Chapter Summaries

Lan Mu learned that an Exotic Energy-altered life-form on Mars had killed Zhao Bu’s three colleagues and transformed crimson bacteria into hostile biomass. As Zhao Bu reunited with two colleagues he had believed dead, Lan Mu recognized them as something other than the people they appeared to be: the Blacklight Virus.

• Zhao Bu told Lan Mu how a creature burst from a fleshy object beneath a mud volcano, killed Old Nie, and unleashed black-red biomass that trapped the crew.
• Zhao Bu escaped by releasing pure oxygen, which weakened the biomass, but ran out of oxygen on his walk back until Lan Mu rescued him.
• Lan Mu concluded that Exotic Energy had transformed the Martian organisms and left Zhao Bu oxygen tanks, instructing him to say the Blue White Society was capturing a Contained Object.
• Zhao Bu saw his rover approach with Little Cheng and Little Yang inside, though he had believed both had suffocated.
• Lan Mu warned Zhao Bu that the two were not his colleagues and recognized the black-red biomass as the Blacklight Virus.

Lan Mu saved Zhao Bu from the Blacklight Virus creatures that had taken the forms of Little Cheng and Little Yang, then tested whether he could control them with dark power. He failed to turn them into undead but captured both monsters and headed toward the alien nest while Zhao Bu ran for the spacecraft.

• Little Cheng and Little Yang revealed themselves as Blacklight Virus creatures and attacked Zhao Bu, but Lan Mu blocked them with Best Metal.
• Lan Mu explained that the Redlight Virus had evolved into the Blacklight Virus after acquiring human genes, and that the real Little Cheng and Little Yang had died.
• Lan Mu dismembered the monsters and tried to seize control of them with dark power, but found their virus-infected bodies could not be turned into undead.
• Lan Mu told Zhao Bu to return to the spacecraft, then pulled both monsters into the ring space as he headed toward the alien nest.
• Zhao Bu looked back and saw Lan Mu far away, the monsters gone, and their severed tentacles burning on the ground.

Lan Mu hunted down the Xenomorph Queen on Mars and absorbed the Exotic Energy it carried. While preparing to leave, he discovered an ancient underground city and a mysterious iron sphere described as household garbage from the civilization that exterminated the Mans Civilization.

• Lan Mu tracked the Xenomorph Queen through underground tunnels, injured it, and absorbed its Exotic Energy over six days.
• Zhao Bu reported the Martian lifeforms to the Hua Space Administration, launched the mission probes, and returned to the spacecraft without finding Lan Mu.
• Lan Mu stored the weakened Xenomorph Queen and discovered extensive buried tunnels beneath Acidalia Planitia that appeared to be an ancient city.
• Lan Mu found an artificial iron sphere and learned through Appraisal that it was household garbage from fifteen million years ago, connected to the destruction of the Mans Civilization.
• The Main God and the Cloud Years Book could not explain the ruins, so Lan Mu resolved to investigate them by finding more artifacts.

Lan Mu investigated ancient Martian ruins and found evidence of a fifteen-million-year-old conflict involving the Dragon Continent and the Mans civilization. After transforming into Di Ting, he discovered he could spiritually hear detailed information about things and returned to Mars to learn the ruins’ history.

• Lan Mu found an alloy fragment embedded in rock and appraised it as a rocket fragment from the Dragon Continent’s final generation, used during the extermination of the Mans civilization.
• Lan Mu speculated that the Dragon Continent had attacked Mars and destroyed the Mans civilization, but concluded that too little evidence remained to know what had happened.
• Lan Mu transformed into Di Ting and learned through intuition that he could hear and distinguish things, including detailed information about their origins and histories.
• Lan Mu discovered that Di Ting could not hear the Main God and recognized that the transformation had limited combat strength.
• Lan Mu returned to Mars for a third investigation, intending to use Di Ting’s spiritual hearing to uncover the history recorded in the geology.

On Mars, Lan Mu used Di Ting’s power to uncover how Dragon Continent’s biological weapon had destroyed the Martian Mans civilization. He concluded that Dragon Continent was probably an ancient civilization on Earth, though its identity and location remained unconfirmed.

• Lan Mu entered the Martian ruins and used Di Ting’s innate ability to hear information preserved in the geology.
• Lan Mu learned that the ruins had been an underwater city inhabited by a tentacled Mans civilization fifteen million years ago.
• Lan Mu discovered that the rocket wreckage and the box called domestic waste had been parts of a single, crude craft launched from Dragon Continent.
• Lan Mu learned that the box had carried feces infected with a biological weapon, which triggered a plague that wiped out the Mans civilization and most life on Mars.
• Lan Mu reasoned that Dragon Continent was likely a continent on Earth, whose civilization had launched the rocket with technology roughly equivalent to the early twentieth century.

