Recaps

Lu Xin reached the Land of Chaos checkpoint and was extorted by a crooked-hat agent who threatened to seize his off-roader. After the agent raised the toll to five thousand, Lu Xin got back into his vehicle and prepared to defy the checkpoint’s rules.

• Lu Xin arrived alone at the agent’s office and answered questions about his identity, affiliations, and destination.
• The crooked-hat agent demanded a three-thousand toll because Lu Xin had no official backing, faith, or local acquaintance.
• The crooked-hat agent threatened to take Lu Xin’s vehicle, then raised the toll to five thousand after Lu Xin complained to the captain.
• Lu Xin asked whether he could avoid the road and returned to his off-roader while armed men watched him.
• Father questioned Lu Xin about what he would do, and Lu Xin started the vehicle and pressed the accelerator.

Lu Xin forced Steel Monster through the Qinghe Road checkpoint and onto the cargo route to Kindling City, using its heavy weapons to scatter the armed pursuers without injuring anyone. Kindling’s security forces received the alarm and prepared to stop him as he headed into their transportation network.

• Lu Xin drove Steel Monster through the agent company’s gate and headed for the cargo-route checkpoint, brushing Crooked Hat aside.
• Lu Xin stopped before the checkpoint’s barrier and tire spikes, then deployed Steel Monster’s hidden guns and mechanical dog.
• Lu Xin fired at the roadblocks and vehicles rather than at people, clearing a path through the checkpoint and driving onto the cargo route.
• The checkpoint personnel and company pursuers abandoned their attempt to follow immediately, while their captain ordered a five-minute delay and radioed in the breach.
• Kindling’s northern district security commander watched the surveillance footage, learned Lu Xin was heading toward his routes, and ordered his forces to block and kill him.

Lu Xin drove the Steel Monster through Kindling Company’s armed roadblock using a parasitic item that turned the guards against one another. When helicopters and pursuing convoys chased him, he used the 12-tier Rubik’s Cube to make them lose track of his vehicle, and continued toward Kindling City.

• Lu Xin refused Sister’s and Father’s offers to help when Kindling Company personnel blocked the road and ordered him to stop.
• Lu Xin arranged his five parasitic items and charged the roadblock as the armed personnel opened fire.
• A skinless dog leapt from Lu Xin’s glasses and unleashed chaotic emotions among the guards, causing them to fight and abandon the barricade.
• The Steel Monster smashed through the barricade, and the skinless dog returned to the vehicle as Lu Xin praised the parasitic items.
• Helicopters and pursuing convoys attacked Lu Xin, so he drove into a tunnel alongside other vehicles while the 12-tier Rubik’s Cube trembled.
• After they emerged, the pursuers could no longer identify Lu Xin’s vehicle, and the 12-tier Rubik’s Cube rearranged its squares into a smiling face.

Lu Xin drove through Kindling’s escalating roadblocks using the parasitic items, then approached Kindling City and encountered a living human spiderweb guarded by a golden-haired, one-eyed woman. Just as he prepared to confront her, she appeared beside his car and whispered a strange code phrase.

• A Kindling commander spotted Lu Xin’s disguised vehicle and ordered the convoy to stop, but the vehicles chased after him and helped him remain hidden.
• Kindling raised a drawbridge and assembled armed forces to block Lu Xin, but the black playing card exchanged the vehicles’ positions and the memory hourglass confused the soldiers, allowing him to escape.
• Kindling’s security chief classified Lu Xin as a high-level threat and requested the Level 1 Response Force, while Lu Xin drove onward through the remaining checkpoints.
• Near Kindling City, Lu Xin sensed a powerful presence ahead and found a giant spiderweb woven from living people, with a golden-haired, one-eyed woman standing at its center.
• The woman approached Lu Xin’s stopped car, suddenly appeared beside his window, and asked, “Heaven King Covers Earth Tiger?”

Lu Xin met Dracula, the club member who had secretly infiltrated Kindling, and she helped him pass through the company’s forces toward Kindling City. As they drove on, Dracula revealed how she had impersonated a priest, leaving Lu Xin alarmed by her casual admission that she had killed him.

• Lu Xin recognized the golden-haired woman as Dracula, and they discovered each other’s identities.
• Dracula told Lu Xin to keep driving and threatened Kindling’s deputy commander until he let their car cross the bridge.
• After they passed the troops, Dracula explained that she had infiltrated Kindling as an external support operative for the gathering.
• Dracula admitted that she had killed a priest in the Black Box and taken his communicator, corneas, and fingers to impersonate him.
• Dracula said the priest’s body was still in a bathtub, and Lu Xin fell silent, alarmed by her confession.

