Chapter Summaries

Franca, Jenna, and Anthony cornered Nikila in the Mirror World and killed him before the Hidden Sage's knowledge infusion could make him lose control. Franca then questioned Nikila's ghost about his superior, Kemolo.

• Franca trapped Nikila in a Mirror Image Maze, but he shattered its mirrors with a powerful Storm scroll and rushed toward a real tunnel.
• Jenna and Anthony ambushed Nikila, using Anthony's Intimidation and Jenna's Black Magic to give Franca time to ensnare him.
• Franca used Fascination and the Chilling Blade to bring Nikila under control, while Jenna destroyed the mirrors he carried.
• Nikila began to lose control under the Hidden Sage's knowledge infusion, so Franca, Jenna, and Anthony killed him before it could take hold.
• Franca used Magic Mirror Divination to summon Nikila's ghost, learned that his true name was Griffith, and asked whether he knew what had happened to Kemolo.

Franca questioned Nikila, a Person in the Mirror, about Kemolo, the wilderness, and the Mirror World before Nikila's soul vanished. The intelligence Franca sent to Lumian led him to suspect that People in the Mirror investigating 0-01 might have infiltrated Morola through the Special Mirror World.

• Nikila told Franca that Kemolo had learned the wilderness's location and was resisting its call, and that he had last seen Kemolo near the Catacombs.
• Nikila explained that the People in the Mirror aimed to make the Moses Ascetic Order's leaders aware of the wilderness so they would help open the seal on Fourth Epoch Trier; he also identified Palia as their contact in Trier.
• Nikila described another sealed place resembling Fourth Epoch Trier that the Mirror World could reach, and said companions investigating it in Lenburg could enter through normal means.
• Nikila vanished without leaving a Beyonder characteristic, and Jenna gathered 460 felkine and nine scrolls from him; Franca and Anthony decided to try disguising someone as Nikila to await Palia's weekly contact.
• Franca sent Lumian the intelligence, and Lumian realized that People in the Mirror investigating 0-01 might already have infiltrated Morola using the Special Mirror World.

Lumian observed the Underground Mausoleum’s shift change and discovered that one experimental subject and a hurricane lantern had disappeared, then questioned Heraberg about the mausoleum’s taboos. He warned Julie that People in the Mirror might have reached Morola, and Julie later used a mirror to make contact with her reflection.

• Lumian watched the Underground Mausoleum’s shift change and saw darkness seemingly swallow one experimental subject; he counted one person and one hurricane lantern missing.
• Sallys glanced toward Lumian, and he took her awareness as a sign that she retained some sense of self.
• Lumian asked Heraberg whether an undead creature could enter the Underground Mausoleum; Heraberg replied that the dead should slumber forever and cautioned Lumian not to overdo his studying.
• Lumian saw Julie leave the Knowledge Church, then returned to the Carnivore bar and waited for her.
• Lumian told Julie that People in the Mirror might already be in Morola; Julie grew serious and later left the bar.
• In an empty house, Julie put on a gold ring set with a blue gemstone and watched her reflection in a half-length mirror begin to change.

Julie found a Person in the Mirror spying on the Underground Mausoleum, while Lumian’s corruption-driven nightmares grew clearer and more frequent. Elsewhere, Franca and her companions divided the spoils from an ambush, and Hermit followed a supernatural trail through the Trier Catacombs.

• Julie spotted a Person in the Mirror watching the Underground Mausoleum but failed to catch him, then reported her discovery to Lumian.
• Lumian woke from a vivid nightmare and worried that continuing his studies could bring on a dangerous change before the factions made their next move.
• Franca, Jenna, and Anthony divided their cash and scrolls after ambushing a Person in the Mirror, and Madam Judgement told them the Moses Ascetic Order would handle Kemolo’s abnormality.
• Hermit collected powder from a room in Trier and used it to guide a ball of yarn deeper into the Catacombs.

The Hermit found strange symbols where Kemolo had disappeared, while Lumian’s nightmare connected him to the Underground Mausoleum and a Person in the Mirror. After finding Lies dead in Julie’s room, Lumian realized Julie might have begun her final operation and wondered where she had gone.

• The Hermit followed Kemolo’s trail of bloody pus into a cavern, found him gone, and discovered the apparent pus was a mass of characters or symbols that she decided to take to a High Sequence Cryptologist.
• Lumian dreamed of the Underground Mausoleum, where he saw a humanlike shadow on an Experimental Subject’s lantern that looked back at him before he woke during an earthquake.
• Lumian concluded that his nightmare might have connected to the real Underground Mausoleum and wondered whether the Person in the Mirror from Trier was exploring it ahead of him.
• After studying at the Knowledge Church, Lumian returned to the Carnivore bar and found it wrecked, with blood and a chestnut-blossom scent leading upstairs.
• Lumian found Lies dead in Julie’s bed and recalled Julie saying she had decided to seduce Lies last, leading him to suspect that she had begun her final operation.

