Chapter Summaries

Key plot points and events

• As Wuyi’s warriors surround Chen Yi, fear triggers a Hand Seal that summons powerful figures from within him, scattering the soldiers and wrecking the palace.
• Mind Monkey arrives, destroys more of the palace, and nearly kills the people sheltering there. Chen Yi intervenes, using a defensive manifestation to protect them. Mind Monkey then carries Chen Yi away.
• Lord of the East of Wuyi discovers that Buddha’s presence has vanished from his heart. Across Wuyi and the Western Regions, people likewise find their prayers unanswered, and panic spreads as Buddhist faith weakens.
• The balance of power shifts: the Buddha Lands dim, while the Qingwei Sect re-emerges and gradually gains influence in the Western Regions. Hongyuan becomes its first Sect Leader to ascend in her lotus-child form.
• Months later, Qingwei disciples Yueying, Yuchi, and Zhisheng travel east to invite guests to Hongyuan’s accession ceremony. A mysterious Daoist calling himself Zhenyuanzi appears, claims their fates are tied to Taihua, and takes them with him toward Great Hua Mountain.
• In the Great Hua Secret Realm, Chen Cuo senses the Daoist’s approach. After years of seclusion, he prepares to meet the visitor, and the mountain around his temple blossoms with rosy light and clear springs.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Yi shows compassion despite his fear, protecting the palace’s vulnerable inhabitants even when Mind Monkey turns against them.
• Mind Monkey remains fierce and unpredictable, but acknowledges that the survivors may be useful witnesses to the changing age.
• Lord of the East of Wuyi shifts from confidence in his soldiers to terror when he realizes Buddha no longer answers him.
• Yueying acts as a cautious, responsible leader, warning her juniors to respect Eastern customs. Yuchi is obedient and practical; Zhisheng reveals a personal debt to a Daoist who once saved him.
• Zhenyuanzi presents himself as a powerful, purposeful stranger, compelling the disciples to guide him to Great Hua Mountain.
• Chen Cuo senses the coming encounter and moves from prolonged seclusion toward action.

Significant themes

• The collapse of faith and shifting power: Buddha’s disappearance undermines people’s security and reshapes the religious and political landscape.
• Compassion amid violence: Chen Yi risks himself to save people who might otherwise be casualties.
• Destiny and manipulation: Zhenyuanzi claims the disciples’ fates connect them to Taihua, while Chen Cuo’s readiness suggests larger forces are converging.
• Change beneath apparent stability: Though the Western Regions look much the same, Qingwei has quietly expanded its control.

Summary

Key plot points and events

• Three cultivators—Yueying, Yuchi, and Zhisheng—find themselves transported from the Vast Sea to the Great Hua Secret Realm by the Daoist Zhenyuanzi. He reveals that the Patriarch’s Temple is their destination and that the person they came to meet, Venerable Soaring, is inside.
• Zhenyuanzi cannot project himself into the temple’s vicinity because Chen Cuo has grasped aspects of the Grotto-Heaven and is protected by the power of the Broken Moon. He therefore uses the three visitors as messengers.
• Before they can act, Zhenyuanzi’s power manifests through them: each is enveloped in three different-colored lights, producing nine lights in all. The resulting force shakes the Secret Realm and surges toward the temple.
• Taihua disciples rush to defend the temple, but Nanmingzi and the others quickly realize they cannot withstand the attack. Chen Cuo reassures them and removes them from danger.
• Recognizing the assault as the Three-Flower Method of Primordial Beginning, Chen Cuo answers with the Five-Elements Method, a technique he has been developing for twelve years. Five lakes form across the Secret Realm, carrying images of dynasties and their rise and fall, as the confrontation begins.

Character developments

• Yueying, Yuchi, and Zhisheng shift from confusion and awe to terror as they realize they have been made instruments of a powerful attack. Their journey to deliver an invitation becomes entangled in a clash between forces far beyond their control.
• Zhenyuanzi is revealed as an immensely powerful cultivator who can transport people across vast distances and manipulate them as messengers. He also admits that Chen Cuo’s abilities are greater than he expected.
• Chen Cuo remains composed in the face of a realm-shaking threat. Rather than simply defend himself, he sees the attack as an opportunity to test the method he has spent years developing.
• Nanmingzi and the other Taihua disciples act protectively but recognize the vast gap between their power and that of the attackers.

Character interactions

• Zhenyuanzi explains the situation to the three cultivators and turns their intended delivery into a forced message-bearing role.
• The Taihua disciples rally to protect the temple, while Chen Cuo calms them and removes them from the danger zone.
• Chen Cuo directly counters the method behind Zhenyuanzi’s attack, turning the conflict into a test of competing Dao techniques.

Significant themes

• Power and scale: The characters’ shock emphasizes the enormous gulf between ordinary cultivators, True Persons, and masters of Grotto-Heaven-level techniques.
• Knowledge through observation: Taihua disciples gather to study the temple’s phenomena, which have helped them break through their cultivation bottlenecks.
• Testing and innovation: Chen Cuo treats danger as a chance to test a new technique, showing how conflict can become a path to discovery.
• Control and agency: The three visitors are transported and used without meaningful consent, highlighting how powerless lesser cultivators can be in conflicts among great powers.

Key plot points and events

• In the void, Zhen Yuanzi and Old Beggar clash. Zhen Yuanzi dismisses Old Beggar’s warning about his tangled cultivation and declares that he intends to break free of existing laws and return to an earlier state.
• Zhen Yuanzi believes Chen Cuo cannot stop his probe into the Great Hua Secret Realm. He expects Master Soaring to be unable to resist and the Central Plains’ essence to fall under his control.
• Chen Cuo’s Five Lakes Pavilion manifests as five dynastic worlds and begins forming a Blessed Land around the Patriarch Temple. The nine streams of light disrupt it, collapse the formation, and erode the Secret Realm’s foundations, dimming its Dao Sun.
• Zhen Yuanzi exploits the damage to project his will into the Secret Realm. He offers to teach Chen Cuo, but his sweeping attack makes the offer feel like coercion.
• Chen Cuo absorbs the Seventeen Incense Burners and tries to call forth his Blessed Land. Zhen Yuanzi claims he can suppress it because a Blessed Land follows another’s Dao and can be erased.
• Chen Cuo counters with Gray Mist, which spreads through the severed space. Seven Dao Suns appear, and sixty-four figures bearing Black Banners materialize around the Patriarch Temple.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhen Yuanzi is revealed as a formidable, confident strategist. He admires Chen Cuo’s progress but sees him as someone to recruit—or subdue—and remains convinced his own doctrine can overcome the Secret Realm.
• Old Beggar sheds his disguise and displays a powerful, heroic form. He challenges Zhen Yuanzi directly, criticizing the instability of his Nine Incomplete Daos, though their fight does not resolve.
• Chen Cuo recognizes that his first attempt to use his Blessed Land against an enemy may be inadequate. Rather than accept Zhen Yuanzi’s offer or surrender, he responds with a new, more mysterious power.
• The central interaction is a contest of wills: Zhen Yuanzi tries to breach, dominate, and recruit Chen Cuo; Chen Cuo refuses to yield and reveals a force that alarms him.

