Chapter Summaries

As the rebel princes advanced on the Sacred Capital, Hu Ze's Avatar returned to defend it after the Imperial Court granted him command over its armies. The chapter ended with powerful commanders and experts formally joining his service, giving him control of the court's military forces.

• Li Chen learned that Prince Yong, Prince Ning, and the other rebel forces were closing in on the Sacred Capital, so Hu Ze's Avatar ordered a return to reinforce it.
• Court ministers proposed placing command of the realm's armies in Hu Ze's Avatar's hands, and Emperor Kangping issued an Imperial Edict granting him broad authority.
• Hu Ze's Avatar returned to Mount Li Camp, where Grand Confucians and commanders delivered the appointment and greeted him.
• Ma Suning, Le Ping, and Fang Xiaotian introduced themselves as commanders of the War Dragon Army, Flying Eagle Army, and Agile Cavalry, respectively.
• Sixteen Martial King and Great Martial Master experts entered Hu Ze's service, including peak-stage Martial Kings Linan, Guo Junxiong, and Hou Yin.

Li Chen led Hu Ze's Avatar and a large force to reinforce Bloodfang Pass, where the rebel princes tested the defenders with a vanguard attack. A vast eye's golden light seemed to threaten Li Chen's hidden true identity, and he saw bloody mist drift toward it as the battle ended.

• Li Chen gathered nearly fifty Nascent Soul-level fighters and led reinforcements to Bloodfang Pass.
• Prince Jian, Prince Kang, and Prince Yan agreed to send Men Zhong's disciples as a vanguard while preparing a plan to counter Hu Ze.
• A huge eye dharma form appeared above the rebel army and shone a golden beam on Hu Ze's Avatar, causing Li Chen's true body to feel a faint scorching heat.
• Li Chen sent Xiao Wu and his troops to meet the Fierce Martial Gate disciples, who were nearly annihilated before Prince Kang ordered their withdrawal.
• Li Chen looked up and saw hazy bloody mist rising and flowing toward the enormous eye.

Li Chen watched the princes gather and prepare a hidden scheme as the coalition launched a major assault on Bloodfang Pass. The princes activated their plan, summoning the ancient savage god War Lord Huang, a deity normally commanded by Great Qian’s legitimate authorities.

• A scout told Li Chen that all five hundred lord contingents and the Rebel Kings had gathered at Bloodfang Pass, and that Prince Gu had joined the coalition.
• The Princes' Coalition Army attacked Bloodfang Pass, while Li Chen calmly deployed his forces and used the pass’s defenses to blunt the assault.
• Li Chen overheard Prince Ning and the other princes say that their attack was a feint meant to gather blood essence and vengeful souls for a hidden plan.
• The princes activated their scheme, and a vast figure appeared above the battlefield.
• A knowledgeable onlooker identified the figure as War Lord Huang, the Great Qian deity of war whom the rebel princes had somehow gained control over.

The Rebel Princes' Coalition Army summoned War Lord Huang's dharma form using his missing divine eye, forcing Li Chen to order a retreat and prepare to defend Bloodfang Pass. War Lord Huang's axe struck the city's protective barrier and breached it.

• Li Chen recognized War Lord Huang as a Primordial Spirit-level Great Power and ordered Han Li to return to the Sacred Capital.
• The Rebel Kings summoned a blood-red divine eye, and Li Chen identified it as War Lord Huang's stolen third eye.
• Li Chen ordered his army to withdraw to Pass City, form battle arrays, and defend against the summoned deity.
• War Lord Huang cleaved down at Bloodfang Pass, and his strike broke through the city's protective gang.

War Lord Huang attacked Bloodfang Pass and overcame Hu Ze's Avatar with his law power, New Moon. Li Chen realized the strike could bypass even the Mysterious Nonbeing Art, leaving Hu Ze's fate uncertain.

