Chapter Summaries

Strange Fate Lines appeared across the sky, revealing the lives of everyone present and resisting the Metropolitan City God's attempts to destroy them. As the Mountain Ghost returned through Yu Yao, the City Gods prepared an all-out attack on Jiang Qiao, while the City God unleashed disasters tied to the past, present, and future.

• The collapsing coffin gave way to Fate Lines that exposed the life trajectories of the people present.
• Leng Quan and the City God of Lianzhen Prefecture tried to destroy the lines, but the Metropolitan City God's power could not stop them from restoring themselves.
• Leng Quan blamed Jiang Qiao for the upheaval and ordered the others to attack him, while the Great Grandmother called for the Mountain Ghost's help.
• The Mountain Ghost descended through Yu Yao and urged everyone to attack Jiang Qiao before its borrowed body could no longer control the Demon Tower.
• Yang Ling recognized the lines as Fate Lines and realized that Jiang Qiao knew someone who had mastered the ominous rules of fate.
• The City God opened three Vermilion Lacquered Great Doors and released disasters representing the past, present, and future.

The Mountain Ghost and the Metropolitan City God joined forces to destroy Jiang Qiao, but their attacks had no effect. A mysterious woman emerged from the Ink Green Ocean, cleared away the supernatural phenomena, and recognized Jiang Qiao as the Fated Person with a connection to her future self.

• The Metropolitan City God aged Leng Quan and the others while the Mountain Ghost used Yu Yao to activate the Demon Tower and trap Jiang Qiao in contracting blood vessels.
• The Locust Swarm, Chirping Cicada, and Jellyfish attacked Jiang Qiao as supernatural phenomena spread across the surrounding space and terrified survivors.
• Leng Quan and the others expected the combined assault to kill Jiang Qiao, but the attacks and rules proved completely ineffective against him.
• The Mountain Ghost and the Metropolitan City God prepared to attack again, but Jiang Qiao revealed a vast Ink Green Ocean behind him.
• A mysterious woman descended from the Ink Green Ocean and shattered the attacks, then asked Jiang Qiao how he had reached the River of History.

Jiang Qiao spoke with Ruyi Yuanjun, a historical image summoned from across the universe, and learned that his path into the Nether Era was guided by fate. As Ruyi Yuanjun examined the Soul-Calling Banner and asked what an immortal was, the Mountain Ghost judged her descent incomplete and demanded an explanation for Jiang Qiao’s actions.

• Jiang Qiao asked Ruyi Yuanjun about the River of History, and she explained how interference connects historical images to their past and future selves.
• Ruyi Yuanjun said she had learned about Jiang Qiao’s connection to her future self and its fate in the Depths of the Nether Sea.
• Jiang Qiao described his journey into the Small World, and Ruyi Yuanjun said his arrival was an arrangement of fate rather than an accident.
• Ruyi Yuanjun examined the Soul-Calling Banner and asked Jiang Qiao what an immortal was, prompting him to reconsider clues from earlier ruins.
• The Mountain Ghost sensed Ruyi Yuanjun’s power, concluded that her descent was incomplete, and demanded an explanation for Jiang Qiao’s conduct in its world.

Ruyi Yuanjun rejected the Mountain Ghost’s demand for compensation and declared that she would protect Jiang Qiao. When the Mountain Ghost and the City Gods threatened her, she attacked by devouring their Fate Lines, causing them to be erased.

• Leng Quan and the Mountain Ghost accused Jiang Qiao of killing innocents and demanded that Ruyi Yuanjun provide justice and compensation.
• The Mountain Ghost secretly hoped to secure compensation and preserve a way to give up Jiang Qiao without fighting.
• Ruyi Yuanjun said she planned to shield Jiang Qiao, then dismissed the Mountain Ghost and the City Gods as unworthy of demanding justice.
• The Mountain Ghost and Leng Quan threatened Ruyi Yuanjun, warning that her time and strength were limited.
• Ruyi Yuanjun waved her hand, and the Fate Lines of the Mountain Ghost, Leng Quan, the Prefects, and Great Grandmother of Fengyin Mountain began turning gray and disappearing.

Leng Quan and the other City Gods tried to destroy Jiang Qiao, but their attacks failed as they were erased from existence. Leng Quan invoked the Metropolitan City God’s greater power, and a vast eye appeared in the vortex above the battlefield.

