Recaps

Norton used his golden light to disintegrate millions of people gathered at the Holy See, while the Human Federation’s senior officials watched and praised him. He declared the Garden of Eden would enter eternal tranquility and ordered the era renamed the first year of Norton.

• Norton’s appearance as the Pale God caused the crowd at the Holy See to panic, plead for mercy, or cling to their faith.
• Norton illuminated the Holy See and surrounding mountains with golden sunlight, then announced that devout believers would ascend to heaven.
• The millions beneath the golden light disintegrated into particles, and Abraham watched the massacre while the Human Federation’s senior officials remained silent.
• The senior officials praised Norton for bringing peace and framed the massacre as an achievement for civilization, equality, and human rights.
• Norton declared that war, death, and disease would no longer ravage the mortal world and ordered the era changed to the first year of Norton.

After the Holy Lord Church vanished and was renamed the Pale Church, Norton’s Human Federation introduced a comprehensive support system that transformed daily life. By Norton Year Eight, widespread indulgence had accelerated social collapse and suicides, and the pressure radiating from the Pale God Norton began to change.

• The White Lord Church changed its name back to the Pale Church, completing the Holy Lord Church’s disappearance from public life.
• Norton mourned the collapse of the Holy Lord Church and its lost figures, while Abraham showed no sorrow.
• In Norton Year Three, the Human Federation fully implemented a support system that provided citizens with necessities and encouraged leisure and indulgence.
• The new system changed public life, while marriage and social morals broke down and the suicide rate rose significantly.
• In Norton Year Eight, as social order collapsed and suicides increased, the pressure radiating from the Pale God Norton began to undergo a qualitative change.

In the eighth year of Norton’s reign, his eyes became the sun and moon, and human mutations accelerated across the Federation. The chapter ends with people in the Southern Continent turning to worship Norton as deformities and illnesses spread among those who rejected him.

• Norton’s eyes rose into the sky and became the sun and moon, while humans began evolving in earnest.
• Orphans raised by the Pale Church developed into Angels, and a Twelve-Winged Angel became powerful enough to rival Blood Clan True Ancestor Abraham.
• Elves appeared in large numbers, and some gained supernatural abilities through training, prompting the Human Federation to create a new racial classification.
• People in the Southern Continent, where many detested Norton, began suffering widespread deformities and illnesses.
• The suffering drove many Southern Continent residents to revere Norton, while those who continued opposing him were killed.

By Year ten of Norton, the Pale Church and Pale God Norton had become the sole faith and deity of the Human Federation, as people pursued evolution and immortality through worship. Norton allowed his growing popularity and cultural influence to continue, leaving humanity’s path to transcendence fully underway.

• Human mutation and the promise of longer lives drove people to pursue individual might and worship Norton.
• Norton became popular across the Garden of Eden, inspiring devoted followers, cosplay crowds, AI videos, and planned intelligent toys.
• Norton chose not to suppress the attention, since his growing presence helped make him an irreplaceable part of human society.
• Pale Church monasteries spread throughout the Human Federation, and their weekly mass ceremonies drew vast crowds of believers.
• The Pale Church became the Human Federation’s state religion, while Norton became its sole deity and a prominent figure in popular culture.

Humanity’s evolution spread across the Garden of Eden, producing wildly varied races and powers that the Human Federation struggled to classify. Norton controlled the process, granted the leaders planned evolutions, and limited technological progress through a single planned race each year, leaving the Federation dependent on him.

• Nearly seventy percent of the Garden of Eden’s population began evolving, with their forms and abilities shaped by their personalities and reverence for Norton.
• The Human Federation used angel wings to set temporary strength ranks, though incompatible powers made the system unreliable.
• Norton returned and the Garden of Eden underwent further changes as supernatural powers spurred rapid technological development.
• Norton gave Federation leaders several planned evolution slots and one planned race each year, preserving their status and steering humanity’s technological progress.
• The Human Federation and the Garden of Eden came to revolve around Norton.

Humanity’s technology advanced rapidly under Norton, who enabled miniature fusion power and the study of souls. The chapter ended with Norton furiously destroying his television after watching a film that portrayed the Pale God as a hero who rescued women exploited for their bodies’ materials.

