Chapter Summaries

Zhao Cheng absorbed Daoist Sheng Kong’s sword-path wisdom and power through the Ten Directions Samsara Chapter as Daoist Dongyue unleashed his ultimate Vacuum Seven Kills Seal. Daoist Dongyue reached a final state of enlightenment, ready to kill himself along with all things in pursuit of rebirth.

• Zhao Cheng’s dharmic power surged as Daoist Sheng Kong’s century of sword-path wisdom fused with his own cultivation.
• Daoist Dongyue struck Zhao Cheng with the Vacuum Seven Kills Seal, a lineage technique he had developed after decades of meditation.
• Daoist Dongyue pushed the seal beyond its seven kills by adding the will to kill himself.
• Daoist Dongyue’s life flame dwindled as his power expanded, and he grasped the possibility of rebirth after the Primordial Spirit’s extinction.
• Daoist Dongyue’s fierce presence turned gentle as he reached the state of hearing the Dao in the morning and dying content in the evening.

Daoist Dongyue attained the Dao but was killed by Zhao Cheng, who devoured the Dao Fruits of his opponents and survived Miro Daoist’s divine sword. Zhao Cheng became the Primordial Heavenly Demon, while Fan Qingmeng received a plan from the ancient being Qing to try to turn him back when he reached his strongest.

• Daoist Dongyue attained the Dao and attacked Zhao Cheng with mind-image spacetime, but Zhao Cheng shattered it and killed him.
• Daoist Dingwei and Daoist Rongyang struck Zhao Cheng, who devoured Daoist Dongyue’s Dao Fruit and killed them with fused powers.
• Miro Daoist used the Primordial True Chapter’s first sword to pierce Zhao Cheng’s heart, but Zhao Cheng’s demonic transformation made him the Primordial Heavenly Demon.
• Miro Daoist and the Primordial True Chapter crumbled, and Zhao Cheng devoured Miro Daoist’s Dao Fruit and drew power from his Primordial status.
• Fan Qingmeng fled the battlefield and later received a message from Qing that the light within Zhao Cheng’s darkness could reverse his corruption when he was at his strongest.

Liu Guangzheng reflected on the failed attempt by five great masters to kill the Heavenly Demon and on the political and economic challenges facing his rule. He concluded that his greatest shortage was not money, but time.

• Liu Guangzheng learned that five great masters had failed to assassinate the Heavenly Demon and accepted that their certainty had led to their deaths.
• Liu Guangzheng considered how difficult it was to unite the realm and how speaking openly about the Daoists could endanger his rule.
• Liu Guangzheng planned to fund a new army by selling glass, soap, and firearms to wealthy families, while weakening his opponents.
• Liu Guangzheng reconsidered his long-term plan to introduce paper currency, recognizing that currency needed to be backed by tangible assets and national credit.
• Liu Guangzheng sighed and realized that time, rather than money, was what he lacked most.

Liu Guangzheng inspected the nearly completed blast furnaces and uncovered widespread corruption involving palace golden bricks. After ordering the bricks examined, he issued an edict that led to a bloody purge of officials in Divine Capital.

• Liu Guangzheng inspected the blast furnaces being built outside the Capital City and examined the palace golden bricks used to line them.
• Liu Guangzheng changed his route from the south side of the worksite to the west, where officials had prepared a stack of bricks to conceal inferior goods.
• Liu Guangzheng sensed the officials’ unease and ordered his men to peel back the golden bricks layer by layer.
• An old official collapsed and died of fright as chaos broke out at the worksite.
• Liu Guangzheng issued an imperial edict, and the next day more than a hundred officials were beheaded, their clans exterminated, and their homes confiscated.

Workers at an ironworks in the Southern Wasteland read a newspaper and recalled the suffering they had endured under the puppet dynasty, contrasting it with their improved lives under the Great New. The news described plans to train workers in firearms and rewards for reporting corruption.

• Old Feng read aloud a report that officials in the puppet dynasty had sold good bricks and used inferior ones to build furnaces, leading to hundreds of officials being killed or punished.
• The workers shared memories of starvation, corrupt taxes, and brutal officials under the puppet dynasty, and expressed relief at their lives under the Great New.
• Old Feng read that factories across the nation would gradually introduce firearms training so workers could defend their homes and country.
• Old Feng recounted that a worker who reported someone secretly selling factory iron to mountain folk had received a Medal of Honor, merit, and protections for his descendants.

