Chapter Summaries

After Li Chen achieved Void Refinement and Dao Unification, his growing power shook the Central Sea and drew the attention of powerful figures across the Myriad Heavens. They gathered around a terrifying Minor Universe, where Han Tong recognized someone was uniting with the Dao, while Great Elder Hong suspected that a mysterious force had erased their memories of the person responsible.

• Li Chen realized that the Third-Generation Sea Emperor might have caused the Blue Sea Water Realm's disasters and recognized that his own growing power could pose a similar danger.
• The surging ripples from Li Chen's power shook the Central Sea, prompting Great Elder Shen, Pan Ning, and other Great Powers to investigate.
• Great Elder Hong realized that a mysterious force had altered his memories and set out to uncover the identity behind the power he had called Heavenly Ghost.
• Cultivators from across the Myriad Heavens gathered in the Equal Sea Domain and saw a seven-colored Minor Universe enveloping a region of stars.
• Han Tong identified the Minor Universe as evidence that someone was uniting with the Dao, and Great Elder Hong asked whether they might simply have forgotten who it was.

Great Elder Hong suspected that a heavenly ghost was involved in the disturbance and urged the Puppet Dao to investigate, while Shen Longcheng refused to reveal whether Dancing Maiden could confront it. After the Immortal Alliance’s Elder Gong entered the strange bubble, the Puppet Dao sent its own team of Puppeteers and Yellow Turban Strongmen inside.

• Great Elder Hong told Shen Longcheng that the Puppet Dao might harbor a heavenly ghost responsible for the being achieving union with the Dao.
• Great Elder Hong suggested that Dancing Maiden could contend with the entity, but Shen Longcheng accused him of trying to get her sent into the dangerous area.
• At Great Elder Hong’s command, Elder Gong and several Core Formation Cultivators entered the rainbow-colored bubble as the Immortal Alliance’s vanguard.
• Han Tong summoned six Yellow Turban Strongmen and assigned Puppet Dao Puppeteers to follow Elder Gong inside.
• Shen Longcheng granted the Puppet Dao team access to the Sect Treasury so they could summon battle puppets, and they departed.

Li Chen discovered that people outside Materialized Heaven could no longer perceive or comprehend his existence, and he hesitated to use his new Dao Fruit to restore their memories. As forces attacked Giant Kun, he chose to wait and test whether they could see him.

• Mei Xuan noticed that the Immortal Alliance and Puppet Dao had sent forces into the area around the bubbles, and Li Chen ordered Heavenly Pivot to tell them what had happened.
• Heavenly Pivot sent information about Li Chen as a Memory Meme, but the scouts froze after suffering abnormal Divine Sense fluctuations.
• Li Chen explained that his existence had become taboo to people outside Heaven and that restoring their memories could require dangerous use of his Dao Fruit.
• Mei Xuan asked whether Han Li could recover her memories, and Li Chen said it depended on her fortune while admitting he did not want her to be used as a pawn.
• When the forces attacked Giant Kun, Li Chen told Heavenly Pivot to wait and appeared before the attackers, who did not notice him.

After attaining the Heavenly Dao Realm, Li Chen discovered that his will had become part of the laws governing the Myriad Heavens and Worlds, and he spotted nine black coffins hidden over the Earthly Immortal Continent. Meanwhile, investigators failed to damage the Giant Kun, whose neutron-star armor revealed the overwhelming power of Li Chen’s Bone Kun Warship.

• Li Chen realized that attaining the Dao had made him an existence beyond ordinary comprehension, and that information about him had been restored except for his true spirit.
• Li Chen sensed the interwoven laws of the Myriad Heavens and Worlds, discovered other minor universes and powerful beings, and found nine black coffins near the Earthly Immortal Continent.
• Li Chen suspected the nine coffins were the Immortal Alliance’s hidden reserves that Great Elder Shen had mentioned.
• Elder Gong and the others attacked the Giant Kun, but their spells and abilities left its silvery-white surface unmarked.
• The Puppeteers struck the Giant Kun with Divine Thunder, then one Puppeteer broke his arm against its neutron-star armor, leaving the witnesses stunned.

