Chapter Summaries

Fang Qianyuan continued expanding his influence in the Jianmu World while the Demon Alliance’s internal strife led Whitebrow Ancestor and a large force of experts to seek entry into the Cloud Summit Alliance. The alliance’s leaders gathered to discuss accepting them, and Fang Qianyuan condemned their eagerness to compete for Whitebrow Ancestor’s allegiance.

• Fang Qianyuan told Bai Aoxue that he could risk seizing the Jianmu World’s Heavenly Dao authority because he had other ways to conquer the world and use its power to cultivate the Dao Unification method.
• Fang Qianyuan’s domain in the Jianmu World expanded to more than a hundred li, and he ordered the Expeditionary Corps to stay away from it.
• After renewed conflict between the Two Sects, the Demon Alliance, and the Heavenly Dao Alliance, Whitebrow Ancestor decided to leave the Demon Alliance and offer his group’s service to the Cloud Summit Alliance.
• Whitebrow Ancestor offered to serve a faction as an Attendant Elder, bringing renowned masters, Earth Rank experts, and nearly ten thousand Human Rank Disciples with him.
• The Cloud Summit Alliance’s leaders met in the Bright Hall on Cloud Summit Peak to discuss Whitebrow Ancestor’s offer, and Fang Qianyuan criticized them for competing to recruit him.

Whitebrow Ancestor sought a safe patron in the Cloud Summit Alliance while using negotiations to test how the Righteous Path would receive his faction. After the Heavenly Dao Alliance offered three possible arrangements, Sun Zhuo revealed that Venerable Fang had no intention of accepting them.

• Zhu Hong and Liu Shitu discussed Whitebrow Ancestor's plan to defect and his preference for the Night King or the Heavenly Origin Association.
• Zhu Hong and Liu Shitu received Zhou Yin, who presented three options for Whitebrow Ancestor's faction to join the Cloud Summit Alliance.
• Zhu Hong and Liu Shitu concluded that the offers would not give Whitebrow Ancestor the security he wanted, so he would still need to negotiate with powerful faction leaders.
• Zhou Yin returned to Cloud Summit Peak and reported to Sun Zhuo, who said the defectors lacked sincerity and had unsettled their alliance.
• Zhou Yin asked what Venerable Fang thought, and Sun Zhuo revealed that Venerable Fang did not intend to accept Whitebrow Ancestor's faction.

Fang Qianyuan's hardline conditions for Whitebrow Ancestor's entry into the Cloud Summit Alliance met resistance, and he later grew angry at the factions that challenged him. He decided to jolt the Alliance awake using the Star Maps now in his possession.

• Fang Qianyuan defended his three admission conditions, while Li Dan and the Night King warned that they could alienate Whitebrow Ancestor and his followers.
• King Mu and several sect envoys argued that the Alliance should try to win Whitebrow Ancestor over, and the assembly ended without agreement.
• At the Central Preservation Palace, Fang Qianyuan dismissed the Alliance leaders' objections and explained to Bai Aoxue that Grand Elder Tian Heng now prioritized the expedition and longevity.
• Fang Qianyuan concluded that familiarity had made his allies insolent and resolved to jolt them awake, noting that he held all the Star Maps.
• Bai Aoxue sensed Fang Qianyuan's growing power and wondered whether he was really going to act.

Fang Yue learned where Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng were hiding and set out to hunt them, unaware that the Exalted One had allowed her to pursue them as a trial and intended their deaths. Yan Zhou returned to the pair’s mountain refuge, where Li Yan confronted them.

• Fei Ren told Fang Yue that Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng had been found in a market district in western Central Province, and she prepared to pursue them.
• A Snow Wolf Guard told Fei Ren that the Exalted One wanted Fang Yue to face the two men as a trial and intended to kill them.
• Yan Zhou bought spirit medicines and gathered information in Cloud-Swallowing Market before returning to the mountain camp he shared with Fang Yicheng.
• Yan Zhou told Fang Yicheng that their sect had joined the Alliance and that they might travel to the Jianmu World after the current turmoil passed.
• Li Yan appeared on a cliff and confronted Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng, prompting Yan Zhou to recognize her as the Red Dust Sword Hero.