Lu Xin arrived in Kindling City with Dracula and settled into a luxurious hotel suite while waiting for the club gathering. As he relaxed in the bathtub and messaged the others, Night Owl announced his arrival with a series of explosive fireworks, leaving Lu Xin startled by the blasts.

• Dracula brought Lu Xin through Kindling City and explained that she had to take jobs before the True Church discovered her identity.
• Dracula checked Lu Xin into a lavish hotel suite, warned him that Kindling City had issued an A-rank warrant for him, and left to deal with the priest's corpse.
• Lu Xin explored the suite, ate instant noodles, and soaked in a bathtub while thinking about the Hell incident and his injured mother.
• Lu Xin messaged the club members, and Night Owl said he had arrived in the city and asked Lu Xin to come find him.
• Night Owl set off fireworks that exploded across the city, startling Lu Xin and revealing Night Owl's location.

As chaos erupted across Kindling City, Lu Xin watched the club members cause trouble and tried to stay out of it. Dracula arrived after being discovered disposing of a body, and she and Lu Xin fled the hotel, only to find themselves surrounded by police, soldiers, helicopters, and armored machines.

• Lu Xin saw the club chat fill with members describing explosions, fights, and schemes unfolding across Kindling City.
• Dracula asked whether anyone knew Zhu Jia Liang and said she planned to throw him off a ninety-nine-story building.
• Lu Xin shut off his communicator to avoid being pulled into the club members’ crimes, but Dracula soon climbed through his window and urged him to flee after disposing of a body near the security bureau.
• Dracula admitted the hotel had called the police after she used counterfeit money, and she and Lu Xin escaped through the window with all their luggage.
• After they climbed to the rooftop, Lu Xin and Dracula discovered that police, rapid-response troops, helicopters, and armored machines had surrounded the area.

Lu Xin and Dracula fled a rooftop as law enforcement opened fire, while other lunatics carried out violent attacks across Kindling City. The chapter ended with a masked man and a boy crashing a truck into a bank and starting a robbery.

• Dracula ran from the rooftop as helicopters and law enforcement surrounded her and Lu Xin, and Lu Xin dodged gunfire before chasing after her with the suitcase.
• A woman in a red dress drugged a wealthy young man, threw him from a hotel window, and shot her way through the hotel bodyguards.
• A man in a sharp suit reached a secret laboratory, split his head into nine snake-headed necks, and faced the security guards.
• A man in a white tank top and black hat drove a truck through a bank wall with a little boy, then ordered him to help rob the bank before doing his homework.

Lu Xin and Dracula fled across Kindling City, dodging police, helicopters, and Ability Users while their escape disrupted residents in several buildings. They learned that Black Box forces had joined the pursuit, and more enemies closed in ahead.

• Lu Xin and Dracula raced over buildings as police cars and helicopters pursued them through the city.
• A Spider-type sniper fired powerful electric bullets at them, forcing them to escape through apartments and interrupt residents’ private moments.
• Lu Xin and Dracula briefly lost the sniper, but another attacker cut Dracula’s luggage open and scattered her collection.
• Lu Xin spotted a group of approaching Puppet-type Ability Users as helicopters and ground troops closed in again.
• Dracula explained that the pursuing Ability Users belonged to Black Box, not Kindling, and Lu Xin grew more alarmed as they approached.

Lu Xin and Dracula escaped the Black Box ability users, but the Envoy summoned a pale hand that ripped out Dracula’s heart. Lu Xin restored it and fled with her, while the Envoy died after his theft failed, leaving behind a cryptic warning that God was afraid.

• The Puppet-type, Spider-type, and another Black Box ability user attacked Lu Xin and Dracula as they fled across the buildings, but both broke free of their abilities and climbed toward a rooftop.
• The Envoy summoned a huge pale hand that reached across the street and tore Dracula’s heart from her body.
• Lu Xin used a black playing card to exchange his revolver for Dracula’s heart, then shoved the heart back into her body.
• Lu Xin and Dracula escaped across the rooftops as helicopters converged on them.
• The Envoy was left holding Lu Xin’s revolver, then withered and died after gasping that God was afraid.

