Chapter Summaries

Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai fought Azure Fields High Person after he revived through a mysterious array, but the enemy escaped after stealing a lock of Mo Hua’s hair. As they left the dangerous forest, Mo Hua hinted that he had an unusual plan or insight about what lay ahead.

• Mo Hua recognized Azure Fields High Person’s revival as a high-grade Spirit Pivot Absolute Array, but could not decipher its structure before its threads vanished into the man’s body.
• Azure Fields High Person revived, killed and devoured fleeing Azure-Faced Tribesmen, then repeatedly attacked Mo Hua, who evaded his blows with Movement Techniques.
• Mo Hua restrained Azure Fields High Person with Water Prison Techniques and forced him to turn away from Gu Changhuai with precise Fireball Techniques while Gu Changhuai recovered his strength.
• Azure Fields High Person feinted toward the Dao Court Office cultivators and nearly struck Mo Hua, tearing his cloak and stealing a lock of his hair before fleeing from Gu Changhuai’s attack.
• Gu Changhuai checked that Mo Hua was unharmed, and the two decided to leave Thousand-Spider Old Forest as Mo Hua gave an inscrutable smile.

Azure Fields High Person reached the Thousand-Spider Daoist Temple and told Master Wu that a black-robed cultivator had betrayed him and rescued Gu Changhuai. Master Wu used three strands of Mo Hua’s hair to begin a Gu Sorcery ritual, and his Divine Thought finally revealed a black-robed figure with a fair, handsome face.

• Azure Fields High Person followed a Five-Pattern Venom Spider through the Miasma Fog to the Thousand-Spider Daoist Temple.
• Azure Fields High Person forced his way into the main hall and asked Master Wu whether he had sent someone to harm him.
• Master Wu denied sending anyone and confirmed that Gu Changhuai still had to die within the Azure Fields State Boundary.
• Azure Fields High Person described the black-robed cultivator and gave Master Wu three strands of Mo Hua’s hair.
• Master Wu prepared a Gu Sorcery ritual with venomous creatures and Mo Hua’s hair, then used his Divine Thought to probe the cultivator’s Karma.
• Master Wu saw a slender black-robed figure with a fair, handsome face.

Master Wu traced Mo Hua’s karmic Fate and mistook his false Fate body for a young novice of the Left Path, then used the Five Ghosts Human-Faced Curse-Killing Technique to destroy it. When he glimpsed the truth hidden behind Mo Hua’s Fate, he was driven mad, and Azure Fields High Person broke the ritual but could not stop Master Wu from trying to gouge out his eyes.

• Master Wu found Mo Hua’s Fate manifestation and discovered that its questions followed a rule of equivalent exchange.
• Mo Hua asked Master Wu about the Left Path and Thousand Spider Goddess, then persuaded him to promise to teach him Thaumaturgy.
• Master Wu pressed the Five Ghosts Human-Faced Curse-Killing Technique into Mo Hua’s forehead, believing he had exposed and killed Mo Hua’s false Fate body.
• Master Wu peered through the shattered Fate body and glimpsed something incomprehensible, which plunged him into a terrifying nightmare.
• Azure Fields High Person shattered the ritual jars and crushed the Gu insects, but Master Wu continued writhing and trying to gouge out his eyes.

Master Wu was possessed by a terrifying Evil Thought and nearly swallowed the cursed strand of hair, while Azure Fields High Person struggled to stop him. The Thousand Spider Goddess intervened and removed the contamination, and Mo Hua later told Gu Changhuai that something vicious and chaotic had taken his place.

• Master Wu mutilated his face and eyes, but an eerie black-blood face appeared and he broke free of Azure Fields High Person’s blades.
• Possessed Master Wu searched the hall, found the poisoned strand of hair, and tried to swallow it as darkness gathered around the temple.
• Azure Fields High Person restrained Master Wu and shouted him partly back to his senses, but Master Wu’s Heart-Protecting Mirror shattered as he fought the Evil Thought.
• Master Wu invoked the Thousand Spider Goddess, whose purple spiders consumed his Thought Power and drew the contamination from him.
• After the darkness receded, Mo Hua told Gu Changhuai that something complicated, vicious, and chaotic had taken his place.

