Chapter Summaries

Zhang Wushuang explored a cave, killed a bat demonic beast, and found a hidden chamber filled with powerful spiritual herbs. Barbarian warriors then sealed the cave exit, forcing the trapped cultivators to prepare for battle and call for reinforcements.

• Zhang Wushuang entered the cave alone, found a Spirit Spring and spiritual herbs, and was attacked by a black bat demonic beast.
• Zhang Wushuang killed the bat demonic beast in a narrow passage and discovered a concealed stone chamber with a second Spirit Spring and rare herbs.
• Zhang Wushuang reunited with his senior brothers and sisters, who learned that barbarian warriors had sealed the cave exit.
• Zhang Wushuang and the cultivators prepared to defend the narrow passage and decided to use a jade talisman to request aid.
• The barbarians charged into the passage, and the cultivators used talismans to kill the first wave and block those behind them.

Zhang Wushuang and his companions broke out of the cavern with help from a rescue team, then returned to camp to recover and review the battle. The next day, reinforcements arrived as several factions prepared to clear the surrounding area and develop it.

• Liu Hanyan led Zhang Wushuang and the others through the barbarian warriors while their sect tokens signaled that rescuers were nearby.
• The rescuers joined the trapped squad, defeated the barbarians, and helped them escape; trackers used traces to locate nearby barbarian territory.
• Zhang Wushuang, Liu Hanyan, and Chen Biqiu reviewed the encounter at camp and discussed their weaknesses and improvements.
• The next day, the main force arrived with supplies and manpower to expand the camp and prepare to drive away nearby barbarians and demon beasts.

Chen Biqiu and the others encountered a powerful white tiger Demon King after their presence awakened it, and Haliqi arrived to confront it. The standoff eased when three Qi Lu Academy experts appeared through a gate of light.

• Chen Biqiu observed the wary barbarian tribe and heard a roar that revealed a Demon King had awakened.
• Chen Biqiu ordered his group to retreat to camp and prepare for battle while they waited for help.
• A huge white tiger Demon King emerged from the valley, and Haliqi arrived to face it.
• Haliqi and the Tiger King exchanged a restrained blow, briefly shaking the valley.
• Zheng Wuzhuang, Zhu Lingyu, and Kong Dazhong arrived through a gate of light, and Zheng Wuzhuang calmed the panicked crowd.

Zheng Wuzhuang and the human experts negotiated with the White Tiger Demon King, who agreed to consider an alliance if they brought him the Heaven-Sent Divine Stone within a month. They assembled leaders from several factions for the quest, though the Zhao Kingdom royal family largely stayed away.

• Zheng Wuzhuang, Zhu Lingyu, Kong Dazhong, and Chen Biqiu reassured the White Tiger Demon King that the humans wanted peace and cooperation.
• The White Tiger Demon King transformed into a young man and demanded that the humans bring him the Heaven-Sent Divine Stone within a month as proof of sincerity.
• Zheng Wuzhuang and Haliqi agreed to gather leaders from Mount Dai, the Star Cult, and other major factions to pursue the stone together.
• Chen Ershun and Zhou Buding arrived, while the Zhao Kingdom royal family claimed an emergency on the western defense line and withdrew.
• Si Quangong came to represent the Zhao Kingdom's nobility as the assembled leaders prepared for the journey.

The gathered sect leaders and disciples reached the mountain summit to examine the Heaven-Sent Divine Stone, but the powerful elders could not move or understand it. Zhang Wushuang awakened a response when he touched it, while Zhang Mingshu observed the visions through the Life Book and the Star Moon Painting and called to his son.

• Chen Ershun, Zhou Buding, Zheng Wuzhuang, and the other leaders gathered their factions and set aside their original plans to travel to the mountain summit.
• The expedition crossed forests, rivers, and cliffs for several days before reaching the floating Heaven-Sent Divine Stone, while one demon king joined them and the others remained absent or distant.
• Zheng Wuzhuang touched the stone but found that the elders could gain only a limited response, so he invited the disciples to take turns touching it.
• Dozens of disciples touched the stone without effect before Zhang Wushuang stepped forward and saw visions of a starry sky, ancient immortal formations, and flowing Spiritual Energy.
• Zhang Mingshu sensed the disturbance through the Life Book and the Star Moon Painting, witnessed Zhang Wushuang's experience, and called out to him.

Zhang Wushuang connected with the divine stone and explored its starry realm under Zhang Mingshu’s guidance, awakening the Xueya Sword’s Big Dipper inscription before fleeing from an approaching threat. Afterward, the divine stone became movable, and the powerful figures decided to take it to the Academy for study while the two Demon Kings joined Zhang Wushuang’s sect as guardian spirit beasts.

