Chapter Summaries

Li Qingyun advanced to the third layer of the Pure Self Realm while occasionally drawing on the Talisman Ancestor’s essence. As the year ended, he left seclusion and received Meng, Wen Susu, Li Xiuxuan, and their children at Qingyun Mansion.

• Li Qingyun sensed the Talisman Ancestor’s essence strengthening his talisman arts, then fled the abandoned Great Dao space when he felt a warning and glimpsed the ball of yarn again.
• Li Qingyun cultivated the Pure Self Realm to its third layer with the Heaven Purification Talisman while continuing his daily practice.
• After finishing his yearly rites, Li Qingyun left seclusion and prepared tea in the main hall of Qingyun Mansion.
• Meng brought Wen Susu and their son Meng Ling to visit Li Qingyun, and Li Xiuxuan arrived with her children, Chen Mu and Li Luo.
• Meng, Wen Susu, Li Xiuxuan, and the children entered Qingyun Mansion and paid their respects to Li Qingyun.

Li Qingyun welcomed Miaoxuan after she broke through into the Life Gate Realm and gave her cultivation guidance and secret-land locations. After she left to inspect Lingbao Dao temples, he returned to seclusion and, three years later, reached Great Perfection in Self-Purification, preparing to sever himself and break through.

• Li Qingyun blessed Li Xiuxuan and Wen Susu's three children and discussed the younger members of the Li clan with his visitors.
• Li Qingyun sensed Miaoxuan outside and recognized that she had entered the Life Gate Realm.
• Miaoxuan told Li Qingyun that she had received an investiture from Uncle Yin with help from Lord Cat Yuanbao, while Nangong Fengchuan stayed in Living Ghost Heaven to seek an investiture from a scholar.
• Li Qingyun gave Miaoxuan locations of spiritual platform secret lands and advised her to wait until she had the fourth-rank Flame Emperor divine position before entering a high-grade one.
• Miaoxuan left to inspect Lingbao Dao temples across the nations, and Li Qingyun returned to seclusion to draw Heaven Purification Talismans.
• Three years later, Li Qingyun had quietly reached Great Perfection in Self-Purification and decided it was time to sever himself and break through.

Li Qingyun used the Heaven Purification Talisman to clear the filth contaminating his Pure Realm Dao Kingdom, then drew on Jade Pure Profound Light to escape a grotesque entity trying to devour him. In the brief moment afterward, he subdued the first streak of Severing Light and began breaking through to Severing Self.

• Li Qingyun made a Great Vow and activated the Heaven Purification Talisman to remove the filth from his Dao Kingdom.
• A grotesque mouth appeared and tried to devour Li Qingyun and his foundation, but Jade Pure Profound Light shielded him and let him escape its bite.
• Li Qingyun closed his senses and glimpsed a stubborn streak of Severing Light in the darkness of his inner self.
• Li Qingyun invoked his Jade Pure Radiance, and the Severing Light became a swordfish that leaped into and merged with him.
• Severing Intent surged through Li Qingyun as his mana and spiritual intent began transforming into the power of Severing Self.

Li Qingyun severed himself to reach the Sever-Self Realm and briefly struck the Void Sky’s sealing cover, glimpsing a strange darkness beyond it. After celebrating with the sect and expounding the Dharma, he returned to seclusion, aiming to advance his cultivation and prepare to leave the mortal world.

• Li Qingyun broke through to the Sever-Self Realm and used two slashes of light to strike the Void Sky’s sealing cover, glimpsing a hazy darkness beyond it.
• Miaoxuan, Nangong Fengchuan, Yue Changsong, Li Zuo, A'li, A'hu, Mengshan, and Li Xiuxuan gathered at Qingyun Mansion to congratulate Li Qingyun, followed by visitors from the other sects.
• Yeyue was awed by Li Qingyun’s breakthrough and reflected on the Lingbao Sect’s many recent cultivation advances.
• Li Qingyun held a half-month Dharma assembly at the ancient pine, giving the Lingbao Sect’s practitioners profound insights.
• After the assembly, Li Qingyun entered seclusion and resolved to pursue the sixth-rank Lightning God position, while sensing that his Sever-Self cultivation could reach its limit within ten years.

