Chapter Summaries

Liu Xinzhi and Yi Chen entered the island, where a fake television nearly trapped Liu Xinzhi before she destroyed the creature hiding inside it. Elsewhere, Jin arrived on the island and headed toward the final beauty pageant venue, eager to find someone who could entertain her.

• Liu Xinzhi used her charm on the clown waiter, whose self-destruction killed her briefly before she regenerated, and Yi Chen explained the evil phenomenon and the contestants’ true purpose.
• Liu Xinzhi learned that she might become Fujiko and asked Yi Chen to kill her if that happened; he agreed, and she kissed him before they continued inland.
• Liu Xinzhi sent a severed arm to investigate a television, but an Imposter emerged and its black-hole image trapped her consciousness.
• A face on Liu Xinzhi’s body took control and made her cut off her own head, interrupting the television’s pull; she regenerated and severed the television from the Imposter’s neck.
• Yi Chen identified the fake television as a diseased creation linked to Regan’s technology, while women elsewhere on the island encountered similar imposters.
• Jin arrived alone aboard the cruise ship, destroyed an Imposter with a red lotus, and set out for the final beauty pageant venue.

The Three Sisters and other participants reached the island’s inner mountains, where unseen dangers began killing them. Yi Chen rescued Liu Xinzhi from the Yellow Robe’s deadly gaze, but the creature remained across the lake.

• The Three Sisters slaughtered and absorbed the participants from Cruise Ship Number Six before advancing inland.
• The eldest sister spotted a flash of yellow and was found with her eyes burned out; her two sisters concluded she had seen something she should not have.
• A seven-person team met a stranded mountaineer, who snapped one woman’s knife, tore out her spine, and attacked the group.
• Liu Xinzhi and Yi Chen chose to search a valley instead of climbing the mountain, and Liu Xinzhi drank from a moonlit lake.
• Liu Xinzhi saw the Yellow Robe in the lake’s reflection and began overheating; Yi Chen gouged out her eyes and threw her into the lake.
• Yi Chen faced the Yellow Robe across the lake as the eyes he had removed turned to ash.

Yi Chen and Liu Xinzhi survived Little Grape’s Evil Sun attack, and Liu Xinzhi gained a strange new vision after her eyes regenerated. They found Nash on the mountain, received a Bone Blade, and entered the beauty pageant’s final stage through the television, where a host resembling Yi Chen appeared.

• Little Grape vanished after testing contestants’ ability to withstand its scorching gaze, and Liu Xinzhi emerged from the lake with a waterlogged television and regenerated eyes bearing the Evil Sun’s mark.
• Yi Chen concluded that William had offered contestants a chance to gain Evil Sun Hyperthermic Eye Disease and led Liu Xinzhi up the mountain to find Nash.
• Liu Xinzhi and Yi Chen encountered Nash disguised as a lost hiker, and Nash secretly dismembered four approaching contestants and packed their bones into his backpack.
• Nash returned to the sea and left Liu Xinzhi a Bone Blade made from Tomies’ bones and Monastery Metal.
• Yi Chen and Liu Xinzhi tuned the television to the beauty pageant and were pulled through its screen onto the stage, where a host resembling Yi Chen emerged.

Liu Xinzhi and Yi Chen reached the backstage of William’s beauty pageant, where Jin had become the chosen vessel for the Tomie Phenomenon. Yi Chen learned that William had arranged the contest to speed Jin’s transformation, but William hinted that his deeper purpose would become clear once Yi Chen understood the gods and evils.

• Liu Xinzhi arrived as the second contestant, and William felt Yi Chen’s new suffocating power after they left the stage.
• Backstage, Yi Chen recognized Jin as the first contestant and saw that Tomie’s will had deeply influenced her.
• Jin dismissed Yi Chen’s concern and used her tumor-filled influence to frighten Liu Xinzhi before Liu went to prepare for the pageant.
• Yi Chen confronted William, who explained that Tomie had chosen Jin as its perfect vessel and had gathered the phenomenon’s power into her.
• Yi Chen realized William had deliberately created chaos, and William refused to reveal his ultimate purpose while promising that Yi Chen would eventually slay all evil.

Yi Chen tried to protect Liu Xinzhi from being absorbed by Jin during the Final Performance, then challenged Jin to fight him instead. Jin accepted and demanded a one-on-one battle in a larger venue, leaving Yi Chen poised to face her without his companions.

• Yi Chen reassured Liu Xinzhi that he would kill her after the competition and told her to take part in the pageant.
• William announced the Final Performance rules, and ten contestants took the stage to dance while attacking one another.
• Jin used her human-faced butterflies to eliminate the other contestants, sparing Liu Xinzhi for the end.
• Jin revealed that the contest was helping her collect the Tomie Phenomenon, while Liu Xinzhi prepared to flee toward Yi Chen.
• Yi Chen leaped onto the stage, challenged Jin to fight him, and agreed to face her alone without Little Grape, Yellowhide, or the parasite.
• Jin accepted the challenge and called on William to provide a larger venue.

