Chapter Summaries

Ouyang freed Leng Qingsong from the sword spirit possessing him, and Chen Changsheng eased Leng Qingsong’s guilt over the cultivators he had killed. The group then turned to the captured longsword, and Ouyang asked Liang Zai how he could speak with the spirit inside it.

• Ouyang repeatedly slapped Leng Qingsong until the blood-red sword qi faded and Leng Qingsong regained control of his body.
• Leng Qingsong restored his broken Life-Bound Sword, suppressed his cultivation breakthrough, and thanked Ouyang before explaining how the sword spirit had possessed him.
• Leng Qingsong admitted he felt partly responsible for the deaths of the cultivators killed through his body, and Chen Changsheng counted 108 dead.
• Chen Changsheng argued that the cultivators had deserved to die because they had abandoned their own Dao to seek Li Taibai’s inheritance, easing Leng Qingsong’s guilt.
• Ouyang asked Liang Zai how he could speak alone with the spirit in the longsword, and Liang Zai said Ouyang could enter his dog belly.

Ouyang entered the Minor World inside the Blood-Red Long Sword to confront Ou Yezi and explain that he had intervened in Ou Yezi’s fate. Ou Yezi questioned whether Ouyang had merely made him a pawn for someone else.

• Liang Zai swallowed Ouyang so he could enter the sword, while Leng Qingsong and Chen Changsheng stood ready to kill Liang Zai if Ouyang did not return.
• Leng Qingsong brooded over his weakness, and Chen Changsheng realized that their actions had spared thousands of Sword Cultivators and changed his second senior brother’s fate.
• Inside the Minor World, Ouyang met Ou Yezi and revealed that he had shared Ou Yezi’s body in the past and changed his fate.
• Ou Yezi admitted that he regretted his choices and described the loneliness he had endured after becoming Li Taibai’s sword.
• Ou Yezi asked Ouyang whether he had only turned him from the Immortals’ pawn into Ouyang’s pawn.

Ouyang spoke with Ou Yezi about the pain and choices that had shaped his life, and learned that Li Taibai and Ou Yezi had become true friends after he left. Before fading away, Ou Yezi warned Ouyang that Immortals’ plans were still unfolding through the Black-Clothed Lad.

• Ou Yezi told Ouyang that becoming his pawn had brought him a life worse than serving an Immortal, though he had chosen it himself.
• Ou Yezi explained that Li Taibai had once treated him as a replaceable servant and called him Ouyezi, leaving him envious of Ouyang’s friendship with Li Taibai.
• Ou Yezi revealed that he and Li Taibai had later traveled together and become close friends, and that he had willingly sacrificed himself to forge Li Taibai’s sword.
• Ou Yezi revealed that his sword was Tai’a and said his memories of life with Li Taibai had kept him lucid through endless years.
• Ou Yezi warned Ouyang that the Black-Clothed Lad could seize Sword Intent from slain cultivators, an Immortal method, and that Immortals’ plans continued after their deaths.
• Ou Yezi asked whether the Black-Clothed Lad was Li Taibai’s reincarnation, then concluded that the Immortals had chosen him as their pawn before fading away.

Ouyang received Li Taibai’s true life-bound sword intent from Ou Yezi and used his power to keep Ou Yezi from crumbling. When Ouyang returned to the palace, the flower stamen flew into Leng Qingsong, who began to accept Li Taibai’s Dao.

• Ouyang wondered whether Hu Yun had arranged the events surrounding his journey and decided to question his master when they met again.
• Ou Yezi gave Ouyang Li Taibai’s flower stamen, then began to crumble after it left his body.
• Ouyang returned the stamen, but used his power to stabilize Ou Yezi and took him along to meet Bai Feiyu.
• Ouyang emerged from Liang Zai’s mouth and showed the flower stamen to Leng Qingsong.
• The flower stamen flew into Leng Qingsong’s brow as green lotuses appeared, and a voice announced that he had begun accepting Li Taibai’s Dao.

