Chapter Summaries

Liang Zhaohuang and the defenders of South Mountain City endured renewed assaults from Eight Directions Island while Li Liancheng used the Flying Boat’s phantom to deter the enemy. Just as Yang Family reinforcements arrived, the enemy formation master activated a formation that struck an underground earth vein, and Liang Zhaohuang realized she meant to sever South Mountain City’s connection to the distant South City.

• Li Liancheng told Liang Zhaohuang that controlling the Flying Boat had damaged his foundation and lifespan, and that he could no longer launch another strike, though he could still manifest the Azure Roc phantom as a threat.
• Liang Zhaohuang returned to South Mountain City as five Eight Directions Island battle formations resumed their attacks, while the female formation master began setting up an unfamiliar formation near the city.
• The city’s six defending battle formations resisted the assault, and Liang Zhaohuang replaced the exhausted Foundation Establishment cultivators Liang Ruijian and Li Lianhong.
• Liang Zhaohuang examined the nearly completed formation and realized that it connected to the underground rather than targeting the city-protecting formation.
• Yang Xiue arrived aboard the Alligator Dragon, and the female formation master activated her formation, blasting apart an underground earth vein beneath South Mountain City.
• Liang Zhaohuang realized that the enemy formation master intended to sever the connection between the earth-vein aura beneath South Mountain City and that of distant South City.

Liang Zhaohuang and Li Liancheng saved South Mountain City’s Flying Boat when the enemy formation destroyed the earth veins, forcing the Eight Directions Island forces to retreat. Yang Xiue’s reinforcements arrived, and Liang led the battered defenders out to greet them, while the Flying Boat remained badly damaged and Li Liancheng paid a heavy personal cost.

• Liang Zhaohuang realized the enemy formation had severed South Mountain City’s underground link to South City and would next target the Flying Boat’s connection.
• Li Liancheng spent Golden Flame Pills, Golden Yang Fire, and Golden Core Origin to control the Flying Boat and steer it clear of the collapsing mountain’s earth-energy backlash.
• Yang Xiuzhen arrived with the Yang Family reinforcements, and the female formation master ordered the Eight Directions Island forces to retreat as other clans pursued them.
• Liang Zhaohuang found Li Liancheng aged and weakened, and the Flying Boat’s altar split in two, leaving it in need of extensive repair.
• Liang Zhaohuang gathered the surviving commanders and seven damaged battle formations, opened the city-protecting formation, and went out to welcome Yang Xiue.

Yang Xiue praised Liang Zhaohuang and the New Sea Commandery cultivators for taking South Mountain City, but True Master Xue’s inspection revealed that the city’s earth-vein connection to South City had been destroyed. As Xue examined the Flying Boat and showed interest in its treasures, Liang Zhaohuang recognized his hostility and began to see him as a threat.

• Yang Xiue promised rewards to Liang Zhaohuang and the New Sea Commandery cultivators, while Wenxiu kept her distance from the Dragon River Yang Family.
• True Master Xue used a compass to discover that South Mountain City’s underground connection to South City had been severed, reducing the value of the capture.
• Zhao Danyang insulted Xue for surrendering to the Great Jin Immortal Dynasty, and Yang Xiue explained that the Xue Family had wanted to claim the lead merit in taking South Lake City.
• Liang Zhaohuang learned that his group’s capture of South Mountain City had angered the Xue Family as well as other forces, and resolved to act more cautiously in future battles.
• True Master Xue inspected the Flying Boat’s main control cabin before following his compass to the top-deck pavilion, revealing that its connection to South City was located there.
• Liang Zhaohuang suspected Xue coveted the fourth-order spiritual objects his group had taken and formed the intent to kill him.

After South Mountain City fell, Liang Zhaohuang’s group handed the captured Flying Boat to Xue True Person under Yang Xiue’s guarantee and rested in the city. Liang Zhaohuang reviewed the Liang Family’s casualties and rewards, then spent a month and a half recovering and repairing his Five-Colored Lotus Platform.

• Xue True Person revealed a hidden formation on the Flying Boat that connected South Mountain City to South City and asked to requisition the vessel for the campaign against South City.
• Liang Zhaohuang asked to leave his people aboard the Flying Boat, but Xue True Person refused; Yang Xiue guaranteed compensation, and Liang Zhaohuang’s group agreed to hand it over.
• Yang Xiue introduced her forces, left one battle formation to guard South Mountain City, and sent Yang Maozhen and True Person Zhou with another formation to secure the surrounding area.
• Liang Zhaosong presented records of the Liang Family’s spoils and battle merits, and Liang Zhaohuang ordered doubled compensation for the dead and doubled merits for the survivors.
• Liang Zhaohuang secluded himself to repair the shattered lotus petals of his Five-Colored Lotus Platform, refining four spirit lotuses and deepening his understanding of earth- and wood-element Dao charms over a month and a half.

