Recaps

Xia Chong briefed Lu Xin and Chen Jing on Black Table’s experiments and revealed that the organization’s key figure was Chen Xun, the man Lu Xin had come to find. Central City’s Infiltrators warned that they would punish anyone who threatened the city or the Research Institute, even a god.

• Chen Jing explained that Qinggang aimed to investigate the Forbidden Experiment in White Tower Town and destroy Black Table.
• Xia Chong reported that Black Table was using special mental power to transform the mentally disordered into biological weapons, and that its sudden attacks suggested its research was nearing success.
• Xia Chong said Black Table had attacked a chemical plant, abducted researcher Zhao Shiming, and relied on Zhao Shiming’s son Zhao Hui to supply the laboratory.
• Xia Chong revealed that Central City’s Infiltrators had identified a key Black Table figure as Chen Xun, and Lu Xin recognized him as the Old Director’s former assistant and the person he had come to find.
• Lu Xin realized he was smiling at the news, prompting Gecko to question him and Xia Chong to scrutinize his behavior.
• Xia Chong explained that Central City tolerated ability users but would make anyone who threatened the city or the Research Institute pay, whether they were monsters or gods.

Lu Xin joined Qinggang's team at a secret factory in Central City, where investigators examined evidence from the Forbidden Experiment and Qinggang pressed Central City to deliver a proper outcome. Mo Yi's preliminary findings suggested the facility had pursued research into a godlike, physically perfect human, leaving Chen Jing and the others thinking of Qinggang's Kid.

• Chen Jing told Lu Xin that Li Gang had safely transferred the convoy, documents, and physical evidence after Black Table stopped pursuing them.
• Chen Jing explained that Qinggang had sent Ability Users, investigators, Mo Yi, and lawyers to oversee the case, and warned Xia Chong that other groups were watching the Forbidden Experiment investigation.
• Xia Chong asked Lu Xin to organize everything he knew about Black Table's Ability Users and abilities, and Lu Xin agreed.
• A Qinggang lawyer reassured Lu Xin that the shooting could be treated as part of emergency pollution work and promised to handle the legal side.
• Mo Yi reported that the modified woman had undergone physical enhancement and argued that the factory's secret base was researching the body of a god.
• Chen Jing and the others connected Mo Yi's idea of divine perfection to Qinggang's Kid.

After Central City sidelined Qinggang’s team from the investigation into Black Table, Lu Xin calmly revealed that Black Table’s leader, Chen Xun, was his relative and that he intended to visit him. Chen Jing arrived just as Gecko realized Lu Xin meant to confront Chen Xun, and asked whether he would bring colleagues along.

• Chen Jing summarized evidence that Black Table was pursuing an experiment to create a god and outlined the need to investigate its laboratory, find its hidden base, and gather manpower.
• Lu Xin submitted his account of the White Tower Town events, and Xia Chong said Central City would handle the investigation and sent the Qinggang team back to their hotel.
• Gecko suspected Central City was pushing them aside to conceal a secret or claim Black Table’s research, but Lu Xin remained calm and accepted that they had been excluded.
• Lu Xin told Gecko he planned to visit his relative, Chen Xun, Black Table’s leader, and said Chen Xun would not survive the visit.
• Chen Jing appeared at the doorway and asked Lu Xin whether he had considered bringing two colleagues.

Chen Jing persuaded Lu Xin to let her and Gecko accompany him on his visit to his relatives in Central City, officially to protect him. The group prepared to leave in ten minutes, with Gecko joining in hopes of earning enough credit to advance and date Linda.

• Chen Jing told Lu Xin that visiting relatives did not break their rules and offered to accompany him because Central City might clash with his family’s objectives.
• Gecko protested that Central City had told them to stay at the hotel, but Chen Jing argued they were free agents and offered him the choice to stay behind.
• Chen Jing warned that skipping the sudden mission could hurt Gecko’s chances of becoming a Level 5 Talent, and Gecko decided to go because he wanted to pursue Linda and earn more credit.
• Chen Jing handed Lu Xin and Gecko black combat uniforms and equipment, then announced they would leave in ten minutes.
• Lu Xin and Gecko changed into their gear, and Li Gang, the lawyers, and a waiting server joined the solemn departure.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko left Central City with a convoy and headed for Buffalo City to find the hidden laboratory and Lu Xin’s relative, Chen Xun. After learning that Black Table was researching the dangerous mental entity called “Life,” Lu Xin said he planned to persuade Chen Xun to reform.

