Chapter Summaries

Huang Chao swiftly captured Fengxiang and Summer Prefecture, expanding his Ghostface Army to forty thousand before meeting the Anti-Rebel Alliance in the River Center salt marshes. After slaughtering their challengers in a series of duels, he led his troops into battle, where the allied army’s arrows failed to harm them and the fighting began with heavy allied losses.

• Huang Chao captured the Fengxiang Military Governorship, recruited and drugged eighteen thousand local soldiers, and left eight thousand troops to garrison the city.
• Huang Chao seized the Summer Prefecture Circuit, expanded his army again, and marched forty thousand Ghostface soldiers toward the River Center Circuit.
• Huang Chao killed seven allied generals in duels, then slew twenty more at once after the allied commander challenged him.
• Huang Chao led the Ghostface Army in a direct charge against the Anti-Rebel Alliance’s one hundred fifty thousand troops.
• The allied army’s arrows barely marked the Ghostface soldiers’ armor, and its forces lost eighteen thousand men before the two armies collided.

Huang Chao and the Ghostface Army routed the anti-rebel coalition at Hundred-Li Salt Marsh, killing its military governors and leaving the battlefield strewn with corpses. Huang Chao ordered survivors to be found and offered willing surrenders a chance to join the Ghostface Army, which grew to more than sixty thousand soldiers.

• Huang Chao led forty thousand Ghostface soldiers in a charge that split the coalition and slaughtered its troops across Hundred-Li Salt Marsh.
• Huang Chao cut through the coalition with the Tiger Soul Blade, driving its soldiers into a panicked rout.
• The fleeing military governors tried to escape, but Huang Chao hurled the Tiger Soul Blade after them and killed them.
• After the battle ended near dusk, Huang Chao ordered the Ghostface Army to search the corpse heaps for surviving coalition soldiers and officers.
• Huang Chao gave willing survivors a pill and made them Ghostface soldiers, increasing the army's strength to more than sixty thousand.

After the Battle of Salt Marsh, Huang Chao rapidly conquered the realm and founded the Great Jing. In Chang'an, he rejected becoming emperor and proposed abolishing aristocratic privilege, while Tian Qian warned that the plan could provoke rebellion.

• Huang Chao led the expanding Ghostface Army across the realm, capturing military districts and defeating or subduing their governors.
• Within two months of the Tang dynasty's fall, Huang Chao unified the realm and entered Chang'an.
• Tian Qian praised Huang Chao's choice to name the new state Jing and asked him to choose an era name and imperial title.
• Huang Chao declared that he would not be emperor and that Great Jing would have no imperial clan, aristocrats, or people above commoners.
• Tian Qian begged Huang Chao to preserve titles and ranks, warning that abolishing them could turn powerful figures against him.

Huang Chao established the Jing Dynasty without an emperor or nobles and ordered all farmland placed under state ownership. As officials began surveying the land, elites resisted through executions, armed preparations, and widespread propaganda, and clashes broke out across the realm.

• Tian Qian urged Huang Chao to reward soldiers and preserve the old order, but Huang Chao said he would make a world without emperors or nobles.
• Huang Chao proclaimed the Jing Dynasty, named himself Pillar of the Nation, and declared all farmland state property, forbidding private landownership.
• Civil officials protested the decree; Huang Chao threatened them, confiscated some estates, and had officials who persisted in opposing him beheaded.
• Landholders across the realm secretly raised armed forces, while Confucian gentry spread poems and a children's rhyme denouncing Huang Chao's land policy.
• Huang Chao's land-survey officials reached the provinces and began clashing with local strongmen.

Huang Chao’s campaign against the landowning elite continued as Daoist and Buddhist cultivators revived Li Yuanba to attack him. Huang Chao defeated and recruited Li Yuanba, then sent him to hunt down the cultivators who had resurrected him.

• The Ghostface Army crushed resistance from merchants, gentry, and local magnates, confiscating their land and property for the state.
• Daoist and Buddhist leaders revived Li Yuanba, who devoured heavenly lightning and cultivators’ blood essence before racing toward Chang'an.
• Huang Chao struck Li Yuanba with the Tiger Soul Blade, wounding his body and soul, then restored him with pills and made him his subordinate.
• Huang Chao ordered Li Yuanba to lead soldiers against the Daoist and Buddhist cultivators plotting to unite forces against him.
• Li Yuanba accepted the mission and insisted he could kill the cultivators alone with his Purple-Gold Hammer.

Li Yuanba led two hundred Ghostface Army soldiers to hunt cultivators, while Daoist Mingwei and Chan Master Hongyuan tried and failed to persuade Luo Zhiyuan to join their rebellion. As Li Yuanba arrived at the Luo residence, Mingwei concealed it with an illusion array, but Li Yuanba’s roar shattered the spell.

