Chapter Summaries

Huo Hai secretly turned an abandoned ruin into a hidden site where skeletons could multiply and dig out more space for his forces. He left the skeletons to work for about a year, then returned to Cross Canyon to recover from his injuries and prepare for future conflicts.

• Huo Hai entered a long-abandoned ruin and used the Star Gu to scout its maze and underground living quarters.
• After deciding the underground area could not hold a million skeletons, Huo Hai used Little Bone to create a broad bone platform and released high-grade Ghost Bone Insect eggs.
• Huo Hai sent ordinary Ghost Bone Insects and skeletons to dig out the underground space, pile earth in the maze, support the excavations, and guard the sealed entrance.
• Huo Hai estimated the skeletons would need about a year to reach their limit, then left after the Star Gu confirmed no one was nearby.
• Huo Hai returned to Cross Canyon in less than two days and decided to recover fully while reflecting on how the battle had improved his coordination and movement technique.

Chapter Summary: “Ever More Intense”

Key Plot Points and Events

• After retreating to Cross Canyon, Huo Hai reemerges and learns that the Huo Family has gathered roughly 20% of its original bone supply.
• He decides that producing Spirit Practitioner Realm skeletons is more efficient than making Spirit Marshal Realm skeletons. Lower-level skeletons are cheap, quick to produce, and highly effective against Exotic Beasts, even if they are less useful against powerful Spirit Masters.
• Huo Hai orders the unlimited sale of these skeletons to the major Sects at an extremely low price: one hundred skeletons for one Spirit Jade, or one million for a Spirit Crystal.
• While recovering from his injuries, Huo Hai uses Little Bone to mass-produce one to two million skeletons per day. He also hides the fact that he has nearly recovered, hoping to prevent other factions from becoming wary of him.
• The skeletons become extremely popular throughout the Ink Lotus Domain because they can stall large Exotic Beast armies at minimal cost.
• Meanwhile, the Medicine King Sect secretly expands its forces by mass-producing Exotic Beasts through pills. It also begins persuading or forcing Sects to join it, with recruited experts apparently being controlled through medicine.
• A Medicine King Sect army of more than three million Exotic Beasts gathers near the Huo Family’s territory, but instead of attacking the Huo Family, it launches an assault against the Vast Earth Empire.
• Huo Feng suggests helping the Vast Earth Empire, but Huo Hai refuses. He believes the Empire has deep reserves of strength and does not want to aid a faction that previously refused to help the Huo Family.
• When the Vast Earth Empire requests more skeletons, Huo Hai deliberately reduces its purchasing quota. The Empire is forced to accept the reduced supply despite its urgent need for reinforcements.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai: Demonstrates greater strategic maturity and confidence. He recognizes the practical value of mass-producing weaker skeletons rather than focusing only on elite forces. He also shows political calculation by concealing his recovery, exploiting the Vast Earth Empire’s predicament, and preparing an undisclosed countermeasure against the Medicine King Sect.
• Huo Feng: Continues to worry about Huo Hai’s condition but becomes reassured by his apparent recovery. He remains openly hostile toward the Vast Earth Empire and takes satisfaction in seeing it threatened, though he recognizes that its destruction could endanger the Huo Family.
• Huo Family disciples: Treat Huo Hai with extreme respect, regarding him as the true pillar of the family. They carefully follow his orders and relay developments concerning the Medicine King Sect and the Vast Earth Empire.
• Medicine King Sect: Becomes increasingly dangerous and authoritarian. It rapidly creates Exotic Beasts, expands its military strength, and attracts other factions through fear, coercion, or promises of immediate benefit.
• Vast Earth Empire: Shifts from confident independence to urgent dependence on Huo Hai’s skeleton forces after coming under attack.

Significant Themes

• Strategic efficiency over raw strength: Huo Hai realizes that large numbers of inexpensive Spirit Practitioner skeletons are more useful in warfare against Exotic Beasts than smaller numbers of stronger skeletons.
• Political opportunism and shifting alliances: Sects join the Medicine King Sect for short-term advantages despite its oppressive nature, while Huo Hai refuses to help the Vast Earth Empire because of its earlier unwillingness to support him.
• Mutual distrust: The major factions remain wary of Huo Hai’s undead abilities, while Huo Hai distrusts both the Medicine King Sect’s motives and the Vast Earth Empire’s intentions.
• The escalation of war: The Medicine King Sect’s rapid production of Exotic Beasts signals that a much larger conflict is approaching.
• Power through preparation: Huo Hai’s confidence comes not from overwhelming personal strength but from his ability to produce armies, manipulate supply, and plan ahead.

Character Interactions

• Huo Hai gives orders to the Huo Family disciples and instructs them to conceal his recovery.
• Huo Feng visits Huo Hai daily, discussing the Medicine King Sect’s expansion and criticizing Sects that surrender to it.
• Huo Hai and Huo Feng debate whether to aid the Vast Earth Empire; Huo Hai rejects the idea, while Huo Feng initially favors watching the Empire struggle.
• Huo Hai deliberately frustrates the Vast Earth Empire’s envoy by restricting its skeleton supply, reinforcing the tense relationship between the two factions.
• The chapter ends with concern over whether the Vast Earth Empire can survive the Exotic Beast assault despite receiving fewer skeletons, while Huo Hai remains confident that he has prepared a solution.

Huo Hai watched the Medicine King Sect’s exotic beast army attack the Vast Earth Empire while the other powers looked on. After more than two months of fighting, the empire had lost over half its skeletons and suffered heavy troop losses, while unrest inside its borders worsened.

• Huo Hai reduced the Vast Earth Empire’s share of skeletons and watched the battle through Star Gu, hoping the conflict would deepen divisions within the empire.
• The exotic beast army shattered the empire’s fortress defenses, forcing soldiers to retreat and causing heavy losses.
• Medicine King Sect elders explained that the war was drawing other powers’ attention away from the sect’s secret expansion and production of exotic beasts.
• The Medicine King Sect repeatedly sent million-beast armies against the empire, and the Vast Earth Empire lost over half its skeletons after more than two months of fighting.
• The Vast Earth Empire developed single-use weapons and released special Battle Spirit Arts, but its troops continued to suffer severe losses and unrest grew at home.

