Chapter Summaries

Zi Shou ordered a grand state deliverance ceremony for the fallen soldiers of Sishui Pass and the Dare-to-Bear Army, despite the ritual hierarchy and the criticism it would bring. He left Shen Gongbao to devise the rites and prepare an unprecedented ceremony that Zi Shou hoped would draw denunciations from the feudal lords.

• Zi Shou explained the origins of deliverance rites, then admitted that Shen Gongbao did not know how to perform them.
• Zi Shou declared that the fallen soldiers of Sishui Pass, the Dare-to-Bear Army, and Zhang Guifang deserved a dignified send-off for giving their lives for Great Shang.
• The generals and Wen Zhong recognized that honoring ordinary soldiers and former slaves with a grand state rite defied ritual convention, but Wen Zhong did not stop Zi Shou.
• Zi Shou ordered Shen Gongbao to devise precise procedures and prepare an altar, memorial tablets, offerings, paper money, and enormous agarwood bonfires.
• Zi Shou mourned the fallen, especially the escaped slaves of the Dare-to-Bear Army, and anticipated that the ceremony would earn him further condemnation and give Ji Fa grounds to attack him.

Zi Shou watched soldiers honor their fallen comrades and questioned Wen Zhong about the purpose of war, while Wen Zhong defended their service to Great Shang. Days later, Jiang Ziya, Ji Fa, and Nangong Shi brought the Zhou Army to Sishui Pass to reassure their allied feudal lords rather than attack.

• Zi Shou and Wen Zhong saw soldiers perform the Ten-Thousand Dance and burn spirit money beside the river to memorialize the dead.
• Zi Shou asked Wen Zhong whether he regretted his decades of campaigning and why wars had to be fought.
• Wen Zhong argued that the feudal lords had started the war and that defeating the rebels would restore peace.
• Zi Shou said he fought to preserve his rule and admitted that his actions served his own interests.
• Jiang Ziya, Ji Fa, and Nangong Shi joined their forces and brought the Zhou Army to Sishui Pass to reassure the feudal lords accompanying them.

Zi Shou held a Transcendence Ritual outside Sishui Pass for the soldiers who had died fighting for Great Shang, while Jiang Ziya’s Zhou Army watched and mocked. As Shen Gongbao began the ritual text, strange lamplights appeared and a hymn sounded from beyond heaven.

• Jiang Ziya brought the Zhou Army to Sishui Pass to establish Zhou’s authority among the feudal lords and prepare to attack the Shang Army.
• Shen Gongbao advised Zi Shou to hold the Transcendence Ritual inside the pass, but Zi Shou ordered it held outside.
• The Zhou Army waited outside the pass for half a day before the Shang Army emerged in mourning clothes for the ceremony.
• Zi Shou bowed to the Ash Urns, struggled to deliver an address, and said, “May your journey be peaceful!” before eating a sacrificial apple.
• Shen Gongbao began reciting the ritual text as lamplights enveloped heaven and earth and a hymn sounded from beyond heaven.

Yuanshi Tianzun appeared above Sishui Pass and used the Scripture of Deliverance to make beings throughout heaven and earth chant for seven days and nights. As the chanting ended, he announced that he would perform the rite for delivering the dead.

• Yuanshi Tianzun began reciting a scripture, leaving Zi Shou unable to understand it and making Shen Gongbao fear that his teacher had come to punish him.
• The lines about the human, Immortal, and ghostly paths prompted Zi Shou and Shen Gongbao to recognize the scripture’s power and consider their own roles in delivering souls.
• Nine golden dragons drew Yuanshi Tianzun’s carriage through the sky, and he explained the scripture’s power to deliver souls and revive the dead.
• Yuanshi Tianzun made the armies and beings across the world chant the Scripture of Deliverance, including Kong Xuan in the distant North Sea.
• After seven days and nights of chanting, the land around Sishui Pass sank and the gray lamplight grew scorching; Yuanshi Tianzun announced that he would perform the rite for delivering the dead.

