Chapter Summaries

Yu Ci and Lu Ya entered the Nether Lake, where the poisonous mist and shifting waters left them unable to find their way. Yu Ci used a Supreme Clarity Dharma Talisman to summon a ghost entity and restrained it with the Lunar Restraint Ghost Art.

• Yu Ci and Lu Ya plunged into the Nether Lake and struggled to navigate its poisonous mist.
• Yu Ci considered how Lu Chen had fashioned the Nether Lake into a prison connected to the Nine Nether Underworld.
• Lu Ya explained that the Nine Orifices Twenty-Eight Paths had fixed locations, giving Yu Ci a way to orient himself.
• Yu Ci opened the Supreme Clarity Dharma Talisman and summoned a ghost entity without the sworn true text needed to control it.
• The ghost entity prepared to counterattack, but Yu Ci activated the Lunar Restraint Ghost Art through his Heavenly Barrier Natal Golden Talisman.

Yu Ci used ghost talismans to map the Nether Lake and find the moving Heart Hut while Lu Ya weakened from the toxic qi. He reached the garden with Gui Yan and Lu Ya, but found no living person there.

• Yu Ci transformed ghostly qi into the Underworld Soul-Reaping Judge's Brush and summoned ghost-beings through talismanic illustrations.
• Yu Ci used the summoned ghosts to map many void rifts and outline the Nether Lake, though the lake's restrictions destroyed several ghosts and suppressed his formation.
• Yu Ci realized Lu Ya was nearing her limit and used the gathered information to locate the moving Heart Hut.
• Yu Ci led Gui Yan and the semi-conscious Lu Ya through the dark fog until they reached an island containing a garden.
• Yu Ci helped Lu Ya recover and asked whether this was the place; Lu Ya confirmed it and noted that no one living was there.

Yu Ci and Lu Ya entered Madame Yellow Springs’s courtyard and discovered Liu Guan’s Shadow Puppet controlling the dried corpses of two maids. Following Liu Guan’s aura toward the master’s dwelling, Yu Ci concluded that Liu Guan had pursued someone through the courtyard and hurried onward before the trail faded.

• Yu Ci led Lu Ya through the courtyard’s front gate, where a figure with glowing eyes appeared in the hall.
• Jiu Yan attacked the figure, revealing two dried corpses and a smoke-like Shadow Puppet held down by Yu Ci’s Blood Prison Thunder Pool.
• Lu Ya identified the corpses as Madame’s sweeping maids and watchers, while Yu Ci recognized the Shadow Puppet’s aura as Liu Guan’s.
• Yu Ci traced Liu Guan’s aura through the halls toward the master’s dwelling and inferred that Liu Guan had rushed after someone without stopping to fight.
• Yu Ci crushed the Shadow Puppet’s remnants to prevent information from leaking and continued inward as time grew short.

Yu Ci searched Madame Yellow Springs's study for clues about Liu Guan's sudden departure, examining her clothing and the room's furnishings. He noticed that the landscape screen depicted Donghua Mountain and asked who had painted it, but Lu Ya did not know.

• Yu Ci entered Madame Yellow Springs's study and found a gauzy garment and embroidered shoes beside her bed.
• Yu Ci examined and smelled the garment and shoes, while Lu Ya recognized the shoes as Madame Yellow Springs's.
• Yu Ci noticed two teacups and asked whether a guest had visited, but Lu Ya said outsiders could hardly enter Nether Lake.
• Yu Ci searched the desk, then spotted the landscape screen and asked whether it showed Donghua Mountain.
• Lu Ya confirmed the screen depicted the Donghua Thirty-Three Peaks, but she did not know who had painted it.

Yu Ci used a cyan light to reveal a scene hidden in the landscape painting, showing Lu Ya serving Lu Suhua fifteen years earlier. He questioned Lu Ya about when it happened and learned the scene was after Lu Suhua returned from the Northern Wastes.

