Chapter Summaries

After returning from the Outer Domain Battlefield, Reed learned that Gu Ding had been arrested and imprisoned in the Gate of Purgatory. He met with a Council of Elders faction leader who promised a way to rescue Gu Ding if Reed helped him win the vacant chief position.

• Reed returned to Federal Government Headquarters and discovered messages reporting Gu Ding's arrest and the disbandment of his pirate crew.
• Reed read emails from Council of Elders factions seeking his support in the election for the vacant chief position.
• Reed deciphered a secret message inviting him to Tara Star and promising information about how to save Gu Ding.
• Reed traveled to Tara Star and met the sender, who asked him to help secure the chief position in exchange for becoming his strongest backer.
• The man told Reed he could not rescue Gu Ding until after he won the chief position.

Quentin revealed his identity to Reed and recruited him to help him become Chief Elder. He explained that the position would let him reenter the Gate of Purgatory and pursue the True God Realm, while promising to help Reed rescue Gu Ding and join the military.

• Quentin proved to Reed that he was the legendary former Director-General and told him he had chosen him for his loyalty, clean background, and Gambiter ability.
• Quentin asked Reed to devise plans to recruit Council of Elders members and warned him to keep their confidential information secret.
• Quentin said he could help reduce Gu Ding's sentence or secure his release if he became Chief Elder.
• Quentin revealed that he sought the position to reenter the Gate of Purgatory and consult the powerful being who had guided him toward becoming a Strongest King.
• Reed chose to pursue a military career, and Quentin promised to help him find a position there in exchange for his support in the Chief Elder contest.

Gu Ding continued fighting on the Sixth Layer of the Gate of Purgatory while learning that Reed had become Quentin’s campaign strategist. Quentin planned to visit the prison, and Reed arranged to accompany him so he could see Gu Ding.

• Gu Ding won an arena match on the Sixth Layer, where he had struggled against opponents far stronger than himself and felt close to a breakthrough to Mid-rank God.
• Sea Emperor told Gu Ding that Reed had served as Quentin’s sole campaign strategist and that Quentin had become chief of the House of Representatives.
• Gu Ding and Sea Emperor learned Quentin would visit the Gate of Purgatory the next day, while Victoria ordered the prison cleaned for his arrival.
• Victoria raised the rewards for cleaning tasks, drawing many prisoners to the work, but Gu Ding chose to sleep instead.
• Reed called Quentin and asked to accompany him to the Gate of Purgatory to see Gu Ding, and Quentin agreed to take him the next morning.

Gu Ding entered another Sixth Layer arena match against Carothers, a dangerous Blood Clan Duke, and chose to fight despite Sea Emperor's warning. Meanwhile, Quentin arrived at the Gate of Purgatory with Reed and was welcomed by Victoria, who sent Belinda to show Reed around.

• Gu Ding noticed the Sixth Layer had been thoroughly cleaned for Quentin's visit, then went to breakfast and returned to the arena to continue training.
• The arena system matched Gu Ding with Carothers, an Interstellar Raider whose crimes and blood-draining abilities made him dangerous, and Gu Ding refused Sea Emperor's advice to concede.
• Quentin told Reed to pose as his attendant and wait to meet Gu Ding, warning him not to attempt a direct escape from the Gate of Purgatory.
• Victoria welcomed Quentin and Reed at the Gate of Purgatory, then led them through the entrance to the First Level.
• Quentin explained to Reed that the First Level was part of the prison, and Victoria assigned Belinda to show Reed around while she invited Quentin to the meeting room.

Quentin visited the Gate of Purgatory hoping to receive guidance from the powerhouse on its Eighteenth Level, but learned that the prisoner had escaped and went to investigate what he left behind. Reed arranged to visit his childhood friend Gu Ding, and Belinda led him to the Sixth Layer’s Arena Number Eight.

• Victoria told Quentin that the senior imprisoned on the Eighteenth Level had apparently escaped, and Quentin decided to inspect the level for anything left behind.
• Reed asked to see Gu Ding, and Victoria allowed the visit while Quentin went to the Eighteenth Level.
• Belinda explained the prison’s levels and said Gu Ding had reached Five-Star Half-Step True God cultivation and was competing in the arena.
• Reed told Belinda how he and Gu Ding had grown up together and said their friendship remained unchanged despite working on opposing sides.
• Belinda led Reed down to the Sixth Layer and told him Gu Ding was at Arena Number Eight.

Gu Ding endured Carothers's transformed assault to shatter the Gene Shackles in his Soul Space and break through to Mid-rank God. The chapter ended with his body healing and Gu Ding rising to face Carothers.

