Chapter Summaries

At Guanghan Palace, Changxi and Lady Luofu hosted a lively banquet while Li Qi realized that his long experience in distorted time had dulled the emotions tied to his former life. After Lady Luofu and Shen Shuibi helped him set aside his thoughts, Li Qi planned to spend time at home with his family and later visit Great Shaman Yun Fang.

• The cultivators at the banquet conjured a lavish feast, and Changxi poured wine from a tilted moon while the elders competed for it.
• Lady Luofu filled the banquet with spirit plants, while Li Shiwei, Yang Ning, and other younger cultivators joined the festivities.
• Li Qi relived past joys and sorrows through Changxi's wine and realized that distorted time had weakened his emotional capacity and worn down his Dao heart.
• Lady Luofu reprimanded Li Qi for brooding during the family banquet, and he went with Shen Shuibi to watch Li Shiwei compete for falling wine.
• Shen Shuibi reassured Li Qi that his fading emotions would settle with time, and Li Qi proposed staying home before visiting Great Shaman Yun Fang to teach Li Shiwei.

Li Qi and Shen Shuibi confronted their fear of growing ordinary to each other, then spent the rest of the family banquet watching everyone else enjoy themselves. After Granny Mei advised Li Qi to understand Shen Shuibi’s nature, he used his fourth-rank power to reach the Illusionary Reality Domain and planned to rest there with his family.

• Li Qi told Shen Shuibi he feared time would wear down their bond, and she answered by becoming a rabbit and postponing their conversation until later.
• Li Qi and Shen Shuibi watched the family banquet for several days, while the little rabbit brat showed off her Dao Rhythm and later passed out drunk.
• Granny Mei told Li Qi that Shen Shuibi had always been this way and urged him to understand her, but Lady Luofu rebuked Granny Mei for speaking about Li Qi’s Dao Path.
• Li Qi thanked Lady Luofu, used his fourth-rank power to cross spacetime instantly, and reflected on how creating and erasing paradoxes damaged the universe.
• Li Qi arrived in the Illusionary Reality Domain to rest with his family near Grand Shaman Yun Fang.

Li Qi reunited with Grand Shaman Yun Fang, left Li Shiwei in his care, and settled with Shen Shuibi in a nearby world to rest and calm his troubled Dao heart. After seven years in the technologically advanced Forward Alliance, Li Qi looked out over its neon-lit city and turned his attention to the frontline battle reports.

• Li Qi brought Shen Shuibi and the still-drunken Li Shiwei to Grand Shaman Yun Fang and gave him Literary Qi containing his knowledge of the demonic path, Haotian, and Immortal Heaven.
• Yun Fang placed Li Shiwei in a capsule to sleep until she woke and agreed to care for her while Li Qi and Shen Shuibi settled in a nearby world.
• Li Qi and Shen Shuibi obtained ordinary identities and a house in the Forward Alliance, where Shen Shuibi reassured him that he would not forget their shared past.
• Li Qi and Shen Shuibi rested in the Forward Alliance for seven years as Li Qi learned about the civilization’s technology-based Dao Path and its use of the Illusionary Reality Domain for experiments.
• Li Qi stood on his balcony at night and decided to check the frontline battle reports.

Li Qi decided to join the Forward Alliance’s fast-changing society to restore his sense of time and stabilize his cultivation. After spending hours absorbed in the city, he was mistaken for a drug user and ended up eating with a young patrol officer, who wondered if he was mentally ill.

• Li Qi told Shen Shuibi he felt out of step with the Forward Alliance’s rapid pace and planned to live like an ordinary person there.
• Li Qi changed into local clothing, went downstairs alone, and watched the city’s crowds and neon-lit streets until dawn.
• A young patrol officer approached Li Qi after surveillance showed he had stood in one place for four Time Rings and questioned him about his lack of equipment.
• Li Qi agreed to accompany the patrol officer, who took him to a fast-food restaurant and bought him food.
• Li Qi explained that he had never installed the local devices and had come out to experience society, leaving the patrol officer to suspect he might be mentally ill.

Li Qi completed identity verification with help from Mo Long and began exploring the Forward Alliance’s virtual technology. Later, Mo Long found Li Qi wearing costly external equipment after apparently earning money and attracting the interest of major powers, and Li Qi invited him to dinner.

• Mo Long took Li Qi to the station, where Li Qi provided simulated blood for testing and received an identity device after his clean legal record was confirmed.
• Li Qi experienced the Forward Alliance’s virtual reality system and compared its limited equipment with the more advanced terminals he knew.
• Mo Long finished his shift, helped his new neighbors, spoke with his family, and rested at home.
• After waking, Mo Long spotted Li Qi surrounded by people from major powers, who left disappointed after failing to recruit him.
• Mo Long saw that Li Qi had acquired mid-to-high-end external equipment, and Li Qi said he had earned money and offered to treat Mo Long to dinner.

