Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn helped Fang Wen lure Long Yuhe into an ambush, where the Special Task Force attacked and Long Yuhe confronted Fang Wen over an alleged betrayal. As Lu PingAn escaped with the second half of his payment, he grew suspicious that Fang Wen’s story concealed a deeper connection to Long Yuhe.

• Lu PingAn agreed to cooperate more closely with Guan Xinxian after becoming a Pactbearer, then joined Fang Wen at a warehouse to set an ambush for her pursuer.
• Long Yuhe arrived at Fang Wen’s safe house and recognized the trap, but another group of attackers struck first.
• Xia Qin and Lei Huo Ren’s team attacked Long Yuhe, who fought back and accused Rose Liu Zibei and Fang Wen of betraying them.
• Lu PingAn and Fang Wen fled while Long Yuhe was engaged, and Lu PingAn questioned whether Fang Wen had truly been betrayed or had helped arrange the attack.
• Fang Wen received a sack of goods as the second half of her payment, and Lu PingAn accepted it while agreeing to pursue deeper cooperation.

Long Yuhe fought through Rose Liu Zibei’s Treant army, but Fang Wen ambushed and provoked her into a rage before Blood Mark swallowed them both. Lu PingAn returned to his inn with a basin of mysterious silver liquid and faced the problem of how to use it.

• Long Yuhe used her modified Foot Armor and combat skill to break through Rose Liu Zibei’s forest army as he considered deploying his trump card, Blood Mark.
• Fang Wen, in her Silver War form, kicked Long Yuhe back into the encirclement and taunted her about her brother, her education, and her transformation.
• Long Yuhe entered her Blade Ghoul state and overwhelmed Silver War, while Fang Wen used knowledge of her temper to provoke her into chasing the liquid-metal fighter.
• Rose Liu Zibei ordered Blood Mark to swallow the battlefield, and Long Yuhe and Fang Wen fell into the red abyss still fighting.
• Lu PingAn returned to his inn, where he examined the basin of pale silver liquid Fang Wen had given him and wondered how to use it.

Lu PingAn accepted a block of Maltari Memory Metal from Fang Wen, then used it to test whether she could track him and concluded she was hiding in the Steam Factory. Elsewhere, Bishop Liu and the Bureau of Anomalous Affairs' Deputy Director fought over custody of Long Yuhe, who remained alive despite being reduced to a head and shoulders.

• Lu PingAn accepted Fang Wen's Maltari Memory Metal and, after Big Cat assured him its will could not reach their Courtyard, stored it there.
• Fang Wen briefly lost and then regained the metal's signal, visited Lu PingAn, and pretended she had only come to remind him about their cooperation.
• Fang Wen said Long Yuhe's fate had changed the balance of power, while Lu PingAn inferred from her quick arrival that her new workshop was in the Steam Factory.
• Lu PingAn decided to make the most of his time and discuss business with an old acquaintance.
• Bishop Liu refused the Bureau of Anomalous Affairs' Deputy Director's demand to take Long Yuhe, calling her his spoils of war as she cursed from inside a transparent container.

Lu PingAn completed his Pactbearer advancement by signing 271 unsigned supernatural contracts, gaining new skills and a Self-Curse. The Secluded Courtyard then integrated contract rules into its trading and banking systems, leaving Lu PingAn ready to use the new features.

• Lu PingAn reviewed the unsigned contracts and signed his name as their Contract Maker and guarantor, completing the Pactbearer advancement ceremony.
• Lu PingAn gained Contract Creation lv1, Contract Cancellation lv1, and the Self-Curse Contractor's Oath, which prevented him from lying in exchange for making his words inspire trust.
• The Secluded Courtyard detected the Pactbearer profession and adjusted its rules to integrate contracts into the Life Bank.
• The Trading Board gained Offer Transaction and Anonymous Auction functions, while the Life Bank gained loans and guarantees with new limits, terms, interest, and transaction taxes.
• Lu PingAn smiled, believing he had gained enough useful features to play a proper hand.

