Chapter Summaries

Kronos traveled to the Fog Sea to claim the Ghost Empire after becoming an Angel and found its Demigod trial empty. He discovered that Duke Olmer’s Coffin of Death was sustaining the ship, then replaced it with a Life Diamond that restored the Ghost Empire’s vitality.

• Amanises sent Kronos to the Fog Sea, where he used Spirit World Traversal to find and board the Ghost Empire.
• Kronos entered the unguarded Demigod trial and forced his way through the locked doors to the final room.
• Kronos found Trunsoest’s Golden Coffin and discovered a Black Coffin inside it before Duke Olmer warned him not to disturb it.
• Olmer explained that the Coffin of Death was sustaining the Ghost Empire after the Hand of Order Beyonder Characteristic had been removed.
• Kronos offered Olmer a Life Diamond to replace the Coffin of Death, and Olmer accepted it.
• Kronos placed the Life Diamond in the Golden Coffin and used Ritual Magic to replenish it, restoring the Ghost Empire and renewing parts of its hull.

Kronos toured the Ghost Empire with Olmer, then accepted Kohler as a potential new Fallen Servant. To make room for him, Kronos released Qonas, whose body disintegrated after he learned that Loen might one day remember his death.

• Olmer showed Kronos around the Ghost Empire and explained that Kaust and his guards had continued protecting it through the corruption.
• Kronos asked Olmer for Kohler, and Olmer released the sealed Duke; Kohler tried to flee but Kronos pinned him down with gravity.
• Kronos chose to discard Qonas from his six Fallen Servants to make room for Kohler, and Qonas emerged from the Fallen Domain with his memories restored.
• Qonas's body disintegrated as the power sustaining him vanished, and he asked whether Loen would know of his death.
• Kronos told Qonas there might be a chance for Loen to learn of it in the future; Qonas died, leaving a corrupted Beyonder Characteristic that Kronos shattered.

Kronos discovered that Kohler had cultivated the Nation of Disorder’s corruption to sabotage his attempt to Graze him, but Olmer returned with the Sanguine’s methods for treating the corruption. Olmer took Kohler to a quiet island to test those methods, while Kronos followed to learn from the experiments.

• Kohler accepted defeat and let Kronos’s Fallen Domain spread over him, but secretly accelerated the corruption inside himself to make it resist the Grazing.
• Kronos realized the corruption came from the Nation of Disorder and hesitated to continue, wary that Kohler’s condition could affect him as well.
• Olmer returned and explained that the Sanguine had developed possible ways to counter the corruption, which they planned to test on Kohler.
• Kronos withdrew the Fallen Domain, and Kohler mocked him before Olmer sealed his mouth and carried him away through the Spirit World.
• Olmer brought Kohler to a quiet island and began preparing ritual magic and Beyonder Items for the experiments, while Kronos followed to study the Sanguine’s knowledge.

Kronos and Olmer used a Replacement Ritual to remove the corruption from Kohler and the Ghost Empire’s guards, transferring it into a powerful Black Emperor crown. After collecting valuables from the ship and taking them home, Kronos returned to Backlund to teach his first microscopic world class.

• Olmer’s Sun-based purification ritual failed to remove the Nation of Disorder’s corruption from Kohler.
• Olmer used a Replacement Ritual and a Sequence Two Black Emperor crown to extract Kohler’s corruption, and Kronos turned the dying Kohler into a Fallen Servant.
• Olmer and Kronos used the crown to remove corruption from the Ghost Empire, Kaust, and the guards, though their skeletal forms and distorted minds remained.
• Kronos took most of the Ghost Empire’s valuables and Beyonder materials for the Argel Family, then stopped in Midseashire to deliver them.
• Kronos returned to Backlund, replaced his avatar at the Argel Family house in Empress Borough, and prepared to teach the next day’s first microscopic world class.

Kronos’s lecture on the microscopic world won over scholars and students, spreading his reputation and accelerating his potion digestion. As his invitations and speaking duties multiplied, the Loen Royal Family prepared to promote him to navy colonel and award him the honor of Scientific Pioneer.

