Chapter Summaries

After the five-clan war ended, the Human Race became the Southern Domain’s undisputed overlord, while Shu Dao Ren entered its territory to spread the Fire Ancestor’s teachings. Luo Qing then considered how the other regions might unify ahead of the coming struggle among the Acquired Races.

• Shu Dao Ren agreed to help Luo Qing spread the Fire Ancestor Cult’s teachings among the Human Race.
• The five-clan war ended with the Celestial, Feathered, and Purple Blood Clans defeated and forced to migrate from the Southern Domain; the Feathered Clan’s Quasi-Sage lost his true body.
• The Human and Barbarian Races took over the defeated clans’ territories, and Yan Tianyu ordered the remaining tribespeople absorbed into the Human Race.
• The Barbarian Race became a largely autonomous vassal of the Human Race, which claimed three-fifths of the Southern Domain and emerged as its sole overlord.
• Luo Qing sent Shu Dao Ren to the Southern Domain to work with Yan Tianyu and spread the Fire Ancestor’s name among the Human Race.
• Luo Qing surveyed the Five Regions and noted that the other regions had yet to determine an overlord, with the Central and Western Regions facing particular obstacles.

Jieyin and Zhunti decided that the Western races should merge into the Shì Clan to create a Western Overlord capable of competing in the struggle for supremacy. As Luo Qing and the other Sages watched the regions for signs of change, the Northern races petitioned the Heavenly Court for authority over their domain.

• Jieyin and Zhunti concluded that no existing Western race could become Overlord, so they planned to unite the races and combine their origins and Fortune.
• Jieyin and Zhunti named the new race the Shì Clan and required its members to shave their heads as a shared racial trait.
• The two Sages planned to promote shaved-head cultivation among the disciples of the Western Teachings, while Luo Qing remained unaware of their scheme.
• Luo Qing, Nuwa, and Yuanshi monitored the growing competition among the regions, and Yuanshi secretly considered backing alternative races.
• After the Human Race unified the Southern Region, the Northern races began petitioning the Heavenly Court to grant their respective clans authority over the Northern Domain.

Huang Tian rejected the Northern Domain clans’ calls for an Overlord Clan, seeking to keep the region under Heavenly Court control, while Luo Qing warned that such interference could bring karmic backlash. He later explained the choices of monotheism and polytheism to Luo Lian, who reconsidered her plans for establishing a religion after hearing that the struggle for Incense Fire could turn violent.

• Huang Tian ignored the Northern Domain clans’ memorials and arranged for the Heavenly Court to suppress powerful Acquired Races, preventing any Overlord Clan from emerging.
• Luo Qing recognized Huang Tian’s policy as interference in the Kalpa Tribulation but chose not to stop him, leaving him to face its consequences.
• Luo Qing explained to Luo Lian that monotheism concentrated faith while polytheism could accommodate more gods but divided the Incense Fire among them.
• Luo Lian hesitated over which religious model could best support her goal of attaining Sainthood through Incense Fire.
• Luo Qing warned Luo Lian that competition among religions could lead to bloodshed, prompting her to make her choice between the two models.

Luo Lian founded the Luo Cult with Luo Qing’s support, while Zi Luo advanced to the Quasi-Sage realm and the cult spread through millions of Small Worlds. The chapter ends with Jieyin announcing the establishment of the Shi Race, uniting the peoples of the West into a new Overlord Clan.

• Luo Qing promised Luo Lian Hua Tian Peak’s future Small Worlds and subordinate deities to support her polytheistic Incense Fire Divine Path.
• Luo Lian and Luo Qing established the Luo Cult, with Luo Lian as its Grand Unity Holy Mother and cult leader, and began spreading its faith in Hua Tian Peak’s Small Worlds.
• Luo Lian recruited subordinate deities and established the Luo Cult’s foundation in more than three million Small Worlds.
• Zi Luo reached the Quasi-Sage realm before Luo Lian, who urged him to become the Luo Cult’s vice cult leader, but he ignored her and continued cultivating.
• Jieyin proclaimed that the western peoples had been united into the Shi Race, prompting Luo Qing to recognize the event as the rise of a new Overlord Clan.

