Chapter Summaries

Su Ye recruited Ember Iron of the Ash Ember Race by offering him rare forging books and a place to work in the Gale Ranger's new furnace. After accepting Ember Iron's life-bound hammer and securing his loyalty, Su Ye waited for Qingya to arrive.

• Su Ye installed a furnace, Cultivation Room, and Storage Room in the Gale Ranger before heading to the Talent Market with Xing Meng.
• Su Ye asked the manager to bring Ember Iron and Qingya from the discarded talent pool.
• Ember Iron recognized the value of Su Ye's ancient forging books, including records of the lost Fold-Forging Method, and agreed to work for him.
• Ember Iron gave Su Ye his life-bound artifact, making himself completely loyal, then began reading the books while Su Ye waited for Qingya.

Su Ye recruited Qingya of the Radiant Light Clan and learned that growing her life-sustaining Tree of Life would require billions of Survival Coins, though monster corpses could help. He left her to tend the Seed of Life and went to see Ember Iron working in the furnace room.

• Su Ye offered Qingya the Seed of Life in exchange for tending his Cultivation Room, and she accepted his contract.
• Su Ye brought Qingya and Ember Iron to the Gale Ranger and showed them their workrooms.
• Qingya explained that the Seed of Life slowed her loss of vitality and estimated that growing the Tree of Life would cost fourteen billion Survival Coins with her clan's help.
• Su Ye gave Qingya a pouch of seeds to inspect and plant, then left the Cultivation Room.
• Su Ye entered the furnace room and watched Ember Iron hammer glowing material while Xing Meng explained that he wanted to test the furnace.

Ember Iron recognized the Emberfire Heart as the Ash Ember Race’s stolen supreme treasure, and Su Ye returned it to him, restoring the race to the Ember Race. After Ember Iron smelted the tier-three materials needed for Su Ye’s Vehicle, Su Ye gave him the Black Wind Set for a simple reforging.

• Ember Iron forged Su Ye a zero-tier longsword with a Physique bonus and a Heavy Strike skill, then explained that the furnace needed a stronger flame.
• Su Ye showed Ember Iron the Emberfire Heart, and Ember Iron revealed that a traitor had stolen it, causing the Ember Race to become the Ash Ember Race.
• Su Ye explained that he obtained the Emberfire Heart from the Emberfire Furnace instance and gave it to Ember Iron, who promised to forge for him.
• Three days later, Ember Iron finished smelting the tier-three materials Su Ye needed and had regained his flowing-magma appearance.
• Ember Iron offered to reforge Su Ye’s Black Wind Set, and Su Ye handed it over for a simple improvement.

Su Ye began upgrading the Gale Ranger with Tier Three materials, the Void Walker Engine, and a Tractor Beam, then inspected Ember Iron’s reforged Black Wind Set and approved his plans for three specialized Tier Three sets. While the upgrade proceeded, Su Ye entered the Bloodbone Ruins with A Da and Xing Meng to hunt its commander, and they cleared the monsters outside the fortress before heading toward the inner city.

• Su Ye ordered Fifteen to upgrade the Gale Ranger with Tier Three materials, the Void Walker Engine, and a Tractor Beam, starting a twenty-hour upgrade.
• Su Ye inspected the reforged Black Wind Set, whose stats had improved by 20%, and Ember Iron proposed preparing three specialized Tier Three equipment sets.
• Su Ye agreed to Ember Iron’s plans, then took A Da and Xing Meng into a Tier Two secret realm while Ember Iron and Qingya stayed aboard the Vehicle.
• Su Ye, A Da, and Xing Meng entered the Bloodbone Ruins and learned that they had to slay the Bloodbone Commander to clear it.
• The trio killed more than a hundred Bloodbone Beasts around the fortress, collected the loot, and rode toward the inner city.

Su Ye entered the road instance Soundkeeper Village and prepared his companions to follow its rule against speaking. When an old man asked for food, Su Ye killed him and revealed that he was a Sound Recording Worm in disguise.

• Fifteen detected thick fog that the Weather Forecast had not predicted, and Su Ye decided to enter the road instance.
• The group entered Soundkeeper Village, where Su Ye distributed Silent Rings so they could communicate telepathically without speaking.
• Su Ye told everyone to remain silent and had A Da drive the Gale Ranger into the village.
• An old man approached the vehicle and asked Su Ye for food in exchange for a village secret.
• Su Ye stabbed and killed the old man, whose corpse turned into black slime containing a Sound Recording Worm.

Su Ye and his companions found the Soundkeeper Village rules and reached a protected courtyard just as night fell. There, A Tai warned them to stay silent and said the Village Chief was trapped in the Ancestral Shrine, offering to guide them there in the morning.

