Chapter Summaries

Scholar Chen exposed the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect’s ties to the Esoteric Sect before the sect’s leaders killed him. Bai Yu launched an attack on the sect and confronted Zen Spirit, accusing him of being an Esoteric Sect senior.

• Scholar Chen revealed memories showing the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect’s schemes with the Esoteric Sect before Yan Kong and two Void Refinement experts suppressed him.
• Ye Wanyun and Ye Shuying attacked Yan Kong as Bai Yu’s forces sealed the area and the Heavenly Demon Army appeared.
• Zen Spirit recognized that Bai Yu had come prepared and accepted that the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect would be destroyed.
• Bai Yu confronted Zen Spirit about his identity as the sect’s Buddhist Son or an Esoteric Sect senior, and Zen Spirit unleashed his Buddhist power.

Zen Spirit revealed himself as an Esoteric Sect elder and attacked Bai Yu and the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect to seize Bai Yu’s treasures. As Zen Spirit pursued Bai Yu, Qing Ying appeared as an Evil Emperor and locked onto him.

• Zen Spirit summoned his Supreme Blissful Buddha Land and ordered his forces to attack the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect and extract its disciples’ memories.
• Zen Spirit raised his cultivation to the seventh level of the Void Refinement Realm and confronted Bai Yu, who used secret arts to reach the third level and evaded him.
• Onlookers recognized Zen Spirit as an Esoteric Sect elder but hesitated to join the battle, while Bai Yu continued dodging Zen Spirit’s attacks.
• Bai Yu stopped fleeing and warned Zen Spirit that greed came at a price as black clouds and blood-red lightning gathered above the sect.
• Qing Ying appeared with twelve Evil Eyes, and the onlookers identified her as a Blood Corpse bearing the Evil Calamity Clan’s power and an Evil Emperor.

Zen Spirit attacked Bai Yu after discovering Qing Ying’s Evil Emperor-level aura, but Qing Ying overwhelmed him and corrupted him with Saha Heaven’s power. Zen Spirit transformed into an Eight-Armed Compassionate Buddha Zombie at the first level of Void Refinement.

• Zen Spirit and the watching experts were shocked that Bai Yu possessed Qing Ying, a sixth-level Void Refinement Blood Corpse with an Evil Emperor’s aura.
• Zen Spirit decided to kill Bai Yu and seize his treasures, then attacked with the Secret Blood Great Arhat Staff.
• Bai Yu empowered Qing Ying with the Eighteen Hells Pagoda Beads, and she destroyed Zen Spirit’s Buddha-shaped dragon.
• Qing Ying seized Zen Spirit and tempted him with the power of Saha Heaven, while the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect’s disciples worshipped her and were reduced to skeletons.
• Zen Spirit’s body and soul were corrupted, his cultivation fell to the first level of Void Refinement, and he transformed into an Eight-Armed Compassionate Buddha Zombie.

Bai Yu destroyed the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect and seized its territory for the Feather Spirit Dynasty, but the vast region strained his forces and administrators. As Jing Linghan outlined the need to secure it, Bai Yu proposed taking another sect for her.

• Bai Yu’s Eight-Armed Compassionate Buddha Zombie defeated Yan Kong and the other Void Refinement Realm cultivators, while Zen Spirit and many Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect disciples lay dead.
• Bai Yu ordered the Heavenly Demon Army to take over the sect’s holdings and gave its subordinate sects three days to report signs of the Esoteric Sect.
• Over seven days, Ye Wanyun and the other women suppressed the subordinate sects, while the Hundred Flowers King and Northern Abyss King intercepted several groups that fled.
• Bai Yu and Jing Linghan assessed the burden of holding the territory and the time needed to build a spatial passage between it and the Feather Spirit Dynasty.
• Bai Yu located the Bodhi Heart Academy on the Blood Prison Dynasty map and told Jing Linghan he would give her a sect.

