Chapter Summaries

Ed, Silvis, Willow, and the players crossed Klaf City’s ruined battlefield to find the sealed grounds of Grand Duke Antos beneath the city lord’s residence. The players discovered coins among the castle rubble, then rejoined Ed’s group to inspect Antos’s seal rather than fight him.

• Silvis led the group across the stone bridge and explained that Antos’s sealed grounds lay beneath the city lord’s residence on the river island.
• Silvis said the ruined castle suggested Antos had been punched into the ground, prompting the players to joke about his defeat.
• [Great Wei Boxing Champion] found a silver coin in the rubble, and the players scattered through the castle ruins to search for valuables.
• Silvis suggested that only the middle tiers needed to confirm Antos’s location and asked whether Ed planned to fight the grand duke.
• Ed said they would only inspect the seal and invited the players to join, so they abandoned their treasure hunt and followed him.

Ed, Silvis, and Willow found the entrance to Grand Duke Antos’s sealed chamber beneath the ruined castle. Elsewhere, Bennett revealed that Antos was in danger and that the bloodline summons was compelling freed Blood Corpses to seek him, so Gray agreed to let Bennett leave.

• Ed followed Silvis and Willow through the ruined castle and found a pit in the great hall, but Silvis showed them stairs leading below.
• The group descended to a stone door that Silvis identified as the entrance to Grand Duke Antos’s chamber.
• Bennett called for help from the storeroom aboard the Antasia, waking Gray and his wife.
• Bennett told Gray that Antos had sent a bloodline summons conveying danger and pain, and that freed members of the Antos Lineage would rush toward him.
• Gray offered to let Bennett go, promising not to harm him unless Bennett attacked first.

Gray shocked Bennett unconscious to keep him from answering Grand Duke Antos’s summons, then urged Antasia to hurry with their warning to the Second Holy See. In Klaf City, Ed and the players opened Antos’s sealed chamber and found it empty, leaving Silvis to confront the possibility that both Antos and the remains of his companions were gone.

• Bennett chose to be shocked unconscious rather than leave the Antasia and face the danger of Grand Duke Antos’s summons.
• Gray electrocuted Bennett until he lost consciousness, then asked Antasia to travel faster so they could warn the Second Holy See.
• Ed opened the stone door beneath the city lord’s manor in Klaf City while Silvis stayed outside, mourning his liege and companions.
• Ed and the players searched the ruined underground chamber with night vision as Silvis waited outside.
• Ed called Silvis in and told him the chamber held neither Antos nor the remains of his companions.

Ed, Willow, and Silvis explored Grand Duke Antos’s ruined sealing site but found no sign of Antos or his companions. As the players looted the old castle, Ed questioned Silvis about what he had personally witnessed during the expedition.

• Silvis entered the underground chamber and recognized it as Antos’s sealing site, though the grand duke and his companions were missing.
• Ed and Willow searched for clues while Silvis examined battle marks and relived the expedition’s final moments.
• The Soul Returners found little of interest, so Ed gave them a quest to investigate the old castle, which they divided up to loot.
• Ed asked Silvis to distinguish what he had witnessed from what he had inferred.
• Silvis said Antos had sensed a threat and summoned Blood Corpses, then entered the chamber with the expedition while Silvis stayed outside to fight; Silvis never opened the stone door.

Ed investigated the disappearance of Antos and the expedition, reasoning that they may have captured the grand duke and left Klaf City. When Silvis challenged the theory with his memories of guarding the door, Ed suspected that Silvis’s memory was unreliable, and Silvis began struggling to recall what happened.

• Ed and Willow ruled out several explanations for the empty stone chamber and the lack of activity among the Blood Corpses.
• Ed proposed that the expedition had captured Antos alive and left, explaining why the chamber was empty and the Eternal Domain had taken no action for months.
• Silvis rejected the theory, pointing out that he had never seen anyone leave through the stone door or found it open after resurrecting.
• Ed questioned whether Silvis could really have killed the vast numbers of Blood Corpses he remembered and suggested that something was wrong with his memory.
• Silvis struggled to remember what had happened while he guarded the stone door.

