Chapter Summaries

After learning that Morris had given the Soul Race more than three hundred powerful hosts, the Human Federation’s leaders feared the Soul Race could overwhelm them and turned to Yi Chen as their best hope. They planned to keep Morris nearby, seek Yi Chen through the Revival Army, and revise their contract offer to make cooperation more acceptable.

• Parliament and military leaders realized the Soul Race’s new hosts could overpower the Human Federation and regretted delaying action until the threat had grown.
• Lu Qingxian proposed keeping Morris and the military leaders at the Council Building while persuading Morris to summon an Earth Tree Race Expert skilled in tracking.
• The leaders agreed not to rely solely on Morris and planned to contact Yi Chen through the Revival Army.
• Lu Qingxian proposed replacing demands for control over Yi Chen with a cooperative arrangement, including making the Human Federation a vassal of the Earth Tree Race alongside him.
• The leaders began discussing the revised offer and how to persuade Morris to stay in the Milky Way.

Morris warned the Human Federation’s leaders that the Soul Race had turned his subordinates into hosts and agreed to stay near them while they discussed their plans. Yi Chen learned that the leaders were willing to compromise, but ordered the Revival Army to leave them waiting as he returned to his cultivation research.

• Morris told Lu Qingxian and the assembled leaders that the Soul Race had seized his subordinates and could attack the Federation’s leadership.
• Lu Qingxian raised the risk that the Soul Race could locate the leaders by extracting memories, and Morris agreed to stay at the Federal Parliament Headquarters Building.
• The Shadow King eavesdropped on the leaders’ meeting, then informed the Shadow Emperor before fleeing to avoid Morris.
• Yi Chen learned that the leaders were willing to lower their bottom line and had Bai Ruoxin tell the Shadow Race intelligence personnel to keep the Revival Army from responding to the Federation for now.
• Yi Chen returned his attention to creating the Meridian Cultivation Chart for the New Cultivation Method.

Bai Zhenshan embraced a life of drinking and music after deciding he was no longer needed to help Yi Chen, and he deliberately snubbed Lu Qingxian on Yi Chen’s instructions. He left Lu Qingxian with no choice but to withdraw without discussing his business.

• Bai Zhenshan drank liquor and listened to loud music in his room, surrounded by photographs of his fallen comrades.
• A Revival Army general told Bai Zhenshan that Lu Qingxian had come to visit, but Bai ordered him to wait outside.
• Bai Zhenshan recalled that Yi Chen had instructed him to keep the Human Federation’s leaders waiting and fell asleep before agreeing to meet Lu Qingxian.
• Lu Qingxian arrived as a virtual projection with two negotiation experts and found Bai drunk and unwilling to get up.
• Bai insulted Lu Qingxian, explained that Yi Chen regarded the Human Federation as little more than a resource warehouse, and ordered him to leave.
• Lu Qingxian departed with the negotiation experts, while Bai resumed drinking and listening to music.

The Expeditionary Force delayed its advance so the Carter Tribe and Lisi Tribe could unite before being defeated together, while Gu Li avoided splitting the army to limit Human Race casualties. At the Carter encampment, the allied tribes agreed to defend and wait because they did not know how the Nika Tribe had captured the Bone Spike Tribe’s powerful fighters.

• Gu Li sent the Expeditionary Force toward the second target area after delaying its departure until the Carter Tribe and Lisi Tribe had formally allied.
• Gu Li and the Human Race upper ranks rejected a multi-front assault, choosing to protect their soldiers from increased casualties until they grew stronger.
• Chief Carter told the gathered allied leaders that the Nika Tribe’s army had set out toward the Carter Tribe.
• Chief Carter warned that the Nika Tribe’s captured fighters and the outside race’s powerful ranged attacks could threaten the alliance.
• Chief Carter and Chief Lisi agreed to defend the Carter Tribe encampment and observe the enemy, while the smaller tribes had no say in the decision.

The Expeditionary Force approved a plan to strike the Lisi Tribe and draw its forces away from the Carter Tribe Alliance’s defenses. The Human Army and allied elites reached the Lisi Tribe’s encampment, where Manos learned they were approaching and realized the threat their ranged attacks posed.

