Chapter Summaries

Plot points and events

• The eight Demon Race Old Ancestors bring the severely injured Wang Quan to their hidden lair beneath an ordinary Human Race town.
• They present him to a mysterious, powerful figure concealed in the underground palace. The figure berates the Ancestors for taking so long to capture one junior.
• Wang Quan is thrown to the floor, barely alive. His body is shattered, and the Vermilion Bird Ancestor’s fire prevents him from healing.
• The Scorpion Ancestor reports that Wang Quan was unusually difficult to defeat: despite only recently reaching the Eighth Realm, he endured several Ancestors’ attacks and nearly escaped. His technique, which combines three kinds of power, is also noted as exceptional.
• When the Lion Ancestor asks why the mysterious figure wants Wang Quan, the figure wounds him with a single contemptuous snort, demonstrating its overwhelming authority.
• The figure reveals that Wang Quan will be used to refine a pill that might give the Ancestors a chance to reach a higher realm. Excited by the possibility of approaching the Ninth Realm, they agree to provide twice the previously gathered materials.

Character developments and interactions

• The mysterious lord is established as the unquestioned authority, secretive about its motives and powerful enough to injure an Old Ancestor effortlessly.
• The eight Old Ancestors show both fear and ambition: they submit to the lord, then eagerly embrace the prospect of a pill that could advance their cultivation.
• The Lion Ancestor oversteps by asking for an explanation, is punished, and immediately grovels for forgiveness.
• Wang Quan remains unconscious or unresponsive, reduced to a near-death state and treated as an object for the lord’s plan.

Significant themes

• Power and hierarchy: Even formidable Eighth Realm Ancestors are subordinate to the hidden lord.
• Ambition and sacrifice: The Ancestors see Wang Quan’s suffering as acceptable if it might help them attain greater power.
• Deception and concealment: The Demon Race’s lair lies undetected beneath a peaceful Human town.
• Life amid brutality: The calm, ordinary town above sharply contrasts with the violence and dark schemes below.

Plot points and events

• A shadowy figure summons the Heaven-Refining Furnace, a terrifying artifact whose multicolored flames and beast-shaped carvings awe the eight Old Ancestors.
• The figure orders Wang Quan, whose body is broken, thrown into the furnace. The Ancestors are told to gather sacrifices so a batch of pills can be completed in eighty-one days; the figure promises they will help everyone glimpse a higher realm and threatens those who fail.
• The Ancestors eagerly agree to supply their clans’ talented members, treating the sacrifice of their people as an honor.
• The figure adds rare treasures to the furnace, intensifying its flames and Wang Quan’s mysterious transformation.
• Wang Quan regains a little consciousness. Though he expects agony, the fire seems to heal his wounds and regrow tissue. He grieves for Little Skull, whose ashes and bone fragments are then added to the furnace.
• Later, the Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor delivers fifty-six young Vermilion Birds as sacrifices. They are thrown into the furnace, where they quickly dissolve into blood essence and spiritual power.

Character developments and interactions

• The shadowy figure reveals a grand, ruthless ambition: completing the pills to take “the final step.” It commands the Ancestors with cold threats and handles Wang Quan and the treasures as ingredients in its plan.
• The eight Old Ancestors respond with reverence and fear, competing to pledge their clans’ talented members. Their eagerness to sacrifice others contrasts with their terror of the figure.
• Wang Quan remains physically helpless but slowly regains awareness. His apparent healing offers hope, while his grief over Little Skull shows his emotional attachment and vulnerability.
• Little Skull is absent as a living character, but the remains dumped into the furnace deepen Wang Quan’s sorrow.
• The Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor seeks approval while presenting the young birds as valuable offerings; their deaths expose the cruelty behind the Ancestors’ promises.

Significant themes

• Power and exploitation: The powerful treat people—and even young members of their own clans—as resources for advancement.
• Ambition and sacrifice: The promise of reaching a higher realm is used to justify mass death.
• Hope amid suffering: The furnace appears to be healing Wang Quan even as it consumes others.
• Grief and attachment: Wang Quan’s sorrow for Little Skull persists amid his own transformation and danger.

