Chapter Summaries

Song Jingxuan, Xu Yuanyang, and Lin Chen watched a battle between Martial Dao and Incense Spirit cultivators and discussed the origins and limits of their cultivation paths. Lin Chen recognized the Divine Official Hierarchy Chart’s potential and proposed intervening in the fight, while considering how the chart might help his return.

• A Martial Dao cultivator burned his life to attack an Incense Spirit cultivator, who summoned an avatar through the Divine Official Hierarchy Chart, and their powers collided over the sea.
• Song Jingxuan and Xu Yuanyang explained that Martial Dao and Incense Spirit Dao were heterodox paths developed from Outer Domain methods, with limited potential compared with orthodox cultivation.
• Lin Chen described Martial Dao as an attempt to bypass innate limitations, and Xu Yuanyang explained that incense and fire prayer power could create miracles when wielded through divine office and authority.
• Xu Yuanyang discovered that the Sun Moon Immortal Palace had sealed research about divinity and godhood, prompting Song Jingxuan to realize that information had been withheld.
• Lin Chen considered combining the Divine Official Hierarchy Chart with the Paper Figure Demon Venerable’s remains to aid his return and create a foundation for a new world.
• Lin Chen said the Alliance should intervene and uphold fairness.

Lin Chen activated the spirit puppet legion and tested its power against two forces fighting above the sea. After a massive spirit-ship lightning strike, Wu Yong led the puppets into a formation that amplified his power as he prepared to attack the survivors.

• Lin Chen and Xu Yuanyang discussed how spirit puppets retained fragments of memories and souls, and how rare survivors might be reborn after returning from beyond the domain.
• Lin Chen ordered three spirit ships to overload their Spirit Thunder Falling Great Formations and combine their attacks against the pseudo Dao Domain above the sea.
• The lightning engulfed the sea region, after which Lin Chen sent out three spirit puppet units led by Wu Yong.
• The Incense Spirit Lord unleashed ghosts and the martial cultivator attacked with his Yang Spirit, but their assaults failed to affect the spirit puppets.
• Wu Yong commanded nearly ten thousand puppets to form the Hunyuan Five Elements Spirit Embryo Great Formation, and their stacked power raised him to a gigantic form that struck at the two opponents.

The East Sea Immortal Alliance debated how to locate Hell Ten Paths while Lin Chen questioned two spirit-island cultivators about a conflict and suspected sea-beast involvement. After killing the female accuser and searching her soul, Lin Chen found evidence against Zhang Ping and threatened to search his soul next.

• Heavenly Craftsman Venerable defended Lin Chen’s spirit-puppet methods after Mister Mist disparaged them, while the Alliance discussed Hell Ten Paths’ hidden Floating Raft and the risks of waiting for the Heavenly Mystery Net to reveal it.
• Wu Yong brought Zhang Ping and a female cultivator from Incense Spirit Island before Lin Chen, and the two accused each other of betrayal and collusion with sea beasts.
• Zhang Ping said the two islands had joined forces against a sea-beast tide more than a hundred years earlier, drawing Lin Chen’s attention because of his past connection to the Human Seed Ship.
• Xu Yuanyang planned to investigate the conflicting claims, but Lin Chen objected to the slow questioning and declared that dead people did not lie.
• Lin Chen tore off the female cultivator’s head, searched her soul, and found a scene showing Zhang Ping colluding with sea beasts.
• Lin Chen threatened to obtain evidence directly from Zhang Ping, who stiffened in fear.

Lin Chen forced Zhang Ping to demonstrate his strength, then learned that Martial Dao Spirit Island’s rise involved a suspicious new martial path and exploitation of human sacrifices. Suspecting that the conflict between the islands had been deliberately engineered, Lin Chen set course for Incense Spirit Island to investigate.

• Zhang Ping broke through under Lin Chen’s pressure, unleashed his Martial Dao Yang Spirit and a powerful palm strike, then surrendered after Lin Chen was wounded.
• Lin Chen removed Zhang Ping’s restrictions and heard how Martial Dao Spirit Island had begun producing Myriad Martial Spirit Liquid through cooperation with a sea beast and sacrifices.
• Zhang Ping described Evolved Martial Dao, a newly proposed path focused on evolving the body, and said its creator seemed to have appeared from nowhere.
• Lin Chen ordered the ship to head for Incense Spirit Island, prompting Song Jingxuan to point out that the granddaughter’s death and discovery of the island’s secret might have been arranged to spark a war.
• Lin Chen explained that he suspected the incident was meant to provoke conflict during the campaign against the Hell Ten Paths, and prepared to investigate the underlying scheme.

