Chapter Summaries

The Undead Army used flintlock pistols and explosives to break the centaurs’ and Minotaurs’ formations while Huai Shi’s Yin Soul Crows attacked the giant jellyfish. Van Helsing killed the gunman, and the colonel deployed a modern force of clones as missiles struck near the Iron Crystal Seat, leaving Huai Shi to face the colonel’s challenge.

• The Venerable Elder and Chaolu led the Snake People in a charge, firing flintlock pistols at close range to disrupt the centaurs before cutting down their chieftain.
• The ratmen attacked the Minotaurs with Alchemical Explosives V4.0 and Ramses' Wrath, while Huai Shi watched the battle from the refinery.
• Huai Shi sent 1,264 Yin Soul Crows to bomb the giant jellyfish, disrupting the sublimation Chimera without destroying the jellyfish.
• Van Helsing pursued and killed the gunman on the jellyfish, and the colonel kicked the gunman's severed head aside before challenging Huai Shi.
• The colonel summoned more than sixty modern, heavily armed clones and soldiers, while missiles lit the sky near the Iron Crystal Seat.
• Huai Shi dismissed the danger to the Iron Crystal Seat and gave the colonel a mocking smile.

Huai Shi fought through the colonel’s encirclement while Ivory Tower’s hidden cannon destroyed the jellyfish and turned the battle in their favor. Raymond ordered the enemy to surrender as Huai Shi realized the truck had been a self-propelled artillery piece.

• Huai Shi advanced through the Minotaurs and Rat Tide, using his weapons and Crow Tide to cut a path toward the colonel.
• The colonel’s duplicate army trapped Huai Shi in coordinated crossfire, but Huai Shi reached him and fought past his defenses.
• The colonel prepared to kill Huai Shi with his soldiers and the jellyfish’s cannon, while Huai Shi declared he would survive and defeat him.
• Raymond fired Ivory Tower’s concealed cannon from the disguised truck, destroying the jellyfish and its weapon.
• Raymond announced that the enemy must surrender or face saturation bombardment, leaving Huai Shi stunned by the truck’s true identity.

After Raymond's cannon ended the battle, Huai Shi treated the wounded Exploration Team and entered the Twilight Land Sub-control Center. Above ground, Michel began negotiations with the Iron Crystal Seat, but the Grandmaster's rambling call gave way to another speaker who challenged Michel.

• Huai Shi reviewed the casualties and learned Raymond's cannon had used nearly all the truck's alchemical fuel, then forgave him after sharing noodles.
• Huai Shi reached the underground fortifications, treated the badly wounded August, and learned an Exploration Team member had been shot as a spy.
• Huai Shi left August to recover and headed for the Twilight Land Sub-control Center.
• Michel contacted the Iron Crystal Seat, but the Grandmaster answered with a weary monologue about death and meaning.
• Someone cut off the Grandmaster and addressed Michel with contempt, asking whether he had come to beg.

Michel and Mikhail’s bitter confrontation stalled negotiations, while Simmons Jiang and Pantalone worked out a rough framework to limit the fighting in hell. The Ivy League found another Sub-control Center, and the war paused temporarily as the Iron Crystal Seat carried its captured center away.

• Michel and Mikhail traded insults over their past and argued about the war’s limits, while Michel taunted Mikhail about Galina choosing him.
• Simmons Jiang and Pantalone negotiated rules to contain the conflict, including restrictions on deployments and damage to Twilight Land.
• Michel learned that the Ivy League had searched sixteen suspected sites and found another Sub-control Center, putting the sides back on more equal footing.
• Before dawn, the Iron Crystal Seat uprooted a Sub-control Center and transported it away beneath a giant cube suspended by cables.
• The Nightmare Eye company commander recognized someone near the truck guiding the cube, but called the old grievance unimportant and left with Michel.

After the Sub-control Center was installed at Iron Crystal Seat, the Chief Clerk told Huai Shi that the hell’s ownership would depend on him under restrictions on high-rank fighters and powerful weapons. The Chief Clerk also advised him on raising his Crow legion, leaving Huai Shi considering how to turn the depth-nine hell into a home for a true swarm.

• Iron Crystal Seat completed the Sub-control Center excavation and installation, and Huai Shi returned with August to meet the Chief Clerk.
• The Chief Clerk explained that negotiations with Ivy had set limits on the coming conflict, making Huai Shi their strongest available fighter and placing him in charge of command and execution.
• The Chief Clerk examined Huai Shi’s Crow and warned that its exceptional quality made the flock harder to develop, while reckless cultivation could turn them into Erosion Species and damage Shao Siming’s Stigmata.
• The Chief Clerk explained that true swarms needed stability and suggested that the Crows could advance through a ruler’s blessing, fusion with a Calamity Miracle, or occupying a hell.
• Huai Shi realized that the Crows already had the first two traits and began considering how to spread them across the depth-nine hell.

