Chapter Summaries

Jiang Qiao reviewed thirteen bounty missions in Demon Port but accepted none, then considered several deaths and disappearances that might involve curses or supernatural entities. The chapter left him weighing which cases to pursue after learning about the risks surrounding the missing merchant sons.

• Jiang Qiao paid Liu Ming 1,300 yuan for information on thirteen bounty missions and said he would think about them.
• Liu Ming relied on the Mutual Aid Society’s rules to protect his intermediary fee if Jiang Qiao took a mission directly from an employer.
• Jiang Qiao considered two death cases, including the quiet, apparently cursed killing of a ship-repair factory’s financial supervisor outside Demon Port.
• Jiang Qiao noted that two of three disappearance cases involved wealthy merchants’ sons who had gone exploring in Ma Dang Mountain.
• A missing son’s family suffered recurring dreams of darkness, rushing water, and extreme cold, prompting his father to seek help from the Port Management Committee and post a high-bounty mission.

Jiang Qiao suspected the authorities had hidden information about the captain’s disappearance and might be using a bounty mission for another purpose. Meanwhile, Liu Ming offered the injured Don a Duke-issued mission to explore ruins at Ma Dang Mountain, and Don accepted because he knew the area well.

• Jiang Qiao questioned whether the authorities were incompetent or concealing the truth about the missing fishing-boat captain.
• Liu Ming visited Don, who explained that he needed work ashore to pay for his ship’s repairs and his injured sailors’ medical expenses.
• Liu Ming showed Don the Duke’s mission to explore ruins at Ma Dang Mountain for 20,000 Netherworld Coins per day.
• Don learned that two Fourth Order heirs had disappeared at Ma Dang Mountain after venturing beyond the safer outer areas.
• Don accepted the mission, confident that his past experience hunting evil entities at Ma Dang Mountain made him well suited to explore it.

Jiang Qiao spotted Liu Yuanyuan in Demon Port, where she was using the alias Ms. Wang and had grown to the Seventh Tier. After she accepted an invitation to explore Ma Dang Mountain with Don, Jiang Qiao learned that the mountain’s shifting terrain and spatial interference made it perilous for newcomers.

• Jiang Qiao recognized Liu Yuanyuan at a dessert shop and noticed the ghostlike figure behind her as well as her increased strength.
• Ms. Jiang invited Liu Yuanyuan to assist her husband Don on a paid mission to explore newly discovered ruins at Ma Dang Mountain.
• Ms. Jiang recalled that Liu Yuanyuan had claimed connections to Tianyu Ancient Village and had been exploring ruins related to the Nether Sea.
• Liu Yuanyuan sensed someone watching her, but Jiang Qiao had already left the area.
• Jiang Qiao found Ma Dang Mountain on a map and learned that its interior terrain shifted unpredictably, causing companions to vanish and reappear.

Liu Yuanyuan, disguised as Wang Bing, traveled with Don through Ma Dang Mountain to investigate the ruins Mr. Duke had marked on a map. They found a collapsed ancient arena with a passage leading underground, though nothing above ground revealed the hidden ruin.

• Liu Yuanyuan and Don entered Ma Dang Mountain and discussed its spatial shifts, the rumored Divine Temple, and the dangers found deeper in the mountains.
• Don told Liu Yuanyuan that strangers in luxurious cloaks lived in the mountains and attacked outsiders, though they were unlikely to encounter them in the outer region.
• Liu Yuanyuan and Don followed Mr. Duke's map through the outer region without encountering danger.
• Liu Yuanyuan and Don reached a collapsed arena and found a dark passage that led to an underground ruin undetectable from above.

Don and Liu Yuanyuan entered an underground ruin with a group from Mr. Duke, who had found little after two months of exploration. They began inspecting the empty chambers, and Liu Yuanyuan warned that the ruin could conceal a passage to a hidden supernatural space.

• Fang Ying briefed Don and Liu Yuanyuan on the ruin, its map, and reports of a possible white figure, then gave Don a communication notebook.
• Don declined the accompanying staff and entered the pit with Liu Yuanyuan; an unknown figure followed them inside.
• Don tested the smooth granite floor while Liu Yuanyuan noted that it blocked Supernatural Perception despite the staff's extensive drilling and investigation.
• Liu Yuanyuan explained that the ruin might connect to a hidden inner world under certain conditions, and she urged them to inspect it themselves before making a plan.
• Don agreed to explore further and privately judged Liu Yuanyuan to be cautious rather than reckless.