• Yu Ci stopped Lu Ya from dismantling the screen and ordered her to identify her location in the painting.
• Lu Ya identified the Jingtai Palace on the fourth peak of the Western Eight Peaks, and Yu Ci illuminated that spot with a cyan light.
• The light moved over the painted peaks, transforming the scene into a moonlit landscape whose mountains shifted into view.
• Yu Ci revealed an image of Lu Suhua reclining while Lu Ya approached with a lamp, and Lu Ya reacted with shame and fear.
• Yu Ci asked when the scene occurred, and Lu Ya said it was fifteen years earlier, after Lu Suhua returned from the Northern Wastes.

Yu Ci discovered that the folding screen in the Heart Hut concealed a damaged scroll linked to Donghua Palace’s main peak. He destroyed the hut and ordered Lu Ya to lead him to every similar screen and scroll in the palace.

• Yu Ci questioned Lu Ya about Donghua Palace’s customs, then examined the screen depicting the Eastern Splendor Peaks.
• Lu Ya confirmed that the screen showed the Elder Mistress’s former dwelling and said she had seen at least six similar screens around the palace.
• Yu Ci used the Taiyi Demon Slaying Talisman to reveal a hidden tear in the screen, which unfolded into a blank scroll marked by cyan light.
• Yu Ci left the island with the scroll, and the Heart Hut collapsed and burned behind him.
• Yu Ci told Lu Ya to locate every similar screen and scroll, then hurried her onward.

Yu Ci brought Lu Ya into Nether Lake to evade Liu Guan, whose expanding Shadow Void threatened to expose them. After Ghost Yan swallowed Lu Ya, Yu Ci shrank to an inch and hid on the lakebed as Liu Guan's advance stalled under the lake's restrictions.

• A powerful force broke through Nether Lake's restrictions, and Yu Ci grabbed Lu Ya and plunged into the poisonous water.
• Yu Ci's Inner Void domain shielded them from the poison and ghosts while Liu Guan's Shadow Void spread across the lake.
• Yu Ci recognized Liu Guan as a dangerous powerhouse and realized his expanding perception could reveal their position.
• Ghost Yan entered Yu Ci's domain, swallowed Lu Ya to reduce the burden, and prepared to withdraw with him.
• Yu Ci shrank to barely an inch and hid in the lakebed mud as Liu Guan's Shadow Void stopped about a li away.

After escaping Liu Guan, Yu Ci reunited with Lu Ya and sought clues to landscape scrolls hidden across Donghua’s peaks. Lu Ya led him toward a Western Eight Peaks target, but rising numbers of fiends prompted Yu Ci to summon a chariot from the Book of Ethereal Spirits.

• Lu Ya emerged from Guiyan’s stomach after enduring days of thin air and demonic intent, while Yu Ci reflected on his dangerous hide-and-seek with Liu Guan and the conflict between their void domains.
• Yu Ci examined the landscape scroll, removed the last trace of sword intent from his old attack, and put the repaired scroll away.
• Yu Ci asked Lu Ya where landscape screens and scrolls could be found, and she named a Hundred Talents Painting on the main peak and offered to guide him to a Western Eight Peaks target.
• When Yu Ci sensed that fiends had gathered nearby, he used the Book of Ethereal Spirits to summon two six-winged monstrous birds towing a chariot.

Yu Ci took Lu Ya aboard the Netherworld Patrol Chariot and used its three-path traversal and demon-subduing powers to cross the Western Eight Peaks. Near their destination, they encountered a Profound Yin Blood Shadow, a sword cultivator allied with it, and another massive concentration of demon intent.