• Su Ye gave the echo powder dropped by a monster to Ember Iron, who identified it as a material for resonance alloy.
• Su Ye's group reached the village center, found the Soundkeeper Village rules, and saw a black stone appear over the well.
• A Tai blocked their path and gestured for them to follow her to shelter before nightfall.
• Su Ye led his companions into A Tai's courtyard, where the sky turned black and monsters gathered outside the rune-covered gate.
• A Tai wrote that the Village Chief was trapped in the northern Ancestral Shrine and offered to take Su Ye there the next morning.

Su Ye ignored a monster imitating Mo Yu’s cries and learned from A Tai how the Black Stone and Ancestral Shrine protected Soundkeeper Village from a monster that preyed on speaking beings. After noticing that A Tai’s survival among the village’s monsters seemed suspicious, Su Ye decided to visit the Ancestral Shrine the next day and confront the monster if it appeared.

• Su Ye and A Da ignored the voice outside the house, which grew distorted before fading away.
• Su Ye gave A Tai a Silent Ring, allowing them to communicate telepathically without attracting the monsters.
• A Tai explained that the Black Stone protected villagers from the monster and enabled the village chief to recite the Sacrificial Text that awakened the Ancestral Shrine’s power.
• A Tai told Su Ye that the village well was a monster’s nest and that the surviving villagers were sheltering in the Ancestral Shrine with the village chief and Grandpa Big Eyes.
• Su Ye suspected that A Tai’s ability to survive outside the shrine was abnormal, but his detection skill showed she was an ordinary human.
• Su Ye planned to rest and visit the Ancestral Shrine the next day, hoping to confront and kill the monster.

Su Ye and A Tai reached the Ancestral Shrine, where the Black Stone protected the area from the gray mist and the village chief awaited a chance to perform the Ancient Sacrificial Text. The Silence Lord attacked, and Su Ye ordered Fifteen to switch into the Dark Hunter form to confront it.

• After spending the night in the courtyard, Su Ye took A Tai north toward the Ancestral Shrine in the Gale Ranger.
• Fifteen detected the Black Stone outside the shrine, and A Tai confirmed its identity.
• Echo Parasites ambushed the group, but A Da charged through them with the Gale Ranger and crushed them.
• Su Ye and A Tai approached the Black Stone and saw the Silence Lord emerge above the sealed shrine entrance.
• The village chief prepared to use the Black Stone's protection to recite the Ancient Sacrificial Text, but the Silence Lord unleashed a powerful sound wave toward it.
• Su Ye told Fifteen to activate the Dark Hunter template to fight the Silence Lord.

Su Ye drove the Silence Lord away from Soundkeeper Village and entered the Ancestral Shrine, where he watched the Village Chief begin a ritual. As the Village Chief recited the sacrificial text, runes appeared on the stele and the black stone, and Su Ye noticed the stele’s information change.

• Su Ye activated the Dark Hunter’s Vehicle template and attacked the Silence Lord while A Da used the Gale Ranger to evade its charge.
• Su Ye fired the Army-Breaker Cannon, badly wounding the Silence Lord and forcing it to flee into the gray mist.
• The Village Chief invited Su Ye into the Ancestral Shrine, and Su Ye entered with A Tai after telling the others to stay alert.
• Su Ye introduced himself as Changming Yushi and met the Village Chief and Grandpa Big Eye among the starving villagers.
• The Village Chief began reciting the sacrificial text, causing light and runes to appear on the stele and the black stone.

Su Ye learned that Soundkeeper Village’s protection lasted only seven days and that the villagers could not escape the monster’s influence. After questioning the Village Chief about the Black Stone and Mountain-Sealing Stele, he discovered the masked chief was a seventeen- or eighteen-year-old youth, who began to tell him a story dating back six hundred years.

• The Village Chief completed the ritual, explaining that it now protected the village for at most seven days and that a gap in the Gray Fog would open in five days.
• The Village Chief said Big Eye knew a dangerous route out, while villagers who stayed more than ten days would become trapped by the monster’s influence.
• Su Ye questioned the Village Chief about the monster, the Black Stone, and the Mountain-Sealing Stele, but the Village Chief offered to have Big Eye guide him out instead of answering.
• The Village Chief removed his face covering and revealed that he was a young man, the 178th Village Chief of Forest-Guarding Village.
• Su Ye set out food and wine, and the young Village Chief ate before beginning his story, which started six hundred years earlier.