• Huang Chao reduced Li Yuanba’s escort to two hundred elite soldiers, and Li Yuanba left Chang'an with the defected advisers to hunt cultivators.
• Daoist Mingwei and Chan Master Hongyuan urged Luo Zhiyuan to oppose Huang Chao, but Luo Zhiyuan refused and defended the court’s land reforms.
• A young Daoist warned that Li Yuanba and two hundred Ghostface soldiers were approaching the Luo residence.
• Daoist Mingwei raised an illusion array that made the Luo residence disappear, allowing the envoys and Luo Zhiyuan to hide inside.
• Li Yuanba roared at Daoist Mingwei, and his voice shattered the illusion array.

Li Yuanba killed Daoist Mingwei, Chan Master Hongyuan, and the military families resisting Huang Chao’s Equal-Field Decree, leaving Great Jing’s border defenses dangerously weak. Huang Chao announced that he would lead an army to wipe out the foreign tribes and warned Tian Qian to keep the nobles and great clans in check while he was away.

• Li Yuanba revealed that he followed Huang Chao’s orders, then crushed Daoist Mingwei, Chan Master Hongyuan, and their disciples.
• Luo Zhiyuan admired Li Yuanba and decided the Luo Family should emerge from seclusion and serve Great Jing.
• Li Yuanba’s purge left only the Luo, Qin, and Pei branches among Great Jing’s military families and severely weakened the border forces.
• Tian Qian warned Huang Chao that foreign tribes might exploit Great Jing’s weakened borders to invade.
• Huang Chao declared he would lead an army out the next day to destroy the foreign tribes and threatened to kill landholding nobles and great clans, then Tian Qian, if they remained when he returned.

Huang Chao chose the Tibetan Kingdom as Great Jing’s first target and sent Trisong Detsen a declaration of war demanding that he gather his soldiers for slaughter. Trisong Detsen prepared to defend Stone Fort City, where Huang Chao arrived with tens of thousands of Ghostface Army soldiers.

• Huang Chao chose the Tibetan Kingdom as his first target and sent an envoy to deliver his declaration of war to Trisong Detsen.
• Trisong Detsen tore up the declaration in fury and ordered cavalry to capture the envoy, but the pursuers were killed and the envoy disappeared.
• Trisong Detsen mobilized troops and commanders to defend Stone Fort City, the key eastern stronghold against an invasion.
• Huang Chao led tens of thousands of Ghostface Army soldiers to the outskirts of Stone Fort City without siege equipment.

Huang Chao’s army destroyed the Tibetan Kingdom’s eastern defenses and Lhasa with overwhelming force. Trisong Detsen concluded that resistance was impossible and that surrender to Huang Chao was the only option.

• Huang Chao ordered Li Yuanba to smash Stone Fort City’s walls, and the Ghostface Army slaughtered the city’s soldiers and civilians.
• Huang Chao’s army captured Shanzhou and Kuozhou, then reached Red Ridge before Lun Kongre could organize its defenses.
• Huang Chao killed Lun Kongre and the Iron Sons with a blade aura, and the Ghostface Army massacred Red Ridge.
• Trisong Detsen summoned Tibetan Bon masters to destroy Huang Chao’s army, but Huang Chao obliterated Potala Palace, the masters, and Lhasa with successive blade strikes.
• Trisong Detsen learned that Lhasa had been destroyed and accepted that the Tibetan Kingdom had no choice but to surrender to Huang Chao.

Huang Chao confronted the Tibetan ministers at Zhamazhi Sang Palace and was challenged by the Lu God, who shielded the palace with river water and proposed a wager. After his first attack was deflected, Huang Chao used drones to investigate the water and began searching for its mysterious power.

• Huang Chao demanded to know where Trisong Detsen was, then killed the kneeling Tibetan ministers with his blade qi.
• The Lu God sent a river rushing through the air to deflect Huang Chao’s attack and protect Zhamazhi Sang Palace.
• Trisong Detsen’s attendant claimed the Lu God had descended to save Tibet, and the Lu God enveloped the palace in water.
• The Lu God wagered that Huang Chao could not break through the water and reach the palace before sunset, and Huang Chao accepted.
• Huang Chao’s blade qi was deflected, so he sent drones to examine the water and found it was mostly ordinary H2O.

Huang Chao failed to break Bon Lu God's auspicious water with blade attacks, while Trisong Detsen negotiated with a Bon priest over divine protection and the fate of Buddhism. Huang Chao then turned to chemistry, secretly launching a chlorine trifluoride weapon from Zixu's Legacy Treasures toward Zhamazhi Sang Palace.

