Chapter Summaries

Chu Mo continued gathering thoughts to form his Pill Furnace and considered expanding the Karmic Reflection Method. At the Jiao-Rearing Pool, Xi Hong set a trap to lure Black Abyss out of the Outer Sea, and Chu Mo agreed to help capture him.

• Chu Mo decided to expand the Karmic Reflection Method to collect more thoughts from disputes among rogue cultivators.
• Xu Chen brought an aquatic cultivator who had been searching for the Flood Dragon Woman on behalf of Black Abyss.
• Xi Hong proposed luring Black Abyss out of the Outer Sea while avoiding direct conflict with the Flood Dragon Lord.
• Xi Hong fed the aquatic cultivator a Concord Fruit and used Interest-Bearing Loan to mortgage his life as collateral.
• Xi Hong ordered the aquatic cultivator to tell Black Abyss that a rogue cultivator had taken his wife to raise her as a mount.
• Chu Mo agreed to help Xi Hong capture Black Abyss and privately reflected on the Upper Mound Lineage's chain of debt.

Chu Mo and Xi Hong lured Black Abyss into a trap, where Luo Chuan helped suppress him and Chu Mo captured him in the Netherworld Soil. Chu Mo thanked Luo Chuan and vanished, leaving Xi Hong behind.

• Black Abyss ignored the Turtle Chancellor’s warning and led four Golden Core guards toward the island where he believed his wife was held.
• Xi Hong trapped Black Abyss with formation flags and claimed his wife had acted by mutual consent, then fought him with Dharma Coins.
• Luo Chuan and Yuchen arrived, and Luo Chuan’s water domain suppressed Black Abyss’s and Xi Hong’s abilities.
• Black Abyss summoned his father’s Flood Dragon Lord will, but Luo Chuan destroyed it with a talisman’s goddess phantom.
• Chu Mo seized Black Abyss and his guards into the Netherworld Soil, then thanked Luo Chuan and disappeared from his water domain.

Chu Mo captured Black Abyss and brought him back to Xi Hong, while True Lord Zhiyun ended the confrontation between Luo Chuan and Xi Hong. After learning why Luo Chuan sought the Outer Sea’s water element, Chu Mo returned to his cave with the Myriad Lives Profound Unity Furnace complete and prepared to reclaim [Death Sentence].

• True Lord Zhiyun arrived, mediated the clash between Luo Chuan and Xi Hong, and warned them to leave the area near the Outer Sea.
• Inside the Netherworld Soil, Chu Mo extracted Black Abyss’s emotions and thoughts, leaving him witless, then delivered him to Xi Hong beside the Jiao-Rearing Pool.
• Xi Hong explained that Luo Chuan sought the Outer Sea’s water element to strengthen [The Dao Alone Reigns Supreme] and pursue an origin spirit.
• Xi Hong taunted the imprisoned Flood Dragon Woman about Black Abyss’s failed rescue and told her to give birth to the Flood Dragon Embryo.
• Chu Mo returned to his cave, found the [Myriad Lives Profound Unity Furnace] complete, and decided to try taking [Death Sentence] back.

Chu Mo infiltrated Xi Sang’s palace guard by replacing Li Dalang, hoping to learn about the Ink Seal. Commander Zhao revealed that Xi Sang had made the seal by combining an old possession with the Urban Legend [Life-Buying Money].

• Chu Mo used an ability to make Old Ghost Li and the village ghosts remember him as Li Mo, Old Ghost Li’s second son.
• When Li Dalang returned home, Chu Mo made him realize he had no younger brother, then killed him and took his identity.
• Chu Mo searched Li Dalang’s memories, learned that Xi Sang kept the Ink Seal close, and identified Commander Zhao as a powerful potential source of information.
• Chu Mo returned to the palace as Li Dalang and spent half a month imitating his routines without being discovered.
• Chu Mo asked the ghost guards about the Ink Seal, and Commander Zhao explained its connection to Xi Sang’s old possession and [Life-Buying Money].

Chu Mo learned from Commander Zhao that Xi Sang and Lord Nine Sorrows had fallen out over the disappearance of the First Ghost Market and the Nether Road. Xi Sang prepared to harvest practitioners of the Great Art of Guiding the Profound and Suppressing Fate, while revealing his plan for the Ink Seal to help him overcome his innate incompleteness as a taboo.

