Chapter Summaries

Qin Tiexin followed blood-soaked soil into a corrupted forest, where he fought and killed a venomous Blood-Patterned Pit Viper. He discovered Blood Demon Fruits deep in the blood forest and considered risking the dangers to gather them.

• Qin Tiexin found dark red soil stained by the blood of a powerful Body Refining cultivator and noticed the warped trees and unusually altered Demon Beasts.
• A Blood-Patterned Pit Viper ambushed Qin Tiexin, but his protective Qi Gang blocked its bite and venom.
• Qin Tiexin seized the viper and killed it with Edgeless, then stored its body for its abundant Qi and Blood power.
• Qin Tiexin reached a forest saturated with Blood Qi and spotted Blood Demon Fruit Trees at its center.
• Qin Tiexin recognized the fruits’ medicinal value and decided against going around the forest, considering gathering them to strengthen himself.

Qin Tiexin entered the bloodwood grove to reach the Blood Demon Fruit, but a pack of Blood-Patterned Wolves ambushed him. He chose to face them head-on and endured their opening claw strikes with his Qi Gang intact.

• Qin Tiexin searched the grove with his Divine Sense, found no obvious danger, and headed toward the fruit trees.
• Qin Tiexin sensed killing intent near the aerial roots and realized Demon Beasts were lying in ambush.
• More than twenty Blood-Patterned Wolves emerged and surrounded Qin Tiexin, led by a foundation establishment peak stage giant wolf.
• Qin Tiexin refused to retreat and braced himself as the giant wolf and several others attacked from multiple directions.
• Qin Tiexin's Qi Gang repelled the wolves' claws without being pierced.

Qin Tiexin fought a pack of Blood-Patterned Wolves in the blood-colored grove, advancing his Heavy Mountain Saber Technique as he killed them. After the survivors fled, he collected the corpses and looked toward the fruit trees, still short of comprehending the technique’s True Intention.

• Qin Tiexin killed the giant Blood-Patterned Wolf with Heavy Mountain Saber Technique: Suppress the Mountain, but the fresh blood made the remaining wolves attack more fiercely.
• Qin Tiexin advanced into the pack and used the five moves of the Heavy Mountain Saber Technique to kill wolf after wolf, finding his forms beginning to merge into a coherent whole.
• A one-eyed Blood-Patterned Wolf ambushed Qin Tiexin from behind, but he crushed its lower jaw with his right hand while continuing to fight with Edgeless.
• The remaining Blood-Patterned Wolves lost their courage and fled, and Qin Tiexin chose not to pursue them.
• Qin Tiexin stored more than ten wolf corpses in his Frost Storage Bag and turned his gaze toward the fruit trees, regretting that the battle had ended before he could break through his bottleneck.

Qin Tiexin endured the Blood Forest’s oppressive Qi and Blood to reach the Blood Demon Fruit Trees, where he discovered the remains of a powerful Body Refining cultivator and a broken half-spirit artifact. He identified the weapon as the Earth Splitter Axe, while the circumstances of the cultivator’s death remained unknown.

• Qin Tiexin strengthened his Fire of Life with Spiritual Qi and forced his way through the intense Qi and Blood pressure toward the fruit trees.
• Qin Tiexin reached the trees and found a pale-gold skeleton buried beneath them, belonging to a cultivator who had reached at least the Meridian Unblocking Realm Peak.
• Qin Tiexin examined the skeleton’s wounds and determined that a deep split in the skull had been the fatal blow.
• Qin Tiexin pulled a broken half-spirit artifact from the blood crust and read its name: Earth Splitter Axe.

Qin Tiexin discovered the remains and Jade Slip of Jiang Lie, a Yang Battle Sect elder who died in the Vast Waves Great War, and recovered his bones, Earth Splitter Axe, and thirteen Blood Demon Fruits. He left intending to return Jiang Lie’s remains and half his hidden wealth to the Jiang Household if he found its descendants.

• Qin Tiexin opened Jiang Lie’s stone casket and learned from the Jade Slip about the elder’s life, the Vast Waves Great War, and his final request.
• Qin Tiexin read the location of Jiang Lie’s hidden savings and the methods for identifying the Jiang Household’s descendants, then stored the Jade Slip.
• Qin Tiexin gathered Jiang Lie’s pale golden bones and broken Earth Splitter Axe, and solemnly promised to return them to the Jiang Household if he could.
• Qin Tiexin reached for a Blood Demon Fruit, and the golden Qi Gang from his Fire of Life helped him withstand the surrounding pressure.
• Qin Tiexin picked all thirteen Blood Demon Fruits and stored them in a jade box.

