Chapter Summaries

Lu PingAn learned that his Divine Realm’s rules had helped turn Ancient City into a center for electric vehicles and rapid economic growth. He then confronted the city’s mounting strains and new crimes, before leaving local affairs to the professionals.

• Lu PingAn discussed how his Divine Realm’s rules had made fossil fuels inefficient and prompted the city to adopt electric vehicles.
• Lu PingAn learned that government investment and outside companies had helped Ancient City develop a major electric vehicle industry, in which his enterprises held substantial shares.
• Lu PingAn recognized that the city’s growth had brought higher housing costs, shortages of public services and water, and a population thirteen times larger than a decade earlier.
• Lu PingAn worried that an economic crisis could cause mass unemployment and noted that the special zone had brought new crimes, including UFO abductions.
• Lu PingAn refused to handle the city’s problems and left them to the professionals.

Lu PingAn considered how to guide Ancient City’s growth without disrupting its prosperity and tried to understand how he could advance toward Tier 11. He resolved to strengthen his Divine Realm and let his Rule Buildings influence reality, though he remained unsure whether that would be enough.

• Lu PingAn ordered increased investment in the city, including expanding the Divine Realm, building more Satellite Cities, and hiring outsiders to handle new crimes.
• Big Cat told Lu PingAn that his subconscious had been blessing Ancient City because it was both his hometown and part of his Divine Realm.
• Lu PingAn received a confidential letter from Wanjing urging him to advance as quickly as possible and promising resources at any cost.
• Lu PingAn judged that he had no clear path to Tier 11, so he planned to expand the Kingdom of God on Earth and develop his subordinate gods into aspects of himself.
• Lu PingAn decided to let his Rule Buildings interfere with reality, following the indirect influence he had observed in other Tier 11 beings.

Lu PingAn sought guidance on how to advance as a God of Life above Tier 10 and began using his Rule Buildings to affect the real world. He decided to strengthen his Retinues and subordinate gods while learning to spread higher-dimensional power through the region.

• Shuichi told Lu PingAn that the world supported his growth because it needed a Hero during its crisis, and Lu PingAn accepted that his smooth path came with future obligations.
• Lu PingAn used his main body to bring the Holy Fire Chapel into Ancient City, where its transcendent flame began generating electricity for the city.
• Lu PingAn found that his breeding Woodland improved growth and childbirth, so it became the site of a popular maternity and children's hospital.
• After seeing little gain from these interventions, Lu PingAn asked how to follow the example of Eight-Clawed and was advised to develop his subordinate gods and expand his Retinues.
• Lu PingAn resolved to increase his Retinues and let higher-dimensional power permeate the region as he learned to interfere with the real universe.

After five years of developing his faction on Earth, Lu PingAn concluded that the planet could not provide enough resources to support his rise to a God Above Gods. He prepared to expand beyond Earth, choosing Mercury 42 as his next destination, while also deciding to attend the annual meeting in Wanjing.

• Lu PingAn and his faction spent five years arranging industries and teams across Earth, but Chris and Shuichi judged their attempts to create dependents to be hollow, beastlike chimeras.
• Lu PingAn realized Earth had reached its limits as a source of living space and resources, and reasoned that becoming a God Above Gods would require nurturing life across multiple worlds.
• Lu PingAn shifted his faction toward developing a complete industrial chain on Courtyard Island so its residents could maintain Earth's standard of living during long journeys.
• Lu PingAn chose Mercury 42 as the faction's first destination, where he could confront the Eight-Clawed and develop on the vast, underused superworld.
• Lu PingAn considered making the Long-Hand Tribe his dependents and granting godhood to his disciple, the destiny hero, who had reached Tier 9 demigod status.
• When Wanjing invited Lu PingAn to the annual meeting, he decided to attend in person and discuss matters face-to-face.

Lu PingAn prepared to visit Wanjing, but rumors that he intended to rebel or seize power spread as his enormous influence alarmed the capital. He paused his journey and announced that he planned an expedition, leaving Wanjing to weigh the consequences of approving or rejecting his request.