• Gu Ding used his Enlightenment Realm Martial Dao Intent to defend against Carothers's attacks, while Reed and Belinda watched from the crowd.
• Carothers transformed, gaining the strength and speed of a Seven-Star Half-Step True God, and began battering Gu Ding.
• Gu Ding used the impacts to attack the chains binding the bronze gate in his Soul Space, refusing to surrender even as his body was badly damaged.
• Gu Ding taunted Carothers into continuing his assault while he shattered the last chains, with Sea Emperor warning that his vital signs were critical.
• Gu Ding broke through to Mid-rank God, and his body began rapidly healing despite Carothers's continued attacks.
• Gu Ding slowly rose to his feet and asked Carothers if he had hit enough.

Gu Ding defeated Carothers after breaking through during their fight, then reunited with Reed at Gate of Purgatory. They went to the Ninth Layer cafeteria to share a meal, where Gu Ding ordered the pan-fried buns they used to eat on Deep Sea Star.

• Gu Ding crushed Carothers's hands, prevented him from surrendering, and battered him with more than three million punches while the referee watched.
• Gu Ding delivered his final punch through Carothers's chest and won the match, then left the arena to consolidate his breakthrough.
• Sea Emperor pointed out Reed, who had arrived with Quentin, and Gu Ding changed course to greet him.
• Belinda left the two friends alone, and Reed told Gu Ding he was relieved to see him doing well in Gate of Purgatory.
• Gu Ding took Reed to a luxurious private room on the Ninth Layer and ordered two servings of pan-fried buns.

Quentin returned to the Gate of Purgatory and learned that a prisoner had escaped from the eighteenth level, leaving behind a drop of Heavenly God Profound Blood. He rushed down to claim it but became trapped by its overwhelming coercion, while Reed left the Gate of Purgatory and Quentin’s whereabouts remained unknown.

• Quentin entered the seventeenth level with Victoria, who turned back because the coercion was too strong for her.
• Quentin reunited with Lossem, Basaka, and the three Order Keeper Leaders, then learned the escaped senior had left behind a drop of Third Sequence Heavenly God Profound Blood.
• After hearing that whoever reached the blood could claim it, Quentin jumped into the abyss to retrieve it.
• Quentin reached the eighteenth level and struggled toward the orange bead, but its coercion made each step exhausting and left him unable to advance or retreat.
• When the three-day deadline arrived, Victoria sent Reed out of the Gate of Purgatory, and no news came of Quentin.

Gu Ding bought Explosion Bodhi fruits to use for a dangerous cultivation breakthrough and suspended his arena matches before entering seclusion. After learning that more than fifty thousand challengers were waiting for him, he left for the Cultivation Tower.

• Sea Emperor told Gu Ding to buy Explosion Bodhi fruits, explaining that detonating them inside his body could force a cultivation breakthrough, and Gu Ding bought six.
• Gu Ding remembered his conversations and sparring with Reed before Reed left, realizing he did not know when they would meet again.
• Oliver delivered Gu Ding’s package and asked why he had bought fruits that were nearly useless as bombs; Gu Ding said he planned to eat them.
• Gu Ding applied to suspend his arena matches so he could enter seclusion in the Cultivation Tower, and Order Keeper Kasper approved the application.
• Kasper warned Gu Ding that more than fifty thousand challengers were waiting and that he would lose their corresponding points if he failed to complete at least thirty matches within three days of leaving seclusion.
• Gu Ding scolded Sea Emperor for not telling him about the growing queue, then headed to the Cultivation Tower.

Gu Ding used Explosion Bodhi to break through his cultivation in the Time Acceleration Cabin, surviving the dangerous process and beginning another breakthrough. Meanwhile, Carothers died from his injuries, confirming Gu Ding’s murder charge, and the Order Keeper Leaders decided to send Gu Ding into a deadly trial rather than let confinement stunt his growth.

• Gu Ding swallowed an Explosion Bodhi and, following Sea Emperor’s instructions, ignited it with his Nirvana Flame and endured its blast to transform his body and break through to Five-Star Mid-rank God.
• After recovering, Gu Ding swallowed a second Explosion Bodhi and began the process again.
• Carothers died after seven days in a Cell Repair Pod, and the warden publicly announced his death, confirming Gu Ding’s murder charge.
• Bygrave, Kachipul, and Gabriel discussed Gu Ding’s punishment and worried that confinement would hinder his growth and anger his biological Old Dad.
• Gabriel proposed activating the dangerous option inside Confinement Space, and Bygrave agreed to take the gamble despite the risk that Gu Ding would die.