Yuanshi Tianzun established the Court of Flowing Fire as part of the rite of delivering the dead, while Shen Gongbao learned that his Soul-Summoning Banner had become a merit-bearing magic treasure. Jiang Ziya reluctantly ordered the Zhou Army to perform the same transcendence rituals as the Shang.

• Yuanshi Tianzun explained that the dead would ascend to the Palace of Vermilion Mound for refinement before returning to life or entering reincarnation.
• Yuanshi Tianzun shaped the Netherworld Ghostfire into the Court of Flowing Fire, creating an Immortal Court that spread across the sky.
• Yuanshi Tianzun refined Shen Gongbao's Soul-Summoning Banner, returned it to him, and left a cryptic saying carved on its pole.
• Jiang Ziya realized that the transcendence ritual conflicted with the Zhou lords' expectations for the afterlife, but resolved to perform it for fallen soldiers.
• Jiang Ziya ordered the Zhou Army to prepare a Yin-Yang Altar, offerings, a bonfire, and paper money.

Jiang Ziya and Shen Gongbao’s rival deliverance rites drew lavish support from immortals, dragons, and spirit monsters, while Zhang Guifang’s strange power devastated Zhou’s forces. The chapter ended with Jiang Ziya hanging a no-battle plaque after Zhang Guifang incapacitated Zhou’s generals from atop Sishui Pass.

• Jiang Ziya copied the deliverance rites at the Zhou Camp, making opposition to the ceremonies politically dangerous for both Shang and Zhou.
• Zhao Gongming pledged to pay for Great Shang’s deliverance ceremonies, while the Dragon Tribe, Kong Xuan, and deer monsters supplied extravagant offerings and materials.
• Zhang Guifang arrived at Sishui Pass with the heads of more than twenty Zhou generals who had pursued him, shocking Ji Fa and Jiang Ziya.
• When Jiang Ziya sent Wei Hu to lead Zhou’s charge, Zhang Guifang called out generals’ names from the pass wall and knocked them unconscious off their horses.
• Jiang Ziya grew wary of Zhang Guifang’s Name-Calling Dismount technique and hung up the no-battle plaque.

Ji Fa and his commanders discussed how to counter Zhang Guifang’s Name-Calling Dismount art, and Jiang Ziya proposed four stratagems to draw Zhang Guifang out and take Sishui Pass. He began by suggesting an attack on Great Shang’s southeast and a monster-led assault on the North Sea, leaving Ji Fa to infer the purpose of the second plan.

• Ji Fa summoned Jiang Ziya and Nangong Shi to discuss Zhang Guifang’s demonic art, which had kept Zhou’s generals from facing him.
• Jiang Ziya described three possible counters: refining a primordial spirit, using someone without three souls and seven spirits, or surrounding Zhang Guifang with a fast attack.
• Ji Fa and Nangong Shi agreed that a group of ten generals could charge Zhang Guifang before he had time to call all their names, but they needed a way to lure him out.
• Jiang Ziya announced four stratagems and proposed that the King of Wu attack Great Shang’s southeast while its main force was tied down at Sishui Pass.
• Nangong Shi questioned whether the King of Wu would risk attacking, so Jiang Ziya explained that Dragon-Beard Tiger could lead monster soldiers against the North Sea while Kong Xuan was in seclusion.
• Ji Fa noted that the North Sea was remote and began to grasp what Jiang Ziya intended.

Jiang Ziya explained four plans to weaken Great Shang and draw Zhang Guifang into a fatal attack, while Zi Shou and Wen Zhong scouted the Zhou camp. Jiang Ziya challenged Wen Zhong to a contest of formations, and Zi Shou delayed their answer for three days.

• Jiang Ziya outlined plans to threaten the North Sea, cut off Jiang Wenhuan and Huang Feihu's retreat, bring Bo Yikao's cavalry south, and recruit defecting nobles with Ji Gao's help.
• Nangong Shi warned that winter would delay the plans and that the Shang Army might attack, but Jiang Ziya said he had made other arrangements.
• Zi Shou and Wen Zhong inspected Jiang Ziya's symmetrical camp, and Wen Zhong recognized it as a formidable Qimen Dunjia formation.
• Jiang Ziya called to Wen Zhong from below the ridge and challenged him to a contest of formations, promising to return to Xiqi if he lost.
• Zi Shou considered the contest a useful way to stall and ordered Wen Zhong to tell Jiang Ziya they would decide in three days.

