Chapter Summaries

Guo Dong discussed the Never-Old Forest’s planned operation and Jian Xilai before the story shifted to the Duke of Lu, who learned the forest intended to kill him. After the Pure Heaven Bureau caught a tea-room servant for poisoning his tea, an urgent official approached as an uncanny wind stirred the rain.

• Guo Dong told the Golden Buddha she doubted the Never-Old Forest could capture the entire forest or easily kill Jian Xilai.
• The Duke of Lu warned Lu Ming that the Never-Old Forest was targeting him because of his position, and said the danger would soon pass.
• The Duke of Lu went to the Court of Imperial Sacrifices and refrained from drinking his usual bowl of Shanmei tea.
• The Pure Heaven Bureau reported that a tea-room servant surnamed Zhou had poisoned the Duke’s tea and had discarded the poison packet.
• As an official pushed through the crowd with an urgent report, an uncanny gust disturbed the rain, and the Duke of Lu raised his head.

An assassin tried to kill the Duke of Lu at the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, but its defenses trapped the blast and exposed a plot tied to the Never-Old Forest and the Demon-Suppressing Prison. At Divine End Peak, Jing Jiu connected the First Child Sword to mounting pressure on Green Mountain, then watched several hundred swords fly toward the Western Sea as he worried about Liu S sui.

• An official detonated a Talisman Treasure against the Duke of Lu, but the Court of Imperial Sacrifices’ dome contained the blast and the Pure Heaven Bureau arrested him.
• The Duke of Lu and Jin Mingcheng concluded the Never-Old Forest sought the key to the Demon-Suppressing Prison, and arrests across Chaoge City ensnared Liu Xiang and Yang Changyu.
• Jin Mingcheng questioned why the First Child Sword had not moved, while the Duke of Lu recalled that Zhao Layue had given it to Liu S sui.
• Jing Jiu told Zhao Layue that the emperor had used the First Child Sword to pressure Green Mountain into an earlier war with the Western Sea.
• Jing Jiu worried that Liu S sui might not leave the Never-Old Forest in time, then watched several hundred flying swords streak toward the Western Sea.

Liu S sui was cornered by three powerful Evil Sect experts in Haizhou City, but a sudden growth of lotus leaves blocked their attack and concealed his escape. The experts discovered a buried tunnel beneath the restaurant, though rubble had already blocked its entrance.

• Liu S sui learned that the orthodox sects and Imperial Court had begun purging the Never-Old Forest’s spies, then met Little Lotus for a meal in Haizhou City.
• Little Lotus revealed that she had long known Liu S sui was a Green Mountain Sect spy, and he admitted he knew she had been sent to watch him.
• The restaurant collapsed, and Tu Qiu, Yu Buhuan, and Nan Zheng confronted Liu S sui; Nan Zheng told him that the master wanted to see him.
• Liu S sui attacked Tu Qiu and tried to flee, but Nan Zheng’s zither stopped his sword and Yu Buhuan’s Four Desolations Bottle began drawing blood from his body.
• Hundreds of green lotus leaves sprang up and shielded Liu S sui from the bottle’s power, but Nan Zheng shattered the growth and revealed a rubble-blocked tunnel after he vanished.

Liu S sui and Little Lotus escaped through a hidden tunnel, but the Never-Old Forest caught up with them outside Haizhou City. Little Lotus’s bracelet became an Immortal Tier flying sword, which turned to point at the jasmine flower on Liu S sui’s collar.

• Little Lotus told Liu S sui that a man had instructed her to help him, then led him through a prepared tunnel out of Haizhou City.
• Liu S sui recognized the bracelet on his wrist from Small Mountain Village as Nan Zheng, Yu Buhuan, and Tu Qiu arrived and surrounded them.
• Nan Zheng attacked with the Jade-Stone Zither, and Little Lotus’s Green Lotus Leaves shattered as she tried to block the sound waves.
• Liu S sui transformed the bracelet into an Immortal Tier flying sword, but he could not control it and threw it into the air.
• The sword turned back and pointed at the jasmine flower on Liu S sui’s collar.

