Chapter Summaries

The players’ Shadow Memories manifested as Dream Core Ghouls, overwhelming the group and forcing Luo Xixi to flee. After Death Foresight showed her being killed by a ghoul tied to her buried trauma, she decided to erase the memory completely.

• The Buzz Cut Player’s memory of a classmate he bullied manifested as a second head, and a gunshot failed to stop it from growing back.
• The Vest Player was attacked by the memory of his dead daughter, while the Blonde Player and Purple-haired Female Player also faced ghouls from their pasts.
• Luo Xixi fled as the players’ group fell apart, but Death Foresight showed an eerie hand swallowing her.
• Luo Xixi recognized the ghoul as a shadow tied to her dance instructor’s abuse and learned it would appear in three minutes.
• Luo Xixi decided to empty her mind and erase the memory, making forgetting her weapon.

Luo Xixi survived a painful memory-transfer with White Ribbon Ghoul and reached the Door of Shattered Mirror, clearing the S-Class Dungeon. But a human-sized silkworm pupa hanging above the exit began to crack as the players approached.

• White Ribbon Ghoul transferred her painful memories into Luo Xixi, who endured the ordeal and recovered after briefly losing consciousness.
• Following White Ribbon Ghoul’s guidance, Luo Xixi continued through Dream Core Playground with her eyes covered and reached the Door of Shattered Mirror.
• Luo Xixi received confirmation that she had cleared the dungeon and unlocked a pass to the eighth floor, then joined three other players at the exit.
• The players found an enormous silkworm pupa hanging above the exit and decided to pass beneath it without provoking it.
• As Luo Xixi and the other players approached, the pupa cracked, signaling that something inside was coming out.

A gray mist revived Dream Core Playground’s dormant Nightmare Eeries, trapping the players in a deadly rampage as Luo Xixi used an upgraded [Death Foresight] to find a way out. Ji Yan discovered that Luo Xixi, the Sunglasses Player, and Timid Ghoul had escaped through a hidden passage, then prepared to deal with them himself.

• The Collapsing Ghoul emerged from a human cocoon and released gray mist that revived the Nightmare Eeries and blocked the exit.
• Luo Xixi realized the mist was bringing the playground’s dormant creatures to life, while players were killed or transformed in the chaos.
• Luo Xixi destroyed her left eyeball to upgrade [Death Foresight] and saw that the Sunglasses Player would die outside the playground.
• The Sunglasses Player forced Timid Ghoul to find a hidden passage, and the two escaped through it as Luo Xixi found the exit behind them.
• Ji Yan realized that three fugitives had slipped out, darkened the screens, and prepared to handle the cleanup himself.

Luo Xixi escaped the Dream Core Playground through a hidden passage but was captured by Xu Qiu, who used his Substitute Ring to control her vitality and force her into slavery. When Physician Gao confronted Xu Qiu, he revealed detailed knowledge of Xu Qiu’s identity and abilities, leaving the Sunglasses Player unable to move.

• Luo Xixi emerged from the hidden passage, cleared the Dream Core Playground, and entered a Hidden Dungeon.
• Xu Qiu ambushed Luo Xixi, extracted her vitality with the Grudge Eerie, and learned about her [Premonition of Death] talent.
• Xu Qiu ordered Luo Xixi to wear handcuffs and threatened her when he overheard her and White Ribbon Ghoul plotting to take his ring.
• Physician Gao appeared, and Xu Qiu analyzed him as a Level 6 subordinate Boss on the 7th Floor before the Grudge Eerie extracted his vitality.
• Physician Gao immobilized Xu Qiu and revealed his identity, Substitute Ring, Grudge Eerie’s abilities, and [Half-Knowledge] talent before questioning whether he was truly an eerie.

Ji Yan used the Cursed Grudge Brush to restrain Xu Qiu, then attacked him after the Hidden Dungeon’s rules and Order proved unable to interfere. Xu Qiu tried to flee, but Ji Yan caught him and offered him a chance to analyze Ji Yan’s [Omniscient Understanding].