Qin Tiexin collected Jiang Lie’s bones beneath the Blood Demon Fruit Trees while four Body Refining cultivators discovered the fruits and decided to seize them. When three of them charged into the Blood Forest, its immense Qi and Blood pressure crushed their leader to the ground, leaving the confrontation unresolved.

• Four Body Refining cultivators found the Blood Demon Fruit Trees and spotted Qin Tiexin beneath them.
• The cultivators searched the Blood Forest for Demon Beasts, then called to Qin Tiexin and offered Spirit Stones for some fruits, but he did not hear them.
• The leader ordered Fourth to stand guard while he and two others entered the forest to take the fruits if Qin Tiexin refused to share.
• Qin Tiexin picked two Blood Demon Fruits, sensed the three cultivators’ killing intent, and turned to face them.
• The leader charged into the Blood Forest’s high-pressure zone and was slammed onto the ground, unable to move.

Qin Tiexin collected thirteen Blood Demon Fruits and punished three Mountain-Splitting Sect disciples who tried to threaten him. In a hidden crevice near Pure Land Chan Temple, he read Jiang Lie’s Jade Slip and learned that the Vast Waves Great War began with a revenge expedition; the account then introduced the abandoned infant Chengxin.

• Qin Tiexin gathered thirteen Blood Demon Fruits and ignored the three cultivators’ pleas for help.
• After the burly cultivator threatened him with the Mountain-Splitting Sect, Qin Tiexin hurled all three men beneath the Blood Demon Fruit Tree, where the pressure pinned and injured them.
• Qin Tiexin left the Blood Forest, found that the cultivator stationed outside had fled, and concealed himself in a rocky crevice near Pure Land Chan Temple.
• Qin Tiexin read Jiang Lie’s account, which said the Yang Battle Sect had entered the Vast Waves Great War to avenge its young sect master, who had been killed by a monk.
• Jiang Lie’s account described how the Pure Land Chan Temple’s abbot found an abandoned infant beneath a Bodhi Tree and named him Chengxin.

Chengxin’s years among ordinary people led him to understand that compassion required entering the world, and he came to love a young woman he had rescued in a sealed secret realm. As pursuers closed in on their way to the Pure Land Chan Temple, she took a poisoned sword meant for him and began dying.

• The old abbot sealed Chengxin’s cultivation at Foundation Establishment and sent him down the mountain to experience mortal life.
• Chengxin entered a secret realm with rogue cultivators, discovered a Devil Artifact, and stayed behind to suppress its remnant soul after sending the others out.
• A young woman remained with Chengxin in the cavern for three years, caring for him as he resisted the devil intent and told her Buddhist stories.
• Chengxin realized his bond with the young woman had completed his state of mind, and they left the secret realm together with the suppressed bracelet.
• Believing Chengxin had stolen a supreme treasure, cultivators pursued the pair, and Chengxin repeatedly fled while protecting the young woman.
• Near the Pure Land Chan Temple, the young woman stepped in front of a poisoned flying sword aimed at Chengxin and was struck.

Jiang Lie’s account revealed how Chengxin lost control of the skull bracelet after the girl and the abbot died, slaughtered the besieging cultivators, and sealed himself and the artifact inside the Pure Land Chan Temple. Qin Tiexin finished reading the account and realized that the severed arm’s direction led straight to the temple, where the bracelet and Chengxin’s Buddha Bone Sarira Rib remained sealed.

• Chengxin broke through to the Nascent Soul Realm after the girl died, then slaughtered the cultivators who had ambushed him.
• Chengxin returned to the Pure Land Chan Temple with the girl’s remains, and the abbot gathered the eminent monks to help suppress the bracelet’s demonic will.
• Allied sect forces attacked the temple, plundered its resources, and killed the abbot and several senior monks as they tried to negotiate.
• Chengxin surrendered to the demonic will and slaughtered nearly all the allied cultivators before sealing himself, the bracelet, and the battlefield within the remaining monastery levels.
• Jiang Lie recorded his testimony before dying, and Qin Tiexin read it from the Jade Slip.
• Qin Tiexin noticed the severed arm’s connection to the sealed relics and saw that it pointed toward the Pure Land Chan Temple.

Qin Tiexin reflected on Chengxin’s tragic past, then studied the Pure Land Chan Temple map and concluded the seal’s core was likely in the formation hall. Before heading there, he began refining a Blood Demon Fruit with the True Fire Furnace Scripture.