Lan Mu discovered that Dragon Continent had once been a vast Pacific continent and learned how dragons shaped Earth’s life and early human civilization. He suspected that pyramids had erased Dragon Continent, as they had Ancient Egypt.

• Lan Mu returned to Earth from Mars and discovered through Di Ting that Shadow Island had once been part of Dragon Continent.
• Lan Mu traced the continent’s boundaries from Lost Island and learned it had covered about thirty-five million square kilometers in the Pacific.
• Lan Mu learned that dragons had appeared after a mass extinction and helped trigger a new flourishing of species across Earth.
• Lan Mu pieced together that humans had risen to rule alongside dragons and built a highly developed spiritual civilization on Dragon Continent.
• Lan Mu concluded that pyramids had erased Dragon Continent, possibly because its people worshipped dragons.

Lan Mu uncovered how the Doom Pyramid destroyed Dragon Continent and worried that the dragons’ lingering cultural influence could prompt another apocalypse. He set the concern aside for now and planned to enter seclusion before confronting Qu Bo in three days.

• Lan Mu concluded that the Doom Pyramid waited for the all-male dragons to die of old age before triggering earthquakes, eruptions, and the sinking of Dragon Continent.
• Lan Mu learned that one final dragon had carried a few humans away and that the dragon’s remains likely lay beneath Heavenly Lake in the Changbai Mountains.
• Bai Ze asked Lan Mu about his investigations, and Lan Mu explained that Dragon culture’s survival might mean the pyramid had failed to erase the dragons’ influence.
• Lan Mu warned Bai Ze that another apocalypse was only a remote possibility, then said he wanted to visit the Dragon Bone.
• Lan Mu told Bai Ze he would enter seclusion to study the Life Sphere and that they would set out to deal with Qu Bo in three days.

After absorbing Mars’s Exotic Energy, Lan Mu unlocked a transformation with a record twenty-five-day duration and decided to accelerate the Reincarnation Plan to gather more energy. He then traveled to Mumbai to confront the Statue of Liberty Club and investigate Modila, a Contained Object holder who could acquire other people’s specialties.

• Lan Mu’s random transformation lasted twenty-five days, leading him to suspect that absorbing Exotic Energy had unlocked higher-tier transformations.
• Lan Mu emerged from seclusion, limited the planned force against the Statue of Liberty Club to fifty people, and sent a Xenomorph Queen and two Blacklight Virus Prototypes to Shambhala for testing.
• Bai Ze reported that Modila gained specialties after capturing and killing people, and Lan Mu warned that Modila might be able to acquire supernatural traits as well.
• Lan Mu traveled to Mumbai with Ma Xiaoou, Lingqi, and Bai Ze, then sensed five Contained Object holders in the city.
• Lan Mu and the others identified four Statue of Liberty Club members, including Helen, a ten-year-old girl known as the Loli War God, whose body weighed 6.8 tons and possessed immense strength.

Modila tried to capture Viktor and his companions to steal their abilities, but they escaped after fighting off his guards. As they fled Mumbai, the Immortal Knight of the Blue White Society blocked their way.

• Viktor warned Modila that the Blue White Society was coming for him and urged him to join their group, but Modila refused.
• Modila ordered his bodyguards to subdue the four companions, and Helen crippled the attackers while charging through them.
• Modila shot at Helen without effect, and Viktor blasted away the guards’ bullets before leading the group out of the mansion.
• Viktor had Napa disguise the group, and they drove toward the outskirts of Mumbai to escape India by sea.
• A green-eyed armored knight on horseback blocked their road, and Viktor identified him as the Blue White Society’s Immortal Knight.

Ma Xiaoou and Bai Ze tried to stop Viktor’s group, but Helen’s immense strength overwhelmed Ma Xiaoou. Lan Mu confronted Modila, who escaped into his Prison Space, only to discover that Lan Mu had followed him inside.

• Ma Xiaoou stopped Norsen’s car, pierced him with a lance, and fought Viktor while Helen joined the battle.
• Helen smashed Ma Xiaoou’s armor and undead horse, forcing him to abandon his armor and evade her attacks as a ghost.
• Bai Ze arrived with dozens of clones and told Ma Xiaoou that Lan Mu would soon come.
• Lan Mu confronted Modila, whose prison listed Lan Mu’s many abilities and issued a mission to capture him.
• Modila escaped into his Prison Space and believed himself safe, but Lan Mu appeared behind him and triggered the prison’s alarm.

Lan Mu captured Modila and gave the prison system to the Main God before joining the battle against Helen and her club. He resisted Norsen’s Red Rope Ring, but Norsen redirected it to bind himself and Helen in a destined relationship.