Lu PingAn finalized a strict cooperation and confidentiality contract with Guan Xinxian, using the Life Bank as guarantor. He then showed Guan Xinxian the expanded Garden, whose extraordinary, controlled life pollution reminded him of a legendary Divine Realm.

• Lu PingAn explained that his upgraded Life Bank abilities allowed loans and offers, though the market still lacked funds and participants.
• Lu PingAn and Guan Xinxian reviewed and signed a long-term cooperation and confidentiality contract backed by the Life Bank, which filed one copy.
• Lu PingAn welcomed Guan Xinxian as a teammate and opened the sealed doors to reveal the expanded secret realm.
• Lu PingAn offered Guan Xinxian a plot in the Garden and asked him to advise on its design and magical plants.
• Guan Xinxian examined the Garden's fertile soil and recognized its perfectly controlled pollution as resembling the legendary Kingdom of God on Earth.

Guan Xinxian recognized Lu PingAn’s Courtyard as a divine kingdom governed by life and transaction, then agreed to join his organization, Reborn. Meanwhile, Lu PingAn secured a temporary pact with Fang Wen and offered to arrange a meeting with Kerdales in exchange for a written price.

• Guan Xinxian identified the Courtyard’s rules as the opposite of the Mother Goddess Church’s ruthless competition, and he and Lu PingAn signed a long-term cooperation contract and named their organization Reborn.
• Lu PingAn continued tracking the Sophist and the Long Family Brother while Long Yuhe’s captors struggled to extract information from her.
• Lu PingAn presented Fang Wen with a half-year agreement forbidding either side from attacking the other until the remaining Mother Goddess Church members were captured or eliminated.
• Fang Wen signed the agreement, believing its penalty would not prevent her from switching bodies if she broke it.
• Lu PingAn offered to take Fang Wen to meet Kerdales after their other affairs were settled, provided she paid a sufficient price and put it in writing.

Lu PingAn convinced Fang Wen that Kerdales might still be alive and used her uncertainty to secure a new contract. Fang Wen left with plans to prepare for the coming battle, while Lu PingAn kept both contracts and the advantage.

• Fang Wen nearly attacked Lu PingAn, but hesitated when she considered their contract and his claim that he had seen Kerdales.
• Lu PingAn’s words drove Fang Wen into frantic speculation about Kerdales’s survival and the Apotheosis Ritual.
• Lu PingAn offered a new contract to take Fang Wen to Kerdales, with death as his penalty for failing to fulfill it.
• Fang Wen wrote her payment into the contract, offering money and two Silver-Rank items after the battle, and agreed to have the Liquid Metal made into a strength-enhancing gauntlet.
• Fang Wen left while repeatedly looking back, and Lu PingAn put away the two effective contracts, pleased that she had accepted his plan.

Lu PingAn prepared to act as the Ascension Reenactment began, using his cooperation with Fang Wen and a newly acquired Mobile Armguard to strengthen his position. He took Fang Wen to the Zion District Police Station and gave her a list of people to kill, starting with Ke Zhenmo and Lei Huo Ren.

• Lu PingAn explained to Big Cat that his gamble with Fang Wen had secured the strategic advantage he wanted.
• A shockwave triggered new high-pollution incidents across Ancient City, and a voice announced that the reenactment had begun.
• Lu PingAn examined the Mobile Armguard he had received and decided its surveillance equipment could help him identify who was watching him.
• Fang Wen arrived with information that the ritual site was Nine Bend Mountain, but Lu PingAn told her to come kill someone first.
• Lu PingAn gave Fang Wen a list of targets at the Zion District Police Station, beginning with Ke Zhenmo and Lei Huo Ren.

Fang Wen confronted the apparent Ke Zhenmo in the office and killed him before Lu PingAn could draw out more information. The real Sophist remained at large, and Lu PingAn’s investigation into possible insiders was still unresolved.

