Recaps

Ed identified the three newcomers as Grand Duke Wens and two of his dukes, then set off on foot to join the battle. Meanwhile, Rosalind awakened in a blood worm’s body beneath the river and realized the skeletons’ power was anchored in physical remains rather than souls or psionic energy.

• Wens, Bianchi, and Ozilazis appeared before [Divine Wings] and Sailesi and stopped them from leaving the battlefield.
• Ed and Balund discussed Bianchi’s past as a dwarven great swordsman, while Aiboke identified Ozilazis as a former lich and Wens as the figure in the middle.
• Ed left Balund and Aiboke to coordinate with Nuowa and walked toward the battlefield to see who else would arrive.
• Rosalind’s damaged consciousness awakened inside the drop of true blood given to [Whale Tail], and she swam through the river as a blood worm.
• Rosalind recalled that she had failed to devour the skeletons’ power and deduced that it was anchored in physical matter rather than souls or psionic energy.
• Rosalind spotted a large fish swimming nearby as she considered how to escape the battlefield.

Rosalind recovered by taking over a Blood Corpse, but Hall found and struck her down with a Blood Arrow. As Vanessa, Wens, and [Divine Wings] formed a temporary alliance against the lich Ozilazis, Ed searched the battlefield and followed a trace of death energy toward the river.

• Rosalind grew by eating a fish, then took control of a Blood Corpse and cautiously approached the battlefield.
• Hall revealed that he had been observing through Blood Corpses, then shot Rosalind between the brows and fled.
• Wens proposed that he and Vanessa attack together, but Vanessa and [Divine Wings] agreed to fight Wens and Ozilazis first so they could leave.
• Wens invoked Blood Pool, changing the sky over the Demon Realm as the fighting began.
• Ed avoided the combatants, followed the faint trace of death energy to the river, and said he had found someone.

Ed investigated why Samuer could not draw power from Councilor [Whale Tail]'s death, then used a Resurrection Tree to locate and fight Samuer beneath the Demon Realm. As their roots clashed, a massive brass-winged eagle suddenly dove toward Ed.

• Ed considered why Samuer had failed to draw power from Councilor [Whale Tail]'s death and concluded that either Whale Tail was not fully dead or the skeleton people’s power came from another world.
• Ed realized Samuer was watching the battlefield and grew a Resurrection Tree beside the river to keep him occupied and revive dead players.
• Players who had stayed dead cheered when they saw Ed’s Resurrection Tree appear.
• Ed used the tree’s roots to find Samuer beneath the Demon Realm, and the two fought through their roots without their main bodies joining in.
• Ed recognized Samuer’s power and memories as remnants of the body Ed had created, thinking of him as an unfilial son.
• A huge brass-winged eagle with a wingspan over ten meters dived toward Ed.

Ed and the six fighters continued battling as Wens, Bianchi, and Ozilazis overwhelmed their opponents. [Divine Wings] resolved to get the new Holy Remains back to the Skeleton Alliance at any cost.

• Ed used his roots to fight off a giant eagle while Vanessa, Wens, two skeletons, Bianchi, and Ozilazis resumed their battles.
• Vanessa realized Wens had become the strongest of the Demon Realm’s three great generals, and his pool of blood let him recover from her attacks.
• Bianchi’s relentless, precisely timed sword strikes forced Sailesi to dodge and retreat through the air.
• Ozilazis bombarded [Divine Wings] with countless spells, hiding deadly high-tier attacks among weaker ones.
• [Divine Wings] saw Sailesi still carrying the snake-tail vertebrae and decided to return the Holy Remains to the Alliance regardless of the cost.

Palmer answered [Divine Wings]'s summons and was killed so the skeleton could take his sword and combine it with another into a greatsword for the fight against the lich. Meanwhile, Ed drove off the mechanical falcon, and Vanessa trapped Wens in ice before joining the attack on the lich.

• [Divine Wings] appointed Colin acting warlord, and Colin led the remaining troops against Rosalind's Blood Corpses.
• [Divine Wings] killed Palmer with a burst of light and took his longsword.
• [Divine Wings] combined Palmer's longsword with his shortsword to create a giant crystal-cluster greatsword.
• Ed battered the mechanical falcon until it fled with a broken wing, while continuing his root duel with Samuer.
• [Divine Wings] chose to target the lich, and Sailesi flew to support him.
• Vanessa encased Wens in a giant ball of ice and joined the attack on the lich.

