Recaps

Sun Hang saw human reflections that might have belonged to missing officials, then rushed Wang Xiyi out of the Blood Moon's influence when she began turning into a Night Fiend. He returned her to the institute for treatment as mutated creatures attacked squads across the anomaly zone, leaving him alone and hungry outside at dawn.

• Sun Hang told Yang Qi that touching the vanished figures had shown him a person's life from youth to death, and suspected one might have been a missing official.
• Wang Xiyi began mutating under the Blood Moon, so Sun Hang dragged her beyond the anomaly boundary and injected her with an inhibitor.
• Yang Qi ordered Sun Hang to take Wang Xiyi to the institute, while 0401 accompanied them carrying Sun Hang's gun.
• Mutated animals and insects attacked squads throughout the anomaly zone, and the casualties exceeded twenty dead and three-digit numbers of injured by the time Sun Hang reached the institute.
• Institute staff carried Wang Xiyi away for emergency surgery, and Sun Hang waited outside, hungry, as dawn arrived.

Sun Hang put off the rescue operation to find breakfast while Yang Qi defended her decision to keep an anomaly-resonant hunter out of the Blood Moon zone. As Sun Hang ordered wontons in an old neighborhood, he caught a strange food scent.

• Sun Hang dismissed the missing people’s plight and headed into the commercial district to find food.
• Yang Qi told the Tianfu City Management Committee’s second-in-command that the anomalous zone’s boundaries had been mapped at a cost of more than twenty lives, but the missing people remained unlocated.
• Yang Qi refused to send the anomaly-resonant hunter back into the Blood Moon zone, and the official gave her thirty-one hours to produce results.
• Sun Hang wandered into an old neighborhood, ordered wontons without spice, and heard an elderly man praise chili oil.
• Sun Hang caught a scent unlike any food he had smelled before.

Sun Hang detected an aberration-like scent while eating breakfast and tracked it to a hooded young woman in a condemned residential building. He drew his pistol and pursued her upstairs, believing she had nowhere left to escape.

• Sun Hang noticed an unusual scent amid the crowded breakfast street and determined it belonged to a hooded young woman.
• Sun Hang paid for his untouched wontons, accepted sticky rice cakes from an old man, and followed the woman out of the old street.
• Sun Hang followed the scent into a dilapidated residential complex and then into a condemned building.
• Sun Hang heard the woman hurry upstairs, drew his pistol, and continued after her, reasoning that the building had only one staircase.

Sun Hang chased down an infected young woman and confirmed the strange growth on her arm. He suspected she had accomplices and demanded that she take him to the other infected people, while his own hunger grew.

• The young woman blocked the stairwell with furniture, but Sun Hang shot her in the leg and continued the pursuit.
• Sun Hang caught up with her on the ninth floor, where she revealed the ulcerated, writhing growth on her arm and admitted she was infected.
• The young woman claimed she was an orphan who had become constantly hungry after infection, but Sun Hang challenged her explanation.
• Sun Hang accused her of having infected accomplices and ordered her to take him to them.

Sun Hang uncovered the girl’s cult tattoo and found evidence that the organization eradicated in Tianfu City had survived and was raising an anomaly. He forced the girl to agree to lead him to her fellow believers and the creature they were raising.

• Sun Hang exposed a hidden tattoo on the girl’s left arm and matched it to records of a cult dismantled seven years earlier.
• Sun Hang reviewed case files describing the cult’s murders, its Anomaly Larva, and the belief that the organization and its anomalies had been eliminated.
• Sun Hang realized the girl was infected despite investigators having found no infected cultists during the original arrests.
• Sun Hang demanded that the girl lead him to her fellow believers and the anomaly, and she weakly agreed.
• Sun Hang discovered that the girl’s gunshot wound had healed, with the copper bullet expelled and only a scar remaining.

Sun Hang questioned an infected girl about the miraculous effects of the cult’s “Lord Tai Sui” and learned that its flesh granted powerful regenerative abilities. He saw through her attempt to escape by leading him upstairs and shot her before she could flee.

• Sun Hang learned that the girl’s cult believed eating Lord Tai Sui’s flesh cured illness, restored missing limbs, and prolonged life.
• Sun Hang suspected the girl’s emaciated appearance was a side effect of eating Tai Sui meat and told her he would take her to the Anomaly Research Institute.
• The girl led Sun Hang upstairs, but Sun Hang realized she was acting alone and had no intention of taking him to her companions.
• Sun Hang deduced that the girl planned to escape by jumping from the building, relying on her regenerative ability to survive the fall.
• The girl tried to run, and Sun Hang shot her in the lower back before she tumbled down the stairs; he warned that he might torture her instead of killing her.

