Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “Positive and Negative Curse Power”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hawkins confronts George, realizing that the original George is already dead. The remaining body is a modified shell driven by George’s lingering survival instinct.
• Hawkins discovers that George’s Curse Power differs fundamentally from his own. Hawkins’s power behaves like positive energy, while George’s acts as negative energy, capable of canceling it out.
• This explains why George’s attack overwhelmed Mark: Mark’s Curse Power was neutralized by George’s.
• Hawkins finds Mark unconscious several hundred meters away. Mark is severely injured but alive, and Hawkins treats him before sending him to Eternal Space for further recovery.
• Victor repeatedly attacks George but cannot even cut through the hair covering his body. Overwhelmed by his own weakness, Victor admits that he truly hates himself and asks Hawkins how to become stronger.
• Hawkins kills George by cutting off his pig-like head and explains that Jabus has already left after draining George’s blood. Jabus’s actions now appear deliberate rather than random.
• Hawkins and Victor return to the harbor. Hawkins initially prepares to leave Victor behind, but Victor asks to join the Black Knife’s crew. Hawkins accepts him as a trainee sailor.
• The Black Knife resumes its journey toward the Black Market.

Character Developments

• Hawkins demonstrates greater understanding of Curse Power and confirms a possible positive-negative relationship between different forms of it. He also shows practical compassion by saving Mark, though he remains unwilling to waste time unnecessarily. His motives for opposing Jabus are both self-interested—acquiring Cursed Relics—and moral, since he cannot tolerate Jabus’s indiscriminate slaughter.
• George is revealed to be essentially dead, sustained only by an obsessive desire to survive. His abnormal body and Negative Curse Power make him extremely difficult to harm.
• Mark survives George’s attack but suffers extensive internal injuries. Hawkins’s intervention saves him.
• Victor becomes painfully aware of the enormous gap between himself and Hawkins and Mark. His despair develops into a desire to grow stronger, while his fear of remaining alone leads him to join Hawkins’s crew.
• Jabus remains absent, but his behavior becomes more suspicious. His systematic blood-draining and use of Long-Haired Demons suggest purpose and possibly retained sanity.

Significant Themes

• Obsession versus genuine life: George’s “will to survive” is exposed as an empty obsession after death, suggesting that survival without a true self may become monstrous.
• Positive and negative forces: The chapter introduces a possible underlying structure to Curse Power, with opposing energies capable of canceling one another.
• Powerlessness and inevitability: Victor recognizes that Avril’s death and George’s transformation were not merely accidents but part of an unavoidable chain of events, intensifying his self-loathing.
• Limits of imitation: Hawkins explains that his strength comes from experiences and circumstances that cannot simply be copied, emphasizing the uniqueness of individual paths.
• Pragmatic morality: Hawkins helps others when he can, but he balances compassion with personal gain and refuses to sacrifice excessive time or safety for altruism.
• Found family and belonging: Victor’s request to join the Black Knife marks his movement from isolated survivor to potential member of Hawkins’s group.

Important Character Interactions

• Hawkins clinically confronts and examines George, using anesthetic and Curse Power to study his body.
• Hawkins rescues and treats Mark after George’s attack, reinforcing his role as the group’s strongest protector.
• Victor confesses his weakness and desire for strength to Hawkins. Hawkins responds honestly but discourages him from believing he can simply become an equal.
• Victor questions Hawkins about his connection to Jabus, prompting Hawkins to reveal his mixed motives for hunting him.
• Hawkins initially says goodbye to Victor, but Victor’s plea to join the ship changes their relationship, making him a new trainee aboard the Black Knife.

Chapter Summary: “Black Market Island”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Victor joins the family chat group and asks Hawkins whether Avril can be resurrected. Hawkins confirms that resurrection is possible if he can examine Victor’s memories, motivating Victor to complete missions and save 10,000 Exchange Points.
• Victor accepts the available missions—killing pirates and cleaning toilets—despite the others teasing him about taking all the cleaning work.
• Mark becomes unusually quiet after being humiliated during his public fight with George. Determined to regain his dignity and become stronger, he focuses obsessively on completing missions and hopes to encounter pirates.
• In Eternal Space, Hawkins continues researching the monster from the Dream Realm and its unusual resistance to curses. Experiments reveal that larger bodies seem more resistant to curses: a strong or obese test subject withstands the curse, while a weaker or extremely thin one becomes infected.
• Hawkins is interrupted by Arthur, who reports that the Black Knife has arrived at Black Market Island. Hawkins leaves his research facility to join Mark.
• The Black Knife docks at the island, then conceals itself by wrapping its hull in tentacles and sinking beneath the sea.
• Hawkins and Mark hire a young guide named Darren, who explains the island’s dangerous rules and power structure.
• Darren reveals that Black Market Island hosts a secret monthly auction and strictly forbids killing. The island has no single ruler; order is maintained by three powerful Lineages: the Black Hand Family, the Crimson Blood Family, and the Demon Blade Family.

Character Developments

• Victor becomes more determined and responsible after learning that Avril may be revived. His willingness to perform unpleasant missions shows his devotion to her.
• Mark grows more restrained following his humiliating defeat. Instead of acting impulsively, he focuses on becoming stronger and follows Hawkins’s warning not to cause trouble.
• Hawkins demonstrates his scientific curiosity and methodical nature through his curse-resistance experiments. His investigation suggests that physical size, rather than strength alone, may determine resistance to curses. He also acts cautiously and strategically when entering the Black Market.
• Darren is introduced as a resourceful young guide who understands the island’s hidden dangers and social rules.

Significant Themes

• Loyalty and sacrifice: Victor is willing to endure exhausting and degrading work to resurrect Avril.
• Growth through humiliation: Mark’s embarrassment forces him to abandon impulsiveness and pursue self-improvement.
• Science and the unknown: Hawkins attempts to uncover the biological secret behind curse immunity, showing humanity’s desire to understand and control supernatural forces.
• Power and lawlessness: Black Market Island exists outside the control of major powers, yet maintains order through strict rules and the influence of powerful families.
• Hidden danger and survival: The island appears uncontrolled, but its rules are enforced ruthlessly, making knowledge and caution essential.

Character Interactions

• The chat group teases Victor and assigns him the undesirable toilet-cleaning missions, while Hawkins gives him genuine hope regarding Avril’s resurrection.
• Mark and Hawkins travel together to Black Market Island, with Mark showing greater discipline under Hawkins’s leadership.
• Hawkins questions Darren and allows him to explain the island’s customs, auction system, restrictions, and ruling Lineages.
• Darren’s warning establishes that although Black Market Island has no official ruler, the three Great Families possess enough power to punish anyone who violates its laws.

Chapter Summary: “Resource Island”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Darren explains that Black Market Island is controlled by the Three Great Families, which maintain a balance of power through the Red-Clad Team. Bounties are handled at three locations according to their severity:
  • Robuchi’s Tea House: Good Grade bounties
  • Lando’s Rose Cottage: Fierce Grade bounties
  • Death Star Pavilion: commissions worth at least 1,000 Gold Coins
• Hawkins decides to visit Death Star Pavilion despite Darren’s warning that anyone entering must leave both a large payment and a task.
• Along the way, Hawkins buys bread from an assassin who also works as a surprisingly talented baker. He shares it with Mark and Darren, creating a brief, ordinary moment amid the danger.
• At Death Star Pavilion, Hawkins and Mark encounter multiple attackers. Mark kills more than ten of them in self-defense, exposing that Black Market Island’s prohibition against murder mainly applies to people without power.
• Darren panics and abandons them, warning that the Red-Clad Team will punish them regardless of whether the killings were justified.
• Meanwhile, the Water Ghost Seven Brothers attempt to seize the Black Knife, Hawkins’s diving-capable ship. They land on its tentacles and try to drill through them, but the ship’s defenses awaken, trapping and devouring them.
• Other observers realize that attacking the Black Knife directly is futile and conclude that Hawkins and Mark may be the key to obtaining it.
• Hawkins reveals that he has detected valuable resources beneath the island, including iron, gold, rare materials, and uranium. He decides to conquer Black Market Island and potentially transfer it into Eternal Space as a “resource island.”
• Hawkins suspects that the Three Great Families are only a public front. He believes the true powers behind Black Market Island are the Lords of Yazhong Island, Blackwood Island, and Hard Biscuit Island, who may have secretly absorbed or controlled it.
• The immediate goal becomes identifying the island’s actual administrator and discovering who truly controls it.

