Chapter Summaries

Zhang Ming received the newly forged Abyss Axe and set out to hunt monsters, while the Honggang Civilization’s council discussed its growing ties with humanity and the dangers of the Abyss. The council decided to continue investing in humanity after learning how wealthy Zhang Ming was and how much he had ordered.

• Master Gong explained the Abyss Axe’s gravity-changing weight, lightning-conducting blades, and magnetic chains before Zhang Ming consecrated it with his blood.
• Zhang Ming announced he would kill a thousand Abyss monsters to test his new weapon and asked Gangduo to recruit soldiers to join him.
• Chairman Kai and the Honggang Civilization’s council reviewed their diplomatic agreements with humanity and discussed the potential uses of human ultralow-temperature technology.
• The council learned that a transcendent monster had killed several members of the elite team in the Abyss before Zhang Ming killed it, and that the Abyss might be linked to an ancient mythological war.
• The council discussed the threat of Demon Gods and the ongoing construction of the Starfire Cannon, their World-Class Weapon.
• A white-haired elder argued that the Honggang Civilization should keep investing in humanity, revealing that Zhang Ming had commissioned 1,000 suits of high-level armor.

Zhang Ming trained Macrosteel soldiers to fight Abyss monsters while Honggang Civilization leaders arranged continued support for the ship. A Drifting Bottle reached Zhang Ming in the Abyss, carrying mail and revealing a possible direction toward an exit, and he sought Master Gong's help with the damaged bottle.

• Council Speaker Kai approved ongoing Source of the World funding and extra gifts for the humans, while leaders agreed to maintain contact with Gangduo.
• Zhang Ming led Macrosteel soldiers in daily monster hunts, and their combat skills improved as one soldier broke through the Three Barriers of the Human Limit.
• Zhang Ming spotted a Drifting Bottle crossing the Green Sea and retrieved it before the green flames could destroy it.
• Zhang Ming recorded the direction from which the bottle had come, considering that it might point toward an exit from the Abyss.
• Zhang Ming found letters and a Light and Shadow Stone inside the damaged bottle, then called Master Gong to discuss the problem.

Zhang Ming brought the damaged Drifting Bottle to Gong Jinye, who explained its unusual nature and promised to build a device to trace its route out of the Abyss. After leaving the bottle with the Macrosteel People, Zhang Ming feared that his last connection to his family had been severed and wondered whether he would ever see his aging parents again.

• Zhang Ming asked Gong Jinye to examine the damaged Drifting Bottle and determine whether it could help find a way out of the Abyss.
• Gong Jinye explained that the naturally formed bottle had a faint intelligence and warned that changing its physical vessel could destroy its function.
• Gong Jinye proposed reinforcing the bottle from the inside and building a containment box to trace its route when it was sent out.
• Zhang Ming left the Drifting Bottle with Gong Jinye, who promised to complete the containment box within half a month without damaging it.
• Zhang Ming returned to his room, mourned the possible end of contact with his family, and worried that his parents might not live until his return.

Zhang Ming read a rare letter from Younger Sister, who reflected on her family, her aging, and the ginkgo tree she planted to await his return, leaving him troubled by mortality and the meaning of a long life. He then read a letter from Li Xianfeng, whose repeated question about starting life over made Zhang Ming suspect that the old broadcaster possessed a special ability.

• Zhang Ming read Younger Sister's letter and learned that she had planted a ginkgo tree in the family compound as a living reminder to await his return.
• Younger Sister described her contentment at forty-four, her memories of being eighteen, and her fear that she and the rest of the family might die before Zhang Ming came home.
• Zhang Ming wondered what would matter to him after thousands of years and felt overwhelmed by the thought of parting from his family.
• Zhang Ming tried to console himself with the possibility of returning to Earth, then moved on to Li Xianfeng's letter.
• Li Xianfeng wrote about old age, an unremarkable life, and wondering what he would do if he could start over, prompting Zhang Ming to suspect he had such an ability.

Zhang Ming read Li Xianfeng’s letter about his discussion with Qin Yiwei, whose goal was to unify humanity by eliminating cultural differences. Li Xianfeng decided to spend his next life becoming a capitalist so he could understand society firsthand, while reassuring Zhang Ming that he was not dying soon.

