Chapter Summaries

Su Mo used uncanny Nether Arts to withstand the wounded elderly sword cultivator’s attacks and wounded him with Rosy Dawn Light. After the elderly sword cultivator fled deeper into the Divine Realm, Su Mo began recovering while Gu Yu stood guard, and a woman in a purple dress and an old woman emerged from hiding.

• The elderly sword cultivator survived the ghosts’ attack, and Gu Yu moved to shield Su Mo as he rose from the battlefield.
• Su Mo asked Gu Yu to let him fight alone, then used Prison Cage to withstand the elderly sword cultivator’s One sword... Nine Provinces.
• Su Mo summoned a Ghost Guard, who deflected the elderly sword cultivator’s small sword before vanishing after addressing Su Mo as the Netherworld Lord.
• Su Mo used Rosy Dawn Light to pierce and burn the elderly sword cultivator, but collapsed from exhaustion before he could pursue him.
• Gu Yu stopped Su Mo from attacking again and guarded him as he recovered; a woman in a purple dress and an old woman then emerged from the shadows.

Su Mo and Gu Yu pursued the wounded old sword cultivator into the Divine Realm, where they found him aligned with the Holy Sect and presenting a broken sword to Ning Baixue. After Su Mo revealed that the cultivator had slaughtered a village, Ning Baixue stayed silent as her elder dismissed him, and Su Mo left with his trust in the Holy Sect badly damaged.

• Cheng Hongye and Cheng An'an met Su Mo and Gu Yu, and Cheng Hongye asked Gu Yu to pass a message to Mo Shangao.
• Su Mo and Gu Yu followed the old sword cultivator toward the Divine Realm’s center, and Su Mo carried Gu Yu when the solidifying void slowed her down.
• They found the old sword cultivator kneeling before Ning Baixue and giving her a broken sword.
• The old sword cultivator accused Su Mo of murdering his sect’s disciples, but Ning Baixue focused on Su Mo instead.
• Su Mo told Ning Baixue that the sword cultivator had slaughtered a village to hide the Divine Realm’s entrance and said he would kill him.
• Ning Baixue stayed silent while the old woman rebuked Su Mo, who turned and left.

Ning Baixue ordered the elderly sword cultivator to take his own life, and Su Mo resolved to cultivate after witnessing the village’s slaughter. A strange man confronted a vast black dragon in the Divine Realm, summoned the Ghost Gate, and caused the land to collapse with Su Mo and Gu Yu trapped in the abyss.

• Ning Baixue told the elderly sword cultivator to kill himself, and he drove his sword into his chest.
• Su Mo returned to Gu Yu and decided to focus on cultivation so he could face powerful enemies.
• Su Mo sensed that the karma had been severed just before a roar shook the Divine Realm.
• A strange man appeared in the void and ordered the enormous black dragon to summon the Ghost Gate.
• The strange man bound the dragon with the power of rules and called the Ghost Gate to rise, causing the Divine Realm to split apart.
• Su Mo grabbed Gu Yu and tried to escape, but the ground collapsed and they fell into an abyss.

Su Mo and Gu Yu fell through a strange teleportation into Ghost Gate, the Primordial Battlefield, where they met Dao Hua and Cheng An'an. As the group gathered on the desolate battlefield, Cheng An'an explained that the Ghost Gate she had expected to meet Su Mo at was the center of the Divine Realm outside this place.

• Su Mo and Gu Yu landed in the Primordial Battlefield, and Su Mo took pills to recover from his injuries.
• Dao Hua climbed out of a pit with broken swords stuck in him, introduced himself, and learned that Su Mo and Gu Yu had entered the Divine Realm alone.
• Gu Yu explained that Dao Hua was the Daoist Heir of the Dao Sect, and Cheng An'an teased him about inheriting the Daoist name Dao Thirteen.
• Cheng An'an reunited with Su Mo and explained that her master, like Dao Hua's, had gone off with the strange senior.
• Dao Hua revealed that Cheng An'an was known as the Demoness, but Su Mo showed no aversion to her Demon Sect identity.
• Cheng An'an clarified that the Ghost Gate she had expected to meet Su Mo at was the center of the Divine Realm outside Ghost Gate.

Su Mo and his companions learned that they had to obtain inheritances from an altar in the Ghost Gate to leave the Divine Realm, then traveled across the ancient battlefield toward it. At the altar’s base, Su Mo discovered an inscription describing the gods’ fall and three trials for those seeking their inheritances.