Chapter Summary: “The Conspiracy Finally Revealed”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The war between the Medicine King Sect and the Vast Earth Empire becomes a prolonged war of attrition. Although the Empire appears powerful, its Imperial Family is gradually weakened because the major Sects and Lineages are reluctant to sacrifice their own forces.
• The Imperial Family repeatedly asks Huo Hai to deploy his Skeleton Army against the Medicine King Sect. Huo Hai refuses, pretending to remain injured. He resents the Empire for previously hunting him and believes it is still withholding much of its strength.
• Huo Hai has actually recovered fully and improved his cultivation by using Spirit Energy Beads to condense and temper additional Star Cores. He continues helping Little Bone reproduce skeletons, whose total number has reached tens of millions, while over a billion skeletons have already been sold throughout the Ink Lotus Domain.
• Huo Feng arrives with urgent intelligence revealing that the Medicine King Sect’s slow, restrained attacks on the Vast Earth Empire were deliberate. The war was a diversion while the Sect secretly expanded its control over surrounding regions.
• The truth was discovered through a Spirit Emperor who appeared to die after his spiritual power clashed, but was actually in suspended death. After recovering, he escaped to the Profound Ice Sect and revealed what he had overheard.
• The Profound Ice Sect, Drifting Flower Pavilion, and Vast Earth Empire investigated together and confirmed that the Medicine King Sect had infiltrated and controlled numerous Sects. Many of these forces secretly contained Exotic Beasts disguised as their members.
• The Medicine King Sect has forcibly absorbed a vast territory, controlling experts above the Spirit King Realm with special elixirs. It has accumulated enormous numbers of Elixir Spirit Masters and can produce Exotic Beasts at an accelerating rate.
• Its Exotic Beast forces are estimated at over one hundred million and possibly more than one billion. The three major powers conclude that the entire Ink Lotus Domain must unite against it.
• The allied forces plan to manufacture weapons designed to counter Exotic Beasts and transport Huo Hai’s skeletons through Teleportation Spirit Formations. Their first campaign will target the Exotic Beasts gathered near Cross Canyon and the Vast Earth Empire.
• Huo Feng reveals that more than one billion skeletons created through Huo Hai’s Ghost Bone Insects still exist across the Ink Lotus Domain, giving the allied forces a major advantage. Little Bone has also safely advanced to the Third-level Spirit Emperor realm.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai: Becomes increasingly important to the Ink Lotus Domain’s survival. Though initially detached and resentful toward the Vast Earth Empire, he recognizes the scale of the threat and begins considering his role in the coming united campaign. His cultivation continues progressing, though breakthroughs are becoming more difficult.
• Huo Feng: Acts as the bearer of critical intelligence and helps connect Huo Hai to the plans of the three major forces. His grave attitude reflects the seriousness of the Medicine King Sect’s hidden expansion.
• Little Bone: Has endured the exhausting process of reproducing vast numbers of skeletons and successfully reaches the Third-level Spirit Emperor realm without suffering hidden injuries.
• The Medicine King Sect: Is revealed to be far more calculating and powerful than previously believed. Rather than openly conquering the Vast Earth Empire, it has used the conflict to conceal a broader campaign of infiltration, forced control, and mass Exotic Beast production.
• The Vast Earth Empire and allied powers: Their former divisions and mutual scheming are overshadowed by the realization that cooperation is necessary for survival.

Significant Themes

• Hidden conspiracy and deception: The Medicine King Sect’s apparent stalemate is revealed as a calculated distraction masking its true expansion.
• The danger of division: The major Sects’ continued infighting has allowed the Medicine King Sect to grow unchecked. Only a united Ink Lotus Domain can hope to resist it.
• Power and manipulation: The Medicine King Sect controls territories and powerful cultivators through elixirs, turning political domination into military strength.
• Scale of war: The enormous numbers of Exotic Beasts and skeletons transform the conflict from a struggle among individual experts into a battle involving entire populations.
• Distrust and reluctant cooperation: Huo Hai’s refusal to help the Empire reflects past grievances, but the magnitude of the threat may force former rivals to cooperate.

Character Interactions

• The Vast Earth Empire’s ruler repeatedly sends envoys to request Huo Hai’s assistance, but Huo Hai dismisses them because of the Empire’s past persecution and unwillingness to reveal its full strength.
• Huo Hai and Huo Feng discuss the suspiciously slow progress of the war. Huo Feng provides the evidence that confirms Huo Hai’s earlier doubts.
• The Spirit Emperor survivor serves as the crucial link between the Medicine King Sect’s hidden actions and the Profound Ice Sect, Drifting Flower Pavilion, and Vast Earth Empire.
• Huo Feng informs Huo Hai that the three major forces are relying heavily on his ability to create skeletons, effectively making him a central figure in the planned united counterattack.

Huo Hai and the three Top-Tier Forces assembled a secret alliance to destroy the Medicine King Sect, gathering hundreds of millions of skeletons around its territory. The counteroffensive began with Huo Hai’s army crushing the exotic beasts, while allied experts and elite skeletons killed the Medicine King Sect elders defending them.

• The three Top-Tier Forces compelled the major factions to sign binding contracts and secretly assembled troops and skeletons around the Medicine King Sect.
• Huo Hai received the signal to attack and sent his Skeleton Army against roughly two million exotic beasts near the Medicine King Sect.
• The Medicine King Sect’s five Spirit Emperors ordered a retreat, but a group of allied experts appeared and blocked them.
• A former victim of the Medicine King Sect revealed that he had exposed its plans, and the gathered experts attacked the sect’s defenders.
• Elite Spirit Marshal Realm skeletons coordinated with the allied experts to overwhelm and kill the Medicine King Sect’s supreme elders, leaving the exotic beasts to be destroyed.

Chapter Summary: “Varied Methods”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The Vast Earth Empire and Medicine King Sect remain in a prolonged stalemate, with the Empire defending and the Medicine King Sect launching periodic attacks.
• The Empire uses the time to acquire more of Huo Hai’s cheap Skeletons and train elite forces, gradually strengthening its army without risking its foundations.
• The Medicine King Sect secretly gathers over a million Spirit Masters and hides them near its army of Exotic Beasts, intending to launch a major attack.
• The Empire discovers the plan and launches a surprise assault before the Medicine King Sect can act. Skeletons lead the charge, absorbing the first impact while Spirit Masters attack from a distance.
• Various cultivators demonstrate specialized techniques:
  • A wind technique gradually drains the Exotic Beasts’ fused spirit energy before slicing them apart.
  • A crystal-based weapon unleashes powerful but short-lived blades, destroying both Exotic Beasts and nearby Skeletons.
  • A young girl’s blue light disrupts the Power of Heaven and Earth, weakening the Exotic Beasts and making them easy targets.
  • A jealous middle-aged woman uses a scroll to create protective barriers around the Skeletons.
  • Insect and Beast Spirit Masters strengthen the Ghost Bone Insects, while other cultivators repair damaged Skeletons.
• The combined tactics overwhelm the Exotic Beasts. More than half are killed within an hour, and Spirit King-level beasts are quickly surrounded and eliminated by multiple Spirit King experts.
• The Medicine King Sect is forced to order a retreat. Its experts are shocked that the Vast Earth Empire has openly broken the previous tacit understanding.
• Fourteen experts who had just finished fighting at Cross Canyon arrive in the sky, further trapping and intimidating the retreating Medicine King Sect forces.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai observes the battle from a distance and gains a deeper appreciation for the creativity and effectiveness of different Spirit Master techniques.
• The Vast Earth Empire’s forces show greater coordination, confidence, and willingness to confront the Medicine King Sect directly.
• The Medicine King Sect is revealed to have underestimated the Empire’s willingness to attack and is forced into a humiliating retreat.
• The young girl displays impressive battlefield control by weakening Exotic Beasts rather than relying on brute force.
• The middle-aged beauty reveals her jealousy toward the girl, though her support ability proves valuable to the army.
• The fourteen experts from Cross Canyon reinforce the Empire’s growing military dominance and arrive at a decisive moment.