Bai Yu arrived at Bodhi Heart Academy with the Heavenly Demon Army, and the sect feared he had come to destroy them. Shu Chan declared the academy loyal to the Blood Prison Dynasty and offered to take responsibility if Bai Yu's investigation uncovered a problem.

• Bai Yu and Dugu Yan brought the Heavenly Demon Army to Bodhi Heart Academy, whose disciples feared they were next after the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect.
• Shu Chan respectfully greeted Bai Yu and considered whether his arrival would bring disaster or relief to her struggling sect.
• Bai Yu ordered Dugu Yan to seal off the academy and descended into its plaza.
• Shu Chan told Bai Yu that the academy had investigated its disciples and found no Esoteric Sect infiltration.
• Shu Chan pledged Bodhi Heart Academy's loyalty to the Blood Prison Dynasty and accepted responsibility for any suspicious findings.

Bai Yu met with Bodhi Heart Academy’s leaders and offered to relocate and empower the sect as a partner governing the former Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect’s territory. He then demanded slave marks from its leaders and elders as the price of his support.

• Bai Yu asked Shu Chan to dismiss the disciples and brought her and the Academy’s leaders into Bodhi Hall.
• Yao Ci emerged from seclusion, greeted Bai Yu, and assured him that Bodhi Heart Academy had not been infiltrated by the Esoteric Sect and would remain a reliable partner.
• Bai Yu proposed moving Bodhi Heart Academy to Satian City, sharing governance of the territory with the Feather Spirit Dynasty, and giving the sect the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect’s resources and techniques.
• Bai Yu required Shu Chan and Yao Ci to accept his slave mark and the elders to accept the Feather Spirit Dynasty Empress’s slave mark.

Bai Yu demanded slave seals from Bodhi Heart Academy in exchange for the resources and territory that could let it grow, and Yao Ci asked for time to discuss his condition. While the academy deliberated, Bai Yu stayed in its secluded courtyard, where he prepared Black Charcoal and the Ksitigarbha Gu for a future clash with the Esoteric Sect; Shu Chan then approached him.

• Bai Yu offered Bodhi Heart Academy the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect's territory and teachings, but demanded slave seals from its mid-level members and from Yao Ci and Shu Chan.
• Yao Ci said the academy needed to discuss the condition, and Bai Yu agreed to wait while they deliberated.
• The Heavenly Demon Army encamped outside Bodhi Heart Academy as the meeting in Bodhi Hall continued for three days.
• Bai Yu soaked Black Charcoal and the Ksitigarbha Gu in the courtyard's hot spring and anticipated Black Charcoal reaching the high stages of Tribulation Transcendence.
• Shu Chan approached Bai Yu in the courtyard and asked whether he was enjoying his stay.

Shu Chan negotiated Bodhi Heart Academy’s submission to Bai Yu’s Feather Spirit Dynasty, asking that the arrangement remain secret so the academy’s disciples could keep their honor. She then sought Bai Yu’s help with Yao Ci’s curse, leaving their discussion to continue in private.

• Bai Yu identified Yao Ci’s hidden wound as a curse derived from the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect and said an eighth-grade great medicine or pills might remove it.
• Shu Chan offered to help unblock Bai Yu’s Buddhist power before discussing cooperation between the academy and the dynasty.
• Shu Chan explained that Bodhi Heart Academy had agreed to become a subordinate sect and accept slave seals for its Spirit Transformation experts.
• Shu Chan asked Bai Yu to keep the agreement secret from the academy’s disciples, and Bai Yu agreed.
• Shu Chan turned the conversation toward Yao Ci’s injuries and asked Bai Yu, an eighth-rank Great Apothecary, to help her.

Bai Yu guided Shu Chan through the Bodhi Heart Academy’s philosophy, helping her reach an insight that sent her cultivation soaring to the peak of the ninth level of Void Refinement. As Shu Chan broke through, a sinister figure appeared on the lotus in Bai Yu’s sea of consciousness, leaving him alarmed.