• Chen Jing arranged for Lu Xin and Gecko to slip out of their hotel and leave Central City in a convoy carrying weapons and supplies.
• Lu Xin revealed that Chen Xun and Zhao Shiming had gone to Buffalo City, where the final laboratory was believed to be located.
• Chen Jing explained that Black Table was studying “Life,” an anomalous mental entity that could give flesh extreme vitality and create aggressive living monsters.
• Lu Xin and Gecko read research records describing the contamination and growth of flesh affected by “Life.”
• Chen Jing planned for the team to enter Buffalo City discreetly, and Lu Xin said he would persuade Chen Xun to stop his crimes.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko approached Buffalo City as Central City's forces established a blockade, then used the little monster's ability to enter unseen. They left the story inside the city, with Gecko already trying to befriend their timid guide.

• Chen Jing led Lu Xin and Gecko toward Buffalo City while Central City's soldiers set up a camp and cordon around it.
• Chen Jing revealed that the little monster had been following them unnoticed and explained that it vanished from people's attention when they stopped focusing on it.
• Chen Jing used her ability to make the little monster appear and persuaded it to guide them into Buffalo City without affecting their awareness.
• The little monster made Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko difficult for others to notice, allowing them to pass the blockade and walk toward the city entrance unseen.
• Gecko whispered that he would show the little monster around Qinggang and take it to the bathhouses.

Captain Li organized Central City's ability users into separate teams to search Buffalo City for the laboratory, rescue Dr. Zhao Shiming, and stop the Black Table experiment. Three hours earlier, Chen Xun persuaded Zhao Shiming to help complete the experiment, leaving the two men in cooperation as the cleanup teams prepared to enter the city.

• Captain Li briefed the assembled ability users that seven Infiltrators had vanished inside Buffalo City and assigned the teams separate routes and objectives.
• Captain Li warned that teams could not trust signals inside the city and set a ten-hour limit before headquarters would consider its final emergency response.
• Chen Xun brought Dr. Zhao Shiming into the laboratory and showed him the experiment, which had reached ninety-two percent completion.
• Chen Xun revealed surveillance images of strange figures and creatures across the city, claiming that they were all part of a single monster.
• Zhao Shiming agreed to help Chen Xun in exchange for being named as a person in charge if the experiment succeeded and being described as forced if it failed.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered the abandoned city to search for Black Table’s hidden Forbidden Experiment laboratory and its classified materials. Chen Jing began gathering information from local children, leaving the group with a lead to pursue.

• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko crossed the blockade and entered the eerie, overgrown city, while the little monster became invisible to Lu Xin when it released his wrist.
• Chen Jing told Gecko and Lu Xin to avoid Central City’s team when possible and to collect classified documents or parasitic items from the laboratory if they found an opportunity.
• The group reached a slum where children played with a newspaper bundle and residents sorted scrap and tended small gardens; Lu Xin and Sister sensed nothing unusual.
• Chen Jing asked three children to find people who knew of a clean, electrified place that vehicles and well-dressed visitors frequented, then instructed them to forget her request.
• Chen Jing explained that Black Table’s laboratory had to leave traces despite using the city’s residents as cover, and said intelligence gathering was her specialty.

Chen Jing used her ability to search Buffalo City for the laboratory, and her network of residents led the team toward a high-rise in the central district. As Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered a seemingly bustling metropolis, they realized the streets and crowds were an illusion.

• Chen Jing spread a thought through the residents, having each person contact three others and pass along information before forgetting the task.
• After walking toward the central district and searching for clues, Chen Jing received reports of electricity, heavy vehicles, helicopter activity, and a high-rise building.
• Chen Jing paid the three informants, then led Lu Xin and Gecko toward the high-rise she believed was near the laboratory.
• An unseen man watched the search on surveillance screens, inserted a thick videotape into a player, and returned to eating instant noodles.
• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered streets filled with lights, shops, workers, and schoolchildren before realizing the crowded metropolis was unnatural and had deceived them.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko became trapped in a realistic false city while investigating Buffalo City, and Chen Jing warned them against attacking its apparent residents. Xia Chong identified the distortion as the effect of the stolen 2-48-Memoir Videotape, but communication failures left the other teams to work out how to escape on their own.

• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko realized that the bustling street was an illusion produced by intense mental radiation, though Lu Xin sensed no Mental Monsters.
• Chen Jing judged that they could not safely advance or attack the apparent pedestrians because they could not distinguish real people from false images.
• Central City's teams entered Buffalo City from different directions and found themselves surrounded by the same lifelike false streetscape, with their communications blocked.
• Xia Chong recognized the scene as the effect of the stolen 2-48-Memoir Videotape and read its file, which said the tape could be stopped by finding it and cutting off its power supply.
• Xia Chong's attempt to send the file to the other teams failed, so she told her two teammates she would take them out and left the others to figure out the problem themselves.

The Central City teams encountered a city where real and false details were perfectly intertwined, and each group tried to navigate it using its own methods. Lu Xin and Chen Jing could not identify a way out, but Chen Jing ordered the team to keep moving.

• The doctor tested the city’s air, ground, electricity, and other details, then used changes in the wind to leap over an invisible pit and continue forward.
• Xia Chong led her two teammates through a shop doorway, and they vanished when its glass door closed.
• The burly commander decided his team would ignore the illusion and continue the mission, trusting that they could defeat any strange threat.
• Lu Xin asked Sister what she had found, and she said the city’s inhabitants were real and alive, though she could not tell what was false.
• Chen Jing concluded that Black Table might be using the city to delay them and told the team to walk out.

Chen Jing identified the strange city as a force pulling them into a memory and proposed using Reverse Pollution to escape. She began influencing the apparent living people for protection, while Lu Xin and Gecko guarded her.

• Chen Jing ruled out Dreamweaver- and fantasy-type abilities and explained that the scene was drawing them into a memory rather than simply distorting their senses.
• Chen Jing decided they should leave the memory street instead of searching for its source, since it could trap them and delay their search for the laboratory.
• Chen Jing explained Reverse Pollution as an ability user influencing things within an opponent’s pollution zone to create an advantage.
• Chen Jing inferred that Lu Xin’s clue meant some people in the street were real and conscious, and said she could influence them to protect the group.
• Chen Jing removed her sunglasses and began preparing to use her ability as Lu Xin and Gecko took positions beside her to guard her.

Chen Jing, Lu Xin, and Gecko escaped the false city and reached the ruined center of Buffalo City. They spotted the laboratory where their family member was likely being held and prepared to head there.

• Chen Jing used her ability to make nearby people form a protective escort as the group pushed through the false city.
• As the street warped around them, Chen Jing warned that the longer they stayed, the deeper its memory-based pollution would trap them.
• Chen Jing ordered the group to charge out, and Gecko shot at a hidden flesh tentacle while Sister intercepted others ahead.
• The false city shattered, revealing a ruined street surrounded by rotting flesh monsters and dark buildings.
• After Chen Jing's ability faded, she told Lu Xin and Gecko to ignore the monsters and hurry to the laboratory.
• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko saw the laboratory two or three streets away, where their family member should be inside.

As the teams converged on Central City, they encountered terrifying threats in the darkness around its center. The Doctor and his companions were trapped in an alley of watching eyes, while Xia Chong and her team found themselves surrounded by a Flesh Monster in an underground garage.

• A burly man in black combat gear reached the city center with his teammates and spotted a knife-wielding girl standing atop a building.
• The Doctor and the two lunatics left the illusory city but found an alley filled with eyes that stared at them and urged them to kill one another.
• Xia Chong led her teammates out of the illusory city and into a dark underground parking lot near the city center.
• A tentacle attacked Xia Chong's team, and they discovered a huge Flesh Monster clinging to the garage ceiling.
• The Flesh Monster's cries triggered flesh and tentacles to fill the surrounding garage, trapping Xia Chong and her teammates.

Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko entered the courtyard near the hidden laboratory and found it filled with motionless people whose faces and bodies could transform. After Gecko shot one of them, the figures copied his appearance and opened fire, and the chapter left Lu Xin facing a transformed Chen Jing.

• Chen Jing assigned Gecko to scout ahead while Lu Xin stayed close to protect her as they approached the laboratory.
• Gecko checked the courtyard and climbed over its wall, followed by Lu Xin and Chen Jing.
• The group found the courtyard packed with silent, lifeless-looking people standing in rows.
• When Gecko tapped one figure, it turned around with a shifting, jumbled face that began copying his appearance.
• Gecko shot the figure, causing the courtyard's other figures to transform into copies of him and fire at the group.
• Lu Xin pulled Chen Jing behind an ornamental rock, then saw her face and body change into Gecko's appearance.

