Chapter Summaries

Lu Xiao learned how Kaitlin had seized Ding Dan’s rule of the Holy City and agreed to help Ding Dan reclaim it in exchange for his future cooperation. The group reached Kaitlin’s divine hall, where Ding Dan faced the usurper, while Lu Xiao recognized that fear and a lack of loyalty left Ding Dan with little support.

• Morati told Lu Xiao that Kaitlin had taken over the Holy City after defeating Ding Dan, who had now returned after recovering from his injuries.
• Lu Xiao agreed to help Ding Dan reclaim the city, asking him to accompany him somewhere afterward, and Ding Dan accepted without asking where.
• Ding Dan led Lu Xiao, Morati, Dart, Nico, and two Succubi through the Holy City as its people knelt to him.
• The group reached the empty divine hall, where Kaitlin sat alone on the throne and mocked Ding Dan for returning.
• Morati explained that no one knew Kaitlin’s authority, while Ding Dan said fear kept the city’s people from rising against him.
• Lu Xiao realized that Ding Dan’s harsh rule had left him without broad loyalty, making his return to power depend on the small group that still supported him.

Ding Dan confronted Kaitlin in the great hall and revealed that Kaitlin's brutality and desire to submit to him came from feeling inferior because he had no authority. Kaitlin reacted with anger and humiliation as Lu Xiao and the others stood nearby.

• Kaitlin questioned Ding Dan about who should rule the Demon Clan, and Ding Dan called him a tyrant and said Daimon was better suited to lead.
• Kaitlin spread his wings and released a god's pressure over the group, prompting Lu Xiao to inject Morati with a sedative as a precaution.
• Kaitlin told Ding Dan he had once intended to submit to him but now wanted to kill him.
• Ding Dan explained that Daimon had wanted Kaitlin to receive the corrupted authority of the King, then accused Kaitlin of using brutality to conceal his inferiority over having no authority.
• Kaitlin trembled as Ding Dan exposed his motives, while Nico joked about whether lacking authority meant losing human rights and praised Lu Xiao's reply.

Lu Xiao watched Daimon punish Kaitlin for attacking Ding Dan and harming Morati and Yi Hao, while Ding Dan accepted the punishment and affirmed their cooperation. After Daimon carried Kaitlin away, Ding Dan turned to Lu Xiao and asked him to sit on the Throne.

• Lu Xiao realized Ding Dan had brought Daimon as support, and Daimon joined Ding Dan in confronting Kaitlin.
• Daimon apologized to Ding Dan and said Kaitlin had to answer for attacking the Great Lord and harming Morati and Yi Hao.
• Daimon broke off Kaitlin’s arms, wings, and legs, then asked Ding Dan whether the punishment satisfied him.
• Ding Dan said he was satisfied, and Daimon carried the helpless Kaitlin away while asking that their cooperation remain unaffected.
• Ding Dan looked at the Throne, sighed, and asked Lu Xiao to sit on it.

Lu Xiao climbed the nine steps to the Throne and was overwhelmed by its power, briefly acting like a sovereign while seated. Ding Dan pulled him away and explained that the Throne’s influence showed why Lu Xiao was unsuited to lead humanity, leaving Nico to restrain his furious response.

• Lu Xiao climbed the steps toward the Throne as a growing pressure made his heart race and left him exhausted.
• Lu Xiao sat on the Throne and felt as though he held the Holy City and its power in his grasp.
• Lu Xiao rebuked Ding Dan for approaching the Throne, then threatened him when Ding Dan lifted him from the seat.
• Ding Dan set Lu Xiao down and said the Throne’s influence explained why Lu Xiao was unsuited to lead humanity.
• Nico wrapped her arms around Lu Xiao and urged him to calm down.

Lu Xiao confronted Ding Dan about power, responsibility, and the Crown that bound him, then realized Ding Dan had planned to use Lu Xiao to resolve the crisis. As their conversation ended, two succubi brought a battered, bleeding figure into the hall.

• Lu Xiao broke free from Nico and admitted that the Throne's power had intoxicated him.
• Ding Dan explained that power came with responsibility, and that Lu Xiao had avoided accepting it on the way to the Throne.
• Lu Xiao realized Ding Dan might have to die to relinquish the Crown, but Ding Dan said he had counted on Lu Xiao to take him somewhere once the crisis ended.
• Ding Dan revealed that his plan had begun after Calamity destroyed the Holy City and that he wanted to see how Lu Xiao would resolve a similar problem.
• Two succubi entered the hall supporting a mangled, bloody figure, and Lu Xiao remarked on how miserable the figure looked.

After Lu Xiao and his companions left the Holy City, Daimon carried Kaitlin toward the North Royal City and confronted three enormous figures who demanded he release him. Daimon refused and overwhelmed them with his black flames, while Kaitlin remained his captive.

