Chapter Summaries

Mo Hua stayed at the Azure Wolf Sect while studying how direct and indirect killing affected his Killing Intent, and he resolved to avoid Karma by working behind the scenes. As a wolf howl shook the sect at dawn, he sensed that his chance to reach Twenty-One-Pattern had arrived.

• Head Escort Luo returned safely to the Luo Family Escort Agency and warned his escorts to keep silent about what had happened, while Ying Niang worried about Mo Hua.
• The Sect Master of the Azure Wolf Sect invited Mo Hua to join and arranged for him to stay at the sect; Mo Hua accepted the lodging but refused the two women sent to serve him.
• Mo Hua set up protective arrays in his room, then refined the Killing Intent from his recent kill and compared the backlash from killing directly and indirectly.
• Mo Hua recalled the chess-playing old grandpa and decided to conceal his actions, minimize his Karma, and let others handle the killing when possible.
• Mo Hua considered his stalled Divine Consciousness growth, practiced arrays through the night, and continued his morning cultivation.
• A powerful wolf howl shook the Azure Wolf Sect, and Mo Hua sensed that he had found an opportunity to reach Twenty-One-Pattern.

Mo Hua investigated the Azure Wolf Sect’s secret wolf howl while concealing his suspicions from the elders and visiting Head Escort Luo. Elder Ji then took him to the city’s extravagant entertainments and gambling den, where Mo Hua saw the contrast between the sect’s luxury and the surrounding poverty; he returned to the sect with faint black qi stirring in his eyes.

• Mo Hua searched the Azure Wolf Sect for the source of the wolf howl, then questioned an elder who denied that the sect kept demonic beasts.
• Mo Hua visited Head Escort Luo, waited for the Divine Consciousness watching him to withdraw, and asked about the wolf howl and the Azure Wolf Sect’s growing dominance over the city.
• Mo Hua refused a beautiful woman sent to his room, and Elder Ji later brought him to a luxurious pavilion in Azure Wolf City.
• Elder Ji showed Mo Hua the pavilion’s performers and gambling den, but Mo Hua saw through the rigged games and deliberately lost all the Spirit Stones he had won.
• As Mo Hua rode back to the sect, he saw the impoverished cultivators living beyond the prosperous main city, and faint black qi stirred in his eyes.

Mo Hua investigated clues linking the Azure Wolf Sect to Big Tiger’s disappearance while the Sect Master tried to exploit Mo Hua’s talents and secretly investigate the deaths of his nephew and Elder Sun. Mo Hua earned respect by repairing an artifact furnace but found no way to search freely, while the Sect Master sought a divination about who had killed his nephew.

• Mo Hua suspected Elder Ji’s chest scar came from Big Tiger and reasoned that the Azure Wolf Sect had been watching Immortal City for much longer than he had realized.
• Elder Ji reported that Mo Hua resisted the Sect Master’s attempts to manipulate him through women and entertainment, so the Sect Master decided to give him work and make use of his array skills.
• Elder Ji told the Sect Master that Hong and Elder Sun had vanished and might have been killed, while the Sect Master ordered a discreet investigation and feared that a hidden crime could be exposed.
• Elder Ji took Mo Hua to repair a broken Second-Grade Mid-Tier array in an Artifact Refining Furnace, and Mo Hua fixed it after pretending to study for most of the day.
• Mo Hua helped with the Azure Wolf Sect’s array problems over the following days, gaining respect but remaining under Elder Ji’s watch and unable to investigate freely.
• The Azure Wolf Sect Master secretly visited a black-robed person in the forbidden ground and asked for a divination to identify who had killed his nephew.

Mr. Wu failed to identify the killer of the Azure Wolf Sect’s Wolf-Robed Youth because Mo Hua’s causality was hidden behind dense Heavenly Calculation Mist. Mo Hua recognized the attempt to divine him and devised a Ghostly Path countermeasure, then used it when someone from the Azure Wolf Sect probed his causality again.

• The Azure Wolf Sect Master asked Mr. Wu to divine who had killed his nephew, the Wolf-Robed Youth.
• Mr. Wu’s divination revealed a blurred figure before Heavenly Calculation Mist trapped him and prevented him from uncovering the truth.
• Mo Hua sensed that someone nearby had calculated his causality and considered how to protect himself without relying on others.
• Mo Hua combined Heavenly Ghost Calculation, Dao Heart Planting Demon, and his Killing Intent to create a Ghostly Thought-Force Demon Seed after three days of experimentation.
• When Mo Hua sensed another probe from someone he suspected was connected to the Azure Wolf Sect, he stirred his Killing Intent and sent the Demon Seed into it, carrying the thought, “I’m useless. I might as well die...”

