Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• Three days after Jiang Qiao’s earlier experiences, Songka is in steep decline: its population has halved, businesses are abandoned, City Hall has nearly stopped functioning, and people survive amid lawlessness and the threat of Vicious Ghosts.
• Jiang heads to the docks, where unemployed workers, sailors, and gang members drink and gamble while waiting for work that may never return.
• Pita is accused of cheating at cards. Armed and confident, he uses the docks’ bleak future to justify taking money from Lama, a local gang leader who has only one gun among his men.
• Lama realizes the crowd won’t help him and that Pita’s threats are real. Just as Pita is about to demand a large sum, a ship’s horn interrupts the confrontation.
• The ship’s arrival draws everyone’s attention. Pita sees an opportunity and proposes that the gathered men join forces to rob it.

Character developments and interactions

• Jiang Qiao begins the chapter in a rare moment of optimism, appreciating the relative safety of Songka, before witnessing the desperation and disorder at its docks.
• Pita is revealed as opportunistic and brazen: he cheats at cards, exploits old ties with Lama, and turns quickly to the idea of robbing the incoming ship.
• Lama is furious at being bullied but calculates that resisting could get him and his men killed. His authority and pride have little force in a collapsing city.
• The dock crowd mostly watches rather than intervening, reflecting how fear, unemployment, and uncertainty have weakened solidarity.
• Pita weaponizes his former friendship with Lama, calling him “big brother” to pressure him into surrendering money.

Significant themes

• Social collapse and lawlessness: The city’s institutions and ordinary livelihoods are failing as supernatural dangers disrupt life.
• Desperation and moral decline: With the docks’ future uncertain, people become willing to cheat, extort, and rob.
• Fear versus pride: Lama must choose between defending his dignity and surviving.
• Fragile community: Former relationships and shared work offer little protection once people believe they will soon part ways.

Plot and key events

• At the lawless Songka docks, Pita persuades more than a hundred desperate porters and gangsters to join a plan to rob an approaching ship.
• Lama refuses to participate. Humiliated by Pita’s earlier threat, he also suspects the ship’s arrival at Songka is unusual. He quietly leaves with his men.
• Jiang Qiao watches from nearby, amused by the would-be robbers but impressed by Lama’s caution.
• The ship comes into view: it is a luxury cruise ship, prompting the crowd to celebrate their imagined riches. Their excitement collapses when three armed warships appear behind it.
• The vessels fly Chinese and Heaven-Bearing Society flags. Realizing they have targeted a powerful supernatural organization, the crowd panics. Pita retreats, fears someone will report the plot, and notices Lama has disappeared.

Character developments and interactions

• Pita is confident and provocative while recruiting the crowd, but quickly turns fearful when he recognizes the ships’ affiliation. He suspects Lama may expose him.
• Lama resists Pita’s attempt to dominate him and shows practical judgment: he distrusts the ship’s destination, prioritizes survival, and withdraws before the danger becomes clear.
• Jiang Qiao observes the scheme with detached amusement, recognizing both the crowd’s greed and Lama’s streetwise caution.
• Pita and Lama’s strained relationship drives the early conflict: Pita tries to assert authority, while Lama refuses to cooperate and slips away.

Significant themes

• Greed and recklessness: desperation and fantasies of easy wealth unite the dock crowd in a dangerous scheme.
• Caution as survival: Lama’s suspicion and willingness to leave set him apart from the crowd’s impulsiveness.
• Power and fear: the sudden appearance of the Heaven-Bearing Society’s warships turns apparent opportunity into terror, highlighting the overwhelming influence of supernatural forces in this era.

Key plot points and events

• Pita prevents Lama and his men from leaving the dock. Fearing Lama might retaliate or warn the arriving Heaven-Bearing Society about Pita’s failed robbery, Pita has them seized at gunpoint and taken to a room.
• Jiang Qiao watches the confrontation. When Pita questions him, Jiang answers casually and challenges Pita’s claim that the public seizure is “private business.”
• Pita’s men aim their guns at Jiang, but Jiang openly insults Pita, provoking his fury.
• Before Pita can order his men to shoot, the approaching Heaven-Bearing Society ship broadcasts an order for everyone at Songka Port to stay still and wait for instructions. Pita holds back, afraid that violence would draw the Society’s attention.
• Pita threatens Jiang, but Jiang dismisses him and walks toward the sea despite the order. Pita suddenly realizes something is wrong and panics.

