Chapter Summaries

Zhang Yang's side used the Heavenly Dao Barrier to absorb the Xing Clan's opening assault and launch a devastating counterattack, crippling a Law Heavenly God and killing over ten million soldiers. The Xing Clan allied army retreated one hundred thousand kilometers, giving Zhang Yang's side precious time to prepare.

• The Xing Clan allied army concentrated its fire, destroying the Heavenly Dao Barrier's twenty-ninth and twenty-eighth layers, while the twenty-seventh layer absorbed and processed the chaotic Laws.
• Zhang Yang's side launched five hundred thousand High-Pressure Sword Qi shells into the enemy's formation, wiping out ten million demigod-level soldiers.
• Qiao Mu slipped behind enemy lines while Zhang Yang tracked his movements.
• Qu Shang and eleven Law Demigods crippled the Xing Clan's Law Heavenly God, Nine Punishments, before the other enemy Heavenly God could intervene.
• Fifty thousand Mahayana sword cultivators formed the Six Imperial Sword Array, carved through enemy ranks, and withdrew behind their Heavenly Dao Barrier.
• The Heavenly Dao Maiden repaired the two damaged barrier layers, and the Xing Clan allied army retreated one hundred thousand kilometers.

Zhang Yang established the Investiture of the Gods List to distribute shares and lifespan benefits in the World after it secured a foothold in the regional dimension. The first recipients accepted their positions, and Zhang Yang left the remaining lists open for future disciples and those who served the World.

• Zhang Yang gathered the Heavenly Dao Maiden, Qu Shang, and the other leaders to begin expanding the World’s circle of beneficiaries.
• The Heavenly Dao Maiden and the cultivators presented their recommended disciples for the Investiture of the Gods List.
• Zhang Yang fused the Brick Village Building Order with the Heavenly Sword Clan’s gates, summoning the divine list and bringing back Mu Yizhuo.
• Zhang Yang placed Mu Yizhuo first on the Earth List, awarding him 0.09% of the World’s shares and ten thousand years of lifespan.
• Qu Shang and the other eleven Law Demigods accepted their investments and received positions on the Heaven List with shares and additional lifespan.
• Zhang Yang reserved positions on the Saint, Earth, and Human Lists for future contributors and disciples.

After being deified, Zhang Yang remained wary of the Xing Clan coalition army and the unknown threat behind its retreat. He entered the World Tree’s hidden dream world to cultivate another refuge and prepare for dangers beyond the current war.

• Zhang Yang rejected using the Boat of Death for reconnaissance, preserving it as a last resort and keeping its fourth-stage breakthrough secret from the enemy.
• Zhang Yang told the Heavenly Dao Maiden to watch Qiao Mu and manage affairs while he went into seclusion.
• Zhang Yang entered the World Tree’s core world, which existed in the Dream Dimension and had grown into a realm comparable in size to the Law World.
• Zhang Yang reflected that the dream world could repel curses and nightmares, shelter people during a retreat, and support the growth of a dream spirit army.

Zhang Yang explained how dreams and the Dream Law worked, then used his Dream Projection incarnation to inspect his fortress and prepare to strengthen it. He rallied his Royal Guard and set out to explore the dangers of the Dream Dimension.

• Zhang Yang explained that impure six roots helped create varied dreams and described the Dream Dimension's place within the Six Great Sequences.
• Zhang Yang recalled escaping the Mechanical Zombies' Dream Anchor Point with a Soul Tremor and said a strong dream kingdom could prevent future attacks.
• Zhang Yang visited his Dream Fortress and took control of the Dream Projection he had spent nine hundred years refining.
• Zhang Yang experienced the Dream Projection's vivid senses while his original body remained a tree stump in the fortress.
• Zhang Yang rallied three hundred Royal Guard members and prepared to explore the Dream Dimension's Dream Ruins, Dream Deformed Monsters, and Wandering Dreams.

Zhang Yang strengthened his Dream Projection over ten years and prepared to exploit its new abilities, while the Xing Clan coalition’s repeated assaults on the Heavenly Dao Barrier failed. After Qiao Mu returned, he warned Zhang Yang that the coalition was using the attacks as a smokescreen for an assault on another target.

