Chapter Summaries

Huang Chao’s army exterminated the peoples of Southeast Asia and began its invasion of the Japanese Archipelago. While the Ghostface Army slaughtered Japanese resistance, Huang Chao set out to destroy the islands themselves, leaving the campaign underway.

• Huang Chao used the Great Yu Divine Ark and steam-armored Ghostface Army to kill the people of Southeast Asia, leaving the region empty.
• The Great Yu Divine Ark reached Kyushu, where fisherman Miji saw it and drowned in terror.
• The Ghostface Army began conquering the Japanese Archipelago, crushing its soldiers, extraordinary fighters, and failed attempts at surrender.
• Huang Chao injected Resting Soil into the Japanese Archipelago’s crust and island shelves to make them brittle and prone to collapse.
• Huang Chao scattered poison-cloud condensation towers across the Seto Inland Sea and unleashed an earth-boring bomb Dao art into Mount Fuji.

Huang Chao triggered Mount Fuji’s eruption and the collapse of Japan’s weakened island shelf, devastating the archipelago and wiping out its people except for a few Ainu survivors. Returning to Great Jing in triumph, he punished officials who violated his ban on kneeling and confronted Tian Qian over his ties to Confucian remnants.

• Mount Fuji erupted after Huang Chao’s bunker-buster missile struck, raining lava across the Kanto Plain and killing nobles and ordinary people.
• The eruption triggered the collapse of Japan’s underground island shelf, causing catastrophic earthquakes and tsunamis that reduced the archipelago to scattered islands inhabited by a few surviving Ainu.
• Huang Chao returned to court after the surrounding barbarian tribes had been wiped out, and the people and elites reacted with awe and fear at his achievements.
• Huang Chao had several old Confucian officials beheaded for kneeling before him, enforcing his rule that no one could kneel to anyone.
• Tian Qian proposed changing the dynasty’s era name, and Huang Chao accused him of secretly associating with the Kong clan and other ancient Confucian families.

Huang Chao executed Tian Qian for using his influence to enrich the Tian Family and then announced an Equal Wealth Decree requiring all property to be confiscated and redistributed. When he called for objections, his paternal uncle Huang Zongyuan stepped forward to oppose the decree.

• Huang Chao accused Tian Qian and the Tian Family of hoarding land, exploiting his name, and oppressing commoners, then ordered Tian Qian beaten to death.
• Huang Chao warned the ministers that anyone who abused power or harmed commoners would be killed.
• Huang Chao introduced the Equal Wealth Decree, ordering the confiscation of all property, the creation of state treasuries and granaries, and severe punishment for anyone concealing wealth or food.
• Huang Chao asked the ministers to support or oppose the decree, and Huang Zongyuan stepped forward to object.

Huang Chao rejected Huang Zongyuan’s appeal against the Equal Wealth Decree and ordered his uncle beaten to death, then confiscated and exiled the entire Huang family. The news shocked Great Jing, where many people considered the punishment excessive and still regarded abuses by imperial kin as normal.

• Huang Zongyuan argued that Huang Chao’s Equal Wealth Decree violated the sages’ teachings and asked him to spare the compensation and belongings of relatives who had died for Great Jing.
• Huang Chao insisted that all the Huang family’s private wealth had to be confiscated and challenged anyone who opposed the decrees to kill him.
• Huang Chao ordered the guards to beat Huang Zongyuan to death, despite his uncle’s service and family ties.
• Huang Chao confiscated the Huang family’s property and exiled them to labor in provinces across Great Jing.
• The news stirred an uproar, while many people viewed Huang Chao’s actions as excessive and continued to see the Huang family’s abuses as ordinary.

Huang Chao imposed sweeping wealth-equalization measures across Great Jing, winning fervent support from the poor and inspiring new faiths that deified him. The chapter traced the later rise of radical sects devoted to him and ended with Southeast Asian survivors founding the Northern Sect in his name.

• Huang Chao received reports detailing the extreme disparities between the incomes and assets of farmers, officials, merchants, and refugees.
• Huang Chao issued an edict confiscating most private property, introducing equal rations, and abolishing inheritance, servants, and private home ownership.
• Poor people across Great Jing praised the edict, and many began worshipping Huang Chao above other gods.
• Folk religious groups arose that revered Huang Chao as Buddhist and Daoist deities, as well as the Silk-Rending Heavenly Emperor.
• Later generations established the radical Equalization Path, whose followers worshipped Huang Chao and practiced the Three Destructions.
• Southeast Asian survivors of Huang Chao’s massacre revered him as a god and founded the Northern Sect.

