Recaps

William prepared for Black Roundworm Company's Gu Experiment by spending three days immersed in black roundworms, while Regan joined the company as an external cooperative researcher. The experiment began with William entering the laboratory, where he learned its severe conditions and eagerly agreed to proceed.

• Regan demonstrated his knowledge and became Black Roundworm Company's external cooperative researcher, gaining access to its technology and equipment.
• William spent three days and nights fasting in a bathhouse pool with black roundworms and learned to guide their movements through their instincts.
• Orlena found William calmly surrounded by circling roundworms and told him the Gu Experiment was ready.
• Regan went to observe the experiment and found Boss there, who explained that it was a purification method based on the Parasitic Main Nest's advancement ritual.
• William passed the laboratory's identity checks and body scan, and Charlie Herbert explained that the ten-day experiment would inject at least ten million parasite eggs into him and prohibit food, excretion, and affliction use.
• William eagerly agreed to begin the experiment despite the promised discomfort and compensation fee for quitting.

Black Roundworm Company invited William to undergo its Gu Experiment, implanting millions of parasite eggs in him to test whether he could become a Perfect Parasite. Instead of fighting to the death, the larvae began orbiting his Abyssal Cavity in an orderly pattern, leaving President Byrne and the researchers astonished.

• The chapter explained how the Parasitic Main Nest used host-selection contests and how Black Roundworm Company adapted that approach into the Gu Experiment, which preserved the vessel’s consciousness.
• President Byrne invited William to take part in the experiment, hoping to establish a lasting connection between him and the company.
• After passing the examinations, William allowed the Mother Entity to implant parasite eggs throughout his body and calmly began meditating in the laboratory.
• The larvae hatched early with a 99.7 percent survival rate, while William showed no visible physical or emotional reaction.
• A researcher discovered that the larvae orbited William’s Abyssal Cavity in orderly, periodic paths, and the resulting footage resembled a cosmic star chart.
• Days passed without the parasites fighting or dying, and President Byrne devoted much of his time to observing the experiment.

William used Black Roundworm Company's Gu Experiment to connect the parasites with the starry sky and the Tenth Abyss, developing a new ability. After vanishing into his Abyssal Cavity, he returned with the power he named Abyssal Parasitism.

• William used the ten million roundworm larvae as a medium to explore the Tenth Abyss while entering deep-space meditation.
• On Day Seven, Charlie noticed that the larvae were converging on William's Abyssal Cavity and that their body segments formed the character for madness.
• President Byrne refused to stop the experiment, and later told Regan that William had planned to use the larvae for his own purposes.
• Byrne recalled how he had once left the Parasitic Main Nest to find a compatible host and eventually became the Protozoon of Hallownest.
• On the eleventh day, the last larvae disappeared into William's Abyssal Cavity, and William crawled inside and vanished from the laboratory.
• William emerged from the cavity and revealed that he had developed Abyssal Parasitism, which let him use the cavity to travel through the depths of space.

The Tenth Abyss descended on Black Gu headquarters after William’s Abyssal experiments, then withdrew after warning him about unauthorized cultivation. William offered President Bourne seven Black Gu fused with the Abyss, and suggested using them to develop a new line of business.

• Redundant Intestine Company’s president sensed the Abyss near Black Gu headquarters and ordered a first-level alert, suspending trade routes and summoning senior personnel.
• The Tenth Abyss emerged from William, sealed the Gu Experiment laboratory in darkness, and triggered a researcher’s dangerous replication reaction when he touched the Black Curtain.
• Regan recognized the darkness as the Abyss and concluded that the Source Plague Zones might soon besiege it.
• The Tenth Abyss touched William, reprimanded him for opening an unauthorized Abyss Affliction, and told him to consult first before further Abyssal cultivation.
• After the darkness vanished, Bourne assured Redundant Intestine Company that the crisis was over and agreed to cooperate with Lupu investigators.
• William gave Bourne seven Black Gu that had survived and fused with the Tenth Abyss’s Affliction, then proposed recruiting external members to study with the Abyss.

William returned to the circus after his leave, having discovered that his new Abyssal Parasitism could take him through subspace to the Circus Tent. He told the Boss that he had killed Glid, and left their conversation resolved to work toward gaining the power to fuse with the New Moon Patient as he encountered a changed Catherine.