• Gu Li and the Expeditionary Force’s leaders agreed to attack the Lisi Tribe, forcing it to send aid while the army prepared to defeat the Carter Tribe Alliance.
• A day later, Tai Shi led the 800,000-strong Human Army and 800,000 Demon Race and Black Tiger Race elites toward the Lisi Tribe while Gu Li stayed behind with several Black Tiger Race experts.
• Bai Ruoxin’s Intelligence Organization eliminated scouts and threats along the route, allowing the army to approach undetected until it was within five hundred kilometers of the Lisi Tribe’s encampment.
• Tai Shi ordered the army to reorganize and advance more slowly, then told the Intelligence Organization to stop concealing their marching traces.
• Manos learned that an army of around 1.6 million was approaching, including 800,000 high-level fighters and 800,000 members of an unknown race, and feared their powerful ranged attacks.

Manos and Chief Lisi mistook the Nika Tribe’s vanguard for a ploy to draw out reinforcements, so Chief Lisi kept his army away. Tai Shi then rushed the Human Army toward the Lisi Tribe’s encampment, arriving as its defenders had only begun strengthening their defenses.

• Manos reported the Nika Tribe’s 1.6-million-strong vanguard near the Lisi Tribe encampment and asked Chief Lisi for reinforcements.
• Chief Lisi and Manos concluded that the vanguard was bait meant to expose the reinforcements to ranged attacks, so Chief Lisi ordered Manos to strengthen the defenses and hold position.
• Chief Lisi consulted Chief Carter and sent scouts to verify the Nika Tribe’s main army was still advancing toward the Carter Tribe encampment.
• After learning that no reinforcements were coming, Tai Shi ordered the Human Army to advance at full speed toward the Lisi Tribe encampment.
• Manos’s assault teams failed to slow the Human Army, which reached the encampment in just over an hour while its defenders had only begun building stronger fortifications.

Manos tried to defend the Lisi Tribe’s First Defense Line against the rapidly arriving Nika Tribe army, but Tai Shi led the Human Army’s Giant Human Wall through its defenses. The Lisi Tribe’s troops broke and fled before the wall even entered the First Defense Line.

• Manos learned that the Nika Tribe’s army had reached the Lisi Tribe’s encampment and ordered his clansmen to abandon their supplies and withdraw behind the Second Defense Line.
• Manos saw the Human Army’s vanguard arrive and prepared more than twenty million Lisi Tribe soldiers to defend the First Defense Line, despite lacking the tribe’s strongest forces and ranged unit.
• Tai Shi ordered eight hundred thousand Human Army soldiers to form a five-kilometer-long, two-hundred-meter-high Giant Human Wall and advance on the Lisi Tribe.
• Manos’s troops fired millions of spears, but the Giant Human Wall’s rotating ranks of Fire Walls destroyed them and continued advancing.
• The Human Army’s Fire Walls shattered the First Defense Line, and Manos ordered a slow retreat under ranged-fire cover.
• The Lisi Tribe’s army failed to retreat in formation, and its soldiers began fleeing as the Giant Human Wall’s attacks swallowed the vanguard.

Tai Shi led the Human Army to break through the Lisi Tribe’s defenses while deliberately driving its army and clansmen south to lure the Carter Tribe into sending reinforcements. The Lisi Tribe retreated in an orderly group, trapped between the advancing Giant Human Wall and the threat of the pursuing forces.

• Tai Shi advanced toward the Lisi Tribe’s Second Defense Line instead of pursuing the retreating enemy, keeping the Human Army’s strength concealed.
• Manos sent an Assault Team against the Giant Human Wall, but its high-end combatants were repelled before they could reach it.
• Tai Shi ordered the Giant Human Wall to attack the Gathering Star Stone defenses at thirty percent power, breaking through the shield and melting the wall.
• Manos ordered a full retreat, then realized Tai Shi was steering the Lisi Tribe south to draw out the Carter Tribe’s reinforcements.
• Manos ordered his army and clansmen to maintain formation as they retreated south, while Tai Shi’s Giant Human Wall pursued at a controlled pace.
• After the Lisi Tribe withdrew beyond the Second Defense Line, the Giant Human Wall split into three parts and blocked its eastern, western, and northern routes to keep the retreat moving south as one group.

