Chapter Summaries

Antie explained to Amilia how the Holy City could use its superior water logistics to outlast the United Forces while letting the Wanderers and major clans devastate each other. Amilia realized the Holy City intended to bind the Wanderers to itself and shape them into a weapon, leaving him unable to see a way for the United Forces to escape their predicament.

• Amilia told Antie that Royal Family reinforcements led by a powerful old monster were on their way, but Antie argued they would arrive too late.
• Antie explained that soldiers would run out of stored water without battlefield shelter, while the Holy City could keep its Wanderers supplied and let the United Forces grow exhausted.
• Antie described a strategy of holding the Holy City’s own troops back while the Wanderers and United Forces wore each other down, then sending in fresh forces to finish the fight.
• Antie said the Holy City wanted both sides weakened so the major clans would resent the Wanderers, leaving the Wanderers dependent on the Holy City and its promises.
• Amilia concluded that the Holy City’s plan could make the Wanderers a powerful weapon, and he fell into despair as he could find no way for the United Forces to break free.

Antie told Amilia that fear of the Holy City would drive the great races to punish nearby Wanderers, and he planned to capture Wanderers before they joined the Holy City so they could support the Succubus race. After meeting Amilia, Antie reflected on his plans for the Succubi and considered Hell’s potential as a human colony, while suspecting that the previous Hell Great Lords had not truly fallen.

• Antie explained that the great races would blame the Wanderers for their defeat and drive more of them toward the Holy City.
• Antie told Amilia to capture Wanderers before they committed to the Holy City and make them support the Succubus race, despite the bloody consequences.
• Amilia asked whether Antie might treat him as an enemy, and Antie reassured him that he did not threaten the Succubus race.
• Antie left Amilia and reflected that he had already secured his wager with Ruiqi through his plans for the Succubi.
• Antie considered Hell as a possible colony for humanity and suspected that the supposedly fallen Hell Great Lords had hidden themselves away.

Amilia discovered that Antie had been assassinated in the Succubus Settlement, and the Succubus Clan held a funeral as the news spread. Yi Hao and Ruiqi went to investigate while Ding Dan remained at the battlefield, where Lu Xiao awoke after losing control and saw the devastation he had caused.

• Amilia found Antie and his bodyguard succubus dead, with a faint flame of authority flickering above Antie's heart.
• Amilia recognized the flame and later stood with several dozen succubi beside Antie's coffin outside Gentleman's Paradise.
• Yi Hao learned of Antie's death and, after discussing the report with Ding Dan, went to the Succubus Settlement to investigate while Ding Dan stayed behind.
• Yi Hao met Ruiqi on the way, told her about Antie's death, and they decided to return together.
• Lu Xiao awoke on the battlefield in his normal form, realized he had caused the surrounding destruction while out of control, and left.

Lu Xiao disguised himself as a Minotaur and rampaged through the battle to help meet the United Forces’ two-hundred-million quota, drawing the attention of several Deities. After a Royal Family Demon wounded him with a bone greatsword, Lu Xiao seized the weapon and lifted its wielder off the ground.

• Lu Xiao joined a Minotaur legion in disguise, claimed to be their former chief’s brother, and rallied them to charge the Wanderers.
• Lu Xiao fought through the battlefield repeatedly, became separated from the Minotaurs, and accidentally killed a commander from another race.
• Calamity and Morati watched Lu Xiao’s rampage, while Ding Dan and the United Forces’ Deities sent help toward him.
• A Royal Family Demon attacked Lu Xiao with a bone greatsword, shattered his axes, and wounded his shoulder.
• Lu Xiao grabbed the greatsword’s bone spikes and lifted the Royal Family Demon into the air.

Lu Xiao, disguised as a Minotaur, beat a Great Demon and then fought Ding Dan in front of the United Forces. Ding Dan stopped Lu Xiao from stomping him with a command, and the two accused each other of being sore losers.

• Lu Xiao disarmed the Great Demon and beat him with the White Bone Greatsword while two United Forces Deities fled when Ding Dan arrived.
• Ding Dan attacked Lu Xiao, and the two exchanged blows before Lu Xiao used the greatsword to halt his backward flight.
• Lu Xiao tricked Ding Dan into wrenching his lower back, punched him in the nose, and prepared to stomp on his head.
• Ding Dan used the Crown's power to command Lu Xiao to kneel and stopped the stomp.
• Lu Xiao called Ding Dan a sore loser, and Ding Dan retorted that Lu Xiao had been one first.

