Chapter Summaries

Li Wei heard that an Investigation Bureau team was trapped by an Abyss monster riot and joined a volunteer rescue mission. The chapter ended with volunteers preparing to enter the rift, while Li Wei wondered how much Abyss Essence she could collect.

• Li Wei saw that her combat training had increased her Combat Method proficiency and went to the cafeteria to eat and buy supplies.
• Martial artists at the cafeteria nicknamed Li Wei the “Little Bodhisattva in Black” after hearing she had killed monsters without taking their existence matter.
• An emergency announcement said Rift C3-01-045 would be sealed and called for volunteers to rescue an Investigation Bureau team trapped deep inside.
• Li Wei joined the volunteers, and roughly two hundred martial artists remained after the briefing warned them they would have to advance alone without support.
• The gray-haired officer saluted the volunteers, then ordered staff to distribute equipment and let them leave brief messages for their families.
• Li Wei waited to receive her gear and wondered how much Essence she could collect during the rescue.

Li Wei joined the volunteer rescue operation at the Huanmao Center, while officials and the Gu Family rushed to respond to the crisis surrounding Min Zimo. The operation began with the volunteers entering the rift, and Yang Yunshan learned that Gu Jinzhi’s wife, Li Wei, was a Great Perfection martial artist.

• Li Wei gathered her equipment and joined the volunteers despite being only First Order, while Yu Jing'an ordered a lockdown and investigation at the Huanmao Center.
• Li Wei watched volunteers record final messages, then joked that she would hold her wedding after the operation.
• After learning the Huanmao Center was under martial law, Gu Jinzhi left his training and hurried there, while Huang Lei mobilized Third Order martial artists to provide support.
• Yang Yunshan sent the Third Order, Second Order, and remaining volunteers into the rift, with Li Wei charging in first.
• After the operation began, Xiao Mo told Yang Yunshan that Li Wei was among the volunteers and had reached Great Perfection.

Min Zimo and his nine investigators were trapped in the Abyss Rift’s Eighth Layer by a Great Dream Cult ambush and a horde of abyss monsters. After killing a Third-order Octopus Monster, Min Zimo decided they would hold out for forty minutes before attempting to reach the Ninth Layer’s Inverted Domain, where they hoped to meet reinforcements.

• Min Zimo led his exhausted team into a defensible shop and ordered them to rotate their defenses against the attacking monsters.
• Min Zimo rejected his teammates’ offer to sacrifice themselves to help him escape and insisted they would face the danger together.
• An injured team member asked whether anyone had received their distress signal, and Min Zimo urged the team to keep fighting until reinforcements arrived.
• Min Zimo charged into the monster horde and killed the Third-order Octopus Monster with a blazing spear strike.
• Min Zimo proposed that the team reach the Ninth Layer’s Inverted Domain, and the investigators agreed to hold their position for forty minutes before breaking out.

Li Wei descended through the shifting Global Trade Center in search of the rescue team, but a powerful tentacled monster ambushed her at the next stairwell. Outside the rift, Gu Jinzhi joined the rescue effort, while Yun Xi first ordered Jiang Xue rescued alive and then abruptly withdrew the order.

• Li Wei crossed an automobile dealership and searched the mall for a route to the next floor.
• At the rift exit plaza, Yang Yunshan fielded demands from powerful groups asking him to find people inside, but said his personnel had already entered.
• Li Wei reached the B3 parking lot, searched its scrambled layout, and found a stairwell after several minutes.
• A tentacled monster attacked Li Wei at the stairwell entrance, wounded her hand, and knocked her onto a car.
• Gu Jinzhi received confirmation that his application to join the rescue team had been approved and resolved to go in for Jiang Xue.
• Yun Xi ordered her elite forces to retrieve Jiang Xue alive, then changed her mind and dismissed her subordinate.

Li Wei fought and killed a Third-Order octopus monster on the second floor after upgrading Cold Pool Sinking Jade to Grand Completion and awakening Saber Intent. She feared the monster’s presence in the shallow zone meant the ongoing rescue operation could become a massacre.

• Li Wei dodged the octopus monster’s tentacles and discovered that its speed, reactions, and defenses made it a Third-Order threat.
• Li Wei chose to stay and fight rather than leave the monster for the weaker people arriving behind her.
• Li Wei spent Abyss Essence to advance Cold Pool Sinking Jade to Grand Completion, gaining Saber Intent that concealed her attacks and strengthened her strikes.
• Li Wei used her new Saber Intent to sever the monster’s tentacles, then repeatedly stabbed its core tumor until it died.
• Li Wei gained 93 Abyss Essence and, despite her injuries and depleted qi and blood, worried that other Third-Order monsters could turn the rescue operation into a massacre.

