Chapter Summaries

Sun Hang and the Tianshu Tower executives debated whether the Sphinx remained in Egypt and how to use the Ghost Train to reach it and suspected survivors. Candle Dragon proposed sending one person back with all the metro cards after five and a half hours, while the others continued the mission.

• Sun Hang said the group needed to determine whether the Sphinx was still in Egypt, and the Mainframe confirmed Pei Zongjun had proposed it.
• Professor Cao explained that the Sphinx was a communicative Anomaly associated with riddles and might be a source of information about survivors in Egypt.
• A Tianshu Tower executive proposed establishing an outpost in Egypt, but Professor Cao warned that the Ghost Train ran only once a month and its metro cards were scarce.
• Candle Dragon suggested that one advance-team member could return with all the metro cards on the Ghost Train departing five and a half hours later.
• Candle Dragon argued that sacrifices were necessary in war, and Professor Cao told Sun Hang that hunters had to make the rational choice when forced into a life-or-death decision.

Sun Hang led an advance team onto the Ghost Train to travel to a fallen land, but two members were erased when their transit cards had insufficient balance. The team reached the moving train with its phantoms aboard, then realized the cards might have a limited number of uses.

• Sun Hang and seventeen advance team members prepared to board the Ghost Train after a month of training.
• Xu Hao was turned into Blood Mist when he entered the carriage, and a phantom of him took his seat.
• A hunter and several others boarded safely, but Dr. Lyudmila was also erased by the train.
• The remaining team members boarded before the doors closed, and Sun Hang found that the phantoms could not hear him.
• The advance team captain explained how Xu Hao and Lyudmila's losses would affect the mission, while Sun Hang collected the surviving transit cards.
• A researcher warned that the Ghost Train might consume card balance each time someone used a card to board.

Sun Hang and the advance team arrived in the Egyptian sand sea to build a mobile Sand Skiff outpost. Suspecting the Ghost Train had dropped them at a different station than before, Sun Hang left the team to follow its plan while he explored nearby.

• Advance team members discussed the risks of being assigned to early boarding batches, and the Huntress said she had joined to see the land her ancestors fled.
• Sun Hang learned that the Sand Skiff was designed to travel across the sand sea, evade Sand-Sinking Giant Worms, and submerge beneath the sand.
• The Ghost Train dropped the team in the dunes, and they used special gel to make the sand firm enough to stand on before the train vanished.
• Sun Hang suspected they had arrived at a different station than on his previous visit, though he could not explain how he knew.
• The advance team captain assigned the researchers to collect data, combat personnel to keep watch, and others to assemble the Sand Skiff while Sun Hang explored nearby.

Sun Hang explored the sand sea on a new mobility board and found an unconscious, uninfected survivor beside a wrecked Sand Skiff. After stabilizing him, Sun Hang examined the skiff and identified its frame and sail as materials taken from an unknown creature.

• Sun Hang equipped the improved Nephthys device and rode his board away from the advance team, using their communication devices to keep track of his position.
• After traveling thirty-five kilometers, Sun Hang spotted a wrecked Sand Skiff and an unconscious person on a dune.
• Sun Hang reported the discovery to the advance team and hurried to the survivor.
• The Mainframe warned Sun Hang that the survivor was severely dehydrated and near death.
• Sun Hang gave the survivor water and a small amount of diluted materialized life force, improving his condition.
• Sun Hang inspected the wreck and found that its frame, sail, and the survivor’s clothing were made from animal-like Anomaly bones and leather.

Sun Hang rescued Noor, a remnant who mistook him for a threat because of a priest’s prophecy, and used the Mainframe to communicate with him. Noor recognized Sun Hang’s Nephthys armband as a Sacred Ring and revealed that he had been hunting Sand-Sinking Giant Worms.

• The Mainframe translated Noor’s sleep-talking, which described the catastrophe and the people who fled Egypt while others remained behind.
• Sun Hang woke Noor, stopped him from grabbing his bone spear, and questioned him in the remnants’ language.
• Noor accused Sun Hang of bringing destruction, but Sun Hang challenged him to focus on the calamity rather than attack his rescuer.
• Noor recognized Sun Hang’s Nephthys armband as a Sacred Ring and said only the high priest was qualified to wear one.
• Noor told Sun Hang that his settlement had more than five thousand people and one high priest called Anubis, but refused to reveal its location.
• Noor said he had been hunting the Sand-Sinking Giant Worms, leaving Sun Hang stunned by the idea that he used bone spears to hunt them.

