Recaps

Bai Zhu attended a formal Zoldyck family dinner with Milluki, where Silva and Kikyo questioned him about his adventures and friendship with Milluki. After dinner, Killua and Alluka dragged Bai Zhu toward Milluki's room, declaring that no one would sleep that night.

• Milluki told Bai Zhu that Silva and Kikyo had invited him to a family dinner and led him to the dining room.
• Silva assigned Bai Zhu a seat beside him, and Bai Zhu nervously greeted Silva and Kikyo before the meal began.
• Milluki described the costly dishes while Kikyo asked Bai Zhu about meeting Milluki, their trips into ruins, and Milluki's conduct in danger.
• Silva passed Bai Zhu warm water when he choked on a fish bone, then asked whether he liked the food.
• After dinner, Killua and Alluka waited outside Milluki's room and dragged Bai Zhu inside as Milluki protested.

Bai Zhu asked Milluki to help protect Alluka from the Zoldyck family's attempts to control Nanika, then brought out Pariston's memory card for inspection. Milluki spotted a suspicious scratch on the card that seemed to radiate malice.

• Killua and Alluka visited Milluki's room, where Bai Zhu assigned them to check whether Kalluto was sleeping properly.
• Bai Zhu had Milluki disable the room's surveillance devices before asking about the family's plans for Alluka and Nanika.
• Milluki said the family wanted to know whether Bai Zhu could stabilize Nanika and whether her power could be used.
• Bai Zhu urged Milluki to support Alluka if the family confined her, and warned him not to let Illumi learn Nanika's true condition.
• Bai Zhu gave Milluki Pariston's memory card to examine, and Milluki noticed a faint scratch that seemed to carry malice.

Bai Zhu and Milluki decoded Pariston’s memory card and uncovered evidence linking NGL, Zaiyilo, the Creation Society, and D1 experiments to a sealed ruin. After deciding to investigate the site, Bai Zhu sought help getting Milluki’s equipment into NGL.

• Milluki decoded the memory card and found D1 research describing a drug that amplified impulsiveness and could alter Nen Abilities.
• Bai Zhu noticed black crystalline fragments in the experiment photos, matching material he had seen in the Oasis ruins.
• Milluki uncovered records identifying Zaiyilo as NGL’s hidden power and showing Creation Society activity and disappearances tied to D1 and ruin-restoration work.
• Bai Zhu’s system map pinpointed a mountain site where a Soul King’s Pen component, a sealed Creation Society ruin, and D1’s initial sample site overlapped.
• Milluki found an old record suggesting D1 tested whether ordinary people could endure Nen’s influence, and Pariston’s hidden photo revealed an ancient Stone Gate inside the ruin.
• Bai Zhu invited Milluki to investigate NGL, but after Milluki refused, Bai Zhu called Old Jiang to ask him to smuggle equipment into the country.

Bai Zhu left the Zoldyck estate for Lokaliou, taking Milluki’s equipment and prized figurines to support his work in NGL. He promised Alluka they would go on an expedition together someday, while Milluki discovered the theft after the airship had already departed.

• Bai Zhu contacted Gela Jiang about getting equipment and supplies into NGL, then spent the next several days enjoying the Zoldyck estate and organizing the Evil-Eyed Demon King Gang with Killua, Kalluto, and Alluka.
• Piyu told Bai Zhu that NGL-linked D1 drug dealers had been caught at the border and urged him to reach the Lokaliou capital within three days; Gela Jiang later reported finding a route across the border.
• Bai Zhu asked Milluki to come to NGL, but Milluki refused, citing the loss of his electronic equipment’s usefulness there.
• That night, Bai Zhu secretly took Milluki’s equipment backpack and three limited-edition figurines, while Killua helped him evade the estate’s surveillance.
• Bai Zhu left the estate at dawn with boxed meals, said goodbye to Alluka, Killua, and Kalluto, and promised Alluka they would go on an expedition together.
• Milluki woke to find his equipment and figurines gone, learned Bai Zhu had departed two hours earlier, and shouted angrily after him.