• Huang Chao unleashed another torrent of blade arcs, but Bon Lu God's auspicious water deflected it into the sky.
• Trisong Detsen thanked the gods and promised a grand temple, then demanded help reclaiming territory and capturing Central Plains people; the Bon priest said the gods would not meet those demands.
• Trisong Detsen declared that the palaces of the new religion would belong to Bon, then withdrew his offer of an even grander temple when divine aid was refused.
• Bon Lu God mocked Huang Chao and urged him to return home, but Huang Chao announced he would demonstrate the power of chemistry.
• Huang Chao ordered Li Yuanba and the Ghostface Army to retreat, then secretly activated Zixu's Legacy Treasures' projectile-launch system to fire a chlorine trifluoride weapon.

Huang Chao used a massive chlorine trifluoride attack to destroy Zhamazhisang Palace and defeat Lu God in their wager. He then revealed that his goal was to exterminate every Tibetan and destroy the entire Tibetan Kingdom, enraging Lu God.

• A lead-gray sphere carrying a million tons of chlorine trifluoride fell from Zixu's Legacy Treasures toward Earth.
• The sphere struck the Auspicious Water outside Zhamazhisang Palace, triggering a vast chemical explosion that destroyed the palace and killed Chizu Zande and everyone inside.
• The blast and poisonous cloud devastated the surrounding region, leaving a vast crater and threatening the ecosystem with a century-long dead zone.
• Huang Chao claimed victory in his wager with Lu God and called his attack the art of chemistry.
• When Lu God assumed Huang Chao had achieved his goal, Huang Chao declared that he intended to kill every last Tibetan and destroy the Tibetan Kingdom, provoking Lu God's fury.

Huang Chao survived Lu God's water curse and gained the power of an innate demigod through a backdoor discovered by Li Hai. As his army destroyed Tibetan forces and royal tombs, Nechi Zampu appeared and challenged Huang Chao's claim to be mortal.

• Lu God cursed Huang Chao and his army to be unable to obtain water on the Tibetan Plateau, but Huang Chao drank his own bottled tea and the curse vanished.
• Li Hai discovered a usable backdoor, empowering Huang Chao until he reached the level of an innate demigod.
• Huang Chao rejoined Li Yuanba and the Ghostface Army, and they massacred Bon masters and royal tomb guards while razing scriptures and royal tombs.
• As Huang Chao's army approached Nechi Zampu's tomb, a blizzard struck and Nechi Zampu appeared, declaring himself the born demigod and progenitor of Tubo.
• Nechi Zampu summoned lightning to demand Huang Chao withdraw, but Huang Chao produced lightning of his own, prompting Nechi Zampu to ask whose divine descendant he was.

Huang Chao fought Nechi Zampu in a supersonic battle that devastated the surrounding landscape, but Nechi Zampu summoned divine power and transformed into his full half-god form. The deity Beisai Enba appeared beside him and filled the sky with a misty realm and thousands of charging armored yaks, leaving Huang Chao facing a new attack.

• Huang Chao and Nechi Zampu clashed across the frozen land and thunderclouds, destroying forests, cliffs, and part of a river.
• Huang Chao claimed he had used less than a tenth of his strength, while Nechi Zampu revealed he had used only one-fortieth.
• Nechi Zampu summoned power through the Rainbow-Returning Heavenly Rope and transformed into his black, six-eyed, six-armed half-god form.
• Nechi Zampu summoned Beisai Enba, a bull-headed deity, who unleashed a sea of mist filled with thousands of enormous armored yaks.
• The armored yaks surrounded Huang Chao and prepared to charge him.

Huang Chao wore the War God Armor and overwhelmed Nechi Zampu and Beisai Enba, surviving their spatial attacks and taking the Heavenly Crimson Cord. Learning that the cord could reach the gods’ realm, Li Hai created another backdoor that merged into Huang Chao, granting him a new ability.

• The War God Armor descended onto Huang Chao, and he used its power to smash Nechi Zampu and Beisai Enba through the earth and into a mountain.
• Nechi Zampu and Beisai Enba survived and ambushed Huang Chao, but his Tiger Soul Blade blocked their first attack.
• Nechi Zampu used the Heavenly Crimson Cord to teleport and attack Huang Chao from above while Beisai Enba attacked from below.
• Huang Chao repelled Beisai Enba, cut off Nechi Zampu’s arm, and caught the falling Heavenly Crimson Cord.
• Huang Chao learned that the cord enabled spatial jumps and could take its holder to the Sea of Inner Stars, where gods and Phantasmal Species dwelled.
• Li Hai used the cord’s potential as a loose thread to create a new backdoor, which entered Huang Chao and granted him another miraculous ability.