• Yu Ci summoned the Netherworld Patrol Chariot, and Lu Ya recognized it before climbing aboard.
• Yu Ci manifested a celestial being through his talismanic arts and directed the chariot toward the location Lu Ya indicated.
• The chariot passed through mountains and traveled hundreds of li, while its celestial being destroyed demons that attacked them.
• Yu Ci observed demons setting traps among the peaks and noted that the Western Eight Peaks preserved their void-divine-ability blessings better than the eastern and southern peaks.
• Near their destination, Yu Ci sensed a Profound Yin Blood Shadow alongside a meditating sword cultivator, and detected powerful demon intent about a hundred li away.

Yu Ci surveyed a peak crowded with Heavenly Demons while seeking a hidden treasure and learned from Duanmu Senqiu that more demons and cultivators from beyond the domain had entered Donghua Palace. He decided to take advantage of the confusion, and after detecting the retreating cultivators’ thoughts, he turned his attention to the people directing them.

• Yu Ci circled the peak in the Netherworld Patrol Chariot, studied Lu Ya’s map, and hesitated to use the Zhaoshen Map among so many demons and Outer Dao practitioners.
• Yu Ci contacted Duanmu Senqiu with the Bamboo Leaf Token and learned that demons had increased and cultivators from beyond the domain had entered through the one-way Void Rift.
• Yu Ci considered how the chaos could conceal his actions and resolved to pursue the treasure without restraint.
• Yu Ci scattered motes of starlight onto several retreating cultivators, sensed fragments of their thoughts, and spotted others who appeared to be directing them.

Golden Cauldron True Man and his allies watched a mysterious chariot assault the demon-infested Danxiao Peak, where it destroyed a powerful demon-kin swordsman and fought its way inside. Shang He recognized the chariot as a relic of Shangqing Sect, leaving the group eager to discover what was happening on the peak.

• Golden Cauldron True Man joined forces with Shang He, Kui Dou, and other cultivators after their earlier group suffered losses while fighting demons around Danxiao Peak.
• The cultivators debated how to seize the treasures on Danxiao Peak as a gray-qi chariot approached through the sky.
• The chariot passed through the demon blockade and evaded a Longevity-level demon-kin swordsman's strike, then destroyed the swordsman with jade-white flames.
• Shang He led the cultivators toward the peak, while Golden Cauldron True Man wondered whether he could learn the chariot user's demon-breaking fire art.
• The chariot emerged from the cliff, burned the demons it had swept out, and entered the mountain again.
• Shang He recognized the vehicle as Shangqing Sect's Netherworld Patrol Chariot, and Kui Dou confirmed that it was a relic of Shangqing.

Shang He, Golden Cauldron True Man, and the other cultivators fled as the Fire Pestilences swarmed Danxiao Peak and a Netherworld Patrol Chariot fought its way through them. After the chariot smashed through the mountain and vanished, the pursuing demons and their dependents raced toward the cultivators, who fled for their lives.

• Shang He recognized the swarm pouring from Danxiao Peak as tens of thousands of Fire Pestilences and ordered everyone to retreat.
• The Netherworld Patrol Chariot charged through the poison mist, using demon-breaking True Fire to burn the Fire Pestilences and escape their encirclement.
• Azure Sword Qi erupted from Danxiao Peak, slashing through countless devil heads and leaving the Vajra Demon Figurine badly wounded.
• A Fire Pestilence gathered into human form, but Shang He concealed the group until it and the Vajra Demon Figurine chased after the chariot.
• The chariot returned at uncontrolled speed, smashed through Danxiao Peak, and disappeared after apparently taking something valuable.
• Shang He and the others realized the demons would pursue them and fled, while a great tide of devil heads and dependents rushed after them.

After escaping the heavenly demon tide, Yu Ci considered Lu Ya’s theory that the Kui Yin Demonic Nest might have been created within the True Realm by Madame Yellow Springs. He and Lu Ya then received a message from Zhai Que'er, whose request involved a landscape folding screen like the one Yu Ci had found.

