Recaps

Jing Jiu absorbed immortal qi in space to prepare for the return of the Cloud Gathering and General Li, while the Alliance watched his meteor-like flight back to the Capital Planet. At the Priestess's Manor, he recognized Sha Yu on a visitor list and learned that Sha Yu had collected data at Mr. Donglou's request.

• Jing Jiu told Ran Handong that the Priestesses and the Galaxy Alliance needed him to change the Ascension Ones' rule, and said his power outweighed the damage he had caused.
• Jing Jiu absorbed light from a star while resting on a military satellite, restoring the immortal qi he had spent in battle.
• Jing Jiu flew back to the Capital Planet like a meteor, and observers watched without trying to stop him.
• Ran Handong reported that candlelight processions had begun and that most believers might accept the new god within twenty standard days.
• Jing Jiu noticed Sha Yu's name on the visitor list, and Sha Yu said he had collected data at Mr. Donglou's request.

Jing Jiu used Great Dao Toward Heaven to search for Ascension Ones from Chaotian, then met a mysterious girl on Green Mountain and secured her cooperation in exchange for the Azure Sky Mirror. The chapter ended with General Li arriving at the simulated Green Mountain.

• Jing Jiu connected Sha Yu’s data chip to the game and searched thousands of suspicious player accounts for Ascension Ones, but found neither True Person Tan nor Snow Ji.
• Jing Jiu and Ran Handong narrowed the accounts to more than thirty suspects, and Jing Jiu investigated them through the Starfield Network.
• Jing Jiu returned to Sword Peak, where a girl in a white dress questioned him about Ping Yongjia and whether he would return to the other side.
• Jing Jiu argued that Green Mountain had no reason to reject him, and the girl agreed to cooperate if he gave her the Azure Sky Mirror.
• Jing Jiu waited among the simulated Green Mountain peaks until General Li walked out of the Thatched Hut, and he bowed to him.

Jing Jiu met General Li, learned he was his great-grandmaster True Person Chunyang, and discussed Green Mountain’s history and the events in Jing Jiu’s novel. After leaving the game, Jing Jiu sought solitude in the Capital Planet’s magma, where the chapter left him sinking beneath its surface.

• Jing Jiu recognized General Li as Li Chunyang, the former Green Mountain sect master True Person Chunyang and his great-grandmaster, and bowed to him.
• Li Chunyang spoke with Jing Jiu about True Person Daoyuan, Liu Ci, the Southern Sea villain, and Jing Jiu’s meeting with a woman; Jing Jiu answered that he and Liu Ci had killed the villain together and that nothing had come of the meeting.
• Li Chunyang asked whether Jing Jiu had subdued Yunmeng Mountain, and Jing Jiu said he thought so; Li Chunyang praised him for achieving what the elders had failed to accomplish.
• Li Chunyang said he would arrive the next day to discuss matters in person, then left the game; Jing Jiu exited too and departed with Zhong Lizi.
• Jing Jiu went to a quiet underground area on the Capital Planet and soaked in magma to ease his vexation.
• After watching the magma erupt in fiery sprays, Jing Jiu closed his eyes and sank completely beneath its surface.

Jing Jiu told Zhong Lizi that he distrusted the people of this world and gave her a paper crane to burn if anything happened to him. The next morning, he traveled with Ran Handong to the planet’s southern ice fields to meet the one person who could control the entire Military.

• Jing Jiu returned to Zhong Lizi and asked how her studies were going; she explained that she learned through the Priestesses’ secret inheritance.
• Jing Jiu said that the Priestess did not trust humanity, including Zhong Lizi, and admitted that he did not trust them either.
• Jing Jiu gave Zhong Lizi a yellow paper crane and told her to burn it if something happened, while keeping her distant from his affairs.
• Before dawn, Jing Jiu left with Ran Handong to meet someone, leaving Zhong Lizi worried behind at the Manor.
• Ran Handong realized that only the person who controlled the entire Military could have hidden their journey from surveillance, and Jing Jiu confirmed that he was going to see him.

