Chapter Summaries

Summary of “Controlled, Transformed”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran reactivates the blue runes on Hippo Ancient City, creating a gateway. However, the fiery-red world previously connected to the Boundary Wall has disappeared, apparently severed by his earlier reckless actions.
• He continues exploring the sludge within the Boundary Wall, searching for Origin, a new Void Heart, or the Boundary Wall’s central operating core. Instead, he finds mostly bottle-shaped structures and Derivative Worlds.
• By extracting the bottles, Li Ziran discovers that Hippo Ancient City functions as part of a vast energy-processing cycle: it draws creatures or souls from unknown planes, refines energy from the Void Expanse, stores it in bottles, and channels it into Derivative Spaces and newly forming continents.
• Dissatisfied with the lack of answers, Li Ziran begins tearing the sludge-filled interior apart. This disruption causes a collective will formed from rotten stone, leaves, and other fragments to manifest and communicate with him.
• The collective will claims there is no “center” within the Boundary Wall. Li Ziran then uses the strange “zzzt” sounds associated with the Derivative Worlds to communicate with it.
• He learns that these sounds are not ordinary language but a vibration-based communication method involving the Spatial Wall. This raises the possibility that another civilization exists beyond the Void Expanse.
• Li Ziran tests the supposed Spatial Wall by punching into the Void, but finds no physical boundary. He realizes that the blue runes, rather than brute force, are the means of transmitting the vibrations.
• When he activates the runes across Hippo Ancient City, a response arrives from beyond the Void. The distant entity repeatedly demands “energy,” suggesting that the Boundary Wall may exist primarily to supply energy to beings or a civilization outside it.
• The mysterious will then forcibly enters Hippo Ancient City, overwhelms the Starry Sky Chains, and transforms the city. Its walls become swamp-like, ivy-like runes appear, and the city begins absorbing Void Expanse energy.
• The energy is processed through newly formed bottles, with waste expelled and refined essence gathered into a new Derivative Realm within Li Ziran’s body. He realizes he has been transformed and may now possess abilities similar to the Boundary Wall itself.

Character Development

• Li Ziran becomes increasingly determined and rebellious. Rather than accepting his confinement, he insists on uncovering the purpose of the Boundary Wall and escaping what he perceives as a laboratory or cage.
• His curiosity develops into a more systematic investigation. He moves from searching physically for the Boundary Wall’s “center” to studying its runes, energy flows, and communication mechanisms.
• He also demonstrates adaptability: after brute force fails, he recognizes that the runes and vibrations are the true tools of communication.
• By the end, Li Ziran loses control of his own city and body as an outside will transforms him. His position changes from investigator to unwilling subject of another power.

Significant Themes

• Confinement and freedom: Li Ziran views the Boundary Wall as a prison and himself as a laboratory specimen, reinforcing his desire to understand and escape it.
• Purpose behind existence: The endless cycles of energy refinement, soul absorption, and continent creation prompt questions about whether the Boundary Wall serves a larger design.
• Control and transformation: Li Ziran seeks to control the Boundary Wall but is ultimately controlled and altered by a more powerful external will.
• Communication across dimensions: The chapter explores communication through vibration, runes, and energy rather than conventional speech.
• The unknown structure of reality: The possible existence of entities beyond the Void Expanse expands the cosmology and suggests that even the Void may be part of a larger system.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and the collective will: He disrupts the will’s environment by extracting bottles, prompting it to ask why he is destroying its life. Though fragmented and barely sentient, the will provides crucial information about the Boundary Wall and its communication method.
• Li Ziran and the external entity: Their exchange is largely one-sided. Li Ziran seeks identity and information, while the entity responds only by demanding energy before invading and transforming Hippo Ancient City.
• Li Ziran and the ancient creatures: The mutated creatures avoid him and regard Hippo Ancient City as an untouchable monster, emphasizing his overwhelming presence within the sludge.
• Li Ziran and Hippo Ancient City: Their relationship changes as the city shifts from a tool he controls into a living energy-processing structure that transforms both itself and Li Ziran.

