Chapter Summaries

Di Yi left the Fire-Crowned Lotus alive after its sword array grew stronger from his derivation, then explored deeper into the Fire Kingdom Ancestral Land to gather divine substance. He reached the land’s central region, where Primordial Remnants and enormous Fire Sparrow races lived.

• Di Yi confirmed that the newborn world lay within the reach of his Original True Understanding and recalled mysterious threads from the Hundred Broken Mountains.
• The Fire-Crowned Lotus engraved a sword array based on the grass character sword intent, and Di Yi left it to consolidate its gains instead of harvesting it.
• Di Yi emerged into a deeper region of the Fire Kingdom Ancestral Land, defeated a Fire Beast King, collected its divine substance, and let it escape.
• Di Yi gathered divine substance from lava lakes and transformed creatures as he traveled farther into the ancestral land.
• Di Yi reached the central region, where fire-adapted Primordial Remnants lived as vassals beneath the dominant Fire Sparrow races.

Di Yi questioned the Fire Kui Ox about the Vermilion Birds’ connection to five kinds of trees and learned they originated from the Primordial Vermilion Bird’s Undying Tree, the Four Directions and Five Elements. He wondered whether the Five Trees could be recreated, but the Fire Kui Ox said that was impossible, leaving the tree’s fate tied to the calamity that destroyed the Vermilion Bird’s Heavenly Palace.

• Di Yi asked the Fire Kui Ox whether the firebirds were Vermilion Birds and why the trees in their domain did not match the five kinds described in human records.
• The Fire Kui Ox explained that the Primordial Vermilion Bird had split the Undying Tree called the Four Directions and Five Elements into trees corresponding to the five elements, producing the original divine specimens of osmanthus, jujube, golden trees, pomegranate, and ginkgo.
• The Fire Kui Ox said the Fire God Tree in the Fire Kingdom descended from divine wood produced by splitting the Five Trees, and that the Primordial Vermilion Bird had taken the original tree away from this Traveling Palace.
• The Fire Kui Ox recalled that a great calamity had struck down the Primordial Vermilion Bird’s Heavenly Palace, likely destroying the Five Trees as well.
• Di Yi asked whether the five kinds of trees could be combined to recreate the Five Trees, but the Fire Kui Ox said every Undying Tree was unique and could not be restored that way.

Di Yi followed the Fire Kui Ox to a vast magma lake, where the ox planned to catch rare Yang Fish with his help. The ox explained how the Fire Clan’s rules allowed them to exploit a loophole, then urged Di Yi not to abandon their bargain as they prepared to fish.

• Di Yi learned from the Fire Kui Ox about a living undying tree in the Desolate Region, said to be connected to the Ten Fiends.
• The Fire Kui Ox led Di Yi to a vast magma lake and returned with a fresh corpse to extract blood essence as bait.
• The Fire Kui Ox explained that Yang Fish were rare native creatures whose pure divine substances could help people comprehend the Dao and break through bottlenecks.
• The Fire Kui Ox said the Fire Clan’s rules permitted invited helpers to catch Yang Fish in the lake, and argued that Di Yi’s permission from the Fire Emperor meant he qualified.
• The Fire Kui Ox promised to share the catch with Di Yi and offered him sixty percent if necessary.

Di Yi and the Fire Kui Bull used bait to draw a huge school of Yang Fish from the magma lake, and Di Yi captured enough to support a complete transformation. After the Fire Kui Bull declined most of the catch, it suggested that Di Yi release some of the fish.

• The Fire Kui Bull let the first school of Yang Fish eat its bait before scattering more across the lake, and Di Yi added his own divinity-bearing substances.
• The bait drew a far larger school, and Di Yi and the Fire Kui Bull began capturing Yang Fish as the fish attacked with waves, runes, wind, and lightning.
• Di Yi used his Ten Cave Heavens, Grass Character Sword Art, and Kun Peng Precious Technique to overwhelm the school and gather a vast catch.
• Di Yi stopped after collecting enough Yang Fish for one complete transformation, and the Yang Fish Kings led the remaining fish back to the lake bed.
• The Fire Kui Bull declined most of Di Yi's catch, saying its own few hundred fish were enough, then suggested that Di Yi release some.

Di Yi began cultivating the Primordial Vermilion Bird’s path of divinity and glimpsed a vast realm of mysterious lights and spirits. He learned that the lights were tied to an ancient Great Sacrifice, then cut off his investigation after sensing a distant, dangerous presence.

