Chapter Summaries

Link hesitated after the Demon King invoked White Brew Village, allowing them both to escape through a repaired teleportation array while the Demon King’s army lost Oath City. Sigismund fled toward High Keep Fortress but was intercepted by Alama, whose face was covered in mycelium.

• The Demon King sacrificed Slimes to block Puji and repaired his teleportation array as Link broke free, but Link hesitated at the mention of White Brew Village and both vanished before his final punch landed.
• The Puji recovered a damaged Recording Crystal, while Darean tried to rally the Empire army after the Demon King disappeared.
• Sword Saint, Number Ten, Marshal Puji, Number One, and Cohen led a counterattack that routed the Empire army from Oath City, and Darean continued fighting until his blood waves dispersed.
• Duke Levi abandoned his army and fled toward the Empire as the Puji forces overwhelmed him.
• Sigismund ran through the Mycelium Network toward High Keep Fortress, hoping to remove the mycelium from his body, but Alama blocked his path.

More than thirty years earlier, Sigismund helped Alama rescue Ina and revealed that he had become a Half-Vampire, while warning Alama about a hidden village. Years later, Alama defeated Sigismund, but Sigismund shattered his own soul to escape Linden, whose soul unexpectedly began gathering Sigismund’s fragments again.

• Sigismund brought the weakened Ina to Alama and explained that the Count had drugged her to test her Charm ability.
• Alama agreed to protect Ina, while Sigismund revealed that he had become a Half-Vampire and could no longer live among humans.
• Years later, Alama defeated the wounded Sigismund, but spared him because Linden had insisted on saving him.
• Linden used Soul Touch to pour soul power into Sigismund, who attempted to escape by shattering his own soul.
• Sigismund’s fragments began to reassemble inside Linden around their shared wisp of soul, and Linden realized they would meet again.

After Oath City’s victory, survivors dealt with the dead while grieving their losses and hoping some could be reincarnated as Mushroom Race. Sophia urged Bella to visit her father, while Number Ten and Sword Saint were recalled to Fungal Fortress, where Sword Saint found himself sealed up again.

• Two soldiers gathering bodies in Oath City learned from a Mushroom Worship Cult believer that placing the dead on the Fungal Carpet could let Puji Masters reincarnate as Mushroom Race, so one soldier ran to inform their officer.
• Number Nine reunited with Fifteen but stopped him from coming closer because he was covered in blood and grime.
• Sophia, Bella, and Priest Samuel prayed over the Captain of the Guard and the paladins, whose bodies would receive the blessing of the God of Light rather than be placed on the Fungal Carpet.
• Sophia encouraged Bella to return to Mushroom Capital and spend time with her father, promising to call her when they set out again; Bella agreed.
• Number Ten asked Alama and Lorenzo about Link’s revival, then decomposed as the Fungal Carpet recalled him; Sword Saint was teleported away as well.
• Sword Saint revived at the Elf Royal Palace, wrapped in Sealing Cloth Strips, and discovered that his short legs had been attached backward.

Lorenzo planned Oath City’s reconstruction and accepted that his son Keaton might undergo Parasitism, while Inanna reunited with Alama through a Mycelium Network video call. Linden used [Ultimate Magic Guidance] to confirm that the world was made of data, souls, and magic, leaving him wondering why it had been created and what lay beyond it.

• Lorenzo outlined Oath City’s repairs, then told Alama he no longer resisted the Mycelium Network and would consider Parasitism for Keaton.
• Inanna ended her video call with Alama and tried to watch Cave Four’s recording of its battle with the Black Dragon, but the footage showed only Cave Four being beaten.
• Inanna comforted and kneaded Cave Four while it tried to explain that the recording was incomplete.
• Linden practiced magic using [Ultimate Magic Guidance] and realized he could manipulate spells by changing their parameters.
• Linden confirmed that the world was datafied and concluded that data, souls, and magic made up its underlying reality.
• Linden wondered who had created the world, why it existed, and what lay beyond it.

As Fungal Fortress advanced against the weakening Empire, Linden investigated the Self-Study Phenomenon and the Dungeon’s connection to the mist. He entered the Seat of Navigation through the God of Death’s statue and encountered a chained octopus that called him “Little Mohu.”

