Chapter Summaries

The First Seat and Eighth Seat hid with Li Chen from the monster emerging from the Shiva Box, then pressed him to reveal the Forbidden Door’s location. As the monster spread through Canghai City, they set out to find the missing Ninth Seat, while a veiled woman at Evil Cult Headquarters celebrated the capture of the Child of Destiny and the descent of Meaning.

• The First Seat refused to retreat, explaining that the Evil Cult still sought the Forbidden Door and believed it could restart the world.
• A monstrous Blood Hand attacked, so the Eighth Seat concealed himself, the First Seat, and Li Chen among stones until the creature passed.
• The First Seat demanded that Li Chen reveal the Forbidden Door’s location, and Li Chen said it remained in the world but its Secret Realm had been destroyed and he could not locate it.
• The Eighth Seat tried to call the Ninth Seat to extract Li Chen’s memories, but no one answered, so the First Seat ordered them to find the missing Ninth Seat and continue through the Red Mist with Li Chen bound.
• At Evil Cult Headquarters, a veiled woman held a dark orb and declared that the Child of Destiny had been caught, My Lord would soon appear, and Meaning had descended.

As Distortion’s Domain consumed Canghai City, Su Xian’s group continued searching for Li Chen and encountered the horrors left by the assimilation. At the pass, Lao Wei spent his life force to raise fallen Sequence Users and hold back the Eerie Monsters, while Yu Qingnian doubted whether he could become a god in time to save the world.

• Su Xian explained that the released Eerie Monster, Distortion, had engulfed Canghai City in its Domain, and that he and the others continued searching for Li Chen after notifying Cang Lao.
• Yan Li warned the group of danger, and Su Xian and the Daoist Family Saint Son destroyed the assimilated bodies and flesh-covered tentacles ahead.
• At the pass, Lao Wei mourned Pao Ye and the other dead defenders as Eerie Monsters continued pouring through the widening breach.
• Lao Wei summoned the dead Sequence Users with Yin Soldiers Rise and used his remaining strength to create a barrier until reinforcements could arrive.
• Sword Elder told Yu Qingnian that the world needed a god, but Yu Qingnian questioned whether he could reach the inscrutable power before the passes fell.

The First Seat fought the Darkest Angel after the Ninth Seat was crippled, while Li Chen watched for a chance to escape. When the Eerie Monster Distortion appeared, Li Chen threatened to draw its attention to force the Eighth Seat to choose between pursuing him and facing the monster.

• The Darkest Angel said he had crippled the Ninth Seat because the Ninth Seat had crossed the line, and the First Seat demanded an explanation.
• The First Seat and the Darkest Angel clashed, while the Eighth Seat tried to keep the Ninth Seat alive and Li Chen waited for an opportunity to escape.
• Distortion emerged from the red mist, and the Eighth Seat turned away to avoid being polluted.
• Li Chen realized that his taboo mastery let him avoid the pollution and began gathering energy to attract the Eerie Monsters.
• Li Chen threatened the Eighth Seat with the energy in his palm, and the Eighth Seat recognized that Li Chen did not fear pollution but refused to let him escape.

Li Chen escaped the Eighth Seat by disguising himself with Forbidden Substance and slipping among the Eerie Monsters drawn by Distortion. As he wondered how to find Su Zhe and the others, the First Seat and the Darkest Angel discussed using the Child of Destiny to draw out the Forbidden Door, and then departed with the Eighth Seat.

• The Eighth Seat attacked Li Chen inside a stone enclosure, and Li Chen covered himself in Forbidden Substance and provoked the approaching Distortion.
• Distortion and the Eerie Monsters attacked the Eighth Seat, allowing Li Chen to conceal his human aura and escape among them.
• Li Chen stopped among collapsed buildings and wondered how to reunite with Su Zhe and the others, then considered an idea that could reveal his location.
• The First Seat asked the Darkest Angel whether the Godless Cult could activate the Child of Destiny, and the Darkest Angel confirmed that the cult master believed the Child must die to draw out the Forbidden Door.
• The First Seat and the Eighth Seat left together while the Darkest Angel flew away in another direction.

Su Xian and the others learned that Li Chen was fated to die fighting the God-Binding Cult First Seat, but Yan Li sensed that his future had changed. They set out to rescue him, accepting that changing his fate might cost more lives.

• Mu Hen sensed Li Chen's Dark Energy as Su Xian led the teams through the Red Mist, while the Imperial Capital Team joined the search.
• Yan Li used his ability and first warned that Li Chen might already be dead, then clarified that he had seen Li Chen's future death in a battle against a man with a long purple blade.
• Yan Li said Li Chen's future had shifted beneath a mass of Black Mist and pointed out where the battle would occur in one hour.
• Su Xian asked the others for help rescuing Li Chen, and the Daoist Family Saint Son, the Shi Family Saint Son, Jianping, and the others agreed to join him.
• Yan Li warned Su Xian that changing Li Chen's fated death would come at a greater price, and Su Xian led everyone onward.

