Chapter Summaries

Jiang Qiao broke out of the evil spirit’s corridor trap and tracked it down in the Poolcore space, where they clashed amid collapsing space and time. As their battle destabilized the Poolcore, Miao Yi and Liu Kun fled the destruction and saw a gigantic whirlpool forming in a distant pool.

• The evil spirit pulled Jiang Qiao into a corridor, but he burned through its supernatural structure and shattered the passage with a punch.
• Back in the Poolcore space, Jiang Qiao used talismans to drive the hidden evil spirit out of the darkness.
• The evil spirit unleashed rules of decay, but Jiang Qiao shielded himself with lightning and the azure dragon before collapsing space and time against it.
• Jiang Qiao and the evil spirit fought at full strength, spreading the void and destabilizing the Poolcore space.
• Miao Yi and Liu Kun dodged collapsing buildings by floating above the pool water, where they saw a gigantic whirlpool forming.

Jiang Qiao defeated and killed the Abyssal Evil Spirit on Floor -98, then hurried to escape as the Poolcore space collapsed. A vast darkness erupted from the collapsing pool, revealing that a passage had opened.

• Jiang Qiao overwhelmed the Evil Spirit with his attacks and raised a Giant Axe that made the walls of the world crack.
• The Evil Spirit fled, but Jiang Qiao’s axe strike exposed it and shattered its mask with a sustained barrage of punches.
• The Simulator announced that Jiang Qiao had slain the Abyssal Evil Spirit and offered him fragments to complete his Ancient Evil Spirit body, which he chose not to use yet.
• As Floor -98 began to disintegrate, Jiang Qiao returned to the ground and grabbed Yang Kun and Miao Yi.
• Jiang Qiao noticed a vast darkness erupting from the vortex in the collapsing pool and realized that a passage had opened.

Jiang Qiao sensed a formless, approaching presence in the darkness beyond floor [-98] and recognized similarities to an Abyss. When the Divine Firmament Thunder Seal revealed the presence to his Dual Pupils, he struck at it to drive it away.

• Miao Yi described a past delivery mission near Golden Rooster Mountain where he had sensed something dangerous behind a pitch-black sky.
• Jiang Qiao speculated that an Abyss might exist beyond the space occupied by floor [-98].
• The sound of approaching chains intensified as Jiang Qiao detected a strange, formless pattern in the darkness.
• The presence’s oppressive aura made Yang Ling and Miao Yi feel suffocated, while Jiang Qiao’s unease grew.
• Jiang Qiao summoned the Divine Firmament Thunder Seal, saw the vast, twisted presence, and slammed the seal into the darkness.

Jiang Qiao escaped the collapsing [-98] Floor with Liu Kun and Miao Yi as a powerful Abyssal entity tried to enter. After they reached safety, he used Time Reversal to help restore his companions’ damaged memories and pondered the entity’s nature.

• Jiang Qiao fled toward the elevator after the Divine Firmament Thunder Seal blocked the Abyssal existence but damaged the [-98] Floor.
• Liu Kun and Miao Yi followed Jiang Qiao into the elevator as the floor shook and collapsed around them.
• The Abyssal entity reopened its passage, and its distorted face disrupted Jiang Qiao’s memories, so he enveloped the three of them in the Divine Firmament Thunder Seal’s black lightning.
• The elevator doors closed and isolated the three from the collapsing floor before the Abyss could swallow it.
• Jiang Qiao used Time Reversal to help repair Liu Kun and Miao Yi’s memories, then wondered whether the entity was a tangle of information born from nothingness and memories.

Jiang Qiao and his companions reached the [-99] floor, an eerie office-like Infinite Corridor that differed from Miao Yi's previous visit. As they explored its rooms, a disconnected landline suddenly rang, leaving them facing an unexplained disturbance.

• During the six-hour elevator ride, Jiang Qiao questioned Miao Yi and Liu Kun, who said they knew little about the [-99] floor and had never received a mission involving the Abyss.
• The elevator arrived at the [-99] floor, where Jiang Qiao found a brightly lit office corridor that filled him with inexplicable discomfort.
• Jiang Qiao led Miao Yi and Liu Kun through a reception room and conference room, which Miao Yi said had not existed during his earlier visit.
• The group explored offices containing familiar Blue Star books and an apparently new computer with no files or network.
• As Jiang Qiao and the others left the CEO's office, a landline with no telephone cable began ringing loudly.