As tier-3 Octopus Monsters appeared in the rift’s shallow areas, the rescue effort faced mounting danger while Li Wei pressed deeper into the stairwell. At the B1 supermarket, a mysterious sword strike saved Xiao Fu from the monster’s tentacles, but the attacker’s identity remained unknown.

• Li Wei treated her hand and rib wounds with medical supplies, then charged back into the stairwell.
• A badly injured martial artist escaped the rift and told Yang Yunshan that tier-3 Octopus Monsters were in the shallow area.
• Ding Pojun ordered Yang Yunshan to send the next backup squad directly to the Ninth Layer and clear obstacles at all costs.
• Gu Jinzhi arrived at the Huanmao Center as the second rescue squad assembled.
• At the B1 supermarket, a tier-3 Octopus Monster overwhelmed an armored investigator and impaled A-Yang as he pushed Xiao Fu out of danger.
• Xiao Fu charged the monster, but a moonlike sword flash severed the tentacles about to strike her.

Li Wei killed the Octopus Monster and left three survivors in the investigator’s care, while Min Zimo’s team struggled against monsters and Liu Zhao’s Abyssal erosion. Outside the rift, the temporary hospital filled with wounded martial artists as Yang Yunshan prepared a second wave of reinforcements.

• Li Wei killed the Octopus Monster, asked the investigator to lead Xiao Fu and A-Yang out, and vanished after saying she hated tragedies.
• Min Zimo and his teammates rotated counting to keep their Order Bracelets from constricting while they fought off the Abyssal monsters.
• Liu Zhao repeatedly lost count as his wound showed signs of Abyssal erosion, but Min Zimo urged him to keep counting and promised the team would break through together.
• At the rift exit, medical staff treated a steady stream of wounded martial artists in an overcrowded temporary hospital.
• Yang Yunshan suppressed his guilt over the casualties and continued preparing a second wave of emergency reinforcements.

Jiang Xinyue and Huang Lei watched anxiously as rescuers battled through the rift, while Li Wei patrolled its third layer and saved an injured martial artist. Gu Jinzhi joined the second wave of rescuers and entered the rift with Zhou Shi’s squad to search for Jiang Xue and Min Zimo.

• Jiang Xinyue and Huang Lei waited above Huanmao Center, worried about Jiang Xue and Min Zimo as powerful figures monitored the rift.
• Li Wei killed four second-tier abyss monsters, urged an injured martial artist to evacuate, and continued patrolling the third layer to protect people in its shallow areas.
• Gu Jinzhi joined Zhou Shi’s squad in the preparation area and received a deep purple wristband designed to keep the group together inside the rift.
• Xue Ling disparaged Jiang Xue’s rescue effort, but Gu Jinzhi’s martial intent silenced him, and Zhou Shi rebuked him for his disrespect.
• Yang Yunshan ordered the second-wave squads to enter, and Gu Jinzhi followed Zhou Shi toward the rift.

Zeng Yi led a group of young heirs to Huanmao Center to rescue Da Zhi’s sister-in-law, but they were barred from entering and their stolen weapons exposed. Zeng Yi was flung into the sky, and the others were hauled away by furious relatives, leaving the plaza empty.

• Zeng Yi rallied his friends outside Huanmao Center and declared they would charge in to rescue Sister-in-law.
• An investigator stopped the group from entering, and Zeng Yi’s father revealed that bringing high-ranked divine weapons into a C-rank rift was impossible.
• Zeng Yi discovered that his friends had stolen the weapons from their families, then an irresistible force shot him into the sky.
• Zeng Yi vanished after shouting that he would be back, while the remaining heirs watched in shock.
• Angry relatives arrived, seized the young men and carried or dragged them away.

Gu Jinzhi saved Xue Ling from a hidden Octopus Monster, then joined Zhou Shi’s team as more monsters surrounded them. Meanwhile, exhausted Li Wei pushed deeper into the Rift in search of the rescue target, leaving the story with her racing toward the lower layers.

• Gu Jinzhi killed a hidden Octopus Monster before it could attack Xue Ling, and Xue Ling thanked him as the team continued onward.
• Zhou Shi’s team found a corridor strewn with human remains, then faced seven Octopus Monsters closing in from both directions.
• Zhou Shi ordered the team into a circular battle formation and assigned Gu Jinzhi to provide support as he prepared to fight.
• Li Wei checked that she had rescued about thirty Martial Artists and accumulated 2127 Abyss Essence, though her body was badly overdrawn.
• Li Wei resolved to continue searching for the rescue target and sped through the lower layers while avoiding unnecessary battles.

