Chapter Summaries

After swallowing Tumi’s flower bud, Sun Hang endured a burning sensation that became an overwhelming sexual urge, then used the Three Monkeys statue in his mind to suppress it. He caught up with Yano and continued toward the source of the contamination on Nameless Island, disappointed that Tumi had granted him no new ability.

• Sun Hang fell behind the fisherman and Yano as he struggled with a conceptual burning sensation after devouring Tumi’s flower bud.
• The burning faded into restless heat, and a voice in Sun Hang’s mind urged him to indulge his desires.
• Sun Hang summoned the image of the Three Monkeys statue, which suppressed both the voice and the heat.
• Sun Hang caught up with Yano and noted that devouring Tumi had increased his Blue Bar but granted no new ability.
• Sun Hang decided to head for the source of the contamination instead of wasting time hunting other affected Anomalies.

While Ye Xuan used herself as bait in Tianfu City, a pale shadow appeared, prompting Wang Xiyi to rush to the scene. On Nameless Island, Sun Hang and the others encountered a bloodstained Indian Hunter whose mind seemed warped by the island’s curse.

• Yang Lian and Ye Xuan spotted a pale shadow outside the Yang residence, and Ye Xuan confirmed that her bait had drawn it out.
• Ye Xuan told Yang Lian to contact the investigation team and nearby Hunters.
• Wang Xiyi learned the target had appeared and flew toward the scene using her Dragon Wings.
• The Fisherman, Yano, and Sun Hang emerged from the tunnel and found the Tumi vines withering.
• Sun Hang confronted a bloodstained Indian Hunter hiding nearby, who demanded to know why they were still alive.
• Yano suspected the Hunter had been affected by the island’s curse, and Sun Hang wondered how he had reached them.

Sun Hang and the Fisherman chased the fleeing Indian Hunter, suspecting his route led to a trap. Meanwhile, Ye Xuan and Yang Lian prepared to ambush a white-shadow anomaly, but after nearby teams lost contact, the Bureau canceled the operation and ordered them to evacuate.

• The Fisherman showed Sun Hang the severed-finger talisman, and the Indian Hunter fled in terror.
• Sun Hang, the Fisherman, and Yano pursued the Indian Hunter, while Sun Hang sensed that the man was following a deliberate route.
• Ye Xuan and Yang Lian waited in Building Thirteen with a PDW loaded with several kinds of prototype rounds, prepared to face the white shadow.
• The Field Operations Department reported that six armed teams had lost contact and canceled the operation, ordering Ye Xuan and Yang Lian to evacuate.
• Ye Xuan raised the PDW to cover Yang Lian, who chambered a round and said the anomaly was targeting Ye Xuan.

Yang Lian and Ye Xuan discovered that the white shadow had reached their building and killed a Field Operations agent, so they fled toward the roof to call for helicopter support. On Nameless Island, Sun Hang and the Fisherman followed the cursed Indian Hunter into a factory filled with bones and missing Hunters, where the Indian Hunter collapsed and died.

• Yang Lian and Ye Xuan found a severed Field Operations agent inside the elevator and realized the white shadow had begun its attack.
• Ye Xuan led Yang Lian into the elevator and headed for the roof to request helicopter support from headquarters.
• Sun Hang noticed that the red lights had disappeared in the experimental zone and suspected the Indian Hunter had become their guide.
• The Indian Hunter led Sun Hang and the Fisherman into a factory, where they found towering bone piles and missing Hunters staring at the ceiling.
• The Indian Hunter lost his terror, collapsed beside a bone mountain, and died.

Sun Hang confronted the white-haired girl in the laboratory beneath Nameless Island and learned that she called him her creator and “Mommy.” As she revealed how the island’s people had died, Sun Hang recovered fragments of memories about the curse and her need for human emotion.

• Sun Hang and the Fisherman found a white-haired girl suspended in a glass tank amid piles of bones, and she said the dead had killed themselves.
• The girl told Sun Hang that he had caused the accident at the research institute more than a hundred years earlier, though he remembered nothing about it.
• The girl called Sun Hang “Mommy” and insisted that he had created her and that their bloodlines were connected.
• Sun Hang learned from the girl that the people’s emotions had been devoured, leaving them to die like puppets, and recalled that the island’s curse magnified human emotions as her food.

Sun Hang questioned the white-haired girl about his past and the Three Monkeys, but she could not reveal the truth before her glass tank shattered and she withered away in his arms. Her remains left him a Russian nameplate, which Yano Seiichi translated as Anna Demoshina, while Sun Hang remained without answers about his identity.

