Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo defeated the Twins and Great Demon Queen, then hid as Tang Xiao and Peng Ru entered the bloodied room looking for him and Jin Zhao.

• Xu Huo escaped the Twins and Great Demon Queen in the Secret Passage, then ambushed them as they emerged.
• Xu Huo killed the shorty of the Twins with Sword Qi and killed Great Demon Queen with a Flying Arrow.
• Xu Huo collected Great Demon Queen’s Silencing Figurine and checked the defeated Players’ abilities and props.
• After footsteps sounded from the Secret Passage, Xu Huo hid outside the window as Tang Xiao and Peng Ru entered and noticed the smell of blood.

Xu Huo, Yan Jiayu, Tang Xiao, and Peng Ru crossed the Broken Bridge to investigate the ruined Ancient Castle after sheltering from the Plush. They spotted a little head in a hat watching them from the suspended Lighthouse structure.

• Xu Huo reunited with Yan Jiayu, Tang Xiao, and Peng Ru, and they agreed to leave the room and find shelter.
• The group hid from nearby Players, barricaded the door, and tied up the Plush in the room.
• Xu Huo decided to investigate the ruined Ancient Castle across the Broken Bridge despite the others' concerns.
• Xu Huo, Yan Jiayu, Tang Xiao, and Peng Ru crossed the bridge, where Yan Jiayu smelled something rotten and saw a little head in a hat watching them from the Lighthouse structure.

Xu Huo and the others entered the Ancient Castle with a suspicious little girl, but darkness swallowed the castle and scattered the group. Xu Huo was sent back to the Ticket Area for breaking a rule and found that the Dungeon’s punishment had disabled each of them in a different way.

• Yan Jiayu caught a frightened little girl, and Peng Ru held her as the group decided to bring her along.
• Xu Huo questioned the girl over the fissure, and she revealed that the Little Hats were somewhere behind them.
• The Stone Bridge crumbled as darkness closed in, and Plush toys attacked; Tang Xiao, Yan Jiayu, and Peng Ru vanished while Xu Huo escaped the encirclement.
• Xu Huo accidentally triggered a Doll and was sent to the Ticket Area, where a Clown Head blocked his ears and nostrils as punishment.
• Xu Huo reunited with Yan Jiayu and Tang Xiao, who told him Peng Ru had returned to the Dungeon and that all three had suffered impairments.

Xu Huo sent Tang Xiao and Yan Jiayu to follow the Play Guide’s route through the amusement park while he returned to Black Maple Valley to search the Ancient Castle. He killed the Dwarf Player but let the White-Haired Player escape, then prepared for the Quiz Game as Hide and Seek ended.

• Xu Huo told Tang Xiao and Yan Jiayu to visit every Game Point on the Play Guide’s Route Map and ignore the Quiz Game, and Tang Xiao agreed to trust his plan.
• After reentering the amusement park, Yan Jiayu and Tang Xiao went to find companions while Xu Huo headed for Black Maple Valley and entered the Ancient Castle.
• Xu Huo attacked the Dwarf Player and used the Non-Knotting Thread to fling him into the White-Haired Player before severing the Dwarf Player’s head.
• The White-Haired Player escaped into the corridor, and Xu Huo found a Little Hat trap beneath a tile before luring the Living Bear with a thrown tile and leaving the castle.
• Xu Huo collected tied-up Plush dolls, and the Hide and Seek game ended as the remaining Players began answering questions.

Xu Huo was ambushed by Brother Tu and Old Yu after returning to the Ancient Castle, and the two stronger players drove him through a fierce fight across the castle. The chapter ended with Xu Huo catching Brother Tu’s Black Dagger blade with his bare hand as it threatened his throat.

• Xu Huo hid in the woods as players emerged from the Ancient Castle, then returned inside after Brother Tu and Old Yu left.
• Brother Tu and Old Yu spotted Xu Huo and decided to kill him, suspecting he was connected to their missing companions.
• Brother Tu ambushed Xu Huo in a corridor, knocked off his mask, and recognized him before attacking with an extending Toy Sword.
• Xu Huo fought Brother Tu across the Broken Bridge and castle while Old Yu joined in, but their combined attacks wounded him repeatedly.
• Brother Tu switched to a Black Dagger and disarmed Xu Huo, who caught the blade with his bare hand just before it reached his throat.

Xu Huo defeated Brother Tu and Old Yu, then confronted the Plush at the hidden tenth game point in Black Maple Valley. He persuaded the little girl inside it to let him play by offering candy, leaving the game’s outcome unresolved.

