Chapter Summaries

Sun Hang killed Lu Hongming and his family after uncovering their connection to an anomaly, then learned from Lu Hongming’s daughter-in-law that he should not have returned to Tianfu City. He and Wang Xiyi returned to the Anomaly Research Institute, where extensive military reinforcements suggested the lockdown was preparing the city for street fighting.

• Sun Hang stopped Lu Hongming from calling the police, restrained him with mycelium, and killed him after Lu confessed that a letter had coerced him into targeting Sun Hang.
• Sun Hang shot Lu Hongming’s son and watched Lu Hongming’s wife die after her fruit knife twisted and cut her throat.
• Sun Hang found Lu Hongming’s daughter-in-law infected by an anomaly; she warned him that he should not have returned before vomiting blood, dying, and dissolving into a pool of blood.
• Sun Hang discovered that the anomaly had burned Lu Hongming’s study and called Pei Zongjun before telling Wang Xiyi that the woman had warned him about returning to Tianfu City.
• Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi reached the Anomaly Research Institute and saw armored reinforcements, combat engineers, and construction of a nearly fifty-meter tower; Wang Xiyi identified the troops as main-force units from neighboring regions.

Sun Hang arrived at the Tianfu City Anomaly Research Institute and learned that Chimera Seventeen had appeared in a cocoon and survived a nuclear strike, growing stronger as it approached its emergence. The conference proposed the Insecticide Plan, leaving Sun Hang and the other hunters facing the task of opening the cocoon before Chimera Seventeen emerged in forty-one days.

• Song Yarong hurried Sun Hang and his companion into a combat conference after they arrived at the institute.
• Song Yarong explained that Chimera Seventeen had appeared north of Tianfu City and absorbed energy from four nuclear warheads without damage.
• Yang Qi reported that Chimera Seventeen was still in a pupal stage and could emerge as a near-Primal Anomaly in forty-one days.
• Yang Qi presented the Insecticide Plan: gather Chimera Seventeen's meme fragments, create a Reverse Meme Agent, breach its cocoon, and bombard its core.
• Yang Qi said specialists could reverse-engineer most of Chimera Seventeen's memes in a month, leaving eleven days for sampling and injection preparations.
• Yang Qi looked to Sun Hang and the hunters to open the cocoon, but Sun Hang warned the room not to expect him to surpass nuclear weapons.

Sun Hang and Yang Qi discussed Lu Hongming’s death, the concealed evacuation dilemma, and the 21.7% success rate of the Insecticide Plan. With sample collection scheduled for the next morning, Sun Hang learned more about the unstable reverse agent and was challenged by Zhong Ling’s aunt about whether he could deliver it to Chimera Seventeen.

• Sun Hang told Yang Qi that Lu Hongming had tried to harm him with a substance from a possibly cursed object and that he had killed Lu Hongming after Elder Pei investigated him.
• Yang Qi revealed that the Insecticide Plan had a calculated 21.7% success rate and that the Federation’s evacuation proposal would relocate civilians within southern Shu Province, though forty-one days was not enough to prepare for tens of millions of people.
• Yang Qi explained that eight Hunter squads would collect Meme samples starting at ten the next morning, and Sun Hang’s squad included Wang Xiyi and Zhong Ling.
• Wang Xiyi and Zhong Ling accompanied Sun Hang outside the research institute, where he saw equipment for Meme Reverse Engineering being installed.
• Zhong Ling explained that the Reverse Meme Agent became unstable as its quantity increased, and her aunt said the Insecticide would remain stable for no more than 0.1 seconds before asking Sun Hang whether he could put it into Chimera Seventeen’s heart.

Sun Hang agreed to protect Zhong Ling during the dangerous operation, and the group prepared to make defensive Anomaly Equipment for her. Meanwhile, reconnaissance teams near Chimera Seventeen reported worsening radiation and ominous rain as another team remained overdue.

• Zhong Jun asked Sun Hang to keep Zhong Ling safe, and he agreed while jokingly asking the Zhong family to save him a place as its head.
• Zhong Ling confronted Zhong Jun about her father treating her as an experimental creation and insisted on joining the operation.
• Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and Zhong Ling discussed the Zhong family’s experiments and Zhong Ling’s mother, then Sun Hang proposed making Zhong Ling two defensive Anomaly Equipment pieces.
• At Observation Post Zero, two armored scouts reported rising radiation near Chimera Seventeen and worried that the rain clouds might drift toward the city.
• The scouts wondered why Old Li’s group had not returned from its reconnaissance mission.