• Dao Hua and Cheng An'an explained that inheritance altars could transport visitors out of the Ghost Gate, while those who failed to obtain one would be stranded there.
• After resting, Su Mo, Dao Hua, Cheng An'an, and Gu Yu crossed the desolate battlefield and found a gigantic axe blocking their path; Su Mo suggested the Ghost Gate might be only one part of the ancient battlefield.
• The four companions walked around the axe and discovered an enormous altar, which Dao Hua suspected had been built by the Ancient Giant God Clan.
• Su Mo and Dao Hua struggled to reach the altar’s base after a long journey, while Cheng An'an and Gu Yu teased them for being weak.
• Su Mo noticed an inscription on a stone tablet stating that the gods had fallen in the battle of the Heavenly Cataclysm and that their inheritances awaited those who completed three trials.

Su Mo and his companions climbed the altar and entered a vision through a carved image of a grieving youth. Su Mo watched the youth return home to his mother, who warned him about a deadly plague, while he secretly gave her a pill.

• Su Mo, Dao Hua, Gu Yu, and Cheng An'an rested before climbing the altar's sole path toward its summit.
• The four found a pavilion with a carved picture and a door they could not open.
• Su Mo noticed that the youth's carved tears were real, and Cheng An'an touched one, sending them into a vision.
• Su Mo found himself unable to control the youth, who returned to his village and embraced his mother.
• The youth secretly put a pill in his mother's tea, then brought it to her as she warned him about the plague.

Su Mo relived a life in which a youth sacrificed his cultivation and Dao Foundation to save his mother, while believing he had murdered thousands to refine a blood pill. As his mother revealed the truth and asked who he was, Su Mo remembered his identity and accepted that it was time to return.

• The youth was told that saving his dying mother with a blood pill would require killing thousands, and he stabbed Yaoyao before charging into a crowd.
• The youth's mother recovered, and the white-haired youth cared for her while struggling to remember what he had done.
• Years passed as the youth grew old and his mother's face remained unchanged; she questioned how he had saved her.
• The youth remembered that he had never killed anyone and had instead transferred his cultivation and Dao Foundation to his mother.
• When the woman asked who he was, the youth answered that he was Su Mo, and she told him it was time to go back.

Su Mo completed the first Ghost Gate trial, in which he helped a youth reunite with his mother, and continued with the others to the second trial. After Cheng An'an picked up its black stone, the group and newly arrived Ning Baixue entered a dream of imperial twins whose mother died after naming them Pingle and Min'an.

• Su Mo returned to his own appearance as the youth reunited with his mother and thanked him for shaping the dream's ending.
• The youth sent Su Mo through the first trial and warned him that equivalent exchange governed the Ghost Gate; the group emerged and continued upward.
• Su Mo and the others reached a second pavilion containing a board of white stones and one black stone.
• Cheng An'an picked up the black stone, sending the four into another dream, and Ning Baixue arrived and was drawn into it as well.
• In the dream, Empress Yun'er gave birth to twins, asked Emperor Pei Hongyi not to blame them for her death, and named the children Pingle and Min'an before dying.

Prince Min'an grew up alongside his sister, Princess Pingle, and celebrated his coming-of-age ceremony, where the emperor named him Crown Prince and gave him the courtesy name Jing Yan. The name stirred a strange recognition in Min'an, and he ended the chapter wondering whether he and Pingle were truly only themselves.

• As children, Min'an hid from Pingle in the Imperial Garden, and she urged him to study cultivation while he insisted he only wanted to read.
• Ten years later, Pingle hurried Min'an to his coming-of-age ceremony, where he asked what people lived for.
• Min'an completed the ceremony, bowing to his father and the empress's portrait, to his teachers and elders, and to the country and its people.
• The emperor named Min'an Crown Prince and gave him the courtesy name Jing Yan, which triggered a sense of recognition and bewilderment.
• After the ceremony, Min'an walked with Pingle through the Imperial Garden and asked whether they were really only themselves.

Min'an told Pingle he wanted to leave the Imperial City and travel the world to seek answers about his strange sense of familiarity. When he met Yunxue of the Cloud Sect, she felt an overwhelming bond with him and chose to marry him; after their wedding, Min'an left the Imperial City and began wandering, where he made two friends.

• Min'an told Pingle he felt that his life had a deeper purpose and wanted to travel beyond the Imperial City to find answers.
• Pingle urged Min'an to meet the Cloud Sect's young sect master, Yunxue, whom the emperor had invited to become his consort.
• Yunxue felt a profound, complicated connection to Min'an when she saw him and declared that she would marry him.
• The emperor approved Yunxue's decision, and the Cloud Sect announced that its young sect master would wed the crown prince.
• After the wedding, Min'an left the Imperial City to travel the world and made friends with a woman in purple and a man in brocade robes.

