Chapter Summaries

Lin Shan gathered fine ash from the Specter Thread Fish but was trapped in its illusory blue-moon space and had to use the Red Lantern and four torches to escape. Back at camp, he discovered his Heart Light had grown stronger and received a backpack from Huang Ying as he prepared for a long journey.

• Lin Shan burned the Specter Thread Fish and gathered its ash, but a torch went out and the anomaly trapped him beneath an illusory blue moon.
• Lin Shan used the Red Lantern to fight the anomaly, split his remaining torch into four pieces with Heart Light, and lit them to break the illusion and escape.
• Lin Shan noticed his spirituality had increased and part of his heart had turned gold before returning to Jin Tianzong's cabin and falling asleep.
• Huang Ying gave Lin Shan a green backpack and two sets of clothes for his upcoming journey.
• Xia Xuan brought Huang Ying an Azure Silkworm cocoon and explained that the silkworms spun cocoons repeatedly throughout their long lives.

Lin Shan prepared potions, built a cabin, and led seven companions beyond the barrier to seek Transcendence. Their journey through the ash fog began unusually smoothly, leaving Lin Shan wary of their good fortune.

• Lin Shan made seven doses of potion and realized that he could discover ingredient proportions through trial and error.
• Lin Shan felled trees and, with Jin Tianzong's help, built a fifty-square-meter cabin.
• Zhang Zhonghua told Weiyi that the seven would leave with Lin Shan to seek Transcendence, and Lin Shan warned that the Human Race would repay the Cat Clan's help once it grew strong.
• Lin Shan and the seven others left camp, crossed the barrier, and entered the ash fog with the Red Lantern guiding their way.
• The group encountered no dangers on their journey, and Lin Shan wondered whether they had taken a different route.

Lin Shan brought the pioneers to the Purple Soul Flower Forest and prepared to leave them there while he rode deep into the Ash Fog. After an unknown being’s gaze made the Red Lantern tremble and damaged the Parchment, Lin Shan set out alone and camped for the night after a fast ride.

• Lin Shan led the group through a quiet night in the Ash Fog, where the Red Lantern trembled and the Parchment warned that an unknown being was watching before tearing slightly.
• Lin Shan spotted the uncanny old man near the Purple Soul Flower Forest, but the old man vanished without confronting them.
• Lin Shan gave the pioneers flowers and potions, told them to wait for him or return on their own after half a year, and departed after Zhao Xiao An refused to drink until he left.
• Lin Shan rode through the Ash Fog for nearly a hundred kilometers, then stopped to let his exhausted horse graze and camped as the Red Moon approached.

Lin Shan continued his journey through the Ash Fog, losing his horse to a hidden sea of bones and enduring a terrifying dream. He then witnessed a colossal fallen creature moving through the fog and pressed on toward his destination.

• Lin Shan fought off mantises through the night, made a crude dagger from one of their forelegs, and set out at dawn toward his destination.
• A hidden sea of bones transformed Lin Shan's horse into a skeleton, but the horse carried him across before collapsing; Lin Shan buried its bones and carved a headstone for it.
• Lin Shan walked onward without his horse, slept beneath the Red Moon, and woke from a dream about the Ash Fog with blood coming from his seven orifices.
• An earthquake and a deafening cry announced a gigantic fallen creature moving through the Ash Fog, and Lin Shan saw what might have been one of its legs before continuing on foot.

Lin Shan crossed the flattened remains of a city and encountered a mysterious fox-tailed girl whose supernatural power attacked him. He knocked her unconscious, but the Beastskin Book above her head extinguished the flames meant to kill her, leaving Lin Shan eyeing the possible Clan Artifact.

• Lin Shan found that a giant creature’s footprint had flattened the landscape and discovered a dark anomaly that vanished when his heart light touched it.
• Lin Shan reached the ruins of a settlement where countless members of another race had been crushed beneath the creature’s footprint.
• Lin Shan discovered a silent, blue-haired girl with a Beastskin Book floating above her head and recognized the supernatural aura surrounding her.
• Lin Shan used the Red Lantern and a heart-light spear to overpower the girl and pierce her heart, causing her supernatural power to vanish.
• The Beastskin Book extinguished the flames burning the charred girl, and Lin Shan wondered whether he could take the apparent Clan Artifact.

