Chapter Summaries

The Pansy’s bombardment damaged Saint Lan Cathedral and forced the Radiant Holy City to rely on its energy-draining angel’s protection shield. As Augustus prepared a counterattack, Miao Xin disabled Golden Autumn Island’s coastal defenses and hunted for the Corridor of Mercy, the facility that supported the Divine Covenant Faction’s nirvana system.

• The Pansy’s second salvo struck the Radiant Holy City, but its angel’s protection shield held against the hypersonic shells.
• After the electromagnetic cannon resumed firing more frequently, Augustus learned that the shield’s reserves might last only until midnight and ordered several forces to attack the Pansy, while communications with Golden Autumn Island remained down.
• Miao Xin jammed magical communications from Golden Autumn Island and used the H-6 WZ to destroy ships and defensive installations along the coast.
• The H-6 WZ engaged Golden Autumn Island’s coastal defense fleet, sinking or disabling its warships with 100-millimeter cannon fire.
• Su Ming explained that Miao Xin’s mission was to disable the Corridor of Mercy and the Divine Covenant Faction’s nirvana facility on Golden Autumn Island.

Miao Xin realized her Calamity Mark might be able to interfere with nuclear reactions and discussed the possibility with Sangzi and Su Ming. They connected the enemy’s mysterious Tranquility technique to silencing a nuclear explosion, leaving them alarmed by what Eden might be planning.

• Miao Xin asked Su Ming whether she could use Nirvana to obtain a suitable corpse, and he warned that it would damage her free will.
• Miao Xin wondered if a power could stop a nuclear weapon from exploding and recognized that her Calamity ability might do so.
• Miao Xin returned to the Earth Support Team base, learned her Nether Sea energy had caused a brief disturbance, and called Sangzi.
• Miao Xin asked whether Calamity Mark could affect radioactive decay, and Sangzi said it might interfere with the quantum fluctuations involved in nuclear reactions.
• Miao Xin and Su Ming discussed the unexplained Tranquility technique from In a Quiet Place and realized it might be intended to silence a nuclear explosion.
• Sangzi and Su Ming reacted in alarm at the possibility that Eden had developed a way to stop a nuclear weapon from detonating.

Su Ming’s forces trapped and destroyed the Temple of Light’s Sky Army while supporting the Feather Race and attacking the Brown Earth Battle Puppets. The enemy armies began retreating or collapsing as Su Ming ordered his troops to pursue and resumed the bombardment of Radiant Holy City.

• Su Ming revealed the hidden Bone Models and dragons, surrounding the Sky Army and driving its griffins into a rout.
• Su Ming sent the dragons to help the Feather Race, then used the Pansy’s missiles to destroy the fleeing Sky Army.
• Beianqi attacked the underwater Brown Earth Battle Puppets with depth charges while undead creatures swam in to detonate explosives among them.
• General Feikasi’s Feather Race troops withdrew to lure the Divine Crown Knights Legion into a Bone Model ambush that shattered its cavalry charge.
• Su Ming ordered the Bone Machine First Battalion to pursue the retreating puppets and told Beianqi to resume bombarding Radiant Holy City.
• Su Ming assessed his casualties with Zijin, who praised him for outsmarting Augustus.

Su Ming’s forces routed the Divine Crown Knights Legion with a coordinated assault and captured the battlefield, though the legion commander was killed by his own assassins. The troops rested and ate before preparing for the decisive battle at the Holy City.

• Feather Race warriors reloaded and repaired the Bone Models while Su Ming ordered a coordinated attack, and necromancers raised fallen soldiers as undead, including death knights.
• Yise and the dragons led a charge as low-flying mortar shells, Bone Models, and undead overwhelmed the Divine Crown Knights Legion and turned its retreat into a rout.
• Ruixiuli, Yise, and Jielusi pursued the legion commander; Jielusi blasted him from his horse with a rocket launcher, and the Blade of Faith assassins ambushed them.
• Yise and her companions defeated the assassins, but the legion commander was killed by one of his own people; Zijin told Su Ming that Augustus had deployed the Blade of Faith to attack key personnel.
• The Divine Crown Knights Legion surrendered, and Su Ming’s troops ate and rested before the coming battle at the city walls while the logistics department prepared meat for the dragons.

