Chapter Summaries

General Mouro ordered Goliath to attack the Tiger Moth and then the Erdtree, despite warnings from the voice identifying itself as the Erdtree and a god of law. The Erdtree’s golden shield repelled Goliath’s first barrage, but the chapter ended as its main-gun salvo descended on the tree and Railway Valley.

• Mouro ordered Goliath’s close-in turrets to fire on the Tiger Moth, but a golden shield appeared and left the airship undamaged.
• Muska questioned the voice about Laputa’s secret treasure, and it identified itself as the Erdtree and the god who presided over law.
• Mouro rejected the Erdtree’s warnings and threatened to destroy the tree and Railway Valley with Goliath’s main guns.
• Mu En realized his Erdtree avatar’s power had been underestimated and that its abundant Volucite energy made Goliath no threat to him.
• Mouro ordered Goliath to fire an indiscriminate main-gun salvo at the Erdtree, and golden light burst forth as the shells neared their target.

Mu En summoned an immortal army of Crucible beasts and sent it against Goliath, overwhelming the flying fortress while his shield protected the town below. As the beasts tore into the ship, Dola, Pazu, Sheeta, and the Tiger Moth crew watched in awe at Mu En’s power.

• Mu En judged that he could easily withstand Goliath’s guns and chose to test his new abilities instead of destroying the fortress immediately.
• Mu En summoned a vast herd of dark-gold Crucible beasts, which charged through Goliath’s artillery barrage while his Shield of Immutability protected the town.
• Goliath’s crew unleashed its secondary guns and antiaircraft weapons, but the beasts regenerated from their wounds and continued their attack.
• A giant winged wolf-shaped beast smashed a machine-gun turret, and the other beasts clawed through Goliath’s armor and entered the ship, killing its crew.
• Dola, Pazu, Sheeta, and the Tiger Moth crew watched the battle and realized how powerful the being they followed was.

Mu En’s Crucible Beasts overwhelmed the Goliath, forcing its surviving crew to surrender. Muska offered his knowledge and the secrets of Laputa to Mu En in exchange for his life.

• The Crucible Beasts tore through the Goliath’s corridors while Mouro panicked and Muska tried to escape from the bridge.
• A golden centaur angel cut through the bridge hatch and killed the officers and guards who fired at it.
• Mu En ordered the survivors to surrender, and the soldiers dropped their weapons and knelt.
• Mouro threatened the chief of staff with his pistol, but the centaur angel split him in two.
• Muska knelt before the centaur angel and offered his loyalty, knowledge, and Laputa’s secrets to Mu En.

Mu En defeated Muska and the forces aboard Goliath, then considered how to use Muska as an agent to spread faith through the kingdom. Muska surrendered and asked to become the Erdtree’s servant, leaving his fate and ambitions in Mu En’s hands.

• Mu En reclaimed the energy of the Crucible beasts after Muska surrendered, and Goliath hovered over a field south of Valley Town.
• Muska led his men off the damaged warship as its soldiers abandoned thoughts of resistance after witnessing the Erdtree’s power.
• Mu En judged the Crucible beasts better suited to empowering elite troops than serving as an army, and anticipated greater threats ahead.
• Dola mocked Muska while Pazu and Sheeta watched, and Muska knelt to surrender on behalf of Goliath’s crew.
• Simon, chief of staff of Tidis Fortress, also knelt and begged forgiveness.
• Mu En identified Muska as a capable, ambitious agent who could serve him and help spread faith through the kingdom.

The Erdtree offered Muska power in exchange for making him its vanguard in establishing a new order. After enduring the blessing’s agonizing transformation, Muska embraced his role as its distributor and vowed to bring the world under the Erdtree’s grasp.

• The Erdtree revealed that it knew Muska’s true name and ambition to restore Laputa’s royal family and rule the world.
• The Erdtree warned Muska that violent rule would fail, explaining that a lasting kingdom depended on the support of the people.
• The Erdtree gave Muska a blessing that increased his vitality and power, then caused him intense pain to demonstrate that it could withdraw the gift.
• The Erdtree told Muska the blessing could deepen with sufficient contributions, potentially raising a mortal to demigod status.
• Muska realized people would seek blessings at any cost and promised to bring the whole world into the Erdtree’s grasp.