Lu Xin and Dracula escaped their pursuers and hid in an empty building, where they argued over Dracula’s stolen and restored heart and questioned why Kindling was deploying so many forces to hunt them. Their hiding place was soon breached by Night Owl, who recognized Lu Xin and Dracula as the people he had been waiting for.

• Lu Xin and Dracula outran most of their pursuers and took refuge in an unlit building.
• Dracula denied that her heart had been stolen, while Lu Xin explained that he had replaced it with his revolver and put it back.
• Dracula spotted police patrols and helicopters closing in, and she and Lu Xin wondered why Kindling was devoting so many forces to pursuing them.
• A bulky figure began growing out of the wall, and Lu Xin and Dracula attacked until he gave the password challenge.
• Night Owl identified himself, greeted Dracula and Lu Xin, and began pulling himself free of the wall.

Night Owl reunited with Lu Xin and Dracula after accidentally leading Kindling’s ability users to them, just as the Hell Designer sensed their presence. The trio split up to evade the citywide pursuit, while the Hell Designer ordered Kindling’s emergency defenses activated and prioritized finding Lu Xin before Hell’s Gate opened.

• Night Owl explained that he had escaped a military base and led the pursuing ability users to Lu Xin and Dracula, then asked Dracula for his remaining thirty thousand yuan.
• Lu Xin, Dracula, and Night Owl sensed a mental sweep from a man in a white Zhongshan suit, whom Dracula identified as the Hell Designer.
• Dracula warned that Kindling’s territory suppressed ability users and proposed that they split up; she left through a window, and Lu Xin followed in another direction after giving Night Owl chocolate.
• Night Owl stayed behind and called after Lu Xin, offering him a massage when they met at Hell’s Gate.
• The Hell Designer told his commander that Lu Xin had evaded his search and reviewed reports of turmoil across Kindling, including the killing of a Black Box High Priest.
• The Hell Designer ordered Kindling’s emergency defense protocol activated and commanded his forces to find and eliminate Lu Xin before Hell’s Gate opened.

After Kindling City activated an S-level defense mechanism and ordered everyone to fall asleep, Lu Xin took shelter beneath a bridge and encountered the apparition of a crying homeless man. The man vanished, leaving only a matching corpse, and Lu Xin offered the dead man a cigarette.

• Lu Xin hid beneath a bridge after escaping the chaos in Kindling City and worried about whether Dracula and the others had escaped.
• Kindling City sounded a Level 1 alarm and announced that all citizens had to return home or enter a safe house and fall asleep within two hours.
• Lu Xin realized the sleep order could expose outsiders, but Sister said she could sleep and Father asked whether the city needed a Terror Demon King.
• Lu Xin went farther beneath the bridge and heard a homeless man crying in the darkness.
• The crying man vanished when Lu Xin offered him a cigarette, and Lu Xin discovered a corpse wearing the same clothes and bearing the same injuries.
• Lu Xin lit a cigarette and placed it in front of the corpse, saying it was for the man whether he was alive or dead.

As Lu Xin crossed the sleeping city, he encountered apparitions of people dying gruesomely and wondered what had made them appear. Near one-thirty, a warning siren sounded and the synchronized pounding of heavy boots approached from the outskirts.

• Lu Xin left the underpass, where he saw a hanging woman vanish, then continued through the empty streets.
• He encountered the apparition of a person crushed in a traffic accident, which crawled toward him before disappearing.
• Lu Xin passed several more apparitions of people who had died violently and concluded they may once have lived in the city.
• He sat beside an old woman drinking paraquat, spoke to her, and watched her fade away.
• As one-thirty approached, the air grew cold and humid and mist rose from the river.
• A low warning siren sounded, and Lu Xin heard heavy, synchronized footsteps approaching from the outskirts.

Lu Xin and his family confronted a seemingly endless procession of black-clad people whose spiritual power resisted every attack and began polluting Father’s shadow. The chapter ended with Father’s shadow locked in a stalemate as the procession’s deathly distortion spread toward Lu Xin.

• Lu Xin sensed oppressive footsteps approaching and prepared for a threat alongside Sister, Father, and the shadow creatures.
• A riverlike procession of synchronized black-clad people emerged, absorbing the dead figures in the city and then turning toward Lu Xin.
• The skinless puppy, the little creatures, and Sister attacked the procession, but their powers had no effect and they were repelled.
• Lu Xin sent Father’s shadow against the procession, and their collision filled his senses with deathly sounds and hallucinations.
• Father’s shadow failed to affect the black-clad people, while their distortion spread through the shadow and began polluting Father and Lu Xin.

