Chapter Summaries

The chapter reveals how Kintada Masaru’s devotion to atoning for his father’s crimes led him to bring his daughter to a police station where the bureau chief abused and killed her, then forced Masaru to eat her remains. In the present, Zhang Chen battles the Young Girl and her mouth-shaped monster, but the monster transforms into a grown woman who devours Zhang Chen’s right arm.

• Kintada Masaru moved to Huaxia Country with his young daughter and brought her to work at the Yuelu Branch Bureau after failing to find childcare.
• Kintada Masaru discovered that the bureau chief had been abusing his daughter, tried to kill him, and was shot, chained up, and imprisoned in the women’s restroom.
• After his daughter died, the bureau chief tricked Kintada Masaru into eating meat soup made from her, and Masaru died in despair.
• Zhang Chen escaped the police station with Wang Yizhi and Xiang Yun and led the Young Girl and her mouth-shaped monster to the stadium.
• Zhang Chen restrained the monster and tore out its nine tongues, but the Young Girl urged it to swallow her and devour itself in reverse.
• The monster became a small mouth that resisted Zhang Chen, bit off his right arm, and released a grown woman who resembled the Young Girl.

Zhang Chen defeated and devoured the woman who attacked him, then escaped the strange space with Wang Yizhi and Xiang Yun in a taxi driven by a mysterious local. Elsewhere, Lian Yuxin pursued clues about USO-003 while Huang Ce watched the school, where a strange group soon appeared.

• The woman used spatial attacks and self-devouring to ambush Zhang Chen, tearing out his spine and swallowing his legs before he transformed and subdued her.
• Zhang Chen devoured the woman, gained 7% satiety and 3% Soul Stone compatibility, and led Wang Yizhi and Xiang Yun away as the white mist dispersed.
• Unable to open a passage back to reality, Zhang Chen returned to the publishing house and accepted a ride from the young taxi driver, who transported them to a busy street near the hotel.
• The taxi driver said Changsha's hidden danger was clever and urged Zhang Chen to work harder before driving off.
• Near Xinxi Primary School, Lian Yuxin inferred that consecrated talisman papers could suppress yin energy in zombies and left to search paper merchants and Taoist sites for USO-003.
• Huang Ce watched the school and touched his pistol, then noticed a large group of strange people gathering at its entrance less than five minutes after Lian Yuxin left.

Huang Ce discovered that a cult was preparing a Great Yin Formation at Xinxi Primary School, but chose to let it activate in hopes of drawing out USO-003 and advancing himself. Meanwhile, Lian Yuxin pulled Zhang Chen away from his companions to discuss compatibility, leaving him with questions about jailers’ true forms.

• Principal Luo Hongxu welcomed Chairman Hua’s rushed fundraising event, while the chairman’s workers secretly prepared an evil formation at the school.
• Huang Ce recognized the cult’s Great Yin Formation and the Miasma Body Dead Infant at its center, and considered whether the cult was targeting the Hammer Killer.
• Huang Ce decided not to alert Fei Bai or stop the formation, hoping to use the coming battle to grow stronger.
• The school gate was shut, the old guard was killed, and dark clouds gathered as the Great Yin Formation activated around the gathered children.
• Little Nirvana arrived at the hotel, where Zhang Chen explained her identity to Xiang Yun and reassured her that the hotel was protected.
• Lian Yuxin took Zhang Chen away and questioned why he was not investigating the cult; she explained that compatibility mattered to jailers’ true forms.

Zhang Chen learned from Lian Yuxin how Main Soul restrictions and fusion worked, then reflected on the danger of being forced to fight his Main Soul. At Xinxi Primary School, Chairman Hua unleashed a deadly formation that consumed teachers and students while Huang Ce watched without intervening.

• Zhang Chen and Lian Yuxin planted informants in the city's paper mills to detect large joss-paper orders before the church's move.
• Lian Yuxin explained that Jailer Ministers' Main Souls were restricted until they reached the Jailer Minister rank, and that compatibility affected their ability to fuse with their Main Souls.
• Lian Yuxin revealed that Chong Ying had 82% Main Soul compatibility and said Fei Bai was teaching and recruiting her.
• Zhang Chen recalled the Ghoul King's plan to make him fight his son and resolved to grow stronger before the Main Soul's restrictions lifted.
• Chairman Hua's swollen stomach opened and swallowed Principal Luo as a black formation trapped Xinxi Primary School's teachers and students.
• The formation decayed and consumed fleeing victims while Huang Ce watched from a rooftop and held back from intervening; the buried dead infant crawled out of the ground.