Jiang Qiao explored a seemingly ordinary passage in the underground palace and discovered a mysterious Wood Door that released a pale Spiritual Body. After he caught the figure, the door opened wider and something began approaching from behind it.

• Jiang Qiao secretly followed Liu Yuanyuan and Don into the underground palace, then split off into a long passage Fang Ying's map marked as a dead end.
• Jiang Qiao examined the passage and found that its ordinary rooms and solid walls concealed increasingly bright light at the far end.
• Jiang Qiao saw a pale Spiritual Body emerge through a crack in a gray Wood Door and observed it flee when he revealed himself.
• Jiang Qiao waited for the figure to return, then caught it when it drifted out again.
• Jiang Qiao noticed the Wood Door's crack widen as he held the figure, and heard tapping from something approaching behind it.

Jiang Qiao heard a strange door opening behind a Wooden Door that blocked the Dual Pupils, while Liu Yuanyuan and Don debated how to respond to the supernatural disturbance. Liu Yuanyuan argued that they should report it and have the Duke’s subordinates investigate first, leaving the group poised to decide whether to enter.

• Jiang Qiao heard viscous tapping behind the Wooden Door and stepped back, readying black thunder in case something emerged.
• Liu Yuanyuan and Don heard the door opening from the plaza as the passage turned a gloomy green and began affecting them with a possible curse.
• Liu Yuanyuan refused to enter without knowing what awaited them and proposed calling down the Duke’s subordinates to scout ahead.
• Don objected that relying on the Duke’s people could damage the adventurers’ reputation for courage.
• Liu Yuanyuan argued that reporting the discovery would please the Duke and that gaining something from the ruin mattered more than risking their lives to appear brave.

Jiang Qiao watched bizarre, slime-covered bugs pour from the Wooden Door and crawl toward the others, while Don, Liu Yuanyuan, and Fang Ying’s group fought them in the plaza. The bugs were quickly slaughtered, but their cursed stench affected the Awakened, and the threat behind the door remained unexplored.

• Jiang Qiao watched thirty-meter-long, mouth-covered bugs emerge from the Wooden Door and crawl out of the passage.
• Jiang Qiao heard Don, Fang Ying, and other Awakened encounter the bugs, while Liu Yuanyuan remained silent.
• Don explained to Fang Ying that they had heard the door opening and invited the group to discuss what to do.
• Fang Ying spotted the approaching bugs and ordered everyone to prepare for battle.
• Don unleashed Yin wind to restrain the bugs, and the Awakened attacked them as their cursed stench began affecting the group.
• Don and Liu Yuanyuan helped slaughter the bugs, while Fang Ying recognized their Seventh Tier strength.

Liu Yuanyuan used her terrifying broad-bladed sword to destroy the monster insects and took charge of the underground mission. Jiang Qiao recognized the sword as a sealed Half-God item, and the group eventually arrived at his location.

• Don froze the insects with a cold wind, while Liu Yuanyuan’s sword released Fierce Sha Energy and wiped out every insect in the passage.
• Fang Ying thanked Liu Yuanyuan for saving his poisoned companions, and Don vouched for her connection to Tianyu Ancient Village.
• Liu Yuanyuan asked Fang Ying to bring the people on the ground below, and he agreed before sending his weakened companions back.
• Jiang Qiao sensed the sword’s power and concluded that Liu Yuanyuan had begun unlocking its true strength.
• More than twenty minutes later, Liu Yuanyuan, Don, Fang Ying, and the duke’s uniformed underlings reached Jiang Qiao, who said he had been waiting so long he was almost asleep.

Fang Ying’s team entered a newly appeared Wooden Door and found a grand Nether Era palace, while Jiang Qiao sent Thunder Spirit inside to observe them. Liu Yuanyuan identified a distorted statue as possibly depicting a devil.

• Fang Ying sent a subordinate through the Wooden Door, and the man returned saying he had found a beautiful, apparently safe palace.
• Fang Ying tested the subordinate with a special piece of cardboard, then sent more subordinates through and checked their reports before entering with Don and Liu Yuanyuan.
• Jiang Qiao stayed behind and sent Thunder Spirit through the door as his clone to scout the palace.
• Thunder Spirit saw the group examining a hall with copper pillars and statues that appeared increasingly distorted the longer they were watched.
• Liu Yuanyuan said ancient texts described the statue and called it the devil.

