Recaps

[Thousand Faces] realized that [Crown] had trapped him in an endless skeleton-production role, while Sailesi’s curiosity returned after a Wing Army messenger arrived at the Great Fortress. Sailesi covertly took control of the fortress, leaving [Hard Armor] and three powerful warlords outside his influence.

• [Crown] left [Thousand Faces] to produce middle-tier skeletons, confident the underground passages would contain him.
• A Wing Army messenger reached the Great Fortress after exhausting his psionic energy to deliver [Crown]’s urgent message about the upheaval in the Sand Capital to [Hard Armor].
• Sailesi sensed the messenger’s arrival, met him in the fortress, and asked what had brought him there.
• The messenger refused to share [Crown]’s confidential message with Sailesi and continued toward [Hard Armor].
• Sailesi crushed a red spider lily and used controlled psionic ripples to place the Great Fortress under his control, except for [Hard Armor] and three high-tier warlords.

A messenger told [Hard Armor] that the army sent to the Demon Realm had rebelled and returned near the Sand Capital, and that [Crown] needed fifty thousand troops urgently. Sailesi secretly heard the report, weighed his options, then found himself unable to stop thinking about serving the Son of God and the Theocracy.

• A Wing Army soldier informed [Hard Armor] that the Demon Realm army had rebelled, teleported near the Sand Capital, and prompted [Crown] to demand fifty thousand troops by the following day.
• [Hard Armor] promised to assemble the troops and send them to the teleportation array before sunset tomorrow.
• After the messenger left, Sailesi reflected on the rebellion and suspected that the Son of God was behind it.
• Sailesi considered either leaving events unchanged or helping [Hard Armor] take command of the remaining troops, but his fixation on the Theocracy forced him to revise his plan around serving the Son of God.

Sailesi devised a plan to keep Sand Capital and the Great Fortress from coordinating, while preparing ways to escape or change employers. The next evening, [Thousand Faces] successfully activated Sand Capital’s teleportation array, but no troops arrived from the Great Fortress.

• Sailesi decided to let the Wing Army soldier return so Sand Capital would waste Psionic Energy trying to contact the Great Fortress.
• Sailesi planned to distract [Hard Armor] with questions about the third defensive line while gathering intelligence for his escape options.
• On December 2, [Thousand Faces] went to the grand plaza to recharge and activate the teleportation array under [Crown]’s supervision.
• After the array activated, [Crown] and [Thousand Faces] found the plaza empty, though [Thousand Faces] noticed more sand and dust at the array’s center.
• [Thousand Faces] concluded the teleportation worked but the elite troops had not come, and [Crown] angrily rejected the idea.

After the teleportation brought no troops, [Crown] suspected that someone had impersonated [Hard Armor] or interfered with the orders, so he devised a test involving [Nether Crossing]. The new messenger reached the great fortress, where [Hard Armor] questioned the unusual secrecy and remained puzzled by the Sand Capital’s actions.

• [Crown] questioned the Wing Army messenger and learned that [Nether Crossing] had been at the great fortress but departed in the opposite direction from [Hard Armor].
• [Crown] suspected [Nether Crossing] might have created an illusion and decided to test him by sending him orders to assemble elite troops and send [Hard Armor] back.
• [Crown] summoned another Wing Army messenger and ordered him to deliver the same confidential message to [Nether Crossing] instead of [Hard Armor].
• [Hard Armor] encountered the new messenger, learned that he carried orders for [Nether Crossing], and asked why the message had not been sent using runic bones.
• [Hard Armor] let the messenger proceed, then wondered why the Sand Capital was hiding its message from him.

[Hard Armor] suspected [Thousand Faces] had secretly contacted [Nether Crossing], so he used a hidden passage to eavesdrop on a Wing Army messenger. He learned that Colin had rebelled and declared himself Councilor [Broken Sword], leaving [Hard Armor] furious and baffled.

• [Hard Armor] suspected the remaining outsiders, [Thousand Faces] and [Nether Crossing], might be joining forces against Lord [Crown].
• [Hard Armor] entered the Great Fortress's concealed passages to discover what orders the Wing Army messenger had brought for [Nether Crossing].
• [Hard Armor] hid behind the wall of [Nether Crossing]'s room as Sailesi dismissed the other soldiers and questioned the messenger.
• The Wing Army messenger revealed that Colin had led troops during the Demon Realm war, reached high tier, and now called himself Councilor [Broken Sword].
• Sailesi denounced Colin as a rebel for claiming the councilor title, while [Hard Armor] listened furiously from behind the wall.