• Sun Hang realized the white-haired girl avoided questions about his past because she feared the Three Monkeys, and she confirmed their existence despite the strain it caused her.
• The white-haired girl failed to explain the Three Monkeys or their connection to Sun Hang before her glass tank broke and she rapidly withered into a corpse.
• The dying girl called Sun Hang “Mother,” said they would meet again in the river of time, and transferred the remaining bloodline-like memes to him without restoring his memories.
• Sun Hang found a Russian Metal Nameplate in the girl's hand and memorized its inscription.
• Yano Seiichi arrived at the laboratory, and Sun Hang asked him to translate the inscription; Yano identified it as the woman's name Anna Demoshina.

The Fisherman, Yano, and Sun Hang discovered that the girl in the life-support tank had turned into a mummy, possibly because she was an infected test subject. The research institute’s long-delayed self-destruct system then began collapsing the facility, forcing them to flee toward an underwater escape tunnel.

• The Fisherman told Yano that the girl in the shattered tank had been alive moments earlier and then rapidly mummified.
• Yano identified the tank as an old CL Model 06 life-support device and speculated that its failure or an Anomaly had caused the girl’s death.
• Sun Hang regretted losing another chance to learn about his origins, while the Fisherman worried about what awaited them outside.
• The research institute shook as its self-destruct system activated, collapsing bone piles and threatening to bury everyone.
• Yano led the Fisherman and Sun Hang toward the third underground level, where an escape tunnel reached the sea, and said they might find Deep Dive Suits there.

Sun Hang led Yano and the Fisherman through a hidden passage to escape the collapsing Nameless Island laboratory. They emerged in a room at the Underground Dock, a place absent from the laboratory’s blueprints.

• Sun Hang ruled out the upper levels and the official escape tunnels, then remembered a hidden passage.
• Sun Hang led Yano and the Fisherman into a rusted pipe that smelled of seawater.
• The Fisherman slid through the pipe, thinking about his father and the life he had not finished living.
• The Fisherman and Yano crashed onto a mat at the pipe’s exit, and Sun Hang helped them up.
• Sun Hang identified their location as the Underground Dock, and Yano noted it was missing from the laboratory’s blueprints.

Sun Hang led the Fisherman and Yano to a hidden dock containing an unregistered Siberian Federation nuclear submarine, then left them aboard while he followed a memory to another underground pool. He reached a dome covered in mixed mythological murals, where the word “Temple” surfaced in his mind.

• Sun Hang said Anna had revealed the hidden dock, and the Fisherman cut through its rusted bolt so they could escape.
• Sun Hang showed the Fisherman and Yano a hidden K650 Frostwind-class nuclear submarine that was absent from the Siberian Federation’s records.
• The Fisherman and Yano boarded the submarine, while Sun Hang said he had something important to do and dove into the pool.
• Sun Hang’s body developed gills and webbed fingers as he followed a remembered underwater passage to a larger underground dock.
• Sun Hang climbed ashore beneath a dome of mythological murals and remembered the word “Temple.”

Sun Hang studied murals that linked ancient myths and Cthulhu stories to real anomalies, and began questioning whether anomalies sought to destroy humanity or assimilate it. He stopped before a mural depicting scientists performing a ritual around a restrained girl, leaving its meaning unexplained.

• Sun Hang compared myths from Xiazhou and other civilizations and concluded that beings called gods might once have been powerful anomalies.
• Sun Hang considered whether anomalies were assimilating humanity, but doubted the Evolutionary Faction's claim that humans should coexist with or become anomalies.
• Sun Hang examined a mural of a fog-shrouded scene and recalled how creatures described in the Necronomicon had later appeared as real anomalies.
• Sun Hang read a Necronomicon verse and speculated that a powerful being might have absorbed the Cthulhu Mythos author's consciousness and created the monsters he had written about.
• Sun Hang reached a mural showing white-coated people dancing around a bound girl on an operating table.

Sun Hang encountered the Eight-Headed Serpent beneath the temple and discovered that it treated him like an owner, so he persuaded it to carry him away from Nameless Island and hide. The serpent left him with a landing craft, and Sun Hang prepared to return to the island and wait for rescue.