• Xu Huo trapped Brother Tu in a Space-Type Item and sent Old Yu back to the Ticket Area before crossing into the Lighthouse building.
• Xu Huo sealed the Abstract Man inside the white paper with the Picture Frame and entered the hidden game point.
• Xu Huo explained how the Plushes and the boundary between park zones concealed the tenth game point, and threatened to reveal it to other Players.
• The Plush burst open, revealing a little girl who refused to give Xu Huo a Little Hat.
• Xu Huo offered the girl candy and promised to bring her more from other Dungeons, and she asked how she could find him.

Xu Huo traded for the Little Hat from the child in the Lighthouse, then reunited with Yan Jiayu and Tang Xiao to clear the game. Before leaving the Dungeon, he learned about Super Evolution and told Tang Xiao where to find the final Game Point.

• Xu Huo gave the child candy in exchange for her Little Hat and learned that the children she had brought into the Lighthouse had gone home.
• Xu Huo met Jin Zhao and Peng Ru, and Jin Zhao suspected the child might be the key to the game.
• Xu Huo, Yan Jiayu, and Tang Xiao collected all ten Little Hats and cleared the game.
• Tang Xiao explained that Super Evolution could let Players strengthen or control parts of their bodies, and the three discussed ways to learn more about it.
• Xu Huo told Tang Xiao where the tenth Game Point was, and he and Yan Jiayu left the Dungeon.

After escaping the amusement park Dungeon, Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu found a place to stay in Flower City, where he assessed his rewards and items. He questioned the Abstract Man about Super Evolution, but learned that it depended on natural talent rather than a method he could follow.

• Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu left the amusement park and checked into a small inn in the old district.
• Xu Huo treated his wounds and reviewed the rewards, cash, Potions, and items he had collected.
• Xu Huo took out the World in the Painting and confronted the Abstract Man about the items and information he possessed.
• Xu Huo asked how to achieve Super Evolution, and the Abstract Man said it had happened to him by chance and depended on natural talent.

Xu Huo questioned Abstract Man about Super Evolution, then bought information about it through the bounty platform and considered the uncertain methods for achieving it. He upgraded three pieces of equipment into the D-grade item Heavy Steps and ended the chapter thinking about Carmen Field and the Platinum Eye.

• Xu Huo challenged Abstract Man’s explanation of Super Evolution, but Abstract Man refused to reveal more about his own evolution.
• Xu Huo used the bounty platform to learn that Super Evolution could involve controlling one’s body or resonating with and controlling objects.
• Xu Huo read five player-submitted theories for achieving Super Evolution and judged them risky and difficult to verify.
• The game offered to merge several of Xu Huo’s items, and he chose to upgrade his Super Running Shoes, Logging Boots, and Sturdy Knee Pads.
• Xu Huo received the D-grade item Heavy Steps, losing the Super Running Shoes’ acceleration effect, and thought about Carmen Field and the Platinum Eye.

A massive fog swallowed Ting City's East City District, trapping the area in what the Special Defense Department suspected was a spatially overlapping Random Instance. The fog vanished after Nie Xuan and other Players entered, leaving Nie Xuan badly injured and the others missing, while Xu Huo learned that unusual fog had spread across nearby cities.

• Xu Huo recalled Carmen Field, the Field family, and the Platinum Eye as he considered how unusual game items might be created.
• Team Leader Wu, Nie Xuan, and the Special Defense Department investigated the dense fog surrounding Ting City's East City District and found communications were down inside it.
• Nie Xuan noticed a building that appeared identical from every observation point, and Team Leader Wu suspected a large Random Instance formed by spatial overlap.
• Nie Xuan and Sima Xiao Er led a squad of Players into the fog, but the building disappeared and Nie Xuan was thrown back out, badly injured.
• The fog dissipated and the temperature difference vanished, while the Players who entered remained out of contact and the Special Defense Department received conflicting reports.
• Xu Huo woke in Huacheng, found the city foggy, and read on the Vanguard Forum that Ting City's East City District had been sealed off.

Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu investigated thefts and the Director’s disappearance at a Welfare Institute, then found a sewer full of animal carcasses and a human body. A sudden fog shift trapped them among attacking Aliens, and they reached a broken Enclosure Wall just as a shock wave swept out of the fog.

