Chapter Summaries

Chen Changsheng reunited with his old companions after Emperor Zuo defeated Master Yuhua, then told them he would leave to follow his own path. He went to the Forbidden Ground with Emperor Zuo to confront Master Yuhua and hear his answers before his execution.

• Chen Changsheng reunited with Song Yuanshan, Yixiu, and Wanyan Yue, and explained that rebuilding Supreme Clarity Temple was Song Yuanshan’s mission while he had to continue on his own path.
• Yixiu told Wanyan Yue that Chen Changsheng would not stay for anyone, and Wanyan Yue asked whether she might see him again before leaving.
• Chen Changsheng carried a coffin to the Bronze Ancient Hall, where Master Yuhua remained pinned beneath it, and asked why he had acted in Night Moon Kingdom and whether he regretted killing Chen Changsheng’s master and others.
• Master Yuhua said the sacrifices were ordinary for someone pursuing immortality, and Chen Changsheng declared he would send him on his final journey with Emperor Zuo.

Emperor Zuo killed Master Yuhua, learned that the Bronze Ancient Halls might provide a way into the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground, and returned Chen Changsheng’s stone coffin. After the Bronze Ancient Hall was excavated from the Boundless Secret Realm, Chen Changsheng traveled with Emperor Zuo and Xuanwu Kingdom’s army to force their way into the forbidden ground, despite his protests.

• Emperor Zuo killed Master Yuhua, stopped the Bronze Ancient Hall from sinking, and allowed Chen Changsheng to recover the corpse before the hall suppressed the Blood Pool again.
• Emperor Zuo told Chen Changsheng that the Bronze Ancient Halls held connected Teleportation Arrays and returned Chen Changsheng’s stone coffin.
• Emperor Zuo explained that the Hundred Defeats Immortal’s stories dated back over four thousand years and admitted he could not match the immortal’s power.
• Chen Changsheng left to bury his grandmaster, and half a month later Xuanwu Kingdom excavated the Bronze Ancient Hall from the Boundless Secret Realm.
• Chen Changsheng reflected on leaving the Great Qian Dynasty after nearly two hundred years and accepted that he had to accompany Emperor Zuo into the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground.

Emperor Zuo led Xuanwu Kingdom’s army to the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground and tried to break through its barrier, but the land’s defenders and a mysterious sigh annihilated the kingdom’s ancient experts. Emperor Zuo drew the Zhenwu Sword and destroyed the Bronze Armor, leaving him facing the forbidden ground’s great terror.

• Emperor Zuo sent three Humanoid Puppets into the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground, where a breeze reduced them to dust.
• Emperor Zuo’s million soldiers formed a Grand Formation and launched a black spear at the forbidden ground’s invisible barrier, which revealed intricate silver Array Patterns.
• Xuanwu Kingdom’s grand general ordered the soldiers to burn their lives to strengthen the spear, piercing the barrier by one inch before a Bronze Armor riding a Skeleton Horse shattered it.
• Three white-haired elders and Emperor Zuo fought the Bronze Armor while Chen Changsheng watched from the chariot and realized Emperor Zuo had reached the seventh cultivation realm.
• A sigh from the black mountain range turned the three elders into blood mist, and Emperor Zuo summoned the Zhenwu Sword and slashed the Bronze Armor into fragments.

Emperor Zuo and Xuanwu Kingdom’s army were destroyed by the horrors of the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground, while Zuo Xinghe was spared to carry a warning back to the world. Chen Changsheng emerged from hiding three months later, discovered he was trapped inside Golden Arrays, and decided to study and wait in the forbidden ground.

• Emperor Zuo used the Zhenwu Sword to break the forbidden ground’s silver Array Patterns, but a strand of hair from the black mountain range split the sword, Emperor Zuo, and Xuanwu Kingdom’s army.
• Emperor Zuo summoned the Bronze Ancient Hall and tried to teleport away, but a golden character destroyed his body; the hall vanished, and Zuo Xinghe survived as the sole witness.
• Three months later, Chen Changsheng emerged from the stone coffin where he had feigned death and carefully checked the silent surroundings.
• Chen Changsheng tested the area with a loose thread and discovered Golden Arrays surrounding him, with the Bronze Ancient Hall pinning down the formation beneath his feet.
• After the System reminded him that time held no meaning for him, Chen Changsheng decided to wait and study the books Zuo Xinghe had copied for him before attempting to comprehend the arrays.

