Chapter Summaries

Oboro and his five companions survived the journey across the sea and reached the Dark Continent, though they landed in an unfamiliar barren region. After recognizing clues that their landing may match an illustration of the continent, Oboro ordered the team to prioritize learning the environment and securing shelter before exploring further.

• Rita grew a tree from prepared seeds in the dead octopus, and the team used its trunk and branches to build a raft and continue across the sea.
• Oboro shielded the group from anglerfish-like creatures whose alluring calls had started to lure Fante and Anthony toward the lights.
• The six reached a barren, unusually cold shore where the sand was enormous, the sky was starless, and the distant horizon glowed crimson.
• Oboro compared the octopus and sea creatures to an illustration in the system and memorized its features, suspecting their landing matched one of its locations.
• After Fante reported that the compass had failed, Oboro explained the dangers of the Dark Continent and told the team to rest, remain in Zetsu after dawn, and seek supplies and shelter before exploring.

Oboro and his team crossed a scorching desert on the Dark Continent, where he witnessed a concealed lizard lure and devour a giant scorpion. Realizing that the continent’s creatures could absorb life energy to evolve, Oboro accepted the danger and headed toward the predator’s territory to hunt and evolve himself.

• Oboro led his team through the rapidly heating desert and stopped them after sensing a hidden creature beneath the sand.
• A giant lizard created a spring to lure a many-tailed scorpion, then swallowed it after its attacks failed to pierce the lizard’s scales.
• Oboro sensed that the lizard grew stronger in aura and soul after eating, and concluded that many Dark Continent species could absorb life energy and evolve.
• Oboro connected this trait to Meruem and Alluka, and reconsidered why Netero had warned humanity away from the Dark Continent.
• Oboro declared the human world a relatively safe paradise compared with the Dark Continent and walked alone toward the spring to pursue his own evolution.

Oboro watched a lizard and a colossal rat fight, then saw a three-headed monster bird kill and eat the rat. He used Ghost Mist to hunt the bird and learned the party’s water supply came from the lizard’s waste-storage organ.

• A colossal rat emerged and killed the lizard while Oboro and the others watched from nearby.
• The rat fled when a three-headed monster bird arrived and killed it, but Oboro’s low life energy kept both creatures from initially attacking him.
• Oboro released Ghost Mist, swallowed the monster bird’s soul, and concluded that soul hunting was his best way to survive and grow stronger on the Dark Continent.
• Menchi and the others joined Oboro, who pointed out a fleshy sac in the lizard’s remains that held sweet water.
• Menchi identified the sac as the lizard’s organ for storing waste, leaving Anthony and Fante stunned after they had drunk from it.

Oboro’s team struggled across the Dark Continent’s desert, surviving by hunting monsters until a swarm of explosive insects attacked them at night. The blast killed Fante and Rita, badly injured Oboro, and left Menchi and two others unconscious as Oboro realized he had mistaken low life energy for low danger.

• Oboro led the team through the desert, where they hunted monsters for food and recorded what they encountered.
• After half a month, Oboro learned that the team’s supply of the healing lizard’s urine had run out, while the desert offered no sign of an exit.
• A swarm of glowing insects descended on the team after Gabe Vich made a sound, and the insects triggered a chain of explosions.
• Oboro’s Ghost Mist failed to withstand the swarm’s fire, and he emerged badly burned after the blast destroyed the surrounding desert.
• Oboro found Fante and Rita dead while Menchi and two others remained alive but unconscious, then carried the survivors away from the scorching ground.
• Oboro concluded that sound had attracted the insects and that life energy could not reliably measure danger on the Dark Continent.

After Fante and Rita died, Oboro helped Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich recover and trained them to survive the Dark Continent. The four reached an oasis, where Oboro sensed a new kind of hope and led them deeper into the unfamiliar ecosystem.

• Oboro cared for Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich as they recovered from the injuries that had followed Fante and Rita’s deaths.
• Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich resumed their roles and adapted to the Dark Continent, while Oboro helped them practice fighting safer prey.
• After half a year crossing the desert, the four reached an oasis, where Menchi and the others hunted an Earth-Eating Worm together.
• Oboro killed the insects that surrounded the group and absorbed their souls, then sensed a promising source of energy in the oasis.
• Oboro decapitated a giant centipede by striking a weak point revealed by its soul and warned the others that supernatural dangers would become more common as they searched for hope.

