Chapter Summaries

Ye Lin’s group prepared to draw out the hidden monster while Ye Lin hinted that he knew more about their situation than he had shared. As the monster arrived at the city’s edge, the group braced for a fight.

• Hu Jia, An Ke, and the others discussed how to extract the creature and escape, while Ye Lin warned them to kill anyone who acted suspiciously.
• Huang Liang apologized to Ye Lin for being selfish and promised to protect the group, but Ye Lin hinted at questions about their isolation before telling him to focus on surviving.
• He Zheng’s group raced through the eastern outskirts with zombies in pursuit as Frank used a controller to draw out the creature.
• Kelin watched Frank and silently feared that Frank was lying, since they had never obtained the Stone Tablet and had only seen a photograph.
• He Zheng spotted the creature approaching, and Huang Liang aimed his sniper rifle at the hunched monster wearing what looked like a mask of human skin.

Frank led the group in feeding the fused monster called Roger to test whether it could evolve and lock the exam’s difficulty. Roger began eating corpses, and the system announced a new exam objective to ensure the nascent form of an unknown entity fully arrived within six days and eleven hours.

• Frank identified the fused monster as Roger and proposed luring it into a horde of zombies so it could evolve by eating them.
• Ye Lin agreed to the test but followed Frank to the horde, while Huang Liang trained a sniper rifle on him to prevent him from escaping.
• An Ke noticed that Roger reacted to gunfire with apparent intelligence and warned Ye Lin to be careful.
• After blood splashed on its face, Roger tasted it, opened the second face’s eyes, and began tearing into and eating the zombie corpses.
• Roger’s limbs swelled as it fed, and the system announced Frank had completed option one, revealed the second-round objective, and reported that difficulty locking had reached three percent.

Ye Lin exposed Frank’s attempt to manipulate “Roger” and confronted him over the Stone Tablet. Frank claimed there was no Stone Tablet, then tried to fuse with “Roger” as the descent and difficulty-lock progress began advancing.

• An Ke warned Ye Lin that the evolving “Roger” could become dangerous, and Ye Lin ordered Huang Liang to shoot Frank as Frank charged into the zombie horde.
• Ye Lin shot Frank in the leg and revealed that he had found a tracking device Frank had hidden in his belongings.
• Frank denied trying to escape and accused Ye Lin of never intending to spare him, then insisted that his group had never found the Stone Tablet.
• Frank detonated the fire element in his body, crawled toward “Roger,” and bit him in an attempt to fuse with him.
• The system announced that descent progress had reached 6% and difficulty-lock progress had reached 6.01% as the survival countdown sped up.

Frank rapidly fused with another zombie and attacked Ye Lin’s group, forcing them to fight for their lives while Ye Lin rushed to catch up. Ye Lin finally confronted Frank, but Frank’s claw tore open Ye Lin’s chest.

• Frank fused with the other zombie and leaped toward He Zheng and the others to devour them and evolve further.
• An Ke warned He Zheng and fired at Frank, but Frank’s blow sent He Zheng crashing into the truck.
• An Ke shot Frank with a special bullet, punching a hole through his chest and knocking him back, but his wound quickly began to heal.
• Zhang Tie transformed and shielded An Ke and the others, taking Frank’s attack and suffering a crushed chest.
• Ye Lin arrived and clashed swords with Frank, but Frank struck back and gouged a large chunk of flesh from Ye Lin’s chest.

Ye Lin and the others fought Frank as his fusion with Roger made him increasingly powerful, leaving the group near defeat. Ye Lin detonated the Cross Longsword and, while Frank lay crippled, began devouring him.

• Ye Lin wounded Frank with a strike to the neck, but Frank completed the fusion, healed, and badly injured He Zheng, Zhang Tie, and Huang Liang.
• Ye Lin used his Rampage State to attack Frank, but Frank severed Ye Lin’s arm and sent him crashing to the ground.
• Kelin pleaded with Roger to wake up, but the fused creature kicked a stone through him and continued toward Ye Lin.
• Ye Lin charged Frank despite his injuries, and the Cross Longsword detonated in a massive blast that left the fused creature half-destroyed.
• Ye Lin dug into Frank’s chest, attacked his head, and devoured him as Frank’s fading consciousness felt his soul drain away.