• The Fire Kui Ox advised Di Yi that Yang Fish could help him reach a secret place in the Fire Domain, then left to refine its haul.
• Di Yi found a quiet place and began advancing from the Spirit Transformation Realm to the Inscription Realm using the Yang Fish and the Primordial Vermilion Bird’s divinity cultivation.
• While cultivating, Di Yi saw countless lights woven across an unseen realm and concluded that the Primordial Vermilion Bird had gained its power from an outside source.
• Di Yi’s True Understanding revealed the lights becoming a woman and countless spirits departing amid a chant that spoke of the Great Sacrifice.
• A defensive force cut off Di Yi’s investigation, and he sensed that something distant had noticed him with malice.
• Di Yi sealed and banished the unseen realm, deciding that the time was not right to investigate and wondering whether the divinity cultivation path was contaminated.

Di Yi contained strange pollen from the unseen place inside the Rotten Wooden Box, where it triggered the Ancient Temple’s mechanisms and began healing his body while purifying his Black Blood. As the pollen grew into a lotus that used Black Blood as nourishment, Di Yi seized the opportunity to suppress and seal the affliction.

• Di Yi noticed living pollen drifting from the unseen place and moved to keep its influence from harming the newborn world.
• Di Yi coughed up blood marked with black lines as the isolated passage began to collapse, so he entered the Rotten Wooden Box and went to the Ancient Temple’s central dais.
• The Ancient Temple activated, and black light rotted Di Yi’s flesh and bones before the pollen and surging vitality began restoring them.
• The pollen took root beneath the dais and grew into a lotus that lifted Di Yi and formed a blazing sun at its tip.
• Di Yi sensed that the lotus could purify Black Blood and used the Sea of Potential and True Understanding to suppress and seal the afflicted parts of his body.

Di Yi fought the Black Blood as it mutated his flesh and bones, then confronted a bone skull that claimed to be another part of him. He tore out the Black Blood’s newly formed heart and skull, despite the agony, to stop its spread.

• The Black Blood erupted against Di Yi’s suppression, rotting his flesh and draining his vitality as he used the Sea of Potential and True Understanding to fight back.
• Di Yi burned away mutated flesh and extracted strands of Black Blood, but the blood formed a bone heart that began replacing his own blood and influencing his will.
• Di Yi countered the mutations with his own blood and the pollen’s holy light, but the Black Blood regenerated the bone heart and formed a skull resembling him.
• The skull told Di Yi that it was him and had gained awareness when he did, but Di Yi rejected its claim and intensified his efforts to wear away the Black Blood.
• Di Yi sealed the invaded marrow, then tore out the bone heart and skull along with the afflicted bones while the skull warned him that the pain would affect his body.

Di Yi resisted the black blood’s claim that it was his other self, but its apparent surrender made him doubt himself and let it break free. As the black blood resumed its corruption, Di Yi burned and tore away the infected parts of his body to stop its spread.

• Di Yi attacked the skull despite its claim that it was him, while the skull said their shared past and deductions no longer applied.
• The skull urged Di Yi to remain himself, open the severed path, and complete their old undertaking before it faded away with the black blood.
• Di Yi realized the black blood’s vague words had made him hesitate, and the black blood used that opening to break through his suppression.
• The black blood worsened Di Yi’s injuries, mutating his flesh, hair, and bones into monstrous forms.
• Di Yi set the mutations ablaze and tore out and burned diseased parts of his body to prevent the black blood’s corruption from spreading.

Di Yi fought the Black Blood as it burned away his foundations and revealed that his body was incomplete and secretly corrupted. The strange lotus drew in unknown power and unleashed Myriad Tribulations Reincarnation, leaving Di Yi hopeful that the Black Blood could be eradicated at its root.

• The strange lotus empowered Di Yi, shifting the struggle against the Black Blood in his favor.
• The Black Blood ignited itself and its corrupted sources, causing Di Yi's laws, order, and bodily patterns to collapse.
• The strange lotus drew in an unknown substance that stabilized Di Yi and began cleansing the corruption in his body.
• The Black Blood chanted and triggered the self-destruction of its imprisoned source, blasting apart Di Yi's flesh and revealing widespread corruption.
• Di Yi realized his body was incomplete and his memories were missing because his spirit and soul were not whole.
• The strange lotus unleashed Myriad Tribulations Reincarnation, restoring Di Yi's collapsing foundations and giving him hope of removing the Black Blood at its root.

Di Yi burned away his corrupted rules and patterns, using the Ancient Temple’s vitality and the strange lotus to reshape his body. He decided to pursue a more complete reincarnation by drawing on the newborn world’s cultivation methods and the Pollen Spirit’s characteristics, beginning to form a second “tree.”

• Di Yi set himself ablaze with the pollen’s flames, destroying much of the black blood and sacrificing his source of power.
• The Ancient Temple’s vitality and the lotus’s crystalline droplets accelerated Di Yi’s reshaping and left the black blood weakened but not eradicated.
• Di Yi realized that rebuilding his former rules could preserve vulnerabilities the black blood’s source might already understand.
• Di Yi chose to use the newborn world’s Inscription and Formation cultivation methods to reshape the Sea of Potential.
• Di Yi began reshaping his body with the Ancient Temple’s power, his accumulated experiences, and the Pollen Spirit’s characteristics.

