Recaps

Nuoyaji heard footsteps beyond the mine rubble, and Yimulei's men dug out thirteen trapped miners. The footsteps had come from farther inside the mine, where darkness still concealed whatever was moving.

• Nuoyaji used Supernatural Hearing to tell Yimulei that someone was moving inside the mine beyond the rubble.
• Yimulei ordered the captain and the men to dig carefully while Nuoyaji listened for sounds from the passage.
• The digging stopped when the men heard cracking stone, and Nuoyaji spotted a bloodied hand through a gap in the rubble.
• Nuoyaji urged the men to move a large rock, revealing thirteen injured miners trapped in a cramped space.
• The captain and the others gave the miners water and carried the badly injured away while Nuoyaji realized the footsteps had come from deeper inside the mine.

King Ghidorah explored the collapsed mine as Black Owl, where he found and freed thirteen trapped miners. He made footsteps to alert Nuoyaji and the rescuers, then walked deeper into the mine.

• Black Owl examined the collapsed mine and discovered a wounded miner still alive beneath the rubble.
• Black Owl freed the miner, then searched the mine and dug out thirteen survivors, leaving them together near the tunnel entrance.
• King Ghidorah sensed Nuoyaji and other rescuers on the far side of the rubble and deliberately made footsteps for them to hear.
• Nuoyaji called out that someone was inside, and Black Owl stopped walking.
• Black Owl left the miners and headed deeper into the mine.

Black Owl found a vast, pulsing pit beneath the mine and realized an ancient behemoth was sleeping there, while Nuoyaji rescued miners and spotted a mysterious shadow. The Silence Society confirmed their search had failed and headed southeast to find a loosened seal and wait for the beings beneath it to awaken.

• King Ghidorah sent Black Owl deeper into the damaged mine, where he discovered a bottomless pit and felt a slow pulse coming from below.
• King Ghidorah concluded that the storm and landslide had disturbed an ancient behemoth but chose not to awaken it yet.
• Nuoyaji helped rescue the trapped miners, and Yimulei thanked him and offered to take him to the viscount.
• Nuoyaji saw a small, cloaked black figure near the trees, chased it, and returned unsettled by how events were diverging from his knowledge of the future.
• The Silence Society learned that the storm-ravaged field was not the place they sought, and their leader ordered them to find the remaining site and wait for its inhabitants to awaken.

King Ghidorah recovered fully, unleashed a controlled hurricane, and flew toward the continent’s interior to explore it. In a distant forest, A Qiu finished a crude shelter with help from animals and remembered how the storm had destroyed her former home.

• King Ghidorah inspected his restored body and decided to leave his side quests behind to explore the world.
• King Ghidorah spread his wings, heated the lake, and formed a storm that he kept within a radius of a dozen or so kilometers.
• King Ghidorah flew inland beneath the storm clouds, keeping his body hidden from view.
• A Qiu finished building a small shelter and thanked the animals that had helped her.
• A Qiu remembered the peaceful wooden home she had built and how the storm had swept it away.

After a catastrophic storm destroyed her forest home, A Qiu struggled to rebuild a shelter and mourned her missing family. Her animal friends sensed another danger as a vast black cloud appeared and began spreading across the sky.

• A Qiu recalled how a violent storm lifted her cabin and forced her and her animal friends to shelter underground.
• After the storm, A Qiu found the forest flattened and her familiar home and landmarks gone.
• A Qiu and her animal friends gathered usable timber and built a crude cabin.
• A Qiu wept over her lost home and worried about her parents, then resolved to search for them.
• A Qiu's animal friends grew alarmed and dragged her toward shelter as a black cloud rapidly spread across the sky.

King Ghidorah fed on the storm’s lightning as he flew deeper into the continent, leaving the storm’s destruction below. A Qiu and the small animals survived the storm, but she accidentally smashed her newly built wooden house and decided to rebuild it.

• King Ghidorah absorbed energy from the storm and flew onward, dismissing the damage left by his earlier superstorm.
• A Qiu and the small animals took shelter from the fast-moving storm, which passed almost as quickly as it arrived.
• A Qiu discovered that she had smashed her wooden house while taking cover and broke down crying.
• After the animals tried to comfort her, A Qiu steadied herself, picked up the house’s main beam, and resolved to build again.

King Ghidorah surveyed the storm-ravaged mountains, remembered that he wanted a lair, and decided to find or claim a castle. Meanwhile, a group of black-robed figures arrived at abandoned ruins in the western Karelia Empire, where their leader prepared to put the others to work.

