Chapter Summaries

After Xu Huo swiftly defeated players in three first-level combat zones, the Special Defense Department released clear footage of his victories, inspiring District 014 and drawing widespread attention to his abilities. Players identified him as X and declared him District 014’s strongest player as the district’s counterattack began.

• The Special Defense Department released footage of Xu Huo killing Outer District players in three combat zones without being injured.
• District 014 residents and players discussed Xu Huo’s identity, the item that created a barrier at the border, and rumors of his time and space powers.
• Players connected Xu Huo to Player X, whose reputation as a powerful unaffiliated player had already spread through District 014.
• Vanguard Forum players concluded that Xu Huo was District 014’s number one player after seeing him kill A-class opponents with ease.
• District 014’s people took Xu Huo’s victories as a sign that their side could begin fighting back.

Xu Huo’s growing reputation forced hostile Players to withdraw and prompted Country X to mobilize support for him. A false report and a mental deception then sparked confusion in Ting City, where Team Leader Wu realized something was wrong and reunited with the real Sima Xiao Er.

• Players across the districts grew wary of Xu Huo, and those holding hostages in Country X quietly withdrew as his influence spread.
• Country X’s leaders ordered military and Special Defense Department teams to support Xu Huo and prepared a strategy against the Ghastly Sound Knights.
• Team Leader Wu questioned the sudden arrival of fighter jets in Ting City, then received a false encrypted message claiming Xu Huo had massacred the Special Defense Department headquarters.
• Sima Xiao Er reported a rumor that Xu Huo had fought with the headquarters after refusing an order, and Team Leader Wu struck him, suspecting an impostor.
• Team Leader Wu discovered the apparent Sima Xiao Er was a smashed speaker and confirmed the real Sima Xiao Er’s identity with a private detail.

Team Leader Wu and the others discovered that someone was spreading false reports of Xu Huo rampaging through Ting City, while an unseen force caused fires, destroyed fighter jets, and trapped players inside the city. The group suspected Ting City had become a new Dungeon connected to Xu Huo.

• Team Leader Wu told Sima Xiao Er that he had received encrypted information about another Sima Xiao Er, but equipment checks found no sign of interference or a problem with Wu.
• Yan Jiayu found a hidden player outside the residence, who claimed Xu Huo had killed people on Locust Tree Street; Zhou Ning pointed out that Xu Huo had been fighting in Combat Zone 21 moments earlier.
• Fires broke out across Ting City, and witnesses claimed Xu Huo was responsible, though Yan Jiayu found no players at the scenes.
• Yan Jiayu tried to reach the fighter jets, but an unseen force destroyed them, and she failed to locate its source.
• Team Leader Wu's group found that transportation items were interrupted and attempts to leave Ting City brought players back to their starting points; a D-class player's Ticket also failed to transport him.
• Yan Jiayu and Zhou Ning suspected that Ting City had become a new Dungeon tied to Xu Huo.

Yan Jiayu and the others suspected that a mental-type anomaly had made Ting City’s residents believe Xu Huo was a dangerous traitor, and they set out to find the Ghastly Sound Knights. Elsewhere, Xu Huo tracked a pursuer to a county town crowded with Outer District Players and discovered Huang Junjie and others nearby.

• Yan Jiayu theorized that Ting City had been trapped in a mental-type instance or affected by a large-scale mental-type item that was spreading claims about Xu Huo.
• Sima Xiao Er and several Special Defense Department colleagues went to seek an exit and contact the outside while Yan Jiayu’s group planned to search for the Ghastly Sound Knights.
• Yan Jiayu’s group sent their plan to Players across Ting City and relied on the residents to watch for the people smearing Xu Huo.
• Xu Huo followed someone who had been tailing him to a county town, where he found more than twenty A-class Outer District Players and several local Players nearby.
• Xu Huo called Huang Junjie, who said that he and his companions had come at Zong Lanzhi’s invitation to investigate unusual Evolution items.

Xu Huo learned that Outer District Players had come to seize a possible Origin Stone and confronted them in the county town. He offered them a peaceful way to leave, but the players questioned whether they had any real choice.

• Huang Junjie told Xu Huo that Zong Lanzhi had promised the group a third of an Origin Stone’s value if they helped seize it.
• Xu Huo warned Huang Junjie to withdraw, then informed the Special Defense Department’s logistics team and went to the county town.
• Xu Huo’s arrival drove eight players into the game, while the others prepared their defenses around the Mall.
• Xu Huo invited the five players inside the Mall to eat and offered them a chance to clear the Dungeon and leave peacefully.
• Xu Huo warned that the Origin Stone belonged to District 014 and threatened anyone who tried to take it; the female Player asked if they had a choice.