Jing Jiu met General Li beneath the Antarctic Ice Sheet and explained his theory of how the Chaotian Continent was created as a refuge and experiment amid humanity’s war with the Dark Matter Sea. General Li confirmed that his account was roughly correct, and Jing Jiu concluded that everyone was an experimental subject.

• Jing Jiu walked through the closed Galaxy Art Museum with Ran Handong, who guided him through its exhibits before they parted ways at the black-oil installation.
• Jing Jiu went to the cliff beyond the museum, where General Li waited in silence as they watched the Antarctic daylight reveal the universe beyond the sky.
• General Li asked Jing Jiu what conclusions he had reached about the relationship between the main universe and the Chaotian Continent.
• Jing Jiu described how an ancient god had discovered the Chaotian Continent, placed humans and other life there, and hoped they might evolve to defeat the Dark Matter Sea.
• General Li said Jing Jiu’s account was roughly correct, and Jing Jiu concluded that they were all experimental subjects.

Jing Jiu and General Li discussed the ancient god’s experiments, the Dark Matter Sea, and the Ascension Ones’ plans to lead humanity. General Li pressed Jing Jiu about what he intended to do after meeting him, as the wind and snow intensified.

• Jing Jiu and General Li considered how the ancient god had prepared a separate world as a refuge and testing ground for humanity.
• General Li said the Ascension Ones had a responsibility to lead humanity by their own free will, while Jing Jiu said he only wished to stay alive.
• General Li explained that the Dark Matter Sea’s black energy infected life and that the Starlink Plan aimed to contain it.
• General Li said the Ascension Ones needed control of the Galaxy Alliance and demanded that the Priestess obey them, but Jing Jiu called their struggle childish.
• General Li asked whether Jing Jiu trusted them and what he had intended to do after meeting him, while the wind and snow outside the cliff grew violent.

Jing Jiu confronted General Li over the tests and attacks on the Chaotian cultivators, learned the Green Mountain Patriarch was nearing death, and confirmed Cao Yuan and Xilai were alive. Meanwhile, an unidentified professor investigated Professor Gou and entered a game, while two monitored people approached the Capital Planet as Jing Jiu and Ran Handong traveled north.

• Jing Jiu demanded an accounting from General Li, who explained that the tests were meant to ensure Ascension Ones would obey the Galaxy Alliance and said Green Mountain needed obedient hired muscle.
• General Li told Jing Jiu that the Green Mountain Patriarch was in poor condition and had little time left, and that Cao Yuan was recovering while Xilai underwent special training.
• Jing Jiu burned the black oil in the art museum's swimming pool, and General Li left; elsewhere, a black warship and an old man on a cratered planet raised questions about whether General Li trusted Jing Jiu.
• The old director delivered a chip of academic personnel records to an unidentified professor, who focused on Professor Gou, called him the Bai Household's son-in-law, and entered a game through the Starfield Network.
• As Jing Jiu traveled with Ran Handong toward the priest's manor, he asked how many monitored people had come; Ran Handong reported seventeen anomalous movements and said two people were just outside the Capital Planet's atmosphere.

Jing Jiu chose to accept General Li’s terms and returned to the Manor, where he told Zhong Lizi he was leaving and revealed that Great Dao Toward Heaven was his story. Zhong Lizi recognized him as True Person Jingyang and asked whether his journey was safe.

• Jing Jiu tracked two suspicious Digital Identifiers to a warship and prepared to attack if the talks with General Li broke down.
• Jing Jiu decided not to strike, since the talks had not collapsed, and agreed to accept General Li’s terms.
• Jing Jiu returned to the Manor and told Zhong Lizi that he was leaving.
• Jing Jiu told Zhong Lizi that Great Dao Toward Heaven was his story, and she guessed he was True Person Jingyang searching for his companions.
• Jing Jiu confirmed that he had found his companions and reassured Zhong Lizi that going to meet them was safe.

Jing Jiu chose to leave the Priestess's Manor with Flower Creek and accepted General Li's summons, while Zhong Lizi and the Alliance's leaders watched him depart. He reached the Military Command Building and met General Li, who questioned his choice of companion.