• As Leng Quan and the City Gods faded from the world, Leng Quan ordered the Metropolitan City God to attack Jiang Qiao.
• The Metropolitan City God’s chains shattered before reaching Jiang Qiao, leaving Leng Quan and the other City Gods stunned.
• Mountain Ghosts realized it could not stop the erasure and urged Leng Quan to keep attacking, hoping Jiang Qiao was bluffing.
• Leng Quan prostrated himself before the shattered bronze cauldron and begged the Metropolitan City God to slay the demons.
• The Metropolitan City God surged into the vortex, vanished into the clouds, and was followed by the appearance of the City God’s Eye.

Ruyi Yuanjun faced the Metropolitan City God's Eye and Mountain Ghost's Abyssal Pollution while protecting Jiang Qiao. She unraveled the Fate Lines linking their enemies, leaving the Ancient Evil Spirit and the City God's attack collapsing.

• Leng Quan and the other city gods used the Metropolitan City God's Eye against Jiang Qiao, while their own bodies grew faint from Fate Line erasure.
• Mountain Ghost wounded Yu Yao to draw out the Demon Tower's pollutant and used the Ancient Evil Spirit as a medium to send it toward Jiang Qiao and Ruyi Yuanjun.
• Ruyi Yuanjun stood firm against both attacks and called her enemies hapless clowns.
• Ruyi Yuanjun grasped the Fate Lines and effortlessly untangled the strands connecting the city gods, the Great Grandmother of Fengyin Mountain, and Mountain Ghost.
• The Ancient Evil Spirit struggled as its body turned transparent, and the Metropolitan City God's Eye burst apart.

Ruyi Yuanjun overwhelmed the Mountain Ghost and the City Gods, leaving Leng Quan’s group desperate as they realized they could neither defeat her nor escape. Leng Quan claimed he had a way out and prepared to give the panicked City Gods an explanation.

• Yang Ling recognized Ruyi Yuanjun’s mastery of Fate Lines, while the Mountain Ghost realized its attacks could not threaten her and ordered the Demon Tower to unleash its full power.
• The Mountain Ghost’s blood sea and Abyss curse failed to turn the fight, and it began considering escape into the World’s Dark Side.
• Leng Quan and the exhausted City Gods watched Ruyi Yuanjun destroy the City God’s Eye and admitted they had underestimated a Half-God.
• The City Gods argued over whether to surrender to Jiang Qiao, while Leng Quan explained that their earlier hostility made surrender unlikely to save them.
• A City God blamed Leng Quan for provoking Jiang Qiao, and Leng Quan agreed before saying he had a way to resolve the crisis.
• The City Gods quickly praised Leng Quan and promised to follow his lead as they urged him to explain his plan.

Leng Quan betrayed the exhausted City Gods, sacrificing them to power the Metropolitan City God’s final move. As the Metropolitan City God awakened, a terrifying figure emerged from the Triple Gate in its chest.

• Leng Quan explained that the Metropolitan City God could sacrifice City God bodies to delay the demigod and give them a chance to escape.
• The Mountain Ghost fed the bodies of six City Gods, including Yan Yishu, into its blood-red heart and urged everyone to keep attacking.
• Leng Quan revealed that he intended to sacrifice the City Gods on the altar, then activated the bronze cauldron as they cursed and pleaded.
• The cauldron absorbed the City Gods, and Leng Quan sent its incense power into the Metropolitan City God.
• The Metropolitan City God began moving again, and a terrifying figure crawled out through the Triple Gate in its chest.

Jiang Qiao and Ruyi Yuanjun faced the awakened rules of a dead City God and a polluted Half-God heart. Ruyi Yuanjun crushed both threats with a single strike, leaving the fleeing Mountain Ghost weakened and terrified.

• Ruyi Yuanjun explained that the Metropolitan City God was formed from a dead City God's rules and that the awakened heart and monster posed grave dangers.
• The monster and the heart unleashed their powers, and Lu Dingsheng died despite having fled far from the battlefield.
• The Mountain Ghost and Leng Quan attacked alongside the heart and monster, then fled toward the passage to the World's Dark Side.
• Ruyi Yuanjun pulled a Fate Line and grievously damaged the Half-God heart, causing its blood sea and radiance to collapse.
• Ruyi Yuanjun split apart the City God rules monster, while the Mountain Ghost's aura plummeted from the backlash and it was left terrified.

Ruyi Yuanjun erased the Mountain Ghost after uncovering its history and blocked Leng Quan from escaping into the World's Dark Side. The battle ended with the high-end forces of both the City Gods and Fengyin Mountain dead.