Xu Huo left the conflict over the Origin Stone and headed to He City, where the Wisteria Random Instance had swallowed residents and players alike. After weighing the risks to District 014, he ordered resources and personnel redirected, then entered the instance himself.

• Xu Huo warned the A-class players not to involve ordinary residents, allowed them to leave, and told the Xiang siblings he was going to He City.
• Xiang Yao reported that the Wisteria Random Instance had spread pollen across most of He City, put residents to sleep, and left more than a thousand local players unreachable.
• Xiang Yao cautioned Xu Huo that entering the high-level instance could trap him and leave District 014 vulnerable to further attacks.
• Xu Huo ordered the military and Special Defense Department to reduce mine security, said protecting the Origin Stones was not worth risking so many lives, and asked them to monitor the Holy Sword Society and the Ghastly Sound Knights.
• Xu Huo entered the purple-pink haze surrounding He City.

Xu Huo entered the A-Class Random Instance “Hunt,” where Players had to complete one hundred hunts without losing prey. He found Players forcing ordinary people to become prey and killed the group, leaving the survivors’ fate unresolved.

• Xu Huo evacuated residents from the city and discovered a spatial barrier that led into the Hunt instance.
• Xu Huo entered the forest instance, received a Mask marked with three rifles, and learned that Players had to keep their Masks on.
• Xu Huo defeated a Player who explained that failed attempts to kill someone erased a rifle from the attacker’s Mask, and that ordinary people had been dragged into the instance.
• Xu Huo found Players coercing ordinary people to attack one another and threaten them with being fed to an Alien.
• Xu Huo approached the clearing, and the Players’ heads flew off before they could confront him.

Xu Huo questioned a group of ordinary people from E25 and learned more about the Dungeon’s hunting rules while searching the vast forest for someone. After accepting a Sub-class Stone from a child, he kept the group with him and sent a Player to look for his hometown friends.

• Xu Huo learned that the E25 group had entered the forest after seeing wisteria, and that Players were hunting people to clear the Dungeon.
• Xu Huo worked out that Players had three chances to attack while ordinary people had only one, and suspected the main challenge was finding prey in the enormous forest.
• An old man offered Xu Huo money and equipment to save the group, but a child offered him a pale purple Sub-class Stone instead, and Xu Huo accepted it.
• Xu Huo gave the E25 group water and explained that he would keep them in a container item until he understood the Dungeon and found the person he was seeking.
• A Player who had ambushed Xu Huo asked to search for his hometown friends, and Xu Huo let him go, promising to take him out if he helped.
• Xu Huo released his perception to scan the forest again and wondered why no new Hunters had appeared.

Xu Huo investigated the strange forest, where players were being killed while asleep and ordinary people were looting them. After questioning two survivors and waking the player who had ambushed him, Xu Huo prepared defenses and sent aircraft in different directions to investigate.

• Xu Huo found a looted player corpse and suspected the man had been killed while asleep.
• Xu Huo used Transdimensional Space Power to destroy several patches of purple vines and found more players who appeared to have been killed in their sleep.
• Xu Huo caught two Mask-wearing ordinary people approaching the sleeping player who had ambushed him, and they explained that people in the forest kept losing consciousness without warning.
• Xu Huo used a Syringe to wake the player, who explained that his positioning device had failed and his trail marks had vanished.
• Xu Huo sent small aircraft in different directions, put on a metal suit, and activated defensive devices and combat robots.

Xu Huo investigated a forest where people fell into increasingly dangerous sleep and tried to find a way to reduce the threat by destroying its wisteria. After learning that the dungeon’s hunting requirements could also be affected by lost equipment, he joined forces with two players to clear more of the forest.

• Xu Huo found two people asleep in the forest, and even repeated slaps and wake-up potions failed to rouse them at first.
• Xu Huo concluded that the dungeon’s sleep effect could worsen with each episode and prepared extra wake-up potions before searching for the missing people.
• Xu Huo destroyed thousands of wisteria vines, but the dungeon remained active and he encountered only a few people.
• Two B-class players told Xu Huo that losing a hunting rifle had stopped one player’s kills from counting toward the clearing requirement.
• After hearing that others had not fallen asleep, Xu Huo decided to keep destroying wisteria, and the two players agreed to help.