Lin Chen examined Zhang Ping’s Evolved Martial Dao and inferred that it advanced through coordinated bodily evolution, anomalous forms, and bloodline transformation. The discoveries inspired Lin Chen to expand his experiments, while he suspected the path’s hidden creator might be a powerful figure connected to the Drought Demon.

• Song Jingxuan, Xu Yuanyang, and Wu Yong watched as Lin Chen studied Zhang Ping’s disembodied body and Yang Spirit in the ship’s laboratory.
• Lin Chen explained that Evolved Martial Dao pursued the evolution of flesh and blood rather than replacing the body with spiritual energy, and Zhang Ping confirmed its second stage created an Anomalous Body Law Physique.
• Zhang Ping described a third stage based on transforming bloodlines, and Lin Chen speculated that it involved researching and integrating the Bloodline Origin of extraordinary creatures.
• Lin Chen asked about the path’s creator and learned that Song Jingxuan considered the Drought Demon the greatest present-day body cultivator among the demons.
• Lin Chen ordered Wu Yong to recruit rogue cultivators for experiments, then studied a Radiant Strange Flower and resolved to use its Life Atlas to guide mutation.

Lin Chen tested newly implanted Life Clusters by sending their modified cultivators to Prayer Spirit Island, where they slaughtered evil cultivators and exposed the island’s corruption. As the fleet’s attack ended, Lin Chen reflected that the flower in his hand had become a waymark for his return, though he still needed a place to descend and a Natal Magic Treasure.

• Lin Chen explained that Life Clusters granted cultivators extraordinary bloodline abilities but caused deadly rejection and were too costly to spread widely.
• Lin Chen demonstrated the cultivators’ blood-red eye organs, then sent them to Prayer Spirit Island to hunt the evil cultivators of Hell Ten Paths.
• Zhang Ping and the other modified cultivators infiltrated the island and began killing suspected evil cultivators, provoking the island’s forces to raise a grand formation.
• A giant blood-red eye appeared above the island, and its infrasonic attack caused the evil cultivators and other corrupt figures to vanish in bursts of flesh and blood.
• Lin Chen revealed that the blood eye was a distraction and considered how the modified flower had become a waymark for his return, while he still needed a place to descend and a Natal Magic Treasure.

Lin Chen’s fleet reached Incense Spirit Island and attacked a Hell Ten Paths branch entrenched in the Desolate Mountains. As the battle began, he noticed a vast force resembling fate or heavenly secrets influencing the fighting and slipped away to investigate it.

• Incense Spirit Island’s people cooperated with Lin Chen’s fleet after learning it belonged to the Immortal Alliance, and the ships arrived over the Desolate Mountains after eight days.
• Wu Yong explained that the Hell Ten Paths branch preached immortality through repeated reincarnation and had remained on the island for over a century.
• Lin Chen’s fleet confronted the Hell Ten Paths cultivators, who resisted with formations, while Incense Spirit Island broadcast the battle across the island.
• Lin Chen observed a mysterious force affecting people’s emotions and strength, then asked Ship Spirit about past powers built on faith or dynastic fate.
• After Ship Spirit described the destructive backlash suffered by such powers, Lin Chen quietly left to investigate whether the Heavenly Mystery Net could be tested.

Wu Yong led the assault on the Hell Ten Paths’ underground lair, where a strange pollution weakened the East Sea Immortal Alliance and transformed some of its cultivators into monsters. As the battle turned dangerous, Lin Chen ordered the spirit warships to fire, but Wu Yong manifested a giant life-magnetic figure that stopped the Ball Lightning.

• Wu Yong used his Three-Primordial Thunder Transformation Art to kill an evil cultivator and reflected on how he could disrupt an opponent’s life magnetic field.
• Wu Yong’s forces destroyed the lair’s final protective formation and entered the underground space, where its power mutated cultivators with Life Clusters and weakened Wu Yong and the Spirit Puppets.
• The Hell Ten Paths declared that they would be reborn as Celestial Humans, and Wu Yong formed the Hunyuan Five Elements Spirit Embryo Great Formation to fight them.
• Xu Yuanyang worried that the lair’s pollution could replicate the Hell Ten Paths’ feat on Penglai Island, while Song Jingxuan explained that heaven and earth had adapted to the method.
• Song Jingxuan discovered that Lin Chen had disappeared, then learned that Lin Chen had gone to make insurance and ordered the spirit warships to fire on the lair.
• As a blue Ball Lightning attack descended, Wu Yong formed a gigantic life-magnetic figure that held it back.

