Chapter Summaries

Xu Zhi encountered Black Cat in Midnight and bargained with it after it asked her to take its remains outside. She agreed to hear why Black Cat wanted to leave and what had changed in Midnight, while secretly planning to sacrifice its bones once they reached the exit.

• Black Cat followed Xu Zhi through the forest, chattering until she demanded that it be quiet.
• Black Cat asked Xu Zhi to take its remains outside Midnight, admitting it could not survive beyond the place without preparations.
• Xu Zhi refused Black Cat’s offer of treasure and demanded answers about its motives and Midnight instead.
• Black Cat resisted answering, but Xu Zhi proposed bringing it near the exit before it spoke and then taking it outside.
• Black Cat accepted Xu Zhi’s terms and led her toward its remains.

Xu Zhi followed the black cat to its grave in the forest and learned that each tree marked the tomb of a being in Midnight, a graveyard where gods were buried. She dug up the cat’s remains despite the forest’s violent reaction, gained a mark for desecrating Midnight, and learned that hostile beings had arrived.

• Xu Zhi followed the black cat through the forest to the tree it identified as its tombstone.
• The black cat revealed that every tree marked a grave in Midnight, the Land of the Fallen, and warned Xu Zhi to hurry before other beings arrived.
• Xu Zhi drove her saber into the ground, used a [Lamp] Attribute Core to steady the lantern’s light, and dug up a strange gray bone.
• When Xu Zhi lifted the bone, the forest stopped shaking and a burning mark appeared on her palm; she cut away the marked flesh, but the mark remained.
• The black cat said the mark was the consequence of desecrating Midnight and urged Xu Zhi to take the bone away because other beings had arrived.

Xu Zhi forced the Black Cat to explain why it wanted to leave Midnight, learning that a Rift had disrupted hidden arrangements and made the place dangerous to those who had regained consciousness. With the Black Cat concealed in her cloak, she evaded the Rift’s guard and reached the exit.

• Xu Zhi stopped near the Rift and demanded an answer from the Black Cat before leaving Midnight.
• Xu Zhi threatened to discard the Black Cat’s remains, making it explain that everyone there wanted to leave and that the Rift’s disruption had made Midnight dangerous.
• The Black Cat suffered backlash after revealing what it knew, then hid inside Xu Zhi’s cloak.
• Xu Zhi changed the Lantern’s light from [Lamp] to [Cup] and asked the Black Cat to conceal her from the guard.
• The Black Cat helped mask Xu Zhi as she slipped past the wandering guard and reached the Rift’s mouth.

Xu Zhi remained trapped in Midnight after passing through the Rift and used [Eye of Secrets] to discover that a [Cup]-attribute ability called Reversion blocked its exit. As the connection between her and Midnight grew stronger, she decided to switch to [Lamp] to break the ability, despite knowing it would reveal her.

• Xu Zhi emerged from the Rift only to find herself back in Midnight, where the figure guarding it sensed something was wrong.
• With the Black Cat concealing her, Xu Zhi activated [Eye of Secrets] and endured a flood of information and mounting pain as she examined the Rift.
• Xu Zhi realized Midnight's erosion was forming an ominous, tightening connection with her, then identified the Rift's barrier as a [Cup]-attribute ability that reverted anything touching it to its state ten seconds earlier.
• After repeated attempts to disrupt Reversion failed, Xu Zhi decided to switch her light to the [Lamp] attribute, knowing the change would expose her.

Xu Zhi used the Lantern’s light to transform her Supernatural Energy and cut a gap through Reversion, escaping the Rift despite being struck by the monster guarding it. She survived with severe injuries, while Black Cat collapsed from exhaustion, and Xu Zhi began recovering outside.

• Xu Zhi told Black Cat to divert one attack from the Rift guardian while she used her saber to cut through Reversion.
• Xu Zhi exposed herself and rushed to the Rift entrance, where Black Cat redirected an attack as she opened a gap.
• A third attack struck Xu Zhi and shattered her internal organs, but Little Aberration caught her as she fell out of the Rift and sealed it.
• Xu Zhi regained consciousness, stored Black Cat’s bones in her inventory, and placed the exhausted Black Cat on a branch.
• After her Self-Healing ability repaired much of her damage, Xu Zhi picked up the Game Console and noticed that the Lantern’s light seemed to ease her head pain.

Xu Zhi rested before using the remains of a Moth-attribute creature to begin her advancement ritual, while learning more about the Midnight mark and the Black Cat's danger. The ritual led her through a familiar white forest, where the path ended at a bottomless cliff.