Significant themes

• Competing paths to the Dao: Zhen Yuanzi seeks to unite nine principles and ultimately transcend established laws; Old Beggar warns that this fragmented approach may cut him off from the Great Dao.
• Power, inheritance, and mentorship: Zhen Yuanzi offers knowledge but couples it with force, raising the question of whether guidance can be separated from domination.
• Limits and countermeasures: Chen Cuo’s Blessed Land appears vulnerable to Zhen Yuanzi’s understanding, but the Gray Mist suggests that his true powers exceed what Zhen Yuanzi anticipated.
• The vulnerability of worlds and traditions: The attack on the Great Hua Secret Realm shows how the foundations of a world—and the civilizations represented by the Five Lakes Dynasty—can be threatened by clashing laws.

Plot points and events

• Zhenyuanzi’s projection faces sixty-four manifestations of Chen Cuo’s power. He tries to identify and counter them, but their names appear blank, disrupting his attack.
• The sixty-four figures form a Grand Formation that draws Chen Cuo’s Blessed Land over the Patriarch Temple. The whole area vanishes, taking Zhenyuanzi’s projection with it; Nanmingzi realizes that time has been removed from the temple.
• Nanmingzi rescues Yueying and two companions, then wonders whether the mysterious opponent will interfere with his Junior Brother’s cultivation.
• Inside Chen Cuo’s nearly completed Blessed Land, seven powers converge on Zhenyuanzi’s projection and destroy it. Chen Cuo then binds the nine rivers of light with black chains and dense characters, preserving them as Incomplete Dao for study.
• Back in the Starry Sky, Zhenyuanzi tells the Old Beggar that Chen Cuo’s rapid progress forced him to reconsider his plans. The Old Beggar explains how extraordinary it is to build a Blessed Land so quickly, especially while still reconciling seven conflicting Heavenly Dao laws.
• Zhenyuanzi reveals that he has gained a trace of the Eastern Land’s Dragon Vein aura. Using it, he summons the Returning-to-Origin Ark, which swallows the Old Beggar.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo demonstrates the scale of his growing power: his Blessed Land can trap and destroy Zhenyuanzi’s projection, and he turns the captured Dao into material for further study.
• Zhenyuanzi admits he underestimated Chen Cuo, but remains strategic and composed. He regards confronting Chen Cuo as a necessary step toward securing Heavenly Origin and uses the encounter to gain a crucial advantage.
• The Old Beggar mocks Zhenyuanzi’s confidence and explains the difficulty of Chen Cuo’s achievement, but their long-running fight resumes before the discussion can continue.
• Nanmingzi is protective of his Junior Brother and concerned about the consequences of the unknown intervention.
• Yueying and her two companions are rescued by Nanmingzi after the temple’s disappearance.

Significant themes

• Names, identity, and causality: Zhenyuanzi’s inability to read the sixty-four figures’ names leaves him unable to counter them through their origins.
• Power through creation: Chen Cuo’s Blessed Land is not merely a refuge but a weapon, built by mastering—and exploiting—the tensions between competing laws.
• Patience and strategy: Zhenyuanzi and the Old Beggar have both been using their prolonged conflict to buy time and advance their own plans.
• Time and transformation: The temple’s altered state and the capture of the nine rivers suggest that time and Dao can be manipulated, preserved, and repurposed.

Plot points and events

• Zhen Yuanzi suppresses and stores the colossal dragon-bone frame, a key component in his plan to complete the Returning-to-Origin Ark. Refining it could save him centuries of work, but it demands his full attention.
• He decides he must keep Master Soaring—Chen Cuo—occupied. Chen has gained insight into the Nine Heavenly Daos, and Zhen Yuanzi also wants to investigate the mysterious Gray Mist that he could not absorb.
• Zhen Yuanzi sends two disciples into the lower realm as part of the coming Great Calamity. Bright Moon is ordered to appoint Chen Cuo as the mortal realm’s Supreme Venerable of the Humanity Teaching and give him its Red Gold Seal. Qingfeng is sent to the Vast Sea with a message for a monkey.
• Chen Cuo studies the nine radiances taken from his opponent and finds that the associated Incomplete Daos seem disjointed, focused on details and even errors rather than offering a clear path of cultivation. He suspects there may be a hidden purpose behind them.
• Using his newly formed Blessed Land, Chen creates a Gray Mist incarnation and has it investigate the nine paths. He then returns to the Great Hua Secret Realm, where his companions have been waiting anxiously.
• Bright Moon arrives with the seal and appointment. Chen refuses both, effortlessly dispelling the emissary’s displays of authority. Bright Moon, offended, prepares to demonstrate the seal’s power.

Character developments and interactions

• Zhen Yuanzi remains strategic and ambitious, but Chen’s growing power and the unexplained Gray Mist trouble him. He uses disciples and political authority to influence Chen while he is occupied.
• Chen Cuo shows greater confidence and independence. His Blessed Land lets him experiment with Gray Mist beyond Dream Marsh, and he rejects Zhen Yuanzi’s offer rather than accept its implied authority.
• Bright Moon is dutiful and composed at first, but Chen’s blunt refusal and easy dismissal of his power provoke him into confrontation.
• Nanmingzi, Qiongfa Zi, Chuiyunzi, and Xi Ran worry about Chen’s absence and are immediately wary of Bright Moon, reflecting their estrangement from orthodox lineages.
• Qingfeng receives a separate mission concerning a monkey, setting up an additional strand of the coming events.

