Chapter Summaries

As Chen Nian’s attacks split the coalition threatening Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace, Dragon Country’s National Fortune Points surged close to first place. Night fell before Chen Nian returned, and his guildmates feared he was risking the Black Calamity to destroy one more guild.

• Irina learned that Buyu had spared her guild because it had not targeted Dragon Country, so she led her companions away from the coalition.
• Other scouts argued over whether to retreat or attack, fracturing the coalition Chen Nian had deliberately divided.
• People in the real world followed Dragon Country’s rise to second place, just two points behind Lighthouse Country, as night approached.
• Tang Rou urged the guild to wait for Chen Nian before activating the defensive barrier, while Lu Ge suspected he was attacking another guild to gain first place.

Chen Nian broke through Asura's barrier and survived the Black Calamity while its bats overwhelmed the guild. He occupied its base, pushing Dragon Country back into first place as the world erupted.

• Asura's members celebrated their lead over Dragon Country while the Black Calamity kept everyone indoors.
• Chen Nian appeared outside Asura's barrier, and Jace and the guild members mocked him.
• Chen Nian used Origin-Destroying World to destroy the barrier, letting the Black Calamity's bats swarm Asura.
• Chen Nian's Judgment Domain slaughtered the bats, and Jace escaped by crushing his teleportation crystal.
• Chen Nian pulled out Asura's guild flag, gaining Dragon Country five National Fortune Points and costing Lighthouse Country one.
• Dragon Country rose to first place with 784 points, four ahead of Lighthouse Country.

Dragon Country regained first place in National Fortune Points and received a technological breakthrough reward, while Chen Nian hid underwater to escape the Black Calamity. After discovering a strange hole in the riverbed and sleeping until noon, he noticed several people on the river’s surface, leaving their identities unresolved.

• Dragon Country overtook Lighthouse Country, and its citizens celebrated while Eagle Sauce mourned its lost lead.
• The Central Academy of Sciences announced a breakthrough that could make nanofilaments widely applicable, and Guang Chengzhi ordered the research sealed.
• Chen Nian escaped the Black Calamity by diving into a river, where the Blue Sea Demon Ring let him breathe and move underwater.
• Chen Nian found a hole where a strange vortex had been drawing in river water, but he chose to investigate it later.
• Chen Nian slept until noon, recovered some strength, and noticed multiple people moving on the river’s surface.

Ai Lan led Tears of the Azure Sea into underwater ruins to kill a Jiaolong, but the fight went badly until Chen Nian rescued her. After escaping, Ai Lan learned the handsome stranger had noticed her exposed purple underwear before he vanished.

• Ai Lan led her guild members into a river cavern to explore ruins guarded by a level 50 Jiaolong.
• Chen Nian secretly followed the group and watched as the Jiaolong wounded a guild member and trapped Ai Lan during their retreat.
• Chen Nian severed the Jiaolong’s tail and carried the injured Ai Lan out of the ruins.
• Ai Lan thanked Chen Nian, who gave her his coat and disappeared after commenting on her purple underwear.

Chen Nian returned to the ruins, killed the flood dragon, and found that it had only guarded the entrance to a mysterious stone wall. Unable to open the ruins, he returned to his guild and sent Lu Ge to recruit Ai Lan’s help with a cryptic message.

• Ai Lan surfaced safely and told Tears of the Azure Sea that an unknown man had saved her before she and her group left the ruins.
• Chen Nian returned and used Word Spirit-Mirror Moon to reflect the flood dragon’s blast, then charged through its domain and beheaded it with the Startled Dragon Saber.
• Chen Nian gained genetic energy, a Flood Dragon Scale, and a Night Pearl, then discovered a rune-covered stone wall that seemed to mark the real entrance to the ruins.
• Chen Nian returned to the Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace base, reassured Lu Ge and the others, and asked Lu Ge to bring Ai Lan to the ruins.
• Chen Nian told Lu Ge to privately tell Ai Lan that “purple has a certain charm,” leaving Lu Ge confused.

Lu Ge persuaded Ai Lan and Tears of the Azure Sea to meet Chen Nian, whose cryptic message made Ai Lan realize he was the man who had saved her from the Jiaolong. Chen Nian revealed that he had killed the Jiaolong and invited them to explore the cavern ruins, and Ai Lan led her team into the river.

