Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• Hong Yuan probes Black Ji’s consciousness, uncovering her identity as a palace master of the Severed Love Lineage and learning that it is one of the Wu Dynasty’s Nine Great Schools.
• He discovers the lineages’ deeper origin: the Severed Love, Hanging Corpse, Spirit Yin, and Lamp-Burning Lineages all descend from the Mother of All Things Cult, an ancient power in the Great Ruins. Its highest practitioners are Dao Embryo experts, known as Mystic Lords or Origin Lords.
• Black Ji came to Yingbian Circuit to meet the other lineages and prepare for their hundred-year True Disciple Tournament. Its winner may travel to the Mother Cult’s headquarters in the Great Ruins.
• Hong Yuan reads Qi Wenjing’s memories and acquires his art, The Literary Mind and the Carving of Dragons. He combines it with the Severed Love Lineage’s methods and refines his approach to cultivation.
• He devises the Three-Origin Fire-Burning Art: cultivate surplus essence, qi, and spirit, then burn only the overflow rather than risking one’s foundation. The safer method is slower, but avoids the usual life-or-death danger of Burning Fire.
• Hong Yuan insists that Black Ji take him to the gathering of the four lineages. She agrees, partly because she cannot refuse and partly in hopes that the other lineages will bear the risk of dealing with him.
• They travel aboard Hong Yuan’s enormous Five-Colored Sail. His effortless destruction of several would-be attackers earns him the name “Five-Colored Sail Master.”
• The vessel arrives at Heavenly Candle Peak, where elders from the Hanging Corpse, Spirit Yin, and Lamp-Burning Lineages are gathered. Among them is Mo Yuan, now visibly intimidated by the assembled elders. The chapter ends as they notice Hong Yuan’s arrival.

Character developments and interactions

• Hong Yuan proves able to overwhelm Black Ji mentally, yet spares her and uses her knowledge to understand the world’s cultivation hierarchy. He remains confident and curious, choosing to enter the lineage gathering despite the possible attention of powerful figures.
• Black Ji shifts from terror and submission to cautious calculation. She recognizes Hong Yuan’s danger, but agrees to guide him and considers exploiting the coming confrontation for her own advantage.
• Qi Wenjing is left incapacitated after Hong Yuan extracts his memories; his cultivation art becomes another resource for Hong Yuan.
• Mo Yuan appears in a markedly different light from his earlier confident presence: surrounded by three Divine Ability elders, he is deferential and fearful.
• The chapter’s main interaction is a tense bargain between Hong Yuan and Black Ji: he makes clear that he intends to accompany her, while she weighs compliance against the possibility of turning his presence against rival lineages.

Significant themes

• Knowledge as power: Hong Yuan’s memory-reading turns Black Ji’s secrets and Qi Wenjing’s techniques into immediate advantages.
• Risk, safety, and cultivation: The Three-Origin Fire-Burning Art challenges the conventional, deadly method by prioritizing steady growth over speed.
• Power and uncertainty: Hong Yuan speculates about how this world’s Dao Embryo realm compares to his own cultivation system, but acknowledges that only direct experience can settle the question.
• Shared origins, rivalry: The four lineages descend from one cult, yet their tradition permits competition and infighting—unity of doctrine does not guarantee cooperation.

Plot points and events

• Representatives of the four lineages gather at Heavenly Candle Peak to arrange the True Disciple Tournament, due to take place in three years. Black Ji arrives aboard Hong Yuan’s impressive Five-Colored Ship, accompanied by Hong Yuan and Xin Shiniang.
• The other three Divine Ability Practitioners—Corpse Bone Elder, Azurefall Fairy, and Redbright Daoist—suspect Black Ji of bringing an outsider and use the accusation as a pretext to confront him.
• Hong Yuan attacks first with the Yin-Yang Twin Fires. The three practitioners unleash their respective abilities, but his overwhelming spiritual force shatters their attacks almost instantly.
• Hong Yuan subdues all four practitioners, including Black Ji, using the Six Void Cycle of Creation and Destruction. He orders them to continue preparing the tournament and gather information on the Miscellaneous Records of the Bai Sea and the Miasma Calamity. A soul search also gives him the other lineages’ cultivation arts.
• Rather than travel to seize the more powerful lineage masters, Hong Yuan decides to wait and capture them together at the tournament. He considers raising a candidate whose soul could pass the Mother of All Things Cult’s examination, while concealing his influence.
• Meanwhile, at Universal Aid Temple, a blue-clad swordswoman confronts Hongniang in defense of Cui Yingying. Hongniang’s apparent betrayal is exposed when Yingying asks whether she truly came to harm her.

