Chapter Summaries

After defeating their attackers, Li Yan searched Wusitu’s soul and recovered a powerful concealment formation for Zhao Min, but the group failed to find the Pronouncement technique. They planned to hunt a Blackcloud Frostcondensing Worm for its valuable parts, and the chapter ended with the wary beast repeatedly scouting the riverbank.

• Li Yan gave Zhao Min pills, collected Wusitu’s belongings, and used Soul Search before throwing the dying cultivator into the river.
• Li Yan retrieved An Die’s Trace Burial formation disc and gave it to Zhao Min.
• Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Zi Kun searched their recovered pouches but could not find the old Daoist’s Pronouncement technique.
• Li Yan sent Zhao Min to recover in Tuban and planned to hunt a Blackcloud Frostcondensing Worm with Zi Kun for its demon core and air sac.
• Four days later, the Blackcloud Frostcondensing Worm repeatedly emerged from the underground river to scout the banks, then withdrew whenever it sensed danger.

Li Yan lured the Black Cloud Frostcondensing Worm into Tuban and killed it by severing its connection to the water-element power of heaven and earth. He gave the corpse to Qianji to aid his advancement and continued searching for a Howling Cold Stone.

• Li Yan waited for the Black Cloud Frostcondensing Worm to crawl from the river, then drew it into Tuban while Zhao Min and Zi Kun guarded the space's stone outside.
• Inside Tuban, Li Yan attacked the worm and cut off its access to water-element power, allowing him to kill it quickly.
• Li Yan gave the worm's corpse to Qianji, who hoped to refine its demon core and use its air sac to advance, while Zi Kun went to guard him.
• Li Yan told Zhao Min he would continue searching for a Howling Cold Stone and sent her back to recover.

Li Yan investigated a damaged statue and the pool beneath a cliff, hoping to uncover clues about the Soul Prison Race or the Howling Cold Stone. He found nothing unusual, even after following the statue’s gaze to the cliff, and remained at the site to continue searching.

• Li Yan reached the river’s end after eighteen days of searching downstream and found a damaged statue beside a deep pool.
• He examined the statue’s material and tested it with spiritual power, discovering that it was unusually hard but otherwise unremarkable.
• Li Yan circled the pool and explored its bottom, finding only cracks that carried water deeper underground.
• He copied the statue’s posture and followed its gaze through its hollow fist toward the falling water, but found only an ordinary mountain wall behind it.

Li Yan realized the ruined statue had originally depicted a general preparing to throw a weapon, then recognized its unusual stance in the patterns on a broken jar he had found in an ancient tomb. He suspected an expert of the Soul Prison Clan might have been connected to the statue and descended to investigate further.

• Li Yan concluded that the statue’s empty fist had once held a weapon, and that its missing limbs and eye had obscured its throwing stance.
• Li Yan considered the statue’s possible meaning but found no clear connection to the Desolate Moon Continent or the Immortal-Seeking Lineage.
• As he turned to leave, Li Yan recognized the statue’s posture from a broken earthenware jar and summoned it from Tuban.
• Li Yan compared the jar’s images of a spear-wielding figure with the statue and wondered whether an expert of the Soul Prison Clan had died in the ancient tomb.
• Li Yan recalled finding the jar in the ancient tomb behind the Fengtao Lineage and descended toward the statue with it in hand.

Li Yan activated the broken clay pot and was teleported into a strange gray alley, where an invisible restriction attacked his soul when he tried to fly upward. After recovering, he suspected the pot was connected to the Soul Prison Clan and their soul-based techniques, but he remained trapped in the alley.

• Li Yan recognized that the pose on the statue might be connected to the Soul Prison Clan and used the broken clay pot's soul power to activate the statue.
• The statue triggered a force that teleported Li Yan from the river into a dim alley with gray walls and an unknown darkness beyond his divine sense.
• Li Yan tried to rise above the walls, but an invisible restriction struck his soul and sent him crashing back to the ground in agony.
• Li Yan swallowed a rare soul-healing pill and recovered enough to test the clay pot again, but nothing happened.
• Li Yan considered whether the Soul Prison Clan were elusive soul cultivators whose invisible attacks could destroy an opponent's soul.

Li Yan became trapped in a gray alley where attacks could strike his soul, and he fought off a hidden Soul Cultivator before trying to negotiate with the unseen inhabitants. As he continued forward, two more apparitions attacked him, and his Wind Blade Art destroyed them just as his protective barrier began to change.