• President Bern assigned the seven Abyssal Roundworms to branches outside the city, and William said goodbye to him, Orlena, Regan, and Fei before leaving Black Roundworm Company.
• On the train, William used Abyssal Parasitism to enter subspace and followed his connection as Chief Actor to find the Circus Tent, which pulled him inside.
• William told the Boss that he had killed Glid, and the Boss said the feat came from William and the crescent moon rather than luck or Glid's greed.
• The Boss praised William's success and promised another leave if he performed well, while urging him to use his Abyssal Characteristic against the Bloodfolk.
• William met Catherine in the circus passage; she wore a new leather outfit, carried a whip, and warned him to focus on his performance.

William reflected on Catherine’s growing malignancy and discussed her situation with Yi Chen, who warned him against trying to reconcile with her through an apology or gift. William returned to the Acrobatic Troupe, where he found Nash had renovated his theater and Thirteen was helping organize his office.

• William concluded that Catherine’s rapid growth was tied to malignancy and worried that his arrival had disrupted her balance.
• Yi Chen explained that Catherine’s interest in William had turned into resentment as he advanced, and predicted she wanted to surpass him.
• Yi Chen advised William not to apologize or offer a gift, while praising Catherine’s new path; William decided to consider how to address the situation later.
• William returned to the Acrobatic Troupe and found that Nash had rebuilt the theater entrance and decorated the approach with sculptures of William’s heads.
• Nash apologized for not greeting William, then reported that the renovation and inspection documents were ready and that Thirteen had designed the lighting and was organizing William’s office.

William returned to the theater and saw how Nash and Thirteen had transformed it, then privately tasked Nash with meeting the Black Roundworm Company boss and secretly investigating Catherine. Nash agreed to handle both requests.

• William inspected the theater lobby and auditorium, praising the renovations Nash and Thirteen had made.
• William admired Nash's library-like office and praised Thirteen's new appearance and work.
• William showed Nash a surviving spatial black roundworm and explained that the former Protozoon of Hallownest wanted to meet him.
• Nash agreed to meet the Black Roundworm Company boss on William's behalf when convenient.
• William asked Nash to investigate Catherine without being discovered, and Nash agreed to try approaching Clown House.

Nash took a dangerous mission to investigate Catherine by disguising himself as a Poker Face and infiltrating the Clown House. He reached Catherine’s newly built Deep Sea Pool, where she nearly exposed him, and he left the encounter sweating with fear.

• Nash injected himself with a parasite-activating substance and learned that Catherine was building a seawater pool at her factory.
• Nash tried to parasitize Poker Faces working on the pool but found that nightmares had affected their brains, so he waited until morning and took control of Heart 4.
• Nash entered Catherine’s factory with the construction team and saw her emerge from the Deep Sea Pool in a mermaid-like form.
• Catherine licked Heart 4’s face and questioned his discomfort with the deep sea, but Nash blamed it on an old attack by a large fish.
• Catherine returned in clown makeup, made Heart 4 swallow a smoking tentacle, and left after checking that he seemed well; Nash feared she had nearly exposed him.

Nash investigated Catherine at the Deep Sea Pool, where he discovered her connection to the Vibrio Sea and watched her use dream-sharing mannequins to harvest Dream Fluid. After Catherine exposed Nash’s identity, she told him to report that she would wait for William at the pool, warning that it might be dangerous.

• Nash observed the Deep Sea Pool and deduced that Catherine had brought deep-sea water from the Vibrio Sea.
• Catherine rewarded the construction workers with Humanoid Mannequins that pierced their brains and shared dreams, allowing her to absorb their Dream Fluid.
• Catherine singled out Heart 4 and tried to seduce him, but Nash resisted, revealing his identity.
• At the Circus Public Plaza, Nash explained that he had come to investigate Catherine because he feared she had been affected by Art and might upset William.
• Catherine said she was embracing her evil nature and threatened to trample William, then told Nash to send him to meet her at the pool.

William prepared the theater’s first Formal Performance and learned that Catherine wanted to meet him at a pool in Clown House, but an invitation from Mr. Rabbit diverted him to the Rabbit Club. There, William’s body resonated with the Rabbit Men’s music until his Abyssal Cavity caused a painful loss of control, and Mr. Rabbit beckoned him farther inside.