• Lu Ya recovered from her fear of the heavenly demons and reasoned that the Kui Yin Demonic Nest might have originated in Madame Yellow Springs’s experiments within the True Realm.
• Yu Ci considered the possibility that the Nest had been sustained by local conditions and reflected on how Qi-infused talismans had helped him fight the heavenly demons.
• Yu Ci abandoned the Netherworld Patrol Chariot and carried Lu Ya into the mountains to find a temporary refuge.
• Zhai Que'er contacted Yu Ci from Yupán Peak and asked him to help search for something useful to her sect.
• Zhai Que'er projected an image of a landscape folding screen, and Yu Ci asked what it was.

Yu Ci learned that Madame Yellow Springs had likely made landscape folding screens from the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror, and the Sword Discussion Pavilion’s call to seize them threatened to draw cultivators into her scheme. Meanwhile, Ghost Aversion confronted Golden Cauldron True Man and Shang He’s group, where his overwhelming strength stopped a hostile cultivator’s attack.

• Zhai Que'er told Yu Ci that the landscape folding screens might contain the Devil Master's demonic intent and could be made in large numbers from the Zhaoshen Bronze Mirror.
• A transmitting flying sword announced the Sword Discussion Pavilion’s demand that cultivators attack Heavenly Demon gathering points and retrieve the landscape folding screens, which Yu Ci recognized as Madame Yellow Springs’s trap.
• Yu Ci asked Lu Ya about Madame Yellow Springs, then returned to preparing the Qi Infusion Method as the situation grew more complicated.
• Golden Cauldron True Man and Shang He’s group fled Heavenly Demons at Yupán Peak and headed to Luoxia Peak to rest.
• Ghost Aversion appeared before the group, and a cultivator who attacked him was swiftly defeated.
• Golden Cauldron True Man warned the others that Ghost Aversion was honored by the Sword Discussion Pavilion, Eight Sceneries Palace, and Kongyou Nunnery.

Golden Cauldron True Man and the Thirteen Water Mansions cultivators met Jiu Yan at Luoxia Peak and tried to establish friendly relations. Duanmu Senqiu arrived and raised the question of a joint attack on the demons at Danxiao Peak, but Golden Cauldron True Man reported that the coveted item there might already be gone.

• Golden Cauldron True Man apologized to Ghost Yan for the group’s earlier actions and asked to meet Jiu Yan.
• Shang He identified Jiu Yan through his connections to Qing Song and Zhu Wenying, and the group accepted Jiu Yan’s invitation inside.
• Shang He privately told Kui Dou that Jiu Yan was backed by the Evergreen Gate and the Heavy Artifact Sect, so they should avoid offending him.
• The group found Jiu Yan and a female wandering void cultivator at Luoxia Peak before Duanmu Senqiu arrived and greeted Shang He and Kui Dou.
• Duanmu Senqiu asked whether Jiu Yan intended to help destroy the demons at Danxiao Peak, and Golden Cauldron True Man said the must-have item might already be gone.

Duanmu Senqiu questioned Golden Cauldron True Man about the mysterious Shangqing talisman user, then the gathered cultivators agreed to join forces and approach Sword Discussion Pavilion. Qi Baiyi arrived and asked who was in charge, leaving the group looking between Shang He and Yu Ci.

• Golden Cauldron True Man told Duanmu Senqiu about the powerful man who had fought through the heavenly demons, and Duanmu Senqiu argued that no Shangqing remnants remained.
• Duanmu Senqiu questioned the group about the talisman arts, but Gui Yan redirected him toward deciding how they would act together.
• Shang He, Kui Dou, and Golden Cauldron True Man urged the cultivators to unite and take advantage of Sword Discussion Pavilion's efforts at Danxiao Peak, and Yu Ci agreed.
• Qi Baiyi arrived, asked who was in charge, and drew the attention of many cultivators toward Shang He and Yu Ci.

Yu Ci and Shang He prepared their forces to attack Danxiao Peak alongside Qi Baiyi and the Sword Discussion Pavilion. As the group rested before the battle, Kui Dou recognized Jiu Yan as possibly carrying the Nine Nether Prison.

