Chapter Summaries

Chen Luo deflected Lu Jian’s questions about the Red-dressed Woman and pretended to have only seven stolen Inner Demon Stones, while secretly monitoring Lu Jian and cultivating with his enormous hidden stockpile. After learning more about Underworld Ferry’s expanding influence, Chen Luo ordered Hu Si to investigate its representatives and turned his attention to improving the Soul Seizing Method.

• Lu Jian questioned Chen Luo about the Red-dressed Woman and offered to trade for Inner Demon Stones, but Chen Luo claimed poverty and produced seven stones to ask Lu Jian to launder them.
• Lu Jian left without accepting the offer, and Chen Luo suspected Underworld Ferry was testing him and might be trying to confirm that he had killed the Red-dressed Woman.
• Chen Luo called Hu Si, who reported Underworld Ferry’s partnership with Inner Demon Sect and its expansion into nearby realms; Chen Luo ordered him to investigate its three representatives.
• Chen Luo secretly released his vast supply of Inner Demon Stones to cultivate and used a Soul Parasite Gu to monitor Lu Jian’s movements.
• Chen Luo reviewed insights from more than thirty brains working on the Soul Seizing Method, including the idea that shared bloodlines and cultivation methods could improve the chances of seizing Essence, Qi, and Spirit.

Chen Luo left Seventh City to test his newly created Reverse Soul Seizing Technique, but Lu Jian sent four Underworld Ferry cultivators to capture him. Chen Luo defeated them with formations and the Slaughter Seal, then began using the technique on all four.

• Chen Luo consumed the remaining Inner Demon Stone energy, strengthened his Nascent Soul, and finalized the Reverse Soul Seizing Technique.
• Chen Luo secretly left Seventh City, and Lu Jian sensed his departure through the Soul Parasite Gu and ordered Huang Tian and three others to capture him alive.
• Chen Luo noticed the pursuers, chose a remote mountain to confront them, and learned that the Underworld Ferry had more Nascent Soul cultivators than he had expected.
• Huang Tian and the three cultivators trapped Chen Luo with their Underworld Water combined attack, but Chen Luo defended himself with Earth Vein formations.
• Chen Luo crushed their formation with Flood Dragons and the Slaughter Seal, immobilized all four, and began the Reverse Soul Seizing Technique to give them new cognition.

Chen Luo refined the Reverse Soul Seizing Technique while the Inner Demon Sect and Underworld Ferry moved toward open conflict. After being expelled from the sect and giving up Wenxiang Pavilion, he left Seventh City with Hu Shan and Hu Si, leaving his identity as Cult Leader concealed.

• Chen Luo reshaped Huang Tian and three others with the Reverse Soul Seizing Technique, then ordered them to tell Lu Jian that he was dead.
• The Green-robed Ghost King pressured Tu Cheng to join the Underworld Ferry’s arrangement, revealing that Chess Mountain had agreed to cooperate.
• Chen Luo continued experimenting on death-row prisoners as tensions between the Inner Demon Sect and Underworld Ferry increased.
• Black Robe warned Chen Luo to flee to the Qionghua Sect, but Chen Luo refused to abandon the Evergreen Sect’s expansion.
• A Nascent Soul elder expelled Chen Luo from the Inner Demon Sect and claimed Wenxiang Pavilion for the Sect Master’s faction.
• Chen Luo left Wenxiang Pavilion and its accumulated Inner Demon Stones to the elder, then departed Seventh City with Hu Shan and Hu Si.

Chen Luo investigated Ink Mountain Lord’s influence in the Inner Demon Sect and discovered a palace maid secretly using a curse against the Great Elder. She revealed that the curse came from Ink Mountain Lord’s Book of Life and Death, while Chen Luo weighed the danger of confronting her.

• Chen Luo learned that the three-thousand-year-old Ink Mountain Lord had inspired several sects to resist ghost cultivators and had given Tu Cheng confidence to consolidate power.
• Hu Si told Chen Luo that Black Robe and the others had retreated to Mysterious Pond Valley, and Chen Luo ordered his followers to keep watching without revealing themselves.
• Chen Luo entered the Court of Imperial Entertainments and found a palace maid drawing a straw figure with a curse capable of harming a Nascent Soul cultivator.
• The palace maid attacked Chen Luo with a Copper Mirror, but he avoided the strike and asked whether she was Ink Mountain Lord’s disciple and why she was cursing the Great Elder.
• The palace maid identified the curse as Ink Mountain Lord’s Book of Life and Death and continued drawing the Great Elder’s face onto the straw man while Chen Luo praised the technique.