Lumian discovered that Sallys had disappeared and suspected she and Julie were using the Mirror World to carry out the Witch Sect’s plan involving “0-01.” After obtaining audio study aids from Heraberg, he entered the Underground Mausoleum blindfolded and sensed that the Abscessed Severed Hand’s head was nearby.

• Lumian found Sallys’s empty room and suspected she had used its mirror to enter the Mirror World.
• Lumian decided to enter the Underground Mausoleum and disrupt the Witch Sect’s operation despite Termiboros warning that it was dangerous.
• Heraberg converted Lumian’s books into audio information on a brass sheet and made him Brass Earpieces.
• Lumian covered his eyes, descended into the Underground Mausoleum, and found that the Underworld Daoist’s mark protected him from the darkness draining his vitality.
• Lumian sensed the Abscessed Severed Hand’s head nearby and set out to find it before confronting Julie and Sallys.

Blindfolded in the Underground Mausoleum, Lumian fought an unseen creature and recovered the Abscessed Severed Hand’s head, then continued toward the Soldier Puppets. A strange rain, watching gazes, ominous drumming, and a chuckle confronted him in a hall deep underground.

• Lumian entered a room by following his mental map and was seized by an unseen creature near the Abscessed Severed Hand’s head.
• Lumian attacked the creature with flames and a burst of force, then tore the head free from a body it had been joined to.
• Lumian realized a headless corpse had likely mistaken the Abscessed Severed Hand’s head for its own and avoided storing the head in his Traveler’s Bag.
• Lumian left the room carrying the head and continued blindfolded toward the mausoleum’s bottom level, using his map and resisting the urge to treat uncertain dangers as real.
• Lumian reached a hall where cold droplets fell around him, and a pounding drumbeat and thin chuckle sounded as he stepped forward.

Lumian's corruption let him pass through the hall's dangers as one of 0-01's own, and his hallucinations revealed that Gei was the Person in the Mirror. After Lumian destroyed a soldier puppet, Albus approached him and proposed an alliance against a Witch carrying a dangerous item.

• Lumian's corruption triggered hallucinations of his past nightmares, but also made the hall's dangers treat him as one of their own as he followed his mental map.
• Lumian saw Gei reflected in the armor of the undead army and realized Gei was likely the Person in the Mirror who had infiltrated Morola.
• Lumian concluded that 0-01 might be treating him as a marionette and that the exam tested how much corruption he could endure.
• A soldier puppet attacked Lumian in the passage, and he used his knowledge of its weak point to destroy it with a fire-infused punch.
• Albus revealed that he could share the soldier puppets' vision and said he had tested Lumian; he proposed working together against a Witch with a dangerous item.

Lumian and Albus agreed to cooperate against Julie and Sallys, though each remained wary and planned to exploit the other. As Lumian explored the Underground Mausoleum, Albus warned him that Vanak was approaching.

• Albus explained that Julie's item could make her a vessel for the Primordial Witch, whose descent would last only three seconds but threaten them both.
• Lumian and Albus agreed to work together against Julie and Sallys while privately considering how to use each other as a shield.
• Lumian told Albus about Gei, a Person in the Mirror, and Albus said the Special Mirror World might have caused the problems in Fourth Epoch Trier.
• Lumian refused Albus's offer to share the soldier puppets' vision because he feared becoming a marionette.
• Lumian entered an uncharted area of the Underground Mausoleum, felt a prickling sensation like approaching lightning, and heard Albus warn that Vanak was a dozen or so meters ahead.

Lumian used his growing corruption to pass Vanak safely through the forest of lightning, then continued toward Corpse Mountain Peak with Albus. Julie attacked him as he entered the area, while Jenna finished digesting her Witch potion in Trier and prepared to advance.

• Lumian let the corruption bring him into sync with Morola’s dangers and walked past Vanak without being attacked.
• Albus watched Lumian pass Vanak and followed through the forest of lightning and the mirrored passageway.
• Lumian and Albus agreed to approach Corpse Mountain Peak together, though neither fully trusted the other.
• Lumian rushed out of the passageway and Julie attacked him, prompting him to activate the Black Mark and draw out the headless corpse.
• Jenna told Franca she had finished digesting the Witch potion and decided her spiritual intuition favored advancing immediately.

Lumian escaped the meteor strike and let the Abscessed Severed Hand’s corpse reunite, while Julie’s attack killed Vanak only for him to rise as an undead creature. As Julie and Vanak clashed again, the reassembled corpse shook the Underground Mausoleum.

