Chapter Summaries

Luo Yan and the Earthly Fierce Squad entered the Ruins and reached the United Base, where Lin Wei explained the base’s resources and their plan to explore District 22. At Strategic Affairs Department headquarters, Luo Yan met Commander Zhao Ruifeng, who recognized him as Fang Yao’s student.

• Luo Yan led the convoy through the gate into the Ruins and saw its multicolored forests, mountains, sky, and distant city.
• Lin Wei identified the city as the United Base, explained its resources and population, and said the team would explore District 22 the next day.
• The convoy passed security checks and entered the Strategic Affairs Department’s area of the United Base.
• Luo Yan, Bai?, Lin Wei, and Jia Miao went to the department headquarters, where Jia Miao met Commander Zhao Ruifeng.
• Zhao Ruifeng greeted Luo Yan and recalled having worked with his teacher, Fang Yao.

Zhao Ruifeng warned Jia Miao and Luo Yan that the Freedom Wings and Holy Crusaders might try to interfere with their District 22 expedition. The team entered Guixu, began exploring a cave, and an unidentified figure emerged from the anchor-point light curtain.

• Zhao Ruifeng told Jia Miao that Morton and the Freedom Wings wanted a share of any discoveries in District 22, and warned the team to watch for interference.
• Luo Yan asked how to handle infiltrators, and Zhao Ruifeng said anyone entering without being a friendly force should be treated as an enemy.
• The next day, Luo Yan and the others arrived in Guixu District 22, where they saw strange fish-insects, a blue-furred Exotic Beast, and floating mountains.
• Jia Miao explained that the truth about Guixu had been concealed from the public, and Murong Xuan noted that the team had signed confidentiality agreements.
• Luo Yan led the team toward Lin Wei's cave, ordered the drones to scout inside, and asked Xiao Bai to summon Hei Wu.
• A figure emerged from the anchor-point light curtain in District 22.

Captain Byrne and Colonel Pruhler infiltrated Zone 22 to seize or destroy a Divine Remnant and obtain a Divinity Cultivation Method, despite Byrne questioning their orders. Meanwhile, Luo Yan reviewed a cave survey and prepared to explore it.

• Colonel Pruhler told Byrne that General Morton had sent them to Zone 22 to find a secret passage, recover the Divine Remnant, and locate the Divinity Cultivation Method.
• Pruhler explained that their mission was part of a competition to suppress the awakened Eastern dragon, and Byrne objected to sabotaging the Strategic Affairs Department instead of cooperating against external threats.
• Pruhler revealed that Zaren had joined the operation, prompting Byrne to question their principles.
• Luo Yan reviewed drone and Black Nothingness scouts' cave survey, which showed branching tunnels, underground creatures, and a sleeping three-headed Strange Bear.
• Luo Yan concluded that the cave had no major safety hazards and said they should set out.

Luo Yan led the convoy through a vast cave filled with unusual formations and hostile creatures. After he destroyed one animated Faceless Stone Statue, the other statues hanging from the ceiling came alive and attacked the convoy.

• Jia Miao explained that the cave’s smooth rock terraces had likely formed through water dissolving carbonate rock, though the cave was now dry.
• The convoy fought off swarms of Fish-insects as it traveled through the cave, while wingless batlike creatures hid in cracks.
• Luo Yan spotted a Faceless Stone Statue bound upside down behind a stalactite and warned the convoy to be careful.
• A hanging statue reached down toward a soldier, and Luo Yan used Yao Yuan’s longsword to shatter it.
• The other hanging Faceless Stone Statues began reaching for the convoy, and some fell, stood up, or crawled toward the vehicles.

The Exploration team fought through the Faceless Stone Statues and discovered Golden Thread Worms were animating them. Luo Yan found the Worm King in an underground hall and set off alone to kill it, leaving Bai? to defend the team.

• Zhang Tianyi and Yang Kui found that beheading or breaking the Faceless Stone Statues did not stop them, while conventional gunfire blasted them apart.
• Luo Yan discovered Golden Thread Worms inside the statues and learned they could be killed with high temperatures, so he warned the team to use flames.
• Jia Miao identified the worms and explained that killing their Worm King would make the colony scatter.
• Luo Yan used his Golden Eyes of Enlightenment to locate the Worm King, a massive creature with a woman's face and human limbs, in an underground hall.
• Luo Yan told Bai? to remain with the team, then flew toward the Worm King, cutting through the statues in his path.

Luo Yan piloted Yao Yuan through a cave and found the Worm King in a vast underground hall. After the Worm King summoned powerful Faceless Stone Statues and attacked with Primal Energy, Luo Yan destroyed them and the Worm King, revealing a mass of silver radiance beneath its stone platform.