Ed and Willow subdued Silvis when his memories triggered a violent episode, then bound him and kept him unconscious while deciding what to do with him. Ed explained his suspicions about memory problems among people from the Eternal Domain and began listing unanswered questions about Silvis.

• Silvis recalled something, became unstable, and charged Ed and Willow, who paralyzed and electrocuted him until he collapsed unconscious.
• Willow offered to teleport Silvis to Valhalla, and Ed agreed to keep him confined there rather than risk letting him wake.
• Ed bound Silvis with a rapidly growing seed and covered the branches with Paralysis Flowers to keep him asleep.
• Willow asked how Ed had recognized Silvis's memory problem, and Ed compared it to Xilǐ'er's earlier confusion and suggested such episodes were common among people from the Eternal Domain.
• Ed described two unresolved questions about Silvis: his ignorance of replenishing health with refined iron despite knowing Xilǐ'er, and the strange way armor behaved during resurrection.

Ed sent Willow to Valhalla with Silvis, redirected the players to investigate Adelaide after Antos disappeared, and left a clone guarding the castle. Back in Valhalla, he joined Willow to question the trapped Muller, who remained unable to escape the packed alchemical golem.

• Willow took the unconscious Silvis to Valhalla while Ed planned to inspect the Soul Returners and later question Muller with her.
• Ed noticed a familiar sword mark in a depression near the basement door, then climbed through the ruins and collected a silver coin bearing a crowned man's portrait.
• Ed gave the players a new quest to search for Adelaide's sealed location and supplied the team leaders with Temporary Resurrection Tree seeds.
• Ed rooted and wrapped his clone in the castle before returning his consciousness to his main body in Valhalla.
• Ed visited Willow's laboratory, where Willow explained that Muller's weakness after receiving power and the golem's cramped interior kept him trapped.

Ed and Willow tried to interrogate Muller, who was trapped inside an alchemical golem, but he attacked instead of cooperating. Ed used a magically powered meat slicer to punish him, then prepared a meat grinder when Muller retreated into himself.

• Ed and Willow decided to question Muller and demand the Grand Duke's Blood and information from him.
• Ed snapped off one of the alchemical golem's fingers, giving Muller's flesh room to grow into a mace that attacked Ed.
• Ed cut off the mace and, with Willow's help, built a machine powered by a magic array.
• Ed removed the plug and ran the machine as a meat slicer, cutting Muller's growing flesh into slices while Muller tried to speak.
• Muller stopped growing flesh and withdrew into himself, so Ed plugged the opening and switched the slicer attachment to a meat grinder.

Ed tortured Muller with a meat grinder inside the alchemical golem until Muller surrendered and gave up the Grand Duke’s Blood. Ed then told Muller to pray to him for a chance to survive as his body collapsed.

• Ed pushed a meat grinder into the alchemical golem and began pulverizing Muller’s flesh.
• Muller tried to avoid the blades, grew vocal organs, and repeatedly shouted that he surrendered.
• Ed refused to stop until Muller agreed to hand over the Grand Duke’s Blood, despite Muller warning that he would die without it.
• Muller gathered the drop of blood from his ruined body and sent it through the golem’s finger into Ed’s hand.
• Ed told Muller to pray to him to stop his body from falling apart.

Ed used a drop of True Blood to enter Rosalind’s consciousness and confronted her in a sea of blood worms. He rejected her offer to join her lineage, claimed the blood as his own, and began spreading his roots through her consciousness as she attacked.

• Ed used a wooden thorn to analyze the True Blood while Muller’s body disintegrated and he tried to survive by eating his own flesh.
• Ed’s consciousness traveled through the True Blood’s connection to Rosalind, where worms surrounded him and she challenged his identity.
• Rosalind appeared as a veiled noblewoman and offered to make Ed a duke if he joined her lineage and accepted her affection.
• Ed rejected Rosalind’s offer, manifested the drop of True Blood, and claimed Muller had given it to him before dying.
• Ed transformed into a giant tree and spread his roots through Rosalind’s consciousness, prompting her to disappear and send the sea of blood down upon him.

Ed seized Rosalind’s true blood and used it to repel her from his mental space, then absorbed it and gained five levels. After awakening, he showed the lich his uninfected eye and created a new toothy plant.

