Chapter Summaries

Puppet doll maidens ambushed the Immortal Alliance cultivators as Fang Weiqi’s group escorted Xia Ziyi deeper into Li Chen’s base. Li Chen remained hidden and ordered defenses prepared, while the group stopped at a chamber marked “Spare Embryo Chamber.”

• Puppet doll maidens attacked the Immortal Alliance cultivators with swordsmanship that made them appear to be sword slaves.
• Fang Weiqi and five Half-Step Nascent Soul experts drove back the maidens and took Xia Ziyi away, warning him that he had to die in front of Li Chen if necessary.
• Li Chen learned from Heavenly Pivot that the intruders were exceptionally powerful and might be able to mark his location for a decapitation strike.
• Li Chen ordered combat puppets in grand void spirit iron armor deployed, directed Heavenly Pivot to activate the Dharma-Ending Zone, and sent Han Li to gain combat experience once it formed.
• Fang Weiqi’s group reached the Spare Embryo Chamber, and Xia Ziyi suggested they enter.

The Immortal Alliance entered Li Chen’s Spare Embryo Chamber and discovered more than a thousand living artificial bodies. As the cultivators attacked the pods, their spiritual energy began to thin and their magic power dissipated.

• Xia Ziyi recognized Li Chen as Elder Bai, the man who had once given him a false core, while Li Chen explained that the pods held his reserve bodies for researching life great dao-templates.
• Fang Weiqi identified Li Chen as a Great Power of the Wisdom Dao and accused the Puppet Masters of refining living people into bodies.
• The Immortal Alliance cultivators vowed to destroy the chamber, and Ling Qingyan struck Li Chen’s artificial body, shattering nearby Nutrient Pods.
• The released artificial bodies mocked the cultivators for killing them, but Luo Ji attacked them and turned the chamber into a slaughterground.
• Luo Ji and the others realized that their strength and magic power were fading as the surrounding spiritual energy thinned.

Li Chen’s Reverse Spirit-Gathering Grand Array weakened the Immortal Alliance cultivators and exposed his network of artificial bodies throughout the Rear Mountain Base. The group encountered Han Li, whose nature and allegiance left them alarmed as she prepared to fight.

• Li Chen’s artificial body explained how the formation suppressed cultivators by draining spiritual energy and stripping away their authority, then died with an uncanny smile.
• Fang Weiqi recognized that the formation could weaken supernatural power but not erase it completely, and the Immortal Alliance group used Edict Talismans to escape the enclosed space.
• Nan Wu’s golden flame stopped shrinking, leading Fang Weiqi to conclude that the fortress still needed supernatural power to operate.
• The group passed empty corridors and discovered workshops filled with modified bodies and experimental subjects that shared parts of Li Chen’s thoughts and spirit.
• Luo Ji killed a naked artificial body, while Ling Qingyan and Xia Ziyi reacted to the many forms Li Chen had created.
• A snake-bodied monster bearing Li Chen’s face called on Han Li to deal with the intruders, and Han Li drew her sword as the cultivators questioned who she was.

Han Li used her enhanced body and Frostblade Dong Nü to overwhelm the Nascent Soul experts, whose powers were crippled by the Dharma's decline formation. She defeated Xia Ziyi and held her sword at his neck.

• Han Li slashed Nan Wu and wounded him before blocking Luo Ji's Sword Pill attack.
• Han Li wounded Han Qing with an invisible sword hidden in her shadow, but Yi Jinfang revealed Yu Ling with Misty Smoke and Dust.
• Han Li broke free of Yi Jinfang's restraint and sent her flying, then with Yu Ling's help wounded Fang Weiqi and Ling Qingyan.
• Xia Ziyi watched the experts fall, then summoned a spirit serpent that Han Li cut apart.
• Han Li stepped up to Xia Ziyi and laid her sword across his neck.