• War Lord Huang cleaved through Bloodfang Pass, and panic scattered its defenders despite the enforcement squads' orders.
• Hu Ze's Avatar attacked War Lord Huang with Corrupting Shadow, but the god's axe cut through the mutated dharma body and revealed its physical form.
• War Lord Huang marked Hu Ze's Avatar, prompting Prince Jian, Prince Kang, Prince Yong, and the other Rebel Kings to celebrate as they expected Hu Ze's death.
• Hu Ze's Avatar tried to evade War Lord Huang's enormous axe, but a distant strike split him in two despite the Mysterious Nonbeing Art.
• Li Chen recognized War Lord Huang's New Moon law as a power that guaranteed a hit and understood that Hu Ze could not evade it.

Li Chen used Hu Ze's Avatar to test War Lord Huang's New Moon ability and discovered that it imposed an enduring severed state on whatever it struck. After three slashes reduced the avatar to eight pieces, Li Chen revealed that his preparations had kept his real self unharmed, while the rebel princes watched in disbelief.

• Li Chen recognized War Lord Huang's New Moon as a law-based attack that could counter his Mysterious Nonbeing Art and split Hu Ze's Avatar apart.
• Li Chen tried to regenerate the severed flesh, but War Lord Huang's power repeatedly interrupted its recovery.
• Li Chen transformed Hu Ze's Avatar into a Six-Tailed Heavenly Fox, a gigantic python, and then a mass of flesh, but the bloody severance remained through every change.
• War Lord Huang struck twice more, dividing Hu Ze's Avatar into eight pieces while Li Chen concealed himself and observed the attack's properties.
• Li Chen revealed that the destroyed body was only a puppet and that he had remained unharmed behind it, leaving the rebel princes astonished as the pieces continued to move.

Li Chen realized War Lord Huang was a summoned avatar sustained by the coalition's Magic Arrays and led an assault to destroy them. Hu Ze refused to retreat despite catastrophic losses, and his forces ultimately destroyed the arrays and brought War Lord Huang down.

• Li Chen used his Dharma Eye to discover that War Lord Huang had been summoned through Magic Arrays in the enemy camp.
• Prince Ning ordered War Lord Huang to target Li Chen's experts while the coalition's princes prioritized killing enemy fighters.
• Hu Ze refused calls to retreat, killed a Great Martial Master who challenged his orders, and forced his troops to attack the coalition camp.
• War Lord Huang's attacks killed nine Martial Kings, more than a hundred Great Martial Masters, four Grand Confucians, and thousands of lower-ranked scholars, while Hu Ze's army suffered devastating casualties.
• Hu Ze's troops broke into the coalition camp and destroyed its Magic Arrays, causing War Lord Huang to weaken and King Linan, Guo Junxiong, and Hou Yin to destroy him.

Li Chen defeated War Lord Huang’s manifestation, but failed to seize the Demon God Pupil from Prince Ning, whose treasure exposed Li Chen and drove him back. After the costly victory, Hu Ze agreed to withdraw from Bloodfang Pass and ordered his commanders to publicize the win, reward the loyal, and punish deserters; afterward, Li Chen began stitching his shattered Avatar back together.

• Li Chen tried to take the Demon God Pupil, but Prince Ning used it to expose him and let his troops drive him away.
• With War Lord Huang defeated, the Princes’ Coalition Army lost its will to fight, and Hu Ze’s forces won despite suffering nearly equal casualties.
• Nie Chen urged Hu Ze to withdraw from the ruined Bloodfang Pass and defend the Sacred Capital, and Hu Ze agreed.
• Hu Ze ordered Nie Chen to publicize the victory, reward meritorious soldiers, and swiftly punish those who fled battle.
• After dismissing Nie Chen, Li Chen summoned a Tailor’s magic artifact and began stitching his shattered Avatar back together.

Li Chen used Hu Ze’s Avatar to seek an imperial Deification Sacrifice Ritual, hoping to study Great Qian’s gods and enlist them against the Rebel Princes’ Coalition Army. The Demon-Expelling Emperor Zhao Wu refused to fight in an imperial succession struggle, so Hu Ze planned to summon lesser gods and compel local deities instead.