• Zhang Ming imagined that Li Xianfeng might outlive him and continued reading his letter about preparing for another life.
• Li Xianfeng described meeting Qin Yiwei, who argued that history had no final system and that humanity would remain divided without a shared culture and language.
• Qin Yiwei revealed his plan to use policies, manipulation, and violence to eliminate cultural differences and create a foundation for future unity.
• Qin Yiwei warned Li Xianfeng that unity would not end inequality or factional self-interest, leaving later generations to seek a better world.
• Li Xianfeng chose to become a capitalist in his next life to gain a more practical understanding of society, and added that he expected to live for several more years.

Zhang Ming lived among the Macrosteel People while they built a Pathfinding Device to trace the Drifting Bottle’s route through the Abyss. After the device pointed toward a possible way out, Zhang Ming chose to explore alone, but the expedition was delayed by engine problems as the trapped crew continued preparing to survive.

• Zhang Ming read the files stored in the Light and Shadow Stone and spent another half month hunting monsters and training with the Macrosteel People, who adopted his angry chant about the Rescue Team.
• Gong Jinye showed Zhang Ming the completed Pathfinding Device, which caught the Drifting Bottle and pointed in nearly the same direction as its earlier trajectory.
• Zhang Ming warned that the device could not prove an exit existed and decided to travel alone, while Gangduo agreed the ship should remain defended.
• Zhang Ming chose a quieter watercraft capable of traveling around 100 kilometers per hour, but the Macrosteel People spent several months solving a problem caused by Abyss Pollution damaging its engine.
• While waiting, Zhang Ming gathered materials, trained, and learned about Macrosteel culture as the crew improved the ship, sent out probes, and reduced monster attacks by more than 80 percent with a water-and-Ruleless-Coating defense.

Zhang Ming set out aboard a specially equipped Watercraft to search for an exit from the Abyss, leaving his companions with the Macrosteel People. After thirteen days, the Drifting Bottle’s navigation pointed beneath the ocean, where Zhang Ming found black threads and the influence of the Demon God [Ten Thousand Eyes].

• Zhang Ming received the modified Watercraft, supplies, communications devices, and a Parent-Child Direction Finder from the Macrosteel People.
• Zhang Ming said farewell to Little White, Brother Hao, Gangduo, and the others, then left with Stone Mama aboard the Watercraft.
• The Macrosteel People watched Zhang Ming depart and vowed to protect their ship and endure their time in the Abyss.
• Zhang Ming and Stone Mama traveled across the ocean under the Watercraft’s green-flame camouflage, passing the time with music and games.
• After thirteen days, the Drifting Bottle’s navigation pointed downward, and Zhang Ming saw black threads spreading across the ocean.
• Zhang Ming put on protective armor and entered the water, where his eyes began aching under the influence of [Ten Thousand Eyes].

Zhang Ming reached the Abyss’s seabed and discovered enormous cocoons and mountain-sized stone steles covered in strange carvings. The steles depicted a three-eyed civilization terrorized by the being called [Ten Thousand Eyes], while the meaning of their inscriptions remained unknown.

• Stone Mama explained that it was a remnant offshoot of Black Tortoise, and Zhang Ming traded jokes with it before continuing his descent.
• Black threads bound Zhang Ming, but he used Diamond and mutated lightning to test how to break them.
• Stone Mama sensed a powerful, possibly sleeping presence below, and Zhang Ming let the threads carry him to the Abyss’s bottommost layer.
• Zhang Ming found cocoons covering the seabed and saw that their threads were consuming the corpse of an Abyss monster, whose spine still seemed alive.
• Stone Mama guided Zhang Ming to enormous steles depicting masked, three-eyed giants who blinded newborns to hide from [Ten Thousand Eyes].
• Zhang Ming resisted a terrifying vision triggered by the carvings and examined inscriptions written in characters he could not read.

Zhang Ming had Stone Mama translate a tablet describing how Liu Mang slaughtered the Eyed Clan and killed the Demon God Ten Thousand Eyes as part of a scheme involving an unnamed intelligent Demon God. After learning the account, Zhang Ming discovered a dark crack beneath the tablet that might explain how the Drifting Bottle entered the Abyss.

