Chapter Summaries

This chapter is a brief New Year’s note rather than a story episode. The narrator wishes readers a happy New Year and says they have been visiting relatives and will soon take their wife to her parents’ home, so they need a short break. They offer a playful Year of the Tiger greeting and share that their family is expecting a baby this year. The note ends with a complaint that the Spring Festival Gala was awful.
Character development and interactions: No fictional characters appear. The narrator speaks directly and warmly to readers, sharing personal plans and family news.
Themes: Seasonal celebration, family ties, anticipation of a new child, and casual humor.

Plot points and events

• Chen Cuo’s Astral Wind tears through the sea, dispersing the long-haired cultivator and his companions and stripping them of their ability to use Magic Power. The gale drives the seawater aside, exposing the seabed.
• Chen Guangrui and an old woman witness the upheaval. The woman recognizes Chen Cuo as her lord and is overjoyed to see him.
• Chen Cuo confirms that Chen Guangrui’s blood stirs his own Immortal Body, indicating that Guangrui is a genuine descendant of the Southern Chen imperial clan. Chen suspects he is connected to the line of Chen Fangqing and may be the man who, in the original history, was Tang Monk’s father.
• Believing someone has plotted against Guangrui, Chen Cuo gathers him, the old woman, and the scattered cultivators into his sleeve. He reflects on the growing powers of his Jade-Belt Peach Paradise, then departs.
• Longevity-level cultivators arrive at the site and debate what kind of powerful clash occurred. One recognizes the lingering aura of Withered Mountain and sends a talisman to seek help.
• On Flowing Cleansing Island, its master receives the talisman and announces that the Primordial Yang Child has appeared again. He and Azureblood True Lord hope to use the child to refine the Primordial Yang True Pill before the Sea Eye opens.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo acts decisively to protect Chen Guangrui and investigate the scheme against him. He also gains a clearer understanding of his lineage and the expanding capabilities of his Peach Paradise.
• Chen Guangrui is revealed to carry Southern Chen blood, though he remains frightened and confused by Chen Cuo’s intervention.
• The old woman shows deep loyalty to Chen Cuo, greeting him with excitement and calling Guangrui favored by fate.
• The long-haired cultivator and his companions are rendered powerless and captured along with the others.
• The Flowing Cleansing Island master and Azureblood True Lord respond eagerly to news of the Primordial Yang Child, revealing their interest in exploiting the child for alchemy.

Significant themes

• Fate versus altered history: Chen Cuo’s changes to the Chen clan’s past complicate the identity and fate of descendants such as Guangrui.
• Power and hidden schemes: The dramatic display of Divine Ability signals that powerful forces are moving behind the attack on Guangrui.
• Protection versus exploitation: Chen Cuo intervenes to safeguard Guangrui, while other cultivators see the Primordial Yang Child as a resource for a pill.
• Worlds within worlds: The Peach Paradise illustrates the increasingly fluid boundary between inner realms and the outside world.

Key plot points and events

• The lord of Flowing Cleansing Island and Azureblood True Lord leave the island together, drawing the attention of Wangsheng Daoist and Fairy Haixi.
• Wangsheng suspects the island lord has uncovered something important, possibly connected to the Sea Eye. Since he cannot leave his post, he asks Haixi to investigate.
• Haixi warns that the Sea Eye’s secrets and the group’s past actions are dangerous: they helped seal her senior brother, Hai Xuan Zi, and may face retaliation if he escapes. She also fears the influence of forces from Beyond the Mundane.
• After Haixi departs, Wangsheng uses a method that reveals his location: a scarlet island suspended over a lightless abyss, surrounded by violent whirlpools and strange voices.
• Chen Cuo senses the sinister disturbance from afar but chooses not to investigate. He focuses instead on his plans for Chen Guangrui and the future Journey to the West.
• Chen Cuo intends to prepare the circumstances that will eventually lead to Tang Sanzang’s birth and journey, using it to refine his Acupoints and possibly pursue the Way of Rise and Fall. He also wants to prevent the Buddhist School from using the journey to grow stronger.
• Discovering that Chen Guangrui is entangled with powerful forces—including monsters, overseas cultivators, and a formidable old woman—Chen Cuo revises his approach. As demonic auras approach, he decides to eliminate the forces surrounding Chen Guangrui while allowing the young man’s life to unfold naturally.

Character developments

• Wangsheng Daoist appears politically cautious and deeply distrustful. Though he fears the dangers around the Sea Eye, he refuses to abandon control of the Islands Alliance.
• Fairy Haixi is wary and resentful over her role in sealing Hai Xuan Zi. She acts despite distrusting Wangsheng, apparently because she remains concerned about her senior brother and the consequences of his escape.
• Chen Cuo reveals himself as a long-range strategist, carefully manipulating events around Chen Guangrui and the future pilgrimage. His plans are ambitious but flexible, and he is alert to threats that could derail them.

Significant themes

• Power and political control: Wangsheng’s commitment to retaining alliance leadership conflicts with the danger of the secrets he guards.
• Distrust and complicity: The characters are bound by past deeds, uncertain loyalties, and fear that others may have been corrupted.
• Fate versus intervention: Chen Cuo wants the Journey to West to occur, yet plans to shape its causes and outcomes.
• Hidden cosmic dangers: The abyss and its strange influence suggest that forces from Beyond the Mundane can warp reality and threaten those who approach them.

Character interactions

• Wangsheng tries to persuade Haixi to investigate, invoking her personal connection to Hai Xuan Zi; she challenges his motives and warns him of the consequences of their past.
• Haixi leaves to act, while Wangsheng stays behind to protect his position and investigate the sudden movements around Flowing Cleansing Island.
• Chen Cuo observes the supernatural disturbance but deliberately avoids engaging with it, choosing instead to confront the demonic forces closing in on Chen Guangrui.