Vanessa and her allies tried to defeat the hidden lich Ozilazis before Wens and the dwarven swordsman could return to the fight. Sailesi revealed a strange crystal flower and unleashed an ability across the battlefield, leaving Ozilazis puzzled as the chapter ended.

• Vanessa decided to target Ozilazis because she could not kill Wens permanently while his blood remained.
• Ozilazis separated his attackers with spells, then recognized Vanessa’s verbal influence and destroyed his ears to resist it.
• Vanessa shattered Ozilazis’s shield and struck his body, but he vanished using a concealment ability that hid him from sight and psionic perception.
• As Wens’s ice prison began cracking and Bianchi returned, Sailesi offered to reveal Ozilazis and received permission from [Divine Wings] to act.
• Sailesi grew a crystal spider lily, crushed its petals, and sent invisible Psionic Energy across the battlefield, puzzling the concealed Ozilazis.

Sailesi used [Dream of Rebirth] to expose Ozilazis and force him out of hiding, allowing [Divine Wings] and Vanessa to attack him. When Sailesi trapped Bianchi in a nightmare about the dwarves’ Book of Grudges, the dwarf broke free and threatened [Divine Wings], leaving Sailesi to decide which enemy to help defeat first.

• Sailesi made Ozilazis fear that his hiding place had been discovered, and the lich emerged from the gap between reality and Psionic Energy.
• [Divine Wings] and Vanessa attacked Ozilazis while Sailesi prepared to use [Dream of Rebirth] again.
• Sailesi trapped the returning dwarven greatswordsman Bianchi in a vision of the dwarves’ sanctuary and the Book of Grudges filling up.
• Bianchi broke free from the nightmare, knocked [Divine Wings]'s crystal-cluster greatsword aside, and threatened to kill him if he would not let him live.
• Sailesi surveyed the battlefield and considered whether to help finish off Bianchi or Ozilazis first.

Sailesi accidentally drove Wens into a frenzy with [Dream of Rebirth], while Vanessa fought to contain him and tried to explain the ancient grievance that fueled his rage. After Sailesi defeated the lich Ozilazis, Samuer emerged to revive himself, but an emerald-green figure attacked him before he could speak to Sailesi.

• Sailesi activated [Dream of Rebirth] on Wens, who absorbed its Psionic Energy and froze in confusion.
• Vanessa fought Wens as he drained the blood pool, and he raged over Rosalind's abuse from the vampires' early history.
• Sailesi defeated Ozilazis outside the blood pool's healing range and killed the lich.
• Samuer emerged from the ground, drained Ozilazis's corpse, and revealed that he had used Sailesi to help revive himself.
• An emerald-green figure attacked Samuer before he could finish speaking to Sailesi, leaving Sailesi wondering whether he should still listen.

Ed confronted Samuer, who explained his plan to destroy the world and rebuild it through their merger as the World Tree. Ed rejected Samuer’s fatalism and learned that Samuer had returned from another, already-dead world.

• Ed attacked Samuer, but both revealed they were acting through bodies that could regenerate.
• Samuer explained that merging too early would limit their power, and said he intended to destroy the world and create a new one compatible with the Demonic Tide.
• Ed criticized Samuer’s plan and challenged him to take Ed’s power if he wanted it.
• Ed asked what lay beyond the world, and Samuer said he had returned from another world that had already died.
• Ed dismissed the prospect of their future merger and declared that he would cast aside death.

Ed and Samuer agreed to leave the battlefield, since their opposing authorities let them trade avatars indefinitely and Samuer wanted the other fighters to continue without them. As Ed’s avatar began to decay, he concluded that Samuer knew nothing of the Sea of Psionic Energy and revised his plans, deciding he no longer needed to prevent high-tier deaths.

• Samuer suggested that he and Ed leave the battle, and Ed recognized that Samuer would keep trading avatars with him if he intervened.
• Samuer departed as his body rotted away, while Ed’s avatar began aging under the effect of their equal and opposing authorities.
• Ed confirmed that Samuer knew only the Material Plane and believed the dead world beyond it was all that existed.
• Ed concluded that Samuer’s desire to merge with him made him an enemy, and he changed his plans for the rest of the battle.