Jieyin established the Buddhist Race by uniting the Acquired Races of the West, drawing the attention of the Primordial Wilderness. Luo Qing saw its potential to grow through absorbing other races but doubted it could unify the realm while bound to the Western Teachings and the Two Saints of the West.

• Jieyin proclaimed the establishment of the Buddhist Race, and immortals across the Primordial Wilderness realized that the Western races could combine into a formidable power.
• The Fortune of the Western races began merging into the Buddhist Race's Clan Destiny, while Luo Qing surveyed the newly established race and saw its members were all bald.
• Luo Qing compared the Buddhist Race's potential to the Yao Race and considered how it might absorb Acquired Races across the Primordial Wilderness.
• Luo Qing concluded that the Buddhist Race's growth would be constrained by the Western Teachings' plans to become Buddhism and by other Sages' opposition to its dominance.

As the Shizu’s rise alarmed the other races and Sages, Nuwa moved to strengthen Lu Ya’s demon race, while Yuanshi devised a way for the Interpretation Sect to support the Human Race. The chapter ended with Guang Chengzi and the other disciples returning to Jade Void Mountain with more than twenty new disciples.

• The Shizu’s formation frightened nearby races, prompted the Human Race to guard its borders, and made the Sages wary of the Western Teachings’ growing influence.
• Nuwa decided that either the demon race or the Human Race could prevail, but not the Shizu, and sent Old Ancestor Kunpeng to gather surviving Ancient Demon Court Great Demons for Lu Ya.
• Yuanshi summoned the Twelve Direct Disciples and gave each one an innate spiritual object to arrange its rebirth as a Human Race member and later accept as a disciple.
• Yuanshi also permitted the disciples to recruit worthy Human Race disciples as they traveled through the Southern Domain.
• Guang Chengzi and the other Interpretation Sect disciples returned to Jade Void Mountain with more than twenty new Third Generation disciples.

Chan Sect and Interception Sect expanded their influence across the Primordial Wilderness as the Human Race and other lands prospered. Twelve thousand years later, Hao Yuan Quasi-Saint began a World Ascension that drew the attention of Sages and Quasi-Saints alike.

• Guang Chengzi and the other Chan Sect immortals spread cultivation teachings among the Human Race, founding lineages and strengthening ties with Jade Void Mountain.
• Luo Qing welcomed Jade Void Mountain’s support for the Human Race, while Yan Tianyu worked to expand its territory, population, and cultivation.
• Sect Master Tongtian sent Interception Sect disciples inland to support the Demon Race and establish sect lineages, after realizing the sect’s isolation had left it behind.
• Over twelve thousand years, the Human Race dominated the Southern Domain and the Shi Race unified the Western World, while the Primordial Wilderness’s population and number of Acquired Immortal Gods grew.
• Hao Yuan Quasi-Saint began the first World Ascension undertaken by the Quasi-Saints’ united forces, drawing the attention of the Sages and Quasi-Saint alliances.

Hao Yuan Quasi-Saint and eleven allied Quasi-Sages successfully raised a world in the Hao Yuan Mountain Range into a cosmos, earning him the Primordial Violet Qi. After the other Quasi-Sages left, Hao Yuan promised his allies that he would help them open affiliated universes after he became a Sage.

• Hao Yuan Quasi-Saint urged the eleven assisting Quasi-Sages to hasten the world's ascension, despite the damage it could cause to the new cosmos.
• Luo Qing and the other Sages watched as the Fortune in the Hao Yuan Mountain Range rose and began turning gold.
• The twelve Quasi-Sages completed the ascension, and a cosmic world was born in the Hao Yuan Mountain Range.
• Hao Yuan Quasi-Saint appeared with the Primordial Violet Qi, prompting the gathered Quasi-Sages to congratulate him and abandon any plans to interfere.
• After the outsiders departed, Hao Yuan Quasi-Saint promised his eleven allies that he would help them open affiliated universes once he became a Sage.

