Arknights's ultimate 'match' event. The stage is the great nation of the Far East that the True Dragon has ruled for a thousand years — Yan.

The story opens as Ch'en, an Infected former Lungmen Guard Department superintendent, infiltrates the capital Baizhao in pursuit of her uncle Wei Yanwu, who vanished without a word.

But really, this is the story of a fool who's been playing the same game of Go for a thousand years — to bring his dead sister back, and in the end, to remain himself — using the whole land as his board.

When Ch'en was a child, her sister Tallu once told her, "Hurry and grow up. Once you're an adult, you'll be able to change everything." That one line comes back around a thousand years later, right at the very end.

1. A ghost army appears in Baizhao (and it's made of 'characters,' no less)

From the very first scene, Ch'en and her uncle clash sharply at an inn. Wei Yanwu tells her to go back; Ch'en insists on finding out for herself.

That night, Yan's Grand Tutor visits Wei Yanwu and leaves him with a loaded remark: "Your brother is the True Dragon, Yan's True Dragon" — meaning the current monarch is Wei Yanwu's own younger brother. And a warning besides: "Keep a trump card in reserve."

No sooner is it said than Wei Yanwu vanishes without a trace.

Meanwhile, as evacuations begin in Baizhao, ghostly soldiers appear out of nowhere — no sound, not even a drumbeat.

The Imperial Guard calls these things Wraith-Craft — a Beast breathing life into the lifeless. It comes out that the source, of all things, is a single sword sealed atop the Tianjing Pavilion.

For Ch'en, this chaos feels far too personal. Historian Jin Xiaotian at the Tianjing Pavilion reads her ID card the Yan way — "Jin Huijie." Only here does Ch'en learn that she is the daughter of the vanished Princess of Yan, and blood of the True Dragon. "I thought I was alone," she murmurs.

2. Five hundred years ago, a fool bets his life on a board of Go

Here's where the real protagonist appears. The second-born of the Twelve, born from Sui's shattered consciousness — the Go master, Wang.

The Twelve are fragments of a monster, yet each of them searches the human world for their own answer to "who am I," and lives as themselves. That's exactly what sets them apart from Sui.

Chongyue (Shuo) is still clumsy in a human body — clumsy enough that, quarreling with Wang, he once slammed Wang's Go board hard enough to crack it. The eldest brother always scolds Wang for it, but never once leaves his side.

The fifth sibling Jie is the one who guards history. With her knife, the Scribe's Blade, infused with her own power, she can even erase the very character for "Sui" wherever it has seeped into the world.

Wang takes the Scribe's Blade and dives into Sui's dream, carving away the character "Sui" one stroke at a time. Amid pain like a natural disaster, he erases 1,393 of them... and in the end, his body shatters, leaving behind only three black stones.

That was Wang's first defeat, 120 years ago. And without bending an inch, he declares, "I will keep playing this match."

But as he pulls free of the dream that time, Wang unknowingly drags one Go stone out along with him. That stone would later become 'the One Who Took White' — a puppet wearing Wang's face, that spends centuries turning the siblings against the people, and eventually drives him back to the mausoleum.

3. So Jie decides to disappear, in her brother's place

Jie was someone who would never distort history under anyone's pressure. Even when officials begged her to undercount the casualties, she refuses flatly.

History isn't written by any one person's word — it's recorded in the unspoken words of countless ordinary people.

— Jie

The problem was Jie herself. The deeper history grew, the more her power kept expanding without end — until someday, she was fated to become something more terrifying than Sui itself.

Jie's Fourth-Order agent, Chun, pushed by Yan's will, lies to her. When Jie asks, "How did it feel when Mother died?" Chun answers that it was nothing much, that she got over it quickly.

In truth, it felt like my heart was being torn apart.

— Chun (inner thought)

That lie pushes Jie toward believing that "the death of family is something bearable." Jie, knowing full well what's really in Chun's heart, quietly says, "You truly are a responsible agent."

Jie entrusts the Scribe's Blade to Jun, her fairest older sister, and walks alone into the darkness in the dying Wang's place.

4. That little doll's true identity — it was Jie

Back to the present. The Token Zuo Le brought back from the Vigil Garden wasn't the old jade token — it was some small doll instead.

Zuo Le, the thief girl Mo Yi, and Ch'en chase this doll and each other in circles, until finally its identity is revealed. Wang had scooped out part of Sui's arrogant imagination inside the Vigil Garden, left only the shell, and filled it with his siblings' memories to make a Wraith — Jie's last breath.

Chun breaks down in front of it, unable to bring herself to destroy it.

And Jun hands over the Scribe's Blade, kept for a hundred years, to Ch'en.

Because Yan's history has to be written by Yan's own people.

— Jun

5. The Grand Marshal's plan: rewrite history to kill a man

Beneath Baizhao lies the first Originium, keeping Sui in check — the Unreturning. Each successive True Dragon can only wield that power at the cost of their own life.

The Unreturning. It never comes back.

— the former True Dragon

But the hardline war hawk, the Grand Marshal, makes a chilling move. If he uses the Scribe's Blade to rewrite history so that Wei Yanwu becomes 'the reigning True Dragon,' he can pass the sacrificial burden onto him — exploiting the loophole that the sacrifice need not be the current True Dragon.