Xia Ziyi fell for Li Chen’s illusion and activated the Sword Saint’s Edict Talisman, allowing Pei Bairen to possess Luo Ji. Pei Bairen recognized Han Li’s strength and challenged her to make the first three moves before he took her life.

• The human-headed serpent explained to Xia Ziyi that he had lost to the accumulated methods of its Dao, while Fang Weiqi warned him to use the Sword Saint’s Edict Talisman.
• Xia Ziyi activated the talisman after Li Chen’s illusion made him believe Fang Weiqi had urged him to do so.
• Luo Ji offered himself to preserve Xia Ziyi, and Pei Bairen possessed him as the domain suppressed his power.
• Pei Bairen’s sword aura caused Frostblade Dong Nü and Shadowless Sword Yu Ling to return to their sword forms, while Han Li’s modified mind resisted its influence.
• Pei Bairen identified himself to the human-headed serpent and challenged Han Li, granting her three moves before he would take her life.

Han Li challenged Pei Bairen with her sword arts, but he effortlessly countered her attacks and criticized her mechanical, Puppet Dao-derived swordsmanship. Pei Bairen then revealed his creation-based sword technique, summoning swords from all things.

• Han Li attacked Pei Bairen with the Long Song Poetry Sword Formula, and he blocked her first strike with a condensed blade of air.
• Han Li followed with Rainbow Pierces the Sun, but Pei Bairen anticipated her movement and dodged.
• Han Li surrounded Pei Bairen with sword edges, and he precisely countered each attack without striking back.
• Pei Bairen said he had seen through Han Li's swordsmanship and judged it rigid and shaped by the Puppet Dao.
• The Man-Faced Serpent and Pei Bairen debated whether the Sword Dao could comprehend the principles of creation and heaven and earth.
• Pei Bairen formed a crimson flying sword and summoned swords from wood, stone, metal, and other materials, declaring his technique Sword of Creation-All Things Become Swords.

Pei Bairen wounded Han Li with Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Origin, but she survived by distributing her primordial spirit. He held her back while the others searched for Li Chen, then realized Li Chen might no longer have a true body.

• The Man-Faced Serpent recognized Pei Bairen’s mastery of the Creation Dao, while Han Qing, Fang Weiqi, and Ling Qingyan recounted the Sword Saint’s rise.
• Pei Bairen unleashed Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Origin, striking Han Li’s primordial spirit and grievously wounding her body.
• The Man-Faced Serpent explained that Han Li survived through a distributed primordial spirit and rapid switching between backups.
• Pei Bairen said his true body was absent and ordered the others to keep searching for Li Chen’s true body.
• Pei Bairen warned Fang Weiqi that Li Chen might no longer have anything that could be called a true body.

The Man-Faced Serpent revealed that he had cultivated an undying body by distributing and dynamically balancing his consciousness, making him a Great Power despite his early primordial spirit cultivation. After he attacked the Immortal Alliance experts, Pei Bairen destroyed the serpents spawned from his divided flesh, giving the group a chance to escape.

• The Man-Faced Serpent explained that his distributed consciousness let him divide and unite while preserving a continuous, responsive self.
• Fang Weiqi and the others realized the Man-Faced Serpent had no true body, and the Sword Saint urged them to flee.
• The Man-Faced Serpent attacked, and Pei Bairen's sword strike split him into many serpents that blocked the exit.
• Pei Bairen recognized that the serpents were mindless flesh puppets controlled from the void, while Fang Weiqi identified their Blood-Demon-like regeneration.
• The group found they could not destroy every piece of the regenerating flesh, so Pei Bairen unleashed Ten Thousand Swords Return to the Origin and reduced the serpents to ruined flesh.
• Pei Bairen told the others to escape while the Man-Faced Serpent was suppressed.

Fang Weiqi persuaded the Immortal Alliance cultivators to attack Li Chen’s material resources rather than retreat, and they destroyed Mechanism Puppets, Reserve Bodies, and equipment on their way through the facility. They reached the Main Nest Hall and confronted Li Chen’s headless figure beneath a projection of the starry sky.

