Chapter Summaries

The Special Security Team negotiated with Mumu, the thorn plant, and learned that its Sage was not human before Mumu escaped into the sewers. Tao Xingzhi received the unexpected report while rushing to Shencheng, and the chapter left him wondering whether the situation was his fault.

• Doudou and Qin Xiaoxia reacted angrily to Mumu's accusations, while Huang Jiutian and the Special Security Team wondered whether they had bombed Mumu by mistake.
• Huang Jiutian offered compensation to stop Mumu from leaving, and Mumu demanded the return of half its body and ten bags of genuine Jin Kela.
• Mumu said the Sage was definitely not human, then withdrew into the sewers before the team could detain it.
• The Special Security Team began cleaning up and sent a thorn found in a rat's corpse to its research institute for analysis.
• Qin Xiaoxia confronted Doudou for misleading Mumu, and Tao Xingzhi received an update that left him bewildered and wondering if the situation was his fault.

Tao Xingzhi arrived in Shencheng to investigate the thorn plant’s attack and discussed the evidence with Liu Yue. Meanwhile, Qin Xiaoxia and the others returned to the Qing Town Sanctuary, leaving Mumu behind to exterminate Shencheng’s sewer rats in exchange for a new smartphone.

• Tao Xingzhi flew to Shencheng and heard Liu Yue describe the battle, while Huang Jiutian searched the sewer network for the thorn plant.
• Tao Xingzhi and Liu Yue noted that almost no rats remained near the battlefield, suggesting the thorn plant had thoroughly cleared them out.
• Qin Xiaoxia, Su Su, and Doudou returned to the Qing Town Sanctuary, while Doudou recognized Tao Xingzhi from Ruixing Supermarket.
• Mumu called Su Su for help getting back, but Su Su told Mumu to exterminate every rat in Shencheng’s sewers and warned it not to improvise with Mentor.
• Tao Xingzhi texted Mumu that he would buy a new-model smartphone when Mumu returned, and Mumu eagerly accepted the task.

Cui Ying and the other members of The Oriole's Pursuit were held at Shencheng Public Security Headquarters after reporting the giant rat infestation, and Tao Xingzhi explained the government’s response while warning them to keep their discussion private. After they were released, news arrived that the rat specimen and a plant from Rong Town were the same species, while Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou discussed the reporters in Qing Town.

• Shencheng News reported sewer inspections, while cleanup crews found few living rats and heaps of dead ones.
• Tao Xingzhi reviewed The Oriole's Pursuit’s past encounters with strange incidents and suspected their repeated involvement might not be coincidence.
• Tao Xingzhi thanked Cui Ying and her colleagues, told them their outlet’s ban had been lifted, and revealed that one million yuan had been transferred to its business account.
• Tao Xingzhi gave the group his business card and asked them to contact the Special Security Team if anything strange happened again.
• A police officer told Cui Ying and the others they were free to leave, while the research institute reported that the rat specimen matched the plant from Rong Town.
• In Qing Town, an Echo Flower withered after shrieking, and Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou discussed the unusual reporters.

The Special Security Team buried Mumu’s thorn remains as bait, hoping to speak with him when he came to retrieve them. A mysterious black-robed figure appeared instead, took the branches and Jin Kela, and left the team with cryptic warnings about World Power and the coming Dark Tide.

• Tao Xingzhi ordered the Special Security Team to bury Mumu’s thorn remains at a guarded site, leaving some branches exposed and placing Jin Kela nearby.
• After two days, Mumu sensed his remains and came underground to reclaim them, but steel chains held the thickest branches in place.
• Huang Jiutian called out to Mumu over the loudspeakers, and Mumu fled before he could finish speaking.
• A black-robed figure appeared beside the Jin Kela, freed the thorn branches, and told the Special Security Team that it had reconsidered its view of those in power.
• Tao Xingzhi demanded answers, but the figure warned that the weakening of World Power was both a crisis and an opportunity, and that the Dark Tide was approaching.
• The figure vanished with the branches and Jin Kela after saying that a thousand years of waiting had led to one battle and that trust had to be earned.

Tao Xingzhi and his team considered whether the mysterious man they had met was a projection before clearing the site. Qin Xiaoxia returned to the mystic realm with Mumu, the Thorn’s remains, and jin kela, where he later went to collect a phone package as Doudou prepared rabbit skewers.