Character developments and interactions

• Hong Yuan demonstrates overwhelming power and strategic patience. He treats the lineage leaders as tools, but plans carefully around the cult’s soul examination and the coming tournament.
• Black Ji remains outwardly composed, though she is now bound to Hong Yuan’s will. After leaving the peak, she rushes to stop her disciples from making a dangerous mistake.
• The three rival leaders move from suspicion to resistance, then are forcibly subdued. Their rivalry gives way to reluctant cooperation under Hong Yuan.
• Cui Yingying is shocked and hurt by Hongniang’s apparent treachery. The blue-clad swordswoman protects her and urges her to recognize the truth.
• Hongniang drops her innocent manner when confronted, revealing hostility and frustration. Zhang Junrui intervenes to block the swordswoman’s attack.

Significant themes

• Power and submission: Hong Yuan’s strength turns political rivals into unwilling subordinates.
• Rivalry and mistrust: The four lineages’ suspicion prevents them from agreeing even on a tournament venue—until a greater power forces them to cooperate.
• Deception and infiltration: The cult’s examination of souls is designed to expose infiltrators, prompting Hong Yuan to devise a subtler plan.
• Betrayal and trust: The confrontation at Universal Aid Temple places Cui Yingying’s trust in Hongniang under direct threat.

Hongxian exposed Hongniang and Zhang Junrui’s scheme against Cui Yingying, but Black Ji intervened and placed her disciples under Cui Yingying’s control. Black Ji revealed that Cui Yingying’s marriage contract connected her to Young Master Hong, while Hong Yuan manifested his Outer Dao God form and began remodeling his blessed land to contain future calamities.

• Hongxian fought Hongniang and Zhang Junrui to protect Cui Yingying after revealing their plot to exploit her constitution.
• Black Ji arrived, apologized to Cui Yingying, forced Hongniang and Zhang Junrui to kneel, and entrusted their soul seeds to Cui Yingying.
• Hongxian destroyed Sun Feihu’s severed head, and Black Ji left after telling Cui Yingying to thank Young Master Hong for her marriage contract.
• Hong Yuan realized that the contract’s rightful holder had crossed paths with him and entered the Taisui Blessed Land through a manifestation of thought.
• Hong Yuan assumed his Outer Dao God form and swung his scepter to begin remodeling the blessed land as a prison for future miasma calamities.

Hong Yuan arranged his blessed land, sealed the calamity form Dao Thief in Wugou Prison, and traveled through the Yingbian Circuit aboard the Five-Colored Sail. After defeating Venerable Withered Bones and continuing his cultivation, he learned that the Mountain Ghost Society planned to capture him because he bore the Soulfire Ghost Curse mark.

• Hong Yuan shaped his blessed land into a settlement and created Wugou Prison, where he sealed Dao Thief.
• Hong Yuan scattered tiny seeds across the land from the Five-Colored Ship and told Xin Shiniang he was planting trees.
• Hong Yuan drove off Talisman Seeding True Persons who tried to stop his ship, then defeated Venerable Withered Bones when he boarded it.
• Hong Yuan cultivated the earth immortal method and watched Xin Shiniang sing and dance aboard the ship.
• A leader of the Mountain Ghost Society ordered its Yingbian Circuit members to capture Hong Yuan and offer him to Mountain Ghost because he bore the Soulfire Ghost Curse mark.

Wugu and the Mountain Ghost Society hired the Black-and-White Envoys to deal with the Five-Colored Sail Master. Meanwhile, Hong Yuan captured the Buddha in the Stone at Falling Star Plain, only to be ambushed by the assassins and the Society as the chapter ended.

