Recaps

Li Yan rescued Mu Guyue from a powerful Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast clansman in the stone forest and learned that the enemy could control gravity-wielding stone puppets. After Mu Guyue refused to enter his Spirit Storage Space and set up a poisoned defensive mist, Li Yan pursued the fleeing clansman.

• Li Yan saw a black-armored enemy about to strike Mu Guyue and rammed into him, pulling her out of danger.
• Li Yan told Mu Guyue to take an antidote, and she warned him that the enemy controlled humanoid stone puppets whose attacks manipulated gravity and whose armor resisted soul arts.
• The injured clansman mistook Li Yan for a Body Integration Realm Great Devil King and fled toward the stone forest.
• Mu Guyue refused to enter the Spirit Storage Space, treated her injuries, and concealed herself behind a restriction after releasing Zhili Poison.
• Li Yan left Mu Guyue protected by the poison and chased after the fleeing clansman.

Li Yan pursued the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator who had attacked Mu Guyue, hoping to capture him and learn about the area. The wounded enemy used the stone forest and its gravity to slow Li Yan, but Li Yan’s devastating blows struck him with rubble as the chase continued.

• Mu Guyue concealed herself behind poison and formations Li Yan had given her while Li Yan set off after the fleeing cultivator.
• Li Yan caught up to the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator in the stone forest, but the enemy’s turns and the surrounding rocks disrupted Li Yan’s attempt to strike his soul.
• The cultivator brought down the black rocks and increased the gravity along Li Yan’s path, briefly widening the distance between them.
• Li Yan poured most of his power into silver fists and smashed through the falling rocks, sending rubble into the fleeing cultivator’s back and injuring him severely.
• The wounded cultivator raised a wall of rocks behind himself and clung to the hope that he would survive and one day help his race reclaim its losses.

Li Yan pursued the badly depleted Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan cultivator across Black Flame Mountain until the fugitive escaped through a narrow crack into an underground cavern. Suspecting it was a prepared escape route rather than an enemy ambush, Li Yan followed, determined to kill him for nearly killing Mu Guyue.

• Li Yan struggled to use his full strength under Black Flame Mountain's oppressive gravity while closing in on the fleeing Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan cultivator.
• The wounded cultivator spotted a concealed crack beneath three giant rocks and plunged into it, escaping into a large underground cavern.
• Li Yan sensed the cavern's extreme gravity and saw the cultivator stumbling deeper underground, then considered whether enemies had laid a trap.
• After finding no sign of formations or hidden allies and judging the cavern was likely the fugitive's contingency escape route, Li Yan entered in a wisp of smoke.
• Li Yan swallowed several Pills and raced down the sloping cavern while probing the darkness with his divine sense and senses.

Li Yan pursued a wounded Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan cultivator through a dark, gravity-laden cavern, then realized the passage might be the clan’s secret retreat route guarded by a Tribulation Transcendence Realm powerhouse. After striking down and sealing the fleeing cultivator, Li Yan fled back toward the entrance, fearing the powerhouse ahead could sense him.

• Li Yan advanced through the cavern, growing wary when he found no traps despite expecting an ambush.
• Li Yan spotted the fleeing Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan cultivator and suspected the cavern was a secret escape route for the entire clan.
• Li Yan feared a Tribulation Transcendence Realm powerhouse might guard the passage and unleashed a full-force soul attack on the fleeing cultivator.
• The wounded cultivator collapsed, and Li Yan stopped himself by driving his arm into the cavern wall.
• Li Yan sealed the unconscious cultivator and hurried back the way he came, worried that a powerhouse ahead might detect him.

Li Yan escaped the underground cavern with Meng Jingsheng and searched him for information while waiting to see if pursuers followed. After returning to Mu Guyue, he learned that the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan’s Black Flame Mountain Secret Arts depended on the mountain’s unique laws and required an earth or fire spiritual root to cultivate.

