Recaps

Sun Hang’s dream investigation was interrupted by the Three Monkeys, who told him it was not time and ordered him to leave. Defying them, he decided to enter the research institute, but the other hunters gave no response to his signal flares.

• The Three Monkeys turned Sun Hang’s documents blank and told him it was not time, then ordered him to leave the dream.
• After waking, Sun Hang announced that the group would head to the research institute despite Yano’s concerns about the Eight-Headed Serpent.
• Sun Hang reasoned that the Three Monkeys needed him alive and would protect him, so he was willing to enter the dangerous ruins.
• Sun Hang fired three green Signal Flares to request a response from the other hunters, but none answered.
• Yano worried that the hunters might be in danger, while the Fisherman suggested they could be hiding something they had found.

Sun Hang and three hunters set out for the research institute ruins, discussing their abilities and how they might work together. When the trail markers left by the hunters ahead disappeared, Sun Hang treated it as another sign that no one could be trusted.

• Sun Hang, the Fisherman, the Huntress, and Yano agreed to head for the research institute ruins.
• Sun Hang showed the others how his metal ring turned into a blade, and the Fisherman and Huntress described their abilities.
• Yano warned that the Huntress's power to suppress fear and anger could sometimes make survival harder, though it could help in combat.
• The four followed the earlier hunters' markings for about a hundred meters before the trail disappeared.
• The Fisherman accused the hunters ahead of being unreliable, while Sun Hang said he regarded everyone, including his companions, as potential opponents.

Sun Hang and his companions discovered that the woods intensified their negative emotions as they followed the Hunters’ trail. They found an Indian Hunter dead beside a tree, and Sun Hang concluded that amplified lust had driven him to his death.

• The Fisherman reported an urge to destroy things, while Yano realized the woods were making him afraid to flee.
• The Huntress calmed the Fisherman and then Yano, and the group hurried deeper through the woods.
• The four found a dead Indian Hunter with bloody injuries beside a scratched tree.
• Yano examined the corpse, and Sun Hang deduced that the woods had amplified the Hunter’s lust until he died.

Sun Hang and the others became trapped in the forest when the trails vanished and the Fisherman began to lose control. Suspecting the Three Monkeys were manipulating what they could see, Sun Hang prepared a way to guide the group out with their eyes closed.

• Sun Hang took the dead Indian Hunter's wristband as the group continued through the forest.
• The Fisherman realized the footprints had vanished, and Sun Hang briefly saw an ape relief carved into a tree before it disappeared.
• As the Fisherman spiraled toward delirium and the Huntress weakened from controlling his emotions, Sun Hang knocked him unconscious.
• Sun Hang used a tree's rings to identify the direction of the island's center, then suspected the Three Monkeys were altering what the group saw.
• Sun Hang gave Yano and the Huntress a knotted rope and told them to close their eyes and follow him without looking until they left the forest.

Sun Hang led Yano, the Huntress, and the Fisherman out of the disorienting forest and across the island’s quarry valley to the ruins of the Nameless Island research institute. As they approached the ruins, Yano recounted the institute’s history, and Sun Hang connected its abandonment in Year 4603 to a report he had seen in a dream.

• Sun Hang guided Yano and the Huntress through the forest with their eyes closed, using mycelium to avoid obstacles, and brought them safely into a boulder-strewn valley.
• Yano identified the valley as the institute’s quarry, and the group found Navy water and a signal-flare casing that suggested earlier hunters had passed through.
• The Fisherman woke up and speculated that the Anglo-Saxons’ flare might have attracted the Eight-Headed Serpent; Sun Hang had him check the equipment before they continued.
• The four hunters crossed the valley and saw the vast research institute ruins, which Yano said had been designed to house tens of thousands of people.
• Yano explained that the institute was abandoned after an accident in December of Year 4603, and Sun Hang recognized that year from a report in his dream.

Sun Hang realized that the Nameless Island research institute’s records and memories of its Primal Anomaly experiment may have been erased, and suspected the Three Monkeys statue was the anomaly it studied. After the group introduced themselves, Sun Hang led them toward the ruins’ underground section.

