Chapter Summaries

Xiao Ying stopped He Jie from escaping, and Cao Xianming secured him with Curio Shackles while the defense of Mechanical City went well. As the city neared reclamation, Cao Xianming calculated a victory probability of only 50%.

• Xiao Ying severed He Jie's leg as he tried to escape through an alloy wall, then knocked him unconscious.
• Cao Xianming ordered He Jie restrained with Curio Shackles and taken to the Core Area, while ordering all reflective surfaces covered.
• Cao Xianming directed the city’s defenses as sectors were cleared and zombies were driven back.
• Yang Yong repeatedly used Heaven-Breaking Strike to hold off the Zombie King while Xiao Ying hunted and ate Eerie throughout Mechanical City.
• Cao Xianming calculated the battle’s odds and found the probability of victory was 50%.

Cao Xianming could not explain why the odds of victory remained at fifty percent, and the Mechanical City began an uncontrolled spatial jump just after the survivors drove out the zombies. As the city ordered everyone to seek shelter, Yang Yong received confirmation that his armor could withstand the jump’s damage.

• Cao Xianming repeatedly recalculated the battle’s odds, but the result stayed at fifty percent despite the zombies and Eerie being driven back and Yang Yong holding off the Zombie King.
• Yang Yong continued charging the Zombie King for hours, growing stronger with each punch, while the survivors helped clear the remaining zombies from the city.
• The Light Gate closed, the Electric Arc Shield reactivated, and survivors celebrated after the last zombie was driven out.
• The Mechanical City began shaking as it prepared for an uncontrolled spatial jump, and Cao Xianming’s analysis identified its cause as its mission.
• Cao Xianming broadcast an urgent order for everyone to find shelter, but many shelters had been destroyed or filled during the fighting.
• Yang Yong asked Cao Xianming to assess his armor, authorized the calculation, and learned that it could withstand the damage from a spatial jump.

The Mechanical City activated its jump, and Cao Xianming nearly died trying to calculate the meaning of the star chart formed by its shield. Wang Ying endured the chaotic transit as the city vanished from its original location, while Jiang Chen searched for where it would reappear.

• Wang Ying ran toward the Core Area before the Mechanical City sealed itself for its jump.
• Cao Xianming tried to calculate the star chart on the Electric Arc Shield, nearly suffocated, and glimpsed the City Lord as two overlapping human and liquid-metal figures.
• The Electric Arc Shield completed its star chart, and the Mechanical City vanished in a flash that left a hurricane behind.
• Jiang Chen extended his consciousness across the wilderness to search for Xiao Ying's zombie origin and the Mechanical City.
• Wang Ying endured the disorienting transit, then began regaining control as the shield dwindled to a thin layer.

Yang Yong rested in a blood-red wilderness after the Mechanical City suddenly arrived there, while He Jie was brought before Cao Xianming’s group for questioning. Peng Fan began interrogating He Jie, who was unable to use the Eerie powers he had traded his original body and Sequence path to obtain.

• Yang Yong wondered where the Mechanical City had arrived and used the pause in the Zombie King’s attack to commit his new insights into the Heaven-Breaking Strike to memory.
• He Jie’s severed leg rapidly regrew as Cao Xianming considered how his body might be used as a renewable resource for Yang Yong’s Curios.
• Cao Xianming ordered Peng Fan to interrogate He Jie about why he and the forces behind him wanted the Mechanical City’s City Lord to appear.
• Peng Fan splashed water on He Jie’s face to wake him, and He Jie raged at being treated disrespectfully by an ordinary man.
• He Jie realized the black shackles sealed his Eerie abilities, and he reflected that he had traded away his original body and chance at transcendence with no way back.

Peng Fan interrogated He Jie with a Bone Dagger, then Cao Xianming revealed that He Jie was no longer human. The convoy members took turns stabbing him, and a little girl apologized before plunging her dagger into his belly.

• Peng Fan stabbed He Jie repeatedly while asking about his plans, the Eerie Realm army, hidden collaborators, and the City Lord.
• He Jie stayed silent as his wounds began to heal, and Peng Fan suggested selling him to Mr. Yang to feed his Curios.
• Cao Xianming told the group that He Jie was no longer human, prompting the team to draw their Bone Daggers.
• Cao Xianming invited everyone to practice on He Jie but warned them not to kill him.
• A burly man and another convoy member stabbed He Jie before a little girl apologized and drove her Bone Dagger into his belly.

Peng Fan broke He Jie's defenses by leading ordinary survivors in stabbing him, and He Jie finally agreed to reveal what he knew about the advance force. The survivors continued attacking him until he cried out that they were devils.

