Chapter Summaries

Zhou Qing and his companions explored the Fifth Layer, learning about its Fallen Ones, dangerous Ascension Curse, and the mining required to reach the Sixth Layer. They set out for a mysterious village with its own Sky Ladder, while Zhou Qing collected samples of the layer’s ores.

• Zhou Qing left Saundin II with instructions to send the Fallen Ones to the Third Layer and keep their encounter secret.
• Zhou Qing descended through the Gate and reunited with Romantina, Dugu Bo, Rabbit Girl, and Riko on the barren, mountainous Fifth Layer.
• Riko explained that the Fifth Layer’s Fallen Ones were former Explorers and that reaching the Sixth Layer required mining red iron ore for three years.
• Riko described an unusual eighth Fallen One settlement whose residents lured predators, lived in strange buildings, and were bound by rules requiring equal transactions.
• Zhou Qing chose to travel with Riko to the distant settlement, and Rabbit Girl thanked him for helping search for Namiki.
• As they traveled, Zhou Qing collected unusual ores and learned to recognize Red Iron Ore.

Zhou Qing’s group reached the Fifth Layer settlement where Rabbit Girl found Namiki transformed into a living pink mountain, then met three clock-themed Fallen Ones who offered to help them speak with the leader. They entered the settlement facing a three-month mining term before they could continue to the Sixth Layer.

• Zhou Qing’s group crossed the Fifth Layer and spotted a basin surrounded by pink mountains, with Namiki at its entrance.
• Rabbit Girl embraced Namiki, while Zhou Qing sensed that the immense pink flesh mountains were still alive and growing.
• Three mechanized Fallen Ones—Corac, Watch, and Alem—appeared and recognized Rabbitna.
• Riko explained that the group wanted to reach the Sixth Layer, and the three Fallen Ones invited them in and offered to ask the leader to reduce their mining term from three years to three months.
• Rabbit Girl released the outer wall of the pink mountain, and the group passed through the membrane into the settlement.

Zhou Qing and his companions explored Nami Village inside Namiki and learned that its Equivalent Exchange rules could forcibly take promised goods or body parts. The chapter leaves them confronting the possibility that becoming Fallen Ones was punishment for eating Namiki’s children.

• Zhou Qing entered Nami Village with his companions and learned from Miss Clock that the village was named for Namiki, whose body contained it.
• Romantina traded a Gold Soul Coin with Mr. Watch for Jade Silkworm Silk, and Zhou Qing learned that trades were enforced by the village’s Equivalent Exchange rules.
• Miss Clock warned the group that broken or unclear bargains could cost them body parts, while Zhou Qing and the others watched Fallen Ones trade away their organs.
• Miss Clock explained that the rules also punished anyone who harmed another person by taking body parts to compensate the injured party.
• Zhou Qing connected the rules and the Explorers’ transformation into Fallen Ones to Namiki’s resentment over her children being eaten by the villagers.

Zhou Qing learned about Nami Village’s curse and its residents’ hope that Namiki would return, then discovered that the newly reborn Namiki was the Fallen One Wei Sa had found. Mr. Watch led Zhou Qing’s group to meet Hope, the village chief and former captain of their adventuring party.

• A traveling Soul-Guide Fallen One offered to trade his feet for Zhou Qing’s eyes, but Zhou Qing refused, and the merchant left Nami Village.
• The Clockwork Gentleman explained that the merchant could leave because he was not bound by Nami Village’s curse, which affected only those who became Fallen Ones there.
• Mr. Watch and the Clockwork Gentleman told Zhou Qing’s group that Namiki had become rooted in the earth and that a girl resembling her had hatched from her flesh before escaping the village.
• Zhou Qing realized the reborn Namiki was the Fallen One Wei Sa had uncovered in the Heaven Dou City auction house, and the villagers rejoiced that she might return.
• Mr. Watch led Zhou Qing’s group to Hope, the village chief and former captain of the adventuring party, whose enormous appearance shocked everyone except the Rabbit Girl.

