Chapter Summaries

Plot and events

• The Red Sun Saint tells the Nine Suns Sacred Gate’s Grand Elder that Chu Yuehan carried the same Great Sun True Fire aura as the sect’s Sacred Spirit.
• The Grand Elder travels with him to the Withered Star Sea, examines the lingering traces of Chu Yuehan’s destruction, and confirms the aura is not only Great Sun True Fire but also bears the pure essence of a Great Sun Golden Crow.
• He concludes that a Great Sun Golden Crow Sacred Body has appeared. He believes the Nine Cold Heavenly Palace sent Chu Yuehan to kill its bearer, but Chu Yuehan was defeated instead.
• Delighted, the Grand Elder praises the Red Sun Saint and gives him his personal jade talisman, authorizing him to command the Sacred Gate’s forces and find the sacred-body bearer.
• The Red Sun Saint reasons that the Nine Cold Heavenly Palace must know which lower realm contains the bearer. He decides to begin his search there.
• Alone, the Grand Elder reflects that the Nine Suns’ great power is insignificant beside the Three Great Heavenly Realms. He sees the sacred body as the long-awaited chance for the sect to rise—and vows to destroy anyone who obstructs it.

Character developments and interactions

• The Grand Elder shifts from stern investigator to jubilant, fiercely ambitious leader. His excitement at the discovery reveals how much he stakes on the sacred body, while his private resolve shows that ambition is becoming ruthless.
• The Red Sun Saint moves from anxious witness to trusted agent. The promise of promotion and command of the sect’s forces gives him both a major opportunity and enormous pressure.
• Their relationship is marked by hierarchy and deference: the Red Sun Saint reports respectfully, accepts the Grand Elder’s praise and authority, and is entrusted with the crucial search.

Significant themes

• Power and ambition: The sacred body is treated as a possible path to greater status and transcendence.
• Hierarchy and perspective: Even a sect that dominates its world is portrayed as small compared with the realms above it.
• Ruthlessness: The Grand Elder’s final vow signals that the pursuit of advancement may come at any cost.
• Inference as strategy: The Red Sun Saint uses the Nine Cold Heavenly Palace’s prior actions to narrow the search rather than exploring every lower realm.

More than a hundred Li Family Disciples launched a trial assault on Green Cliff Fort, the Zhou Clan stronghold, while Zhou Shuang blocked the Zhou patriarch. The battle raged inside the fort, and the Zhou Family's Second Elder realized the young attackers were pawns in a larger power's game.

• Zhou Shuang warned the Li Family Disciples about the strength of Green Cliff Fort and announced that their hunt had begun.
• Li Zaiyuan led the assault, broke through the fort's wall, and fought through the Zhou Family guards as the other Li Family Disciples joined him.
• Zhou Chongshan appeared and moved to attack Li Zaiyuan, but Zhou Shuang confronted him and drew him into a clash above the fort.
• Four Zhou Family elders surrounded Li Zaiyuan, and the Second Elder struck him before Li Zaiyuan dodged his next attack with a movement technique.
• The Zhou Family's Second Elder saw the young Li Family attackers and concluded that his clan had been made a pawn by a powerful force.

Li Zaiyuan turned the fight against four Zhou Family elders around with his saber and killed one of them, while Li Hanfeng rescued a frightened Li Family Main Branch youth elsewhere in the compound. The battle continued, with Li Zaiyuan pressing his attack and Li Hanfeng confronting the Main Branch disciple’s fear.

• The Zhou Family's Second Elder ordered the four elders to use their strongest attacks against Li Zaiyuan, who dodged them and chose to fight rather than flee.
• Li Zaiyuan drew an ordinary saber and overpowered the four elders, cutting through the Second Elder's attack and severing another elder's spear.
• Li Zaiyuan seized an opening and split the spear-wielding Zhou Family elder in two, then attacked the three survivors.
• Zhou Shuang watched Li Zaiyuan's progress while fighting Zhou Chongshan and recalled that the lineage's seniors had ordered them to protect Li Zaiyuan.
• A Li Family Main Branch youth faltered in combat and was wounded, but Li Hanfeng drove off two Zhou Family cultivators and pulled him to his feet.
• Li Hanfeng rebuked the terrified youth and reflected that the Main Branch disciples had grown up comfortably and struggled to fight for their lives.

