Chapter Summaries

Zhou Yi appraised a mysterious crimson fan for Xiao Ran and Li Chao, then sensed Emperor Mingxiang beginning the ceremony to enter Kunlun Grotto-Heaven. The five-colored gateway opened at the imperial palace, leaving the seventeen chosen participants poised to enter.

• Boss Xu boasted that his third son had become an outer disciple of the One Qi Sect, while Zhou Yi reflected on cultivation's growing influence.
• Xiao Ran and Li Chao complained that Zhou Yi had sold them antiques that appeared to be ancient Mystic Items, then revealed they had reached the fourth level of Qi Refinement after sharing a Yin Spirit Mushroom.
• Xiao Ran showed Zhou Yi a crimson plantain-leaf fan found in a grave, and Zhou Yi identified it as the lost Divine Fire Fan and gave the pair two top-grade Mystic Items.
• Zhou Yi sensed Emperor Mingxiang conducting a ceremony at the imperial palace and left Xiao Ran and Li Chao to attend to it.
• Emperor Mingxiang placed the tiger fang and Great Ancestor Zhou's letter in the formation, and a five-colored gateway opened for the seventeen participants.

Zhou Yi warned Emperor Mingxiang and the Red Alliance that the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade would threaten the mortal world, and Emperor Mingxiang left Kunlun to alert Great Zhou. The court and the One Qi Sect prepared for the calamity, while Zhou Yi remained confident that the Nine Continents would overcome it and flourish.

• The Spirit Ginseng Child received Emperor Mingxiang and delivered his ancestor Zhu Kang’s letter to Zhou Yi, who praised Zhu Kang and the Red Alliance.
• Zhou Yi revealed that the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade would arise as heaven and earth revived, and Emperor Mingxiang volunteered to warn the mortal world in exchange for cultivation arts.
• Great Zhou mobilized its military, and Emperor Mingxiang publicly announced the coming ghost calamity and urged the people to prepare.
• The court suppressed unrest, organized defenses, and worked with the One Qi Sect to stabilize Cloud Continent as news of the calamity spread to other continents.
• In Ningde Ward, the Investigation Bureau screened cultivators and assigned them to help guard against ghosts while Zhou Yi listened to locals discuss the calamity.
• Zhou Yi felt reassured by the people’s confidence and planned to slay the winged tiger and return after the ghost calamity to find the Nine Continents flourishing in cultivation.

Zhou Yi warned the Nine Provinces that the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade was imminent, then gathered its ghosts into the Myriad Souls Banner as the court and military fought back. After the calamity passed, he celebrated and flew into the depths of the East Sea.

• Zhou Yi used an auspicious divination to conclude that the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade was about to arrive and warned cultivators across the Nine Provinces through the One Qi Sect app.
• Zhou Yi transformed into an old daoist and waited above the capital while residents gathered under military protection.
• At midnight, rising yin energy produced countless ghosts, and the army attacked them with lightning weapons and drones.
• Zhou Yi used the Myriad Souls Banner to collect the capital's ghosts, then flew from city to city to clear ghost domains.
• Several days later, Zhou Yi completed the Myriad Souls Banner with the ghosts he had gathered and placed it at the entrance to the Daoist temple in Kunlun Grotto-Heaven.
• After the Hundred Ghosts Night Parade ended, Zhou Yi celebrated for a month and flew into the depths of the East Sea.

Twenty years after the Subject Zero Laboratory created the Subject One Elixir, Six Ears awakened with intelligence, devoured the researchers, and escaped with the elixir formula. Twenty years later, he unleashed a horde of Ferocious Beasts on Green Ghost City and revealed his plan to spread laboratories across the Nine Provinces, leaving the humans facing a growing threat.

• Great Zhou increased its support for Subject Zero research after the ghost calamity, and twenty years later Professor Hong's laboratory successfully created Subject One Elixir.
• Test Subject No. 1827 awakened as Six Ears, broke free of his chamber, and devoured Professor Hong and several other researchers.
• Six Ears escaped underground with the laboratory's experts and memories, while alarms rang too late to stop him.
• Twenty years later, a flood of Ferocious Beasts attacked Green Ghost City, overwhelmed its defenders, and slaughtered its citizens.
• Six Ears watched the massacre with a pig-headed Demon Race member and explained that Demon Race brothers were establishing laboratories to multiply the Ferocious Beasts.