Character developments

• Pita shifts from smug control to anger and then fear. His decision to detain Lama reveals his insecurity and willingness to use force to protect himself. The Society’s arrival limits his power.
• Jiang Qiao remains calm, witty, and openly defiant under threat. His confident walk toward the sea suggests he knows more—or has more authority—than Pita assumes.
• Lama is furious but overpowered. He warns Pita that his actions will eventually have consequences.

Significant themes

• Power and intimidation: Pita relies on guns and numbers, but his authority falters when a larger organization arrives.
• Courage and provocation: Jiang refuses to be intimidated, turning Pita’s threats into a contest of composure.
• Fear of the unknown: The Heaven-Bearing Society’s reputation is enough to restrain Pita before it even docks.
• Consequences: Lama’s warning and Pita’s sudden alarm foreshadow repercussions for Pita’s actions.

Character interactions

• Pita coerces Lama and his men into custody, while Lama openly condemns him.
• Jiang verbally spars with Pita, mocking his attempt to disguise the detention as private business.
• Pita threatens Jiang, but the ship’s announcement interrupts the confrontation; Jiang then ignores Pita and departs, leaving him alarmed.

Key plot points and events

• A cruise ship arrives in Songka Port, accompanied by three heavily armed warships. The abandoned, lawless port falls silent under the threat of their guns.
• Wang Peng, leader of the Heaven-Bearing Society, comes ashore with several special ability users. Jiang Qiao quickly recognizes that Wang is a powerful fourth-order ability user whose body and consciousness have been badly damaged by a vicious ghost. Wang has only three to five years to live, though the corruption makes him unusually powerful in battle.
• Pita, who had previously offended Jiang Qiao, sees him speaking with Wang and realizes he may be in danger. He and his men kneel and beg for mercy.
• Jiang Qiao mocks Pita’s change from swaggering defiance to abject pleading, then orders Wang to tie the group to the warship guns. The guns fire, killing them and blasting craters into the mountainside.

Character developments

• Jiang Qiao remains calm and amused, revealing a cruel, capricious streak as he turns Pita’s plea for mercy into an execution.
• Wang Peng is introduced as a courteous, pragmatic leader who accepts Jiang Qiao’s judgment of his condition without protest. Despite his grave illness, he retains authority and follows Jiang Qiao’s order.
• Pita is reduced from an arrogant bully to a terrified supplicant, exposing how completely fear governs him.

Significant themes

• Power and vulnerability: Ability users dominate ordinary people, while even powerful figures like Wang are vulnerable to the costs of their own strength.
• Fear and submission: Pita’s sudden reversal shows how quickly social status collapses when someone faces overwhelming power.
• Cruelty and arbitrary justice: Jiang Qiao’s execution of Pita and his men is presented as a chilling demonstration of unchecked authority.
• Power beyond the supernatural: The warships’ conventional guns prove devastating even in a world shaped by special abilities.

Character interactions

• Jiang Qiao refuses Wang’s offered handshake and bluntly assesses his failing health; Wang accepts the assessment without taking offense.
• Wang mistakes Pita for Jiang Qiao’s associate, then watches as Pita begs Jiang Qiao for his life.
• Pita repeatedly pleads for mercy, but Jiang Qiao dismisses his attempts at flattery and orders his execution. Wang carries out the command.