• Zhang Mingshu guided Zhang Wushuang through the divine stone’s starry realm and warned him away from dangerous areas.
• The Xueya Sword resonated with Zhang Wushuang and the divine stone, forming a pillar of light as a Big Dipper inscription appeared on the blade.
• Zhang Wushuang withdrew from the starry realm when a threatening presence approached, then told Chen Biqiu what he had experienced while concealing his connection with Zhang Mingshu.
• The powerful figures examined Zhang Wushuang and discovered that the divine stone could now be moved.
• The Disguise Demon King introduced himself, and the Tiger King said he had never eaten humans.
• Zheng Wuzhuang proposed taking the divine stone to the Academy, while the two Demon Kings became guardian spirit beasts for the sect.

Zhang Wushuang entered the Fuding Sect secret realm with the other cultivators to help fight rampaging demonic beasts. In a misty forest, he discovered how to track the elusive Shadow Phantom and led his companions in a coordinated attack.

• The human forces drove the nearby barbarian tribes away, and Zhang Wushuang joined the group heading to the Fuding Sect secret realm.
• Jiang Guyu led the cultivators into the secret realm, where they split into teams to train and battle demonic beasts.
• Zhang Wushuang's team entered a forest where Jiang Guyu had warned them about the concealed Shadow Phantom.
• Zhang Wushuang sensed that the beast disturbed the airflow and comprehended Treading Snow Without Trace.
• Zhang Wushuang predicted the Shadow Phantom's movements and guided his companions' attacks toward its path.

Zhang Wushuang and her fellow cultivators captured Shadow Phantoms in the Fuding Sect secret realm to earn Contribution Points, using Lin Zhiruo’s medicinal powder and coordinated traps. While studying the creatures’ concealment under moonlight, Zhang Wushuang advanced Treading Snow Without Trace and began developing a new sword technique.

• Zhang Wushuang captured a Shadow Phantom, inspiring her senior brothers and sisters to catch more and exchange them for sect Contribution Points.
• Lin Zhiruo created medicinal powder that exposed and weakened Shadow Phantoms, while the group used traps, arrays, and coordinated attacks to capture them.
• Zhang Wushuang learned she could contact her father from afar and continued helping the group while considering how Shadow Phantoms could aid her combat skills.
• During a nighttime operation, Zhang Wushuang noticed that Shadow Phantoms moved more stealthily beneath moonlight and began cultivating Treading Snow Without Trace under it.
• At a moonlit lake, Zhang Wushuang’s sword dance concealed her movements from an approaching Shadow Phantom, and she reached a new level of Treading Snow Without Trace.
• Zhang Wushuang began combining Shadow Phantom’s concealment with her swordsmanship and vanished from the creature’s sight as her figure seemed to merge with the lake.

Zhang Wushuang reached a new level in Treading Snow Without Trace, captured the Shadow Phantom, and joined his teammates in a battle against the Abyssal Wolf King. With Lin Zhiruo’s medicine slowing the beast’s reactions, Zhang prepared to strike.

• Zhang Wushuang merged with nature by the lake and advanced his Treading Snow Without Trace before breaking away from a dangerous cultivation state.
• Zhang Wushuang caught and subdued the Shadow Phantom, then led his teammates to support disciples fighting in a valley.
• Zhang Wushuang identified the Abyssal Wolf King as the beast leader and approached it through the chaotic battlefield.
• The Abyssal Wolf King attacked Zhang Wushuang, while Li Baiyun, Lin Zhiruo, and the others used medicine to slow its reactions.
• Zhang Wushuang gathered his spiritual power, activated Treading Snow Without Trace, and charged at the Abyssal Wolf King.

Zhang Wushuang tested the drugged Abyssal Wolf King with a controlled sword strike and saw through its feigned weakness. As her team closed in with coordinated support, the wolf king found no opening and decided to flee.

• Zhang Wushuang diverted her sword from the Abyssal Wolf King's throat and tapped its shoulder to test whether it was pretending to be drugged.
• The Abyssal Wolf King realized Zhang Wushuang had understood its intentions and felt unprecedented pressure from her.
• Senior Brother Li Baiyun prepared to intervene while the other disciples stayed alert and ready to support Zhang Wushuang.
• Zhang Wushuang's team carefully advanced in coordinated positions, leaving the Abyssal Wolf King unable to find an opening.
• The Abyssal Wolf King decided to abandon the other demon beasts and escape before the team could trap it.

Zhang Wushuang and his teammates prepared to rescue another squad surrounded by magical beasts in Fuding Sect’s secret realm. After the Abyssal Wolf King escaped and the fighting intensified, they set out at night with a plan to retreat toward their traps if necessary.