Chen Luo learned the Book of Life and Death from Le Qingzhu and discovered that its Visualization Diagram carried a curse. He then found the cursed Great Elder Qi Le, altered Qi Xiao’s loyalty, and went with him to inspect the Inner Demon Sect treasury.

• Le Qingzhu introduced herself and let Chen Luo read her inherited Book of Life and Death secret art for half an hour.
• Chen Luo memorized the secret art and learned that its Visualization Diagram showed different Underworld figures to different observers and carried a curse.
• Le Qingzhu gave Chen Luo her Communication Talisman before leaving the courtyard as black mist.
• Chen Luo discovered that Great Elder Qi Le had been cursed, then altered Qi Xiao’s loyalty so the elder would serve him.
• Qi Xiao led Chen Luo to the Inner Demon Sect treasury, where Chen Luo found few valuable resources and decided not to waste what was there.

Chen Luo looted the Inner Demon Sect treasury, then returned to the Evergreen Sect stronghold to cultivate and strengthen his forces. Le Qingzhu visited him with news about the Fox Clan Saintess, revealing Su Linlin’s growing influence and leaving Chen Luo’s connection to her exposed as a possible source of trouble.

• Chen Luo used the Grotto-heaven Gourd to strip the Sect Treasury down to bare rock before leaving the Imperial City.
• Chen Luo returned to Sixth City, refined Inner Demon Stones, and organized plans to strengthen his abilities and the Evergreen Sect.
• Le Qingzhu visited Chen Luo and again invited him to leave with her and pursue a Soul Transformation Dharma Seed, but he refused.
• Chen Luo asked Le Qingzhu about the Fox Clan Saintess, and she told him Su Linlin was a Fortune Demon Fox who had rejected a marriage proposal from the Young Clan Leader of the Black Temple.
• Chen Luo said he and Su Linlin were friends, and Le Qingzhu suggested that revealing their connection could bring powerful people to his door.

Chen Luo traded with Le Qingzhu for information about Su Linlin, the Qionghua Sect, and the dangers surrounding the Inner Demon Sect. He chose to keep cultivating where he was, while learning that Tu Cheng had ties to the Underworld and that the ceasefire would end in three years.

• Chen Luo showed Le Qingzhu his improved Mother-Child Profound Thunder Formation flags and exchanged them for information.
• Le Qingzhu told Chen Luo that Su Linlin had joined the Moon Gazing Sect and explained how Dao Sects and Immortal Clans ruled over the Upper Realm’s lesser sects.
• Le Qingzhu revealed that the Qionghua Sect had once been a Dao Sect before splitting into seven, prompting Chen Luo to suspect the split concealed a larger scheme.
• Chen Luo said he would keep cultivating and seek a Soul Transformation Dharma Seed, and Le Qingzhu gave him advice and fourth-tier pill recipes.
• Le Qingzhu warned Chen Luo that Tu Cheng had secretly contacted the Underworld and that new Underworld forces would arrive when the three-year ceasefire ended.
• Chen Luo completed a trade with Le Qingzhu, who then used a Void Spirit Artifact to depart.

Chen Luo rushed to the Inner Demon Sect after learning Tu Cheng planned to trade yin souls, but Tu Cheng had already gathered sect elders and disciples to sacrifice to the Underworld. As the Underworld vessel departed with its captives, a gigantic black gourd struck its bow.

• Chen Luo learned that Black Robe and the other former elders had been missing from Mysterious Pond Valley for three days and hurried to the Inner Demon Sect.
• Tu Cheng used the patriarch's cracked Sixth-tier Spirit Talisman to seal Black Robe and two elders on the altar, intending to trade them for an Underworld Spirit Artifact.
• Tu Cheng added elders from another faction and even his own Direct Disciples to meet the Underworld's demand for yin souls, then let the Underworld Great Cultivator take them away.
• The Underworld cultivators mocked Tu Cheng aboard their flying vessel and discussed how rootless sect cultivators could only access Human Level Dharma Seeds.
• The flying vessel struck a gigantic black gourd, which dented its bow while remaining unharmed.