• He Jie called Peng Fan and the survivors devils, but Peng Fan said they were human and explained that He Jie feared ordinary people no longer being afraid of him.
• Peng Fan told Cao Xianming that He Jie’s psychological defenses had broken and explained that he had studied criminal psychology at the police academy.
• Peng Fan recalled his instructor’s lesson that monsters feared people who were no longer afraid of them.
• The survivors continued stabbing He Jie, and by the fifty-third person he begged to talk.
• Peng Fan told the crowd that He Jie was ready to speak, prompting the waiting survivors to swarm him with their Bone Daggers.

Peng Fan tortured He Jie until he revealed that Mechanical City had come to destroy the Eerie invasion channel, but the City Lord was missing and the city could no longer transform into its battle-axe form. As Cao Xianming investigated the threat of an approaching Eerie army, Yang Yong continued fighting the Zombie King in Mechanical City’s Core Area.

• Peng Fan let the convoy members stab He Jie, then questioned him about Mechanical City's mission.
• He Jie revealed that Mechanical City had once destroyed an Eerie World channel, but the City Lord had been cursed and had disappeared.
• Peng Fan reported that Mechanical City had detected an impending Eerie invasion, but without the City Lord it could not erase the invaders' coordinates.
• Cao Xianming analyzed the information with the Data Model while worrying about both the approaching Eerie army and the Zombie King.
• The Zombie King charged Yang Yong, drawn to the Zombie King Heart in his ring, while Yang Yong relied on his armor and Mechanical City's Supernatural Power to keep fighting.

Yang Yong repeatedly charged the Zombie King and was knocked down, while Cao Xianming arranged a citywide broadcast that presented his stand as a heroic defense. The broadcast inspired Mechanical City’s residents, though some survivors remained skeptical and expected Yang Yong to fall soon.

• Yang Yong repeatedly used Heaven-Breaking Strike against the Zombie King, getting thrown into walls and rubble before rising to charge again.
• Cao Xianming asked Peng Fan to find a former livestreamer, and Peng Fan brought Sister Zhou to a makeshift broadcast desk.
• Cao Xianming projected footage of Yang Yong’s fight across Mechanical City and onto the Shield.
• Sister Zhou praised Yang Yong’s repeated charges and called on the city to salute the Heaven-Breaking War God who never retreated.
• Mechanical City’s residents cheered Yang Yong and believed the city could be saved, while more seasoned survivors doubted he could hold out much longer.

Yang Yong struggled to hold off the Zombie King while hunger weakened him, and Cao Xianming learned that the mutated City Lord would be drawn out to feed on the Zombie King. As Cao Xianming searched for a way to survive, Xiao Ying received a summons tied to a painting in the Core Area meeting room.

• Yang Yong repeatedly attacked the Zombie King but grew too hungry to keep fighting effectively.
• Cao Xianming's Data Model calculated that the Mechanical City would be destroyed in every examined scenario, so he sent Peng Fan to question He Jie again.
• Peng Fan reported that He Jie had heard from the Holy Envoy that the Zombie King entering the Core Area would alert the mutated City Lord, who would come to feed on it.
• Cao Xianming tried to model the City Lord's mutation but could not find a path forward.
• Xiao Ying received a bloodline summons showing an image like an ancient star chart and remembered the painting in the Core Area meeting room.

Xiao Ying obeyed Jiang Chen’s order and drove the Zombie King toward the meeting room, while Yang Yong retreated to recover after their fight. Cao Xianming and the convoy fled the meeting room, and he warned Yang Yong to get out of the Core Area.

• Jiang Chen ordered Xiao Ying to bring the Zombie King in front of the diagram, and she hurried toward the Core Area.
• Cao Xianming saw a hopeful possibility in the Data Model and rapidly tapped at the data Light Screen.
• The Zombie King blasted Yang Yong through a building, and Yang Yong mistook Xiao Ying’s arrival for help and withdrew to eat and drink.
• Xiao Ying intimidated the Zombie King with the Evil-Slaying Blade, severed his right hand, and herded him toward the meeting room.
• Cao Xianming and the convoy fled the meeting room, and Cao Xianming shouted for Yang Yong to get out of the Core Area.

Yang Yong watched Xiao Ying force the Zombie King into Mechanical City's conference room, where a monstrous mass of flesh began devouring him. The encounter revealed that the City Lord had become a horrifying creature, while the threat of a full Eerie invasion still loomed over the convoy.

