Chapter Summaries

The authorities launched assaults on Five Stars Town and Seagull Beach, where the Mud Embryo Sect countered with forbidden techniques and armed fighters. Meng Chengshuang was shot after her danger sense failed, while Yu Hong’s group prepared to face two powerful attackers at the beach.

• The Old Woman rejected Yuan Ming’s suggestion to recruit Yu Hong and agreed to let Yuan Ming fight him.
• Masked Mud Embryo Sect fighters ambushed the convoy in Five Stars Town, where Meng Chengshuang identified the Neural Interference Art and ordered a retreat.
• A sniper shot Meng Chengshuang in the chest without triggering her spiritual warning, leaving her gravely wounded.
• Yu Hong and Cheng Shu led the sorcerers at Seagull Beach as Zheng Ying ordered them to form the Small Temple Mountain Array.
• Two riders on beach motorcycles evaded the soldiers’ bullets and charged toward the sorcerers’ formation, radiating dangerous killing intent.

Zheng Hong betrayed the group and disabled the array, forcing Yu Hong into battle against Yuan Ming and Vice Leader Lin Shan. Yu Hong defeated Lin Shan and killed Zheng Hong, while Yuan Ming remained incapacitated in the seawater.

• Zheng Hong knocked the Inherited Dao Artifact from Zheng Ying, collapsed the array, and poisoned the nearby fighters before fleeing toward the enemies.
• Yu Hong used the Speed Person, the Word Speaker, and Constantly Hungry to break Yuan Ming’s attacks and send Yuan Ming crashing into the seawater.
• Lin Shan arrived, revealed herself as the Mud Embryo Sect’s Vice Leader, and ordered Zheng Hong to help Yuan Ming while she faced Yu Hong.
• Yu Hong struck Lin Shan with a physical blow that sent her flying into the seawater.
• Yu Hong pursued Zheng Hong and tore open his abdomen, killing him.

Yu Hong killed Lin Shan after enduring her desperate divine-intent attacks, then joined the injured survivors as responders arrived. Meanwhile, Meng Chengshuang fought a misaligned freak in Five Stars Town, where both unleashed their Inherited Dao Artifacts and the military prepared to intervene.

• Yu Hong blocked Lin Shan's red-shadow attacks and stalled her until she weakened, then used Constantly Hungry and Shadow Fiends to prevent her escape.
• Yu Hong found Lin Shan dead in the shallows and took a pouch of insect eggs from her body.
• Yu Hong dismissed his strength to Zheng Ming and the others as an enhancement from his Inherited Dao Artifact while emergency responders treated the injured.
• A helicopter fired missiles at a nearby building as Yu Hong stood firm amid the blast, and the other Primordial Embryo Seven Son fled pursuit.
• In Five Stars Town, Meng Chengshuang faced a misaligned freak who evaded a sniper's shot, and they both unleashed their Inherited Dao Artifacts.
• The military commander ordered snipers to target the opposing side and prepared artillery for a saturation bombardment if Meng Chengshuang lost.

Yu Hong traveled to Five Stars Town after contact with it was cut off, while the Pure Dust Temple learned he had defeated Yuan Ming and Vice Leader Lin Shan. The temple elders chose to stand behind him despite their doubts about his extraordinary strength.

• Yu Hong rode toward Five Stars Town with Zheng Xia and Cheng Shu, and he told them Yuan Ming would no longer pose a threat.
• Cheng Shu and Zheng Xia wondered how Yu Hong had achieved such impossible speed and strength, despite his claim that his Inherited Dao Artifact was responsible.
• Yu Hen told the Pure Dust Temple elders that Zheng Rou had killed Yuan Ming and defeated Lin Shan through terrifying close-quarters combat.
• The elders struggled to explain Yu Hong's strength and considered what his revelations meant for the temple.
• Yu Mo argued that Yu Hong belonged to the Pure Dust Temple and was fighting for it, and the elders agreed to support him and hear him out when he returned.

Yu Hong entered Five Stars Town and found it saturated with residual mental power, while Meng Chengshuang fought the Mud Embryo Sect amid a signal-jamming Neural Art. After artillery destroyed the formation core and shattered the battle’s concealment, Yu Hong met the mysterious Qing Huang as the fighting shifted in the military’s favor.

