Chapter Summaries

A doctor treated Li Luo’s eyes and examined Ji Tai, who explained that the robots’ obedience to their assigned identities was part of a transaction with Paradise Island. Si Yang sent Li Luo to the Real Paradise Island, where she landed in a vast sea of feathers and encountered a mysterious child-shaped light that called her the Fire Thief.

• A doctor examined Li Luo’s irritated eyes, then connected to Ji Tai and cleared useless memory data while confirming that Ji Tai was otherwise fine.
• Ji Tai explained that people followed Paradise Island’s identity rules because they copied others, and that robots obeyed their identities as part of a transaction.
• Ji Tai told Si Yang to take Li Luo to the Real Paradise Island, and Si Yang used “Construct: Well” to send her falling through layers of domes.
• Li Luo landed unharmed on an endless white expanse covered in feathers and found that Cube, Ji Tai, and Si Yang were gone.
• A dim, child-shaped light appeared and called Li Luo the Fire Thief, vanished in a gust of wind, then reappeared beside her with feather-like patterns flickering inside it.

Li Luo learned that Paradise Island’s central control program had made a transaction with Ji Tai, binding the island’s robots as guardians in exchange for stopping human conversion. As the program revealed the island’s impending collapse and the Feather Sea’s origin, it broke through its restrictions and confessed that the dead were its own people, the Feathered Ones.

• The light and shadow brought Li Luo to Paradise Island’s core and showed her surveillance footage of the island.
• A recording revealed that Ji Tai had negotiated a transaction with the central control program eight years earlier, making the robots guardians in exchange for protecting humans from conversion.
• Li Luo learned that Paradise Island converted living creatures into guardians and planned to consume its guardians to produce White Light Stones as the island collapsed.
• The light and shadow revealed that the Feather Sea was made from creatures killed to build Paradise Island.
• After Li Luo repeatedly asked what race the creatures had been, the light and shadow broke through its restraints and said, “We are the Feathered Ones.”

The figure of light remembered that it had once been one of the Feathered Ones, a race that made White Light Stones to sustain its life cycle. The other races enslaved the Feathered Ones to build Paradise Island, then decided to use them as fuel for its initial operation.

• The figure of light recalled how the Feathered Ones gathered feathers, matured into childlike forms, and created White Light Stones to begin new life.
• Other races arrived on the Feathered Ones’ island, seized control, and forced them to produce and lay White Light Stones across Paradise Island.
• The Feathered Ones learned that Paradise Island was being built to contain the Hell Beast and serve as the Abyss’s final defense.
• After the Feathered Ones covered the island with layers of White Light Stones, the other races debated what to do with them.
• The races agreed to use the Feathered Ones as expendable fuel, and the central exit slowly closed as feathers drifted away.

Li Luo learned how the Feathered Ones became Paradise Island’s control program, while Ji Tai asked Mo Ling to find a way to save everyone from the island’s energy conversion. Mo Ling was left to choose how to change the future and suggested tearing Paradise Island apart.

• Slave 500 told Li Luo that the Feathered Ones’ lives and souls had become Paradise Island’s energy source and main control program, and confirmed that guardian robots were also converted into energy.
• Ji Tai explained to Mo Ling that the robots had arranged for Paradise Island to convert them before humans, buying humanity time, and asked him to save everyone on the island.
• Ji Tai said Mo Ling had changed the future before by calling it by name, allowing Ji Tai to exist and the robots’ deal to be made.
• Mo Ling struggled to think of a way to stop Paradise Island’s conversion and suggested tearing the island apart.

Mo Ling learned that Paradise Island was compressed into a film held together by Dragon Tendons, and releasing it would destroy the island completely. Ji Tai showed him the nearly invisible, indestructible tendons that kept it compressed, leaving Mo Ling to wonder how many lives Paradise Island had consumed.

• Mo Ling asked Ji Tai whether Paradise Island could be dismantled, and Ji Tai explained that releasing its compressed structure would make it shatter into dust.
• Ji Tai told Mo Ling that a rope held the island's compressed film in place and led him across the Feather Sea to find it.
• Mo Ling discovered a nearly invisible line stretching through the domes, and Ji Tai's tools failed to damage it.
• Ji Tai identified the line as Dragon Tendon, a rare, unalterable material taken from creatures in the Abyss Third Layer, and revealed that over ten thousand tendons held Paradise Island together.
• Mo Ling realized the tendons, like the feathers, had been taken from living creatures and wondered how many lives Paradise Island had buried.