After five hundred years of secluded cultivation in the East Sea, Zhou Yi expanded the Kunlun Grotto-Heaven by breaking open the Tiger Emperor’s sealed fang. He prepared to return to the Nine Provinces with the Spirit Ginseng Child, who wondered whether its favorite game still existed.

• Zhou Yi trapped the Tiger Emperor in a formation, learned that the Demon Sage had discovered an extraterritorial continent, and destroyed the Tiger Emperor’s soul three years later.
• Zhou Yi returned to Kunlun Grotto-Heaven, continued cultivating, and split his Spirit Soul between the tiger fang and Yuanling’s pearl.
• Over the centuries, the Spirit Ginseng Child recovered its Dao heart and asked Zhou Yi when the Jianmu Tree would produce a branch.
• After five hundred years, the tiger fang shattered, doubling Kunlun Grotto-Heaven’s area; Zhou Yi drew in islands and decided to return to the Nine Provinces.
• The Spirit Ginseng Child eagerly asked Zhou Yi whether Glory of the Nine Provinces still existed.

After five hundred years away, Zhou Yi returned to the Nine Provinces and found the seas and Binhai overrun by unintelligent monsters called Ferocious Beasts. A diary in Binhai’s ruined bunker revealed that the beast tide had destroyed much of Great Zhou and that Cloud Province was the last place still resisting.

• Zhou Yi returned to the Nine Provinces, where a monstrous serpent attacked him; he found its Spirit Soul chaotic and unlike that of the Demon Race.
• As Zhou Yi approached the continent, he saw countless grotesque sea monsters fighting and devouring one another.
• Zhou Yi reached Binhai and found the former city reduced to overgrown ruins, with relics of its human inhabitants scattered beneath the vegetation.
• Zhou Yi discovered a bunker filled with monsters and the skeletons of its defenders, then found a diary belonging to General Xu An.
• Zhou Yi learned from Xu An’s diary that the Ferocious Beast tide had overrun Qiong Province, Buddha Province, Azure Province, and Binhai, leaving Cloud Province as the last region still resisting.

Zhou Yi discovered that Subject Zero Elixir had enabled the Demon Race to overrun Nine Provinces, leaving humanity confined to the shrinking territory around Immortal Capital. After saving Shen Cheng from a demon plot in Yu City, Zhou Yi learned about humanity’s resistance and continued toward Liang City with him.

• Zhou Yi found the ruins of Xuan City and read a Jade Slip describing its fall to a beast tide in the 650th year of Great Zhou.
• Shen Cheng entered the ruins of Yu City to seek genetic elixirs, but the Rat King gave him insect eggs to spread and used him to hatch Formless Demon Mosquitoes.
• Zhou Yi arrived, cleansed the eggs from Shen Cheng, killed the Rat King’s Ferocious Beast servants, and damaged the Rat King’s mind while searching its memories.
• Zhou Yi learned that escaped laboratory experiments had produced the Demon Race’s Subject Zero, Subject One, and Subject Two Elixirs, and that only the cities near Immortal Capital remained to humanity.
• Shen Cheng told Zhou Yi about the Nine Provinces Human Alliance, Martial Path University, and the threatened city of Liang City; Zhou Yi took him there and promised it would not fall.

Zhou Yi arrived in the embattled Human Alliance and saw how humanity used technology and cultivation to resist the Ferocious Beasts. He joined Martial Path University as an escape-arts teacher, leaving Xiao Hong with knowledge about the spiritual-energy limit and the ancestral vein.

• Zhou Yi visited Liang City with Shen Cheng, watched soldiers repel a Ferocious Beast incursion, and gave Shen Cheng Swift Travel Talismans before departing for Immortal Capital.
• Zhou Yi entered Immortal Capital and saw its heavy defenses, scarce supplies, and dispirited residents before making his way to Martial Path University.
• Zhou Yi bypassed the university's defenses and met Xiao Hong, introducing himself as Tang Xuan, a Rogue Cultivator from the East Sea.
• Zhou Yi explained that spiritual energy currently limited cultivators to peak Foundation Establishment and gave Xiao Hong Pure Serenity True Monarch's book about the ancestral vein.
• Xiao Hong accepted Zhou Yi as a teacher, and Zhou Yi chose to teach escape arts to help preserve humanity.

Tang Xuan began teaching Evasion Arts at Martial Path University, impressing his students and fellow instructors with his knowledge. After learning that Subject Zero Elixir could transform cultivators into demons, he asked the instructors to help him obtain Subject One and Subject Two Elixirs.

