Chapter Summaries

Aboard the ship to York City, Kallen discussed cultivation with Puer and decided to pursue the Order God Church system. He admitted he was not ready for the path ahead, but recognized that he had been on it since he first opened his eyes in this world.

• Mrs. Jenny warned Kallen to remember his engagement to Eunice, while Puer joked about the attention he had received from Wood's family.
• Puer told Kallen she hoped Allen Manor’s residents would be endearingly foolish and said she expected him to revive the family.
• Kallen asked Puer about cultivation systems, and she explained church, family, and Evil God systems before recommending the Order God Church system for him.
• Kallen chose the Order God Church system, and Puer explained that his Purification ritual would require blessed objects, a quiet place, and help from her as a Sacred Artifact.
• Kevin insisted Kallen needed a swimming pool full of blessed holy water and three days and nights for a safe ritual, so they decided to arrange the preparations after reaching Allen Manor.
• When Puer asked whether he was ready to begin the lonely, irreversible path, Kallen said he was not ready but had been on it since he first opened his eyes.

Kallen arrived at the Allen Manor and met the family members who had come to welcome him, while Puer judged their choices and prospects. After Kallen accidentally rang a bell at the dining table, the Allen Family assembled before him and answered his summons, revealing that he had taken the host's seat.

• Kallen disembarked at York Port with Eunice, Puer, Alfred, and Golden Retriever, and Mr. Mike greeted them before they drove toward the manor.
• On the way, Kallen discussed a vegetarian protest with Mike and criticized the demonstrators for ignoring the hungry laborers he had seen at the port.
• At the manor, Bede and Anderson welcomed Kallen, and Puer and Alfred privately judged Bede's artistic manner and the family's decline.
• Kallen spoke with Anderson about Dis and the Immerlis Family, while Puer grew furious at his remarks and Alfred restrained her.
• After Anderson went upstairs to take his medicine, Kallen sat at the dining table and rang the bell, causing hidden lights and a doorway to open.
• Anderson led the formally dressed Allen Family into the dining room and declared that the family answered Kallen's summons, as Kallen realized he was sitting in the host's seat.

Kallen learned that the Allen Family intended to make him its new family head, while Anderson explained that the family was betting on Kallen to lead it to renewed strength. The chapter left Kallen in the family head’s former study, trying to absorb the arrangement as Anderson committed the family to the gamble.

• Eunice showed Kallen the Allen Family’s ancestral portraits and explained that the study and the former master bedroom had been assigned to him.
• Kallen realized Anderson intended him to become the Allen Family’s new head, and Alfred agreed that the arrangement was absurd while disparaging the family.
• Puer listened from Kevin’s back as Anderson rebuked Wood, Mike, and Bede for their failures and warned that the Allen Family faced decline and possible subjugation by stronger families.
• Anderson explained that Dis’s Purple Bookmark and decision to send Kallen showed his confidence in Kallen, whom he believed could help restore both the Immerlis Family and the Allen Family.
• Anderson declared that the Allen Family would gamble on Kallen’s rise, while Puer approved of his decision and Anderson joked that he hoped his portrait would replace the black cat’s in the center of the ancestral portraits.

Kallen stayed at Allen Manor and learned from Puer how family faith systems worked and why Dis may have steered him toward the Allen Family. After Kallen slept through dinner, Anderson presented him with the family’s accounts, and Kallen agreed to discuss them in the study.

• Kallen made Puer sleep on the daybed and discussed the Allen Family’s faith system, its declining bloodline, and the danger of its descendants becoming slaves for breeding.
• Puer argued that Dis may have deliberately guided Kallen toward the Allen Family, perhaps hoping its faith system would complement the Immerlis Family bloodline and benefit Kallen’s future descendants.
• Kallen fell asleep to a lullaby, dreamed of returning home, and heard Dis ask whether Eunice was pregnant.
• Kallen woke at four thirty in the morning, found Puer asleep on his chest, and discovered Anderson, Bede, and Mike sleeping outside his bedroom.
• Anderson offered Kallen the accounts of the Allen Family’s businesses and assets; Kallen pushed the documents away but told them to go to the study.