Ed realized the plan to let high tiers die could continue as long as their Authorities were inherited and Samuer did not outpace him. In Valhalla, Willow Seretima unexpectedly became a high tier and immediately recognized flaws in her alchemical golem designs, leaving her eager to test her improvements.

• Ed sensed a powerful psionic fluctuation from the west and realized it marked the birth of a new high tier, likely Willow.
• Willow collapsed while researching an alchemical golem, then discovered her mind and psionic perception had become dramatically sharper.
• Willow relived a memory of her mother and teacher, Yiwenni, describing the experience of becoming a high tier as a second life.
• Willow examined the Seretima Type I and spotted major inefficiencies in its Psionic Energy Circuits.
• Willow swiftly modified the golem but found herself without a suitable opponent to test it on.

Ed told Willow that Ozilazis’s death had made her the last lich and granted her the liches’ Authority, and she asked for Wens’s coordinates so she could confront him. As Ed’s clone neared death, he offered Vanessa a way to leave the battlefield in exchange for a favor, but the chapter ended before he explained what he needed.

• Ed told Willow that she had advanced because Ozilazis had died, leaving her as the last lich with the liches’ Authority.
• Willow learned that Wens was on the battlefield and demanded Ed’s coordinates so she could reach him.
• Ed realized Vanessa was tiring and that Wens might win before Nuowa arrived, so he used psionic pulses to help Willow and Nuowa locate him.
• Ed contacted Vanessa and offered to let her leave the battlefield if she did something for him before departing.
• Vanessa recognized Ed as the source of the battlefield’s spatial interference and asked what he wanted, but Ed’s request was cut off.

Vanessa agreed to the King of Domination’s deal, then used Aeldra’s power to escape through a spatial rift while Wens tried to stop her. She left Sailesi and [Divine Wings] to face Wens as a familiar figure began to appear beyond the rift.

• The King of Domination agreed to Ed’s deal, and the spatial disturbance vanished when Ed’s clone dissolved into ash.
• Vanessa called on Aeldra, opened a rift, and hurled her lance with York inside through it toward the Amber Dragon.
• Vanessa pursued the lance, but Wens raised a towering sea of blood to block her escape.
• Vanessa veered past Sailesi, drawing Wens’s blood waves toward him, while Sailesi broke through them and [Divine Wings] fought Bianchi.
• Vanessa circled the blood barriers, reached the rift, and escaped as a familiar figure began taking shape beyond it.

Vanessa and Aeldra restored time across the Eternal Domain, sealed its borders, and prepared to begin a purification ritual with York. The story then shifted to the Demon Realm battlefield, where Ed’s preparations for the battle royale came into focus.

• Vanessa returned to her throne and fused with Aeldra, restoring time and the Eternal Domain’s inhabitants.
• Aeldra ordered Silvis to seal the Eternal Domain’s borders and gave two servants bloodline powers to guard the palace.
• Vanessa summoned the lance containing York, and she and Aeldra prepared to begin their ritual after Vanessa declared herself purified.
• Ed assigned the Graycast Corridor to monitor the Eternal Domain and produce parts for combat machine spirits.
• Ed, Duma, and Nuowa divided their preparations: Ed went to the Demon Realm, Nuowa recruited players, and Duma mobilized the Soul Returner Legion.

Ed’s Calamity Plan teleported a massive player force into the Demon Realm, where Duma led them into battle. As Wens advanced and Sailesi faced being trapped, [Divine Wings] gave Sailesi his crystal-cluster wings and stayed behind to hold off Bianchi.

• Nuowa used Grand Thunder Teleportation to bring players, Soldier Bees, and mobile fortresses into the Demon Realm, completing the Calamity Plan’s deployment.
• Duma declared the attack, and [Autumn Light and Osmanthus Shadows] led the Soldier Bee pilots into the air as the Calamity Legion advanced.
• Wens ordered Lombardi to speed up the march and challenged Sailesi and the other skeletons to fight rather than attempt to teleport away.
• [Divine Wings] told Sailesi to retreat and transferred his six crystal-cluster wings to him, placing much of the Skeleton Alliance’s strength in Sailesi’s hands.
• [Divine Wings] split the crystal-cluster greatsword and attacked Bianchi, driving him back beneath the blood pool and stabbing him under the arm.

