Chapter Summaries

Ke Meng collected hundreds of dangerous divine artifacts from the offerings around his evil god form, then accepted a Players’ sacrifice of a lantern that guided the lost. He received the Lost One’s Lantern and learned that it could protect and purify souls, but using it would eventually cause him to become lost.

• Ke Meng gathered 501 powerful divine artifacts that had rolled within reach, noting that ordinary Players needed greater resistance to use them safely.
• A group of masked Players summoned Cthulhu and offered him a lantern that had helped them escape a maze.
• Ke Meng accepted the lantern and enhanced the Players’ power in return, allowing them to fight high-level monsters more easily.
• Tangyuan presented Ke Meng with the lantern, whose glass contained a winged, elf-like light source.
• Ke Meng used Big-Faced Cat to identify the Lost One’s Lantern and learned that it protected and purified souls, guided the way forward, and gradually made its bearer lost.

Ke Meng tested the Lost One's Lantern and discovered that it could guide people out of despair, prompting him to ask the Investigation Bureau to investigate its usefulness overseas. The bureau welcomed the lantern, but its dangerous side effect remained unclear, and Shi Jun still had not recovered his memories.

• Ke Meng examined the Lost One's Lantern, wondered what becoming a lost one meant, and suspected the item could help people trapped in the red fog overseas.
• Tangyuan's bark made Ke Meng question whether the lantern was already affecting him, so Ke Meng trusted Tangyuan and Big-Faced Cat's warnings and called Luo Yuan.
• Luo Yuan arranged for Investigation Bureau personnel to inspect the lantern, and Director Lei and Director Wu confirmed that it gave them hope and improved their spirits.
• Ke Meng told the directors he did not know what becoming a lost one entailed and suggested it might mean completely forgetting oneself.
• Ke Meng asked whether Shi Jun had recovered his memories, and Director Lei said he had not and that the bureau was considering how to retrieve Shi Jun's dangerous Zero-Level Item.

Ke Meng tested the Lost One's Lantern on investigators weakened by Despair Mist and discovered that its light and his words restored their hope. He then recorded a video to test whether the lantern could guide people remotely, while Director Lei considered ways to make it more effective.

• Tangyuan suggested shining the lantern at the Bandaged Man, and Director Lei agreed that the idea was worth testing.
• Investigators returning from overseas arrived at the Special Field, where Ke Meng asked Wande how he felt while looking at the lantern.
• Ke Meng held the lantern and encouraged Wande and the other investigators, helping them recall the Koi Continent and overcome their despair.
• Wande offered to bear the lantern's side effects for Ke Meng, who said he would consider it.
• Ke Meng recorded a lantern-guided video for a second group of returning investigators, and Director Lei wondered whether the Flawless Sword could improve its impact.

Ke Meng discovered that his Lost One's Lantern video could guide despairing viewers, but each person it helped increased his risk of becoming lost. Koi Continent arranged for foreign volunteers to make and distribute the videos instead, and Ke Meng waited as the first overseas release began.

• Ke Meng showed his lantern video to investigators, and he sensed that some viewers had escaped despair.
• Ke Meng warned that every successful viewer increased his risk, so Director Wu proposed using foreign investigators instead.
• Director Wu's superiors arranged for each continent to send volunteers and use regional access restrictions to spread the risk.
• Foreign countries sent volunteers to Koi Continent, and Di Ping paused the winds and currents so their planes could land.
• Ke Meng prepared a script, and volunteers filmed videos in batches with the Lost One's Lantern.
• Luo Yuan told Ke Meng that Half-Ice Continent had released its video first.

Half-Ice Continent’s motivational video briefly restored viewers’ hope, but its effect faded after thirty minutes. Ke Meng and the investigators confirmed that Zhihua had become lost, and the Lost One’s Lantern briefly brought him back before he relapsed, at the same time the video momentarily worked again for hundreds of viewers.

• A viewer in Half-Ice Continent watched the Investigation Bureau’s video and regained hope, prompting officials to expand its release and promote it.
• After the video’s effect faded, viewers criticized it, and the Network Divine Beast forwarded negative comments to the customer service team.
• Ke Meng and Whale City Branch investigators watched Zhihua’s condition deteriorate until he became unresponsive.
• Ke Meng asked a volunteer to use the Lost One’s Lantern to guide Zhihua, briefly restoring his awareness before he became lost again.
• Director Lei received word that the video had briefly worked for hundreds of people at the exact moment Zhihua awakened.