Huai Shi woke from a troubled dream, found the lunch and briefings Yuan Yuan and Lin Zhongxiaowu had left him, and went to the biological laboratory after receiving word that the Rat People enhancement plans were ready. Marvell presented a radical design that would remake the Rat People into powerful soldiers, but Huai Shi felt the plan was missing something.

• Huai Shi woke on a park bench, found Yuan Yuan's warm lunchbox and Lin Zhongxiaowu's briefings, and read about events at the Iron Crystal Seat.
• The Crows delivered a message from the laboratory scholars, so Huai Shi hurried to Area B4-01 to discuss the finalized modification blueprints.
• Huai Shi met Marvell in the biological laboratory, where the scholar showed him a dissected Rat Person and detailed the extensive enhancements planned for the Rat People.
• Marvell explained how the modifications would make even the weakest Rat People into heavily augmented soldiers, and Huai Shi said the plan still lacked a certain flavor.

Huai Shi helped the Ivory Tower scholars turn an injured rat person into a heavily augmented war machine, but its consciousness collapsed. He then possessed its empty body with a flock of wraiths, triggering a miraculous transformation that left the Legal Department baffled.

• Huai Shi proposed replacing the rat people's skeletons with reinforced metal, and Marvell brought him to a meeting to discuss the plan.
• Huai Shi and the scholars examined the gargoyle leader, then used their findings to begin a radical experiment on a severely injured rat person.
• Huai Shi and the surgeons replaced nearly every part of the rat person's body, creating a powerful three-meter-tall war machine whose Source Matter had collapsed.
• Huai Shi possessed the empty shell with the Candle-Bearing Crow and five other wraiths, allowing the rat person to awaken and cry out, "Holy!"
• The possessed rat person underwent a miraculous transformation beneath the reappearing Prince's Crown, and the Legal Department appeared in confusion.

Huai Shi discovered that his ratmen could transform into powerful Paradise Guards and spent several days upgrading wounded ratmen. After a dead Exploration Team member gave him a nightmare of Paradise’s ancient collapse, Huai Shi realized the dream coincided with the experimental team rapidly deciphering the Sub-control Center.

• Huai Shi tested the Paradise Guard’s strength and was blasted through several rooms by its casual punch.
• Huai Shi and the others found that only nine ratmen could become Paradise Guards, while they made more than thirty weaker enhanced ratmen.
• Huai Shi finished treating the wounded ratmen, then saw the dead Kondra beside his bed and fell into a nightmare of a prosperous world collapsing into eternal twilight.
• Huai Shi awoke with crimson Tears of Blood on his face and footprints beside his bed.
• A scholar told Huai Shi that the team had deciphered the Sub-control Center’s outer structure and found two more centers, and Huai Shi connected the rapid progress to his nightmare.

Huai Shi learned that his vision of a tomb came from a common Phenomenon Projection and was warned not to obsess over its imprinted memories. After the Iron Crystal Seat detected signals from other Sub-control Centers, Huai Shi divided the expedition forces and set out for an underground center in District E12, leaving the story with his team racing into Twilight Land.

• The Grandmaster explained that several people, including Lin Shijiu, had experienced Phenomenon Projections during the decryption experiment and warned Huai Shi that an imprint could potentially replace him.
• Huai Shi saw the sub-control hub expand and felt resentment toward it, though the Grandmaster insisted it was only a dormant energy conversion device.
• The Chief Clerk reported signals likely sent by other Sub-control Centers in District D7 and District E12, with the latter buried more than two thousand meters underground near the Ivy League's base.
• Huai Shi assigned the Chief Clerk's forces to take District D7 and chose to lead the expedition into District E12 without Wolfdog.
• Huai Shi prepared his equipment, left the Iron Crystal Seat with the Paradise Guard, and realized on the road that he had forgotten motion sickness medicine.

The Grandmaster awakened the core of the Sub-control Center, silenced the horrors within it, and shut down Twilight Land’s energy supply after confronting a dying metal infant. Lin Shijiu woke from a nightmare and realized his teacher had gone to the place he feared, leaving him convinced that Hell could no longer be saved.

