Chapter Summaries

Xia Xiu and Valente seized an improbable jury-selection notice that let Valente pose as juror Haywood Lawrence in a trial. As the trial began, the accused, Paul Colin, denied killing his father, but the questioning and witness claims cast suspicion on him.

• Xia Xiu received a Flower City Court jury-selection notice addressed to Haywood Lawrence and decided Valente should attend in his place.
• Valente agreed to serve as a juror, and Xia Xiu explained the voting rules and the need to pursue justice in the case.
• Valente arrived at Flower City Court, where staff member Millien escorted him to the jury box without recognizing the mix-up.
• The trial began, and Paul Colin admitted arguing with his father over gambling away his college money but denied killing him.
• A court official confronted Paul Colin with claims that a neighbor saw him stab his father and a homeless man heard him threaten to kill him; Paul said he had wandered nearby afterward and could not recall where.

At Paul Colin’s murder trial, witnesses and evidence appeared to condemn him, but Valente Bernard challenged the case during jury deliberations. With Xia Xiu secretly helping him, Valente raised doubts about the stabbing angle and the supposedly unique murder weapon, leaving the jury’s decision unsettled.

• Jim testified that he heard young Colin threaten his father and saw a boy flee after finding old Colin stabbed beside the garbage bin.
• Mrs. Alice testified that she saw two people wrestling by her window and one stab the other with a knife, while a court official questioned Colin about his missing switchblade.
• The prosecution’s evidence and the defense’s account of Colin’s troubled family life left the jurors convinced he was guilty as deliberations began.
• Valente, juror Number Eight, objected to a quick guilty verdict and argued that the knife’s downward angle did not fit the difference in height between Colin and his father.
• Number Four disputed Number Seven’s stabbing demonstration, and Valente challenged the claim that the murder weapon was unique by presenting an identical switchblade Xia Xiu had secretly obtained.

Valente challenged the evidence against Paul Colin and persuaded the jury to reconsider its assumptions, while Xia Xiu confronted Jim and exposed his false testimony. The jury found Paul not guilty, and Valente asked Xia Xiu whether Heaven should interfere in worldly affairs; Xia Xiu said the supernatural belonged to Heaven and the worldly to the world.

• Valente challenged Number Seven's claim that the switchblade belonged to Paul Colin, but the first vote failed to reach the required majority.
• Valente used a map to question whether Jim could have reached the scene as quickly as he claimed, while Xia Xiu confronted Jim outside the courthouse.
• Jim admitted to Xia Xiu that he had lied to earn the Police Department's reward and later turned himself in for perjury.
• Valente argued that Mrs. Alice could not clearly identify the people she saw, and the jury continued deliberating amid disagreement.
• The presiding judge announced that Jim had confessed to perjury, and the jury voted unanimously to find Paul Colin not guilty.
• Valente asked Xia Xiu whether Heaven should interfere in worldly affairs, and Xia Xiu said the supernatural belonged to Heaven and the worldly to the world.

Fafnir realized Night’s death had weakened his seals, embraced his nature as an Evil Dragon, and unleashed dragons against Farlan. As Bernard Aiven’s Twelfth Column fought the outbreak and was abandoned by its superiors, Xia Xiu and Valente learned that the next scene, Dragon Calamity, had begun.

• Fafnir killed the black-robed man who called himself his companion, gained the [Slaughter] halo, and ordered dragons to kill the red side’s Yellow Cards.
• Bernard Aiven’s Twelfth Column was attacked by out-of-control dragons at Ruelle Ground Base, and Bernard led the survivors against them.
• Bernard learned that the Director-General’s office ordered his column to hold the ground forces while the Dragon Cavalry and other units refused to reinforce them.
• After the Twelfth Column recorded final words, Bernard and his remaining members charged into battle for Farlan.
• Xia Xiu learned that Valente could use all Six Forms, then the Dragon Calamity scene began and air-raid sirens sounded.
• Xia Xiu and Valente saw disturbances spreading from the ARad Field, and Xia Xiu resolved to kill the dragon quickly.

Xia Xiu and Valente fought the dragonkin rampaging through Farlan while the government teleported civilians to safety. They deduced that the Evil Dragon was targeting Red-Side Yellow Cards and sent the Holy Spirit Doves to search for survivors, while Jam traced the dragonkin back to their source.

• Dorothy encountered rampaging mechanical dinosaurs, and Xia Xiu rescued her and let the Emergency Brake Transmission Device teleport her away.
• Xia Xiu caught No. 56 blowing up city structures instead of the nearby dinosaurs, reprimanded him, and sent him back to fight.
• Valente arrived after killing nearby stegosaurs and revealed he could use the Six Forms without activating the Dragon Slayer Panel.
• Xia Xiu and Valente concluded that the Evil Dragon controlled dragonkin from Knight Guard bases and was targeting Red-Side Yellow Cards to gain strength.
• Xia Xiu ordered the lead dove to watch for survivors holding yellow cards and told Valente that Jam was tracking the dragonkin's route to its source.

