Chapter Summaries

Lu Xiao visited Dan Guofeng and persuaded him to sneak away that night to find his father. He then confronted Dan Guofeng about the Taoist Temple being an artificial, scripted place and demanded answers from Alfred as the mountain began to collapse.

• Amilia accepted that she did not want to miss her chance, while Ruiqi was left to consider her answer.
• Lu Xiao found Dan Guofeng, who said his first master wanted him to enter seclusion and had arranged a cultivation partner for him.
• Lu Xiao told Dan Guofeng about Zhang Chu's arrival, stirring Dan Guofeng's desire to find his father, and the two agreed to sneak off that night.
• Lu Xiao shouted for Alfred, making the Taoist Temple and mountain tremble, then asked whether the place was a Time Shadow or something Dan Guofeng had created.
• Lu Xiao explained that the world felt like a script built around him, with most people acting like NPCs, and challenged Dan Guofeng over the misleading clues, including the baby that crawled out of his mouth.

Lu Xiao confronted Dan Guofeng about the false history and learned that altering history carried the risk of losing himself, while erasing him would collapse the parallel worlds. As the world came apart, Lu Xiao escaped, and Dan Guofeng chose to remain and defy Heaven for a chance at survival.

• Lu Xiao accused Dan Guofeng of steering him toward believing he was Liu Guang, and Dan Guofeng confirmed that the events Lu Xiao recalled had occurred in parallel timelines.
• Dan Guofeng explained that erasing Lu Xiao would collapse the parallel worlds, but admitted he could not do it himself.
• Lu Xiao concluded that he had altered history before, while Dan Guofeng said even his lord could not predict whether Lu Xiao would survive.
• As cracks split the earth and a tentacle emerged, Lu Xiao offered to take Dan Guofeng with him, but Dan Guofeng chose to stay and decide his own future.
• Lu Xiao vanished from the collapsing world, and Dan Guofeng declared that he was willing to contend with Heaven for a chance at survival.

After Dan Guofeng sacrificed himself, Lu Xiao reflected on how he had secretly helped him escape a false history and hoped time might save him. A phantom appeared beside the statues, and Lu Xiao angrily challenged it over its failure to protect its allies before a group arrived in the Divine Hall.

• Dan Guofeng crumbled to dust after calling out to Alfred, and Lu Xiao admitted that he could never truly be Liu Guang.
• A statue of Dan Guofeng appeared beside Liu Guang’s, and its inscription recounted how he had ventured into the Universe, become corrupted, and turned into Time’s Chosen.
• Lu Xiao realized Dan Guofeng had used Doctor Li and Dan Qingrong to expose the deception and pass him information, and he hoped time could pull Dan Guofeng out of history.
• A phantom appeared across the Round Table, and Lu Xiao asked whether it was Lu Xiao or Fate before criticizing it for failing to protect its pieces and explain its plans.
• Doctor, Antie, Li Changqing, Ruiqi, Amilia, and the feather-covered Calamity arrived in the Divine Hall and looked at Lu Xiao in shock.

Lu Xiao met with the Divine Hall’s gathering and learned more about Dan Guofeng and the God-Making Plan, while struggling under the responsibility of sustaining civilization. The chapter left Ruiqi uneasy under Doctor’s unsettling scrutiny, with Lu Xiao still needing to verify his suspicions about the past.

• Calamity appeared as a crow, and Lu Xiao discovered he could not remove the severe contamination affecting him.
• Doctor explained that he had gathered Consumables to perform the Summoning Ritual after Lu Xiao missed their weekly meeting.
• Antie and Li Changqing told Lu Xiao that Dan Guofeng had come to the New World with them and had aided the Spark Plan after the Prison Plan began.
• Lu Xiao asked about Doctor Li’s God-Making Plan, but Antie knew little and suggested asking his teacher, Shuns.
• Doctor studied Ruiqi with an unsettling interest in experiments, leaving her feeling threatened in the unfamiliar Divine Hall.

Lu Xiao tried to get Calamity to retrieve the feathers hidden underground, but Calamity could not use his abilities or communicate normally. After Ruiqi revealed that her Authority was Desire, she began explaining Hell’s origins from the Holy Scripture of the Hell Royal Family Demons.

• Lu Xiao asked Ruiqi to pluck feathers from Calamity, but Calamity reacted in distress and refused.
• Doctor suggested that Calamity trace words in the air, and Calamity explained that he could not use his abilities.
• Lu Xiao said the feathers were buried beneath Hell’s hard ground and that only Calamity could part the soil with his Authority.
• Lu Xiao introduced Ruiqi as his first divine follower, and Ruiqi told Doctor and the others that her Authority was Desire.
• Ruiqi began recounting the scripture’s claim that Hell formed from the corpse of a being of incomprehensible power.