Plot points and events

• A white-clad Snake Demon leads black bear spirit Xiong Pi and gray-robed Daoist Langhao to the seaside, claiming a powerful young cultivator is hiding there and can be killed for his valuable essence.
• Chen Cuo traps the trio in his Jade-Belt Peach Paradise, transforming the reefs into a lush landscape. Realizing they face a Great Divine Ability User, the demons stop resisting.
• Chen Cuo recognizes Langhao, an old acquaintance now practicing Daoist arts under the name Lingxu Zi. He returns Xiong Pi’s spear and praises its potential as a Treasure.
• Chen Cuo brings out Chen Guangrui and the Old Matron, revealing that the Snake Demon has pursued Chen Guangrui for years. He also identifies the Old Matron as a Fox Demon and demands that both explain what they know.
• The Old Matron warns that some truths are bound by the Cause and Effect of heaven and earth. Chen Cuo decides to investigate anyway.
• Sensing two approaching cultivators, Chen Cuo sends his jade-green power across the sea. Lord of Flowing Cleansing Island and Azureblood True Lord try to flee, but a vast abyss opens beneath them and drags them down.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo displays overwhelming power and confidence, while his questions about Chen Guangrui and the westward journey suggest he is beginning to perceive a larger mystery.
• Langhao/Lingxu Zi is delighted to reunite with Chen Cuo and proudly introduces him to Xiong Pi.
• Xiong Pi shows himself to be a formidable, experienced demon cultivator, but immediately respects Chen Cuo’s authority.
• The Snake Demon shifts from boastful accuser to terrified captive once Chen Cuo’s power is revealed.
• Chen Guangrui remains cautious and self-sacrificing, offering to let Chen Cuo escape rather than risk being dragged into his troubles.
• The Old Matron tries to reassure Chen Guangrui, then submits to Chen Cuo and admits that some information is beyond her freedom to disclose.
• Fairy Haixi, watching from afar, recognizes the danger too late to intervene.

Significant themes

• Power and its limits: Even Longevity Cultivators struggle helplessly against Chen Cuo’s abilities.
• Fate, causality, and hidden truths: The Old Matron’s warning suggests that Chen Guangrui’s situation is entangled in forces beyond ordinary choice.
• Reputation and perception: The Snake Demon portrays his target as a destructive menace, but Chen Cuo’s arrival quickly overturns the balance of power.
• The uncanny transformation of reality: The Peach Paradise and the sea-splitting abyss show Chen Cuo’s ability to reshape the natural world.

Key plot points

• An unseen force strikes the Lord of Flowing Cleansing Island and True Lord Azure Blood, crushing their defenses and dropping them into a vast abyss. The island lord suspects it may be a Sea Eye, but jade bands carry both men away.
• Fairy Haixi tries to flee, but Chen Cuo forcibly breaks her transformation and overwhelms her sea-based Divine Ability. A white band binds her, leaving her apparently mortal and helpless.
• True Person Wangsheng watches the battle through a pool on Crimson Island. Alarmed that the abyss defeats even his pool’s vision, he realizes Chen Cuo has noticed him. He withdraws his observation, suffering a backlash, but Chen Cuo then ignites a Heart Fire within him from afar.
• Unable to suppress the fire—and discovering that drawing on the Sea Eye only spreads it—Wangsheng begs Chen Cuo for mercy. When no answer comes, he races toward the coast to seek him.
• Chen Cuo identifies Wangsheng as likely connected to Daoist Wangqi and decides to question him about the Overseas islands and the mysterious abyss. He then brings the three captured cultivators before Chen Guangrui and the others.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo demonstrates overwhelming, long-range control: he can suppress powerful cultivators, undo transformations, capture opponents, and attack a distant observer through Heart Fire. He remains calm and focused on questioning the captives and resolving Chen Guangrui’s situation.
• Fairy Haixi, initially confident in her ocean-based advantage, quickly recognizes she is outmatched and chooses defense before being captured.
• True Person Wangsheng shifts from detached observer to terrified victim. His attempt to stop watching triggers a backlash, and his efforts to extinguish the fire worsen it; he ultimately decides to confront Chen Cuo rather than remain on Crimson Island.
• The Lord of Flowing Cleansing Island and True Lord Azure Blood are rendered helpless and disappear into the abyss. Their inability to resist leaves them fearful about the power and background of their attacker.
• Chen Guangrui, the old woman, Langhao, and the other demons witness the captives’ sudden appearance and are left stunned.

Significant themes

• The limits of cultivation and power: Longevity, formidable Divine Abilities, and even access to a Sea Eye offer little protection against Chen Cuo.
• Observation carries risk: Wangsheng’s attempt to spy on Chen Cuo exposes him to a distant retaliation.
• Mystery and foreboding: The abyss appears as vast and unknowable as a Sea Eye, while Chen Cuo’s connection to it and the wider Ocean Intent Realm remains unresolved.

Key plot points and events

• A radiant pearl rises from the sea, gathers emerald light, and is expelled into the void by a vast force. Chen Cuo and the others witness the event.
• Chen Cuo’s effortless defeat of the visiting cultivators leaves the group stunned. Xiong Pi recognizes the fallen Azureblood True Lord as a once-feared demon; the White-Robed Scholar is especially shaken.
• Chen Cuo conjures food and questions the captives about why they came for Chen Guangrui. He learns that Guangrui’s mother, Su Ying, disappeared twelve years ago after promising to find him a teacher.
• Guangrui is revealed to descend from both the Chen Household and Su Ying’s Green Mound lineage, one of the Wa Sovereign’s three principal bloodlines. The old woman insists the Wa Sovereign is an ancestor of humanity, not merely a demon.
• The White-Robed Scholar says his chief learned about Guangrui from an unnamed, thin old man whom the chief called “Venerable.” As he speaks, lightning flashes in the west and a yellow star falls.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo remains composed and overwhelmingly powerful, but his interest in Guangrui becomes personal: he recognizes their shared Chen blood and feels an instinctive fondness for the young man. He also reacts to the Wa Sovereign’s creation and heaven-mending legends, sensing a possible link between myth, cultivation, and his own plans.
• Chen Guangrui learns that his origins are far more complicated than he knew. He is stunned by the possibility of a demon ancestry, but Chen Cuo reassures him that his blood and Fortune are unmistakably human and Chen.
• The old woman openly reveals her pride in Su Ying’s ancient lineage and her closeness to Guangrui, while her earlier restraint suggests she has long kept his origins secret.
• Xiong Pi and the White-Robed Scholar are humbled by Chen Cuo’s display of power. The Scholar, frightened, cooperates and offers the clue about “Venerable.”
• The Flowing Cleansing Island lord remains guarded and reluctant to answer, even while recognizing Chen Cuo’s superiority.