Liu S sui’s flying sword awakened its Immortal Tier power and helped him and Little Lotus escape Nan Zheng and her allies. As they flew toward Green Mountain, the Western Prince struck them down with lightning, leaving their fate uncertain.

• Liu S sui’s flying sword absorbed the jasmine blossom’s Sword Sense and flew at Nan Zheng, Tu Qiu, and Yu Buhuan.
• The flying sword cut Nan Zheng’s face, shattered Tu Qiu’s gauntlet and right arm, and wounded Yu Buhuan.
• Nan Zheng and the others tried to attack Liu S sui and Little Lotus, but the flying sword carried them away several miles.
• The Western Prince urged Liu S sui to return and promised to spare his life, but Liu S sui kept flying toward Green Mountain.
• The Western Prince sent lightning from Cloud Terrace that struck the flying sword, and Liu S sui and Little Lotus fell with their eyes closed.

After surviving the Western Prince’s attack, Liu S sui and Little Lotus hid in a cave while Green Mountain and other orthodox sects mobilized against Haizhou City. As they recovered, Liu S sui explained Jing Jiu’s role in their lives, but Little Lotus remained unconvinced that Jing Jiu was a good person.

• Liu S sui and Little Lotus woke injured in a mountain pit, and he realized the flying sword had protected them from the Western Prince’s powerful strike.
• Liu S sui saw Green Mountain’s disciples and other orthodox forces heading toward Haizhou City, then decided to take Little Lotus to a nearby cave abode.
• Liu S sui carried Little Lotus into the hidden cave and gave her healing pills while the flying sword stayed outside.
• Little Lotus asked whether Jing Jiu had arranged for her to help Liu S sui, and Liu S sui confirmed that he had.
• Liu S sui called Jing Jiu a good person and began recounting his past, while Little Lotus argued that Jing Jiu was a villain and called him lazy.

Liu S sui told Little Lotus how the bracelet had tormented her and how he had prepared his disguise when he left Green Mountain. As he reflected on Jing Jiu’s care and his own buried hurt, Little Lotus comforted him, and he admitted it had been a long time since he could speak freely.

• Little Lotus explained that meeting Liu S sui and getting the bracelet off her wrist had finally eased the fear Jing Jiu’s orders had caused her.
• Little Lotus recalled waiting for Liu S sui for years and preparing the tunnels beneath Haizhou City, while Liu S sui understood her loneliness and resentment toward Jing Jiu.
• Liu S sui described how he had disguised himself and rehearsed his words before leaving Green Mountain, then admitted he had once felt hurt that Jing Jiu never contacted him.
• Little Lotus pointed out that Jing Jiu had known the truth all along, prompting Liu S sui to admire his master’s acting and praise his talents.
• Little Lotus asked whether Liu S sui had always been so talkative, and he said he had not spoken so freely in a long time.
• Little Lotus drew Liu S sui into her arms and gently patted his back.

Liu S sui revealed that he had hidden the First Child Sword, but the Western Prince tracked him down and seized it. As the Western Prince prepared to kill Liu S sui and Little Lotus, Mister Yan appeared and challenged the Prince’s view of his followers.

• Liu S sui helped Little Lotus leave the cave and revealed that he had hidden the First Child Sword in the woods outside Haizhou City.
• The Western Prince’s sigh warned Liu S sui, but a bolt of lightning struck him and Little Lotus before they could escape.
• The Western Prince caught the First Child Sword and explained that he had left Cloud Terrace to pursue it, caring little for the Never-Old Forest’s subordinates.
• The Western Prince told Liu S sui that he admired him but had to kill him to answer to certain people.
• Mister Yan appeared and said he, too, had been only a blade, and the Western Prince replied that he was a brush.

The old scholar confronted the Western Prince to protect Liu S sui and Little Lotus, but the Western Prince wounded him before fleeing. In Chaoge City, the Duke of Lu and Jin Mingcheng discussed the Imperial Court’s plan to locate and capture the Western Prince.