Kallen reviewed the Allen Family’s immense worldly and church-based wealth, learned how the Raphael Family had weakened them, and ordered a swimming pool’s worth of blessed water for his Purification. After seeing the family cemetery, he realized the ancestors might be able to return to life.

• Bede gave Kallen summaries of the Allen Family’s assets, including its estates, investments, and workshops that supplied churches in exchange for vouchers.
• Bede, Mike, and Anderson explained that the Raphael Family had taken over most of the Allen Family’s workshops, while the Allen Family lacked the strength to reclaim them.
• Kallen learned that Wood and Anderson were the Allen Family’s strongest active members, while Mike was crippled and Bede could not sense the Primordial Ancestor.
• Kallen asked the family to use its connections and church vouchers to obtain a swimming pool’s worth of blessed water for his Purification ritual.
• Kallen and Puer looked out at the Allen Family cemetery, and Kallen wondered whether the ancestors could come back to life.

Kallen discussed the Allen Family’s power and met Borg, a talented young relative assigned to serve him, before riding with Eunice and hearing her thoughts about family, marriage, and their relationship. As they passed the Allen cemetery, Alfred tasked Borg with investigating the family’s burial customs, especially how bodies were preserved.

• Kallen asked Alfred to explain how the Allen Family’s faith system compared with the power of Inquisitors, and Alfred described the advantage churches gained from divine and institutional support.
• Kallen learned that Borg came from a distant collateral branch, had grown up in a brothel, and had earned a place in the family through its testing; Borg then began serving Kallen.
• Kallen and Eunice went riding together, fell while Kallen helped her mount, and later spoke about their lives, their families, and Eunice’s uncertainty about her feelings for him.
• Eunice told Kallen that her family had kept her from awakening her bloodline’s Power of Faith so she could be used to secure a better marriage, and Kallen said he was interested in her looks.
• Puer planned to use Kallen’s future Purification to help repair Mike’s body, while Alfred asked Borg to learn how the Allen Family prepared and preserved bodies for burial.

Kallen and Puer prepared to accelerate his purification, with the Opera House being converted into a holy-water reservoir and a ritual planned for three days later. After a Queen’s envoy arrived, Puer declared that she would use the returned books and the thing she carried to create a god for the Allen Family.

• Kallen reviewed Borg’s records about the Allen Family’s burial customs and considered whether the ancestors’ preserved bodies held religious value.
• Puer objected to the Opera House’s conversion into a reservoir, then agreed to the purification ritual and arranged for food and drinks to be brought to her.
• Puer explained how purification could draw a god’s attention, using the golden retriever’s presence as a way to provoke the god into approaching Kallen.
• Puer said Dis had arranged for her to help Kallen grow stronger quickly, and Kallen agreed to proceed with the plan.
• Alfred told Kallen that the Queen had sent an envoy, and Kallen left the study to meet them.
• Alone among the family portraits, Puer criticized her ancestors’ choices and vowed to create a god for the Allen Family.

Kallen refused the Queen’s request to meet Eunice, then went to the Allen cemetery to test his awakening ability. His black chain unexpectedly dragged him into Earl Recar’s past, where Recar demanded to know who he was, and Kallen answered that he was the Allen Family’s son-in-law.

• Kallen heard Bede refuse the Queen’s invitation for Eunice, citing her illness, and learned from Bede and Anderson that Eunice had no engagement to Prince Henry.
• Puer explained that the Vien Royal Family sought to absorb other families’ faith systems and urged Kallen to advance quickly toward becoming an Inquisitor.
• Kallen rode to the Allen cemetery with Alfred and Borg and tried to use his awakening ability on two ordinary gravestones, but the black chain was repelled both times.
• As Kallen began to withdraw the chain, an unseen force seized it and pulled him toward Earl Recar’s pirate-ship tombstone.
• Kallen found himself aboard Recar’s ship, where Earl Recar asked who he was, and Kallen identified himself as the Allen Family’s son-in-law.