Chen Luo ambushed the Yellow Springs Ghost Cultivators, using the Grotto-heaven Gourd and a curse to kill two of them. Rao Feng reached the sealed offering room and attacked the young man inside with his strongest divine ability, but the stone stele stopped before it could hit him.

• Chen Luo smashed the Yellow Springs flying boat with the Grotto-heaven Gourd and hid using Shadow Evasion.
• A Ghost Cultivator found Chen Luo’s shadow and struck it, but Chen Luo cursed the attacker through his storage artifact.
• Chen Luo seized the storage artifact and killed a second Ghost Cultivator with the curse, while the last survivor, Rao Feng, fled toward the sealed offering room.
• Rao Feng found an azure-robed young man killing the guards and discovered that the mission target was in danger.
• Rao Feng summoned his Burial Stele and launched it at the young man, but the stele stopped before reaching him.

Chen Luo killed Rao Feng and his companions, rescued Black Robe, and returned to the Evergreen Sect as tensions rose between Yellow Springs and the surrounding sects. He hid in a remote small nation to cultivate, while the Black Snake Elder began searching for the killer and suspected someone was framing Profound Yin Mountain.

• Chen Luo crushed Rao Feng’s self-destructing Nascent Soul, killed him, collected the three Ghost Cultivators’ brains and Storage Bags, and destroyed the remaining flying vessel.
• Chen Luo released Black Robe in the Sixth City region and gave him the sealing artifact, while Black Robe decided to flee the Inner Demon Sect with his disciples.
• Chen Luo returned to the Evergreen Sect and planned to take over the neighboring Fifth City as Yellow Springs’ deaths threatened to shatter the peace.
• The Black Snake Elder found traces of Profound Yin Mountain’s Book of Life and Death, concluded someone was framing the mountain, and ordered the Underworld Hound to find the murderer.
• Chen Luo left the conspicuous fifth-rank Spirit Vein in the Sixth City and hid in a remote small nation, where he awoke from cultivation frustrated by his slow spiritual-power growth.

Chen Luo spent a year accumulating cultivation experience through more than five hundred External Brains and broke through to the Nascent Soul Middle Stage while living as a fisherman at Mirror Moon Lake. After he returned to shore with a spirit fish, two errand boys tried to take it, and Tian Fugui arrived warning that Chen Luo might have offended someone from Tang Manor.

• Chen Luo used more than five hundred External Brains to simulate centuries of cultivation experience and broke through to the Nascent Soul Middle Stage.
• Tu Cheng, injured and half-mad, remained alone in the declining Inner Demon Sect and insisted that he would pass the Trials to gain a higher level Dharma Seed.
• Chen Luo completed his year of cultivation at Mirror Moon Lake and caught a spirit fish with his fishing rod.
• Two errand boys tried to buy or seize Chen Luo's fish, but Chen Luo knocked them down with spiritual power and returned home.
• Tian Fugui entered Chen Luo's house and anxiously asked whether he had offended someone from Tang Manor.

Chen Luo used demonic arts to turn Steward Tang’s attempted arrest against him, then met a mysterious Black-robed Person who had lived in Epiphyllum Country for three hundred years waiting for a flower. The chapter left Chen Luo identifying the stranger as an Illusionary Faceless Demon from the Otherworldly Beings known as Demonic Evil from Strange Records.

• Tian Fugui warned Chen Luo that Steward Tang planned to have him arrested, but Chen Luo calmly continued eating fish.
• Steward Tang’s men bound and struck Chen Luo, only for their actions to be turned against Steward Tang, who was chained and slapped instead.
• The frightened men fled after deciding Chen Luo knew demonic arts, while Chen Luo sent Tian Fugui out of the courtyard.
• The Black-robed Person appeared, killed Steward Tang after he recognized Zichun’s face among the masks on the stranger’s robe, and questioned Chen Luo.
• The Black-robed Person said he had lived in Epiphyllum Country for three hundred years while waiting for a flower, and Chen Luo recognized him as an Illusionary Faceless Demon.