• Sun Hang inspected the murals and wondered whether the restrained girl had been part of a ritual, while the Three Monkeys had erased the mural that might have revealed the island’s history.
• The Eight-Headed Serpent emerged from the pool, approached Sun Hang gently, and let him stroke its head.
• Sun Hang asked the serpent to take him outside and stay hidden from other humans, and it carried him through an underwater passage into the nearby sea.
• Sun Hang told the serpent to leave him several nautical miles from Nameless Island, and it sank away without disturbing the water.
• Sun Hang decided to return to Nameless Island and wait for rescue, but the serpent returned and spat out a landing craft for him before disappearing.

Ye Xuan and Yang Lian fled a stitched aberration through the building and onto the rooftop, where a field operative sacrificed himself to buy them time. Heavy sniper fire failed to stop the monster, and the chapter ended as snipers at two positions disappeared.

• The elevator stalled as the aberration stabbed through its floor, but Ye Xuan and Yang Lian escaped onto the twenty-first floor and ran for the stairs.
• Ye Xuan reported that the aberration resisted both conventional and Lihuo rounds, then she and Yang Lian encountered its full spider-bodied form on the stairwell.
• A blood-covered field operative rushed from Apartment 2601, let the aberration impale him, and detonated two grenades beneath it, blasting Ye Xuan and Yang Lian onto the rooftop.
• Ye Xuan and Yang Lian struggled to their feet while the wounded Ye Xuan called for snipers to target the monster's waist, and a heavy round struck its abdomen without penetrating.
• The aberration dodged another sniper shot, and Sniper Position Four reported an attack before going silent; Sniper Position Three then reported that its sniper and spotter had vanished before that transmission also cut off.

The anomaly killed the snipers and evaded the helicopters’ fire, then brought down both Falcon Two and Falcon One. As the anomaly attacked Falcon One, Night Fiend arrived and slammed into it.

• The command staff saw that the anomaly’s spider-like offspring had killed the snipers, and Song Yarong suspected they had inherited its invisibility.
• The officers ordered Falcon One to suppress the anomaly and Falcon Two to rescue Ye Xuan and Yang Lian.
• The anomaly dropped through the rooftop, causing two missiles to collide and blast Ye Xuan and Yang Lian off their feet.
• Spider silk dragged Falcon Two into the ground, killing the helicopter’s crew and scattering the medics.
• The anomaly leaped out of the rooftop hole, attached itself to Falcon One, and killed its pilot.
• Night Fiend streaked into view and slammed into the anomaly.

Wang Xiyi used Blue Flame to destroy the stitched Anomaly, but the attack risked accelerating her infection. The Anomaly’s main body survived inside its charred remains and escaped underground.

• The Old Director ordered the reinforcement units to evacuate residents and leave Wang Xiyi to fight alone.
• Song Yarong and the Old Director recognized that Wang Xiyi’s Blue Flame could worsen her infection and meant she was willing to risk her life.
• Wang Xiyi’s Blue Flame tore the stitched Anomaly apart, and the researchers reported that its memetic frequency had disappeared.
• The Old Director ordered the troops to hunt the Anomaly’s symbiotic offspring and warned them to keep their distance from Wang Xiyi.
• The researchers detected the target’s weak memetic signal again as a newborn body emerged from the remains, burrowed into the soil, and escaped the monitoring range.

After the battle, the Old Director arranged to contain Wang Xiyi while officials assessed the threat from the wounded Anomaly. On Nameless Island, Sun Hang finished his brief rest and told a rescue team that two trial participants might still be alive in an underground dock.

• The Old Director and Song Yarong reported that Wang Xiyi’s infection was nearing a catastrophic threshold, and the special agents transported her to the institute in a metal coffin for containment.
• The Old Director said the Anomaly had been badly weakened and would pose no threat to Tianfu City for at least six months, while rescued Ye Xuan and Yang Lian were sent to the institute for treatment.
• The Old Director told the colonel that his caretaker had gone to Chunming City for the Hunter Rank Advancement Trial, then joked with him about cigarettes.
• Sun Hang relaxed on Nameless Island until a drone arrived, and he reflected on Anna Demoshina and the destroyed underground laboratory.
• Thunder’s search-and-rescue team questioned Sun Hang, who said Fisherman and Yano Seiichi might be trapped in a nuclear submarine in the Underground Dock and that the island’s curse had lifted.

Sun Hang and Yang Qi traveled to Tianshu Tower’s Jade Pillar, where Sun Hang was expected to meet Elder Pei. As they rode through the tower’s transport system, they witnessed an Anomaly skeleton being damaged in transit and learned that the mobile compartments could serve as escape pods.

