Chapter Summaries

Xu Huo investigated the East District players’ mental episodes and traced their treatment to Agor therapist Zheng Yuci, then located a possible experimental base and negotiated with the Rebel Army. He agreed to help them seize the Evolution Potion “White Blood” in exchange for a share and more information about Zheng Yuci.

• Xu Huo learned that Zheng Yuci had treated East District players for years and recognized her as the therapist he had seen at the hospital.
• Xu Huo brought doctors out of another hospital, then located a Monitor training base where Lin Guang and Rebel Army members had remained for days.
• Xu Huo contacted Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou, and they gathered players to plan an operation while ruling out Agor’s headquarters as their first target.
• Xu Huo noticed the trading company housing the training base had unusually little East District security despite apparent Rebel Army surveillance.
• The Rebel Army sent Xu Huo a list of Agor therapists and claimed East District players gained strength from the Evolution Potion “White Blood,” whose formula was at Agor’s headquarters.
• Xu Huo agreed to cooperate with the Rebel Army for a fair share of White Blood and requested Zheng Yuci’s schedule, while telling them that highly evolved players could become mentally unstable.

Xu Huo discussed Yuquan City's future with Sister Yan, then met Old Zhou and Qiao Qiao to review secret Agor facilities identified by their companions. They had found six suspicious locations and planned to investigate further, including a site guarded by East District Players.

• Bai Kou sent Xu Huo an upgraded access pass that could counter the main control program and grant him high-level clearance.
• Xu Huo returned to Sister Yan's home, received a false identity and a facial sculpting tool, and learned that she knew nothing about the hospital Director and Doctor's disappearance.
• Xu Huo questioned Sister Yan about reunifying the East and West Districts, and she argued that Yuquan City had to be reclaimed from Agor Company.
• Xu Huo left Sister Yan's home and met Old Zhou, Qiao Qiao, and their companions, who had identified six undisclosed Agor facilities.
• Qiao Qiao reported that one suspicious water filtration company might be making Potions, while another facility in the eastern city was guarded by at least twenty or thirty East District Players.

Xu Huo and the other Players investigated a trading company suspected of being an Agor facility, only to be caught in a prepared underground trap. They remained under attack from robots, cable-mounted suction devices, and blinding lights as the chapter ended.

• The group chose to investigate a trading company where West District inspectors had reportedly been sent for training.
• Twelve Players entered the company, triggered Space Rays, and were separated into descending rooms that served as elevators.
• Xu Huo, Qiao Qiao, and their companions broke through the elevator floor but were forced back by East District Players sealing the space above them.
• Armed robots bombarded the trapped Players, and Old Zhou charged into them with defensive barriers and a gravity artifact.
• Metal suction cups attacked from multiple directions, and Qiao Qiao's flying knife cut through nearby cables before more devices and intense lights overwhelmed the group.
• A Player reported a containment barrier behind the machines, then a hidden bullet pierced his defenses and killed him.

Xu Huo and the Outer District players broke out of the East District’s underground trap and fought through the trading company, but five A-class players arrived and renewed the threat of capture. As Qiao Qiao and two others were seized, Xu Huo released Cube Space to counter the spatial lockdown.

• The Outer District players fought through the East District’s layered defenses while Qiao Qiao called for them to blow open the underground facility.
• An East District player’s bracelet dragged Xu Huo down, but he cut it off, and Qiao Qiao’s explosive Artifact destroyed the blockade and opened an exit.
• Nearly fifty East District players attacked the survivors outside the trading company, but Lin Cao used a metal ball to teleport and killed three opponents by snapping their necks.
• Xu Huo cut through the trading company building and used Space Rays to pull it toward the rear, giving the Outer District players an opening to kill more than twenty East District players.
• The East District blocked space again as five A-class players arrived, and one captured Qiao Qiao and two other Outer District players.
• Xu Huo released Cube Space, which had adapted to the Space Rays, and prepared to manipulate them despite the spatial lockdown.

Xu Huo encountered Zheng Yuci and fought his way through a trap at the trading company, then detonated the Little Mushroom Cloud to escape with Old Zhou and Lin Cao. Three of their group died and five were captured, but Old Zhou had marked Qiao Qiao so they could track the captives if they were released.