• Sun Hang concluded that an invisible force had erased or altered records related to the Nameless Island research institute and wondered whether everyone connected to the matter had forgotten it.
• Sun Hang suspected the institute had studied the Three Monkeys statue before the Fisherman interrupted his thoughts.
• The Fisherman showed Sun Hang a slope where earlier Hunters had descended, and the group exchanged names and affiliations: Sun Hang, Yano Seiichi, Huangfu Sha, and the Fisherman.
• The Fisherman explained that Huangfu Sha belonged to Chunming City’s Imperial Guard Legion, which had Hunter battalions, and Huangfu Sha said she hoped to leave her battalion.
• Sun Hang decided the group should descend to the ruins, and the Fisherman prepared to go first while Yano secured a safety rope.

Sun Hang and his team descended into the basin and found no detectable environmental memetic fluctuations, despite Tianshu Tower’s report that Nameless Island was a Geng-type Anomaly. The Fisherman proposed that Geng Nineteen might not exist and that only the forest’s trees had been anomalized, leaving the team to question the intelligence guiding them.

• Yano struggled down the slippery slope while Sun Hang, the Fisherman, and Huangfu Sha reached the basin with less difficulty.
• Sun Hang asked Yano to measure the basin’s anomalization level, and the team discussed how Tianshu Tower had concluded the whole island was anomalized.
• The Fisherman noticed that no drones were visible over the basin and wondered whether they had crashed or gone into the research institute.
• Yano’s equipment detected no environmental memetic fluctuations, and he confirmed that the machine was working by comparing its readings with those taken on the beach.
• The Fisherman suggested that Geng Nineteen might not exist and that only the forest’s trees had been anomalized, prompting Yano to agree that their deeper exploration had outpaced Tianshu Tower’s intelligence.

Sun Hang and his companions entered Zone C of the research institute ruins and found a seemingly unresponsive infected Huntress searching a burned house. When Huangfu Sha approached, the Huntress suddenly attacked her while holding a bloodstained sickle beside a mangled torso.

• The Fisherman and Yano discussed the footprints of two groups entering the ruins, and Sun Hang led the team inside with Liquid Metal shields.
• The four crossed Zone C's unfinished, fire-damaged apartments and followed the other hunters' tracks.
• Sun Hang sensed an infected in a house and spotted a Huntress kneeling inside, apparently searching without reacting to their flashlight or voices.
• Huangfu Sha approached the Huntress while Sun Hang held her rifle, but the Huntress abruptly rose and slammed into her, revealing a bloody sickle and a mangled torso.

Sun Hang, Yano, and the Fisherman fought to save Huangfu Sha after a mad Huntress nearly killed her. They discovered the Huntress’s infection readings were stable despite her apparent madness, and Sun Hang recovered her bracelet as the group examined another dead Hunter.

• The Huntress slashed Huangfu Sha’s waist and throat, but Sun Hang shot her with an anti-materiel rifle.
• Yano used a hollow pen barrel as an airway and treated Huangfu Sha with coagulant gel and adrenaline, though her survival remained uncertain.
• The Fisherman found that the Huntress’s remains still showed stable infection readings, while Yano and Sun Hang concluded she had gone mad.
• Sun Hang linked the Huntress’s condition to survivors who had fled to the Xiazhou Continent more than a century earlier and developed mental problems.
• Sun Hang removed the Huntress’s bracelet and found another likely Anglo-Saxon Hunter’s mutilated remains nearby.

Sun Hang searched the building where an Anglo-Saxon Hunter had been dismembered and used his abilities to absorb memories from the recently killed Huntress. Her memories revealed that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters had come to the island for a secret purpose connected to the research institute, not to take part in the Rank Advancement Trial.

• Sun Hang and the Fisherman found the Hunter's remains and followed a blood trail upstairs, where the body parts had been divided among three rooms.
• Sun Hang counted the missing body parts and found the Hunter's bracelet, then tried and failed to recover memories from the long-dead Hunter.
• Sun Hang realized the Huntress's body still contained active Anomaly Memes, so he devoured them and acquired her Sharp Blade ability.
• Sun Hang absorbed the Huntress's fragmented memories and saw the Anglo-Saxon Hunters argue about a curse-blocking ability and entering the research institute's underground section.
• Sun Hang learned that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters had come to the island for information and a goal beyond the Rank Advancement Trial.

Sun Hang uncovered how the Anglo-Saxon Hunters killed a companion and turned his Curse Shielding ability into amulets to protect themselves while pursuing something beneath the research institute ruins. The group realized the curse already threatened everyone on the island and would become far stronger underground.