Significant Themes

• Varied methods and cooperation: The battle emphasizes that seemingly strange or specialized abilities can become extremely powerful when used strategically.
• Strength through teamwork: The Empire succeeds not through one overwhelming technique but through the combined efforts of Skeletons, Spirit Masters, Spirit Beasts, and support specialists.
• Adaptation and innovation: New techniques designed specifically to strengthen or protect Skeletons demonstrate how warfare evolves around Huo Hai’s creations.
• Political escalation: The Empire abandons its cautious stalemate and openly challenges the Medicine King Sect, marking a major shift in the conflict.
• Practicality over fairness: The fighters prioritize killing dangerous Exotic Beasts quickly, believing that fairness has no place when dealing with monsters.

Character Interactions

• Two male cultivators boast and argue over whose technique is superior, but both are silenced when the young girl demonstrates a more effective ability.
• The middle-aged beauty disparages the girl out of jealousy while secretly using her own support technique to protect the Skeletons.
• The Empire’s cultivators coordinate their abilities with the Skeletons, strengthening, repairing, and shielding them.
• Spirit King experts repeatedly work together to eliminate powerful Exotic Beasts.
• The arriving experts from Cross Canyon confront the Medicine King Sect’s forces, intensifying the pressure during their retreat.

Chapter Summary: “Full Outbreak”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Two Spirit Emperor experts from the Medicine King Sect are ambushed and killed by the Vast Earth Empire and allied forces. No Spirit Emperor-level Exotic Beasts are found, confirming that the Medicine King Sect’s earlier operation had a hidden purpose.
• A reinforcement army of one million Exotic Beasts travels from the Medicine King Sect toward the Vast Earth Empire. Allied forces ambush them after allowing the army to enter a long, vulnerable formation.
• Skeletons emerge from the surrounding mountains and underground, trapping the army. Spirit-Breaking Arrows severely damage the Medicine King Sect disciples accompanying the force, leaving the Exotic Beasts without human commanders.
• Because the Exotic Beasts continue following their original orders instead of responding to the ambush, the Skeletons and Spirit Masters slaughter the entire army in roughly two hours.
• Following the victory, the Vast Earth Empire and other factions activate Teleportation Spirit Formations. Three Spirit Formation Masters at the Spirit Emperor Realm help establish the network, allowing Huo Hai’s Skeletons to be rapidly deployed to the front.
• The allied forces launch a full-scale invasion of the Medicine King Sect’s hidden territories. Many subordinate factions either submit to the alliance or are destroyed, and the coalition rapidly captures large portions of the enemy’s territory.
• The Medicine King Sect responds by ordering its subordinate Sects to withdraw one hundred li and deploy all concealed Exotic Beasts. This creates a massive defensive line and slows the allied advance, leading to widespread battles and a temporary stalemate.
• The hidden Sects under the Medicine King Sect openly declare allegiance to it. The conflict becomes an unrestricted war, with both sides abandoning any pretense of neutrality or restraint.
• At Cross Canyon, Huo Hai’s supply operation proceeds smoothly. Bones gathered from more than half of the Ink Lotus Domain are transported through the teleportation network for Skeleton production.
• Huo Hai focuses almost entirely on producing Ghost Bone Insect eggs and control-type Spirit Insects. He stops selling Skeletons and provides them to the Ink Lotus Domain without charge, recognizing that profiting during the crisis would destroy his reputation.
• Skeletons and Spirit Masters are steadily transferred to the front, leaving the major Sects with very few reserves.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai: Becomes fully committed to the war effort. His role shifts from producing and selling Skeletons to managing a massive wartime supply operation. He prioritizes speed, reputation, and the survival of the Ink Lotus Domain over personal profit.
• Medicine King Sect disciples: Their confidence and routine are shattered by the ambush. Their dependence on human commands becomes a major weakness once the commanders are killed.
• Medicine King Sect leadership: The Sect Master reacts angrily to the loss of territory and abandons concealment, ordering a large-scale mobilization. This marks the Sect’s transition from covert manipulation to open warfare.
• Vast Earth Empire and allied factions: They demonstrate greater coordination and strategic confidence, combining ambushes, teleportation networks, Skeleton armies, and human Spirit Masters into a unified offensive.
• The common people under the Medicine King Sect: Their perception of the Sect deteriorates. What was once viewed as a powerful or idealized institution is now regarded as a brutal “den of demons,” especially because civilians are exploited to create Exotic Beast armies.

Significant Themes

• Total war and escalation: The conflict moves from covert operations and limited battles to a full territorial war involving entire Sects and massive armies.
• The importance of logistics: Teleportation formations, troop transport, bone supplies, and Skeleton production become as important as individual strength.
• Command and control: The Exotic Beast army’s destruction shows how heavily it depends on human leadership. Once the Medicine King Sect disciples are incapacitated, the beasts cannot adapt.
• Unity against a common enemy: Previously hidden or independent factions unite against the Medicine King Sect, allowing them to overwhelm territory that would have been difficult to conquer individually.
• Power over morality: Both sides operate according to the principle that strength determines authority. The Medicine King Sect’s manipulation of civilians and the allied forces’ ruthless destruction of resistant factions reveal the brutal political reality of the continent.
• Reputation and responsibility: Huo Hai’s decision to distribute Skeletons freely shows his willingness to sacrifice profit and personal advantage for the larger survival effort.

Character Interactions

• The Medicine King Sect disciples casually discuss their repetitive duties and expected rewards before suddenly confronting the ambush, highlighting the contrast between their complacency and the severity of the war.
• The disciples blame whoever was responsible for clearing the road, but quickly silence one another out of fear of punishment from their elders.
• Allied Spirit Masters and Skeleton forces cooperate effectively, using Spirit-Breaking Arrows and sustained Battle Spirit Arts to destroy the undefended Exotic Beast army.
• The Vast Earth Empire and other factions coordinate their teleportation formations and troop deployments, turning separate forces into a unified offensive.
• The Medicine King Sect Master reacts furiously to the allied advance and issues orders that force all subordinate factions into open support of the Sect.
• Huo Hai works indirectly with the Ink Lotus Domain and allied factions, supplying them with Skeletons and control-type insects while relying on their teleportation network to move resources and troops.

The Medicine King Sect used new research to multiply its exotic beasts and turn the war against the Ink Lotus Domain's Coalition Army, then repelled an assault by the coalition's experts. After hearing Huo Feng suggest turning the beasts back into humans, Huo Hai believed he had found a way to eliminate them and asked for materials.

• The Grand Elder revealed that the Medicine King Sect had greatly accelerated Exotic Beast Pill production, learned to modify spirit beasts, and created pills that could raise some exotic beasts to the Spirit Emperor Realm.
• The Medicine King Sect unleashed waves of exotic beasts, forcing the Coalition Army onto the defensive and reclaiming territory.
• The coalition sent experts to infiltrate the Medicine King Sect, but the sect intercepted them; more than fifty Spirit Emperor Realm exotic beasts and nearly thirty coalition experts died.
• Huo Feng asked Huo Hai how the coalition could withstand the sect's upgraded exotic beasts, and Huo Hai recognized a possible solution when Huo Feng mentioned turning them back into humans.
• Huo Hai asked Huo Feng to prepare materials so he could find a way to eliminate the exotic beasts.

