Recaps

The group entered an ancient ruin, suspecting the enemy might be hiding the Dragon Emperor there. Inside, they found a statue marked with a single eye and wondered whether it pointed to the builders’ ability to prophesy.

• The narrator changed Anna from a black rabbit back into human form and warned the party to take the ruin seriously.
• Goliath led the group into a mountain fissure while Reynold joined them despite Mel’s complaints about the danger.
• Goliath widened the entrance, checked the way down, and guided the party into an underground chamber.
• The group found a metal sculpture of an eye with residual mana, and the narrator and Mel suspected its builders could foresee the future.

Xipei and the others explored an underground ruin, where they found a row of empty rooms and a dusty bedroom containing a diary. The diary revealed that the ruin’s inhabitants had relied on food brought by farming druids and feared their fortress would be discovered.

• Xuefeng brought Reynold down from the entrance, and the group opened a stone door leading into the ruins.
• The group descended into a well-lit corridor lined with doors, and Xipei stopped Moli from rushing ahead to search the rooms.
• Goliath had Xuefeng kick open doors, but most of the rooms were empty and dusty.
• Xipei and Mel cleaned a bedroom and found a diary whose writing came to life when their Magic Power touched it.
• Xipei and Mel read diary fragments describing dwindling food, the deaths of three farming druids, and the inhabitants’ fear that their fortress would be discovered.

The group discovered an automatic teleportation spell that sent Xuefeng away and created dangerous hallucinations, while Reynold briefly wandered off before rejoining them. In the next room, a magical scene appeared to show the ruin’s former inhabitants celebrating, though Reynold’s clue about their location remained unexplained.

• The group read damaged diary scraps, then Mel conjured magic bread rolls that Xuefeng tasted before he vanished through a teleportation spell.
• Goliath relayed that Xuefeng had chased a hallucination of Goliath, ended up in an icy hole, and decided to nap there.
• The group noticed Reynold was missing, but he soon returned from the next room; Anna mistook him for a disguised monster before Mel and the narrator chained him up.
• Reynold said he had found writing that might reveal where they were, and led the group to a larger hall with rows of stone tables.
• The narrator used Mage Eye to see a vision of people feasting and celebrating in the hall, including a deer-bodied figure selling food.

The group explored the Radiant Fortress, the last spellcaster stronghold of the Lightless Years, and discovered evidence of the ancient war against machine armies. The chapter ended when an Exterminator Prototype started up, startling everyone.

• The narrator recognized the underground fortress as the Radiant Fortress, and Goliath saluted the message left by its spellcasters.
• Moli and Anna grew furious at the thought of Machine Zealots occupying the fortress, but the narrator and Mel took comfort in the next generation carrying on the old traditions.
• The group explored corridors filled with damaged magic, spellcaster remains, and machinery, and Reynold identified a broken hand as belonging to an Exterminator Prototype.
• Reynold explained that the machines had once tracked magic and helped armies defeat spellcasters, though their enormous cost prevented further production.
• An Exterminator Prototype started up after lying dormant for two thousand years, and Moli wondered how its power system could last so long.

The group battled the Annihilator prototype, whose armor resisted their spells and Goliath's sword, until they discovered its joints and Goliath pierced its head with a lance made from one of Xuefeng's shed teeth. The fight continued in the corridor as Goliath battered the machine and the mages restrained it with gravity spells.

• Goliath struck the Annihilator prototype, but its metal shell remained unscathed, and Reynold explained that it resisted extreme heat, cold, fire, and water.
• The Annihilator advanced and attacked, while Goliath fought it and the mages' spells failed to damage its armored body.
• Moli and Anna pointed out the gaps at the Annihilator's joints, and Goliath lodged his holy-flame sword in one before dodging its blade.
• Goliath used a lance made from one of Xuefeng's shed teeth to pierce the Annihilator's head and extinguish its red lights.
• Goliath explained that Xuefeng's false tooth had cost him money, then struck the Annihilator with the lance as the mages filled the corridor with Gravity Balls and Gravity Cages.