Mr. Wu survived Mo Hua’s first attempt at Causal Demon Seeding, but greed drove him to keep probing the Heavenly Calculation Mist. Meanwhile, Mo Hua worked his way into the Azure Wolf Sect’s plans and discovered Elder Zhao’s plot to kill the Sect Master, leaving Mo Hua surrounded and being told the Sect Master intended to consume Immortal City.

• Mr. Wu entered the Heavenly Calculation Mist seeking an opportunity, then nearly killed himself under its influence before treating his wounds and deciding to keep investigating.
• Mo Hua concluded that his Causal Demon Seeding had not killed Mr. Wu and planned to keep using him to test Ghostly Path methods.
• Mo Hua agreed to help the Azure Wolf Sect build an Artifact Refining Guild and expand a state road toward Great Black Mountain, which the Sect Master claimed would benefit Immortal City.
• Mo Hua inspected the construction with Elder Zhao and recognized that Zhao had altered the arrays into a Binding Array and a Kill Array.
• Elder Zhao surrounded Mo Hua with elders and disciples, then offered to spare him if he kept quiet about the plot against the Sect Master.
• Elder Zhao claimed the Sect Master planned to swallow Immortal City, and Mo Hua acted shocked to learn that the Sect Master had supposedly been using him.

Mo Hua manipulated Elder Zhao and the Azure Wolf Sect Master into a confrontation, then revealed his own power when the battle turned against him. The Sect Master was crippled, Mr. Wu died by his own hand under Mo Hua’s Ghostly Thought-Force, and the conflict remained unresolved.

• Elder Zhao persuaded Mo Hua to help lure the Azure Wolf Sect Master into a trap, and Mo Hua agreed.
• Mo Hua challenged Elder Zhao to an array contest, using it to bring the Sect Master to the Artifact Refining Guild, where Elder Zhao attacked him.
• The Sect Master avoided Elder Zhao’s Kill Arrays because Mo Hua had secretly warned him, then transformed with his followers and gained the advantage.
• Mo Hua used a strange Array Technique to erase part of the Sect Master’s arm and leg, leaving him crippled and exposed to Elder Zhao.
• Mr. Wu used his Wolf-Head Xun to turn the Azure Wolf Sect elders into Werewolves and send them after Elder Zhao and Mo Hua.
• Mo Hua appeared behind Mr. Wu and unleashed Ghostly Thought-Force, driving him to tear out his own heart and die.

After Mr. Wu and the Azure Wolf Sect Master died, Mo Hua helped Elder Zhao claim the sect leadership and uncovered the sect ancestors’ transformation into Demon Specters. He killed and devoured them, then gave Elder Zhao a Sect Master Mandate bearing a seal he had drawn himself.

• Elder Zhao killed the crippled Azure Wolf Sect Master, and the Azure Wolf Sect took charge of the aftermath.
• Mo Hua searched Mr. Wu’s Storage Bag, found a Wolf-Head Xun, and followed Elder Zhao to the Azure Wolf Sect Ancestral Hall.
• The ancestral masters rejected Elder Zhao’s blood-written mandate, so Mo Hua entered the mausoleum and found the ancestors in a hall of Azure Wolf Sect Demon Specters.
• The ancestors attacked Mo Hua after he questioned their altar and cultivation, and he slaughtered them with his divine sense techniques before absorbing their purified Evil Qi.
• Mo Hua returned with the mandate, told Elder Zhao he had killed the ancestors and made him Sect Master, and Elder Zhao collapsed in shock.

Mo Hua explored the Azure Wolf Sect’s forbidden area and found Mr. Wu’s secret chamber, where he recovered a foundational manual on Great Wilderness demon bone divination. After refining the sect’s ancestors to strengthen his divine sense, he studied the manual and began to understand how causality shaped fate, ending with his thoughts turning toward Celestial Pivot.

• Mo Hua made Elder Zhao the Azure Wolf Sect’s Sect Master and had him lead the way into the forbidden area.
• Mo Hua searched the sect’s inheritances, followed Mr. Wu’s aura to a hidden chamber, and took the Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination manual and the other research materials.
• Mo Hua returned to his room and gently refined the Azure Wolf Sect’s ancestors, absorbing their Thought Power and raising his divine sense to Twenty-One-Pattern.
• Sect Master Zhao sensed Mo Hua’s immense divine thought sweeping over Azure Wolf Mountain and wondered whether Mo Hua was even human.
• Mo Hua studied the divination manual, reasoned through how causes and effects formed a person’s fate, and concluded that changing fate through causality could lead toward Celestial Pivot.