• Zhong Lizi warned Jing Jiu not to trust the Ascension Ones and asked to go with him, but he refused and told her to keep his Paper Crane safe.
• As Alliance leaders gathered at the Priestess's Manor, Jing Jiu chose Flower Creek to accompany him instead of Ran Handong or Jiang Yuxia.
• Flower Creek reluctantly packed Jing Jiu's backpack and followed him, while Zhong Lizi said goodbye and told him she liked the novel he had written.
• Jing Jiu and Flower Creek left the Manor in a military convoy sent by General Li, as the gathered officials and clergy watched them go.
• The convoy entered the heavily guarded Military Command Building, where Jing Jiu left Flower Creek outside and went to meet General Li.
• General Li asked Jing Jiu whether Flower Creek was a child of the Flower Household and called her an interesting choice.

Jing Jiu visited the Flower Household to see the original Sunflowers before joining the Military fleet bound for the Jiali Starfield and the Dark Matter Sea. Aboard the Blazing Sun, he traveled with Flower Creek and asked whether she could kill people.

• General Li told Jing Jiu that the Flower Household possessed the original Sunflowers, and Jing Jiu said he would visit before joining the fleet.
• Jing Jiu and Flower Creek visited the Flower Household, where Jing Jiu found a bloodstained lace ribbon binding the flowers in the original painting.
• Jing Jiu and Flower Creek boarded the Blazing Sun, where Captain Jiang Zhixing told him the investigation had ended and that he was now Chief Military Command Advisor.
• Jiang Zhixing said Shen Yunmai had been demoted to commander-in-chief of the Stellar Core Fleet, and the Blazing Sun departed with an escort fleet for the Jiali Starfield.
• As Jing Jiu and Flower Creek watched the stars, he said he wanted to see the Dark Matter Sea and asked whether she could kill people.

Jing Jiu explained why he had spared the stone man and reviewed the threats aboard the fleet as the Stellar Core Fleet appeared. When Shen Yunmai approached him in space, Jing Jiu appeared before the guqin, setting up a confrontation.

• Jing Jiu told Flower Creek that he had warned the stone man not to follow because killing was against the law, and that the man had posed little threat.
• Ran Donglou urged the young priestess to ignore the rules and kill their enemies, but she refused and sent him away.
• Ran Handong informed Jing Jiu that Zeng Ju had left the Academy of Sciences' space station and that another Ascension One was hiding in his fleet.
• Jing Jiu watched the Stellar Core Fleet arrive and told Flower Creek that he disliked the universe because it, too, would eventually end.
• An alarm rang aboard the Blazing Sun Warship, and Shen Yunmai played a guqin in space; Jing Jiu appeared in front of him.

Jing Jiu joined the Stellar Core Fleet and studied secret information about the Dark Matter Sea, including an encrypted archive revealing an Ancient Civilization city. The fleet reached the edge of the Local Group, where Jing Jiu prepared to travel to the city on a planet orbiting a dark star.

• Shen Yunmai gave Jing Jiu highly restricted information about the Dark Matter Sea and warned him that the mission could be dangerous.
• Jing Jiu read about dark matter, its effects on living things, and humanity’s limited understanding of it, then discovered that the secret archive concerned a city.
• The Stellar Core Fleet destroyed three mining ships that appeared in its path, and Jing Jiu thought of Zhong Lizi’s father and his lost mining investment.
• Twenty-seven days later, the Stellar Core Fleet joined the Starlink Fleet at the edge of the Local Group to rehearse a blockade of the Dark Matter Sea.
• Jing Jiu saw the dark star marking the edge of the Dark Matter Sea and learned that an Ancient Civilization city stood on its planet.

Jing Jiu and the fleet reached a planet where the ancient civilization’s first city had been consumed by the Dark Matter Sea. After learning how the New Humans had sealed and studied the site, Jing Jiu looked out over the silent, ruined city.

• The Blazing Sun Warship carried Jing Jiu and Flower Creek to the planet’s ring-shaped base, passing through its dark, desolate atmosphere.
• Shen Yunmai arrived with two young attendants and was greeted by officers, who acknowledged Jing Jiu as the military’s chief consultant.
• An officer explained that the city beyond the base had been the first place occupied by the Dark Matter Sea, where corrupted life became monsters and slaughtered the living.
• The New Humans had found the planet through clues from the Priestess and established strict military and research supervision to study the monsters and corruption.
• Jing Jiu stopped at a floor-to-ceiling window and silently watched the blackened, lifeless city outside.