Chapter Summary

• In the aftermath of the Tanjung Sepat Incident, coastal residents are fleeing inland, while major supernatural organizations are sending ships to investigate the affected waters and report finding strange traces.
• Jiang Qiao hears about these developments from Wang Peng, who tries to learn what Jiang knows about Tanjung Sepat. Jiang says only that he sensed something was wrong and left early, making clear he will not discuss it further. Wang Peng respects his reluctance.
• Jiang and Wang Peng are aboard a fleet heading toward “Immortal Island,” expected to arrive in roughly two days. The fleet has left the usual shipping lanes, and its crew remains wary of supernatural danger.
• Wang Peng recounts the Shun’an, a freighter that entered remote waters while avoiding a typhoon. A bone-built ghost ship appeared behind it and followed it for days. Crew members vanished, leaving shoes and foul, black handprints behind; later, their severed heads appeared hanging from the ghost ship. The Shun’an escaped only after reaching a main shipping lane. Four of its more than thirty crew members died.
• The incident became a well-known warning about the dangers of sailing far from established routes—especially because survivors lived to describe it. Many ships that go missing in such waters leave no witnesses.

Character Developments and Interactions

• Jiang Qiao remains guarded about his connection to Tanjung Sepat and offers only a minimal explanation.
• Wang Peng is curious but tactful: he probes Jiang once, then backs off when Jiang shows he will not elaborate. He later serves as an experienced source of maritime supernatural lore.
• Their conversation highlights their differing roles: Jiang listens with curiosity, while Wang Peng provides context and a cautionary tale.

Significant Themes

• The sea as a source of supernatural danger: Remote waters are portrayed as places where ordinary rules and technology offer little protection.
• Fear and survival: The Shun’an’s crew can do little beyond stay together and endure the haunting.
• Knowledge through survivors: Rare firsthand accounts shape public understanding of otherwise mysterious disappearances.
• Secrecy and unease: Jiang’s silence and the fleet’s anxiety suggest that the consequences of Tanjung Sepat—and the dangers ahead—remain unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• After a long, uneventful voyage, the fleet reaches the island seven days after a lunar eclipse. The island appears as if being drawn into existence, with no detectable supernatural warning.
• Wang Peng is startled by the island’s sudden materialization, but Jiang Qiao remains calm and orders the fleet to approach.
• The island is small, burned, and lifeless-looking: its blackened trees twist into shapes resembling grasping hands, and the air carries the smell of ash.
• The fleet finds more than a dozen abandoned ships in a sheltered bay, from old sailing vessels to relatively modern steamships. Bloodstains and bloodied clothing suggest past violence.
• With evening approaching, Jiang Qiao decides they will wait until morning to go ashore. Wang Peng arranges a night watch while the ships anchor in the bay.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Peng shows strong supernatural perception, sensing that the island itself is dangerous despite being unable to identify the threat. Jiang Qiao explains that Wang’s perception has been heightened because the Vicious Ghost has transformed him into something close to half-human, half-ghost.
• Jiang Qiao stays composed and gives practical instructions without explaining his knowledge of the island. He compliments Wang Peng’s perception and chooses caution over a nighttime landing.
• Wang Peng follows Jiang Qiao’s lead, though the island’s appearance and the evidence of violence deepen his unease.

Significant themes

• The limits of protection and perception: Even a fleet carrying powerful Special Ability Users cannot assume safety in supernatural waters.
• The boundary between human and ghost: Wang’s enhanced senses reflect his worsening corruption and fading humanity.
• Caution in the face of the unknown: The island’s dangers remain unexplained, making restraint and vigilance essential.
• A history of violence: The abandoned ships and bloodstains imply that previous visitors met grim ends.

Plot points and events

• After nightfall, the charred forest appears to contain a crowd of people. Through binoculars, Wang Peng sees that the figures are dead-looking forms fused with the trees, wearing clothes from different eras.
• Jiang Qiao identifies them as Vicious Ghost-like beings created when the trees absorb people’s memories. He advises the crew not to panic as long as they stay aboard.
• Two ancient, abandoned sailing ships suddenly light up. Shadows move across their decks, followed by strange thumping sounds. Wang Peng orders his team not to provoke them and to keep watch.
• A patrol member notices that the moon has not moved for hours. Jiang Qiao explains that the ships have reached the boundary of a supernatural place, where space and time behave independently of the outside world.
• As the night deepens, more figures appear in the forest and more floating lamps illuminate the wrecks. Jiang Qiao says the crew is safe for now because they remain at the supernatural place’s edge, where its entities cannot fully reach them.

