Recaps

Chen Mudou’s report confirmed Qin Yiguan’s completion of the job, bringing Hall 157 fame and earning him the title Number One Fierce Dog. Outside the Dog Gang hall, Qin Yiguan tested his enhanced perception as God’s Abandoned explained how his abilities would change with a higher fusion rate.

• Chen Mudou submitted a 126-page report proving Qin Yiguan had killed Luo Ming, and Chen Fazheng approved the job and transferred the two-million commission to Chen Mudou.
• Hall 157 rose in the rankings, while Qin Yiguan earned the title Number One Fierce Dog.
• Jingye Meinan tried to persuade Chen Mudou to split the commission, but Chen Mudou explained that Qin Yiguan had refused money from Geometry Design Group and invited her to help Rong Qian manage the company.
• Qin Yiguan watched the Dog Gang from outside the hall and used his 35% fusion rate to examine a member’s appearance and infer what he had done the previous night.
• God’s Abandoned explained that Qin Yiguan’s enhanced vision and fingertip sensitivity came from the Metaverse bypassing his ordinary senses, and described the possible changes at higher fusion rates.
• Qin Yiguan tested his judgment on a chewed leaf, which finally fell in the breeze.

After imitating Luo Canlie, Qin Yiguan developed the ability to control people through visible threads, but discovered that it only worked on people with lower Fusion Rates. He left off understanding that Chen Mudou’s hidden Fusion Rate exceeded 90%, making her and Lu Zun beyond his control.

• Jingye Meinan approached Qin Yiguan and saw him imitate the two-sided expressions of Luo Canlie, whose life file Qin Yiguan had obtained from Luo Sijie.
• Chen Mudou fell while struggling with her low Fusion Rate, and Jingye Meinan teased her as she tried to get back up.
• Qin Yiguan’s Shadow Syndrome development increased after he imitated Luo Canlie, and he discovered that closing his right eye revealed threads he could use to control Jingye Meinan.
• Qin Yiguan made Jingye Meinan crawl and sing against his will, while Chen Mudou mistook the spectacle for an attempt to cheer her up.
• Qin Yiguan tried to control Chen Mudou, but a magician appeared and dissolved the threads; he realized her Fusion Rate exceeded 90% and concluded that Luo Canlie could not control Lu Zun.

Lu Zun ordered Jiu Zhengxuan and the Youth Order Squad to enter the Experimental Zone, suppress its criminal groups, and hunt the Abnormal Log-in User. He equipped Jiu Zhengxuan’s superbrain with a module that would let him locate the target and assist remotely, leaving Jiu Zhengxuan poised to begin the mission.

• Lu Zun told Jiu Zhengxuan to stop dwelling on the failed mission to protect Jiao Shensan and explained that the Youth Order Squad needed to build its public image.
• Lu Zun ordered Jiu Zhengxuan to gather evidence and use force against gangs, conglomerate forces, and other organizations that committed crimes in the B5 and B6 Sectors’ Experimental Zone.
• Lu Zun accused the Abnormal Log-in User of involvement in Jiao Shensan’s death, the Research Society’s Space Fortress crash, and the CPH4 case, and named him as the squad’s ideal first major target.
• Lu Zun ordered Jiu Zhengxuan to find the Abnormal Log-in User, expose his crimes, and, if necessary, return with his corpse.
• Lu Zun fitted Jiu Zhengxuan’s superbrain with a mechanical module that would help him lock onto the target and allow Lu Zun to launch a remote attack if Jiu Zhengxuan could not defeat him.

Qin Yiguan entered a pitch-black tent to test and control Gestalt Collapse, but the ability manifested differently than before. He discovered Black Calamity, his first split personality, waiting in the darkness and refusing to lend him its power.

• Qin Yiguan reviewed his abilities and resolved to master Gestalt Collapse, while Chen Mudou found that Jingye Meinan had knocked himself unconscious ramming a tree.
• Qin Yiguan entered the tent and raised Conscience-Free Syndrome’s development level by confronting his fear of the darkness.
• Qin Yiguan summoned a tiny, blurry demon that attacked him, then realized Gestalt Collapse was behaving differently than before.
• Qin Yiguan turned and saw Black Calamity sitting in the tent, and Black Calamity mocked his attempt to borrow its ability.

