Chapter Summaries

Chapter Summary: “Dog Eat Dog!”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Grand Lord Fa Yuan reaches the end of the Realm Lord’s Tomb after looting numerous chambers and surviving deadly traps. He discovers an enormous black stone door covered in Great Dao patterns, sensing a Realm Lord-tier treasure beyond it.
• While Fa Yuan is breaking down the door, Grand Lords Cang Xuan and Ji Shui ambush him.
• Both have grown significantly stronger after obtaining treasures in the tomb: Cang Xuan reaches the peak of the seventh Nirvana layer, while Ji Shui advances to the seventh layer.
• Believing Fa Yuan is now a liability, they decide to kill him and seize the tomb’s remaining opportunities.
• Fa Yuan is initially overwhelmed because his divine power has been depleted by his relentless journey, while his opponents are rested and empowered.
• He pretends to surrender and offers all his treasures in exchange for his life, secretly preparing a God-Exploding Pearl.
• Fa Yuan detonates the pearl, severely injuring both attackers. However, Cang Xuan and Ji Shui survive, burn their cultivation to increase their strength, and launch a desperate counterattack.
• The three Grand Lords engage in a brutal, all-out battle. The chapter ends with all three collapsing after suffering heavy injuries, leaving the outcome unresolved.

Character Developments

• Grand Lord Fa Yuan: Begins as a greedy, driven treasure hunter obsessed with obtaining a Realm Lord-tier treasure. Despite being exhausted and outmatched, he demonstrates cunning by feigning submission and using the hidden God-Exploding Pearl. His desperation and ruthlessness become increasingly apparent.
• Grand Lord Cang Xuan: Grows from the seventh Nirvana layer to its peak after consuming a Nine-Turn Golden Fruit. His confidence turns into arrogance, and he quickly abandons any previous cooperation with Fa Yuan once he believes he has the advantage.
• Grand Lord Ji Shui: Breaks through from the sixth to the seventh Nirvana layer after obtaining mystic water essence. Like Cang Xuan, he becomes more ambitious and ruthless, supporting the decision to eliminate Fa Yuan.
• The trio’s relationship: Any temporary cooperation collapses as soon as stronger opportunities appear. Their alliance becomes an outright struggle for survival and treasure.

Significant Themes

• Betrayal and self-interest: The competitors immediately turn on one another when cooperation is no longer beneficial.
• Greed and ambition: The promise of a Realm Lord-tier treasure drives Fa Yuan to exhaust himself, while Cang Xuan and Ji Shui prioritize eliminating rivals over sharing future opportunities.
• Desperation and survival: Fa Yuan’s deception and use of the God-Exploding Pearl show how far individuals will go when cornered.
• Unstable power: Cultivation breakthroughs radically shift the balance between characters, but even overwhelming strength can be challenged by strategy and hidden weapons.
• “Dog eat dog” competition: The title reflects the chapter’s central conflict: treasure hunters who were once companions become mortal enemies, with every participant willing to sacrifice anything to survive and gain the advantage.

Character Interactions

• Cang Xuan and Ji Shui confront Fa Yuan together, openly mocking and threatening him.
• Fa Yuan attempts to manipulate their greed by promising his collected treasures, but secretly attacks them.
• The God-Exploding Pearl temporarily reverses the power balance, yet Cang Xuan and Ji Shui respond by burning their cultivation.
• The chapter concludes with all three locked in a savage, mutually destructive battle, with no clear victor.

Plot points and events

• Shen Fan finds Grand Lords Cang Xuan, Ji Shui, and Fa Yuan badly injured after their battle over the tomb’s treasures. He reveals he had followed them unnoticed and binds them with Nirvana Divine Power.
• He takes and suppresses all three of their Nirvana Divine Weapons, leaving the grand lords helpless and furious.
• At the damaged doors to the Main Tomb Chamber, Shen Fan senses that the tomb is suspicious: the doors seem implausibly fragile, and the surrounding chambers have yielded no Realm Lord-level treasures. He concludes the treasure-filled room may be bait.
• Choosing caution over the apparent opportunity, Shen Fan turns away and leaves without entering.
• Inside, the Lang Bing Realm Lord—an ancient being seeking to revive himself and seize Shen Fan’s Primordial Nirvana Body—had prepared the trap. Enraged when Shen Fan refuses to enter, he unleashes his aura, shaking the tomb.
• Shen Fan senses that a powerful “old monster” may still be inside and hurries away, relieved that he trusted his instincts.