Chapter Summary: “Are You William?”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran senses enormous changes in Hippo Ancient City after a mysterious will descends. The city gains the ability to draw energy from the Void Expanse, while Li Ziran’s body rapidly transforms.
• He discovers that the energy produced by his Void Heart is not powering the city. Instead, it is being siphoned away through a hidden channel, revealing that Hippo Ancient City and the Boundary Wall function as an energy-supplying machine.
• A terrifying will descends and attempts to destroy Li Ziran’s consciousness. Unable to resist, he realizes that the Boundary Wall may have encountered this force before and possibly possesses its own means of defense.
• Li Ziran retreats into the sludge within the Boundary Wall, then returns to observe its protective response. Purple runes emerge across the wall, absorbing the destructive force and redirecting the attack away from him.
• Following a strange suction force, Li Ziran’s consciousness travels through deeper layers of space and enters a hidden Visceral World inside the Boundary Wall.
• He finds a massive black-red heart surrounded by golden runes and connected to seven organs. These organs refine Void energy into a higher form, suggesting that the Boundary Wall is powered by an extraordinarily advanced biological energy-conversion system.
• Li Ziran discovers additional experimental organs and energy systems, including an Elemental Gland resembling the one created by William on the Red Soil Continent. Other systems produce perfected forms of radiance, darkness, magnetism, fire, thunder, storms, and puppet power, but none successfully transcend the fundamental energy level of the Void Expanse.
• He realizes that the hidden space is essentially a vast laboratory devoted to researching energy advancement and transcendence.
• When Li Ziran asks whether William is present, a figure resembling a wiser, older version of William appears. William reveals that he has existed across multiple epochs and that this laboratory has always been his home.
• William admits that he brought Li Ziran from Earth randomly to obtain new ideas and experimental material. He hopes Li Ziran can help him achieve transcendence and escape the oppression of the world.
• Angry at having been unwillingly transported from Earth and used as an experiment, Li Ziran refuses to help William.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Moves from confusion and helplessness to insight as he understands the Boundary Wall’s true nature. He recognizes its mechanical and biological systems, studies its energy research, and gains a deeper understanding of the limits of the Void Expanse. Despite being threatened and manipulated, he maintains his independence and ultimately rejects William’s proposal.
• William: Is revealed to be far more ancient and powerful than previously believed. Rather than merely being a historical human mage, he is an enduring researcher who has experimented across countless epochs. However, his immense knowledge is paired with stagnation: he can perfect existing energies but cannot truly transcend them. His dependence on others for “new ideas” exposes his limitations.

Significant Themes

• Freedom versus control: Li Ziran’s body and energy are controlled by an external will, while the Boundary Wall itself appears to be struggling to escape its own function as a machine. William similarly describes himself as a puppet trapped under oppression.
• Transcendence and stagnation: The laboratory contains countless perfected energy systems, yet none achieve a true leap beyond the Void Expanse. The chapter questions whether refinement alone can ever produce genuine transcendence.
• The nature of life and machinery: The Boundary Wall combines mechanical construction, living organs, energy networks, and entire civilizations, blurring the boundary between biological life and artificial systems.
• Exploitation and experimentation: William treats civilizations and living beings as sources of inspiration and experimental material. Li Ziran’s refusal represents resistance against being reduced to a tool.
• Knowledge without breakthrough: William possesses knowledge accumulated over many epochs, but his repeated experiments have led mainly to increasingly refined versions of the same powers rather than a fundamentally new form of existence.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and the Boundary Wall: Their relationship shifts from one of apparent dependence to mutual protection. Li Ziran discovers that the Boundary Wall absorbs the destructive attack intended for him and may itself be attempting to break free from control.
• Li Ziran and William: Their conversation exposes William’s motives. William views Li Ziran as a valuable source of biological material and fresh ideas, while Li Ziran sees him as the person responsible for forcibly taking him from Earth. Their interaction ends in distrust and rejection.
• William and the civilizations of the ages: Although not shown directly, William’s comments indicate that he has used countless species, worlds, and energy systems as experiments. His disappointment with civilizations such as the Frozen Continent reinforces his detached, scientific attitude toward living beings.