• The old scholar challenged the Western Prince, who attacked him with the First Child Sword; the old scholar blocked the strike with the Guan Cheng Brush, but the Western Prince shattered his defense.
• The Western Prince sensed something toward the eastern horizon and fled, sending a strand of sword intent at Liu S sui as he departed.
• Little Lotus shielded Liu S sui, and the old scholar appeared before them and protected them, though a wound opened in his robe and blood poured out.
• At the Court of Imperial Sacrifices, the Duke of Lu told Jin Mingcheng that capturing the Western Prince was a crucial task in destroying the Never-Old Forest.
• Jin Mingcheng explained that the Emperor had made an arrangement to locate the Western Prince, and the Duke of Lu connected it to the Landscape Painting that had disappeared from the Imperial Palace years earlier.

Pei Baifa, the No-Grace Gate’s blind Sect Master, used the Landscape Painting to send a powerful sword flying toward the Western Sea Sword Sect. Heavenly Longevity Mountain shook as the sword departed, leaving Pei Yuan stunned that his brother was still capable of acting.

• Jin Mingcheng told the Duke of Lu that whoever took the He Sword would be discovered and challenged, and hinted that the Landscape Painting had been sent somewhere unusually quiet.
• The No-Grace Gate remained still as powerful figures headed for Haizhou City, despite its longstanding enmity with the Western Sea Sword Sect.
• Pei Baifa watched the Landscape Painting and saw its light brighten as the sword moved, then reached into it to unleash his attack.
• Heavenly Longevity Mountain shook, and Pei Yuan was stopped from entering the Sect Master's Hall while the disciples gathered in alarm.
• A sword burst through the hall's roof and vanished into the sky; Pei Yuan watched the ensuing storm and realized Pei Baifa was not incapacitated.

Pei Baifa sent Do You Not See thousands of miles to strike the Western Prince, shattering his arms and knocking the First Child Sword from his hands. As Gu Pan led Divine Guard Army cavalry to retrieve the fallen sword, the wounded Western Prince fled into the Void Realm and sensed another presence following him.

• Pei Baifa's Do You Not See flew across thousands of miles, revealing that he had retained and strengthened his Heaven-Connecting cultivation.
• The Western Prince sensed the sword coming and tried to flee, but Do You Not See caught him and shattered both his arms and the First Child Sword.
• A farmer saw the distant flash and felt the thunder and shockwaves as Gu Pan's Divine Guard Army cavalry raced past.
• Gu Pan ordered his hundred cavalrymen to reach the fallen First Child Sword and kill anyone who tried to seize it.
• The Western Prince entered the Void Realm to escape, but his wounds continued bleeding as he flew west.
• The Western Prince saw a second shadow appear beside his own on the clouds and sensed a powerful, deep aura.

Pei Baifa revealed that he had targeted Western Prince and ordered the No-Grace Gate to burn White Deer Academy, while punishing Pei Yuan for fleeing. At the cliffs, the dying old scholar Yan gave Liu S sui the Guan Cheng Brush and warned him to leave before others came to investigate, then vanished into ash.

• Liu Ci captured Western Prince with a sword shadow after Western Prince failed to escape the Void Realm.
• Pei Baifa summoned the No-Grace Gate disciples, announced that Western Prince had been his target, and ordered them to burn White Deer Academy.
• Pei Yuan tried to flee Heavenly Longevity Mountain, but Pei Baifa severed both his legs and accused him of betraying him.
• The old scholar Yan gave Liu S sui the Guan Cheng Brush and warned him to leave before investigators arrived.
• Yan advised Liu S sui not to be too warmhearted, then dissipated like ash.

Liu S sui and Little Lotus escaped the cliff with help from the bracelet, while a scholar later identified as Bu Qiuxiao arrived at Haizhou as a coalition surrounded Cloud Terrace. The siege waited for the Western Sea Sword Sect, whose young disciple Tonglu arrived and was shown the Heaven-Restoring Pearl by Guo Nanshan.