Character Developments

• Hawkins demonstrates strategic ambition and long-term planning. Rather than simply posting a bounty, he recognizes Black Market Island’s mineral wealth and begins considering its complete annexation.
• He also shows skepticism toward official explanations, quickly identifying the Three Great Families as a possible cover for stronger hidden powers.
• Mark continues to serve as Hawkins’s powerful and reliable enforcer. He effortlessly defeats the attackers and accepts Hawkins’s seemingly outrageous plan to occupy the island.
• Mark’s trust in Hawkins deepens; although he initially finds the plan unbelievable, he believes it is feasible because of Hawkins’s strength and intelligence.
• Darren acts as an informative but fearful guide. His willingness to help ends once violence erupts, revealing that survival takes priority over loyalty.
• The Water Ghost Seven Brothers, previously dangerous specialists in underwater piracy, are shown to be helpless against the Black Knife’s supernatural defenses.

Significant Themes

• Power versus law: The Black Market’s rules are portrayed as protections for the weak rather than genuine justice. Powerful individuals can kill with little consequence if they avoid official scrutiny.
• Hidden authority and political deception: The supposed Three Great Families may be a façade concealing the control of three powerful Lords.
• Resource exploitation and expansion: Hawkins views the island not merely as a criminal stronghold but as a valuable source of materials capable of advancing technology and military power.
• Strength and deterrence: The Black Knife’s defenses and Mark’s combat ability demonstrate how overwhelming power discourages direct challenges.
• Ordinary life amid violence: The bread seller’s skill and Hawkins’s casual meal with Mark and Darren briefly contrast with the assassinations, piracy, and political intrigue surrounding them.
• Technology constrained by supernatural rules: Hawkins can produce advanced weapons and machinery inside Eternal Space, but distance and Curse Power limitations prevent him from freely using them outside it.

Character Interactions

• Hawkins questions Darren about the island’s political structure and bounty system, gradually extracting useful information.
• Hawkins shares bread with Mark and Darren, briefly establishing camaraderie before the tension surrounding Death Star Pavilion returns.
• Darren warns Hawkins about Death Star Pavilion and later urges both men to flee after the killings, but ultimately leaves them behind.
• Mark asks Hawkins about his plan, and Hawkins reveals his intention to claim the island. Their exchange emphasizes Mark’s loyalty and Hawkins’s confidence.
• Hawkins and Mark discuss the island’s hidden ownership, with Hawkins presenting his theory that the Three Great Families are merely proxies for three Lords.
• The attackers’ assault and the Water Ghost brothers’ failed raid reinforce Hawkins and Mark’s position as the central targets—and the strongest forces—on the island.

Plot points and events

• News of Hawkins’s arrival spreads across Black Market Island within fifteen minutes.
• At Dalton Hotel, Dalton meets a masked representative of Lord Aldrich. The Lords want Hawkins captured if possible—preferably after he leaves the island—and ultimately dead, since they fear he could destroy the island.
• Dalton’s discussion is interrupted by news that Mark has killed the Red-Clad Team sent to arrest him. Hawkins and Mark are now heading toward Red-Clad Headquarters.
• Dalton decides to draw Hawkins out with a huge bounty: 5,000 Gold Coins for Hawkins and 3,000 for Mark.
• Hawkins explains that he suspects three possible powers behind the island: Robuchi of the Tea House, Dalton, and Vanessa of the Black Sail Trading Company. He is probing the island to identify its true master.
• Hawkins and Mark vanish through a Spatial Passage before the bounty hunters reach them. Some assassins head for the docks, realizing Hawkins’s ship may still be underwater.
• In Eternal Space, Hawkins transforms Yazhong Island: its buildings disappear and grass spreads across it. He then begins manipulating Curse Power to assemble particles into atoms and molecules.

Character developments and interactions

• Dalton shifts from lounging indifferently to taking the threat seriously once he learns that all the Lords agree Hawkins must die. He chooses to use wealth and a bounty to mobilize the island’s assassins.
• The masked representative calmly conveys the Lords’ position, emphasizing Hawkins’s destructive potential and the Lords’ united intent to eliminate him.
• Hawkins remains confident and methodical. Rather than rushing to seize the island, he uses the conflict to investigate its power structure and continues experimenting with his body and abilities.
• Mark questions Hawkins’s plan and notices his increasing height. He checks the Exchange Page, discovers height can be adjusted at a cost, and decides against spending points on it.
• The chapter also shows Hawkins and Mark operating closely as captain and subordinate: Mark asks practical questions, while Hawkins shares only what is useful to their plan.

Significant themes

• Power and control: The Lords’ influence is immense, but Hawkins has grown powerful enough to threaten their authority.
• Wealth as a weapon: Dalton turns his fortune into a means of recruiting assassins and manipulating events.
• Investigation and patience: Hawkins believes understanding who controls the island is essential before attempting to take it.
• Experimentation and adaptation: Hawkins tests how physical size affects curses and discovers that a larger body weakens his curse and expands his Spatial Passage.
• Limits of power: Becoming large enough to swallow the island would take immense food and time, leaving Hawkins vulnerable to powerful cursed relics.

Chapter Summary: “Mother”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hawkins completes the construction of an enormous artificial body on Yazhong Island. Abandoning the human form, he creates the Mother—a gigantic golden organism covered in eyes, mouths, limbs, and tentacles.
• The Mother is an ancient body Hawkins used billions of years ago while traveling through the universe. It contains superior genes, advanced organs, and the accumulated wisdom of countless civilizations.
• Hawkins transfers his consciousness into the Mother and confirms that its immense number of cells weakens the curse affecting him. The curse’s power is distributed across the body’s cells, making its effects nearly negligible.
• The Mother’s capabilities vastly increase Hawkins’s intelligence and multitasking ability. However, most of its cells are composed of materials from Eternal Space, preventing it from leaving that realm.
• Hawkins uses Splitting and Proliferation to reconstruct his original body from the Mother. He becomes “Mother Hawkins,” with his consciousness housed in the Mother rather than his physical body.
• This grants him near-immortality: even if his body is destroyed, his consciousness survives through the Mother. However, there is a brief delay before Curse Power can protect him, creating a small vulnerability in combat.
• Hawkins experiments with the blowgun’s Air Compression ability. With the Mother’s protection, he compresses air into a black hole and later compresses atmospheric hydrogen to trigger a nuclear explosion.
• The Mother prevents both experiments from causing lasting destruction, restoring the laboratory and island to normal. Hawkins concludes that even seemingly weak Cursed Relics can become extraordinarily dangerous when combined with scientific knowledge.
• The chapter ends with Hawkins preparing to launch an assault on Black Market Island.

Character Developments

• Hawkins gains a powerful new form and a deeper understanding of how his curse works. His intelligence, survivability, and experimental freedom increase dramatically.
• He becomes more willing to take extreme risks, since the Mother can preserve his consciousness and reconstruct his body.
• Hawkins also recognizes the limitations of his new state, particularly the reaction delay and his inability to take the Mother outside Eternal Space.
• Mark has become accustomed to cleaning toilets to earn Exchange Points. His desperation for rewards leads him to split one bowel movement into multiple missions, though this leaves him scrambling to finish before joining the assault.

Significant Themes

• Scientific knowledge amplifying supernatural power: The chapter emphasizes that an ordinary-sounding ability like Air Compression can become world-destroying when used with advanced physics.
• Immortality and identity: Hawkins’s consciousness moves between bodies, raising the question of whether the reconstructed version is still the same person.
• Power and limitations: The Mother grants enormous advantages but introduces vulnerabilities, resource demands, and restrictions.
• Experimentation and risk-taking: With death no longer final, Hawkins is free to test increasingly dangerous possibilities.
• Humor amid danger: Mark’s toilet-cleaning routine and his awkward concern about Jennie provide comic relief against Hawkins’s cosmic-scale experiments.

Character Interactions

• Hawkins interacts primarily with the Mother, treating it as both an old familiar body and a tool for experimentation.
• His communication with Mark through the Chat Group initiates preparations for the attack on Black Market Island.
• Mark’s thoughts about Jennie reveal his romantic interest and motivate his otherwise humiliating work.

