Chapter Summaries

Xu Yanxing regained consciousness in a laboratory, where scientists explained that they had trapped him in a fabricated memory to test whether he could use his supernatural powers. He discovered that his body had been removed and only his head remained, while Yao Hu's brain was displayed on another operating table.

• Xu Yanxing woke in the laboratory as Xige, Aming, and Xuan Niang identified themselves as scientists and discussed their experiment.
• Xu Yanxing tried to bargain for his freedom by revealing his ties to Caomiao Village, but the scientists ignored him and discussed Li Wei and his daughter escaping capture.
• Xu Yanxing recalled Yao Hu and asked whether the scientists had captured him; Xuan Niang showed him Yao Hu's brain preserved in a glass container.
• Xige explained that Xu Yanxing had entered an illusion at the dock, where he had attacked the ship's second-in-command and crew before the scientists brought him to the laboratory.
• Xige demonstrated that Xu Yanxing could still use his supernatural power without his Specter, and Xu Yanxing saw that only his head remained while his headless body lay in a glass box.

Jiang Qiao awakened the Heaven Measuring Staff enough to gain preliminary control of its Abyss-opening power, using the Fate Weaver and his Red Moon Restaurant Administrator identity to exploit a loophole. As he finished, a bottomless shaft opened in the lava world outside Soul Soothing Villa.

• Jiang Qiao studied the Heaven Measuring Staff and learned that Venerable Yu had fashioned it from a Half-God arm found in the Fengqiu Ruins.
• Jiang Qiao awakened the staff’s consciousness and experienced the sensation of merging with the darkness of its Abyss.
• Jiang Qiao used the Fate Weaver and the staff’s fear of Red Moon power to bring forward the result of its door opening and gain temporary access to its power.
• A bottomless shaft about one meter wide appeared in a huge pit in the lava world outside Soul Soothing Villa.

Du Qiu and Tao Ji traveled through the Deadfire Prison to trade with Wang Kui, but found his villa reduced to ruins and suspected powerful enemies had attacked it. Jiang Qiao spotted the two men spying from a distance and challenged them to come closer.

• Du Qiu told Tao Ji that Wang Kui was nearing the path to becoming a Half-God and would trade because he needed help understanding the rule of withering.
• Du Qiu warned Tao Ji not to ask questions about the institute, which might turn him into a test subject.
• Du Qiu and Tao Ji passed a charred child in the Deadfire Prison and discussed the Green Lotus Sect's destruction of the Corpse Demon and two Half-Gods.
• Du Qiu stopped the sedan chair when they saw Wang Kui's villa reduced to ruins, and he and Tao Ji suspected multiple powerful enemies had attacked it.
• Jiang Qiao spotted Du Qiu and Tao Ji from several kilometers away and taunted them to come closer.

Jiang Qiao confronted Du Qiu and Tao Ji in the ruined manor and learned that they had come from Medicine King City to buy Wang Kui’s Heart of Stone. Du Qiu explained Medicine King City’s ties to the Green Lotus Sect and proposed cooperating with Jiang Qiao against the Guangming Society.

• Jiang Qiao trapped Du Qiu and Tao Ji in his Ghost Domain, and Du Qiu recognized him as the Celestial Master.
• Du Qiu said he and Tao Ji had come to make a deal with Wang Kui, then revealed they wanted to buy the Heart of Stone for Medicine King City.
• Du Qiu explained that Medicine King City had two Half-Gods, belonged to the Green Lotus Sect’s outer organization, and had little knowledge of the Netherworld’s other factions.
• Du Qiu said the Green Lotus Sect had easily killed a Half-God and was stronger than the Guangming Society and the Old Citizens.
• Du Qiu proposed that Medicine King City and Jiang Qiao cooperate because both had a hostile relationship with the Guangming Society.

Jiang Qiao rejected Du Qiu’s offer to cooperate against the Guangming Society, while Du Qiu explained why Medicine King City could not risk provoking a full-scale war. Their conversation also revealed the Guangming Society’s powerful experts and left Jiang Qiao considering how his own strength compared.