• Shu Chan questioned whether anyone could truly preserve heavenly principles and extinguish human desires while trying to save the Bodhi Heart Academy.
• Bai Yu proposed discussing the Dao through the Academy’s philosophy, and a storm filled the snowy mountain with dense spiritual energy.
• Bai Yu prompted Shu Chan to consider the relationship between desire and principle until she concluded that the mind itself was principle and that she was Buddha.
• Shu Chan broke through her restraints and absorbed the gathered spiritual energy, advancing to the peak of the ninth level of Void Refinement.
• Bai Yu received a surge of primordial yin and saw a sinister figure resembling himself appear on the lotus in his sea of consciousness.

Bai Yu broke through to the second level of Tribulation Crossing and formed a powerful Buddha Evil Corpse, while Bodhi Heart Academy announced its move to Satian City under an agreement with the Feather Spirit Dynasty. As rumors spread about Bai Yu’s growing influence, Fan Lin’er confronted the Brahma Sound Wondrous Melody Pavilion’s master and asserted control over her sect.

• Bai Yu broke through to the second level of Tribulation Crossing, formed the Buddha Evil Corpse, and planned to cultivate it toward condensing the Self Corpse.
• Bai Yu discovered that his natal Gu, especially the Divine Baleful Gu and Taiji Geomancy Gu, were growing stronger alongside him.
• After seven days of rain, Bodhi Heart Academy announced that it would jointly administer the Red Dust Heart-Tempering Sect’s territories with the Feather Spirit Dynasty and relocate with the Heavenly Demon Sect’s help.
• Shu Chan appeared at the ninth level of Void Refinement, prompting sects to speculate that Bai Yu had used an eighth-grade Great Medicine and gained control of Bodhi Heart Academy and the Feather Spirit Dynasty.
• Fan Lin’er suppressed the Brahma Sound Wondrous Melody Pavilion’s master and rejected her threat of intervention by the Esoteric Sect.

After resolving Yao Ci’s curse and helping her break through, Bai Yu emerged from seclusion to find twelve regional powers seeking an alliance under the Feather Spirit Dynasty. He accepted their offer on the condition that they purge the Esoteric Sect and hinted that he would ask them to help with a task.

• Bai Yu removed Yao Ci’s curse with an eighth-grade great medicine, and she broke through to the sixth level of Void Refinement.
• Bai Yu returned to the main hall, where Jing Linghan received the leaders of twelve regional forces seeking cooperation and an alliance.
• Fan Lin’er apologized for her sects’ failures to detect Esoteric Sect members, while Dream Elder proposed uniting the Southern Region under shared rule.
• Bai Yu welcomed the alliance if the sects thoroughly purged the Esoteric Sect and said he needed their help with a small matter.

Bai Yu persuaded the twelve sects to join a trade and transport alliance centered on Satian City, giving them agency rights for the Feather Spirit Dynasty’s great medicines. After the South Domain Alliance was established, he wondered which prince’s forces had been infiltrated most deeply by the Esoteric Sect.

• Bai Yu asked the twelve sects to build teleportation arrays linking their sects to Satian City and share the cost of the passage to Feather Spirit City.
• Bai Yu offered the sects agency rights to sell great medicines, while Jing Linghan explained the supply limits and ordering rules for higher-grade medicines.
• Fan Lin'er, Dream Elder, and the other sect leaders agreed to the arrangement and pledged to follow the Feather Spirit Dynasty’s lead, officially establishing the South Domain Alliance.
• Late at night, Bai Yu absorbed the divine souls of the Esoteric Sect cultivators into his Evil Corpse and wondered which prince’s forces had been infiltrated most severely.
• Yao Ci listened from beneath the table as Bai Yu anticipated turmoil in the Blood Prison Dynasty.

