Chapter Summaries

Zhang Yang endured the Strange’s shifting rules while Prince Kun’s forces attacked its domain, then outlasted them and challenged the Strange for control. The Strange offered him a final choice: sacrifice a living relative, and Zhang Yang chose his cousin, Mu Shao'an.

• Zhang Yang used a basic Star of Hope to survive the Strange’s first question while nearly a hundred human puppets died.
• Zhang Yang inferred that the Strange operated through alternating rules and upgraded his Gold Meridian Sword Core to provoke another round of questioning.
• The Strange’s new rules killed more puppets and Prince Kun’s Demon Race subordinates, while Prince Kun’s forces broke through the domain and fled.
• Zhang Yang used an intermediate Star of Hope to survive a woman’s accusation, then resisted the Strange’s oppressive force with three techniques.
• Zhang Yang spent two intermediate Stars of Hope to escape the danger concealed in a bell and offered up his remaining Stars of Hope for the final trial.
• An aged voice offered Zhang Yang safe passage or control of the Strange in exchange for a living relative’s death, and Zhang Yang chose Mu Shao'an.

After gaining control of a Profound-grade Strange, Zhang Yang reverse-bound six incomplete Immortal Cultivation Village Building Orders and established an Immortal Cultivation Sect at the former site of Black Ox Village. He became Sect Master Zhang and planned to recover his strength and cultivate before the Sleepless Night arrived in a month.

• Zhang Yang discovered that he controlled the Profound-grade Strange and reverse-bound six incomplete Immortal Cultivation Village Building Orders, leaving him free of their missions and erasure threat.
• Zhang Yang returned to the former site of Black Ox Village, promised to look after its survivors if they met again, and began establishing his mountain gate there.
• Zhang Yang used one hundred Immortal Stones to speed up construction of the formation diagram and Spirit Gathering Platform, completing a low-grade Immortal Cultivation Sect guarded by his Profound-grade Strange.
• Zhang Yang inspected the sect’s weak defenses and Spirit Gathering Platform, then decided to cultivate, recover his strength, and hone the three sword forces of the Mountain River Sword Art.

Zhang Yang discovered that the strange plants in Black Ox Village’s fields were a powerful weed demon and fought them to harvest their restorative contents. After consuming the grass balls and advancing his Gold Meridian Sword Core, he gained greatly enhanced defense and a Formless Golden Sword, then decided to farm the plants.

• Zhang Yang tried to remove a strange plant from Black Ox Village’s fields, but it resisted his strength, sword, fire, and spiritual attacks.
• Zhang Yang used his Gold Meridian Sword Core to cut a leaf, provoking the surrounding plants to tear free and attack him as spiked grass balls.
• Zhang Yang restrained the grass balls and battered their souls with repeated Soul Tremors until they fell.
• Zhang Yang ate the contents of the grass balls, recovering lost lifespan and upgrading his Gold Meridian Sword Core to the third stage.
• Zhang Yang discovered his greatly increased defense and the Azure Shadow Sword’s Formless Golden Sword, then decided to farm the plants.

Zhang Yang discovered that his sword qi left a harmful radiation that could serve as a training ground for sword cultivators, so he began creating Sword Human Valley. After four days of practice, his Mountain River Sword Intent advanced, and his first attempt at the improved Ninefold Mountain sword form buried him beneath the collapsed pit.

• Zhang Yang realized that practicing his sword had devastated farmland and left sword-qi radiation in the soil.
• Zhang Yang chose a hilly site for Sword Human Valley and began repeatedly practicing the Mountain River Sword Art to build his combat strength.
• Over three days, Zhang Yang increased his sword-form speed and used the sword-qi radiation to improve his Mountain River Sword Intent.
• On the fourth day, Zhang Yang's Intent Meridian Sword Core advanced from the first layer to the second, strengthening his sword intent and accelerating Azure Shadow.
• Zhang Yang unleashed the improved Ninefold Mountain sword form, which spread across more than a thousand meters and collapsed the Heartless Pit, burying him alive.