After emerging from seclusion, Liang Zhaohuang helped Lin Changdao invite a Yang Family representative to a resource-exchange gathering and learned that the Xue Family was maneuvering to claim South City's capture. Yang Xiue asked Liang Zhaohuang to help her break into South City and secure the foremost merit, drawing him into the Yang Family's internal struggle.

• Liang Zhaosong introduced Lin Changdao to Liang Zhaohuang, who accepted invitations to a gathering and agreed to deliver one to the Yang Family in exchange for gifts of spiritual lotuses.
• Liang Zhaohuang visited Yang Xiue and learned that the Xue Family had captured South Lake City while delaying the opening of South City's gates from South Mountain City.
• Yang Xiue revealed that the Xue Family had pledged itself to her elder-generation brother, who was trying to prevent her from gaining the merit of capturing South City.
• Yang Xiue told Liang Zhaohuang that his past help had already tied him to her faction and hinted that cooperation could benefit his future advancement.
• Yang Xiue asked Liang Zhaohuang to help her break into South City and seize the foremost merit.

Liang Zhaohuang agreed to inspect South City's weakened protective formation for Yang Xiue, then brought her to an exchange gathering to strengthen his ties with the Yang Family. The gathering ended with several cultivators trading treasures and inheritances, while Liang saw many items useful to the Liang Family.

• Yang Xiue asked Liang Zhaohuang to help open the remaining half of the gate in South City's protective formation, and Liang agreed to inspect it first.
• Liang delivered Lin Changdao's invitation to Yang Xiue, who agreed to attend the exchange gathering.
• Liang brought Yang Xiue to the gathering, where she publicly attended as his friend and showed support for him.
• Lin Changdao and Li Liancheng offered water-element treasures to Yang Xiue in exchange for pills that could replenish Golden Core Origin, and she traded them Dragon Origin Pills for two fourth-rank items.
• Zhao Danyang traded for spirit medicines and a wind-element treasure inheritance, while Liang Zhaohuang and Wenxiu each copied the Earth Great Hand Seal inheritance.
• Wu Daochong and Wenxiu presented more third-tier treasures for exchange, and Liang saw that many of the displayed items could benefit the Liang Family.

Liang Zhaohuang traded for the Five-Colored Canopy inheritance and learned that Yang Xiue had a shattered example he could repair. As they reached South City, Yang Xiue gave him the damaged treasure and five-element materials, expecting his help opening a passage through the city’s grand protective formation.

• At the exchange gathering, Liang Zhaohuang traded a Spirit Crystal to Yang Xiue for the Five-Colored Canopy inheritance.
• Yang Xiue told Liang Zhaohuang that the Golden Core cultivator she had killed possessed a shattered Five-Colored Canopy, which she arranged to send him.
• After the gathering and a banquet hosted by Lin Changdao and Li Liancheng, Liang Zhaohuang joined Yang Xiue and traveled toward South City.
• On the journey, Liang Zhaohuang saw the ruins of conquered settlements and reflected on the destruction and future rebuilding of Ying Province.
• From a mountain ridge, Liang Zhaohuang observed the Yang Family’s camps suppressing South City’s earth veins and protective formation.
• Yang Xiue gave Liang Zhaohuang the shattered Five-Colored Canopy and five-element spiritual materials as gifts in return for his help opening a passage through South City’s formation.

Liang Zhaohuang repaired the Five-Colored Canopy as Yang Xiue’s campaign to break South City’s protective formation grew more urgent. After learning that South Lake City was close to opening its own gateway, they entered the battlefield, where South City’s forces could attack at any moment.

• Liang Zhaohuang identified the Five-Colored Canopy’s damage and began repairing it with New Sun Silkworm Silk gifted by Yang Xiue.
• Liang Zhaohuang and Yang Xiue’s group reached South City, where Yang Xiue learned that South Plain City had fallen and South Ridge City was the last satellite city still standing.
• Yang Xiue told Liang Zhaohuang that her branch relied on its alliance with the Yangtze River Alligator Dragon lineage, easing his concerns about their prospects within the Yang Family.
• Yang Xiue warned that South Lake City had already opened half its gateway and could break South City’s formation within half a month, so they needed to act quickly.
• Yang Xiue led Liang Zhaohuang and her subordinates through the Yang Family’s fortresses and onto the battlefield surrounding South City.