• Sun Hang learned from the Huntress's memories that an Anglo-Saxon Hunter proposed amplifying infected people's memetic factors, even though it would kill them or turn them into aberrant husks.
• When the Hunter with Curse Shielding refused to be sacrificed, the deranged Huntress slit his throat and drank his blood.
• The Anglo-Saxon Hunters dismembered their companion and used his body parts to carry his solidified Curse Shielding ability as amulets.
• Sun Hang told Fisherman and Yano Seiichi that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters sought a secret beneath the ruins rather than trial points or Rank Advancement.
• Yano Seiichi warned that the curse affected the whole ruins area, and Sun Hang said it grew far more powerful underground without Curse Shielding.

With the Eight-Headed Serpent threatening Chunming City, Yano Seiichi, the Fisherman, and Sun Hang realized the stranded hunters could not expect a rescue and lacked the supplies to survive for long. The chapter ended as three red flares signaled a request for artillery support, putting the research institute ruins in danger of bombardment.

• Yano Seiichi explained that the Federation would prioritize stopping the Eight-Headed Serpent over rescuing the island’s hunters.
• The Fisherman and Yano Seiichi recognized that most of the hunters were inexperienced and unlikely to form an effective suppression force.
• Sun Hang, Yano Seiichi, and the Fisherman discussed waiting for the Federation while facing dwindling supplies and Huangfu Sha’s urgent need for a blood transfusion.
• The Fisherman offered to give Huangfu Sha his Type O blood.
• Sun Hang and the Fisherman saw three red signal flares requesting artillery support, which would trigger a bombardment of the research institute ruins.

Sun Hang, Yano, and the fisherman fled underground with the unconscious Huangfu Sha as the research institute ruins came under bombardment. Trapped in the tunnels, they followed clues left by earlier hunters and began to suspect the hunters had launched the Signal Flares.

• After two sets of red Signal Flares appeared, Sun Hang decided the group had to hide underground to survive the imminent bombardment.
• The fisherman carried Huangfu Sha while Sun Hang and Yano ran with him to an underground entrance in Zone C.
• They escaped into a sturdier railway tunnel as the bombardment collapsed the passage behind them.
• Yano identified the tunnel as Station C of the underground railway, and Sun Hang proposed checking its exits and investigating where the earlier hunters had gone.
• The fisherman found signs that a locomotive had carried a group of hunters toward the second underground level, then wondered if they had launched the Signal Flares.

Sun Hang and his companions moved Huangfu Sha toward the exit, but Sun Hang chose to follow the Anglo-Saxon Hunters deeper underground to investigate the laboratory connected to his lost memories. On the way, they found a Hunter fused into a wall after his phasing ability apparently failed, and Sun Hang sensed something familiar about him beyond the man’s identity.

• Sun Hang, the Fisherman, and Yano loaded Huangfu Sha into a mine cart and headed toward the exit.
• Sun Hang told the Fisherman to take Huangfu Sha to the surface while he followed the Anglo-Saxon Hunters to learn what they were seeking.
• Sun Hang decided to continue underground because a laboratory from his dream felt familiar and might help uncover the truth behind his amnesia.
• Sun Hang spotted a dead man embedded halfway in a wall and approached him cautiously with a fungal filament.
• Sun Hang recognized the corpse as the Anglo-Saxon Hunter who had entered his hotel room that morning and cut away the part of the body outside the wall.
• Sun Hang explained that the Hunter’s phasing ability had likely failed mid-crossing, then said the familiar sensation came from something other than the dead man’s dissipated Anomaly Meme.

Sun Hang, the Fisherman, and Yano continued exploring the Nameless Island research institute after discovering a way to control meme activation in severed body parts. They left Huangfu Sha near a surface exit and headed for the institute’s core, where they speculated that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters were searching for information about the island’s original culprit.

• Sun Hang gave the Fisherman and Yano the sealed bags containing a severed finger and an eyeball, and they decided to continue together while leaving Huangfu Sha behind once they found an exit.
• The three found a shell-blasted breach to the surface, where the Fisherman sheltered Huangfu Sha and placed a distress beacon in her hand.
• Yano explained that the second basement level contained the institute’s core laboratories and archives, the targets of their trial.
• Sun Hang suggested that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters might be seeking the culprit behind the Nameless Island incident.
• Yano proposed that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters might have obtained lost Siberian Federation intelligence about an anomalous object connected to the incident.

