Chapter Summaries

Qin Yiguan and his companions entered the strange home of Giant Whale City's city lord, Du An, where Qin Yiguan recognized the elderly man from fragments of lost memories. Before they could learn more, Shui Luo transformed and killed Du An, declaring that he had come to kill the city lord.

• Shui Luo led Qin Yiguan, Shitian, and Ying Dang to his father's isolated home, where Qin Yiguan noticed the exposed whale skin and Starvation Corpse sensed a level 5 delicacy inside.
• Qin Yiguan heard attendants say the city lord had not appeared for nearly four months and saw that the building's windows were sealed from within.
• Inside, Qin Yiguan saw Du An and experienced brief memories of a research institute, experiments, and the old man's younger face.
• Shui Luo suddenly transformed and attacked Du An with massive, tentacle-covered arms.
• Du An caught Shui Luo's arms, but Shui Luo's tentacles pierced his chest and killed him.

Qin Yiguan discovered that Uncle Luo had become a Negative Doppelgänger and learned that City Lord Du An had died four months earlier. He deduced that Du An had taken his own life to avoid transforming, while the mother organism that had been inside him had already escaped.

• Shui Luo revealed that the supposed City Lord Du An was actually Uncle Luo, who had become a Negative Doppelgänger.
• Qin Yiguan secretly cut flesh from Uncle Luo's wrist and pocketed it instead of eating it.
• Shui Luo led Qin Yiguan, Ying Dang, and Shitian to the sealed basement and explained that his father had died four months earlier and been buried there.
• Starvation Corpse detected traces of a level-five delicacy on Du An's corpse, indicating that the mother organism had escaped and found another host.
• Qin Yiguan examined Du An's throat wound and concluded that Du An had cut his own throat after realizing he was about to become a Negative Doppelgänger.
• Shui Luo confirmed Qin Yiguan's deduction, and Ying Dang claimed that he had reached the same conclusion.

Shui Luo showed Ying Dang a recording in which Du An asked him to save the undersea city from the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus, while Qin Yiguan suspected he had been the special child in Du An’s laboratory. When Shui Luo refused to answer questions about Du An’s body, Qin Yiguan tried to inspect it and Starvation Corpse sensed Shui Luo nearing a breakthrough.

• Shui Luo explained that Du An had hidden his illness and played Ying Dang a recording of Du An asking for help against the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus.
• Du An’s recording described a special child who escaped a laboratory rampage and hunted him, leading Qin Yiguan to suspect the child had been one of his personalities.
• Ying Dang promised to perform a ritual and ordered Shui Luo to gather the items he needed.
• Qin Yiguan questioned Shui Luo about Du An’s unburied, unpreserved body, and Shui Luo refused to answer.
• Qin Yiguan moved to examine Du An’s body, but Shui Luo blocked him as Starvation Corpse warned that Shui Luo was nearing the fourth level.

Qin Yiguan provoked Shui Luo to investigate the fungus inside him, but discovered Shui Luo was suppressing it through sheer self-control. He left to search Giant Whale City for the mother fungus while Shui Luo’s followers hoped he could help their undersea home and discussed the powerful “higher self” abilities emerging among land dwellers.

• Qin Yiguan threatened to dissect Du An’s corpse to provoke Shui Luo and test whether the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus would reveal itself.
• Shui Luo resisted the fungus inside him, causing its scent and apparent strength to fade, and warned Qin Yiguan not to damage his father’s corpse.
• Qin Yiguan concluded Shui Luo had suppressed an ordinary fungus and left the building to search Giant Whale City for the mother fungus.
• Shui Luo’s followers questioned whether Master Ying was reliable but agreed to gather the complicated equipment he had requested.
• Shui Luo’s followers discussed reports that land dwellers had developed the powerful “higher self” ability and doubted they could recruit one of its experts.

Qin Yiguan chased a level 5 delicacy beyond Giant Whale City's water barrier and met a girl named Shui Man. She introduced herself as Shui Luo's younger sister and revealed that her family had more than ten thousand siblings.

• Qin Yiguan searched Giant Whale City for the parasite matriarch and found a submarine whose engine had to be powered by mutation ability.
• Starvation Corpse sensed a level 5 delicacy outside the city's water barrier, and Qin Yiguan chased its moving figure across the city.
• Qin Yiguan jumped from a building in an attempt to reach the figure, fell, and died before waking again.
• The figure, a girl in a green gown, knocked on the water barrier and guided Qin Yiguan toward an airlock.
• Qin Yiguan swam outside the city and spoke with the girl through their artificial gills.
• The girl identified herself as Shui Man, Shui Luo's younger sister, and said she had more than ten thousand brothers and sisters.