Sun Hang tested a girl whose body was being replaced by Tai Sui, explaining that the parasite regenerated her organs while consuming her nutrients. After she attacked him and celebrated her supposed ascension, Tai Sui destroyed her body rather than let Sun Hang consume it, leaving him frustrated by the waste.

• Sun Hang bit off the girl's index finger, then watched white mycelium regenerate it.
• Sun Hang concluded that Tai Sui acted as a parasite, replacing the host's organs while consuming nutrients until it supplanted the host.
• The girl transformed her regenerated finger into a claw and attacked Sun Hang, but he healed from her strike and threw her down the stairs before punching her into a wall.
• The girl mistook the changes in her body for ascension, but Tai Sui burst her skin into blisters and dissolved her body into bloody water.
• Sun Hang realized the Tai Sui inside her had destroyed itself rather than be eaten, and he lamented the waste.

After absorbing part of Taishui, Sun Hang found his ability had grown stronger and began experiencing the girl’s—or Taishui’s—memory fragments. He used the girl’s phone and familiar memories to follow a route through the residential complex, reaching Building Thirteen, Unit Two.

• Sun Hang unlocked the girl’s phone by changing his fingerprint and felt his ability strengthen after absorbing Taishui.
• Sun Hang saw chaotic memory fragments of flames, armored figures, and a bone-filled basement, then forced himself to stop recalling them.
• Sun Hang checked the girl’s messages and missed calls, called the only saved number, and learned it had been canceled.
• Sun Hang resisted contacting the Anomaly Research Institute or the Anomaly Investigation Bureau and decided to find Taishui before the cult members could leave.
• Sun Hang followed the girl’s familiar route through the residential complex and stopped at Building Thirteen, Unit Two.

Sun Hang infiltrated a Tai Sui cult by pretending to seek a cure for his brain tumor, but the Saint recognized the Tai Sui aura he carried and confronted him. The Saint defended the cult’s parasitic blessings as a way to save lives, while Sun Hang exposed the cost of sustaining Tai Sui through its human hosts.

• Sun Hang delivered food to a hunched old man, then claimed he had a terminal brain tumor and asked to see the Saint.
• The old man led Sun Hang to Room 602, where more than thirty bandaged followers knelt around the Saint.
• The Saint recognized the aura of Tai Sui that Sun Hang had acquired from Han Ying and asked whether he was from the Investigation Bureau or a hunter.
• The Saint invited Sun Hang to worship Tai Sui, claiming its blessings could erase illness and death without demanding money.
• Sun Hang accused the cult of feeding living people to Tai Sui through parasitism, and the Saint defended the practice as extending the lives of people he had saved.

Sun Hang confronted the Saint about Tai Sui and devoured the fragments parasitizing two attacking believers, killing them. A frightened young woman revealed that Tai Sui’s true body was buried beneath the building, and Sun Hang prepared to find it.

• Sun Hang accused the Saint of using exaggerated claims about Tai Sui to recruit people, then demanded to know where its true body was.
• The Saint sent two believers to attack Sun Hang with fungal threads, but Sun Hang absorbed the threads and the believers died.
• Sun Hang killed the Saint and, still hungry, demanded that the surviving believers lead him to Tai Sui’s true body.
• A young woman told Sun Hang that the Saint had shown her Tai Sui beneath the building’s shaded side, buried only a dozen or so centimeters underground.
• Another woman confirmed that she had seen a patch of something white, like a scalp, exposed when the Saint dug there.

Sun Hang investigated the patch of ground where the Apostles had dug for Lord Tai Sui, while trying to keep the believers from panicking. After blood-like liquid seeped from the soil, he struck the spot himself and felt the shovel cut into something like tough leather.

• Sun Hang sealed away the Apostles’ memory fragments to protect his sense of self and took two believers with shovels downstairs.
• The believers explained that a former member had died after trying to leave the sect, and that his body and bloodstains had vanished.
• Sun Hang ordered the men to dig in the recently disturbed patch of soil, and one of them felt his shovel hit something beneath the ground.
• Blood-like liquid seeped from the shovel mark, terrifying the believers.
• Sun Hang asked whether Tai Sui could move and then drove his shovel into the hole, feeling it cut into something like tough leather.