• Liu S sui took a fan from the ashes, and the bracelet carried him and Little Lotus down the cliff.
• Bu Qiuxiao arrived at the cave, honored the dead man, and flew toward the Western Sea.
• Bu Qiuxiao joined Cheng Youtian and the gathered cultivators as the Great Marsh Magistrate’s Wind-and-Rain Dao Art revealed Cloud Terrace.
• Cheng Youtian ordered the coalition to wait for the Western Sea Sword Sect rather than attack Cloud Terrace.
• Tonglu arrived with two Wandering the Wilds Realm elders and young disciples, then demanded to know what the coalition intended.
• Guo Nanshan showed Tonglu the Heaven-Restoring Pearl.

Guo Nanshan used the Heaven-Restoring Pearl to reveal the Western Prince’s ties to the Never-Old Forest, and the allied sects demanded the surrender of named Western Sea Sword Sect and Cloud Terrace members. The captured Western Prince admitted running the Never-Old Forest, then accused powerful figures across the sects of hiring its assassins, leaving the assembled leaders under suspicion.

• Guo Nanshan showed images and conversations from the Heaven-Restoring Pearl, prompting Tonglu to call the evidence a frame-up.
• Cheng Youtian demanded that the Western Sea Sword Sect hand over more than two hundred named experts and Cloud Terrace Stewards.
• The Western Prince arrived bound and bloodied, and Bu Qiuxiao urged him to confess to prevent further bloodshed.
• The Western Prince admitted that he had managed the Never-Old Forest, shocking Tonglu and the Western Sea Sword Sect disciples.
• The Western Prince claimed that important figures in the sects had secretly employed the Never-Old Forest to kill their enemies.
• The Western Prince compared himself to the hand wielding the assassins’ knives and accused the sect leaders of being the people who bought them.

Bu Qiuxiao confronted the Western Sea Sword Sect over its crimes and demanded its surrender, but the Western Sea Sword God arrived and clashed with the Green Mountain Sect Master True Person. As their forces faced off above the Cloud Terrace, an enormous creature began rising from the Ink Sea.

• Bu Qiuxiao accused the Western Sea Sword Sect of colluding with fiends and the Nether Department, then demanded that Tonglu and the disciples surrender.
• Tonglu refused, insisting the other sects had no right to attack the Western Sea Sword Sect on its own territory.
• The Western Sea Sword God arrived with overwhelming Sword Light, forcing the Green Mountain disciples to retreat from the Cloud Terrace.
• The Green Mountain Sect Master True Person stopped the Western Sea Sword God's advance with one hand and a sword, and the two Heaven-Connecting Realm powerhouses faced each other across the sky.
• Green Mountain's disciples surrounded the Cloud Terrace again as the two sides prepared to fight.
• The Ink Sea parted, revealing the black back of an enormous creature rising beneath the surface.

The Western Sea Sword Sect summoned its guardian Flying Whale to intimidate the cultivators besieging the Cloud Terrace, but Yuan Qijing arrived and brought the beast down with cold and lightning. He stood on the whale’s back and faced the Western Sea Sword God, demonstrating Green Mountain’s strength.

• The Flying Whale rose from the sea and unleashed roaring gales and torrential rain, frightening the cultivators gathered near the Cloud Terrace.
• Bu Qiuxiao prepared to draw the Flying Whale away from the other cultivators, concerned that a battle would kill the weaker disciples.
• Yuan Qijing descended through snow and landed on the Flying Whale, forcing it into the sea with freezing cold and lightning.
• The whale’s fall sent waves crashing into the coastline, destroyed the Sea God Temple, and damaged Haizhou City.
• The Green Mountain disciples recognized Yuan Qijing as the Sword Law, and he silently faced the Western Sea Sword God from the whale’s back.

Jing Jiu explained why Green Mountain was not worried about the Western Sea conflict, then began telling Zhao Layue, Gu Qing, and Yuan Qu how the Western Sea Sword Sect’s feud with Green Mountain began. He revealed that the Sword Evaders’ leader, Nan Qu, had once been a Green Mountain disciple who killed many of its people and caused Sect Master True Person Daoyuan’s failed ascension.