• Wugu rejected the idea of seeking help from the Tiannan Qi Clan and agreed to hire the Black-and-White Envoys.
• Hong Yuan arrived at Falling Star Plain with Xin Shiniang and found a city where the lake had been, led by a welcoming middle-aged gentleman.
• The gentleman's invitation drew Hong Yuan and Xin Shiniang into a trap, where the city’s inhabitants turned on them and a giant Buddha emerged beneath a pagoda.
• Hong Yuan shattered the Buddha, captured the golden Buddha in the Stone, and watched the city vanish into a crater filled with carvings.
• The Black-and-White Envoys trapped Hong Yuan and Xin Shiniang in a net of cuts across the air as Wugu and the Mountain Ghost Society arrived.

Chapter Summary

Key plot points and events

• The Black-and-White Envoys trap Hong Yuan and Xin Shiniang in a tightening web of force. When they strike, the pair seem to dissolve into vapor—but Hong Yuan reappears and shatters the envoys’ blades with his bare hand, burning their apparent bodies to ash.
• Hong Yuan notices that the envoys’ spiral pupils split open as they die. Two tiny beings escape from them: Pupil Folk, which had been hiding inside the envoys’ eyes and using their bodies. Hong Yuan catches both before they can flee.
• Xin Shiniang ambushes the Mountain Ghost Society. Her greatly improved cultivation lets her kill two powerful members immediately, then cut down the rest while they are briefly incapacitated.
• Cornered, Wugu offers herself as a sacrifice to summon the Mountain Ghost. As her life and soul burn away, she realizes she never truly chose this sacrifice: the Mountain Ghost’s blessings had shaped and controlled her since her advancement in cultivation.
• Wugu’s death releases a powerful Soulfire Ghost Curse, briefly dazing the Society members and giving Xin Shiniang the opening to finish them.
• The Mountain Ghost appears, settling on Hong Yuan’s shoulder and drawing him into a vast, uncanny mountain realm with its murmuring voice. Hong Yuan resists the mental assault and cleaves through the vision with a divine sword formed from his Dao Seed’s powers.
• Back on Falling Star Plain, Hong Yuan discovers that ordinary physical attacks cannot affect the Mountain Ghost. He strikes it with concentrated divine will, knocking it down, then prepares to use the Shadow Lotus Lamp and the Lotus Lamp Palm Manual against it.

Character developments

• Hong Yuan demonstrates overwhelming power, sharp observation, and a willingness to study unusual opponents even while fighting. He recognizes the Pupil Folk, resists the Mountain Ghost’s mental influence, and adapts by attacking with divine will rather than physical force.
• Xin Shiniang shows how far she has advanced under Hong Yuan’s instruction. She fights with newfound decisiveness and lethal efficiency, though her intuition warns her that the Mountain Ghost’s arrival poses a grave danger.
• Wugu is revealed as both a devoted Mountain Ghost worshipper and a victim of its influence. Her final clarity exposes the cost of its blessings: they gradually make their recipients serve it, until sacrifice seems inevitable.
• The Black-and-White Envoys are revealed to be Pupil Folk inhabiting humanlike bodies, explaining their unusual survival and escape abilities.

Significant themes

• The price of divine favor: Wugu’s blessings enabled her rise, but ultimately bound her body and mind to the Mountain Ghost.
• Appearance and hidden identity: The envoys’ apparent bodies conceal tiny parasites, while the Mountain Ghost’s unreal form proves capable of exerting real force.
• Adaptation and mastery: Hong Yuan counters threats by understanding their nature and changing tactics; Xin Shiniang’s growth likewise comes through instruction and practice.
• Faith, agency, and sacrifice: Wugu’s final question—why she would willingly die—reveals the difference between chosen devotion and a will shaped by a powerful supernatural force.