Chen Changsheng scavenged a corpse in the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground and found an ancient formula he could not yet decipher. After fifty years studying the deadly Dao Patterns, he took another cautious step toward Emperor Zuo’s bones and retreated to the Bronze Ancient Hall at night.

• Chen Changsheng collected a corpse after haggling over the price of a coffin, then found a Jade Slip containing the Heaven Mending Paste formula, which he could not understand well enough to refine.
• Chen Changsheng recalled how a Beast Hide Book from an earlier corpse had taught him about the Dao Patterns and helped him make progress through the Golden Arrays.
• After spending fifty years in the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground, Chen Changsheng advanced one step but remained far from the other Bronze Ancient Hall and Emperor Zuo’s bones.
• Chen Changsheng reviewed the Beast Hide Book, then returned to the Bronze Ancient Hall before nightfall because shadowy figures roamed outside after dark.

After spending eighty years in the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground, Chen Changsheng returned to the stone coffin and slept for 160 years. He awoke with more attribute points, raised his defense to Nascent Soul Early Stage, and rapidly cultivated back to the Nascent Soul Stage.

• Chen Changsheng promised Emperor Zuo that he would return in a hundred years to collect his remains, then went back to the Bronze Ancient Hall.
• Chen Changsheng gathered strange objects while studying Dao Patterns and collecting the remains of passing dry bones.
• The system told Chen Changsheng that sleep made him invincible for only ten breaths, and he began a 160-year sleep.
• Chen Changsheng awoke, assigned all 160 new attribute points to defense, and saw that his defense was at Nascent Soul Early Stage.
• Chen Changsheng cultivated using his knowledge and stored resources, advancing from Qi Refining to the Nascent Soul Stage.

Chen Changsheng advanced his investigation of the Bronze Ancient Halls, discovering the truth behind the halls and a clue to Xuanwu Kingdom’s knowledge of the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground. The halls’ teleportation arrays now sent travelers to random destinations, leaving him uncertain whether he could find Nian Sheng.

• Chen Changsheng reached Nascent Soul Late Stage and chose the Heaven Earth Life Severing Array as a way to stop his Spiritual Power from leaking while he slept.
• After spending ninety years reaching another Bronze Ancient Hall, Chen Changsheng buried Emperor Zuo’s bones and received the broken Zhenwu Sword and a golden sheet.
• Chen Changsheng joined the golden sheet to a fragment he had found earlier and recognized the completed page as part of the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique, revealing that Xuanwu Kingdom’s ancestors had entered the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground.
• Chen Changsheng studied the Bronze Ancient Hall’s patterns and learned that living beings and the Giant Hand had once joined forces against the Calamity before fighting again.
• Chen Changsheng realized the Tri-Color Teleportation Arrays had become random, giving him only a one-in-seventeen chance of finding Nian Sheng safely.

Chen Changsheng activated the damaged Tri-Color Teleportation Array and escaped the Desolate Ancient Forbidden Ground inside Hundred Defeats Immortal's Stone Coffin, though spatial rifts battered it during the journey. He arrived in the Ten Thousand Mountains, where the local High Priest mistook his powerful Divine Sense Realm for that of a Heavenly God and led the clansmen in worshipping him.

• Chen Changsheng studied the incomplete Tri-Color Teleportation Array and worried about the hidden powers behind the erased patterns and shifted Bronze Ancient Halls.
• After two months, Chen Changsheng activated the array, sealed himself inside Hundred Defeats Immortal's Stone Coffin, and teleported through spatial rifts.
• The Stone Coffin crashed onto a Sacrificial Altar in the Ten Thousand Mountains, startling a High Priest and the people gathered for a ritual.
• Chen Changsheng tried twenty-eight languages before the High Priest identified the location and asked who he was.
• When their Divine Sense Realms touched, the High Priest collapsed in fear, then worshipped Chen Changsheng as a Heavenly God and ordered his clansmen to do the same.