• The Mountain Ghost tried to flee to the World's Dark Side and command the Demon Tower, but Ruyi Yuanjun knocked the tower away and its body began to vanish.
• Ruyi Yuanjun read the Mountain Ghost's Fate Line and discovered that a predecessor's surviving consciousness had tried to possess it.
• Jiang Qiao understood how the Mountain Ghost had formed and why it had hidden within Fengyin Mountain.
• Ruyi Yuanjun refused the Mountain Ghost's plea for mercy and erased it completely.
• Yuan Jun collapsed the entrance to the World's Dark Side as Leng Quan tried to escape, and he vanished into dust.
• The battle ended with the high-end combat forces of the City Gods and Fengyin Mountain dead.

Three days after the battle, Jiang Qiao told Yang Ling that the Daoist Order had been destroyed thousands of years ago. Yang Ling stayed behind to protect the survivors, then recognized the news as the fulfillment of an old prophecy.

• Jiang Qiao reflected on Ruyi Yuanjun’s departure and prepared to return to Yang City before his time in the River of History ran out.
• Yang Ling explained that he could not leave for the Other Shore because he needed to protect his friends and relatives from the growing number of evil spirits.
• Yang Ling asked Jiang Qiao about the Daoist Order, hoping to learn how it was faring and explain his own former connection to it.
• Jiang Qiao revealed that he was not a Daoist Order disciple and that the Order had been destroyed thousands of years earlier during the upheaval caused by the red moon’s collapse.
• Yang Ling recalled the Celestial Master’s words about the Order being destroyed yet not destroyed and wondered whether they had failed to escape its fate.

Jiang Qiao learned from Yang Ling about the Daoist Order’s former power, the false gods, and the Red Moon before preparing to leave the Small World. He walked toward a passage out, carrying five statues Yang Ling had given him to strengthen him.

• Jiang Qiao told Yang Ling that he came from a later age and had entered the River of History, and Yang Ling recognized that a Half-God who controlled fate had likely known him before.
• Yang Ling told Jiang Qiao that the Daoist Order once had 365 Ninth-Rank experts, 108 Divinity Ninth Tier experts, and 28 Half-Gods, and that powerful factions had forged false gods and created the Red Moon to suppress the Abyss.
• Yang Ling explained that the Red Moon instead attracted a Great Terror from beyond the Abyss, and that the Green Lotus Sect had been formed by survivors who lost an ancient debate over ordinary people’s right to life.
• Jiang Qiao walked through a ruined city in Fengyin Mountain toward a passage out of the Small World, reflecting that his strength might soon approach the Half-God realm.
• Before Jiang Qiao left, Yang Ling gave him statues of the Vermilion Bird, Azure Dragon, White Tiger, Teng Snake, and Black Tortoise, telling him to fuse them and grow stronger.

Jiang Qiao crossed the corpse-strewn ancient city in Fengyin Mountain, learned more about the barren world beyond the Gate of Ghosts, and peacefully dispelled the lingering yin spirits. At the Gate, a pale figure in funeral clothes appeared and demanded to know why he had come.

• Jiang Qiao passed through the abandoned ancient city and reached the Gate of Ghosts, which opened onto a barren world once intended as a refuge for the Small World.
• Jiang Qiao used life-bearing black lightning to dispel the wandering yin spirits and reflected on how remnants of consciousness could linger after death.
• Jiang Qiao considered whether Ruyi Yuanjun might resemble the remnant spirits he had sent off.
• A pale man wearing funeral clothes and a Shoumao appeared atop the Gate of Ghosts and asked Jiang Qiao who he was and why he had come.

Jiang Qiao confronted the Vicious Ghost guarding the Gate of Ghosts and learned that Mountain Ghosts had ordered it to keep people from leaving. He overwhelmed the ghost’s wooden-door prison with his Heaven and Earth Manifestation and stomped it flat.

• The Vicious Ghost refused to let Jiang Qiao pass through the Gate of Ghosts without Mountain Ghosts’ decree.
• Jiang Qiao attacked the Vicious Ghost with lightning and told it Mountain Ghosts was dead.
• The Vicious Ghost summoned old wooden doors that opened into darkness, trying to seal Jiang Qiao away.
• The Vicious Ghost bragged about torturing captives, including a married couple, and threatened Jiang Qiao with the Black Prison.
• Jiang Qiao used Heaven and Earth Manifestation to make the wooden doors too heavy to open, then stomped the Vicious Ghost flat.

Jiang Qiao interrogated the Vicious Ghost about the Gate of Ghosts and the world beyond it, then killed it after learning what it knew. He left the chapter with warnings about the dangerous city outside the gate and the Mountain Ghost's expeditions there.

