Chapter Summaries

Klein boarded the Future and met Admiral of Stars Cattleya's officers as the ship sailed east along the whaling route. Cattleya arranged his lodging and agreed to take his Pugilist Beyonder Characteristic as part of his remaining passage fee.

• Cattleya sensed the many mystical items Klein carried and greeted him before leading him aboard the Future.
• Cattleya explained that few sailors were traveling east because the route was dangerous, and Klein observed the ship's ritualistic symbols.
• Klein met Frank Lee, who explained his unusual experiments with crossbreeding crops and animals, and second mate Heath Doyle, a Rose Bishop who had survived an accidental potion exposure without going mad.
• Cattleya showed Klein where he would stay, while Frank Lee offered him a baked potato that Klein declined.
• Cattleya asked about Klein's remaining Beyonder Characteristics, and he offered an Interrogator, a Pugilist, and a Lunatic; she chose the Pugilist.

Klein traveled aboard the Future with Admiral of Stars Cattleya, while Emlyn joined a Sanguine trial to hunt believers of the Moon Primordial. The Future reached the site of rumored Fourth Epoch ruins on the seabed, which Cattleya planned to investigate.

• Klein agreed to sell Cattleya a Sequence 8 Pugilist Beyonder characteristic for 700 pounds and arranged to deliver it the next day.
• At Harvest Church, Father Utravsky praised Emlyn for helping win new believers, and Emlyn wondered why Leonard Mitchell had stopped watching him.
• Kasimi Odora told Emlyn, Ruth Báthory, and other young Sanguine that they would compete to track down and kill believers of the Moon Primordial; Emlyn accepted the trial.
• The Future passed wary whaling ships and scattered several pirate ships as it sailed along the whaling route.
• Cattleya told Klein that the crew had spotted the location of supposed Fourth Epoch ruins on the seabed and intended to investigate.

Klein joined Admiral of Stars Cattleya’s crew as they investigated a mysterious deep-sea well, while Frank Lee showed off his unusual biological experiments. Nina’s dive found a tiny, deep, pitch-black well, leaving the crew to hear more about what she had discovered.

• Klein developed a sore throat from carrying the Biotoxin Bottle, then met Frank Lee on deck as Frank demonstrated fish whose blood had become wine.
• Frank introduced Nina, the crew’s boatswain and deputy navigator, and she asked Klein whether Vice Admiral Ailment was as charming as rumored.
• Nina and several sailors dove into the sea to explore the well while Klein discussed Cattleya’s secret route and the strange waters ahead.
• Frank gave Klein a medicinal green apple that cured his sore throat and cough.
• Nina resurfaced with a corroded metal bar and a piece of porous black earth, reporting that the well’s opening was tiny but its dark interior was very deep.

Nina described an ancient underwater well too small for humans to enter, and Cattleya decided to study the objects Nina recovered before considering an expedition. Klein suspected he could use the Sea God’s power to send marine creatures inside, while Audrey visited Michelle Deut’s collection and recognized Dragonese grammar in a knight’s notebook.

• Nina told Cattleya that she had found a tiny, deep underwater well near corroded steel ruins and gave her a metal fragment and marked soil.
• Cattleya judged that entering the well was too dangerous until she had examined the recovered objects, and rewarded Nina with Sonia Blood Wine.
• Klein considered using the Sea God Scepter to command small marine creatures into the well, then noticed Cattleya glance at him and wondered whether she had similar plans.
• Klein sensed someone watching Gehrman Sparrow from behind the curtains of an upper-level room, but entered the cabin without reacting.
• Audrey visited Michelle Deut’s collection and became interested in a knight’s notebook from Sonia Island.
• Audrey recognized the knight’s unusual short sentences as grammatical habits of Dragonese she had studied.

Audrey persuaded Michelle Deut to give her the Sauron royal helmet and the Twenty Years' War notebook by funding an antiquities research fund, gaining the items while supporting her reputation and future access to historical artifacts. After finding no obvious clues in the notebook, she arranged to use Magic Mirror Divination with Mr. Fool's permission.

• Audrey offered Michelle Deut a donation of money, land, and a manor to help establish an antiquities fund, and he agreed to give her the helmet and notebook.
• Audrey received the items at the Hall Family villa and found the notebook contained fragmentary entries with no obvious mystical clues.
• Audrey reasoned that the Psychology Alchemists might want the notebook as a divination medium connected to the knight's experiences and possibly a mind dragon.
• Audrey decided to try Magic Mirror Divination by petitioning Mr. Fool, and Susie stood guard outside her room.
• Klein heard Audrey's prayer aboard the Future and gave permission for the divination.