The Li Family defeated the Zhou Family at Green Cliff Fort, while Li Qingshan prepared to attack Pinewind Abbey as part of the competition. The chapter left Li Qingshan deploying a swarm of gray shadows near the abbey entrance.

• Li Hanfeng protected a frightened clansman as the Li Family’s inexperienced disciples struggled in their first battle, then grew fiercer after tasting blood.
• Zhou Shuang killed Zhou Chongshan and ordered the Zhou Family exterminated, breaking their fighters’ will and turning the battle in the Li Family’s favor.
• Li Zaiyuan pursued the fleeing Zhou Family Second Elder for battle merit, and an hour later the Zhou Clan of Green Cliff Fort had been destroyed.
• Zhou Shuang recorded the Li Family disciples’ performance while Li Qingshan arrived at Pinewind Abbey, encouraged by Master Gu to remember his father’s sacrifices and pursue his goal.
• Li Qingshan hid near the abbey guards and released countless tiny gray shadows from his sleeve into the night.

Li Qingshan used Man-Eating Gu to attack Pinewind Abbey, then sent Qi-Blood Gu inside after the abbey’s abbot recognized the infestation. He strode toward the mountain gate, intending to wipe out the sect himself.

• Li Qingshan confirmed that the four guards at Pinewind Abbey’s gate had inhaled Man-Eating Gu, while Master Gu explained how it would devour them from within.
• Li Qingshan questioned whether the guards deserved to die, then waited as the Man-Eating Gu took effect.
• The Man-Eating Gu killed the four guards and spread through Pinewind Abbey, causing its disciples to collapse in agony as an elder recognized the attack as gu.
• Pinewind Abbey’s abbot ordered the disciples to seal their orifices and protect their heart meridians, while Master Gu advised Li Qingshan to use Qi-Blood Gu against stronger cultivators.
• Li Qingshan released Qi-Blood Gu into Pinewind Abbey and walked toward its mountain gate, declaring that he would wipe out the sect.

Li Qingshan confronted Pinewind Abbey’s two Innate True Persons and used the Force-Leaning Gu to absorb the Gu insects and power gathered from the abbey’s victims. He broke through to the Innate Realm and asked Master Gu what tier it was.

• Li Qingshan entered Pinewind Abbey, killed an elder suppressing the Gu insects, and found Pinecloud True Person and Pinejade True Person in the main hall.
• Li Qingshan admitted he attacked because Pinewind Abbey stood in the Li Family’s way, prompting the two True Persons to attack him.
• Pinecloud True Person’s flying sword grazed Li Qingshan, and Master Gu urged him to use the Force-Leaning Gu.
• Li Qingshan released the Force-Leaning Gu and used Phantom Body Gu to evade the two True Persons while it swallowed the abbey’s Gu insects.
• Li Qingshan swallowed the Force-Leaning Gu, absorbed its power, and broke through from the Qi and Blood Realm into the Innate Realm.
• Li Qingshan hovered in the air and asked Master Gu what tier it was.

Li Qingshan fought Pinecloud True Person and Pinejade True Person with Master Gu’s borrowed power, forcing the two elders to retreat behind a barrier fueled by Pinewind Abbey’s spirit vein. He secretly sent Gu insects into the vein and waited as the elders tried to outlast him.

• Master Gu warned Li Qingshan about the power of the Ancestral Land Clan Chief while Pinecloud True Person renewed his attack.
• Li Qingshan used Gu insects to foul Pinecloud True Person’s flying sword, then tricked Pinejade True Person into striking a decoy that infected him.
• Pinecloud True Person and Pinejade True Person withdrew behind an azure barrier and drew spiritual energy from Pinewind Abbey’s spirit vein.
• Master Gu recognized that the elders’ reliance on the spirit vein gave Li Qingshan an opening, and Li Qingshan sent over a hundred insects into the cracks beneath the barrier.
• Pinecloud True Person urged Pinejade True Person to wait until Li Qingshan’s borrowed power ran out, while Li Qingshan stood still outside the barrier.