Jin manifested the Trinity and challenged Yi Chen, while Liu Xinzhi tried to turn herself into his weapon. Yi Chen rejected the weapon and faced Jin barehanded, revealing a vast host of the dead behind him as William sensed his seriousness.

• William expanded the theater into an outer-space arena as Jin prepared to fight Yi Chen.
• Jin transformed with the combined powers of Mifo, Fu Jiang, and her own human nature, then challenged Yi Chen.
• Yi Chen told Liu Xinzhi to prepare, and she transformed herself into a bone blade using the remains of her body.
• Yi Chen threw Liu Xinzhi’s blade aside, and an unfamiliar dead woman comforted and restrained her.
• Yi Chen took a barehanded fighting stance as a pitch-black sea of the dead appeared behind him, making William realize how serious he was.

Yi Chen dodged Jin’s relentless attacks by using a deep-sea effect that slowed time around him, while the onlookers realized he was still adapting to his new power. Jin then unleashed a phenomenon that trapped Yi Chen in an apparently familiar home, where he awoke to a life shared with Jin.

• Catherine, Little Grape, and William watched as Yi Chen evaded Jin’s attacks without striking back, and Little Grape explained that Yi Chen was slowing time around himself.
• William speculated that Yi Chen had cultivated and protected Jin to use her as a key, and he sensed that the real battle was about to begin.
• Jin tore off the melting Fu Jiang mask, praised Yi Chen’s strength, and said he would become one of her men if she won.
• Jin invoked the White Tower Sword’s phenomenon, spreading a field that trapped Yi Chen behind an invisible boundary and overwrote his thoughts.
• Yi Chen awoke in a tidy bedroom and found a familiar family scene, where Jin appeared as his wife and memories of ten years together returned.

Yi Chen’s seemingly blissful family life turned monstrous as he discovered his parents and wife Jin behaving strangely around her hair and food. After killing Jin, his father, and his mother, he recognized his mother’s face as Director Cao’s and recovered a memory of the orphanage burning.

• Yi Chen noticed a strand of hair twist in his breakfast soup, then saw his father lick Jin’s hair while his mother acted as if nothing was unusual.
• Yi Chen took Jin to his sealed study, where she explained that the family licked her hair and invited him to lick her toes; he killed her and buried her remains in the backyard.
• Jin returned to the house for lunch despite Yi Chen claiming she was resting upstairs, and she fed his parents and Yi Chen pieces of meat.
• Yi Chen vomited after recognizing the meat’s size, then stabbed his father in the head and cut off his mother’s head to stop her screaming.
• Yi Chen recognized his mother as Director Cao and remembered the orphanage engulfed in flames and beheading Director Cao.

Jin’s battle with Yi Chen ended when Liu Xinzhi emerged as the sole Tomie and agreed to die by his hand. Yi Chen and Liu Xinzhi then used a Forbidden Sin Artifact to enter the depths of death, where he asked her to help open the source of his death.

• Jin’s white hot spring collapsed when a dead person’s arm attacked a Tomie clone, and the corpse rose from the death abyss to decapitate her on the Soul Level.
• Yi Chen used Liu Xinzhi’s knife to let her consciousness battle Jin’s inside Jin’s skull, then waited as Liu Xinzhi emerged from Jin’s body.
• Liu Xinzhi told Yi Chen that Jin had relinquished the concept of Tomie, and she identified herself as Liu Xinzhi.
• Liu Xinzhi asked whether Yi Chen would kill her, and he said yes; both of them then hanged themselves with a Forbidden Sin Artifact and were drawn into the depths of death.
• Yi Chen and Liu Xinzhi arrived at the pitch-black beach, where he asked her to help open the source of his death.

Jin rejected the Fujiang path and decided to build her power around cancer, while William admitted to steering Fujiang toward her. Days later, Yi Chen woke from his hanging state, cremated Liu Xinzhi, and made her ashes into a bone ring before returning with William.

• Jin reflected on her defeat by Yi Chen and resolved to make cancer the foundation of her power.
• William told Jin that her hesitation had weakened her Fujiang fusion and admitted that he had promoted the process through the beauty pageant.
• Jin struck William and ordered him to stop influencing her choices, then William watched over Yi Chen and Liu Xinzhi as they remained hanging for several days.
• The Emergency Passage signal awakened Yi Chen, and he retrieved the rope after Liu Xinzhi had died in her unchangeable Hanged One state.
• Regan made a high-temperature furnace, and Yi Chen burned Liu Xinzhi's body, shaped her ashes into a bone ring, and used it to summon her ghost onto William.
• William escaped Liu Xinzhi's attempt to touch him and urged Yi Chen to return so they could receive a reward for defeating a Phenomenon-level evil.