• Qin Tiexin weighed Chengxin’s actions against the coalition’s greed and violence, and considered how the bracelet and repeated losses had driven Chengxin into devilhood.
• Qin Tiexin examined the detailed map of the Pure Land Chan Temple and memorized the layout of its six levels.
• Qin Tiexin inferred that the formation hall on the fifth level held the seal’s core, guided by the runes on his severed arm.
• Qin Tiexin opened his jade box, ate one of the thirteen Blood Demon Fruits, and circulated the True Fire Furnace Scripture to refine its Qi and Blood.

Qin Tiexin refined a Blood Demon Fruit and continued toward the Pure Land Chan Temple while Lin Chuan's squad struggled through the mutated forest following his spiritual trail. The squad found a cultivator cut in half and then detected a strange sweet scent as multiple high-energy reactions appeared nearby.

• Qin Tiexin raised his essence-blood proportion to seventy-eight percent, packed away his formations, and headed toward the Pure Land Chan Temple.
• Lin Chuan led Du Heng, Liu Suifeng, Ling Shuyao, and Xu Ying through the dangerous forest as they fought mutated Demon Beasts and avoided two approaching threats.
• The squad reached a scorched clearing where Du Heng examined a corpse cut in half by a single strike from a sharp Law Artifact.
• Liu Suifeng's formation disc registered several high-energy reactions, and Du Heng stopped the squad after noticing a suspiciously sweet smell.

Xu Ying and the others encountered a half-step Golden Core ancient tree whose hallucinogenic flowers and corrosive vines forced them into a costly retreat. After escaping beyond its reach, Liu Suifeng found something strange in the data he had recorded.

• Xu Ying gave the group pills to counter the ancient tree’s hallucinogenic scent, and Liu Suifeng identified it as a half-step Golden Core Spirit Plant.
• Ling Shuyao sent a scout puppet toward the tree, but its vines seized and destroyed the puppet before attacking the group.
• Lin Chuan and Du Heng cut back the vines while Liu Suifeng used a Confining Quicksand Formation to slow their advance.
• Ling Shuyao positioned her remaining battle puppets as a defensive line, allowing the five to escape beyond the tree’s range.
• The group rested at a scree slope, where Xu Ying treated Du Heng’s wound and Ling Shuyao assessed her damaged puppets.
• Liu Suifeng compared the tree’s recorded spiritual power data and announced that something was strange.

Liu Suifeng and the others followed Qin Tiexin’s trail toward the Pure Land Chan Temple, astonished that he had passed a deadly tree without slowing. Near the temple, Qin Tiexin found Xiao Yan’s wounded maidservant facing a Golden Core Realm python.

• Liu Suifeng explained that Qin Tiexin’s trail passed close to a tree that had injured their whole group, leaving Du Heng and the others questioning his strength.
• Lin Chuan urged the group to rest briefly and continue toward the Pure Land Chan Temple, and the others prepared to move on.
• Qin Tiexin cautiously crossed ruins crowded with powerful Demon Beasts and passed the fresh corpses of three cultivators.
• Qin Tiexin stopped at a stone forest after hearing impacts and hissing, then saw a silvery-white Golden Core Realm python attacking a wounded young girl.
• Qin Tiexin recognized the girl as Xiao Yan’s maidservant.

Qin Tiexin intervened when the silver-white python was about to eat Xiao Yan’s maid, but its ability to turn intangible let it evade his attacks and strike back. The fight continued with Qin Tiexin forced to defend while he searched for a way to hit the python.

• Qin Tiexin recognized Xiao Yan’s maid as the girl the silver-white python was tormenting in the stone forest.
• The python knocked the girl unconscious and prepared to bite her, so Qin Tiexin decided to intervene.
• Qin Tiexin attacked the python with Edgeless, but it turned intangible and reappeared nearby.
• The python charged Qin Tiexin, and he blocked its head and tail as it repeatedly turned intangible to land blows.
• Qin Tiexin realized he could only defend because the python vanished whenever his saber neared it.

Qin Tiexin struggled to hit a Void Spirit Python that could turn incorporeal, and its spatial blades finally cut his arm. After the injured girl woke and tried to help, her attack distracted him, allowing the python to knock him into a stone pillar.

• Qin Tiexin tried talismans, saber strikes, and grabbing the Void Spirit Python, but it turned incorporeal to evade each attack.
• The Void Spirit Python formed three spatial blades; Qin Tiexin blocked or dodged two, while the third cut a shallow wound into his left arm.
• The Void Spirit Python watched Qin Tiexin with growing interest and waited on a stone pillar instead of pressing its attack.
• The injured girl woke and warned Qin Tiexin that the thousand-year-old python hid between layers of space and could not be hit with ordinary weapons.
• The girl refused to flee and cast icicles at the python, but one passed near Qin Tiexin and distracted him.
• The Void Spirit Python struck Qin Tiexin with its tail and sent him crashing into a stone pillar, and he told the girl not to make things worse.