• Ding Dan thanked Yi Hao for his work and gave him two succubi, then agreed to meet Lu Xiao at the human encampment in two days.
• Lu Xiao, Dart, and Nico left the Holy City, joking about giving up their royal roles as Lu Xiao reflected on the lure of power and Liu Guang.
• Daimon flew toward the North Royal City with the limbless Kaitlin, who pleaded to be released and denied being a fragment of the progenitor's soul.
• Daimon ignored Kaitlin's pleas, struck him, and confronted three giant figures who demanded he put Kaitlin down.
• Daimon transformed into a flame giant and covered the area in pitch-black fire, causing the three figures to withdraw after threatening him.

Daimon brought Kaitlin to the Royal City and prepared to use him as the vessel for the Progenitor’s Advent, while Lu Xiao returned to the Base and learned that Old Feis and Calamity had a dangerous mission from Death. After they left, Lu Xiao went to check on Lu Qian in class.

• Daimon reached the Royal City with Kaitlin, where six Great Two-Horned Demons emerged from his body and discussed the Gods who had tried to stop them.
• Daimon warned the others to stay vigilant so nothing would disrupt the ritual for the Progenitor’s Advent, then told the despairing Kaitlin that becoming its vessel was the highest honor.
• Lu Xiao returned to the Base with Kaitlin’s severed limbs and wings, and Chef prepared them for a meal that Old Feis and Calamity shared with him.
• Old Feis told Lu Xiao that Death had given him and Calamity a confidential, dangerous mission, and Calamity said they might be gone for about a month.
• Old Feis and Calamity left before finishing the meal, and Lu Xiao learned he would have to ask Death himself about resurrecting someone.
• Lu Xiao walked outside Lu Qian’s classroom and watched the peaceful lesson through the window.

Lu Xiao took Xiao Yu to the Prison Doctor’s Containment Room, hoping to have her Vocal Cords restored, but the Prison Doctor said she was healthy and Xiao Yu refused to cooperate. The chapter ended with the Prison Doctor explaining that Xiao Yu’s reliance on her External Vocal Cords could make her lose the ability to speak.

• Lu Xiao interrupted Xiao Yu’s class and carried her toward the Prison Doctor’s Containment Room, despite her struggles and screams.
• Xiao Yu bit Lu Xiao’s God-skin coat and lost all her teeth, which Lu Xiao gathered and put in his pocket.
• Lu Xiao found Liu Ni alone in the Containment Room, where she answered his questions with nonsense before the Prison Doctor returned.
• The Prison Doctor made an awkward joke, then asked Lu Xiao to put Xiao Yu down and helped calm her.
• The Prison Doctor told Xiao Yu to stop relying on her External Vocal Cords, but she said she liked using them, so he told Lu Xiao she refused to cooperate.

Lu Xiao sought the Prison Doctor’s help to remove the contamination in Xiao Yu’s mind, but learned the treatment required entering her consciousness and the Doctor was away preparing a deification ritual. Shuns offered to try extracting and storing Xiao Yu’s consciousness, leaving Lu Xiao unsure whether the plan was reliable.

• Lu Xiao had Xiao Yu knocked unconscious, and the Prison Doctor explained that removing her mental contamination required entering her consciousness world with her cooperation.
• Lu Xiao decided to get Xiao Yu a day off and left a blood-written note on the classroom door while the students studied in a confused, heated discussion.
• Lu Xiao went to the Doctor’s office, where the assistant told him the Doctor had been missing for over two days.
• Shuns told Lu Xiao that the Doctor had left to prepare his deification ritual and offered to help with Xiao Yu using his consciousness-extraction project.
• Lu Xiao asked Shuns whether extracting and storing Xiao Yu’s consciousness was reliable.

Lu Xiao agreed to help Shuns test a consciousness-transfer procedure after the Black Cat could stabilize a subject’s consciousness in a dream. The first experiment began with a Minotaur, whose Consciousness World revealed a bizarre fantasy of cow-bodied seductresses.

• Shuns admitted that consciousness uploads could lose or damage consciousness, and that his earlier test subjects had collapsed during experiments.
• Lu Xiao suggested that Shuns stop fixating on human test subjects, but Shuns insisted that the technology needed human-specific testing.
• Shuns realized that a dream-weaving creature could keep a subject’s consciousness stable during extraction, and Lu Xiao agreed to help test the idea without using Xiao Yu.
• Lu Xiao obtained Minotaur test subjects, while Shuns brought the Black Cat and the unconscious Xiao Yu to the Experiment Room.
• Little Black placed an anesthetized Minotaur in a dream as the Prison Doctor operated and Shuns implanted a chip and activated the equipment.
• The display showed the Minotaur’s Consciousness World filled with cow-bodied seductresses, prompting Shuns to remark on the subject’s apparent dream life.