• Yang Qi told Sun Hang that the Jade Pillar connected Ziwei Yuan above with Houtu below and wondered why Elder Pei had invited him.
• Tianshu Tower staff verified Sun Hang and his companions’ identities and admitted them to the Jade Pillar.
• Sun Hang saw a transported C-16 Primordial Yeti skeleton shed parts, prompting staff to halt the shipment for inspection.
• Yang Qi asked how Tianshu Tower had obtained the skeleton from the Anomaly Research Institute in Baikal City, but a staff member said he did not know.
• A staff member guided Sun Hang and the others into a luxury mobile compartment and explained its speed and escape-pod safety features.

Sun Hang traveled sixteen kilometers underground to Elder Pei’s Primal Underground Palace, where he learned that its temperature was regulated by artificial Anomalies made from Energy-gathering Rock. The rocks powered weapons and Garuda, and Sun Hang encountered Iron Wall in the palace hall.

• Sun Hang rode a transport pod toward Elder Pei’s residence and learned from Management AI No. 90026 that the Primal Underground Palace lay nearly sixteen kilometers underground.
• Management AI No. 90026 explained that the palace’s Energy-gathering Rock bricks kept the chamber at a comfortable temperature despite the geothermal heat.
• Sun Hang learned that the rocks came from the Geng No. 59 Primal Sanctuary and were artificial Anomalies that absorbed, stored, and violently released geothermal energy.
• Yang Qi said that Garuda was powered by Energy-gathering Rock.
• Sun Hang and the others entered a brightly lit hall, where Iron Wall approached him.

Sun Hang sparred with Iron Arm at Elder Pei’s order, using metal control and a mimetic false body to survive the giant’s attacks. Iron Arm surrendered when the three-minute limit expired, then asked how Sun Hang had fooled his aura perception.

• Iron Arm challenged Sun Hang to a no-holds-barred spar and supplied a massive iron chain for him to control.
• Sun Hang attacked with steel needles and a metal python, then shaped them into a spear, but Iron Arm’s metallic body deflected the weapon.
• Iron Arm rapidly attacked Sun Hang and smashed the head of what appeared to be his opponent, but the body proved to be a mimetic false body made from Tai Sui Hyphae.
• Sun Hang clung to the ceiling and rained steel rods down on Iron Arm, who surrendered when the three-minute time limit ended.
• Sun Hang explained that he had used an activated Taotie meme to make the false body’s aura resemble his own.

Sun Hang met Elder Pei through a holographic projection and learned that Tianshu Tower believed humanity needed powerful combatants because research had failed to keep pace with anomalies. Elder Pei focused on Sun Hang’s rapid growth, while Sun Hang reflected on how evidence from Nameless Island had mysteriously vanished and concluded that excavating its ruins would be futile.

• Sun Hang entered the meeting room alone and discovered that Elder Pei was speaking through a holographic projection because his physical condition was near its limit.
• Elder Pei explained that humanity’s safe territory was shrinking, anomalies existed in space, and technological progress could not accelerate enough to preserve the status quo.
• Elder Pei said Tianshu Tower needed powerful combatants, then pointed to Sun Hang’s rapid growth since becoming an infected hunter.
• Sun Hang recalled that his report omitted parts of the Nameless Island incident and that Anna’s nameplate and references to Eight-Headed Serpent had disappeared.
• Sun Hang noted that the island’s curse had lifted and people were excavating the ruins, but believed the same invisible force would erase any important information they found.

Sun Hang agreed to oversee Tianshu Tower’s new training base in exchange for permanent access to its Anomaly containment zone. He then learned that Wang Xiyi had been left in critical condition after fighting Chimera Seventeen, and joined Yang Qi on a flight back to Tianfu City as they investigated the creature.

• Pei Zongjun appointed Sun Hang as Tianshu Tower’s Number Two person in charge and proposed turning the academy into a hunter training base with real-combat trials.
• Sun Hang accepted the role after Pei Zongjun offered him permanent access to choose Anomalies and infected people in the containment zone to devour.
• Yang Qi told Sun Hang that Yang Lian and Ye Xuan were seriously injured and Wang Xiyi had been sealed in an eternal frost coffin, with little chance of waking.
• Sun Hang and Yang Qi arranged a private flight back to Tianfu City after civilian routes to Shu Province were suspended because of Eternal Night.
• Yang Qi showed Sun Hang evidence that Chimera Seventeen could evade surveillance and had escaped underground after Wang Xiyi wounded it.
• Yang Qi explained that Wang Xiyi’s infected meme had sensed a lethal threat from Chimera Seventeen and compelled her to choose a potentially fatal strategy.