Ye Lin’s body regenerated after he devoured the Fusion Entity, while memories from those he had absorbed flooded his consciousness. As he awoke, An Ke wondered whether he planned to kill the group and struggled to decide whether to strike first.

• Ye Lin’s new heart converted absorbed energy into vitality as his body repaired itself and cellular memories flooded his mind.
• He Zheng and the others found Ye Lin alive after the Fusion Entity vanished, while the injured group cleared the remaining zombies and searched for medicine.
• An Ke suspected Ye Lin had deliberately guided events so he could grow stronger by devouring others and feared he would kill the survivors before they returned.
• An Ke considered shooting Ye Lin but lowered her gun, unable to risk killing him or losing their chance to lock the exam difficulty.
• Ye Lin opened his eyes and stared coldly at An Ke just as she gave up on acting.

Ye Lin concealed how much the Tyrant Gene had changed after he ate Frank, while An Ke suspected he had become the embryonic form of the descending creature. Before dying, Malfoy Kelin revealed that the Military knew about the zombies and told Ye Lin to search Frank’s gun magazine for a voice recorder.

• Ye Lin injected himself with the Suppressant and told He Zheng and the others that eating Frank had caused a problem with his Tyrant Gene.
• An Ke suspected Ye Lin had replaced Frank as the embryonic form of the creature because the Descent Progress had not ended.
• Ye Lin said Frank’s method for locking the difficulty was probably wrong and warned them not to create another Fusion Entity.
• Hu Jia told the group that Kelin was still alive, and they gathered around his grievously injured body.
• Kelin admitted he knew Frank had lied and revealed that someone in the Military knew about the zombies and their secrets.
• Kelin told Ye Lin to find the voice recorder in Frank’s gun magazine, then died after sharing his name and home address.

Ye Lin and the others listened to a recording in which Feen explained that mass deaths could awaken a civilization’s collective will and produce a being capable of saving it. The recording revealed the Perfect Being Project, and Ye Lin’s watch reported that his tyrant bloodline had been replaced with a perfected one prototype.

• He Zheng spoke bitterly about Kelin’s death while Huang Liang asked Zhang Tie to help bury Kelin’s body.
• Ye Lin found a miniature voice recorder hidden among the bullets in Frank’s pistol and played it for the group.
• In the recording, Feen told Basher that mass deaths could drive humanity’s collective will to create a powerful individual during an extinction crisis.
• Feen revealed that the project was meant to create a transcendent being through the deaths of countless living beings and called it the Perfect Being Project.
• Ye Lin’s watch identified him as Candidate E99067 and reported that his tyrant bloodline had been replaced with a perfected one prototype.

After learning that Frank's plan to create a perfected one prototype had been right, Ye Lin's team faced an accelerated pursuit countdown and believed they had no way to survive. Ye Lin realized the exam had another fair solution: find the newborn who represented humanity's second prototype.

• An Ke explained that Frank had gained the leaders' trust through the recording and that his prototype plan was correct, leaving the team to consider making one themselves.
• He Zheng and the others despaired over their injuries and the difficulty of fighting a prototype, while Hu Jia said the other team’s mistakes had brought them these consequences.
• The system announced that the next pursuit would begin in one hour and that pursuit intervals and survival time had been halved, prompting He Zheng to curse the unfair exam.
• Ye Lin declared that the exam was fair and reasoned that humanity's many deaths meant a second prototype could emerge from human will.
• An Ke and the others realized the solution was to find the unborn newborn, who had not been infected by the meme and carried humanity's last bloodline.

Ye Lin and the others raced toward the military base, believing the answer to the exam lay with a pregnant woman connected to its experiments. They prepared to confront the fused Mutant under severe time pressure, while An Ke wondered what the Newborn would be and where the Stone Tablet had gone.

• An Ke reasoned that the military base’s experiments and the recording’s mention of a project pointed to a mother and a Newborn as the way to clear the exam.
• An Ke explained that Frank had lured Roger to survive because he had no way to face the base’s Mutants alone.
• Huang Liang warned that the group had only five to seven minutes after reaching the base to defeat the fused Mutant and find the mother.
• He Zheng and the others accepted Ye Lin’s reassurance and prepared for the coming battle as An Ke treated their wounds.
• An Ke wondered whether the Newborn would still be human and where the Stone Tablet was.

