Chapter Summaries

Shen Xiu endured the giant serpent’s attacks and realized it was testing his identity rather than trying to kill him. The serpent confirmed it had slept for ages, and Shen Xiu deduced that its slumber was connected to the Thunder Emperor’s seal on the King of the Evil Clan.

• Shen Xiu reinforced his Lightning Shield and withstood the giant serpent’s second blast of blue light.
• Shen Xiu recognized that the serpent was testing him and said it wanted to confirm who he was.
• Shen Xiu introduced himself as the Thunder Emperor’s successor and asked how long the serpent had slept; the serpent nodded.
• The giant serpent drew a picture on the ice to explain its slumber, and Shen Xiu connected it to the seal in the Myriad Spirit Abyss.

Shen Xiu discovered that the ice crystal was absorbing and refining his Thunderbolt Power before drawing him into a vision where the First Thunder Lord revealed the ancient origins of the Thunder Emperor lineage and the Evil Clan. The vision continued to show Shen Xiu scenes from an ancient era, leaving the history of the shattered Great Dao unfolding before him.

• Shen Xiu sensed a summons from the depths of the Ice Sea but decided to wait before heading north.
• Shen Xiu discovered that the ice crystal was drawing Thunder Origin from him and revealing an ancient thunder pattern.
• A beam from the ice crystal transported Shen Xiu into a starry vision, where he met the heartless First Thunder Lord.
• The First Thunder Lord told Shen Xiu that the Thunder Emperor was the seventh inheritor and that six came before him.
• The First Thunder Lord revealed that the Evil Clan had once been native beings transformed after a war shattered the Great Dao.
• Shen Xiu saw visions of the ancient world, where nine suns shone over a vast continent and ancient divine beasts roamed.

Shen Xiu awakened the ancient spear and proved himself worthy to wield it, claiming the Nine Heavens Thunder Spear. As he and Liu Qingyan sensed powerful newcomers arriving across the Ice Sea, the story left them facing unknown potential threats.

• Liu Qingyan bowed to the ancient warrior's remains, and the rust fell from the spear, revealing its true form and awakening its voice.
• Shen Xiu grasped the spear and endured its Thunderbolt Power until the nine pillars of violet lightning answered across the Ice Sea.
• The spear accepted Shen Xiu, shrank to a manageable size, and revealed its name as the Nine Heavens Thunder Spear.
• Shen Xiu tested the spear with a casual swing and split a distant ice peak in two.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan spotted a crimson-robed young man surrounded by fire and a fast-moving masked figure whose power made Shen Xiu wary.
• A third powerful aura appeared across the Ice Sea.

Shen Xiu met the awakened Heavenly Lord, who revealed that the Celestial Clan had not betrayed the world and that the ancient war had been against a force from beyond their world. The Heavenly Lord showed that this force had destroyed nearly all the myriad worlds, leaving only a few dozen—including their continent—still alive.

• The Heavenly Lord rose from the ancient coffin, awakening the ruins and summoning the sword Heavenly Balance.
• The Heavenly Lord recognized that Shen Xiu had met the First Thunder Lord and said the Celestial Clan had not betrayed everyone.
• The Heavenly Lord revealed that the true enemy had come from beyond their world, where the myriad worlds had once been connected.
• The Heavenly Lord showed a star chart as worlds went dark, explaining that the enemy devoured laws, life, and civilizations.
• Liu Qingyan realized that most worlds beyond their own had been destroyed, and Shen Xiu understood why the First Thunder Lord had left behind nine Thunderhearts.

Shen Xiu learned from the Second Thunder Lord that contamination had corrupted a returning Sky Patroler and could erode the Great Dao, bloodlines, and will. Cold River City then faced a tide of ancient demonic beasts with the same gray aura, and Shen Xiu recognized that they had been contaminated as the Ice-Armored Giant Bear struck the city's protective formation.