Mo Ling used his Teleportation Frame to sever the thread holding Paradise Island together, creating what Ji Tai called a brand new future. After discussing whether the world followed a predetermined path, Mo Ling focused on escaping, and Si Yang arrived with Li Luo to rescue them.

• Mo Ling teleported a section of the thread into the Cube, severing the connection between heaven and earth without harming the island's surface or core.
• Ji Tai said Mo Ling's action had created another Brand New Future and compared the world's predetermined events to electrons moving through a circuit.
• Mo Ling questioned Ji Tai's idea that the world was like a novel and urged it to stop dwelling on the possibility.
• Mo Ling asked how they would escape and where Li Luo was, and Ji Tai said Si Yang would come for them.
• Si Yang arrived on a small white boat with Li Luo, who spotted Mo Ling and looked delighted.

Si Yang steered Mo Ling and the others away from the collapsing Paradise Island through the Emergency Evacuation Channel, using the souls stored in its core to restore the Feathered Ones. They emerged into a black-and-white world where Feathered Ones and Hell Beasts filled the sky, and Si Yang apologized to the awakened souls for making them wait.

• Si Yang told Mo Ling and the others that the domes were destroyed and that they had to escape through the Emergency Evacuation Channel.
• Si Yang steered the boat through falling dome fragments as the souls he had stored in Paradise Island gathered around it and carried it toward an exit.
• Mo Ling and the others passed through a barrier and emerged above a white Paradise Island beneath a sky crowded with Hell Beasts.
• Si Yang explained that he had stored the Feathered Ones' souls and activation energy so the White Light Stones could turn back into Feathered Ones.
• Si Yang celebrated among the flying feathers and Coal Balls, then touched the feathers and apologized for making the souls wait so long.

Si Yang watched Paradise Island lose its White Light Stone veneer as feathers carried its residents to safety and revealed the ordinary island beneath. As the survivors began to rebuild, he turned the last White Light Stone into a lighthouse lamp and illuminated the island at night.

• White feathers surrounded Si Yang, Mo Ling, Ji Tai, Li Luo, and the residents, while Paradise Island’s White Light Stone buildings and ground dissolved to reveal the island’s original soil and structures.
• Si Yang told Mo Ling that Hell Beast had taken the residents’ memories and that he could not restore them; Mo Ling accepted that they might be better off without them.
• The feathers carried Si Yang and the others in their boat to the old lighthouse, where Si Yang explained the tower’s history and pointed out the hospital.
• As the survivors searched for one another and discussed rebuilding, Si Yang praised their resilience and turned the boat into the island’s last White Light Stone.
• When darkness fell, Si Yang made the stone into a huge lamp atop the lighthouse, lighting the island and declaring that dawn had come.

Mo Ling’s light spread across Paradise Island as he reflected on humanity and sensed its collective form, while Li Luo felt an eerie gaze from the Cube. After the residents regrouped from the storm, Si Yang revealed that the island’s lone police officer had long recognized it despite its secret identities.

• Mo Ling watched the islanders work together beneath the lighthouse’s light and envisioned humanity as a gray creature crawling through the Abyss.
• Mo Ling returned to himself inside the Cube with his hand pressed against its cold metal wall, while Li Luo felt a terrifying gaze and gave the Cube a can of cola.
• Li Luo wondered whether the chill had been an illusion, and Ji Tai reminded her that Paradise Island grew cold at night.
• The residents gathered and recalled surviving a devastating storm with no casualties, while the police officer asked Si Yang about the light that had covered the island.
• Si Yang told Li Luo that it had often helped the police officer in disguise and realized that the officer had known its secret identity all along.

Li Luo returned to town with Ji Tai, where Lin Nian recognized the robot and recovered her memories of their past. Lin Nian agreed to help Ji Tai obtain a body once the island’s situation and power supply improved.

• Lin Nian found Li Luo in the town square and learned she had gone to install the lighthouse light.
• Lin Nian approached Ji Tai, and her tear dissolved the robot’s black covering to reveal its white body.
• Lin Nian remembered Ji Tai and confronted it over her role in signing its destruction order, while Ji Tai explained the guilt she had carried.
• Lin Nian struck Ji Tai, then calmed down as the restored memory settled without side effects and quietly apologized.
• Ji Tai asked Lin Nian for a body, and Lin Nian agreed to help after the island’s equipment and power supply recovered.