• Yu Hong measured the unusually dense mental-power residue in Five Stars Town and found armed soldiers along the road sitting motionless and unresponsive.
• Yu Hong sent Zheng Xia and Cheng Shu to investigate the soldiers while he hurried toward the strongest mental aura; in the town center, Meng Chengshuang fought the Mud Embryo Sect’s Sect Leader as Yuan Ruhai and Qing Huang watched.
• Qing Huang sensed Yu Hong approaching and prepared to confront him, but an explosion destroyed the formation core, ended the signal jamming, and erased the large-scale Neural Art.
• Qing Huang vanished as artillery struck his position, Yuan Ruhai, and the Mud Embryo Sect’s Sect Leader; after several minutes of bombardment, the Sect Leader and Yuan Ruhai’s mental auras weakened while a third remained intact.
• Meng Chengshuang reached Yu Hong with a bloodstain across her chest and reported that military sorcerers and artillery had suppressed the Mud Embryo Sect leaders and forced them to retreat.

After the Mud Embryo Sect’s strongholds were destroyed, Yu Hong helped the wounded Meng Chengshuang and returned to Pure Dust Temple, where he concealed how he had defeated the sect’s experts. The chapter ended with the temple elders learning he had begun cultivating the seventh layer, the Dreadful Shadow.

• Meng Chengshuang explained that the Seven Fiends Alliance had hired powerful experts, then collapsed from her injuries, and Yu Hong carried her to an ambulance.
• The town’s fog cleared, and Yu Hong told Yu Mo that Meng Chengshuang was out of danger; Yu Mo praised him and condemned Zheng Hong’s betrayal.
• Liu Shanhe told Yu Hong that the Mud Embryo Sect’s strongholds had been destroyed, though its Sect Leader and Vice Leader had survived, and asked for help with future troubles.
• Red Snake and Headless Sword discussed witnessing Yu Hong overwhelm the Mud Embryo Sect’s Vice Leader, while Cheng Shu confirmed he wanted to trade sect techniques for their secret techniques.
• Back at Pure Dust Temple, Yu Hong claimed his victory over Lin Shan and Yuan Ming had depended on luck, then revealed he was cultivating the seventh layer, the Dreadful Shadow.

Yu Hong persuaded Pure Dust Temple's elders to invest its rare resources in helping him reach unprecedented heights, while he offered Rogue Cultivators a powerful spell technique in exchange for joining his Mutual Aid Alliance. Cheng Shu, Red Snake, and Headless Sword decided to accept despite their suspicions about the alliance's hidden cost.

• Yu Mo and the other elders agreed to give Zhengrou another Heart Exchange Pill and a place in the Five Spirits Spring.
• Cheng Shu brought fifteen other Rogue Cultivators to Yu Hong's courtyard to trade secret techniques for orthodox spells.
• Yu Hong offered them Fluid Spirit Light, a spell that adapted to each cultivator's weaknesses, on the condition that they join his Mutual Aid Alliance.
• Cheng Shu demonstrated that Fluid Spirit Light had already made her at least seventy percent stronger, and she explained its mutual-sharing principle to Red Snake and Headless Sword.
• Red Snake and Headless Sword chose to join Yu Hong's alliance despite Headless Sword's suspicion that the spell carried a hidden price.

Yu Hong fought Qing Huang, a Dark Celestial Master sent by the Seven Fiends Alliance, after learning the alliance had created the Yin Qi Sky Pillar. He defeated Qing Huang by locating his true body and offered to help make up for his physical weakness, leaving Qing Huang tempted by the bargain.

• Yu Hong’s Mutual Aid Alliance expanded as he gave aging Wild Sorcerers spirit light that repaired their deficiencies.
• Qing Huang confronted Yu Hong and attacked him with Shadow Viewing, but Yu Hong escaped and pursued him to a beach outside Taizhou.
• Yu Hong and Qing Huang exchanged blows, revealed their movement and defensive spells, and learned that each was wary of the other’s strength.
• Qing Huang revealed that he was one of three Dark Celestial Masters in the Seven Fiends Alliance and said the alliance leader had created the Yin Qi Sky Pillar.
• Yu Hong rejected Qing Huang’s invitation to join the alliance and charged him, then used his spirit light and silver-blue radiance to withstand Qing Huang’s mental-force spear.
• Yu Hong found Qing Huang’s true body, seized him by the neck, and offered to help him gain a powerful physical body in exchange for Qing Huang’s forbidden spells.

