Chapter Summaries

Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, Zhong Ling, and Yan Yu'an entered Baikal's Remains after assigning guards to the entrance. They explored the shifting city and found a coffee shop whose machine produced the strange drink the fisherman had mentioned.

• Sun Hang assigned Zhong Ling's anomaly corpses to guard the entrance while he, Wang Xiyi, Zhong Ling, and Yan Yu'an went into Baikal's Remains.
• Yan Yu'an assembled her modified powered armor, which used living Hidden Fungus for optical camouflage, and followed Sun Hang into the city.
• Sun Hang chose to turn left at intersections to avoid being carried too far from the entrance as the dead-end road shifted.
• Wang Xiyi tested the strength of the strange buildings and cracked a rooftop with her foot.
• Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi entered a distorted coffee shop, where Sun Hang used his power of 'I ponder' to light its lamps.
• Sun Hang cut a coffee cup free, operated a coffee machine, and watched it dispense thick black liquid he suspected was the fisherman's specialty latte.

Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and Yan Yu'an discovered that the café’s overflowing black liquid assimilated anything it touched, and Yan Yu'an explained how it had killed half a reconnaissance team. They left the danger of the spreading liquid unresolved as they assessed the café’s anomaly.

• Wang Xiyi compared the black liquid from the coffee machine to asphalt, while Sun Hang joked with Yan Yu'an about having a cup.
• Yan Yu'an warned Sun Hang to leave before the liquid spread and demonstrated that it had transformed a bullet into the same asphalt-like material.
• Yan Yu'an explained that a reconnaissance team had accidentally activated the coffee machine, and its silent overflow trapped and assimilated the soldiers inside the café.
• Yan Yu'an told Wang Xiyi that the trapped soldiers had become black wax-like figures after enduring immense pain, while the liquid had stopped at the café entrance instead of reaching the street.

Sun Hang used a mycelial puppet to test the black liquid’s Assimilation Effect without risking his own body. The test left him with a painful account of the puppet’s gradual assimilation and a memory of how Tai Sui had saved a cultist who drank Paraquat before later sacrificing him.

• Wang Xiyi compared the black wax figures to plastic toy soldiers sold outside elementary schools.
• Sun Hang decided to test the black liquid, but Yan Yu'an threatened to stop him because the assimilation could happen in seconds.
• Sun Hang created a realistic mycelial puppet whose senses were connected to his consciousness and sent it toward the black liquid.
• The liquid painfully assimilated the puppet from its feet upward, and Sun Hang severed their empathic connection when it reached the puppet’s chest.
• Sun Hang compared the sensation to lung fibrosis from Paraquat and recalled a cultist whose lungs Tai Sui repaired before sacrificing him years later.

Sun Hang’s group investigated Baikal’s Remains, where shifting streets and subordinate Anomalies made navigation dangerous. After an unseen shooter destroyed their drone, they headed toward a plaza, but a T95 tank emerged from underground and attacked; Wang Xiyi caught its shell and discovered it was solid.

• Yan Yu'an identified the spreading black liquid as the subordinate Anomaly called Black Latte, and the group left the café as Zhong Ling reported that the street had shifted and changed.
• Sun Hang sent Yan Yu'an’s drone up to scan the terrain, but a distant shooter destroyed it with a bullet.
• Sun Hang deduced that the shooter was about a kilometer away and stopped Wang Xiyi from pursuing, so Wang Xiyi flew overhead to film the terrain.
• The group chose to head toward an intersection and then left toward a plaza, but Wang Xiyi spotted the ground rising beneath the intersection.
• A T95 tank emerged from underground, and Wang Xiyi struck it with Dragon Breath before it fired a shell at her.
• Wang Xiyi caught the shell in her claws and realized it was solid, with a decorative-looking fuse.

Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, Zhong Ling, and Yan Yu'an fought off a wave of anomalies in Baikal's Remains after destroying a tank-shaped iron mass. As thousands of armed anomalies surrounded them, Zhong Ling's corpses and Yan Yu'an's missiles began cutting through the Anomaly Army.

