Chapter Summaries

Fu Qian descended into the volcano’s vast central pit and found Xiao Ying examining a body on an invisible structure. Disguised as Huang Jianyuan, he confronted her about entering the forbidden area, leaving Xiao Ying confused by his face and changing outfits.

• Fu Qian took the Emissary Mask and Tranquilizer from the Warehouse, then continued across the suspension bridge as Xiao Ying followed behind.
• Fu Qian reached the volcano’s central pit, where chains and walkways spiraled along the walls above a freezing, pitch-black abyss.
• Fu Qian spotted Xiao Ying examining a body on an invisible path and found that an unseen barrier blocked his own route.
• Xiao Ying noticed Fu Qian and screamed before demanding to know why he was there.
• Fu Qian, disguised as Huang Jianyuan, challenged Xiao Ying for joining the operation, while she questioned why he was not waiting outside and noticed his different clothes.

Fu Qian and Lady Xiao Ying investigated a corpse on the invisible path inside the volcano, and Fu Qian deduced that blades had erupted from within the dead man’s body. As Fu Qian continued across the path, Xiao Ying tried to retreat and screamed in pain.

• Lady Xiao Ying told Fu Qian that Captain Qiao was outside and that someone resembling Fu Qian had claimed to be guarding the entrance.
• Fu Qian suspected Blood Lion was behind the strange events and agreed that the invisible paths likely had not existed before.
• Fu Qian examined the corpse and found smooth blade-like wounds across its body, with the blades seemingly coming from inside.
• Fu Qian explained that the man’s organs had been pierced by blades that grew outward from within his body.
• Fu Qian walked farther along the invisible path while Lady Xiao Ying hesitated, then began backing toward the entrance and screamed in pain.

Fu Qian discovered that climbing the winding path caused wounds proportional to the change in elevation, then entered a passage of mirrors that reflected a hooded figure with his face. The figure mutilated itself and inflicted matching injuries on Fu Qian, reducing his Sanity Value twice before it began to speak.

• Xiao Ying realized that climbing upward caused wounds to appear inside her body, and Fu Qian inferred that the dead man had climbed until his body was torn apart.
• Fu Qian continued onward while Xiao Ying watched him disappear into an opening in the rock wall.
• Fu Qian entered a passage made of mirrors that concealed the route and reflected hooded figures with faces matching his own.
• A reflected figure wounded itself, and Fu Qian suffered the same injuries as his Sanity Value decreased by 1.
• The figure dug out its eyes as Fu Qian watched, triggering another Sanity Value decrease before it spoke.

Fu Qian confronted a hostile, powerful figure in the mirror that could inflict wounds and reduce his Sanity Value through spoken commands. He survived its attacks and concluded it knew about the Administrators and was connected to the strange tree.

• Fu Qian questioned the mirror figure after it copied his face and caused him to lose Sanity Value.
• The figure tore out its own eyes, affecting Fu Qian’s vision, and Fu Qian attacked it with a Frost Spear from his Bell Staff.
• The figure returned transformed, with radiant wings and a featureless glowing face, and accused Fu Qian of immeasurable crimes.
• The figure tried to reduce Fu Qian’s Sanity Value by saying “One plus one,” but Fu Qian answered quickly and lost only two points.
• Fu Qian reasoned that the figure knew about the Administrators, was likely connected to the tree, and intended to attack him.

Fu Qian descended through the mirror chamber and reached a cave where the uphill path’s rules wounded him. He found Old Master Huang’s group nearby and faced a steep flight of white steps buried under a stream of blood.

• Fu Qian considered whether the white-robed figures he had seen were saints and wondered what Old Master Huang and the others had encountered.
• Fu Qian reached the bottom of the mirror staircase, where the chamber ended against a rugged cave wall.
• Fu Qian walked up the cave’s gentle slope and was pierced by a wound that opened his chest, confirming the uphill rule still applied.
• Fu Qian rounded a corner and found a steep white-stone staircase covered in blood that poured into a reflective pool.
• Fu Qian spotted members of the small team peering at him through a hole they had dug beside the path.