Ding Dan and Lu Xiao agreed to fight without restrictions, and Ding Dan revealed his power by rallying the Wanderers against Lu Xiao. As the army charged, Hell’s spectators watched to see how Lu Xiao would withstand Ding Dan’s attack.

• Ding Dan and Lu Xiao agreed to stop holding back and fight seriously.
• Ding Dan stabbed Positivity into his own chest, transformed into a powerful, muscular form, and used his ability to bring the Wanderers under his command.
• Ding Dan ordered the Wanderers to burn their life force and surround Lu Xiao, who recognized the threat of facing both the army and Ding Dan.
• The other fighters paused their battle as spectators, while airborne beings took to the sky to watch Lu Xiao face the charging Wanderers.
• The onlookers debated Lu Xiao’s strength and compared his horns and body hair to Ding Dan’s.

Lu Xiao fought Ding Dan and the enhanced Wanderers, using his synchronized heartbeat to kill many of them before Ding Dan shattered his head. Lu Xiao survived long enough to tear off Ding Dan’s wings and crush his neck, leaving the watching Hell creatures stunned.

• Lu Xiao’s intimidation briefly made the Wanderers hesitate, but Ding Dan urged them forward with promises of rewards.
• Lu Xiao charged into the enhanced Wanderers, then took a hammer from a King-level Hell creature and used it to smash through his attackers.
• Lu Xiao healed and intensified his heartbeat, causing the hearts of the surrounding Wanderers to burst and forcing Ding Dan to attack.
• Ding Dan struck Lu Xiao’s head until it shattered, but Lu Xiao grabbed his wings, tore them off, and crushed his neck.
• The Hell creatures watching debated Lu Xiao’s Authority and whether Ding Dan had been forced to attack up close.

Lu Xiao and Ding Dan ended their battle without a clear victor, and Lu Xiao was carried away by the Minotaur Tribe as its new chief. Ding Dan let the Minotaurs escape, while Mitchell warned that their strength might make them a future obstacle.

• Lu Xiao and Ding Dan stopped fighting after an hour of exchanging blows, and Ding Dan kicked Lu Xiao into the Minotaur army.
• A Minotaur commander named Niu Ben rallied his tribe to protect Lu Xiao, who praised him as the tribe’s bravest warrior.
• Niu Ben carried Lu Xiao on his back and led the Minotaurs through the Wanderers’ defensive line, resisting even a deity sent to stop him.
• Ding Dan retrieved the Crown and let the Minotaur army leave, while Mitchell warned him that the tribe could become an obstacle.
• Ding Dan told Mitchell not to pursue a cornered foe, then asked him to stop flattering him.

Ding Dan withdrew the surviving Wanderers rather than sacrifice them to eliminate the last United Forces troops. Meanwhile, Lu Xiao tried to persuade Niu Ben to abandon him on the way back to the Minotaur tribe, but learned the Minotaurs were willing to flee when they could not win and quickly invented a story about his late brother, Niu Da.

• Ding Dan estimated that finishing off the remaining United Forces would cost nearly all the surviving Wanderers, so he ordered a retreat.
• The United Forces grew suspicious when the Wanderers opened a gap in their defensive line, and both sides remained at a distance.
• Niu Ben gave Lu Xiao water and promised to get him safely back to the tribe despite the Minotaurs' exhaustion.
• Lu Xiao claimed his injuries and his brother's death would bring danger to those who returned with him, and urged Niu Ben to leave him behind.
• Niu Ben questioned Lu Xiao's claim that Minotaurs never fled, explaining that their rule was to fight when they could and run when they could not.
• Lu Xiao reacted to his mistaken assumptions by claiming Niu Da had raised him to be a proud warrior who fought the fiercest battles.

Lu Xiao reached the Minotaur tribe with Niu Ben and learned that the former chief had fathered a tenth of the tribe’s population. As Lu Xiao took in the tribe’s customs and social hierarchy, the horns on his head grew thicker than before.

• Niu Ben explained that the former chief had contributed a tenth of the tribe’s population and promised to defend Lu Xiao.
• Niu Ben offered Lu Xiao more than a thousand cows to mate with, but Lu Xiao resolved to change the tribe’s breeding customs.
• After traveling for a little over a day, the exhausted Minotaurs arrived at their settlement, where Lu Xiao saw that female Minotaurs had human heads and bovine bodies.
• Lu Xiao observed the settlement’s cattle sheds and noticed that Minotaurs with thicker horns whipped those carrying bricks.
• As Lu Xiao compared Niu Ben’s thick horns with the others’, the horns on Lu Xiao’s own head grew rapidly thicker.