Chapter Summary: “Seeing the Small, Knowing the Great: Probability Power!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hawkins and Mark arrive at Black Market Island at night, immediately triggering an attack by the island’s many disguised killers.
• Mark effortlessly fights the ordinary assassins with the help of Silver Wolf, but Baldhead—a powerful killer with a soil-based Cursed Relic—drags him underground.
• Hawkins confronts the remaining attackers alone. He catches a thrown knife, kills its user, and easily avoids an explosive ambush by exploiting his massively accelerated thought process.
• He identifies a dwarf assassin attempting to attack him with concealed hair, revealing that most of the island’s killers rely on crude tactics rather than genuine skill.
• Through the Chat Group, Hawkins observes Mark battling Baldhead underground. Mark is able to survive and fight beneath the soil despite lacking any ability to burrow.
• From this, Hawkins deduces that Curse Power is fundamentally Probability Power: it increases the likelihood of favorable outcomes and suppresses unfavorable ones.
• Hawkins further realizes that Curse Power cannot create completely nonexistent abilities. It can enhance an existing possibility, but it cannot make someone fly or burrow without the necessary qualities or mechanisms.
• He also theorizes that George’s Negative Curse Power decreases probability, functioning as the opposite of Positive Curse Power.
• Hawkins releases the Masha Virus through compressed air, incapacitating and killing most of the surrounding killers. The surviving attackers flee.
• He uses electromagnetism to pull soil from the ground, creating an “earth dragon” that brings Mark and Baldhead to the surface.
• Baldhead attempts to escape underground, but Hawkins’s magnetic field lifts and immobilizes him.
• Mark is impressed by Hawkins’s ability and asks whether it can be exchanged as a power. Hawkins explains that it is ordinary electromagnetism enhanced by advanced calculations performed by Mother.

Character Developments

• Hawkins demonstrates overwhelming combat ability, tactical awareness, and improved control over his powers. His synchronized thought process with Mother gives him an effective hundredfold Brain Overclocking state.
• He shows significant intellectual growth by deducing the underlying nature of Curse Power from Mark’s situation.
• Hawkins also displays greater mastery of electromagnetism, though he admits that Mother performs the complex calculations required for such precise control.
• Mark proves far stronger than ordinary assassins and continues fighting even while trapped underground. His survival provides the crucial evidence that leads Hawkins to understand Probability Power.
• Baldhead is established as one of the few genuinely formidable killers on the island. His Cursed Relic allows him to manipulate or withstand soil underground, but he is ultimately helpless against Hawkins’s magnetic control.
• Mother functions as Hawkins’s enhanced mental processor, accelerating his perception and handling complex calculations.
• The island’s killers are revealed to be largely untrained opportunists rather than disciplined professionals.

Significant Themes

• The nature of probability and power: Curse Power does not create miracles outright; it shifts the odds of events that are already possible.
• Observation and deduction: Hawkins gains a major insight by studying a seemingly minor detail—Mark’s ability to survive underground.
• Knowledge as power: Understanding how an ability works is nearly as important as possessing it.
• Limits of supernatural abilities: Even Probability Power has rules and cannot grant impossible qualities.
• Civilization versus brute violence: The killers rely on numbers, ambushes, and weapons, but their lack of training leaves them vulnerable to someone with superior understanding and technique.
• Life and greed: The fleeing killers realize that gold is worthless if they die before they can spend it.

Character Interactions

• Mark and Hawkins fight side by side, with Mark handling close combat while Hawkins analyzes and controls the battlefield.
• Hawkins communicates with Mother and Ai Miye through the Chat Group to check on Mark and observe his underground battle.
• Hawkins’s deductions about Mark’s survival deepen his understanding of Curse Power.
• After rescuing Mark, Hawkins catches him in midair and explains that his spectacular technique is simply electromagnetism.
• Mark’s surprised reaction highlights the gap between Hawkins’s casual explanations and the tremendous complexity behind his abilities.
• Hawkins tells Mark he will post the relevant knowledge on the Forum, encouraging him to study rather than merely imitate the power.

Chapter Summary: “Robuchi’s Insect Army”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Baldhead, whose real name is Xiao Yaojin, is captured by Hawkins after his defeat. He immediately surrenders and attempts to ingratiate himself with Hawkins, even jokingly claiming that they are now friends.
• Hawkins spares Xiao Yaojin’s life but postpones deciding his punishment until after the situation on Black Market Island is resolved. He stores him in Eternal Space.
• While investigating who organized the attack against them, Mark assumes Robuchi or Vanessa is responsible. Hawkins reasons that the true mastermind is Dalton, since only someone exceptionally wealthy could afford the enormous bounty placed on them.
• Before Hawkins and Mark can reach the Dalton Hotel, Robuchi confronts them. He reveals that he has spent years preparing an army of cursed insects to fight powerful opponents.
• Robuchi’s insects—cockroaches, centipedes, bees, ants, geckos, locusts, and strange creatures unique to the world—swarm Hawkins and Mark. Because the insects carry curses, even their small bodies can wield unusually dangerous powers.
• A venomous centipede pierces Hawkins’s arm, dissolving the Curse Power beneath his skin and apparently neutralizing his defenses. Robuchi explains that he developed this method specifically to defeat people with abilities like Hawkins’s.
• Robuchi summons an enormous flying swarm and boasts that Hawkins cannot escape. However, Hawkins uses Mother’s calculations and electromagnetic technology to create a microwave field, causing the insects to ignite and die.
• Hawkins then knocks Robuchi unconscious with a surprise attack. His hair probes Robuchi’s body and reads his memories, revealing the origin and function of the insect army.
• Robuchi cultivated the insects through a brutal survival-of-the-fittest process involving Cursed Relics. The surviving insects inherited relic-like abilities, and Robuchi spread them throughout Black Market Island to monitor everyone who arrived there.

Character Developments

• Hawkins remains confident and analytical. Rather than relying solely on brute force, he studies Robuchi’s methods, identifies the weakness of the insect swarm, and defeats it through technological ingenuity.
• Mark continues to provide comic relief through his fear of the insects and his confusion about Hawkins’s deductions. He also shows complete trust in Hawkins, even when he cannot follow Hawkins’s reasoning.
• Xiao Yaojin/Baldhead is revealed as pragmatic and shamelessly self-preserving. His arrogance disappears immediately after defeat, and he tries to survive by flattering Hawkins.
• Robuchi is established as a highly experienced and calculating underworld figure. He has spent twenty-five years preparing countermeasures against powerful “special” individuals, but his confidence collapses when Hawkins’s abilities exceed his expectations.

Significant Themes

• Adaptability and strategic thinking: Hawkins wins not through overwhelming force alone, but by analyzing his opponent and exploiting technology to counter the cursed insects.
• Survival of the fittest: Robuchi’s insect army reflects a harsh evolutionary process in which weaker creatures die and stronger ones inherit dangerous abilities.
• Power and preparation: Robuchi’s long preparation makes him formidable on Black Market Island, yet preparation cannot guarantee victory against an opponent capable of adapting faster.
• Appearances versus true strength: Xiao Yaojin’s intimidating confidence vanishes after defeat, while Robuchi’s seemingly unbeatable army is ultimately countered by Hawkins’s hidden capabilities.
• Information as power: Hawkins gathers clues from the killers, questions Robuchi strategically, and finally extracts his memories to uncover how the insect network operates.

Character Interactions

• Xiao Yaojin begs Hawkins for mercy while Mark mocks his earlier arrogance. Hawkins humorously observes the oddity of Xiao Yaojin’s name but refuses to accept his claim of friendship.
• Mark repeatedly guesses incorrectly about the mastermind, first suggesting Robuchi and then Vanessa. Hawkins corrects him and explains how money, rather than influence alone, motivates the assassins.
• Robuchi taunts Hawkins and explains his strategy for bypassing Curse Power, believing his preparation has guaranteed victory.
• Hawkins pretends to engage with Robuchi’s explanation while allowing him to waste time summoning more insects. He then turns the tables, destroys the swarm, defeats Robuchi, and learns the truth from his memories.

Chapter Summary: “Death Star Pavilion Commission!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hawkins kills Robuchi by burning out his brain with microwaves, ending the assassin broker’s control over the island’s assassins.
• He discovers Robuchi’s Animal Friend Badge, a cursed relic that causes animals to regard its owner as their most important friend. Hawkins realizes this explains Robuchi’s numerous “wives” and stores the badge in Eternal Space.
• Hawkins heads to Dalton Hotel, where venomous insects have already killed many guards. The remaining security forces are terrified of him and avoid confrontation.
• Hawkins meets Dalton and the former pirate Blackbeard Braid, an old rival. Rather than kill Braid, Hawkins orders Dalton to evacuate everyone from Black Market Island within one week.
• Dalton interprets Hawkins’s ultimatum as an attempt to seize the island and become a pirate king. Determined to resist, he decides to seek help from the mysterious Death Star Pavilion.
• Dalton secretly enters the Pavilion, writes Hawkins’s name on paper, and offers ten bags of gold coins to commission Hawkins’s assassination.
• Meanwhile, Hawkins leaves the island aboard the Black Knife. He consumes large amounts of fish to replenish the energy expended during his attacks and stores even the bones in Eternal Space.

