Chapter Summaries

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.

William and Catherine fought the regenerating Boss until the Observer and Expediter detectives arrived and sealed the shrine. The Boss escaped, and the detectives agreed to help William and Catherine leave the county seat by train.

• Catherine's attack on the shrine was repelled, tearing off one of her tentacles, while its red light caused the Boss's scattered flesh to regenerate.
• William and Catherine broke up the flesh and threw some out the window, but the Boss reassembled and attacked them with her abdomen maw.
• The Expediter detective emerged from the Boss's body and helped William tear her apart, while the Observer detective sealed Guanyin the Child-Giver with a talisman.
• The detectives discovered that the Boss had escaped and boarded a taxi with a newborn made of stitched flesh, whose ornament was another idol.
• The Observer detective thanked William and Catherine, agreed not to pursue them, and offered to help them board a train after William asked about news from three years earlier.

William and his companions learned about Yi Chen, the Undying Murderer, and the Forbidden Idol linked to his apparent immortality while traveling to the railway station. After they boarded a train, the detectives discovered that William had taken an idol from the shrine, but The Observer chose not to pursue them.

• The Observer told William how he had once encountered a shadow he believed was Yi Chen and described rumors that the murderer targeted people with malice.
• William asked about Yi Chen’s death and the source of his undying trait, and The Observer said the relevant divine vessel was likely a state-controlled Forbidden Idol.
• The detectives gave William and his companions four train tickets, and the group boarded a train and locked themselves in their compartment.
• Fangfang took Guanyin the Child-Giver from a children’s schoolbag as the train began moving.
• The Observer and The Expediter found that the idol had vanished from the shrine and discovered William’s note saying he had borrowed it.
• The Observer declined to chase William, deciding the group did not seem likely to cause trouble.

William, Catherine, and Xiao Fang traveled toward Linghai City with the stolen Guanyin the Child-Giver idol sealed in a backpack, and discussed how they might restore Catherine’s Nightmare Ability or return home. That night, a monstrous infant emerged from a pregnant woman in an adjoining carriage and crawled toward them.

• Xiao Fang explained that the yellow talisman suppressed the consecrated idol, which William and Catherine had stolen from the detectives, and put it away safely.
• William revealed that he had arranged tickets to the coastal city of Linghai, where they hoped the sea or a sea deity might help Catherine regain her Nightmare Ability.
• Catherine worried about the danger of staying in the New World, while William warned that encountering Yi Chen there could get them killed.
• After the train passed several stations without the police searching for them, the group relaxed for the night.
• A pregnant woman dreamed that Guanyin the Child-Giver touched her belly, then woke to find her water had broken.
• A blood-covered monstrous infant crawled out of the woman, bit through its umbilical cord, and headed toward the adjacent carriage.

William’s attempt to contain Guanyin the Child-Giver’s statue failed when a blood infant destroyed its seal, triggering pregnancy-related effects throughout the train. He forced the statue into the abyss, where a dark disease corrupted it and its deity, leaving Guanyin the Child-Giver to quarantine infected believers and warn other domains.

• William awoke from a nightmare and found Guanyin the Child-Giver’s statue glowing as its yellow paper seal began to fail.
• A blood infant appeared in the train corridor, then exploded in Catherine’s tentacles after she caught it near the statue, destroying one of her tentacles and breaking the seal.
• The unsealed statue’s red radiation caused women and pregnant passengers throughout the train to suffer severe reactions, so William grabbed it and chose to use his self-digestion plan.
• William endured the statue’s influence and punched it into the abyss, where a tentacle pulled him back from falling off the train.
• A dark existence in the abyss infected the statue with a dark disease, corrupting it and causing its corresponding deity to sever its connection and isolate infected believers.
• Guanyin the Child-Giver recognized the source of the outbreak and reported the disease to the other domains.

After absorbing the Child-Giving Guanyin idol, William recovered somewhat, but he and Catherine fled Linghai City’s sudden blood inspections with Xiao Fang’s help. William spotted a mysterious Yellow-Clad Person watching him, then lingered in the city to eat fried chicken and soda before noticing another idol in the restaurant.

• William woke on the train and learned that his body had changed after digesting the idol, while Catherine described what had happened during his sleep.
• William, Catherine, and Xiao Fang avoided the disease inspection at Linghai City station by slipping through a Safety Passage and escaping through an office window.
• William spotted a Yellow-Clad Person staring at him from the station exit, and the stranger vanished when police passed in front of him.
• William chose to linger nearby with Catherine and entered a fast-food restaurant, where Catherine enthusiastically ate fried chicken and drank soda.
• Catherine noticed a Human-Chicken Idol displayed behind the counter, and William looked toward it.