Li Qi discussed immortality and civilization’s reliance on external forces with Mo Long, whose defense of collective knowledge gave Li Qi a new perspective on the Forward Alliance. The conversation ended with Li Qi ordering dinner after spacing out, now wealthy from selling blueprints.

• Li Qi took Mo Long to a high-end virtual reality restaurant and described the Forward Alliance’s place among worlds and its reliance on technology.
• Li Qi argued that the Forward Alliance’s people sacrificed their own longevity by depending on external forces, while Mo Long maintained that civilization and inherited knowledge made everyone stronger together.
• Mo Long explained that ordinary people and sages formed one collective, allowing civilization to preserve knowledge and mass-produce geniuses.
• Li Qi was struck by Mo Long’s view, then spaced out until Mo Long reminded him it was time to order.
• Li Qi apologized, ordered many dishes, and paid with money he had earned by selling advanced blueprints to major companies.

Li Qi became Mo Long’s patrol partner to experience life in the Forward Alliance and adjust to ordinary people’s sense of time. After more than half a year working together, they encountered an attack on a patrol officer during a night shift.

• Li Qi hired Mo Long to let him observe patrol work, and a message from Mo Long’s director confirmed that Li Qi had been assigned as his partner.
• Li Qi and Mo Long worked together for more than half a year, with Li Qi handling paperwork and helping Mo Long with patrol duties.
• During a night shift outside a row of nightclubs, Mo Long complained about the area and picked up a discarded bottle.
• Li Qi sensed danger in the alley, and Mo Long realized someone was attacking a patrol officer with high-grade equipment.

Li Qi and Mo Long fought off an attack on patrol officers as Li Qi realized the city was facing an invasion. After sealing his cultivation to experience mortal life, Li Qi helped Mo Long return to battle and saw a Rank Five world-class ship descending on the world.

• A mecha attacked Li Qi and Mo Long, and Mo Long defended them while Li Qi called for backup and retreated.
• Li Qi sensed that patrol officers across the world were under attack and wondered if the conflict was an invasion.
• Li Qi sealed his cultivation, but two more mechas crashed into a nearby hotel and blocked his path.
• Mo Long overloaded his mecha to protect Li Qi, and Li Qi's mecha appeared to begin self-destructing before its energy shut down.
• Li Qi dismantled his damaged mecha and refitted Mo Long's equipment, allowing Mo Long to face the three assassins again.
• Li Qi warned Shen Shuibi not to contact him, then saw a Rank Five world-class ship and its vessels invading the world.

After Li Qi repaired Mo Long’s damaged nervous system and upgraded his mecha, Mo Long left their hidden shelter to seek survivors and organize resistance against the invading World Mother Ship. He emerged into a corpse-filled parking garage and heard people speaking the Forward Alliance’s language nearby.

• Li Qi operated on Mo Long in an underground shelter and treated his injuries while Mo Long recovered.
• Li Qi and Mo Long discussed the unfamiliar invaders and concluded that they were likely a plundering civilization that had turned its world into a giant ship.
• Li Qi modified Mo Long’s mecha, increasing its overall output by 211%, and Mo Long decided to search for survivors and resistance groups.
• Mo Long opened the shelter hatch and found dozens of rotting corpses piled over the entrance.
• Mo Long hid in the darkness and heard people nearby speaking the Forward Alliance’s language.

Mo Long infiltrated the enemy-controlled city, rescued captives near a shelter, and studied the occupation forces while avoiding detection. After finding that concentration camp prisoners had been massacred, he realized the invaders were screening people by age and strength.

• Mo Long hacked two gang members’ alarm devices, killed them, and sent the drugged captives they guarded to Li Qi at the shelter.
• Mo Long surveyed the occupied city and found civilians being forced into concentration camps under the watch of gang auxiliaries and alien forces.
• Mo Long assessed the alien soldiers’ strength and weapons, then retreated through the sewers after concluding he could not safely infiltrate their defenses.
• A heap of corpses from a concentration camp fell into the sewer, and Mo Long recognized several victims as older people he had helped as a patrol officer.
• Mo Long examined the bodies and concluded that the invaders had screened the prisoners for the young and strong.

Mo Long infiltrated the ruined Police Headquarters to search its armory for supplies, then defeated two guards with Li Qi’s unfamiliar martial technique. After finding the mechas and parts, he was ambushed by a half-human, half-insect cultivator whose strength threatened his mecha.