Li Chen discovered that awareness of him was necessary for him to affect the outside world, while Mei Xuan tested whether others remembered her. The Puppet Dao Grandmasters uncovered evidence of Li Chen’s erased influence, and Nan Fengchai contacted them, asking why they did not recognize him.

• Li Chen realized that his existence depended on others retaining awareness of him, then returned to study his Heavenly Dao incarnation.
• Mei Xuan contacted Shen Longcheng and the Puppet Dao Grandmasters, warned them that their perceptions had been altered, and recounted Li Chen’s deeds.
• Shen Longcheng and the others used the Falsehood Divine Mirror, which confirmed Mei Xuan was telling the truth.
• The Grandmasters found traces of Li Chen’s influence throughout the Puppet Dao and began to accept that their memories and history had been changed.
• The Grandmasters debated whether to invite the Dancing Maiden to investigate when Nan Fengchai contacted them and asked why they did not recognize Grandmaster Li.

Nan Fengchai discovered that everyone’s memories of Li Chen had been altered and joined Shen Longcheng in seeking a mathematical way to communicate with him. He returned to the Mathematics Institute to study an incompleteness theorem, while Li Chen watched his research and approved of its potential to reveal the limits of cognition.

• Nan Fengchai confronted Shen Longcheng about the altered memories and historical records that erased Li Chen’s achievements.
• Nan Fengchai said he trusted mathematics and his own reasoning, and Shen Longcheng agreed that mathematics might help them recover awareness of Li Chen.
• Shen Longcheng asked Nan Fengchai to find a mathematical bridge for communication and warned him not to enter Materialized Heaven or contact Li Chen directly.
• Nan Fengchai explained that the flaw might belong to an individual or an axiomatic system, then returned to his institute to research an incompleteness theorem with his students and experts.
• Li Chen observed Nan Fengchai’s research and recognized that the theorem could establish a cognitive Dao Fruit and reveal the limits of an axiomatic system.

Li Chen completed the True Knowledge Dharma Eye, while Nan Fengchai independently mastered its law through the mathematical proof. Shen Longcheng and other Puppet Dao Grandmasters learned a lesser version, recovered their memories of Li Chen, and met him in the virtual heaven, where they learned he had reached the realm of Immortals and Gods.

• Li Chen derived the True Knowledge Art and completed the True Knowledge Dharma Eye by forming the true knowledge law.
• Nan Fengchai mastered the true knowledge law, while his fellow researchers gained enhanced spirituality and potential.
• Shen Longcheng, Han Tong, and Ke Ruo learned the True Knowledge Art and recovered their memories of Li Chen.
• Shen Longcheng and the others shared those memories with Pan Ning, Pang Huo, Wu Fangdao, and Youxuan, who then understood what had happened.
• Nan Fengchai and several Grandmasters met Li Chen in the virtual space, where Shen Longcheng asked whether he had become a Heavenly Ghost and attained the realm of Immortals and Gods.
• Shen Longcheng excitedly asked whether Li Chen's attainment could let the Puppet Dao surpass the Spell Dao and end the Immortal Alliance's dominance.

Li Chen explained that his Heavenly Ghost Dharma Body transcended cognition by existing in the unknown, then the Puppet Dao recognized Nan Fengchai as a Grandmaster candidate. As the Immortal Alliance failed to enter the minor universe, Great Elder Hong decided to investigate in person and chose Zong Yiyang to accompany him.

• Li Chen described how his Heavenly Ghost Dharma Body used laws of memory and mind to transcend cognition and exist beyond the limits of reason.
• Li Chen discussed his Creation Divine Ability and neutron star matter, then noted that Nan Fengchai had advanced through the Way of Mathematics.
• Shen Longcheng named Nan Fengchai a Grandmaster candidate and seated him among the Great Elders.
• Immortal Alliance scouts reported that the Puppet Dao had entered the minor universe while their own exploration team was blocked.
• Hong An decided to enter and investigate personally, asked Zong Yiyang to accompany him, and Zong Yiyang agreed.