After returning from the Tomie phenomenon, Yi Chen and his team learned that their victory had saved Ring World-0033 but left it severely depopulated. Jin left for the Plague Focal World, while Yi Chen and Regan went to a special restaurant, where Yi Chen reunited with the Great Emperor and was greeted by a horned woman calling him Brother William.

• Cleanup forces confirmed that Tomie had been eradicated, but Ring World-0033 had lost 61 percent of its population and would receive no population transfer.
• The gods assessed the phenomenon as four stars and said Yi Chen, Jin, and Regan would receive a major reward after the gods discussed it.
• Jin refused Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable's offer to stay and left for the Plague Focal World, while Yi Chen declined to help Lorien with the nightmare phenomenon.
• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable invited Yi Chen and Regan to a special restaurant, explaining that a team from the Plague Focal World had already arrived there.
• Yi Chen entered the restaurant and greeted the Great Emperor, then a horned woman hurried over and called him Brother William.

Yi Chen met the Blood Emperor’s elite squad and learned about its members’ abilities and injuries from a recent operation. Lainey’s unusual vitality had helped the squad survive a dangerous encounter with fish, and the gathering ended with the banquet beginning.

• Yi Chen entered the private room and observed the Blood Emperor, the wounded shield-bearer Griman Brent, the insect-like Tooth Hall doctor, and the bacteria-wielding man.
• Lainey rushed toward Yi Chen, mistook him for William, and learned that he was not William and did not know where William was.
• Regan joined the gathering, and the Blood Emperor acknowledged him as the first ascender of The Neisseria Ones.
• Yi Chen asked whether Lainey could keep up with the squad, and the Blood Emperor praised her vitality for helping prevent casualties during their operation against the fish.
• The members finished introducing themselves, and the banquet began.

Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable proposed that Yi Chen and the others explore a disaster imprisoned in Great Hell, promising rewards and improved terms for the Plague Focal World while warning of severe risks. Yi Chen and the group agreed to go in a week, and the Heavenly Venerable ordered the restaurant to serve its highest-grade dishes.

• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable praised the group for defeating two phenomena and invited them to explore an imprisoned disaster at the Lowest Level of the Seven-Layered Heaven.
• The Great Emperor questioned the proposal, and the Heavenly Venerable explained that the disaster's concept could influence anyone who learned about it, so even its records and memories were carefully managed.
• The Heavenly Venerable said the group could gain greater rewards and better negotiation terms, but warned that contact carried serious risks and would be stopped if anyone showed signs of distress.
• The Great Emperor asked Yi Chen for his view, and Yi Chen recommended going because the controlled disaster could help him confront his disorder.
• The Great Emperor invited Lainey to join, and the group agreed to the expedition before the Heavenly Venerable ordered the highest-grade dishes.

After the feast revealed the strange vitality of Lainey Hystra, Yi Chen arranged a week of secluded cultivation and left the Video Tape with Regan. William emerged from the tape and asked to join Yi Chen at the Seven-Layered Heaven, but he knew nothing about the imprisoned Calamity.

• The feast restored the guests and exposed Lainey Hystra's reality-altering vitality; the Heavenly Venerable brought her back to her senses after she mistook Yi Chen for William.
• The Great Emperor's group planned to meet again in a week and visit the Seven-Layered Heaven to see the imprisoned Calamity.
• Yi Chen vanished after returning to the hotel, then met Regan in the fire escape elevator hall and entrusted him with the Video Tape while he underwent secluded cultivation.
• William emerged from the Video Tape, joked about Lainey, and said he wanted to accompany Regan and Yi Chen to the Seven-Layered Heaven.
• Yi Chen questioned William about the Calamity, but William admitted he knew nothing about it and said the Seven-Layered Heaven's Administrators would explain it.

Yi Chen returned to the Sealed Sunken Death Temple and used Liu Xinzhi to break its seal while he sought communion with the being inside. Lost in worship, he failed to notice time passing and discovered he had entered the temple, with Liu Xinzhi missing.

• William slipped Yi Chen a note promising not to disturb his deep dive and offering to handle any disturbances at the hotel.
• Yi Chen teleported to the temple, where Liu Xinzhi used her regenerating bodies to remove the stones sealing its entrance.
• Yi Chen explained that the imprisoned being had set much of its own seal, so they had to break it themselves to meet it.
• On the sixth day, the gate opened a tiny crack, and Yi Chen knelt to worship the profound presence within, but received no response.
• Yi Chen remained in absolute devotion past the agreed week, then noticed Liu Xinzhi was gone and found himself inside the temple, with its gate behind him.