Quasi-Sages launched a wave of World Ascensions to obtain Primordial Violet Qi, while the rise of Acquired Beings drew Innate lineages into their disputes. The chapter leaves the Sages watching as a long-gestating scroll in the depths of the Heavenly Dao nears its emergence.

• Quasi-Sages opened Affiliated Universes in a succession of World Ascensions, and thirteen strands of Primordial Violet Qi emerged outside the Saint Lineages, though two worlds failed and conflicts killed five Quasi-Sages.
• Peak Quasi-Sages withdrew to cultivate after obtaining Primordial Violet Qi, and other Innate Quasi-Sages returned to the Primordial Wilderness as the Acquired Era flourished.
• Acquired disciples rose into leadership in sects and lineages, pulling Innate factions into disputes among the Acquired Races and creating entanglements the Quasi-Sages could not prevent.
• Luo Qing sensed violent fluctuations in the Heavenly Dao and saw a scroll struggling to manifest, drawing the attention of the other Sages.

Luo Qing and the other Sages gathered beyond the heavens after sensing a treasure emerging from the Heavenly Dao. Ancestor Hongjun could not identify it, and the ten Sages waited calmly as the treasure continued to form.

• Luo Qing recognized the Heavenly Dao treasure as the Investiture of the Gods and wondered how this life’s Investiture calamity would unfold.
• Luo Qing and Holy Mother Xihua traveled to the realm beyond the heavens, where Ancestor Hongjun, Nuwa, Fuxi, Laozi, and Yuanshi had already gathered.
• Sect Master Tongtian and the Two Saints of the West arrived, bringing the gathering to ten Sages, while Demonic Hong Yun and Demon Ancestor Dragon watched from hiding.
• The ten Sages discussed the treasure without fighting over it, and Zhunti asked Ancestor Hongjun what it was.
• Ancestor Hongjun said he could not see the treasure’s true form but believed it was connected to the Heavenly Dao.

The Sages watched the Heavenly Dao treasure emerge and discovered it was the Investiture of the Gods, a powerful instrument for expanding the Heavenly Court. Its vast number of divine positions revealed the scale of the coming Kalpa Tribulation, leaving Tongtian troubled by what it would demand.

• Ancestor Hongjun told the Sages that the Heavenly Dao treasure was tied to the Heavenly Court and the Myriad Acquired Races, making them wary of the Kalpa Tribulation.
• Luo Qing recognized that the coming calamity would target powerful Saint Lineages, including Hua Tian Peak, and worried about his disciples and Subordinate Deities.
• After forty-nine years, the treasure burst from the Heavenly Dao, and Luo Qing called on the Sages to capture it together.
• The Sages identified the treasure as the Investiture of the Gods and discovered it held 1,081 orthodox origin divine positions and 108,000 auxiliary positions.
• Luo Qing realized that filling the positions could make the Investiture of the Gods an Innate Supreme Treasure and greatly strengthen the Heavenly Court; Tongtian reacted with displeasure.

After the Investiture of the Gods List appeared, the Sages realized that the Heavenly Dao had created it to empower the Heavenly Court and that their disciples’ lineages were caught in the ensuing calamity. They rejected Zhunti’s suggestion to destroy the List, but remained unable to agree on how it should be handled.

• The Sages recognized that the Investiture of the Gods List could make the Immortals and Gods named on it undying while severing their paths to cultivation and placing them under the Celestial Emperor’s control.
• Jieyin, Zhunti, Nuwa, Fuxi, Yuanshi, and Sect Master Tongtian realized their lineages would be drawn into the calamity, and Nuwa urged them to limit their losses rather than fight one another.
• Zhunti proposed sealing or destroying the Investiture of the Gods List, but Ancestor Hongjun and Luo Qing rejected the idea.
• Ancestor Hongjun explained that stopping the calamity would provoke Heaven and Earth to produce a worse one, and Luo Qing agreed that the calamity could be influenced but should not be prevented.
• The Sages accepted that they could not safely claim the List, but failed to reach a consensus about how to deal with it.

