Chapter Summaries

Chiba agreed to actively accept the hidden memories, while the young man reflected on why the original had entrusted everything to Chiba despite judging him naïve and weak. As Chiba prepared to experience the memories, he suddenly realized something was wrong.

• The young man explained that he was forbidden from revealing the full truth until Chiba accepted and merged with the hidden memories.
• The young man wondered why the original had erased its consciousness and left control to Chiba, whom he considered naïve, weak, and unfit to carry out their plan.
• Chiba took a deep breath, closed his eyes, and began preparing to enter the memories through a mental body.
• Chiba abruptly opened his eyes and realized something was wrong, making the young man suspect he might back out.

Chiba realized the other version of himself had used his feelings for his mother to draw him toward accepting painful memories, and feared the lengths that version might go to. Despite that fear, Chiba chose to face the memories, leaving the young man stunned as memory bubbles appeared around him.

• Chiba concluded that the other version of himself had used memories of his mother to make him accept painful memories and seek a way back to his previous life.
• Chiba feared that his other self was cold enough to endanger his mother for his own plans.
• Chiba asked whether returning home was the other self's goal, but the young man denied it and asked whether Chiba was giving up.
• Chiba declared that he wanted to learn what had made him become the person he hated most.
• Bubbles showing moving images appeared around Chiba, and the young man watched in bewilderment as Chiba accepted the memories.

Chiba learned that the Light Orb had created a private space where spiritual things could take tangible form, then chose to merge with a cruel memory from after his previous life's death. As Chiba began the fusion, the young man watching him wondered how to tell him the third matter.

• Chiba realized the space belonged only to him and could manifest memories as tangible bubbles between the spiritual and material realms.
• Chiba reasoned that his other self had a purpose for making him accept the cruel memory and decided the experience might help him become stronger.
• Chiba touched the memory bubble and began merging with the memory, blacking out as the process started.
• The young man watching Chiba was surprised that he had willingly begun the fusion, then turned his thoughts to how best to explain the third matter.

A young man feared Chiba had withdrawn into himself after experiencing the fusion body’s cruel memories, which could doom their plans and destroy the Light Orb. Chiba finally spoke, revealing he had relived the memories more than a dozen times, then asked whether the Light Orb was a fragment of the Main God.

• The young man watched Chiba remain silent for two hours after all the memory bubbles burst and feared he had mentally collapsed.
• The young man worried that Chiba’s withdrawal would disconnect his consciousness from his body, causing the Light Orb and their world to disappear.
• The young man gave up hope and blamed the original body for creating a fragile fusion body.
• Chiba sighed and said he had experienced the memories more than a dozen times.
• Chiba asked whether the Light Orb was a fragment of the Main God.

Chiba repeatedly relived the cruel memories and realized they had been meant to strengthen his mindset, not torment him. He discovered that his other self had removed even more despairing memories, and the chapter left him understanding that this preparation was for the terrifying force threatening Kushina.

• The young man struggled to understand how Chiba had endured the memories and watched them more than a dozen times.
• The young man recognized that Chiba now carried the reassuring aura of a powerful leader, and wondered whether his original self had intended to shape him this way.
• Chiba concluded that the cruel memories had served as nourishment to temper his personality and help him understand what he was fighting.
• Chiba noticed that his other self had used the Light Orb to erase substantial portions of the memories, which had been even crueler and more despairing.
• Chiba realized his other self had deliberately prepared him to face the threat to Kushina with a steady, unshakable mindset.

Chiba relived a memory of his first awakening in a remote cabin, where his withdrawn past self met Xiao Qian and several other strangers. As the group settled down after panicking, Chiba recognized the setup as a horror scenario and realized the nightmare was beginning.

• Chiba entered the memory of his past self awakening in a forest cabin among six strangers.
• His past self withdrew into a corner while Xiao Qian woke, cautiously inspected the cabin, and spoke with him.
• Xiao Qian revealed only that her surname was Qian, while Chiba's past self shared only his surname and a hint about his given name.
• The other five strangers woke in confusion, and Xiao Qian persuaded them that they had been kidnapped.
• The group gathered around Xiao Qian and began discussing what to do as Chiba recognized the familiar horror scenario and the nightmare began.