Qin Tiexin lured the Void Spirit Python into a confined stone passage, where he used Lion's Roar to stun it and killed it with Shatter the Mountain. After the exhausting fight, he feigned weakness to see whether the young woman would attack or reveal her intentions.

• Qin Tiexin retreated into the stone forest, using its narrow passages to limit the Void Spirit Python's attacks and track how long it took to reappear from spatial travel.
• Qin Tiexin trapped the Void Spirit Python in a narrow gap, then feigned exhaustion to tempt it into a close-range attack.
• Qin Tiexin used Killing Intent Perception to sense the python emerging to his left and struck it with Lion's Roar, stunning it.
• Qin Tiexin drove Edgeless into the python's mouth with Shatter the Mountain, splitting its body from within and killing it.
• Qin Tiexin dropped to one knee and pretended to be badly weakened, waiting to see whether the young woman would make a move.

After Qin Tiexin killed the Void Spirit Python, Xiao Rou offered him a Qi Recovery Pill and revealed that Xiao Yan had abandoned her to delay the beast. Qin Tiexin refused to let Xiao Rou follow him, but she secretly trailed him toward the Pure Land Chan Temple and tried to draw his attention without success.

• Xiao Rou gave Qin Tiexin a Qi Recovery Pill, and he recovered before collecting the Void Spirit Python’s skull, corpse, gallbladder, and demon core.
• Qin Tiexin recognized Xiao Rou as Xiao Yan’s maid and sparring partner after she cleaned herself up.
• Xiao Rou told Qin Tiexin that Xiao Yan had left her behind to hold off the Void Spirit Python, and offered to serve him in return for saving her.
• Qin Tiexin told Xiao Rou to return by the safer route, then set off alone toward the Chan temple.
• Xiao Rou followed Qin Tiexin, briefly revealing a subtle chill in her eyes and twice trying to attract his attention, but he ignored her.

Qin Tiexin reached the Pure Land Chan Temple with Xiao Rou and used a Buddhist Jade Slip to pass through its sealed barrier. He kept Xiao Rou in front of him as they entered the temple, wary of her unexplained knowledge and behavior.

• Xiao Rou offered Qin Tiexin a spirit fruit and repeatedly tried to get close, but he remained suspicious of her despite sensing no malice.
• Qin Tiexin examined the golden barrier sealing the Pure Land Chan Temple and realized the temple’s formation could not be forced open.
• Xiao Rou produced a Pure Land Chan Sect token that opened the barrier, but Qin Tiexin made her enter first at swordpoint.
• Qin Tiexin used a Buddhist Jade Slip from Yuanshun’s Storage Bag to open the barrier and enter the temple.
• Xiao Rou approached Qin Tiexin tearfully after he entered, but he stopped her and ordered her to walk ahead.

Qin Tiexin explored the ruined first floor of the Pure Land Chan Temple, following fresh footprints and the severed arm’s pull toward the upper floors. He discovered that the thick incense ash was mixed with the powdered bones of cultivators killed by Chengxin, reconsidered his own confidence, and continued while keeping his distance from Xiao Rou.

• Qin Tiexin found signs that cultivators had searched the first floor and gone upstairs, while the severed arm pointed in the same direction.
• Qin Tiexin followed the footprints deeper into the hall, where a thick layer of incense ash covered the floor and all footprints vanished.
• Qin Tiexin examined the ash and detected bone powder and a trace of blood mixed with it.
• Qin Tiexin recalled Jiang Lie’s account of Chengxin’s massacre and realized that even Golden Core cultivators had been powerless against the devil-tainted Buddha Son.
• Qin Tiexin suspected Xiao Rou was dangerous, decided he needed to shake her off or deal with her, and continued along the wall to avoid the ash.

Qin Tiexin and Xiao Rou fought incense-ash figures in the great hall, but the monsters grew stronger every time they re-formed. After an ash figure touched Qin Tiexin, he was struck by a fragment of memory from a saber cultivator of Cliff Sect.

• Qin Tiexin sensed killing intent in the empty hall as incense ash gathered and formed two humanoid figures.
• Qin Tiexin and Xiao Rou shattered the figures, but the ash repeatedly re-formed into faster and stronger monsters.
• The figures developed new attacks, disarmed Xiao Rou, and pushed Qin Tiexin into a difficult fight.
• An ash figure brushed Qin Tiexin's leg, flooding his mind with memories of a saber cultivator training and kneeling at a grave before Qin Tiexin returned to himself.