Chapter Summaries

Shou returned to the tribe with a Fimbul Fat Beast, allowing him to make a Dust Offering at the Cradle as the Demon Descendants debated whether to leave their failing Dungeon and move south. The elder revealed that Yao had died, but his partner had brought back the location of Kees's “brain” in Stone Fort Dungeon.

• Shou and Qiong carried a large Fimbul Fat Beast back to their tribe after hunting it in the upper layer.
• Shou scraped powder from his demon core into the Cradle, where the tribe nurtured new Demon Descendants.
• Qiong told Shou that the elder had summoned all the upper-rank warriors to the main tent.
• The warriors argued over moving south because Stone Fort Dungeon was losing magic and its middle-level seal was weakening.
• Huyan announced that Yao had died, then revealed that Yao's partner had found the location of Kees's “brain” in Stone Fort Dungeon.

Shou and Huyan led a heavily armed tribal team into Stone Fort Dungeon to destroy Kees, whose growing threat had made the middle level nearly impassable. Huyan struck what they believed was Kees’s brain, but the Kees kept moving, and as two Evil Eyes arrived, he ordered Shou to escape with the juniors.

• Shou silenced Qiong when he nearly spoke about the Empire, then told him to prepare for the expedition against Kees.
• Two days later, Huyan led five upper-rank warriors and more than thirty clansmen across the ice plain and into Stone Fort Dungeon.
• Huyan guided the team through a hidden route in the ancient castle to a cave where a pulsing mass of flesh was guarded by Kees and Eye Bugs.
• The team attacked, and Huyan pierced the supposed Kees brain with his spear, but the Kees continued to act in an orderly fashion.
• Two powerful Evil Eyes entered the cave, and Huyan told Shou to flee with the juniors while the others held off the Kees.

Shou and Qiong escaped a massacre in Stone Fort after a mysterious voice froze the Kees, but they emerged as the only survivors and were surrounded again. An Eye Bug offered to talk, saying, "I. Love. Peace. Talk?"

• Several Demon Descendants fled the Kees, but Six-Claws slaughtered them in the passage and sealed the group’s escape route.
• Huyan led the warriors in a desperate battle while Shou fought beside Qiong as the Kees overwhelmed them.
• A strange voice from another tunnel froze the Kees, allowing Huyan to carve open a path for Shou and Qiong.
• The Kees resumed their attack, and Huyan and the wounded warriors stayed behind to hold the passage while Shou dragged Qiong away.
• Shou reached Stone Fort with Qiong, who had lost a hand and a foot, and found themselves surrounded by approaching figures.
• A green-glowing Eye Bug addressed Shou and Qiong telepathically and asked to talk about peace.

Linden’s Pujis seized a foothold beyond the Rift, driving Kees back and spreading the Fungal Carpet into the cold, magically barren north. Meanwhile, Qiong carried a strange lump of flesh toward the Ancient Castle’s exit while Kees held Shou captive, planning to use it to save him.

• Fatty Puji broke through Kees’s acid defenses with an explosion, and the Pujis gained ground until an Evil Eye helped push them back.
• Linden sent Louisa and the Vampire Pujis across the Rift, where blood shields and Blood Threads forced Kees to retreat and left the Pujis with a northern bridgehead.
• Linden found the far-northern territory extremely cold and low in magical energy, and he spread spores to extend the Fungal Carpet as Kees withdrew.
• Kees restrained Shou and urged Qiong to honor their agreement by taking the lump of flesh out of the Ancient Castle.
• Qiong ignored Shou’s warning and limped toward the exit, intending to use the lump of flesh to make Kees release Shou.

Linden identified the remains as belonging to an exiled Demon Descendant and sent Norris and Little Black to scout an opening into the Ancient Castle. There, Qiong encountered Norris in Jida and Little Black, while Kees reacted with unusual panic.

• Louisa identified the cracked crystal as a Demon Descendant's Magic Core and explained the northern exiles' history to Linden.
• Linden brought Norris and Little Black into the No. 3 Mushroom Garden, then gave Norris a complete Jida to pilot.
• Kees's repeated attacks on the Fungal Carpet revealed an opening toward the Ancient Castle.
• Norris volunteered to scout with Jida, and Little Black accompanied him after Linden taught Norris the Scale-Plucking Wish Technique.
• Qiong heard strange sounds in the Ancient Castle corridor as Kees urgently ordered him to move.
• Norris emerged in Jida with Little Black, and Qiong recognized her as a Dragonkin while Kees growled in a manner unlike its earlier attacks.