Huang Chao’s Equal Wealth and People’s Oversight Decrees sparked violent clashes as commoners’ asset-clearing teams confronted wealthy households’ militias, while the Ghostface Army grew restless over reduced pay. The chapter leaves Great Jing unsettled by a spreading occult nursery rhyme that stirs resentment, especially among the soldiers.

• Huang Chao issued the People’s Oversight Decree, allowing commoners to form asset-clearing teams and oversee the confiscation of wealthy households’ property.
• Wealthy households recruited Civilian Militias, which massacred the first asset-clearing teams and drove surviving aristocratic, ancient-family, and cultivator remnants to unite in secret.
• The Equal Wealth Decree reduced military pay, causing unrest in the Ghostface Army and giving the hidden remnants hope of winning the soldiers over.
• Commoners formed a second wave of asset-clearing teams, and Huang Chao ordered the Ghostface Army to help them seize wealthy estates.
• The nursery rhyme “Huang’er Laughs” spread across Great Jing and stirred unrest among the common people, officials, wealthy households, and Ghostface Army soldiers.

As corruption and rebellion spread through Great Jing, Li Changsheng and the nobles gathered underground concluded that Huang Chao had become politically helpless. Huang Chao appeared before them, and Li Changsheng explained that noble power would always return because human desire never changed.

• Ghostface commanders stole Jing Citizen Vouchers and used them to build private fortunes while officials and salt merchants exploited the disorder.
• Mysterious Nobles joined corrupt officials to seize power across the provinces as Huang Chao watched through his spies and allowed the chaos to continue.
• Six months later, Li Changsheng told the nobles that Huang Chao could not govern the realm alone and proposed waiting until the people’s resentment weakened him.
• Huang Chao appeared in the nobles’ hidden underground palace, startling the gathered nobles but finding Li Changsheng composed.
• Li Changsheng told Huang Chao that nobles embodied humanity’s eternal desire to rise, so they would reappear even if they were killed.

Huang Chao beheaded Li Changsheng and dozens of nobles, keeping them alive and launching their heads into space as surveillance satellites. He later added thousands more, creating a network to monitor the Great Jing Dynasty, while Li Changsheng learned what had been done to him.

• Huang Chao rejected Li Changsheng’s claim that commoners would always aspire to nobility and said he could stop wrongdoing by killing evildoers wherever he found them.
• Huang Chao removed Li Changsheng’s head and beheaded the other nobles, keeping them alive for his plans.
• Huang Chao sent the nobles’ heads into space, where nanomachines transformed them into orbiting satellites.
• Over the following days, Huang Chao launched thousands of other heads into space and connected them into a surveillance network covering the world.
• Li Changsheng received the network’s information and realized Huang Chao had made him part of a vast system monitoring the Great Jing Dynasty.

Huang Chao activated the Thousand Heads Network, subjecting Li Changsheng and thousands of other heads to unending pain, then used the network to carry out a vast purge across the Great Jing Dynasty. The massacre killed two million people in one night, and the shaken populace came to call Huang Chao the Immortal Emperor.

• Li Changsheng realized Huang Chao had activated the Thousand Heads Network and learned its heads would suffer relentless pain whenever it monitored the land.
• Huang Chao revealed that cursing him in secret triggered additional forms of torment, leaving the six thousand heads howling in agony.
• Huang Chao fired waves of scarlet beams into the sky, sending bloody rays across the Great Jing realm to kill evildoers, the corrupt Ghostface Army, wealthy households, officials, and rebels.
• The purge killed two million people, about one-thirtieth of Great Jing's population, in a single night.
• The massacre terrified the people and shook the realm, and Huang Chao became known as the Immortal Emperor.

Huang Chao imposed a realm-wide policy of killing anyone who committed evil, backed by the Thousand Heads Network, while preparing a centuries-long conflict in Europe. After thirty years of constant surveillance and executions, the people of Great Jing grew increasingly oppressed by his rule.

• Huang Chao proclaimed that he would withdraw most troops and personally kill criminals across Great Jing without warning or trial, using the Thousand Heads Network to detect them.
• Huang Chao sent Li Yuanba to Europe because of his addiction to killing, then planted a disguised device beneath an ancient temple in Jerusalem to spark a future war between Europe and artificial demons.
• Huang Chao continued ruling Great Jing as its sole enforcer, intending to secure his legacy as the Devil Master of the Ages.
• Thirty years passed as Huang Chao grew into a man and killed tens of thousands of people, regardless of their age or sex, for committing evil.
• The people of Great Jing initially welcomed the decline in crime, but years of constant surveillance and fear made them feel increasingly oppressed.

Huang Chao maintained his oppressive but stable rule over the Great Jing Dynasty for another ninety years, crushing disasters and killing those who committed crimes. When history produced Li Cunxiao and later Guo Wei as challengers to correct the timeline, Huang Chao froze both demigods and stored them in his underground ice cellar.

