Chapter Summaries

After the dwarves attempted to assassinate the king of the Final Bone Mad Machines, Su Ming launched a dragon-led incursion into the Dwarf Kingdom to force King Star Pickaxe to answer for it. As the dragons advanced toward Black Anvil City, Beianqi prepared to spread the truth about the assassination among the dwarves.

• Zhimeng told Su Ming to retaliate against the dwarves and urged him to target their king, so Su Ming ordered Gelie to be contacted.
• Su Ming's Security Department arrested dwarven agents while his personal guard and more than a thousand dragons gathered and crossed the border with Gelie's Dragon Claw Regiment and Dragon Scale Corps.
• Su Ming's forces captured Prince Shanyan and swept through Sovngarde, seizing the mayor before continuing their advance into dwarven territory.
• Su Ming led the dragons through five cities toward Black Anvil City, explaining to Gelie that he wanted to force Star Pickaxe to come out.
• At Sapphire Port, Beianqi told the dwarven merchants that Star Pickaxe knew about the assassination and gave them a written account to send home.

Su Ming led the dragons to Black Anvil City and negotiated an end to the conflict after Star Pickaxe sought terms. The Dwarf Kingdom agreed to pay compensation and lease ten cities, while Su Ming revealed that the riverbank held valuable crystals.

• Su Ming advanced along the White River with more than a thousand dragons, drove dwarf forces from cities, and prepared to attack Black Anvil City with aerial bombs.
• Star Pickaxe met Su Ming at the riverbank and offered his life, but Su Ming demanded eleven cities, including Black Anvil City.
• Queen Ghostly Flower and Tie Shan joined the negotiations, and the Dwarf Kingdom agreed to pay ten million gold coins and lease ten White River cities for thirty years.
• Su Ming signed the contract, and the prisoners captured that day were released as the forces withdrew.
• Magelaili questioned Su Ming's choice of cities, and he showed her crystals buried beneath the riverbank.

Su Ming secured zircon supplies while Zijin and Kaikelai prepared a procurement trap for speculators and uncovered suspicious purchases by the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce. After the First Sunrise Republic was founded, Su Ming assigned Yise and Bowers to lead a staged desert advance to expose and defeat the Plundering Clock.

• Su Ming ordered Magelaili to mine and wash a thousand tons of zircon sand and quietly reduce Silver Moon Forest's fertilizer bill by two million gold coins.
• Zijin and Kaikelai arranged to leak a misleading research preprint to lure speculators into expanding material supplies before buying their holdings cheaply.
• Kaikelai reported that the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce had bought many materials needed for planar teleportation, and Su Ming ordered further investigation.
• Zijin formally announced the founding of the First Sunrise Republic and its first government.
• Su Ming rallied the troops against the Plundering Clock, distributed campaign rewards, and held a feast.
• Su Ming assigned Yise and Bowers to begin the desert operation the next day, establishing roads and a forward camp before joining the Star Empire's forces and probing for the enemy.

The Final Bone Mad Machines advanced into the Gravel Scale Desert, where Yise’s scouts uncovered and defeated a large lizardman ambush. Su Ming arranged analysis of captured sacred medicine and improvements to desert supplies and tactics, then trained against Zhapulai and learned that Death Knell was an elf.

• Su Ming’s force entered the Gravel Scale Desert on roads reinforced with reconstituted crystals and traveled in newly built Desert Ark trucks.
• Jielusi and Ruixiuli disguised themselves as a married couple, overheard the holy shaman-priest order lizardmen to harass the invaders, and learned he distributed sacred medicine.
• Yise used life-detection equipment to locate nearly a thousand lizardmen buried beneath the sand, then led the Bone Machine Battalion in an attack that killed two chieftains and captured sacred medicine.
• Su Ming ordered Stacy to analyze the sacred medicine, discussed ammunition improvements, and arranged to obtain squalane oil for the troops and Forest Dragons joining the next campaign phase.
• Su Ming trained with Zijin and Zhapulai to prepare for Death Knell, and Zijin revealed that Death Knell was an elf hiding her features.

Su Ming reviewed Yinglong’s combat sensors while Hairspring arrived in the Gravel Scale Desert to take charge after Death Knell left to recover on Water Chestnut Island. Hairspring began questioning the prisoners and ended by asking Shadu where Leonite was.