After the Nika Tribe’s Elite Army broke through both Lisi Tribe defense lines, Manos told Chief Lisi that the force was driving the tribe’s people south to pressure the Coalition into a decisive battle. Chief Lisi called an emergency meeting with Chief Carter and the other tribal leaders to explain the threat and seek a response.

• Manos reported that the Nika Tribe’s Elite Army had breached the Lisi Tribe’s encampment and Second Defense Line, using powerful ranged attacks and a Fire Sea.
• Manos told Chief Lisi that the army was herding the Lisi Tribe’s clansmen south rather than crushing them, and that the tribe had evacuated its people and stored resources.
• Chief Lisi recognized that the Nika Tribe was forcing him to request Coalition support, then asked Manos for a detailed account of the attack.
• Chief Lisi summoned Chief Carter and the leaders of the Coalition tribes to an emergency meeting.
• Chief Lisi announced that the Nika Tribe’s Elite Army had breached the Lisi Tribe’s encampment, alarming the assembled leaders and making them fear for their own defenses.

Chief Lisi revealed that his tribe had a ranged unit capable of using Water Element Laws, and Chief Carter agreed to send the Carter Tribe Coalition’s elites to fight the Nika Tribe’s army. Their leaders believed the Lisi Tribe’s unit raised their chance of victory to eighty percent, unaware of the humans’ true strength.

• Chief Carter and the other leaders argued that confronting the Nika Tribe’s ranged attacks directly was too dangerous, but Chief Lisi said his tribe had to support its retreating army and people.
• Chief Carter estimated the coalition had a fifty percent chance of victory if its elites marched out against the Nika Tribe’s elite force.
• Chief Lisi revealed that his tribe had a ten-thousand-elite ranged unit wielding low-grade Immortal Minerals to channel Water Element Laws, and Chief Carter welcomed the news.
• Chief Carter proposed keeping the Lisi Tribe’s forces at the Carter Tribe’s encampment to lure the Nika Tribe into an attack, but Chief Lisi privately offered double the previous payment in resources and treasures.
• Chief Carter accepted Chief Lisi’s plan to send the coalition’s elites into battle, estimating their chance of victory had risen to eighty percent.

Tai Shi turned the Human Army around to meet the Carter Tribe Coalition's elite force on an open grassland. As the armies clashed, the Carter Tribe Coalition sent four cannon-fodder units ahead, and the Human Army's Fire Dragon attacks halted their charge.

• The Carter Tribe Coalition gathered twenty million high-end combatants and most of its experts to reinforce the Lisi Tribe.
• Tai Shi learned the coalition was coming and prepared a detailed plan to defeat its elites and capture its experts.
• The Human Army turned to face the Carter Tribe Coalition, while Manos and Chief Lisi halted their forces to await the battle's outcome.
• The two armies reorganized and advanced across the grassland until Chief Carter ordered four groups of fifty thousand elites to probe the Human Army.
• Tai Shi sent three brigades to block the flanking groups, and the four cannon-fodder units charged the Human Army.
• At a little over five kilometers, the Human Army's brigades fired Fire Dragons, blasting the front ranks aside and stopping the charge.

The Carter Tribe coalition launched its final assault against the Human Army, using the Lisi Tribe’s ranged attack brigade to counter the Fire Dragons. The Water Curtains extinguished the fire, easing the coalition’s advance as the battle intensified.

• Four powerful figures led a probing charge but withdrew after their cannon-fodder armies were wiped out by the Human Army’s Fire Dragons.
• Chief Lisi and Chief Carter agreed to gather their strong fighters at the front and keep the ranged troops ready to counter unexpected threats.
• Tai Shi ordered the Human Army to prepare for an all-out assault as the opposing armies drew closer.
• Chief Carter and Chief Lisi led more than three hundred strong fighters behind the Vanguard Army, while Tai Shi ordered the Fire Dragons to keep attacking at thirty percent power.
• Chief Carter activated the Lisi Tribe’s Low-Grade Immortal Stones, unleashing Water Curtains that extinguished the Fire Dragons and accelerated the coalition’s advance.

