Chapter Summaries

Wenren Sheng captured Fang Yi’s soul after she died while performing the “Tell the Truth” ritual, then studied how the ritual worked. He left Wang Wenwen and Zhao Han to report the case while he continued examining the ritual’s soul-nourishing effects.

• Wenren Sheng absorbed Fang Yi’s fading soul and learned that she had died during a ritual meant to reveal which of two men loved her more.
• Wenren Sheng subdued Wang Luobin and Hong Renqiang and had security guards take them away after the men accused each other of killing Fang Yi.
• Wang Wenwen’s Spirit Calling Art failed, and Wenren Sheng admitted he had taken Fang Yi’s soul and told her and Zhao Han to keep it secret.
• Wenren Sheng explained the case to Wang Wenwen and Zhao Han, sent them to report it to the local Public Security Bureau, and stayed to study the ritual.
• Wenren Sheng concluded that the ritual drew portions of participants’ souls into a central pit, where they could answer questions, and that Fang Yi’s soul had paid the ritual’s power cost.

After a mass-casualty disaster in Southern India, Wenren Sheng learned that the Black-and-White Vortex had begun offering Blood Fruit that advanced Otherworldly Users through mass slaughter. Director An warned a group of Otherworldly Users to stay in the city as the Patrol Division prepared to contain the threat.

• Wenren Sheng told Inspector Liu about Fang Yi’s suicide and the online ritual, and Inspector Liu said mysterious cases had risen sharply.
• Wenren Sheng returned home and warned Zhao Han and Wang Wenwen to be careful as mysterious incidents grew more frequent.
• A news report announced that calamities in Southern India had killed or injured more than four million people, and Wang Wenwen said evacuations might follow.
• Director An summoned Wenren Sheng to District Patrol Division headquarters and ordered the gathered Otherworldly Users not to leave the city.
• Director An revealed that the Vortex Gate was trading Blood Fruit for the lives of thousands or millions of people, and Wenren Sheng realized the offer could drive Otherworldly Users to mass murder.

Director An warned the gathered geniuses about the dangers of the Blood Fruit, while Wenren Sheng dismissed the temptation. Four sworn brothers debated exploiting the opportunity to build strength, and Director An learned that many people under observation had already been tempted.

• Director An warned the geniuses that the Blood Fruit could cause madness and that Otherworldly Users faced dangers beyond its use.
• After their pledges, four young Otherworldly Experts gathered at a manor, where Bro called the Blood Fruit a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.
• Bro ordered Second Brother to discreetly contact Sanan and prepare to exploit Ordinary People, while Third Brother questioned whether Director An had set a trap.
• Third Brother worried that the coming Great Cataclysm would make cautious people vulnerable, and Bro privately regarded him as a future threat.
• Director An told Director Xing that six of ten key persons of interest had been tempted and three had acted, but Wenren Sheng appeared uninterested in the Blood Fruit.

Wenren Sheng suspected the Miken People would exploit the Vortex Gate to create an overwhelmingly powerful Otherworldly User, but was told safeguards were in place. Half a month later, the Miken People used slave trading and a sacrifice on their own territory to create Super Warriors, forcing the Sole Supremacy Society’s forces to retreat.

• Director Xing and the other division chiefs agreed that Otherworldly Users required tighter surveillance and that they needed to develop technology and strengthen their own forces.
• Wenren Sheng checked in with Big Cat and learned that the Miken People were planning a major operation while a disaster had devastated cities in Southern India.
• Wenren Sheng and Tiger-skin Parrot suspected the Miken People intended to destabilize Southern India and draw Sole Supremacy Society forces home before striking elsewhere.
• Wenren Sheng warned Director An that someone might use the Vortex Gate to elevate an Otherworldly User through repeated advancement, and Director An said they had contingency measures.
• Half a month later, Tiger-skin Parrot reported that the Miken People had deployed Super Warriors and crushed the Sole Supremacy Society’s patrolling animal puppets.
• Tiger-skin Parrot revealed that the Miken People had secretly transported enslaved people to their homeland and used them in a sacrifice to create Super Warriors.

Wenren Sheng agreed to fight the Miken People’s Super Warriors after Parrot asked for his help. At a Sole Supremacy Society video conference, Gray Wolf backed Big Cat but the members rejected his proposal to create their own Super Warriors and debated retreating instead.

• Wenren Sheng agreed to test how powerful the Miken People’s Super Warriors were, and Parrot hurried back to report his decision.
• Parrot convened a video conference, where an Old Man doubted Big Cat could defeat Super Warriors equivalent to Master Level Otherworldly Users.
• Gray Wolf supported relying on Big Cat and proposed creating the Society’s own Super Warriors, but members objected that doing so would provoke the Patrol Division.
• Gray Wolf suggested using powerful puppets to wear down the enemy, but a combat Master said they would need three puppets for each Super Warrior.
• The long-robed elder argued that the Society had already earned the right to be proud, as the conference participants faced the prospect of retreating or admitting defeat.