After uniting the Southern Region under the Feather Spirit Dynasty, Bai Yu weighed the Blood Prison Dynasty’s escalating purge and the summons to Blood Prison City. He decided to answer the twelfth golden edict but planned to avoid openly backing any prince, leaving his stance and the National Preceptor’s Residence’s role unresolved.

• Bai Yu’s pact with the Twelve Sects strengthened the Feather Spirit Dynasty and drew attention from factions across Midstream to his growing influence and ties to the National Preceptor’s Residence.
• Xia Chuxue told Bai Yu that the Blood Emperor had issued twelve golden edicts summoning him to Blood Prison City, while investigations had uncovered more than ten thousand Esoteric Sect disciples and the princes’ rivalry had turned deadly.
• Bai Yu concluded that the Blood Emperor was manipulating the princes to expose the Esoteric Sect and weaken officials, and that the struggle would not easily transfer power to an heir.
• Xia Chuxue urged Bai Yu not to reveal the National Preceptor’s Residence’s position, while Bai Yu said he would not refuse benefits that came his way.
• Bai Yu decided to travel without Shu Chan and the others to avoid attracting suspicion, then teased Xia Chuxue about learning Shu Chan’s method for clearing meridians.

Bai Yu returned to Blood Prison City and was summoned to the imperial harem under a warrant bearing Luo Ning’s seal. There, he met an unfamiliar woman whose demonic power he suppressed with his Eye of Destruction, and he questioned why she had addressed him as his sister.

• Bai Yu arrived in Blood Prison City and chose not to report to the National Preceptor’s Residence or visit any of the imperial princes.
• Luo Man, a Central Attendant of the Palace Attendants Office, presented a warrant and invited Bai Yu to meet Consort Luo in the imperial harem.
• Bai Yu sent Xia Chuxue and Li Shuyu into his grotto-heaven and followed Luo Man through the palace to a secluded courtyard.
• Bai Yu entered the courtyard hall and found an unfamiliar woman in black reading among old books.
• The woman unleashed powerful demonic pressure, but Bai Yu’s Eye of Destruction suppressed it, and he remarked that his sister had never cultivated demonic arts.

Bai Yu met Ning Zhirou, an Enforcement Hall Master from the Holy Heaven Cult, who ordered him to help replace Blood Emperor with Eldest Princess Xiao Yuan. Ning Zhirou revealed that she had imprisoned Luo Ning and the aristocratic clan leaders as her plan turned toward Blood Emperor and the three princes.

• Ning Zhirou revealed that she was a high-level Void Refinement cultivator and the Holy Heaven Cult's Enforcement Hall Master.
• Ning Zhirou told Bai Yu that the Holy Heaven Cult wanted to remove Blood Emperor and install Xiao Yuan, whom the cult considered its chosen successor.
• Ning Zhirou asked Bai Yu to lead the National Preceptor's Residence, the Heavenly Demon Sect, and the Feather Spirit Dynasty in supporting Xiao Yuan and bringing down the princes, starting with Xiao Xiaofeng.
• Bai Yu accepted Ning Zhirou's command token and asked where Luo Ning was.
• Ning Zhirou showed Bai Yu a prison pocket realm holding Luo Ning and the aristocratic clan leaders, then said she would next deal with Blood Emperor and the three princes.

Bai Yu suspected that Ning Zhirou’s supposed Holy Heaven Cult plan was actually an Esoteric Sect infiltration tied to Xiao Yuan, and he shared his suspicions with Hua Chenfei. Hua Chenfei tried to leave, but Ye Wanyun and Ye Shuying stopped him.

• Bai Yu asked Ye Wanyun and Ye Shuying how likely they were to kill Ning Zhirou together, and Ye Wanyun estimated their combined odds at forty percent.
• Hua Chenfei arrived after Bai Yu summoned him, and Bai Yu showed him a Holy Heaven Cult token and explained Ning Zhirou’s alleged plan to put Xiao Yuan on the throne.
• Bai Yu questioned why the Holy Heaven Cult would interfere in the dynasty and argued that Ning Zhirou’s actions against the great clans suggested an internal plot.
• Bai Yu told Hua Chenfei he suspected Ning Zhirou was an Esoteric Sect agent who had infiltrated the clans, and that Xiao Yuan might have brought the sect into the dynasty for her own ends.
• Hua Chenfei tried to flee, claiming he had lost his memory, but Ye Wanyun and Ye Shuying blocked his way.