Li Chen was cornered by the Sixth Seat and the Eighth Seat, then fled into the sky as the Evil Cult’s leaders discussed sacrificing him to open the Forbidden Door. Clown and the Puppeteer turned on the Seats and summoned a distortion, while Su Xian and his allies prepared to fly up and rescue Li Chen.

• The Sixth Seat confronted Li Chen and revealed that the Evil Cult planned to sacrifice him, and the Eighth Seat arrived and struck him hard.
• Li Chen shot into the sky to escape the Eighth Seat, while the Sixth Seat questioned whether killing the Child of Destiny would truly open the Forbidden Door.
• The Puppeteer sent a crowd of corpses toward the Seats, and the Eighth Seat destroyed a dead Clown before the real Clown declared his ambition to seize power.
• Clown and the Puppeteer made the corpses explode, drawing a distortion into the Red Mist, and Clown challenged the Eighth Seat to face it.
• Su Xian and his group reached the area, and the Daoist Family Saint Son gave them flying pieces so the fighters could go up and rescue Li Chen.

Li Chen fought the First Seat while keeping Su Zhe, Su Xian, Jianping, and the others out of danger. The Darkest Angel then struck Li Chen through the chest, declaring that his death should open the Forbidden Door and awaken his god.

• The First Seat overwhelmed Li Chen’s defenses and injured him, while Li Chen’s Forbidden Substance repaired his body and worsened the whispers in his mind.
• Su Zhe, Su Xian, Jianping, and others emerged from the Red Mist to help, but Li Chen forced them back behind a barrier.
• The First Seat attacked the barrier to threaten Li Chen’s companions, and Li Chen decided to protect them as family by darkening the barrier and hiding them from view.
• Li Chen fought the First Seat with Ink, but the First Seat saw openings in his Sword Dao and wounded him repeatedly.
• The First Seat hesitated to kill Li Chen because he did not know whether the Forbidden Door would appear, but the Darkest Angel suddenly pierced Li Chen’s chest with a black halberd.
• The Darkest Angel told Li Chen that the Forbidden Door should now open and called for his god to awaken.

After Li Chen gave up in the Forbidden Door, a godly figure took control of his body and revived him outside. Li Chen returned on the Shattered Throne with overwhelming power, but said he could hold it for only a few minutes.

• Li Chen drifted through a black door into the Forbidden Door and said he had failed and should already be dead.
• A strange voice tried to take Li Chen’s body, but an indifferent voice silenced it and urged him to look at the world.
• A white figure merged with Li Chen and took control of his body, teaching him how to use the Forbidden.
• As Black Mist poured from Li Chen’s body above Canghai City, Su Xian stopped Su Zhe from approaching, believing Li Chen might still live.
• Li Chen rose into the air as his wound healed, his eyes and mask turned white, and the Shattered Throne emerged.
• Li Chen sat on the Shattered Throne and said he had missed wielding this power, though he could keep it for only a few minutes.

Li Chen used the throne’s power of rules to repel the Eerie Tide, drain Forbidden Substance from the monsters, and enslave Distortion before collapsing from exhaustion. A year later, he remained unconscious in a sealed room in Sinful City while the staff monitored him as a highly watched anomaly.

• Li Chen used Rule Lockdown, Rule Bestowal, and Rule Erasure to drive away the mists and the Eerie Tide across Canghai City and Canghai Pass.
• Li Chen summoned pillars that absorbed Forbidden Substance from nearby Eerie Monsters, then bound Distortion and erased its mind before sending it through a dark door.
• The First Seat and the Darkest Angel fled as their bodies turned partly to sand, while Li Chen’s throne dissipated and he fell unconscious.
• Su Zhe, Su Xian, and Jianping shielded Li Chen as the Evil Cult and other Sequence Users fought to seize him, and Cang Lao joined the chaotic battle.
• One year later, staff in Sinful City monitored the still-unconscious Li Chen, while Sister Jiaojiao warned Weiyang that he was no ordinary man.
• Sister Jiaojiao reviewed Li Chen’s report, which listed his Vector Manipulation ability, SS containment level, D danger level, and the codename Child of Destiny.

After waking from a year-long coma, Li Chen learned he was an SS-rank criminal serving time in the City of Sin. Deputy warden Qin Jiao freed him from the medical equipment and prepared to introduce him to his new life.