Gray Wolf and the Sole Supremacy Society planned to recruit Big Cat by offering better rewards after the Super Warrior operation. Wenren Sheng took on the Miken People’s fourth-ranked Super Warrior near the Vortex Gate, but the confrontation ended with Big Cat appearing beside the injured Number Two Warrior instead.

• Gray Wolf ended the Sole Supremacy Society’s debate by postponing decisions about Blood Fruits and recruitment until after the Super Warrior operation.
• Tiger-skin Parrot briefed Big Cat on the Miken People’s Super Warriors and promised to increase his reward.
• Big Cat and Tiger-skin Parrot traveled to the Vortex Gate, where they found Number Four Warrior patrolling from a mountain peak.
• Big Cat camouflaged himself and climbed toward Number Four Warrior, while Tiger-skin Parrot lost sight of him.
• Number Four Warrior left his post and headed down the mountain, but Big Cat did not attack him.
• Tiger-skin Parrot heard a scream and saw Big Cat at the mountain’s foot beside an injured Number Two Warrior.

Wenren Sheng’s Big Cat ambushed and killed Romm, a Super Warrior, while Olive fled. Big Cat and the Parrot escaped a retaliatory missile strike, leaving Wenren Sheng wary that the enemy might exploit internal weaknesses in the Sole Supremacy Society.

• Big Cat ambushed Romm, crippled his left shoulder, then killed him with a strike to the neck when he tried to withstand the attack with Mysterious Power.
• Olive saw Romm die and fled without fighting, while Big Cat searched the corpse and learned Romm had a hastily manufactured Seed of Wrath and only beginner- or intermediate-level skills.
• The Parrot praised Big Cat for defeating Romm, and Big Cat explained that its strength came from its powerful Mysterious Power.
• Big Cat grabbed the Parrot and ran as a missile struck the mountain, destroying Romm’s corpse and blasting a large crater.
• The Parrot called the victory a success and hoped they could cripple the enemy’s combat system, while Wenren Sheng worried the Sole Supremacy Society could be attacked from within.

A fox puppet negotiated with XX1 to betray the Sole Supremacy Society in exchange for Blood Fruits, then tried to hide the chat when Parrot and Big Cat entered. Wenren Sheng spotted a clue suggesting the fox was a mole, leaving him to suspect that the enemy had bought its loyalty with a chance to advance.

• XX1 offered the fox two Blood Fruits to defect, and the fox agreed to provide its delivery address after XX1 promised to send one as proof.
• Parrot and Big Cat entered the room, and the fox hid its private chat by switching to the desktop.
• Parrot told the fox that they had killed a Super Warrior and asked for advice on defeating the rest, but the fox declined to answer without a combat meeting.
• Big Cat approached the computer, and the fox stopped it from touching the machine, prompting Parrot to tease the fox about its confidential work.
• Wenren Sheng recalled seeing a desktop message about sending fruit to United City through Changfeng Express and suspected the fox had been recruited by the Miken People.

Wenren Sheng warned the Sole Supremacy Society about the danger of Blood Fruit and learned that its members were considering creating an Earth Hunting Ground to produce it. After planning escape routes, he resolved to take action against the Sea Fog Zone and the land vortex, though he still did not understand how they worked.

• Wenren Sheng told the Tiger-skin Parrot to investigate its ranks for corruption, then reported the battle to the Sole Supremacy Society.
• After Wenren Sheng left, Society members debated obtaining Blood Fruit, and the fox proposed secretly having others make it and using them as scapegoats.
• Gray Wolf and the Society’s aggressive members pushed for an Earth Hunting Ground in Sanan and Southern India, while some members urged caution.
• Wenren Sheng considered historical refuges as escape options for himself and his family.
• Wenren Sheng identified the Sea Fog Zone and the land vortex as the sources of the world’s growing chaos, then fell asleep without knowing how to disperse them.

Wenren Sheng sought information about the Sea Fog Zone and learned it might be linked to the Jinling Xie Family and a forbidden summoning method. He suspected Xie Cangyue had caused the phenomenon, but had no evidence.

• Wenren Sheng asked Parrot what it knew about the Sea Fog Zone, and Parrot suggested Yan Ze might know more.
• Wenren Sheng said he wanted to investigate the fog zone, but Parrot warned him that it was too vast to overcome.
• Fox mocked Wenren Sheng’s plan, so Big Cat pinned Fox down and dragged it across the floor.
• Wenren Sheng contacted Yan Ze, who said the Sea Fog Zone might be connected to an ancestor of the Jinling Xie Family and a forbidden method for summoning an unknown existence.
• Wenren Sheng suspected Xie Cangyue had summoned the fog zone, but recognized that he had no proof and few people would believe him.