Muska joined Mu En’s group after receiving the Erdtree’s blessing and revealed that he had been entrusted with a new plan. In Valley Town’s church, he began presenting the “Golden Realm Plan” to Dola and the others.

• Dola worried that Muska’s position as head of the Northern Kingdom’s Intelligence Department made him dangerous, despite Mu En’s blessing.
• Muska apologized to Sheeta, promised not to pursue Laputa, and asked to discuss the deity’s plan with Dola and the others.
• Mu En assured Dola that Muska could be trusted for now, and the group returned to Valley Town instead of meeting aboard the damaged Goliath.
• Duffi led the townspeople back after Mu En confirmed the Goliath was no longer a threat, and the group gathered in the town church.
• Muska told Dola, Duffi, and the others that Mu En had entrusted him with new responsibilities and introduced the Golden Realm Plan.

Muska outlined the Golden Realm Plan to spread the Erdtree’s influence through the Northern Kingdom by winning over elites with blessings and sending Valley Town believers to aid the poor. He assigned Dola, Pazu, and Sheeta to continue the Laputa Plan and search for the Castle in the Sky, with Simon and the Goliath supporting them.

• Muska explained that blessings could persuade the kingdom’s powerful leaders to become loyal believers and that church officials could be silenced or bribed.
• He recruited the residents of Valley Town as the first missionaries, who would spread the Erdtree’s faith among workers and the poor.
• Muska announced that Dola, Pazu, and Sheeta would continue the Laputa Plan and search for the Castle in the Sky, while Simon placed the Goliath at their command.
• Muska described five steps for the Golden Realm Plan, including training believers, granting missionaries blessings, courting powerful figures, and sending missionaries to major cities.
• Muska declared that the Northern Kingdom would fall under Lord Erdtree’s control as the powerful depended on blessings and the common people gathered under the golden faith.

Mu En reviewed the gains and plans from his intervention in Castle in the Sky, then returned his attention to the Valley of the Wind. The chapter ended with Yupa’s team approaching the Sea of Corruption to begin its advance exploration.

• Mu En reflected that he had brought Muska and Dola under his command and left Pazu and Sheeta to travel toward Laputa.
• Mu En discovered that his connection with the Fallingstar Beast had given him a fledgling ability to control gravity.
• Mu En decided to send the Fallingstar Beast with Dola’s group to Laputa as a bodyguard and to make him exercise.
• Mu En shifted his focus back to the Valley of the Wind and chose to review Yupa’s Sea of Corruption exploration team first.
• Yupa led ten masked riders on black Horseclaws across the desert and stopped on a dune near their destination.

Yupa led Sura to the edge of the Sea of Corruption to test how the forest’s fungi reacted to the Erdtree’s power. They reached an insect-food tree and began their investigation, leaving the cause of the fungi’s reaction unresolved.

• Yupa explained the dormant forest’s ecology and warned Sura and the expedition team to keep their insect flutes and flashbangs ready and never shoot at insects.
• Yupa took Sura toward the forest while the other eight team members stayed behind to guard the expedition.
• Yupa questioned whether the Erdtree’s power had truly caused the hyphae to wither and decided to test his suspicion himself.
• Yupa scraped powder from an insect-food tree into a test tube, and the liquid turned purplish-black, showing that the bark still contained deadly poison.
• Sura pressed his gloved hand against the tree and prepared himself for the dangerous test, feeling excitement rather than fear.

Sura used the Law of Regression on the Sea of Corruption, causing a wide area of fungi to wither and turn gray without provoking an insect swarm. Yupa found that the fungi’s remains were nontoxic, leaving him to suspect that the Sea of Corruption itself was not poisonous.

• Sura cast the Law of Regression across the insect-feed tree and the surrounding fungi while Yupa watched.
• The fungi within the spell’s reach turned gray and withered, and the insect-feed tree’s lower half died.
• Yupa collected a sample, and he and Sura retreated with their team when the forest showed no response.
• Yupa tested the sample and found that the withered fungi were nontoxic.
• Yupa considered that the Sea of Corruption’s fungi might have been poisoned rather than naturally toxic.