• The Third Fungal Legion, Puji, and the elves attacked High Keep Fortress while allied forces advanced across the Empire’s territory.
• Linden learned that self-studiers shared a tiny portion of his soul and discovered how their connection could be severed, though he could not create one deliberately.
• Linden opened a Spatial Rift at the edge of the void and found that the Black Veil filtered magic from the white mist into the Dungeon.
• Linden used the God of Death’s statue and [Spirituality] to enter the Seat of Navigation, arriving in a hall with a long table.
• A chained octopus in the hall recognized Linden and called him “Little Mohu.”

Linden met Nephrela in the Ark’s Protocol Hall and learned that the Computing Furnace processed the dead’s emotions to power the Ark. Nephrela showed him the world outside: a dead universe, welcoming him to the Old World.

• Nephrela explained that the Protocol Hall was where the Ark’s administrators once governed, but Nephrela was now the only god remaining inside it.
• Nephrela said Linden had been placed in the world to help keep the Ark running and urged him to release the souls he was holding so they could enter the Computing Furnace.
• Nephrela explained that the Furnace stripped the dead of their emotions to generate power, which would drive the Aether away from the continent.
• Linden asked what the Ark was and what lay outside it, and Nephrela revealed that the Demon King had strayed from its mission and become an enemy.
• Nephrela showed Linden the coffins and the Computing Furnace beneath a pitch-black sky, identifying the scene as the outside of the Ark and welcoming him to the Old World.

Linden learned that the Old World had collapsed after its Paradise consumed souls’ emotions, and that the Ark was built to use Aether to create a new world. Nephrela and the God of Death pleaded with him to stop the Demon King and Link, leaving Linden questioning why Link was involved.

• Linden opened a coffin and found an Information Cube containing the soul of an intelligent being.
• Nephrela revealed the stars above them as the God of Death recounted how civilizations united to create Paradise, only for it to destroy the world by consuming emotions from souls.
• The God of Death explained that the survivors built the Ark, washed away most people’s memories, and planned to use Aether to create a new world, but they had failed to produce new souls.
• Nephrela said Ixion had left the Ark to solve the problem and pleaded with Linden to stop the Demon King and Link before they destroyed everything.
• Linden questioned why Link was aligned with the Demon King.

Linden gathered the Mushroom Race in his Projection Hall to watch the Demon King's Recording Crystal. The recording showed Link rescuing a little girl and harvesting an Earth Bear, leaving Linden and the mushrooms with new evidence about Link's actions.

• Linden returned to the Mushroom Garden and found Number Four and Number One arriving safely by teleportation.
• Number One sought support from Number Four and tried to win over Number Ten, but Number Ten ignored it.
• Number One and Number Two traded barbs before the Mushroom Race gathered in Linden's Projection Hall.
• Linden activated the Demon King's Recording Crystal and showed the Mushroom Race a first-person recording.
• In the recording, Link killed an Earth Bear, rescued a girl who called him Big Brother Link, and prepared to harvest the bear's materials.

Link rescued Lia from Monsters near White Brew Village, completed a village quest, and set out west carrying a message for Clear Spring Village. After he left, Lia secretly wrote a commission asking him to gather the Demon King and hid it with a copper coin.

• Lia returned to White Brew Village with Link, who had rescued her and defeated the Monsters pursuing her.
• Link settled the village quest, drank White Brew Village's snow fruit wine, and sent Lia to bed after she asked to become his wife.
• The village chief asked Link to carry a message to Clear Spring Village about its overdue caravan, and Link agreed before leaving west.
• Lia watched Link depart, then secretly wrote a commission asking him to gather the Demon King and hid it when her mother returned.

Link discovered that White Brew Village had been slaughtered and turned back, while the Demon King sent Rune to investigate cultists who had fled into human territory. When a captive’s dying words revealed Link’s connection to the village, Link fought the Demon Race investigators; afterward, he found a commission signed by Twenty-Two among the ruins.

• Link found a village overrun by Fungal Carpet and Puji, saw that its residents had been killed, and returned to investigate the Demon Race’s presence.
• The Demon King told Rune that a looming crisis might arrive within three to four hundred years and ordered him to begin plans for integrating humans into the Empire.
• Rune told the Demon King that Hand of Passing suspects had fled into human territory, so the Demon King sent a Werewolf and a Succubus to track them.
• The Werewolf and Succubus found a slaughtered human stronghold and captured a suspected cultist, who named Lord Link before a dark substance killed him and nearby Demon Race members.
• Link attacked the Demon Race investigators, and later searched the ruined house, finding a commission signed by Twenty-Two.