Significant themes

• Hidden ancestry and identity: Guangrui’s unknown parentage links an ordinary upbringing to powerful human and ancient lineages.
• Myth and creation: The Wa Sovereign’s stories of making humanity and repairing heaven may be more than legend, prompting Chen Cuo to consider how myths shape cultivation.
• Power and fear: Chen Cuo’s strength overturns the captives’ expectations and forces them to confront the consequences of their actions.
• Fate and foreshadowing: The mysterious “Venerable,” the falling star, and the pearl’s disappearance signal larger forces at work.

Plot points and events

• A fallen star carries the essence of a metal star, signaling violence and the arrival of a Heavenly Palace figure. The Red-Faced Man and the Basket-Carrying Boy infer that the newcomer is pursuing Chen Cuo, and decide to let him test Chen before they approach.
• A yellow-robed Heavenly Palace Vanguard forms above the sea. Sent by the Western Venerable to find the Former Dynasty Marquis, he senses a powerful presence near the coast and assumes it is Chen.
• The Vanguard detects a deep-sea Sea Eye undergoing Deification. Believing a newly born deity could be a valuable ally, he abandons his plan to seek Chen and hurries toward it.
• Wangsheng Daoist, consumed by Heart Fire, crashes before Chen Cuo and begs him to end the torment. Chen says Wangsheng’s tangled connections to the Coastal Region and Outer Sea can help reveal their history, then uses the Twelve Stars and the River of Time to unfold the past of everyone present.
• Far below the sea, the Abyss trembles. Chained figures awaken, including Hai Xuan Zi, who senses an uncertain trace of his senior brother’s aura. Scarlet eyes flicker in the darkness.

Character developments and interactions

• The Red-Faced Man shows caution and strategic patience, while the Basket-Carrying Boy urges them to act quickly; together, they decide to observe Chen through the Vanguard’s actions.
• The yellow-robed Vanguard reveals that he values deities as his own kind, seeing a gap between them and mortal cultivators such as Chen, despite their power.
• Wangsheng Daoist is reduced from a schemer to a desperate, pain-stricken petitioner. Chen turns his suffering into an opportunity to investigate the region’s past.
• The Vanguard and Wangsheng pass each other without interacting: the former dismisses Wangsheng as a minor cultivator caught in mortal affairs.

Significant themes

• Power and allegiance: Heavenly Palace agents weigh alliances by usefulness and shared nature.
• Destiny, history, and causality: Chen’s command of time exposes how present conflicts are rooted in past events.
• Deification and cosmic change: The falling star, transforming Sea Eye, and stirring Abyss suggest major shifts among the realms.
• Hidden identities and uncertain knowledge: Characters make bold assumptions about Chen and the events unfolding, while even Hai Xuan Zi cannot clearly identify the aura he senses.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo uses the Twelve Stars to summon an illusory River of History, which engulfs Fairy Haixi, Chen Guangrui, Wangsheng Daoist, and the others. Immersed in the river, they experience fleeting visions of the past and possible future, becoming absorbed in the knowledge they seem to offer.
• Chen Cuo’s Eighty-One Acupoints Sutra of Deliverance activates. Using the river and Wangsheng Daoist’s memories and karmic connections, Chen Cuo projects a shifting historical scene: an ancient Sea Eye, the construction of Crimson Island over it, and later upheavals that threaten the island.
• The visions show Daoist Hai Xuan leaving the island badly wounded. Recognizing him as a close friend of Chen Cuo’s master, Daoyinzi, Chen Cuo decides he must intervene.
• Chen Cuo sends Pure Qi into the vision. It reaches Wangsheng True Person, who awakens in a dark cavern as the scene around him begins to grow vivid and real. A spark of Spirit Light rises from him and enters an acupoint.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo demonstrates growing command of his Mystic Art and sutra, using them to reconstruct history and act through the River of Time. His sense of duty to Daoyinzi’s friend prompts him to intervene, while he also treats the episode as a test of his new method.
• Fairy Haixi and the others are overwhelmed by the river’s tantalizing but elusive insights. Even the untrained scholar Chen Guangrui is drawn in by the chance to understand history and glimpse the future.
• Wangsheng Daoist / Wangsheng True Person shifts from a helpless captive of the river to the focus of Chen Cuo’s intervention, awakening as Chen Cuo’s Qi reaches him.
• Daoist Hai Xuan appears only in the projected past, but his grave injuries and uncertain prospects become a pressing concern for Chen Cuo.

Significant themes

• The seduction and limits of knowledge: The river offers profound-seeming insights, but its fragments cannot be fully grasped and may be unreliable.
• History, memory, and illusion: The scenes are reconstructions shaped by inherited accounts and Wangsheng’s memories, not necessarily objective truth.
• Karma and responsibility: Connections to the past reveal obligations that Chen Cuo feels compelled to honor.
• Intervention and spiritual cultivation: Chen Cuo uses the river not only to investigate causes and effects, but also to test and apply his developing art.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo breaks through an external force trying to suppress his work and completes the framework of the Eighty-One Acupoints Sutra of Deliverance. The technique uses Dao Marks and the River of Time to turn legends into tangible fragments of history, then refine them into the body, where history strengthens flesh and spirit and legend produces Divine Abilities.
• He compares the strengths and limitations of several cultivation paths, concluding that his method offers a different route—but remains incomplete. His present limits allow it to help someone reach beyond the mundane and form a Peach Paradise, but not yet master Heaven-Opening or Land-Opening.
• To test the method, Chen Cuo uses his Twelve Stars and Dao Marks to stabilize the illusion surrounding True Person Wangsheng. A vast, imperfect image of a mortal dynasty appears across the sea, though Chen Cuo admits his Dao Marks cannot yet make the world fully convincing.
• Wangsheng awakens believing he has spent a century in seclusion and gained insight into rise and fall. He resolves to leave his name in the Deliverance True Realm, become part of history, and form a Deliverance Acupoint.
• His departure triggers thunder. Far beneath the ocean, an unknown presence senses a Divine Treasury hidden in the Coastal Lands and wonders who concealed it.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo shows growing confidence in his original cultivation method, but remains conscious of its gaps and of his limited resources. He credits the Old Beggar and especially the Lord of Self for helping him understand stories and legends, and plans to add more Dao Marks before setting the Journey West in motion.
• True Person Wangsheng emerges from Chen Cuo’s constructed realm with a new sense of purpose and apparent conviction that his revelation was earned through seclusion. He intends to make himself part of history to achieve immortality.
• Chen Cuo’s interaction with Wangsheng is largely indirect: he restrains the force trying to expel Wangsheng’s Pure Qi, shapes the realm around him, and guides him toward acting out the legend. The unseen ocean-dweller’s response introduces a potential new observer or threat.