• At the Cloud Terrace, Bu Qiuxiao realized the returning sword light threatened everyone nearby and shouted for the cultivators to retreat.
• On Divine End Peak, Jing Jiu said Green Mountain’s two Heaven-Connecting Realm masters gave it an advantage over the Western Sea Sword Sect.
• Jing Jiu explained that the Western Sea Sword Sect sought to control the Never-Old Forest and surpass Green Mountain, then agreed to tell the story behind their hostility.
• Jing Jiu recounted how Nan Qu left Green Mountain after True Person Daoyuan refused to take him as a disciple, later gained a Sword Immortal’s legacy, and returned to take revenge.
• Jing Jiu said Nan Qu ambushed Daoyuan during his ascension, after which Daoyuan severed Nan Qu’s Dao Tree and used Green Mountain’s grand array against him.
• Zhao Layue, Gu Qing, and Yuan Qu learned that Nan Qu was the leader of the Sword Evaders and the cause of Daoyuan’s death.

Jing Jiu recalled how he and his Senior Brother had helped stabilize Green Mountain, then explained his conjecture about Nan Qu, Jian Xilai, and the Western Sea Sword Sect. As the battle over the Ink Sea reached its height, a hidden figure arrived at Divine End Peak, and Zhao Layue woke the White Cat.

• Jing Jiu remembered how his Senior Brother had reclaimed the Sect Master position after years of conflict, and how they had killed people to stabilize Green Mountain’s nine peaks.
• Jing Jiu conjectured that Nan Qu’s attendant, Heaven Near Person, had guided Jian Xilai to Mist Island, leading him to found the Western Sea Sword Sect and take control of the Never-Old Forest.
• Jing Jiu told Zhao Layue, Gu Qing, and Yuan Qu that Green Mountain meant to force Jian Xilai to retreat and would likely destroy the Western Sea Sword Sect in the battle.
• Jing Jiu wondered about the Western Prince’s origins and possible connection to his Senior Brother, while warning that more dangerous figures might remain beyond Liu S sui’s reach.
• As the confrontation over the Ink Sea intensified, a powerful concealed presence reached Divine End Peak, and its restrictive formation sent sword intent into the night.
• Zhao Layue stood beside the sleeping White Cat and softly told the Patriarch it was time to get up.

Jing Jiu waited for Fang Jingtian to attack Divine End Peak, but the threat vanished without a fight, leaving him to suspect that someone had warned Fang Jingtian. Elsewhere, Nan Zheng escaped a massacre at the Cloud Terrace and saw a sword light rise from the sea and descend again.

• Jing Jiu deactivated Divine End Peak’s forbidden array while he and Zhao Layue watched for the powerful presence, which vanished without attacking.
• Jing Jiu confronted White Ghost and explained that he had spent three years setting a trap for Fang Jingtian, who had come but made no move.
• Jing Jiu suspected that Fang Jingtian had learned of the trap from the Sect Master or Yuan Qijing, and wondered who had helped his Senior Brother escape the Sword Prison.
• Nan Zheng fled through the mist as the Divine Guard Army and One-Thatch Studio slaughtered her companions, including Tu Qiu and Yu Buhuan.
• Nan Zheng reached a mountain outside Haizhou City and saw sword light rise from the sea and return to the mortal world.

The Western Sea Sword God destroyed Cloud Terrace and killed the Western Prince, then ordered the Western Sea reinforcements to return to the islands. As the battle continued, Tonglu confronted Guo Nanshan over the Western Sea’s ties to the Never-Old Forest, and Guo Nanshan left without answering further.

• The Western Sea Sword God's sword light split Cloud Terrace apart, destroying its halls and formations.
• The sword light killed the Western Prince, including his nascent soul and sword ghost.
• The Western Sea Sword God announced that he had purged his sect and ordered the reinforcements to return to the islands.
• Bu Qiuxiao told Cheng Youtian to spare those who surrendered as Green Mountain forces attacked the fleeing Western Sea disciples.
• Guo Nanshan shielded Tonglu from several attackers and urged him to accept that the outcome was the best possible.
• Tonglu accused Guo Nanshan of deceiving him about the Western Sea, and Guo Nanshan said the Never-Old Forest had been their true target before flying away.