Yu Hong returned from his encounter with Qing Huang carrying Replication Art, while Qing Huang discovered that the spiritual light had restored his strength and left Taizhou. At the Mutual Aid Alliance’s first formal gathering, Yu Hong faced demands to share his fusion method and killed wanted criminal Mao Rong by extracting her spiritual light.

• Yu Hong returned from the beach with Replication Art, and Qing Huang ordered his driver to take him back to headquarters after realizing Yu Hong’s defenses were beyond his abilities.
• Over the next ten-odd days, authorities dismantled the Mud Embryo Sect’s remaining network, Yu Hong’s reputation spread, and hundreds of practitioners joined the Mutual Aid Alliance.
• Red Snake, Headless Sword, and Cheng Shu noticed armed practitioners among the crowd at the alliance’s first formal gathering in an empty factory.
• Blood River Zhao Zhinian demanded that Yu Hong share the spiritual-light fusion method, and Wind Seeking Hand Mao Rong stepped forward to claim it.
• Yu Hong extracted Mao Rong’s spiritual light in front of the gathering, leaving her body a black dried corpse.

Yu Hong used the Great Spirit Art to drain and strengthen the sorcerers’ spiritual radiance, killing Mao Rong before returning the power and advancing to the fourth level. He established the Mutual Aid Alliance with Cheng Shu as his assistant, while a shadowy figure at the Dao Lineage headquarters ordered an operative to eliminate Lu Zhengshun and erase evidence of a plot at Purple Harmony Palace.

• Yu Hong killed Mao Rong by extracting his spiritual radiance, then warned the gathered sorcerers that a disaster was coming and began absorbing their power.
• Yu Hong broke through to the Great Spirit Art’s fourth level, Dusk, and returned strengthened spiritual radiance to the sorcerers, improving their protection and abilities.
• Red Snake found that her internal injuries had been suppressed, while Cheng Shu and the other Wild Sorcerers realized the strengthened radiance could reduce the harm caused by sorcery.
• Yu Hong explained that he wanted to build an alliance independent of other forces and gather orthodox arts, and the sorcerers formed the Mutual Aid Alliance with Yu Hong as leader and Cheng Shu as assistant.
• At the Dao Lineage headquarters, a shadowy figure told a red operative to pin the Purple Harmony Palace plot on the Seven Fiends Alliance, dispose of everyone involved, and target Lu Zhengshun.

Ku Chan and Ying Er enjoyed a private moment at Purple Harmony Palace while Yu Qin discussed palace affairs and the Seven Fiends Alliance's attack on Feixia. In Taizhou, Yu Hong took a Heart Exchange Pill to stabilize his breakthrough, and his spiritual power surged as the dangerous effects of the Observe Self Art began.

• Ku Chan reunited with Ying Er at Purple Ying Lake, and they hid themselves inside a sphere of water as they embraced.
• Yu Qin and a woman in white discussed Jin Zhi's work, his cultivation, and Qing Huang's attempted assassination of Feixia before arguing over who would care for a future grandson.
• Yu Hong and the Yu Generation elders formed an array to lend him spiritual power and prepare him to take a pill.
• Yu Hong entered seclusion, swallowed a Heart Exchange Pill, and felt his spiritual power rise from the sixties to over a hundred.
• Yu Hong began facing the dangerous effects of the Observe Self Art as the chapter ended.

Yu Hong stabilized the seventh layer of the Observe Self Art with the Heart Exchange Pill and secluded himself to refine his sharpened mental power. Meanwhile, a Yin Qi Sky Pillar appeared near Huangsong Island, and two weeks later Zheng Ming investigated a haunting that ended with a black shoe appearing at a doorway.

• Yu Hong sensed that the Heart Exchange Pill had produced a seventh-level Terror Shadow and began adjusting his techniques while studying the Replication Art.
• The Yu Generation elders took turns guarding Yu Hong as he spent two weeks in seclusion replacing his old mental power with sharpened mental power.
• At Huangsong Island, Ning Ruofei revealed to Yuan Ruhai that their operation had been a diversion and said they would exploit the chaos caused by the opening Gates of Despair to attack their enemies.
• Zheng Ming investigated a wealthy businessman surnamed Li's house after Li's son disappeared and found dense Yin Qi clinging to an oil painting.
• Zheng Ming heard small footsteps in the upstairs corridor and saw a glossy black shoe at the doorway of a room that had been closed.

