Chapter Summaries

Chu Mu explored Great Heng’s Celestial Domain, marveling at its realism and the vast system of services, currency, and merit that bound cultivators to Great Heng. He left wondering whether the Upper Realm had an even more advanced order.

• Chu Mu entered the Celestial Domain and appeared in a Nascent Soul palace above Crimson Flame City.
• Chu Mu examined how the Celestial Domain connected Great Heng’s citizens across immense distances and speculated that it relied on the Heavenly Palace’s legacy and possibly the Heavenly Heart.
• Chu Mu tested the realm’s realism and concluded that it could simulate nearly seventy percent of his near-Pseudo-Fifth-Order power.
• Chu Mu browsed the Celestial Domain’s features and learned that Cloud Coins paid for access while merit granted authority to use its benefits.
• Chu Mu reflected that Great Heng’s Celestial Domain drew cultivators into its system of service, then wondered whether the Upper Realm had a still more elaborate order.

Chu Mu reunited with Qin Zhaoxue, who revealed that the Great Heng traitor behind the demon calamity had once been a trusted Nascent Soul commander and had allied with the Demon World. She explained that he had corrupted the Sky Palace Relic and demonized the Demon Domain Heaven and Earth before it vanished, leaving Chu Mu with the truth behind the calamity but no clue to the vanished realm.

• Qin Zhaoxue visited Chu Mu at the Cloud Top Palace, and they discussed their long-standing agreement concerning her father’s traitorous enemy.
• Qin Zhaoxue told Chu Mu that the traitor had been Great Heng’s Imperial Forest Army Lord and Dragon Guard chief before releasing suppressed True Demons and escaping.
• Qin Zhaoxue explained that Great Heng had feared suppressing the traitor because he could open a passage to the Demon World from the Demon Domain Heaven and Earth.
• Chu Mu learned that the traitor had colluded with True Demons and It, turning the Soul Purification Trial into nourishment and causing the Sky Palace Relic’s rules to collapse.
• Qin Zhaoxue said the Demon Domain Heaven and Earth had been completely demonized with the Devil Race’s help and had vanished without leaving a trace.

Qin Zhaoxue explained that the Demon Realm might be manipulating the Cultivation World and that It’s influence had severed the path to the Fifth Order. She asked Chu Mu to help confront the dangers in Demon Domain Heaven and Earth and the Desert Sea, but he demanded to know what Great Heng would offer before agreeing.

• Qin Zhaoxue told Chu Mu that Demon Domain Heaven and Earth had hidden itself in the Silent Desert Sea and might have opened a passage to the Demon Realm.
• Qin Zhaoxue explained that the world suppressed all beings above the Fourth Order because its origin had been weakened by restraining It.
• Qin Zhaoxue asked Chu Mu to help with the transformed Demon Domain Heaven and Earth and the silent death in the Desert Sea.
• Chu Mu refused to risk himself for vague promises, arguing that he might survive the world's collapse and use it to reach the Fifth Order.
• Chu Mu asked whether he could glimpse the truth of the Heavenly Domain, leaving Qin Zhaoxue silent as he weighed Great Heng's gratitude against the danger and cost of helping.

Chu Mu demanded permission to comprehend the Heavenly Heart, and Qin Zhaoxue reported his condition to her Father Emperor, who agreed. After entering the Heavenly Domain’s dark-golden palace, Chu Mu received temporary authority connected to the Heavenly Heart and realized how dangerous granting it to him could be.

• Chu Mu refused to change his condition and told Qin Zhaoxue to report it to someone with authority to decide.
• Qin Zhaoxue told her Father Emperor that Chu Mu wanted to comprehend the Heavenly Heart, and he approved the request.
• Qin Zhaoxue returned to Chu Mu and escorted him through the Heavenly Domain to the dark-golden palace.
• Chu Mu examined the flickering lights and inferred that the Heavenly Heart carried the knowledge and rules that made the Heavenly Domain’s virtual realm function.
• Chu Mu noticed a mark on his palm and realized that the authority it represented could let him strike a fatal blow against Great Heng.

