Recaps

While the group secluded themselves, the third region descended into violence as powerful factions hunted for Identity Tokens. Li Xiaoyao experienced mortal life and made progress in his cultivation as eight hundred years passed.

• Bao Xiaotou finished concealing the formation, checked that Luo Yao was safe, and began his seclusion.
• Prodigies who had failed to obtain slots and powerful elders hunted Identity Token holders, destroying minor factions and driving cultivators into hiding.
• Li Xiaoyao entered a small world and lived as a mortal, experiencing the hardships of life as he searched for his true self.
• Li Xiaoyao gained insights from his mortal experiences and began to complete the understanding he had lacked as a Golden Immortal.
• Eight hundred years passed.

After reaching Golden Immortal Layer Two, Ye Lin prepared a medicinal bath with Azure Dragon Crystals to cultivate the True King Sacred Body. He entered the strange-smelling black liquid and began practicing the technique.

• Ye Lin completed eight hundred years of cultivation and advanced to Golden Immortal Layer Two.
• Ye Lin decided to use the next two hundred years to cultivate the True King Sacred Body with his Azure Dragon Crystals.
• Ye Lin mixed medicinal herbs and immortal liquid in a cauldron, then melted the Azure Dragon Crystals with his Beginningless True Flame.
• Ye Lin found the finished liquid black and foul-smelling but entered the cauldron anyway.
• Ye Lin closed his eyes and began circulating the True King Sacred Body technique.

Ye Lin endured a century of agonizing cultivation to complete the first layer of the True King Sacred Body. He emerged able to kill Golden Immortals with physical strength alone and planned to cultivate the remaining layers.

• Ye Lin circulated the True King Sacred Body and endured intense pain as the medicinal liquid entered his body.
• Over a hundred years, Ye Lin's vital blood surged and his body was remade as he persevered through the pain and cold.
• Ye Lin completed the first layer, discovering that his physical strength alone could kill Golden Immortals.
• Ye Lin stored the emptied cauldron in his Spatial Ring and planned to gather more medicinal ingredients for the next layer.

After his cultivation breakthrough, Ye Lin left seclusion and decided to spend the century before the secret realm arrived taking Luo Yao somewhere lively. He departed with Luo Yao and Xinyou, leaving the hidden planet behind to search for a small world.

• Ye Lin left his cave abode after adjusting his condition and realized Bao Xiaotou had concealed the planet with a great formation.
• Luo Yao ran to Ye Lin and asked him to take her somewhere lively with people and delicious food.
• Ye Lin agreed, sent a dharma decree to those in seclusion, and left the planet with Luo Yao in his arms.
• Xinyou appeared on Ye Lin's shoulder, and Ye Lin found that Bao Xiaotou's formation made the planet impossible to locate among the surrounding worlds.
• Ye Lin strolled through the starry sky to find a small world where Luo Yao could enjoy herself.

Ye Lin suppressed his cultivation to enter a life-bearing world and brought Luo Yao to an isolated city. He left her delighted among the hurried townspeople, whose smiles softened when they saw her.

• Ye Lin searched the Star River Cosmos with Luo Yao until he found a continent that could support life.
• The Heavenly Dao blocked Ye Lin from entering, so he sealed his cultivation down to the Spirit Transformation realm and crossed into the world.
• Ye Lin adapted to his weakened strength, carried Luo Yao over Demon Beasts, and reached a small city standing alone in the wilderness.
• Ye Lin concealed himself and led Luo Yao through the city wall, where she skipped happily along streets crowded with food and pastries.
• The townspeople hurried through the streets with tense expressions, but they smiled at Luo Yao and wondered why she was out in the cold.

Ye Lin followed Luo Yao through the city, where residents worried about an approaching attack by strange beasts. At an academy, Luo Yao asked to study, and the teacher welcomed her into the classroom.

• A pastry seller gave Luo Yao two pastries, and Ye Lin left her a piece of gold in thanks.
• Elderly residents discussed the likely return of the strange beasts and hoped to protect the children.
• Luo Yao stopped at an academy to watch the children study through a broken window.
• The teacher invited Luo Yao to learn, and she entered the classroom after Ye Lin nodded.

