Chapter Summaries

A-Yuan reported that the Gray Cloud Eagle stock had nearly run out, while Gong Chenying refused to accompany him to seek replacements and urged him to alert the elders. The Great Elder agreed to a proposal linking Li Yan’s access to later levels of the Qiongqi Purgatory Art to his efforts to find Gong Shanhe and the Sixth Elder, then convened the elders to discuss Li Yan’s Qing'a King status.

• A-Yuan told Gong Chenying that the clan had almost no battle-ready Gray Cloud Eagles left, and she advised him to report the shortage and seek capable companions if he went to buy more.
• Gong Chenying rejected A-Yuan’s invitation to travel and left to attend to urgent matters, while A-Yuan went to report to the Second Elder.
• Gong Chenying argued to the Great Elder that Li Yan deserved support because he had saved her and helped the clan, and she insisted on accompanying him to search for Gong Shanhe and the Sixth Elder.
• The Great Elder proposed granting Li Yan the fourth level of the Qiongqi Purgatory Art for bringing back definite news, and the fifth and sixth levels if he rescued either Gong Shanhe or the Sixth Elder.
• The Great Elder summoned the Second and Third Elders to Tianli Hall, where he declared Li Yan qualified to become a Qing'a King because of his performance in battle.

Li Yan countered the Second Elder’s demand for proof by raising the possibility that the Tianli Clan had concealed a Phantom Sect summons from Gong Chen-Ying. His accusation unsettled the elders, and the Grand Elder and Second Elder ultimately accepted Li Yan’s identity without further objection.

• The Second Elder questioned whether Li Yan could prove he and Gong Chen-Ying belonged to the same sect, and Li Yan challenged how his token could be verified without accusations of theft.
• Li Yan asked whether Gong Chen-Ying had received a Phantom Sect summons during the Devil Race’s return and warned that her memories or the message delivery might have been tampered with.
• The Grand Elder and Third Elder reacted with alarm to Li Yan’s account of Spirit Transformation cultivators fighting the Devil Race, while Gong Chen-Ying said she had never received a message.
• The Grand Elder recalled that the Fifth Elder had overseen outside affairs during that period, and Li Yan suspected the Second Elder’s faction had intercepted the message to keep Gong Chen-Ying in the clan.
• The Second Elder said the Fifth Elder would need to be questioned, while the Grand Elder asked whether he accepted Li Yan’s identity; the Second Elder agreed that Li Yan’s origins were beyond doubt.

Li Yan negotiated the assessment required to gain further levels of the Tianli Clan’s Qiongqi Purgatory Art, while Gong Chenying proposed a mission concerning her missing father and the Sixth Elder. The Second Elder added a demand for Li Yan’s Snow Mosquitoes to defend the clan, and Li Yan appeared willing to consider it.

• The Third Elder supported assessing Li Yan for the Qiongqi Purgatory Art, while the Second Elder insisted that further instruction required an outstanding service to the Tianli Clan.
• Gong Chenying proposed that Li Yan investigate the whereabouts of the Clan Leader and the Sixth Elder, and the Second Elder argued that rescuing them would be necessary for the highest privileges.
• The Third Elder said reliable information about the missing elders would count as an outstanding service, but the Second Elder maintained that the clan’s rules could not be relaxed.
• The Second Elder proposed that Li Yan could earn the next level by finding information about the missing elders and having his Snow Mosquitoes defend the clan against low-tier Wind Goose Beasts for a year.
• The Second Elder asked Li Yan to lend the Snow Mosquitoes before the mission, and Li Yan interrupted Gong Chenying to ask whether the real request was simply to hold off the Wind Goose Beasts.

Li Yan negotiated with the Tianli Clan to earn levels of the Qiongqi Purgatory Art by helping defend against the Wind Goose Beasts and potentially rescuing Gong Shanhe. After proposing to use poison and formations instead of his mosquito demon beasts, he secured the elders’ agreement to test his plan, but still had to undergo the clan’s dangerous cultivation assessment.