Leng Qingsong received Li Taibai’s legacy in his consciousness space and broke free of the Ancient Sword Immortal’s control by condensing dao resonance. After Li Taibai vanished, Leng Qingsong began absorbing the Immortal Secret Realm, while Hu Yun paid a heavy price and decided to return home.

• A flower’s stamens merged with the Green Lotus between Leng Qingsong’s eyebrows, and his Life-Bound Sword came alive as he entered a white consciousness space.
• Li Taibai appeared, restrained Leng Qingsong, and explained that he was a wisp of divine soul in Leng Qingsong’s consciousness space.
• Leng Qingsong erupted with Sword Intent and broke free of Li Taibai, who shared cryptic words about Supreme Forgetfulness before disappearing.
• The Immortal Small World twisted toward the lotus between Leng Qingsong’s eyebrows as he began absorbing the Immortal Secret Realm.
• Tai’a realized he owed Hu Yun a great karmic debt, while Hu Yun’s hair turned gray and he spat blood before deciding to visit home for New Year’s.

Ouyang and Chen Changsheng escaped the collapsing palace while carrying Leng Qingsong, whose green lotus was absorbing the Immortal Secret Realm. Outside, Zhao Qiansun convinced the Sword Cultivators that Bai Feiyu had blocked their way to protect them from the danger inside.

• Ouyang and Chen Changsheng carried Leng Qingsong through the Yellow Talisman door as the Immortal Secret Realm collapsed around them.
• Bai Feiyu held off hundreds of Sword Cultivators outside the palace while keeping Song Mu in his hand.
• Bai Feiyu tossed Song Mu back to the Sword Cultivators, and Song Mu departed as they praised his supposed sacrifice and restraint.
• Zhao Qiansun told the Sword Cultivators that Bai Feiyu had been protecting them from the Sword Demon and the deadly danger inside the palace.
• The Sword Cultivators thanked Bai Feiyu, who recognized Zhao Qiansun’s attempt to gain his favor.

Ouyang, Chen Changsheng, and Leng Qingsong fled as Leng Qingsong absorbed the Immortal Secret Realm, while Bai Feiyu helped the others escape. The group rode out on a transformed Dachshund, Zhao Qiansun acquired a mysterious Sword Tassel, and Chen Changsheng announced that he and Senior Brother Ling Feng had emerged from seclusion.

• Ouyang and Chen Changsheng carried Leng Qingsong from the palace as he absorbed the Immortal Secret Realm, and Ouyang warned Bai Feiyu to run.
• Bai Feiyu sent the unconscious Sword Cultivators toward the exit and freed Zhao Qiansun from the Spirit-Scattering Formation.
• Liang Zai transformed into a giant Dachshund, and Ouyang and Chen Changsheng rode on his back while carrying Leng Qingsong through the air.
• A red Sword Tassel flew from the warped space-time into Zhao Qiansun's hand, and he secretly kept it.
• Chen Changsheng told Ouyang that he and Senior Brother Ling Feng had come out of seclusion.

After Leng Qingsong absorbed the Immortal Secret Realm, Ouyang and his companions emerged to find Sword-Forging City drenched in blood and its Sword Cultivators demanding answers for the slaughter of their fellow disciples. The chapter ended with Ouyang and the others standing ready to fight while protecting the unconscious Leng Qingsong.

• Ouyang worried over Ling Feng's suspicious change in temperament and resolved to ask Hu Yun for advice when his master returned.
• Leng Qingsong absorbed the entire Immortal Secret Realm into the Green Lotus between his brows and fell unconscious as Ouyang, Chen Changsheng, and Bai Feiyu carried him out.
• Bai Feiyu checked Leng Qingsong and confirmed he was unharmed.
• Blood rain and falling corpses revealed the cultivators Ou Yezi had killed while controlling Leng Qingsong's body.
• Sword Cultivators surrounded Ouyang and his companions, drew their swords, and demanded an explanation for the deaths.
• Ouyang, Chen Changsheng, and Bai Feiyu protected Leng Qingsong as Ouyang challenged anyone who dared demand an explanation.