Si Yang joined Paradise Island’s reconstruction while Li Luo gathered supplies for her journey to the Abyss Fourth Layer. The beggar helped Li Luo find provisions, then used the Lies Cup to make predictions about the island’s recovery before an officer approached him.

• Si Yang helped the islanders rebuild and said he preferred multicolored buildings to white ones.
• Li Luo struggled to buy enough supplies, so the beggar led her to crates of food, water, and batteries by the docks.
• The beggar admitted he had pretended to be frail to get food and let Li Luo take supplies in return for her earlier help.
• After Li Luo left, the beggar transformed his appearance, drank water from the Lies Cup, and predicted that supplies and aid would help Paradise Island recover.
• When a police officer arrived, the beggar returned to his wretched appearance and claimed he had not taken anything.

After Paradise Island recovered, Li Luo prepared to leave and said goodbye to the people she had met there. She boarded a strange ship bound for the complicated end of the route, where the journey ahead promised to be dangerous.

• Mo Ling realized the beggar had likely arranged for supplies to reach Paradise Island so Li Luo could accept them without reservation.
• Li Luo hugged Lin Nian goodbye, and Ji Tai gave her information about the end of the route and passed on Ji Lou's wish that she stay safe.
• Li Luo told Si Yang she planned to travel deeper into the Abyss, while he described his own hopes of exploring the Infinite Sea.
• Li Luo reached the docks and found a long, drill-fronted ship undergoing steering calibration.
• After the robot finished calibrating the ship, Li Luo registered to board and saw a page of conspicuous red precautions.

Li Luo boarded the Sky Shuttle after reading its strange safety rules and saying an emotional goodbye to Lin Nian, Si Yang, and Ji Tai. Confined to her room, she watched robots load separately packed goods as Mo Ling realized the cargo resembled parcels for delivery.

• A robot inspected Li Luo’s backpack and removed her bear-shaped hood because clothing resembling bear fur was forbidden aboard the ship.
• Li Luo spotted Lin Nian, Si Yang, and Ji Tai watching from the dock, then turned back to wave and promise she would return.
• Si Yang directed Li Luo’s attention to the lighthouse, where a flashing White Light Stone sent the Morse code message “Safe travels.”
• A robot escorted Li Luo to her locked room aboard the Sky Shuttle and warned her not to leave or shout.
• Mo Ling examined the ship’s separately packaged cargo and recognized that it resembled parcel deliveries.

Mo Ling and Li Luo learned that the Sky Shuttle was heading toward Creation God Sea, where many unfamiliar races followed wildly different sacred rules. The chapter left them facing a voyage whose precautions would remain essential even after they disembarked.

• Mo Ling searched the Sky Shuttle’s cargo and found human goods and cultural artifacts packaged for unknown recipients.
• The ship’s broadcast announced that departure would begin in one hour, and Li Luo read the precautions before opening Ji Tai’s voyage information.
• Li Luo traced the Sky Shuttle’s route from Paradise Island to Creation God Sea, which the ship would reach in three days.
• Mo Ling learned that the Sky Shuttle would stop at the edge of Creation God Sea because the waters deeper in had solidified and grounded ships.
• Li Luo and Mo Ling read that God Seekers traveled into Creation God Sea to find gods for their tribes, while different races enforced conflicting sacred rules.

Ji Tai's records explained how cultural misunderstandings caused the first human Vanguard Team to clash with the Winged Cats in the Creation God Sea. The team learned why the Winged Cats considered their vessel blasphemous, then tracked them to a frozen continent and saw that no divine punishment had followed.

• Ji Tai's records warned Li Luo that customs in the sacred Creation God Sea could be interpreted as blasphemy and recounted humanity's early setbacks there.
• A group of Winged Cats attacked the first human Vanguard Team vessel, accusing its crew of insulting the gods and cursing them to never catch delicious Dried Small Fish.
• A Vanguard Team member questioned the Winged Cats and learned they mistook the hollow human vessel for a filthy coffin, which they believed should never enter the sacred sea.
• The Vanguard Team released the Winged Cats after installing trackers and surveillance devices on them.
• The Vanguard Team followed the Winged Cats to a frozen continent and saw them flying and catching fish without suffering God's Wrath.