• Lu PingAn arranged preparations for Qi Chen and submitted a report to Wanjing, planning to visit in person.
• Rumors spread that Lu PingAn was coming to Wanjing to challenge the government and take control of the Ministry of Education.
• Lu PingAn read classified reports about the supposed conflict and realized that his faction's scale made his actions easy to misinterpret.
• Lu PingAn decided to announce his expedition plans to ease suspicion and demonstrate his stability.
• Lu PingAn halted the train to Wanjing for two days, while his companions explained that either approving or rejecting his departure could create political trouble.

Lu PingAn spent his stay in Wanjing reassuring the Eastern Kingdom’s authorities and meeting powerful figures who wanted to cooperate with him. After the New Year, he set out with his expedition for Mercury 42 and the God Above Gods.

• Lu PingAn endured a packed schedule of inspections, banquets, and meetings while rumors spread that he might rebel or claim territory.
• Lu PingAn reassured the leadership that he would return, met with officials and state governors, and delivered an awkward speech at the Various States Assembly.
• Lu PingAn met with quasi-gods and divine avatars, built connections, and gained policy support, honors, and three additional contractors.
• Lu PingAn prepared for the Mercury 42 expedition with the Book of Covenants and the Proposal while Ancient City organized personnel and legions.
• After the New Year bells rang, Lu PingAn began his long expedition toward the God Above Gods.

Lu PingAn returned to Mercury 42 with his group and linked to the world-spanning Lamp Tree Network. He gained control of its many nodes and saw that the world had developed well, though the war had deteriorated badly.

• Lu PingAn and his group arrived at Mercury 42, where Lu Mouren discussed how many people had left the Ancient City to join them.
• Lu PingAn explained that he had chosen not to take the entire Ancient City or declare independence, despite his growing authority and influence.
• Lu PingAn began linking to the Lighthouses and Lamp Tree Network spread across Mercury 42.
• Lu PingAn found many new network nodes, including traces suggesting the local God of Life had used the network to spread information.
• Lu PingAn secured control of the network and discovered that Mercury 42's battlefield was in far worse condition than he had expected.

After more than twenty years away, Lu PingAn surveyed the water world and found its population vastly expanded but its society fragmented, underdeveloped, and poorly equipped for the front lines. He considered investing in infrastructure, sharing knowledge, and experimenting with creating a type of Fishman.

• Lu PingAn observed that the world's population had grown by at least a hundredfold, aided by magical plants and the world's lingering rules of rapid growth and reproduction.
• Lu PingAn noted that the New Kingdom's influence centered on urban and industrial areas while scattered villages fought over resources, and that the front lines relied on the Savior Army and rotating human legions.
• Lu PingAn received no response to his request to meet the local government and suspected his disciple, who led the Defense Department, was stationed at the front.
• Lu PingAn considered creating a type of Fishman, judging the Long-Hand Tribe more suited to stable society than the aggressive Free Fishmen.
• Lu PingAn weighed investing in infrastructure and industrialization, improving outdated front-line equipment, and sharing wisdom and knowledge with the locals.

Lu PingAn met with his disciple Lu Lu, who had retired from the front lines but remained influential, and invited her to help him develop his World's Logic. She agreed, and he began by asking her to open an Otherworld Rift so his side could fight the Octopus Race.

• Lu PingAn greeted Lu Lu, who teased him for neglecting her, and asked why she had retired.
• Lu Lu explained that a new generation of leaders had taken office and that the war against Eight-Clawed's followers remained a costly stalemate.
• Lu PingAn realized Lu Lu had opposed disbanding the military so she could remain a blade ready to be drawn if the situation worsened.
• Lu PingAn invited Lu Lu to work with him while he developed his Courtyard and life force, and she agreed to help.
• Lu PingAn asked Lu Lu to open an Otherworld Rift so his side could fight the Octopus Race.

Lu PingAn arranged to take over a high-intensity war zone in Two Worlds Land as the Courtyard’s base and hunting ground. After surveying his local assets, he decided to modernize the region’s industries and explore building a railway network to connect its scattered settlements.

• Lu PingAn asked Lu Lu to secure him a high-intensity zone in Two Worlds Land, promising stronger forces to defend its rifts.
• Lu Lu used her connections to settle the request, though the assigned war zone and troop redeployment would take up to three months.
• Lu PingAn and Lu Lu inspected a shipbuilding Factory and found outdated equipment alongside profit margins exceeding ninety-five percent.
• Lu PingAn decided to use normal commercial competition to advance local industries despite opposition from the other True God Churches.
• Lu PingAn considered building a railway network with Water Locomotives to connect the scattered worlds and extend his rules.

