Chapter Summaries

After capturing Blood Demon Sect Cultivators, Lin Taichu learned that their main formation node would activate in fewer than ten days and that three other strongholds remained in Black Wind Ridge. The chapter ended when a mysterious white-clothed youth offered to sell Lin Taichu information.

• Lin Taichu returned to the barracks, treated his wounds, and learned that Zhao Hu and the others had awakened and were recovering.
• Lin Taichu questioned the Old Man in Black Robe, who refused to reveal anything about the Blood Demon Sect.
• Lin Taichu persuaded A Niu to share that the sect had strongholds at Heifeng Pass, Sunset Valley, and Mist Forest, and that the main formation node would activate on the fifteenth day of the third month.
• A Niu described the strongholds' forces and defenses, and Lin Taichu promised to plead for his release.
• Lin Taichu confronted a white-clothed youth hiding near the prison, and the youth offered to sell him information.

Lin Taichu followed a mysterious informant’s lead to the Blood Demon Sect’s headquarters in Yin Feng Gorge and infiltrated its cave with a small squad. He launched a plan to assassinate Blood Fiend Son while Qian Ming drew the guards away.

• A White-clothed Youth sold Lin Taichu the location of the Blood Demon Sect’s headquarters and explained how black dog blood could breach its first illusion formation.
• Lin Taichu ordered Zhao Hu to strengthen Yunshui City’s defenses and led Qian Ming and ten soldiers toward Yin Feng Gorge.
• The squad used black dog blood and Formation Breaking Talismans to pass the gorge’s formations and locate the sect’s cave.
• Lin Taichu chose to infiltrate the cave and assassinate Blood Fiend Son while Qian Ming’s group created a diversion on the left flank.
• Lin Taichu’s team entered the lowest level through an underground river and reached the cavern where Blood Fiend Son presided over the formation.
• When Qian Ming’s diversion drew the patrolling cultivators away, Lin Taichu moved against Blood Fiend Son as one Nascent Soul elder’s attention shifted.

Lin Taichu killed Blood Fiend Son and escaped Yin Feng Gorge, but neighboring sects swiftly seized the Blood Demon Sect’s strongholds and resources. As the sects began recruiting Blood Demon Cultivators and extorting travelers, Lin Taichu realized the White-clothed Youth had manipulated him into triggering the Blood Demon Sect’s downfall.

• Lin Taichu used the Bronze Cauldron fragment to suppress the elders, killed Blood Fiend Son, and escaped with his companions without casualties.
• Iron Sword Sect, Qingdan Sect, and Blazing Fire Hall attacked Blood Demon Sect strongholds and seized their treasures, while other sects raided remaining sites.
• Lin Taichu noticed Cultivators displaying stolen Blood Demon Sect spoils and returned to Yunshui City to investigate the surrounding sects.
• Lin Taichu learned that seven sects had breached all twelve Blood Demon Sect strongholds and that Iron Sword Sect members were extorting travelers.
• Zhao Hu reported that Qingdan Sect and Iron Sword Sect had taken in Blood Demon Sect Cultivators, and Lin Taichu realized the White-clothed Youth had planned the Blood Demon Sect’s destruction.

Lin Taichu challenged the sects’ plan to control Black Wind Ridge and conceal Blood Demon Sect Cultivators they had absorbed. A Blood Demon Sect force then attacked an Iron Sword Sect stronghold, forcing the gathered leaders to rush to its aid.

• Lin Taichu ordered the Soldiers to find the White-clothed Youth, but three days of searching produced no reliable clues.
• Lin Taichu accepted the Qingdan Sect Leader’s invitation and went with Zhao Hu and ten Soldiers to a banquet at Wangfeng Tower.
• Zhao Tianxiong and the Qingdan Sect Leader proposed a joint purge of Blood Demon Sect remnants and asked the factions to contribute thirty percent of their resources.
• Lin Taichu demanded that the sects disclose the Blood Demon Sect Cultivators they had absorbed so Yunshui City and the sects could investigate their blood debts.
• A messenger reported that the Blood Demon Sect’s Second Elder was attacking an Iron Sword Sect stronghold at Heifeng Pass with more than three hundred Cultivators.
• Zhao Tianxiong and the Qingdan Sect Leader ordered the factions to return and reinforce the stronghold.