Ye Lin spent the day in Star City while Luo Yao attended Qi Xinxian’s lessons, and Qi Xinxian explained that the Great Wild Goose Dynasty faced an imminent Demon Beast siege. Convinced Ye Lin was an immortal from beyond the Anxuan Realm, Qi Xinxian knelt and begged him to save the Human Race.

• Ye Lin gave Luo Yao a gold-filled pouch and let her leave with her new friends after class.
• Qi Xinxian told Ye Lin that Star City was one of the Great Wall’s forty-eight guard cities and that Demon Beasts would attack within days.
• Qi Xinxian explained that the Human Race was being worn down by repeated attacks and that neither civilians nor the dynasty could withstand the growing Demon Beasts.
• Qi Xinxian revealed that Luo Yao had told him strange stories, leading him to suspect Ye Lin was an immortal from beyond the world.
• Qi Xinxian knelt before Ye Lin and pleaded with him to save the Human Race.

Ye Lin initially refused Qi Xinxian’s plea to help save the Great Wild Goose Dynasty, insisting he could not interfere with the world’s fate. After Luo Yao asked him to relent, he gave Qi Xinxian a martial arts method, leaving Qi to hurry back and report the news to the imperial court.

• Qi Xinxian knelt before Ye Lin and begged him to save the Great Wild Goose Dynasty from destruction.
• Ye Lin refused to interfere with the Heavenly Dao’s ordained workings or teach Qi Xinxian immortal arts.
• Luo Yao brought Ye Lin a chicken leg, noticed Qi Xinxian kneeling, and pleaded with Ye Lin to help him up.
• Ye Lin agreed to teach Qi Xinxian martial arts because the world had no spiritual energy for cultivation.
• Ye Lin sent the martial arts method into Qi Xinxian’s mind, and Qi hurried away to inform the imperial court.

Qi Xinxian tried to bring his martial arts cultivation technique to the King, convinced it could save the Human Race, while Ye Lin warned Luo Yao against interfering with the Heavenly Dao. A month later, Qi Xinxian’s corpse returned to the city after the King ordered him beaten to death, and Ye Lin reflected that the Heavenly Dao’s great tide could not be changed.

• Ye Lin warned Luo Yao that interfering with the Heavenly Dao without sufficient strength would bring Heavenly Punishment.
• Qi Xinxian wrote down part of his martial arts cultivation technique and insisted to a soldier that it could save the Human Race.
• After being refused an audience with the King, Qi Xinxian left the city to present his work in person.
• While Qi Xinxian was away, a young woman taught and entertained the academy students, and Luo Yao happily joined them as Ye Lin sat alone in the pavilion.
• The imperial court announced that the King had ordered Qi Xinxian beaten to death for allegedly beguiling the masses, and the city’s people buried him in grief.
• Ye Lin said the great tide of the Heavenly Dao could not be changed.

After Qi Xinxian was killed for trying to change the Heavenly Dao’s plan, Wang Xinyue took up his cause and spread martial arts cultivation techniques across the land. She reached the political center of the Great Wild Goose Dynasty, while Ye Lin watched to see what she would do next.

• Qi Xinxian went to the court to seek an audience with the king and was beaten to death with clubs.
• Wang Xinyue asked Ye Lin whether he had caused Qi Xinxian’s death, and Ye Lin explained that the Heavenly Dao had crushed her senior brother’s effort to change the great tide.
• Wang Xinyue vowed to fulfill Qi Xinxian’s wish, and Ye Lin gave her a martial arts cultivation technique.
• Wang Xinyue found another teacher for the academy and traveled from place to place, spreading the cultivation technique.
• Qi Xinxian and Wang Xinyue’s old teacher came to the academy and began talking with Ye Lin each night.
• Wang Xinyue arrived at the political center of the Great Wild Goose Dynasty and felt out of place among its wealthy residents.