Chapter Summary: “Gu Masters Reappear”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Huo Hai requests blood-sucking and parasitic Spirit Insects, along with various Spirit Medicines, from the major forces. The Vast Earth Empire provides especially valuable resources, including a Spirit Emperor-level Bloodthirsty Demon Mosquito, because it is desperate to end the costly war.
• Reviving the ancient Gu Master Secret Method, Huo Hai makes different insects devour one another and uses Spirit Medicines to refine them into Gu Insects and Gu Powder.
• He experiments on captured Exotic Beasts, targeting the foreign Exotic Beast Bloodlines mixed into their bodies. Through repeated selection and mutation, he cultivates Gu Insects capable of surviving in and consuming Exotic Beast blood.
• After a week of experimentation, Huo Hai creates a Spirit Medicine capable of removing the foreign Bloodline and restoring Exotic Beasts to human or Spirit Beast form.
• Meanwhile, the allied forces suffer heavy losses. The Medicine King Sect regains most of its lost territory, its Exotic Beasts begin overwhelming the Skeleton army, and several allied Spirit Emperors are killed or injured. Some desperate sects secretly flee Ink Lotus Domain.
• Huo Hai announces his breakthrough in Cross Canyon. His experiments have already restored several Exotic Beasts to human form, though many subjects die or suffer fatal internal injuries.
• He explains that the antidote can be mass-produced: Exotic Beast blood can absorb and transform the medicine into more of it.
• The chapter reveals that Huo Hai’s creation originated as highly contagious Gu Powder. He deliberately restricted it so the Gu Insects can survive only in Exotic Beast blood, preventing harm to humans and ordinary Spirit Beasts.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai demonstrates his ingenuity, scientific discipline, and willingness to revive dangerous ancient techniques for the war effort. He remains cautious despite his excitement, openly acknowledging the antidote’s limitations.
• Huo Feng, Huo Hai’s grandfather, acts as the first person to directly question him and represents the family’s pride and concern.
• The allied forces and their leaders shift from desperation toward renewed hope after learning that the Exotic Beast army can be countered.
• The Vast Earth Empire is shown to be increasingly strained by military losses and internal political instability, explaining its unusually generous cooperation.

Significant Themes

• Science, experimentation, and adaptation: Huo Hai uses controlled experimentation and directed evolution to solve an apparently impossible problem.
• The danger of power without restraint: The Gu Powder could spread like a disease, so Huo Hai must impose strict biological limitations before using it.
• Hope amid catastrophe: Although the antidote cannot yet save everyone, it offers the allied forces a means to reverse the Medicine King Sect’s greatest advantage.
• The cost of war: The chapter emphasizes battlefield deaths, political unrest, fleeing sects, and the suffering of people transformed into mindless Exotic Beasts.
• Identity and restoration: The Exotic Beasts are revealed to be humans or Spirit Beasts altered by foreign Bloodlines, raising the possibility of reclaiming their original selves.

Character Interactions

• Huo Hai’s allies and envoys gather after hearing his laughter, with Huo Feng directly asking whether his research succeeded.
• Huo Hai shows the restored subjects to the assembled forces and explains both the antidote’s potential and its deadly limitations.
• An elderly expert becomes emotional at the possibility of saving transformed companions, while Huo Hai warns that most restored victims may survive only a few days.
• The Illusion King asks about production capacity, prompting Huo Hai to reveal that the antidote can reproduce through Exotic Beast blood and may be produced on a massive scale.
• The gathered leaders move from uncertainty and despair to excitement, recognizing the medicine as the decisive weapon against the Exotic Beast army.

Chapter Summary: “Gu Powder Shows Its Might”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Huo Hai completes a special Gu Powder after carefully adjusting it and adding safeguards against mutation. He distributes it to the allied forces, warning that it is effective only against Exotic Beasts below the Spirit King Realm.
• With the Gu Powder available, Huo Hai no longer needs to mass-produce Skeletons for weaker enemies. He and Little Bone slow down their work, allowing ordinary Gu Insects to reproduce naturally while continuing limited research.
• The allied forces secretly collect Exotic Beast corpses and establish blood pools near the front lines. The Gu Insects hatch within the blood, turning it red and creating more usable Gu Powder.
• After testing the medicine, the forces spread it across the battlefield through bottles, spirit-power blasts, catapults, and even rain summoned by a Spirit Emperor.
• The Gu Powder initially appears ineffective, but after several hours, infected Exotic Beasts begin going berserk and attacking one another. The Gu Insects spread through wounds, multiplying throughout the enemy army.
• The affected Exotic Beasts gradually revert to human form. Former victims regain their memories and realize the Medicine King Sect transformed them into monsters. Many immediately turn against the Sect.
• The battlefield descends into chaos as restored humans fight the remaining Exotic Beasts. Some survivors suppress or kill the Gu Insects with spirit power, while weaker victims die from internal organ damage or the insects’ attacks.
• The Gu Powder has no effect on Exotic Beasts above the Spirit King Realm, whose power can destroy the invading Gu Insects. Nevertheless, the allied forces celebrate because the weapon devastates the lower-level enemy forces.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai demonstrates increased caution and maturity by refining the Gu Powder and adding restrictions before releasing it. His successful invention confirms his extraordinary skill in spirit medicine and Gu techniques.
• Little Bone and Huo Hai gain a rare period of rest, shifting from frantic production to a more natural and sustainable method of Gu Insect reproduction.
• The Vast Earth Empire’s general moves from cautious verification to confident deployment. He openly acknowledges Huo Hai’s ability despite considering him an enemy.
• The young guard repeatedly doubts the medicine and is reprimanded for speaking without understanding the testing process, highlighting the general’s authority and careful planning.
• The restored victims experience a tragic transformation. Although they recover their minds and identities, many are mortally damaged and use their remaining strength to seek revenge against the Medicine King Sect.
• Spirit General and Spirit Marshal-level survivors show that stronger cultivators can control or eliminate the Gu Insects, giving them a much greater chance of survival than weaker victims.

Significant Themes

• Ingenuity overcoming established power: Huo Hai’s Gu Powder succeeds where the Medicine King Sect’s long-developed Exotic Beast Pills seemed unbeatable.
• The consequences of dehumanization: The transformed humans’ rage reveals the cruelty of the Medicine King Sect’s methods and turns its own weapons against it.
• Strength determines survival: The effects of the Gu Powder vary sharply by cultivation level; stronger experts can resist or destroy the Gu Insects, while weaker victims are largely helpless.
• Calculated warfare and adaptation: The allied forces carefully test, mass-produce, and deploy the Gu Powder rather than using it recklessly.
• Victory mixed with tragedy: The weapon produces a major battlefield success, but many restored victims are permanently damaged or doomed to die.

Important Character Interactions

• Huo Hai instructs the recipients of the Gu Powder and warns them about its limits, emphasizing the need to target only lower-level Exotic Beasts.
• The general dismisses the guard’s doubts and explains that the medicine was thoroughly tested before deployment.
• The general privately expresses admiration for Huo Hai, despite his status as an enemy.
• Medicine King Sect disciples attempt to control the infected Exotic Beasts with the Jadefire, but the creatures no longer obey.
• The first restored human openly condemns the Medicine King Sect and attacks the Exotic Beasts, inspiring a wider reversal of the battlefield.