After discovering that the Recording Crystal contained memories imprinted directly from souls, Linden began investigating the technique and considered how to use it. He identified Sirian, rebuilding Longwu Fort, as a possible experimental subject.

• The damaged Recording Crystal stopped showing images, and Linden studied its unusual first-person footage after Marshal Puji shut it off.
• Linden and Number Ten found that the crystal’s data resembled information copied from a soul rather than footage recorded by a device.
• Norris reported that Fungal Fortress was close to conquering the Empire, while the Yellow Book lamented that it still had no soul of its own.
• Linden teleported the Yellow Book to his cave and compared the data imprinted on its core with the Recording Crystal’s contents.
• Linden concluded that the Demon King had extracted memories from souls and placed them into Recording Crystals, and he considered Sirian as an experimental subject.

Vera showed signs of recovering memories, but Linden secretly tried to implant more and was stopped by Sirian. Linden rejected Sirian’s caution and left, determined to claim the right to choose how to act.

• Feiling agreed to inspect the ruined castle’s Magic Arrays after Vera admitted they might lack the money to rebuild it.
• Vera recalled that Puji had given them Delicious Mushrooms, leading Feiyin to believe Vera’s memories were returning.
• That night, Linden and several Puji gathered around Vera to implant memories, but Sirian stopped them and explained that restored memories could not restore the emotions she had sacrificed.
• Sirian challenged Linden’s reckless control of events, but Linden said he would never hand the right to choose to anyone else and left Vera in Sirian’s care.

Sigismund awoke as a Puji prisoner in the Fungal Lord’s underground prison and discovered that he could not escape death or captivity through suicide. He agreed to join Orcas in the Playground Challenge, where prisoners could earn temporary freedom, and saw a transformed jailer begging to be killed.

• Sigismund repeatedly tried to kill his Puji body, but each time he regenerated or emerged from a new cocoon.
• Orcas explained that Puji prisoners could gain freedom only by winning twelve Playground Challenges, while dying in a challenge meant a week in The Void.
• Sigismund agreed to cooperate with Orcas so they could enter the challenge and seek a way to confront his roommate.
• Orcas led Sigismund through the prison, where he learned that prisoners were forbidden to fight outside the challenges.
• Sigismund saw the registration jailer, whose mushroom-covered body moved mechanically as he pleaded with prisoners to kill him.

Sigismund won the Playground Challenge after surviving a series of games and exposing Orcas's attempt to betray him. Linden revealed that he had made Sigismund a Puji to keep him alive and forced him to endure Inanna petting him, while Little Black began to stir beside Leviathan's crater.

• Orcas led Sigismund into a maze hide-and-seek game, where Sigismund redirected a thrown stone to lure Hunter Puji into capturing their attacker.
• Sigismund and Orcas survived several more games and defeated the final Diamond Rank competitor, leaving them as the last two challengers.
• Orcas attacked Sigismund at the finish line, but Sigismund cut off his limbs, and Orcas fell into the Needle Forest and died.
• Sigismund crossed the finish line and learned from Marshal Puji that Linden had transformed him into a Puji to keep him alive and claim his soul.
• Linden had Inanna pet Puxi, while Little Black began stirring beside the crater left by Leviathan's Self-Destruct.

Researchers led by Linden studied the distorted space around Little Black’s enormous scale egg as she emerged in a near-human dragon form. Linden found that her power and intelligence had grown enormously, while her stitched-together soul still remained distinct from her original soul.

• Mages used magical instruments to monitor and interfere with the spatial barrier around Little Black’s egg, while Linden prepared familiar objects in case she emerged confused or mad.
• After two days of energy fluctuations, Little Black’s scales began falling away, and she appeared before Norris as a giant dragon before vanishing again.
• Norris found Little Black in a near-human form with horns, a tail, and black scales, happily chewing on Cave Seven.
• Linden recognized Little Black’s resemblance to the woman in the Great Dragon’s illusion and attributed her form to the [Ancient Dragon Path].
• Linden observed that Little Black’s attributes exceeded the Great Dragon’s and that foreign dragon souls formed a distinct Soul Cloak around her original soul.
• Little Black answered a simple arithmetic question and counted 2,674 Shinies before cuddling Norris and the motionless Cave Seven.