Lu PingAn brought his floating continent into Mercury 42’s Ocean World and began using his strengthened creation ability to breed new species. He established a Nature Sea where they would compete and evolve, leaving their future development underway.

• Lu PingAn’s continent fused with the Ocean World, and he reflected on how Tier 11 beings could enter other planes more freely than Tier 10s.
• Lu PingAn began plundering part of the world rather than binding himself to its rules, and he considered how Old Liu’s past actions had helped him grow.
• Lu PingAn used materials from several races to create three strange species, then introduced five hundred creatures into his Nature Sea.
• Lu PingAn planned to introduce twenty species and let survival of the fittest shape his ecosystem, while considering whether to guide some groups toward the extraordinary.

Lu PingAn used his growing divine authority to develop new life forms and evolutionary tools while expanding settlements around Courtyard Continent. He prepared to test his creations on the front line, where they might face Eight-Clawed.

• Lu PingAn oversaw the construction of Artificial Islands and the adaptation of warriors to the surrounding environment.
• Lu PingAn explained how Earth’s traders and the many forms of life helped sustain his power and complete his concept of life.
• Lu PingAn presented a Parasitic Seed that granted underwater abilities and opened evolutionary paths, along with seventeen promising evolutionary possibilities.
• Lu PingAn prepared his creations for testing in the newly occupied line of defense and asked whether his people had achieved anything on the front line.

Lu PingAn watched his forces easily repel Eight-Clawed’s First Wave while he relaxed on the beach, and the battle lasted seven days. Afterward, he met Guan Xinxian and encouraged him to keep developing rather than rush to become a god, as the coming conflict with Eight-Clawed was only beginning.

• Lu PingAn lounged on the beach while the Courtyard’s forces crushed Eight-Clawed’s invading army and wounded an overlord-class creature.
• An armored Abyssal giant whale launched biological missiles at Silver Fortress, but the defenders intercepted most of them while Lu PingAn let the younger fighters handle the attack.
• The First Wave continued for seven days, and Lu PingAn recognized that further attacks—and possibly Eight-Clawed’s personal intervention—were still to come.
• Lu PingAn met Guan Xinxian, who had recovered much of his power and wanted to join the effort against Eight-Clawed.
• Lu PingAn stopped Guan Xinxian from rushing to godhood and suggested he develop his strength or return to cultivating Fusang Trees.

Lu PingAn prepared to expand his faction into the Octopus World, recruiting powerful locals and sending his evolved creatures, subordinate gods, and the Burning Legion there to grow. Their deployment marked humanity’s shift from defending against multiversal threats to taking the offensive.

• Lu PingAn offered the world’s Rank Eight combatants and demigods a chance to grow under his protection instead of becoming tool gods, and many joined his faction.
• Lu PingAn met an ancient Fishman demigod from the Octopus World and asked it to guide his creatures and subordinates there.
• Lu PingAn summoned Little Flame and the Burning Legion, telling them to return safely as they set out to grow beyond his direct control.
• Lu PingAn sent legions and subordinate gods into the Octopus World, marking a new era in which humanity’s opponents would have reason to fear retaliation.

Lu PingAn expanded his influence into another world by planting life and offering divine support, while considering how his role as Lord of Evolution could help him become a God Above Gods. He began investigating Eight-Clawed’s influence on Fishmen and considered exposing his gene-module creatures to it.

• Lu PingAn explained how the Courtyard could provide services and divine support in other worlds, and planned to turn the nearby world into another New Mercury.
• Lu PingAn scattered Seeds of Life into the Ocean World, introducing species from Earth, the Silent Mountain Range, and his collected familiars.
• Lu PingAn considered how granting intelligent life the chance to evolve and resist monsters could help embed his existence more deeply in the multiverse.
• Lu PingAn examined ordinary Eight-Clawed Fishmen and found that their aggression and physical mutations persisted for generations after they left Eight-Clawed’s world.
• Lu PingAn considered infecting his gene-module creatures with Eight-Clawed’s power.