Ouyang and his companions faced a city of Sword Cultivators demanding answers for the deaths in the Immortal Secret Realm. Tai'a defused the confrontation by taking responsibility, promising a memorial stele, and ordering Leng Qingsong sealed for ten years, while Ouyang and the others remained unwilling to accept that punishment.

• Ouyang, Changsheng, and Xiao Bai stood their ground as Sword Cultivators surrounded them and demanded an explanation for the deaths in the Immortal Secret Realm.
• Zhao Qiansun argued that Ouyang and the others could not have killed everyone and pointed out that cultivators had died before they entered the Main Hall, though the crowd remained suspicious of Leng Qingsong.
• Ouyang acknowledged Zhao Qiansun's support, then led the group forward to take Leng Qingsong home despite the Sword Cultivators advancing against them.
• Tai'a arrived with Song Mu and declared that the Sword Sect would shoulder the karma, then produced Golden Coffins so the Sword Cultivators could gather the dead.
• Tai'a promised to build a Myriad Sword Stele for the fallen and ordered Leng Qingsong sealed in the Sword-Questioning Pool for ten years; Ouyang rejected the punishment, while Chen Changsheng prepared a Leng Qingsong doll.
• Tai'a cleaved the clouds open and declared that heaven and earth should honor Sword Cultivators as well.

After Tai'a secured the Sword Sect's standing, Ouyang confronted Zhao Qiansun about his ingratiating disguise, provoking him into revealing his Heavenly Evolution Art. Zhao Qiansun exhausted himself trying to kill Ouyang in his eight-trigram small world, and Ouyang calmed him before he passed out.

• Tai'a sent Ouyang and the other three away, and Ouyang used a rope to pull Zhao Qiansun into the distorted space.
• Ouyang tested Zhao Qiansun's sincerity, mocked his groveling, and challenged him to strike back.
• Zhao Qiansun revealed his Immortal Small World and attacked Ouyang with commands from his Heavenly Evolution Art.
• Ouyang endured Zhao Qiansun's elemental assaults, even as the small world began to crack.
• Zhao Qiansun collapsed from exhaustion, and Ouyang soothed him until he lost consciousness.

Zhao Qiansun woke after Ouyang had healed him and received a second-grade Dao Enlightenment Pill from Bai Feiyu as repayment. After Tai'a offered to take Leng Qingsong as a Registered Disciple, Ouyang tried to claim the Sword-Questioning Pool for Little Mountain Peak.

• Ouyang and Tai'a brawled beside the Sword-Questioning Pool while Chen Changsheng watched over the unconscious Leng Qingsong.
• Zhao Qiansun woke and accepted Bai Feiyu's second-grade Dao Enlightenment Pill, then followed him toward the fight.
• Tai'a and Ouyang stopped fighting to drink together, and Tai'a praised Ouyang while he pretended to sleep.
• Tai'a proposed making Leng Qingsong his Registered Disciple so the younger cultivator could temper his Green Lotus Sword Intent at the Sword-Questioning Pool.
• Ouyang agreed to the arrangement and immediately asked Tai'a to move the Sword-Questioning Pool to Little Mountain Peak.

Ouyang used Liang Zai to move the Sword-Questioning Pool into the Minor World inside the dog, intending it to strengthen Leng Qingsong’s Sword Dao. Tai'a confronted them, but after meeting Liang Zai’s gaze and hearing his words, he seemed to grasp something and broke free of unseen restraints.

• Tai'a wagered that Ouyang could not move the Sword-Questioning Pool, promising it to him if he succeeded and demanding Leng Qingsong stay for twenty years if he failed.
• Liang Zai swallowed the Sword-Questioning Pool and Leng Qingsong, while Chen Changsheng used recordings of Tai'a’s promise to stop him from taking the pool back.
• Ouyang revealed that Liang Zai held the Minor World inside his stomach and had moved the pool there so Leng Qingsong could absorb the Sword Intent and train.
• Tai'a reached for Liang Zai, but their gazes met, and Liang Zai said, "A sword has a spirit, yet is only a blade!"
• Tai'a released Ouyang, appeared to understand something, and yanked at his neck as a metallic crack rang out.