Audrey used Magic Mirror Divination to discover that the notebook’s owner, Lindrila, was buried in a Dragon-worshipping village in East Chester County. Klein then investigated a mysterious watcher aboard the Future and found Frank Lee mourning the failure of his fish-breeding experiment.

• Audrey performed Magic Mirror Divination and asked about the notebook’s original owner.
• Klein connected with Audrey’s mirror from above the gray fog and divined the notebook’s owner’s whereabouts.
• Audrey saw a village church and cemetery, where a gravestone bore the name Lindrila, and decided to give the notebook to the Psychology Alchemists.
• Klein concluded that the notebook and village were connected to a Dragon, then considered the risks of Magic Mirror Divination.
• Klein searched the room where he suspected a watcher had been but found it empty.
• On the deck of the Future, Klein encountered Frank Lee, who said his silver-scaled fish could not reproduce and sucked on one of them.

Klein and the Future encountered the Black Death, flagship of the King of Immortality, Agarito, on a storm-filled sea route. After the ships passed, Agarito attacked them with supernatural laughter, and Cattleya used the Future’s defenses and starlight to help the ship escape.

• Klein spotted a huge sailing ship near a storm and recognized it as the Black Death, flagship of Agarito, the King of Immortality.
• The Black Death and the Future passed each other without fighting, while pirates on both ships watched and provoked one another.
• After the Black Death turned away, Agarito’s malicious laughter overwhelmed the Future’s crew and began transforming some of them.
• Cattleya activated the Future’s magical markings and used starlight and a gale to speed the ship away from the Black Death.
• Klein recovered as the laughter faded, considered how he might defend the Future if Agarito pursued them, and saw Cattleya’s dark marks disappear.

After the Future escaped the Black Death, Klein helped Frank Lee and Nina calm the sailors while Cattleya treated herself in the captain’s cabin. The ship was caught in a storm and briefly forced off course, but the crew returned it to the safe sea route; Klein then chose not to pursue the Black Death.

• Cattleya withdrew to her cabin, leaving Frank Lee to calm the sailors who were still writhing in pain.
• Frank Lee explained that he had added sedatives to the beer, while Klein helped restrain Nina so Frank could inject her with a stronger sedative.
• Klein proposed knocking the sailors unconscious instead, and Frank agreed, so Klein used the back of a saber to knock them out one by one.
• Klein met Ottolov, the Future’s navigator, and noticed that his eyes seemed similar to Cattleya’s before Ottolov warned the crew of an approaching wave.
• The crew steered the Future through a violent storm and back onto the safe sea route, while Klein used the Sea God charm to steady himself.
• After seeing no sign that the Black Death had caught up, Klein returned to his room and rejected the idea of using The Fool’s power to search for and attack Agarito.

Fors met with Dorian Gray, who gave her the Astrologer potion formula and Lemano’s Spellbook while warning her about its limits and dangers. Meanwhile, Klein learned that the Future was nearing its destination.

• Fors noticed Dorian signal danger outside the station, avoided approaching him, and later met him at the Hat Trick Inn.
• Dorian told Fors that his former student Lewis Wien was a traitor who had helped devastate their organization and might now be a Traveler.
• Dorian gave Fors the Astrologer potion formula and Lemano’s Spellbook, explaining how it recorded Beyonder powers and warning that each use could make her dangerously lost unless she spread her blood on its cover.
• Fors asked about Lewis Wien and said she wanted to avenge Dorian, Lawrence, and Anlisa, but Dorian warned her to avoid him.
• Aboard the Future, Klein encountered Cattleya, who said they would soon reach those waters.

The Future entered the Sea of Ruins, where Klein learned that its drifting ruins, monsters, and mysterious voices made it dangerous to explore. As the ship approached a nearby ruin, an enormous gasp sounded beside everyone.

• Cattleya explained that Heath Doyle needed flesh and blood to use his Rose Bishop abilities, and he devoured a large fish.
• The Future plunged over a vast rift, but a surge of seawater caught the ship and tossed it safely across.
• Klein saw the golden, sunlit sea and the remains of vast ruins beneath the water.
• Cattleya warned Klein that the Sea of Ruins held unpredictable dangers, including unreal monsters and voices that could drive Demigods mad.
• The Future approached the ruins, and an enormous gasp sounded beside everyone.