• Li Yan emerged from the underground cavern with Meng Jingsheng, hid among the boulders, and stored him inside Tuban for a Soul Search.
• After waiting for pursuers and recovering some strength, Li Yan returned to Mu Guyue and gathered the poison surrounding her.
• Li Yan learned from Meng Jingsheng’s memories that the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan could use Black Flame Stones only within Black Flame Mountain because their powers faded outside it.
• Li Yan learned that the clan had developed fifty-one Black Flame Mountain Secret Arts, which manipulated gravity and Black Flame Stones.
• Li Yan learned that cultivators needed an earth or fire spiritual root to have a chance of cultivating the secret arts, with earth roots offering the best odds.

Li Yan learned how Black Flame Mountain’s secret arts depended on spirit roots and refining a rare Black Flame Crystal, and how the mountain’s gravity laws interfered with soul arts. He also discovered Meng Jingsheng had entered the underground cavern by chance while fleeing, leaving Li Yan reassured that no powerful pursuer would emerge from it.

• Li Yan learned that cultivators needed compatible earth or fire spirit roots and a Black Flame Crystal to cultivate Black Flame Mountain’s secret arts, and that refining a crystal was limited to one per cultivator with a success rate of at most around sixty percent.
• Li Yan understood that Black Flame Crystal companion stones were easiest to control near their source, explaining why Meng Jingsheng had been less effective when commanding stones along the path.
• Li Yan concluded that Black Flame Mountain’s gravity laws blocked soul-art attacks, planned to collect stones for testing outside, and intended to warn Mu Guyue.
• Li Yan learned that Meng Jingsheng had fled into the underground cavern in desperation after being injured and pursued, rather than using a prepared escape route.

Meng Jingsheng discovered that the danger hidden in the cavern was a snake-like stream of black qi, which emerged after he struck the little hole with power from the Black Flame Crystal. The black qi broke his wrists and entered his heart, where it shattered, leaving his fate uncertain.

• Meng Jingsheng returned to the cavern and found the little hole he had discovered beneath the companion stones.
• When he sensed danger from the hole, Meng Jingsheng realized his Black Flame Crystal and Black Flame Mountain secret art had changed how he perceived it.
• Meng Jingsheng sent a blast of finger force into the hole, causing a snake-like stream of black qi to emerge and attack him.
• Meng Jingsheng tried to block the black qi with his fists, but it broke his wrists and pierced through his defenses toward his heart.
• The black-qi snake head reached Meng Jingsheng's heart, then shattered with a crisp crack.

After surviving the black qi’s attack, Meng Jingsheng concluded that his refined Black Flame Crystal had protected him from a possibly sentient essence treasure hidden in Black Flame Mountain. He cautiously resumed investigating and sensed the danger lurking below and to his left, but could not see what it was.

• Meng Jingsheng recovered from the attack and realized the Black Flame Crystal had likely stopped the black qi from reaching his heart.
• Meng Jingsheng speculated that the black qi was an intelligent essence treasure evolved from a Black Flame Crystal, possibly the refined crystal’s mother body.
• Meng Jingsheng placed a powerful defensive talisman on himself and used the Earth Escape Technique to return beneath the small hole.
• Meng Jingsheng summoned his Black Flame Crystal’s power without attacking and waited, finding that no strike came.
• Meng Jingsheng sensed the danger below and to his left, but his divine sense was shredded by the mountain’s gravity and he could not investigate further.

Meng Jingsheng discovered a dusky yellow light deep beneath Black Flame Mountain that appeared only when he summoned the power of the Black Flame Crystal he had refined. He concluded that the light sealed a deadly force, then left the cavern, hoping to return and claim its power.

• Meng Jingsheng cautiously tunneled more than forty li underground and found a tabletop-sized patch of dusky yellow light embedded in the rock.
• He withdrew the Black Flame Crystal's power and saw the light vanish, then summoned it again and watched the light reappear in the same place.
• Meng Jingsheng tested the light and found that touching it caused no reaction, but an attack brought overwhelming danger and seemed to provoke a roar from beyond the barrier.
• He reasoned that the light acted as a restriction sealing a terrifying force, and that an earlier attack might have let a fragment of that force escape.
• Meng Jingsheng abandoned his tests, returned to the surface, and quietly left the cavern to come back another day.

