Chapter Summaries

As the Seventh Round Trial, “Blood Moon Curse,” prepared to begin, Lin An considered how to identify the hidden Mutant. Fiona decided that proving she was not the Mutant could help him, but her attempt to reveal herself left Lin An pointing out that some differences might not be easy to inspect.

• The Seventh Round Trial announced that the mission would begin in one hour and tasked the Trial Takers with finding the cursed Mutant among two teams.
• Lin An pondered the mission while Fiona entered his room and argued that logic alone might not be enough to identify the Mutant.
• Fiona removed her armor and began undressing so Lin An could check whether she was visibly different from the others.
• Lin An realized Fiona believed examining herself could eliminate her as a suspect and help him narrow down the possibilities.
• Lin An warned Fiona that some places might not be easy to see, and she blushed as she understood what he meant.

Lin An and Fiona examined the voting rules and uncovered a missing person from the first trial, raising the possibility that one Mutant had been hidden among them. The Blood Moon Curse began with nineteen Trial Takers on each team, and Lin An faced the opposing leader, Andrew, in a seemingly even duel.

• Lin An explained that winning the vote mattered more than identifying the Mutants, and warned Fiona that their own team might betray them for points.
• Lin An recalled that the first trial began with twenty-seven people, rose to thirty, and supposedly lost only two, revealing that one person was unaccounted for.
• The Blood Moon Curse rules required each team to vote out its Mutant or every member of that team would die.
• Lin An studied the opposing team and discovered it had nineteen Trial Takers, matching his own team.
• Andrew, the North America War Zone leader and a Mind Controller, greeted Lin An across the table.

Lin An faced Andrew in a trial where two teams could cooperate to farm points by taking turns voting and ending in a draw. Andrew offered Lin An a place in the North America War Zone, but Lin An questioned the plan's risks before the vote began.

• Andrew proposed that the teams take turns voting and end in a draw once three people remained on each side, allowing them to recover lost points and share rewards.
• Lin An warned that failing to find the Mutant could wipe out eighteen people from whichever team held them among its final three.
• Ron privately cautioned Lin An that Andrew's offer could be a trap and that the North America War Zone might covet Lin An's points.
• Andrew reassured Ron and Lin An, offered to give Lin An his position in the North America War Zone, and promised not to end the trial early if his team found the Mutant first.
• Lin An asked whether Andrew feared he would find the Mutant in the first round, and Andrew replied that Lin An would likely prefer to keep farming points.
• The countdown called on Lin An to begin voting.

Lin An and Andrew began a smooth vote-farming plan, eliminating Awakeners from both teams while their allies weighed betrayal. Li Shouyi rejected a plot to kill Lin An, believing the two leaders had anticipated every possibility.

• Lin An voted out Awakener Number 19, and Andrew followed by selecting the same number, confirming their plan to cooperate.
• Lin An’s and Andrew’s teams tacitly eliminated non-core Awakeners, amassing more than one thousand stored points with ten people left on each side.
• Baseball Cap Man considered defecting to Andrew so he could have Lin An killed, but feared Andrew would expose him or turn on him.
• Wang privately urged Li Shouyi and a young woman to join him in rebelling against Lin An, but Li Shouyi refused.
• Li Shouyi told Wang that Lin An and Andrew had begun a contest of wits long before the voting started and had likely prepared for every possibility.

Li Shouyi explained the point-farming strategy and the gap between his reasoning and Lin An and Andrew’s, while Andrew’s team secretly prepared a contingency plan. As the vote approached its climax, Lin An voted for nonexistent Number 20, who was revealed to be the Mutant, and earned 100 points.

• Li Shouyi told uncle Wang that Andrew and Lin An intended to keep farming points, though he sensed something was wrong.
• Andrew’s team privately discussed a contingency plan and claimed Lin An would not discover the truth about Andrew.
• With five people left on each team, Andrew offered to let Lin An vote for him first or stop the mission when three people remained.
• Ron and Fiona privately urged Lin An to suspect Andrew as the Mutant.
• Lin An voted for Number 20, and the System eliminated the nonexistent Awakened Number 20 as the Mutant, awarding Lin An’s side 100 points.