• The Grandmaster secretly activated the Sub-control Center’s core, unleashing a tide of blood and the cries of long-dead victims.
• The Grandmaster reached into the core and silenced the wailing, revealing a metal infant connected to cables.
• The infant asked Sun Forger why he had not saved it, and the Grandmaster gently promised its suffering would soon end before snapping its neck.
• The infant’s death caused the Sub-control Center to crumble, cutting off Twilight Land’s energy supply; the Grandmaster was stunned by what the ruins revealed.
• Lin Shijiu woke from a nightmare, learned his teacher had left six hours earlier, and panicked that he had gone to a place full of death.
• Lin Shijiu understood the Essence of Hell and concluded that the place could no longer be saved.

Huai Shi and Raymond drove deeper into Twilight Land, where Huai Shi glimpsed a missing Iron Crystal Seat colleague before Nightmare Eye ambushed them. As Salamanders attacked their truck, the cargo compartment opened to reveal the Paradise Guard preparing to fight back.

• Huai Shi and Raymond crossed Twilight Land’s ruined city while discussing Huai Shi’s past and enduring the hell’s curse.
• Huai Shi briefly saw a missing Iron Crystal Seat colleague pointing toward their route, and Raymond reported seeing a former colleague on the radar.
• Nightmare Eye attacked with a landing pod and a pursuing aircraft, forcing Raymond to steer the truck off the overpass and flee.
• Six Salamanders chased the truck; one was seized by a huge armored hand from the cargo compartment and smashed against a wall.
• The cargo compartment fell away to reveal nine Paradise Guard, who aimed their shotguns at the remaining Salamanders and opened fire.

Huai Shi and Raymond fought through a relentless Nightmare Eye pursuit as they raced toward the underground control hub. They escaped up the side of a collapsed building after Huai Shi brought down the pursuing aircraft, but Nightmare Eye identified Huai Shi and the defector Renard and prepared to intercept them.

• Huai Shi fired Beelzebub at the pursuing helicopter, and its armored passenger deflected the bullets while the aircraft dropped two containers carrying motorcycle knights.
• Two motorcycle knights attacked the truck and punctured a tire, so Huai Shi jumped out and killed one with his weapons and the curse of savage sunlight.
• With more motorcycles and Salamanders closing in, Raymond drove the truck vertically up a collapsed building and told Huai Shi they were three kilometers from their destination.
• Huai Shi threw the Spear of Compassion through the helicopter's deflection field and into its wing, destroying a propeller and forcing the aircraft to crash.
• The surviving armored Ascender identified Huai Shi and the defector Renard over the radio and ordered their pursuers to give them a proper welcome.

Huai Shi and Raymond descended through hell in an impossible truck while discussing Nightmare Eye and Raymond’s past with the organization. They reached a vast underground machine-filled cavern, where Huai Shi sensed a deadly threat.

• Raymond drove the truck down the side of a bottomless shaft, explaining that its consecrated grease would burn for twenty-six hours as they searched for the Sub-control Center.
• Raymond warned Huai Shi that Nightmare Eye would keep pursuing them and identified the detachment’s commander and four company commanders, including Avery and Samson of Blood Kiss.
• Raymond revealed that he had once served Nightmare Eye, survived a battle that killed his unit, and robbed the organization’s treasury before leaving.
• Raymond explained that he had joined the Graveyard of the Unreturning, abandoned his former name, and forgotten what it had been.
• Huai Shi and Raymond reached an enormous underground cavern filled with colossal gears and machinery, where Huai Shi sensed that death threatened them.

Huai Shi and Raymond fled a battle between a Steel Centipede and a mechanical spider, then searched a vast underground factory for the Sub-control Center. With fuel running low, they hid as Nightmare Eye’s team arrived, carrying a jar containing a dead woman’s head that began to sing.

• Raymond drove the truck past the Steel Centipede’s sound-wave attacks and the mechanical spider’s corrosive mist as the monsters fought each other.
• Huai Shi and Raymond explored the enormous factory but found no Sub-control Center, and Raymond warned that they had only thirteen hours of fuel for the search.
• A seed planted by Huai Shi sprouted, alerting them to approaching engines, so Raymond concealed the truck with its camouflage system.
• Nightmare Eye’s team landed nearby, and Raymond identified Blood Kiss and described the team’s equipment and tactics to Huai Shi.
• Huai Shi saw the Ivy League members take a head from an amber-filled jar; it opened its eyes and began to sing.

Huai Shi and Raymond watched the Song of Awakening revive an ancient factory and assemble the Sub-control Center, then a crowned skeletal figure made the shifting palace expand and swallow them. Huai Shi awoke alone in an unfamiliar room, unsure whether he had been transported elsewhere.