Significant themes

• Power and independence: Chen refuses an appointment that would make him a leader under another’s authority.
• Knowledge and uncertainty: Chen studies the nine Incomplete Daos, while both he and Zhen Yuanzi confront mysteries they cannot yet explain.
• Strategy and manipulation: Zhen Yuanzi seeks to delay Chen through a nominal honor, while Chen recognizes that the offer is not necessarily a gift without strings.
• Transformation and cultivation: The Great Calamity is framed as a trial, and Chen’s new Blessed Land marks a major step toward creating a living, complete cosmos.

Key plot points and events

• Bright Moon attempts to impose the Humanity Path’s Square Seal over the entire Great Hua Secret Realm, using the force of Human Thought to overwhelm it.
• Chen Cuo counters with violet-black energy, then reveals an ancient, cracked Seal associated with the Qiu Ruins. It subdues Bright Moon’s Square Seal and sends it crashing down into the mortal world. Chen says he has no use for it as a “reward.”
• Chen forces Bright Moon to his knees and challenges his claim that he came on the Merit Dao Lord’s orders. He wonders whether this Dao Lord is a genuine lord of a Way or merely acting in the Heavenly Dao’s stead. Nanmingzi shares his concern about the supposed Dao Lord’s identity and power.
• Elsewhere, a cloaked traveler crosses the Vast Sea’s sandstorm, searching for a group that left an oasis months earlier. The traveler finds a One-Horned Ghost King battling a many-eyed centipede over the Yin-Yang Five-Element Magnetic Light.
• Revealed as a powerful, hairy-faced monkey, the traveler effortlessly destroys the centipede and drives off the Ghost King. It declares its intention to spread the Rise-and-Fall Method, criticizing the western-bound group for failing to teach it.
• Qingfeng, an attendant of the Merit Dao Lord, appears and says he has come to fulfill the monkey’s wish.

Character developments

• Chen Cuo demonstrates confidence and formidable power, protecting his realm while remaining suspicious of outside authority and hidden attacks.
• Bright Moon is revealed to be forceful and prideful, but his attempt to dominate the Secret Realm fails; Chen’s questions leave the Dao Lord’s nature unresolved.
• Nanmingzi voices his anxiety that his Junior Brother may be entangled with powers far beyond his reach.
• The monkey is powerful, self-assured, and zealous about spreading the Rise-and-Fall Way. It believes it can do what the traveling group has failed to accomplish.
• Qingfeng enters as a calm emissary, apparently ready to recruit or assist the monkey.

Significant themes

• Authority and legitimacy: The chapter questions whether the Merit Dao Lord is truly what Bright Moon claims.
• Power and intrusion: Chen treats entry into his realm without permission as an offense, regardless of whether it is framed as a gift.
• Mission and religious zeal: The monkey’s ambition to spread its Way contrasts with its contempt for other supernatural beings.
• Pride and uncertainty: Characters speak with confidence, yet the Dao Lord’s identity and the wider forces at work remain unclear.

Character interactions

• Chen rebuffs Bright Moon’s “reward,” overpowers him, and presses him on the Dao Lord’s legitimacy; Nanmingzi joins the exchange with his own doubts.
• The monkey interrupts the centipede’s fight, kills it, and frightens the Ghost King away, then condemns the distant group for neglecting its mission.
• Qingfeng approaches the monkey as an emissary, positioning himself to respond to its wish.

Key plot points and events

• Qingfeng confronts a powerful monkey in the desert and reveals that he knows the monkey’s past: the monkey gained enlightenment on Great Hua Mountain, longed to become True Person Soaring’s disciple, and joined the Journey West hoping to prove himself.
• Qingfeng offers him a White Jade Pendant, explaining that it is an authentic Great Hua Mountain lineage token. With it, the monkey could enter the school through his connection to Taihua Fuyaozi.
• The monkey attacks Qingfeng, then rejects the pendant and the offer. He insists he wants neither an imposed master nor a shortcut into the sect, and flies deeper into the desert. Qingfeng pursues him, determined to carry out his master’s order.
• The story shifts to the Western Frontier, where Chen Yi—now an exhausted, weather-beaten man—is traveling with Zhu Ganglie and the Mind Monkey. His health has declined after drinking from the Fountain of Youth to save the Queen of the Women’s Kingdom.
• Spotting smoke and flames, Chen Yi immediately rides toward a town in danger despite his companions’ warnings. The town is being consumed by fire, and a richly dressed man anticipates the arrival of “that bastard’s son.”

Character developments and interactions

• The desert monkey shows both deep ambition and fierce independence. His long-standing desire to join Great Hua Mountain is real, but he refuses to accept recognition on someone else’s terms or out of obligation.
• Qingfeng is confident and somewhat condescending, treating the pendant as a generous solution and the monkey’s refusal as foolishness. He nevertheless respects his master’s authority and pursues the monkey rather than abandoning the mission.
• Chen Yi appears physically frail but remains compassionate and resolute. He presses onward despite his companions’ concern and instinctively intervenes when he sees people in danger.
• Zhu Ganglie and the Mind Monkey criticize Chen Yi’s pace and habit of involving himself in trouble, but both follow him. Their teasing and exasperation reflect familiarity and concern.

Significant themes

• Self-determination versus authority: The monkey’s refusal challenges the idea that a formal title or powerful patron can define his Dao.
• Recognition and belonging: The pendant offers entry into a lineage, but the monkey wants genuine respect, not merely an official token.
• The cost of compassion: Chen Yi’s choice to save others has weakened him, yet he continues to put himself at risk.
• Fate, merit, and the Dao: Qingfeng invokes destiny and Cause and Effect, while the monkey insists that his own Dao Heart and accomplishments matter more than imposed arrangements.