Character interactions

• The envoys refuse Wugu’s request to capture Hong Yuan alive, showing their cold, uncompromising approach to assassination.
• Xin Shiniang fights alongside Hong Yuan, then urges him to escape when her instincts sense danger. He answers that escape is already impossible.
• Hong Yuan’s earlier guidance has directly strengthened Xin Shiniang, and he can also wield her Shadow Lotus Lamp because of his own mastery of its associated technique.
• Hong Yuan confronts the Mountain Ghost first through his will and then prepares to test the Lotus Lamp’s fire against it.

Key plot points and events

• Hong Yuan uses the Shadow Lotus Lamp and the Lotus Lamp Palm Manual to burn Mountain Ghost, forcing the Miasma Calamity to break apart into gray-white currents and flee. Xin Shiniang is astonished that he could drive off a deity she once worshiped.
• Hong Yuan returns the lamp to Xin Shiniang, who keeps it, and asks about the Legacy where she found it. She agrees to lead him there.
• Hong Yuan reveals two captured Pupil Folk assassins, the Black-and-White Envoys. They try repeatedly to escape his palm but are effortlessly recaptured. Given the choice between death and life, they submit.
• The Envoys explain that their people came from a jade leaf of the White Jade Tree in the Bai Sea. A vicious wind tore the leaf away thousands of years ago, and their population has fallen from hundreds of millions to fewer than a thousand. Their leaf was later stolen by a powerful Divine Son of the Heavenly God Sect.
• Hong Yuan gathers the Pupil Folk hidden in a county town and takes them into his Taisui Blessed Land, intending both to protect them and to study how they might affect it. He keeps the Envoys outside as his agents.
• Mountain Ghost appears to be following Hong Yuan, but he drives it away again with an invisible lamp technique.
• The Five-Colored Ship returns to Xihe Commandery. Xin Shiniang points out the cliff where she found the Legacy, and Hong Yuan descends into its seemingly bottomless gorge to investigate.

Character developments and interactions

• Hong Yuan demonstrates overwhelming control over both Mountain Ghost and the Envoys. He is pragmatic: he recruits the Envoys as useful subordinates, shelters their endangered tribe, and sees their presence as an opportunity to explore the connection between Earth Immortal cultivation and his Blessed Land.
• Xin Shiniang moves from shock at Hong Yuan’s power to cooperating with him. Their teasing exchange over whether she is a “dog” and the lamp shows their familiar, playful rapport.
• The Black-and-White Envoys go from confident assassins to terrified captives, then become obedient servants. Their desperation to save their people explains their former work as assassins.
• Mountain Ghost is shown to be vulnerable to the Shadow Lotus Lamp, yet elusive and persistent: it escapes destruction and later trails Hong Yuan.

Significant themes

• Power and submission: Hong Yuan’s ability to contain and recapture even formidable Divine Ability Practitioners establishes the vast gap between him and most opponents.
• Survival and responsibility: The Pupil Folk’s loss of their homeland has pushed them toward extinction; Hong Yuan’s intervention offers protection, though also places them under his control.
• Mystery and exploration: The lamp’s connection to Mountain Ghost, the White Jade Tree, and the Legacy hint at deeper links among calamities, cultivation, and Hong Yuan’s Blessed Land.
• Fortune and calamity: Hong Yuan reads the tribe’s remaining strength as a final rebound before disaster, underscoring how precarious their survival is.

Hong Yuan discovered that the Shadow Lotus Lamp revealed a powerful painting on a handkerchief, and Mountain Ghost entered the image before Hong Yuan captured it for questioning. He sent Xin Shiniang to help her family, where Xin Laoweng agreed to ally with the Black Baleful Duke but attacked him rather than accept his command token.

• Hong Yuan used the Shadow Lotus Lamp to reveal a painting of immortal maidens on the handkerchief, and Mountain Ghost entered the image after identifying one maiden with the word “Yao.”
• Hong Yuan tested the handkerchief's power by uprooting and pulverizing a mountain, then sent Xin Shiniang and the Black-and-White Envoys to address trouble threatening the Xin family.
• Hong Yuan seized a mass of gray-white aura from the stone casket and demanded that it identify itself.
• Xin Laoweng met the Black Baleful Duke in the Withered Bone Plains, where the demon proposed that they join forces to seize Xihe Commandery.
• Xin Laoweng appeared to accept the Black Baleful Duke's military command token, but a second version of him emerged behind the duke and attacked.