• As contamination erupted from Nine Bend Mountain, Ke Zhenmo stayed behind at the office while Lei Huo Ren acted independently.
• Silver War, revealed as Fang Wen, attacked the apparent Ke Zhenmo and demanded that he swear to abandon his pursuit of Kerdales-related targets and leave Ancient City.
• The apparent Ke Zhenmo mocked Fang Wen and hinted that he had lured Long Yuhe into an ambush and hunted Fang Wen’s children, so Fang Wen killed him before Lu PingAn could question him further.
• Lu PingAn arrived and reprimanded Fang Wen for ending the interrogation; Big Cat determined that the shrunken corpse was likely a clone rather than a Replacement.
• Lu PingAn abandoned his plan to continue killing suspects and left with Fang Wen, while the real Sophist watched from a hotel and recognized the connection between Lu PingAn and Fang Wen.
• A frail figure in a hospital gown stared at the unfamiliar world as Sophist’s blood mark spread across his body.

Lu PingAn traced the information leaks to Team Three and suspected Old Ke, then used a message about Old Ke’s fate to force the Sophist’s hidden conflict into the open. Xia Qin and the other squads learned that Lei Huo Ren had attacked Captain Li Tao and stolen a Rule-level Taboo Item.

• Lu PingAn reasoned that the Sophist might be exploiting an old acquaintance inside Team Three and focused his suspicions on its veteran members.
• Lu PingAn shared his suspicions with Xia Qin and concluded that the traitor was somewhere in Team Three, though he lacked decisive evidence.
• Lu PingAn accepted the collapse of the uneasy balance between him and the Sophist and chose to force the situation into the open.
• Xia Qin received a photo of Old Ke and erupted in Sword Qi, striking nearby monsters and teammates.
• The Special Task Force sent all squads an order stating that Lei Huo Ren had attacked Captain Li Tao, seized a Rule-level Taboo Item, and was to be killed if he resisted.

As the Special Task Force hunted for the stolen Rule-level Taboo Item, Xia Qin protected Lei Shui Yun from suspicion by revealing that Mother Goddess Church followers had impersonated team members. Lu PingAn concluded that Lei Huo Ren was likely acting on his own and sent Xia Qin and Lei Shui Yun separate instructions as the crisis escalated.

• A citywide alert named Lei Huo Ren as a wanted suspect, and the teams began treating Lei Shui Yun as a possible accomplice.
• Xia Qin fired a shot to halt the teams, then showed evidence that Sophist’s followers had disguised themselves as Special Task Force members and killed Ke Zhenmo.
• Lei Shui Yun followed Lu PingAn’s instruction to trust Xia Qin, while questioning whether her brother had chosen this path deliberately.
• Lu PingAn identified Sabbath's Slumbering Waterwing as a devastating offensive weapon and judged that the real Lei Huo Ren was likely allied with Sophist.
• Lu PingAn told Xia Qin to take her people to find the patient Lu PingAn and instructed Lei Shui Yun to disappear and meet him.

Lu PingAn told Cat Cat that Lei Huo Ren had abandoned her and urged her to confront him before he left Ancient City. At Gu City First Prison, Lei Huo Ren killed Ma Donglai and sacrificed 7,862 prisoners to summon a power that froze the prison, while a meteor struck Nine Bend Mountain.

• Lu PingAn found Cat Cat in the Steam Factory, bluntly told her Lei Huo Ren had chosen to leave, and pushed her to go see him before it was too late.
• Cat Cat said Lei Huo Ren would visit Gu City First Prison and began telling Lu PingAn about their family’s past as she got ready.
• Lei Huo Ren confronted Ma Donglai, the former philanthropist who had abducted and experimented on his family, and killed him.
• Lei Huo Ren used Ma Donglai’s blood in a ritual, offering 7,862 evildoers to the Final Executor of Justice.
• Gu City First Prison was sealed in ice, everyone inside died, and a meteor fell onto Nine Bend Mountain.

