Recaps

Xu Huo protected the residential complex from masked Players and captured an infiltrator after discovering the attackers had not entered through the Special Defense Department’s defenses. He demanded to know where the man’s companions were.

• Masked Players attacked the residential complex, and one seized a pregnant woman and forced her husband to threaten the defenders.
• An unseen Player rescued the couple, contained the grenade’s blast, and later killed the masked attacker who fled into a building.
• Xu Huo learned from Gu Yu that three groups had attacked the Special Defense Department but had retreated without entering the complex.
• Xu Huo found a masked Player preparing to escape from a nearby building, pulled him through a Space Portal, and stopped his attack.
• Xu Huo struck the captured Player and demanded to know where his companions were.

Xu Huo interrogated nine Players who had attacked residents and heard their accusations that the Special Defense Department was secretly forcing people to evolve. A video from a dying woman supported their claims, but Xu Huo remained unconvinced and questioned whether the department would risk such a scheme when it already struggled to control Players.

• Xu Huo subdued nine Players from nearby buildings and injected them with muscle relaxant.
• Xu Huo questioned the injured Players about why they had attacked ordinary residents, and one accused the Special Defense Department of abusing the population.
• The Player claimed the department secretly forced people with high evolution potential to evolve, despite the risks of failure, death, or turning into Aliens.
• Xu Huo watched a video in which a woman said she had not chosen to evolve and warned her brother not to let their younger sister sign up.
• The Player argued that the department used food and drink to make people evolve and trained successful candidates to serve it, but Xu Huo said the allegations were not convincing.

Xu Huo challenged the Special Defense Department over allegations that it was coercing ordinary people to evolve and leaking resources, while Bian Ling tried to silence the accusers. After trapping Bian Ling and her masked ally, Xu Huo confronted Minister Fan and invoked the Y Country Safe Zone incident.

• Xu Huo dismissed the accusers’ claims as unproven and demanded solid evidence before he would spare them.
• Bian Ling arrived with a masked Player and said the group was backed by a cult; the masked Player tried to choke one of the captives, but Xu Huo knocked him away.
• Bian Ling defended the Special Defense Department’s lethal response, and Xu Huo asked whether it had leaked transport routes and forced ordinary people to evolve.
• Xu Huo trapped Bian Ling and the masked Player inside an invisible space barrier, then called Minister Fan and played him an audio clip about the allegations.
• Minister Fan asked Xu Huo what he thought should be done, and Xu Huo reminded him of the Y Country Safe Zone incident.

Xu Huo threatened the Special Defense Department with destroying its Safe Zones unless it exposed and punished those involved in the abuses within two days. After he confronted Team Leader Lu and sent nine people back with her, the department assessed his power while deciding how to respond.

• Xu Huo gave Minister Fan two days to make the truth public, hold a public trial for those found guilty, and deal with the people involved, threatening to destroy a Safe Zone each day if the result was unsatisfactory.
• The Special Defense Department deployed nearly fifty players to the residential complex, where Xu Huo confronted Team Leader Lu and demonstrated his speed and spatial abilities.
• Xu Huo let Team Leader Lu take nine people away and returned to his family, reassuring Father Xu that they were safe.
• Team Leader Lu returned to headquarters, where Minister Fan asked how strong Xu Huo was; she reported that he could precisely control an area of at least three hundred meters, beyond the reach of most of the department's items.

The Special Defense Department debated whether to confront Xu Huo, comply with his demand, or investigate corruption within its own ranks. Minister Fan called for a public vote on an internal investigation.

• Minister Fan and the team leaders weighed the risks of trapping or attacking Xu Huo and questioned whether he was serious about destroying the Safe Zone.
• Team Leader Chang warned that Xu Huo could escape into the game and return stronger, while Team Leader Lu estimated a single top combat team had less than a fifty percent chance of beating him.
• Tang Shao suggested dealing with corrupt officials, and Jiang Qiao argued that rooting out internal rot would cost fewer lives than fighting Xu Huo.
• The gathered officials split into factions over whether to target Xu Huo, focus on internal affairs, or do both.
• Minister Fan called on team leaders and prospective team leaders to vote on an internal investigation.

The Special Defense Department faced a wave of public outrage after evidence revealed that some branches had forced people to undergo Evolution, while attacks and unrest spread across the country. Xu Huo received a list from Nie Xuan and set out to act against the people on it.

