Chapter Summaries

Su Jiu guided Yun Chao through the increasingly dangerous lotus formation while the Yun Household elders worried they could not intervene. She protected him from the ninth-tier blast with a spiritual-qi seal, but appeared to have suffered severe internal injuries as he reached the Golden Lotus.

• Su Jiu extinguished the red glow as Yun Chao crossed the lotus tiers, and the explosions injured him despite his talismans.
• The Yun Household elders learned that Yun Jing had left a note and departed, and they realized they could not break into the Trial Grounds without sealing it off.
• Su Jiu told Yun Chao to wear his remaining talismans on the eighth tier and promised to protect him on the ninth.
• After recovering some spiritual qi, Su Jiu extinguished the ninth tier's red glow and urged Yun Chao forward.
• Su Jiu drew faint spiritual-qi threads and struck Yun Chao with an ethereal seal, shielding him from the ninth lotus's explosion.
• Su Jiu shouted for Yun Chao to pick the Golden Lotus, while he noticed blood-red plum blossoms across her clothes.

After recovering at the Yun Household, Su Jiu consolidated her cultivation and advanced to the mid Golden Core stage. She reunited with Qiao Zirong and Mo Qi, then set out with them as Yun Huanling and the unexpectedly defiant Yun Chao joined their journey.

• During Su Jiu's month of recovery, her grasp of Void Talisman Drawing helped her break through to the mid Golden Core stage.
• The Yun Household elders argued over whether to ask Su Jiu for Void Talisman Drawing, and the Grand Elder persuaded the Seventh Elder not to risk offending her.
• Qiao Zirong brought Mo Qi to the Yun Household, where Su Jiu emerged from seclusion and reunited with them.
• Qiao Zirong congratulated Su Jiu on her cultivation breakthrough, and Mo Qi explained that the delay had let her settle matters at the Mo Household.
• After the group bid farewell to the Yun Household, Yun Huanling tagged along and Yun Chao boarded their ship, keeping his divine sense on Su Jiu and giving her a defiant look.

Yun Chao, Su Jiu, Mo Qi, Yun Huanling, and Qiao Zirong sailed toward the Azure Mist Continent while Mo Qi spoke of her plans for revenge. A sudden storm and whirlpool swallowed the ship and all five travelers, leaving their fate unknown.

• Yun Chao recalled that the Seventh Elder had sent him to learn from the Azure Tide Sect and given him a mirror to report back to the Yun Household.
• Mo Qi told Su Jiu that she planned to seek revenge and would travel with her and Qiao Zirong if she survived.
• Su Jiu comforted Mo Qi as she grieved over her father's betrayal and her estrangement from the Mo Household.
• Dark clouds and violent waves struck the ship, and Su Jiu ordered everyone to prepare to abandon it.
• A whirlpool pulled the five travelers and their ship underwater, where an enormous fish swallowed them whole.

Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Yun Huanling recovered among shipwrecks on a strange shore and found evidence that missing ships had ended up there. After hearing fishermen say outsiders could never escape, Su Jiu grew more suspicious of their surroundings, and the three came upon a vast stretch of enormous shells.

• Su Jiu woke beside the wreckage, found Yun Chao and Yun Huanling unconscious, and gave the injured Yun Huanling a Minor Restoration Pill.
• Yun Huanling and Yun Chao awakened, and Su Jiu told them she suspected they were inside the giant black fish that had swallowed them.
• Yun Chao identified wreckage from missing Yun Household and Mo Household ships, then found sunlight outside the wreckage.
• Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Yun Huanling set out to explore and learned that Mo Qi and Qiao Zirong were nowhere nearby.
• Three fishermen discussed outsiders who arrived there and said they could not escape and would eventually die.
• The three found a shore covered with enormous shells, including one decorated with brilliant red gauze.

Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Yun Huanling discovered a merfolk village and learned that its chief was connected to Mo Qi and Qiao Zirong’s disappearance. Qiao Zirong remained captive as the chief planned to marry Mo Qi and serve him as food.

• Su Jiu identified a little boy as a merfolk, and the child recognized the visitors as outsiders by their scent.
• The boy’s parents tried to deny seeing humans, but their reaction to Su Jiu’s mention of merfolk flesh confirmed their fear of cultivators.
• The group learned that Jiao Lin was the village chief and headed toward his large, red-gauze-covered shell.
• Qiao Zirong awoke bound with Mo Qi and feigned unconsciousness when the powerful chief entered their enclosure.
• The chief ordered Mo Qi taken away to be washed for their wedding that night and Qiao Zirong killed for the wedding feast.
• The chief heard that three more people had arrived and said they would make additional dishes.

Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Yun Huanling met the Swallowing Heaven World’s merfolk chief and learned they could not return to their world. They resisted his bewitching voice and suspected that Mo Qi was the woman he planned to marry, leaving Qiao Zirong in danger.

• The merfolk chief told Su Jiu and her companions that Swallowing Heaven had swallowed them and that they could not return to their original world.
• The chief tried to entice them with promises of cultivation without tribulation and eventual ascension, but Su Jiu recognized his bewitching voice and warned Yun Chao and Yun Huanling.
• Yun Huanling pretended to believe the chief and encouraged him to reveal more about the village.
• The chief invited the three humans to attend his wedding to a woman he had recently met.
• A servant summoned the chief away, and Yun Huanling guessed that Mo Qi was the bride.
• Su Jiu reminded Yun Huanling that Mo Qi’s marriage could put Qiao Zirong in danger.

Su Jiu and her companions met Jiao Chen, who revealed that most Merfolk in the village had lost their abilities and offered to show them how to escape Swallowing Heaven if they rescued his daughter from the Black Dragon Prison. He warned them that the Black Dragon King was a ninth-tier flood dragon and that advancing inside Swallowing Heaven could make heavenly lightning deadly when they left.

• Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Yun Huanling saw villagers gossip about Jiao Chen and followed him to his shell house.
• Jiao Chen told them that every Merfolk in the village except Jiao Lin had lost their unique abilities.
• Jiao Chen offered to explain how they could leave Swallowing Heaven in exchange for rescuing his youngest daughter, who had been imprisoned for nearly ten thousand years.
• Jiao Chen admitted that he had helped earlier visitors escape, but said the Black Dragon King had won them over.
• Jiao Chen explained that the Black Dragon King was a ninth-tier flood dragon, not a true dragon, and warned that cultivators who advanced inside Swallowing Heaven faced devastating heavenly lightning after leaving.

Su Jiu exposed Jiao Chen’s scheme to use cultivators to complete his map and pressured him to reveal a way out of Swallowing Heaven. Jiao Chen disclosed that the teleportation array beneath the Black Dragon King’s throne had been destroyed by his daughter, leaving Su Jiu to question who he really was.

• Jiao Chen explained that merfolk and dragon jiao cultivated without tribulations, while Su Jiu realized she needed to leave Swallowing Heaven before advancing too far.
• Jiao Chen gave Su Jiu his incomplete map of Black Dragon Prison and admitted through his silence that he had used fallen cultivators to help complete it.
• Su Jiu threatened to destroy the map unless Jiao Chen answered her questions truthfully, and demanded to know how to leave Swallowing Heaven.
• Jiao Chen revealed that a teleportation array beneath the Black Dragon King’s throne had been sabotaged and destroyed ten thousand years earlier.
• Jiao Chen identified the saboteur as his daughter, and Su Jiu asked him who he really was.

The Merfolk King explained how his obsession with rescuing his daughter led him to lure human cultivators into the Black Dragon Prison, and Su Jiu and her companions learned that Swallowing Heaven granted its inhabitants eternal youth. After Yun Huanling’s Compass failed and they realized fate might not function in this world, the group discovered that Mo Qi and Qiao Zirong had been abducted, and the village was searching for them.

• Jiao Chen told Su Jiu that he had sent human cultivators toward the Black Dragon Prison for ten thousand years in hopes of rescuing his daughter and gathering a map.
• Su Jiu returned Jiao Chen’s map and learned from him that all life in Swallowing Heaven remained young and could live forever unless deliberately harmed.
• Yun Huanling repeatedly tried to use his Compass to locate their companions, but it did not respond, and Su Jiu concluded that the Heavenly Dao and fate might not exist in this world.
• Su Jiu, Yun Chao, and Yun Huanling saw merfolk searching the village with portraits of Mo Qi and Qiao Zirong.
• A servant told the three that a bandit had abducted the village chief’s bride-to-be, and Yun Chao offered to help find her.

Su Jiu discovered that the village chief was using forbidden formations and Spirit-Draining Stones, while she and her companions searched unsuccessfully for Jiao Chen and Mo Qi. Qiao Zirong rescued the drugged Mo Qi, and Su Jiu decided to act that night.

• Su Jiu found a Spirit-Transfer Formation and Spirit-Draining Stones in the village chief’s backyard, and realized the black talisman likely belonged to Jiao Chen while the others belonged to Mo Qi and Qiao Zirong.
• Yun Huanling and Yun Chao reported that they had searched the village without finding the missing pair, and Su Jiu told them to wait until night.
• Qiao Zirong escaped his restraints and searched the village for Mo Qi, but the shell houses blocked his Divine Sense.
• Qiao Zirong followed a servant to the shore, where he found the unconscious Mo Qi in a water-filled shell.
• Qiao Zirong immobilized the servant, gave Mo Qi his All-Healing Pill, and used his last Invisibility Talisman to conceal her.