• Lu Ge brought Chen Nian's request for help to Ai Lan, but Ai Lan initially refused because he had not explained what he needed.
• Lu Ge relayed Chen Nian's message that purple had a certain charm, and Ai Lan recognized him as the man who had saved her and agreed to help.
• Ai Lan gathered a team and met Chen Nian by the river, where he thanked them and said he wanted to explore the cavern ruins.
• Chen Nian told the group he had already killed the Jiaolong, leaving Ai Lan and her companions astonished.
• Chen Nian explained he needed their help because he had not opened the ruins' entrance, and Ai Lan jumped into the river to lead the way.

Chen Nian and Ai Lan opened the underwater entrance to the Temple of Bingyi and helped the group pass its formation trial. Bingyi offered everyone his inheritance, but Chen Nian refused it.

• Ai Lan opened the sealed stone entrance by sending water through its carved patterns, and Chen Nian warned the others before they entered the ruins.
• The group discovered the Temple of Bingyi, where the river god's phantom offered his inheritance to whoever passed his trial.
• Bingyi activated the Water Illusory Form Formation, and Chen Nian used his Heavenly Eye to identify the water sphere sustaining it.
• Ai Lan destroyed the sphere, breaking the formation and allowing everyone to receive a divine mark.
• Bingyi invited Chen Nian to receive his inheritance, but Chen Nian refused.

Bingyi’s trap infected the people in the temple with the Black Calamity, but Chen Nian’s awakened Divinity drove the corruption from him and defeated Bingyi. Bingyi saved Ai Lan by giving her his Divinity, then told Chen Nian that intimate contact was the only way to purify the evil remaining inside her.

• Bingyi sealed everyone except Chen Nian in water spheres and poured corrupt power into them, revealing that the Divine Seal had trapped their abilities.
• Chen Nian failed to cut the water jet attacking Ai Lan, so he took the corrupting power into his own body instead.
• Chen Nian’s Divinity, Yang Jian, awakened and purified him, turning the jet golden and destroying Bingyi’s stone statue.
• Bingyi explained that the Black Calamity had corrupted him and said Ai Lan could still be saved, while the others could not.
• Bingyi gave Ai Lan his Divinity, but it could not fully purge the corruption, so he told Chen Nian that intimate contact was needed to purify her.

Chen Nian purified Ai Lan’s corruption, and she woke to kiss him before leaving the ruins. After returning to Tears of the Azure Sea, Ai Lan was blamed for her companions’ deaths and threatened, just as people from Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace arrived.

• Chen Nian held Ai Lan and used his Divinity to purge the sinister power inside her while she secretly listened and felt moved by his willingness to save her.
• Ai Lan woke, kissed Chen Nian passionately, and left the ruins; Chen Nian then discovered that Heavenly Water Prison had evolved to seal supernatural powers.
• Chen Nian returned to Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace and asked Lu Ge to bring Ai Lan there if her guild ostracized her.
• Ai Lan returned to Tears of the Azure Sea and told the guild that her companions had died in the ruins, prompting the members to accuse and insult her.
• A leering man blocked Ai Lan and threatened her, but people from Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace arrived.

Lu Ge rescued Ai Lan from Tears of the Azure Sea and brought her to Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace, where the members welcomed her and invited her to join. Meanwhile, Uesawa Naoki attacked and occupied Tears of the Azure Sea, and Chen Nian led Ai Lan to see what had happened.

• Lu Ge invoked Buyu’s authority to take Ai Lan from the hostile members of Tears of the Azure Sea.
• Lu Ge brought Ai Lan to Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace, where she considered joining and felt uneasy about facing Buyu.
• Uesawa Naoki attacked Tears of the Azure Sea alone, killed its scout, and severed several members’ arms as they tried to escape.
• Uesawa Naoki wiped out and occupied Tears of the Azure Sea, and Ai Lan received the notification.
• Chen Nian came out and asked Ai Lan to go with him to look at the occupied guild.

Chen Nian investigated the Tears of the Azure Sea’s massacre with Ai Lan, then led her to a hidden passage beneath the river. After Ai Lan returned to alert the guild, Chen Nian let the current carry him through the opening and discovered another world.

• Chen Nian and Ai Lan found the Tears of the Azure Sea’s members dead, and Chen Nian concluded that one top expert had killed them all.
• Chen Nian invited Ai Lan to join Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace, and she said she would consider it after returning to reality while helping the guild in the meantime.
• Chen Nian took Ai Lan to a hole in the riverbed and found a worked stone blocking a passage beneath it.
• The stone opened and the river water rushed through; Ai Lan went back to inform the guild while Chen Nian entered the passage.
• Chen Nian was swept through the opening and found that it led to another world.