Character developments and interactions

• Jiang Qiao remains composed and knowledgeable, explaining the supernatural phenomena and reassuring the crew without dismissing the danger.
• Wang Peng is startled but disciplined. He relies on Jiang Qiao’s judgment, restrains his men from firing, and maintains watch. His confidence is bolstered by his belief that Jiang is a Sage.
• The crew move from unease to heightened alarm as the forest, ships, and stalled moon reveal that they are near a supernatural boundary.

Significant themes

• The uncanny and the familiar: Trees resemble people, while the ships seem occupied despite being empty.
• Memory’s power: The forest’s apparent dead are shaped by memories absorbed from the living.
• Boundaries and safety: The crew’s protection depends on remaining at the edge rather than entering the supernatural place.
• Limits of ordinary reality: Time, space, and familiar measures such as the moon and watches may no longer behave normally.

Chapter Summary: “What Was Seen on the Seventh Day”

Key Plot Points and Events

• At dawn on the second day, the supernatural figures and lamps around the wrecked ships disappear without attacking anyone.
• Jiang Qiao, Wang Peng, and several Special Ability Users land on the mysterious island.
• The beach displays abnormal properties: it is perfectly clean, leaves no tracks, and remains completely dry despite waves washing over it. Jiang Qiao explains that the sea and island occupy overlapping but separate spaces.
• The group investigates the wrecked ships. Every vessel contains deep, unnaturally long claw marks, black bloodstains, and signs that the crews were violently attacked.
• No bodies are found, even in locked rooms. Jiang Qiao concludes that an evil spirit likely used a Ghost Domain to enter the cabins and kill the occupants.
• On the final and most recent wreck, the steamship Ning’an, they find a captain’s log, food, and a message written in black blood: “On the seventh day, I saw…”
• The sentence ends abruptly, apparently because the writer was attacked while recording it.
• Wang Peng senses that the captain’s mind had already collapsed while writing, suggesting overwhelming terror.
• Jiang Qiao theorizes that everyone who reaches the island may survive for no more than seven days.
• With the ship investigation complete, the group prepares to explore deeper into the island during the daytime.

Character Developments

• Jiang Qiao remains calm and analytical, interpreting the island’s spatial anomalies and the evidence left behind on the ships. He begins forming the crucial theory that the island has a seven-day survival limit.
• Wang Peng shows both leadership and growing unease. Although highly powerful, he recognizes the limits of his knowledge concerning Ghost Domains and supernatural spaces. His ability to sense residual emotions helps reveal the captain’s mental breakdown.
• The Special Ability Users, including Chen Hu, become increasingly disturbed by the evidence of invisible or supernatural slaughter, though they continue following Jiang Qiao’s lead.

Significant Themes

• The limits of human understanding: Even powerful ability users cannot fully explain the island’s spatial laws or supernatural entities.
• Invisible and inescapable terror: Locked rooms provide no protection, and the absence of bodies makes the attacks more mysterious and horrifying.
• Time and inevitable death: The unfinished message introduces the possibility that the island imposes a strict seven-day lifespan.
• Evidence versus uncertainty: The group gathers clues—claw marks, blood, and the captain’s log—but each discovery raises more questions than it answers.
• Daylight as temporary safety: The island appears relatively quiet during the day, contrasting with the terrifying events witnessed at night.

Character Interactions

• Jiang Qiao explains the island’s overlapping reality to the surprised Wang Peng, emphasizing the difference between their levels of supernatural knowledge.
• The group collectively examines the ships and reacts with shock to the claw marks and bloodshed.
• Chen Hu breaks open the captain’s locked quarters, revealing the most important clue.
• Wang Peng interprets the emotional residue of the writing, while Jiang Qiao connects the phrase “the seventh day” to a possible supernatural rule.
• Their shared fear and speculation unite the group as they move from investigating the wrecks to preparing for a deeper exploration of the island.