Liang Xue and USO-003 revealed their plan to release the powerful being sealed beneath Xinxi Primary School, while the chapter recounted Tian Hua’s murderous past. At the school, the Great Yin Formation drained the people’s life force, and Huang Ce realized too late that the dead infant was meant to break the seal in the locust tree.

• Liang Xue questioned USO-003’s plan, and USO-003 explained that freeing the being beneath the school could restore its body and let it kill its enemies.
• The chapter recounted how Tian Hua’s arrival at an orphanage was followed by a series of murders, its destruction, and the 1962 massacre of Jiping Town.
• The Great Yin Formation drained the life force of everyone at Xinxi Primary School, and a blue-black dead infant emerged from the mound at the sports ground.
• Huang Ce realized the infant was heading for the locust tree, not the teaching building, and fired his Makarov at it.
• The infant burst apart, sending its stored yin energy into the locust tree, which turned black before lightning struck it and reduced it to ashes.

The chapter recounted Tian Hua’s 1971 rampage and the mystery of his superhuman body before revealing that he had returned as a powerful ghost after the Great Locust Tree was destroyed. Huang Ce and Lian Yuxin prepared to fight Tian Hua while Zhang Chen agreed to watch for USO-003, and Huang Ce aimed a rare sniper rifle at Tian Hua as he approached an illusion formation.

• A 1971 Jailer Headquarters report described how Tian Hua killed police officers and severely wounded Chen Ming before dying in a cave fire, with an autopsy finding no supernatural cause for his unusual strength and reflexes.
• Lightning destroyed the Great Locust Tree and ended the Taoist’s will, while Tian Hua emerged from the teaching building in his burned, rotting body and headed toward the city.
• Huang Ce contacted Lian Yuxin, who recognized Tian Hua as the Hammer Murderer and decided to bring Zhang Chen to help monitor USO-003.
• Zhang Chen left Wang Yizhi and Xiang Yun at the restaurant and joined Huang Ce and Lian Yuxin, agreeing to watch for USO-003 while they attacked Tian Hua.
• Lian Yuxin warned that Tian Hua was comparable to an ordinary Nightmare, and Huang Ce prepared his two armor-piercing rounds as Tian Hua neared the illusion formation.

Tian Hua resisted Lian Yuxin’s illusion and survived Huang Ce’s armor-piercing shot, revealing that his hammer was the ghost entity’s true body. Huang Ce recovered from a devastating injury, but Tian Hua remained standing against him and Lian Yuxin.

• Tian Hua watched a father make his young son kill a dying woman, then killed the father and confronted the boy inside Lian Yuxin’s illusion.
• Lian Yuxin realized Tian Hua had broken free of the illusion, and Huang Ce fired an armor-piercing round at him.
• Tian Hua used Gravity to pull nearby vehicles and trees toward himself, but Huang Ce’s bullet struck him without penetrating his body.
• Huang Ce and Lian Yuxin searched the highway, where Huang Ce found the flattened bullet and Tian Hua’s battered hammer.
• Lian Yuxin recognized the hammer as the ghost entity’s true body, and it smashed Huang Ce’s left side before Tian Hua reappeared unharmed.
• Lian Yuxin used a pill to help Huang Ce rebuild his body as Tian Hua faced them from ten meters away.

Liang Xue used USO-003’s worms to spy on Huang Ce and Lian Yuxin as they fought Tian Hua, but Zhang Chen traced the parasite’s connection back to the pharmaceutical factory. Zhang Chen confronted Liang Xue there and unleashed Blood Realm Descends, disappearing as bloody rain began to fall.

