Chapter Summaries

As the Magic Appraisal Assembly began at Sky Void Temple, Yan Shouyun joined Long Simiao to investigate the demons threatening Great Yong. The first performer, Cao Nianwen, unleashed a powerful wind, and Yan Shouyun recognized him as a monster.

• Hui Mian told Qi Zhongbin that the master considered fate the principle behind the Heavenly Dao's cycles, rooted in reverence and the will to strive forward.
• Yan Shouyun met Long Simiao outside the Heaven-Bearing Prefectural Office and agreed to go with him to Sky Void Temple.
• A huge crowd gathered around Sky Void Temple, and the Magic Appraisal Assembly began with Sima Xiao inviting the mages to take the platform.
• Cao Nianwen took the platform and demonstrated his Wind-Summoning Art, blowing a powerful gust across the square.
• Yan Shouyun told Long Simiao that Cao Nianwen was a monster whose wind smelled rank.

Qi Zhongbin and Hui Mian reached the Sky Void Temple, where Hui Mian silently stopped Cao Nianwen’s gale. During a magical duel, Daoist Bi Zhao wounded Cao Nianwen, exposing the monster’s unnatural body and provoking a deadly attack; an old man in a dark official uniform intervened and faced Cao Nianwen.

• Hui Mian used divine light from the Sky Void Temple’s Demon-Subduing Hall to stop Cao Nianwen’s gale, and Cao Nianwen presented himself to the emperor as a powerful mage.
• Bi Zhao challenged Cao Nianwen to a duel on the Magic Appraisal Platform and attacked him with a cinnabar-covered sword and Gang Steps.
• Bi Zhao cut Cao Nianwen’s back, but Cao Nianwen revealed that the wound barely harmed him and began relentlessly attacking Bi Zhao.
• Bi Zhao ran out of talismans, conceded defeat, and leaped off the platform, but Cao Nianwen pursued him and prepared to kill him.
• An old man in a dark official uniform struck Cao Nianwen with a palm and sent him tumbling back to the platform.

Xiao Yuzhi challenged Cao Nianwen to a duel and defeated him, tearing away his human disguise and revealing him as an ape monster. The gathering learned Cao Nianwen’s true nature while Xiao Yuzhi eyed the other mages with suspicion.

• Xiao Yuzhi asked the emperor for permission to spar with Cao Nianwen, and the emperor approved.
• Cao Nianwen charged at Xiao Yuzhi, who struck him and sent him rolling across the platform.
• Cao Nianwen attacked with renewed violence, but Xiao Yuzhi evaded his blows and countered with martial techniques.
• Xiao Yuzhi dislocated Cao Nianwen’s arm, struck his chest, and tore off his facial skin as Cao Nianwen fell from the platform.
• The Imperial Guards revealed that Cao Nianwen was an ape monster, while Xiao Yuzhi watched the other mages suspiciously.

Xiao Yuzhi killed the monster disguised as Cao Nianwen, prompting the emperor to question the Directorate of Celestial Observations and then resume the Magic Appraisal Assembly. Xiao Yuzhi revealed that he had reached the innate realm, and a masked woman in a ritual robe stepped onto the platform as the contest continued.

• Xiao Yuzhi and the imperial physicians examined Cao Nianwen’s corpse and discovered that the ape had been disguised with human skin.
• Xiao Yuzhi warned the emperor that other monsters might be among the mages, and Sima Xiao and the Directorate officials knelt to accept blame.
• The emperor ordered the Magic Appraisal Assembly to continue and had the platform cleared.
• Xiao Yuzhi told the emperor and Zhao Chaolin that he had entered the innate realm years earlier and had killed the monster with his true qi.
• Qi Zhongbin and Hui Mian watched as a masked woman in a ritual robe took the platform.

Jin Lan demonstrated her Mirror Flower, Water Moon Art, enchanting the emperor and crowds with an illusory moonlit dance. Xiao Yuzhi suspected she was a dangerous Demon Creature, but the emperor stopped him from confronting her, leaving Jin Lan free to mingle among the Mages.