Chen Nian entered an underground ancient city, learned that its people feared the Black Calamity and worshipped a Mountain God, and discovered a hidden quest to eliminate the calamity. He followed Xiao He to a ceremony where a girl would be chosen as a sacrifice, and the old man drawing the name reacted with shock before revealing it.

• Chen Nian fell through the city's water intake into an underground reservoir and unlocked a main quest to eliminate the Black Calamity or face the destruction of all guilds.
• Chen Nian used Hidden Shadow to enter the city, stole local clothes, and changed in a shop while Xiao He twice entered the fitting room without seeing him.
• Chen Nian asked Xiao He where the crowds were going, and she led him to the monthly drawing ceremony for the Mountain God.
• Xiao He explained that a girl aged fifteen to twenty would be chosen as a sacrifice and that no chosen girl had ever returned alive.
• An old man drew a name before the crowd, then reacted with disbelief and anguish without revealing whose name he had picked.

Chen Nian was exposed as an outsider during the search for intruders, but Xiao He hid him and gave him a Breathing Pill. Meanwhile, Gu Qingyue learned she had been chosen as the sacrifice and asked a Daoist master about her destined partner, who was prophesied to be a revolutionary holding a night pearl that never went dark.

• The crowd learned that Gu Qingyue had been chosen as the sacrifice to the mountain god, and soldiers announced they were searching for outsiders.
• Xiao He recognized Chen Nian as an outsider but secretly gave him a Breathing Pill and hid him from the soldiers.
• After the soldiers inspected them and moved on, Xiao He took Chen Nian to her house to lie low.
• Gu Qingyue learned that she had only ten days before the sacrifice and hurried to consult the Daoist master.
• The Daoist master told Gu Qingyue that her destined partner held a night pearl that never went dark and was a revolutionary destined to change the world's rules.

Gu Qingyue learned that the man carrying an ever-glowing night pearl could change the world’s rules, and that someone might volunteer to take her place as the mountain god’s sacrifice. When soldiers asked Xiao He to become the sacrifice, she agreed, and they took her to the palace while Chen Nian watched in hiding.

• Gu Qingyue ordered a citywide search for the bearer of an ever-glowing night pearl after the diviner foretold that he could change the world’s rules.
• The diviner told Gu Qingyue that someone would willingly become the sacrifice in her place.
• Chen Nian learned from Xiao He that the princess was searching for someone with an ever-glowing night pearl, which he possessed.
• Soldiers arrived at Xiao He’s home with an official, who asked whether she would take Gu Qingyue’s place as the sacrifice.
• Xiao He agreed to become the sacrifice, and the soldiers took her to the palace as news of her choice spread through the city.

Unable to decide whether to save Xiao He or protect the princess, Chen Nian chose to save the girl who trusted him and stormed the imperial palace. After overpowering the palace guards and frightening off the White Tiger General with his Divinity, he headed for the Brocade Palace, where Xiao He was being held.

• Chen Nian asked an old Taoist master a trolley-problem question, and the master recognized him as the bringer of change before dying after a final divination.
• The master foretold that the black tide would recede and life would turn toward the sun, but Chen Nian still could not tell whether to save Xiao He or the princess.
• Chen Nian decided to save Xiao He and entered the palace city, where a silver-armored commander detected him despite his Hidden Shadow, Formless ability.
• Chen Nian trapped the first soldiers with Heavenly Water Prison, blasted through reinforcements with Wind-Gathering Cannon, and learned that Xiao He was in the Brocade Palace.
• The White Tiger General confronted Chen Nian, but Chen Nian's Heavenly Eye made the divine beast phantom vanish, and the general let him pass.
• Chen Nian ignored the defeated general and continued toward the Brocade Palace.

Chen Nian broke into the Brocade Palace to rescue Xiao He, but learned she had chosen to stay as part of Gu Qingyue’s plan to sacrifice herself and make Xiao He the next princess. After revealing the luminous pearl that marked him as the person Gu Qingyue had awaited, Chen Nian agreed to let the sacrifice proceed, and Gu Qingyue began setting three conditions, the first being that he become her lover.

