Chapter Summaries

William met Lorien before Lorien departed for the Central Skyscraper, where Lorien would face a dangerous summons and screening. Afterward, Yi Chen tested Lainey’s abilities and began preparing with her for what came next.

• William told Lorien that his compatibility with the force targeting him could lead to an unknown transformation, and urged him not to fear the path ahead.
• Lorien reclaimed the nurses’ Blood Crosses and asked William to spread their world’s New Moon across every plane if Lorien died; William refused to treat his death as inevitable.
• William and Lorien left for the Central Skyscraper, with William asking Lorien to shift credit for capturing him onto William.
• After Lorien’s departure, Yi Chen told Lainey they needed to rehearse and develop plans because they could no longer implant the witch’s subconscious in him.
• Yi Chen tested Lainey by striking at her neck, but she survived by reproducing and abandoning her decapitated Mother Entity shell.
• Lainey attacked Yi Chen with a transformed hoof, kicking open the hotel bathroom door.

After filming, Yi Chen questioned Bandit about the Film Crew, learning how its members planned to inherit the former Tenth Calamity’s power and hearing how Michael Myers had been defeated by a mysterious death god. Yi Chen considered who that death god might be and decided to seek out the mask ahead of schedule.

• Bandit thanked Yi Chen and Lainey for their actions the previous night, then praised their dedication to killing.
• Lainey completed filming Act Two after nine mistakes, while Yi Chen performed flawlessly and received autograph requests from Film Crew members.
• Yi Chen stayed behind with Bandit and learned that Walking Corpses transported masks from a forbidden dungeon where Miles’s mask was stored.
• Bandit explained that the Film Crew had formed to satisfy the former Tenth Calamity Michael Myers’s conditions and share its power through box-office success.
• Bandit revealed that Michael Myers had been gravely wounded after encountering a mysterious death god in a deep plane.
• Yi Chen ruled out the King of the Noose as the death god and decided to meet the mask, then disappeared before Bandit could continue their conversation.

Yi Chen secretly infiltrated the Film Crew’s dungeon to meet Miles’s Mask, using the Death Interlayer and the Hanging Rope to evade surveillance. After communicating with the mask, he returned to the hotel and collapsed from exhaustion.

• Yi Chen had Nash use Yellowhide to disguise himself and continue chatting with Mr. Bandit while Yi Chen slipped away.
• Yi Chen entered the Death Interlayer and found the dungeon, where surveillance and two patrolling film leads guarded the courtyard.
• Yi Chen used the Hanging Rope to descend beneath the interlayer, bypass the guards, and enter the dungeon unseen.
• The Walking Corpses let Yi Chen approach Miles’s Mask, which opened its box and appeared pleased by his killing of the Eighth Calamity.
• At two in the morning, Yi Chen returned to the hotel, collapsed from exhaustion, and was carried back to his room by a waiter.

On the fourteenth day of filming, Yi Chen prepared to face his scripted death in the final act, despite the director offering to replace him. The Eighth Calamity arrived to witness the showdown, while Bandit prepared to merge with the mask and kill Yi Chen as Miles.

• Yi Chen secretly fought mental duels with the former Tenth Calamity inside the mask after filming each night, growing colder and frightening Lainey in his sleep.
• As the final shoot approached, the director offered to arrange for a stand-in to die in Yi Chen's place, but Yi Chen insisted they follow the original script.
• The director explained that the Eighth Calamity had agreed not to attack Yi Chen on his way back to the hotel in exchange for watching his scripted death.
• Bandit prepared to synchronize with Miles and merge with the mask, avoiding Yi Chen beforehand so he could perform the killing convincingly.
• Yi Chen encouraged Bandit to give the final act his best, while the mask inside the wooden box began writhing with unusual excitement.

William went to watch the filming of Final Stage and warned the motel manager that Plague Lords had entered the world. After possessing a low-ranking serial killer, he watched Yi Chen improvise through filming as the final confrontation began.

• William learned that the Film Crew had left early, and the motel manager warned him that his influence was changing the City of Evil.
• William read about the slowed infiltration and the injured Ninth Calamity, then offered to gather information on the Plague Lords.
• The manager hurled William out of the hotel, and William's body dissolved in a canal.
• William possessed Pus-Eyebrow Big-Eye and made his way to the Final Stage filming site.
• Yi Chen overcame repeated filming problems with his acting, while William applauded and was punched by a crew member.
• As flames consumed the set, Miles faced Yi Chen, whose resurrected character remained calm and focused.

