Chapter Summaries

A young master investigated suspected traitors within a trading company, rejected advice to return to headquarters, and pressed his managers for every detail they had uncovered. Meanwhile, Shopkeeper You waited in a secret chamber as a mysterious purple-cloaked figure arrived through a spatial portal.

• Shopkeeper Jin and the old man in black robes warned the young master that Shopkeeper You's people were searching for him and urged him to leave.
• The old man reported that Shopkeepers He, Hu, and Zhang had met, and that their agents were questioning people who resembled the young master.
• The young master refused to return, explained the dangers facing the trading company, and ordered his managers to recount their findings in detail.
• Shopkeeper You waited in a hidden chamber until a white-light portal appeared and a purple-cloaked figure stepped out.

Shopkeeper You and the purple-cloaked man discussed their failed search for a boy from the main headquarters and argued over who should serve as bait to draw him out. The purple-cloaked man realized Shopkeeper You had maneuvered him into the plan, while both acknowledged the threat posed by the main headquarters’ Soul-Returning Army.

• Shopkeeper You and the purple-cloaked man said their searches had failed to locate the boy, whose suspected sightings had disappeared.
• Shopkeeper You proposed that the purple-cloaked man expose problems as bait while he watched from the shadows, but the purple-cloaked man accused him of trying to use him.
• Shopkeeper You agreed to become the bait instead and asked the purple-cloaked man to prepare to watch his side.
• The purple-cloaked man realized Shopkeeper You had lured him into agreeing to watch for the boy and said he would seek a transfer after reporting to the higher-ups.
• Shopkeeper You and the purple-cloaked man recognized that the main headquarters had deployed its secretive Soul-Returning Army and that their orders were to capture the boy alive if possible, or kill him.

After several years of travel, Li Yan and Mei Hongyu reached Sunset City, where inter-realm teleportation arrays could take them across the Immortal-Spirit Realm. The chapter leaves Mei Hongyu better equipped but newly aware of the realm’s dangers, as she continued traveling with Li Yan nearby.

• Shopkeeper You and the purple-cloaked man discussed a plan to prepare a false appearance and capture the elusive target.
• Li Yan and Mei Hongyu arrived outside Sunset City after years of travel through the Immortal-Spirit Realm.
• Mei Hongyu set out alone toward the inter-realm array while Li Yan secretly followed her.
• A red-clad old woman ambushed Mei Hongyu with a flood-producing jade bottle and nearly overwhelmed her before Li Yan intervened.
• Li Yan gave Mei Hongyu the old woman's storage treasures, including the jade bottle, and explained its power.

Li Yan gave Mei Hongyu a concealment bracelet and escorted her through Sunset City’s gates toward the Main Dao Realm. The story then shifted to Li Yan aboard a vast vessel crossing a crimson sea, where he looked out over the surrounding scenery.

• Li Yan considered Mei Hongyu’s lack of experience and resources and decided she could not safely travel alone.
• Li Yan bought Mei Hongyu the Concealed Jade bracelet so she could hide her appearance during their travels.
• Mei Hongyu accepted the bracelet and thanked Li Yan, who told her that helping an old friend from the Mortal Realm brought him joy.
• Li Yan led Mei Hongyu to the guards at Sunset City’s gates as they continued toward the Main Dao Realm.
• Li Yan stood in a room aboard a huge vessel speeding across a boundless red sea and gazed out at the view.

Li Yan and Mei Hongyu traveled through the Main Dao Realm toward the southeastern Xianluo Sect, where Mei Hongyu hoped to go. Li Yan combined partial maps into a reliable route, leaving Mei Hongyu baffled by how he knew where to go.

• Li Yan and Mei Hongyu reviewed their destination and learned that the cross-realm formation had brought them to the eastern Main Dao Realm, within reach of the southeastern Xianluo Sect.
• Li Yan declined to buy an expensive comprehensive map and instead selected seven cheaper jade-slip maps covering parts of the eastern and southern regions.
• Mei Hongyu tried to piece the overlapping maps together but could not resolve the many blank and incomplete areas.
• Li Yan studied the seven maps and quickly created a new map marking their current city, the approximate Xianluo Sect location, and a route through several teleportation formations.
• Li Yan led Mei Hongyu along the marked route, accurately finding formations and destinations even beyond the seven maps’ coverage.
• After confirming the map’s accuracy, Mei Hongyu finally asked Li Yan how he had managed to make it.

Li Yan and Mei Hongyu crossed the dangerous Rouge Sea aboard a Mountain-Sea Whale while following Li Yan’s map toward the Fine Vine Sect. Li Yan gained new insight into the Five Elements Laws, and two years later they continued their long journey by teleportation and flight.