• Li Chen assessed the aftermath of the battle, reinforced Mount Li Camp, and asked to enter the palace for an audience with Hu Meiniang.
• Hu Ze asked Hu Meiniang to obtain imperial approval for a Deification Sacrifice Ritual, and she agreed to speak with Emperor Kangping.
• After the ritual began at Mount Li Camp, Zhao Wu descended but accused Hu Ze of lying and refused to oppose War Lord Huang.
• Nie Chen questioned what they would do next, and Hu Ze said he would summon lesser gods or temporarily invest wilderness deities and local lords.

Hu Ze prepared to create a new Orthodox God to oppose War Lord Huang, appointing Li Chen as the newborn Crown Prince Jin’s Dharma-Protector Deity. The investiture ritual began as Li Chen appeared in his monstrous Mutated Dharma Body, and Hu Ze announced the imperial decree granting him the divine office.

• Li Chen used Hu Ze’s Avatar to establish divine connections with over a hundred thousand Orthodox Gods and Heavenly Soldiers.
• Nie Chen reported that the rebels had slaughtered over a million people in four cities to gather blood energy and summon War Lord Huang.
• Hu Ze ordered forced evacuations and warned local magnates that collaboration with the rebels would bring ruin.
• The Rebel Princes’ Coalition Army prepared to summon War Lord Huang outside Mount Li Camp, while Li Chen arranged a ritual to create a deity who could serve his plans.
• Hu Ze began investing Li Chen as Crown Prince Jin’s Dharma-Protector Deity, and the assembled cultivators recoiled at Li Chen’s enormous Mutated Dharma Body.

Li Chen used Emperor Kangping’s edict and the Great Qian Dynasty’s deification ritual to give his mutated dharma body a physical form and establish it as a Dharma-Protector Deity. He then inserted his followers and invented calendar gods into Great Qian’s divine hierarchy before news arrived that the Rebel Princes’ Coalition Army had attacked again.

• Emperor Kangping’s edict granted Li Chen’s mutated dharma body divine rank, and Li Chen used Manifestation to give it a physical form.
• The ritual nearly failed because the deity lacked local faith, but Hu Ze’s Avatar revealed the white meme’s reserve of faith from bees and ants, allowing the divine position to be established.
• Li Chen directed incense and fire prayer power reserved for his Tang Taibai identity into the dharma body and realized that virtual personalities and artificial primordial spirits might also undergo deification.
• Hu Ze’s Avatar decreed that Ghost Girl Xiao Ling, Ghost Girl Xiao Zhuo, Ghost Envoy Wu Zhuo, Ghost Envoy Wu Yan, and other followers would become year gods, then added gods for the seasons, solar terms, stars, lunar mansions, and calendrical cycles.
• An urgent dispatch reported that the Rebel Princes’ Coalition Army was attacking again, bringing the decisive battle for the realm to the Sacred Capital’s doorstep.

Hu Ze’s forces suffered devastating losses as War Lord Huang led the Rebel Princes’ Coalition Army through their ranks, and Hu Ze relied on conscripted gods and expendable troops to wear him down. When the army began to collapse, Hu Ze deployed Li Chen’s Mutated Dharma Body, which dragged War Lord Huang out of sight and into the Origin Realm, leaving Prince Ning and the other princes shocked.

• War Lord Huang and his Attendant Gods broke through Hu Ze’s defenses while Li Chen remained focused on the threat posed by Prince Ning.
• Hu Ze summoned a hundred thousand gods and divine generals, whose ranks were rapidly destroyed as the battle’s casualties soared.
• Hu Ze waited for War Lord Huang’s strength to wane, but his troops broke and began fleeing despite the threat of execution.
• Hu Ze summoned the Mutated Dharma Body, which regenerated its severed tentacles and bound War Lord Huang.
• The Mutated Dharma Body carried War Lord Huang into the Origin Realm, and Prince Ning and the other princes watched them vanish in shock.