• Commander Zhao explained that Life-Buying Money could take away the remaining years of anyone who held it, and Chu Mo suspected it had been used to create Xi Sang’s Ink Seal.
• Chu Mo followed Commander Zhao and learned that Xi Sang and Lord Nine Sorrows blamed each other for the disappearance of the First Ghost Market and the Nether Road.
• Chu Mo secretly glanced at the Profound Banner in his Golden Vault but defended Xi Sang and reassured Commander Zhao that the two taboos would not go to war.
• Commander Zhao reported that more than a hundred thousand people practiced Xi Sang’s art and that 138 had reached the second-tier Nether Gathering Realm.
• Xi Sang said he would begin harvesting practitioners once third-tier Womb Nurturing practitioners appeared, and hoped the Ink Seal would become a new taboo and help him reach a higher realm.

Disguised as Li Dalang, Chu Mo planned to steal the Death Sentence seal by using Netherworld Soil to provoke Nine Sorrows into confronting Xi Sang. Nine Sorrows summoned other Taboos to help recover the Nether Road, while Chu Mo waited to see how many would come.

• Chu Mo learned from Commander Zhao that Xi Sang sometimes left the Ink Seal in the Spirit Treasure Hall, but the hall was protected by restrictions.
• Chu Mo sent a ghost carrying Netherworld Soil to Nine Sorrows with a demand to trade it for the Nether Road.
• Nine Sorrows failed to trace the ghost's master and decided to retrieve the Nether Road from Xi Sang, inviting Declining Fate, Bitter End, Nether Rain, and Lunar Yin to join him.
• Chu Mo left the Profound Banner with Fuli's Mystic Womb Incarnation to prevent the Taboos from tracking the Netherworld Soil.
• Commander Zhao called out to Chu Mo, who hurried over to work.

Chu Mo waited for the Ink Seal to be nurtured while Xi Sang faced an attack by six Taboo beings over the missing Nether Road. Chu Mo stole the seal and escaped Xi Sang’s Fate lock, but Xi Sang struck at the Spirit Treasure Hall as Chu Mo prepared to flee.

• Xi Sang inspected the Ink Seal and sensed Nine Sorrows and five other Taboo beings arriving in his Ghost Domain.
• Nine Sorrows accused Xi Sang of taking the Nether Road, and Declining Fate urged the group to search for it by force.
• Xi Sang summoned an army of Yin Souls, and the six Taboo beings attacked him as Chu Mo hurried toward the Spirit Treasure Hall.
• Chu Mo used his Mystic Talisman to pass through the hall’s spatial wards and reached for the Ink Seal.
• Xi Sang locked Li Dalang’s Fate, but Chu Mo collapsed that aspect, changed his form, and put the seal in his Inventory.
• Xi Sang ignored the Taboo beings’ attacks and sent a gigantic palm toward the Spirit Treasure Hall, leaving Chu Mo unable to move.

Chu Mo escaped Xi Sang by sacrificing the Myriad Lives Profound Unity Furnace, then fled across Eternal Night while using Fates to replenish his Other-Selves Aspects. Declining Fate ordered the Taboo Beings to surround him, but rejected the possibility that Chu Mo could reach the World Sea and leave Eternal Night.

• Chu Mo destroyed the enormous palm with the furnace, escaped Xi Sang, and drew Xi Sang and the Six Taboo Beings into pursuit.
• The pursuers' edicts destroyed Chu Mo's Other-Selves Aspects, forcing him to switch aspects and consume Ghostfolk as substitutes.
• Chu Mo appeared in Heavenly Abyss City and used the Profound Banner to wipe out its cultivators and mortals, then devoured their Fates.
• Xi Sang and the other Taboo Beings reached the emptied city and realized Chu Mo was replenishing his consumables.
• Declining Fate connected Chu Mo's abilities to the Urban Legend [Multitude] and ordered the Taboo Beings to surround him.
• Nine Sorrows warned that Chu Mo might be heading for the World Sea, but Declining Fate insisted that escape was absolutely impossible.

Chu Mo fled the pursuing Taboos to the World Sea, but Xi Sang intercepted him at the Edge of the World. Chu Mo escaped using the One Harmony Command Seal and entered the World Sea, where Xi Sang continued chasing him as his death-declaring Edict weakened.