Mo Hua sensed a disturbing change in his Fate but chose to leave Thousand-Spider Forest with the injured Gu Changhuai and Dao Court Office cultivators rather than pursue Azure Fields High Person and Master Wu. In Thousand Spider Temple, Master Wu recovered from his ordeal, struggled to suppress memories of Mo Hua, and concluded that a Tai Sui had passed through.

• Mo Hua considered the strange disturbance in his Fate and decided he needed deeper knowledge of the Divine Path.
• Gu Changhuai explained that Azure Fields High Person was the chief culprit behind the uprising and described his connection to the mysterious Alchemist Master Wu.
• Mo Hua connected Master Wu to the Thousand Spider Goddess but postponed visiting Thousand Spider Temple, choosing to lead the wounded group out of the forest.
• Azure Fields High Person found Master Wu injured and unable to remember what had happened, while Master Wu panicked at the return of memories of Mo Hua.
• Master Wu calmed himself and told Azure Fields High Person that he feared a Tai Sui had passed through.

Master Wu concluded that the black-robed youth had carried a deadly curse rather than being Tai Sui, and ordered Azure Fields High Person to capture him unharmed while continuing the hunt for Gu Changhuai. Mo Hua brought Gu Changhuai and the Dao Court Office cultivators out of Thousand-Spider Forest, but their reunion turned serious when Gu Changhuai revealed that Yu'er had changed greatly since Mo Hua left.

• Master Wu considered whether he had encountered an immature Tai Sui, then decided his ordeal had been a curse and told Azure Fields High Person to capture the black-robed youth without injuring him.
• Azure Fields High Person agreed to continue hunting Gu Changhuai, then privately vowed to devour every Left Path cultivator one day.
• Mo Hua led Gu Changhuai and the surviving Dao Court Office cultivators out of Thousand-Spider Forest and found them a place to rest.
• Gu Changhuai recovered somewhat while Mo Hua kept watch, and they discussed Mo Hua leaving Houtu City and rumors about Yu Nujiao.
• Mo Hua asked after Aunt Wan and Yu'er, and Gu Changhuai said Yu'er had become almost unrecognizable in temperament.

Mo Hua learned that Yu'er’s talent and temperament had changed frighteningly, then joined Gu Changhuai in assessing the worsening riot in Azure Fields State Boundary. After seeing the starving cultivators gathered near Azure Fields City, Mo Hua proposed feeding them instead of suppressing them, but Gu Changhuai warned that this would be harder than killing them.

• Gu Changhuai told Mo Hua that Yu'er’s talent had surged, his moods had become erratic, and those who tried to treat him had gone mad, though he settled somewhat around Aunt Wan.
• Mo Hua concealed his knowledge that Yu'er was the Evil God's Evil Fetus and worried that the Great Wilderness Evil Fetus matter was not over.
• Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai discussed why their enemies wanted Gu Changhuai dead and how the riot could make him a scapegoat if it spread through the Great Spirit Field Realm.
• Gu Changhuai planned to gather the remaining Dao Court Office cultivators and suppress the riot before requesting Dao Soldiers became necessary.
• Mo Hua led Gu Changhuai and the others in gray robes through famine-stricken Azure Fields State Boundary and observed the varied groups gathered near Azure Fields City.
• Mo Hua said the rebellion could be resolved by giving the starving people food, but Gu Changhuai warned that feeding them would be far harder than killing them.

Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai crossed the starving, riot-torn outskirts to investigate Azure Fields City, while Mo Hua worried that he could not find wild grass for making Straw Dogs. They secretly infiltrated the city, whose condition inside remained unknown.

• Mo Hua realized the Dao Court might be letting disaster victims die before suppressing the riot, and Gu Changhuai said the upper ranks’ inaction could be deliberate.
• Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai set out for Azure Fields City while Gu An, Gu Quan, and the other Dao Court Office cultivators stayed behind to recover.
• Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai passed through the starving refugees and reached Azure Fields City’s sealed, bloodstained walls.
• Mo Hua searched for wild grass to make Straw Dogs but found none, leaving him without a way to offset karmic killing tribulations.
• Mo Hua identified flaws in the damaged city-wall array and guided Gu Changhuai over the defenses into Azure Fields City.

Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai surveyed the devastated Azure Fields City, found its Dao Court Office overrun and its people in danger, and realized they lacked the manpower to stop the riots. They encountered Bai Xiaosheng disguised as a beggar, and Mo Hua challenged him to help despite his claim that the suffering was beyond his power to remedy.

• Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai explored Azure Fields City, where rioters preyed on survivors and Mo Hua could save only those in immediate danger.
• Mo Hua noticed activity inside Fortune Pavilion, while one of its cultivators sensed an unexplained presence but continued the pavilion’s business.
• Mo Hua and Gu Changhuai found the Azure Fields Dao Court Office occupied, its prison opened, its records burned, and its personnel missing or dead.
• Gu Changhuai and Mo Hua concluded that they lacked the forces to suppress the widespread riots and feared that calling in Dao Soldiers would also harm innocent people.
• Mo Hua recognized Bai Xiaosheng disguised as a blind, lame beggar and urged him to do something for the suffering people, but Bai Xiaosheng said he could not feed so many victims.

Mo Hua persuaded Bai Xiaosheng to join him and Gu Changhuai in addressing the rebellion in the Azure Fields State Boundary. With no resources or backing, Mo Hua proposed infiltrating the rioters and using their own strength to confront Azure Fields High Person and resolve the turmoil from within.

• Mo Hua convinced Bai Xiaosheng to abandon his beggar disguise and join him and Gu Changhuai.
• Bai Xiaosheng learned that Mo Hua had no army, supplies, or official support to quell the rebellion.
• Mo Hua revealed that he wanted to kill Azure Fields High Person because he suspected the rebel leader was hiding a secret.
• Bai Xiaosheng warned that killing Azure Fields High Person could worsen the rebellion and increase the suffering of refugees.
• Mo Hua proposed that he, Bai Xiaosheng, and Gu Changhuai join the rioters and guide them from within.

Mo Hua recruited Bai Xiaosheng and Gu Changhuai to secretly infiltrate a mob faction in Azure Fields and pose as mysterious experts. After entering the Changshan Army camp, Mo Hua introduced their fictional Ascendant Immortal Sect and promised General Chang an opportunity to quell the chaos.

• Mo Hua pressured Bai Xiaosheng into joining his plan and recruited Gu Changhuai as well.
• Mo Hua disguised the three of them in black robes and led them to the Changshan Army camp, where they bypassed its array.
• Mo Hua took the central seat while Bai Xiaosheng and Gu Changhuai posed as his protectors.
• General Chang attacked the intruders, but Bai Xiaosheng blocked his spear and forced him to stop.
• Mo Hua claimed they belonged to the Ascendant Immortal Sect and told General Chang that his opportunity had arrived.

Mo Hua persuaded General Chang to join the newly invented Ascendant Immortal Sect by predicting the Changshan Army’s destruction and promising protection for its people. After settling in the camp, Mo Hua learned that the Dao Court closely policed the use of “Immortal” in names, leaving him uneasy about Immortal City.

• Mo Hua warned General Chang that the Changshan Army and its people would be destroyed unless he accepted the Ascendant Immortal Sect’s aid.
• General Chang agreed to follow Mo Hua and pleaded for protection for the people of Changshan, which Mo Hua promised.
• Mo Hua, Bai Xiaosheng, and Gu Changhuai settled in the Changshan camp, where Mo Hua revealed that he had invented the Ascendant Immortal Sect half an hour earlier.
• Bai Xiaosheng explained that names containing powerful words such as “Heaven,” “Dao,” and “Immortal” carried fortune and were policed by the Dao Court.
• Gu Changhuai described how the Dao Court investigated even small powers that used “Immortal” in their names, and Mo Hua realized that Immortal City had kept the word unnoticed.

Mo Hua worried that the Ascendant Immortal Sect’s name might draw trouble, but he and his companions kept it as a temporary ruse and used his predictions to win General Chang’s trust. The chapter ended with General Chang pledging the Changshan Army to the sect, while Mo Hua admitted he had invented its Ancestor.

