The Fourth Secret

(These summaries have been taken from the author's website with permission]

# The Fourth Secret - Summary

The god Izac sends his Champion Jagen to the Infernal Realm because Izac believes the Infernal god Lalquinrial helped Jagen, along with four Champions of Uru, escape the Spirit Realm. Izac believes this because the Scarecrow Aspect was seen with Jagen and the other Champions, and the Scarecrow is one of Lalquinrial’s greatest warriors.

Ruwen discusses with Blapy the choices Fractal has to focus as a dungeon. Ruwen and Fractal decide to have the dungeon focus be Resources. This means the loot and levels will contain rare Resources, and eventually Fractal will be able to generate Essence for Cultivators. Ruwen also gives Fractal permission to expand and provides Blapy with additional space for her creatures to live. The new name of the dungeon is the Shattered Sun.

Ruwen had died to accept the Architect Role and this had reset his Root Class. With the imminent invasion, he researches different Fighter builds to see if any might help him defend the southern border. He chooses Fighter for a base Class, Commander for a Sub-Class, and Warlord for a Specialization.

The team learns that Shelly, the small turtle Sift saved from the Plague Siren’s lair, is actually an Elder Star Tortoise and can become very large. Sift gets Shelly to transform and they ride inside her shell to a nearby oil lake.

As Ruwen travels to the oil, he uses a Divine Fortification form he learned from the Cultivation book he found on his first trip to Blapy. With this advanced form he is able to increase his Fortification level throughout his whole body from Silver to Gold.

While retrieving oil, Ruwen discovers an underground Naktos temple. Naktos and the sea god Haffa, were currently marching northward, and Ruwen figures this location is an emergency fallback revival point. He destroys the underground temple and the revival baths there.

As Ruwen returns to New Eiru, he stops in the Cultivator camp that has been displaced by the invading armies. Ruwen offers them a permanent home near New Eiru in exchange for their help with the war.

Ruwen returns to the Black Pyramid and advances his Ink Lord quest by investing large sums of money into people and books. Before he can leave, Padda and Madda find Ruwen and tell him he must use a soul stone to travel to the Founders planet where he will be judged. If he fails, he will lose all his Bamboo and Viper Step knowledge.

On the Founders planet Ruwen learns he must reach the top of a mountain to pass the trial. As he starts, he meets an old man, Pine, who is looking for his grandson, and Ruwen decides to help. He also finds a young woman, named Echo, who is bound in trap. After he frees her, she writes her name in blood on his wrist, and vows to repay the debt. Eventually Ruwen reaches the peak, where he finds the old mans grandson. With great effort, Ruwen gets the boy to safety, and barely reaches the summit himself.

Ruwen meets the Shadow Step Grandmaster, Dusk, on the summit, and she agrees to train him in the Shadow Steps if he can find his soul, and complete the Master’s Trial successfully.

Ruwen returns to New Eiru as the six town elders are finishing their revival. He wants there help in organizing a defense of the southern border. They are more interested in fighting with each other than listening to Ruwen, so he kills them all using his Architect Role. After he revives them again, they listen to him.

During the time Ruwen was away, Hamma discovers the man she thought was her dad, Niall, denies having a family. Ruwen uses his access to the temple to confirm Niall is Hamma’s dad, and is confused on why the man would lie.

Ruwen learns his parents actually killed their party and stole the terium shipment, devastating him and his long-held belief of their innocence. His parents try and explain they did it under Uru’s orders as the terium is necessary for the revival of all the people queued up in the temple to be revived.

With the Elders help, Ruwen devises a plan to defend the city. On a scouting mission with his team, Ruwen discovers an underground chamber, and in the ensuing battle, cuts off the arm of an attacker with two Void Bands. He takes the Void Band and discovers a sculpture so beautiful it provides a buff just by viewing it. To his disappointment, he is unable to use his Void Band and the captured one at the same time.

As the Naktos army closes in on New Eiru, Ruwen and his team go out with part of their army to face them. During the battle, they face an elite squad of five that are all level 80+. In order to save them, Hamma uses the most powerful prayer from her Prayer Book, and turns Ruwen into a god for sixty seconds. The cost of the spell is her own life and Hamma dies as Ruwen destroys the elite squad.

As they take their army back to the city, Ruwen sees the temple disappear, as if it dropped into a hole. He learns the battle he fought was a distraction and the main enemy army had tunneled up from underground.

The enemy easily takes over New Eiru, locking Ruwen and his army outside. Worse, the temple is under attack and if it is breached, everyone in queue to revive will be lost forever. Over seven hundred thousand people, including Hamma.

Running out of time, Ruwen devises a plan to retake the city using concentrated light to cut through the gate and quickly destroy the enemy. With the help of the Cultivator leaders, they retake the city.

But even if they retake the city it won’t matter, as the temple has sunk into a two-thousand-foot water filled shaft and is under attack. Ruwen swims down to the temple and notices the creatures attacking the temple are from the Infernal Realm.

With no time to spare, Ruwen creates a gigantic fireball at the base of the temple. The resulting steam shoots the temple out of the shaft, saving it.

The concentrated light weapons devastate the invading army and they retreat, and Hamma, to Ruwen great relief, is revived.

As they recover from the battle, Ky arrives and tells them Lylan’s brother has run out of time and must be saved within the month. And that the only way into the city is to participate in the yearly Step Championship as cover.

Naktos meets with Echo, and she learns that the person she owes a blood debt too, is the same person that destroyed her father’s lucrative mining operation with Naktos. Now she is sworn to kill the person she can’t harm.