Significant themes

• Making legend real: The chapter’s central idea is that history and collective stories can be drawn from the River of Time and embodied in a person.
• Cultivation through action: The Deliverance method requires deeds that create a legend, not merely spiritual energy or offerings.
• Ambition and limitation: Chen Cuo has devised a powerful new path, but recognizes that invention alone is not enough; he still needs more Dao Marks, knowledge, and testing.
• Reality and illusion: The constructed realm blurs the boundary between the two, raising questions about whether Wangsheng’s enlightenment is genuine or engineered.

Plot points and events

• True Person Wangsheng enters a vast, bustling Divine Realm that seems like a real city. Its four districts hold about 550,000 people. He quickly accepts the place as real and resolves to establish himself there by making a name for his Dao.
• Chen Cuo reveals that the city is a controlled “stage” built from Jade-Belt Peach Paradise, the Twelve Dao Marks, and the River of History. He assigns Wangsheng the role of a steadfast Dao seeker, hoping his practice will help Chen Cuo understand how to condense an Acupoint and improve the Liberation from Suffering Scripture.
• The stage’s jade foundations begin to crack. Chen Cuo realizes that making it larger and more detailed places too much strain on its dreamlike vessel. He considers studying Divine Treasuries, which may have been formed through a related method, as a way to expand the stage for his future Journey to the West plan.
• A violent disturbance erupts in the sea. Chen Cuo decides to check on Daoist Haixuan, fearing he may be caught in the fighting.
• In the city, Chen Guangrui sits in a teahouse, unsettled by his sudden arrival and altered clothes, but gradually composes himself. Chen Cuo tries to draw him into a role, only for hidden Buddhist power in Chen Guangrui’s bloodline to resist. The Buddha Light is eventually suppressed, and Chen Guangrui assumes the scholar’s role.
• At sea, a yellow-robed deity confronts a hostile being from the Blood Sea. The being reveals that it has stolen authority over life and death and threatens to corrode the deity’s body and use it to seize the Divine Treasury.

Character developments and interactions

• Wangsheng proves receptive to the staged world: despite a brief instinctive unease, he is absorbed by its ordinary life and commits to building a future there.
• Chen Cuo acts as creator, director, and observer. He uses others’ experiences to advance his cultivation and plans, while also recognizing the limits of his constructed realm.
• Chen Guangrui shows unusual resistance to Chen Cuo’s influence, even without cultivation. His buried Buddhist inheritance briefly surfaces, suggesting that the Buddhist School prepared something within him.
• The yellow-robed deity reacts with anger and alarm when the supposed recruit reveals himself as a dangerous Blood Sea remnant. Their confrontation ends unresolved.

Significant themes

• Reality, memory, and identity: The city feels authentic because its inhabitants accept their roles, while outside forces can alter their memories and sense of self.
• Power and experimentation: Chen Cuo turns people’s lives into a controlled stage, using their actions to test and refine his arts.
• Hidden inheritance and competing forces: Chen Guangrui’s bloodline reveals a concealed Buddhist influence, while the sea conflict pits a deity against an ancient, corrupted power.
• Limits of creation: Chen Cuo’s ambition to build a larger stage is constrained by the strain placed on its foundations, prompting him to seek new methods and precedents.

Key plot points and events

• A Yellow-Robed Deity attacks the Sea Eye’s bloodlight with a blade of starlight, but the abyss absorbs it. A Blood Infant emerges from the Sea Eye and reveals that it can command the abyss’s power.
• The deity recognizes the infant’s malice and sees countless infant Remnant Souls clinging to it. Believing they were sacrificed to create it, he attacks.
• The Blood Infant’s shriek shatters the deity’s cold blades and makes the Eastern Sea’s Sea Eyes resonate, unleashing violent waves and awakening cultivators across the region.
• In a Water Palace beneath the sea, an elderly king and his two horned sons react to the disturbance. One son blames human control of the Sea Eye and urges the palace to reclaim it; the king decides to investigate first.
• The deity realizes his manifested body is weakening and recalls that he was sent to protect Chen Fangqing. He has not yet contacted him, and fears Chen will be in grave danger.
• The Blood Infant explains that it cultivated within the Sea Eye, combining blood essence, life-and-death arts, and other sources of power to form a body capable of wielding profound abilities. It intends to absorb the deity’s Incense power.
• The Blood Infant’s bloodlight breaches the deity’s sword-ray defenses and begins corrupting his body. The deity halts its spread with his seventeen Life-Bound Sword Rays, but the Blood Infant claims he is already trapped.
• Chen Fangqing approaches. The deity urgently warns him to flee.

Character developments and interactions

• The Yellow-Robed Deity shifts from righteous outrage and confidence to alarm as he discovers the Blood Infant can exploit the Sea Eye. His hesitation over risking his sword rays lets the bloodlight reach him; despite his efforts to contain it, he prioritizes warning Chen.
• The Blood Infant is revealed as a calculating, predatory enemy, not merely a monstrous creature. It mocks the deity’s understanding of cultivation, explains its origins, and plans to turn him into a Blood Husk.
• The Water Palace king and princes respond differently to the crisis: the king takes a cautious, investigative approach, while one prince pushes for seizing the Sea Eye from human hands.
• The deity and Blood Infant clash directly, trading attacks and taunts; the arriving Chen Fangqing becomes the next potential victim.