Wu Yong’s power overwhelmed the battlefield after a giant figure of light absorbed the attack and energy around it, while Song Jingxuan suspected he had witnessed Heavenly Manifestation. At Incense Spirit Island, the island’s founder heard Hell Ten Paths propose sacrificing its members to weaken the world and make way for the New Heaven.

• A vast figure of light absorbed the Ball Lightning, spiritual energy, and Origin Magnetic power before destroying the battlefield and executing Wu He.
• Song Jingxuan recognized the display as Heavenly Manifestation and worried that he had delayed his own advancement while trying to steal Lin Chen’s techniques.
• Lin Chen concluded that geomantic magnetic fields could help control spiritual energy and open a path to exploring the universe’s microscopic world.
• The founder of Incense Spirit Island watched the battle as a black-robed member of Hell Ten Paths pressed him to cooperate, citing his fragile existence and the Heaven and Earth Fetal Membrane fragment.
• The black-robed figure claimed the New Heaven plan could succeed if the world weakened, then proposed that Hell Ten Paths sacrifice all its members to evade the Immortal Alliance.

Xu Yuanyang ordered Incense Spirit Island to join the war, while its lord and ancestor secretly agreed to cooperate with the Hell Ten Paths’ plan to create a New World. As Reincarnation Island advanced toward Incense Spirit Island, Lin Chen revealed that the campaign was only a prelude to the larger struggle on Penglai Island and began returning from the Eternal Dream Realm through the beliefs and impressions of the East Sea’s people.

• Xu Yuanyang ordered Incense Spirit Island’s cultivators to march to war in seven days, and the Incense Spirit Lord pretended to seek his ancestor’s guidance while planning to use the campaign to remove troublesome elders.
• The Incense Spirit Ancestor agreed to cooperate with a black-robed figure’s New World plan, and the figure learned that the ancestor’s Divine Official Hierarchy Chart contained the Heaven and Earth Fetal Membrane.
• The black-robed figure summoned Reincarnation Island, and its flesh-and-bone monsters began pushing it toward Incense Spirit Island.
• Lin Chen told Wu Yong that the campaign against the Hell Ten Paths was only an appetizer before the struggle on Penglai Island.
• Lin Chen drew power from the East Sea’s mixed impressions of him, causing the Eternal Dream Realm to descend toward reality as his main body emerged within it.

The Spirit Puppet Method helped trigger a bloody revolt that destroyed Martial Dao Spirit Island, while the Hell Ten Paths prepared a mass blood sacrifice and a sea beast tide to support their war against the East Sea Immortal Alliance. As dawn broke, Lin Chen's flying boat fleet approached the island, where the Path Lords' scheme and the island's unnatural horrors awaited.

• The Spirit Puppet Method displaced lower-level cultivators on Martial Dao Spirit Island, whose revolt escalated into a massacre after rogue cultivators broke the island's defenses and killed much of its leadership.
• Gui Wu gave Artificial Spirit Crystals and Dragon Palace exotic breeds to a black-robed figure from Incense Spirit Island, helping prepare a sea beast tide in the East Sea Inner Sea.
• A white-robed scholar appeared on the corpse-covered island and spoke of using Corpse Poison to drive evolution, frightening the three Hell Ten Paths Path Lords.
• The Path Lords resolved to borrow the scholar's power, lure Immortal Alliance cultivators to Reincarnation Island, and sacrifice enough lives to create New Heaven before the Alliance's main forces arrived.
• Lin Chen's flying boat fleet emerged at dawn and headed toward the island.

Lin Chen and the Immortal Alliance fleet advanced toward Martial Dao Spirit Island, where a Hatching Nest unleashed a vast sea beast tide. Lin Chen ordered the fleet to press on despite the danger, while keeping his suspicions about the island’s Heavenly Lord-level defenses to himself.