Chapter Summary: “Offense and Defense”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Huo Hai’s Gu Poison, distributed as a medicine, successfully reverses the Medicine King Sect’s Exotic Beast transformations. The Gu Insects consume the abnormal bloodlines implanted in the beasts, gradually restoring them to human form.
• This destroys the foundation of the Medicine King Sect’s offensive strategy. The sect’s elders realize that their seemingly irreversible Exotic Beast Pills have been countered within months.
• The Medicine King Sect studies the Gu Poison and determines that it is based on a mutated Spirit Insect capable of consuming the foreign bloodlines inside the transformed victims.
• The First Elder proposes two defensive measures:
  1. Coat Exotic Beasts with insect-repelling medicine before battle.
  2. Divide the beasts into small units and attack in waves, ensuring each unit either dies or destroys the enemy before the Gu Insects can act.
• The Medicine King Sect adopts the wave strategy, reducing the Gu Poison’s immediate effectiveness and forcing the conflict into another stalemate.
• In response, the Coalition Army uses recovered but embittered victims and dying mutated people as suicide squads. They infiltrate or attack Exotic Beast formations to spread the Gu Poison despite the sect’s defenses.
• Spirit Emperor experts who were previously reluctant to cooperate begin forming teams. These squads safely carry large quantities of Gu Poison and raid isolated Medicine King Sect forces.
• One squad discovers two million hidden Exotic Beasts. A middle-aged female Spirit Emperor disperses Gu Insects through a giant water sphere, infecting the entire force before the group withdraws.
• The infected Exotic Beasts eventually go berserk and attack anything not similarly infected. By the time the Medicine King Sect discovers the outbreak, its hidden guards have been eliminated and the beasts are already beyond control.
• The restored humans remain temporarily capable of fighting, but their ability to fuse spiritual power lasts less than a day. The Medicine King Sect can eventually eliminate them, but only after suffering major disruption and losses.
• The sect’s leaders bitterly regret failing to kill Huo Hai earlier, recognizing that he has become a major threat protected by every faction.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai becomes an increasingly central and dangerous figure. His invention or discovery of the mutated Gu Insects has overturned the Medicine King Sect’s long-term plan and made him a priority target.
• The Medicine King Sect’s leadership shifts from confidence to desperation. The sect master acknowledges the sophistication and effectiveness of the Gu Poison, while the First Elder develops a practical but limited counterstrategy.
• The First Elder demonstrates tactical intelligence by identifying the delay before the Gu Insects become effective and exploiting it through staged attacks.
• Coalition Army Spirit Emperors become more cooperative and organized. Previously unwilling experts now form squads, motivated both by survival and a desire to retaliate against the Medicine King Sect.
• Recovered and mutated victims are portrayed as determined and sacrificial. Having little time left to live, they willingly risk themselves to spread the Gu Poison.

Significant Themes

• Offense versus defense: Each side continually adapts to the other’s tactics, producing a shifting military stalemate.
• Consequences of experimentation: The Medicine King Sect’s attempt to control and transform humans through Exotic Beast Pills ultimately creates a weakness that can be exploited against them.
• Strategic adaptation: Neither side wins through sheer strength alone; success depends on understanding timing, formations, resources, and battlefield conditions.
• Sacrifice and desperation: The Coalition Army relies on people who have already lost much of their lives or humanity, turning their suffering into a weapon.
• Regret and missed opportunities: The Medicine King Sect realizes that its failure to eliminate Huo Hai earlier has allowed him to grow into a nearly untouchable enemy.
• Collective resistance: Formerly divided experts begin cooperating because the shared threat forces them to set aside personal reluctance.

Character Interactions

• The sect master and elders gather to assess the Gu Poison and debate how to preserve their Exotic Beast army.
• The First Elder presents his two defensive proposals, and the other elders challenge their limitations before accepting the wave-attack strategy.
• Coalition Spirit Emperor squads cooperate closely in raids, protecting one another and sharing responsibility for spreading Gu Poison.
• The middle-aged female Spirit Emperor takes the lead in infecting the massive hidden beast force, demonstrating trust and coordination within the squad.
• The Medicine King Sect and Coalition Army repeatedly counter each other’s battlefield tactics, with neither able to achieve a decisive victory.

Huo Hai gave the Coalition Army second-generation gu poison that could quickly restore or kill mutated exotic beasts, including Spirit King Realm beasts, and revealed an even stronger version for Spirit Emperor Realm beasts. As the Coalition Army began preparing the medicines for battle, an experiment showed a Spirit Emperor Realm exotic beast starting to return to its original form.

• Huo Hai presented the sect representatives with second-generation Spirit Medicine, which could affect Spirit King Realm exotic beasts and rapidly restore less severely mutated hosts.
• Huo Hai gave them a stronger powder for Spirit Emperor Realm exotic beasts, and the Illusion King accepted it on behalf of their transformed friends.
• Huo Hai explained that the medicines could spread through the air, then sent the representatives to eliminate the exotic beasts and destroy the Medicine King Sect.
• The Coalition Army cultivated second-generation gu insects and transported a heavily mutated Spirit Emperor Realm exotic beast to a tent for testing.
• An old man ordered the test to begin, and the Spirit Emperor-level gu poison changed the beast's blood as its body began returning to its original form.

Summary: “Advancing with Triumphant Song”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The Coalition Army discovers that the Medicine King Sect has been transforming Spirit Beasts into Exotic Beasts. A Yellow Cloud Pig originally at the Peak Spirit King Realm is forcibly elevated to the Spirit Emperor Realm through mutation, but the process is so extreme that it will ultimately die.
• A Seventh-level Spirit Emperor from the Vast Earth Empire realizes that the Coalition Army can exploit this weakness. He proposes secretly applying small amounts of the Coalition’s Spirit Medicine to wounded Exotic Beasts, causing them to mutate and die after recovery.
• The Coalition Army begins using a more advanced version of Huo Hai’s Spirit Medicine. Unlike the previous formula, it takes effect within minutes, causing Exotic Beasts and transformed humans to lose control, revert, or die.
• The Medicine King Sect suffers major losses as the Coalition Army rapidly retakes territory. Survivors who revert to human form are weak but mentally intact, allowing them to recover and eventually return to battle.
• The new Spirit Insects created by Huo Hai spread through physical contact, air, water, and food. They affect Exotic Beasts but do not harm ordinary people, allowing them to spread across the Medicine King Sect’s territory like an invisible plague.
• The Medicine King Sect realizes that its entire supply of ordinary Exotic Beasts may soon be eliminated. Escape is considered but rejected because the Coalition Army has likely sealed off every route.
• As a final gamble, the Medicine King Sect Master proposes targeting the Coalition Army’s powerful experts and transforming them into Exotic Beasts. Since the Spirit Medicine cannot affect Spirit Emperor-level Exotic Beasts, the Sect hopes to win by overwhelming the Coalition Army at the highest level.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai is not directly present, but his ingenuity becomes central to the conflict. His artificially developed Spirit Insects are revealed to be powerful enough to spread across an entire region and destroy the Medicine King Sect’s main weapon.
• The Vast Earth Empire’s Seventh-level Spirit Emperor demonstrates strategic insight by recognizing how the Spirit Medicine can be used covertly. His admiration for Huo Hai also reveals both respect and fear of Huo Hai’s abilities.
• The Medicine King Sect Master shifts from confidence and anger to shock and desperation. After initially demanding solutions from his elders, he ultimately takes decisive leadership by proposing one last all-or-nothing offensive.
• The First Elder and other Medicine King Sect elders are shown to be helpless in the face of the new Spirit Insects. Their usual confidence disappears as they realize they cannot develop a cure in time.
• The transformed Spirit Beasts and humans illustrate the destructive consequences of the Medicine King Sect’s experiments. Some die during recovery, while others survive and regain their humanity, giving the Coalition Army additional fighters.