Chapter Summary: “I Want to Try My Own Path”

Key Plot Points and Events

• William attempts to recruit Li Ziran as his assistant by revealing the magnificent civilizations he has cultivated within the Void Expanse.
• He shows Li Ziran numerous advanced civilizations, including Druidic societies, god-based civilizations, metamorphosing Magic Beasts, super lifeforms, and even Li Ziran’s former life on Earth.
• William argues that serving him would allow Li Ziran to access the most advanced knowledge of Organology and the Elemental Gland, while also offering him the chance to observe or cultivate civilizations.
• Li Ziran remains unmoved. Though he acknowledges William’s achievements and expresses gratitude for the experiences that shaped him, he firmly refuses to become William’s assistant.
• William tries to persuade him further by describing a central gland formed from the essence of countless civilizations, claiming it may eventually allow travel between spatial dimensions. Li Ziran recognizes that the project is still incomplete and requires immense research, making William’s promise unreliable.
• Li Ziran decides to leave and enter the Void Expanse, believing that developing his own methods is more valuable than remaining comfortably dependent on William.
• William warns that Li Ziran’s heart—the core of his energy-conversion system—is too weak to survive the Void Expanse. Li Ziran accepts the danger and chooses to rely on his own medical and surgical knowledge to adapt his organs.
• After Li Ziran returns to Hippo Ancient City, William spitefully pushes the city toward the outer boundary of the Boundary Wall, exposing it to the freezing, energy-less Void Expanse.
• Even when William makes one final attempt to convince him to reconsider, Li Ziran refuses to answer. He deliberately propels Hippo Ancient City into the Void Expanse, confronting the place he fears most.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran demonstrates significant maturity and independence. He no longer resents his former life or clings to fantasies of superiority; instead, he appreciates how his experiences in the new world transformed him.
• He recognizes his limitations and admits that William’s achievements surpass his own, but this humility does not weaken his resolve. He values self-determination more than comfort, status, or access to advanced knowledge.
• Li Ziran’s identity as a doctor and surgeon becomes central to his future path. Rather than depending on William’s superior technology, he plans to use surgery and his understanding of organs to create a way to survive the Void Expanse.
• William is revealed as brilliant, powerful, and deeply possessive. He sees his cultivated civilizations as proof of his greatness and expects others to be awed by them. When Li Ziran refuses him, his admiration turns into irritation and hostility.
• William’s petty act of forcing Hippo Ancient City outward shows that his offer was not entirely selfless. He wants an assistant who validates his work and follows his direction, not an independent equal.

Significant Themes

• Independence versus dependence: Li Ziran rejects an easy path built on William’s knowledge because he wants his achievements to be earned through his own efforts.
• Comfort versus growth: Remaining within William’s domain would provide safety and privilege, but Li Ziran fears becoming dependent and losing his fighting spirit.
• Research and patience: William’s central gland represents grand ambition, but Li Ziran understands that true breakthroughs require long-term experimentation rather than impressive appearances or promises.
• The value of personal skill: Survival requires possessing a reliable ability. Li Ziran believes his medical knowledge and surgical expertise can become the foundation of his future.
• Facing fear: The Void Expanse symbolizes the unknown and absolute danger. By entering it willingly, Li Ziran transforms fear into a challenge he must overcome.
• Creation and exploitation: William views civilizations as accomplishments and sources of pleasure, while Li Ziran is disturbed by the possibility that their struggles are merely objects of observation or entertainment.

Character Interactions

• William repeatedly pressures Li Ziran with demonstrations of his power, wealth, and knowledge, while Li Ziran responds respectfully but consistently refuses submission.
• Li Ziran thanks William and acknowledges his greatness, but makes clear that gratitude does not create an obligation to serve him.
• Their relationship shifts from a potential mentor-student alliance to an uneasy opposition. William calls Li Ziran “Master” in their exchange, but the emotional balance is not one of obedience.
• William’s final warnings about Li Ziran’s fragile heart are both practical and manipulative. Li Ziran recognizes the danger but interprets William’s offer of protection as disguised charity.
• The chapter ends with Li Ziran choosing action over debate, launching Hippo Ancient City into the Void Expanse and committing himself to his own path.

