Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo’s group abandoned their search for the alien youngling and began traveling back toward the city, while Xu Huo tested the dungeon’s food and treated Jiang Wenzhang’s snakebite. At night, Zheng Da confronted Xu Huo about the Sub-class Stone, but Xu Huo pretended not to know anything about it.

• Xu Huo had Zhou Yuanzhu eat a mushroom to test whether local food eased hunger, and she felt no change.
• Zheng Da and the others agreed to return for reinforcements rather than search farther for the alien youngling.
• During the journey, Xu Huo gave Jiang Wenzhang an Antidote after a venomous snake bit him, increasing Zheng Da’s suspicions.
• The group stopped near a river for the night, and Zheng Da slipped away from camp at midnight.
• Xu Huo intercepted Zheng Da, who accused him of joining forces with Jiang Wenzhang to take the Sub-class Stone, but Xu Huo acted surprised and denied knowing about it.

Xu Huo refused Zheng Da’s offer to kill Jiang Wenzhang and continued traveling with the group as Zhou Yuanzhu’s Gluttony Urge worsened. When a massive storm forced them back toward the river, Jiang Wenzhang and the others fled, while Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu took shelter so he could investigate the hunger’s cause.

• Zheng Da offered Xu Huo half the Sub-class Stone in exchange for helping kill Jiang Wenzhang, but Xu Huo refused to get involved.
• Zhou Yuanzhu’s hunger and fatigue worsened, and Xu Huo gave her jerky before the group encountered a vast storm cloud approaching their route.
• The group turned back toward the river to escape the downpour, and Jiang Wenzhang, Zheng Da, and the others scattered through the woods.
• Xu Huo used Sole Entrance to shelter with Zhou Yuanzhu as torrential rain and venomous insects swept through the woods.
• Xu Huo questioned Zhou Yuanzhu about how hungry she had felt in Little River City and said he needed to get closer to the city to understand the Gluttony Urge.

As the rain spread more living-looking fungal threads, Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu discussed fungi, hunger, and the unpredictable nature of super evolution. Zhou Yuanzhu explained that her nail-based ability had awakened after she escaped human traffickers, and she vowed to punish the buyers who had escaped her revenge.

• Zhou Yuanzhu returned from the rain with persistent fungal threads and told Xu Huo she had found fungi in the underground nest.
• Xu Huo gave Zhou Yuanzhu food and watched her demonstrate how she could grow and reshape her hardened nails.
• Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu discussed the uncertain triggers and varied abilities of super evolution.
• Zhou Yuanzhu told Xu Huo that traffickers had pulled out her nails, and that she began to super-evolve after escaping them.
• Zhou Yuanzhu said she had killed her former captor and his lackeys but still planned to take revenge on the influential buyers.
• Zhou Yuanzhu explained that Uncle Guan's super evolution had amplified his hearing, which had been impaired from birth.

Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu discussed Super Evolution and the divided Holy Sword Society before discovering Jiang Wenzhang’s group had trapped them in a tank filling with black rain. The attackers watched from nearby trees as the deluge threatened to drown them.

• Xu Huo questioned whether the Holy Sword Society could be trusted, and Zhou Yuanzhu explained the group’s suspicions about how they had been trapped in a high-risk Dungeon.
• Zhou Yuanzhu described a Player whose repeated arm-pounding had produced limited Super Evolution, and Xu Huo showed her his Portal Space.
• Zhou Yuanzhu explained how the original Holy Sword Society differed from the newer faction and demonstrated that her Sword of Time token only worked for its owner.
• Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu discussed the original group’s dealings with the newer faction and hurried to leave because they feared for Uncle Guan and the others.
• Xu Huo sensed that Jiang Wenzhang’s group had not left and intended to kill them; black rain poured into a double-layered glass tank trapping him and Zhou Yuanzhu.

Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu were trapped inside Jiang Wenzhang’s unbreakable glass artifact as black rain flooded it. Outside, suspicion over the Sub-class Stone sparked a fight among the group, and Wang Mo suddenly confronted Jiang Wenzhang.