• Fang Weiqi urged the fleeing Immortal Alliance cultivators to continue fighting by destroying Li Chen’s supplies and resources.
• Ling Qingyan questioned how they could attack while trapped in a Grand Formation that suppressed their cultivation.
• Li Chen warned the cultivators that he would not let them succeed easily, and Fang Weiqi ordered everyone to act quickly.
• The Immortal Alliance cultivators charged into the Spare Embryo Chambers and smashed Mechanism Puppets, Reserve Bodies, and equipment.
• Li Chen recognized that the attack on his material resources could threaten him, but wondered whether the cultivators had another plan.
• The cultivators arrived at the Main Nest Hall and saw Heavenly Pivot’s Light Orb, a projection of the starry sky, and Li Chen’s headless figure as two attendants drew their swords.

The Immortal Alliance experts attacked Li Chen’s lair but could not overcome the Grand Formation or its defenses, while the Puppet Sisters cut them down. Nan Wu’s attempt to activate Great Elder Hong’s Edict Talisman failed, and the remaining experts faced defeat.

• Xia Ziyi, Fang Weiqi, Han Qing, and Nan Wu identified the headless figure and light orb as unusual, but Xiao Die and Xiao Ying attacked them before they could investigate further.
• Fang Weiqi urged the group to destroy the lair, and their spells proved ineffective against Heavenly Pivot’s force field and the reinforced hall.
• Nan Wu secretly cast a spell as Xiao Die and Xiao Ying wounded the experts; Xiao Die killed Han Qing and severed Fang Weiqi’s arm, while Xiao Ying pinned Fang Weiqi against the wall.
• Fang Weiqi hoped Nan Wu’s spell would succeed, but the bloody markings faded, and Fang Weiqi realized Great Elder Hong had betrayed them before Xiao Ying killed him.
• Nan Wu discovered that Great Elder Hong’s Edict Talisman had stopped working as Ling Qingyan, Xia Ziyi, and Yi Jinfang struggled against the Puppet Sisters and were nearly wiped out.

Li Chen killed Xia Ziyi and faced Hong An, who defended the Immortal Alliance’s sacrifice of its forces as a way to learn Li Chen’s capabilities. The Alliance’s three Primordial Spirit Great Powers then launched an assault on the Giant Kun, and Li Chen retaliated with devastating attacks that battered their formation.

• Li Chen refused to spare Xia Ziyi, and Xiao Die and Xiao Ying killed him when he attacked Li Chen.
• Hong An appeared and condemned the Puppet Dao, then acknowledged that the Immortal Alliance had used its fallen elders as expendable pawns to gather information about Li Chen.
• Heavenly Pivot warned Li Chen that the forces around the Giant Kun had changed formation as the Heavenly Dao Four Swords struck and wounded it.
• Hong An, Zong Yiyang, and Pei Bairen led the Alliance’s outside assault, intending to restrain and weaken Li Chen rather than kill him.
• Li Chen used the Giant Kun to unleash stellar fusion, divine light, and missiles, damaging the Alliance’s formation and forcing its Great Powers to defend themselves.

King Demon Dragon and Li Chen’s forces fought to repel Immortal Alliance invaders across materialized heaven and the Azure Billow Immortal Abode. As Black Spirit’s defenders gained the advantage, Li Chen’s production network rapidly assembled machines and bred new insect troops to reinforce the battle.