Li Qingyun prepared the forces of the Li family for his eventual ascension while cultivating his lightning arts toward the seventh-tier divine rank. When the Divine Firmament Demon Subduing Dao Lord tried to stop him, Li Qingyun revealed nine lightning rings and declared that he would press on.

• Li Qingyun decided to strengthen the Li disciples in the kingdoms of Rot and Candle before his ascension and sent out orders through talisman light.
• Three years later, Li Qingyun used the incense offerings of nineteen kingdoms and his lightning-art comprehension to advance to the sixth-tier Lightning God rank.
• Li Qingyun climbed the lightning Dao sequence toward the seventh-tier rank, drawing astonishment from Thunder Altar Dao Lord Yu Chen.
• The Divine Firmament Demon Subduing Dao Lord descended, mistook Li Qingyun for an existence from above Void Sky, and attacked after hearing his Dao title.
• Li Qingyun endured the Dao Lord's strike, steadied himself, and summoned nine lightning rings as he insisted that he would not be stopped.

Li Qingyun overcame the Divine Firmament Demon Subduing Dao Lord and claimed the sixth-rank Lightning God authority, then strengthened the Lingbao Sect while advancing his own cultivation. The chapter ended with him reaching Sever Self Great Perfection, his Dao aura shaking Void Sky.

• Li Qingyun resisted the Divine Firmament Demon Subduing Dao Lord’s lightning-law pressure and climbed to the sixth-rank divine throne, forcing the Dao Lord to leave.
• Li Qingyun gained the authority of the sixth-rank Lightning God, allowing mortal cultivators who invoked his title to cultivate lightning law.
• Li Qingyun traveled through the nineteen kingdoms, discussed the Dao with Sever Self Realm cultivators, and held a month-long Dharma assembly for the Lingbao Sect.
• Miaoxuan broke through to the Heaven Gate Realm, while A'li entered the Death Gate Realm after comprehending the ninety-nine Death Gate Inscriptions.
• Over the following years, Li Qingyun raised his fire and sword laws to sixth-rank divine offices and reached Sever Self Great Perfection.

Li Qingyun prepared to ascend in three years and issued decrees reshaping the kingdoms and requiring every Sever Self Realm cultivator to ascend with him. After privately helping reluctant cultivators break through, he turned his potential opponents into allies while preparing to confront the mysterious force that seized Dao Lords’ Dao Fruits.

• Li Qingyun summoned Yuanbao, told him he would ascend in two or three years, and entrusted him with watching over the Southern You Li clan and the Lingbao Sect.
• Li Qingyun decreed that the You, Fu, and Zhu kingdoms would undergo dynastic transitions, named Li Shaojiang, Li Yan, and Li Xun as their new Sons of Heaven, and ordered the Lingbao Sect’s dragon aura returned to Great You.
• Li Qingyun announced that he would ascend in three years, then ordered all Sever Self Realm cultivators from every sect to ascend alongside him.
• Li Qingyun planned to test whether the bronze chain shadow could restrain twenty-one Supreme Realm Sever Self cultivators at once when they ascended.
• After Sever Self Realm cultivators protested that they could not ascend safely, Li Qingyun visited their sects and helped several advance by cutting away their shackles.

Princess Bao Sheng Li Shaojiang returned to Great You with a powerful army, overwhelming resistance as she marched to overthrow the Liu Dynasty and claim the throne. In You Capital, Emperor Xian died when Yuan Jihua possessed his body and revived as a terrifying living ghost.