• Li Yan explained how he pieced together a map from the outlines shown in different jade-slip map descriptions, impressing Mei Hongyu with the inexpensive method.
• Li Yan and Mei Hongyu traveled to a cultivation city to board a Mountain-Sea Whale across the Rouge Sea, where spiritual-energy-draining waters made ordinary travel perilous.
• Demon beasts attacked the whale from the sky and sea, and the trading company’s cultivators used formations to defend it.
• Li Yan watched the battle and contemplated the Rouge Sea’s creatures, causing his Gui Water magical power to circulate through different meridians and deepening his understanding of the Five Elements Laws.
• Two years later, Li Yan and Mei Hongyu continued toward the Fine Vine Sect by teleportation and flight, while Mei Hongyu grew accustomed to Li Yan’s heavy spending on their journey.

Mei Hongyu and Li Yan continued toward the Xianluo Sect, worried that no one they met had heard of it. Their journey was interrupted when a mysterious woman in white appeared before them, and Li Yan tried to judge her strange, shifting cultivation as she blocked their path.

• Li Yan told Mei Hongyu they still had over a year of travel before reaching the Xianluo Sect, but its location might require a search.
• Mei Hongyu worried that the sect might be obscure or destroyed, and Li Yan tried to reassure her.
• Li Yan sensed an anomaly ahead, sharply turned the Cloud-Piercing Blade, and stopped before a figure appeared in the void.
• A woman in white praised Li Yan's Divine Sense and approached with an aura that unsettled him.
• Li Yan sensed her cultivation cycling through many levels and suspected she was a Body Integration cultivator, but wondered why she had blocked their path.

Li Yan and Mei Hongyu encountered Yuan Shuang, who revealed herself as Mei Hongyu’s long-lost master and welcomed her back to the sect. Unable to enter the female cultivators’ sect, Li Yan parted from Mei Hongyu after she vowed to repay his kindness, while both struggled with the sudden farewell.

• Yuan Shuang appeared before Li Yan and Mei Hongyu, reassured Li Yan, and told Mei Hongyu that her master had been waiting for her.
• Mei Hongyu recognized Yuan Shuang, confirmed her identity through a private exchange, and knelt to greet her master.
• Yuan Shuang introduced herself to Li Yan and explained that her female cultivators’ sect could not admit men.
• Mei Hongyu thanked Li Yan and swore to repay his kindness, while Li Yan congratulated her and told her to go with Yuan Shuang.
• Li Yan removed the Cloud-Piercing Blade’s protective barrier, and Mei Hongyu felt reluctant to part as they prepared to separate.

Yuan Shuang and Mei Hongyu departed after Yuan Shuang warned Li Yan of trouble tied to his unstable fate and Mei Hongyu’s karmic connection to him. Mei Hongyu learned that Li Yan possessed strength comparable to a Body Integration Realm cultivator and questioned her master about her predictions and the debt she owed him.

• Mei Hongyu and Yuan Shuang vanished through a silver-white radiance, leaving Li Yan alone in the void.
• Mei Hongyu asked Yuan Shuang whether Li Yan faced danger, and Yuan Shuang explained that his fate was unstable and her warning had incurred Heavenly Dao backlash.
• Yuan Shuang told Mei Hongyu that Li Yan’s strength rivaled a Body Integration Realm cultivator, shocking Mei Hongyu as she recalled how he had repeatedly protected her.
• Yuan Shuang clarified that her sect deduced heavenly secrets rather than reading celestial signs.
• Mei Hongyu asked why Yuan Shuang had not met her sooner and why she had allowed her to incur a debt of gratitude to Li Yan, and Yuan Shuang explained the risks of distant deductions.

Li Yan settled in a secluded cave and devoted himself to advancing the Sacred Soul Transformation, while Mei Hongyu questioned Yuanshuang about the trials in her past. After seven years of meditation, ten indistinct phantoms suddenly appeared around Li Yan.

• Yuanshuang explained to Mei Hongyu that her past hardships were tribulations connected to her Lotus Seed Qingluo Heart and the inheritance of Heaven's Destiny Mountain.
• Li Yan considered Yuanshuang's warnings and suspected that she had divination skills or a cultivation technique capable of sensing Mei Hongyu.
• Li Yan found a remote mountain and concealed a cave with formation flags before beginning secluded cultivation.
• Li Yan focused on the Sacred Soul Transformation, studying its jade slip and his accumulated notes because his Soul Cultivator path had fallen behind.
• Seven years passed as Li Yan meditated without moving, until ten distorted phantoms emerged from the ground around him.