Liang Zhaohuang joined Yang Xiue’s forces on the battlefield outside South City, where he fought a powerful sword cultivator from the city. He drove the man back with his Black Tiger and Divine Light Needles, but discovered that the enemy’s Spirit Body and high-grade Golden Core made him unusually resistant.

• Liang Zhaohuang traveled with Yang Xiue toward South City and learned that Yang Xiulong and Yang Xiuwen were patrolling the plains with their forces.
• After hearing battle ahead, Yang Xiue led her group toward Yang Xiulong and Yang Xiuwen, then turned to confront cultivators arriving from South City.
• Liang Zhaohuang sent the Black Tiger to fight a bearded sword cultivator, whose wind-and-thunder flying sword initially suppressed it.
• Liang Zhaohuang used four Divine Light Needles to break the sword cultivator’s protective giant sword phantom and drive water-element needles into his body.
• The sword cultivator recalled his flying sword into his body and expelled the needles with surging sword qi, revealing his formidable Spirit Body and high-grade Golden Core.

Liang Zhaohuang and Yang Xiue’s group regrouped with Yang Xiulong and Yang Xiuwen, then set out to find a way to breach South City’s formation. They reached a hill southeast of the city, where Liang could safely observe the formation, and prepared to inspect it.

• Liang Zhaohuang fought a bearded sword cultivator alongside Black Tiger, but the enemy retreated after Yang Xiue’s warning, and Liang dispersed the demonic qi eroding Black Tiger.
• Yang Xiulong and Yang Xiuwen joined Yang Xiue’s group after routing a South City force that had apparently been used as bait.
• Yang Xiue told her brothers to avoid battles and explained that she wanted to earn the first achievement in breaching South City rather than collect merit by killing cultivators.
• Yang Xiue introduced Liang Zhaohuang as their chance to break the formation, and Yang Xiuwen recalled that Liang had broken a formation in the Dragon Clan Secret Realm.
• The Yang siblings combined their teams to protect Liang and traveled past several fleeing South City forces, arriving at a hill southeast of the city after more than a day.

Liang Zhaohuang discovered how to tear open a gap in South City's protective formation but warned that the Yang Family would likely face traps inside. As the group prepared to attack, True Lord Yang took an interest in Liang Zhaohuang and hinted that he might recruit him into the Yang Family, but Yang Xiue had already refused on his behalf.

• Liang Zhaohuang found the half-opened formation gate and explained that South City's formation could not be repaired because its flaw came from an old grandmaster's design.
• Liang Zhaohuang agreed to open a gap in three days, warning Yang Xiue and the others that traps might be waiting behind the gate, while he repaired the Five-Colored Canopy.
• Yang Xiue brought her Ninth Uncle, whom Liang Zhaohuang recognized as True Lord Yang, to join the group.
• True Lord Yang praised Liang Zhaohuang's rise and warned that fortune could fade without strength, then asked him to break South City's formation and promised the Yang Family would reward his service.
• Yang Xiue told Liang Zhaohuang that her Ninth Uncle had tried to recruit him into the Yang Family, but she had stopped him because she knew Liang Zhaohuang would not want to join.

Yang Xiue led the Yang Family forces and Liang Zhaohuang toward South City, where their combined battle formations smashed through the defenders and drew the surrounding conflict into a final assault. Under the Yang Family’s protection, Liang Zhaohuang broke open the formation gateway, bringing the attack to the brink of success.

• Yang Xiue ordered the four Yang Family battle formations to charge through South City's encircling forces, and their combined Dragon River and Alligator Dragon formations destroyed a five-hundred-man formation after its three Golden Core cultivators fled.
• The other South City formations accelerated their pursuit as Yang and South City Nascent Soul True Lords began fighting above the clouds; Yang Xiue said South Lake City and South Plain City had also launched their final assaults.
• Yang Xiue asked Liang Zhaohuang to break South City's protective formation, and he agreed as the group advanced beneath its wind and lightning bombardment.
• Liang Zhaohuang used talismans and Five Elements Restriction-Breaking Spiritual Light to tear open the gateway, while Yang Xiue revealed that Yang Maozhen had been sent to seize Xue Huai in South Mountain City.
• Yang Xiue, True Lord Yang, and the others welcomed Liang Zhaohuang's success as proof that their final assault could succeed.