Chu Mu entered the Heavenly Domain’s illusory Star Sea and began comprehending the ancient cultivation imprints, relying on his Heaven and Earth Furnace to absorb their dangerous soul taint. Elsewhere, the Heng Emperor confronted his gathered children over their failure to serve Great Heng and their doubts about granting authority to an outsider.

• Chu Mu learned that the Star Sea held the accumulated cultivation imprints of the ancient Sky Palace and Great Heng, and he began comprehending them under Spirit Radiance Blessing.
• Chu Mu discovered that the imprints flooded his mind with countless lives and attached a dangerous Divine Soul Aura to him, which his Heaven and Earth Furnace refined into pure soul energy.
• Chu Mu balanced the imprints’ erosion against his endurance and focused on gathering insights to perfect the Dao of the Heaven and Earth Furnace during his ten years in the Star Sea.
• The Heng Emperor appeared before his gathered children and rebuked them for neglecting the realm and competing for power during the great calamity.
• One of the Heng Emperor’s sons objected to granting authority to Chu Mu because he was an outsider, and the Heng Emperor asked whether the others agreed.

Chu Mu explored ancient imprints in the Star Sea and pieced together the events behind the Sky Palace’s collapse. He learned that its Heavenly Heart order vanished after the Soul Purification Plan, and that the Sky Palace’s powerful figures also began to disappear, leaving the cause of its loss of strength unresolved.

• Chu Mu kept the Heavenly Heart authority without breaking through the boundary around the great hall or provoking Great Heng.
• Chu Mu spent about a year exploring the Star Sea, where he found that deeper imprints preserved older lives but brought greater danger and corruption.
• Chu Mu examined an ancient Sky Palace cultivator’s imprint and saw that order had been stable long after the Sand Tail Scorpion Cataclysm.
• Chu Mu compared many fragmented imprints and learned that the Heavenly Heart had consumed cultivation memories to forge the Heavenly Domain.
• Chu Mu reconstructed how the Soul Purification Plan killed vast numbers of cultivators before the Heavenly Domain and its restrictions vanished.
• Chu Mu learned that Sky Palace experts initially quelled resistance after the order disappeared, but appeared less and less often as turmoil continued.

Chu Mu explored beyond the Star Sea and discovered a projection of Heavenly Heart, where the Heng Emperor explained the Sky Palace Authority and the collapse of the Sky Palace. The chapter ended with Chu Mu learning that the Upper Realm had unilaterally closed the Ascension Passage, making it impossible to ascend even with the highest authority.

• Chu Mu crossed the Star Sea's edge and found a vision of worlds being born and destroyed, which he dispelled as an illusion.
• Chu Mu identified a giant stone as a projection of Heavenly Heart and met the Heng Emperor, who explained the effects and ranks of Sky Palace Authority.
• The Heng Emperor said the Sky Palace powerhouses had likely escaped to the Upper Realm when Heavenly Heart neared dormancy and the Ascension Passage closed.
• Chu Mu sensed the aura of another world within Heavenly Heart's projection and asked whether its revival meant the Ascension Passage had reopened.
• The Heng Emperor revealed that the Upper Realm had closed the passage and that even Creator Authority could not restore it.

Chu Mu learned that generations of cultivators had tried to cross the Chaotic Void, while Emperor Heng revealed that a True Spirit bloodline had once enabled a senior to reach the fifth tier. As Emperor Heng proposed using the Celestial Heart to seize the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast’s bloodline, Chu Mu realized that Emperor Heng himself bore a Celestial Heart Imprint and questioned what that meant for his freedom.

• Emperor Heng told Chu Mu that an earlier cultivator’s Devouring Method had failed to refine more than a wisp of Chaotic Void energy.
• Emperor Heng said more than a thousand Nascent Soul Great Cultivators had entered the Chaotic Void in search of the Upper Realm, but every recorded Life Soul Lamp had gone out.
• Emperor Heng explained that a senior who refined True Spirit Blood Essence had reached the fifth tier in the void but could no longer return to the Cultivation World.
• Emperor Heng suggested that controlling the Celestial Heart could let them refine the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast’s bloodline.
• Chu Mu realized Emperor Heng bore a Celestial Heart Imprint and asked him about it.