• King Ghidorah landed in a flooded mountain region and recognized it as being near the place where he had first awakened.
• King Ghidorah remembered that he wanted a home and compared his lack of a lair to Godzilla’s grand undersea temple.
• King Ghidorah decided to seize a suitable castle, ask Apekus for directions, or have Apekus build him one.
• A group of black-robed figures entered an abandoned mine site in the western Karelia Empire.
• The group’s leader identified the ruins as their destination and told the others he would be putting them through trouble.

Duke Desolation, Marquis Darkblood, Keyin Yidu, and other powerful figures followed the black-robed leader into a collapsed mine to investigate what lay beneath it. They reached an enormous underground chamber, where murals covered the walls.

• The black-robed leader revealed Duke Desolation, Marquis Darkblood, and Keyin Yidu among the figures gathered at the ruins.
• Duke Desolation cleared the rubble from the mine entrance with a single motion and led the group inside.
• The group followed the mine tunnel to a vast pit and jumped down into its depths.
• Duke Desolation and Marquis Darkblood landed safely in the underground space, where the group saw murals covering the chamber walls.

The leading black-robed man and his companions channeled their power into an ancient altar, awakening the dragon of destruction Voraksa. As dark red light consumed the underground chamber, the black-robed man knelt before the awakening being.

• The director of the Chronicle Court, Marquis Darkblood, Duke Desolation, and the leading black-robed man discovered ancient murals depicting a dragon and an altar beneath the pit.
• The leading black-robed man placed a black-and-red crystal in the altar and ordered the others to channel their power into it.
• The altar devoured their energy, leaving Duke Desolation, Marquis Darkblood, and the director of the Chronicle Court exhausted.
• The crystal split as the altar and murals lit up, and the leading black-robed man announced that the dragon of destruction was awakening.
• The leading black-robed man knelt and called the ancient being Voraksa as dark red light devoured the chamber.

A ritual beneath an abandoned mine unleashed a devastating pillar of light and freed the ancient dragon Voraksa. Voraksa emerged into the human age, declared his survival and hatred of the gods, while King Ghidorah flew toward the disturbance.

• The black-robed leader waited for the altar’s fissure to release the being he had awakened, while Duke Desolation and Marquis Darkblood watched.
• Purple light spread through the underground chamber, then vanished as an enormous dark red pillar erupted and destroyed the mine ruins above.
• King Ghidorah noticed the distant eruption and changed course to investigate.
• The black-robed leader saw a huge black dragon claw its way out of the pit where the altar had stood.
• Voraksa sensed that the gods were gone, declared himself the Dragon of Destruction, and spread his wings as he proclaimed that he had survived.

Voraksa emerged from his underground prison and set out to announce his return by destroying a city, but King Ghidorah defeated him with a single golden lightning strike and pinned him to the ground. After learning Voraksa had no castle, King Ghidorah ordered him to lead the way to one.

• Voraksa flew from the pit and searched for a target to destroy, then sensed an enormous, unfamiliar creature nearby.
• Voraksa attacked King Ghidorah, but golden lightning erased his left wing and sent him crashing to the ground.
• King Ghidorah pinned Voraksa beneath his foot and left him badly injured while questioning him.
• King Ghidorah asked whether Voraksa had a castle, and Voraksa said he did not.
• Voraksa told King Ghidorah that he knew where a castle was, and King Ghidorah ordered him to lead the way.

The unnamed leader of the men in black died amid the ruins after the pillar of light devastated the underground chamber. A wounded middle-aged man emerged from the rubble and headed toward the edge of the pit, leaving the other survivors behind.

• The pillar of light killed Duke Desolation and severely injured Marquis Darkblood, the head of the Chronicle Court, and Shattered Pivot Executioner.
• The unnamed leader of the men in black lay dying and mistook a blurred figure for his mother before he died.
• A middle-aged man in a dark blue robe climbed out from under the rubble and bound his injured arm.
• The middle-aged man surveyed the ruins, saw that Marquis Darkblood was still alive, and walked toward the slope without looking back.

Voraksa led King Ghidorah toward a dragon elder’s palace but found the plain he remembered submerged beneath a vast flood, suggesting the palace had been destroyed. He struggled to explain the changed terrain to King Ghidorah and accidentally brushed his healing wing stump against his magic field.

• King Ghidorah remarked that Voraksa had recovered well as they flew across the sky.
• Voraksa recognized the flooded landscape as the place where he had expected to find a dragon elder’s palace.
• Voraksa reasoned that the gods’ ancient wars might have transformed the land and destroyed the palace.
• King Ghidorah questioned Voraksa when he slowed, and Voraksa hesitated over how to explain that their destination might be gone.
• Voraksa’s magic output wavered as he tried to steady himself, and his left wing stump brushed against his lifting field.