Zi Shou asked whether Great Shang needed strategists, prompting Wen Zhong to warn that military planning depended on practical knowledge and strength. When Zi Shou insisted on accepting Jiang Ziya’s proposed contest of formations, the generals objected, and he tried to justify his decision by accusing them of recklessly attacking the Zhou Army’s fortified camp.

• Zi Shou questioned the lack of strategists among Great Shang’s officials, and Wen Zhong explained that useful advisers needed battlefield knowledge and military experience.
• Zhang Guifang, Gao Jieneng, and others recognized that the army had grown too dependent on stratagems and praised Zi Shou’s practical approach to recruiting officials.
• Zi Shou proposed accepting Jiang Ziya’s contest of formations, but Zhang Guifang, Chao Lei, and Shen Gongbao argued that the Shang Army should exploit its advantages and beware of Jiang Ziya’s schemes.
• Wen Zhong said the Shang Army could win a formation contest but agreed that Jiang Ziya might have another plan and that the army had not exhausted its efforts against the Zhou camp.
• Zi Shou insisted on the contest despite the objections, then challenged Wen Zhong by asking whether attacking the Zhou Army’s fortified camp troubled his conscience.

Zi Shou persuaded the Shang generals to avoid a costly assault and agree to a contest of formations. Three days later, Wen Zhong and Jiang Ziya arranged a contest with ten thousand troops each, leaving Wen Zhong to set the first formation for Jiang Ziya to break.

• Zi Shou challenged Wen Zhong’s estimate of a thirty-percent chance of success by emphasizing the likely casualties of storming the Zhou camp and the risks of using stratagems.
• Zi Shou argued that a contest of formations would limit losses while offering a chance at the same result, and the generals fell silent before Wen Zhong eventually nodded.
• Three days later, Wen Zhong proposed that each army lead ten thousand men in a contest of formations, and Jiang Ziya agreed.
• Jiang Ziya chose to break Wen Zhong’s formation first, hoping to test the Shang Army’s strength and use the contest to buy time.
• Wen Zhong returned to Sishui Pass, where the generals gathered to ask how the negotiations had gone.

Wen Zhong created the Eight Gates Formation and put Gao Jieneng in command of its soldiers, while Zi Shou advised him to flee if the formation weakened. Jiang Ziya sent Ji Shuqi and Ji Shubo into the formation with three thousand troops to test it.

• Wen Zhong decided an ordinary military formation would not challenge Jiang Ziya and planned a sorcery-based formation.
• Wen Zhong explained the Eight Gates Formation to Gao Jieneng and named him its commander, while Lu Xiong selected ten thousand soldiers.
• Zi Shou encouraged Gao Jieneng to abandon the formation and retreat if it began to fail.
• Wen Zhong and Gao Jieneng led their troops from Sishui Pass and completed the Eight Gates Formation before Jiang Ziya.
• Jiang Ziya sent Ji Shuqi and Ji Shubo into the formation with three thousand troops to probe its strengths and weaknesses.

Jiang Ziya sent Zhou troops into Wen Zhong’s Eight Gates Formation, which first separated them and then unleashed its hidden killing power when the remaining soldiers attacked. As the Zhou Army suffered heavy losses, Jiang Ziya appeared to sacrifice his men while pursuing a deeper scheme.

• Jiang Ziya instructed Ji Shuqi and Ji Shubo to enter the formation and search for its Life Gate.
• Ji Shuqi and Ji Shubo led three thousand Zhou soldiers inside, but the Shang Army divided and trapped them as they fought toward the center.
• Gao Jieneng changed the formation, concealing its routes and leaving Ji Shuqi and Ji Shubo unable to find their way.
• Jiang Ziya ordered the remaining seven thousand Zhou soldiers to attack and coordinate with the troops inside.
• Wen Zhong raised cloud and mist around the formation, and the Eight Gates Formation strengthened the Shang soldiers as they slaughtered Zhou troops.
• Jiang Ziya directed the Zhou soldiers to charge within the formation despite their losses, and Wen Zhong suspected he was offering them as a sacrifice.