• Ji Yan learned Xu Qiu’s name and used Words Manifest Law to restrain him with the suffix “Absolute Restraint.”
• While Xu Qiu was immobilized, he and Ji Yan calculated their next moves, while Luo Xixi resolved to fight back.
• When the restraint ended, Xu Qiu tried to command his Substitute Eerie, but Ji Yan cut off the finger bearing the Substitute Ring and slashed Xu Qiu’s throat.
• Xu Qiu’s attempt to use the dungeon’s rules against Ji Yan failed because outside power had destroyed the Hidden Dungeon and its Order.
• Xu Qiu fled in red smoke, but Ji Yan struck him with a Burial Coffin Nail, pinned him to a wall, and offered him the chance to analyze [Omniscient Understanding].

Ji Yan outmaneuvered Xu Qiu and Luo Xixi, using what they learned about him and their own abilities to turn the encounter against them. As the stage areas began collapsing, he told the Spirit of the Pen to begin feeding.

• Xu Qiu used [Half-Knowledge] to glimpse Ji Yan’s identity as a Black Piece, and Ji Yan killed him before he could speak the secret aloud.
• Luo Xixi confronted Ji Yan with the White Ribbon Ghoul, which looped its ribbon around his neck while the Spirit of the Pen wrote Luo Xixi’s name with the [Cursed Grudge Brush].
• Luo Xixi’s [Death Foresight] showed that she was certain to die, while Ji Yan deduced how to escape the White Ribbon Ghoul’s strangling.
• Ji Yan stood on tiptoe until the ribbon slackened, then the Spirit of the Pen used Words Manifest Law to leave Luo Xixi near death and force the White Ribbon Ghoul back into her body.
• Ji Yan approached Luo Xixi as the stage areas began to collapse and told the Spirit of the Pen to dine.

Ji Yan stopped five players sent to hunt him and killed Luo Xixi after her attempt to attack him failed. Eliminated, Luo Xixi received a trade from the Order Demon and chose the red sphere, refusing to become its servant and going to the Discarded Dungeon.

• Ji Yan was wounded by a player’s Eerie Worm attack, then killed the shooter and froze the other four players with Drawing Slash.
• Ji Yan learned that Perfected Privilege had deceived the players into hunting him, while a chess piece watched from the shadows.
• As the three stages began to collapse, Ji Yan exposed Luo Xixi’s feigned death and killed her when she tried to strike him.
• The Spirit of the Pen prepared to eat the white silk, and Ji Yan took Luo Xixi’s corpse to preserve Subject Number 3’s remaining vitality.
• After her elimination, Luo Xixi met the Order Demon, rejected its offer to become its servant, and swallowed the red sphere to go to the Discarded Dungeon.

Luo Xixi returned to the [Forbidden Zone] as an eerie servant after Doctor Gao revealed himself as Ji Yan and explained that her transformation had been part of his plan. She recounted how an unknown rule-breaking eerie caused the White Ribbon Ghoul to lose control, and confronted Ji Yan about hiding its identity.

• Order Demon mocked Luo Xixi's choice and sent her to hell, where she awakened as a dead eerie in the [Forbidden Zone].
• Doctor Gao appeared, revealed that he was Ji Yan, and admitted he had swapped information to keep Luo Xixi from escaping and turn her into an eerie servant.
• Ji Yan explained that he had come to the Tier 5 dungeon after clearing a Tier 8 dungeon and said Luo Xixi's transformation also freed her from the threat of the White Ribbon Ghoul.
• Luo Xixi recounted how an unknown eerie interfered with her attempt to subdue the White Ribbon Ghoul, causing it to lose control and forcing it to contract with her.
• Luo Xixi explained that she had pursued [Spirit of the Pen] to repair the contract and avoid both her and the White Ribbon Ghoul being erased.
• Luo Xixi accused Ji Yan of knowing the identity of the eerie that caused the disaster, but he claimed he had never seen it.