Mu En learned that the Sea of Corruption’s fungi purified the world by absorbing toxins, and he shared the revelation with Yupa while reviewing the Valley of the Wind expedition’s progress. The camp had gathered valuable materials and the Blessed had proven capable explorers, but Mu En’s attention shifted to problems facing Nausicaä and Meila.

• Mu En realized he had never told Yupa that the Sea of Corruption’s fungi were not inherently poisonous and explained how their environment affected them.
• Mu En told Yupa that the Sea of Corruption purified toxins into clean sand and water vapor, leaving Yupa shaken by the implications for humanity.
• Yupa reported that Erdtree’s power caused no adverse reaction in the Sea of Corruption and described the expedition’s sheltered forward camp and gathered resources.
• Yupa recounted how five Blessed villagers drove off a giant king dragonfly by baiting it and beating it with their fists and feet.
• Mu En concluded that the expedition should continue with the resources available and turned his attention to the difficulties facing Nausicaä and Meila.

Meila’s rescue team defeated a band of robbers in a desert valley, only to be confronted by wealthy travelers claiming the dead men were their guards. Kamlin took over the tense standoff and asked whether they admitted the men had been their guards.

• Meila’s rescue team reached a sheltered valley near Pejite after three days of searching for refugees along the desert route.
• The team encountered armed men blocking the narrow pass, and the newly selected Blessed Warriors swiftly killed nearly all of them.
• The surviving robber fled, while Kamlin called off the fight and the team began gathering weapons and preparing to bury the dead.
• A group of well-equipped travelers accused the rescue team of murdering their guards and demanded supplies, compensation, and Horseclaws.
• Meila struggled to reason with the accusers, so Kamlin stepped forward and asked whether the dead men had been their guards.

Kamlin and the Blessed Warriors defeated a group of Pejite nobles who had tried to rob their supplies, then learned that the rebels had taken Pejite City and the nobles had fled. Meila urged the group to continue to her hometown and help its refugees.

• Kamlin warned the armed refugees that their attempted robbery made them accomplices to banditry, but they ordered their guards to attack.
• Kamlin and the ten Blessed Warriors deflected the gunfire, disarmed the guards, and captured the thirty refugees without killing them.
• The captives confessed that they were former Pejite nobles fleeing the rebels, and had sent guards disguised as bandits to steal supplies.
• Meila mourned the suffering caused by Pejite's civil war, and Kamlin reminded her that they had come to help the refugees.
• Meila rallied herself and led Kamlin's group toward Pejite.

Kamlin’s rescue team reached Pejite City, where the war was winding down and few refugees wanted to leave. Mu En instructed Kamlin to secretly recruit believers by using Order Healing to cure Sea of Corruption Disease, and Kamlin prepared to begin.

• Kamlin offered the captured guards a choice between helping refugees and leaving without supplies, then stripped the former nobles of their weapons and provisions.
• Kamlin and Meila reported that Pejite City was controlled by the Explorers’ Association and that few people were willing to join the rescue team.
• Mu En told Kamlin to use healing to spread faith among the refugees without displaying his power publicly.
• Mu En taught Kamlin Order Healing, which could remove Sea of Corruption Disease and restore patients’ health.
• Mu En promised to make loyal believers Blessed and protect the team, and Kamlin resolved to travel as a healer.

Mu En’s group drew attention in the shantytown by offering free medical treatment, and rumors of their miraculous cures spread. The commander of the Mercenary Corps of the Wind decided to visit them himself, hoping they might cure his illness and missing arm.

• Mu En’s group treated refugees and mercenaries for free, prompting stories of their cures to spread through the shantytown.
• Kamlin and the others learned that disability was widespread among the residents and attracted the notice of the Mercenary Corps of the Wind.
• A burly subordinate told the commander that people who received treatment had recovered from severe injuries.
• The commander, who had lost his left arm and spent his savings seeking a cure, agreed to inspect the healers himself.

Kamlin and the Blessed Warriors treated shantytown residents while spreading the Erdtree’s teachings, but their efforts turned tense when a mercenary leader rejected their message. The chapter ended with him ordering his men to attack Kamlin and the other two healers.