Character Developments

• Hawkins demonstrates overwhelming power and confidence. He is practical rather than needlessly cruel, choosing to evacuate Black Market Island’s inhabitants instead of killing or absorbing them into Eternal Space.
• His vast resources have made him indifferent to ordinary wealth; gold no longer motivates him, though he considers whether his companions deserve higher wages.
• Dalton becomes increasingly desperate and resentful after realizing Hawkins intends to take control of the island. His fear drives him to risk using Death Star Pavilion, despite its mysterious and dangerous reputation.
• Blackbeard Braid, once Hawkins’s rival, is now subordinate to Dalton and visibly afraid of Hawkins. Hawkins’s decision to spare him establishes that his threats are deliberate rather than indiscriminate.
• Robuchi is revealed to have relied not only on his position as broker but also on formidable strength and the power of cursed relics.

Significant Themes

• Power and obedience: The assassins obeyed Robuchi because his strength reinforced his authority; Hawkins similarly commands obedience through overwhelming power.
• Fear as control: Dalton Hotel’s guards, Blackbeard Braid, and Dalton himself all act under the pressure of Hawkins’s reputation and threats.
• Wealth versus true power: Dalton attempts to solve the crisis with gold, but Hawkins has access to nearly unlimited resources and no longer values money.
• Moral restraint amid violence: Hawkins is ruthless toward enemies but avoids unnecessary killing, preferring to remove civilians from danger rather than destroy them.
• Exploitation and corruption: Death Star Pavilion’s history is tied to the enslavement of the island’s original inhabitants, reflecting the Black Market’s brutal foundations.
• Accumulation and survival: Hawkins’s practice of storing fish, bones, and other materials in Eternal Space highlights his constant preparation and the enormous resource demands of his abilities.

Character Interactions

• Hawkins and the hotel guards have a tense but nonviolent encounter; he reassures them that they will survive if they do not attack.
• Hawkins confronts Dalton and insults Blackbeard Braid, reminding them of his superior status.
• He gives Dalton a direct ultimatum rather than negotiating, forcing Dalton into a defensive position.
• Dalton consults with his security captain and a masked associate before deciding to commission Death Star Pavilion.
• The chapter ends with Hawkins unaware of Dalton’s assassination request, replenishing his energy while preparing for what comes next.

Chapter Summary: “God and God”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hawkins explains that Dalton was chosen to relocate Black Market Island’s residents because Dalton’s wealth and dependence on the island would force him to make interesting moves. With Mother supporting him, Hawkins prefers observing Dalton rather than killing him outright.
• Dalton places a bounty on Hawkins through Death Star Pavilion, awakening Trist, an ancient being who has spent centuries partially assimilated into the Dream Realm.
• Trist, a five-hundred-year-old Curse Caster, returns to reality after receiving enough Gold Coins. He possesses five powerful Cursed Relics, including:
  • Shoes that allow rapid spatial movement
  • A circlet that stores his body
  • A bracelet that condenses photons
  • A necklace granting “constancy,” or rapid recovery
  • A ring that reveals an opponent’s true strength
• Trist quickly locates the Black Knife and attacks Hawkins with an enormous sphere of concentrated light. Hawkins blocks it with spatial ripples, revealing one of his abilities.
• Trist continues attacking from different directions, eventually bypassing Hawkins’s limited spatial defense. The Black Knife is badly damaged, and Hawkins is pierced several times.
• However, Trist is poisoned by Hawkins’s abilities. Although his necklace restores him, he recognizes that Hawkins possesses both a powerful spatial defense and a deadly poison.
• Trist demands that Hawkins surrender his spatial ability in exchange for his life and arrogantly declares himself a genuine God, superior to ordinary Curse Casters.
• Hawkins compares Trist’s claim to his own past experiences of being worshiped as a god. He then proposes that they meet “God” and determine whose claim is more legitimate.
• Hawkins opens a spatial passage to Eternal Space. Although Trist shoots through Hawkins’s neck, Hawkins’s ability remains active even after his apparent death, pulling both of them through.
• They arrive on Yazhong Island, where Trist senses an overwhelming and terrifying presence behind him. The chapter ends with him turning toward a dazzling golden light and screaming in terror.

Character Developments

• Hawkins: Demonstrates increasing confidence and strategic control. He deliberately allows Trist to attack so he can learn about the ancient Curse Caster, while also using the battle to gather photon energy. His apparent death is revealed to be part of a larger plan to transport Trist into Eternal Space.
• Trist: Introduced as an ancient, highly experienced and powerful Curse Caster. Despite his immense abilities and arrogance, he is not foolish; he analyzes Hawkins’s defenses and adapts his attack pattern. His confidence collapses when he encounters the unknown presence in Eternal Space.
• Dalton: Though absent from the confrontation, he advances the plot by placing the bounty that awakens Trist. His desperation and wealth make him an important catalyst in Hawkins’s plans.
• Mother: Her support changes Hawkins’s behavior, encouraging him to manipulate events and give Dalton opportunities rather than immediately eliminating him.

Significant Themes

• The nature of godhood: Both Hawkins and Trist have been treated—or regard themselves—as gods, raising questions about whether godhood comes from power, worship, age, or genuine transcendence.
• Arrogance versus true power: Trist believes himself superior because of his age and abilities, but his certainty is shaken when he encounters something far beyond his understanding.
• Deception and strategy: Hawkins relies on misdirection, delayed reveals, and psychological manipulation rather than overwhelming force.
• Mortality and perspective: Hawkins’s recollection of being worshiped by primitive beings contrasts with Trist’s proud self-image, suggesting that “god” is often a title dependent on the observer’s level of understanding.
• The unknown: Eternal Space and the golden presence introduce a much greater power or mystery, implying that Seven Seas conceals forces beyond even ancient Curse Casters.

Character Interactions

• Hawkins and Trist engage in a battle of powers and intellect rather than a simple confrontation.
• Trist alternates between attacking Hawkins and questioning him, becoming intrigued by Hawkins’s unusual abilities.
• Hawkins mocks Trist’s self-proclaimed divinity and turns Trist’s demand for answers into a philosophical challenge.
• Their confrontation ends with Hawkins tricking or forcing Trist into Eternal Space, where Trist encounters a presence that appears vastly more frightening than anything he has previously faced.

Key plot points and events

• The Black Knife sails toward Vitalia Island, with Hawkins planning a month-long trip to explore its southern coast. He intends to reorganize Eternal Space, teach the crew practical knowledge, and continue improving the ship; he may also deal with Jabus if they meet.
• Hawkins tries to teach the group mathematics, especially because it would help them understand electromagnetism. Most of them protest, though Mark quickly changes his mind when Jennie praises the subject.
• When Hawkins teases Mark about being attracted to Jennie, the group piles on with mock surprise. Jennie’s attendant, Qiao Si, tries to discover whom Jennie likes, but Jennie refuses to reveal it. Her clues suggest that she has known her beloved for a long time, and that the person is female.
• Inside Eternal Space, the crew sail an ordinary version of the Black Knife through a dangerous storm. Mark is distracted by his feelings for Jennie and nearly steers into a whirlpool, but Arthur’s arrival brings him back to his senses. Mother watches over the ship so the crew will not waste a revival opportunity.
• A conversation with Arthur prompts Mark to question whether his attraction to Jennie is genuine affection or simply physical desire. He recognizes her flaws but still finds it difficult to stop liking her.
• The chapter ends with Hawkins recalling his past relationships: a failed marriage, a romance thwarted by the revelation of his age, and a wartime affair with a nurse who was even older than him. Their endings leave him reflecting on time, love, and his own aging.

Character developments and interactions

• Hawkins is a patient but practical mentor, allowing the crew to stop studying mathematics while still urging them to keep learning. His teasing embarrasses Mark and Jennie. His memories reveal a long history of love and loss, as well as a growing tendency to look back on his life.
• Mark is openly attracted to Jennie, but her distance after Hawkins exposes his feelings leaves him discouraged. Arthur’s question makes him examine what he values in her, though he cannot simply abandon his feelings.
• Jennie is embarrassed by the group’s teasing and evasive about her love interest. Her conversation with Qiao Si hints at a private attachment to someone from her past.
• Arthur shares that he likes Ai Miye and helps Mark recover from a dangerous moment by interrupting his distraction.
• Qiao Si acts as Jennie’s confidante and presses her for the truth, but Jennie keeps it secret.

Significant themes

• Love and attraction: Mark struggles to distinguish lasting affection from physical desire, while Hawkins’s past romances show how love can be tested by age, family pressure, and circumstance.
• Learning and preparation: Hawkins values knowledge as a way to prepare the crew for unpredictable situations, even when they resist it.
• Time and aging: Hawkins’s recollections contrast his prolonged lifespan with relationships that remain vulnerable to ordinary human limits.
• Humor and camaraderie: The group’s teasing and banter provide a lighthearted counterpoint to the storm, romantic uncertainty, and Hawkins’s melancholy memories.