• Nash confessed that Catherine had exposed him during his investigation, offered his resignation and torture implements, and relayed her invitation for William to meet her at Clown House’s swimming pool.
• William told Nash he would visit Catherine, then left the theater to investigate her connection to the deep sea.
• A Rabbit Man invited William to the Rabbit Club, and William followed him through its unusual gate.
• The Rabbit Men’s muscle band drew William into a powerful bodily rhythm that seemed to connect his body with the abyss.
• William’s Abyssal Cavity contracted painfully, and Mr. Rabbit examined his body before signaling him to follow.

William visited Mr. Rabbit's muscle-built mansion and asked for guidance in training his body and understanding the Abyss within him. Mr. Rabbit offered to train him under demanding Rabbit Man standards, leaving William ready to try a day of training.

• Mr. Rabbit brought William into the Bunny Castle Club, where William struggled to imitate Mr. Rabbit's punishing stride.
• A fortune rabbit interpreted as Mr. Rabbit welcomed William to his pink-decorated office and discussed William's lack of recent physical training.
• William told Mr. Rabbit that Zede remained in the human city and that his teacher might join the circus after handling affairs there.
• Mr. Rabbit explained that William's Abyss responded to movement but that William could not find its rhythm without music.
• William agreed to try training with Mr. Rabbit, who described six training areas and warned that the daily regimen would require at least twelve hours.

William entered the club’s Music Dance Room and let Yi Chen take over to play its human-body piano, hoping to learn how the body and the Abyss might be connected. Yi Chen mastered the Rabbit Men’s rhythm training and William studied the body’s response, especially the Abyssal Cavity.

• William drew wrestling and music and dance, then chose to visit the Music Dance Room first.
• William selected the piano, and Yi Chen took over after warning the Rabbit Men with a deathly aura.
• Yi Chen played “Clair de Lune,” startling the Rabbit Men with his intense interpretation of death and slaughter.
• The lead Rabbit Man explained that rhythm required every muscle group and cell to move in time with the music.
• Yi Chen learned to match his bodily movements to the Rabbit Men’s energetic piece, while William examined the Abyssal Cavity for signs of a connection.

William observed the Abyssal Cavity and found a possible connection between its contractions and the root of the disease. At the wrestling training area, he wrestled himself with Yi Chen’s help, survived a devastating move, and headed for the Clown House before the day ended.

• William told Yi Chen he had vaguely found a feeling after observing the Abyssal Cavity, then passed the Rabbit Men’s rhythm test with a score of 71.
• William entered the wrestling room, watched two Rabbit Men practice Mongolian Wrestling, and became eager to try it himself.
• William challenged Yi Chen to wrestle, and Yi Chen agreed despite warning that he might kill him.
• William spent six hours wrestling himself as Yi Chen threw him around, eventually using a move inspired by the abyss that shattered his brain and embedded him headfirst in the floor.
• William’s Death Substance restored his brain, and the Rabbit Men praised his dedication; after learning it was 23:30, William decided to visit the Clown House.

William visited Catherine late at night and found that her factory had become an eerily realistic beach, while Art remained sealed away in secluded cultivation. He joined Catherine by the pool as his abyss’s painful contractions briefly stabilized through rhythmic breathing.

• Mr. Rabbit observed William’s unusual performance at Rabbit Immortal Castle and considered how his talent might have made him a troupe leader.
• William’s abyss convulsed with soul-tearing pain on the roller coaster, but he steadied its contractions by matching his breathing to their rhythm.
• William found Art’s factory sealed by dangerous sausage-like locks and learned from Catherine’s mannequin servant that Art had been secluded for more than two months.
• William entered Catherine’s factory and recognized that her pool and ocean scene blurred the boundary between dream and reality.
• A wooden boat appeared before William at the shore, and a gentle voice urged him to climb aboard.

William followed Catherine into the deep sea, where he discovered an underwater laboratory and was captured by Fish Origin—Nashatar. After Nashatar transformed him into tiny fish that the imprisoned girls devoured, William recognized Catherine just as he began to awaken wrapped in tentacles.

• William examined the bacteria-filled seawater and recalled the Vibrio Sea, its dead Plague Lords, and Fish Origin’s danger.
• A blonde girl with six octopus tentacles approached William, and he used death to remove the barnacles parasitizing her injured tentacle.
• The girl summoned thousands of other octopus-bodied girls, and William followed them through a seafloor barrier into an underwater laboratory.
• William found a familiar black-haired girl in a cylindrical container, but Fish Origin—Nashatar attacked him and threw him into another container.
• Nashatar’s disease turned William into tiny, self-aware fish that the girls ate, and he remembered that the black-haired girl was Catherine.
• William awoke wrapped in wet tentacles as a feminine voice told him, “You’re awake, William.”