Ruiqi explained Hell’s origins, the arrival of the Post Office, and how Hell’s creatures came to rely on Hell Worms for access to scarce resources. The Doctor planned to investigate the Post Office, while Antie suggested that Hell’s inhabitants’ lack of reverence for the unknown might be worsening their conditions.

• Ruiqi told the Doctor that Hell’s resources began dwindling after the Post Office appeared and more life forms arrived, forcing creatures to use Hell Worms to reach moisture in the soil.
• Ruiqi said she was among Hell’s first life forms but had no concrete sense of time because her race did not track it.
• Lu Xiao wondered why Morati and Feis could speak human language and decided to meet Feis again.
• The Doctor said he would send a Clone to Hell to investigate the Post Office and try to recreate it in his dreamscape.
• Antie told Ruiqi that thinking was a vital advantage and asked whether her people’s lack of reverence for the unknown had caused Hell’s worsening conditions.

Antie proposed managing Ruiqi’s race for two months and wagered that he could raise its strength by one tier. After Ruiqi accepted, Lu Xiao warned her that change would bring bloodshed and sacrifice, leaving her to seek Amilia’s interpretation of the warning.

• Antie asked Lu Xiao to let him manage Ruiqi’s race, and Lu Xiao agreed if Ruiqi consented.
• Antie bet Ruiqi that he would raise her race’s strength by one tier in two months, wagering a hundred million cubic meters of fresh water against one cubic meter from Ruiqi if he succeeded.
• Calamity warned Ruiqi to be cautious, but Ruiqi accepted the bet despite Antie’s small stake.
• Doctor, Antie, and Li Changqing left the meeting, and Lu Xiao told Ruiqi that change often came with bloodshed and sacrifice.
• Lu Xiao sent Ruiqi back to her room, where she asked Amilia what the warning meant; Amilia praised the unnamed Wanderer and asked to meet him.

Unable to leave the Divine Hall, Lu Xiao answered a desperate caller’s wish and appeared in a prison cell. He escaped with the mutilated man, speculated that the Omniscient Mirror used parallel timelines to answer questions, and met Doctor, who invited him to go to Hell.

• Lu Xiao, frustrated by the calls in his head, randomly selected a caller and heard the man’s thoughts as he begged to escape prison.
• Lu Xiao appeared in the man’s cell, agreed to fulfill his wish, broke down the door, and carried him out.
• The Omniscient Mirror welcomed Lu Xiao back, and Lu Xiao theorized that it previewed parallel worlds to produce answers; the Mirror’s evasive response seemed to confirm his guess.
• After the man interrupted Lu Xiao, Lu Xiao silenced him by injuring his mouth and resumed speaking with the Mirror.
• Doctor ordered the soldiers to let Lu Xiao pass, then invited him to head to Hell and remarked that the man was lucky to have Lu Xiao fulfill his wish.

Lu Xiao toured the expanded mobile base with the Doctor, who explained his research into genetic modification and proposed that authorities were keys to rules. The Doctor warned that using a fallen deity’s Flame authority could be dangerous, then began explaining his hypothesis about why each trait could exist only once.

• Lu Xiao handed the dying man to a soldier so the man could be released and have his wish granted.
• The Doctor showed Lu Xiao the mobile base and its main laboratory, where researchers were working on genetic modification to improve trait-transplant success.
• Lu Xiao recalled Dan Qingrong’s ability to graft traits and considered asking her to graft his Flame authority, which had crystallized from a fallen deity.
• The Doctor told Lu Xiao that a fallen deity’s authority was an imperfect key to a rule and that combining conflicting understandings of the same rule could cause madness.
• The Doctor agreed with Doctor Li’s claim that only one instance of any trait could exist, but said he had a hypothesis to explain it.

The Doctor explained to Lu Xiao how Traits, rules, and Deification rituals might relate, using construction as an analogy for safely mastering a rule. He proposed transplanting the Emperor Trait into a real emperor, and Lu Xiao suggested creating Doctor Li in the Doctor's Dreamscape.

• The Doctor theorized that Deities could hold fragments of a rule and that a Deification Ritual tested whether a Trait holder could apply it.
• The Doctor speculated that mastering a whole rule might not be enough to become a Supreme, and that a further ritual could allow someone to rise above rules.
• The Doctor explained that Emperor was a weakened version of King and compared the difference in their mastery of a rule to a nearly empty construction site versus a solid foundation.
• The Doctor argued that incorrectly applying a Trait could cause madness, like building a structure out of order, and proposed transplanting Emperor into a real emperor.
• The Doctor said Traits were different keys to different doors into a rule and expressed interest in meeting Doctor Li, so Lu Xiao suggested creating him in the Doctor's Dreamscape.

