Scyth attends the closed auction in Kinema. The Portal Key is sold to an unknown buyer for a hundred million gold. As soon as the auction ends, someone stops time in the auction house and teleports Scyth to the basement of an unknown castle. Alex tries everything, but realizes that he can’t escape alone. He is in magic shackles and an energy field blocks all his abilities.
Scyth’s imprisonment is the work of Eileen, leader of the dark clan Widowmakers, a member of the Alliance of Preventers. This clan is a puppet division of the Children of Kratos, financed by Joshua and Vivian Gallagher, category A citizens. Widowmakers was made to perform operations that might otherwise harm the reputation of the Gallaghers themselves.
Eileen gives a press conference in which she reveals the kidnapping of the class-A Threat.
Alex has a nightmare: he is kidnapped, all his friends are killed, and he is forced to surrender to save his parents’ lives. In his dream, Scyth goes to a designated spot: Frozen Gorge in the Gnoll Riverlands. There, certain people perform the Threat banishment ritual… and Scyth wakes up.
First Priest Yemi from Yoruba asks Apophis, the White Snake who can move wherever he pleases, to save Scyth. Apophis appears and brings Scyth out of the castle. Scyth summons his guardians and Sharkon, Underground Terror. Together, they capture the castle and sell it for forty million gold (not counting the contents of the vault) to the Goblin League, represented by goblin assessor Kusalarix, a leader of the Green League. This last organization not only controls the battles and bets in the Arena, but also runs the criminal world of all Disgardium.
Hairo, who has flown to Cali Bottom to put mental blocks on the non-citizen members of the Awoken to ensure their discretion, reports that three non-citizens from Gyula’s building crew have died. All three were undead. Several more are in critical condition; Hairo admits them to hospital using the clan’s funds.
Alex contacts Kiran Jackson. He refuses a deal, accusing Alex of failing to meet his obligations: Scyth failed to turn the cultists of Morena undead. Kiran again demands that Alex delete his character, but offers no guarantees in exchange — old agreements are no longer in force.
Alex decides to fight the Destroying Plague and Snowstorm, suspecting that the corporation was at fault for the deaths of the non-citizens who had turned undead. In addition, he records a video message, warning that every clan seen at the siege of Tiamat’s temple would lose a castle. Ian Mitchell shares the recording online, but the preventers do not take the warning seriously. The Widowmakers are banished from the Alliance.
Movarak, chief of the sewer troggs, tells Scyth the reason his tribe left Darant: due to ‘wicked, nightmarish, frightening’ Knock-Knock.
The Old Goddess of Death, Morena, summons Scyth. She is displeased that he made the members of her cult followers of the Sleepers. At that moment, the Destroying Plague appears behind the barrier where Morena hides, and pulls Scyth away to the Nucleus.
In the Nucleus’ lair, Scyth sees eight new legates. All of them, with the exception of Biancanova and Laneiran, who were turned undead by Scyth himself, had been hit by the Plague Dust thrown out after Shazz the lich died, and had agreed to change their race. The Nucleus, seeing in them the strongest of the turned sentients, has declared the newly turned players his legates. In addition, the Nucleus has removed the rank of Supreme Legate from Scyth and given it to Mogwai.
Seeing his time with the Destroying Plague at an end, Scyth jumps into the plague reservoir into which his out-of-control character once threw the Cold-Blooded Punisher set, and retrieves his lost armor.
Leaving the Nucleus’ lair, Scyth finds himself in the Stronghold of the Destroying Plague in the Lakharian Desert. There the legates from the Elites are waiting for him. They attack, but it turns out the undead cannot harm each other. Mogwai demonstrates that he can use the Call of the Supreme Legate ability to drag Scyth from and to anywhere he wishes, and so eliminate him as a Threat. However, Scyth’s pets are alive, and with their help he takes down the legates three times. He kills Mogwai by dropping him from a great height.
After his third death in one day, Mogwai is neutralized for twelve hours. In that time, Scyth plans to extract the maximum possible benefit from Destroying Plague Immortality and become human again.
At the same time, Patrick O’Grady, honorary citizen of Tristad, veteran of the Swarm War and inveterate drunk, learns with Behemoth’s help that all his memories of life in Dis are false. Patrick learns who he really is: a human and veteran of the Third World War sentenced to death for mass manslaughter, who agreed to take part in a Snowstorm experiment to transfer consciousness to the virtual world.
Rita Wood leaves the sandbox and takes a new nickname: Irita. Scyth sends her some unidentified artifacts and money to identify them. The girl lives up to his trust in her and Scyth accepts her into the clan. Irita is a professional trader, and now she has responsibility for all the clan’s commercial activities.
Scyth gets an idea: to try to reach Terrastera, where Yemi has already been once. This will be possible if Apophis, the White Snake, can be convinced to take Scyth there. Yemi promises to help, but he has grievances: Scyth lost his status as Supreme Legate; being undead is no longer a privilege; and Yoruba, for allying with the Threat, has ruined its reputation with everyone. Scyth shows his hand, telling Yemi about the Sleeping Gods and demonstrating Unity, which gives +1 to a random stat for each new follower of the Sleeping