Meng Jingsheng explained how he had studied the mysterious dark yellow curtain for thousands of years and why he had fled toward it, but Li Yan’s soul attack ended his plan. After learning about the curtain and the fighting in the stone forest, Li Yan shared what he knew with Mu Guyue and gave her pills before she went to aid her clansmen.

• Meng Jingsheng recalled that no other cultivator had noticed the dark yellow curtain and that his repeated attempts to attack it had been repelled by black qi.
• Meng Jingsheng fled toward the cavern hoping to use the curtain against Li Yan, but Li Yan caught him and shattered his last hope with a soul technique.
• Li Yan learned from Meng Jingsheng that the curtain might conceal a living being and decided to keep him alive so he could activate it later.
• Mu Guyue emerged from her formation before her injuries had healed, and Li Yan warned her against joining the fighting.
• Li Yan told Mu Guyue about the ambushes, the stone forest’s regions, and control of the Black Flame Stones, then gave her a bottle of Divine Glow Pills.
• Mu Guyue left to help her clansmen while Li Yan considered how to study the Divine Glow Pills and their refining method.

Li Yan tested whether a temporary Sacred Spirit Root could let him control Black Flame Mountain’s stone figures, but failed and decided to go help Mu Guyue. Elsewhere, a Red-Pupiled Flame-Horned Beast and a black flame stone giant cornered a Black Devil Race Devil Emperor, who detonated himself as his enemies tried to escape the blast.

• Li Yan gave Mu Guyue all the Divine Glow Pills and let her leave ahead of him.
• Li Yan tried to activate a humanoid stone figure with earth- and fire-attribute power, but it did not respond even when he temporarily became a Sacred Spirit Root cultivator.
• Li Yan concluded he could not waste more time experimenting and set off to help Mu Guyue in the stone forest.
• A Red-Pupiled Flame-Horned Beast and a black flame stone giant battered a Black Devil Race Devil Emperor, who had lost an arm and a leg but remained defiant.
• The Black Devil Race cultivator used his remaining devil-source power to self-destruct, and the beast retreated behind the black flame stone giant as the explosion struck.

A Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator survived a Devil Emperor’s self-destruction and began recovering, while a Great Devil King fought his way through a stone-forest ambush. The Great Devil King countered the ambusher’s attack, revealing a skilled Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator, and the two faced off.

• A Devil Emperor self-destructed, shattering the Black Flame Stone giant and badly injuring the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator.
• The Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator swallowed a medicinal pill, concealed his scattered companion stones, and began recovering before going to aid his companions.
• A Great Devil King endured a rain of gravity-warping black arrows and attacks from falling rocks while searching for the hidden ambusher.
• The Great Devil King drew the ambusher out by weaving among the black rocks, then dodged his spiked-club strike and counterattacked with a slender sword.
• The Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator used companion stones to block and disrupt the sword strike, then knocked the blade aside with his spiked club.
• The Great Devil King and the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator separated and recognized each other as opponents of formidable strength.

The Great Devil King and a Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator charged into direct combat as battles spread through the stone forest, where the Black Devil Race suffered heavier losses. Mu Guyue rescued a trapped Devil Emperor with a concealed soul attack, while Li Yan continued studying Black Flame Mountain’s control spells and set a strict limit on how long he would remain.

• The Great Devil King forced his opponent into a head-on fight after the Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator exposed the weakness in his arrow encirclement.
• A female Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast cultivator trapped an old Black Devil Race Devil Emperor in black mud and attacked him, but Mu Guyue secretly struck her with a soul technique and killed her.
• The old Devil Emperor recognized Mu Guyue and believed her surprise attack had saved him after he had worn down his opponent.
• Fierce battles continued throughout the stone forest, with the Black Devil Race temporarily suffering greater casualties than the Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast race.
• Li Yan tested the Black Flame Mountain spells he had learned through Soul Search but still could not control the stones, and he gave himself only forty-three more breaths to study before leaving.