At Observation Post Zero, Liu Yu and Xiao Wang waited in worsening rain for Li Yimin and Peng Wei, whose patrol had returned late. When the two mud-covered operatives approached without responding, Liu Yu sensed danger and realized he could not see their faces; the chapter ended with them still advancing toward him.

• Liu Yu and Xiao Wang prepared to evacuate Observation Post Zero after headquarters ordered them to move to Observation Post One, but Liu Yu insisted on waiting for Li Yimin and Peng Wei.
• Two lights appeared in the rain, and Liu Yu went to meet the returning operatives while Xiao Wang stayed behind with the equipment.
• Liu Yu recognized the names on the approaching suits as Li Yimin and Peng Wei, but neither man answered his calls or communications.
• Liu Yu noticed their visors showed only blackness and ordered Xiao Wang to retreat and unlock the welding torch as a weapon.
• The two silent operatives ignored Liu Yu's stop signal and continued approaching, leaving him certain that the one wearing Li Yimin's armor was not acting like his old partner.

After Chimera Seventeen’s Hatching Day was moved up to eleven days away, Sun Hang and a team of hunters set out to investigate it and collect a meme sample. As the hunters reached Observation Post Seven in torrential, anomalously warm rain, Sun Hang warned Ye Jiu to flee if he saw three monkeys.

• Liu Yu fell in the mud and saw a monster wearing Li Yimin and Peng Wei’s powered armor reveal a face covered in eyes and tentacles.
• Yang Qi told Sun Hang that Chimera Seventeen’s Hatching Day might arrive in eleven days, prompting an urgent mission to investigate the mutation and collect a meme sample.
• Ye Xuan explained that Chimera Seventeen had become a powerful nuclear fission reactor and that the hunters would withdraw if the Insecticide Plan failed.
• The hunters reached Observation Post Seven by helicopter and began preparing to approach Chimera Seventeen in separate groups.
• Sun Hang told Ye Jiu to run if he encountered three monkeys, whether alive, dead, flat, or three-dimensional.

Sun Hang's group set out from Observation Post Seven to approach Chimera Seventeen, whose deadly stress response made the operation especially dangerous. They reached the site of missing Observation Post Five, where Sun Hang sensed Anomalies everywhere and doubted a mudslide alone had destroyed it.

• Candle Dragon warned that Observation Post Seven was at risk of being buried by a mudslide as the hunters prepared to leave.
• Zhong Ling joined the mission riding her Anomalous Corpse, while Sun Hang and Ye Jiu joked that it resembled Gargantua from Plants vs. Zombies.
• Ye Xuan began the operation, and the hunters split into teams to encircle Chimera Seventeen while keeping their distance from one another.
• Wang Xiyi flew with Sun Hang toward missing Observation Post Five, while Zhong Ling's Anomalous Corpses traveled across the mud below.
• Sun Hang sensed Anomalies throughout the area, and Wang Xiyi found a twisted piece of steel tent frame at Observation Post Five.
• Sun Hang said the damage to the frame did not seem consistent with a mudslide.

Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and Zhong Ling discovered that parasitic tentacle creatures had taken over the missing field agents and attacked the observation posts. Just as Sun Hang dismissed them as weak and focused on collecting Chimera Seventeen’s Meme sample, he sensed another presence nearby.

• Wang Xiyi and Sun Hang spotted Anomalous Corpse No. 001 emerging from the mud with a missing field agent impaled on its hand.
• Tentacles burst from the field agent’s body, and more parasitized agents attacked; Sun Hang destroyed the creatures by severing their connection to himself.
• Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi discussed Chimera Seventeen, Wang Xiyi’s duty to protect others, and Sun Hang’s plan to claim an anomalous creature from Tianshu Tower as payment from Elder Pei.
• Sun Hang examined the remains and deduced that the tentacle creatures had consumed their victims’ bodies while using their skin as camouflage to infiltrate the observation posts.
• Sun Hang said the weak creatures posed little threat and that the team should focus on obtaining a Meme sample from Chimera Seventeen, then sensed something else nearby and told Wang Xiyi and Zhong Ling to be quiet.

Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi fought a rainwater anomalous entity born from Chimera Seventeen’s defective memes, and Sun Hang absorbed it before using its meme virus to heal Wang Xiyi. Holding her in the rain unlocked a sealed memory in which they fled from pursuing creatures, and the memory ended with her urging him to escape.

• The rain stopped in midair and formed a giant scorpion that attacked Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and Gargantua.
• The scorpion’s stingers badly injured Wang Xiyi and pierced Sun Hang, while Anomalous Corpse No. 001 pulled Zhong Ling to safety.
• Sun Hang transformed into Tai Sui Hyphae, drained the rainwater pincers, and learned that the entity had formed from defective meme fragments leaked by Chimera Seventeen.
• Sun Hang absorbed the meme virus damaging Wang Xiyi by drinking her Dragon Blood, allowing her wounds and scales to recover.
• Holding Wang Xiyi in the rain, Sun Hang accessed a sealed memory of himself running with a woman as she begged him to escape their pursuers.

Ye Jiu’s group was ambushed by infected special agents, then he found himself alone beneath a white crescent moon before an army of Black Armored Cavalry from Emperor Taizong’s era. As the cavalry charged thousands of anomalous creatures, one soldier threw Ye Jiu onto an unattended warhorse.

• Candle Dragon led the hunters toward Observation Post Six and explained that Chimera Seventeen might have created the anomalous creatures as guards.
• Infected special agents burst from the mud and attacked the group, but Ye Jiu and the hunters fought them off.
• Ye Jiu destroyed two headless attackers, then discovered that Candle Dragon and the other hunters had vanished and the rain had stopped.
• Ye Jiu found himself on frozen ground beside a strange corpse and recognized a silent army of Black Armored Cavalry behind him.
• Anomalous creatures charged across the hills, and the Black Armored Cavalry lowered their lances and roared, “Kill!”
• The Black Armored Cavalry charged the creatures, and one soldier scooped Ye Jiu up and threw him onto an unattended warhorse.

Ye Jiu rode with the Black Armored Cavalry and discovered that their advanced ranged weapons and tactics made them a force of Qualified Users fighting a massive Anomaly horde. As the charge turned into a brutal battle, he chose to fight while trying to keep Carnage’s killing urge from consuming him, and he suspected Emperor Taizong had used Sun Hang’s red crystal to create the ancient army.

• Ye Jiu recalled how Carnage eroded its former Qualified Users and recognized that his own absurd, carefree outlook had helped him resist its killing intent.
• The Black Armored Cavalry spread out and used powerful bows and repeating crossbows to strike the Anomalies; Ye Jiu tested a repeating crossbow and marveled at its firepower.
• Ye Jiu weighed whether to avoid the fight, risk becoming Carnage’s puppet, or preserve his clarity while killing, and settled on trying the third option.
• The front ranks linked their horses with barbed chains and charged, while following riders trampled fallen Anomalies and burned others with violet-black flames.
• Ye Jiu wondered how Emperor Taizong had assembled thousands of Qualified Users and connected the Black Armored Cavalry to Sun Hang’s red crystal, which could mass-produce Anomaly Equipment.
• The Black Armored Cavalry crashed into the horde, suffering heavy losses as the vast number of Anomalies steadily thinned the riders around Ye Jiu.

Ye Jiu escaped the Black Armored Cavalry’s doomed battle against a vast horde of anomalies and discovered that a ruined city transformed into Chang’an before his eyes. Elsewhere, Sun Hang broke through the strange visions surrounding him, saw a realm of anomalies and three apes, and returned to Zhong Ling still carrying the unconscious Wang Xiyi.

• Ye Jiu charged through the anomaly horde as the Black Armored Cavalry were overwhelmed, then realized none of the surviving riders had escaped with him.
• Ye Jiu rode toward a ruined city and recognized the damaged characters on its gate plaque as Anyuan Gate.
• Ye Jiu returned to the hillside and watched the small city expand into a vast Chang’an with its familiar wards and avenues.
• Sun Hang stopped fleeing, punched through the surrounding distortion, and saw enormous anomalies, a devastated land, and three apes atop pillars.
• Sun Hang’s vision faded without erasing his new memories, and he found Zhong Ling calling to him while he held the unconscious Wang Xiyi.