• Liang Xue sent a parasitized mutt to watch the highway battle and argued with USO-003 about their injuries and reliance on each other.
• Huang Ce and Lian Yuxin prepared to fight Tian Hua, with Lian Yuxin dispersing into gas to support Huang Ce from concealment.
• Zhang Chen spotted the worm-controlled mutt, used Mind Control to trace it to Liang Xue’s location, and cut down its attacking worms.
• Zhang Chen entered the pharmaceutical factory and confronted Liang Xue among the drained corpses of its employees.
• Liang Xue launched electrically charged steel needles at Zhang Chen, who activated Blood Realm Descends and swallowed the needles in a wave of blood.
• Zhang Chen vanished as crimson eyes appeared behind Liang Xue and bloody rain began falling inside the workshop.

Huang Ce and Lian Yuxin destroyed Tian Hua’s ghostly creature, and Huang Ce gained Gravity Control. Elsewhere, Zhang Chen shattered Liang Xue’s body, but Liang Xue escaped toward Tian Hua’s hidden original body before being intercepted at the cave.

• Lian Yuxin distracted Tian Hua with a powerful mental attack, allowing Huang Ce to shoot him with a heavy revolver and destroy his body.
• Huang Ce absorbed Tian Hua’s incomplete rare species and gained Gravity Control, then discovered that Tian Hua’s original body and main soul were hidden in a mountain cave.
• Zhang Chen used a blood-infused bone blade to destroy Liang Xue’s body, but Liang Xue’s remaining eye escaped and began rebuilding him with Corpse Insects.
• Zhang Chen fought through the zombies pursuing Liang Xue and realized he was heading for the cave rather than the highway.
• Liang Xue merged with lightning and flew toward the cave, but a hand seized him mid-flight before a hammer smashed his head.

Huang Ce and the others learned that the Hammer Murderer’s true body was inside a cave, but Tian Hua fused with Liang Xue’s zombie body and USO-003 to become a powerful new being. The fused creature survived their attack and vanished after threatening to kill everyone in Changsha City, leaving Fei Bai to order an urgent retreat and call for reinforcements.

• Huang Ce warned Lian Yuxin that the Hammer Murderer had a main body hidden in a cave, then pursued USO-003 toward the mountain.
• Fei Bai arrived with Chong Ying, learned that Zhang Chen had badly wounded the special lifeform, and led the group toward the cave.
• USO-003 tried to persuade Tian Hua to fuse with Liang Xue, but Tian Hua smashed its insect head and entered Liang Xue’s zombie body.
• A lightning strike destroyed the mountain, and a Green-faced Fanged young man emerged with the combined auras of Tian Hua, USO-003, and a zombie.
• Huang Ce shot at the young man, who caught the armor-piercing bullet, threatened Changsha City, and escaped after Fei Bai blocked his lightning attack.
• Fei Bai ordered everyone back to the hotel, arranged transport for Zhang Chen’s group, and requested reinforcements from headquarters.

With Changsha cut off by electromagnetic interference, Fei Bai’s team sent Zhang Chen to Shaanxi to investigate the past of Tian Hua, the serial killer behind the ghost creature. Zhang Chen, Wang Yizhi, Xiang Yun, and Chong Ying set off by speedboat for Luohe Town, unaware of the danger awaiting them.

• Fei Bai explained that USO-003 might be recovering from severe injuries and that the team needed information about Tian Hua’s life before his death.
• Zhang Chen described how he used vital blood to short-circuit and severely injure USO-003’s host, revealing that he had killed a Blood Demon and absorbed its power.
• Fei Bai assigned Zhang Chen to investigate Tian Hua in Shaanxi and asked him to send back intelligence within one day, with two days as the latest deadline.
• Zhang Chen agreed to go and invited Xiang Yun to travel with them, while warning Wang Yizhi not to go anywhere alone.
• Fei Bai arranged a high-speed boat to take Zhang Chen, Wang Yizhi, Xiang Yun, and Chong Ying toward Luohe Town near the Shaanxi border.

Sun Hao investigated mass disappearances at Xingsha Anning Residential Complex and was captured by a mysterious young man who slaughtered residents. Meanwhile, Zhang Chen’s group reached Luohe Town to investigate a dead person’s past and accepted lodging at a local woman’s home.

