Chapter Summaries

Dart led the Cityfire Squad in an assault on a Manor, but a Maxim heavy machine gun forced them to retreat. They escaped with Sly badly injured and reached Magic City No. 1 Psychiatric Hospital for treatment.

• Dart ordered the squad to attack with tranquilizer rounds, and they breached the Manor through a sewer manhole.
• The squad climbed the Villa wall to the third floor, but bodyguards cornered them with a Maxim heavy machine gun.
• Doctor ordered Dart to retreat, and the squad escaped through a blasted wall while Sly shielded them from gunfire.
• Liuguang carried Sly away as Dart covered the squad's retreat, and they escaped the Manor with Xiao Yu's help.
• Xiao Yu treated Sly in the ambulance, and the squad arrived at Magic City No. 1 Psychiatric Hospital.

Lu Xiao activated the Bone Spur with his blood, causing staff throughout the C03 Containment Facility to collapse. The doctor warned him not to use it again, then offered him a mission after Lu Xiao asked to go to the real world.

• Lu Xiao stabbed his thigh with the Bone Spur, awakening its glow and triggering a wave that knocked out most of the facility staff.
• The doctor sealed the facility, traced the emergency to Lu Xiao’s experiment, and ordered him to stop.
• The doctor confronted Lu Xiao and told him the Bone Spur was dangerous, but allowed him to keep it if he kept it away from blood.
• Lu Xiao asked about missions and going to the real world, and the doctor told him there was a mission available.

Lu Xiao was assigned to assist the Cityfire Squad in an operation involving a powerful Magic Mirror, while the doctor warned that the mission also aimed to thwart foreign Prison Wardens. As the team drove him through Magic City, Lu Xiao recognized Shanghai as a name from his past, and Liuguang said it had been a megacity in the near-ancient era.

• The doctor authorized Dart to deploy Lu Xiao, whose ability could cause dizziness within three kilometers, and warned that the Magic Mirror's omniscience could foil containment.
• The doctor told Dart to disrupt foreign Prison Wardens if the squad could not contain the target, and to use Lu Xiao's ability if necessary.
• Boss Liu asked the Magic Mirror how to bankrupt Era Real Estate, but it said he could not afford the answer and showed him an image of his own headless corpse.
• The Cityfire Squad took Lu Xiao from the psychiatric hospital to Magic City, where he said he knew it as Shanghai.
• Liuguang said he had heard Shanghai was a megacity in the near-ancient era, and Lu Xiao's pupils contracted.

Lu Xiao learned that 211 years had passed in the Innovation Century and became eager to obtain an omniscient Magic Mirror during the Cityfire Squad’s containment operation. As the squad attacked the manor, a strange van carrying six mechanically gesturing soldiers arrived at a police roadblock.

• Lu Xiao questioned Liuguang about the current era and wondered whether he had landed in a parallel world after learning it was Innovation Era 211.
• Dart told Lu Xiao to follow orders during the containment operation, and Liuguang explained that the target was a mirror that knew the past and future.
• Boss Liu recalled how the Magic Mirror had helped him build a business empire at the cost of many lives, including his wife, and how he had been unable to destroy it.
• An alarm sounded as the authorities attacked Boss Liu’s manor, while two police officers guarded the sealed road to it.
• A van approached the roadblock in erratic S-shaped turns, and the young officer found that its driver and six uniformed passengers were making strange, mechanical hand movements.

Dart’s squad discovered that three unidentified foreign Prison Warden squads were attacking the villa with live ammunition. As the attackers closed in, Dart ordered his team to intercept them with live rounds, and Lu Xiao asked whether he could kill them because they were not people.

• An older policeman showed a military ID to a soldier in the van, saluted him, and later revived the young policeman after he fainted.
• Xiao Yu told Dart that three squads were attacking the villa and that their identification codes had been blocked.
• Dart concluded that the attackers were foreign Prison Wardens and told his squad to wait until they left the villa before disrupting their operation.
• After Xiao Yu reported that the villa would fall within five minutes, Dart ordered the squad to prepare for an interception with live ammunition.
• Lu Xiao asked Dart if he could kill the attackers, and Dart answered, “No killing people!” before Lu Xiao insisted they were not people.

Lu Xiao ambushed the soldiers who entered Boss Liu’s villa through a wall, killing many of them while Dart’s squad waited outside. After Lu Xiao emerged carrying the mirror, two members of the squad suddenly collapsed and convulsed.