Lu Xiao reached the Minotaur Settlement and discovered that the building he mistook for its center of power was a brick kiln beside a crowded cowshed. Niu Ben brought Elder Niu to meet him, but the elder began by scolding Niu Ben for praising Lu Xiao’s battlefield valor instead of his wisdom.

• Niu Ben carried Lu Xiao to the brick kiln, then left him at the cowshed while he went to find Elder Niu and discuss making him chief.
• Lu Xiao saw the cowshed’s many female Minotaurs and invited the exhausted warriors guarding it inside to drink water.
• Niu Ben returned with Elder Niu, and Lu Xiao considered how to win over the elder, who might recognize that his identity as Er Niu was fabricated.
• Niu Ben told Elder Niu that Lu Xiao had led the warriors out of their encirclement and predicted that rivals would target him as a chief candidate.
• Elder Niu said he would judge whether Lu Xiao had the wisdom to be chief, then struck Niu Ben with his cane for praising valor over wisdom.

Lu Xiao reconsidered becoming chief of the Minotaur Tribe and decided he could instead guide Niu Ben as a strategist while building a Minotaur Legion. The elder announced that Lu Xiao and any other candidates would have to pass the Elder Council’s test of wisdom to become chief.

• The Minotaur elder admired Lu Xiao’s oversized horns, then said their size made him less suited to be chief; Lu Xiao shrank them and convinced the elder he had seen them wrong.
• The elder praised Lu Xiao’s strength but insisted that chief required wisdom, while Niu Ben tried and failed to correct his account of what had happened.
• Lu Xiao considered the Minotaurs’ unexplained potential and decided to stay beside Niu Ben as a strategist rather than seek the chief’s role himself.
• The elder declared that candidates for chief would face a test of wisdom set by the Elder Council.

Lu Xiao explored the Minotaur Tribe’s brick kiln and examined how its distinctive brickmaking industry worked. He decided to find a way to earn the tribe more resources through the industry, while remaining unconcerned about passing the upcoming trial.

• Elder Niu said the Elder Council would fairly choose the tribe’s next chief, and Lu Xiao agreed to take part in the trial.
• After Elder Niu left, Niu Ben promised to join the trial and protect Lu Xiao from anyone who targeted him.
• Lu Xiao visited the brick kiln and watched Minotaurs soak Hell Worm-dug clods, press them into molds, and heat the resulting bricks.
• Lu Xiao concluded that the Minotaurs’ brickmaking craft could help the tribe develop, but their homes and poor living conditions suggested the bricks brought in too few resources.
• Lu Xiao planned to improve the tribe’s income from the brick industry and assumed he would pass the trial if the other contestants died.

Lu Xiao headed for the thicket to retrieve Raven feathers for the Prison Doctor while reflecting on Hell’s mysteries and the possible survival of past Great Lords. Meanwhile, Yi Hao investigated Antie’s murder at Gentleman's Paradise and concluded that the killer was likely a deity.

• Lu Xiao decided to restore Calamity first so he could retrieve the buried Raven feathers, and postponed investigating the plague’s source.
• Lu Xiao considered asking Amilia about the possible survival of past Great Lords and left the Minotaur settlement unchallenged.
• Yi Hao arrived at the Succubus Settlement with Ruiqi and went to Antie’s office in Gentleman's Paradise to investigate his death.
• Amilia told Yi Hao that Antie and his King-level bodyguard had each been killed with a single strike and that Antie was not a deity.
• Yi Hao concluded that the scene resembled a locked-room murder and that the killer must have been at least a deity.

Yi Hao arranged a public tribute for Antie, using it as a press conference while keeping Ruiqi unaware that Antie may have faked his death. After receiving Ding Dan’s permission to investigate, Yi Hao searched the Succubus Settlement but found no trace of Antie, while Lu Xiao reached the mysterious Thicket.

• Yi Hao and Amilia agreed to portray Antie’s assassination as an attack on both the Succubus Clan and the Holy City, and Ruiqi accepted Yi Hao’s invitation to pay her respects without knowing their suspicions.
• After Ruiqi left, Yi Hao asked Amilia to publicize the tribute and invite other information brokers, calling the event a press conference.
• Yi Hao contacted Ding Dan through Mitchell and reported that Antie had probably staged his death; Ding Dan told him to investigate why.
• Yi Hao searched the quiet Succubus Settlement for most of the day but failed to find Antie.
• Lu Xiao arrived at the mysterious Thicket.