• Su Ming learned that ultra-high-speed camera data could reveal combat cues but would strain Yinglong’s processing core, and Miao Xin suggested using unmanned wingmen to provide battlefield awareness and support.
• Hairspring arrived at the Stone-Patterned Altar, heard Death Knell’s account of the desert’s failing defenses, and learned that Miasma Throat and a cross-realm divine priest would arrive when the great spatial rift opened.
• Death Knell and Hairspring discussed whether Qiluomilan, Ghostly Flower, or Bay Owl might be the Painter of Fate, and Death Knell left for Water Chestnut Island to recover.
• Hairspring took over the desert’s defenses, planned to test attacks in the rain, and decided to release Janet later despite her concealment of her origins and Su Ming’s tracking device.
• Hairspring threatened Shadu with the destruction of the Gravel Scale Tribe and tried to recruit him, but Shadu refused and attempted to damage his own ears; Hairspring restrained him and asked where Leonite was.

Shadu admitted to killing Hairspring’s missing agent Leonite, while Su Ming’s forces tested the Pansy submarine and resumed their desert advance after a brief rainstorm. At Desert Forward Camp No. 1, Miao Xin landed the Kunpeng Transport Aircraft on the newly built runway, delivering radar and new ammunition as the camp prepared for further operations.

• Shadu told Hairspring that he and Ruixiuli had killed Leonite fifteen years earlier, and Hairspring ordered that Shadu and Janet receive bandages and ordinary food.
• Su Ming announced that the Pansy’s test dive had succeeded, and Beianqi agreed to test the submarine at a depth of two hundred meters.
• Su Ming halted the desert advance during a sudden rainstorm, then ordered the troops to move again when the rain stopped; Hairspring learned that the rain impaired the Final Bone Mad Machines’ detection systems.
• Janet reported that nearby Gravel Scale tribes refused to abandon their settlements, and Hairspring rejected a plan to send them on a holy-war charge against the enemy.
• Janet asked to receive the World Serpent Brand, but Hairspring and a Clock Priest rebuked her and told her to prove herself through her work.
• The First Sunrise Republic Desert Independent Regiment built a runway at Desert Forward Camp No. 1, and Miao Xin landed the Kunpeng Transport Aircraft there before Yise received its radar and ammunition cargo.

Su Ming coordinated with the Star Empire to counter the Plundering Clock’s looming attack while the laboratory analyzed its mind-controlling holy medicine. The enemy launched a surprise raid on supply camps as Yise’s Bone Machine First Battalion bombarded the Gravel Scale Tribe’s second wave, leaving the battle underway.

• Yise issued new ammunition to the Bone Machine First Battalion, while Zijin and Stacy continued analyzing the holy medicine and estimated they could make an antidote in about two days.
• Jielusi reported a large Gravel Scale Tribe mobilization, and Su Ming arranged for Yise to lead the First Battalion to Sigh Pass, with the Second Battalion as support and Bowers guarding the base.
• Su Ming discovered that the lizardmen’s nocturnal schedule had caused a timing misunderstanding, then watched the enemy gather at the border in the desert evening.
• The first force of roughly ten thousand lizardmen bypassed Sigh Pass and raided Star Empire supply camps, burning supplies with the help of guides familiar with the supply lines.
• Yise’s First Battalion opened rapid mortar fire on the Gravel Scale Tribe’s second force, and the lizardmen charged through the bombardment toward the battalion.

Yise's Bone Machine First Battalion used machine guns, mortars, flamethrowers, and mines to hold off repeated Gravel Scale Tribe assaults before withdrawing, while Su Ming learned that sand was causing weapon malfunctions. The Star Empire regained the advantage, but a lizard tribe gathered near the forward camp, where Bowers and the First Sunrise Desert Independent Regiment prepared to defend against an attack.

• Yise's battalion repelled the Gravel Scale Tribe's initial charge with flat-nosed hollow-point bullets, then faced a ten-thousand-lizard assault bolstered by the shamans' war sacrifice.
• As ammunition ran low and sand caused weapons to jam, Yise summoned skeleton lizards to plug a gap, then ordered a planned withdrawal behind flamethrowers and a minefield.
• The Gravel Scale Tribe's pursuit faltered under the battalion's staged fire, and the holy shaman priest abandoned the chase as the war sacrifice wore off and the survivors broke down.
• Su Ming discussed the battle's equipment failures with Yise and the First Battalion commander, then ordered the lesson passed to the Second Battalion.
• The Star Empire's troops regained ground, while Xialike's twenty thousand troops and rune cannons blocked another Gravel Scale Tribe force near the border.
• Bowers recalled engineering teams to the forward camp as the First Sunrise Desert Independent Regiment prepared its defenses against the lizard tribe gathering nearby.