Wang Xinyue reached the royal palace and told the emperor that Demon Beasts threatened the Human Race, offering to present a plan to save the nation. The court accused her of spreading bewitching rumors and called for her execution.

• Wang Xinyue walked through the prosperous capital, feeling out of place and troubled by how its people seemed to ignore the Demon Beasts.
• Wang Xinyue asked to see the emperor, waited outside the palace, and was eventually admitted to the grand hall.
• Wang Xinyue told the emperor she had come from Star City in Solitary City and had traveled thousands of miles to present a plan to save the nation.
• The officials accused Wang Xinyue of conspiring with someone who spread rumors and urged the emperor to have her beheaded.

Wang Xinyue was executed after the Great Wild Goose Dynasty’s king and ministers dismissed her warnings about Demon Beasts, and the martial arts techniques she had spread sparked quiet unrest. As snow fell, Ye Lin asked her and Qi Xinxian’s teacher whether he blamed him for their deaths.

• The ministers accused Wang Xinyue of deception, and the king ordered her beheaded and her head displayed on the city walls.
• People who had practiced Wang Xinyue’s martial arts techniques defended her and vowed to seek answers from the court, feeding growing unrest across the Great Wild Goose Dynasty.
• Ye Lin watched the snowfall as Qi Xinxian and Wang Xinyue’s teacher mourned his two lost disciples and lamented that they would never return.
• Ye Lin asked the old man whether he blamed him for their deaths.

After Qi Xinxian and Wang Xinyue died trying to help the people, Ye Lin comforted Luo Yao and remained in the city as spring returned. When the Demon Beasts began besieging the city, its defenders armed themselves and took their places on the Great Wall while Ye Lin watched to see whether he could alter the Heavenly Dao.

• Luo Yao blamed herself for Qi Xinxian and Wang Xinyue’s deaths, and Ye Lin comforted her, saying they would not blame her.
• Ye Lin reflected that Qi Xinxian and Wang Xinyue had set out prepared to die and had died because they were too weak to succeed.
• The old man found that sitting beside Ye Lin eased his pain and left him without need for food, water, or sleep.
• As the Demon Beasts stirred, Ye Lin stayed in the pavilion to see whether he could change the great tide of the Heavenly Dao without suppressing it.
• A month later, the city’s young men and elders put on armor and went to the Great Wall as the Demon Beasts began their siege.

After the Demon Beasts’ siege ended, Ye Lin comforted Luo Yao as she grieved for her friends’ father and explained that mortals’ lives followed Heaven’s laws. He then discussed immortals and the Heavenly Dao with the little old man, whose life appeared to be nearing its end.

• The Demon Beasts attacked Solitary City for three days, leaving only ten thousand old, weak, sick, or disabled residents alive before reinforcements arrived.
• The soldiers defended the city for another month until the Demon Beasts retreated, with fewer than one in ten of the hundred thousand reinforcements surviving.
• Luo Yao asked Ye Lin to bring Da Ya and Er Ya’s dead father back to life, and Ye Lin told her that death was part of mortal destiny and she must not interfere.
• The little old man asked Ye Lin whether immortals were heartless, and Ye Lin explained that immortals studied the Heavenly Dao while mortals studied the human heart.
• Ye Lin noticed that the little old man was growing frailer and had barely any teeth left.

Over the years after the last Demon Beast siege, Ye Lin watched the world shift through a life-and-death chess game as Wang Yun carried on Teacher Qi and Teacher Wang’s unfinished work. Wang Yun’s execution destabilized the imperial court as powerful martial artists and Demon Kings rose, leaving Ye Lin to observe the next moves in the struggle.

• Ye Lin told the little old man that the heavens, not the chessboard, had changed as black and white stones faced a life-and-death struggle.
• Ten years after the last Demon Beast siege, the grown academy students teased Luo Yao, who had not grown at all.
• Wang Yun asked Ye Lin to let him fulfill Teacher Qi and Teacher Wang’s unfinished wish, then left Solitary City to spread martial arts techniques.
• Soldiers reported the appearance of a massive Demon Beast as Demon Beasts began growing stronger and causing trouble again.
• The imperial court executed Wang Yun by a thousand cuts, prompting martial artists to seize territories while Demon Kings began commanding the Demon Beasts.
• Others told Ye Lin they would carry on their seniors’ unfinished work and fight for the cause.

