Chapter Summaries

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen defeated the demon beasts and uncovered the star maps on all eight White Jade Stone Pillars, which opened the way to the Palace. At the Palace doors, Su Jiu warned the cultivators about the deadly arrays and explained how they were concealed, while the Formation Arts Artists struggled to recognize them.

• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen killed the remaining sixth-tier demon beasts, and Su Jiu left a few cultivators to fight the last fifth-tier beasts.
• The family head of the clan that looked down on female cultivators offered resources and then spirit stones to recruit help, while Su Jiu and Chu Luohen continued drawing star maps from the stone pillars.
• Xiao Fan asked Su Jiu why she had let the Spirit Curse Sect board her Flying Boat for free, and she told him to thank his sect's ancestor.
• Su Jiu activated the final pillar, and the star maps connected and rotated until night fell, the pillars vanished, and the white mist around the Palace dissipated.
• A cultivator nearly touched the Palace doors, but Su Jiu warned him that doing so could cost him his life and explained that a Formation Arts Artist could unravel the arrays.
• Su Jiu described the three arrays hidden in the doors' patterns, and one Formation Arts Artist foolishly blamed the array inscriber for his inability to see them.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen examined the Palace’s dangerous formations and worked together to unravel its composite formation and the two sealing formations. The doors opened, revealing the way forward on the Hongsheng Heavenly Road.

• Su Jiu identified a Soul Devouring Formation among the Palace’s layered formations and, with Chu Luohen, suspected the windows might hide ancient demon beasts.
• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen unraveled the four-layer composite formation without involving the distrustful Formation Arts Artists, but the doors remained sealed.
• When cultivators tried to push the doors, Lou Sheng explained that Su Jiu had chosen to break the composite formation first to prevent them from dying to the sealing formation.
• Su Jiu recognized that the Seal Formation matched the one that had sealed Little Pearl, and she and Chu Luohen quickly broke it.
• The Palace doors opened automatically after the Seal Formation shattered.

The cultivators faced the Palace’s sealed, pitch-black entrance, and Su Jiu’s attempt to inspect it with her pupil art triggered severe pain. After Chu Luohen and Su Jiu threatened a middle-aged cultivator for insulting her, Su Jiu decided not to kill him because he would face consequences after the Azure Realms merged.

• The Palace doors opened slowly, revealing a dark entrance that blocked divine sense, and Su Jiu and Chu Luohen noticed a golden barrier around it.
• Ouyang Yanyu tested the entrance with her hand, while Su Jiu used her pupil art to observe what happened and suffered intense pain.
• Qi Song used Fresh Growth in the Clear Breeze to soothe Su Jiu’s eyes as she explained that her pupil art had worsened.
• A middle-aged cultivator insulted Su Jiu, so Chu Luohen wounded him and Su Jiu held Ice Spikes before his eyes until he apologized.
• Su Jiu noticed the female cultivator with an eighty-percent wood spiritual root and suspected she would bring trouble upon her clan.
• Chu Luohen asked why Su Jiu had spared the middle-aged cultivator, and Su Jiu said the merging Azure Realms would provide others to deal with him.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Qi Song entered the darkness beyond the door, followed by several groups who trusted Su Jiu. The small clan’s disciples stayed behind while their injured family head recovered, and they learned the painful history behind his hatred of female cultivators.

• Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Qi Song stepped through the door, and members of several sects and clans followed them.
• The girl in red mocked the injured family head before entering, and her glance enraged him enough to reopen his wounds.
• The small clan’s disciples discussed their family head’s repeated injuries and recalled how Su Jiu had repeatedly outshone him.
• A disciple charged the others one spirit stone each to share gossip about the family head’s past.
• The disciples learned that the family head’s mother and fiancée had both run off with other men, and that a female cultivator later nearly killed him during a training journey.
• After becoming family head, he banned new female disciples, cut the allowances of the women in his lineage, and drove many of them away.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Qi Song entered a palace within the Hongsheng Heavenly Road, where time and spatial laws behaved strangely. Su Jiu identified the eight demon beast statues surrounding a sealed barrier as dangerous constructs and warned the others not to touch them.

• Su Jiu entered the palace and discovered that the forest behind her was only a painting, then reunited with Chu Luohen, who suspected the space had altered time.
• Su Jiu described feeling as though her body and belongings had been dismantled and reassembled, and Chu Luohen found paintings throughout the palace and a mist-shrouded barrier at its center.
• Qi Song arrived after a delay that suggested time passed differently inside the palace, and the three decided to search for the entrance to the Second Level.
• Su Jiu approached the barrier and recognized the eight demon beast statues as matching the spiritual-qi images on the palace windows.
• When a Fang Family disciple tried to touch a statue, Su Jiu stopped him and explained that the statues could be activated by external spiritual qi and attack like mechanical puppets.