• Xu Huo and Zhou Yuanzhu failed to break the glass artifact, so they put on protective equipment as the black water rose around them.
• Jiang Wenzhang and Zheng Da waited outside, confident that the artifact would trap Xu Huo until his defenses wore down.
• Xu Huo intensified the black rain, flooding the forest and forcing Jiang Wenzhang and the others to remain near the artifact.
• Zheng Da hinted that Jiang Wenzhang was hiding the Sub-class Stone, and Jiang Wenzhang promised him a share of the benefits.
• Cao Zheng accused Jiang Wenzhang and Zheng Da of conspiring, then attacked Zheng Da after an invisible blade grazed his throat.
• Jiang Wenzhang jumped down to stop the fight, but Wang Mo suddenly appeared in front of him.

Xu Huo’s enemies attacked one another while his mental power distorted what they saw, and Jiang Wenzhang realized they might be caught in an illusion. The group fled the glass tank’s apparent range, but the “No Breach from Within” appeared before them again.

• Wang Mo and Zhao Xiaofang attacked Jiang Wenzhang, who used artifacts to bind them and fight back.
• Xu Huo emerged through a door and struck Jiang Wenzhang with a shock wave, leaving him badly wounded.
• Jiang Wenzhang warned the others that Xu Huo was making them see illusions, and they realized their accounts of the fight with Cao Zheng also conflicted.
• Jiang Wenzhang used a Tuning Fork to counter mental power, and the group retreated five hundred meters from the glass tank.
• The “No Breach from Within” appeared in front of the group again, leaving them unsure whether they had gotten lost or the tank was an illusion.

Jiang Wenzhang and Zheng Da escaped Xu Huo’s Spiritual World, but Zheng Da revealed his role in the disappearances and attacked Jiang Wenzhang. Jiang Wenzhang warned that Xu Huo’s group would be expelled from the Dungeon when their time ran out, leaving Zheng Da to reconsider his plan.

• After repeated attempts to leave the woods brought them back to their starting point, Jiang Wenzhang and Zheng Da used Space Teleport Artifacts to escape, while Wang Mo and Zhao Xiaofang teleported away to report.
• Outside the woods, Zheng Da suggested killing Xu Huo to prevent Mr. Kang from replacing Jiang Wenzhang with him.
• Zheng Da admitted that he had arranged for player corpses to be found and had carried out Mr. Kang’s assignments, revealing that the mysterious disappearances were not simply caused by outside players triggering spatial chaos.
• Jiang Wenzhang demanded to know whether Xiaodao had been killed the same way, and Zheng Da mocked him before the two fought.
• Zheng Da pinned Jiang Wenzhang down and threatened to kill him, but Jiang Wenzhang warned that Xu Huo’s group would be teleported out when their Dungeon time expired.
• Zheng Da paused when Jiang Wenzhang explained that time passed differently in Little River City, meaning Xu Huo’s group would not need to wait three months to leave.

Xu Huo trapped Jiang Wenzhang in black rain and forced him to explain the scheme behind Little River City’s disappearances. He uncovered how Mr. Kang used the city’s time distortion and staged evidence to control players, then questioned why Kang’s group stayed there.

• Xu Huo revealed that he was impersonating Zheng Da and trapped Jiang Wenzhang inside a glass prop filled with black rain.
• Xu Huo forced Jiang Wenzhang to endure repeated waves of black rain before allowing him to sit and talk.
• Xu Huo deduced that Mr. Kang and Jiang Wenzhang used staged disappearances to disguise Little River City’s time distortion and pressure players into staying.
• Xu Huo concluded that outsiders served both as reserve recruits and as substitutes sent to vanish during spatial chaos.
• Jiang Wenzhang warned Xu Huo that children faced greater danger in Little River City, and Xu Huo linked this to Mr. Kang’s interest in them.
• Xu Huo questioned how Mr. Kang controlled Little River City despite other B-class players being present and asked why the group did not leave.