Mo Hua studied the Great Wilderness Demon Bone Divination and used its methods to investigate the mysterious Mr. Wu, whose past and reason for coming to Azure Wolf City puzzled him. His impromptu divination revealed a terrifying causal chain, and he immediately destroyed the ritual materials.

• Mo Hua distinguished ordinary causality from Heavenly Secret and identified tracing, projection, and calculation as basic applications of Causality Art.
• Mo Hua shifted his cultivation toward Demon Bone Divination, which consumed large amounts of Divine Thought and might offer a new way to temper it.
• Sect Master Zhao reported enforcing Mo Hua’s suggestions, while Mo Hua ordered further restrictions and explained that coercive authority would control the Azure Wolf Sect’s predatory members.
• Mo Hua used confiscated gifts to fund relief work, an Artifact Refining Guild, and provincial roads to help connect Azure Wolf City with Immortal City.
• Mo Hua questioned why Mr. Wu had traveled from the Great Wilderness to Azure Wolf City and decided to divine his past using his relics.
• Mo Hua’s divination produced a blazing, terrifying causal chain, so he overturned the brazier, destroyed the wolf bone, and burned the remaining evidence.

Mo Hua uncovered a sealed Great Wilderness Dragon Flag in Mr. Wu’s Secret Chamber and accidentally activated it, igniting a rebellion against the Dao Court. The flag’s beacon spread across the world as Yinghuo fell in the south, heralding war and chaos.

• Mo Hua divined his own future, realized the unknown omen was tied to the empty Altar in Mr. Wu’s Secret Chamber, and returned to investigate.
• Mo Hua recognized the chamber’s demon patterns as a Ten Thousand Demons Transforming into Dragon array lock and completed the patterns to open it.
• The Altar revealed a Great Wilderness Dragon Flag bearing the words “Heaven is dead” and “Wild Heaven shall rise,” along with a call to annihilate the Dao Court.
• The Dragon Lord learned that the Wild Heaven Dragon Flag had been lit ahead of time and ordered the Great Wilderness clans to rebel against the Dao Court.
• The Overseer and powerful cultivators across the Nine Provinces saw Yinghuo blaze across the sky as the southern heavens caught fire and war approached.

Yang Jishan and Yang Jiyong discovered that the Great Wilderness had launched a full-scale rebellion, while unrest spread through Li Prefecture. Mo Hua realized that his actions had lit the Wild Heaven Dragon Flag and set the rebellion in motion, leaving him to flee the Azure Wolf Sect with the flag hidden in his Storage Ring.

• Yang Jishan and Yang Jiyong spotted Ghost Night Wolf Soldiers and, after lighting the Bright Fire Formation, saw a vast Barbarian Tribe army with forbidden troops and Monster Cavalry approaching the pass.
• Yang Jishan ordered the beacon fires lit and messages sent to the Dao Soldier Bureau and the Yang Family before he and Yang Jiyong joined the defense against the assault.
• Situ Xiu fought rebels in Shaoshan City, then escaped with the Situ Clan as unrest and violence spread across Li Prefecture.
• Elder Xun tried to calculate Mo Hua's fate and saw omens of war, then worried that Mo Hua's actions might bring trouble to Void Gate.
• Mo Hua hid the Wild Heaven Dragon Flag in his Storage Ring after destroying the Azure Wolf Sect's Secret Chamber, Ten Thousand Monster Dragon Pattern, and Altar.
• Mo Hua decided that he and his companions had to leave the Azure Wolf Sect as the rebellion and war spread.

Mo Hua left Azure Wolf City after warning Sect Master Zhao to prepare for the coming calamity and giving him valuable array insights. Before departing, Mo Hua interrogated Elder Ji about a Tiger Monster captured in Great Black Mountain and learned that it had been delivered to a mysterious guest in Small Post City, where Mo Hua set out to investigate.

• Mo Hua told Sect Master Zhao that war and disaster would soon threaten Li Prefecture, urged him to finish preparations, and gave him a Jade Slip of array diagrams and insights.
• Mo Hua left Azure Wolf City after inspecting the Artifact Refining Guild and provincial roads, reflecting that Sect Master Duan had built them to support a planned rebellion.
• Mo Hua met Elder Ji outside the city and questioned him about the wound on his chest and the Tiger Monster he claimed to have killed.
• Under Mo Hua's array torture, Elder Ji admitted that he had captured the Tiger Monster and sold it to a mysterious honored guest about ten years earlier.
• Elder Ji told Mo Hua that he had delivered the Tiger Monster to a steward at a post station in Small Post City, and Mo Hua ordered him to lead the way there.