Yi Chen faced Miles in the film’s final showdown, using mortal combat techniques within the script’s limits despite Miles’s overwhelming Slaughterous Aura. Yi Chen appeared to decapitate Miles, but his prop knife shattered and Miles counterattacked by stabbing him through the chest.

• The chapter explained that the script limited actors’ speed and strength, while leaving unseen killing techniques and Slaughterous Aura unrestricted.
• A memory showed eight-year-old Yi Chen beating the Orphanage’s physical education teacher, and Director Cao praised him for challenging the strong rather than preying on the weak.
• A woman’s arm appeared behind Yi Chen and urged him to enjoy the fight as Miles brought his table knife down with tremendous Slaughterous Aura.
• Yi Chen redirected Miles’s strike with technique, then moved behind him and severed his leg tendons to force him onto his knees.
• Yi Chen brought his butcher’s knife down at Miles’s neck, but the prop blade broke and Miles stabbed Yi Chen through the chest.

Yi Chen defied the script’s restrictions to defeat Miles in a series of brutal beheading attempts. As the Film Crew scrambled over the script’s collapse, Yi Chen took Bandit’s mask and put on the former Tenth Calamity’s mask under the spotlight.

• Yi Chen’s first beheading failed, and he used a corpse swap to return to Miles and cut his tendons before striking his neck with a hand blade.
• Miles seized and crushed Yi Chen’s shoulder, but Yi Chen tore himself free, threw Miles to the ground, and struck his neck again.
• Yi Chen continued attacking despite the script’s restrictions, gradually breaking Miles’s cervical vertebrae while suffering severe injuries.
• Yi Chen completed a ninth strike, severed Miles’s neck, and raised his head as the Film Crew panicked over the script’s apparent collapse.
• The director declared the script intact as long as Miles was the sole survivor, then ordered the lights focused on Yi Chen.
• Yi Chen removed the mask from Bandit’s head and placed the former Tenth Calamity’s mask over his own.

Michael Miles tried to possess Yi Chen with the mask, but Yi Chen’s resistance and the mask’s new possessor severed Miles’s control. Yi Chen killed Miles’s remnant consciousness, claimed the Tenth Calamity’s position, and left ready to challenge the other Calamities.

• Michael Miles tried to attach his mask to Yi Chen and take over his body.
• Yi Chen met Miles in Dead Brain Island and explained that Miles had underestimated him and that the Tenth Calamity would survive as long as the Film Crew and the mask remained.
• Yi Chen told Miles he planned to kill all the Calamities, and Miles warned him that the others were stronger and harder to kill.
• Miles accepted his defeat, and Yi Chen decapitated him for the tenth time as his remaining consciousness dissipated into the ocean.
• Yi Chen danced briefly with a middle-aged woman on the beach, then stopped, excited that he could now challenge powerful opponents.

Yi Chen took control of the mask associated with Miles but rejected the identity of the Tenth Calamity after filming, dividing its power among the Film Crew. The crew gained a new path forward, while a Silver Light began sweeping across the City of Evil.

• Yellow Threads spread across Yi Chen’s mask, shocking the Film Crew as he appeared to take control of the former Tenth Calamity’s symbol.
• The Eighth Calamity merged her family into one stronger avatar and charged into the filming area to attack Yi Chen.
• A pus-covered janitor exploded when the Eighth Calamity kicked him, infecting her with rampant growths, and Lainey Histra kicked her swollen body apart.
• William climbed out of a canal and saw a Silver Light from a distant lighthouse-like building sweeping across the City of Evil.
• After filming ended, Yi Chen removed the mask and rejected the identities of Miles and the Tenth Calamity, causing the Film Crew to share its power and gain new insight.
• The Film Crew honored Yi Chen and embraced the chance to make films with different protagonists and advance together.

After the former Tenth Calamity’s death, Yi Chen remained allied with the Film Crew and learned how its films turned audience emotions into power. Back at the hotel, he found William waiting to discuss serious business, despite his injuries and the restrictions in the City of Evil.