Key plot points

• Inside the Heaven-Refining Furnace, the Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor slowly burns fifty-six young clan members as ingredients for a ritual to reach a higher realm. One victim condemns the Old Ancestor for sacrificing its own descendants.
• Wang Quan, himself trapped and badly injured, recognizes the young birds’ helplessness from his own experience of being used by powerful beings. To spare them prolonged agony, he kills each with a single blow, allowing the furnace to consume their bodies.
• When several other Old Ancestors arrive with promising youths from their clans, they dismiss the victims’ pleas and throw them into the furnace, claiming their sacrifice will serve the clans’ future—and that they may be revived later.
• Wang Quan kills these newcomers swiftly as well. Their Blood Qi and spiritual power, together with the furnace’s treasures, restore his body: severed limbs and damaged tissue begin to regrow.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Quan shifts from passive victim to decisive actor. He kills the youths out of compassion for their suffering, while also relying on the resulting energy to heal and survive. His mercy is grim and inseparable from self-preservation.
• The Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor shows cold ambition, valuing advancement over the lives of its descendants. The young bird’s accusation briefly provokes the Old Ancestor’s anger, but not remorse.
• The other Old Ancestors, including the Snake and Bull Demon elders, likewise exploit their own clans’ promising young. Their reassuring promises of eventual revival contrast with the youths’ terror and their elders’ smugness.
• The victims’ pleas and curses expose the betrayal between generations: the youths appeal to familial bonds, while the elders treat those bonds as tools of obedience.

Significant themes

• Power and exploitation: Those seeking greater power sacrifice the vulnerable, even their own kin.
• Cruel mercy and moral ambiguity: Wang Quan’s killings end the victims’ immediate torment, but also turn their deaths into fuel for his recovery.
• Betrayal and dehumanization: The Old Ancestors reduce descendants to “ingredients,” while the chapter stresses their fear and individual voices.
• Survival amid oppression: Wang Quan’s growing strength offers a narrow chance of escape from a trap designed to consume him.

Key plot points and events

• Eight Demon Race Old Ancestors watch as young disciples are fed into the Heaven-Refining Furnace, hoping their bodies and rare treasures will produce pills powerful enough to help them approach the Ninth Realm.
• They acknowledge this is part of a longstanding practice: they have hunted powerful cultivators for alchemical ingredients before.
• At the mysterious lord’s command, the seven Demon Ancestors each add a drop of blood essence to the furnace. After seven days, the hoped-for breakthrough still has not occurred.
• The lord secretly tells the seven that the Corpse Clan Old Ancestor is untrustworthy because it is not truly of the Demon Race, and proposes using it as the furnace’s missing principal ingredient.
• Despite initial hesitation, the seven agree and surround the Corpse Clan Old Ancestor. When it realizes it has been betrayed, they attack together.

Character developments and interactions

• The Old Ancestors’ longing for greater power outweighs their concern for the young disciples sacrificed to the furnace.
• The Scorpion Race Old Ancestor initially questions both the blood sacrifice and the plan against their longtime ally, but yields to pressure and rationalizes the betrayal.
• The Vermilion Bird and Bull Demon Old Ancestors openly endorse sacrificing the Corpse Clan member for power and security. The Snake Demon makes a darkly mocking promise to care for its descendants.
• The Corpse Clan Old Ancestor, who had fought alongside the others for years, is stunned by their sudden attack.

Significant themes

• Ambition and sacrifice: The pursuit of a higher realm turns living beings into ingredients.
• Betrayal and self-interest: Longstanding alliances collapse when the group sees an opportunity for greater power.
• Prejudice as justification: The lord’s claim that the Corpse Clan member is an outsider helps the others excuse their betrayal.
• Moral hypocrisy: The Old Ancestors speak of loyalty and compassion even as they arrange a gruesome death.