Chapter Summary: “Secret Treasure—Lost Ark”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hawkins’s discovery of the Eternal Sea Chart changes his outlook. Instead of passively traveling through worlds and witnessing their destruction, he now has hope that he can actively search for his lost friends and family.
• His improved mood leads him to enjoy life at sea more fully, including cooking for himself. He prepares grilled fish because he feels the controlled marines’ cooking is inferior.
• In the crew’s chat group, the marines joke about Hawkins entering the kitchen and discuss the strange stories and scientific articles he has posted on the Forum. Mark attempts to explain everything through Cursed Relics, including scientific forces, prompting the others to tease him.
• Hawkins shares the grilled fish with Mark and explains that different cooks can make the same dish taste different. Their conversation also reveals that the Seven Seas lack clear concepts of gods and immortals, motivating Hawkins’s decision to publish stories such as Journey to the West.
• A mysterious, badly maintained three-masted ship appears. Though it resembles a ghost ship, Hawkins initially assumes it is merely old and neglected.
• Mark notices that the ship appears to have no crew. Hawkins investigates using his Curse Power, which passes through the vessel while they are still aboard the Black Knife.
• Despite the danger, Hawkins approaches the ship alone. Once he lands on its deck, the vessel becomes detectable to his Curse Power, while the Black Knife becomes undetectable.
• Golden words identify the vessel as “Secret Treasure—Lost Ark.” It is described as a ship that constantly gets lost, has an unknown destination, and possesses an enormous appetite.
• Hawkins attempts to store the Lost Ark in his Eternal Space, but the surrounding scenery instantly changes. The Black Knife disappears, and Hawkins realizes he has been transported to an unknown sea along with the vessel.
• Rather than panic, Hawkins is fascinated by the phenomenon. He successfully stores the Lost Ark inside Eternal Space.
• Mark, left aboard the Black Knife, reports the ship’s sudden disappearance in the Chat Group and asks whether Hawkins is safe.

Character Developments

• Hawkins: Becomes more hopeful, cheerful, and adventurous after obtaining the Eternal Sea Chart. He shifts from passive observation to active exploration and takes risks because of his renewed purpose. His curiosity overcomes his former caution.
• Mark: Remains energetic, naive, and deeply committed to interpreting the world through Cursed Relics. He is concerned for Hawkins’s safety and demonstrates loyalty by immediately informing the others.
• The crew: Their joking conversations reveal growing familiarity with Hawkins and a relaxed group dynamic. They are curious about his writings and increasingly willing to question Mark’s simplistic explanations.

Significant Themes

• Hope as transformation: Hope changes Hawkins’s behavior, making him happier and more willing to act rather than merely endure or observe.
• Curiosity versus caution: Hawkins knowingly investigates a supernatural vessel despite the risks, reflecting his growing adventurous spirit.
• Limits of explanation: The crew’s debate over Cursed Relics and science highlights the difficulty of understanding unfamiliar phenomena through only one worldview.
• The unknown and endless possibility: The Lost Ark represents unpredictable travel, mystery, and the limitless possibilities now opened to Hawkins through the Eternal Sea Chart.

Character Interactions

• The Chat Group provides comic relief through Mark’s exaggerated concern about Hawkins cooking and his insistence that Cursed Relics explain everything.
• Hawkins gently mocks Mark’s lack of knowledge about gods and immortals while explaining why he publishes stories for the crew.
• Hawkins and Mark share grilled fish, establishing a quiet moment of companionship before the mysterious ship appears.
• Mark follows Hawkins’s orders during the investigation and later expresses immediate concern when Hawkins vanishes, reinforcing their captain-and-subordinate relationship.

Chapter Summary: “What an Appetite!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Mark and the others realize they—not Hawkins—are the ones who became separated from Eternal Space. Since Eternal Space is bound to Hawkins, he can return whenever he wishes, while they must eventually gain the ability to open spatial passages themselves.
• Hawkins reveals that he has already returned to Eternal Space and plans to deal with the Lost Ark’s anomaly before going back to the Black Knife. He also considers creating a way for others to return independently.
• The Lost Ark unexpectedly escapes Eternal Space, appearing near an island. Hawkins becomes concerned that the ship may be impossible to confine—and that other beings or “thieves” might also be able to enter and leave Eternal Space freely.
• Hawkins explores the abandoned ship and discovers numerous skeletons. In the captain’s quarters, he finds the voyage log of Captain Max, a powerful Curse Caster.
• Max’s log describes his journeys into the Dream Realm and the dangerous Greed Realm, which he entered in hopes of obtaining a treasure that could allow him to reunite with a woman named Maning. His entries become increasingly obsessive, ending with repeated references to Maning.
• In the first mate Damon’s room, Hawkins finds a diary revealing that Damon manipulated Max into exploring the Greed Realm as expendable “cannon fodder.” Damon explains that the Greed Realm can purify Cursed Relics born from greed, potentially transforming them into Deep Secret Treasures.
• Hawkins questions how the Lost Ark itself became a Secret Treasure, but Damon’s diary provides no answer.
• A sailor’s diary reveals that Maning was unnatural, Max gradually became mentally unstable, and the ship itself eventually came alive and trapped the crew. The sailor warns any future discoverer to flee.
• Immediately after reading this warning, Hawkins is mysteriously reduced to a skeleton, implying that the Lost Ark—or something within it—has attacked him.

Character Developments

• Hawkins remains analytical and cautious, investigating the Lost Ark systematically and connecting the ship’s history to the Dream Realm, Secret Treasures, and Cursed Relics. However, his confidence is undermined when he is suddenly attacked.
• Mark and Arthur become aware of their dependence on Hawkins and Eternal Space, increasing their urgency to obtain independent access.
• Captain Max is revealed as powerful but emotionally vulnerable. His love for Maning drives him into the Greed Realm and ultimately appears to consume his sanity.
• Damon is exposed as manipulative and calculating. He deliberately exploits Max’s obsession for his own purposes.
• Maning becomes increasingly mysterious and threatening. Her disappearance, connection to Max’s madness, and apparent influence over the ship suggest that she may be central to the Lost Ark’s transformation.
• The Lost Ark shifts from being merely an abandoned vessel to an active, possibly living entity capable of trapping and killing its occupants.

Significant Themes

• Obsession and desire: Max’s longing for Maning drives him toward increasingly dangerous choices, while greed functions as a powerful force capable of shaping entire realms.
• Manipulation and exploitation: Damon weaponizes Max’s emotions, showing how personal desire can be used by others.
• The unknown nature of power: Hawkins discovers that even Eternal Space has limitations, challenging his assumption that he is effectively omnipotent within it.
• Transformation and corruption: The Greed Realm may purify cursed objects, while the Lost Ark appears to have evolved into something sentient and deadly.
• Curiosity versus survival: Hawkins continues investigating despite clear signs of danger, while the sailor’s final warning emphasizes the need to flee rather than seek answers.

Character Interactions

• Mark, Arthur, Qiao Si, Jennie, and Victor discuss their separation from Hawkins and learn that Hawkins—not they—can freely return to Eternal Space.
• Hawkins communicates with Mark and reassures him that he and Arthur will eventually be able to return.
• Hawkins reconstructs the relationship between Max and Damon through their journals: Damon provides information, Max risks his life pursuing it, and Damon uses him as a disposable explorer.
• The sailor’s diary serves as a final indirect warning to Hawkins, but he is attacked before he can act on it.

Chapter Summary: “This Is My Strength!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hawkins discovers that his death aboard the Lost Ark was genuine and occurred instantaneously, without warning. Mother reconstructs a new body for him from reality cells.
• He concludes that the Lost Ark deliberately consumed him, costing him one body and 200,000 units of Curse Power. His planted viruses also disappeared, leaving him with no way to track or revisit the Ark.
• Hawkins organizes the information recovered from Max and Damon’s diaries:
  • The Dream Realm consists of multiple layers.
  • A Greed Realm may exist.
  • Cursed Relics can potentially evolve into Secret Treasures and lose their cursed nature.
  • Secret Treasures may possess consciousness and possibly betray their owners.
  • Secret Treasures appear to rank above Cursed Relics.
• Because Hawkins is missing, Mark and Arthur remain aboard the Black Knife instead of continuing toward Vitalia Island.
• A mysterious liquid-based enemy attacks the ship. Mark sends Arthur to safety and engages the intruder.
• The attacker reveals that he intends to kill Mark and later deal with Hawkins, whom he calls the “Son of Pirates.”
• Mark and the liquid man exchange attacks. Mark’s invisible Silver Wolf grants him powerful defensive and cutting abilities, allowing him to sever the enemy’s liquid attacks and resist being crushed.
• Mark theorizes that the liquid man possesses a hidden core and attempts a dramatic finishing attack while livestreaming his supposed display of strength.
• Although Mark cuts the enemy into four pieces, the liquid reforms into four massive arms and launches him into the sea. The chapter ends with Mark stunned that he has seemingly lost yet another fight.