• The Film Crew’s director asked Yi Chen to remain a member and promised the crew’s support, and Yi Chen agreed to stay in contact while seeking its platform to reach the same height as William.
• The director explained that box office revenue came from audience emotions absorbed by films and converted into power for the Film Crew, and Yi Chen took a suitcase of films with him.
• Yi Chen returned to the hotel with Lainey, who noticed his serious conceptual injuries and insisted on treating them; she also chose to stay with him and help rescue William.
• At the hotel, Yi Chen asked Lainey to go to their room while he spoke with the manager, then found William waiting in the lobby, congratulating him and proposing a serious discussion.

William told Yi Chen about the camera-wielding Fourth Calamity, whose Fatal Video Tapes trapped victims in endless cycles of death, and revealed that he wanted to kill the disaster and take his place. After Yi Chen officially joined the Film Crew as the Tenth Calamity, William was able to give him information about the Fourth Calamity.

• William showed Yi Chen news that the Plague Lords had arrived and that their intervention would delay the final disaster.
• William described how the camera-wielding disaster filmed people and trapped them in Fatal Video Tapes, while admitting he had lied about being personally targeted.
• Yi Chen stopped William's joking and learned that William wanted the disaster's abilities and position to reach the roots of the world faster.
• William admitted that the disaster had targeted Yi Chen as a filming subject, which had crossed his personal bottom line.
• After Yi Chen became an official member of the Film Crew and the Tenth Calamity, William produced a document about the Fourth Calamity.

Yi Chen learned that the Fourth Calamity was a mysterious entity tied to fatal video tapes, and William explained his plan to locate and confront it. As Yi Chen prepared to wait until after the movie premiere, the hotel manager warned him to be careful of William.

• Yi Chen questioned William about the Fourth Calamity’s hidden true form and learned that only the current leader knew what it was.
• William described tracing missing students to an old house filled with video tapes that might contain the Fourth Calamity’s true form.
• William estimated their chance of success at between eight and sixty-one percent and outlined the dangers behind the lower estimate.
• Yi Chen agreed to delay their operation until after the movie premiere, and William advised him to avoid provoking the Fourth Calamity and stay away from the Video Store’s underground area.
• William told Yi Chen that a Calamity Council would soon convene and that Lorien’s situation was probably poor.
• As Yi Chen headed for the elevator, the hotel manager warned him to be careful of William.

After recovering from his wounds, Yi Chen attended the citywide premiere with Lainey and discovered a strange Pseudo-Pathogen in a zombie visitor. The premiere began with an unexplained danger that even the Yellow Skin feared.

• Lainey healed Yi Chen by licking his wounds, and Yi Chen recovered while learning to control his returned malignancy and the White Skin Mask.
• Ten days after filming ended, Yi Chen and Lainey attended the premiere at Headless Valley Cinema, where viewers crowded them for autographs and photographs.
• A zombie asked Yi Chen for an autograph, and Yi Chen signed its exposed brain before helping it close its skull.
• The Yellow Skin sensed a nearly undetectable Pseudo-Pathogen from the zombie and said it felt an inexplicable danger.
• Yi Chen watched the zombie enter the full screening hall and wondered whether it was a Calamity.

After Yi Chen failed to find the zombie, his movie’s success brought the Film Crew a share of slaughterous malice, which he and Lainey absorbed in different ways. Yi Chen agreed to attend the Calamity Conference, and the chapter ended as a beacon from the skyscraper recognized him as Lorien.

• Yi Chen searched the screening rooms for the zombie but was drawn into watching his own movie and escaped the excited audience without finding it.
• The movie’s box office filled reels with viewers’ slaughterous emotions, which the Film Crew dissolved into blood and shared equally.
• Yi Chen felt stronger after drinking the blackwater, while Lainey’s Birth Gate appeared to turn hers into life-force energy.
• The director told Yi Chen that attendance at the Calamity Conference was mandatory, and Yi Chen agreed to represent the Tenth Calamity.
• Yi Chen and Lainey joined the manager at the hotel, and he led them to the skyscraper where a beacon shone on them and Yi Chen recognized Lorien.

Yi Chen attended the Calamities’ meeting as the Tenth Calamity’s representative, while the Manager warned him about the City of Evil’s dangers and the meeting’s rules. After being transported into the conference room without realizing it, Yi Chen studied the other Calamities’ seats and sensed the threat posed by those already present.