Qin Yiguan learned from Du Shui Man how Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had reshaped the underwater world and met the sea creatures she buried. Shui Man then took him into the deep sea to show him how underwater residents caught food.

• Du Shui Man told Qin Yiguan that a sea turtle infected by Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had died, and she buried it in a cave with other dead marine creatures.
• Qin Yiguan learned that Du Shui Man and Du Shui Luo were among the many descendants Du An had created to build a family in the underwater world.
• Du Shui Man explained that the residents had abandoned most technology and relied on Tuomen Acuminate Fungus for power and survival.
• Du Shui Man took Qin Yiguan into the dark deep sea, where they spotted a school of large, glowing fish.

Qin Yiguan learned how the undersea residents depended on giant Food Mother Fish for food and shelter, then discovered that they injected newborns with the full-strength Tuomen Acuminate Fungus to preserve their society’s strength. He left questioning how people could fear a catastrophe while willingly drawing closer to it for power.

• Shui Man showed Qin Yiguan how residents harvested nutritious secretions from Food Mother Fish and built rooms inside their scales, while caring for the fish in return.
• Qin Yiguan saw a Food Mother Fish that had starved itself to death and watched residents evacuate its belly.
• Shui Man brought Qin Yiguan back to Giant Whale City, where he saw doctors injecting newborns with the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus.
• Shui Man explained that the fungus was given at full strength because its early stages granted abilities needed to survive underwater, despite eventually causing people to become Negative Doppelgängers.
• Qin Yiguan considered Shui Man’s examples of humanity accepting dangerous powers and weapons, and recognized the undersea world’s crisis as both a physical threat and a moral decline.

Qin Yiguan watched a friendly arena battle turn into a mass outbreak when Shui Ming and the other contestants transformed into level-five mother bodies and attacked the spectators. As Shui Luo rushed to contain the chaos, Ying Dang revealed his past as a renowned scientist and studied the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus.

• Shui Man brought Qin Yiguan to watch a competition between two teams, and Qin picked the black team to win over Shui Ming's green team.
• The black team overwhelmed the green team until Shui Ming was the only one left standing, badly injured and refusing to concede.
• Shui Ming's scent suddenly rose to level five, and he transformed into a monster that swallowed black-team fighters.
• Starvation Corpse sensed that all the contestants had become level-five mother bodies, and they attacked the arena spectators as panic spread.
• Shui Luo arrived with a team of strong residents and ordered them to contain the outbreak before it reached the city.
• Ying Dang repaired old scientific equipment and revealed to Shitian that he had once been the Gemini Group's chief scientist as he examined the dividing Tuomen Acuminate Fungus.

As Tuomen Acuminate Fungus mutants overwhelmed the match venue, Ying Dang admitted he could not fight until he gathered his equipment and prepared to flee with Shitian. Qin Yiguan stepped in to protect a woman and baby from a mutant, leaving Shui Man and the battered Shui Luo watching anxiously.

• Shitian urged Ying Dang to help at the match, but Ying Dang said he lacked his equipment and could only hope someone defeated the Negative Doppelgängers.
• Shui Luo fought the mutants until Shui Ming tore off his arm, while residents and police officers were devoured around him.
• Ying Dang explained that Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had evolved beyond its known stages and told Shitian to prepare to escape.
• Shui Man reached for Qin Yiguan atop the dome and found he had disappeared.
• Qin Yiguan blocked a mutant's attack on a woman carrying a baby, was knocked backward, and then faced the creature again as Shui Luo's attendants considered rescuing him.
• Ying Dang stopped Shitian from rushing to Qin Yiguan's aid, while Shui Man watched and wondered whether Qin Yiguan could survive.

Qin Yiguan summoned his Higher Self and slaughtered the mutated monsters attacking him in the arena. After recognizing him as a land dweller, Shui Luo knelt and begged his forgiveness, while Qin Yiguan reaffirmed that he would help deal with the parasites for his own reasons.

• Several mutated monsters charged Qin Yiguan, but he summoned a massive black wardrobe and revealed his Higher Self.
• The wardrobe's darkness engulfed the arena, where Qin Yiguan's Silver-Winged Yakshas fought the monsters and Lucifer beheaded them.
• Qin Yiguan collected strips of white flesh and pocketed them despite Starvation Corpse urging him to eat.
• Shui Luo, whose arm had been severed, and his remaining attendants knelt before Qin Yiguan and acknowledged him as a land dweller's Higher Self.
• Qin Yiguan told Shui Luo he would do what he could about the parasites, insisting that his reasons had nothing to do with Shui Luo's expectations.