• Sun Hang and Wang Xiyi destroyed the anomalous tank, discovering it was a solid lump of iron that Sun Hang melted down for metal.
• A sniper shot a puppet in Sun Hang's place, and Yan Yu'an fired grenades toward the shot while Wang Xiyi shielded the group.
• Yan Yu'an's detection device registered thousands of anomalies as uniformed Anomaly Soldiers surrounded the group and opened fire from nearby rooftops.
• Anomalous Corpse One attacked the soldiers while Yan Yu'an launched thirty-six miniature missiles, destroying dozens of targets.
• Sun Hang replenished Yan Yu'an's missile bays with newly formed missiles, which she fired at the soldiers without computer targeting.
• Sun Hang guided the new missiles as they arced overhead and plunged into thirty-six Anomaly Soldiers.

Sun Hang and his team wiped out more than thirteen hundred Anomaly Soldiers inside Baikal's Remains while Xue Yue warned the Fisherman outside that the city was consumed by anger. After examining the soldiers, the team discovered a rusted Medal of Patriotic Hero hidden inside one dressed as an officer.

• Sun Hang used micro missiles to destroy scores of Anomaly Soldiers, then told Wang Xiyi that he expected stronger enemies to appear.
• Xue Yue told the Fisherman that Baikal's Remains was intensely angry, prompting him to order the camp to contact the Disaster Response Committee and send reinforcements.
• Sun Hang and the others finished killing more than thirteen hundred Anomaly Soldiers and examined their featureless, artificial bodies and nonfunctional-looking weapons.
• Anomalous Corpse One brought Zhong Ling a resin-encased medal found inside an Anomaly Soldier dressed as an officer.
• Zhong Ling identified the object as a Medal of Patriotic Hero awarded to soldiers who fought in the Siege of Saint Petersburg campaign and noted that its inscription was the first normal writing they had seen inside Baikal's Remains.

Sun Hang and Yan Yu'an deduced that the Anomaly Soldiers in Baikal's Remains were driven by veterans' obsession to defend their homeland and were attacking anomalies rather than human reconnaissance teams. Sun Hang concluded that impurities in the obsession were creating human-hostile anomalies, and the group set out to investigate the source at two locations.

• Sun Hang identified the Medal of Patriotic Hero as an ordinary brass medal and wondered how it had survived Baikal City's destruction.
• Sun Hang and Yan Yu'an realized that the Anomaly Soldiers targeted beings with strong anomaly memes, while leaving humans alone.
• Yan Yu'an recalled a report in which an unknown force had rescued a reconnaissance team from Type C Anomalies, suggesting the Anomaly Soldiers had once aided humans.
• Sun Hang explained that the Anomaly Soldiers were vessels of former Siberian Federation veterans' obsession, and he kept the medal.
• Sun Hang proposed finding and clearing the impurities in that obsession rather than destroying Baikal's Remains.
• Yan Yu'an named the Baikal City Veterans' Sanatorium and the Heroes of the Fatherland Cemetery as places to investigate.

Sun Hang’s group used reconnaissance records and Liu Li’s calculations to identify the Veterans’ Sanatorium as a key moving landmark in Baikal’s Remains. Liu Li was still risking his limits to calculate a safe route to it, while Sun Hang’s group prepared to search for the site.

• Yan Yu'an explained that reconnaissance teams had repeatedly sighted an imitation of Baikal City’s Veterans’ Sanatorium inside Baikal’s Remains, and Sun Hang concluded its coordinates could reveal a stable pattern.
• Sun Hang reinforced the group’s only remaining drone with Liquid Metal, allowing Yan Yu'an to contact Ganna at the frontline camp.
• Ganna revealed that forces were preparing to assault Baikal’s Remains, but Sun Hang ordered them to stay outside and explained his theory that purifying the Anomaly’s obsession might make it useful.
• Sun Hang had Ganna recruit Liu Li and authorize him to use the Tianshu Tower Mainframe to calculate the Veterans’ Sanatorium’s location and a route to it.
• Liu Li calculated that the Sanatorium moved along a closed rectangular path matching the original Victory Avenue, while Sun Hang explained that the building was gradually becoming more like its original form.
• Liu Li continued his calculations in overload mode while experts and medical staff waited nearby, as Sun Hang noted that he had only a few minutes left.

