Chapter Summaries

Li Wei and Gu Jinzhi discussed theories about the Heavenly River’s minor worlds and learned that Gu Jinzhi might wake in a month. As Li Wei planned the upcoming Western Frontier Recovery campaign, she promised to be waiting when he awoke and paid him to keep massaging her feet.

• Li Wei asked Gu Jinzhi what he had learned about the minor worlds, and he suggested they might be parts of one world divided across time by a powerful being.
• Gu Jinzhi told Li Wei that Zhang Yansheng had visited and called him uncle-in-law; Li Wei explained her family connection to Zhang Yansheng.
• Gu Jinzhi said his latest examination predicted he would wake in another month, earlier than first expected.
• Li Wei calculated the campaign schedule and reassured Gu Jinzhi that it would end before he woke, so he would see her beside his hospital bed.
• Li Wei described her future plans, then gave Gu Jinzhi five thousand Incense Money to massage her feet for another hour.

Gu Litong asked Jiang Xinyue to protect the Gu Family if he died, revealing he planned to use his father's True Blood to reach Martial Immortal power and rescue Jiang Xue if trouble arose on the front line. He left Jiang Xinyue with a reminder of his old love for Zhao Funing and insisted she not argue with him this time.

• Jiang Xinyue confronted Gu Litong about why he had summoned her and accused Elder Zeng of choosing her as a disciple for her family's sword array.
• Gu Litong asked Jiang Xinyue to look after the Gu Family if he died, and she demanded to know what he was planning.
• Gu Litong explained that he feared something was wrong with the front line and could briefly gain Martial Immortal power using True Blood taken from his father.
• Gu Litong said he would risk his life to bring Jiang Xue back if necessary, and Jiang Xinyue insisted she would go instead.
• Gu Litong called Jiang Xinyue “Sister Yue,” recalled his decades-long separation from Zhao Funing, and said he was considering going to keep her company.

Li Wei prepared to advance alone and hold the line while Dragon Tooth Bunkers were secured, as Qin Lan quietly left the command center and the 52nd Army Group prepared for the counteroffensive. At the Southern Sector staging area, Zheng Ye rejoined his battalion after canceling his discharge, leaving Zhong Li to confront him about his family.

• Chen Jianwen briefed Li Wei on her route, bunker deployments, and mission to clear threats while the fortifications were built, and she accepted the assignment.
• Li Wei saluted the staff and guards as snow began falling, and she called it an auspicious sign for the coming harvest.
• Qin Lan learned Tang Dou, Su Meng, and Lin Wanrou had been assigned to the 52nd Army Group, then packed her gear and left a note before departing.
• Zhong Li briefed his battalion on defending Dragon Tooth Bunkers and questioned Liu Jianjie about the three young women assigned to First Company.
• Zheng Ye arrived carrying his Guan Dao and told Zhong Li he had torn up his discharge notice and withdrawn it from the system, adding that he had sent his wife and child away.

Yun Heng and Li Guitang uncovered evidence that Heavenly Ruins had purged the Zhou and Yang families’ faction, but they kept the campaign on schedule. Boris, Valena, and Alesheni arrived, and six leaders from the two nations joined fists before Yun Heng ordered the operation to begin.

• Li Guitang told Yun Heng that a Xue Family survivor had identified himself as a Heavenly Ruins member before purple lightning killed him, and investigators concluded the Zhou and Yang families’ faction had been purged.
• Yun Heng decided to proceed with the campaign, placing Liu Songming in temporary command while Jiang Xue led the operation.
• Boris, Valena, and Alesheni arrived from the Arctic Alliance, and Boris greeted Yun Heng with an exuberant embrace.
• Zhang Luye joined Yun Heng, Li Guitang, Boris, Valena, and Alesheni as they pressed their fists together and pledged themselves to their countries and what they cherished.
• Yun Heng looked toward the battlefield and announced that it was time to begin.