Xin Laoweng confronted the Black Baleful Duke on the Withered Bone Plains, but Wu Qi of the Cihang Pure Altar joined the battle and helped corner him. Xin Shiniang and the Black-and-White Envoys arrived, killing Wu Qi and attacking the Duke, while Hong Yuan watched the Mountain Ghost flee into a stone casket.

• Xin Laoweng revealed that he was a Divine Ability Practitioner and struck the Black Baleful Duke with a false body and fox claw, but the Duke regenerated from the savage energy of the Withered Bone Plains.
• Wu Qi arrived, identified Xin Laoweng’s Reflection-Shifting Form, and joined the Black Baleful Duke in attacking him after revealing that he sought Xin Laoweng’s rare bloodline for the Cihang Pure Altar.
• Xin Shiniang arrived with Xin Laoweng’s youngest daughter, and Xin Shiniang’s attack trapped Wu Qi, allowing the Black-and-White Envoys to kill him outright.
• Xin Shiniang used the Lotus Lamp Palm Manual to surround and burn the Black Baleful Duke as Xin Laoweng watched in astonishment.
• Hong Yuan taunted the Mountain Ghost aboard the Five-Colored Ship, then eased his divine intent, and the Mountain Ghost escaped into the stone casket.

Three years after the battle at the Withered Bone Plains, Xin Shiniang defeated the Locust Tree Elder Demon and discovered a gravely ill girl named Nie Xiaoqian. She healed Xiaoqian and recognized her unusual netherworld body, warning that future danger remained.

• Nie Shoucheng and his family fled toward Jinning County as his daughter Nie Xiaoqian grew gravely ill, then their carriage was thrown off balance by thunder and a demon battle in the locust forest.
• Xin Shiniang fought the Locust Tree Elder Demon, using her Heart Lamp and Everlife Sword to destroy its demonic body and retrieve its Millennium Locust-Tree Heart.
• After defeating the demon, Xin Shiniang refined the Locust Tree Elder Demon's remaining will and noticed Nie Xiaoqian inside the carriage.
• Nie Shoucheng, Nie Shan, and Nie Shoucheng's wife begged Xin Shiniang to save Xiaoqian, and Xin Shiniang appeared before them and healed her with the Heart Lamp's light.
• Xin Shiniang learned Xiaoqian's name and explained that her netherworld body made her vulnerable to restless souls and evil ghosts if yin qi entered her body.

Xin Shiniang brought Nie Xiaoqian aboard the Five-Colored Ship, where Hong Yuan accepted her as a cultivator and she met his companions. As the Wu Emperor’s eight-hundredth birthday approached, Hong Yuan foresaw disaster at the Imperial Capital and planned to use the turmoil to capture his enemies; at dinner, Nie Xiaoqian spotted a little girl hiding in the palace shadows.

• Xin Shiniang took Nie Xiaoqian to the Five-Colored Ship after securing her parents’ consent and explained that the girl’s netherworld body was both dangerous and suited for cultivation.
• Hongxian revealed that she had attained the divine ability realm and traded barbs with Xin Shiniang, while Xin Shijiu-Mei tattled to Hong Yuan about their quarrel.
• Hongniang and Zhang Junrui reported that the four lineages’ True Disciple Tournament would begin in three days and that the Wu Emperor would choose his successor at his upcoming eight-hundredth birthday celebration.
• Hong Yuan saw calamity gathering over the Imperial Capital and judged the birthday celebration would bring disaster, giving him an opportunity to capture his enemies.
• Hong Yuan welcomed Nie Xiaoqian aboard and told her to cultivate while Cui Yingying, Xin Shiniang, Hongxian, and the others joined them for a meal.
• At dinner, Nie Xiaoqian noticed a little girl crouched in the shadow of a palace corner.