Ying Dang claimed he could use his equipment to locate the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus's mother organism, while Qin Yiguan investigated Du An's corpse. Qin Yiguan discovered that Du An was connected to the giant whale by living tissue, and the corpse suddenly opened its eyes.

• Ying Dang revealed that he had been the Gemini Group's chief scientist and said he could locate the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus's mother organism with his equipment.
• Qin Yiguan went to investigate Du An's corpse, and Shui Luo agreed to let him examine it despite his father's wishes.
• An attendant reminded Shui Luo that Shui Man had died by suicide three months earlier, even though Qin Yiguan had spoken of her.
• Qin Yiguan found blood vessels, muscles, and nerves connecting Du An's body to the giant whale, suggesting they were symbiotic.
• Du An opened his eyes and stared at Qin Yiguan.

Du An relived how the six-year-old test subject escaped the Ring laboratory after enduring brutal experiments, then realized the boy had grown into the eighteen-year-old youth now gripping his throat in the basement. Du An recognized that the youth had truly come for him.

• Du An remembered hiding beneath a desk in the Ring laboratory as the six-year-old test subject battered down the locked door.
• Du An recalled that he had used the boy as a breeding ground for the Tuomen Bacterium, repeatedly draining his blood and subjecting him to dangerous transfusions.
• The boy broke through Du An's laboratory door, and Du An watched his face and body transform until he appeared to be eighteen.
• Du An realized the laboratory scene was a resurfacing memory and that he was now in the basement of a three-story building, sitting in the giant whale's scar.
• The eighteen-year-old youth gripped Du An by the throat, and Du An recognized him as the boy who had come for him.

Du An revealed that Qin Yiguan had been born in the Leviathan Rift and experimented on as a child, and that the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had originated from bacteria in Qin's blood. Du An admitted to controlling the fungus and confirmed that Shui Luo had antibodies, leaving Qin facing him as Du An approached in his real body.

• Qin Yiguan recognized Du An as the scientist who had experimented on him at the Ring Research Institute, and recovered memories of attacking Du An as a six-year-old before his adoptive parents took him away.
• Du An explained that Qin had arrived in reality from the Leviathan Rift and that Qin's regenerative body had endured years of experiments.
• Du An revealed that the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had mutated from bacteria in Qin's blood, and that he had brought a digitized sample into the Metaverse.
• Du An confessed that he had parasitized a giant blue whale, fabricated reports about a mother organism, and controlled the fungus through pheromone signals.
• Du An admitted that tens of thousands had died while he sought antibodies, then said Shui Luo was the person born with them and that he had awakened two days earlier.
• Du An detached himself from the whale's blood vessels and nerves and stepped toward Qin Yiguan in his real body.

Du An revealed that he had poisoned Qin Yiguan with a toxin that suppressed his Reality Enhancement, then attacked him while accusing him of carrying the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus mother specimen. Qin Yiguan was left battered and unable to use his abilities, and he finally considered letting Starvation Corpse strengthen him.

• Starvation Corpse sensed that the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had concentrated inside Du An, who claimed he had prepared a toxin specifically for Qin Yiguan.
• Du An revealed that his Consciousness Inhibitor had entered Qin Yiguan through the air and disabled his Reality Enhancement.
• Du An attacked Qin Yiguan, threw him through the building, and told Shui Luo and the others that Qin Yiguan carried the fungus mother specimen.
• Old Daoist Ying Dang's detector identified Qin Yiguan as the specimen with the highest life level, convincing the others of Du An's accusation.
• Du An repeatedly battered Qin Yiguan, who resisted using his 90% Fusion Rate while Starvation Corpse offered to strengthen him in exchange for flesh.
• Qin Yiguan, badly injured and unable to use his abilities, said there seemed to be no other choice.

Qin Yiguan ate the strips of white meat and let Starvation Corpse transform his body, gaining silver horns, claws, and immense strength. As Du An recoiled from Qin Yiguan’s new power, Shui Luo concluded that Qin Yiguan was the mother body.

• Du An knocked the white meat from Qin Yiguan’s hand and prepared to kill him, but Shitian stepped between them.
• While Du An focused on Shitian, Qin Yiguan gathered and ate the strips of white meat, including the piece that had fallen.
• Du An’s flesh spikes struck at Qin Yiguan, who caught them with his bare hands and stopped their attack.
• Qin Yiguan swallowed the meat and allowed Starvation Corpse to transform him, turning his eyes, blood, nails, horns, and muscles silver.
• Shui Luo identified Qin Yiguan as the mother body, while Qin Yiguan tore one of Du An’s spikes apart and forced Du An to step back.