Xu Huo and the others investigated a forest where people fell asleep and space seemed distorted, while an ambushed player dreamed of beautiful wisteria. After Old Crow was found dead and several rescued people fell asleep, Xu Huo noticed another figure appear in the forest.

• Xu Huo questioned the ambushed player about his dream of wisteria and told him to remember more details if he dreamed again.
• The female player reported that Old Crow had been killed in his sleep, and Xu Huo continued onward with the others instead of splitting up.
• Xu Huo and his companions found more than a dozen people from other Sub-districts, but none from District 014.
• At their night camp, four people released from Xu Huo's storage item fell asleep within minutes and could not be woken.
• A child described how danger changed the shape of his dreams, and Xu Huo spotted a figure in the forest.

Xu Huo followed a series of younger versions of himself through the wisteria-choked city and found another version of himself asleep beneath an ancient tree. As he remained missing inside Hai City, authorities and Players mobilized to find him while the public argued over whether he should risk himself for the city or prioritize the greater good.

• Xu Huo followed his younger selves through the wisteria until he found another version of himself asleep beneath an ancient tree.
• After two hours without contact from Xu Huo or the Players who entered Hai City, officials ordered the Totem Squad to find him and bring him out.
• Two squads in protective suits entered Hai City as wisteria continued to overrun the city and outgrow efforts to cut it back.
• Civilian Player groups also searched for Xu Huo while rumors spread about his disappearance and five more Level One Combat Zones appeared.
• People on online forums argued over whether Xu Huo had acted rightly by entering Hai City instead of staying to protect Country X.

Nie Xuan confronted Bai Tiaoyi after discovering that the Ghastly Sound Knights had been feeding missing people to Mutated Plants as part of a plan to alter the genes of everyone in Country X. Xu Huo woke in the wisteria forest and found that the missing Players and civilians had been consumed by Mutated wisteria.

• Nie Xuan traced Bai Tiaoyi to a patch of Mutated Plants and found the remains of people who had gone missing along the Ghastly Sound Knights’ route.
• Bai Tiaoyi explained that he intended to make Country X pay for his friend’s death by planting a defect in its people’s genes.
• Nie Xuan and Bai Tiaoyi fought as the wisteria-like white petals dissolved Nie Xuan’s defensive barrier.
• Xu Huo woke beneath purple wisteria, freed himself from its roots, and discovered that the missing Players and ordinary people had been turned into food.
• Xu Huo spotted Players from District 014 and began pulling them out of the flowers.

Xu Huo led the survivors through the vast Wisteria instance, rescuing sleepers and searching for missing people while the group tried to understand how to clear the instance. He found the pale purple Sub-class Stone the child had seen in their shared dream, confirming that the dream’s places and objects existed in the physical world.

• Xu Huo and the survivors pulled people from the wisteria, gave masks to those who needed them, and organized a search for others still asleep.
• Jin Xiang asked Xu Huo how they could clear the instance, and Xu Huo kept the survivors out of container items so they could help rescue people.
• The group searched among the wisteria and recovered sleepers, while Jin Xiang warned that attacking the vines could make them draw more nutrients from the people attached to them.
• Xu Huo and the child from Wormhole Point E25 found the pale purple Sub-class Stone hidden in a cave.
• Xu Huo concluded that the instance’s shared dream projected real places and objects into its dreamers’ perceptions.

Xu Huo explored the Wisteria instance, where people could be killed in dreams by ordinary people’s imagined weapons, and discovered the vines grew increasingly dense toward the southeast. Despite the danger and Jin Xiang’s advice to leave, Xu Huo stayed to rescue those trapped, and Jin Xiang announced he would leave the Special Defense Department to follow him.

• Xu Huo reasoned that deaths in the Wisteria dream were real and that the vines might possess mental power like the Goddess Vine.
• Jin Xiang brought spray-on potions, and the Special Defense Department deployed drones to search for people and help them escape the instance.
• Xu Huo split off with a team to explore, rescued people, and observed that the wisteria grew more densely toward the southeast.
• After three members of Xu Huo’s team fell asleep, Jin Xiang urged him to leave, but Xu Huo asked the Special Defense Department to keep rescuing those trapped and refused to return yet.
• Jin Xiang told Xu Huo he was leaving the Special Defense Department to follow him.