Tai Shi’s Human Army revealed the full strength of its Fire Sea attacks, forcing the Carter Tribe Coalition to retreat and beginning an assault on its experts. Little Golden Ball charged ahead and detonated itself at close range, blasting the nearest experts away.

• Tai Shi ordered the Human Army to unleash full-power Fire Sea attacks, killing millions of Coalition warriors and halting their charge.
• Chief Lisi urged Chief Carter to retreat, and the Coalition began withdrawing while the Human Army advanced under fire suppression.
• Tai Shi ordered the Human Army to shift its attacks away from the experts and carry out the Final Step plan as Little Golden Ball and more than three hundred Human experts charged forward.
• Little Golden Ball dodged a Level 100 Expert’s spear, then self-detonated when a level 110 expert attacked it with a giant saber.
• Little Golden Ball’s explosion blasted the nearest experts dozens of meters away despite their attempts to shield themselves.

Tai Shi’s forces captured the Carter Tribe Coalition’s experts, while Yi Chen completed the Slowness Technique and tested its effects on Shadow Race members. He found that it slowed targets’ movement and reactions enough to hinder even fast opponents from escaping.

• The Little Golden Ball exploded inside the Carter Tribe Coalition’s formation, letting the geniuses teleport behind scattered experts and attack them.
• Luo Ge and Chief Bone Spike helped defeat Chief Carter and Chief Lisi, leaving more than three hundred coalition experts captured.
• Tai Shi ordered his army to clean up and planned to use the captives to force the Carter Tribe Coalition and nearby tribes to surrender.
• Yi Chen named his completed cultivation method the Slowness Technique and told Bai Ruoxin to arrange preparations for the Seventh New Cultivation Method Teaching.
• Yi Chen tested the technique on ten Shadow Race members and found that it sharply slowed the movement and reactions of those below Level 130.

Yi Chen tested the Slowness Technique, developed Avatar Stage cultivation methods, and conducted the Seventh New Cultivation Method Teaching at the Great Flame Empire's base. The teaching ended after he instructed the Avatar Stage geniuses and citizens in the new methods.

• Yi Chen tested the Slowness Technique on Shadow Race members and found that it weakened speed and reactions more against lower-level opponents.
• Yi Chen developed a weakened Slowness Technique and Avatar Stage versions of several cultivation methods, then cultivated until the teaching date.
• Lu Qingxian continued asking Bai Zhenshan to negotiate with Yi Chen, while Gu Li's Expeditionary Force secured the Carter Tribe's surrender and returned to base.
• Yi Chen began the Seventh New Cultivation Method Teaching, explaining the Avatar Stage and the future possibility of condensing avatars.
• Yi Chen taught the Avatar Stage Chaos Art, Heavenly Dao Laws, and versions of the Slowness Technique, Teleportation Technique, Heaven Severing Art, and other methods over more than ten days.

Yi Chen examined Communication Stones from across the Local Galaxy Cluster and forged a batch of improved stones for the Great Flame Empire. He arranged to contact the Human Federation about a second payment of interest, while preparing to gather the materials needed for a third-generation Blessed Grotto Heaven.

• The top geniuses and the Great Flame Empire began advancing rapidly after the new cultivation methods and the second-generation Blessed Grotto Heaven became available.
• Yi Chen calculated that the geniuses would soon need a third-generation Blessed Grotto Heaven, which required low-grade Immortal Mineral, and decided to collect another payment from the Human Federation.
• Yi Chen asked Bai Ruoxin to bring him Communication Stones from various star systems, then examined their materials and properties.
• Yi Chen forged a batch of Communication Stones with enhanced long-distance communication and image transmission, using stones from the Milky Way to avoid revealing their origin.
• Yi Chen told Bai Ruoxin to have the Shadow Race deliver a Communication Stone to the Human Federation through the Revival Army and inform Council President Lu Qingxian that he would discuss the next interest payment in a few days.