• Jiang Qiao questioned what Medicine King City could offer and doubted it would risk helping him fight the Guangming Society.
• Du Qiu argued that the Netherworld was more trustworthy than surface factions and explained that the Fishbone Temple alliance had always been a struggle to the death.
• Jiang Qiao asked about the deity’s remains, and Du Qiu said deities were considered immortal, while the truth was likely known only to demigods.
• Du Qiu revealed that the Guangming Society’s designated next president was near the demigod realm and that two other experts surpassed Lady Rain.
• Jiang Qiao privately assessed his improved strength and considered whether the Red Moon Restaurant could raise him to the pinnacle below the demigod level.
• Du Qiu refused to promise an attack on the Guangming Society, warning that killing its experts would trigger a war that could devastate Medicine King City.

Jiang Qiao agreed in principle to cooperate with Medicine King City to disrupt the Asylum’s exploration of the Nether Sea, while suspecting Du Qiu had ulterior motives. At a research institute, Xu Yanxing was taken to a warehouse full of conscious human heads and began piecing together the facility’s layout.

• Jiang Qiao asked Du Qiu what Medicine King City could offer, and Du Qiu proposed sabotaging the Asylum, Guangming Society’s proxy organization exploring the Nether Sea.
• Du Qiu said the Asylum had found a mysterious island and a laboratory from the early Nether Era, and offered personnel, intelligence, and supplies.
• Jiang Qiao agreed in principle and demanded immediate, detailed information about the Nether Sea and the Asylum.
• Du Qiu left to retrieve the files, while Jiang Qiao privately suspected both sides were scheming against each other and said he cared about more than information.
• Staff moved Xu Yanxing’s head to a warehouse on the institute’s third floor, where rows of conscious heads watched him arrive.
• Xu Yanxing observed that the elevator served eighteen floors and wondered whether Yao Hu was still alive after being reduced to brain tissue.

Xu Yanxing was taken from the storeroom for an experiment in which researchers joined his head to another living person’s headless body, hoping he could control the anomalous entity inside it. After the procedure, he saw a bedroom and a young man holding a stone carving, while Dr. D questioned him about what he could perceive.

• Xu Yanxing remained in the storeroom among more than a hundred victims, where he slept when his thoughts or emotions became too intense.
• Workers brought Xu Yanxing, identified as Experiment Subject 400, to an Operating Room and fitted a device over his head.
• A researcher explained that they wanted Xu Yanxing to control the anomalous entity inside another living person’s body.
• The researchers connected Xu Yanxing’s head to a headless body using metal tubes, and his vision began to overlap with a bedroom where a young man held a stone carving.
• Xu Yanxing confirmed that he could see the carving, and Dr. D told him to keep cooperating and not worry about silently cursing.

Xu Yanxing learned that the researchers valued the transplant technology more than his life and sent his consciousness into the Supernatural Space where Beta-20’s weird entity resided. He woke in an apparently unreal Operating Room with his grafted body intact, realizing he had entered the entity’s inner space.

• The researcher told Xu Yanxing that eighteen test subjects had contacted Beta-20, but all attempts to establish contact with its consciousness-distorting stone carving had ended in madness.
• The researcher explained that the transplant technology had already been verified on other subjects, then warned Xu Yanxing that failure would leave him conscious but unable to control his body and send him to Sub-level Two.
• The researcher injected Xu Yanxing through the nostril with a thick needle, and Xu Yanxing lost consciousness in pain.
• Xu Yanxing woke on the floor of the silent Operating Room, where the researcher and instruments had disappeared, and found that his grafted body still moved smoothly.
• Xu Yanxing examined the room’s unreal sensations and concluded that the researchers had sent him into the Supernatural Space inside the body, where the weird entity resided.

Xu Yanxing explored a strange apartment in Supernatural Space and encountered a Painted Skin pretending to be a middle-aged version of a young man. After finding a stairwell, he chose to go downstairs in search of the young man.

• Xu Yanxing left the Operating Room through a wardrobe and searched a dusty, empty apartment, taking an Alarm Clock and Fountain Pen for protection.
• A man claiming to have brought Xiaolin scrambled eggs with tomatoes knocked at the door, then unlocked it and tried to enter.
• Xu Yanxing stabbed through the door and tore off the man's face, discovering that the visitor was a Painted Skin.
• Xu Yanxing saw that the corridor's only route led to a spiral staircase, with a bright way upstairs and a dark way downstairs.
• Xu Yanxing recalled that the young man had been in a bright room without windows and cautiously descended the stairs.

Xu Yanxing descended a seemingly endless staircase into a dark space and found an old, sealed house at the end of a corridor. After entering and finding the kitchen ordinary, he approached the only bedroom, where a cold wind and a fleeting presence appeared behind him.