• Huang Chao watched the people of the Great Jing Dynasty through the Thousand Heads Network and killed anyone who began to commit evil, while ignoring those who only cursed him.
• Huang Chao personally stopped earthquakes, floods, droughts, and locust plagues as the dynasty passed through another thirty years of peace.
• In the sixty-first year of the Jing Dynasty, Li Cunxiao challenged Huang Chao, reached demigod strength during their fight, and was frozen and placed in the underground ice cellar.
• Over the following sixty years, overseas grain seeds helped the Central Plains population grow to nearly two hundred million, and Huang Chao killed millions of criminals.
• In the 120th year of the Jing Dynasty, Guo Wei challenged Huang Chao with Guan Yu’s Green Dragon Crescent Blade and the technique Love in a Fallen City, but Huang Chao froze him and stored him beside Li Cunxiao.

Three hundred years after the Jing Dynasty's founding, Yue Fei challenged Huang Chao, who announced he would abdicate and agreed to fight him. Huang Chao revealed four former challengers preserved in ice, and Yue Fei recognized them as Li Cunxiao, Guo Wei, Di Qing, and Zhong E.

• Huang Chao remained secluded in the Pillar of State Residence for decades, ruling the realm through distant orders and the Eye of Heaven.
• When Yue Fei arrived in Chang'an to challenge him, Huang Chao emerged, and the crowd knelt before his overwhelming presence.
• Yue Fei stood firm and broke through to the limit of the demigod realm as the Xuanyuan Sword flew into his hand.
• Huang Chao said he was ready to abdicate, but insisted that he and Yue Fei still fight to mark the change of eras.
• Huang Chao summoned four ice coffins and shattered them, revealing Li Cunxiao, Guo Wei, Di Qing, and Zhong E.

Huang Chao created a vast battlefield where Yue Fei fought and defeated the four previous Chosen Ones. After Yue Fei demanded a final battle, Huang Chao vanished, leaving his Tiger Soul Blade behind and signaling the end of the Great Jing Dynasty’s protection.

• Huang Chao explained that he had strengthened Li Cunxiao, Guo Wei, Di Qing, and Zhong E, then used the Sea of Inner Stars to create a battlefield for their fight with Yue Fei.
• Yue Fei faced the four Chosen Ones, who charged him after Huang Chao declared that victory would qualify him to lead the lands of Yan and Huang.
• After a quarter of an hour, the battlefield disappeared, revealing a wounded but stronger Yue Fei beside the four defeated elders’ corpses.
• Yue Fei called on Huang Chao to appear and fight, but the Pillar of State Residence opened to reveal a coffin holding only the Tiger Soul Blade.
• The coffin and residence crumbled to ash as Huang Chao’s voice bid farewell and departed, and the people of Chang'an mourned his passing and the coming collapse of the Great Jing Dynasty.

After Yue Fei unified the Divine Continent and founded the Song Dynasty, Huang Chao’s legacy was reshaped by later rulers, scholars, merchants, and religions. Modern historians recognized both the radical equality of his Jing Dynasty and the stagnation it produced, while his original motives remained unknown.

• Yue Fei fulfilled his vow by suppressing the realm’s turmoil in three months, unifying the Divine Continent, and founding the Song Dynasty.
• The Song rulers abandoned Huang Chao’s Equal Land and Equal Wealth Decrees, while later generations alternately demonized and deified him.
• Confucian scholars and later governments condemned Huang Chao, even as rebels had once invoked him to rally their armies.
• Buddhist and Daoist institutions claimed Huang Chao as their own while also condemning his bloodshed and urging him to atone.
• European writers praised the force and equality of Huang Chao’s rule while criticizing its violence and limits.
• Modern textbooks affirmed that Huang Chao destroyed aristocratic power and pioneered social equality, but noted that his rule halted technological progress; historians still could not explain his original motives.

Li Hai revealed that all 129,600 versions of Huang Chao had returned to his original body, and Alaya realized his actions had radically altered the primary timeline. The chapter traced a changed modern world dominated by the Dragon Kingdom and ended by revealing that the ritual once known as the Holy Grail War had become the Immortal Cauldron War, held in Fuyuki City.

• Later generations interpreted Huang Chao as a revolutionary, a warning about equality, and a legendary immortal who had vanished from his coffin.
• All 129,600 Huang Chaos across the timelines returned to Li Hai, who appeared as Belial and discussed his plan with Alaya.
• Alaya confronted the scale of Li Hai's changes, including Japan's destruction and Europe's nine-century war against alien demons.
• The altered history left the Dragon Kingdom as the world's leading civilization, with the Great Yue Federation occupying Northern Yin and other states settled across Southern Yin.
• Mystical sects built a Dao-seeking formation in Northern Winterland, and their blood-sacrifice ritual became known as the Immortal Cauldron War in Fuyuki City.

