Volume 18

Never Be Alone is the eighteenth volume of The Promised Neverland manga series.

Synopsis
Emma and Ray waste no time and head towards the queen’s chamber to stop Norman’s plan.

But could it be too late to stop their friend from taking such a violent path? And most important, what has driven Norman to be so ruthless. Could his change in attitude jeopardize his relationship with his closest friends?

Plot
In volume eighteen of The Promised Neverland, Ray and Emma reunite with Norman but he reveals that they are too late. The entire royal family and Geelan’s clan have all been eradicated. Norman states that there is no turning back now but through a convenient reaction from Emma, Norman changes his mind. Right when they’re about to decide what to do next, the Queen revives. Zazie takes one for the team before Sonju and Mujika show up to help. We learn a little bit about Sonju’s pas here but we also discover that the Queen has two cores which is how she was able to revive herself. However, the Queen made a fatal mistake during her regeneration. She consumes all the bodies, even those who had died from the poison, to rebuild her body. Her cells were going into overdrive from the process and she, essentially, just died on her own.

With everything settled, there is one last big bad to deal with… the head of the Ratri clan. They figure that he’s heading to their base and, as usual, Norman was correct in his assumption. By the time they get back, they realize that they were too late. Peter Ratri has taken everyone there at the base to Grace Field House. After so many volumes away… it’s time to return to where it all began!

Cover and Volume Illustration
The cover shows Emma and Ray trying to rescue Norman away from his concrete surroundings.

Chapters

 * 153. Coward (臆病)
 * 154. A Breakthrough (突破口)
 * 155. Resurgence (復活)
 * 156. Let's End This (終わりにしましょう)
 * 157. The World is Mine
 * 158. The Reason I Was Born (生まれてきた意味)
 * 159. Thank You (ありがとう)
 * 160. Shackles (足枷)
 * 161. Never Be Alone

Author Notes
I hope you enjoyed volume 18. For this volume cover, I have the Japanese logo placed vertically for the first time. It was a challenge I'd never attempted before! I have various challenges for the next volume and the ones after that too.

Please Looking forward to the future The Promised Neverland volumes! By the way, people who are reading this, are you reading it in a physical book? Or in the digital version? Recently I bought the entire series of One Piece for my kindle. I can read it anytime on my phone, and it's very convenient. Physical books are good, and so are the digital versions. I often can't choose... you buy both! That's what being an adult is all about! Writer Shirai's interesting tidbits for The Promised Neverland fanatics part 6!

The most important thing to me when naming a character is how the name sounds rather than its meaning.

So when I get comments like "I never thought I'd be able to remember Legravalima, but I keep wanting to say it out loud," I feel happy.

For demon names, I try to find unfamiliar sounds as much as possible. From my brain.

Please enjoy this volume!