Lu Xin and several teams faced deadly attacks from people and creatures transformed by an unknown contamination. The burly team leader pulled the knife-wielding girl away from the clown’s neck, but her head turned toward him as he struck.

• Lu Xin dodged attacks from multiple Geckos in the courtyard and struggled to determine whether Chen Jing, Gecko, or he himself had been contaminated.
• Lu Xin stopped Sister from charging into the courtyard’s chaos, fearing she would attack his teammates.
• The Doctor’s team turned on one another in the eye-covered alley, with the Doctor threatening the unfocused Patient, who aimed a gun at the tightly wrapped Patient.
• Xia Chong’s team fired special bullets at the ceiling creature in the underground parking lot, but the flesh regenerated and hidden mouths and barbs injured all three team members.
• The burly team leader attacked the girl who jumped from a rooftop beneath the Crimson Moon, but she split her body apart and swept toward the clown with a dinner knife.
• The team leader seized the girl’s blood strands and dragged her away from the clown, then punched toward her as her head turned toward him.

Lu Xin discovered that he could distinguish the real Gecko and Chen Jing from their polluted doubles by the feel of their combat uniforms, then attacked the fakes. Elsewhere, the doctor and his patient teammates turned Xinmo’s mind-reading against him and captured him.

• Lu Xin realized the polluted doubles felt cold and hard, unlike the real teammates’ woven combat uniforms, and asked Sister to help him fight more ruthlessly.
• Lu Xin tore through the false Geckos, destroying them until only a few figures remained in the courtyard.
• The doctor and his two patient teammates fought each other without trying to kill one another, filling Xinmo’s observations with their painful and disturbing sensations.
• The doctor found Xinmo’s true body while Xinmo was overwhelmed by the patients’ experiences and attacked him with a scalpel.
• The doctor dismembered Xinmo and admitted he could not let him escape after he had seen the group’s inner thoughts.

Xia Chong fought the flesh monster in the underground parking garage, using fire and repeated doorways to pursue it. Elsewhere, the stitched girl killed the magician, clown, and burly man, then walked away into an alley.

• Xia Chong recognized the contamination as Special Pollution Event No. 1021 and told her teammates to stay calm while she escaped through a door.
• The flesh monster killed one teammate, but Xia Chong returned with a flamethrower and burned the creature until it fled upstairs.
• Xia Chong pursued the fleeing monster through rooms and buildings, repeatedly attacking it with flames.
• The stitched girl used her blood threads to evade the burly man and killed the magician with a table knife.
• The clown restrained the stitched girl with his dance, but she bit his neck and killed him.
• The burly man seized the stitched girl, but his head suddenly rolled off; she picked up the knife and walked into an alley.

Lu Xin, Gecko, and Chen Jing survived the fake Geckos and recovered the twelve-tier Rubik’s Cube that caused the contamination. As they approached the high-rise where Lu Xin’s family was, Sister sensed the same person she had felt at the detention center.

• Lu Xin confirmed that two apparent Geckos were fakes and dismantled one, revealing a twelve-by-twelve Rubik’s Cube inside.
• Chen Jing emerged from hiding with the Mizang monster, explaining that she had concealed herself while the others fought.
• Chen Jing identified the cube as a valuable high-level parasitic item and gave Lu Xin a bag to take it back for research.
• Chen Jing explained that the Mizang monster’s concealment caused intense dejection, making it risky to rely on for their infiltration.
• Lu Xin headed toward the nearby high-rise, but Sister stopped and told him she could sense the person she had felt at the detention center.

Lu Xin and Chen Jing reached the abandoned skyscraper believed to house Black Table’s laboratory, where they encountered injured Central City operatives and learned that Captain Li’s squad had been wiped out. Sister then excitedly told Lu Xin she had found someone, as a pale girl with a kitchen knife appeared at the end of the street.

• Lu Xin, Chen Jing, and Gecko reached the skyscraper while Sister searched anxiously for someone nearby.
• Xia Chong arrived with an injured teammate, argued with Chen Jing about their presence, and said a flesh-controlling monster had killed one member and wounded another.
• Scalpel and two other Central City operatives joined them, and Xia Chong revealed that eight squads were in Buffalo City, with more possibly on the way.
• A red balloon floated toward the group, and Xia Chong and the others recognized it as a sign that Captain Li’s squad had been wiped out.
• Sister tugged Lu Xin’s clothes and said she had found her, as a pale little girl carrying a kitchen knife appeared and scraped it along abandoned cars.