Ji Yan arranged for Luo Xixi to take Timid Ghost to a location where Blood Sis could guide her, then escaped Dungeon Order by using Qian Duoduo’s Role Card. He became a Tier 7 Corpse Death Eerie and woke as the Ghoul Vice Dean’s assistant in the Special Disease Department.

• Luo Xixi challenged Ji Yan over his decision to bring her back as an eerie, but agreed to help him in exchange for a future payment.
• As Dungeon Order began erasing the deteriorated eeries, Ji Yan sent Luo Xixi away with Timid Ghost, a location slip, and the [Oil Paper Joy Umbrella].
• Spirit of the Pen revealed that only one shackle remained on the [Cursed Grudge Brush], and breaking it required entering the [Special Disease Department].
• Dungeon Order reached Ji Yan, so he used Qian Duoduo’s [Role Card] to detach from Physician Gao and switch eerie roles.
• Ji Yan awoke as a Tier 7 Corpse Death Eerie and learned he was the Ghoul Vice Dean’s assistant in the [Special Disease Department].

Ji Yan learned that Qian Duoduo’s reform proposal had been chosen after the chaos on the 7th Floor, but White Chess Player L had sealed the Eerie Dean inside a room and badly injured Qian Duoduo. Qian Duoduo asked Ji Yan to enter the room as the Vice Dean Assistant and discover what was happening inside.

• An eerie orderly told Ji Yan that the Eerie Dean had moved up the reform plan and summoned him after a Ghoul Vice Dean was dismissed.
• Ji Yan followed the orderly through the Special Disease Department and entered Qian Duoduo’s room.
• Qian Duoduo explained that the Eerie Dean had chosen his proposal, but L had used a White Chess Player privilege to seal the Eerie Dean away.
• Qian Duoduo revealed that he had defeated L and taken out his strongest Role Card, though L was likely still hiding in the Dungeon as an NPC.
• Qian Duoduo asked Ji Yan to enter the sealed room using his Vice Dean Assistant Role Card and investigate the Eerie Dean’s condition.

Ji Yan learned how L used White Chess privilege and the players’ Main Quest to control the Eerie Dean and pursue a Perfect Dungeon. Qian Duoduo explained how perfect scores work as they headed to investigate the altered quest, leaving Ji Yan to recognize L’s plan to turn the Dean’s authority into a strategy guide for players.

• Qian Duoduo explained that L had altered the players’ Main Quest to force the Eerie Dean to attend to it, and asked Ji Yan to investigate the room where it was taking place.
• Qian Duoduo crushed a Rat that rushed toward Ji Yan and warned that disturbances could cause the Special Disease Department’s Experiment Subjects to become unstable.
• Qian Duoduo explained that a Dungeon became Perfect when a player earned a 20.0 score by completing every hidden Side Quest before the Main Quest, after which players could collect exposed rewards without dying.
• Ji Yan realized that L aimed to gain control over the Experiment Subjects by making the Eerie Dean adopt his reform plan, then use a player to follow his strategy and earn a perfect score.
• Qian Duoduo said he and L had dealt with each other often, despite being opponents.

Ji Yan entered the Experimental Underworld to oversee the third-round assessment and challenged the Eerie Dean’s plan. He launched an out-of-control assessment by unleashing Corpse Death Eerie’s ability, drawing a warning from Dungeon Order and killing one player.

• Qian Duoduo let Ji Yan pass through the Eerie Eye’s door and stayed behind to watch the entrance.
• Ji Yan entered the Experimental Underworld, where five players awaited the third-round assessment and three eliminated players were undergoing Eerie Transformation.
• The Eerie Dean gave Ji Yan the assessment privilege card and ordered him to assess the players quickly, while refusing to explain why it had chosen Qian Duoduo’s plan.
• Ji Yan rejected the planned assessment and persuaded the Eerie Dean to let him change it, despite the Dean warning that Dungeon Order was monitoring them.
• Ji Yan tore open his white coat and the Poisonous Spot on his chest, triggering Corpse Death Eerie’s ability as Dungeon Order warned him to stop.
• The players recoiled from Ji Yan, and one player was already turning into thick, bloody water.