Qiao Zirong woke to find himself and Mo Qi drugged and hiding from strange villagers who searched for them as food and a bride. He and Mo Qi escaped underwater, where she realized she loved him, and the chapter ended when Su Jiu called them out of hiding.

• Qiao Zirong stayed hidden as villagers searched the shore, and Mo Qi woke weak but still concealed by an Invisibility Talisman.
• Qiao Zirong led Mo Qi into the sea with her Water-Avoidance Pearl and explained that the villagers might be nonhuman and intended harm.
• Mo Qi worried about Su Jiu and the others, then blurted out her jealousy before admitting to herself that she loved Qiao Zirong.
• Qiao Zirong said he was fine, while Mo Qi concealed her disappointment that he remained unaware of her feelings.
• After night fell, Su Jiu approached the water and told Qiao Zirong and Mo Qi they could come out.

Su Jiu freed Qiao Zirong and Mo Qi from the effects of Dream-Return Powder and removed the shadows attached to them, then led Yun Huanling and Yun Chao to investigate the village chief’s courtyard. Jiao Lin discovered that his formation had been disrupted, swallowed the spirit-draining stones to stabilize his spirit root, and vowed revenge.

• Su Jiu realized Qiao Zirong and Mo Qi had been drugged, then pulled a black shadow from behind Qiao Zirong’s heart and destroyed it.
• Su Jiu used an Isolation Formation to remove the shadow from Mo Qi, and the group exchanged what they knew about the village and Jiao Lin.
• Mo Qi and Qiao Zirong stayed behind to recover in Su Jiu’s Spirit-Gathering and Defensive Formations while Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Yun Chao went to inspect the village chief’s courtyard.
• Jiao Lin sensed the cultivators nearby and returned home, where he found two talismans missing from the Spirit-Transfer Formation.
• Jiao Lin swallowed the spirit-draining stones to stabilize his spirit root and grew murderous toward the cultivators who had disrupted his plans.

Su Jiu confronted Jiao Chen and pieced together how a fish demon had trapped the Merfolk King by holding his great-grandson’s spirit root and lifeline hostage. Jiao Chen admitted he had been protecting Little Yan, and Su Jiu ended by asking how the demon had taken the villagers’ spirit roots.

• Jiao Chen stopped Su Jiu and her companions on the way to Jiao Lin’s home and warned them to leave the village alone.
• Su Jiu accused Jiao Chen of serving a fish demon and explained how the demon had sealed his cultivation through a talisman and spirit-transfer formation.
• Jiao Chen admitted that Little Yan had lost his spirit root and half his lifeline, leaving him unable to risk the boy’s death by fighting the demon.
• Su Jiu asked Jiao Chen how the fish demon had persuaded the villagers to surrender their spirit roots.

Su Jiu confronted Jiao Lin, who revealed how he and his master had deceived the Merfolk village and stolen its Spirit Roots to increase his power. The truth left Su Jiu facing a powerful enemy who had swallowed the Spirit-Draining Stones.

• Jiao Lin approached Su Jiu and the others, and the Merfolk King realized he had swallowed all the Spirit-Draining Stones.
• Su Jiu learned that two days had passed in Swallowing Heaven while her group experienced only a short time, suggesting time flowed differently there.
• Jiao Lin explained that he had stolen a Merfolk's Core and fused it with his Demon Core with help from his master.
• Jiao Lin described how he and his master staged attacks, killed the village chief, and made him chief so they could target the Merfolk.
• Jiao Lin used Spirit-Transfer Talismans and a formation to drain the villagers' spiritual Qi, then tricked them into using Spirit-Draining Stones.
• Jiao Lin's master killed villagers who refused the stones, and Jiao Lin later claimed the village had been cursed.

Jiao Lin recounted how he deceived the merfolk and later lost his cultivation, then attacked Su Jiu and the others as they tried to stop his plan. Su Jiu and Yun Chao fought the Fish Demon while Yun Huanling went to break the formation, and the battle continued.

• Jiao Lin used the curse story and a false cleansing formation to make the merfolk surrender their Spirit-Draining Stones, sustaining the lie for ten thousand years.
• After discovering his master-servant contract, Jiao Lin lost contact with his master and had his cultivation drained, forcing him to cultivate anew.
• Su Jiu realized Jiao Lin had used the Spirit-Draining Stones to undo his seal, and Jiao Lin declared that he would make them his food.
• Su Jiu sent Yun Huanling to break the village chief's formation and retrieve the black talisman while Jiao Chen prepared to fight beside her.
• Su Jiu and Yun Chao attacked the Fish Demon together, combining Yun Chao's sword strike with Su Jiu's frost sword intent.