Chiba experienced his past self’s awakening in a cabin as a zombie-survival mission began, sharing his past self’s senses and emotions. As zombies broke through the cabin’s defenses, Xiao Qian opened a hidden basement entrance, and the group began escaping just as the door burst apart.

• A mental message announced the mission objective, “Survive (8/2),” and Chiba found his consciousness merged with his past self’s senses and emotions.
• Chiba’s past self and Xiao Qian noticed the danger, armed themselves, and saw zombies gathering outside the cabin.
• After zombies battered the door and a zombie’s eye and jaw fell through a window, Xiao Qian calmed the panicked group by urging them to use weapons.
• As the cabin’s defenses began to fail, Xiao Qian revealed a hidden basement entrance and the group rushed toward it.
• A man called for the women to go first, and two women and Xiao Qian entered the basement before the cabin door burst open.

Past Self, Chiba, Xiao Qian, and six strangers took shelter in a basement while undead wandered through the house above them. With their phones unable to get a signal, the group tried to settle in, but Past Self and Chiba decided they needed to leave as soon as possible.

• Past Self and Chiba reached the basement with six strangers as undead footsteps and dragging noises moved around upstairs.
• Xiao Qian reassured the group that the undead had not detected them and seemed unable to sense them inside the basement.
• The strangers discovered their phones had no signal, leaving them unable to contact the police or anyone outside.
• A man in business attire urged the group to stay calm and work together, and the six introduced themselves and chose weapons from the basement walls.
• Past Self kept watch beside the hatch while Chiba and he silently resolved to leave the basement as soon as possible.

Chiba relived his past self’s fear and isolation as the basement survivors debated whether to leave their refuge. After Xiao Qian and his past self went upstairs to investigate the silence, the others stayed behind, and neither explorer returned.

• Chiba recognized that his past self distrusted people and could identify the danger but had no plan to escape the basement.
• After four hours, Xiao Qian noticed the zombies upstairs had fallen silent, and Chiba’s past self confirmed that he could hear nothing.
• Xiao Qian suggested that the group go upstairs, but the six others hesitated and chose to wait.
• Chiba’s past self volunteered to go with Xiao Qian, and she gave him a sword before they opened the partition door and went upstairs.
• The six people remaining in the basement agreed to guard the partition door in shifts, while Xiao Qian and Chiba’s past self never returned.

After leaving the basement, Xiao Qian and his past self recognized that the armed cabin contained no food or water and that the survival mission would allow only two of the eight people to live. They formed a cautious alliance and prepared to enter the fog, where unseen creatures watched them.

• Xiao Qian asked whether his past self could handle the sword, and he confirmed that he could use it.
• Xiao Qian and his past self found the cabin silent and shrouded in dense fog, with indistinct shadows watching them outside.
• Xiao Qian and his past self admitted they had both realized the basement was a dead end because it had weapons but no food or water.
• Xiao Qian and his past self agreed that only two people could survive the mission and that they could trust each other to protect their mutual interests.
• Xiao Qian said they should go out into the fog.

Chiba’s past self and Xiao Qian overcame the fear keeping them inside the cabin and entered the fog, but the chapter ended with another pair emerging from the fog back inside the cabin, realizing they had returned to where they started.

• Chiba’s past self and Xiao Qian agreed they had to leave the cabin because staying would trap them among six other people with no food or water.
• Xiao Qian stabbed the back of her hand to break the fear’s psychological hold, then stepped into the fog and told Chiba’s past self to follow.
• When Chiba’s past self hesitated to hurt himself, Xiao Qian stabbed his hand and bandaged both their wounds.
• Chiba’s past self overcame his fear and followed Xiao Qian into the fog, with Xiao Qian close behind.
• A young man and a girl emerged from the fog into the cabin and realized they had returned to the place they had left.