Black Calamity explained that Qin Yiguan’s subconscious had been using [Gestalt Collapse] for him, and revealed that the Boundless One had intervened throughout his life. The chapter ended with Qin Yiguan learning that the Boundless One had prevented his death during his first Metaverse login.

• Black Calamity’s attack on Qin Yiguan was stopped by the Guardian, and Black Calamity said it could not kill him while the Guardian was present.
• Black Calamity told Qin Yiguan that human understanding could not grasp his abilities and showed him a scene of demonic claws attacking the Research Society’s Space Fortress.
• Black Calamity revealed that it had supplied the power for Qin Yiguan’s earlier [Gestalt Collapse] and explained that the subconscious was far more powerful than the conscious mind.
• Qin Yiguan questioned how Black Calamity could have helped him at the Geometry Design Group before they had met.
• Black Calamity showed a black paper-like figure assisting it during that incident and identified the figure as the Boundless One, which had traveled through Qin Yiguan’s life and saved him from falling to his death during his first Metaverse login.

Qin Yiguan saw through Black Calamity’s attempt to recruit him and forced it to surrender power and abilities from its own body in exchange for a temporary alliance. After Black Calamity left the tent, Qin Yiguan faced the gangs outside and teased Jingye Meinan.

• Qin Yiguan deduced that Black Calamity needed his help against a dangerous enemy and demanded to know what it would offer him.
• Black Calamity offered Qin Yiguan its heart, lungs, and eyes to raise his [Gestalt Collapse] mastery and grant him Netherworld Glimmer.
• Qin Yiguan refused to eat Black Calamity’s organs and demanded that it turn them into wine, while warning that he still intended to kill it someday.
• Black Calamity explained that Qin Yiguan needed to collect images of real demons to make his manifestations more detailed, then regenerated its organs and left the tent.
• Black Calamity slaughtered the Radiant Dragon Gang underlings outside, and Qin Yiguan denied killing them before calling out Jingye Meinan for preparing to attack him.
• Jingye Meinan turned himself into a caterpillar and bumped against the ground while striking his head against his baseball bat.

In 2122, the metaverse streamer Muzi lured a viewer into a kidnapping scheme, but a mysterious young man in a white suit arrived and defeated the Crippled Dragon Gang. He announced that law enforcement now existed in the Experimental Zone and sent the rescued viewer to give evidence at the Core Earth police station.

• Muzi offered viewers paid access to dance with her in Ziyin's livestream, and Wang Zilü paid 100,000 sunflowers to join her in another room.
• Muzi and the Crippled Dragon Gang trapped Wang Zilü and demanded a million-unit ransom, claiming his consciousness data was locked.
• A young man in a white suit entered and declared the gang under arrest, but the gangsters laughed at the idea of law enforcement in the Experimental Zone.
• The young man knocked down the gangsters in seconds and told Muzi she would face the law.
• The young man instructed Wang Zilü to give evidence at the Core Earth police station, and Wang Zilü claimed he had stolen the name of the famously handsome Wang Zilü.

Jiu Zhengxuan’s Youth Order Squad rapidly cracked down on criminal gangs in the Experimental Zone, earning widespread attention and terrifying the underworld. The squad then confronted Huang Peng’s enormous private army, and Wei Hu stepped forward to destroy its weapons while Jiu Zhengxuan ordered him to spare those who had not committed crimes deserving death.

• Jiu Zhengxuan’s Youth Order Squad arrested gang members, raided a banned-drug trafficking gang, destroyed a weapons factory, and took down twelve Gangs in eight hours.
• Media reports praised Jiu Zhengxuan’s lawful operations, while criminal groups across the Experimental Zone panicked and called for someone to stop the squad.
• Jiu Zhengxuan, Wei Hu, and Huo Shuang surveyed Huang Peng’s walled city and watched his private military parade, which featured soldiers, mechs, missiles, and other advanced weapons.
• Jiu Zhengxuan declared that Huang Peng’s private force threatened the Metaverse Government and ordinary residents, and said he would not allow Huang Peng to establish a dynasty.
• Wei Hu stepped forward, and Jiu Zhengxuan told him to destroy the weapons but leave the punishment of those who had not committed capital crimes to the law.

