Chapter Summaries

Ronan investigated the stalled Cloak app and suspected that Luo Yuan knew more about the Cloak and the Mist Labyrinth than he had revealed. As he increased surveillance of Luo Yuan and prepared to meet Mountain Lord, Ronan asked him why he had not sought out Luo Yuan.

• Ronan reasoned that the Cloak app’s stalled download might stem from a malfunction in the Cloak Dedicated Computer and wondered whether Luo Zhongheng and Luo Yuan had used it together.
• Ronan reviewed Luo Yuan’s ties to Lake City, Li Wei, Tu Ge, and the Mist Labyrinth, then raised surveillance of Luo Yuan, Fan Lu, and their associates.
• Ronan asked Auntie Kui to notify Mountain Lord that he could come to the Relay Station base for a meeting.
• Ronan reflected on his limited computational resources and the time required to gather materials for the Artificial Golden Cell formulas.
• Ronan abruptly asked Mountain Lord, “Why don't you look for Luo Yuan?”

Ronan and Mountain Lord discussed their cooperation, the Fog Maze, and ways to use its dangers as potential Replacements, while Mountain Lord agreed to contact Luo Yuan through Mora. After Mountain Lord left, Ronan considered how Demon Rune could help him develop dream-related abilities and wondered whether Luo Yuan could provide information about the Central Star Zone.

• Mountain Lord initially resisted Ronan's suggestion to consult Luo Yuan about genetic options, then agreed to request a meeting through Mora.
• Ronan told Mountain Lord that all parties should discuss their plans together and share what they learned, rather than creating more black boxes in their cooperation.
• Mountain Lord said he could no longer sense Skull Demon King in the Fog Maze and feared the threats on the Perception Chain Network might make him prey.
• Ronan explained that most targets in the Fog Maze were remnants of Rule Fragments and suggested they could serve as Replacements comparable to Skull Demon King's Egg.
• Mountain Lord left after promising to contact Mora and keep Ronan informed, while Ronan considered deepening his study of the Dream Entry Method with Demon Rune.
• Ronan wondered whether Luo Yuan might help him learn who held dream-related authority in the Central Star Zone.

Ronan revised his Lens Nebula plugin to better map active domain fragments in the Mist Labyrinth and discovered a vast halo structure around the Sun Wheel Absolute Prison. His improved view revealed star clusters in the Core Radiation Zone, including the likely source of his grandfather’s noise pollution, though Luo Yuan’s location remained unresolved.

• Ronan connected Luo Yuan’s possible intelligence source to the Balance of Truth and considered that Luo Yuan might have made a direct transaction with it in the Mist Labyrinth.
• Ronan used Great Comprehension and information from Nibbling Void Bacteria to refine his Lens Nebula plugin for detecting Active Stars.
• The revised plugin nearly doubled the number of fixed stars detected in the outer region and revealed a huge nested halo at the center of the Core Radiation Zone.
• Ronan analyzed the halo as the Sun Wheel Absolute Prison, noting the Nibbling Void Bacteria gathered along its boundary and the empty zone around it where Liang Lu’s Broken Flying Ship remained.
• Ronan saw clusters of fixed stars throughout the inner region and concluded that one of them was likely the source of noise pollution that had troubled Grandfather.

Ronan’s study of the Core Radiation Zone and the calamity-era records advanced his understanding of cosmic history and Ritual Ancient Script to the Tracing Origin and Root level. He named the transformed text Mirror Appraisal and narrowed his search for Luo Yuan’s Plane Crossbow, though its nature still required verification.

• Ronan connected the Core Radiation Zone’s structure with historical records of the calamity-era battle and gained a clearer view of how the fallen Dominators, Deities, and Great Monarchs had shaped spacetime.
• Ronan realized he had advanced in cosmic macrohistory and Ritual Ancient Script from seeing the light arrow to Tracing Origin and Root, gaining a broad grasp of historical trends and some foresight into survival and destruction.
• Ronan found that the original Ritual Ancient Script text had transformed into a tangible sphere-like polyhedron, named it Mirror Appraisal, and watched it reassemble after he crushed it.
• Ronan identified the Justice Cult’s natal star and narrowed the likely locations of Luo Yuan’s Plane Crossbow to a handful of halo-structured targets in the outer region.
• Ronan conjectured that the Plane Crossbow’s plane had a far more recent history than the other structures in the Fog Maze and decided that modeling and verification were still needed.
• Ronan credited Great Comprehension and the void-gnawing fungus for his gains, easing his displeasure with Liang Lu despite still suspecting his motives.