Min'an traveled south while seeking his true self, and a conversation with Cheng Pingping and Cheng Caocao led them to awaken and vanish. After years of witnessing the mortal world and entering an unclear Dao, he returned to the Imperial City when he heard the emperor had come back from war gravely wounded.

• Min'an, Cheng Pingping, and Cheng Caocao discussed the Dao and the true self while drifting on a boat, and their exchange awakened Cheng Pingping and Cheng Caocao, who vanished.
• Min'an continued south, questioning whether punishing bandits and secretly helping starving refugees revealed his true self.
• At Peach Mountain, Min'an met an old man playing a board game alone, who spoke of the self, victory, the Immortal Dao, and reincarnation before disappearing.
• During his travels, Min'an witnessed the mortal world and Immortal Cultivators, entered the Dao without knowing which Dao it was, and gained a trace of the human world's essence.
• When the emperor returned victorious from war but gravely wounded, Min'an set off from the south for the Imperial City.

After his father’s death, Min'an became emperor and ruled for more than a decade with Yunxue as his empress. He finally awakened from the illusory life, recognized Yunxue as Ning Baixue, and sent her back to the Ghost Gate while he remained behind.

• The crown prince returned to the Imperial City and watched his dying father pass away, then sat in silence at the emperor’s tomb until his enthronement.
• Min'an inherited the throne, invested Yunxue as empress, and ordered generals and envoys to respond to threats and alliances beyond the realm.
• Over the next decade, Min'an and Yunxue remained together without children, while Pingle continued cultivating her sword heart and stayed unmarried.
• Min'an asked Yunxue whether she had found her true self, then revealed that he had awakened and told her to return to reality.
• Ning Baixue admitted she had awakened three years earlier but had stayed in the trial; after Min'an urged her to leave, she returned to the Ghost Gate.

In the illusion, Min'an entrusted the nation to Pingle and left to seek his Dao, while Ning Baixue watched over his still-sleeping body after awakening. A river parable helped Min'an see a way to save both sides, and he declared that he would enter the river and hold up the driftwood himself.

• Pingle told Min'an that a sword heart could both sever and protect, then agreed to govern the illusory world while he left the Imperial City to seek his Dao.
• Cheng An'an tried to club the still-unconscious Ning Baixue, but Ning awakened before she could strike, and Cheng An'an and Dao Hua pretended they had been discussing the pavilion pillars.
• Ning Baixue said Su Mo's consciousness had awakened long ago and that he was still inside the trial seeking the Dao.
• Min'an failed to find Peach Mountain in Jiangnan and realized that seeking the Dao only through what his senses could perceive had limited him.
• An old man showed Min'an beasts fighting over a precarious piece of driftwood and explained that the players could choose to enter the river; Min'an recognized his loved ones among the beasts and said he would hold the driftwood up.

Su Mo and his companions reached the summit of the Altar of All Beings, where they discovered the gathered divine inheritances and learned that the Ancient Giant God Clan’s inheritance had been condensed into a drop of divine blood. At the central stele, they found a woman’s skeleton and an inscription reading, “Taken from all beings, returned to all beings...”

• Su Mo told the others he had not found his true self, while Ning Baixue walked ahead alone.
• The group reached the altar’s summit and found a vast platform ringed by enormous stone statues, with no third trial in sight.
• Gu Yu straightened Su Mo’s clothes and took his hand, prompting Cheng An'an to suspect that something was amiss.
• Su Mo recognized that the statue of an ancient giant god held a drop of divine blood, which he believed contained the clan’s inheritance.
• Dao Hua ran to inspect the central stele and found a woman’s decayed skeleton beside it, with the words “Taken from all beings, returned to all beings...” carved into the stone.

At the Altar of All Beings, Ning Baixue, Cheng An'an, and Dao Hua receive inheritances from the Divine Stones and leave or begin leaving the Divine Realm. When Su Mo and Gu Yu reveal their Dao Foundations, the Confucian Sage statue’s stones react to Su Mo, but no pillar appears for Gu Yu.

• Su Mo and the others bow to the solitary skeleton, and Gu Yu’s bow carries a sorrowful reluctance.
• Ning Baixue reveals her Dao Foundation and receives the inheritance of a female confidante of the Confucian Sage, then vanishes from the Divine Realm.
• Cheng An'an and Dao Hua reveal their Dao Foundations and are lifted by pillars of light to receive their inheritances.
• Su Mo and Gu Yu step onto the platform together, and the Confucian Sage statue’s Inheritance Divine Stones shine intensely.
• A pillar of light draws Su Mo upward, and he looks back to see that Gu Yu has no pillar lifting her.