Chapter Summary: “Li Ziran’s Death”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran’s Hippo Ancient City falls into the Void Expanse, where overwhelming, unfiltered Void energy floods through its pores, sludge, and energy channels.
• The energy freezes and damages the city from the outside inward, eventually lodging around and overwhelming its Void Heart. The city’s energy circulation collapses, and Li Ziran experiences intense physical and mental pain.
• William watches from the Boundary Wall, confident that Li Ziran will soon be destroyed. He plans to offer salvation only when Li Ziran is desperate enough to submit.
• After several minutes, William offers Li Ziran a position as his assistant, promising him freedom, a civilization of his own, and equal status rather than slavery.
• Li Ziran refuses, unwilling to become dependent on William or live as a subordinate. He attempts to create new hearts using the Resurrection Gallbladder and structures modeled on creatures he has encountered, but every heart immediately explodes under the Void’s pressure.
• His original Void Heart freezes and stops. Hippo Ancient City decomposes into sand, and William concludes that Li Ziran has died.
• William notices mysterious flashes of silver light within the ruins. Two particles begin rotating, forming a vast Double Helix that draws in Void energy and converts it into concentrated silver light.
• The surrounding dust forms vortex-like structures, gradually rebuilding a miniature version of Hippo Ancient City—one unlike the original, with no filtration layer, ivy, sludge, or conventional energy containers.
• The new structure absorbs the mixed energy of the entire Void Expanse directly. Despite believing the process impossible, William witnesses Li Ziran’s consciousness awaken at the center of the reconstructed city.

2. Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Demonstrates extreme endurance, pride, and independence. Even while facing certain death, he refuses William’s offer because he will not become a slave or parasite. His repeated attempts to construct new hearts show his adaptability and determination as an Organ Witch Doctor. Ultimately, he appears to transcend the limitations of conventional hearts and survive through an unprecedented transformation.
• William: Begins as a confident observer who believes Li Ziran’s destruction is inevitable. He views Li Ziran partly as a potential resource and expects him to plead for help. His amusement turns into disappointment and regret when Li Ziran dies, followed by shock and disbelief when the silver phenomenon reveals that Li Ziran has survived in an entirely new form.
• The fat infant/youth: Briefly represents William’s attempts to cultivate material within the Boundary Wall. His rapid destruction reinforces William’s growing frustration with the weakness of available souls and civilizations.

3. Significant Themes

• Independence versus submission: Li Ziran chooses apparent death over accepting a subordinate position under William, emphasizing the value he places on autonomy and dignity.
• Evolution through crisis: His failed hearts and eventual transformation suggest that survival may require abandoning established systems rather than merely improving them.
• Limits of existing knowledge: Neither William’s understanding of the Void Expanse nor the conventional heart structures of the Red Soil Continent can explain Li Ziran’s new form.
• Death and transformation: Li Ziran’s “death” becomes a metamorphosis. The destruction of Hippo Ancient City clears the way for an entirely different structure and mode of existence.
• Control versus unpredictability: William believes he understands the Void and can manipulate other beings, but Li Ziran becomes an unforeseen variable beyond his control.

4. Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and William: Their interaction is primarily a psychological struggle. William assumes Li Ziran will eventually beg for rescue, while Li Ziran rejects William’s offer even at the point of death. This refusal confirms their opposing values: William prioritizes usefulness and control, whereas Li Ziran prioritizes self-reliance.
• William and the Boundary Wall’s civilizations: William observes and cultivates civilizations and wills as potential resources. Their weakness and repeated destruction contribute to his disappointment and make Li Ziran’s resilience seem especially valuable.
• William and Li Ziran’s transformed existence: After Li Ziran’s apparent death, William’s confidence collapses into confusion. The awakened consciousness overturns his assumptions about the Void and establishes Li Ziran as a powerful, unknowable anomaly.

Li Ziran completed his transformation in the Void Expanse, gaining the power to absorb its energy, create life, and expand Hippo Ancient City. He rejected William’s offer of cooperation and prepared to leave, but William demanded that he surrender what he had gained.

• Li Ziran’s shell absorbed the Void Expanse’s energy, formed a vast gravitational field, and began expanding Hippo Ancient City.
• Li Ziran discovered that he could create living creatures freely with a thought.
• William offered to become partners and revealed that many Void Expanses existed, each with its own Creator and Void Overlord.
• Li Ziran refused William’s offers and chose to explore deeper into the Void Expanse rather than return to his original one.
• William blocked Hippo Ancient City’s path and demanded that Li Ziran give back everything he had gained from him.
• Li Ziran challenged William to settle the debt.

Li Ziran repelled William’s attack and learned that William refined Void Expanse energy through the souls of civilizations he had cultivated and destroyed. As Li Ziran prepared to destroy William, a gravitational force began pulling his consciousness toward Earth, leaving him unsure whether William was sending him back.

