Chapter Summaries

Xiao Hao exposed other countries’ abuses of their players and affirmed that the Dragon Kingdom could be trusted, while revealing himself as Player 869 to the Dragon Transformation Pool. He left without joining, and the chapter ended with the Dragon Kingdom’s officials urging their players to focus on getting stronger.

• Xiao Hao insisted that the Dragon Kingdom could be trusted even if he did not join the Dragon Transformation Pool, and foreign livestreams revealed players fleeing laboratories and exposing experiments.
• The deep-sea survival players recognized Xiao Hao as Player 869 and eagerly offered to join him, but he refused and disappeared as a shadow.
• Mu Saying promised Xiao Hao that he could choose anyone if he joined, while another woman first objected and then agreed.
• The Dragon Kingdom’s senior officials told their players to leave their safety to the authorities and focus on getting stronger, prompting cheers from players and netizens.

After the evolution wave, Xiao Hao returned to the hotel tower to find Lin Nanyao and escort her home. He and Du Shijie found a giant python waiting in a blood-soaked alley, leaving the girls in immediate danger.

• Xiao Hao learned that killing real-world monsters earned Spirit Pearls and decided to farm more after escorting Lin Nanyao home.
• Xiao Hao was mistaken for a poor scavenger at the hotel tower and insulted by wealthy guests who praised his own famous aircraft-carrier remark without recognizing him.
• Xiao Hao found Lin Nanyao unharmed and waited until the hotel staff sent her classmates away.
• Lin Nanyao and Du Shijie walked home together through a quiet alley and encountered a giant python amid the remains of its victims.
• Xiao Hao used Shadow Transformation to appear behind Lin Nanyao as the python turned toward the screaming girls.

Xiao Hao saved Du Shijie and Lin Nanyao from a giant python, then used Darkness Domain and Darkness Erosion to wipe out the snakes threatening their families and the residential area. After deciding he had repaid Lin Nanyao’s kindness, he returned to his apartment, where he found that the phone network was down.

• Xiao Hao secretly saved Du Shijie and Lin Nanyao by severing the giant python’s head, and the girls continued toward home without knowing who had rescued them.
• Du Shijie and Lin Nanyao reached their apartment building and learned from their parents that snakes were inside, as countless snakes poured out around them.
• Lin Nanyao and Du Shijie begged their unseen rescuer for help, and Xiao Hao covered the residential area with Darkness Domain and used Darkness Erosion to kill the snakes.
• The survivors thanked Xiao Hao as the darkness receded, and Xiao Hao left after concluding he had repaid Lin Nanyao’s kindness by saving her and her family.
• Xiao Hao walked past corpses and grieving soldiers on his way home, then discovered his phone had no signal and went to bed early.

Xiao Hao fought the Insectoid Monster and other wild insects that attacked survivors after dark, then investigated gunshots in the distance. He left the chapter heading toward a possible new threat while trying to avoid exposing himself.

• Xiao Hao woke to find an Insectoid Monster attacking a car and killing its drunk driver, then killed the monster with the Ghost Scythe Ring and Reaper's Scythe.
• Xiao Hao fled the survivors' strange cheers and returned to his room, where a Dragonfly Wild Monster attacked a woman in a nearby building.
• Xiao Hao killed the Dragonfly Monster and realized that many insects had escaped the daytime sweep and were active at night.
• Xiao Hao decided to stay awake farming monsters, killed several giant insects, and heard gunshots in the distance.
• Xiao Hao used Shadow Transformation to investigate the gunshots, concerned that approaching could expose him.

Xiao Hao arrived at the highway battlefield and saved a wounded soldier as the insect horde slaughtered the Dragon Kingdom’s forces. Seeing the soldiers’ losses and their desperate defense of Blue Dragon City, Xiao Hao’s anger surged and darkness descended.

• Mutated insects overwhelmed the soldiers, while a giant white insect laid eggs among the Giant Tree’s remains.
• Wang He ordered his troops to try to retrieve a wounded soldier, and Xiao Hao appeared, killed a mantis monster with his Reaper’s Scythe, and frightened the insects with the Ghost Scythe Ring.
• Xiao Hao carried the soldier back to Wang He and asked where the other players were; Wang He explained they had returned to their own cities.
• Xiao Hao saw the battlefield’s wreckage and the soldiers’ pain after more than half their forces had died defending Blue Dragon City.
• Xiao Hao’s anger grew as he understood the soldiers’ sacrifices, and his shadow boiled as darkness descended.

Xiao Hao unleashed his eightfold Darkness Domain and slaughtered the Insect Monsters, saving the surviving soldiers. He refused Wang He’s plea to join the Dragon Transformation Pool and left as the soldiers mourned their fallen comrades.