Milluki pursued Bai Zhu to Lokario after discovering that Bai Zhu had taken his equipment, while Bai Zhu and his companions prepared to smuggle the supplies toward NGL. Milluki caught up with Bai Zhu and Piyu at the airport, but Bai Zhu restrained him only briefly before Milluki broke free and continued the chase.

• Milluki ordered an airship to Lokario, and Illumi helped prepare it for the journey despite Milluki insisting he would return the same day.
• Bai Zhu, Gela Jiang, and Piyu reviewed the stolen equipment and clues about missing Association teams near the NGL border, then Gela Jiang drove the supplies toward the coast.
• Milluki landed in the capital and rushed through immigration after seeing the equipment signals moving along the coastline.
• Bai Zhu and Piyu waited outside the airport terminal, where Milluki lunged at Bai Zhu and demanded his things back.
• Bai Zhu restrained Milluki with Hainawa, but Milluki tore through the Light Rope and resumed chasing him.

Bai Zhu and Piyu persuaded Milluki to join the NGL mission with the promise of compensation, though his stolen figures were nearly damaged during transport. At the NGL checkpoint, Milluki reconsidered entering after seeing the strict rules and learning his terminal would be confiscated.

• Bai Zhu admitted he had taken Milluki's equipment and figures, then offered him a choice between joining the NGL mission or going home.
• Piyu showed Milluki a rare figure as official compensation, and he accepted the Association commission.
• Gela Jiang told Bai Zhu that a box had fallen into the sea, prompting Milluki to attack Bai Zhu before learning the box had been recovered.
• Bai Zhu, Piyu, and Milluki traveled to the NGL checkpoint, where Milluki read the entry restrictions and tried to turn back.
• Piyu warned Milluki that his terminal's energy modules could be assembled into prohibited devices, and Milluki asked Bai Zhu to have Gela Jiang return his things.

Piyu, Bai Zhu, and Milluki waited for Knov and his disciple to join the NGL investigation, while Piyu uncovered evidence of hundreds of ecological volunteers entering NGL under false identities. After the team crossed into NGL, a watcher reported their arrival to the general.

• Piyu learned that Knov and his disciple would join the investigation team, delaying their entry into NGL.
• Piyu found matching handwriting on ecological volunteer records and Creation Society false identities, revealing that more than three hundred people had entered NGL and only eleven had left.
• Bai Zhu tracked the Soul King's Pen component's nightly movements to a village northwest of the Natu Mountain Range.
• Knov arrived with his disciple, explained that he would assess the risk of the D1 experiment data, and used his Fourth Dimensional Apartment to store the team's supplies.
• Bai Zhu, Piyu, Milluki, Knov, and Knov's disciple passed inspection and entered NGL, where Bai Zhu's system map began updating.
• A cloaked man spotted the team and sent a message telling the general that Pariston's people had entered.

Bai Zhu and the others traveled toward Tamu Village while Palm detected three people following them. Bai Zhu captured the sentries and found a note saying Pariston’s intelligence had correctly predicted the target’s arrival, but the sentries refused to identify the target.

• Piyu explained that the group would reach Tamu Village and stay in cabins, while Milluki complained about carrying his luggage.
• Knov revealed that Palm had tracked three sentries hiding in the woods, and Piyu ordered the group to capture them alive and discover who they served.
• Knov continued down the road with Piyu and Milluki, while Bai Zhu circled through the brush toward the watchers.
• Bai Zhu used Hainawa and Thrust to capture all three sentries and stopped one from biting a concealed wax pill.
• Bai Zhu found an unsent note stating that the target had entered the country and that Pariston’s intelligence was correct, then demanded that the sentries identify the target.

Bai Zhu and his team captured three sentries and learned that an action team was ordered to take him alive to a northern ruin known as the door. Gela Jiang reported fortified villages with unexplained food deliveries, while the team suspected D1 was using them to train drug-dependent suicide squads.