Sun Hang, Fisherman, and Yano investigated the underground facility, discussing how Anglo-Saxon Hunters had obtained Siberian Federation intelligence and the danger they might face below. They continued toward the archive, where Yano hoped to find historical files, and reached an underground training district.

• Sun Hang asked Fisherman about Siberian Federation intelligence, but Fisherman said he knew nothing about the fallen federation.
• Yano questioned how Anglo-Saxon Hunters had obtained information from Saint Petersburg, which had been inaccessible to humans for nearly a century.
• Fisherman suggested capturing a Hunter for interrogation, and Sun Hang warned that the group might already have been wiped out.
• Fisherman and Yano agreed to continue underground with Sun Hang, as Yano still wanted to see the old files.
• The three reached a broad underground district, where Yano identified the white buildings as part of a training zone designed to simulate urban terrain.

Sun Hang, Yano, and the Fisherman discussed why they had found almost no bodies on Nameless Island and considered whether survivors might have gathered in the institute’s safe houses. Their conversation turned to Tianshu Tower’s decision to hold a trial there before the street lights suddenly came on.

• Sun Hang pointed out that they had found no bodies from the island’s past expeditions, and the Fisherman realized the absence was unusual.
• Yano suggested that the missing people might have gathered in safe houses and described their locations and capacities in the institute.
• Sun Hang recalled the institute’s layout without trying and questioned why Tianshu Tower had chosen the island for the trial.
• Yano said Elder Pei, the Tower Master, had approved the trial and explained that most people had never seen him in person because he stayed in a recovery pod.
• The street lights suddenly illuminated section by section, and the Fisherman took a defensive stance and wondered where the electricity came from.

Sun Hang, Yano, and the Fisherman explored a powered training ground in the institute ruins and discovered a message hidden inside an old camera. The note read, “You're finally back,” leaving Sun Hang wondering whether it had been intended for him.

• Yano speculated that survivors or aberrations might have kept the underground training ground powered, while Sun Hang warned that the equipment could not be trusted completely.
• The lights revealed an elaborate mechanical camera system that tracked the three explorers, and Yano explained how its floor sensors and pulleys worked.
• Sun Hang cut the camera loose from its rail and caught it before it hit the ground.
• Sun Hang opened the camera and found a brittle paper strip instead of film.
• Yano read the Russian message on the strip as “You're finally back,” and Sun Hang wondered how its writer could have anticipated his arrival.

Sun Hang followed the red emergency lights after finding two mysterious notes that seemed to address him and hint at his past in the Nameless Island research facility. The Fisherman and Yano accompanied him, and an unfamiliar cloaked hunter suddenly appeared in their path.

• Sun Hang found a note inside the dismantled camera and suspected he had once lived throughout the research facility, though he could not explain his memories.
• A second note told him, “Long time no see. I miss you very much,” and urged him to follow the guidance.
• The overhead lights turned red, and Sun Hang followed them while wondering whether the Anglo-Saxon Hunters had found similar notes.
• The Fisherman and Yano caught up with Sun Hang despite his warning that the trail could be a trap.
• A cloaked hunter appeared ten paces ahead of Sun Hang, the Fisherman, and Yano.

Sun Hang pretended to consider cooperating with the grim hunter so he could expose the hunter’s real position, then killed him and absorbed the residual memes from his corpse. The chapter left Sun Hang reconstructing the grim hunter’s memories to learn what had happened in the ruins.

• The grim hunter offered Sun Hang’s group a share of the ruins’ spoils and warned that Tianshu Tower had withheld information about the danger.
• Sun Hang asked to inspect the artifact creating the projections, and the grim hunter revealed his location by using it again.
• Sun Hang shot the grim hunter on a rooftop, then searched his corpse and explained that the hunter could activate memes in others only under restrictive conditions.
• Sun Hang absorbed most of the corpse’s residual memes, gaining memory fragments that could reveal the sequence of events.

A United States spy named Vera Kurikova sent intelligence from Nameless Island about an Anomaly embryo, but the drift bottle washed ashore near Longkou Port and was only recovered generations later. Sun Hang and the Anglo-Saxon Hunters learned that the embryo had been fully anomalized by a Primal Grade meme without mutating, suggesting the meme could coexist with humans.