Bai Yu recruited Hua Chenfei to continue hunting Esoteric Sect agents while he sought stronger materials and a reason to leave. He then approached Xiao Juexin to secure his cooperation and ask for benefits.

• Bai Yu told Hua Chenfei that the National Preceptor's Residence and the Blood Emperor were using them to test the force behind Ning Zhirou, then tasked Hua with publicly destroying Buddhist groups and finding Esoteric Sect agents.
• Hua Chenfei reluctantly accepted the task, while Bai Yu said he would disappear for a while to keep their enemies in check.
• Ye Wanyun suggested Bai Yu search the dynasty's forbidden lands for materials, and he realized they contained pocket worlds sealing Evil Emperors.
• Bai Yu met Xiao Juexin, won his support for Hua Chenfei's inspection of Midstream, and said he had come to ask Xiao for benefits.

Bai Yu asked Xiao Juexin for help entering a small world to train and reinforce a forbidden land’s seal, but Xiao Juexin mistakenly thought he wanted a cultivation furnace and gave him Su Jiuniang. The chapter ended with Bai Yu accepting the gift before clarifying his request, leaving Xiao Juexin regretting the misunderstanding.

• Bai Yu told Xiao Juexin that he wanted to improve his combat strength and asked for benefits in exchange for joining his camp.
• Xiao Juexin offered Bai Yu Su Jiuniang, the imprisoned ancestor of the Flowing Fragrance Sect, believing Bai Yu wanted a cultivation furnace.
• Bai Yu accepted Su Jiuniang and praised Xiao Juexin for his generosity.
• Bai Yu clarified that he wanted permission to enter a small world for one or two months of training and asked to borrow guards.
• Xiao Juexin realized Bai Yu had not wanted Su Jiuniang, but could not bring himself to ask for her return.

Bai Yu persuaded Xiao Juexin to help him enter one of the Blood Prison Dynasty’s forbidden lands, learning that the great clans maintained the seals there. After leaving the royal residence, Bai Yu freed Su Jiuniang and Ling Yao, and Su Jiuniang revealed her pride in the path of wine.

• Xiao Juexin explained that the great clans maintained the forbidden lands’ seals and that Bai Yu would need their approval to enter.
• Bai Yu offered Xiao Juexin a high-tier seventh-grade great medicine and asked him to arrange access to the forbidden lands.
• Xiao Juexin agreed to propose to the Blood Emperor that Bai Yu lead a mission into a forbidden land with the dynasty’s dead soldiers.
• Bai Yu released Su Jiuniang and Ling Yao after leaving the royal residence.
• Su Jiuniang explained that Forbidden Wine protected her from slave marks and defended the potential of the path of wine.

Bai Yu tried to persuade Su Jiuniang to submit, then used Red Lotus Karmic Fire to attack the Forbidden Wine in her soul and lecture her about hiding her talent. He freed Ling Yao from amber, but she immediately attacked him, prompting him to activate Dragon Treasury Three Transformations.

• Su Jiuniang refused to become Bai Yu's slave and insisted her Forbidden Wine could protect her.
• Bai Yu sent Red Lotus Karmic Fire into Su Jiuniang's soul, causing her intense pain as he explained how her lack of caution had led to betrayal.
• Bai Yu used another flame to melt the amber imprisoning Ling Yao and break the Buddhist seal on her body.
• Ling Yao awoke, saw Su Jiuniang suffering, and attacked Bai Yu despite her cultivation being sealed.
• Bai Yu activated Dragon Treasury Three Transformations as Ling Yao rushed toward him.