• The Manager warned Yi Chen that Lainey should stay behind and explained the meeting’s rules, including obeying the host and accepting any assigned killing missions.
• A faceless employee escorted Yi Chen and the Manager into the building, where the lobby transformed into the conference room as Yi Chen looked away from his coffee.
• Yi Chen took his seat as the Tenth Calamity’s representative and sensed the Eighth Calamity’s hostile attention.
• Yi Chen used the Breathing Technique to examine the seats associated with the First through Ninth Calamities and infer details about their owners.
• The Sixth Calamity noticed Yi Chen, seduced him with a glance, and exposed herself, but Yi Chen pretended not to notice.

Yi Chen attended a Calamity meeting where William Berens was formally named the Eleventh Calamity and presented a Plague Codex about the Sick One. When Yi Chen checked its section on the Plague Lords, he found that William had concealed their true identities.

• Yi Chen watched the Calamities gather, including the blind Seventh Calamity and a zombie who recognized him from his movie.
• William arrived late, taking a seat between Yi Chen and First Calamity and admitting he had done so to draw attention away from Yi Chen.
• The meeting leader confirmed William as the Eleventh Calamity and explained that unfamiliar plagues had entered the central planes and threatened the Calamities.
• William presented each Calamity with a copy of the Plague Codex, which catalogued illnesses, organizations, and Source Plague Zones in the Sick One.
• Yi Chen found that the book’s final volume listed almost none of the real Plague Lords, and William silently signaled him to keep quiet.

Yi Chen learned that William’s book mixed accurate and fabricated intelligence about the Plague Lords as the Calamities prepared to target them. The First Calamity revealed plans to survive beyond the Great Annihilation, and Yi Chen and William were summoned to remain after the meeting.

• Yi Chen noticed that William’s book contained false descriptions of the Plague Lords’ abilities, though much of its basic information was accurate.
• The First Calamity told the Calamities to select targets and said the final Plane Devour would begin after three to six months; Yi Chen chose the First Dead.
• The First Calamity said the Calamities would survive beyond the Great Annihilation, while the manager objected that this would betray their purpose.
• William promoted his Smiling Black Hole Chain Store before the meeting ended.
• As Yi Chen prepared to leave, a voice told him and William to stay behind.

Yi Chen and William visited the First Calamity’s Lighthouse Mental Hospital, where they saw Lorien imprisoned and used as the source of moonlight illuminating the City of Evil. After escaping the Calamity’s surveillance, William revealed that his performance field had disguised their thoughts and asked Yi Chen to help kill the Fourth Calamity.

• Yi Chen followed William and the First Calamity into a ruined hospital hidden behind the conference room door.
• Yi Chen and William found Lorien imprisoned in the lighthouse lens, where probes made his body emit moonlight across the City of Evil.
• William told the First Calamity that Lorien needed the moon from the Plague Focal World, and she planned to retrieve it herself when the great battle began.
• The First Calamity’s scene vanished, and William explained that her field and Lorien’s Dreamscape might create a world where reality and illusion had no boundary.
• At the hotel, William explained that his performance field had disguised Yi Chen as a pure murderer and asked him to help kill the Fourth Calamity.

Yi Chen and Lainey prepared to leave the City of Evil for a killing trip, following William’s instructions to use a Plane Portal on Fly Street. Before they could reach it, Aunt Mei, the Sixth Calamity, confronted Lainey and gave her a Business Card.

• Yi Chen checked out of the hotel and collected the film crew’s final box-office share with Lainey.
• At a café, Yi Chen and Lainey watched William’s recording, learned he had arranged their discreet exit, and received directions to Fly Street—113A.
• Yi Chen and Lainey reached Fly Street, where flies died before they could come near Yi Chen.
• Aunt Mei stopped them in her car, revealed her interest in Lainey, and tried to make her accept a Business Card.
• Yi Chen’s killing intent broke Aunt Mei’s influence over Lainey, who then accepted the card and told Aunt Mei they would visit in a week.

Yi Chen and Lainey crossed into the Fourth Calamity’s world through William’s hidden network and met William inside a prepared corpse. William explained that the corpse was a natural antibody to the Fatal Video Tape and prepared to fly them toward the target.

• Yi Chen and Lainey entered a hidden Smiling Face Club basement beneath Fly Street and used its teleportation array to cross into another world.
• William took control of a corpse fitted with his Video Tape and warned Lainey that the body could break if she touched it.
• William explained that he had identified the corpse as a natural antibody after it watched all eighty-nine pirated films connected to the Fourth Calamity before dying.
• William said they would fly to the other side of the world to approach the Fourth Calamity’s true body, then set off with three tickets.