After officials failed to identify the source of the train’s Fertility Incident, Linghai City began citywide quarantine inspections alongside an investigation into a mysterious series of murders. William, Catherine, and the others found an unlicensed driver willing to take them toward the sealed-off Flower Sea Village, and began the trip by back roads.

• City officials ordered weeklong quarantine inspections after the train station screenings found no carriers, and agreed to have the Health Bureau assist with the serial murder investigation.
• William waited in a fried-chicken shop for the Yellow-Clad Person, then noticed quarantine checks spreading across the city and decided to head for the coast.
• A taxi driver explained that Flower Sea Village had been sealed off after visitors allegedly angered the Sea God and died.
• William hired an unlicensed driver to take the group to Flower Sea Village by mountain roads and village paths.
• Catherine drank soda in the car and calmed down after the driver repeatedly glanced at her.

William, Catherine, and Fangfang entered Flower Sea Village, where pollen from its strange flowers infected their driver and drove him to his death. After arriving, they headed toward a guesthouse, and Catherine urged William to let the local Boss's Wife help them learn what was happening.

• William learned from the unlicensed taxi driver that Flower Sea Village's year-round jacaranda blooms were linked to a Sea God and that visitors had been dying there.
• The driver saw a white-dressed woman with blue flowers in place of eyes beside the mountain road, then later showed signs of being infected by pollen.
• William and Catherine formed protective membranes inside their faces to avoid inhaling pollen, while Fangfang appeared unaffected.
• The flower-covered driver dropped William, Catherine, and Fangfang at Flower Sea Village, then drove his car into the sea.
• After investigators arrived in response to the crash, the three hurried toward the other side of the village, where the Boss's Wife beckoned them into her guesthouse.
• Catherine grabbed William and suggested they get a room so the locals could explain what was happening.

William, Catherine, and Fangfang hid in Flower Sea Village while investigating its strange worship and disappearances. The Boss's Wife explained the village's rules and revealed her hostility toward the city investigators, whose presence left William suspecting that she was not entirely human.

• Fangfang paid the Boss's Wife to shelter the group and explained that she had gathered money from abandoned belongings and the doomed driver's possessions.
• William asked Fangfang what she would do if he and Catherine left, and Fangfang said she planned to return to her parents and live independently.
• Catherine sensed a heavy stench of corpses around the flower-covered sea and suspected that a huge corpse lay underwater, receiving human sacrifices.
• At lunch, William and Catherine learned that the Boss's Wife kept a shrine to the Flower Sea Buddha Mother, whose village rules controlled the population, villagers' movements, and leadership.
• The Boss's Wife said villagers had willingly drowned themselves to appease the Buddha Mother after tourists disturbed the Main Idol, then threatened the investigators as seawater began seeping from her body.

William questioned the Boss's Wife about the village chief and the Main Idol, then followed her to the beach, where she tried to sacrifice him to the sea. He resisted with the Abyss's power and destroyed her and the drowned corpses, leaving the village's response unknown.

• The Boss's Wife told William that the village chief had served seven terms, lived underwater, and rarely met outsiders, while the Main Idol was kept in a cave outside the village.
• William considered the risks and potential benefits of Catherine absorbing the Main Idol, and reflected on how he had begun to understand the Abyss within him.
• The Boss's Wife invited William to the beach after the investigators changed shifts, and Catherine stayed behind while he went with her.
• At the shore, the Boss's Wife embraced William and sang a hypnotic ballad that roused flower-eyed corpses from the sea to drag him in as a sacrifice.
• William resisted the song, used the Abyss's spiraling force to break free, and killed the Boss's Wife and the drowned corpses with a shoulder throw.

Catherine absorbed the replica idol and used its connection to locate the Main Idol, leading William and Xiao Fang to a sealed cave beyond Flower Sea Village. Xiao Fang lured away the investigators so William and Catherine could enter, where William realized the villagers had sealed the cave to restrain the Flower Sea Buddha Mother while exploiting its power.

• Catherine smashed and ate the replica idol, gaining new power and sensing the Main Idol's direction.
• William and Catherine followed the investigators toward the cave, and Xiao Fang joined their rooftop journey.
• Catherine led William and Xiao Fang through the talisman-covered forest to the cave guarded by four investigators.
• Xiao Fang drew the investigators into the forest, letting William and Catherine slip past the cave's ropes and talismans.
• William and Catherine entered the cave and found that the villagers feared the Flower Sea Buddha Mother while seeking to benefit from its divinity.