• Li Shaojiang visited the Southern You Li clan, gathered support, and then marched toward You Capital with an army that grew to fifty or sixty thousand.
• Commanderies and counties welcomed Li Shaojiang, and she killed the Liu prefect and his loyalists with a single shout when they tried to stop her.
• Emperor Xian begged the Empress for help as the Liu Dynasty faced Li Shaojiang's advance, while remembering his past infatuation with Yuan Jihua.
• Yuan Jihua revealed herself within the Bronze Daoist Temple and took over Liu Xian's body, swallowing his soul and transforming his flesh into her vessel.
• Yuan Jihua regained her beautiful human appearance as an exceptionally powerful living ghost.

Yuan Jihua possessed Emperor Xian and slaughtered attendants in the Imperial Harem while Yeyue refused to intervene. In a hidden temple beneath Biyou Palace, an unidentified figure was questioned about summoning the ghostly calamity.

• Yuan Jihua appeared in Emperor Xian's body and confronted two attendants, demanding they explain what had changed about her.
• Yuan Jihua drained the young eunuch and palace maid of their souls and blood qi, then killed palace maids who fled for help.
• Yeyue remained in seclusion as Yuan Jihua slaughtered people, believing the Lingbao Sect should handle the calamity and resenting the shift in the people's loyalty toward Li Shaojiang.
• Something within Yeyue began to awaken as she reflected on the political upheaval and the ghostly calamity's hidden scheme.
• In an underground temple beneath Biyou Palace, a gaunt figure asked the seated figure whether they had summoned the ghost from the netherworld.

Li Qingyun learned that Yuan Jihua had returned as a living guǐ and sent Miaoxuan to Youjing with the Anomaly Containment Lamp. As Yuan Jihua forced Crown Prince Liu Feng to identify her as a guǐ, she prepared to harvest the people of Youjing.

• A Daoist visited Chengyuan in a sealed cavern, but left him to continue pursuing the ancient incense-offering method.
• Li Qingyun sensed Yuan Jihua’s return and decided to have her contained rather than killed.
• Li Qingyun sent Miaoxuan to Youjing with the Anomaly Containment Lamp.
• Yuan Jihua terrorized the Imperial Harem and demanded that Crown Prince Liu Feng call her Father Emperor.
• Liu Feng shouted that Yuan Jihua was a guǐ, and she prepared to harvest the souls and blood essence of Youjing’s citizens.

True Person Miaoxuan contained the living anomaly Yuan Jihua, while Li Yan’s Flame King Army besieged Changshe Commandery to advance his claim to the Fu Kingdom. When the Teng family and Rotten Moon Palace resisted, True Lord Qingyun personally killed Teng Su and ordered them to stop opposing Li Yan.

• True Person Miaoxuan suppressed Yuan Jihua, absorbed her black qi into an Anomaly Containment Lamp, and left the palace cleanup to Xiao Jin and the Lingbao Sect cultivators.
• Li Yan’s Flame King Army surrounded Changshe Commandery, where Third Young Master Teng invoked the Teng family’s authority to demand that Li Yan withdraw.
• Water Lu ordered a sword strike that killed a Teng family Nascent Soul cultivator after Teng family forces attacked the besiegers.
• True Person Feng Jue fought the Teng family’s Yang God and gained the advantage, but Teng Su’s arrival threatened the Flame King Army.
• True Lord Qingyun’s Severing Light killed Teng Su, and he warned the Rotten Moon Palace not to obstruct Li Yan’s rise.
• Yi Ze and Yunyu bowed to True Lord Qingyun’s decree.

True Person A'li arrived in Calamity Kingdom to help True Person Tongnan and King Ying Tian Li Wenhua break Mishin Palace's blockade. She shattered the obstruction before the advancing army and faced True Man Dong Jue, who rose to challenge Lingbao Sect.

• King Ying Tian Li Wenhua worried that the stalled campaign in Ling County would cost him popular support, while Tongnan regretted his inability to overcome Mishin Palace's resistance.
• A'li appeared during the rain, reunited with Tongnan, and ordered him and Li Wenhua to march once the storm stopped.
• The Ying Tian army set out for Tianshui County, where True Man Dong Jue was blocking their advance.
• A'li swept her sleeve and shattered the Dao might obstructing the army's road.
• True Man Dong Jue rose into the sky in pale-green divine fire and demanded to know which Lingbao Sect cultivator had arrived.