• The Second Thunder Lord appeared in Shen Xiu's sea of consciousness and explained that Thunderheart Fragments awakened the past Thunder Lords' memories.
• The Second Thunder Lord showed Shen Xiu how a Sky Patroler returned a century after the ancient war, corrupted and destroying a continent, and warned him not to fuse with the ninth Thunderheart Fragment without checking it.
• Shen Xiu told Liu Qingyan what he had learned, and they suspected someone wanted him to gather the fragments to open a seal.
• A bloodied young man warned Cold River City that a beast tide had emerged from the northern ice plains, and the city lord rallied cultivators to defend the city.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan reached the city walls and saw tens of thousands of ancient demonic beasts led by an Ice-Armored Giant Bear.
• Shen Xiu recognized the gray light in the beasts' eyes as contamination, and the Ice-Armored Giant Bear slammed its paw into Cold River City's protective formation.

Yan Wuji and Shen Xiu battled the corrupted beast tide outside Cold River City and discovered how to permanently kill the beasts. After they destroyed the Ice-Armored Giant Bear, the tide was nearly defeated.

• Yan Wuji charged the Ice-Armored Giant Bear and shattered the icy armor on its paw with his flaming saber.
• Shen Xiu killed a Snow Wolf King attacking Liu Qingyan, then discovered that Thunderbolt Power could purify the beasts’ gray mist and stop their regeneration.
• Yan Wuji used his flames to destroy groups of corrupted beasts as Shen Xiu struck their gray mist cores with his spear.
• The beast tide faltered after more than half its beasts were destroyed, and Yan Wuji and Shen Xiu jointly killed the Ice-Armored Giant Bear.

Shen Xiu discovered a Thunderheart Fragment trapped inside the gray mist and realized he had to purify the mist to free it. As Yan Wuji fought the mist’s humanoid puppets, Shen Xiu approached the ice platform to find a way to reach the fragment.

• Shen Xiu sensed a Thunderheart Fragment inside the gray orb but said he could not remove it without first purifying the surrounding gray mist.
• The gray mist formed humanoid puppets from the lingering shadows of corrupted cultivators and sent them toward Shen Xiu and Yan Wuji.
• Yan Wuji attacked the puppets with his flaming blade, dispersing them, though they continued to reform.
• Shen Xiu suspected the gray mist had used the inactive Thunderheart Fragment’s own power to ensnare it.
• Shen Xiu asked Yan Wuji to hold off the puppets and walked toward the ice platform, using lightning to fend off the denser gray mist.

Shen Xiu learned from the sixth Thunder Lord that the corruption seeped through an ancient gate and that the nine Thunderhearts could seal it. The warning that corrupted people were searching for the Thunderhearts left him wary as he shared the revelation with Liu Qingyan.

• Shen Xiu returned to the courtyard with Liu Qingyan, drank the soup she had prepared, and examined the second Thunderheart Fragment in his sea of awareness.
• The sixth Thunder Lord revealed that an ancient gate above the heavens let corruption seep across the continent.
• The sixth Thunder Lord explained that the nine Thunderhearts formed a sequence capable of sealing the gate, while corrupted people were searching for them to help the corruption spread.
• The sixth Thunder Lord's lingering will faded after warning Shen Xiu to beware the people around him.
• Shen Xiu told Liu Qingyan about the gate, the Thunderheart sequence, and the possibility that corruption had already affected people.

Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan traveled to a volcanic ash-covered plateau to find the next fragment and opened a buried passage beneath an extinct volcano. They descended into the ancient, warming passage, where runes formed the shape of a flame lizard.

• Shen Xiu chose the ash-covered plateau as their next destination based on the map and the Sixth Thunder Lord’s memories.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan flew southwest for two days and reached the desolate plateau.
• Shen Xiu sensed a passage beneath the ash and found its buried entrance near an extinct volcano.
• Shen Xiu used lightning to uncover and open the rune-covered stone door, and Liu Qingyan followed him inside.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan descended through the warming passage and saw wall runes forming a flame lizard.

Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan reached the Eastern Sea and began searching its depths for the fifth Thunderheart Fragment. They descended together toward a sealed structure three hundred zhang underwater, with Shen Xiu’s lightning illuminating their way.

• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan traveled east for four days, and Shen Xiu’s map revealed that the fifth fragment lay beneath the Eastern Sea.
• Shen Xiu sensed the fragment about three hundred zhang below the surface, enclosed in a regularly shaped structure amid complex currents and rock formations.
• Liu Qingyan agreed to accompany Shen Xiu underwater, and he warned her to stay close as they descended.
• Shen Xiu used a barrier of lightning to control the currents and guide their descent while Liu Qingyan kept pace beside him.

Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan traveled west across the desert to find the next fragment. After sensing someone nearby, Shen Xiu discovered a crude array concealing a patch of sand.

• Shen Xiu chose to seek the fragment buried in the western desert, and Liu Qingyan agreed to go with him.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan flew southwest through the night and reached the desert by dawn.
• Shen Xiu used the map in his sea of consciousness to guide them deeper into the desert and shielded them from the heat with lightning.
• Shen Xiu sensed someone nearby and led Liu Qingyan to a hollow where a crude array concealed a patch of sand.

Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan found that the southern dense forest was protected by a barrier woven into the trees. Shen Xiu used knowledge from the seventh Thunder Lord to search the root network for the ancient pine at the barrier’s core.

• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan arrived at the forest and discovered that a barrier obscured the fragment’s aura across the mountain range.
• Liu Qingyan found unusual marks carved into the pines, and Shen Xiu recognized them as Formation Patterns that maintained the barrier.
• Shen Xiu recalled that the seventh Thunder Lord had hidden the fragment using a thousand-year-old pine as the formation’s eye.
• Shen Xiu sent Thunderbolt Power through the underground roots to search for the oldest tree in the forest.

After recovering the eighth fragment, Shen Xiu used its power to carry Liu Qingyan high above the clouds, where he found the hidden gate in the sky. The rift opened at his touch, revealing an entrance to the sealed space beyond.

• Shen Xiu sensed the gate high above the heavens and explained its location to Liu Qingyan.
• Shen Xiu wrapped Liu Qingyan in a protective field formed by the eight fragments and carried her upward.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan climbed above the clouds, while Liu Qingyan looked down at the world below.
• Shen Xiu found a golden-edged rift near the outer edge of the heavens and approached it with Liu Qingyan.
• Shen Xiu touched the rift, causing it to open into an entrance barely wide enough for one person.

Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan traveled south from the fishing village and Cold River City to Thunderfall Mountain, where they returned to their old hut. They settled into a quiet routine of tending the house and garden, leaving their keepsakes from the sea and desert on the windowsill.

• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan spent the night at the fishing village, where the old man welcomed them with fish soup and waved them off at dawn.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan passed over Cold River City, saw the icefield rift nearly healed, and continued south without landing.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan crossed warming grasslands and reached Thunderfall Mountain, where they found their hut almost unchanged.
• Liu Qingyan cleaned the hut while Shen Xiu cleared the vegetable patch and touched the ancient pine, and they shared noodle soup beneath the stars.
• Shen Xiu walked the mountains while Liu Qingyan planted greens and built a bean trellis, then she arranged their seashells and stones beside a bowl of stream water.

Shen Xiu investigated disturbed soil on a hillside and detected a trace of the contamination associated with the Gray Mist. He returned to town when five altered beasts approached, and the lead creature began breaking through the entrance fence.

• Liu Qingyan bought vegetable and chili seeds at a town stall while Shen Xiu noticed something on a distant hillside.
• Shen Xiu examined freshly disturbed soil and detected a faint odor resembling the contamination beneath the ice.
• A blacksmith's apprentice warned Shen Xiu that several huge beasts were coming from the back mountain, and Shen Xiu hurried back to town.
• Liu Qingyan told Shen Xiu that five beasts had arrived, and he recognized in them the same faint contamination he had smelled in the soil.
• The lead beast rammed the town's wooden fence twice, cracking its crossbeam.

Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan investigated strange activity near the hillside and discovered a dormant, contaminated artifact fragment buried beneath the disturbed soil. After Shen Xiu marked the site and left the fragment buried, the nine fragments in his sea of consciousness resonated as something seemed to move in the dark forest.

• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan heard villagers describe strange sounds in the woods and missing animals.
• Liu Qingyan pointed out that the hillside’s disturbed soil predated the beasts’ attack, so Shen Xiu returned to investigate.
• Shen Xiu used Thunderbolt Power to sense a buried cavity containing a dormant artifact fragment that had once carried contamination.
• Shen Xiu chose to leave the fragment buried and marked the area with Thunderbolt Power.
• The nine fragments in Shen Xiu’s sea of consciousness trembled, and he turned toward the darkening forest as something seemed to move within it.

Shen Xiu discovered a larger, dormant object buried beneath the woods and decided the area needed to be sealed off. As he and Liu Qingyan returned to town to warn the elders, a muffled vibration rose from the hillside.

• Shen Xiu sensed a smooth, circular surface buried deep beneath the shattered fragment and felt a faint tremor from below.
• Shen Xiu told Liu Qingyan that something larger lay underground and might awaken.
• Shen Xiu said they should cordon off the hillside, and Liu Qingyan agreed to speak with the gray-jacketed elder.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan returned toward town, where a dull vibration sounded from the hillside.

Shen Xiu noticed strange black soil and unusual silence around his mountain home, then learned that A Shun had heard knocking from inside the mountain. The chapter ended as Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan both heard a muffled thud from deep underground.

• Shen Xiu noticed the unusually quiet woods and found damp black soil with a faint rusty smell in a crack near the courtyard gate.
• A Shun brought Shen Xiu his share of the proceeds from the mountain ginseng and reported hearing slow knocks from inside the mountain at noon.
• Shen Xiu connected the black soil to stones recently turned up on the back mountain.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan heard a muffled thud coming from deep beneath Thunderfall Mountain.

Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan uncovered an ancient stone road on Thunderfall Mountain, then found a copper coin bearing a matching road and gate design. As night fell, strange mist began drifting uphill, and Shen Xiu prepared to return to the mountain as the old man had instructed.

• After Hunter Zhou left, Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan uncovered enough earth to realize the stone slab was part of an ancient road older than Thunderfall Town.
• Shen Xiu found an unfamiliar old copper coin in his seed bag, and Liu Qingyan discovered a road and half-open stone gate engraved on its back.
• Shen Xiu suspected the gray-robed old man had secretly placed the coin in his bag and watched as it rolled to point toward Thunderfall Mountain.
• Shen Xiu noticed white mist moving uphill against the wind, then took the coin and prepared his tinderbox and knife as night fell.

After Return Mountain Gate closed, Shen Xiu kept the warm yellow leaf and the copper coin that could reveal the path. He and Liu Qingyan returned home with white sand from inside the gate, while Shen Xiu sensed an unseen observer and looked toward Thunderfall Mountain.

• Shen Xiu kept the yellow leaf after Liu Qingyan found it was still warm, and the ringing inside Return Mountain Gate subsided.
• Uncle Chen closed Return Mountain Gate and told Shen Xiu to keep the copper coin, explaining that he had only guarded the mountain for the previous generation.
• Shen Xiu sensed a distant gaze at the gate but kept the feeling from Liu Qingyan.
• Shen Xiu and Liu Qingyan returned to the wooden house, where Yellowie warned Shen Xiu about white grains of sand on his shoes.
• Shen Xiu collected the warm, silver-glinting sand in a pouch and looked toward Thunderfall Mountain.