Significant themes

• Conflicting ideas of orthodoxy and evil: The Blood Infant presents its methods as legitimate cultivation, while its use of infant souls and human blood exposes the horrific cost behind that claim.
• Power drawn from life and death: The Sea Eye becomes both a deadly abyss and a source of cultivation, linking creation, sacrifice, and destruction.
• Duty and vulnerability: The deity’s mission to protect Chen Fangqing collides with his limited, fragile manifested form.
• Consequences of human control: The disturbance raises the possibility that the Sea Eyes are dangerous forces that should not remain in human hands.

Key plot points and events

• The Eastern Sea Dragon King and his sons, Ao Zheng and Ao Fan, travel toward the Nearshore Sea Eye as violent currents wreak havoc across the ocean. The Dragon King fears the crisis is connected to his youngest daughter and the Sea Eye’s importance to the Dragon Clan.
• A yellow-robed Heavenly deity is being overwhelmed by the Blood Infant. When the deity calls out to warn Chen Fangqing to flee, the name unsettles the approaching cultivators. Some hesitate, but others—and the Dragon King—continue toward the Sea Eye.
• The Blood Infant welcomes Chen Cuo, believing him to be the target his ancestor sent him to find. He traps Chen in layers of his Ten Directions Azureblood True Light, formed from the accumulated vitality of generations of cultivators.
• Chen tears through the Bloodlight, then uses his Little Gourd to collect it. The Blood Infant loses a substantial portion of his cultivation and struggles to maintain his form.
• Chen attacks with a blazing red radiance and the Water-Fire Bronze Sword, splitting the Blood Infant and cutting the ocean open to reveal the Sea Eye. The wounded Blood Infant flees into the abyss, threatening to use the Sea Eye’s power against Chen.
• Although the deity warns him against pursuing a dangerous, desperate enemy, Chen decides to follow, arguing that the threat must be eliminated at its source. Black water and ominous sounds begin surging from the abyss.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo (Chen Fangqing) is revealed as far more powerful than the gathered cultivators expected. He remains composed, dismisses the Blood Infant’s boasting, and favors decisive, permanent solutions.
• The Blood Infant shifts from delighted confidence to shock and alarm as Chen breaks and absorbs his Bloodlight. Badly weakened, he retreats into the Sea Eye and vows revenge.
• The Dragon King is cautious but feels compelled to act because of the Sea Eye’s connection to his daughter and his people. Ao Zheng questions whether the Dragon Clan should risk involvement; Ao Fan quietly assesses the surrounding forces.
• The yellow-robed deity tries to protect Chen by warning him, but is too compromised by the Bloodlight to intervene effectively.
• The approaching cultivators, including Penglai and Fangzhang figures, initially fear Chen’s reputation, then press onward out of concern for the Sea Eye and their own interests.

Significant themes

• Power and reputation: Chen’s legendary reputation inspires fear, but his actions prove more decisive than rumors suggest.
• Duty versus self-preservation: The Dragon King and other cultivators advance despite the danger because the Sea Eye is vital to the Eastern Sea.
• Caution versus resolve: The deity urges restraint, while Chen insists that a dangerous foe must be pursued before it can recover.
• Inheritance and sacrifice: The Blood Infant’s strength rests on generations of cultivators being used as sacrificial vessels, contrasting inherited power with Chen’s ability to dismantle it.

Plot points and events

• Chen Cuo’s arrival and the blood-red aurora reveal a Beyond-the-Mundane power at work. True Person Luosheng and the Earthshaking Divine Lord recognize the danger but refuse to abandon the Eastern Sea’s crucial Sea Eye.
• Chen Cuo unleashes the Pure Yang Single-Qi Redlight Formula and a sword strike so powerful that it splits the sea and seabed. The Old Dragon King saves himself and his sons, but the attack makes him question whether they can safely enter the fight.
• A supernatural force from the Sea Eye overwhelms the Dragon princes, Ao Zheng and Ao Fan, with a dreamlike state of bliss. Their father resists the same influence and presses on.
• The Blood Infant releases the “Torrent of Ten Thousand Ages,” a black tide that carries ancient thoughts and threatens to remake the region’s laws. It disrupts natural principles, poisons the air, and seeks to seize authority over the sea—and even alter the minds of its inhabitants.
• The yellow-robed Deity warns Chen Cuo to flee before the Blood Infant can impose his will. Instead, Chen Cuo draws a Gourd and meets the tide head-on.
• As Chen Cuo disappears beneath the black tide, the Red-Faced Man prepares to intervene. Gray mist then spreads, revealing a colossal mountain held by Chen Cuo. He hurls it into the Sea Eye, crushing the black currents and sealing the opening as it expands.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo demonstrates both overwhelming power and resolve: he answers an attempt to rewrite reality not by retreating, but by using the mountain to shut the Sea Eye.
• The Old Dragon King is protective and vigilant, rescuing his sons from Chen Cuo’s sword strike and resisting the Sea Eye’s influence. His hesitation shows he recognizes the limits of his power.
• Ao Zheng and Ao Fan are shaken by the scale of the battle, then rendered helpless by the Sea Eye’s mental influence.
• True Person Luosheng and the Earthshaking Divine Lord move from shock to grim determination, deciding that the Sea Eye’s importance outweighs the danger.
• The Red-Faced Man and Basket-Carrying Boy watch Chen Cuo with awe. They consider intervening, but their diminished strength after many reincarnations makes them uncertain; Chen Cuo’s counterattack stops the Red-Faced Man from acting.
• The yellow-robed Deity serves as Chen Cuo’s warning ally, explaining that the Blood Infant is trying to usurp control of nature.