Shuns explained that consciousness could be copied and stored in Data Cortex Hard Drives, then tested the technology in the Experiment Room. After a failed upload caused a Minotaur's consciousness to become disordered, Shuns fixed the faulty cable and successfully completed a second experiment.

• Shuns told Lu Xiao that the technology could upload and copy consciousness, and revealed that humanity had obtained it from Technology.
• Lu Xiao wondered whether Technology might become another powerful backer, then planned to ask about his honorific name at Lu Liangren's place.
• Shuns's first experiment failed because a faulty cable caused packet loss, and the Minotaur became more foolish after his consciousness was reloaded.
• Shuns's staff replaced the cable, and his second experiment successfully saved the test subject's consciousness to a Data Cortex Hard Drive.
• Shuns downloaded the consciousness back into the test subject's brain, and the subject returned to normal.

Shuns began extracting Xiao Yu’s consciousness, arguing that it could be placed in a new body instead of treating her contaminated one. The extraction revealed that Xiao Yu’s parents appeared as grotesque figures in her Consciousness World, leaving the team unsure whether they would be included in the upload.

• Shuns adjusted the equipment and prepared to extract Xiao Yu’s consciousness despite the Prison Doctor’s warning that her contaminated Consciousness World made her case different.
• Shuns placed Xiao Yu on the machine, and the screen showed her smiling in the arms of two blurry figures that the group believed were her deceased parents.
• When extraction reached 50 percent, Xiao Yu’s parents’ faces became grotesquely clear, and the woman raised a hand to Xiao Yu’s head and seemed to speak toward the camera.
• Lu Xiao asked Shuns why the figures seemed able to see them, but Shuns said that should not be possible within a projection of Xiao Yu’s Consciousness World.
• The Prison Doctor wondered whether Xiao Yu had refused treatment because she still saw the figures as her parents, while Shuns said they should not be included in the upload in theory.
• Lu Xiao looked to Black Cat for help, but Black Cat indicated it was uninvolved, and Liu Ni sighed that forgetting could not be so easy.

Lu Xiao and the others watched Xiao Yu’s dream of sitting with her parents, but Consciousness Extraction stopped just short of completion. Xiao Yu woke speaking and behaving normally, though Lu Xiao remained wary of the unexplained change as she left to retrieve her lesson plans.

• Liu Ni told Lu Xiao that they needed to break Xiao Yu’s fixation on her parents, and suggested using the method that had worked on her.
• Shuns privately explained the Prison Doctor’s past dealings with Liu Ni, prompting Lu Xiao to consider diverting Xiao Yu’s attention from her parents.
• As Consciousness Extraction reached 99%, the monitor showed Xiao Yu laughing with her parents, whose bodies had strange tentacles.
• Xiao Yu’s parents turned toward the monitor with eerie smiles, and the extraction stopped before reaching 100%; Xiao Yu woke and spoke normally.
• Xiao Yu described dreaming of her parents watching television and encouraging her, while the others wondered why her mental contamination seemed resolved.
• Lu Xiao told Xiao Yu to take the day off, and she left the machine to collect her lesson plans, stepping on the Vocal Cords she had been holding.

Lu Xiao decided to grow stronger by eating more divine flesh so Night could not replace his consciousness, while Xiao Yu returned to an empty, cleaned classroom. At the cafeteria, Lu Xiao confronted Gambler over Nico’s behavior and prepared to whip him with a belt dipped in iodine.

• Xiao Yu found the classroom empty and tidy, recognized the military-rank study group’s handiwork, and left with her lesson plan.
• Lu Xiao chose not to use the Omniscient Mirror to seek answers about Xiao Yu, fearing the cost and suspecting a powerful being had noticed her.
• Lu Xiao reflected that he needed to advance beyond Night and planned to eat more divine flesh, while Amilia’s search for information about Hell’s Gods yielded little.
• Lu Xiao and Shuns arrived at the cafeteria, where Lu Xiao saw Gambler and remembered Nico’s gold chain and colorful umbrella.
• Lu Xiao asked Prison Doctor for iodine to disinfect his God-skin belt before whipping Gambler, who denied teaching Nico anything strange.
• Lu Xiao asked Gambler who had shown Nico the movies she had copied.

Lu Xiao punished Gambler, then confronted Chef after Chef served dark cuisine to the group. After eating, Lu Xiao went to visit Ruiqi to investigate how she had encountered and been possessed by "Night."

• Lu Xiao whipped Gambler, though he avoided seriously injuring him, and thought about Ruiqi possessed by "Night."
• Chef served dark cuisine, prompting Prison Doctor, Liu Ni, and Shuns to make excuses and leave; Gambler ate a plate before departing.
• Lu Xiao threatened Chef with the Belt, and Chef remade the dishes after Lu Xiao finished eating and left.
• Chef resolved to introduce dark cuisine gradually so diners would eventually accept it, while Lu Xiao went to visit Ruiqi and investigate her possession by "Night."