Jiang Qiao and his companions explored floor [-99], where a ringing phone appeared to reveal their location and a powerful vicious ghost attacked them. After smashing through a hall’s wooden doors, Jiang Qiao found black mist drifting from the darkness beyond, leaving their route forward uncertain.

• Jiang Qiao answered a ringing landline, suspected it was transmitting their location, and smashed it.
• A humanoid ghost crawled through a ceiling vent and attacked Jiang Qiao, who knocked it down and killed it with a final punch.
• Jiang Qiao and his companions passed a room showing surveillance footage of them and continued through the corridors without further attacks.
• The group reached an empty hall lined with seven or eight wooden doors, and Jiang Qiao punched them all open.
• Black mist drifted out from the darkness behind the doors and began dimming the brightly lit hall.

Jiang Qiao investigated a decayed space where corridors looped and overlapped, causing Liu Kun and Miao Yi to disappear. After finding a printer and destroying a ringing phone, he triggered an attack by ghosts emerging from the wall.

• Jiang Qiao found that the building had transformed into a decayed space with a looping corridor that returned him to the lobby.
• Jiang Qiao left Liu Kun at a doorway and Miao Yi at a corridor corner, but both vanished when he passed through the corridor.
• Jiang Qiao concluded that overlapping spatial corridors could be switched between by certain methods.
• Jiang Qiao found an old dot-matrix printer that produced a sheet bearing a man's face and unreadable characters.
• Jiang Qiao crushed a ringing phone in the lobby, causing ghosts to emerge from a hole-like space behind peeling wallpaper.
• Jiang Qiao fought the ghosts with thunderous blows and easily killed them.

Yang Kun heard strange sounds coming from a room and found that Jiang Qiao and Miao Yi had vanished. Inside, he encountered an office filled with static-filled computers and a Vicious Ghost resembling his long-missing companion Jiang Fei, which attacked him.

• Yang Kun heard noises from a room that Jiang Qiao had previously found empty and went looking for Jiang Qiao and Miao Yi, but found the corridor and lobby deserted.
• Yang Kun saw that the room had become a vast office filled with cubicles, old computers, and screens showing static.
• The static reminded Yang Kun of a mission four years earlier, when his companion Jiang Fei disappeared after seeing images in a television screen.
• A twisted figure resembling Jiang Fei emerged from the office and accused Yang Kun of abandoning him in the villa.
• Yang Kun struck the figure with the Bone Cleaver, but it suffered no injury and then twisted its body before pouncing at him.

Miao Yi became trapped in an Infinite Corridor on Floor [-99] and searched for an unusual door that might lead out. After opening many doors to find only repeating corridors and staircases, he discovered an abandoned screening room and entered it.

• Miao Yi found himself trapped in an endless corridor after answering Jiang Qiao's call, with the doors and his route back gone.
• Miao Yi recalled Lin Rui's advice to break the corridor's rules and began opening doors, finding repeated corridors and endless staircases.
• Miao Yi remembered Lin Rui's warnings about Floor [-99]'s Vicious Ghosts and decided he could risk searching for a different area.
• Miao Yi found a screening room behind one door, confirmed it was unique by checking dozens of nearby doors, and entered after seeing no immediate danger.

Miao Yi entered a Screening Room where his use of the Ghost Domain triggered a supernatural event, forcing him to flee through a small door rather than retreat. He emerged in a familiar corridor on Floor [-99] and recognized the open iron gate leading to the Underground Garage.

• Miao Yi cautiously entered the Screening Room and searched it for immediate danger and another exit.
• Miao Yi used the Ghost Domain to approach a small door, provoking a feeling of being watched, whispers, and a supernatural distortion of time.
• Rows of ragged audience members appeared in the seats as images came onto the screen, and Miao Yi decided not to retreat.
• Miao Yi opened the small door and charged through, escaping the Screening Room as it shut behind him.
• Miao Yi recognized the corridor and open iron gate from his earlier exploration of Floor [-99], identifying the place beyond as the Underground Garage.