• Jiang Qiao pinned the Vicious Ghost down and demanded information about the Gate of Ghosts and the world beyond it.
• The Vicious Ghost said it had guarded the checkpoint for three hundred years and had never left its plaza.
• The Vicious Ghost explained that the world beyond was barren, with a corrupted ancient city, curses, and evil creatures that the Mountain Ghost cleared using the Demon Tower.
• The Vicious Ghost warned that people disappeared outside the city at night and that the sun brought danger, though it could not remember the details.
• Jiang Qiao offered the Vicious Ghost freedom and revenge on the Mountain Ghost, then sliced it apart with a blade of electricity.

After killing the Vicious Ghost, Jiang Qiao searched the underground Black Prison and destroyed the supernatural pool of human faces. He then fused the five remaining Stone Statue rules in half a day and realized how the six rules formed a connected formation before entering the Gate of Ghosts.

• Jiang Qiao searched the empty Black Prison beneath the Gate of Ghosts and found a pool filled with supernatural human faces.
• Jiang Qiao destroyed the pool and its faces with lightning.
• Jiang Qiao fused the Vermilion Bird, White Tiger, Black Tortoise, Azure Dragon, and Serpent rules into his body.
• Jiang Qiao reflected that his ability to fuse rules far exceeded the Daoist Thunder Art's usual limits.
• Jiang Qiao realized that the six rules, including Gou Chen, were independent yet interconnected and formed a complete formation.

Jiang Qiao mastered the fused Six Rules and assessed their powers and how they could work together. After reflecting on what he had learned in the Nether Era and the mysteries still unresolved, he entered the Gate of Ghosts.

• Jiang Qiao realized the Azure Dragon Rule could actively drain vitality, while the White Tiger Rule could strip away supernatural phenomena and Rules or expose them to attack.
• Jiang Qiao understood that the Vermilion Bird Rule deprived intelligence, the Black Tortoise Rule stole and concealed behavior, the Teng Snake Rule deprived positive emotions, and Gou Chen deprived movement.
• Jiang Qiao concluded that the Six Rules could overlap, combine, and form a powerful array capable of fighting stronger opponents.
• Jiang Qiao connected unresolved questions about the Black Tide and his homeland to the Simulator's origins, and wondered whether the Simulator helped the Red Moon repair itself.
• Jiang Qiao looked toward the Gate of Ghosts, walked inside, and was swallowed by its chaotic light.

Jiang Qiao traveled through the Great Tunnel and reflected on the City Gods’ rival plans to escape or save their Small World. He reached a long-abandoned outpost on a lifeless, desolate world.

• Jiang Qiao tested the tunnel’s edge and confirmed that the Great Tunnel’s gravity pulled travelers back toward their homeland.
• Jiang Qiao recalled how the predecessors built the passage as an outpost route and how Leng Quan’s faction and Yan Yishu’s faction pursued different plans for their world.
• Jiang Qiao considered whether remnants of either City God faction might have survived into later generations and resolved to investigate after returning.
• Jiang Qiao crossed the Great Tunnel and arrived in a barren world beneath dark-blue skies and auroras.
• Jiang Qiao found an abandoned city established by the predecessors, now on the verge of collapse.

Jiang Qiao explored a poisonous, radiation-filled world and reached a seemingly abandoned town built from cremated ashes. After destroying swarms of monstrous rats, he spotted a larger creature trying to flee and moved to pursue it.

• Jiang Qiao reasoned that the hostile environment made the world unfit for most Small World residents and criticized the sacrificial spirit system for leaving people dependent on powerful City Gods.
• Jiang Qiao traveled across the rocky desert and reached a fortress-like modern town whose buildings were made from cremated ashes.
• Thousands of dog-sized, human-faced monster rats emerged from the streets and underground gaps and charged at Jiang Qiao.
• Jiang Qiao used lightning to tear open the ground and destroy every rat hiding beneath the town.
• Jiang Qiao spotted a larger creature trying to escape and called it back.

After killing the monster rats, Jiang Qiao tried to use the Immortal-Guiding Banner to find a way back to the Supernatural World. A blue sun rose over the city and strange tents appeared nearby, while the banner’s words changed.

• Jiang Qiao summoned the grotesque rat monster and used the White Tiger Rule to strip away its supernatural power, killing it.
• Jiang Qiao concluded that the rat had once been an Evolver whose consciousness was eroded after a Vicious Ghost revived inside him.
• After searching the city and finding no other monsters, Jiang Qiao wondered how to return to the Supernatural World and took out the Immortal-Guiding Banner.
• Jiang Qiao considered the banner’s possible connection to immortality and tried to activate it to guide his way.
• A blue sun appeared over the city, and tents materialized nearby as the sunlight brought a bone-chilling cold.
• Jiang Qiao noticed that the words on the Immortal-Guiding Banner changed when the sun appeared.