Character developments and interactions

• Shen Fan proves observant, pragmatic, and self-controlled. He exploits the grand lords’ weakened state, but his most important choice is refusing the tempting chamber when the clues do not add up.
• Cang Xuan, Ji Shui, and Fa Yuan are reduced from powerful rivals to helpless captives. Fa Yuan openly curses Shen Fan, while Cang Xuan struggles futilely against his restraints.
• Lang Bing Realm Lord is revealed as the hidden mastermind. His confidence that greed will draw Shen Fan into the chamber collapses into fury and a determination to pursue him.

Significant themes

• Caution over greed: The promise of rare treasures is less valuable than survival.
• Perception and manipulation: The grand lords’ battle and the treasure aura appear to have been arranged to clear the way and lure Shen Fan in.
• Power and vulnerability: Even great experts can become helpless after exhausting themselves, while a hidden ancient power can turn an apparent reward into a deadly trap.

Key plot points and events

• Shen Fan flees the Main Tomb Chamber after sensing a dangerous aura erupt behind its doors. Trusting his instincts, he decides the mysterious Realm Lord-level treasure is not worth risking his life for.
• Once safely away from the tomb, he retrieves the captured Grand Lords Fa Yuan, Cang Xuan, and Ji Shui. He refuses their threats and pleas, then uses the Star Refinement Technique to drain their cultivation, divine bodies, and souls.
• After refining them, Shen Fan collects the treasures they gathered. Their remains turn to ash.
• He absorbs the three Grand Lords’ accumulated Nirvana Divine Power and rapidly advances from the Fourth to the Seventh Layer of the Nirvana Realm.

Character developments

• Shen Fan’s caution and confidence shape his decision to abandon the tomb’s unknown danger rather than chase a powerful but uncertain prize.
• He shows himself to be ruthless and unsympathetic toward defeated enemies, treating their cultivation as fuel for his own growth.
• His sudden advancement delights him and strengthens his appetite for power.

Significant themes

• Caution versus ambition: Shen Fan values survival over pursuing a potentially dangerous treasure.
• Power gained through conflict: The Grand Lords’ years of cultivation become the source of Shen Fan’s dramatic breakthrough.
• Retribution and ruthlessness: Shen Fan justifies killing them as the consequence of their attempt to kill him, while showing no mercy.
• The cost of cultivation: The pursuit of strength ends in the complete destruction of the three Grand Lords.

Character interactions

• Fa Yuan threatens Shen Fan with retaliation from the Dharma Realm; Shen Fan dismisses the threat as long as no one discovers the killings.
• Cang Xuan curses him, while Ji Shui begs for mercy and offers to serve him. Shen Fan rejects both responses, saying he wants fuel, not servants.
• As the Star Refinement Technique drains them, the three respond with terror, despair, and regret, while Shen Fan remains unmoved.

Chapter Summary: “Heading to the Dharma Realm”

Key plot points and events

• After reaching the seventh layer of the Nirvana Realm, Shen Fan reflects that he still has the eighth and ninth layers—and eventual Realm Lord status—to pursue. He resolves to advance steadily and remain vigilant.
• He fears the sinister presence in the Grand Tomb’s Main Tomb Chamber may still be watching him, possibly a surviving Realm Lord from billions of years ago. He hopes the Dharma Realm’s living Realm Lord can offer protection.
• Shen Fan searches Grand Lord Fa Yuan’s storage bag and finds numerous valuable Nirvana-grade treasures, including a Grand Tomb Key. Using it, he opens a spatial vortex and returns to the Void Heaven Great Realm.
• He studies the memories he gained from Fa Yuan and the other two men. They reveal that the Realm Sea is only a small, peripheral domain; the Dharma Realm is a prominent large domain with many Nirvana cultivators, a living Realm Lord, and valuable cultivation resources called divine crystals.
• Convinced that the Dharma Realm offers better opportunities, protection, and resources, Shen Fan sets out for it.

Character developments

• Shen Fan moves from satisfaction at his breakthrough to renewed determination. He is ambitious, but increasingly cautious: he recognizes his limitations, worries about the Grand Tomb threat, and plans to build security and resources before pushing further.
• He also becomes more opportunistic, considering how Fa Yuan’s memories, possessions, and connections might help him establish himself in the Dharma Realm.

Significant themes

• Steady cultivation and ambition: Shen Fan accepts that great power requires continued progress, even after a major breakthrough.
• Security amid danger: His fear of the unknown Grand Tomb presence shapes his decision to seek shelter under a powerful Realm Lord.
• Expansion of horizons: Learning how small the Realm Sea is in the wider cosmos prompts Shen Fan to pursue a larger stage.
• Resources and opportunity: Divine crystals and valuable treasures offer a practical route to faster cultivation, alongside traditional effort.