Plot points and events

• Chen Yi and Mind Monkey arrive at a town devastated by fire, its residents burned among the ruins. Chen Yi insists the culprit must be brought to justice and hurries to find survivors.
• Chen Yi summons the Heroic Spirit of Five Winds, Ten Rains. The rain weakens the visible flames, but the remaining people are consumed when the fire flares again.
• A masked man explains that his flames feed on Heart Fire—the anger, grief, and indignation within people—and cannot be extinguished by ordinary rain.
• The man attacks Chen Yi, Mind Monkey, and the White Horse. Mind Monkey protects Chen Yi from the attacker’s influence and strikes down the flames and the man’s bloodlight formation.
• The attacker invokes the Buddhist School’s decline and threatens that Chen Fangqing and his allies will face judgment when a coming Great Calamity begins. A message from his superior forces him to retreat before Mind Monkey can catch him.
• Zhu Ganglie arrives and suspects the enemy is connected to the Dynasty’s Fortune and the Netherworld’s Underworld Office. Chen Yi mourns the dead, uses Heroic Spirits to extinguish the remaining fire and preserve the bodies in ice, then continues the journey.
• In the Great Hua Secret Realm, Chen Cuo senses the seventy-seventh Void Acupoint forming and concludes that the Journey West’s Deliverance Method is nearing its end and the dormant Revolving Calamity may soon erupt.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Yi responds to the massacre with compassion and resolve, prioritizing possible survivors and justice. Though shaken by the deaths and the failure of his rain, he turns to honoring and preserving the dead rather than dwelling on the enemy’s escape.
• Mind Monkey remains fiercely protective of Chen Yi and attacks without hesitation. His blunt, combative confidence contrasts with Chen Yi’s grief and restraint; he also recognizes that the masked man is unusually dangerous.
• The masked man reveals himself as a deliberate instigator who exploits human suffering and claims to be seeking resolution of his “Heart Demon.” His hatred of Chen Fangqing and his links to a larger organization suggest a wider political and supernatural conflict.
• Zhu Ganglie arrives too late to join the fight but offers a strategic assessment and promises to deal with the enemy later, drawing Mind Monkey’s skepticism.
• Chen Cuo’s closing reflection connects the local tragedy to larger events gathering across the world.

Significant themes

• Human suffering and justice: Chen Yi refuses to dismiss the victims’ deaths, even when others suggest death may have spared them worse suffering.
• Inner turmoil as destructive force: The Heart Fire symbolizes how rage, grief, and indignation can become as devastating as literal flames.
• Power and limits: Chen Yi’s supernatural rain can suppress physical fire but cannot prevent the victims’ inner flames from consuming them; brute force can break the enemy’s formation, but not stop his escape.
• The approaching calamity: The attacker’s threats and Chen Cuo’s reflections foreshadow the return of suppressed powers and an imminent upheaval.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo completes the seventy-seventh Void Acupoint and stabilizes his Blessed Land, a small world built from his Peach Paradise, the seven Dao Suns, and a fragment of the void. This marks his secure entry into the Sixth Step of Path-Seeking.
• After twelve years of cultivation and study, he has pieced together a clearer understanding of the Fifth and Sixth Realms, despite the scarcity and unreliability of surviving records.
• Chen Cuo removes the broken Heart Moon from his Mind Palace and brings it into the Blessed Land. Its light makes the realm pulse as if it might awaken.
• He concludes that a Heart Moon must nurture living beings and a Dao lineage for a Blessed Land to become a true Grotto-Heaven. Unlike the established Heavenly Dao paths, his own Incomplete Dao offers no certain direction.
• Chen Cuo decides to use the Way of Rise and Fall to shape the Heart Moon, while relying on the inhabitants of the future Grotto-Heaven to cultivate, explore, and help advance his path.
• As other factions prepare to act and the Journey West nears its end, he leaves to retrieve the Grotto-Heaven Seed hidden in Li Tang’s Fortune.
• At the chapter’s end, a masked figure in a dark-gold robe emerges outside Chang’an, confident that a secret art conceals the group from Chen Cuo.

Character developments

• Chen Cuo moves from securing his Sixth-Step cultivation toward creating a Grotto-Heaven. He shows both confidence in his unusual methods and caution about the uncertainty of forging an Incomplete Dao.
• His vision grows beyond personal advancement: he intends to create a world whose inhabitants can reproduce, cultivate, and seek the Dao, and whose progress may help him discover where his own path leads.

Significant themes

• Creation and cultivation: A Blessed Land becomes a true Grotto-Heaven only when it sustains life and a continuing Dao lineage.
• Tradition versus innovation: The seven Heavenly Dao paths offer proven routes, while Chen Cuo’s Incomplete Dao demands experimentation.
• Reciprocal progress: The creator’s world and its inhabitants may shape one another; their pursuit of the Dao can advance Chen Cuo’s own.
• Knowledge and uncertainty: Chen Cuo uses experience to sort truth from flawed records, but the future direction of his path remains unknown.

Character interactions

• Chen Cuo reaches into his Mind Palace and takes the Heart Moon from the Mind Daoist, who calmly makes way.
• His internal reasoning contrasts his intended living, cultivating Grotto-Heaven with Great Hua Secret Realm, whose inhabitants cannot meaningfully cultivate.
• The masked newcomer’s arrival introduces an impending threat, though the figure believes Chen Cuo cannot detect it.

Key plot points and events

• Three supernatural envoys—Gou Chen, Zhi Fu, and Teng She—enter Chang’an to assess the Tang Emperor and decide whether their lord can cooperate with him.
• They marvel that Chang’an and the Tang Dynasty have prospered despite losing much of their Fortune years earlier. They credit Chen Cuo with stabilizing the dynasty and speculate that he has effectively claimed its Fortune.
• A clash at a tavern reveals a growing Dream-Worship Sect. Its members revere Chen Cuo, known as the Soaring Dream Immortal, and the Tang authorities hesitate to act against his followers.
• The envoys notice that many people in Chang’an bear the scent of incense and appear to have been healed or relieved of misfortune through Chen Cuo’s blessing.
• As the three head toward the palace to meet the Tang Emperor, Chen Cuo appears. He dismisses their assumptions about his motives and mocks their dark clothing.

Character developments and interactions

• Gou Chen is openly resentful of Chen Cuo, dismissing his achievements as advantages of birth. He also reacts angrily when Zhi Fu needles him about his attention to common people and their sect.
• Zhi Fu is more perceptive and sardonic, explaining the Dream-Worship Sect’s origins and the political reasons the Tang court tolerates it.
• Teng She takes a pragmatic view: the envoys are there to judge the Tang Emperor’s usefulness, not dwell on personal history. He is nevertheless startled by the scale of Chen Cuo’s apparent generosity toward ordinary believers.
• The three envoys bicker over their pasts and status. Zhi Fu and Gou Chen bristle at Teng She’s youthful bluntness; the others share a knowing reaction when Gou Chen disparages Chen Cuo.
• Chen Cuo’s arrival underscores his influence over both the city’s people and its political fortunes, while his response suggests he is unimpressed by the envoys’ judgments.