Lin Taichu refused to let Yunshui City be dragged into the sects’ conflict with the Blood Demon Sect remnants, even as Qingdan Sect tried to force aid from him. After defending the city gate, he returned to find the white-clothed youth had somehow entered his guarded tent.

• Lin Taichu ordered Yunshui City to deny support to the sects and focus on defending the city while Blood Demon Sect remnants attacked their strongholds.
• Lin Taichu refused Qingdan Sect’s requests for medicine and told its cultivators to camp three li outside the city.
• Qingdan Sect cultivators injured patrol soldiers and demanded medicine and space at the city gate, so Lin Taichu activated the defensive formation after their leader attacked him with a poison pill.
• The goateed cultivator withdrew with Qingdan Sect after their attacks failed against the Golden Light Shield.
• Lin Taichu returned to his tent and found the white-clothed youth sitting inside, despite the surrounding warning formations and guards.

A mysterious white-clothed youth offered Lin Taichu intelligence and powerful leverage to help Yunshui City destroy the Iron Sword Sect in exchange for its Profound Iron Sword. Lin accepted the deal on the condition that Yunshui City's people and soldiers remain unharmed, while the youth departed without revealing his name.

• The white-clothed youth warned Lin Taichu that the Iron Sword Sect and Qingdan Sect could eventually join forces against Yunshui City and offered to help destroy the Iron Sword Sect.
• The youth gave Lin a map of the Iron Sword Sect's defenses and Zhao Tianxiong's weakness, asking for the Profound Iron Sword in return.
• Lin Taichu attacked the youth with the Reincarnation Token to test his strength, but the youth easily dodged the strike.
• The youth offered bottles containing the natal Essence Blood of the Qingdan Sect and Blazing Fire Hall leaders to ensure they would not threaten Yunshui City.
• Lin agreed to destroy the Iron Sword Sect if the youth guaranteed the safety of Yunshui City's people and soldiers, and the youth gave him the formation-breaking incantation.
• The youth vanished from the tent without revealing his name, and Lin found the guards had not noticed his arrival or departure.

Lin Taichu led an elite squad to infiltrate the Iron Sword Sect, destroy its mountain-protecting formation, and assassinate Zhao Tianxiong. With the sect’s Cultivators closing in, Lin Taichu stayed behind to cover his soldiers’ retreat.

• Lin Taichu ordered Qian Ming and Zhao Hu to prepare thirty soldiers, explosives, and Formation Breaking Talismans for an attack on the Iron Sword Sect.
• Lin Taichu led the squad to the black pine forest, where Qian Ming scouted the formation core beneath a cliff.
• Lin Taichu’s team detonated explosives at the formation core, opening a gap in the mountain-protecting barrier.
• Lin Taichu’s men used Smoke Bombs to slip past patrols, incapacitated Zhao Tianxiong’s Guards, and killed Zhao Tianxiong with the Reincarnation Token.
• Lin Taichu ordered his soldiers to escape over the courtyard wall while he held off the pursuing Cultivators.

After Zhao Tianxiong’s death, Lin Taichu helped stabilize Yunshui City and searched for the mysterious man in white, whose plans for Black Wind Ridge remained unclear. The chapter ended with the Qingdan Sect’s Great Elder accusing Lin of conspiring with the man and demanding to know when the Sect Leader would emerge from seclusion.

• Lin Taichu learned that the Iron Sword Sect had fractured, the Qingdan Sect offered an alliance, and other factions had retreated or scattered.
• Lin Taichu strengthened Yunshui City’s defenses and ordered Qian Ming to investigate the missing man in white, but the first search found no reliable clues.
• Qian Ming brought Lin a portrait and a peddler’s account showing that the man in white had studied Black Wind Ridge’s map and sect forces half a year earlier.
• The Qingdan Sect’s Great Elder arrived outside Yunshui City with fifty Cultivators and accused Lin Taichu and the man in white of causing the Sect Leader’s seclusion.