Qin Yiguan used his transformed strength to kill Du An, who regenerated and then created numerous copies of the people present. Qin Yiguan identified one disguised Du An by his aroma as the doubles turned on one another.

• Qin Yiguan revealed that the Starvation Corpse had changed his body and granted him immense strength, then overwhelmed Du An’s parasite arms.
• Qin Yiguan punched a hole through Du An’s chest and killed him by destroying his head.
• Du An regenerated with the healing power of the primordial Tuomen Acuminate Fungus and tried to frame Qin Yiguan, but Qin Yiguan reduced him to pulp again.
• Du An’s copies appeared as multiple Shui Luos, Shitians, old Daoist Ying Dangs, and followers, causing confusion as they accused one another of being fakes.
• Qin Yiguan attacked an old Daoist Ying Dang, exposed the disguised Du An, and said he had recognized him by his different aroma.

Du An used the killer whales, crushing water pressure, poison, and ultrasound to overwhelm Qin Yiguan and Starvation Corpse. Believing Qin Yiguan dead, Du An ordered Shui Luo to offer his body to the sea and shut off his artificial gills.

• Du An revealed that he had two Reality Enhancements, including Ocean Resonance, and sent killer whales to batter the water barrier above Giant Whale City.
• A breach opened directly above Qin Yiguan, subjecting him to extreme water pressure, poisonous sea creatures, and a stream of sharp fish.
• Du An’s enhanced dolphins used ultrasound that weakened Starvation Corpse and disrupted Qin Yiguan’s ability to resist.
• After the attack continued for more than ten minutes, a Portuguese man-of-war plugged the breach, and Qin Yiguan lay motionless with severe wounds.
• Du An concluded that Qin Yiguan was dead and told Shui Luo to offer his body to the sea, then ordered him to turn off Qin Yiguan’s artificial gills.

Du An revealed that the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had no mother and that he had cultivated its original strain inside himself. He killed Shui Luo to extract his antibodies, claiming the sacrifice would protect the undersea residents and preserve his kingdom.

• Shui Luo asked Du An whether destroying Qin Yiguan would stop the fungus from producing Negative Doppelgängers, and Du An recognized Shui Luo as an antibody carrier.
• Du An explained that the fungus had no mother: its original strain was inside him, and he could influence the fungi but could not control their iterations.
• Du An admitted he had falsely claimed Qin Yiguan was the mother to reassure the residents and said he planned to extract antibodies from Shui Luo's blood.
• Du An's fungus-affected arm strangled Shui Luo, whose ability failed to awaken the fungus inside him, and Shui Luo died.
• Du An remembered raising hundreds of genetically cultivated children and said Shui Luo's death would ensure the survival of the undersea residents and his kingdom.

Qin Yiguan sank to the deepest part of the Metaverse ocean, where the restriction potion weakened and Victim returned. After enduring repeated deaths by suffocation and losing the will to revive, he was brought to a vast, glowing seabed network by Shui Man, who revealed it was the mother body of the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus.

• Qin Yiguan sank to 90,000 meters beneath the sea as his blood attracted carnivorous creatures that did not attack him.
• The restriction potion weakened, allowing Victim to appear, but Du An had switched off Qin Yiguan’s artificial gills, and he suffocated.
• Victim repeatedly revived Qin Yiguan, who died of suffocation again and again until he no longer wanted to return to life.
• Shui Man found Qin Yiguan and pulled him down to the ocean’s deepest seabed, where a vast, glowing network spread across the rocks.
• Shui Man woke Qin Yiguan, who discovered he could breathe underwater and learned that the network was the mother body of the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus.

Qin Yiguan learned that the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus had evolved into a vast seabed neural network, and Shui Man revealed that she was a fungus who had recreated her deceased human host. Shui Man compared the fungus’s survival to humanity’s and led Qin Yiguan toward the real mother organism.

• Qin Yiguan saw the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus’s enormous mother organism and learned that its neural network could think on an incomprehensible scale.
• Shui Man told Qin Yiguan that she had killed herself three months earlier to avoid becoming a Negative Doppelgänger, and that she was a Tuomen Acuminate Fungus who had recreated the dead Shui Man.
• Shui Man explained that she had copied Shui Man’s appearance and personality to let her continue living, then compared the fungus’s parasitism to humans raising animals for food.
• Shui Man showed Qin Yiguan how the underwater residents’ relationship with the Food Mother Fish mirrored the Tuomen Acuminate Fungus’s relationship with humans.
• Shui Man compared Du An living inside a blue whale and Giant Whale City on the whale’s back to parasites, arguing that survival had no distinction between good and evil.
• Shui Man invited Qin Yiguan to meet the real mother organism, and he reacted with alarm.