• William demanded Li Ziran teach him energy fusion and threatened to send him back to Earth, but failed to tear open the dimensional barrier.
• William’s sludge invaded Hippo Ancient City, and Li Ziran saw memories revealing that William had turned gifted beings into souls that filtered energy for him.
• Hippo Ancient City purified the invading souls, absorbed their energy, and left William unable to defeat Li Ziran.
• William tried to banish Li Ziran by cracking the Void Expanse, while Li Ziran decided William had to be eliminated.
• A gravitational pull lifted Li Ziran’s consciousness toward the blue planet and galaxy he recognized as his former world.

Chapter Summary: “Sister-in-Law”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran’s consciousness escapes Hippo Ancient City and becomes trapped inside a strange, scorching membrane separating the Red Soil Continent from Earth. Behind it is a vast circular formation powered by a Void Expanse fissure.
• Through small openings in the membrane, he sees Earth and discovers that his original body, also named Li Ziran, remains alive in a hospital but is permanently comatose.
• He observes his family home in Changlan Lane. His older brother, Li Qing, now lives there with his wife—Li Ziran’s sister-in-law—and two children.
• Li Ziran initially feels joy at seeing his family living peacefully, but the mood changes when he realizes his mother is absent. He later sees her black-and-white funeral photograph and learns through his father’s memories that she died after receiving a critical-condition notice from Li Ziran’s hospital.
• As Hippo Ancient City’s formation gathers power, Li Ziran briefly enters his father’s memories and witnesses his mother’s grief during Li Ziran’s hospitalization and funeral. He stops himself from intruding further because he senses that doing so could seriously damage his father.
• He visits his mother’s neglected grave and discovers only her bones remain. Unable to physically embrace her or kowtow, he gently kisses her skull and apologizes.
• His attempted return to Earth destabilizes the surrounding universe, causing the solar system and Milky Way to fall into disorder and sending destructive comets toward Earth. Despite the danger, Li Ziran continues trying to complete his visit and finally returns his attention to his comatose body in the hospital.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran: His desire to return to Earth shifts from simple curiosity to a deeply emotional need to see his parents and fulfill filial obligations. He confronts guilt over his mother’s death, his absence from his family, and his inability to help them despite possessing immense power in the Red Soil Continent.
• Li Ziran’s father: He is shown as aging, hardworking, and emotionally burdened by his wife’s death and son’s condition. His peaceful sleep causes Li Ziran to restrain himself rather than invade his memories further.
• Li Ziran’s mother: Though already dead, she remains central to the chapter. Her suffering during her son’s hospitalization and her eventual death reveal the profound impact Li Ziran’s coma had on the family.
• Li Qing: His older brother has built a stable family life, suggesting that the household continued after Li Ziran’s disappearance.
• Sister-in-law: She represents the family’s continuation. Li Ziran watches her prepare food and care for the household, recognizing that she now carries on the family lineage. His thoughts about her also emphasize his painful awareness that he can no longer contribute to his family.
• The children: Their healthy, peaceful appearance reassures Li Ziran that the family is living reasonably well, allowing him to offer them a small, powerless blessing.

Significant Themes

• Filial love and regret: Li Ziran’s visit is driven by longing for his parents and remorse that he could not care for them or say goodbye.
• Separation and irreversibility: Although he can see Earth, he no longer truly belongs there. The membrane symbolizes the boundary between his former life and his existence in the Red Soil Continent.
• Powerlessness despite great power: Li Ziran can potentially create worlds and grant immortality elsewhere, yet he cannot revive his mother, comfort his father directly, or change his family’s past.
• Death and natural cycles: His mother’s remains and neglected grave remind him that life inevitably passes into death and renewal. He tries to accept this cycle even while grieving.
• Family continuity: His brother, sister-in-law, and children demonstrate that life continues after loss, even when Li Ziran himself has become absent from the family structure.
• The danger of attachment: His emotional descent toward Earth threatens cosmic stability, suggesting that personal longing can have immense consequences when wielded by someone with supernatural power.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran observes his brother, sister-in-law, father, and the children during a family meal, experiencing both happiness for them and sorrow at his own exclusion.
• He mentally engages with his father’s memories, witnessing his mother’s suffering, but deliberately withdraws to protect his father’s peaceful sleep.
• He silently addresses his deceased mother, entering her grave and apologizing before kissing her skull.
• His relationship with his sister-in-law is indirect and reflective: he views her as part of his family’s future and feels both admiration and guilt because he has contributed nothing to that life.
• His final focus returns to his own comatose body, linking his former earthly identity with the consciousness that now exists beyond Earth.