• Julie summoned a meteor that struck near Vanak and blasted Albus and Lumian away.
• Lumian teleported away from the reuniting parts of the Abscessed Severed Hand and left them to join.
• Vanak rose from the blast as an undead creature and extinguished the flames around Corpse Mountain Peak.
• Julie summoned icicles, but Vanak stopped her and sent a tornado sweeping back toward her.
• The Abscessed Severed Hand fitted its head back onto its neck, making the world shake and the void creak.

Lumian realized that Julie’s trap had drawn them into the Mirror World, where Julie and Vanak fought the Abscessed Severed Hand’s reassembling corpse. The corpse restored its complete body and began transforming into a beautiful woman, then opened its scarlet eyes.

• Albus described cracks around the corpse, and Lumian deduced they were inside the Mirror World; he opened his eyes after confirming Julie was not wearing a blindfold.
• The Abscessed Severed Hand broke through the shattered space and reattached itself to its corpse as Julie and Vanak attacked it.
• Julie formed a volcano beneath the corpse, and Vanak and the undead soldiers hurled Flame Spears at it, but it regenerated from the burning fragments.
• The corpse shed its rotten flesh and healed, captivating Julie, Lumian, Albus, and Vanak with its beauty as its body began changing into a woman’s.
• Lumian wondered whether corruption had caused the transformation, and the corpse opened its scarlet eyes.

Lumian, Julie, and Vanak fought the revived Abscessed Severed Hand as 0-01's power broke into the Mirror World and threatened everyone. In Trier, Jenna drank the Pleasure potion and learned that Lady Krismona's father was Alista Tudor.

• The Abscessed Severed Hand targeted Lumian, then seized Julie and choked her before 0-01's flames broke into the Mirror World and forced it to release her.
• Vanak gathered the invading flames and his Undead Army into a fireball, while Julie summoned a meteorite; their attacks blasted the Abscessed Severed Hand apart, but it began regenerating.
• 0-01's influence overwhelmed Julie, who invoked Primordial Witch Descent and turned the wilderness gray-white before looking at Lumian.
• Franca confirmed the area was secure and watched as Jenna drank the Pleasure potion.
• Jenna saw a holy figure who told her to reconcile with her Person in the Mirror, then revealed that her father was Alista Tudor.

Julie’s divine descent destroyed the Mirror World and turned Lumian to stone, but he somehow escaped back to Corpse Mountain Peak without using the Mirror Buckle. Julie then vanished as tainted blood falling toward 0-01’s banner, prompting Albus to intervene while Lumian prepared to exploit the distraction.

• Julie completed her prayer, and the Primordial Witch’s power turned Lumian and the Mirror World to stone as Julie attacked.
• Lumian awoke near the real Corpse Mountain Peak beside Albus, who had escaped through the Mirror World; Lumian discovered his Mirror Buckle still had two uses.
• Julie reappeared above Corpse Mountain Peak and looked toward 0-01’s banner, deepening Lumian’s corruption when he saw it.
• Julie faded into a puddle of tainted blood that fell toward the banner, and Sallys cried out her name.
• Albus transformed into a blazing Flame Spear and shot toward the banner to stop Julie’s blood from staining it, while Lumian took out Hisoka’s Demon's Whisper bone ring.

Lumian used Demon's Whisper to locate Gei, then infected him with the corruption carried by Avatar of Desire. As Gei lost control and pursued him, Lumian fled toward Sallys and Albus Medici at the summit of Corpse Mountain Peak.

• Lumian put on Demon's Whisper, used its Malice Perception to find Gei hiding in a corpse's mirrored breastplate, and attacked him with Avatar of Desire.
• Gei used Mirror Substitute to evade Lumian's first attack, but the corruption carried by Lumian's illusory black liquid began transforming him.
• Lumian recognized that watching Gei's transformation could corrupt him too, so he left the mirror and ran toward Corpse Mountain Peak.
• Gei pursued Lumian as an indescribable shadow, while Lumian fled by teleporting and transforming into a Flame Spear.
• Lumian reached the summit and saw Sallys and Albus Medici.

Albus broke Sallys’s Mirror Image Maze at Corpse Mountain Peak, but Lumian’s arrival triggered a battle against Albus, Sallys, and a mirror-substituting monster. After Albus destroyed the monster, Lumian and Sallys both rushed toward 0-01.