The group defeated the Annihilator with Reynold’s magitech handguns and discovered that someone had recently repaired its power core. Mel proposed going after the Machine Zealots who had tampered with it, while Anna and Moli teased him about acting like an embarrassing male lead.

• Reynold handed out handguns, and the group shot through the Annihilator’s joints while Goliath held it back.
• The group destroyed the Annihilator, and Goliath dismantled it to explain how its joints worked.
• Reynold examined the remains and found that someone had recently replenished the Annihilator’s power core.
• Reynold suspected the Machine Zealots had occupied the Radiant Fortress, and Mel proposed confronting them.
• Moli told the narrator that Anna no longer wrote wickedly charming male leads, and Mel lifted Anna into the air after she and Moli teased him.

Xipei realized a devil had invaded her consciousness by showing her a false version of Mel, and Goliath used sacred script to shield the group from further possession. After debating the threat and teasing Reynold about his knowledge of spellcraft, the group continued deeper into the ruins.

• Xipei recognized that the Mel before her was an illusion and asked Goliath whether Abyssal devils could secretly invade someone's consciousness.
• Goliath identified the creature as a Mind-Control Demon and warned the group that it could invade them undetected.
• Goliath wounded his palm to draw sacred script, checked each person's forehead, and promised to protect their souls while conserving his power for devils.
• Reynold questioned how they had concluded a devil was responsible, and Xipei mocked his lack of basic spellcaster knowledge.
• The group continued deeper into the ruins, where ancient power disrupted their Magitech devices, while Reynold's repaired Annihilator moved agilely again.

The group navigated the Machine Zealots’ defenses, with Reynold identifying hazards and explaining the technology while the others used magic to bypass them. In the underground ruins, Goliath appeared holding a small ball of holy flame after the narrator experienced a vision of overwhelming golden light.

• Reynold led the group through a laser-filled tunnel, but Moli teleported them past the beams instead of following his example.
• Reynold identified the area as a Machine Zealot base and asked the group to teleport him through future hazards.
• An infrared detector triggered an alarm despite Anna’s invisibility, and the narrator froze the alarm device.
• Reynold explained that the base’s local network used cables while phones relied on wireless connections.
• The narrator saw a vision of world-filling golden light, then noticed Goliath holding a small flame of holy light in his palm.

Reynold grieved over Ciprins after Mephistopheles took him in as a partner and made him a master of his mage tower. After drinking himself into a stupor, Reynold reflected on how much he missed Ciprins.

• Reynold returned home dazed and remembered how Ciprins had disliked the flowers he gave him, including the bouquet meant to hold an engagement ring.
• Reynold learned that Mephistopheles had built a mage tower in the capital, then feared that he and Ciprins were preparing to marry.
• At the tower, Reynold watched Mephistopheles turn Doug into a slime for disrespecting Ciprins and heard him say Ciprins was also a tower master.
• Reynold realized that sharing mastery of a mage tower meant Mephistopheles and Ciprins had bound their mental powers together as partners.
• Reynold drank heavily at a bar and mourned that he would never again receive a hangover remedy from Ciprins.

The Magic Council chairman brooded over losing Ciprins and realized the devil was drawn to his Black Magic. When the devil isolated him from his companions and appeared as Mel, he summoned the Undead Domain to fight it.

• The chairman read online posts mocking his romantic scandal and imagined how Ciprins might punish him if he were a dark mage.
• Reynold and Mel questioned why the devil targeted Ciprins while ignoring the Machine Zealots, and the chairman concluded it was attracted to his Black Magic aura.
• The chairman realized Goliath, Moli, and Anna had vanished, leaving only Mel beside him.
• The chairman teleported to the far end of the hall, recognized that Mel was the devil in disguise, and summoned the Undead Domain against it.

