Chapter Summaries

After Sun Hang returned the Meme sample, he questioned Ye Xuan’s costly human-wave tactics and warned that Chimera Seventeen might have pieced together the Insecticide Plan. Back in Tianfu City, Wang Xiyi asked whether Sun Hang’s emotions proved he was still human, leaving him facing doubts about his origins and identity.

• Researchers took the Meme sample from Sun Hang and escorted it toward Tianfu City while Ye Xuan reported heavy losses among the suicide squad.
• Ye Xuan defended sacrificing individual lives to protect humanity, and Ye Jiu revealed that their father had ordered him to keep her safe.
• Sun Hang noticed Chimera Seventeen was conserving energy and warned Yang Qi that it might know about the Insecticide Plan, but Yang Qi said the plan could not be changed.
• Sun Hang woke beside Wang Xiyi and admitted that eating and sleeping made him feel human, while he wondered whether the fallen zone was his homeland.
• Wang Xiyi explained that emotion had once been used to distinguish infected people from Anomalies, then asked Sun Hang whether he felt emotions such as love.

The Anomaly Research Institute treated Chimera Seventeen’s halted nuclear reaction as a possible countermeasure and placed hunters on standby while the exhausted task force maintained surveillance. The chapter ended when Factory 105, which produced consumables for Meme Reverse Engineering, lost contact.

• Song Yarong explained that Chimera Seventeen’s rain and nuclear reaction had stopped, and Ye Xuan suspected the anomaly was responding to the exposed Insecticide Plan.
• Ye Xuan ordered heightened security and ended the hunters’ temporary leave early.
• Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and Zhong Ling remained at home on standby, where Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi sparred and damaged the living room.
• Yang Qi refused to rest despite her exhaustion, while the task force continued monitoring Chimera Seventeen.
• A communications officer reported that Factory 105 had lost contact, and Yang Qi identified it as the producer of Meme Reverse Engineering consumables.

Factory 105’s staff vanished without a trace, threatening to halt Meme Reverse Engineering because the site produced most of Tianfu City’s FL09 reagent. Yang Qi dispatched troops and field operators to investigate, but the Red-Haired Witch went missing before they arrived.

• Song Yarong and Yang Qi explained that Factory 105 was essential to the Insecticide Plan because it produced most of Tianfu City’s FL09 reagent.
• Yang Qi sent the First Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the 51st Division and the 67th Field Operations Team to Factory 105, and ordered the Red-Haired Witch to go ahead of them.
• Drone photographs showed Factory 105’s empty compound, with workers, security staff, and drivers missing and no signs of fighting.
• Yin Xiang, Ling Xiao, and Jiang Yu rode with the convoy as Yin Xiang recalled Sun Hang’s past encounter with a Blood Mist and worried about the mission.
• Yang Qi announced over the radio that the Red-Haired Witch had lost contact and could not be seen by the drones, and Yin Xiang feared he had jinxed her.

The 67th Field Operations Team prepared to investigate Factory 105, where hunters had gone missing, while trying to preserve the factory’s production line. After equipping themselves and approaching Building One, the team detected no meme fluctuations, but Ding Chao warned them not to trust the equipment completely.

• Yin Xiang worried that the lightly equipped field agents were being sent into danger while soldiers with heavier weapons stayed outside, and Ling Xiao reminded him that the factory had to be preserved.
• Ding Chao explained the mission priorities and distributed exoskeletons and specialized weapons to the team.
• Yin Xiang asked for Temporary Investigators to scout ahead, then told Ding Chao that he had signed a contract after facing a 27-year prison sentence.
• Jiang Yu declined an exoskeleton because she was a hunter, while Ling Xiao put one on and Ding Chao prepared to lead the team.
• The sixteen agents approached Factory 105’s Building One, and an agent reported that the meme monitoring equipment detected no anomalies inside.
• Ding Chao cautioned the team that an anomaly might conceal its meme fluctuations and recalled that a senior who had warned him about carelessness had died in an earlier operation.