Di Yi chose the newborn world's cultivation path as his second "Tree Body" and used the True Understanding to develop it, discovering that different paths converged through the idea of reincarnation. After emerging from the Rotten Wooden Box and finding the Fire Kingdom Ancestral Land unchanged, he set out to return to the Kunpeng Nest, but a transcendent figure approached him.

• Di Yi rejected the unknown tangible lotus and chose the newborn world's cultivation path for his second "Tree Body," prioritizing his recovery from the Black Blood.
• As he slept inside the Rotten Wooden Box, his new power grew and helped heal the damage in his body.
• Di Yi realized that the True Understanding fit the newborn world's cultivation methods and connected them through the concept of reincarnation.
• After an unknown span of time, Di Yi left the Rotten Wooden Box and found the Fire Kingdom Ancestral Land still familiar and unchanged.
• Di Yi decided to return to the Kunpeng Nest to see the Golden Hou, but a transcendent figure appeared on the horizon and approached.

Di Yi reunited with the Fire Emperor after less than three months had passed and resumed his search for the Sacred Emperor Palace and the Primordial Vermilion Bird Precious Technique. The Fire Emperor led him to the palace’s hidden entrance, where Di Yi entered alone and found that an unseen barrier kept him from reaching it.

• The Fire Emperor found Di Yi and said his token had been beyond perception for almost three months.
• Di Yi accepted the Fire Emperor’s Information Jade Slip about the Sacred Emperor Palace and decided to avoid the Divine Cultivation Path because of its connection to Black Blood.
• The Fire Emperor told Di Yi that Huo Yueling remained in the Temple of Literature, where the ancient sages’ instruction had raised her prospects in the Fire Kingdom.
• The Fire Emperor opened a Magma Passage to the Sacred Emperor Palace and left Di Yi to enter alone.
• Di Yi crossed into the hidden world of crimson magma but discovered he could not approach the palace at its center.

Di Yi entered the Sacred Emperor Palace by activating Stars in the Palm to form a rainbow bridge, then passed through its Vermilion Bird fire trial unharmed. Inside, he discovered the Fire Clan’s inheritance and the Four Strikes of the Primordial Vermilion Bird, which outsiders could also obtain.

• Di Yi read that Yang Fish could guide destined visitors to the Sacred Emperor Palace, but the fish refused to help him because he had caught so many of them.
• Di Yi lit up the spatial nodes known as Stars in the Palm and formed a rainbow bridge to the palace, frightening the Yang Fish kings into fleeing.
• Di Yi opened the palace gates and passed through the Vermilion Bird true fire without being harmed.
• Di Yi walked through the vast palace and saw the ash of Fire Clan descendants who had failed its first trial.
• Di Yi examined an inheritance area and learned that the Vermilion Bird scripture required the right bloodline, while outsiders could also obtain the Four Strikes of the Primordial Vermilion Bird.

Di Yi explored the Sacred Emperor Palace and found the Wall of Gods and Demons, a dangerous trial ground that might select prodigies for a mysterious cultivation path. He entered its first arena and faced a primordial beast that used a Spatial Precious Technique.

• Di Yi decided the Four Strikes of the Primordial Vermilion Bird held little value to him because he had already learned it from the Fire Emperor’s demonstration.
• Di Yi followed the jade guide through the Sacred Emperor Palace and found the Wall of Gods and Demons.
• Di Yi opened one of the wall’s doorways and entered a shifting dueling ground, where a stone tablet described one hundred and eight trials and a mysterious road.
• Di Yi wondered whether the wall had been made to guide later generations after the Primordial Era’s Great Calamity, then stepped into the arena.
• The arena simulated a primordial savage beast at inscription-level strength, and Di Yi recognized that it used a Spatial Precious Technique.

Di Yi defeated a hundred-beast formation in the Space Dao trial and discovered that its beasts had been formed from ancient talisman papers. After leaving the arena, he examined the Wall of Gods and Demons’ portals and wondered why some trials were unfinished and how a second, complete wall had been made.

• Di Yi crushed the Space Dao trial’s beast herd with the Kun Peng Precious Technique and Grass Character Sword Art, breaking its formation and defeating every beast.
• Di Yi found yellowed talisman papers where the beasts had fallen and deduced that a later user had employed an advanced technique to turn them into soldiers.
• Di Yi discovered that the trial had ended before its strongest Hou appeared, then found carvings that served as templates for the manifested beasts.
• Di Yi left through the Portal and counted 108 portals, noting that some carved portals had never been cut through.
• Di Yi speculated that the unfinished portals lacked surviving beings to leave trials, then questioned that explanation because a second complete Wall of Gods and Demons existed.