Liu Li risked his life in Overload Mode to build a dynamic model of Baikal's Remains, then collapsed after completing it. His model reached Sun Hang and Yan Yu'an, giving them changing routes toward their destination.

• Liu Li calculated a dynamic model of Baikal's Remains while submerged in ice water, pushing his body to its limits.
• When Liu Li began bleeding, Professor Nangong demanded that the task stop, but Liu Zhushi ordered it to continue.
• Liu Li sat up with the model completed, and the medical team rushed to stabilize him.
• Sun Hang explained to Yan Yu'an that Liu Li's model continuously recalculated passable routes, and she loaded it into her power armor.
• Sun Hang noted that the model could guide them to Victory Avenue but would struggle to pinpoint the Veterans' Sanatorium.

Sun Hang's group followed Yan Yu'an's dynamic model through Baikal's Remains in search of the moving Veterans' Sanatorium. Meanwhile, Yang Lian worried she might be pregnant, returned to work to help recover lost refugee documents, and triggered an Anomaly Meme alarm at the institute entrance.

• Yan Yu'an explained that Victory Avenue's connected plots would lead the group to the Veterans' Sanatorium, and Sun Hang ordered everyone to follow her before Liu Li's four-hour model expired.
• Yan Yu'an guided the group through the changing plots with strict instructions, while Wang Xiyi walked alongside Sun Hang after leaving her Dragon Transformation state.
• Yang Lian noticed her missed period, cravings, dry-heaving, and improved skin, then ordered a pregnancy test but abandoned the purchase when it appeared understocked.
• A colleague called Yang Lian back to work because Xiao Zhou had erased refugee resettlement records, and she agreed to help reconstruct the documents needed for fourteen hundred refugees.
• Yang Lian returned to Building B of the Tianfu City Anomaly Research Institute, where the security alarm detected Anomaly Meme fluctuations and guards asked whether she carried anomaly-related items.

Yang Qi learned that Yang Lian had an anomalous embryo linked to Chimera Seventeen and a mysteriously transferred nameplate. In Baikal's Remains, Yan Yu'an's group defeated a Zombie Giant Bear, but the environment changed so drastically that Liu Li's dynamic model stopped responding.

• Yang Lian panicked when guards found a suspected anomaly inside her and took her to Laboratory Four.
• A Field Operations Department supervisor told Yang Qi that Yang Lian carried an anomalous embryo whose meme was 99.827% similar to Chimera Seventeen's, and that the Elena Dimoshina nameplate had appeared in Yang Lian's residence.
• Yang Qi learned that the nameplate in the underground freezer had become blank and told Laboratory Four to wait while she headed there.
• Yan Yu'an led Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and Zhong Ling through a hidden passage toward Victory Avenue before a Zombie Giant Bear attacked.
• Yan Yu'an used Willow Leaf Blade armor to sever the bear's spine and drive punch blades into its head until it stopped moving.
• After Sun Hang kicked the bear's remains, the street and surrounding buildings began transforming, and Yan Yu'an found that Liu Li's dynamic model no longer responded.

Sun Hang and his companions were trapped beneath Baikal's Remains when the shifting city flipped and sealed them underground. After Sun Hang reversed their gravity, they recognized the upside-down city as resembling Hakone's fortress design, and Zhong Ling revealed that the same architect had designed both cities.

• A shifting slab swallowed one of Zhong Ling's Anomaly corpses, and Yan Yu'an explained that Baikal's abyss hid an unexplored underground city.
• Wang Xiyi and Ganna agreed to abandon the dynamic model and head directly toward Victory Avenue, but the surrounding city suddenly flipped and trapped the group underground.
• Sun Hang reversed gravity for himself and the others, allowing them to stand on the underground street while communications with the forward camp remained cut off.
• Zhong Ling identified the upside-down city as resembling Hakone's fortress city, which had been designed to lure and destroy Anomalies.
• Zhong Ling revealed that Yamaguchi Masayuki, the designer of Hakone's fortress city, had also provided the original blueprints for Baikal City.

