Chapter Summaries

The Blind Night Watchman left the Jinghai Gao Clan after sparing Gao Qing, then killed King Dushi at the Linhai Prefecture dock. King Wuguan exploited the aftermath to escape the Nation-Protecting Array, and the Night Watchman turned back when a voice from the Near-Sea Archipelago warned him away.

• Gao Xianchang used his fear and anger to protect Gao Qing, while the Blind Night Watchman understood his ploy and departed to pursue someone more important.
• The Blind Night Watchman killed King Dushi at the dock and left for Jinghai Prefecture.
• King Wuguan rose from among the supposed dead, collected King Dushi's corpse, and broke through the Nation-Protecting Array to escape.
• The Blind Night Watchman returned to the dock, sensed King Wuguan's escape, and pursued him across the sea.
• A powerful voice from the Near-Sea Archipelago ordered the Blind Night Watchman to go back, and he turned around.

Jiang Wang watched Yin Guan battle Yue Leng and saw the curse arts consume Yin Guan’s mind and body. After entering evil, Yin Guan relentlessly pursued Yue Leng, his self-destructive power erupting into cold green flames.

• Jiang Wang remained outside the Cast Iron Black Pillar and watched Yin Guan fight Yue Leng, gaining insight from their clash.
• Yin Guan drove his curse arts to their limit as Yue Leng prolonged the fight, waiting for Yin Guan to wear himself down.
• Yin Guan’s curse arts assimilated him, and he went mad, muttering the curses of countless people.
• Yue Leng tried to withdraw, but Yin Guan pursued him with an instinctive drive to kill.
• Green flames broke free across Yin Guan’s skin, burning coldly as his power destroyed him.

Yue Leng fought Yin Guan after he entered evil and found that the green flames could make his techniques destroy themselves. He used the Authority-Crushing Staff to batter Yin Guan, who continued charging him as the border checkpoint remained out of reach.

• Yue Leng bound Yin Guan with Legalist chains, but Yin Guan's green flames made the chains destroy themselves.
• Yue Leng retreated from Yin Guan's flaming charge, while Jiang Wang worried he might need to help and pretended his injuries left him unable to fight.
• Yue Leng silenced Yin Guan's curses and took a Cast Iron Black Pillar as the Authority-Crushing Staff.
• Yue Leng struck Yin Guan repeatedly with the staff, and Yin Guan kept rising to attack as his injuries worsened and his flames dimmed.
• Jiang Wang watched as the Cast Iron Black Pillars held the battle inside a sealed cage, with the checkpoint toward Rong Kingdom still visible in the distance.

Jiang Wang watched Yue Leng nearly defeat Yin Guan and considered whether he could intervene, but Jiang Yan’s offer required taking over his body. As Yin Guan’s curses faded and his will returned, he became filled with life and proclaimed, “I Am Like Divine Presence!”

• Jiang Wang asked Jiang Yan how to save Yin Guan, then cut off the conversation by sealing the Underworld Candle with the Sea of Soul Flowers.
• Yue Leng battered Yin Guan with the Authority-Crushing Staff as the green flames around him dwindled.
• Jiang Wang noticed that Yin Guan’s expressions of anguish had slowed and that the green in his eyes was fading.
• Yin Guan’s will returned as the cursed thoughts lost their vessel, and the remaining green flames vanished on their own.
• Yin Guan’s black-eyed body regained its vitality and grew firm and heavy as he proclaimed, “I Am Like Divine Presence!”

Yin Guan attained Divine Presence by using Yue Leng’s attacks to temper his curse arts, then escaped Qi State. The Blind Night Watchman arrived after his flight and asked Jiang Wang whether he could someday kill Yin Guan for Great Qi.

• Yin Guan revealed that he had deliberately driven himself into a life-or-death struggle with Yue Leng to break through to Divine Presence.
• Yue Leng realized that his attacks had helped Yin Guan purge his evil thoughts and temper his curse power.
• Yin Guan reached Divine Presence, then broke the Cast Iron Black Pillar and the formation barrier to escape.
• Jiang Wang recognized that Yin Guan had always prioritized attaining Divine Presence and escaping Qi over revenge or fame.
• The Blind Night Watchman arrived too late to stop Yin Guan and asked Jiang Wang if he could kill him for Great Qi someday.

Jiang Wang weighed the Blind Night Watchman’s implied invitation to join the Night Watchmen while Yue Leng tried to keep him in the Green Badges. Yue Leng promised Jiang Wang his Fourth-rank Green Badge promotion and offered to provide a suitable secret art, leaving Jiang Wang’s future affiliation undecided.