Chen Changsheng learned about the Ten Thousand Mountains and agreed to mediate the conflict between the White Witch Tribe and the Black Witch Tribe. At the Black Witch village, he discovered that both tribes treated him as a Divine Envoy, leaving him confused about their supposed enmity.

• Chen Changsheng learned the local language and discovered that the Ten Thousand Mountains had no known way out and that its people cultivated venomous insects.
• A Man begged Chen Changsheng to save the White Witch Tribe from the Black Witch Tribe, and he agreed to try mediating their dispute.
• Chen Changsheng accompanied the White Witch High Priest to the nearby Black Witch village and wondered why the two tribes lived so close together.
• The Black Witch Clan Leader probed Chen Changsheng with his Divine Sense Realm, and Chen Changsheng's counterattack made him spit blood.
• The Black Witch Clan Leader stopped his people from attacking Chen Changsheng and said he believed the High Priest's claim that Chen Changsheng was the Divine Envoy, despite the tribes being enemies.

Chen Changsheng learned that the Wu Clan had split into White and Black Witch Tribes to survive a Thunder Beast’s invasion, and agreed to help them find a new home in exchange for help locating the Bronze Ancient Hall. After the Thunder Beast spat on him and dismissed him, Chen Changsheng decided to stay in the Ten Thousand Mountains until he killed it.

• Chen Changsheng learned that the Wu Clan had separated the White and Black Witch Tribes because a Thunder Beast had driven them from their territory.
• Chen Changsheng promised to help the tribes find a place to settle and asked about the Bronze Ancient Hall, which the Thunder Beast had taken from their worship site.
• A Li volunteered to guide Chen Changsheng to the Thunder Beast’s location, Water Moon Grotto Heaven, despite his father’s initial rebuke.
• Chen Changsheng and A Li traveled through the Ten Thousand Mountains, where A Li warned him about dangerous beasts and terrain.
• Chen Changsheng requested an audience with the Thunder Beast, which spat saliva on him twice and ordered him to leave.
• Chen Changsheng took A Li away and declared that he would remain in the Ten Thousand Mountains until he killed the Thunder Beast.

After a Thunder Beast spat on him, Chen Changsheng returned to the Wu Clan village and began preparing to kill it, while warning the clan that the fight might draw in the beast’s entire race. As the Wu Clan helped him build an improved Spirit Gathering Array, Gu Li revealed that their lost Golden Silkworm Gu might be able to overcome the Thunder Beast.

• Chen Changsheng returned to the Wu Clan village with A Li and vowed to kill the Thunder Beast within ten years, inviting the clan to help if they believed he could win.
• Chen Changsheng told A Man that the outside world was dangerous, then gave her a wooden sheep sculpture and asked her to deliver his plans to Gu Li.
• Chen Changsheng considered the risk of provoking the Thunder Beast’s race and organized the Wu Clan to construct an improved Spirit Gathering Array that could also block mountain miasma.
• Gu Li explained that the Thunder Beast’s scales and innate ability countered the Wu Clan’s Gu worms, then revealed that the clan’s lost Golden Silkworm Gu was said to be able to devour anything.

Chen Changsheng discovered that the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique was a mistranslation of the Eight Nine Mysterious Technique and began teaching the correctly translated art to A Li. He realized the technique promised extraordinary power and possibly longevity, leaving him delighted by his discovery.

• Chen Changsheng gave Clan Leader Gu Li two body-tempering techniques for the Wu Clan and went to study the Golden Page in seclusion.
• Chen Changsheng failed to cultivate the translated Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique and learned from A Li that the Golden Page used familiar Wu Clan characters.
• A Li translated the text, revealing that Xuanwu Kingdom's ancestors had mistaken the Eight Nine Mysterious Technique for the Nine Revolutions Mysterious Technique.
• Chen Changsheng passed the Eight Nine Mysterious Technique to A Li, warned him to keep it secret, and told him to call him Teacher.
• Chen Changsheng taught A Li basic cultivation and concluded that the Eight Nine Mysterious Technique contained powerful abilities and might grant longevity.