Fu Qian confronted the wounded rescue team trapped below and identified Miranda among them. He questioned whether they could afford to fight him without losing strength needed to escape, leaving the group shaken and distrustful of one another.

• Fu Qian entered the excavation and recognized Huang Lezhan and Miranda among the six injured team members.
• Huang Lezhan demanded to know who Fu Qian was, but Fu Qian ignored him and confirmed that the woman was Miranda.
• Huang Lezhan threatened to throw Fu Qian’s bones into the blood pool, and Fu Qian asked whether the team could fight him without sacrificing their remaining strength.
• Fu Qian’s questions unsettled the wounded team, who realized that any injuries from attacking him could further reduce their chances of escaping.

Fu Qian questioned the trapped rescue team and judged their attempt to dig out had little chance of success. He claimed he had another method, but asked what they would give up to learn it.

• Huang Lezhan failed to persuade the others to attack Fu Qian, and the group stayed focused on escaping.
• Fu Qian questioned the man digging and learned the team had been working for about half an hour with a Supernatural Item after getting lost in a room full of mirrors.
• The team revealed they had spent a long time hesitating over their predicament, while Huang Lezhan did nothing to punish the man for sharing their situation.
• Miranda introduced herself and asked Fu Qian whether he had a better plan.
• Fu Qian said the team's digging method had little chance of success, then offered to share his own method in exchange for a sacrifice.

Fu Qian questioned Miranda about Huang Zhixun’s disappearance and the group’s earlier visit to the volcanic area, then moved toward the Blood Waterfall Long Staircase to demonstrate how to escape its rules. The chapter ended as Miranda realized the rules did not seem to affect him.

• Fu Qian asked Miranda when Huang Zhixun went missing and learned that Sha Ming discovered his absence before dawn.
• Miranda revealed that she and the others had entered the area before midnight, when it was still normal, then left soon afterward.
• Huang Lezhan angrily confronted Miranda for keeping their earlier visit secret, while Fu Qian considered how the events might connect to Blood Lion’s disappearance.
• After Miranda demanded the promised escape method, Fu Qian walked to the Blood Waterfall Long Staircase and stepped onto it.
• Miranda called out, asking whether the rules did not affect Fu Qian.

Fu Qian revealed that the staircase’s apparent waterfall of blood was motionless and climbed it to escape. As Miranda and Huang Lezhan argued over whether the path was safe, Miranda suggested she was less desperate to leave than he was.

• Fu Qian ignored the group and climbed the blood-covered staircase, saying that hardship was an illusion and the smooth road lay beneath their feet.
• Miranda noticed that the blood did not flow and concluded that the staircase was a folded, motionless surface Fu Qian could walk on.
• Huang Lezhan watched Fu Qian disappear at the top, then questioned whether the apparent path was truly safe.
• Huang Lezhan challenged Miranda to test the path, but she refused and said she was not more eager than he was to escape.

Fu Qian descended into an ornate hall lined with blood-red mirrors, where the saint appeared and attacked him. After Fu Qian shattered the saint’s reflection, it multiplied across three mirrors and hinted that some supposedly supreme rules were not as absolute as he believed.

• Fu Qian continued down the staircase and entered a grand hall whose walkway was lined with blood-red mirrors.
• A saint appeared in a mirror, imitated a gunshot, and attacked Fu Qian with an icy-blue spear.
• Fu Qian shattered the mirror and the saint’s reflection with a Frostburn Air Bullet, freezing the blood droplets.
• Three more saints appeared in nearby mirrors, each speaking in unison and suggesting that some rules Fu Qian trusted were not truly absolute.
• Fu Qian dismissed the saints’ warning and unleashed a giant arm of icy crystals with a new incantation.

Fu Qian destroyed the blood mirrors and confronted the figure they reassembled into, who identified himself as Third Xun and warned that harm done to him would be reflected back onto Fu Qian. Fu Qian learned that the Holy Land had rules affecting people and Xiyuan City, then asked whether those rules were connected to the Sacred Tree.