Significant themes

• Natural order versus imposed rule: The Blood Infant’s threat is not merely destructive; he aims to replace the sea’s natural laws with his own authority.
• Power and its limits: Even formidable figures hesitate before the Sea Eye’s ancient force, while Chen Cuo’s decisive response shifts the balance.
• The burden of the past: The Sea Eye contains traces of countless ages and living things, making its power both vast and deeply entangled with the sea’s inhabitants.
• Protection and responsibility: The Old Dragon King risks himself for his sons, while the defenders are bound to protect the Eastern Sea’s foundation.

Plot and events

• Chen Cuo drives an enormous mountain into the Sea Eye, forcing the surging Black Tide back into the abyss. He prevents the resulting giant waves from reaching coastal villages.
• The Blood Infant resists, using his power to make the mountain rise. Chen Cuo answers with falling meteors, driving the mountain down and breaking the Blood Infant apart.
• The Blood Infant tries to escape through a hidden connection to the Azureblood True Lord, but a bead suppresses the latter’s blood transformation. The backlash causes the Blood Infant to collapse and sink into the Sea Eye.
• The sea closes over the exposed seabed, waking those who had been put to sleep. Chen Cuo continues forcing the mountain deeper into the abyss.
• The victory is not yet secure: the Sea Eye reverses, the coastal sea begins to sink, and distant True Persons urgently call on Chen Cuo to save the people of the Eastern Sea.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo displays overwhelming control over the battlefield, protecting the villages while confronting the Blood Infant. Yet he recognizes that the Black Tide could threaten him, wonders whether it and his Gray Mist share an underlying nature, and suspects the Blood Infant’s masters may be beyond the mortal world. He remains wary rather than declaring victory.
• The Blood Infant shifts from furious confidence to desperation as his power is overwhelmed. His attempt to use the Azureblood True Lord as a fallback fails, and he is drawn into the abyss—but his last words suggest he may have other contingencies.
• The Azureblood True Lord briefly becomes a vessel for the Blood Infant’s influence, terrifying the women around him, before the bead suppresses the transformation.
• Luosheng, the Earthshaking Divine Lord, and the Old Dragon King recognize that they cannot match either combatant. They initially hope Chen Cuo will prevail, then rush toward the Sea Eye when they realize it has been blocked.
• The Red-Faced Man and Basket-Carrying Boy abandon any thought of intervening and marvel at the Gray Mist’s ability to cover a region where the laws of heaven and earth are in turmoil.

Significant themes

• Power and its limits: Chen Cuo wins the immediate clash, but the Black Tide remains a genuine danger and the crisis continues.
• Uncertainty beneath apparent victory: The Blood Infant is defeated but not confirmed dead, and his hidden connections hint at a larger threat.
• Responsibility and protection: Chen Cuo uses his power not only to fight but also to shield the coastal settlements from destruction.
• The uncanny and the unknown: The Gray Mist, Black Tide, and Sea Eye suggest forces whose nature and relationship remain mysterious.

Key plot points and events

• A massive offshore seabed collapse triggers violent currents and a tsunami stretching thousands of miles. Creatures and communities across the Eastern Sea face danger, though the full consequences are not yet clear.
• Ao Zheng and Ao Fan suggest their father should confront Chen Cuo over the disaster. The old Dragon King rebukes them, explaining that the collapse was caused by a hidden cultivator who had hollowed out the seabed near the Sea Eye long ago—not simply by Chen Cuo’s recent battle.
• The Dragon King hurries toward the Sea Eye, fearing other cultivators will provoke Chen Cuo and bring an even worse catastrophe upon the Eastern Sea. He warns his sons that the Sea Eye disaster might be repaired, but no one could survive a direct attack by a cultivator of Chen Cuo’s power.
• Chen Cuo senses the exposed secrets beneath the seabed and the growing danger. He is preparing to use his abilities to stop the tsunami when True Person Luo Sheng urges him to act, framing the disaster as a consequence of Chen Cuo’s battle and warning that failing to intervene could bring sin and harm his cultivation.
• A red-marked man arrives and publicly accuses Chen Cuo of causing the destruction and demands that he make amends. Hearing this, the Dragon King rushes ahead, recognizing that the two cultivators are trying to manipulate and provoke Chen Cuo.

Character developments and interactions

• The old Dragon King shows greater caution and political judgment than his sons. He accepts responsibility for failing to discover the hidden threat and prioritizes preventing anyone from antagonizing Chen Cuo.
• Ao Zheng and Ao Fan express concern for Eastern Sea life, but their father suspects they also hope to use the disaster to influence Chen Cuo. Their fear of Chen Cuo’s power becomes more explicit.
• Chen Cuo is aware of the coming devastation and is willing to intervene, but the cultivators’ accusations frame his possible rescue as an obligation.
• Luo Sheng and the red-marked man use moral condemnation and public pressure to push Chen Cuo into action, apparently maneuvering for their own purposes. The Dragon King moves to interrupt this dangerous gambit.

Significant themes

• Power and accountability: Those capable of preventing disaster are pressured to take responsibility, even when the disaster’s true cause is more complicated.
• Political manipulation: Appeals to compassion and righteousness can conceal attempts to control or provoke a powerful figure.
• Fear of overwhelming power: The Dragon King believes provoking Chen Cuo would be more dangerous than the natural disaster itself.
• Hidden causes and delayed consequences: The seabed’s collapse reveals a long-concealed threat whose effects may extend far beyond the present crisis.

Key plot points and events

• As the Eastern Sea reels from a catastrophe, Fu Zijin publicly accuses Chen Cuo of causing it and demands that he stop the disaster. He presents himself as defending both the sea’s inhabitants and coastal people, while privately anticipating moral prestige and Incense that could aid his cultivation.
• His speech spreads across the sea and shore, stirring fear, anger, and blame among cultivators and ordinary people. Their desperate thoughts gather as dark Incense around Chen Cuo.
• The Old Dragon King arrives and refutes Fu Zijin: the sea’s foundations were damaged long ago by a Blood Sea remnant who hollowed out the seabed. Chen Cuo fought that threat, making him the aquatic clans’ benefactor rather than the cause of the underlying calamity.
• Chen Cuo calms the waters around the Sea Eye and challenges two powerful cultivators, True Person Luosheng and the Earthshaking Divine Lord, for silently allowing the false accusation. They concede that the Blood Sea remnant was an evil fiend, that Chen Cuo’s cultivation is orthodox, and that the sea’s decline began before his battle.
• Chen Cuo reveals that the fight has left him badly weakened and unable to quell the turmoil by ordinary means. He then claims that saving the sea requires the sacrifice of two Return to Truth cultivators and one Longevity cultivator.
• Fu Zijin immediately flees, but Chen Cuo traps him and the two True Persons in a vast hand of mist. The chapter ends with Chen Cuo confronting Fu Zijin’s professed concern for the living: “What had the living done to deserve your concern?”