• Li Yan failed to use the broken clay pot to escape, found the gray walls impervious to his attacks, and cautiously entered the alley.
• After advancing thirty zhang, Li Yan was ambushed by a figure he could not sense; his poisonous Fireball Art killed the attacker, but a Soul Cultivator's final strike dented his protective barrier.
• Li Yan called out and offered the broken clay pot, healing pills, and a hundred thousand spirit stones in exchange for safe passage, but no one answered.
• Li Yan retrieved his offerings and continued onward, then spotted a tiger-shaped demon beast and a white-clad woman appearing above him.
• Li Yan's Wind Blade Art shredded both attackers, and his spiritual-power barrier suddenly changed.

Li Yan discovered that the attackers in the dim alley were Soul Spirits refined to attack souls, and he and Zhao Min struggled through what he believed was a Soul Prison Clan trial path. After Zhao Min suggested the dangerous encounters could temper their souls rather than simply injure them, they prepared to treat the trial as an opportunity to strengthen themselves.

• Li Yan identified the attackers as Soul Spirits and realized the earlier figure he had killed had also been a refined soul.
• Li Yan fought through increasingly numerous Foundation Establishment Soul Spirits, suffered several soul attacks, and found that retreating more than ten zhang made them lose their targets and disappear.
• Li Yan concluded that he was trapped in a Soul Prison Clan trial path where stronger Soul Spirits might appear, and he met Zhao Min to discuss their situation.
• Zhao Min tested the broken earthenware jar Li Yan had found, but its faint soul power produced no response.
• Zhao Min fought a group of Soul Spirits and escaped their encirclement, then retreated with Li Yan as he worried their supply of soul-healing pills would run out.
• Zhao Min told Li Yan that the Soul Spirits were meant to temper the trial-takers' souls, and Li Yan realized the trial could be a chance to strengthen them.

Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Zi Kun slowly advanced through a long underground alley where attacks from soul spirits painfully tempered their souls. After three months they had gained strength but traveled only about seven hundred and sixty zhang, while Shuang Qingqing set out to find them after they missed their return date.

• Li Yan deliberately endured a weak soul-spirit attack and discovered that repairing the resulting injury with spiritual power slightly strengthened his soul.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min began advancing by taking turns facing the soul spirits, and Zhao Min’s gu insects joined them; three insects died, while the Crossbow Insect King endured.
• Over three months, Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Zi Kun gradually strengthened their souls as they proceeded through the alley.
• When Li Yan and Zhao Min failed to return after four months, Shuang Qingqing decided to search for them, leaving Bai Rou behind.
• Li Yan realized that the group had traveled only about seven hundred and sixty zhang in three months and could not send messages to Shuang Qingqing.

Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Zi Kun endured years in the underground hidden cavern’s endless alley, strengthening their souls while fighting increasingly powerful soul spirits. As Nascent Soul realm spirits seemed likely to appear, Li Yan and Zhao Min prepared a cautious retreat plan, while the others who had searched for them eventually left Qingqing Continent without them.

• Li Yan and his companions abandoned attempts to force their way through after a swarm of soul spirits overwhelmed them, and they concluded that the Soul Prison Clan must have a way to withdraw.
• Shuang Qingqing searched for Li Yan and the others but found no trace of them; after waiting three years, she left Qingqing Continent with Bai Rou, and Su Hong later departed with Mi'er.
• Over ten years in the alley, Li Yan reached the pseudo-Nascent Soul realm, Zhao Min neared that realm, and Zi Kun and their companions grew stronger as they fought increasingly advanced soul spirits.
• Three years later, Li Yan and the others defeated several Golden Core realm soul spirits and continued advancing as the spirits became stronger and rarer.
• Li Yan sensed that Nascent Soul realm soul spirits might appear ahead, and Zhao Min proposed a spiritual-power rope so the others could pull her back swiftly if danger emerged.

Li Yan cautiously advanced down the long alley while Zhao Min and Zi Kun stood ready to pull him back, and an unseen attack briefly left him dazed. He recovered and recognized that the alley had ended at a towering yellow wall with a small door, which Zi Kun began trying to open.

• Li Yan rejected Zhao Min’s offer to take his place and told Zi Kun not to follow if anything happened to him.
• Zhao Min and Zi Kun attached spiritual-power ropes to Li Yan as he advanced beyond the alley’s ten-zhang danger boundary.
• After Li Yan walked more than seventy zhang without encountering a soul spirit, his aura suddenly fluctuated, and Zhao Min and Zi Kun pulled him back.
• Li Yan’s gaze went blank, but he quickly regained awareness and told Zhao Min and Zi Kun that he had seen the end of the alley.
• The three flew ahead and found a brightly illuminated yellow wall with a small door near its base.
• Zi Kun examined the door and sent purple runes into it, triggering golden light and an explosive sound from the wall.

Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Zi Kun escaped the trial grounds by using the broken pottery jar to trigger a transport, though their journey through darkness lasted far longer than expected. They emerged from a river in a sunlit mountain valley in the outside world, far from where they had entered.

• Zi Kun and Zhao Min failed to break the restrictions sealing the yellow door, and Zhao Min suggested testing them with soul power.
• Li Yan used a snow mosquito to test the door with soul power, then realized the broken pottery jar might be the key to escape.
• Li Yan activated the jar, causing water to pour from above and sweep the three into a dark passage that he recognized as a way out.
• After a long journey through the darkness, Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Zi Kun emerged from a mountain into the riverbed near the secret underground cavern.
• The three rose to the surface and discovered they were in a sunlit mountain valley in the outside world.

After emerging from the Soul Prison Clan’s underground passage, Li Yan recognized the valley and its ruined houses from his distant past. He concluded that they had somehow arrived on the Desolate Moon Continent and drifted toward the house where his former military adviser and “master” had lived.

• Zhao Min and Zi Kun rose from the pool, then noticed Li Yan remained in the water, staring at the weeds in a daze.
• Li Yan asked Zhao Min and Zi Kun to confirm that the valley had four houses, one exit, and a carved sign reading “Military Adviser's Residence.”
• After their answers helped him regain his composure, Li Yan recognized the pool, mountain, and ruined houses from his past.
• Li Yan told Zhao Min and Zi Kun that they were on the Desolate Moon Continent and explained why he believed the place was real, not an illusion.
• Li Yan pointed out the homes where he and his former military adviser had lived, then drifted toward the adviser’s ruined house.

Li Yan revisited the ruined home where he had once lived and traveled with Zhao Min and Zi Kun to his childhood village, fearing what time had done to his family. He arrived at his former home and found an elderly woman in its garden, but the chapter ended before he learned who she was.

• Li Yan remembered his life in the ruined house at Green Mountain Pass and the guards Chen An and Li Yin who had escorted him there.
• Li Yan and Zhao Min agreed to visit his old village, while he refused Zi Kun’s suggestion to investigate the hollow beneath the pond because the broken ceramic jar’s teleportation was too dangerous to risk again.
• Li Yan reflected on possible links between the jar, the Soul Prison Clan, the Immortal-Seeking Lineage, and the secret cave as the three flew north.
• Li Yan grew fearful when he found no Blood Leaf Sect guards protecting his village and descended alone to his former home, telling Zhao Min and Zi Kun to wait.
• Li Yan saw an elderly woman resting in the garden of his former home as children laughed among the flowers.

Li Yan returned to his childhood home after nearly a century and discovered that his parents, Li Wei, Li Xiaozhu, and other family members had died. After mourning before their spirit tablets, he approached the elderly Li Yue, who fainted when she met his gaze.

• Li Yan appeared in the enlarged family courtyard and recognized Li Yue and an elderly man as close blood relatives, but found no one he knew.
• Li Yan entered his old room and saw the spirit tablets of his parents, Li Wei, and other deceased relatives.
• Li Yan remembered his family, learned from the tablets that Li Xiaozhu and Li Wenwu had also died, and wept as he bowed before his parents and Li Wei.
• Li Yan offered incense to the tablets and sat silently in the room.
• Li Yue noticed the garden had gone silent and saw Li Yan standing before her.
• Li Yue met Li Yan's gaze and lost consciousness.

Li Yan secretly met his niece Li Yue, cured her fatal illness, and gave her life-extending pills before she woke and realized the encounter was real. After learning how his family had lived and died in his absence, Li Yan felt the village growing unfamiliar and was left watching his ancestral home from afar.

• Li Yan questioned Li Yue while she was under a spell, learned that she was Li Wei’s daughter, and gave her pills to cure her illness and extend her family’s lives.
• Li Yue woke, hid the porcelain bottle from Huaixiang, and discovered that her illness was gone.
• Li Yan told Zhao Min he had not revealed himself because he and Li Yue had no shared memories and meeting as relatives would only bring sorrow.
• Li Yan learned that his parents had died without seeing his return and that Li Wei had died while praying at their family graves on the Double Ninth Festival.
• Li Yan learned that Li Wei’s children had honored his wishes by returning to the village and keeping the family spirit tablets in the ancestral cottage.

Li Yan blessed the Li lineage before leaving the village with Zhao Min and Zi Kun, refusing to take a boy with a mixed spirit root into cultivation. Afterward, Li Yue told Li Jie she had met their Fifth Uncle, and Li Jie eagerly demanded to know where he was.