Lu Xin and his father fought an endless tide of black-suited mental entities that resisted mental traits and overwhelmed the city. His father proposed becoming Kindling City's Mental Lord and using its residents as a source of power, but Lu Xin refused, citing Qinggang's law.

• Lu Xin used the black particles to unleash his father's shadows and annihilate waves of mental entities, but more immediately filled the streets of Kindling City.
• Lu Xin realized that ordinary Ability Users could not resist the entities and that even his own strength would eventually run out.
• His father warned that Lu Xin could not sustain the power and proposed becoming Kindling City's Mental Lord to draw on the city's residents.
• Lu Xin refused to let his father severely contaminate the sleeping residents, saying it would violate Qinggang's law.
• His father fell silent and said Lu Xin had been contaminated too deeply.

Lu Xin struggled to hold back Kindling City’s Hell Legion until the Negative Zero Unit arrived and began clearing a path to him. As the city’s leaders prepared to fire a plasma missile at his position, Xia Chong appeared and called him toward her.

• The man in the white Zhongshan suit identified Lu Xin as a core invader and ordered the Hell-umbrella series plasma missiles to be launched at his residential area.
• Lu Xin neared his limit fighting the black mental entities while Father spent his own mental power to protect him.
• Lu Xin suggested that he and Father run, but Father pointed out that the surrounding horde left them no way to escape.
• The Negative Zero Unit descended into the street and used blue arc weapons to destroy the mental entities, forming a protective perimeter around Lu Xin.
• Xia Chong opened a nearby residence door, recognized Lu Xin, and waved him over.

Lu Xin reunited with Xia Chong and her injured team after escaping the Hell Legion, then learned what the Legion and the Negative Zero Unit were. Xia Chong revealed that the Research Institute had dispatched the legendary mercenary Dracula to help, for a commission of one hundred million.

• Xia Chong pulled Lu Xin through a door and brought him to a room where Scalpel and the Beast Tamer were recovering from serious injuries and emotional distress.
• Lu Xin asked Xia Chong why she was in Kindling City, and she explained that her team had followed a soul trade there and encountered the Hell Legion.
• Xia Chong explained that the Hell Legion consisted of dead souls held in extreme emotional states, while the Negative Zero Unit comprised living people with suppressed psychic fluctuations and could counter it.
• Xia Chong said the Negative Zero Unit could not enter the abyss and could not defeat the Hell Legion's endless numbers, so her team had requested reinforcements from the Research Institute.
• Xia Chong revealed that the Research Institute had sent Dracula, the Alliance's strongest mercenary, on a mission carrying a one-hundred-million commission.

Lu Xin learned that the mission was to find Hell’s entrance before Kindling opened it, and he joined Xia Chong’s team to investigate the Kindling Building. Xia Chong warned that a mysterious force in the abyss might be close to godlike, but Lu Xin asked when they should set out.

• Lu Xin realized Dracula had used counterfeit money and kept quiet about it when Xia Chong asked what was wrong.
• Xia Chong explained that her team needed to find Hell’s entrance before Kindling opened it, and Lu Xin asked whether they could claim the mercenary reward by completing the mission first.
• Lu Xin offered to help despite Xia Chong’s warning that the operation was dangerous and could ruin their chances if it failed.
• Xia Chong revealed that their plan was to infiltrate the Kindling Building, where Kindling’s secrets and clues about Hell might be found.
• Xia Chong said the building was protected in the abyss by a mysterious force that made her fear she would die if she approached, and Lu Xin asked when they should leave.

Lu Xin and Xia Chong entered the abyss to investigate the Kindling Building and stop the Hell Plan, despite the danger and the failed search for other opportunities. They reached the building and sensed a powerful presence guarding it, while Xia Chong agreed to move closer after Lu Xin urged her to accept the mission’s responsibility.

• Xia Chong received word that Kindling City’s unrest had been quelled, several outsiders remained unaccounted for, and Dracula had not responded, so she agreed to take Lu Xin into the abyss.
• Xia Chong set three rules for the mission, equipped herself with weapons, and told the Beast Tamer to alert the Negative Zero Unit if she did not return within three hours.
• Lu Xin and Xia Chong entered the abyss, where dense, vicious black palms cut them as they made their way toward the city center.
• Lu Xin and Xia Chong found the intact Kindling Building towering above the ruins and sensed something nearby watching its surroundings.
• Xia Chong refused to approach any closer, but Lu Xin invoked her responsibility as an investigator, and she agreed to move a little farther.

