Chapter Summaries

Sun Hang and Yang Qi discussed the curse affecting people who escaped Nameless Island and why Anomaly Hunters might resist it. Yang Qi explained the dangers, history, and objective of the island trial, then urged Sun Hang to leave if the mission became unsafe.

• Sun Hang concluded that the deaths of people who escaped Nameless Island were caused by its curse, while Yang Qi considered whether an anomaly had controlled their wills.
• Sun Hang theorized that hunters’ existing memes might fight off the curse, and Yang Qi questioned his reasoning before acknowledging it could make sense.
• Yang Qi explained that drones rarely returned useful information from the island, communications depended on Signal Flares, and the offshore warship could provide artillery support.
• Sun Hang learned that the mission likely targeted valuable paper documents in the research institute’s basement and that four earlier expeditions had suffered severe losses.
• Yang Qi told Sun Hang to abandon the Rank Advancement Trial and leave Nameless Island if the situation became dangerous.

Sun Hang and the other hunters sailed toward Nameless Island for the second stage of Tianshu Tower’s trial, tasked with investigating its transformation and retrieving abandoned research materials. On the way, Fisherman told the hunters how he had survived an anomalous creature’s attack at sea.

• Tianshu Tower briefed more than 150 hunters on the trial objectives and sent them from Jinggu aboard a modified destroyer carrying thousands of drones.
• The destroyer stopped outside the restricted zone, and Sun Hang and Fisherman boarded the same landing craft.
• Fisherman took the tiller and told Sun Hang and the other hunters that he had once managed fish farms before an anomalous creature attacked his boat.
• Fisherman recounted how he stabbed the creature with a harpoon, then fought it with a dagger and his teeth after losing his ammunition and weapon.

The Hunters landed on Nameless Island and debated how cautiously to explore the route toward the research institute. While some rushed into the forest and others stayed behind to establish a camp, a green Signal Flare suggested the first group had crossed the woods safely.

• The Fisherman recounted how eating an anomaly's flesh had healed his injuries and led to his becoming an Anomaly Hunter.
• Sun Hang and the Hunters landed on Nameless Island's western beach and found no Anomaly Meme readings nearby.
• The Hunters noticed the forest had grown sparser than in photographs and discussed setting up camp before exploring inland.
• Anglo-Saxon and Indian Hunters hurried into the forest, prompting other Hunters to follow them while fewer than fifty stayed on the beach.
• The Fisherman helped erect tents, and a green Signal Flare rose from beyond the forest to signal that the route was safe.

Sun Hang and the hunters were attacked on the shore by the Eight-Headed Serpent, which used poisonous water currents to kill many of them. The survivors escaped into the woods and wondered whether the trial would continue after Yano reported the monster’s arrival to Chunming City.

• A huge wave swept hunters into the sea, and Yano identified the entity as the Eight-Headed Serpent.
• The Eight-Headed Serpent fired water columns that pierced hunters and poisoned others, forcing Sun Hang and the survivors to flee into the woods.
• The hunters debated whether to retrieve supplies from the beach, while the Fisherman explained that a previous fleet operation had failed to kill the monster.
• Yano described the Eight-Headed Serpent’s defenses in water and said the Federation had shelved plans to destroy it because of the risks of nuclear strikes.
• Yano reported the monster’s appearance to the warship by drone and wondered whether the trial would continue.

After the hunters lost most of their supplies and their drones, Sun Hang killed a hostile teammate by throwing him into the Eight-Headed Serpent’s attack. With the group trapped in the woods and unable to retrieve supplies, Sun Hang questioned why the creature had stopped attacking them there.

• The hunters realized that most of their supplies had been lost, and Yano admitted he had used all four drones to send news of the Eight-Headed Serpent.
• A hunter blamed Yano and the Huntress, then tried to punch Sun Hang, who cut off his hand and threw him out of the woods, where the Eight-Headed Serpent killed him.
• Sun Hang asked Yano about contacting the destroyer and asked the hunters whether anyone could retrieve supplies from the beach, but no one volunteered.
• The Huntress suggested searching farther into the woods for other hunters and their supplies, but Sun Hang pointed out that the Eight-Headed Serpent’s decision to stop attacking them was suspicious.

