Chapter Summaries

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling fought mutated plants in the second formation, whose attacks were slowed by Su Jiu’s Snowfall Domain. After Chu Luohen found the Formation Eye and destroyed the plants, Su Jiu warned Yun Huanling not to collect their black and white beads.

• Su Jiu used her Ice Spikes against the plants’ barrage and discovered black and white beads inside them.
• Su Jiu cast Snowfall Domain, slowing the plants but rapidly exhausting her Spiritual Qi while Chu Luohen and Yun Huanling attacked their roots.
• Chu Luohen broke Su Jiu’s domain and used snow to kill the weakened plants after finding the Formation Eye.
• Su Jiu stopped Yun Huanling from collecting the black and white beads, and he put them down.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling fought their way through the second ring of the killing array, where Su Jiu realized the dwindling plant attacks might signal a greater threat ahead. Little Pearl sensed an abnormal spirit belonging to an enormous tree, and the group prepared to face it.

• Su Jiu confirmed that something shared by everyone was controlling the giant beast and plants, and the trio continued toward the formation eye while fighting off vegetation.
• During a rest, Yun Huanling noticed Su Jiu's ordinary ribbon, while Su Jiu wondered whether the white beads he carried contained the dead from the array.
• The path became easier and plant attacks dwindled, but Su Jiu warned that the group might be entering the territory of a more dangerous presence.
• Little Pearl sensed an abnormal, powerful spirit belonging to an enormous tree ahead, and Su Jiu warned Chu Luohen and Yun Huanling to prepare for battle.
• Chu Luohen raised his Frostbound Purple Ultimate Sword as the enormous tree approached.

Su Jiu and her companions fought waves of vines controlled by the Demon Spirit while Little Pearl and the Painting Spirit searched for the Tree Spirit. As the battle continued, Little Gift’s strange sleepiness and growing resemblance to Su Jiu raised questions about Su Jiu’s potential new innate talent.

• A vine infused with Demonic Qi and Spiritual Qi attacked Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling, and Little Pearl warned that it was a Demon Spirit.
• More vines overwhelmed the group, and Su Jiu severed one that had caught Yun Huanling while their Spiritual Qi dwindled.
• Little Pearl and the Painting Spirit found that the Tree Spirit kept changing position and hiding its aura, making it impossible to track.
• The Tree Spirit directed a fresh wave of vines toward Su Jiu, prompting Little Pearl to demand that she release it, but the Painting Spirit urged it not to worsen Su Jiu’s burden.
• Little Gift woke and suggested her increasing sleepiness might be related to Su Jiu awakening a new innate talent.
• The Painting Spirit and Little Pearl reflected on how Little Gift had grown quiet and withdrawn since Su Jiu entered Netherworld Mountain.

Little Gift woke and told Su Jiu to mix Spirit-Cleansing Pool Water into her spiritual qi to fight the Demon Spirit. Su Jiu found the invisible Demon Spirit with her Otherworldly Eyes, but as she and Chu Luohen battled its vines, it crept up a nearby tree toward her.

• Little Gift awoke and told Su Jiu that Spirit-Cleansing Pool Water would make her attacks more effective against the Demon Spirit.
• The vines turned their full assault on Su Jiu, and she sent the wounded Yun Huanling to recover inside a Formation Disk while Chu Luohen stayed to help her.
• Little Gift refused to reveal the Demon Spirit’s location, so Su Jiu used her Otherworldly Eyes to find it despite suffering severe wounds.
• Su Jiu’s Spirit-Cleansing Pool Water prevented severed vines from regenerating and purified their demonic energy.
• A vine climbed the tree beside Su Jiu and lay hidden among its leaves as it watched her.

Su Jiu captured the Tree Spirit and forced it to reveal that dead humans’ souls inhabited plants in the Secret Realm. She then questioned the spirit about its cultivation, uncovering a possible clue about the source of its so-called yin-yang qi.

• Su Jiu immobilized the Tree Spirit, and Chu Luohen dispersed its gray mist as she demanded answers.
• The Tree Spirit refused to cooperate until Su Jiu threatened it with ice spiritual qi mixed with Spirit-Cleansing Pool Water, then agreed to talk.
• The Tree Spirit revealed that humans who died in the Secret Realm left souls that attached to plants, and that black-and-white beads appeared when those plants later died.
• Yun Huanling panicked and threw down the four large black-and-white beads he had collected, while the Tree Spirit said it did not know what a formation was.
• Su Jiu asked whether the Tree Spirit had always cultivated intermingling demonic and spiritual qi, and it said plants cultivated yin-yang qi but could not remember who had taught it that term.