Lu Xiao saw Doctor and Shuns trying to recreate Doctor Li, but warned them against transplanting Li’s brain and encouraged Doctor to pursue building a separate system. Doctor explained why the group had avoided contacting the New World, leaving Lu Xiao aware that they were protecting it from the Outsiders.

• Doctor told Lu Xiao he could not perfectly recreate someone, then brought him to Shuns’s biology laboratory.
• Lu Xiao saw nutrient tanks holding Clones of Shuns, Doctor, and Doctor Li, and learned they planned to put Li’s Clone into Hell.
• Doctor admitted he wanted to meet Doctor Li and suggested transplanting Li’s brain, but Lu Xiao urged him to abandon that idea and preserve the system.
• Doctor proposed copying his own brain to create a new system, and Lu Xiao agreed that another system could benefit humanity.
• Lu Xiao asked about contacting the New World, and Doctor said Antie and the others were avoiding contact so the Outsiders would not discover it if the Present World lost.

Lu Xiao watched Shuns demonstrate a flesh-made handgun developed through Doctor’s Flesh Machinery research. After Lu Xiao suggested a simpler way to reproduce curses, Doctor found a new direction for his research, and Shuns revealed that their ultimate goal was a Flesh Mecha.

• Shuns celebrated a breakthrough in Flesh Machinery, then hurried to explain himself to Lu Xiao after noticing him and Doctor nearby.
• Shuns showed Lu Xiao a living lump of flesh that attached to his arm and transformed into a handgun.
• Shuns fired the prototype at Lu Xiao, who felt a small sting but suffered no serious harm.
• Doctor explained that the prototype was based on the S097-Corruption Revolver, and Lu Xiao suggested infecting its user with a curse rather than analyzing how curses worked.
• Doctor accepted Lu Xiao’s suggestion as a promising research direction, while Shuns explained that the team ultimately wanted to build a Flesh Mecha.

Lu Xiao gave the Doctor a bone spur containing the gravity authority for the Prototype Mecha, while the Doctor took the spatial bag to study. The chapter left the Doctor preparing to explore new uses for gravity as Lu Xiao reflected on humanity’s potential.

• Shuns explained that the Biomechanical Armor would use bioenergy and might incorporate authorities, and Lu Xiao volunteered to test the prototype.
• Lu Xiao offered the Doctor the flame authority, but after learning he had promised it to Mr. Antie, he chose to keep that promise.
• Lu Xiao showed the Doctor a spatial bag from Hell, and the Doctor took it to study and possibly copy.
• Lu Xiao warned the Doctor that the Corrupted Revolver was inside the bag and handed over a bone spur containing the gravity authority for the Prototype Mecha.
• The Doctor described using gravity to improve the mecha’s speed and potentially collapse space in a designated area, prompting Lu Xiao to reflect on humanity’s capacity to master rules.

Lu Xiao visited Doctor and Shuns's Deity Training Class and learned how its experiments compared in human cost with He Shang's and Antie's methods. The next day, Lu Xiao, Antie, and Doctor Li's clone flew toward Paradise Lost, where the clone introduced himself as Liangren.

• Lu Xiao argued that humanity could survive its enemies like mice survived cats, while Shuns took comfort in the comparison and Doctor dismissed it as optimistic.
• Shuns showed Lu Xiao the Deity Training Class, where seven hundred volunteer soldiers trained to receive implanted traits despite a projected success rate below one percent.
• Doctor explained that He Shang's plan sacrificed at least five million ascetics for one bodhisattva, while Antie's Eden Project consumed about a million people per false deity and killed most uncontrollable subjects.
• Lu Xiao accepted that Doctor's experiment cost fewer lives by comparison, though he remained troubled by the bloodshed and sacrifice involved.
• The next day, Antie joined Lu Xiao and Doctor Li's clone aboard a helicopter bound for Paradise Lost, and the clone asked to be called Liangren.

Lu Xiao, Antie, and Liangren reached Paradise Lost, where a Hell Army contingent confronted them. As they prepared to seek the person called Assistant, Lu Xiao explained how water’s value in Hell could help explain the army’s size, though Antie still wondered how Ding Dan had organized it.

• Antie questioned Liangren about being a clone, and Liangren explained that the Doctor and Mr. Shuns had created him with a Thought Imprint.
• A helicopter brought Lu Xiao, Antie, and Liangren to their destination, and Lu Xiao carried Liangren through the jump to the ground.
• Antie said they needed to find Assistant, who could send them into Hell, and noted that Paradise Lost appeared to be outside the Doctor’s control.
• A Hell Army contingent approached the group as Lu Xiao explained that water was Hell’s currency and could buy slaves to fight.