Sun Hang’s group suspected the woods were dangerous after realizing the green signal flares might not have come from people, and he decided they would wait before leaving by the coast rather than venture deeper. When another green flare appeared near the research institute ruins, the hunters kept waiting, unaware that Sun Hang could survive by consuming the dead.

• Sun Hang proposed that the Eight-Headed Serpent had driven the hunters into the woods or that the forest held a more powerful aberration, and he questioned whether the signal flares came from people.
• Sun Hang told the hunters to wait two hours for the drone, then follow the coast, cut trees, and build a canoe instead of going deeper into the woods.
• The Fisherman tried eating bark, spat it out because it tasted foul, and Sun Hang explained that it grew in saline-alkali soil.
• A green signal flare appeared, and Yano used the map to locate it near the valley and the research institute ruins.
• Sun Hang shared half an energy bar with the Fisherman and concealed that the mycelium inside him could turn corpses into nutrients.

As the drone failed to return, the hunters argued over whether to leave Sun Hang and join the group headed for the research institute ruins. Sun Hang stayed with the Fisherman, Yano, and the Huntress, who trusted his composure more than the other hunters, as the group prepared to continue on Nameless Island.

• After the drone failed to return and a third green Signal Flare appeared, several hunters blamed their decision to stay behind and decided to cross the forest to join the others.
• The horned hunter led the departing group, while Sun Hang let everyone choose for themselves and the group promised to leave markers and send word back by drone.
• The Fisherman, Yano, and the Huntress stayed with Sun Hang; the Fisherman distrusted Anglo-Saxon Hunters, and Yano suspected Nameless Island was more dangerous than it seemed.
• Yano explained that his ability let him sense strong emotions and said Sun Hang had seemed to feel nothing when he threw a man out.
• The Huntress said she stayed because the horned hunter had leered at her, and Yano confirmed that Sun Hang did not feel lust toward her.

Sun Hang unexpectedly entered a realistic dream—or consciousness space—while resting in the woods, finding himself inside an Escape Tunnel beneath Nameless Island’s abandoned research facility. After discovering that his abilities did not work there and that he could pass through objects by not perceiving them, he explored the tunnel and reached a sealed door.

• Yano explained that sensing chaotic emotions from anomalous entities could trap him in a dangerous, hallucinatory state.
• While the drone remained missing and Yano’s attempts to contact the warship met only static, Sun Hang grew sleepy and his consciousness was pulled underground.
• Sun Hang found himself in a steel Escape Tunnel and suspected his body remained in the woods while his consciousness had entered a dreamlike space.
• Sun Hang discovered that pain and damage vanished when he stopped perceiving them, and that he could pass through the tunnel wall into a blank space.
• Sun Hang explored the tunnel by counting his steps, climbed a staircase, and found a rusted airtight door.
• After failing to turn the door’s valve, Sun Hang realized he could simply try walking through the door.

Sun Hang explored the research institute’s underground corridors after passing through an airtight door, using his ability to move through walls. He found evidence of a past massacre but no clear answer about what caused it, then entered a seemingly undisturbed military dormitory and tried to identify his location.

• Sun Hang passed through the airtight door and entered a wider corridor lined with rooms.
• Sun Hang found a dead institute worker in a restroom, examined his torn protective suit and empty Nagant revolver, and inferred that a monster had attacked the institute.
• Sun Hang searched the corpse but found no note or evidence of infection, leaving the creature’s fate and the cause of the incident unknown.
• Sun Hang entered a military dormitory containing ammunition and a Siberian Federation helmet but no bodies or signs of a fight.
• Sun Hang recalled that the third underground level held barracks, archives, a boiler room, and warehouses, and hoped he had entered through Escape Tunnel Two.

Sun Hang found Archive Room Six on Nameless Island and retrieved a confidential file by passing through its locked door. The archive triggered sealed memories of the institute, and the report he began reading described direct contact with a Primal Anomaly.

• Sun Hang searched the island's garrison dormitories and identified the route to Escape Tunnel Two.
• Sun Hang bypassed the explosive-protected door to Archive Room Six and took a confidential file from a safe.
• Sun Hang recognized the archive room and the institute as places from memories sealed in his mind, though he questioned how he could have known them.
• Sun Hang read that the file documented a direct contact experiment with a Primal Anomaly in Huang Calendar Year 4603 and wondered whether the experiment took place in the Xiazhou Federation.