Yin Xiang and the field agents investigated the loading area at Factory 105 and found a radio that received eerie sounds on unusual frequencies. The sounds could not be transmitted to the Command Center, so Ding Chao arranged to send the recordings back by drone.

• Ding Chao split the agents into groups to inspect the factory perimeter, sending Yin Xiang, Ling Xiao, and Jiang Yu to the cargo loading area.
• Yin Xiang found the loading area reeking of spoiled FL09 Reagent, while Ling Xiao discovered a radio in a truck cab with its power indicator lit but no sound.
• After Yin Xiang slapped the radio, it settled on 555.5 MHz and produced sobbing; Ding Chao later tuned it to 222.2 MHz, where it played eerie laughter.
• Ding Chao's team tested the radio and found it was not anomalous, but an unknown force had distorted the factory's magnetic field and disrupted its tuning.
• Yin Xiang suggested trying other repeated-number frequencies, and Battalion Commander Geng reported that 111.1 carried muttering, 333.3 carried panting, and 444.4 carried scraping sounds.
• When every audio file was corrupted during transmission and the Command Center could not hear the sounds over the radio, Ding Chao ordered the recording devices returned by drone.

Ding Chao’s team failed to open Workshop One’s door, so Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao entered through a ventilation duct. Jiang Yu reached the recreation room and reported that it appeared clear.

• Sharma struggled to crack the workshop’s lock because its code kept resetting, and Ding Chao ordered the team to find another way inside.
• Yin Xiang spotted a ventilation opening, and Ding Chao sent Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao to investigate it.
• The agents removed the ventilation fan, and Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao crawled through the narrow duct with a drone scouting ahead.
• Jiang Yu forced open the duct’s outlet above the recreation room and dropped into the room.
• Jiang Yu reported that the recreation room contained no visible people or anomalies.

Ling Xiao and Jiang Yu realized they had entered Factory 105’s Inner World, where communications failed and time passed differently from the outside. They found the missing Red-Haired Witch suspended in a clean room, only to discover she was alive and had been trapped there for seven or eight days.

• Ling Xiao explained that their communications were cut off because they had crossed into Factory 105’s Inner World, and that its shifting passages made the ventilation duct no longer an exit.
• Ling Xiao led Jiang Yu across the suspended corridor, where he spotted a chained woman in a clean room below.
• Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao broke into the clean room and found the Red-Haired Witch hanging from chains, apparently dead after days in the Inner World.
• The Red-Haired Witch revealed that she had been pretending to be dead and asked the hunters to get her down.
• Ling Xiao told the Red-Haired Witch that less than an hour had passed for people outside, leaving her stunned.

Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao freed the Red-Haired Witch, who introduced herself as Lilith and explained that people could possess superhuman abilities without being infected by Anomaly Memes. She suspected Ling Xiao was an Ability User and recommended he visit Tianshu Tower in Chunming City.

• Jiang Yu explained the Inner World and Outer World to Lilith, who realized Ling Xiao had noticed the Inner World and questioned him about his gun.
• Jiang Yu shot through the chains holding Lilith, and Lilith freed herself despite the pain.
• Lilith described being ambushed and speculated that her attacker might still be nearby, then said she wanted to fight it if it returned.
• Jiang Yu introduced herself and Ling Xiao, and Lilith told them to call her by the name she had adopted, Lilith.
• Lilith explained that uninfected people could be Ability Users and suggested Ling Xiao visit the Ability User Management Department at Tianshu Tower in Chunming City.

Ling Xiao, Lilith, and Jiang Yu discussed the differences between Ability Users and Hunters and how Ling Xiao’s abilities might help them find a passage out of the Inner World. They tuned their radio to investigate the strange murmuring, which played a clear female voice threatening revenge, and then switched frequencies to listen to a mysterious laugh.