Oboro found unusual fruits guarded by a human-like scarecrow and took them after destroying it, despite sensing grave danger. As the group left, he reasoned that the scarecrow’s threat might come from rules with no detectable energy and resolved to face the Dark Continent’s dangers.

• Oboro spotted crimson flowers bearing crystal-like fruits and led the group toward them, while two armed wolf-rats charged.
• Meruem appeared from Oboro’s black mist and swiftly killed the wolf-rats before returning to mist.
• Oboro discovered a blood-marked scarecrow near the flowers, smashed it, absorbed the flowers’ faint spiritual energy, and picked several fruits.
• Oboro told Menchi and the others that the scarecrow was a remnant of civilization and hurried the group away, concealing his fear.
• As they traveled, Oboro considered whether the scarecrow’s danger came from rules or something uncanny and decided he would have to face the Dark Continent’s rules sooner or later.

Oboro and his companions found a parasitic fruit that fed them nutrients and a honey-like liquid that restored vitality, but tasting the liquid awakened a hidden colony of treants. Oboro summoned his ghosts and prepared to fight as the treants attacked.

• Oboro tested a wriggling fruit and discovered it could feed its host by absorbing blood and returning nutrients, so Menchi, Anthony, and the others attached the fruits to themselves.
• Oboro explained that the scarecrows might mark the territory of intelligent life-forms, possibly including the Gatekeepers who controlled entry to the Dark Continent.
• The group reached an oasis of boiling red pools filled with white flowers and surrounded by many scarecrows, which Oboro recognized as a warning from a powerful social species.
• Oboro tasted the fragrant liquid in the pools and found that it restored stamina, eased fatigue, and increased vitality.
• The scarecrows fell as dozens of enormous treants burst from underground, and Oboro summoned Meruem, Neferpitou, Netero, Beyond, and other ghosts.
• Oboro activated Spirit Vision and formed a Thresh-like mask as giant roots swept down toward him.

Oboro and the ghosts defeated the treants, but their dying trees released pollen that rapidly sprouted into life-draining saplings. Oboro saved Menchi, Gabe Vich, and Anthony by erasing the sprouts’ souls, then led them away from the spreading infestation.

• Oboro and the ghosts attacked the treants, while Netero and Youpi protected Menchi, Gabe Vich, and Anthony from the sweeping roots.
• Oboro became Thresh and trapped the treants in Netherworld Prison, where ghostfire and Rigge's Lantern destroyed them.
• Oboro discovered that pollen released by the dying treants could take root on almost any surface and drain life from living creatures.
• Menchi cut off Anthony’s arm after saplings sprouted from it, and shoots then appeared on all three companions.
• Oboro erased the sprouts’ souls to save the trio, then led them away as pollen continued to fall and saplings spread.

Oboro and his companions escaped the treants’ deadly pollen but encountered a sea of flowers guarded by strange elves who transformed him under a mysterious rule. Oboro deduced how the rule worked, forced the elves to answer his own question, and returned to normal, leaving the group to recover and continue exploring the Dark Continent.

• Oboro led Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich beyond the treants’ seeding range, where they saw that the pollen had parasitized and killed every lifeform in its path.
• The group found a sea of flowers, and crystal-bodied elves emerged to repeatedly ask, “Yes or no?”
• Oboro warned the others not to answer, but after studying the elves and failing to harm them, he answered “Yes” and began transforming into one of them.
• Oboro realized the elves were protected while unchanged, then asked whether they were already dead; their conflicting answers ended his transformation and left them vulnerable.
• Oboro explained the rule to Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich, then examined and crushed a dead elf’s skull-like brain as he considered how the creatures survived.

Oboro led Menchi, Gabe Vich, and Anthony through the oasis to a healing vine and chose it as their base. After wiping out the nearby beasts, he prepared the others for a long period of training, while Gabe Vich reflected on their losses and his resolve to protect his companions.

• Oboro guided the group through the Ghost Whistle Grass Clumps and observed the oasis’s chaotic food chain until he found a vine that sheltered and healed smaller creatures.
• Oboro released his Ghost Mist, killing the beasts in the area, and the group took shelter beneath the vine.
• The vine healed Anthony’s severed arm, and Oboro chose the plant as their base while keeping watch.
• Gabe Vich wrote in his diary about Oboro’s care for the group, his memories of Fante and Rita, and his determination to become strong enough to protect his companions.
• Oboro told Menchi, Gabe Vich, and Anthony that they would train by adapting to the local life-forms and learning to understand life energy.