Li Wei launched the recovery operation, fighting an Abyssal monster tide while three Dragon Tooth Bunkers rose into position. She discovered the follow-up forces were trapped by an encirclement and ordered the bunkers to clear the rear flanks while she held the front.

• Li Wei raced to the designated area as the operation began and waited for three Dragon Tooth Bunkers to emerge from underground.
• Li Wei used her Frost Moon Sword Intent to freeze and destroy waves of Abyssal monsters while the bunkers finished rising.
• The Dragon Tooth Bunkers activated their guns and joined Li Wei in attacking the monster tide.
• Li Wei noticed the engineering and covering forces had failed to reach the bunkers and saw that the monster tide had encircled the position, trapping them outside.
• Li Wei contacted the bunkers and ordered them to redirect their weapons toward the rear flanks to open a passage, saying she would handle the front.

Li Wei helped Point One withstand the Abyssal Monster tide while engineers built a self-sustaining fortress, and Evernight and Master Beiku discussed the humans’ growing strength. With Point One secured, Li Wei received orders to proceed to Point Two.

• Evernight questioned Master Beiku about Li Wei’s Third Stage abilities and the human forces’ strength, while Master Beiku secretly hoped she would grow stronger.
• After a gap was opened in the Abyssal Monster tide, heavy mechs, vehicles, and engineering machines rapidly established defenses around Point One.
• Li Wei launched three Lotus Swords to destroy Abyssal Monsters attacking a Black Flood Dragon transport helicopter.
• Over the next three hours, the battle caused heavy casualties and the loss of at least two Black Flood Dragons, but Point One’s fortress complex was completed.
• Li Wei received orders to proceed to Point Two, checked that her Abyss Essence had risen to 18.97 million, and sped west.

Inside Dragon Tooth Bunker 03-1, Zhong Li prepared the 141st Division's Second Battalion for battle as the bunker rose to the surface. When the armor opened, he saw Colonel Jiang holding the front alone against an enormous tide of Abyssal Monsters, and sent Liu Jianjie to command the battle.

• Zhong Li assigned the three companies to defend the bunker's levels, ordered manual operation and maintenance training for its weapons, and directed adjustable firepower toward the flanks and rear.
• Zhong Li confirmed that Liu Jianjie had sent three girls to move ammunition with the logistics team and ordered the companies to stockpile extra ammunition throughout the bunker.
• The Dragon Tooth Bunker began its ascent, and the soldiers waited tensely until it locked into position and its armor plates opened.
• Zhong Li looked through a firing slit and saw Colonel Jiang deflecting attacks and cutting down Abyssal Monsters as she held the front alone.
• Liu Jianjie remarked that Colonel Jiang seemed fiercer than before, and Zhong Li sent him downstairs to command the battle.

Yun Heng and Li Guitang investigated strange cases of people whose souls had been obliterated and discussed Liu Songming’s suspicious behavior and plans for the coming battle. At Pebble Fortress, Liu Songming remained isolated in his office and ordered the 19th Army to the front line, alarming Rain Master.

• Yun Heng showed Li Guitang surveillance footage of a major who had become unresponsive, and said the major’s soul had been obliterated.
• Yun Heng told Li Guitang that Liu Songming had shut himself away since Yang Siwen’s death and had issued no orders for three days.
• Yun Heng suspected Liu Songming belonged to the same Heavenly Ruins faction as Yang Siwen and planned to leave him in place for the coming free-for-all.
• Li Guitang noted that Jiang Xue had fought at Position Fourteen for twelve hours without resting despite orders to take breaks.
• Liu Songming exchanged messages with Rain Master, then ordered the 19th Army to break up and send every unit to the front line.

After fighting for 112 hours, Li Wei struggled against the sea urchin swarm as her mental exhaustion nearly overcame her. The Wall of Gray Mist then retreated, drawing the monsters away and leaving the front line cheering as Li Wei saw her Abyss Essence total.