Xia Xiu and Jam contained the Dragonkin escaping from the Lüer surface base while the Dragon Calamity spread. Xia Xiu reached the dying Bernard and used the [Sword of Redemption] to ease his final moments, though he knew Bernard could not be saved.

• Dragonkin overwhelmed the Lüer surface base, and Jam collapsed the tunnel exit to trap them underground.
• Bernard, mortally wounded, asked Jam to bring Xia Xiu to him, and Jam promised his boss would come.
• Xia Xiu learned that Jam had found the source of the Dragon Calamity and that a survivor was with Valente, then ordered the doves to bring the survivor over.
• Valente brought Xia Xiu a restrained red-side Yellow Card holder who had tried to use [Defection], and Xia Xiu took him along as they drove to the Lüer base.
• Xia Xiu and Valente found Bernard barely alive, and Xia Xiu used the [Sword of Redemption] to heal his wounds and ease his pain despite knowing he would die.

Bernard revealed how to activate the Lüer base’s brain-death meme toxin and died after entrusting the mission to Xia Xiu and Valente. The two began poisoning the dragons on each storage level, and Xia Xiu reached the third level after activating the toxin on the second.

• Bernard told Xia Xiu and Valente about the base’s three levels, the toxin safeguards, and how to retrieve the record players, then died after thanking them.
• Xia Xiu and Valente buried Bernard and headed to the storage facility with Jam and a frightened captive.
• Xia Xiu assigned Valente to activate the first-level toxin while he went through the emergency gates to handle the second and third levels.
• Xia Xiu collected several Troodon capsules and played the Song of the Distant Past record, which incapacitated the dragons on the second level, including those inside Biological Capsules.
• Xia Xiu passed through the third-level gate, survived a missile strike through Body Intangibility, and destroyed a Coelurus that attacked him.

Xia Xiu activated the third-floor [Song of Eternity] to kill the dragons at Lüer, then questioned Bob and learned the [Evil Dragon]'s location. With Valente readying the [Troodon], Xia Xiu set out to confront the [Evil Dragon].

• Xia Xiu found the third-floor [Song of Eternity] and started it, triggering the lethal mimesis embedded in the dragons.
• Xia Xiu returned to Valente and Jam, gave Valente a [Biocapsule] containing a [Troodon], and took Bob outside the base.
• Bob recalled how he joined the red faction, survived the Dragon Calamity, and was captured after trying to reach Valente for [Defection].
• Xia Xiu pressured Bob into revealing the [Evil Dragon]'s location, then knocked him out and left him in the underground dragon storage facility.
• Xia Xiu denied being a devil, told Valente he was an Angel of Heaven, and mounted his [Troodon] to go after the [Evil Dragon].

Xia Xiu and Valente attacked Saint Laurent Fortress with six Dreadnought Dragons, destroying Fafnir’s defenses and forcing him to break free of his final chain. Valente struck the enraged dragon with Dawnbreak, and Xia Xiu and Valente rushed to finish him as the dragon slaying began.

• Xia Xiu and Valente reached the plain near Saint Laurent Fortress and deployed six Dreadnought Dragons.
• Xia Xiu hacked the dragons’ controls while Valente charged Dawnbreak with the Balmung Holy Sword.
• Xia Xiu unleashed thousands of shells and twenty-four recoil devices, reducing the fortress to a wasteland.
• Fafnir’s Black Knights were wiped out when the bombardment collapsed the underground castle, and Fafnir broke free of his final chain.
• Fafnir charged Xia Xiu and Valente, but Valente hit him with Dawnbreak and blasted him toward the river.
• Xia Xiu and Valente rode their Troodons toward the fallen Fafnir to finish the fight.

Xia Xiu and Valente weakened Fafnir with coordinated attacks, then Xia Xiu struck him with the [Sword of Judgment] and brought him crashing onto a bridge. As Valente approached the fallen dragon, Fafnir glimpsed a figure writing his fate in a script.

• Xia Xiu pursued Fafnir across the Loire River with [Troodon], firing at him and sending [Holy Spirit Doves] to harass his wounds.
• Fafnir fled while Xia Xiu and Valente attacked him with Light Body Giants, [Comet], and other techniques, but Fafnir countered with [Penetration Divine Spear] and [Sea-Burning].
• Xia Xiu used [Gáe Bolg] to pierce Fafnir's right eye, then hid in [Meta Field] as Fafnir's [Sea-Burning] destroyed the nearby summons.
• Valente struck Fafnir's chest with [Sky Rend], reopening his wound, while Xia Xiu emerged from [Meta Field] and drove the [Sword of Judgment] into it with [Sevenfold Judgment].
• Fafnir's stacked negative effects weakened him until he crashed through the elevated bridge, where he saw a figure writing on a script as Valente approached.