Norris, Little Black, and Shou fought through the Kees in the Ancient Castle, but an Evil Eye nearly petrified Jida before Little Black destroyed it and the reinforcements. They returned with the wounded Shou and Qiong, while Linden wondered at the unexpectedly fruitful scouting trip.

• Norris used Jida to fight off the Kees while Little Black guarded the two Pujis, and Shou broke free to protect Qiong at the cost of losing both hands.
• A group of Kees reinforcements arrived with an Evil Eye, which petrified Jida’s legs and blocked Norris’s attacks with its Mana Shield.
• Norris promised Little Black three scales, and she shattered the Evil Eye and wiped out the Kees with a charge.
• Shou spotted the escaping lump of flesh, but Little Black stomped it flat before he could warn anyone.
• Linden saw the two Demon Descendants brought beneath the Ancient Castle, while Puji kicked the unconscious Shou and noted that he was near death.

Shou and Qiong survived the Pujis’ strange treatment and learned that the mushrooms had healed Shou while leaving him dependent on their mycelium. After the Pujis released them, Shou resolved to warn his tribe about Kees, the Pujis, and the Dungeon, then return to the elder and consider moving the clan south.

• Linden ordered Norris and Little Black to search for the meatball they had popped, while Qiong and Shou woke to find themselves alive and Shou’s wounds partly healed by mycelium.
• Shou cautiously answered the Pujis’ questions without revealing his tribe’s location, and Linden described the Pujis as peaceful victims of Kees.
• The Pujis gave Shou and Qiong glowing mushroom soup, which restored their strength, then supplied them with a bag of mushrooms when they asked to leave.
• Shou and Qiong saw Pujis carrying Kees’s remains and left the Ancient Castle under the Pujis’ escort.
• Shou told Qiong that they needed to report what they had learned to the tribe, and decided they would return to the elder and consider moving the clan south.

Linden secretly followed the injured Demon Descendants back to their tribe, where Shou learned that Puji mycelium had likely targeted them all. The elder sacrificed his life to leave Shou one chance to escape the parasitism, but the tribe's future remained uncertain.

• Linden used a Scout Puji to follow Shou and Qiong toward their nearby tribe, planning to observe the Demon Descendants.
• Shou and Qiong returned to the tribe and found the elder near death, while Spark learned that their party had been wiped out.
• Shou told the elder about Kees's trap and the Pujis, and the elder recognized the infection as Fusion Parasitism targeting the tribe.
• The elder blamed himself for the tribe's losses and told Shou that the tribe's future choices no longer had to follow the old rules.
• The elder burned through his life to leave behind his Magic Core, and Shou realized it offered one chance to free himself from the parasitism, but could save no one else.

Wo traveled to Demon King City for its bicentennial celebration, where the Demon King helped him after City Guards beat him for his noncombat Magic Rune. Wo then watched the Demon King address the city, only for Link the Hero to crash the celebration and announce a quest to take the Demon King's head.

• Wo arrived in crowded Demon King City, tried the local Red-Tusk Boar Ribs, and heard visitors discuss the celebration and a human called the Plague God.
• Two City Guards attacked Wo for having a Cold Resistance Magic Rune, but a masked stranger intervened, encouraged him, and praised his work opening Deep Snow Port's sea routes.
• Wo recognized the masked stranger as the Demon King when he saw him address the bicentennial celebration, and he joined the crowd in cheering the Demon King's speech.
• A human descended onto the celebration platform, killed or maimed the Demon Descendant Commander, Mad Wolf Marshal, and Vampire Grand Duke, and identified himself as Link the Hero.
• Link announced that his collection quest was to take the Demon King's head for a reward of one copper coin.

Linden located Kees’s command center and prepared to destroy its weakened forces. Just as he ordered an attack, Kees appealed for peace and symbiosis through telepathy.

• Little Black woke in the Mushroom Forest, found her Drilling Puji dead, and went to look for Norris.
• Linden assessed Kees’s decline and sent his forces to block its escape and find its command center.
• Linden discovered Kees-Heart suspended between metal pillars in the Ancient Castle’s underground ruins, guarded by an Evil Eye and more than seven hundred Kees.
• Linden gathered more than a thousand Combat Pujis along with the Fake Lizardman, Little Black, and Piggy to attack Kees.
• Kees contacted Linden telepathically with a plea for peace and symbiosis, but Linden ordered his forces to attack.