Chapter Summary: “Killing Li Ziran”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran’s consciousness occupies a nearly lifeless body in a hospital, while his true will remains connected to Hippo Ancient City and the energy beyond the Spatial Wall.
• His arrival or descent triggers a massive cosmic disturbance. Meteors, planets, and even the Sun appear to be drawn toward Earth, threatening the destruction of the entire Solar System.
• Earth’s governments activate radar systems, nuclear weapons, and the Nova Project, hoping either to destroy the incoming celestial bodies or preserve humanity by evacuating to another planet.
• Society collapses into panic. Hospitals, streets, and cities descend into chaos as people flee, riot, pray, or commit violence.
• Li realizes that his connection to this world must be severed. Because the Spatial Wall filters most of his power, he can use only a tiny fragment of his will.
• He deliberately blocks a blood vessel near his brain, causing it to swell and rupture. The resulting brain hemorrhage kills the body he occupies.
• A blond-haired gunman enters the hospital, but instead of killing Li, he wastes his ammunition firing outside and then collapses in fear, forcing Li to complete the act himself.
• As Li’s body convulses and the electrocardiogram becomes a flat line, he says goodbye to the shell and withdraws his consciousness from Earth.
• Before leaving, Li sends an incomprehensible but meaningful signal to Earth’s leaders and scientists. The signal reveals the existence of two habitable planets three thousand light-years away.
• The planets mysteriously alter their trajectories and move away from Earth, ending the cosmic threat. The clouds clear, and Li finally achieves complete freedom from the world.

2. Character Developments

• Li Ziran: Demonstrates extraordinary self-control and determination. Although he regrets the destruction surrounding him, he accepts responsibility for ending his connection to Earth and personally causes the body’s death. His final actions also show lingering concern for humanity: he warns Earth about habitable planets and helps preserve its future before departing.
• The professor: Once an important figure whom Li admired, he is shown reduced to a powerless, panicked survivor, emphasizing the helplessness of ordinary humans before cosmic catastrophe.
• The cultist: Exploits the disaster to preach that only believers will survive, but is immediately shot, illustrating how quickly religious certainty and social authority collapse during an apocalypse.
• The blond-haired man: Initially appears violent and capable, but wastes his ammunition and breaks down in terror. His failure highlights the difference between outward aggression and genuine courage.
• Humanity as a whole: Humanity reacts through panic, violence, prayer, evacuation, and scientific cooperation. Despite its weakness, it retains enough organization to launch the Nova Project and seek survival elsewhere.

3. Significant Themes

• Freedom through severance: Li’s central objective is to break all remaining ties with Earth. His physical death is less an ending than the final step toward spiritual and cosmic independence.
• Human helplessness before the universe: Nuclear weapons, governments, religion, and technology are nearly meaningless against forces operating on a cosmic scale.
• Responsibility and unintended consequences: Li never intends to destroy Earth, but his existence causes the disaster. His final warning and gift of knowledge suggest an attempt to compensate for the destruction he has caused.
• The contrast between despair and survival: While many people collapse into violence or hopelessness, humanity still attempts evacuation and preservation through the Nova Project.
• Death as transformation: Li’s death in the hospital is not portrayed as defeat. Once the body dies, his consciousness is liberated and able to exist beyond the limitations of the human world.
• The insignificance of Earth: The planet is depicted as a tiny object caught in forces far beyond human understanding, reinforcing the chapter’s vast cosmic scale.

4. Character Interactions

• Li observes the professor fleeing but has no meaningful exchange with him, using the moment to reflect on how powerless even respected humans are in the crisis.
• The cultist attempts to rally terrified people with promises of salvation, but his interaction with the crowd ends violently when he is shot.
• The blond-haired gunman enters Li’s room, removes his blanket, fires through the window, and then collapses in fear. Li silently hopes the man will kill him but ultimately realizes he must rely on himself.
• Li’s final “Goodbye” is directed toward the body, the hospital, and his former human connection to Earth.
• Through his mysterious coded signal, Li indirectly interacts with Earth’s commanders and scientists, giving humanity information that may save its future even as he leaves it behind.