Mo Hua and Elder Ji reached the ruined Half-Mountain City, where Elder Ji learned that a rebellion fueled by Demon Sect methods had destroyed the city. After Mo Hua and Elder Ji killed Corpse Valley cultivators who were raising the dead, they burned the corpses and left the city as turmoil spread across the cultivation world.

• Mo Hua and Elder Ji entered a devastated Immortal City, where starving survivors fought over scraps and Elder Ji drove them off.
• Elder Ji learned that the Dao Court Office had massacred innocent Rogue Cultivators after a failed uprising, prompting a demonic bloodlust-fueled revolt that destroyed the city.
• Elder Ji tried to flee Mo Hua, but terrifying visions drove him back to the inn with information about Half-Mountain City.
• Mo Hua woke Elder Ji when Bronze Bell sounds revealed Corpse Valley cultivators raising corpses into Zombies.
• Elder Ji fought the Corpse Valley group, and Mo Hua joined in; together they killed the cultivators and cremated the corpses with a Burning Fire Array.
• Mo Hua and Elder Ji left Half-Mountain City by night and continued south into the increasingly chaotic world.

Mo Hua and Elder Ji reached the unusually lively Small Post City and searched for Steward Wang, who had handled a sealed shipment ten years earlier. After Mo Hua traced Wang through a Jade Pendant, Wang found records showing where the cargo had gone, leaving Mo Hua and Elder Ji with a lead to pursue.

• Elder Ji drove Mo Hua through war-torn Li Prefecture, where refugees and dangerous cultivators crowded the roads, until they reached Small Post City.
• Elder Ji used his Azure Wolf Sect status to get past the guarded city gates and learned that Steward Wang had left the Post Station years earlier.
• Mo Hua gave Elder Ji three days to find Wang, and Elder Ji tracked down Wang's former mistress, where Mo Hua recognized Wang's Jade Pendant and followed its Karma aura.
• Mo Hua and Elder Ji found Steward Wang at a warehouse, and Elder Ji demanded to know where he had sent a sealed demon beast shipment ten years before.
• Steward Wang recalled that the shipment had traveled by Sand Ship across the Sand Sea toward the Great Wilderness, then found its whereabouts in four days by checking Post Station records.

Mo Hua learned that the tiger had been sent toward Great Desert City and obtained a map to pursue it, despite the dangers of the Great Wilderness. After he saw death omens over nearly every cultivator in Small Post City, he tried to leave with Elder Ji but found the city sealed off.

• Steward Wang told Mo Hua that the tiger had been transported to Great Desert City, beyond the deadly Sand Sea, and Mo Hua asked him to obtain a map.
• Elder Ji explained that a powerful tiger could serve the Great Wilderness Royal Clan as a mount or be bred for its White Tiger bloodline.
• Mo Hua spent several days waiting for the map while Elder Ji secretly visited women and befriended the pale-faced Young Master Shi.
• Steward Wang delivered the map, and Mo Hua saw a death omen darken his glabella and warned him of a coming calamity.
• Mo Hua noticed death omens over nearly every cultivator in Small Post City and urged Elder Ji to leave with him.
• Mo Hua and Elder Ji reached the city gate but learned that Small Post City had been sealed for three days amid nearby riots.

Mo Hua discovered that Small Post City was sealed for a planned massacre by Corpse Path cultivators and tried to save people while navigating the chaos. After finding Elder Ji dead in a Joyous Union Sect pavilion, Mo Hua confronted Young Master Shi, but a Demonic Immortality Talisman bound to Shi’s fate warned him of danger.

• Mo Hua told Elder Ji that Golden Core Cultivators had sealed Small Post City, then surveyed the city’s arrays and made limited changes before returning to the inn.
• At night, Golden Core Corpse Cultivators activated blood-colored arrays and unleashed Zombies, beginning a massacre across Small Post City.
• Mo Hua fought Zombies while following a causality trail to a pavilion, where he found Elder Ji drained to death by a Joyous Union Sect cultivator.
• Mo Hua confronted Young Master Shi in the pavilion and saw him summon a gilded Bronze Corpse, which froze when Mo Hua rebuked it.
• Mo Hua prepared to attack Young Master Shi, then recognized a hidden Demonic Immortality Talisman bound to Shi’s life.