Xipei fought a Shadow Demon that had taken Mel’s face, beating and burning its avatar while refusing to trust its pleas. After the devil changed into the Five-Star Old Man and began talking, Xipei asked where they were and whether he was still in the same place.

• Xipei used magic and a stone pillar to attack the Shadow Demon, whose shrieks tried to invade his mind.
• Xipei compressed Hellfire into black light and hurled it at the devil, then continued beating it as it begged and imitated Mel’s voice.
• Xipei tore off the devil’s avatar head and fed it to his fellow disciples while preparing a spell and magic array to capture the creature.
• The devil complained about Xipei’s violence, changed into the Five-Star Old Man, and claimed the paladin could not pull Xipei out.
• Xipei asked the devil where he was and whether he was still in the same place.

The narrator seized a devil that had become physical after staying too long in Diana, then found herself trapped in its Demiplane. She began searching for a way out while dealing with an undead thief, and the chapter left her shaping Hellfire into an ugly weapon.

• The devil begged the narrator not to torture it, but she grabbed its true form and its avatar vanished.
• The narrator remembered her Black Magic notebook’s experiments on devils and decided to take the unconscious devil to the laboratory.
• She realized she was trapped in the devil’s Demiplane and explored the ruin-like space, which overlapped with the main plane.
• The narrator encountered an undead thief and knocked it away with an Air Shield when her Soul-Pacifying Spell failed.
• She put away her intact fellow disciples, then tried to shape Hellfire into Goliath’s dragon lance and ended up with an ugly creation.

The narrator freed a devil trapped in the Inner World, then followed it through the ruins in search of a magic artifact. Along the way, he discovered the Machine Zealots were livestreaming their captives, including Reynold, the Dragon Emperor, and a familiar green slime.

• The narrator woke the devil, which turned into a black ball and explained that a magic artifact could free them from the Inner World.
• The narrator suspected the devil was laying a trap but agreed to follow it to the artifact.
• The devil led the narrator through the underground ruins, where he found a screen showing the Machine Zealots' livestream.
• The narrator saw the Machine Zealots tormenting Reynold and discussing switching to the Dragon Emperor as their next captive.
• The livestream showed a masked Machine Zealot pulling out a dehydrated green slime, which the narrator recognized as a possible Five-star Slime.

The narrator watched a masked man use a slime to denounce Mephistopheles Madsen, then entered an ancient underground palace to find a magic artifact. The chapter left the narrator confronting statues of Death Banshees in the palace hall.

• The narrator grew angry at the masked man's claims that Mephistopheles Madsen had abused his magic by transforming the five-star director into a slime, and recalled plans to rescue the Dragon Emperor and verify the slime's identity.
• The devil led the narrator to an ancient door and warned that the magic artifact lay beyond it.
• The narrator prepared spells, entered the tunnel, and found piles of dead treasure hunters, stepping past them without taking their burial objects.
• The narrator reached a vast underground palace and recognized the statues atop its pillars as Death Banshees.

Ciprins explored an ancient necromancer’s ruin, eager to record its preserved magic and capture its undead guardians. After the banshees fled from him, a powerful lich appeared, leaving him stunned by the discovery.

• Ciprins spotted magical defenses in the hall and recorded them in his third teacher’s notes.
• Twenty-three death banshees broke free from the pillars, revealing their independent consciousness and soul flames.
• Ciprins challenged the banshees, but they screamed and ran away from him.
• The banshees scattered as Ciprins’s undead companions reacted to a hidden threat.
• Ciprins saw a heavily armed woman with an overwhelming deathly aura and recognized her as a lich.

Ciprins Field fought the lich Damala, who summoned an undead legion and struck him with death magic. His curses absorbed the attack, and he released a difficult spell whose effect was left unrevealed.