• Xu Huo escaped the collapsing trading company building and slipped into its underground complex, where he found Zheng Yuci among the West District inspectors.
• Zheng Yuci unleashed her Honeycomb ability, but the arrival of the A-class spatial player caused the attack to retreat and the room to return to normal.
• Xu Huo detonated the Little Mushroom Cloud, destroying the trading company and badly injuring players caught outside the protected center.
• Xu Huo escaped the blast with Old Zhou and Lin Cao; they learned that three companions had died and five, including Qiao Qiao, had been captured.
• Old Zhou revealed that he had marked Qiao Qiao with a triangular wind chime, giving them a way to track him if an East District player released him from a container item.

Xu Huo and the Rebel Army publicized Agor Company's control of Yuquan City, provoking attacks on hospitals and a crackdown blamed on the Rebel Army. After Agor forces cornered Sister Yan, she died in an explosion, and Xu Huo was left facing the prospect of open war.

• Old Zhou released reports accusing Agor Company of controlling Yuquan City and restricting births, while avoiding specific claims about how the company cultivated players.
• Outer District players attacked East District hospitals, and Agor Company blamed the Rebel Army, sealed streets, and arrested its members.
• Xu Huo learned that two Rebel Army members had been captured and the player sent to the training base in his place had disappeared.
• Sister Yan stayed behind as Xu Huo and another Rebel Army member fled, then detonated explosives when Agor's armed forces surrounded her home.
• Sister Yan died in the blast, and the Rebel Army member told Xu Huo that war with Agor was imminent and urged him to hide.

Xu Huo tracked a Rebel Army member to the East District and followed a lead on psychotherapist Zheng Yuci to Jixin Medical Base. After a power outage let him and his companions enter the underground facility, he disguised himself as a new therapist and searched for Zheng Yuci.

• Xu Huo followed a Rebel Army member through the East District, then received Zheng Yuci's résumé and itinerary from the Rebel Army.
• Xu Huo went to Jixin Medical Base, where Old Zhou and Lin Cao told him Qiao Qiao's location-tracking item had pointed there.
• Xu Huo, Old Zhou, and Lin Cao entered the underground base during a power outage and split up as alarms and security measures activated.
• Xu Huo used a game-issued identity card and Bai Kou's access pass to enter a laboratory, then claimed he was a new therapist looking for Zheng Yuci.
• Two players questioned Xu Huo's credentials and asked him to use his access pass again.

Xu Huo posed as a therapist and was escorted through the attacked underground base, where Rebel Army players targeted the therapists during their evacuation. After discovering that Zheng Yuci had escaped but some therapists had been captured, Xu Huo approached two slumped credentialed therapists and one of them grabbed him.

• Xu Huo convinced his suspicious escorts that he was a therapist and hurried with them toward Zone E7 after learning the therapists were evacuating.
• An invisible wall and disguised intruders separated Xu Huo from his escorts, and he escaped into a laboratory while one pursuer tried to capture him with a container item.
• Base reinforcements rescued Xu Huo and warned that the intruders were targeting the psychological therapists.
• Xu Huo and the female player found Zone E7 damaged and learned that Rebel Army players had freed the players held in the experimental rooms.
• The base personnel learned Zheng Yuci had escaped but some therapists had been captured, and Xu Huo went to check on two slumped therapists before one grabbed his shoulder.

The Rebel Army abducted Xu Huo, Zhang Xian, and other psychotherapists to learn who was operating on East District players. When an East District player disguised as a therapist attacked the strategist, the strategist survived and the attacker was killed.

• A Rebel Army player kidnapped Xu Huo and Zhang Xian and brought them to a zoo control room where twelve psychotherapists were being held.
• The tattooed big man demanded that the psychotherapists identify who performed surgery on East District players, killing two who failed to satisfy him.
• The strategist promised that anyone who gave a verifiable name would be released and protected by the Rebel Army.
• A psychotherapist disguised as an East District player attacked the strategist with items and interference devices, but the strategist recovered and a metal spear pierced the attacker’s heart.
• The strategist warned the psychotherapists not to cause further trouble as time was running short.

The Rebel Army questioned captured therapists about East District players’ craniotomies, and one therapist suggested their brains might have been altered to remove emotions. He named Zheng Yuci as the likely surgeon, but the evidence was inconclusive, and the chapter ended as Company players arrived.

• Rebel Army members killed captives until a therapist agreed to share what he knew.
• The therapist said East District players who had undergone multiple craniotomies showed greater emotional stability and a wider range of emotions, suggesting parts of their brains might have been removed.
• The therapist named Zheng Yuci as the person who might perform the operations and said Agor Company treated her as unusually important.
• The strategist ordered the captured therapists to be given truth serum and questioned them individually.
• Xu Huo was questioned, identified himself as a recent arrival in Yuquan City, and was carried out as the tattooed big man announced that Company players had arrived.