• King Demon Dragon used the Mysterious Water True Art to poison and kill an Immortal Alliance cultivator while battling three half-step Nascent Soul invaders in Lesser Unity Heaven.
• General Hundred Teeth, King Iron Armor, King Giant Claw, Madam Snake, White Bone Madam, King Golden Armor, and King Silver Armor fought Immortal Alliance forces in Equal Heaven as Li Chen’s legions halted their advance.
• Heavenly Pivot scattered the Immortal Alliance elites during Void Transfer, allowing Black Spirit and the Puppet Legion to ambush and gradually overwhelm them inside the Azure Billow Immortal Abode.
• Li Chen’s Workshops and Production Yards assembled Patrol Mountain Cranes and Quadcopter Drone Flying Discs, which transport aircraft delivered to the battlefields.
• Insect Queens in the Underground Base rapidly produced eggs that incubated into mutant larvae, most of which were bred as Flying Ya for aerial combat.

Li Chen’s industrialized production kept his forces replenished until the Immortal Alliance’s exhausted cultivators began to lose ground. After the formation isolating the battlefield broke, Great Elder Hong and the other two Great Powers retreated, but Li Chen pursued them.

• Li Chen used creation law, the Giant Kun, and extensive factories to continuously manufacture troops, components, and supplies.
• The Immortal Alliance cultivators found their enemies’ numbers kept growing as Black Spirit and elite troops attacked amid the cannon fodder.
• A fresh wave of troops unleashed Divine Thunder, killing a key Nascent Soul Expert and breaking the Heavenly Dao Sword Formation.
• Heavenly Pivot told Li Chen that contact with the outside world had returned, though only ten breaths had passed outside during ten hours within.
• Great Elder Hong and the other two Great Powers gathered their forces and the Heavenly Dao Four Swords, then fled into Materialized Heaven.
• Li Chen sent his Combat Body after the retreating Great Powers.

Li Chen confronted Zong Yiyang, Hong An, and Pei Bairen after pursuing the Immortal Alliance forces through the Chaos Void. Zong Yiyang’s thunder attack seemed to annihilate Li Chen, but he regenerated in a way that left Hong An suspecting he could create things from nothing.

• Li Chen caught up with the three Immortal Alliance Great Powers and declared that they should stay and fight.
• Hong An and Zong Yiyang discussed Li Chen’s unusual longevity and decided to destroy his Mechanical Body before returning.
• Zong Yiyang transformed into a thunder giant and attacked Li Chen with Heaven-Seal Three-Yin Thunder.
• Li Chen dodged, but the lightning sphere followed him and detonated, melting his body under its destructive force.
• Li Chen’s body reassembled, and Hong An recognized his Mustard-Seed Puppets before realizing that Li Chen had been completely annihilated and then recreated from nothing.

Li Chen fought the Immortal Alliance Great Powers with a Mechanical Body and a Power of Law that created matter from nothing. Zong Yiyang and Hong An deduced the limits of his power, but Li Chen revealed that his Heavenly Ghost Dharma Body let him attack despite their correct deductions.

• Li Chen used his Power of Law to create a Mechanical Body and unleash Solar Divine Fists against Hong An, Zong Yiyang, and Pei Bairen.
• Hong An explained that Li Chen's creation power was limited to mortal materials and the range of his true body's direct observation.
• Zong Yiyang realized Li Chen's Combat Body was a disguise and that his hidden Divine Incarnations were connected to his observation range.
• Zong Yiyang dragged a tentacled phantom from the void, and Pei Bairen split it apart with the Autumn Water Divine Sword.
• An arm pierced Zong Yiyang, and Li Chen appeared as a translucent phantom and said his partially mastered Heavenly Ghost Dharma Body had let him strike.

Li Chen used his Heavenly Ghost-like ability to create numerous avatars and revealed that the three Immortal Alliance Great Powers struggled to counter him. After Pei Bairen destroyed the avatars with his Intent Sword, Li Chen chose to focus his assault on Zong Yiyang.

• Li Chen explained how his observer-like power let him shift between existence and nothingness and create avatars from ordinary materials.
• Pei Bairen used Intent Sword, Heart Slash to destroy all of Li Chen's avatars by attacking their shared causal identity.
• Li Chen recognized the limits of Pei Bairen's attack and claimed that he could not be harmed by the three Great Powers' methods.
• Li Chen created another avatar beside Zong Yiyang and targeted him, judging him the easiest of the three to attack.