Su Jiu sought a way to break the barrier concealing the passage to the Second Level, but the group lacked enough cultivators who knew the Unsealing Art. As time accelerated in the Palace and the statues seemed to stir, the crowded cultivators grew increasingly irritable.

• Su Jiu explained that the barrier could be broken by activating all eight statues or by having eight cultivators of the same major realm perform the Unsealing Art together, warning that awakening the statues could endanger everyone.
• Su Jiu gathered seven Nascent Soul cultivators who knew the art, but after seven days the group still could not find an eighth.
• A projection appeared and displayed the Unsealing Art incantation, prompting cultivators to try to learn it despite expecting the process to take months.
• Chu Luohen warned Su Jiu that time was accelerating and suggested breaking the aura around the statues, but Su Jiu chose to wait to avoid risking the crowd's lives.
• Qi Song sensed that the statues were becoming more animated and had seen one move its eyeball, while the crowded cultivators grew irritable and began clashing.

Su Jiu, Chu Luohen, and Qi Song discovered that the statues were amplifying the cultivators’ negative emotions as the spiritual qi suppressing them weakened. After Su Jiu subdued the rioting cultivators and warned everyone that the statues might come to life, Chu Luohen sensed that the statues were feeding on the crowd’s fear and anger.

• Cultivators in the Palace began fighting as the statues amplified their negative emotions, and Su Jiu and Chu Luohen realized the statues were responsible.
• Chu Luohen explained that the spiritual qi around the statues was weakening, while Su Jiu concluded that the statues would eventually come to life once their suppression ended.
• Su Jiu stopped a cultivator from crashing into a statue and advised everyone to take Calming Heart Pills or meditate, but some cultivators lost control and attacked those nearby.
• Su Jiu knocked the rioting cultivators unconscious with ice spheres and asked whether any Nascent Soul Cultivators had mastered the Unsealing Art; no one had.
• Su Jiu told the cultivators that the statues might come to life, and Chu Luohen then sensed that the statues were feeding on the crowd’s negative energy.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen faced eight demon beasts as they awakened with early spirit transformation cultivation, while the other cultivators sheltered in Su Jiu’s defensive formation. They fought the first beast and discovered its antlers were its vital point, but the second beast was already close to awakening.

• Su Jiu raised a fifth-tier defensive formation and directed the weaker cultivators and Qi Song inside as the statues’ power continued to rise.
• The statues’ bases shattered, freeing eight early spirit transformation demon beasts, and Su Jiu told the others their current cultivation was seventh-tier.
• The first demon beast charged the defensive barrier, but Su Jiu blocked it with her Frostbound Purple Ultimate Sword while Chu Luohen used a talisman to stop its other paw.
• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen attacked the demon beast’s antlers, its vital point, but their swords only left slight scratches.
• Su Jiu realized they might need more than a dozen strikes to defeat it and sensed that the second demon beast was about to awaken.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen defeated two revived Demon Beasts by striking their vital points, but a third enormous creature appeared and nearly killed Su Jiu. The chapter left them facing the new threat.

• Su Jiu focused on the first Demon Beast’s horn while evading its poisonous tongues, and Chong Mo noticed that her wound showed no sign of poisoning.
• Su Jiu severed the Demon Beast’s horn, causing it to dissolve, then went to help Chu Luohen fight the second beast.
• Su Jiu raised an Ice Wall to stop one of the second Demon Beast’s hooked tails from reaching the Defensive Formation.
• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen cut both tails at the same time, and the second Demon Beast began dissolving.
• The people inside the Defensive Formation warned Su Jiu of danger, and she dodged as an enormous creature appeared beside her.

After Su Jiu and Chu Luohen defeated the eight demon beasts, they uncovered the door to the Second Level, hidden behind a misty illusion of the Dustless Continent. Su Jiu and Ye Wanqing resisted the illusion and passed through the golden door, while some cultivators became lost in their dreams.

• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen recovered from their wounds after killing the eight demon beasts, and the cultivators learned they had used Great Restoration Pills.
• Su Jiu dispersed the remaining mist and recognized the illusory image as the door to the Second Level.
• Su Jiu opened a vortex and entered the illusion, followed by Chu Luohen, Qi Song, and the other cultivators.
• Su Jiu ignored a voice urging her to explore the false world below and opened the golden door.
• Ye Wanqing's talisman cleared her mind when the illusion showed her a peaceful Azure Tide Sect and her living grandfather, and she opened the golden door.
• Some cultivators succumbed to the illusion's voices, abandoned the nearby golden doors, and merged with the false world.