• Chu Mo evaded nine pursuing Taboos and raced toward the World Sea Gate at the Edge of the World.
• Xi Sang appeared ahead of Chu Mo and trapped him in Filthlight, demanding to know how he had stolen [Multitude]'s power and survived the corruption.
• Chu Mo used the One Harmony Command Seal to consume part of the Filthlight, then escaped into the World Sea with Treading Yin to Turn Yang.
• Xi Sang pursued Chu Mo into the World Sea, while the other Taboos remained at the edge and questioned Declining Fate about his failed prediction.
• Chu Mo changed his alternate form and fled through the shifting World Sea as Xi Sang's Death-Declaring Edict grew less frequent.

Chu Mo escaped Xi Sang by dying and reviving, then found the ruins of an ancient Underworld Bureaucracy drifting in the World Sea. He uncovered its history and cultivation legacy, ending with the discovery that its foundational method was the Celestial Circuit Qi-Gathering Method.

• Chu Mo let Xi Sang’s Death-Declaring Edict kill him, spending a Yin-Yang Jade to revive after thirty seconds and shake off his pursuer.
• Xi Sang searched the empty void for Chu Mo but found no trace of him, then returned toward the Eternal Night Sea as his power weakened.
• Chu Mo revived and discovered a vast, abandoned complex floating in the World Sea, marked as the Underworld Bureaucracy.
• Chu Mo studied the murals and bamboo slips, learning that the Underworld Bureaucracy had fled Eternal Night after a catastrophe and eventually perished while returning.
• Chu Mo received two cultivation methods from the legacy: the True Edict of Netherworld Righteous Method and the foundational Celestial Circuit Qi-Gathering Method.

Chu Mo discovered that the Yin Bureaucracy lineage’s cultivation method came from Fuli Heaven and found signs that a cultivator from his homeland had once reached Eternal Night. After sixteen years of secluded cultivation, he secretly left Spirit Rhinoceros Island to refine the Death Sentence art and advance his cultivation.

• Chu Mo examined the Celestial Circuit Qi-Gathering Method and the True Edict of Netherworld Righteous Method, concluding that a cultivator from Fuli had established the Underworld Bureaucracy lineage in Eternal Night.
• Chu Mo collected the surviving cultivation scrolls and bamboo slips from the Yin Bureaucracy Ruins, then returned to Fuli Heaven.
• Chu Mo subdued the Ink Seal’s power and discovered that its Death Sentence art was no lower in grade than Plain Grave.
• Chu Mo spent sixteen years cultivating at Spirit Rhinoceros Island, refining pills and studying the Yin Bureaucracy Cultivation Method, while Xi Hong and the Upper Mound disciples handled the duties.
• Chu Mo reached level 35 and secretly left Spirit Rhinoceros Island for a remote deserted island to prepare to refine Death Sentence and pursue late-Golden Core.

Chu Mo refined [Death Sentence], absorbed Xi Sang's Remnant Thought into the Profound Banner, and broke through to the late Golden Core realm, gaining [Determine Life and Death]. After returning to Spirit Rhinoceros Island, he learned the dragonkin had remained quiet and considered how his divine abilities could work together to claim distant foes.

• Chu Mo refined [Death Sentence] on a deserted island, drawing out Xi Sang's Remnant Thought and capturing it with the Profound Banner.
• Chu Mo finished refining the Ink Seal, causing his three divine abilities to resonate and carry him to the late Golden Core realm.
• Chu Mo gained [Determine Life and Death], whose powers could anchor a living being's fate to preserve life or guide it toward death.
• Chu Mo returned to Spirit Rhinoceros Island, where Xi Hong confirmed his breakthrough and told him that the dragonkin had been unusually quiet.
• Chu Mo studied the connection between [Determine Life and Death], [All Beings Aspect], and the Profound Banner, and considered using them to pursue distant enemies.

Chu Mo considered using his new divine ability, interrogated Xi Sang’s lingering consciousness, and learned that dragonkind had attacked Luo Chuan’s Water Mansion. Flood Dragon Lord Heng Yuan punished the attackers but revealed that dragonkind’s true target was the Azure Depths School and Si Xuan’s cultivation.