Kallen awakened Earl Recar’s memories in the Allen Family cemetery and learned that the dead pirate recognized him as the family’s son-in-law, but the effort left Kallen badly injured. After Kallen recovered, Puer urged him to leave the estate with Eunice and the others, while Kallen reminded her that Dis had asked him to take care of her.

• Earl Recar remembered his life and realized he was dead, then welcomed Kallen as the Allen Family’s son-in-law and thanked him for letting him see his family again.
• Kallen left Recar’s spiritual world and collapsed at the gravestone, bleeding from his eyes, ears, nose, and mouth.
• Lady Lisa said Kallen had exhausted his mind, and old Anderson praised Borg for keeping Kallen’s actions private.
• After Kallen woke, Puer urged him to leave the estate with Eunice, the Radio Fairy, and Kevin the Golden Retriever, but said she did not know whether she could leave her family home.
• Kallen comforted Puer and told her that Dis had asked him to take good care of her.

Kallen began Purification in the remodeled Opera House, with Puer guiding him and Golden Retriever acting as a catalyst. Puer pressed the God of Light’s finger to Kallen’s forehead, and a divine voice called for Order to appear.

• Kallen left the Allen manor for the Opera House, where his family had prepared a pool and arranged to keep the building closed during his three-day Purification.
• Kallen sat in the pool, lit a candle, and began reciting Light of Order as Puer guided him toward a vision.
• Golden Retriever’s Evil God presence intensified the purification, causing black light to spread over Kallen and the pool water to churn into a whirlpool.
• Puer revealed the God of Light’s finger sealed in a crystal at the tip of her tail and pressed it against Kallen’s forehead.
• The finger shone and pressed into Kallen’s skin as Golden Retriever convulsed, Puer froze, and a majestic voice called, “Order, come out and see me!”

During Kallen’s Purification, Puer’s use of the God of Light’s finger caused the God of Order to answer the Light’s summons and personally descend. The danger passed when the finger lost its power, and Kallen awoke believing the Purification was complete.

• Puer used the God of Light’s finger during Kallen’s Purification, and the voice of the God of Light called for Order.
• The world froze, and Alfred sensed that time had stopped outside the Opera House while fearing what lay within.
• Kallen followed a white dot until it transformed into a sun, nearly overwhelming his will.
• The God of Order appeared before Kallen and moved behind him, while Puer realized the god was personally performing the Purification.
• The Eye of Order began to form, but the God of Light’s finger turned back into crystal, the black mist disappeared, and Kallen opened his eyes.
• Kallen asked Puer whether the Purification was complete.

After Kallen’s purification unexpectedly ended in two hours, Puer explained that he had become a Divine Servant and that the Holy Water had been enhanced by the God of Light’s power. As the Allen Family celebrated the valuable water, Kallen sensed a new kind of perception and tested Mr. Bede with a sudden religious gesture.

• Kallen learned from Puer that his purification had nearly gone out of control, but left him as a Divine Servant personally purified by the God of Order.
• Puer and Kevin drank the remaining water and discovered that the God of Light’s aura had greatly increased its value and usefulness.
• Kallen told Old Anderson that the purification had succeeded unexpectedly and instructed the family to guard and preserve the remaining water.
• Kallen returned to the castle, noticed Mr. Bede’s painting of the anxious Allen Family, and sensed a familiar atmosphere in it.
• Kallen asked Bede about his inability to pass the Family Faith System’s test, then praised Rilielsa; Bede reflexively replied, “Praise the Wall God!”

Kallen questioned Mr. Bede about his secret faith in the Wall God Church and learned how it began, while Bede described his past connection with Linda. After Bede left, Kallen recalled a planned ritual and suspected Bede had sent his wife and daughter away so he could pursue his own hidden purpose.