• Zhang Yang used Cinder Essence to break through, materialize his Dream Projection into a physical body, and create a Nightmare Pouch with a Dream Weapon.
• Zhang Yang spent ten years leveling his Dream Sub-Account until he had materialized five organs that granted him five dream abilities.
• The Xing Clan coalition attacked twice more, using Time Scraps and Ancient Law Spears, but the Heavenly Dao Barrier and Zhang Yang’s defenses prevented a breach.
• Qiao Mu returned and told Zhang Yang that the Xing Clan coalition had accepted its failed attacks as a temporary reality and planned to strike another target.

Qiao Mu revealed that the Xing Clan had found a seemingly endless wall and was preparing to breach it, prompting Zhang Yang to explain the Ancient God's Game and why he had traded away the True Martial Divine Seal. After learning the wall was a safe-zone barrier with specific conditions for opening, Zhang Yang planned to prepare his civilization for the next attack and passed out from repeated Soul Tremors.

• Qiao Mu reported that the Xing Clan's true army was preparing to break through a wall he had found at the edge of their territory.
• Zhang Yang described the Ancient God's Game, in which civilizations competed inside safe zones, and said the Xing Clan would eventually regret trading for the True Martial Divine Seal.
• Zhang Yang sent the meeting participants away, and Heavenly Dao Maiden, Qu Shang, and Tao Yao shifted their plans from offense to defense and resource stockpiling.
• Zhang Yang increased his daily Soul Tremors to nine and learned that the wall was a Ring Barrier that could be opened directly or through indirect conditions.
• Zhang Yang concluded that the Xing Clan had acted too early and planned to reclaim investments, move resources beyond the game's rules, and prepare for a future attack.
• Zhang Yang considered raising a Dream Army to challenge the game's rules, then used a Soul Tremor to suppress the thought and lost consciousness.

Zhang Yang formed an Anti-Curse System task force, but its members mostly fled after Qiao Mu explained how curses could use hidden mediums. Qiao Mu’s silence confirmed Zhang Yang’s suspicion that he had survived a Third Generation Insecticide experiment in the Fifth Sequence, and Zhang Yang sent him to the Boat of Death for protection.

• Zhang Yang established a Heavenly Dao Purification task force and assembled an Anti-Curse System task force with selected cultivators.
• Li Si, Guan Shan, the five Law Mahayana cultivators, and hundreds of recruited cultivators left the Anti-Curse System task force, leaving Qiao Mu and two second-generation disciples.
• Qiao Mu explained how curses varied by the caster’s cultivation and could draw on mediums or the power of Heaven and Earth.
• Zhang Yang reasoned that curses could exploit the River of Time and a registered identity, making an Anti-Curse System difficult to create.
• Zhang Yang deduced that Qiao Mu had survived a Third Generation Insecticide experiment that had targeted the Fifth Sequence, and Qiao Mu silently confirmed his suspicion.
• Zhang Yang sent Qiao Mu to the Boat of Death, where its isolation could help hide him from the insecticide’s master.

Zhang Yang secretly made Qiao Mu his pathfinder against the Third Generation Insecticide, then launched a brutal, world-spanning purification campaign with Soul Tremor and Heavenly Tribulation. After three years of devastation, he asked Qiao Mu about the curse’s threat and learned his methods could not improve their purification level.

• Zhang Yang placed Qiao Mu aboard the Boat of Death, gave him the Death Chain, and treated him as a source of intelligence about the Third Generation Insecticide.
• Zhang Yang disbanded his anti-curse research group and began investigating alone beneath the Sword Dao Law Stele.
• Zhang Yang evacuated the Heavenly Sword Clan’s mountain gate, then used externalized Soul Tremor and Heavenly Tribulation to destroy it and lower its risk of curse contamination.
• Zhang Yang spent three years purifying the world, killing more than a million mortals and imprisoning tens of thousands of suspected contaminated beings despite widespread anger.
• Zhang Yang asked Qiao Mu how much curse contamination their purification could withstand, and Qiao Mu said Zhang Yang’s crude methods could not raise their purification level.