• Mo Hua wondered whether Immortal City, the Dao Stele, and his master’s choice to hide there were connected, then asked whether he could rename the Ascendant Immortal Sect.
• Bai Xiaosheng and Gu Changhuai persuaded Mo Hua to keep the sect’s name temporarily, and the three established its ranks with Mo Hua as Master and the others as Protectors.
• Mo Hua told General Chang that the Mountain Locust Army would attack the camp’s southeast corner and gave him arrays and instructions to prepare an ambush.
• General Chang followed Mo Hua’s plan and defeated the underground attackers, then pledged the Changshan Army to the Ascendant Immortal Sect.
• After General Chang left, Mo Hua told Bai Xiaosheng and Gu Changhuai that he had made up the Ascendant Immortal Ancestor.

Mo Hua learned that Azure Fields High Person was a calamity-linked Golden Core cultivator who had risen rapidly and led a vast rebellion. He used General Chang’s army to launch a campaign across Azure Fields, leaving the Changshan Army as an eight-hundred-thousand-strong force under his influence.

• Bai Xiaosheng forbade Mo Hua from inventing any more people, gods, or beasts for the Ascendant Immortal Sect, and Gu Changhuai urged him to end the Azure Fields riot quickly.
• General Chang told Mo Hua that Azure Fields High Person was rumored to bear Demon-Human Fate, had advanced from Golden Core Early Stage to late stage in about thirty years, and had once fought him at Changshan Fields.
• Mo Hua learned that Azure Fields High Person had left the city to capture Gu Changhuai, and he warned General Chang that the enemy would likely seek revenge.
• Mo Hua gave General Chang a map marked with a red line and ordered him to begin the campaign, launching a war against the forces in Azure Fields.
• General Chang’s army defeated rival forces and recruited survivors, killing General Locust and Blackbrow High Person along the way.
• Within a little over a month, the Changshan Army grew from fewer than one hundred thousand to eight hundred thousand, making Mo Hua’s influence over the rebellion immense.

Mo Hua continued planning the campaign against Azure Fields High Person while Bai Xiaosheng questioned his military skill and the rumors about his strength. After the Azure-Faced Host attacked the Changshan Army, strange invisible figures struck the camp at night, leaving Mo Hua to suspect that a Left Path expert had joined the enemy.

• Bai Xiaosheng and Gu Changhuai questioned Mo Hua about his ability to command troops, and Mo Hua credited his experience in the Great Wilderness and guidance from True Person Zhuge and General Yang.
• Bai Xiaosheng explained that Azure Fields High Person might possess a Demon-Human Fate that made him difficult to kill unless he devoured more than half the cultivators in a State Boundary.
• Mo Hua paused the Changshan Army's advance to rest and reorganize its forces, hoping to avoid heavy casualties before capturing Azure Fields High Person.
• The Azure-Faced Host attacked the Changshan Army repeatedly, but Mo Hua anticipated its moves and prevented major losses while inflicting casualties on the enemy.
• Invisible, malformed figures invaded the Changshan Army camp at night and devoured soldiers' souls, prompting Mo Hua to suspect that an enemy expert was using Left Path Thaumaturgy.

Mo Hua destroyed the invisible demon specters attacking the Changshan Army, then discussed his unusual sword technique with Bai Xiaosheng and Gu Changhuai. Bai Xiaosheng suspected Mo Hua possessed a divine sword passed down by a Void Gate ancestor, but Gu Changhuai stopped him before he could probe further.

• Mo Hua ordered General Chang to isolate the contaminated soldiers and then killed the demon specters with his Divine Thought, restoring order in the camp.
• General Chang and the soldiers praised Mo Hua, who warned them the Left Path fiend might return and gave instructions for treating the wounded and guarding the camp.
• Back in the tent, Bai Xiaosheng warned Mo Hua to keep a lower profile and questioned him about the eye-based technique he had used.
• Bai Xiaosheng suspected Mo Hua had learned the forbidden Supreme Void Divine Sense Sword Transformation Art, but Mo Hua claimed he used a registered technique called the Supreme Void Soul-Startling Sword Intent Art.
• Bai Xiaosheng reasoned that Mo Hua's Natal Magic Treasure was a Divine Sword inherited from a Void Gate ancestor, while Gu Changhuai stopped him from asking more about Mo Hua's secrets.