After more than eight hundred days in the Time Acceleration Cabin, Gu Ding broke through to Five-Star Mid-rank God and learned that his strength still fell short of the dangers of the Gate of Purgatory. Sea Emperor warned that Carothers’s death would bring confinement in a space possibly linked to the Space-Time Disordered Land, but Gu Ding set the concern aside to investigate a bronze gate in his Soul Space.

• Gu Ding emerged from his fourth cycle of consuming an Explosion Bodhi and reached Five-Star Mid-rank God.
• Sea Emperor assessed Gu Ding’s strength as near the level of a Nine-and-a-Half Star Half-Step True God and warned that the Seventh and Eighth Layers held far stronger opponents.
• Sea Emperor told Gu Ding that Carothers had died and that Gu Ding would face a points fine and confinement.
• Sea Emperor speculated that the Confinement Space was connected to the Space-Time Disordered Land, where confinement could cost Gu Ding hundreds or thousands of years of lifespan.
• Gu Ding stopped worrying about confinement and turned his consciousness toward the bronze gate that had appeared when he broke through to Mid-rank God.

Gu Ding discovered a mysterious Black Sphere inside his Soul Space and learned it was an embryonic plant seed that consumed divine source. After nourishing it for over thirty days, he advanced to a One-Star Half-Step True God and left seclusion to face the Order Keepers waiting outside.

• Gu Ding opened the bronze gate in his Soul Space and saw a Black Sphere whose innate dao patterns shocked Sea Emperor.
• A fragment of Gu Ding's inheritance memory revealed that the Black Sphere was a plant seed, and he let it enter his heart to be nourished.
• Gu Ding consumed over ten thousand Source Energy Crystals and his remaining two Explosion Bodhis to feed the seed until its abnormal beating stopped.
• Gu Ding told Sea Emperor that the seed was an embryonic Spirit Plant that might eventually help him attack and defend.
• Sea Emperor reported that Gu Ding had advanced to a One-Star Half-Step True God, then showed him a Golden Armor Order Keeper and two Silver Armor Order Keepers waiting outside.
• Gu Ding decided to leave seclusion rather than delay, despite knowing the waiting reserve Order Keepers were beyond his current strength.

Gu Ding stood trial for killing Carothers and was found guilty despite denying that he intended to kill him. As Victoria and the Order Keepers discussed his punishment, three Commanders intervened and proposed Capital Punishment: forcing Gu Ding to fight in Death Mode inside the Confinement Space.

• Buli brought Gu Ding to a public trial in the cafeteria for killing Carothers in the arena.
• Gu Ding admitted preventing Carothers from surrendering and continuing to attack him, but argued that he had not intended to kill him.
• Sixteen Order Keepers voted guilty and three, including Victoria, voted not guilty, so Gu Ding was convicted.
• Victoria and the Order Keepers proposed a one-million-point fine and one hundred years of confinement.
• Bygrave and two other Commanders arrived and told Victoria to sentence Gu Ding to Capital Punishment, meaning he would fight in Death Mode inside the Confinement Space.

After the Gate of Purgatory sentenced Gu Ding to Death Mode, the three Order Keeper Leaders privately explained why they had chosen it and gave him three protective talismans. Gu Ding learned that Death Mode might let him continue cultivating, but he would face unpredictable dangers when the sentence began.

• Victoria announced that Gu Ding would be confined in Death Mode and said the sentence would be broadcast as a warning to the other levels.
• An elderly voice told Gu Ding to meet the Order Keeper Leaders in the Ninth Layer cafeteria, and Belinda encouraged him to keep hoping he could survive.
• Gu Ding met Bygrave, Kachipul, and Gabriel, who revealed that the three of them had chosen the sentence despite the warden's disagreement.
• Kachipul explained that Death Mode allowed cultivation but made the Confinement Space's time and laws unpredictable, with a chance of extremely powerful lifeforms appearing.
• Bygrave gave Gu Ding three Crystal Cards, each containing one Order Keeper Leader's full-force strike, for him to use in an emergency.

Gu Ding prepared for his execution in the Confinement Space, spending his points on supplies before learning that Death Mode would remain active for a year. He entered the space determined to survive.

• Sea Emperor explained that Gu Ding's arena matches were postponed during his capital punishment, and warned him about the dangers of the Space-Time Disordered Land.
• Gu Ding spent more than four million points on supplies, which arrived the next day and went into his Storage Space.
• Belinda escorted Gu Ding from the cafeteria and offered to pass a message to Reed, but Gu Ding insisted that he would not die.
• Warden Victoria opened the Confinement Space, and Bygrave, Kachipul, and Gabriel activated Death Mode for one year.
• Gu Ding took a deep breath and walked through the stone door into the Confinement Space.