• Li Yan scattered invisible motes over the village to strengthen the Li lineage and extend its members’ lifespans, then declined to recruit a boy with a mixed spirit root.
• Li Yan, Zhao Min, and Zi Kun flew back to the sect, while Zhao Min realized Li Yan might never return to the village.
• Li Yue asked Li Jie about the portrait of their Fifth Uncle and told him she had met the man, received pills, and recovered from her illness.
• Li Jie grew excited at the possibility that Fifth Uncle was nearby and asked where he was, insisting that he should meet his closest relatives.

Li Yan paid respects at the graves of his family before leaving Great Green Mountain with Zhao Min and Zi Kun, while Li Yue warned Li Jie to retire and keep the medicinal pills secret. On the Lost Continent, Black Devil Race fugitives were ambushed by White Devil Race soldiers, and Mu Sha was wounded as the masked leader urged them to break through.

• Li Yue rebuked Li Jie for trying to pressure Fifth Uncle and urged him to retire from office before he lost what remained of the family fortune.
• Li Yue gave Li Jie two pills from Fifth Uncle and warned him that revealing their existence could bring about his death.
• Li Yan knelt before a family grave as Zhao Min and Zi Kun bowed behind him, then left Great Green Mountain with them.
• Zi Kun asked whether they should protect the pool that might be a weak point between the realms, but Li Yan said restrictions could cause trouble and that he would investigate later.
• White Devil Race soldiers ambushed a group of Black Devil Race cultivators with Immortal-Slaying Crossbows in the forest, and their masked leader raised a shield to protect part of the group.
• Mu Sha was struck by several crossbow bolts and his protective barrier shattered, but his red-glowing beast bone blocked further attacks as the masked leader shouted for the group to charge through.

Mu Sha survived an ambush by the White Devil Race and joined the retreating Devil Blade Camp, while Sun Guoshu traveled through the Hundred Thousand Mountains hoping to buy a Dustless Pill. The chapter ended as Sun Guoshu spotted three fast-moving streaks of light and hurried into the forest.

• Mu Sha used his beast bone to shield himself from the Immortal-Slaying Crossbows, treated his wounds, and pushed ahead through the attack.
• The masked burly man and seven surviving Devil Blade Camp members escaped an ambush, but a further crossbow barrage killed five of them and wounded the rest.
• The masked burly man ordered Mu Sha to scout ahead and told Xiahou Wei to lead the others forward; Mu Sha resolved to find the person connected to the attack.
• Sun Guoshu flew toward the Phantom Sect with a living Buddha-Hand Pine Gardenia Herb, hoping to exchange his savings and mission reward for a Dustless Pill.
• Sun Guoshu sensed approaching cultivators, descended into the forest, and saw three streaks of light racing across the sky.

Mu Lian fled two Ten-Step Academy sword cultivators who wanted her shadowspace stone, while Sun Guoshu was drawn into their pursuit. Mu Lian used her Sea of Clouds to conceal herself and, as the sword cultivator entered the clouds, unleashed a swarm of ant-mosquito gu.

• Mu Lian found a shadowspace stone after six years of searching, but two Ten-Step Academy sword cultivators attacked her to take it.
• The sword cultivators countered Mu Lian’s ant-mosquito gu and trapped her, so she spread her Sea of Clouds to hide and evade their attacks.
• Sun Guoshu was discovered hiding nearby and attacked by the sword cultivators, who mistook him for an ambusher.
• Mu Lian recognized Sun Guoshu and called out to him, but he tried to flee and the sword cultivators pursued him.
• Mu Lian drove the Sea of Clouds toward the sword cultivator in front, who charged into it; she then released more than a hundred ant-mosquito gu around him.

Mu Lian and Sun Guoshu struggled to survive attacks from two Ten-Step Academy sword cultivators after the pursuers learned Mu Lian had found a Shadowspace Stone. Sun Guoshu devised a coordinated escape plan, and the chapter ended with Mu Lian throwing the stone south while both enemies hesitated over whether to pursue it.

• Mu Lian used her Sea of Clouds and Ant-Mosquito Gu to evade and ambush the sword cultivator, but his natal longsword destroyed many of her insects and forced her attacks to fail.
• Sun Guoshu defended against a second sword cultivator as his wounds and dwindling spiritual power left him increasingly trapped.
• Mu Lian told Sun Guoshu that the sword cultivators were pursuing her for the Shadowspace Stone, and he proposed throwing it away before they simultaneously destroyed their magic treasures and used other attacks to escape.
• Mu Lian asked Sun Guoshu not to abandon her, and he agreed despite having considered using the distraction to escape alone.
• At Sun Guoshu's urging, Mu Lian threw the Shadowspace Stone south, and both sword cultivators recognized it and hesitated between pursuing it and keeping their opponents trapped.