Zhang Yang strengthened Sword Human Valley and stored its deadly sword-qi radiation in the Green Shadow sword as the Sleepless Night approached. When Niu Dou and a strange group carrying sealed yellow gourds arrived at the old Black Ox Village site, Zhang Yang confronted them as the newly named Heavenly Sword Gate.

• Zhang Yang recovered from the collapse of the Heartless Pit and decided to keep expanding Sword Human Valley rather than seek disciples.
• Over the following days, Zhang Yang rebuilt the Heartless Pit and absorbed its sword-qi radiation into the Green Shadow sword, giving it a powerful yellow sword-ray.
• Zhang Yang sensed Niu Dou outside the old Black Ox Village site with twenty villagers and fifteen strange men carrying talisman-sealed yellow gourds.
• Zhang Yang named his mountain gate the Heavenly Sword Gate and warned the group not to trespass.
• Niu Dou claimed the group had come to pay respects to the village ancestors' tombs or move them elsewhere.

Zhang Yang agreed to help Niu Dou and Black Ox Village recover the Spirit Gathering Platform from a Demon King threatening Black Mist Village. He set out with Niu Dou, carrying the Azure Shadow Sword Artifact concealed in a strange stone coffin.

• Niu Dou begged Zhang Yang for help, and Black Mist Village’s leader offered the village as an attendant village of the Heavenly Sword Gate in exchange for protection.
• Niu Dou explained that Black Ox Village had merged with Black Mist Village after losing its Three Yin Drum and formation diagram to Prince Kun, and offered the Spirit Gathering Platform in return for permission to rebuild nearby.
• Niu Dou revealed that Prince Kun had given Black Mist Village five days to surrender the Spirit Gathering Platform, threatening to destroy it during Sleepless Night.
• Black Mist Village’s leader said his people would not risk angering a Demon King, while Zhang Yang decided the confrontation could establish the Heavenly Sword Gate’s reputation.
• Zhang Yang ordered Niu Dou to return to Black Mist Village and then agreed to go with him, packing the Azure Shadow Sword Artifact inside a stone coffin.

Zhang Yang was ambushed by Black Mist Village villagers who used black-mist fine sand to kill Niu Dou and the others, but he wiped out the attackers and their hidden ally with his sword techniques. He then authorized the Village Building Order to plunder the battlefield and headed for Black Mist Village.

• Zhang Yang noticed a suspicious cloud following his group and decided to split off with Niu Dou.
• Twelve Black Mist Village villagers surrounded Zhang Yang's party and released black-mist fine sand, killing Niu Dou and the other villagers.
• Zhang Yang used the stone coffin to repel the fine sand, killed the twelve attackers, and compressed the sand into a hard object.
• Zhang Yang struck the approaching cloud with Ninefold Mountain Sword Form, then pursued and killed the surviving shadow with his Azure Shadow sword.
• Zhang Yang authorized the Village Building Order to plunder the battlefield and set out for Black Mist Village.

Zhang Yang demanded supplies from Black Mist Village, then destroyed its protection array and most of the village when its leaders refused. He claimed the survivors and everything left for the Heavenly Sword Gate, beginning his Immortal Cultivation Village Building Task.

• Zhang Yang ignored Black Mist Village's cavalry patrol, whose soldiers were killed by the sword-qi radiation clinging to his Azure Shadow sword.
• Zhang Yang demanded Mortal Iron, Mortal Copper, and Immortal Stones from the Village Guardian Ghost, but Black Mist Village's chief elder refused and activated the Ancient Village Protection Array.
• Zhang Yang formed his Golden Sword and broke the Ancient Village Protection Array, while the Village Guardian Ghost fled.
• Zhang Yang used Cloud Mountain's Ninefold Seal to destroy most of Black Mist Village and wipe out more than half its residents.
• Zhang Yang claimed the village's living, dead, and remaining property for the Heavenly Sword Gate and declared that his Immortal Cultivation Village Building Task had begun.

After exhausting himself defeating Black Mist Village, Zhang Yang used the Village Building Order to plunder its resources and decided to establish the Heavenly Sword Gate. He recruited two captured Golden Core Daoists as protectors and approached the four captives who had helped him in battle.