Ye Lin and his team raced into the London military base to find the Prototype before the next pursuit round began. They discovered Frank’s abandoned command hall and were confronted by a gigantic Mutant that fired blue plasma from its chest.

• Ye Lin led Zhang Tie, He Zheng, Ye Lin’s companions, and Huang Liang through the military base toward the fourth basement level, where his memories suggested the Prototype was located.
• The team collected weapons as they descended and sensed an unusual fluctuation beneath them, while finding blood trails but no zombies.
• Ye Lin identified a charred corpse and concluded Frank had killed the soldiers and zombies in the passage before fleeing.
• Huang Liang examined Frank’s sealed command hall and warned that the Mutant nearby might be unusually powerful because Frank had not retreated into his reinforced inner shelter.
• A huge Mutant charged around the corner, revealing a hollow in its chest filled with blue plasma, and fired a blast at the team.

Zhang Tie took a plasma blast while shielding the group, and Ye Lin ordered a plan to break through the Mutant’s relentless ranged attacks. As the others prepared to cover him, Ye Lin revealed a new flame ability in his palm.

• Zhang Tie blocked the Mutant’s plasma sphere with his shield, but the blast melted through his armor and left him badly wounded.
• Ye Lin carried Zhang Tie back into the Command Hall while He Zheng led Hu Jia to cover.
• Huang Liang proposed suppressing the Mutant and throwing a grenade into its mouth, but An Ke warned that its mouth might be heavily defended.
• After plasma melted through the wall and burned He Zheng’s face, Ye Lin ordered the group to use smoke grenades and incendiaries while he and He Zheng charged the Mutant.
• Ye Lin declined He Zheng’s axe, drew a tactical dagger, and revealed a flame flickering in his palm from the Bloodline enhancement he had gained.

Ye Lin, He Zheng, and Huang Liang fought the plasma Mutant, with Ye Lin discovering and destroying the slit on its back. As the second round of pursuit approached, an enormous zombie army and multiple Mutants converged on the base.

• Ye Lin used smoke and fire to approach the plasma Mutant while he and He Zheng split up to draw its attention.
• He Zheng charged the Mutant and attacked with his axes, while Huang Liang shot its mouth and interrupted its plasma blast.
• The Mutant blasted He Zheng away and fired at Ye Lin, but Ye Lin stabbed the slit on its back and detonated flames inside it.
• Ye Lin urged the others to move as the system announced that the second round of pursuit would begin in one minute and fifty-nine seconds.
• A vast zombie tide, joined by enormous Mutants, converged on the base from the city and surrounding highways.

Ye Lin and the others reached the fourth basement level and found hundreds of pregnant women in life-support pods, most infected by the meme. With seconds left, they located one apparently uninfected mother, identified as test subject 973, Yang.

• Ye Lin severed zombies’ heads and hands so the group could pass the door’s fingerprint and iris scanners.
• The group entered the fourth basement level and discovered rows of pregnant women in life-support pods, where infected mothers and infants had become monsters.
• An Ke recognized the zombie in a lab coat as Huang Liang killed it, realizing it had infected the pods by repeatedly banging on them.
• Ye Lin ordered everyone to search, and Huang Liang found a sleeping woman whose fetus radiated an unusual pressure.
• The group found the woman’s identification: test subject 973, name: Yang.

Ye Lin stopped short of harming the pregnant Mother when the system confirmed the second-round objective and locked the difficulty to the first round. As the others faced the third round, he examined his fused bloodline and began combining Flame Manipulation with plasma to create a stronger ability.

• Ye Lin smashed the Life Pod glass and caught the Mother, prompting the system to complete the second-round objective and lock the difficulty to the first round.
• Ye Lin handed the Mother to An Ke, left the others to handle the third-round pursuit, and sat down to inspect his bloodline.
• Ye Lin learned that his Tyrant Gene had fused into Perfected One (Prototype), granting him abilities including Devour and Fusion.
• Ye Lin used Fusion to combine Flame Manipulation and plasma, confirmed the choice, and produced an eerie violet burst.

Ye Lin discovered that his fused abilities had become a powerful Plasma Cannon and reasoned that the group had already met the third round’s requirement. He left An Ke with the suspicion that the exam might contain a mole, while He Zheng and the others continued defending the base.