• Xu Zhi asked the Narrator about the ritual, the Black Cat, and her Midnight mark, and learned the mark would not threaten her in the short term.
• The Narrator explained that Nightmare could devour the Black Cat, but the winner would become Nightmare and Xu Zhi's Familiar would cease to exist if the Black Cat won.
• After resting, Xu Zhi prepared the formation with Moth-attribute materials and placed the Black Cat's remains within it.
• Xu Zhi activated the formation and was drawn by a swarm of moths into the pure white forest.
• Xu Zhi followed the remains' guidance along a path that seemed unusually safe and reached the forest's end.
• Xu Zhi discovered that the path ended at a bottomless cliff.

Xu Zhi discovered that the ritual forest’s roads all ended at bottomless cliffs, and barely escaped after taking a wrong road. Back in the real world, she told the shocked Narrator what she had found.

• Xu Zhi followed the ritual-guided road through the forest but found it ended at a sheer, bottomless Cliff, so she returned to the starting point.
• Xu Zhi stepped onto a road without the Black Cat’s remains and ran as danger pursued her and the Supernatural Energy inside her grew chaotic.
• Xu Zhi reached another Cliff and was about to be pushed over by black hands when the ritual array’s energy ran dry and returned her to the real world.
• Xu Zhi rested on the ground as the Narrator asked whether she had taken the wrong road, and she explained that every road in the forest was cut off.
• The Narrator reacted with shock and asked Xu Zhi to confirm what she had found, and she assured it that she was telling the truth.

Xu Zhi learned that the world’s supernatural paths had been deliberately severed, leaving no way to advance or escape, and realized her [Authority] might offer a way to resist. After settling a fight between Nightmare and the Black Cat, she went to Zhong Lingfan to involve others in finding a solution to the coming crisis.

• The Narrator explained that the world’s Supernatural Level had been locked in place and that Xu Zhi was the first Transcendental to reach its limit, then suffered damage to the Game Console after revealing the secret.
• Xu Zhi sorted out her Supernatural Ability, gained a small increase in level, and sensed that her [Authority] could eventually reach powers connected to Cliff and Midnight.
• Xu Zhi put the Black Cat in Little Aberration’s tree cage with Nightmare and told Xiao Zhen to alert her when they finished fighting.
• Xu Zhi watched Zhong Lingfan test whether a girl’s ability to sever connections to supernatural forces could be extracted and stored as a weapon.
• Xu Zhi decided that everyone facing the crisis should help find a way to overcome the world’s deadlock, rather than leaving the task to her alone.

Xu Zhi warned Zhong Lingfan that humanity might not be able to resist a far greater Apocalypse and urged her to investigate the believers’ ritual formations. Xu Zhi analyzed the latest fragments and realized the ritual was sacrificial but not intended to increase its creator’s strength, while its true purpose remained unknown.

• Xu Zhi asked Zhong Lingfan whether humanity could resist an Apocalypse worse than Cloud City’s, and Zhong Lingfan said it probably could not.
• Xu Zhi asked Zhong Lingfan to send her new fragments of the Federation believers’ formation and hinted that its significance might relate to the coming danger.
• Xu Zhi asked whether Zhong Lingfan believed in gods and warned her that there was little time left to prepare.
• Xu Zhi used the Eye of Secrets to reconstruct the formation fragments and identified sacrifice as its First Ring, but could not determine its ultimate purpose.
• Xu Zhi resolved to prepare for resistance despite humanity’s apparent inability to stop the ritual, as a victor emerged from the Black Cats’ battle in Little Aberration’s cage.

Xu Zhi spent half a month recovering and trying to master [Authority], while her cat absorbed the energy from Midnight's cat's soul. The Narrator recovered enough to speak with her again, but when Xu Zhi asked who had cut off the path, it said revealing the secret would make it dissipate.

• Xu Zhi confirmed that her own cat had defeated Midnight's cat and watched it absorb the strange energy and cling to the relic bone.
• Xu Zhi rested, then continued studying [Authority] beneath Little Aberration's branches in Cloud City.
• After more than half a month, Xu Zhi sensed the Game Console rebooting and saw that the Narrator had partly recovered.
• Xu Zhi told the Narrator that she and Zhong Lingfan were seeking help from the Federation, while her own efforts to advance had reached a bottleneck.
• Xu Zhi asked who had cut off the path, and the Narrator refused to reveal the secret because the backlash would make it dissipate.