• Yan Jiayu and Xu Huo brought food, clothes, and money to the Welfare Institute, where the children told them the Director had vanished and supplies kept disappearing.
• Xu Huo questioned the children and suspected an animal was responsible, while Yan Jiayu searched the nearby sewers.
• Yan Jiayu found torn-up cat carcasses, a human corpse possibly belonging to the missing Director, and unusually large rat droppings.
• As Xu Huo pulled Yan Jiayu from the sewer, the fog thickened and the surroundings shifted; a horde of Aliens attacked them.
• Xu Huo and Yan Jiayu fought their way across the street, found the Welfare Institute replaced by a broken Enclosure Wall, and faced a shock wave from within the fog.

Xu Huo woke restrained in Seventeenth Hospital, where the staff believed his memories of Players were symptoms of mental contamination. After discovering he had been hospitalized for four months, he was left uncertain about his brother and warned by another patient not to take his medicine.

• Xu Huo woke in his ward and learned from Yu Qingqing that he had been sedated after smashing things in the hospital.
• Yu Qingqing and Dai Wenqian freed Xu Huo from his restraints and wheeled him past patients talking about Players and the Special Defense Department.
• Yu Qingqing explained that talk of Players came from a game called Dimension Rift and was considered a symptom of Mental Contamination.
• Xu Huo asked to see or call his brother, but Yu Qingqing said his brother was abroad and could not be reached.
• A patient in the opposite bed warned Xu Huo not to take his medicine, then panicked and was sedated and removed by the nurses.
• Xu Huo took the pills, and his chart revealed that Patient 013 had been hospitalized for four months.

Xu Huo investigated the psychiatric hospital where he had awakened without his Player abilities, uncertain whether it was a Dungeon or a hallucination. Other patients revealed they were Players trapped there, but the hospital’s reality remained unclear as Xu Huo struggled with lapses in memory.

• Xu Huo flushed the capsule, examined his surroundings, and confirmed that he had lost his abilities and could not access the game panel.
• Xu Huo explored the hospital at night, read its brochure and online information, and found no evidence of Players or Dimension Rifts in the outside world.
• A gaunt patient introduced Xu Huo to other Players, who said they had lost their abilities and believed they needed to escape the hospital or discover the Dungeon’s key point.
• Xu Huo learned that the patients had entered from Ting City, while the gaunt patient insisted Ting City was only a game sub-district; Xu Huo then forgot the questions he meant to ask them.
• Xu Huo saw Zhou Ning checking his room during the night, then woke to a patient claiming that the doctors and nurses were Dungeon Bosses and that he possessed a powerful item.

Xu Huo discussed his memories and imagined Player adventures with Doctor Tang, who framed them as dreams shaped by his illness and taught him how to recover locked memories. Afterward, Yu Qingqing asked about his latest dream, leaving Xu Huo to question which people in his stories came from the hospital.

• Tang Guangbo told Xu Huo that his latest stay at Seventeenth Hospital had lasted four months and described his Player adventures as dreams.
• Xu Huo recalled his gambling, his brother’s death, and entering the game with Yan Jiayu, while Tang Guangbo interpreted the memories as fantasies built from his life.
• Tang Guangbo explained that repeatedly retracing memories could loosen the locks on forgotten memories.
• Yu Qingqing took Xu Huo outside and asked what happened after he became a Player, but Xu Huo said she had not appeared in that dream.
• Yu Qingqing identified herself, Dai Wenqian, and Zhou Ning as familiar hospital figures in Xu Huo’s stories, then a commotion broke out upstairs.

Xu Huo learned about the Special Defense Department players’ escape plan and went to the Fourth Floor to find Sima Xiao Er. He could not open the keypad-locked door, and someone suddenly appeared to offer help.

• Xu Huo saw medical staff restrain Sima Xiao Er, who shouted that he was a Vanguard Player and asked Xu Huo for help.
• Yu Qingqing told Xu Huo that Sima Xiao Er had been admitted before, and Xu Huo returned to his room after lunch to draw.
• The Special Defense Department players told Xu Huo about their plan to disable the hospital’s alarm and escape that night, then asked him to find Sima Xiao Er.
• Xu Huo agreed to help, warned the others not to wait if he and Sima Xiao Er were delayed, and received a key.
• That night, Xu Huo went to the Fourth Floor but could not open its keypad-locked door, and a person appeared beside him and asked if he was trying to get in.

Xu Huo visited Sima Xiao Er on the Fourth Floor and saw the hospital room change between a comforting ward and a grim operating room. The next morning, escaped patients were returned, and Sima Xiao Er concluded the Dungeon might extend beyond the hospital, leaving their chances of escape uncertain.