Ji Yan exposed L as the Eerie Dean and discovered that the apparent players in the room were Anthropomorphic Ghouls, while the real players were elsewhere. After Ji Yan escaped L’s grasp by switching Role Cards, L used his White Chess privilege to send every God-Tier Player in the building after him.

• Ji Yan provoked the Eerie Dean into revealing that he was wary of Ji Yan’s Term Talent and identified him as L.
• The supposed players in the room transformed into Anthropomorphic Ghouls, revealing that the Main Quest scene had been fabricated.
• L emerged from the darkness and explained that White Chess had been sacrificed to test Ji Yan’s talent.
• Ji Yan switched Role Cards to escape L’s attack, leaving the Corpse Death Eerie’s poisonous toxins on L’s hand.
• L activated the White Chess privilege to manipulate the players and sent an emergency quest ordering the building’s God-Tier Players to hunt Ji Yan.

Ji Yan escaped White Chess’s trap by switching into the Frozen to Death Ghoul, but White Chess had already made him the target of an S-rank Main Quest. Ji Yan chose to stay in the Dungeon rather than abandon Luo Xixi and discovered a hidden mechanism tied to his new role, just as an incoming player crushed the Rat trying to reach him.

• White Chess revealed that he had taken the Ghoul Vice Dean Role Card and walked away after Ji Yan escaped the sealed room.
• Ji Yan became the Tier 6 Frozen to Death Ghost, realized White Chess controlled the Special Disease Department, and considered using Xu Xin’s [Regret Move Save] to escape.
• Ji Yan put away the escape item because leaving would endanger Luo Xixi and strand the [Oil Paper Joy Umbrella].
• The Dungeon marked Ji Yan as the targeted NPC in the S-rank [Experiment Subject Battle Royale], but he found that his Easter Egg NPC role had a hidden mechanism.
• The Spirit of the Pen warned Ji Yan to flee, and he asked how many words she owed him for helping catch Number 3.
• A gray Rat rushed toward Ji Yan, but an arriving player landed on the water pipe and crushed it.

Ji Yan fought his way through [444 Asylum] and found Qian Duoduo hiding as a weakened [Plague Eerie]. The chapter left Qian Duoduo explaining that he had used rats to signal Ji Yan, while Ji Yan pointed out that the Eerie Dean’s forces had crushed them.

• A player who had crushed a rat vanished into ice and shattered after Ji Yan attacked him.
• Ji Yan froze two bounty hunters, while the Spirit of the Pen slapped away their Tier 6 Eerie companion and broke their bond.
• Ji Yan entered the asylum’s filthy section, where rats gathered and guided him toward a hidden Eerie creature.
• Ji Yan recognized the creature as Qian Duoduo, a former ally now reduced to a Tier 2 [Plague Eerie].
• Qian Duoduo claimed his defeat was a minor mistake and asked why Ji Yan had taken so long to follow the rats’ signals.
• Ji Yan replied that the rats had been crushed underfoot and questioned whether Qian Duoduo had expected them to evade the Eerie Dean.

Ji Yan confronted Qian Duoduo about the failed plan that had led to his capture and learned how L gained the [Eerie Dean] Role Card. Qian Duoduo explained that he had lost nearly all his Role Cards and was hiding as a Tier 2 Plague Eerie, while Ji Yan questioned why Qian did not use [Return Flow] to escape.

• Qian Duoduo admitted that his plan and the [Role Card] he gave Ji Yan had led Ji Yan into multiple traps.
• Ji Yan asked how L obtained [Eerie Dean]'s [Role Card], and Qian Duoduo explained that [Sun Burial Tuo Luo] had granted L the [Unlimited Role Play] privilege.
• Qian Duoduo described his failed plan to use [Eerie Dean] and collapse the Dungeon, and Ji Yan dismissed it as a plan that had never accounted for L's privilege.
• Qian Duoduo said L had wiped out all but one of his Role Cards, leaving him to hide as a Tier 2 Plague Eerie and use rats to find Ji Yan.
• Ji Yan asked why Qian Duoduo did not activate [Return Flow] and escape back to [Roaming God Forbidden Ruin].