William spoke with Catherine in a nightmare about her escape from the Vibrio Sea and learned that the Giant Eye had made his dream dangerously real. Catherine asked him to retrieve high-Pathogen deep-sea water and Octopus Essence from her former laboratory, offering to guide him to the coast and obey him if he agreed.

• William realized Catherine’s nightmare had begun when he studied the factory pool, and Catherine explained that his exhaustion had left him vulnerable to it.
• Catherine’s tentacles removed the fish scales growing on William after the nightmare’s Giant Eye nearly killed him, and she said nightmares could become too chaotic for her to control.
• William recounted how he had encountered the Giant Eye during the Gentleman's Assessment, and Catherine identified it as one of Nashatar’s experimental creations.
• Catherine explained that a deep-sea upheaval damaged the laboratory and allowed a small group of experimental creations to escape, though most were captured or stayed behind.
• Catherine said she had escaped to land and hidden a seawater-condensing device in the Depths of the Cave, then asked William to retrieve deep-sea water rich in Pathogen and some Octopus Essence from the laboratory.

William and Catherine entered a nightmare together to explore the Black Sea, hoping it might contain what Catherine needed. The sea rejected them, and they woke bound and bandaged in a mental hospital.

• William warned that entering the Vibrio Sea would be too dangerous and suggested searching the Human World’s oceans instead.
• William proposed using Catherine’s Nightmare Ability and his memories to reach the Black Sea in a dream.
• Catherine agreed to begin immediately, and William asked Nash to look after the theater and sent a message to Mr. Rabbit.
• Catherine injected Nightmare essence into William as they sank into her pool and entered the dream together.
• William and Catherine emerged onto a boat in the Black Sea, where the sea destroyed the boat and erased their awareness.
• William and Catherine regained consciousness in a mental hospital, restrained in bandages.

William awoke in a Chinese hospital after being buried in a landslide and learned that he and Catherine were classified as Special Patients. As his strength slowly returned, the Female Doctor questioned him and kept a shrine beside his bed to suppress his abilities; Catherine arrived at night and urged him to escape.

• William woke unable to move, saw a vermilion shrine at the foot of his bed, and learned that the Female Doctor spoke Chinese.
• The Female Doctor told William that he and Catherine had been buried in a landslide and recovered nearly twenty days later, then explained the hospital treated them as Special Patients.
• William gradually regained consciousness and speech while the shrine continued to make him feel weak and breathless.
• The Female Doctor questioned William about his identity, past, and relationship with Catherine, then injected him with a sedative.
• Catherine slipped into William's room at night, splashed foul-smelling water on him, and urged him to escape before they died.

William and Catherine escaped their ward using the Abyss, then explored the strange Mental Hospital while trying to understand whether they had crossed into another world. They chose to climb the stairwell in search of an exit, with the hospital’s response to their escape still unknown.

• Catherine freed William and destroyed the shrine, restoring his alertness but leaving him without his diseases and Insane Brain; his Abyssal Structure remained.
• The Female Doctor found the damaged shrine, ordered a Level Three Alert, and sent Controllable Patients to search for William and Catherine.
• William used the Abyss to hide with Catherine, and they examined the statue’s strange flesh-and-tentacle structure while discussing whether the hospital was part of a dream or another world.
• William and Catherine left the ward, passed the disturbed patients, and rejected Catherine’s idea to start a riot.
• William decided the lower exit was likely locked, so he and Catherine held on to each other and began climbing the stairwell.

William and Catherine found that a patient had trapped them on one hospital floor by distorting the staircase and elevator. After William destroyed the statue suppressing her, the girl named Fangfang recovered and offered to lead them out.

• William and Catherine discovered that climbing the staircase and elevator shaft only returned them to the same floor.
• William concluded that a patient had sealed off the floor, and Catherine tracked a strange odor to the culprit’s ward.
• Catherine prepared to attack the faceless girl, but William stopped her and tried to learn why she had trapped them.
• The girl revealed a bleeding Flesh Cube embedded in her face, and William smashed the shrine and statue that were suppressing her.
• Fangfang recovered, thanked William and Catherine, and offered to guide them out of the locked-down hospital.