• Lilith explained that Ability Users were not infected and could use their abilities with fewer restrictions than Hunters, and she said Ling Xiao’s ability might help locate a passage between the Inner and Outer Worlds.
• Jiang Yu said she and Ling Xiao belonged to the 67th Field Operations Team and had entered Factory 105 with the First Mechanized Infantry Battalion of the 51st Division before crawling into the Inner World through ventilation ducts.
• Lilith noted that time passed much more slowly in the Inner World, then asked Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao what they had discovered outside.
• Lilith tuned her headset to 111.1 MHz and heard a clear female voice promise to find and take revenge on someone; she speculated that it might be connected to Chimera Seventeen.
• Ling Xiao said the recording matched the murmuring heard outside, and Lilith suggested that a barrier between the worlds distorted the sound before switching the headset to 222.2 MHz.

Ling Xiao, Jiang Yu, and Lilith discovered that the factory’s Inner World was a Matryoshka Doll-type with an anomaly projecting itself across multiple layers. They began using the radio frequencies to locate the projection in their current layer.

• After Ling Xiao vomited from the shrill laughter, Lilith warned him and Jiang Yu not to take anything from the Inner World into the Outer World.
• Lilith teased Ling Xiao by proposing that he become her intimate partner, while he insisted they continue checking the radio frequencies.
• Ling Xiao said the radio sounds were happening in real time and revealed that he sensed multiple layers of the Inner World, though he believed the sounds came from the same anomaly.
• Lilith explained that the anomaly could project a duplicate into every layer and that its reproducing duplicate might create additional threats.
• Ling Xiao asked Lilith to play the frequencies in sequence so they could use the sound clarity to identify the projection in their current layer.

Lilith, Ling Xiao, and Jiang Yu traced the music on 888.8 MHz to a vinyl record player likely belonging to Factory 105's director and headed toward its office or reception room. After Lilith revealed she was a spontaneous infected with magical abilities, the trio exited the factory and discovered the Inner World had a sunset, while Ling Xiao confirmed they remained in the same layer.

• Lilith and the others compared the radio frequencies and chose 888.8 MHz, which played Mozart's Symphony No. 40 and carried faint vinyl-player sounds.
• Jiang Yu identified Factory 105 director Wu Zhiyuan as a classical music enthusiast, and Lilith proposed searching the director's office or the reception room in Factory Building Five for the record player.
• Lilith cut a passage through the thick alloy door with magic, then told Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao she had become a spontaneous infected at thirty and had transformed her body while retaining her powers.
• Lilith cooled the passage, and Ling Xiao, Lilith, and Jiang Yu crawled through it and emerged outside the factory.
• Jiang Yu saw a sunset beneath the otherwise pitch-black sky, and Ling Xiao reported that their devices had no signal and confirmed they were still in the same layer of the Inner World.

Sun Hang learned that Factory 105 had swallowed the Red-Haired Witch, Ling Xiao, and Jiang Yu, then realized the factory might be a decoy meant to draw hunters away from the Meme Reverse Engineering research teams. While Sun Hang and the other hunters headed to protect the institutes, Ling Xiao, Jiang Yu, and Lilith reached Factory Building No. 5, where its gate opened at Ling Xiao’s touch.

• Yang Qi told Sun Hang that Ling Xiao and Jiang Yu had vanished inside Factory 105, and strange audio recorded near the factory became corrupted even after being carried out by drone.
• Sun Hang suspected Factory 105 was bait and identified the research teams conducting Meme Reverse Engineering as the Insecticide Plan’s irreplaceable target.
• Sun Hang sent Wang Xiyi and Zhong Ling to reinforce the institutes while he flew to Factory 105 with Song Yarong.
• Lilith explained the limits of her teleportation and gave Ling Xiao rune stones, warning him about the danger of his God-Slaying Spear.
• Ling Xiao, Jiang Yu, and Lilith reached Factory Building No. 5, whose gate opened by itself when Ling Xiao touched it.