Ji Yan took Qian Duoduo to a Restricted Zone so he could use his hidden backup plan, while bounty hunters began pursuing them. After Ji Yan killed one hunter, a tearing sound made him turn with a changed expression.

• Qian Duoduo revealed that he had manipulated an NPC in a Restricted Zone as a last-resort trump card, and Ji Yan agreed to take him there.
• Qian Duoduo warned Ji Yan that Return Flow was disabled during direct clashes between Black and White Chess in lower-tier Dungeons, while Ji Yan kept Xu Xin's red button secret.
• Qian Duoduo sent rats ahead to scout, but one rat resisted his control, spoke to Ji Yan, and revealed that a bounty hunter was coming.
• Ji Yan crushed the speaking rat and hurried through the floors with Qian Duoduo as a player attacked them with a golden Legend-grade lighter.
• Ji Yan seized the attacker's lighter and froze the player, then heard a tearing sound and turned with a changed expression.

Ji Yan confronted Old Xu, a player using Subject 6’s Oil Painting Brush to take on eerie faces and survive lethal damage. As players drawn by the Remember Wanted Task surrounded them, Ji Yan prepared to use his two out-of-control allowances from Black Chess Privilege.

• A player escaped Ji Yan’s ice by shedding a painted layer of skin, then Old Xu attacked Ji Yan while wearing Burning Death Eerie’s face.
• Ji Yan recognized Subject 6’s Oil Painting Brush, and Qian Duoduo explained that he had left it in a Side Quest, where Old Xu had obtained it.
• The Spirit of the Pen used the Cursed Grudge Brush to seal Old Xu’s mouth, but Old Xu survived Ji Yan’s attacks by switching among painted eerie faces.
• Ji Yan revealed that he knew Old Xu’s remaining painted faces and real name, Xu Wo, but more hunters arrived before the Spirit of the Pen could act on the name.
• Ji Yan realized the surrounding players had been drawn there by L’s handiwork and prepared to use his two out-of-control allowances from Black Chess Privilege.

Ji Yan watched a Gray-haired Player arrive with the conquered [Eerie Shroud], then use a mirror to trap the gathered players in another place. Ji Yan escaped the mirror’s reach, but the Spirit of the Pen warned that the Gray-haired Player possessed more than two experiment subjects.

• Xu Wo sensed someone approaching, withdrew from the hunt, and warned the other players to flee before disappearing into the passage.
• [Eerie Shroud] appeared among the players and killed two of them by pulling their faces from their bodies.
• A Gray-haired Player arrived with [Eerie Shroud] at his side and ordered the remaining players to leave.
• When the players challenged him, the Gray-haired Player used [Bronze Mirror] to transport them to an ancient residence.
• Ji Yan escaped the mirror’s reflected area, and the Spirit of the Pen said the Gray-haired Player had more than two experiment subjects.

White Chess questioned Eerie Dean L’s plan to let players hunt Ji Yan, and L revealed that the Emergency Main Quest was also meant to test a chosen candidate for the Perfect Dungeon. In the Battle Royale, Ji Yan spotted the Gray-haired Player’s powerful ghouls and fled, while the Gray-haired Player began tracking him.

• White Chess asked why L had allowed players to hunt Ji Yan, and L explained that he wanted to prevent Ji Yan from escaping while testing a preselected player’s potential.
• L showed White Chess the candidate’s exceptional Tier 1 through Tier 4 clearance records, and White Chess realized L hoped to recruit him as a White Chess piece.
• Ji Yan recognized that the Gray-haired Player had tamed Experiment Subjects Number 1 and Number 2, and he fled with Qian Duoduo and Spirit of the Pen.
• The Gray-haired Player noticed Ji Yan had avoided the Bronze Mirror and concluded that Numbers 5, 3, and 7 were with him.
• The Gray-haired Player declared that he would catch up with Ji Yan and suspected that the Frozen to Death Ghoul had a deeper connection to Eerie Dean than he had first thought.