• Mo Long entered Police Headquarters, found his colleagues dead, and gathered useful equipment before heading for the armory.
• Mo Long surprised and crushed two assassin mechas with Carp Flowing Intent, a martial technique built into his mecha’s new preset program.
• Mo Long opened the armory, locked himself inside, and began collecting mechas and spare parts.
• A half-human, half-insect cultivator revealed he had been waiting for Mo Long and evaded his plasma blade.
• Mo Long activated his force-field barrier, but the cultivator slashed through it and damaged his mecha as a terrifying phantom appeared behind the attacker.

Mo Long fought a Seventh Rank Bug People martial artist whose Martial Way Divine Intent let him plunder the mecha’s power and suppress its attacks. After losing his defenses, Mo Long revealed that he had remotely seized control of every Patrol Officer Mecha in the armory, turning them into a drone swarm.

• Mo Long recognized his opponent’s Martial Way Divine Intent as a force of plunder and fought him with the mecha’s light blade and automated martial arts.
• The Bug People martial artist drained the mecha’s power, defeated its weapons and defenses, and taunted Mo Long as the battle turned against him.
• Mo Long destroyed his repulsion device in an explosion that knocked both fighters back and left the mecha defenseless.
• The martial artist approached Mo Long and prepared a Decapitation Strike, but an unpiloted Patrol Officer Mecha blocked the blade.
• Mo Long rose and revealed that he had used the fight to crack the armory’s remote access commands and control every Patrol Officer Mecha.

Li Qi rescued the badly injured Mo Long by performing emergency surgery and an improvised ritual to restore his weakened soul. Mo Long woke briefly on the third day, and Li Qi sedated him so he could continue recovering.

• Mo Long returned to the shelter with twenty-five Patrol Officer Mechas and collapsed, so Li Qi examined him and found severe injuries from neural overload, stimulants, and Martial Way Divine Intent.
• Li Qi carried Mo Long inside, operated on his skull to drain pooled blood, treated his burned brainstem, and connected optical fibers between his brainstem and spine.
• Li Qi recruited the rescued men and women to hold five-colored threads while he performed a ritual intended to nourish Mo Long's soul with human, earth, and heavenly qi.
• After a day, Li Qi dismissed the exhausted thread-holders, scattered incense ash over Mo Long, and continued treating him with medicine.
• On the third day, Mo Long woke and asked about his artificial organs; Li Qi said none had been replaced, then injected a sedative that made him faint again.

Li Qi continued trying to integrate into the Forward Alliance while helping Mo Long recover and prepare their shelter. After Mo Long found signs of other survivors and learned that the Bug People had withdrawn most of their forces, he and Li Qi decided to investigate the concentration camps.

• Li Qi gave up teaching the rescued women to pilot mechas and began converting the mechas into drones while treating Mo Long.
• Mo Long confronted Li Qi about being an alien, and Li Qi confirmed he came from elsewhere and wanted to integrate into society.
• After another seven days, Mo Long recovered enough to fight and gathered food from supermarkets for the shelter.
• Mo Long discovered evidence that another survivor had carefully taken supplies, but he could not track them.
• Mo Long told Li Qi that the Bug People’s forces had disappeared from the city, though their World Mother Ship remained in the sky.
• Li Qi proposed investigating the Bug People’s concentration camps, and Mo Long agreed to go with him.

Li Qi and Mo Long investigated a stadium concentration camp and discovered that its guards were civilians controlled by parasites. After Li Qi killed the attacking hosts, Mo Long revealed that he had found a possible way to save them and asked whether Li Qi saw any difference between humans and aliens.

• Li Qi used Qi Gazing to locate a stadium where death aura surrounded the people on guard.
• Mo Long investigated the stadium, but the death-aura-covered civilians pursued him with strength that overwhelmed his seventh-rank mecha.
• Li Qi rushed in and killed the parasitized hosts after deciding they were already dead.
• Mo Long said he had found a Mother Nest and operating beds that might have removed the parasites, then confronted Li Qi for not giving the civilians a chance.
• Li Qi insisted the hosts' souls were already gone, and he told Mo Long he saw no difference between humans and aliens.

Li Qi and Mo Long found a Flesh Egg made from more than a thousand people, and Mo Long sacrificed himself to destroy it with his mech’s self-destruct. Left alone amid the ruins, Li Qi concluded that people could never truly understand one another, and demonic qi began to emerge as he wondered whether he was a heavenly demon.