Key plot points and events

• The Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor and six other Old Ancestors suddenly turn on the Corpse Ancestor, trapping him in fire and attacking from all sides.
• Though badly wounded, the Corpse Ancestor unleashes his thousand-year-refined Corpse Poison and threatens to overwhelm his attackers.
• The mysterious figure in the darkness says, “Freeze,” immobilizing the Corpse Ancestor and stopping his Corpse Qi from circulating. The seven Old Ancestors then break through his formidable defenses.
• The Corpse Ancestor curses them for betraying their Alliance Oath and predicts they will never reach the Ninth Realm and will eventually kill one another. The Scorpion and Bull Demon Old Ancestors maim and bisect him, while the Vermilion Bird burns him with Southern Bright Separation Fire.
• The figure opens the Heaven-Refining Furnace, and the Vermilion Bird throws in the Corpse Ancestor’s remains. The furnace consumes him, turning his body into pure gray energy that mixes with its other ingredients. It then shakes violently as something inside struggles—or takes shape.

Character developments and interactions

• The seven Old Ancestors reveal that their alliance with the Corpse Ancestor was a deception; they attack him together, apparently to use his essence in the furnace.
• The Corpse Ancestor shifts from confident resistance to helpless fury and despair, maintaining his defiance through his final curses.
• The mysterious figure’s brief command demonstrates overwhelming control. He remains silent afterward, focused on the furnace.
• The Vermilion Bird, Scorpion, and Bull Demon carry out the most brutal parts of the execution. The surviving Old Ancestors celebrate the furnace’s reaction and anticipate the result with visible greed.

Significant themes

• Betrayal and broken oaths: The Corpse Ancestor condemns the Old Ancestors for violating their agreement.
• Power and helplessness: Even a formidable Eighth Realm expert is rendered powerless by the mysterious figure’s command.
• Ambition and sacrifice: The Old Ancestors treat the Corpse Ancestor’s death as a means to advance the furnace’s transformation.
• Foreboding: The furnace’s violent shaking and the figure forming within suggest that a dangerous or momentous creation is underway.

Plot points and events

• As seven demon-beast Old Ancestors gather around the Heaven-Refining Furnace, spectacular celestial visions convince them that an exceptional Divine Pill is about to be completed.
• Heavenly thunder suddenly strikes the furnace, shattering it and destroying the hall. The Ancestors panic over the pill and the ruined furnace.
• Wang Quan emerges from the wreckage, alive and markedly stronger. Though the pill was not completed, he says the furnace’s flames refined him instead.
• Wang Quan immediately attacks, breaking off the Scorpion Ancestor’s tail hook with one punch.
• The Ancestors surround him and launch a coordinated assault. Wang Quan stops the Lion Ancestor’s massive tail with one finger and shatters the Bull Demon Ancestor’s charging phantom with a shout, injuring the Bull Demon.
• The Vermilion Bird Ancestor organizes an all-out attack, combining fire, poison, water arrows, and other powers. Wang Quan remains confident and warns that the Ancestors should be asking him for mercy.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Quan transforms from the furnace’s captive or intended subject into a powerful, self-assured fighter. He takes the initiative against his former captors and shows no fear when surrounded.
• The seven Old Ancestors, initially greedy and celebratory, are thrown into shock when the furnace is destroyed and Wang Quan emerges stronger than before. They shift from anticipation to alarm, then cooperate to contain him.
• The Scorpion Ancestor is badly injured; the Bull Demon Ancestor is hurt by Wang Quan’s shout; and the Lion Ancestor discovers that its strength cannot move Wang Quan.
• The Vermilion Bird Ancestor takes charge, urging the group to attack together and offering Wang Quan leniency in an attempt to make him surrender.