After ten years of studying the Thunder Beast and teaching A Li and A Man, Chen Changsheng prepared to confront it, while A Li neared the seventh level of the Eight Nine Mysterious Technique. Chen Changsheng had uncovered several strange facts about the beast but no clear weakness, leaving the reason for its presence in Water Moon Grotto Heaven unresolved.

• Chen Changsheng praised A Li for reaching the seventh level of the Eight Nine Mysterious Technique and said they would challenge the Thunder Beast once A Li learned Ground Shrinking Golden Light.
• A Li asked how to judge opponents across cultivation systems, and Chen Changsheng explained that their strengths differed and encouraged him to solve the problems in his theory of combining internal and external cultivation.
• A Man brought food to Chen Changsheng, scolded A Li for teasing her, and served Chen Changsheng while A Li complained about being denied chicken drumsticks.
• A Man asked whether Chen Changsheng had discovered the Thunder Beast's weakness, and he listed its unexplained presence, its failure to attack the Wu Clan, and its sleepiness after eating.
• Chen Changsheng told A Man that the Thunder Beast's strange behavior might help him defeat it.

After years of preparing the Wu Clan, Chen Changsheng took only A Li to Water Moon Grotto Heaven to capture the Thunder Beast. He tricked the beast into swallowing an ordinary stone that left it unable to move, then returned to inspect and taunt it.

• Chen Changsheng told A Li that the two of them would go after the Thunder Beast, explaining the Wu Clan’s ten years of preparation served a larger plan.
• At Water Moon Grotto Heaven, Chen Changsheng offered the Thunder Beast an ordinary stone and claimed it contained immortal gold.
• The Thunder Beast swallowed the stone after Chen Changsheng and A Li left, then suddenly became unable to move.
• Chen Changsheng and A Li returned, and Chen Changsheng struck the Thunder Beast with the Black Tortoise Sword before examining and slapping it.

Chen Changsheng revealed how he had paralyzed the Thunder Beast with two plants and began dissecting it to discover the weaknesses of its scales and body. After the beast died, he told A Li that compassion between humans and other species was misplaced and sent him to bring the others back for a feast.

• A Li asked how Chen Changsheng had immobilized the Thunder Beast, and Chen Changsheng explained that he had studied its feeding habits for ten years.
• Chen Changsheng revealed that Fire Red Flower and Flax Grass paralyzed Thunder Beasts, and that he had baited the beast into consuming their juices.
• Chen Changsheng found a weakness beneath the Thunder Beast's scales and peeled them off while vowing to study its body for weaknesses that could destroy its race.
• Chen Changsheng removed the Thunder Beast's Thunder Core and severed its meridians before taking out its heart and killing it.
• A Li questioned whether the dissection had been cruel, and Chen Changsheng argued that humans owed no such consideration to other species.
• Chen Changsheng sent A Li to bring the others back so they could share the Thunder Beast's meat.

Chen Changsheng secured the Wu Clan’s commitment to fight the Thunder Beasts and spoke with A Man about his long search, his promises to the dead, and his foresight into the future. The Thunder Race learned that Lei Shan had been killed and prepared to mobilize against his killers.

• Chen Changsheng warned the Wu Clan that eating Thunder Beast meat would mark them as enemies of the beasts, and Gu Li ordered the clan to roast and eat it.
• A Man brought Chen Changsheng roasted meat and asked what he would do after the Thunder Beast matter; he said he would leave and continue searching for someone entrusted to him by an old friend.
• Chen Changsheng explained that his search was a promise, not an act of romantic love, and told A Man the story of Nian Sheng, whose feelings he had known but rejected.
• A Man asked whether Chen Changsheng would reject her too, and he confirmed that he would, then revealed that he could see the future and that the Wu Clan would gradually die out.
• A purple Thunder Beast announced that its son Lei Shan, the Thunder Race’s Heaven’s Chosen, had been killed and called for the race to exact blood vengeance.