• Jiang Wang answered that he was not yet confident he could kill Yin Guan, despite believing he could face any opponent at the same realm.
• Yue Leng took responsibility for failing to capture King Qinguang and said he would request Jiang Wang’s promotion to Fourth-rank Green Badge.
• The Blind Night Watchman vanished without pressing Jiang Wang to join the Night Watchmen.
• Yue Leng asked who had taught Jiang Wang, and Jiang Wang said he had no teacher.
• Yue Leng reflected on having stayed in Qi instead of returning to the Three Punishments Palace after his failed effort to capture King Qinguang.
• Yue Leng promised Jiang Wang the reward he had earned and offered to pass him a national treasury secret art suited to his cultivation.

Jiang Wang accepted Yue Leng’s offer to teach him Prisoner-Binding Chain and set out for Hanging Temple. On the way through Xu Kingdom, he saved a town from Ferocious Beasts but left without revealing the truth behind their existence, questioning his own place in the cultivators’ unspoken understanding.

• Jiang Wang accepted Yue Leng’s offer and learned the Inner Palace-level Legalist technique Prisoner-Binding Chain.
• Yue Leng claimed the secret art Jiang Wang had earned from the national treasury, and Jiang Wang headed southwest toward Hanging Temple.
• Jiang Wang traveled through Xu Kingdom, one of the surviving states descended from the Nine Sun-Rising Kingdoms.
• Jiang Wang helped townsfolk defend their small town from a Ferocious Beast tide but did not pursue the beasts to their nest.
• Jiang Wang left without telling the townsfolk that their rulers had allowed the Ferocious Beasts to exist, and wondered why he had become part of the cultivators’ silence.

Jiang Wang received the Hidden Cloak back from Yin Guan, who offered him a place in Hell’s Gate, then asked Yin Guan to help him investigate how Ferocious Beasts came into being. They entered the forest near Pine Wave City and heard two black-robed figures approaching.

• Yin Guan returned Jiang Wang’s Hidden Cloak, saying his secret art would conceal Jiang Wang from Divine Presence cultivators three times.
• Yin Guan offered Jiang Wang a position as a Yama in Hell’s Gate, but Jiang Wang refused.
• Jiang Wang asked Yin Guan how Ferocious Beasts came into being, and Yin Guan suggested they go see for themselves.
• Jiang Wang and Yin Guan slipped past the garrison into the pine forest near Pine Wave City.
• Yin Guan suddenly vanished, and Jiang Wang hid in the branches as two black-robed figures approached.

Jiang Wang and Yin Guan infiltrated the Pine Forest Beast Nest and discovered that cultivators were gathering and controlling powerful Ferocious Beasts underground. Through a guard’s viewpoint, Jiang Wang then saw a Demon Race elder being brought into the cavern.

• Jiang Wang hid from two Pine Forest Beast Nest guards, and Yin Guan reappeared after they moved on.
• Jiang Wang and Yin Guan followed the guards through the Pine Forest to an underground entrance where cultivators herded Ferocious Beasts.
• At Yin Guan’s instruction, Jiang Wang used the Prisoner-Binding Chain to subdue five cultivators guarding the entrance without killing them.
• Jiang Wang and Yin Guan followed the herd into a cavern containing a vast formation where the Ferocious Beasts lay down.
• Yin Guan used a green-flame technique to show Jiang Wang through a guard’s viewpoint, revealing an Inner Palace cultivator and the cavern’s formation.
• Jiang Wang saw two cultivators bring in a prison cart carrying an elderly member of the Demon Race with a black horn.

Jiang Wang discovered that Xu State used captured members of the Demon Race in a Magic Array to turn Ferocious Beasts into Demon Beasts, providing the Vein-Opening Pills that fueled cultivation. He realized that Qi State avoided Ferocious Beasts by shifting their dangers onto smaller states, which supplied Qi with tribute.

• Jiang Wang saw a one-horned Demon Race captive brought into a Magic Array while Xu State cultivators discussed using him.
• The Magic Array drained the captive and transformed some Ferocious Beasts into Demon Beasts by forming Dao Veins within them.
• Jiang Wang inferred that living members of the Demon Race were needed to produce Demon Beasts and that this process supplied Vein-Opening Pills.
• Jiang Wang suspected that rare pills might also be made by extracting Dao Veins from powerful members of the Demon Race and remembered worlds where the Demon Race might live.
• Xu State cultivators complained that Qi State sent them frail Demon Race captives and demanded more Vein-Opening Pills for stronger ones.
• Jiang Wang realized that Qi State's tribute system shifted the danger of Ferocious Beasts to smaller states, leaving Qi's people free to travel beyond the wilds.