Sun Hang learned that Noor hunted Sand-Sinking Giant Worms to collect their memetic secretion, then used food and a show of force to question the starving survivor. Noor revealed that his people used the secretion as feed, but could not explain what they fed, leaving Sun Hang unsure whether their words or his translation were at fault.

• Noor explained that hunters tracked Sand-Sinking Giant Worms and collected their secretion in airtight leather bags.
• Noor said a sandstorm sent by the God of Storms had wrecked his Sand Skiff and scattered his supplies.
• Sun Hang ate field rations in front of Noor, then kicked him away when Noor lunged for a biscuit.
• Sun Hang warned Noor that he would only spare and feed him if he answered questions.
• Noor indicated the worm secretion was used as feed, but could not say what his people fed with it.

Sun Hang questioned Noor about the remnants’ settlement and learned that it lay inside the remains of a Sand-Sinking Giant Worm. Noor explained how the remnants survived by raising Condemned Ones, leaving Sun Hang to suspect that the Blessed Ones and Condemned Ones were two forms of a species adapted to the fallen zones.

• Sun Hang offered Noor compressed biscuits in exchange for answers, and Noor agreed after tasting one.
• Noor told Sun Hang that his settlement was called the Envoy's Coffin, a shelter built inside the remains of a Sand-Sinking Giant Worm.
• Noor explained that several remnant settlements lived inside the carcass and that nearby groundwater helped sustain them.
• Noor said priests classified unborn children as Blessed Ones or Condemned Ones, and the settlements raised Condemned Ones as livestock.
• Noor confirmed that the remnants ate Condemned One meat and used their bones and hides, while Sun Hang concluded that both groups were forms of the same species with different expressions of an Anomaly Meme.

Sun Hang learned how the Hunter’s Mark guided Noor through the Sand Sea and persuaded him to lead the way back to his settlement by promising safety and plentiful food. Noor guided Sun Hang across the dunes, but the mark’s pain became nearly unbearable as they stopped before a dune.

• Noor explained that his Hunter’s Mark led him toward the priest’s Mother Seal and warned him when underworld messengers approached.
• When Noor’s mark began to fade, Sun Hang offered to take him back in exchange for being brought to the settlement, but Noor feared the priest would punish them.
• Sun Hang shared vivid memories of delicious food and used mental suggestions to overcome Noor’s doubts, persuading him to agree.
• Noor made snowshoes from his Sand Skiff, and Sun Hang carried him on his skateboard while the advance team stayed behind on Sun Hang’s orders.
• Noor led Sun Hang to a sand dune, enduring severe pain from his Hunter’s Mark.

Sun Hang followed Noor through a Filter Feeding Pore into the enormous corpse of a Sand-Sinking Giant Worm and learned that Noor risked becoming a traitor by helping him. Noor agreed to take Sun Hang to the priest, and they approached the Sand Sea Remnants' living area.

• Noor led Sun Hang across a dune and through a filtering membrane into a hall inside the Sand-Sinking Giant Worm.
• The Mainframe identified the passage as a Filter Feeding Pore and explained that its membrane was still functioning despite the worm's death.
• Sun Hang told Noor that helping him meant abandoning his former life or remaining an observer, then asked him to lead the way to the priest.
• Noor agreed to take Sun Hang to the priest, and they traveled through the worm's maze-like tunnels toward the Sand Sea Remnants' living area.

The advance team worried that Sun Hang would miss the Ghost Train and leave them without supplies, while they speculated that the Sand Sea Remnants’ settlement might be underground. In the settlement, Noor killed Baha after Baha discovered Sun Hang was an outsider, and Noor then focused on hiding the body.

• The advance team captain explained that Sun Hang had five hours to return with the keys or the team would face a month-long delay and dwindling water supplies.
• The team lost contact with Sun Hang and found no trace of him with their drone, prompting them to suspect the settlement was underground.
• Noor encountered Baha in a passage, and Baha recognized Sun Hang as an outsider and condemned Noor for bringing him there.
• Baha attacked Sun Hang with a bone dagger, but Noor impaled Baha with a bone spear and killed him.
• Sun Hang told Noor that he had not needed to kill Baha, and Noor said they had to hide the body before others found it.

Sun Hang questioned Noor about the Sand Sea Remnants’ brutal customs and learned that the High Priest could turn people into food. Noor led him to the Holy Temple, where Sun Hang discovered people powering generators around the palace.