• Tang Xuan appointed Gu Chen class monitor, taught Evasion Arts, answered students’ questions, and assigned them to write why they cultivated immortality.
• Tang Xuan gave the best assignment a rat demon corpse as a reward and left the jade chime with Gu Chen.
• Xiao Hong summoned Tang Xuan after the ancient cultivation teachers watched his lecture, but an assistant injected him when signs of demonic transformation appeared.
• Xu Pu, Liu Yan, and Guan Yan explained that Subject Zero Elixir altered people with exotic-beast bloodlines and could eventually turn them into demons.
• Tang Xuan asked the instructors for Subject One and Subject Two Elixirs, and one offered to gather ten doses.

Zhou Yi distributed elixirs, taught students about survival arts and the pursuit of longevity, and urged them to strengthen their Dao hearts instead of rushing to the battlefield. He sent Qingfeng and Mingyue to investigate the Demon Race and ghosts, while a divination omen of the Demon Saint suggested that Prime Minister Turtle and the other two demons might soon emerge; Zhou Yi then turned to studying and preserving the new cultivation arts.

• Liu Yan gave Zhou Yi five doses each of Subject One Elixir and Subject Two Elixir, and Zhou Yi advised Liu Yan that seven days later would be an auspicious time to attempt Foundation Establishment.
• Zhou Yi taught a crowded class about combining talismans with escape arts and explained the origins of qi and blood, then identified Han Chao’s pursuit of longevity as the class’s best homework answer and gave him a rat demon corpse.
• Zhou Yi warned his students that their heavy baleful aura endangered their cultivation, ordered Gu Chen to lead daily scripture recitations, and told the class that Kunlun would shoulder the coming calamity.
• Zhou Yi sent Qingfeng and Mingyue to infiltrate the Demon Race, investigate its Golden Core demon kings and ghost forces, and mark their locations; his divination produced the omen Demon Saint.
• Public criticism branded True Person Tang a traitor to humanity, while Zhou Yi ignored the backlash and studied elixir-based cultivation methods so he could preserve them for future generations.

Zhou Yi refined Subject Zero Elixir and mentored students at Martial Path University while preparing to help Xiao Hong overcome his bloodline backlash. Xiao Hong fused with the Subject Two Elixir, survived a Lightning Tribulation, and became the first Golden Core True Lord of the new era, drawing an envious reaction from Zhou Yi.

• Zhou Yi used a modified laboratory in Kunlun Grotto-Heaven to produce Subject Zero Elixir and began researching Subject One Elixir.
• Zhou Yi treated Shen Cheng to aged Scarlet Rainbow and advised him to befriend Gu Chen and Han Chao at Martial Path University.
• Xiao Hong transformed into a winged tiger and swallowed the Subject Two Elixir as the school evacuated and fighter jets prepared to attack.
• Zhou Yi secretly gave Xiao Hong a thread of the Tiger Emperor’s Nascent Soul origin, helping his Spirit Soul regain control and complete the bloodline fusion.
• Xiao Hong passed a Lesser Heavenly Tribulation and received heaven’s blessing as the first Golden Core True Lord of the new era.
• Xiao Hong’s wings vanished as his bloodline evolved, and Zhou Yi regretted not forming his core sooner.

After Xiao Hong became humanity’s first Martial Saint, his breakthrough lifted human morale and drove the beast tide at Qing City to retreat. Meanwhile, the awakened Ao Qin planned to dominate the Nine Provinces, while Zhou Yi prepared to stage a tribulation and uncover an ancient underground palace.

• Ao Qin emerged from the palace after eighteen hundred years, learned from the Black Bear Demon that the Demon Race ruled the Nine Provinces, and planned to subdue the demons and exterminate humanity.
• Xiao Hong dismissed his doubts about Zhou Yi, announced that humanity would learn of his breakthrough, and chose the title Martial Saint for the new path’s second elixir realm.
• Zhou Yi helped spread the news of Xiao Hong’s achievement, and people across the country celebrated as Ancient Cultivation practitioners reconsidered their path.
• Zhou Yi planned to arrange a convincing Lightning Tribulation at White Cloud Peak and use it to open an underground palace.
• A beast tide attacked Qing City, but the soldiers learned that Xiao Hong had become a Martial Saint, and the Ferocious Beasts began retreating.
• Golden Old Nine thanked the Golden God for protecting Xiao Hong, while Li Hai argued that the Martial Saint had no connection to the destroyed Divine Kingdom.