• The Special Defense Department's Elite Players arrived in Tianshi, and footage of clashes with independent Players set off rumors of a government war against Players.
• Videos and eyewitness accounts exposed forced Evolution screenings, prompting the Special Defense Department to announce arrests and release data about the violations.
• A Player attack on a Special Defense Department branch intensified the unrest, and the department sent Players to respond across the country.
• Wen Xue Lin and the others warned Xu Huo that unfamiliar people had appeared near the residential complex.
• Nie Xuan told Xu Huo that the forced Evolution scandal would have surfaced anyway, then sent him a list of people with photos and information about their habits and safe houses.
• Xu Huo rose from his seat and vanished as the sun went down.

Xu Huo went to a classified Safe Zone and intervened when Players fleeing it came under attack. After helping survivors escape a rockslide, he confronted a white-haired woman on the Special Defense Department's wanted List.

• Minister Fan ordered headquarters to handle only essential calls as evidence and pressure mounted against the Special Defense Department.
• Xu Huo used a prop to reach the classified Safe Zone, where a convoy of Players fled through the tunnel amid gunfire.
• An unknown attacker shot down a pursuing Player and caused two armored cars to crash, leaving several people dead or injured.
• The attacker brought down a rockslide on the survivors, and Xu Huo secretly teleported them a hundred meters to safety.
• The white-haired woman summoned two companions and surrounded Xu Huo, who recognized her from the Special Defense Department's wanted List.

Xu Huo intercepted the convoy carrying an old man who had authorized Qicheng Laboratory’s forced Evolutions and challenged his justification for sacrificing people. The old man’s fate remained unresolved as Xu Huo revealed a red syringe.

• Xu Huo killed three foreign attackers and caught up with the convoy as the assault on it continued.
• A powerful attacker tried to cut into a convoy vehicle, but Xu Huo kicked him away and pursued the old man in another vehicle.
• Xu Huo asked whether Laboratory 22 had selected 124 of its 367 Evolvers using the Evolution success rate List, and the old man did not deny it.
• The old man defended the forced Evolutions as sacrifices for the country, while Xu Huo argued that they were self-serving and undermined the country’s principles.
• Xu Huo asked how many Players would die that night, then opened a box and showed the old man a red Syringe.

Xu Huo injected Old Yang with Evolver blood, and the old man soon regressed and became violently cannibalistic. At a secret safe house, Liu Zhichao and other officials discussed the attack, their role in forced regression, and plans to let the Special Defense Department take the blame while they rebuilt their laboratories.

• Xu Huo injected Old Yang with Evolver blood and left him in the convoy, warning that the military would handle him if he regressed.
• Old Yang lost control, bit the driver, and was subdued as the Players reported that the attacker might be carrying Evolver blood.
• Nian arranged an evacuation, and Xu Huo followed the remaining personnel to a secret safe house.
• Liu Zhichao told the gathered officials that Old Yang had died after being injected with Evolver blood, prompting them to discuss the Special Defense Department's secret forced regressions.
• Liu Zhichao urged the officials to stay quiet until the Special Defense Department finished its cleanup, while they agreed that removing unruly Players would let them resume their work.
• After several people left, Old Wan defended the laboratories and argued that results mattered more than debates over right and wrong.

Xu Huo confronted the people behind Ice City Laboratory 66 and forced them to draw lots to decide who would receive an Evolver blood injection. The first recipient was chosen, and Xu Huo prepared to inject him.

• Liu Zhichao questioned Old Wan and the others about their confidence that Players posed no threat.
• Xu Huo revealed himself after disabling the safe house’s alarms and locking its doors, then explained that he had thrown Liu Zhichao off the plane.
• Xu Huo produced syringes of Evolver blood and said the eight people on his target list would draw lots to determine who received an injection first.
• When Lin He attacked Xu Huo, he killed her with invisible cutting lines and explained her role in the abuse at Ice City Laboratory 66.
• Old Wan and the others rolled the die; the last man rolled a six and tried to flee, but an invisible force dragged him to Xu Huo.
• Xu Huo took a syringe from the bag as the chosen man was pinned before him.

Xu Huo forced government officials and other influential people to witness the consequences of the Gluttony Potion, then spent two days visiting safe houses across nine cities. He left his remaining targets scattered and harder to find, and the Magician returned while Xu Huo was dealing with more people on Nie Xuan's List.