Sun Hang uncovered Tai Sui and watched its human hosts die as it recalled the fleshly seeds inside them. Tai Sui emerged as a gigantic humanoid aberration, and Sun Hang cut through its dead outer layer to expose its true body and sense it as food.

• Sun Hang dug into the soil and found rotten flesh that healed quickly but gave off no food aura.
• Four Cult Organization believers convulsed as bloody masses burst from their chests, then died after the parasites burrowed into the ground.
• Hundreds of flesh chunks leaped from the apartment building’s windows and were absorbed by the soil, leaving Sun Hang to conclude that no one in the Cult Organization had survived.
• Tai Sui erupted from the earth as a huge creature with several arms and an enormous toothed head, then attacked Sun Hang and brought down an apartment building.
• Sun Hang formed an Aberrant Long Blade from the building’s steel rebars and cut into Tai Sui’s arm, exposing its true body and sensing its food scent.

Sun Hang defeated Taisui and met Yang Lian at the ruined site, where he explained that he had destroyed a cult that raised anomalies. Before he could leave, researchers detected a second, unknown anomaly nearby.

• Sun Hang cut through Taisui’s limbs and pinned its main body to the ground with the Aberrant Long Blade.
• The Investigation Bureau convoy arrived, and Yang Lian questioned Sun Hang about the destroyed ruins and the cult he had encountered.
• Sun Hang teased Yang Lian, claimed overtime pay for dealing with the cult, and prepared to leave.
• An Anomaly Research Institute researcher detected a living anomaly with a different memetic frequency from Sun Hang’s.
• The researchers confirmed Taisui was dead and said the unknown anomaly was less than twenty meters away.

Sun Hang discovered that the Aberrant Long Blade he had created was detected as a Self-Type: Artifact Anomaly. As he considered whether his ability could create anomalies, Yang Qi explained that artifact anomalies could form in various ways and described examples of their abilities and dangers.

• A researcher traced the anomaly reading to the Aberrant Long Blade embedded among the Taishui shell fragments and identified it as a probable Self-Type: Artifact Anomaly.
• Yang Lian asked Sun Hang how the anomaly had appeared, but he stayed silent and wondered whether his Creation ability had made an artifact anomaly.
• Sun Hang texted Yang Qi to ask whether Anomaly Hunters used artifact anomalies as weapons and how such anomalies formed.
• Yang Qi explained that artifact anomalies could arise naturally or through anomalization, and that some enhanced users while risking dangerous side effects.
• Yang Qi told Sun Hang about a Chang'an artifact anomaly said to briefly stop time and asked whether he wanted one as a weapon.

Sun Hang watched the Aberrant Long Blade being contained and reported his version of how it had become an Anomaly. As he waited in the city, he began to question whether the Anomaly infecting him was really Taotie.

• The Anomaly Research Institute sealed the Aberrant Long Blade in a custom scabbard cooled with liquid nitrogen, while Sun Hang decided he wanted to wield it.
• Yang Qi told Sun Hang that the search-and-rescue operation at South City Public Cemetery had stalled and warned him that the Tianfu City Management Committee might force him to enter the anomalous area.
• Yang Lian said she had been asked to protect Sun Hang from being forced into work, and the two discussed her seven years at the Investigation Bureau.
• A one-eyed researcher gave Sun Hang snacks in hopes of securing his battle statement, and he described the Aberrant Long Blade as a weapon he had made that became anomalous after the fight with Tai Sui.
• Sun Hang reasoned that others would explain his abilities as effects of Taotou, then wondered whether the Anomaly infecting him was truly Taotou.

After Sun Hang reported the enormous blade he had created, the Institute classified it as an Artifact Anomaly and gave it the serial number J2796. Yang Qi explained that Sun Hang could apply to make it his exclusive weapon, leaving its name and transport arrangements undecided.