Lu Xiao freed Calamity from his raven form and learned that Calamity and Morati had become devotees of Death. Calamity recounted how a devotee of Time had anchored him and an Observer had confronted Death’s followers, leaving Lu Xiao with a cryptic warning to find whoever had disrupted time.

• Lu Xiao found rain falling over the battlefield, where shoots rapidly grew into a thicket, and followed Calamity and Morati to the giant crow’s figure.
• Lu Xiao chose to free Calamity first, and Death’s figure restored Calamity from his raven form while Morati returned to the sky.
• In the Wilderness, Calamity told Lu Xiao that a devotee of Time had planted an anchor point on him, so he had asked the giant crow to turn him into a raven to divert the danger.
• Calamity explained that he and Morati had become devotees of Death, whose projection was the giant crow and who was close to supremacy.
• Calamity said an Observer had descended and been confronted by one of Death’s god-level devotees, who told the Observer to find whoever had disrupted time.

Lu Xiao and Calamity discussed Calamity’s freedom, his devotion to Death, and the mysteries surrounding the Anchor Point and Hell. They retrieved the hidden Raven feathers, and Lu Xiao decided to send them to Doctor through the Divine Hall so Doctor could pass them to Prison Doctor.

• Calamity reenacted his exchange with the Observer and told Lu Xiao that becoming Death’s devotee had ended his growing madness.
• Lu Xiao suspected Death was showing goodwill toward Calamity and Morati, but kept the theory to himself.
• Lu Xiao considered whether the Observer had planted Calamity’s Anchor Point during the Time Shadow, then reflected on the growing dangers in Hell and Fate’s role.
• Calamity opened the ground where the Raven feathers were hidden, and Lu Xiao brought out a sack taller than himself.
• Lu Xiao decided to send the feathers to Doctor through the Divine Hall for delivery to Prison Doctor.

Lu Xiao arranged help for the Blood Plague in Kyoto and promised Warden an army from Hell for a future counteroffensive. He sent Prison Doctor a sack of raven feathers, which could extend the medical workers’ lives by over a thousand years.

• Lu Xiao asked Warden to deliver a sack to Prison Doctor and learned that the Blood Plague had infected over ninety percent of Kyoto’s population.
• Lu Xiao sent Gambler to help investigate the plague and promised Warden Hell’s army for a counteroffensive to reclaim farmland and resources.
• Lu Xiao returned to Hell and told Calamity to become a bull-headed strategist.
• Warden carried the sack of raven feathers to Prison Doctor, who realized the feathers could grant the medical workers over a thousand extra years of life.

Lu Xiao returned to the Minotaur settlement with Calamity, introduced him as Niu San, and learned that the Elders' Council had leaked the examination questions to favored candidates. As the test began the next day, Lu Xiao saw the candidates preparing to cheat with answers written on their bodies and noticed Niu Ben was being shunned.

• The Warden contacted Gambler, who agreed to Lu Xiao's arrangements and said he would reach Kyoto in a day.
• Lu Xiao and Calamity returned to the Minotaur settlement, where Calamity abandoned his idea of becoming chief after seeing the female Minotaurs.
• Lu Xiao introduced Calamity to Niu Ben as his biological brother from a different father and mother, calling him Niu San.
• Niu Ben told Lu Xiao that all the elders except Niu Gong had been bought off and had leaked the examination questions.
• The next day, Lu Xiao saw the Minotaur candidates arrive for the test with answers written on their bodies and noticed the other King-level commanders treated Niu Ben with disdain.

Lu Xiao and Calamity helped Niu Ben take the Minotaurs’ chief-selection exam, but the test’s simple questions and candidates’ bizarre cheating methods made Lu Xiao doubt the race’s prospects. Lu Xiao finished most of the test quickly and tried to keep his score low so Niu Ben could rank highest, while Calamity suggested comparing answers.

• Lu Xiao, Calamity, and Niu Ben endured strict searches before entering the Elders' Council examination hall.
• An elder announced a five-question test, with the ten highest-scoring candidates advancing to another round.
• Lu Xiao and Calamity realized the cheating Minotaurs had written down the questions rather than the answers.
• Lu Xiao quickly answered the first four questions but left the cow-care question unanswered to keep his score down for Niu Ben.
• Calamity asked Lu Xiao to compare answers with him.