Emperor Heng explained that Heavenly Heart had subtly guided Great Heng for centuries to suppress the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast, while Chu Mu examined the World Coordinate leading to the Upper Realm. He learned that Heavenly Heart had been rebuilt from a damaged Profound Heaven Treasure, and the cause of its damage remained unknown.

• Emperor Heng told Chu Mu that Heavenly Heart had guided Great Heng’s actions toward suppressing the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast and explained how the passages to the Sky Palace Relic had appeared.
• Chu Mu questioned whether Emperor Heng might be exploiting the Demon Calamity to escape Heavenly Heart’s influence, but kept his suspicions to himself.
• Chu Mu touched the diamond-shaped jade projection and briefly perceived the World Coordinate linking the Cultivation World to the Upper Realm.
• Emperor Heng identified Heavenly Heart as a damaged Profound Heaven Treasure rebuilt into a half-world wonder that could interfere with the world’s laws.
• Emperor Heng said the treasure’s damage likely involved a higher power, though the truth had been lost to time.

Chu Mu studied the Heavenly Heart projection during his ten-year term and later spent years turning his insights into a Bronze Mirror that could decipher world coordinates. He emerged to find the Desert Sea being rapidly purified and the Demon Side’s forces still massing, and he prepared to use the mirror to pinpoint the Upper Realm’s coordinates.

• The Heng Emperor said he had broken free of the Heavenly Heart’s restraints but could not leave for long, then vanished.
• Chu Mu examined the Heavenly Heart projection and concluded that Sky Palace’s Ascension Passage would lead him into the control of its Upper Realm Dao Lineage.
• Chu Mu spent the remainder of his ten-year term studying the projection and its coordinate and transmission systems under a Spirit Radiance Blessing.
• When his authority expired, Chu Mu returned to Crimson Flame City, severed his connection to the Heavenly Domain, and secluded himself for several years to sort his insights.
• Chu Mu emerged with a Bronze Mirror that could decipher world coordinates and saw that the Desert Sea’s purification had advanced while demons and monsters gathered beyond the city.
• Chu Mu concluded that the mirror could help him pinpoint the Upper Realm’s coordinates in reality if he prepared carefully.

Chu Mu used the Bronze Mirror to locate the Upper Realm, but the strain shattered it and injured him. After recovering, he confirmed that the Cultivation World’s fifth-tier shackles were loosening only for the Demon Clan, and resolved that escaping into the Upper Realm through the Chaotic Void was his only way beyond the world’s limits.

• Chu Mu activated the Bronze Mirror, endured its immense mana drain, and sensed the Upper Realm’s direction before the mirror shattered and injured him.
• Chu Mu recovered in a little over a month and found that his Heaven and Earth Furnace and cultivation had reached the fourth-tier limit.
• Chu Mu sensed that the Cultivation World’s fifth-tier restrictions had loosened only for the Demon Clan, while remaining impassable for other races.
• Chu Mu rejected plans to break through within the world and reaffirmed that he had to use the Chaotic Void to reach the Upper Realm.

At the edge of the World Halo, Chu Mu discovered that the Heaven and Earth Furnace could refine chaotic energy and that absorbing it made the furnace feel more complete. He stopped short of leaving the world's influence and began devouring chaotic energy across the range of his Divine Sense.

• Chu Mu reached the edge of the World Halo and tested a wisp of chaotic energy in his palm.
• Chu Mu realized the Heaven and Earth Furnace instinctively craved chaotic energy and could refine it.
• Chu Mu drew chaotic energy into the furnace, where it was instantly suppressed and refined, making the furnace feel more complete.
• Chu Mu decided he did not want the Heaven and Earth Furnace to become a complete world, since that could obstruct his path to the fifth rank.
• Chu Mu stayed at the world's edge and expanded the furnace's devouring force to the limit of his Divine Sense, swallowing chaotic energy.

