Chapter Summaries

Bloodbone Daoist tried to use the Three Lives Post Station’s rules to evade justice for killing twelve Azure-Pattern Tribe cultivators, but Mysterious Abyss explained that the station did not erase karma incurred before entry. Bloodbone Daoist was killed inside the station, and the Profound Yin Blood Ginseng was recovered for the Azure-Pattern Tribe.

• Bloodbone Daoist entered the Three Lives Post Station and argued that its End Hostilities Upon Entering the Post Station rule protected him from the Border-Patrolling Youth.
• The steward had Bloodbone Daoist place his hand on the Cause and Effect Mirror, which revealed his twelve killings of Azure-Pattern Tribe cultivators.
• Mysterious Abyss appeared through the Three Lives Mirror and explained that the station protected people after entry but did not erase prior karma.
• Bloodbone Daoist tried to flee and offered compensation, but Mysterious Abyss’s Death Wheel drained his life and reduced him to ash.
• The steward recovered the Profound Yin Blood Ginseng, while a Water Clan elder explained that the station could shelter people from outside threats but not from Guixu blood debts.

After Bloodbone Daoist’s death revealed that the Three Lives Post Stations would not protect those with unresolved evil karma against Guixu, cultivators across the Northern Sea began obeying the stations’ rules without enforcement. Han Jue and Ao Lie inspected the stations, while Lu Chen reviewed reports showing that serious incidents had nearly vanished.

• The Three Lives Boundary Stele added a warning that those with unresolved evil karma against Guixu received no protection, and an independent cultivator turned away from the station.
• A wounded Demon Clan squad entered the Nineteenth Three Lives Post Station as Witch Clan pursuers arrived; the pursuers waited outside until an urgent summons called them away thirty years later.
• At the Thirty-Second Post Station, a Demon Clan caravan and Witch Clan warriors detoured around each other rather than fight near the Boundary Stele.
• At the Forty-Fourth Post Station, an independent Golden Immortal stopped at the boundary and let his wounded enemy remain inside without attacking.
• Han Jue and Ao Lie visited nearby stations and found no serious clashes, while Lan Shuang reported only three minor boundary crossings across all sixty-seven stations in over a hundred years.
• Lu Chen read the incident-free reports, concluded that decisive action had brought peace, and returned to cultivation.

Life in Guixu remained peaceful as Lu Chen strengthened his life-and-death cycle in cultivation, believing he could avoid the Great Tribulation by staying out of outside affairs. Reports of warming water and melting ice began arriving from across the Northern Sea, and a cultivator went to inform Ao Lie.

• The Thirty-Fourth Post Station and Guixu Academy continued to operate peacefully while the Witch-Demon War raged elsewhere.
• Han Jue reported to Lan Shuang that his inspection had found no conflicts, and he and Ao Lie agreed that the Northern Sea's quiet life was comfortable.
• Lu Chen deepened the connections among his body, primordial spirit, laws, and Guixu Inner Realm, completing a new life-and-death cycle.
• Sea patrolmen noticed the Cold Tide Waters warming and recorded the melting ice in a Sea-Patrol Jade Slip.
• More reports arrived of warming seas, melting mystic ice, slower-growing cold-aspected herbs, and fish migrating to deeper waters.
• The cultivator compiling changes in the Northern Sea gathered the Jade Slips and headed to the Water Vein Hall to find Ao Lie.

Ao Lie and Guixu investigated the Northern Sea’s gradual warming and traced it to increasingly active solar true fire, while Lu Chen suspected the Golden Crow Princes might be involved. After decades of rising temperatures across the Primordial World, a second sun appeared beside the first, immediately intensifying the heat.

• Ao Lie discovered that the Northern Sea was warming across vast regions, found ice melting near the Cold Tide Waters, and sensed that the heat was coming from the Sun Star.
• Lan Shuang, Han Jue, and Lu Chen investigated the growing solar true fire, and Lu Chen suspected that the ten Golden Crow Princes might be connected to a coming event.
• Lu Chen ordered the Northern Darkness Dao Palace to inspect its stations, move cold-natured herbs, and prepare vulnerable tribes to migrate as the warming spread across the Primordial World.
• Over the following decades, northern tribes relocated and Guixu stockpiled supplies while Lu Chen chose to watch rather than intervene.
• Near the Thirty-Fourth Post Station, Water Clan cultivators saw a bright point beside the rising sun grow into a second golden disc, and the Northern Sea’s temperature surged.

A second Golden Crow appeared in the sky, and Lu Chen recognized that a Golden Crow Prince had left Tang Valley as the Witch-Demon Tribulation began to change. More suns quickly followed, and as a fourth emerged, Lu Chen focused on protecting the Northern Sea and its formations.

• The second sun appeared, alarming the creatures of the Northern Sea and prompting Lan Shuang to order defenses and evacuations.
• Ao Lie identified the second sun's aura as belonging to a Golden Crow, and Lan Shuang ordered the Northern Sea's post stations and shallow-water clans to prepare.
• Lu Chen received system warnings that a Golden Crow Prince had left Tang Valley and realized the Ten Suns Across the Sky had begun.
• A third sun appeared, raising the world's temperature and affecting its water fortune, while Lu Chen assessed how much heat the Northern Sea could withstand.
• A fourth sun began to emerge as Lu Chen focused on protecting the Northern Sea, the Three Lives Post Stations, and Guixu's perimeter formations.