• Zhang Yang realized that a sword cultivator's reckless fighting style could shorten his life and decided he needed a sect to gather resources and train followers.
• Zhang Yang plundered Black Mist Village, gaining treasures, supplies, villagers, prisoners, and a Heaven's Secret Fragment, while learning that a Level 1 sect required an Aberrant Mountain Gate, a Spirit Gathering Platform, and an Array Diagram.
• Zhang Yang offered the two wounded Golden Core Daoists a choice between serving him and being sacrificed; both chose to live, and he appointed them protectors of the Heavenly Sword Gate.
• Zhang Yang thanked the four former captives who had helped him defeat Black Mist Village's granny spirit cultivator and introduced himself as the sect master.
• The four captives bowed to Zhang Yang, whose scars and roguish appearance left him wondering why Black Mist Village had imprisoned them instead of killing them.

Liu Xueli explained the Six Paths of Reincarnation, Human Spirits, aberrations, and evils to Zhang Yang, then warned that a demon-human hybrid might be hiding among the villagers captured by Black Mist Village. Zhang Yang agreed to cooperate with the Heavenly Masters and learned that powerful sects were guarded by Loose Immortals or even stronger experts.

• Liu Xueli introduced himself and his three subordinates, then explained that Black Mist Village had imprisoned them for five years after betraying them during their investigation of a Demoness.
• Liu Xueli explained how Human Spirits differed from ghosts and described how demons could produce surviving mixed-blood children known as evils.
• Liu Xueli revealed that the Golden Core Daoist killed by the four Heavenly Masters had been an evil that might be hiding among the captured villagers.
• Zhang Yang agreed to cooperate with the Heavenly Masters and asked about tickets, outsiders, and the aberrations used to suppress sect mountain gates.
• Liu Xueli explained that aberrations could be benign or malignant and advised that sects needed Heavenly Masters’ help to handle dangerous ones.
• Liu Xueli said powerful Immortal Cultivation Sects were guarded by Loose Immortals or higher-level experts, leaving Zhang Yang silent.

Zhang Yang asked the four Heavenly Masters to forge swords, and Qian Muyun explained the Bone and Flesh Sword Forging Method and the value of demonic language. Zhang Yang offered three core demonic languages in exchange for their service and reverse-deciphered variants, and they agreed to serve him for ten years.

• Zhang Yang asked whether any of the four Heavenly Masters could forge swords, and Qian Muyun offered to make a Ghost Extermination Sword and a Demon Slaying Sword.
• Qian Muyun explained that the Bone and Flesh Sword Forging Method used materials from one race to make weapons that restrained another, and Zhang Yang supplied the Black Wolf Demon King's remains for the swords.
• Liu Xueli and the others asked to hear Zhang Yang's demonic language in return for serving him for ten years, and Zhang Yang agreed.
• Zhang Yang revealed the Giant Strength and Heavy Armor demonic languages, and Qian Muyun identified their grades and possible variations.
• Zhang Yang offered them the core demonic language Flight as well, asking them to decipher the reverse forms of all three languages, and the four Heavenly Masters accepted.

Zhang Yang chose a site for Sword Human Valley’s mountain gate and discovered that the Immortal Cultivation Village Building Order was connected to a True Realm backend. The chapter left him staring at a system report declaring its invasion mission a complete failure and recommending evacuation.

• Liu Xueli and the others helped Zhang Yang clear out Black Mist Village, and Zhang Yang revealed that the mountain-gate anomaly was his own Profound-tier anomaly.
• Liu Xueli urged Zhang Yang to establish his mountain gate, so Zhang Yang chose a new site for Sword Human Valley twenty kilometers from Black Mist Village.
• The Village Building Order offered Zhang Yang an additional Immortal Cultivation Village Building Order and directed him to use his Level 3 War Badge to ask three questions.
• A bloodied general told Zhang Yang that he was a village chief candidate in the Fourth Sequence’s civilization hegemony battlefield, but the War Badge shattered when Zhang Yang asked who the general was.
• The mountain-gate anomaly swallowed a giant hand that reached from the void, while Zhang Yang’s other Village Building Orders and War Badge were destroyed.
• Zhang Yang bound the new Immortal Cultivation Village Building Order and saw a backend report that its agent, Yang Nan, was dead and its invasion mission had failed.