• Jin Lan introduced herself to the emperor and revealed her face, which reminded him of the immortal maiden of the moon.
• Jin Lan performed the Mirror Flower, Water Moon Art, creating dark clouds, rain, and a moon that showed her dance to the crowds outside.
• Yan Shouyun pinched Long Simiao awake and warned him that Jin Lan was an evil demon, while Hui Mian shared his suspicions with Qi Zhongbin.
• Xiao Yuzhi questioned Jin Lan and prepared to test her under the emperor's order, but the emperor called him off and invited her to rest.
• Jin Lan passed Xiao Yuzhi safely as he suppressed his urge to strike, then released a long stream of white vapor from his breath.

After the Magic Appraisal Assembly ended, Qi Zhongbin offered to teach Yan Shouyun spells over a bowl of wontons, while the emperor took a pill from Gao Hongqing and summoned Jin Lan to his bedchamber. The emperor’s renewed strength led to an intimate encounter with Jin Lan.

• Jin Lan joined the emperor after her demonstration, while Xiao Yuzhi stood silently beside him and onlookers speculated about their relationship.
• Sima Xiao announced that the Magic Appraisal Assembly would continue, and mages demonstrated their abilities as Xiao Yuzhi sparred with them; seven accused swindlers were beheaded by the emperor’s order.
• Yan Shouyun and Long Simiao discussed the mages’ motives, then met Qi Zhongbin, who invited Yan Shouyun to share wontons and offered to teach him spells.
• Gao Hongqing gave an elderly eunuch a pill for the emperor, who took it and regained his vigor.
• The emperor summoned Jin Lan to his bedchamber, and they had sex.

Gao Hongqing’s attempt to refine an elixir ended in a dangerous explosion, while Yan Shouyun successfully sensed a response from a deity and learned that Qi Zhongbin expected him to invoke a true god. Qi Zhongbin gave Yan Shouyun the Great Yong Celestial Master’s Command for the coming calamity in the Capital City.

• Gao Hongqing’s Alchemy Furnace exploded after he and his disciples completed the final steps of refining an elixir, nearly killing his eldest disciple.
• Gao Hongqing concealed the seriousness of his injuries from the Imperial Guards and let his disciples take him to rest.
• Yan Shouyun told Qi Zhongbin that he had sensed a distant but real response from a deity, and Qi Zhongbin praised his progress.
• Qi Zhongbin explained that Invoking the Gods meant bringing about True God Descending to the Mortal Realm and taught Yan Shouyun how to attempt it.
• Qi Zhongbin gave Yan Shouyun the gold token bestowed upon the Great Yong Celestial Master and told him to use it when needed.

Yan Shouyun began sensing traces of spirit and worldly life as he followed the Old Celestial Master's guidance, then tried to invoke General Duan Silie by painting his image at the True Lord Temple. An old man praised the crude painting for capturing some divine essence and asked whether Yan Shouyun knew how to paint.

• Yan Shouyun watched a mysterious passenger take the boat beneath the river, then left for Heaven-Bearing Prefecture.
• Yan Shouyun used a minor spell to send a written message into a courtyard and sensed the paper's path through the house.
• Yan Shouyun experienced a vision at the enormous stone monument outside the North City Gate, though he did not recognize it as spirit sense.
• Yan Shouyun went to the True Lord Temple and painted Duan Silie, hoping to invoke the famed general's spirit.
• Worshippers mocked Yan Shouyun's crude painting until an old man praised its divine essence and asked whether he knew how to paint.

Yan Shouyun met the ailing master painter Shao Zhen in the Demon-Subduing Hall and learned from his demonstration of painting. Meanwhile, Tan Yuanshang visited Lu Haixian in prison and returned to find a written message waiting at his lodging.