Zi Shou halted the Eight Gates Formation before Jiang Ziya’s army was wiped out, then arranged another formation contest for three days later. Wen Zhong learned that Jiang Ziya could survive the Karmic Debt of the slaughter because he was the Tribulation-Bound One, while Zi Shou had withdrawn to spare Wen Zhong from its consequences.

• Zi Shou ordered the retreat gong sounded, then used Zhang Guifang’s Loudspeaker to reach Gao Jieneng and stop the Eight Gates Formation.
• The formation revealed thousands of dead soldiers; fewer than two thousand Zhou troops could retreat, while the Shang Army had lost more than two thousand.
• Zi Shou challenged Jiang Ziya to another formation contest in three days, and Jiang Ziya withdrew without recovering the wounded Zhou soldiers.
• Shen Gongbao gathered the fallen soldiers’ souls with the Soul-Summoning Banner as Wen Zhong questioned how Jiang Ziya could endure the formation’s Karmic Debt.
• Shen Gongbao explained that Jiang Ziya’s status as the Tribulation-Bound One gave him backing and protection, while Zi Shou had withdrawn to prevent ill fortune from striking Wen Zhong in his twilight years.

After Zi Shou ordered a retreat despite the Shang Army’s advantage in Wen Zhong’s Eight Gates Formation, the generals challenged his decision. Wen Zhong defended the withdrawal with strategic arguments, and the camp accepted his explanation, though he intended to insist on fighting next time.

• Zi Shou ended the formation contest and ordered the exhausted Shang Army to fight again in three days.
• Zhang Guifang angrily questioned the retreat, while Gao Jieneng tried to explain that Zi Shou had withdrawn to spare Wen Zhong karmic consequences.
• Wen Zhong declared that Zi Shou had been right to withdraw and argued that the Zhou Army’s discipline and the risk of a surprise attack made caution sensible.
• Wen Zhong avoided discussing karmic consequences, and the generals accepted his explanation and dropped their complaints.
• Zhang Guifang proposed ambushing the Zhou Army on its way back to camp.

Zi Shou rejected Zhang Guifang’s plan to raid the Zhou camp and instead punished him by confining him inside a circle drawn on the ground. He left the officers wary of proposing more stratagems as the formation duel approached in three days.

• Zi Shou angrily rejected Zhang Guifang’s surprise-raid proposal, arguing it risked losses and could escalate the war into a clash between Immortals.
• Zi Shou shouted down Zhang Guifang and ordered him to acknowledge his offense after Zhang tried to defend the plan.
• Zi Shou drew a circle around Zhang Guifang, placed a board labeled “Jailer A” inside it, and ordered him to remain there until the formation duel.
• Wen Zhong approved of Zi Shou disciplining Zhang Guifang, seeing the general’s growing prestige as a threat to the king’s authority.
• Zi Shou asked the assembled officers for other strategies, but they stayed silent before he dismissed them to rest and drink.

After Chong Yingluan’s grain shipment was lost in a storm, Han Dulong and Xue Ehu delivered inexhaustible provisions to the Zhou Army. Jiang Ziya predicted Zhang Guifang would raid their camp and set an ambush, but three nights passed without an attack.

• A messenger reported that Chong Yingluan’s provisions had been destroyed when his boats capsized on a dangerous water route.
• Han Dulong and Xue Ehu arrived with a Grain Tube that poured out enough rice to supply the Zhou Army.
• Ji Fa ordered his fifteenth younger brother to join Bo Yikao’s forces, while Jiang Ziya urged the generals to prepare for Zhang Guifang’s likely camp raid.
• Jiang Ziya explained that Zhang Guifang would resent King Zhou’s withdrawal from the contest and would raid the Zhou camp without knowing his Name-Calling Dismount technique had been countered.
• Jiang Ziya placed straw men in the tents and led the generals into ambush, but Zhang Guifang did not appear for three consecutive nights.