Li Yan survived a dangerous cultivation method that nearly drained his body of vitality, then spent years recovering and refining his technique. He reached the Void Refinement Realm and realized how the flawed deduction had caused his soul and spirit to fuse into a black-red ring and consume his physical vitality.

• Ten phantoms formed a black-red ring around Li Yan and repeatedly swept over his body until he looked like a corpse.
• After a year, Li Yan sucked the ring into his mouth, and deathly aura surged from within him as red light flashed between his brows.
• Five years later, Li Yan regained his former appearance and said he had refined four more grains of silver sand and reached the Void Refinement Realm three years earlier.
• Li Yan examined the technique's jade slips and concluded that his and Elder Hao's deductions had departed from the three progenitors' original aim of pushing the Sacred Soul Transformation to its ultimate extreme.
• Li Yan recalled that the fused soul and spirit had grown stronger while his body and blood essence lost vitality, and that he could only separate them by reaching the Void Refinement Realm.

Li Yan survived the perilous breakthrough of Holy Soul Transformation into the Void Refinement realm, then restored his body with pills and silver grains. After bringing his soul, cultivation, and body back into balance, he tested the immense force gathering in his fists, which formed two black holes.

• Li Yan continued cultivating Holy Soul Transformation for over a year until his soul separated and he returned it to his body, breaking through into the Void Refinement realm.
• Li Yan discovered that his flesh and blood were nearly gone and his bone marrow was depleted, but Undying Nether Phoenix marrow had kept his body from collapsing.
• Li Yan took pills and refined four silver grains over several years, restoring his body and speeding the recovery of his own marrow.
• Li Yan stopped refining silver grains because the rapid physical growth risked advancing his cultivation without the comprehension needed to control it.
• Li Yan tested his fists and created two black holes, sensing their power as his bones sent chaotic currents surging inside them.

Li Yan left his secluded cave after refining silver sand and greatly increasing his strength. The story then shifted to Zhu Lixing attacking a refined man, his wife, and their daughter over the Heaven-Defying Leaf, leaving the family trapped in a desperate fight.

• Li Yan sensed that refining silver sand had more than doubled his strength and given him a vague feeling that he could pierce through space.
• Li Yan gathered the purple light from his cave and flew away after more than ten years in seclusion.
• Zhu Lixing and his Centipede Mountain Flood Dragon trapped a refined man, his wife, and their daughter in the wilderness.
• The refined man denied bidding on the Heaven-Defying Leaf, while suspecting that someone from the auction house had revealed his identity.
• Zhu Lixing threatened the family as the man and his wife fought to protect their daughter from his attacks.

Zhu Lixing exploited the refined man's devotion to his wife and daughter to overwhelm their defenses and leave him exposed to a killing blow. The chapter ended as Zhu Lixing's azure halberd struck toward the man's head after shattering his shield.

• Zhu Lixing intensified the Wushan Flood Dragon's poisonous mist and pierced the family's defenses with a short azure halberd.
• The Wushan Flood Dragon wounded Zhiruo in both shoulders and dragged her out of the silver formation while the refined man tried to protect his family.
• Zhu Lixing used Zhiruo as a weapon against the refined man and threatened the helpless daughter, forcing him to divide his spiritual power.
• The refined man caught Zhiruo after Zhu Lixing redirected her toward him, leaving his defenses weakened.
• Zhu Lixing's halberd shattered the refined man's shield and struck toward the back of his head, while the man suffered damage to his Divine Sense.

Ding Yushan and his family were rescued from Zhu Lixing by a mysterious black-robed cultivator who killed the attacker and gave Ding’s poisoned wife an antidote. The stranger recognized Ding from the Devil Race invasion before disappearing, leaving Ding stunned by the revelation that his past was known.

• Zhu Lixing disarmed Ding Yushan and prepared to kill him and his family, but a mysterious black-robed cultivator suddenly rescued them and slew Zhu Lixing with a single blow.
• Ding Yushan found his severed arm reattached and his wife and daughter safe beside him, while Zhu Lixing’s body lay in a pit below the cliff.
• The black-robed cultivator gave Ding Yushan an antidote pill, and Ding’s wife swallowed it as the poison’s green vapor began to fade.
• Ding Yushan knelt with his wife and daughter to thank the stranger, but the cultivator urged him to walk the immortal path well and vanished.
• Ding Yushan realized the stranger knew of his survival in the Devil Race invasion and recalled his lost junior sister, his time in the Ancient Flying Sand Caverns, and the disappearance of the Wind Snow Sect.

Ding Yushan recalled the Wind-Snow Sect’s destruction and the fortune that had carried him to the early stage of the Void Refinement Realm, then left with his family after destroying Zhu Lixing’s corpse. Meanwhile, Li Yan recognized Ding Yushan from their past encounter and was astonished by his cultivation, but had not yet determined how he advanced so far.