• Shao Zhen critiqued Yan Shouyun’s painting and showed him how to capture the Divine General’s essence with a few strokes.
• Yan Shouyun recognized Shao Zhen as the Strange Master Painter and asked him to help save the realm, but Shao Zhen left without agreeing.
• Yan Shouyun chose not to pursue Shao Zhen and began painting the great god Lu Xin.
• Tan Yuanshang visited the regretful Lu Haixian in the Heavenly Prison and offered him words of comfort.
• Tan Yuanshang returned to his lodging, where his guards found a written message on the table.

Tan Yuanshang decided to attend the Magic Appraisal Assembly after reading an anonymous letter, while Jin Lan appeared beside the emperor as his favored consort. A mage’s spell went awry and injured Jin Lan, prompting the emperor to order the mage’s execution and command Xiao Yuzhi to protect her.

• Tan Yuanshang read a letter appealing to his loyalty to Great Yong and decided to visit the Magic Appraisal Assembly, expecting its writer to approach him again.
• Jin Lan attended the assembly beside the emperor in court attire, and Gao Hongqing worried about the emperor’s condition and the pill’s limited effect.
• A mage’s talismans flew out of control, and Jin Lan burned her hands while deflecting those that reached her.
• The emperor ordered Xiao Yuzhi to seize and execute the mage, who shouted that Jin Lan was a demon spawn before guards dragged him away.
• Jin Lan complained that Xiao Yuzhi had failed to protect her, and the emperor ordered Xiao Yuzhi to guard her closely.
• Tan Yuanshang declined to rescue the condemned mage and searched the assembled mages for the letter’s writer, while Yan Shouyun and Shao Zhen watched Lu Xin appear on paper.

Jin Lan gathered monsters and demons at the abandoned Tan Residence and persuaded them to join her bid for power, promising to help them overcome Xiao Yuzhi. The emperor dreamed of the capital strewn with corpses and Xiao Yuzhi dying, then woke beside Jin Lan while Zhao Chaolin grew suspicious of her sudden appearance.

• Jin Lan slipped out of the Emperor's Bedchamber and traveled to the abandoned Tan Residence, where dozens of mages and evil creatures had gathered.
• Jin Lan told the gathering that she could secure more Celestial Master positions and other titles, and urged them to unite their influence at court.
• The Three Sages of Xiaoshan and other mages pledged loyalty to Jin Lan, who promised to deal with Xiao Yuzhi and suggested they act immediately.
• Xiang Yi dreamed that the capital was flooded with blood and bodies, and that Xiao Yuzhi died while trying to protect him.
• Xiang Yi woke to find Jin Lan at the window, and Zhao Chaolin noticed that she seemed to have appeared there suddenly.

Yan Shouyun sensed that Xiao Yuzhi was in danger and rushed to the Kaiyang River, where he found the chief constable badly wounded after he fought a fiend ambush. Yan Shouyun rescued Xiao Yuzhi and met a mysterious white-bearded old man who said Xiao’s time had not yet come.

• During the unnatural downpour, Yan Shouyun read a warning in his copper coins and realized Xiao Yuzhi might be in danger; the gods in the True Lord Temple gave him a chain and a brush.
• Xiao Yuzhi followed a strange infant’s cry out of the County Office and pursued suspicious figures into a trap laid by fiends, who used his blood and a straw effigy to injure his knee.
• Xiao Yuzhi unleashed his innate true qi and fought the fiends, while Yan Shouyun searched the Kaiyang River for him.
• Yan Shouyun used the brush to break the fiends’ restriction, then pulled the bloodied Xiao Yuzhi from the battlefield into a boat with the chain.
• As the boatman took them beneath the river to escape the approaching fiends, Yan Shouyun believed Xiao Yuzhi was dead until a white-bearded old man boarded and said Xiao’s time had not yet come.
• Other figures found the slaughtered fiends on the riverbank and believed Xiao Yuzhi would not survive after falling into the river.