Key plot points and events

• Jiang Qiao leads Wang Peng and eight Heaven-Bearing Society members from the Ning’an into the Charred Woods, despite the group’s additional mission to gather information.
• Inside, the woods are dark, damp, and filled with the smell of burning. Thick black ash covers the ground and clings to the trees.
• Their footsteps bring blood bubbling through the ash. Jiang Qiao explains that they are walking over layers of corpses, whose bodies have inexplicably remained intact.
• The ash suddenly attacks Sun Yuan, spreading up his body and rotting his flesh. Wang Peng restrains the ash with ghostly hands, saving Sun Yuan from likely death, though he is left badly injured.
• Wang Peng realizes his team—and perhaps even he himself—may be outmatched by the island’s dangers.

Character developments and interactions

• Jiang Qiao remains calm and dismissive of the team’s fear. He explains the corpses beneath the ash and makes clear that the team’s panic cannot affect him, only endanger themselves.
• Wang Peng tries to maintain discipline and protect his people. He stops Chen Hu from touching the ash, apologizes for a teammate’s loss of composure, and saves Sun Yuan when the ash attacks.
• Sun Yuan reacts quickly but discovers his abilities cannot stop the ash; his near-fatal injury underscores the danger.
• The team members’ confidence falters as they realize their training and status may not be enough to survive the woods.

Significant themes

• The limits of human power: Even elite ability users are vulnerable in the face of an unfamiliar supernatural threat.
• The cost of recklessness: Curiosity and panic can be deadly; Jiang Qiao repeatedly urges the group not to act carelessly.
• A landscape built on death: The corpses underfoot and the ash that consumes the living make the woods feel like an active, hostile graveyard.
• Unequal experience: Jiang Qiao’s composure contrasts with the team’s inexperience, while Wang Peng’s protective leadership is tested by forces he cannot fully control.

Plot points and events

• Wang Peng and his team continue deeper into Immortal Island despite signs of danger. Wang is motivated partly by the hope of finding a way to prolong his life, and partly by his desire to earn protection for his talented children from the Heaven-Bearing Society.
• The ash covering the forest suddenly stirs and closes in. As the team prepares for a desperate fight, Jiang Qiao releases a massive wave of black lightning, obliterating the ash, the corpses beneath it, and much of the surrounding forest.
• Jiang Qiao points out that the dangers on the island are far beyond the team’s abilities. He urges them to return to the ships—or leave the island altogether—and says he can return on his own.
• Having seen how hopelessly outmatched they are, Wang agrees to withdraw with his team and asks Jiang Qiao to take care.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Peng shifts from determined risk-taking to sober acceptance. His personal hopes and family responsibilities had encouraged him to join the expedition, but witnessing Jiang’s power and the island’s dangers convinces him that continuing would be futile.
• Jiang Qiao demonstrates overwhelming power and practical concern for the others. He reassures the team, explains the scale of the danger, and offers to compensate them for their efforts.
• Wang and his teammates react to Jiang with disbelief and fear, seeing him less as an ordinary person than as a force of nature. Jiang’s blunt warning helps Wang make the decision to retreat.

Significant themes

• The limits of human courage: Determination and caution cannot overcome threats that vastly exceed one’s strength.
• Duty versus survival: Wang wants to serve the organization and provide for his family, but recognizes that a mission is meaningless if no one survives to report back.
• Power and responsibility: Jiang’s strength allows him both to destroy the immediate threat and to protect others by persuading them to leave.

Jiang Qiao ventures deeper into the island’s burned forest, where ash gives way to gravel and scattered bone fragments. He hears the steady scrape of a broom and the beat of a wooden fish drum, then discovers a clearing containing a stone altar and an unburned tree. A kindly, bald monk’s face with nine precept scars grows from the tree; below it, a fleshless skeleton in a monk’s robe sweeps the ground. The drumbeat comes from the tree’s moving mouth.
The Old Monk calls the island the “Heart-Prison Land” and claims that all who arrive are sinners. He accuses Jiang Qiao of killing, arson, and greed, and tells him to stay and repent. When Jiang Qiao refuses, seven living people are revealed, buried and bound among the trees, their heads exposed. They plead for rescue or death, while one elderly woman—despite being the strongest of them—warns Jiang Qiao to run. The monk insists their suffering is deserved and blames their awakening on Jiang Qiao’s sins.
Jiang Qiao remains amused and defiant, seeing through the monk’s pious language and condemning his treatment of the captives. The Old Monk presents himself as compassionate and righteous, but his actions suggest cruelty and self-righteousness. Declaring that he will use “Vajra Measures,” he commands Jiang Qiao to kneel. The forest and ground seem to turn against Jiang Qiao; the earth collapses beneath him as a massive stone statue appears on his back and presses him toward the pit.
Key themes: hypocrisy masked as holiness; punishment, guilt, and the meaning of repentance; the suffering of captives; and the clash between Jiang Qiao’s irreverence and the monk’s claimed moral authority.