Jiang Wang and Yin Guan uncovered how small states used the Demon Race to produce Vein-Opening Pills, then left Pine Forest weighed down by the cost of that system. Yin Guan’s secret art blinded two Xu State guards, and Xu State’s Lady Xidu, Song Lian, mistook the attack for a Qi State warning and ordered the entire batch’s yield paid in tribute.

• Jiang Wang learned that small states raised Ferocious Beasts by catalyzing Demon Beasts with the Demon Race, then paid part of their Vein-Opening Pill yield in tribute to powerful nations.
• A dying one-horned Demon Race elder questioned why he had to suffer, and the Xu State cultivator answered that the world had no answer for everything.
• Jiang Wang and Yin Guan left Pine Forest, while Jiang Wang wondered why Yin Guan had cared enough to investigate the Beast Nest.
• Yin Guan’s secret art left two Xu State guards blind after he borrowed their vision, and a powerful cultivator from Xu Capital arrived the next morning.
• Lady Xidu, Song Lian, judged the blinding a warning from a Qi State expert and ordered Xu State to pay the entire batch’s yield in tribute to Qi State.

Hai Zongming realized Hu Shaomeng had deceived him about the Red Makeup Mirror and began investigating who had taken it. Meanwhile, Jiang Wang reached the Hanging Temple but hesitated to enter because he wanted to know whether Kujue was there.

• Hai Zongming deciphered an ancient text and learned that the abandoned Sea Tower’s core treasure had been the Red Makeup Mirror.
• Hai Zongming realized Hu Shaomeng had tricked him, then considered whether Zhu Biqiong, her master, or another disciple had killed Hu Shaomeng and taken the mirror.
• Hai Zongming decided to investigate who under Zhu Suyao’s master had left the Near-Sea Archipelago around the time Hu Shaomeng died.
• Jiang Wang arrived outside the Buddha Land of the Hanging Temple and wondered whether Kujue was there before entering.

Jiang Wang visited the Hanging Temple on Master Guanyan’s behalf, hoping to avoid the monk Kubing, but was recognized by Monk Jingli and pulled into an awkward reunion. The abbot intervened to ensure Jiang Wang was invited inside rather than forced, while Kubing continued insisting that Jiang Wang was his disciple.

• Jiang Wang asked an old farmer whether Master Kubing had returned to the temple, then headed for the Hanging Temple’s Mountain Gate when the farmer said he had heard nothing.
• Jiang Wang introduced himself to the guest monk, but Monk Jingli recognized him and called for Kubing.
• Kubing arrived, called Jiang Wang his disciple, and grabbed his hand despite Jiang Wang’s attempts to explain himself.
• Jiang Wang announced his official titles and said he had come at Master Guanyan’s behest, but Kubing and Jingli focused on Guanyan’s seniority.
• Abbot Kuming ordered that Jiang Wang be invited inside, prompting Kubing to release him while still claiming him as a disciple.

Jiang Wang arrived at the Hanging Temple with Kujue and Jingli, intending to report his meeting with Guanyan to Abbot Kuming. Kujue immediately stirred up a dispute with Kubing over temple positions, leaving the matter of Guanyan’s message unresolved.

• Jiang Wang flew to the Hanging Temple’s main hall with Kujue and Jingli, while Kujue promised them future leadership roles.
• Abbot Kuming greeted Jiang Wang, who began explaining that he had met Guanyan in the Seven Star Tower Secret Realm.
• Kujue interrupted Jiang Wang to demand that they negotiate benefits before discussing Guanyan.
• Kubing challenged Kujue for speaking recklessly, and Kujue accused him of stealing a reed-flower chicken over a century earlier.
• Kujue called Kubing unfit to lead the Guanshi Courtyard and offered to take the position, prompting Kubing to challenge him to a fight.

Jiang Wang returned Master Guanyan’s robe to the Hanging Temple and learned that Guanyan had only wanted it burned before his teacher’s grave. As the robe burned at the Dingyu Pagoda, Guanyan’s voice spoke of his choice to abandon the path to Buddhahood.

• Kujue urged the Hanging Temple to compensate Jiang Wang, but Jiang refused and presented Guanyan’s robe to Kuming.
• Jiang Wang explained that Guanyan had left only a fragment of his True Spirit and had asked for his robe to be burned before his teacher’s grave.
• Kudi revealed that Guanyan’s teacher, Master Zhixiang, had died five hundred years earlier and was buried in the Dingyu Pagoda.
• Kuming led Jiang Wang to the Dingyu Pagoda, where Jiang burned Guanyan’s robe with a Flame Flower.
• Guanyan’s voice came through the burning robe, asking forgiveness and declaring that he would never become a Buddha.