Li Yan found Mu Guyue as she investigated a battle between Luo Wuchao and a Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Race cultivator, then secretly disrupted his companion stones so Luo Wuchao could land a decisive arrow. The arrow pierced his Dantian and unleashed the sinister Baleful Intent within it.

• Li Yan restarted his spell and left the stone forest, causing the humanoid stone blocks to crumble after he departed.
• Mu Guyue rescued a weakened Black Devil Race cultivator, then cautiously tracked spell sounds and found Luo Wuchao fighting a Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Race cultivator.
• Luo Wuchao conserved her strength while her enemy used wind pillars and companion-stone armor to trap her; she fired a powerful arrow at him.
• Li Yan arrived, told Mu Guyue he would handle the enemy, and vanished using his concealment technique.
• Li Yan disrupted the enemy's control of his companion stones, making his armor and wind pillar fall apart as Luo Wuchao's arrow pierced his Dantian.
• The arrow's venomous Baleful Intent flooded the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Race cultivator's body.

Luo Wuchao killed a Crimson-Eyed Flamehorn Beast cultivator after Li Yan secretly disrupted his defenses, then learned from Mu Guyue how the enemies used black flame crystals. Luo Wuchao and Mu Guyue agreed to travel through the stone forest together as they continued investigating.

• Li Yan's intervention left the Crimson-Eyed Flamehorn Beast cultivator vulnerable, and Luo Wuchao killed him with a series of arrows and a knee strike.
• Li Yan told Mu Guyue that he had found a way to counter the enemies' secret arts and moved ahead to search another area.
• Mu Guyue arrived, confirmed that her husband had helped Luo Wuchao, and explained how the Crimson-Eyed Flamehorn Beast race used black flame crystals.
• Luo Wuchao proposed that she and Mu Guyue travel together, and Mu Guyue agreed.

Mu Guyue and Luo Wuchao searched Black Flame Mountain together while Luo tried to learn more about Li Yan, who had saved her and stripped a slain cultivator of his belongings. Meanwhile, Li Yan reflected on how adapting the Five Immortals Sect’s Five Elements Chaotic Cloak let him disrupt Black Flame Stones, and he left with a new way to navigate Black Flame Mountain’s altered laws.

• Luo Wuchao noticed the slain cultivator had no storage artifacts, and Mu Guyue understood that Li Yan had taken everything.
• Luo Wuchao traveled with Mu Guyue and asked about Li Yan’s abilities, but Mu Guyue answered cautiously and revealed little.
• Mu Guyue privately wondered why Li Yan had intervened to save Luo Wuchao before her, though Li Yan had acted only to test his spell arts.
• Li Yan realized that adapting Five Elements Chaotic Cloak had disrupted the balance controlling the humanoid stone blocks and reduced them to rubble.
• Li Yan concluded that his altered technique had found a shortcut through Black Flame Mountain’s unusual five-element laws, then hurried onward.

Li Yan refined his control of Five Elements Chaotic Cloak and used a surprise attack to help a trapped Black Devil Race cultivator escape, then moved on to larger threats. The chapter revealed Wuran caught in You Lin’s ambush and the desperate sacrifices the Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan made to protect its fleeing survivors.

• Li Yan adjusted Five Elements Chaotic Cloak until it affected only a specific region, then passed over a battle after seeing that neither fighter was using Black Flame Stones.
• Li Yan struck a Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan cultivator who was operating a formation, disrupting it and allowing the Black Devil Race prisoner to break free and attack.
• Wuran was caught by four vortex traps made from Black Flame Mountain rocks and found that they swallowed his attacks while draining his devilish qi.
• You Lin chose to stay behind and intercept the enemy, asking the clan ancestor to protect his daughter, son-in-law, wounded disciple, and their families.
• You Lin’s clan chose the stone forest for its ambushes after finding too few cultivators had refined Black Flame Crystals to defend the great rift valley effectively.
• You Lin killed a Devil Emperor who blundered into his trap, angry that the intruder was not one of the Great Devil King targets he had planned to ambush.