Jing Jiu learned about the Dark Matter Sea, the ancient city preserved as a contaminated laboratory, and the monsters it produced. After asking Shen Yunmai about the ancient civilization’s weapon, he flew through the Protective Shield toward the city.

• Two officers explained how the Dark Matter Sea contaminated organic life and how the Alliance monitored spatial rifts.
• Jing Jiu and Flower Creek looked out over the preserved city, where black spores and the remains of contaminated life filled the streets.
• An officer showed Jing Jiu the five categories of contaminated organisms and the research on how to destroy them.
• Jing Jiu recognized the monsters as resembling the Yaoshou of the Chaotian Continent and thought of Snow Ji.
• Shen Yunmai told Jing Jiu that the ancient civilization had supposedly used a substellar weapon, and Jing Jiu flew toward the city as alarms sounded across the base.

Jing Jiu and Shen Yunmai explored the ruins of Planet 857, where Jing Jiu proved immune to the surviving blood thumbs. As they considered the planet’s destruction and the Dark Matter Sea, Jing Jiu proposed exploring beyond the Local Group to search for other life.

• Jing Jiu flew toward the city without protective equipment, and Shen Yunmai followed after signaling the officers not to pursue.
• Shen Yunmai explained that blood thumbs had once contaminated him, while Jing Jiu revealed that their spores could not pierce his skin.
• Jing Jiu looked at the dim star and reflected on how the Ancient Civilization had destroyed and sealed Planet 857 after dark matter transformed its life and killed its inhabitants.
• Jing Jiu wondered what other life-forms had become monsters through dark matter, including Snow Ji, Outsider Heavenly Demons, and mother nests.
• Shen Yunmai said humanity appeared alone in the Local Group and that the Escape Faction’s distant journey had likely failed, but Jing Jiu said they should still go and look.

Jing Jiu considered the doomed fate of the Ancient Civilization’s Escape Faction and learned more about the Dark Matter Sea’s monsters from Shen Yunmai. After seeing the remains of a person and cat on planet 857, he realized General Li and the Green Mountain Patriarch expected him to help solve the Dark Matter Sea problem, and the girl asked what choice he would have made as humanity’s leader.

• Jing Jiu reflected that the Escape Faction could not cross the immense distances between galaxy groups and recalled the Priestess’s argument that the departed had long since died.
• Jing Jiu asked Shen Yunmai about Outsider Heavenly Demons, and Shen Yunmai explained that dark matter produced monsters whose strongest forms, Mother Nests, could overwhelm even a Night-Bearing Realm expert.
• Jing Jiu found a person and a cat preserved beneath black crystalline grains; when he gently touched the cat, both remains crumbled into ash.
• At the base on planet 857, Jing Jiu asked the girl why General Li had shown him the files and the planet, and she guessed that General Li wanted him to help solve the problem.
• Jing Jiu concluded that General Li and the Green Mountain Patriarch had placed their hopes in him, and the girl asked what choice he would have made when humanity first encountered the Dark Matter Sea.

Jing Jiu discussed humanity’s fate and his choices with Flower Creek, then went to investigate Shen Yunmai’s dangerous night run across the wasteland. He left Shen Yunmai with a blunt remark about his ruined clothes.

• Flower Creek asked Jing Jiu what choice he would make, and he said he would first try to solve the Dark Matter Sea problem once and for all.
• Jing Jiu said he would repeat the ancient decision if the mathematical model required it, would leave if the problem could not be solved, and would not sacrifice himself because humanity would live if he lived.
• Flower Creek asked about Jing Jiu’s interests and the base’s entertainment, while he resumed reading Dark Matter Sea materials.
• Jing Jiu heard Shen Yunmai racing through the night, flew out of the base, and watched him run roughly seven hundred kilometers across the dangerous wasteland.
• Shen Yunmai returned to the summit and asked Jing Jiu why he was there, and Jing Jiu said Shen’s clothes were not up to the job.