Lin An exposed Andrew’s plan to hide a Mutant and use Mutants taken from other teams to secure victories and harvest points. The mission ended with Andrew’s side defeated, but his parting message revealed four Awakened who had tried to betray Lin An, and he invited Lin An to join the North America War Zone before the Final Trial.

• Lin An explained that Andrew’s abstentions hinted at a rule against repeated ties and argued that Andrew had hidden his team’s Mutant.
• Lin An deduced that Andrew had exploited time synchronization, sending captured Mutants into other teams’ missions so the System would identify them as those teams’ Mutants.
• Andrew told everyone to vote for Number 20, and the Awakened outside the conference room cast his vote before collapsing as the countdown ended.
• The System declared the mission complete and directed the survivors to the single-player Final Trial.
• Andrew left Lin An a message inviting him to the North America War Zone and naming four Awakened who had tried to betray him.

Andrew explained why he had abandoned his attempt to kill Lin An, suspecting that Lin An had concealed his true abilities and might be hunting Awakened for points. After the Blood Moon Trial, Lin An recognized Andrew as a dangerous future threat and decided to kill him instantly in the Deathmatch.

• An Awakened officer questioned Andrew for letting Lin An go, and Andrew criticized the team’s intelligence for underestimating Lin An.
• Andrew said he had not been confident he could kill Lin An and revealed that the Holy Spirit Crown’s information identified Lin An’s true body as a Mutant.
• Andrew suspected Lin An had deceived the trackers, mastered hidden loopholes, and might be pretending to be weak while hunting other Awakened.
• Andrew led his people away from the Blood Moon Trial, while Lin An reflected on the danger Andrew had posed and the possibility of being surrounded.
• Lin An decided to find a way to kill Andrew instantly in the Deathmatch.

Lin An let most of the Awakened leave the trial, confronted Fiona about revealing information under threat, and entered the Final Trial alone. The trial demanded he kill a Third Order Mutant Giant Corpse despite his own strength being far below Zero Order, leaving him and the Second Will facing imminent danger.

• Most of the Awakened quit the trial, while Ron and Li Shouyi chose to continue and Fiona remained with Lin An.
• Fiona transferred her points to Lin An and admitted that she had revealed information about him after war-zone officials threatened to detonate a Dirty Bomb in her Safe Zone.
• Lin An rejected Fiona's points, told her not to blame herself, and urged her to retaliate against anyone who threatened her.
• Lin An entered the Final Trial and appeared in a silent, ruined city where the System assigned him the mission of killing a Third Order Mutant Giant Corpse.
• A skyscraper-sized Mutant Giant Corpse rose from the ruins, and the Second Will warned Lin An that they were in serious trouble.

Lin An and the Second Will searched for a way to survive the Final Trial’s countdown, but found no workable weapon against the enormous Aberration. After the countdown reached zero, the monster tracked him with a devastating sonic roar and attacked the underground garage, leaving Lin An preparing to activate Advent.

• Lin An handed control of his body to the Second Will, which led him through the ruins and into an underground parking lot.
• Lin An and the Second Will considered the Causality Sequence, the Meme Doll, and his other weapons, but concluded none could defeat the Aberration in time.
• The Second Will suspected something was wrong with Lin An’s Final Trial and said it seemed different from everyone else’s.
• When the countdown hit zero, the Aberration roared and sent a shock wave toward Lin An, nearly shattering his internal organs.
• The Aberration charged toward the underground garage and hurled a steel broadcast tower at the ground as Lin An prepared to activate Advent.

Lin An was cornered by the Mid Third Order Mutant Giant Corpse and suffered mortal injuries. As he was about to die, the Second Will used the fragment from the Red-Clad Mutant to transform him into a hundred-meter-long monster, leaving the two creatures facing each other amid the ruins.

• The Mutant Giant Corpse smashed the underground facility with its fists, while Lin An struggled through the rubble and fought to reach the surface.
• Lin An used Flash to evade the Mutant Giant Corpse’s attacks, but he was battered by shock waves and debris, breaking bones and taking a rebar spike through his chest.
• As the Mutant Giant Corpse prepared to crush him, the Second Will opened the Doomsday Ring and drove the Red-Clad Mutant’s fragment into Lin An’s brow.
• Lin An’s body and personality began to change as bone spikes erupted through his flesh and he grew into a hundred-meter-long Mutant.
• The newly transformed Lin An faced the Mutant Giant Corpse among the ruins.