Great Elder Hong and Zong Yiyang led an Immortal Alliance party through the Bone Kun Warship’s neutron star matter shell and discovered Li Chen’s Materialized Heaven. Hong An remembered that Li Chen was another Puppet Dao Grandmaster, but Li Chen’s forces surrounded them as Zong Yiyang launched an attack.

• Great Elder Hong and Zong Yiyang set out with elderly Immortal Alliance cultivators to breach the Bone Kun Warship’s shell.
• Zong Yiyang used the Myriad Worlds Banner to carry the party through the neutron star matter and into the Materialized Heaven.
• Li Chen noticed the intruders and ordered Heavenly Pivot to send out the mechanical legion.
• Hong An recognized the Materialized Heaven and remembered Li Chen’s identity, warning the party that the Puppet Dao was plotting a monstrous conspiracy.
• Li Chen told the party they could not leave, and Hong An warned that Li Chen was another Puppet Dao Grandmaster.
• Zong Yiyang unleashed Heaven-Seal Three-Yin Thunder at the approaching warships.

Zong Yiyang and Hong An’s Immortal Alliance forces were overwhelmed by the Puppet Dao’s automated fleet, while Li Chen weighed the threat Hong An posed despite the peace treaty. As the defense mechanisms trapped the remaining cultivators, Hong An ignited his primordial spirit to attack the web of laws and called for Zong Yiyang to act.

• Zong Yiyang and Hong An withdrew the weaker Immortal Alliance cultivators from the battlefield with the Myriad Worlds Banner.
• Li Chen let the retreating cultivators go but worried that Hong An’s divination had revealed his existence and told Heavenly Pivot to handle the battle.
• Heavenly Pivot activated hidden automated defenses, which caught Zong Yiyang, Hong An, and the remaining Nascent Soul Experts in converging light-speed attacks.
• Hong An burned his primordial spirit with a life-staking secret technique and urged Zong Yiyang to act.

Great Elder Hong sacrificed his primordial spirit to attack Li Chen’s Mindscape Wasteland, but the chaotic information from his death strengthened it instead. Li Chen then defeated Zong Yiyang as the minor universe expanded, and sensed that their Dao Fruits were beginning to take form within it.

• Zong Yiyang used the Myriad Worlds Banner to hurl Great Elder Hong’s burning primordial spirit at Li Chen’s laws, injuring his Heavenly Dao incarnation.
• Li Chen expanded the Mindscape Wasteland, absorbing Great Elder Hong’s chaotic information and Dao Essence until the elder’s consciousness was devoured.
• Zong Yiyang tried to escape with the Myriad Worlds Banner, but Li Chen’s expanded minor universe trapped him.
• Li Chen’s Heavenly Dao power erased Zong Yiyang’s memories and consciousness, and the wasteland absorbed his remnant soul, laws, and Dao Fruit.
• Li Chen sensed that the Dao Fruits of Great Elder Hong and Zong Yiyang were condensing within the chaos.

Dharma King Yuanhao and the Immortal Alliance realized that Li Chen’s Heavenly Ghost Dao had sealed his existence from the world’s fundamental information, affecting memories and awareness. They resolved to expose him to everyone, but ordinary cultivators could only accept his past existence through records and gradually returned to their former ignorance.

• Dharma King Yuanhao and Lin Xi reasoned that a power capable of sealing information could explain the mysterious deaths and the world’s altered memories.
• Dharma King Yuanhao identified Li Chen as the Heavenly Ghost behind the information seal, and the others briefly remembered him as Great Elder Hong’s sacrifice had broken its hold.
• The Immortal Alliance concluded that records and preserved memories could not overcome Li Chen’s Dao without an equal power at the level of laws.
• Dharma King Yuanhao urged the Immortal Alliance to warn everyone about Li Chen, and the group unanimously agreed to leave him nowhere to hide.
• Primordial Spirit Great Powers spread records of Li Chen, allowing lower-ranking cultivators to believe he had existed before they gradually returned to their former understanding.

Li Chen explained how the Puppet Dao’s information and logistics networks had improved life for ordinary people, then argued that cultivation’s private ownership of supernatural power was the core contradiction behind inequality. He left the elders considering whether his power of Dharma's decline could help carry his reforms further.