You Lin trapped Wu Ran in a formation within Black Flame Mountain and steadily wore down the Great Devil King, while Li Yan came across their battle and decided to intervene. Li Yan’s arrival disrupted You Lin’s attack, but Wu Ran recognized him as an underpowered ally and shouted for him to retreat.

• You Lin attacked Wu Ran through a formation that manipulated the gravity of four black vortices, draining Wu Ran’s strength and divine sense.
• Li Yan sensed the battle, withdrew to consider the risks, then returned while concealed and approached the fighters.
• Wu Ran located the formation’s gate of life, and You Lin prepared a strike as Wu Ran moved toward it.
• Li Yan’s approach disrupted You Lin’s timing, allowing Wu Ran to evade the worst of the attack.
• You Lin turned his next attack on Li Yan, while Wu Ran recognized the masked cultivator and shouted for him to retreat.

Li Yan disrupted You Lin’s Black Flame Mountain techniques, allowing Wu Ran to escape the formation and resume fighting. As Li Yan searched the stone forest, he continued sabotaging the Red-Eyed Flame-Horned Beast Clan’s ambushes and reached the outskirts of the trapped area.

• You Lin’s Black Flame Stone armor and four black whirlpools suddenly crumbled, throwing off his attack and breaking the formation.
• Wu Ran seized the opening, escaped the formation, and began fighting You Lin while Li Yan slipped away.
• Li Yan avoided intervening in most battles but disrupted or killed Red-Eyed Flame-Horned Beast Clan cultivators using Black Flame Mountain’s secret arts.
• Li Yan watched the two sides’ desperate clashes and refrained from striking down enemies who fought bravely.
• Li Yan searched across the stone forest and stopped after reaching a remote area beyond where he expected the traps to extend.

Li Yan helped the Black Devil Race purge the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast clan’s forces in Black Flame Mountain and earned a standing reward for his assistance. After returning to Black Flame City, he reflected on the race’s interest in his abilities and explained how his earth-element technique disrupted the enemy’s secret arts.

• Li Yan reasoned that the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast clan could not survive indefinitely in Black Flame Mountain or evade a blockade, and continued searching for Mu Guyue while Devil Venerables led pursuit teams deeper into the mountain.
• After more than ten days, Li Yan and the others withdrew from Black Flame Mountain after confirming that no further enemy ambushes remained within three thousand li.
• A Great Devil King in Black Flame City praised Li Yan’s contributions, offered him a reward he could request later, and promised new arrangements for Mu Guyue and her son.
• Mu Guyue entered seclusion to recover, while Li Yan returned to his room, activated the formation, and considered the Black Devil Race’s questions and reward.
• Li Yan recalled that Wu Ran and several Great Devil Kings had identified him as the one who disrupted the enemy’s secret arts, and that he had explained the effect as a clash between his earth-element technique and the enemy’s spell.

Li Yan reflected on why the Black Devil Race had accepted his spell and planned to use a future return to Black Flame Mountain to investigate its underground cavern. Eight months later, the Black Devil Race’s pursuit of the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan ended, though the enemy’s last survivors may have vanished into dangerous spatial currents.

• Li Yan concluded that the Black Devil Race was unlikely to covet his technique because it depended on earth spiritual roots, had limited use outside Black Flame Mountain, and suggested a powerful human backing.
• Li Yan decided to wait until the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan campaign ended before asking to return to Black Flame Mountain under the pretext of cultivating his spell.
• Eight months later, Mu Guyue left after receiving word that the Black Devil Race pursuers were returning to Black Flame City, and Li Yan waited for the campaign’s outcome.
• Mu Guyue told Li Yan that one Great Devil King had died and the other pursuers were injured, but two Devil Venerables had helped defeat the Red-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan.
• Mu Guyue explained that the enemy’s Tribulation Transcendence Realm cultivator had been killed after a long pursuit, while two Body Integration Realm cultivators and their clansmen escaped through a dangerous teleportation technique.