• The Abyssal Wolf King gradually withdrew from the fight and fled, while Zhang Wushuang remained wary of its possible return.
• Lin Zhiruo and Li Baiyun restored the team’s condition, and Li Baiyun’s group placed concealed traps around the valley.
• Zhang Wushuang practiced combining Treading Snow Without Trace with swordsmanship and killed an injured magical beast that approached him.
• The team discovered more wounded beasts nearby and decided to begin the rescue immediately under cover of night.
• Li Baiyun briefed the team on the rescue and retreat plan, while Lin Zhiruo distributed medicinal powders and liquids.

Zhang Wushuang and Senior Brother Li Baiyun led a rescue team into the valley to relieve the Fuding Sect cultivators besieged by fierce beasts. After fighting through the night and into the next day, the rescuers joined the survivors and formed a defensive line while the beasts withdrew to recover.

• Zhang Wushuang learned from Zhang Mingshu that clever beasts like the Abyssal Wolf King were rare, and Senior Brother Li Baiyun ordered the team to enter the valley after a roar signaled the battle had intensified.
• Zhang Wushuang and the rescue team found the Fuding Sect cultivators surrounded by fierce beasts and charged into battle to help them.
• Zhang Wushuang used her footwork and swordsmanship, guided by Zhang Mingshu through the Life Book and Star Moon Painting, to turn the beasts’ attacks against one another.
• Senior Brother Li Baiyun, Senior Sister Lin Zhiruo, and the other rescuers fought alongside Zhang Wushuang and gradually pushed the beasts back.
• After fighting from midnight until noon, Zhang Wushuang’s team reunited with the besieged cultivators and established a defensive formation as the beasts retreated to recuperate.

Zhang Wushuang and the cultivators from Li Baiyun and Mo Lingli’s squads broke out of the valley by drawing the demon beasts east while the wounded escaped west. After regrouping and resting, they met a third squad led by Yan Chijia.

• The cultivators prepared a breakout while demon beasts closed in on the valley again.
• Zhang Wushuang led a diversion east, fighting demon beasts to draw their attention away from the western escape route.
• Li Baiyun and Mo Lingli led their squads west with the wounded and escaped after a fierce battle.
• Zhang Wushuang and his companions shook off their pursuers, circled back, and reunited with Li Baiyun’s group.
• The cultivators rested, treated the wounded, and regrouped with a third squad led by Yan Chijia.

Yan Chijia warned Li Baiyun and Mo Lingli that a mysterious force was controlling the demon beasts, so the teams agreed to cooperate while retaining separate command. Their joint defenses and reconnaissance expanded, but the beasts continued attacking several times a day.

• Yan Chijia arrived and told Li Baiyun and Mo Lingli that a mysterious force appeared to be directing the demon beasts.
• Zhang Wushuang offered help, and Li Baiyun agreed that the teams would send out reconnaissance groups and reinforce the camp while remaining independent.
• The teams coordinated their reconnaissance and defenses, and Zhang Wushuang prepared to recover before returning to scouting.
• The demon beasts continued to attack the camp several times a day.

Zhang Wushuang and the others discovered that a hidden force was controlling demon beasts and traced it to a secluded valley. They found a powerful Demon Person there and retreated to report the discovery, leaving its numbers and intentions unknown.

• The three teams strengthened their camp, while Lin Zhiruo supplied medicine and Zhang Wushuang led scouting missions.
• Zhang Wushuang found human belongings in a valley and brought them to Li Baiyun and Yan Chijia, who suspected people were directing the demon beasts.
• Li Baiyun, Yan Chijia, and Zhang Wushuang investigated the valley and found crude shelters and demon beasts with abnormal red eyes under someone’s control.
• A towering, monstrous figure emerged from a stone house, and Lin Zhiruo identified it as a possible Demon Person.
• The group recognized the Demon Person’s formidable strength and quietly withdrew without provoking it, intending to report what they had found.

Zhang Wushuang and the allied cultivators uncovered experiments that transformed people into demon-like beings and used controlled demon beasts to hide their activities. They eased the crisis in Fuding Sect's secret realm, but the mastermind escaped, and Zhang Wushuang, Liu Hanyan, and Chen Biqiu joined a new expedition to find him.

• The investigators discovered hidden valleys where demon people had been altered and were attempting unsuccessfully to reproduce, while controlled demon beasts concealed their activity with attacks.
• Yan Chijia, Senior Brother Li Baiyun, and Zhang Wushuang fought a demon person; Zhang Wushuang wounded him, and the three killed him without capturing him alive.
• The allies found experimental caves filled with medicines and processed demon-beast corpses, but the mastermind evaded the elders investigating him.
• After more than a dozen pairs of demon people were slain, the controlled attacks stopped and the demon beasts retreated, temporarily resolving the crisis.
• Fuding Sect reorganized elite squads to search remote parts of the secret realm, and Zhang Wushuang, Liu Hanyan, and Chen Biqiu joined the expedition.