Lin Taichu investigated the white-clothed youth who had defeated the Qingdan Sect and discovered that he was gathering surviving Cultivators at Rocky Slope. Lin returned to Yunshui City and placed it on high alert as the youth’s plans remained unknown.

• The white-clothed figure incapacitated the Qingdan Sect attackers, and Lin Taichu released the captured Great Elder and the sect’s Cultivators after they agreed to surrender their resources.
• Three months later, Qian Ming reported that a white-clothed leader had gathered nearly a hundred Cultivators, including survivors from the Iron Sword Sect and the Blood Demon Sect, near Hanshui Town.
• Lin Taichu disguised himself as a merchant and traveled to Hanshui Town with Qian Ming and five guards.
• Lin Taichu investigated Rocky Slope at night and saw the White-clothed Youth directing an organized camp of Cultivators.
• Lin Taichu returned to Yunshui City and ordered a top-level alert, strengthened defenses, and preparations of supplies.

The White-clothed Youth built the Bai Ze faction into a force of more than five hundred Cultivators and demanded Yunshui City submit. After a day-long assault broke the city’s defenses, Lin Taichu surrendered to spare its citizens and Soldiers, while the Bai Ze Kingdom’s relationship with the Yunshui Kingdom remained unresolved.

• The White-clothed Youth established Bai Ze in Sunset Valley, absorbed the remaining Cultivators of three sects, and gained the allegiance of the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect and Hundred Herbs Hall.
• Lin Taichu refused the envoy’s demand that Yunshui City submit and ordered its defenses prepared for an attack.
• The White-clothed Youth arrived with more than five hundred Cultivators, declared his intention to establish the Bai Ze Kingdom, and attacked Yunshui City.
• Lin Taichu’s Soldiers held the city walls through a day of fighting, but the defensive Formation weakened and more than half the defenders were killed or wounded.
• Lin Taichu surrendered after the White-clothed Youth agreed not to harm the citizens or Soldiers, and Bai Ze’s forces entered the city and took control without slaughter or plundering.

King Bai Ze consolidated Black Wind Ridge into Bai Ze Kingdom and prepared to expand into Yunshui Kingdom, while coercing Lin Taichu into serving him. Lin Taichu remained trapped between resistance and protecting Yunshui City's people as King Bai Ze ordered him to lead the vanguard against Sunset City.

• King Bai Ze reorganized Black Wind Ridge's sects and surrendered forces into departments, an academy, an army, and a labor camp, and imposed Bai Ze Kingdom's laws.
• King Bai Ze told Lin Taichu he planned to replace Yunshui Kingdom's corrupt court and gave him three months to prepare Yunshui City's defenses for an advance on Sunset City.
• King Bai Ze threatened Yunshui City's residents with a Jade Slip to force Lin Taichu to cooperate, and Lin Taichu reluctantly helped strengthen the city.
• As Bai Ze Kingdom grew more powerful, Lin Taichu remained torn between resisting King Bai Ze and preventing harm to the city's people.
• King Bai Ze ordered Lin Taichu to lead the vanguard against Sunset City in five days and threatened to use its residents as practice targets if he refused.
• Lin Taichu had no choice but to play along for now, while secretly hoping to reclaim Yunshui City.

Lin Taichu agreed to lead the Vanguard Camp against Sunset City, but secretly planned to protect his countrymen from harm. As the camp trained under close watch, King Bai Ze dismissed suspicions that Lin Taichu was plotting against him.