Chen Luo encountered the Otherworldly Demon Thousand Faces in Epiphyllum Country, then returned to the Evergreen Sect and ordered its expansion slowed. When Le Qingzhu told him the Underworld had blamed Profound Yin Mountain for cursed Ghost Cultivator deaths, she began to suspect Chen Luo was responsible.

• Chen Luo and Thousand Faces shared a meal, each wary of the other's strength, before Chen Luo left Epiphyllum Country and Thousand Faces transformed into the supposedly dead Steward Tang.
• Chen Luo returned to Sixth City, where Hu Si reported the Evergreen Sect's rapid expansion, and Chen Luo ordered him and Hu Shan to slow it down.
• Chen Luo met Le Qingzhu at Solitary Mountain and declined the invitation she had been about to offer.
• Le Qingzhu described the Underworld's attacks on Profound Yin Mountain after several Ghost Cultivators died under the Book of Life and Death's curse.
• Le Qingzhu connected Chen Luo's study of the Book of Life and Death to the deaths and asked whether he had caused them.

Chen Luo sought an ice cultivation method from Le Qingzhu and learned that Upper Realm cultivators lacked a path to Spirit Transformation, while Emperor Tombs carried a deadly curse. After trading for the Ice Cold Art, he returned to Epiphyllum Country and confronted Thousand Faces with a bowl of fish soup.

• Chen Luo denied cursing the Underworld Ghost Cultivators when Le Qingzhu suspected him of using the Book of Life and Death.
• Chen Luo asked Le Qingzhu for an ice cultivation method and learned that Ancient Cultivators had relied on vanished Five-Colored Spiritual Power and Primordial Magnetic Force to advance.
• Chen Luo realized that Profound Yin Mountain did not know the Southern Sky Region still had Heavenly Tribulation and wondered who had concealed that information.
• Le Qingzhu warned Chen Luo that anyone who touched an Emperor Tomb met an unnatural end, and Chen Luo concealed his connection to Immortal Emperor Changqing's Tomb.
• Chen Luo traded pills and formation flags for Le Qingzhu's Ice Cold Art, then exchanged information with her about the Underworld and their sects' search for something.
• Chen Luo returned to Epiphyllum Country and served fish soup to Thousand Faces, who arrived disguised as Steward Tang and demanded to know his purpose.

Chen Luo and Thousand Faces raced to claim the Five-Colored Spirit Flower, a treasure that could improve the chances of reaching Spirit Transformation, and fought to a standstill. As the flower’s brief blooming period threatened to run out, Thousand Faces proposed splitting it in exchange for Chen Luo’s help.

• Chen Luo and Thousand Faces became familiar over a month of visits and meals, then learned that the Five-Colored Spirit Flower would bloom in seven days.
• Tu Cheng activated the Inner Demon Sect’s ancient restrictions and entered a sealed realm as forces from Underworld and Profound Yin Mountain also arrived.
• Chen Luo spotted a Five-Colored Spirit Flower blooming in Epiphyllum Country’s lake and rushed to claim it after Old Brother Changqing identified its value.
• Thousand Faces intercepted Chen Luo, and the two fought with their varied techniques but could not gain an advantage over each other.
• Thousand Faces proposed that they split the flower equally if Chen Luo agreed to do him a favor.

Chen Luo and Thousand Faces joined forces to steal Five-Colored Spirit Flowers from a Dao Sect spirit field after learning how the flowers enabled a stronger form of Spirit Transformation. They reached the unguarded island and began taking flowers, but the Spirit Transformation black dog guarding it charged back at them.

• Thousand Faces split a Five-Colored Spirit Flower with Chen Luo, then attacked him by surprise; their clash ended in a draw and they agreed to cooperate.
• Thousand Faces explained that Five-Colored Spirit Flowers enabled earth-seed Spirit Transformation and revealed that their target was a Dao Sect spirit field.
• Chen Luo and Thousand Faces traveled beyond the Inner Demon Realm to a small floating island with fields of Five-Colored Spirit Flowers.
• Thousand Faces lured the black dog away with purple meat while he and Chen Luo bypassed the field's formation and reached for the flowers.
• The black dog abandoned the meat and rushed back toward Chen Luo and Thousand Faces as they touched the Five-Colored Spirit Flowers.