• Li Chen shared memories of his journeys and described how unequal access to resources and regional development had entrenched divisions in the cultivation world.
• Li Chen credited mechanical intelligence, the Puppet World Heavenly Net, and teleportation logistics with spreading information and material goods, while others acknowledged the benefits of industrialization and the Cultivation Academy.
• Great Elder Shen questioned why Li Chen had to cultivate the power of Dharma's decline despite supporting his other reforms.
• Li Chen distinguished public ownership from private ownership and argued that individuals’ need to protect their own cultivation resources wasted talent and opportunities.
• Li Chen admitted that equality across the myriad heavens was impractical because selfish instincts would produce conflict, but said private control of supernatural power was the contradiction his reforms must address.
• Li Chen said cultivation industrialization was advancing and ordinary households were beginning to use Mechanisms, then suggested his power of Dharma's decline might take the reforms further.

Li Chen explained that cultivation mortalization meant turning cultivators’ powers toward productive labor and collective development, then argued that this transformation could lead through Dharma’s Decline to a flourishing age of cultivation. His ideas challenged cultivators’ belief in individual transcendence, and Shen Longcheng began connecting them to the Perfect Person Project and the million great powers.

• Shen Longcheng reconsidered Li Chen’s proposal and listened as Li Chen described cultivators as mortals who had mastered power and argued for collective development and division of labor.
• Li Chen argued that divine abilities and spells should serve production, and that nature and ordinary life already displayed such powers.
• Ke Ruo warned that taking this idea further would make cultivators seem like even greater evil fiends, and Li Chen explained his plan to bring about Dharma’s Decline and correct the world’s understanding of the Dao.
• Li Chen described the Dao as the mind’s engagement with the world and said that collective effort could surpass individual cultivators’ power and transcendence.
• Shen Longcheng connected Li Chen’s argument to the Perfect Person Project and the million great powers.

Li Chen defended cultivation mortalization as a gradual way to improve society and cultivation, not an attempt to force everyone into perfect equality. He acknowledged that an ideal society was impossible but insisted that the Dao lay in continuing the path, and Han Tong was moved by his argument.

• Li Chen described how the Puppet Dao's industrial methods and shared knowledge had strengthened cultivators and made the creation of many Great Powers feasible.
• Han Tong argued that cultivation mortalization would destroy transcendence, discard useful powers, and make people resemble worker bees or ants, while Ke Ruo silently agreed.
• Li Chen admitted that materialized heaven could not eliminate human differences and that an absolutely ideal society was impossible.
• Li Chen rejected relying on reincarnation and argued that a better social environment could improve productive capacity and thought, even if the path had no final end.
• Han Tong understood that Li Chen knew the limits of his ideal yet remained committed to gradual improvement, and he was moved by the explanation.

Li Chen prepared to spread Dharma’s Decline across the Myriad Heavens and build mortal technologies that could function without spiritual energy. After a leaked report alarmed the Immortal Alliance, Dharma King Yuanhao called for the opening of the Immortal Coffins, a move the alliance’s leaders feared as their last resort.

• Li Chen told Mei Xuan that the grandmasters’ concerns would not change his plans and identified the Immortal Alliance’s unusual silence as a greater threat.
• Li Chen outlined plans to expand his law domain and prepare mathematics, communications, logistics, and alternative energy technologies for a spiritless age.
• A verbatim report of Li Chen’s discussion reached the Immortal Alliance, whose leaders feared he would transform the Myriad Heavens and undermine cultivators.
• Dharma King Yuanhao ordered the Immortal Coffins opened, while Pei Bairen questioned the decision and Fu Changsheng objected.
• Kong Haoyuan asked the alliance’s leaders to explain the Immortal Coffins and the secret they had guarded for over ten million years.

Fu Changsheng explained that the Immortal Coffins contained calamities from past eras, and Lin Xi traced the repeating rise and fall of civilizations. They concluded that Li Chen and the Puppet Dao might be signs of another world-ending catastrophe, while the struggle over finite cultivation resources threatened to tear the cultivation world apart.