The Great Wild Goose Dynasty collapsed as rebellion spread and the king took his own life. Three days later, the rebels entered the imperial capital and concluded that corrupt officials had deceived the king and drained the people.

• Martial artists went to fight the Demon Beasts, while rebel armies rose across the land against the court.
• The rebels grew to one million and advanced toward the imperial capital as the court struggled to suppress them.
• The king raged at his ministers, purged powerful families, and then questioned whether he had done wrong.
• The king slit his throat, and the court's army lost morale and surrendered as the dynasty fell apart.
• Three days later, the eighteen rebel factions entered the court hall and declared that the dream woven by corrupt officials had ended.

As the rebel armies united against the Demon Beasts and martial arts spread through the realm, Ye Lin’s elderly companion prepared for death. The old man died peacefully after asking Ye Lin to scatter his ashes beyond the world, and his disciple arrived to accompany Ye Lin.

• The eighteen rebel armies joined forces, distributed martial arts manuals, and sent cultivated experts toward the Great Wall to face the Demon Beasts.
• Children at the academy began practicing martial arts in the morning and studying in the afternoon as martial arts became freely available to the public.
• Ye Lin offered the dying old man a hundred more years of life, but the old man refused and asked Ye Lin to scatter his ashes beyond the world.
• The old man died the next day, and his grieving disciple brought his ashes to Ye Lin and stayed to accompany him.

After the Demon Beasts’ month-long siege, the Eighteen Rebel Armies survived but the Great Wild Goose Dynasty descended into rebellion, famine, and lawlessness. The Rebel Armies feared that civil strife and a collapsing population would leave humanity defenseless against the Demon Beasts, but they could not restore order.

• Luo Yao cried when the little old man died, then winter passed and the city prepared for another Demon Beast assault.
• The Demon Beasts attacked Solitary City, where newly strengthened human soldiers fought back through a month of brutal combat until the horde retreated.
• The battle left the Great Wild Goose Dynasty paralyzed, and ambitious people across the realm began claiming territory and making themselves kings.
• Martial cultivation techniques spread among ordinary people, fueling rebellion and endless civil conflict as many forgot the danger posed by the Demon Beasts.
• The Eighteen Rebel Armies tried to restore order but lacked the strength to suppress the chaos, while landlords hoarded food and starving commoners resorted to exchanging children to eat.

Ye Lin sent ten martial artists from Solitary City into the Great Wild Goose Dynasty to feed and arm the people, then lead them against the court. At the academy, he advised the young Li Zheng on becoming emperor, and Li Zheng vowed to make his name known across the world.

• Ye Lin recognized that the Heavenly Dao's ten-year cycle turned hope into despair and decided to answer its violence with violence.
• Ten skilled fighters left Solitary City, distributed grain to the people of the Great Wild Goose Dynasty, taught them martial techniques, and began advancing toward the court.
• The academy's previous generation of students left to save the Great Wild Goose Dynasty, while other students remained behind.
• Li Zheng asked Ye Lin what an emperor was and how he could become the emperor of the realm.
• Ye Lin told Li Zheng to gain strength first and then develop his knowledge, talent, vision, and wisdom.
• Li Zheng bowed to Ye Lin and promised to make everyone under heaven know his name.

Ye Lin watched Li Zheng grow into a powerful and ambitious young man, seeing him as a possible hope for the Human Race. Li Zheng left Solitary City to seek answers in the Central Plains, while the Human Race’s million-strong army gathered beneath the imperial capital.

• Ye Lin sensed an emperor’s aura in Li Zheng and placed another white stone on the board, believing the Human Race still had hope.
• Li Zheng visited Ye Lin regularly, asking about the world beyond and learning that the stars were other worlds in the boundless Starry Sky.
• The ten people who had left Solitary City each commanded a hundred thousand troops and marched toward the imperial court.
• Li Zheng asked whether he was ready to become emperor, but Ye Lin said he was too young to convince everyone under heaven.
• Li Zheng declared he would make people accept him, then left Solitary City for the Central Plains and promised to return in a dragon robe.
• The million-strong Human Race army arrived beneath the imperial capital as Ye Lin saw the white stones’ chance of survival grow.