Significant themes

• Transformation through adversity: The furnace and its flames, meant to produce a pill, instead make Wang Quan stronger.
• Reversal of power: The captors become the threatened party, while the former victim controls the confrontation.
• Greed and overconfidence: The Ancestors celebrate their expected reward before the heavenly strike overturns their plans.
• Collective force versus individual strength: The Ancestors rely on coordinated attacks, but Wang Quan’s calm confidence suggests their numbers may not be enough.

Plot points and events

• Wang Quan unleashes Dharma Heaven and Earth, a towering golden King Kong apparition whose vivid, seemingly awakened presence gives it the force of a living war god. Its roar devastates nearby buildings, though an invisible barrier keeps the battle hidden from ordinary street life.
• Facing seven Eighth Realm Old Ancestors, Wang Quan declares that he will take them down even if he dies. He forms a crimson Blood Saber from his own dark-gold blood and uses three successive strikes to break the Scorpion Race Old Ancestor’s armor, sever its soul, and kill it.
• The Bull Demon Old Ancestor punches through Wang Quan’s chest while the Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor’s flaming swords pierce him. Wang Quan refuses to retreat, mocks their attacks, and insists he has nothing to lose.
• He charges the Bull Demon, allowing its horns to pierce his abdomen so he can grab them and headbutt his opponent. The Lion Old Ancestor then smashes him with its tail and claws, leaving deep wounds and throwing him into a crater. Despite his injuries, Wang Quan wipes away blood and demands, “Again.”

Character developments

• Wang Quan emerges as an extraordinarily formidable but seemingly self-destructive fighter. He accepts terrible wounds without hesitation, using his own body as a weapon and treating death as an acceptable outcome.
• The Old Ancestors, especially the Vermilion Bird, initially dismiss Wang Quan’s challenge but become unsettled by his power, endurance, and apparent lack of fear.
• The Scorpion Race Old Ancestor is killed by Wang Quan’s Blood Saber, demonstrating that his attacks can overcome even formidable defenses.

Significant themes

• Defiance and sacrifice: Wang Quan keeps fighting despite overwhelming odds and catastrophic injuries.
• Power and transformation: The King Kong apparition appears to have changed from a mere energy projection into something with a living will.
• Determination at the edge of death: Wang Quan’s grim, almost manic resolve turns pain and vulnerability into part of his attack.
• Isolation: The sealed battlefield separates the violence from everyday life outside it.

Character interactions

• Wang Quan directly challenges the Old Ancestors and taunts them after surviving their attacks.
• He kills the Scorpion Old Ancestor, prompting the Bull Demon to retaliate with a crushing punch.
• The Vermilion Bird and Bull Demon strike him together; later, Wang Quan and the Bull Demon clash head-on, and Wang Quan’s headbutt wounds the demon.
• The Lion Old Ancestor takes advantage of Wang Quan’s midair vulnerability, smashing and clawing him. Wang Quan answers the combined assault not with surrender but with a demand to continue.

Key plot points and events

• The Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor impales Wang Quan with a fire-forged sword, leaving a charred hole through his chest. The Snake Demon Old Ancestor then poisons and constricts him, while the other Old Ancestors prepare to finish him off.
• Wang Quan feigns defeat, then bites a chunk from the Snake Demon’s neck. She releases him and beats him brutally, breaking his ribs and exposing his still-beating heart.
• All seven Old Ancestors unleash a combined assault. The blast creates a vast crater, and they assume Wang Quan is dead.
• Wang Quan suddenly emerges from the dust and uses the Mirror Delusion Heavenly Book to stun the Snake Demon with a soul attack. He tears out and swallows her heart, then pounds her mercilessly.
• The other Old Ancestors are shocked by his survival and ferocity. The Vermilion Bird orders them to sever his limbs, and five attack as the chapter ends.

Character developments

• Wang Quan shows extraordinary endurance and refuses to surrender, turning near-death injuries into openings for a counterattack. His desperation gives way to an almost uncontrollable, vengeful fury.
• The Snake Demon Old Ancestor shifts from confident cruelty to pain, rage, and finally helplessness as Wang Quan repeatedly surprises and overwhelms her.
• The other Old Ancestors move from certainty that Wang Quan is finished to alarm at his survival and savage retaliation.