Su Mo rejected the Confucian Sage’s inheritance rather than leave Gu Yu behind, but the inheritance forcibly sent him away with the giant statue. He returned to the Divine Realm and chose to stay with Gu Yu, leaving them together there.

• Gu Yu explained that the Ghost Gate’s final trial required someone to remain, and she accepted that she was destined to stay while Su Mo received the Confucian Sage’s inheritance.
• Cheng An'an and Dao Hua left the Divine Realm as Su Mo refused the inheritance and tried to break free of its pull.
• The Confucian Sage’s will overpowered Su Mo’s chains and began forcing its inheritance into him, but Su Mo summoned the Human Book and the Book of Life and Death.
• Su Mo’s eerie power opened a stone gate that carried him and the Confucian Sage’s statue away, leaving Gu Yu alone at the altar.
• Su Mo returned to Gu Yu, explaining that he had stayed because he did not want her to be alone and still believed they might find a way out; Gu Yu wept and embraced him.

The strange man returned to the Ghost Gate and told Su Mo and Gu Yu how he had lost his junior sister there more than three thousand years earlier. Su Mo suspected the Book of Life and Death was tied to the Ghost Gate’s cause and effect, then saw a possible way to escape by using the Ancient Giant God’s blood.

• The strange man climbed onto the Altar, recognized the skeleton as his junior sister, and stayed beside her for a day.
• The strange man told Su Mo and Gu Yu how he had entered the Divine Realm with his junior sister, received the Ghost Gate’s inheritance, and was forced to leave her behind.
• Su Mo wondered whether the Book of Life and Death, rather than his own actions, had broken the Ghost Gate’s impasse and suspected it was part of a larger cause and effect.
• Su Mo learned that the strange man had reached Spirit Transformation by paying a terrible price, but could not use his Confucian Dao to send Su Mo and Gu Yu out.
• Su Mo noticed the blood before the Giant Stone Statue and suggested an Ancient Giant God might withstand the backlash of using Confucian Dao True Words to escape.

Su Mo found a possible way to escape the Divine Realm by inheriting the Ancient Giant God Clan's bloodline, and planned to prepare by advancing his cultivation and tempering his body. Back at the Academy, the little girl and the others waited for Young Master and Third Senior Sister, while the little girl began to remember things.

• Su Mo reasoned that he could obtain the Ancient Giant God Clan's bloodline inheritance if he raised his cultivation to Nascent Soul Late Stage and tempered his body first, and Gu Yu agreed to teach him.
• Luo Yin played her Ink Zither beside the lake as the little girl worried about Young Master, while Black Horse tried to steal spirit medicine and distracted Sixth Senior Sister.
• The Dean brought back Spirit-Stabilizing Pills, which the little girl saved for Young Master, and learned that First Senior Brother was asleep, Second Senior Brother was making medicine to help Black Horse talk, and Fourth and Fifth Senior Brothers were redrawing maps.
• The Dean admitted he could no longer divine what Young Master and Third Senior Sister were planning, then left before Sixth Senior Sister could show him her food-finding Dragon-Seeking Ruler.
• The little girl watched the lake and realized she seemed to have remembered a few things.

Su Mo learned that Confucian cultivation advanced through enlightenment and that understanding life and death was the great barrier to Spirit Transformation. He tried to adapt to the Giant God Blood’s aura using a Confucian Sage’s hair, but the tiny trace he absorbed badly injured him.

• The strange man told Su Mo that Confucian cultivators advanced through enlightenment and had to comprehend life and death to reach Spirit Transformation.
• The strange man advised Su Mo to cultivate through the altar’s two trials, and Gu Yu brought him a greatsword to temper his physique.
• Su Mo decided to adapt to the Giant God Blood’s aura gradually, treating it like a deadly poison.
• Su Mo used a strand of Confucian Sage’s hair to collect a trace of the Giant God Blood’s aura and draw it into his body.
• The aura unleashed a savage intent within Su Mo, making him spit blood as his skin split and blood seeped from his body.

Su Mo adapted to the Giant God Blood, advanced his cultivation, and learned to make Confucian Dao rules arise from intent rather than words. The strange man judged him ready to approach the Giant God Blood.

• Su Mo endured the Giant God Blood's destructive aura and gradually adapted to it while Gu Yu watched anxiously.
• Su Mo began tempering his physique with a greatsword and entered the pavilion's Chess Game Illusion to train his state of mind.
• Su Mo continued adapting to the Giant God Blood and entering the Illusion, eventually breaking through to the Core Formation mid-stage.
• The strange man demonstrated how Confucian Dao True Words could create swords through intent, and Su Mo learned to manifest rules without speaking.
• Su Mo formed and reshaped a flame with his intent, and the strange man told him he was ready to approach the Giant God Blood.