Significant Themes

• Scientific and strategic ingenuity: Huo Hai’s Spirit Insects turn the Medicine King Sect’s own methods against it, demonstrating how innovation can overcome brute force.
• The consequences of experimentation: The Medicine King Sect’s forced mutations create unstable creatures that are ultimately vulnerable to the Coalition’s countermeasures.
• Psychological warfare and secrecy: The Coalition Army deliberately conceals its discovery and spreads the Spirit Insects before the Medicine King Sect understands what is happening.
• Desperation and survival: With defeat approaching, the Medicine King Sect abandons long-term plans and resorts to a final gamble.
• The reversal of power: The Medicine King Sect once controlled vast numbers of Exotic Beasts, but these creatures become liabilities as the Spirit Insects spread.
• Sacrifice and revenge: Survivors who return to human form can recover and rejoin the battle, motivated by the chance to avenge their losses and loved ones.

Character Interactions

• The Coalition’s leading elder explains the secret plan to infect wounded Exotic Beasts, while the Vast Earth Empire’s Spirit Emperor eagerly praises and supports him.
• The Coalition Army’s members discuss and admire Huo Hai’s achievements, though the Vast Earth Empire remains fearful because of its strained relationship with him.
• Within the Medicine King Sect, the Sect Master angrily challenges the elders for solutions, but their silence reflects their helplessness.
• When the alarming report arrives, the Sect Master and First Elder react with disbelief and fear, then reveal the crisis to the other elders.
• The Sect Master rejects the suggestion of fleeing and instead persuades the elders to join him in a final battle, framing victory as their only remaining path to survival.

Chapter Summary: “Intimidation”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The allied forces’ frontline experiment succeeds, forcing the Medicine King Sect to retreat. The coalition advances cautiously, thoroughly searching the territory and destroying the sect’s hidden defenses and remaining methods.
• The destruction of the Medicine King Sect is fueled by widespread hatred. Its Gu Insects transformed countless people into Exotic Beasts, leaving survivors traumatized and enraged.
• As the Medicine King Sect weakens, coerced subordinate sects and lineages begin defecting. Their remaining wealth is distributed among the conquering forces to maintain unity and distract them from internal conflicts.
• While cultivating near the bones at Cross Canyon, Huo Hai is surrounded by more than one hundred Spirit Emperors from various major powers. The Drifting Flower Pavilion and Wine Immortal Sect are notably absent.
• Hao Lian of the Vast Earth Empire, the only Fifth-Level Spirit Emperor present, reveals their true purpose: they fear Huo Hai’s Skeletons may become a greater threat than the Medicine King Sect.
• Huo Hai intimidates the gathered experts by implying that he controls the powerful Spirit Beasts living in Cross Canyon. He warns that if attacked, he can summon them to defend himself and his family.
• The coalition backs down from an immediate attack and instead proposes an agreement restricting Huo Hai from using Skeletons to launch proactive attacks against their forces.
• Huo Hai refuses to surrender his right to retaliate if attacked. He also forces the agreement to address Skeletons previously sold to other forces, claiming he will not actively control them or be held responsible if they later attack someone.
• The other major forces accept Huo Hai’s terms, while the Vast Earth Empire is politically isolated. The chapter ends as the parties prepare to draft the agreement.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai: Demonstrates exceptional composure, strategic thinking, and political skill. Though he recognizes that he could not survive a direct assault by so many Spirit Emperors, he uses Cross Canyon’s Spirit Beasts as a deterrent and turns a potentially hostile confrontation into a negotiated agreement favorable to himself.
• Hao Lian: Initially attempts to pressure Huo Hai on behalf of the Vast Earth Empire, but his position weakens when the other forces refuse to support an outright attack. He is forced to compromise and appears frustrated by his allies’ self-interest.
• The Allied Spirit Emperors: Their fear of Huo Hai’s Skeletons becomes clear. Although they arrive in overwhelming numbers, they lack the unity and confidence to fight him directly once he threatens to involve Cross Canyon’s Spirit Beasts.
• Medicine King Sect survivors and victims: Their suffering and hatred help drive the coalition’s relentless campaign against the sect.

Significant Themes

• Intimidation as power: Huo Hai wins without fighting by exploiting his enemies’ uncertainty about the Spirit Beasts and the destructive potential of his Skeletons.
• Political self-interest and unstable alliances: The coalition is united against the Medicine King Sect but quickly fractures when confronted with the question of how to deal with Huo Hai.
• Fear of uncontrollable weapons: The Skeletons symbolize a power that other forces cannot safely regulate, especially because many were already sold to outside groups.
• Retaliation versus aggression: The agreement distinguishes between initiating violence and defending oneself, allowing Huo Hai to preserve his right to fight back.
• Trauma and vengeance: The victims of the Medicine King Sect’s transformations fuel the coalition’s determination to eradicate it.

Character Interactions

• Huo Hai confronts more than one hundred Spirit Emperors and openly challenges their ability to kill him.
• He directly engages Hao Lian in a tense negotiation, rejecting the demand that he completely restrict his Skeletons.
• When the gathered experts fear the consequences of a battle, Huo Hai uses their hesitation to make them accept his conditions.
• The other forces gradually turn against the Vast Earth Empire’s more aggressive plan, leaving Hao Lian isolated and compelled to agree.

Chapter Summary: “Contract”

Key Plot Points and Events

• Hao Lian presents a Peak Imperial Grade contract scroll designed to restrict Huo Hai’s use of Skeletons against the major factions.
• Huo Hai carefully inspects the contract and confirms that the loophole he deliberately left in it remains intact. He agrees to the terms but waits until all representatives arrive before signing.
• The factions keep Huo Hai surrounded for several days, fearing that he might escape and unleash his Skeleton army against them.
• Representatives from the major First-Rate Sects arrive, including Drifting Flower Pavilion and the Wine Immortal Sect. The Wine Immortal Sect explains that its forces had been deliberately restrained by the other factions, preventing it from warning or assisting Huo Hai.
• Once everyone arrives, each representative signs the contract on behalf of their faction. Huo Hai then adds his Mental Power, activating the contract and binding its restrictions primarily to him.
• Afterward, most factions apologize and attempt to maintain friendly relations with Huo Hai, though the Vast Earth Empire and Profound Ice Sect remain dismissive.
• Old Wine Insect says farewell, reaffirming the Wine Immortal Sect’s genuine friendship with Huo Hai.
• Drifting Flower Pavilion gives Huo Hai a Three-Yang Pill as compensation for failing to help him. Huo Hai accepts it but becomes more cautious toward the pavilion, suspecting its claim of ignorance was false.
• Huo Hai returns to Cross Canyon, stores the collected bones, and explains the situation to the Huo Family.
• Recognizing that the family needs independent strength, Huo Hai begins preparing to breed stronger Ghost Bone Insects and Skeletons for defense and retaliation. He entrusts controlling insects only to Huo Feng and a few trusted family members.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai remains cautious, calculating, and openly distrustful of the major powers. He successfully preserves a loophole in the contract and avoids revealing the full extent of his abilities.
• His view of the various factions changes:
  • He regards the Wine Immortal Sect as a true ally because it was prevented from helping him.
  • He becomes disappointed in Drifting Flower Pavilion for standing aside, despite still maintaining ties with Fang Biya and the others.
  • He remains especially wary of the Vast Earth Empire, sensing Hao Lian’s hostility and remembering its history of manipulating contract wording.
• Old Wine Insect demonstrates the Wine Immortal Sect’s loyalty and strengthens his friendship with Huo Hai.
• Hao Lian acts as the representative of the Vast Earth Empire, but his disdainful attitude and earlier killing intent reinforce Huo Hai’s suspicion of the empire.
• Huo Feng and the Huo Family show their concern for Huo Hai and agree that the family must develop its own means of protection.