• Boss Liu asked the special operations soldiers to kill him, but they left him alive and took the Magic Mirror.
• Dart’s Cityfire Squad attacked the villa’s front entrance, but the soldiers inside escaped through a hole blasted in the wall.
• Lu Xiao ambushed the soldiers as they emerged, dodging their gunfire and killing them with brutal attacks.
• Lu Xiao stuffed an exploding grenade into a soldier’s mouth, then came out carrying the mirror after three minutes had passed.
• Two squad members collapsed and began convulsing.

Dart identified the Marionette, a contained entity that assimilated anyone nearby who stopped moving their hands, and Lu Xiao resisted its control with the Alchemy Array in his bones. Lu Xiao used the Bone Spur to knock out Xiao Yu and the J01 Prison Warden team, but he ended the chapter surrounded by gunfire with the Bone Spur stuck in a soldier's chest.

• Dart recognized Sequence 137 - Marionette as the team members collapsed, and Xiao Yu warned Lu Xiao that everyone within fifty meters had to keep both hands moving.
• The Marionette took control of Dart and the others, but Lu Xiao's Alchemy Array let him bend a finger and interrupt the assimilation until Xiao Yu tackled him.
• Xiao Yu identified the seven armed figures as J01's Prison Warden team, who were carrying the Marionette in a small wooden coffin.
• Lu Xiao stabbed his thigh with the Bone Spur, and its azure gemstone emitted a white halo that knocked out Xiao Yu and the J01 soldiers while leaving the assimilated team members standing.
• Lu Xiao crawled through gunfire and grenades toward the J01 team, pierced one soldier's heart with the Bone Spur, and found himself unable to pull it free as every gun turned toward him.

Lu Xiao and the Cityfire Squad survived the String Puppet’s attack and took the puppet into custody. The Cleaners erased the evidence at Liu Mingsheng’s villa and prepared to send him to the Containment Facility as an expendable.

• Lu Xiao defeated J01’s seven Prison Warden soldiers, seized the String Puppet, and moved away until the squad recovered.
• Dart ordered the squad to guard against the String Puppet, learned Liu Mingsheng was alive, and told Sly to keep him for the Cleaners.
• Lu Xiao returned with the String Puppet, and the Cityfire Squad credited Xiao Yu and the captain with helping them escape its control.
• Dart drove the squad and the contained objects away in an ambulance while Sly handed Liu Mingsheng over to the Cleaners.
• The Cleaners dissolved the remains, restored the villa, and pressed Liu Mingsheng’s fingerprint onto a written confession.

The Cleaner persuaded Liu Mingsheng to become a volunteer by promising him a chance to live, while the Doctor questioned the Omniscient Mirror at the Containment Facility. The Doctor sacrificed an assistant to learn that humanity’s technological breakthrough required sacrificing a god, then turned to Lu Xiao and asked whether he had any questions.

• The Cleaner told Liu Mingsheng that he could avoid death if he stayed somewhere for thirty days, and Liu Mingsheng signed the volunteer agreement.
• The Doctor asked the Omniscient Mirror how humanity could advance its technology and sacrificed an assistant’s brain to learn the answer’s price.
• The Omniscient Mirror said the technological breakthrough required sacrificing a god, then offered to identify which god in exchange for one million lives.
• The Doctor resisted the offer and told the staff that the assistant had been linked to Liuguang’s Ghost-Faced Moth infestation, though they questioned his actions.
• The Doctor declined to ask the Mirror another question and asked Lu Xiao whether he had anything he wanted to know.

Lu Xiao questioned the Omniscient Mirror about his world, its history, and the curse inside him, learning that his world was real and that the eras stretched back thousands of years. The Mirror revealed that explaining how to remove his curse would require sacrificing the entire Present World, leaving Lu Xiao to cling to the Prison Doctor’s belief that another solution existed.

• Lu Xiao paid a fingernail for the Omniscient Mirror to confirm that his current world was the one he originally came from.
• Lu Xiao paid another fingernail to learn that the Near-Ancient Era ended 1,300 years ago, the Medieval Era ran from over 3,300 to over 1,800 years ago, and the Ancient Era came before it.
• The Doctor sent the staff away for F-Class Memory Erasure and disconnected surveillance before Lu Xiao continued questioning the Mirror.
• Lu Xiao asked how to remove his curse, and the Mirror said the answer would cost the entire Present World.
• The Doctor reminded Lu Xiao that Sequence 069 believed the Present World held a solution, and Lu Xiao rejected sacrificing the world for the answer.