• Ed used Rosalind’s true blood to carve out a space in her mental realm and keep her attack at bay.
• Ed absorbed the blood as Rosalind cursed him, and he revealed himself as Sailesi, a cardinal of the Tree Worship Church Theocracy.
• Ed checked his updated status with Little Green and found that absorbing the blood had raised him five levels and improved Hybrid Creation.
• Ed returned his consciousness to his body and woke as the lich checked his eye for infection.
• Ed summoned a purple flower bud that split open to reveal two rows of teeth.

Ed transferred Muller from Rosalind’s lineage into his own and gave him a new body after Muller had been reduced to a flesh-and-blood slime. Muller awoke in a coffin-like tub, learned Ed now controlled his fate, and accepted him as his father.

• Ed poured Muller’s surviving slime-like remains from the alchemical golem into a vine tub and used Rosalind’s true blood to sever Muller’s connection to her lineage.
• Ed shaped a new body for Muller while Willow left the laboratory, asking Ed to share any intelligence afterward.
• Muller awoke in the tub, mistook his surroundings for a coffin, and panicked when he saw Ed.
• Ed told Muller that Rosalind had agreed to let him adopt him and used his higher authority to calm Muller’s hunger and threaten him with disintegration.
• Ed declared Muller would serve the Adrian Lineage under the name Müller-chan and prostrated Muller responded by calling Ed “Father.”

Ed transformed Muller into a Blood Corpse of the Adrian Lineage, absorbed his Blood Poison, and questioned him about his past. Muller revealed that Rosalind had sent him to Klaf City as an envoy to a vampire summit, and Ed asked him to recount the events leading up to it.

• Muller mistook Ed’s puzzled response for acknowledgment and declared himself Müller-chan Adrian, Ed’s son.
• Ed tested his powers, absorbed Muller’s Blood Poison, and concluded that the process effectively made Blood Corpses unable to infect others.
• Ed questioned Muller, who insisted he was now of the Adrian Lineage and said Rosalind had sent him to Klaf City as her envoy to a summit.
• Muller began explaining his history, but Ed corrected him when he started too far back and told him to begin with his birth.

Muller recounted his rise from an unpaid mercenary to one of Rosalind’s trusted marquises, then told Ed about the seven grand dukes’ True Blood Alliance and its plan to conquer the world. The Blood Corpses’ campaigns had stalled against powerful demon races and the kingdom’s fortified great nobles.

• Muller recalled how his lord fled during a Blood Corpse invasion, leaving him and the other defenders to die before the city fell.
• After becoming a Blood Corpse, Muller rose through battles and rewards, gained Shadow Traversal, and became one of Rosalind’s marquises.
• Muller told Ed that the True Blood Alliance had united the seven grand dukes in a truce and strengthened Blood Corpses throughout their ranks.
• Muller explained that three lineages were tasked with subduing the Demon Realm’s races while four prepared to conquer the neighboring kingdom.
• Muller said the Demon Realm campaign became a stalemate against demons and liches, while Grand Duke Hall’s assassination of the king failed to break the kingdom’s resistance because great nobles defended their lands with fortresses.

Ed questioned Muller about the Second True Blood Alliance and the events that caused Klaf City to sink underground. Muller described Antos's disappearance, his own sealing, and his later orders from Rosalind, ending with his admission that he had reported the locations of sealed grand dukes to her.

• Muller explained that Grand Duchess Vanessa called the Second True Blood Alliance to reassign the grand dukes between the Demon Realm and the human front.
• Muller said the alliance meeting in Klaf City included four grand dukes and three marquises, and a Short-Eared Elf struck the castle, making Grand Duke Antos disappear.
• Muller recalled one Short-Eared Elf seizing Vanessa while another held Hall back, as Adelaide sat without reacting.
• Muller said he was sealed at Klaf City's gates by prepared sealing formulas, then contacted Rosalind after the seal loosened decades later.
• Muller admitted that Rosalind helped him break free about half a year ago and assigned him to locate sealed grand dukes, which he did report back to her.

Ed questioned Muller about the sealed vampire nobles and the Eternal Domain’s expedition, then assigned him to learn the rules of the Second Holy See and Valhalla and help motivate people in the Dungeon. Muller went to summon Willow, who hurried toward Ed’s laboratory after realizing he had taken a Blood Corpse as family.