• Albus realized Sallys had trapped him in a Mirror Image Maze and failed to destroy its hidden mirrors with fireballs.
• Albus invoked the God of War, destroying the Special Mirror World and freeing himself from the maze as Sallys donned a black tear-shaped forehead ornament.
• Lumian appeared near 0-01, and Albus and Sallys attacked him before a monstrous figure emerged from the Iron-Black Cuirass.
• The monster used Mirror Substitute and trapped Albus and Sallys in darkness, while Lumian struck at Albus and discovered his flame form resisted the blow.
• Albus launched a barrage of explosions that exhausted the monster’s Mirror Substitutes, then destroyed it with Fire Ravens.
• Lumian drew a straight sword and teleported toward the summit as Sallys rushed there too.

Lumian and Albus Medici fought atop Corpse Mountain Peak while Sallys attacked from hiding, each using their abilities and prepared counters. After Lumian’s Mirror Buckle was spent and he dropped the Sword of Courage, he abruptly fell ill and escaped, while Albus also began to weaken.

• Lumian saw the lingering flames across the wilderness go out and attacked Albus with ordinary swords, while Albus forged a greatsword from corpses and bones.
• Sallys attacked with ice spears, and Albus used Fog of War and a massive explosion; Lumian escaped through the Mirror World using his Mirror Buckle, exhausting its final use.
• Sallys tried to curse Albus through ice mirrors and her black-flame-covered hair, but Albus melted the mirrors and drove her into hiding.
• Lumian attacked Albus with the Sword of Courage, but Albus anticipated the divine strike, turned to steel, and escaped through a prepared mirror.
• Lumian became black liquid and tried to circle around Albus, but he suddenly grew weak, dropped the Sword of Courage, and vanished using the Black Mark.
• Albus also swayed and grew weaker atop Corpse Mountain Peak.

Lumian and Albus struggled against a mystical disease Sallys had spread through the mirrors, while Albus used the growing corruption around “0-01” to lure Sallys into revealing herself and kill her. Afterward, Lumian and Albus exchanged taunts as “0-01” continued to shake, each concealing what they knew about the coming awakening.

• Sallys explained that pathogens from a Grade 1 Sealed Artifact had spread through the mirrors, rapidly draining Lumian and Albus’s strength and spirituality.
• Lumian removed the Demon's Whisper Bone Ring, used Archbishop Heraberg’s charm and earplug, and teleported to avoid an attack.
• Albus revealed that “0-01” was shaking more violently and claimed it was about to break free, prompting Sallys to look directly at it and suffer further corruption.
• Albus trapped Sallys in a Fog of War and repeatedly bombarded her with blue fire until her body disintegrated.
• Albus burned Julie's tainted blood before it reached “0-01,” then privately recognized that the artifact would need his help and that he had misled Sallys and Lumian.
• Albus challenged Lumian about his remaining strength, and Lumian answered that something else was unusual in the wilderness.

Lumian deduced a hidden taboo governing the Underground Mausoleum’s darkness and warned Albus Medici that his persistent firelight could trigger a catastrophe. As “0-01” shook more violently, the sky suddenly turned the color of flames.

• Lumian explained that “0-01” had been altered by its past owners and that the Morola seal differed from the seal in Fourth Epoch Trier.
• Lumian returned the Sword of Courage to the Traveler’s Bag and then removed the black Teardrop-shaped Forehead Ornament from Sallys’s remains, reducing the source of the mystical pathogens.
• Lumian identified hidden problems in the taboos about experimental subjects carrying hurricane lanterns and Beyonders above Sequence 5 approaching “0-01.”
• Lumian concluded that the mausoleum required eternal darkness and that the remnant flames and Albus’s continuing firelight risked triggering a concealed taboo.
• Albus realized the danger as “0-01” trembled increasingly violently, and the sky abruptly took on the color of burning flames.

Albus Medici failed to change the awakening of “0-01” and escaped into a special Mirror World as Morola descended into catastrophe. Lumian survived the anomaly by relying on his knowledge and the Church of Knowledge’s intervention, while Jenna and Franca uncovered a new clue about who created the special Mirror World.

• Albus Medici reached “0-01” and smeared Medici blood on its scorched flag, but the gesture caused no immediate change and the artifact began trying to assimilate him.
• Lumian refused to stop Albus, then vanished when Albus tried to attack him; Albus escaped into a special Mirror World using his crystal necklace.
• “0-01” unleashed chaos across Morola, while Heraberg sensed the Knowledge Church was being affected and raised his hand.
• Lumian became a marionette of “0-01” but stayed lucid by listening to knowledge from the Brass Charm; the Church of Knowledge eventually suppressed the abnormality, and Lumian returned to rest.
• Jenna told Franca that Lady Krismona had urged her to reconcile with her Person in the Mirror and said the Blood Emperor was Her father.
• Franca concluded that Alista Tudor and the Primordial Witch may have jointly created the special Mirror World.