• In Norton Year 113, the Human Federation miniaturized nuclear fusion technology, enabling smaller spacecraft, personal mechs, and broader use of fusion energy.
• In Norton Year 150, the Human Federation established an integrated platform to research souls.
• A film showed a researcher overseeing the illegal captivity and harvesting of women whose bodies produced high-strength materials.
• One captive killed the researcher, freed the others, and led them in an escape while invoking the Pale God.
• The film portrayed the Pale God as killing the villains and falling in love with the woman who resisted.
• Norton smashed his television and furniture in anger at the film’s portrayal of him and its political correctness.

Norton reflected on the tension between growing humanity to strengthen his chance of returning and keeping people from summoning God, whose descent he feared would destroy all living beings. After recognizing that he now shared Pope Adam’s reasoning, he admitted he might slaughter humanity and leave only a seed if he could no longer control people’s thoughts.

• Norton considered political correctness an inevitable social failure but chose not to intervene because it had not crossed his bottom line.
• Norton voiced concern that the Garden of Eden had lost its barrier and that the Supreme Will might produce a true worm, while Abraham urged him to consult the Human Federation Government’s think tanks.
• Abraham privately reasoned that Norton was caught between needing a larger human population to serve as Anchors and fearing that more people would increase the chance of God’s descent.
• Norton warned that anyone who spread the secret of God’s descent would be annihilated and argued that keeping the truth hidden was necessary to avert disaster.
• Norton said he understood Pope Adam’s oppressive methods and might slaughter all humanity, leaving only a seed, if people’s thoughts could no longer be controlled.

Abraham sought the Human Federation’s help with Norton, but its vampire rulers mocked Norton and openly celebrated their depravity. Disgusted, Abraham revealed his identity as the Blood Clan True Ancestor and attacked them.

• Abraham told the Human Federation’s rulers about his conversation with His Eminence and asked for help.
• Piers and Ranier dismissed Norton’s restraint and described how they would use divine power to dominate and slaughter humans.
• Abraham saw human remains on the rulers’ table and realized that Norton showed more mercy than the Federation’s leaders.
• Abraham condemned the six second-generation vampires for defying His Eminence and warned that they had courted death.
• Abraham transformed into a towering monster, smashed through the furniture, and lunged at the terrified leaders.

The Human Federation flourished under Norton’s Pale Church, expanding across the Garden of Eden Galaxy while its population grew beyond the pace of interstellar colonization. In the third millennium of the Norton Epoch, the Pale Church Academy of Sciences proposed using the link between soul space and real space for subspace jumps, reopening a dangerous project.

• The Human Federation replaced Piers, Mr. Ranier, and other leaders who had crossed Norton’s bottom line, and Norton’s Pale Church eradicated crime and took over many civic institutions.
• The Pale Church required citizens aged eight and older to join and study its scriptures as humanity entered a peaceful age of technological and biological development.
• Humanity spread from the Garden of Eden Galaxy into the Greater Garden of Eden Galaxy, building space cities and growing rapidly under Norton’s protection.
• By the third millennium of the Norton Epoch, humanity’s population had surged while sub-light travel left its expansion lagging behind reproduction.
• Scholars at the Human Federation’s Pale Church Academy of Sciences proposed using the parallel nature of soul space and real space to achieve subspace jumps, reviving a project that had remained poorly understood for three thousand years.

Humanity began a daring experiment to observe Heaven by interfering with its soul waves, while the Pale Church's power over the Human Federation was shown to be deeply entrenched. The chapter left the experiment underway and suggested even Norton might be bound by the identity and reputation built around him.

• A spaceship bearing the Pale Church emblem landed, and two people in powered armor carried a dual-frequency resonance device into the testing site.
• Scientists prepared the device to use soul substance and real-world soul waves to interfere with Heaven's soul waves and attempt to observe it.
• Researchers and leaders across the Human Federation watched as the experiment began, with the Pale God sending a high-ranking bishop to supervise.
• The chapter described the Pale Church's vast presence throughout the Federation's central city and its three-thousand-year integration into human society.
• The narrator observed that Norton himself might have become trapped by his identity and reputation.