Learning of this, Wei Yanwu tries to offer himself as the sacrifice, and Ch'en blocks him with her sword.

Ch'en's answer was this:

An apology from the dead means nothing. If there's someone you want to apologize to, you have to meet them alive.

— Ch'en

Ch'en wins, proving there's an option that saves everyone without sacrifice, and Wei Yanwu names this new swordsmanship after her — Cheonwi.

Meanwhile at Yumen, Zuo Le's father, General Zuo Xianliao, flatly refuses the Grand Marshal's order for an unauthorized war. "I may be just a soldier, but I am also the Marquis of Pingsong of Yan — I cannot obey an order this absurd." Zuo Le, beside his father, throws his whole body in front of a cannon aimed wrongly.

6. At last, the whole family is together

For Wang's final match, the twelve siblings, scattered and living apart, gather in one place for the very first time.

Nian sweeps away Wraiths with fireworks, the youngest sibling Yu cooks rice, the shy merchant sibling Zhi quietly lends a hand, and the healer sibling Fang talks the rampaging Beast down and sends it home.

In the river, the eldest sister Ling recites poetry while the second sibling Jun plays music, weaving together a dream that lulls Sui into a long sleep.

Ch'en points the Scribe's Blade straight at the sky, reviving the memory of the Great Hunt in the approaching fortress of Yumen. "The sword of Cheonwi — when it's time to shine a light, shine it."

7. Wang kills Sui, and becomes Sui

Meanwhile, in the deepest part of Sui's dream, Wang plays his final match. First, he takes on that old bane, 'the One Who Took White.'

Wang splits himself into 181 pieces, scattering his puppet in every direction — proving that the more Sui, badly wounded, pours its mind into endless nightmares, the weaker it makes itself.

Sui is a god that sees through all time from creation to the end, yet has never once had a single kindred spirit to speak with. Wang digs into exactly that, with the full weight of his own desolation.

Do you really think a man who's already lost everything he can lose has anything left to fear?

— Wang

Chongyue tells him, "Come back alive," and Wang answers, "I won't promise anything."

And Wang scrubs clean Sui's empty consciousness, and takes over its body in its place. Sui dies, and a new 'Sui' is born.

Whatever fills you now will be far more terrifying than you ever were.

— Wang

8. The final shape of vengeance

The problem now is another Beast, Ya — a being awakened solely by a thousand years of obsession with taking revenge on Sui.

But by the time it arrives, Sui is already dead. The target of its revenge has vanished entirely.

So Ya leaves behind the ultimate revenge instead. It cuts out the Originium Yan used to keep Sui suppressed, and drives it deep into Wang's own body. "Pay for Sui's sins yourself, across an eternity of time," it tells him.

Wang avoids both taking the True Dragon's life and his own annihilation — and in the end, calculates out the single move that has him carry an eternity of suffering all on his own.

Go master, you've won this match.

— the Old Angel

The True Dragon Yan Li, about to take his own life, is rescued from the collapsing chamber by his brother Wei Yanwu's own hands.

Epilogue — A Record Without Gaps

Once the great upheaval ends, the twelve siblings gather at Yu's Kitchenette for a meal. But at that table, Wang and Jie's seats are still empty.

The note the sleepyhead Dusk left behind reads: "Don't wake me until brother Wang comes back."

Twelve siblings who've lived a thousand years, and yet never once, in all that time, sat down together to share a meal. A quiet grief, one that lingers a long while.

You're the only one with nothing to be ashamed of before Yan. ...Now, you can finally set it down.

— Yan Wu

Ch'en uses the Scribe's Blade she inherited only to fix the plain errors in the Jin Xiaotian family's history, and deliberately chooses to leave one unsolved case exactly as it is. Together with her relative, historian Jin Xiaotian, she chooses to leave the unsolved case as it stands — to break free from a cradle that always hands you the right answer.

And at Tianjing Pavilion, Ch'en meets a young girl, the next True Dragon. She tells the child not to learn only "responsibility" — that she has the right to love everyone.

In truth, the True Dragon Yan Li's real dream was to complete Yan's gazetteer at Tianjing Pavilion — the one earlier scholars never finished — and spend his whole life among forty million volumes of books. A thousand years of power loaded onto a single person had stolen away even that modest dream.

And now, over the matter of Originium, an envoy from Rhodes Island comes knocking at Yan's gate. Just as a thousand years of grudges finally end, another story is about to begin.

The last words Ch'en offers in parting are the very same ones Tallu once said to her, a thousand years ago.

Once you grow up, you might be able to change something. So... hurry and grow up.

— Ch'en

The ancient Beasts Jishou and Housou carry Ya's remaining breath out of Yan — quietly gathering up a thousand years of grudge and taking it from this land at last.

Chongyue still wanders the whole land searching for Wang, believing, "If Wang left any trace outside the board, it must be somewhere in this world." "The next time Wang needs help," he says, "I won't ever leave him alone again."

In some rural village, a boy losing a game of Go for stakes hears a voice from nowhere, out of no one.

4-7, shoulder hit.

— ???

With that single move, the boy turns the whole game around. At his collar, a black jade talisman glows quietly.

A Go master who's lived a thousand years is still out there somewhere, playing his moves, chasing the one thread of hope that might bring his dead sister back. Just as she once told him to hurry and grow up — hoping that someday, he really will be able to change everything.