Xu Zhi learned that the Cup’s formation ritual was tied to secrets surrounding Midnight and the Severed Paths, while the Narrator warned her to bring a special cloak if she succeeded. As the Black Cat continued digesting its power, the Federation took Zhong Lingfan’s Apocalypse warning seriously and began supporting efforts to understand the spreading formation.

• The Narrator told Xu Zhi that the truth behind her Supernatural Level was an unspeakable secret and advised her to bring a special Human Skin cloak to shield herself from thunder if she succeeded.
• Xu Zhi asked whether she should stop the Cup’s formation, and the Narrator said survival mattered but stopping it would be difficult.
• Xu Zhi questioned why Midnight held so many Cup-aligned beings and why no other supreme existence intervened; the Narrator said the answers were bound up with the Severed Paths.
• Xu Zhi considered whether the Cup had been killed by other alignments and whether that explained the vanished supernatural beings, then set the speculation aside.
• Xu Zhi observed that the Black Cat had absorbed less than half the power it swallowed and estimated it needed another thirty or forty days to digest the rest.
• Zhong Lingfan delivered more formation Fragments as the Federation investigated the believers’ widespread carvings and supported her after both she and a Lamp-aligned Precognitive warned of an approaching Apocalypse.

While Zhong Lingfan prepared Cloud City’s residents for the approaching disaster, a secretive group of believers completed most of the formations their Lord had ordered and received an oracle about Cloud City. The Lord told them to proceed with preparations in the Federation as His consciousness neared full awakening, and their leader began the ritual.

• Zhong Lingfan warned Cloud City’s residents of the coming disaster and helped them prepare, while they grew stronger by trading cores with Federation Transcendents.
• Zhong Lingfan divided responsibilities between Shen Jinwen, who stayed in Cloud City, and Lin Zizhen, who handled Federation-related affairs.
• After another month, a group of believers emerged from an ancient tomb in a remote Federation mountain, reporting that they had completed ninety percent of their task but could not infiltrate Cloud City.
• The believers returned to the Federation and sacrificed a hundred low-ranking followers to contact their Lord.
• The high-ranking believer received an oracle that the Lord had arrangements in Cloud City and ordered the group to focus on preparations in the Federation.
• The leader declared that the Lord’s consciousness had nearly awakened and began the ritual.

High-ranking believers began activating a vast ritual array at a hidden site, sacrificing Transcendent hearts and themselves to ignite it. The Federation could not stop the first array, and its activation began spreading [Cup]-attribute energy and anomalies across the country.

• Nearly a hundred high-ranking believers brought more than a thousand Transcendent hearts to the tomb, one of thirteen planned activation points.
• The believers arranged the hearts, chanted to awaken the array, and cut their wrists to offer their blood and lives.
• Animals across the Federation grew agitated as a crimson beam rose from a remote mountain and alarms sounded.
• The Federation reached the site but found it enclosed by red light that consumed life and could not be penetrated or disrupted.
• After the array activated, temperatures fell, sunlight dimmed, nightmares spread, and [Cup]-attribute energy began replacing the extraordinary energy in the air.

Xu Zhi sensed the crimson beam and connected it to the offensive formation and the strange activity at Midnight’s sealed rift. The rift fell silent as she suspected a sacrifice had begun there too.

• Xu Zhi sensed the red light and saw a crimson pillar rising over the Federation through her [Eye of Secrets].
• Xu Zhi checked the black cat and found it had also become stuck at level 49, though its [Nightmare] ability had grown much stronger.
• Xu Zhi learned from Zhong Lingfan’s formation fragments that the formation was offensive and questioned who He intended to attack.
• Xu Zhi recalled the creatures testing Midnight’s sealed rift and suspected their attacks had been meant to keep her away.
• Xu Zhi noticed the rift’s attacks stop when the red beam appeared and suspected the sacrifice in Midnight had begun.

Xu Zhi stayed in Cloud City to stop the Fanatics from completing their plans, while the Narrator considered why she felt some responsibility for its residents. The Narrator decided to begin revealing the truth to Xu Zhi and asked whether she remembered how it had appeared.

• Xu Zhi remained in Cloud City because she suspected the danger was coming from within and wanted to disrupt His plan.
• Xu Zhi concluded that she wanted to protect Cloud City's residents because she considered them her property.
• The Narrator realized Xu Zhi might not understand her own lingering kindness and responsibility, which she had once tried to cut away.
• The Narrator decided to gradually tell Xu Zhi the truth and addressed her by name.
• Xu Zhi asked whether something terrible had happened, and the Narrator asked if she remembered how it had appeared.