Lu Xiao, Antie, and Liangren traveled to Hell to find Assistant, while Antie and Liangren’s competitive tension surfaced along the way. After Paralad guided them to Assistant, Liangren considered whether willpower could counter the contamination in his mind, provoking Antie again.

• Lu Xiao stopped Antie from attacking the Hell Creatures and told them they had come to find Assistant.
• Paralad introduced himself, revealed his connection to Feis, and led the group toward the Holy City without realizing Lu Xiao saw through his lies.
• Lu Xiao inferred that Paralad was trying to gain influence by associating himself with Feis but chose not to get involved in the Holy City’s power struggles.
• The group reached Assistant, whose crazed expression led Liangren to wonder whether willpower could dispel the contamination in his mind.
• Antie pointed out that Liangren had encountered similar cases at his base, and Liangren began recording the idea while Antie gave Lu Xiao a dark look.

Lu Xiao, Liangren, and Antie arrived in Hell and split up to investigate separate leads. As Lu Xiao traveled with Antie to the Succubus Clan’s settlement, Antie explained the dangers of elite clones and revealed that Doctor was also a clone.

• Lu Xiao, Liangren, and Antie reached the Holy City, where Kirk arranged for Liangren to investigate the Mysterious Post Office and Lu Xiao and Antie to head for the Succubus Clan’s settlement.
• Kirk sent more than ten King-level Hell beings to escort Liangren and arranged winged Shadiao for Lu Xiao and Antie.
• Lu Xiao asked Antie why he targeted Liangren, and Antie explained that he wanted to be the first person Liangren would seek to crush if the clone developed an ego.
• Antie recalled Shadow’s warning about human nature and explained that elite clones could twist Thought Imprints’ definitions of betrayal to justify their actions.
• Antie said Doctor had left the clone without a surname because he might consider it disposable, and revealed that Doctor himself was a clone.

Lu Xiao brought Antie to the Succubus Settlement after Antie mastered Hell's language in a day, and Antie began demanding that Ruiqi transfer her power to fulfill their Wager. Lu Xiao called Amilia to handle the negotiations, but Amilia instead treated Lu Xiao as his master and kissed his foot.

• Antie told Lu Xiao that he would support the Doctor if the Doctor strengthened civilization, but would kill him if he tried to destroy it.
• Antie asked Lu Xiao to teach him Hell's native language and mastered it within a day during their journey to the Succubus Settlement.
• Lu Xiao brought Antie to Ruiqi's residence, where Antie's imposing presence made Ruiqi uneasy.
• Lu Xiao explained handshaking to Ruiqi and reassured her that Antie was refined and reasonable, and Ruiqi greeted Antie with a stiff smile.
• Antie demanded that Ruiqi hand over her power so their Wager could take effect, prompting Lu Xiao to call Amilia to coordinate with him.
• Amilia appeared, called Lu Xiao his great master, kissed the top of his foot, and left Lu Xiao bewildered as a vibration came from his chest.

Lu Xiao arranged for Amilia to provide Antie with information for free, then searched the Gentleman's Paradise for clues about his disappearance. Ruiqi told him Antie planned to make the succubi abandon their usual business and compete for resources, and Lu Xiao urged her to think more about Antie's goals.

• Amilia said Antie would have to pay for information, but Lu Xiao invoked his authority as Amilia's master to make him provide it free of charge.
• After Lu Xiao left Ruiqi's room, Antie, Ruiqi, and Amilia decided to discuss matters elsewhere.
• Lu Xiao searched his old room on the Gentleman's Paradise's top floor for clues about how he had been dragged into the wrong point in history, but found nothing.
• Ruiqi told Lu Xiao she had temporarily handed authority to Antie, whose first decision was to make their people abandon their existing business and compete for resources.
• Lu Xiao explained that Antie likely wanted the succubi to stop relying on their usual way of obtaining resources and raise their ideological awareness, then told Ruiqi to think more.

Lu Xiao persuaded Ruiqi to help the succubi gain resources by buying slaves, arguing that it would protect them and change how other races viewed them. After learning that the Holy City's chief priest planned to ally with the Wanderers in the Wilderness, Lu Xiao judged the move premature and left to see Yi Hao.

• Lu Xiao explained to Ruiqi that buying slaves would protect the succubi and help them earn recognition and resources without selling their bodies.
• Ruiqi teased Lu Xiao about showing her some charity, and Lu Xiao changed the subject to Mr. Calamity's condition.
• Ruiqi said Mr. Calamity had rushed out during a meeting to lure away the Holy City's allied forces and had returned looking like a bird.
• Ruiqi told Lu Xiao that the Holy City's chief priest planned to ally with the Wanderers in the Wilderness and share the spoils after wiping out other races.
• Lu Xiao said the alliance was premature and left Gentleman's Paradise to see Yi Hao, repeating to himself that different species had a reproductive barrier.