• Chu Mo used All Beings Aspect to inspect a Foundation Establishment disciple’s fate, realized observation could trigger a tribulation, and chose not to target a fellow disciple.
• Chu Mo entered the netherworld soil with the Profound Banner and questioned Xi Sang’s lingering consciousness about Xi Sang’s true body.
• After half a year, Chu Mo received notice that an unidentified force had attacked Great Evolution’s Water Mansion and discussed the attack with Xi Hong and Li Xing.
• Xi Hong said dragonkind likely attacked after Luo Chuan caught a noble-blooded Flood Dragon, and Chu Mo agreed the Three Sects should remain vigilant.
• Heng Yuan ordered the Flood Dragons involved in the attack to receive punishment and forbade further conflict with human sects without his command.
• Heng Yuan recalled that dragonkind intended to undermine Si Xuan’s All Beings Dao, identifying the Azure Depths School as their true target.

Liu Yuan gathered Flood Dragon Cultivators to defy the Flood Dragon Lord’s orders and attempt to free Black Abyss and his offspring from the Tribulation Deliverance Water Mansion. At the Jiao-Rearing Pool, Chu Mo discussed preparations for the Nascent Soul realm and agreed to help Xi Hong profit from the Azure Depths School’s upcoming recruitment ceremony.

• Liu Yuan persuaded his companions, including Qinglin, to join him in heading toward the Tribulation Deliverance Water Mansion to free Black Abyss and his offspring.
• Chu Mo reflected on gathering means to suppress and capture an Eternal Night taboo, then collected the Flood Dragon Yang Pills he had refined for Black Abyss.
• Chu Mo met Li Xing at the Jiao-Rearing Pool, where Li Xing explained that he would soon enter an Otherworld to replenish his fate.
• Xi Hong told Chu Mo and Li Xing that the Azure Depths School would recruit disciples from the Turbid Abyss for the first time the following spring.
• Chu Mo realized Xi Hong planned to sell aptitude-enhancing pills and provide loans to prospective disciples, then agreed to supply the pills for a suitable price.

Chu Mo joined Xi Hong and Li Xing to repel Liu Yuan’s flood dragon raid on Water Mansion No. 2, where the attackers sought to free their kin from the Jiao-Rearing Pool. After the Heaven’s Will Sect intervened and Liu Yuan escaped, Chu Mo spotted an opportunity to use the Ink Seal against him and Qinglin, but something unexpected caught his attention.

• Liu Yuan led a group of flood dragons toward Water Mansion No. 2 with the Sea-Splitting Halberd, planning to free their kin from the Jiao-Rearing Pool.
• Chu Mo received Xi Hong’s summons and arrived as Liu Yuan broke through the Water Mansion’s protective Grand Array and sent some flood dragons toward the pool.
• Xi Hong and Li Xing fought Liu Yuan’s group while Chu Mo used his Profound Banner, and Li Xing killed a flood dragon cultivator with Karmic Severance.
• An explosion sounded from the Jiao-Rearing Pool, but one of Liu Yuan’s men warned him that the pool was a trap.
• The Heaven’s Will Sect arrived and trapped the fighters in a sword formation; Liu Yuan seized Qinglin and escaped more than eight thousand li away.
• Chu Mo used All Beings Aspect to see Liu Yuan’s fate and raised the Ink Seal to trigger tribulations, but then noticed something unexpected.

Chu Mo captured Liu Yuan and Qinglin’s souls after Luo Chuan killed and refined their bodies, but Luo Chuan found the Purification Bottle lacked the Flood Dragons’ first divine abilities and Source Water Element. The chapter ended with Liu Yuan and Qinglin discovering that Chu Mo had summoned them before him on Spirit Rhinoceros Island.

• Chu Mo used Determine Life and Death to draw Liu Yuan and Qinglin’s external tribulations closer as they fled.
• Chen Ling and the Heaven’s Will Sect captured the remaining Flood Dragon cultivators, but left them behind after an unexpected message; Xi Hong led Chu Mo and Li Xing toward the Jiao-Rearing Pool.
• Liu Yuan and Qinglin encountered Luo Chuan in the distant sea, and Liu Yuan charged him in a rage over his son’s death.
• Luo Chuan defeated the two Flood Dragons and refined them in his Purification Bottle, but found their first divine abilities and Source Water Element missing.
• Chu Mo returned to his Cave Abode, shook the Profound Banner, and summoned Liu Yuan and Qinglin’s souls.