• Li Chen woke in a medical bed after another collapse, and Weiyang treated him when his condition worsened.
• Qin Jiao arrived and revealed that Li Chen had absorbed the energy of three Withered Sea Realm Sequence Users and was classified as an SS-rank criminal and test subject.
• Li Chen learned that a year had passed and that Canghai City’s events at Canghai Pass had occurred a year earlier.
• Qin Jiao told Li Chen he was in the City of Sin beneath Sinful Pass, had about a year left on his sentence, and was forbidden to use his abilities, fight, or escape.
• Qin Jiao identified herself as the City of Sin’s deputy warden, released Li Chen from the equipment, and told him to come with her.

Li Chen woke in the City of Sin and learned he was expected to stay there for a year under Weiyang’s watch, while Qin Jiao warned him not to leave. Qin Jiao and Qin Qiong then argued over the danger Li Chen posed and the cost of keeping him in the city, leaving their family conflict unresolved.

• Qin Jiao gave Li Chen a registered phone and told him to remain in the City of Sin for a year because someone outside did not want him to leave.
• Qin Jiao assigned Weiyang to guide Li Chen and stay with him for one hundred Merit a day, and Weiyang took him to find lodging.
• Qin Jiao reflected that Li Chen was a harbinger of calamity and feared the Evil Cult would turn the City of Sin into another Canghai Pass.
• Qin Qiong confronted Qin Jiao about keeping Li Chen in the city, warning that the Evil Cult had already begun noticing him and that the decision would hurt the Qin Family’s interests.
• Qin Jiao insisted the family’s dealings would pause for the year and threatened Qin Qiong, who called her a puppet of the family.

Li Chen accompanied Weiyang through the City of Sin and learned that its apparent order concealed a harsh hierarchy where the weak were insulted with impunity. After Li Chen cut off a man’s arm for slandering them, Weiyang led him to the Strange Pavilion’s second floor to handle his paperwork.

• Weiyang brought Li Chen through the snowy City of Sin, where he wondered why he had been imprisoned and whether it was meant to protect him.
• At the Strange Pavilion, a man mocked Weiyang and insulted Li Chen, but Weiyang said the weak had no right to talk back.
• Li Chen unleashed his aura, judged the crowd weak, and used a black blade to sever the mocker’s arm.
• Li Chen and Weiyang went upstairs, where a fox-faced woman welcomed them and Weiyang said she had come to help Li Chen with paperwork, not to go to the Tower of Sin.

Li Chen learned from Weiyang about the deadly Tower of Sin, the drug trade and corruption in Sinful City, and how she had grown up there. After registering Li Chen and taking him to his residence, Weiyang explained that escaping might require conquering all fifty floors of the tower, while the outside world remained dangerous after Canghai Pass was breached.

• A woman tried to lure Li Chen into the Tower of Sin, but Weiyang confronted her and drove her away.
• Weiyang told Li Chen that the tower’s floor masters made it a deadly way to earn Merit, and that drug addiction pushed desperate people to challenge it.
• Weiyang revealed that she had been born in Sinful City and hoped to leave once she awakened.
• Weiyang paid ten Merit to register Li Chen, gave him an identity card, and showed him his apartment in duplex building 10086.
• Li Chen asked how to leave Sinful City, and Weiyang said the pass master at the tower’s top floor could grant passage after someone occupied it for a day.
• Weiyang told Li Chen that Canghai Pass had been breached by the Evil Cult and remained unrepaired, leaving the outside world unsafe.

Li Chen weighed whether to risk escaping Sinful City, then accepted that he needed to focus on surviving there. Qin Jiao assigned him and Weiyang to the dangerous Seven Sins squad, leaving them with no choice but to hunt wanted criminals.

• Li Chen decided to postpone trying to escape and covered the sleeping Weiyang with a blanket.
• Li Chen learned that Weiyang had been saving her daily Merit for the Awakening Ceremony while living on cheap flatbreads.
• Li Chen opened Qin Jiao's phone and found the Sin app, which showed his Merit at zero and offered no way to contact the outside world.
• Li Chen and Weiyang visited Qin Jiao, who gave him a Seven Sins contract and explained that the squad arrested wanted criminals.
• Qin Jiao assigned Weiyang to the Seven Sins as well and told her to get scout armor from Qin Mu.

Li Chen agreed to join Seven Sins and compete for the vacant Greed Throne, while Qin Jiao backed his bid to reshape the City of Sin. After deciding he needed the throne by any means necessary, he asked Qin Jiao for information about drug-trading locations.

• Qin Jiao explained that Seven Sins was the shadow force of the City of Sin and offered Li Chen authority in exchange for competing for the Greed Throne.
• Li Chen accepted Qin Jiao's offer, requesting information on Seven Sins and a thousand Merit.
• Li Chen learned that the former holder of the Greed Throne had died in a riot and that rival factions controlled the weakened Greed faction.
• Weiyang offered Li Chen candy, prompting him to connect it with drugs and ask Qin Jiao for information on drug-trading locations.
• Li Chen vowed to seize the Greed Throne by any means necessary, while Qin Jiao planned to stir up the City of Sin and put Seven Sins in order.