Ronan used Mirror Appraisal to organize historical records of the Han Guang God War and investigate how its fallen Deities and Divine Kingdoms might have formed the Fog Maze. He hoped to trace the origins and movements of its star clusters and Active Stars, and ended by turning his attention to the Blood Prison King.

• Ronan divided the Fog Maze into sixteen regions around the Sun Wheel Absolute Prison, though its stars and clusters shifted unpredictably between them.
• He repeatedly crushed and reformed Mirror Appraisal, using Ritual Ancient Script to arrange records of the God War’s casualties and aftermath.
• Ronan concluded that the Fog Maze was probably the far side of the Crimson Wheel Rift, a projection of the God War and its buried remains, including fragments of collapsed Divine Kingdoms.
• He set out to use differences in how the remains and rules circulated through the Fog Maze to identify the origins and movement of its celestial bodies.
• Ronan considered the Plane Crossbow a potential clue and chose the Blood Prison King as his first lead.

Ronan used the Mirror Appraisal and his observations of the Fog Maze to investigate the Blood Prison King and the Justice Cult’s natal star, whose unusual rules did not match any of the 139 fallen powers he had cataloged. He decided to approach the natal star by borrowing the Justice Cult’s rule grappling line before their cooperation could limit his access.

• Ronan tracked the Blood Prison King’s shifting position and identified him as a useful reference for studying how powerful beings influenced Earth Local Time-Space.
• Ronan focused on the Justice Cult’s natal star and compared its frequent, purposeful resonance with the Blood Prison King’s more limited influence.
• Ronan used the Mirror Appraisal to review the 139 beings buried in the Tomb of Hundred Gods but could not match the natal star’s specialized replacement rules to any of them.
• Ronan concluded that the Justice Cult’s natal star had a uniquely active relationship with the Fog Maze and might have left traces that Luo Yuan could recognize.
• Ronan considered traveling to the natal star and decided to get an early start by borrowing the Justice Cult’s rule grappling line before their cooperation was settled.

Li Taisheng was sent to Lake City to strengthen the Justice Cult’s cooperation with the Mountain Lord after High Priest Lanier judged that waiting would weaken their position. On the airship, Li Taisheng worried that the assignment sidelined him, then sensed an indifferent gaze directed at the Balance of Truth within his Heart Lake.

• Li Taisheng returned to Number One Underground Cave and feared that the Gray Substance incident and his earlier misfortune might happen again.
• High Priest Lanier told Li Taisheng that the Mountain Lord had gone to the Lakeside Hotel in Lake City after failing to obtain the hoped-for results, and had turned toward other social engagements.
• High Priest Lanier ordered Li Taisheng to strengthen the cooperation by deciding what to offer the Mountain Lord and handling communication with him.
• Li Taisheng arranged for Liu Chengzai to accompany him to Lake City, delegated his camp duties, and left aboard an airship.
• Li Taisheng worried that Lanier had assigned him to a dangerous side operation, then visualized the Balance of Truth and sensed an indifferent gaze passing through him toward it.

Li Taisheng received Mountain Lord’s request for an old Justice Cult agreement concerning overlapping planes and began investigating its origins. As he and Liu Chengzai traveled toward Lake City, Li Taisheng discovered that An Weng had drafted the relevant clauses and set out to learn more before meeting Mountain Lord.

• Li Taisheng woke aboard the Armored Airship and rejected Liu Chengzai’s suggestion to contact Mountain Lord before arriving in Lake City.
• Mountain Lord called Li Taisheng to ask for the Justice Cult’s version of an old agreement that covered plane overlap and superimposition, and Li Taisheng sent him a copy.
• Li Taisheng reviewed the agreement and considered whether its clauses could apply to the Thirteenth District and the Mist Labyrinth.
• Li Taisheng asked Liu Chengzai about the Thirteenth District and learned that Permanent Miners used it to evade control despite its dangers.
• Li Taisheng consulted the Cult’s archives and learned that An Weng had drafted and revised the agreement’s clauses.
• Li Taisheng made more than a dozen calls to investigate An Weng’s history, hoping to prepare for his meeting with Mountain Lord.