• Fu Qian used his ice Biochemical Demon Arm to destroy the blood mirrors and the walkway, suffering cracks across his body in the process.
• The Saint reassembled from the mirror fragments and criticized Fu Qian, but Fu Qian raised his Bell Staff to attack again.
• The Saint called himself Third Xun and claimed that any harm inflicted on him would be reflected back onto Fu Qian.
• Third Xun warned that the Holy Land's rules affected everyone within it and said the others had already learned humility.
• Fu Qian asked whether the rules governing the Holy Land and spreading through Xiyuan City were connected to the Sacred Tree.

Fu Qian questioned Third Xun about the Holy Land before following the main rescue team through the ancient building. He arrived at their gathering dressed in Xun-inspired robes and greeted Sha Ming, leaving the group facing his unexpected appearance.

• Fu Qian asked Third Xun whether obeying the Holy Land's rules could lead someone closer to its core, but Third Xun refused to answer and vanished after costing him one Sanity Value.
• Fu Qian considered Third Xun's motives and concluded that the Holy Land punished rule-breaking rather than forbidding it outright.
• Fu Qian used Blood Conquest to cross the ancient building and reach the larger group gathered near Old Master Huang, paying a heavy physical cost along the way.
• Fu Qian changed into gold-and-white robes inspired by the Xun while keeping Gorimshaw's face, then entered the hall where the group had fallen silent.
• Fu Qian looked across Old Master Huang and asked whether the person there was Sha Ming.

Fu Qian met Sha Ming and Old Master Huang Leji’s rescue team in the holy land, where he questioned Sha Ming about their previous visit. The team turned strangely united as Huang Leji pressed Fu Qian to explain how he knew they had come the day before.

• Fu Qian introduced himself as First Xun and sat with Sha Ming and Huang Leji’s team, unsettling them with his casual movement.
• Fu Qian asked Sha Ming whether this was his first time in the holy land, and Sha Ming said it was.
• Fu Qian asked whether Sha Ming’s group had come the previous day, and Sha Ming admitted they had entered before midnight, when the strange building and rules were absent.
• The furious team members crowded toward Sha Ming, but Huang Leji silenced them and approached Fu Qian.
• Huang Leji asked how Fu Qian knew they had visited the day before, and the entire team, including Sha Ming, stepped forward with peculiar smiles.

Fu Qian discovered that the rescue team was connected by mysterious chains that spread any change to everyone linked. Sha Ming explained that the chains appeared after the team left a hall of mirrors, and Fu Qian had just been drawn into the link.

• Fu Qian said he had met Huang Zhixun long ago, prompting Sha Ming and the others to react with surprise.
• Fu Qian explained that he had not known Sha Ming’s intentions and had stayed because the team’s disguise seemed unconvincing.
• Huang Zhen introduced himself and asked why Fu Qian had stayed despite noticing something was wrong.
• Fu Qian noticed illusory chains connecting him and the rescue team, and realized the group had moved Huang Leji close to him to extend the link.
• Sha Ming explained that the chains appeared after the team left a place full of mirrors, could not be escaped, and caused changes to one linked person to affect everyone else.

Fu Qian discovered that the heart-blooming wounds spreading through the group had originated with Old Master Huang Zhen, who called them a path to transcendence and used their shared suffering to demand that Fu Qian reveal what he knew. Huang Zhen then climbed a raised platform as the same wounds opened on everyone.

• Fu Qian reasoned that the group's size had triggered the Chain of Shared Hardship and examined the wounds opening around his heart.
• Fu Qian asked who had first developed the heart-blooming condition, and Old Master Huang Zhen revealed that he had brought it into the Mirror House.
• Old Master Huang Zhen said the condition would lead to transcendence rather than death and that the recent change had spread it to everyone.
• Old Master Huang Zhen demanded that Fu Qian disclose everything he knew, arguing that they were now bound together.
• Fu Qian challenged Huang Zhen's leverage, but Huang Zhen said he was willing to die and began climbing a raised platform as everyone bled in unison.

Fu Qian tested the bond linking the group by killing Old Master Huang, triggering a spreading death effect that withered everyone’s heads. Sha Ming struck the corpse with electricity, turning it into a mass of flowers and severing the bond before the effect could continue.