Lu PingAn studied the Octopus Factor and found that it created ravenous, short-lived creatures, then experimented with using it to create retainers. With Guan Xinxian’s suggestion, he suppressed the factor by giving life a plant-like digestive system, producing powerful Vine Islands and a possible countermeasure to Eight-Clawed.

• Lu PingAn compared infected organisms with protected controls and found that the Octopus Factor accelerated metabolism, increased hunger and aggression, shortened lifespans, and persisted after death.
• Lu PingAn introduced fish fry into an Octopus World, where Giant Factor hybrids became huge, intelligent Whale-men that devoured other lifeforms and formed his first local retainers.
• Lu PingAn tried to remove the Octopus Factor from the Whale-men but could neither capture nor erase it without killing them.
• Guan Xinxian suggested turning the Whale-men into trees, and Lu PingAn created aquatic Vine Armor that provided linked lifeforms with a second digestive system.
• The Vine Armor suppressed the Octopus Factor, creating Vine Islands across the sea and adding powerful, low-consumption retainers to Lu PingAn’s species repository.

Lu PingAn reshaped Octopus World by creating vast plant life and new land, while also developing lifeforms immune to Eight-Clawed's virus. He spread these creations across the multiverse, leaving them to quietly take root as he prepared for an eventual war against Eight-Clawed.

• After finding that Eight-Clawed's power had little effect on plants, Lu PingAn began changing Octopus World's environment instead of deploying a targeted weapon.
• Lu PingAn planted giant trees and duckweed that gathered into islands, archipelagos, and continents, creating more space and energy for terrestrial life.
• Lu PingAn let displaced life migrate to the Fishmen Kingdom and created Vegetative Humans whose animal and plant systems made them resistant to the Eight-Clawed virus.
• Lu PingAn sent his new lifeforms into foreign realms, where they reproduced, spread, and began worshipping him as their creator.
• Lu PingAn and his companion described their creations as a vaccine against Eight-Clawed, while Lu PingAn judged that slowly transforming its world would eventually force a war on more favorable terms.

Lu PingAn steadily expanded his faction and transformed Mercury 42 into a fortress world while the Eight-Clawed weakened across the multiverse. The chapter ended when he learned that Shuichi had requested his help because her main world was threatened, including by the Eight-Clawed’s core forces.

• Lu PingAn’s forces spread across worlds, cultivated new races, and built up subordinate gods while strengthening Mercury 42.
• The Eight-Clawed continued to lose ground as failed incursions and conflicts with other powers weakened it.
• Lu PingAn heard that the Eight-Clawed had failed to conquer Earth and lost half a tentacle there.
• Lu PingAn received a request from Shuichi to cooperate after the Eight-Clawed’s core forces threatened her main world.

Lu PingAn raised the Courtyard Continent from Mercury 42 as part of his preparations for a major Plane War, while reflecting on how his presence had become entangled with the world itself. He gathered the returning legions and administrators, mourned those who had fallen behind, and watched other divine kingdoms begin to depart as well.

• Lu PingAn realized that his existence had spread through Mercury 42 and that part of himself would remain behind when the Courtyard Continent left.
• The Courtyard Continent broke free from Mercury 42 with less disturbance than expected, and Lu PingAn explained to Chris that its material form was only a projection of his main body.
• Lu PingAn cheered up the sulking Chris by proposing a regenerated dinosaur fight at the Zoo.
• Catherine and the Joint Group reported that the returning legions were assembled, while Lu PingAn ordered care for the families of those who had not returned.
• Lu PingAn reflected on veterans who had retired or died, then watched divine kingdoms across Mercury 42 begin to depart for the coming war.

Lu PingAn reunited with Shuichi in her native world and learned how its overlapping realities had shaped her into a high-dimensional being. Their exchange of knowledge gave him a new way to strengthen his own path as Lord of Life.

• Lu PingAn met Shuichi by a lakeside and saw her ordinary, unadorned true form.
• Shuichi told Lu PingAn she would arrive in forty-two days, or sooner if she hurried, while he continued to influence her world from afar.
• Lu PingAn discovered that Shuichi's native world contained eleven actively overlapping worlds.
• Shuichi explained that she had become a collective of countless connected selves, using their resonance to transcend dimensions.
• Lu PingAn gained insight from Shuichi's path and realized he could cultivate a similar species to supplement his own existence as Lord of Life.