Jiang Wang helped Guanyan sever his ties to the Hanging Temple, and Guanyan chose to remain in the Forest Sea Source Realm with Xiao Fan. After Jiang Wang left, the temple’s leaders debated how to deal with Guanyan until Zen Master Zhie urged them to let the matter rest.

• Guanyan’s monk’s robe burned away, and Jiang Wang declined the Hanging Temple’s offer of compensation before leaving with Kujue and Monk Jingli.
• Kudi argued that Guanyan should be found and punished if he had not repaid his debt to the Hanging Temple, while Kuming and Kubing defended him.
• Zen Master Zhie arrived and asked the temple to end the matter, recalling how Guanyan had been cherished by his mentors and once considered as a future abbot.
• Kudi insisted that Guanyan’s exceptional talent was no reason to ignore the temple’s rules, and Zen Master Zhie remarked that Guanshi Courtyard’s chiefs had always been rigid.

Zen Master Zhie revealed that Guanyan had used five hundred years of Merit to create a Golden Body for Master Dingyu, convincing Kudi that Guanyan no longer owed the Hanging Temple. Outside the temple, Kujue tried to reconnect with Jiang Wang, but Jiang Wang slipped away while Kujue scolded Jingli.

• Kudi confronted Zen Master Zhie and insisted that he was upholding the rules by pursuing Guanyan.
• Zen Master Zhie pointed out the new Golden Body beside Master Dingyu's, explaining that it had been formed from Guanyan's Merit and left as a gift to the Hanging Temple.
• Kudi admitted he had nearly wronged a virtuous elder and volunteered to face the wall for a month.
• Kujue followed Jiang Wang outside the Mountain Gate and questioned him about the fire Daoist Art he had used.
• Kujue scolded Jingli for failing to copy scriptures, and Jiang Wang used the distraction to disappear.

Jiang Wang traveled across Star Moon Plain and discovered that his Fire Totem cultivation let him sense Star Power linked to Yuheng. Guanyan then contacted him through that Star Power from the distant Forest Sea Source Realm, leaving Jiang Wang wondering how their connection was possible.

• Jiang Wang left the Hanging Temple and flew northwest toward Zheng State, avoiding Xu State by crossing Star Moon Plain.
• Jiang Wang stopped for evening cultivation and sensed Star Power while practicing the Fire Source Canon.
• Jiang Wang realized he might be able to absorb the Star Power and recreate the sword strike he had used in the Life and Death Chess.
• Jiang Wang traced the Star Power to Yuheng and received a message from Guanyan through it.
• Guanyan told Jiang Wang that he remained in the Forest Sea Source Realm and that burning the monk's robe had helped him put his past to rest.

Jiang Wang spoke with Guanyan through Yuheng Star Power on the Star Moon Plain, learning how Guanyan had reached him from the Forest Sea Source Realm and asking him about cultivation. Their conversation ended at dawn, leaving Jiang Wang eager to meet with Guanyan again.

• Jiang Wang asked Guanyan how he could communicate across worlds, and Guanyan explained that Yuheng Star Power connected the Forest Sea Source Realm and the Present World.
• Guanyan said he had locked onto the Present World's location through the monk's robe and could reach Jiang Wang because the Star Moon Plain was close to the Star River.
• Jiang Wang asked when Guanyan and Grandmother Xiaofan would marry, and Guanyan replied that he still could not manifest himself.
• Guanyan told Jiang Wang he had contacted him to see his homeland and speak with someone from home, so Jiang Wang suggested they discuss cultivation.
• Jiang Wang and Guanyan talked through the night, with Guanyan answering Jiang Wang's questions until dawn.
• After Guanyan ended the conversation, Jiang Wang decided to return to the Star Moon Plain and regretted not asking where else he could contact him.

Hai Zongming spoke with Zhu Biqiong about Hu Shaomeng’s death and tried to learn about the friend who had helped kill him. After Zhu Biqiong named Jiang Wang, Hai Zongming hid his concern about crossing the Qi State prodigy, and Zhu Biqiong later turned toward a man shouting for his senior sister.

• Hai Zongming apologized to Zhu Biqiong for Hu Shaomeng’s actions and asked where Hu Shaomeng had been buried.
• Zhu Biqiong told Hai Zongming that Hu Shaomeng had been burned with the house and that a friend had helped kill him.
• Hai Zongming offered to reward Zhu Biqiong’s friend and teased her about being in love with him as he tried to learn his name.
• Zhu Biqiong named her friend as Jiang Wang, and Hai Zongming realized that moving against the Qi State prodigy would be dangerous.
• Hai Zongming offered to help Zhu Biqiong if she ever needed it, then walked away.
• A high-foreheaded man hurried through the crowded area, shouting for his senior sister, and Zhu Biqiong turned to look.