Wei Hu used his military arsenal case to crush the forces terrorizing Huangpeng City and rescue the women in the parade formation. The police learned that Wei Hu was one of the rare Technology Soldier Kings.

• Wei Hu remembered the commander-in-chief telling him that his foundation was being a soldier and ordering him to hand over his personal superbrain.
• Wei Hu disabled the flying probes above Huangpeng City and saw women being marched as “Harem beauties” by armed impostor soldiers.
• Wei Hu summoned Military Soul and used missiles and other weapons to destroy the city’s offensive weapons and military vehicles.
• Wei Hu pierced Huangpeng City’s force-field emitter, shot down incoming missiles, and incapacitated the blue-uniformed impostor soldiers.
• The police watched Wei Hu’s attack, and the deputy chief explained that Wei Hu was one of fewer than five soldiers known as Technology Soldier Kings.

Wei Hu and the police captured Huang Peng after Huo Shuang exposed his double and found him hiding beneath Huangpeng City. Jiu Zhengxuan revealed that Huo Shuang was connected to the long-lived River Phoenix Society, which had provided intelligence on Huang Peng and the Gangs.

• Wei Hu destroyed the platform beneath Huang Peng, and Jiu Zhengxuan led police to arrest the fallen ruler.
• Huo Shuang recognized that the dragon-robed Huang Peng was a double, found the real Huang Peng in a hidden basement, and confirmed his identity with a DNA test.
• Wei Hu asked Jiu Zhengxuan how the squad had obtained such precise intelligence, and Jiu Zhengxuan explained that Huo Shuang had grown up in the True City of the World.
• Jiu Zhengxuan told Wei Hu that Huo Shuang was tied to the River Phoenix Society, an intelligence organization said to have endured for 1,500 years.
• Wei Hu realized the Society had supplied information about the Gangs, Huang Peng's double, and Huang Peng's DNA, then joked about how the hair sample had been collected.

Jiu Zhengxuan, Wei Hu, and Huo Shuang uncovered a possible link between Huang Peng’s hired killer and the low-ranked Hall 157. Jiu Zhengxuan recognized a trail that might lead to Qin Yiguan and set off with Huo Shuang and Wei Hu to investigate the hall by surprise.

• Jiu Zhengxuan explained Huo Shuang’s past and her Cold As Reality Enhancement, then offered to donate one million to help the rescued women, while Wei Hu offered 24,200.
• Huang Peng was taken into custody and threatened the Youth Order Squad with a twenty-million bounty he had placed on them through an unidentified Underworld killer.
• Huo Shuang identified Hall 157 of the Dog Gang as a suspected source of the killer, linking its member Jingye Meinan’s claims to the Jiao Shensan and CHP4 assassination cases.
• Jiu Zhengxuan wondered whether the trail led to Brain Dark Zone 001, an anomalous intruder, Hall 157’s boss, or his classmate Qin Yiguan, then called for an aircraft.
• Jiu Zhengxuan, Huo Shuang, and Wei Hu left to investigate Hall 157 in a surprise attack.

Qin Yiguan raised Gestalt Collapse’s development to 35% by consuming the glass formed from Black Calamity’s body, then went outside the city to test his ability. His attempt to summon a demon failed when he realized he lacked a clear image of one, and the apparition vanished as his fear faded.

• Qin Yiguan left the Dog Gang’s hall with a glass of red wine while the survivors watched him in shock.
• Qin Yiguan ate the glass to raise Gestalt Collapse’s development from 34% to 35%, then examined the ability’s expanded description.
• Qin Yiguan used Dr. Jiao Shensan’s Liquid Black Hole to create darkness over a two-kilometer area and activated Netherworld Glimmer.
• Qin Yiguan saw a faint green light and recognized the effect as resembling glaucoma-induced rainbow vision.
• Qin Yiguan’s fear brought forth a gigantic, four-armed goat-headed demon, but its features were blurry because he had no clear image of a demon in mind.
• Qin Yiguan’s fear disappeared, and the demon dissolved into smoke.