• Xu Huo injected several men with Potions after using dice to choose who would receive them, and the Evolvers descended into a violent frenzy.
• Xu Huo told the crew cut woman and her companions to warn the government and the Special Defense Department before disappearing as government Players entered the safe house.
• Xu Huo visited seventeen safe houses in nine major cities over two days, using seventy-one Potions and killing fourteen people named on Nie Xuan's List.
• The remaining people on the List stopped trusting government safe houses, scattered, and hid after learning what had happened.
• The Magician returned while Xu Huo was confronting several professors, and Xu Huo told her he was busy and to come back in a few days.

Xu Huo and the Magician fought through the laboratory and the Magician’s Spiritual World, destroying the building as they battled. The Magician trapped Xu Huo in a spatial pyramid, and Xu Huo used Angel’s Teeth to hold a gap open before taking out City Sandbox.

• The Magician turned colored paper into blades that killed all seventy-one people remaining in the laboratory building.
• Xu Huo questioned whether the Magician was truly an A-class player and the original owner of Magician’s Gift, and the Magician attacked him with a vortex of paper blades.
• Xu Huo and the Magician chased and fought each other through the Spiritual World, using portals, Book Towers, and spatial powers until the laboratory collapsed.
• On the sports field, Xu Huo used his defensive items to withstand the Magician’s attacks and the falling rubble, while several of his newer items proved ineffective or were destroyed.
• The Magician pinned Xu Huo and attacked through portals with eighteen Long Swords, but Xu Huo escaped and marked him with Written Weakness.
• The Magician trapped Xu Huo inside a moving spatial pyramid; when Xu Huo could not break out, he wedged Angel’s Teeth into a gap and took out City Sandbox.

Xu Huo escaped the Magician’s spatial pyramid and ended their fight before resting and flying out the next morning. On the plane, the Magician argued that kindness required equal exchange and asked Xu Huo to consider what his actions meant; Xu Huo asked what the Magician wanted to trade.

• Xu Huo used City Sandbox to move himself out of the Magician’s spatial pyramid, then withdrew as the Magician ended the fight and they left in opposite directions.
• Xu Huo rested at a hotel, and Gu Yu told him the Special Defense Department had dismantled cults and criminal player gangs while government officials had also been assassinated.
• Xu Huo flew out the next morning, where the Magician sat across from him and questioned why he had gone to such trouble to kill people who had wronged Nie Xuan.
• The Magician told a story about a philanthropist who became homeless and argued that kindness required gratitude in return.
• Xu Huo said he acted only because he felt like it, then asked the Magician what he wanted to trade.

Xu Huo and the Magician reached a stalemate after debating whether to trade a playing card, and the Magician left the plane without harming its passengers. As the plane neared its destination, Xu Huo rejected Song Xiaohua’s recruitment pitch and left, while plane security detained Song Xiaohua for investigation.

• The Magician threatened to make the passengers attack Xu Huo, but Xu Huo countered that he would save anyone who tried to kill him.
• Song Xiaohua asked Xu Huo and the Magician to spare the innocent passengers, and Xu Huo proposed that the Magician make a fair trade instead of threatening him.
• Xu Huo and the Magician recognized that neither could gain a decisive advantage, so the Magician left the plane.
• Song Xiaohua introduced himself as an agent for Fat Cat Player Economy Company and tried to recruit Xu Huo as a player celebrity.
• Xu Huo warned Song Xiaohua that his job could endanger him and that the Special Defense Department would crack down on prominent players.
• As the plane neared its destination, security handcuffed Song Xiaohua for investigation after Xu Huo had already left.

After returning to the Safe Zone, Xu Huo faced the Special Defense Department’s attempts to learn more about the killings and asked Nie Xuan to investigate a suspicious passenger named Song Xiaohua. Nie Xuan then told him an island had vanished from satellite images and unstable space had appeared nearby, leaving Xu Huo with a new matter to consider.

• Xu Huo returned home, reassured Father Xu that the Special Defense Department’s questioning was not serious, and spoke with Minister Fan about the government officials who had been killed.
• Minister Fan tried to learn how Xu Huo had found the victims, but Xu Huo refused to offer information or take the blame.
• At the Special Defense Department’s request, Team Leader Wu visited Xu Huo, who treated him to lunch before sending him away.
• Nie Xuan visited Xu Huo and said the department wanted to know where he had been; Xu Huo asked him to investigate Song Xiaohua, a recently arrested passenger from Xu Huo’s flight.
• Nie Xuan told Xu Huo that an island near the coastline had disappeared from satellite images and that unstable space had appeared around it.