Norton observed that humanity’s long peace under his suppression was allowing its cruelty and desire for violence to build, making social stability increasingly fragile. He concluded that the Holy Lord Empire’s recurring persecution and slaughter had kept the Southern Continent stable, and suggested that true violence might be the only way to preserve order.

• Norton stood in the Supreme Divine Tower and reflected on humanity’s warlike nature and the danger of prosperity without an external enemy.
• Duoxia, Abraham, Jacob, and Elizabeth listened as Norton explained how centuries of indulgence had dulled his emotions and changed his temperament.
• Norton noted that public violence, extreme rhetoric, brutal entertainment, and demon-worshipping cults had grown more common despite the Garden of Eden’s apparent stability.
• Norton recalled that the Holy Lord Empire had maintained peace through persecution and slaughter every hundred years.
• Norton concluded that peaceful development was undesirable and that persecution and slaughter were the only path to stability.

Norton argued that humanity’s suppressed violence showed that material abundance and peace had failed to change human nature, while Duoxia warned against restoring the old Holy Lord Empire. Norton rejected the proposal to rely on subspace travel to renew society and began questioning how the soul substance used in Dual-Frequency Resonance could exist.

• Norton described the murders, animal torture, and hostility spreading through human society despite his efforts to maintain peace.
• Duoxia acknowledged humanity’s unrest but argued that breaking through the subspace barrier could renew society and that the old Holy Lord Empire’s system must not return.
• Norton asked why he would insist on researching subspace jumps if he wanted humanity to expand, since he could create wormholes or fabricate planets instead.
• Norton explained that he had kept soul-interacting powers from humanity and that souls should return entirely to Heaven after death.
• Norton questioned how Dual-Frequency Resonance could extract soul substance from reality when reality and Heaven were supposed to be isolated.

At a major experiment, Director Maya explained to President Marshall that humanity’s research into souls had led to the discovery that souls, normally confined to Heaven, had begun appearing in reality. The experiment aimed not only to enable subspace jumps but also to investigate this unprecedented phenomenon.

• President Marshall asked Director Maya whether the experiment could enable subspace jumps and warned that humanity’s growing despair could lead to revolt.
• Director Maya said subspace jumps were theoretically achievable, but explained that the experiment had another objective: studying souls and Heaven.
• Director Maya described the theory that souls always exist in Heaven and connect to bodies in reality only while their owners are alive.
• Director Maya revealed that researchers had found soul matter appearing in reality and had extracted souls there for the experiment.

Director Maya’s team began an experiment to detect soul matter in reality, and the apparatus produced a vibration spectrum that seemed to confirm their research. A second spectrum revealed that soul fluctuations already permeated reality and were increasing, so Maya urgently demanded to see Norton.

• President Marshall ordered Director Maya to begin the experiment, insisting that she find a solution for Norton and preserve his rule.
• Church knights brought an osmium container of soul matter into the laboratory and placed it in the experimental apparatus.
• The machine generated a vibration spectrum, prompting researchers to celebrate the prospect of Subspace jumps and expanded human living space.
• A parallel spectrum appeared, silencing the laboratory and leaving the researchers increasingly alarmed.
• Director Maya realized that soul fluctuations already filled reality and were growing, then demanded to see Norton immediately.

Norton explained that souls had begun appearing in reality because the physical world’s entropy was increasing while souls in Heaven remained concentrated. Convinced that humanity’s internal divisions and collapsed faith could no longer be reconciled, he decided to use the invading Soul Matter as a common enemy and end the Human Federation’s long peace.

• Abraham questioned how souls could appear in reality when souls had previously been used in the Garden of Eden and the Gothic Empire’s War Machine.
• Norton explained that opening the Garden of Eden to Heaven had set the universe on a path of increasing entropy, but humanity’s immortality had kept souls from dissipating alongside reality.
• Norton described the resulting imbalance as the cause of souls appearing in reality and said that entropy doomed humanity and all intelligent life.
• Norton condemned humanity’s repression, lawlessness, and loss of faith after three thousand years of peace.
• Norton declared that humanity needed an external enemy to resolve its internal contradictions, and he identified the invading Soul Matter as the means to shatter the Federation’s peace.