Li Chen used the Mutated Dharma Body and War Lord Huang to destroy the Sea Emperor and banish War Lord Huang, forcing the Rebel Princes' Coalition Army to retreat. Great General Hu Ze turned the battle around and pursued Prince Ning, determined to seize the Demon God Eye and eliminate his greatest threat.

• Li Chen lured War Lord Huang into the Blue Sea Water Realm, where Huang split the Sea Emperor apart and the Mutated Dharma Body absorbed his remains.
• The Chaos Void's knowledge corrupted War Lord Huang's incense-powered dharma body until it vanished, while the Mutated Dharma Body returned to reality.
• Prince Ning refused to summon War Lord Huang again, and he and the other princes ordered their forces to withdraw.
• The Mutated Dharma Body swept across the battlefield, killing or wounding thousands of coalition soldiers as Great General Hu Ze's troops regained control.
• Great General Hu Ze pursued Prince Ning, who held the Demon God Eye, intending to eliminate the threat to his Mysterious Nonbeing Art.

Li Chen ambushed Prince Ning’s fleeing force and used illusions to draw him away from his carriage before Hu Ze’s Avatar seized the Demon God Eye. Li Chen vanished with the eye, leaving Prince Ning to realize he had deliberately been spared.

• Prince Ning and his men fled across the wasteland while White Jade Mantises pursued them, and Commandant Han stayed behind to fight.
• Li Chen’s insect-shaped warrior constructs emerged and split Prince Ning’s procession as Li Chen began killing guards from concealment.
• Prince Ning summoned the Demon God Eye, which revealed Li Chen’s hazy figure but did not let his men pin him down.
• Li Chen used mind-reading and illusions to confuse Prince Ning’s guards and lure Prince Ning away from his carriage.
• Hu Ze’s Avatar seized the Demon God Eye and sealed it in a Minor Grotto-Heaven before Li Chen and his avatar vanished.
• Prince Ning could no longer track Li Chen and concluded that Li Chen had deliberately let him go.

Hu Ze received the title of Grand Preceptor after defeating the Rebel Princes' Coalition Army, then discussed the next stage of the war with Emperor Kangping and Empress Dowager Hu. He returned to camp with military and political power increasingly concentrated in his hands.

• Hu Ze took the Demon God Eye from the battlefield and returned to Mount Li Camp after the coalition's defeat.
• Emperor Kangping appointed Hu Ze Grand Preceptor and Grand Tutor to the Crown Prince, granting him special court privileges.
• Hu Ze told Emperor Kangping that regional powers could rise despite the victory and promised to pacify Great Qian within about five years.
• Hu Meiniang questioned Hu Ze about letting enemy leaders escape and hinted that he should focus on securing the Sacred Capital rather than rushing to pacify distant regions.
• Hu Ze's subordinates began addressing him as Grand Preceptor Hu, recognizing that he and his allies now held Great Qian's military and political power.

Li Chen refined War Lord Huang’s Demon God Eye into a magical treasure for Hu Ze’s Avatar, first purging a hidden beast spirit from it. After fitting the eye into the Avatar, he discovered that it greatly amplified his Thousand-Mile Eye, letting him see across realms and over a million miles.

• Hu Ze announced a brief rest in the Sacred Capital before the armies resumed their campaign, while Li Chen delayed the fighting to give the rebel princes time to recover.
• Li Chen studied the Demon God Eye and identified its ability to enhance true sight and track and strike across space and time.
• Li Chen used Rune Script Dao methods to build a control system for the eye, triggering a concealed beast spirit that he separated and destroyed.
• Li Chen completed the eye’s refinement and installed it in Hu Ze’s Avatar as a vertical third eye.
• Li Chen opened the eye and found that it expanded his Thousand-Mile Eye to reach across realms and beyond a million miles.