Lin Shan spared a mysterious girl who could change between human and fox forms, but a middle-aged man appeared and killed him with spiritual pressure. Lin Shan regenerated an hour later, though he collapsed again from exhaustion, leaving him to wonder whether his specter physique had made him immortal.

• Lin Shan stopped himself from killing the frightened girl and gave her food, then let her follow him as a blue fox.
• At night, the girl transformed back into a human and ate a piece of Lin Shan’s bun, revealing severe burns across her body.
• The Parchment warned Lin Shan to run, but a middle-aged man emerged from rippling space and crushed him with spiritual pressure.
• The man checked on the girl, who said Blue Prosperity City’s foundations were gone and that she had played with Lin Shan before the man killed him.
• Lin Shan’s scattered body and soul reassembled over an hour, and he awoke before passing out again from weakness.

After recovering from his injuries, Lin Shan escaped the enormous footprint and fought a powerful white-furred gorilla in the Ash Fog. He found no core in the beast and concluded that beasts and the Fallen were different kinds of creatures, then considered testing his current spirituality.

• Lin Shan noticed his body was recovering and continued toward his destination, with the Red Lantern still damaged and limiting his visibility.
• He crossed the edge of the flattened city and left the footprint, estimating that nearly 150 kilometers of ruined ground lay behind him.
• A white-furred gorilla ambushed Lin Shan, but he killed it with a Heart Light spear without leaving his position.
• Lin Shan searched the gorilla's remains for a core but found none, confirming his suspicion that beasts differed from the Fallen.
• Lin Shan shaped his Heart Light into a broad longsword and said he might be able to try something with his current spirituality.

Lin Shan used the Heart Light sword to travel to the target area and fought the Fallen Sikatini, a creature that concealed an eye inside its mouth. He killed it after losing and restoring his arm, then learned from Parchment that the potion ingredient was inside the hidden eyeball.

• Lin Shan tested flying on the Heart Light sword, managing five kilometers in twenty minutes and recovering his spirituality between flights.
• Lin Shan approached the Fallen Sikatini and destroyed the exposed eyeball on its tail, then found that its body resisted his attacks.
• Lin Shan pierced Sikatini's abdomen with a spinning spear strike, but the apparently defeated creature bit his arm and revealed an eye inside its mouth.
• Lin Shan severed and reattached his bitten arm, then felt weak as his body recovered.
• Lin Shan consulted Parchment, which revealed that the needed item was inside the eyeball in Sikatini's mouth.

Lin Shan traveled through Fallen territory toward the mercury grass, discovering that eating a snake replenished his spirituality and helped him fly farther. At the marked mountain valley, he glimpsed an immense anomalous peak named Ninety Thousand Li and realized he was only halfway up its slope.

• Lin Shan extracted a spiritual stone from a Fallen and continued toward the mercury grass, evading groups of Fallen along the way.
• Lin Shan killed a perceptive cobra, ate its meat, and found that it increased his maximum spirituality and sped up its recovery.
• Lin Shan spent most of two days flying, survived numerous Fallen attacks, and reached a mountain range where the mercury grass was marked at an elevation of 9,408 meters.
• Lin Shan flew up the mountain through oppressive ash fog and saw a distant cylindrical peak whose name, Ninety Thousand Li, appeared in his mind.
• Lin Shan recognized the entire peak as an anomaly and spotted a vast valley halfway up its slope, where the mercury grass was likely located.

Lin Shan searched the valley for spirit herbs to increase his spirituality and consumed them to strengthen himself. He reached the enormous sequence 8 willow, harvested one of its branches, and learned that his specter physique could be exhausted and left in a deathlike crashed state.

• Lin Shan asked the Parchment to locate spirit herbs, paid two years and three months of lifespan, and swallowed the nearest herb whole despite its recommended dosage.
• Over the following month, Lin Shan consumed the other seventeen herbs, bringing his spirituality to 3.9 and nearly advancing to the fourth stage of sequence 9.
• Lin Shan flew to the valley’s center and found a towering willow whose spiritual pressure surrounded it.
• Lin Shan used an axe of heart light to cut down a nearly hundred-meter branch after three hours of hacking.
• Lin Shan asked why he resurrected after dying, and the Parchment explained that his specter physique was undying unless his lifespan ran out, but repeated recovery could exhaust its essence and leave him crashed.