Countries worldwide used restricted videos and volunteers to guide people back from despair, but the process turned volunteers into lost ones and strained the supply of willing participants. As Ke Meng considered the growing threat and his own fear of becoming lost, he remained unsure whether his dreams could protect him.

• A second country’s video restored a lost one’s sanity, but the person became lost again after the video passed its viewing threshold, showing the lantern could guide someone only once.
• Countries released restricted videos and sent volunteers to Koi Continent, while self-deleting videos limited each guide’s audience.
• Whale City accumulated more than ten thousand lost ones, and Director Wu arranged for foreign Investigation Bureaus to take them home.
• Ke Meng asked whether guided people could still be affected by the Despair Mist, and Luo Yuan’s satellite images showed the mist thinning over cities.
• The mist faded further as more videos spread, but countries began running out of volunteers.
• Ke Meng feared becoming lost when he remembered the lost ones’ empty eyes, though he believed his dreams might let the Evil God’s power protect him.

Ke Meng assessed a Man-Eating Flower that could mass-produce Slimes to replace human volunteers in guiding rituals, and approved the plan. He began testing the borrowed item with Big-Faced Cat while the Crocodile Continent's supervisor waited outside.

• Artificial intelligences from several continents discussed replacing human volunteers with mindless creatures, and the Koi Continent received a request to consider the proposal.
• Luo Yuan showed Ke Meng a video of a Man-Eating Flower producing Slimes that could learn and recite scripts, and Ke Meng judged the plan feasible.
• The Koi Continent approved the proposal and arranged to inspect the Man-Eating Flower and use Big-Faced Cat to check it for dangerous side effects.
• The Crocodile Continent delivered the Man-Eating Flower and Slimes to Ke Meng, with a supervisor accompanying the loan.
• Ke Meng brought the Man-Eating Flower into a church with Tangyuan, then summoned Big-Faced Cat to examine it.

Ke Meng used the Wind Slime Flower and Wind Slimes to create guidance videos that helped people across Blue Star recover from despair. He then persuaded Director Lei to illuminate the lost slimes with the Lost One’s Lantern instead of destroying them, restoring their vitality before they were sealed away.

• The Big-Faced Cat’s information revealed that the Wind Slime Flower could produce slimes nonstop and increased production tenfold in wind-rich soil.
• Ke Meng reassured people who feared humans were inferior to slimes, pointing to his survival against the supreme leader of the Shadow Stream Organization as evidence that human limits could rise.
• The Investigation Bureau fed meat and wind-related items to the flower, and Wind Slime guidance videos spread across websites and public screens as the red clouds over Blue Star faded.
• Director Lei considered destroying the growing number of lost slimes, while Luo Yuan expressed guilt about killing creatures that had helped people.
• Ke Meng proposed using the Lost One’s Lantern to guide the slimes again and then sealing them away, and Director Lei agreed.
• The lantern restored the slimes’ vitality, and one playful slime bumped into Ke Meng.

After the Despair Mist vanished, Ke Meng helped the Five Continents destroy Shadow Stream’s scattered ranks and hidden bases. The chapter ended with news that the ocean’s waves had stopped.

• Ke Meng shared intelligence from Shadow Stream’s leader with the Five Continents, which launched a coordinated purge of the organization.
• Ke Meng used the Demon Map to help capture Shadow Stream members at major backup bases, bringing the total to more than eight thousand.
• Ke Meng warned the countries about over a hundred old backup locations where remaining Shadow Stream members might return.
• Ke Meng learned that the Despair Mist had disappeared, and the Investigation Bureau celebrated while easing restrictions on the internet.
• During the celebration, Ke Meng and other officials received a message from Headquarters that the ocean’s waves had stopped.

After Di Ping fell asleep from the Horn of the Sea's side effect, the oceans became unnaturally still, so Ke Meng and the investigators tried to wake him. Their increasingly powerful sound attack stirred the water, but the chapter ended before they learned whether Di Ping had awakened.

• Ke Meng learned that Di Ping had fallen asleep just as the Despair Mist vanished, and monitoring records showed that the waves had sharply subsided.
• Ke Meng, Director Lei, and the others went to the shore, where they found the sea and tides completely still.
• Ke Meng sensed the Horn of the Sea's power and saw that Di Ping was trapped in a deep darkness; he decided to use Synesthesia to startle him awake without entering his dream.
• An Investigator used a Special Item loudspeaker to howl toward the sea, creating ripples before the water went still again.
• Ke Meng used a Sound-Absorbing Sponge to shield the group while another Investigator fired an Infrasound Weapon at the sea, producing denser ripples in silence.