Significant Themes

• Trust and betrayal: The chapter contrasts the Wine Immortal Sect’s sincere loyalty with Drifting Flower Pavilion’s passive self-preservation.
• Political manipulation and survival: The contract is presented as a legal restraint, but both sides look for loopholes and protect themselves against future betrayal.
• Power and deterrence: The factions fear Huo Hai because of his Skeleton army, while Huo Hai realizes that relying solely on borrowed or hidden power leaves his family vulnerable.
• Family protection and self-reliance: Huo Hai shifts toward building a permanent defensive force for the Huo Family rather than depending on intimidation alone.
• Reputation and factional strength: The Wine Immortal Sect’s hidden power is revealed, causing the other factions to treat it with greater caution.

Important Character Interactions

• Huo Hai and Hao Lian: Their exchange is tense and distrustful. Huo Hai openly mocks the Vast Earth Empire’s reputation for wordplay, while Hao Lian attempts to defend its integrity.
• Huo Hai and Old Wine Insect: Their conversation clarifies why the Wine Immortal Sect failed to help. Their farewell is warm and familiar, emphasizing genuine friendship.
• Huo Hai and Drifting Flower Pavilion’s representative: The representative offers the Three-Yang Pill as compensation. Huo Hai accepts it but remains unconvinced by the pavilion’s explanation.
• Huo Hai and the Huo Family: Huo Feng anxiously checks on him, and Huo Hai reassures the family before outlining his plan to strengthen their defenses.

Chapter Summary: “Extinguishing Humanity”

Key Plot Points and Events

• After previously being surrounded, Huo Hai becomes more determined to prepare for future threats. He orders members of the Huo Family and Huo Sect to construct hidden underground caves throughout Cross Canyon.
• He fills these caves with bones and high-grade insect eggs to create large numbers of Skeletons, deliberately making it known that Cross Canyon is heavily defended.
• The allied forces continue advancing through the Medicine King Sect’s territory, destroying its defenses, eliminating or absorbing allied sects, and reclaiming territory with almost no resistance.
• The allied forces are puzzled by the absence of the Medicine King Sect’s Spirit Emperor experts. Unknown to them, the sect has recalled these experts and sacrificed them:
  • They are transformed into Exotic Beasts.
  • The Exotic Beasts are refined into pills.
  • Those pills are used to create more Spirit Emperor-level Exotic Beasts.
• The Medicine King Sect also imprisons powerful Ninth-Level Spirit Kings and forcefully elevates them to the Spirit Emperor Realm through dangerous medicine. Survivors are driven insane, transformed into Exotic Beasts, and refined into additional pills.
• The sect master demands more Spirit Emperor Exotic Beasts, aiming to build an army of nearly ten thousand or more. The Medicine King Sect’s own remaining leaders and pill refiners are secretly intended to become future sacrifices as well.
• Outside, the allied forces cautiously approach the Medicine King Sect headquarters. The Vast Earth Empire notifies Huo Hai, partly because of his contributions and partly to preserve appearances.
• Huo Hai immediately prepares to leave Cross Canyon. He entrusts control of his Spirit Insects to his grandfather, Huo Feng, warns him not to leave the canyon, and travels toward the Medicine King Sect to see whether he can obtain something from the impending battle.

Character Developments

• Huo Hai grows more cautious and strategic after being surrounded in the past. Rather than relying on deception alone, he establishes permanent defenses and prepares for possible future attacks.
• Huo Feng is placed in charge of Cross Canyon and Huo Hai’s remaining Spirit Insects, reflecting Huo Hai’s trust in him and the importance of protecting the family’s base.
• The Medicine King Sect Master is revealed as ruthless, calculating, and increasingly extreme. He treats his own followers and powerful cultivators as expendable materials.
• The Grand Elder cooperates with the sect master despite recognizing the horrific nature of their actions. His willingness to approve the sacrifice of the sect’s own members shows how thoroughly the leadership has abandoned ordinary morality.
• The Medicine King Sect’s higher-ups become fearful and helpless. Though they continue refining pills, they do not realize that they themselves have already been marked for sacrifice.
• The allied forces become more confident because of the Medicine King Sect’s lack of visible resistance, but they remain wary of hidden traps and possible counterattacks.

Significant Themes

• Preparation and security: Huo Hai’s defenses reflect the importance of planning ahead rather than relying on improvisation or bluffing.
• Dehumanization and the loss of morality: The Medicine King Sect reduces living cultivators—even its own elites—to raw materials for producing Exotic Beasts and pills.
• Power at any cost: The sect master sacrifices allies, prisoners, and subordinates in pursuit of military strength, demonstrating the destructive extremes of unchecked ambition.
• Fear and control: The sect master uses hidden control pills to prevent disobedience, while his followers continue working under terror of becoming the next sacrifices.
• False confidence and hidden danger: The allied forces believe victory is nearly complete because the Medicine King Sect appears defenseless, but the sect is secretly preparing a massive and unnatural counterforce.
• Humanity versus monstrosity: The chapter’s title reflects how the Medicine King Sect’s pursuit of power has effectively extinguished its members’ humanity.

Character Interactions

• Huo Hai gives Huo Feng direct instructions and warns him to remain inside Cross Canyon, emphasizing both familial trust and the danger beyond their defenses.
• The Medicine King Sect master questions the Grand Elder about their preparations, while the Grand Elder reports their progress and supports the increasingly brutal plan.
• The sect master commands the other elders to refine pills, threatening them indirectly through the knowledge that failure results in transformation into Exotic Beasts.
• The sect master and Grand Elder jointly decide that the remaining Medicine King Sect experts will eventually be sacrificed after completing their usefulness.
• The Vast Earth Empire’s leader orders Huo Hai to be informed of the impending assault, despite the political hostility between the empire and Huo Hai.
• Huo Hai responds to the news by entrusting his defenses to Huo Feng and personally heading toward the Medicine King Sect battlefield.