• Wang Xuemin anxiously waited for the Resonance Device to finish charging while Li Wei continued fighting at the front.
• Li Wei replenished her qi and blood with essence, but her exhaustion left her too weak to intercept the advancing sea urchins.
• The sea urchins buried Li Wei beneath a mound, but she burst free with a pillar of Frost Moon Sword Intent.
• Wang Xuemin ordered artillery to clear a buffer zone around Li Wei, and the explosions roused her from her daze.
• The Wall of Gray Mist retreated several kilometers, and the sea urchins reversed course and fled toward it.
• Li Wei watched the battlefield fall quiet, heard the soldiers cheer, and saw that her Abyss Essence had reached 19,401k.

After five days of combat, Li Wei returned to the 19th Army station and tried to visit Old Gu in the Heavenly Ruins, but exhaustion caused her to collapse into sleep. Li Guitang and Yun Heng checked on her, and Yun Heng gave her a restorative elixir before they discussed the order to disperse her soldiers ahead of the next offensive.

• Li Wei flew back to the 19th Army station and rushed to her room, telling Qin Lan not to disturb her while she slept.
• Li Wei entered the Heavenly Ruins as Immortal Heng'e and lost consciousness before reaching the Moon Palace.
• Li Guitang and Yun Heng appeared beside the sleeping Li Wei, and Li Guitang found that she was suffering from exhaustion rather than serious injury.
• Yun Heng gave Li Wei a Purple Mansion Spirit Condensing Elixir to help her recover before the next offensive in three days.
• Li Guitang told Yun Heng that the 19th Army had been ordered to disperse among other army groups, and Yun Heng blamed Liu Songming for the order.

Gu Jinzhi waited at the Moon Palace for Jiang Xue, but she never arrived, and he reasoned that she was likely resting after the Western Frontier operation. He then collapsed and vanished from the osmanthus grove as a Great Sun Phantom engulfed his body in the hospital, where Gu Litong recognized a possible reshaping of his foundation.

• After learning that the first phase of the Western Frontier recapture had gone smoothly, Gu Jinzhi waited through the night at the Moon Palace for Jiang Xue.
• Gu Jinzhi checked the ancient scroll for Immortal Heng'e, found her name absent, and concluded that Jiang Xue was probably busy or recovering from the five-day battle.
• A sudden force struck Gu Jinzhi, and he used the scroll to send Min Ge the unfinished message, “tell her, I...” before losing consciousness and disappearing with the scroll.
• At the hospital, Gu Jinzhi floated above his bed as a Great Sun Phantom appeared and flames burned the nearby equipment and furnishings.
• Liang Qiushi and Gu Jinyi tried to reach or call for help for Gu Jinzhi, while Yang Jianqiang restrained Liang Qiushi and urged her to wait.
• Gu Litong examined the flames and recognized that Gu Jinzhi might be reshaping his foundation, connecting the event to the Sky-Gazing Mirror’s prophecy.

After waking from five days of fighting monsters, Li Wei found that the 19th Army had been disbanded and Qin Lan had left. Believing Liu Songming was responsible, she ordered a flight to Pebble Fortress to confront him.

• Li Wei arrived in Heavenly Ruins to meet Old Gu, but found him gone, so she left him a note explaining she had overslept.
• Li Wei woke on October 3, bathed, and found Qin Lan's note saying she was worried about them.
• Li Wei learned from Sun Yi that the 19th Army had been scattered among frontline units by an order from the Defense Army's General Staff.
• Li Wei blamed Chief of Staff Liu Songming and ordered the pilots to take her to Pebble Fortress immediately.

Li Wei confronted Liu Songming over his role in targeting the 19th Army and fought him through Pebble Fortress and the surrounding mountains. Yun Heng stopped her from killing him, and she left after venting her anger on an uninhabited mountaintop.