• Luo Yan guided Yao Yuan through the cave, burning the Golden Thread Worms in its Faceless Stone Statues and opening a massive stone door.
• Luo Yan entered the underground hall and found the golden Worm King on a stone platform.
• The Worm King hurled a Primal Energy spear at Yao Yuan, but Luo Yan blocked it with the Xuanwu greatshield.
• The Worm King summoned powerful Faceless Stone Statues, which attacked Yao Yuan with Mystic Arts and elemental strikes.
• Luo Yan used Bloody Wind and Rain to destroy the statues and reduce the Worm King and its platform to powder.
• A mass of silver radiance rolled out from beneath the destroyed platform and came to a stop.

After killing the Golden Thread Worm King, Luo Yan found a Tai-Su Stone and regrouped with the Exploration team. Lin Wei explained that Divine Mechs were made from the living shells of gods, while Mystic Machines and Demon Mechs used preserved corpses, leaving the team wondering whether the Ruins’ ancient inhabitants had once lived on their land.

• Luo Yan found a Tai-Su Stone where he had killed the Golden Thread Worm King and stored it away.
• Bai? told Luo Yan that the Faceless Stone Statues had stopped moving and the Golden Thread Worms had fled into the rocks.
• The Exploration team made a lighted camp in the cavern hall as the rocks’ radiance dimmed.
• Lin Wei explained that Divine Remnants were the living shells of gods, whose preserved divine paths powered Divine Mechs.
• Lin Wei said Mystic Machines used Ancient People corpses and Demon Mechs used enormous alien creatures, prompting Bai? to ask whether the ancient people had been giants who lived on their land.

Lin Wei explained how the three worlds came to be and how discoveries in the Ruins led to the creation of mechs capable of fighting Giant Beasts. After she left, Bai? and Luo Yan reflected on humanity inheriting hope from the Ancient People and passing it on to future generations.

• Lin Wei described the ancient conflict that split the original world into Yanfu, the Ruins, and the Mortal World, and said fear of Mei Ba may have stopped the Divine Lord and Human Lord from destroying their enemies.
• Lin Wei explained that the Ancient People predicted Yanfu would return as the Primordial Tent weakened, and that the Ruins held a weapon for later generations to resist it.
• Lin Wei recounted how explorers combined the Ancient People's puppet-refining technique with modern technology to create early mechs that could use Primal Energy.
• Lin Wei said decades of improvements produced modern mechs capable of fighting Giant Beasts and heavenly ghosts, and credited the Ruins with helping humanity survive.
• After Lin Wei left, Bai? said humanity had been saved by the Ancient People's legacy, and Luo Yan told her that each generation passed hope and wealth to the next.

Bane learned that Zaren had escaped into the darkness of the Return to Ruins, where Zaren’s wilderness instincts helped him evade danger. A spatial distortion transported Zaren to a vast, deserted Ancient Eastern City, and he wondered whether the threat that drove its inhabitants away still remained.

• Bane heard from Colonel Pruhler that Zaren had escaped, but he refused to pursue him through the darkness.
• Zaren used his Dark Vision and instincts to travel through Zone 22, avoiding a Mutated Plant that attacked him.
• A spatial distortion transported Zaren from the wilderness to a vast, dark Ancient Eastern City.
• Zaren explored a residence filled with enormous household objects and signs of ordinary life, but found no people.
• Zaren wondered what had forced the city’s inhabitants to flee and whether the danger still lingered there.

Luo Yan’s Exploration team emerged from the cave into a vast primeval forest and followed clues toward the Sacrificial Ground. After surviving a dangerous encounter and discovering Guixu’s strange creatures and plants, they reached the Sky-Piercing Ancient Tree near nightfall.

• Luo Yan led the team through a cave where they found the remains of Ancient People who had apparently died while digging the passage.
• Luo Yan and the team emerged into a primeval forest, and Jia Miao identified the Sky-Piercing Ancient Tree as a landmark leading toward the Sacrificial Ground.
• Luo Yan spotted a towering golden tree that matched the inscriptions’ description and sent its coordinates to the team.
• The team traveled through the forest, where Yao Yuan killed a crocodile-serpent that attacked them at a pool, and they encountered numerous strange creatures and plants.
• Luo Yan led the team away from the unsafe pool and continued toward the ancient tree, reaching its open woodland area near dark.

Luo Yan and the Exploration team reached a colossal golden ancient tree that stored immense Primal Energy, and Lin Wei explained Guixu’s research value and her reasons for cultivating. A Golden Winged Great Peng attacked the group, but Guo Simin’s mecha shot it down.