Lei Huo Ren revealed his hidden Aropos Executor path and sacrificed thousands of prisoners to unleash a devastating judgement strike on Nine Bend Mountain, disrupting Long Qianlan’s ritual. The competing histories shifted reality toward Zion, where a newly real Lu PingAn met Liu Yiyi, who offered to take him to a safe secret realm.

• Lei Huo Ren used the Fist of Aropos to summon a meteor that devastated Nine Bend Mountain and disrupted its ritual.
• The sacrifices and relics used by Lei Huo Ren and Sophist created competing replayed histories, while Long Qianlan’s survivors killed themselves and counterfeit relics undermined his ritual.
• Two versions of Lu PingAn merged outside a hospital, making him briefly close to becoming real.
• Lei Huo Ren arrived in Zion and touched the altar, using himself as a stable coordinate to draw control of the secret realm away from Nine Bend Mountain.
• Liu Yiyi invited Lu PingAn to come with her to a relatively safe secret realm.

Lu PingAn questioned Fang Wen about the Mother Goddess Church’s plan and realized the Sophist had misled the other followers because Lu PingAn himself was the replay ritual’s true focus. Meanwhile, the Historical Secret Realm spread into reality, unleashing wolves that consumed its human sacrifices as the Sophist and Lei Huo Ren vanished.

• Lu PingAn sent Cat Cat back to the Courtyard, summoned Fang Wen, and asked her to reveal the Mother Goddess Church’s plan.
• Fang Wen explained that the group planned to replace Big Cat during her Apotheosis Ritual, while she intended to use Liquid Metal to modify or hide within Big Cat.
• Lu PingAn concluded that the Sophist had misled the church followers and that he himself was the replay ritual’s true focus.
• The Sophist and Lei Huo Ren watched as the seized Historical Secret Realm spread through Zion District and a giant beast began breaking free of its restrictions.
• The Sophist sent human sacrifices into the fog, where ash-black wolves dragged them away before turning toward the platform and finding the Sophist and Lei Huo Ren gone.

Xia Qin and the trapped Keepers of Secrets were forced to witness Kerdales’s brutal arena ritual, where duelists exchanged their lifespans for power and the survivors became part of the Mother Tree. As more captives were brought into the secret realm, Xia Qin kept searching for a loophole, unaware that history had already changed.

• Kerdales made Liu Ye and Rust Axe Le Yun fight, and both repeatedly sacrificed years of their lives for power until Liu Ye survived as an aged man.
• Kerdales had Rust Axe’s corpse absorbed into the Mother Tree, where his face appeared on its trunk, and noted that thirteen Keepers of Secrets had been caught.
• Kerdales selected Li Zigui as the next participant while Xia Qin remained trapped and tried to identify a loophole in the secret realm’s rules.
• The entrance opened, but a gray-green wolf pack drove another group of captives into the arena instead of a savior arriving.
• Xia Qin renewed her search for hope, unaware that history had already changed.

Long Qianlan’s army was devastated by the Righteous Meteor, forcing him to seek a truce and offer intelligence about the secret realm’s control. Meanwhile, the Sophist intended to feed the transformed illusion until it became real, and Long Qianlan proposed killing his companion before resuming their struggle for victory.

• Sophist Yuan Dunxing explained that the secret realm had become an uncontrolled illusion equivalent to a weakened Kerdales performing an ascension ritual, and he planned to feed it so it could approach reality.
• Sophist Yuan Dunxing urged Lei Huo Ren, whom he called Zhi Yin, to act before the seed grew into a tree, and Lei Huo Ren vanished into the shadows.
• Long Qianlan recalled how Fang Wen had betrayed him, his disciple had been killed, and his younger sister had been captured.
• The Righteous Meteor destroyed Long Qianlan’s army at Nine Bend Mountain, leaving only a few dozen stragglers and badly injuring the Tier 6 attackers.
• Long Qianlan offered a truce and intelligence, claiming his companion controlled the secret realm, and urged the others to kill him before they resumed competing for the prize.