Lin Shan pursued the fast-moving Blood Wing through a vast forest and reached a lake after finding hundreds of bloodless Fallen. He realized the lake water was actually blood, leaving him facing a new danger as he prepared to hunt the anomaly.

• Lin Shan stored the spiritual willow branches and leaves, then set out to capture Blood Wing, the final material he needed.
• Lin Shan followed Blood Wing north for days and found hundreds of Fallen drained of blood, along with a wounded fish-bodied Fallen caring for its young.
• Lin Shan pursued Blood Wing across the forest for a week, fending off two Fallen attacks with the Red Lantern.
• Lin Shan reached a vast freshwater lake where Blood Wing had stopped and decided to wait until morning before approaching it.
• Lin Shan smelled blood at the lakeshore, touched the red water, and realized the lake was filled with blood.

Lin Shan witnessed a blood lake spread through the Fallen Forest before a powerful Fallen drove it back. At dawn, he attacked Blood Wing, but the anomaly overwhelmed him and destroyed his body.

• Lin Shan watched countless blood-red figures emerge from the lake and spread it across the forest until a blinding Fallen stopped them and boiled the lake away.
• Lin Shan decided to hunt Blood Wing and learned from Parchment that a complete anomaly had no weaknesses.
• Lin Shan approached Blood Wing, which moved too quickly for him to react and drew all the blood from his body.
• Lin Shan used the Red Lantern to set Blood Wing ablaze, bound it with a willow branch, and tried to pull it down with the Heart Light Sword.
• Blood Wing turned its wings red and engulfed Lin Shan in supernatural radiance, killing him and leaving his skeleton to crumble in the wind.

After Blood Wing shattered Lin Shan’s body, Lin Shan used his Specter Physique and the Red Lantern to exhaust the creature’s essence and force it into dormancy. He repaired his body over a month and learned the Parchment’s exact Sequence 9-Blood Wing formula, leaving him ready to advance.

• Lin Shan realized that his Specter Physique and soul were one and that he could wield Spiritual Power without his physical body.
• Lin Shan awakened the Red Lantern’s red figure and repeatedly pierced Blood Wing with Heart Light until the creature ran out of essence and entered dormancy.
• The Parchment warned Lin Shan that prolonged activity in his Specter Physique could make him lose consciousness and become a supernatural entity driven by instinct.
• Lin Shan used his remaining essence to rebuild his body from his shattered bones, a process that took one month and left his essence dangerously depleted.
• Lin Shan asked the Parchment whether it could locate the Human Race, and it answered yes.
• The Parchment revealed the exact Sequence 9-Blood Wing potion formula and instructed Lin Shan to touch the dormant Blood Wing.

Lin Shan successfully absorbed Blood Wing and gained blood manipulation and flight, then flew to the Purple Soul Flower Forest and discovered that Zhang Zhonghua and the others were missing. He tracked them to their former camp and found the Clan Artifact’s protective range had expanded, suggesting the Human Race had arrived.

• Lin Shan prepared two supplementary potions, drank them, and absorbed Blood Wing after touching its true body, falling into a black cocoon in the blood lake.
• Lin Shan emerged with the ability to control the lake’s supernatural blood and fly with blood wings that could make short spatial jumps.
• Lin Shan located the Purple Soul Flower Forest and traveled there over two days, switching between Blood Wing and the Heart Light sword as his supernatural power ran low.
• Lin Shan found Zhang Zhonghua and the others gone, used the Parchment to locate them seventy kilometers away near their former camp, and headed back.
• Lin Shan entered the Clan Artifact’s expanded protective range and suspected that the Human Race had arrived.

Lin Shan reached a Human Race mining settlement and learned that newcomers were meant to register and study the Human Calendar at the Clan Hall. After registering, he waited there to learn more about the clan and the war at the front.

• Lin Shan met Li Mu at a mine, where Li Mu explained that newcomers should visit the Clan Hall to learn about the Human Calendar and register.
• Brother Chen told Li Mu to escort Lin Shan to the Clan Hall and return to mining, explaining that iron ore supplied equipment to the front.
• Li Mu led Lin Shan through the settlement to the Clan Hall, which stood opposite Lin Shan’s home, then slipped away along a different path.
• A woman at the Clan Hall registered Lin Shan and told him that a Human Race pioneer with the same name had helped every clan member who reached Transcendence advance.
• Lin Shan entered the hall and agreed to wait with an elderly woman for the day’s newcomers.