Linden’s Pujis defeated Kees’s forces, but Kees revealed a Sun Stone Fragment and escaped as a split body. As Linden realized the main body had been destroyed without yielding its other skills, the fleeing Kees crawled away from the Ancient Castle, wounded but alive.

• Linden ordered the Pujis to attack, and they quickly overwhelmed Kees’s forces while Kees repeatedly tried to communicate.
• A Six-Claw Kees dug up a Sun Stone Fragment and fled deeper into the Ancient Castle, so Louisa chased after it.
• After the Pujis destroyed Kees’s heart, Linden’s Greed plundered its Split Body skill, but the other skills he expected were gone.
• At a remote gate, Kees killed a Demon Descendant who had helped it escape, then crawled away from the Ancient Castle.
• A Fat Worm bit off one of Kees’s insect limbs, but Kees continued fleeing while leaving a trail of Purple Blood.

After the upper-level blockade failed and Piggy disappeared with the Sun Stone Fragment possibly still missing, Linden examined Kees’s plundered skills and discovered that [Split Body] could create a duplicate and then be recovered by dissolving it. He left the chapter believing this trick might make him nearly invincible.

• Linden traced purple blood from the Ancient Castle and discovered that the upper level had broken away from the dungeon, while crossing levels still destroyed a Fat Beast.
• Linden sent two Hunting Pujis south to pursue Kees and worried that Piggy had defected with the Sun Stone Fragment.
• Linden gained a level and several skills from Kees, including a max-level [Claw Strike] and [Split Body LV1].
• Linden tested [Split Body] on a Puji and found that using it created a duplicate while removing the skill from the original.
• Linden dissolved the duplicate into the Fungal Carpet and recovered [Split Body], then used it to create a duplicate of his own main body.
• Linden realized he could repeatedly recover and reuse [Split Body], and concluded that it might let him evade death.

After searching the middle zone, Linden found a route into a collapsing lower level and discovered Piggy there with the Sun Stone Fragment. When Puji lost contact while trying to reach her, Linden mobilized the Puji army to rescue them.

• Linden took control of most of the middle zone but found no trace of the Sun Stone Fragment.
• Linden sent Puji down a tunnel and discovered a lower level made of unstable, spatially fragmented terrain.
• Linden located Piggy through the Mycelium Network and saw that she had the Sun Stone Fragment and was suffering from Sunlight Weakness and Malnutrition.
• Puji jumped toward Piggy, entered absolute darkness, and lost its connection with Linden.
• Linden sent more than a thousand Pujis toward the lower zone while Little Black tried to hold back two Drilling Pujis.

Linden sent waves of Pujis into the shattered lower level to find Piggy, who had become trapped after killing Kees. The Pujis rescued her and recovered the Sun Stone Fragment, while Linden prepared to use Norris’s blood during an upgrade to Jida.

• Linden controlled Pujis as they sacrificed themselves exploring the shattered lower level for Piggy.
• Piggy waited on a platform, conserving her strength and holding onto the Sun Stone Fragment while she hoped Linden would find her.
• A Puji found a route to Piggy, and the Pujis formed a path and carried her safely back.
• Linden welcomed Piggy back and had mycelium tendrils collect the Sun Stone Fragment from her hand.
• Linden offered to upgrade Norris’s Jida and strengthen his Cold Resistance, then casually asked to use some of Norris’s blood.

Linden completed preparations in Stone Fort Dungeon, restored the Sun Stone and transferred key companions and items ahead of the dungeon’s collapse. The preparations went smoothly, but Kees remained at large after the Hunting Puji lost contact while searching for it.

• Linden reunited the Sun Stone fragments in a hidden chamber, where pale-green Fungal Carpet absorbed its light and produced a greatly increased flow of magic.
• Linden and Piggy chose [Magic Storage LV7] and [Petrification Ray LV3] as the skills to strengthen Piggy.
• Norris tested his improved Jida, fell over after it leaped, and was reassured by Linden that he was an indispensable core member.
• Little Black moved her collection of shiny objects into her personal Mushroom House with help from a Fatty Puji.
• Linden finished transferring key members and items to Stone Fort Dungeon, but the Hunting Puji failed to find Kees and eventually lost contact after running out of magic.
• Linden studied two incomplete murals showing a fortress besieged by insects and ships hunted by sea beasts, leaving him uncertain about Kees’s origins and forces.