Zhang Yang decided to remove the Heavenly Dao Maiden’s Heavenly Dao authority to protect his world from the Third Generation Insecticide, arranging to marry her in three hundred years. The Heavenly Sword Clan would prepare for the transfer of the world’s responsibilities to the gods on the Divine Rankings while the wall kept the Xing Clan isolated.

• Qu Shang reported that the wall separating Zhang Yang’s territory from the Xing Clan’s contained decipherable Dao runes and likely formed part of a layered structure.
• Qu Shang estimated that the Heavenly Sword Clan could decipher the wall within half a year to ten years, but recommended waiting five thousand years to build up its strength, and Zhang Yang agreed.
• Zhang Yang announced that he would marry the Heavenly Dao Maiden in three hundred years, prompting Tao Yao to question his earlier plan to make her the incarnation of the Ancient Law.
• Zhang Yang recalled his younger cousin’s advice and concluded that anthropomorphizing the Heavenly Dao Maiden would remove the Heavenly Dao as a vulnerable carrier for the Third Generation Insecticide.
• Zhang Yang ordered his followers to prepare for the Heavenly Dao’s disappearance and transfer its responsibilities to the gods granted titles on the Divine Rankings.

The Heavenly Sword Clan’s core disciples planned how to replace the Heavenly Dao’s role after Zhang Yang sidelined the Heavenly Dao Junior Mistress. They established nine halls to divide her former authorities and began a three-hundred-year trial period to prove the system could work.

• Tao Yao stopped the disciples’ gossip, and Jiang Rong explained that Zhang Yang suspected a fatal danger tied to the Heavenly Dao Junior Mistress and wanted them to take over the Heavenly Dao’s duties.
• Qu Shang proposed expanding the elders’ authority and creating halls to manage heavenly mechanisms, earth veins, and merit, while Tao Yao and Li Guokui proposed dividing and strengthening those responsibilities further.
• Wu County and He Yimou took charge of the Patrol Hall and Punishment Hall, while Qu Shang, Tao Yao, Jiang Rong, and Li Guokui claimed the Dao Rhyme, Heavenly Mechanism, Fortune, and Tianshu Halls.
• The disciples assigned leaders to the remaining halls, completing the nine-hall structure and distributing most of the Heavenly Dao Maiden’s authority.
• The nine halls began recruiting personnel and drafting plans for their three-hundred-year trial operation.

Zhang Yang secretly prepared safeguards for the Nine Halls and focused on developing his Sword Dao Civilization. After spending 1,800 years leveling his Dream Sub-Account to the Dream Nightmare level, he considered the long path to reaching the Dream Dragon level.

• Zhang Yang sent the deified table to serve as the Tenth Hall Master and observe the Nine Halls.
• Zhang Yang envisioned the Heavenly Sword Clan growing to millions of Mahayana cultivators and becoming a Sword Dao Civilization.
• Zhang Yang entered the Dream Dimension to continue leveling his Dream Sub-Account.
• After 1,800 years of grinding, Zhang Yang raised his Dream Sub-Account to the third level, the Dream Nightmare level.
• Zhang Yang concluded that reaching the fourth, Dream Dragon level would require invading reality or killing other Dream Nightmares.

Zhang Yang used the World Tree to carefully balance reality and the Dream Dimension, bringing his Dream Kingdom into the forbidden ground without damaging either side. The process revealed the ninth Ancient Law, the Chaos—Ancient Law of Black and White, and left him holding a single complete unit of it.

• Zhang Yang expanded the World Tree's forbidden ground to fifty thousand square kilometers by invoking the Dao Ancestor's decree.
• Zhang Yang advanced the World Tree to the Seven-Colored Spiritual Plant stage, awakening the Heavenly Dao Maiden and drawing the attention of twelve Law Demigods.
• Zhang Yang sealed the forbidden ground and used the World Tree to bring his Dream Kingdom and Dream Projection Sub-Account into reality without harm.
• Zhang Yang restrained the Dream Sub-Account's transformation as Dream Law accumulated, keeping the dream and reality separate and in balance.
• Zhang Yang connected with his Dream Sub-Account, discovered the Chaos—Ancient Law of Black and White, and gained one complete unit of it.