After Xiao Yuzhi disappeared, Jin Lan used his apparent death to seduce Minister Wu Youhui into advocating that she become empress. Yu Ziye delayed the proposal, but believed the court could no longer resist the mages and searched for the Old Celestial Master.

• Monsters found no survivors after the ambush on Xiao Yuzhi, and Jin Lan received a bloodstained token confirming his apparent death.
• The court searched for the missing Xiao Yuzhi as the Magic Appraisal Assembly drew mages and officials into closer ties.
• Jin Lan seduced Wu Youhui and persuaded him to recommend her as empress at court.
• Zhou Xiande denounced the proposal, and Yu Ziye argued that the appointment should be postponed until after the Magic Appraisal Assembly.
• Yu Ziye told Zhou Xiande that he had prepared his coffin and sent his men to search for the Old Celestial Master.

Yan Shouyun and Shao Zhen painted the Demon-Subduing Divine Dao Painting at the True Lord Temple to oppose the evil beings threatening Heaven-Bearing Prefecture. Shao Zhen died after the painting was completed, and Yan Shouyun left with the scroll to face the crisis.

• Yan Shouyun brought the gravely wounded Xiao Yuzhi to the True Lord Temple and told the old Temple Keeper and Shao Zhen that evil beings had attacked him.
• Yan Shouyun asked Shao Zhen to help complete the Divine Dao Painting, and Shao Zhen agreed after hearing Yan Shouyun's resolve to fight evil.
• Yan Shouyun and Shao Zhen used Shao Zhen's treasured materials to paint a vast scroll of gods in the Demon-Subduing Hall.
• Yan Shouyun finished painting the gods' eyes, bringing the Divine Dao Painting to completion, while Shao Zhen died beside him.
• Yan Shouyun inscribed and sealed the scroll, then left the temple as worshippers crowded around Shao Zhen and clamored to buy the painting.

Yan Shouyun confronted the emperor and Noble Consort Jin Lan, demanding that the court revoke its favors to mages and purge the demons and spirits. When the emperor rejected his remonstrance and Jin Lan ordered the guards to seize him, Yan Shouyun unfurled the Divine Dao Painting and summoned the gods.

• Yan Shouyun told Long Simiao and Fu Xinbo that Xiao Yuzhi had been ambushed by demons and was gravely wounded, then asked them to clear the streets.
• Long Simiao, Fu Xinbo, and the other constables joined Yan Shouyun as he approached the emperor’s procession and presented the Celestial Master Token.
• The emperor came to meet Yan Shouyun, who demanded an edict revoking the mages’ investitures and ordering demons and spirits at court to be arrested and executed.
• The emperor rejected Yan Shouyun’s demand, and Jin Lan ordered the guards to seize him while the constables held them back.
• Yan Shouyun unfurled the Divine Dao Painting as thunder gathered and the emperor collapsed, then declared that he would summon the gods.

Yan Shouyun summoned the Great Yong gods through the Demon-Subduing Divine Dao Painting to purge Heaven-Bearing Prefecture of demons, ending the Magic Appraisal Assembly. After the gods departed, Yan Shouyun survived the ordeal and Yu Ziye saw Chu Hang one last time.

• Yan Shouyun summoned Duan Silie, Lu Xin, Li Qian, Lin Xiu, Xiao Yuzhi, Tan Yuanshang, Chu Hang, and Xiang Yi, whose divine arrivals sealed the routes out of Heaven-Bearing Prefecture.
• Xiang Yi took the Emperor's Sword, and Yan Shouyun called on the gods to slay evil and purge the Capital City in a final act of loyalty to Great Yong.
• The gods hunted down the demons, and Duan Silie killed Jin Lan while the emperor cowered in a nearby shop.
• The storm ended after less than a quarter of an hour, and Xiang Yi and the other gods departed from the mortal world.
• Yu Ziye briefly met Chu Hang, and Yan Shouyun collapsed but reassured the constables that he would survive.