Qin Yiguan sought a terrifying demon image to help manifest Gestalt Collapse and visited a consciousness tattoo shop. Jiaolong began preparing a Silver-Winged Yaksha tattoo, warning him that the design could overwhelm his mind.

• Qin Yiguan rejected the demon images God's Abandoned showed him and decided he needed a more frightening source of material.
• After learning about consciousness tattoos from Metaverse Know-It-All, Qin Yiguan found a small tattoo shop in the city.
• Qin Yiguan asked the white-haired shop owner whether she could tattoo a demon, and she agreed.
• The girl explained that he had to begin with ERFT, the Silver-Winged Yaksha, before attempting tattoos of the demon kings or Satan.
• Jiaolong placed the tattooing devices on Qin Yiguan and warned him that a previous customer had fled in terror after seeing only one of the Yaksha's eyes.
• Jiaolong noticed Qin Yiguan's black consciousness space and began designing the tattoo as Qin asked what he should call her.

Qin Yiguan visited Jiaolong to receive a consciousness tattoo and realized she might have a hidden connection to Central City. When Jiaolong brought the Silver-Winged Yaksha to life in a vision, Qin Yiguan welcomed its slaughter, and the creature became afraid of him.

• Jiaolong tattooed Qin Yiguan while he endured the pain, and he connected the wildflower in her room to the one he had left at Doctor Jiao's Nutrient Pod.
• Qin Yiguan suspected Jiaolong had a way to enter Central City and knew about Doctor Jiao's letter, but he concealed his deductions.
• Jiaolong drew the Silver-Winged Yaksha and explained its fearsome reputation and loyalty to Satan.
• Jiaolong covered the drawing with binary code, causing the room to burn away and sending Qin Yiguan into a vision of the yaksha slaughtering a crowd.
• The Silver-Winged Yaksha turned its scarlet eyes on Qin Yiguan, who laughed and praised it until the creature trembled in fear.

Qin Yiguan experienced the Silver-Winged Yaksha in his consciousness and learned more about Jiaolong’s demonic origins, her adoptive father, and Satan. He left before she finished Lucifer’s tattoo after Jingye Meinan warned that the Youth Order Squad was heading for the Dog Gang.

• Qin Yiguan woke after experiencing the Silver-Winged Yaksha in his consciousness, and Jiaolong began drawing Lucifer.
• Jiaolong told Qin Yiguan that her adoptive father had sealed a rift through which Leviathan descended, and that she intended to avenge his death at Lu Zun’s hands.
• Jiaolong described Satan as a truth-seeking dark angel and explained his fearsome appearance, which matched a demon Qin Yiguan had previously imagined.
• Jingye Meinan messaged Qin Yiguan that the Youth Order Squad was approaching the Dog Gang, so Qin Yiguan stopped the tattoo session and prepared to leave.
• Jiaolong thanked Qin Yiguan for his patronage, and he asked her to put the fee on his tab.

Jiu Zhengxuan led a police raid on the Dog Gang, only to find its headquarters staged as a reemployment fair for a supposedly legitimate company. The chapter ended with Chen Mudou presenting a huge stack of official documents while the police struggled to find grounds to investigate.

• Jiu Zhengxuan stopped an officer from shooting a Dog Gang lookout and insisted the police uphold the law.
• Jiu Zhengxuan led the police and reporters into the Dog Gang’s church, where they found a reemployment fair instead of an active gang operation.
• Wei Hu challenged several suspicious attendees, but they each offered plausible job-related explanations for their weapons or clothing.
• NST Wulong Baiyan claimed the site belonged to the DOG Group and denied knowing anything about the Dog Gang.
• Chen Mudou presented 1,050 business and employment documents, leaving the police astonished by how complete the paperwork was.

Jiu Zhengxuan tried to expose Qin Yiguan and the DOG Group, but their paperwork disguised a suspected assassination as a routine customer assessment. Qin Yiguan accepted the assignment to assess He Hongyuan and promised to complete it within three days.