Zhang Yang entered the Boat of Death’s pocket world to ask Mu Shaoan about Ancient Gods, using the Ancient Law of Black and White to shield their conversation. Mu Shaoan revealed that he had redirected the Third Generation Insecticide’s curse onto Zhang Yang, and the cousins ended the chapter fighting and trading insults.

• Zhang Yang found that the Dream Dimension’s power had vanished, then entered the pocket world to question Mu Shaoan about Ancient Gods.
• Zhang Yang used the Ancient Law of Black and White to isolate them, and Mu Shaoan revealed the Third Generation Insecticide monster and its ability to infect beings and spread through their bloodlines.
• Mu Shaoan admitted that he had redirected the curse onto Zhang Yang to protect his own relatives and friends.
• Zhang Yang exposed Mu Shaoan’s Blood Sacrifice talent, and the cousins punched and kicked each other while hurling insults.

Zhang Yang explained how his alternate-account strategy and repeated sacrifices led him to obtain the Black and White Ancient Law, while Mu Shaoan uncovered the cost hidden behind his success. Zhang Yang admitted that his true spirit was at risk of madness, and Mu Shaoan offered to heal it with Blunted Spiritual Power.

• Zhang Yang told Mu Shaoan that his cautious use of alternate accounts had helped him survive the dangers tied to the Village Building Order and accumulate power.
• Zhang Yang insisted that he had sacrificed only one main body, but Mu Shaoan pointed to clues suggesting he had repeatedly used main bodies to explore and die before passing their experience to alternates.
• Mu Shaoan deduced that Zhang Yang had dragged corpses forward through many trials to obtain a complete Ancient Law.
• Zhang Yang admitted that he had died 7,892 times in the Dream Dimension to discover the balance that produced the Black and White Ancient Law, leaving his true spirit at risk of madness.
• Mu Shaoan offered to heal Zhang Yang's splitting true spirit with a method involving Blunted Spiritual Power.

Zhang Yang used Mu Shaoan’s Blunted Spiritual Power method to cure the damage caused by splitting his true spirit, transforming his power into hundreds of thousands of Blunted True Spirit Particles. He emerged with a radically different combat style and planned to rebuild his old schemes around it.

• Mu Shaoan explained Blunted Spiritual Power to Zhang Yang and warned him that it would prevent him from splitting his true spirit further.
• Zhang Yang exposed his true spirit’s wounds and aberrant fires, then began blunting its basic filaments despite losing his ability to use many divine abilities.
• Zhang Yang repeatedly extracted and blunted the aberrant true-spirit fires, accumulating more than 700,000 True Spirit Particles over half a year.
• Zhang Yang discovered that his particles could be projected across 100,000 kilometers and used as powerful weapons, while the process eliminated the danger of his damaged true spirit.
• Zhang Yang realized his new power could support compressed blade qi and decided to dig new pits suited to his Blunted True Spirit Particles.

Zhang Yang sought Mu Shaoan’s advice after his blunted True Spirit Particles proved too heavy for his reincarnated body. Mu Shaoan revealed his plans to master an ancient Destiny Chessboard and face the Third Generation Insecticide, while Zhang Yang agreed to support him cautiously.

• Zhang Yang discovered that his body could not contain more than a few thousand of his 700,000 Blunted True Spirit Particles and asked Mu Shaoan how he had handled the same problem.
• Mu Shaoan explained that he had divided his particles among mechanical dust, the Sky Spear, and his old lair, where the last portion had fallen into a trap near a tributary of the River of Time.
• Mu Shaoan showed Zhang Yang a black-and-white Destiny Chessboard connected to the Death Chain and explained that its pieces represented positive and negative destiny and required sacrifices.
• Mu Shaoan said he would fight the Third Generation Insecticide to gather experience for Zhang Yang, while Zhang Yang prepared safe resurrection points and support.
• Zhang Yang warned Mu Shaoan that he would destroy him if the chessboard stirred the curse, but Mu Shaoan insisted he could master it.