• Kronos taught a packed lecture at Backlund Technical University and gave each attendee a microscope, convincing the audience of his discoveries.
• Backlund University’s vice-chancellor invited Kronos to teach there, and Kronos agreed to visit after covering most of the material at Backlund Technical University.
• Newspaper praise from experts spread Kronos’s reputation across the Northern Continent, bringing speaking engagements that kept him busy while his potion digestion advanced.
• Kronos sensed feedback from Klein’s advancement to demigod but judged it weaker than teaching workers, and he avoided Klein’s advancement ritual because Adam and Ouroboros were watching.
• Kronos set aside invitations from Tingen and continued promoting his theory in Backlund while the Royal Family prepared to promote him to navy colonel and name him a Scientific Pioneer.

Kronos received royal honors and cautiously navigated the political and supernatural attention surrounding his scientific breakthrough. On his way home, he realized that Klein was testing him after Klein’s message in Chinese nearly exposed their shared connection.

• George III honored Kronos as a Scientific Pioneer and granted him the rank of colonel at a Royal Palace gathering.
• Kronos spoke with Earl Levett about the Conservative Party’s prospects during future turmoil, but refused to explain what he knew about events to come.
• Kronos sensed a powerful watcher following him on his way home and carefully acted like an ordinary nobleman.
• The watcher sent two sheets of paper toward Kronos, and Kronos dodged the first before catching the second.
• Kronos read the Chinese sentence about the taste of a demoness and realized that Klein was testing him.

Kronos let Klein steal a forged volume of Roselle’s Notes so he could pass Bernadette a clue about Roselle’s final tomb, while Klein left believing Kronos was not like him. As Kronos’s scientific reputation grew and his potion digestion accelerated, Olmer asked him to help Olnia, whose escape from the Underworld had failed.

• Kronos wrote out remembered entries from Emperor Roselle’s Diary, then forged a later entry claiming Roselle chose the Primitive Island in the Fog Sea as his final tomb, hoping Klein would pass the clue to Bernadette.
• Kronos let Enuni enter the Argel residence and left a time mark on Klein when he came to inspect the diary; Klein found the entries useful, returned the volume, and left without confronting Kronos.
• Foreign scientists praised Kronos after visiting him, boosting his fame and helping him digest his potion quickly; George III welcomed the recognition as a source of national confidence for his apotheosis ritual.
• Olmer told Kronos that Olnia’s attempt to leave the Underworld had failed because Salinger still had control over it, and the Three Sanguine Grand Dukes could not sever her connection.
• Kronos agreed to help Olnia by serving as her anchor so she could remain in the real world longer while the Sanguine searched for a way to free her from the Underworld.

Kronos joined Olmer and the other Sanguine Dukes in trying to free Olnia from the Underworld’s control. Their attempt left Olnia’s imprint strengthened and the Underworld roaring through the Spirit World passage, with the rescue still unresolved.

• Kronos left an avatar in Backlund and accompanied Olmer to the Sanguine Ancestral Hall to help rescue Olnia.
• Olmer used a Blood-red Whistle to summon Olnia, and Kronos helped her escape through a passage from the Spirit World.
• The three Dukes used Moon and Mother Pathway items to hold back the Underworld while they worked to remove its imprint from Olnia.
• Olmer gave Olnia a restorative potion for Wraiths, but its power of death also nourished the Underworld’s imprint and made it harder to remove.
• The Underworld’s power grew restless and roared through the passage, warning that it was about to intensify its assault.

Kronos and the Sanguine dukes struggled to remove the Underworld’s phoenix mark from Olnia, which threatened to pull her back into the Underworld. Amanises used the powers of darkness and death to erase the mark, freeing Olnia, and said her intervention had already earned its reward.

