Chapter Summaries

William awakened Kexia from the Dreamscape and questioned her about Fish Origin’s plans for dream-based world travel. He left her to undergo Lorien’s modifications, while his doubts about Fish Origin’s motives remained unresolved.

• William woke Kexia in the clinic’s basement and gave her Instant Noodles to help her recover from the Dreamscape.
• Kexia recognized the noodles as real and asked William about Catherine, who he said had surpassed the Vibrio Sea and might visit the moon later.
• William learned from Kexia that Fish Origin was cultivating Octopus Girls to create dream passages and eventually invade another world.
• William questioned why Fish Origin was preparing a passage before the Vibrio Sea had recovered, warning that early attacks could provoke another purge.
• William told Kexia to cooperate with Lorien’s modifications, which might preserve her Self-Awareness and give her chaotic power.

William entered Lorien’s Chaos Tower to learn about his experiments and the new species he had developed. After surviving a disguised monster elevator and a Moon Beast that turned the hall into its mouth, William spared the creature and prepared to continue upstairs with the terrified nurse.

• William went to the Silver Moon Clinic to find Lorien’s chaotic-modification laboratory and learned from a Bandaged Nurse that Lorien worked in the restricted Chaos Tower.
• The nurse led William through a hidden passage on the Dark Side of the Moon into Chaos Tower, where Lorien researched chaotic beasts and created Moon Beasts.
• William and the nurse entered what appeared to be an elevator, but it was a monster’s mouth; William protected the nurse in his Abyssal Cavity and escaped through an abyssal hole.
• A Moon Beast transformed the hall into its mouth, but William struck the ceiling with his spiraling arm and tore it apart, stopping the attack.
• William spared the injured Moon Beast and suggested that he and the nurse take the stairs.

William and Lorien tested a new pharmaceutical method for modifying Deep Sea Patients, with William’s Instant Noodles improving the results only slightly. William then helped Little Nurse survive the medicine by imprinting her brain with madness, leaving her transformed and with a higher rating on the Academic Network.

• Lorien showed William and Little Nurse his pharmaceutical workshop and explained that the capsules were a developing method for modifying patients below the Source-Opening level.
• Lorien gave five Deep Sea Patients and Little Nurse Instant Noodles before having them take the capsules; William stopped Little Nurse until Lorien approved her waiting.
• The five Deep Sea Patients underwent violent transformations, and only two survived, one of whom might retain stable Self-Awareness.
• William proposed imprinting Little Nurse with the Mad Brain and stabilizing her transformation, and Lorien agreed.
• William carved the character for madness onto Little Nurse’s brain, and she took the capsule under his guidance.
• The imprint suppressed the chaos and helped Little Nurse transform successfully; her Academic Network rating rose from C+ to B+.

William helped Lorien create a chaotic Blood Cross nurse, but Lorien stopped him from removing the imprint that connected her to William. William later discussed his plans to attack the Abyssal Skin Factory with Deslin, who offered to help him recover before her future travels with him.

• William guided a nurse's chaotic transformation into a Blood Cross form and proposed establishing the Crimson Cross Society.
• William began erasing the Epilepsy Character Imprint from the nurse, but Lorien stopped him when her body started to collapse.
• Lorien took the nurse to the Basement to test whether she was more loyal to William or to him, while William privately trusted his Enlightenment's influence.
• Deslin told William she had finished analyzing the Moon's magnetic field, and William said he planned to attack the Abyssal Skin Factory soon.
• Deslin explained she would stay behind to share her observations with the Old World and create her child, then invited William to the bathroom to help him recover.

Lorien supervised the Little Nurse’s recovery and discussed forming a Blood Cross medical team with Fana, while Jessica explored the clinic. After Jessica joined William and Deslin in a star-filled meditation bath, they discovered chaotic matter had been purged from their bodies and suspected William had absorbed some.

• Fana found Lorien guarding the Little Nurse as she endured a six-hour soaking, then watched him comfort her after she relived William’s death in the Dreamscape.
• Lorien told Fana he planned to form a Blood Cross medical team and ordered her to cooperate with William rather than pursue independent research.
• Fana showed Lorien memories of Jessica’s medical techniques, and he told her to see whether Jessica could be persuaded to stay.
• Jessica returned to her quarters and found William and Deslin meditating in a bathtub filled with starlit water; touching it drew her consciousness into their meditation.
• When the three awoke, William pulled them from the tub after discovering its water had turned into bubbling chaotic sludge.
• Jessica suggested the chaos came from their Brain in a Vat experience or had been absorbed the previous day, and she and Deslin suspected William.