Plot points and events

• Nie Xiaoqian notices a small, barefoot girl hiding in the hall and worries that everyone is ignoring her. Xin Shiniang reveals the girl is a goddess, not a child.
• Xin Shijiu-Mei offers the girl a spirit fruit and calls her Yao Ji. Hong Yuan recognizes her as the Mountain Ghost, now freed from the gray-white mist that had clouded her mind. The mist’s removal came through prolonged exposure to Hong Yuan’s divine will and cultivation methods, which caused her pain but also helped her recover.
• Hong Yuan reflects that Yao Ji may be the legendary Goddess of Mount Wu and wonders about her past, the figures in the painting, and the power that transformed her into a Miasma Calamity. He suspects the lamp-bearing fairy may be the Third Holy Mother.
• In his Blessed Land, Hong Yuan finds the Pupil Folk thriving and nearing a thousand in number, while Wugou Prison now holds twenty-three Miasma Calamities. His research into the calamities remains inconclusive.
• Hong Yuan breaks through from Golden Core to Nascent Soul without obstruction or a heavenly tribulation. The breakthrough improves his Comprehension and reveals that his Spirit Body lets him wield True Nature unusually early.
• He realizes Daoist Nine Suns likely designed the True Dharma Spirit Apertures to cultivate Spirit-Body users and harvest their True Nature. Hong Yuan’s discovery of the Aperture of Unity was aided by his Dao Seed.
• Hong Yuan senses that Daoist Nine Suns may have found Vysseran Continent, making a return dangerous. He cannot sever his connection to the continent without sacrificing the Outer Dao Divine Tree, which is essential to his cultivation.
• He sets the five-colored ship westward toward Jade Gate Circuit, where the four branches’ true disciples will hold their century-spanning competition. The chapter ends with Daoist Zhu Lingzi meeting two visitors—one dog-headed, one tiger-headed.

Character developments and interactions

• Nie Xiaoqian shows compassion toward the apparently abandoned girl, then becomes anxious when she learns the girl is divine. Hong Yuan reassures her that she belongs among the ship’s company.
• Yao Ji remains withdrawn and largely expressionless, but she is no longer wholly witless: she recognizes Hong Yuan and appears resentful of him. Her recovery is ongoing, and she may regain formidable power.
• Hong Yuan grows in cultivation and understanding, but his new strength is tempered by concern over Daoist Nine Suns. His interaction with Yao Ji is marked by her refusal to respond to him and his decision not to press her.
• Xin Shijiu-Mei gently approaches Yao Ji and offers her fruit; Xin Shiniang later takes Nie Xiaoqian to teach her cultivation.

Significant themes

• Recovery and transformation: The same forces that hurt Yao Ji have helped restore her awareness.
• Myth and identity: Hong Yuan links Yao Ji to the Goddess of Mount Wu and considers how legendary figures may have changed over time.
• Power and its price: Hong Yuan’s exceptional cultivation offers advantages but also draws the attention of powerful rivals.
• Ambition and entanglement: The Outer Dao Divine Tree is both vital to Hong Yuan’s future and a connection that may expose him to danger.

Zhu Benzi met with Western Spirit experts and outsiders from the Black Flame Cult to secure their aid in his plans. When Bai Ji and Black Ji confronted him, Black Ji summoned her lord, who defeated Zhu Benzi and the other four Divine Ability Practitioners.

• Zhu Benzi welcomed Chi Liao and Jin Lie, who introduced Tie Qiong and Jing Tan of the Black Flame Cult as allies from beyond Western Spirit.
• Jing Tan and Tie Qiong asked Zhu Benzi for a place to settle and his support in reestablishing their cult, and he agreed in exchange for their help.
• Zhu Benzi and the four visitors caught Bai Ji spying on their meeting and prepared to capture her.
• Black Ji arrived to help Bai Ji, but Zhu Benzi trapped them both and tried to seize them.
• Black Ji called on her lord, whose radiance destroyed Zhu Benzi's attack and knocked all five men unconscious.
• A gigantic flying vessel appeared as Bai Ji questioned Black Ji about the power she had revealed.