During a year and a half in the Dark Continent’s oasis, Oboro trained Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich to improve their Nen and survive its dangers. Their abilities progressed, but Oboro’s food-chain position remained downstream, suggesting they were still in the Dark Continent’s outermost reaches.

• Oboro taught Anthony how to strengthen Devil’s Scrutiny by stabilizing his will and extending its mental suppression, while Anthony fought several controlled monsters and was badly injured.
• Menchi used the Breath Control Technique and her knives to kill a Many-eyed Moth, then said she still had a long way to go before surpassing Oboro.
• Anthony returned to the Healing Vines after losing an arm and suffering a pierced abdomen, and Oboro noted that crimson primordial nectar had strengthened the team’s vitality over time.
• Oboro and Menchi watched Gabe Vich evade a swarm of insects with Mind Catcher, which let him sense creatures showing signs of a mind.
• Oboro checked his status and found his ecological rating had risen from 30 to 40, while his food-chain position stayed downstream; he concluded the ranking reflected the Dark Continent’s vast ecosystem and that the team had only reached its outer reaches.

After crossing a vast river, Oboro and his companions reached a colossal house containing an ancient human-style city. Oboro found no signs of life inside and suspected that unseen dangers remained as the group prepared to explore the City in the House.

• Oboro and his companions survived the Dark Continent’s dangerous climate and ecosystems as they traveled beyond the oasis.
• Menchi tested the river, and Oboro confirmed its water was safe before the group crossed it on flying mounts.
• Oboro and his companions arrived at enormous house-like structures and discovered a city within one of them.
• Oboro sent ghosts into the city, but they found no signs of life or returned feedback.
• Oboro warned Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich that the empty city could still contain microorganisms or other dangers.

Oboro, Menchi, and Anthony explored a pristine city inside the house and speculated that its inhabitants had vanished and that the Dark Continent's gatekeeper might be preventing humans from returning. They reached the city center, where enormous stone statues stood, leaving the nature of the place—and its vanished people—unresolved.

• Oboro led Menchi and Anthony through the orderly city, where murals, stone furnishings, and a lack of decay suggested its inhabitants had left recently or the city was being cleaned.
• Menchi argued that the complete, undisturbed residences made it seem as though everyone had vanished overnight rather than migrated.
• Oboro explained that the gatekeeper might bar humans from the Dark Continent because human greed and civilization could devastate its ecosystems, though some order or constraint might explain why humans had not been killed.
• Oboro speculated that humans once lived across the Dark Continent and may have fled after a war or disaster, while other humans might still inhabit its depths.
• The group reached the city center and came face to face with several enormous stone statues.

Oboro and his companions discovered that the murals revealed humanity's ancestors had survived on the Dark Continent by clinging to stronger creatures before migrating to a safer island. After a soul-attacking melody exposed mutated human followers beneath the statue, a skeletal creature asked Oboro whether he was human.

• Oboro read the murals and concluded that humans had once remained at the bottom of the Dark Continent's food chain, surviving through endless reproduction and dependence on powerful creatures.
• Oboro speculated that human groups differed across the Dark Continent, with stronger races inhabiting its center and weaker ones living beyond the walls.
• Smaller statues began playing a melody that attacked the souls of Menchi and Anthony, but Oboro shielded them with black mist and destroyed the statues.
• Oboro discovered that the music continued and confronted deformed humans and a living skeleton emerging from a passage beneath the statue.
• Oboro recognized the creatures as humans mutated by the melody and learned that the skeleton retained an independent soul after death.
• The skeleton communicated with Oboro through soul fluctuations and asked whether he was human.

Oboro overcame the skeleton’s Dark Sonata and searched its soul memories, where he encountered the Demon King and learned more about the Dark Continent’s peoples. He returned to reality after the Demon King ended the memory, then absorbed the skeleton’s weakened soul fire.