Jiang Ziya kept the Zhou Army on alert for three nights expecting Zhang Guifang to raid, but no attack came, leaving the troops exhausted before the formation contest at Sishui Pass. Wen Zhong realized King Zhou had unintentionally weakened the Zhou Army by making it fear a night raid from Zhang Guifang.

• Jiang Ziya ordered the Zhou Army to remain on high alert for three nights, but Zhang Guifang never attacked.
• The exhausted Zhou Army marched out to face the Shang Army for the formation contest, while Zhang Guifang arrived angry that King Zhou had ignored his proposal to scout or raid.
• Wen Zhong noticed that the Zhou soldiers had depleted their essence, energy, and spirit, and the Shang commanders wondered why.
• Wen Zhong deduced that the Zhou Army had spent the nights guarding against an attack, and Zhang Guifang realized they had been guarding against him.

Zi Shou rejected a direct assault on the exhausted Zhou Army and agreed to a formation contest, while Jiang Ziya waited through Zhang Guifang’s taunts. The chapter ended with Jiang Ziya asking Ji Fa for permission to muster the troops and meet the challenge.

• Wen Zhong concluded that the Zhou Army had prepared for Zhang Guifang’s Name-Calling Dismount art, and Zhang Guifang credited Zi Shou with defeating their scheme by doing nothing.
• Zhang Guifang urged Zi Shou to attack the weary Zhou Army, but Zi Shou refused because of the powerful figures backing it and the danger of provoking them.
• Wen Zhong proposed a formation contest, and Zi Shou agreed to try it instead of launching an all-out assault.
• Wen Zhong challenged Jiang Ziya, but Jiang Ziya told Ji Fa there was no need to answer immediately.
• Zhang Guifang and his guards taunted the Zhou Army, increasing the soldiers’ unease as their exhaustion and discontent grew.
• Jiang Ziya opened his eyes and asked Ji Fa to let him muster the troops and meet the challenge.

Jiang Ziya laid a Spirit-Absorbing Magic Formation using the baleful energy of veteran soldiers, and Wen Zhong proposed sacrificing soldiers to weaken it. Zi Shou tried to stop him, but as soldiers volunteered to enter the formation, Zhou soldiers began collapsing for no apparent reason.

• Jiang Ziya completed a Spirit-Absorbing Magic Formation fueled by the baleful energy of ten thousand veteran soldiers.
• Shen Gongbao realized sacrifices could weaken the formation, but warned that doing so would burden Wen Zhong with karmic debt.
• Wen Zhong offered to lead three thousand soldiers into the formation, and Zi Shou forbade him, appealing to the soldiers' families.
• Wen Zhong called for volunteers, and soldiers eagerly stepped forward to accompany him.
• Zi Shou claimed he had another way to break the formation but could not explain it, while Wen Zhong rebuked him for hesitating.
• Several Zhou soldiers suddenly collapsed and stopped breathing.

After many Zhou soldiers collapsed from exhaustion and sudden deaths weakened their formation, Jiang Ziya ordered a retreat and prepared for another contest using help from Kunlun Mountain. He reassured Ji Fa that the retreat would buy time to rest and set traps, while the Zhou Army’s plans still included a northern march and a hidden agent inside Sishui Pass.

• About a fifth of the Zhou soldiers manning the Spirit-Absorbing Magic Formation died suddenly, weakening it, and Wen Zhong prepared to attack.
• Jiang Ziya ordered the Zhou Army to sound the gongs and withdraw, then arranged for San Yisheng and a white deer spirit to establish a formation with Kunlun Mountain’s Pure Ultimate Formation Diagram.
• Jiang Ziya told Ji Fa that the formation contest was only meant to delay the Shang Army while Zhou forces prepared a northern march and a later attack from both sides.
• Jiang Ziya proposed abandoning the camp and retreating fifty li, using hidden sentries, feints, and traps to counter King Zhou’s tactic of exhausting the troops.
• Ji Dan remained doubtful of Jiang Ziya but trusted his own arrangements, while Tai Ji stayed undercover inside Sishui Pass and Ji Gao prepared to lead troops north.