• Old Master Huang walked up and down the platform, accepting new wounds through the bond to pressure Fu Qian into giving in.
• Fu Qian fired an ice spear at Huang Zhen, then killed him with an Air Bullet when he dodged the first attack.
• Huang Leji shouted at Fu Qian as Huang Zhen’s death spread through the bond, withering the heads of everyone in the group.
• Sha Ming struck Huang Zhen’s corpse with an electric attack, causing it to transform into a mass of flowers and dissolve its connection to the bond.
• Fu Qian praised Sha Ming after the spreading death effect stopped.

Sha Ming revealed that Blood Lion had returned to seek something that might grant divinity, and explained how his group’s Mind World item and Huang Zhixun were connected to the strange place. He concluded that the place was likely a projection of Huang Zhixun’s Mind World and that finding him was their only way out.

• Sha Ming stopped the spread of death with a casual wave, prompting Huang Leji to demand that he explain what he had been hiding.
• Sha Ming said Blood Lion was seeking something that might grant divinity, which Huang Zhixun had encountered before and now regretted passing up.
• Sha Ming admitted that he had tried to provoke the unseen being during the crisis and believed its power was connected to the thing that had affected him.
• Sha Ming denied creating the strange structures and said a Supernatural Item that enabled entry into the Mind World had disappeared along with Huang Zhixun.
• Sha Ming explained that three people were needed to activate the item, and said Huang Zhixun had likely made a Mind World projection with help from a higher being.
• Sha Ming said they had to go deeper and find Huang Zhixun to escape.

Sha Ming explained how Huang Zhixun’s scheme and the mysterious Being had trapped the group in a projection of the Mind World. The group descended into a muddy underground passage, where Fu Qian predicted conditions would worsen and a stronger Sanity Value loss confirmed it.

• Sha Ming revealed that Huang Zhixun had returned alone with a special item and used the Being to manifest his inner projection, trapping the group.
• Huang Leji and the others agreed to follow Sha Ming through a dark opening that led farther down.
• The group descended sticky, sludge-covered steps while asking what would happen if they died below.
• Sha Ming asked Fu Qian about the danger, and Fu Qian said Huang Zhen had probably died but warned that deeper areas should be more serious.
• A voice from the damp wall triggered a Sanity Value loss of five, confirming the danger had increased.

Fu Qian tested how Third Xun Brother’s Sanity Value-draining attacks affected the bonded team and concluded that Sanity Value might be an attribute unique to administrators. He discovered that attacks from behind drained more Sanity Value, then faced Third Xun Brother with a chilling smile.

• Third Xun Brother appeared and attacked Fu Qian, but Huang Leji and the others could neither see him nor detect his attack.
• Fu Qian reasoned that the team remained unaffected because native Transcendents did not possess Sanity Value, which served as an alternative health bar for administrators.
• Third Xun Brother appeared again and drained five points of Fu Qian’s Sanity Value while the team remained unaffected.
• Fu Qian turned to face Third Xun Brother during another attack and found that the attack drained only one point of Sanity Value.
• Fu Qian realized attacks from behind were more vicious and smiled at Third Xun Brother, who had failed to disappear immediately.

Fu Qian spoke with Third Xun about the increasingly strict laws governing the underground, then joined the others as Huang Leji ordered the group to press onward. The team began descending, while Sha Ming remained composed and addressed Fu Qian as “Mr. Xun.”

• Fu Qian reasoned that Third Xun had staged his failed backstab to test him, then asked why Third Xun would not simply explain the rules.
• Third Xun said that breaking the laws and suffering their punishment was another way to experience them, then disappeared.
• Fu Qian relayed Third Xun’s answer to Huang Leji and watched Sha Ming for signs that he could also perceive the unseen Xun.
• Sha Ming urged the group to keep moving, and Huang Leji ordered his subordinates to advance without falling behind.
• Huang Leji’s subordinates concluded that moving ahead might force Sha Ming to protect them, and some rushed toward the exit.
• Sha Ming invited Fu Qian to proceed with him, addressing him as “Mr. Xun.”