Liu Yuanyuan explained the scarce records about devils and the destruction that marked the end of the Nether Era, while Jiang Qiao privately questioned what the group knew about the ancient world. Liu Yuanyuan revealed that her historian parents disappeared while investigating the Nether Era’s end, and that she explored ruins to continue their work and search for them.

• Liu Yuanyuan said devils could manipulate the living and speculated they either perished or hid during the later Nether Era.
• Don agreed that the lifelike devil statue might indicate a connection between the ruin’s owner and the devils.
• Fang Ying said the Nether Era ended when the last remnants of civilization deep in the underworld were destroyed and their people died.
• Jiang Qiao privately wondered who destroyed those civilizations and concluded that some people still possessed lost knowledge but were unwilling to share it.
• Liu Yuanyuan said her historian parents disappeared after investigating the Nether Era’s end, and she explored ruins to continue their work and search for them.

Jiang Qiao questioned the girl’s claims about her historian parents as the group explored an underground palace and encountered an unexplained voice. At the hall’s throne, Don recognized its mark from a ship he had seen at sea, and Liu Yuanyuan suggested the place might conceal a door connected to beings from the Nether Era.

• Jiang Qiao wondered whether the girl’s search for her historian parents concealed another purpose.
• The group entered a warmly lit hall and heard strange voices that seemed to answer Fang Ying, Don, and Liu Yuanyuan, but they found no source or supernatural fluctuations.
• Liu Yuanyuan advised the others to leave the harmless, unexplained phenomenon alone, and they continued exploring.
• Don recognized the eye-and-triangle mark on the chair as the same symbol he had seen on a ship’s flag during a storm at sea.
• Liu Yuanyuan said that if the mark belonged to beings from the Nether Era, the place would not be a tomb and a door should be hidden behind the chair.

Jiang Qiao discovered miniature houses containing cursed Little People and found that their Spiritual Bodies could escape from their tiny bodies. Meanwhile, Liu Yuanyuan and the others opened the way to a vast, crude third hall and spotted enormous shadows overhead.

• Jiang Qiao found a box containing a distorted Little Person and discovered dozens of similar boxes hidden in the hall.
• Jiang Qiao questioned the Little Person, which proved unable to answer him and repeatedly cursed him, though its curses could not harm him.
• Jiang Qiao crushed the Little Person and watched a Spiritual Body emerge, then released it and collected several more boxes containing unstable Little People.
• Liu Yuanyuan and the others opened a concealed stone door and climbed into a huge, rough hall lit by bonfires.
• Liu Yuanyuan looked up and saw enormous shadows high above the hall.

Jiang Qiao and the others entered a plaza filled with immense sculptures of deities whose appearances and names threatened their minds and lives. Liu Yuanyuan broke the group’s trance and Don urged them to retreat, but she pointed out that their way back might be blocked.

• Jiang Qiao and the others saw enormous sculptures of deities covering the plaza ceiling, and Fang Ying involuntarily recited their names.
• Liu Yuanyuan kicked Fang Ying and ordered the others not to look up, interrupting his trance and Don’s vision of an alluring otherworldly realm.
• Don realized the sculptures had nearly drained his life and subdued the force within him, while Fang Ying and Don’s lower-tier subordinates suffered or died.
• Don insisted that they leave the dangerous plaza, but Liu Yuanyuan pointed behind them and questioned whether they could still escape.

After the plaza’s opening transformed the hall into a filthy, corpse-like ruin, Liu Yuanyuan advised the group to stay put and sent out clones to investigate. Jiang Qiao studied her near-identical clones and wondered whether her growing abilities meant she was recovering power from a past existence.

• Fang Ying, Don, and Liu Yuanyuan found the hall outside the plaza transformed, with a burial-shroud-like carpet and human-shaped forms writhing beneath it.
• Don asked Liu Yuanyuan whether they should fight their way out or remain where they were, and she sent clones to investigate the plaza and surrounding halls.
• Liu Yuanyuan warned that retracing their steps through a Nether Era ruin could be dangerous and suggested staying put for the time being.
• Fang Ying praised Liu Yuanyuan’s clones, while Jiang Qiao realized he could barely distinguish her real body from them.
• Jiang Qiao speculated that Liu Yuanyuan might be an old monster recovering her former power and reflected on the terrifying abilities of her clones and legs.