Significant themes

• Defiance in the face of overwhelming force: Wang Quan continues fighting despite catastrophic injuries.
• Survival through deception and timing: He exploits the Snake Demon’s lowered guard and the enemies’ belief that he is dead.
• Violence and revenge: The fight escalates into brutal, personal retaliation, highlighting how hatred drives Wang Quan’s actions.

Character interactions

• The Vermilion Bird and Snake Demon Old Ancestors taunt and attack Wang Quan, treating his death as inevitable.
• The Snake Demon restrains and batters him, but he turns the encounter around by biting her neck and later targeting her with a soul attack.
• The Old Ancestors coordinate their attacks against Wang Quan, then react with stunned fear when he survives and continues attacking the Snake Demon.

Key events

• Wang Quan is brutally attacked by the Old Ancestors, who tear off his limbs and expose his heart. Despite appearing near death, his aura begins to grow stronger.
• His three forces—physical strength, soul power, and mysterious profound power—merge, producing a radiant three-colored light.
• Urged by the others, the Wolf Race Old Ancestor finally joins the assault. The six Ancestors’ combined techniques cannot penetrate the invisible barrier around Wang Quan.
• Wang Quan’s body regenerates completely, and his aura rises to the late Eighth Realm. He announces that it is now his turn to attack.
• He manifests a greatly empowered Dharma Heaven and Earth and kills the Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor with a single bite. The surviving Ancestors are shaken; the Flying Fish Old Ancestor tries to escape.

Character developments and interactions

• Wang Quan transforms from a seemingly defeated victim into an overwhelming threat, showing that his resolve and power intensify under extreme injury. His calm, chilling determination gives way to a fierce counterattack.
• The Old Ancestors’ confidence collapses into fear. The Bull Demon, Lion, and Wolf hesitate, while the Flying Fish attempts to flee.
• The Wolf Old Ancestor, previously holding back, is pressured into fighting by the Flying Fish—but his attack proves useless.
• The Ancestors’ cooperation shifts from coordinated aggression to panic as Wang Quan’s power turns the battle in his favor.

Significant themes

• Power through unity: The fusion of Wang Quan’s physical, spiritual, and profound forces enables his breakthrough.
• Endurance and transformation: His apparent destruction becomes the catalyst for regeneration and greater strength.
• Fear and reversal: The hunters become prey as the Ancestors’ certainty gives way to terror.
• Relentless resolve: Wang Quan’s willingness to risk everything makes him especially frightening to his opponents.

After Wang Quan killed the Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor, the five remaining Old Ancestors joined forces against him. Their coordinated attacks left him crushed in a crater, seemingly unable to resist.

• The Bull Demon Old Ancestor rallied the four other surviving Old Ancestors, and they surrounded Wang Quan.
• The Bull Demon, Flying Fish, Wolf Race, and Lion Old Ancestors restrained Wang Quan with earthen walls, an ice net, claw rays, and golden chains.
• The severed scorpion tail pierced Wang Quan through the chest, and the Snake Demon Old Ancestor's head spat venom into his wound.
• A figure in the darkness berated the Old Ancestors and demanded they defeat Wang Quan so he could be refined into pills.
• The Lion, Bull Demon, Wolf Race, and Flying Fish Old Ancestors unleashed their signature techniques together, tearing Wang Quan apart and knocking him into a crater.

The four Old Ancestors tried to refine Wang Quan in Flying Fish Old Ancestor’s Jade Tide Condensing Pill Furnace, but the figure in the darkness demanded fresh blood to complete a Ninth Realm foundation. The Old Ancestors went to gather their clans’ remaining juniors, while the figure waited eagerly for the furnace’s contents to succeed.