Klein and the Future sailed through dangerous waters, surviving a deadly floating island and the onset of a night that forced the crew to sleep. In a shared dream, Klein found Cattleya gazing at a vast city of palaces and towers, and she told him they all shared the dream.

• Heath Doyle reacted painfully to a corpse's panting in some ruins, and Cattleya ordered the Future to steer clear.
• Klein ate breakfast, then watched the Future approach a floating island held aloft by enormous diamond pillars.
• Cattleya warned everyone to lower their heads as a golden chariot charged from the island, and a nearby pirate vanished into ashes when he looked.
• When darkness abruptly fell, Cattleya ordered the crew to sleep or disappear; Klein returned to his room and quickly fell asleep.
• Klein became lucid in a shared dream and found Cattleya on a mountaintop, staring across a cliff at a vast city of palaces and towers.

Klein explored a shared dream connecting the creatures in the dangerous stretch of sea and entered a black monastery, where he encountered members of the Future and a stranded man named Anderson. The chapter ended when Klein recognized Ouroboros in a monastery mural.

• Klein learned from Cattleya that the creatures in the area shared a dream, while she refused to leave the cliff and explore with him.
• Klein entered the black monastery and found Frank Lee cultivating hybrid bacteria intended to make bulls produce milk.
• Klein overheard Nina explain to Ottolov why she preferred life as a pirate to settling down.
• Klein spotted Bloodless Heath Doyle hiding in a shadow, then entered a dark hall and found a young man making a canoe.
• The man identified himself as unlucky Anderson and blamed his misfortune on a mural depicting Ouroboros, whom Klein recognized as the Angel of Fate.

Klein connected Anderson’s misfortune and the temple mural to Ouroboros’s pilgrimage toward the Forsaken Land of the Gods, then awoke from the dangerous dream. After confirming he could sleep during the day and warning Cattleya about Heath Doyle, he returned to the dream world and received a warning not to explore the nighttime dream because it contained dreams left by deities.

• Klein compared the mural with the one found by Little Sun and guessed that Ouroboros had led believers through the waters and into the Forsaken Land of the Gods, possibly toward the True Creator’s sanctuary.
• Klein questioned Anderson about the dark hall, and Anderson said explorers had vanished there or returned as monsters; Anderson then revealed he had explored farther into the dream before the scene vanished.
• Klein awoke at noon and asked Cattleya whether he could sleep during the day, then warned her about Heath Doyle; Cattleya said Heath’s Sealed Artifact limited what sounds he could hear.
• Klein fell asleep again, entered the dream world, and found a message warning him not to explore the dream after nightfall because it contained dreams left behind by deities.

Klein followed Will Auceptin’s warnings and avoided exploring the island or challenging the storm, but he encountered Anderson in the waking world. Cattleya recognized Anderson as the Strongest Hunter and stopped Klein from attacking him so they could hear his explanation.

• Klein read Will Auceptin’s advice, then left the dream and joined Frank Lee for lunch aboard the Future.
• Frank explained that his experiment let any creature produce milk, and Klein silently recoiled at the idea.
• Cattleya ordered the Future to shelter by an island until a dangerous noon storm passed, then allowed the pirates to walk on the beach within cannon range.
• Klein stayed on the beach and spotted Anderson rushing toward him, so he attacked with a Storm charm.
• Anderson surrendered and said he had only been joking in the dream and had wanted Klein to help him leave; Cattleya recognized him as the Strongest Hunter and asked him to explain what happened.

Anderson Hood recounted how a treasure-hunting expedition at a submerged temple brought misfortune and disaster upon his companions, then offered to guide Cattleya and Klein through the dangerous waters. Cattleya agreed to take him aboard the Future, but the island suddenly shook as a possible monster approached.

• Anderson told Cattleya and Klein that a silver-haired angel appeared to open its eyes in a temple mural, and Klein identified the figure as Ouroboros, the Tail Devourer.
• Anderson explained that his expedition split after some explorers entered the temple and vanished, while others gained control of themselves in the dream world and later transformed into monsters.
• Anderson described how his companions died after their ship sank, leaving him stranded on the island, and asked to travel aboard the Future.
• Anderson offered to help them avoid dangers, ruins, and mermaids' singing; Klein tested him with a gold-coin divination, and Cattleya agreed to take him aboard in exchange for half his belongings once they left the waters.
• Anderson warned that he might attract monsters, and the island suddenly shook as dust billowed from the primeval forest.