After the Rebel Army released the kidnapped therapists, Xu Huo investigated their motives and concluded that Zheng Yuci was a key target connected to Dr. Zhang and the player-modification program. He warned Rebel Army members that Zheng Yuci was an A-class mental Super Evolver, then learned from Qiao Qiao that the East District had captured Outer District players for intracranial surgical experiments.

• The East District players took the truth-serum-injected therapists to the hospital, and Xu Huo escaped by hypnotically influencing several therapists.
• Xu Huo reasoned that Zheng Yuci was connected to Dr. Zhang and that capturing or killing him could undermine Agor Company's efforts to modify players.
• Xu Huo found Rebel Army members watching a pharmaceutical Laboratory and told them Zheng Yuci was an A-class player and a mental Super Evolver.
• Qiao Qiao contacted Xu Huo and reported that he had escaped the medical base and seen specialized instruments prepared for intracranial surgery on Outer District players.
• Xu Huo asked Qiao Qiao, Old Zhou, and Lin Cao to meet him.

Xu Huo and the others watched the Laboratory and followed the Rebel Army as it intercepted a shipment, only to discover the aircraft were empty and the operation was a trap. East District players ambushed and massacred the Rebel Army, then raised a membrane that slowed the movements of everyone inside it.

• Xu Huo, Qiao Qiao, Old Zhou, and Lin Cao discussed whether the Rebel Army had infiltrated captured psychotherapists and decided to watch the Laboratory for clues.
• Six batches of aircraft left the Laboratory, and Xu Huo and the others followed Rebel Army members as they pursued one low-flying aircraft.
• The Rebel Army trapped several aircraft in a park and dismantled them, but found the cargo boxes and aircraft empty.
• A hidden underground device sent powerful vibrations through the park, leaving the Rebel Army members in pain and unable to escape.
• East District players emerged in greater numbers and massacred the Rebel Army, while four East District players raised a membrane around the battlefield that made everyone inside move sluggishly.

Xu Huo and the others split up to investigate two attacks after he disrupted the East District’s underground apparatus in the park. Xu Huo chose the higher-risk site and entered a library, where a deadly tornado trapped the Players and forced them inside the building, which turned out to be a venue item.

• Xu Huo disrupted the park’s underground apparatus, giving the Rebel Army members time to recover, then regrouped with Qiao Qiao and the others.
• Lin Cao’s item and Xu Huo’s Ability identified the right-hand attack site as more dangerous, so Xu Huo went there alone while Qiao Qiao and Old Zhou accompanied Lin Cao elsewhere.
• Xu Huo arrived at a library where Players were fighting amid widespread damage and flying scraps of books.
• Objects throughout the sealed area rose and formed a deadly Tornado around the library, while the barrier contracted and trapped Xu Huo and the other Outer District players.
• Most of the trapped Players entered the library to escape the Tornado and discovered that the building was a venue item.

Xu Huo and the Outer District players discovered that East District players were using a location artifact to trap them in the library, then helped break its boundary. Xu Huo returned inside and witnessed a hooded Rebel Army fighter battling an East District player.

• Outer District players learned that East District players were using space gates to intercept anyone trying to leave the library.
• Xu Huo destroyed a space gate with Everything Wants to Cut Everything and found the location artifact’s boundary in the tornado.
• A long-haired female player’s burning arrow pierced the Space Barrier, and she used her membership to make the breach visible to the others.
• The Outer District players rushed toward the crack while Xu Huo went back into the library to investigate its overlapping spaces.
• Xu Huo saw a hooded Rebel Army member use a mental Jammer against a blue-clad East District player, whose temple patches resisted its effects.

Xu Huo helped the Rebel Army fight the East District players inside the library, using Mutated Plants and his abilities to disrupt their formation. The battle escalated after the East District players withdrew their venue item, and the Rebel Army threatened to destroy the box of White Blood Potions when the East District refused to stop.

• Xu Huo distracted Blue Jacket, trapped him and Black Hood on a rising spiral staircase, and scattered Mutated Plant seeds that rapidly overtook the library.
• Xu Huo and Black Hood attacked Blue Jacket while the Rebel Army fought the East District players, killing a third of the East District fighters with mental interference devices.
• Blue Jacket put away the venue item, and the East District players returned to the shared battlefield and raised barriers to limit the devices' effects.
• Xu Huo continued fighting alongside Black Hood as the Rebel Army dragged a huge metal box of White Blood Potions into view and threatened to blow it up.
• The East District players dismissed the threat, so the Rebel Army activated its items and devices and declared it would rather destroy the Potions than let them poison the next generation.