Zhang Yang and Mu Shaoan used the Ancient Destiny Chessboard to glimpse future dangers, but the divination triggered a devastating backlash. Zhang Yang left Mu Shaoan with a unit of the Ancient Law of Black and White and hurried away, having recognized the crisis threatening his territory.

• Zhang Yang and Mu Shaoan bargained over the cost of chess pieces and agreed that Zhang Yang could place three pieces first.
• Mu Shaoan used the Ancient Destiny Chessboard to reveal a battle seven thousand years in the future, where a mechanical civilization would attack their world.
• Mu Shaoan placed another black piece, revealing demonic shadows and decay before Zhang Yang's white piece canceled the vision.
• When Zhang Yang reached to place another piece, thirty-six black pieces appeared and the chessboard collapsed, leaving Mu Shaoan gravely wounded by the backlash.
• Zhang Yang gave Mu Shaoan one unit of the Ancient Law of Black and White, then hurried away after recognizing the future crisis.

After returning to the Heavenly Sword Clan, Zhang Yang inspected the Nine Halls’ work over the past three hundred years and judged the Heavenly Mechanism Hall and Dao Rhyme Hall’s achievements. He rewarded their progress and set rules for distributing core Dao Rhyme, while the inspection of the other halls remained ahead.

• Zhang Yang arrived at the Heavenly Sword Clan’s new mountain gate and summoned its senior figures to report on their work over three hundred years.
• Peach Yao reported that the Heavenly Mechanism Hall had built 108 grand arrays and resolved thousands of detected changes; Zhang Yang verified the report and gave the hall an 85-percent completion rating.
• Qu Shang reported that the Dao Rhyme Hall had collected and organized hundreds of strands of core Dao Rhyme and many more secondary and ordinary strands.
• Zhang Yang approved the Dao Rhyme Hall’s results and ruled that it could retain half of its core Dao Rhyme, with the remainder distributed as rewards among the other eight halls.

Zhang Yang reviewed the work of the Fortune Merit Hall and Tianshu Hall, taking charge of the former after judging Jiang Rong’s reforms too biased toward humanity. He kept Li Guokui as Tianshu Hall’s master and promised him resources and time to improve the Heaven and Earth Barrier before turning the gathering to wedding celebrations.

• Jiang Rong reported that he had reformed the Fortune Merit Hall’s system for managing fortune and merit over three hundred years.
• Zhang Yang explained that fortune and merit had to circulate among all living beings, then demoted Jiang Rong to vice hall master of Dao Rhyme Hall and took charge of the Fortune Merit Hall himself.
• Jiang Rong accepted Zhang Yang’s decision and withdrew without protest.
• Li Guokui reported that he had spent three hundred years trying to improve the thirty-five layers of the Heaven and Earth Barrier and offered to resign as Tianshu Hall’s master.
• Zhang Yang refused Li Guokui’s resignation, prioritized resources for his work, and told the other halls they could skip their reports before inviting everyone to drink wedding wine.

Ten years after Zhang Yang began living in seclusion, Mu Shaoan visited him, badly mutilated from mastering the Ancient Destiny Chessboard. Mu left to study the Heavenly Sword Clan’s Sword Dao, and Zhang Yang realized Mu’s insights could help the Sword Dao Law and the Heaven and Earth Barrier.

• Mu Shaoan arrived at Zhang Yang’s courtyard to congratulate him on his wedding, then fled when he saw Zhang’s children and pregnant wife.
• Zhang Yang questioned Mu about his injuries, and Mu explained that they were the price of mastering the Ancient Destiny Chessboard.
• When Zhang Yang suggested Mu was seeking the Ancient Law of Destiny, Mu suffered a backlash and lost a finger.
• Mu gave Zhang Yang a tiny wooden splinter, then announced that he would study the Sword Dao at the Heavenly Sword Clan’s mountain gate.
• After Mu left, Zhang Yang understood how incompleteness could complement perfection and considered telling Li Guokui to apply the idea to the Heaven and Earth Barrier.