• Zhang Ming persuaded Stone Mama to use Historical Regression on the tablet, relying on the Moon Coordinate as an escape plan.
• Stone Mama translated the tablet’s account of Ten Thousand Eyes, which gained an eye whenever it exterminated a species, and the Eyed Clan’s bargain with an unnamed Demon God.
• Liu Mang was born after the bargain, grew into a mighty Divine Man, and went berserk, killing the entire Eyed Clan.
• The unnamed Demon God told Liu Mang that his people’s curses had gathered in the closed eye on his brow, which could provide a chance to kill Ten Thousand Eyes when it attacked him.
• Zhang Ming suspected the unnamed Demon God had manipulated the bargain and discussed how a rule-bound being could exploit the wording of its promises.
• Zhang Ming found a pitch-black crack beneath the tablet that was wide enough for the Drifting Bottle to pass through.

Zhang Ming damaged the crack in Liu Mang’s tomb and awakened its enormous Minotaur Skeleton keeper, which attacked him before Stone Mama helped calm it. The skeleton eventually stopped fighting, but it had forgotten how to speak, leaving Zhang Ming to try communicating with it.

• Zhang Ming felt an intense warning when he inserted the Abyss Axe into the crack, but his actions awakened the Minotaur Skeleton guarding Liu Mang’s tomb.
• The Minotaur Skeleton attacked Zhang Ming, who blocked its bite with the Abyss Axe and fought back with his Ice Spear and chain.
• Zhang Ming and Stone Mama tried to communicate, and the skeleton calmed down after hearing Spirit Language.
• After Zhang Ming waited and spoke with Stone Mama, the skeleton spat out the Axe, which had been twisted by its chewing.
• Zhang Ming introduced himself and decided to keep trying to reason with the intelligent tomb keeper.

Zhang Ming encountered a Minotaur Skeleton that Stone Mama identified as the legendary Bai Ze, and the two repeater-like creatures bickered so loudly that their insults stirred the Abyss into turmoil. While Zhang Ming studied Macrosteel runes and sheltered on the moon, Gangduo reported that monsters were attacking each other and asked when he could return.

• Zhang Ming tried to communicate with the Minotaur Skeleton, which copied his words and excitedly called him its friend, while Stone Mama joined in repeating them.
• Stone Mama identified the creature as Bai Ze, and the two traded insults until their shouting shook the Abyss and drove Zhang Ming back to his boat.
• Zhang Ming retreated to the moon, rested beside the World Tree, and studied the Macrosteel People's runes while Stone Mama and Bai Ze continued arguing.
• Gangduo contacted Zhang Ming and warned that the Abyss had erupted into turmoil, with monsters attacking one another and giant creatures awakening.
• Gangduo said the Macrosteel People were safe for now using the Source of the World, but asked when Zhang Ming could return because their remaining supply was limited.

Zhang Ming calmed the arguing Stone Mama and Bai Ze, then learned that a damaged Abyss seal was letting the Wish-Granting Demon God’s power seep through. Bai Ze said the seal needed formation patterns, but it could not understand Zhang Ming’s New Era technology, leaving Stone Mama to mock its ignorance.

• Zhang Ming distracted Stone Mama with a fabricated blind-date story, stopping its argument with the ram-headed skeleton and calming Bai Ze.
• Zhang Ming questioned Bai Ze, who explained that it had drawn in seawater to burn away the Demon God’s power leaking through the damaged Abyss seal.
• Zhang Ming realized the power belonged to the Wish-Granting Demon God and asked whether Liu Mang’s Śarīra could repair the seal.
• Bai Ze said formation patterns were needed, but it could not understand the runes on Zhang Ming’s armor and axe.
• Zhang Ming demonstrated his golden protective light, purple lightning, and Strength Burst, while Stone Mama mocked Bai Ze for failing to understand New Era technology.

Bai Ze discovered that Zhang Ming’s misfortune could make him a target for the unknown Demon God, and considered killing him before remembering another person who had borne the same affliction. It recalled Liu Mang’s past and how the Eyed Clan’s destruction had left him burdened with guilt.