Chiba watched his past self and Xiao Qian return to the cabin after the fog disoriented them and led them in circles. When they checked the bedrooms, the phone man attacked his past self, while a second man with an axe threatened Xiao Qian.

• Chiba's past self and Xiao Qian concluded that the fog had forced them back to the cabin after five hours of wandering.
• The two returned exhausted and hungry, realized they would have to face the six people in the basement, and decided to check the bedrooms first.
• The phone man burst out of a bedroom and bit Chiba's past self in the neck, leaving him bleeding and terrified.
• Xiao Qian stabbed the phone man in the back with her butterfly blade as a man in business attire approached her with an axe.
• The man in business attire roared that he would be the one to survive, and Chiba heard a fierce reply insisting that they would survive.

Chiba and Xiao Qian discovered the horrors that had unfolded in the cabin’s basement, and the mission ended with only the two of them surviving. They then woke at a campsite with their injuries healed, where a new survival mission began with fourteen people remaining.

• Xiao Qian bandaged Chiba’s wound after he used his hidden pistol to kill the attacker, and they concluded that only the two of them remained in the cabin.
• Chiba and Xiao Qian descended into the basement and found four chained skeletons, realizing the two survivors had treated the others as livestock.
• The mission announced that the two survivors had completed it, and Chiba’s past self and Chiba lost consciousness.
• Chiba’s past self awoke at a campsite with his wound healed, while Xiao Qian and the other participants also regained consciousness.
• The mission began again, ordering the fourteen participants to survive.

Chiba recounted how his past self and Xiao Qian endured an endless series of survival scenarios, built a seven-person team, and lost five teammates to a powerful enemy team. In a mansion scenario where only one person could survive, Xiao Qian stabbed Chiba’s past self and urged him to live for revenge, leaving him determined to avenge their companions.

• Chiba’s past self endured repeated survival scenarios and formed a close team with Xiao Qian, a brave younger boy, a middle-aged woman, her son, and three members of another team.
• The scenarios grew larger and deadlier, shifting into team-based slaughters where betrayal and cruelty intensified.
• During a three-hundred-person battle, the strongest team tortured five of Chiba’s past self’s teammates to death while he and Xiao Qian hid helplessly nearby.
• After that battle, Chiba’s past self and Xiao Qian entered a thirty-person mansion scenario where only one person could survive.
• Xiao Qian stabbed Chiba’s past self and told him to live, even if only to avenge their companions.
• Chiba’s past self regained his will to live, driven by revenge.

While unconscious, Chiba reflected on the nightmare cycle and how it pushed people toward resilience or madness. He relived his past self’s revenge against the people who killed his companions, ending with Xiao Qian’s death and his past self waking in a new scenario stripped of emotion, sensation, and conscience, driven only by revenge.

• Chiba concluded that the cycle was a relentless nightmare that shaped people into either principled survivors or twisted, evil people, and suspected it was creating something from ordinary humans.
• After waking from Xiao Qian’s stab, Chiba’s past self escaped searches, treated his wound, and killed three pursuing groups through ruthless tactics.
• Chiba’s past self killed twenty-five people in the scenario, then deliberately let Xiao Qian attack him and stabbed her through the heart.
• Before dying, Xiao Qian kissed him and urged him to live and take revenge; his past self then fell unconscious after completing the mission.
• His past self woke alone in a twenty-person scenario and realized he could no longer feel pain, taste, grief, guilt, or emotion, leaving revenge as his sole purpose.

Chiba endured the emotional detachment of his past self’s memories while watching him use years of Nightmare Cycles to orchestrate revenge against the team that had killed his companions. After finally breaking the team’s strongest member, his past self still felt nothing, leaving Chiba’s trial unresolved.