Wenren Sheng followed Xie Yanjie to Southern India and discovered that the Xie Family’s virtual game and recruitment operations were exploiting people as sources of Mysterious Power. After learning that the supply of prisoners and other easily seized workers was running out, he resolved to protect himself and his people from becoming prey.

• Wenren Sheng left the South American Forward Base with Big Cat and traveled to Mond City, where the Jinling Xie Family had relocated.
• Wenren Sheng recognized that the Xie Family’s Greedy Era game, the Sea Fog Zone, and the Vortex Gate all drew on human flesh, blood, and spirit.
• Big Cat followed Xie Yanjie’s luxury car to a recruitment station in a slum and overheard her discussing a shortage of Water Workers.
• Xie Yanjie learned that rumors of workers disappearing and not sending money home were hurting recruitment, while prisoners and other easily obtained workers had already been exhausted.
• Wenren Sheng concluded that the mysterious forces treated ordinary people as prey and resolved to build protection for himself, his family, friends, and compatriots.

Wenren Sheng monitored Xie Yanjie as she oversaw recruitment operations in Southern India and returned to her villa, where she learned that the Heaven's Mandate Society was targeting her group. Xie Yanjie traced the threat to the Sole Supremacy Society and began considering allies.

• Wenren Sheng followed Xie Yanjie to a recruitment site, then severed his connection to Big Cat rather than watch a woman demand her missing husband's wages.
• Xie Yanjie praised the site's recruitment results and instructed its manager to recruit patients from nearby poor hospitals.
• Xie Yanjie learned that the manager had secretly withheld five percent of recruitment slots, accumulating about seven hundred and thirty thousand people at the Temporary Training Center.
• Big Cat followed Xie Yanjie to her villa, where Xie Linghui told her the Heaven's Mandate Society's Southern India branch had set its sights on them.
• Xie Yanjie called her sister and learned that the Sole Supremacy Society might be targeting them over their past dispute, prompting her to consider finding allies.

Wenren Sheng eavesdropped on Xie Yanjie and Xie Linghui as they discussed withdrawing from some dealings and sparing women and children, then discovered a mechanical snake listening in on them. The guards destroyed the device, while Wenren Sheng remained hidden nearby.

• Wenren Sheng listened as Xie Yanjie spoke with Xie Cangyue, who told her to yield the stage to two families but keep the Illusion Game business.
• Xie Linghui confronted Xie Yanjie and asked her to release the women and children; after mocking him, she agreed to spare them but forbade him from interfering further.
• Wenren Sheng noticed a mechanical snake on the villa roof and recognized it as a listening device.
• Xie Linghui sensed movement outside, and Xie Yanjie called the guards, who shot the snake and identified it as a listening device.
• Xie Yanjie berated the Chief Guard for allowing the device to get close, and he apologized.

Xie Yanjie relocated after discovering that her group had been exposed, while Wenren Sheng learned that the Sole Supremacy Society and the Miken People had fought to mutual destruction in Southern India. At the battlefield, Big Cat witnessed locals lamenting how their leaders and foreign powers treated their people as expendable.

• Xie Yanjie recognized the Mechanical Snake as sophisticated surveillance technology and decided to move her group to a second residence, leaving people behind at the villa as a decoy.
• Wenren Sheng learned from Big Cat that three Master Level puppets and three Super Warriors had destroyed one another after the Miken People launched missiles from a submarine.
• Wenren Sheng sent Big Cat to the battlefield, where it found enormous craters in a Southern Indian wilderness jungle.
• Southern Indians at the site condemned their leaders for cooperating with outsiders and grieved that their people kept dying in foreign conflicts.

Wenren Sheng watched Southern India leaders discuss building their strength before Miken agents ambushed them and captured most of the group. He learned the agents planned to manipulate the captives into recruiting others, but stayed hidden and waited for his power to grow.

• Wenren Sheng recalled a secret record describing an earlier western expedition and concluded that he had done nothing wrong by siding with those who supported him.
• Bu Qi, Mo Na, and Di Duo discussed cooperating with the Heaven's Mandate Society and using the conflict between Miken and the Eastern Continent to strengthen Southern India.
• Number Eight and Number Nine arrived, and Mo Na escaped in an off-road vehicle while the Miken agents captured the others.
• Number Eight and Number Nine revealed that they planned to turn the captives into puppets who would lure more recruits to them.
• A helicopter carried away the captives, while Wenren Sheng remained concealed and chose not to intervene.

