Jack's Circus, and Huoyiner asked Chen Lun what the troupe specialized in.
• Chen Lun attracted birds with a whistle and made them dance, astonishing Huoyiner and Kewei.
• Chen Lun produced hundreds of doves from Kewei's hat, and the birds covered Kewei in droppings before vanishing into playing cards.
• Huoyiner enthusiastically invited Chen Lun into City Garden to discuss a contract, while Kewei remained outside vomiting.

Chen Lun secured a lucrative contract for Jack's Circus at the City Garden Grand Theater, while Kewei rallied other performers to sabotage the troupe's upcoming show. The chapter ended with Kewei's group plotting in secret as the choir refused to participate.

• Chen Lun signed a flexible contract with Huoyiner that guaranteed Jack's Circus a weekly salary and a share of performance profits.
• Chen Lun left the theater, while Huoyiner promised to promote the circus and help revive the venue.
• Kewei told the other performers that Jack's Circus threatened their livelihoods and urged them to band together.
• Kewei proposed tampering with the stage and props on performance day, but the choir members refused to join or expose the plan.
• Kewei and the remaining performers began plotting the sabotage in low voices.

Maggie advanced to Plague Doctor after completing a ritual with Akbin, and Chen Lun celebrated with Jack’s Circus while sharing plans for their new theater role. The chapter ended with Chen Lun taking a solitary walk in the Winery’s rear garden.

• Chen Lun returned to the Winery and learned that Noah had gone out on a commission while Maggie was working in her laboratory.
• Maggie told Chen Lun that she had completed a ritual with Akbin and advanced to Plague Doctor, gaining new abilities and techniques.
• Chen Lun congratulated Maggie and announced that the team would celebrate and discuss their upcoming plans at dinner.
• Chen Lun urged the team to use Silver Dragon Trade Association commissions to build mystical accumulation and revealed that Jack’s Circus would perform at the City Garden Grand Theater.
• Maggie proposed releasing her plague pet Bengbeng onstage, but Chen Lun rejected the idea; he suggested Noah perform as a hypnotist instead.
• Chen Lun walked alone through the Winery’s rear garden after dinner.

Chen Lun watched players learn the powerful [Animal Mimicry] skill, then appeared in Peacock City as Silver Flask Knight Frun to sell jars of mysterious objects. He left a player preparing to smash open two jars.

• Dongyang guided Tutu and Paying Respects to the Dragon King as they exchanged for [Animal Mimicry], and they discovered they had two and one memory slots respectively.
• Morning Twilight brought Bitter Tea Nainai to learn [Animal Mimicry], and she found she had two memory slots.
• Chen Lun noted that his player-funded wealth had reached more than fifty-six thousand Gold Pounds and decided to sell his accumulated mysterious objects as Frun.
• Chen Lun appeared on Peacock City's commercial street and attracted players who recognized Silver Flask Knight Frun.
• A player bought two jars from Frun, chose them, and raised a mallet to smash them open.

Chen Lun sold jars of Mysterious Objects to players, then discovered that Jack's Circus advertisements were deliberately invoking influential city figures. After confirming the promoters had ill intentions, he watched one of them wander into an alley.

• Chen Lun sold jars to players, instantly killing a Lost Name Guild member who provoked him and giving Little Silver Fox fans ten jars containing several Mysterious Objects.
• Chen Lun sold more than four hundred jars, earned over four thousand Gold Pounds, and planned to order more supplies from the Silver Dragon Trade Association.
• Chen Lun saw lavish advertisements for Jack's Circus and grew suspicious of their exaggerated claims about the city's powerful figures.
• Chen Lun used a Joker to confirm that the City Garden Grand Theatre promoters had ill intentions.
• A promoter heard a faint whistle near an alley and walked into it in a daze.

Chen Lun investigated leads to three opportunities in Peacock City while preparing to perform with Jack's Circus. As the theater filled with influential guests, including Viscount Harrington and Huoyiner's hostile older brothers, Chen Lun reassured Huoyiner backstage before the show began.

• Chen Lun sent Golov, Barton, and Morey to investigate mystical noble families and find Francis and Dolim, while warning them not to approach anyone without reporting back.
• After a week, the investigation had ruled out two noble families, failed to locate Francis, and found Dolim's farm deserted, so Chen Lun decided to pursue the noble lead first.
• On the day Jack's Circus was set to perform, the City Garden Grand Theater drew a large crowd, including Viscount Harrington and his family, whose presence made Huoyiner nervous about the exaggerated publicity.
• Huoyiner's older brothers Gadson and Lance arrived, mocked him, and entered the theater, leaving him uneasy about their intentions.
• Backstage, Huoyiner warned Mr. Jack that the important guests and Viscount Harrington had raised the stakes, and Chen Lun reassured him before they took their places behind the curtain.

Chen Lun performed a series of astonishing tricks at the City Garden Grand Theater, winning over the audience and impressing Viscount Harrington’s family. As his next act began with a huge, running chainsaw, his brothers’ sabotage plot had yet to unfold.

• Huoyiner spotted the disguised heads of Tartar and Golden Rum in the audience while Chen Lun considered how to enlist Viscount Harrington’s help.
• Chen Lun took the stage and conjured a succession of animals from his Black Hat, earning thunderous applause.
• Tracy admired Chen Lun’s performance, while Gadson and Lance grew angry that the show was succeeding and warned that Kewei had better ruin it.
• Chen Lun revealed a huge chainsaw onstage, switched it on, and sawed a slab of pork in half.