• Kamlin’s group treated more than a hundred shantytown residents through mobile clinics, requiring patients to hear the Erdtree’s teachings first.
• Mu En rewarded the Blessed with one Rune for every new believer and arranged for the mercenaries to receive silver wages.
• Ashta and his men forced their way into Kamlin’s tent, and their sickly leader asked what the Golden Order taught.
• Kamlin explained the Erdtree’s beliefs in equality, fair rewards for labor, health, and justice, angering the leader.
• The leader ordered his men to chop up Kamlin and the other two Blessed Warriors and throw them to the insects.

Kamlin and two Blessed Warriors defeated the Mercenary Corps of the Wind’s fighters, but their commander collapsed from the Sea of Corruption’s poison during his duel with Kamlin. As the commander neared death, Erdtree’s Favor revived him, and he saw the Erdtree.

• More than twenty members of the Mercenary Corps of the Wind tried to surround Kamlin and his two companions, but the Blessed Warriors defeated them in close combat.
• The commander prepared to fight Kamlin after realizing his subordinates had been beaten and that he could not let the defeat go unanswered.
• Kamlin proposed that if the commander lost, he would stop obstructing them and help spread the Erdtree’s teachings, but the commander attacked instead.
• The commander suddenly coughed blood and collapsed, revealing that the Sea of Corruption’s poison had reached its limit.
• Erdtree’s Favor flooded the dying commander with golden light, and he saw the Erdtree before losing consciousness.

Kamlin healed the Wind's captain with Erdtree's Favor, but the captain's internal injuries remained severe. After the Mercenary Corps of the Wind agreed to join Kamlin's efforts in exchange for treatment, the captain passed out again before healing could begin.

• Kamlin used Erdtree's Favor to revive the captain, and the mercenaries gathered around him in relief.
• The captain began coughing up blood again, revealing that his injuries were not limited to external wounds.
• Ashta offered to accept Kamlin's earlier terms if he cured the captain, but Kamlin demanded that the mercenaries join them and help their fellow countrymen.
• The captain agreed on condition that Kamlin swear in the Erdtree's name that his promises were true.
• Kamlin swore to help everyone in need, and the captain collapsed unconscious before Kamlin realized he was being asked to treat him.

Kamlin and the Blessed Warriors healed Wawar, whose mercenaries then explained their history and why they had mistaken Kamlin’s group for swindlers. Impressed by Wawar’s efforts to protect others, Kamlin invited him to become one of Lord Divine Tree’s people.

• Kamlin’s companions used Incantations to cure Wawar’s poisoning and restore his left arm, and the Mercenary Corps of the Wind pledged their service.
• Ashta explained that the group had once been the Expedition Corps of the Wind and had survived an expedition into the Sea of Corruption with the late King Deus.
• Ashta said insect tamers attacked the expedition, where Wawar lost his left arm while protecting his men.
• After the Explorers' Association withheld their contracted payment, Wawar confronted its chairman, and the group later became an independent mercenary corps.
• Ashta explained that Wawar sheltered refugees, refused to spend their savings on himself, and banned unknown missionaries after his men were swindled by fake healers.
• Kamlin offered Wawar the chance to become one of Lord Divine Tree’s people.

Wawar joined the Erdtree’s people after witnessing the strength of Kamlin and the other Blessed Warriors, and the Mercenary Corps of the Wind helped the rescue team expand its influence in Pejite’s shantytowns. Mu En planned to unite the outer city before turning toward Pejite’s powerful inner-city factions, while the joint gathering began with Nausicaä.

• Kamlin defeated Wawar in a spar, and Wawar accepted the Erdtree’s Blessed Dew, becoming the fifth Golden Folk.
• Wawar tested his new strength by throwing the heavy Ashta over ten meters, astonishing the Mercenary Corps of the Wind.
• Mu En watched Kamlin’s work and was pleased that the rescue team had recruited the mercenaries and improved its relief and missionary efforts.
• At Mu En’s direction, Kamlin and the others avoided expanding into Pejite City and focused instead on bringing the outer shantytowns under their control.
• Mu En planned to use Pejite’s trade and intelligence networks to spread Erdtree faith farther afield, including into the Torumekian Empire.
• Mu En turned his attention to Nausicaä as the joint gathering began.