• Sun Hang questioned Noor about killing Baha and learned that the settlement allowed the strong to kill the weak, while the High Priest turned the undevout into condemned ones during food shortages.
• Noor hid Baha’s corpse in a cave and pierced it with a broken spear to prevent it from returning as a vengeful spirit.
• Sun Hang urged Noor to take him to the High Priest, and Noor reluctantly agreed despite warning that the settlement’s people would attack outsiders.
• Noor led Sun Hang into the cavern around the Holy Temple, where Sun Hang saw people turning massive coils that sent electricity into the palace.

Sun Hang and Noor were confronted by the priest’s death warriors, but Sun Hang effortlessly repelled them before the priest summoned him to the sanctuary. Inside the palace atop Bone Mountain, Sun Hang discovered an old-era infected research institute, and the Mainframe identified its surviving core as an Artificial Hunter cultivation chamber.

• Dozens of the priest’s death warriors surrounded Sun Hang and Noor, but Sun Hang blasted them away with an invisible force.
• The death warriors attacked again with metal military daggers, and Sun Hang sent their leader crashing through the shantytown before the priest ordered them to stop.
• The priest invited Sun Hang into the sanctuary, and Sun Hang left Noor behind and climbed Bone Mountain toward the palace.
• Sun Hang entered the palace through its rusted iron gate and found that its interior was filled with old-era scientific equipment.
• The Mainframe identified the palace as an infected research institute and said that only its Artificial Hunter cultivation chamber remained.

Sun Hang confronted the hidden priest in an old civilization laboratory and forced him to agree to exchange questions. When Sun Hang asked about Sphinx, the priest declared it taboo and vowed to kill him rather than let him leave alive.

• The Mainframe identified the priest worshiped by the remnants as a possible Artificial Hunter, but its attempt to hack the laboratory failed.
• Sun Hang ignored the priest’s warnings and destroyed the automated machine guns guarding the corridor.
• The priest sent two grotesque humanoid creatures to kill Sun Hang, but Sun Hang survived their electrical attack and they were charred to ashes.
• The priest agreed to exchange questions after Sun Hang threatened to seek out other settlements.
• Sun Hang asked about Sphinx, and the priest vowed to fight him to the death, claiming every settlement considered it taboo.

Sun Hang killed the Sand Sea Remnants’ high priest, who controlled a puppet from a life-support pod, and extracted distorted memories that appeared to contain the Sphinx’s prophecies. He learned that the Mainframe’s main body would be needed to interpret the visions.

• Sun Hang cut through the alloy security door and found the high priest’s puppet and a withered man inside an E700 life-support pod.
• Sun Hang forced the puppet back into its chair, smashed the pod, and killed the man controlling it.
• Sun Hang examined the high priest’s memories and saw surreal visions of inverted pyramids, mercury rivers, sand, and Sand-Sinking Giant Worms among human crowds.
• Sun Hang found no direct information about the Sphinx in the high priest’s memories and realized the images had replaced the knowledge through distortion.
• The mini Mainframe identified the images as likely contents of the Sphinx’s prophecies and said the Mainframe’s main body was needed to analyze them.

Sun Hang brought Noor from the remnant settlement to Chunming City and transferred information extracted from the priest’s memories into the Mainframe, where it began replicating rapidly. As the Mainframe prepared for a two-month analysis, Sun Hang was overcome by unusual exhaustion and fell asleep beside it, seeing apocalyptic visions again.

• Sun Hang’s alarm forced him to leave the settlement, and he took Noor with him to the outside world.
• Sun Hang gave Noor to researchers in Chunming City, then transferred the priest’s memory information directly into the Mainframe.
• The Mainframe detected that the information was self-replicating and estimated that analyzing it would take two months and require major Federation-wide outages.
• Before leaving the settlement, Sun Hang implanted Noor with a toxin that would keep the Hunter’s Mark on Noor’s arm from healing.
• Sun Hang felt an overwhelming drowsiness, sat beside the Mainframe, and drifted into sleep as apocalyptic images filled his mind.

Sun Hang dreamed of ruined worlds, a colossal centaur, and a cosmic singularity that asked whether the world truly existed. He woke in Tianshu Tower and, shaken by the visions, sought comfort in Wang Xiyi, who reassured him that she was by his side.