• Bai Zhu and Piyu captured three sentries and Knov concealed them inside the Fourth Dimensional Apartment, where Milluki began interrogating them.
• Gela Jiang told Bai Zhu that the coastal villages held only adult men, had no apparent food production, received sealed barrels, and kept gaining residents despite unchanged deliveries.
• Milluki checked that Gela Jiang's three shockproof equipment cases were intact, then reported that the sentries' orders were to confirm Bai Zhu's arrival and take him north alive to a door near a ruin.
• Bai Zhu, Piyu, Knov, and Milluki connected the four guarded villages to D1 and suspected the residents were kidnapped outsiders being drugged and prepared as suicide squads.
• Bai Zhu noted that the sentries' orders confirmed D1 knew of and had used the northern ruin.

Bai Zhu and the others deduced that the Creation Society had embedded itself in a network trafficking and drugging missing people, and that it had reached the general’s inner circle. As they considered their next move, Palm spotted someone watching them through the bound lookout’s eyes, and the witness token began to move inside Knov’s ability.

• Bai Zhu, Piyu, Milluki, and Knov concluded that the marks at the Stone Gate recorded long-term activity and that the villages likely housed missing people used as test subjects.
• Bai Zhu deduced that the Creation Society had integrated itself into the recruitment, drugging, and transport process rather than hiding outright.
• Piyu identified a bone fragment from the interrogation records as a Creation Society witness token, suggesting the Society had reached the general’s core personnel.
• Palm saw a new viewpoint watching Bai Zhu through the bound lookout’s eyes and warned him not to approach.
• The bone fragment trembled, and Bai Zhu pinned it down as the group questioned how someone had infiltrated Knov’s ability.

Bai Zhu and the others discovered that a bone fragment could let the Creation Society spy on them when Bai Zhu touched it, so they isolated it and left Tamu Village by the riverbed. They met up with Gela Jiang and secured his supplies, then Bai Zhu asked him what he had seen along the way.

• Bai Zhu touched the bone fragment, triggering Palm's crystal ball and revealing that the Creation Society could watch the area around it through a believer's eyes.
• Knov warned Milluki not to destroy the fragment, then isolated it in a sealed room until the watching sensation faded.
• Bai Zhu concluded that the Creation Society might still be monitoring them through believers and chose to bypass Tamu Village by following the dry riverbed west.
• Knov made several entrances along the route, and the group traveled toward their rendezvous with Old Jiang.
• Gela Jiang arrived on a surfboard with six sealed crates, and Milluki checked the supplies before storing them in the Fourth Dimensional Apartment.
• Bai Zhu sat with Gela Jiang and asked what he had seen along the way.

Gela Jiang, Bai Zhu, Milluki, and Piyu investigated a remote village controlled by the Creation Society and found signs of artificial disasters and strict surveillance. Piyu entered a guarded settlement under Association cover, where the villagers claimed all women, children, and elderly people had left, and the chapter ended with a guide asking for food he should not have known about.

• Gela Jiang told Bai Zhu that nearby villages faced unequal harvests and said locusts carrying residual Nen appeared to have been deliberately bred.
• Milluki used Mechanical Dragonflies to survey a fenced settlement with guarded roads, underground tracks, and a stretcher carrying someone who struggled beneath its covering.
• Piyu proposed entering openly with ecological investigation documents, and Bai Zhu sent Milluki to approach the village gate.
• Piyu, Bai Zhu, and Milluki entered the village, where a guide claimed the women, children, and elderly had gone to their maternal homes for Daughter's Festival.
• Piyu found no women or children during her survey and asked to stay overnight, then questioned the guide when he requested instant noodles, fried chicken, and cola.

Piyu learned from Shak that villagers depended on daily medicine and became violently protective of food, while Bai Zhu and Milluki investigated the village’s hidden drug operation. The chapter ended with Shak bringing cloudy water and insisting that all three visitors take the medicine.