Liang Zhaohuang helped Yang Xiue's group breach the formation tunnel leading into South City, while True Lord Yang protected them from its chaotic attacks. As they opened the final barrier, a gigantic Azure Roc Cloud Ship attacked, leaving True Lord Yang's fourth-order Alligator Dragon to face its Nascent Soul-level blasts.

• Liang Zhaohuang led the group through the wind-filled tunnel and used his Five Elements techniques to break open the blocked passage.
• After they entered the section linked to the ruined earth veins, True Lord Yang took the lead and crushed the chaotic attacks with his waterlight.
• Liang Zhaohuang tried to inspect True Lord Yang's Dao Marks, suffered a dangerous backlash, and learned that Nascent Soul True Lords wield Dao Marks directly.
• Liang Zhaohuang broke through the final formation barrier after warning the group that South City might have defenses waiting beyond it.
• A gigantic Azure Roc Cloud Ship fired destructive blue beams at the group, and True Lord Yang sent his fourth-order Alligator Dragon to intercept them.

Liang Zhaohuang followed Yang Xiue into South City as the Yang Family’s assault spread across the city and True Lord Yang fought the Azure Roc Cloud Ship. He witnessed Xue Hai’s faction pledge itself to the Yang Family and saw the family’s powerful elder cousin and Water Virtue Dao Body-bearing Twenty-Seventh Young Master, leaving him to recognize the Yang Family’s true heirs.

• True Lord Yang joined the fourth-tier Alligator Dragon in battle against the Azure Roc Cloud Ship, while Yang Xiulong, Yang Xiuwen, and the others fought South City’s cultivators.
• Yang Xiue persuaded Liang Zhaohuang to stay with her group, promising they would need his formation-breaking methods and reward him.
• Xue Hai used the Cloud Roc Token to absorb an attack from the Cloud Ship and declared that his family had been wronged by the Eight Directions Pavilion.
• The Yang Family’s Twenty-Seventh Young Master welcomed the Xue Family’s allegiance, and Xue Hai introduced the imposing elder cousin beside him.
• Liang Zhaohuang recognized the elder cousin’s profound water-element Dao resonance and reflected that the Yang Family had formidable heirs beyond Yang Xiue’s branch.

Yang Xiue led Liang Zhaohuang and the Yang Family group through South City’s underground passages to find a preserved Spirit Cauldron Secret Realm, which they hoped to loot before Ying Province’s new aristocratic family claimed it. At the apparent entrance, a cold pool in an underground cave, blood shadows ambushed the group, and Liang Zhaohuang fought back with fire divine abilities.

• The Yang Family’s forces entered South City while its eldest brother and Twenty-Seventh Brother fought over the Cloud Roc Ship, and Yang Xiue’s group headed underground.
• Yang Xiuwen told Liang Zhaohuang that they were seeking cheap spoils, and Yang Xiue revealed that South City held a secret realm built by East Sea sects researching how to gather Human Way Destiny.
• Yang Xiue used a White Jade Turtle Shell to guide the group through underground passages, while Liang Zhaohuang broke the formations and Restrictions blocking their way.
• The group reached a cold pool in an underground cave, which Yang Xiue identified as the likely entrance to the secret realm.
• Blood shadows suddenly attacked from every direction, and Liang Zhaohuang protected himself with his Five-Colored Lotus Platform and Canopy before burning the attackers with his fire divine abilities.

Liang Zhaohuang entered the South City Secret Realm and found it overrun with blood shadows controlling demonic beasts. With Yang Xiue’s help, he pushed through the attackers toward a blood lake, where a blood-colored figure sat waiting.

• Blood waves engulfed Liang Zhaohuang and the others, separating them and carrying Liang Zhaohuang into the secret realm’s underwater expanse.
• Liang Zhaohuang and Black Tiger fought through low-order demonic beasts, whose corpses released blood shadows that Liang Zhaohuang dissolved with Five-Colored Buddha Light.
• Black Tiger charged through the attackers as Liang Zhaohuang used the Peacock King Mantra to destroy swarms of blood shadows, including a third-tier one.
• Two blood-controlled Dragon Turtles blocked their path, so Yang Xiulong and Yang Xiuwen engaged them while Yang Xiue carried Liang Zhaohuang onward on her Alligator Dragon.
• Liang Zhaohuang and Yang Xiue traveled several hundred li through the secret realm and reached a blood lake, where a blood-colored figure sat amid falling blood rain.