William completed the Chaotic Modification of Lorien’s medical team and established the Crimson Cross Society at the Silver Moon Clinic. Lorien raised the moon from the Silver Sea, and William chose to explore Middle-Earth before deciding whether to travel to the Old World.

• William learned that Jessica’s sweater was made from valuable yarn developed by the skin factory, and Jessica discovered a hidden yellowish substance in his suit.
• Lorien commissioned William to perform Epilepsy Character Imprints and Chaotic Modification on his medical team, requiring William to sign a contract protecting them from commands contrary to the moon’s will.
• William spent a week modifying over a hundred Bandaged Nurses, enduring repeated Star Granule Baths and several collapses while Jessica rescued him.
• Lorien officially established the Crimson Cross Society beside the Silver Moon Clinic and raised the moon from the sea, sending its silver water and Moon Beasts back inside it.
• William and Lorien traveled toward Zion City, while Deslin stayed behind and Jessica gave her a childhood tooth as a token.
• After Deslin left, Lorien offered to take the moon to the Old World in William’s Circus Tent, but William chose to explore Middle-Earth first.

William showed Lorien his autonomous Circus Tent and proposed a long-term partnership to combine their resources and gather Essence of Fear. They agreed to cooperate, aiming to claim authority in the new world formed after the World Infection, while Lorien postponed his own chaos integration until he had mastered Galon's world.

• William told Lorien that their journey to another world might draw attention from outside, then explained that they were visiting Middle-Earth to investigate.
• William used hair from the First Abyss to raise his Circus Tent, where Nash guided him and Lorien through the theater.
• William explained how performances could nourish participants with fear and offered Lorien a partnership that would connect the theater with his moon.
• William promised to bring in a surviving member of the Neisseria Ones to assist with Lorien's chaos research and argued that they should claim authority over the future New World.
• William and Lorien shook hands on their cooperation, and Lorien explained that he would delay chaos integration until he had mastered Galon's world.

William surveyed Middle-Earth and discovered that mysterious mountains blocked Lorien’s moonlight, drawing infected travelers toward them. He brought Lorien and their companions to nearby Rakavik Town to investigate Ill Mountain while posing as exiled sick ones.

• William saw that the gray zone covered Middle-Earth and that surviving populations had become infected, including a technologically advancing city controlled by Black Roundworm Company.
• Yellow Skin warned William that Abyssal Skin Factory had treated Zion as an experimental site and might enslave its people after World Infection.
• Lorien stopped the moon above mountains whose fog blocked the moonlight, and William decided they should investigate through nearby towns rather than approach directly.
• William chose Rakavik Town as their entry point and arranged to travel with Lorien, Nash, and Jessica while keeping their disease auras at the early Open Source level.
• The group arrived beneath a billboard advertising lodging, food, and guides for journeys to Ill Mountain, with each member dressed for their assumed role.

William and his group entered the diseased town of Rakavik and learned from Snail Woman about the dangers of Ill Mountain, its Flying Dragons, and the rumored Hidden Village. Despite the risks, they decided to set out that day, and Snail Woman agreed to accompany them so she could stay near Nash.

• William and his companions met Snail Woman, who offered lodging and information about Ill Mountain in exchange for Nash's company.
• Snail Woman led the group through Rakavik's interconnected buildings to a private room at Cloud Coffee.
• Snail Woman explained that Ill Mountain's Hidden Village was said to offer an unprecedented disease, while Flying Dragons and other dangers threatened visitors.
• William said the group would leave for Ill Mountain that day and invited Snail Woman to join them or accept payment.
• Snail Woman agreed to travel with the group after her encounter with Nash made her want to stay near him.

William and his companions entered Ill Mountain to investigate its unusual mist and the Flying Dragons, where an unknown tuberculosis-like pathogen infected them. As they climbed, they encountered a gigantic Lung Dragon flying toward them.

• Snail Woman drove William, Lorien, Nash, and Jessica the Dentist from Rakavik Town to Ill Mountain.
• The mountain mist infected William with a concealed tuberculosis-like bacterium that temporarily improved his breathing, and Jessica warned that it could affect their disease systems.
• William used Mad Brain to visualize and test the infection, then coughed out the dead bacteria; Nash and Lorien expelled theirs, while Snail Woman remained infected.
• William chose to leave Snail Woman infected, hoping it would help the group gain recognition from Ill Mountain.
• The group climbed through breathing mushrooms and trees, saw that the Flying Dragons were enormous flying lungs, and watched a Lung Dragon charge toward them.