After Xiao Hong became a Martial Saint, the Demon Race recalled its beast tide and deferred war until it could produce a Golden Core. Zhou Yi prepared for his own tribulation, and after a year in seclusion, staged a lightning tribulation and emerged as a Golden Core True Lord.

• The Nine-Tailed Fox King ordered the demons to avoid conflict with humanity for now, but secretly doubled Ferocious Beast production and monitored its rivals.
• Xiao Hong welcomed Zhou Yi’s request to undergo tribulation and warned him to seek help from the immortals if his Golden Core formation went wrong.
• Zhou Yi returned to Earthfire Palace, mourned the sect’s dead, and spent a year cultivating while humanity and the Demon Race maintained a fragile peace.
• Zhou Yi left a Mana incarnation on White Cloud Peak and used formations and his hidden true body to imitate a heavenly tribulation.
• Xiao Hong arrived as the lightning dispersed and found Zhou Yi displaying the aura of a Golden Core, having successfully attained it.

After attaining the Golden Core, Zhou Yi explored an ancient ruin, accepted the Human Alliance’s appointment as an Attendant, and took Jin Jiuxiao as his registered disciple. Meanwhile, Ao Qin seized control of the Six Ears Demon Race and resolved to create a dragon clan from his own bloodline.

• Zhou Yi announced that he had attained the Golden Core and would expound the Dao at Martial Path University, then explored Earthfire Palace with Xiao Hong and recovered ancient methods and dozens of thousand-year spirit ginseng roots.
• Zhou Yi proposed exchanging Foundation Establishment Pills for ten years of frontline service, and he and Xiao Hong returned to Immortal Capital as the city celebrated humanity’s new True Lord.
• Zhou Yi accepted the Human Alliance’s appointment as an Attendant and agreed to guide six cultivators with Heavenly Spirit Roots, choosing Jin Jiuxiao as his registered disciple.
• At Demon Emperor Mountain, Ao Qin defeated two fleshly Ferocious Beasts and learned from Six Ears how the Demon Race passed down bloodlines through drugs and inherited memories.
• Ao Qin searched Six Ears’s soul, confirmed the Six Ears clan’s bloodline inheritance, and declared that he would become the source of the dragon clan.

Ao Qin’s mass production of dragon-blooded descendants sparked a Demon Race civil war, while Zhou Yi lectured at Immortal Capital University and offered pills and discipleship in exchange for service against beasts and demons. As Xiao Hong prepared to lead humanity’s expansion toward the front lines, Zhou Yi lent him a protective treasure and promised to safeguard the Xiao family.

• Ao Qin fused his bloodline into beasts, devoured the resulting dragon descendants to repair his own bloodline, and declared the dragon race superior to other demons.
• Zhou Yi lectured Ancient Cultivation practitioners for ten days, offered Foundation Establishment Pills in exchange for ten years of frontline service, and set beast- and demon-slaying requirements for his remaining disciple places.
• Xiao Hong told Zhou Yi that the three Demon Emperors had joined forces against Ao Qin and were gathering Ferocious Beasts to besiege Dragon Emperor Mountain.
• Zhou Yi and Xiao Hong agreed that humanity should expand outward while the Demon Race fought, and Xiao Hong volunteered to lead the army’s advance.
• Zhou Yi gave Xiao Hong the Bodhi Treasure Wheel for protection and promised to help future members of the Xiao family cultivate if Xiao Hong did not return.

As humanity expanded eastward against the Ferocious Beasts, Zhou Yi investigated Han Chao’s mysterious cultivation and accepted him as his second disciple after Han Chao broke through to Foundation Establishment. The Alliance army captured Blackwind Mountain, bringing its campaign closer to the East Sea.

• The Alliance publicized the Demon Race’s infighting and appointed Martial Saint Xiao Hong to command its outward expansion, while Zhou Yi approved students’ departures and gave Foundation Establishment Pills to eligible Ancient Cultivation practitioners.
• After Shen Cheng reported that Han Chao traded pills for Ferocious Beast corpses that later vanished, Zhou Yi approved Han Chao’s Foundation Establishment Pill application.
• Han Chao used the pill to reach Foundation Establishment, and Zhou Yi accepted him as his second disciple and gave him the Demon Suppression Pagoda.
• The Alliance army bombarded Blackwind Mountain and captured it before sunrise, with Golden Old Nine’s company planting the military flag first.
• Golden Old Nine marked Blackwind Mountain on his map and reflected that fewer than three thousand li remained before the Alliance reached the East Sea.