Significant themes

• Power and political legitimacy: Chen Cuo’s intervention appears to have sustained the Tang Dynasty and helped it flourish, while the envoys question who truly holds its Fortune.
• Faith and popular devotion: The Dream-Worship Sect grows through ordinary people’s spontaneous reverence, not official organization.
• Benevolence versus condescension: The envoys regard mortals as insignificant, yet Chen Cuo’s blessings seem to show genuine care for them.
• The limits of outsiders’ understanding: The envoys speculate about Chen Cuo’s motives and power, but he implies that his reasons are beyond their grasp.

Key plot points and events

• The three intruders—Gou Chen, Zhi Fu, and Teng She—recognize Chen Cuo as the famed Venerable Soaring and immediately try to escape using three distinct Incomplete Dao techniques.
• Chen Cuo halts their powers across Chang’an, preventing their escape. He identifies their arts as the Bloodline Way, a water-based Dao, and a nature-like Mystical Way blended with incense and thought.
• Gou Chen removes his mask and reveals himself as Chen Shubao, a former ruler of Great Chen. Chen Cuo asks how he acquired the Bloodline Incomplete Dao and achieved Return to Truth.
• Gou Chen accuses Chen Cuo of abandoning Great Chen to protect Li Tang, claiming Chen Cuo’s choices caused its fall. Chen Cuo rejects the accusation, mocks Gou Chen’s ambitions, and suggests someone implanted the three Incomplete Daos in them for a larger scheme.
• As the confrontation escalates, Gou Chen drives his fingers into his chest, unleashing bloodlight. The scene then shifts to Kunlun: Dianyunzi and Qingxiangzi reach the area near Great Hua Mountain after escaping Incomplete Dao Masters, hoping Senior Brother Soaring will help them.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo appears curious and controlled rather than alarmed. He demonstrates overwhelming command of Chang’an’s space and time, recognizes Gou Chen’s identity, and sees the trio as subjects of an unknown scheme.
• Gou Chen/Chen Shubao is revealed as bitter, ambitious, and consumed by resentment toward Chen Cuo. His accusation exposes his belief that he might have united the realm, while his rage leads him to a drastic, unexplained act.
• Zhi Fu is cautious and regretful about losing the chance to explore Chang’an, while Teng She is excited by the prospect of escaping Chen Cuo and boasting about it. Both are shaken when their powers fail.
• The encounter between Chen Cuo and Gou Chen is personal as well as political: Gou Chen demands guilt and loyalty, while Chen Cuo dismisses his claim to greatness and points to the suspicious origin of the trio’s powers.
• Dianyunzi and Qingxiangzi provide a parallel thread of pursuit and flight, arriving near the mountain in search of help.

Significant themes

• Power and its limits: The trio believe their special arts make them untouchable, but Chen Cuo suppresses them effortlessly.
• Resentment and competing versions of history: Gou Chen blames Chen Cuo for Great Chen’s fall; Chen Cuo rejects both the accusation and Gou Chen’s self-image as a potential great ruler.
• Hidden manipulation: The trio’s implanted powers suggest that their apparent strength may serve someone else’s plan.
• Cause and consequence: Chen Cuo acknowledges a lingering bond of Cause and Effect with Gou Chen, hinting that their shared past remains unresolved.

Plot points and events

• Thirteen Fifth Realm Incomplete Dao Masters launch a surprise attack inside Kunlun’s Secret Realm, shaking the realm and terrifying its inhabitants.
• Hanyanzi, already badly wounded, confronts the invaders and refuses the Lord of Thick Earth’s offer to spare Kunlun if he submits. He rejects their claim that they are as powerful as Chen Cuo.
• The Lord of Thick Earth declares Kunlun’s fall inevitable, hints at a larger conspiracy tied to the ancient division of Jade Void, and attacks with a vast tide of Breath Soil. The scene ends with the Flat Peach Forest isolated amid spreading barren earth; the fate of Hanyanzi and those with him is unclear.
• In Great Hua’s Secret Realm, Qingxiangzi and Dianyunzi report the attack. Their attempts to contact Kunlun receive no reply, and they fear for the disciples left behind.
• Chen Cuo arrives and asks the survivors to describe the attackers.

Character developments and interactions

• Hanyanzi shows courage and loyalty, refusing to betray Kunlun even when offered his life and sect’s safety. His confidence in Chen Cuo’s strength contrasts with the invaders’ arrogance.
• Qingxiangzi recounts the disaster but feels ashamed that he and Dianyunzi escaped while their elders and fellow disciples remained in danger.
• Dianyunzi shares that shame and identifies the attackers’ abilities as resembling the innate powers of Incomplete Dao Masters.
• Qiongfa Zi defends the survivors’ escape, arguing that someone had to get away to avoid losing everyone.
• Chuiyunzi questions how a powerful sect such as Kunlun could be overwhelmed, highlighting the mystery of the assault.
• The Lord of Thick Earth attempts to recruit Hanyanzi, then reveals his group’s ambition to establish a “New Kunlun” and hints that the attack is part of a broader design.

Significant themes

• Loyalty versus survival: Hanyanzi refuses submission, while the escapees must live with the guilt of surviving.
• Arrogance and true strength: The invaders mistake their power for mastery, while Hanyanzi insists they cannot compare to Chen Cuo.
• The fragility of established orders: Kunlun’s long-standing prestige offers no guarantee of safety amid political division and hidden plots.
• Uncertainty and looming conflict: The unanswered messages and unexplained infiltration leave Kunlun’s fate—and the identity of the force behind the attackers—unknown.