Lu Xin and Xia Chong approached the Kindling Building and planned how to investigate Hell while avoiding detection by the powerful creature guarding it. Lu Xin decided to confront the creature with his parasitic items and set off with them, declaring his resolve to defend civilization and order.

• Xia Chong explained that the creature near the Kindling Building might be a Mental Lord or an existence beyond that level, and outlined the Research Institute's Seven Steps Theory.
• Xia Chong clarified that their mission was to investigate Hell inside the building and said they needed a safe route in and out past the guardian.
• Lu Xin reasoned that the creature might warn the real world, then decided to surround it so it could not send a warning.
• Lu Xin used a black playing card to remain in the abyss and gathered the 12-tier Rubik's Cube, Memory Hourglass, Six Senses Mask, and his other parasitic items.
• Lu Xin set off with Sister, a dark shadow, and the trembling parasitic items, telling Xia Chong, “For the civilization and order of the world...”

Lu Xin subdued the goat-horned monster and brought it to Xia Chong, saying he had persuaded it to sign a contract with her. Xia Chong was left stunned by his claim that the monster was now friendly.

• A goat-horned monster noticed several weaker monsters approaching and split into four bodies to attack them.
• Lu Xin appeared behind the monster and asked to talk, then overwhelmed it with help from the little girl and the black shadow.
• Xia Chong hid from the violent mental fluctuations until the area grew quiet.
• Lu Xin brought the injured red monster to Xia Chong and told her she could sign a contract with it.
• Lu Xin said he had discussed the matter with the monster and that it was friendly now.

Lu Xin and Xia Chong entered the abyss to investigate Hell's Gate, and Lu Xin persuaded Xia Chong to contract with the Mental Monster guarding the Kindling Building. After they infiltrated the building and struggled to locate clues, Mom called Lu Xin and told him what they were looking for was on Underground Level Eighteen.

• Lu Xin persuaded Xia Chong that the Mental Monster was friendly, and she completed a contract with it.
• Lu Xin and Xia Chong approached the Kindling Building, which was wrapped in twitching flesh-and-blood tissue, and Xia Chong confirmed they could enter.
• Xia Chong led Lu Xin through the abyss to an office on the building's thirtieth floor, where they entered the real world.
• Xia Chong used an instrument to search for Hell-related mental-power radiation, but its readings appeared everywhere in the building.
• The office telephone rang, and Lu Xin answered it; Mom told him that what they were looking for was on Underground Level Eighteen.

Lu Xin and Xia Chong descended to the eighteenth underground floor of the Kindling Building and overheard the Kindling’s leaders discussing their pact with the gods and preparations to open Hell’s Gate. The Hell Designer discovered them and greeted them face-to-face.

• Lu Xin received a call from Mom, learned she was underground, and told Xia Chong she was on the eighteenth underground floor.
• Lu Xin and Xia Chong descended through the dark underground structure of the Kindling Building and entered a room beside a control room.
• They overheard the Hell Designer argue that the Kindling had chosen to serve the gods and must continue preparing Hell’s Gate, including gathering one hundred million mental entities.
• The Hell Designer ordered the Kindling to make up any remaining sacrifices and said that exchanging a hundred million mental entities for the gods’ legacy was profitable.
• The wall between the rooms opened, and the Hell Designer addressed Lu Xin and Xia Chong after recognizing them.

Lu Xin and Xia Chong entered Kindling’s underground workshop and discovered a vast pit filled with people wired to a Mechanical Tree. The Hell Designer explained that Kindling used them to extract spiritual power, leaving Lu Xin to understand what Mom had sent him to witness and feel afraid.

• Lu Xin and Xia Chong entered the glass-walled control room after the Hell Designer greeted them.
• Lu Xin and Xia Chong saw countless motionless people connected to a Mechanical Tree in the enormous pit below.
• The Hell Designer questioned Lu Xin about his actions in Kindling City, and Lu Xin complained that Kindling had treated him disrespectfully.
• Xia Chong demanded to know what the operation was for and what the one hundred million mental entities meant.
• The Hell Designer explained that Kindling was a mining company that extracted human spirits and described the pit as one of its spiritual-power production bases.
• Lu Xin realized that the scene was what Mom had sent him to see, and he and Xia Chong began to tremble with fear.