The Future’s crew fought a Stone Giant, and Klein learned more about the strange waters and their possible connection to the ancient gods’ war. That night, Klein awoke in a prison cell in the dream world and stayed inside despite hearing approaching footsteps.

• Cattleya tested the Stone Giant with cannon fire and freezing magic before Anderson used its weakness to destroy it.
• Anderson found no loot in the vanishing rubble, then introduced himself to Gehrman Sparrow and warned him about his bad luck.
• The Future continued through the waters, with Anderson helping it avoid hidden whirlpools and floating palace ruins.
• Klein woke in a dark prison cell, used a match and Holy Light to inspect it, and decided to wait inside rather than explore.
• Klein heard slow, distant footsteps drawing closer through the darkness outside his cell.

Klein fled a black-armored knight through a prison and met Leomaster, an ascetic who worshipped the original Creator and feared the Saint of Darkness. After Klein destroyed a mirror-born copy of himself, he learned Leomaster belonged to the Aurora Order, and the approaching knight was Leomaster’s exact double.

• Klein divined that the black-armored knight was extremely dangerous and escaped his cell through a locked set of iron doors.
• Klein found Leomaster hiding in a storeroom, and Leomaster explained that the Saint of Darkness had captured his pilgrims.
• Leomaster revealed that he worshipped the original Creator and belonged to the Aurora Order.
• A sinister copy of Gehrman Sparrow crawled out of the mirror, and Klein destroyed it with lightning from the Sea God Scepter.
• The Saint of Darkness approached the storeroom, and Klein saw that the knight’s face matched Leomaster’s exactly.

Klein woke from a dream battle with the Saint of Darkness, then returned to the dream and found himself in a library inside the black monastery, where he studied a book of charms. After reasoning that Leomaster might be the good half of the Saint of Darkness, Klein learned that Anderson had heard unseen footsteps in the dream, leaving the dream world's mysteries unresolved.

• Klein woke after his clash with the Saint of Darkness destabilized the dream, then quickly fell asleep again to avoid disappearing into the night.
• Klein entered a library in the black monastery, found a book of charms containing unfamiliar knowledge, and began studying it before waking at sunrise.
• Klein concluded that Leomaster might be the good half of the Saint of Darkness, split from his evil self by the monastery's ruins or an item.
• Anderson asked Klein why they had appeared in different places in the dream, then reported hearing a door open and footsteps in a hall without seeing anyone.

Klein prepared for danger after Anderson joined the Future, but Frank Lee’s experimental organisms mutated and transformed the ship into a milk-spewing forest of vines. Cattleya blamed lingering traces of the Earth Mother’s aura, and the chapter ended as a gigantic hand rose from the sea and struck the Future.

• Klein questioned Anderson about the person who opened a door in the dream world, then prepared emergency items in his room because Anderson’s bad luck could bring danger to the ship.
• Frank Lee discovered that his experimental organisms had rapidly multiplied, mutated, and burrowed into the Future, causing milk to erupt from the deck and gun muzzles.
• Nina kicked Frank and ordered him to stop the creatures, while Klein used a Levitation Charm to rise above the deck as Frank tried to contain them with vines.
• The vines mutated as well, and Cattleya warned Frank to stop, explaining that traces of the Earth Mother’s aura might linger nearby before burning away the vines with colorless flames.
• A pirate broke open a watermelon that had grown from his head and died after revealing a strange brain-like interior; then a gigantic hand rose from beneath the sea and struck the Future.

Klein and the Future were attacked by a monstrous mass of corpses in waters where the Earth Mother's influence caused mutations. After the crew fought back and Klein stole the monster’s Poisonous Mist, Admiral of Hell Ludwell’s flagship appeared, leaving the danger unresolved.

• A corpse monster climbed aboard the Future, spreading poisonous gas and causing the sailors’ hair to grow uncontrollably as Cattleya protected the ship with starlight.
• The monster trapped the Future and blocked the wind, while Cattleya imprisoned it in a Starlight Cage and Anderson cut it into pieces with blazing flames.
• The severed flesh attacked again, and Heath Doyle swallowed a piece that threatened Cattleya.
• Klein used the Kindling glove to steal the monster’s Poisonous Mist, losing his Damage Transfer power in exchange and weakening the monster’s poisonous influence.
• Cattleya pinned on a golden brooch as a black ship bearing a blooming black tulip sailed toward the Future; it was Admiral of Hell Ludwell’s flagship, the Black Tulip.