Chen Lun survived a sabotaged power-saw escape and revealed his ability to rejoin his severed body, leaving the audience amazed and his enemies shaken. He then invited Kewei, the Little Sprite Troupe, the Sisters Selena, and Tracy to participate in his next trick.

• Chen Lun invited three audience members, including Gadson, to tie him up for a power-saw escape, while Gadson and the man in charge of Golden Rum hoped he would die.
• The rope holding Chen Lun frayed and snapped, sending him onto the power saw as the audience believed they had witnessed a fatal accident.
• Chen Lun's severed halves joined back together, and he stopped the saw, leaving Gadson, Kewei, and their allies stunned.
• Huoyiner rushed onstage, and Chen Lun joked that the theater owner had played along before Huoyiner improvised an explanation for the audience.
• Chen Lun announced his main event and summoned Kewei, the Little Sprite Troupe, and the Sisters Selena onto the stage under his control.
• Chen Lun pointed to Tracy and invited her to join the performance, and she pointed at herself in surprise.

Chen Lun performed a knife-throwing act with Tracy and several unwilling participants, using hypnosis and healing to make the audience believe their injuries were part of the show. Tracy’s fear turned into infatuation, while Kewei and the others were left terrified as the performance ended with a rain of knives.

• Tracy disobeyed Viscount Harrington and joined Chen Lun onstage, introducing herself as Tracy Harrington and asking him to call her Trilly.
• Chen Lun threw knives around Tracy, embedding them in the board without harming her and intensifying her admiration for him.
• Chen Lun stabbed Kewei, the deformed dwarfs, and the Sisters Selena, then secretly healed their wounds while the audience mistook their suffering for acting.
• Chen Lun continued the act, hypnotizing the victims and repeatedly injuring and healing them as the audience applauded and Tracy grew increasingly infatuated.
• Chen Lun brought Tracy to the center of the stage, snapped his fingers, and sent the knives circling overhead before they fell like a rain of knives.

After his successful magic show, Chen Lun took Tracy rowing along the Feather River and asked her about Peacock City's mysteries. Tracy told him rumors of sea demons in the southern dock district, leaving him curious about their possible connection to the Deep Sea Pathway.

• Chen Lun and Tracy danced unharmed through a storm of throwing knives, and the audience hailed his performance as a triumph.
• Huoyiner discovered that Kewei and the troupe had conspired with Gadson and Lance to sabotage the theater, and he resolved to protect Chen Lun’s secret.
• Huoyiner learned that Gadson and Lance had gone mad, and he wondered whether Chen Lun was responsible.
• Tracy visited Chen Lun at the Winery and invited him to explore Peacock City, so he agreed.
• Chen Lun and Tracy rented a boat and rowed along the Feather River while he asked her about mysterious local stories.
• Tracy shared dockside rumors about sea demons, and Chen Lun considered their resemblance to the Deep Sea Pathway’s Sequence 6.

While exploring Peacock City with Tracy, Chen Lun found an old photograph that revealed a steel puppet connected to the opportunity he sought. After Tracy promised to look into where she had seen it, her bodyguards reported their outing to Viscount Harrington, who ordered that she be kept from going out again.

• Chen Lun learned nothing useful from Tracy's stories about noble families, then followed her to a boat museum.
• Chen Lun and Tracy toured the museum and spotted an old photograph of the Harrington Toy Factory.
• Chen Lun recognized a steel puppet in the photograph as a clue to the opportunity he had been seeking.
• Tracy said she might have seen the puppet recently and promised to look into it after returning home.
• Tracy's bodyguards reported her outing to Viscount Harrington, who ordered servants not to let her go out again.

Viscount Harrington negotiated with a criminal group to make up a shortage of captives for an upcoming auction and asked them to punish Chen Lun. As Chen Lun received the Murder Club’s commission menu, the Blue Sail Gang ambushed him, and he left the fight to the Club’s Faceless Attendant.

• Viscount Harrington agreed to provide more captives for the auction in exchange for fifteen percent of its proceeds and asked the group to teach Chen Lun a lesson.
• Viscount Harrington warned that Chen Lun might be a Beyonder and that his daughter Tracy had grown close to him, so the group sent the Blue Sail Gang after him.
• The Murder Club’s Faceless Attendant gave Chen Lun its commission menu, explaining that he could accept murder commissions as a Bronze Cup assassin.
• The Blue Sail Gang surrounded Chen Lun in an alley, with two Black Knife Brotherhood assassins concealed among them.
• Chen Lun paid the Faceless Attendant two Gold Pounds to handle the attackers and walked out of the alley.

Chen Lun discovered that Viscount Harrington had sent the Black Knife Brotherhood after him, then reconciled with Fuluoyin after his date with Miss Tracy. He ended the night accepting a commission to hunt Bishop Somerfick of the Red Apple Church.

• The Faceless Attendant killed two Black Knife Brotherhood thugs who attacked Chen Lun, and Chen Lun used card divination to identify Viscount Harrington as the likely instigator.
• At dinner, Fuluoyin teased Chen Lun about his outing with Miss Tracy, and Chen Lun gave her a bronze crescent pendant to reassure her.
• Fuluoyin brought Chen Lun the fried rice she had prepared for him, and he recognized that she had hidden it while pretending to be upset.
• Chen Lun searched the Commission Menu for a way to gain experience and chose a commission targeting Bishop Somerfick of the Red Apple Church in Galena City.