After receiving [Divine Wings]' power, Sailesi fled with the Holy Remains while Wens pursued him. [Divine Wings] sacrificed himself in a massive explosion that destroyed Bianchi and badly damaged Wens, but an unfamiliar figure appeared in Sailesi's path as he escaped.

• Sailesi used the crystal-cluster wings to fly south with the Holy Remains while [Divine Wings] fell into the Blood Pool.
• Wens abandoned the fight and pursued Sailesi, while [Divine Wings] hurled his longsword at Wens to slow him down.
• Wens caught the longsword and began draining its life force, prompting [Divine Wings] to resolve to protect the Skeleton Alliance's secret at any cost.
• [Divine Wings] struck Wens with his shortsword, but Bianchi severed his spine with a greatsword.
• [Divine Wings] detonated his Psionic Energy, killing Bianchi and shattering Wens's body; the blast propelled Sailesi farther from the battlefield.
• An unfamiliar figure appeared in front of Sailesi as he fled.

Sailesi accepted Hall’s surrender and carried him toward the Skeleton Alliance, while the remaining skeleton troops struggled to hold together after their councilors’ apparent deaths. The battlefield was still in chaos, with Ginseng Rooster beginning to consider how he might use the crisis.

• Hall asked Sailesi to take him to the Skeleton Alliance, and Sailesi agreed while warning that he could not guarantee Hall’s admission.
• Sailesi put Hall to sleep with a crystal-cluster flower and flew toward the Skeleton Alliance across the sea.
• After [Divine Wings] self-detonated, the skeleton soldiers realized their leaders were dead or gone and their morale collapsed.
• Acting Warlord Colin tried to rally the soldiers, but their retreating crowd blocked his movement.
• [Western Sharpshooter] fired three shots to quiet the soldiers, and [Ginseng Rooster] used the moment to order them into ranks and threaten deserters.
• [Ginseng Rooster] considered how he might take advantage of the army’s crisis.

After surviving Divine Wings’ self-detonation, Wens decided to fight on rather than retreat, believing this was his last chance to escape the Demon Realm’s constraints. He faced an unfamiliar alchemical golem and discovered it was an empty, psionically powered machine, while three more golems appeared and seemed to strengthen the first with their attacks.

• Wens gathered his scattered flesh and blood, then weighed retreating against risking death in battle.
• Wens chose to continue fighting, reasoning that retreat would leave him slowly dying in the Demon Realm.
• A large alchemical golem formed before Wens and froze his blood shield with a blue beam.
• Wens charged the golem and tried to drain its life force, but found no pilot inside its empty body.
• Three distinct alchemical golems appeared, and Wens broke free from the first as their beams struck it.
• The first golem absorbed the attacks and glowed more powerfully, leaving Wens bewildered by the machines’ capabilities.

Wens fought Willow’s alchemical golems, identified how their hidden controller coordinated their attacks, and began turning the battle around. In Valhalla, Ed watched Willow struggle to control all ten golems as Wens’s strength and experience started to overwhelm them.

• Wens endured attacks from the golems, including hollow spikes that drained his blood, and retreated into the blood pool to recover.
• Wens realized that someone was controlling the golems and that only one or two could attack with full precision at a time, then attacked before the seventh golem appeared.
• In Willow’s room at the Shattered Castle, Ed watched Willow frantically control the golems while she fought Wens.
• Willow’s ten specialized golems initially challenged Wens, but he learned their capabilities and tested their strongest attacks while healing in the blood pool.
• Wens emerged from the pool and shifted to offense, gradually suppressing Willow’s golems as the battle continued.

Ed brought Noya into the battle to help Willow control her alchemical golems against Wens. Noya took over a golem and launched a reckless attack, leaving Wens baffled by its sudden change in strength and behavior.

• Ed realized Willow's preset golem programs made her newly advanced combat skills easy for Wens to read.
• Ed summoned Noya and asked her to help Willow control the alchemical golems, reassuring the frightened dragon soul that she had no food value to Seraphina.
• Willow gave Noya secondary access, and Ed threw Noya's spirit into the golem-control circuit array.
• Noya synchronized with an alchemical golem, adapted to its body, and spotted Wens fighting the other golems.
• Noya spun the golem into a metal cannonball and charged Wens, who wondered whether a bot golem had gained intelligence.