The Village Chief told Su Ye how the ancient well unleashed the Silence Lord, trapped Forest-Guarding Village, and left its people dependent on the failing Mountain-Sealing Stele. Su Ye learned that A Tai was a mysterious, powerful figure, but neither she nor the Village Chief knew how to save the village, leaving Su Ye to decide whether to seek a solution himself.

• The Village Chief explained that a wandering expert had sealed the ancient well with white jade, which later turned black and became the stone that could restrain the Silence Lord.
• The Village Chief recounted how the Silence Lord escaped five hundred years earlier, trapped the villagers, and stripped away their ability to speak, while the black stone proved unable to seal the well again.
• The villagers found the Mountain-Sealing Stele, whose protective power kept them alive, and restricted its recitation to the Village Chief as its inscription faded.
• Su Ye asked about A Tai, and the Village Chief said she had been found with the black stone, never aged, and possessed power so great that her grief once caused a month of rain.
• The Village Chief admitted he had no way to free the village, and Su Ye offered to fight the monster if he encountered it before saying goodbye.

Su Ye waited in the village before setting out with Big Eye to leave the region, while A Tai refused to leave because she felt something important bound her to the village. At the canyon, eight Silence Lords emerged from the black fog and blocked their way out.

• Su Ye invited A Tai to leave with them, but she said she had to stay because something important was in the village, though she could not remember what it was.
• Qingya told Su Ye that A Tai seemed far more powerful than she was, yet her vitality was unusually low.
• Su Ye and his companions spent the day in the vehicle, and no more monsters appeared in the village.
• On the third morning, Big Eye led Su Ye's group through the Ancient Forest toward the canyon and returned the Silent Ring before heading back to the village.
• Black clouds and deathly fog suddenly appeared, and eight Silence Lords emerged around Su Ye's group as Big Eye trembled in silence.

Su Ye and his companions fought the eight Silence Lords that had surrounded the Gale Ranger and destroyed them all. The Cleaner Drones gathered the bosses’ drops, which Xing Meng began to inventory.

• The eight Silence Lords encircled the Gale Ranger to block its way, so Su Ye activated the Dark Hunter template and ordered the vehicle to attack.
• Su Ye trapped two Silence Lords in a Thunder Prison Cage while the Gale Ranger’s weapons killed one and badly wounded the other.
• A Da drove the Gale Ranger through a gap in the encirclement, and Su Ye used the vehicle’s speed and weapons to harass the pursuing Silence Lords.
• After the Army-Breaker Cannon charged, Su Ye fired it and annihilated three pursuing Silence Lords.
• Su Ye used a Tier Three Five Thunders Strike Talisman to destroy the four surviving Silence Lords with five-colored lightning.
• Su Ye ordered Xing Meng to send out Cleaner Drones, and the drones collected the loot from all eight bosses.

After the eight Tier Three Silence Lords fell, Su Ye acquired a Purification Stone and rushed back to Forest-Guarding Village when a catastrophic eruption of black contamination engulfed it. He reached the Ancestral Shrine, where the Village Chief was sustaining a failing barrier, just as Su Ye demanded the truth about what lay sealed underground and the darkness grew stronger.

• Xing Meng reported the loot from the Silence Lords, and Su Ye fused eight Purification Stone Fragments into a Purification Stone.
• A violent upheaval sent black smoke rising from Forest-Guarding Village, and Su Ye realized the Silence Lords had not been the final bosses.
• Su Ye ordered A Da to drive the Gale Ranger back to the village, while the Purification Stone shielded them from the corrosive contamination.
• Su Ye found the village destroyed and the Village Chief protecting A Tai and the other villagers inside the Ancestral Shrine with the Mountain-Sealing Stele.
• Su Ye asked whether the Silence Lords' deaths had caused the disaster and pressed the Village Chief to reveal what the stele sealed underground.
• The black malevolent energy blotted out all light and began cracking the golden barrier around the Ancestral Shrine.

A broken-horned figure attacked the Ancestral Shrine, demanding the source of life he sensed from Su Ye. When he overwhelmed the village’s defenses, A Tai revealed her power as the Mountain Spirit and annihilated his hundred Silence Lords.

• The broken-horned figure emerged from the black mist, sensed the Seed of Life’s aura around Su Ye, and demanded that he hand over its source.
• The Village Chief rose to protect Su Ye and urged him to escape, but the broken-horned figure summoned a hundred Silence Lords.
• The Village Chief used the Mountain-Sealing Stele to defend the Ancestral Shrine, but the Silence Lords shattered it and left him gravely injured.
• As Su Ye prepared to fight with his tier-three talismans, A Tai stepped outside and released a golden ripple that destroyed all hundred Silence Lords and woke the villagers.
• The Village Chief, Big Eye, and the other villagers bowed to A Tai as the Mountain Spirit, while Su Ye realized they had known her identity all along.