Key plot points and events

• Qingxiangzi and Dianyunzi report the attack on Kunlun by thirteen powerful cultivators. Nanmingzi questions whether they can really be identified as Incomplete Dao Masters, but Chen Cuo confirms the threat: he has already captured three such cultivators bound for the imperial palace in Chang’an.
• Chen Cuo transports the group into his Blessed Land, a surprisingly complete realm that marks his attainment of the Sixth Realm and puts him close to forming a Grotto-Heaven.
• Two captives, Zhi Fu and Teng She, wake and refuse to reveal who ordered the attack. Chen Cuo traps them in an illusion, explaining that their implanted incomplete Daos include safeguards that could destroy their bodies and souls if he probes too forcefully.
• Chen Cuo asks Nanmingzi and the others to protect Great Hua Mountain while he takes Dianyunzi and Qingxiangzi to Kunlun. They emerge to find the once-magnificent secret realm stripped of its mist and splendor, reduced to barren mountains, yellow sand, and decay.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo demonstrates exceptional power and composure. He recognizes the Incomplete Dao Masters’ nature, handles the captives carefully, and takes charge of the response to the disaster.
• Dianyunzi nearly reveals the ancient will that guides his cultivation, but Chen Cuo’s intervention spares him from doing so. The ancient will realizes Chen Cuo had already sensed its presence and is astonished by his strength.
• Qingxiangzi moves from anxious uncertainty to relief when Chen Cuo confirms the threat and brings him to Kunlun; the devastation there leaves him stunned.
• Nanmingzi seeks a sound explanation rather than dismissing the report, then accepts Chen Cuo’s judgment and agrees to defend Great Hua Mountain.
• Zhi Fu and Teng She remain defiant and protective of their unseen master, but are powerless against Chen Cuo.

Significant themes

• Power and destiny: Chen Cuo’s advanced cultivation changes the balance of events, while the ancient will reflects on how fate has produced someone who surpasses its expectations.
• Secrets and trust: Dianyunzi must choose between protecting his hidden guide and relying on allies in a crisis.
• The cost of manipulation: The captives’ powers were implanted by another person, who also built in lethal safeguards—evidence of a hidden force treating rare Daos as tools.
• Decline and loss: Kunlun’s transformation from an immortal stronghold into a desolate wasteland makes the scale and consequences of the catastrophe unmistakable.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo, Qingxiangzi, and Dianyunzi enter the Kunlun Secret Realm and find it devastated: mountains have fallen, villages are erased, and the protective Grand Formation is fractured.
• Qingxiangzi and Dianyunzi recognize the ruins of Red End Peak, then ask Chen Cuo to investigate the realm and determine what happened to its inhabitants.
• Chen Cuo spreads Gray Mist through the Secret Realm and discovers it is nearly three times the size of Great Hua’s realm, apparently assembled from multiple Grotto-Heavens. It is now entirely lifeless, and its buildings show signs of having endured ages of decay.
• A river unlike any the disciples remember runs through the realm. Chen Cuo suspects the inhabitants were not simply killed, but displaced into the past—or erased into history’s void.
• A Long-Haired Daoist emerges from the river. His twelve stars immobilize Chen Cuo’s Sword of Rise and Decline and freeze space and time.
• The Daoist reveals that he intends to remove Chen Cuo, whom he calls a “variable,” from the course of events. He commands the river of history to branch and attack. Chen Cuo’s Vertical Eye diverts the first surge, but a new branch lunges at him, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo remains analytical and guarded, using his abilities to survey the ruins and infer that time or history itself has devastated the realm. Once the Daoist appears, he immediately shields Qingxiangzi and Dianyunzi and prepares to fight.
• Qingxiangzi and Dianyunzi are shaken by the destruction of their home and fear for their sectmates and the realm’s residents. Their helplessness contrasts with their reliance on Chen Cuo.
• The Long-Haired Daoist reveals himself as a powerful opponent who sees Chen Cuo’s existence as a disruption to history. He is confident he can exile Chen Cuo and establish a new historical course.

Significant themes

• History as a force: The river embodies time and history, capable of displacing people, creating branching timelines, and reshaping events.
• Ruins and impermanence: The Secret Realm’s decay suggests that immense stretches of time have passed there, despite the apparent suddenness of its destruction.
• Fate versus agency: The Daoist seeks to remove Chen Cuo as a variable and restore a preferred course of events, while Chen Cuo’s unusual powers make him difficult to control.
• Protection amid catastrophe: Chen Cuo’s first response to the attack is to safeguard his companions, even as he faces a threat directed at himself.

Key plot points and events

• A mysterious, powerful Daoist ambushes True Person Taihua Soaring, using the River of Time to split reality into three branches. Qingxiangzi and Dianyunzi are trapped by the pressure of his power.
• Chen Cuo briefly sees two alternate versions of the Tang dynasty: one resembling ordinary history, and another where martial arts reach divine levels and Li Shimin sends Tang Monk west for scriptures.
• The Daoist seals the Kunlun Secret Realm’s space and traps Chen Cuo in the River of Time Gap, while Chen Cuo throws Qingxiangzi and Dianyunzi to safety. The Daoist claims the trap will keep Chen Cuo from interfering in the Mortal World.
• Chen Cuo recognizes the Gap and believes he can escape using the story-threads he commands. But thousands of boats emerge from the sundials, join into the frame of a gigantic ship, and swallow the river around him.
• Chen Cuo awakens in a carriage, apparently in another time or life. A familiar-sounding attendant says they have left Guangling and are approaching Jiankang for Chen’s investiture and ennoblement.

Character developments and interactions

• Qingxiangzi reacts with anger and fear, suspecting the attackers are using fugitives as bait to eliminate their reinforcements. He is also alarmed that even Taihua Soaring may be overwhelmed.
• Dianyunzi receives a warning from the ancient will within him: the attacker is more powerful than the thirteen Incomplete Dao Masters and may surpass Chen Cuo’s enemy, Chen Cuo. He considers retreating rather than risking certain death.
• Chen Cuo remains analytical under attack. He identifies the time-travel realm, infers the Daoist’s connection to Kunlun’s forebears, and believes his experience and preparations will let him escape—until the enormous ship intervenes.
• The Daoist is confident and calculating, sparing the disciples while using the trap to remove Chen Cuo from events in the Mortal World.