Li Yan confronted Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng for their crimes of slaughtering civilians to refine corpse soldiers. She cut through their forces with her sword, but as Yan Zhou taunted her with the corpse generals, a streak of sword light suddenly shot toward his skull.

• Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng recognized Li Yan, the Red Dust Sword Hero, and prepared their corpse soldiers for battle.
• Li Yan declared that Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng would face the law for their crimes, while they relied on their Profound Yin Sect backing and alliance ambitions.
• Yan Zhou summoned blood corpses and flying corpses, while Fang Yicheng sent copper corpses and iron corpses to attack Li Yan.
• Li Yan drew her sword and swiftly destroyed the flying corpses and many of the other corpse soldiers.
• Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng unleashed their stronger Earth Rank corpse generals, and Yan Zhou taunted Li Yan about her limited spirit essence and the generals' past identities.
• A streak of sword light flew into the valley and shot toward Yan Zhou's skull.

Fang Yue and Li Yan led an elite squad into the valley, where they fought Yan Zhou and Fang Yicheng. Li Yan killed Fang Yicheng, while Fang Yue’s thunder talisman buried Yan Zhou beneath the shattered mountaintop.

• Yan Zhou was wounded by Fang Yue’s Flowing Light Flying Sword and used the blood of his corpses to regenerate his eye.
• Fang Yue’s elite guards cleared the valley as she repeatedly attacked Yan Zhou with her flying sword.
• Yan Zhou sent corpse puppets and flying corpses against Fang Yue, but Fei Ren and the warriors destroyed them.
• Fang Yue’s sword cut across Yan Zhou’s chest, while Li Yan pierced Fang Yicheng’s heart and killed him.
• Yan Zhou fled toward the cave, but Fang Yue tore a talisman and unleashed falling thunder that buried him beneath boulders.

Fang Yue reunited with Li Yan after helping capture Yan Zhou, and Li Yan praised her persistence in hunting the criminals. After Fang Yue went to interrogate Yan Zhou, Li Yan confronted Fei Ren about whether someone had maneuvered her into the encounter, then let him leave without pressing further.

• Fei Ren and the Warriors shackled Yan Zhou with sealing talismans and enchanted restraints and took him alive.
• Fang Yue reunited with Li Yan and explained that she had tracked the two Unorthodox Path experts for more than half a year.
• Li Yan learned that the Corpse Puppets had been refined from people the criminals killed and praised Fang Yue for her determination.
• Li Yan sent Fang Yue to help interrogate Yan Zhou about the pair's crimes.
• Li Yan stopped Fei Ren and questioned him about whether he had arranged for her to encounter the Profound Yin Sect members, then dismissed him.

Fang Yue and Li Yan brought Yan Zhou to Cloud Summit Peak, where the Heavenly Dao Alliance and the Unorthodox Path’s sects clashed over who had the authority to judge him. The Profound Yin Sect and its allies pressed for Yan Zhou to be returned to their control as the dispute moved into the alliance assembly.

• Wu Longjie learned that Fang Yue had captured Yan Zhou and arranged for an escort to meet her and Li Yan.
• The Profound Yin Sect and other Unorthodox Path sects agreed to oppose Yan Zhou’s execution under the Heavenly Dao Alliance’s authority.
• Fang Yue and Li Yan escorted Yan Zhou to Cloud Summit Peak, completing the handover without incident.
• The Profound Yin Sect protested at the alliance assembly and demanded the right to punish Yan Zhou itself.
• The Profound Yin Sect’s elders lobbied the Righteous Path, while the Netherworld Sect firmly backed its Western Plains ally.