Sun Hang and the others concluded that Baikal's Remains might be guiding them toward the real source of the anomaly, then followed its lone road to Heroes of the Fatherland Cemetery. They found human figures fused to the cemetery monument, and Sun Hang approached after shooting one without effect.

• Sun Hang theorized that Yamaguchi Masayuki's obsession might have given Baikal's Remains self-awareness and that the underground city was steering the group away from the Veterans' Sanatorium.
• Yan Yu'an agreed with Sun Hang that the group should continue exploring underground, and they followed the only open road in a defensive formation.
• The group found a monument marking the entrance to Heroes of the Fatherland Cemetery and climbed a path leading uphill toward its main monument.
• Sun Hang noticed human-shaped figures fused to the main monument and suspected they were the impurities in Baikal's Remains.
• Sun Hang borrowed Yan Yu'an's gun and shot one of the figures, but the bullet passed through without affecting it, so he walked toward the monument.

Sun Hang discovered that black shadows on the monument were negative emotions empowering the resurrected corpses, and began devouring them to weaken Baikal's Remains. The group fought to hold off the corpses while Sun Hang estimated he could cleanse the monument within half an hour.

• As the figures on the monument boiled and graves cracked open, Sun Hang and the others fought corpses that crawled out and attacked them.
• Sun Hang observed that the corpses were growing stronger as the black shadows spread across the monument, while Yan Yu'an and Wang Xiyi warned that they were running out of time and ammunition.
• Sun Hang touched a black shadow with a mouth in his palm and swallowed it, briefly showing Yan Yu'an a burning look he identified as the influence of Lust.
• Sun Hang explained that Baikal City's victims' negative emotions had merged with the heroes' obsessions, contributing to the anomalous creatures in Baikal's Remains.
• Sun Hang told Yan Yu'an he could remove the shadows by devouring them, estimating that he could cleanse the monument within half an hour, and denied that he had read her thoughts.

Sun Hang and his companions purified the monument in Baikal's Remains, ending the city’s oppressive effects and returning to the surface. As they made their way back, the waiting forces learned the anomaly had quieted, while a military transmission from the city declared that its defenders would never retreat or surrender.

• Sun Hang devoured the monument’s final black shadow and experienced a vision of Murmansk falling to a tide of anomalies.
• Sun Hang, Yan Yu'an, Wang Xiyi, and Zhong Ling returned to the surface, where the Anomaly Soldiers saluted Sun Hang before vanishing.
• Ganna debated whether to send troops into Baikal's Remains after losing contact with Sun Hang and his team.
• Xue Yue sensed that the city’s negative emotions had disappeared, and a technical officer reported that its anti-surveillance membrane and moving buildings had stopped.
• Ganna learned that Sun Hang’s team was heading back and that Yan Yu'an appeared injured, while Sun Hang, Wang Xiyi, and Zhong Ling showed no obvious injuries.
• A communications soldier reported a decoded message from Baikal's Remains declaring that its defenders would never retreat or surrender.

Sun Hang and the others shared barbecue near the front-line camp while discussing victory, retirement, and their futures after the war. Their meal was interrupted by news that Yang Lian was pregnant with an embryo whose Anomaly Meme closely matched Chimera Seventeen’s, and the discovery of Elena Dimoshina’s nameplate left Sun Hang questioning Chimera Seventeen’s fate and identity.

• Fisherman roasted stolen pork as Sun Hang, Xue Yue, Wang Xiyi, and Zhong Ling waited for the barbecue, while Yan Yu'an kept watch.
• Wang Xiyi questioned whether hunters could ever retire, and Fisherman argued that every enemy killed counted as a victory.
• Sun Hang promised Fisherman he would be assigned to Chunming City and asked him to save the best piece of pork.
• A military officer brought Sun Hang a call from Yang Qi in Tianfu City, who told him Yang Lian was pregnant with an embryo carrying an Anomaly Meme reaction.
• Yang Qi said the embryo’s Meme was 99.827% similar to Chimera Seventeen’s and reported that investigators had found Elena Dimoshina’s nameplate at Yang Lian’s residence.