The Narrator told Xu Zhi she had abandoned her positive emotions and moral principles to survive, and said she would need to gradually recover them by consuming a high-tier Lamp-attribute core each day. Days later, Xu Zhi was summoned to collect her modified blade, while Zhong Lingfan prepared a girl to fulfill a dangerous contract voluntarily.

• The Narrator explained that Xu Zhi had rejected her kindness and other positive feelings when she chose survival, and said she needed to reclaim them to unite the Authority with the fragment.
• The Narrator instructed Xu Zhi to consume one high-tier Lamp-attribute core daily as preliminary preparation for recovering those emotions.
• Xu Zhi reflected that the Federation was struggling to contain the Fanatics and expected the threat to grow.
• Zhong Lingfan told Xu Zhi that she had modified the blade and asked her to come collect it.
• In Cloud City's laboratory, Zhong Lingfan told the pale, bandaged girl that the contract had succeeded and asked whether she was certain she wanted to proceed, despite the cost being her life.

Zhong Lingfan explained how she had added the girl's severing ability to Xu Zhi's blade and prepared for the coming war. After a second red pillar rose and triggered disasters, rifts from Midnight appeared at several locations across Cloud City, leaving Xu Zhi to face them.

• Zhong Lingfan defended her decision to sacrifice a young girl, saying she would make cruel choices if they gave more people a chance to survive.
• Zhong Lingfan told Xu Zhi that her new Contract ability had linked the girl's power to Xu Zhi's blade, allowing it to sever the connection between objects and the supernatural.
• Xu Zhi asked whether Zhong Lingfan needed help, and Zhong Lingfan urged her to focus on improving her strength.
• A second red pillar of light rose over the Federation, triggering natural disasters, and Zhong Lingfan hurried to work as Xu Zhi left.
• Several red rifts appeared at locations throughout Cloud City, and Xu Zhi realized Midnight was trying to overwhelm her defenses.

Xu Zhi used Zhong Lingfan’s borrowed ability to destroy every blood-colored eye in Cloud City, drawing the attention of the supreme being behind them. The narrator explained that It planned to reshape Cloud City’s fog so Midnight could partially merge with the present world.

• Xu Zhi used [Eye of Secrets] to reveal a blood-colored eye within the rift and identified its core.
• Xu Zhi used Zhong Lingfan’s borrowed ability through the knife to destroy the eye, then went on to sever the other blood eyes in Cloud City.
• After Xu Zhi destroyed the last eye, the supreme being fixed Its gaze on her and crushed her with pressure and mental contamination.
• The supreme being’s gaze faded after marking Xu Zhi with [Cup]-attribute energy, and the narrator told her she could avoid Its peak.
• The narrator explained that It had gathered Cloud City’s fog to reshape it, draw Midnight into partial fusion with the present world, and turn the city into a place where Midnight could appear.

Xu Zhi learned that the being behind the crisis would likely tear open the rift to Midnight, and that its weakest moment would come when it acted against the sky. As the Federation deteriorated under the red pillars, the thirteenth pillar rose in place of the sun.

• The Narrator warned Xu Zhi that the enemy would likely enlarge the rift sealing Little Aberration, and that she might defeat it during the backlash after it struck at the sky.
• The Narrator urged Xu Zhi to make Little Aberration flee if a powerful aura approached, save her cores, and remember its warnings after the enemy descended, then disappeared.
• After the second pillar appeared, the remaining pillars rose faster as the Federation suffered red skies, environmental disasters, [Cup]-attribute contamination, and growing numbers of believers.
• Xu Zhi continued selling expensive tickets into Cloud City and hoarding cores while Zhong Lingfan, Shen Jinwen, and Lin Zizhen prepared for the approaching catastrophe.
• When the sun failed to rise, the thirteenth red pillar of light appeared.

The thirteenth pillar of light appeared, turning the Federation’s sun into a black sun that drained blood and Supernatural Energy from the land. As Xu Zhi warned Zhong Lingfan and the Rift began to open, monstrous claws emerged and made way for something still inside.

• Xu Zhi recognized that the black sun matched the image she had seen when the Game Console first loaded, and wondered who had laid out the events before her.
• The black sun’s radiance caused Federation citizens to bleed as their blood rose toward the sky, while Transcendentals struggled to resist the formation array with dwindling energy.
• Xu Zhi sensed an abnormal aura from the Rift, had Little Aberration release its seal, and sent Zhong Lingfan a warning message.
• Scissors-like claws and other monstrous limbs emerged from the Rift and tore its opening wider.
• The creatures withdrew into the Rift one by one, apparently making way for something within.