• Mr. Bede told Kallen that he had embraced the Wall God Church as a young painter, preventing him from awakening the Allen family bloodline.
• Bede explained that he had met Linda as a child at a church gathering and later reunited with her in Vien, where she was studying art and preparing to marry Piaget.
• Kallen told Bede that he knew about the Wall God Church through Linda and said he had learned of Bede's faith after completing Purification.
• After Bede left to help manage the Holy Water, Kallen recalled that Bede planned to summon the Primordial Ancestor through a ritual that would kill him, then wondered whether Bede's family had been sent away to clear his path to an art exhibition.
• Bede went to his basement studio, played the violin, and unveiled a mural painted by Linda that depicted a man, a woman, and a Female Giant in the clouds.

Kallen inferred that Bede had helped Dis cover up the Superstandard Divine Descent Ritual and may have witnessed Linda’s role in it, though he questioned whether Bede could be trusted. After Prince Henry came to the Allen Manor with Royal Guards, Bede revealed that only Henry’s head remained.

• Kallen told Puer that Bede followed the Wall God Church and reasoned that Dis had chosen the Allen Family partly because Bede could help with his plans.
• Kallen concluded that Bede had been in Rojia City during Linda’s ritual and might have cooperated with Dis, but warned Puer that Bede’s passivity and hidden nature made him difficult to trust.
• Kallen woke from a restless dream, then learned that Prince Henry had left the Court with over a hundred Royal Guards and was heading toward the Manor.
• Kallen told Mike that Dis had taught him a method to help Mike resume training despite his severed legs, and Mike reacted with excitement.
• Bede arrived to report that Prince Henry had already been dealt with; he revealed that only Henry’s head remained after he entered the Manor.

After Prince Henry’s severed head arrived at Allen Manor, the Allen and Gloria families agreed to treat his murder as unrelated to the Allens and hold his funeral at the manor. Kallen then met Judiya, who revealed that she shared the Allen Family Faith System and was eating her murdered brother Henry’s hand.

• Prince Henry’s head arrived at Allen Manor, and Kallen and Mr. Bede concluded that neither had killed him; they learned his royal guards had fallen behind because most could not ride.
• Prince York visited the manor, affirmed the royal family did not blame the Allen Family, and agreed that Henry’s funeral would be held there at the Allens’ expense.
• Old Anderson told Kallen the royal party would visit the Allen ancestral tombs because of a possible blood connection through Earl Recar, then tested whether Kallen had killed Henry; Kallen denied it.
• A girl named Judiya climbed into Kallen’s study, where the Formation let her through because her power shared its attributes, and she introduced herself as a Gloria princess whose Family Faith System came from the Allen Family.
• Judiya identified Earl Recar as her ancestor and revealed she was eating Henry’s hand, saying he had refused the family’s plan for them to mate and produce an heir with the Allen Family Faith System.

Kallen faced Judiya, a dangerous royal girl who had entered the manor study and eaten Prince Henry’s hand, and tried to survive by drawing her into his twisted idea of an artistic game. He redirected her attention toward Earl Recar just as someone knocked at the study door, leaving Judiya poised to act and Kallen trying to conceal his fear.

• Kallen realized Judiya could kill him and had no means to defend himself, so he tried to unsettle her by explaining how to prepare chicken feet.
• Alfred and Puer read Kallen’s notes while Kevin the Golden Retriever helped Alfred study by nodding and shaking his head.
• Kallen embraced Judiya and insulted her, then described a more elaborate humiliation of the Gloria family that made her cry and tell him he was right.
• Kallen told Judiya that she could improve through brute force and suggested that Earl Recar might help her escape her lowly fate.
• Judiya stopped crying and considered Kallen’s suggestion as her eyes began to show a pale blue ripple.
• Someone knocked at the study door, and Kallen told Judiya to ring the desk bell so he could change his tear-soaked clothes.