• Fu Changsheng revealed that the Immortal Coffins were remnants of bygone eras, with the oldest dating to before the Shamanic Practitioners and the Primordial Era.
• Lin Xi recounted the succession of eras and apocalyptic calamities, showing that each new age had followed the destruction of the last.
• Fu Changsheng warned that Li Chen and the rise of the Puppet Dao might herald another immense catastrophe, and that conventional power could not oppose the era's momentum.
• Fu Changsheng said that expanding cultivation had intensified competition for finite resources and that the next era might favor mortals skilled in the Hundred Crafts and Mechanism Arts.
• The group recognized that new technologies and mass access to extraordinary power were widening the divide between traditional cultivators and those who relied on external tools.
• Fu Changsheng explained that Li Chen sought Dharma's Decline to avert a crisis, but that his goals and the interests of cultivators could drive the world toward conflict.

Fu Changsheng explained that the Immortal Coffins contained Guixu, the remains of collapsed universes, and warned that opening them could bring both spiritual revival and unknown calamities. He revealed that the coffins had been opened a million years earlier, giving rise to the Eastern Victory and Righteous Qi Immortal Mountains and helping avert the Earthly Immortal Continent’s destruction.

• Pressed by the alliance members, Fu Changsheng revealed that the Immortal Coffins contained Guixu, the corpse of Heaven and Earth.
• Fu Changsheng explained that Guixu held the essence, consciousness, powers, and calamities of a destroyed epoch, so opening it could benefit the present age or unleash disaster.
• Fu Changsheng said the Immortal Coffins formed when an epoch ended and gathered its matter, energy, and information, and that their effects could not be controlled.
• Lin Xi asked whether the coffins had ever been opened, and Fu Changsheng disclosed that they had been opened a million years earlier.
• Fu Changsheng said that opening the coffins caused a spiritual energy revival and brought forth the Eastern Victory Immortal Mountain and the Righteous Qi Immortal Mountain.
• Dharma King Yuanhao said the Earthly Immortal Continent survived that upheaval and that the Immortal Alliance was born, suggesting the earlier opening had prevented the worst outcome.

The Immortal Alliance debated whether to open the sealed Immortal Coffins, weighing the possible return of the Immortal Dao against the dangers of ancient spirits and calamities. As the Great Powers considered monitoring the coffins and opening them if a tenth appeared, the tenth Immortal Coffin suddenly manifested.

• Dharma King Yuanhao proposed opening the Immortal Coffins to disrupt the Puppet Dao and possibly revive immortal spirituality.
• Fu Changsheng warned that the Immortal Dao’s return could bring back karmic obstructions, tribulations, and other ancient dangers.
• Pei Bairen cautioned that reincarnated spirits might displace the present age and consume the spirituality of current cultivators’ true spirits.
• The Immortal Alliance ended its debate without a decision, though Daoist Shangyuan proposed preparing for other solutions while monitoring the coffins and opening them if a tenth appeared.
• Fu Changsheng and the other Great Powers sensed a change in the Chaos Void and saw the tenth Immortal Coffin emerge.
• Daoist Shangyuan regretted suggesting that they watch for a tenth coffin.

Li Chen refined his magic power and created a powerful neutron-dharma-body incarnation loaded with spells and technological enhancements. He directed Yu Bao and the others to investigate spiritual roots, the remaining obstacle to freely casting the abilities he had integrated.

• Li Chen ordered Heavenly Pivot to summon Han Li back and silently restored her awareness of him before ordering her to return to Materialized Heaven.
• Li Chen modified Xiao Die and Xiao Ying with neutron dharma bodies and created a new incarnation with Painted Skin and numerous Divine Ability Mechanism Devices and memory modules.
• Li Chen concluded that memory integration required advanced Spirit-Particle-Converted Brain technology and that his incarnation could not freely cast every spell without the corresponding spiritual roots.
• Li Chen told Heavenly Pivot to share his relevant memories with Yu Bao and the others and instructed them to investigate the mysteries of five-element spiritual roots.