Wens split the alchemical golems apart and fought them down until Willow handed Noya control of them and joined the battle herself. Willow revealed that she was Yiwenni’s surviving child and vowed to kill Wens, who taunted her to self-destruct.

• Wens used his speed to separate the alchemical golems and destroy several of them, while Noya’s control helped the remaining golems hold him at bay.
• Ed warned Willow that Wens’s troll duke Lombardi was less than ten li away, and Willow gave Noya full control of the golems before teleporting to the battlefield.
• Willow blocked Wens’s blood-red greatsword and unleashed a barrage of spells, forcing Noya to move the golems away from him.
• Wens recognized Willow’s spellcasting style and learned that she was the lich Yiwenni, whom he had believed died in her self-destruction.
• Willow confirmed she was Yiwenni’s child and threatened to kill Wens, who challenged her to self-destruct as her mother had.

Willow’s lightning repeatedly struck Wens and disrupted his recovery, while Nuowa killed Lombardi and confronted the grand duke. Wens recognized Nuowa as the human sealing master, but insisted he would not be sealed.

• Willow completed her spell and struck Wens with a powerful bolt of lightning, knocking him out of the air.
• Wens fell into the blood pool and began regenerating, but Willow swept another prolonged lightning strike across the pool and damaged his recovery.
• Wens recovered at the bottom of the pool and emerged on a blood tornado to avoid another direct strike.
• Nuowa appeared holding Lombardi’s severed head and revealed that he had killed the troll duke.
• Nuowa identified himself as the human sealing master who had sealed Antos, Adelaide, and Hall, and Wens vowed that he would not be sealed.

Nuowa, Willow, Noya, and Liya regrouped after Liya decapitated Wens with a flashbang-assisted ambush, but Wens recovered in the blood lake. Nuowa concluded that they had to lure Wens away from the blood and proposed a plan called “fishing.”

• The young human mage blinded Wens with a staged summoning spell, allowing Liya to sneak up and sever his head.
• Wens fell into the blood pool and began recovering, so Nuowa ordered his general not to pursue him into the water.
• Willow and the others met Nuowa and Liya, and Willow explained that Wens had killed her family.
• Nuowa recognized that Sailesi’s self-detonation had created a deep blood lake that let Wens recover and made him almost invincible.
• Nuowa said they had to separate Wens from the blood lake and proposed luring him away with a plan called “fishing.”

Nuowa and the others used Vanessa's spine and Aeldra's Heart of the Amber Dragon to lure Wens into a trap inside his Blood Pool. Wens reached for the spine, but Nuowa slowed time and left him vulnerable to Willow's lightning.

• Nuowa revealed Vanessa's spine as bait and told Liya to throw it into the deepest part of the Blood Pool.
• Liya hurled the spine into the pool, triggering a massive impact that sent the blood surging upward and knocked Wens back.
• Wens recognized Vanessa's aura and reached for the spine despite realizing it was a trap.
• Nuowa used Aeldra's Heart of the Amber Dragon to slow time across the Blood Pool, preventing Wens from quickly summoning blood to replenish himself.
• Willow's lightning struck Wens again as he remained trapped below the suspended Blood Pool.

Wens was overwhelmed and killed by Nuowa, Liya, Willow, and Noya, but he revealed that his Authority could survive his death through a True Blood Covenant. Nuowa explained that Wens had deliberately violated the covenant at the last moment, transferring his abilities and Authorities to another vampire grand duke.

• Noya combined four alchemical golems to power a fifth, whose beam struck Wens after Willow's lightning attack.
• Liya severed Wens's hand, then cut off his remaining limbs and pinned him to the ground while Nuowa suppressed his blood.
• Willow killed Wens with lightning, and his body and the surrounding blood decayed without the usual phenomenon accompanying a High Tier's death.
• A red sphere emerged from Wens's charred body, and a True Blood Covenant declaration revealed that he had agreed to a three-day truce with another vampire grand duke.
• Nuowa explained that Wens deliberately violated the covenant as he died, causing the other party to receive all his abilities and Authorities.