Lin An’s transformed body brutally defeated the Aberration while Lin An questioned the Second Will about using its fragments. The Second Will revealed that Lin An had become a monster after dying in his previous life, leaving Lin An frozen as he confronted the possibility that he had been reborn as one.

• Lin An transformed into a white, bone-spiked monster and tore apart the Aberration, severing its leg and crushing it beneath its own weight.
• While Lin An and the Second Will watched from the Will Space, Lin An demanded to know why the Second Will risked contaminating his body with an Aberration fragment.
• The Second Will recalled Lin An trying to use his blood to suppress An JingTian’s Zombification and said the rumor about Awakened blood was true.
• The Second Will revealed that Lin An had mutated into a Mutant after dying in his previous life, and that he had killed everything he encountered.
• The Second Will said Lin An had eaten the last Awakened in the China War Zone and declared that Lin An had been reborn as a monster wearing human skin.

After completing the Will Trial, Lin An learned that his Mutant form drew on the instincts of an ancient monster and could make him attack humans. He reunited with Zhang Tie as the Deathmatch War was announced, leaving the Awakeners poised for a battle between War Zones.

• Lin An completed the Perfect Grade Trial, earned its rewards, and learned from the Second Will that using his Mutant state could make him prey on humans.
• Lin An accepted his identity and asked whether he could use the Mutant state again; the Second Will warned him to do so only when death was certain.
• Lin An left the trial and reunited with Zhang Tie, who noticed the set component Lin An had obtained.
• The System announced the Deathmatch War, a Capture the Flag competition between War Zones that would reward the top-scoring zone and advance top-ranked Second-Order Awakeners.

At the Trial Tower Plaza, the surviving Awakened formed three factions, with China becoming the main target because of its strength and Lin An’s hidden power. Lin An examined the Starcaller necklace he had obtained and realized it could convert attributes into Mental Strength and eventually summon a celestial body to strike Earth.

• The Awakened gathered into the North America-led alliance, the Neutral Alliance, and the independent China War Zone, while fewer than a hundred joined alone.
• The factions regarded China as their primary target because it had the most surviving Trial Takers, powerful combatants, and Lin An, who had the most points.
• Lin An inspected Starcaller and learned it boosted Willpower, granted permanent attributes through celestial communication, and could eventually pull a celestial body into orbit for a massive Blast.
• Lin An considered Starcaller’s Starlight Conversion skill and worried about the unknown Gravitational Tide set effect.
• Lin An explained to Zhang Tie that the Starcaller Set’s two-piece bonus might be weaker than the Death God Set’s completed effect, while Zhang Tie lamented his own equipment by comparison.

Lin An weighed his combat abilities and prepared to enter the Deathmatch War with only Zhang Tie beside him. As the countdown ended, Li Hao offered Lin An one last chance to retreat to the Chinese defensive zone if he could not hold on.

• Lin An decided Dual Casting was his most useful new ability and considered how it could amplify Descent Domain, Unbroken, and his other powers.
• Zhang Yong returned to the military zone with his team, while Lin An refused the points Zhang Yong offered.
• Lin An waited near the Trial Tower with Zhang Tie as the other war zones eyed him, and Ron stood alone behind him.
• A Chinese military officer urged Li Hao to cooperate with Lin An, but Chen Yangtian said Lin An had rejected their messages, prompting other officers to criticize Lin An.
• With ten seconds remaining, Li Hao ordered one final message sent to Lin An, offering him shelter in the Chinese defensive zone if he could not hold on.

As the Deathmatch War began, Lin An planned to enter on the third day and attack the Great Korean War Zone before pushing toward North America. Meanwhile, China’s forces struggled to defend their sixth-floor position and prepared for an approaching assault.

• The System revealed the Deathmatch rules, including Honor Points for kills and control of War Zone flags, and divided the battlefield into seven floors.
• Lin An told Zhang Tie they would enter on the third day, attack the Great Korean War Zone, and carve a route toward the heavily guarded North America War Zone.
• The China War Zone’s nearly two thousand Awakened fortified their sixth-floor station while Li Hao scanned for Mutants and shot them with a High-Energy Laser.
• A Europe War Zone scout squad discovered China’s position, exchanged fire, and left thirteen corpses before respawning, prompting China’s commanders to expect an attack.
• China had earned only 781 Honor Points by the second day, so its commanders held their position and awaited the final melee while General Chen Yangtian led squads to hunt enemy Trial Takers.