Zhang Wushuang and his teammates uncovered that the Demon People were created by Fuding Sect cultivators through ancient experiments, which later fueled years of abductions and demonic beast attacks. The current mastermind remained uncaught, and Zhang Mingshu suspected a senior figure in the sect had knowingly let the experiments continue.

• Zhang Wushuang and his teammates investigated an abandoned laboratory and found records showing that heretical cultivators had created the Demon People by combining human and demonic powers.
• The team learned that the experiments had caused immense suffering, while the surviving Demon People became violent and had little memory of their human lives.
• Zhang Wushuang pieced together the history from a recovered diary: restless Fuding Sect cultivators had resumed ancient experiments, and later used demonic beast rampages to hide their abductions and work.
• Zhang Wushuang realized that the current person responsible had not been caught and might already be hiding in a human city.
• Liu Hanyan promised Zhang Wushuang that they would find the mastermind, while Master Chen Biqiu searched the surviving records for further clues.
• Zhang Mingshu compared the situation to the Netherworld Cult's infiltration of the Mount Lu Secret Realm and suspected a senior Fuding Sect figure had turned a blind eye.

Zhang Wushuang and his allies uncovered evidence that the organization [Chaos] had orchestrated the Demon Person experiments, then fought their way through a horde of controlled demonic beasts to regroup with Li Baiyun and the other teams. Zhang Mingshu concluded that the investigators had been misdirected and that local factions lacked the will to pursue the real conspirators, leaving the investigation likely to end without uncovering the truth.

• Zhang Wushuang and his companions examined the abandoned laboratory and resolved to find the people behind the Demon Person experiments.
• A scouting disciple led Chen Biqiu's group to an eastern valley, where Zhang Wushuang found records naming the organization [Chaos].
• A horde of controlled demonic beasts attacked, and Zhang Wushuang's team fought toward Li Baiyun's position to regroup.
• Yan Chijia and Li Baiyun killed a powerful demonic beast, allowing Chen Biqiu's team to escape the encirclement.
• At the temporary camp, Zhang Mingshu determined that someone in the Fuding Sect was covering up the truth and that the other powers were unlikely to continue the investigation.

After Fuding Sect forced the cultivators to leave and claimed its investigation had found and sealed the experimental caves, Zhang Wushuang worried that the sect was hiding evidence about the Demon People and Chaos Organization. Before the young cultivators returned to their sects, the Disguised Demon King urged them to follow their own paths and leave problems beyond their power for later.

• Fuding Sect declared that the experimental caves had been found and sealed, that the transformed participants were dead, and that it would continue hunting the remaining Demon People.
• Zhang Wushuang kept a diary he suspected someone in Fuding Sect wanted destroyed, and Chen Biqiu advised the cultivators to stay alert for traces of the Chaos Organization elsewhere.
• The cultivators invited the Disguised Demon King to lecture them before they returned to their sects and Lineages at dawn.
• The Disguised Demon King described how he had cultivated skills to escape and survive, and said he preferred human food and could not gain power by eating people.
• The Disguised Demon King urged the young cultivators to find their own paths and avoid risking their lives against organizations they could not yet challenge.
• Zhang Wushuang took comfort from the lecture, and the young cultivators left with greater clarity about their futures.

Zhang Wushuang and Zhao Siqi returned to Baishi Village for the New Year, where Zhang Mingshu began teaching Zhang Wushuang the Star Scripture and introduced her to the family’s Black Stone Secret Squad. The family continued strengthening its forces while keeping wary watch over the shifting alliances among the great clans.

• Zhang Wushuang and Zhao Siqi returned home after Zhang Xi stayed at the Academy for extra lessons, and Zhao Siqi explained that Kong Junhao’s persistent presence had driven her to request leave.
• Zhang Mingshu brought Zhao Siqi and Zhang Wushuang on the New Year inspection tour and sent the recommended girls back to their families while Zhang Xi was away at school.
• With Senior Disciple Brother Zhou Buding’s consent, Zhang Mingshu began teaching Zhang Wushuang the Star Scripture to help her control the power from the extraterrestrial divine stone.
• Zhang Wushuang awakened Water and Wood Spiritual Roots and crossed the threshold of a sorcerer’s cultivation.
• Zhang Mingshu introduced Zhang Wushuang to the Black Stone Secret Squad and reviewed the family’s forces and the political tensions among the major powers.