After Little Black hatched, Linden prepared to send her and Norris to explore Dragon Cliff Dungeon in search of the Demon King and an Ancient Dragon magic-power source. Meanwhile, Linden kept a dying Fox-folk alive in a glass tank, hoping to use his [Temperance] ability one final time.

• Little Black demonstrated her precise use of the Void Realm and Soul Cloak, then transformed into a gigantic black dragon and devoured magic-filled Puji.
• Linden concluded that Little Black’s Soul Cloak handled complex calculations and spatial control, though using it consumed vast amounts of magic power.
• Linden sent Norris, the Fungal Group, and Little Black to explore Dragon Cliff Dungeon, suspecting the Demon King might be hiding there.
• Linden monitored a dying Fox-folk in a glass tank, using Water of Life and [Mental Guidance] to preserve him and prepare to learn what he knew through [Temperance].
• The Fox-folk opened his lifeless eyes and struck out one final palm.

Little Black became Dragon Cliff’s new master, while Norris gained wings through the Self-Study Phenomenon, which Linden had secretly begun inducing in core members. Norris then joined Linden’s meeting and found himself seated in a mysterious, fog-filled chamber.

• Little Black mourned the dragon skeletons at Dragon Cliff and flew over the wilderness as the Kobolds welcomed her as their new master.
• Norris and Little Black completed their Dragon Cliff exploration with the Kobolds’ help, found that the sealed Demon King fragment had already escaped, and brought nearly a hundred thousand Kobolds back with them.
• Norris discovered that he had grown wings and learned from Linden that the change came from the Self-Study Phenomenon; Linden privately revealed that he had deliberately begun helping core members connect to their other souls.
• The Yellow Book reassured Norris that his mutations would soon stop being a problem, then Norris connected to Linden’s meeting and found himself in a gray, fog-filled chamber at an imposing long table.

Linden convened the eighty-eighth Mushroom Garden council in a new consciousness space and revealed that Link had joined forces with the Demon King, making both of them targets for the final battle. After assigning plans, Linden sent envoys to the Dwarves and Elves and controlled a Puji to visit the Sapling in Sacred Tree Dungeon.

• Old Dylan prompted the council members to praise the Fungal Lord, and Linden opened the meeting in the Mycelium Network Consciousness Space.
• Linden told the council that Link and the Demon King were enemies and played a recording of their conversation in Oath City.
• Baduo agreed with Linden, while Echo offered the Elves' cooperation; Alama and Lorenzo struggled to accept Link's betrayal.
• After the meeting, Alama spoke with Inanna, who was kneading an unfamiliar Puji that reacted strangely when he entered.
• Linden sent envoys to the Dwarf and Elf kings and used [Familiar Control] to take a Puji to the Sapling in Sacred Tree Dungeon.

Linden confronted the Sacred Tree in the Abyss Space and persuaded him to help by showing that Vera’s memories and emotions could be preserved through fragments of his soul. The Sacred Tree accepted Linden’s offer, while Norris faced the Demon King in the reinforced Jida.

• Linden used a Puji to reach the Sacred Tree and told him the Demon King and Link were still alive.
• Linden revealed that he had brought the Sacred Tree Orcas’s memories, and the Sacred Tree doubted they could preserve emotion.
• Linden showed the Sacred Tree the Sea of Souls and explained how Vera’s soul fragment could retain memories with some of his emotions.
• Linden asked the Sacred Tree to bet on him for Vera’s sake, even if their choice might destroy the world, and the Sacred Tree accepted.
• Norris sat inside the reinforced Jida and faced the Demon King.

The Demon King attacked Norris’s area with slime that destroyed the Fungal Carpet and cut Norris off from the Mycelium Network, then asked the Yellow Book to return to him. Norris tried to escape with the book, but the Demon King trapped him again, and Kallen arrived as Norris faced capture.

• A huge mass of slime fell from the sky, melting the Fungal Carpet and most of Jida while severing Norris’s connection to the Mycelium Network.
• Norris fired a Mushroom Cannon to signal for help, but the Demon King descended and restrained him with slime.
• The Demon King called the Yellow Book Ah Huang and asked it to return, explaining that he needed its strength.
• Norris blasted apart his bonds and fled with the Yellow Book using Rolling Charge, but the Demon King caught him in ice pillars.
• As the Demon King approached Norris, Kallen rushed in and struck at him with a massive wolf claw.