• The Immortal Alliance traced Reincarnation Island’s destination to the sea regions around seven spirit islands and mobilized fleets to encircle them.
• The fleet entered the Martial Dao Spirit Island sea region, revealing a hidden sea beast tide that attacked the ships from the sky, sea, and beneath the water.
• Song Jingxuan identified the Hatching Nest, and Lin Chen learned that the Dragon Palace used it to produce enormous tides of short-lived sea beasts and hidden high-level threats.
• Xu Yuanyang questioned whether the fleet should continue, while Lin Chen privately judged that a Heavenly Lord-level presence made an earlier arrival dangerous.
• Lin Chen ordered the fleet to advance regardless of casualties, saying that human lives were merely numbers in war.

Lin Chen’s fleet fought the East Sea Dragon Palace’s beast tide and discovered that the Dragon Palace’s high-level sea monster was preparing a devastating war secret art. Both sides unleashed formations against each other, while Nascent Soul reinforcements arrived elsewhere and the Hell Ten Paths appeared in another sea region.

• The Hatching Nest’s vast supply of sea beasts broke through the fleet’s outer defenses, but Lin Chen’s formation redirected and cut down the charging tide.
• Lin Chen concluded that the Hatching Nest or the beast commanding it had to be destroyed, while Song Jingxuan explained that neither side could reliably locate the other’s forces.
• The Thousand-Eyed Dragon Snake Monster used blood sacrifices to unleash the Endless Sea Abyss, crushing the fleet’s forward ships with immense pressure.
• Lin Chen ordered the fleet to activate the Star Great Formation, and the two rival war arts collided across the battlefield.
• True Lord Xingmu, Cloud Lord, and the Death River Dao Child arrived with Immortal Alliance reinforcements, while the Hell Ten Paths appeared in another sea region.

After the Immortal Alliance fleet suffered heavy losses fighting the Hatching Nest’s enormous sea-beast tide, Lin Chen exposed Song Jingxuan’s suggestion to retreat by publicly denouncing it. Powerful reinforcements arrived and activated the Star Great Formation, but the sea beasts withdrew as something colossal stirred beneath the sea, and the battle began again.

• Lin Chen regenerated his severed arm and concluded that Artificial Spirit Crystals had helped the Hatching Nest produce more sea beasts than the battered fleet could handle.
• Song Jingxuan suggested retreating, but Lin Chen loudly condemned him for proposing to flee before battle.
• Cloud Lord, True Lord Xingmu, and Fang Wangming appeared, criticized Song Jingxuan, and heard Lin Chen describe the Hatching Nest and the fleet’s losses.
• True Lord Xingmu revealed that Alliance reinforcements were approaching and sensed an unexplained familiarity in Lin Chen.
• Thousands of spirit warships arrived and activated the Star Great Formation as the sea beasts retreated and a colossal creature stirred beneath the sea.

The Hell Ten Paths revealed that the mutated Hatching Nest was their creation, Kunpeng, and launched a battle against the East Sea Immortal Alliance. As the two sides clashed, Lin Chen faced the colossal monster with an unexpected smile.

• The Hatching Nest emerged from the seabed as a flesh mass, and its terrifying mental pressure shattered spirit-ship defenses and incapacitated cultivators.
• Death River Dao Child Fang Wangming summoned Ghost Shadows to extract the monster’s many souls, but the Hatching Nest declared itself part of the Demon Race and broke through his attack.
• The Path Lords of the Hell Ten Paths arrived and revealed that they had created Kunpeng with the East Sea Dragon Palace using the Hell Strange Flower.
• True Lord Xingmu and the Alliance cultivators resolved to fight until reinforcements arrived, despite Lin Chen questioning why the Hell Ten Paths had chosen to stand their ground.
• Both sides unleashed their powers and formed a vast battlefield, while Lin Chen turned his attention to Kunpeng and prepared to gamble with his life.

The Immortal Alliance leaders activated Floating Spirit Island’s devastating Sky-based Strike against the battlefield, while Lin Chen fought the Sea Monster Empress and concealed his true power. Lin Chen fled as the golden pillar descended, and the strike engulfed the sea in a colossal explosion.

• The Divine Firmament Dao Master ordered Floating Spirit Island to fire its attack and personally join the battle.
• The Sea Monster Empress used a mental storm to disrupt the Immortal Alliance fleet and destroy spirit ships.
• Lin Chen summoned nine golden fire-suns and attacked the Sea Monster Empress, but she survived and rapidly healed.
• Lin Chen weighed using his strongest abilities but held back because the Immortal Alliance’s upper ranks were watching.
• Lin Chen sensed the incoming attack and fled as a golden pillar tore through the Taiji Cloud Diagram and struck the sea.