• Li Qi explained to Mo Long that all living beings were alike in essence, though he still considered the Bug People invaders who had to be fought.
• Li Qi and Mo Long entered the gymnasium and discovered a Flesh Egg formed from the fused bodies of more than a thousand people.
• Mo Long charged the Flesh Egg with his plasma blade while Li Qi hesitated, then Mo Long’s soul was overwhelmed by its spiritual force.
• Mo Long activated his cold fusion engine’s self-destruct sequence, destroying himself and the Flesh Egg in an eruption of Great Sun True Flame.
• Li Qi survived the blast and reflected on how people’s private worlds and imperfect language kept them from understanding one another.
• Li Qi began to emit demonic qi as he considered whether accepting his solitude made him a heavenly demon.

Li Qi realized that his inability to understand others was drawing him toward the demonic path, but his cultivation seal temporarily held the transformation back while he searched for another answer. When a squad of Bug People confronted him over the destroyed nursery, he defeated their leader and demanded to be taken to the Mother Nest.

• Li Qi’s demonic qi surged after Mo Long’s death, but his cultivation seal suppressed the transformation and gave him time to seek another answer.
• Li Qi reflected on how he and Mo Long had misunderstood each other, and concluded that he had focused too much on Dao outside himself while neglecting Dao within.
• Li Qi considered whether higher intelligence could ever be understood from the outside, and recognized that treating others as unknowable things led toward the demonic path he wanted to avoid.
• A squad of more than ten seventh-rank Bug People surrounded Li Qi and accused him of destroying their nursery; Li Qi admitted it and asked to go to the Mother Nest.
• The Bug Person leader attacked Li Qi, but Li Qi used True Knowledge and the Great Sun True Flame to exploit flaws in the leader’s movements and defeat him.
• The leader recognized that Li Qi was not from the Forward Alliance.

Li Qi entered the Mother Nest’s World-Class Giant Ship to learn about the Bug People and the civilization directing their invasion of the Forward Alliance. He discovered that the ship housed five civilizations under the command of an Immortal Realm cultivator, and began examining the Bug People’s society.

• The Mother Nest took control of the Bug People leader, invited Li Qi aboard, and revealed that the Nine Lands of the World stood behind the invasion.
• Li Qi learned that the Mother Nest specialized in using its willpower-based psionic abilities against material-focused civilizations, and that its Flesh Eggs were collectively brainwashing the Forward Alliance’s world.
• The Bug People brought Li Qi to the World-Class Giant Ship, which swallowed him and carried him inside.
• Li Qi scanned the vessel and found that it was a fifth-rank ship with a cultivator from the Nine Lands of the World aboard.
• Li Qi observed that the Bug People lived in clean, orderly cities and that their shipborne civilization was one of five civilizations sharing the giant ship.

Li Qi explored the Bug People’s World-Class Giant Ship and spoke with its Mother Nest, learning that it sought to enter the world and that the Illusionary Reality Domain might help him study psychic power. Their conversation was interrupted by Shou Yu, whose overwhelming Martial Way Divine Intent concealed the lasting weakness of a shattered Dao foundation.

• Li Qi traveled through the Bug People’s hatching nests and Mother Nest, recognizing their advanced martial arts and the psychic power sustaining their city-sized living brain.
• Li Qi manifested an illusion before the Mother Nest and learned that it had invaded the Forward Alliance to reach the Illusionary Reality Domain and gain entry to the world.
• Li Qi decided to consider visiting the Illusionary Reality Domain to study psychic power, though he had not come to the ship for that purpose.
• Shou Yu arrived and imposed his Martial Way Divine Intent on the Mother Nest, the Bug People, and the surrounding area, while Li Qi resisted its pressure.
• Li Qi identified Shou Yu as the Little Overlord and noticed signs that his Dao foundation had shattered and been repaired, leaving him weak even after reaching fifth rank.

Li Qi and Shou Yu exchanged ideas about the Dao, with Shou Yu explaining how his belief in invincibility shaped his Martial Way Divine Intent. Their discussion left Li Qi confronting how subjective will could affect objective reality, while Shou Yu revealed he was traveling to the Illusionary Reality Domain to improve his Divine Intent.

• Li Qi and Shou Yu shared their experiences, and Shou Yu recounted how the Demon Prince shattered his Overlord Dao Foundation and left him buried for seventy years.
• Li Qi questioned the value of invincibility, and Shou Yu explained that it served as the foundational axiom from which his power arose.
• Shou Yu described Martial Way Divine Intent as subjective will influencing spirit and matter, helping Li Qi reconsider the nature of reality.
• Li Qi struggled with the possibility that thought could distort objective matter, but rejected the demonic path's explanation that everything was subjective.
• Shou Yu said he was traveling to the Illusionary Reality Domain to improve his Martial Way Divine Intent and had stopped to refuel at the Forward Alliance.