• Li Wei kicked down the doors to the General Commander's office, where Liu Songming admitted arranging trouble for the 19th Army to retaliate against her.
• Li Wei attacked Liu Songming with her sword and blasted him through the mountainside, where he challenged her with his butterfly twin blades.
• Li Wei activated her three buffs and used Unity of Heaven and Man to overwhelm Liu Songming, who struggled against her swordsmanship and the surrounding wind and snow.
• Liu Songming questioned Li Wei's reason for attacking him, then escaped into the crowd while she hesitated.
• Yun Heng urged Li Wei to spare Liu Songming because killing him would cause trouble for the Jiang Family, and Li Wei abandoned the pursuit.
• Li Wei destroyed an uninhabited mountaintop with a sword strike, then sheathed her sword and descended toward the 19th Army's helicopter as onlookers watched.

Li Wei returned to the 19th Army base and struggled with whether protecting her subordinates had made her treat their lives as more valuable than other soldiers’. Meanwhile, Eternal Night ordered Master Beiku to gather powerful warriors, and Li Wei decided to seek counseling from Old Gu.

• Boris and Valena discussed Jiang Xue’s astonishing fight against a Seventh Order warrior, and Valena admitted she had underestimated her.
• Yun Heng joked with Li Guitang about Jiang Xue and her husband, then teased him about his granddaughter Yun Xi.
• Eternal Night ordered Master Beiku to summon Seventh and Eighth Order warriors, then gave him a mark that let him command others in his name.
• Master Beiku sent the Ghost Lord to summon forces from every territory, while Eternal Night realized he had no direct way to contact distant forces himself.
• Li Wei returned to the 19th Army base and agonized over whether she had unfairly shielded her subordinates from the battlefield.
• Li Wei decided to seek psychological counseling from Old Gu that night.

Li Wei learned that Gu Jinzhi’s healing had begun but would keep him out of the Heavenly Ruins for weeks, leaving her disappointed and troubled by Liu Songming’s criticism. Yun Heng and Zhang Luye reassured her that protecting loved ones was no shame and urged her to focus on pacifying the Abyss.

• Li Wei fell asleep in the Moon Palace, where Min Zimo arrived and told her Gu Jinzhi’s foundation was being reforged and he would remain unconscious for half a month to a month.
• After Min Zimo left, Li Wei returned to the real world and found Yun Heng and Zhang Luye barbecuing beneath her window.
• Yun Heng asked whether Li Wei was still upset about Liu Songming’s words, and Zhang Luye angrily offered to attack him before Yun Heng stopped him.
• Yun Heng told Li Wei that warriors had every right to care about their loved ones and said Liu Songming had acted out of spite rather than for the greater good.
• Zhang Luye shared how he had lost family members in battle and said he wanted to pacify the Western Frontier so the Zhang family would stop losing loved ones.

Li Wei and Yun Heng learned the truth behind Zhang Pengcheng’s role in Hu Yuqiong’s death from Zhang Luye. Zhang Luye explained that he had let his grandson take the blame to repay Hu Yuqiong’s second grandfather, and the story ended with Li Wei and Yun Heng praising his loyalty.

• Li Wei praised Zhang Luye’s roasted lamb, and he boasted about his family’s barbecue chain and promised her a VIP card.
• Yun Heng brought up Zhang Pengcheng’s alleged role in Hu Yuqiong’s death, prompting Zhang Luye to explain what had happened.
• Zhang Luye said Hu Yuqiong had secretly given Pengcheng a potent drug, and she died after being with him for more than four hours.
• Zhang Luye explained that Hu Yuqiong’s second grandfather had asked him to help protect the Hu Family’s reputation, so he had told Pengcheng to take the blame.
• Zhang Luye said even his son believed Pengcheng was guilty, then asked whether that made him loyal, and Li Wei and Yun Heng gave him thumbs-up.

Li Wei helped keep the 19th Army’s unfit fighters away from the front and completed the second phase of the campaign, but she was barred from joining the underground battle as Middle Third Order Abyss monsters inflicted heavy casualties. As the underground advance stalled, the Yun Family rallied prominent families to send reinforcements to the Western Frontier.