Chapter Summary: “Counterattack”

Key Plot Points and Events

• The Vast Earth Empire’s leader orders an immediate assault on the Medicine King Sect after learning that Huo Hai has been notified but will not arrive for nearly a day.
• The allied forces accelerate their attack because they fear Huo Hai will claim the most valuable treasures and resources if he arrives before the sect is destroyed. The agreement is that whoever obtains something first may keep it.
• The Drifting Flower Pavilion warns that the Medicine King Sect may possess many Spirit Emperor-level Exotic Beasts, prompting the armies to prepare medicinal powder and advance alongside the remaining Skeleton army.
• Despite enormous casualties among the Skeletons, rogue cultivators, and other Spirit Masters, tens of millions of Skeletons remain when the army reaches the Medicine King Sect.
• Nearly a thousand allied Spirit Emperors attack the sect’s protective formation. The barrier cracks after two waves of attacks and shatters completely after the third, destroying its formation nodes and cores.
• The Vast Earth leader demands the Medicine King Sect surrender. The Sect Master and Great Elder emerge from the destruction and initially appear to be the only survivors.
• The two leaders reveal a massive force of Spirit Emperor-level Exotic Beasts, including several at the second and third Spirit Emperor levels.
• The Sect Master explains that the Medicine King Sect transformed captured or converted Spirit Emperor experts into Exotic Beasts and refined them into pills, creating an army far larger than expected.
• The Sect Master and Great Elder then transform themselves into blue-green, beastlike forms, revealing that they too have fused with Exotic Beast bloodlines.
• The chapter ends with the allied forces realizing that the Medicine King Sect’s leaders are dangerously powerful, morally depraved, and partially insane.

Character Developments

• Vast Earth Empire’s leader: Becomes more openly calculating and politically ambitious. He uses the fear of Huo Hai’s eventual arrival to unite the allies behind an early attack, while secretly hoping Huo Hai will be distracted or provoke conflict over the spoils.
• Huo Hai: Though absent from the battle, his influence is central. His previous contributions—the Skeleton army and Spirit Insect medicinal powder—make the other forces fear that he will receive the largest reward.
• Medicine King Sect Master: Reveals himself as ruthless, arrogant, and fanatically committed to survival and domination. He believes mass experimentation and the sacrifice of others are justified if they allow the sect to conquer the Ink Lotus Domain.
• Medicine King Sect Great Elder: Shares the Sect Master’s transformation and apparent moral collapse, standing as an equal participant in the sect’s monstrous experiments.
• Allied forces: Their initial greed and rivalry give way to shock, anger, and fear once they discover the scale of the Medicine King Sect’s atrocities and hidden strength.

Significant Themes

• Greed and competition among allies: The coalition attacks early not purely for strategic reasons, but to prevent Huo Hai from claiming the best treasures.
• The corruption of power: The Medicine King Sect’s pursuit of stronger cultivation leads it to transform humans into Exotic Beasts and abandon ethical limits.
• Science and ambition without morality: The sect’s research begins as an attempt to overcome the limitations of its Spirit Art but evolves into horrific experimentation and mass sacrifice.
• The cost of war: Countless Skeletons, rogue cultivators, and Spirit Masters have died, though the major powers remain strong enough to continue fighting.
• Monstrosity and lost humanity: The Sect Master and Great Elder physically become beastlike, symbolizing how their pursuit of power has destroyed their humanity.
• Hidden danger beneath apparent victory: The allied forces believe the sect is nearly defeated after breaking its formation, only to discover that its true strength has been concealed.

Important Character Interactions

• The Vast Earth leader persuades the allied powers to begin the assault by emphasizing the danger of letting Huo Hai arrive first.
• The Profound Ice Sect quickly supports the proposal, reflecting the coalition’s shared desire to limit Huo Hai’s gains.
• The Drifting Flower Pavilion leader urges everyone to prepare for a large number of high-level Exotic Beasts.
• The Vast Earth leader taunts the Sect Master and Great Elder, assuming they are the only remaining enemies.
• The Medicine King Sect leaders answer by summoning their hidden army and explaining the horrifying process used to create it.
• The allied forces respond with outrage and disbelief, especially after learning that former Spirit Emperor experts were transformed into Exotic Beasts and that the two sect leaders altered themselves as well.

The Coalition Army fought the Medicine King Sect’s exotic beasts while spreading Huo Hai’s Gu Powder, but the sect’s master and Grand Elder trapped them with Emperor-Splitting Pill fire men. The powder eventually began driving the beasts berserk, yet the battle left the Coalition Army near collapse as the Medicine King Sect ordered its forces to kill rather than capture.

• The Coalition Army’s Spirit Emperor experts attacked the exotic beasts and scattered Gu Powder, but the beasts’ counterattack killed and wounded many of them.
• The Medicine King Sect’s Grand Elder and master swallowed Emperor-Splitting Pills, summoning twenty seventh-level Spirit Emperor fire men to block the Coalition Army’s escape.
• The major factions unleashed their hidden scrolls and storage crystals, destroying ten fire men and thousands of exotic beasts, but the Coalition Army lost nearly half its forces.
• A Gu-Powder-infected exotic beast went berserk, revealing that Huo Hai’s spirit medicine was taking effect, and the Coalition Army fought on to wait for the others to succumb.
• The Medicine King Sect’s master ordered the berserk beasts killed and abandoned the effort to take prisoners as the Coalition Army dwindled to just over three hundred Spirit Emperors.

Huo Hai arrived at the Coalition Army’s desperate battle with the Medicine King Sect and secretly used his Gu Insects to attack the exotic beasts. After the beasts and the sect’s master and grand elder began reverting to their original forms, Huo Hai revealed himself as the Insect Emperor.

• Huo Hai reached the battlefield, saw the Coalition Army surrounded by thousands of exotic beasts, and decided to help from hiding.
• Huo Hai remotely directed his Gu Insects to multiply inside the beasts without making them go berserk, then ordered them to devour the beasts’ exotic bloodlines.
• The Medicine King Sect’s master mistook the beasts’ declining frenzy for the spirit medicine failing, but the beasts soon began reverting and falling from the sky.
• Huo Hai sent Gu Insects into the Medicine King Sect’s master and grand elder, who had also fused with exotic beast bloodlines.
• The master sent the ten Fire Men into the Coalition Army’s ranks, where they exploded and killed more than a hundred remaining fighters.
• The master and grand elder went berserk as the exotic beasts attacked one another, and Huo Hai appeared and explained that the Gu Insects were purging their bloodlines too.

Huo Hai wiped out the Exotic Beasts attacking the gathered forces, then searched the ruined Medicine King Sect headquarters and found a valuable cultivation manual. As the survivors departed, the Vast Earth Empire secretly set a plan in motion.

• Huo Hai used his Gu Insects to kill the Exotic Beasts and save the surviving experts, who then rescued the wounded and retrieved their dead.
• Huo Hai entered the Medicine King Sect’s book repository, burned its cruel Exotic Beast research, and collected its scriptures and elixir formulas.
• Huo Hai discovered the Elixir-Nourishing Art, which could temper crystal cores and Origin Essence while improving elixir-refining skills, and stored it in his Inner Space.
• The forces finished evacuating their people, while Huo Hai continued searching the ruins for treasures.
• After the Drifting Flower Pavilion and Profound Ice Sect departed, the Vast Earth Empire’s leader ordered several people to move secretly and launch a plan before the others returned.