• Huang Jiutian guessed that the mysterious man had been a projection of his thoughts, and Tao Xingzhi considered the possibility.
• Tao Xingzhi ordered his team to clear the site and withdraw before dawn.
• Qin Xiaoxia used the Red Banshee’s magic power and a single-use Spell Formation Array to return to the mystic realm in Qing Town with Mumu, the Thorn’s remains, and jin kela.
• Mumu urged Qin Xiaoxia to collect its new phone, but Doudou stayed in the kitchen to prepare grilled rabbit skewers.
• Qin Xiaoxia saw Doudou chopping up a rabbit and left with Mumu to get the package, then remembered Mumu could not go outside.

Qin Xiaoxia prepared for the next stage of his plans while Huang Jiutian’s message revealed the mounting pressure on Tao Xingzhi and the Special Security Team. Qin Xiaoxia moved up his next step, and attention shifted to a reservoir outside Lyon, France.

• Qin Xiaoxia returned to the Mystic Realm with food and a phone for Mumu, then ordered Mumu to prepare more Echo Flower beds.
• Qin Xiaoxia used Echo Flowers to receive Huang Jiutian’s important messages as he considered his broader strategy.
• Tao Xingzhi endured a series of reviews and questioning as officials weighed how to approach the Mysterious Force.
• The South China Sea issued Black Book No. 1, giving the Special Security Team unprecedented authority while intensifying pressure to produce results.
• Huang Jiutian sent Qin Xiaoxia an unmistakable plea, prompting Qin Xiaoxia to advance his next move.
• France’s Department for Research and Response to Supernatural Events focused on a reservoir outside Lyon.

Kodel’s investigation into the anonymous warning led French divers to drain a reservoir, where they discovered a peculiar building. Tao Xingzhi learned of the discovery and prepared to go to France, using Huaguo’s cooperation plan to pressure the French Authorities for access.

• Kodel received a lead linking rented diving equipment to a group that had repeatedly dived in a reservoir on a tributary of the Rhône River.
• Valshi’s team found the group’s campsite and sent divers into the reservoir, where they spotted old buildings beneath the water.
• Kodel ordered the reservoir drained, and the next morning a helicopter spotted a peculiar building in a remaining pool.
• Tao Xingzhi learned of the discovery, decided to travel to France, and asked the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the South China Sea to pressure the French Authorities.

France, Huaguo, and the United States sent delegations to inspect the newly uncovered Daybreak hideout near Leon. Huang Jiutian sensed the history within the building, and the French learned that he was a perception-type Evolver.

• Kodel learned that diplomatic pressure from Huaguo and the United States had forced France to share its findings about the hideout.
• Tao Xingzhi ordered Huang Jiutian and his squad to fly to France, while Norton and Ben Bashuchel departed from Washington with an American delegation.
• Kodel met both delegations at the airport, and they drove together through the night to the reservoir where the old Daybreak hideout had been exposed.
• Inside the hideout, Huang Jiutian sensed the presence of its past inhabitants and described the place as filled with historical positive energy.
• Ben Bashuchel defended Huang Jiutian after Valshi questioned him, and Norton and Tao Xingzhi confirmed to Kodel that Huang was the world's only perception-type Evolver.

Huang Jiutian explored the underwater sanctuary and recognized its carvings as scenes connected to the Dawn Association, including a Branding Ceremony. The experience triggered a major transformation in his mind, and while he lay unconscious in a Leon hospital, the teams began investigating the association’s traces across history.

• Huang Jiutian and the others explored the sanctuary, where the carvings showed ancient warriors fighting monsters and a woman being burned at the stake.
• Huang Jiutian recognized a celebratory carving as the Branding Ceremony he would soon undergo.
• After leaving the sanctuary, Huang Jiutian’s mental power surged and he collapsed as Qin Xiaoxia’s magic power protected his mind.
• A doctor at a private hospital in Leon said Huang Jiutian was exhausted, while the teams waited for him to recover.
• Tao Xingzhi reviewed reports suggesting the Dawn Association had left scattered traces across the world for nearly a thousand years.

Norton’s team and France’s Super-Research Department investigated the Dawn Association, finding evidence of a vast organization connected to powerful forces and mutations. Their search stalled, and they looked to the unconscious Huang Jiutian for answers as they prepared to search the reservoir building again.

• Norton’s team discussed their fragmentary historical findings and suspected the Dawn Association had directed its resources toward something hidden from history.
• Baru and the others wondered whether the Association had concealed earlier mutations and might have helped during incidents in Los Angeles and St. Louis.
• Valshi argued that the group that had searched for treasure was likely a separate organization, and that Dawn members had erased its trail to protect themselves.
• Kodel agreed with Valshi’s analysis, and the French team assembled to search the reservoir building for overlooked clues.
• The Huaguo, American, and French teams reached a research bottleneck and considered Huang Jiutian their best hope for learning whether the mysterious force was connected to Dawn.