• Sun Hao drove to Xingsha Anning Residential Complex after reports of missing residents, but the area’s signals and machines failed.
• Sun Hao and three officers found residents piled in the underground parking lot, where a short young man loaded them onto a truck and captured the officers.
• Sun Hao awoke tied up among other captives and watched the young man smash people’s skulls before the young man poisoned and subdued him.
• Zhang Chen explained that the group’s trip to Luohe Town was an investigation connected to the fate of Changsha, and they traveled there by yacht with Little Nirvana and Wang Yizhi.
• Zhang Chen and the others passed a mass grave, entered impoverished Luohe Town, and found no hotel.
• A local woman offered Zhang Chen’s group rooms and dinner at her home for thirty yuan a night, and they accepted.

Zhang Chen and his companions settled into Chen Qing’s house while investigating Tian Hua’s childhood in Luohe Town. After Chen Qing pointed him toward a rice shop near the site of a burned public building, Zhang Chen entered the shop and found it reeking of blood.

• Chen Qing showed Zhang Chen and his companions the rooms upstairs, and Wang Yizhi teased him for looking at their host.
• Little Nirvana told Zhang Chen that the townspeople behaved as if they were unfamiliar with ordinary life, and Zhang Chen found an old photograph of a married couple beneath his bed.
• Chong Ying calmly let a large spider crawl on her arm and set it outside after Wang Yizhi and Xiang Yun screamed.
• At dinner, Chen Qing told Zhang Chen that a government-built public building had burned down decades ago near a conspicuous rice shop east of town.
• Zhang Chen left Blood Beetles to guard Chen Qing’s house and went with Little Nirvana to the rice shop, where the old shopkeeper tried to shut the door before Zhang Chen entered and smelled blood.

Zhang Chen uncovered that Luohe Town housed death row inmates forced to run the town while an organization selected some for deadly experiments. At Jiutu Bookstore, an elderly former teacher revealed that Tian Hua had burned down the nearby orphanage fifty years earlier and was a demon born with a Demon Heart.

• Zhang Chen and Little Nirvana discovered that the rice shop brothers processed human flesh and learned they were death row inmates brought to Luohe Town by an organization.
• The brothers explained that the organization took underperforming inmates for experiments, and Zhang Chen learned that black-clad men carried them south of the town.
• Zhang Chen spared the brothers, erased their memories of him, and went to find the elderly former teacher who owned Jiutu Bookstore.
• The old man severed Zhang Chen's arm when he reached for a book, but Zhang Chen regrew it from blood and asked about the orphanage.
• The old man said Tian Hua had burned down the orphanage fifty years earlier and described him as a nonhuman demon born with a Demon Heart.

Zhang Chen learned how Tian Hua became a feared killer and discovered that the experiment site lay beneath the mass graveyard. He brought the old man, Cai Jun, to the underground laboratory, where Cai Jun volunteered for enhancement surgery.

• Zhang Chen exchanged information with the old man, who revealed that Tian Hua was sent to the orphanage as a child and killed eight people there before being taken for an experiment.
• The old man explained that Tian Hua returned from the experiment and destroyed the orphanage, then revealed that the experiment site was beneath the mass graveyard south of town.
• Zhang Chen invited the old man to see the site, and the old man traveled there at night using the hidden entrance beneath an unmarked tombstone.
• The old man identified himself as Cai Jun, a death-row prisoner, and entered the underground laboratory, where Doctor Lu Jixing welcomed him.
• Cai Jun chose enhancement surgery, and the laboratory's syringes prepared to inject him with a dark mixture containing ghost energy extract.

The military learned that zombies and mutating creatures were overwhelming Changsha, and dispatched special forces to the city. At a secret experimental base, Zhang Chen survived a deadly experiment, killed the doctor, and obtained classified information about Tian Hua.

• The Major General received a report that Changsha units had gone silent and civilians were missing or dead, then learned from Team 13B that zombies and bullet-resistant mutants were attacking the city.
• The Major General reviewed satellite footage showing Team 13B’s wounded soldiers mutate and kill everyone in the hotel suite, then ordered special forces into Changsha.
• Cai Jun died during the doctor’s experiment with ghost energy extract, but his remains transformed into Zhang Chen while an insect became a red-haired young man.
• Zhang Chen demanded information about Tian Hua, disarmed the spider-like doctor, and took a classified dossier before the doctor turned to dust.
• Zhang Chen read the dossier, disguised himself as a soldier, and left the base intending to return to Changsha and inform Lian Yuxin and the others.