Valente’s killing of Fafnir triggered the Dragon Slayer’s transformation, and the memories of the dragon Amos flooded into him. Amos’s recollections ended with him charging at Mu, the Heaven Angel who led the slaughter of Farlan’s dragons.

• Valente pierced Fafnir’s heart with the Balmung Holy Sword, and Fafnir revealed that the Dragon Slayer would inherit the Evil Dragon’s fate.
• Fafnir’s blood transformed Valente into an Evil Dragon, and Amos’s memories began to overwhelm him.
• Amos learned that the human organization Heaven had driven the Ether Sovereign from Terra and sent the Angel Mu to Farlan.
• Amos met Mu while protecting the humans in his territory, then refused to leave them when Daphne warned him about his coming hibernation.
• Mu led humans in killing the Red King and began a wider rebellion against the dragons.
• Amos awoke to Farlan devastated and his kin slaughtered by Mu, then charged at him in rage.

Valente’s memories of his father and his friendship with Abraham resurfaced as the dragon souls consumed him. Xia Xiu awakened his Great Sin Armament and fought the dragon soul on the elevated bridge, where he confronted Amos using the Seven Deadly Sins.

• Valente remembered how his father raised him and continued treating patients during Sicily’s deadly epidemic despite knowing he might fail.
• Valente recalled bumping fists with Abraham before the battle and giving him something, then remembered Abraham’s answer that fate was a sleeping slave.
• Xia Xiu saw Valente consumed by the dragon souls, awakened [Spirituality] and [Sacrifice], and completed the ascension to [Great Sin Armament: Seven Deadly Sins].
• Xia Xiu used the Axe of Pride, Bow of Greed, Chains of Greed, and Blade of Gluttony to attack and restrain the dragon soul.
• The Blade of Gluttony made the dragon souls devour one another, allowing Amos to take control of Valente’s body.
• Xia Xiu stabbed Amos with the Dagger of Lust, set him aflame, and warned him not to speak through Valente’s body.

Xia Xiu defeated Amos and held Valente as he died, ending the first performance and gaining the Möbius Strip authority. In the Ether Sea, the Crimson King met a black-robed man who agreed to find information about a mysterious book in exchange for help with his plan, and the King began writing a new performance titled “Messiah.”

• Xia Xiu used the Seven Sins and Balmung Holy Sword to defeat Amos, then killed the dragon soul with Dragon Slaying.
• Valente died in Xia Xiu’s arms after telling him they had saved Youyang, and Xia Xiu mourned him as the first performance concluded.
• Xia Xiu gained the Möbius Strip authority but stopped the Dominion Avatar from forming, saying it was not time yet.
• The Crimson King reviewed the Dragon Slayer notebook and noticed that Xiu Abraham’s fate differed from the script they had foreseen.
• A black-robed man accepted the Crimson King’s terms, agreeing to seek information about a book in exchange for help completing his plan.
• The Crimson King burned the notebook for the Mayflower Consortium performance and began writing a new script titled “Messiah.”

After mourning Valente in Hagert Cemetery, Xia Xiu traveled to Madrid with Jam to seek the admission ticket to the next enactment. The chapter ended with Xia Xiu asking a frightened driver to take them to a wedding ring shop, calling a wedding ring an instrument of a vow.

• Xia Xiu visited Valente's grave, thanked Sharon Euliphis, and asked her to care for Valente's family.
• Xia Xiu left for Iberia, determined to find the admission ticket to the second enactment and win it.
• Xia Xiu and Jam arrived in Madrid, where Hammidun tried to lure university students Marcia and Paul into his unlicensed taxi.
• Xia Xiu exposed Hammidun's illegal soliciting, causing Marcia and Paul to leave, then made Hammidun drive them.
• Xia Xiu asked Hammidun to take him and Jam to the best nearby wedding ring shop.

Xia Xiu bought matching Möbius wedding rings and hurried to the Manzanares River to intercept [Hope Gongzhu · Ahabat] before she entered Madrid’s socialite circle. A salvage crew broke the chains around a jeweled red coffin, leaving its contents about to be revealed.

• Xia Xiu bought two size-seventy-two Möbius Rings and left the shop with Jam.
• Xia Xiu recalled that [Hope Gongzhu · Ahabat] would be salvaged from the Manzanares River and set out to find her first.
• Polly told Duke that the crew had hauled up a red coffin bound in thick steel chains.
• Duke joined the crew on deck as Rook chopped through the final chain around the coffin.