• The skeleton’s Dark Sonata burned Oboro, but he transformed into Thresh and broke free of its influence.
• Oboro restrained the skeleton with Gray’s Lamp and used his axe to read its soul memories.
• Oboro saw the Demon King’s revel-filled hall, refused its offer to become a servant, and questioned whether it could travel between worlds.
• The Demon King sent Oboro into another memory, where he saw humans living alongside intelligent Dark Continent species and realized humans there had interbred and evolved with other life-forms.
• Oboro returned to reality, inhaled the skeleton’s soul fire, and recognized that the Demon King had weakened it.

Oboro explained that the Dark Continent was a vast ecosystem of genetic evolution that could transform humans into new lifeforms, and he ordered Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich to return before they changed. He chose to remain behind and try to conquer the continent without evolving, leaving the human side to them.

• Oboro told Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich that the Dark Continent’s species evolved through genetic mixing and that humans were often treated as food or livestock by stronger lifeforms.
• Oboro warned that humans who adapted to the continent could evolve into forms unable to return to human society, and he urged the three to leave while they could.
• Oboro said he would stay because he intended to return to the Dark Continent regardless and wanted to challenge its rules as a purebred human.
• Oboro gave Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich his final order as their captain: return home and work with V5 to keep humans from entering the Dark Continent.

Oboro escorted Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich from the Dark Continent to a safe island and told them to conceal most of what they had learned. After Oboro returned alone to continue exploring, the three parted ways with plans for their lives in the human world.

• Oboro used his improved teleportation ability to carry Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich across the Dark Continent and beyond its dangerous near-seas.
• Oboro instructed Gabe Vich to preserve only limited information for the V5 and told the others to report that Oboro had vanished while exploring.
• Oboro left Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich on an island, accepted Gabe Vich's cigarettes and journal, and teleported back toward the Dark Continent.
• Menchi, Anthony, and Gabe Vich reflected that Oboro's evolution had made the Dark Continent his home and that he might never return to the human world.
• Menchi planned to take over the Hunter Association, Anthony planned to join the Fills Family, and Gabe Vich planned to settle in Rita's hometown.

Oboro traveled alone through the Dark Continent, reasoning that powerful souls might help him find a way to cross dimensions. He began conquering the sinkhole’s apex creatures to grow stronger, and ended after defeating a human-headed crab through physical attacks alone.

• After Menchi and the others left, Oboro unleashed his power, destroyed the swamp’s creatures, and absorbed their souls.
• Oboro concluded that the Dark Continent might hold a way to cross dimensions through the soul, and decided to find that power while gathering strong souls.
• Months later, Oboro returned to the huts, found their human inhabitants had been sacrificed, and entered a sinkhole to hunt its powerful creatures.
• Oboro transformed into Thresh and defeated a giant green sandworm with his chains, axe, and spirits.
• Oboro confronted a human-headed crab, overcame its attempt to flee, and killed it with physical attacks alone before eating its flesh.

Oboro survived a rule-based hide-and-seek maze by exploiting its rules and killing the magical beast that created it, then studied the trace of rule power he gained. He continued his journey across the Dark Continent, still searching for the door and unsure how much farther he had to go.

• A magical beast lured Oboro into a dark maze, where his soul ability disappeared and a golden clock began counting down as his senses were stripped away hour by hour.
• Oboro endured the loss of his senses and limbs, then used Senna and Ekko's abilities through his blood to destroy the nearby beast while silently declaring that he had caught it.
• The beast's death ended the maze, restored Oboro's senses and body, and allowed him to absorb its soul and gain a faint trace of rule power.
• Oboro tested that power on a blade of grass, imposing a rule that only fire-element energy could destroy it, and considered how rule power related to Nen and Alluka's wishes.
• Oboro reflected on the many years he had spent crossing the Dark Continent and continued toward the door, which the dead beast had never known about.

After years of wandering the Dark Continent, Oboro reached the giant tree at the map’s center but still could not find the door or a way to break through dimensions. He continued his journey with a group of intelligent stone creatures, the only beings he had found there capable of communication and exchange.

• Oboro realized he had lost track of time and reached the giant tree, where he still found no door.
• He checked the system and saw that his ecology score had reached 100 and his combat power had risen to the Dark Continent’s S+ rank.
• Oboro concluded that breaking through dimensions required rule-level energy beyond his current ability, though older Dark Continent creatures might possess it.
• A group of stone creatures approached, and Oboro recognized them as a relatively friendly species capable of communication.
• Oboro joined the stone creatures and continued traveling with them.