As ten Golden Crows brought devastating heat to the Primordial World, Lu Chen chose to protect the Northern Sea’s refugees without joining the Witch-Demon conflict. He sent the Ninefold Netherworld Cold Spring to Guixu and the Three Lives Post Stations, where the Feather-Scale Tribe spotted a refuge as flames pursued them.

• As the blazing suns multiplied, Ao Lie and Lan Shuang directed threatened Water Clan tribes to gather at the Three Lives Post Stations before retreating to Guixu.
• After the tenth sun rose, the Feather-Scale Tribe fled north as fire engulfed the mountain forest and their chief’s water treasure began to fail.
• Lu Chen rejected choices to hunt the Golden Crows or shelter them and chose to strengthen the Northern Sea’s protection against solar true fire.
• The Ninefold Netherworld Cold Spring emerged in Guixu, and Lu Chen sent streams of its water and profound yin dao patterns to all sixty-seven Three Lives Post Stations.
• The stations’ defenses cooled under the cold spring’s power, and the fleeing Feather-Scale Tribe spotted a glowing blue post station and hurried toward its open gates.

As the ten suns scorched the Primordial World, Guixu’s Three Lives Post Stations sheltered growing numbers of fleeing tribes and wandering cultivators. Lu Chen found his network could manage the crisis without his constant intervention, until a Demon Court official confronted refugees at the Fifty-Sixth Post Station.

• The Feather-Scale Tribe passed the Cause and Effect Mirror’s inspection and entered the Fifth Three Lives Post Station, where the cold mist shielded them from the solar heat.
• Refugees arrived at stations across the Northern Sea, where Guixu cultivators registered them, treated the wounded, and provided water and shelter.
• Lan Shuang directed aid from the Northern Darkness Dao Palace, while Han Jue and Guixu Academy disciples helped at overwhelmed stations.
• At the Thirty-Fourth Post Station, a Black-Shelled Turtle Tribe boy and clinic cultivators helped scorched wandering cultivators recover beneath the station’s protective curtain.
• Lu Chen sensed that Guixu’s staff could handle the influx, but a golden-feathered Demon Court man arrived at the Fifty-Sixth Post Station and challenged Demon Clan refugees for fleeing to the Northern Sea.

Demon Court Sun Patrol Envoy Yanlan tried to force the Azurewing tribe out of the Three Lives Post Station, then accidentally sent Solar True Fire across its boundary and burned Qinghe. The Cause and Effect Mirror recorded Yanlan’s karmic link to the injury, and Lu Chen saw the incident as he received the report.

• Yanlan arrived at the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station and demanded that the Azurewing tribe return to Demon Court territory, but the steward refused to let him take them.
• Yanlan kept Solar True Fire hovering outside the boundary to pressure the refugees, while the Azurewing Chief explained that their lands had burned and their children could no longer endure the heat.
• The flames were pulled by the ten suns overhead, and a fire feather crossed the Boundary Stele and burned Qinghe’s arm as he carried an unconscious casualty.
• The Cause and Effect Mirror linked Qinghe’s injury to Yanlan, and the steward sent its images to the Northern Darkness Dao Palace.
• Lu Chen saw Qinghe’s charred arm and Yanlan in the mirror, then asked who had struck first.

Mysterious Abyss killed Yanlan, a Demon Court Sun Patrol Envoy, after Yanlan’s solar true fire injured Qinghe at the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station. Mysterious Abyss healed Qinghe, while a far stronger Golden Crow aura turned toward the Northern Sea.

• Yanlan admitted that he had injured Qinghe with solar true fire, but Mysterious Abyss attacked him with the Death Wheel instead of accepting compensation.
• Yanlan invoked the Golden Crow Princes and pleaded for his life, but Mysterious Abyss killed him and destroyed his primordial spirit.
• Mysterious Abyss used the Life Wheel to heal Qinghe’s burns, restore his arm and meridians, and purge the solar fire poison.
• Yanlan’s twelve Demon Soldiers put away their weapons and left to report his death to a prince.
• Lu Chen let the Demon Soldiers go and prepared to restore the Fifty-Sixth Post Station’s depleted Profound Yin Light Curtain.
• A Golden Crow aura far stronger than Yanlan’s changed direction and headed for the Northern Sea.

The Seventh Prince came to the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station to question Mysterious Abyss about Yanlan’s death, then tested the Boundary Stele and was crushed when he crossed it. After Mysterious Abyss forced him to retreat and weakened his Solar True Fire, the prince accepted that the rules applied to him and flew around the post station.

• The Seventh Prince arrived at the post station and asked Mysterious Abyss why he had killed Yanlan.
• Mysterious Abyss showed how Yanlan’s Solar True Fire crossed the boundary and injured Qinghe, and the Seventh Prince acknowledged that Yanlan knew the rules.
• The Seventh Prince pushed a wisp of Solar True Fire across the Boundary Stele despite Mysterious Abyss’s warning.
• Mysterious Abyss struck the Seventh Prince down into the Northern Sea and the boundary’s death Dao patterns began wearing away his Solar True Fire.
• The Seventh Prince agreed not to cross the boundary again, withdrew beyond its range, and said he would report Yanlan’s death accurately.
• The Seventh Prince transformed into his Golden Crow True Form and flew in an arc around the Fifty-Sixth Three Lives Post Station.