Chapter Summary: “His True Nature Was That of a Coward”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Li Ziran returns to the Void Expanse after completing his journey through the universe. Though exhausted, he discovers that his consciousness has remained within Hippo Ancient City.
• William attempts to absorb the city’s Origin Essence, believing it will allow him to become a true Void Creator and rule the entire Void Expanse.
• Li Ziran reveals himself, shocking William, who believed he had successfully forced him away. William insists that the Void Expanse belongs to him because he was its first inhabitant and claims Li Ziran has no right to remain.
• Li Ziran takes control of Hippo Ancient City, using its Gravity structure to spread energy throughout the Void Expanse.
• Souls within the city—including Jin Potter and Goni—awaken and separate from Hippo Ancient City, becoming stars or fixed points that form new galaxies. The city appears to expand as it releases them.
• Enraged, William tries to destroy the newly formed galaxies and Hippo Ancient City itself. He summons the wills of seven powerful Creators, forming a massive destructive formation that compresses into a black sphere aimed at Li Ziran.
• Li Ziran realizes that these Creator wills are weakened outside their native Void Expanse and are anchored to William’s Boundary Wall. Their true bodies cannot enter freely, meaning William himself is the key weakness.
• Hippo Ancient City is shattered by the attack, but Li Ziran uses its remaining Gravity to drag the black sphere—and the Boundary Wall—into the deeper regions of the Void Expanse.
• William panics and begs to be released. As the Boundary Wall is pulled deeper, his body breaks apart and the sludge and souls composing it evaporate.
• Li Ziran survives and grows stronger as he descends. By the end, William has vanished, while Li Ziran becomes a radiant silver presence whose consciousness spreads across the entire Void Expanse.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran becomes increasingly dominant and confident. He understands the laws and limits of the Void Expanse better than William and turns William’s own attack against him.
• Li Ziran also becomes more complete and powerful, with his silver form, consciousness, and control over Gravity expanding as he moves deeper into the Void Expanse.
• William shifts from arrogant would-be ruler to desperate victim. His belief that he owns the Void Expanse collapses once Li Ziran returns and exposes his dependence on stolen energy and outside Creators.
• William’s defining trait is revealed to be cowardice: despite his threats and enormous power, he panics when placed in genuine danger and begs Li Ziran for mercy.
• Jin Potter, Goni, and the other souls gain independent existence by breaking away from Hippo Ancient City and becoming part of the newly developing cosmic structure.

Significant Themes

• True ownership versus exploitation: William claims the Void Expanse as his property, but he has gained power by draining and betraying it rather than protecting it.
• Creatorhood and responsibility: A genuine Creator should strengthen and repair a Void Expanse, while William’s parasitic behavior disqualifies him from being acknowledged as one.
• Power through understanding: Li Ziran succeeds not through brute force alone, but by recognizing the limitations of the external Creator wills and identifying William as their anchor.
• Freedom and transformation: The souls escaping Hippo Ancient City symbolize liberation and the creation of a new cosmic order.
• Arrogance concealing fear: William’s grand claims and cruelty ultimately mask his cowardice and dependence on borrowed power.

Important Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and William: Their confrontation shifts from William’s possessive declarations to Li Ziran’s quiet control. William repeatedly threatens him, while Li Ziran ignores the boasts and calmly dismantles his position.
• Li Ziran and the awakened souls: By releasing the inhabitants of Hippo Ancient City into the Void Expanse, Li Ziran enables them to become independent cosmic entities.
• William and the external Creators: William calls upon seven Creator wills to eliminate Li Ziran, but their intervention exposes William’s reliance on powers that do not truly belong to him.
• Li Ziran and the Creator wills: Li Ziran recognizes their weakness in a foreign Void Expanse and withstands their attack, using their connection to William to defeat them indirectly.