Chu Mu used the completed Heaven and Earth Furnace to absorb and refine the Desert Sea’s Silent Death Power, then ventured into its depths, where he found a far denser deathly ocean. He began using the immense power within the furnace to improve his Lifebound Magic Treasures.

• Chu Mu discovered that the completed Heaven and Earth Furnace could absorb Silent Death Power without being eroded and refined it into Furnace True Essence.
• Chu Mu devoured the deathly stillness across nearly ten thousand miles, briefly restoring vitality to the purified Desert Sea before the surrounding deathly stillness surged back.
• Chu Mu decided to investigate the Sky Palace Relic and stepped deeper into the Desert Sea, relying on the furnace to protect him from the Silent Death Power.
• After traveling for several months, Chu Mu reached a boundary where Silent Death Power had become a viscous ocean that could dissolve a Supreme-Grade Magic Treasure in moments.
• Chu Mu brought out the Nine Dragons Suppressing Prison Tower and his long blade, then began tempering both Lifebound Magic Treasures with Furnace True Essence.

Chu Mu crossed the Silent Death Ocean while using its power to nurture his Lifebound Magic Treasures, then encountered a humanoid body assembled from the remains of multiple beings. After detecting the scent of blood, decay, and slaughter, he burst out of the ocean into a vast, unfamiliar place.

• Chu Mu used the Heaven and Earth Furnace to nurture his two Lifebound Magic Treasures, replenishing its consumed Furnace True Essence with Silent Death Power as he crossed the ocean.
• Chu Mu stayed alert for unusual spiritual entities but traveled for more than a month without seeing any anomalies.
• Chu Mu struck and destroyed a soundlessly approaching humanoid body, then gathered its scattered flesh and discovered it had been assembled from multiple remains.
• Chu Mu resumed his cautious advance and, three days later, sensed a familiar scent of blood, decay, and slaughter.
• Chu Mu rushed toward the scent and broke through the Silent Death Ocean into a vast place where the ocean had vanished.

Chu Mu explored the Sky Palace Ancient Battlefield, where the corpses of ancient human and demon forces had formed a vast domain saturated with Silent Death Power. After discovering a fifth-order dragon beast corpse and defeating a bizarre Avatar, he concluded that the battlefield’s creatures lacked intelligence and were not a serious threat.

• Chu Mu examined a Sky Palace Soaring Sky Legion corpse and realized the ancient legions and powerful figures may have perished on the battlefield rather than mysteriously vanished.
• Chu Mu surveyed the countless corpses and identified the battlefield as the likely source of the bizarre blood-and-flesh amalgamations.
• Chu Mu studied a fourth-order Sand Tail Scorpion corpse and found traces of Silent Death Power and Heaven's Evolution within it.
• Chu Mu discovered a mountain-sized fifth-order dragon beast corpse and rushed toward it in an enlarged form.
• A human-bodied, beast-headed Avatar attacked Chu Mu, who caught its sword, crushed its neck, and analyzed the creature.
• Chu Mu concluded that the battlefield’s Avatars instinctively sought vitality but were unlikely to develop intelligence or reach the true fifth order.

Chu Mu explored an ancient battlefield and learned that Fifth Order beings could wield Heaven and Earth Power even when the world withheld its blessing. The deeper he traveled, the more the battlefield suggested that a failed resistance to a greater calamity had left the world sealed as a cage.

• Chu Mu studied a Fifth Order flood dragon corpse and reasoned that the ancient Human Race and Demon Race had fought against the sealing of their world after a greater calamity.
• He cut into the flood dragon and entered its body, where he fought dim-witted Dragon Kind Aberrations and reached its Demon Core.
• Chu Mu found that the Demon Core had lost its original power and now sustained the corpse through a cycle of Silent Death Power, so he left it behind.
• Chu Mu continued across the vast battlefield, battling Flesh and Blood Monsters, some of which were as strong as Nascent Soul Great Cultivators.
• He observed that Sand Tail Scorpion Clan corpses vastly outnumbered Human Race and Demon Race casualties, then found increasingly dense remains of Fifth Order Great Experts deeper in the battlefield.