• Sun Hang saw visions of a collapsing fortress city, a battlefield dominated by an armored centaur, and a spacecraft descending onto a desolate planet.
• Sun Hang witnessed worldlines collapsing into a cosmic singularity, where the words “Do you think this world truly exists?” appeared.
• Sun Hang woke in his private lounge in Tianshu Tower and learned from Wang Xiyi that robots had brought him back from the Primal Underground Palace after finding him asleep.
• Sun Hang questioned whether the world was real, then held Wang Xiyi and buried his face in her neck.
• Wang Xiyi comforted Sun Hang as he insisted he was fine.

Sun Hang returned to the Primal Underground Palace to ask the Mainframe whether the world was real, and the Three Monkeys appeared as time briefly stopped. After Professor Cao reported that the Mainframe had shut down at the same moment, Sun Hang said it was nothing serious and was invited to dinner.

• Sun Hang left Wang Xiyi and used Pei Zongjun's secret passage to reach the Primal Underground Palace.
• Sun Hang asked the Mainframe whether the world truly existed, and the Three Monkeys appeared as the palace went dark and his watch stopped.
• Sun Hang questioned the Mainframe about Anomalies, Sphinx's consciousness, and whether the wager had a loophole.
• Professor Cao told Sun Hang that Ji Yaohua had detected a brief Mainframe shutdown about three minutes earlier.
• Sun Hang linked the shutdown to the Three Monkeys' appearance, told Professor Cao not to worry, and accepted an invitation to discuss matters over dinner.

Sun Hang met Professor Cao at an old alley eatery, where they discussed Noor and remembered Pei Zongjun. Professor Cao revealed that he knew Pei was dead and accepted Sun Hang as Pei’s successor before turning to business.

• Sun Hang found the greasy, nameless eatery where Professor Cao had invited him to eat.
• Professor Cao told Sun Hang that Noor was cooperating with the special task force’s research, including plans to study his descendants.
• Professor Cao reminisced about visiting the eatery with Pei Zongjun and said the old man had been gone for a long time.
• Professor Cao told Sun Hang that the Mainframe projection was not Pei Zongjun and asked whether Sun Hang was his chosen successor.
• Sun Hang confirmed he was Pei Zongjun’s successor, and Professor Cao poured a small drink onto the ground in Pei’s memory.
• Professor Cao said they had finished discussing personal matters and were ready to talk business.

Sun Hang met Professor Cao at a covert Tianshu Tower base to discuss his encounter with the Sand Sea Remnants and the hunt for clues about the Sphinx. Professor Cao told him to bring the elusive Number One on his next trip, revealing that no ranked hunter could beat Number One in simulated training.

• Professor Cao explained that the restaurant was a long-standing covert Tianshu Tower base staffed by disguised security personnel to protect Old Pei.
• Sun Hang told Professor Cao that he had killed the Sand Sea Remnants' priest, who had refused to reveal information about the Sphinx.
• Sun Hang said he planned to use the Mainframe to investigate the Sphinx and visit more remnant settlements in Egypt next month.
• Professor Cao told Sun Hang to bring Number One on his next trip to the remnant settlements.
• Professor Cao explained that Number One had never taken part in combat missions because his ability was too valuable, but no ranked hunter could defeat him in simulated training.

Professor Cao explained to Sun Hang that Number One, Zuo Jun, could reverse time and had saved Tianshu Tower’s dangerous experiments from disaster. He revealed that Old Pei had ordered him to hand Zuo Jun to Sun Hang, whose next actions were supposedly more important than all of Tianshu Tower’s experiments.

• Professor Cao told Sun Hang that Zuo Jun was a Type A-4 anomaly-human fusion who could reverse time by up to thirty seconds, though doing so severely burdened his body.
• Professor Cao explained that Zuo Jun’s main role was to reverse time when dangerous experiments went wrong and preserve the lost timeline’s data in his memories.
• Sun Hang questioned whether Zuo Jun’s power was genuine, and Professor Cao said the Mainframe had confirmed it could interfere with time.
• Professor Cao said Old Pei had instructed him to hand Number One to his chosen successor because that successor’s future actions mattered more than Tianshu Tower’s experiments.
• Sun Hang joked about devouring Zuo Jun to gain his ability, and Professor Cao replied that he could do so if the sacrifice served Old Pei’s plan.
• Professor Cao identified Number One as Zuo Jun and said he had reversed more than four years in total and saved 197 dangerous experiments.