• Yu Ci readily agreed to help Qi Baiyi and left rewards to be discussed with Xiang.
• More than forty cultivators gathered, and Wan Tengshan asked them not to interfere with the Sword Discussion Pavilion's sword formation.
• Qi Baiyi and Wan Tengshan agreed to delay the assault on Danxiao Peak by four hours so the exhausted cultivators could rest through the night.
• Yu Ci told Shang He that their forces should coordinate around the Sword Discussion Pavilion as their central axis.
• Kui Dou told Shang He that Jiu Yan might possess the Nine Nether Prison, recalling its appearance at the first Suixin Dharma Assembly in the Northern Wilderness.

Qi Baiyi led the cultivators in an assault on Danxiao Peak, exposing how much its heavenly demon forces had weakened. After the group overran the peak, Qi Baiyi and Wan Tengshan examined the remains of its Kui Yin Demonic Nest and found that its Form-Gathering Fire Plague was weaker than its counterpart from beyond the realms.

• Shang He and Kui Dou realized the danger of pursuing the Nine Nether Prison treasure instead of relying on Jiu Yan’s powerful connections.
• Qi Baiyi led the group to Danxiao Peak and pierced through it with his sword, driving off the Form-Gathering Fire Plague.
• Wan Tengshan ordered the cultivators to charge, and they scattered the weakened heavenly demon forces before plundering the peak.
• Yu Ci found Qi Baiyi and Wan Tengshan examining the remains of the Kui Yin Demonic Nest.
• Qi Baiyi compared a fire plague from Danxiao Peak with one from beyond the realms and said the local breed was weaker and its fame exceeded its reality.

Yu Ci and Lu Ya discovered a mark linking the Kui Yin Demonic Nest to Young Master Di, while Qi Baiyi gathered the scattered cultivators and led them to the Southern Eight Peaks. There, they found the Heavenly Demons concentrated around several false realms, and Wan Tengshan suspected that hidden demonic nests were producing Blade Ants.

• Yu Ci realized the nest and its Fire Plague Venomous Insects suggested Heavenly Demons could coexist in the True Realm, and Lu Ya showed him a hidden mark on the nest.
• Lu Ya identified the mark as the character “Di” and connected it to Young Master Di, who had demonstrated the Way of Heavenly Demon Incarnation.
• Qi Baiyi summoned the scattered cultivators with a powerful sword strike, then led them south toward the Southern Eight Peaks.
• Wan Tengshan explained that Sword Discussion Pavilion had intended to draw the Heavenly Demons into the Southern Eight Peaks, but their abnormal numbers suggested they had missed one or more Kui Yin Demonic Nests.
• Wan Tengshan told Yu Ci that the most abnormal Outer Dao devils gathered at the Southern Eight Peaks were Blade Ants.

Wan Tengshan led Sword Discussion Pavilion and the allied cultivators into battle against the Blade Ants and other fiends after a distant sword strike destroyed their delusory realm. As the Great Avalanche Sword Formation shifted its formation, an enemy struck at its brief moment of weakness.

• The cultivators learned that the Blade Ants were disciplined fiends capable of breaking through the highest rank, and questioned whether entering the intact delusory realm would leave them at a disadvantage.
• Sword Discussion Pavilion sent a vast sword strike from Donghua Main Peak that erased the delusory realm and revealed the fiends waiting in battle formation.
• Wan Tengshan activated the Great Avalanche Sword Formation, drawing the allied cultivators into its charge as Qi Baiyi led its blade edge.
• The sword formation overwhelmed the Heavenly Demons and drove through their ranks while the surrounding cultivators fought off attacks from the flanks.
• Yu Ci joined the formation with the Zhan Kong Sword and wondered why Wan Tengshan's main enemy had yet to appear.
• Wan Tengshan shifted the sword formation, and a hidden enemy seized the brief weakness during its transition with a precise strike.