Tai'a recognized the enormous karmic debt he owed Hu Yun and agreed to lend Ouyang the Sword-Questioning Pool before returning to the Sword Sect. Ouyang and his junior brothers later invited Zhao Qiansun to join their sects, but he refused and left, while Ouyang quietly watched the Star he had plucked disappear.

• Tai'a realized the scale of his karmic debt to Hu Yun and agreed to lend Ouyang the Sword-Questioning Pool.
• Tai'a left for the Sword Sect, promising to return for the group once the Black-Clothed Lad woke up.
• Ouyang vented his frustration by wrestling Bai Feiyu, who blamed Chen Changsheng for provoking him.
• Ouyang asked Zhao Qiansun to join the Azure Cloud Sect or the Sword Sect, but Zhao Qiansun refused both offers and departed.
• Bai Feiyu called Zhao Qiansun a promising prospect, and Chen Changsheng asked whether they should eliminate him; Ouyang said their paths would cross again as fate decreed.

Ouyang discovered that Dongxu Zi’s star had chosen Zhao Qiansun as the Sect Master’s next disciple, but Zhao refused to join the Azure Cloud Sect. Ouyang then gave Bai Feiyu the bluebird he had awakened from Ou Yezi’s sword, and the bird settled on Bai Feiyu’s shoulder as Bai Feiyu recognized his old companion.

• Dongxu Zi’s star appeared in Ouyang’s hand when he invited Zhao Qiansun to join the Azure Cloud Sect, marking Zhao as Dongxu Zi’s intended disciple.
• Zhao Qiansun decisively refused to join the sect and chose to remain a rogue cultivator.
• Ouyang remembered the bluebird he had brought back and took it from inside his robe.
• Bai Feiyu recognized Ou Yezi’s familiar presence in the bluebird and struggled to ask Ouyang about it.
• Ouyang teased Bai Feiyu by proposing the name Dickfeather, and the bluebird pecked at Ouyang’s forehead.
• The bluebird flew to Bai Feiyu’s shoulder, where Bai Feiyu silently welcomed Ou Yezi back.

Ling Feng emerged from seclusion and told Chen Changsheng that he wanted to create a world where everyone was equal. After Chen Changsheng left, Ling Feng expelled a junior disciple for malicious gossip.

• Dongxu Zi asked Ling Feng and Chen Changsheng about their insights from contemplating the Azure Cloud Secret Treasure, then dismissed them to digest what they had learned.
• Ling Feng invited Chen Changsheng down the mountain and spoke of his goal to create a world where everyone was equal.
• Chen Changsheng praised Ling Feng's ambition and left, while Ling Feng watched him go without revealing his suspicions.
• A junior disciple mocked Ling Feng's clothing, and Ling Feng ordered him expelled from the sect for malicious gossip.

Chen Changsheng visited Azure Cloud Peak and found Ling Feng forcing disciples into ruthless competition to prepare them for the dangers ahead. Ling Feng defended his harsh rules as a way to help them survive, and Chen Changsheng listened while grappling with memories of the coming calamity.

• Chen Changsheng decided to accept Ling Feng’s invitation and traveled to Azure Cloud Peak.
• Chen Changsheng saw one disciple stab another to seize his waist token under Ling Feng’s new elimination rules.
• An injured disciple explained that losing the competition could get him expelled from Azure Cloud Peak or the Azure Cloud Sect, and said the Sect Master had approved the sparring system.
• Chen Changsheng questioned Ling Feng’s cruelty as Ling Feng arrived on an immortal crane to take him away.
• Ling Feng argued that the disciples needed to become stronger to survive the dangers beyond the sect, while Chen Changsheng recalled the future’s devastation.