• The four Old Ancestors confirmed that Wang Quan was barely alive and presented the Jade Tide Condensing Pill Furnace to the figure in the darkness.
• Wolf Race Old Ancestor threw the corpses of Scorpion Race Old Ancestor, Snake Demon Old Ancestor, and Vermilion Bird Old Ancestor into the furnace, despite Lion Old Ancestor’s objection.
• The figure in the darkness began refining the bodies, then declared that their stale blood was insufficient and that living blood was needed.
• Wolf Race Old Ancestor persuaded the others to sacrifice their remaining clan juniors, and the four Old Ancestors left to gather them.
• The figure in the darkness watched the furnace and hoped aloud that its contents would fulfill its ambitions.

Wang Quan endured repeated destruction and rebirth in the Jade Tide Condensing Pill Furnace, growing stronger as his body was tempered. When the four Old Ancestors fed their young descendants to the furnace, Wang Quan’s beating heart drew in their vitality, and his aura surged as the Old Ancestors watched with satisfaction.

• Wang Quan’s body was repeatedly burned apart and re-formed in the furnace flames while his heart continued beating steadily.
• The four Old Ancestors returned with bound young descendants, and Lion Old Ancestor silenced them and justified sacrificing them to help him ascend.
• A young lion demon cursed Lion Old Ancestor, who killed him and threatened the rest.
• Lion Old Ancestor threw the bound descendants into the Jade Tide Condensing Pill Furnace, where the flames trapped and burned them.
• Wang Quan’s heartbeat drew the descendants’ vitality and cultivation into his body, strengthening him as the four Old Ancestors watched the rising aura with satisfaction.

Wang Quan’s aura stalled just short of the ninth realm, and the Man in Black decided that high-realm living sacrifices were the missing ingredient. He ordered the Old Ancestors to lure the Human Race’s eighth-realm cultivators to the hall, while Flying Fish Old Ancestor was forced to remain behind.

• The Man in Black and the four Old Ancestors found that Wang Quan’s aura had stopped just short of the ninth realm despite absorbing many demons’ blood and vitality.
• The Man in Black said that high-realm living sacrifices were needed, and the Old Ancestors proposed using eighth-realm humans as catalysts.
• The Man in Black ordered the Old Ancestors to summon the Human Race’s eighth-realm cultivators under the pretext of demanding an explanation for Wang Quan’s actions.
• The Man in Black told Flying Fish Old Ancestor to stay, prompting the others to protest that his absence might make the humans suspicious.
• The Man in Black reminded the Old Ancestors that he had helped them reach the eighth realm, and they knelt and agreed to obey.
• Lion Old Ancestor and Bull Demon Old Ancestor hurried away to carry out the summons while Flying Fish Old Ancestor and Wolf Race Old Ancestor remained.

Flying Fish Old Ancestor and the Wolf Race Old Ancestor sacrificed Lion Old Ancestor and Bull Demon Old Ancestor in the Jade Tide Condensing Pill Furnace, igniting a powerful heavenly phenomenon. Later, three Human Race Eighth Realm cultivators arrived to negotiate over Wang Quan, and Flying Fish Old Ancestor demanded blood offerings while threatening them.

• The Man in Black ordered Flying Fish Old Ancestor and the Wolf Race Old Ancestor to kill Lion Old Ancestor and Bull Demon Old Ancestor.
• Flying Fish Old Ancestor and the Wolf Race Old Ancestor punched through their allies' chests, put their hearts and corpses into the Jade Tide Condensing Pill Furnace, and watched their remnant souls vanish in the flames.
• The furnace's flames surged, its aura pierced the heavens, and dark clouds and lightning gathered above the hall.
• The master of the Wind Listening Pavilion, Zhao Lie, and Granny Feng arrived and offered to let the matter of Wang Quan rest, saying the Human Race would not interfere.
• Flying Fish Old Ancestor demanded ten Sixth Realm and ten Seventh Realm blood offerings, threatened an invasion, and suggested the three Human Race cultivators could serve as substitutes.
• The master of the Wind Listening Pavilion dismissed the threat as a joke and promised to gather every blood offering.