Su Ming’s forces and the Star Empire repelled the Gravel Scale Tribe’s attacks after Su Ming sent airborne necromancer reinforcements to the forward camp. After the battles, Su Ming suspected the Plundering Clock had received help from spies within the Star Empire, while Qiluo’s unexpected arrival led him to propose drilling a deep well for fresh water.

• The Plundering Clock sent successive waves of Gravel Scale Tribe warriors against the Star Empire’s border camp, but its defenders held until reinforcements arrived.
• Miao Xin landed Chubby Girl carrying five hundred necromancers, who joined the battle alongside Su Ming’s forces and helped break the attack on the forward camp.
• The Bone Machine Second Battalion struck the Gravel Scale Tribe’s forces at the border from the flank, causing their exhausted warriors to surrender or flee; Su Ming and Xialike agreed to share prisoners and investigate how the Plundering Clock had learned about supply points.
• Zhapulai tracked down the fleeing saint witch priest, but the priest died and his soul escaped capture through the Mark of the Mortal World; Xialike ordered Zhapulai to investigate the information leak.
• After hearing that Qiluo had sneaked aboard the transport plane and been squeezed unconscious among the canned beef, Su Ming told her to stay and grow vegetables, then promised to drill a deep well to reach fresh water.

Su Ming used geophysical surveys to locate and drill for water at the forward camp, but the deeper well struck a shallow oil-bearing sandstone reservoir instead. As crude oil and gas erupted from the well, Su Ming recognized the discovery as a vital new resource for his expanding industry.

• Su Ming surveyed the ground with Qiluo and workers, then chose a drilling site based on radar and resistivity readings that suggested a confined aquifer.
• Su Ming drilled to about 150 meters and found drinkable water, but the well's yield was too low to supply the camp.
• Su Ming continued drilling past 280 meters despite the rig's limits, after Qiluo insisted she could smell water.
• Su Ming noticed faster drilling, oily mud, and a sweet hydrocarbon smell beyond 300 meters, then realized the borehole had reached oil rather than the expected aquifer.
• Su Ming ordered the pump stopped and an emergency fire ban as oil and gas surged from the well, then celebrated the discovery while Qiluo tried to flee the smell.

Su Ming expanded the desert campaign while rebuilding the Victory Oilfield and investigating the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce’s suspicious asset sale. Stacy discovered that contaminated skin oil supplied to the allied forces came from the Plundering Clock, leaving Su Ming and Xialike facing a potential plague that could halt the entire campaign.

• Su Ming’s forces controlled the well overflow, built a makeshift flare system, and renamed the oilfield the Victory Oilfield while relocating their forward camp.
• The allied advance through the Gravel Scale Desert continued as Forest Dragons grew food, Star Empire troops arrived, and priests helped free Gravel Scale tribespeople from the Plundering Clock’s control.
• Su Ming ordered environmental and workplace safety inspections and delayed approval of the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce’s unusually hurried sale of valuable assets.
• Charles met Su Ming and offered the chamber’s holdings at a steep discount, prompting Su Ming and Zijin to suspect that something was wrong.
• Stacy taught Star Empire alchemists to make an antidote, then identified skin oil in a supply shipment as a product of the Plundering Clock’s plague technology.
• Su Ming and Xialike learned that traces of contamination had been found in eighty percent of the skin oil products sourced through more than a dozen merchant associations.

Su Ming uncovered the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce’s role in the plague-oil sabotage and its fraudulent deals, but kept the investigation secret to trace the Plundering Clock. In the desert, Jielusi and Ruixiuli raided the chamber’s Brocade Scale office, stole its records, and set it ablaze before discovering they were being followed.

• Su Ming and Xialike grew suspicious of the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce after learning it had supplied little plague oil and was quietly selling off its holdings, so they continued the shipment without alerting the suspects.
• Su Ming learned that the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce operated in the desert as the Brocade Scale Chamber of Commerce and had used hollow mines to swindle the goblin Eye of the Gem trading chamber out of goods worth millions of gold coins.
• Su Ming ordered a secret task force to investigate the chamber’s connected organizations, track dangerous alchemical materials, and support research into the Time Plague, while sharing intelligence with the Star Empire.
• Su Ming and Zijin discussed their demanding work and agreed to take a vacation to the Arctic, where they planned to launch a satellite.
• Jielusi and Ruixiuli traveled to Red Sand Slope, received supplies and a tactical map from the Divine Eagle Drone, then infiltrated the Brocade Scale office and killed the four people inside.
• Jielusi and Ruixiuli stole the office’s documents, staged a robbery, and burned the building, but Ruixiuli noticed someone following them as they fled.