• The Underworld strengthened its hold on Olnia, and Kronos used his aura to help her resist while Olmer, Cecil, and Colin tried to remove the phoenix mark.
• Kronos reversed time around Olnia, but Olnia stopped him because the mark dated back to when she was only a muddled mass of spirit.
• Kronos suggested asking the Church of Evernight for help, and Olmer hurried to the cathedral to obtain a charm that would guide Amanises’s power.
• Amanises enveloped Olnia’s mark in darkness and then erased it with the power of death, causing the Underworld’s power to retreat into the Spirit World.
• Olnia thanked Amanises and promised the Sanguine would help her in return, but Amanises said she had already received her due reward.

Kronos returned to Backlund after helping Olnia recover her strength, but Lady Arianna exposed his angel status during an urgent meeting about the Royal Family. Her revelation set up his transfer from Backlund to the Cathedral of Machinery, where he could monitor the Church of Steam and Machinery.

• Amanises explained how Olnia's liberation and the Underworld mark served her plans to control the Underworld and prevent Gregrace's return.
• Olmer returned Olnia's Beyonder Item, and Olnia joined the three Sanguine dukes in shattering it to recover her strength.
• Kronos returned to Backlund, taught at the university and to workers, and paid less attention to the Tarot Club.
• Fan Aistin urgently summoned Kronos to Saint Samuel Cathedral, where Anthony and Randall Valentinus were waiting to discuss a matter involving the Royal Family.
• Lady Arianna arrived and bowed to Kronos as Mr. Horamick, revealing to Anthony and Randall that he had become an angel.
• Kronos acknowledged his advancement, and Anthony and Randall greeted him as an angel.

Kronos accompanied Arianna and the others to investigate the Blood Emperor's ruins, where Adam's power had erased the pyramid and concealed what had happened there. Arianna revealed that Kronos's angel status would push him toward the Church of Steam and Machinery, while warning him not to speak Adam's name.

• Arianna showed Kronos scenes of her questioning Lockhart Siakam, who died before revealing more, and led the group to the Blood Emperor's ruins.
• Arianna used concealment to enter the ruins, where Grove Augustus claimed the Augustus Family had only excavated the site with the Demoness Sect's help.
• Kronos found that the pyramid and everything inside had vanished, then sensed the Visionary Pathway's power and suspected Adam had erased them.
• After the investigation ended, Arianna explained that Kronos's newly exposed angel status would help place him at the Cathedral of Machinery and the Enlightenment Monastery, while he could still travel and lecture.
• Kronos told Arianna he had sensed a Visionary's power in the ruins, but she warned him not to say Adam's name because she could not conceal it.

Kronos met Adam in the Spirit World, where Adam recognized his hidden identity and invited him to join the Twilight Hermit Order. After the Church of Steam and Machinery learned that Kronos had become an Angel, the Council of the Gods reassigned his duties, and Kronos headed to the Cathedral of Machinery, where someone awaited him.

• Arianna warned Kronos not to spread what he had learned, and Kronos left for Saint Hilleran Cathedral through the Spirit World.
• Adam recognized Kronos, revealed his interest in Kronos's newly born authority, and invited him to join the Twilight Hermit Order, giving him a contact book to consider the offer.
• Kronos returned to Saint Hilleran Cathedral and joined an emergency Council of the Gods meeting, where Pope Ivan told him to take charge of the Enlightenment Monastery and arrange a temporary successor in Backlund.
• Kronos told Old Fan that his advancement had been exposed, and Old Fan blamed him for neglecting Church affairs; Kronos then assigned Old Fan to keep watch while Nosk returned to Backlund.
• Kronos traveled to the Cathedral of Machinery and saw someone waiting at its entrance to welcome him.

Kronos arrived at the Cathedral of Machinery and took charge of the Enlightenment Monastery, where Ivan explained how it could help him master his Knowledge Mentor powers. The chapter ended with Kronos activating the monastery’s ability and confronting the chaos it unleashed.