Character Developments

• Hawkins: Becomes more cautious and analytical after his encounter with the Lost Ark. Although frustrated by the limited reward and loss of resources, he carefully records the intelligence he obtained and recognizes how much remains uncertain.
• Mark: Shows improved confidence, caution, and combat awareness compared with his previous battles. He no longer underestimates opponents simply because they are not Curse Casters, but he still overestimates his own tactical ability and is ultimately outmaneuvered.
• Arthur: Remains inexperienced and easily frightened, but trusts Mark to protect him. He follows Mark’s orders and retreats to the crow’s nest during the attack.
• Liquid Man: Initially arrogant and dismissive of Mark, he becomes more attentive after realizing that Mark is stronger than expected. He relies on probing attacks and deception to discover Mark’s abilities and exploits Mark’s inferior combat awareness.

Significant Themes

• The cost of knowledge: Hawkins gains valuable information about the Dream Realm and Secret Treasures, but the knowledge comes at the expense of a body and a large amount of Curse Power.
• Uncertainty and incomplete truth: Much of the diary information is unverified, emphasizing that even major discoveries remain speculative.
• Growth through defeat: Mark’s mindset has improved because of earlier humiliating losses, yet his repeated defeats show that psychological growth alone does not guarantee victory.
• Confidence versus overconfidence: Mark’s desire to prove his strength leads him to stage a dramatic attack, while the liquid man remains practical and focuses on finding weaknesses.
• The danger of unfamiliar powers: Both Hawkins and Mark encounter abilities they cannot fully understand, reinforcing the unpredictability of the Seven Seas and its supernatural artifacts.

Character Interactions

• Hawkins and Mother: Mother silently reconstructs Hawkins after his death, demonstrating their unusual reliance on one another.
• Mark and Arthur: Their relaxed conversation is interrupted by danger. Mark protects Arthur and takes responsibility for confronting the attacker.
• Mark and Liquid Man: Their battle is a contest of testing abilities and deception. Mark relies on defense and Silver Wolf’s cutting power, while Liquid Man uses hidden liquid beneath the deck and repeated attacks to analyze Mark.
• Mark and Hawkins: Though Hawkins is absent, Mark repeatedly invokes his captain’s strength, believing the enemy would already be dead if Hawkins were present. His attempt to livestream his victory also reflects his desire to prove himself, implicitly to Hawkins and others.

Chapter Summary: “This Formula Was Flawless!”

1. Key Plot Points and Events

• Mark is attacked by Liquid Man and dragged underwater during a livestream, prompting the chat group to joke that Mark is cursed to be sent flying whenever he broadcasts a fight.
• Unable to locate Liquid Man in the water, Mark nearly drowns. Hawkins realizes that Mark’s “Curse Power” is actually probability-based and explains that Mark’s own subconscious belief that humans cannot breathe underwater is preventing the power from helping him.
• Jennie encourages Mark not to die. Mark interprets her concern as proof that she loves him, imagining a future marriage and family together.
• Motivated by the imagined threat to his future with Jennie, Mark enters a berserk state. Silver Wolf’s power fuses with him, transforming his body into a silver, werewolf-like form.
• Mark attacks Liquid Man relentlessly underwater, injuring him and forcing him to flee. The battle continues across the sea, with Mark pursuing Liquid Man both through the water and over its surface.
• Liquid Man eventually splits himself into two streams to escape. Mark pursues and destroys one, but the other gets away. Exhausted, Mark reverts to normal, loses consciousness, and sinks into the sea.
• Hawkins rescues Mark and takes him to Eternal Space, intending to examine and stabilize his body and mind if necessary.

2. Character Developments

• Mark: Nearly dies from drowning but overcomes his physical limits through intense emotional motivation. His belief that Jennie loves him triggers a powerful transformation and reveals that his bond with Silver Wolf can produce a dangerous, berserk werewolf form. However, he loses rational control and may require treatment.
• Jennie: Her worried message unintentionally becomes the catalyst for Mark’s transformation. She is embarrassed when Hawkins suggests that Mark’s power comes from love, but her concern demonstrates genuine care for him.
• Hawkins: Shows scientific insight by identifying the limits of Mark’s Curse Power and later proposes that Liquid Man could be defeated through electrolysis. He also remains prepared to rescue and rehabilitate Mark.
• Qiao Si: Becomes more determined to study and improve herself after realizing that scientific knowledge might have helped Mark in battle. Her desire to protect her companions strengthens her commitment to learning.
• Liquid Man: Demonstrates great advantages in underwater combat, concealment, speed, and escape tactics. Even so, Mark’s transformation overwhelms him and forces him to sacrifice part of his body to survive.

3. Significant Themes

• The power of belief and emotion: Mark’s subconscious beliefs limit his abilities, while his emotional conviction gives him extraordinary strength.
• Love as both motivation and delusion: Mark’s leap from Jennie’s concern to marriage, love, and children is comically exaggerated, yet the imagined future genuinely empowers him.
• Science and supernatural power: Hawkins combines observation and scientific reasoning with supernatural abilities, suggesting that knowledge can be as valuable as raw strength.
• The danger of uncontrolled power: Mark’s transformation makes him stronger but also mentally unstable, raising questions about whether victory is worthwhile if the fighter loses control.
• Preparation and self-improvement: Qiao Si’s decision to study emphasizes that survival depends not only on talent but also on learning and preparation.

4. Character Interactions

• The chat group watches Mark’s livestream and reacts with amusement, concern, and disbelief as he repeatedly gets overwhelmed and then suddenly powers up.
• Hawkins guides Mark indirectly by explaining the nature of Curse Power and later discusses how electricity might defeat Liquid Man.
• Jennie’s brief encouragement has a profound effect on Mark, though she is embarrassed by his wildly romantic interpretation of it.
• Qiao Si asks Hawkins for advice and is inspired to study so she can better protect her companions.
• Hawkins takes responsibility for Mark after the battle, ready to intervene if Mark cannot return from his werewolf-like state.

Chapter Summary: “Resonant Fusion”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Mark awakens after losing a day and discovers that his memories have become confused. He remembers the lives of Osborn, Wallace, and Baisangni as though they were his own, causing him to question his identity.
• Hawkins explains that Mark transformed into a Werewolf during a livestream. Mark watches the recording and realizes that his transformation was far more violent and powerful than he remembers.
• Hawkins theorizes that Mark’s three Cursed Relics merged by absorbing the memories and experiences of their former owners. The fusion did not simply create a new power; it also mixed the identities and emotions of the dead with Mark’s consciousness.
• Hawkins enters Mark’s mind and finds three distinct memory groups:
  • Osborn, a forest warrior who died from a spear wound.
  • Wallace, an intelligent wolf who became a pack leader before being defeated and killed by humans.
  • Baisangni, a wealthy nobleman poisoned by his own son and concubine.
• The memories are dominated by intense final emotions: Osborn’s attachment to his comrade, Wallace’s desperate refusal to die, and Baisangni’s sorrow, rage, and betrayal.
• Hawkins reorganizes Mark’s memories, changing his perspective from personally experiencing them to observing them as someone else’s stories. This removes their emotional control over him and restores Mark’s mental clarity.
• Hawkins suggests that Mark’s Werewolf transformation may be a form of Resonant Fusion, triggered when Mark’s emotions resonated with those stored in the Cursed Relics.
• In the laboratory, Hawkins tests whether he can activate the same phenomenon through emotions such as joy, anger, melancholy, longing, grief, fear, and shock. All attempts fail.
• He concludes that ordinary emotional imitation is insufficient. Resonant Fusion requires a genuinely similar situation and emotional state—specifically, the instinctive desire to survive.
• Hawkins mentally creates a realistic scenario in which he is being dragged into a black hole. Because he fully believes the danger and possesses a powerful survival instinct, the Eternal Spirit finally responds and merges into his body.

Character Developments

• Mark begins the chapter psychologically unstable, uncertain whether he is truly himself or a combination of several people. After Hawkins separates the memories from his personal identity, Mark regains control and becomes more hopeful about mastering his Werewolf transformation.
• Hawkins demonstrates both emotional sensitivity and scientific discipline. He helps Mark recover, deduces the likely mechanism behind Resonant Fusion, and immediately begins controlled experiments to verify his theory.
• Osborn, Wallace, and Baisangni are developed through their final memories. Though dead, their unresolved desires—especially their refusal to die—continue influencing Mark’s abilities.
• Hawkins’s experiment also reveals his unusually strong control over his own consciousness and subconscious, allowing him to make an imagined threat feel completely real.