Mo Hua escaped Young Master Shi and watched Corpse Valley slaughter Small Post City while secretly manipulating its sealing array. The array’s reverse flow finally destroyed the North Gate, opening a way out for the trapped cultivators.

• Mo Hua recognized the Demonic Immortality Talisman in Young Master Shi’s Fate Palace, restrained his killing intent, and fought off Shi’s corpse transformation before vanishing.
• Elder Fu joined Young Master Shi and reported that Corpse Valley had sealed Small Post City, slaughtered its residents, and planned to turn it into a Corpse Path stronghold.
• Mo Hua watched from hiding as the corpse calamity spread, then waited for the moment he had anticipated.
• An Evil Array Master discovered that the city-sealing array’s power was flowing in reverse at several gates, and Elder Fu sent Golden Core cultivators to investigate.
• Elder Fu realized too late that the gate anomalies had misled him, while the North Gate’s array power continued to exceed its critical threshold.
• The array’s reverse flow blasted apart the North Gate and nearby walls, opening a breach in Corpse Valley’s seal.

Mo Hua helped Small Post City’s cultivators escape by sabotaging Corpse Valley’s blockade, then drew four Golden Core elders away from the city. He failed to shake their pursuit and realized Corpse Valley had a way to track him, leaving him to face the relentless chase.

• Elder Fu ordered Corpse Valley to slaughter the fleeing cultivators and sent Elder Xu and other Golden Core elders to capture Mo Hua alive.
• Mo Hua found Steward Wang dead beside the opened storehouse full of Coffins, then continued toward the North Gate.
• At the North Gate, Mo Hua disrupted the Corpse Wall with Earth Fire Compound Arrays and injured Corpse Valley cultivators so the trapped people could flee.
• Mo Hua taunted Elder Xu and lured four Golden Core elders away from Small Post City to give more cultivators a chance to escape.
• After pursuing Mo Hua for hundreds of li, the elders repeatedly found him despite his concealment, and Mo Hua stopped to ask how they were tracking him.
• Mo Hua escaped an array blast and fled again, but Elder Xu used a small earth-colored zombie to locate him and resume the pursuit.

Mo Hua weighed ways to kill the four Corpse Valley Golden Core cultivators but fled while he was uncertain whether he could safely use his Divine Sense Sword. After Elder Xu threatened villagers and planned further massacres to force Mo Hua to surrender, Mo Hua decided to lure the pursuers toward a Third-Grade State Boundary, where he believed he could wield his Golden Core-level divine sense without triggering Heavenly Dao restrictions.

• Mo Hua ruled out arrays, Dao Heart Planting Demon, and the Meteor Fire Forbidden Technique, then suppressed his killing intent and continued fleeing from Elder Xu and the other Golden Core cultivators.
• Elder Xu used his Ksitigarbha Corpse to track Mo Hua, and the Corpse Valley elders decided to exploit his apparent kindness by killing villagers along his route.
• After the elders threatened more slaughter, Mo Hua escaped their ambush with an illusion and resolved to kill them with his Divine Sense Sword.
• Mo Hua reasoned that using his Golden Core-level divine sense in a Second-Grade State Boundary might draw Heavenly Retribution, so he headed for the nearest Third-Grade State Boundary.
• Elder Xu and the others recognized that Mo Hua had exposed his trail to draw them away from the villagers and continued pursuing him.

Mo Hua lured the Corpse Valley elders into a Third-Grade State Boundary and killed Elder Xu instantly with the God-Slaying Sword, then escaped with his Storage Bag. Hidden in a mountain cave, Mo Hua faced the double Killing Intent backlash from his forbidden attack.

• Mo Hua sped through a Second-Grade State Boundary, then entered a Third-Grade region as the four Corpse Valley elders pursued him.
• Elder Xu used the Ksitigarbha Corpse to track Mo Hua into a gorge, where Mo Hua triggered Array Techniques that collapsed the cliffs and separated the elders.
• Following the Ksitigarbha Corpse's directions, Elder Xu found Mo Hua, who killed him instantly with the God-Slaying Sword and took his Storage Bag before vanishing.
• Elder Ma and the other Corpse Valley elders found Elder Xu dead, abandoned their pursuit, and carried his corpse away as the Ksitigarbha Corpse began to turn violent.
• In a hidden mountain cave, Mo Hua meditated as the double backlash from Killing Intent seeped into his Sea of Consciousness and began to overwhelm him.