• Xiao Hao expanded his Darkness Domain over the Insect Monsters, draining their vitality and killing the entire horde, including the insect queen.
• Wang He and the other team leaders kept the soldiers ready while they waited anxiously for the battle to end.
• Xiao Hao emerged from the darkness, and the soldiers cheered before grieving their many dead comrades.
• Wang He asked Xiao Hao to join the Dragon Transformation Pool, but Xiao Hao refused and explained that not all top players could join.
• Xiao Hao transformed into an Aurora Shadow and flew away, then watched from above as the soldiers gathered their fallen comrades and mourned.

Xiao Hao and his seahorses fought the Insect Monsters invading Blue Dragon City, rescuing civilians and clearing a hotel where officers were holding the creatures back. After Xiao Hao revealed that every monster in the hotel was dead, Officer Nine took him toward the Command Center.

• Xiao Hao's Shadow Seahorse saved a family from a flying Insect Monster, while the other seahorses hunted monsters throughout Blue Dragon City.
• Xiao Hao headed toward the hotel in the city center, where government officers had left the lights on and were using traps and gunfire to protect civilians.
• Xiao Hao arrived on Officer Nine's floor, killed the attacking caterpillar, and pinned four flying insects with his Reaper's Scythes.
• Xiao Hao told the officers over the radio that the Giant Tree's monsters were dead and that he had come from the battlefield there.
• Xiao Hao's Darkness Domain drained the life from every monster in the hotel, and Officer Nine led him toward the Command Center at the police chief's request.

Xiao Hao learned that an intelligent ghost might be a dead player and informed the Police Chief, who sent him the files of three players who died fighting the Giant Tree. One file belonged to Qiu Chengnan, Qiu Yanan’s older brother, as Xiao Hao prepared to investigate the Communications Base Station.

• No. 9 described how police teams had fought monsters inside the Hotel in succession, sacrificing teams to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
• Police Chief No. 1 showed Xiao Hao surveillance footage of the damaged Communications Base Station and explained that an intelligent ghost had killed everyone sent to repair it.
• Xiao Hao told the Police Chief that dead players could become ghosts and explained his deduction, which the otherworldly viewers accepted.
• The Police Chief ordered his subordinates to bring files on three players who had died fighting the Giant Tree.
• Xiao Hao examined the files and recognized Qiu Chengnan as Qiu Yanan’s older brother.

Xiao Hao investigated Qiu Chengnan’s possible connection to the communications base station and learned that Qiu Chengnan possessed the powerful Ghost Banner. At the station, Xiao Hao was ambushed by several monstrous dead players and faced a sneering man who dismissed him as unimpressive.

• Xiao Hao reviewed Qiu Chengnan’s file, learned about his sister Qiu Yanan’s suicide, and agreed to investigate the communications base station.
• On his way to the station, Xiao Hao learned from the chat that Qiu Chengnan had acquired the Ghost Banner, a powerful item that could command ghosts.
• Xiao Hao found poisoned maintenance workers outside the station and dodged an attack from Huo Donglan, a vulture-like ghost with a needle-covered tail.
• Xiao Hao used Shadow Transformation to enter the station, where Chang Zhiqian attacked him with a gaping, tooth-lined maw.
• Huo Donglan struck Xiao Hao from the air as a human-faced spider and a snake-bodied woman watched him from the dark.
• A man approached with his hands in his pockets and sneered that the number one player was nothing special.

Xiao Hao fought Qiu Chengnan and his monsters, discovering that they could phase through physical attacks but became solid when striking. He forced Qiu Chengnan out of hiding and refused to leave him alone after learning he had killed people and cut off Xiao Hao’s internet.

• Qiu Chengnan appeared as Xiao Hao’s Jade Armor withstood Huo Donglan’s venomous tail stinger, and Xiao Hao summoned the Peacock Mantis Shrimp to defeat the attacking monsters.
• Chang Zhiqian transformed into a humanoid worm and was shredded by the Mantis Shrimp, but his flesh regenerated and trapped Xiao Hao until he escaped with Shadow Transformation.
• Qiu Chengnan’s snake woman petrified two of the Mantis Shrimp’s Rinkaku Tentacles, then Qiu Chengnan and his monsters vanished through Phasing.
• Xiao Hao realized Qiu Chengnan’s monsters became solid when attacking and ordered the Mantis Shrimp to use Mantis Scythe throughout the base station.
• Qiu Chengnan was forced to become solid and reveal his hiding place, then demanded that Xiao Hao stay out of his way; Xiao Hao decided he would not let him go.