Imperial special envoys Gray and Viscount Hao Henderson offered the Demon Descendant Tribe shelter in exchange for its fighters joining the empire's war and its Cradle being surrendered. Chieftain Shou refused, then reconsidered the tribe's southward migration as he suspected the empire wanted their Magic Cores.

• A pair of imperial envoys found and crushed a frozen Hunting Puji as they traveled toward the Demon Descendant Tribe.
• Spark brought the envoys to Chieftain Shou, who recognized Gray's crimson Magic Rune as belonging to a demon descendant.
• Gray offered the tribe land and imperial protection, but Viscount Hao revealed the offer depended on inaccurate reports of the tribe's strength.
• Gray demanded that the tribe's combat-capable members join the empire's war and that they hand over their Cradle.
• Chieftain Shou rejected the terms, and Gray left the empire's offer open for three months.
• Shou told Spark he feared the empire wanted the tribe's Cradle and Magic Cores, questioned whether migration south was safe, and asked where Qiong was.

Qiong entered the Dungeon’s Upper Zone to seek food for his starving tribe and discovered that the Puji had taken over the area and eliminated Kees. He struck a labor-for-rations deal with Puji, then returned to camp with a huge load of mushrooms, where Shou confronted him.

• Qiong found mycelium covering the Upper Zone and watched the Puji lure in and capture a Fat Worm.
• Two Puji welcomed Qiong, told him Kees had moved away, and brought him into the Ancient Castle for mushroom soup.
• Qiong asked Puji for enough mushrooms to feed nearly three hundred Demon Descendants, and Puji offered to trade rations for his labor.
• Puji took Qiong through a Spatial Rift to a warm cave, where he led little Pujis gathering Firefly Grass and helped repel two waves of monsters.
• After two days, Qiong traded his twenty-six Contribution Points for a mountain of mushrooms, and a Fatty Puji delivered them to his tribe.
• Qiong returned after three days with the mushrooms and a self-heating Drilling Puji, and Shou demanded to know what he had been doing.

Linden weighed how to control the demon descendant tribe while his expedition reached the Amethyst Dungeon’s core gate. A Stone Statue Giant killed the Puji that approached, leaving Linden to wonder whether five hundred Pujis could defeat the guardians.

• Linden observed the demon descendant tribe and planned to stop anyone heading south while encouraging the tribe to accept Mycelium parasitism and work for mushrooms and rewards.
• Linden established a Contribution Point system with rewards and restraints to manage his growing organization fairly.
• Linden led the five-hundred-Puji expedition to the Amethyst Dungeon’s core platform, where the Yellow Book’s instructions said the core lay beyond a gate.
• A Puji crossed the platform and awakened two Stone Statue Giants guarding the gate.
• One Stone Statue Giant smashed the Puji and burned its mycelium and spores, and Linden considered whether his expedition could defeat the guardians.

Linden led the Pujis in an assault on the two stone statues guarding the platform, using cannons and primitive traps to overcome their immense strength. One statue was pinned beneath a falling boulder, and Linden called on Little Black to face the last one.

• Linden discovered that the stone statues attacked when enemies crossed the platform’s centerline and watched them annihilate the Pujis and burn away the Fungal Carpet.
• Linden moved most of the Pujis from Stone Fort to the core area, bringing Little Black while Norris and Piggy stayed behind.
• After the Pujis prepared their positions and traps, Linden ordered more than a thousand Cannon Mushrooms to bombard the statues, damaging them and breaking part of one statue’s staff.
• Heavy Armor Pujis triggered a pit trap and self-destructed around a statue’s foot, blowing it off and cracking the other.
• Drilling Pujis released a boulder from the ceiling, pinning one statue, and Linden called Little Black to fight the remaining statue.

Linden and the Pujis defeated one Stone Statue, but Little Black’s attack on the other revealed an Amethyst Puppet hidden inside it. The puppet severed Little Black’s tail and drove the group from the core area, leaving Linden to reconsider how to overcome the Dungeon.

• Linden released Little Black to attack the remaining Stone Statue while the Pujis slowed it with Mud Swamp Art and Self-Destructs.
• Little Black broke the Stone Statue’s arm and dismantled its body, but an Amethyst Puppet burst from its head and stabbed her.
• Little Black severed her own tail to escape the puppet’s attack, while a second Amethyst Person emerged and killed Magic Puji.
• The Pujis retrieved Little Black’s tail and carried it back to No. 3 Mushroom Garden, where they helped reattach it as she recovered.
• Linden accepted that he could not defeat the Dungeon’s guardians and brought out a long-forgotten notebook to seek another solution.