• Li Yan offered to defend the Tianli Clan against Wind Goose Beasts for three months and negotiated for the fourth level of the Qiongqi Purgatory Art, with the fourth and fifth levels if he rescued Gong Shanhe and the others.
• The Great Elder and Third Elder supported Li Yan’s terms, and the Second Elder eventually agreed to them.
• Li Yan refused to provide his mosquito demon beasts and explained that he would use formations to funnel Wind Goose Beasts into deadly poison zones.
• The elders agreed to supply formations and test Li Yan’s poison-based defense plan, granting him their support if it worked.
• The Great Elder told Li Yan that he had to undergo an assessment using a clan treasure that required him to lower his spiritual protection and let its energy enter his body.

Li Yan tested the Qiongqi Purgatory Art assessment treasure, then went to the Tianli Clan front lines and secretly prepared a poison formation in a basin the Wind Beasts used to attack. He returned to the three elders, who remained doubtful about what he had set up, and they waited to see how it would affect the next assault.

• Li Yan let Gong Chenying activate the emerald treasure, which traced his meridians and showed that he had opened fifty with the Qiongqi Purgatory Art.
• Li Yan left for the front lines alone while Gong Chenying resumed meditating, and the Third Elder learned from Gong Chenying that Li Yan had access to deadly poisons from the Wangliang Sect.
• Li Yan surveyed the Tianli Clan's defenses and chose a basin where Wind Beasts advanced through two gaps in the surrounding peaks.
• Li Yan circled the basin, placed formation materials, and used formless qi to prepare an unseen poison formation.
• Li Yan returned to the three elders after a little over twenty breaths and said they would see the formation's effect during the Wind Beasts' next attack.

Li Yan’s invisible poison trapped and killed the Wind Iron Beasts attacking a basin, sparing the Tianli Clan’s northern defensive line from the expected assault. After witnessing the poison’s power, the First Elder recognized Li Yan as the famed Bamboo Chaos and Ink Bone.

• The First Elder, Second Elder, and Third Elder wondered whether Li Yan’s invisible poison could truly harm the wind beasts.
• A-Ling and the other Tianli Clan warriors waited for the Wind Iron Beasts to round the mountain bend, but the expected attack did not arrive.
• A cultivator ordered six squad captains, including A-Ling, to climb the beacon tower after wind beasts became trapped in the basin.
• A-Ling and the others watched Wind Iron Beasts collapse in the basin and Wind Goose Beasts fall from the sky, apparently killed by Li Yan’s poison.
• The Third Elder praised Li Yan’s poison and asked whether he could protect an entire defensive line; Li Yan said he had brought enough materials.
• The First Elder recognized Li Yan as Bamboo Chaos and Ink Bone, and Li Yan silently acknowledged the identification.

Li Yan completed a poison-based defensive line that sharply restricted the Wind Beasts’ attacks and gave the Tianli Clan’s exhausted warriors a chance to rest. After Gong Chenyin emerged from seclusion, she left with Li Yan and two demons to search for Gong Shanhe, while the three Elders stayed behind to hold off Yan San.

• Li Yan asked the First Elder, Second Elder, and Third Elder to restrain the Wind Beasts’ fourth-rank fighters and provide formation tools while he built the defensive line.
• Yan San and the other fourth-rank Wind Beasts repeatedly clashed with the Elders but failed to stop the defenses from closing off the enemy’s attack routes.
• Li Yan paced his work by claiming he needed time to refine more poison, then finished the last section of the line as Tianli Clan warriors guarded the remaining gap.
• A-Ling and her fellow warriors saw the new defenses bring a respite from the Wind Beasts, while Li Yan recovered in the forest under the Snow Mosquito clan’s guard.
• Gong Chenyin left seclusion, and the next day she departed with Li Yan and two demons on the Cloud-Piercing Willow to search the locations marked on the Third Elder’s map for Gong Shanhe.

Li Yan and Gong Chenying reached the Black Mirror Marsh to investigate the disappearance of Gong Chenying’s father and the Sixth Elder, whose location the Tianli Clan had traced to its central region. Finding no clues above the surface, they descended into the seemingly bottomless marsh together, leaving their search underway in the darkness.