Miao Xin's forces captured the Divine Covenant Faction's training base, rescued children, and destroyed the Corridor of Mercy while Su Ming prepared to advance on the Radiant Holy City. As the Final Bone Mad Machines closed in, the Holy City's defenses faltered and Augustus learned that the Northern Continent Jurisdiction was advancing through Dawn Territory, leaving him to hope the coming rain would change the battle.

• Miao Xin's Feather Race troops captured the Merciful Radiance base, where they found imprisoned children and records exposing the Divine Covenant Faction's methods of taking them.
• Miao Xin's forces destroyed the Corridor of Mercy, and Su Ming ordered a war crimes tribunal for the prisoners and requested ammunition from the supply fleet.
• Yise learned that the gathering clouds were part of the Sky Curtain Project as Su Ming ordered his forces to establish an attack position near the Radiant Holy City before five o'clock.
• Electromagnetic shelling strained Angel's Protection, while Bulameike learned that the Glory Crown Knights had withdrawn to the city and that supply transport had been disrupted.
• Augustus learned that Ke'er site's forces were advancing through Dawn Territory and that the guard legions had barely moved; he ordered the Northern Continent Jurisdiction to keep attacking as he prepared for the storm and considered the possibility of surrender.

Su Ming’s forces prepared for an assault on the Radiant Holy City while reconnaissance exposed the city’s disorder and the Divine Covenant Faction’s leaders’ attempts to flee. As the full attack drew near, Su Ming assigned Miao Xin a hundred explosive drones to stop the fleeing convoys.

• Su Ming moved his troops closer to the Radiant Holy City and ordered them to build field positions, while Ainuobia worried about their exhaustion and Yise and Jielusi discussed their strengths.
• Su Ming and Yuya identified eighty-three targets for suppression, and Zijin marked warehouses to secure after the city fell.
• A messenger delivered Bulameike’s offer to surrender, but Su Ming rejected it and ordered the messenger killed and his body displayed.
• A Blade of Faith assassin infiltrated local guards and forced them toward the battlefield, but a drone strike killed him and another drone made the surviving soldiers surrender.
• Miao Xin arrived aboard the H-6 WZ, and Zijin removed its bone dragon core; Su Ming then assigned Miao Xin to launch Rainbows and use a hundred explosive drones against the fleeing families.

Su Ming and the Final Bone Mad Machines projected a film onto a vast sky curtain above the Radiant Holy City as the city's protective shield weakened. The film portrayed a poor family crushed by church debt and loss, leaving the watching crowd in tears while Su Ming remained unmoved.

• Su Ming ordered the electromagnetic cannon to stop firing so its crew could repair it, then began the Sky Curtain Project.
• Zijin used a large-scale purification spell as an opening spectacle while drones and a magic array shaped the clouds above the Radiant Holy City.
• Su Ming's crew lit thirty-six floodlights to project images onto the cloud curtain, and Qiluo helped technicians adjust the picture.
• The people of the Radiant Holy City mistook Qiluo's dragon doodle for the Feather of Judgment before Su Ming started the film.
• The film showed a family's mother dying after costly church treatment and the father later dying under the burden of debt, moving the crowd and Zijin to tears.
• Zijin asked Su Ming why he was not moved, and he said he had seen too many stories.

The sky revealed the church’s brutal treatment of children, Augustus’s affair with Samanya, and the deception behind Janet’s parentage, turning the Radiant Holy City’s defenders against their leaders. After Angel's Protection collapsed, Zijin confronted the city as the true Holy Maiden, and its defenders fell to their knees.

• The sky showed how the church erased and conditioned children for the Blade of Faith, while records at Light's Blessing and Merciful Radiance exposed the fate of missing children; Augustus ordered the crowd dispersed.
• The sky revealed Augustus’s affair with Samanya and Janet’s parentage, prompting Augustus to flee with his followers before Walensi and the Fanatical Will blocked their way and offered a plan to turn the battle around.
• Su Ming skipped past the explicit footage, and the sky showed priests deceiving a sick woman’s family before the people of the Holy City denounced the church as liars.
• Fifteen electromagnetic cannon shells and fifty-four missiles shattered Angel's Protection, leaving the Holy City exposed as its defenders realized the attacking army was close.
• Zijin flew over the wall on Can Xin and declared herself the true Holy Maiden, and the defenders mistook her gesture for divine power and prostrated themselves.