Key events

• The Old Monk attacks Jiang Qiao with a crushing stone statue meant to burden his mind and force him into a pit. Jiang Qiao resists, shatters the statue, and dismisses the blood-soaked pit.
• The Old Monk then conjures a spreading net of rootlike blood vessels, claiming it represents the consequences of Jiang Qiao’s sins. Jiang Qiao destroys it with black lightning.
• Jiang Qiao launches a lightning strike at the great tree. The Old Monk, the skeleton beneath it, and the tree are vaporized before the tree can reveal its true form.
• With the evil entity dead, the supernatural trees imprisoning seven people collapse, freeing them. Six are gravely weakened; the elderly woman remains comparatively strong.
• The survivors bow and thank Jiang Qiao, asking his name.

Character developments and interactions

• Jiang Qiao remains cocky and irreverent, mocking the Old Monk’s moral lectures and dispatching its attacks with overwhelming ease. He shifts from defending himself to decisively killing the entity and freeing its captives.
• The Old Monk moves from calm, seemingly compassionate persuasion to anger, disbelief, and terror as Jiang Qiao proves immune to its powers.
• The seven captives go from despair to hope when they see Jiang Qiao withstand the Old Monk. Once freed, they express gratitude and respect.
• Jiang Qiao discovers that all seven survivors are powerful fighters: six are sixth-tier, while the elderly woman is seventh-tier. Her strength surprises him and prompts speculation about the mysterious Mist Era.

Significant themes

• Power versus moral authority: The Old Monk frames strength as evidence of sin, but its sermons fail to control Jiang Qiao.
• False compassion and manipulation: The Old Monk’s gentle rhetoric masks coercive, lethal powers.
• Liberation through resistance: Defeating the tree frees its captives, turning Jiang Qiao’s defiance into their rescue.
• Hidden strength and mystery: The elderly woman’s exceptional ability hints at the unusual dangers and history of the Mist Era.

Chapter Summary: “The Door”

Key plot points and events

• Jiang Qiao finishes questioning the reclusive experts, survivors of the Mist Era who came to Immortal Island seeking greater power. They know little about the island and describe the Mist Era as a period of prolonged chaos.
• He sends the injured experts toward the shore, where they can take boats home and help during the worsening Supernatural Revival. They leave, and Jiang Qiao continues alone.
• Jiang Qiao reflects on the Old Woman’s formidable Seventh Tier strength, noting that Tree Monk defeated and subdued her because she had not advanced far enough.
• He reaches a vast, empty clearing and discovers a huge, rounded stone structure identified by a stele as the Divine Temple. Its seamless walls have no visible entrance.
• Using his Dual Pupils, Jiang Qiao sees white marble steps emerging from the temple’s summit and climbing into the sky. He recognizes them as the route to the Inner World.
• At the top of the staircase, he finds a gray, floating door that appears to be an Evil Spirit. It seems to watch him without hostility or emotion.
• A fragrant breeze from beyond the door carries traces of Life Aura, convincing Jiang Qiao that the Inner World connects to the Supernatural Source.
• As he reaches the final step, indistinct figures appear on both sides of the door and turn to face him.

Character developments

• Jiang Qiao remains composed and analytical in a dangerous setting. His Dual Pupils reveal the hidden path, and he quickly infers how the island’s layered defenses work. He also makes clear that his earlier offer to cooperate with Green Glow has expired after she failed to meet him.
• The Old Woman’s history is clarified: despite being powerful, she was captured by Tree Monk because she had not progressed far enough along the difficult Seventh Tier path.
• Green Glow is presented as unusually capable: she reached the Divine Temple and escaped despite not seeming especially strong, and later became a formidable Half-God.