Zhou Qing and his companions found Namiki’s imprisoned soul in a cave, where Hope explained the souls of her children guarded her. The Rabbit Girl traded her freedom to embrace Namiki, while Zhou Qing sought a way to bring her back and learned the price for passage to the Sixth Layer.

• Zhou Qing, Riko, and Romantina encountered Namiki’s partial soul in a cave guarded by Hope and a white bone serpent.
• Hope explained that Namiki’s remaining soul and her children’s souls could appear in the cave, and that Namiki’s other soul fragment had escaped in a new body.
• The Rabbit Girl exchanged her freedom to reach Namiki and embraced her, while Hope allowed her to pass.
• Zhou Qing asked what it would take to get the Rabbit Girl back, and Hope said they could trade a brain, a heart, or their freedom.
• Zhou Qing questioned Hope’s time-based mining price, and Hope set the requirement at three hundred tons of magnetite ore.

Zhou Qing questioned how the Explorers could meet Hope’s demand to mine three hundred tons of ore in three months, then learned Hope was the Second Prince of Star Sun Kingdom on the Sun Moon Continent. Hope explained that he had discovered the Douluo Continent but remained in the Abyss Ruins, leaving Zhou Qing to consider how contact with the Sun Moon Continent might have changed the continent’s fate.

• Zhou Qing argued that Nami Village’s Fallen Ones could not establish a mining system and that three hundred tons of Red Iron Ore in three months was an impossible quota with primitive tools.
• Hope claimed that miners using Soul Tool drills could extract five to ten tons of ore daily, while Dugu Bo doubted both the figure and whether miners could afford such tools.
• Hope revealed that he came from the Sun Moon Continent and was the Second Prince of Star Sun Kingdom, and recounted sailing overseas to find new lands.
• Hope said he discovered the resource-rich Douluo Continent but turned to the Abyss Ruins after realizing its powerful Titled Douluo outmatched people from his homeland.
• Zhou Qing speculated that Hope’s sunlike appearance resembled Candle Dragon and considered how overseas contact might have brought conquest and upheaval to the Douluo Continent.

Zhou Qing and his companions tried to navigate Nami Village’s rules of Equivalent Exchange and trade with a crowd of Fallen Ones. After a pink Fallen One damaged Riko’s White Whistle, Riko refused to put a value on Mithras, and Clockwork Gentleman warned her that she was doomed.

• Hope agreed to lower the group’s price to forty-five thousand jin of Red Iron Ore per person, while Rabbit Girl and Romantina stayed in the cave.
• Romantina gave Mr. Watch her Phoenix Wutong Staff and Jade Silkworm Silk to refurbish, and Zhou Qing’s group set out with Clockwork Gentleman as their guide.
• A crowd of Fallen Ones blocked the group, and Clockwork Gentleman refused to help unless Zhou Qing and Riko offered themselves as value.
• Zhou Qing, Dugu Bo, and Riko traded spare supplies for the Fallen Ones’ sentimental keepsakes to clear their way.
• A pink Fallen One bit Riko’s White Whistle, and Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo briefly saw Mithras appear behind her.
• Clockwork Gentleman asked how much Mithras’s stone was worth, but Riko refused to assign it a value, prompting him to say she was doomed.

After Riko called for help, Namiki’s black souls punished the pink Fallen One for damaging her unfinished White Whistle, stripping away its possessions and part of its body. The reckoning produced a Mental Energy Crystal for Riko, and she took a mechanical arm that the rules could not destroy.