• Lan Mu used a Reincarnator Mark to locate Modila, took his arm, and left him trapped in Cell Number Ninety-Nine as the Main God absorbed the prison system.
• Lan Mu headed toward Bai Ze and the others, found them badly injured after fighting Helen’s group, and ordered Bai Ze to retreat.
• Lan Mu tested Helen’s strength and learned from Bai Ze that Helen had no known parents or memories from before age ten.
• Lan Mu lifted Helen out of reach and ordered Ma Xiaoou to recover the other three club members’ Contained Objects, killing them if they resisted.
• Norsen used the Red Rope Ring on Lan Mu, but Lan Mu destroyed and remade his body to escape it; Norsen then directed the ring to bind himself and Helen.

Norsen’s red string made Helen fall in love with him, and her attempt to save him triggered a rampage after Lan Mu captured him. Lan Mu struggled to contain Helen until she transformed into a golden-banded iron staff bearing the inscription “Ruyi Golden Cudgel, thirteen thousand five hundred jin.”

• Norsen accidentally tied his red string to Helen, and she injured him while rescuing him from Ma Xiaoou’s attack.
• Lan Mu saved Ma Xiaoou in the Main God Space, captured Norsen in his ring, and left Helen behind.
• Viktor urged Helen to save Norsen, and when Lan Mu vanished with him, Helen began crying and entered a rampage.
• Bai Ze controlled Viktor’s blood and killed him, while Helen’s punches sent shockwaves through the area.
• Lan Mu’s attacks failed to stop Helen, and pulling her into a dream caused her consciousness to disrupt the Eternal Dreamscape.
• Helen’s body transformed into a black iron staff with golden bands, inscribed with the name Ruyi Golden Cudgel and its weight.

Lan Mu discovered that Helen was a newly manifested Contained Object, the conscious Golden Cudgel, and fought to subdue her as she rampaged through several worlds. After defeating her in a distant mountain range, he found that she had returned to human form and invited her home.

• Lan Mu recognized Helen as the Golden Cudgel, appraised its recent origin, and kicked her out of the collapsing Eternal Dreamscape.
• The Golden Cudgel attacked Lan Mu, who trapped it in his ring space, armored himself with Best Metal, and struggled to restrain it as it expanded.
• Lan Mu asked the Main God to send them to the Robot Empire world, where the growing staff smashed through the city and damaged the robot defenses.
• Lan Mu transformed into his Great Witch True Form and battled the Golden Cudgel until they flew to a barren mountain range five hundred kilometers away.
• Lan Mu emerged from the rubble injured as Helen returned to human form, confused about what had happened, and he asked her to come home with him.

Lan Mu brought Helen to Shadow Island, where she began a new life among people who accepted her. After learning that Qu Bo had exploited her and identifying his scattered laboratories, Lan Mu prepared a global assault to capture the real Qu Bo.

• Lan Mu suppressed the Golden Cudgel, rescued Helen, and took her to Shadow Island as his sister.
• Helen told Lan Mu how Qu Bo had taken her in, treated her as a tool, and sent her on missions despite her hatred of killing.
• Lan Mu welcomed Helen to Shadow Island, and she asked to hug him without hurting him; his black armor let them embrace safely.
• Bai Ze reported that the Blue White Society had located thirty-six Qu Bo laboratories, including a major base in northern Canada.
• Lan Mu ordered Bai Ze to attack every laboratory at once while he went to Canada to find the real Qu Bo.

Lan Mu and Ma Xiaoou attacked Qu Bo’s hidden base in northern Canada, where they discovered that the Qu Bo clones were all equally willing to die for their experiments. Qu Bo revealed that his original human body had died long ago, leaving Lan Mu to confront a collective of indistinguishable selves.

• Lan Mu transformed into an elf and caused the forest around the base to grow into a barrier that trapped everyone inside.
• Mo Yu warned Qu Bo that the base had been exposed, and Qu Bo gave him his research files and sent the unconscious Otto away through a portal.
• Lan Mu’s Spiritual Power attack knocked out the club members but left the soulless Qu Bo clones unaffected.
• Lan Mu and Ma Xiaoou broke into the laboratory, where Lan Mu realized that every Qu Bo was a clone.
• Qu Bo explained that his original body had died by suicide and that all the clones shared equal status and would sacrifice themselves for his dream.

Lan Mu confronted Qu Bo and his army of clones, who had cultivated demon-gene Buu clones in pursuit of a perfect organism. After Lan Mu and Ma Xiaoou overwhelmed their forces, Qu Bo’s experiment appeared to awaken something inside the fallen clones, leaving Lan Mu to face a changing lifeform in the magma.