William, Catherine, and Fangfang reached the hospital rooftop after learning how the hospital’s idols restrained its patients, but the Female Doctor and her guards intercepted them. William knocked one guard aside and fell from the rooftop with Catherine and Fangfang in an attempt to escape.

• Catherine questioned Fangfang about her magic-cube face, and Fangfang explained that a truck had crushed her head while a Consecrated Idol had kept her alive.
• Fangfang described how the hospital made its ward idols from patients’ brain tissue and used them to restrict and sedate patients.
• Fangfang led William and Catherine through the stairwell, using her magic cube to keep security from reaching them, and brought them to the rooftop.
• The Female Doctor confronted the group on the rooftop with two guards, and Catherine twisted one guard’s head while William struck the other.
• William pulled Catherine and Fangfang to the rooftop edge and fell with them.

William, Catherine, and Xiao Fang escaped the hospital and traveled toward Yuyuan County by hiding in a Shunbian Express truck. They arrived in the county disguised as a family and found a place to stay, but they still lacked identification and money.

• Catherine glided with William and Xiao Fang from the hospital rooftop into the woods, while the Female Doctor killed a security guard and left in a fury.
• William carried Xiao Fang through the forest as she sensed a city farther away than her home, and the three ran toward it together.
• After reaching a highway, William and Catherine climbed into a passing Shunbian Express truck and hid among its parcels.
• The three rummaged through the deliveries for clothes and phones, dressed themselves to avoid attention, and left many packages opened.
• The truck reached its Yuyuan County depot, where staff called the police about the damaged parcels, while William, Catherine, and Xiao Fang found lodging in a resettlement apartment complex.

William and Catherine hid in a hotel with Xiao Fang after escaping the hospital, while Yuyuan County police investigated a stolen shipment and tracked the fugitives. William spotted two suspicious detectives outside their room and prepared to flee.

• Yuyuan County detectives investigated the theft of a Shunbian Express shipment and ordered a high-priority search for the suspects.
• William bought supplies with money he had collected by pretending to be a stranded overseas businessman, then shared instant noodles with Catherine.
• William warned Catherine that the hotel owner and his family worshiped a shrine, and they agreed that one of them would stay awake.
• William considered how to return to the Old World and whether finding Yi Chen’s Death Idol could restore the power of death.
• After a storm blew open the window, William saw two black-trench-coated figures below and told Catherine to get ready to leave.
• Heavy footsteps stopped outside William and Catherine’s hotel-room door.

The Observer and the Expediter searched the hotel for a fugitive who had escaped by altering space, then investigated the hotel Boss and found a strange Guanyin idol in his home. A horrifyingly pregnant woman appeared behind them as they examined the shrine.

• The Observer and the Expediter found that the fugitive had escaped the target room through an open window, leaving steaming Instant Noodles, Octopus Mucus, and faint footprints behind.
• The Expediter recalled a three-year-old dismemberment case in the Urban Village, and the two detectives decided to investigate the hotel after sensing something suspicious in its stairwell.
• The detectives confronted the Boss and insisted on questioning him in his home, where they found a shrine to a grotesque, unclothed Guanyin idol.
• The Boss left to fetch a Guinness World Record certificate about his wife's pregnancy, while the Observer and the Expediter examined the shrine.
• A horrifyingly pregnant woman appeared at the doorway, her belly showing the outline of a child's face as it watched the detectives.

After Fangfang detected a supernatural incident at the Boss’s home, William and Catherine went to investigate while she stayed behind. William entered the room under the Boss’s invitation and, when a monstrous pregnant woman attacked him, tore her apart with his bare hands.

• William, Catherine, and Fangfang emerged from the abyss early after Fangfang became overwhelmed, and Fangfang sensed that the two Policemen had gone to the Boss’s home.
• A horrifying evil presence spread through the Cozy Hotel, and William chose to investigate while Catherine agreed to accompany him and Fangfang waited behind.
• William and Catherine found the Boss’s home quiet, then accepted the Boss’s invitation to enter and wait for ginger tea.
• While William stared at the Guanyin the Child-Giver idol, he noticed a huge, emaciated pregnant woman with a mouth full of fetal infants approaching him.
• William seized the creature’s belly-mouth and tore her apart, sending her shriek echoing through the Urban Village.