Significant themes

• History and alternate possibility: The branching river presents radically different versions of the Tang, suggesting that history can diverge into both mundane and legendary worlds.
• Power, control, and uncertainty: Chen Cuo’s knowledge and abilities are challenged by an opponent who controls space and time with unexpected ease.
• Fate and displacement: The sudden awakening in a carriage suggests Chen Cuo has been thrust into a past—or a historical story—where his identity and purpose may be reshaped.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo realizes he has been transported into a fragment of the past, inhabiting his young self, Chen Fangqing. His body is frail, mortal, and poisoned, while his true body seems trapped in a shifting space between reality and time.
• He rebuilds his Divine Soul and briefly reconnects with his true body, but cannot return to it.
• An old beggar senses a disturbance at the Prince of Nankang’s residence and wonders whether a girl he believes to be a Fated One is there; he considers intervening to improve her circumstances.
• In the carriage, Chen Cuo learns from Chen Hai that he has not yet received his title and is being sent to Huainan to investigate news of Chen Tanlang. The circumstances differ from the past he remembers, leaving him unsure whether this is history or a parallel version of it.
• Chen Cuo uses Gray Mist to restore Magic Power to his weakened body, purging its poison and filth. He decides to use this chance to repair his younger self’s regrets and settle the resulting Cause and Effect.
• At the end, a black-cloaked man and woman leave Guangling carrying a valuable object, hoping it will persuade the martial cultivator Hou Andu to pursue Longevity.

Character developments

• Chen Cuo shifts from disorientation and concern about his missing true body to curiosity about the nature of the time fragment. He adopts a practical purpose: help his former self and make amends.
• Chen Hai is initially cautious and somewhat disrespectful, as Chen Cuo remembers, but becomes genuinely alarmed when his young master’s condition suddenly changes.
• Cui Ju appears caring and attentive, though Chen Cuo recognizes that her feelings and motives may not match his later memories of her.
• The old beggar emerges as a watcher with plans to help a girl he considers destined for something greater.

Significant themes

• Time, identity, and alternate histories: Chen Cuo questions whether he has entered the actual past or a parallel world, especially as events do not match his memories.
• Cause and effect, and making amends: He sees the opportunity to improve his younger self’s life as a way to resolve old regrets and advance spiritually.
• Power and vulnerability: Despite Chen Cuo’s immense abilities, he is temporarily confined to a poisoned, powerless body and must adapt.
• Fate and intervention: The old beggar’s plans for the girl, and the black-cloaked pair’s attempt to offer Hou Andu a path to Longevity, suggest that powerful figures may redirect others’ destinies.

Character interactions

• Chen Cuo’s exchanges with Chen Hai reveal their former master-servant tension and establish the mission and timing of the journey.
• Cui Ju offers to tend to Chen Cuo, prompting him to compare her present self with the woman he remembers.
• Chen Cuo’s extraordinary recovery frightens both servants, exposing the gap between their ordinary understanding and his supernatural power.
• The old beggar and the black-cloaked pair act independently, hinting at broader schemes surrounding the Nankang household, Hou Andu, and the coming crisis.

Key events

• Thirteen Incomplete Dao Masters descend on the ruined Kunlun Secret Realm and prepare to kill Dianyunzi and Qingxiangzi, intending to make an example of them.
• Chen Cuo’s lingering Gray Mist protects the two. It blocks an attack from one of the invaders, surprising the group, though the attacker believes repeated blows will wear the protection down.
• Outside Kunlun, reinforcements gather as new entrances to the Secret Realm appear. Their spells and treasures cannot penetrate its barrier. Immortal Lord Dangyang sends a message through the Mortal World’s boundary to the Jade Void Cult Leader, who learns that Chen Cuo is trapped and sees an opportunity to seize the Mortal World.
• In the past, Chen Cuo travels toward Jiankang in a frail body, using the journey to prepare it for his powers. He senses trouble involving a convoy connected to him and orders his attendants to help. When he learns it belongs to the Shen Clan and includes the family’s young lady, he tells them to continue toward it.

Character developments and interactions

• Dianyunzi and Qingxiangzi face overwhelming odds but remain defiant, determined to resist the attackers despite expecting to die.
• Chen Cuo’s protection continues to aid his allies even while he is absent. In the earlier timeline, he shows confidence in his unusual insight and acts decisively to help the Shen convoy.
• The Lord of Thick Earth and the other Incomplete Dao Masters are ruthless and politically calculating: they want to crush Kunlun’s survivors to intimidate other cultivators.
• Qiuyuzi tries to recruit powerful reincarnated immortals for Kunlun’s rescue, flattering them and testing their intentions, though he admits he is ashamed to seek Chen Cuo’s help.
• Chen Hai is obedient but privately suspects Chen Cuo may be possessed, interpreting his sudden change and apparent foresight as supernatural.

Themes

• Loyalty and defiance under impossible odds: Kunlun’s survivors refuse to submit despite their weakness.
• Power and lingering influence: Chen Cuo’s absent spell still shields others, while the invaders’ concern about it underscores his reach.
• Manipulation and political opportunism: Qiuyuzi courts potential allies, the invaders seek to intimidate the world, and the Jade Void Cult Leader exploits Chen Cuo’s apparent confinement.
• Fate, foresight, and identity: Chen Cuo’s knowledge of the Shen convoy and Chen Hai’s suspicion highlight how dramatically his presence has altered the past.

Key plot points

• Chen Cuo reflects that his return to the past has already altered history. Rather than restrain himself, he decides to act boldly, investigate the mysteries of time, and pursue the chance to attain the Dao.
• When the Shen Clan’s carriages are stranded, Shen Wuhua declines Chen Cuo’s offer to share his carriage. He sends her a strange, five-colored glazed pebble anyway, saying it may save her life.
• Chen Cuo leaves his own convoy by summoning a fierce wind and tells his attendants to return to Jiankang without him. Cui Ju and Chen Hai fear he has been possessed, and the convoy hurries away.
• Soon after, two streaks of black light approach Shen Wuhua. A golden light appears in her heart, and the pebble transforms into a breeze that enters her through her mouth and nose.
• Elsewhere, the Long-Haired Daoist sees the reflections of the Seven Suns and realizes Chen Cuo is in the Past-Time Gap, acting recklessly enough to risk disrupting the River of Time. He asks the Cult Leader of the Creation Holy Church to intervene; the Cult Leader agrees in exchange for an explanation of the “truth of history.”
• In the Past-Time Space, Chen Cuo reaches Great Hua Mountain and asks to see True Person Dao Yin. Yan Yin Zi intercepts him, wary of his apparent harmony with heaven and earth. Chen Cuo challenges Yan Yin Zi’s claim that ordinary people cannot enter the mountain.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo abandons his remaining caution, accepting that his very presence changes history. His actions show confidence and a willingness to intervene in others’ fates.
• Shen Wuhua remains reserved and distrustful of Chen Cuo’s reputation, but accepts his gift despite misgivings. The pebble’s mysterious response suggests their connection may prove important.
• Cui Ju and Chen Hai interpret Chen Cuo’s supernatural departure as possession and rush to alert his family.
• The Long-Haired Daoist and the Cult Leader form a practical alliance: the Daoist seeks containment of Chen Cuo, while the Cult Leader wants knowledge in return.
• Yan Yin Zi approaches Chen Cuo with suspicion and tests him, but cannot discern his nature. Chen Cuo answers with an unexpected challenge to Yan Yin Zi’s understanding of the mountain.