Sun Hang killed Gargantua, left Zhong Ling and Wang Xiyi to await rescue, and continued alone toward Chimera Seventeen. He encountered a terrified survivor from Fourth Squad, who claimed an unseen monster had killed his teammates, and Sun Hang noticed blood on the survivor’s gloves.

• Sun Hang disposed of Gargantua, while Zhong Ling explained that severing their consciousness link had caused her backlash.
• Sun Hang fired a Signal Flare and ordered Zhong Ling to stay with Wang Xiyi until rescue arrived, then continued alone with the sample collection equipment.
• Sun Hang ignored a distress flare at first, but a second flare and a radio call revealed a Fourth Squad hunter fleeing toward him on a hover bike.
• Sun Hang stopped the hunter and asked what had happened; the hunter said an invisible monster had killed his teammates and was still pursuing him.
• Sun Hang pointed out blood on the hunter’s gloves and asked whether it was the hunter’s own.

Sun Hang killed a hunter whose hallucinations and parasitic infection had driven him to murder his squad, then gained the Manta Ray anomaly’s Parasite and Hallucination abilities. He rode toward Chimera Seventeen, whose stress response fired a powerful beam at him, while Ye Xuan’s team tried to determine whether he was still alive.

• Sun Hang read the hunter’s memories and discovered that the hunter had killed the other members of Fourth Squad.
• Sun Hang revealed the Manta Ray anomaly attached to the hunter’s spine, then shot the hunter as the creature detached and fled into the mud.
• Sun Hang captured and devoured the Manta Ray anomaly, gaining Parasite and Hallucination, and briefly sensed two cold gazes when he considered using the abilities on Three Monkeys.
• Sun Hang took a hover bike and raced through the rain toward Chimera Seventeen despite Anna’s warning to avoid it.
• Chimera Seventeen released a powerful beam toward Sun Hang, who dodged it with a sweeping turn.
• At Observation Post Seven, Ye Xuan learned that Chimera Seventeen had shown a stress response and asked whether Sun Hang was still alive.

At the command center, Ye Xuan and Yang Qi prepared a massive drone-and-decoy operation to help Sun Hang collect Chimera Seventeen’s Meme sample. Sun Hang reached the giant cocoon and assembled the collection device, but its purpose and what lay inside the cocoon remained unknown.

• Ye Xuan explained that Sun Hang had likely predicted Chimera Seventeen’s energy-stream attacks, but the creature went quiet after three strikes.
• The command center learned that other squads had suffered heavy losses and that a fourth energy reaction had struck near Chimera Seventeen.
• Yang Qi arranged to send Garuda’s drones, while Ye Xuan proposed using Meme-infected white mice as decoys and preparing human-wave tactics if needed.
• The military representative confirmed the Federal Government would accept any price to obtain Chimera Seventeen’s Meme sample.
• Sun Hang reached the dry zone around the giant cocoon, destroyed his overloaded Geiger counter, and felt a powerful heartbeat inside it.
• Sun Hang assembled the Meme Sample Collection Device, a massive mechanical hammer driven by anomaly-derived technology.

Sun Hang activated the Anomaly Battery and prepared the collection equipment, but a bloodline-wielding Anomaly called the lady attacked him and tried to reach it. As more ladies appeared and the collection lights neared completion, Sun Hang moved to keep them away while sensing an increasing urge to flee Chimera Seventeen.

• Sun Hang opened the freezer, installed the Anomaly Battery, and watched its power awaken the eel Anomaly as the collection equipment’s indicators began turning green.
• A mysterious lady in a blood-red gown emerged from the rain and killed several of Sun Hang’s hyphae puppets with high-pressure bloodlines, while he shielded the collection equipment.
• Sun Hang learned that the lady could fire bloodlines from her exposed skin and spread her gown across the ground to sever his hyphae network, so he used a giant rock hand to throw her away.
• As the equipment’s green lights continued to activate, Sun Hang’s growing instinct to leave Chimera Seventeen prompted him to advance and confront the ladies before they could reach the equipment.
• Five ladies in red gowns appeared, and Sun Hang led his puppets toward them while estimating that the collection equipment would be ready in about thirty seconds.