Lu Xiao visited Ruiqi to ask about Night possessing her, but she had no memory of the events. Ruiqi then asked to return to her Clan's Settlement, and Lu Xiao agreed while warning her about possible Outsiders.

• Lu Xiao found Ruiqi in her sparsely furnished Containment Room and learned that a blind staff member with a perception impairment was teaching her Chinese.
• Lu Xiao told Ruiqi that Night had possessed her and described her actions in the Divine Hall, but she remembered none of it.
• Lu Xiao suspected Ruiqi's contact with the Tentacle Gods' flesh and blood might be connected, though others had eaten it without incident.
• Ruiqi asked to return to her Clan's Settlement in case some of her people had come back.
• Lu Xiao allowed Ruiqi to leave but warned her that Outsiders might target her, and Ruiqi said she could protect herself.

Liu Ni told Lu Xiao that her Deification Ritual had begun and required her to create an independent life, so he brought her to Ivan to learn Life Alchemy. Afterward, Lu Xiao returned to the Base to wait for Ding Dan, then noticed Minotaurs carrying iron barrels into a tent.

• Lu Xiao sat idly at the Base with Little Well-Behaved until Liu Ni approached him after treating injured soldiers.
• Liu Ni said her Deification Ritual required her to create an independent life, and Lu Xiao decided she should learn Life Alchemy from Ivan.
• Lu Xiao persuaded a lab worker to let them into Ivan's Experiment Room, where Ivan agreed to teach Liu Ni while Niu Bo continued analyzing Alchemy.
• Lu Xiao returned to the Base to wait for Ding Dan, who was due to arrive the next day so Lu Xiao could take him to Lu Liangren.
• Lu Xiao saw several dozen Minotaurs carrying iron barrels into a large tent and went to investigate.

Lu Xiao learned that the iron drums held fuel made from Hell Creatures’ blood, then spent the day silently waiting in Gambler’s room for him to ascend. When Ding Dan arrived, Lu Xiao told Gambler to come with them, leaving Gambler to realize the day of unnerving silence had only been Lu Xiao killing time.

• Lu Xiao entered the tent and learned from the soldiers that the iron drums contained fuel made from Hell Creatures’ blood.
• Lu Xiao visited Gambler’s Containment Room and asked how soon Gambler would ascend to become a deity; Gambler said it might happen within a few days.
• Lu Xiao silently sat with Gambler through a meal and then returned to Gambler’s room, making Gambler increasingly anxious.
• Ding Dan arrived at Gambler’s room, and Lu Xiao told Gambler to come with them.
• Gambler asked whether Lu Xiao had spent the whole day waiting for him, and Lu Xiao said he had been spacing out anyway.

Ding Dan revealed that he had brought a Demon Legion of about ten thousand King-level demons as a welcoming gift for Lu Xiao, easing the standoff at Zhang Weidong’s base. In the Present World, the Warden went outside to find a Taoist-robed man pleading with two boys, one of whom demanded to return home.

• Lu Xiao, Gambler, and Ding Dan left the base and found Zhang Weidong’s forces and the Demon Legion aiming weapons at one another.
• Ding Dan landed the demons before Lu Xiao and called the legion a welcoming gift, and Lu Xiao praised him as a grown-up boy.
• Lu Xiao mediated the situation, and Zhang Weidong learned that the armed demons were being handed over rather than attacking his base.
• Ding Dan left with Lu Xiao and Gambler without answering Zhang Weidong’s question about Yi Hao.
• The Warden’s assistant dragged him outside, where he found a Taoist-robed man arguing with a boy who wanted to leave the world and another boy pulling down his pants to tease him.

Zhang Chu reunited with the Warden, explained how Dan Qingrong had turned him into a puppet, and agreed to enter Hell with his sect elders after learning that Gambler had driven many Outsiders into hiding. Meanwhile, Lu Xiao and his companions reached the Post Office in Hell, where Gambler wondered whether the building was made by aliens.

• Zhang Chu brought the unruly sect elders to the Warden, who agreed to arrange a nursery but refused to provide a female teacher until one elder promised to keep the others in line.
• Zhang Chu told the Warden that Dan Qingrong had taken him apart and turned him into a puppet, and that wearing the Mask had restored his memories.
• The Warden explained that Gambler had recently swept through the present world and the Dark Prison, forcing most Outsiders into hiding, and told Zhang Chu about Hell.
• Zhang Chu decided to go to Hell with his sect elders, so the Warden prepared supplies and arranged for them to learn the Language of Hell, which they refused to study.
• Lu Xiao and his group reached the Post Office in Hell, and Gambler asked whether the building was alien-made.