Significant themes

• Fate and causality: Chen Cuo recognizes that changing the past is unavoidable, and even a seemingly small gift may affect future events.
• The danger of altering time: His choices may create a “whirlpool” in the River of Time and disrupt the plans of powerful factions.
• Knowledge and power: The Daoist’s request and the Cult Leader’s bargain show that understanding history is itself a valuable form of power.
• Appearance versus reality: Chen Cuo’s reputed weakness contrasts with his extraordinary abilities, while the glazed pebble’s true purpose is far greater than it first appears.

Key plot points and events

• Chen Cuo wagers that he can enter the Great Hua Secret Realm. Yan Yin Zi doubts him, citing its powerful Restrictions, but Daoyinzi gives permission for the visitor to enter.
• Chen Cuo immediately opens a hidden passage through the stone wall and walks into the Realm. Yan Yin Zi, suspicious of how well Chen knows the place, follows him.
• Inside, Chen Cuo feels an extraordinary kinship with the Realm, as if he could command it with a thought. He wonders whether this comes from his Blessed Land cultivation or the mysteries of time.
• Daoyinzi senses Chen’s unusual connection to the Realm and goes to meet him. When they see one another, both are shaken: Daoyinzi sees Chen’s form blur into that of a Black-Robed Daoist, while Chen is overwhelmed by the sight of his Venerable Master.
• Their encounter triggers a tremendous thunderclap that alarms beings throughout the Three Realms and obscures heaven’s secrets.
• Elsewhere, a handsome man recognizes that Chen’s journey into the past threatens to disrupt history. He warns that Chen’s Incomplete Dao cannot withstand too much alteration and sets out to limit the resulting chaos.
• The man enters a courtyard of fox women, puts them into a blissful sleep, and finds a beautiful nine-tailed fox woman sealed in a chamber. He touches her forehead and vanishes. The woman awakens able to sense her son far away in Chang’an and fears he is in danger.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo displays confidence, deep knowledge of the Secret Realm, and a powerful, possibly time-related bond with it. Despite his composure, seeing Daoyinzi stirs intense longing and emotion.
• Yan Yin Zi shifts from amused skepticism to suspicion, interpreting Chen’s knowledge as possible evidence of a threat to the sect.
• Daoyinzi is intrigued by Chen’s affinity with the Realm and recognizes him as someone with a profound connection to the Cloudsky Sect lineage.
• The handsome man emerges as a force trying to contain the consequences of Chen’s actions. His intervention in the fox woman’s life exposes a family connection to someone in Chang’an.
• The reunion of Chen and Daoyinzi is emotionally powerful but brief; their mutual reaction suggests a significant bond, even as the time-shifted circumstances complicate it.

Significant themes

• Time, history, and causality: Chen’s presence in the past may alter events, and the River of Time may correct or destroy changes that cannot be reconciled.
• Fate and inherited bonds: The fox woman’s bloodline connection lets her sense her son despite years of isolation.
• Belonging and recognition: Chen’s affinity with the Secret Realm and his reaction to Daoyinzi suggest enduring ties that transcend the apparent reversal of time.
• Power and uncertainty: Even formidable figures struggle to understand the consequences of time travel and the limits of their own abilities.

Key events

• Chen Cuo arrives at the Bamboo Abode on a staircase of clouds and meets Daoyinzi, whose bond with the Great Hua Secret Realm is nearing Unity of Heaven and Man.
• Chen Cuo realizes the visit could help both him and his master: he wants to learn how Daoyinzi reached the Blessed Land Realm, while also testing whether events in this past world can affect his own timeline.
• He opens his Vertical Eye and shares Myriad Manifestation light containing his understanding of Blessed Lands and fragments of the past. The Secret Realm responds, and Daoyinzi spends seven hours absorbing the insights.
• The visions are blurred by an unseen force, suggesting limits on how clearly the past—or its connection to Chen Cuo’s time—can be revealed.
• In return, Daoyinzi shares his own cultivation insights. He explains that he built his Blessed Land around the Secret Realm’s living beings, using Divine Soul Marks as waystations to extend his Divine Sense throughout it.
• Chen Cuo recognizes that Daoyinzi’s unusual method may provide a shortcut toward building a foundation for a Grotto-Heaven.
• The chapter ends as Chen Cuo senses a disturbance in the Southeastern Region. Above Jiankang City, a smiling young man parts the clouds and announces his arrival.

Character developments and interactions

• Chen Cuo shifts from awe and longing to calm openness. He chooses to trust Daoyinzi, offers him a substantial gift, and listens carefully to his teachings.
• Daoyinzi is initially curious but welcoming. He senses Chen Cuo’s affection for the Cloudsky Lineage, accepts his knowledge, and reciprocates generously. He also shows humility by admitting the limits of his own method.
• Yan Yin Zi reacts suspiciously and nearly attacks Chen Cuo, but Daoyinzi restrains him. He remains wary even as Daoyinzi accepts Chen Cuo’s intentions.
• The exchange is mutual: Chen Cuo gives a complete guide to Blessed Lands, while Daoyinzi provides practical insights into his distinctive method.

Significant themes

• Teacher–student bonds across time: Chen Cuo’s reverence and affection shape his decision to be honest and generous.
• Knowledge as mutual cultivation: Both men advance by sharing insights rather than guarding them.
• Innovation under constraint: Daoyinzi’s reliance on living beings and Divine Soul Marks shows how limitations can inspire a new path.
• Fate and causality: Chen Cuo hopes to test whether actions in this realm can influence another timeline, but the blurred visions hint that unseen forces may restrict such interference.