Sun Hang struggled to protect the collection equipment from the giant elegant lady until Spirit Exorcist, the surviving leader of Eighth Squad, arrived with an anomalous shotgun. She blasted the elegant lady apart, though the Meme sample collection was still underway.

• Sun Hang used puppets and giant stone hands to attack the five elegant ladies, but they merged into a towering figure and swept him with blood-red threads.
• Sun Hang exhausted his defenses protecting the collection equipment, then refused to rely on Three Monkeys and prepared to fight again.
• Spirit Exorcist arrived and explained that an energy stream had destroyed Eighth Squad's collection equipment and killed everyone but her.
• Spirit Exorcist opened her talisman-covered weapons case and revealed an anomalous shotgun, identifying the elegant lady as a spirit-type Anomaly.
• Spirit Exorcist propelled herself into the air with her mechanical legs and fired three shots, badly damaging the elegant lady and silencing its scream.

After the Spirit Exorcist spent two fingers defeating a noblewoman, she and Sun Hang began collecting a sample from Chimera Seventeen’s giant cocoon. When spiritual Anomalies approached, Sun Hang took the Spirit Exorcist’s shotgun and bracelet, and the displayed synchronization rate was 0%.

• The Spirit Exorcist collapsed after using three shotgun shots, revealing that the weapon consumed her flesh and that she had only about one-third of her human body left.
• Sun Hang activated the collection equipment, whose Artifact Anomaly drill bit penetrated Chimera Seventeen’s cocoon and began a collection operation estimated to take 554 seconds.
• The Spirit Exorcist sensed spiritual Anomalies approaching and drew her shotgun as its excitement drove her synchronization rate up to 69%.
• Sun Hang and the Spirit Exorcist identified the approaching spirits as thousands of tiger ghosts, the souls of Qiang villagers killed by Chimera Seventeen.
• When the Spirit Exorcist warned that firing again would consume her remaining flesh, Sun Hang took her shotgun and bracelet to test whether he could use the weapon.
• Sun Hang put on the bracelet, which showed a 0% synchronization rate with the shotgun.

Sun Hang used the Spirit Exorcist’s shotgun to annihilate thousands of wraiths, repeatedly recovering from the flesh it consumed despite his wristband reading a synchronization rate of zero. After the battle, the Spirit Exorcist questioned whether he was still Sun Hang, and he answered with a question about the Theseus Person.

• The Spirit Exorcist saw Sun Hang’s synchronization rate read zero and feared the shotgun would be useless against the wraiths.
• Sun Hang rushed into the horde and fired the shotgun, vaporizing wraiths while his drained flesh rapidly regenerated.
• The Spirit Exorcist watched Sun Hang fire nearly thirty shots with little lasting injury and recorded his astonishing fight.
• Sun Hang’s shotgun grew stronger as it devoured his flesh, and he wiped out the remaining wraiths, including a giant fused spirit entity.
• The Spirit Exorcist asked whether Sun Hang was still himself, and Sun Hang brought up the Theseus Person.

Sun Hang completed the collection of Chimera Seventeen’s Meme sample and escaped the radiation zone as the Command Center sent in a wave of soldiers and equipment. He reached Observation Post Seven, where Wang Xiyi met him and recognized the Spirit Exorcist as someone who reminded her of her former self.

• Sun Hang recovered the sample from the ruined collection device and warned the Spirit Exorcist that her shotgun would grow hungry again if left unfed.
• Sun Hang and the Spirit Exorcist prepared to split up, but Chimera Seventeen fired three energy streams as military drones arrived with reinforcements and collection equipment.
• Sun Hang told the soldiers the mission was complete and ordered them to relay a withdrawal message, then sent the Spirit Exorcist away with a group while he drew Chimera Seventeen’s attacks.
• Sun Hang escaped the energy streams on a hover bike and reached Observation Post Seven, where Wang Xiyi joined him.
• Sun Hang told Wang Xiyi that a Spirit Exorcist had helped with the mission, and Wang Xiyi said the woman reminded her of who she used to be.