Chapter Summary: Plaything — Final Chapter

Key Plot Points and Events

• After William’s disappearance, Li Ziran fully breaks free from the previous universe’s confinement and becomes the effective Creator of a new Void. The Void is still young and fragile, but it continuously supplies him with energy.
• Li Ziran discovers that other Voids exist as parallel spaces connected only through subtle rune-based resonances. He rejects attempts by other Creators to establish contact, knowing he lacks the power to negotiate with them.
• Using the legacy runes of Hippo Ancient City, Li Ziran transforms its silver radiance into the foundation for numerous civilizations. Goni, the Elven civilization, Medusas, Deep Sea creatures, and many other beings emerge and establish starfields throughout the Void.
• These civilizations are free to develop, but their origins within Hippo Ancient City permanently limit them. They cannot surpass the Void’s foundational power, making them dependent “parasites” from Li Ziran’s perspective.
• Dissatisfied with the loneliness and stagnation of existence as a Creator, Li Ziran constructs a circular rune array capable of drawing wills from other Voids. He converts these wills into living beings and places them into various starfields as experiments.
• The imported beings and civilizations introduce variety and instability, helping the Void grow stronger and more stable. Li Ziran experiments with machinery, puppets, magic, insects, dragons, undead, and other forms of life, but none produce a true equal or threaten his supremacy.
• Li Ziran recognizes that he has begun resembling William, treating living beings as toys while claiming that his real goal is transcendence and breaking through the barriers between Voids.
• Eventually, Earth appears unusually close to his Void. Li Ziran attempts to draw in one of its inhabitants, and a black-haired young man physically crosses the spatial wall into the Void—an unprecedented event.
• Li Ziran realizes that William may also have entered the Void physically rather than being summoned as a mere will. He theorizes that rare alignments between parallel Voids allow certain individuals to cross through their own bloodline power.
• When Li Ziran probes the young man’s body, an immortal force burns away his consciousness. This reveals that the apparently ordinary youth is concealing extraordinary power.
• Although Li Ziran is excited by the prospect of testing himself against him, he restrains his impulse. He decides to wait and observe, believing patience will eventually produce greater opportunities.

Character Developments

• Li Ziran evolves from a liberated survivor into an isolated Creator and architect of an entire Void. Despite gaining immense power, he remains dissatisfied because absolute control has removed challenge, uncertainty, and genuine companionship from his existence.
• He becomes increasingly experimental and manipulative, importing wills and cultivating civilizations to generate “variables” and new insights.
• Li Ziran recognizes the moral and psychological similarity between himself and William: both treat living beings as playthings. However, Li Ziran believes his actions are driven by a desire for advancement rather than mere amusement.
• His experience as a Witch Doctor reinforces his central virtue of patience. Instead of immediately confronting the mysterious young man, he chooses to hide his intentions and wait.
• The black-haired young man is introduced as an apparently passive outsider who is actually concealing an immense, possibly immortal power. His body cannot be invaded even by Li Ziran’s Creator consciousness, marking him as fundamentally different from ordinary beings.

Significant Themes

• Power and loneliness: Becoming a Creator grants Li Ziran freedom and control but leaves him isolated, unable to find equals or meaningful companionship.
• Creation as control: The civilizations Li Ziran creates appear free, yet they remain dependent on him and cannot escape the limits he imposed. Their freedom is therefore incomplete.
• The creator becoming the created: Li Ziran gradually becomes like William, reproducing the same pattern of treating civilizations as experiments and toys.
• The need for variables and conflict: A perfectly controlled Void becomes stagnant. Li Ziran learns that change, opposition, and unpredictable wills are necessary for growth.
• Limits of knowledge: Even as a Creator, Li Ziran cannot fully understand the laws connecting the Voids or explain how William and the young man crossed between them.
• Patience versus impulse: Li Ziran’s desire to challenge the young man is balanced by his understanding that premature action could waste a rare opportunity. Patience becomes his strategy for reaching greater power.

Character Interactions

• Li Ziran and William: William is absent, but his legacy, runes, and methods shape Li Ziran’s new existence. Li Ziran increasingly understands and resembles him, particularly in his treatment of civilizations as experimental playthings.
• Li Ziran and the other Creators: Other Creator wills attempt to contact him, but he severs the connection because he lacks the leverage to negotiate. Their presence establishes the wider hierarchy of the Voids.
• Li Ziran and the created civilizations: He permits Goni, the Elves, Medusas, Deep Sea beings, and countless other civilizations to develop freely, yet remains their unseen source of power and ultimate destroyer.
• Li Ziran and the imported wills: He treats beings drawn from other Voids as experiments, hoping they will evolve into something capable of transcending their limits. Their repeated failures deepen his frustration.
• Li Ziran and the black-haired youth: Their relationship begins as hunter and subject, with Li Ziran drawing the youth into his Void. However, the youth’s hidden power reverses the expected power dynamic, giving Li Ziran a potential rival—or an even greater mystery—to observe.