Significant Themes

• Identity and memory: The chapter explores whether identity is defined by memories, emotions, or personal consciousness. Mark must distinguish his own self from the lives embedded within his Cursed Relic.
• Death and the will to survive: All three absorbed individuals died unwillingly, and their strongest shared emotion is the desire to continue living. This becomes the key to activating Resonant Fusion.
• Emotion as power: Supernatural abilities are not triggered by simply pretending to feel an emotion. Genuine emotional resonance, rooted in similar circumstances, is necessary.
• Science and supernatural cultivation: Hawkins treats magical phenomena as observable systems with testable conditions, combining experimentation with occult knowledge.
• Emotional detachment and perspective: Reframing traumatic memories from first-person experiences into third-person observations allows Mark to retain the information without being controlled by the emotions attached to it.

Character Interactions

• Mark and Arthur are together when Mark awakens, with Arthur having watched over him.
• Hawkins questions Mark about his transformation, explains the possible connection between the Cursed Relics and the foreign memories, and enters Mark’s mind to help stabilize him.
• Their relationship is cooperative and mentor-like: Mark trusts Hawkins’s guidance, while Hawkins uses both compassion and experimentation to help him understand his new power.
• The chapter ends with Hawkins successfully triggering a response from the Eternal Spirit, suggesting that he may be on the verge of reproducing or mastering Resonant Fusion himself.

Chapter Summary: “Incomplete Test”

Key Plot Points and Events

• After entering Resonant Fusion, Hawkins rapidly processes the three memories inherited from the Cursed Relic, keeping only useful information.
• He discovers that his fused body can shift between two controlled modes:
  • State-Zero: He effectively does not exist, becoming immune to gravity, time, and detection. Even Mother temporarily forgets him.
  • State-One: His body becomes a flexible particle form that can disperse, reform, and alter its shape.
• Hawkins also identifies an uncontrolled Unstable State, in which his body fluctuates between existence and nonexistence.
• To test these abilities, he summons a powerful Metal Lion, an autonomous silicon-based killing machine from his past universe.
• In State-Zero, the Metal Lion completely forgets Hawkins. In State-One, it detects and attacks him, forcing him to use his particle form to evade its lasers.
• Hawkins cannot catch or damage the Metal Lion. When he switches to State-Zero and approaches it, his strongest punch still fails to penetrate its defenses, and the Lion knocks him away.
• He ends the experiment and retrieves the Metal Lion, recognizing that his new body has serious limitations.

Character Developments

• Hawkins demonstrates exceptional mental control, organizing the Cursed Relic’s memories almost instantly without losing his sense of identity.
• He approaches Resonant Fusion scientifically, naming and systematically testing its abilities rather than relying on instinct.
• The battle humbles him: despite his immense experience and improved powers, he realizes his current body is physically weak compared with even one of his old “toys.”
• Hawkins identifies several weaknesses:
  • His altered particle-based body prevents the use of abilities such as electricity generation, venom, and nanoscopic hair.
  • His strength and ability to exert force have decreased by roughly thirty percent.
  • Resonant Fusion continuously consumes Curse Power, while switching between states costs a larger amount.
• He begins theorizing that different emotions may produce different types of Resonant Fusion, increasing his curiosity about Curse Casters and their hidden potential.

Significant Themes

• Survival and adaptation: Hawkins’s abilities are shaped by the desire to live, making evasion, invisibility, and flexibility more important than raw strength.
• Power and limitation: New abilities provide extraordinary advantages but also introduce vulnerabilities and resource costs.
• Scientific experimentation: Hawkins treats his supernatural transformation as something to analyze through controlled testing.
• Identity and memory: His experience with countless alternate selves allows him to absorb new memories without being psychologically overwhelmed.
• Humility before greater power: The Metal Lion, once merely a discarded toy, reveals how limited Hawkins currently is compared with the forces he once created.

Character Interactions

• Hawkins verifies the effects of State-Zero through interaction with Mother, confirming that even she temporarily forgets his existence.
• He fights the Metal Lion, which behaves as a simple, relentless killing machine and forces him to test both states under pressure.
• After the failed combat test, Hawkins receives a message from Victor in the Chat Group, informing him that the group has reached Robo Village on the southern shore of Vitalia Island.

Key plot points and events

• Hawkins, ruler of Drum-and-Gong City, flees after learning his brother Jabus has gone mad. His former guard, Jin Ba, takes control and turns the city into a heavily fortified military stronghold.
• Jin Ba believes Jabus is searching for something important and realizes Drum-and-Gong City may be his target. He arranges for the elderly, women, and children to leave in escorted groups, despite having to leave many residents behind.
• With refugee reports suddenly stopping, Jin Ba suspects the Long-Haired Demons are approaching. His generals debate whether to flee or defend the city. Jin Ba favors staying, while Victor Nan is eager to fight back; Maruna Duo boasts that the city’s large forces and defenses can prevail. General Snatch, resentful of Jin Ba’s refusal to let him leave, secretly plans to escape.
• Meanwhile, Jabus hides in a smithy and attacks its young blacksmith. Feeding on the man restores Jabus’s reason, but remembering Hawkins’s true form triggers another catastrophic transformation. Jabus becomes a vast mass of flesh that destroys the smithy and crushes nearby houses.

Character developments and interactions

• Jin Ba emerges as a devoted defender of his hometown, though he admits he is not a virtuous man and previously helped Hawkins commit crimes. His responsibility for the city’s people drives his evacuation plan and his determination to stand and fight.
• Victor Nan, a battle-scarred refugee general, wants to face the Long-Haired Demons again and redeem himself after an earlier defeat.
• Maruna Duo tries to rally the generals through confidence and bravado, while Snatch’s resentment and self-preservation expose the divisions within Jin Ba’s command.
• Jabus briefly regains his reason after feeding, but his inability to bear the memory of Hawkins’s true form keeps him trapped between revival and madness.

Significant themes

• Duty versus survival: Jin Ba’s choices reflect the burden of protecting a community when every available option risks disaster.
• Home and moral complexity: Jin Ba is implicated in past wrongdoing, yet his love for his hometown is sincere.
• Fear, leadership, and unity: The generals’ competing reactions show how terror can undermine command just as the city faces its greatest threat.
• Immortality as a curse: Jabus’s power prevents his death but offers no escape from psychological collapse or bodily mutation.

Key plot points and events

• Long-Haired Demons breach Drum-and-Gong City’s walls. Jin Ba orders the troops to fight and Victor Nan to organize the civilians, but the demons’ strength and near-immunity to weapons quickly shatter the defenders’ morale.
• General Marunado attacks one demon and is killed with a single punch. As the city falls, Jin Ba retrieves a golden dragon-shaped Cursed Relic he has kept hidden.
• Remembering his duty to protect his hometown, Jin Ba drives the dagger into his heart. It fuses with him, transforming him into a gigantic Golden Dragon. He kills the demon threatening the City Lord’s Manor and then hunts down the demons throughout the city.
• The transformation also alters Jin Ba’s mind. Mistaking terrified civilians for enemies, he burns dozens before regaining control. Realizing he may become a mindless beast, he destroys the remaining demons and Jabus—the mountain of flesh—then flies away before he can harm anyone else.
• Victor Nan recognizes the dragon’s likely connection to Jin Ba and surveys the ruined city.
• The story shifts to Robo Village, where survivors have built a crowded Sea Settlement, seeking safety from the Long-Haired Demons. Hawkins visits a flea market and buys a pair of scissors revealed by his Appraisal Eye to be a Fine-grade Cursed Relic. Before the exchange is complete, a Golden Dragon approaches.

Character developments and interactions

• Jin Ba moves from reluctant leader to self-sacrificing protector, choosing to use the dangerous Relic rather than abandon his people. His transformation gives him immense power but threatens his humanity; his accidental attack on civilians forces him to recognize that danger and leave.
• Victor Nan carries out Jin Ba’s orders amid the collapse and later suspects that Jin Ba became the dragon.
• Marunado demonstrates courage by facing a demon despite knowing he cannot win, but is killed instantly.
• Hawkins remains curious and practical, questioning the seller about the scissors’ origins before purchasing them. The seller, a wary refugee from Rokin Town, explains how she found the Relic.
• The frightened people flee both the Long-Haired Demons and Jin Ba’s dragon form, underscoring how his attempt to save them becomes another source of terror.