Zheng Ming vanished while investigating a missing boy, and Pure Dust Temple found itself confronting a surge of dangerous Grudge Marks across Taizhou. As Yu Hong absorbed the Five Spirits Spring in seclusion, a mysterious Wooden Door appeared behind him in the Quiet Room.

• Zheng Ming entered Li Zhaoran’s room, heard the boy say “Grandma,” and mysteriously disappeared; the Li family reported the incident to the police and Pure Dust Temple.
• Yu Hong detected a rising red value and began absorbing the Five Spirits Spring to strengthen his spiritual power.
• Yu Mo learned that Zheng Ming had vanished and discovered a Dao lineage notice reporting four Yin Qi Sky Pillars, including one near Taizhou.
• Yu Mo and the Pure Dust Temple Daoists joined the Official Sorcerers at Yanxia Bay Community, defeated a powerful Grudge Mark, and rescued the unconscious Zheng Ming.
• Zheng Ying and other Pure Dust Temple members handled a growing wave of cases across Taizhou, while Yu Hong continued his secluded cultivation.
• Yu Hong opened his eyes and saw a brown Wooden Door emerge from Black Mist behind him.

Yu Hong continued absorbing the Five Spirits Spring while Zheng Ying led Qing Yun and Qing Ding to investigate the disappearance of Boss Feng at his isolated manor. The team became trapped by a Spirit Calamity, and a pair of enemies plotting against the Pure Dust Temple entered the manor as Agris arrived outside.

• Yu Hong sent Agris and forty dragon lizards to investigate after Zheng Xia hesitated to interrupt his seclusion.
• Zheng Ying, Qing Yun, and Qing Ding searched Boss Feng's remote manor, where they found a disturbing message and drawing carved into a bedroom door.
• Two black-robed men entered the manor, planning to eliminate Dao Seed Class elites and blame the deaths on Grudgemarks.
• The carved message vanished, Qing Yun and Qing Ding disappeared, and Zheng Ying's Terror Shadow was lost in the darkness.
• Zheng Ying's Calamity Spirit Talisman ignited, and she recognized the presence behind her as a Spirit Calamity.

Yu Hong continued refining his mental power while supernatural disturbances spread around Pure Dust Temple and the Deep Mountain Villa. Zheng Ying escaped a spiritual calamity and an attack by two powerful Mud Embryo Sect members, but remained trapped inside the villa.

• Yu Hong noticed his mental power readings fluctuating wildly, but Yu Zhong urged him to stay in seclusion, and he returned to refining his mental power.
• Zheng Ying recognized a spiritual calamity at the Deep Mountain Villa and rushed into the living room, where she found Qing Yun and Qing Ding sitting motionless.
• Ning Ruofei and Yuan Ruhai entered the villa and decided to eliminate the people inside before leaving.
• Zheng Ying fought two half-human, half-spider monsters with Bai Jiang and a trump-card talisman, but the battle destroyed her shadow of terror and left her badly wounded.
• Ning Ruofei and Yuan Ruhai confronted Zheng Ying, but she escaped their first attack by using her shadow of terror to replace herself.
• Yuan Ruhai sent a black bandage after Zheng Ying as she hid in a bedroom, while she realized the man who had spoken possessed the power of a temple master.

Zheng Ying tried to escape the manor while evading Yuan Ruhai, but Ning Ruofei trapped her and nearly killed her. Agris burst in and struck Ning Ruofei, giving Zheng Ying a chance to flee, but the manor’s monsters surrounded her before the entire scene vanished into black mist.

• Zheng Ying abandoned her plan to escape through the window and moved upstairs, where Yuan Ruhai found her and attacked with black bandages.
• Zheng Ying’s Inherited Dao Artifact briefly resisted Yuan Ruhai, but he wounded her and drove her into a room with a Black Humanoid monster.
• Ning Ruofei summoned a monstrous infant that seized Zheng Ying, whose desperate mental outburst reached beyond the manor.
• Agris crashed through the wall and struck Ning Ruofei, while the infant exploded and Agris dissolved into black mist.
• Yuan Ruhai fled outside and was burned to ashes by Dark Red Flames, while Ning Ruofei survived as disembodied mental strength and was swallowed by the manor’s spiritual-disaster forces.
• Zheng Ying reached the iron gate but found monsters blocking her, and black mist soon engulfed the manor and erased everyone and all traces of the incident.