• Luo Yan examined the golden ancient tree and saw that its roots absorbed Primal Energy while its body contained an enormous reserve of it.
• Lin Wei told Luo Yan that Guixu’s plants and animals stored Primal Energy but could not survive outside it, and she described her research and cultivation plans.
• Luo Yan spotted something diving from the tree and warned the Exploration team to prepare for danger.
• A Golden Winged Great Peng swept down, sending people tumbling with its wingbeat and grabbing a car.
• Guo Simin fired from her mecha and blasted the Peng Bird back in a burst of Blood Mist.

The Exploration team fought off a flock of golden Peng Birds near the Golden Giant Tree. In an ancient capital, Zaren followed a mysterious call into a tower and discovered signs of living creatures below, where something approached him in the darkness.

• Luo Yan warned Bai? and the Exploration team that more Peng Birds were diving from the trees, and the squads counterattacked under Luo Yan and Bai?’s commands.
• Murong Xuan, Li Yuqing, Yang Kui, Zhang Tianyi, Xia Yan, Guo Simin, Liu Xiaohui, and Mao Miaomiao used their abilities to battle the Peng Birds and protect their allies.
• The Peng Birds were killed or driven away, and the Golden Giant Tree’s light faded as night fell.
• Zaren followed an invisible guidance through the ancient capital to a tower, where he heard chains and a beast breathing below the floor.
• Zaren found a staircase and passed through an iron-barred gate into a vast underground space filled with giant bones.
• Zaren heard chains clatter and smelled a strong gamey odor as something approached him in the darkness.

Zaren summoned Artemis’s Holy Projection and won the submission of a rotting Man-faced Tiger. Meanwhile, Bane and Colonel Pruhler prepared to continue their operation, while Luo Yan’s Exploration team crossed the primeval forest and reached its edge.

• Zaren summoned Artemis, whose Holy Projection let him understand the Man-faced Tiger’s plea for help, and demanded that it submit to him.
• The Man-faced Tiger bowed before Artemis’s projection and submitted to Zaren.
• Bane learned that Colonel Pruhler had repaired two damaged war chariots with Hephaestus’s Holy Projection, and the two prepared to continue their operation without Zaren.
• Luo Yan’s Exploration team left the Sky-Piercing Ancient Tree and followed Jia Miao’s mapped route through the primeval forest.
• Luo Yan and the team encountered suspended coffins containing strange insects, bone-filled pits, and trees infested with Giant Roundworms.
• Luo Yan discovered that the team had reached the forest’s edge and would be able to leave the next day.

While standing watch, Luo Yan spotted a spatial distortion and warned the camp as Zaren arrived riding a corrupted Giant Tiger. Luo Yan identified the beast as a Young Kai-Ming Beast, but its Gray Mist overwhelmed his attacks, leaving the camp’s barriers under assault.

• Bai? told Luo Yan she could not sleep because she was anxious about the Sacrificial Ground, and they shared memories of surviving on the surface.
• Luo Yan detected a distortion in space, raised the alarm, and the camp’s teams prepared their mechas.
• Zaren emerged from the distortion atop a chained, rotting Giant Tiger and sent it charging toward the camp.
• Luo Yan attacked with Solar Term Sword Light, but the Giant Tiger’s corrosive Gray Mist consumed the sword light.
• Luo Yan identified the beast as a parasitized Young Kai-Ming Beast, and Li Yuqing and Mao Miaomiao raised Mystic Arts barriers against its Gray Mist.
• The Young Kai-Ming Beast burst through the Gray Mist and slammed into the barriers.

Luo Yan's team defeated Zaren's Young Kai-Ming Beast clones and identified him as a dangerous former Wings of Nature officer who had infiltrated Zone 22. Rather than pursue him, Luo Yan proposed using the conflict between Zaren and his former organization to set a trap.

• Zhang Tianyi, Yang Kui, Mao Miaomiao, Murong Xuan, and Liu Xiaohui helped defeat the Young Kai-Ming Beast clones that attacked the convoy.
• Zaren fled with the chained Young Kai-Ming Beast after warning that Colonel Pruhler and Captain Byrne would arrive, and Luo Yan told Zhang Tianyi not to pursue them.
• Lin Wei identified Zaren as a former Wings of Nature officer and fourth-order Transcendent who served Artemis and had been imprisoned in the Ruins.
• Bai? suspected that Captain Byrne was the Transcendent who had fought Luo Yan at the previous year's school anniversary, and Lin Wei confirmed it.
• Luo Yan concluded that Freedom Wings had infiltrated Zone 22 and proposed a trap that would make Zaren and his former organization fight each other.