Hong Yuan subdued Zhu Benzi and four allied powerhouses, then learned through their memories that Zhu Benzi had plotted to capture rival lineage cultivators to pursue the primal elixir realm. He also discovered that the Black Flame Cult leaders had fled the distant land of Many Peaks, where the Way of Ultimate Death had crushed its sects, and left their mysterious marks intact before confronting the awakened captives.

• The Five-Colored Sail Master summoned Black Ji and Bai Ji aboard his ship, where Bai Ji learned his Daoist title was Ten Thousand Tribulations.
• Hong Yuan searched Zhu Benzi and the four other captives' memories, discovering Zhu Benzi's plan to absorb the divine ability light of three rival lineages and his agreement to aid the Western Spirit Kingdom.
• Hong Yuan learned that Tie Qiong and Jing Tan had fled Many Peaks after the Way of Ultimate Death defeated its sects under a half-step primal elixir cultivator.
• Hong Yuan found mysterious marks on Tie Qiong and Jing Tan that seemed connected to the Way of Ultimate Death, but chose not to erase them.
• Hong Yuan awakened Zhu Benzi and the others, immediately pressed them back onto the deck with his power, and asked Zhu Benzi whether he wanted to live or die.

Hong Yuan sent Chi Liao and three other subordinates to subjugate the Western Spirit Kingdom, giving Chi Liao a strand of hair infused with annihilation calamity qi. The strand killed the Western Spirit King and the Witch God Hall Master, then captured a far stronger figure who appeared after their deaths.

• Hong Yuan accepted the submission of Zhu Benzi and four other Divine Ability Practitioners, ordered them to prepare the True Disciple Tournament, and sent them to Western Spirit with a strand of his hair for Chi Liao.
• Bai Ji pledged the Severed Love Lineage’s service to Hong Yuan and offered to persuade Qingji to submit as well.
• Chi Liao, Jin Lie, Jing Tan, and Tie Qiong returned to the Western Spirit Kingdom and confronted the Western Spirit King and the Witch God Hall Master in the palace temple.
• The Western Spirit King and the Witch God Hall Master accused Chi Liao and Jin Lie of plotting against them, then joined forces to attack the four subordinates.
• Chi Liao called on Hong Yuan, and the strand of hair cut down both rulers, whose bodies had no heads.
• A powerful figure appeared after the rulers died, demanded to know who had destroyed their bodies, and was bound by the strand of hair.

Hong Yuan watched the Four Lineages’ True Disciple Tournament and secretly boosted Shi Lin’s fortune, helping him win and earn the chance to enter the Mother River of All Things. The chapter ended with Shi Lin and the four lineage masters crossing into the Mother River to face an assessment from its God Attendant.

• Hong Yuan caught a giant spirit fish and shared its delicacies aboard the Five-Colored Ship while observing the tournament.
• Hong Yuan discovered that a Three-Body Being had controlled the Western Spirit Kingdom, and Chi Liao, Jin Lie, Jing Tan, and Tie Qiong secured the kingdom after Hong Yuan defeated its rulers.
• Hong Yuan infused Shi Lin with a strand of divine will, and Shi Lin’s fortune surged as his cultivation understanding improved.
• Shi Lin defeated the other contestants and became the foremost true disciple, then learned about the Great Ruins and the Mother of All Things Cult from Zhu Benzi, Qingji, Suihanzi, and Yin Lingzi.
• The four lineage masters brought Shi Lin’s spirit soul into the Mother River of All Things, where Hong Yuan’s hidden divine will traveled with him.
• The God Attendant recognized Shi Lin as the foremost disciple from the Lamp-Burning Lineage, invited the group through the boundary, and subjected their spirit souls to an unfathomable force.

Shi Lin passed the Mother of All Things Cult’s test by climbing Vulture Mountain, earning three years to decide whether to join the cult. Hong Yuan used the opportunity to enter the Mother River of All Things and discovered it was a vast world used by the cult’s disciples as a training ground, before sinking toward its deeper layer.