• Cao Xianming warned Yang Yong to flee, explaining that Xiao Ying was driving the Zombie King toward the conference room where the mutated City Lord might be waiting.
• Yang Yong learned from Peng Fan that the convoy had become the frontline against an Eerie invasion and feared they lacked the strength to stop it.
• Xiao Ying used the Evil-Slaying Blade to herd the Zombie King into the conference room.
• The conference room filled with starlight and strange sounds as a mountain-sized mass of rotten gray flesh enveloped the Zombie King.
• The mass of flesh slowly devoured the Zombie King, while red roots began growing from the parts of his body that touched it.

Yang Yong and Cao Xianming searched for a way to save Mechanical City's City Lord after he transformed into a spreading mass of flesh. Xiao Ying arrived with a plan from Corpse Ancestor Jiang Chen, and Yang Yong began refining a severed piece of the monster in the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace.

• The Zombie King was assimilated into the City Lord's mass of flesh, leaving the Nine Nether Yuanchen White Bone Ring dormant while the Zombie King Heart remained undigested.
• Cao Xianming concluded that they had to save the City Lord to restore Mechanical City's strength, but neither he nor Yang Yong knew how to do it.
• The City Lord's flesh monster spread through buildings until Yang Yong and the others retreated nearly two kilometers, realizing the Holy Envoy's plan had been to destroy Mechanical City.
• Xiao Ying burst out of the mass of flesh with the Evil-Slaying Blade and told Yang Yong that her master, Corpse Ancestor Jiang Chen, needed his help to save the City Lord.
• Xiao Ying instructed them to cut the mass of flesh, then sliced off a piece; Yang Yong tossed it into the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace to refine, and Wang Ying joined in with her blade.

Yang Yong and the others cut the flesh covering the Mechanical City Lord but could not stop it from regenerating. After learning the City Lord wanted Yang Yong to kill him and inherit his burden, Yang Yong used a bronze mirror to draw the mass of flesh inside, then was hit by a foul stench.

• Wang Ying and Yang Yong used the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace to process the flesh as Wang Ying slashed it away, but the remaining mass regenerated whenever they tried to cut it.
• Yang Yong heard the flesh pleading, “Kill me,” and Cao Xianming used the Data Model to reveal that the City Lord offered his position and responsibilities to whoever killed him.
• Yang Yong remembered the bronze mirror he had found and pointed it at the flesh, causing the mass to ripple and be drawn inside.
• Yang Yong suspected the mirror only activated when reflecting something nonhuman, then he and Cao Xianming smelled a foul stench.

After Yang Yong destroyed the City Lord of Mechanical City’s flesh, a Boundary-Breaking Passage began opening through He Jie, whose body and soul had been prepared as its anchor. With every attack swallowed by the growing hole, Yang Yong urged He Jie to use his hatred to reveal how to stop the Eerie’s plan.

• Yang Yong absorbed the rotting mass of flesh into the Ten-Thousand-Forged Primordial Furnace and discovered that the Bronze Mirror held the City Lord’s powerful mechanical soul.
• A black hole appeared between He Jie’s eyebrows and began consuming his body as the Eerie launched the Boundary-Breaking War.
• Cao Xianming ordered Wang Ying to slash the hole, but her blade light was swallowed, and the opening continued to grow.
• Yang Yong and the convoy attacked He Jie, but their weapons and powers were absorbed or passed through him because he was no longer in their space.
• As the hole consumed He Jie’s eye, Yang Yong called on his hatred and asked how they could close the passage.

As He Jie was swallowed, he revealed that the City Lord's Seven Emotional Incarnations could enter the mirror and retrieve the City Lord's soul. Yang Yong offered to make the incarnations bodies in exchange for their help, but she emerged from the mirror in tears after finding countless souls inside.

• He Jie told Yang Yong that the City Lord's Seven Emotional Incarnations could retrieve the City Lord's soul from the mirror and that the City Lord's authority could activate Mechanical City before the hole swallowed him.
• Yang Yong sent an account of the incident, and a giant axe-shaped structure containing the Core Control Room rose from beneath the Core Area as eight elders emerged.
• The Grand Elder told Yang Yong that the elders could only temporarily confine the Seven Emotional Incarnations and could not make her cooperate.
• Cao Xianming concluded that the incarnation wanted a body of her own, so Yang Yong promised to make her seven bodies if she retrieved two souls from the mirror.
• The little girl agreed, but she quickly returned from the mirror, crying that it contained too many souls for her to identify the two Yang Yong wanted.