Sun Hang’s dream investigation was interrupted by the Three Monkeys, who told him it was not time and ordered him to leave. Defying them, he decided to enter the research institute, but the other hunters gave no response to his signal flares.

• The Three Monkeys turned Sun Hang’s documents blank and told him it was not time, then ordered him to leave the dream.
• After waking, Sun Hang announced that the group would head to the research institute despite Yano’s concerns about the Eight-Headed Serpent.
• Sun Hang reasoned that the Three Monkeys needed him alive and would protect him, so he was willing to enter the dangerous ruins.
• Sun Hang fired three green Signal Flares to request a response from the other hunters, but none answered.
• Yano worried that the hunters might be in danger, while the Fisherman suggested they could be hiding something they had found.

Sun Hang and three hunters set out for the research institute ruins, discussing their abilities and how they might work together. When the trail markers left by the hunters ahead disappeared, Sun Hang treated it as another sign that no one could be trusted.

• Sun Hang, the Fisherman, the Huntress, and Yano agreed to head for the research institute ruins.
• Sun Hang showed the others how his metal ring turned into a blade, and the Fisherman and Huntress described their abilities.
• Yano warned that the Huntress's power to suppress fear and anger could sometimes make survival harder, though it could help in combat.
• The four followed the earlier hunters' markings for about a hundred meters before the trail disappeared.
• The Fisherman accused the hunters ahead of being unreliable, while Sun Hang said he regarded everyone, including his companions, as potential opponents.

Sun Hang and his companions discovered that the woods intensified their negative emotions as they followed the Hunters’ trail. They found an Indian Hunter dead beside a tree, and Sun Hang concluded that amplified lust had driven him to his death.

• The Fisherman reported an urge to destroy things, while Yano realized the woods were making him afraid to flee.
• The Huntress calmed the Fisherman and then Yano, and the group hurried deeper through the woods.
• The four found a dead Indian Hunter with bloody injuries beside a scratched tree.
• Yano examined the corpse, and Sun Hang deduced that the woods had amplified the Hunter’s lust until he died.

Sun Hang and the others became trapped in the forest when the trails vanished and the Fisherman began to lose control. Suspecting the Three Monkeys were manipulating what they could see, Sun Hang prepared a way to guide the group out with their eyes closed.

• Sun Hang took the dead Indian Hunter's wristband as the group continued through the forest.
• The Fisherman realized the footprints had vanished, and Sun Hang briefly saw an ape relief carved into a tree before it disappeared.
• As the Fisherman spiraled toward delirium and the Huntress weakened from controlling his emotions, Sun Hang knocked him unconscious.
• Sun Hang used a tree's rings to identify the direction of the island's center, then suspected the Three Monkeys were altering what the group saw.
• Sun Hang gave Yano and the Huntress a knotted rope and told them to close their eyes and follow him without looking until they left the forest.

Sun Hang led Yano, the Huntress, and the Fisherman out of the disorienting forest and across the island’s quarry valley to the ruins of the Nameless Island research institute. As they approached the ruins, Yano recounted the institute’s history, and Sun Hang connected its abandonment in Year 4603 to a report he had seen in a dream.

• Sun Hang guided Yano and the Huntress through the forest with their eyes closed, using mycelium to avoid obstacles, and brought them safely into a boulder-strewn valley.
• Yano identified the valley as the institute’s quarry, and the group found Navy water and a signal-flare casing that suggested earlier hunters had passed through.
• The Fisherman woke up and speculated that the Anglo-Saxons’ flare might have attracted the Eight-Headed Serpent; Sun Hang had him check the equipment before they continued.
• The four hunters crossed the valley and saw the vast research institute ruins, which Yano said had been designed to house tens of thousands of people.
• Yano explained that the institute was abandoned after an accident in December of Year 4603, and Sun Hang recognized that year from a report in his dream.

Sun Hang realized that the Nameless Island research institute’s records and memories of its Primal Anomaly experiment may have been erased, and suspected the Three Monkeys statue was the anomaly it studied. After the group introduced themselves, Sun Hang led them toward the ruins’ underground section.