• Li Wei learned Qin Lan had voluntarily left her protection, warned army group commanders not to assign the 19th Army’s fighters important frontline duties, and spoke with Qin Lan and Zhong Li by phone.
• The second phase of the campaign began on October 6, and Li Wei helped the two countries complete its objectives after ninety-seven hours while taking more rest than in the first phase.
• After settling at the front line, Li Wei learned on October 11 that Middle Third Order Abyss monsters had disabled tunnel boring machines and caused more than three hundred casualties, but Yun Heng refused her request to join the underground fight.
• By October 13, human Middle Third Order casualties had exceeded a thousand, and Li Wei patrolled the defensive line while the underground advance remained slow.
• Hua Nation and the Arctic Alliance issued emergency mobilization orders, and Yun Xi’s father persuaded prominent families to send more than two thousand Middle Third Order members to support the Western Frontier battle.

Li Wei endured the third phase of the battle for Dragon Tooth Bunker, then signed death notices for fallen soldiers, including Lin Qiaoqiao. Master Beiku failed to persuade humanity to halt its advance, and Eternal Night ordered the abyssal forces to prepare for a decisive battle.

• By October 19, humanity completed the seventh ring of Dragon Tooth Bunker after more than one hundred thousand casualties, and Li Wei's Abyss Essence reached 9.8e.
• Li Wei returned to the 19th Army's station and signed notices honoring the dead, including Lin Qiaoqiao, who had died rescuing wounded soldiers at Xifeng Pass.
• Master Beiku offered Yun Heng and the other assembled Ninth Order powerhouses reduced monster tides if humanity stopped advancing, but they refused to abandon the passage.
• Master Beiku reported the refusal to Eternal Night, who ordered preparations for battle as more than a dozen Ninth Order entities emerged from the chaos.

Yun Heng prepared the Hua Nation and its allies for a possible decisive battle against Eternal Night and Master Beiku, while explaining that they had to hold the passage long enough to activate the Resonance Devices. He then offered Li Wei a choice between advancing to the Middle Third Order when battle began or leaving for Mingshi Town, but revealed that her presence on the front line could help force the enemy to fight.

• The Hua Nation declared a state of emergency and imposed wartime regulations, trapping aristocratic martial artists in the Western Frontier and enraging the families who had sent them there.
• Yun Heng learned that Eternal Night had merged with Master Beiku, then confirmed with Boris and Valena that the Arctic Alliance would not retreat despite being unable to provide more Ninth-Order experts.
• Yun Heng outlined a plan to delay the abyssal forces for five hours while the Dragon Tooth Bunkers and Resonance Devices were prepared, warning that Eternal Night and Master Beiku must not reach Blue Star.
• Boris pledged that the Arctic Alliance would fight to the death and hinted that its Punishment Camp could supply people for the battle.
• Yun Heng visited Li Wei and offered her the choice of breaking through to the Middle Third Order during a decisive battle or leaving for Mingshi Town to watch a warehouse.
• Yun Heng told Li Wei that her presence at the front could force Master Beiku to begin a decisive battle, preventing him from stopping their advance with low-level abyssal monsters alone.

Li Wei guarded the Western Frontier as the Fourth Stage of the operation began, while the Abyssal monsters mysteriously stayed away. As the eighth ring of Dragon Tooth Bunkers rose, Yun Heng and Xiao Yilan prepared for the possibility that the Abyss was luring them into a trap.

• Li Wei learned from Liang Qiushi that Gu Jinzhi's foundation had recovered to Great Perfection and that Liang Qiushi planned to bring Li Cheng back to the Gu Family so the siblings could reunite.
• Xiao Yilan arrived in the Western Frontier as the Fourth Stage began, but the Abyssal monsters vanished and the bunker construction proceeded without resistance.
• Zeng Jianguo brought Li Wei a takeout box filled with gifts and supplies sent by her family and friends.
• After eight positions in the eighth bunker ring were completed, Li Wei received orders to hold position as the remaining eight positions began construction simultaneously.
• Yun Heng told Xiao Yilan he suspected Master Beiku was deliberately giving them hope, and they agreed Zhang Luye should guard the passage entrance as a final line of defense.