Mo Hua investigated the Left Path alchemist behind the attack on the Changshan Army and learned the name Wang Liangzi, along with a trail of murdered witnesses. His divination connected the culprit to the Soul-Detaining and General-Dispatching Great Art.

• Bai Xiaosheng suspected Mo Hua had inherited a divine sword from Old Ancestor Dugu, then grew frightened as he considered Mo Hua’s connection to a terrifying Daoist.
• General Chang reported that more than fifty soldiers had died from withered seas of consciousness after the Left Path attack.
• Mo Hua questioned General Chang about the unknown thaumaturgy and ordered him to ask the Changshan Army for clues about its caster.
• General Chang traced a lead to a murdered landlord’s household and learned that a deputy general’s cousin had heard the name Wang Liangzi before dying.
• Mo Hua followed the new clues through karma and identified the Soul-Detaining and General-Dispatching Great Art.

Mo Hua investigated Wang Liangzi and the Soul-Detaining and General-Dispatching Great Art, but found no safe way to reach or kill him. He reconstructed Master Wu’s Five Ghosts Human-Faced Curse-Killing Technique, then devised a way to replace its ghost-spider medium by transforming his Thought Power through arrays.

• Mo Hua learned that Wang Liangzi was the suspected killer behind multiple family massacres, but even General Chang knew almost nothing about his identity or whereabouts.
• Mo Hua recorded what he knew of Wang Liangzi and tried to trace him through karma, but found no direct way to kill him and ruled out sending others to assassinate him.
• Mo Hua recalled Master Wu’s Five Ghosts Human-Faced Curse-Killing Technique and reconstructed its basic structure by reviewing the memory of being cursed to death.
• Mo Hua realized he could not use the technique without five human-faced ghost spiders to provide its cursed power, and rejected the idea of stealing them from Master Wu.
• Mo Hua proposed using arrays to transform his Thought Power into Array Power that could simulate Cursed Power and drive the technique.

Mo Hua tried to adapt Master Wu’s Five Ghosts Human-Faced Curse-Killing Technique by using his own Thought Power and poison arrays instead of Gu insects and rituals. After the Five Elements Source Diagram yielded several rare poison arrays, he had the five elemental poison techniques needed to develop his version of the curse.

• Mo Hua reasoned that he could transform his Thought Power into Cursed Power with Array Techniques and used the Azure Wood Poison Array to form a poisonous pattern on his hand.
• Mo Hua decided to replace the technique’s five Gu poisons with poison arrays based on metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, but he lacked metal and earth poison arrays.
• Mo Hua took out the Five Elements Source Diagram and deciphered ordinary arrays before a threat prompted it to reveal the Third-Grade Middle-Tier Geng-Xin Metal Poison Array.
• Mo Hua threatened the Source Pattern again and obtained the Third-Grade High-Tier Earth Miasma Poison Array.
• Mo Hua continued deciphering and uncovered the Heart-Burning Fire Poison Array, Cold Gui Water Poison Array, and Bone-Clinging Wood Poison Array.

Mo Hua deciphered five Third-Grade Five Elements poison arrays and began studying them, mastering the water, wood, and metal arrays. As he uncovered the Earth Miasma Poison Array’s plague-spreading potential, he realized it could destroy a city or even annihilate an entire state.

• Mo Hua found that the Five Elements Source Pattern had yielded five Third-Grade poison arrays, though it produced nothing else when he tried to decipher more.
• Mo Hua recorded the five poison arrays and practiced drawing them, first in his Sea of Consciousness and then on the Dao Stele.
• Mo Hua learned the Cold Gui Water, Bone-Clinging Wood, and Geng-Xin Metal Poison Arrays, but repeatedly failed to master the Heart-Burning Fire Poison Array.
• Mo Hua studied the Earth Miasma Poison Array and deduced that it could spread corpse rot and plague across the land.
• Mo Hua realized the Earth Miasma Poison Array could function as a large-scale killing array capable of destroying a city or annihilating a state.