• Huai Shi woke Raymond from the head's song as it began compelling their truck to start, and the song awakened the factory's steel monsters and drew them back into the production lines.
• The Grandmaster appeared and explained that the factory was producing the Sub-control Center, then ordered Huai Shi's group to retrieve it.
• Huai Shi watched the Ivy League teams prepare to enter the newly assembled palace while guards and drones secured the area.
• A skeletal figure wearing a Sixfold Crown appeared atop the palace, looked at Huai Shi, and gestured for the structure to expand and engulf everything.
• Huai Shi lost consciousness and awoke beneath ornate carvings in an unfamiliar room.

Huai Shi and the Paradise Guard found themselves inside the Sub-control Center and fought their way into a clash with Samson of Blood Kiss and his allies. Huai Shi wounded an armored girl wielding Marquavite, who revealed herself and demanded that he kneel and identify himself.

• Huai Shi confirmed that he and the Paradise Guard were inside the Sub-control Center, searched an abandoned study, and found no useful information.
• Huai Shi encountered Samson of Blood Kiss across a corridor, shot him through a door, and sent the Paradise Guard crashing through the wall to attack Samson's group.
• Huai Shi fought Samson, whose eye attack had no effect, and swung the Axe of Fury at him.
• An unseen attacker struck at Huai Shi from behind with a bronze Marquavite sword, but Huai Shi evaded her and cut her helmet with the Lord of Skins' Sabre.
• The armored attacker revealed her face and ordered Huai Shi to state his name, calling him impure for refusing to kneel.

Huai Shi fought Liztlihmok, the First Sun’s High Priest, after she mistook him for a follower of the Lord of Skins. Their battle was interrupted by the palace’s sudden transformation, and Blood Kiss used Huai Shi’s blood to complete a curse, believing Huai Shi was doomed.

• Huai Shi introduced himself to Liztlihmok, but Beelzebub rattled off an absurd list of his titles before she invited him to join the Ivy League.
• Liztlihmok suddenly attacked Huai Shi, and her countered Fly King blast incinerated the old ghost who had emerged from his shadow.
• Huai Shi wounded Liztlihmok with his poisoned spear and identified her Stigmata as the Demon Eagle, but she continued fighting him.
• The palace transformed, and shifting rooms and iron walls separated Huai Shi from Liztlihmok before either could finish the fight.
• Blood Kiss gathered Huai Shi’s blood from the floor and swallowed it to complete a curse, declaring that Huai Shi was already dead.

Blood Kiss died when a dormant curse poison triggered the Rotten Dream inside him, and Liz’s group pressed onward through a distorted labyrinth. Huai Shi repeatedly spotted Kondra, whose footprints seemed to guide him toward a path.

• Blood Kiss’s body sprouted fungal threads and black poison, and Liz cut him apart with the Stone Tooth Sword after the Rotten Dream had already doomed him.
• An Ivy League scholar identified the poison as a complex, contagious Source Matter curse and warned Liz that the labyrinth’s space was distorted and their drones had gone silent.
• Liz continued the expedition after the Nightmare Eye team stopped bargaining over its price.
• Huai Shi saw Kondra vanish repeatedly in the labyrinth while his guards failed to notice the figure.
• Huai Shi found Kondra’s faint footprint at a fork and wondered whether Kondra was showing him the way.

The Grandmaster explained to the Chief Clerk that Huai Shi carried a strange scent of bitterness and liberation, then prepared a storm-triggering liquid using Huai Shi’s blood. He poured it out from the Iron Crystal Seat, and a storm began gathering over the land as the Grandmaster signaled that it had arrived.

• The Grandmaster told the Chief Clerk that Huai Shi smelled of stubbornness, romantic entanglements, and a bitterness left by those he had killed, which the Grandmaster associated with liberation and closure.
• The Chief Clerk reported that Augustus was commanding a deadlocked battle and that the operation seemed stable for now.
• The Grandmaster finished transforming the Sub-control Center’s core interface into a skull-shaped goblet and added twenty milliliters of Huai Shi’s blood to its liquid.
• The Grandmaster ordered the Chief Clerk to signal Augustus that the storm was coming.
• The Grandmaster poured the goblet’s liquid into the air, and clouds, thunder, and a hurricane appeared over the previously dry land.

Feng Yue asked readers for monthly tickets and explained confusion over the previous day's chapters. Feng Yue reposted the Unified Bureau Confidential Archives Contest results and thanked participants.

• Feng Yue asked readers to reserve their monthly tickets before the next update.
• Feng Yue wondered why readers thought only one chapter had appeared the previous day, despite two chapters being posted.
• Feng Yue said the contest had received 114 entries and that some entries could not be viewed or rewarded because they did not follow the required format.
• Feng Yue explained that the selected Border Relic entries outnumbered the Stigmata entries and thanked readers for their submissions.
• Feng Yue announced the selected Border Relics and Stigmata, including replacement prize recipient King in Purple.