• Ye Lin endured the system’s fusion and gained a Plasma Cannon with a maximum single-use damage grade of B+.
• An Ke reported that the pregnant woman was unconscious but stable in the Life Pod, and explained that He Zheng was handling most of the fighting.
• Ye Lin told An Ke that finding both sides’ prototypes meant they had automatically passed the third round, provided the baby remained on the human side.
• Ye Lin suspected either a system error or a mole in the exam and left without explaining further.
• He Zheng, Huang Liang, and Zhang Tie coordinated to repel zombies and mutants at the base until the horde dwindled.
• A system notification sounded as He Zheng prepared to rest after the defense.

After the relentless zombie rounds left the team exhausted, He Zheng discovered that Frank had infected him with a scratch. As Hu Jia offered an Antidote, Ye Lin questioned how many vials remained, leaving the team suspicious and alarmed.

• An Ke explained that locking the difficulty reduced the rewards and that preparation time counted from the start of each round, warning He Zheng that later waves would leave almost no time to rest.
• The team fought through rounds three and four without meaningful breaks, and everyone except Ye Lin became nearly exhausted.
• Hu Jia noticed that He Zheng was bleeding and developing corpse-like spots, and He Zheng revealed that Frank had scratched him.
• An Ke examined He Zheng's wound and warned that the exhausted survivors faced a greater risk of infection in the remaining rounds.
• As Hu Jia offered He Zheng an Antidote, Ye Lin stopped him and asked how many vials he had left, making Hu Jia turn deathly pale.

Hu Jia watched the survivors fight through the seventh pursuit round as the zombie horde overwhelmed the base’s defenses. When a Command Mutant and more than twenty Cannon Mutants attacked, Ye Lin charged toward their leader while An Ke and the others tried to protect the Prototype.

• He Zheng took the remaining Antidotes from Hu Jia, leaving him one dose and ordering him to stay out of the fighting.
• Hu Jia watched the fifth and sixth pursuit rounds end and saw the survivors retreat to the first-floor entrance as waves of zombies and Mutants converged.
• More than twenty Cannon Mutants appeared on Hu Jia’s surveillance feed, and the Command Mutant destroyed the drone before Hu Jia warned Ye Lin.
• The Cannon Mutants blasted through the base’s metal doors, and Ye Lin charged into the horde toward the Command Mutant.
• An Ke rushed to help hold the line while the others stayed back to protect the Prototype as the Cannon Mutants redirected their attacks toward Ye Lin.

Ye Lin discovered that a monster had lured him outside and was hiding inside the base, but an impostor attacked the group before they could reach it. An Ke exposed the impostor and fought back as a Vengeful Ghost, and the chapter ended with another Ye Lin emerging from the darkness.

• Ye Lin returned through the basement door and told He Zheng, Huang Liang, and Zhang Tie that the zombie outside was a decoy and the real monster was inside the base.
• Ye Lin sent Zhang Tie to bring the others up, then asked An Ke for an Antidote he had never given her; An Ke recognized the Hair Tie signal and warned He Zheng and Huang Liang that he was an impostor.
• The impostor shot and paralyzed He Zheng and Huang Liang, then attacked An Ke, who transformed into a Vengeful Ghost and pierced him with her hair.
• The impostor recovered, severed An Ke's arm, broke her legs, and crushed her chest, leaving her dying as her possession drained her life force.
• An Ke looked into the darkness behind the impostor, who turned and saw another Ye Lin emerge.

Ye Lin confronted Yuan and realized that his assumptions about their shared team and objectives were wrong. Yuan revealed himself as a monster aligned with the zombies, trapped Ye Lin and his companions, and Ye Lin warned Zhang Tie not to approach the Mother as a recording device began playing.

• Yuan revealed his identity to Ye Lin and asked how Ye Lin had discovered him.
• Ye Lin explained that the professor, the missing Stone Tablet, and the teams’ reversed outcomes had led him to suspect a Third Party.
• Yuan exposed Ye Lin’s mistaken belief that they were teammates, peeled away his human disguise, and trapped Ye Lin and his companions with black ripples.
• Yuan summoned Six Monster Shadows and protected himself with a barrier of light, while Ye Lin realized Yuan was aligned with the zombies and wanted the prototype infected.
• Ye Lin shouted through his watch for Zhang Tie to stay away from the Mother, and a concealed recording device on Zhang Tie began playback.