Jielusi and Ruixiuli fought Matiasu and Gelufeike after the attackers’ office was burned, with both battles turning into brutal exchanges of injuries. Jielusi killed Gelufeike with a lunge mine, but Matiasu regained the advantage over the badly wounded Ruixiuli and prepared to face her next.

• Matiasu and Gelufeike confronted Jielusi and Ruixiuli, and the warriors and priests engaged in separate fights.
• Ruixiuli used a bone-shattering attack to break Matiasu’s shield and wound him, but Matiasu charged through the damage and struck Ruixiuli.
• Jielusi and Gelufeike traded spells and close-range blows as each sought an opening.
• Jielusi endured Gelufeike’s Extreme Lightning Bolt and killed him with a lunge mine at close range.
• Matiasu knocked Ruixiuli’s bone sword aside, shattered his breastplate, and sent him flying before turning his attention to Jielusi.

Jielusi and Ruixiuli defeated Matiasu and Gelufeike after activating a hidden hive outpost, then escaped and recovered from their injuries. The documents they sent to the forward camp led Su Ming to the Stone Pattern Altar and the trail of the Plundering Clock.

• Jielusi authorized the hive outpost to attack Matiasu, crushed Gelufeike's fleeing soul, and trapped Matiasu with Soul · Lock.
• The hive outpost fired forty-eight rockets at Matiasu, and Ruixiuli killed him after his fatal-damage escape left him vulnerable.
• Ruixiuli and Jielusi treated their wounds, destroyed the battlefield evidence, and made their way back to the forest of wind-eroded pillars.
• Jielusi told Ruixiuli about her dark power, her need to draw strength from dead souls, and how Yise had helped her manage it.
• Ruixiuli sent the recovered documents to the forward camp, where the staff traced the information to the Stone Pattern Altar.
• Su Ming learned of the Stone Pattern Altar and declared that he had found the trail of the Plundering Clock.

Hairspring discovered Leonite’s true-body crystal and interrogated Shadu about whom she had parasitized, revealing her connection to the Wallfacer and his plan to hunt her down. Meanwhile, Su Ming and Xialike prepared their forces to attack the Stone Pattern Altar, and the army marched at daybreak.

• Hairspring ordered the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce to finish liquidating assets, prepare plague totems, and plan a withdrawal from the Gravel Scale Desert.
• Hairspring found Leonite’s true-body crystal in her desiccated former host and brought Shadu out of the dungeon to question him about her next host.
• Hairspring told Shadu that Leonite was connected to the Wallfacer, said he intended to hunt her down, and threatened Shadu if he did not answer by sunrise.
• At Forward Camp No. 2, Su Ming and Xialike confirmed their forces’ deployments and agreed to attack the Stone Pattern Altar at first light, while Su Ming predicted the Plundering Clock’s leaders would retreat.
• Su Ming hosted Xialike, Zhapulai, and senior officers at a banquet, and the army marched out at daybreak.

The allied forces of the First Sunrise Republic and the Star Empire attacked the Stone Pattern Altar, where Hairspring tried to delay them with lizardman charges and rain-and-sand defenses before fleeing with the Plundering Clock. The altar fell quickly, Yise rescued Master Shadu and found Janet dead, and Su Ming wondered whether the pursuit would yield another Saint Rank.

• The allied armies surrounded the Stone Pattern Altar while Hairspring ordered the Gravel Scale Tribe to harass them and used a storm to raise makeshift defenses.
• Hairspring ordered the Plundering Clock to retreat, killed Janet, and left shamans and lizardmen behind to cover the escape.
• Su Ming used battlefield scans to locate the retreating leaders and the shamans, then ordered the attack when the rain eased.
• Smoke disrupted the lizardmen's ritual charge as the Star Shadow Secret Blades killed the leaders and Saint shamans, and Yise's forces stormed the altar.
• Yise killed a Saint shaman in the dungeon and rescued the wounded Master Shadu, then found Janet dead and discovered four blackened skeletons.
• The allied forces treated the captives while Zijin and Zhapulai pursued the fleeing Plundering Clock, and Su Ming wondered if he would capture another Saint Rank.