Chu Mu examined the worlds colliding at the end of the Ancient Battlefield and inferred that the Demon Domain had crashed into a world-prison that held the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast. He remained wary of entering either world, hoping to uncover knowledge about chaos and the Upper Realm before risking the step to fifth-order God Transformation.

• Chu Mu destroyed the Flesh and Blood Monsters roaming the wilderness and returned to his ordinary form.
• Chu Mu observed the shattered Demon Domain world beside a vast world whose rules seemed to extend from the Cultivation World.
• Chu Mu connected Heavenly Heart, the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast, Great Heng, and the Demon Domain's arrival, but questioned who had orchestrated the collision and why.
• Chu Mu reflected that he was ready to reach fifth-order God Transformation but lacked knowledge of the Chaotic Void and feared the dangers beyond the Cultivation World.
• After nearly half a year observing the collision, Chu Mu felt a strong foreboding about entering either world and recalled the Heavenly Evolution Sacred Beast's past attack and other unresolved mysteries.

Chu Mu decided to seek a fixed coordinate for a future breakthrough to the fifth tier, choosing the ancient being imprisoned within the world as his anchor. After secretly completing his transaction with Heng Emperor and withdrawing from Great Heng’s system, he traveled from the southwest Demon World toward Great Chu as demon armies continued moving west.

• Chu Mu concluded that the world-prison was weakening and considered returning to investigate after he reached the fifth tier.
• Chu Mu decided that the ancient being imprisoned within the world could serve as a fixed coordinate, then returned through the Silent Death Ocean to the Desert Sea.
• Chu Mu secretly fulfilled his transaction with Heng Emperor for twenty years, devouring Silent Death Power across the regions of Great Heng’s Nine Great Military Departments.
• Chu Mu used the need for secluded cultivation as an excuse to end the transaction and withdraw from Great Heng’s system of order.
• Chu Mu traveled through the southwest Demon World toward Great Chu and saw demon armies marching toward the southwest.

Chu Mu left the Cultivation World and entered the Chaotic Void, using a Bronze Mirror guided by a Sacred Soul to test a path back. After confirming he could return, he stepped into the chaos again to continue his journey.

• Chu Mu traveled to the world’s edge after arranging for Wangcai to remain near Yangtai Mountain in the Moyun Gobi.
• Chu Mu stepped beyond the Cultivation World’s protection and found himself surrounded by the endless, deathly stillness of the Chaotic Void.
• Chu Mu used the Heaven and Earth Furnace to refine chaotic currents and sustain himself.
• Chu Mu followed the Sacred Soul’s guidance through the Bronze Mirror and successfully returned to the Cultivation World.
• Chu Mu dispersed the mirror’s guidance and stepped back into the Chaotic Void.

Chu Mu spent years in the Chaotic Void preparing to break through to the fifth rank by merging his cultivation into the Heaven and Earth Furnace. His secluded cultivation neared its end as his aura returned and an oppressive presence settled over the surrounding void.

• Chu Mu meditated for months, calmed his mind, and noticed unusual ripples in the Chaotic Void before returning to his stone.
• Chu Mu focused on the Heaven and Earth Furnace and recognized the Furnace Path as the fusion of his Dao, concluding that he had already crossed the greatest hurdle to Spirit Transformation.
• Chu Mu began a long seclusion to enter the fifth rank, while a chaos tide, a vast rosy glow, and distant howls disturbed the surrounding void over the years.
• Chu Mu resumed his cultivation after confirming that the distant upheavals were only residual shockwaves.
• As Chu Mu's seclusion neared its end, his aura emerged, faint waves rippled through the Chaotic Void, and an oppressive presence descended.