• Damala introduced herself as a legion commander and warrior, and Ciprins Field returned her greeting before she charged and broke his second teacher’s spine.
• Ciprins protected himself with magic, but Damala’s command unsettled his evil spirits, so he threw them at her.
• Damala summoned ghost knights, and one struck Ciprins with death magic that his curses devoured.
• Damala mistook Ciprins for a living dead, and they exchanged remarks about experiments and hardship.
• Ciprins released the complex spell he had been preparing.

The narrator used a flower spell to restrain and bind the lich, then made Damala her contracted servant. The Death Banshees joined her as well, and Damala explained that the underground palace had been built to seal a devil and demons summoned during a magical calamity.

• The narrator filled the palace with flowers, hid her aura, and bound the melee-type lich with three prepared spells.
• The narrator used her heart’s blood to form a contract with the lich, whose name became Damala Field.
• The flower spell prompted the Death Banshees to embrace the narrator and sign contracts, adding twenty-three banshees to her servants.
• The narrator asked about the ancient treasures and learned from Damala that the palace had been built by Hailianna to seal a devil and demons summoned by the Annihilation Cult.

Ciprins discovered that his new lich, Damala, had served the legendary High Priest Hailianna and that the notebook he inherited contained Hailianna’s spell notes. Meanwhile, Reynold struggled with his breakup from Ciprins and found himself on a mission alongside Ciprins and Mephistopheles.

• Ciprins learned that Damala had been Hailianna’s commander six thousand years earlier and that Hailianna had prepared an underground library for a future apprentice.
• Damala recognized Ciprins’s notebook as the item that had awakened the undead, and Ciprins realized it contained Hailianna’s spell notes.
• Reynold reflected on how much he missed his dates with Ciprins despite having accepted the breakup and tried to move on.
• Reynold agreed to accompany the Magitech Corps on a classified field mission and declined to bring his bodyguards.
• At the airship platform, Reynold unexpectedly encountered Ciprins and Mephistopheles, who ignored him once they reunited.

A jealous Council speaker watched Ciprins and Mephistopheles grow intimate, then discovered that Ciprins was the powerful dark mage known as the Flame of Fury. After Ciprins defeated the Electronic Demons, the speaker led the dead outside and caught the devil behind the attack.

• The speaker watched Mephistopheles and Ciprins show affection and grew increasingly jealous of their relationship.
• When Ciprins became uncomfortable in the mine, Mephistopheles comforted him, and the speaker realized his feelings for Mephistopheles had faded.
• Ciprins stepped forward against the monsters and revealed overwhelming power, commanding spirits and hellfire to kill the Electronic Demons.
• The speaker recognized Ciprins as the era's strongest dark mage, the Flame of Fury, and regretted having underestimated and mistreated him.
• The speaker led a crowd of dead people out of the mine and seized the devil, which loudly confessed its plan to have the banshee kill him.

Xipei returned to the Radiant Fortress with Damala and found Mel’s group trapped in a hall full of Annihilators. Mel restored the ancient magic array that slowed the machines, and Xipei ordered everyone to dismantle them.

• Damala forced the devil to open the passage, and Xipei returned to the fortress after confirming the tower’s demons were secure.
• Damala teleported Xipei to Mel’s location, where they narrowly avoided an Annihilator shell blast.
• Mel explained that Reynold had accidentally removed a staff from the array, releasing the Annihilators surrounding the group.
• Xipei recognized that the mages embedded in the walls had formed an array to trap the machines, and Mel restored it by channeling magic into the wall.
• The array slowed the Annihilators, and Xipei ordered the group to take them apart.

The group destroyed the Annihilators in the Radiant Fortress and witnessed the ancient mages briefly awaken before their bodies crumbled away. A new livestream revealed the Dragon Emperor and Five-star Slime in danger, while Reynold contacted Ms. Martha Alesia and learned of attacks elsewhere.