Li Yan prepared to leave Black Flame City but first returned to Black Flame Mountain to cultivate, while Mu Guyue warned him that enemies might still be hiding inside. He secured entry with a powerful military command arrow and stepped into the valley, where the guards recognized his growing reputation.

• Mu Guyue explained that the Black Devil Race was reorganizing its forces after the battle and would need to recover while remaining alert to attacks.
• Li Yan told Mu Guyue he would enter Black Flame Mountain before leaving, and she reluctantly stayed behind because the clan needed her.
• Li Yan obtained a purple command arrow from the Great Devil King overseeing Black Flame City after Wu Ran was unavailable and Ge'er Yuan had entered seclusion to heal.
• Li Yan presented the command arrow to the guards at the valley entrance, and the burly Devil Commander verified it and let him pass.
• The guards discussed Li Yan's connection to Mu Guyue and Elder Tuhhan, along with his contributions against the Scarlet-Eyed Flame-Horn Beast Clan.

Li Yan entered Black Flame Mountain’s underground cavern and used Meng Jingsheng to activate a formation that safely hid his incarnation. He found the dark-yellow light screen and provoked its attack, but the chapter ended with him resisting the black qi’s crushing force and shattering its yellow core.

• Li Yan entered the stone forest through Mu Guyue’s remembered route and found the pit where Meng Jingsheng had once excavated.
• Li Yan used a Brain-Eating Gu to make Meng Jingsheng activate the Black Flame Crystal’s power, then hid him and his incarnation inside a protective formation.
• Li Yan descended through the pit, found the dark-yellow light screen, and cautiously tested it with a weak finger wind.
• The screen released python-like black qi that struck Li Yan and dragged him downward with immense force.
• Li Yan unleashed his strength and Gui Water spiritual power, snapping the yellow line within the black qi and scattering the qi into tiny particles.

Li Yan investigated the dark yellow light screen beneath Black Flame Mountain, weighing whether the black vapor python was a living being or a restriction. After testing arrays and incantations without breaking through, he tried a modified Five Elements Chaotic Cloak technique, which changed the screen’s color but did not distort it.

• Li Yan evaded the black vapor python and considered Meng Jingsheng’s theory that it was a powerful, low-intelligence lifeform formed from Black Flame Crystal.
• Li Yan also considered that the python might be a restriction triggered by the dark yellow light screen, and decided to test the possibility with arrays.
• Li Yan used two arrays and five sets of array-breaking incantations over two hours, but failed to breach the screen and drew out the python four times.
• Li Yan judged that the python appeared when the screen changed or was directly attacked, and that tangible attacks caused damage to the surrounding rock.
• Li Yan sent a modified Five Elements Chaotic Cloak wind pillar into the screen; black vapor rose, and the struck area briefly turned yellow without distorting.

Li Yan discovered that the dark yellow light screen reacted to elemental attributes, and he transformed it into a sandfall waterfall by striking it with a pure earth-attribute attack. He entered the hidden cave beneath it, found a long-dead silver-robed cultivator, and searched the body for traces of its soul.

• Li Yan tested small wind pillars against the screen and found that changing their elemental composition delayed the black mist python, while an earth-only pillar kept it from appearing.
• Li Yan struck the screen with a pure earth-attribute punch, causing it to become a waterfall of flowing sand.
• Li Yan sensed an unrestrained passage through the sand, then entered the waterfall and descended into a hot cave where Black Flame Mountain's gravity had vanished.
• Li Yan found a dead silver-robed male cultivator near the cave's rear wall and identified the heat as the cause of his desiccated body.
• Li Yan sent soul power through the corpse to search for its soul but found no trace of it.