Su Jiu and the other cultivators explored the Second Level, where murals revealed the Holy Demonic Sword had caused the heavenly demon descent by cleaving three rifts in the heavens. The group remained trapped on narrow paths beside bubbling pools of bloody water, with Xiao Fan among those stranded near a terrifying statue.

• Su Jiu arrived on the Second Level and examined its narrow paths, bloody pools, statues, cauldron, and murals.
• Chu Luohen and the other cultivators arrived safely, and Su Jiu studied the murals alongside Chu Luohen.
• Su Jiu learned that the Holy Demonic Sword had been divided into three after it cleaved rifts above three continents, bringing about the heavenly demon descent.
• Su Jiu recognized that she had retrieved the sword piece from the Shangyin Continent and suspected the piece from the Vast Heaven Continent might no longer be in Windforest Star River.
• Fang Xing asked Su Jiu whether she had found the entrance to the Third Level as the cultivators struggled to move along the crowded paths.
• Xiao Fan found himself stuck beside one of the terrifying statues.

After the illusory doorway trapped several cultivators, Su Jiu identified the entrance to the third level and recorded an ancient star map. She explained that the barrier could be broken either by defeating the stone statues’ demonic beasts or by attacking it with combined spiritual power, and the assembled groups began their assault on the central cauldron.

• The cultivators discussed those still missing after entering the illusory images, while Zhang Bingchun and Chong Mo reflected on how close they had come to being trapped.
• Su Jiu revealed that the entrance to the third level was on the cauldron at the crossroads, then recorded the fourth wall’s divided star map.
• Qi Song sensed that the barrier was far stronger than the first-level barrier, and Su Jiu explained that the Unsealing Art would not work against it.
• Su Jiu gave two ways to break the barrier: defeat the demonic beasts formed by the statues or shatter the barrier with combined spiritual power.
• Zhang Bingchun instructed the Zhang Family disciples to keep their distance and attack the central cauldron, and the other groups joined in.

While the group attacked a barrier, Chong Mo sensed powerful demonic qi from one of the statues and reflected on his past with Ouyang Yanyu, Ye Wanqing, and the Azure Tide Sect. He resolved to protect his fellow disciples and atone with his death, then watched Ouyang Yanyu and Ye Wanqing from a distance.

• Su Jiu concealed the sacrificial method for breaking the barrier and joined the others in attacking it.
• After meditating, Chong Mo sensed demonic qi flowing from the statue behind him and realized it came from a demonic beast.
• Chong Mo recalled how he and Ouyang Yanyu had each kept the other close while investigating, and how she uncovered his collusion with the Heavenly Dawn Sect.
• After reading Ouyang Yanyu's information, Chong Mo realized he had sought revenge against the wrong people and had destroyed the life he could have had.
• Chong Mo used the Chaotic Life-Birthing Art to draw greedy pursuers into the Hongsheng Heavenly Road, and resolved to protect his fellow disciples before atoning with his death.
• Ouyang Yanyu noticed Chong Mo watching her, and he then looked at Ye Wanqing and mourned the loss of her former warmth.

Su Jiu realized demonic creatures were invading the cultivators’ minds and tempting them to sacrifice others to open the way to the Third Level. When one cultivator pushed his companion into the blood pool, Su Jiu rescued him, but the pool had already eaten his legs, leaving the others’ willingness to gamble with a life starkly exposed.

• A cultivator near a statue hallucinated its expression changing, while Su Jiu sensed the carvings’ demonic qi was still growing stronger.
• Demonic voices invaded the cultivators’ minds, urging them to push people into the blood pool as sacrifices, while Chu Luohen told them to recite the Clear Heart Cultivation Formula.
• Fang Xing asked Su Jiu whether the barrier could be broken and whether a third escape method existed; Su Jiu confirmed both but challenged the cultivators to consider whether they would sacrifice anyone.
• A cultivator declared he would not accept certain death and shoved his unsuspecting companion into the blood pool.
• Su Jiu used the Skyfaring Shuttle to pull the man out, but the pool had already consumed both his legs.

Su Jiu recognized the creatures emerging from the blood pool as blood demons and tried to freeze the pool before they could reach the group. Her Thousand-Mile Ice Seal failed when the pool melted the ice, leaving the growing horde to advance on them.

• Su Jiu treated a legless youth while he and the friend who had pushed him into the pool reconciled after a mysterious voice had urged them to sacrifice each other.
• Su Jiu noticed the blood pool bubbling, and a mass of flesh crawled ashore and revealed itself as a blood demon.
• Su Jiu and Chu Luohen attacked, and Su Jiu froze the first blood demon solid.
• More blood fountains rose from the pool, so Su Jiu used Thousand-Mile Ice Seal to try to freeze the source.
• The ice melted within a dozen breaths, more blood demons emerged, and cultivators' attacks on those still submerged had no effect.