Significant themes

• Sacrifice and duty: Jin Ba accepts a terrible risk to defend his hometown.
• Power’s cost: The Relic grants overwhelming strength while eroding the user’s judgment and humanity.
• Fear and misunderstanding: Civilians see their would-be protector as another monster, while Jin Ba’s altered mind turns their panic into perceived hostility.
• Survival in a collapsing world: The Sea Settlement and its desperate flea market show how refugees adapt—and how necessity can make people sell even their most precious possessions.
  Ending hook: The Golden Dragon’s arrival at the Sea Settlement links Jin Ba’s escape to Hawkins’s new Cursed Relic and sets up their possible encounter.

Chapter Summary: “Capture and Death”

Key Plot Points and Events

• A Golden Dragon suddenly attacks a sea settlement, causing widespread panic and chaos.
• Jin Ba, the dragon, is enraged by the settlement’s noise and instinctively attacks with golden flames.
• Hawkins protects the settlement using the Eternal Spirit’s Counterattack Shield, which redirects the dragon’s breath back at it. The redirected flames do not harm Jin Ba, whose energy body absorbs them.
• Hawkins counters with Ball Lightning and lures the dragon into the sky, using the clouds to conceal his movements.
• He briefly activates Resonant Fusion, State Zero, causing the dragon to lose track of him and become confused.
• Hawkins transforms the clouds into thunderclouds and unleashes an enormous lightning attack. The dragon survives but is severely weakened and rendered unconscious.
• Before Jin Ba can fall into the sea, Hawkins opens a Spatial Passage and captures him inside the Eternal Space.
• In the laboratory, Hawkins restrains and examines the dragon. He discovers that it has no reproductive organs, that its scales are made of regenerating golden energy, and that conventional tools and lasers cannot injure or dissect it.
• Hawkins suspects Jin Ba may be an artificial monster or the creation of a Cursed Relic, though the dragon gives off no cursed aura and does not trigger his appraisal ability.
• Unable to uncover its secrets, Hawkins locks the dragon away for further consideration.
• The next day, the sea settlement has returned to normal, reflecting the residents’ growing resilience after repeated supernatural attacks.
• Hawkins searches unsuccessfully for another Cursed Relic and asks about the mysterious woman who sold him cursed scissors.
• He learns that she died during the night when the scissors pierced her throat. Her belongings were buried at sea.
• Hawkins concludes that the scissors’ curse likely caused her death and decides not to search for them, since their ability to sever marital bonds has little practical value to him.

Character Developments

• Hawkins demonstrates increasing confidence and tactical creativity. Rather than overpowering Jin Ba directly, he exploits the dragon’s poor intelligence, using misdirection, aerial maneuvering, and environmental manipulation.
• He also shows his characteristic scientific curiosity by capturing and testing the dragon, treating it as both a dangerous specimen and a potential source of knowledge.
• Hawkins remains pragmatic and emotionally detached regarding the woman’s death. He expresses some regret at losing the opportunity to obtain the scissors but does not pursue them out of sentiment.
• Jin Ba is portrayed as powerful but impulsive and intellectually limited. His uncontrolled anger leads him to attack the settlement, while his confusion and inability to understand Hawkins’s tactics allow him to be defeated.
• The settlement’s residents appear hardened by previous supernatural disasters. Their rapid return to ordinary life suggests growing emotional resilience.
• Victor serves as a brief supporting presence, checking whether Hawkins has defeated the monster.

Significant Themes

• Power versus intelligence: Jin Ba possesses overwhelming physical strength, but Hawkins defeats him through planning, technology, and deception.
• Scientific curiosity and containment: Hawkins responds to the dragon not only as an enemy but also as an unprecedented biological and energetic mystery.
• The nature of artificial life: The dragon’s lack of reproductive organs and energy-based regeneration raise questions about whether it was created rather than naturally born.
• Desensitization to danger: The settlement’s residents quickly resume their routines, showing how repeated exposure to supernatural threats has normalized catastrophe.
• The danger of cursed objects: The woman’s death illustrates that supernatural artifacts can harm their users as easily as their victims.
• Pragmatism over sentiment: Hawkins does not become emotionally attached to the lost scissors or their former owner, judging their value solely by usefulness.

Important Character Interactions

• Hawkins and Jin Ba engage in a brief but intense aerial battle, with Hawkins repeatedly provoking and outmaneuvering the dragon.
• Hawkins and Victor exchange a short report after the capture, with Hawkins concealing the dragon’s continued existence in the Eternal Space.
• Hawkins interrogates a flea-market stall owner about the woman’s fate, offering money to obtain information.
• Hawkins mentally connects the woman’s death to the scissors’ curse, interpreting her earlier description of red threads as evidence that she had used the cursed object herself.

Chapter Summary: “Jinx Domain”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The chapter opens with the female vendor’s corpse and the cursed scissors being dropped into a deep ocean trench. A sea snake becomes entangled with the scissors and is dragged toward a mysterious cavern by a massive tentacle, suggesting that the relic has triggered a larger underwater threat.
• After spending three days resupplying at the Sea Settlement, Hawkins prepares to return to Black Market Island aboard the Black Knife.
• Shortly after leaving, an enormous ring of dense fog surrounds both the ship and the settlement, blocking out the sun and trapping the area inside a dome-like formation.
• Hawkins initially suspects that bounty hunters or assassins have targeted the Blackblade Pirates. When a mysterious attacker strikes, Victor returns to Eternal Space while Hawkins and Mark remain aboard the ship.
• As the Black Knife sails through the fog, countless fish flee from the surrounding waters. A black shadow repeatedly attacks Hawkins, changing shape from a blade to claws, a ghost, and eventually a three-headed monster.
• Hawkins discovers that the creature is not a conventional assassin or illusion. It is a monster that changes according to spoken descriptions: when Mark or Hawkins names a form, the shadow adopts it.
• Hawkins realizes that the phenomenon is likely the accidental activation of another Cursed Relic, possibly one brought into the densely populated Sea Settlement by a refugee or traveler.
• Rather than investigate the enormous settlement immediately, Hawkins sends the Black Knife into Eternal Space and escapes upward through the fog. He enters Resonant Fusion and transforms into State-Zero, allowing him to pass through space and gravity undetected.
• Upon emerging above the fog, Hawkins sees something shocking, but the chapter ends before revealing what it is.

Character Developments

• Hawkins remains calm and analytical under pressure. Although he initially considers the possibility of bounty hunters, he quickly reassesses the situation when the attacker proves to be a language-reactive monster.
• He demonstrates his ability to adapt tactically, using the Eternal Spirit defensively, employing electromagnetic powers to lift the ship, and ultimately using State-Zero to escape the fog.
• Hawkins also shows increased caution regarding Cursed Relics, recognizing that accidental activations can be more dangerous than deliberate attacks.
• Mark proves observant by identifying that the attacker is not human, but his careless comments unintentionally influence the monster’s transformations. He becomes visibly alarmed once Hawkins explains the danger.
• Victor acts pragmatically and obediently, withdrawing to Eternal Space once Hawkins determines that the enemy is beyond Victor’s level.
• Ai Miye and Arthur, observing through Hawkins’s livestream, assist by reporting what they see in the surrounding waters, demonstrating the usefulness of the Eternal Space group as an external perspective.

Significant Themes

• Cause and effect: The opening emphasizes that apparent coincidences are connected to chains of consequences. The scissors’ journey from the vendor’s death to the underwater cavern suggests that past actions may create future disasters.
• The danger of Cursed Relics: Relics can trigger unpredictably and affect entire regions, making them threats even when no one deliberately uses them.
• Language and perception shaping reality: The monster’s form changes in response to descriptions, showing how words and assumptions can give shape to danger.
• The value of an outsider’s perspective: Hawkins realizes that being inside a crisis makes it easy to misinterpret events. Observers in Eternal Space help him distinguish reality from possible illusion.
• Intelligence versus unpredictability: Hawkins considers intelligent assassins easier to handle than powerful monsters, whose irrational behavior makes them more dangerous.

Character Interactions

• Mark warns Hawkins that someone may be targeting them, leading Hawkins to consider the bounty on the crew.
• Hawkins orders Victor to return to Eternal Space while instructing Mark to remain with him and steer the ship.
• During the battle, Mark’s spoken guesses directly affect the monster, causing it to assume forms such as an evil ghost and a three-headed creature.
• Hawkins warns Mark to stop speaking carelessly, though Mark’s startled response briefly creates another risk.
• Hawkins uses the livestream to consult Ai Miye, Arthur, Victor, and the others, allowing them to confirm that the fog and fleeing fish are real rather than merely an illusion.