Character interactions

• Jiang Qiao questions the experts, then sends them away with practical advice and concern for their injuries. They bow and depart rather than risk becoming a burden.
• Jiang Qiao has no direct interaction with Tree Monk, the Old Woman, or Green Glow in this chapter, but considers their abilities and past actions.
• The chapter ends with Jiang Qiao facing the door—and the newly appeared, silent figures—setting up a potential encounter.

Significant themes

• Hidden knowledge and access: The Divine Temple’s entrance is not a conventional door; reaching the Inner World requires the rare ability to perceive its concealed staircase.
• Power and its limits: Even formidable beings can be defeated when they fall short of the next stage, while advancement becomes increasingly difficult at higher tiers.
• Danger behind appearances: The island’s route is guarded by multiple obstacles, including the forest, Tree Monk, the concealed passage, and a seemingly passive but self-aware door.
• Isolation and responsibility: Jiang Qiao moves on alone, while the departing experts are urged to return to a world in crisis and contribute what they can.

Plot points and events

• Jiang Qiao approaches the gray, breathing Door Panel, ignoring the shadowy figures flanking it.
• The figures solidify into eyeless, rotting corpses—Vicious Ghosts—and repeatedly try to grab him. Jiang Qiao destroys them with black lightning, but new waves keep appearing.
• The Door Panel will not open when pushed, so Jiang Qiao smashes it with repeated lightning-charged punches until it shatters.
• More ghosts continue to form, suggesting they guard the threshold rather than the door itself. Jiang Qiao steps through the wreckage.
• After a brief passage through a disorienting void, he arrives in a small, plain temple. He realizes it is the real Divine Temple, with the route to the Inner World likely lying inside.
• The temple has no doors or windows and contains no Supernatural Aura. Instead, it is saturated with a powerful Life Aura, an uncanny presence that surprises him.

Character developments

• Jiang Qiao remains confident and forceful, treating the ghosts as nuisances rather than serious threats.
• He quickly adapts when the door proves immovable, switching from pushing to brute force and reasoning out the ghosts’ purpose.
• His familiarity with supernatural places—and past knowledge of the Divine Temple—helps him interpret his unexpected arrival.

Significant themes

• Obstacles and persistence: When the intended entrance cannot be opened, Jiang Qiao simply breaks through it.
• Deceptive appearances: The temple looks like an ordinary village shrine, yet holds an extraordinary and unsettling aura.
• Life amid the supernatural: The temple’s dense Life Aura contrasts sharply with the surrounding ghosts and the absence of Supernatural Aura.

Character interactions

• Jiang Qiao’s only direct opposition comes from the Vicious Ghosts and the sealed Door Panel. He dispatches the ghosts repeatedly, then destroys the door; no other characters appear or speak in the chapter.

Jiang Qiao lit the temple brazier and summoned a gigantic misty eye that resonated with his Dual Pupils. After the eye blinked and the temple vanished, he arrived in the Inner World, whose dense life aura made him wonder whether it was a fragment of the Source World.

• Jiang Qiao found an empty offering table and a stone brazier in the temple, and decided that lighting it would open a passage to the Inner World.
• Jiang Qiao ignited the brazier with Stove Fire, causing blue-and-white flames and strange characters to rise into the darkness above.
• Jiang Qiao recognized the gigantic misty eye in the void and sensed that its pupil was missing the Dual Pupils in his own eyes.
• The eye blinked, and the temple disintegrated around Jiang Qiao as a warm, life-filled world emerged from the void.
• Jiang Qiao took in the Inner World's dense life aura and wondered whether the place was a fragment of the Source World.

Jiang Qiao explored the Inner World, finding a vast, unnaturally lifeless island filled with immense trees and ancient ruins. He entered a strange palace complex where sound vanished and space distorted, and the chapter ended as the buildings began to change within the thickening immortal mist.