• Lin Taichu agreed to lead the Vanguard Camp on the condition that he command and train his former subordinates.
• Lin Taichu told the soldiers they would appear to fight King Bai Ze's forces while minimizing casualties and leaving defenders a way to escape.
• Lin Taichu secretly taught the soldiers to misdirect arrows, blunt their saber strikes, and delay assaults on the city.
• The Vanguard Camp trained loudly and diligently, convincing King Bai Ze's observers that its morale was high.
• A watcher reported Lin Taichu's private gatherings to King Bai Ze, but King Bai Ze dismissed the concern and focused on Sunset City's defenses.

King Bai Ze’s army failed to capture Sunset City after two days, so he ordered Lin Taichu to lead the Vanguard Camp in an assault. Lin Taichu used a staged attack to open the gates while trying to spare lives, and ended the chapter holding the defenders back as the gate stood only partly open.

• King Bai Ze marched with more than eight hundred troops to Sunset City, where Li Hu had gathered over five thousand defenders.
• After two days of failed assaults and heavy losses, King Bai Ze ordered Lin Taichu to take the city within one day.
• Lin Taichu secured the other units’ cooperation and told Zhao Hu and the Vanguard Camp to avoid reckless fighting.
• The Vanguard Camp staged a feigned assault while Zhao Hu secretly damaged the gate mechanism and announced that the gate was open.
• Lin Taichu led his soldiers toward the gates, then ordered them to hold position while the narrow opening kept the main force from entering.

Lin Taichu deceived King Bai Ze into delaying his assault while he contacted Sunset City's defenders and confirmed that the civilians had been evacuated. As the siege intensified, Lin Taichu prepared the city to hold out and lured King Bai Ze into shifting troops toward the left wall, then ordered Li Hu to release a signal.

• Lin Taichu withdrew through Sunset City's open gates, and King Bai Ze accused him of failing to hold them; Lin Taichu persuaded the king to delay another assault until the afternoon.
• Lin Taichu told Zhao Hu and Qian Ming to draw the Protectorate Army's attention on the left while he went around the right side to contact the defenders.
• Lin Taichu climbed the wall and met Li Hu, who confirmed that the civilians had been evacuated to a mountain hollow and that he had received Lin Taichu's warning.
• Lin Taichu ordered Li Hu to stock the walls with defensive materials and rotate the defenders in shifts, then told them to use lime against the Cultivators.
• Lin Taichu had Zhao Hu feign weakness on the left, prompting King Bai Ze to shift troops there, and then ordered Li Hu to release the signal.

Lin Taichu tricked King Bai Ze’s forces into retreating from Sunset City, then secured three thousand troops from King Zhennan to help lift the siege. With Sunset City safe for now, Lin Taichu and his allies considered how to resist King Bai Ze’s eventual return and reclaim Yunshui City.

• Li Hu lit the beacon, and Lin Taichu’s defenders ambushed the Protectorate Army with lime, logs, boulders, and arrows while a sortie burned its supplies.
• Lin Taichu led more than two hundred Vanguard Camp soldiers south to Nanjiang City and persuaded King Zhennan to bring three thousand elite troops to Sunset City.
• King Zhennan’s army arrived, and King Bai Ze retreated west to Yunshui City after abandoning the siege.
• King Zhennan left one thousand troops in Sunset City, while Lin Taichu planned to unite nearby settlements against King Bai Ze.
• Lin Taichu, Zhao Hu, Qian Ming, and Li Hu discussed their shortage of forces and the difficulty of recapturing Yunshui City.

Lin Taichu led Zhao Hu, Qian Ming, and ten chosen men on a covert mission to assassinate King Bai Ze in Yunshui City. They slipped into the inner city and neutralized the guards outside King Bai Ze’s tent, where Lin Taichu heard someone turning pages.

• Lin Taichu proposed killing King Bai Ze to make the forces under his rule turn against one another, and selected twelve men for the mission.
• Lin Taichu briefed and drilled the team on a route into Yunshui City, while arranging for nearby towns to help defend Sunset City.
• Lin Taichu led the twelve men to Yunshui City, where Zhao Hu pried open the weakened drainage-channel fence and Qian Ming cut through an iron mesh.
• Lin Taichu guided the team through the city and temporarily disabled the inner defensive array by pressing a blue stone brick.
• Lin Taichu and his men silently subdued the guards outside the main tent, then Lin Taichu heard pages turning inside.