Ke Meng used Dream Invasion to startle Di Ping awake from his deep sleep, restoring the oceans’ movement across Blue Star. Di Ping emerged from the sea exhausted, though Synesthesia had suggested he might have fallen into madness.

• After the Infrasound Weapon stopped, Ke Meng sent Tangyuan away with the Sound-Absorbing Sponge and tried to call Di Ping from the shore, but the attempts failed.
• Ke Meng returned home and used Synesthesia and Dream Invasion to feint at the edge of Di Ping’s dream, provoking Di Ping’s spirituality with a powerful sense of danger.
• Di Ping realized he was dreaming and swam toward a distant light, desperate to wake before too much time passed or Blue Star was endangered.
• Blue Star’s oceans surged back into motion, but Di Ping did not immediately return, and Synesthesia conveyed the words “fallen into madness.”
• A huge wave washed a bare-chested, exhausted Di Ping onto the beach, where Director Lei and Ke Meng saw him.

Di Ping returned to Whale City with his Gnosis score greatly increased and his rationality impaired after an encounter with an indescribable being. Ke Meng investigated a new Special Field and found himself trapped by a rule that demanded he write ten thousand words.

• Di Ping underwent a mental-state assessment, describing a powerful being that had tried to enter his dream before it startled him awake.
• The examiners gave Di Ping a rationality score of 47 and a spiritual perception score of 645, and Director Wu welcomed him back with plans for a celebratory feast.
• Ke Meng investigated a four-story building surrounded by an invisible barrier and sensed a Special Item behind an upstairs door.
• Ke Meng broke the door's lock with a punch, entered the darkness, and found his senses sealed off.
• Ke Meng resisted the effect until his senses returned and discovered a laptop displaying a rule that required him to write ten thousand words before leaving.

Ke Meng discovered that the Black Room was a sealing item that trapped visitors until they wrote the required number of characters. After learning its rules, he sent Shirley sprinting through the doorway into the darkness to test whether she could escape.

• Ke Meng searched the room, found its endless supplies of food and water, and identified the living writing software as the likely source of the Black Room.
• Ke Meng smashed the computer and desk, but found them restored when he looked outside the window, confirming he was trapped in a folded space.
• Ke Meng summoned Tangyuan, Shirley, White Sugar, and Big-Faced Cat, then learned from Big-Faced Cat that the Black Room required visitors to write their allotted character count before leaving or sleeping.
• Ke Meng learned that new visitors needed to write ten thousand characters, returning visitors faced doubled requirements, and completing one hundred cycles could grant ownership of the Black Room.
• Ke Meng sent Shirley charging through the open doorway at supersonic speed, and she disappeared into the darkness without returning.

Ke Meng escaped the Black Room after writing ten thousand words of fiction and learned how its confinement rules worked. He reported the Sealed Item to the Investigation Bureau, then prepared to re-enter it with animals in his scarf to test whether the required word count would increase.

• Ke Meng tried damaging the Black Room but found that the room restored itself, then discovered that only fiction counted toward its ten-thousand-word escape requirement.
• Ke Meng completed the required story and emerged after being trapped for five hours and twenty-five minutes.
• Ke Meng told the investigators that the building's second-floor door triggered the Black Room and that finishing its word count was the only way out.
• Ke Meng waited for Shirley and the trapped investigators to emerge, then explained to Liang that returning to the Black Room would double the word count.
• Ke Meng reported the Black Room's rules and ownership conditions to the Investigation Bureau, then prepared animals and memorized a novel opening before entering again to test its requirements.

Ke Meng tested the Black Room’s limits and discovered that it capped the number of creatures and prevented sleep, while its ownership ritual demanded exponentially more writing each time. After calculating the enormous workload, he considered using pets to take shifts and returned with Shirley to test the idea before the Bureau moved the room.

• Ke Meng entered the Black Room with more than a hundred creatures, but its limit prevented him from releasing the final pet from his Storage Scarf.
• Ke Meng tried to sleep, then smashed the computer, microwave, and wall wires after realizing the Black Room’s supernatural hum kept him alert; he escaped by writing twenty thousand words.
• Ke Meng and Director Lei calculated that the writing requirement would grow to an astronomical total, so Ke Meng told the Bureau to seal the room for now.
• Ke Meng considered having two pets take turns writing and returned to the Black Room with Shirley to test the plan.
• Shirley typed at supersonic speed from memory but soon broke the ordinary laptop.