Xu Huo sent a message from the Wisteria instance, reassuring Country X and inspiring its people to resist the Outer District Players. While investigating the instance’s unusually large wisteria tree, he searched for the cause of the sleep-inducing anomaly and found a glowing stone.

• The Special Defense Department learned that Xu Huo was safe, and he sent a video announcing that he would clear out intruders again in two hours.
• Minister Ji and the military released Xu Huo’s video nationwide, raising people’s confidence and prompting ordinary citizens to monitor and resist the Outer District Players.
• The people of Country X tracked players and shared their movements, while some players responded by killing civilians without stopping the resistance.
• Xu Huo examined an enormous wisteria tree and tested the fertile soil, but found no evidence that the plants caused the Dungeon’s anomaly.
• Jin Xiang collected specimens and helped Xu Huo dig soil, then spotted a huge glowing stone.

Xu Huo discovered an Origin Stone hidden in a mutated tree and left the rescue effort to seek the Instance Authorization Letter, though his real aim was to destroy the instance grounds. He realized that Sub-districts judged to lack potential could be systematically stripped and ruined by the game, leaving District 014 vulnerable to a hidden risk.

• Jin Xiang found a large Sub-class Stone in a tree root, and Xu Huo helped the group search for more.
• Xu Huo found a small purple Origin Stone in the tree's heart and suspected it had promoted plant mutation.
• Xu Huo gave Jin Xiang the Sub-class Stones and left, claiming he would look for the Instance Authorization Letter while planning to dismantle the instance grounds.
• Xu Huo concluded that Sub-districts judged to lack potential were systematically exploited and could be reduced to wastelands.
• Xu Huo resolved that District 014 could be destroyed by a hidden risk that would set the game's process in motion.

Xu Huo destroyed the forest and a hidden fortress, causing the A-grade Random Instance “Hunting” to collapse. He and the people trapped inside were expelled into Hai City, where rescuers began waking the remaining sleepers.

• Xu Huo ignored the game’s warning and expanded his attacks, destroying the wisteria and other parts of the forest as Players rushed to rescue people.
• Xu Huo noticed that animals avoided the northwest and followed them to an invisible barrier concealing a vast white metal fortress.
• Xu Huo searched the abandoned fortress, found no clear clues, took a few pieces of equipment, and destroyed the structure.
• The game announced that the “Hunting” instance had collapsed and forcibly removed everyone inside.
• Xu Huo appeared on a street in Hai City as Players celebrated their return and continued rescuing sleepers; Xiang Yao and Xiang Mi expressed disbelief at his feat.

After escaping the collapsing Hunting instance, Xu Huo met with national leaders, learned about the crisis across Country X, and prepared to help combat Outer District Players across District 014. He left Hai City after ordering the Special Defense Department to investigate the Ghastly Sound Knights and entrusting Xiang Yao with the Goddess Vine.

• The Xiang siblings showed Xu Huo a call with Capital City leaders, who said Country X was uniting against the crisis and that other countries in District 014 were in the same boat.
• Xu Huo reviewed reports of citizens organizing rescues and resisting Outer District Players, then requested information on Country X's main combat zones and said he would shut down Sky Light Domain.
• Xiang Yao told Xu Huo that Ting City and Team Leader Nie were tied up in instances, and that Bai Tiaoyi had planted Mutated Plants in corpses to damage the genes of future Players.
• Xu Huo ordered the Special Defense Department to investigate thoroughly and seek information on missing Ghastly Sound Knights, then gave Xiang Yao the Goddess Vine to secure in Capital City.
• Xu Huo left Hai City, reflecting that the Instance Authorization Letter's destruction had likely caused the instance to collapse without making him a Wanted Criminal.

A Player reporting from Country Y’s capital praised Hans and other heroes while residents and rescue workers struggled to save people from a catastrophe. As the reporter defended the government’s response, a blood-red attack spread through the streets, killing people and raising their bodies into a field of bloody flowers.

• A reporting Player blamed Outer District Players for the hostage killings and claimed Hans’s arrival would save Country Y’s capital.
• A desperate man charged into his burning home to reach his trapped parents while Hans rescued hostages and received public praise.
• A burned rescue Player accused the reporter of lacking compassion and questioned whether the government used celebrated heroes to conceal the suffering.
• Blood-red patterns appeared on the streets and transformed into needles that pierced people, including the burned rescue Player, as a field of corpse-flowers spread through the city.