Su Ming’s forces secured the Radiant Holy City’s walls and began processing the surrendered garrison while Yuya searched for the city’s magic power center. As the city remained unsettled, Su Ming sent a small team after the fleeing Temple leaders and left Ainuobia overseeing the prisoners’ holding area.

• Su Ming ordered the dragons and Feather Race troops to take control of the wall, while Zijin silenced officers who tried to incite a breakout and the undead crushed their resistance.
• The surviving soldiers surrendered and were directed to holding areas, where Ainuobia’s teams explained that they could join the forces or leave after surrendering their equipment.
• Su Ming told Yuya to keep searching for the underground magic power center as the city’s defenses were brought under control, and Zijin assured him that Augustus was less dangerous outside the city.
• Su Ming sent Can Xin, Hongyao, Lan Lin, Ruixiuli, Jielusi, and Yise to pursue the fleeing Temple leaders, including the pope.
• At the holding area, Ainuobia discovered that Gospel had commandeered a transport vehicle and was assigned to watch a generator after being caught.

Yise, Ruixiuli, and Jielusi intercepted the fleeing Divine Covenant Faction with a missile barrage, while Xialike and the Star Empire’s Heavenly Pivot Battle Group blocked their escape near Lake Guzi. The fugitives surrendered, but Augustus had escaped, and Bulameike revealed that the Divine Covenant Faction had left Su Ming a “generous gift” in the Radiant Holy City.

• Beianqi launched 108 missiles that released thousands of sensor-fuzed submunitions, bringing down most of the fleeing group and many griffins.
• Yise, Ruixiuli, and Jielusi fought the death-sworn rearguard as Bulameike and the other survivors fled toward Lake Guzi.
• Zhapulai and Xialike arrived with the Heavenly Pivot Battle Group, intercepted the fugitives, and forced them to surrender; Xialike explained his hatred of the Divine Covenant Faction.
• The Star Empire’s soldiers searched the battlefield but could not find Augustus, and Bulameike said the Saint Rank pope had escaped alone.
• Su Ming told Xialike that the Star Empire could take the dead and that the living would be divided equally; as soldiers gathered the spoils, Bulameike told Su Ming that the faction had left him a gift in the Radiant Holy City.

Su Ming discovered that Fanatical Will had sacrificed spellcasters to reactivate Radiant Holy City's defenses and was preparing to drain the trapped residents' life force to empower its members. With the barrier too slow to break by conventional firepower, he remade the H-6 WZ with the White Bone Mark and sent it toward the city to smash through.

• Su Ming sent the Bone Machine First and Second Battalions to attack Fanatical Will at the defensive Magic Power core, but the group activated Angel's Protection early by sacrificing spellcasters.
• Zijin identified The End's Holy Lament, which would drain residents inside the barrier and temporarily raise a hundred Fanatical Will members to archbishop level.
• Su Ming rejected Yise's request to withdraw and had Zijin transfer the White Bone Mark from the Pansy to the H-6 WZ.
• Miao Xin took off in the transformed H-6 WZ toward Radiant Holy City while Su Ming stripped away excess bone structure to increase its speed.
• Su Ming ordered Miao Xin to push the aircraft beyond 400 knots as it continued accelerating toward the city.

Su Ming and Miao Xin sacrificed the H-6 WZ to smash through Angel's Protection and interrupt The End's Holy Lament, then led the assault on the Fanatical Will forces. Augustus emerged from the wreckage and attacked Su Ming and Zijin, using his domain to animate statues and wound Su Ming.

• Su Ming ordered Miao Xin to push the H-6 WZ's engines beyond their limits and crash it into the center of Radiant Holy City, so it could break Angel's Protection.
• Miao Xin evacuated the crew before the H-6 WZ struck the shield, shattered it, and crashed into the city center, interrupting the life-draining array.
• Su Ming ordered the Bone Model war machines and dragons to attack the Fanatical Will forces, while Zijin joined him in preparing for battle.
• Augustus emerged from the dust and attacked Su Ming and Zijin, revealing his plan to strike at them while their forces were engaged elsewhere.
• Augustus used Puppet of Divine Radiance to animate nearby statues, and Fenrir's empowered statue tore through Su Ming's shield and struck his side.

