Chapter Summaries

In Year 49, Norton’s Pale Crusade began conquering the Southern Continent, rapidly converting occupied populations into new soldiers and seizing the former Aodelan Empire by Year 51. As the Holy Empire’s leaders debated whether to confront Norton or wait for the Northern Continent’s War Machine, Anlan pushed for imperial war and ordered Beinuo to ask the queen to begin it.

• At the Pale God’s command, Abraham led the Pale Crusade out of Sak City, using its supernatural fighters to attack surrounding territory.
• By Year 51, the Pale Crusade had conquered the former Aodelan Empire and converted its inhabitants into Norton's creations, taking a fifth of the Southern Continent.
• Mr. Rothschild raged at the Holy Empire’s inability to explain Norton’s power to create dependents or stop his expansion.
• Anlan urged the Holy Empire to enter a wartime footing and destroy the Pale Crusade before it could take the whole Southern Continent.
• Beinuo opposed an open war, warning that Norton could strike the parliament and that the Northern Continent might exploit the empire’s weakness.
• Anlan rejected Beinuo’s hesitation and ordered him to ask the queen to set an imperial war in motion.

Queen Maria declared war on the Pale God and the Northern Continent after the Holy Empire Parliament manipulated her into serving as the public face of its imperialist war. By Norton Year 52, the empire had begun a massive military buildup and sent millions of soldiers and supplies toward the Pale Holy See’s territory.

• The Holy Empire Parliament used Queen Maria as a scapegoat and persuaded her that declaring war would defend her glory.
• In winter of Norton Year 51, Queen Maria delivered an incoherent speech declaring war on the Pale God, the Pale Holy See, the Pale Crusade, and the Northern Continent.
• Queen Maria was dragged away before finishing her speech, but she remained pleased with herself as the declaration set the war in motion.
• In Norton Year 52, the Holy Empire Parliament borrowed tens of trillions of Nuo in Queen Maria’s name to fund weapons, supplies, and army expansion.
• Within three months, the Holy Empire had conscripted more than five million soldiers and transported troops and supplies to the Pale Holy See’s lands.

After Queen Maria declared war on the Pale God, Norton grew lonely ruling the Pale Holy See and flew to the front to take command of the Cataclysm War. By autumn of Norton Year 54, the Pale Crusade faced the Holy Empire’s much larger army in a brutal industrial-age trench war.

• Queen Maria declared war on the Pale God, prompting the Pale Holy See to intensify its exploitation of captured people and supernatural populations for industrial production.
• Norton lamented that his rule was praised rather than feared and felt isolated after Abraham and Elizabeth left to serve the war effort.
• Norton spread his bone wings, flew to the frontline headquarters, and assumed command of all armies in winter of Norton Year 53.
• Abraham stepped back from command, transported grain, and secretly sent disobedient slaves to the Northern Continent to produce War Machines.
• Under Norton’s pressure, the Pale Crusade advanced from the former Aodelan Empire’s territory in Norton Year 54.
• In autumn of Norton Year 54, Norton’s one-million-strong army faced the Holy Empire’s five million troops in trench warfare as firearms and artillery advanced.

The Pale Empire and Holy Empire fought a brutal battle in the ruins of Holy Lord City as Norton ordered a counterattack without regard for the soldiers’ lives. The chapter left the city engulfed in smoke and fire, with Norton treating the continent-wide war like a game.

• Paul ate his ration and praised the Pale God, while a birdman captain cursed the god and blamed him for ruining his life.
• The corps commander ordered the soldiers to launch an immediate counterattack against Holy Empire forces in Holy Lord City.
• Artillery struck the opposing building, and the Pale Empire sent witches and bomb-laden birdmen into the attack; the captain was forced to become a suicide attacker and died in an explosion.
• Paul followed the troops toward the opposing stairwell, where a Holy Empire flamethrower engulfed him in flames.
• Norton’s distant command and battlefield surveillance turned the war into a game of psychological maneuvers, with no regard for morale or timing.

Norton’s reckless micromanagement prolonged the siege of Holy Lord City and made Abraham fear that the Pale God had become a cruel, irresponsible ruler. Abraham resolved to revive Jonah and seal Norton in the Pale Cross, while Norton remained gleefully engrossed in directing the battle.