Ronan considered how to piece together the history of the Deep Blue World and the Thirteenth District from scattered information. Wen Huilan revealed that a Lake City mental health center housed former Deep Blue World mining personnel with memory disorders, giving Ronan a promising new lead.

• Ronan reflected that information gathered from people such as Li Taisheng, Mora, and others could help him reconstruct the history of the Thirteenth District and the Deep Blue World.
• Wen Huilan called Ronan and told him that Renhe Mental Health Rehabilitation Center housed patients with severe memory disorders, including former Deep Blue World mining personnel.
• Wen Huilan explained that Deep Blue World mining teams had their memories erased or replaced when they left, sometimes leaving them with lasting cognitive damage.
• Ronan recognized the center's patients as a possible source of memories about the Deep Blue World and praised Wen Huilan for finding the lead.
• Ronan considered tracing the memory-erasure methods to the Justice Cult and studying the miners' physical Growth Rings for clues about life in the Deep Blue World.

Ronan investigated the Renhe Mental Health Rehabilitation Center, using Life Year Ring patterns and fragmented memories to identify people connected to the Deep Blue World. As the investigation stirred memories and emotions across the population, he felt the resulting contamination and recognized that his plans would grow harder as greater forces approached.

• Ronan entered the Renhe Mental Health Rehabilitation Center and used psychological suggestions to move through it unnoticed.
• Ronan distinguished Mottled Year Rings, Violent Year Rings, and Weak Year Rings to identify Wilderness Vagrants, Deep Blue World miners, and other relevant people.
• Ronan used information from Mora, Black Lion, Mountain Lord, and the Demon Rune to guide patients’ fragmented memories into dreams and begin piecing them together.
• Ronan identified likely candidates among researchers who had lived and worked in the Deep Blue World, and planned to consult Li Taisheng about the Justice Cult’s cooperation with Li Wei.
• Ronan felt contaminated by the emotional memories he had stirred and realized that the Centennial Sequence and Central Star Region would complicate his plans to take over the nest.
• Ronan surveyed the ward and considered how the Soul Cape had erased the distance that once let people ignore the rehabilitation center’s suffering.

After seeing the neglected patients at a Rehabilitation Center, Ronan connected poverty and population growth to the possible uses of human lives in Li Wei’s plans. He asked Wen Huilan to prepare a report for the Peak Conference on the market for roughly processed aberrant ingredients, then left without changing the patients’ conditions.

• Ronan considered whether the growth of Earth’s low-income population and Life Year Rings could serve Li Wei’s purposes, including the False God Materialized True Seed ritual.
• Ronan asked Wen Huilan to write a report on the audience for roughly processed aberrant ingredients, using census data and information from the Ronan and His Friends Foundation.
• Wen Huilan suggested Ronan might recommend expanding living space beyond the gigantic urban clusters, and Ronan agreed this could be his proposal for the Peak Conference.
• Wen Huilan told Ronan that Earth’s military and political forces had nearly completed Military AB Group research when Li Wei launched the Deep Blue Platform in 90 Year.
• Ronan decided not to improve the Rehabilitation Center patients’ conditions in the short term so as not to alert Li Wei, then left and told himself, “It’s The Other Side.”

Ronan used Great Comprehension, Demon Rune, and Dream Divine Abomination to trace the Half-Rotten Miners and discovered that Sanctuary connected their scattered experiences across time and space. After sensing the Pseudo-Soul Order’s weak broadcast, he began using Great Comprehension as a broadcast tower to act on the miners’ collective state.

• Ronan considered whether Li Wei had begun manipulating people and concluded he could not confront the source of the chaos, so he would have to address its existing effects.
• Ronan used Great Comprehension to detect the rotten smell surrounding the Half-Rotten Miners, uncovering a filtering ability that revealed their vague distribution.
• Ronan and Demon Rune used the Altar Spiderweb, the dead miner’s information, and the Psychic Map to resonate with suspicious people and spread the miner’s thoughts among them.
• Ronan recognized Sanctuary as the node connecting the miners’ past and present, and sensed the Pseudo-Soul Order’s broadcast asking for help and unity.
• Ronan decided the Sanctuary signal was too weak and recited his passage to establish See Me Datong Contemplation Time-Space, turning Great Comprehension into a broadcast tower.