Xu Huo investigated the pattern of disappearances in Little River City and concluded that the Chaos Space might be connected to a specific Player still living there. Jiang Wenzhang rejected Mr. Kang as the cause, but Xu Huo suggested the affected area could explain why Players elsewhere in the city had also vanished.

• Xu Huo questioned Jiang Wenzhang about the Chaos Space and learned that Players had vanished even when no outsiders had arrived.
• Xu Huo summoned the tied-up Zheng Da and asked him to confirm that he had sometimes brought back remains when no outsiders were present.
• Jiang Wenzhang confirmed that other teams had also brought back fresh remains on those occasions, while Zheng Da admitted some remains he reported were fabricated.
• Xu Huo compared the disappearances with the Players’ movements and reasoned that the Chaos Space might be connected to a particular Player in Little River City.
• Jiang Wenzhang argued that Mr. Kang could not be responsible because Players had vanished while he stayed elsewhere, and Xu Huo replied that the affected area might be large.

Xu Huo and Jiang Wenzhang examined why Players disappeared in Little River City and concluded someone had manipulated the evidence to keep outsiders from investigating the city’s unusual rules. After Jiang realized Mr. Kang might not truly control the city, Xu Huo killed Zheng Da and demanded that Jiang offer useful information if he wanted to survive.

• Xu Huo argued that the disappearances and Little River City’s strange timekeeping suggested someone was concealing the real cause from Players.
• Jiang Wenzhang realized that Mr. Kang might have been unable to leave or control the city, despite appearing to rule it.
• Xu Huo killed Zheng Da as he began to press Jiang Wenzhang for an explanation.
• Jiang Wenzhang offered to reveal Mr. Kang’s items and information about Gong Jiaji and the others in exchange for his life.
• Xu Huo rejected Jiang Wenzhang’s threats about his companions and demanded that he bring out something real.

Xu Huo forced Jiang Wenzhang to reveal what he knew about Mr. Kang and agreed to let him leave only after placing him in the World in the Painting. Jiang Wenzhang described Mr. Kang’s deadly abilities, leaving Xu Huo reconsidering how far Mr. Kang’s influence reached.

• Jiang Wenzhang accepted Xu Huo’s offer to enter the World in the Painting in exchange for a chance to leave safely.
• Jiang Wenzhang told Xu Huo that Mr. Kang was a cannibal who particularly liked children and had admitted to killing some children born in Little River City.
• Jiang Wenzhang warned that Mr. Kang could immobilize dozens of Players for five seconds and moved so quickly that even locator and precognitive items could not track him.
• Jiang Wenzhang recounted three occasions when Mr. Kang immobilized Players but could identify no trigger for the ability.
• Jiang Wenzhang said Mr. Kang had once used his abilities outside the Commercial Building, prompting Xu Huo to reconsider the scale of Mr. Kang’s influence.

Xu Huo took Jiang Wenzhang’s items and learned that Uncle Guan and the others could soon leave the high-risk dungeon. He sent Zhou Yuanzhu to wait outside Little River City with 114 while he returned alone to see Mr. Kang, claiming Zheng Da’s group had died to Aliens.

• Xu Huo took Jiang Wenzhang’s A-class items, including “Impossible to Break Through from Within,” after subduing him and the others.
• Xu Huo explained to Zhou Yuanzhu that the dungeon’s time distortion meant Uncle Guan and the others might be able to leave the next day, and that Mr. Kang likely had an item affecting Players’ judgment.
• Xu Huo told Zhou Yuanzhu to remain outside Little River City with 114 and gave her a new Communicator, warning that the old ones were monitored.
• Xu Huo entered Little River City alone and asked three Players to take him to Mr. Kang.
• Xu Huo claimed Zheng Da and the others had died while capturing Alien young, and one Player reacted by making the ground cave in.