Mo Na escaped to a market, where Number 8 and Number 9 cornered him and offered an Otherworldly seed in exchange for his cooperation. Mo Na pretended to consider their offer while condemning their plan to recruit locals for railway labor, leaving his next move unresolved.

• Mo Na reached a market in an off-road vehicle, changed his clothes, and hid as a Helicopter arrived and attacked the ground to make the crowd surrender.
• Number 8 and Number 9 landed and used a Southern Indian as an interpreter before ordering Old Man Di Duo to demand that the market hand over Mo Na.
• After the crowd recognized Mo Na, he confronted Old Man Di Duo, who argued that cooperating with the Miken People would help them gain power and defeat the Earth Kings.
• Number 8 displayed an Otherworldly seed and promised support, while Di Duo urged Mo Na to accept their offer.
• Mo Na asked what the Miken People wanted, then angrily denounced their plan to recruit locals to build railways and sell their lives.

Mo Na agreed to work with Number 8 and Number 9 on a plan to trade food for people and cultivate more Otherworldly Users in Miken. Wenren Sheng was recruited to train Patrol Division personnel in Puppet Art as the division prepared a covert Southern Expedition, while its leaders debated how to counter the Vortex Gate trade without provoking worldwide chaos.

• Mo Na agreed to cooperate with Number 8 and Number 9, who planned to exchange Miken’s surplus grain for people from Southern India and increase the number of Otherworldly Users in Miken.
• Big Cat observed the deal and realized the Patrol Division would need to disrupt it through covert means.
• Director An asked Wenren Sheng to train a group in Puppet Art within three months, and Wenren Sheng accepted.
• Inspector Liu told Director An that the Eastwater Division would send thirty people on a covert Southern Expedition and described the Sole Supremacy Society’s conflict with the Miken People and Southern India.
• Inspector Liu urged Director An to expose the Vortex Gate trade, but Director An refused, warning that public outrage could turn against all Otherworldly Users and plunge the world into chaos.

Wenren De asked Zhao Han to investigate Taoist Yantian, an obscure prophecy master whose relics might aid his advancement, but the sparse records and failed Prophecy Arts left them without a lead. Wenren Sheng then asked his father and Zhao Han to predict how long remained before a major danger emerged amid growing international competition over mysterious resources.

• Wenren De gave Zhao Han an ancient book about Taoist Yantian and asked her to find the old patriarch's relics.
• Zhao Han found only brief records saying Taoist Yantian had reached Grandmaster Level Prophecy Art, and Wenren De admitted his own Prophecy Art could not reach him.
• Wenren Sheng brought Wenren De and Zhao Han to the study to use their Prophecy Arts to examine the changing world situation.
• Wenren Sheng explained that international competition centered on the Vortex Gates and Sea Fog Zone, which were sources of mysterious resources and contested markets.
• Wenren Sheng asked them to predict how many years remained before a great danger appeared.

Wenren Sheng, Wenren De, and Zhao Han used the Resonance Method to prophesy about the coming Great Cataclysm and learned that finding the Derivation Heaven Old Ancestor might delay it. They decided to search for the Old Ancestor, while Wenren Sheng warned his father to be cautious around Meng Lin.

• Wenren Sheng told Wenren De and Zhao Han that disasters had already begun in the Outer Territory and that a greater catastrophe was coming.
• Wenren Sheng suggested amplifying their Prophecy Art with the Resonance Method, and Wenren De and Zhao Han secretly agreed to try it.
• Wenren De prophesied that a major disaster would happen next year, while Zhao Han foresaw that finding a key person might delay it until ten years from now.
• Wenren Sheng guessed that the key person was the Derivation Heaven Old Ancestor, and Zhao Han's Seed of Narration confirmed that he had guessed correctly.
• Wenren Sheng and Zhao Han agreed to begin searching for the Old Ancestor, and Wenren Sheng warned Wenren De to be careful around Meng Lin.

Wenren Sheng asked Inspector Liu to search for the Derivation Heaven Old Ancestor and showed Wu Shanshan her mother living in the soul village he had created. Wu Shanshan watched her mother plant sunflowers, while Wenren Sheng left her unable to speak with her directly.

• Wenren Sheng told Zhao Han and his family to stay home, then asked Inspector Liu to search for the Derivation Heaven Old Ancestor.
• Wenren Sheng showed Wu Shanshan a miniature village where souls were recovering after the Summoning Ritual.
• Wu Shanshan recognized her mother in the village and watched her turn down the village chief’s proposal.
• Wenren Sheng struck the village chief with lightning and warned Wu Shanshan that contacting her mother could disrupt her recovery.
• Wu Shanshan watched her mother plant sunflowers and recalled that her mother loved them because they symbolized longing for light.