Lu Xin confronted a stitched little girl whose appearance felt strangely familiar, while she attacked the gathered teams and killed two people. As she lunged at Gecko, Lu Xin seized her by the neck and declared that she could not kill anyone else.

• Lu Xin recognized something familiar in the stitched girl, and Sister reacted uncertainly when he asked whether they knew her.
• The girl split apart and attacked Lu Xin from behind, but Sister caught her knife and forced her to retreat to a wall.
• Xia Chong and the others attacked the girl, but she evaded them, killed one of Xia Chong's teammates, and killed the Doctor's patient after he retrieved the red balloon.
• Lu Xin saw the deaths and told the girl to stop killing, but she lunged at Chen Jing and then redirected her knife toward Gecko.
• Lu Xin grabbed the girl by the neck and slammed her into the ground before telling her she could not kill anyone anymore.

Lu Xin's contact with the little girl stirred fragmented memories, while Sister fought to protect him and the team prepared a counterattack. The girl revealed that she had secretly trapped everyone in a taut web of invisible threads, poised to kill them all.

• Lu Xin slammed the little girl to the ground, but her body broke apart and reassembled as she continued attacking him and Sister.
• Chen Jing and Xia Chong reviewed information from the red balloon and learned that control abilities could restrain the girl, while the doctor identified her as a Puppet-type user with a distorted ability.
• Lu Xin recalled fragments of a sunny garden, where Sister and the little girl had grown up alongside another child.
• Father refused to help Lu Xin, while Xia Chong used a flamethrower to burn the girl's bloody threads and draw her attention.
• The doctor recognized the girl's invisible threads and warned Xia Chong to run as Lu Xin realized the web had trapped everyone and was ready to contract.

Lu Xin used a distorted force field to save Chen Jing, Xia Chong, and the others from the little girl’s threads, then subdued the girl as more teams arrived. He embraced her and apologized for forgetting her, calling her Little Nineteen.

• Lu Xin twisted the little girl’s threads aside with a distorted force field, saving Chen Jing, Xia Chong, the doctor, and the others.
• Xia Chong recognized Lu Xin’s power as the distorted force field of a Zero Ability User.
• The Central City squad and a support squad arrived, but Lu Xin diverted their special bullets and repeatedly pinned the girl down with mental shock and a distorted force field.
• Lu Xin reached the girl as she struggled to seize her table knife, then embraced her and apologized for forgetting her, calling her Little Nineteen.

Lu Xin reunited with a puppet of Little Nineteen, who called him a “big monster” before escaping and deepening his grief. He left the Central City squads to pursue another relative alone, while Xia Chong took command and led the others toward the laboratory by another route.

• Lu Xin embraced the little girl, who called him a “big monster,” then vanished and left behind a crystal-like puppet as Little Nineteen escaped.
• Sister comforted Lu Xin, who admitted the girl was afraid of him, while a skinless puppy bit his leg and was kicked away.
• Xia Chong confirmed Captain Li and five others had died, assumed temporary command, and ordered the remaining squads to join forces and share information.
• Lu Xin refused to join the squads, saying he was on vacation and needed to meet a relative, then entered the building with Sister and the skinless puppy.
• Chen Jing told Xia Chong that Lu Xin was an ordinary Mutant with an excellent mission record, and Xia Chong ordered the squads to move out by another route.

Chen Xun left the laboratory after agreeing to secure time for Zhao Shiming’s experiment, then met Lu Xin in an abandoned bar. He revealed that Little Nineteen had survived and accused Lu Xin of having killed her before, leaving Lu Xin to face the revelation.

• Chen Xun told Zhao Shiming that the Tyrant’s power was incomplete but terrifying, then shook hands with him and left the laboratory.
• Lu Xin entered the abandoned building with Sister and followed the presence in the darkness to a candlelit bar.
• Chen Xun greeted Lu Xin and poured drinks for him and his companions, and Lu Xin said he remembered Chen Xun from the orphanage.
• Lu Xin asked what had happened to Little Nineteen, and Chen Xun explained that he had kept her alive.
• Chen Xun set down a Wish Countdown stopwatch and warned that harming him or destroying it would trigger his wish immediately.
• Chen Xun claimed Lu Xin had killed Little Nineteen before and asked whether Lu Xin felt sad about it.