Weiyang received the Chijie Armor from Qin Xuan, while Li Chen studied the City of Sin’s factions and considered using medicine to build support for claiming the Greed Throne. A call from Mu Hen’s father revealed that the Mu Family had lived in the City of Sin for generations, but he refused to help Li Chen escape and told him he would have to fight his way out.

• Qin Xuan delivered the Chijie Armor to Weiyang and told her to learn how to use it before leaving.
• Li Chen read Qin Jiao’s documents and learned that the Seven Sins controlled most medicine and that challenging them would put him against the other six throne holders.
• Li Chen concluded that he needed manpower, strength, and information, and considered cutting off medicine channels to gain leverage and followers.
• An unfamiliar caller identified himself as Mu Hen’s father and said he had watched Li Chen’s Academy Tournament match.
• Li Chen asked Mu Hen’s father for help getting out of the City of Sin, but the man refused and told him to fight his way out himself.

Li Chen agreed to pursue the Greed Throne after learning the pass lord had arranged his path and that every Authority Holder would become his enemy. At the Sin Tavern, he and Mu Hen’s father agreed to target the Lust Throne’s drug supply, with the man taking seventy percent of anything they seized.

• The middle-aged man told Li Chen that the pass lord had arranged events in the City of Sin and wanted Li Chen to claim the Greed Throne.
• Li Chen decided to pursue the throne to build a force strong enough to oppose the Evil Cult, despite the danger of facing all the Seven Sins Authority Holders.
• The middle-aged man invited Li Chen to the Sin Tavern to discuss how he would help.
• Li Chen proposed targeting the Lust Throne’s nightclubs by cutting off their outside drug supply.
• Li Chen offered the middle-aged man seventy percent of any supply they seized, and the man agreed.

Li Chen tried on Uncle Mu’s Miniature Armor and learned that his Vector Manipulation could replenish its rapidly draining energy. Uncle Mu then outlined the threat posed by the Lust Throne and assigned Li Chen to intercept its shipment that night while he tested its authority holder.

• Li Chen followed Uncle Mu to a warehouse, where Uncle Mu showed him five Miniature Armor rings.
• Li Chen activated a ring, donned the armor, and used his Vector Manipulation to refill its energy reserve.
• Uncle Mu took Li Chen to his underground laboratory, showed him preserved Eerie Monster specimens, and brought up a map of the City of Sin.
• Uncle Mu explained that the Lust Throne’s authority holder could control emotions and had a powerful Calamity Realm bodyguard named Green Ghost.
• Uncle Mu suspected the Lust authority holder was a decoy and said he would test him that night.
• Uncle Mu ordered Li Chen to intercept the Lust Throne’s shipment without revealing his identity and to leave no one alive.

Li Chen began Uncle Mu’s plan to disrupt Lust’s drug trades and seize an opening in the City of Sin. He raided the first trade site, killed everyone present, and moved on to the second location.

• Uncle Mu gave Li Chen an Anti-Heavenly Eye Bracelet and warned him that the Seven Sins and their enforcers could track him after a killing.
• After Li Chen left, Uncle Mu spoke with an unnamed person watching the pass, then planned to visit Wrath and catch old Lust off guard.
• Li Chen watched the first of Lust’s five trade locations and prepared to complete the operation in under ten minutes.
• At the trade, an effeminate dealer exchanged drugs for three suits of Chijie Armor with several armed men.
• Li Chen used blood control to make the traders’ hearts explode, sent the goods to Weiyang, and destroyed the bodies with Forbidden Substance before heading to the next site.

Li Chen ambushed a shipment of medicine and Chijie armor, killing the people involved and taking the goods without revealing his identity. Uncle Mu collected the shipment and told Li Chen to lie low before ambushing Wrath's shipment next.

• Li Chen used his Vector Domain to stop the gunfire, kill the men in the cargo hold, and trap the black-clad man carrying the goods.
• The masked man attacked Li Chen, but Li Chen froze him with Energy erasure and Energy blockade before killing the fleeing black-clad man.
• Li Chen and Weiyang returned to the apartment with twenty boxes of medicine and forty sets of Chijie armor.
• Li Chen explained that he planned to keep the medicine out of sight and use the theft to throw the factions into chaos while he remained hidden.
• Uncle Mu took the goods into the darkness and told Li Chen to lie low before ambushing Wrath's shipment.
• Li Chen watched the snow fall and considered that the war for the throne had only just begun.