Zhang Yang used the Immortal Cultivation Village Building Order’s backend modifier during the Sleepless Night to make one unit of spiritual qi appear near him each day. The modification succeeded, and he discovered that the spiritual qi was astonishingly pure.

• Zhang Yang decided to hide the Village Building Order and use its backend modification permissions cautiously.
• The Sleepless Night began, and Zhang Yang watched the Demonic Wind and the forces of other realms engulf the Black Earth Plains.
• Zhang Yang entered his underground chamber and used the Village Building Order to modify the spiritual qi around his body.
• Zhang Yang sensed one unit of spiritual qi gather, realized its purity rivaled that of a Nascent Soul old monster, and swallowed it.

After gaining a fleeting taste of Heaven and Earth Dao Rhyme from the Village Building Order, Zhang Yang learned that a Monster City had appeared nearby and feared the danger would draw the faction he had betrayed. He abandoned Black Mist Village and fled with Liu Xueli and Qian Muyun, while several others stayed to face the invasion.

• Zhang Yang absorbed one unit of Heaven and Earth Spiritual Qi and experienced a subtle realization of the world's deeper truths.
• Liu Xueli warned Zhang Yang that a Monster City had appeared and could unleash a Demon Race army during Sleepless Night.
• Zhang Yang rejected Liu Xueli's plan to hold their position and insisted they escape because he feared his betrayal would bring a greater calamity.
• Lian Que'er, Zhong Yuanshan, and Cai Guicheng chose to stay in Black Mist Village and gamble on the chance to earn the attention of an Immortal Cultivation Sect.
• Liu Xueli and Qian Muyun joined Zhang Yang as he took back his Profound-tier Anomaly and fled into the black storm.

Zhang Yang led Liu Xueli and Qian Muyun across the Black Earth Plains, relying on Liu Xueli’s Star Guiding Art and Zhang Yang’s defenses to escape the Demonic Wind. When a Demon Emperor-level curse struck Liu Xueli and extinguished the guiding light, Zhang Yang purged it, but the group was left without their guide as the enemy pursued them.

• Liu Xueli used the Star Guiding Art to guide the group while Zhang Yang created a moving defensive space and taught Qian Muyun the Demonic Languages for Heavy Armor and Flight.
• Zhang Yang and the others traveled more than five hundred kilometers, while the Monster City behind them remained still.
• The Star Guiding Art went out, and a curse burst Liu Xueli’s eyes and caused black maggots to emerge from his body.
• Qian Muyun warned Zhang Yang that the curse was contagious and likely came from a Demon Emperor, but Zhang Yang attacked the maggots with Demonic Language: Bewitchment and Soul Tremors.
• Zhang Yang used the Formless Heart Sword to purge the curse, leaving Liu Xueli unconscious, then ordered Qian Muyun to carry him and keep moving.

Zhang Yang fought off a swarm of Substitute Soul-Chasing Ghosts in the Black Earth Plains while Qian Muyun revealed his ghostly tools and knowledge. Qian offered Zhang Yang a map of the sword-cultivator heavenly meridians, but Zhang refused because he was already a sect master, and Liu Xueli began to wake.

• Qian Muyun warned Zhang Yang that they could not escape the storm without the Star Guiding Art, then extinguished his oil lamp and froze the storm with icy mist.
• Three hundred and sixty-five Substitute Soul-Chasing Ghosts ambushed Zhang Yang, but his Soul Swords and twelve compressed Great Fireballs destroyed them.
• Qian Muyun collected the ghosts’ ashes and made eight Substitute Imps that could each take one disaster in someone’s place.
• Qian Muyun admitted he knew the Star Guiding Art but said he would take Zhang Yang out of the Black Earth Plains, then offered him a heavenly-meridian map in exchange for a Profound-tier Demonic Language.
• Zhang Yang declined the offer to join the Great Dream Sword Sect, saying he had his own sect, and Liu Xueli began to wake.