Su Jiu and the cultivators fought Blood Demons on the Second Level, where a cultivator who picked up a crystal fragment transformed into a monstrous beast. As the statues began to crack, Purple Ultimate emerged to fight, while Su Jiu declined Little Pearl’s offer to use the Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl.

• Su Jiu explained that cultivators at the Nascent Soul Realm or above could harm the Blood Demons, and she and Chu Luohen joined the others in fighting them.
• A cultivator picked up a Blood Demon’s crystal fragment, transformed into a multi-limbed beast, and escaped into the Blood Pool after Su Jiu attacked it.
• Qi Song warned the cultivators not to touch the fragments, while cracks appeared in the bases of the four statues.
• Purple Ultimate emerged from the Frostbound Purple Ultimate Sword and cut down numerous Demonic Beasts while the cultivators mistook the Sword Spirit’s actions for Su Jiu controlling her treasure.
• Little Pearl reminded Su Jiu that the statues were about to break free and suggested using the Nine-Star World-Cleansing Pearl, but Su Jiu declined to avoid attracting attention.

Su Jiu fought four powerful demonic beasts while the blood demons threatened the cultivators below, and she began to suspect that the attacks were connected to the dwindling supply of innate origin qi. After freezing one beast and driving off an ambush, she faced an enormous blood demon as the Frostbound Purple Ultimate Sword joined her.

• Su Jiu used her Ice Silk Net to fight two Spirit Transformation Stage demonic beasts, but her spiritual qi could no longer restrain them.
• As the beasts released demonic qi that knocked weaker cultivators unconscious, Su Jiu trapped one with the Ice Silk and froze it solid with Thousand-Mile Ice Seal.
• An enormous blood demon attacked Su Jiu from behind, forcing her to abandon the frozen beast and meet the Frostbound Purple Ultimate Sword in midair.
• Su Jiu took up the Frost-Cold Purple Ultimate and shattered the blood demon's incoming blood spike with a slash of blue sword qi.
• Su Jiu recognized that the blood demon had to feed constantly and that demons replenished their cultivation by devouring weaker members of their own kind.

Su Jiu and Chu Luohen defeated the Blood Demon and the other Demonic Beasts, but Su Jiu suspected the trapped beast had lured them into a deadly trap. The beast stopped feigning madness and faced her, leaving her questions about its origins unanswered.

• Su Jiu gravely wounded the Blood Demon, and Chu Luohen gave her his remaining spiritual qi so she could trap and kill it.
• Su Jiu destroyed the Blood Demon's Demon Core, preventing it from reviving in the blood pool.
• Su Jiu noticed Chu Luohen was badly drained after helping her and took a Great Restoration Pill before approaching the bound Demonic Beast.
• Su Jiu accused the Demonic Beast of lying about the instructions and trying to kill everyone, then asked how it came there and became a Demonic Beast.
• The Demonic Beast stopped struggling and looked Su Jiu in the face.

Su Jiu questioned a captured Demonic Beast and learned that a red stone at the bottom of the Spirit-Severing Blood Pool could break the barrier. She forced the creature to search for it, and it submerged itself in the pool despite her warning that her power would keep hurting it.

• After the Demonic Beast confirmed it had once been human, Su Jiu realized its question about earlier visitors to the Hongsheng Heavenly Road connected to her unanswered questions.
• Su Jiu asked how to break the barrier, and the Demonic Beast revealed that a red stone at the bottom of the Spirit-Severing Blood Pool would shatter it when placed in a nearby recess.
• Su Jiu used Little Pearl's power to wound the Demonic Beast and made it agree to retrieve the stone and bring up the other creature that had transformed after touching a Demon Crystal.
• The Demonic Beast tried to enter the blood pool and escape, but Su Jiu warned that her Merit Power would cause it pain every quarter of an hour until it returned.
• The Demonic Beast hesitated, then submerged itself in the Spirit-Severing Blood Pool.

Su Jiu explained that the demonic beasts were dead cultivators who had contracted with the Palace, and that the strongest became statues while the others became Blood Demons. After surviving the battle, Ye Wanqing severed her bond with Chong Mo, and he accepted that their relationship was over.

• Su Jiu told Qi Song that cultivators who absorbed demon crystals became demonic beasts, and that the Palace turned some dead cultivators into statues or Blood Demons.
• Chu Luohen recovered and noticed a survivor grieving over his dead companion.
• Chong Mo recovered from the Blood Thorns he had taken for Ye Wanqing, while the Azure Tide Sect disciples reconsidered their hostility toward him.
• Ye Wanqing told Chong Mo that the Azure Tide Sect would stop pursuing him, cut off a corner of her robe, and declared their ties ended; Chong Mo quietly agreed.
• An injured family head who had saved a female disciple insisted that female cultivators were dead weight.