• Lan Mu learned that Qu Bo had used the scalpel to pass his memories among countless clones, all pursuing a perfect organism adapted to every environment.
• Qu Bo opened more than five hundred cultivation chambers and released frail Buu clones made with extracted demon genes.
• Ma Xiaoou attacked the Qu Bo clones while Lan Mu transformed into a Balrog and fought the Buu clones.
• Lan Mu crushed and restrained the Buu clones, while Ma Xiaoou eliminated most of the Qu Bo clones.
• Qu Bo announced that the perfect organism had awakened as something inside the fallen Buu clones began changing in the magma.

Lan Mu discovered that Qu Bo had awakened Zerg parasitizing the Buu clones and created a rapidly adapting demon Zerg. Lan Mu captured it in Best Metal by exploiting its lack of a soul, while Qu Bo killed himself and vowed to return.

• Lan Mu realized Qu Bo had implanted stolen Zerg in the Buu clones, and the demons’ deaths had awakened the parasites into a new species.
• The demon Zerg fused with one another, and the final creature fought Lan Mu with great strength and rapid regeneration.
• Lan Mu shattered the demon Zerg with his Great Witch form, but it regenerated and adapted by stealing his Witch Power.
• Lan Mu trapped the demon Zerg in a Best Metal Containment Sphere, explaining that its lack of a soul left it vulnerable to the material.
• Qu Bo watched his creation become imprisoned, then stabbed himself with the scalpel and vowed to return.

Lan Mu captured Qu Bo’s clones and contained the scalpel, then questioned the last surviving clone about Otto and Themis. Qu Bo killed himself before revealing his secrets, but Lan Mu learned the scalpel’s true function by transforming into Di Ting.

• Lan Mu learned that Bai Ze’s forces had captured the Qu Bo clones and that the scalpel had transferred to one of them.
• At Pacific No. 1 Base, Bai Ze’s vampire guards took the scalpel from the newly chosen Qu Bo clone and contained it.
• Lan Mu questioned Qu Bo about Otto, and Qu Bo explained that Otto had brought Themis’s mangled brains to him for repair and memory-reading.
• Lan Mu ordered Bai Ze to dispose of the other clones, then used his Nine-tailed Fox illusion to question the last Qu Bo about Otto and Themis.
• Qu Bo swallowed poison and died before revealing what he knew, leaving Lan Mu unable to learn Otto’s plans from him.
• Lan Mu transformed into Di Ting and discovered that the scalpel could perfectly perform any surgery when wielded by someone with the necessary knowledge.

Lan Mu used the scalpel to extract and decode Qu Bo’s memories, learning Otto planned to summon the demon Samoyed to attack Earth and uncovering the secret of Contained Object No. 001. He discovered Themis had kept 001’s existence known only to himself as a containment measure, leaving Lan Mu with the revelation of an all-knowing, incorporeal being with infinite energy.

• Lan Mu used the scalpel to remove Qu Bo’s brain and found that memories could be extracted from its cells as biological information.
• Lan Mu read Qu Bo’s memories and learned that Otto had enlisted Samoyed’s help to take revenge on Earth, with Qu Bo agreeing to assist him.
• Lan Mu found Qu Bo’s memories of examining Themis and discovered Themis had contained knowledge of Contained Object No. 001 within his memories.
• Lan Mu learned that 001 was omniscient, incorporeal, and possessed infinite energy, and that Zero One had relied on it to locate Contained Objects and establish CANC.
• Lan Mu learned Themis had refused to borrow 001’s power because it required an eternal contract, and had tried to ensure no one else would know of 001 after his death.

Lan Mu examined Themis’s memories and uncovered how Zero One had intended him to contain Contained Object No. 001, though questions about No. 001’s origins and limits remained. After rejecting No. 001’s offer again, Lan Mu remembered the Abyss Revenge Countdown was imminent and set out to find Otto and stop the Dark Gate.

• Zero One chose Themis to inherit Contained Object No. 001, and Themis understood his teacher wanted him to seal it away rather than become its agent.
• Themis kept No. 001 sealed throughout his life, but Qu Bo read his memories and Lan Mu then learned the secret from Qu Bo.
• Lan Mu questioned why Zero One had known about No. 001 and why he had seemed frustrated before dying, while considering whether Themis had misunderstood his final hint.
• Lan Mu discovered that Qu Bo had also rejected No. 001’s contract, then contacted No. 001 and refused its offer to make him its agent.
• Lan Mu theorized that No. 001 might be hostile to other Contained Objects and that they could have stolen its power, but he could not explain every Contained Object.
• Lan Mu recalled that the Abyss Revenge Countdown would occur within days, transformed into a Golden Rat, and searched for Otto so he could stop the Dark Gate.