The eighteen former rebel leaders panicked when ten armies totaling one million men marched on the imperial capital, then prepared to defend the city. The ten armies arrived beneath its heavily guarded walls, leaving the coming assault poised to begin.

• The eighteen leaders discussed the approaching million-man army and dismissed most of its soldiers as farmers.
• The leaders recalled how their rule had sparked rebellions and how their troops had disappeared when sent to suppress them.
• The eighteen leaders decided to secure the imperial capital and rely on its defenses to repel the armies.
• They deployed one hundred thousand troops throughout the city and closed every gate.
• The ten armies reached the imperial capital, and their leaders frowned at its ten-meter-high, heavily guarded walls.

Li Zheng proposed surrounding the imperial capital instead of storming it, allowing the victors to establish a new court and consolidate the Human Territory. Great Qin began implementing policies to seize aristocratic wealth and grow its population.

• Li Zheng told the ten leaders to blockade the imperial capital and establish a new court beside it rather than attack.
• The leaders accepted Li Zheng's plan, surrounded the capital, and founded a temporary court.
• The new dynasty adopted Great Qin as its era name, and news of its founding spread throughout the Human Territory.
• Great Qin confiscated the wealth and grain of major landlords and aristocratic clans for state ownership.
• Great Qin encouraged childbirth and promised state care for children, and its population began to rise in its first year.

As Great Qin developed, Ye Lin watched another ten-year cycle begin. In the eighth year, Li Zheng prepared to sacrifice a million soldiers to defend the Great Wall from the Demon Beasts, vowing to retaliate next time.

• In Great Qin's second year, officials took their posts, and in its third year, martial arts training spread across the population.
• Ye Lin watched the snow fall and wondered how the coming ten-year cycle would unfold; Luo Yao had left Solitary City with the academy students.
• By Great Qin's eighth year, Li Zheng had grown into a stern young emperor and asked his ministers how to defend against the Demon Beasts.
• The ministers agreed to send a million troops to the Great Wall, hoping to hold the line until the next generation matured.
• Li Zheng ordered the deployment, regretted the soldiers' coming deaths, and vowed to make the Demon Beasts pay next time.

Great Qin’s million-strong martial army fought off a devastating Demon Beast siege, losing nearly all its soldiers but buying the empire time to recover. Over the following years, Li Zheng consolidated Great Qin, and the Human Race’s population, military strength, and fortune grew.

• Li Zheng sent Great Qin’s final million-strong army to the border, where it faced a battle that would determine the empire’s survival.
• The Demon Beasts attacked the Great Wall, and the fighting continued for a month before they retreated.
• Fewer than thirty thousand of Great Qin’s million soldiers survived the siege.
• Li Zheng consolidated Great Qin over the following years as the empire expanded, reclaimed its capital, and grew its population and martial forces.
• By Great Qin’s sixteenth year, the Human Race had gained renewed vitality and its fortune was rising.

Li Zheng ordered Great Qin to invade the wilderness before the Demon Beasts’ next ten-year attack, beginning a relentless campaign to bring the Anxuan Realm under his rule. As Ye Lin watched the battle unfold from Solitary City, Great Qin expanded its territory and grew stronger.

• Li Zheng declared that Great Qin would strike the Demon Beasts first and ordered the army to conquer the Anxuan Realm.
• Great Qin sent one and a half million soldiers into the wilderness after a brief rest at the Great Wall.
• When the ten-year term arrived, Demon Kings led the Demon Beasts against the army, and both sides fought to a stalemate.
• Ye Lin placed a white piece on the board in Solitary City, believing he still had the advantage.
• Li Zheng kept sending reinforcements as Great Qin fought day after day, defeating the Demon Beasts and expanding its territory.