Su Ming and Zijin fought Augustus as he overclocked the Holy City's statues, while Walensi trapped the dragons and Bone Machine Battalion in a mental illusion. After Su Ming and Zijin destroyed several valuable constructs, Augustus combined the remaining puppets into a giant Divine Puppet and fired a massive beam at them.

• Zijin’s eroding orbs disrupted Augustus’s senses and control, allowing Su Ming to escape the statues surrounding him and return to her side.
• Augustus summoned statues from across the Holy City and pushed their cores into an overclocked state, while Walensi corrupted the city’s accumulated spiritual echoes and trapped the dragons and Bone Machine Battalion in Sanctuary Prison.
• Zijin used the Lost Pearls of Crystal Tears to unleash a barrage at Augustus, and Su Ming disjoined and destroyed several high-grade statues with his whip and Wondrous Item Disjunction.
• Augustus recalled his statues and combined them into a towering Divine Puppet, whose defenses absorbed Zijin’s spells.
• Su Ming and Zijin joined hands to coordinate their control as Augustus charged and unleashed a massive beam at them.

Hansite and Qiluo watched as Zijin’s upgraded bone dragon blocked the Divine Puppet’s Judgment Beam and fought Augustus’s colossus. Su Ming summoned Miao Xin to control the bone dragon, and the battle continued with both sides trading blows.

• Hansite prepared to join the fight, but Qiluo stopped him and warned that using the Moon Chanter’s power would cost him his life.
• Zijin’s bone dragon intercepted the Divine Puppet’s Judgment Beam, reflected it back, and damaged the colossus.
• Augustus’s Divine Puppet struck the bone dragon and sent it crashing into a building, so Su Ming summoned Miao Xin to take control.
• Miao Xin dodged the Divine Puppet’s attacks and slashed it with the bone dragon’s claws and tail while trading jokes with Su Ming and Zijin.
• Augustus redirected the bone dragon’s charge with Judgment Beams, but Miao Xin drove it into another clash with the Divine Puppet.

As Augustus empowered and enlarged the divine puppet, Su Ming and Miao Xin fought back with the bone dragon and reflected his devastating Judgment Beam. Augustus fled when the counterattack crippled his colossus, while Zijin prepared a powerful spell on the battlefield.

• Qiluo and Hansite watched the fighting and discussed why Hansite could not use his music to counter the Sacred Heart Confinement Domain without risking the dragons.
• Zijin used Death Coil to repair the bone dragon as Augustus drank a Holy Flame Overload Potion and expanded the divine puppet with additional statues.
• Augustus enlarged the colossus and attacked the bone dragon, but Su Ming activated Crystal Cascade Magic Cube and reflected the Judgment Beam, blasting off one of its arms.
• Augustus retreated and intercepted the pursuing electromagnetic shells, while Su Ming noted that his defense consumed many components.
• Su Ming and Miao Xin noticed Zijin activating her Lost Pearls of Crystal Tears and setting up an amplification array.

Su Ming and Miao Xin defeated Augustus’s super divine puppet with a giant bone dragon and a rocket-propelled hammer, while Gospel confronted Walensi’s fanatics in the Holy City. Gospel rejected the pope’s control card, shattered their self-detonation formation, and freed the dragons and Bone Machine Battalion.

• Su Ming used White Bone Mark to rebuild the H-6 WZ’s scattered bones into a giant bone dragon, which Miao Xin sent to fight Augustus’s puppet.
• A many-armed figure drove a truck carrying a massive weapon into the battle, and Miao Xin caught it with the bone dragon’s claw.
• Miao Xin discovered the weapon was a rocket-propelled hammer and smashed Augustus’s puppet, destroying it and knocking Augustus unconscious.
• The Final Bone Mad Machines and the dragons eased the mental pressure by responding to the Holy City’s lingering prayers, while Walensi transformed his fanatics’ obsessions into a self-destructing holy formation.
• Walensi used the pope’s highest-authority card to try to control Gospel, but Gospel resisted and dismantled the formation with its red light.
• Gospel denounced the fanatics’ hypocrisy, and the shattered formation freed the dragon forces and Bone Machine Battalion.

