Arc 8Chapters 176–200
No recap yet.
No recap yet.
The priest's group reached an Otherkind gathering site to recover, while Sheng An learned that the government had launched the Godfall Purge Operation to stop the Otherkind's second move. The gathering site's ritual was interrupted by a sudden explosion.
The Special Affairs Office destroyed the Otherkind’s parking-garage base, but Dummy helped the old priest, Qiu, and the woman escape. Sheng An’s team tracked their conversation and prepared to investigate another suspected Otherkind hideout near E2 Shelter.
The Special Affairs Office systematically destroyed Otherkind bases, forcing their priests and followers to flee and abandon the Divine Descent mission. At the southwestern border, the exhausted priest learned that the last base was evacuating, and Dummy stopped the female priest as she tried to leave with the Fragments.
Li Xin, disguised as Dummy, killed the Otherkind who tried to seize the meteorite fragment and revealed himself to the old priest before finishing him. The Special Affairs Office reported that eleven Otherkind strongholds had been cleared, disrupting M's Divine Descent operation, while the remaining Otherkind might still be hiding.
Li Xin returned from his undercover mission and reunited with Group B as they prepared to enter the Southwest Region, where they might lose contact. The higher-ups also revealed that two research institutes had reached an uncertain but important conclusion and would explain it after the team returned with a healing-type Superpower Person.
Hao Jingye questioned Jiang Yu, Li Wanyun, and Long Tianyu about their past-life deaths, and the group realized their memories may have been altered. Sheng An set the mystery aside until they returned from their mission, and the convoy entered the Southwest Region, where Hao Jingye confirmed there was no signal.
Sheng An’s group entered the Southwest Disconnected Zone and discovered that its dense fog was poisonous miasma that could incapacitate people who breathed too much of it. After a difficult journey, they reached the nearby F19 shelter and froze at what they saw.
Sheng An and the convoy found the southwest region devastated by miasma, with decayed shelters and no survivors, while the soil could not sustain plant life. After hours of searching near the region’s core, they finally encountered living people.
Sheng An's convoy encountered Miao Yuan's starving group in the Southwest and learned that a healing Superpower Person called the God of Light lived at the Southwest Market. Miao Yuan's account revealed that the apocalypse had already entered its third year, leaving Sheng An and her team stunned.
The Special Affairs Office team learned that the Southwest Region had already endured two years of Doomsday and entered its third, while they had only just arrived. Miao Yuan recognized Sheng An and recounted the region’s collapse, then questioned why the country had failed to send help.
Sheng An told Miao Yuan and his companions that only three months had passed outside while they had endured nearly two years in the Southwest, and promised to investigate the time distortion. As the convoy approached the Southwest Market, the Special Affairs Office considered how the region’s strange timing affected the outside world and its earlier distress signal, while Miao Yuan asked about Old Chu and Xiao Xi.
Sheng An’s team learned that Old Chu could identify Otherkind with his Yin-Yang Eyes and that Xiao Xi, a child born after the Apocalypse, had extraordinary adaptability. As the convoy entered the Southwest Market, the self-proclaimed God of Light prepared to meet them.
Sheng An's convoy arrived at Southwest Market, where the survivors traded food and supplies and powerful espers ruled the streets. The Divine Lord appeared before the convoy and welcomed them to Southwest Base, while the God of Light remained hidden inside the lead car.
Sheng An and the Special Affairs Office arrived at the Southwest Base to assess the region and announced they would temporarily take over. When the God of Light rejected their authority and ordered his people to attack, Sheng An’s team swiftly subdued them.
Sheng An and the Special Affairs Office overwhelmed the God of Light’s followers at the Southwest Market and arrested their leader. Once his hood came off and Wu Buyu revealed his name, Jia Guangliang’s aura of divinity collapsed in front of the crowd.
Sheng An’s team subdued Jia Guangliang and told the Southwest’s Superpower People that a time anomaly had left them two years ahead of the outside world. The survivors accepted the revelation, agreed to cooperate, and began receiving supplies from the nation.
After receiving emergency supplies from the Special Affairs Office, the Southwest survivors united behind Sheng An’s call to uncover why the region suffered and break through the Southwest Miasma. Jia Guangliang lost his followers’ loyalty and was hauled over to Sheng An by Qi Lingwu.
Sheng An questioned Jia Guangliang about the Southwest's barrier, then had his followers share what they knew while the team settled into the castle, renamed the Southwest Base Office. The group began reviewing information about the Southwest's miasma, Otherkind, and meteorite fragments, while Jia Guangliang stubbornly waited for someone to offer him food.
Hao Jingye explained the Southwest Miasma’s deadly barrier, its time anomaly, and the disappearance of the Otherkind and meteorite fragments, leaving the group with major mysteries to solve. Jia Guangliang’s remaining information was exposed by Wu Buyu before he could bargain for food.
Jia Guangliang broke down over the burdens of posing as the God of Light, but Sheng An thanked him and arranged a meal, helping him accept the Special Affairs Office’s support. When Sheng An assigned him to join an attempt to leave the Southwest, he initially refused until she promised him good food.
Sheng An sent Qi Lingwu and an elite team to test whether they could escape the Southwest Miasma, while she began a systematic search of the region. She suspected the southwest’s deaths and missing Fragments were feeding something that had isolated it from the outside world.
As the teams investigated the Southwest Miasma and searched for a way out, Sheng An and the others waited for news and debated whether Qin Xuan should use his Prophecy superpower. The chapter ended with Old Chu and Xiao Xi waking, as Sheng An promised to protect them and make sure they could grow up safely.
Sheng An and her team discussed Old Chu’s Yin-Yang Eyes and the possibility that the strongest Otherkind could become indistinguishable from humans. As the group faced the mystery of the Southwest Miasma, they learned that mutant plants had been discovered.
After a living mutant plant was spotted in the Southwest, Sheng An led a small team to find it before it could disappear. The search began after the plant escaped, and Cheng Bairuo identified it as fish mint.
Sheng An and the others searched for the mutant fish mint near Cheng Bairuo’s hometown, where he recalled the surrounding mountains might be an old volcano. They found the battered plant, but it fled again, fulfilling Qin Xuan's Prophecy and leaving Sheng An wondering whether the prophecy predicted the future or made it inevitable.