• Ding Yushan remembered how the Devil Race invasion devastated the Wind-Snow Sect, separated him from his master and mistress, and left him missing for decades.
• Ding Yushan received no reply from the senior who had saved his family, burned Zhu Lixing’s corpse, and covered the scene with rubble before flying away with his wife and daughter.
• Li Yan considered the risks of his cultivation technique and continued toward a market town while concealed, choosing not to interfere in a nearby fight at first.
• Li Yan recognized Ding Yushan as someone he had saved during the Devil Race invasion and was shocked to find him at the early stage of the Void Refinement Realm.
• Li Yan noticed that Ding Yushan’s spiritual energy did not indicate a sacred spirit root, despite his extraordinary rise in cultivation.

Li Yan rescued Ding Yushan and his family, killing the bare-chested man and his artifact spirit with soul arts. He left Ding Yushan in peace, spent more than four months reviewing his cultivation insights, and then prepared to travel to the Jieyou Realm.

• Li Yan recognized Ding Yushan and considered capturing him to uncover his secrets, but changed his mind when the young girl was threatened.
• Li Yan swept Ding Yushan, his wife, and his daughter to safety, then killed the bare-chested man and his artifact spirit with Soul Severing Slash and Soul-Piercing Spike.
• Li Yan left medicinal pills and departed after telling Ding Yushan to continue onward with his family; Ding Yushan destroyed the enemy's corpse.
• As he flew onward, Li Yan speculated about Ding Yushan's ancient-looking magic treasure and possible origins, then set the matter aside.
• Li Yan spent more than four months reviewing his soul-art attacks and identifying nine changes to make to his Sacred Soul Transformation cultivation method.
• Li Yan spotted another marketplace and decided to rent a teleportation array and continue to the Jieyou Realm.

Li Yan reached a cultivation city on the Rouge Sea and studied the map while considering Yuan Shuang’s warning that he should avoid crossing it. He found that every route home required crossing the sea, so he chose the Tianyuan trading house and sought passage on one of its Mountain-Sea Whales.

• Li Yan reflected on why he had left Zhao Min and Gong Chenying behind and hoped he could reveal more about his circumstances when they were stronger.
• After more than a year of travel, Li Yan arrived at a city beside the Rouge Sea, where cultivators relied on trading houses and Mountain-Sea Whales to cross the waters.
• Li Yan studied his map and realized the Rouge Sea enclosed the southeastern region, making it impossible to reach an inter-realm teleportation formation without crossing it.
• Li Yan decided to return by the eastern route despite Yuan Shuang’s warning and headed across the city to its coastal trading houses.
• Li Yan chose Tianyuan, whose Mountain-Sea Whale fleet he had used before, and entered its shop to arrange passage.

Li Yan rented passage on a Tianyuan Trading Company Mountain-Sea Whale and settled into a room to spend the long voyage cultivating. He sensed a powerful, gloomy protector aboard and began assessing the strength around him as the whale prepared to depart.

• Li Yan rented a Mountain-Sea Whale from a trading company he had used before and flew toward its departure point.
• A black-robed elder and four golden-robed cultivators arrived at the Tianyuan Trading Company, arranged passage, and headed toward the sea.
• Li Yan reached the whale, showed his jade thumb ring to the guards, and entered the formation.
• Li Yan rented a top-floor room, activated its formation, and set up another formation inside.
• Li Yan looked out over the sea and sensed several powerful cultivators, especially a gloomy aura he judged might belong to someone near the peak of the early Fusion Realm.

Li Yan cultivated aboard the Mountain Sea Whale as it crossed the Rouge Sea, while a powerful group of cultivators secretly fortified their courtyard. After three years, an unknown assailant struck the whale with enough force to hurl it into the air, and the Tianyuan Trading House called on the attacker to reveal themselves.

• Li Yan noticed a black-robed old man and four cultivators enter a courtyard, where the old man set up a formation and warned them not to go outside.
• Li Yan cultivated aboard the Mountain Sea Whale as it traveled across the Rouge Sea, and he concealed one of his incarnations in his room.
• Over three years, Tianyuan Trading House guards fought sea Demon Beasts, sometimes sharing their remains with passengers who helped without disrupting their coordination.
• A tremendous impact hurled the Mountain Sea Whale backward into the air, shaking the buildings and sending seawater surging into the sky.
• Li Yan sensed a figure standing atop the whale's formation barrier, and the whale crashed into the sea before resurfacing as the force disappeared.
• The Tianyuan Trading House called out to the unknown attacker and demanded that they show themselves.