Lu Xiao learned that he had existed for more than a thousand years and that recovering his lost memories could break his curse. The Doctor secured the Omniscient Mirror, refused to return the String Puppet to J01, and learned that the Saints were behind the special operations team.

• Lu Xiao asked what had happened during the thousand-plus years since he fell into the Dark Prison, and the Omniscient Mirror confirmed that he had existed throughout that time.
• The Doctor deduced that Lu Xiao's curse arose during those years and that recovering his forgotten memories was the key to breaking it.
• The Doctor refused J01's demand to return Sequence 137, the String Puppet, and demanded Sequence 012-Pen in exchange.
• The Doctor recorded the Omniscient Mirror's properties and left Lu Xiao's containment information unchanged.
• The Doctor learned that Sequence 097-Corrupted Revolver had been secured and that the Saints were behind the special operations team.

The Doctor discussed the Prison Wardens’ investigation and an upcoming conference, while Dart’s squad visited Lu Xiao and learned that he had only a year before the curse turned him into mindless rotten flesh. As Lu Xiao remained unsure whether to sacrifice the Present World for the Omniscient Mirror’s cure, Dart urged him to seek the Prison Doctor’s advice.

• The Doctor learned that an investigation into the U01 Containment Facility was underway and was warned that the Standing Management Council might target him at the Round Table Conference over Sequence 09.
• Dart led his squad to visit Lu Xiao, and the members saluted him in gratitude for saving their lives.
• Lu Xiao told the squad that the Prison Doctor had given him one year before his curse turned him into mindless rotten flesh.
• Lu Xiao revealed that the Omniscient Mirror knew a cure but demanded the sacrifice of the entire Present World in exchange.
• Liuguang urged Lu Xiao to use his remaining year to help humanity, but Lu Xiao said he could not accept his fate and did not know whether to trade for the cure.
• Dart asked whether Lu Xiao had sought the Prison Doctor’s opinion and encouraged him to ask for guidance.

Lu Xiao visited the Prison Doctor for advice about his curse after learning that the Omniscient Mirror demanded the present world as a sacrifice for an answer. The Prison Doctor helped him realize he feared the future, not the choice itself, and that the mirror was only one possible shortcut.

• Lu Xiao left Dart, Sly, and Liuguang to seek the Prison Doctor’s guidance.
• The Prison Doctor diagnosed an expendable with kidney deficiency and removed both kidneys without anesthetic, while Lu Xiao assisted and discussed the procedure.
• After the operation, Lu Xiao told the Prison Doctor that the Omniscient Mirror had offered to resolve his curse in exchange for the present world.
• The Prison Doctor asked whether Lu Xiao truly wanted to sacrifice the world, and Lu Xiao instinctively refused.
• The Prison Doctor explained that Lu Xiao was afraid of becoming mindless and of the future, and that the mirror was only one shortcut among possible answers.
• Lu Xiao realized he had mistaken the mirror for the solution the Prison Doctor had advised him to seek and apologized for neglecting that advice.

Lu Xiao accepted a containment mission and met Dante, a Sacrificial One who explained their role and handed him a mercury-bullet handgun. As they drove away, Lu Xiao defended the Prison Doctor’s medical advice, leaving Dante amused by how well the two seemed to get along.

• The Prison Doctor warned Lu Xiao not to use the Bone Spur recklessly, and Lu Xiao promised to save it for when he was in danger.
• The Doctor assigned Lu Xiao a containment mission, and researcher Li Haiqun gave him an Accessibility Communicator and a Prison Warden System Carrier.
• Lu Xiao rode an ambulance with Dante, who introduced himself as a Sacrificial One and gave him a handgun loaded with mercury bullets.
• Dante said the Prison Doctor had diagnosed him with lung cancer and recommended surgery to remove his lung lobes.
• Lu Xiao insisted the Prison Doctor’s diagnosis was reliable, and Dante remarked that Lu Xiao and the Prison Doctor clearly got along.

Lu Xiao and Dante investigated an orange taxi whose passengers had disappeared, boarding it to discover where it took them. The driver began telling them about his dead wife, but Lu Xiao’s interruptions enraged him, and the driver attacked Lu Xiao with a knife.

• Dante told Lu Xiao their mission was to investigate the missing passengers and contain the taxi.
• Dante and Lu Xiao staged a vehicle breakdown and flagged down an orange taxi, which locked its doors and drove off without asking their destination.
• The driver played a love song and tried to tell them about his beautiful dead wife, while Lu Xiao repeatedly interrupted him.
• The driver recounted how he had married his wife despite their friends’ doubts and ignored her contact with her ex.
• After Lu Xiao called the driver a simp, the driver stopped the taxi, grabbed a knife, and thrust it toward Lu Xiao’s heart.