Yi Chen found the Strangled King’s corpse in the Inner Sanctum and discovered that the king’s hollow face had served as the missing hanging rope. He realized the Strangled King had chosen him because they died at the same instant, then sat on the throne to study the king’s understanding of death.

• Yi Chen closed the Inner Sanctum’s door to keep its remaining Death Essence from escaping, then searched the empty hall.
• Yi Chen found a corpse in a black-and-gold robe seated on a throne above a Gallows Platform and approached it with a devout prostration.
• Yi Chen removed the corpse’s bandages and saw its hollow face, realizing it was the missing Hanging Rope and that the king had been in a state of hanging death since becoming king.
• The corpse turned to ash, and Yi Chen concluded that the Strangled King had chosen him as an inheritor because they died at the same instant.
• A message announced that the Death Beacon had activated a teleportation point, and Yi Chen bowed to the throne before sitting on it to contemplate death.

Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable, Regan, and the Great Emperor went to Yi Chen’s room after he missed their appointment and found him hanging in a death-filled state shaped by the King of Noose. Yi Chen returned to normal and learned that the others had known the King of Noose was gone and had deliberately given him the rope that led him to the Sunken Death Temple.

• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable waited with Regan for Yi Chen, then joined Regan and the Great Emperor in taking a rapidly accelerated elevator to Yi Chen’s room.
• The group found a formation on Yi Chen’s door that a disciple of Demon Lord Ni Ying claimed to have drawn to suppress the death aura.
• The Heavenly Venerable, Regan, and the Great Emperor entered the room and found Yi Chen hanging as a dried corpse, his face inducing a powerful urge to hang themselves.
• Yi Chen freed himself from the rope, regained his original form, and withdrew the death aura before apologizing for being late.
• Golden Lung Heavenly Venerable said Yi Chen’s progress made him suited to contact the imprisoned Calamity, and Yi Chen learned that the group had known the King of Noose was gone when they gave him the dangerous rope.

Yi Chen, the Great Emperor, and their companions climbed the Divine Mountain to reach the Seven-Layered Heaven, while Yi Chen secretly stayed behind to secure William and ask Regan about Lorien. The team entered the God Domain without Yi Chen, and Lorien still had not responded.

• The Great Emperor recognized that Yi Chen had grasped the King's State of Mind, and Yi Chen agreed to travel to the Seven-Layered Heaven.
• The Heavenly Venerable explained the Divine Mountain climb, and Yi Chen and the Great Emperor raced upward after Yi Chen retrieved his physical body from a black ocean.
• The Great Emperor's companions climbed by their own methods, while Regan used an anti-gravity field to reach the summit first.
• The team entered the glowing Seven-Layered Heaven door, but Yi Chen pretended to feel unwell and stayed behind with Regan.
• Yi Chen took William's Video Tape from Regan for safekeeping and learned that Lorien had still not answered the Emergency Passage.

Yi Chen and the others entered the Seven-Layered Heaven and obtained access to the Great Hell’s Hidden Realm, where a disaster was being contained. They learned they had twelve hours to lose all memories and sense of direction before reaching the Containment Zone.

• Yi Chen and Regan stepped through Heaven’s Gate and arrived in a holy garden, where winged infants showed hostility toward the Sick Ones.
• Jin Hao Hua, the Lung Celestial Venerable, descended on a Golden Staircase and stopped his attendants from attacking Yi Chen.
• Jin Hao Hua showed the Pantheon’s sealed document, and the holy infants used their own bodies and the pass to open a gate to the Great Hell.
• The group entered a crimson wasteland, and Jin Hao Hua explained that the Containment Zone lay far away and could only be reached by becoming completely lost.
• Jin Hao Hua gave everyone twelve hours to forget everything, warning that anyone who failed would be unqualified to meet the disaster.

Yi Chen entered Containment Site-07 to make contact with an unknown Calamity, leaving Little Grape, Yellowhide, and Nash behind for examination. A containment expert taught him the facility’s rules, including forgetting names and using negative records, and Yi Chen began studying the records.

• Regan and Youssef altered their memories and left the group, after which the Emperor ordered everyone to separate.
• Yi Chen entered a white facility, where staff explained that visitors and attached conscious beings would be assessed and isolated individually.
• After his examination, Yi Chen found that Little Grape, Yellowhide, and Nash had been removed, while Liu Xinzhi’s ring remained with him.
• A bearded containment expert explained that names were forbidden and that information about the contained entity was recorded through negative statements.
• The expert handed Yi Chen a Rulebook of key Negative Records, and Yi Chen became absorbed in reading it.