Lin Taichu fought King Bai Ze inside a trapped tent and managed to wound him with the Reincarnation Token. King Bai Ze then detonated explosives across the camp, leaving Lin Taichu to face a battlefield engulfed in flames.

• Lin Taichu entered King Bai Ze’s tent and discovered that King Bai Ze had prepared a barrier and an ambush.
• King Bai Ze overpowered Lin Taichu, but Lin Taichu used the Reincarnation Token to wound him and later struck him in the chest.
• King Bai Ze crushed the Black Token, triggering explosions throughout the camp and declaring that he had planted explosives everywhere.
• Lin Taichu rushed outside and saw the camp burning as Zhao Hu and Qian Ming led the remaining men against the surviving enemy forces.

Lin Taichu returned to Sunset City after King Bai Ze’s death and Yunshui City’s destruction, then learned that rival sects were fighting over the ruins. He began preparing to retake Yunshui City while the sects remained divided.

• Lin Taichu and his soldiers escaped Yunshui City as it exploded, and he sent Zhao Hu back to search for surviving civilians.
• Lin Taichu led hundreds of displaced civilians to Sunset City, where he arranged shelter and food and warned Li Hu to strengthen the defenses.
• Zhao Hu brought back a survivor who reported that the Ten Thousand Poisons Sect, the Hundred Herbs Hall, the Qingdan Sect, and the Iron Sword Sect were fighting over Yunshui City’s territory and supplies.
• Lin Taichu decided to retake Yunshui City before the sects could unite, and ordered Zhao Hu to map their positions and numbers.
• Lin Taichu reorganized two thousand men for training and gathered every usable weapon in Sunset City.
• Zhao Hu returned with a crude map of the allied forces’ distribution.

Lin Taichu led an attack that destroyed Ten Thousand Poisons Sect and reclaimed Yunshui City, then began restoring the city and helping its returning citizens. The chapter ended with Zhao Hu reporting that Qingdan Sect and Iron Sword Sect were camped nearby, apparently waiting to see what happened.

• Lin Taichu planned a midnight attack on Ten Thousand Poisons Sect, assigning Qian Ming and Zhao Hu to flank attacks while he led the center.
• Lin Taichu’s forces set fire to Ten Thousand Poisons Sect’s tents and charged toward its headquarters at the City Lord’s Mansion.
• Lin Taichu killed the city lord, prompting Ten Thousand Poisons Sect’s disciples to surrender; he ordered the fires extinguished and the prisoners guarded.
• Lin Taichu told Hundred Herbs Hall, Qingdan Sect, and Iron Sword Sect to leave Yunshui City, then focused on securing its granary, armory, and surrendered medical practitioners.
• Lin Taichu organized repairs and aid as more than two thousand citizens returned to Yunshui City over three days.
• Zhao Hu told Lin Taichu that Qingdan Sect and Iron Sword Sect had camped in a mountain hollow thirty miles outside the city.

Lin Taichu rebuilt Yunshui City before the emperor summoned him to the capital and offered him a generalship. The emperor then assigned him to investigate the rampaging Sand Giant Scorpions in the Land of Yellow Sand.

• Lin Taichu organized Yunshui City's reconstruction, arranged for weapons to be distributed, and tasked Zhao Hu with obtaining seeds for spring planting.
• After half a month, the city wall had been patched and houses had been built, but Zhang Qian arrived with the emperor's summons and said King Zhennan would oversee the city.
• Lin Taichu left Zhao Hu and Qian Ming in charge of Yunshui City and rode with Zhang Qian to the capital, arriving five days later.
• The emperor praised Lin Taichu for defending Sunset City and recovering Yunshui City, cleared his name, and offered to appoint him a general.
• The emperor showed Lin Taichu reports of Sand Giant Scorpions attacking border towns and explained that previous campaigns had failed to harm the beasts.