Chen Luo and Thousand Faces fled the Dao Sect’s Floating Island with Five-Colored Spirit Flowers, pursued by its Big Black Dog. They reached the Inner Demon Realm’s boundary, where Tu Cheng’s aura stopped the dog’s attack.

• Thousand Faces grabbed a Five-Colored Spirit Flower and ran, while Chen Luo took another and pursued him as the Big Black Dog attacked them.
• Chen Luo used the Soul Parasite Gu to pull Thousand Faces back into the Big Black Dog’s path, then escaped the Floating Island.
• The Big Black Dog defeated Thousand Faces’ masks and their combined attacks, but the two fled together through the mist.
• The dog repeatedly attacked them, biting Thousand Faces in half before he regenerated and continued running with Chen Luo.
• At the Inner Demon Realm’s boundary, Thousand Faces threw a ghastly white leg bone toward the island, and Tu Cheng’s aura spread around the two and halted the Big Black Dog.

Chen Luo and Thousand Faces escaped the Big Black Dog after Thousand Faces used the Inner Demon Sect Founding Ancestor’s bone to impersonate Tu Cheng’s aura. Their talk about the bone led them to the Floating World Immortal Palace, where Tu Cheng sacrificed his disciple Jing Zhi to activate the bridge and pursue the palace’s power.

• Thousand Faces and Chen Luo fled into the Inner Demon Realm, where Chen Luo’s Black Gourd struck the Big Black Dog and freed them from its Soul Transformation Dharma Seed.
• The Big Black Dog stopped at the realm’s boundary when its Wooden Plaque flashed, while Chen Luo and Thousand Faces escaped to a mountain outside Eleven Cities and recovered.
• Thousand Faces told Chen Luo that the bone he used was the Inner Demon Sect Founding Ancestor’s leg bone, which he had found in the Floating World Immortal Palace’s Earth Fire.
• Tu Cheng arrived at the Floating World Immortal Palace’s River Realm with his disciple Jing Zhi and explained that the Inner Demon Sect’s cultivation method could open the palace.
• Tu Cheng drew a grayish white aura from Jing Zhi and fed it into the white jade bridge, leaving his disciple’s body to decay.

Chen Luo returned to the Evergreen Sect and found its people frozen as the Six Desires Leaving Heart Formation stripped emotions from cities across the Inner Demon Realm. He sought Thousand Faces in unaffected Epiphyllum Country and learned the Floating World Immortal Palace was behind the disaster, then watched Thousand Faces enter a Blank Scroll to pursue immortality, leaving the scroll in Chen Luo’s hands.

• Chen Luo found Hu Shan, Hu Si, and the people of Sixth City frozen and emotionless, while Old Brother Changqing identified the phenomenon as the Six Desires Leaving Heart Formation.
• Chen Luo used the Inner Demon Art to see the emotions being drawn from people, then found Seventh City afflicted by the same force and fled toward Epiphyllum Country.
• Chen Luo discovered Epiphyllum Country remained unaffected and confronted Thousand Faces, who said the light pillars and disaster came from the Floating World Immortal Palace.
• Thousand Faces revealed that a Blank Scroll shielded Epiphyllum Country and explained that the Inner Demon Sect’s Founding Ancestor had founded the Inner Demon Art using a painting stolen from the Immortal Palace.
• Thousand Faces merged into the Blank Scroll to seize his chance at immortality, and the scroll fell into Chen Luo’s hands.

Chen Luo activated the passage from Sixth City to the Lower Realm and aimed for the Southern Sky Region, but a giant hand deflected his descent. He crashed into the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains near a sword sect, where he emerged from a crater as a demonic figure.

• Chen Luo cleared the abandoned courtyard in Sixth City and discovered that the Cross-realm Passage to the Lower Realm remained intact.
• Chen Luo used eight Inner Demon Stones to activate the passage, found the Southern Sky Region among the countless Floating Island Realms, and began descending toward it.
• A giant hand struck Chen Luo's passage and diverted his destination toward a distant cluster of palaces.
• A White-Bearded Swordsman at the Demon Locking Pagoda saw a Demonic Star descend, but his Sword Qi failed to reach it.
• Chen Luo crashed into the Hundred Thousand Great Mountains, creating a crater, then rose from the magma covered in Bone Runes and demonic aura.