• A patient attacked Xu Huo with a paper blade, then ran off after claiming he had killed a Cannibal Player.
• Xu Huo found Sima Xiao Er tied to a bed and questioned him about Yu Qingqing and the nurse who resembled her.
• The room’s window vanished as the ward transformed into a dark operating room, then returned when Xu Huo prompted Sima Xiao Er to look again.
• Sima Xiao Er tried to plan an escape, but a whistle from downstairs signaled that others had been caught, so Xu Huo tied him back to the bed.
• The next morning, the hospital returned the escaped patients, and Xiao Gao repeated that the people he saw had been dead.
• Sima Xiao Er told Xu Huo that Special Defense Department members had questioned whether Ting City existed and suspected the Dungeon covered a wider area; Xu Huo asked what he planned to do next.

Xu Huo followed Tang Guangbo’s guidance through a hidden door and descended into a vast, silent abyss. After twelve hours of walking and repeatedly outrunning shadowy figures on the spiral staircase, he reached a colossal underground round tower.

• Sima Xiao Er suggested searching the hospital for the Dungeon’s trigger point, and Xu Huo encouraged him to have his companions look around.
• Xu Huo discussed happiness and suffering with Tang Guangbo, who handed him a key and directed him to a small door.
• Xu Huo opened the door and saw an exit above and a black spiral staircase descending beneath him, then chose to go down.
• Xu Huo encountered shadowy figures on the staircase, and they repeatedly chased him in synchronized races before disappearing.
• Xu Huo descended for twelve hours until the steps became smooth and a vast underground round tower formed around him.

Xu Huo explored the Round Tower and tested how he could interfere with another person's Spiritual World, helping Sima Xiao Er recognize that his supposed aunt was an illusion. The hospital then told Xu Huo that his parents and older brother would visit that night, leaving him wary of the staged encounter.

• Xu Huo found a round table and three objects inside the Round Tower, but no second chair appeared, so he returned to the hospital.
• Sima Xiao Er warned Xu Huo that other Players were losing their grip on reality, and Xu Huo urged him to stay focused on finding the Dungeon.
• Xu Huo prompted Sima Xiao Er to question the woman scolding him in the Reception Room, and Sima Xiao Er realized she was a fraud and fled.
• Xu Huo tried to make the Seventeenth Hospital's rooftop sign disappear, but the building remained unchanged.
• Yu Qingqing told Xu Huo that his parents and older brother would visit that night, and Xu Huo questioned why his visit was scheduled after hours.

Xu Huo confronted the illusion of his family, obtained Xu Zhi’s key, and descended through the Round Tower, where he changed the Spiral Staircase by opening the White-Covered Book. Back in his room, he found the tall, dark-haired man’s mental powers had grown stronger and knocked him unconscious after he claimed a monster was chasing him.

• Xu Huo met his parents and Xu Zhi in the Reception Room and asked Xu Zhi for the key.
• Xu Zhi gave Xu Huo the key, and Xu Huo returned to the Spiral Staircase and descended to the Round Tower.
• Three shadowy figures tested Xu Huo with questions about a card and a dagger before the Black Sliver engulfed the tower.
• Xu Huo opened the White-Covered Book, which spread white across the darkness and transformed the Spiral Staircase.
• Xu Huo returned to his room, where the tall, dark-haired man claimed a monster was chasing him and that the hospital planned human experiments.
• Xu Huo punched the tall, dark-haired man unconscious and dragged him to a corner.

Xu Huo and Sima Xiao Er explored the Fourth Floor of the changing hospital while Xu explained how Spiritual Contamination let people’s thoughts affect what others saw. They reached the Treatment Room, where Sima Xiao Er perceived something terrifying that Xu Huo could not see.

• Sima Xiao Er told Xu Huo he had searched the first three floors without finding the Dungeon trigger point, and Xu agreed to explore upstairs with him.
• Xu Huo and Sima Xiao Er entered the Fourth Floor, whose worn corridor and locked wards echoed with patients’ roars.
• A patient grabbed Sima Xiao Er through a broken window, warned him about ghosts, and then reacted in terror to something he saw in the corridor.
• Xu Huo explained that Spiritual Contamination allowed imagined things to affect the hospital and other people, and that the patients’ worsening mental states made escape difficult.
• Xu Huo entered the Treatment Room, while Sima Xiao Er fell to his knees retching and said something was inside; Xu saw only a dirty room filled with old medical instruments.