• The God Attendant tested Shi Lin on Vulture Mountain, where Hong Yuan secretly aided his comprehension of the Lamp-Burning Lineage’s methods.
• Shi Lin reached the sixth tier, passed the test, and received three years to activate a law-powered passage to the cult.
• The God Attendant offered Zhu Benzi a reward for nurturing Shi Lin, while Hong Yuan’s hidden divine will slipped away into the void.
• Hong Yuan entered the Mother River of All Things and found an island populated by native beings and cult disciples whose souls could act there as if in a real world.
• Hong Yuan observed the disciples’ varied conduct, judged the cult unworthy of the river’s supreme treasure, and descended toward the next layer.

Hong Yuan watched the Divine Ability Layer and uncovered how the Mother River of All Things consumed the souls of dead Mother Cult disciples. He decided to seize the river, beginning with Ji Xianyi, whose life-bound divine ability concealed a scheme by the Human Emperor.

• Hong Yuan surveyed the Divine Ability Layer, where Mother Cult disciples took sides in a conflict between the Human Imperial Court and the Emperor-Slaying Hall.
• Ji Xianyi defeated the Emperor-Slaying Hall fighters, killing several disciples and driving the survivors away.
• Hong Yuan saw that the Mother River absorbed the souls of dead disciples, while its laws created virtual souls to hide their true deaths; two disciples discussed their dwindling chances to reenter the river.
• Hong Yuan concluded that the Mother Cult had cultivated the river to harvest souls and resolved to claim it by defeating its God Attendant and confronting the cult's leaders.
• Hong Yuan examined the Origin Core Layer, then targeted Ji Xianyi as the starting point for a native rebellion against the Mother Cult.
• Hong Yuan discovered that a Dragon-Shadow Golden Blade was draining Ji Xianyi's vitality and recognized it as a Primal Elixir technique planted by the Human Emperor.

Hong Yuan possessed Ji Xianyi and uncovered the Human Emperor’s hidden drain on his son’s life-bound divine ability, then used Ji Xianyi to approach the Emperor-Slaying Hall. He left Ji Xianyi’s spirit soul in the Taisui Blessed Land and continued pursuing his plan to seize the Mother River of All Things.

• Hong Yuan took control of Ji Xianyi, discovered the God-Slaying Spear and the Dragon-Shadow Golden Blade hidden within it, and learned why Ji Xianyi wanted to kill the Human Emperor.
• Hong Yuan sent Mister Chen away and asked three Mother of All Things Cult practitioners to connect him with the Emperor-Slaying Hall; the three agreed to consider cooperating.
• Hong Yuan brought Ji Xianyi’s spirit soul to the Taisui Blessed Land, explained that the Human Emperor had been monitoring him, and introduced himself as Ten Thousand Tribulations.
• Hong Yuan reviewed his broader plan to use Ji Xianyi as a native opponent of the Mother of All Things Cult while targeting the God Attendant and the Mother River of All Things.
• Hong Yuan noticed that Yao Ji had been growing faster and told her that his tempering had helped her progress.

Hong Yuan watched from the Five-Colored Ship as Yan Chixiao and the Nine Great Schools confronted Venerable Pudu, the demon secretly controlling the Wu Emperor. Zen Master Lunhai exposed one of Pudu’s puppets, and the battle began with Pudu and Yan Chixiao facing off.

• Hong Yuan used a water mirror to find Hongxian’s teacher and the leaders of the Nine Great Schools gathering in the Imperial City.
• The chapter revealed that Yan Chixiao had allied with the schools to kill Venerable Pudu, who had controlled the Dark Guards and siphoned the Wu Emperor’s source essence for centuries.
• Hong Yuan saw that Pudu’s divine ability had made the Wu Emperor appear controlled, but remarked that Pudu had played with fire and lost control.
• Yan Chixiao arrived and warned the gathered leaders that Pudu had gathered demon and unorthodox allies and imprisoned the Wu Emperor in the Hall of Primordial Origin.
• Zen Master Lunhai killed a Heavenly Sea School leader who had been turned into Pudu’s puppet, then broke through Pudu’s Buddhist barrier and challenged him.
• Pudu appeared before the assembled cultivators, denied being a demon, and confronted Yan Chixiao as the battle began.