• Norton ordered Abraham to keep pressing the attack and demanded that Holy Lord City be taken by the next day.
• Abraham recalled that Norton’s three months of micromanagement had stalled the campaign and led to enormous casualties, while Norton blamed his commanders and Abraham.
• Abraham feared Norton now treated lives as playthings and recognized why Kuba had sealed God away.
• Abraham decided to hasten Jonah’s revival so he could help seal Norton in the Pale Cross.
• Norton stayed in the command room, laughing as he issued more aggressive orders to his forces.

The Holy Empire’s corrupt war economy left it struggling against the Pale Crusade, while Norton examined a mysterious soul vessel delivered from the Southern Continent. Sensing the sealed soul’s power and his own hunger for it, Norton realized souls might let him advance beyond godhood.

• The Pale Crusade captured Holy Lord City and razed fifteen cities as the Holy Empire’s profiteering, broken military, and corrupt medical system worsened its defeats.
• Norton turned his attention from the Southern Continent’s front lines to a lantern-like object secured inside an osmium-based metal box.
• Norton examined the box and sensed the power of the soul sealed within it, along with his intense craving for it.
• Norton concluded that consuming souls might allow him to advance again and resented Abraham for not giving him such an object sooner.

Norton feared the souls in his possession might be a trap set by Jonah or God to assimilate him, and he destroyed the soul collector rather than risk consuming them. He was left grieving his uncertainty over whether he had rejected an opportunity or escaped a scheme.

• Norton wondered whether devouring God-created souls could brand his own soul and make him a counterfeit creation.
• Norton suspected Jonah or God had planned the soul collector as a trap and feared being downgraded and controlled by God's code.
• Norton crushed the soul collector, releasing its black mist and the trapped souls, which vanished amid screams.
• Norton sighed that after a thousand years he could no longer tell whether he faced a trap or an opportunity, assimilation or integration.
• The vampire missionaries serving Norton felt sorrow at his anguish while soldiers fought on the front lines.

The Pale God Norton withdrew into his palace as the Pale Crusade’s supernatural forces fought the Holy Empire, whose rapidly advancing weapons eventually reversed the war. The chapter ended with Holy Empire researchers discovering uranium nuclear fission in Norton Year 66.

• The Holy Empire Parliament learned that Norton had shut himself away and worried that his mental state was deteriorating.
• Under Abraham’s command, the Pale Crusade expanded across the Southern Continent, while the Holy Empire developed a water-cooled machine gun to counter its supernatural fighters.
• The Holy Empire Royal Academy of Sciences introduced rotary autocannons, inflicting heavy losses on werewolves, angels, and vampires, and even forcing Abraham to flee after he was badly wounded.
• In Norton Year 65, the Holy Empire deployed tanks that turned the tide of the war, and Abraham ordered suicidal charges against the steel fortresses and antiaircraft guns.
• In Norton Year 66, vampire scholars at the Holy Empire Royal Research Institute discovered uranium nuclear fission.

The Holy Empire’s rulers launched a nuclear weapons program to counter the Pale God and the Northern Continent. As the war turned against the Pale Crusade and Norton remained absent, fear and instability spread through its forces, leaving Abraham worried at the front.

• Senate Presidents Anlan and Rothschild gathered the Holy Empire’s senators, while the Beinuo family faced a purge after members planned to migrate to the Northern Continent.
• Physicist Qienuo and mathematics experts established the theoretical basis for nuclear weapons, prompting the Supreme Parliament to authorize unlimited resources and demand a weapon within two years.
• Anlan announced that the Holy Empire would use a nuclear weapon to strike the Pale God and glanced meaningfully at Rothschild.
• The Holy Empire’s modern weapons overwhelmed the Pale Crusade, killing even powerful vampires and preventing many battlefield dead from being turned into new troops.
• Norton’s absence fueled panic and weakened morale within the Pale Holy See and its army, while Abraham worried as he commanded at the front.

Norton hid in a cramped hut inside the Pale Holy See, recreating the Holy Lord Cathedral of his childhood to recover a sense of belonging and safety. As he reflected on his rise to power and the soul vessel, he feared that God had scripted his life and that he could never escape.