• Jiang Qiao found the Inner World was a lush but silent island surrounded by a closed-loop ocean and sky.
• He examined gemstone-rich soil, enormous ruins, a damaged statue, and glazed tiles arranged in a triangle.
• Jiang Qiao entered a marble palace complex where the ground swallowed sound and his voice faded after traveling only a few meters.
• He discovered that space was distorted, temperatures shifted sharply, and unnatural vitality concealed an atmosphere of death.
• After walking deeper through increasingly dense immortal mist, Jiang Qiao noticed the magnificent buildings beginning to go wrong.

Jiang Qiao followed ghostly figures through the mist to a jade staircase covered in shoes and began climbing it despite the overpowering stench. After more than a hundred steps, strange shoes appeared, and a hunched figure materialized behind him.

• Jiang Qiao encountered hunched, ghostlike figures in the mist and found that his lightning passed through them.
• He followed hundreds of the figures to a jade staircase, where they vanished and left piles of shoes pointing upward.
• Jiang Qiao stepped onto the staircase and was hit by a foul odor coming from the shoes.
• He climbed more than a hundred steps, passing ordinary footwear before encountering black funeral shoes, brightly dyed human-skin boat shoes, and paper shoes.
• Jiang Qiao sensed danger and saw a hunched figure appear a dozen steps below him.

Jiang Qiao fought a vicious old ghost on the foul-smelling stairs of the Blessed Land and learned that Huang Tian had escaped only because the island allowed it. The ghost regenerated through green shoots carrying the same aura as the Ghost Tree, while its attack caused Jiang Qiao’s body to rot again.

• Jiang Qiao struck the old ghost with black lightning, but the ghost remained standing and warned him that he should not have come.
• The old ghost identified the place as the Blessed Land and said no one could escape it through God-Invocation unless the land wanted them to.
• The old ghost revealed that Huang Tian had been allowed to leave, then died after trying to trade the Blessed Land’s secrets for his life.
• Green shoots sprouted from the old ghost’s wound, and Jiang Qiao recognized their aura as identical to the Ghost Tree’s.
• Jiang Qiao attacked with black lightning, but the old ghost regenerated beneath a covering of grass and flowers as Jiang Qiao’s skin began rotting again.

Jiang Qiao fought the old man, whose plant-based powers and strange spatial abilities rivaled Jiang Qiao’s strength. After Jiang Qiao nearly destroyed him with a Singularity attack, the old man drew cracks into a slit between his brows, and a withered white flower appeared as space began to flicker.

• Jiang Qiao blasted through the old man’s vines and flowers with lightning, but the old man’s defenses held against his attacks.
• Jiang Qiao realized the old man was at the ninth tier peak yet fought with strength comparable to someone who had ascended the Divinity Staircase.
• Jiang Qiao charged through the old man’s spatial fissures by collapsing his lightning into a Singularity and struck a huge hole through the old man’s body.
• The old man blocked Jiang Qiao’s follow-up attack with flowers and gathered the spatial cracks into a slit between his brows.
• A withered white flower grew from the old man’s brow as space began flickering around them.

Jiang Qiao confronted the old ghost on the Jade Steps and revealed that it came from the Abyss, provoking terror in the creature despite its lack of memories. As the ghost unleashed its power of decay and demanded Jiang Qiao’s body, Jiang Qiao prepared a counterattack with a blue vertical eye.

• The old ghost praised Jiang Qiao’s strength and began opening the white flower in its brow, filling the surroundings with decay.
• Jiang Qiao identified the ghost as a Mountain Ghost that had parasitized Huang Tian after his journey to the Asteroid Belt.
• Jiang Qiao named the Abyss as the ghost’s true origin, and the ghost reacted with fear despite having no memory of it.
• The old ghost confined the Jade Steps in its power and made Jiang Qiao’s body, consciousness, and supernatural strength begin to decay.
• The old ghost revealed that Immortal Island planned to emerge into the world and demanded Jiang Qiao surrender his body.
• Jiang Qiao smiled as countless blue eyes opened behind the old ghost and converged into a single vertical eye.