Recaps

Norton’s fear of God and Jonah drove him to remake the Holy Empire into a military state and wage a ruinous war against the Northern and East Continents. As the empire collapsed and Jonah’s awakening seemed imminent, Abraham prepared a testament and waited at the Holy See while a dark figure appeared beyond the capital.

• Norton opened the Holy Empire to private enterprise and outside capital, transforming its economy over five years while drawing resentment from displaced conservatives.
• Miles XIV and Jacob clashed over the Northern Continent’s rule, and War Machines massacred the nobles at the palace before Miles XIV mobilized the Gothic Empire for war.
• Norton ordered a Cataclysm War after the Northern Continent invaded, and its forces captured Kaier City as propaganda and conscription spread through the South.
• Norton emerged from seclusion, crushed the East Continent invasion with his Pressure, and ordered mass conscription and punishment across the Southern Continent.
• Miles XIV warned Jacob that defeating Norton through the Eternal Life Society would leave another threat, but Jacob killed him and ordered the war to continue with nuclear weapons.
• Nuclear attacks and East Continent poison warfare devastated the Holy Empire, while Norton ordered Abraham to break both empires and revealed a blood-red sun above his palace.
• As Jonah’s ghosts began overwhelming Northern troops, Norton told Abraham and Elizabeth to flee, then announced he would slaughter all life and await the coming crusade.
• Abraham wrote a testament about Norton’s origins and possible weakness, while believers gathered at the Pale Holy See and Abraham saw a dark figure near the capital.

Norton drew Jonah into his scheme to absorb the Garden of Eden’s souls, but their fusion devastated the world and left Norton’s fate uncertain. Abraham seized power and rebuilt the Southern Continent before his rule ended in assassination, while humanity later inherited a world without extraordinary beings.

• Abraham rallied the imperial city’s defenders against the corpse hordes, but Northern artillery and nuclear bombs devastated the capital until Norton absorbed their force and declared himself the Pale God.
• Norton unleashed destruction across the Southern Continent, while Duoxia escaped with Jacob II and the Eternal Life Society prepared its final sacrifice as the world’s star went dark.
• Jonah arrived to confront Norton, who charged into the tide of souls intending to consume Jonah and ascend, but Jonah overpowered him and began flooding him with souls.
• Abraham explained that the souls could contaminate Norton’s unique soul, but Norton used the infusion to gain control of souls and drew them toward himself, revealing that he had manipulated Abraham and others to arrange the feast.
• Jonah merged with Norton and carried him toward the golden star, where Norton’s divine body exploded as he perceived the universe’s history and distant future, and Abraham later searched the sky while Elizabeth professed devotion to Norton.
• Maria ascended the throne as Queen, and Abraham became Grand Patriarch, blamed Norton for the devastation, suppressed postwar disorder, and began rebuilding the Southern Continent as the Northern Continent descended into upheaval.
• Abraham’s isolation and nationwide purge ended in corruption, and an assassin killed him, and Elizabeth disappeared, Alexander became Pope, and later generations saw humanity inherit the Garden of Eden as technology and spaceflight advanced.
• Norton’s consciousness became part of the universe, while God gathered his foreign soul particles as discarded matter and spent ten thousand years gradually stripping them away.

The Human Federation’s excavation of ancient ruins awakened Norton, whose return overwhelmed the military and forced humanity to negotiate with him. As a public ceremony welcomed him back, Norton recovered his sense of self but faced unrest and the consequences of his power.

• The Firmament Outlook departed the Garden of Eden, and Professor Jenny taught her students that the Human Evolution Elixir came from ancient remains and that the Great Hibernation had buried people across the Southern Continent.
• Professor Jenny and the expedition team investigated a vast underground city, where Benny climbed Abraham’s throne and melted when the silver-haired Norton opened his eyes.
• Norton announced his return as the Pale God, then emerged from the fissure on a towering throne while the Human Federation’s weapons failed to harm him and Abraham joined his procession.
• The Federation debated how to respond as Norton reached the Southern Continent, and Jacob revived in his ice coffin while Norton explained his transformation and the universe’s approaching Big Freeze to Abraham.
• Norton ordered vampires to build a monastery, while the Federation’s experts discovered humanity’s connection to ancient gene serum and President Betty Alexander’s government voted to negotiate with Norton.
• The Federation arranged a public welcome for Norton, and he accepted flowers from two children before riding through Holy Lord City with Abraham and Elizabeth.
• A grieving man bombed the procession and was killed by soldiers, prompting Norton to question whether he had become cruel, when Abraham demanded the protesters’ execution, Norton told him, “Enough...”

After humanity’s return to ordinary life awakened Norton’s humanity, he turned from games to investigating the universe’s heat death and learned that God might descend through believers’ minds. Norton tried to redirect humanity’s worship toward himself, but a million believers gathered at the Wailing Wall and the Pale God appeared in the sun.

• Norton revived the dead and rescued more than a hundred thousand people, then spent months absorbed in games and the internet until an online insult drove him to erase an entire town.
• Norton confronted the prospect of the universe’s heat death and ordered Abraham to establish a cosmic research department, while the Human Federation awarded him the Duoxia Peace Prize and sought to use his power for its own ends.
• Norton traveled to Duoxia Star and gathered scholars to investigate the universe’s end, where he concluded that his soul was central to God’s advancement across temporal universes.
• Kazi proposed that heat death might be God’s mature state and warned that human minds could anchor God’s descent, and Norton realized he might have burned away the seals that had kept God from returning.
• Norton ordered the Federation to redirect religious devotion toward him, provide for people’s needs, and merge the churches, threatening the leaders with extermination if they disobeyed.
• The Federation merged the churches into the White Lord Church and tried to promote Norton’s worship, while unrest spread and Norton erased people who attacked a school.
• After Norton’s takeover, about a million poor and devout believers gathered at the Holy Lord Holy See ruins to mourn the Church’s fall, beyond the notice of society and the Federation.
• At the Wailing Wall, the sun turned gold and revealed a ring and pupil, and the Pale God addressed the believers and declared himself the Pale God.