William’s group subdued a Lung Dragon, used Jessica’s modified Tuberculosis Bacillus to pass as villagers, and rode it into the Hidden Village. They arrived above Lung Water Lake, the origin of tuberculosis and the heart of Ill Mountain, while the dragon warned them that the village was suspicious of outsiders.

• Snail Woman panicked when a Lung Dragon attacked, but Jessica injected the group and William subdued the dragon with forced indoctrination.
• The Lung Dragon revealed that it and its fellow heads were villagers undergoing Dragon Seeding, but refused to disclose secrets protected by a soul contract.
• Jessica modified infected fluid from the Lung Dragon and injected the group so they could meet the village’s Tuberculosis Bacillus standard.
• The Lung Dragon carried the group toward the Hidden Village, warning them to call for help if their disguises were exposed.
• The group saw the village built above a bubbling purple-black lake, and the Lung Dragon identified it as Lung Water Lake, the origin of tuberculosis and the heart of Ill Mountain.

William and his companions entered the Hidden Village, where a Silver Circle Diseased village chief offered them a path to meet the mysterious Lord beneath Lung Water Lake. The group chose to descend, and the chapter ended as the village chief revealed a passage at the lake’s bottom and urged them onward.

• William and his companions saw the villagers’ altered lungs and coughing practices, while Snail Woman coughed her lung out and recovered.
• An old villager led them to the village chief, who recognized Snail Woman’s externally placed lung and praised the group’s apparent devotion, unaware that Lorien’s illusion concealed their true actions.
• The village chief offered Dragon Seeding or a journey to Lung Water Lake to seek the Lord’s blessing and a True Lung, and the group chose the lake.
• At the lake, Nash drank the purple water while Lorien’s illusion made it appear that the others had done so too.
• The village chief beat his wings until a passage opened beneath the lake, then sent the group down to meet the Lord.

William and his companions entered the hidden Space Passage beneath the lake and found a sealed, ruined city filled with Lung Dragon Cultivators. After a powerful being in the Lung Temple recognized them as outsiders, they prepared for a confrontation.

• William persuaded Lorien that they should enter the passage rather than attack the village, and the group leaped into the lake together.
• Lorien's disappearance unsettled Doctor Fana and the Crimson Cross Society, who moved to suppress the disturbance in the Chaos Tower.
• The group emerged in a sealed space containing a ruined modern city enclosed by a purple barrier, and William lost his right arm after touching it.
• A Lung Dragon Cultivator mistook them for successful village challengers and escorted them toward the Lung Temple while Nash and Huang Pi sensed danger.
• As they reached the temple, a voice inside identified them as humans from an outer plane, and William and his companions assumed battle stances.

William and his companions met the ancient master of the Lung Temple, who tested William’s ability to withstand his Breathing Technique. Impressed by William’s survival, the master agreed to take them to the terrifying being at the city’s center.

• William and his companions entered the Lung Temple, where the master revealed that he was cultivating candidates to help kill something at the city’s center.
• William deduced that the master had moved the city to contain the threat and asked to be taken to it instead of training.
• The master agreed to test them, and William asked to face the test alone.
• The master stopped William’s breathing and sent an invisible blade at him, while Nash rushed in to protect him and was kicked out of the temple.
• William restored his bisected body and approached the master, who acknowledged his strength and agreed to lead the group to the thing that had ruined his body.

William and his companions followed the old man into the city center to investigate the source of the Despair that had devastated the city. At the center of a spatially disordered park, William learned to perceive the sealed Conceptual Existence beneath a lake and saw the fleshly lotuses and coffin hidden there.

• Nash returned to William, apologized for doubting him, and resumed his role as a bodyguard while Jessica healed William.
• William and the others approached the city center, where his Skin Cultivation protected him from the air’s separating force.
• The group entered the glitching Central Park, and William used Abyssal Parasitism to travel through Deep Space and reach its center with Nash and Jessica.
• The old man explained that an entity sealed beneath the lake existed outside reality and could only be perceived through the Lung Temple’s Breathing Technique.
• William imitated the old man’s breathing, sensed the Despair Concept, and saw human flesh arranged as lotuses above a sealed coffin.
• A voice from the coffin called out, asking to be let out.