Sailesi received orders to send fifty thousand elites back to defend the Sand Capital and tried to find a way to delay them, while [Hard Armor] suspected [Thousand Faces] was plotting. Their guesses clashed when they blamed different enemies, and [Western Sharpshooter] shot down the Wing Army messenger as he flew over the desert.

• The Wing Army messenger told Sailesi that [Crown] and [Thousand Faces] wanted [Hard Armor] to return to the Sand Capital and fifty thousand elites transferred there by the following evening.
• After the messenger left, [Hard Armor] suspected [Thousand Faces] was plotting, while Sailesi sought a way to stall the troop transfer for another day.
• Sailesi relayed the messenger's report to [Hard Armor], who said he believed there was a trick behind it.
• Sailesi and [Hard Armor] blamed different threats at once: [Thousand Faces] and the rebels, respectively.
• [Western Sharpshooter] shot the airborne Wing Army messenger after [Chosen of the Four Gods] agreed to buy him three barrels of booze if he hit the target.

[Hard Armor] and Sailesi disagreed over who was manipulating events but ordered elite troops gathered and defensive duties transferred. Rebel messengers [Western Sharpshooter] and [Chosen of the Four Gods] then warned them that [Thousand Faces] was Hall and that High Tier Lord Colin, calling himself [Broken Sword], was marching on the Sand Capital.

• [Hard Armor] blamed [Thousand Faces] for controlling or replacing [Crown], while Sailesi suspected rebels had sent false intelligence and feared an attack on the great fortress.
• [Hard Armor] and Sailesi agreed to gather elite troops and speed up the fortress’s handover, despite their doubts about the Sand Capital.
• A messenger reported that two humans claiming to be rebel mercenaries had arrived, leading [Hard Armor] and Sailesi to conclude the earlier Wing Army messenger’s warning might be true.
• [Hard Armor] ordered the human messengers killed, but Sailesi persuaded him to hear them out and gather intelligence.
• [Chosen of the Four Gods] told [Hard Armor] and Sailesi that [Thousand Faces] was Hall, had taken control of the Sand Capital, and was trying to eliminate the rebels.
• [Chosen of the Four Gods] said Lord Colin had reached High Tier, taken the name [Broken Sword], and was leading troops toward the Sand Capital.

[Chosen of the Four Gods] and [Western Sharpshooter] delivered Colin’s warning to [Hard Armor] and received secret intelligence from a skeleton inside the Great Fortress. Sailesi revealed that he had sent the message to help trigger an Imperial attack, while [Hard Armor] remained unsure what to do about the conscripted troops.

• [Hard Armor] gave no clear answer to Colin’s request that the Alliance keep resisting the Empire and avoid sending troops to Hall, then had the two envoys thrown out of the fortress.
• [Western Sharpshooter] showed [Chosen of the Four Gods] a rune-inscribed bone that a skeleton had given him, and they read a message reporting that skeleton elites had been redeployed and reserve reinforcements delayed.
• [Chosen of the Four Gods] sent the screenshot to [Ginseng Rooster], who contacted [Great Wei Boxing Champion] to sell the classified intelligence.
• [Hard Armor] asked Sailesi whether the envoys’ account was credible, and Sailesi said it matched his suspicions that something had gone wrong in Sand Capital.
• [Hard Armor] worried that he could not hand tens of thousands of conscripts over to [Thousand Faces] as cannon fodder, while Sailesi revealed that he had used [Dream of Rebirth] to send the bone and hoped the Empire would attack.

Sailesi persuaded [Hard Armor] to travel to the Sand Capital by using [Dream of Rebirth] to protect him from outside influence. Meanwhile, [Crown] concluded that [Hard Armor] was plotting against the Alliance and canceled the next day's teleportation.

• Sailesi urged [Hard Armor] to return to the Sand Capital and verify [Crown]'s safety and [Thousand Faces]' intentions for himself.
• [Hard Armor] agreed to Sailesi's offer to use [Dream of Rebirth] to shield his mind, and Sailesi's ability made him feel that [Nether Crossing] could be trusted.
• [Hard Armor] and Sailesi continued arranging the defenses while waiting for the elites to assemble.
• [Crown] learned that the messenger sent to [Nether Crossing] had not returned and reasoned that [Hard Armor] had killed him to conceal his intentions.
• [Crown] ordered tomorrow's teleportation canceled.