Book 2 opens with Hail still in the lobby. After saying an emotional farewell to the shade of his grandfather, he returns to the world, where he learns a number of troubling facts. Many of the players who were involved in his defeat during his time as a worldboss have been branded with [Mark of Sin], and assassins have killed several claimants to the vacant throne. Some pressure is placed upon him to challenge the ruling that he is a bastard and claim the throne himself, which he immediately rejects by having members of his guild publicly cry out that he renounces any claim to the throne. However, those players are arrested by the city guard, along with other messengers that he sent to various nobles. He believes this to be a power play by one of his surviving uncles, Storm, and pays the duke a visit.
The confrontation with Storm does not go well, with Hail all but calling the man a fratricide, and Storm kicking Hail and companions out of his mansion. On the way out, however, they are attacked by an assassin. Tarisha and a new friend, Corinth, save Hail’s life, but he is launched through a portal into a zone where he is unable to fast travel. He finds an abandoned temple of Thedum, and inside a monk. After an encounter with the Adversary, the god of evil, the monk is revealed to be Hail’s great uncle Auroras, who wears the mantle of the Gray Man, an avatar of Death.
Auroras keeps Hail for several days, teaching him new abilities before giving him a horse, which Hail names Shadow, and sending him on his way. As a parting gift, however, Auroras applies a curse on Hail which triples his experience gained, but upon death will reset him to level one. Outraged but unable to do anything about it, Hail rides through another portal, which brings him to North Shire, one of the lands given to him by King Rain before his death.
While riding through North Shire to reunite with his Traveler friends, Hail encounters bandits twice. Outraged that his lands are infested with bandits, when he arrives in town he promptly fires all of the constabulary and sends a message to the capital requesting aid from the inquisition. He speaks with the locals and discovers evidence of corruption, so he fires the steward who had been administering the lands as well.
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He visits the previous lord of North Shire’s home and finds that it is derelict, but Thomas the administrator greets him inside and shows him a throne, which unlocks a number of new abilities and options which Hail did not possess before. This allows Hail to create a faction, an act which resonates far into the world. After experimenting with the throne for a while, Hail attempts to leave the mansion, only to be once more cornered by the bandits. Outnumbered, he attempts to use an ability to summon aid, only for it to backfire. Desperate, he sacrifices one of the dungeon cores he gained from clearing Zhesa Castle to create a Battleground. Hail survives and the bandits are driven off by the forces he summoned, but the mansion is mostly destroyed.
He continues to explore the abilities he is able to access through the throne and discovers the ability to make his Traveler friends canon. He appoints Tarisha as captain of his guard and several others to other positions. After creating and issuing many quests, Hail realizes that it will take the Travelers assisting him time in order to accomplish his objectives, so he decides that it is time to visit his mother.
His mother is several months pregnant at the time and under the guard of Malkios, the former captain of the King’s Guard, and her husband Valerio, Hail’s step-father. The topic of dungeon cores comes up, and Hail admits to his unique ability to bring Travelers into the core instance of dungeons to gather them. This prompts Valerio to suggest that Hail bust a dungeon on his property and gather the cores within.
Hail agrees, and successfully conquers the dungeon. Upon his return to report his success, he is toasted by Valerio, only to discover that both of their glasses contain poison. While Hail used [Detect Poison] before drinking his, Valerio consumed what they all believed to be a fatal dose. Frightened that the man is about to die, Hail makes a pact with Eclipse, the goddess of shadow and trickery, to save his life. In exchange he is expected to grant her a favor in the future.
Hail returns to his lands. While he is administering them, his father, Gideon Lachlann, comes online for the first time since the events of book 1 and requests to speak to Hail. Hail is conflicted about his relationship with his father, but agrees to meet the man on neutral ground. Gideon presents Hail with a unique flying mount and says farewell, as legal trouble stemming from the events of book 1 are preventing him from playing the Gates of TirNiki.
The book concludes with Hail inspecting the goblin caves which reside in Thorn March, where he discovers one of the lost gates of TirNiki, and obtains an Origin Point which allows him to unlock the goblin Race for Travelers to play. He does so without thinking the consequences through. Afterward, he becomes exhausted and returns to the lobby.