Lilith, Jiang Yu, and Ling Xiao fought off a swarm of corrosive fluorescent spiders emerging from Factory 5, then confronted Wang Cheng, the transformed deputy director of Factory 105. Lilith suspected the factory director was the Inner World’s boss, but Wang Cheng resisted her magic as they prepared to face him.

• Lilith teleported Ling Xiao and herself away from Factory 5 as thousands of fluorescent spiders poured out, while Jiang Yu shot three before retreating.
• Lilith blasted most of the swarm with fireballs, and Jiang Yu killed a surviving spider with her last two arrows before warning that its blood was corrosive.
• Lilith explained that Jiang Yu’s rapidly healed wounds could still cause severe pain, then helped her ease it by rubbing her arms and focusing on them.
• Ling Xiao spotted a ragged Anomaly emerging from Factory 5, and Jiang Yu and Lilith identified him as Wang Cheng, the factory’s missing deputy director.
• Ling Xiao reported that classical music was still playing on channel 888.8, and Lilith suspected the factory director was the Inner World’s boss and the Anomaly’s projection.
• Lilith attacked Wang Cheng with ice spikes and a fireball, but he kept moving and extinguished the magic-powered fireball with his resistance.

Lilith, Jiang Yu, and Ling Xiao trapped the regenerating deputy factory manager by freezing it inside the waste liquid pool with liquid nitrogen. Lilith admitted the effort had drained much of her mana, leaving the group uncertain whether she could handle the stronger monster still inside.

• Lilith crushed the deputy factory manager into pieces, but it regenerated into a grotesque monster that resisted her magic and adapted to changing terrain.
• Lilith warned Ling Xiao not to shoot and proposed burning the monster to ash, but the factory’s fire restrictions left them without suitable fuel.
• Ling Xiao suggested using liquid nitrogen, and Lilith sent Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao to open the storage room while she lured the monster toward the waste liquid pool.
• Jiang Yu forced open the storage room door, and Lilith dropped the monster into the pool as cylinders of liquid nitrogen were released into the water.
• The pool froze solid around the monster, and Lilith explained that the cold should suppress its Anomaly Meme, though she had spent much of her mana.

Lilith led Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao through Factory Building No. 5, where they discovered a nest incubating anomalies and followed violin music to the reception room. There, Lilith remembered the anomaly’s presence and revealed the face of missing factory director Wu Zhiyuan beneath her hair.

• Lilith rejected Jiang Yu’s invitation to the sauna and led the team into Factory Building No. 5.
• Ling Xiao tested a severed spider limb as a weapon, and Lilith criticized the hunters’ tactics for overlooking threats above them.
• Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao saw sacs containing incubating spiders and people beneath the factory dome, and Lilith warned that the creatures could hatch at any moment.
• Lilith taught Jiang Yu to sense anomalies through their memetic fluctuations as they hurried to the reception room.
• Lilith kicked open the fleshy, living membrane covering the reception room and found a clean record player playing violin music.
• Lilith realized the anomaly was in the room, changed to a hoarse male voice, and revealed Wu Zhiyuan’s face beneath her hair.

Sun Hang entered Factory 105, where he discovered space had been divided into layers, and Anna explained that he needed to clear the enemy’s projections in each layer to restore it. He was pulled into the first layer of the Inner World, where a burning factory began cutting his body with invisible blades.

• Sun Hang jumped down to Factory 105 despite Song Yarong’s warnings and found the factory’s space divided into countless intact fragments.
• Sun Hang heard an excited woman over the military radio, then saw Anna, who told him the woman hated him for failing to prevent her birth.
• Anna explained that the woman’s shadow had projections across multiple Inner World layers and that clearing them would restore normal space.
• Sun Hang was drawn into the first Inner World layer, where Factory 105 appeared to be engulfed in fire.
• Sun Hang realized the apparent flames were invisible blades that sliced his body.