Huang Chao revealed that his second backdoor skill let him devour gods and steal their spiritual foundations, then killed Nechi Zampu and Beisai Enba. After realizing the Bon gods drew strength from Tibetan belief, he launched a campaign to exterminate the Tibetan Kingdom, leaving Namtso and Yamdrok Lake devoid of human habitation before advancing toward Xiangxiong and Monyul.

• Huang Chao decided to devour every god, beginning with the Tibetan Bon gods.
• Huang Chao killed Nechi Zampu and Beisai Enba, then swallowed their bodies and reunited with Li Yuanba and the Ghostface Army.
• Huang Chao concluded that the Bon gods depended on Tibetan faith and chose to exterminate the Tibetan people to weaken them.
• Huang Chao led the northern force toward Namtso while Li Yuanba led the southern force toward Yamdrok Lake, and the Ghostface Army destroyed the settlements and armies there.
• Huang Chao and Li Yuanba marched their forces toward the former lands of Xiangxiong and Monyul.

After destroying the Tibetan Kingdom, Huang Chao entered the collapsing Bon Heaven Kingdom, where he killed Lu God before escaping an ambush by other gods with the Heaven Rope. The gods waited for him to return, but a golden-armored giant appeared and challenged them on behalf of The Emperor.

• Huang Chao finished massacring the Tibetan Kingdom, leaving fewer than ten thousand people alive, and traveled to the Bon Heaven Kingdom, also known as the Sea of Inner Stars.
• Huang Chao met Lu God, mocked his feminine appearance, and shot him with a near-light-speed Bolter before consuming his blood.
• Shenrab Miwo, Xinlawoga, Sangpo Bangchi, and other gods attacked Huang Chao while a colossal mountain fell toward him.
• Huang Chao used the Heaven Rope to escape to the mortal world, and the gods realized they could not pursue him without Praise God's power.
• A giant in golden armor appeared before the Bon gods and asked whether they were the heretics sought by his lord The Emperor.

Huang Chao had the Emperor’s Chosen Custodes slaughter the Bon gods and emerged from the battle with vastly increased powers that made him the strongest human on Earth. He discovered the Heaven Rope was an alien artifact left behind by a god whose pantheon had invaded Earth more than ten thousand years earlier.

• Zan God and the other Bon gods knelt before the golden-armored Custodes, who revealed he served Emperor Huang Chao.
• Huang Chao ordered the Custodes to kill the Bon gods and leave their corpses behind, and the Custodes began the slaughter.
• Huang Chao returned to the Ghostface Army’s camp, where his new abilities included rapid regeneration, enhanced senses, energy projection, and flight.
• Huang Chao learned that the Heaven Rope had come from an extraterrestrial pantheon that had invaded Earth over ten thousand years earlier.

After destroying Tibet, Huang Chao conquered the Uyghurs and Hui, slaughtering their peoples and weakening their gods while planning to leave witnesses to his deeds. He led the Ghostface Army toward the Khitan, where Li Yuanba began crushing their resistance.

• After returning to the capital from Tibet, Huang Chao ignored foreign envoys seeking tributary status and soon marched against the Uyghurs.
• Huang Chao slaughtered the Uyghurs around Juyan Lake and Mount Langjuxu, using poison from Zixu's Legacy Treasures to make the grassland plants inedible to livestock.
• At Orkhon Valley, Huang Chao killed the Avatars of Tengri Khan and Earth Mother Umay, destroyed the Hui palace and army, and the Ghostface Army exterminated the Hui people.
• Tengri Khan and Earth Mother Umay weakened into Phantasmal Species as Huang Chao led the Ghostface Army toward the Khitan.
• When the campaign against the Khitan began, Li Yuanba alone overwhelmed them without Huang Chao needing to act.

Huang Chao exterminated the Khitan and conquered Nanzhao, defeating its gods and reshaping the Southern Frontier. He then began conquering Southeast Asia aboard a thousand-zhang divine ark, while Li Yuanba’s campaign against Silla neared its end.

• Huang Chao burned the Khitan forests, flooded their rivers, and used the Swarm Dao Technique to find and kill every survivor.
• Huang Chao entered Nanzhao, dispelled its endless rain with Tiger Soul, and resumed his invasion.
• Witch Ghost Mahakala and Dragon God A Cuoye attacked the Ghostface Army with venomous insects and snakes, but Huang Chao’s Nano-Insect Dao Technique overwhelmed them and transformed the land into plains.
• After the Nanzhao people were wiped out, Witch Ghost Mahakala and Dragon God A Cuoye lost their divine ranks and returned to the Inner Sea of the Star.
• Li Yuanba’s army continued its victorious advance through Silla toward Qingzhou Jin City, while Huang Chao entered Southeast Asia with over ten thousand Ghostface Army soldiers.
• Huang Chao found a thousand-zhang Great Yu Divine Ark powered by compressed steam and used it to begin conquering Southeast Asia.