Ronan used Great Comprehension to broadcast an Ancient God-like signal, then was caught in a violent disturbance of space-time that also disrupted the Sky Abyss Mirror System. The Martial Emperor warned that Ronan’s experiment had stirred the deadly Cloak and could expose them all.

• Ronan used Great Comprehension to shake nearby space-time planes and analyze the Echoes for signs of the True Soul Order.
• A force made Ronan feel fixed like a pillar as the world around him swayed, and he used the Divine Script character I and his Grand Coordinate System to understand the disturbance.
• Auntie Kui reported that environmental anomalies had put the Sky Abyss Mirror System into standby and suspended the Chess Path evolution, offering Ronan an early evaluation or a wait for normal operation.
• The Martial Emperor contacted Ronan and warned him that playing with the Cloak could expose them all, threatening to use Ronan as a decoy if they had to flee.
• Ronan acknowledged that the Cloak needed to be tested and said it was fine as long as nothing had happened.

After Great Comprehension disturbed the Divine Cloak and revealed a world-reflecting screen in Developer Mode, Ronan ended his conversation with the Martial Emperor and chose to let the Test Spacetime’s evolution wait. Reviewing the disturbance led him to a sudden insight about reality and illusion, and the name Lord of Illusory Nightmares surfaced in his mind.

• The Martial Emperor confirmed that Ronan had shaken the Divine Cloak without disturbing the Sun Wheel Absolute Prison or triggering the Extreme Domain Light, but refused to teach him how to operate it.
• As the world’s swaying stopped, Ronan saw ragged strips of curtain vanish and Developer Mode appear, leading him to suspect the Divine Cloak had briefly formed a screen reflecting the world.
• The Martial Emperor warned that Li Wei or the Central Star Zone’s Colonial Fleet might be sensitive to the disturbance, and Ronan ended their call to examine what had happened.
• Ronan chose to wait rather than settle the Test Spacetime’s results, then considered whether Great Comprehension had disturbed the Divine Cloak and caused the Sky Abyss Mirror System to stop.
• While reviewing the disturbance, Ronan focused on the divide between reality and illusion and suddenly thought of the Lord of Illusory Nightmares.

Ronan wondered whether Earth and the Test Spacetime were real or dreamlike, and decided to use the Great Comprehension broadcast to investigate. After small tests proved insufficient, he traveled to the Cloud Top World to experiment cautiously.

• Ronan crushed a fragment of the damaged rooftop, then realized he could no longer enter the Test Spacetime to compare its domains with the Dream God Nightmare’s.
• Building guards and public security officers mistook Ronan for someone about to jump, but a police drone identified his status and left without intervening.
• Wen Huilan contacted Ronan about the Yangye Group Building, and he asked her to arrange an estimate for repairs.
• Ronan questioned whether the world was real, considered the Lord of Illusory Nightmares and others who might know the truth, and resolved to investigate with the Great Comprehension broadcast.
• Ronan tested the broadcast at several limited radii but produced only faint spacetime wavering, then chose the Cloud Top World as a place to experiment more broadly.
• Ronan examined the Cloud Top World’s fragile spacetime structure and prepared to adjust the broadcast carefully to avoid damaging it or affecting Earth Local Time-Space and the Fog Maze.

Ronan examined the Mist Labyrinth through a rupture he had made in the Cloud Top World and realized the Rotten-Mouth Ape was an artificial, data-based lifeform. He investigated whether its design was linked to Wu Jun’s Sacred Object Cape, then decided to provoke the information network for clues.

• Ronan stopped using Great Comprehension after its force left a vast fog wall where the Cloud Top World’s rules struggled against the Mist Labyrinth.
• Ronan concluded that the Rotten-Mouth Ape was an artificially designed energy-based lifeform with a sophisticated genome-like coding system.
• Ronan asked Wu Jun whether her Sacred Object Cape could reproduce the Rotten-Mouth Ape’s genome design, and she explained that the Cloak project had been suspended before achieving its goal.
• Ronan considered whether his parents, the Mist Labyrinth, or Earth could connect the Rotten-Mouth Ape to the Cloak, but he found no clear answer.
• Ronan decided to pursue technical and non-technical leads while stimulating Wen Huilan, Mora, Mountain Lord, Li Taisheng, and others to draw out information.