Xu Huo was captured and brought before Mr. Kang, where a Player used an interrogation item to force him to describe what happened in the stone forest. The people from Zone 002 faced a grotesque banquet and the threat of being eaten, while Qian Zi proposed a rescue mission.

• Chang Sheng tried to cut off Xu Huo’s ear, but two other Players stopped him and took Xu Huo to Mr. Kang.
• The crowd watched Xu Huo hungrily as he was led into the Commercial Building, where Mr. Kang and the Little River City Players were gathered around a banquet.
• Xu Huo saw Uncle Guan, Chi Minghong, Ruan Qiyan, Lin Qiao, Tan Qi, the biter girl, and the surviving people from Zone 002, who were injured and terrified.
• Mr. Kang questioned Xu Huo about Jiang Wenzhang and the others, then had a tall Player use an item to make Xu Huo answer involuntarily.
• Xu Huo revealed that Wang Mo’s bomb had buried the group in the stone forest and that Yuan Kai had killed Zhou Yuanzhu.
• Qian Zi suggested taking several people to rescue Cao Zheng and the others, who might still be alive beneath the stone forest.

Xu Huo exposed Mr. Kang’s suspected murder of Miss Ma’s child, provoking Mr. Kang to kill her and turn on Xu Huo. The Commercial Building then transformed into shifting spaces, leaving Xu Huo and Mr. Kang facing off as Mr. Kang attacked.

• Wei Zhongyu and Qian Zi nearly fought, but Mr. Kang silenced the Players while Lin Qiao’s crying baby heightened the tension.
• Miss Ma demanded to know how her child died, and Xu Huo said Mr. Kang had eaten him.
• Miss Ma accused Mr. Kang of killing her child, but her head exploded before she could reach him; Mr. Kang declared her a traitor.
• Xu Huo revealed that he had been feigning helplessness and blocked the Players’ attacks with “Inviolable Territory.”
• Xu Huo taunted Mr. Kang, who retaliated by reshaping the Commercial Building and separating the Players into different spaces.
• Mr. Kang pursued Xu Huo through the shifting building and thrust his hand through several doorways toward him.

Xu Huo used his Spiritual World to escape Mr. Kang’s attack and scattered the players through the Commercial Building while he sought help. He left several players in Mr. Kang’s room with falsified evidence suggesting that Little River City’s time distortion was shortening their lives, and they began suspecting Mr. Kang.

• Mr. Kang broke through Xu Huo’s doors and attacked him, but Xu Huo escaped through a doorway before the shrinking hall swallowed Mr. Kang.
• Xu Huo sent Uncle Guan and the others to the underground garage, asked them to contact Zhou Yuanzhu, and learned that a sample of poison had resisted his Potion.
• Xu Huo returned to the first floor and planted a falsified record in Mr. Kang’s room to make players suspect that the time distortion was rapidly aging them.
• Qian Zi accused Mr. Kang of using the players as guinea pigs, while others debated whether he had targeted the children to conceal Little River City’s time secret.
• The short-haired woman suggested asking Mr. Kang directly, and the woman in the tank top challenged her because Gong Jiaji was Mr. Kang’s right-hand man.

Xu Huo fought Mr. Kang and uncovered clues that his speed and ability to pass through space came from a field Artifact. As Mr. Kang battled Xu Huo and the remaining Little River City players, Xu Huo suspected the Artifact was swallowing people and asked whether it covered the entire city.

• Mr. Kang emerged from a moving wall and struck Xu Huo, beginning a fight in front of Qian Zi and the other players.
• Xu Huo used Mr. Kang’s metal-wrapped room and the disappearances to challenge his cover story, prompting the vest woman to ask whether he was behind the missing Players.
• Mr. Kang immobilized Qian Zi and the others, but Xu Huo distracted him with Abilities and attacked with “Holder’s Death,” which Mr. Kang caught.
• The vest woman and other players attacked Mr. Kang, and Xu Huo joined them, but Mr. Kang evaded their Artifacts and defeated nearly everyone.
• Xu Huo inferred that Mr. Kang relied on a field Artifact for his spatial movement and asked whether Little River City lay within its range.