As Ancient City became a sacrificial ground for a god-ascension ritual, Lu PingAn chose to target Long Yuhe before the sixth-rank contenders could recruit her. Gao Changpeng killed the two officers guarding her and prepared to take her to her brother.

• The Infinite Wall sealed Ancient City, while Big Cat explained that the god-ascension ritual was turning the city into a holy domain that would consume its inhabitants.
• Fang Wen admitted that Long Qianlan had probably destroyed the bridge, and Lu PingAn redirected her from the ritual site to help him kill Long Yuhe.
• Lu PingAn explained that Long Yuhe could become a powerful ally for the sixth-rank contenders, so he planned to reach her before she joined them.
• Fang Wen revealed that parts she had sold Long Yuhe could transmit a signal, and Lu PingAn told her to activate them.
• Gao Changpeng received instructions from Bishop Liu, killed the two Special Task Force officers guarding Long Yuhe, and said he would take her to her brother.

Lu PingAn’s group caught up with Gao Changpeng and Long Yuhe, and a chaotic fight left Fang Wen responsible for killing both of them. Lu PingAn took the Foot Armor and ordered Fang Wen to adjust it, while she erupted in anger.

• Lu PingAn found two Special Task Force agents murdered and set off with Fang Wen to pursue the attackers.
• Gao Changpeng mourned Sun Yinbing, grew suspicious of Liu Zibei’s motives, and drove through the panicked city with the regenerating Long Yuhe.
• Silver War attacked Gao Changpeng’s car, and Gao Changpeng persuaded Fang Wen to pause by claiming Liu Zibei and Long Qianlan’s side had invited her to join their alliance.
• A masked figure killed Long Yuhe, then ordered Fang Wen to kill Gao Changpeng; Silver War attacked Lu PingAn before turning on Gao Changpeng and tearing him apart.
• Lu PingAn took the Foot Armor and told Fang Wen to adjust it, provoking her anger.

Lu PingAn made Fang Wen modify and remove a hidden transmitter from the Heavenly Boots, a powerful Silver Taboo Item with mobility upgrades and attribute-equalizing effects. As Fang Wen’s workshops came under attack and Tier 6 enemies approached, she fled with Lu PingAn, while another Lu PingAn found himself facing a suspicious Liu Yiyi in a hospital room.

• Lu PingAn kept the Heavenly Boots on while Fang Wen modified them, wary that she might seize them if he took them off.
• Fang Wen explained the boots’ equalizing ability and mechanical modifications, and removed and crushed a hidden transmitter chip.
• Fang Wen sensed that attackers had destroyed many of her workshops and accused Lu PingAn, but he denied involvement and warned that Tier 6 enemies were coming.
• Fang Wen transformed into a Mechanical Bird and fled with Lu PingAn.
• A second Lu PingAn, wearing a hospital gown, realized the night had abruptly turned to day and questioned the Liu Yiyi who claimed to be his attending physician.

Lu PingAn encountered a monster impersonating Liu Yiyi, but Xia Qin arrived and used a message from his future self to win his trust. As Xia Qin took him away, the Sophist arranged for Lei Huo Ren to retrieve the key seed she had intercepted.

• Lu PingAn realized that the woman posing as Liu Yiyi was acting strangely and tried to stall as she led him toward a secluded alley.
• A Special Task Force woman named Xia Qin appeared, and the fake Liu Yiyi took Lu PingAn hostage before Xia Qin blasted her into a wall.
• Xia Qin gave Lu PingAn the number marking his death and said his future self had told him to trust her; Lu PingAn accepted her offer of ten thousand and questioned her about the future.
• The fake Liu Yiyi shed her disguise, revealing herself as an ordinary person, while Lu PingAn continued probing Xia Qin about their future and her plans.
• The Sophist realized Xia Qin had abandoned her mission to find Lu PingAn, then called Zhi Yin to retrieve the key seed she had intercepted.
• Lei Huo Ren appeared before Xia Qin.