The Sages debated who should safeguard the Investiture of the Gods and agreed to let it choose its own master, with Fuxi accepting responsibility for monitoring the destined holder. They then realized the Investiture of the Gods Calamity would overlap with the Acquired Races' struggle for supremacy, leaving them facing an unprecedented catastrophe.

• Luo Qing proposed giving the Investiture of the Gods to the Heavenly Court, but Zhunti, Nuwa, and the other Sages rejected the idea.
• Yuanshi suggested entrusting the treasure to Ancestor Hongjun, but Luo Qing and Jieyin opposed involving him in the Kalpa Tribulation.
• Ancestor Hongjun proposed returning the treasure to the Primordial Great Land so it could choose its own master, with Fuxi taking the chosen holder as a disciple and monitoring the treasure.
• Luo Qing and the other Sages agreed to Hongjun's proposal, and Fuxi pledged not to interfere in the Investiture of the Gods Calamity.
• Yuanshi recognized that the Investiture of the Gods Calamity coincided with the Acquired Races' struggle for supremacy, and the Sages feared most divine beings would be drawn into the combined calamities.

Luo Qing proposed that the ten Sages jointly seal the Investiture of the Gods so no one could see or alter its names during the calamity. After they sealed it and released it into the Primordial Wilderness, the Heavenly Dao’s chosen god-conferrer remained unknown.

• Luo Qing reassured the Sages that they could suppress the coming calamities and proposed concealing and sealing the divine positions on the Investiture of the Gods.
• Luo Qing, Ancestor Hongjun, and the other eight Sages imprinted their names on the Investiture of the Gods, hiding its names and positions from view.
• Sage Yuanshi worried about the fate of his Twelve Direct Disciples, while Sect Master Tongtian remained confident in the Interception Sect’s numbers.
• Sect Master Tongtian urged the Sages to send the Investiture of the Gods into the Primordial Wilderness to reveal whom the Heavenly Dao had chosen to confer the gods.
• The ten Sages released the Investiture of the Gods, which streaked toward the earth and vanished among the living beings.

The Investiture of the Gods split into two aspects and chose no bearer, revealing that its destined people had not yet been born. The Sages prepared for the coming calamity, while Yuanshi considered seeking allies to protect the Interpretation Sect.

• The Sages learned that the Investiture of the Gods had split and was wavering between the Human Race and the demon race, but Luo Qing clarified that it did not determine the World Protagonist.
• Hongjun tasked Fuxi with watching the Investiture of the Gods and preparing to accept two disciples, leaving Fuxi troubled by the prospect that only one could ultimately bear the list.
• The Sages dispersed and began preparing their lineages for the calamity, while Luo Qing resolved to arm his disciples and worried especially about Yun Xiao and Zhao Gongming.
• Yuanshi assessed the Interpretation Sect’s limited numbers and considered seeking allies, identifying Hua Tian Peak and the Western Teachings as possible partners and the Interception Sect as a major rival.

Jieyin and Zhunti planned to ally with the Interpretation Sect and use the alliance to weaken the Interception Sect, hoping to bring its disciples into the Western Teachings. Zhunti secretly headed for Jade Void Mountain to recruit Yuanshi, while Sect Master Tongtian remained unaware of the approaching scheme.

• Jieyin and Zhunti concluded that Hua Tian Peak and Phoenix Perch Mountain were unsuitable allies, leaving the Interpretation Sect and Interception Sect as options.
• Zhunti persuaded Jieyin to approach Yuanshi, arguing that the Interpretation Sect's weakness would make the Western Teachings more valuable.
• Zhunti proposed persuading Yuanshi and Laozi to remove Interception Sect disciples from Tongtian's faction and bring them west.
• Jieyin agreed to Zhunti's plan, and the two Saints of the West formed an alliance against the Interception Sect.
• Zhunti secretly set out for Jade Void Mountain, while Sect Master Tongtian remained unaware that the Interception Sect was in danger.