• Bai Ze could not explain the Demon Gods’ origins or how long one had been invading, while Zhang Ming wondered whether Demon Gods and world hunters came from other realms.
• Bai Ze used a bone compass to identify Zhang Ming as afflicted by heaven’s misfortune, then abruptly became murderous and left Zhang Ming retreating to his boat.
• Bai Ze realized that Zhang Ming’s misfortune might let the unknown Demon God find and anchor itself to him, and considered killing him to prevent that danger.
• Bai Ze remembered Liu Mang, who had also been afflicted with heaven’s misfortune and had cared for it after the Eyed Clan’s extinction.
• Liu Mang told Bai Ze that a Demon God named [Unfulfilled Wish] had traded for him and that his own mistake had killed his clan, leaving him unable to forgive himself or kill even an ant.

Bai Ze accompanied Liu Mang as he explained how [Unfulfilled Wish] manipulated him into slaughtering his people and cultivating a strike meant to kill [Ten Thousand Eyes]. On the eve of their final battle, Liu Mang transformed his cursed eye and an earth vein into a deadly arrow and bow, while [Unfulfilled Wish] appeared to have achieved its goal.

• Liu Mang told Bai Ze that [Unfulfilled Wish] had fueled his killing intent after giving him a killing technique, and asked whether he should take revenge on it or [Ten Thousand Eyes].
• Liu Mang explained that his one-use strike, [Liberation], required him to accumulate immense killing intent, and that he planned to use it against [Ten Thousand Eyes].
• As he traveled, Liu Mang endured abuse and attacks from people who knew he had slaughtered his own people, turning his pain into killing intent.
• On the eve of the celestial dog devouring the sun, Liu Mang wept over his lost ordinary life while the cursed eye between his brows grew and his body expanded to mountain size.
• Liu Mang tore out his cursed eye and shaped it into an arrow, then made a longbow from an earth vein, causing floating mountains to sink as he prepared to fight [Ten Thousand Eyes].
• Bai Ze watched as [Unfulfilled Wish] appeared as a dark-red flame and realized that the Demon God had achieved its goal.

Zhang Ming learned about Liu Mang’s battle against [Unfulfilled Wish] and asked Bai Ze how to conceal his Demon God aura and develop his own Transcendent Technique. After a day and night of discussion, he learned that Demon Gods faced severe limits crossing into this World Domain, though the conversation about how they could arrive was not yet finished.

• Bai Ze recounted how Liu Mang hunted [Ten Thousand Eyes] and secured a chance of survival for living beings, while Zhang Ming wondered whether his Demon God Rules marked him as a Heaven’s Calamity Bearer.
• Bai Ze said [Unfulfilled Wish] had been Liu Mang’s greatest enemy and warned that its power was reaching into this place; it also suggested using a magical treasure or pieces of Little White’s shell to obscure Zhang Ming’s aura.
• Zhang Ming asked to learn Liu Mang’s ultimate technique, but Bai Ze refused and told him to follow his own path through a Transcendent Technique.
• Stone Mama explained that Natural Rules strictly governed this World Domain, prompting an angry argument with Bai Ze over whether mortals could slay gods; Zhang Ming eventually calmed them down.
• Zhang Ming spent a day and night learning that travel between World Domains was difficult and that powerful beings could cross by overwhelming force, space-time abilities, or rare space-time nodes such as the Abyss.

Zhang Ming learned how Demon Gods used anchors to cross into the world and secured Bai Ze’s promise to let him leave the Abyss once he repaired the seal, though Bai Ze refused to release him while [Unfulfilled Wish] might be anchored to him. He returned toward the Macrosteel People’s Main Base as Gangduo faced growing dangers and shortages aboard the trapped ship.

• Goat Head explained that [Unfulfilled Wish] had left a trace of its power in Liu Mang’s remains, while Zhang Ming discussed how anchors helped Demon Gods and smaller beings cross over.
• Zhang Ming reflected on his hopes for life after leaving the Abyss and became nauseated by his heightened perception of living bodies.
• Bai Ze promised to let Zhang Ming out if he repaired the seal but refused to release him because [Unfulfilled Wish] might be anchored to him.
• Zhang Ming returned alone to the Macrosteel People’s Main Base and told Stone Mama to teach Bai Ze how to speak properly without arguing with it.
• Zhang Ming piloted the Watercraft back while Gangduo worried that the ship’s protective sanctuary would run out and ordered withered Pupu Grass processed into starch.