Ronan decided to wait before delivering the world another shock, while gathering material for his next move. His Great Comprehension caused nearby Rotten-Mouthed Apes to collapse or turn into distorted copies of him, so he experimented remotely with Mirror Appraisal and reduced one to a stem-cell-like form.

• Ronan considered the effects of his influence on the world and decided to let people grow accustomed to his presence before making another major move.
• Ronan summoned a Rotten-Mouthed Ape, which collapsed under the information radiating from him through Great Comprehension.
• Ronan summoned a second Rotten-Mouthed Ape and restrained his aura, but it became an aberrant copy of him before collapsing.
• Ronan used Mirror Appraisal from a distance to strike a Rotten-Mouthed Ape more than a hundred kilometers away and draw it toward him.
• Ronan used Ritual Ancient Script to trace the ape back to its basic design and compress it into a tiny, stem-cell-like form.

After returning to Lake City, Ronan discovered that Great Comprehension was permanently altering his existence and the surrounding time-space, so he accepted the transformation and faded from view. The Extraordinary Species at Lakeside Hotel were left feeling an unexplained disturbance, while Mora struggled to adapt to it.

• Ronan returned from Cloud Top World to Lake City and stopped above the lake when he remembered the Extraordinary Species had no need for further stimulation.
• Ronan noticed Great Comprehension was still operating, translating and expressing information about his Form and Spirit Framework into the surrounding time-space.
• Ronan realized Great Comprehension was permanently solidifying itself onto him and chose to adjust himself in the direction of its transformation.
• Ronan continued making adjustments above the lake until he blended into the air and disappeared.
• Black Lion arrived and found the Extraordinary Species, including Mora, Constance, Star Monarch, Mountain Lord, and Li Bozhou, unsettled by an invisible force in the area.
• Mora found that the disturbance kept her bodily backups shifting and draining her strength, then looked toward Connie.

Ronan struggled to negotiate with Local Time-Space so Great Comprehension could permanently solidify, while Constance discovered that space-time abilities and the Abyss Zone were disrupted. The chapter left Ronan still grappling with chaotic regional space-time structures complicated by the Abyssal Extreme Region.

• Constance told Mora that space-time abilities had been sealed or severely disrupted and that the Abyss Zone's platform was unstable.
• Mora asked whether the Star Witch and Li Bozhou were affected, and Constance confirmed the Star Witch was while Li Bozhou signaled that his Sending and Receiving Platform was also impaired.
• Mora and Constance prepared to make calls, while the Star Witch had already placed one of her own.
• Ronan struggled to negotiate with Local Time-Space because permanently solidifying Great Comprehension required him to establish a relationship with its space-time laws.
• Ronan began using Ceremonial Ancient Script to understand and communicate with those laws, but his unclear existence and lack of See Me made the negotiations difficult.
• Ronan's attempts met chaotic regional space-time structures, with the Abyssal Extreme Region making the situation more complicated.

Ronan realized that negotiating with Local Time-Space required him to account for the chaotic Abyssal Extreme Region and reach rules far beyond his current ability. After his Great Comprehension caused Local Time-Space to repel him more strongly, he resolved to use Nibbling Void Bacteria to mark the structure and make targeted breakthroughs.

• Ronan concluded that his negotiation with Local Time-Space could not bypass the Abyssal Extreme Region, whose disorder could make the process dangerous for those relying on its configurations.
• Ronan assessed the layers of space-time rules and recognized that changing the deeper rules would be far beyond his present ability, while even reaching the middle layer successfully would be difficult.
• Ronan blamed Eunuch Lord, Chun Great Lord, and Liang Lu for leaving him with the difficult task of negotiating with cosmic space-time.
• Ronan emerged on a hill road nearly five hundred kilometers from his intended destination because Local Time-Space's repulsion had disrupted his Void Shift.
• Ronan decided to use the Nibbling Void Bacteria to precisely mark Local Time-Space and break through its structure point by point.