• Piyu bribed Shak with snacks and cola, and he said he had been trapped in the village and needed daily medicine to avoid pain and weakness.
• Shak fought another villager over the snacks, but Bai Zhu restrained them; after eating crumbs, the injured man seemed to forget the fight and ignore his wound.
• Piyu, Milluki, and Bai Zhu discussed the villagers’ drug dependency, their lost memories, and the absence of guards or reliable information about their identities.
• Milluki revealed that the three wells connected to underground tunnels where his Spider had found tracks and suspected the villagers moved supplies.
• Shak entered their room with cloudy water and told Bai Zhu that everyone, including the visitors, had to take the medicine.

Bai Zhu, Piyu, and Milluki investigated the village’s strange medicine ritual and discovered that villagers drank contaminated well water as though taking a drug. As they prepared to leave, an armed convoy arrived, and Bai Zhu recognized its truck’s marking from the bone fragment.

• Shak delivered Bai Zhu a bowl of muddy water, while Milluki and the others observed that nearby villagers stood motionless and watched the houses and well.
• Milluki’s Mechanical Beetle sent a water sample to Knov, and Piyu found well mud in the footprints leading to Bai Zhu’s door; the surveillance recordings also contained a seven-minute gap.
• Near dawn, villagers silently lined up at the well, drank from a shared bowl of muddy water, and returned home; Knov’s test found mud, insect eggs, and fecal contamination but no drugs or Nen residue.
• Piyu concluded that the villagers’ bodies had learned to seek the satisfaction of taking medicine, and Bai Zhu decided the village could reveal no more about the missing people.
• A bell summoned the villagers to the entrance as an armed convoy blocked the mountain road, and Knov reported that twenty-three armed guards had surrounded the village.
• Bai Zhu recognized the truck’s marking from Piyu’s bone fragment, then pulled Milluki and Piyu into the crowd and told them to hide their equipment.

Bai Zhu, Piyu, and Milluki watched a mercenary convoy distribute D1 pills that drove the villagers into violent, delirious behavior. After stealing a pill sample and recording the convoy’s data, they learned that seven villagers had been selected as specimens for transport north and escaped into the forest.

• Mercenaries opened an iron chest of D1 pills, and the villagers rushed the distribution table despite being beaten back.
• Bai Zhu nearly got exposed by a roster photograph, but a crowd surge let him steal a packet of D1 and escape the truck.
• Piyu recorded the distribution while Milluki’s Mechanical Spiders copied the vehicle records and intercepted a transmission.
• Villagers who swallowed the pills descended into violent delirium, and mercenaries documented their reactions and selected seven specimens.
• Milluki intercepted an order to send the specimens north in five days, and Bai Zhu led Piyu and Milluki out through the collapsed fence into the forest.

Bai Zhu and his team intercepted a convoy carrying experimental drugs and learned that the Creation Society, the Holy Church, a general, and Kakin were involved in moving villagers toward ruins. After Milluki discovered that the convoy’s camera had uploaded footage showing Bai Zhu, the team faced the possibility that the door would open early.

• Knov captured the convoy in a partitioned room, where the crash killed some occupants but left seven villagers and two captives alive.
• Bai Zhu restrained the transforming villagers, and Milluki and Piyu found that the drugs varied by village and were being used to test different outcomes.
• Milluki faked the convoy’s tracking signals while Knov separated the prisoners, and the team questioned the two captives.
• One captive resisted interrogation with a hidden poison sac, while the other revealed that the villages’ drug users would head north during withdrawal and that selected people were taken to ruins through a monthly door.
• Milluki found that the convoy’s driving recorder had uploaded footage showing Bai Zhu, raising the possibility that their investigation had been exposed and the door might open early.

After Bai Zhu's face appeared in uploaded footage, the group debated whether to withdraw from the valley or continue toward the northern ruins. Bai Zhu agreed to proceed after everyone chose to stay, setting precautions and an escape plan.