Su Ye learned that the Forest-Guarding Village had created Root Grudge by cutting down the Old Locust Tree and digging a well in its place, then fought off the monster’s Silence Lords while A Tai battled Root Grudge. The chapter ended as a streak of black light fell from the sky directly toward Su Ye.

• The Village Chief explained that the Forest-Guarding Village had cut down the Old Locust Tree and dug a well six hundred years earlier, causing the disaster that created Root Grudge.
• A Tai revealed her power as the Mountain Spirit and fought Root Grudge in the sky.
• Root Grudge sent a hundred Silence Lords after Su Ye and demanded that he surrender the Seed of Life.
• Su Ye ordered his companions to attack the Silence Lords from the Gale Ranger while A Tai fought Root Grudge overhead.
• After more than half an hour, a streak of black light fell from the sky toward Su Ye.

A Tai pinned Root Grudge beneath a mountain phantom while Su Ye used the Sprout of Life to help her awaken the Tree of Life. The Tree began draining Root Grudge’s life origin and sinister energy, leaving him helpless as he was turned into its nourishment.

• Root Grudge attacked the Gale Ranger, but Su Ye activated the Void Walker Engine and let the strike pass through the Vehicle.
• A Tai caught up and suppressed Root Grudge beneath a mountain phantom, then told Su Ye to bring out the Seed of Life.
• Su Ye and Qingya retrieved the sprouted Seed of Life, and Su Ye tossed it to A Tai.
• A Tai infused the Sprout of Life with her power, causing the Tree of Life to manifest and spread its roots through the Forest-Guarding Village.
• The Tree of Life drained Root Grudge’s life origin and gathered energy while A Tai held him down.

A Tai sacrificed her Origin to destroy Root Grudge and free Forest-Guarding Village, then vanished after asking Su Ye to leave the villagers food. With the hidden storyline complete, Su Ye collected the monsters’ loot and brought supplies to the village.

• The Seed of Life drained A Tai’s Origin to grow into a Tree of Life, while its power destroyed Root Grudge and the Silence Lords.
• Root Grudge recalled his peaceful life as a village tree before disappearing, and the Silence Lords crumbled into dust.
• A Tai told the villagers the calamity was over and departed as golden motes after asking Su Ye to leave them food.
• Su Ye promised A Tai, received a system notification that the hidden storyline was complete, and learned the Tree of Life had saved at least a billion Survival Coins.
• Su Ye ordered Xing Meng to collect the monsters’ loot, then gave the villagers sacks of rice and flour and barrels of purified water.

Su Ye left Forest-Guarding Village food and received the Heavenly Stem Earth-Shaking Disk in return before departing with the Gale Ranger. After inspecting the Tree of Life and using a Skill Level Cap Removal Card on Wave Stacking, he returned to the Survival Road.

• Su Ye gave the Village Chief food for the villagers, and the Village Chief offered him the ancestral Heavenly Stem Earth-Shaking Disk.
• Su Ye returned to the Gale Ranger after Xing Meng finished clearing the battlefield and Qingya replanted the Tree of Life in the Cultivation Room.
• Su Ye inspected the Tree of Life and found that it improved health regeneration, resistance to negative effects, and plant growth.
• Xing Meng handed Su Ye a Skill Level Cap Removal Card, which Su Ye used to break Wave Stacking's level cap.
• Su Ye tried to use a Skill Stone on Wave Stacking: Limit Break, but the system said the skill could not be upgraded that way.
• The Gale Ranger left the instance space and returned to the Survival Road.

Su Ye raised Wave Stacking · Limit Break to level 12 while the Gale Ranger traveled, then learned that the Gray Fog Civilizations planned a Crown of Kings event to lure and kill the strongest players. He questioned whether they could directly influence the Survival Road game as the chapter ended.

• Su Ye ordered the Gale Ranger's crew to maintain their supplies and equipment, then spent three days training Wave Stacking.
• Su Ye raised Wave Stacking · Limit Break to level 12, increasing its maximum stacks to 20 and its damage bonus per stack to 36%.
• Fifteen reported that five Great Xia Soldiers were ahead, so Su Ye stopped the Gale Ranger to hear their intelligence.
• The Great Xia squad leader told Su Ye that the Gray Fog Civilizations planned a Crown of Kings ranking event whose King Challenge would let their fighters target top players.
• Su Ye recognized the event as an attempt to eliminate the Fivefold Race's strongest players and asked whether the Gray Fog Civilizations could actively launch events.