After becoming God's Emissary, Zaren endured the Whispers of the Gods and watched the Strategic Affairs Department ambush Freedom Wings. Colonel Pruhler and Baine blamed Zaren for revealing their location and decided to eliminate him, while their forces discovered where he was hiding.

• Zaren heard the Whispers of the Gods, hurt himself to silence them, and told the Young Kai-Ming Beast that the voices had begun after he became God's Emissary.
• Zaren took the Young Kai-Ming Beast to watch Colonel Pruhler's group, while strange infant-faced insects emerged from the beast's ears and cried in the forest.
• The Strategic Affairs Department's mechs ambushed the Freedom Wings convoy with gunfire and missiles as Zaren watched from a distance.
• Colonel Pruhler played intercepted communications suggesting Zaren had betrayed Freedom Wings to the Strategic Affairs Department in exchange for protection.
• Baine warned that the attack might be a trap, but Colonel Pruhler insisted they had to eliminate Zaren and then announced that his location had been found.

Zaren was caught between Bayne and Pruhler after their coordinated attack, while Luo Yan’s Exploration team searched a valley for the Sacrificial Ground. The chapter left Zaren fighting for survival and the team investigating a discovery inside an ancient temple.

• Zaren spotted a silent drone, destroyed it, and dodged a sniper shot before Pruhler confronted him in a thruster-powered vehicle.
• Bayne used Kuller’s time power to appear before Zaren, while Pruhler attacked from the other side with Hephaestus’s flaming hammer.
• Luo Yan’s Exploration team entered a vast valley, found ancient structures, and rested at a temple discovered at the ninth bend in the trail.
• Luo Yan wondered whether the Young Kai-Ming Beast had been caught in the clash between Freedom Wings and Zaren, then asked Lin Wei about Kai-Ming Beasts and the Galling Worm.
• Jia Miao and the scholars discovered something on the temple’s left wall, and Luo Yan and Lin Wei went to inspect it.

Luo Yan and the scholars discovered a mural depicting ghost-faced moths and baby-faced leeches causing a catastrophe, then identified a specimen sealed in crystal as a Galling Worm larva. The group learned it could nest in a host’s brain and influence its thoughts, while a scholar found that someone had deliberately sealed the specimen for preservation.

• Luo Yan and the scholars examined a mural showing ghost-faced moths releasing baby-faced leeches that parasitized humans and beasts.
• Jia Miao and Lin Wei warned that the insects might still exist in the Sacrificial Ground, and Luo Yan connected them to the Young Kai-Ming Beast’s parasite.
• A scholar discovered that one baby-faced leech on the wall was a specimen sealed inside crystal.
• Luo Yan used Divine Treasure to identify the specimen as a Galling Worm, the larva of a Ghost-faced Demonic Moth that nested in hosts’ brains and influenced their thoughts and behavior.
• A scholar removed the crystal and found signs that someone had sealed it around the Galling Worm to preserve it.

Luo Yan destroyed a living Galling Worm before the Strategic Affairs Department’s Exploration team continued toward the Dragon Path. That night, Freedom Wings soldiers accidentally released another Galling Worm in the ancient temple, and it pounced onto George as Pruhler and Byrne arrived.

• Luo Yan burned the cracked crystal and the Galling Worm inside it with Southern Bright Leaving Fire, and Jia Miao ordered the team to resume its search after a short rest.
• Pruhler and Byrne brought Freedom Wings to the ancient temple, where Pruhler warned that worms might be present after inspecting a mural depicting a disaster.
• George found a crystal specimen containing a shriveled Galling Worm, and the soldiers broke it while fighting over it.
• The Galling Worm opened its eyes and pounced onto George’s face, drawing Pruhler and Byrne to the scene.
• Pruhler reacted to the worm, while Byrne looked toward the mural and gasped.

After a Galling Worm killed George, Bai En and Colonel Pruhler destroyed it and warned their soldiers to stay alert in Guixu. The next day, the Exploration team fought off Fire Rats and found another ancient temple, where Doctor Jia and the others uncovered clues about the Dragon Path.

• The Galling Worm entered George through his mouth, parasitized his brain, and killed him.
• The medic opened George's skull, and the Galling Worm attacked before Bai En and Colonel Pruhler destroyed it with gunfire and fire.
• Before dawn, Bai En and Colonel Pruhler heard gunshots and saw flames in the valley, where giant Fire Rats had attacked the Exploration team.
• Bai? used Hei Wu to detect the Fire Rats and alert the team, which drove them off after killing several.
• Lin Wei identified the Fire Rats, and the team harvested their pelts before continuing through the valley.
• The Exploration team discovered a second ancient temple, where Doctor Jia and the others found clues about the Dragon Path.