Sun Hang defeated the anomalous projection in a fire-filled Inner World layer and emerged into another layer, still unable to locate Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao. He learned that Chimera was targeting him and discovered a factory where mutated children were processed into artificial hunters.

• Sun Hang absorbed the fire-like energy derivatives until their projection gathered them into golden armor, then crushed its heart and broke through the layer.
• Anna explained that the Inner World layers overlapped, that Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao were in a layer called “Nest,” and that Chimera had made the giant cocoon to kill Sun Hang.
• Sun Hang learned that Chimera would become a target for every anomalous entity if she entered a fallen zone, while Anna admitted she had consumed memories connected to the Insecticide Plan.
• Sun Hang entered Factory 105’s building marked “Three” and found an assembly line turning mutated bodies into iron coffins.
• A faceless man identified the site as an Artificial Hunter Production Workshop and described how Tianshu Tower’s Thirteenth Research Institute transformed children into artificial hunters.

Sun Hang rejected the suited man’s attempt to turn him against Tianshu Tower, then fought the workshop’s infected subjects and insisted that ten opponents were not enough. He attacked the man in the suit as the Inner World began to disappear, leaving him unsure whether he had passed.

• Sun Hang refused to expose Tianshu Tower, explaining that he cooperated with Elder Pei for rewards and believed humanity’s survival mattered to him because he wanted to keep eating human food.
• The man in the suit stopped the production line and sent the animated corpses after Sun Hang, who drained nearly a hundred of them with mycelial filaments.
• Sun Hang fought a two-headed infected person with a hardened keratin body, then defeated it by using Dragon Flame and Gluttonous’s devouring ability.
• Sun Hang taunted the man in the suit and called for ten opponents; ten eternal-frost coffins opened around him, and he emerged minutes later saying that ten were not enough.
• Sun Hang appeared behind the headless man in the suit and pierced its chest as its body turned into black mist and the surroundings began to fade.

Sun Hang, Jiang Yu, and Ling Xiao confronted an Anomaly possessing Lilith inside the Inner World, then discovered the factory itself was controlling the layer. Sun Hang destroyed a strange record player, freeing them from the Inner World and returning them to the real reception room.

• Sun Hang revealed that the Anomaly had taken over Lilith after using Wu Zhiyuan's body, and explained that Lilith had sacrificed herself to weaken it before her personality was erased.
• The Anomaly dissolved into black pus and blood, but Sun Hang realized the Inner World remained because the factory building, not the Anomaly, was the layer's boss.
• Grotesque Anomalies emerged from the factory's flesh-covered ceiling as Sun Hang sent Jiang Yu and Ling Xiao to protect themselves and asked Ling Xiao to search for a spatial disturbance.
• Ling Xiao identified the reception room as spatially abnormal, and Sun Hang smashed the unplugged record player that seemed to be causing the distortion.
• The flesh membranes and attacking Anomalies vanished, revealing Wu Zhiyuan and Lilith's corpses as Sun Hang, Jiang Yu, and Ling Xiao returned to the real world.

Sun Hang returned to Chunming City with Ling Xiao, intending to examine Ling Xiao’s potential as an Ability User and inspect Tianshu Tower’s anomaly inventory. He sent Ling Xiao to the Ability User Management Department for testing and went to the Jade Pillar’s containment area.

• At the Insecticide Plan Command Center, Yang Qi warned that the reverse engineering team was the Insecticide Plan’s irreplaceable link, and a Federation Council representative promised more support.
• On the flight to Chunming City, Sun Hang concealed the God-Slaying Spear’s anomalous properties and told Ling Xiao he would help him leave if the examination went badly.
• Ling Xiao said he wanted to remain in Tianfu City because he rejected the idea that any gods were on humanity’s side.
• At Taiwei Enclosure’s Skyport, Sun Hang handed Ling Xiao over to Sun Qiong for an Ability User examination and warned her to return him unharmed.
• Sun Hang declined to meet Elder Pei and traveled by floating shuttle to the Jade Pillar, where the anomaly containment area was located.