Lin An and Zhang Tie entered the Deathmatch's Third Floor in the Great Korean War Zone, where Korean Awakeners had been searching for Lin An to earn rewards from their allies. The Sinan Needle finally detected him, and Lin An appeared above them as they realized he had come.

• Hua Xia military officers wondered whether Lin An had entered the Deathmatch after failing to find any trace of him.
• Lin An and Zhang Tie entered the Third Floor at the Great Korean War Zone's defensive area.
• Korean Awakeners grew desperate as their Sinan Needle showed no sign of Lin An and their allies threatened to abandon them.
• The Sinan Needle began pointing upward, and the Great Crossbow Man realized Lin An had arrived.
• Lin An appeared in a flash of white light above the Korean Awakeners and asked if they had been looking for him.

Lin An slaughtered the Great Korean War Zone’s Awakeners, seized their flag, and drove the survivors to withdraw from the Deathmatch. At the European War Alliance garrison, a map monitor noticed that a red dot had vanished from a special item and suspected it was broken.

• Lin An killed Great Crossbow Man with a crushing high-speed strike, then used Soul Shriek to wipe out nearly two hundred Korean Awakeners at once.
• Lin An absorbed the fallen Awakeners’ Mental Strength and attacked them again at their Respawn Point, killing them as they revived.
• The remaining Korean Awakeners withdrew, and Lin An handed the severed flag to Zhang Tie after raising his score to 9,197 points.
• A Mental Awakener at the European War Alliance garrison saw a red dot disappear from a special map-monitoring item and tried to restore its display.

Andrew persuaded the war zone representatives to target Lin An by revealing that his Honor Points could unlock an S-Rank skill exchange, while planning to use the Neutral Alliance as bait. Their meeting was interrupted as an unidentified supersonic attacker rapidly wiped out outer war zones, including the Great Korean War Zone.

• Andrew proposed eliminating the Neutral Alliance, then concentrating forces against the China War Zone, but representatives questioned the plan and their promised rewards.
• Andrew offered to give up North America's share of the rewards and showed a mission for an S-Rank skill exchange that required Honor Points, convincing the representatives to focus on killing Lin An.
• Andrew claimed Lin An would appear and explained that the assault on the Neutral Alliance would lure him out of hiding.
• Alarms sounded as an unidentified supersonic flying object broke through defenses and caused war zone markers to vanish rapidly from the strategic map.
• Kim Jae-eun learned that the Great Korean War Zone had been completely wiped out, and other representatives began checking on their own forces.

The North America War Zone detected that the outer positions were disappearing and prepared for an attack. Andrew concluded that Lin An was the invader, but the other war zones doubted him as a storm and black shadow approached.

• The alliance position mobilized and activated the North America War Zone’s Group Mental Barrier as its covert units reported that the China War Zone and Neutral Alliance remained in place.
• Andrew considered possible attackers and concluded that Lin An could be using illusion and high-speed abilities to eliminate the outer war zones.
• Andrew ordered all war zones to prepare Space Disruption, but most representatives refused and suspected the North America War Zone of staging the alarm.
• Andrew returned to the North America War Zone’s core and activated his talent’s preheating, while other representatives ordered troops to inspect the situation.
• A violent sonic boom approached as a vast storm and black shadow appeared in the distant sky.

Lin An descended on the European War Alliance with a vast Judgment storm, surviving their concentrated attacks and striking the ground in Demon Form. He left the Awakened scattered and terrified, then unleashed his lightning domain as the battle began in earnest.

• Lin An searched for Andrew as he flew toward the allied forces, then ordered Zhang Tie to intercept fleeing Awakened and surround them.
• The allied commander ordered suppressive fire and sent flying Awakened to intercept Lin An with missiles and long-range skills.
• Lin An endured the attacks without losing speed, then crashed into the formation and emerged with only a wound that quickly healed.
• Lin An intimidated the nearby Awakened and judged that they might injure him if enough of them attacked together, but he gave them no chance to do so.
• Lin An activated Judgment and unfolded his domain, sending silver lightning pouring across the battlefield.