Chen Changsheng effortlessly killed two early-stage Spirit Transformation Thunder Beasts with the Zhenwu Sword and Golden Page, then took their corpses. Their deaths drove Lei Yun to lead over a thousand Thunder Beasts toward Water Moon Grotto Heaven, where he found Lei Shan’s skull and Chen Changsheng’s taunting message.

• Chen Changsheng killed one Thunder Beast with golden light and severed the other’s claw with sword qi, then pursued and killed the wounded beast.
• Chen Changsheng wondered why the Thunder Beasts were so weak and left with their corpses, unaware that his weapons were powerful treasures.
• After receiving news that two Spirit Transformation experts had fallen, Lei Yun ordered more than a thousand Thunder Beasts to advance at full speed and vowed to avenge Lei Shan.
• Other races in the Ten Thousand Mountains gathered to watch, while the Thunder Race reached the silent area around Water Moon Grotto Heaven.
• Lei Yun found Lei Shan’s skull beside a message from Chen Changsheng saying he had taken the skeleton for soup and warning that there were too many Thunder Beasts to eat.

Lei Yun attacked the Wu Clan after learning that they had eaten his son, Lei Shan, but Chen Changsheng trapped him in the Heaven Earth Life Severing Array and fought him with the formation’s power. As the array closed, Chen Changsheng struck Lei Yun’s head with a massive bone and was surprised when it rang like metal.

• Lei Yun unleashed lightning across a thousand li, then confronted Chen Changsheng and the Wu Clan, who admitted they had eaten Lei Shan.
• Chen Changsheng activated the Heaven Earth Life Severing Array, cutting Lei Yun off from the power of heaven and earth.
• Lei Yun charged Chen Changsheng and sent him crashing through three mountains, but Chen Changsheng survived by blocking with the Golden Page.
• Chen Changsheng ordered the Wu Clan into battle formations to attack the Thunder Beasts while he used Heaven and Earth Avatar to fight Lei Yun.
• As the array closed, Chen Changsheng hit Lei Yun on the head with a massive bone, which rang against him like metal.

Chen Changsheng used the Gluttony Root Bone to suppress the Thunder Beasts’ bloodline while he fled, but Lei Yun’s forces trapped him and threatened the Human Race. He appeared to surrender the bone, then asked Lei Shan what flavor it wanted to be made into, triggering a mysterious effect that left the Thunder Beasts falling and out of control.

• Chen Changsheng struck Lei Yun with the Gluttony Root Bone, learned it suppressed the Beast Race, and fled as Lei Yun and the Thunder Beasts pursued him.
• After a prolonged chase, Lei Yun cornered Chen Changsheng and threatened to kill the Human Race unless he handed over the bone.
• Chen Changsheng asked whether Lei Yun would spare them in exchange for the bone, while Lei Yun refused to make any guarantees and A Li was knocked away for objecting.
• Chen Changsheng approached Lei Shan and asked what flavor it wanted to be made into, causing Thunder Beasts of every cultivation level to fall uncontrollably.
• Chen Changsheng threw a black hidden weapon beside Lei Shan, and its dust spread over Lei Shan, making its body even harder to control.

Chen Changsheng used an anesthetic tailored to the Thunder Race to incapacitate Lei Shan, then removed its Thunder Core and crippled it while revealing that the array had concealed his trap. As the array opened, the watching ferocious beasts saw the aftermath of the Thunder Race’s defeat.

• Chen Changsheng explained that he had spread a Thunder Race anesthetic through the soil and used heated pots beneath the tunnels to drug the Thunder Beasts.
• Chen Changsheng removed Lei Shan’s vital scale and Thunder Core, then severed its meridians, leaving it unable to resist.
• Chen Changsheng revealed that the Heaven Earth Life Severing Array had concealed the drugging operation and kept the anesthetic from dispersing.
• Chen Changsheng told Lei Shan that he had killed its son because the son spat at him twice, and promised to use the Thunder Race’s bodies for materials.
• The ferocious beasts outside the array questioned why the Thunder Race was taking so long, then watched as the Heaven Earth Life Severing Array opened.