• Li Yan brought Gong Chenying into Tuban, where she used its pure fire spiritual energy to refine the red-glowing spearhead and transfer her old halberd’s artifact spirit into it.
• Li Yan and Gong Chenying arrived at the Black Mirror Marsh and discussed whether the Wind Beast clans had trapped Gong Chenying’s father and the Sixth Elder there.
• Li Yan argued that the disappearance might have resulted from an unexpected situation rather than a deliberate trap, and the pair set out to find the marked location.
• After searching the marsh’s central region for two days without finding clues, Li Yan gave Gong Chenying four Golden Bell Talismans for protection.
• Li Yan enclosed them in a spiritual-energy barrier and led Gong Chenying down through the marsh’s surface into darkness.

Li Yan and Gong Chenying descended through the swamp while searching for Gong Shanhe, and Gong Chenying discovered that the depths contained a Sky Eye Pit. They identified wind pillars trapped beneath an inverted vortex and prepared to descend farther into the unknown pit.

• Li Yan regained his composure after briefly losing himself while close to Gong Chenying, and the two continued their descent through the swamp.
• Gong Chenying sensed an inverted vortex and concluded that the swamp concealed a Sky Eye Pit whose wind pillars had not broken through the mud above.
• Li Yan detected a hollow below them containing icy, sinister wind pillars, and Gong Chenying confirmed the discovery with her Divine Sense.
• Li Yan and Gong Chenying reached the edge of a vast pit where the wind pillars churned beneath suspended mud.
• After finding no weaker winds nearby, Li Yan chose to descend from their current location.

Li Yan and Gong Chenying searched the Heaven-Eye Wind pit for Gong Shanhe and discovered a deep layer of rhythmic wind pillars too powerful to cross. Li Yan descended alone to investigate, finding tortured faces in the black winds as the cold and pressure rapidly drained his spiritual power.

• Li Yan sensed ghostly yin energy in the violent wind pillars as he took Gong Chenying deeper into the pit.
• After the wind pillars’ power surged more than tenfold, Li Yan escaped upward and learned that the rhythmic winds below blocked further descent and Divine Sense.
• Li Yan and Gong Chenying searched the area for four days, then agreed that Li Yan would descend alone while Gong Chenying held a spiritual power rope and prepared a Golden Bell Talisman.
• Li Yan entered the rhythmic wind pillars and found that they pulled him downward, while his Divine Sense revealed agonized human faces embedded in the black winds.
• As gray ice formed over his barrier and his spiritual power dwindled, Li Yan found no trace of Gong Shanhe and decided to descend another hundred zhang for a quick search.

Li Yan descended into the wind column searching for Gong Shanhe and encountered a deadly attack from six black wind columns. After the spiritual power rope linking him to Gong Chenying broke, she was dragged into a wind column but forced her way out and emerged in a vast cavern.

• Li Yan burned away the attacking gray-white faces, then realized the descent was too dangerous and tried to retreat.
• Six black wind columns pinned Li Yan, but he used the Primordial Heaven-Suppressing Talisman and his full strength to strike them back and escape upward.
• Li Yan deliberately broke the spiritual power rope to keep Gong Chenying from being pulled into the fight.
• Gong Chenying dodged the surging wind columns, but a black column caught her and dragged her downward despite her Golden Bell Talisman.
• Gong Chenying split the icy wall of the wind column with a powerful strike, escaped through the breach, and entered a cavern where she smashed through several stalactites.

Gong Chenying became trapped in a freezing cave amid powerful wind pillars and set off to search for another exit. Li Yan was caught in dense black qi, where a blood-robed cultivator attacked him with poison and increasingly powerful ghosts.

• Gong Chenying found that Nascent Soul-level wind pillars surrounded the cave and that her Divine Sense could not safely probe beyond its entrance.
• Gong Chenying carved the mark of Small Bamboo Peak into the cave wall and went deeper to seek another exit on her own.
• Li Yan escaped the wind pillars pursuing him but was surrounded by crushing black qi that shattered his talisman and formed black frost over him.
• A blood-robed man carrying an emerald-green flute appeared before Li Yan and summoned refined ghosts to attack him.
• Li Yan burned the ghosts with fire, then exchanged blows with the man and recognized the poison spreading through his arm as yin-cold ghost poison.
• The blood-robed man swung his flute again and unleashed a stronger, larger swarm of ghosts against Li Yan.