Ke Meng tested the Black Room’s typing rules, discovered that someone could escape inside another person’s storage item, and learned that the room itself could not be stored. He suspected the missing second-floor tenant had died and become the core of the Black Room’s rules.

• Shirley typed twenty thousand words and escaped the Black Room, while Ke Meng realized each person had to complete a separate typing task.
• Ke Meng found that only one intelligent being could type on a computer, then escaped while Tangyuan remained inside his Storage Scarf with an unfinished task.
• Ke Meng joined the Investigation Bureau’s demolition crew, but neither their storage item nor his Storage Scarf could contain the Black Room.
• Ke Meng told the crew the Black Room had not accepted an owner, while the demolition captain suspected the missing second-floor tenant had escaped as its owner.
• Ke Meng checked the tenant’s file and suspected the webnovel writer had died suddenly on the day he stopped updating, becoming the core of the Black Room’s rules.

Ke Meng investigated the Black Room’s former owner and discovered that a Hidden Being’s voice had driven the writer to madness and death. After resolving to hunt down the voice’s source, Ke Meng sensed an unknown Special Field containing a bar centered around a blood pool and a fanged statue.

• Ke Meng read the original owner’s unfinished manuscript aloud and reenacted the writer’s typing, exposing himself to the alluring voice while resisting its mental influence.
• Ke Meng concluded that the original owner had died after late nights and pressure left him vulnerable to a Hidden Being’s voice.
• Ke Meng left the Black Room, reported his findings, and went to sleep in the guarded isolation house.
• In his dream, Ke Meng used Synesthesia to trace the voice while Players searched for clues to unseal Cthulhu.
• Ke Meng sensed an unknown Special Field on Blue Star, where people drank blood in a bar and ignored a fanged statue standing in a blood pool.

Ke Meng investigated the second-floor tenant’s possible connection to vampires and sought a way into the Black Room after learning the tenant had never traveled abroad. With Flaming Man’s help, he began using heartflame to burn through the window, leaving the result unknown.

• Ke Meng found that the second-floor tenant had never traveled abroad and ordered Luo Yuan to check for vampire cases in the country.
• Ke Meng’s steel-core bullet failed to break the Black Room’s window, so he asked Flaming Man to use heartflame instead.
• Luo Yuan found three suspected vampire cases, all far from Whale City, while Zhou Mo reported that he heard no tempting voices inside the Black Room.
• Flaming Man arrived and, after Ke Meng firmly approved the attempt, flicked a tiny spark of heartflame toward the window.

Ke Meng and Flaming Man failed to destroy the Black Room with Heartflame Candle, so Ke Meng turned to investigating the Moonlight Bar and prepared to use Synesthesia to seek a lead. The chapter ended as Ke Meng began typing the strange text that had caused auditory hallucinations.

• Flaming Man's Heartflame Candle burned away the Black Room's other floors and the surrounding ground, but the second floor remained unharmed.
• Flaming Man tried burning the Black Room from inside, but it was still undamaged a day later, and Ke Meng gave up on destroying it.
• Ke Meng recalled the name Moonlight Bar, and the Network Divine Beast marked bars with registered addresses around the world.
• Ke Meng proposed using Synesthesia by typing the strange text, and the team approved the plan with Flaming Man ready to use the Rational Transcript if needed.
• Ke Meng spread out the map of bar locations and began typing the meaningless letters while Flaming Man watched over him.

Ke Meng tested the mysterious online passage and accepted its offer, discovering that it temporarily enhanced his appearance and slightly improved his strength. After investigating the passage and finding no vampires in the Moonlight Bars on the Koi Continent, he flew with Zhou Mo to the Half-Ice Continent, where the voice had summoned him.

• Ke Meng accepted the mysterious voice's offer through the passage, and it told him to travel to the Half-Ice Continent and summon it again.
• Flaming Man checked Ke Meng with the Rational Transcript, and Ke Meng concluded that the passage's power temporarily enhanced qualities such as appearance.
• The Investigation Bureau's report said the passage mildly affected ordinary people, while searches of Moonlight Bars on the Koi Continent found no vampires or special items.
• Ke Meng decided to investigate the Half-Ice Continent and brought Zhou Mo along to help locate vampires.
• Ke Meng and Zhou Mo boarded a flight to the Half-Ice Continent, and Ke Meng dreamed of R'lyeh while contemplating his new connection to the mysterious voice.