The chapter described Great New’s protections for workers and its tightly controlled local government, which had secured Zhao Cheng’s rule in the Southern Wasteland. It ended with workers eating beneath slogans praising Zhao Cheng and the state, as the people’s loyalty continued to grow.

• Old Feng’s announcement that a worker had earned a place on the Honor Roll sparked excitement among the factory crowd.
• The chapter explained how the Honor Roll protected its members and how the Black-Clad Guard and court troops investigated abuses by local officials.
• Great New’s reserve officials and mass replacement procedures helped prevent local corruption and defection, strengthening Zhao Cheng’s hold over the Southern Wasteland.
• The workers went to the cafeteria, where they ate their fill of rice and saw portraits of Zhao Cheng and slogans praising production and military success.
• The chapter described slogans throughout the Southern Wasteland as steadily drawing people toward Zhao Cheng and Great New.

Feng Shi eagerly prepared to join a street parade promoting the New Nation while studying hard to become literate and pursue a future as a technician or engineer. He arrived early at the assembly point, where the crowd waited for the officially scheduled start.

• Feng Shi told a fellow worker that he would attend the next day's street parade.
• Feng Shi returned to his factory-assigned room and practiced memorizing characters, hoping literacy would let him study further and travel for work.
• Feng Shi studied late into the night by an oil lamp made from an ironmaking byproduct.
• Feng Shi washed at the riverside and arrived early at the parade assembly point, where the crowd waited for the registered start time.

Feng Shi and the people around him celebrated the new nation’s transformation as vast processions spread its slogans and cowed former gentry and would-be wrongdoers. After three years of upheaval, the new nation’s rising fortune drew Daoists into the Southern Wasteland, where some defected to its side.

• Feng Shi reflected on his former poverty and felt a stronger identification with the new nation as he saw its people thriving.
• A huge procession marched through factory districts and villages, chanting for the new nation and General Yingtian.
• Former Land Lords and gentry feared the crowds and the new order, while the marches’ calls to kill evildoers frightened potential wrongdoers into obedience.
• The new nation’s public security improved, and its fortune gathered into a blazing sun that seemed poised to sweep away evil.
• Daoists sent to gather intelligence in the Southern Wasteland were alarmed by its strange phenomena, and some rogue Daoists defected to the new nation.
• Three years passed amid the nation’s great transformation.

Over three years, Zhao Cheng’s Wu Kingdom built steam engines and a locomotive while Zhao Cheng forged the Peace Army into a powerful force. Meanwhile, Liu Guangzheng modernized Great Cang’s weapons and military by auctioning court assets, leaving him with two new armies shaped by the court’s entrenched family ties.

• The Wu Kingdom developed a steam engine and built its first steam locomotive and a three-hundred-meter railway, with Zhao Cheng manufacturing precision parts.
• Zhao Cheng established a ten-thousand-strong Peace Army equipped with magazine rifles and supported by twenty thousand logistical personnel who served as reserves.
• Liu Guangzheng directed nearly ten thousand researchers, including seven Human Immortals, in developing Great Cang’s firearms and gunpowder weapons.
• Liu Guangzheng auctioned court rights to mines, rivers, and forests to raise funds, protecting winners while punishing corrupt bidders and officials.
• Liu Guangzheng formed a six-thousand-strong Azure Dragon Guard from poor families and a twenty-thousand-strong Azure Feather Army from powerful clans and the imperial family.

Liu Guangzheng strengthened Great Cang by expanding industry, arming its forces, and allowing local militias to grow, even as these policies empowered regional leaders. As the fourth year began, Zhao Cheng ended three years of silence and ordered the plank roads repaired, alarming the entire realm.

• Liu Guangzheng introduced labor-saving farm tools and used court funds to stabilize grain prices and recruit workers.
• Liu Guangzheng offered Daoists destiny fortune to produce firearms, then permitted private gun purchases to fund the court and hinder Zhao Cheng.
• Liu Guangzheng expanded the Azure Dragon Guard to one hundred thousand armed troops and allowed local officials and clans to train militias.
• Great Cang's local forces grew to millions, weakening central control as provincial leaders and powerful clans strengthened their armies.
• Zhao Cheng sent craftsmen to repair the plank roads after remaining inactive in the Southern Wasteland for three years.

Zhao Cheng mobilized the Southern Wasteland to rebuild its plank roads, with hundreds of thousands volunteering and the work expected to finish in three months. News of the people’s unity alarmed the imperial court, where Liu Guangzheng denounced Zhao Cheng’s preparations as rebellion.