• The one-eyed female researcher recorded Sun Hang’s account, encrypted the file, and let him leave while asking him to keep his phone available for seventy-two hours.
• Sun Hang took a taxi to the Tianfu City Anomaly Research Institute because he did not know the address of his assigned villa, and he told the driver that an anomaly had caused the collapsed buildings.
• Yang Qi messaged Sun Hang about his destruction of a Cult Organization and the Tai Sui anomaly, then confirmed he had not been injured.
• Yang Qi explained that Sun Hang’s Taotie infection might have given him metal-controlling abilities and that the blade could have become anomalous through Tai Sui or Sun Hang’s infection.
• Yang Qi told Sun Hang he could apply to designate the blade as his exclusive weapon and offered to seek a transport drone for the fifteen-meter-long, eight-ton object.
• Yang Qi informed Sun Hang that the Institute had assigned the blade serial number J2796, and she explained that Primal Anomalies were numbered according to the frequency of their memes.

Sun Hang remained on standby while Yang Qi warned him that the Grand Sui’s memes could revive inside him during their digestion period. At the research institute, Lu Hongming persuaded him to consider returning to the South City Public Cemetery, but Sun Hang had not yet decided whether to help.

• Yang Qi refused Sun Hang’s offer to investigate the south of the city, warning that the Blood Moon could trigger a backlash from the Grand Sui’s memes.
• Sun Hang arrived at the Tianfu City Anomaly Research Institute and saw staff unloading the container holding the Aberrant Long Blade.
• Two bodyguards escorted Sun Hang to meet Lu Hongming, a Tianfu City Management Committee member, in a black sedan.
• Lu Hongming explained that the disappearance of key personnel at the South City Public Cemetery had overloaded Tianfu City’s administration and asked Sun Hang to investigate.
• Lu Hongming told Sun Hang he was free to decide whether to return to the cemetery area, and Sun Hang asked what would happen if he refused.

Sun Hang refused Lu Hongming’s demand to join the search-and-rescue mission, arguing that Yang Qi’s order to keep him on standby was necessary after the Blood Moon affected him. He left the vehicle after warning Lu to care for the families of the fallen, while Lu agreed the Committee would reconsider its response.

• Lu Hongming pressed Sun Hang to go to the South City Public Cemetery and accused him of dereliction of duty, but Sun Hang said he would follow Yang Qi’s orders until she was removed.
• Sun Hang restrained Lu Hongming, the driver, and a soldier with fungal threads, then warned that the Blood Moon had made him unusually aggressive and that prolonged exposure could turn him into an anomaly.
• Sun Hang released the three men and Lu reluctantly agreed that Yang Qi’s position might be right, saying the Committee would discuss the matter further.
• Sun Hang asked Lu to provide for the families of the investigators and Peacekeepers killed in the previous night’s operation, then left the vehicle.

Sun Hang visited the Anomaly Research Institute, where Song Yarong explained that the Aberrant Long Blade, designated J2796, had a gravitational anomaly and that Sun Hang had likely created it. After Ment proposed ways to use the blade to counter gravity, Song Yarong and Ment argued over who should lead its research, leaving Sun Hang wary of Ment’s advice.

• Sun Hang entered the Anomaly Research Institute and met Song Yarong, who took him to J2796’s temporary containment room.
• Song Yarong used her artificial eye to reveal that J2796’s abnormal gravitational field offset its own weight and extended only about two centimeters from its surface.
• Song Yarong said Sun Hang had likely created J2796 by giving it a physical form and the meme of the Anomalization Virus.
• Sun Hang asked whether J2796 could let him fly, and Song Yarong explained that its limited field would make that impractical unless its range could be altered.
• Ment suggested reshaping J2796 into armor, but Song Yarong criticized his idea and argued with him over who should lead the research.
• Sun Hang asked Ment whether he planned to melt J2796 and inject it into his blood vessels, and Ment denied it.

Sun Hang used the Aberrant Long Blade in liquid form, then felt a resonance draw him to the rooftop, where he experienced a vision of Tianfu City beneath dark, motionless clouds. The director explained that the Blood Moon and its anomalous zone had vanished with 1,755 search-and-rescue personnel, including Yang Qi, and named Yang Lian as her replacement.

• Sun Hang used mycelium to breach the containment chamber and let the Aberrant Long Blade flow into his body before drawing it back out.
• Sun Hang sensed something on the rooftop and rushed there, where he saw Tianfu City shrouded in dense fog and dark clouds.
• The director arrived and told Sun Hang he had resonated with the anomalous object again; the Blood Moon and its zone had disappeared.
• The director said 1,755 search-and-rescue personnel, including Yang Qi, were missing, while the 213 people originally lost in the cemetery had been found except for 27.
• The director explained that Sun Hang could detect the object because their memetic frequencies were similar and said Yang Lian would replace Yang Qi at the institute.