• Greenton welcomed Kronos and brought him to Pope Ivan, who assigned Kronos to take over the Enlightenment Monastery while Greenton departed to listen to God's teachings.
• Ivan and Greenton discussed their strained history, and Ivan privately dismissed Greenton as naive and said Horamick did not seem interested in power.
• Kronos explored the monastery's murals and records, noticing how they glorified Stiano and portrayed Emperor Roselle as an agent of the God of Steam and Machinery.
• Ivan explained that the Church lacked complete Knowledge Mentor guidance because Roselle had left before sharing his experience, then described the monastery's training ability for controlling chaotic forces.
• Kronos activated the Enlightenment Monastery and sensed chaotic forces all around him.

Kronos trained his control over force while giving lectures across Loen, then learned that a War of the Gods might be approaching. Ivan assigned him to watch the Moses Ascetic Order and gave him the Wisdom Angel's Wings, whose resonance with Kronos's Dark Angel's Wings suggested the two items might be combined.

• Kronos trained in the Enlightenment Monastery and toured Loen to lecture with George III's permission.
• At a Council of the Gods, Kronos learned that the churches were monitoring rival factions as war approached.
• Ivan assigned Kronos to watch the Moses Ascetic Order, intercept its angels, and notify Ivan if the Hidden Sage intervened.
• Ivan gave Kronos the Wisdom Angel's Wings, a Grade 0 Sealed Artifact that could analyze and replicate information but threatened its user's sanity.
• Kronos felt the Wisdom Angel's Wings resonate with his Dark Angel's Wings and wondered whether five related items could form a Sequence One Beyonder item.
• Kronos accepted the assignment and recognized the Moses Ascetic Order's base coordinates from an angel's memories.

Kronos accepted Ivan’s assignment to investigate the Moses Ascetic Order’s headquarters, then tried to merge the Wisdom Angel’s Wings with the Dark Angel’s Wings. After adding the Never-Extinguishing Sun to balance their powers, the resulting energy began trying to complete itself using the Beyonder characteristics within the Dark Angel’s Wings.

• Kronos accepted Ivan’s assignment to investigate the Moses Ascetic Order’s hidden headquarters on the island in the Fog Sea.
• Kronos activated the Enlightenment Monastery’s chaotic force field and examined the Wisdom Angel’s Wings alongside his Dark Angel’s Wings.
• The two pairs of wings abruptly began merging and devouring each other, so Kronos contacted Old Fan for advice.
• Old Fan advised Kronos to balance the powers, and Kronos added the Never-Extinguishing Sun as a third Pathway power.
• The merged energy became a mass of light, reached a rough balance, and then began drawing on the Sea Monster and Baoli within the Dark Angel’s Wings to complete itself.

Kronos failed to balance the five pathway powers in the Dark Angel's Wings, so he used the River of Time to retry the fusion and strengthened its Visionary and Tyrant powers. He created the Sequence One Beyonder item God Almighty's Substitute (False), whose final two abilities remained sealed, then wondered whether his Power of Time could conceal its dangerous side effect.

• The Sun pathway overpowered the White Tower and Hanged Man pathways, forming the Sequence Two Sun God's Eye and damaging two of Kronos's angel-level Beyonder items.
• Kronos consulted Old Fan and the Cathedral of Machinery's books, then left for the Fog Sea after Ivan urged him to take his position in preparation for war.
• On a deserted island, Kronos used the River of Time to rewind the Sun God's Eye to the stage when the Visionary and Tyrant powers had separated from the other three.
• Kronos guided the five powers into balance, sacrificed the Tyrant's Roar and Manipulation Gloves to strengthen the Visionary and Tyrant powers, and used the Fate Medallion to bestow luck on himself.
• The light formed the Sequence One Wings of Light, God Almighty's Substitute (False), with its Visionary and Tyrant abilities sealed and a weakened risk of mysterious thoughts awakening.

Kronos investigated the Moses Ascetic Order’s island and used its ritual passage to enter the order’s hidden headquarters, finding it apparently deserted. He reached a crude palace containing the Hermit Pathway’s emblem and suspected the Hidden Sage usually stayed there.