Kallen met Judiya in the Allen household study, where she revealed that the Gloria Royal Family planned to sacrifice the Allen Family to resurrect their dying Queen with a Black Seed. Judiya left after explaining her loyalty to the Allen bloodline and her feelings for Kallen, while Alfred remained at Kallen’s side.

• Judiya entered Kallen’s study, and Kallen kept her calm while Alfred and Borg waited outside.
• Judiya told Kallen that the Gloria Queen planned to visit Allen Manor, die there, and use the Black Seed to be reborn at the cost of the Allen Family.
• Judiya explained that she killed Henry because he wanted to marry Eunice, whom she considered her sister through their shared Primordial Ancestor Bloodline.
• Judiya gave Kallen a warning letter and revealed that she felt closer to the Allen Family than to the Glorias, then admitted she liked Kallen and hoped he would take her to meet her father.
• Kallen let Judiya leave, and Alfred entered the study as Kallen raised a middle finger at Earl Recar’s portrait.

Puer, Kallen, Alfred, and Kevin held the first Ace of Spades meeting to discuss how to resolve Allen Manor’s crisis and protect the Allen Family. Kallen proposed inviting the Queen to Prince Henry’s funeral and awakening Earl Recar that night to answer for his past romantic debts.

• After Prince York’s party left Allen Manor, Puer joined Kallen, Alfred, and Kevin for their first serious meeting and named it the First Ace of Spades Meeting.
• The group discussed protecting Kallen, and Puer said she needed to reach an Inquisitor-level bond with Kallen before she could regain her strength and help loosen Kevin’s seal.
• Alfred presented evacuation and refusal as ways to address the Queen’s threat, but Puer argued that abandoning Allen Manor would leave the Ace of Spades Organization without the Allen Family’s support.
• Kallen rejected simply fleeing or delaying the Queen and proposed designing Prince Henry’s funeral himself, inviting the Queen to stay at Allen Manor, and awakening Earl Recar that night to answer for his past romantic debts.

After the Ace of Spades Organization meeting, Kallen examined Borg’s hidden dual-element talent and practiced Order spells, succeeding with several defenses and accidentally casting a powerful Spear of Discipline. The blast covered everyone in mud, but Kallen remained standing and was pleased with the result.

• Alfred concluded the Ace of Spades Organization’s first meeting, and Kallen gave Old Anderson, Mike, and Mr. Bede instructions about Prince Henry’s funeral and contact with the royal family.
• Puer and Golden Retriever prepared spells for Kallen while Alfred studied an enhancement formation to help protect him from overexertion.
• Kallen watched Borg demonstrate his fire and water abilities and learned that Borg had concealed his rare dual-element talent from the Allen Family.
• Puer taught Kallen four defensive spells, which he cast successfully on his first attempts without suffering spiritual exhaustion.
• Kallen tried the higher-level Spear of Discipline written in Golden Retriever’s notes and blasted a patch of grass, showering everyone with mud.
• Puer realized the spell had defaulted to the strongest version Kallen could withstand because the notes omitted the word “Beginner,” while Kallen wiped away his nosebleed and said the result was not bad.

Kallen cured Mike by separating the fire and water powers in his body, transferring the fire to Borg, who advanced to level two. As Kallen oversaw preparations for Prince Henry’s funeral at Allen Manor, he heard a god’s whisper of Order in his mind.

• Madam Lisa confirmed that Kallen was healthy, and Kallen told Mike he would resolve Mike’s elemental problem.
• Kallen guided Mike’s powers into separate streams, then transferred Mike’s fire energy to Borg, freeing Mike to use water and raising Borg to level two.
• Mike and Borg thanked Kallen, and Old Anderson pledged the Allen Family’s support to him.
• Kallen ordered the Royal Palace officials to follow the Allen Family’s funeral arrangements or leave, and Old Anderson drove them out.
• As Kallen watched preparations for Prince Henry’s funeral and spoke with Mrs. Jenny, a god’s voice whispered, “Order is this: what I decree, and what you must obey.”