Character interactions

• There are no direct conversations in the chapter. Shen Fan’s decisions are shaped by the memories of Fa Yuan and the other two men, which teach him about the wider realm structure, the Dharma Realm’s Realm Lord, and its resources. He also recalls the Heaven-Crazed Grand Lord using the Grand Tomb Key, which helps him operate it.

Shen Fan arrived in the Dharma Realm and discovered that its vastness, stable space, and numerous powerful cultivators made it far more dangerous than the Realm Sea. He decided to keep a low profile and headed for the Heavenly Origin Gate, the faction Fa Yuan had founded.

• Shen Fan reached the Dharma Realm after traveling for two days with Netherworld Divine Escape.
• He entered the realm cautiously and found that his nirvana divine power barely disturbed its exceptionally stable space.
• Shen Fan realized his spiritual sense could cover only a few million li in a realm millions of times larger than the Realm Sea.
• He sensed numerous Nirvana Realm cultivators nearby, including one at least as powerful as himself, and judged his seventh-layer cultivation to be only upper-middle in the Dharma Realm.
• Shen Fan resolved not to provoke local powers and followed Fa Yuan's memories toward the Heavenly Origin Gate.

Shen Fan took over the Heavenly Origin Gate while disguised as Grand Lord Fa Yuan and began preparing a Nirvana Grand Art to hide his identity from the Dharma Realm’s powerful experts. He planned to settle there and cultivate until his disguise could withstand close scrutiny.

• Shen Fan chose the Heavenly Origin Gate as his foothold, transformed into Fa Yuan, and entered without the gatekeeping disciples noticing the deception.
• Shen Fan discovered that Fa Yuan had suppressed talented disciples, leaving the Heavenly Origin Gate without any Nirvana Realm experts who could expose him.
• After taking over the gate, Shen Fan resolved to create a disguise art that could alter his divine soul, foundations, and Great Dao aura.
• Shen Fan practiced Fa Yuan’s Nirvana Grand Arts for several months, making his imitation of Fa Yuan more convincing.
• Shen Fan traded treasures through trusted Dharma Origin Envoys to acquire other Nirvana Grand Arts from Grand Lords across the Dharma Realm.
• Shen Fan began integrating the acquired arts into a grand art of disguise and planned to cultivate at the Heavenly Origin Gate until he secured his footing.

After a thousand years of cultivation at the Heavenly Origin Gate, Shen Fan created the Hundred Forms Art to conceal his identity and cultivation. Grand Lord Haiming invited him to join a realm-domain war for divine crystals, and Shen Fan agreed while reserving the right to retreat if his life was in danger.

• Shen Fan studied dozens of Nirvana Grand Arts and forged their disguising techniques into the Hundred Forms Art.
• With the art complete, Shen Fan welcomed Grand Lord Haiming, who had visited him several times during his seclusion.
• Grand Lord Haiming told Shen Fan that two medium realm domains were at war and were recruiting Nirvana Grand Lords as mercenaries.
• Haiming explained that killing an enemy Nirvana Realm cultivator could earn one thousand divine crystals, and Shen Fan grew eager to join.
• After learning that neither side had a Realm Lord and that their strongest fighters were ordinary peak Nirvana Realm experts, Shen Fan agreed to meet Haiming at his cave mansion in a month, provided he could withdraw if the battle became life-threatening.

Shen Fan traveled with Grand Lord Haiming, Grand Lord Golden Scale, and Grand Lord Greenwater toward the Jade Yellow Realm Domain, hearing how the Jade Yellow and Divine Tortoise domains had gone to war over the murder of Grand Lord Jade Yellow’s only son. At the realm’s boundary, Grand Lord Jade Yellow warmly greeted Haiming, revealing a close friendship that Shen Fan had not expected, and welcomed the group inside.

• Grand Lord Haiming introduced Grand Lord Golden Scale and Grand Lord Greenwater, and the four set off for the Jade Yellow and Divine Tortoise realm domains.
• Grand Lord Haiming explained that two of Grand Lord Divine Tortoise’s disciples had ambushed and killed Grand Lord Jade Yellow’s only son, stolen his treasure, and been protected by their master, sparking a war that had lasted thousands of years.
• Shen Fan said he wanted to confront the killers if they crossed paths, and Golden Scale and Greenwater agreed to support justice for Grand Lord Jade Yellow.
• Grand Lord Jade Yellow met the travelers outside his realm and embraced Haiming like a longtime friend, surprising Shen Fan, who had not known they were so close.
• Grand Lord Jade Yellow welcomed Shen Fan, Haiming, Golden Scale, and Greenwater into the realm for a banquet.