Chen Changsheng resisted Ling Feng’s persuasive words and left Azure Cloud Sect with him to investigate whether Zu Yuan’s heart demon had possessed a man in the Mortal World. Ling Feng claimed he intended to kill the demon, but Chen Changsheng sensed danger as Ling Feng embraced his ambition to rise to the top despite everyone’s suspicions.

• Ouyang’s voice broke Ling Feng’s influence over Chen Changsheng, who acknowledged Ling Feng’s argument but refused to agree with him.
• Ling Feng and Chen Changsheng rode cranes away from Azure Cloud Sect, while Dongxu Zi watched them leave from Azure Cloud Peak.
• Ling Feng revealed that Ouyang had met a man named Lin Feng who resembled Zu Yuan and suggested that his heart demon had taken over Zu Yuan’s dead body.
• Chen Changsheng recalled Eldest Senior Brother’s encounter with a demonic cultivator who could possess others and asked whether Ling Feng meant to eliminate his heart demon.
• Ling Feng declared that he would kill the Devil Race remnant and, privately, resolved to turn his difficult circumstances into a path to power.

Ouyang, Bai Feiyu, and Chen Changsheng were escorted out of the Sword Sect after Leng Qingsong remained unconscious and the Sword-Questioning Pool lay in ruins. They returned through a teleportation gate to find a melancholy middle-aged man struggling with a White Crane.

• Bai Feiyu told Ouyang that Leng Qingsong would need a long time to absorb the Sword-Questioning Pool's swords and the Sword Immortal's legacy.
• Song Mu arrived, saw the destroyed Sword-Questioning Pool, and told the three senior brothers that he had been ordered to escort them back to the Azure Cloud Sect.
• Chen Changsheng explained that Ouyang had repeatedly damaged the Azure Cloud Sect's mountain-protecting formation, which was also its teleportation gate.
• Song Mu challenged Bai Feiyu to surpass him, and Bai Feiyu joined Ouyang, Chen Changsheng, the dog, and the Azure Bird as they teleported away.
• The group arrived at the Azure Cloud Sect's mountain-protecting formation and saw a melancholy middle-aged man grappling with a White Crane.

Hu Yun returned to the Azure Cloud Sect, was beaten by the white crane, and reunited with Ouyang, Bai Feiyu, and Chen Changsheng. Ouyang confronted him over his secret interference in their affairs, but the disciples ended by welcoming him back as their master.

• The white crane beat Hu Yun, who had returned after reporting to the Sect Master, and left him sprawled before the watching crowd.
• Hu Yun forced the spectators to kneel and ordered each of them to deliver three hundred copies of the Azure Cloud Introductory Qi Refining Art by the next day.
• Hu Yun ran to greet Ouyang and his companions, but Liang Zai bit his hand when Ouyang held the dog up to him.
• Ouyang grabbed Hu Yun by the throat and demanded an explanation for his behind-the-scenes schemes, while Hu Yun asked him to save face in public.
• Ouyang, Bai Feiyu, and Chen Changsheng bowed to Hu Yun and welcomed him back to the mountain as their master.

Hu Yun returned to Azure Cloud Sect, alarming its senior disciples, and reunited with Ouyang and the others on Little Mountain Peak. After noticing Ouyang’s condition, he brought the group home and used his words to transform the peak into a snowy New Year scene.

• Hu Yun’s return to Azure Cloud Sect caused Peak Masters and Elders to seal their gates and warn their disciples to stay put.
• Hu Yun reunited with Ouyang, Bai Feiyu, and Liang Zai, asked about Qingsong, and noticed something was wrong with Ouyang.
• Ouyang signaled Hu Yun not to reveal the loss of his lifespan, and Hu Yun led them toward Little Mountain Peak on a cloud.
• Hu Yun told stories during the journey and declared that auspicious snow would herald a bountiful year.
• Hu Yun’s words brought autumn leaves and heavy snow to Little Mountain Peak, impressing Ouyang, Chen Changsheng, and Bai Feiyu with his Words Become Law.