Miao Yi reached the parking lot on Floor [-99] and waited for Jiang Qiao, while Liu Kun escaped a corridor full of multiplying Jiang Feis only to be driven from the stairs by a pursuing presence. Liu Kun found himself in the corridor packed with televisions and radios, all of which were active.

• Miao Yi entered the familiar parking lot, left its entrance untouched, and settled in a corner to wait for Jiang Qiao.
• Liu Kun escaped the corridor after killing several multiplying staff members who looked like Jiang Fei.
• Liu Kun stayed on a spiral staircase as rhythmic clangs sounded above him and the fluorescent lights began to hum more intensely.
• A dark presence rushed down the stairs, struck Liu Kun with a surge of static, and vanished when he swung his Bone Cleaver.
• Liu Kun found himself in a different corridor filled with active televisions and radios, and a radio crackled, "Is anyone there?"

Jiang Qiao explored deeper into the building after becoming separated from Liu Kun and Miao Yi, then found a brightly lit Mourning Hall. The hall reminded him of a classmate’s story about an eerie funeral-supplies company on a supposedly sealed office floor.

• Jiang Qiao heard an anxious voice speaking through an empty landline, answered it, and smashed the hollow phone after the voice promised to find him.
• Jiang Qiao continued down a spotless corridor and discovered a Mourning Hall with wreaths, a coffin, and burning incense and candles.
• Jiang Qiao recalled his classmate’s story about accidentally reaching the Twenty-Seventh Floor of an office building and seeing a towering woman vanish near a funeral-supplies company.
• Jiang Qiao’s classmate later learned that the Twenty-Seventh Floor was listed as vacant, and he found no reliable information about the company.

Jiang Qiao explored a repeating Mourning Hall that gradually transformed into an old-fashioned funeral chamber. Using his Dual Pupils, he identified a hidden anomaly beneath the corpse and pulled the body from the coffin, leaving the chamber dark and whatever lay beneath exposed.

• Jiang Qiao examined an old man's corpse and judged that it had been dead for roughly two days.
• After repeatedly passing identical Mourning Halls, Jiang Qiao reached a narrower, deteriorated corridor and entered a traditional Mourning Hall.
• Jiang Qiao inspected the funeral offerings, portrait, and Paper People, then used his Dual Pupils to find black lines beneath the corpse.
• Jiang Qiao flung open the coffin, causing the lights to go out and ash-like footprints to appear nearby.
• Jiang Qiao pulled the corpse from the coffin, telling it to move aside because it was not what he was looking for.

Jiang Qiao took a cursed family photograph from the coffin and suppressed its attempt to pull him into it. Beyond the Mourning Hall, he faced a living darkness that devoured even his Stove Fire, and summoned talismans to pit it against another force.

• Jiang Qiao picked up the family photograph, resisted its Mental Shock, and suppressed its curse with his Evil Spirit Body and fire.
• Jiang Qiao left the Mourning Hall and found a staircase lined with red-and-white lanterns, a black Paper Person, and an open iron door filled with darkness and suspended heads.
• Jiang Qiao struck the iron door with lightning, but the darkness absorbed the attack before it could reach the heads.
• The darkness surged through the corridor and swallowed Jiang Qiao, while his Stove Fire struggled to burn it and was devoured.
• Jiang Qiao drew Black Background Red Text talismans and said he would make the darkness clash with another place that devoured everything.

Jiang Qiao summoned a wisp of the Nether Sea’s aura to drive away the darkness and an Evil Spirit on the [-99] floor. As he continued through the nested corridors, a strange music box appeared, and he suspected a hidden spatial tunnel was connected to Liu Kun and Miao Yi’s disappearances.

• Jiang Qiao used Red Moon power and talismans to summon a wisp of the Nether Sea, forcing the darkness to retreat behind the iron door.
• Jiang Qiao dispersed the mist, opened the door, and found that the Evil Spirit and the family portrait had vanished.
• Jiang Qiao reflected that summoning the Nether Sea could serve as a trump card, though he would have to flee if it truly invaded.
• Jiang Qiao heard a strange song, then found a music box with a cracked Little Person inside it.
• Jiang Qiao used Dual Pupils to detect a fading aura of death and concluded that the unseen singer had escaped through a hidden spatial tunnel.