• Norton built the Pale Holy See to imitate the Holy Lord Cathedral, enforcing its old rules and worship of Caesar.
• Norton curled up in a monk’s hut and sought comfort in the familiar setting of his childhood.
• Norton recalled that he had once fought only to survive, but now his actions had made him the feared Pale God and a source of calamity.
• Norton worried that Jonah or God had set a trap with the soul vessel and could attack his soul despite his invincible body.
• Norton suspected that God had been assimilating him all along and that his life was scripted to merge him into God’s consciousness.
• Norton wept that becoming the Pale God had not freed him from the fear that he might not live to see tomorrow.

Norton overcame his despair by deciding that while God assimilated him, he could also assimilate and transform God. He revealed his renewed power above the Holy Lord Church, leaving the Southern Continent terrified and Abraham certain that Norton was about to cause another disaster.

• Norton reasoned that his influence on the world meant he could contaminate and assimilate God as well as be assimilated by Him.
• Norton regained his confidence, grew pale bone wings, and demolished the wooden hut as he rose into the air above the Holy Lord Church.
• Norton proclaimed himself the Pale God and the world's only transformation, sending his words across the Southern Continent.
• The two senate speakers, Queen Maria, and people across the Southern Continent were frightened by Norton's sudden display of power.
• Abraham concluded that Norton's earlier dejection had been an excuse for the wickedness he was about to commit.

Norton reflected on his terror of merging with God, then unleashed his overwhelming power across the Southern Continent and declared that all its living beings would serve him. Senate Speaker Anlan’s attempt to seize control ended in defeat, though he used his final strength to leave a warning about the nuclear researchers.

• Norton concluded that he could not escape his eventual fate or stop Jonah from appearing, and tried to make his soul malleable through self-deception.
• A brutal winter and political unrest worsened conditions across the Southern Continent as Senate Speaker Anlan ordered dissenters suppressed and plotted to eliminate the Childe Family.
• Anlan boasted that his family could rule the continent and aspired to divine status, but Norton’s immense pressure suddenly crushed him and forced the Southern Continent’s people to prostrate themselves.
• Norton proclaimed himself the Pale God and declared that every living being on the Southern Continent would fall under his control.
• Anlan realized the Pale God had concealed the extent of his power, then used his blood to write a message urging that the research personnel and nuclear weapons be sent north before he died.

Norton ended the Southern Continent’s five-year civil war and took control of the former Holy Empire, then imposed a continent-wide system of slavery and centralized rule. His unexpectedly generous provisions for the poor clashed with his coercive, erratic control, leaving the people fearful of his instability.

• In winter of Year 57 of Norton, the Pale God Norton ended the Cataclysm War by enveloping the Southern Continent in his pressure and destroying the former Holy Empire’s regime.
• Queen Maria proposed transferring imperial authority to the Pale God, but Norton took control from Sak City without a ceremony and allowed her to keep her title as queen.
• In Year 58 of Norton, Norton began nationwide slavery, stripping nobles, merchants, and politicians of their status and placing the population under a mind-controlled system of surveillance and control.
• Norton assigned housing, land, work, and food while imposing rules that benefited the poor, but his contradictory actions left the Southern Continent anxious and afraid.
• More people recognized the problem Senate Speaker Anlan had identified before his death: the Garden of Eden did not need a fickle, desire-filled God.

Norton imposed a peaceful, communal order on the Southern Continent, yet privately swung between fear and arrogance and sought relief by confessing his sins. When Father Joshua tried to deepen Norton’s guilt and bless him in his own name, Norton killed him and declared himself sinless.

• Norton’s policies ended exploitative industries and provided work, land, and free meals, improving life for the Southern Continent’s poorest residents.
• Norton prayed with Father Joshua, a priest of the Pale Holy See, and confessed that he had sinned by sowing chaos.
• Father Joshua secretly tried to replace God Caesar’s authority with his own while blessing Norton and encouraging him to feel guilty.
• Norton argued that his merciful deeds and past actions meant he could not be guilty, despite Father Joshua’s attempts to persuade him otherwise.
• Norton pierced Father Joshua’s eyes and skull with two fingers, then declared himself without sin because Joshua could no longer see.

Abraham and Elizabeth endured Norton's increasingly erratic, violent behavior and decided he had to be sealed away to protect the Garden of Eden. Abraham concluded that the Garden must have no god, and he and Elizabeth were prepared to sink into ruin alongside Norton.