After waking from his second evolution, Huang Jiutian identified the mysterious organization in Shencheng as the Dawn Association, while his team concluded their work in France. Elsewhere, Philier Nessus and a companion bailed Brown Nisso out of jail and took him aboard a yacht, prompting Kodel to demand answers when Brown disappeared.

• Huang Jiutian woke in the hospital after three days unconscious and demonstrated that his new mental ability could lift four hairs.
• Huang Jiutian told Tao Xingzhi that the carvings in the French building felt like a living history preserved in a graveyard, and he recognized a figure resembling the mysterious person from Shencheng.
• Huang Jiutian declared that the Shencheng organization was the Dawn Association, and Tao Xingzhi said the French mission had still yielded useful information for their next briefing.
• Philier Nessus and an unnamed woman posted bail for Brown Nisso, then took him to a yacht and fed him a feast of roast turkeys.
• The next day, Kodel learned Brown Nisso had been released and ordered the police chief to identify whoever had arranged it.

Kodel learned more about Evolvers while Zhao Chen helped Jenny and her colleagues secure a Los Angeles property for the Dawn Branch. After Zhao Chen left, the group prepared to turn the site into a secret base, and he told his interpreter that their unusual physical fitness justified his investment.

• Kodel reviewed France’s new information on Evolvers and suspected that another group had already investigated a binge-eating report.
• Brown ate his fill aboard the yacht and decided he would side with anyone who kept feeding him.
• Zhao Chen negotiated the rent for the neglected Los Angeles property down to one hundred thousand dollars a year, securing a five-year home for Jenny’s research group.
• After Zhao Chen left, Jenny and the others celebrated the new Dawn Branch site and began preparing components for the Mentor’s shaping substance.
• At the airport, Zhao Chen told his interpreter that the researchers’ exceptional stamina suggested their biology project had real promise.

Qin Xiaoxia and the Red Banshee established the first ring of Dawn's Los Angeles mystic realm by linking it to the main realm in Qing Town. As the group celebrated, Qin Xiaoxia remembered the case of stolen food Doudou had brought along, while a gang in Los Angeles searched for a missing case.

• Doudou revealed that the large cooler he had taken from the airport was packed with meat and seafood, and Qin Xiaoxia told him to hold on to it while they looked for its owner.
• Qin Xiaoxia arrived at Hillwen Park with Su Su, Doudou, and the Red Banshee, where Jenny, Mark, and Joey welcomed them and explained how the Sun Foundation had helped them secure the site.
• The Red Banshee revealed her true form to Jenny, Mark, and Joey, then worked with Qin Xiaoxia to create a spell formation in the park's main hall.
• Qin Xiaoxia and the Red Banshee connected the Los Angeles mystic realm to the main realm in Qing Town, forming the first ring of the mystic realm framework for Dawn's branch.
• Doudou urged everyone to celebrate by barbecuing the food in the cooler, and Qin Xiaoxia decided to inspect what was inside.
• That night, a white man told a tattooed gang boss that he did not know how one of the club's identical cases had gone missing.

Doudou returned Mackey’s missing suitcase to Blaze’s drug den, then vanished and left the men shaken. Blaze later experienced a terrifying illusion of seeking help from a priest, while Qin Xiaoxia and Doudou learned that Red Banshee had only added fear to Blaze’s own imagined memories.

• Doudou appeared at the door with the suitcase, frightened the armed men by vanishing, and left the suitcase behind.
• Blaze ordered Mackey to open the suitcase, found the five bags of product inside, and postponed moving the batch.
• Blaze went to a church to seek help after hearing unexplained laughter, but Red Banshee’s illusion made him believe he was still in the club.
• Qin Xiaoxia learned that Red Banshee had added fear to the illusion but could not control Blaze’s memories, while Doudou delighted in the new prank.

Blaze tried to determine whether the vanishing child had been real, then sought the priest for help. A mysterious stranger pulled a monstrous entity from Blaze and destroyed it, leaving Blaze alive and warning him to keep clinging to life.