Xu Huo learned that a disappearing island might be forming an instance, and Nie Xuan asked him to prevent the Special Defense Department from claiming it. After investigating the island’s history, Xu Huo discovered Song Xiaohua had been waiting invisibly by his door.

• Nie Xuan asked Xu Huo to go to the disappearing island and keep any instance there out of the government’s hands, but Xu Huo made no promise.
• The surveillance post and recently arrived players left the Safe Zone, and Xu Huo searched the Vanguard Player Forum for information about the island.
• Xu Huo read an account describing how the island had shrunk behind a transparent barrier before vanishing, prompting speculation that it had been swallowed by an instance.
• Xu Huo noticed Song Xiaohua outside his door and told him to come in.
• Song Xiaohua deactivated his invisibility and complained that Xu Huo had set him up.

Xu Huo agreed to take Song Xiaohua along to the vanished island, despite learning that Song Xiaohua had died ten days earlier. On the private plane, he reunited with Wang Xiaohui and Wei Mang, while the other passengers wondered whether Xu Huo wanted fame.

• Xu Huo asked Song Xiaohua to join him on a trip to the vanished island, and Song Xiaohua agreed after proposing to film a documentary.
• Nie Xuan messaged Xu Huo that Song Xiaohua had died ten days earlier, but Xu Huo deleted the message and waited for him.
• Song Xiaohua arranged for them to fly on a private plane and brought Xu Huo to the airport.
• Xu Huo boarded with Song Xiaohua and encountered Wang Xiaohui, Wei Mang, Ban Tao, Sun Minqi, and Wang Dafa.
• Wang Xiaohui greeted Xu Huo and credited the Special Defense Department's Antidote with easing Wei Mang's suffering.
• Wang Xiaohui asked whether Xu Huo wanted to become famous, drawing the attention of Ban Tao and the other players.

Xu Huo met Wang Xiaohui and other players preparing to approach the island, but declined to join their group. Meanwhile, Minister Fan planned to restrict Xu Huo from entering and use the island operation to trap foreign infiltrators and punish unauthorized arrivals.

• Sun Minqi questioned Xu Huo's player rank, and Xu Huo explained that he had worked as an extra before becoming a player.
• Wang Xiaohui told the group that the Special Defense Department had agreed to let player organizations onto the island if they sold it one item they found there, and that department players would accompany them.
• Sun Minqi objected to adding Xu Huo and Song Xiaohua to his team, so Xu Huo said they might not go to the island.
• Minister Fan learned that Xu Huo was aboard Wang Xiaohui's plane and ordered that Xu Huo be kept off the island.
• Team Leader Chang reported that 27 of the 169 confirmed visitors were infiltrators and that eighteen unknown groups were approaching the island; Minister Fan ordered unauthorized groups to be let in and taught a lesson.

Xu Huo entered the vanished island and explored its ruined, gravity-bound city, where floating buildings, shifting paths, and sudden darkness revealed that the space was unstable and fragmented. He found a seemingly identical area beyond the first one just as the stone path and airborne ruins began collapsing.

• Xu Huo learned from Special Defense Department Players that the island had five accessible entrances and that its elite unit had found little inside.
• Xu Huo crossed the barrier and explored a ruined city where buildings and stone slabs floated above the ground, while gravity still affected anything he dropped.
• Xu Huo encountered other players after passing through a faint force, then watched a stone path form and the buildings behind them vanish into impenetrable darkness.
• Xu Huo traveled two thousand meters and found a similar version of the ruins, realizing that the island contained overlapping spaces that did not always share the same people or scenery.
• A stone path collapsed from the bottom upward, and the floating ruins began to fall apart.

Xu Huo investigated the shifting ruined spaces and discovered that the A3 exit marked on the Special Defense Department’s map was missing. Suspecting his Cube Space had affected the island’s spatial boundaries, he decided to find another player before risking further experiments.

• After a collapse sent Xu Huo back to an identical ruined space, he found that he could not switch spaces or leave through the Spiritual World.
• Xu Huo met Song Xiaohua, Wei Mang, and two Special Defense Department players, who gave him a map and a pointer to the A3 exit.
• Xu Huo and Song Xiaohua followed the pointer but crossed several spaces and found no exit at the mapped location.
• Xu Huo suspected his Cube Space had created a stable zone that disrupted the island’s shifting spaces, and he decided to find another person first.
• Song Xiaohua chose their next direction by pointing randomly at the map.