• Zhao Cheng used the rebuilding of the plank roads as a pretext to mobilize workers and prepare a route out of the Southern Wasteland.
• A public campaign drew two hundred thousand volunteers, despite at least eight hundred thousand being turned away, and shortened the roadwork to three months.
• The powerful clans and imperial court learned of the mass mobilization and feared the Southern Wasteland’s unity and military strength.
• Liu Guangzheng read a memorial about Zhao Cheng’s actions and shouted that they were rebellion.
• Liu Guangzheng had restrained the Imperial Uncle rather than kill him, intending to preserve the court’s balance and use him as a political pawn.

Liu Guangzheng realized Zhao Cheng’s Southern Wasteland had become a far greater threat than he had expected and decided he could not afford to wait. He issued an edict offering kingships and hereditary autonomy to eleven war leaders if they defeated the Heaven-Answering Kingdom, shaking the realm and risking the dynasty’s unity.

• Liu Guangzheng concluded that Zhao Cheng had united the Southern Wasteland with extraordinary speed and that delaying war would leave his realm vulnerable.
• Liu Guangzheng resolved to attack the Southern Wasteland immediately, even if the conflict brought mutual destruction.
• Liu Guangzheng decreed that eleven men who helped destroy the Heaven-Answering Kingdom could become hereditary kings with authority to establish their own courts and systems.
• The imperial edict astonished the realm, as people recognized that granting such legitimacy could fragment Great Cang into competing states.
• Some observers feared Liu Guangzheng had lost his mind, while others understood the Southern Wasteland’s danger and admired his resolve.

Liu Guangzheng dreamed that he had lived as Jun, an Earth Emperor who united tribes, ascended into the Void, and began to understand that order was the path to greater power. He woke with no memory of the dream as a mysterious mark on his brow vanished.

• Liu Guangzheng dreamed that he had become Jun, a gifted child who seized leadership of his tribe and resolved to create civilization.
• Jun united surrounding tribes, developed farming and governing systems, and expanded his rule over a population of more than one hundred thousand.
• Jun divided his territory into ninety-nine Zhou and appointed loyal subordinates as kings to govern them.
• After Jun died, his soul ascended into the Void and created a Divine Dynasty, where his people and descendants gained eternal life.
• Jun studied the Void, befriended and named several Void lifeforms, and conceived the idea of establishing a Heavenly Court to bring order to the Void.
• Liu Guangzheng woke without remembering the dream, and the mysterious mark on his brow flickered and disappeared.

Two months after consolidating the Southern Wasteland, Zhao Cheng prepared to march against the forces beyond it, leading a vast army from Heaven-Answering City. Halfway through the campaign, part of his force left the march and entered the mountains, while the enemy’s careful defenses made a secret crossing through the Chain Mountains impossible.

• Zhao Cheng commanded six hundred thousand regular troops, backed by two million militia and millions of civilians trained to use firearms and cannons.
• Zhao Cheng rallied his army from Heaven-Answering City and ordered the entire force to set out.
• Zhao Cheng’s officials watched as the Southern Wasteland’s army began its march toward Heaven’s End Pass.
• Half a month into the march, a small portion of Zhao Cheng’s troops turned away and plunged into the mountain forests.
• The enemy had sealed Heaven’s End Pass with nearly a million troops and guarded the Chain Mountains, whose mapped terrain offered no hidden passage.

Zhao Cheng led thirty thousand Heaven-Answering Army troops through a preplanned mountain route, using reservists and cached supplies to preserve his regular forces for battle. He aimed to surprise and seize the blockhouses guarding the exits from the Southern Wasteland, not attack Heaven's End Pass directly.

• Zhao Cheng marched with ten thousand regular troops and twenty thousand reservists, who carried supplies while the regulars conserved their strength.
• The army followed marked ropes and prepared mountain paths, crossing steep slopes and ravines as it advanced at great speed.
• Zhao Cheng avoided a direct assault on Heaven's End Pass because its hundreds of thousands of defenders could overwhelm his smaller force.
• Zhao Cheng planned to surprise the enemy blockhouses along the mountain passes, seize the exits, and use rifles to hold off reinforcements.

The army crossed a vast rift in the Chain Mountains using a reinforced zip line, clearing the natural barrier between the Southern Wasteland and the rest of the land. At Heaven's End Pass, Liu Guangzheng appointed Sun Yuantai commander-in-chief and Cao Zheng and Sun Wan as deputies, while Cao Zheng cautiously sent medicine to Li Tonghai.