Xia Xiu found the red Coffin containing the Seventh Alice, Ahabat, and brought her to a ruin to begin the Alice Game. After choosing the Savior card, he put a wedding ring on Ahabat and vowed to support her throughout the Performance.

• Captain Duke opened the Coffin with a crowbar, and its supernatural charm drove Polly and the crew into a violent frenzy.
• Xia Xiu arrived, knocked the crew unconscious with his Heavenly Lock Eyes, identified the girl as the Seventh Alice, Ahabat, and carried her Coffin away.
• At a Madrid ruin on Red Moon night, Xia Xiu began the Alice Game and chose the White Card · Savior, sealing his Entries and Modules.
• Xia Xiu discovered he could still summon his Holy Spirit Doves and Great Sin Armament for a limited time.
• Ahabat emerged from the Coffin, and Xia Xiu put a Möbius Ring on her finger and vowed to cherish and support her until the Performance ended.

Xia Xiu established a mutual assistance contract with [Hope] and took her to a hotel, where he learned more about the supernatural rules governing their bond. His Alice Module awakened as [Don Quixote], giving him abilities centered on empowering mounts and manipulating thought, while the reason his powerful [Seven Sins] armaments escaped a complete seal remained unclear.

• Xia Xiu bound [Hope] to him through a mutual assistance relationship, explaining that their contract was sustained by an [Oath] and aligned their interests.
• Xia Xiu introduced himself to [Hope] as Xiu Abraham and took her, with Jam following, to an upscale hotel in Madrid.
• [Hope] ate albondigas patties Xia Xiu had brought, then angrily stopped when he revealed what they were.
• Xia Xiu inspected the restricted [Seven Deadly Sins] armaments and wondered why they had not been fully sealed, while noting that [Gáe Bolg] and his [Module] were sealed and [Balmung Holy Sword] was dormant.
• Xia Xiu's Alice Module awakened as [Don Quixote], granting him [Rare Steed], thought-influence abilities, and a process for materializing absurdity contamination.

After awakening the [Don Quixote Module], Xia Xiu planned to use the Youyang Star Audition to disrupt his sister [Desolation Gongzhu Azib]’s influence through idols and media. He cheated his way through the Madrid tryouts and left with [Hope Gongzhu Ahabat], who complained about the other contestants.

• Xia Xiu explained to Ahabat how [Desolation Gongzhu Azib], [Ruling Gongzhu Ativik], and [Absence Gongzhu Anut] could combine their Modules to lead the masses toward destruction.
• Xia Xiu identified the Youyang Star Audition as a source of idols and media influence, then told Ahabat he planned to surprise Azib there.
• At the Madrid regional tryouts, Xia Xiu introduced himself as Franklin and used [Targeted Thought Influence] to make judge Amy give him full marks.
• Ahabat joined Xia Xiu as he left the audition and described the unusual contestants and judges she had seen.
• Xia Xiu flicked Ahabat on the forehead when she kept asking questions, and she shouted at him to stop.

Xia Xiu arrived at the talent competition venue and planned to disrupt [Desolation]'s scheme to use the show to cultivate followers. He entered the first recording with a plan to draw attention, then teased [Hope] with a deliberately seductive display.

• On the bus, Amy explained the competition format and named several famous guest judges, while Xia Xiu suspected [Desolation] would use the show to spread [The Medium Is the Metaphor] and cultivate her [Magic Puppet].
• At the venue, Amy announced that contestants would soon record individual talent and everyday-skill performances, and Xia Xiu used [Undirected - Weak Thought Influence] to make a staff member dazed before helping him and earning a place ahead in line.
• Xia Xiu registered for a dance performance under the alias Franklin and declined makeup, saying he had come to disrupt [Desolation]'s pond rather than become one of her fish.
• In the wardrobe room, Xia Xiu unbuttoned his shirt to reveal his collarbones and described a passage about sensory temptation to [Hope], who was visibly affected before he flicked her forehead and teased her.

After watching Franklin’s performance, Bernice became intensely infatuated with him and voted for him by phone. Meanwhile, Xia Xiu used his televised dance performance to attract endorsements and deliberately built up a competing Meme Virus, hoping to draw out Azib.

• Bernice watched the Youyang talent show after Delia urged her to support Super Boys, but Franklin’s dance captivated her.
• After Franklin left the stage, Bernice called the show’s voting line and cast her vote for him.
• Xia Xiu ended his seventeenth endorsement call and discussed the powerful Meme Virus accumulating around him with Ahabat.
• Xia Xiu explained that he was using EVE Particles to gather and spread the virus, turning himself into a rival idol capable of consuming Desolation’s followers.
• Ahabat warned that Azib might investigate, while Xia Xiu said he wanted her to appear and searched the guest-star list for her.