The Vanguard Team’s encounters with different races revealed that their attacks on humans stemmed from beliefs about stopping humanity’s uncivilized behavior and preventing God’s Wrath. As the Sky Shuttle began its three-day voyage in camouflage and bionic mode, Li Luo and Mo Ling studied the Creation God Sea’s confusing precautions.

• The Vanguard Team discovered that weaker races attacked humans because they believed humanity’s behavior would bring down God’s Wrath, while friendly races supported their theory that less advanced races imposed their beliefs more rigidly.
• The Sky Shuttle left the dock, covered its hull in flowing seawater, and entered bionic mode to resemble a creature moving through the waves.
• Mo Ling realized that the Sky Shuttle’s design and operating precautions were meant to reduce attacks from races such as the Winged Cats.
• Li Luo studied the ship’s precautions and sent a copy to the Cube so Mo Ling could read them too.
• Mo Ling struggled to remember the contradictory rules, repeatedly lost his place, and eventually fell asleep while reading.

Li Luo studied the Sky Shuttle’s precautions while Mo Ling dreamed of a spider fighting sharks, then woke to find tiny shark corpses around him. He discovered that sound-feeding sharks had attacked the drifting ship during the forbidden hour, and the robots recorded that an unknown force had helped defeat them.

• Li Luo reviewed and memorized the ship’s rules, sorting them into prohibited behavior and useful precautions for the Creation God Sea.
• Mo Ling dreamed of helping a spider fight sharks, punched the metal wall in his sleep, and woke to find strange shark corpses on the floor.
• Mo Ling saw robots battling tiny sharks outside the Sky Shuttle and realized the creatures grew stronger by devouring sound.
• The robots wiped out the attacking sharks, which stopped arriving after four o’clock, then returned aboard the ship.
• A robot recorded that a fallen Handbell had attracted Sound Sharks and that an unknown force had made the strongest ones vanish.

After a Sound Shark attack, Mo Ling realized the ship’s robots had been adding to the precautions over many voyages. As the Sky Shuttle traveled on, the sea grew viscous and began to glitter with translucent crystals, and Li Luo woke to the dazzling sight.

• Mo Ling found rubbery shark corpses from his dream and threw them into the sea.
• Mo Ling watched a robot add a rule prohibiting handbells and concluded that the precautions had been gradually compiled by the robots.
• The Sky Shuttle resumed its voyage after the Sound Shark danger passed, and Mo Ling noticed that the sea had become unusually viscous.
• Mo Ling connected the changing seawater to the gradual solidification described in Ji Tai's records.
• Sunlight revealed countless diamond-like crystals drifting through the viscous sea, and Li Luo woke as their reflections filled the room.

Mo Ling examined the Creation God Sea’s strange crystals while Li Luo ate fish rice made from the Sound Shark. As the Sky Shuttle crossed the sea, the crystals began producing music that grew into a sweeping response to the ship’s passage.

• Mo Ling sampled seawater and found that its glittering crystals had varied properties, from brittle and gel-like to elastic.
• Li Luo collected her breakfast from the Transmission Channel and ate fragrant fish rice, while Mo Ling recognized it as Sound Shark.
• The broadcast warned passengers that music would arise in the Creation God Sea and advised them to avoid panic and certain kinds of music.
• Mo Ling traced the first drumlike sounds to crystals colliding in the seawater, then heard strings and wind instruments join in.
• The Sky Shuttle stirred the waves, adding brasslike notes as the Creation God Sea’s music swelled around the ship.

Mo Ling watched seabirds become transparent and dissolve into the sea after their cries were absorbed into its symphony, realizing the music could consume performers as well as their sounds. As the Sky Shuttle continued onward and Li Luo remained unaware of the danger, Mo Ling heard the broadcast’s music warnings with new dread.

• Li Luo listened to the sea’s changing symphony while the broadcast warned passengers against playing certain types of music.
• Mo Ling watched seabirds approach the sea, whose music adapted to their cries and made them harmonious.
• The seabirds turned transparent, burst into crystals, and fell as liquid into the sea, while their birdsong continued in the symphony.
• Mo Ling realized the sea absorbed performers and wondered whether the instruments in its music had once been creatures.
• The symphony’s finale sounded to Mo Ling like trapped voices struggling to escape as the Sky Shuttle sailed onward.
• Li Luo returned her tableware to the Transmission Channel and remarked that the music had not been bad.