William saw a terrifying entity sealed beneath the lake and brought Jessica and Nash into his body so they could perceive it too. After the old man explained how accumulated malice had formed the entity, Yi Chen emerged and was recognized as a Death Row Inmate who might help destroy it.

• William used the Breathing Technique to glimpse the entity, then Jessica implanted herself as a tooth and Nash parasitized his brain so they could share the vision.
• Yi Chen told William that they would need to fight as separate bodies and use William's abyss, with Nash's parasite body filling out the incomplete Second Body.
• The old man identified the entity as a Non-Ruler formed from evil and an Urban Legend Story, and explained how artificially created divine entities had upset the world's balance.
• Yi Chen accused the gods of failing to eliminate the malice behind anomalies and emerged through the Second Body.
• The old man recognized Yi Chen as a Death Row Inmate whose consciousness projection had been sent to the lower world and said he could help destroy the entity.

William questioned the old man about the evil sealed beneath the city and learned it was a supernatural being born from the urban legend of the Human Body Collector, Daria Mico. As the group prepared to confront it, Yi Chen fused with Nash and armed himself for the battle.

• Yi Chen told the old man he intended to destroy evil and eventually kill himself, while the old man welcomed the chance to fight him if he came for his true body.
• The old man explained that the city had been moved from the Prime Material Plane and identified the sealed being as Daria Mico, a supernatural creature born from a popularized urban legend.
• The old man warned William that Daria could permanently collect parts of a person's body once an unknown trigger condition was met, and that William would have to discover how to kill her during the fight.
• William accepted the risk of facing Daria, and Yi Chen separated from him as Nash joined with Yi Chen and restored his body.
• Yi Chen rejected the gun, drew the Hundred-Headed Hunter dagger from Nash, and prepared to fight with it and a black arm-bone axe.

Yi Chen and William helped open the sealed coffin, but the Human Body Collector, Miss Daria Miko, appeared and separated them. Left alone, William tried to survive by admiring her grisly exhibits, and his Social Phobia began affecting her.

• Yi Chen fused with Nash, warmed up, and learned that Nash’s dagger was forged after he slaughtered his clan.
• William asked the old man to erase the coffin’s seal despite the warning that its release could destroy the city and fringe world.
• The coffin shattered after Yi Chen struck the lake, but it was empty, and Yi Chen and the old man vanished as the park darkened.
• Miss Daria Miko approached William, who reasoned that fleeing or attacking was dangerous and decided to speak with her.
• William praised Daria’s body-part exhibits and introduced himself, causing her eyes and body to tremble as his Social Phobia took effect.

William was pulled into the Human Body Collector’s Field, where the woman took one of his eyes before the old man rescued him. After William explained the danger and proposed that they stop thinking about the legend, the Collector emerged from the lake to collect them by force.

• William’s comments and Social Phobia seed provoked the woman, who tried to collect his eyes after his bullet failed to affect her.
• The woman removed William’s right eye, but the old man synchronized his breathing with William’s and pulled him out before she could take the other.
• Back at the lake, William learned from the old man that the space was a Field tied to the Collector’s Story Carrier and reasoned that thinking about the legend had triggered it.
• William urged Yi Chen and the old man to stop thinking about the Human Body Collector so it would be forced to reveal its True Body.
• As they emptied their minds, the Collector’s head rose from the lake and prepared to use Forced Collection.

William and Yi Chen fought Daria Miko’s Human Body Collector story, using fear, concealment, and coordinated attacks to destroy its projections while Yi Chen sought a way to kill the story’s concept. As more Darias surrounded them and Yi Chen was grievously injured, a mysterious moon appeared over the city and transformed midday into night.

• Daria Miko used her spoon Story Object to freeze time and nearly gouge out William’s eye, but Yi Chen concealed his killing intent and struck her projection, losing his right arm in the attack.
• Yi Chen returned to the lake and killed Daria’s projection, then faced a swarm of collectors as the Urban Legend Story projected multiple women to attack him.
• William drew the collectors’ attention with his declaration, letting Yi Chen teleport behind them through the Abyssal Cavity and decapitate more than forty women.
• Daria gouged out Yi Chen’s lower body, but he told William that he could kill the story’s concept if William caught its humanoid true body.
• More than a hundred Daria figures emerged from the park woods, and William prepared his final method before a silver moon appeared over the city and turned midday into night.