• Jingye Meinan arrived and flirted with Huo Shuang while Jiu Zhengxuan suspected he had a source inside the River Phoenix Society.
• Qin Yiguan confronted Jiu Zhengxuan, who accused him of using Hall 157 as a cover for criminal activity but had no proof.
• Chen Fazheng arrived drunk with a two-million-bonus assignment concerning He Hongyuan, and Jiu Zhengxuan seized the document as evidence of an assassination plot.
• Jiu Zhengxuan found that the document only described a "Customer Activity Assessment," leaving him unable to prove it meant murder.
• Qin Yiguan accepted the assignment and told Chen Fazheng he would complete the assessment within three days.

Lu Zun planned to use the rapidly growing Leviathan to kill sixty million people and raise his Fusion Rate, while learning that a scientist who once shut it down was still alive. In the Metaverse, Qin Yiguan discovered that Lu Zun had funded memory archives across B5 and B6, raising his suspicions about their purpose.

• Lu Zun threw the secretary-general into the Leviathan fissure and resolved to make the planned mass deaths painful enough to increase his Fusion Rate.
• Xu Guan warned Lu Zun that Leviathan could reach Core Earth and cause a great collapse within ten days, and reported that the scientist who shut it down eighteen years earlier was alive.
• Jiu Zhengxuan saw Qin Yiguan log off from the Metaverse and guessed that he had gone to school.
• Qin Yiguan arrived at school, where Gala explained that the newly completed memory archives stored human memories for later generations to study.
• Gala told Qin Yiguan that Lu Zun had funded more than a hundred memory archives across B5 and B6, and Qin Yiguan suspected the project was not truly charitable.

Qin Yiguan toured Memory Archive No. 024, where he discovered that his adoptive father, Qin Shenhu, had donated his programming memories. Jiu Zhengxuan received alarming news about Doctor He and hurried to the Experimental Zone, leaving Qin Yiguan behind with a strange look in his eyes.

• Commander Lu Zun visited the playground and insisted that Jiu Zhengxuan follow the same queue rules as the other students.
• Qin Yiguan suspected Lu Zun’s public display of humility and service might be an attempt to shield him from suspicion.
• An AI robot explained how the archive recorded and reconstructed human memories as the students toured its displays.
• Taotie Clam speculated that entertainment memories were stored in the basement, while Qin Yiguan found Qin Shenhu’s programming-memory display.
• Qin Yiguan told Taotie Clam that Qin Shenhu had been his adoptive father and silently looked at his photograph.
• Jiu Zhengxuan received a communicator call about Doctor He, then left the archive by aircraft for the Experimental Zone as Qin Yiguan watched him go.

After He Hongyuan was found murdered in the Experimental Zone, Jiu Zhengxuan struggled to understand how the killer had acted without appearing on the police detectors. Wang Shiwei brought Qin Yiguan in to investigate, but Qin insisted he was there to find the person who had stolen his assassination job.

• Jiu Zhengxuan arrived at the institute and found He Hongyuan dead, headless, and bound to a wooden frame.
• Jiu Zhengxuan questioned how the murder could have happened in the 0.3 seconds between detector updates without anyone appearing in the room.
• Wang Shiwei arrived, explained that He Hongyuan had been his teacher, and introduced Qin Yiguan as help for the case.
• Jiu Zhengxuan called Qin Yiguan the prime suspect, while Qin claimed he was a law-abiding citizen who had helped police catch killers.
• Qin Yiguan told Wang Shiwei he was investigating for free because someone had stolen his assassination job.

Qin Yiguan investigated He Hongyuan’s murder and concluded that the killer had accelerated and controlled plants to dismember him. After uncovering He Hongyuan’s research into dark matter, Qin noticed a spotless section of a bookshelf that might conceal a frequently used switch.

• Qin Yiguan examined the plants binding He Hongyuan and found that their roots had penetrated his skin to draw blood.
• Qin Yiguan pulled the ivy from a flowerpot and revealed He Hongyuan’s head, which had been buried upside down in the soil.
• Qin Yiguan deduced that the plants had experienced several seasons in 0.3 seconds and that the killer could alter their growth through Reality Enhancement.
• Qin Yiguan studied He Hongyuan’s newspaper clippings and learned that the scientist had claimed to control dark matter and improve the Leviathan.
• Qin Yiguan spotted a polished, spotless compartment in the bookshelf and suspected it concealed a switch for He Hongyuan’s dark matter technology.