The Spirit Calamity spread across Yassong as powerful entities caused disappearances and overwhelmed investigators. Zheng Ying escaped the Deep Mountain Villa maimed, while the survivors from the Nine Directions Temple revealed that Bark Granny had helped destroy their temple; the Pure Dust Temple sought reinforcements as the threat grew.

• The Official Sorcerer Research Association identified the new disaster as the Spirit Calamity, whose entities possessed victims and contaminated spiritual power.
• Ning Ruofei and then Zheng Ying emerged from the Deep Mountain Villa, and rescue teams found Zheng Ying with her right arm severed.
• Yu Fang told Yu Mo and Yu Hen that Zheng Ying had survived a powerful monster by learning its rules and delaying it, while unknown monsters repeatedly drew her pursuers away.
• Three survivors from the Nine Directions Temple arrived gravely injured and reported that almost everyone in their temple had died investigating Bark Granny.
• Daoist Priest Yuanhua described how Bark Granny's monster had killed Kong Yan from a distance, shaking Yu Hen's confidence and prompting the Pure Dust Temple to seek reinforcements.
• At the hospital, Zheng Ying told Yu Mo and Yu Hen that a black shadow had repeatedly lured the half-human, half-spider monsters away from her.

Yu Hong learned that the Daoist Temple was cut off by a supernatural force while Agris vanished after confronting a powerful old woman. Unable to leave his secluded training without disrupting his cultivation, Yu Hong sent lizard beasts to investigate and arranged to contact the Mutual Aid Alliance.

• Zheng Ying explained that a black shadow had repeatedly saved her during the spirit calamity, and Yu Hen ordered the Daoists to defend the temple and shelter worshipers.
• Xun Yang tried to travel from the Daoist Temple but repeatedly found herself and her driver returned to the same street.
• An elderly woman attacked Agris with overwhelming mental force, but chanting and a distant gaze resisted her attempt to trace him to his source.
• Yu Hong discovered that Agris and four lizard beasts were missing, while signal problems and absent Daoist guards left him unable to learn what was happening at the temple.
• Yu Hong chose to send lizard beasts to inspect Pure Dust Temple and asked An SuSu to deliver a coded message to Cheng Shu and the other Mutual Aid Alliance members.

As Taizhou’s residents sought refuge at Pure Dust Temple amid unexplained illness and rising supernatural danger, Yu Hen’s group defended the temple from a swarm of locusts. Two days later, Yu Hong sensed that something was concealing the temple and interfering with his judgment as his mental power neared transformation.

• Zheng Xia learned that people across Taizhou were collapsing with unexplained symptoms, while Pure Dust Temple struggled to shelter the crowd and produce enough Spirit Aversion Talismans.
• Yu Fang detected traces of two immense mental forces clashing at the temple entrance, and Yu Hen noted that help from the Daoist network was unavailable because Asong also needed support.
• A swarm of locusts descended on Pure Dust Temple, and Yu Hen used the Crimson Phoenix Spirit Assault Array to buy time for more than three hundred people to enter before the gate was shut.
• Two days later, Yu Hong sensed that the environment had become dangerous and realized something was interfering with his judgment and concealing Pure Dust Temple.
• Yu Hong stood and went to the door after someone knocked.

Yu Hong sent Cheng Shu and Red Snake to Pure Dust Temple while completing his transformation, and Qing Huang arrived to confront the crisis there. Inside the temple’s Isolated Spirit Domain, Ning Ruofei killed Pure Dust Temple’s defenders, but a white-masked old man revealed that the apparent slaughter was an illusion and confronted him.

• Yu Hong sent Cheng Shu and Red Snake to Pure Dust Temple and asked Cheng Shu to call a number before beginning the Five Spirits Spring’s final transformation.
• Cheng Shu and Red Snake gathered thirty-six Mutual Aid Alliance sorcerers at Pure Dust Temple, where they met a white-masked old man who opened the Spirit Domain with a burst of black ripples.
• Yu Hong sensed Qing Huang’s arrival and resumed his transformation, hoping the strongest Alliance expert would handle the trouble.
• Inside the Isolated Spirit Domain, locusts overwhelmed Pure Dust Temple as Ning Ruofei broke the defenders’ barrier and killed Zheng Ming, Zheng Ying, Yu Hen, Yu Mo, and the other Daoists.
• Ning Ruofei suddenly found his heart missing and collapsed as the scene dissolved, revealing the empty courtyard and the white-masked old man, who told him he had grown weaker.