Li Yan was overwhelmed by two identical crimson-robed men and retreated into a cave, while Gong Chenying explored deeper inside and discovered that its seemingly low-level ghosts were actually a fourth race of wind beasts. She realized the discovery could endanger the Tianli Clan, then steadied herself and remained in the cave, still weighing what to do.

• Two identical men in blood-dripping scholar's crimson robes attacked Li Yan with enormous ghost claws, and their frigid poison forced him to retreat.
• Li Yan fled a thousand zhang and found himself inside a cave, where his Divine Sense could scan normally except toward the black mist at the entrance.
• Gong Chenying searched the cave, killed thousands of ghostly creatures, and used Soul Search on a few survivors.
• Gong Chenying learned the creatures feared going deeper into the cave and preferred its wind, leading her to identify them as a fourth race of wind beasts.
• Alarmed by what the discovery meant for the Tianli Clan, Gong Chenying calmed herself and stood still to consider her next move.

Gong Chenying ventured deeper into the cave beneath the swamp, where ghostly wind beasts grew stronger with the dense icy yin energy. After defeating several second-rank beasts, she encountered a third-rank beast whose shield-bound tongue trapped her spear, leaving the fight unresolved.

• Gong Chenying reasoned that the cave's wind beasts might have emerged more than ten years earlier and wondered why the Wind Goose Beasts and Wind Iron Beasts had not eliminated them.
• Gong Chenying entered the cave's depths to search for a way out and killed a second-rank ghostly wind beast that ambushed her.
• Gong Chenying killed several more ghostly wind beasts and learned from their memories that they grew stronger by absorbing icy yin energy and devouring one another.
• Gong Chenying marked and explored branching passages, then encountered a mid-third-rank ghostly wind beast wielding a stone pillar.
• Gong Chenying attacked the beast with her spear, but its rune-carved shield animated and its icy tongue wrapped around her spearhead.

Gong Chenying killed a lean ghostly wind beast, then fought and evaded the growing pack pursuing her through the cave. She trapped herself in a narrow passage to force the pursuers to approach one at a time, where two peak third-tier beasts hesitated before her position.

• Gong Chenying used the Sevenfold Waves force of her punch to destroy the lean man's body, then impaled and melted his fleeing demon core with her spear.
• Gong Chenying sealed and collected the lean man's two magical treasures, but several powerful auras soon approached from deeper in the cave.
• Over the next two days, Gong Chenying fought and fled from a growing group of ghostly wind beasts, injuring two while suffering wounds herself.
• Gong Chenying concluded that eight third-tier beasts were pursuing her and chose a narrow dead-end passage as a place to counterattack.
• Two peak third-tier ghostly wind beasts followed Gong Chenying into the passage, then stopped when they found her waiting around a tight bend.

Gong Chenying survived the old man's ambush in the passage, but an unseen figure seized her spear and immobilized her. Elsewhere, Li Yan realized the cave might be trapping him as it had trapped the Tianli Clan's clan leader and others.

• The old man sent four marten-like demon beasts to distract Gong Chenying, then attacked her with a poisoned claw.
• Gong Chenying recognized the illusion, destroyed the beasts, tore open a spatial rift to evade the claw, and forced the old man to retreat with his hand severed.
• Gong Chenying used Melting Bamboo Shoot and pills to restore her magical power and treat her injuries before resuming meditation at the bend.
• An undetectable figure appeared behind Gong Chenying, pinned her in place, took control of her spear, and stepped before her holding it.
• Li Yan explored the cavern's branching passages and realized the cave might be trapping him and the missing Tianli Clan's clan leader and others.

Li Yan explored the underground passages beneath the swamp and found Gong Shanhe, Gong Chenying’s father, imprisoned behind an array restriction. After confirming Li Yan’s identity and hearing why he had come, Gong Shanhe lowered the restriction and apologized for testing him.