• Norton's moods swung between repentance, terror, fury, and laughter, and he accused Abraham and Elizabeth of being God's spies.
• Abraham broke down in the imperial library while reading a psychology book and began to agree with Kuba that Norton should be sealed away.
• Elizabeth joined Abraham in the library and said she would sink into ruin alongside Norton if that would make him feel better.
• Abraham explained that sealing Norton away would not help if he remained as the Garden's ruler, and he decided the Garden of Eden must have no god.

Duoxia questioned whether opposing Norton still served justice after seeing the Gothic Empire’s mass slaughter, while Jacob insisted that resisting the Pale God remained necessary. As Miles XIV prepared the Northern Continent for war and pursued a nuclear weapon, he wondered whether the sacrifices made to fulfill his father’s wishes had been worth it.

• Duoxia and Jacob watched the Gothic Empire’s horrific treatment of people and argued over whether Norton's rule or the Northern Continent’s rulers posed the greater threat.
• Duoxia said he would no longer lead their group and left Jacob in charge, while Jacob vowed to continue their plan to seal the Pale God.
• Miles XIV learned that Abraham had brought Southern Continent researchers and equipment to develop a nuclear fission bomb within five years.
• Miles XIV ordered the Northern Continent to stop producing War Machines, gather intelligence on the Southern Continent, expand its army, and await the weapon research.
• Miles XIV removed his mask and wondered whether the sacrifices he had made to fulfill his father’s wishes had been worthwhile.

Norton sought reassurance from a psychiatrist, blaming his mental instability and misdeeds on the pressure and persecution he had endured. The psychiatrist’s flattery briefly pleased Norton, but Norton then suspected him of being God’s spy and fled, leaving the doctor crushed by the collapsing palace roof.

• Norton told the psychiatrist that others had forced him into his current state and insisted he had done nothing wrong.
• The psychiatrist, terrified by Norton’s presence, praised his rule and blamed Norton’s problems on his environment.
• Norton was delighted by the psychiatrist’s agreement and the psychiatrist believed he had found a way to survive.
• Norton suddenly accused the psychiatrist of being God’s spy and flew through the palace roof.
• The falling roof crushed the psychiatrist beneath the palace ruins.

Abraham considered betraying Norton as the Pale God’s worsening illness and rule left him increasingly impossible to restrain, and he waited for help from the Northern Continent. Norton briefly regained his resolve and a trace of divinity, but Elizabeth’s offer of blood wine terrified him, and he fled through the hall’s dome, leaving her buried beneath rubble.

• Abraham reflected that Norton’s worsening illness made him suspicious and furious, and that the Northern Continent’s possible power to seal him away was their last hope.
• Norton returned to the palace ruins and regretted how fearful and paranoid he had become.
• Norton resolved to face God without fear and briefly displayed a trace of the divinity he had pursued.
• Elizabeth offered Norton blood wine, but its scent made him panic that drinking it would lower his standing and make him part of God’s creation.
• Norton flew through the hall’s dome, and falling stones buried Elizabeth beneath the rubble.

Duoxia traveled through the Southern Continent under the alias William Marx and studied its political systems and life under Norton's rule. Listening to vampires debate governance in Lino City, he found his ideas taking shape and began to see his path again.

• In the sixty-third year of Norton, Duoxia stowed away to the Southern Continent as William Marx to travel and explain his theories.
• After two years of observing the Southern Continent, Duoxia developed his transformed ideas into a broadly complete system, though he remained uncertain.
• Duoxia sat in a Lino City tavern and compared the Southern Continent's relaxed life with the hostile, hurried conditions he had known in the North.
• Vampires argued over whether Norton's rule depended on surveillance or could be reproduced through a system that ensured equality.
• Duoxia listened to the debate and grew increasingly inspired, feeling that he had found his path again.

Haunted by nightmares of Kuba and fearful that God would punish him for his past crimes, Norton ordered Abraham to begin reforms and present him as a merciful ruler. The chapter ended with Norton trying to convince himself that making the Garden of Eden prosper would win the deities’ forgiveness.

• Norton relaxed the monastery’s restrictions, allowing its missionaries greater freedom and improving their morale.
• Norton woke from a nightmare about Kuba’s condemnation and feared the wrath of God and other deities.
• Norton noticed that the sun was turning orange-red and feared it was withering again.
• Norton insisted that his past atrocities had been necessary sacrifices and that he was the Garden of Eden’s savior.
• Norton summoned Abraham and ordered reforms to spread the Pale God’s mercy throughout the Garden of Eden.