• Zhao Cheng's true body considered the rift an ancient wound in the Great Dao, while his Daoist body remained unaware of that knowledge.
• The army used a heavy, reinforced rope and pulley assemblies to carry soldiers across the rift.
• Liu Guangzheng appointed Sun Yuantai to command the southern campaign, with Cao Zheng and Sun Wan as deputy commanders.
• Cao Zheng recalled the World-Destroying Divine Thunder that had terrified him and chose not to provoke the court's power.
• Cao Zheng secretly sent medicine to Li Tonghai.

Li Tonghai assessed Cao Zheng’s offer to aid the Heaven-Answering Army and decided to report that Cao Zheng could help their campaign against Heaven’s End. He sent the message to Zhao Cheng, leaving Cao Zheng’s allegiance to be handled by the emperor.

• Li Tonghai asked Shen Wenxuan to judge whether Cao Zheng’s offer of allegiance was genuine, and Shen Wenxuan estimated a twenty-percent chance it was a ruse.
• Shen Wenxuan argued that Cao Zheng would support whoever seemed likely to win, while Li Tonghai noted that the World-Destroying Divine Thunder had left Cao Zheng deeply shaken.
• Li Tonghai decided Cao Zheng could reduce the Heaven-Answering Army’s losses and hasten its siege of the city, then prepared a report for His Majesty.
• Li Tonghai encoded the message in Zhao Cheng’s secret script, sealed it in a tube, and sent it by a specially modified bird.

Zhao Cheng treated Cao Zheng’s surrender as a minor matter and ordered his army to rest before advancing to seize the plank road. As Cao Zheng watched the sunset from Heaven’s End Pass, he sensed an era ending and resolved to watch the sunrise, just before a soldier summoned him to a banquet.

• Li Tonghai reflected on the Yellow Heaven Army’s rise and decline, and on Cao Zheng’s surrender to Zhao Cheng.
• Zhao Cheng received news of Cao Zheng’s surrender and ordered the army to rest for a day before leaving the Southern Wasteland to seize the plank road.
• Zhao Cheng explained that he sought to build an aura of invincibility through decisive military victories rather than assassination.
• Cao Zheng watched the red sunset at Heaven’s End Pass, felt that an era was ending, and decided to watch the sunrise the next morning.
• A young soldier told Cao Zheng that the Marshal had prepared a banquet and requested his presence.

Cao Zheng traveled to Sun Yuantai’s residence, reflecting on Sun’s skill in uniting the coalition forces and on the Heaven-Answering Kingdom’s growing power. He arrived at a banquet and overheard officials confidently planning how to defeat Zhao’s forces, despite his own intention to surrender.

• Cao Zheng left the city wall and went to Sun Yuantai’s residence as the coalition’s many factions gathered there.
• Cao Zheng considered how Sun Yuantai had organized more than a hundred factions into communities and selected respected spokesmen to manage them.
• Cao Zheng reflected on the World-Destroying Divine Thunder, the exhausted rich uranium ore, and Liu Guangzheng’s effort to make a nuclear bomb.
• Cao Zheng recalled dreaming that he had accepted Wu Yuan’s surrender and taken the Southern Wasteland, then remembered that Wu Yuan had died years earlier.
• Cao Zheng arrived at the banquet and overheard officials outlining plans to wear down Zhao’s army and defeat it with the coalition’s terrain and defenses.

Cao Zheng weighed the coalition’s strengths against Zhao Cheng’s weapons and personal prowess, while Xing Zhiyong’s confident speech attracted the assembled leaders. Sun Yuantai then rallied the gathering to punish Zhao Cheng, but Cao Zheng realized that Sun’s insults against Zhao Cheng’s parents had sealed his household’s fate.

• Cao Zheng doubted Xing Zhiyong’s judgment because he ignored their army’s weaknesses, Zhao Cheng’s weapons, and Zhao Cheng’s martial ability.
• Leaders and generals crowded around Xing Zhiyong, praising him and considering recruiting him.
• Sun Yuantai arrived, quieted the gathering, and announced that the banquet would welcome new arrivals and finalize plans for battle.
• Sun Yuantai denounced Zhao Cheng and called for his execution, prompting the gathered leaders to shout for Heaven’s Punishment upon Rebel Zhao.
• Cao Zheng concluded that Sun Yuantai had doomed his household by insulting Zhao Cheng’s parents.