Character developments and interactions

• Fu Zijin begins as a confident moral accuser, convinced that righteousness and public support protect him. His self-interest becomes clear in his hopes for worship and cultivation benefits; when danger turns on him, he abandons his stand and runs.
• Chen Cuo remains controlled until challenged, then exposes the hypocrisy of those blaming him and turns their demand for sacrifice back on them. His calm command over the sea contrasts with his claim to be physically and spiritually depleted.
• The Old Dragon King forcefully defends Chen Cuo and the aquatic clans, correcting the public account of the disaster. He is willing to take responsibility by calling on the Dragon Clan to help lessen the calamity.
• True Person Luosheng and the Earthshaking Divine Lord recognize that their silence helped the false narrative take hold. Under Chen Cuo’s questioning, they acknowledge the facts but struggle to justify their earlier inaction.

Significant themes

• Righteousness versus self-interest: Fu Zijin’s grand moral language masks ambition, and his flight exposes the gap between his words and actions.
• Scapegoating and public panic: Fear turns incomplete information into accusation, while ordinary people’s understandable desperation makes them vulnerable to manipulation.
• Responsibility and consequences: The chapter asks who truly caused the crisis and who should bear the cost of repairing it.
• The burden of power: Chen Cuo is expected to solve a disaster despite being weakened, while those making demands have avoided responsibility themselves.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo’s five-colored divine light strips Fu Zijin of his powers and knocks him into the sea.
• True Person Luosheng and the Earthshaking Divine Lord resist Chen’s gray-mist hand with powerful treasures: Luosheng’s Peng Pot absorbs the mist, while the Divine Lord summons an Ao Fish phantom to brace the hand.
• Chen intensifies his attack with a “Suppress” seal, turning the hand into Five-Finger Mountain. The Ao Fish phantom breaks, and the Divine Lord accepts defeat.
• Luosheng tries to escape using a talisman containing fragments of a Peach Paradise Dreamscape. Chen takes it, recognizes its potential, and decides it may help him develop a far-reaching divine realm—and that Luosheng’s Penglai connections could help him learn more.
• Chen seals Luosheng and suppresses all three opponents beneath Five-Finger Mountain. Their spiritual power strengthens the mountain, which stabilizes the collapsing seabed and calms the Eastern Sea.
• Chen rejects the prayers and incense offered by grateful villagers, saying he will not accept credit or spiritual offerings for a crisis he helped cause.
• He heads toward the blocked Sea Eye after realizing Daoist Hai Xuan is imprisoned there. The Old Dragon King and a yellow-robed deity follow.
• Elsewhere, a bloody presence re-forms and vows revenge on Chen Fangqing.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo demonstrates overwhelming power and strategic restraint: he defeats the three cultivators, but uses their spiritual power to protect the sea. He also shows interest in Luosheng’s talisman as a clue to a larger project. His refusal of worship signals that he does not want to profit from the disaster.
• The Earthshaking Divine Lord shifts from resistance to resignation, urging Luosheng to stop fighting. He accepts suppression, arguing that they must bear the consequences of their choices.
• True Person Luosheng continues resisting to the end, insisting that the Eastern Sea needs its leaders, but his escape attempt fails. His talisman becomes valuable to Chen.
• The Old Dragon King and the yellow-robed deity witness Chen’s power and his rejection of worship, then follow him toward the Sea Eye.
• The villagers move from panic to relief and gratitude, while the reconstituted enemy’s hatred sets up a future conflict.

Significant themes

• Power and responsibility: Chen’s victory also repairs the damage to the seabed and calms the sea.
• Accountability: Chen acknowledges his role in the crisis and refuses to turn rescue into a claim for worship.
• The limits of authority: Luosheng’s claim that the Eastern Sea needs its established rulers is challenged by Chen, who sees them as replaceable.
• Opportunity within defeat: Luosheng’s failed escape reveals a potentially important method that could advance Chen’s ambitions.
• Consequences and revenge: The suppressed cultivators must face the results of their choices, while the surviving hostile presence carries its grievance forward.

Key plot points and events

• In the Eastern Sea, a sudden disaster at the Sea Eye and the threat posed by two powerful True Persons are abruptly brought under control by True Person Soaring. The sea calms, leaving the assembled Dragon Palace forces stunned.
• An ancient turtle recognizes that Soaring’s apparent Return to Truth Realm cultivation is only the limit of the power he can display in the Mortal World. He senses that the Dragon Lady has a connection to Soaring and takes her toward the Sea Eye, despite the objections of her attendants.
• Aboard a fleet on the Grand Canal, a black-robed Daoist receives a surge of worship and prayer directed at the Lord. This incense power strengthens his essence, Talisman, and Magic Power. He briefly begins to lose his sense of identity, then steadies himself by affirming, “I am him, and he is me.”
• Jiao Tongzi senses the Daoist’s familiar aura but doubts that it has its former brilliance. He wonders whether Soaring’s apparent decline is a disguise or part of a larger plan. A new, powerful presence rising from the Eastern Sea catches his attention and seems to promise an opportunity for his own advancement.
• A scar-faced monk, acting on an alliance between the Blood Sea Ancestor and the World-Honored One, prepares to make a move before a Blood Sea figure arrives to test the man in the cabin.