A masked youth arrived at the library, mocked the East District and Agor Company, and trapped the surrounding players in a vast shadow web. He drew the web inward and bound an East District player, leaving both sides trying to understand the tool’s limits.

• A masked youth landed on the battered metal box and accused the East District and Agor Company of using decoys to protect the Potion.
• The masked youth spread a shadow web across the library and the surrounding block, catching East District players and members of the Rebel Army.
• When players tried to escape or remove the shadow ropes, the masked youth contracted the web and dragged everyone caught in it toward the center.
• The masked youth used the shadow strands to bind an East District player, while attacks and rescue attempts failed to free him.
• The gathered players determined that the web restricted movement to twenty meters horizontally and ten meters vertically, though its user could pull victims beyond those limits.

Xu Huo used the chaos of the shadow net and disabled items to kill East District players while questioning the black-hooded man about their failed cooperation. When the fog cleared, nearly thirty B-class East District players arrived and launched a coordinated assault on Xu Huo and the masked youth.

• The blue-jacketed man tested the shadow net by attacking its center, but the masked youth escaped and caused the trapped East District player to be cut apart by his companion.
• The masked youth released smoke bombs as East District players closed in, and Xu Huo used the fog and Harmonious Atmosphere to disable items and kill six East District players.
• Xu Huo called himself the Emissary of Justice and told the black-hooded man that he suspected the information about the East District players had been false.
• Xu Huo killed nearly twenty East District players during the three minutes when interference items disabled many players’ defenses.
• A woman summoned a gale that cleared the fog, revealing the shadow net and nearly thirty newly arrived B-class East District players.
• Ten East District players entered the shadow net and split into groups to attack the masked youth and Xu Huo, who blocked several attackers with Dimension Fog and a spatial barrier.

Xu Huo fought off East District players while the masked youth trapped combatants in his shadow net. As the masked youth prepared to claim his captives, a beam of white light pierced his head and struck Xu Huo in the throat.

• Xu Huo wounded one opponent, then used his items to evade attacks and kill several East District players.
• The masked youth’s shadow net pulled players from the Rebel Army, the Outer District, and the East District into its center, while East District reinforcements arrived.
• The man in the blue jacket ordered the East District players to use a bladed bracelet to cut the shadow cords.
• The masked youth raised a barrier around the net’s center and declared that no one could stop him from having fun.
• Xu Huo cut through the shadow cords and killed one of the trapped players before the masked youth could claim his spoils.
• A beam of white light pierced the barrier and the masked youth’s head, then struck Xu Huo in the throat.

After escaping the East District battle, Xu Huo challenged the masked youth's assumptions about White Blood and pointed him toward Zheng Yuci. The next morning, Xu Huo tracked the Rebel Army's leader to a school and confronted him in a breakfast shop, identifying him as the Dove.

• Xu Huo and the masked youth escaped the battle separately, then met near Agor headquarters and discussed their goals.
• Xu Huo questioned whether White Blood caused Super Evolution and urged the masked youth to meet Zheng Yuci.
• Xu Huo learned that the night's attacks had involved schemes by both the East District players and the Rebel Army, while Outer District players failed to locate the Dove.
• After dawn, Xu Huo followed his tracking Ability to a school and met the man in the black hood at a breakfast shop.
• Xu Huo told the bespectacled man that he had come to clear the level and identified him as the Dove.

Xu Huo deduced that the Rebel Army had used the battle over White Blood to conceal an infiltration of Agor, and the man he confronted revealed a tiny chip taken from an East District player’s brain. When Xu Huo reached for it, the man and an unseen attacker struck, forcing Xu Huo to defend himself and leaving him under attack in the breakfast shop.

• Xu Huo explained that the Rebel Army had knowingly entered Agor’s trap to weaken the East District players and pursue its own plans.
• Xu Huo suspected the Rebel Army had sent Dove or the strategist into Agor after taking and returning the base’s psychological counselor.
• The glasses man said White Blood was not a potion and showed Xu Huo a tiny chip removed from an East District player’s brain.
• Xu Huo reached for the chip, and the box transformed into an injector as the glasses man attacked his throat.
• Space Ray blocked the first attacks, but another attacker struck from behind and a force pulled Xu Huo’s chair sideways.