• Kronos examined the island’s inhabitants and learned that many had accepted the Hidden Sage’s knowledge and were nearing a loss of control.
• Kronos discovered that the island’s Sequence 5 overseer had left and concluded the Moses Ascetic Order had mobilized for the coming war.
• Kronos knocked out the Sequence 6 guarding a cave and activated its Ritual Magic, using Hermit Pathway power as bait for the Hidden Sage.
• After the Hidden Sage failed to appear, Kronos entered the hidden space and found a crude palace with the Hermit Pathway’s emblem.
• Kronos recalled how the Hidden Sage had replaced the Moses Ascetic Order’s original symbol and leader, then wondered whether the palace was his usual residence.

Kronos explored the Moses Ascetic Order’s old headquarters, uncovered the Hermit Pathway’s advancement information, and learned how Constantin became the foundation of the Hidden Sage. He left with the Knowledge Emperor ritual and a plan to spread his achievements, while the path to becoming Hermit remained tied to Constantin’s tragedy.

• Kronos studied the ruined murals and discovered that Constantin had led the Moses Ascetic Order, with Stiano once subordinate to him.
• Kronos used his Eyes of Mystery Prying and God Almighty’s Substitute to reveal and read the ten steles recording the Hermit Pathway’s sequences.
• Kronos learned the Knowledge Emperor advancement ritual and planned to spread his work in the microscopic field to gain recognition.
• Kronos touched the final phantom stele and received the Hermit formula, which required two additional Sequence 1 Knowledge Emperor characteristics, the Uniqueness, and erasing himself from history.
• Kronos learned that Amon and Stiano had deceived Constantin into animating the Uniqueness, and that Constantin fused himself with it to create the Hidden Sage.

Kronos learned how Constantin’s failed attempt to accommodate the Hermit Uniqueness ruined Stiano’s plans and left the Hidden Sage blocking others’ advancement. At the Moses Ascetic Order headquarters, Kronos fought a near-lost-control Angel, then tried to bluff his way out before the Hidden Sage could arrive.

• Kronos learned that Constantin had lost control after abruptly accommodating the Hermit Uniqueness, while Stiano’s scheme to claim Constantin’s characteristic and the Uniqueness had collapsed.
• Kronos left the stone tablets and encountered a Sequence Two Angel guarding the headquarters, who asked him to share what he had seen.
• Kronos recognized that the old Angel was close to losing control and attacked him under a concealment domain.
• Kronos trapped the old man with a chaotic force field and struck with a Red Priest Flame Spear, but the Angel turned incorporeal and began transforming into his mythical form.
• Kronos summoned six Angel-level manifestations from Blasphemy Cards, and both men expressed a desire to avoid a fight to the death.
• Kronos pretended he would not let the old man live, while the Angel offered to seal himself away if Kronos left.

Kronos tricked the Hidden Sage into sealing himself, then traveled to the Sonia Sea as war between Loen and Feysac began. He used the Feysac fleet’s bombardment to target the Sonia Sea Fleet’s commander, disguising his attack as the work of the fleet’s Iron-Blooded Knight.

• Kronos gave the Hidden Sage the Knowledge Emperor formula and ritual in exchange for a promise, then layered his own seal over the old man’s self-sealing and concealed his location.
• Kronos went to Midseashire, trained his force-field control, and continued promoting his Microscopic World through his avatar’s university lectures.
• On October 13, 1350, Old Fan informed Kronos that Feysac had attacked Backlund and Pritz Harbor, prompting Kronos to prepare for war on the Sonia Sea.
• Kronos watched the Feysac Conquering Fleet approach the Sonia Sea’s eastern coast and waited until its cannons began firing.
• Kronos redirected the cannonballs away from the Sonia Sea Fleet’s base and guided one red-lit shot toward its commander, whose attempt to evade it failed.
• Kronos activated an Iron-Blooded Knight-level Fatal Strike through the cannonball, aiming to kill the Fallen Earl and make the Feysac Iron-Blooded Knight appear responsible.