Yang Yong and Cao Xianming used the Bronze Mirror and the Four Yang God-Sealing Banner to retrieve the City Lord’s soul while the spatial channel threatened to swallow He Jie. The City Lord said the channel could not be attacked until it fully formed and offered Yang Yong the choice of forging him a body or becoming City Lord, with the condition that Yang Yong could never go beyond a hundred li of Mechanical City.

• Yang Yong brought the Bronze Mirror to Cao Xianming, who determined it connected to many spaces and said the City Lord and the White-Clothed Love Letter Ghost occupied one of them.
• Yang Yong dampened the Four Yang God-Sealing Banner’s aura so the frightened little girl could carry it into the mirror and find the City Lord’s soul.
• The little girl emerged with the City Lord’s metallic soul as He Jie was nearly swallowed by the growing hole, and the elders knelt to greet him.
• The City Lord said the channel could not be attacked until it fully formed, then raised the Treasure Pavilion and asked Yang Yong to use all its materials to forge him a body.
• The City Lord offered Yang Yong the City Lord position instead, explaining that its price was never being able to go beyond a hundred li of Mechanical City.

Yang Yong used the Thousand-Hammer, Hundred-Refinement Furnace to forge the City Lord's requested item, draining Mechanical City's power and forcing it to jump into thunderclouds for energy. The furnace produced a plain metal ball, which the City Lord's soul absorbed, and a heartbeat began to sound from within him.

• The City Lord told Yang Yong to take over Mechanical City and defend the world until its destruction, but Yang Yong agreed to forge the requested item while still hoping to escape someday.
• Yang Yong summoned the Thousand-Hammer, Hundred-Refinement Furnace, which broke open the Treasure Pavilion and consumed its rare materials.
• The furnace drained Yang Yong and Mechanical City of energy, so the City Lord's soul made the city jump into thunderclouds and absorb lightning.
• After about ten minutes, the furnace produced an unmarked metal ball, leaving Yang Yong and the onlookers unable to explain what it was.
• The City Lord's soul transformed the ball into liquid metal and drew it into his chest, where a heartbeat began to sound.

The City Lord used the Curio body forged by Yang Yong to regain her true metallic form as an alien princess. She declared her duty to protect the world until its destruction, revealing that the City Lord position bound its holder to Mechanical City, before sending Yang Yong back to the red mountain peak, where He Jie had been almost entirely devoured.

• The City Lord's soul animated the liquid silver in the Curio body, which formed into a silver-armored humanoid figure.
• Yang Yong and Cao Xianming realized the City Lord was not human as she regained her original form as an interstellar princess.
• The City Lord said she was bound to Mechanical City and tasked with protecting the world until its destruction, while a chain appeared between her and the city.
• Yang Yong understood that accepting the City Lord position would have bound him to Mechanical City forever.
• The City Lord sent Yang Yong back to the red mountain peak, where He Jie had been devoured except for his feet beside a person-sized opening.

As the Boundary-Breaking Passage opened, Yang Yong was assigned the former Third Elder’s battle duties and took his place in the Core Control Room. The rift revealed a vast force of Eerie sealed in black coffins, and several elders suddenly burst into blood beside him.

• The City Lord began battle preparations, transforming the Mechanical City and ordering survivors into shelters while Yang Yong was assigned the Third Elder’s post.
• Yang Yong entered the Core Control Room, connected to its terminal, and watched the spatial rift widen on the Light Screen.
• Four massive claws tore the rift open, revealing countless black coffins and a blood-red coffin belonging to the Eerie Race.
• The Second Elder suddenly burst into blood, and three more elders exploded moments later.
• Yang Yong covered himself in Nine Nether Bone Armor and prepared to break out with Heaven-Breaking Strike.

Yang Yong learned that City Lord Sevian was a Starry Sky Race princess who had inherited the Mechanical City's original lord’s duty to protect the world. As the Eerie forces prepared to invade, Sevian appointed four new elders, and Yang Yong was pulled into an illusion of a mighty giant wielding a cosmic axe.

• Yang Yong asked whether Sevian was human, and she revealed that she was Princess Sevian of the Starry Sky Race, whose soul had possessed the reborn City Lord of the Mechanical City.
• Sevian explained how the original City Lord founded the Mechanical City to resist the coming Apocalypse and how she inherited his mission after he was assassinated.
• Four new elders entered the Core Control Room, and Sevian appointed Huang Shujun, Hong Yuemei, Zhong Min'er, and Shan Yaokang to replace fallen elders.
• Black mist and chains poured from spatial rifts as the Eerie armies prepared to invade, and Yang Yong braced himself for the battle.
• Yang Yong was pulled into an illusion and saw a colossal giant with six stars between his brows wielding an axe that could tear through space and shatter laws.