• The United States learned about the secret Nameless Island Research Institute but chose not to alert the Xiazhou and Siberian Federations.
• Professor Anatoly Ilyich Pavlov married his student Vera Kurikova and brought her to Nameless Island, unaware that she was a senior United States spy.
• Vera gathered intelligence and sent it in a drift bottle, but a Sea Beast Anomaly diverted the bottle toward Xiazhou's eastern coast the day before the Nameless Island incident.
• A descendant of a United States intelligence officer found the officer's diary, traced the bottle to a fishing village near Longkou Port, and recovered the intelligence from a metal cylinder.
• The descendant decoded the intelligence for Sun Hang and the Anglo-Saxon Hunters, revealing that Nameless Island researchers had found a human embryo carrying a Primal Grade meme that had reached one hundred percent anomalization without causing mutation.

Sun Hang watched the Anglo-Saxon Hunters uncover intelligence about a Primal Grade embryo on Nameless Island and plan to seize it during a Rank Advancement Trial. Their expedition was devastated by escaped Anomalies, and the gloomy Hunter abandoned his allies and sabotaged the elevator as he fled.

• Donald proposed taking the embryo so he could make the United States great again, and the Hunters discussed the possibility of claiming power over humanity.
• The gloomy Hunter said the next Rank Advancement Trial would take place on Nameless Island, and the group reasoned that the island's secrecy meant they might be the only people who knew about the embryo.
• The Hunters agreed to work together until they confirmed the embryo existed, then recruited Indian-descended Anomaly Hunters with false promises of Anomaly Equipment and unclaimed property.
• Sun Hang saw fragmented memories of the Hunters encountering escaped Anomalies on the second underground level and suffering devastating losses.
• Wall-Phasing Bro fled through the rock strata, while the gloomy Hunter abandoned the group and smashed the elevator controller as he escaped.

Sun Hang, the Fisherman, and Yano Seiichi descended to Basement Level Two despite Sun Hang’s warnings about the dangerous anomalies there. The elevator opened onto a gruesome scene, leaving the three facing evidence of a horrific death.

• Sun Hang found out that the escaped Hunter’s team had been wiped out by containment-breach anomalies on Basement Level Two and that a BOSS was rumored to be deeper in the facility.
• The Fisherman and Yano Seiichi insisted on continuing with Sun Hang, citing their resolve as Hunters and the research value of the anomalies.
• Sun Hang used Liquid Metal to bypass the disabled elevator controls and lower the car to Basement Level Two.
• The elevator doors opened beside a corpse with a hollowed-out chest, and the Fisherman cautiously inspected the grisly scene.

Sun Hang and the others encountered Xin Jiushiwu, a Spiritual Anomaly inhabiting a mass of Deep Sea Worm corpses, inside the research institute. After it attacked the elevator, Sun Hang trapped it and used his mycelium to absorb its memetic influence, while his growing familiarity with the institute hinted at memories from over a century ago.

• The Fisherman spotted a blood trail outside the elevator, and Sun Hang sensed Xin Jiushiwu lurking above the entrance.
• Sun Hang threw a hunter's corpse outside, revealing the black mass of worms that he identified as Xin Jiushiwu, a Spiritual Anomaly.
• Xin Jiushiwu charged the elevator, and Sun Hang kicked the Fisherman and Yano out before the Anomaly engulfed him.
• Sun Hang raised the elevator and wedged it between floors, trapping Xin Jiushiwu inside with him.
• Sun Hang's mycelium entangled the worms and began draining their memetic influence, turning the Anomaly's attempted feeding into its own defeat.

Sun Hang killed Xin Jiushiwu by destroying the Deep Sea Worms that had served as its shells, then followed the red fingerprint lights after washing and changing in a researchers’ dormitory. Reviewing his recovered memories, he realized he had observed the institute’s past as a ghost, but had never appeared in it.

• Sun Hang pulled the Deep Sea Worms from his body, killing Xin Jiushiwu and absorbing its memetic imprint, which greatly increased his Blue Bar.
• Sun Hang told the Fisherman and Yano that Xin Jiushiwu had become so accustomed to the Deep Sea Worms that it died with them instead of escaping as a spirit.
• Sun Hang followed the red fingerprint lights with the Fisherman and Yano, stopping at Dormitory No. 4 to wash off the blood and corrosive fluid.
• Sun Hang put on a researcher’s lab coat and noticed that, in his recovered memories of the institute, he had witnessed scenes from the past without appearing in them.