The Heavenly Dao Alliance interrogated Yan Zhou over the mass deaths caused by his plague and corpse soldiers in the Yingshan Kingdom, then sentenced him to death. Yan Zhou remained confident he would survive until Wu Longjie revealed that Fang Yue had brought him back.

• Wu Longjie and the Heavenly Dao Alliance's stewards and elders questioned Yan Zhou in a heavily guarded room.
• A steward recounted Yan Zhou's role in spreading plague and unleashing corpse soldiers in the Yingshan Kingdom, where millions died.
• The Heavenly Dao Alliance sentenced Yan Zhou to be annihilated beneath five thunderbolts at noon the next day.
• An elder told Yan Zhou that the mighty powers treated people like chess pieces and that he had no say in his execution.
• Yan Zhou predicted he would not die at their hands, and Wu Longjie revealed that Fang Yue had brought him back, stunning him.

The Demon Alliance and the Five Sects of the Unorthodox Path gathered to plan Yan Zhou’s rescue, but found that Fang Qianyuan’s influence had blocked their connections. As Yan Zhou was led toward his public execution, an unidentified group intercepted the escort and forced the proceedings to be postponed.

• Elder Tang, Elder Wu, and the other factions’ elders concluded that Fang Qianyuan was likely behind Yan Zhou’s impending execution and agreed that the Profound Yin Sect had to act.
• Elder Ji accepted that the factions could delay no longer, with only a few hours remaining before the execution.
• Yan Zhou left his underground cell in chains, resigned to his fate and aware that his survival depended on the Demon Alliance and the Unorthodox Path’s powerhouses.
• Envoys from the various factions gathered to witness the execution, while elders waited anxiously for Yan Zhou to arrive.
• A disciplinary officer announced that unidentified people had intercepted the execution escort and that fighting could postpone the execution.

Li Yan and Fang Yue learned that masked attackers had tried to rescue Yan Zhou, while Wu Longjie led the Heavenly Dao Alliance’s Wind-Catching Envoys to crush the raid. The attackers were driven back, and Wu Longjie killed Ji Longxiao after he identified himself as an elder of the Profound Yin Sect.

• Fang Yue reacted with shock to the attack, while Li Yan recognized that the expected intervention had begun and urged her to trust the Righteous Path and the Heavenly Dao Alliance.
• Wu Longjie received word of the raid and ordered more than three hundred Wind-Catching Envoys to deploy and kill the invaders.
• Wu Longjie’s force reached the valley and overwhelmed the masked raiders attacking Yan Zhou’s execution escort with enormous corpse puppets.
• The raiders lost many fighters and Spirit Creatures as the Wind-Catching Envoys drove them beneath a cliff and continued their assault.
• Ji Longxiao revealed that he was from the Profound Yin Sect, and Wu Longjie declared that the Alliance Leader had ordered all execution disruptors killed without mercy.
• Wu Longjie and the Envoys attacked Ji Longxiao with bombs, arrows, and a poisoned Golden Star Spirit Snake, killing him on the spot.

Wu Longjie’s forces killed the Demon Alliance’s ambushers and escorted Yan Zhou to the execution ground, where the Heavenly Dao Alliance executed him. Fang Yue felt relief that the Yingshan Kingdom’s civilians had been avenged, but wondered whether the outcome was truly justice.

• Wu Longjie ordered his subordinates to kill the remaining ambushers after he slew Ji Longxiao, and his forces wiped them out.
• Wu Longjie took responsibility for the consequences and hurried the execution detail onward with Yan Zhou.
• The Heavenly Dao Alliance announced Yan Zhou’s crimes and executed him with the Five Thunders Strike the Crown punishment.
• Fang Yue felt relief at Yan Zhou’s death, then questioned whether it was truly justice, while Li Yan urged her to focus on what she could control.
• Fang Yue repeated Li Yan’s words about heaven’s will and said she understood.