King Ghidorah questioned Voraksa about the War of the Gods and learned that Voraksa had been defeated within its first few decades, long before the war’s decisive battles. King Ghidorah ordered him to find a palace or die, and Voraksa flew off to search.

• Voraksa fell into the lake after a slight brush from King Ghidorah, then climbed out and stood before him.
• King Ghidorah asked when Voraksa had been defeated and whether he knew Apekus, but Voraksa had never heard of him.
• Voraksa said he was roughly at the eleventh tier and claimed that dozens of gods had worn him down over decades.
• King Ghidorah learned that Voraksa had been eliminated only a few decades into the thousand-year War of the Gods and dismissed what he could know about it.
• King Ghidorah ordered Voraksa to find him a palace or die, and Voraksa flew away to search.

King Ghidorah resumed control of Black Owl and discovered Fuyila had stayed beside the avatar while he was away. Reviewing its memories, he learned that Nuoyaji had used his knowledge as a regressor to secure aid and organize relief for Luoweida, leaving King Ghidorah convinced that Nuoyaji benefited from a protagonist halo.

• King Ghidorah left Voraksa to search and transferred his consciousness into Black Owl in Luoweida City.
• Black Owl stood abruptly and knocked Fuyila to the floor, then King Ghidorah realized she had stayed beside the avatar and tried to feed it bread.
• Fuyila said an uncle had given her the bread, and King Ghidorah reviewed Black Owl's records of the past day and a half.
• Nuoyaji gained Viscount Heluos's authorization and gold, reopened an abandoned mine route, and arranged for a prominent woman to guarantee grain sales to Luoweida.
• Nuoyaji and Dezi established a transparent Disaster Relief Committee and secured advance wages for miners who agreed to clear and repair the damaged mines.
• King Ghidorah concluded that Nuoyaji's successes came from his regressor's knowledge and the protagonist halo, and found the world interesting.

Nuoyaji considered the unexpected arrival of an important noblewoman and wrote down the names of former comrades he hoped to find. As a knock sounded at his door, he had secured grain for Luoweida and begun planning to search for them.

• Black Owl left Fuyila in the stone house, and she decided to stay there a few more days instead of heading south.
• Dezi checked names as flood survivors moved through the receding waters, while miners waited to travel with him to the mine.
• Nuoyaji finished a carefully revised letter asking an important noblewoman for help and recalled her unusual question about his birth year.
• Nuoyaji wondered why the noblewoman had come to Stone Watchtower Town, but set aside his suspicions after securing grain for Luoweida.
• Nuoyaji wrote the names Kehulier, A Qiu, Chaluoke, and Lufuna on a sheet and tucked it into his pocket before someone knocked at the door.

Nuoyaji agreed to travel to the western mines after Heross asked him to investigate damage there under the duke’s order. He accepted the assignment to learn why the duke had chosen Luoweida, then left with Yimulei for the viscount’s vault and asked to send another letter.

• The butler summoned Nuoyaji to meet Heross, and Nuoyaji wore the Luopu mage’s robe that Heross had given him.
• Heross showed Nuoyaji the duke’s order to send someone to inspect damage at the western mines and explained that Luoweida was short-handed.
• Heross offered Nuoyaji anything from his vault as a reward, and Nuoyaji agreed to go because he wanted to learn what was happening at the mines.
• Heross told Yimulei to take Nuoyaji to the vault and let him choose whatever he wanted.
• As they walked to the vault, Nuoyaji told Yimulei that he wanted to send another letter.

Nuoyaji sent a letter to Meweiro in Stone Watchtower Town, hoping to gain her help, while Meweiro considered what his repeated letters meant. She investigated why imperial officials and the Mining Association were directing attention toward the western mines, determined to find out what was there.

• Nuoyaji asked Yimulei to arrange delivery of a letter to Lady Meweiro in Stone Watchtower Town, and Yimulei agreed.
• Meweiro received Nuoyaji's letter from an attendant and read it twice, then wondered whether he might be connected to someone from her past.
• Meweiro reviewed the Lord High Speaker's vague order to observe Stone Watchtower Town and suspected it had been meant to remove her from the capital.
• Meweiro noted that various powers were making discreet moves after the storm while she was cut off from her intelligence network.
• Meweiro read an Imperial Mining Association request to inspect the western mines and resolved to discover why the region had drawn such attention.

Nuoyaji left Luoweida City for the Western Mine while Yimulei stayed behind to manage the city. King Ghidorah wondered whether the mine was connected to Voraksa, then Black Owl departed as Fuyila watched.

