Recaps

Su Zhan left the Demon Sea and learned that the Azure Billows Sea had seen unusual activity, prompting a warning from the East Domain Sea-Calming Bureau. He reached the boundary of the black sea and discovered that its waters cut off the Shadow Thousand Silk Lock’s perception.

• Su Zhan told Yuan Ji to seal the grotto-heaven and investigate activating the Martyrdom Program if he failed to return within three months, then used the Teleportation Array to leave.
• Su Zhan flew east through the Demon Sea, where the Demonized Sea Beasts retreated from the lingering presence of the Myriad Poisons Divine Farmer's Canon.
• Su Zhan spotted a bounty notice for remnants of the Black Demon Sect and a warning that unusual activity in the Azure Billows Sea could cause Sea Beast rampages.
• Su Zhan reached the Azure Billows Sea and saw a boundary between indigo water and a lightless black expanse.
• The Shadow Thousand Silk Lock told Su Zhan that the black sea had a Principle-isolating effect that made its threads’ perception vanish.

Su Zhan followed the golden totem’s guidance to the black sea, where he discovered that its dense, perception-absorbing water had likely been altered by artificial Principle power. He armored himself and plunged into the depths, where all sound vanished.

• Su Zhan tested the black sea’s surface and felt a deep hum answer the golden totem on his chest.
• Su Zhan found that his thread and lightning scans could not determine the sea’s depth or reveal what lay below.
• Su Zhan decided to dive because the totem pointed toward the Heaven-Mending Stone and the seal had only a few months left.
• Su Zhan tested the water and learned it was extremely dense, viscous, and infused with ancient Gravity and Spatial Principle residue.
• Su Zhan covered himself with defenses and plunged into the black water, where every sound was absorbed.

Su Zhan descended through the lightless, sound-absorbing water and used the Totem to open a stone door on the seabed. He entered a dry passage leading into an enormous spherical space, whose interior remained unexplored.

• Su Zhan kept descending as Immovable Wisdom King Wall protected him from the immense water pressure.
• At eight hundred zhang, Su Zhan found a polished stone surface patterned like the Mustard Seed Grotto-Heaven's core sphere.
• The Totem detached from Su Zhan's chest and fit into a recess at the center of a circular stone door.
• Su Zhan activated the door, which split open and revealed an independent space beneath the seabed.
• Su Zhan entered the golden-patterned passage and emerged before an enormous spherical space at least five hundred zhang wide.

Su Zhan entered a chamber containing the first Heaven-Mending Stone, where eighty-one water guards formed a layered defense. He discovered that flying toward the stone would trigger all the guards at once, leaving him to face the trial without an easy shortcut.

• Su Zhan entered the spherical chamber and saw the first Heaven-Mending Stone atop an eighty-one-step platform.
• Eighty-one water guards emerged, ranging from the Martial King Second Level to the Martial King Third Stage Peak.
• Su Zhan tested the guards with thrown stones and found that each guard responded only to threats near its step.
• Su Zhan concluded that fighting upward would be slow, while flying to the stone could trigger a coordinated attack from all eighty-one guards.
• Nine Heavens Divine Lightning pointed out faint ripples marking an aerial forbidden zone around the platform.

Su Zhan fought the water guardians on the stone steps and discovered that lightning could destroy the Principle structure holding their bodies together. He tested Law-Eroding Poison on another guardian, and its body began to lose its form.

• Su Zhan charged the first water guardian, but its body repaired itself after his fire punch, while the other guardians attacked him.
• Su Zhan used lightning to destroy the guardian’s Principle structure, leaving it as a puddle that could not reassemble.
• Su Zhan noted that lightning consumed too much energy to defeat all eighty-one guardians and asked his allies to help test poison.
• Su Zhan struck the guardian on his left with a poison bomb, and the Law-Eroding Poison corroded its Principle nodes, making its body twist and its sword unsteady.

Su Zhan climbed the stone platform by defeating its water guards and recovering residual Principle energy from their scattered water. He reached the final stairway, where nine powerful guards stood between him and the Heaven-Mending Stone.

• Su Zhan used Blazing Dragon Venerate, Thunder, Poison, and the Immovable Wisdom King Wall to defeat the guards as he climbed.
• At the forty-first stair, Su Zhan learned from Myriad Poisons Divine Farmer's Canon that he could extract residual Principle energy from the guards' scattered water and feed it to Nine Heavens Divine Lightning.
• Su Zhan continued upward while recovering energy from each defeated guard, keeping his Law Power near sixty percent.
• At the seventy-second stair, Su Zhan used Five-Method Fusion for the first time and destroyed six guards in six breaths.
• At the seventy-eighth stair, Su Zhan saw the Heaven-Mending Stone and charged at the final nine guards, who attacked together.

Su Zhan fought through the water guards on the steps leading to the Heaven-Mending Stone, preventing the strongest guard from absorbing their remains and defeating it in close combat. He stood on the steps after the final guard exploded.

• Su Zhan dodged the nine guards' encirclement and destroyed six with poison pellets and Nine Heavens Divine Lightning.
• The three remaining guards formed around the Heaven-Mending Stone, and the greatsword guard absorbed scattered Principle water to strengthen itself.
• Su Zhan summoned Blazing Dragon Venerate, whose Glazed True Fire and White True Fire burned away the Principle water and cut off the guard's supply.
• Su Zhan killed the two lesser guards as they attacked from either side, leaving only the Martial King Third Stage Peak greatsword guard.
• The guard's heavy strike cracked Su Zhan's Immovable Wisdom King Wall shield, but Thunder Emperor weakened the water greatsword's Principle structure.
• Su Zhan closed in and unleashed Five-Method Fusion inside the greatsword guard, making it explode.

Su Zhan claimed the first Heaven-Mending Stone and learned that a probe in the Sealing Formation was expanding toward a breach. He raced back to the Mustard Seed Grotto-Heaven, where Yuan Ji and Yuan Chou were monitoring the crisis.

• Su Zhan took the Heaven-Mending Stone from the empty platform and stopped his six Cultivation Methods from consuming it.
• Su Zhan recovered the remaining Principle water fragments and left the Azure Billows Sea with the first stone secured.
• Shadow Thousand Silk Lock warned Su Zhan that the largest probe in the Sealing Formation was growing and could break through the second layer in three days.
• Su Zhan flew back to the Mustard Seed Grotto-Heaven and found Yuan Ji and Yuan Chou at the altar platform.
• Su Zhan asked Yuan Ji how far the probe had progressed.