• Riko’s cry summoned black souls that trapped the pink Fallen One and began the reckoning.
• The Clockwork Gentleman explained that the Fallen One’s valuables would be transformed into a Mental Energy Crystal as compensation for damaging Riko’s priceless White Whistle.
• Riko asked the souls to spare the Fallen One, but the Clockwork Gentleman said the rules could not be defied as they broke its arm and tore away its fur.
• The reckoning turned the Fallen One’s possessions and flesh into a Mental Energy Crystal, which the Clockwork Gentleman identified as a vessel for emotion that could raise mental energy.
• The souls spared the Fallen One after Riko took the crystal and the indestructible Soul Tool Mechanical Broken Arm, and it fled into the crowd of Fallen Ones.

Zhou Qing acquired Riko’s Soul Tool mechanical arm and learned how White Whistles were sculpted and could preserve a person’s soul. After Riko felt guilty about injuring the sculptor, she gave up her Mental Energy Crystal and went to find the Fallen One, while Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo stayed behind.

• Zhou Qing traded a Gold Soul Coin with Riko for her Soul Tool mechanical arm and discovered it responded to his thoughts and Soul Power.
• The Clockwork Gentleman explained that White Whistles needed a sculptor to reach their full potential and might preserve the soul of the person who made the sacrifice.
• Riko realized the Fallen One had been trying to restore her White Whistle and felt guilty for causing it to be punished.
• The Clockwork Gentleman said the sculptor would recover, and Riko prepared to give it her Mental Energy Crystal as an apology.
• The Clockwork Gentleman directed Riko toward the sculptor, and she ran off after promising Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo she would not trade away her organs.
• Zhou Qing asked Dugu Bo whether Dugu Yan was his treasure, and Dugu Bo agreed before insisting he had meant the Clockwork Gentleman was talking about meat.

Zhou Qing toured Nami Village while investigating how Namiki’s body had become a world and why her reincarnated daughter was attacking it. He suspected that Douluo Star’s Planar Will was struggling to survive conflicts caused by imposed rules, and that the Abyss Ruins might be left outside its protection.

• Clockwork Gentleman explained that the Red Iron Ore Field lay north of the village, and Zhou Qing chose to tour Nami Village before mining.
• The village shook as the Five-tailed Fox Fallen One attacked Namiki’s mountainside, while the membrane kept her from entering.
• Clockwork Gentleman led Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo around the village as its residents crowded at the entrance to see Namiki’s reincarnated daughter.
• Zhou Qing studied how Nami Village’s rivers, mountains, and air reflected Namiki’s body, and considered how the space might grow into a true plane.
• Zhou Qing wondered why Namiki’s reincarnated daughter attacked the village and why Namiki had divided her soul.
• Zhou Qing reasoned that Douluo Star’s Planar Will was compensating for conflicts created by added rules, while the Abyss Ruins might be developing beyond its oversight.

Zhou Qing realized that cultivating an Inner Scenery World could protect him from Douluo Star’s rules and began considering how to develop a theory for its growth. Meanwhile, Riko reunited with the pink Fallen One, named it Mahaha, and went with it to a restaurant where she discovered the proprietress spoke Soul Land Common Language.

• Zhou Qing concluded that the Inner Scenery World could grow independently of outside rules by drawing on Soul Beasts reborn within it.
• Mahaha rescued Riko from several Fallen Ones who were rummaging through her belongings and returned her White Whistle.
• Riko apologized to Mahaha and gave it a Mental Energy Crystal, then returned when she sensed its sorrow and invited it to eat.
• Riko named the pink Fallen One Mahaha, and it led her to a restaurant.
• Riko ordered two portions of the restaurant’s specialties, and the proprietress replied in Soul Land Common Language.

Riko learned about Boss Lady’s origins and the history of Hope’s Exploration Team while sharing a meal on the Fifth Layer. Boss Lady ended her account with Hope still eager to explore deeper into the Abyss Ruins.