Xu Huo fought Mr. Kang in the Book Tower but could not determine whether Mr. Kang’s power came from a space-oriented Evolution or an item. With his chances poor either way, Xu Huo asked the vest woman to reveal the truth about Little River City and warn the other players that Mr. Kang could turn the whole city into Chaos Space.

• Mr. Kang broke through Xu Huo’s defenses and pursued him through the Book Tower, destroying rooms and stairs as Xu Huo tried to evade him.
• Xu Huo tested whether Mr. Kang’s speed could be affected by “Three Seconds of Life,” but the item had no effect.
• Xu Huo suspected Mr. Kang might be a Super Evolver rather than a player relying on a space item, then used a personality from his Spiritual World to draw him away.
• Xu Huo considered destroying Little River City to weaken Mr. Kang’s power but realized the other players might also turn against him.
• Xu Huo brought the vest woman player to him and asked her to tell the others that Mr. Kang could turn Little River City into Chaos Space.

Xu Huo destroyed Little River City with the Life Core and fled the collapsing city while Mr. Kang and other players pursued him. At the outskirts, Xu Huo exploited the weakening limits of Mr. Kang’s Artifact and escaped, leaving Mr. Kang facing approaching Aliens.

• Xu Huo used the Life Core to turn Little River City’s metal structures to powder, causing the city to collapse.
• Gong Jiaji and the other survivors realized the destruction would draw Aliens, while Xu Huo emerged from the rubble after Mr. Kang knocked him out.
• Xu Huo warned Uncle Guan, Lin Qiao, and the others to escape, then fled as Mr. Kang and more than ten players chased him.
• Xu Huo used his Artifacts and Spatial Evolution to evade Mr. Kang, exhausting many of his items before shooting Mr. Kang in the thigh near the city’s edge.
• Xu Huo pointed out that Mr. Kang’s Artifact was weakening, then used the name Holder’s Death as a feint and disappeared.

Xu Huo fought Mr. Kang as their artifacts and stamina wore down, then was trapped in a sealed space where Mr. Kang weaponized Space Rays. Xu Huo used Little Mushroom Cloud to break the barrier and, after a deadly exchange, landed a sword through Mr. Kang’s heart.

• Xu Huo and Mr. Kang continued fighting as their artifacts weakened, and Mr. Kang sealed them inside a building with Cage for a Trapped Beast.
• Mr. Kang turned Space Rays into blades that pierced Xu Huo’s defenses and drove him into a corner.
• Xu Huo threw Little Mushroom Cloud and Shelter 101, and the explosion ruptured Mr. Kang’s barrier and devastated the surrounding area.
• Xu Huo emerged from Shelter 101 under Truth Transcends All’s protection and pursued the wounded Mr. Kang.
• Mr. Kang attacked Xu Huo’s young adult persona, but Xu Huo appeared behind him and stabbed him through the heart.

Xu Huo defeated Mr. Kang, who killed himself to keep his inventory from being claimed, and found a nested cube Space Artifact among the ruins. The cube let Xu Huo sense and manipulate nearby Space Rays, and he used it to detect the players hiding around him.

• Xu Huo wounded Mr. Kang with a Space Ray blade, then evaded his attacks using Ideal Skin and a Space Portal while landing another Holder's Death strike.
• Mr. Kang cut Xu Huo's throat with a Space Sharp Blade, but Xu Huo's barrier and defense held long enough for the Eye of the Deceased to pierce Mr. Kang's throat.
• Mr. Kang detonated himself before dying so the game would reclaim his inventory, and Xu Huo healed himself while searching the rubble for dropped items.
• Xu Huo found a nested transparent cube and discovered that its Space Power altered nearby Space Rays and resonated with his own spatial abilities.
• Xu Huo used the cube's Space Rays to sense and deflect a Flying Arrow, then expanded its range to detect the players hiding nearby.