Min Zimo led his injured team through the abyssal monster horde and down a ruined stairwell into the Ninth Layer, the Inverted Domain. The team arrived in its shifting, chaotic landscape, where awakened Octopus Monsters surrounded them.

• Min Zimo broke a path through the monsters with his spear and led the team toward the stairwell in an Arrowhead Formation.
• Min Zimo saved Liu Zhao from an Octopus Monster, took a serious shoulder wound, and continued defending the team as they advanced.
• The team reached the stairwell, and Min Zimo collapsed part of its entrance behind them before urging everyone to keep moving.
• Min Zimo and the team descended through the distorted stairwell and entered the Ninth Layer, the Inverted Domain.
• Octopus Monsters across the floating islands woke and began crawling toward the team.

Yang Yunshan learned that the first rescue wave had failed and that Jiang Xue had stayed inside the rift to search for Min Zimo. Reports of Jiang Xue’s extraordinary strength gave him a moment’s hope, but devastating losses among the second wave left him ordering a third rescue wave anyway.

• A communications investigator reported that the first rescue wave had lost many people and was declared a failure, while survivors said Jiang Xue had rescued them by killing Third-order octopuses.
• Yang Yunshan learned Jiang Xue had not evacuated and had gone deeper into the rift, then heard survivor accounts describing her overwhelming strength.
• Yang Yunshan worried that Jiang Xue might be lost, though he briefly hoped she could help Min Zimo’s group hold out.
• An investigator reported that a second-wave squad had encountered more than a dozen octopuses and only five of its ten members had escaped.
• Yang Yunshan ordered the Martial Arts Alliance to organize a third rescue wave as soon as possible.

Min Zimo led his exhausted team to a defensible floating island in the Inverted Domain, where they fought off waves of Octopus Monsters. After Liu Zhao sacrificed himself with the Qi Burning Method to drive the monsters back, Min Zimo ordered the eight survivors to hold together and wait for reinforcements.

• Min Zimo guided the team across floating islands and a LEGO town to a car-filled island, where they formed a defensive line at the pencil-shaped bridge.
• Min Zimo and his injured teammates held off successive assaults by the Octopus Monster horde, but their exhaustion left the formation close to collapse.
• Liu Zhao used the military's Qi Burning Method, surged into the monsters, and killed several before the backlash left his body withered and the horde tore him apart.
• Liu Zhao's sacrifice bought the survivors time, and Min Zimo refused to let the others abandon their position.
• Min Zimo gave the eight remaining team members the choice to stay with him and wait for reinforcements, forbidding anyone from using the Qi Burning Method without his order.

Min Zimo’s squad was overwhelmed by Octopus Monsters, and Mou Bin sacrificed himself to buy Ma Tao time to carry the unconscious captain away. Li Wei arrived at the pencil tip and cut down the monsters, absorbing Abyss Essence from the battlefield.

• Min Zimo told his wounded squad to retreat and tried to burn his acupoints to hold off the Octopus Monsters, but Mou Bin knocked him unconscious.
• Mou Bin burned his acupoints, killed two Octopus Monsters, and fought until the monsters tore him apart thirteen seconds later.
• Ma Tao carried Min Zimo away while the six remaining squad members stayed behind to hold the Octopus Monsters back.
• Li Wei appeared on a nearby mountain of vehicles, crossed to the pencil tip, and severed more than a dozen tentacles with Cold Moon Frost Flower.
• Li Wei absorbed the Abyss Essence from the surviving investigators and nearby monster corpses, increasing her total from 2254 to 6077.

Li Wei rescued Min Zimo’s squad and ordered them to retreat while she held back the Octopus Monsters. After they escaped, she advanced to the second tier and prepared to hunt the horde.

• Li Wei used a sword strike to stop the Octopus Monsters and told Min Zimo’s squad to flee, but the team initially refused to leave her alone.
• As the monsters attacked, Li Wei explained that the squad would hinder her fighting, and Hu Yucheng ordered everyone to give her their remaining supplies.
• Li Wei caught the supplies, and the squad saluted before retreating toward the emergency staircase.
• Li Wei opened the way for the monsters to flood onto the Pencil Tip, while Hu Yucheng’s squad continued their escape despite his attempt to turn back.
• Li Wei spent Abyss Essence to advance her Great Yin Jade Lotus Treasure Scroll to two lotus petals, restored her Vitality, and activated 99+1 as the monster hunt began.

Gu Jinzhi left Zhou Shi and the gravely wounded Xue Ling behind to continue deeper into the Rift and search for Jiang. As Yang Yunshan feared the rescue had failed, Hu Yuheng’s group emerged from the Rift carrying Min Zimo, leaving everyone stunned by their return and tears.