Jing Jiu visited the underground research institute to begin lessons on humanity’s war against the Dark Matter Sea, where he recognized True Person Tan disguised as Professor Long. When the experts prepared to teach him the vast body of relevant knowledge, Jing Jiu told them to teach everything at once.

• Shen Yunmai discussed clothing and whether to change his sexual characteristics with Jing Jiu, who offered calm advice and suggested keeping his hair for beauty.
• After returning to the Ring-Shaped Base, Jing Jiu remembered Jing Li's Wife and wondered if he had grown old.
• Two military officers escorted Jing Jiu to the research institute seven kilometers underground, where staff gathered to greet him.
• Jing Jiu recognized Professor Long as True Person Tan, formerly the Zhongzhou Sect Master, but did not reveal that he knew him.
• The institute’s experts began preparing lessons about the Dark Matter Sea, its monsters, humanity’s weapons, and the long war.
• Jing Jiu ended their debate over which subject to teach first by telling them to teach everything at once.

Jing Jiu rapidly studied the Dark Matter Sea and the ancient civilization’s weapons with the experts, then completed a learning project expected to take sixty days in nine. After contacting Ran Handong and seeing Huaxi return, he flew to meet Shen Yunmai, who had lost his left arm.

• Jing Jiu separated the experts into cubicles and questioned them through their light screens as he studied the war against the Dark Matter Sea.
• Jing Jiu asked what weapon the ancient civilization had used on the planet, and the experts said it might have been a substellar weapon powerful enough to destroy a planet, though they had no proof of its identity.
• Jing Jiu spent most of his time watching the black wasteland while organizing what he had learned, and Huaxi brought him tea as Shen Yunmai remained away with the Stellar Core Fleet.
• Jing Jiu finished the experts’ study program in nine days, then contacted Ran Handong, who reported that Zhong Lizi and the Galaxy Alliance were doing well.
• Jing Jiu left through the window and flew to the southern peak, where he found Shen Yunmai with an empty left sleeve and asked if it had been severed.

Shen Yunmai told Jing Jiu about the catastrophe in which Dark Matter Sea contamination turned twenty thousand soldiers into monsters and cost him an arm. After restoring his arm, Shen Yunmai took Jing Jiu to meet the badly injured Mr. Zeng.

• Shen Yunmai shared reproduced liquor with Jing Jiu and explained that his missing arm could be replaced, though the repair was costly.
• Shen Yunmai described how seventeen warships were invaded by the Dark Matter Sea, turning twenty thousand soldiers into monsters and killing more than a hundred Military powerhouses.
• Shen Yunmai asked how quickly a chicken leg could become contaminated, and Jing Jiu estimated that it could happen within two hours.
• Shen Yunmai flew back to a warship and told Jing Jiu he would introduce him to someone and some stars the next day.
• Jing Jiu met Shen Yunmai at the research institute, where he recognized the severely injured middle-aged professor as Mr. Zeng.

Jing Jiu met Zeng Ju at Base 857 after the Ascension Ones’ assessment of him ended, and Zeng Ju led him and Shen Yunmai toward the secret humanity had prepared as its answer to the Dark Matter Sea. They descended through the planet’s interior, passed a prison holding dark-tainted monsters, and emerged onto a terrace facing a vast mist-filled space that revealed a starry sky.

• Jing Jiu recognized Zeng Ju, who explained that humanity’s factions shared a common goal against the Dark Matter Sea and declared the assessment of Jing Jiu over.
• Jing Jiu asked what came next, and Zeng Ju promised to show him the real secret that might be humanity’s only answer.
• Zeng Ju led Jing Jiu and Shen Yunmai down a concealed passage through the mantle toward the planet’s core.
• The group passed an ancient super energy reactor and entered a guarded passage lined with cells holding terrifying dark-tainted life-forms.
• Jing Jiu followed Zeng Ju and Shen Yunmai onto a cliff terrace, where the mist dispersed to reveal a starry sky.

Jing Jiu learned that the blue butterfly nebula marked the site where an ancient god ignited the stars to destroy the Dark Matter Sea. Zeng Ju left him with the ancient civilization’s method for fighting the threat, though Jing Jiu still had no way to defeat it himself.