A'li defeated Mishin Palace cultivators and helped King Ying Tian capture Tianshui County as Lingbao Sect advanced the dynastic changes across the Shadowed Domain. Three years later, Li Qingyun entered the Anomaly Temple, where he suppressed its whispers and shattered the divinity of many statues.

• A'li struck down True Man Dong Jue, then defeated True Man Huang Shang after he challenged her in the Void Sky.
• King Ying Tian captured Tianshui County, and A'li sent Tong Nan and the army toward the commandery seat.
• Li Shaojiang restored the Li Dynasty in You Country, while Yeyue met with her and the hunt for Liu Feng and the other royal descendants faded.
• Li Xun took control of Zhu Country, Li Yan seized the throne in Fu Kingdom, and the remaining countries completed their dynastic transitions over three years.
• Twenty-one Supreme Realm cultivators of Severing Self completed their Dao cultivation and gathered national fortune dragon qi as they awaited Li Qingyun's chosen ascension day.
• Li Qingyun entered the Anomaly Temple and silenced its contaminating whispers, causing at least a dozen three-colored statues to lose their divinity.

Li Qingyun moved the three-colored statue from Youjiang Temple and discovered a ghostly white eyeball whose contamination threatened to corrupt him. As he faced it, he realized Jade Pure Essence might be his last defense against the mysterious Daoist effigy when he eventually ascended.

• Li Qingyun moved the half three-colored statue into his void, enduring repeated blasts of white-haired wind.
• Li Qingyun discovered a ghostly white eyeball on the seat and shielded himself from its contamination with Jade Pure Profound Light.
• Li Qingyun entered the Jade Pure Primordial Lord state as a dark-red blood vessel crawled from the eyeball and lingered outside his protective radiance.
• The mysterious Daoist effigy warned Li Qingyun to replace the statue, but Li Qingyun recognized that the terrifying pressure was strengthening his Jade Pure Essence.
• Li Qingyun concluded that the mysterious Daoist effigy was separate from Jade Pure Primordial Lord and considered Jade Pure Essence a possible defense against it during his future ascension.

Li Qingyun harvested Jade Pure Essence from a horrifying eyeball in Youjiang Temple, then went to the Fu Di Tower to investigate its mysteries. After destroying the Rotten Scholar, he opened the bronze coffin at the tower’s deepest level and unleashed a torrent of deadly pollution.

• Li Qingyun cultivated before the pale-yin eyeball for three days, strengthening his Jade Pure Essence before sealing the Anomaly Temple with Severing Intent.
• Li Qingyun appeared in the Rotten Capital palace, where Teng Li let him enter the Forbidden Zone containing the Fu Di Tower.
• Li Qingyun destroyed the Rotten Scholar with Severing Light and examined the ancient book it left behind.
• Li Qingyun entered the tower’s deepest level and opened the bronze coffin, releasing terrifying pollution and bone-chilling white wind.
• Li Qingyun stared into the opened coffin as his Jade Pure treasure bead protected him.

Li Qingyun explored nineteen taboo zones and realized they contained the remains of a terrifying being, then set an auspicious date to ascend with twenty-one fellow Daoists. Before ascending, he entrusted Zhu Yuyan with Heaven Purification Talismans and charged her with protecting Lingbao Sect for twenty years.

• Li Qingyun cultivated beside the sealed uncanny hand in Fu Di Tower, repeatedly destroying the Rotten Scholar whenever it resurrected, then reinforced the seal and barred powerful experts from entering for a hundred years.
• Li Qingyun visited the taboo zones of nineteen countries and recognized that their sources formed the scattered remains of a pale-yin, six-fingered, nine-toed corpse; the mysterious Daoist effigy warned him not to disturb them.
• Li Qingyun returned to Lingbao Sect and announced that he and twenty-one fellow Daoists would ascend above Void Sky at noon on the fifteenth, six days later.
• Sever Self Realm experts across the sects welcomed Li Qingyun’s announcement while privately planning to settle their grievances with him after ascending.
• Li Qingyun gave Zhu Yuyan several Heaven Purification Talismans and taught her their secret method, asking her to guard Lingbao Sect for twenty years after his ascension; Zhu Yuyan accepted and departed.