• Gu Jinzhi treated Zhou Shi’s wounds, then set off alone into the darkness despite Zhou Shi’s warning.
• Zhou Shi carried the unconscious Xue Ling out of the Rift while Gu Jinzhi remained inside.
• Yang Yunshan learned that the second rescue wave had suffered thirty-three deaths and many wounded, and that the Martial Arts Alliance’s next group would take at least twenty minutes to arrive.
• Zhou Shi told Yang Yunshan that Gu Jinzhi had stayed behind to find Miss Jiang, prompting Yang Yunshan to fear for him and the Gu Family.
• Hu Yuheng, Ma Tao, Sun Yufei, and the others emerged from the Rift carrying Min Zimo, and the bloodied survivors were all crying.

Gu Jinzhi searched the Inverted Domain for Li Wei, following the trail of Octopus Monster corpses until he found her in a theater at the edge of the gray void. He sat beside her, and she gave him an orange and her last nutrient solution while admitting she had exhausted herself.

• Gu Jinzhi crossed the silent Inverted Domain despite his severe wounds and blood loss, searching for signs of the final battle.
• Gu Jinzhi followed the Octopus Monster corpses across several floating islands, including a LEGO town, an arcade, and a field of shattered dolls.
• Gu Jinzhi entered theater 3 and found Li Wei sitting beside the collapsed edge of the theater beneath a gray, shadow-filled sky.
• Li Wei offered Gu Jinzhi an orange made of existence matter, and he pocketed it.
• Li Wei gave Gu Jinzhi her last nutrient solution and said she had overexerted herself and could not carry him back.

Li Wei and Gu Jinzhi recovered together in the void and discussed his rescue attempt, her accomplishments, and the reason he had stopped nurturing his blood. Gu Jinzhi learned that Li Wei did not regret marrying him, while she realized his family lacked the resources to support his cultivation.

• Li Wei urged Gu Jinzhi to plan more carefully, and he said the second group had either died in battle or retreated without him.
• Li Wei showed Gu Jinzhi that she had reached the Second Stage, killed the octopus monsters, and acquired sword intent.
• Gu Jinzhi asked Jiang Xue whether she regretted marrying someone she considered a good-for-nothing, and Li Wei enthusiastically said she was happy about it.
• Gu Jinzhi explained that nurturing a Great Perfection consumed enormous family resources and that he had not continued because his family could not afford it.
• Li Wei checked her remaining Abyss Essence and lamented that her battle had consumed much of what she gained from killing the monsters.

Li Wei was carried from the ruined theater as Jiang Xinyue trapped Huanmao Center in the Four Seasons Sword Array and fought Ding Pojun. Her teacher stopped the clash, disciplined Ding Pojun and Huang Lei, and ordered Jiang Xinyue to wait at the exit, where she collected Gu Shiheng and Liang Qiushi.

• Gu Jinzhi explained that the Gu Family had declined after Great-Grandfather and Grandpa were injured, then carried the unconscious Li Wei out of the ruined theater.
• Jiang Xinyue summoned the Four Seasons Sword Array around Huanmao Center, trapping everyone inside and alarming Huang Lei.
• Ding Pojun arrived and attacked Jiang Xinyue, and the two Grandmasters fought while Huang Lei tried to contain the damage.
• Jiang Xinyue's teacher dispelled the array, suspended Ding Pojun for a year, warned Huang Lei, and told Jiang Xinyue to wait at the exit.
• Jiang Xinyue went to the intersection, collected Gu Shiheng and Liang Qiushi, and swept them underground with her.

Gu Jinzhi and the unconscious Li Wei returned safely from the rift, where the crowd honored Li Wei for saving them. Meanwhile, a bald Venerable One revealed that he had planted a Dream Seed in Min Zimo’s soul and expected the Investigation Bureau to seek the Sky-Gazing Mirror.

• Gu Jinzhi carried the badly injured Li Wei out of the rift and reunited with Jiang Xinyue, Gu Shiheng, and Liang Qiushi.
• Jiang Xinyue took Li Wei from Gu Jinzhi and carried her toward the exit as medical personnel attended to him.
• Ding Pojun ordered the Investigation Bureau personnel to salute Li Wei, and the rescued survivors joined them in showing their gratitude.
• In a Buddhist hall, a bald Venerable One questioned a hooded short man about a failed attempt and sent him away.
• The bald Venerable One told the wooden tablet that he had planted a Dream Seed in Min Zimo’s soul and predicted Ding Pojun would ask the Zeng Family for the Sky-Gazing Mirror.