Sun Hang helped Yang Lian find a possible weather pattern linked to the next Spacetime Displacement as she searched for her missing sister. They identified May 19 as a potential date, but Yang Lian concluded they needed to prepare their own beacons because the Special Operations Team might not share its data.

• Sun Hang told Yang Lian that the Federation's Special Operations Team would handle the cemetery incident's follow-up, but Yang Lian insisted she would keep searching for her sister.
• Wang Xiyi explained that she had killed her infected older sister after losing control of her strength.
• Sun Hang suggested that Yang Lian compare upcoming weather with the heavy-cloud conditions he had seen during the Spacetime Displacement.
• Yang Lian checked the Meteorological Bureau's data and found that May 19 was the only windless day in the next fifteen days with overcast skies and low atmospheric pressure.
• Wang Xiyi said the Special Operations Team planned to airdrop 140,000 beacons, but Yang Lian decided to prepare at least 12,000 of their own in case the team withheld information.

Sun Hang realized the people who returned from South City Public Cemetery and the cemetery itself remained tied to anomalous spacetime, making the returnees potential Anomaly Nodes. A test revealed that their sense of time still differed from the real world, confirming the danger remained active.

• Yang Lian said the returned attendants reported that only five hours had passed inside the displaced area, and that twenty-seven people sent to seek help had not returned.
• Sun Hang concluded that South City Public Cemetery and the returned people belonged to a different spacetime and warned that they could become Anomaly Nodes.
• Wang Xiyi ordered the returned people brought to the institute so they could test Sun Hang's theory.
• Sun Hang asked the three returnees whether it was dark outside, and the female administrator said it was nighttime despite the bright afternoon sun.
• The electronic clock showed 1:30 p.m., but the female administrator insisted it was 3:30 a.m., leaving the room in stunned silence.

Sun Hang and Yang Lian failed to persuade the Management Committee to gather the missing people, while the Council representatives’ plane had already departed. After a Special Operations Team Leader forced an air base commander to launch fighter jets to intercept the plane, Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi set out to join him and pressure the Committee.

• Yang Lian told Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi that the Management Committee refused to intervene and dismissed the missing people’s visions as hallucinations.
• Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi discussed the Committee’s refusal and the risks of trying to gather the missing people by force.
• A Field Operations Department operative reported that two fighter jets had taken off to intercept the Council representatives’ special plane.
• The operative revealed that the Special Operations Team Leader had held the air base commander at gunpoint to force the launch, and the base had gone on Level One alert.
• Sun Hang announced that he, Yang Lian, and Wang Xiyi would go to Longquan Post and threatened to escalate the hostage situation unless the Committee gathered the missing people.

Sun Hang, Yang Lian, and Wang Xiyi traveled through Longquan Mountain’s military checkpoints to reach the air force base, where soldiers had sealed the area after the commander was kidnapped. Sun Hang warned the guards that the kidnapping might be connected to an anomaly, but the soldiers still refused to let them pass without authorization.

• Sun Hang drove Yang Qi’s military-issued vehicle through the checkpoints while he, Yang Lian, and Wang Xiyi discussed the kidnapping and the risk of the conflict escalating.
• The group passed six more checkpoints before heavily armed soldiers stopped them near the air force base.
• Sun Hang identified himself and Wang Xiyi as Tianfu City Anomaly Hunters and said their mission target was inside the base.
• The NCO refused to let the group proceed and ordered them to get out of the vehicle and wait for authorization.
• Sun Hang invoked Night Fiend’s name and told the NCO that an anomaly might have influenced the kidnapper.

Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi entered the air force base after Sun Hang persuaded the guards to let them through, then learned that the hijacker and the base commander were trapped on the Command Tower’s fourth floor. The base had surrounded the tower with overwhelming firepower, and the standoff remained unresolved as they approached.

• Sun Hang convinced the sergeant to admit him and Wang Xiyi by implying the hijacker might be infected with the Anomalization Virus.
• Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi discussed duty, bureaucracy, and whether humanity could survive in a world ruled by anomalies.
• An escort and two armored vehicles brought Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi to the Command Tower, where troops and weapons surrounded the building.
• The accompanying officer told Sun Hang that the hijacker and commander were on the fourth floor and that the hijacker led the Special Operations Team.
• The officer said the team had fought base officers, wounding five officers and one team member, but nobody had died; the standoff continued because the base hesitated to shoot the hijacker.