Chu Mo captured Liu Yuan and Qinglin's souls, then helped Xi Hong profit from pill sales and Dao Path Loans before attending the Azure Depths School's recruitment ceremony. At the gathering, he encountered Luo Chuan and learned that Fairy Cen had left the Eastern Sea.

• Chu Mo tortured Liu Yuan for answers, learned that Liu Yuan had tried to rescue his younger brother Black Abyss, and questioned Qinglin about the flood dragons' reckless expedition.
• Chu Mo suspected someone had been luring flood dragons, returned Liu Yuan and Qinglin's souls to the Profound Banner, and spent a year refining pills for Xi Hong.
• Xi Hong told Chu Mo that nearly eighty percent of the pills had sold and invited him to the Azure Depths School's Disciple Recruitment Ceremony, which Chu Mo agreed to attend.
• Chu Mo and Xi Hong arrived at Azure Depths, where Luo Chuan praised Chu Mo's divine abilities and offered him a True Lord's seat in the Shuiluo Clan.
• Chen Ling said Fairy Cen had left the Eastern Sea, and Chu Mo noticed that Yuchen restrained his temper.

Chu Mo sensed ominous tribulation aura over nearly everyone at Azure Depths Mountain Gate and fled to Fuli, then hid in Eternal Night. Soon after, a dragon-transforming deluge attacked the Eastern Sea, and True Lord Zhiyun invoked the Sea-Calming Grand Array to confront Heng Yuan.

• Chu Mo used [Determine Life and Death] to discover heavy tribulation aura over assessment candidates and Azure Depths disciples at the mountain gate.
• Chu Mo left the ceremony, fled to Fuli, and entered Eternal Night after finding no comparable omen there.
• Xi Hong invented an excuse about the Jiao-Rearing Pool and departed, while Luo Chuan suspected the Tribulation Deliverance Disciples were behaving strangely.
• Dark clouds gathered over the mountain gate as waterspouts transformed sea creatures into flood dragons and dragon-form cultivators charged toward the Seven Provinces.
• The Sea-Calming Grand Array activated, and True Lord Zhiyun manifested a towering dharma form to block the assault and challenge Heng Yuan.

Chu Mo found Di Yang leading the Kindling Alliance and learned that Daoist Mu, empowered by a Taboo's incense burner, was disrupting the alliance's plans. Chu Mo agreed to deal with Mu and asked for blood incense he could use to investigate, while also questioning Di Yang about his impressive formation.

• Chu Mo left the Eternal Night Sea and went to check on Di Yang, avoiding the area where Xi Sang and the other Taboos were fighting.
• Di Yang sensed someone outside the Kindling Alliance's concealed valley and emerged to find Chu Mo, whom he welcomed as his senior.
• Di Yang introduced Chu Mo as True Person Youxuan and explained that Daoist Mu had seized gold essence and used a Taboo's incense burner to boost his power.
• Chu Mo recognized the burner as an urban legend and offered to handle Daoist Mu, asking whether the alliance had anything Mu had kept close.
• Di Yang ordered Daoist Xu to fetch several sticks of Mu's blood incense, then told Chu Mo that the valley's Grand Array came from damaged Ancient Cultivator Ruins.

Chu Mo discovered that human incense was tied to Daoist Mu and used his Ink Seal to draw the incense’s power into action. Di Yang’s party found Daoist Mu’s followers reduced to ashes in Incense City, while Daoist Mu’s soul was sent to Chu Mo, who prepared to question him.

• Chu Mo examined Di Yang’s golden core and realized that Qi-Collecting Foundation Establishment might be a complete Dao Path.
• Chu Mo received human incense and ordered Di Yang to seize Daoist Mu’s estate in Incense City and bring back the incense burner.
• Daoist Mu offered human incense at the bronze burner and discussed the Kindling Alliance with his trusted cultivators.
• Chu Mo tapped the human incense with his Ink Seal, causing the bronze burner in Incense City to stir and gray vapor to rise from the people in the hall.
• Di Yang and his followers arrived in Incense City and found its people fleeing, Daoist Mu’s hall empty, and heaps of ash beneath the clothes of Daoist Mu and his confidants.
• Daoist Mu’s soul was flung into Chu Mo’s room, where Chu Mo greeted him and invited him to talk.