Jiang Qiao investigated the strange song following him through a corroded corridor and discovered corpses hidden in the rust. A moving Wood Door then attacked him, and he fought back with lightning and flames.

• Jiang Qiao found a Music Box that sustained the Little Person's screams and put it in his pocket.
• He heard singing, footsteps, and laughter following him, then used his Dual Pupils to see a line of corpses that collapsed into rust when he turned around.
• Jiang Qiao let the sounds approach without looking back, and the corpses passed him before turning their heads to stare at him.
• A Wood Door appeared close behind Jiang Qiao and tried to shove him inside as rotten heads lunged out to bite him.
• Jiang Qiao blasted the Vicious Ghosts with lightning, dodged the Wood Door, and engulfed it in Blazing Flame.

Jiang Qiao fought the self-aware Wooden Door, discovering that it could distort space, weaken his Dual Pupils, and turn supernatural traces into controllable ghosts. After burning through its attacks, he faced the reappearing Music Box ghost in a new form that threatened him.

• Jiang Qiao identified the Wooden Door as the source of the corridor's darkness and realized it could control vicious ghosts and weaken his Dual Pupils.
• Jiang Qiao used Stove Fire and his Dual Pupils to expose and burn the Music Box ghost, then crushed the Music Box and kicked away a disembodied arm.
• Jiang Qiao recognized that the Wooden Door could turn victims' imprints and other supernatural phenomena into vessels for ghosts.
• Jiang Qiao found that the Wooden Door remained three paces away and diverted his supernatural power into the darkness beyond it.
• After Jiang Qiao killed more ghosts, the Music Box ghost reappeared in a fluorescent blue jacket and pink trousers, and Jiang Qiao sensed a threat from it.

Jiang Qiao fought the Music Box Vicious Ghost, resisting its curses and reversing the injury it inflicted with Time Reversal. He stopped the ghost from escaping into the darkness and unleashed a combined assault in front of the Wood Door.

• The Music Box Vicious Ghost appeared in a new direction and tried to graft Jiang Qiao to the floor and freeze him, but he broke free and burned away the effects.
• The ghost used its weight to separate Jiang Qiao’s facial skin, so Jiang Qiao used Time Reversal to restore himself.
• Jiang Qiao charged through the ghost’s infant-like cry and cut off its head and body with his Assassination Technique.
• The Vicious Ghost tried to flee into the darkness, but Jiang Qiao used the Black Tortoise Rule and Stalker to block its route back.
• Jiang Qiao struck the ghost with thunder infused with the Power of Chaos as a towering figure emerged from him before the Wood Door.

Jiang Qiao and Gou Chen held back the Wooden Door while Jiang Qiao destroyed the Music Box Vicious Ghost. After the door unleashed a deadly darkness, Jiang Qiao revealed he had used the fight to measure its coordinates and entered the house beyond it.

• Gou Chen and the White Tiger dragged Vicious Ghosts from the darkness and slaughtered them while Jiang Qiao attacked the Music Box Vicious Ghost.
• Jiang Qiao battered the Music Box Vicious Ghost with punches infused with Chaos power and flame until it shattered and died.
• The Wooden Door pierced Gou Chen and the White Tiger, extinguished Jiang Qiao's flames, and flooded the corridor with deadly darkness.
• Jiang Qiao revealed that he had been measuring the Wooden Door's coordinates while Gou Chen held it back.
• Gou Chen flickered back into place as the White Tiger drove its chain into the Wooden Door, giving Jiang Qiao time to enter the house beyond it.

Jiang Qiao explored a sealed house hidden beyond the animated Wooden Door and discovered an Abyssal Rectangle Diagram drawn on a sheet of paper. He could see and understand the impossible pattern, but could not reproduce it.

• Jiang Qiao found the living room and kitchen clean and undisturbed, with signs that the owner had abruptly left a meal unfinished.
• Jiang Qiao concluded that the house was a space floating in a void, with the Wooden Door as its only entrance and exit.
• Jiang Qiao entered the lit bedroom and found a running computer and a sheet of paper bearing an Abyssal Rectangle Diagram.
• Jiang Qiao picked up the paper and tried to copy the diagram, but could not even determine how to begin drawing it.