• Sun Hang concluded that an invisible force had erased or altered records related to the Nameless Island research institute and wondered whether everyone connected to the matter had forgotten it.
• Sun Hang suspected the institute had studied the Three Monkeys statue before the Fisherman interrupted his thoughts.
• The Fisherman showed Sun Hang a slope where earlier Hunters had descended, and the group exchanged names and affiliations: Sun Hang, Yano Seiichi, Huangfu Sha, and the Fisherman.
• The Fisherman explained that Huangfu Sha belonged to Chunming City’s Imperial Guard Legion, which had Hunter battalions, and Huangfu Sha said she hoped to leave her battalion.
• Sun Hang decided the group should descend to the ruins, and the Fisherman prepared to go first while Yano secured a safety rope.

Sun Hang and his team descended into the basin and found no detectable environmental memetic fluctuations, despite Tianshu Tower’s report that Nameless Island was a Geng-type Anomaly. The Fisherman proposed that Geng Nineteen might not exist and that only the forest’s trees had been anomalized, leaving the team to question the intelligence guiding them.

• Yano struggled down the slippery slope while Sun Hang, the Fisherman, and Huangfu Sha reached the basin with less difficulty.
• Sun Hang asked Yano to measure the basin’s anomalization level, and the team discussed how Tianshu Tower had concluded the whole island was anomalized.
• The Fisherman noticed that no drones were visible over the basin and wondered whether they had crashed or gone into the research institute.
• Yano’s equipment detected no environmental memetic fluctuations, and he confirmed that the machine was working by comparing its readings with those taken on the beach.
• The Fisherman suggested that Geng Nineteen might not exist and that only the forest’s trees had been anomalized, prompting Yano to agree that their deeper exploration had outpaced Tianshu Tower’s intelligence.

Sun Hang and his companions entered Zone C of the research institute ruins and found a seemingly unresponsive infected Huntress searching a burned house. When Huangfu Sha approached, the Huntress suddenly attacked her while holding a bloodstained sickle beside a mangled torso.

• The Fisherman and Yano discussed the footprints of two groups entering the ruins, and Sun Hang led the team inside with Liquid Metal shields.
• The four crossed Zone C's unfinished, fire-damaged apartments and followed the other hunters' tracks.
• Sun Hang sensed an infected in a house and spotted a Huntress kneeling inside, apparently searching without reacting to their flashlight or voices.
• Huangfu Sha approached the Huntress while Sun Hang held her rifle, but the Huntress abruptly rose and slammed into her, revealing a bloody sickle and a mangled torso.

Sun Hang, Yano, and the Fisherman fought to save Huangfu Sha after a mad Huntress nearly killed her. They discovered the Huntress’s infection readings were stable despite her apparent madness, and Sun Hang recovered her bracelet as the group examined another dead Hunter.

• The Huntress slashed Huangfu Sha’s waist and throat, but Sun Hang shot her with an anti-materiel rifle.
• Yano used a hollow pen barrel as an airway and treated Huangfu Sha with coagulant gel and adrenaline, though her survival remained uncertain.
• The Fisherman found that the Huntress’s remains still showed stable infection readings, while Yano and Sun Hang concluded she had gone mad.
• Sun Hang linked the Huntress’s condition to survivors who had fled to the Xiazhou Continent more than a century earlier and developed mental problems.
• Sun Hang removed the Huntress’s bracelet and found another likely Anglo-Saxon Hunter’s mutilated remains nearby.

Sun Hang searched the building where an Anglo-Saxon Hunter had been dismembered and used his abilities to absorb memories from the recently killed Huntress. Her memories revealed that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters had come to the island for a secret purpose connected to the research institute, not to take part in the Rank Advancement Trial.

• Sun Hang and the Fisherman found the Hunter's remains and followed a blood trail upstairs, where the body parts had been divided among three rooms.
• Sun Hang counted the missing body parts and found the Hunter's bracelet, then tried and failed to recover memories from the long-dead Hunter.
• Sun Hang realized the Huntress's body still contained active Anomaly Memes, so he devoured them and acquired her Sharp Blade ability.
• Sun Hang absorbed the Huntress's fragmented memories and saw the Anglo-Saxon Hunters argue about a curse-blocking ability and entering the research institute's underground section.
• Sun Hang learned that the Anglo-Saxon Hunters had come to the island for information and a goal beyond the Rank Advancement Trial.