After Yan Zhou’s execution, Li Yan confronted Fang Qianyuan for using Fang Yue and others to carry out his plans, while Fang Qianyuan maintained that people should remain true to themselves. He left Li Yan’s misunderstanding unresolved, believing she would understand only if she reached Heaven Tier.

• Yan Zhou’s execution and the deaths of Ji Longxiao and other rescuers shocked the factions, prompting Profound Yin Sect leaders and other powers to consider their next moves.
• Li Yan went to Cloud Summit Peak to confront Fang Qianyuan, whom she reached through a projection from the Heavencrystal Snowfield.
• Li Yan accused Fang Qianyuan of arranging for Fang Yue to kill Yan Zhou as part of a plan to intimidate powerful figures, and said she would not be used as a pawn.
• Fang Qianyuan denied Li Yan’s interpretation but did not explain his true intentions, and Li Yan left before he could answer further.
• Bai Aoxue asked Fang Qianyuan why he had not cleared up the misunderstanding, and he said the Great Dao remained unchanged regardless of what Li Yan believed.

Fang Qianyuan stayed away from the Cloud Summit Alliance Assembly and let Bai Aoxue deliver his warning, prompting the Unorthodox Five Sects to discuss his growing control. King Mu revealed that he had gained insight into the Demon God Nine Transformations, leaving the others wondering what he intended to do.

• Fang Qianyuan told Bai Aoxue to handle matters for him while he continued contemplating the Dao of origin in the Jianmu World.
• The Unorthodox Five Sects confronted the Alliance after their defeat, but Fang Qianyuan sent Bai Aoxue to the Assembly and offered no further explanation for Yan Zhou's punishment.
• Yin Shanhe warned the other four sect leaders that Fang Qianyuan could continue expeditions without the Alliance and eventually replace it.
• King Mu argued that Fang Qianyuan's influence rested on his strength and that the sects had expected time to eventually limit his power.
• King Mu announced that, after twenty-one years contemplating the Demon God Nine Transformations, he had gained some insight.

King Mu sought the Night King’s support against the righteous path, while Whitebrow Ancestor secured the Mian Mountain Sacred Palace’s agreement to join the alliance. The chapter ended with Whitebrow Ancestor preparing to meet the Night King at Cloud Summit Peak.

• Bei Yetang asked Grand Elder Tian Heng whether they should secretly watch the great powers, and Tian Heng suspected King Mu was stirring up alliances.
• Tian Heng explained that King Mu and other great powers might have gained confidence from Fang Qianyuan’s progress toward the heavenly dao realm.
• King Mu warned the Night King that the righteous path threatened their freedom and criticized Fang Qianyuan’s treatment of Whitebrow Ancestor and the Profound Yin Sect.
• King Mu offered to support Whitebrow Ancestor joining the Night King’s side in exchange for an alliance against the righteous path.
• Zhu Hong told Whitebrow Ancestor that the Mian Mountain Sacred Palace had accepted their conditions, and Whitebrow Ancestor prepared to meet the Night King at Cloud Summit Peak.

Whitebrow Ancestor and his followers traveled toward a teleportation city on their way to meet the Mian Mountain Sacred Palace, but three cultivators blocked their path with a warning to turn back. Whitebrow attacked, and Xie Wuying stopped the blow before revealing that the leader was an envoy from the Heavencrystal Snowfield.

• Whitebrow Ancestor rode his Jade-Eyed White-Body Mystic Light Beast toward a first-class city to use its teleportation array.
• Zhu Hong recognized Xie Wuying among three cultivators who intercepted Whitebrow's party outside the city.
• The mysterious leader warned Whitebrow that his journey would bring calamity and urged him to return to Jianshan Mountain.
• Whitebrow rejected the warning and ordered the men to dismount, prompting his beast to attack with azure light.
• Xie Wuying blocked the beast's attack and urgently told Whitebrow that the leader was an envoy from the Heavencrystal Snowfield.