Lu Xiao and Dante subdued the anomalous taxi driver and discovered that the taxi ran on human flesh and blood. Lu Xiao suspected the car carried the scent of a powerful Higher Being, and he took the driver and taxi back while Dante drove the ambulance.

• Lu Xiao stopped the driver's knife with his aura, and Dante held the driver at gunpoint.
• The driver admitted he had killed his passengers and fed their bodies to the taxi.
• The driver showed Lu Xiao and Dante the flesh engine beneath the taxi's hood and said he had found the car in Prison.
• Lu Xiao sensed the scent of another, extremely powerful anomalous creature on the car and concluded the driver was not its true owner.
• Dante contacted the Doctor, who ordered him to bring 292 back, and Lu Xiao decided to drive the taxi and its driver back himself.
• Lu Xiao asked about the driver's beautiful wife, and the driver said she had died and that he was a toad.

At the C03 Containment Facility, Lu Xiao and the Doctor investigated a taxi that had escaped the Dark Prison and discovered it could feed on people and transform into vehicles. After Dante took it for a spin through Magic City, Lu Xiao got behind the wheel despite having failed his second driving test.

• The Doctor questioned the driver about the taxi, and Lu Xiao said he had never seen humans or a Gate in the part of the Dark Prison where he lived.
• The driver opened the trunk to reveal a monstrous mouth, which ate a disposable and made the taxi’s engine roar.
• The driver demonstrated that the taxi could change shape, first turning it into an Aima electric scooter.
• Dante transformed the scooter into a Raptor pickup, and he, Lu Xiao, the Doctor, and the driver took it onto the streets of Magic City.
• Lu Xiao asked to drive, admitted he had no license because he got stuck on the second driving test, and the traffic light turned green.

Lu Xiao drove the Doctor, Dante, and a taxi driver away from pursuing police by teleporting their pickup to the C03 Containment Facility. The Doctor classified the vehicle as Sequence 302 and the driver as Sequence 303, leaving Lu Xiao to welcome the driver as a new comrade.

• Lu Xiao sped through Magic City in the pickup, ignored the Doctor's order to pull over, and escaped the police by teleporting to the C03 Containment Facility.
• The Doctor recorded the pickup as Sequence 302-Vehicle, an anomaly that teleported and required flesh and blood or anomalous power to run.
• The driver explained that his missing taxi passengers had been criminals, and the assistant confirmed that the victims had criminal records.
• After the driver revealed that he could drive, the Doctor classified him as Sequence 303-Driver and ordered staff to contain him.
• Lu Xiao showed the driver his Sequence 292-Lost Person badge and solemnly welcomed him as a comrade.

Driver passed the Box Experiment and became Lu Xiao’s new friend, though he remained terrified of Prison Doctor and Ivan. Meanwhile, Doctor received Sequence 097, the Cursed Toy Gunpowder Pistol, and prepared for the Round Table Conference while studying Lu Xiao’s growing stem cells.

• Driver passed the seven-day Box Experiment without leaving the first room, and Lu Xiao gave him a name badge.
• Lu Xiao introduced Driver to Prison Doctor and Ivan, but Driver was too frightened to accept Prison Doctor’s offer of a free examination.
• After Lu Xiao and Driver left, Ivan and Prison Doctor sensed an unusual aura from Driver and discussed their concern about Lu Xiao.
• Doctor received Sequence 097, the Cursed Toy Gunpowder Pistol, and ordered it kept in lead containment because it rotted anyone who touched it and harmed its wielder with each shot.
• Doctor examined Lu Xiao’s growing, writhing hematopoietic stem cells as the tablet announced that the Round Table Conference was about to begin.

Doctor attended the Round Table Conference, where he discussed possible trades involving 137 and 292 and the challenge of keeping 301 with Warden and Director. The meeting then reviewed the U01 investigation, and Smith accepted responsibility for the facility’s negligence and offered to be punished.

• Doctor met his mentor, Warden, who advised him to trade 137 for benefits and discussed the challenge of keeping 301.
• Director asked Doctor to name a price for 292, but Doctor refused to trade it or share its research results.
• A councilor began the Round Table Conference and presented the findings of the investigation into U01 and Enzo.
• Smith apologized for U01’s negligence, thanked Doctor, and said the personnel involved had been investigated.
• Smith offered to accept punishment under the Warden Regulations, and the councilor praised his sense of responsibility.