Di Yi entered a portal depicting the woman who folded boats and clashed with the Black Paper Boat, which displayed power beyond the newborn world. After it vanished, he wondered whether the woman—and perhaps he himself—had walked through the long river of time, and was left pondering her words, “Only I remain.”

• Di Yi recognized the portal’s engraving as the jade-like hand of the woman who folded boats in the North Sea and entered it.
• The Black Paper Boat attacked Di Yi with streams of Precious Techniques, so he used the Rotten Wooden Box to contain the battle’s power.
• Di Yi and the boat engaged in a contest of Divine Radiance Runes and the origins and laws of heaven and earth until the boat disappeared into the gloom.
• Di Yi suspected the boat was a trace left by the woman and considered whether their encounters had occurred in different periods of time.
• Di Yi concluded he was likely a being from the past rather than a future traveler, then wondered what the woman meant by “Only I remain.”

Di Yi discovered that a carving in the Dueling Grounds showed the boat-folding woman sending a message of “hope,” then revealed future beings carrying someone into the distant past. He suspected their actions and the Wall of Gods and Demons were connected to a mysterious being from the Lower Realm, but wondered why they had left no traces about him.

• Di Yi found a carving of a white hand placing a Black Paper Boat marked “hope” into a river of stars.
• The carving opened a path into the past, showing the Great Cauldron and Great Bell escorting a living being into the ancient Upper Realm as the message changed to “return.”
• Di Yi realized that the boat-folding woman and the owners of the Great Cauldron and Great Bell came from the future and had sent someone back to the Primordial Era.
• Di Yi connected their actions, the Wall of Gods and Demons, the Ghost Ship, and the opening in the Lower Realm to a mysterious living being who might exist.
• Di Yi wondered why the future beings had left traces for that mysterious being but none about him.

Di Yi searched the Wall of Gods and Demons for the future being the Boat-Breaking Woman sought, and glimpsed a teenage boy who wielded the Kun Peng Precious Technique and knew the original true understanding. He suspected the boy was connected to Broken Willow in Stone Village, but had not yet confirmed it.

• Di Yi left the Dueling Grounds and concluded the being he sought might not yet have been born in his lifetime.
• Di Yi challenged the One Hundred and Eight Portals, using the Sea of Potential and the true understanding to reveal ripples of the future.
• Di Yi glimpsed a teenage human who had opened ten cave heavens, visited the Kunpeng Nest in the North Sea, and wielded the Kun Peng Precious Technique.
• The boy mistook Di Yi for part of the trial and attacked, so Di Yi severed their spacetime resonance before they could make contact.
• Di Yi realized the boy knew his original true understanding and wondered if he was connected to Broken Willow in Stone Village.

Di Yi used the Vermilion Bird Primal True Feather to reverse-analyze and comprehend the Primordial Vermilion Bird Precious Technique. He left the passage to the Black Forest Restricted Zone unexplored and wondered why the Primordial Vermilion Bird had not been counted among the Ten Fiends.

• Di Yi concluded that Broken Willow in Stone Village was likely connected to the being who had learned the Original True Understanding.
• A passage opened after Di Yi cleared the Dueling Grounds, seemingly leading to the Black Forest Restricted Zone, but he ignored it and left.
• Di Yi followed the jade mirror’s route to the Fire Cave in the Sacred Emperor Palace and found a Vermilion Bird Primal True Feather.
• Di Yi used the True Understanding to analyze the feather and deduced that the Vermilion Bird Precious Technique combined fire and thunder in a devastating battle art that could also injure its user.
• Di Yi wondered why the powerful and ferocious Primordial Vermilion Bird had not been included among the Ten Fiends.

Di Yi obtained the complete Vermilion Bird Precious Technique and left the Fire Kingdom Ancestral Land. On returning to the capital, he learned that an Outer Domain Great Sect was pressing the Fire Kingdom for immediate compensation over the Qilin Old Nest, leaving the dispute unresolved.

• Di Yi completed his inheritance of the Vermilion Bird Precious Technique and departed the Fire Cave.
• Di Yi met the Fire Kui Ox, reassured it that the Fire Emperor's inquiry was unrelated to their Yang Fish scheme, and left the ancestral land.
• An elderly Venerable received Di Yi by the Fire Emperor's order and escorted him through the Teleportation Ancient Hall to the capital.
• Di Yi noticed extra soldiers in the Imperial Palace and learned that the Fire Kingdom was preparing for trouble over the Qilin Old Nest.
• The old man explained that the Fire Emperor had offered an Outer Domain Great Sect future access to the ancestral land and information of equivalent value, but the sect wanted immediate benefits and negotiations remained unsettled.