Lin Shan watched new arrivals from Earth learn about the Human Race’s history and its war with the Cat Clan, while questioning the strange circumstances surrounding the conflict. The chapter ended with Jin Tianzong recognizing Lin Shan after hearing that a strange Red Lantern had appeared above the Clan Hall.

• Lin Shan watched people from Earth arrive in the hall and heard a middle-aged man explain that they had crossed into another world.
• An elderly woman recounted the Human Race’s three-year history, including its losses and ongoing war with the Cat Clan.
• The elderly woman ordered each family to send one member to the front lines within two days and directed the newcomers to register for work.
• Lin Shan questioned why the Cat Clan had not destroyed the Human Race despite its apparent strength.
• Jin Tianzong recognized Lin Shan and greeted him after learning of the Red Lantern above the Clan Hall.

Lin Shan returned to the Human Race’s territory and learned from Jin Tianzong that the Cat Clan was slaughtering humans to plunder their clan fortune. He followed the retreating Cat Clan army into the Ash Fog, where his heart light advanced to the fifth stage and the enemy army vanished at an unseen boundary.

• Lin Shan met Jin Tianzong, who explained that the Cat Clan killed hundreds of humans daily and that the Human Race suspected clan fortune was tied to its population and territory.
• Lin Shan flew to the front line, where he saw the Cat Clan’s pseudo-transcendent army clash with the Human Race and kill far more humans than it lost.
• Lin Shan followed the Cat Clan as it retreated into the Ash Fog, avoiding a direct fight with its pseudo-transcendents.
• Lin Shan’s heart light broke through to the fifth stage while he pursued the Cat Clan army.
• Lin Shan watched the Cat Clan army disappear after crossing a certain point in the Ash Fog.

Lin Shan infiltrated Cat Clan City and assassinated the Cat Clan General to force the Cat Clan to stop attacking the Human Race. He left a warning on the wall, hoping his strike would buy humanity time to develop.

• Lin Shan entered the Cat Clan Territory, saw how advanced its city was, and decided the Human Race was not ready to fight the Cat Clan directly.
• Lin Shan entered the Cat Clan leadership’s building, killed a Cat Clan woman, and overheard the General discussing how to exploit the Human Race’s clan fortune.
• Lin Shan used the Red Lantern to burn a newly advanced Cat Clan Transcendent and fought the General when he resisted.
• The Cat Clan General tried to escape, but Lin Shan pursued him and killed him with a Heart Light spear.
• Lin Shan used the General’s blood to write a warning on the wall, demanding that the Cat Clan stop attacking the Human Race.

Lin Shan met Shashali in Proud Meow City and heard her proposal for cooperation between the Cat Clan and Human Race. After reuniting with the seven at the Human camp and learning how the war had changed them, he announced that the Cat Clan would pause its attacks and ordered preparations to relocate.

• Lin Shan searched Proud Meow City's great hall, collected books and valuables, and met Shashali, who explained the Cat Clan's political split and asked him to spare her branch if the Human Race returned to power.
• Lin Shan said he would pass Shashali's request to the others and flew back to the Human camp; Shashali told a blue butterfly that she planned to enter the ash fog to search for the Sequence 8 stone tablet.
• Lin Shan reunited with the seven, including Zhao Xiao An, and spoke with them through the night about the war and the hundred thousand human deaths.
• Lin Shan told the group that the Cat Clan would not attack for several days and ordered them to prepare to relocate so the Human Race could develop in peace.

Lin Shan ordered the Human Race to relocate near the Purple Soul Flower Forest and returned to the settlement, where he found Yan Ruxin caring for children in his house. The chapter ended with Xiao Yuan offering Lin Shan his seat, then reconsidering after Yan Ruxin warned him that Lin Shan was no ordinary person.

• Lin Shan chose the Purple Soul Flower Forest as the destination and ordered the Human Race to pack within two days before beginning their march.
• Zhang Zhonghua and the others organized the troops and prepared them for the relocation.
• Lin Shan returned to the settlement, noticed mourning silk hanging outside nearly every tent, and went to find Yan Ruxin.
• Lin Shan discovered that Yan Ruxin had turned his house into a shelter for children, including Xiao Yuan.
• Xiao Yuan offered Lin Shan his seat, but declared he was not sure after Yan Ruxin warned him about Lin Shan.