• Milluki showed the group footage of Bai Zhu, confirming that his face had been uploaded and could reveal their presence to the Creation Society, the general, or Kakin.
• Knov said his Association mission was complete, while Bai Zhu considered abandoning the ruins and returning later to pursue the Soul King's Pen component.
• Milluki, Piyu, Gela Jiang, Palm, and Knov each argued for continuing north, citing their goals, duties, abilities, or the risks of withdrawing.
• Bai Zhu agreed to proceed, assigning Knov to leave escape entrances, Gela Jiang to support the waterways, Milluki to maintain reconnaissance equipment, and Piyu to record village conditions.
• Bai Zhu ordered everyone to be ready to retreat if danger arose, then led the group north.

Bai Zhu and his companions investigated villages showing different stages of drug-induced mutations and learned that villagers were being transferred, renumbered, and repeatedly dosed. At Woodbranch Village, they found a cave that might connect to the underground rail, but someone noticed the opened storehouse lock.

• Bai Zhu’s group surveyed three villages and saw drug mutations, locust infestation, and villagers redirecting contaminated floodwater.
• Piyu concluded that the villages reflected different stages of the same drug’s effects, and Knov reported that the seven captives in the apartment had begun changing.
• Bai Zhu tried to heal a captive with excessive bone growth, but the man’s mutations worsened and resisted the treatment.
• At Woodbranch Village, Milluki’s Spider opened a storehouse where the group found renumbered clothes and a register documenting transfers between villages.
• Milluki’s Spider discovered a constructed cave behind the village, and someone called out after finding the storehouse lock open.

Bai Zhu interrogated a village overseer and learned that Woodbranch Village was part of a system that sorted human test subjects and sent them to other villages, training zones, or the ruins. After entering the underground tunnels, Bai Zhu met an envoy who invited him to meet General Zaiyilo, and he boarded a railcar while keeping an escape route ready.

• Bai Zhu captured the village overseer and questioned him about the registry and the tunnel entrance.
• The overseer revealed that the villages operated a transfer station that graded test subjects and sent them to other villages, training zones, or the ruins.
• Piyu matched names on the missing persons list to numbers in the registry, while Milluki found a bone pass marked with seven grooves.
• Bai Zhu killed the overseer, and Piyu secured his testimony, the pass, and the registry as evidence.
• Bai Zhu and the others entered the tunnels, where an envoy told him that General Zaiyilo wanted to see him privately.
• Knov prepared an escape route, and Bai Zhu boarded the railcar to meet the general.

Bai Zhu and his companions entered NGL’s vast Underground City, where they saw the General’s industrial and military operations, including modified Orc laborers and a flying sentinel. After their reconnaissance ants were destroyed, they reached the General’s Residence and were told the General had prepared a banquet.

• Bai Zhu and his companions rode into the Underground City, where the old man explained that its industrial equipment was maintained by local residents.
• The group saw a flying magical beast sentinel and learned that the city used it to defend against invaders and suppress riots.
• Bai Zhu identified the modified laborers as Orcs through a system prompt and restrained one that charged their railcar.
• Milluki’s flying ants mapped key facilities before an unseen attacker destroyed all four groups, revealing the city’s counter-surveillance measures.
• The railcar stopped at the General’s Residence, and the old man invited Bai Zhu and his companions to the banquet prepared by the General.

Bai Zhu and the others attended a meatless banquet in NGL, where they discovered the food was drugged and that someone had been monitoring their movements. General Zaiyilo finally appeared and ordered the head waiter taken away after denying responsibility for the spiked mushrooms.

• Milluki complained about the cold vegetarian dishes while Piyu asked after the absent general.
• Piyu noticed surgical scars on several waiters, and the group identified drugs in the mushrooms, berry juice, and wine.
• The head waiter revealed a hidden camera and speaker, and the man behind the wall demonstrated how closely he had tracked the group.
• Bai Zhu demanded to see the missing hunters, obtain D1's actual production site, and discuss the Black Gate.
• Zaiyilo entered, introduced himself as the general, denied arranging the spiked mushrooms, and ordered the head waiter taken away.

Bai Zhu negotiated with Zaiyilo, who offered information, access to the missing investigators, and wealth in exchange for retrieving an object beyond the Black Gate. The bargain stalled when a missing investigator insisted he had chosen to stay, leaving Bai Zhu to confront Zaiyilo over the conditions behind that choice.