Han Chao escaped the Violet Lion’s laboratory after Jin Jiuxiao destroyed it with a nuclear bomb, and the Alliance later reclaimed eastern Yun Province. In Qiong Province, the awakened Golden Corpse Daoist took over a Pig Demon’s corpse and began refining the dead at Dragon Emperor Mountain, planning to conquer the Nine Provinces with corpse puppets.

• The Violet Lion, White Elephant, and Black Hawk discussed delaying the human advance at Cloud Mountain while the Dragon Emperor’s war in Qiong Province remained unresolved.
• Han Chao infiltrated the Lion King Laboratory, killed a Rabbit Demon, and was trapped by the Violet Lion’s formation as Ferocious Beasts swarmed him.
• Jin Jiuxiao and other Foundation Establishment cultivators broke the formation, and Jin Jiuxiao destroyed the laboratory with a nuclear bomb, allowing Han Chao to escape.
• After a month of fierce fighting in the Coastal Campaign, the Alliance planted its flag in the Coastal Ruins in 203 and reclaimed eastern Yun Province.
• The Golden Corpse Daoist awoke from a transparent stone coffin, learned about the modern world through a Pig Demon’s memories and the internet, and used a Heavenly Corpse secret art to animate its corpse.
• At Dragon Emperor Mountain, the Golden Corpse Daoist began refining a fallen Dragon Ox and vowed to turn the Nine Provinces’ people into corpse puppets.

After omens pointed to a calamity rising in the west, Zhou Yi asked Han Chao to investigate its source and lent him the Bodhi Golden Wheel for protection. Zhou Yi also began preparing to evacuate people from the Nine Provinces, while Han Chao set out westward.

• Zhou Yi read the repeated celestial anomalies as signs of a calamity in the west and summoned Han Chao to Martial Path University.
• Han Chao returned to Immortal Capital, used his jade disc to enter enlightenment, and resolved to trust Zhou Yi and seek his guidance.
• Zhou Yi told Han Chao that the calamity threatened the Nine Provinces, proposed moving part of humanity out to sea, and asked him to investigate the west.
• Han Chao agreed to investigate in exchange for spiritual medicines and requested the Bodhi Treasure Wheel; Zhou Yi lent it to him, saying it could attack or protect him three times.
• Zhou Yi explained that he had divined the calamity because he could not watch ordinary people die, then went to the Inner Cabinet to begin preparing for the worst.

Zhou Yi warned the Alliance that a calamity would engulf the Nine Provinces and led the construction of the Fire Seed Ark to preserve humanity. Three years later, Han Chao reached the battlefield near Dragon Emperor Mountain to gather Ferocious Beast corpses, where a rotting dragon-headed creature confronted him.

• Zhou Yi told the Alliance's leaders that a great calamity was coming and promised to build an ark within three years, with technical personnel and a lottery for selecting other passengers.
• The Alliance launched the Fire Seed Plan, and Zhou Yi led Ancient Cultivators in building the Fire Seed Ark, which was outfitted to carry one million people and withstand beast tides.
• After people over forty protested the boarding rules, the Alliance arrested the organizers and sent them to the front lines, while Zhou Yi told Jin Jiuxiao to suppress similar unrest without hesitation.
• Han Chao traveled through Demon Race territory, learned that many demons were preoccupied with their own affairs, and perfected his Shape-Shifting Art while heading toward Dragon Emperor Mountain.
• Han Chao began collecting Ferocious Beast corpses from the vast battlefield, but a rotting dragon-headed creature with violet ghostfire eyes spotted him.

Han Chao fled as Golden Corpse unleashed an army of corpse demons that overwhelmed the dragon race and spread across Qiong Province. Meanwhile, Zhou Yi accompanied the newly completed Fireseed as it departed with its first passengers to establish a human refuge in the East Sea.

• Han Chao escaped the battlefield as Golden Corpse commanded corpse dragons and corpse demons to attack Dragon Emperor Mountain.
• Ao Qin transferred its Azure Dragon essence blood to a descendant and fled toward Cloud Province as a dragon soul, while Golden Corpse captured the dragonfish left behind.
• Golden Corpse used the laboratory to produce more corpse demons, and within a year Qiong Province's living creatures had been transformed as the horde began invading other provinces.
• Zhou Yi prepared to sail aboard the Fireseed with a million passengers, entrusted his seven disciples to Xiao Hong, and urged him to protect himself.
• The Fireseed departed the harbor, carrying its passengers and soil from the Nine Provinces into the East Sea.