In Osaka, Jorōgumo accepted an assignment to hunt Zhang Chen and his companions. At the house in Luohe Town, the Mistress secretly infected Xiang Yun, then revealed herself as a spider creature waiting beneath the well.

• A woman in a luxury hotel suite read a forum thread about Zhang Chen and Wang Yizhi, then signed up for the hunt under the name Jorōgumo.
• After dinner, the Mistress cut Xiang Yun with a hidden crimson-black spike while pretending to bandage her finger.
• Xiang Yun and the other girls struggled to prepare bathwater, and a tub drawn from the well emerged packed with spiders.
• Chong Ying rescued a spider from Xiang Yun's arm, killed it, and used Hercules beetles to fetch river water for the bath.
• As the girls bathed, the Mistress waited beneath the well among countless spiders, with eight eyes growing on her head.

Xiang Yun collapsed again as the girls settled in for the night, while spiders destroyed Chong Ying’s tracking bugs. After Zhang Chen returned and reviewed a laboratory file, he learned how Tian Hua had been raised as a killer and how a girl’s kindness changed his life.

• Xiang Yun briefly lost consciousness after leaving the bathroom, and Chong Ying placed tracking bugs around the room before they went to sleep.
• Red-eyed spiders devoured Chong Ying’s tracking bugs while Zhang Chen and Little Nirvana were away.
• Chainsaw Uncle approached Zhang Chen and Little Nirvana but let them pass, then sawed himself in half.
• Zhang Chen returned to the house, sensed something strange, and read a report describing Tian Hua’s successful ability enhancement surgery.
• Zhang Chen read Tian Hua’s life record and learned that Tian Hua’s father raised him among corpses and trained him to kill from childhood.
• Tian Hua entered a girl’s home intending to kill her, but she offered him candy and gently wiped the blood from his face, causing him to lower his hammer.

Zhang Chen read Tian Hua’s records and learned how Fang Xiao Mei’s kindness briefly softened the boy raised by a murderous father. After Tian Hua’s father killed Fang Xiao Mei, Tian Hua killed 1,321 people at his school, was captured, and was sent to Luohe Town as a death-row prisoner; Zhang Chen lay awake reflecting on his story and Jia Xin’s.

• Fang Xiao Mei sheltered Tian Hua, gave him candy, and taught him to write his name and basic numbers, while Tian Hua brought her food and began to feel sadness and affection.
• Tian Hua found Fang Xiao Mei’s home empty and smelled his father’s familiar body odor, then rushed back to the underground cave and discovered her murdered body.
• Tian Hua attacked his father with a hammer, then carried Fang Xiao Mei’s body into the rain and buried her, unable to write the final character of her name.
• Tian Hua slaughtered 1,321 people at his school the next day, was captured by police, and was sent to Luohe Town as a death-row prisoner.
• Zhang Chen read Tian Hua’s records, compared his upbringing with Jia Xin’s, and lay awake thinking about what he had learned.

Zhang Chen discovered that a spider demon had poisoned Xiang Yun and was provoking her desire, so he began a dangerous blood transfusion to save her. As the spider woman closed in on the shaking house, Little Nirvana guarded him while he neared the end of the procedure.

• Little Nirvana found a vast nest of venomous spiders beneath the well and killed a truck-sized spider, revealing that the Mistress was watching from nearby.
• Xiang Yun, affected by a strange substance in her blood, entered Zhang Chen's room and tried to embrace him, but he used Mind Control to stabilize her.
• The Mistress spoke through a spider and urged Zhang Chen to sleep with Xiang Yun to neutralize the toxin, but he rejected her suggestion and chose to replace Xiang Yun's blood instead.
• Little Nirvana returned to guard Zhang Chen as he used his Flesh and Blood Ability to exchange Xiang Yun's blood drop by drop.
• The house shook as spider silk emerged from its walls, and the eight-legged woman crawled through a web-covered window while Zhang Chen was nearly finished with the transfusion.