• Chen Nian entered the Brocade Palace and urged Xiao He to leave with him, but she refused.
• Gu Qingyue told Chen Nian that Xiao He could leave freely, while Xiao He kept secret the princess’s plan for her to inherit the throne after the sacrifice.
• In a flashback, Gu Qingyue had asked Xiao He to learn to rule and revealed that she planned to take Xiao He’s place at the mountain god’s sacrifice.
• Chen Nian revealed the luminous pearl and asked Gu Qingyue to spare Xiao He, and Gu Qingyue agreed to become the sacrifice in seven days.
• Gu Qingyue took Chen Nian to a pavilion and began listing three conditions, first asking him to become her lover.

Chen Nian agreed to Gu Qingyue’s conditions, shared her bed, and took her to see the surface world. Meanwhile, Yamamoto organized foreign guilds to attack the underground city, and Gu Qingyue’s growing affection for Chen Nian was shadowed by her belief that she had little time left.

• Gu Qingyue told Chen Nian that he had to win the city’s martial festival to earn the right to kiss her before her sacrifice, and she promised to reveal her third condition later.
• Chen Nian agreed to Gu Qingyue’s terms, and she asked him to call her wife and sleep in her bedchamber.
• Yamamoto persuaded guild members from several countries to form a coalition and prepare to invade the underground city.
• Gu Qingyue asked Chen Nian to help her change, then shared his bed and explained the underground city’s rules about young women remaining virgins.
• Chen Nian told Gu Qingyue he needed to return to his guild, and she asked to accompany him to the surface.
• Chen Nian and Gu Qingyue disguised themselves as servants and escaped to the surface, where she delighted in seeing the sky and fresh air.

Chen Nian brought Gu Qingyue back to Mountains and Rivers in Lasting Peace, where she met the guild and watched her first sunset. After the Black Calamity arrived, the guild’s barrier kept it out, and Chen Nian reaffirmed that he intended to eliminate it at its source.

• Chen Nian carried Gu Qingyue through the sky toward the guild, and she told him she was liking him more and more.
• The guild members welcomed Chen Nian and met Gu Qingyue, who introduced herself as his wife; Chen Nian explained her underground city and her fate as the mountain god’s sacrifice.
• Gu Qingyue agreed that Chen Nian’s companions could visit her city, but asked him to show her around the surface first.
• Chen Nian took Gu Qingyue to a hillside, where she watched her first sunset and leaned against him as they waited for it to fade.
• Chen Nian returned with Gu Qingyue to the guild, whose defensive barrier blocked the Black Calamity; he told her he would eliminate it at its source.

Chen Nian and Uesawa Ueki fought to stop foreign guild invaders from slaughtering residents of the underground city. Chen Nian trapped Honda, the raid's ringleader, and prepared to make him suffocate in his Water Prison.

• Chen Nian brought guild members into the underground city, left them to explore, and prepared for the Grand Martial Combat Festival while visiting Xiao He.
• Uesawa Ueki learned that allied guilds had gone to attack the underground city and hurried there despite the approaching Black Calamity.
• Honda led about a hundred invaders into the city, where they killed guards and began attacking residents; Gu Qingyue alerted Chen Nian to the invasion.
• Chen Nian used Demonization to kill invaders, while Uesawa Ueki arrived and attacked the raiders who were violating his warrior code.
• Chen Nian and Uesawa Ueki rapidly reduced the invaders' numbers without confronting each other, while Honda hid and tried to escape with a teleportation crystal.
• Chen Nian caught Honda with Water Prison, sealed his teleportation power, and said he would let him slowly suffocate.

After Honda’s death, Chen Nian and the guild helped the city recover while Gu Qingyue defended them from public suspicion. At the Grand Martial Combat Festival, Xiao Yun defeated the Azure Dragon General, but Thunder God's Blade appeared and struck him down, leaving his identity revealed.

• Chen Nian killed Honda in the water prison, and Gu Qingyue and Xiao He helped comfort the injured residents.
• Gu Qingyue defended Chen Nian and the guild, and Chen Nian reunited with his trusted members and identified the unseen fighter as Thunder God's Blade.
• Gu Qingyue arranged for Chen Nian to face the strongest competitor in the Grand Martial Combat Festival’s final match.
• Xiao Yun defeated the Azure Dragon General and challenged the remaining competitors.
• Thunder God's Blade entered the arena, wounded Xiao Yun with a lightning-fast strike, and revealed his name.