Li Chen used Hu Ze's growing authority in the Great Qian Dynasty to expand his forces and prepare to sweep the realm. In the Sacred Capital, Hu Meiniang gave birth to Long Youjin, whose innate dao body led Emperor Kangping to declare that he would make Hu Meiniang empress and name the child crown prince.

• Li Chen used his new insight into the Righteous Qi Continent and Hu Ze's court authority to recruit soldiers, experts, and resources for his forces.
• By the third month of the following year, Li Chen began a campaign to sweep the realm in Hu Ze's name.
• Hu Meiniang went into labor in Kunning Palace as the Sacred Spirit Grand Formation sealed the inner palace and auspicious signs appeared.
• Hu Meiniang gave birth to Long Youjin, who displayed an innate dao body and cultivation comparable to Foundation Establishment.
• Emperor Kangping vowed to make Hu Meiniang empress and name Long Youjin crown prince.

Emperor Kangping became determined to depose Empress Xiao and secure the throne for Crown Prince Jin, while Li Chen encouraged the plan from afar. The Xiao Household mobilized against the move, but Empress Dowager Hu’s forces arrested its allies and found an Evil God statue in Empress Xiao’s chambers, leading to her arrest.

• Hu Meiniang urged Emperor Kangping to depose Empress Xiao, and his growing affection for Crown Prince Jin strengthened his resolve.
• Li Chen learned of the plan through his arrangements in the Sacred Capital and approved it in Hu Ze’s name while pretending to warn against a crisis.
• The head of the Xiao Household discovered the impending deposition and ordered the family to mobilize.
• The War Dragon Army, the Demon-Quelling Bureau, and the Intelligence Bureaus acted against the Xiao Household, arresting its affiliated officials.
• Eunuch Ma’s search of Empress Xiao’s chambers uncovered an Evil God statue bearing Emperor Kangping’s birth details and blood, and he ordered her taken away.

Emperor Kangping crushed the Xiao Household’s rebellion and deposed Empress Xiao, while Hu Meiniang secretly set her up to curse him. In the southwest, Li Chen used Hu Ze’s authority to expand his control, defeated Prince Ning but failed to capture him, and then learned that Emperor Kangping had suddenly fallen ill.

• Emperor Kangping ordered Empress Xiao’s secret interrogation, then defeated the Xiao Household’s palace attack and confined her to the cold palace.
• Hu Meiniang planted an Evil God statue and Emperor Kangping’s essence blood with Empress Xiao, hoping the curse would provoke him to kill her.
• Li Chen ordered Hu Ze’s forces to destroy Prince Lu’s army at Peach City, then used sacrifices and altered creatures to extend his control across the southwest.
• Li Chen’s forces defeated Prince Ning below Zhenting Mountain, but Prince Ning and several generals escaped.
• Emperor Kangping fell ill without warning, unsettling the court and the country.

Hu Ze returned to the Sacred Capital and learned that Emperor Kangping was dying, with the emperor naming Hu Ze, Yue Dongyang, and Lu Yuan as guardians of his son. Hu Ze then secured the ministers’ trust by presenting himself as a Grand Confucian, while secretly implying that he would not side with Hu Meiniang.

• Hu Ze overruled his generals and returned to court instead of pursuing Prince Ning’s retreating army.
• Hu Ze, Yue Dongyang, and Lu Yuan found Emperor Kangping gravely ill, and the emperor declared that Jin'er should succeed him and that the ministers must prepare the rites.
• Hu Meiniang told Hu Ze that her medicines had been harmless, and he concluded that Emperor Kangping’s indulgence, her demands, the curse, and the Evil God’s influence had combined to ruin his health.
• Hu Ze told Hu Meiniang that the emperor intended to appoint him, Yue Dongyang, and Lu Yuan as regents, while suggesting that he might not share her interests.
• Hu Ze met Yue Dongyang and Lu Yuan at the River-Viewing Tower, proposed establishing the Analects as official doctrine, and revealed his Grand Confucian cultivation to win their confidence.