Su Jiu uncovered how the tree spirit had been forced into premature birth and drained its lifespan, then purged some of the demonic qi from its body before leaving through its true body. The group entered the third formation, a mirror maze where flying could not reveal a route out.

• Su Jiu realized that someone had erased the tree spirit’s inheritance or that its premature birth had prevented it from receiving one, and learned its strength was consuming its lifespan.
• The tree spirit explained that it had attacked the cultivators as a game, had not deliberately killed them, and that touching its true body made people vanish.
• Su Jiu struck the tree spirit with spiritual energy to expel some of its demonic qi, then she, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen passed through the giant tree.
• The exhausted tree spirit learned that the three had vanished after touching its true body and lamented that it could not leave its own tree.
• Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen reached the third formation, a mirror maze that could not be surveyed by flying above it.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling entered a mirror image formation where divination failed and each choice held danger. Following Yun Huanling’s suggestion, they bypassed the bronze doors and pressed deeper into the formation, where four demon beasts emerged to block their path.

• Yun Huanling’s divination repeatedly pointed to the same destination, and Chu Luohen chose the middle path into the formation.
• Two mirrors became bronze doors carved with ancient demon beasts and suppression runes, while Su Jiu concluded that pushing onward was more dangerous than entering a door.
• After Yun Huanling argued that going farther could offer more chances of survival, Su Jiu agreed to continue straight ahead instead of opening a door.
• The bronze doors behind them reverted to mirrors, and later doors depicted stronger demon beasts with additional seal runes.
• Four ancient demon beasts emerged from the mirrors and blocked the trio’s path.

Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen fought through the mirror formation’s increasingly difficult Demon Beast attacks, while Su Jiu discovered Yun Huanling suffered unexplained bouts of chest pain. They prepared to face one more wave before reaching the final mirror, with Su Jiu still worried about Yun Huanling and Chu Luohen’s presence growing oppressive.

• Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen killed four Demon Beasts, and Yun Huanling realized their corpses vanished because the beasts were formed through Arts.
• The trio continued through the mirror formation, fighting increasingly difficult waves of Demon Beasts and sustaining injuries.
• While Yun Huanling regulated his breathing, he suffered a painful episode, but Su Jiu and Chu Luohen found no abnormality in his body.
• Yun Huanling told Su Jiu that his pain came in bouts and that healing cultivators had found nothing wrong, while Su Jiu remained unconvinced.
• Su Jiu estimated that one more battle would bring them to the final mirror, and Yun Huanling teased her about worrying over him before saying he was happy she understood him.

Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen entered the next mirror-maze trial and were surrounded by four manifested Demon Beasts, including a seventh-tier Zouyu. Yun Huanling raised a Defensive Formation while Su Jiu and Chu Luohen fought the beasts, and the chapter left them facing the Bear Demon’s attacks on their divine senses.

• Su Jiu identified the Zouyu and Bear Demon carved on the mirrors, and the group continued into the corridor because they could not retrace their route.
• A Purple-Feathered Bright Demon, a Siren, a Bear Demon, and a seventh-tier Zouyu appeared and surrounded Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen.
• Yun Huanling summoned a seventh-tier Formation Disk, while Su Jiu used four Stasis Talismans to stall the beasts long enough for his Defensive Formation to take shape.
• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen killed the Purple-Feathered Bright Demon and Siren, then turned to the Bear Demon as its roar affected their divine senses and weakened Yun Huanling's control of the formation.
• Despite blood seeping from her ears, Su Jiu sent dozens of Ice Spikes toward the Bear Demon.

Chu Luohen and Su Jiu killed the Bear Demon, but their attacks could not hit the seventh-tier Zouyu. Su Jiu proposed using a sea of formations to restrict it, and Yun Huanling withdrew the protective formation so they could begin their plan.

• Chu Luohen wounded the Bear Demon with his new Ice and Snow Storm, and Su Jiu finished it with a sword strike.
• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen failed to hit the Zouyu while Yun Huanling's protective formation weakened under its attacks.
• Su Jiu identified the Zouyu's instinctive behavior as a weakness and proposed restricting it with successive formations.
• Chu Luohen said he had over a thousand Formation Disks of the fourth tier or higher, and Su Jiu planned to predict the Zouyu's movements and direct their deployment.
• Yun Huanling withdrew the protective formation as the Zouyu charged, and Chu Luohen prepared an Ice Element art.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen wore down the conjured Zouyu through coordinated attacks and formations, but their stamina and formation disks were running low. Su Jiu tried the Ice Cloud Hairpin against the trapped beast, hoping its ice poison could finish the fight.

• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen alternated attacks while Su Jiu used formations to trap the Zouyu, learning how long different formations could hold it.
• The Zouyu became a bloody mass, but it continued attacking without pain or fatigue as Su Jiu and Chu Luohen grew exhausted.
• Little Pearl warned Su Jiu that Chu Luohen was nearing his limit, while Su Jiu realized she had only one sixth-tier formation disk left.
• Su Jiu remembered the Ice Cloud Hairpin's instant ice poison and decided to use it against the Zouyu's exposed flesh.
• Su Jiu fired the Ice Cloud Hairpin into the Zouyu while it was trapped and unable to dodge.

Su Jiu trapped Zouyu with the Ice Cloud Hairpin, but the spirit treasure drained her divine sense and left her unconscious. After Little Gift restored her and explained that she had awakened the hairpin’s sealed power, Su Jiu woke beside Chu Luohen and Yun Huanling.

• Su Jiu used Chu Luohen’s move in front of her to trap Zouyu in her formation, then joined the others in attacking until the beast dissolved into smoke.
• The Ice Cloud Hairpin returned to Su Jiu, and she lost consciousness after it drained her mental power.
• Chu Luohen told Yun Huanling that Su Jiu had overexerted her divine sense and injured her Sea of Consciousness.
• Little Gift restored Su Jiu’s divine sense and explained that she had performed artifact awakening on the Ice Cloud Hairpin without realizing it.
• Chu Luohen discovered that Su Jiu’s divine sense had returned to normal, while Yun Huanling tried unsuccessfully to divine her condition.
• Su Jiu opened her eyes, surprising Yun Huanling and bringing him immense relief.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling reached the final door and discovered that its thousand-year-old star map concealed a successful Defy-Heaven Life Reversal. Su Jiu suspected the fate-changer was connected to the trap, but ruled out Mask Man as too young to have performed it.

• Su Jiu explained that she had awakened the sealed hairpin while attacking the Zouyu, and the others realized her divine sense was unusually strong.
• The three reached the final door, where Yun Huanling identified its engraving as a rearranged star map from a thousand years ago.
• Su Jiu told Yun Huanling about her conversation with Mask Man and her suspicion that the trap had been laid a thousand years earlier.
• Yun Huanling restored the star map and found an extra fate star, which Su Jiu fitted into a hidden recess beneath another star.
• Yun Huanling realized someone had successfully performed Defy-Heaven Life Reversal a thousand years ago and explained that the larger star showed the changed fate while the smaller one concealed the original.
• Su Jiu wondered who had changed their fate, considered Mask Man, then rejected him because he would have been too young and weak at the time.

Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen escaped through the Mirror Image Formation’s Final Gate, disrupting Mask Man’s life-exchange scheme and leaving them scattered somewhere in the Azure Realm. Meanwhile, Li Yishi grappled with the truth about his sect, and Mu Ran and Ming Yun fought to the death on the Water Moon School’s Back Mountain.

• Su Jiu placed the Fate Star in the gate and led Yun Huanling and Chu Luohen through as it began to vanish.
• Mask Man learned that the three had entered the Final Gate and ordered Shui Rao'er to begin hunting for them in two hours.
• Li Yishi confronted his master with what Ming Yun and Qian Xin had told him, learned the Water Moon School’s secrets were true, and struggled with his shattered faith.
• Mu Ran ambushed Ming Yun on the Water Moon School’s Back Mountain, and the two fought over their long-standing enmity.
• Ming Yun attacked with her Netherworld Lamp, but Mu Ran’s Buddhist artifact purified the lamp’s ghost fire.

Mu Ran resisted Ming Yun’s ghost-fire lamp after realizing it held her brother’s soul, but Ming Yun escaped. Back at the Water Moon School, Ming Yun learned Su Jiu might have escaped and discussed the next day’s fate-exchange ritual with Shui Rao’er and Mask Man, who revealed he had already marked Ming Yun’s soul.

• Ming Yun unleashed human-faced ghost flames from her lamp, but Mu Ran used her Buddhist artifact to purify them.
• The ghost flames showed Mu Ran the faces of people she knew, including her younger brother, and she realized his soul was inside the lamp.
• Ming Yun escaped Mu Ran with Windwalking Talismans, and Mu Ran withdrew into the shadows.
• Ming Yun returned to the Water Moon School, learned Su Jiu might have escaped, and went to confront the man who had captured people.
• Shui Rao’er told Ming Yun that Su Jiu was safe, while Ming Yun resolved to turn the sacrificial ritual to her own advantage.
• Mask Man told Shui Rao’er that he had marked Ming Yun’s divine soul and believed she could not escape his control after using the Heavenly Star Rotation Technique.