Li Qingyun prepared the Lingbao Sect and his disciples for his coming ascension, passing down cultivation methods and establishing Lingyun Peak as the inheritance of his Dao lineage. He left a statue and incense shrine as a link to the mortal world, visited his relatives in Southern You, and the chapter ended with He Xiao struggling to make talismans.

• Li Qingyun secretly taught Miaoxuan a method for obtaining a High-grade Small World and passed A'li and Li Zuo methods and talismans, warning them about the Heaven Purification Talismans.
• Li Qingyun instructed A'li and Li Zuo to forbid disciples from approaching the southern area of the six inheritance pillar peaks, then asked Yuanbao whether they could uphold his legacy.
• Two days later, Lingyun Peak rose as the Lingbao Sect's seventh inheritance pillar peak, and A'li became its acting master.
• Li Qingyun established a temple and statue on Lingyun Peak, offered incense to himself, and made the peak the home of his lineage.
• The day before his ascension, Li Qingyun visited Grand Emperor Li Jiuling and his relatives in Southern You.
• He Xiao ruined several House Soothing Talismans and wondered why his success rate had declined despite worshipping the Profound Talisman Dao Lord.

On the day before his ascension, Li Qingyun revisited familiar places and quietly helped people he had known. He left Wang Muyun wishing him well from afar, while his own departure remained imminent.

• Li Qingyun visited He Xiao in the bamboo cottage, heard about his descendants, and suggested that reverence for him might improve He Xiao's talisman-making.
• Li Qingyun wandered around Maple Mountain and Qinghe County, where he saw familiar places but went unrecognized by the townspeople.
• Li Qingyun used his divine sense to stop Shangguan Wan'er from suffering corruption during her attempt to enter the Yin God Realm.
• Wang Muyun recognized the Illusion Magic Bead as a reminder of Li Qingyun, realized he had visited before ascending, and sent him distant wishes.

On the eve of ascension, Li Qingyun learned more about the mysterious Daoist effigy and prepared to leave his mortal body behind. As the guiding rainbow light descended, it halted above him, trapping him and his Jade Blue Daoist Nation in a sluggish plane.

• The mysterious Daoist effigy told Li Qingyun that it would ascend with him and that their bond had become beneficial after he gained Jade Pure.
• Li Qingyun left his physical body and severed his connection with the mysterious Daoist effigy as he ascended above Lingyun Peak.
• Li Qingyun revealed his vast Jade Blue Daoist Nation to the gathered witnesses, astonishing Void True Lord and the others.
• Li Qingyun called for the guiding rainbow light, which descended from the Void Heaven and locked onto him.
• The rainbow light stopped above Li Qingyun, and he found that the invisible plane made it immensely difficult to move.

Li Qingyun severed his mortal body and dragon aura to ascend, discovering that his soul had awakened the head of the mysterious corpse in the Burial Destruction Abyss. He concealed his Daoist Nation in the Jade Purity Dharma Pearl and entered the rainbow light, but the bronze chain-shadow bound him as he was carried upward.

• Li Qingyun severed his mortal shell, and the mysterious soul corpse in the Burial Destruction Abyss opened its eyes as its head merged with him.
• Li Qingyun took more steps toward heaven than Xuanhuo, Qingwen, and the other twenty-one cultivators after severing their mortal bodies.
• Li Qingyun severed his accumulated dragon aura, which propelled him and his intact Jade Blue Daoist Nation close to the rainbow light of guidance.
• Li Qingyun collapsed his Jade Blue Daoist Nation and hid its fragments in the Jade Purity Dharma Pearl before entering the rainbow light alongside the other cultivators.
• The bronze chain-shadow appeared and bound Li Qingyun as the rainbow light carried him upward through chaos.