• Li Yan summoned Qianji and Zi Kun, established the Primordial Qi Supreme Clarity Array, and sent his Divine Sense through the branching passages.
• Li Yan followed his markers to a cavern and broke through its restriction with a powerful punch, awakening the gaunt man inside.
• Li Yan greeted the man as Clan Leader Gong and identified himself as Gong Chenying’s junior apprentice brother, then showed his Wangliang Sect token.
• Gong Shanhe recalled reports that Li Yan had fallen at Yinmo Cliff and questioned how he had survived and reached the swamp.
• Li Yan explained his long imprisonment, his search for Gong Shanhe and the Sixth Elder, and the Wind Beasts’ conflict with the Tianli Clan.
• Gong Shanhe verified Li Yan’s identity, removed the array restriction, and apologized for his caution against Wind Beast disguises.

Li Yan reunited with Gong Shanhe and learned that Gong Chenying might have been swept into the same hidden space as the Sixth Elder, where she could still be alive. Gong Shanhe explained Yan San’s scheme and how a mysterious ghostly wind beast had trapped him as a living furnace vessel, then rushed toward a spatial distortion at the cave’s dead end.

• Gong Shanhe questioned Li Yan about A-Ying and the Tianli Clan, and Li Yan recounted how Yan San’s ambush had nearly destroyed the clan.
• Li Yan explained that Gong Chenying had followed him into the area and disappeared after they encountered regularly swaying wind pillars.
• Gong Shanhe reasoned that Gong Chenying might be trapped with the Sixth Elder, who had survived there for at least six months according to an earlier divination.
• Gong Shanhe told Li Yan that Yan San had lured him and the Sixth Elder into the swamp, where ghostly wind beasts guarded a cave and a powerful creature might sleep beneath it.
• Gong Shanhe described how recurring yin winds drained his blood and vital energy, leading him to suspect that a hidden being was keeping him alive as a furnace vessel.
• When the yin wind returned for the third time, Gong Shanhe feigned collapse, raced to the cave’s deepest wall, and spotted lingering spatial distortions.

Li Yan and Gong Shanhe concluded that the cave’s terrifying power was using the sinister wind to drain their blood and vitality, then prepared to escape while Gong Shanhe recovered with Li Yan’s pills. Elsewhere, a nun’s remnant soul captured Gong Chenying, recognized her spearhead as belonging to Red Whisk Temple, and accused her of infiltrating the temple and stealing it.

• Gong Shanhe told Li Yan how the sinister wind repeatedly drained him and explained his theory that the cave’s powerful being was injured and using ghostly wind beasts to guard him and Sixth Elder.
• Li Yan and Gong Shanhe reasoned that the other Nascent Soul ghostly creature was likely guarding Sixth Elder, making it a good moment to escape, and Li Yan gave Gong Shanhe pills to restore his strength.
• After recovering to about eighty percent, Gong Shanhe joined Li Yan in rushing toward the cave entrance while Li Yan kept his Divine Sense trained behind them.
• A nun’s remnant soul suppressed Gong Chenying, used her spear to kill several Yin Mountain Beasts, and questioned Gong Chenying about Red Whisk Temple.
• Gong Chenying identified herself as a member of the Tianli Clan and said she had never heard of Red Whisk Temple, but the nun accused her of stealing the temple’s spearhead and threatened to search her soul.

Gong Chenying convinced the delicate-looking nun that the world above had changed and that the Red Whisk Temple might be gone. After learning about the present era and the Tianli Clan, the nun sensed powerful cultivators battling nearby and agreed to seek contact with Gong Chenying’s Junior Brother, hoping he could help her leave the underground seal.

• The delicate-looking nun investigated the wind columns and realized the seal had weakened, the Red Whisk Temple was no longer detectable, and the wind outside could kill Nascent Soul cultivators.
• The nun asked Gong Chenying for the year, then used Soul Search and confirmed that Gong Chenying had entered from beneath a swamp and had told the truth.
• Gong Chenying explained that her Junior Brother had given her the crimson spearhead and described the Tianli Clan and the current situation on the Wind God Continent.
• The nun sensed powerful auras clashing nearby, and Gong Chenying suspected that her Junior Brother was fighting there.
• The nun refused to let Gong Chenying leave alone, but offered to signal her Junior Brother and promised to take Gong Chenying with her if he came, on the condition that he help her escape too.