Su Jiu and Yun Chao fought Jiao Lin’s powerful water arts while trying to withstand the fish demon’s attacks. Yun Huanling returned with the talisman sealing Jiao Chen’s cultivation, prompting Jiao Lin to rush toward him to seize it.

• Su Jiu pulled Yun Chao out of danger as Jiao Lin’s attacks wounded them, then countered with ice spikes that pierced the fish demon.
• The fish demon unleashed Mirror-Image Waves and Endless Needle Rain, forcing Su Jiu and Yun Chao to flee and defend themselves.
• Su Jiu gave Yun Chao a ring with a Defensive Formation after his refusal to use defensive treasures left him badly wounded.
• Su Jiu asked whether Yun Huanling could break the formation, and Yun Chao explained that the Yun Household could use Eight Gates arts instead.
• Yun Huanling returned holding the talisman that sealed Jiao Chen’s cultivation, and Jiao Lin abandoned Su Jiu and Yun Chao to charge at him.

Su Jiu fought Jiao Lin while Jiao Chen absorbed the recovered spiritual qi, and she exhausted herself trying to keep the Fish Demon from escaping. After Su Jiu’s sword nearly struck Jiao Lin, a Magic Staff blocked the blow, leaving the fight unresolved.

• Yun Huanling handed Jiao Chen the ink-black Talisman while Su Jiu’s Void Talisman protected him from Jiao Lin’s attack.
• Jiao Chen began absorbing spiritual qi as Jiao Lin tried to break out of Su Jiu’s trapping formation, and Su Jiu secretly gathered frost in her palm.
• Mo Qi and Qiao Zirong sensed the fierce battle from the Protective Formation, and Mo Qi heard a strange voice wish for Su Jiu’s death.
• Su Jiu attacked Jiao Lin with Ice Spikes and the Thousand-Mile Ice Seal, then swung Frostbound Purple Ultimate at him.
• A Magic Staff blocked Su Jiu’s sword just before it reached Jiao Lin’s head.

Su Jiu forced Jiao Chen to choose between killing Jiao Lin and letting him escape, and Jiao Chen ultimately killed him and removed his Core. Jiao Chen then freed Jiao Yan from the black thread attached to the Core and destroyed Jiao Lin’s remains.

• Jiao Lin threatened to detonate his demon core, but Su Jiu insisted that Jiao Chen kill him or extract his Core and kill him.
• Jiao Chen admitted he was weakened and agreed not to take Jiao Lin away alive.
• Jiao Chen summoned Jiao Yan, pierced Jiao Lin, and extracted his Core despite Jiao Lin’s threat.
• Su Jiu noticed a fine black thread wound around the Core and recognized an aura like Jiao Yan’s.
• Jiao Chen unraveled the thread and returned it to Jiao Yan, restoring his life, then reduced Jiao Lin’s Core to ash.

After the incident, Su Jiu had her wounds treated while Yun Chao recovered nearby. Yun Huanling revealed that Su Jiu seemed to have comprehended fusion, and she set out to investigate Jiao Lin’s house again, suspecting his former master had been a Heretical Cultivator.

• Mo Qi treated Su Jiu’s wounds with Ice-Preserving Jade Dew Salve, surprised that Su Jiu had not known its name or value.
• Qiao Zirong checked on Yun Chao, whose injuries had stabilized after he took a Minor Restoration Pill.
• Yun Chao questioned how quickly Su Jiu had recovered her spiritual qi, and Yun Huanling said she seemed to have comprehended fusion.
• Su Jiu bid Mo Qi farewell and prepared to investigate Jiao Lin’s house, suspecting his former master had been a Heretical Cultivator.

Su Jiu uncovered the Fortune-Transferring Pearl’s curse and realized Zheng Qilong might obtain it during its tenth cycle, while she remained trapped in Swallowing Heaven. Jiao Chen proposed a contract to help her kill the Black Dragon King in exchange for rescuing his daughter from the Black Dragon Prison, and Su Jiu began preparing the contract formation.

• Su Jiu destroyed Jiao Lin’s Spirit-Draining Stones and examined Jade Slips containing formation instructions, evil dual-cultivation arts, and forbidden spells.
• Su Jiu learned that the Fortune-Transferring Pearl would be ready for use during its tenth accumulation cycle and feared Zheng Qilong would obtain it.
• Su Jiu considered the unknown heretical cultivator’s fate and questioned when he entered Swallowing Heaven and where he had disappeared to.
• Jiao Chen found Su Jiu and offered to help her kill the Black Dragon King if she rescued his daughter from the Black Dragon Prison.
• Su Jiu agreed to make a contract but insisted on setting up the contract formation herself, then completed a Formation Disk.