After the storm and the gods’ assault on the demons, Yan Shouyun returned the broken Celestial Master Token and left Heaven-Bearing Prefecture, while the emperor fainted and the Magic Appraisal Assembly ended. Xiao Yuzhi woke at the True Lord Temple and learned that his descent as a heavenly god had been real.

• The emperor asked Yan Shouyun where his consort had gone and begged him to ask the Old Celestial Master to visit.
• Zhao Chaolin opened the box and revealed that the Celestial Master Token had broken, so Yan Shouyun declared it returned and departed.
• Yan Shouyun used Entering the Wind and vanished before the emperor and the gathered officials, despite the emperor’s pleas to appoint him State Preceptor.
• Sima Xiao asked Yu Ziye to protect his family, while the emperor fainted and the imperial procession returned to the palace.
• Xiao Yuzhi woke at the True Lord Temple, learned from the old Temple Keeper that he had descended as a heavenly god, and rejoiced at having killed one of the Three Sages of Xiaoshan.

After the Demon-Subduing Divine Dao Painting’s power ended the crisis, Yan Shouyun and Xiao Yuzhi encountered Chen Han, who took Shao Zhen’s remains back to Lingdong. The chapter revealed Stoneborn had impersonated the True Lord Temple’s keeper and showed the aftermath in the Capital City, where the emperor remained unconscious and Gao Hongqing fled with his disciples.

• Xiao Yuzhi woke and learned that Shao Zhen had died after creating the Demon-Subduing Divine Dao Painting with Yan Shouyun.
• Chen Han appeared at the True Lord Temple, asked to take Shao Zhen’s remains to Lingdong, and departed with his body.
• Yan Shouyun and Xiao Yuzhi left the temple, and the old Temple Keeper revealed himself as Stoneborn after they were gone.
• Qi Zhongbin and Hui Mian discussed Tan Yuanshang’s death and Xiang Yi’s continued unconsciousness.
• The Capital City’s mages feared the emperor’s retribution, and Gao Hongqing ordered his disciples to pack their valuables and flee with him.

After the emperor learned that few Mages appeared to be true Dao masters, he imprisoned Sima Xiao and ordered Immortal Gao brought to the palace. Gao Hongqing and his disciples fled the Azure Spirit Estate, and the Imperial Guards discovered their escape and pursued them.

• The emperor questioned Sima Xiao about the surviving Mages, and Sima Xiao said he believed no true Dao masters remained.
• The emperor ordered Sima Xiao sent to the Heavenly Prison and dispatched Imperial Guards to fetch Immortal Gao.
• Gao Hongqing packed portable valuables and led his disciples toward the rear wall as people pounded on the estate's front gate.
• Zhuang Shengyi leaped over the wall and fled, while Gao Hongqing and the remaining disciples escaped through the alley.
• The Imperial Guards searched the Azure Spirit Estate, found signs that Gao Hongqing had fled, and set off after him while requesting assistance.

After Daoist Gao escaped, the emperor imposed martial law and ordered the search for him, while Sima Xiao and Lu Haixian faced execution in the Heavenly Prison. The emperor had Zhuang Shengyi forced to continue refining elixirs, as Yu Ziye received Zhao Chaolin’s warning and Xiao Yuzhi returned.

• The emperor placed the capital under martial law, and Sima Xiao was imprisoned, where he met Lu Haixian and explained the recent events.
• Sima Xiao told Lu Haixian that the stars suggested the emperor might not have many days left.
• The Imperial Guards captured Zhuang Shengyi and other Daoists, but failed to find Daoist Gao; the emperor ordered Zhuang Shengyi to continue refining elixirs while the search continued.
• The commander returned Zhuang Shengyi and the others to the Azure Spirit Estate and threatened them with torture and death if they failed to meet the deadline.
• Yu Ziye received and burned Zhao Chaolin’s anonymous warning about the Daoists and their elixirs, then considered which prince could take responsibility for the state.
• Xiao Yuzhi returned to the Heaven-Bearing Prefectural Office, delighting his four disciples.