Liang Zhaohuang and Yang Xiue discovered that the Blood God Son had possessed the Xue Family's ancestor and was using the South City secret realm's blood lake to restore its strength. After Liang Zhaohuang refined the Blood God Son with the help of Yang Xiue, Yang Xiulong, and the Dragon Spirit Treasure, a black light entered Liang Zhaohuang and revealed information about the Kunpeng Secret Realm.

• Yang Xiue recognized the figure in the blood lake as the Blood God Son possessing the Xue Family's ancestor and deduced that it was feeding on blood from the battle in South City.
• Yang Xiue summoned the Dragon Spirit Treasure and used it to suppress the blood lake and the Blood God Son.
• Yang Xiulong joined Yang Xiue and strengthened the Dragon Spirit Treasure's power, allowing it to crush the Blood God Son's blood shadow.
• Liang Zhaohuang used the Five-Colored Buddha Light and Peacock King Mantra to refine the Blood God Son, exhausting most of his Buddha Light in the process.
• After Yang Xiue and Yang Xiulong recalled the Dragon Spirit Treasure, a point of black light entered Liang Zhaohuang and sent him information about the Kunpeng Secret Realm.

Liang Zhaohuang learned the South City Secret Realm had been carved from the Kunpeng Secret Realm and gathered remnants that could help him restore and claim it. As he and the others scavenged the emptied realm, an Eight Directions Pavilion Nascent Soul True Lord’s phantom appeared overhead, demanding that the Blood God Son honor his promise as South City fell.

• Liang Zhaohuang learned the secret realm’s history and realized its origin fragment might guide him in restoring the Kunpeng Secret Realm.
• Yang Xiuwen told Liang Zhaohuang that the two Dragon Turtles had been dealt with after the Blood God Son lost control of them.
• After recovering, Liang Zhaohuang and the others scattered to search the secret realm, and Liang used the origin’s clues to find a spirit herb and Northern Abyss True Water.
• Liang Zhaohuang collected buried Kunpeng remnants, including fruits, feathers, scales, and a boulder concealing a Peng bone, while Yang Xiuwen searched nearby.
• An Eight Directions Pavilion Nascent Soul True Lord’s phantom appeared above the secret realm and demanded that the Blood God Son fulfill his promise as South City was about to fall.

After the Yang family defeated the blue-robed Nascent Soul True Lord, Liang Zhaohuang returned to South Mountain City and learned that South City had fallen. His allies urged him to lead New Sea Commandery into the southern region to claim resources, and Wenxiu supported joining them.

• Yang Xiue and the others used the spirit treasure to repel the blue-robed Nascent Soul True Lord’s attack, and a later upheaval revealed that he had died in the battle above.
• Liang Zhaohuang and the Yang family cultivators left the secret realm and found South City’s northern district devastated by the fallen True Lord’s power.
• Yang Xiue and the others learned that the Eight Directions Pavilion True Lord had fallen and that the Yang Family True Lord and two “flood dragons” were pursuing the fleeing Cloud Roc Ship.
• Liang Zhaohuang left South City and returned to South Mountain City, where Wu Daochong, Zhao Danyang, Lin Changdao, and Li Liancheng urged him to join the campaign to seize resources in the southern region.
• Liang Zhaohuang asked Wenxiu whether she agreed, and she nodded, wanting to act with the New Sea Commandery forces.

Liang Zhaohuang left the sweep of Eight Directions Island’s southern region to his allies and pursued his plan to claim the Kunpeng Secret Realm. After preparing the Kunpeng essence soul and activating a formation in the South City Secret Realm, he glimpsed five connected secret realms, including a vast realm of clouds and astral winds.

• Liang Zhaohuang kept the Liang Family in South Mountain City to guard the retreat while Wu Daochong, Lin Changdao, Wenxiu, and the others led their forces to join the southern-region sweep.
• Liang Zhaohuang traveled with the Giant Whale Demon to its undersea lair, stabilized the Kunpeng essence soul with spiritual materials, and stored it inside a roc bone.
• Liang Zhaohuang returned to South City and arranged an inherited formation at the Blood Lake in the abandoned South City Secret Realm.
• Liang Zhaohuang refined the roc bone and Kunpeng essence soul in the formation, then fed his own and the Giant Whale Demon’s essence blood into the resulting vortex.
• Liang Zhaohuang’s consciousness entered a vast indistinct realm and revealed five secret realms, four filled with seawater and one filled with clouds and astral winds.