As Shen Longcheng, Pan Ning, and Wu Fangdao rushed to aid Li Chen, they found him holding off three Immortal Alliance Great Powers. Their arrival let Li Chen isolate Zong Yiyang, whose Dao Body and Primordial Spirit he destroyed, though Zong Yiyang's True Spirit escaped.

• Shen Longcheng, Pan Ning, and Wu Fangdao hurried through the Chaos Void, worrying that Li Chen might be outmatched by the three attackers.
• The three Grandmasters arrived to find Li Chen using his manifestations and Void Creation law to pressure the Immortal Alliance Great Powers.
• Li Chen asked Shen Longcheng and the others to occupy Hong An and Pei Bairen while he dealt with Zong Yiyang.
• Li Chen secretly transmuted Zong Yiyang's body into Grand Void Spirit Iron and detonated it, destroying his Dao Body.
• Li Chen stunned Zong Yiyang's Primordial Spirit, dragged it into Chaos with Corrupting Shadow, and devoured it while Zong Yiyang's True Spirit escaped into the Void.

Li Chen and his allies defeated the Immortal Alliance’s invasion, though thousands of his subjects died. The attack left him resolved to destroy the Immortal Alliance and the Spell Dao, and he vowed to annihilate spells and eradicate immortals.

• Li Chen gravely wounded Zong Yiyang, while Hong An and Pei Bairen fled; Shen Longcheng persuaded Li Chen not to pursue them.
• Heavenly Pivot reported that the defenders had killed twenty Nascent Soul cultivators and wiped out most of the invading Immortal Alliance forces, though a small group escaped.
• Li Chen learned that 5,654 people on his side had died and lamented the loss of subjects he had hoped to raise into Great Powers.
• Mei Xuan tried to comfort Li Chen, but he declared that he would destroy the Immortal Alliance, annihilate spells, and eradicate immortals.

After the Immortal Alliance attack, Li Chen weighed his principles against the need to eliminate enemies and ordered the dead honored rather than turned into puppets. As Materialized Heaven mourned its losses and demanded retaliation, he prepared to unite its people against the Immortal Alliance and the Spell Dao.

• Li Chen learned that Han Li had defeated the Sword Saint's incarnation, then ordered the enemy corpses cremated and buried after collecting samples and confiscating their possessions.
• Han Li asked why Li Chen had not spared Xia Ziyi, and Li Chen explained that forcibly changing Xia Ziyi's will would only cause him suffering.
• Mei Xuan reported that Materialized Heaven's subjects had been reassured, while Bu Qingyun and others petitioned Li Chen to retaliate against the Immortal Alliance.
• Li Chen told them to wait until the dead had been buried, then ordered a grand funeral and used public opinion to stoke hatred of the Immortal Alliance and the Spell Dao.

After Li Chen announced he would join the war in the Central Sea, he investigated how the Immortal Alliance had infiltrated Materialized Heaven and discovered signs that profiteers had helped expose its logistics channel. Xia Yutang, one of those profiteers, sought Pang Huo’s protection as Li Chen began searching for everyone involved.

• Li Chen’s survival and decision to join the war alarmed Immortal Alliance factions, and some Central Sea clans considered switching allegiance to the Puppet Dao.
• Li Chen questioned how the Immortal Alliance had placed transfer markers inside Materialized Heaven, while Heavenly Pivot implicated merchants and people who had stockpiled grand void spirit iron.
• Li Chen vowed to find everyone involved and sacrifice them to consecrate his war banner.
• Xia Yutang grew frightened as Materialized Heaven traced the attack’s supply leak back toward its source.
• Pang Huo rebuked Xia Yutang for scheming against Li Chen but agreed to help because of an old debt to Xia Yutang’s grandfather, telling him to provide the accomplices’ names and distance himself from the affair.