Norton, Duoxia, and Abraham reflected on humanity’s growing resentment and concluded that the old Holy Lord Empire had restrained human desires more effectively than the Human Federation. After Jacob proposed using mass death to restore social order, Norton rejected surrendering to fate and declared that humanity could still resist and rewrite its destiny.

• Norton explained that the Human Federation’s people had become increasingly dissatisfied despite government support and physical evolution.
• Duoxia agreed that humanity’s greed made an ideal society impossible and lamented that the old Holy Lord Empire had maintained greater stability.
• Abraham silently acknowledged that his own comforts and ambitions had grown after he no longer feared for his survival.
• Jacob urged Norton and Duoxia to restore the old system and provoke wars, arguing that mass death would make humanity more content.
• Duoxia rebuked Jacob for his extreme proposal, and Norton stopped their argument.
• Norton said that fate might encompass all events but declared that he would resist it and that humanity could still rewrite its destiny.

Norton feared that Soul Matter precipitating from Heaven signaled God's return and threatened his humanity, but he concluded that neither slaughter nor other measures could restore the imbalance between Heaven and the Garden of Eden. Suspecting a scheme to strip him of his anchors, he chose to fight and called on Abraham to rally the Human Federation for war.

• Norton sat alone after Abraham and the others left, discarded his symbols of authority, and worried that he was about to lose his humanity and become supreme again.
• Norton considered slaughtering most of the Garden of Eden's people to balance Heaven and the Garden, then realized the disparity came from changes across spacetime and could not be fixed that way.
• Norton feared that eliminating his human anchors would leave him unable to return if God or the gods scattered him across the universe.
• Norton resolved to keep fighting whoever threatened him and declared that the Garden of Eden's billions would perish with him rather than let his enemies destroy him.
• Norton rose and ordered Abraham to rally the Human Federation for war.

In Norton's 3k Era, the Human Federation mobilized scientists and soldiers to study souls and Heaven Subspace while the government and Pale Church reshaped public opinion for future war. Norton’s preparations left the Federation facing a looming threat, as the discovery of soul matter meant souls had already spread throughout reality.

• The Human Federation recalled 3.3 billion scholars to the Lesser Garden of Eden Galaxy, while the Pale Church conscripted 1.5 trillion fifth-stage mutants and built military bases.
• Researchers studied soul matter and Heaven Subspace, and humanity began uncovering its mysteries as its military strength grew.
• Norton prepared to transform the Federation’s political structure and public mentality because he had seen things that had suddenly appeared.
• The Human Federation Government and the Pale Church spread messaging about living conditions, personal advancement, and faith in the Pale God to encourage people to fight to the end.
• The chapter revealed that the appearance of soul matter in reality meant souls had already spread to every corner of it.

As Soul Matter merged with reality on Adamxis, inanimate objects transformed into aggressive monsters and the city descended into battle. The Pale Church’s Angels and the empowered residents fought back, while the upheaval gave humanity a chance to unleash the aggression Norton had suppressed for three thousand years.

• Adamxis broadcast Norton’s warnings that Soul Matter could precipitate from Subspace and threaten humanity.
• A distortion spread through the city as Soul Matter adhered to physical objects and fused with them.
• A fountain turned into swarming black insects that attacked pedestrians, and screens, glass, furniture, roads, and buildings mutated into monsters.
• A Twelve-Winged Angel led the Pale Church missionaries into battle, while the city’s residents also used their abilities to fight the creatures.
• The fighting reduced much of the city to ruins, and its inhabitants embraced the violence after centuries of restraint under Norton.

The Pale Church began the first crewed test of spacecraft Subspace jump technology, sending Franklin and fourteen Church knights into a potentially deadly unknown. The knights boarded the spacecraft after the chief doctor warned them of the risks and instructed them to return to designated coordinates.

• Scientists gathered at the Pale Church Royal Research Institute as the first Subspace jump test reached its launch stage.
• Franklin led fourteen Church knights in T1 Power Armor toward the spacecraft as volunteers for the experiment.
• The chief doctor warned Franklin and his squad that they might not return and that Soul Matter could erode or alter physical matter.
• The chief doctor ordered the knights to follow safety instructions and set their return coordinates to the designated location.
• Franklin saluted in the name of His Holiness and led his squad aboard without looking back.