Liu Yuanyuan, Don, and Fang Ying discovered that their arrival had awakened a sealed danger behind a hidden door in the underground plaza. As they tried to hold the door shut, Jiang Qiao realized Liu Yuanyuan was deliberately stimulating it, and the wall collapsed.

• Liu Yuanyuan said her clone had died after becoming trapped in an endless Supernatural Space, and she pointed out a hidden door in the plaza wall.
• Fang Ying proposed waiting for rescue, but Liu Yuanyuan warned that the door's sealed danger had begun to awaken and would soon emerge.
• Liu Yuanyuan's clones merged to suppress the door seam, while Don and Fang Ying joined them in holding it shut.
• Jiang Qiao examined an ordinary gray stone and realized Liu Yuanyuan was deliberately provoking whatever was behind the wall.
• The crack rapidly reopened, blood poured through it, and the wall collapsed.

Liu Yuanyuan, Don, and Fang Ying fled a blood-filled square as a shadow emerged and extinguished its braziers, then hid separately in caves. In his cave, Jiang Qiao discovered Hometown Script claiming that there were no Immortals, linking the ruins to his homeland and the Nether Era.

• A wall collapsed, releasing bloodwater and a chilling wind that caused worms to emerge from the trio’s wounds.
• Liu Yuanyuan led Don and Fang Ying toward hiding places and used a supernatural ability to transfer the worms on Fang Ying onto a clone.
• A twisted Shadow Figure emerged and spread darkness across the square, forcing Liu Yuanyuan, Don, and Fang Ying to hide in separate caves.
• Jiang Qiao found Hometown Script carved into his cave walls, including a claim that there were no Immortals and that their ancestors had been deceived.
• Jiang Qiao connected the inscription’s mention of Immortals to Moon Laurel’s account of the Giant Spirit and Wu Xian.

Jiang Qiao read Yang Guo’s account of a ruined search for Immortals and learned that an evil spirit might leave after an hour, while the record raised questions about the Nether Era’s end. In the cave, Fang Ying suspected Wang knew more about the ruins, then heard a voice as pale fingers reached through a crack in the entrance boulder.

• Jiang Qiao read Yang Guo’s warning that the underground palace’s evil spirit could not be killed and might leave after an hour.
• Jiang Qiao connected Yang Guo’s account of Xuan Niao Village and the Nether Era to the lost civilizations in the underworld, but found no answers about the Immortals.
• Fang Ying reasoned that the ruin was beyond the Duke and Port Management Committee’s ability to handle and planned to report Wang for investigation.
• Fang Ying memorized the cave’s writing and wondered whether it held a secret he could have experts identify later.
• A strange voice asked Fang Ying whether his heart was really broken, and he saw pale fingers reaching through a crack in the boulder blocking the entrance.

A masked woman offered the Duke of Demon Port a partnership on behalf of her master, but he refused and dismissed her warnings about Jiang Qiao and the underground ruin. After learning Fang Ying had entered a newly discovered door in the ruin with Don, the Duke ordered his forces to cooperate with the woman and use her expertise to scout ahead.

• The masked woman told the Duke that His Grace planned to visit Demon Port and sought cooperation concerning the underground ruin and Jiang Qiao.
• The Duke rejected the offer, saying Demon Port had backing from several factions and could handle both the ruin and Jiang Qiao itself.
• The woman left, predicting the Duke would change his mind within two weeks.
• A subordinate reported that Fang Ying, Don, and several others had entered a newly appeared door inside the underground ruin.
• The Duke learned the woman was an adventurer named Miss Liu using the alias Miss Wang and ordered his men to cooperate fully with her so she could scout the ruin.

Don and Liu Yuanyuan survived the ruin’s shadow attack, but Fang Ying was missing, and their attempt to leave transported them to a deserted street in a supernatural space. Liu Yuanyuan urged them to head for the city’s outskirts, while Don recognized the writing on a newspaper as similar to scripts found in ancient ruins.

• Don and Liu Yuanyuan found Fang Ying’s cave empty and concluded he was probably dead after the shadows withdrew.
• Don suggested they leave the ruin and report back to Mr. Duke, and Liu Yuanyuan warned that getting out might be a problem.
• The pair passed through the entrance but emerged on a deserted street instead of in the hall.
• Liu Yuanyuan explained that one of her clones had previously entered the same street and died there.
• Liu Yuanyuan picked up a newspaper and recognized its writing from the cave walls, while Don recalled similar scripts on ruins found by his sailor friend.