Laozi visited Yuanshi to investigate Zhunti’s warning that the Interception Sect’s declining Fortune could corrupt Tongtian. Their divination confirmed that black death energy would consume the sect’s Fortune and taint Tongtian, leaving Laozi and Yuanshi facing the choice of how to respond.

• Sect Master Tongtian relied on the Interception Sect’s alliance with Phoenix Perch Mountain and told his disciples to remain secluded and avoid trouble during the Kalpa Tribulation.
• Zhunti secretly met with Yuanshi and Laozi, warning them that the Interception Sect’s declining Fortune might drag Tongtian into the Devil Dao.
• Laozi visited Yuanshi and proposed that they examine the Interception Sect’s Fortune and divine Tongtian’s future before agreeing to Zhunti’s plan.
• Laozi and Yuanshi saw black death energy eroding the Interception Sect’s Fortune in their Cloud Mirror divination.
• The two Sages divined that the black Fortune would consume the Interception Sect’s remaining Fortune and stain Tongtian.

Laozi discovered an ominous trace linked to Daoist Duobao and decided to eradicate Interception Sect during the Investiture of the Gods Calamity. Meanwhile, Luo Qing and Fuxi began discussing an alliance between Hua Tian Peak and Phoenix Perch Mountain.

• Laozi glimpsed a shadow of Demonic Energy connected to Daoist Duobao in the fading Cloud Mirror and suspected Duobao concealed an ominous secret.
• Laozi told Yuanshi to annihilate Interception Sect, place its disciples on the Investiture of the Gods, and send survivors to the West, then planned to enlist Western Teachings, Hua Tian Peak, and Phoenix Perch Mountain.
• Laozi left Jade Void Mountain to notify Ancestor Hongjun about the planned campaign against Interception Sect.
• Fuxi visited Hua Tian Peak on Nuwa's behalf to discuss cooperation with Luo Qing, and the two sides agreed that an alliance could help them survive the calamity.

Luo Qing and Fuxi formed an alliance between Hua Tian Peak and Phoenix Perch Mountain for the Investiture of the Gods Calamity, and Luo Qing persuaded Fuxi that the Demon Race could still prosper without becoming the World Protagonist. The chapter ended with Luo Qing advising Water Spirit to travel the Primordial Wilderness in search of her opportunity to become a Sage.

• Luo Qing and Fuxi agreed that their disciples could cooperate during the Investiture of the Gods Calamity while their factions refrained from interfering in the Acquired struggle.
• Luo Qing told Fuxi that the Human Race was most likely to become the World Protagonist, while all races could find room to prosper across the Primordial Wilderness and its Affiliated Universes.
• Fuxi left for Phoenix Perch Mountain relieved that the Demon Race could grow stronger even without becoming the World Protagonist.
• Water Spirit questioned Luo Qing about misleading Fuxi, and Luo Qing admitted that he had not told him the full significance of the Human Race's status as World Protagonist.
• Luo Qing told Water Spirit that seclusion would not help her become a Sage and advised her to travel the Primordial Wilderness, following its rivers and Water Veins for insight.

Luo Qing and Holy Mother Xihua traveled the Primordial Wilderness for ten thousand years before settling in Luo Qing’s birthplace and founding the Five Elements Immortal Sect. They accepted more than a thousand disciples, while Luo Qing allowed those he rejected to remain beneath Five Elements Mountain.

• Water Spirit followed Luo Qing’s advice, left Hua Tian Peak, and disappeared into the waterways near Kunlun Mountain.
• Luo Qing invited Holy Mother Xihua to travel through the mortal world, and they departed Kunlun Mountain without telling their followers.
• After ten thousand years of travel, Luo Qing and Xihua arrived at the former Ancestral Land of the Five Colors Human Race and established the Five Elements Immortal Sect on Five Elements Mountain.
• Luo Qing examined thousands of aspiring cultivators and accepted a little over a thousand disciples based on their aptitude and fortune.
• Luo Qing let rejected cultivators who refused to leave settle beneath Five Elements Mountain, while Xihua questioned why he had founded the sect.