Su Ming’s forces defeated Augustus and destroyed the Holy City’s fanatics, while Yise revealed her mother Katharine’s personal grudge against the pope. The chapter ended with Su Ming’s necromancers using Revival of the Dead to awaken the weakened survivors, who panicked at the sight of the hovering necromancers.

• Su Ming and Zijin found Augustus alive among the shattered divine statues, and Yise arrived to claim him on Katharine’s behalf.
• Yise revealed that Augustus had ordered the Dikezi family slaughtered and that Katharine was the family’s surviving newborn daughter.
• Xialike accepted Katharine’s offer and ordered Zhapulai to keep Augustus alive and make him suffer.
• Su Ming ordered the fanatics killed, and Qiluo turned their souls into lanterns with Moon’s Soul Lantern.
• Su Ming organized a mass Spirit Rain spell, drawing on the White Bone Fortress’s ghosts to restore the life energy of the unconscious survivors.
• Revival of the Dead awakened the survivors, who saw the hovering necromancers and began to panic.

After the Holy City’s destruction, Su Ming and his allies restored order, organized relief, and announced Star Sand’s new rule. As Su Ming prepared for the next day’s negotiations with Xialike, the emperor studied evidence that Eden had weakened Taya for an invasion and resolved to settle an old score with Death Knell.

• Gospel addressed the Holy City’s people, calmed them, and called on them to rescue the wounded and clear the ruins.
• Newman and the alchemists temporarily restarted Angel's Protection, while Su Ming organized relief efforts and ordered supplies and forces positioned for the takeover of the Radiant Jurisdiction and nearby islands.
• Su Ming told residents that Star Sand would abolish tithes and other exorbitant levies, and the crowd welcomed the announcement.
• Su Ming finished his patrol and arrangements, returned to the embassy, and shared a quiet night with Zijin.
• Xialike read Su Ming’s evidence about the Plundering Clock and Eden, recognized the deaths of Taya’s leading scholars and generals as preparation for invasion, and vowed to settle his old score with Death Knell.

Nineteen years earlier, Xialike traded for Galio’s Myriad Phenomena Prism and used it to fulfill Chloe’s condition for accepting his proposal. Later, Chloe wrote to Stacy inviting her to be a bridesmaid and asking her to pass an invitation to Scholar Bai.

• Galio sought rare alchemical materials to teleport the White Bone Fortress to the Northern Lands, and Xialike offered to obtain them in exchange for the Myriad Phenomena Prism.
• Galio agreed to Xialike’s terms, and a month later the royal craftsmen set the Prism into a ring.
• Xialike gave the ring to Chloe in the royal library, and she recognized the Prism and agreed to marry him.
• Xialike kissed Chloe after she accepted his proposal.
• Chloe wrote Stacy a letter inviting her to be a bridesmaid and asking her to convey an invitation to Scholar Bai, then sent it by owl.

Stacy learned that Chloe was marrying Crown Prince Xialike and planned to travel to the capital for the wedding, while Scholar White Pheasant examined Hansite, whose unstable domain was accelerating his aging. In the capital, Chloe read Stacy’s teasing reply, welcomed the news that Stacy was coming, and began cleaning her study for the wedding.

• Stacy deciphered Chloe’s hidden message and learned she was marrying Crown Prince Xialike, so she asked White Pheasant to travel to the capital with her.
• White Pheasant agreed to make the journey, and Stacy went to buy letter paper so she could reply to Chloe.
• Hansite sought White Pheasant’s help for his Moon-Boiling Spirit Domain, which was becoming uncontrollable and worsening his aging.
• White Pheasant said Hansite’s domain could be sealed only with costly materials, and Hansite admitted he could not afford them.
• Chloe read Stacy’s long reply, learned Stacy planned to arrive in about ten days, and accepted her offer to be a bridesmaid.
• Chloe called in maids and began cleaning her cluttered study in preparation for the wedding.