Character developments and interactions

• The Dragon Lady worries for her father and brothers and insists on going to the Sea Eye. Though others argue that she would be a burden, the turtle chancellor supports her and takes her there.
• The old turtle emerges as a shrewd, protective guide: he understands Soaring’s extraordinary status and uses the crisis as a chance to bring the Dragon Lady to someone with whom she shares a connection.
• The black-robed Daoist grows stronger through worship but struggles with the boundary between his own identity and the Lord’s. His chosen affirmation restores his composure.
• Jiao Tongzi remains devoted to Soaring, but his reverence is mixed with doubt and suspicion. He refuses to be distracted by the Grand Chancellor and focuses on deciphering his master’s apparent transformation.
• The scar-faced monk quietly advances a hostile plan, viewing the man in the cabin as a target to be tested.

Significant themes

• Power and perception: Soaring’s true strength exceeds what others can perceive from his apparent cultivation.
• Identity and inheritance: The Daoist’s power and status depend on treating himself and the Lord as one, raising questions about selfhood.
• Faith as force: Prayer and devotion become tangible power that can strengthen a spiritual being.
• Hidden schemes and cause and effect: Several factions interpret the same events differently, while unseen plans and connections draw characters toward the Eastern Sea.

Key events

• Turtle tells Dragon Lady that Penglai and Fangzhang are not the original orthodox Mystic Sect. He claims pirates wiped out the original disciples of Kunlun’s Jade Void lineage, seized their institutions, and rewrote history until later generations—including perhaps Luo Sheng and Han Di—believed the fabricated legacy.
• Turtle and Dragon Lady reach a silent, lifeless stretch of sea where a great battle has left the waters shattered and remade. Following her dragon blood, Dragon Lady senses a vast Abyss containing a terrifying red presence. A mysterious figure appears within it, and the red force retreats.
• Turtle suggests the Abyss is the Sea Eye, a foundation of the Eastern Sea, and leads Dragon Lady toward a noise. They find Dragon Sons Ao Zheng and Ao Fan confronting a monk and a boastful white pig.
• The pig claims he once guided True Person Soaring in cultivation and accuses the Dragon Sons of holding his sworn brothers captive. The Dragon Sons reject his claims, while Dragon Lady is unsure whether he is lying.
• A violent surge erupts from the Sea Eye, followed by a column of blood-red fire. Turtle shields the Dragon Sons. A furious voice threatens Chen Fangqing by invoking powerful backing in Beyond the Mundane; another voice dismisses the threat and demands that he beg properly.

Character developments and interactions

• Dragon Lady moves from curiosity about the sects’ history to alarm at the Sea Eye, then relief at finding Ao Zheng and Ao Fan. She shows growing caution and an open mind by questioning the pig’s story instead of dismissing it outright.
• Turtle acts as a worldly, sardonic guide. He reveals a disturbing account of the Eastern Sea’s past, then remains calm during the new disturbance and protects the Dragon Sons.
• Ao Zheng and Ao Fan are wary of the danger and urge Dragon Lady to leave. Ao Fan is especially dismissive of the pig’s claims.
• Little White Pig is defiant and boastful, insisting he has a past connection to True Person Soaring. His confrontation with the Dragon Sons remains unresolved.
• The chapter closes on an escalating conflict at the Sea Eye, with Chen Fangqing apparently overpowering or confronting an enemy.

Significant themes

• History and legitimacy: Power can allow victors to replace a lineage and reshape the past until a false story becomes accepted truth.
• Appearance versus reality: The supposed orthodox sects may have criminal origins, while the pig’s outrageous claims may contain truth.
• Inherited identity and hidden connections: Dragon Lady’s bloodline leads her to the Sea Eye, suggesting deep ties between her family and the Eastern Sea’s foundations.
• Power and threat: The chapter juxtaposes Turtle’s calm authority with the immense forces at work beneath the sea.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo intercepts the Blood Infant’s attempt to flee, cutting through its blood-light escape with the Five-Colored Divine Light and capturing it.
• The Blood Infant claims that the Blood God’s divinity makes it immortal, but Chen Cuo restrains it and uses Gray Mist to transform its unstable, supernatural body into a vulnerable infant’s body of flesh and blood.
• Chen Cuo reveals he never intended to let the Blood Infant go: he has been trying to discover who gave it orders from the Upper Realm.
• Using Heart Fire to penetrate the Blood Infant’s defenses, Chen Cuo forces it to recall its instructions. The vision shows a vast Blood Sea filled with ghostly faces.
• The vision triggers Chen Cuo’s memory of the blue-purple Ghost-Faced Mask and the Evil Ghost that haunted him before he began cultivating. He realizes the hidden mastermind may be connected to the mask—and wonders whether the ghost’s origin is tied to his writing The Painted Skin.
• The Blood Infant dissolves into blood and dies, but a spark of Chen Cuo’s Heart Fire follows the connection back to its source. In the Blood Sea, a pair of eyes opens.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo shifts from controlling the fight to methodically interrogating his captive. His calmness and preparedness reveal that his pursuit was driven by a larger investigation, not fear of future retaliation. The recovered memory raises unsettling questions about his own past.
• The Blood Infant, initially defiant and convinced of its immortality, becomes terrified when Chen Cuo strips away its supernatural form and probes its memories. It pleads for mercy, but dies before it can fully explain what it knows.
• The Dragon Lady wants to rush to the Sea Eye to find her father, but Old Turtle persuades her that approaching would only endanger her and the others.
• Ao Zheng and Ao Fan defer to Old Turtle’s judgment and watch from safety. Little Pig studies them and Old Turtle suspiciously, while the Monk appears to react to an unseen conversation.
• Cultivators across the Eastern Sea and along the coast witness the aftermath from a distance, too intimidated by the immense pressure to approach.

Significant themes

• Power and vulnerability: Chen Cuo defeats a being that claims immortality by changing the terms of the fight and forcing it into a mortal form.
• Hidden origins and fate: The revelation links the Blood Infant’s orders to Chen Cuo’s old Ghost-Faced Mask, suggesting that his past—and perhaps The Painted Skin—may be entangled with the greater threat.
• Knowledge at a cost: Chen Cuo obtains a clue, but the Blood Infant’s death leaves the mystery unresolved and alerts a powerful presence at the other end of the connection.