• Xu Yanxing hurried down the dark staircase after hearing a door slam behind him, then realized the stairs were abnormally long.
• Xu Yanxing reached the staircase’s end, crossed a dark open space, and found an old corridor covered in moss.
• Xu Yanxing approached a rusted iron door that opened slightly from inside, then pushed it open and entered a clean, lit room.
• Xu Yanxing found ordinary water and beef in the kitchen and noticed that the house had no windows.
• Xu Yanxing opened the bedroom door, felt a cold wind from behind, and shouted to ask who was there.

Xu Yanxing failed to seize the stone carving in the Consciousness Space but returned to the research institute without losing his mind. As Dr. D prepared to extract his memories and continue experimenting on him, α-99 escaped containment.

• Xu Yanxing saw the unconscious young man sit up as the stone carving formed a human face, then rushed to grab it and was pulled out of the Consciousness Space.
• Xu Yanxing woke on the operating table, and Dr. D praised him for surviving the failed connection without going insane.
• Dr. D ordered his assistant to retrieve and review Xu Yanxing's memories, while Xu Yanxing cursed Dr. D in his thoughts.
• Dr. D dismissed Xu Yanxing's anger and told the assistant to try β-15 after extracting his memories.
• An alarm sounded, and a staff member reported that α-99 had escaped containment and the testing area needed to be evacuated.

After an evacuation alarm sent security personnel to deal with α-99 on the Sixth Floor, Xu Yanxing escaped the Operating Room where Dr. D had left him. He found a researcher’s identity card and used it to open a drawer in an archives room.

• Dr. D and the assistant fled the Operating Room, leaving Xu Yanxing behind as the facility ordered personnel to evacuate and security to respond to α-99.
• Xu Yanxing pulled the tubes from his body and struggled through the empty Fourth Floor, searching for a way out despite the sealed routes and his weakness.
• He found a blue-gas-filled Operating Room where a rotten figure repeatedly struck the glass, but he left without helping it.
• Xu Yanxing discovered an identity card labeled Professor K in an empty Operating Room.
• He used the card at an archives-room filing cabinet, and one of its drawers popped open.

Xu Yanxing searched the institute’s archives and found research reports, including a drug that could suppress supernatural possession for years at the cost of severe long-term side effects. After meeting Ω-851, he learned how the institute classified subjects and was warned not to trust its researchers or assume the grafted body attached to him belonged to a living person.

• Xu Yanxing read the institute’s reports and found that a drug could keep awakened supernatural entities from harming their hosts, though prolonged use eventually caused supernatural transformation and mental collapse.
• Xu Yanxing collected the reports to take back to Caomiao Village, but gave up trying to destroy the apparently abnormal computers.
• Xu Yanxing encountered a tall, gray-skinned young man with an exposed chest and a black box attached to his beating heart.
• Xu Yanxing identified himself as Experiment Subject 400, while the young man introduced himself as Ω-851 and explained the institute’s numbering and danger-level symbols.
• Ω-851 told Xu Yanxing that Beta-20 was a supernatural entity rather than a living person’s body and warned him not to believe the researchers.

Xu Yanxing learned of a dangerous route from the Fourth Floor to the fifth and set out through a scarlet door, while the young man secretly released evil spirits and test subjects across the Fourth Floor. The young man then prepared to free an old man in a burial shroud.

• The young man told Xu Yanxing that a hidden passage led through a corpse-filled warehouse to the fifth floor, and described surviving it with the designation Omega-851.
• Xu Yanxing crossed the deserted Fourth Floor and reached a scarlet door marked "Keep out," then pushed it open.
• After Xu Yanxing left, the young man entered a laboratory and released the Cactus Woman.
• The young man opened more laboratories, freeing self-aware test subjects and allowing others to roam the Fourth Floor.
• The young man found an old man in a burial shroud restrained in a laboratory and used a second ID card to prepare to release him.

Xu Yanxing searched the warehouse and entered a dissection room to retrieve a hidden scalpel, where an unseen evil spirit attacked him. Armed with the blade, he left the room and reached the first fork, the boundary between relative safety and danger.