Fifteen Church knights aboard Franklin’s spacecraft completed the first Subspace Jump and entered a silent, matterless void while the ship’s Anchor searched for reality. As the knights waited, Franklin realized that the pounding they felt was not their own heartbeat but something else coming alive.

• The chief scientist explained how the Subspace Jump would work and watched the spacecraft begin to fade from the landing pad.
• The spacecraft vanished from the researchers’ view, and they hurried to contact the space station at the designated Anchor.
• Franklin and fourteen Church knights saw the world outside fade into darkness as their spacecraft entered Subspace.
• The knights activated the Anchor and waited in the silent void while it searched for the real world.
• Franklin sensed a pounding out of sync with his heartbeat, warned that something had come alive, and reached for his gun.

Franklin and the Church knights fought an escalating xenos infestation aboard their spacecraft during its jump. When John transformed into a Twelve-Winged Angel, soul matter merged with his body and turned him into a monster, leaving Franklin to continue the fight as the jump proceeded.

• Franklin and the Church knights found a giant, growing heart in a compartment and destroyed it, releasing small xenos.
• More heartbeats spread throughout the spacecraft, and Franklin led his squad against swarms of xenos that grew into larger mutants and masses of corrupting flesh.
• The flesh's muttering affected John, causing him to erupt into a Twelve-Winged Angel and melt a breach in the spacecraft.
• John's golden flames went out as soul matter merged with his body, transforming him into a monster that joined the xenos.
• Franklin suppressed his flames after his armor warned him about overheating and resumed fighting while the spacecraft's jump continued.

Knight Commander Xinuo and the Pale Church awaited a spacecraft returning from a Subspace Jump while a scholar explained research into merging matter and soul. The spacecraft appeared at the Anchor, but it remained silent and seemingly deserted.

• Knight Commander Xinuo waited with the Pale Church fleet while a scholar estimated the spacecraft would reach the required vibration frequency in about twenty-five days.
• Knight Commander Xinuo rebuked the scholar for questioning whether His Holiness could create a life-form formed from matter and soul, and threatened to report him to the Inquisition.
• The monitoring instruments detected faint vibrations, and the spacecraft materialized in the empty vacuum.
• The spacecraft showed no signs of communication or movement and floated silently, apparently deserted.

Knight Commander Xinuo’s forces discovered that the missing space-jump ship had been consumed by a grotesque life-form born from soul matter in Subspace. Franklin’s recorded warning revealed that every jump could bring soul matter into reality, and Xinuo’s scholar was killed after proclaiming that the findings proved the existence of a true God.

• Knight Commander Xinuo sent Church knights to investigate the unresponsive space-jump ship and cut open its hatch from outside.
• The knights found the ship filled with sticky flesh, the remains of Franklin’s squad, and a huge beating heart, so Xinuo ordered them to retrieve the black box data and destroy the ship.
• Franklin’s recorded message explained that soul matter filled ships during Subspace jumps, contaminated physical matter, and could be carried back into reality.
• A scholar declared that His Holiness had stolen life and that only the true God could create it, and someone split him in half with a power greatsword.

News of Adamxis Planet’s devastation and the dangers of Subspace Jump technology spread through humanity’s colonies, but most people welcomed the chance to reproduce and expand despite the threat of anomalous creatures. Online debate exposed a society eager for upheaval and confident it could survive a war, leaving humanity on the brink of a destructive reckoning.

• Reports of Adamxis Planet’s invasion and the discovery of Subspace Jump technology reached humanity’s interstellar colonies in 3211 of the Norton 3k era.
• The chapter described how birth controls had been imposed three hundred years earlier to prevent the enormous, long-lived population from exhausting the Human Federation’s resources.
• Streamers and bloggers celebrated Subspace Jump technology and argued that humanity should accept an endless struggle against anomalous creatures rather than abandon expansion and immortality.
• Online commenters demanded that the Pale God suppress the creatures or were condemned for questioning him, while others called for the destruction of the Garden of Eden and welcomed humanity’s extinction.
• The narrator described how prolonged peace had made people overconfident and left society’s moral and social foundations close to collapse, suggesting that upheaval would remake humanity.