While being carried through the Space-Time Disordered Land, Gu Ding saw a colossal guide and witnessed projections of a Twelve-Winged Angel and a girl Sea Emperor suspected was a Death Knight clash. Their battle disrupted his transmission, sending him onto an unknown route.

• Gu Ding asked Sea Emperor about the passage, and Sea Emperor explained that it led through tangled routes toward other worlds.
• Gu Ding glimpsed a starfield-sized guide carrying a lantern outside the passage, and Sea Emperor identified it as a native guide.
• Gu Ding saw a girl riding a flaming black beast face a twelve-winged figure, and Sea Emperor warned him to close his eyes around the angel.
• Sea Emperor deduced that the girl and angel were projections of powerful beings and that the girl might be a Death Knight riding an Undead Howler.
• The battle shook the passage and changed Gu Ding's transmission route, and Gu Ding accepted that his destination was now up to fate.

After the Gate of Purgatory sent Gu Ding to an unexpected space-time grain, Sea Emperor analyzed a sealed world where creatures rapidly evolved by devouring one another. Gu Ding learned that the inhabitants had weak souls and decided to train his body as he headed toward a nearby city.

• Gu Ding arrived in a lush world after the battle between the Twelve-Winged Angel and the Death Knight disrupted his route.
• Sea Emperor discovered that creatures evolved by devouring others, while spatial laws divided the world into protected evolutionary regions fed by countless oceans.
• Sea Emperor suspected the world’s Celestial God maintained its position by raising and devouring powerful creatures, and that the sealed world was its pasture.
• Sea Emperor explained that the inhabitants had exceptionally weak souls, giving Gu Ding a major advantage over them.
• Gu Ding decided to strengthen his body and Myriad Manifestations Emperor Body, then charged toward a herd of beasts on the way to a city more than three thousand kilometers away.

After three days of hunting beasts, Gu Ding reached a human city and learned that its currency was Blood Beads. He paid the entry fee with a beast corpse and entered, leaving the gate guard impressed by how cleanly he had killed it.

• Gu Ding killed a giant ape and absorbed its energy after spending three days hunting thousands of beasts, strengthening his body and cultivating the Myriad Manifestations Emperor Body.
• Gu Ding reached a human city and learned from Sea Emperor why its walls were low and how the locals used Blood Beads as currency.
• Hunters and townspeople stared at Gu Ding because he looked short and malnourished compared with the city's inhabitants.
• Two gate guards demanded an entry fee, and Gu Ding offered a Low-rank God beast corpse in place of 100 Blood Beads.
• Big Beard examined the corpse after Gu Ding entered and realized that Gu Ding had killed the beast with a single precise strike.

Gu Ding sold the demon beast corpses he had hunted in Lagge City and learned that Crimson Blood Crystals could help him cultivate. After asking how to earn more, he headed out to find the Mission Board outside the City Lord’s Mansion.

• Gu Ding entered Lagge City’s trading house and was directed to Room 101 to sell demon beast corpses.
• Bulong mistook Gu Ding for a toy doll, then doubted he could hunt beasts until Gu Ding began laying out his kills.
• Gu Ding sold 24 Low-rank, 87 Mid-rank, and 782 High-rank God demon beast corpses, impressing Bulong with their condition.
• Sea Emperor explained the value and properties of Blood Crystals, and Gu Ding exchanged his payment for twenty Crimson Blood Crystals and Blood Beads.
• Bulong told Gu Ding about hunting, teaming up, and missions as ways to earn money, and Gu Ding left to find the Mission Board.

Gu Ding visited the Mission Board and accepted task number fifty-six, which required gathering Crimson Flame Demon Fruits. He searched the library with Sea Emperor for information about the fruit trees, and Sea Emperor finally found them in a volume on unusual lifeforms, though the task proved more troublesome than expected.

• Sea Emperor warned Gu Ding that selling the True God demon beast corpses or seizing a Crimson Blood Crystal mine would expose him to danger, so Gu Ding went to the Mission Board for work.
• Gu Ding used the Spirit Communication Giant Tablet to sort tasks by reward and chose task number fifty-six, which paid one Violet Blood Crystal per Crimson Flame Demon Fruit.
• Gu Ding accepted the task by pressing his palm to its listing for three seconds, then went to the library to search for a guide to local species.
• Gu Ding and Sea Emperor examined the five volumes of World Species, but they found no Crimson Flame Demon Tree entry in the plant section.
• Sea Emperor found the Crimson Flame Demon Tree described among unusual lifeforms in the final volume and told Gu Ding to check pages 589 through 592.