Su Jiu, Yun Huanling, and Chu Luohen explored the Mirror Image Formation’s Final Gate and discovered a Star Wish Formation that could teleport them to a chosen destination. Su Jiu decided to activate its main formation and travel to the Immortal Pool Spring to confront the source of the events surrounding them.

• Su Jiu explained that the Final Gate might follow independent rules, and she and Yun Huanling found nine Teleportation Arrays nearby.
• Yun Huanling used his Nine-Bend Compass and received a reading that said they had escaped but had not escaped.
• The three found a Star Wish Formation with four empty recesses, and Chu Luohen explained how its main and subsidiary formations worked.
• Su Jiu rejected the idea of waiting out Mask Man’s Heavenly Star Rotation Technique, fearing it would affect someone else and leave her responsible.
• Su Jiu said she intended to activate the main formation and teleport to the Immortal Pool Spring.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling examined the nine formations and worked together to break the white lead formation. The formation fell far faster than Yun Huanling expected, and Chu Luohen warned Su Jiu that her risky method required companions she trusted completely.

• Su Jiu identified three types of formation eyes among the nine formations and suspected the white formation was their lead.
• Chu Luohen tested the white formation with a Spirit Artifact, which burned to ash when it approached the formation eye.
• Su Jiu explained that the linked formations needed to be broken from outside, and the three agreed to work together.
• Su Jiu led the formation-breaking process, directing the others as they followed her unusual calculations and spiritual-qi paths.
• The white formation broke in less than an hour, surprising Yun Huanling.
• Chu Luohen warned Su Jiu that her method was dangerous and should only be used with companions she trusted completely.

Su Jiu and her companions activated the enormous main formation, while Xia Jue rushed to Xi He City and learned that the true source of the resentful spirits might be the Demon-Subduing Land. The chapter left Xia Jue preparing for a confrontation with the Bright Moon School and the other sects as he pursued Su Jiu’s warning.

• Su Jiu recognized that the main formation combined the patterns of the nine smaller formations and used the white stone to activate it with help from her Junior Granduncle and Yun Huanling.
• Xia Jue received a message, used a Directional Teleportation Array, and arrived with Enforcement Hall disciples on the outskirts of Xi He City.
• Xia Jue asked Feng Qi about Qian Ling and warned that the Bright Moon School would be treated as an enemy if it stayed neutral.
• Feng Qi reported that Su Jiu had destroyed most of the evil spirits and collected the Demon Mirrors, but suspected the strongest spirits remained elsewhere.
• Xia Jue learned that Su Jiu considered the Demon-Subduing Land the likeliest gathering place for the true resentful spirits.

Feng Qi told Xia Jue that Zheng Qilong had reached Nascent Soul and was practicing both spiritual and demonic cultivation, prompting Xia Jue to order his disciples to monitor him from a distance. Meanwhile, Ming Yun grew anxious about exchanging fates, but Mask Man trapped her in a courtyard barrier to make her wait until night.

• Feng Qi reported that Zheng Qilong had left the Demon-Subduing Land with the Fortune-Transferring Pearl, now shrouded in demonic qi, and had reached Nascent Soul while practicing demon-spirit dual cultivation.
• Xia Jue told Feng Qi not to harm Zheng Qilong and ordered the disciples following him to keep their distance, suspecting he was the Child of Destiny Hongguang had mentioned.
• Feng Qi told Xia Jue that Enforcement Hall disciples had also seen members of the Nine-Tailed Tribe near the Demon-Subduing Land, and Xia Jue connected them to the events on Netherworld Mountain.
• Ming Yun asked Mask Man whether the fate-exchange plan would proceed, but he swept her out of the room when she pressed him for reassurance.
• Ming Yun found a barrier at the Stone Archway, and Mask Man told her she would have to wait in the courtyard until the appointed time that night.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Yun Huanling discovered that the Immortal Pool Spring was created by a formation that used curse script to drain cultivators’ vitality while helping them advance. Su Jiu’s blood caused the curse script to react, leaving its effect unclear.

• Su Jiu and her companions arrived at the bottom of a pond and found curse script covering a wall.
• Chu Luohen explained that the markings were a Life-Transference Curse that collected vitality and revealed that curse arts were banned because they could corrupt their practitioners.
• Yun Huanling found an ancient sword embedded in a recess, and Su Jiu concluded that it helped form a natural circulation that enriched the pond’s water.
• Su Jiu reasoned that someone had used the sword and pond to create the Immortal Pool Spring, and Yun Huanling admitted he suspected the Mask Man was a senior of the Heavenly Secret Sect.
• Su Jiu infused her blood with spiritual qi and sent it into the curse script, which began to react as her blood spread across it.