• Xu Yanxing found a locked dissection room and broke its window to enter and search for a scalpel hidden beneath a dissection table.
• Xu Yanxing saw dried organs and strange writing inside the room, then felt an unseen presence moving around him.
• Xu Yanxing retrieved the scalpel, but an evil spirit grabbed his wrist and left a pitch-black finger mark on his hand.
• Xu Yanxing left the dissection room with the scalpel and followed the signs through the damp passageways to the first fork.

Xu Yanxing climbed the enormous shaft toward the Research Institute’s upper floors, realizing the structure was built from extraordinarily durable materials. Determined to escape and expose the institute to the other ancient villages, he heard a commotion below just as a group of people entered the shaft.

• Xu Yanxing carefully climbed the spiral stairs, keeping the warning about a dangerous entity in the shaft in mind.
• Xu Yanxing noticed what seemed to be water at the brightly lit bottom and estimated he had climbed hundreds of meters without reaching the fifth floor.
• Xu Yanxing concluded that the Research Institute was a genuine material-built structure and marveled at its durability.
• Xu Yanxing resolved to escape and reveal the institute to other ancient villages, including Tianyu and Taoqiu.
• A group of people ran into the shaft from the entrance below as Xu Yanxing prepared to climb the final stretch.

Xu Yanxing fled through the Vertical Shaft as the released experimental subjects climbed after him, only for a monstrous branch to erupt from the depths and devour two of them. He escaped through the exit, but the screams behind him made clear that the danger had not ended.

• Xu Yanxing saw the released experimental subjects enter the Vertical Shaft and hurried toward the upper floors to avoid them.
• The experimental subjects followed him, climbing rapidly and using their supernatural abilities despite the warnings about the shaft.
• Xu Yanxing spotted two unstable subjects closing in and tried to reach the exit before they caught him.
• The Vertical Shaft shook as a huge, bandage-wrapped branch surged upward from below and battered the staircase.
• The branch's fleshy mouths swallowed two pursuing experimental subjects, and Xu Yanxing ran from the exit as screams echoed behind him.

Xu Yanxing escaped the shaft and cautiously entered a hospital-like corridor lined with storerooms, where a bound recorder warned him about the dangers ahead and offered to guide him. Before Xu Yanxing could learn more about the research institute, a bouquet of roses appeared behind him.

• Xu Yanxing realized the shaft contained a gigantic Supernatural Plant and wondered how powerful it might be.
• Xu Yanxing explored the winding corridor and encountered a bound man in patient clothes who claimed to be a laboratory recorder.
• The recorder warned Xu Yanxing that Evil Spirits lurked in B Area and offered to help him reach the fifth floor if Xu Yanxing released him.
• Xu Yanxing questioned the recorder about the research institute, but the man noticed something behind Xu Yanxing.
• Xu Yanxing turned and saw a bouquet of bright roses at the corridor bend, though it had not been there moments earlier.

Xu Yanxing and the bound recorder trapped the lethal pollen-spraying roses in a cabinet, then the recorder explained the warehouse’s dangers and the institute’s suspected ties to the underworld. The chapter left Xu Yanxing alarmed by the possibility that the Shore Flower organization, which had a Ninth Tier Expert, was connected to the institute.

• The recorder warned Xu Yanxing to hold his breath as β-117’s pollen infected half his face.
• Xu Yanxing threw the roses into a cabinet, and the recorder shut the door to confine them.
• The recorder explained that β-117 could spray lethal pollen and eventually escape through an uncontrolled ghost domain, but posed little danger while confined.
• The recorder described the warehouse’s experimental zones and said the institute’s true leadership was unknown.
• The recorder said he had seen the Shore Flower deliver samples, leading Xu Yanxing to fear the institute had ties to the underworld.

Xu Yanxing freed the recorder and learned that escaping the institute was his first priority before he could seek help from Tianyu Ancient Village. As they fled from a dangerous entity, the recorder explained that the survivors from the shaft had attracted other evil spirits, and a rubbery figure emerged behind them.

• The recorder told Xu Yanxing that he needed to escape with the research files and gamble on taking them to Tianyu Ancient Village, though it might not protect him.
• Xu Yanxing cut the recorder’s zip tie free, and they secured the door to keep a rose trapped inside.
• A wounded group from the shaft appeared in the corridor, and an invisible force tripped and dragged away the woman at the rear.
• The recorder identified the threat as β-70 and explained that the survivors had attracted β-300, whose aura made other evil spirits attack them.
• Xu Yanxing and the recorder ran deeper into the corridor, and a thin, elongated figure emerged from a door behind them.