Recaps

As innate hostility faded among humans and nonhumans, Hao Ren entered a war-torn world called Zom and found the Data Terminal inhabiting a dead girl’s body. He returned to Zom with a beacon and began investigating Gray Fox leader Nolan, whose abilities and distant eyes seemed unusual.

• Nangong Wudi opened his restaurant with help from Hao Ren, Lily, and their friends, while Ryūsei and Zhao Xi told Hao Ren that Demon Hunters were losing their hunting instincts.
• Hao Ren and Vivian learned that innate hostility was fading among nonhumans worldwide, and Vivian began monitoring the situation as Hao Ren wondered whether it was connected to the Dream Plane.
• Hao Ren fell asleep and awoke in a ruined city on Zom, where he met Nolan’s Gray Fox squad and discovered the Data Terminal had become a dead blonde girl’s body.
• Hao Ren learned that Zom had been devastated by a nanomachine disaster and a long war, then joined Gray Fox temporarily and read Shiton’s diary about a false world and Nolan as the key to waking up.
• After returning from Zom, Hao Ren found that the Gray Fox badge and the Data Terminal’s new body had vanished, then tested passages to other worlds and confirmed that Zom’s connection to the Outer World behaved differently.
• Hao Ren returned to Zom with Vivian, Izax, and Nangong Sanba, but they were diverted to Horleta, so he continued alone and secretly launched a beacon to help locate the planet.
• Ulanov explained Gray Fox’s role in the slums and brought Hao Ren back to the base, where Hao Ren watched Nolan defeat recruits and agreed to spar with her.

Hao Ren and Nolan discovered that the world repeatedly reset while preserving Nolan’s memories, and Hao Ren traced the cycles to a simulated shelter nearing collapse. After the real world’s team reached Zom, Hao Ren led an expedition toward a fissure that might conceal the shelter’s server.

• Hao Ren fought Nolan, injured her ankle with his shield, and gave her Shiton’s diary before returning to the barracks, where the Data Terminal began to awaken in the corpse girl’s body.
• Hao Ren joined Nolan and Ulanov’s expedition to the Northern Ring Tower, where Ulanov hoped to find traces of his wife, who had been trapped there during the nanomachine disaster.
• Inside the tower, Hao Ren encountered a changed world in which Nolan and the others had new identities and did not remember him, while he and the Data Terminal retained their memories.
• Hao Ren and Nolan escaped the military facility, and Nolan explained that the world repeatedly reset with changing histories, societies, and looming catastrophes.
• Hao Ren launched the Giant Turtle Rock Platform beyond the simulated universe’s boundary, recovered navigation data from the reconnaissance drones, and returned toward Zom as the world began to change.
• Hao Ren found Nolan in a peaceful version of Zom, while the Data Terminal returned to the real world and brought the others to the planet.
• Nolan told Hao Ren that she believed the cycle was ending, and the Data Terminal and Lily showed him that Zom was burning as it fell toward its sun.
• Hao Ren concluded that the repeating world was likely a shelter powered by a server beneath Zom’s crust, then led Lily, Vivian, Izax, and Elizabeth toward a detected fissure.

Hao Ren rescued the souls of Zhuom’s people and the Firstborn before their planet was destroyed, then helped Zhuom begin restoring life on Tanagrus. After Nolan adjusted to her new existence aboard the ship, Hao Ren turned to rebuilding the Guardians and encountered Heiserana near the Nangong family’s restaurant.

• Hao Ren discovered that Zhuom’s shelter was integrated with the Firstborn, learned the Firstborn’s nightmare held the Zhuom people, and connected Nolan to its consciousness to reach it.
• Hao Ren organized a transfer of Zhuom’s souls and the Firstborn through a drone relay to the Giant Turtle Rock Platform, saving them before Zhuom broke apart while preserving Nolan separately.
• At the Crystal Core Research Station, Hao Ren told the Firstborn that the Creation Goddess had disappeared, then introduced it to Muru, who agreed to protect it and the Zhuom people.
• Hao Ren named the Firstborn Zhuom and proposed Tanagrus as a new home, where Zhuom and Muru began planning an ecosystem with the planet’s existing life.
• Hao Ren restored Nolan aboard the Giant Turtle Rock Platform and explained her origins, then helped her adjust to life as the ship’s Core Intelligence before letting her explore space.
• Hao Ren and Muru used ancient Firstborn brain cores and Source Blood to begin creating life on Tanagrus, and Hao Ren later discussed rebuilding the Guardians with Raven 12345.
• Hao Ren encountered Heiserana, Duncan, and Cassandra outside the Nangong family’s restaurant, where a tense standoff with Nangong Wudi ended after Hao Ren introduced them.

Hao Ren and his companions followed Heiserana’s clues to Domir Town, where they uncovered Baptiste’s attempt to open the Great Gate of Purgatory. They pursued him into Purgatory and discovered a world built within a planet, ending at an ancient city where a mysterious humanoid fled.

• Heiserana brought Vivian and Hao Ren news of a Purgatory Ripper specimen and a wizard whose spellbook had targeted Vivian.
• Hao Ren’s group investigated Domir Town, uncovered the town’s strange ghostly memories, and found Baptiste’s research into Purgatory.
• Baptiste trapped the group, opened the Great Gate, and fell through as Lily broke his staff and the gate collapsed.
• Hao Ren and his companions entered Purgatory, where they found a hostile outer wasteland and a living cloud layer covering the planet.
• The group descended through a crater into a vast green inner world and discovered that Pillar Giant Trees connected its layers beneath a petrified Firstborn canopy.
• Hao Ren’s probes found a ruined city, where Lily and the Data Terminal translated inscriptions praising the sun, life, and a Goddess.
• Nangong Sanba revealed that the city’s ritual stones held magic, and Lily caught a glowing arrow as Hao Ren saw a humanoid fleeing.