Li Hai created a new Destroyer class for the Immortal Cauldron War and entered the end of the twentieth century to take part. In Fuyuki City, the war began as the city split into countless layers, while Xuchenzi secretly welcomed the possibility of widespread death.

• Li Hai dismissed Alaya’s concern about Huang Chao’s strength by creating the Destroyer class, then linked himself to the end of the twentieth century.
• Tiangangzi walked through snowy Fuyuki City with his disciple Xuchenzi and asked whether he still mourned his dead Dao companion, Bilian.
• Xuchenzi concealed his pleasure at remembering Bilian’s despair and wished she could return to life so he could watch her kill herself again.
• Tiangangzi activated the Ancient Stele, causing Fuyuki City to divide into hundreds or thousands of identical layers and expand into a city-scale multiverse.
• Tiangangzi predicted that the Immortal Cauldron War might destroy a thousand layers, and Xuchenzi secretly rejoiced at the thought that everyone in the city might die.

Across the layered Fuyuki City, Warlocks summoned their Guests in the Clouds, officially beginning the Immortal Cauldron War. The chapter ended with Liu Xuande appearing before Wei Zhanye and asking if he was her Master.

• Long Liuqi found an ancient human-bone mask and used it as the medium for a summoning ritual.
• Warlocks across multiple layers of Fuyuki City chanted the ritual and called upon legendary figures, including Liu Xuande and Gilgamesh.
• Seven participants offered their blood, causing seven cauldrons to send blazing light toward the sky.
• A gate formed from the stars, and the Guests in the Clouds descended as bronze talisman brands appeared on every participant's wrist.
• Liu Xuande appeared before Wei Zhanye on Layer 941 and asked if he was her Master.

Huang Chao was summoned by Long Liuqi, a serial torturer who tried to claim authority over him, and responded by dissecting him while keeping him alive. After trapping Long Liuqi inside the house, Huang Chao examined his Wanderer in the Clouds panel and learned he was a Destroyer-class Demon Emperor with several EX-rank skills.

• Long Liuqi summoned Huang Chao and boasted about the twenty-seven people he had tortured and killed.
• Huang Chao called Long Liuqi a little beast and severed his arm with a blade of intent.
• Long Liuqi fled outside, but Huang Chao dissected his spine from afar and left him alive as a human scorpion.
• Huang Chao tossed Long Liuqi back into the bloodstained house, where his screams continued behind the closed door.
• Huang Chao inspected his panel and found his Destroyer class, EX-level attributes, and three EX-rank intrinsic skills.

The chapter detailed Huang Chao’s many powerful skills and treasures, including abilities to seize attacks and Noble Phantasms, create an Age of Gods domain, and summon an alien warship. It ended with his most dangerous treasure, the Sword of Humanity, whose indiscriminate fury against oppression could corrode human order, a consequence Huang Chao eagerly anticipated.

• Destroyer’s [Immortal Endgame] skill made it immune to instant death and temporal attacks and unleashed battlefield-wide shockwaves when it was injured.
• Huang Chao’s skills let him hunt nonhuman targets, seize and return attacks and treasures, draw artifacts from the Dongyou Secret Vault, and create a protective Age of Gods domain.
• Huang Chao’s [Outer-Space Remnant Army: Warhammer Vanguard] skill allowed him to summon an alien exploration vessel called the Rainbow Light.
• Huang Chao’s [World-Burning Wrath: Sword of Humanity] could instantly kill the privileged, rulers, and gods, while its corrosive power threatened human order.
• Huang Chao looked forward to unleashing the Sword of Humanity despite not knowing what outcome its toxic power would cause.

Huang Chao deployed his Ghostface Army and Mechanism Bees to search the thousand spacetime layers of Fuyuki City for other Yunzhongke. Meanwhile, Tang Saier revealed her own search method to Xuchenzi, who discussed her connection to deities associated with Huang Chao.

• Huang Chao spread his Age of Gods Domain across Fuyuki City and summoned thirty thousand Ghostface soldiers to gather intelligence.
• Huang Chao distributed Ancient Mechanism Beehives to the soldiers and used [Mortal World Collapse] to send them into a thousand spacetime layers.
• Huang Chao withdrew his domain and began wandering through his layer of Fuyuki City as the Immortal Cauldron War participants made their moves.
• Tang Saier sent a paper bird to search the layers and explained to Xuchenzi that she had learned arts from the Equalization Path.
• Xuchenzi observed that Tang Saier worshipped deities who were manifestations of the Silk-Rending Heavenly Emperor, and she asked whether he worshipped Emperor Huang Chao.