Lin Chen and the surviving cultivators regrouped after the Floating Spirit Island’s strike devastated the sea and injured both sides. Immortal Alliance reinforcements arrived, discovered Martial Dao Spirit Island concealed in plain sight, and prepared to strike it rather than enter its trap.

• Lin Chen rescued Wu Yong and Xu Yuanyang from the destroyed sea, while True Lord Xingmu, Cloud Lord, and the Death River Dao Child reappeared badly injured and reported that several Hell Ten Paths masters had survived.
• Lin Chen sensed the Immortal Alliance reinforcements arriving, including three Spirit Transformations, more than twenty Nascent Soul True Lords, and over ten thousand Golden Core cultivators.
• The Death River Dao Child reported the suspected casualties among the Hell Ten Paths, and the Heavenly River Old Monster determined that their survivors were still inside the locked-down region.
• The cultivators realized that Martial Dao Spirit Island had been concealed by a power that deceived their perception, and Lin Chen recognized the island’s strange presence.
• The Heavenly River Old Monster refused to enter the apparent trap and ordered the Floating Island to deliver another strike at Martial Dao Spirit Island.

The Heavenly River Old Monster led the East Sea Immortal Alliance into the Martial Dao Spirit Island after its defenses survived a devastating strike. Lin Chen entered separately and found himself in an isolated, empty town, while a doorway to the Real World began to form in the Shallow Dream Realm.

• The Heavenly River Old Monster considered another Heavenly Fall Strike, but Cloud Lord warned that it could trigger a catastrophic eruption across the region.
• The Heavenly River Old Monster ordered the cultivators to enter the Martial Dao Spirit Island, while Lin Chen and the injured cultivators withdrew to recover.
• An Incense Spirit Island ancestor sacrificed the Divine Official Hierarchy Chart to the island, creating a barrier between its interior and the outside before dissolving into motes of light.
• Lin Chen revealed that he had infiltrated the Incense Spirit Island and learned of Hell Ten Paths' plan, then entered the Martial Dao Spirit Island on his own.
• Lin Chen arrived in a mist-enclosed town and scattered crimson flower seeds throughout it to mark the area.
• In the Shallow Dream Realm, the kingdom's master approached a doorway forming between illusion and the Real World.

Lin Chen found himself trapped in a strange town where Hell Strange Flowers and an unseen Heavenly Lord's power distorted perception. After using a flower linked to his own experiments, he saw East Sea Cultivators appear around him, but they could neither see nor touch him, leaving him suspecting they occupied different layers of existence.

• Lin Chen recognized the flowers covering the town as sources of Spiritual Energy Radiation and suspected a Heavenly Lord's power had silently affected him.
• Lin Chen reasoned that Hell Ten Paths intended to create a blessed land using the Heaven and Earth Fetal Membrane, but the town's strange state did not fit their plan.
• Lin Chen used a Hell Strange Flower altered through his experiments, and its Spiritual Energy Radiation changed his perception of the town.
• Lin Chen saw East Sea Cultivators, including Mister Mist and Celestial Maiden Gu Yue, appear in the streets after they became separated from the Spirit Transformation cultivators.
• Mister Mist calmed the frightened cultivators and ordered them to investigate, while Lin Chen watched them pass through him without noticing his presence.

Lin Chen watched the trapped cultivators investigate the abandoned town while trying to understand its strange overlapping state. After a cultivator showed signs of unexplained pollution inside a house, Celestial Maiden Gu Yue began using her Dao Domain to reveal the town’s past.

• Mister Mist and Celestial Maiden Gu Yue concluded that the town was likely a Grotto-heaven Blessed Land and that they could not escape using ordinary techniques.
• The cultivators explored the streets and found the town sealed by mist that swallowed anyone who entered it.
• Lin Chen observed the cultivators from an intermediate state between two versions of the town and planned to use them to scout for information.
• Mister Mist sent cultivators into a sealed house, where one briefly developed fungal growths on his face despite Lin Chen sensing no obvious source of contamination.
• The group found no clear danger inside the house, but its darkness resembled the mist surrounding the town, so Mister Mist urged Celestial Maiden Gu Yue to act.
• Celestial Maiden Gu Yue activated her temporal Dao Domain, and a bright moon rose to reveal things that had vanished.