Zijin and Zhapulai intercepted a Plundering Clock squad while Shadu explained how the cult had infiltrated the Gravel Scale Tribe and asked Su Ming to help rebuild it. The Stone Pattern Altar activated four corrupted Saint Rank skeletons, and as the allied army fought them, a fast-moving attacker struck at Su Ming.

• Zijin and Zhapulai defeated the strongest members of the Plundering Clock squad, but a ritual destroyed the soul of a priest who identified Clock Hand-Lord Hairspring as their leader.
• Shadu told Su Ming how Leonite had stolen and raised Gravel Scale eggs, then sent the returning lizardmen to seize influence and spread Jörmungandr’s cult; he asked Su Ming to help restore the tribe and its altar.
• Xialike learned that Janet had asked to be buried with Samanya and ordered her body abandoned in the wilderness.
• Four Dread Skeletons animated inside the Stone Pattern Altar and charged into the allied army, where gunners, Bowers, and Yise tried to stop them as their bones repeatedly reassembled.
• A shadow attacker evaded Su Ming’s close-range gunfire with the Light’s Passing domain, and Su Ming discarded his gun and sent his Thorn Long Whip after it.

Su Ming's forces confronted Charles, who revealed himself as Hairspring and explained his past attempts to warn them about Yexiya. Charles then tried to possess Jielusi with Leonite, but Jielusi crushed the control crystal; Charles escaped as Jielusi fell into a coma and Su Ming's forces prepared to clear the battlefield.

• Charles attacked Su Ming, but Su Ming recognized him as Hairspring after Zijin's message identified the group's leader.
• Charles and Xialike explained how their conflicting schemes and the Star Rain's blockade had shaped the events around Water Chestnut Island.
• Charles struck Jielusi and triggered the crystal embedded in her chest, allowing Leonite to take control and attack Su Ming.
• Shadu and Xialike deflected Jielusi's strike, while Jielusi fought Leonite's control and crushed the crystal.
• Charles fled after the possession failed; Jielusi fell into a coma, Su Ming received treatment for his wound, and he ordered the forces to clear the battlefield and eliminate the traitorous lizardmen.

After the desert war, Su Ming and his allies dismantled the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce, arranged the desert’s reconstruction, and prepared to confront the Plundering Clock on Water Chestnut Island. As victory celebrations began, Su Ming and Katharine outlined the island campaign and confirmed that Aideluzi was no longer needed.

• Countries across Taya raided the Four Directions Chamber of Commerce and its affiliates, while Su Ming ordered people who buried Time Plague totems treated as accomplices.
• Su Ming and Xialike agreed on a framework for sharing the costs and benefits of rebuilding the Gravel Scale Desert, and Ainuobia reported that the Bearfolk Clan had been wiped out and nations were searching for remaining Plundering Clock forces.
• Su Ming arranged formal burials for Star Iron and the other skeletal dead, while Zijin explained that the Divine Favor Scepter countered Hairspring’s Light’s Passing domain.
• Su Ming approved a nationwide victory celebration, and Yise reassured Silver Mask and Ge'enda'er that Jielusi would recover from her unconsciousness.
• Katharine reported that the Northern Continent had been reorganized as the First Sunrise Republic Northern Continent Province, and Su Ming planned a three-to-four-month preparation period for the campaign against Water Chestnut Island.
• Su Ming told Katharine that he had moved Aideluzi to the dungeon because his techniques were no longer needed, and Katharine thanked him.

Katharine confronted Aideluzi about his role in the attempt on her life and revealed that Augustus had killed Aideluzi’s family, leaving him to despair in prison. Yise examined a family portrait and pressed Katharine until she learned that Waliwei, the woman she resembled, was her biological mother and a Memory-Weaving Priest of the Tassel Clan.

• Katharine told Aideluzi she had been the baby he cursed, then revealed that Augustus had killed his family and that he was the sole survivor; she left him alive in the cell.
• Younier delivered Jielusi’s portrait to Yise, who recognized herself, Katharine, Meiwu'er, and an unfamiliar blond woman in the image.
• Yise brought the portrait to Katharine and asked why she resembled the blond woman and stood beside Meiwu'er.
• Katharine claimed the woman was Meiwu'er's sister Waliwei, but Yise questioned the explanation and pointed out their shared blond hair and memory abilities.
• Katharine admitted that Waliwei was Yise’s biological mother, a Memory-Weaving Priest of the Tassel Clan, and said Waliwei had wanted Yise spared the burden of knowing.