• Chiba understood that Xiao Qian had deliberately sacrificed herself to ensure his past self survived, and that her death triggered his emotional shutdown.
• Over hundreds of Nightmare Cycles, his past self mastered human manipulation, perfected his disguises, and learned to control who lived and died in each scenario.
• His past self repeatedly spared the team that had tortured his companions, allowing rumors and stronger enemies to turn the team into prey across many scenarios.
• After two hundred more scenarios, the team collapsed until only its strongest member remained, terrified and paranoid.
• His past self explained how he had destroyed the team, drove its last survivor mad, and left without killing him himself.
• Chiba realized that revenge had not restored his past self’s emotions or sensations.

Chiba’s past self completed his revenge without regaining his emotions or senses, while Chiba’s anger eased and his mind grew more resilient as he experienced the memories. After the Nightmare Cycle expanded at the thousand-scenario mark, a young man offered his past self a chance to leave it.

• Chiba felt his soul-pulling sensation fade after his past self’s revenge left the man who had tortured his companions broken and begging for mercy.
• Chiba realized the cruel memories were training his mental resilience, and he began observing and analyzing them with greater stability.
• Chiba’s past self tried to restore his emotions and senses by forming new companionships and surviving hundreds of scenarios, but he eventually accepted that what had been discarded could not be recovered.
• When Chiba’s past self reached one thousand scenarios, the Nightmare Cycle expanded into huge, deadly worlds with at least five hundred participants and only three surviving units.
• In a ten-thousand-person scenario, one young man annihilated the other participants in ten minutes, leaving Chiba’s past self among the survivors.
• The young man offered Chiba’s past self a chance to leave the Nightmare Cycle, giving him a new goal.

Chiba recounted how his emotionless past self joined forces with a powerful young man and a notorious fighter to investigate the Nightmare Cycle and find its core. When the young man shattered the core, Chiba's past self was crushed by its energy but fell into the Naruto World alongside one-third of it, escaping the Nightmare Cycle.

• Chiba's past self accepted the young man's proposal to work toward leaving the Nightmare Cycle after the young man demonstrated his power by killing ten thousand people.
• The young man gave Chiba's past self a communication device that would make them teammates after ten scenarios, while Chiba's past self survived intervening scenarios and gathered intelligence.
• After ten scenarios, Chiba's past self reunited with the young man and met the frivolous fighter, and the three began completing scenarios and gathering information together.
• Chiba's past self concluded that the Nightmare Cycle was a universe with a core that might be the key to escaping it.
• The three reached the core, and the young man shattered it with a full-force strike, crushing Chiba's past self as one-third of the core carried him into the Naruto World.

Chiba learned how his past self used the core fragment and the Sage of Six Paths to separate his cruel memories, create a blank soul, and eventually restore his emotions and sensations. After confirming that the backup youth could not explain the fragment, Chiba asked him about the third matter.

• Chiba recalled that his past self had absorbed the light core, separated his cruel memories, and decided to regain his lost emotions and sensations.
• The other Chiba threatened the Sage of Six Paths into helping create a spiritual body and place a blank soul into the baby in Sarutobi Komachi's womb.
• Chiba understood that his past self had planned for him to reunite with those memories and restore his emotions, and felt reassured that he had fulfilled that trust.
• The backup youth rejected Chiba's comparison between the light and the Main God, explaining that the Main God and a universe core were not the same thing.
• The backup youth said he had no answer Chiba lacked, so Chiba asked him to explain the third matter.

Chiba realized the backup youth was a contingency created by his original self, then demanded to hear the final matter entrusted to him. The backup youth revealed that Chiba could not use the Light Orb, leaving the reason for that restriction unresolved.

• The backup youth warned Chiba that answering his final question would complete his mission and make him disappear.
• Chiba deduced that the backup was a sealed copy meant to take over if he failed to endure his cruel memories.
• Chiba considered why foreign powers left by other transmigrators had not changed the Naruto World and suspected a hidden force was preserving its course.
• Overcome by fear and urgency, Chiba demanded that the backup youth reveal the third matter.
• The backup youth told Chiba that he could not use the Light Orb.