Qin Yiguan used a dark matter device to replay He Hongyuan’s murder and saw that the killer looked exactly like Jiu Zhengxuan. Suspecting Jiu Zhengxuan might be controlled by his father, Lu Zun, Qin Yiguan gave him one day to prove the truth before threatening to kill him.

• Qin Yiguan activated a hidden projection device that reconstructed the research institute and could replay events from the past.
• Qin Yiguan sent Jiu Zhengxuan and the other officers out so he could investigate with Officer Wang alone.
• The replay showed a black-smoke figure killing He Hongyuan and arranging his body, then briefly taking Jiu Zhengxuan’s face before the device burned out.
• Qin Yiguan questioned Jiu Zhengxuan about his Reality Enhancement, Lu Zun’s Absolute Hit, and whether he had lost time or memories.
• Qin Yiguan suspected Lu Zun might be controlling Jiu Zhengxuan through memories and warned him that he had one day to uncover the truth.
• Jiu Zhengxuan demanded to know who the replay had shown, but Qin Yiguan refused to tell him.

Qin Yiguan investigated Jiu Zhengxuan’s home in the Metaverse and witnessed a hidden, plant-controlling figure murder a servant. Before the entrance beneath the house closed, he saw that the killer was Jiu Zhengxuan himself.

• Qin Yiguan disappeared from the courtyard, and Jiu Zhengxuan found the surveillance equipment destroyed while Officer Wang refused to reveal the killer’s identity.
• Jiu Zhengxuan grew exhausted and fell asleep as he resolved to keep investigating Qin Yiguan.
• Qin Yiguan woke in Rust City, then returned to the Metaverse and used Officer Wang’s information to find Lu Zun’s virtual address, which he believed would lead him to Jiu Zhengxuan’s home.
• Qin Yiguan hid in a tree outside the villa and watched a figure beneath the house lure Auntie Lan with food before transforming plants to kill and bury her.
• Qin Yiguan glimpsed the figure as the entrance closed and recognized the disheveled, exhausted Jiu Zhengxuan as the killer.

Qin Yiguan discovered that Teacher Qing had been cast out of the Metaverse with severe brain damage and abandoned in Rust City. Enraged by the mechanical puppets’ treatment of him, Qin Yiguan destroyed them, then tried to remind his frightened former teacher who he was.

• Qin Yiguan woke after investigating the servant’s murder and considered whether Jiu Zhengxuan had acted on his own or under Lu Zun’s control.
• Qin Yiguan heard a familiar voice and found Teacher Qing crouched among the trash after mechanical puppets brought him to Rust City.
• Qin Yiguan stopped Teacher Qing from eating a filthy energy block and learned that the former teacher had been mentally impaired by damage in the Metaverse.
• The mechanical puppets mocked Teacher Qing and admitted they had been rough with him, making Qin Yiguan furious.
• Qin Yiguan wrecked both mechanical puppets with a strength he could not explain, then crouched beside Teacher Qing and introduced himself as his student.

Qin Yiguan visited Teacher Qing, whose damaged mind briefly recalled that a black-mist attacker had shot down the Snow City of Heavenly Light. Qin Yiguan realized the attacker had been Black Calamity, one of his own personalities, and was left believing he was the source of the evil that hurt his teacher.

• Qin Yiguan reminded Teacher Qing that he was Mu Qingkuang, the Light Emperor, and listened as Teacher Qing recalled flying away from the Snow City of Heavenly Light to defeat an evil man.
• Jiu Zhengxuan arrived in a mechanical puppet and recognized Teacher Qing, grieving over his condition.
• Teacher Qing pointed at Qin Yiguan and accused him of shooting down the city while shrouded in black mist.
• Qin Yiguan connected the attacker to Black Calamity and realized that the personality had harmed Teacher Qing.
• Jiu Zhengxuan angrily accused Qin Yiguan of attacking Teacher Qing, while Qin Yiguan wondered whether he could ever escape the evil within himself.