Liu Xueli revived after Zhang Yang saved him, but a relentless curse killed him again as Zhang Yang and Qian Muyun fled the Black Earth Plains. A powerful dog-headed monster caught up with them, and Zhang Yang's strongest attack only wounded it.

• Liu Xueli explained that he had sent word to the Heavenly Origin Sect and Great Dream Sword Sect, but Zhang Yang chose to keep fleeing rather than wait for their cultivators.
• Liu Xueli used a Vengeful Helmet to protect himself from curses, but it cracked and shattered as another attack killed him outright.
• Zhang Yang and Qian Muyun fled using the Grand Star Guiding Art, while a scaled, dog-headed monster arrived at Liu Xueli's corpse and pursued them.
• The monster caught Zhang Yang by surprise, and he used three Substitute Imps to survive its killing blow.
• Qian Muyun cast defensive spells while Zhang Yang struck the monster with the Triple Golden Sword, but the attack only staggered it and left two wounds.

Zhang Yang and Qian Muyun joined forces to defeat the Ghost Duke, whose pursuit threatened to expose them to a remotely tracking Demon Race expert. After agreeing that Qian Muyun would help Zhang Yang escape the Black Earth Plains in exchange for a Profound-tier Demonic Language, they killed the monster, but the larger threat remained.

• The Ghost Duke attacked Zhang Yang and Qian Muyun, who hid from its detection while Qian Muyun explained its strength and proposed a partnership.
• Qian Muyun offered to share deciphered demonic languages and use his transportation secret art to get Zhang Yang out of the Black Earth Plains in exchange for a Profound-tier Demonic Language.
• Zhang Yang agreed to cooperate, and Qian Muyun explained that they had to weaken the Ghost Duke's defenses before Zhang Yang could land a lethal sword strike.
• Zhang Yang and Qian Muyun used Triple Disarming Armor, Quintuple Mud Swamp, and Triple Sky Sealing to restrain and weaken the charging Ghost Duke.
• Zhang Yang struck the Ghost Duke with Triple Golden Sword, cleaving it in two and preventing it from reviving.

After Zhang Yang and Qian Muyun escaped using a Five Ghosts transportation technique, Demon Emperor Chengping’s Destiny Black Butterfly lost track of them. Chengping’s fellow demon, a Saintess who had infiltrated the Great Dream Sword Sect, went to continue hunting while keeping her true mission hidden.

• Zhang Yang refused to rest or take healing pills, and Qian Muyun used five gourds and the Five Ghosts to transport them away.
• A gigantic black butterfly arrived at their former location and spread smaller butterflies to track their trail.
• Demon Emperor Chengping and an alluring woman appeared, but the Destiny Black Butterfly could no longer deduce the target’s location beyond a thousand li.
• The woman offered to pursue the fugitives, and Chengping warned her to be cautious because she had recently returned wounded from the Second Sequence.
• The woman departed to hunt, while Chengping reflected that she was secretly gathering intelligence from within the Great Dream Sword Sect.

Zhang Yang parted from Qian Muyun and settled in Guanshan Town, where he prepared to break through to the Spirit Meridian Sword Core and advance his Soul Force Field to a Spirit Domain. He began the breakthrough with defensive Array Talismans in place and a Soul Stone ready.

• Zhang Yang and Qian Muyun divided their spoils, and Zhang Yang refused to stay in Yening City before fleeing a few hundred li using Shadow.
• An unknown figure tracked the place where the Five Dings and Five Ghosts had died and followed Qian Muyun’s route.
• Zhang Yang entered Guanshan Town and learned that the Great Dream Sword Sect protected the town and forbade cultivation within five hundred li.
• Zhang Yang rented a courtyard and cultivated for about ten days, gathering what he needed to attempt opening the Spirit Meridian Sword Core.
• Zhang Yang bought ten Array Talismans from the Earth God Temple, activated them in his courtyard, and prepared to advance his Soul Force Field to a Spirit Domain.