• Boss Lady prepared unusual black broth and noodles, and Riko and Mahaha enjoyed the meal.
• Riko asked Boss Lady about her origins, and Boss Lady said she came from the Sun Moon Continent.
• Boss Lady explained that Hope had been the Second Prince of the Star Sun Kingdom before abandoning his title to lead an expedition in search of a peaceful land.
• Boss Lady recounted how storms and hardship reduced the expedition’s fleet, and how its survivors were rejected by the people of the Douluo Continent.
• Boss Lady said Hope led the survivors into the Abyss Ruins, where they eventually settled on the Fifth Layer and hoped to explore deeper after repaying Namiki.

Riko learned that her mother, Lyra, had once visited Nami Village and held two White Whistles, while Mahaha carved a new White Whistle for her. The chapter ended with Riko receiving the flame-shaped whistle and sensing a heartbeat through it.

• Mahaha began carving Riko’s White Whistle with its teeth while the Boss Lady explained its lost memories and extraordinary carving skill.
• The Boss Lady told Riko that Mahaha had carved a White Whistle for a pregnant visitor named Lyra about fifteen years earlier.
• Riko recognized Lyra as her mother and learned that Lyra had already held another White Whistle, meaning she had lost two precious companions yet remained optimistic.
• Riko reflected on her mother’s courage in facing grief and continuing her explorations.
• Mahaha finished carving the White Whistle into a shape like burning white flame, and Riko sensed a heartbeat through it.

Riko learned that the noodle soup was made from Hope Worms and that Hope had strengthened Nami Village’s residents. After Riko left, Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo visited Boss Lady’s restaurant, where Zhou Qing ate the worms and asked about the villagers gathering to watch a Fallen One’s resurrection.

• Riko thanked Mahaha, and Boss Lady explained that the soul in the carved whistle had been freed and become Riko’s new friend.
• Riko offered Boss Lady her traded goods, but Boss Lady asked her to gather ingredients from a ravine instead.
• Boss Lady revealed that the noodles were Hope Worms and explained how Hope’s power had helped Nami Village’s residents grow stronger.
• Clockwork Gentleman brought Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo to Boss Lady’s restaurant after Riko and Mahaha had already left.
• Zhou Qing recognized the noodles as live centipede-like creatures, ate them, and praised Boss Lady’s cooking.
• Zhou Qing asked Boss Lady about the villagers who had gone to watch a Fallen One resurrected from part of Namiki’s soul.

Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo learned about White Whistles from the Boss Lady before a Slime attacked Nami Village. The villagers prepared to hunt it, and the Boss Lady revealed that the strange monster had attacked the village twice before and might have come from a deeper layer.

• After hearing the Boss Lady’s concerns about Namiki’s partial soul rebirth, Zhou Qing asked her to arrange three rooms and explained that Romantina was their companion and guide.
• The Boss Lady explained that White Whistles emitted a halo that strengthened their holders, and she noted that Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo did not seem to have any.
• When the ground shook, the Boss Lady, Zhou Qing, and Dugu Bo went outside and saw Fallen Ones and villagers fighting a giant purple creature.
• The Boss Lady identified the creature as a Slime and explained that the villagers could not leave, so they had to lure prey into the village to hunt it.
• The Boss Lady said Nami Village knew little about Slimes, which might have traveled through underground water from the Sixth or Seventh Layer, and that this was its third attack.

Dugu Bo rescued the Fallen Ones from the Purple Slime, but it repeatedly regenerated after his attacks. Zhou Qing discovered that the slime’s true body consisted of countless tiny organisms, and the group faced a creature that was still active despite losing much of its mass.

• The Boss Lady explained that Namiki’s final child wanted to enter the village openly and avenge her mother, though the village hoped she would return and repay their debt to Namiki.
• The Purple Slime bound the Fallen Ones with tentacles and dissolved their flesh until a huge Conch Fallen One attacked it with a Wolf-Fang Club.
• Dugu Bo freed the Fallen Ones with a blade of qi, then shattered the bony structure inside the slime with a palm strike.
• The Purple Slime reassembled its bony structure after Dugu Bo destroyed it again, prompting Zhou Qing to identify the structure as a flight tool rather than its core.
• Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo sensed that the slime was a collective of countless tiny organisms that could join together, feed, and act as a single creature.

Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo tested the Slime’s adaptability, then captured it alive for study after it resisted and replicated Dugu Bo’s poison. They discussed how Nami Village’s Equivalent Exchange rules treated the Slime before Zhou Qing noticed a Fallen One watching from the Bell Tower.

• The Slime fled Nami Village, but Dugu Bo blocked it and attacked it with Jade Phosphorus Dragon Venom.
• The Slime shed much of its mass, developed resistance to the poison, and sprayed Dugu Bo with mucus containing replicated venom.
• Zhou Qing told Dugu Bo to capture the Slime alive, and Dugu Bo gathered its active remains and stored them in a Bag of Holding.
• The cheering Fallen Ones watched the Slime’s remaining mucus merge into the space, and a Mental Energy Crystal appeared as Dugu Bo’s reward for helping the village.
• Zhou Qing and Dugu Bo discussed why Equivalent Exchange had not affected the Slime, and Zhou Qing suggested it lacked emotions and wisdom.
• Zhou Qing noticed an asymmetrical-faced Fallen One watching from the Bell Tower.

Zhou Qing met Timidit, a frail human who had come to the Fifth Layer with Captain Hope from the Sun Moon Continent, and learned how Riko and Mahaha had found her in an underground cavern. The cavern held Hope Worms and a stone platform where Timidit had been living, leaving Zhou Qing to consider how she had survived for nearly two hundred years.

• Zhou Qing saw Dark, Captain Hope’s deputy, react with shock before he returned to the Bell Tower.
• Riko introduced Timidit, whom she and Mahaha had encountered while searching for noodles, and Timidit said she had arrived with Captain Hope from the Sun Moon Continent.
• Riko recounted descending into a ravine with Mahaha and finding a cavern coated in sludge where they collected Hope Worms.
• Riko and Mahaha found a naked, dark-red-haired woman on a stone platform, and Riko introduced herself to Timidit.
• Timidit tried to stand but lost her balance and fell back onto the platform.

Riko questioned Timidit, who revealed that she was Namiki’s mother and recounted how she escaped abuse on her island and joined Captain Hope’s fleet. After the fleet reached Douluo Continent and was rejected because of their dark skin, its members settled in Abyss Town before choosing to explore the Abyss Ruins in search of a homeland.

• Riko asked Timidit about Namiki, and Timidit said she was Namiki’s mother.
• Timidit described how she had been abused and exploited on her island, where she was treated as property.
• Timidit and sixteen other women escaped with Captain Hope’s fleet after Hope’s crew stopped their pursuers.
• Timidit said the fleet discovered Douluo Continent but was rejected by its towns and villages because of the members’ dark skin.
• After nearly a year in Abyss Town, Captain Hope and First Mate Dark led the group in choosing to explore deeper into the Abyss Ruins.

Timidit told Riko how Namiki became a birth-giving machine under the Heart of Dreams and how their companions became Fallen Ones. Zhou Qing questioned how Hope grew so enormous and challenged Timidit's claim that she never left the cave, leaving Riko and Dugu Bo suspecting her memories were unreliable or incomplete.

• Timidit recounted how Namiki's children became food and how their companions entered Namiki, transformed into Fallen Ones, and descended to the Fifth Layer.
• Riko took Timidit out of the ravine and bought her clothes in exchange for Timidit keeping her company and talking with her.
• Zhou Qing reasoned that Timidit had been too weak from hunger to search for Hope Worms, but Timidit denied that anyone had fed her.
• Timidit said Hope had been only five or six meters long before entering Namiki's transformed cave and had grown after obtaining another Heart of Dreams.
• Zhou Qing pointed out that Timidit could not know Hope had obtained another Heart of Dreams if she had never left the area, and Riko and Dugu Bo suspected her memory was muddled or she was hiding something.