• Nuoyaji set out west with five guards and mercenaries, leaving Yimulei to oversee Luoweida City.
• Yimulei returned to the viscount's residence and began processing the city's paperwork.
• King Ghidorah watched Nuoyaji's party leave and considered whether the Western Mine was connected to Voraksa's discovery.
• King Ghidorah noticed that work had resumed at Luoweida's mine, and Black Owl left the abandoned stone house while Fuyila ate her potato.

Black Owl explored a hidden space deep inside the mine, but his image suddenly vanished and King Ghidorah lost the avatar’s endpoint. Bewildered and furious, King Ghidorah concealed himself in a storm and flew toward the western mine.

• Black Owl passed the repaired mine entrance and crawled through a gap in a rubble-blocked dead end into a small space marked by ancient dark stains.
• Black Owl’s image abruptly vanished as he was about to step forward.
• King Ghidorah discovered that his link to Black Owl remained intact but the avatar’s endpoint no longer existed, and he failed to establish a new connection.
• King Ghidorah rose in anger, summoned a storm, and flew toward the western mine at high speed.

A monstrous, purple-crystal-covered creature awakened beneath the mine and rose from a vast pit as Dezi and the miners fled. Dezi and the miners were left staring at the creature, unsure whether it was a dragon.

• Purple light spread through the deep cave as something stirred and cracked the rock around it.
• Dezi felt the ground trembling at the mine and ordered the miners to run.
• The mine sank into a vast pit, and purple light shone from its depths.
• A huge, rock-scaled creature with purple crystals climbed out of the pit before Dezi and the miners.
• Dezi and the miners wondered whether the creature was a dragon.

A crystal-armored black behemoth named Valeria awakened in a world without gods and set out to find its main body. A storm-borne golden, three-headed creature caught up with Valeria and struck it with lightning.

• Valeria emerged from the pit, sensed that the gods were gone, and realized a small creature’s energy had awakened its body.
• Valeria decided to find its main body, also called Valeria, and flew west in search of it.
• Valeria spotted a huge black storm approaching from the east and tried to fly around it.
• A golden three-headed creature emerged from the storm and pursued Valeria as it fled across the sky.
• The golden creature fired a bolt of lightning at Valeria, and the chapter ended as the attack engulfed its vision.

King Ghidorah crippled Valeria’s stone-like avatar and demanded compensation for his intelligent agent. After Valeria refused to reveal where its true body was, King Ghidorah questioned the point of keeping it alive.

• King Ghidorah struck Valeria from the sky, vaporized its left wing, and crushed the left half of its body beneath his foot.
• King Ghidorah asked whether Valeria was a stone spirit, and Valeria said it was not.
• King Ghidorah demanded repayment for his intelligent agent, and Valeria recognized the little thing that had awakened it as the likely cause.
• Valeria claimed it had no way to compensate King Ghidorah because it was only an avatar.
• King Ghidorah dragged Valeria from the crater and demanded that it lead him to its true body.
• Valeria claimed not to know where its true body was, and King Ghidorah asked what use it was alive.

King Ghidorah spared Valeria on the condition that it work for him until its debt was repaid, and Valeria prepared a contract bound by the World Will. Apekus noticed the contract, quickly approved it, and returned to recuperating, relieved that it was not the one bound to King Ghidorah.

• King Ghidorah offered to spare Valeria if it worked for him until it repaid the value of the intelligent entity he had lost.
• Valeria accepted and addressed King Ghidorah as King, then summoned a contract diagram bound by the World Will.
• King Ghidorah examined the glowing runes as Valeria prepared the contract.
• Recovering in the abyss, Apekus sensed the contract and saw Valeria and King Ghidorah listed as its parties.
• Apekus swiftly approved the contract, then closed its eyes and resumed recuperating.

After King Ghidorah carried the badly damaged Valeria away from the Western Mine, Dezi led the miners back toward Luoweida City to report what they had seen. King Ghidorah headed west to find ore for Valeria, while the Silence Society investigated the pit where Voraksa had awakened.

• King Ghidorah seized Valeria and flew west through the storm as the stunned miners watched, and Dezi urged them to return to Luoweida City.
• A white-robed man confirmed that the golden beast was the one the Silence Society sought, while his companion said they could not identify the other creature without consulting the Scroll Keeper.
• Valeria told King Ghidorah that he needed ore to rebuild his damaged body, so King Ghidorah turned the storm toward the ore-rich western mountains.
• King Ghidorah told Valeria that another black dragon was working for him and said Valeria should join that coworker after recovering.
• White-robed members of the Silence Society descended into the Western Mine pit, with Kaidezi among them.