Chapter Summaries

Sun Hang and the investigators examined evidence from the vanished cemetery as they debated whether time had accelerated inside the missing space. A Blood Moon appeared over the hills, raising the danger to wildlife, anomalous entities, and infected people, while Sun Hang learned how City-states responded to the threat.

• Sun Hang inspected a tin of cookies dated sixty-six years earlier that had remained strangely fresh, and Yang Qi explained that investigators believed the cemetery had reverted to an earlier landscape.
• Sun Hang argued that time had accelerated inside the missing space, while Yang Qi pointed out that the aged people there should have died if time had simply sped up.
• Sun Hang encountered 0401, who was shocked that he had survived and received a gun, but their conversation stopped when a crimson glow spread across the hillside.
• Yang Qi identified the full moon as the Phenomenon-type anomalous entity Blood Moon, serial number B6, and explained that it amplified anomalous abilities and worsened infection.
• Wang Xiyi said hunters nearing the danger threshold were confined during the Blood Moon, and recalled nearly dying after needing five suppressant injections to stay human.

Sun Hang and Yang Qi realized the Blood Moon over the cemetery was a phenomenon from sixty-five years earlier and organized teams to map the Spacetime Anomaly's boundary. Yang Qi then took Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and 0401 toward the Back Mountain to investigate, leaving 0401 responsible for watching the moon.

• Yang Qi learned that no Blood Moon was occurring in the present and confirmed that the only recorded one during the relevant period appeared on September 15th, Year 4654 of the Lunar Calendar.
• Sun Hang concluded that they were seeing the Blood Moon from sixty-five years earlier, and Yang Qi learned that the Federation Council and Tianfu City Administration Bureau had ordered the rescue operation to continue.
• Yang Qi organized search teams to spread outward from the cemetery, watch for the Blood Moon to disappear, and record where they crossed the anomalous area's boundary.
• Yang Qi decided to take Sun Hang through the anomalous area, while Wang Xiyi joined them and 0401 volunteered to come along and watch the Blood Moon.
• Sun Hang confirmed that he had become an Anomaly Hunter, and Yang Qi drove the group toward the Back Mountain after Sun Hang declined 0401's request for a gun.

Sun Hang searched historical records for clues about the Blood Moon and found that 150,000 anomaly-displaced refugees had entered Shu Province in 4654. As the group drove through the wilderness, Blood Moon-empowered wolves surrounded their SUV, and one began mutating as it attacked.

• Sun Hang searched online records for the Blood Moon and found a local chronicle noting that 150,000 refugees from Yuanmou had entered Shu Province between September 15 and 20, 4654.
• Yang Qi sensed something watching the SUV, and the group spotted wolves following them through the wilderness.
• Wang Xiyi identified nearly fifty wolves from several groups gathered under the Blood Moon's influence, and Yang Qi accelerated to break through them.
• The wolves leaped onto the SUV, cracking its bulletproof windshield, while one clung to the roof and attacked the glass.
• Sun Hang saw the wolf's body swell and tear open as 0401 realized it was mutating into an anomaly.

Yang Qi, Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and 0401 escaped the anomalous area while mutated wolves pursued their SUV, then circled the boundary as Yang Qi reported the threat and requested air support. Yang Qi revealed that America had become a fallen zone, and the chapter ended as shadowy figures appeared ahead of the vehicle.

• Wang Xiyi kicked a mutated wolf off the SUV, and the group escaped the wolves by driving beyond the anomalous area's boundary.
• Yang Qi confirmed that the Blood Moon was visible only inside the anomalous area and sent the boundary coordinates to headquarters.
• Yang Qi drove along the boundary, warned other units about the mutating wolf packs, and requested air support.
• Yang Qi told Sun Hang and 0401 that America had become a fallen zone and that the Xiazhou Federation was humanity's last spark of civilization.
• Several shadowy figures appeared ahead of the SUV, forcing Yang Qi to brake.

Sun Hang and the survey team investigated strange silhouettes that could not be detected as living beings, anomalies, or recorded by cameras. When Sun Hang touched one, he saw it rapidly transform through the stages of a human life until it became a skeleton.

• Yang Qi and Wang Xiyi found no signs of life or energy in the silhouettes, while 0401 feared approaching them.
• Sun Hang reasoned that the silhouettes had no memes and therefore were neither anomalies nor infected beings.
• Wang Xiyi, Sun Hang, Yang Qi, and 0401 left the car and approached the silhouettes.
• Wang Xiyi's pebble and hand passed through a silhouette without affecting it, and Yang Qi's camera could not record the figures.
• Sun Hang touched a silhouette and saw it change from a young man into a middle-aged man, an old man, and finally a skeleton.

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.