• Blaze had Jim punch him and checked the suitcase, confirming that the drugs and the strange child’s disappearance matched his frightening vision.
• Blaze ordered his men to prepare the drugs for sale, then interrogated Mackey about the missing suitcase before sending him away.
• Blaze took two bodyguards to the church, where the priest reassured him that God would protect him.
• A robed stranger seized Blaze, drew a screaming, tentacled ghost from his body, and burned it with invisible flames.
• The stranger left Blaze alive, calling him a parasite and telling him to keep clinging to life.

After a mysterious man saved Blaze from a Faceless Yin Ghost, Blaze returned home shaken and began questioning his beliefs and the dangers in the world. A strange delivery linked to Mackey deepened his suspicions, and he ended the night increasingly uneasy about supernatural threats.

• Blaze and his henchmen searched for the mysterious man after he freed Blaze from the Faceless Yin Ghost, but found no one outside the church.
• The priest told Blaze that the man had seemed good and urged him to return to the right path, while Blaze dwelled on the man's harsh words.
• Blaze returned to his villa, where a henchman gave him a package containing a thousand dollars and a note apologizing for the raw meat and seafood.
• Blaze remembered Mackey and the returned crate, then speculated with Bill, Lister, and the other henchmen about why the mysterious man had saved him and repaid him.
• The men shared rumors of supernatural incidents, and Blaze grew worried that the world was more dangerous than he had believed.

Blaze discovered strange symbols on hundred-dollar bills that only he and one of his men could see, and traced the bills to Floyd Biological Research. He brought his men to investigate the institute, but an eerie crow watched them from above its gate.

• Blaze and one of his men found symbols on the hundred-dollar bills, though nobody else could see them.
• After realizing two deliveries had involved hundred-dollar bills, Blaze visited Delis's Fried Chicken and learned the bills came from Floyd Biological Research.
• Blaze went to the research institute the next morning with Mackey and several men.
• Mackey rang the brass bell at the gate, but no one came out.
• A black crow appeared above the wall, unnerving the group as it stared at them.

Jenny confronted Blaze and his men when they came to thank the person who had saved him, then let them into the branch after Blaze pleaded to meet his rescuer. Qin Xiaoxia and the others watched through the Shadow of the Mystic Realm and judged that Blaze had exaggerated genuine feelings to persuade Jenny.

• Jenny mistook Blaze and his men for contractors until Blaze explained they had come to find the person who saved him and brought boxes of meat as payment.
• Jenny recognized the lingering aura of a Faceless Yin Ghost on Blaze and ordered the group to leave, but Blaze asked to meet his rescuer.
• When a man blocked the gate, Jenny unleashed Qin Xiaoxia's magic power and frightened the group into backing away.
• Blaze insisted he wanted to thank his rescuer before his memories faded, and Jenny agreed to let him inside.
• Qin Xiaoxia and the others watched the encounter through the Shadow of the Mystic Realm, and Qin Xiaoxia said Blaze had embellished his real feelings.

Jenny led Blaze and his six men through the Mystic Realm to meet Qin Xiaoxia, who refused to protect them from the coming Dark Tide unless Blaze gave up his criminal life. Blaze chose to cooperate, and the chapter ended with DEA officials examining his offer to help dismantle a six-state trafficking network.

• Jenny led Blaze and his men through a dangerous path in the Mystic Realm, where they encountered monstrous plants and arrived at the main building unharmed.
• Qin Xiaoxia confronted Blaze and his men with the threat of the Dark Tide, then offered to erase their fear and memories and send them home.
• Blaze refused to forget what he had learned and pleaded to be useful, prompting Qin Xiaoxia to consider using his underworld connections to find elite recruits.
• Blaze decided to give up his criminal life, and Qin Xiaoxia considered offering his son admission to the Dawn Training Camp if Blaze met his requirements.
• DEA officials read Blaze's confidential letter offering to help dismantle a drug-trafficking network spanning six states, and questioned whether it was genuine.

After Blaze and his men learned about Dawn and were assigned mentors, they returned to Los Angeles to organize their operations. Baru arrived at Blaze’s dance hall and announced that he would train the gathered men with Moss-Growing Armor, warning them that their lives were about to become hellish.

• Blaze’s group discussed their mentors and planned to map the routes and connections they controlled.
• The Los Angeles Meteorological General Bureau reported a sudden thunderstorm, but the rain stopped without any major incident.
• Two days later, Baru appeared in Los Angeles and smashed his way into Blaze’s dance hall.
• Baru brought Moss-Growing Armor and explained its defensive and training benefits to Blaze and the gathered men.
• Baru accepted Blaze and the other six as students, then told the remaining men to transform or die.