Sun Hang returned to Tianfu City and learned that Yang Lian’s pregnancy involved an anomaly embryo that might carry Chimera Seventeen’s memes and could take years to develop. After discussing the risks and meeting Yang Qi’s family concerns, he returned to the villa, where Yang Qi proposed becoming a comparison subject by getting pregnant herself.

• Sun Hang returned to the Anomaly Research Institute, where Yang Qi told him Yang Lian was stable but that removing the anomaly embryo could be dangerous.
• Yang Qi asked whether Sun Hang had devoured Chimera Seventeen, and he said they had made a deal for it to help disperse the Eternal Night before he destroyed it.
• Yang Qi explained that the embryo developed about five times more slowly than a normal human embryo and that Yang Lian’s pregnancy might last as long as four years.
• Sun Hang looked at Yang Lian through one-way glass, and Yang Qi discussed the nameplate bearing Elena Dimoshina’s name and her parents’ reaction to the pregnancy.
• Sun Hang returned to the villa and reunited with Wang Xiyi, Zhong Ling, and Xue Yue.
• Yang Qi entered Sun Hang’s study and proposed getting pregnant herself so she could compare her body and embryo with Yang Lian’s.

Sun Hang and Yang Qi spent the night together after discussing Yang Qi’s wish to become an experimental subject, while Sun Hang worried about the future. He told Wang Xiyi he planned to travel to Egypt in the fallen zone to find technology that might let Tianshu Tower’s Mainframe calculate his past, and Wang Xiyi questioned whether Pei Zongjun had lied to him.

• Yang Qi said she had considered Yao Yu’s idea of making herself an experiment, and told Sun Hang she had not resisted what happened in her dream.
• Sun Hang woke before dawn, found Wang Xiyi, Zhong Ling, and Xue Yue waiting in the living room, and sent Zhong Ling and Xue Yue to bed.
• Sun Hang told Wang Xiyi he felt unsettled about the embryo in Yang Lian’s womb and its connection to Chimera Seventeen.
• Sun Hang revealed he planned to go to Egypt in the fallen zone to find technology needed to complete Tianshu Tower’s Mainframe.
• Sun Hang explained that Pei Zongjun believed the complete Mainframe might calculate Sun Hang’s past, and Wang Xiyi wondered if Pei Zongjun was lying.

Sun Hang planned to travel to Egypt by orbital drop and began preparing to recruit Hunters, with Candle Dragon directing him to Dragon City. Sun Hang and Candle Dragon set out for the city with Xue Yue, where they hoped to find capable freelance Hunters.

• Sun Hang told Wang Xiyi he intended to reach Egypt by dropping from low Earth orbit, and Candle Dragon later said the plan would take at least half a year to prepare.
• Yang Qi nearly fell while leaving for the institute, so Sun Hang arranged for Song Yarong to pick her up.
• Candle Dragon explained that many powerful Hunters were absent from the official rankings and recommended recruiting freelancers in Dragon City.
• Sun Hang agreed to travel to Dragon City with Candle Dragon, while Wang Xiyi asked him to take her along to Egypt later.
• Sun Hang and Candle Dragon bought Fenjiu Liquor and premium cigarettes in Chang'an, then drove toward Dragon City with Xue Yue.

Sun Hang and Candle Dragon entered Dragon City, where Sun Hang saw how the fortress city’s commerce and daily life revolved around anomalies. After witnessing a chameleon-headed hunter’s worsening infection emerge during an argument with his companion, Sun Hang decided to approach him.

• Candle Dragon explained that Dragon City’s hunters sought rare remedies and information, then drove Sun Hang, Xue Yue, and their supplies through the city checkpoint.
• Sun Hang saw Dragon City’s packed streets and learned that its economy depended on hunters selling anomaly materials and companies supplying them with equipment.
• Candle Dragon parked in a military lot, and the group continued on foot through the congested city.
• Sun Hang watched a chameleon-headed hunter catch and swallow a crow, then spit out its corroded leg band as he and his companion worried about paying its owner.
• The hunter’s companion confronted him about using up his inhibitors and hiding a worsening infection, and the hunter focused on Sun Hang.
• Sun Hang told Candle Dragon to wait and went to take a closer look at the chameleon-headed hunter.