• Damala and the Banshee Troupe attacked the Annihilators as Reynold taught them how to dismantle the machines, while the narrator helped Mel power the magic array.
• The ancient mages awakened, and Goliath reassured them that the Temple of Light’s legacy endured before they faded back into skeletons and dust.
• The group touched the narrator’s devil and then followed Goliath as he charged into a room of cyborgs and defeated them.
• A livestream showed the masked kidnapper threatening the Dragon Emperor over a cliff and dropping a Five-star Slime from a separate cage.
• Reynold used his special phone to reach Ms. Martha Alesia, who reported an armed attack on the harbor and rising shares in military companies.

The group raced through the underground ruins to rescue the Dragon Emperor while kidnappers threatened to drop her and dragon knights approached. Damala’s banshees dug a tunnel to the surface, and Damala raised an ancient Shadow Moon Temple flag as they prepared to attack the kidnappers.

• Moli corrected the confusion between the Dragon Emperor and Dragon King, while Alessia explained that Doug had gone to the Sanctuary of Truth to regain his human form and had not been kidnapped.
• Goliath urged the group to focus on rescuing the Dragon Emperor, and Reynold learned that the kidnappers were negotiating a ransom with the Federation.
• Dragon knights appeared on the kidnappers’ livestream, fighter jets launched to intercept them, and a kidnapper reached for the mechanism that would drop the Dragon Emperor’s cage.
• Damala ordered Xipei and Madsen to stabilize a tunnel while twenty-three banshees transformed their hands into claws and dug through the mountain.
• The banshees sensed where the kidnappers had gathered and flew off to attack them, while Damala raised a six-thousand-year-old Shadow Moon Temple flag.

Xipei and the others launched an assault on the enemy forces, with Mel taking on the floating magitech fighters while Xipei led the ground attack. Goliath assigned Xipei to rescue the Dragon Emperor, and the chapter ended as Xipei’s group fought through mecha soldiers.

• Damala led the evil spirits into battle beneath the ancient Shadow Moon banner while Mel raised shadow troops to confront the floating fighters.
• Mel warned Xipei to tell him about any injuries and then flew off to fight the enemy aircraft.
• Goliath sent Reynold and Anna to gather intelligence at the ruins and tasked Xipei with rescuing the Dragon Emperor.
• Damala and Goliath fought through the enemy’s mecha soldiers as Moli gained experience in battle.
• Xipei summoned lightning against the mecha troops, while the Death Banshees’ curses frightened several pilots into fainting.

The narrator and Damala confronted the masked kidnapper and five elite mecha soldiers while trying to rescue the Dragon Emperor, Agnes. As the fight continued, Agnes recognized the narrator as Flame of Fury and began addressing her viewers.

• The narrator ordered Damala to spare the unconscious soldiers and approached Agnes's cage, where five elite mecha guards awaited.
• The narrator challenged the masked man and summoned Hellfire and skeleton soldiers with Damala.
• The mecha soldiers attacked, and the narrator used Absolute Protection while fighting back with Hellfire.
• The masked man seized Agnes's cage with his flying mecha and threatened to drop her, so the narrator extinguished flames that had caught her skirt.
• Agnes recognized the narrator as Flame of Fury, then began speaking to her viewers about being rescued by a handsome dark mage with a lich and Hellfire.

The Flame of Fury fought the Machine Zealots while the Dragon Emperor livestreamed commentary from her cage. As she fell from the sky, an enormous black dragon appeared to catch her.

• The Flame of Fury used blizzards and Spatial Stasis to hinder the mech warriors while Damala attacked them.
• The masked man threw the Dragon Emperor’s cage over a cliff, but the Flame of Fury stopped its fall with levitation.
• The Dragon Emperor filmed the flying Annihilators and mocked the Machine Zealots and their business interests, distracting the mech warriors.
• The masked man fired at the Dragon Emperor, and the Flame of Fury protected her cage but sent it plummeting through the air.
• A giant black dragon appeared beside the Flame of Fury as the Dragon Emperor fell.