• Bai Zhu challenged Zaiyilo over the missing investigators and learned that Kakin had supplied materials used by the Creation Society and Zaiyilo's operation.
• Milluki identified delivery pipelines leading toward the Black Gate, and Zaiyilo showed footage of D1 samples kneeling before a burst of light when the gate opened.
• Bai Zhu learned that the Soul King's Pen component might lie beyond the Black Gate, but demanded something in return before agreeing to retrieve it.
• Zaiyilo offered Bai Zhu access to factories, missing people, a list of the Creation Society's leaders, and wealth in exchange for entering the gate.
• Piyu met a missing investigator who refused to leave, and Bai Zhu accused Zaiyilo of raising people into their condition.

Bai Zhu and the others inspected Zaiyilo’s underground factory and found evidence that D1 tablets were being diverted through a hidden transport line. Zaiyilo identified the Raw Material Zone as the source of the drug, and Haro insisted on going there to pursue further growth in Nen Ability.

• Bai Zhu agreed to inspect the factory, where Zaiyilo showed the group its D1 production line and shipment records.
• Milluki calculated that the factory’s listed output could not account for all its raw materials, and he questioned where the missing tablets went.
• Zaiyilo revealed an isolation area where Haro admitted that he and the others had voluntarily joined the experiment to change their aptitude and become stronger.
• Palm used her crystal ball to discover that tablet-filled boxes were switched near the lift shaft and sent along a hidden transport line.
• Milluki mapped the concealed route, and Zaiyilo said the Creation Society had taken D1 and secretly diluted it for distribution outside.
• Zaiyilo showed the group the Raw Material Zone, which held D1’s original mother liquid and records of the first experiments in NGL; Haro demanded to go there.

Bai Zhu pressured Zaiyilo into handing over intelligence and a route to the Raw Material Zone, despite Zaiyilo's reluctance to openly cooperate. As Bai Zhu prepared to leave, he called to Haro, who suddenly showed interest in going to the Raw Material Zone.

• Bai Zhu questioned Haro about what he had seen in the Raw Material Zone and learned that the Black Gate had stirred a reaction in him.
• Piyu called names from the missing persons list, but none of the investigators in the isolation cells agreed to come with them.
• Bai Zhu, Milluki, and Piyu reasoned that the investigators' controlled fungal growth might be connected to managing D1's effects or knowing its purpose.
• Zaiyilo refused to guide them to the Raw Material Zone, so Bai Zhu demanded key Creation Society intelligence and a complete route, threatening to take Zaiyilo into Knov's Fourth Dimensional Apartment.
• Zaiyilo accepted Bai Zhu's conditions and provided sealed files listing Creation Society personnel, though three circled names had no details.
• As Bai Zhu left the isolation area, he asked Haro whether he still planned to go to the Raw Material Zone, and Haro raised his head with renewed focus.

Bai Zhu questioned Haro about the Underground City and learned that Haro believed a god lay dormant in the ruins and planned to complete his transformation in the Raw Material Zone. Milluki matched three Creation Society records to their targets, including a high-ranking figure who might be the Pope, and Bai Zhu prepared to move with Haro as their guide.

• Bai Zhu’s group escaped the isolation area through Knov’s spatial rift and gathered in an apartment, where Milluki began comparing the sealed list with records from Meteor City, Totorro Port, and Kakin.
• Bai Zhu questioned Haro, who claimed the God of Bullshit was dormant in the ruins and that he had been chosen to become an apostle through a final transformation in the Raw Material Zone.
• Haro tore off his fungal arm to demonstrate its regrowth, then explained that he had learned about the god from a dream and that others received diluted versions of the original solution.
• Milluki identified the Silver Candle Envoy as a handler of Nen Beasts, bone fragments, and Experimental Subjects, and the Golden Candle Envoy as a figure involved in equipment, negotiations, and shipping.
• Milluki found a record for the Holy Seat Proxy, whose access and movements suggested he might be the Pope; Bai Zhu decided they could take down their targets together and told Haro to lead the way.