Xu Huo and Song Xiaohua emerged between two groups of players, where Xu Huo confronted a hostile team and killed its bald leader with overwhelming spatial abilities. The Special Defense Department players recognized Xu Huo’s extraordinary Super Evolution, while the other team was left unable to follow his movements.

• Xu Huo followed the route Song Xiaohua chose, while Song Xiaohua pressed him to honor an alleged promise to make him an agent.
• Xu Huo and Song Xiaohua emerged from a ruin-space between a Special Defense Department squad and another group of players.
• A bald player from the other group confronted Xu Huo, who mocked him for targeting a two-person team instead of the larger squad.
• Xu Huo used spatial barriers and an A-class item to kill the bald player before anyone could track his movements.
• The Special Defense Department squad’s leader identified Xu Huo’s ability as exceptionally powerful Super Evolution.

Xu Huo and Song Xiaohua explored the ruined space, taking photographs as they searched for anything valuable. Xu Huo’s overwhelming presence unsettled the players around him, and Wang Minqi suggested that his group follow him.

• The Special Defense Department’s C-class players judged Xu Huo capable of matching top-tier B-class players, and Xu Huo left the bald man’s companions behind.
• Xu Huo and Song Xiaohua explored the scattered ruins, discussed the dark areas, and took photographs of the strange buildings and each other.
• Xu Huo and Song Xiaohua met Wei Mang’s group, where Sun Minqi challenged their claim that they had only taken pictures.
• Xu Huo’s pressure left Sun Minqi, Guo Nan, Wei Mang, and the others unable to move, prompting them to stop questioning him.
• A player-organization team recognized Xu Huo and turned away, and Wang Minqi suggested following him to make progress.

Xu Huo realized the ruin space was a dangerous maze of nested, repeating spaces rather than a likely dungeon site. After floating ruins suddenly attacked him, he traced their controlling rays and confronted the Magician, who had been hiding nearby.

• Wei Mang chose to split up with Wang Dafa, Sun Minqi, Ban Tao, and Wei Yan to search independently.
• Xu Huo explained to Song Xiaohua why the ruin space was dangerous and why the players were unlikely to find or manage a dungeon there.
• Two players entered a black patch despite warnings, while Xu Huo studied repeating patterns in the ruins and suspected the spaces had boundaries.
• Stones around Xu Huo rose into the air and attacked him, forcing him to defend himself with Space Power and spatial barriers.
• Xu Huo traced the rays controlling the stones, crossed to their source, and revealed the Magician with an attack waiting behind him.

Xu Huo and the Magician battled through shifting spiritual spaces, and the Magician trapped Xu Huo in his “A Thousand Selves” trick. A black shadow attacked the Magician from within Xu Huo’s scattered scraps, and Xu Huo regained control just as the Magician was cornered.

• Xu Huo and the Magician clashed with Space Rays, mental Manifestations, and Artifacts as their fight swept through several ruins.
• The Magician drew Xu Huo onto a stage and used “A Thousand Selves” to scatter him into scraps of colored paper and overwhelm him with countless viewpoints.
• The Magician weakened Xu Huo’s scraps and demanded Magician’s Gift, but two scraps opened their eyes and revealed that Xu Huo remained aware.
• A black shadow formed from the dark scraps and attacked the Magician, blocking his escape through the Mental Portal and piercing his calf through the portals on his body bag.
• Xu Huo reassembled himself, seized a black spike, and commanded it to come back.

Xu Huo and the Magician fought to a draw, then discussed Magician's Gift and the A-class Magician's possible legacy. The Magician offered two A-class items for the card, but Xu Huo remained unconvinced and asked for another reason to hand it over.

• Xu Huo released his shadow personality, and the Magician ended their fight after admitting they had both held back.
• The Magician offered Xu Huo two A-class items for Magician's Gift and explained that it could open an A-class Dungeon linked to a vanished magician.
• The Magician said Magician's Gift had marked its target and that Cube Space matched an item used in the A-class Magician's battle records.
• The Magician explained that Cube Space was a technological device, possibly from an A-class Wormhole Point, rather than a spacetime item.
• Xu Huo said he could keep or sell Magician's Gift and asked the Magician to give him another reason to trade it.