Zhang Ming returned to the Macrosteel People’s ship after leading a horde of Abyss monsters to it, while the crew eagerly prepared to fight. He made it aboard and was ready to share the important news he had discovered about escaping the Abyss.

• Lai and Gangduo worried about the monster rampage and the crew’s growing urge to hack up monsters while Zhang Ming was away.
• Gangduo spotted Zhang Ming running across the sea with a vast horde of monsters pursuing him and ordered the ship to move and prepare for battle.
• Zhang Ming explained that a monster had destroyed his Watercraft, and killing it had drawn increasingly numerous monsters into a week-long chase.
• As monsters slipped through the Sanctuary’s protection, Gangduo ordered the Source of the World briefly deactivated so soldiers could fight and help Zhang Ming reach the ship.
• Zhang Ming fought through the horde, leaped aboard the Steel Steamship, and returned exhausted but carrying important news.

Zhang Ming returned to the Macrosteel People’s ship with news that Bai Ze would help them escape the Abyss if they repaired the Abyss Seal using Liu Mang’s remains. The ship set course for Bai Ze while Gangduo and his crew weighed the risks and learned that legends depicted Bai Ze as an auspicious being.

• Zhang Ming joined the Macrosteel People as they fought off hundreds of Abyss monsters, then told Gangduo that Bai Ze had offered them a way out if they repaired the Abyss Seal.
• Zhang Ming explained that Liu Mang’s remains were needed for the Seal and that he would handle recovering the scattered remains while the crew developed detectors, protective materials, and the required ancient technology.
• Zhang Ming warned Gangduo against blasting open the Abyss because monsters and the power of an unknown Demon God could threaten their World Cluster.
• Gangduo held a council meeting, and the Macrosteel People decided they had little choice but to trust Zhang Ming’s plan.
• The Macrosteel People restarted the Steamship and traveled toward Bai Ze’s location under the protection of the Source of the World.
• Gangduo and his advisers consulted their civilization’s records, which described Bai Ze as an auspicious beast, and concluded that its nature was probably not malicious.

Zhang Ming met Bai Ze beneath the sea and arranged for the Macrosteel People to help repair the Abyss seals in exchange for Bai Ze’s protection. Bai Ze agreed to let Zhang Ming leave if [Unfulfilled Wish] did not emerge after the repairs, and Zhang Ming began inspecting a deteriorating seal.

• Zhang Ming told the Macrosteel People to stop their ship and dove through the Sanctuary to meet Bai Ze.
• Bai Ze explained that it had built a new body by replenishing its soul power, while Stone Mama teased Zhang Ming about their different kinds of souls.
• Zhang Ming introduced the Macrosteel People and proposed that they repair the seals using a sample as a reference; Bai Ze agreed to protect them.
• Bai Ze said Zhang Ming could leave if [Unfulfilled Wish] did not emerge after the seals were repaired, but he would have to resist its temptations if it appeared.
• Zhang Ming examined a seal built around [Ten Thousand Eyes]'s eyeball and saw that its runes and walls had been badly eroded.

Zhang Ming learned that repairing the Abyss’s seals would take eighty to a hundred years, and the news left him despairing over the lives and home he could never return to. As he wandered through the ship in a daze, the Demon God [Unfulfilled Wish] appeared and offered to help for a tiny price.

• Master Gong Jinye examined the ancient seals and assured Zhang Ming that the Macrosteel People could repair them.
• Bai Ze showed Zhang Ming the Youfeng Clan’s Lo Shu Hetu, revealing more than three thousand seals, including nearly a thousand destroyed ones.
• The Macrosteel People estimated the repairs would take at least eighty years, and Zhang Ming was overwhelmed by the thought of being unable to return to his former life.
• Zhang Ming wandered through the ship, lost in thoughts of the people and memories he would outlive, and wished he could return to Turtle Island.
• A nameless fog filled the ship, and Zhang Ming encountered the Demon God [Unfulfilled Wish], who offered help in exchange for a tiny price.