Yi Chen assigned Bai Ruoxin tasks to spread the Communication Stone refining process and investigate materials for the third-generation Blessed Grotto Heaven. Bai Zhenshan then delivered Yi Chen’s message and a Communication Stone to Lu Qingxian, leaving the Human Federation expecting contact about the second payment of interest.

• Yi Chen taught Bai Ruoxin how to refine Communication Stones and gave her a list of low-grade Immortal Minerals for the Intelligence Organization to investigate.
• Bai Ruoxin left to carry out Yi Chen’s instructions while the Great Flame Empire’s geniuses studied new cultivation methods and Chief Nika and the Swamp Crocodile managed the Expeditionary Force.
• A Shadow General gave Bai Zhenshan two Communication Stones and instructed him to give one to Lu Qingxian and tell the Human Federation to wait for Yi Chen’s contact about collecting the second payment of interest.
• Bai Zhenshan summoned Lu Qingxian and gave him the Communication Stone, explaining how to use it to contact Yi Chen.
• Lu Qingxian accepted the message gladly and left to inform the Federation’s Parliament and Military.

Lu Qingxian returned to the Council Building headquarters, where Parliament and Military leaders discussed what Yi Chen might demand and tried to trace his hiding place through the Communication Stone. Their analysis failed, so they waited for Yi Chen to contact them while concealing their secret dealings from Morris.

• Lu Qingxian returned to his real body at the Council Building headquarters and hurried to meet Parliament and Military leaders.
• Marshal Tie Xue said they expected Yi Chen to demand high-grade Spirit Mines and orphans under three, and that they were preparing to obtain them.
• Marshal Tie Xue proposed examining Yi Chen's Communication Stone for impurities that might reveal where it was made, while the leaders discussed how to persuade Yi Chen to help with the Soul Race and the wider conflict.
• The Federal Research Institute found that the impurities were common in Milky Way Communication Stones and could not identify their region of origin.
• The leaders arranged to return the Communication Stone and wait for Yi Chen, while keeping Morris unaware by holding their discussions in the Meeting Room and keeping Lu Qingxian there.

Yi Chen contacted the Federal Parliament and Military to collect the second batch of interest, demanding large quantities of rare cultivation materials and fifty million orphans under three. The Federal leaders were stunned by the scale of his demands and wondered how they could possibly meet them.

• Yi Chen reached Primal Immortal Realm Second Level after the Great Flame Empire’s territory expanded and increased his talent bonus.
• Yi Chen contacted Lu Qingxian and said he had come to collect the second batch of interest.
• Yi Chen sent his requested materials to Lu Qingxian, then ended the communication after Lu asked to confirm what they were.
• Lu Qingxian told the gathered Federal leaders that Yi Chen wanted seventy thousand tons of Immortal Enlightenment Stone, far more than the Federal Parliament and Military possessed.
• Lu Qingxian revealed that Yi Chen also wanted fifty million orphans under three, leaving the Federal leaders stunned and unsure how the Great Flame Empire could care for them.

The Council and Federation assessed their ability to gather the materials Yi Chen demanded and found major shortages. When Yi Chen spoke with Lu Qingxian, he set a delivery deadline and heard the Human Federation’s plea for help against the strengthened Soul Race; he ended the call without giving an answer.

• Lu Qingxian and the other leaders identified sixteen required materials, found that their reserves were insufficient, and ordered an all-out effort to collect them.
• After six or seven days, Yi Chen contacted Lu Qingxian, who reported that some materials were ready, others could arrive within ten days, and the rest had no known source.
• Yi Chen told Lu Qingxian to send everything collected to the Revival Army Headquarters’ uninhabited planet in half a month.
• Lu Qingxian warned that the empowered Soul Race could destroy the Human Federation and asked Yi Chen to provide cultivation methods to protect its people.
• Yi Chen ended the call and considered that helping the Human Federation could benefit him, though he did not promise Lu Qingxian anything.