Whitebrow Ancestor learned that the Heavencrystal Snowfield had sent an envoy to stop him from joining another force. After being urged to found an independent sect under the Cloud Summit Gathering and Heavenly Dao Alliance, he reconsidered his plans and accepted the advice.

• Whitebrow Ancestor realized Xie Wuying had resisted his time-based attack because the Ghost-Finger Devil Lord's undead soul beast was difficult to harm by stealing its lifespan.
• Xie Wuying explained that he had been sent by the Heavencrystal Snowfield, and Whitebrow Ancestor recognized who had ordered the intervention.
• The envoy stated that Whitebrow Ancestor's Jianshan Mountain Branch Headquarters could found an independent sect while remaining subject to the Cloud Summit Gathering and Heavenly Dao Alliance.
• The envoy's companion argued that founding a sect offered a fair chance to join the alliance and warned Whitebrow Ancestor against coveting expedition benefits by joining a stronger force.
• Whitebrow Ancestor wavered, then said he understood and accepted the counsel.

Whitebrow Ancestor abandoned his plans after an envoy’s warning and decided to establish the Jianshan Sect under the Heavenly Dao Alliance. Bai Aoxue learned that Fang Qianyuan’s Heavenly Will Mind-Establishing Art had only nudged Whitebrow Ancestor toward a choice that already suited him, while Fang focused his attention on the Jianmu World.

• Whitebrow Ancestor ordered Zhu Hong and Liu Shitu to return to the mountain and abandon their previous course.
• Whitebrow Ancestor explained that he would found the Jianshan Sect and pledge it to the Heavenly Dao Alliance while retaining its independence.
• Bai Aoxue watched Whitebrow Ancestor through a screen and asked Fang Qianyuan what had caused his strange reaction.
• Fang Qianyuan revealed that Whitebrow Ancestor had detected his Heavenly Will Mind-Establishing Art, which could only subtly influence a person’s existing intentions.
• Fang Qianyuan continued observing the growing woodland and spreading threads of laws within the Jianmu World.

Fang Qianyuan considered how to expand his hidden domain in the Jianmu World, while his intervention reshaped Jianshan Mountain’s allegiance and pushed rival factions toward unity. Meanwhile, Grand Elder Lianshan led Lin Qi and the others through the Reincarnation World to the Hall of Life and Death.

• Fang Qianyuan realized that expanding his domain further would require him to devour the Jianmu World’s Heavenly Dao, risking exposure and upheaval back home.
• The Whitebrow Ancestor refused to join the Cloud Summit Alliance, instead declaring Jianshan Mountain an independent, neutral sect and using its Dao Markers to expand.
• The Night King concluded that Fang Qianyuan had intervened, while King Mu urged the Five Sects and Demon Alliance to unite against his growing influence.
• Grand Elder Lianshan guided Lin Qi and the others through the Reincarnation World, warning them to remain within the Soul-Guiding Lamp’s light.
• Lianshan found a towering gate and a stone stele bearing the words “Hall of Life and Death.”

Lin Qi and the others used the Hall of Life and Death’s secret art to summon ancient cultivators from the chaos void, though some coffins failed to materialize. Lianshan and Guizang awakened the Yellow Venerable and Black Venerable, and the Black Venerable asked whether anyone in this age wielded grand divine abilities.

• Lianshan told Lin Qi and the others to find and mark the projections of the Black and Yellow Venerables, the Seven-Star Holy Envoys, and selected ancient cultivators.
• Lin Qi and his companions placed lamps by the marked coffins, and Lianshan used the sect’s secret art to summon them from the chaos void.
• Most of the Black Coffin projections became tangible, while some remained lost between illusion and reality.
• Lianshan opened the Yellow Venerable’s coffin, and the dignified middle-aged man awakened and sat up.
• Guizang opened the Black Venerable’s coffin, and the awakened man asked whether wielders of grand divine abilities had emerged in this age.