• Jing Jiu recognized the simulated star chart as a real-time map of the Local Group and asked Zeng Ju where the answer was.
• Zeng Ju pointed out a vast pale-blue nebula that Jing Jiu recognized as the blue butterfly symbol associated with the Cocoon Breakers.
• Zeng Ju asked whether Jing Jiu had found a way to defeat the Dark Matter Sea, and Jing Jiu answered that he had not.
• Zeng Ju explained that the dimensional fissures could be ablated by extreme heat, but that doing so would require making stars explode.
• Zeng Ju revealed that the ancient god had ignited every star in the ancient civilization’s most concentrated starfield, where the Dark Matter Sea first appeared.
• Zeng Ju said the Dark Matter Sea vanished after the stars were ignited, ending the ancient civilization and leaving the blue nebula behind.

Jing Jiu learned that humanity planned to migrate beyond the Dark Matter Sea’s projected expansion and then ignite stars to destroy it. He was asked to determine how and in what order to ignite the stars, and he recognized the galaxy as a vast Go position.

• Jing Jiu watched the Sea-Seal Nebula and learned that it had formed when tens of thousands of stars and their inhabited planets exploded over a hundred thousand years earlier.
• Zeng Ju explained that the Dark Matter Sea would engulf the Galaxy Alliance’s main region of space in roughly three hundred years, making migration within the Local Group futile.
• Shen Yunmai revealed that the military’s Starlink Plan was public propaganda and that the true plan was to move humanity to a neighboring region of space before igniting stars to destroy the Dark Matter Sea.
• Zeng Ju and Shen Yunmai told Jing Jiu to calculate the order and method of ignition, saying they trusted his strength, intuition, and ability demonstrated in his Go game against Tong Yan.
• Jing Jiu saw the stars as white stones and the Dark Matter Sea as black stones in an immense Go position, and wondered what move white should make.

Jing Jiu considered the Dark Matter Sea’s threat and the connections between Chaotian and the wider universe, then watched Shen Yunmai test his new Mechanical Arm and a Miniature Nuclear Reactor. Shen Yunmai revealed that the third reactor had been intended for Jing Jiu.

• Jing Jiu dismissed Zeng Ju’s proposals for delaying the Dark Matter Sea and returned to the surface with Shen Yunmai.
• Jing Jiu studied the stars and realized the nebula was a wound left by the Ancient Civilization, while the True Sun and the Sea-Seal Nebula formed a stable spatial structure around Chaotian Continent.
• Jing Jiu left the suite when the ground trembled and followed Shen Yunmai’s sword light as he tested his Mechanical Arm and military weapons.
• Jing Jiu realized Shen Yunmai’s sword flight was powered by a Miniature Nuclear Reactor and inferred that Base 857’s Ancient Civilization technology had helped develop it.
• Shen Yunmai invited Jing Jiu to test a reactor, and military experts delivered a crate containing the third production model.
• Shen Yunmai told Jing Jiu that the reactor in the crate had been intended for him.

Shen Yunmai gave Jing Jiu a miniature nuclear reactor, and Jing Jiu tested its power by flying into space. After they landed on a cold asteroid, Shen Yunmai offered him a bottle containing an illegal chemical agent.

• Shen Yunmai fastened the miniature reactor around Jing Jiu’s waist and explained that he had once used several kinds of weapons before settling on a laser main cannon and other weapons.
• Shen Yunmai explained why the Alliance fought the Dark Matter Sea and recalled that, as a child, he had been excited by the prospect of finding a way to destroy it, before concluding that the ultimate question remained unanswered.
• Jing Jiu activated the reactor, synchronized it with his Sword Heart, and flew from the cliff into the night sky as a bright ball of light.
• Jing Jiu and Shen Yunmai flew more than a hundred thousand kilometers into space, where their clothes burned away; two warships turned their surveillance equipment aside to avoid recording them.
• Jing Jiu and Shen Yunmai landed on a cold asteroid, where Shen Yunmai offered him a bottle of a severely illegal chemical agent, but Jing Jiu refused.