• Muller told Ed that Rosalind’s power had helped him awaken early, that he had found Grand Duke Antos’s sealing site, and that he had fed on weakened nobles beneath Klaf City.
• Muller said a Wens marquis had been killed by sword aura at the alliance meeting, while a York marquis had fled into the shadows and might have escaped back to the Demon Realm.
• Muller explained that he had awakened among the first vampire nobles in Klaf City and had sensed a powerful Eternal Domain expedition moving along a steady route.
• Ed told Muller to follow him, learn the rules of the Second Holy See and Valhalla, and later help educate and motivate people in the Dungeon.
• Ed fitted Muller with four electric shock restraints and sent him to invite Willow into the laboratory.
• Willow reacted with alarm when Muller called Ed his father, then rushed toward the laboratory after realizing Ed had made a Blood Corpse part of his family.

Ed and Willow analyzed Muller’s intelligence about Vanessa, Hall, and the Twin Kings, then Ed planned to share uncertain findings through the Root Network with bounties for verification. In Klaf City’s caverns, Xilǐ’er led his advance party toward mysterious howls before Charlie reported receiving new orders directly from Their Majesties.

• Ed admitted he had falsely told Muller that he was the Blood Corpse progenitor, then reviewed Muller’s information with Willow.
• Ed and Willow identified unanswered questions about Vanessa’s escape and the deaths of Hall Lineage Blood Corpses, and considered which figures might be the Twin Kings.
• Ed decided to post the intelligence on the Root Network with rewards for Soul Returners who verified or disproved uncertain details.
• Xilǐ’er ordered his soldiers to stay silent and advance cautiously after hearing howls echoing through Klaf City’s caverns.
• Xilǐ’er found Charlie staring into the cavern, and Charlie said Their Majesties had given him new orders.

Charlie received orders from the Twin Kings to lead a delegation west and announce that they had defeated Grand Duke of Flesh and Blood Antos and would handle the vampire threat. Ed arranged for Muller to guard a Dungeon, but their conversation was interrupted by news that the Antasia had appeared at the edge of the Wilderness of Chaos.

• The Twin Kings appointed Charlie a temporary envoy and ordered Xilǐ'er to provide him with personnel and support.
• Charlie told Xilǐ'er that Antos had fallen and the seven vampire lineages had been destroyed, prompting Xilǐ'er to celebrate and invite volunteers to join the delegation.
• Muller learned he could attack and eat Soul Returners inside the Dungeon, accepted the name Müller-chan Adrian, and chased Ed around his study.
• [Zhong Lele] reported that the Antasia had appeared at the edge of the Wilderness of Chaos while Muller clung to Ed's ankle.

Ed learned that the Antasia would arrive near the castle within an hour and sent Muller to greet its crew as a butler. Meanwhile, players discussed Muller’s sudden change in behavior, and Bread Knight spotted him near the castle.

• [Zhong Lele] told Ed that the Antasia would arrive in about an hour, carrying no cargo and asking to see him urgently.
• Ed pulled Muller out of the study wall and ordered him to meet the arriving guests near the castle like a noble’s butler.
• [Zhong Lele] posted pictures of Muller on the player forum, where players recognized him as the boss they had fought in Klaf City.
• Bread Knight noticed Muller near the castle and pointed him out to his two friends.

Muller, newly renamed by Ed and promised a castle, traveled toward Valhalla while players realized he believed his future dungeon lair would be a paradise. He reached the city boundary and was stunned by the mobile fortress approaching him.

• Lettuce Priest, Bread Knight, and Ham Warrior met Muller and learned that Ed had renamed him Müller-chan Adrian and that Muller called Ed his father.
• Muller described Ed's offer of a lavish castle, servants, and food, while the players recognized that Ed had assigned him a dungeon boss's role.
• Bread Knight, Ham Warrior, and Lettuce Priest recorded and posted Muller's enthusiastic speech, drawing many amused replies from players.
• After being questioned by players, Muller waited at Valhalla's boundary to welcome an important guest according to old noble etiquette.
• Muller saw a mobile fortress approaching and was shocked because he had never encountered one.